The Bonnie, Bonnie Bone

Excerpt from

The Bonnie, Bonnie Bone

 

Chapter One

 

When I arrive safely back in Daytona Beach, Florida—if I arrive—I will officially cancel our subscription to Innkeepers magazine. For Otis had once again landed us in the middle of murder and mayhem by agreeing to a stint as exchange innkeepers in a Scottish castle.

“What could go wrong?” he argued. “Guests who choose to stay in a castle obviously have money [so since when did that turn people into plaster saints?]; they’re educated, if they’re interested in history and architecture and castles [so only stupid people commit crimes?]; and most of them will be fellow countrymen [so snobbish nationalists are o.k. as long as they’re us?]”

I despair.

You’d think past experience would have made Otis the least little bit leery. Our exchange at Castle Keep in St. Augustine, Florida, had netted us break-ins, a dead homeless man, and the skeleton of a slave found in an ice house [Bred in the Bone]. Our glorious exchange in Ireland at Flanagan’s B & B had garnered us one death by stabbing and one by poison [The Closer the Bone]. But Otis is a curious mixture of cynicism and The Glass is Always Half Full. The next adventure over the hill will turn out rosily.

So when our kids decided to spend their second semester abroad at Edinburgh University, spring term, 1994, Otis happily scoured the ads in Innkeepers for a suitable (?) situation.

“This sounds perfect for us, Clarice. ‘A tower castle, recently restored, four floors, perfect for a family rental--”

“You want Miss Letty tripping up circular stone staircases?” I interjected.

Miss Letty, a.k.a. Letitia Lorraine, retired star of the Silent Screen, is our permanent guest at our home base, Belgrath House, in Daytona. She’s the third owner of the historic house/B&B and almost as old as the house

“But here’s the perfect part, Clarice. We’d have a separate caretaker’s cottage outside the castle, all on one floor.”

“Thatched, no doubt? Fleas included?” I feel it my duty to dampen his enthusiasm. And I had the word of an Irishman about the fleas.

“…modern plumbing…”

“Oh, so I wouldn’t have to squat over a hole cut in the stone, five castle stories up, and let ’er rip?”

“You’re several centuries behind the times, Clarice,” he said, rather frostily. “A number of castles have been restored in Scotland, either as hotels or B & B’s or as private residences. Someone buys a ruined castle, and the abandoned title that goes with it, fixes it up, and lets it for summer rental.”

I heard “Yada, yada, yada, TITLE.”

“T-t-tiiittle?” I stammered.

Otis smirked. I wavered.

 

Monsters running up and down stone staircases, skinning their shins while I dragged out antiseptic spray and kiddie Band-Aids. Maybe I’d pack a little iodine: it stings. Of course, Otis wouldn’t be the one applying first aid. No, that would be Mom/nursie nurse. Worst of all, Miss Letty backed him up in his foolhardiness.

“A change will do us all good. After what we’ve been through.” She gazed at me, playing the pity card. Poor abused nonagenarian.

“What about Sophie’s school?” I said, hunting for another objection. “She finally settled into the kindergarten in Ireland, then we ruthlessly dragged her back to Florida, and now we should force her to cope with yet another accent?”

Sophie is the foster child Otis and I have taken in since her own family, for various reasons, can no longer care for her.

Miss Letty waved that aside. “Irish, Scottish, what’s the dif? Ireland and Scotland are both Gaelic countries. She’ll hardly notice the change.”

“And,” Otis triumphed, joining the fray, “the castle is closer to Glasgow than to Edinburgh. So the kids won’t be running home every weekend. Especially since they won’t have a car. So we’ll see them on our terms—when we can drive to Edinburgh.”

“One way traffic,” I murmured. So maybe I wouldn’t have to act as housemother on weekends. Not that I don’t love them.

We forgot that they’d make friends who owned cars.

Springtime in Scotland, we exulted. Except we forgot that the university term would begin in January.

 

At least no one conceivably wanted to rent a castle in winter in Scotland. So our official duties translated into house, er, castle sitting. Maintenance and so forth. Like frozen pipes. Poor Otis! Served him right.

We arrived at Edinburgh airport, unmet. No one waved a sign proclaiming our last name, “Campion.” No one was left over at the gate, frantically looking around for a lost party. So alone we braved the baggage claim, car rental, and the drive to Castle Skeldon.

Twenty-twenty hindsight: the name. As close to skeleton as makes no never mind.

We thought that our exchange innkeepers would meet with us so that we could discuss the amenities and idiosyncrasies of our respective establishments. Instead we turned out to be ships, or rather planes, passing in the night.

Disgruntled, we retrieved our bags and headed for the car rental. Otis planned, after an interval, to return our rental and buy a used car at Clunkers-R-Us or some equivalent for the duration of our stay. Meantime, we enjoyed the advantages of a brand new Vauxhall while it lasted.

First order of business for me: lunch, preferably Pub Grub. First order of business for Otis: a smoke, after hours of enforced deprivation. So Miss Letty, Sophie, and I huddled in the Vauxhall while Otis, outside, puffed on his damn pipe. That over, we negotiated the exit from Edinburgh Airport and headed west. We stopped in Kirkliston for bar food. Ever since Otis and I had sampled the Ploughman’s Lunch at the Rose and Crown Pub at EPCOT and our stay in Ireland, we crave that distinctly British dish consisting of some type of meat - usually ham - English cheddar, a pickle, a hardboiled egg, and a hunk of bread, with variations. This place offered mixed berry chutney in addition.

“Can’t do you a Scotch egg,” our little waitress said. “Sorry.”

Since we hadn’t a clue about Scotch eggs, we waved that aside. Later, we found out that a Scotch egg is hardboiled, cooled, shelled, wrapped in bulk sausage, dipped in beaten egg and bread crumbs, and deep fried. Heart attack in a fist!

So we arrived at the tidal firth on the west coast at dusk and glimpsed, for the first time, our responsibility for the next five months. Castle Skeldon supposedly sat on a headland overlooking the Firth of Lorn. Except that Castle Skeldon actually sat on an island in the firth. The tidal firth. Access at high tide? Rowboat.

The caretaker’s cottage now, our digs, sat on a headland overlooking the firth. But to fulfill my B & B duties at the castle, I, or Otis, would have to row me over. We’d have to wait for low tide to see what access popped out of the water. Probably algae-covered stepping stones. I didn’t envision a road.

We piled out of the car, Sophie nimbly, Miss Letty gingerly testing her knees. A light gleamed from a window in the cottage. Left on for us? Or someone at home? The door opened quickly and a short stout figure inspected us by holding up a lantern and peering short-sightedly. My interest in him paled compared to the implications of that lantern.

“My God, don’t tell me we have no electricity!”

The little gnome cackled. “Aye, lassie, we do, most of the time. The storm knocked out the power lines two nights ago. But don’t fret. We’re always prepared.”

Otis held out his hand. “Otis Campion.” He nodded to me. “Miss Letitia Lorraine. My wife Clarice. And our daughter Sophie.”

“Randall McNab. Last hereditary Earl of Skeldon.”

 

A pregnant pause. Did that make him the current owner of the castle, who should, by all rights, be winging his way across the Atlantic to Belgrath House? Or the former owner, on his beam ends, forced to—what? Live off the leavings of the new Earl? Scramble around for food and lodging in his own caretaker’s cottage? And where did that leave us?

“Er,” said Otis, voicing my thought, “shouldn’t you be on your way to Florida?”

The last hereditary Earl of Skeldon laughed merrily and clapped Otis on the back. “Nay, that would be the jumped-up merchant that bought me out and turned my ancestral castle into a Bed and Breakfast. He wants to ‘study the American market and take the pulse of American entrepreneurism.’ Can you believe it?”

“So the new Earl—”

“Not the new Earl. I refused to sell my title. If the gov’mint wants to sell it to him when I’m gone, so be it. But m’father would spin in his grave if I sold the title.”

“So you live here,” I began, feeling my way.

“No, no. This is for you. I stay over at the castle. But come in, come in. What am I about, keeping you standing outside.”

“But,” I stammered, “how do you get over there?” I pointed across the firth where the gray, four story tower loomed in the gathering dark.

“Why, I row, lassie, just as I’ve done all me life!”

He must have seen my aghast look, for he relented. “Don’t worry. When the tide’s out, we use the causeway.”

He only partially reassured me. I had no problem visualizing Otis rowing across the firth. But this old man? That would be like handing oars to Miss Letty. I studied his weather-beaten face. Scores of years could account for his seamed visage, or the elements in Scotland could make him appear older than his actual age. His thatch of white hair had blown about from the wind coming off the firth. He wore an old tweed jacket, nubbed but serviceable yet, and corduroy trousers somewhat shiny at the knees. His cheeks bloomed with health or high blood pressure. His nose jutted out between plump cheeks. His blue eyes gazed steadily, confidently at us.

A real live Earl, I breathed.

 

He settled us into our quarters before pushing off to the castle. “I’ll be back in the morning and take you across. Show you the ropes,” he added. He shrugged himself into a windbreaker, donned the typical Go-To-Hell cap favored by both the Irish and the Scots, doffed it in Miss Letty’s direction, and sauntered off, leaving the lantern behind.

“Will he be all right?” I whispered.

“You heard him: been doing this all his life,” said Otis.

Reluctantly, I turned away and surveyed our cottage. The front door opened directly into a small living, or sitting, room. A door to the right revealed a small bedroom with a half bath. Behind the sitting room was a small kitchen—tucked under a loft!

“Thought you said this was all on one floor?” I said, jabbing Otis in the ribs. “Guess who gets to sleep up there? And climb the ladder every night?”

I poked and prodded, examined the minimal furniture, stored the foodstuffs we had purchased in the cabinets. I’d have to lay in more ample supplies soon, but for tonight and breakfast, it sufficed. It was only when I sensed a more pressing need that I searched for something lacking. A full bathroom, separate from the bedroom. With deep foreboding I opened the back door. Ah! A good old separate bathroom, all right. Not an outhouse, thank God. More like a concrete block affair you’d find at a campground, with one shower and one toilet. It boasted a skylight, but apparently no electricity. So no heat. So much for “modern plumbing.”

Welcome home!

 

I awoke at some ungodly hour, my sleep patterns in disarray. Early as it was, Otis had arisen before me. I smelled the delectable odor of coffee and wondered how he had managed. I hastily threw on warm clothes and stout shoes. I remembered the ladder just in time to avoid stepping off the loft into nothingness. I found Otis at the kitchen table with a cuppa in hand.

“Power’s back on,” he said.

Gratefully, I accepted the cup he handed me. But first things first. I shrugged into an old coat hanging on a hook on the back door and slipped across to the privy. The seat was so cold I feared freezing in place, but I noticed one thing: a fireplace. Evidently we could build a roaring fire there for bath time.

Needs met, I followed a slate path around to the front of the house and looked out over the firth. The wind blew briskly in my face, a fact I would accustom myself to as time passed. Low tide revealed a broad stretch of mud flats enlivened by clumps of stiff grass hardy enough to withstand immersion in sea water twelve hours a day. The mud rippled, showing the paths of currents and eddies. I discerned a walkway visible now, wide enough for a cart of sorts to pass and composed of large stones fitted end to end. Not my idea of a causeway. It probably required sweeping daily and trips would have to be timed to the changing tides, but at least we needn’t row across every time. I wondered why the Earl hadn’t built up the access to be high and dry at all times, but answered my own question: money. The last Earl of Skeldon was on his last legs.

I studied, in growing daylight, the castle across the way. Not nearly as forbidding as it had appeared at dusk, I noticed it boasted an addition, or ell. Later I would learn it was an L-plan castle, the ell at right angles giving another vantage to fire upon an enemy attacking the gates. The stones blackened from age, and my housewifely instincts wondered about the judicious use of many gallons of Clorox. Or would that damage the stone? A slanted, steeply pitched roof crowned the castle and, rising above on a slender pole, a standard flew announcing the owner at home.

Except he wasn’t. Supposedly he had arrived at Belgrath House in Daytona Beach, Florida, and even now slept in our cozy bed. The previous lord of the castle, however, resided in one of the rooms, on one of those floors, in what capacity? A servant of the new owner? A churl? Somehow I didn’t think so. He didn’t come across as subservient, groveling. He still seemed…lordly. Or lairdly, perhaps, in Scotland. I wondered what complicated deal he had struck with the new owner and what his duties comprised. Part of the ambience? Much like Miss Letty at Belgrath House, granted a room for life in exchange for the house. She still drifted through the rooms with a tour in progress, giving her public a glimpse of the former Queen of the Silent Screen. Perhaps the Earl provided window dressing in a like manner.

The Earl and the Queen had much in common.

I reluctantly turned away to view our cottage in a rising light. Not thatched, thank God, it boasted a fairly new-looking slate roof. Whitewashed, so it escaped the blackened, fungus appearance of the castle. The whole scene was straight out of Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Would the Earl turn out to be a troll guarding the access arm of the castle? I went back along the slate path and entered the kitchen, which, by contrast, felt cozy compared to the winds blowing off the loch.

Central heat, praise be to God.

Otis busily inspected the stove, discovered it to be gas, not wood-burning. Another victory. Just then a shrill ring blasted the stillness. A phone! Otis quickly located it before it awakened Miss Letty and Sophie.

“Hello?” he said, cautiously, tentatively. Who could be calling at this hour? Who knew the number?

He placed his hand over the mouthpiece and murmured, “The Earl.” He nodded, said. “Yes. Yes.” several times, then hung up.

“Well?” I said.

“The Earl and the Dowager Countess of Skeldon present their compliments and invite us for breakfast and a tour of their ancestral home as soon as said Earl has swept the access road.”

I gaped at him. “What did you tell him?”

“Didn’t you see me tug my forelock?”

The Dowager Countess! The Earl’s mother! How ancient must she be?

 

Chapter Two

 

We followed the Earl across the stone blocks while he swept madly away in front of us. I was reminded of street urchins in another century in London who would sweep a pathway for a prosperous-looking citizen in hopes of a careless coin chucked their way. The closer we got to the castle the more he babbled.

“We enter the castle on the second story. First floor to us, second floor to you folks, I understand. We call the first floor the ground floor. The ground floor, you see, housed animals and, er, others.”

Others?

“Dungeon,” whispered Otis.

We mounted the outside wooden stairs. The Earl’s mother awaited us at the top.

“Mother, may I present Mrs. Campion, Miss Lorraine, Mr. Campion, and, ah, Sophie.”

If I thought the Earl appeared gnome-like.… His mother, the Dowager Countess, resembled one of those dolls made of a dried-up potato. Wrinkles crisscrossed her face. She drew her hair back tightly into a bun at the nape of her neck with, incongruously, a crochet hook stuck through it. She swathed her tiny frame in yards of material of varying lengths, and I wondered if she had ever been truly warm in her life. Stout shoes encased her feet. She stood ramrod straight, of a generation who used backboards to force children to stand tall. She lacked the geniality of her son and plainly resented her changed circumstances which necessitated her hobnobbing with the likes of us on an equal basis.

She looked down her aquiline nose at me, no easy feat since I had six or seven inches on her. She let me know that she was the Dowager Countess of Skeldon and expected me to bow and scrape.

I have a bad back.

She turned to Miss Letty after staring me down. You’d think they would share a bond, being roughly the same generation, but the Countess showed no signs of thawing. Even Sophie felt the chill and shrank against Otis.

The Earl, sensing tension, danced around us, anxious to show off his former home and current habitat.

She drew herself up to almost five feet and uttered, “I am the Countess Skeldon.”

What was that accent? Not Scottish, nor English, nor Irish. One of the eastern countries. Not a native Brit, at any rate.

I opted for Hearty American. “Pleased to meet you,” I said, retaining a grip on her reluctant hand and pumping it up and down with more shakes than etiquette decreed.

A moue of distaste crossed her face at my gaucheness. Or had she realized I mocked her lack of civility? Miss Letty took her cue from me and greeted her with her Hoboken, New Jersey, accent which she hadn’t used in seventy-five years. Sophie, drat her, dropped a curtsy. The Countess looked on her almost with approval. Only Otis seemed unaffected, but that’s because nuances and atmosphere whiz right over his head.

“We certainly appreciate your neighborliness,” he said, bowing and brushing her hand with his lips.

He’s never kissed my hand!

“Well, well,” the Earl said, nodding benignly.

And the old bat thawed one degree.

The Earl ushered us into the castle and the Great Hall itself. Bemused, I stared at the stone walls, adorned on all four sides by stag heads and a vast display of arms. The stag heads, unlike ones in America, products of the taxidermist’s art with glass eyes and fur, showed antlers and a small unadorned skull. Medieval armor ranged the room. [Query: Would I be expected to polish that?] And everywhere, mounted in circular or semicircular patterns, displays of guns. Muskets?

The Earl cleared his throat. “M’grandfather saved it all, you see. A tribute to the history and power of the family.” He sounded almost apologetic. Quickly he turned our attention to a small table set in an alcove. Not the banquet table, then.

First order of business: breakfast, cooked by a “lass from the village” named Heather, natch. I hoped Heather would stay on and help with the breakfasts when the official tourist season began. She did us proud: poached eggs, back bacon, sausages, tattie scones, haggis, blood pudding, grilled tomatoes, and real honest-to-God porridge. Washed down with lashings of tea. I noticed that, eastern European or not, the Dowager packed away the Full Scottish Breakfast.

We took our cue from the Countess who rose from the table when her breakfast was finished while her son hastily crammed a last bite of toast in his mouth. If it were the evening, I would expect the ladies to withdraw and leave the gentlemen to their port. But she waved us back to our seats with a languid sweep of her hand. We weren’t to leave the table; she was.

“I’ll leave the Earl to show you around and discuss your duties. It is time for my rest.”

The Earl dutifully hastened to open the door for her, and she passed majestically from the room without a backward glance. The Earl returned to his seat looking a bit sheepish, but he neither criticized his mother nor apologized for her coldness. I admired him for that.

He rubbed his hands together, whether to generate warmth or to demonstrate enthusiasm, I didn’t know. “Well, then, shall we?”

 

We had walked slowly around the Great Hall while the Earl prattled on about the new owner’s plans for his B & B, which sounded more elaborate than we had been originally told. Renting the Great Hall out for banquets, wedding receptions, and corporate events. I hoped these grandiose ideas included a caterer and wedding planner, and not just Heather and me. We followed the circular stone staircase, rail on one side and rope on the other. The Earl gleefully pointed out the “false step,” one at a slightly different height from the rest, to trip the unwary marauders. The staircase wound in a direction favoring the right-handed sword arm of the defenders and placing a disadvantage on the attackers. He showed us the “murder hole,” used to pour boiling liquids down on the enemy.

And the former “garderobe” or privy. In olden times there had been a chute which discharged the waste directly into the firth. “One of my ancestors got rid of that when one of the enemy climbed inside it and entered the castle. Ay, he was a sore sight!”

I didn’t ask if he died of asphyxiation or the sword.

“They used to hang their clothes along this passageway. The smell of ammonia killed the fleas, y’see.”

Eventually we found ourselves on the roof. The staircase debouched onto the parapet, a narrow walkway which surrounded on all four sides the steeply pitched roof, or capstone. Crenellations, which resembled jagged teeth, appeared at regular intervals as protection for the warriors, I assumed. Otis and I, holding tightly to Sophie’s hands, peered over the edge at the two-story ell jutting out at right angles to the main building. At one corner a structure protruded supported by a projecting arm. A corbel, we were told. And tucked into the outer wall were rows of holes, or niches.

“Doocot,” the Earl said in response to my question. “Dovecote,” he added, perhaps seeing my bewilderment. “In medieval times they raised pigeons and doves for food.”

I remembered reading Regency romances where such dishes as pigeon pie were mentioned. And eel pie. I shuddered, and not from the chill breeze.

We walked around to the opposite side of the castle and entered the master bedchamber. We didn’t linger, knowing this should have been his room, the laird’s room, and therefore painful to him. We exited on to the parapet, found the staircase once again, and descended. The Earl thrust open bedchambers on the way down to the Great Hall. A single bedroom on one floor. A twin room with a vaulted ceiling. “Waffled,” he said absently.

Otis raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

“Branches affixed to the ceiling and plaster chinked in amongst the branches,” he explained.

A full bathroom on one floor, although all the rooms were ensuite. But discreetly. Nothing modern obtruded. Even so, the Earl looked grim. Evidently the bright chintzy rooms depressed one reared in doom and gloom. But he forbore criticizing his boss’s taste. A pretty tactful guy, the Earl.

Manlike, he had omitted what, for me, would be the most important parts of the castle: the kitchen, the linen closet, and the laundry.

“Ah, yes,” he said, vaguely, in response to a question. I wondered if he had ever penetrated these areas of his own domain. “Heather will show you all of that. Meantime I’ll show Mr. Campion this newfangled hot water heater and heating system.”

Had he and his mother lived all of these years without those creature comforts? He must have sensed my shock, for he added, “In m’father’s time we had roaring fires in all the fireplaces and servants to haul wood and the like. Used to put up guests here for the shooting parties and  for the fishin’. But two world wars and death duties…” He shook his head and sighed, but then straightened like the laird he was and said briskly, “I’ll drop you off with Heather then, Mrs. Campion.”

Right. Domestics together.

“So. Your Grace—”

“Please,” he said, holding up his hands. “Call me Randall.”

Maybe, in a pinch. I certainly wouldn’t call him Randy.

“…where’s the ghost?”

His geniality froze. He looked every inch an Earl just then. Evidently one didn’t joke about the family ghost. As time went on I was to learn that you’re nobody in Scotland without a White Lady/Green Lady/drummer/piper/harpist or whatever piping, drumming, strummimg, or wringing its hands through the ancestral halls.

“You mean you really have one?” I said, all breathless and wide-eyed, retrieving my slip-of-the-tongue.

He thawed. “I’ll show you,” he said, taking my hand and leading me to the staircase again. We all descended to the Great Hall. He stopped me beside one of the arrow slit windows looking out narrowly on the loch side of the castle.

“The archer stood here, y’see. The window opens out wider into the room, giving the archer room to aim. But the narrow window on the outside was almost impossible for an enemy to hit. One did, though. Hit the Fifth Earl’s archer right in the forehead, between the eyes. Ever since this wall beside the window weeps when trouble’s brewin’.”

“Probably a leak somewhere,” Otis announced, unimpressed.

Uh, oh, I thought. A challenge to Otis’s engineering/handyman abilities. I glanced quickly at the Earl to see if he had picked up on the danger.

Oblivious.

“I’ll check it out. Brought my tools with me, including my battery-operated drill,” said Otis.

The Earl looked horrified. “You can’t drill holes in these stone walls, mon! Whatever would the new owner say?”

“I’m hired as a handyman and caretaker,” Otis said reasonably. “Surely the new owner would want to know if there’s a leak from the parapet running down the walls. Might be a burst pipe—”

“Pipes!” bellowed the Earl. “That wall has wept for centuries! Long before any plumbing was installed. And the walls are five feet thick at this point.”

Otis seemed not to hear. “I’ll just nip over to the cottage and come back with my tool kit before the tide turns.”

The Earl, affronted and aghast, turned to me, mutely seeking help.

I shrugged. “He hates leaks.”

 

While we waited for Otis’s return, Miss Letty amused Sophie by sitting with her in a window seat set in an alcove and pointing out waterfowl to her. They tried to identify birds they knew from Florida

The Earl fumed silently, but what could he do? He might still be the Earl, but he no longer owned the property. Periodically, he glanced towards the door through which the Dowager Countess had disappeared. I could see the wheels turning: Should I wake Mama? Or not? Probably more than his life was worth to disturb her nap. I was reminded of a time I read about during World War II when, at a crucial time, Hitler’s next-in-commands had failed to arouse the Fuhrer, fearing his wrath if they disturbed him.

Was Mama equally scary? I pondered the relationship of the two: The Earl—in name only? And the Dowager Countess—clearly in charge, despite her advanced years. Curiosity, my besetting sin, prompted a tentative probe: “Is there a current Countess, Your Grace, er, Randall?”

He smiled perfunctorily, as if he’d fielded this question many times. “Not for many years. She…died young.”

I tried again. “Last night you called yourself the last hereditary Earl of Skeldon. You said the government could sell the title after you’re gone. Does that mean you have no heir? No cousin, even?”

He blew out his cheeks, and I wondered if he would deliver an aristocratic set-down, to put me in my place. But he answered perfectly amiably, if a trifle reserved. “I had three male cousins—like brothers to me, they were. Lost in the War. That would be World War Two, lass.”

I accepted the implied tribute—that World War II was before my time—but corrected his impression. “Actually I was born during World War II. But in the States, if we refer to The War, we mean 1861-1865. Our Civil War.”

“Ah!” said the Earl. “Like our Battle of Culloden when Bonnie Prince Charlie, of fond memory, had to flee for his life disguised as a lady’s maid. Oh, the disgrace of it! And then the Duke of Cumberland, the bloody butcher, hacked his way through the Highlands, laying waste as he went.”

I nodded. “William Tecumseh Sherman and the March to the Sea!”

Not to be outdone, the Earl said, “The English banned the clans, the pipes, the kilt.”

“Reconstruction,” I countered.

“The Highland Clearances,” he retorted.

Diverted, I asked, “What’s that?”

He snorted. Really! “They drove the crofters from their farms so they could graze sheep. That’s when a lot of them went to Canada and your country, Missy.”

“Like the Irish during the Famine,” I said, showing my first hand knowledge of our stay in Ireland.

“Och! The Irish!” he said. I thought for a minute he would spit on the floor.

I would have thought the Scots and the Irish would share a common bond: hatred of the English. And they’re both Gaelic.

Our sparring match was interrupted by the return of Otis and his tool kit. He knelt in front of the wall and tentatively probed some crumbling mortar while steam came from the Earl’s ears.

“Needs tuck pointing,” Otis announced.

The Earl grudgingly allowed that was so while I groaned inwardly. Please, God, don’t let him offer to tuck point a Scottish Castle!

Otis hefted his drill, giving it a tentative whirr while the Earl gritted his teeth. Otis placed the drill bit against the mortar between stones and pressed the button. Immediately the drill emitted its shrill shriek. Powdery dust arose in a plume above Otis’s head. Of course, he wasn’t wearing protective glasses or a mask. All of a sudden he fell forward against the stone wall.

“I’ve broken through,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “I thought you said these walls were five feet thick.”

The Earl looked puzzled. “All of the outer walls are five feet thick. We have documents showing the original plans for the castle plus the ell addition all the way up to the restoration.”

“Well, there’s a space behind this one.” Otis set the drill in place about six inches from his original hole. Again, the drill broke through. “Got a chisel?” he asked.

The Earl, interested now, knelt beside Otis and placed his eye at one of the holes. “Can’t really make out….Yes, yes,” he said as Otis looked impatient. “I’ll get you one.” He jumped nimbly up and scurried off in the direction of the circular staircase. He returned in record time, panting.

Wordlessly he handed Otis a chisel. Otis placed the chisel against the mortar and hefted a hammer. Beyond sucking air through his teeth, the Earl made no objection. Little by little Otis pounded away at the mortar all around one of the stones. The work went surprisingly fast, with mortar crumbling in a small heap on the floor. I wondered just what held this castle together. At last Otis had loosened the mortar on all four sides. He slipped his fingers into the created space on two sides and tried to pull.

“Clarice,” he said, and I knew what he wanted: a woman’s smaller hands. I slipped my fingers in place, glad that I had no decorative nails to break. When the stone gave way, it did so with a rush, so that I sat on the floor with a heavy stone in my lap. Otis peered into the enlarged hole. “Flashlight!”

Scalpel!

Once again the Earl scurried off and returned with Otis’s request. Otis shone the light into the space. “It’s a shaft,” he said. “Can’t see up or down, though.”

Wordlessly a hand shot under his nose. Miss Letty, proffering her powder compact. Otis signaled his gratitude and at the same time gave me a reproving look as if taking me to task for not supplying such a commodity. I haven’t owned a compact in years. Gingerly he held the flashlight with one hand and with the other guided the mirror of the compact, upside down, into the hole. I hoped it wasn’t Miss Letty’s Art Deco one, for I had visions of it falling down several castle stories to…what?

Otis quickly withdrew both flashlight and compact. He caught Miss Letty’s eye and jerked his head in Sophie’s direction. Miss Letty, quick on her feet, drew Sophie away.

Otis stood and brushed off his trousers. He addressed the Earl. “There are two skeletons down there. One may have been there for centuries. The other—more recently.”

“How can you tell?” asked the Earl breathlessly.

“He, or she, is wearing bellbottoms.”

Just then the Countess, outraged, entered the room, more precipitously than I’d expect from one so old. I reminded myself that she shared Miss Letty’s generation, and Miss Letty was by no means feeble.

“Randall? What is the meaning of all this noise? You’ve disturbed my rest.” She glared at Otis, still holding his drill.

“Now, Mother…” the Earl began.

“There’s something else,” Otis said, interrupting unapologetically.

All eyes turned to him.

He cleared his throat. “The older skeleton—”

“Skeleton?” the Countess exclaimed, her voice rising.

“Two, actually,” said Otis. “The one wearing bellbottoms probably dates from the 1970s. The older one…the clothes have rotted away, but I think it has three legs.”

I may have imagined it, but I thought the Countess stiffened.