What Happened at the Abbey

By Isobel Blackthorn

When Ingrid flees a violent husband to become a housekeeper in the Scottish Highlands, she discovers the family she works for has a much darker history than her own.

Who haunts Strathbairn? Why are the adult McCleod children at each other’s throats? And why does the youngest sneak off at night? As Ingrid searches for answers, she grows ever more fearful that her husband will track her down.

Set in late 19th century Scottish Highlands, WHAT HAPPENED AT THE ABBEY is a gothic mystery brimming with intrigue, ghostly drama, and family secrets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Sep 18, 2023

Isobel Blackthorn

Isobel Blackthorn holds a PhD for her ground breaking study of the texts of Theosophist Alice Bailey. She is the author of Alice a. Bailey: Life and Legacy and The Unlikely Occultist: a biographical novel of Alice A. Bailey. Isobel is also an award-winning novelist.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

I remember the whipping wind.

Inhaling great gulps of frigid air.

The tightness in my throat and chest.

Frozen fingers.

As the carriage trundles along the narrow track, I clasp Susan’s hand, the child close at my side. Here we are in this remote part of the Scottish Highlands where nothing modern will have reached and I can’t help thinking of the Prince of Wales on his way home from Edinburgh after opening the Forth Bridge, the longest bridge in Britain. It’s been in all the papers. I wonder if he feels the cold.

Susan is dozing. She must be exhausted. Every part of my body hurts from all the jolts, and I start to lose my resolve. Have I done the right thing coming here? Should I have gone through with this? I glance out of the window as though searching for an answer. There’s nothing to see other than the rugged countryside. Even so, we must be nearly there.

When hooves clatter on cobblestones I breathe a sigh. At last. Then the house comes into view. I take in the dour façade and that brief moment of optimism vanishes in an instant.

Three rows of small, diamond-paned windows are evenly spaced in the dark-grey stone, the uppermost row gabled in a slate roof. Each gable crenelated in chunky stone. With a stout porch in its centre, the house seems to frown down on all who behold it, and I have to suppress a shudder.

There is no garden to soften the appearance. None that I can see. At the edge of the cobblestones of the drive, black gravel begins and that gravel extends to the front wall of the house.

The carriage draws closer, and my spirits sink even lower as I notice the decrepit stonework, the mortar crumbling here and there. A mossy coating at ground level reinforces nature’s determination to reclaim the house. And no one seems determined to thwart nature’s advance. The black paintwork of the window frames has begun to peel away, leaving patches of exposed wood. What sort of person would call a place like this home?

It’s the sort of house I used to picture in my teenage years during my gothic novel phase. The sort of house I feared as a child, fear that was instilled in me by parents and governess alike: Keep well away from the McTavish house. The McTavish family had a rambling old farmhouse on the edge of the village. Rumour among the village children had it that Mrs McTavish was a witch. The very idea had terrified me and I did indeed keep well away from the McTavish house.

Now, here I am, a fully grown adult with my own daughter, beholding, with that same trepidation, the edifice in which I am to work and sleep. I have to quell an impulse to ask the driver to hurry away. The McCleod family could find another housekeeper, someone accustomed to old and rundown country estates in far-flung locations in Scotland.

As though to underscore my impressions, the carriage lurches to the left as a wheel mounts a proud cobble, and I steel myself as my shoulder slams hard against the side, Susan’s weight adding force to the impact. I start to wonder if we’ll make it to the front door alive.

What was I thinking, accepting a position in this godforsaken part of the Scottish Highlands? Although, I didn’t know the exact location at first. Besides, back then I was desperate. Fearing for my life, I was never going to turn it down. Not after my confidant, dear old Reverend Bell, contacted the bishop who wrote to an old associate on my behalf. It was a convoluted way of finding employment, finding an escape, and I will be forever grateful to both men. I’ll just have to make the best of things.

There’s some chatter outside and I think I hear an apology as the carriage creeps along, following the arc of the drive to the porch.

From what I can see out of the window to my right, the house is set at the end of a long and narrow valley surrounded by craggy, steep-sided hills and mountains, making for lots of winter shade. Little wonder the house is rotting away. I can just imagine the damp.

Then a bog comes into view. The bog is large, elongated. Any patches of water seem hidden by the thick coating of moss. I try to see if I can spot some. I’m about to give up looking when above the bog, somewhere in the centre, wisps of mist gather and swirl and rise up, taking on the form of a human body. I gaze, transfixed, as a cold chill wraps itself around me. In the next instant, the mist vanishes. I’m left with prickling skin. I blink, and then I look hard but there is no mist there at all, and I begin to doubt what I saw.

I glance out of the other window at the house, noting grimly that the location could not be more isolated. The loch we travelled alongside to get here had come to an end about half a mile back. We passed the last dwelling a little before that. The last sign of any human activity was a small bridge over a burn. Around here at the foot of the mountain, only the Scots pines grow thickly, holding on to the drier land on the high side of the house. Whoever built this farmhouse must have done so only to profit from the peaty land at the head of the loch, doomed by what that peat offers to live in near absolute obscurity.

The time of year doesn’t help. It’s March and snow still caps the mountains. A far cry from the milder climate of Hampshire that I’ve grown used to, where the bluebells and snowdrops are in bloom, the daffodils are beginning to show, and the tree buds swell, readying to burst open.

On the train journey north, the weather grew ever harsher and by the time we reached Glasgow, I was wishing for a thicker coat. The train through to Fort William cut through rugged, windswept terrain, and as I gazed out the window watching the scenery flit by, memories of my childhood flashed into my mind. Pleasant memories of Hogmanay and roaring fires. Of fishing with my father and learning to knit at my mother’s knee. Of singing hinnies on the girdle. I started to wonder if my new life would work out fine.

From Fort William, the only means of travel was by carriage. A bone-crunching four-hour journey northwest through the roughest terrain there ever was. Whisky country, for sure. And those earlier, pleasanter feelings had soon given way to unease.

Hopefully, Mr McCleod hasn’t succumbed to drink. The last thing I need is a drunkard for an employer. I crave peace, tranquillity, a chance to rest, come to terms with what I’ve just done, and work out some plan for the future. A future for my child.

The carriage at last comes to a halt beside the porch. A woman appears. I take in the formidable figure contained in a cream shirtwaist over a dark brown skirt. She’s tall, rangy, with untameable red hair held back from her face in a loose bun.

Foreboding hits me, a sudden gust, and I catch my breath. If I had harboured from my childhood an image of old Mrs McTavish the witch, this would be it, although the woman isn’t old. Probably not much older than me. But you don’t need to be old to be a witch.

Who is she? Mr McCleod made no mention of any wild-haired woman in his letter. I was anticipating housekeeping for the gentleman himself and no one else. Perhaps she’s a visitor. Although she doesn’t have the manner of a visitor. The woman stands on the porch with her arms braced across her chest, watching the coachmen unload the carriage.

One of them comes and opens the carriage door. I ease myself out of my seat and step down, turning back for Susan. Then I take her hand, inhale deeply, and set off across the gravel.

On our approach, the woman stares without even the hint of a smile. I can sense Susan tense, her grip on my hand tightening. The moment my feet touch the stone of the porch, the woman hurries inside. As Susan and I trail behind her, my legs grow leaden. All of my instincts are screaming at me not to cross the threshold. Then a voice within tells me not to succumb to silly fears based on childhood fantasies. Not when the other fear is all too real, the fear of what lies back in Hampshire.

‘You must be Mrs Barker,’ the woman says as we enter a wood-panelled hall that smells faintly of pipe tobacco.

She stops unexpectedly. Not wanting to collide with her, I’m forced to take a backwards step. I can scarcely bring myself to look into her large, strong-featured face.

‘Ingrid, isn’t it? You’re a lot younger than I imagined but I suppose you’ll do.’ The woman pauses before adding, ‘And this is?’

‘Susan,’ I say hesitantly, unable to make any sense of the situation. I feel myself blushing. ‘I told Mr McCleod I had a daughter.’

Perhaps the mention of my employer would cause this woman to reveal who she is. Instead, she shrugs and says, ‘You did? News to me. Then she will have to do as well. Come on through.’

She ushers us into a large drawing room where a fire blazes in the grate, a fire that does nothing to alleviate the dank, musty atmosphere.

‘Wait here.’

And she leaves without introducing herself.

How peculiar. Never have I come across a woman such as she. Not rude, exactly, but certainly abrupt. Perhaps all the way out here people forget their manners. Or she’s preoccupied. Anything is possible, but I can’t help taking a strong dislike to whoever this woman is. I hope I never have to come across her again. Perhaps that carriage will take her away.

I smooth down my skirt again and adjust my shirtwaist. Susan huddles against me and I straighten her plaits. We’re not too the worse for wear considering how far we have travelled. Still, first impressions matter.

The room we are in is imposing with its dark and heavy furniture, the walls adorned with portraits of stern men, their beady eyes the sort that judge your every move unfavourably. Despite its ferocity, the fire isn’t generating much warmth and I struggle to repress a shiver. In front of the fire are two plush red sofas facing each other across a Persian rug. They look comfortable but I dare not sit down as I haven’t been invited. On closer inspection, the fabric is worn and threadbare in places. On the rug, I notice a faded brown stain bleeding out from a swirl of roses and disappearing beneath the far sofa. In all, this has to be the most miserable room I have ever stood in. I can only hope the rest of the house is not like this or I really shan’t be able to stay here.

‘Why are we here, Mummy?’

I don’t answer. I’ve already explained to Susan that we are starting a new life, and that it is going to be a grand adventure. Although that promise now seems doubtful.

‘I don’t like it here,’ Susan adds, with a soft tug of my arm.

‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘I want to go home.’

‘Hush.’

I anticipate whining but Susan relents. She’s seven years old. A good girl, bright and inquisitive. She enjoys a rich imagination, too, the ragdoll she clutches under one arm – Mrs Sally Partridge, or Old Sal as Susan calls her – her singular companion; Susan never goes anywhere without her.

A door slams somewhere in the house, and then I hear footsteps, slow and heavy, approaching out in the hall. I direct my gaze at the door. The hinges squeak as the door swings open and in strides an elderly man sporting a head of thick white hair and matching moustache. He brings with him into the room an unpleasant whiff of stale whisky and pipe tobacco.

Are my worst fears to be realised?

I note the shabby dark-brown suit, the open jacket revealing a matching waistcoat – buttons straining about the midriff – and a plain shirt. The shirt is a touch worn about the collar. He has the same look and the same brusque manner as the woman who showed us inside. His daughter? Perhaps she’s visiting. Although, going by that earlier exchange, more likely she’s a fixture.

He stands before us, a little too close. His voice booms when he speaks. ‘Mrs Barker, forgive my tardiness. Lame horse. Glad Gertrude saw you in. Welcome to Strathbairn. How was the journey?’

‘Pleasant enough, sir.’

‘Very good.’

He pauses and drinks me in, his gaze sliding down to my daughter. I grow ever more uncomfortable. Then a smile breaks out on his face and he greets Susan warmly, drawing even closer and stooping to shake her hand. She’s coy when she offers hers up. There’s a cordial handshake.

‘Will you be wanting to practise your scales, young miss?’ He gestures at the piano behind one of the sofas.

Susan nods, shyly.

Satisfied, he straightens.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from my new employer, but he cuts the meeting short with, ‘I’ll get Cook to show you how things work.’

On his way out of the room he tugs the bell pull and I hear a distant ring.

More footsteps, light and hurried this time, and the cook soon appears. I was hoping to encounter an ally, but this woman isn’t the wholesome, rosy-cheeked cook I imagined. She is short, stocky and wide-hipped, and her face has not one reassuring feature. It’s a face dominated by a thin, down-turned mouth grown accustomed to many moments of disapproval. Stern lines are carved in the flesh at the fringes of her deep-set eyes. Yet she manages a smile which is pleasant enough. And appearances can be deceptive.

She takes us both in with a sweeping gaze and without any preface she says, ‘Mrs Barker, I’m Ethel. Mrs Ethel Turner. You’ll be needing tea. And the little one some cordial, I don’t doubt. Come with me.’

We leave the room and walk through the hall, heading along a passage beside the stairs. The passage makes a turn to the right at the end. From there, we head down a short flight of stone steps into a gratifyingly warm kitchen. As she goes over to the stove, Ethel gestures at the table centred in the room and I sit Susan down and take up the chair beside her. Susan places Old Sal on her lap. Ethel busies herself with cups and saucers. I observe her movements, which are lithe for a woman of her age and stature. She looks about fifty. Certainly old enough to be my mother, I think with an unexpected twinge of sadness.

As she waits for the kettle to boil, Ethel doesn’t speak. She doesn’t even look at me. That makes three people with an odd manner I’ve met in a very short space of time. We’ve been here not half an hour and already, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something desperately wrong with this place.

I look around. The room is spotless and fashioned as I anticipated, with the stove tucked in a wide fireplace where once an open fire would have been. Beside the stove stands a tall, functional dresser. Beneath the window, two porcelain sinks are set in a long wooden bench. On the wall behind me is another, smaller and prettier dresser replete with a plate rack. The walls are tiled and the floor is slate. The kitchen is almost identical to the one my mother had when I was growing up. Only, in this kitchen, there are no singing hinnies on the girdle. No sweet and spicy smells coming from the oven. No cosy cook popping treats into my mouth. Instead, the room oozes an austere, almost sterile atmosphere as though the cosy kitchen feel that should be present here and is missing has not been replaced by anything else.

Once Ethel has placed the teapot on the table, she goes and fetches a cake tin from the adjoining pantry, opening the lid as she sets the tin down, not bothering to arrange the biscuits on a plate. Shortbread? Seeing me hesitate, Ethel pours the tea into three teacups and places a biscuit on each saucer.

‘We don’t stand on ceremony down here, lovey.’

Ethel seems to have forgotten about the cordial. Susan looks up at me inquiringly. I nudge her gently under the table and she sits forward and picks up her biscuit.

I’m anticipating some sort of introduction to my duties, a sense of how things work in the house, or don’t work, as clearly something is amiss with the running of the place if my reception is anything to go by. But there’s to be none of that. Ethel takes a gulp of her tea and says, ‘What brings you all the way up here?’

I’m ill-prepared for such a direct and rather rude question and scramble for an adequate reply.

‘Edward, that’s my husband, he, he… had an accident.’

I blush at the lie and look away in shame, hoping Susan has enough sense not to react. Thankfully, she’s too engrossed introducing Old Sal to her tea and biscuit to pay any attention.

And my remark has the desired effect.

‘A widow, then,’ Ethel says, in a tone that suggests she knows what that’s like.

All I can manage in response is a shy nod. Ethel doesn’t probe further. A silence descends as we concentrate on our cups.

The tea is hot and strong, the biscuit hard, burnt, and a little salty. Only a nagging hunger and parched mouth see both Susan and I make the effort to consume the fare.

Although we don’t get far. I’ve only drunk four mouthfuls when a commotion upstairs causes us all to gaze over at the doorway through which we had entered. At first, I can’t make anything of the babble of voices echoing in the hall. Then one voice rises above the others, a voice I recognise as Mr McCleod’s.

‘What the blazes is going on?’ he roars.

‘He’s back.’ That sounds like Gertrude.

‘Back? What do you mean, back?’

‘Precisely that. Take a look for yourself.’

There is a long moment in which nothing is said. When the talking resumes, it’s conducted in low voices. In the kitchen, we wait, Ethel with considerable anticipation.

When the woman, Gertrude, says, ‘Hello, Miles,’ Ethel’s jaw drops. ‘Good Lord,’ she mutters.

Before I can inquire, Ethel stands up abruptly and sweeps me and Susan up from our chairs with a hand gesture, bustling us through to the rear passage where the housekeeper’s office, scullery, and various storerooms are located, and on up the backstairs. Not standing on ceremony as is clearly her wont, she flings open a door at the end of a short passage, all but shoves us in, and is gone.

CHAPTER TWO

I lean back against the bedroom door and breathe a sigh. What have I gotten myself into?

Susan goes over to the window to look outside. I gaze at her and hope I am doing what is best. She’s a pretty child, standing there in her favourite red dress with its leg of mutton sleeves, a dress that reaches now only to her midcalf. She’s growing fast. Soon, I’ll be letting out the waist.

Somewhere downstairs a door slams. Voices, muffled and indistinct, manage to make their way through the walls and the floor all the way up to this bedroom. Whoever is talking must be standing to the rear of the main hall and they are talking loudly. The return of this Miles is causing quite a ruckus. I remind myself that whatever is going on out there doesn’t concern me and there’s nothing to be done other than ignore it. But the commotion only adds to my mounting misgivings about this place.

I pay attention to my surroundings. Susan has the room adjoining this one, a room that might once have served as a small sitting room. My room is adequately furnished with a wardrobe, tallboy, dressing table, and a console table supporting a large pitcher of water standing in a bowl. The furniture is old and in less than perfect condition, and nothing like the sort I enjoyed back in Hampshire. Beside the bed, a small armchair takes up the corner by the window. Opposite the bed, a coal fire glows. The relatively low ceiling makes for greater warmth, but that lack of height is also a reminder of my current circumstances, my decline. I tell myself that it was either this or Edward and his malice, and my desire to live and live freely outweighs any shame. Now I am here, I shall just have to get used to my new and lowly position in life. I can see no alternative. Besides, who knows what the future might bring.

As though to help shore up my mood, the sun breaks through the clouds and bursts into the room, making colours brighter and polished wood glint. I know now that the room faces west, for it must be mid-afternoon. I join Susan by the window and wrap a reassuring arm around her shoulder.

The small servant’s wing runs at right angles to the main house. Beyond the yard and the barn below, I note the ragged skyline of the mountains. To my left, the bog is hidden by the roof of the main house. I recall that patch of mist that gathered and swirled and rose up and then vanished. And I’m glad I have no view of the bog from up here.

I take in what I can see of the valley, the upper reaches, wooded, then the snow-dusted crags. Secreted away in this embrace of land, the house might be remote but it does offer protection. No one will find us here. I must take comfort in that.

‘Come on.’

We both turn back to the room. My trunk and Susan’s Gladstone bag have been deposited on the floor beside the bed. I kneel down to open the trunk, relieved to see Susan sitting herself down on the edge of my bed with Old Sal, happy to amuse herself. The poor child needs a good night’s sleep.

I set to work, not giving the unpacking much thought, putting item upon item into a drawer, on a coat hanger or on the dressing table. Yet no matter how fast I try to complete the task, as the trunk empties and my worldly possessions settle into their new locations, I fill with an unsettling mix of relief and sadness.

I took what I needed, what I had time to pack up from my old life in Hampshire with Edward and, having deposited it all in the new one, I can’t help feeling nothing of mine rightfully belongs in these drawers and that wardrobe, for they are the furniture of a housekeeper, and I can never be a housekeeper in my heart. I’m not bred to it.

I’ve gone from certainty to uncertainty, from the benefits and expectations of marriage to a terrible unknown. How ever will I get used to this?

In that marriage, I learned to put on a front for the sake of appearances. I can already see that a new kind of front will be required of me here and I need to put on that front quick smart if I’m going to avoid more awkward questions from Ethel and whoever else chooses to inquire.

Thanks to my lack of forethought, I now have to pretend to be a widow. At least feigning bereavement will be easy to manage. People will be less likely to pry. Besides, what else could I possibly have said that wouldn’t have brought that gnawing shame down on my shoulders? Wives don’t walk out on their husbands, especially nice middle-class ladies of good standing. It’s unheard of. I’m not the tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Oh, to be a woman of independent means. To be able to rent somewhere secluded, somewhere I, we, could hide away forever.

As though she was reading my thoughts, Susan comes out with, ‘Mummy, what’s a widow?’

I stiffen, then fill with anguish. ‘Oh, sweetheart. A widow is a woman who has lost her husband.’

Susan looks up at me, wide-eyed. ‘How? You can’t lose a husband. That’s silly.’

‘I mean, he died.’

‘But you said you are a widow. Does that mean Daddy has died?’

I sit down beside her and smooth down her hair, running my fingertips down her plaits. ‘No, no, it doesn’t. It’s just a small fib.’

She pouts. ‘That’s not right. I’m not allowed to fib. Why are you fibbing, Mummy?’

‘Sometimes adults fib to make life easier. It’s easier if we pretend that I’m a widow, Susan. Think of it as a game.’

‘A game?’

‘A peculiar sort of game, I admit. We are just pretending that he’s passed away. In the same way we know Father Christmas isn’t real but we pretend he is. It’s just make-believe, that’s all. But Susan, it’s important we don’t talk about Daddy, all right? I could lose my position here. If they find out I have a husband, they won’t employ me. No one would.’

Susan presses Old Sal’s face to her ear. I wait. Then she looks up at me and says, ‘Old Sal says we could go back to Daddy.’

I cringe inwardly at the thought as I come up with a reply.

‘Please tell Old Sal that if we did that, we would be missing out on this grand adventure.’

She falls silent. I watch her closely.

‘Will you promise me you’ll keep to our game of make-believe?’

She meets my gaze with puzzlement but also cooperation. She has a quick word with Old Sal.

‘I promise.’

I can only hope she keeps that promise.

I take the Gladstone bag to the other room, noting as I cross the floor that the rugs are thin. Through them, my footsteps manage to echo a little on the floorboards.

Susan’s room is smaller, and prettier. A posy of dried flowers sits on the dressing table. A small pile of jigsaw puzzles and games has been left on the side. Her bed sports a pink bedspread. They are thoughtful touches, and I let a little optimism seep into my bones. Gertrude might not have known about Susan but the staff clearly did.

Susan enters the room behind me. I let her explore her furniture and new toys while I deal with her bag. When she’s done with her little inspection, she sits Old Sal on the windowsill and points out what she can see. The trees. The mountains. The snow. The barn.

‘It’s going to be just fine here, Old Sal. You’ll see.’

The sun brightens the room again in agreement.

It doesn’t take long to unpack. When I think of the clothes and books and toys I had to leave behind, my heart squeezes in my chest.

With everything in its new location in the rooms, leaving Susan and Old Sal to chatter to each other, I sit down in the chair beside my bed and take stock.

Mr McCleod indicated in his letter that my duties would be those of housekeeper and nothing more. It was the lowest station I was prepared to accept. Anything else would be beneath me. Even staying with Edward would be better than working in a scullery. Mr McCleod told me that I would keep the accounts, order goods and pay the bills, and supervise the cook and maid with all the usual attention paid to cleanliness and punctuality. I would be checking the linen, and making sure