Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  Table of Contents

  Also by Christine Marion Fraser

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Part One: January 1923

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Part Two: 1928

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part Three: 1929

  Chapter Six

  Part Four: 1933

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part Five: Spring 1934

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Six: Summer 1939

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part Seven: Christmas 1939

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part Eight: 1940

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the same author

  Fiction

  RHANNA AT WAR

  CHILDREN OF RHANNA

  RETURN TO RHANNA

  SONG OF RHANNA

  STORM OVER RHANNA

  STRANGER ON RHANNA

  A RHANNA MYSTERY

  KING’S CROFT

  KING’S ACRE

  KING’S EXILE

  KING’S CLOSE

  KING’S FAREWELL

  NOBLE BEGINNINGS

  NOBLE DEEDS

  Autobiography

  BLUE ABOVE THE CHIMNEYS

  ROSES ROUND THE DOOR

  GREEN ARE MY MOUNTAINS

  About the Author

  Christine Marion Fraser was one of Scotland’s best-selling authors, outselling even Catherine Cookson, with world-wide readership and translations into many foreign languages. She was the author of the much-loved Rhanna series. Second youngest of a large family, she soon learned independence during childhood years spent in the post-war Govan district of Glasgow. Chris lived in Argyll with her husband. She died on 22nd November 2002.

  RHANNA

  Christine Marion Fraser

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 1979 by Fontana

  A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

  This edition published in 2013 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 1979 by Christine Marion Fraser

  The right of Christine Marion Fraser to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 444 76820 6

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  TO KEN, WHO GAVE RHANNA ITS NAME

  PART ONE

  JANUARY 1923

  ONE

  The peat fire flickered in the hearth and the pale halo of light from the oil lamp cast long shadows on the camped ceiling of the room. A young woman lay in the big brass bed. Her face was pale, with beads of perspiration glistening on her forehead. Outside the warm shell of the big farmhouse a low moaning wind found its echo inside the cosy room as a soft groan broke from the lips of the young woman.

  ‘Ach, there now, mo ghaoil,’ soothed Biddy McMillan, bathing the fevered brow for the umpteenth time, and smoothing damp strands of red-gold hair from the pointed little face.

  Wiry greying hair escaped Biddy’s ancient felt hat. She felt tired and old, and her thirty years as midwife on Rhanna had stamped on her countenance the tenderness and toughness that went hand in hand with her calling. She sighed and turned to the young doctor at the foot of the bed.

  ‘What do you think, Lachlan? There’s no more strength in the lass. She was never fit to carry a bairn, never mind give birth!’

  Dr Lachlan McLachlan shook his head, a dark curl falling over a forehead that was also soaked in sweat. He sighed wearily. ‘I don’t know, Biddy. She’s not got the strength to push the bairn into the world. It looks like a forceps delivery. I didn’t want it that way but if the infant isn’t out soon it won’t survive – the foetal heart is getting fainter by the minute. Go and fetch Mirabelle, we’ll need all the help we can. Tell her to bring more hot water and some sheets. There’s going to be much bleeding.’

  Mirabelle, plump and homely, was in the kitchen. In anticipation of the doctor’s needs she was boiling gallons of water on the range and clouds of steam rose from kettles and pans. She turned when Biddy came in and her round pink face was anxious.

  ‘Well, how is the lass?’ she asked curtly. ‘I hope it won’t be much longer for all our sakes. Fergus has been like a demon, with ants in his breeks since the start o’ the pains. He won’t keep from under my feet, asking endless questions about the time a bairn takes to be born. I could skelp his lugs so I could!’

  Biddy ignored the sharp tones, knowing they were born of worry. Mirabelle had kept house at Laigmhor for twenty-six years but the title of housekeeper was a mere formality. She was the heart of the big rambling farmhouse. Without her, Fergus McKenzie and his younger brother Alick would have known a very different life. Since the premature death of their mother, Mirabelle had mothered them and cared for them. Hers was an ample heart out of which love flowed like a stream. It had flowed out to Helen, the girl who now lay upstairs in childbirth. Helen had come to Laigmhor three years before, a surprise to everyone. Fergus McKenzie had gone north on farming business and when he returned he brought Helen whom he had met and married in the short space of two months. Rhanna was amazed that strong-willed Fergus, who never did anything on impulse, should have behaved so untypically, and Malcolm McKenzie, Fergus’s father, was angry and disappointed because he’d had hopes of a sturdy local lass becoming the mistress of Laigmhor.

  Helen was eighteen years old, so small and slim that it seemed impossible that she could make a farmer’s wife. But time proved everyone wrong. Her exuberance for life, coupled with her strength of character, oiled the cogs of Laigmhor so that life there ran more smoothly than ever before. She brought sunshine into the old house and even Malcolm, who had retained an air of dour, hurt silence for a time, eventually blossomed under her warm influence. She made him feel important and wanted, his cantankerous moods gave way to a new zest for life, and if the house was without her cheerful presence for any length of time he complained restlessly till she returned.

  Laigmhor had been without a mistress for so many years that Mirabelle had come to accept the role as her own and she was wary about Helen. But though the girl was sweet and charming she was also discerning and wily. She discussed all household affairs with the old lady, and appeared to need advice about even the most trivial matter so that Mirabelle, flattered and secure of her position, remained sweetly oblivious to the fact that the girl got her own way without seeming to do so at all.

  For Alick, Helen was a welcome addition to the household. He amused himself by flirting with her slyly and earned only gay peals of laughter from the girl who adored his brother with all her heart and took no bother to hide the fact.

  Alick was the complete reverse of his strong, dominant brother. The farm and its running held no interest for him. H
e was flighty and perpetually in search of pleasures outside the demanding tasks of the farm. He was shy, yet glib, his greatest gift lying in the quick words of flattery he gave to the plainest of females. As a result, he was never short of women and at fifteen years of age had disgraced the family by making a local girl pregnant. His father, never very interested in his younger son’s welfare because he regarded him as a weakling not fit to be a farmer’s son, washed his hands of the matter and it was left to Fergus, barely eighteen, to sort out the affair as best he could. In the end the girl had miscarried and Alick had been sent to a school on the mainland. Well educated he returned to Rhanna with no real ambition for his life. He drifted around the farm, escaping as many of the manual tasks as he could and getting in the way of everyone. Finally he had left the island to seek his fortunes in Edinburgh. With the luck of his kind, he found a good job, married a girl as flighty as himself, and had only come back to Rhanna once in two years for the funeral of his father who had collapsed and died while helping with the harvest one ripe September morning.

  Fergus now ran the farm, handling its affairs with the confidence of the born farmer. Those who had known him all his days said they didn’t know him at all and were never likely to, for he was a man of few words and undemonstrative to boot, though this was not an uncommon trait in the dour demeanour of the Rhanna folk. But there was also a softness lurking beneath the surface of the main mass of the population and it was thought lacking in Fergus. He was labelled as hard and unyielding and had few close friends, but the more discerning of these knew that under the steel buffer beat a heart that was steadfast and fair despite his bouts of unreasoning temper.

  Helen was his life now. The sight of her smiling could change anger to laughter. If, on rare occasions, she was displeased with him, he was like a little boy who had been naughty and wanted to make up. With every touch and glance she melted his façade and kindled in him fires of deep desire.

  Now she was upstairs, struggling to bring his child into the world, her cries of agony searing into him till he could almost feel her pain himself. He had gone upstairs several times and she clung to him with hands that were cold and damp despite her fever. At times her body shook with uncontrollable tremors and she retched weakly, while he held a basin to her mouth.

  ‘I’m sorry, Fergus,’ she whispered as if the pain and sickness were her fault. ‘I – I didn’t think it would be so bad.’

  You’re sorry! You’re sorry! his heart cried out and he thought, It was my doing! It’s my fault you’re going through this hell! But if desire was a fault, then they were equally guilty. Passion had engulfed them both with its eager searching for fulfilment, the warm lust they felt for each other coupling them in the dark intimacy of their bedroom as they lay together in the soft feather bed, the very bed she now occupied in her agony.

  He sat by the peat fire in the parlour, the flickering flames outlining the bulk of his powerful body, his shock of black hair matching the coals in the hob, and his dark eyes bright with the unshed tears of anxiety. The springs of the old wooden rocking chair creaked protestingly as back and forth he rocked unable to still himself, the turmoil of his thoughts thrashing unceasingly till he felt he would go mad. He knew things were not going well upstairs. He had heard Mirabelle go into the kitchen and rattle pots and pans, filling them with yet more water that must be heated. Good God! What did they do with all that hot water? Biddy’s voice floated through the door, requesting Mirabelle to go upstairs.

  He bit into the stem of his unlit pipe then banged it back on the mantelpiece, finding no comfort in the familiar things of his life. He rose, and strode up and down like a caged wild thing, his stockinged feet making a soft padding sound on the hearth rug. All night long he had paced thus, hearing the low moan of the wind outside, feeling the chill of the fiendish snowstorm in the very marrow of his being. The blizzard was over now but the wind had gone raging on, piling the soft snow into every conceivable corner, humping it over windowledges and doorsteps. Several times he had left the warmth of the parlour to shovel snow from doorways, leaving paths clear for the morning when work must start no matter the weather. It was now 4.30 and another two hours would see the start of the farm tasks. Hamish Cameron, his grieve, had promised to come down for the milking. He would bring young Mathew, a local boy who had recently started work at Laigmhor. He, too, was a born farmer and tackled lowly jobs like byre-mucking and teat-washing with an enthusiasm that earned Fergus’s approval. He took the milk cart on the morning rounds, filling milk cans from the big churns.

  Fergus went to a frost-rimed window and peered out. The morning was eerily bright, the sky glittering with the farflung sparks of millions of stars. The snow reflected itself in strange haloes of light and it was quite possible to see the stretching white nothingness of the Muir of Rhanna and the sea a thread of silver in the distance.

  Another cry came from upstairs and he stiffened. In a torment he cried aloud. Let the damned child be born soon. She can’t stand any more, not my little Helen!’

  He stared back into the cosy room and it looked so normal that for a moment he felt he was living alone in a world of unreality. Everything else was the same, but not he. He tried to think about the day before but could remember very little. Snatches came to him – small things, like taking Helen a cup of tea before he started his day. She had thrown her arms round his neck, laughing because the roundness of her body had prevented him getting too near.

  ‘Can you believe you’ll be a father soon?’ she teased. ‘I can’t imagine it at all. The bairn will deeve you with its greetin’ and you’ll mump like an old man. Will you skelp your son’s wee bum when you’re in one of your moods?’

  He had laughed with her. ‘I’ll leather yours now if you don’t hold your tongue!’

  He had pulled the sheet back to gaze at her, at her soft burnished hair spread over the pillows, and her blue eyes regarding him with the veiled fire of her vital attraction. It was a look he knew well and usually preluded sexual play. She knew she was desirable but she never used it as a weapon of control over him, rather she used it to make their love-making into something that took them both into a world of deepest intimacy and incredible sensual pleasure.

  His hands had travelled over her rounded breasts to the hard swelling of her belly, feeling the warmth of her flesh through the soft flannel of her nightdress, and the contact started the familiar ache of longing in his groin. Sweat broke on his brow and he was ashamed of his hardness when she was lying there with his child almost ready to be born. It had been a long time since his cravings for her body had been satisfied. Really it had only been a few weeks but to him, lying beside her every night, with the perfume of her skin and hair in his nostrils, it had seemed an eternity.

  Confused, he turned from her, but she had pulled him round and her hands caressed the hardness in his middle. Even through the thick material of his rough tweed trousers he felt the touch as though he were standing before her naked.

  ‘My poor Fergus,’ she said softly, ‘you’ve been very patient but it won’t be long now. Don’t be ashamed of your feelings. You’re a bull of a man but I’m not one to be complaining for I love every movement you make inside me. My belly won’t always be this size, it’s like a funny wee mountain and I’ll be glad to be rid of it.’

  He grinned, glad of the change of mood that allowed the heat to gradually go from his loins. ‘I love your wee mountain because it has our child inside it. I hope it’s a girl with your eyes and teeny button of a nose. But I hope she won’t chase me round the kitchen table and clout me with the dishcloth the way you do when roused!’

  She giggled. ‘I want a boy, strong and dark like you and with eyes like coals burning in the grate. But he mustn’t have your temper for I couldn’t bear two going into tantrums.’ She laughed in her abandoned way. ‘I’ll have to give you a few lessons on nappy-changing and the best way to break the winds, as Shelagh would say.’

  An hour later, when the weak fingers of d
awn were spreading out over the cold January sky, Mirabelle came panting up the slopes of the hill pastures to tell him that Helen’s pains had started.

  ‘I’ll fetch Biddy at once!’ he cried and ran to the byre where the horses were stabled. Mathew was hitching Mac the pony to the milk cart but Fergus stayed him with a quick order.

  ‘The rounds can wait till later! I need Mac now!’

  Mirabelle wheezed into the stables. ‘There’s no need to go right this meenit, Fergus! It will be a long whily before the bairn comes.’

  ‘I’ll go now,’ he said and without another word led Mac outside.

  Mirabelle shook her head in disgust and mumbled under her breath, ‘A real nipscart that one. As pig-headed as a mule!’ She giggled, better humoured at having allowed herself the luxury of a quiet swear. It was a safety valve she used frequently, especially when she found herself harassed in the kitchen, often about Fergus because of his difficult ways, but mostly at the hens who clucked and strutted into the kitchen leaving droppings on her clean floor and poking into her pantry in a never-ending quest for food.

  Fergus set out, excitement struggling with anxiety on the mile-long journey through Glen Fallan to the midwife’s cottage.

  At the sound of his imperative knock an upstairs window opened and Biddy looked out, her hair dishevelled and her face lined and yellow in the unkind light of winter. ‘Ach! It’s you!’ she said indignantly. ‘I thought it was thunder! What’s wi’ you? I’ve just had my breakfast and I’m not yet dressed so I can’t come down.’ She drew the folds of a thick wool dressing-gown round her neck and her eyes, small and tired without the aid of her glasses, peered at him in annoyance.

  ‘We need you at Laigmhor,’ he shouted, his breath condensing in the cold air from the moor. ‘Helen’s started!’

  ‘How long since? Have her contractions been going on for a time?’

  ‘Long enough!’ came the short reply.