Elspeth quickly composed herself and looked disdainfully down her nose. ‘I don’t drink – thankin’ you just the same!’
Biddy straightened her hat. ‘Och well, if you feel like that . . .’
Elspeth looked at the old nurse’s moist sad eyes. ‘Och well, a wee drop then . . . to bid Mirabelle a guid journey.’
Biddy guided Elspeth round the bole of a large tree. ‘To Mirabelle,’ she whispered hoarsely.
‘And Hamish,’ said Elspeth taking a large gulp without a sign of distaste.
‘You’ve tippled before?’ said Biddy, whose eyes were rather dazed.
‘Betimes,’ agreed Elspeth and gulped greedily.
Far below, a little girl with sun-bright hair walked to the schoolhouse clinging to Alick’s hand.
‘Father might be awake,’ she said, trying not to sound too eager because she knew that Hamish’s death and her father’s illness were all somehow linked to Uncle Alick.
‘He might,’ said Alick too brightly. He lifted his face to the breeze from the sea and prayed to God for strength. He thought briefly of Mary and his life in Edinburgh but it was unreal. Rhanna, the dear green island of his boyhood was, for the moment, his reality and he would not leave it till he had made peace with his brother.
Fergus wakened peacefully. He saw the shaft of sunlight dancing on the blue counterpane and wondered what time it was. It must be afternoon because the sun didn’t come round to his bedroom till then. But what was he doing in bed in the afternoon? And it wasn’t his bed or his room. There was a huge bowl of roses on the window ledge and the breeze from the open window wafted their scent to him. There was another smell, a smell of medication, the way Shona smelled when Mirabelle dressed the many wounds of childhood. Fergus hated the smell, it made him feel sick it was so strong. His mouth was dry and he felt himself floating strangely. He sat up quickly and his head swam. The room wavered and he blinked to clear his vision. It was a glorious day. The fields were green and a bee buzzed frenziedly in the bowl of roses: a summer sound. He had always liked to hear the bees droning and he smiled with pleasure. He could see the Kirk Brae from the window and a long procession winding slowly to the Kirkyard. It was very bright and he raised his hand to shield his eyes but something was wrong! His hand wouldn’t come up: he looked and saw the bandaged stump at his left shoulder. For a long moment he stared, frowning in puzzlement, then the shrouds unfolded from his mind and he remembered. It all came back slowly but the weight of each memory pushed him back on the pillows where he lay staring unseeingly at the ceiling, his thoughts turned inward, raking up each hellish memory that had been the nightmare fantasies of his unconscious brain. The search for Alick, the mist that had caused the boat to drift on to those terrible Sgor Creags that had killed Hamish. But no! It wasn’t the Creags, it wasn’t the Creags, it was the boat! Hamish had grabbed the boat and the bow had smashed his head to pulp. Fergus felt his heart twisting in pain. The memories were growing clearer by the second. He remembered knowing that something had happened to his arm but he hadn’t felt anything, just the blood flowing round him in that awful sea of death. And Alick! They hadn’t found Alick! Was he dead too? He looked again at the window. The funeral procession, could it be his brother? But how could it be? They wouldn’t bury him so quickly. Everything had happened so short a time ago. He gave a short cry of terror and sat up to look at the procession again. He saw the cart turning and twisting up the brae and on it were two coffins. Alick and Hamish! His heart pumped wildly and he dragged himself from his bed to stare from the window but his legs wouldn’t hold him and he fell in a crumpled heap on to the window seat.
Kirsteen rushed into the room. ‘Fergus! My darling, come back to bed!’
She gathered him to her and led him back to bed and she sat beside him and smoothed his dark hair. His forehead was hot and he was coughing, a harsh dry cough. She looked at the pallor of his cheeks and his black eyes staring at her intensely. She took his hand gently.
‘How are you feeling, my Fergus?’
He ignored her question. ‘Kirsteen, you’re ill,’ he cried with concern. ‘You’re so – so white and there’s black circles under your eyes.’
‘Don’t worry about me, Fergus. I’m just a wee bit tired.’
He closed his eyes and his breath was laboured. ‘Everything . . . so strange,’ he whispered. ‘I’m in your bed . . . that’s right, isn’t it, Kirsteen? We’ve loved in this bed, haven’t we?’
‘Yes, Fergus,’ she answered huskily.
‘My arm . . . it’s gone . . . I knew it – out there in the sea – I knew I’d never use it again.’
She breathed a sigh of relief. The moments of truth were coming but the one she had dreaded most wasn’t so bad as she had expected. He was struggling to ask more questions, feebly astonished that he had been unconscious so long.
‘That’s why – the funerals . . . I knew about Hamish! God, will I ever forget the sight of him . . . but the other – Kirsteen . . .?’
Footsteps came quietly upstairs and Alick entered the room with Shona. Fergus struggled up, his eyes burning into Alick’s.
‘Alick . . . y-you’re not dead?’
Alick’s chin trembled. He wanted to cry, he wanted to run to his brother and beg his forgiveness. Instead he said, ‘No, Fergus, ’tis me still here – though I deserve to die for all the ill I’ve caused.’
Fergus shook his head. ‘Havers, man! Everyone here knows I’m at fault, I shouldny have been so hard on you. I wanted to . . . say I’m sorry before but I’m saying it now . . . maybe too late for a lot of folk.’
Alick opened his mouth but could think of nothing to say. A breeze blew the muslin curtains, tossing the scents and sounds of summer into the room. The words of a well-known hymn were born faintly.
Fergus licked his dry lips. ‘Abide With Me – ’tis my favourite.’
Suddenly he noticed his daughter standing quietly by the window. He held out his hand. ‘Shona, my wee lass, her hair all bonny with a blue ribbon.’
She ran to him and buried her face in his neck. He took some of her hair and fondled the silken strands. Suddenly he remembered something. ‘The other coffin – was it old McTavish? I know he’s been ill.’
‘Oh Father,’ Shona began to sob. ‘It’s Mirabelle! She’s dead, Father! She died three days ago, she was ill and didn’t tell anyone!’
‘Oh dear God, no!’ He turned his head on the pillows but too late to hide the glimmer of tears. Kirsteen went to him quickly. ‘It was very quick, Fergus. She wanted it that way.’
He didn’t answer but went on stroking his daughter’s silken hair.
Alick shuffled uneasily. ‘Don’t worry about the farm, Fergus. I’ll see to everything till you’re well.’
Fergus remained silent. He was staring at the window but he wasn’t seeing cotton wool puffs in a blue sky. His thoughts were bleak and he saw no glimpse of blue in the black of the sky. He felt drained. All his old power of mind and body were gone. Mirabelle floated into his mind but he pushed her quickly away. Hamish, tall and laughing, strode past the eyes of his mind but he blotted him out. He didn’t want to think. His arm throbbed and pains shot through his chest. He turned to look at Kirsteen and the love in her eyes made him shut his own tightly. He didn’t want to see that shining selfless love because he knew he couldn’t marry her now. How could he ask a lovely girl like Kirsteen to tie herself to a one-armed cripple? His thoughts were wandering: he was going up and down; one minute it was light, the next dark.
‘Lachlan – want to see him,’ he mumbled. ‘Must see Lachlan.’
But Kirsteen had already sent Alick to fetch Lachlan. She knew that Fergus’s racing pulse and burning fever weren’t normal.
Lachlan pronounced the diagnosis that Kirsteen had dreaded.
‘Pneumonia! I was afraid of it, but luckily only one lung is affected! Even then it’ll be a fight, his body hasn’t got over the shock of losing that arm.’
Fergus slowly came out of the stupor
into which he had sunk. ‘Lachlan,’ he rasped hoarsely. ‘I’m – sorry . . . friends again?’
He lifted his hand from the coverlet and Lachlan took it almost roughly. ‘Friends!’ he said, swallowing the lump that had risen in his throat.
That night Shona slept at Slochmhor. She tossed and turned but sleep refused to come. The barriers she had erected in her mind were falling fast. She could no longer deceive herself into believing that Mirabelle and Hamish were going to come back. Her father would never be the same again. His arm was gone for good and he was ill, so ill that Kirsteen had made up a bed in his room to be near him all night. Biddy had been with him all evening and all visitors had been turned away. Not even Dodie, with his unquestioning faithful love for Fergus, had been allowed into the sickroom. Shona remembered the quick child-like glimmer of tears in his eyes when he heard that Fergus was worse.
He had stood in the schoolhouse kitchen, awkward and gangling, his huge wellingtons making scuffling sounds on the linoleum. To many he would have appeared a comic figure with his wobbling carbuncle and strange, inward, dreaming eyes. To Kirsteen and Shona he was a figure of tragedy. The tears had spilled and sobs choked him for a moment. Then he fumbled in his ragged pocket and laid something on the table.
‘He’ll get better,’ he whispered huskily, convincing himself. ‘This will make him better, och yes, it will just!’
It was as if he were trying to summon all the powers of healing to hasten Fergus’s recovery. ‘He’ll get better,’ he repeated and stumbled out of the kitchen to make his way back over the hills to his lonely little cottage.
Shona picked up the horseshoe he had laid on the table. It was an old one but it had been polished over and over till it shone. She could picture the old eccentric spending hours of love and devotion on the horseshoe. His initial was scratched on it, sprawling and untidy, but another mark of his faith.
Kirsteen took the horseshoe gently. ‘We’ll hang it beside your father’s bed, it will help him to get better.’
Shona turned her face into the pillow and the hot tears spilled over. She heard Fiona crying and Phebie coming up to her. It was a nice house, homely and comfortable. She was in the little guest room and the sheets smelled of lavender. Lavender! Mirabelle! Mirabelle and lavender! Laigmhor and Mirabelle! Laigmhor and her father! All the years of their life together. Lovely moments like today when he had caressed her hair and called her his bonny lass. His neck had been so hot and she could hear his heart thumping loudly in her ear. She loved his heart, it was a strong wilful heart but it could be so loving, so dearly loving.
In the still darkness of the little room she thought she could hear his heart beating-beat-beating, then she realized the beat came from within herself. She had never paid much attention to hearts before, they were just another part of the body to be taken for granted, now she knew when they stopped everything that had been a person stopped too. What if her father’s stopped! He would be gone forever, all that lovely big man person would go away from her life! She couldn’t take any more of her thoughts. Terror made her sob loudly and she could do nothing to stop herself.
The door opened softly and Niall padded in, holding aloft a flickering candle that threw leaping shadows all over the room. ‘I heard you,’ he whispered. ‘My bed’s right next to yours through the wall.’
‘Is it?’ She felt oddly comforted.
‘Yes, we can tap out wee messages to each other.’
She felt the bed sagging as he sat on it. The tears were still catching her throat. He laid the candle on her dresser and his hand caught hers.
‘I know how you feel,’ he whispered sympathetically.
‘Do you? Do you really and truly, Niall?’
‘Yes – well, about Mirabelle anyway.’
‘Do you know how I feel about my father? Is your heart all funny with wee shivers all through you?’
‘N-no, but I’m trying to think what I’d feel if my own father was very ill.’
‘It’s terrible, Niall, so terrible you wish you were dead yourself.’
‘Don’t say that,’ he scolded. ‘Your father will get better, my father will make him, he’s a good doctor. He’s going to be friends with your father after this, I heard him telling my mother so. Grown-ups are awful daft, they wait till they’re dying before they start speaking and then it’s too late ’cos they might not live to speak to each other.’
She sucked in her breath and immediately he knew he had said the wrong thing. She was crying again, great sobs that shook the bed. Frightened, he tried to make his unthinking words sound reassuring, but it was no use. In despair he lay down beside her and stroked her warm brow in a shy attempt to soothe her. ‘Och weesht now,’ he whispered, ‘we’ll say our prayers and God might help your father. Don’t greet so.’
His curls tickled her nose and she felt better.
‘Stay beside me, Niall.’
‘Very well then, give me a bit blanket and the coorie in. I hope you don’t snore.’
She giggled, suddenly warm and secure in the embrace of his thin arms. ‘Kirsteen said I talked a wee bit.’
‘I don’t think I’ll hear you,’ he mumbled into her hair and in minutes they were both sound asleep.
At the schoolhouse, Fergus was delirious and Kirsteen sat at his bedside bathing his forehead. Oh, how tired she was; every bone in her body ached for rest. Her eyelids were like lead weights and several times she almost dropped off. Lachlan had said he would come back after he’d snatched a few hours’ rest. He’d wanted to let someone else sit with Fergus but she wouldn’t hear of it.
It was a warm night. The window was ajar and soft moorland scents wafted in, a mixture of peat, bell heather and thyme. A dog barked from a distant farm and a sea bird ‘cra-aked’ close by. Kirsteen lowered her head on to the counterpane and slept.
She woke with a start and looked at the clock – 1.30 – she had been asleep for an hour. Fergus was moaning, repeating something over and over.
‘Can’t marry you, Kirsteen – not now – not now, Kirsteen. It’s a better man deserves you. One arm – only one arm – can’t marry you, Kirsteen . . .’
Her heart was like a cold heavy stone. She had been stupid enough to think he had taken the loss of his arm lightly, how wrong she was. He was too proud, his pride was like a disease, there was no fighting it, no curing it, she was a fool to think he’d come out of the accident unscathed in his mind. She covered her eyes with her clenched fists. She couldn’t cry, all her weeping had been for Fergus and his battle for life. For herself she could only feel the exquisite agony of a mourning soul. She had lost Fergus as surely as if he had died. Her love for him was a growth, swelling in her heart till she felt it must burst, yet she must relinquish him if she were to keep her sanity. She would nurse his dear beloved body back to health then she would leave Rhanna while she could still go with some dignity. The decision left her drained. Lachlan found her sitting by the bed, her golden head resting on Fergus’s hand, her blue eyes empty, gazing at nothing. She didn’t even stir at the opening of the door.
‘Kirsteen, are you all right?’ asked Lachlan sharply.
‘Yes, Lachlan, I’m fine.’
Her voice was hollow. Fergus stirred, coughed feebly, and once more began his fevered ramblings.
Lachlan took Kirsteen’s hand. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying, the man’s delirious!’
She withdrew her hand gently. ‘But he knows what he means, Lachy, the thoughts are there.’ She shook her head and he saw that she had turned very pale.
‘Are you ill, Kirsteen? You’re tired, I know – exhausted, God knows – but is there something else troubling you?’
‘No, Lachlan – nothing . . .’ But she gripped his arm looking deep into his eyes. ‘You’re such a good man, Lachlan, you understand things – maybe . . .’
‘Yes, Kirsteen?’
But she shook her head again. ‘Don’t worry.’ She inclined her head towards the bed. ‘Whatever way it goes – and God
knows I pray he gets better – I’ll be leaving Rhanna. I couldn’t stay here now.’
‘But your job! Dammit girl, you can’t just give it all up!’
She smiled wearily. ‘I’ll write to the Education Authorities pleading illness. Don’t worry, they’ll send another teacher!’
‘I’m not thinking about your job!’ He was angry now. ‘I’m thinking of you . . . and him, you can’t leave him now, not when he needs you most!’
‘Oh dear heaven, don’t you think I need him! I need him so much I don’t know how I’ll live without him but I can’t take any more, Lachlan. You’ve heard the gossips. I thought that was all going to be finished with but it seems not and I’d rather go before he tells me to! At least I owe myself some self-respect!’
His brown eyes were sad. ‘There’s nothing I can say?’
She shook her head vehemently but couldn’t stop the brimming tears. ‘Nothing, but thank you for caring enough to want to help. Now I must go and make us both some tea.’
For four days Fergus hovered on the brink that separates life from death. At times he was quite rational and recognized everyone who came and went. Alick was constantly at his bedside and the brothers rediscovered the kindred spirit of their youth. When Kirsteen was resting it was Alick who spooned broth into his brother’s mouth. Fergus was inclined to refuse the nourishment but Alick was firm in a way he had never been before. It wasn’t because Fergus was too physically weak to protest, for even in his fight for life he wasn’t to be taken advantage of. The assertion that Alick had lacked all his life was at last coming to the fore. The last week had brought out a strength in him he hadn’t known he possessed, but it was a strength of mind, a power born of a realization that the thing his life lacked was the opportunity to make decisions for himself. During his brother’s illness he had been responsible for the farm. There was no Hamish to turn to and he’d had to make many decisions. The men came to him and asked him things he knew little about, but his quick brain had helped him work out the best methods for coping.
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