When the Dawn Breaks

by Emma Fraser

  What had he said? Something about finding Charles dead. Or had she dreamed it?

  ‘You’ve been ill for two weeks and you’ll be off your feet for a while longer, I’m afraid,’ Isabel said. She looked exhausted, almost as if she, too, were ill. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you two alone.’

  When Isabel had left, Jessie turned to Archie. He was grey with fatigue. ‘How is it that you’re here?’ she asked.

  ‘Isabel sent for me.’

  ‘You came all this way just to see me?’

  ‘I’d walk across the Atlantic, Jess, if I had to.’

  ‘Have I really been ill for two weeks?’

  ‘You have. You were very sick.’

  ‘And you’ve been with me all that time?’

  ‘It took me three days to get here after Isabel telegraphed me, but I’ve been here for ten days now.’

  ‘What about your work in Paris?’

  ‘Do you think I could stay away? Anyway, they need ambulance drivers here as much as they do in Paris, if not more. The American Hospital is so swamped with volunteers they’ve set up a rotation system. Three months’ duty at a time.’ He half smiled. ‘So I’m going to stay here for the next six months. The Serbs need people to retrieve their wounded from the battlefield and, understandably, they don’t want to use women.’

  If Jessie had had more energy she would have argued with him. So far, the women had done as well – if not better – as any male unit. But she had something else on her mind. Something that couldn’t wait.

  ‘Archie, when I was ill I thought you said something strange.’ She licked her dry lips. ‘You said when you found Lord Maxwell he was dead. What did you mean?’

  Archie leaned back in his chair and pulled a hand through his thick hair. ‘I thought you were going to die, Jessie. Forget what I said.’

  ‘I can’t, Archie. I don’t want to forget. You have to tell me the truth this time. Please.’

  Archie stood up and started pacing the small room. There wasn’t far for him to move as there was barely enough room for Jessie’s bed and the bedside table, but that didn’t stop him doing a passable impression of a bear in a cage she had once seen in the Grassmarket.

  ‘You should know that I couldn’t let you leave this world thinking your brother a murderer. You should also know that Isabel saved your life. She’s spent every hour she could tending you. If I’m to tell you what happened, you must promise me on the souls of those you’ve loved that you’ll never repeat what I tell you.’

  Jessie nodded, too weak to respond.

  ‘I did fight with Maxwell – that much is true. He was out riding. I suspect now that he was on the look-out for Isabel. He saw us kiss.’ He closed his eyes, as if thinking back. ‘It was a quick kiss, two friends saying goodbye for the last time.’

  Jessie doubted that but held her tongue.

  ‘When Isabel and I parted, he rode towards me and said something about her that no man should say of a woman. I pulled him from his horse and punched him. He didn’t put up much of a fight. As Dad used to say, cowards and bullies back down easily when challenged. But he’d been drinking and there was a wildness in his eyes. When I saw him ride off in Isabel’s direction, I followed.’

  ‘He was mounted and I was on foot, so even though I ran, I was well behind him. Then I heard a scream. A few moments later, Isabel appeared from one of the copses – the one near the cliff. She was running as if the devil himself was behind her. I had to get to Maxwell to stop him following her.’ He took a deep, shuddering breath.

  ‘And you found him.’

  ‘Yes. He was lying on the ground. At first I thought he’d passed out, but when I got closer his eyes were open and staring. There was a bloodied rock next to his head and a piece of white petticoat still in his hand. That was when I knew that Charles had attacked Isabel and she had killed him.’

  Bile rushed to her throat. Whatever she had thought, in all her imaginings she had never suspected this. ‘Isabel? All this time it was her? How could she lie about it, knowing you were suspected?’

  ‘Because she doesn’t know she killed him – and she must never find out. When I saw her, she was running as if she expected him to appear at any moment. She did admit that Charles attacked her when I saw her in Paris. I’d stake my life she had no idea and still doesn’t.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I stayed by the body, thinking. I knew it was possible that Isabel would report the attack – if not to the police then to her father. They would look for Charles, and when they found him, she would be accused of his murder.’

  ‘But if she had killed him, it had to be in self-defence. Could they blame her?’

  ‘I couldn’t take the risk. At the very least there would have been a trial. Even if she wasn’t found guilty, she would have been ruined.

  ‘I waited until dark and then I buried him. I buried the rock and the piece of petticoat separately. His horse was still tied to a tree so I let it loose and sent it on its way. I hoped people would believe that it had thrown him over the cliff. Then I went home.’

  ‘Why didn’t you throw his body into the sea? No one would’ve suspected her then.’

  ‘I couldn’t. If I carried his body from the copse anyone might have seen. It was still light.’

  He was right. Out of the shelter of the trees, a person could be seen for miles.

  ‘Later that night Flora McPhee came to the door. She told me and Mam that she’d seen me fight with Maxwell and that she’d told her dad. When they’d heard that his lordship was missing, Lachie said he’d go to the earl and tell him what Flora had said. He’d had no love for our family since Dad had threatened him with the police if he didn’t stop hitting his wife. He was too drunk to go that night, but Flora knew he would as soon as he was sober.’

  ‘But you ran away. The police would have had only Lachie McPhee’s word that you’d been there. Everyone knew he was a drunk and, besides, if anyone had a grudge against Charles Maxwell it was him. It was his daughter his lordship had disgraced.’

  ‘Don’t you see, Jessie? I couldn’t let him take the blame either. If I’d done that, I’d have no self-respect or honour.’ He shook his head. ‘No, the only way I could defend myself was to tell the police that he’d attacked Isabel. And in burying the body I’d made it worse for her. Now they’d never believe that his death was an accident. Don’t you see? At best they’d think I’d killed him because of her, and at worst they’d decide she’d helped me hide the body. Either way, her life would be over. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Not for a man like him. The only thing I could do was leave.’

  It explained everything – Archie’s evasiveness, the feeling she’d had about Isabel too.

  ‘Did Mam know?’

  ‘She was there when Flora came to the house. She agreed it was best for me to go.’

  Jessie’s head was aching. Isabel had killed Lord Maxwell and her idiot brother had diverted any suspicion that might fall on her to himself. If the police found him and he was brought to trial, he would certainly hang.

  ‘You must have loved her very much,’ she said.

  ‘Yes – and, God help me, I love her even more now.’

  For the next few days, Jessie drifted in and out of sleep. Sometimes her dreams were filled with men’s corpses, looking up at her with pleading, empty eyes, and she would start awake, her heart thudding until soothing hands shushed her back to sleep. At others her dreams were of Seamus and Tommy, the three of them at their home in Leith. Seamus would be playing on the floor while she sat on Tommy’s lap, happy and content. Waking from that dream was worse than the others.

  The periods she spent awake grew longer: she saw less of Isabel and Archie, and more of Evans who attended to her every need. When she was alone, she thought of what Archie had told her.

  Isabel had killed Charles Maxwell. The woman her brother loved would, if her secret was ever revealed, be tried with him for murder. What would she have done had she bee
n in Isabel’s position? It was an easy question to answer. She would have fought. She would have done whatever was necessary to save herself. How could she blame Isabel?

  But it was Archie whose life was in danger. If he were ever arrested, would Isabel come forward and speak for him? And if she did, what then? Even if the court believed Archie’s story, Isabel might be arrested and face death. Even if she were found innocent, her reputation and that of her family would be destroyed. But what of the reputation of Jessie’s family? Did that not count? She was the daughter of a Martyr of Glendale, and Archie was his son. At one time they had been as highly regarded in their community as Isabel and her family were in theirs. Now people would turn away from them, and her parents’ memory would be stained.

  Her thoughts whirled, giving her no peace, always coming back to one immutable fact: she had promised Archie on the soul of her dead son. To break that promise was unthinkable. Archie was safe, as long as no one found out who he truly was. He had made a new life for himself in America – a good life, by all accounts. There was nothing to be gained from telling anyone what she knew, so Isabel would continue to lead her charmed life, unhindered by the knowledge that she had killed someone and left another to take the blame.

  Would Archie have behaved honourably if he had exposed Isabel to save his own skin? No. Their father had believed a man’s honour was the most important thing he had. It was the only thing that no one could take from him. He, too, would have risked his life to save the woman he loved.

  How, then, could she blame Archie? She wished only that he had never set eyes on the doctor’s daughter.

  Chapter 42

  Isabel was in the hall drinking tea when Archie walked in.

  When Jessie had first fallen ill, she had wondered if she’d pull through. She’d written to Archie immediately and hadn’t been surprised when he’d turned up a few days later. To her dismay, as soon as she’d seen him, still crumpled from his travels and frantic about his sister, her heart had done something complicated inside her chest.

  He, on the other hand, had barely looked at her.

  Seeing him every day had been strange … and disturbing. Now she knew what Maud had meant about feeling as if someone had lit a candle in her heart. This beastly war. It made everything so much more intense. She couldn’t fall in love with Archie. Whatever Maud had said about the war changing everything, a marriage between them was still impossible, and not just because of the difference in their stations. When the war was over, she’d return to her life and he to America.

  ‘How did you find Jessie today?’ she asked.

  ‘I suspect she’ll be back on the wards before long.’

  ‘She’s strong and determined,’ Isabel agreed.

  ‘Will you walk with me?’ Archie’s voice appeared to be coming from a long way off. ‘I’ve a few minutes to spare before I have to get back to the field hospital.’

  Isabel was so tired she didn’t know if she could speak, let alone walk, but she couldn’t say no. She wanted to be with him for as much time as they had left. ‘Of course,’ she said, rising to her feet.

  They walked through the town in silence, following the road as it rose towards the hills.

  ‘Thank you,’ Archie said.

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘For what?’

  ‘Caring for Jessie. Letting me know she was ill.’

  ‘It’s what I do, Archie.’

  ‘You didn’t have to nurse her yourself.’

  ‘I wanted to.’

  He placed a hand under her elbow as she stumbled on a loose rock. His touch made her tremble.

  ‘When will you go?’ she asked. She didn’t want him to.

  ‘As I told Jessie, I’m not leaving. I can work for the American Red Cross in Belgrade as easily as I can in France. Besides,’ he smiled grimly, ‘the Serbs need help more than anyone and I’ve always had a weakness for a hopeless cause.’

  When he sent her a sideways look she knew he was referring to the day he’d asked to court her. Her heart thumped hard against her ribs. Did he still care for her?

  ‘I want to be near Jessie,’ he continued. ‘I lost her once and came close to losing her again. I’m all she has now.’

  And me? Isabel wanted to ask. Do you want to be near me? The sun was high in the sky turning the hills blue. ‘Do you ever think of Skye?’ she asked.

  ‘Often.’

  ‘Do you regret that you’ll never return?’

  Archie stopped and looked down the valley. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘Scotland wasn’t kind to me. America is my home now.’

  ‘What about Jessie? The war won’t last for ever.’

  ‘I hope she’ll come to America when the war’s over. She can be a nurse there.’ He turned to her. ‘You must be tired. Shall we sit for a while?’

  When she nodded, he shrugged out of his jacket and placed it on a rock with a flat top. They sat side by side, Isabel unbearably conscious of his leg against hers. Although she knew she should move away, she stayed where she was. Perhaps it was because of the heat, perhaps it was because she was tired, but all of a sudden she felt like crying.

  ‘What will you do after the war is over?’ Archie asked.

  ‘I’ll continue as a doctor. I might even find a position as a surgeon in a hospital. It’s what I’ve always wanted.’

  He gave her a searching look. ‘You’ve changed.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘You’re softer. Less sure of yourself. More like the woman I hoped you’d be.’

  ‘In what way?’ At one time his words would have offended her, but now she was curious to know what he meant.

  ‘Do you remember that day we met on the moors?’ he asked.

  ‘As if it were yesterday.’ Although she barely remembered the girl she’d once been. The girl who had thought life was hers for the taking.

  ‘I’d never met anyone like you,’ he said. ‘You looked at me as if I were some sort of strange animal you hadn’t seen before.’ He touched the tip of her nose. ‘I don’t know how you managed to look up at me, yet down at the same time.’

  She burned with shame. She had thought him forward when he’d fallen into step beside her, because she was the doctor’s daughter and he a crofter’s son, yet it hadn’t been long before she’d found herself seeking him out. She remembered the easy way he had held himself, despite his bare feet and darned clothes. ‘I thought you were wonderful,’ she admitted, ‘so real, so much part of the world in a way I wanted to be.’

  ‘You thought me wonderful, but not fit to court you.’ His voice was flat. ‘I hoped that the Isabel I thought I knew would have the courage not to care what society thought.’

  ‘It was when I ignored the rules that I found myself in trouble,’ she reminded him quietly.

  The memory of Charles’s hands on her flesh rushed back and she shuddered. There was little to be gained in remembering that day and even less by longing for what could never be.

  She rose to her feet. ‘We should go. I’m due back on the wards soon.’

  Archie stood too and gripped her shoulders. ‘You can trust me never to hurt you, Isabel. Do you not know that? There’s nothing you could do or say that will change how I feel about you.’

  His words should have surprised her, but they didn’t. She could see his love for her in his eyes. She wished she was stronger, that she could let herself love him back.

  ‘Don’t, Archie,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t love me. I can bring you only pain.’

  Chapter 43

  As soon as she was back on her feet, Jessie returned to work. She had kept her promise to say nothing of what Archie had told her to anyone but, certain that Isabel would see the knowledge of what she’d learned in her eyes, she tried to keep away from her as much as was possible in this strange life where they were all thrown together.

  The summer days continued to pass with little activity on the front line.

  Every day one of the staff would make a trip into town and come back
loaded with pastries, and almost every night, before going to bed, they would gather in the sitting room for tea and cake. The women would chat about the lives they’d left behind and Jessie would listen, fascinated. How could anyone fill their days with nothing but balls and dances, dinners, museums and helping with the village fête?

  If they weren’t busy, neither was Archie. Twice a week he would collect her and as many others of the staff who were off duty in one of the vehicles at his disposal and take them out into the countryside for a picnic. Sometimes he would come alone, at others with another ambulance driver or one of the young doctors from the Red Cross unit. Often he’d bring a letter for Maud from her Serbian. Maud had confided that when the war was over they intended to marry.

  Jessie noticed that Isabel would never join the others in their plea to be taken to the lake or to the nearest town. Instead she would hang back, with a wistful expression on her face. Maud and Evans often formed part of the group and they would try to coax her to come with them, but she would say she had letters to write or laundry to do. Jessie suspected she was avoiding Archie, and she was glad. But if Archie noticed, he seemed not to care. Perhaps, at last, he’d stopped thinking about her. There were, after all, plenty of others in Kragujevatz who were happy to spend time in his company.

  As summer turned to autumn, when everyone was restless because they hadn’t enough to do, the fighting became fiercer and news filtered through that the Germans were expected to take back Belgrade. Dr Inglis had returned and, once more, the women were called together.

  ‘We’ve been invited to set up a field hospital in Mladanovatz,’ she said. ‘It’s closer to the front line than we are here but the renewed fighting means our services are needed there more than ever. As before, I ask for volunteers.’

  Isabel’s hand was the first to go up and Dr Bradshaw smiled at her. ‘Dr MacKenzie, I was hoping you would volunteer. We need a surgeon.’

  Dr Lightfoot raised her hand too, but this time the MO shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor, but work nearer the front is more suited to the young.’