A Trick of the Light by Ali Carter (surface ebook reader txt) 📕

There must have been something particular in the alcohol tonight: he’d never actually sleepwalked before. But nothing was going to stop him now – this man was on a mission.

Having grown up at Auchen Laggan Tosh, he knew its architecture inside out. So, when in stockinged feet he wandered from the room you could pretty much guarantee his friends in the opposite wing didn’t wake.

But their young child was never at peace in a house that groaned and, as the wind whistled through a rotten sash window, the child lay in bed quivering, eyes shut… listening.

Robert tiptoed around the landing, flicked on the light in a particularly dark corridor, and crept along the floorboards. He creaked open a bedroom door and a shaft of light followed him in. He was totally oblivious to the child in the corner whose heart beat terrified in a little chest.

It’s a fact that when children are frightened very young they don’t tend to tell their mummies and daddies. Not a whisper of the night-time wanderer. Not a hint of the strange mission of this man in a trance, who didn’t have an inkling someone was watching. This only child fell straight into the trap: avoid at all costs being called a fool.

Forty-five years on and what happened that night lies buried. Robert, 9th Earl of Muchton, has passed away aged seventy-seven, leaving behind his wife and their twin sons – Fergus the heir and Ewen the younger.

The house, Auchen Laggan Tosh, boasts the presence of a king…but behind the door the past lingers. Earls in succession have fought, lost and won. Lives have been taken early and others have lived long. Women have been widowed and children died. Money has been made and gambled. The life of a Muchton is a rollercoaster. Good luck, I say, to the current Earl.

Over a humpback bridge I went, the river Trickle below. I knew the name from the ‘literature’ I’d been sent back in January, when the Earl and Countess of Muchton had first asked me to be resident tutor on their Life Drawing and Landscape Painting Course.

Five-day tutored Life Drawing & Landscape Painting Course

Monday 23–Friday 27 March

Run in the wonderful setting of

Auchen Laggan Tosh Estate,

home of Fergus, 10th Earl of Muchton and his wife, Zoe. Standing amidst 12,000 acres of Highland Scotland with an abundance of wildlife, Auchen Laggan Tosh is a Palladian mansion, designed by the architect Robert Adam in 1761. It overlooks the river Trickle and is secluded but not remote, the town of Muchton merely four miles away.

Woo hoo. This invitation could not have come at a better time. I’d been back at home in Sussex after yet another singleton London Christmas with my dear parents Joseph and Marion, and I’d needed something – anything – to put in my diary and perk up the dismal, short, wintry days.

‘You’ve been recommended by our great friend Suzannah Highbridge, you drew her Labrador last summer,’ is how it all began. ‘I’ve visited your website and your talent as a draughtsman and painter would, we feel, fit the concept of the course perfectly.’ The Countess of Muchton wanted me.

A spot of Googling and I’d found a picture of the hosts, gleaned from last August’s Muchton Village Monthly. The Earl and Countess were nice-looking, so the camera reports in the scene of them cuddled up on the stone steps of their pile, liver cocker spaniel sitting at their feet. Fergus’s full head of salt-and-pepper hair and the look of self-assurance on Zoe’s face suggested to me this pair had left their twenties well behind; might even be fast approaching their forties. Now, seven months on, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a baby brewing: almost inevitable that the later a couple commit the quicker a little squealer pops out. Not to mention the enormous house in the background crying out for an heir – someone to continue the custodial chain and keep all those treasures within the family.

I’m an oil painter and pet portraitist by profession, and although I’ve never tutored before, I’ve been to enough classes to know how it’s done. So, almost from the moment the Muchtons’ email pinged into my inbox – ‘We have a small class of eight signed up and we’d be delighted if you fancied making the trip north for the first of what we hope to be repeated courses’ – I was eager to accept. This residency would shake up my routine, introduce me to a new crowd and earn me some much-needed pennies, and – here’s hoping – if I make a success of it there may be further tutoring opportunities to come.

Home, in Sussex, is a heck of a long way from the north of Scotland, and I let out a squeal of relief that I had reached the Muchtons’ drive at last. Bump, bump, bump my car went as I gripped the steering wheel and tried my best to negotiate the divots. It was so dark outside there was no way of seeing the Highland landscape and I could only imagine infinite moorland with a fresh dusting of snow. The flakes, delicate and beautiful in the car headlights, were landing softly on my windscreen and disintegrating before the wipers got their wicked way.

Du-Dump, my car went through one final hole in the I’m-desperately-in-need-of-a-repair drive and I drew on to what felt like gravel. Several outdoor lights flooded the way and I swept in front of the imposing house. Oh jeepers – there’s an almighty drag on my steering wheel – I must have picked up a flat tyre. Never mind. I’ve made it here, no need to worry right now.

I parked a respectful distance from the front steps next to an unbranded minibus and turned the ignition off. Brrrr it’s cold. Better not hang about. So, grabbing my suitcase from the back seat – my art materials could stay in the boot for the time being – I rushed towards two