A Breath of Autumn

by Lillian Beckwith

  A few days after they had made their vows in front of the minister she had said goodbye to Islay and the city and had accompanied Ruari by train and boat to Westisle, an island which proved to be even more solitary than the one where she had been born and had spent her childhood. And here she was sitting in her own kitchen, in her own house; now the laird and sole proprietor of the island.

  Despite its many inconveniences, she had grown to love her island home, cherishing its seclusion, its wild beauty, its tranquillity and its wildlife. Now the letter she had received that evening gave a possible forewarning of encroachment on her contentment. But, after a few minutes’ reflection, she recalled how much she had liked the young couple; how much Wee Ruari, her small son, had taken to them; how pleasant relations had been when a gale had wrecked their tent and they had been forced to accept the hospitality of her home. There had been no sign of discord then and indeed she had actually been looking forward to their setting up camp again on the island in the coming spring. But a more permanent arrangement? Could she agree to their request? Her mind was clouded with doubt. She would need to discuss the matter with ‘the boys’, of course, but she realised she would have liked the opinion of someone nearer her own age. The only person would be Mhairi Jane who lived in Clachan across the Sound. After she had been widowed, Mhairi Jane had become her staunch friend and self-appointed advisor, but recalling her repeated warnings against being alone on the island Kirsty had no doubt as to what the advice would be.

  ‘I’ve always said you were a right hardy to have come to Westisle in the first place though you had two good men to see you were alright but mho ghaoil, it’s not a good thing for a woman to be alone and living with herself,’ Mhairi Jane had warned. When Kirsty had pointed out to her that she was not alone for much of the time since the ‘two boys’ were not out fishing at weekends Mhairi Jane had said, ‘What I’m saying is it’s not a good thing for a woman to be living day after day by herself; she might get to like it. You could do with some company mho ghoaoil. Why don’t you try putting an advertisement in a paper saying you’d provide bed and breakfast for touries?’

  Kirsty had shuddered mentally.

  ‘What, on Westisle!’ she’d demanded. ‘Bed and breakfast could lead to their being stranded by the weather for a week or more. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to be washing sheets day after day.’

  ‘Only pillow slips,’ Mhairi Jane had argued. ‘You’d not be getting tinkers or layabouts here so you’d need only to put the sheets through the mangle just. Kate na Viarry here reckons sheets need to be tubbed no more than once a week no matter how many folks has been sleeping in them.’ Seeing Kirsty’s raised eyebrows, she’d lapsed into silence for a moment but had then gone on to say earnestly, ‘Indeed mho ghaoil I wouldn’t want to see you get like old Phemie Mor on Rhuna that got so fond of bein’ on her own after her father had been taken suddenly she didn’t wish to see anyone just. Not even one of her own kinsfolk. I’m after telling you she would take to the hills and hide herself rather than she would face a single body. The nurse tried to talk her out of it and so did the doctor but she just threw old boots at them when they came near her door. There was no doin’ any good for her at all.’

  ‘Poor soul,’ Kirsty had commented under her breath.

  ‘It was a poor soul indeed that was found by Murdoch the shepherd in one of the old bothies up the glen, cold and dead under a pile of bracken and old straw, and none the wiser was she for that,’ Mhairi Jane had concluded enigmatically.

  ‘Well, if I ever get to the state of hiding away from folks and throwing old boots at them, I could trust “the boys” would soon enough be teasing me out of it,’ Kirsty had responded, slanting a mischievous smile at her, but Mhairi Jane had persisted.

  ‘You could maybe break one of your legs out on the moor while they were at sea and no way of letting a body know save for a bit of smoke if you could even light a fire and supposin’ the wind was in the right direction.’

  ‘Oh, I daresay I’d manage to crawl back one way or another,’ Kirsty had assured her dismissively but there had been no convincing Mhairi Jane that she had no fears about being alone on the island; she might have fears for her son but he would be away at school for much of the time and she was certain she could protect him when he was home. But she knew beyond doubt what Mhairi Jane’s advice would be were she to mention the young couple’s proposal.

  It was in much the same way that ‘the boys’ reacted when she told them. ‘Give them permission,’ Jamie said immediately. ‘It’ll be company for you.’ Euan Ally nodded agreement.

  ‘But I’m not sure if I want company too often,’ she retorted. ‘Chance visitors I like to see but not long stayers.’

  ‘Now that Wee Ruari’s started school you’ll get to feel lonely in the winter,’ Jamie reminded her. ‘You’ll be missing him during the long evenings.’

  ‘That’s different,’ she objected, but he ignored her.

  Euan Ally had gone outside and was busy cleaning the rabbits they’d brought back with them when Jamie said, ‘Euan Ally will be taking a couple of rabbits across to his sweetheart and he’d like fine to bring her over to see the island when he comes back, so I’ll wait across there during the day and bring Wee Ruari back with me too. There’d be a bed for her for Saturday night and Sunday if she wants to stay just?’

  ‘Of course,’ she agreed, a little sceptical that Euan Ally’s sweetheart might want to spend a weekend on Westisle. Island girls were generally opposed to spending time on even smaller islands unless there was some prospect of meeting some man of allowable age and eligibility.

  Jamie yawned. ‘I’ll take myself off to my bed then,’ he said. ‘I’m kind of tired.’

  ‘You’ll be here for your porridge in the morning?’ she called after him.

  ‘Aye, but we’ll be away as soon as we’ve taken it. Euan Ally’s likely to want to make haste so his sweetheart’s father hasn’t got time to give her a message to go some place that’ll keep her out of sight.’

  ‘Doesn’t the bodach approve of Euan Ally then?’

  ‘No, he does not. He doesn’t want to lose his daughter to a young man who might take her away from the croft.’

  She would have liked to question him further but he was obviously tired. A few minutes later, Euan Ally came into the kitchen wiping his hands on a bundle of grass which he then threw outside. ‘They’re nice plump beasties,’ he told her. ‘I’ve hung a couple in the scullery and I’ll take the others across to the old bodach in the morning. That’ll please him maybe.’

  ‘Oidche mhath,’ he called as, taking off his boots, he went through to his bedroom.

  ‘Oidche mhath,’ Kirsty replied and, after warming a mug of milk, took herself to her own room.

  Chapter Five

  She was up and had a pan of porridge set beside the fire before either of ‘the boys’ appeared.

  ‘Here’s me thinking you would be up with the birds this morning,’ she greeted them.

  ‘Ach, it’s a spring tide; there’s no need to be rushing,’ said Jamie, ladling porridge from the pan.

  ‘Any haste will be this evening so as not to get caught by the tide on the way back,’ added Euan Ally.

  ‘You’ll make sure and collect Wee Ruari from school when you come,’ she reminded them.

  Jamie flicked her a teasing glance of reproof. ‘I doubt he’d let us forget him,’ he quipped.

  As soon as they left the house she went through to her bedroom to make it ready for Euan Ally’s sweetheart. Not until that moment did it dawn on her that she hadn’t asked for the lassie’s name. She realised she would be giving up her bed to a girl who was more or less a stranger. When Jamie had asked if there would be a bed for Euan Ally’s sweetheart over the weekend her reply had been an automatic ‘of course’, her island upbringing having imbued in her a natural acceptance that there would always be food and a resting place for a stranger. She had thought at the time that she could make herself comfortable on the be
nch in the kitchen for a couple of nights but now, steeling herself to the knowledge that a few steps along the passage there was an empty room with an empty bed that no one had slept in since her husband had died, she resolutely took the linen from her own bed, made her way there and unlatched the door. Though she had regularly given the room a cursory cleaning she had made herself do it in a deliberately incurious way as if to avoid coming to terms with her grief. Now, however, as her eyes raked the stripped bed, the neatly folded pile of covers the nurse had placed at the foot, and her husband’s Bible, which with his spectacles, lay on the table beside the bed, the poignancy of the scene threatened to engulf her. She sat down heavily on the bed, her head in her hands, her eyes closed while a résumé of her life during the last ten years passed through her mind.

  She had never known love, nor had she experienced the excitement of a youthful infatuation. Her first brief marriage at the age of nearly forty had been the result of circumstances and the gentle acceptance of each other by a man and a woman; an acceptance which, fortunately, had developed into similarly gentle affection. Though his sudden death had distressed her it had by no means crushed her.

  Tragically, during her second marriage, the knowledge of love, perhaps even passion, had remained undiscovered until it had been too late. The shock of her second husband’s confession of his love for her only minutes before his last breath, and the revelation of her own love for him had dazed her, leaving her feeling anguished and bereft. The anguish was still acute but time had forced her to accept that it must be consigned to memory as an indulgence she must no longer permit herself. When she raised her head there was a drawn expression on her face but there were no tears. After a few moments she rose and began methodically to cover the bed, which she had never shared, with the linen she had taken from her own. She left the Bible on the table, put the spectacles away in a drawer, and after a brief survey closed the door firmly. Returning to her own room, she began putting fresh linen on the bed ready for Euan Ally’s sweetheart.

  She was waiting at the shore to welcome them when The Two Ruaris Jamie had considered it unlucky to change the name of the fishing boat) nosed close enough to the landing rock to put Wee Ruari and Euan Ally’s sweetheart ashore. Wee Ruari leapt forward eagerly and bounded over the rocks with hardly more than a gesture and a twinkling glance towards his mother.

  ‘Ach, that’s the way of it,’ Kirsty excused him, smiling a welcome as she shook hands with Euan Ally’s sweetheart, a plump lassie with an abundance of dark hair. She guided her over the boulders. ‘Racing this way and that way and never stopping for a word between-ways,’ she continued. ‘I hope he’s been good to you while you were on the boat.’

  ‘Oh surely he has indeed,’ was the reply. ‘I’m hearing he’s a fine scholar.’

  ‘Ach, good enough I reckon,’ said Kirsty, gratified. ‘He was always keen enough to learn.’ She led the way to the house. Loath to ask the girl for her name she was hoping she could discover it without a direct question. ‘Is it near the schoolhouse your father has his croft?’ she asked, trying to steer the conversation in a suitable direction.

  ‘No, no, indeed, it is right at the far end of the bay,’ the lassie replied. ‘Close to the “Carrie croft” as it is called.’

  ‘I fear I don’t know the “Carrie croft”,’ Kirsty had to admit. ‘I’ve stayed in Clachan only once or twice and except for the few folk who have come over here in the summer I doubt I would have met many of your neighbours.’

  ‘My father came rabbit shooting last year just, and my brothers Tormod and Uisdean came a few times until they left for Oban for the fishing. I fancied coming but my father said I was too young and I must stay and look after my mother, who was known as Katy Vic the weaver, since she could no longer move from her chair without help.’

  ‘Ach then, you are the daughter of Katy Vic that folks reckon is the best weaver in Clachan,’ exclaimed Kirsty.

  ‘One of her two daughters,’ the lassie admitted proudly. ‘Ealasaid, my older sister, went away to be a maid to a rich old lady. She said to me when she left, “Enac mho ghaoil, you must promise me you’ll stay and look after our mother since I must earn some money and cannot do that here.” So I promised and I stayed beside my mother until she was taken at the back end of last year. So now I must stay and look after my father,’ she finished glumly.

  Kirsty felt easier now that she had learned the lassie’s name. ‘So your mother was the weaver,’ she said. ‘Indeed, I didn’t know she’d passed on.’

  ‘She went without pain,’ Enac acknowledged.

  ‘And do you yourself do any weaving?’ Kirsty asked after a suitable pause.

  ‘Indeed I do but I am not so good as herself.’

  ‘With time, surely you will be,’ Kirsty comforted.

  As they came in sight of the house Enac paused and clasped her hands, exclaiming, ‘This house is fit for a laird right enough.’

  ‘I believe the laird built it for his son but the lad never came back from the war,’ Kirsty confirmed. ‘It must have been a sad blow indeed for him. He gave up his whole estate and went back to England. Save for this island, which he gave to my late husband’s parents in return for their loyal service.’

  ‘I believe he was a good man, although he was English,’ said Enac. ‘I’ve always wanted to see more of the island than I see from Clachan. It looks a friendlier kind of place for having no high hills,’ she went on. ‘Indeed Euan Ally tells me there used to be a settlement of crofters here but they asked the authorities to transfer them to some place where they could earn a better living.’

  ‘I believe that to be true also,’ said Kirsty. ‘The old settlement is over on the west side of the island. Much the nicer side I reckon. I expect Euan Ally will be for showing it to you.’

  They heard voices as ‘the boys’ came up behind them.

  ‘And you never told me your sweetheart was a daughter of Katy Vic the weaver,’ Kirsty accused Euan Ally. ‘I would have been proud to have put on my best skirt that is made of tweed woven by her mother if I had known.’

  Euan Ally grunted an inaudible comment as both he and Enac flushed with embarrassment.

  Jamie put in, ‘Ach, there’ll be plenty more years to show her your best skirt. Katy Vic’s tweed never wears out.’

  As they entered the kitchen they were hailed by Wee Ruari who emerged from the hen-house carrying a basket of eggs. ‘Five,’ he announced. ‘How many this morning?’ he asked his mother.

  ‘Guess,’ she teased but he went to the scullery and counted the eggs in the bowl. ‘Seven,’ he said with an exultant smile. ‘That would be twelve today would it not?’ He always earned a few pence from the sale of eggs so he liked to know that the hens were laying well.

  ‘Indeed, that would be the way of it,’ Kirsty acknowledged. ‘Now go and clean the dirt off your hands before we take our strupak.’ He went outside and dragged his hands through the fresh green grass before offering them for approval.

  After the meal was over and Euan Ally and Enac had gone off to see a little more of the island, Jamie said, ‘Have you been thinking what you’ll say to the couple who wrote to you?’

  ‘It’s hardly been out of my mind all day,’ Kirsty told him. ‘I would not like to leave them too long without a letter.’

  ‘Wait then till I tell you what Euan Ally wishes me to tell you,’ Jamie said.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ she replied. Jamie glanced towards Wee Ruari who seemed to have fallen fast asleep on the bench.

  ‘Euan Ally has no doubt taken Enac to see what she thinks of the old settlement,’ he observed.

  ‘Enac did speak of the old place when we were on the way to the house,’ Kirsty interrupted. ‘Euan Ally had mentioned it to her.’

  ‘Aye, indeed he would have,’ said Jamie. ‘He’s greatly taken with the place and wonders why the folks would want to leave it. Now he and Enac are speaking of getting married he’s keen to know what she would think of him doing up one of the houses and
them living there. He’s been wanting me to ask you if you would think of letting him have a croft thereabouts, big enough for a souming for sheep and one or two cattle and then he could get his Uncle Lachlan Ruag to come over and do up one of the old houses. He reckons it would be handy for the fishing and Enac would set up her mother’s loom and do some weaving. He’s convinced it would work out pretty well for them.’

  ‘Why didn’t he mention this to me himself?’ she asked.

  ‘Ach, you know Euan Ally. He’s gey shy when it comes to talking about anything to do with himself,’ responded Jamie. ‘But when he asks you what would you have to say?’

  There was a moment or two of silence while she considered her answer. ‘What would you say if the question was put to yourself?’ she taxed him.

  ‘Me! I’d be keen enough on the idea but then I know Euan Ally pretty well. What would you say to Enac?’