Читать книгу Gone With the Windsors - Laurie Graham - Страница 61

We are at Melhuish’s Scottish seat, by some miracle. Now I know how our great pioneers lived as they forged west. We had to change trains at Edinburgh and again at Aberdeen, into ever more spartan carriages, so that we arrived at Aboyne with every tooth shaken loose. There we were met by cars for another bone-rattling ride. Fifteen miles on rutted tracks and in unaccountably sweltering heat.

Drumcanna towers above the Burn of Skelpie, a big granite house with towers at the two front corners, complete with battlements and arrow holes. The chair covers are worn, the drapes are faded, and the principal decorative motif is animal parts. Ink wells, coat hooks, objets d’art, all seem once to have gamboled across Drumcanna Moor.

I’ve been put in a turret room below the nursery, pleasantly furnished but one can only reach it by way of a perilous staircase, one narrow, winding climb for everyone, people and servants alike. In the mornings, when the night potties are being taken down and the breakfast trays are being brought up, it must be like Oxford Street.

Melhuish is in a jovial mood and has been very attentive to me, teaching me a dance called the strathspey and savoring those moments when the lurching of the train threw us into each other’s arms. I wonder if he has regrets about Violet? She’s become so stout and plain.

The first guests arrive tomorrow, Ralph and Jane Habberley and Fergus and Penelope Blythe. The shooting doesn’t start till August 12th, but they’re coming to fish for brown trout. George Lightfoot is expected at the weekend, and Queen Ena on Monday. There’ll also be some local people, the Anstruther-Brodies, but they only come for the start of the shooting. Violet says it’s impossible to predict when Tommy Minskip may arrive, as he’s a law unto himself. I begin to like him already.