Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  Hamish found himself bursting towards the kitchen where Fergus was gazing from the window. Hamish felt his throat go dry, making the utterance of his message harsh. ‘Go quickly upstairs, man . . . Helen – she’s – she needs you!’

  When Fergus reached the bedroom it was empty but for Lachlan. He was by the fire and flickering flames found every hollow in his tired face. ‘I’m sorry, Fergus,’ he said tonelessly. ‘We did all we could. It’s a miracle we saved the baby but Helen . . .’ He spread his hands in despair. ‘It was too much for her, we couldn’t stop the bleeding.’

  He left the room quickly and Fergus turned to look at his dying wife. The bed was clean now, the whiteness of the sheets matching the small face on the pillow, a face from which life’s blood was flowing quickly. The shadows round her eyes had deepened to blue and her lips were as pale as her face, emphasizing the vivid burnished gleam of her hair which surrounded her face like a delicate painting.

  ‘Oh God, no!’ The words were torn from him in an agony of grief.

  Her eyes opened and the blueness of them pierced the depths of his crying soul. Her lips moved and he gathered her into his arms.

  ‘The baby,’ she whispered, ‘call her Shona – it’s a gentle name, don’t you think, Fergie? And . . .’ Her chest heaved as she gathered breath from her failing lungs. ‘I love you, my darling – I wish I could have had more of you – I’ve been so happy. Don’t be too hard on the little one – you haven’t a lot of patience, Fergus. If she’s like you she’ll need . . . a lot of handling.’

  He gathered her closer and the familiar warm smell of her filled his nostrils so that he felt he must cry out, scream his feelings to, the world. Instead he murmured, ‘We’ll all manage between us. Mirabelle will help you to keep us in hand.’

  But she seemed not to hear him. She had turned her head towards the window. ‘Och, look, Fergus, it’s a bonny morning. What a lovely day for our wee girl’s birthday.’ He had to strain to hear the whispered words. ‘So clean,’ she continued, ‘with the sky all wet like a mountain burn. It’s funny . . . the way it’s always so calm after a storm . . .’

  Her hands came up and stroked the dark tumbled curls on his head, then a long sigh came from her and her hands fell back to her sides.

  ‘Helen, don’t leave me,’ he whimpered. Then he screamed aloud in his grief and crushed her body, his whole being burning with pain, an ache inside him so raw and deep it cried for some salve to ease it but the tears of release would not come. ‘Oh God, why, why?’ he said bitterly and rocked the slender body back and forth, feeling he could never let go of the lovely creature who owned his very being. A memory came unbidden to his mind, one he had thought forgotten.

  He remembered himself, a small boy gazing at the dead face of his mother. He had loved his mother with a passion unusual in a child so young. But he hadn’t thought it strange, the strange thing was that his mother didn’t return his demonstrations of love. But she loved Alick for sure, she was always kissing him, making all his little ills better with a kiss, giving him her attention all the time. Alick was the one who got everyone’s attention because he had a gay friendly smile and perfect manners, yet he could change so quickly to a little devil, mocking the people who made so much of him. Fergus didn’t mind the other people, all he had wanted was the love of his mother. She treated him differently from Alick, almost as if he were grown up. He’d had to take the responsibility of the elder brother all his childhood. He protected Alick from bullies and fought battles for him because he knew it was expected of him and would earn words of praise from his mother. Sometimes he’d felt the burden of Alick too heavy a load to bear but in his child’s way he knew his mother relied on him to keep Alick in order because their father had no time to spare for his younger son.

  Yet, despite everything, Fergus had gone on loving his mother though he had learned to hide it behind a façade of indifference. But he never forgot her whispered words to him on the day she died.

  She had clasped his small hand and he’d gazed at her dying face with eyes that ached with unshed tears and a heart full to bursting.

  ‘Fergus, my lovely strong laddie,’ she said clasping his hand till it hurt, ‘you’re the child of my heart. Poor Alick, he’s not strong like you and his father can’t understand him. You’ve been a wee man these years and I’m sorry but Alick needed you, Fergus. Try to see it that way, my dear proud laddie.’

  Fergus’s heart had known no real feelings of love after his mother’s death, not until Helen came into his life. Everything in him that had lain dormant for years had burst forth in a tide of love. She had captured his very spirit and had roused him to feelings that he hadn’t known himself capable of.

  He had had flirtations with girls since his schooldays, fine buxom girls with big breasts and berry-brown skin. He had lain with them on the warm summer moors, ran with them over sun-kissed fields till laughter and the pretence of play had ended with rough kisses and caresses. Hidden by swaying stalks of golden corn he had enjoyed the feel of soft naked breasts, and love-play had satisfied his physical desires without actually possessing any of the girls, sometimes to their annoyance that the bounties of their bodies could not entice him further.

  Helen had been his first complete union. Her delicate, enticing beauty had made him burn with a longing never before experienced because, mixed with his need for her body, was the deep and lasting emotion of his love for her.

  Now she was gone from him. For the second time in his life he had lost someone who had captured his heart.

  He sat holding her in his arms till a footstep behind made him turn. It was Lachlan, his eyes dark with sympathy.

  ‘C’mon, Fergus,’ he said softly. ‘Come downstairs and have a drop of whisky. It will do you good. Try to think that Helen is at peace now.’

  Fergus stood up, his face chalky white in the dawn light filtering through the window. He looked at the doctor and a new feeling took the place of grief in his heart. A cold anger slowly boiled in him. He could feel it churning in his belly and knew he was going to say things he might later regret. He’d had the feeling before but never so intense, so pressing as now. He fought to keep the words from coming and pressed a bunched fist to his mouth, all the time staring at Lachlan with an intensity that was almost tangible. But the bubbling rage kept on inside and finally exploded to the surface.

  ‘You!’ he whispered in a tight tense voice more commanding than the loudest cry. ‘You let my Helen die! You ought to have known there would be complications but you did nothing till it was too late! She bled to death because you are incompetent! Why did it have to be her? Why not the bairn? Why save it and not Helen?’

  Lachlan felt his heart beat strangely. He was exhausted, so tired that his legs felt weak beneath him. He hadn’t slept or eaten properly in twenty-four hours. The day-long battle to save little Fiona Taylor had been bad enough, the struggle through the storm a waking nightmare, but worst of all had been the fight to save Helen and her child. Fatigue had lain like an old man on his shoulders yet he had given of himself all there was to give. He had felt a triumph in bringing the child live into the world. Complications that no one could have foreseen had taken Helen, and his heart was heavy. It was always bad to lose a patient and when that patient was also a personal friend, the loss, the feeling of failure at being powerless to save a life, was even harder to bear.

  But despite his fatigue his voice was strong when he spoke. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, man! I tried everything to save Helen and it wasn’t a choice between her and the bairn! I nearly lost the two of them! Dammit, Fergus! Can’t you see you’re lucky the little one survived? My heart’s sore about Helen. I’m more sorry than I can say but at least be glad you’ve got one of them!’

  He spread his hands in appeal but Fergus took no notice.

  ‘Get out!’ he said, his voice rising menacingly. ‘Get out, McLachlan! I never want to see you in this house again!’

  Mirabelle appeared at the do
or with the baby in her arms. Her face grew scarlet at Fergus’s words and she looked at him in disbelief. ‘You canny be serious, Fergus! I was here most of the night, remember! I saw the way this laddie worked and he so weary too! He fought like a Trojan to save poor Helen. If she could hear your bitter words, how do you think she would feel? We’re all in the presence of her dear soul this meenit, let it rest in peace and be thankful you have her bairn – a bairn ye havny even set eyes on yet. Look at her! She’s the bonniest wee thing. Look at her, Fergus and thank Lachlan for her life!’

  But he turned away, everything in him so spent that his strong shoulders were stooped and his head sunk on to his chest. ‘Get out,’ he murmured dully, ‘get out and leave me in peace.’

  Lachlan was already running downstairs and Mirabelle went out leaving him alone in the room. He went over to the bed and touched his wife’s smooth brow. It was already growing cold and he covered his face with his hands. A ray of winter sun stole into the room and turned the small figure in the bed into a pale golden statue. He looked towards the window, out to fields and hills unbelievably beautiful in a mantle of purest white, but his eyes saw none of the beauty. An abyss loomed ahead of him, one filled with incredible loneliness where he felt the sunlight would never penetrate again. Above the bed a calendar told him that it was the twenty-ninth of January, 1923. He shuddered and tried not to let his thoughts crystallize but it was no use. It was a day never to be forgotten because it was the day his dearly loved wife had left him behind and the day his daughter had taken her first breath of life. A life for a life that had no meaning for him. He shuddered again and banged his head with his fists in an effort to stop such thoughts, but they were etching themselves into his brain. He would have given anything, everything, to have his wife back and if he could have had one wish it would have been for the baby to be taken and Helen brought back in its place.

  He could hear the child crying in the next room, the room he and Helen had prepared with such joyful anticipation. She had made the curtains, golden yellow like the sun, he had distempered the walls a fresh white and revarnished the old family cradle till it gleamed, waiting for the day it would be filled with the child of their love. Now it didn’t matter any more. The child of their love had become the child of his sorrow and he put his hands over his ears to shut out the thin wailing of the newborn infant.

  Rhanna was a jewel of beauty on the day of the funeral. The tattered peaks of Sgurr na Gill gleamed in a brilliance of white against a cornflower sky. The snow had melted from the lower slopes and churning burns frothed down from the mountains. The Sound of Rhanna was a rippling mass of liquid silver that hurt the eyes so that it was easier to look at the shoreline where soft little wavelets kissed the white sands that encircled the bay. The long finger of Port Rum Point enticed the water round its rocky length and there the sea spumed in frothing sprays.

  The Hillock Kirkyard sprawled untidily on top of a wooded slope. Ancient stones, that looked as if they had been thrown by some giant hand to land where they would, surrounded the church which stood outlined against the sky, its fine old stone battered by the wind but withstanding the wiles of the weather like a sturdy old sailor.

  Fergus looked down into the yawning black hole that awaited Helen’s coffin and he felt sick. The mourners stood round the grave with bowed heads, waiting for the minister to speak. He was a tall, grey-haired man with piercing eyes and a compelling voice. He had come from Dundee seven years before and was an incomer who had never been quite accepted because he gave all his sermons in English and showed no intention of trying to learn even the odd Gaelic word. Because of this he always remained on the fringe, never quite understanding and never being fully understood. Nevertheless his congregation listened, or appeared to listen, when his powerful voice reverberated through the church.

  The Reverend John Grey could see the blue smoke from the manse chimneys climbing into the sky and he followed the spiral upwards and looked for a long moment heavenwards before he started to speak. His mouth felt dry and he licked his thin lips nervously. He hated the island funerals because he never knew quite what to say. Confidence oozed from him on the Sabbath when he had prepared his sermons so carefully and when he spoke from the pulpit he could be quite impersonal towards the parishioners. But a funeral involved so many personal feelings of grief and loss and he found it difficult to commune wholeheartedly with the tight-knit community of Gaels who made it so plain he would never be one of them. Help me, God, to say the right things, he thought wistfully and began his opening words, his voice drifting sonorously in the frozen air of morning.

  Helen’s two brothers moved restlessly, their feet crunching the blades of frosty grass and her father took out a large white handkerchief and blew his nose loudly, drowning the end of the minister’s sentence.

  He began the Lord’s Prayer and the men joined in, their voices a drab monotone, blowing steam with the utterance of each word. A bird chirped sweetly from a nearby tree and the bleating of sheep came from the slopes. Alick gave a loud sniff and Fergus heard it like an explosion. He glowered at his brother’s bowed head, momentarily hating him because of his display of tears. He could not show his emotions to the world. He watched Helen’s coffin being lowered into the dark cold cavern of her last resting place and he wanted to reach out and enclose with his arms the hard wooden box that encased the body so dear to him. Instead he closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t see the first scatterings of earth thrown over the coffin.

  Numbly he sensed that the mourners were moving slowly away. An arm was thrown round his shoulders and Alick’s voice murmured futile words of sympathy into his ears.

  Fergus opened his eyes and looked into his brother’s face. He saw the blue-grey eyes, red-rimmed but eager for an acknowledgement that his presence was of some use. He noted the handsome features, finely drawn, but the drooping lips too thin under the dark wiry moustache, and the prominent bulge of the Adam’s apple working desperately to swallow his tears.

  Automatically Fergus assumed the role that had been expected of him for as long as he could remember. He put a strong arm round his brother and led him out of the kirkyard back to Laigmhor where the parlour was crowded with black-clad women and sombre sniffing relatives. This was the time Fergus dreaded most of all. The condolences, the weeping, all the formalities he had to go through before his house was his own again.

  He could hardly bear to look at Helen’s mother. He’d never liked her but had put up with her for Helen’s sake. She was a small fussy woman. She’d fussed because he’d wanted Helen buried on Rhanna and she’d fussed about every little detail since her arrival on the island till he’d felt like hitting her. Three years before she’d been delighted because her daughter was making a ‘good marriage’ to a fairly prosperous young man, but now she realized it had all been a mistake and Helen should never have married a farmer because she had been too unsuited for such a ‘rough’ life.

  She sat in a corner dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief while her husband, a short balding little man, red-faced and uncomfortable in the hot stuffy room, patted her ineffectually on the shoulder. Alick’s wife, Mary, a slim blonde, frivolously pretty even in her dark clothing, sat by the window primly enjoying the attention of several menfolk. Alick appeared not to mind in the least and after a time he followed his wife’s example and began flirting with Tom Johnston’s eldest daughter.

  Hamish sat apart from everyone, quietly sipping at a glass of whisky and Fergus went to sit by him, appreciating the strong unassuming companionship that could be felt without words.

  ‘Fergus!’ Mary’s high light voice floated clearly above the general murmur of voices. ‘Aren’t the doctor and his wife coming? I understood they were good friends of yours!’

  It was difficult to know if her question was entirely innocent. She and Alick had arrived only that morning but gossip ran quickly on Rhanna. Fergus glowered at her and she giggled but turned red. The room had grown quiet and everyone was looking at F
ergus. He grew warm with embarrassment and thought, Not a questioning! Not now when everything in me longs to have Helen at my side instead of in a cold grave on the Muir of Rhanna. A sick icy feeling gripped him and he longed to run from the room like a small inarticulate boy.

  But before he could say anything Helen’s mother fired another question at him.

  ‘What’s to happen to the bairn? Have you considered it at all? The wee mite will need a woman’s care. Donald and I have talked about it and think it only right we should bring up the child. The Lord knows it won’t be easy. You know yourself, Fergus, I don’t keep good health but I think my grandchild deserves a good upbringing. We owe it to our own lass too. We have our boys but they have their lives to lead. The wee girl will make up for . . .’

  She began to sob quietly into her handkerchief and Mr McDonald grew redder and patted her awkwardly.

  The room was agog for Fergus’s answer. He could feel the hush of the curious who had been wondering about his daughter and who would take care of her.

  But now Alick broke the silence. He turned away from Tammy Johnston whose face fell because she’d been enjoying the surreptitious pleasures of having Alick’s hand halfway up her skirt. He’d forgotten her now, his handsome face animated as he spoke.

  ‘Mary and I have talked too. We’re young and no doubt will have bairns of our own but we’d still like Shona to come and live with us. Isn’t that right, Mary?’

  She nodded with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. She didn’t like the idea one bit. She and Alick hadn’t talked about taking the baby, they’d argued. She didn’t particularly care for children – if one of their own came along it would be different, but someone else’s child, especially one that belonged to a man she had never understood, didn’t appeal to her at all. She prided herself on her looks and these would soon go with the strain of continual washing, sleepless nights and all the other attentions a child demanded.