Rhanna

by Christine Marion Fraser

  At the moment her own future looked bleak and she felt sick and empty. But a warm arm came round her neck to hug her close and Niall whispered, ‘Don’t desert a sinking ship! All these folk seeing me off as if I were some sort of hero and now all I want is you, mo gaolach.’

  She was secure again but in minutes he was gone from her, striding up the gangplank to the deck to become again a dear, familiar, but unattainable figure.

  Phebie gripped her arm. ‘Hold on, mo ghaoil,’ she urged. ‘I know well how you feel but don’t let go now.’

  A sob rose in Shona’s throat but she choked it back, looking up to smile and wave at Niall.

  Fergus burst into the scene, tall and wonderfully calm. He slipped his arm round his daughter and drew her close. ‘Thought you might like a shoulder,’ he murmured. ‘They come in handy betimes.’

  She leaned against him and he felt hard and strong. The boat was casting off. Niall leaned on the rail shouting something she couldn’t hear for the bellowing cows and the ship’s loud, mournful horn. The crowd cheered and Niall raised his hand, a handsome slim figure in his Army uniform. For a moment Shona swayed against her father. Her times of loving Niall were already folded into the caverns of her mind, the memories that would sustain her in the long days ahead. Already quarter of a mile of swirling green water was between her and the young man she loved. He was just a dark speck, indistinguishable from the other little specks that merged around him.

  She was inclined to linger but her father pulled her away.

  ‘I’m going back to make a Strupak,’ said Phebie lightly. ‘Anyone care to join me?’

  ‘Just what we all need I’m thinking,’ said Fergus leading his daughter firmly in the direction of Glen Fallan.

  Barely a week later Shona was restless and unsettled. She had looked forward to the annual visit of the Travers family but a letter came from Oban containing the news that Murdy had fallen and broken a leg so their holiday would have to be cancelled.

  ‘Maisie would have come alone,’ wrote Mrs Travers, ‘but she is going steady with a nice boy and doesn’t want to leave him alone.’

  ‘Frightened he would get away,’ said Fergus with a grin.

  Shona tossed her mane of bright hair impatiently. ‘Och Father, you’ve never been very kind to poor Maisie.’

  ‘Ach, it’s just my way and if you must know the truth I was always frightened she would get me in a dark corner.’

  Shona giggled absently and fingered the letter. ‘I like old Murdy, and Mrs Travers is such a cheery wee body. I could fair have been doing with them for a whiley. Alick and Mary won’t be till Christmas and that’s a long time away.’

  Fergus tapped out his pipe on the edge of the grate. He looked at his daughter’s brooding young face. ‘Why don’t you go to the Traverses’? The break will do you good, stop you thinking too much.’

  She turned to him in surprise. ‘But I’d have to leave you and you’d never manage on your own. Who would get your meals and darn your socks and feed the hens and – and . . .’

  ‘I don’t put a hole in my sock every few minutes,’ he smiled, ‘and I’m not a baby to be coddled by a daughter who’s fast becoming a Cailleach before her time.’

  The tears, never far away lately, sprang to her eyes. ‘Och Father! How could you?’

  ‘Because it’s true. I know you love Rhanna but I think the time’s ripe for you to get away. We all need fresh stamping ground at some time in our lives. Your time has come.’

  She hesitated, her elbows on the table, the letter clutched in her hand. She knew her father was right. The things that had charmed her from babyhood now seemed to have no meaning. Her lonely walks could only take her to the places she and Niall had haunted. The white beaches and long stretches of moor now seemed bare and lonely and she returned from her lone wanderings disconsolate and uneasy. She tossed in bed unable to sleep and as a result she felt weary and disinterested. She reached across the scrubbed table top and caught her father’s hand.

  ‘Will – you write and ask, Father?’

  ‘Get my pen and paper and I’ll do it now. If we hurry we’ll catch the boat before she leaves. Erchy says she had to bide in harbour for a minor repair but she’ll be leaving soon.’

  Mrs Travers’s reply came the following week. She wrote saying she would love to have Shona, they were all looking forward to it, especially Murdy who was wearying and needing a ‘cheery wee soul like Shona to cheer him up’.

  ‘I don’t feel very cheery.’ Shona stared from the window at the blue-green Sound of Rhanna in the distance. It was a windy fresh day, the sort she had always loved. Behag Beag, her black coat flapping, was making her determined way to Lachlan’s in time for morning surgery and Bob, his pipe hanging precariously from his lower lip, had hold of a ram by the horns and was dragging it to a small field of noisy sheep. The scene looked so familiar and dear that she suddenly felt she must sit down and write to let Mrs Travers know she couldn’t manage after all.

  Fergus was reading over the letter. ‘They’re expecting you by the next boat – the mail boat to Oban . . .’ He paused as a memory came back to him. ‘So you’d better iron your petticoats, mo ghaoil.’

  ‘I wonder if Kirsteen ever goes back to Oban.’ She said it absently, still staring from the window, but he looked at her quickly.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘You went there to find her, didn’t you? I was only eleven, I think, but I remember you coming back. You had changed in a funny kind of way. You were so gay but your eyes – all empty and sad. I think I loved you more then than I ever did. It was after that I became your wife – yes, in a way, Father. I’ve looked after you and worried about you the way a wife would. Now I feel like you must have then – lonely and terribly empty.’

  He put his arm round her. ‘You’d better start packing. I know women take long over such things.’

  ‘I think I’ll only stay for a week, Father, so I won’t need much. Now, you’d better get over and help Bob with that ram. I’ve never seen one so unwilling before.’

  Her week dragged into a month and Fergus had never been so keenly aware of his own loneliness. The nights were long. Clocks ticked, Tot and the cats snored peacefully while he gazed into the fire and thought his lonely thoughts. He made work for himself, gathering in peat till the shed was piled high, scrubbing the milking shed till the cows looked uneasy at such cleanliness, and redecorated Shona’s room for her return. Before bedtime each night he took to going to the byre to smoke his pipe in the company of the cows. They were such peaceful animals with their calm, long-lashed eyes, and they transferred some of their serenity to him. The cobbled byre was a place of warm breath, rich smells, and solid hairy backs to lean on and St Kilda, who had lorded the byre for years. would bellow at him till he was obliged to put a few strands of hay into the racks.

  Letters came from France and he readdressed them to Oban knowing how eagerly his daughter awaited them.

  She returned to Rhanna three weeks before Christmas and he was quietly pleased to see the change in her. Her eyes sparkled with life, her cheeks were pink, her slim body had filled out slightly. She flung herself on him and he felt his heart bursting with the joy of having her back.

  ‘Oh Father, I’ve missed you so but I’ve enjoyed myself with the Traverses. I’ve got all my Christmas presents – the shops in Oban are bonny. Murdy’s a terrible man, he taught me all the card games there are, so you and the McLachlans had best be careful if I’m playing with you.’ She paused to look at the fields and the blue-grey shoulder of Sgurr na Gill. ‘Och, isn’t Rhanna beautiful?’ She turned back to him, her blue eyes quizzical. ‘It’s strange, Father – I had to get away from Rhanna and I love you for making me go but I knew when I was ready to come back. I was pining for you and for my island. I suppose Phebie’s told you Niall’s well? He doesn’t really describe what it’s like out there but he never did explain things – even when he was away at school.’

  She danced into the kitc
hen and Tot grunted delightedly to meet her. ‘Oh, it’s lovely to be back.’ She was ecstatic. ‘Dear old Tot and everything just the same. I hope it’s always like this!’

  ‘Things change,’ he said lightly.

  ‘Not Laigmhor, not you, Father. Now, I must unpack and hide my presents! I don’t want you poking about . . . oh, Mrs Travers gave you this, she said she was going to send it but I was coming home so she gave it to me.’

  She tossed a package on to the rocking chair and raced upstairs.

  Fergus heard her exclaiming over her room as he picked up the parcel. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied tightly with string and he put it on the mantelshelf to open later.

  He served out dinner and Shona felt like a queen being made to sit down while he ladled steaming soup.

  ‘Just today,’ he smiled ruefully. ‘Tomorrow it’s back to normal. I’ve a pile of socks to be darned and all my shirts need buttons.’

  ‘I knew you needed me, Father,’ she said triumphantly.

  She was exhausted that evening and went to bed early. He sat for a time beside the fire, drinking his cocoa and sucking his unlit pipe. He reached to the mantelshelf for a taper and his hand brushed the parcel. Suddenly he felt quite excited about it and opened it quickly. He recognized the contents at once and his heart lurched into his throat. They were his letters to Kirsteen, each one opened but still in their envelopes. It had been so long since he’d written them yet it seemed only yesterday he’d painstakingly scrawled each loving word. But why were they sent to haunt him after all this time? There was a note from Mrs Travers and he read it, his hand trembling:

  ‘Dear Fergus,

  I should have written before but with Shona here the time has flown by so quickly. Mrs Fraser died two weeks ago and I went to clear out her bits and pieces for, though she was a selfish wee body in many ways, she grew to trust me over the years and would let no one else do things for her.

  As you know I tidied for her now and then so it was natural enough for me to clear the things out. She has a sister somewhere and one or two nephews and the lawyer tried to trace them without success.

  I found some letters from Kirsteen to her mother. She had been writing after all but Maggie Fraser never once hinted this to me and myself her good friend the besom. However I’m not one to speak ill of the dead. It was obvious Kirsteen had been sending money to her mother but there was no address on the letters and never a hint where she was staying so it was easy to see she never wanted her mother to know of her whereabouts.

  The old lady has eaten her heart out these years since Kirsteen left. I used to see a tear in her eye on the few occasions she spoke of her lass. I know she was sorry for driving her away but she was a stubborn old lady and would never admit to being wrong. There’s a hint she’s left her house to some charity. She hadn’t much else but her house and her memories. The lawyer will likely put something into the leading papers in an attempt to let Kirsteen know that her mother has passed on and if I hear anything I’ll let you know.

  The letters are your property, I think, and I feel it’s your right to get them back. I didn’t look at them, well, maybe just a wee keek and they were that lovely I had a quiet wee greet to myself.

  Murdy and Maisie send their regards. I think the break here has done Shona some good. She’s a bonny bright lass and we’ll all miss her. Take good care of yourself, my lad.

  Your friend

  Maggie Travers.’

  Fergus picked up the sheaf of letters and crushed them to his breast. ‘Kirsteen, Kirsteen,’ he murmured brokenly, ‘it seems everyone has read my letters but you.’ He cradled his head in his hand, the firelight giving the dark curls on his brow the sheen of a raven’s wing.

  He remained where he was for some time, a strong motionless figure in his thick tweeds and Fair Isle pullover, lovingly knitted by Shona. The room was dark behind him and a faint wind rattled the window. A daring mouse nibbled crumbs by the dresser and Snap’s ginger fur bristled but he was too lazily comfortable on the hearth to bother further.

  The fire’s glow found every hollow in Fergus’s handsome face and iridescent colours broke on a tear poised on his lower lashes. His knuckles tightened on the letters and the sudden movement of his arm, drawn back to hurl them into the fire, made Snap sit upright, nostrils aflare with fright.

  The bundle landed on a piece of unlit turf and remained unharmed but for the wraiths of smoke already blackening the edges. Fergus watched, his chest heaving. A flame curled greedily and with a small strangled cry he snatched the bundle back from the fire. Something that was beyond his understanding made him want to keep this reminder of the past. The letters were a link with Kirsteen, the girl who lived somewhere in the world and who cared for the son he had never seen. If he ever found them, the letters were proof of a heart that had never stopped mourning for a love he couldn’t let go of.

  PART SEVEN

  CHRISTMAS 1939

  FOURTEEN

  The smell of snow was in Shona’s room when she woke three days before Christmas. She was aware of it, even as she was aware of the feeling of nausea that was becoming a familiar sensation of her first waking hour. She lay snugly under the patchwork quilt she had started with Mirabelle’s help when she was nine years old. She loved the quilt, it was a dear familiar thing in her life because each triangle and square was a memory. There were several patches from Mirabelle’s thick tweedy coats and from old jackets of her father’s. Many bits were from her own childhood clothes and two very precious patches had been begged from Niall to mend a torn square. He’d been fifteen when he’d given her the fragment of tartan from one of his discarded kilts. She ran her fingers over the rough homespun and thought about him. He wouldn’t manage home for Christmas or New Year. He had leave but not enough to allow for all the travelling time necessary to get to Rhanna. She searched under her pillow and found his letter from the week before. One passage tormented her with its unconscious pathos:

  ‘The thought of you is the one thing that keeps me going out here, mo gaolach. It’s a cold place, a different cold from Rhanna, and it curls inside till it reaches every bone. I make myself remember each moment we shared then I get warm again. It’s not that I find it hard to think of you but a man gets gey tired playing at soldiers and weariness does odd things to the memory.

  ‘It will be strange not being home this Christmas. I’ve always had Christmas on Rhanna with my ain folk but I’ll imagine you all, the peat fires, the plum puddings, and Bob playing his fiddle. Give your father my regards. Funny, I used to be a wee bit skearie of him, now I’m glad that one day I’ll be his son-in-law.

  ‘I look at the sampler you gave me often and, in my thoughts, I can see those misty islands.

  ‘I love you, mo gaolach . . .’

  She folded the letter and slid it back under the pillow, her arm frozen though it had only been exposed a few minutes. She covered herself again, reluctant to leave the warm bed. She heard her father in the kitchen and felt guilty. He was always up and about by six and in again for breakfast at half-past eight. Usually she had the fire going and his breakfast ready. Lately she’d felt too sick to move from her bed and the cold searching light of a winter dawn was something she hadn’t seen for almost a week now. She’d felt the same nausea when she’d been staying with the Traverses but it had passed quickly and hadn’t detracted from her enjoyment of the holiday. Oban seemed far away now and her visit belonged to another time.

  Cups clattered in the kitchen and with quick decision she got out of bed, making Tot groan at the intrusion into her slumbers.

  Shona was aware of the heavy dull soreness of her breasts as she swiftly pulled on clothes. She’d been aware of the feeling for some time but her mind was always so active with other things that she hadn’t bothered very much about it, she always got it before a period only this time the heaviness was more acute. She pulled on a cardigan and her eyes fell on the calendar above her bed. She stared at it, her eyes growing big, while her hand went
slowly to her mouth. She hadn’t stopped to think before, to count the weeks, or to analyse the reason for the lack of menstruation. She sat back heavily on the bed and her hands went automatically to her stomach. She was going to have a child, Niall’s child, it was growing inside her now and she hadn’t even been aware of it! The surprise of the discovery made her feel faint. She tried to think, to count the weeks of her pregnancy, but she couldn’t. Pregnancy applied to people like Nancy and Mairi, to animals like sheep and cows, dogs and cats, not to beings like herself, in love but unmarried, and barely seventeen. Her time of loving Niall had been a time of joy, of innocent wonder of the untamed passion they had shared. It was their secret, a thing of beauty to be held in the heart and unlocked from the mind in the dark hours when others slept. She was shocked by her discovery but she wasn’t afraid, there was going to be time enough for all those emotions later. The only real emotion she felt at that moment, other than surprise, was a growing certainty that she’d known all along that this was the thing that had motivated her to give herself so freely to Niall. She was afraid he wouldn’t return to her and she’d wanted him to leave a part of himself, his seed was growing inside her, into a baby that would be like him.

  In a daze she got up and splashed her face with cold water from the basin but the freezing water did nothing to rouse her from her trance. Her father shouted from below, ‘Are you up yet, lass? The porridge is bubbling!’

  ‘I’m coming, Father!’ she cried and went downstairs with Tot at her heels. Warming flames leapt in the grate and the porridge made soft plopping sounds in the pan. Fergus was pouring water into the teapot but he turned to look at her.

  ‘It will snow before the morn’s out,’ he forecast. ‘I’ll have to go out with Bob and Jock and put out neeps for the hill sheep and you’ll have to look for Thistle again – he got out from the field, the rascal. Most of the beasts will need extra hay so it will be all hands to the plough.’ He looked at her keenly. ‘You look wabbit, Shona. Are you sleeping bad of late?’