“Canna we remove that vile brewis?” she said. “The smell will make my lord sick.”
“’Tis all there is in the house belike,” she answered.
But the Countess Peggy’s keen eyes had marked other food about the room, bacon, flour, fruit and fowls.
“Help me, mistress,” she commanded, and laying delicate, resolute hands upon a cloth, she lifted off the pot and stood it on the hearth.
“Ah,” she said with a disgusted face. “The place reeks.”
Her hair had fallen over her face; she flung it back and Delia noticed dully how it curled round her temples in little red ringlets, then suddenly it seemed as if her blood stood still; the shock of discovery held her silent.
This was the woman Macdonald had spoken of; she knew it certainly and her fingers curled into her palm with hate. This woman—Lady Breadalbane! With angry eyes she watched the Countess, who all unconscious was moving about the room among the pots and pans; there could not be two women with such eyes and hair and lips, and it was a most likely thing that it should have been Breadalbane’s wife riding by Glenorchy. The discovery nerved her; an angry desire to test this woman, to prove herself right, took hold of her; her fine face flushed and she lifted her head.
“Madam, your lord carries good news to London,” she said on an impulse. “I heard all the clans had submitted.”
“It is no’ the truth,” she said, “all hav’na’.”
“Ah?” said Delia with her heart beating fast. “And who are the unhappy rebels?”
There was a little pause before Lady Breadalbane answered:
“The Macdonalds o’ Glencoe for one. They have na’ taken the oaths.”
Delia saw the red and shadowy room spin round her and felt the blood hammering in her temples; before she left Glasgow she had been assured that the Macdonalds had come in with the other clans; she had never questioned it; it was such an unlikely thing they, of all, should remain obstinate; she moistened her lips and tried to frame some reply; she was saved by Jerome Caryl opening the door.
“I have engaged another chamber, Miss Delia,” he said. “We need not intrude on you, my lady.”
He inclined his head toward the Countess.
Delia felt a throb of relief to hear he had discovered the guest’s quality, and hastened toward him.