I check all the spoons, not confusing teaspoons with those they use for drinking coffee. I separate dessert spoons from soup spoons. This is important

The serial: Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 13

But I can hear Robert’s thoughts. I absorbed his history bit by bit. He speaks through me, to me when I encourage him. This is what he would say:

My teacher couldn’t tell us apart. Unlike us, he wasn’t from the islands. Someone said he came from Aberdeen, the Granite City. He called us his Gaelic twins or Celtic Castor and Pollux. We were Sam and Rob to everyone else.

Sam liked the outdoors and the sheep: the gathering, dipping, clipping, and lambing. Then, he’d be up all night when the ewes dropped their lambs. I preferred being inside. I even arranged flowers in vases, stacked crockery, laid the table, served soup, and saw that all was fine. That’s what I liked.

When we left school there was no work on the island so we went to the mainland to Mr Moreton Macdonald, laird of Largie. Sam minded his sheep and I was hall-boy first, then footman in the castle.

Promoted

Serving in the pantry, I washed silver after the meals and polished it. I wiped bread crumbs off the dining table and saw that no smears were left on the glasses. Then the laird died in 1921, and I was promoted to butler.

At first, Sam wouldn’t speak to me. He thought I’d got above myself. Being the butler meant I was head of the household and had a right to respect. But the Largie staff still saw me as one of them, an island boy made good, but not that good. Not like other McKinvens from Islay who went to America.

I’d already served in the war, but I don’t talk about it. Nobody does. Why should we? We lost our friends and relatives, and there’s no honour in that even if I received a medal. What good did that do?

It was just a piece of hard, cold metal, not warm like the touch of healthy, young skin. That’s what we all wanted. Friendship, romance and a good life. Not guns, bullets, mud and death. All love was destroyed in that war to end all wars.

Then there was another and every Macdonald was in it: Mrs Macdonald’s three sons, a son-in-law, and even Esther, her youngest. She drove trucks in convoy and tried to shoot down German aircraft.

I just polish those knives, the ones with the motherof-pearl handles. I found them in their leather box lined in maroon velvet, and blamed the Broonie for taking them.

I check all the spoons, not confusing teaspoons with the ones they use for drinking coffee. I separate the dessert spoons from the soup spoons. This is important.

I cannot abide a diner using an incorrect implement. There’s a time and place for everything. There’s a time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to act and a time to desist.

You see, I listen to the readings of the scriptures in the Kirk. I listen to the voice of the Lord. And I know how to clean silver with the proper cream, to put my elbow into it and not slacken at my job.

The old days are gone. I was not only in charge of the dining room and the pantry but also the wine cellar. As footman under the previous butler I learned how to recognise a good claret and what temperature to serve it.

Clandestine

Then there were the white wines, the Chablis, Chardonnay, Riesling, and Moselle, generally preferred by the ladies. The laird liked his burgundy blood-red and potent. To a boy who had only tasted uisge bheatha (whisky), Mr Macdonald’s wine cellar was very foreign.

He told me that Scots loved French wine and for centuries it had been shipped to the port of Leith near Edinburgh. The Auld Alliance between France and Scotland against England, our common enemy, encouraged us to drink it.

After the Jacobite Rising failed, clandestine followers of the Stuarts drank toasts to Bonnie Prince Charlie, exiled on the continent, by passing their wine glass over a jug of water, indicating that they still championed ‘the king over the water.’

Largie wasn’t a grand household like the Duke’s castle at Inverary. Servants doubled up. Pantry maids helped in the kitchen and cook performed the duties of the housekeeper. I served as valet to the laird. That’s how I learned how gentlemen dress: in high quality, understated tweeds when they were at home. I read his books and discussed with him matters far from the scope of my island childhood.

I take pride in the way I serve. When the young footman, Lachlan, a thorn in my flesh, questioned my methods, I told him straight. I open the door to guests, and he takes their hat and coat. It’s my job to announce their arrival.

For a first visit I am obliged to call out their full title. This would be simple for an ordinary guest but some of the Largie visitors were very grand. There was The Earl of Sandwich, descendant of the man who invented the sandwich.

Addressing and introducing high-ranking clergymen was my hardest task.

The Laird’s friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was a mere clergyman when I first came to work at Largie, but he soon climbed the ecclesiastical ladder until he reached the top.

Instructions

My instructions were to refer to him as ‘The Most Reverend and Right Honourable the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.’

Quite a mouthful for a Gaelic-speaking boy from the islands.

After Mr Macdonald died I tried to help Jock, Angus, and that scallywag, Simon. They’re goodlooking, mind, but you have to watch them, otherwise, when I serve them, they take more than their fair share.

I give them a warning glance, which says: “There’s three more to serve!” I can’t tell them direct as I would with my own family: “Two spoonfuls of that stew or else I’ll clip you round the ear!” You have to be polite and never say it straight. That’s what a butler is, quiet, observant and, above all, polite.

When Mrs Macdonald decided to leave the castle, Jock said he would pull off its roof to avoid paying taxes.

With his leg shot off, he can’t manage the stairs up to the tower. Sam says it’s wrong to destroy the castle. So do the others like Sandy, Mary, and Johnny. It’s their home too. Everyone has a part to play and where do they go now?

More tomorrow.

© 2017 Mary C Gladstone, all rights reserved, courtesy of the author and Firefallmedia; available in hardcover and paperback online and from all booksellers.