Love and Music Will Endure Read Free

refreshment, including that fellow from London, he couldn’t remember his name but he had the predatory stare of a fanatic.
    ‘Is this your first visit to Skye?’ Lachlan had asked him as they all sat at table.
    ‘It is, and I’m horrified at what little effort the landowners have made to improve conditions for their tenants.’ He paused to chew a piece of venison stew and banged the table with his fork.
    ‘Of course, as we all know, property ownership is merely legalised theft. The solution is to nationalise all the estates in Scotland and give them to the tenants.’ As he spoke he sprayed fragments of food in front of him.
    He’s shooting the enemy with his own hospitality, Lachlan thought, suppressing a grin as he caught John’s apologetic eye. Later on there was a lull between showers. He and John left the Englishman savouring one of his host’s cigars and strolled down to the loch.
    ‘I’ve a favour to ask,’ John had said. ‘I wondered if you might be able to help Màiri. She’s had to stay in Greenock to earn her living but she would dearly love to return here.’
    ‘What does she need?’
    ‘A house with a low rent. All the travelling is tiring and expensive for her although she’s too proud to complain. She would be so useful here too – the fight has moved out of the cities to the islands.’
    ‘As long as she’s not as ferocious as your London friend. I think he would like to murder me in my bed, after he’s eaten me out of house and home.’
    ‘I do apologise about him’. John frowned but when Lachlan laughed he joined in. The matter was arranged easily enough. Lachlan offered her Wood End Cottage rent free.
    ‘You would be doing me an honour if you accepted. It’s a pleasant house and I don’t want it to stand empty.’
    So she had moved in. He didn’t see a great deal of her from day to day but he did hear about her activities from his tenants, especially in recent years when the Land League activity had quietened down.
    ‘Always gallivanting around the countryside, demanding a seat on a cart, appearing at people’s doors and staying for hours.’ That was old Mrs Beaton, prodding the ground with a stick in time with each grievance. ‘What an appetite! Still at least she brings her own provisions. But she will insist that her herrings are put straight onto the hot peats, as if we didn’t have proper pans in the house.’ That was Mrs MacLeod adding grace notes to the criticism.
    What a relief that the old ladies hadn’t heard about the fox or the refrain of grumbles would never have ended. He knew too well the snags of envy that caught the successful returning Gael. She was free to treat the house as her own. He didn’t want her to feel indebted but she hadn’t even thanked him for getting her poems published. He remembered how she had held court in his library like a maharani while the eminent Gaelic scholarscratched away frantically to keep pace with her warbling cascade of words. Then sometimes she would halt suddenly and frown before singing out loud in a surprisingly girlish voice, very different from the confident boom of her speaking tones.
    ‘The music guides the words like a faithful horse carries his rider when he forgets his way,’ she had explained.
    He had not intended to be sharp with her – that was discourteous – but she had shaken him when she had spoken about her daughter. He had felt a clammy touch on the back of his neck, the touch of his own long dead child, never spoken about and rarely brought to mind. She had been the child of his youth, born when he was struggling to build up his indigo estate. Those days were exciting but lonely too. His servant’s daughter was so lithe and slender, her skin a warm brown and her eyes glowing with laughter. When their daughter was born she had the same dark velvet eyes as her mother and the baby’s feathery tufts of hair were deep black. Her skin though was pale and he could see in her face a miniature copy of