From the final still, the whisky ran through the glass cabinet of the still safe, where it was carefully monitored by both the stillman and the distillery’s excise officer.
This was raw, colorless stuff, not yet deserving of the name Scotch whisky. It would take at least five years of aging in oak casks in the earthen-floored warehouse before it would be bottled under the distillery’s name, or sold to blenders, and some was kept to age longer. It gave
Will pause to think that he would be near his father’s age before some of the whisky now being casked was ready to drink.
Each of these processes had its own time schedule, and each required several men as well as a skilled supervisor.
How, Will wondered, was he to manage on his own?
He could make a start, at least, by lighting the office fire. Going in, he lit the oil lamp on his father’s desk, then quickly arranged peats and sticks in the fireplace. As the flames caught, he sat for a moment, warming himself and taking comfort from the familiar objects. The great leather-bound ledger lay open on the desk, his father’s reading spectacles resting atop it. Along one wall, oak shelves held ranks of bottles covered with a fine layer of dust. The carriage clock ticked loudly in the silence.
Since he had left the Chapeltown school at fourteen, Will had chafed at the limited life of the distillery, dreaming of going to Edinburgh to study medicine like his Grant grandfather. But his father had believed him too young to go so far from home; nor had Charles been willing to give up his own dream of Will continuing in the family business.
Now, as Will recalled the helplessness he’d felt that morning when faced with his father’s illness, he wondered if he really was suited for the pursuit of medicine.
Then he thought of his father’s whispered entreaty to take care of the distillery, and he stood, leaving the old office chair rocking. He could at least turn the germinating malt on his own, and ready the peat fires for the kiln and the stills.
Stepping out into the alleyway between the production house and the malt barn, he stopped, listening, and relief flooded through him. He heard voices, carrying clearly in the still air. Will waded to the rise above the track that led
down to the village and shaded his eyes with his hand. A dozen dark specks moved against the whiteness; it was a good half of the distillery crew, shoveling their way up the track.
Will shouted and waved, a voice shouted something unintelligible back, and Will began digging his way to meet them.
The men made good progress and soon met Will, with much slapping of arms and thumping of shoulders. It was all the men from Chapeltown—those who lived outside the village would have a more difficult time of it.
“Aye, it’s only a half day’s work lost,” said Alasdair Smith, the stillman, as they swung down their spades again to widen Will’s path. Smith, a large, burly man with a red beard, was no relation to the Smiths of The Glenlivet but always made a point to tell new acquaintances that he had just as good a nose for whisky. “No self-respecting Hielander would let a bittie snow get the better o’ him,” he added, his teeth showing white against his beard as he grinned.
“It’s a bad omen,” said John MacGregor, the excise man, “I’m telling ye, such a blow this early in the year.”
MacGregor was a sharp-nosed, precise man, and kept his distance from the others, as was usually the case with the government officers. But Will had always found him kind, in his fussy way, and MacGregor had never minded taking the time to answer a boy’s questions. Now, he said more quietly to Will, “It’s a good thing your faither’s safe in Edinburgh, laddie. He’d ha been in a right bother this morning—”
“But he’s not in Edinburgh,” interrupted Will, and the other men fell silent as he told them of his father’s arrival in the night. “And now he’s burning with a fever,” Will added, “and his throat paining him somethin’ fierce.”
Seeing the look Smith shot at MacGregor, he said,
“What is it?” When the men hesitated, he barked, “Tell me!” The note of command in his voice surprised him—
for a moment, he had sounded like his father.
“Och, laddie, it’s nothing to worry ye,” said Smith, but his eyes didn’t meet Will’s. “It’s just somethin’ I heard up at the Pole—seems there’s a fever going round in Edinburgh . . .” The Pole Inn was the nearest public house, at the head of the Braes.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Will pushed him, knowing the answer even as he spoke.
Smith turned to his assistant, Kenneth Baxter. “You, Kenny, go back to the village, quick now, and fetch the nurse here. And you, Will,” he continued, this time meeting Will’s gaze, “you get back to the house. Your mam’ll be needin’ ye.”
Gemma climbed slowly from the depths of sleep, shed-ding the disquiet of her dreams like layers of skin. Then, full consciousness arriving with the disorientation that often accompanies the first night spent in a strange place, she sat up.
Innesfree. The barn conversion. Hazel. The pieces clicked together, and she looked towards the other bed.
There was no tousled dark head on the pillow, no sound from the bathroom. Hazel must have already dressed and gone out.
When Gemma had come in from her walk the previous evening, Hazel had been in bed, her light out. Although doubting that her friend was asleep, Gemma had been relieved not to talk further until she’d had a chance to sort out her reactions to Hazel’s revelations. She’d rung Kincaid, hoping to talk with him, but much to her surprise, the line had been engaged.
Now she pushed her hair from her face and swung her legs out of bed, curling her toes against the chill of the tiled floor. What had she been thinking last night, to encourage Hazel to pursue her relationship with Donald Brodie? It was not just mad, but dangerous. Not that Tim Cavendish would ever hurt Hazel, Gemma told herself in an effort to still the sudden thumping of her heart, but she’d seen marriages disintegrate too often to take the possibility of violence lightly.
Glancing at the clock, she saw that there was still an hour to breakfast. She had plenty of time to talk some sense into her friend.
Showered and dressed, Gemma stepped out and looked around her. Yesterday, she had only seen the property in the fading light of early evening. Now, it lay before her, golden and gleaming in the morning sun. It was still cool, wreaths of mist drifted up from the river, and birdsong trilled up and down the scale. The air had a fresh, evergreen scent to it, and when Gemma breathed, it felt like wine slipping down into her lungs.
There was no one visible in the garden, and on an impulse, Gemma turned away from the house and took the path leading towards the river. The track ran along the outer edge of the pasture that lay between the river and the road, winding through a stand of birch and rowans. It was still and silent beneath the trees, and after the first few yards, the thicket enclosed Gemma in a green and dappled world. Looking down, she saw the tightly curled fronds of fiddlehead ferns, and a stand of bluebells. Enchanted, she knelt to examine the flowers more closely.