Violet’s Journal

S UNDAY , 4 TH N OVEMBER , 1928

We were given a week off at the end of October, once the harvest in the market garden was over and next season’s onion sets and overwintering cabbages had been planted. I didn’t bother going home to Ardtuath. After the ultimatum delivered by my father and Charles in the spring, I no longer feel part of that world in the way I used to. I’ve chosen my path. If I’m to share it with Callum then I know it must lead me away from my childhood home. We will need to find our own place in the world. In the meantime, I intend keeping my plans from my parents, of course, so that I can complete my course and have a proper career to fall back on once I leave. I hate the deception. But needs must.

Callum managed to get some time off from the Herbarium too. He wanted to take the opportunity to go home to his parents in Perthshire and introduce me to them. So we boarded the train and chugged northwards, crossing the Firth of Forth and heading towards the hills.

We received a warm welcome at the gardener’s cottage, having walked from the station and dropped off my overnight bag at a local hotel on the way. Mrs Gillespie had baked us a fine tea, with scones and cakes and the butteriest shortbread I’ve ever tasted. She and Callum’s father seemed a bit ill at ease, though, and the conversation was a little stilted. I got to my feet to help out with clearing the tea things, but his mother shooed me away from the sink.

‘At least let me help dry,’ I begged, picking up a tea towel, keen to lend a hand and leave Callum and his father to talk by the fire.

‘Och, no, a young lady such as yourself has no place in the kitchen,’ she said.

‘Honestly, I’m very used to fending for myself these days. Living in digs has made me a good deal more useful than I was before.’ I picked up a saucer and began to dry it, and she relented with a smile.

‘I suppose you’ll be enjoying the gardening,’ she said. ‘Learning to prune roses and so forth. And Callum has told us how good you are at your painting too.’

‘I love it,’ I replied, reaching for a teacup. ‘I think my favourite times are spent in the Herbarium, but I’ve enjoyed learning to plough and dig and turn compost too.’

She glanced at me in surprise. ‘And what do your parents think of you doing such menial work?’

‘Not much,’ I admitted cheerfully. ‘But I’ve always been happier outdoors than in, and I love learning about the plants we see coming back from far-flung places. It makes me feel I’m seeing the world even though I’ve not been further south than Edinburgh.’

‘Well, Perth’s south enough for me,’ she replied. ‘I’ve not been to the capital for years.’

‘You’ll need to come and visit one day. We can take tea in the North British Hotel and go shopping in Jenners.’

She shook her head, plunging her hands back into the soapy water. ‘Oh no, I don’t think so. We’re so busy here on the estate, it’s hard to get away. And Callum’s dad doesn’t like cities at all – says they’re full of too many folk getting in the way when you try to walk down the street.’ She tipped out the bowl of dishwater and turned to take the tea towel from me. ‘I’ll finish up here,’ she said, with a firmness that brooked no debate. ‘Thank you for your help, Miss ... er, Violet.’ She stumbled awkwardly over my name. ‘You go back and sit by the fire for a minute. Then you’ll be needing Callum to walk you back to your hotel if he’s to be back here in time for his supper. You don’t want to be walking along that road in the pitch dark, not when tomorrow’s the eve of Samhain.’

Callum had told me how his mother – despite being raised a good Christian woman – still held the belief that the bounds between this world and the Otherworld grow thin on the night of the pagan festival of All Hallows’ Eve, allowing the souls of the departed to return. She would set an extra place at the table, he said, and put out an offering of food and drink to make sure of their protection through the winter months ahead. As if to endorse her words, a sudden gust of wind rattled the branch of a rowan tree against the kitchen window, its bright orange berries shaking in a flurry of falling leaves. I remembered that it’s another ancient Scottish custom to plant a rowan tree beside the home in order to keep the witches away.

When I went back through to the parlour, Callum and his father were sitting in silence and it seemed to grow heavier as I walked through the doorway. To spare them the awkwardness, I asked if we could look around the estate’s walled garden. The afternoon was already growing darker so there wasn’t time to see everything that day, but Callum had told me his father took a particular pride in the neatly laid-out kitchen garden, protected from the autumn winds by a high wall of red brick.

‘Suit yourselves,’ Mr Gillespie grunted, kneeling to put another shovelful of coal on the fire. ‘But there’s not much to see at this time of year. And you’ll need to be getting back to your hotel, Miss Mackenzie-Grant.’

We put on our coats, and Callum was silent as we walked along the path.

‘It seems my parents are not the only ones to disapprove of our relationship,’ I observed.

‘I’m sorry, Vi,’ he said. ‘It’s just hard for them to get their heads around a lady of your station taking up with a lad like me. You belong in the big house, not the gardener’s cottage.’

I think we were both troubled by the reminder of the hurdles we faced as little more was said until he dropped me at the hotel entrance, a mile along the road from the estate. I’d taken his hand as we walked back, but he pulled away a little when we reached the pool of light cast from the hotel’s front window, as if he was afraid someone might see us and pass yet more judgement.

‘Good night then,’ he said, twisting his cap awkwardly in his hands. I took a step towards him, wanting to kiss him goodnight, but he shook his head and drew back. ‘We can’t, Vi. Not here where someone might see us. Your reputation ...’

I smiled, but I’m sure the sadness I felt must have been reflected in my face. ‘Good night, Callum,’ I said softly. ‘See you tomorrow.’ I climbed the steps to the door of the hotel. Before I pushed it open, I turned to look back, but he’d already walked away and the darkness had swallowed him.

Next morning, after a fine breakfast of Arbroath smokies in the hotel’s dining room, I put on my walking boots and gathered my coat, settling myself before the fireplace in the ladies’ lounge to wait for Callum to arrive. It was a fine day and the Perthshire hills were clad in red and gold where the trees were turning. We’d planned to have a tour of the estate’s gardens and then to walk along the river in the afternoon. But I knew straight away something was wrong when Callum appeared. He tried to smile, but his expression wavered and his eyes were clouded with discomfiture.

Instead of walking back on the road towards the estate, he led me down to the riverbank and we wandered along the path there a little way. On a bench beneath the arching branches of a clump of larches, I sat down and took his hands in mine.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

He shook his head, reluctant to speak, but then lifted his eyes to meet mine. ‘Sorry, Vi. I thought they’d be okay with this. But I’ve had a fight with my dad,’ he said. ‘He’s not prepared to show you round the gardens today. Says women don’t have any business taking jobs from the men and I should send you back to the city where you belong.’

I was taken aback but laughed hollowly. ‘Now I know just how wretched my parents made you feel,’ I said. ‘So at least we’re equals on that front too.’

We sat in silence for a while, watching the current sweep past. I remembered how it had felt to sit with him on the shore at Inverewe, and how easy our companionship was as we worked at our shared bench in the Herbarium. ‘Callum,’ I said, turning to face him. ‘Let’s go somewhere where it’s just the two of us. Away from the judgement of others.’

He lifted his eyes to mine and I read in them a desperate mixture of love and hope and anguish. ‘But Vi ...’ he began.

I put a finger to his lips. ‘But nothing,’ I replied. ‘I know what you’re going to say about my reputation and what our parents will think and say. But I don’t give a fig about all that any more, if I ever did. We’ve given everyone a chance to be nice to us, to support us and be a part of our lives together. And if they refuse to take it then that’s their choice. But Callum, I choose you. And if you are prepared to choose me then that’s all I need to know. No one will miss us. My parents think I’m visiting yours and yours will think we’ve gone back to Edinburgh. Is there somewhere we can go, to be together, just the two of us?’

He nodded slowly. Then he leaned forward and kissed me, and I kissed him back and that was all the certainty either of us needed. ‘I’ll get some things,’ he said, ‘and I’ll meet you at the hotel in two hours’ time.’

Instead of walking across the bridge and back to the train station, we went in the opposite direction, into the hills. Callum had a pack on his back and took my overnight bag from me, whilst I carried a basket of food he’d coaxed from his mother, claiming nothing in the big city could match her cooking. We quickly left the village behind, climbing above its cluster of white houses, and turned off on to a narrow track that led into the woods. We walked for miles, past a small loch and into more open countryside where the heather had begun to turn from purple to brown with the first frosts of autumn. It was a fine day to be out in the hills. The sun shone and the breeze was soft, gently coaxing the birch trees to let fall their leaves in a flutter of golden confetti. Our spirits lifted as we put more and more distance between ourselves and the rest of the world.

At last, as the sun was beginning to slip behind the far range of hills, we came to a little stone bothy tucked into a side valley. Beside it, a foaming burn tumbled down the hillside and high on the ridge above us a herd of deer stood watching. ‘Will this do you, Miss Mackenzie-Grant?’ Callum asked, holding open the door for me to step inside, his eyes far brighter than they had been in the morning.

‘I do believe it’s the finest hostelry Perthshire can offer,’ I replied, looking around at the single room. The floor was of earth and the ceiling of red-painted tin, but there was a fireplace at one end and a wooden bench along one of the walls where we could set out our provisions.

‘We’d best collect some firewood,’ Callum said. ‘You don’t want to be outside when the ghosts of Samhain come visiting.’

I’d forgotten it was All Hallows’ Eve. ‘We’ll make sure we set an extra place for them then,’ I laughed. ‘And you’d better leave them a bit of your mother’s gingerbread instead of guzzling down the lot!’

As dusk fell, we gathered bracken and the driest sticks we could find in the scrubby woods that grew alongside the stream. An owl hooted and the deer melted away from the ridge above us, disappearing silently into some secret fold in the hills. We piled the firewood beside the hearth and shut the door on the approaching night. Callum began to set the sticks, but before he lit them he reached up into the chimney breast and pulled a small object from the soot-grimed stones.

‘Look at this,’ he said, showing me a tiny shoe that fitted easily into the palm of his hand. ‘When the shepherd and his family were living here, they’d have put this wee shoe in a niche in the chimney piece to keep the fairies from stealing away their bairn. It’s an old tradition.’

‘How on earth did you know it was there?’ I asked, gently stroking the smoke-cured leather.

‘I was sleeping here one summer’s night, with no need for a fire, and a crow came tumbling down the chimney. I suppose it was nesting up top, or maybe just looking for trouble, as crows often do. It dislodged the shoe. Once I’d chased the bird out the door and dusted off the soot, I realised what this was. It will have been here for a hundred years or more, I’d guess. So I popped it back. Not wanting to be stolen away by the fairies myself, you understand.’ He set the little shoe on a rickety wooden shelf above the fireplace and then stooped down to light the sticks.

We soon had a good blaze going and the bothy warmed up, despite the nip of frost in the clear night air outside. Through the age-warped glass of the single window, the first Samhain stars appeared, pinpricks of light in the darkness. We spread a blanket on the floor and from the basket Callum produced some slices of cooked ham, a jar of Mrs Gillespie’s homemade chutney and a neat stack of shortbread. He tucked two potatoes into the fire to bake and then handed me a bottle of ginger beer.

‘What a feast!’ I exclaimed, taking a long draught from the bottle before handing it back to him.

‘And whilst we’re waiting for the tatties to cook, I have a snack to keep us going.’ He pulled a knotted handkerchief out of his pack, showing me a cache of hazelnuts. He broke the glossy brown shells on the hearth with a stone and handed me a few of the creamy kernels.

We sat there contentedly, watching the flames make leaping shadows around the walls, happy to be cocooned in a sanctuary all of our own again. This would be the nature of our future together, I realised. We’d need to find a place where we could be together without judgement from others. But if it had to be this way then I, for one, felt I could be perfectly happy.

Once the potatoes were cooked, we scooped the soft insides from their burnt skins and mashed them with a knob of butter. Our meal was quite delicious. And we remembered to set a bit of it aside to ensure we were in the good books of the night’s returning souls. ‘I reckon we’ll be needing all the luck we can get,’ said Callum, his eyes shining in the firelight. ‘At least the ones who’ve passed over might be on our side, even if the living aren’t.’

After supper, we sat on the blanket watching the fire settle and shift as the sticks burned down. Callum picked up the last two remaining hazelnuts and rolled them together between his fingers.

‘Do you know the superstition about these?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘It’s believed that if a pair of lovers puts two hazelnuts in the fire on Samhain, it will foretell how they are to fare together. If the nuts pop and crack, it bodes ill, meaning the relationship will break. But if they burn calmly, side by side, it means the pair are well matched and are meant to stay as one.’

I reached out my hand. ‘Give them to me, then.’

‘Vi, no, it’s only a silly superstition.’ He closed his fingers around them, reluctant to release them to me.

‘What are you scared of, Callum Gillespie? Do you worry they will explode and we’ll have to part?’

He shook his head, then nodded it slowly. ‘I suppose I do. I couldn’t bear to lose you, you see.’

‘Well, I’m not afraid,’ I replied. I prised open his fingers and placed the two nuts side by side in the glowing embers at the edge of the fire. He drew me close to him and we sat and watched as they began to burn. I think we were both secretly holding our breath. And I knew if they popped then I would laugh the whole thing off as a silly bit of superstitious nonsense. But they burned steadily, giving off an unwavering flame until they had crumbled away to ashes.

‘There.’ I turned to face him. ‘It’s official now. We are supposed to be together. The laws of Samhain have decreed it.’

I kissed him and then my fingers went to the buttons of his shirt. As I began to undo them, he clasped my hand, stopping me from opening it further. ‘Vi ... are you sure?’

‘Sometimes in the river of life, Callum, you just have to throw your heart in and dive in after it.’

He released his grip and his eyes were alight with a smile that spoke of his love for me more eloquently than any words could ever have done.

I drew a blanket around us, and we lay together in the dying glow of the firelight, with only the stars and the spirits of the dead keeping watch over us until daybreak.