She forced a laugh. ‘Och no, Father, it’s just lazy I am and afeard of the cold outside the bedclothes. I’m sorry you had to get breakfast and you out so early. It won’t happen again.’
But he wasn’t deceived. He ate his porridge thoughtfully and noticed she only toyed with hers. He’d noticed the change in her after her return from Oban. She was different in a subtle way. Her lovely elfin face was still rosy and her summer tan hadn’t faded completely but there was a pinched look at her nostrils and her morning lethargy was very noticeable. She’d hardly missed a morning since Mirabelle’s passing, therefore her behaviour was all the more noticeable.
There was something about her that stirred chords somewhere in the recesses of his mind but he couldn’t think what it was. He was used to Helen’s fragile loveliness looking out from her face so it wasn’t that which tormented him. He knew she missed Niall more than she would admit and he decided it was his absence so near Christmas that was causing her such distress. He remained silent till she was clearing the breakfast things then he said casually, ‘I’ll have an hour or two to spare this afternoon. Mathew has a few wee firs growing near his cottage and I thought we could cut one down and decorate it for Christmas. Alick and the bairns will be here next week and it would be nice to have a tree for them.’
Shona’s eyes sparkled. ‘That would be grand, Father. I’d like that fine, so will Alistair and Andrew. Oh, it will be nice to see them again. Mary’s so different now. Do you know, she made better scones than me last year.’
The first flakes of snow began to fall while she was looking for Thistle. Somehow, the thing that she had discovered about herself that morning was so unreal that she pushed it to the back of her mind. Later she would think about it, later she would worry about telling her father, but not now, not with the calm cold air stinging her cheeks and the Sound of Rhanna glinting dull silver in the distance; not when snowflakes fell like silent fairies and were draping fields and dead bracken in white.
She found Thistle sharing a meal of sliced turnip with the shaggy sheep of the hill. He was unwilling to go with her because he was a creature of the wilds himself but she tied a rope round his neck and led him back to the pony shed where fresh oats soon settled him down.
By early afternoon the snow was two inches deep and Shona put on her wellingtons to cross the cobbled yard with her father so that they could check the outbuildings before setting off. The snow was powdery and crunched under their feet and she looked at her tall handsome father looming above her and felt a quick upsurge of happiness. He strode briskly, his pipe in his hand and the axe under the stump of his left arm.
Rhanna was like a Christmas card with the croft and byre huddled under a white blanket. Snow clung to bare trees and turned everyday objects into things of beauty. The crags of Glen Fallan blurred against the leaden sky and the tiny huddled houses of Portcull sent smoky banners into the snowflakes. It wasn’t often snow came to Rhanna, it was therefore a novelty to the young but a hazard to the more mature who knew of the danger it could bring to livestock.
Shona lifted her face appreciatively. ‘Oh, isn’t it lovely, Father?’
‘It’s nice stuff to look at I’ll grant you.’
‘And to play in. I used to have such grand snow fights with Niall.’
Fergus had half-expected the snowball but hadn’t bargained for such an exact aim at his neck. The snow melted and some slithered down the woollen neck of his jersey. Very deliberately he laid down his axe and pocketed his pipe. Shona yelled and looked for cover but there was none. His aim was even better than hers and the absence of an arm was no deterrent to him in the battle that ensued. Shona’s cheeks glowed and even while she darted about she knew she was sharing with her father a precious moment. He loved her and trusted her and now she carried a secret, the disclosure of which could only be a matter of time. When he found out . . . She dared not think further and the tears of laughter in her eyes mingled with the tears of sorrow.
Lachlan joined them on the way. ‘Tina’s near her time,’ he informed them, referring to Mathew’s wife. ‘Are you walking my way?’
‘The very place,’ said Fergus. ‘We’re cutting down a tree for Christmas. Mathew has some nice firs, some that Hamish planted a few years back. He never thought they would survive that wind that whistles up from the sea but they have, though they’re a wee bit twisted.’
Lachlan looked at Shona. ‘The fishing boat brought in some extra mail at dinner time. Erchy’s just brought a letter from Niall so no doubt there will be one for you too. It’s a shame he can’t be home for Christmas but Phebie sent him a food parcel. She’s certain he’s starving to death out there. There’s enough shortbread and tablet to go round the regiment.’
Shona drew in her breath and wanted to run home to Niall’s letter but she marched steadily beside the men. ‘I’ve sent a parcel too, not a foodie one, I knew Phebie would do that. I knitted him gloves and a scarf that just got longer and longer without my realizing. Poor Niall, he’ll be sharing it too with the regiment, I’m thinking!’
They scrunched up to Mathew’s cottage. Three-year-old Donald drifted to meet them, a purring cat draped round his neck. The little boy followed Fergus and watched solemnly while the tree was being cut.
Shona went straight to the kitchen to make a Strupak while Lachlan examined his patient. Shona felt at home in the cottage. It was little changed from Hamish’s day. Dogs and cats were heaped by the fire; the sofa was covered in hairs, and Tina always half-heartedly apologized to visitors, but she was a pleasant, easygoing, young woman who spent her life dressed in a smock and slippers. She muddled through each cluttered day and she and Mathew were extremely happy.
Fergus came in with the tree and Donald, still with the cat round his neck, went to sit on the rug to daze dreamily into the fire and pick his nose. His mother, oblivious to his bad manners, sat on a chair beside him, her body arched forward so that she wouldn’t squash a large ginger cat who had lost an ear in some nocturnal battle.
Shona plucked a hair from her tea and studied Tina quietly. Was it possible that one day she would look like that, her stomach an enormous protuberance and her breasts hanging heavy with milk? Tina looked like St Kilda, the old cow who lorded the byre, somehow always escaping the fate of most cows past their best; a trip to the slaughterhouse on the mainland. St Kilda’s udder swayed with the slightest movement and almost touched the ground.
Tina bent to re-turf the fire and Shona could see right inside her loose garments. Her breasts flopped heavily, and there was darkness where the belly swelled relentlessly. There was no grace or dignity, from the shamelessly splayed legs to the hair scraped back with kirbies. Shona shuddered. She couldn’t get like that – she was too slim, her breasts were high and tight. Tina was normally a pretty girl but inclined to plumpness and there was simply no comparison. Nevertheless she was aware of Tina’s every move, noting the awkward walking gait, with the belly thrown out and the feet spread to withstand the weight.
‘When is the bairn due?’ she heard herself asking.
‘Och, it will come at any time now.’ Tina patted her stomach affectionately. ‘It’s a wee bit skearie I am with Mathew out all day. I’m thinkin’ the snow will last a while and me here all by myself. It’s a quiet wee corner and sometimes it’s only Erchy I’m seein’ in the daytime. My sister from Croy said she would come and bide with me for a whiley but I hear tell she has a bad cold and in bed. I dareny think how auld Biddy will get up in time to deliver me. I was so quick with Donald! Just came out like a wee skinned rabbit he did after only four hours’ labour. ’Tis afraid I am just.’
Lachlan patted her arm reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, lass. When has Biddy ever let anyone down?’
‘Och, I know she’s a good sowel but she’s a mite too auld to be gallopin’ about in this weather!’
‘I’ll come.’ Shona’s impulsive offer surprised her own ears. ‘I’ll manage to sit with you in the afternoons till your time’s past.’
>
‘Ach, it’s kind you are, Shona, mo ghaoil.’ Tina beamed with gratitude and Fergus smiled quietly at his daughter’s sudden look of apprehension.
They stood up to go and Tina ushered them to the door with Donald toddling at her back, wiping his sticky fingers on her apron.
‘No skinned rabbits at Christmas,’ ordered Lachlan jokingly. ‘It’s turkey for me that day and a dram, with my feet up at the fire.’
Snow was still falling heavily and it was good to get back to Laigmhor and the cosy kitchen. They seldom used the parlour now but after tea Fergus went through and lit the fire. Coal was piled on and the flames licked it greedily. The air of gloom, always present in a room that hadn’t been fired for some time, dispersed quickly. He recalled the days when the parlour had been one of the most used rooms in the house and he remembered vividly the family Sundays with he and Alick sitting stiffly to attention while their father read from the enormous family bible. He had spent some of his happiest days in the parlour when Helen had been alive. The warm fragrant kitchen was Mirabelle’s domain in those days but the parlour had been his and Helen’s kingdom. In it they had made their most important decisions and, huddled cosily on the big settle, they had sometimes made love there.
He looked round at the dark walls where phantoms made by the fire cavorted and darted. The dresser held the best china and two large soulful-looking plaster dogs guarded the hearth. The mantelshelf was covered with photographs and from the top of an old wind organ that he and Alick had pumped to death as boys, the sepia-tinted features of his parents regarded him solemnly.
It was a room with a feel of the past and Fergus shuddered. Shona called on him to help her with the tree, already potted in an old tub.
‘I think I’ll do up the parlour,’ he told her. ‘It has an odd feel about it now. It would be nice to brighten it up with some paint. It feels as if it’s waiting for something to happen.’
She dusted her hands on her apron and looked at the dark walls. She seldom came into the parlour except to dust but now she took stock of it and knew what he meant. It was a ‘dead’ room, full of reminders of people long departed life.
‘Yes, Father,’ she said slowly, ‘it’s fusty and needs doing. Mirabelle used to say “Make the old thing new and meet again an old acquaintance”.’
He didn’t reply but heaved the tree up to the window and she decorated it while he sat on the settle and watched her. The decorations were mere paper chains and fir cones, baubles of silver paper and cotton wool, but they nestled against the dark green of the needles and looked lovely.
Shona stayed on in the room long after her father had gone up to bed. ‘Don’t be too late,’ he warned before going upstairs. ‘You know you can’t get up come morn.’
She lay down on the settle, staring at the tree and wondering for the first time what Niall’s reaction would be to a baby. Till now he was the one whose opinion she had feared the least but now her thoughts were crowding in on her and she was afraid. Niall might be horrified at the idea. He would come home from war, expecting the slim girl he’d left behind and instead he’d find a lumbering monster. Even though it was his baby he might not want it. They’d barely courted each other and suddenly he would be confronted with the enormous responsibility of fatherhood. Then there were his parents, how would they take it? How would her father react to a daughter who shamed him so? She felt she couldn’t bear any of it and she felt sick and utterly lonely.
A star was twinkling in the window behind the tree. She was so dejected she was ready to grasp at any straw and she saw the star as a symbol, a sign that Niall would love her no matter what happened. She sat up and wiped away a tear with a slim delicate hand then rose and went to the window, rubbing away the steam to see a moon-bathed snowscape. The sky was ablaze with stars and the moon spun a pathway of silver on the sea. A movement at the wire fence surrounding the garden caught her eye and she laughed softly. The deer had come down from the hills and were eating some old kale stalks, past their best and higher than the fence. For a long time she watched the graceful creatures then she went to the kitchen, put on her shawl and her boots, and went out to the hayshed and scooped out forkfuls to spread behind the outhouses. The deer had magically disappeared but she knew they would be back. It was bitterly cold. She huddled into her shawl and looked at the sky and particularly at the brilliant star she had noticed before.
‘Twinkle twinkle little star . . .’ she chanted childishly and scooped a handful of snow to throw in the air. It was strange to be out there on the sleeping island. Lights from fishing boats were visible though they were well out at sea and the world was hushed and very peaceful. Small sounds were to be heard, a rustling from the byre and a snort from the pony shed, but otherwise all was silent. Tot waddled into the path of light from the kitchen and sniffed the air. She shook a paw, disgusted by the snow, then squatted hastily before turning back to the warmth. At the door she stopped to look at her mistress, undoubtedly puzzled by the quirks of human nature.
‘In a wee minute, Tot,’ called Shona softly and reluctantly abandoned the world of white peace. The clock in the parlour was at half-past eleven and guiltily she remembered the promise she had made her father to be in bed early. She took the lamp and went upstairs. The halo of light revealed Fergus outside his door.
‘Where have you been?’ he demanded rather sharply. ‘You should have been in bed long ago.’
‘Yes, Father, I . . .’ Impulsively she wanted to throw herself at him and unburden her heart. How interwoven the pattern of their lives had become when he was unable to sleep because she had broken their usual routine. His face was dark and angry and she could only say, ‘I’m sorry, Father, the tree was so bonny and the deer were down from the hill. I gave them some hay.’
‘Aye well, you won’t get up in the morn.’ His voice was softer now.
‘I will, I promise you won’t come in to a cold kitchen again.’
‘It’s not that, lass, it’s . . . never mind now. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Father.’
Tina was pacing the floor when Shona arrived on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Donald was playing with lumps of peat from the turf box, mixing small bits with saliva and spreading it carefully on a black and white collie who looked dejected but resigned to such happenings. Two hens squawked in the kitchen, cocking beady eyes at a black kitten who was stalking them under cover of dirty pans on the floor.
Shona grabbed a besom and chased the hens outside and Tina sighed gratefully. ‘The buggers came in when I was fetching water and I was putting them out when the pains started bad.’
‘Pains?’ faltered Shona. ‘You haven’t started, Tina? Did you tell Mathew when he was in at dinner?’
‘Och well, they weren’t bad enough then. It’s hard to tell because you get a lot o’ funny wee pains in the last month. I didn’t want to worry poor Mathew, he was going to thraw some turkeys this afternoon and he never did have a stomach for such things.’
Shona held her breath and wondered at girls like Tina. She was a grotesque figure with her belly lumped before her in menacing splendour. Her pleasant pink features were twisted in pain and all she could think of was Mathew. She was the most unromantic sight on earth yet she loved with utter self-denial.
‘Are you sure . . . now?’ asked Shona, hopeful of a negative reply.
‘Aye, sure as daith! My waters came you see, near as much as came out o’ Brodie’s burn in a week . . . but och . . . I shouldny say such things to a wee lass like you.’
‘I’m nearly seventeen,’ asserted Shona faintly, ‘and I’d better go for Lachlan and send a message to Biddy.’
‘Ach, the puir auld Cailleach will never manage. She near died when Donald was coming. She was so wabbit from the walk I’d to give her brandy and me the patient!’
Shona darted to the door but Tina let out such a cry that she turned back and helped her to lie down on the sofa. Donald turned, and with an angelic smile, rubbed his lovely muddy mixture into
the sole of his mother’s slipper.
Tina grabbed Shona’s arm and her usually calm brown eyes were gently worried. ‘My – pans – the dishes – could you wash them, mo ghaoil? I know I’m not very tidy but the doctor will need hot water and he can’t have it mixed with clapshot can he?’
‘I’ll do them later, Tina! I’d better go! Lachlan might be out on rounds and it will take Biddy a while to get down from the Glen. If I see Father, I’ll ask him to fetch her in the trap – if he can get it through.’
Tina let out a cry and gritted her teeth. She was unable to speak for a moment, then her face relaxed and resumed its usual beatific expression. She lay amongst patchwork cushions covered with cat’s hairs and suddenly looked so radiant it was difficult to believe she was in childbirth.
‘It’ll be a girl, I know it will be a girl! A bonny wee lass that I can cuddle and dress in fine frocks.’
Shona smiled with affection at the bulk on the sofa. ‘I’m going now, Tina. I’ll run if I can.’
‘Och, mo ghaoil, wait a minute. Och I wish my sister was here – you can be more at home with your own. I meant to have everything ready but I never seemed to have the time. Shona, would you get me a pair o’ knickers? The others got all wet with . . . well you’ll find them in the top drawer in the bedroom – the pink ones with the wee bits o’ lace at the legs.’
Shona was exasperated. ‘Tina! The doctor will just make you take them off again!’
‘Och, I know, but a lass has to be respectable.’
Shona fetched the desired garment and left Tina pulling them on with Donald, an interested spectator, admiring the bits of lace.
Lachlan was out. The pony and trap were gone and with it seemingly the whole family. Shona rapped the door till her knuckles were sore but no Phebie or Fiona appeared to greet her. She looked round desperately. Sometimes her father was about but today the fields were deserted and she knew he had gone to the high ground with Bob and Mathew to bring the sheep to lower ground in case there was more snow. Her eyes searched in all directions for a sign of life. The children were on Christmas holidays and those who lived in the Glen were often to be seen making the journey to and from Portcull but today the road was empty. Panic gripped her. She had to get a message to Biddy. If she went herself it meant leaving Tina on her own for at least an hour, probably more because of the snow.
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