An extract from The Dowager’s Dream.
A visit from the laird.
To our wonder, we heard the Laird was come for the picnic. This was no looked-for. He only ever came to visit his mother twice of a year: once at the end of January with a party of gentlemen friends for the feast at Candlemass; and then again after harvest with a larger party, ladies as well as gentlemen, for the shooting – and that was a dangerous time for all of us hereabouts! Those trigger-happy gentry cared not whether they shot the red deer or the mountain hare they should be after, or a crofter’s cow or goat … or the crofter himself, or one of his bairns. It was all the same to them.
But now it was said the Laird was come; he’d got off the boat at Thurso the day before and was riding over with another gentleman. What was more, he must have brought two guests with him for they said there was a sedan chair – and there must be a fair lady inside it for her to be carried all that way. They could put the chair on a cart, it’s true, or even put the lady in a carriage some of the road, but for the most part, the road along this coast cannot be past by four wheels. So the Laird had hired four lusty men to carry the poor lady along that rough road.
She must be a great beauty, I thought, and I would like to see her.
When the news came that the Laird was already arrived at the Bighouse with the gentleman, but the lady was still on the way all the villagers gathered, goggle-eyed and gawping. The Minister would never admit he was curious but he took his hat and cane and said he would go for a walk and maybe visit some parishioners. Miss Mary and I said we would come with him and we walked, the three of us, down the main road through the township, past all the folk there watching and waiting, until we came to the gates that lead to the Bighouse drive – and there we saw the Laird with another fine gentleman, and the Dowager, too, all awaiting.
The Minister went up to them as bold as you please to welcome the Laird, and Miss Mary and I followed close on his heels – we were no going to miss anything for the world.
“Well, good morning to you, Minister,” said the Laird, “and to you, Miss Mackenzie, I hope you are well. Allow me to introduce my friend, Sir Henry Stafford, who has kindly come with me to help me implement some changes on the estate. He has made remarkable improvements to his own property and has promised to lend me his land agent, William Patterson.”
The Minister bowed in greeting to Sir Henry and Miss Mary curtseyed to him. He was a most dapper, smart man and he bent low and kissed her hand which made her blush. I hid behind the Minister for I did no want the Laird to see me and to remember the last time he clapped eyes on me, all naked amid seaweed.
“I hope you’ll come to our Sunday School picnic this afternoon, Sir Henry,” Miss Mary said, still blushing pink as a boiled crab.
“I’ll be charmed, madam,” he said, “I’m sure it will be a most pretty sight.”
It was then the Laird’s eye fell on me, he glared, “That girl! What’s she doing here, Minister, how dare you bring her along?”
“Kirsty?” said Miss Mary, smiling bravely, “Why, she is a loyal friend to us. She nursed me back to health last winter – she saved my life, sir.”
“Did she indeed?” said Sir Henry with a nasty sort of a smirk.
I tell you, I did not like that man; no more than I did the Laird and all his other cronies, gentry tho’ they be.
“I hear you have another guest expected, Laird?” said the Minister and I blessed him for it, for his question took their minds from me.
“I do indeed,” laughed the Laird, “I think that’s her coming now.”
We all looked round and sure enough in the distance we could see a sedan chair bumping along, carried by four men who were looking sweaty and tired; she must be some weight, this lady, I thought to myself. There was an attendant walking with them and as they came up the Laird nodded to him, “All well, Hughes?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, all is well,” the man looked about at us, very bold, and winked at me. I frowned and looked away.
The Minister stared at the closed-up chair a little puzzled, “Surely we should let the lady out?” he said.
But it seemed the Laird was nae even going to greet the person in the sedan chair, he smiled, “Is the pen ready, Mother?” he asked.
“It is,” said the Dowager frowning, “Malcolm Fraser got it ready yesterday morning.”
The pen? Miss Mary and I looked at each other aghast, what sort of lady was this?
“Let’s have her up the drive then. Bring her up, bring her up,” said the Laird, and none too willingly, the four men from Thurso hoisted up the sedan again and off they set up the drive.
We hung back, unsure if we were welcome, but the Laird said, “Come along, Minister, come along, Miss Mackenzie, I would have you see my prize.”
So off we went, with me keeping as close as I could to Miss Mary’s heels, and near the paddock they set down the sedan chair again and more men from the estate appeared, including Mr. Fraser. I was glad to see him; he gave me a cheery wave and bowed to Miss Mary.
“Now, men,” the Laird said, “let’s have a look at her.”
Sir Henry opened the door and bowed mockingly to the occupant and the man Hughes stepped forward as if to help her out. A delicate white leg emerged with a neat and elegant hoof … yes, a hoof … then three more followed and out stepped a huge, white, curly beast. So big it was, I thought it must be a dog – maybe some great hunting hound – but then it looked about at us and gave out a mighty ‘baaa’ and I realised it was a giant sheep.
“Look, there! Now ain’t she a beauty?” the Laird was triumphant.
I looked at that Great White Beast and it looked at me with its frightful cunning eye. The kirk teaches that Christians are like unto sheep and sinners like unto goats, but I swear I had never seen any creature with an intelligence so close to the Evil One as shone in that Great Sheep’s eye; it had me quaking.
Miriam Hastings’ latest novel, The Dowager’s Dream, is available now in paperback from FeedARead Publishing. Also as an e-book on Kindle: The Dowager’s Dream.
In a crumbling mansion on the north coast of Scotland, the Dowager grows old; exiled there by her son, the Laird, she dreams of her girlhood and waits for death, but when the tenants keep talking of a monster in the sea, she becomes obsessed with the strange creature living in the bay beyond her windows.
The people claim the sea monster portends disaster and they are right for the Laird has grand plans to improve the estate. He intends to evict all the tenants from their crofts in order to turn the land over to an army of sheep.
Can the Dowager stand up to her unscrupulous son? If she does, she may have to pay a terrible price.
Walking Shadow, Miriam Hasting’s first historical novel, was published in November 2019 under the name of M W Hastings, and is available direct from FeedaRead Books as well as through Amazon. It is also available as an e-book on Kindle. This is a historical novel with profoundly modern themes: the fear of terrorism, political manipulation of information, and issues of religious fundamentalism and intolerance.
Edmund (aka Rosamund) Shakespeare, younger sibling of William and lead player of female roles with the King’s Men, is the narrator and central protagonist. When the novel opens, it is January 1606 and London is a dangerous place; the gunpowder plot has just been foiled, spies and informers are everywhere, and Edmund is a prisoner in the Tower, charged with treason.
Miriam’s first novel, winner of the MIND Book of the Year Award, is a present-day story with a legendary model. To the people of Crete, the Minotaur was traditionally a creature of darkness and horror. Locked in a labyrinth where no-one could see him, he became the scapegoat for everyone’s worst imaginable nightmares and terrors.
Chrissie and Rachel are Minotaurs. They meet in Bradley, a rambling Victorian institution for the mentally ill. As the novel unfolds and their respective stories are gradually revealed, their growing relationship becomes a rich source of shared experience and a focus for their deepening knowledge of themselves.
Some reviews of Miriam Hastings’ The Minotaur Hunt:
[An author] “of great talent and wit, the courage to lead us through purgatory and the tenderness to love and understand its inhabitants.” Monica Dickens.
“There are echoes of romantic fiction, but there is also a whiff of grim realism . . . Underlying the narrative is an impressive refusal to attempt glib explanations.” Bernard Ineichen.
“Miriam Hastings’ The Minotaur Hunt is an engrossing novel set in a mental health institution and in the minds of some of its patients. . .The positive portrayal is very well done, yet it does not pull any punches about the difficulties faced by those with serious mental illness”, Mercia McMahon.
“No matter how dark the labyrinthe of emotions, there is always redemption for the human condition, and this sensitivity to lightness, back-to-back with the darkness, is where Hastings’ writing is at its finest. It has the voice of authenticity.” Vine Voice.
“The Minotaur Hunt is beautifully written with an immediacy and urgency that has you turning the pages”, The Bub.
New Work
Miriam Hastings has recently completed a new novel, The Dowager’s Dream, a surreal fantasy set on the north coast of Scotland at the time of the brutal clearances in the Scottish Highlands. The novel was inspired by the (largely imagined) lives of Miriam’s great great-grandmothers, Margaret MacKenzie and Christine Patterson, and also by an account written in 1809 by a minister’s daughter, describing a mermaid she had seen in Sandside Bay, Caithness. Although The Dowager’s Dream is set in the early years of the 19th Century, the themes of dispossession and ethnic cleansing will resonate with the contemporary reader.
Miriam Hastings, author 