Clandara by Evelyn Anthony Page B

clansman among the bushes in a bend in the narrow mountain track. Their horses were hidden farther up. Nearly an hour later they heard the sound of horses round the bend of the mountain. James drew his sword and, drawing the long thick end of his plaid round his left arm, sprang out into the middle of the path.
    It was Annie’s suggestion that Katharine should try her wedding dress to pass the time while they waited for Robert. The seamstress and her two little assistants at Clandara had been working on it for nearly two months, and when it was finally ready they slipped into her ladyship’s bedroom and watched while the dress was tried on. It was made of pure white satin, and Jeannie the seamstress had embroidered the whole bodice with a delicate design of flowers in silver thread and hundreds of split pearls. Magnificent lace hung in ruffles round the low neck, and covered Katharine’s arms from the elbow to the upper wrist. The under-petticoat was cloth of silver and the same shining silver tracery of flowers crept down the sides of the satin overskirt and vanished round the hem where the dress fell into a short train. Her veil was a priceless piece of Brussels lace, as fine as cobweb and worked with such intricacy that it seemed impossible that the human eye and hand could have fashioned it more than three centuries before. The veil had been an altar-covering once, until the Reformation when one of the Earls of Clandara had gone over to the reformed religion and given the exquisite veiling to his wife as a present. His descendants had returned to the old faith of Rome, but the veil passed on from mother to daughter, and it hung down from the narrow pearl-and-diamond diadem which was all that remained of the once famous Clandara jewels. Her father had given the diadem to Katharine, remarking ungraciously that it was not as fine as the great vulgar necklace given her by James, but it was one of the few family pieces saved from the depredations of the English after the Rising in 1715. She stood before the long pier-glass, watched by Annie and the women who had made the dress, and slowly turned to see herself from every side.
    â€œI am very well pleased,” she said at last. “My thanks to you, Jeannie, and to you, Mary and Morag. The dress is perfect.”
    â€œMay God send your ladyship every happiness,” they said quickly.
    â€œDon’t be too proud of yourselves now,” Annie said sharply. “It’s not the dress that’s taking all our breaths away, but her ladyship’s beauty. She’d be the fairest bride in Scotland if she were dressed in rags.” In three weeks her mistress would be married, standing before the altar in the thirteenth-century chapel with James Macdonald beside her, and a new life in a new home would take her, and Annie with her, away from the place where both had been born. At the thought of children, Annie’s eyes brightened. There would be a wet-nurse, of course; it was unthinkable that ladies of high birth should breast-feed their children, but Annie would have the care of them, wet-nurse or not … Life held great compensations through others whom one loved. Annie often said that and firmly believed it. All her happiness had been centred, unselfishly, on the interests of her mistress. They were still standing there, grouped round the glass, when the door of Katharine’s room opened suddenly and she turned round to find her father standing there. He was dressed in his riding coat and boots, and was wearing the plaid wound round his shoulders. She could see the shadows of men behind him.
    â€œI know your mind is occupied with dressing up for this damned wedding,” he snapped. “But I thought I’d tell you that Robert has still not returned and there’s no sight of him. I sent Angus out to meet him at midday and he came back at two o’clock and said there was not a sign of Robert or his men. I’m going to look