Shona shook her head miserably.
‘Aye well, the time has come, mo ghaoil. You canny hide it any more. It’s a wonder Lachlan hasny spotted it.’
‘I – I haven’t been over for a time.’
‘Aye, he mentioned that you were keepin’ away these days. I knew why of course. He’s a doctor and a good one. Mind you, he wouldny be lookin’ for such a thing and you’re such a mite of a lass still. We’re all inclined to think o’ you as a bairn yet. Some are wed at your age, I know, but you have the look o’ a wee lassie just out o’ school . . .’
She was expecting the tears and her arms were ready. She hugged the sobbing girl to her scrawny bosom and uttered words of comfort, ‘Weesht, my bonny one. Tell your father, you’ll feel the better o’ it. He’s near at hand to give you comfort whilst Niall, the poor laddie, is too far away to help at all. He’d be pleased I’m sure if he knew someone here was helpin’ you.’
‘But he doesn’t know either,’ wailed Shona. ‘I meant to tell him in every letter but somehow I’m afraid it will take away all the lovely things we shared!’
Biddy nodded significantly. ‘And wasn’t the making o’ the bairn a thing you both had a share in? Och, pull yourself together this meenit, girl! You must be near out your mind keepin’ such a thing to yoursel’ so long. Niall wouldny be pleased. Surely he’s more o’ a man than you’re givin’ him credit for. It’s time for the truth, my lassie. Mirabelle taught you well, don’t let her down any more than you have already!’
Shona made her way home, oddly comforted by the old midwife’s blunt words. She made up her mind to tell her father that night.
But there was no need. He was kept late in the lambing field and when he arrived home she was asleep in the inglenook. He tiptoed to retrieve his dinner from the oven and sat to eat it quietly. He looked at his daughter and wondered at the little naps she seemed to find so necessary now. It was so unlike the vivacious, almost untamed vitality he was so used to, that he was beginning to wonder about her health and the very thought of anything wrong made him pause, the fork halfway to his mouth. He studied her intently, knowing there was something different yet unable to place it. Living with someone, seeing them every day, it was difficult to pinpoint changes, yet he knew there was change in her. She was lying awkwardly, her head pillowed on her arm in a familiar childlike pose. Her dress had caught under her and was pulled into the contours of her body. The thing he had imagined to be so subtle now glared at him and he drew in his breath sharply, his meal forgotten. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t true, the distortion of the slim child’s figure had something to do with the way she was lying, but how could anything lumped into such an obvious place be a figment of his imagination? It all fitted, the sickness, the fatigue, the gradual change from flimsy garments to the loose smocks and dresses he’d thought to be a mere girlish whim.
He got up and went to look down at her. He could feel the muscle in his face working the way it always did when traumatic feelings seethed in him. He knew of course whose child it was but at the moment he had no thoughts for the young man at war in France. His fury was all for his daughter, the child he had come to trust and love with an intensity that he was afraid of at times. She was all he had, he knew his life revolved round her too much but he couldn’t help himself. They needed each other, each a buffer for the other’s loneliness.
The strength of his presence reached into her sleeping brain. She stirred and her eyes opened, a smile of pleasure lighting them. ‘Father!’ She struggled up. ‘I left your dinner in the oven. Did you get it?’
The black fury in his face deepened and when he spoke his voice was hoarse with the depth of his hurt. ‘Tell me, girl, tell me about the thing that has turned you from a bairn into a clumsy tired Cailleach! You’re with child, aren’t you? Dammit, I should have guessed but I thought you had more sense! You’re having Niall McLachlan’s child after all my warnings and all your ill-kept promises! You’re no better than a tramp!’
The whiplash of his words made her cringe back against the cushions, afraid of the temper that was boiling over in such frothing fury. She had seen his rages before but never one so furious as now. Her heart pounded and the room spun round.
‘Say it damn you,’ he roared. ‘Let me hear from your own lips you’ve lain with McLachlan and now carry his child!’
She felt faint and strangely breathless. ‘I tried to tell you, Father, I wanted to but I was afraid! I was going to tell you tonight – Biddy knows and thought you should too! But you were late and I fell asleep . . .’
‘So – the word is already getting round! Biddy knows – before your own father! Soon the whole of Rhanna will know that McKenzie’s daughter’s a slut!’
‘I’m not ashamed, Father,’ she sobbed. ‘I love Niall and because of that I am proud to be carrying his child! It might be the only part of him I’ll have left in the end. I am not ashamed, Father!’
His hand came down and crashed into her face with such force that she fell back against the cushions. Tot whimpered and struggled up to lick her mistress’s bleeding lip.
The door slammed and the house was quiet but unnaturally so. Shona’s tears were soundless though she wanted to scream and run to someone for comfort. She thought of Niall but even he was unreal in her mind. He was her life yet he could not help her. Somewhere he too fought a lonely battle in some stinking trench in faraway France. Seas and mountains divided them when they needed each other most. She couldn’t know if there was any comfort in his life but she had people she could turn to, those who were the flesh of her beloved Niall. She rose from the couch and ran from Laigmhor to the warm beckoning glow of Slochmhor nestling in its shelter of Scotch pines.
Fergus walked as he had walked on that other night of tortured mind and spirit, blindly without thought of direction.
The infant Shona had pointed the screaming finger of accusation at him then, her child’s mind infuriated because of the tight band of secrecy he had woven round the truth of her existence. Now he was the accuser and his hurt wouldn’t let his seething mind see anything, other than the fact that the child he had come to worship had deceived him by her very silence.
The cool night wind lashed over him and he was aware of the sound of the sea. He walked on, stumbling over rocks on the shore, his head bent in misery. He came then to the place he had sought once before. From the lonely washed shore he looked towards the schoolhouse, its windows aglow from the soft lights within. It was the same place it had been on that other night, a dark mass of stone and chimneys outlined faintly against the endless moors. But within moved little Mr Murdoch and his family. There was no Kirsteen beckoning him wordlessly with the beauty of her body and soul. He could run to no one for the comfort he so desperately needed.
He sat on a barnacle-encrusted rock and cradled his dark head in his hand. The sound of the sea and the soft sigh of the wind gave peace to the night and gradually his reeling senses cleared. He began to collect each of his thoughts and sort them out.
An hour passed. The beautiful peace of the Rhanna night seeped into him and he raised his head to look at the soft glow of silver on the water. He reached for a pebble and threw it into the water and as it sank it seemed to carry all his furious feelings to the bottom of the sea.
Now his heart cried for the little girl who had wreaked so many emotions in him throughout her life. She had always been there, wanting only his love and gradually he had given her all the love that should have been hers in her infant years, yet, despite his love she had been afraid to tell him about herself because she feared he would love her less.
He hurried now, back to Laigmhor, his heart full of remorse, seeing in his mind’s eye a pale little wraith without Niall, carrying on her duties at the farm, tending to his every need and all the time a child growing within the confines of that delicate body.
But the farm was quiet, with only the animals sleeping by the kitchen range. He ran upstairs to her room but it too was empty. He guessed thoug
h where she was, the people she was with, the folk who had been her comfort and stay from her early years.
It was Phebie who answered the door and she looked wordlessly at his wild dishevelled figure.
‘Where is she?’ he demanded urgently, looking past her into the dimly lit hall.
‘Upstairs – in Niall’s room! Lachy gave her a sedative, she was worn out but couldn’t rest. I’ve never seen a lass so lost of heart.’
Phebie’s voice was softly accusing but Fergus was only aware of his need to see his daughter. He pushed past and went upstairs to Niall’s room. It was a real boy’s room with all its boyish collections of model planes, pictures of animals, and fishing tackle propped in a corner. In the bed, with its gay patchwork quilt, was Shona, half asleep, her face warmly flushed, and her copper hair cascading over the pillow.
At sight of him she started up quickly, the sleep going from her eyes leaving them big and frightened. He stood for a moment looking down at her; noting the lovely elfin little face, eyelids puffy from heartbroken weeping, he saw the bruised cut lip caused by the brutal strength of his own hand and his heart twisted in a rush of remorse and terrible shame.
‘Shona.’ The whisper of her name was barely audible. He bent and took her to his heart, crushing her to him in a moment that gathered the years together and brought forth all the love he felt for her. Her silken hair was smooth against his lips and the warm heat of her body surged through his hand and at last the flesh of his flesh was openly acclaimed for its worth.
She lay against him and sobbed quietly, giving herself up to the exquisite moment. After a time he pushed her gently away and taking her hand looked deep into her eyes. ‘It – it’s difficult for me, Shona – you know that. I never could show my feelings much.’
‘I know, Father,’ she said softly.
‘This – thing that has happened – we’ll see it through together. I’ll take care of you till Niall comes home then we’ll get the pair of you to the altar as it should be. Bugger the auld Cailleachs and their wagging tongues!’
‘Aye, bugger them, Father,’ she said softly. ‘They will talk and though I’m not shamed at having Niall’s baby I’m sorry for the disgrace I’ll bring on you.’
He was silent for a time and his dark eyes were faraway. His hand gripped hers tighter. ‘My lass, I’ve never spoken to you much – of things. I loved your mother. God knows I loved her too much and when she died I didn’t want to love another. I was afraid of love and I didn’t even want to own you, my own bairn. But no man can be an island forever. I met Kirsteen, you were just a wee lass then. I loved her –’ he lifted his face to the ceiling – ‘I loved her in the way a man loves a woman but I couldn’t bring myself to wed her. She was all any man could want, more, God knows, but I didn’t want to commit myself – not after your mother. Then, something happened that made me ask Kirsteen to wed me but then . . .’ He paused and she held his hand tightly, her love reaching out to him in the agony of his revelations. ‘There was the accident. Kirsteen knew I was too proud to ask her again to be my wife – so she left Rhanna – carrying my child!’
Shona gasped aloud, her mind racing with the implications of his words.
‘It’s true, Shona,’ he said softly. ‘Somewhere I have a son I’ve never seen and . . .’
‘I have a half brother,’ she finished in dazed tones.
‘Aye, it’s true you have. The words you spoke tonight of being proud to carry your lad’s bairn were spoken nigh on six years ago by Kirsteen herself. I found it all out that time I went to Oban. I was looking for Kirsteen but she had gone and me not knowing where to this day.’
‘You’ll find her again one day, Father.’
‘Aye, maybe.’ He touched the cut on her mouth gently. ‘I’m sorry, mo ghaoil, I’ve hurt you but I couldn’t believe the truth of my eyes. I’m a fine one to judge but at the time I saw black with rage. I had thought better of Niall yet I’m no better myself.’
She looked at him, a strange mixture of pride and pleading in her eyes. ‘I wanted him to love me, Father, I asked him. I was afraid of the war, I had to know what love with him was like in case – in case . . .’
‘Weesht now, he’ll come back. It’ll take more than a war to put down that young de’il.’
She lay back on the pillows, blue smudges of weariness under her eyes. ‘Now I can tell him about the baby,’ she whispered.
‘He doesn’t know?’ His words held disbelief.
‘No, somehow I couldn’t tell him without you knowing first and I was afraid to tell you so I couldn’t tell anyone.’
Something tightened in his throat at her confession and his voice was sad when he spoke. ‘You’ve borne your burden alone, my lass, and I know what that feels like. Aye, you’re a McKenzie right enough.’
Her eyes were closing despite herself. ‘You’ll let me bide in Niall’s room tonight, Father? I’m so tired.’
Lachlan appeared at the door. The eyes of the two men met. ‘Let her rest now,’ said Lachlan quietly.
Fergus stood up. ‘Aye,’ was his brief answer before he went quickly from the room.
In the hallway Lachlan gripped his arm. ‘My son’s a young bull and deserves to be whipped for this. I’m sorry, McKenzie.’
Fergus drew a deep breath and looked straight into the deep compassionate eyes of Lachlan. ‘I’m not – not now that the first shock is over. Those two were created for each other and the coming of a bairn is but a bit sooner than any of us expected.’
Lachlan’s eyes crinkled with relief. ‘Good God! Are you not a man of surprises? You’re mellowing, Fergus, and it’s as well. Will you come down now and have a dram to celebrate the fact that soon we’ll both be grandparents?’
Fergus stared. ‘I hadny thought of that! I’m not yet forty!’
‘And I have just a year over you and poor Phebie only thirty-nine like yourself. It’s a nasty shock for us all.’
Phebie appeared in the hall below. ‘Are you not coming down? You’ll waken Fiona with your blethering!’
‘Coming, Grandma!’ answered Lachlan and both men gave a bellow of mirth.
Fergus had been right about the gossips. Shona’s condition provided ample fuel for the wagging tongues who openly declared their piety by regular church-going but who kept stout keys for the many skeletons rotting in the cupboards of their past. The more sensible islanders gossiped eagerly in the beginning but soon grew tired of the subject, even solicitously asking after Shona’s health when she appeared in the shops at Portcull.
Behag Beag remained tight-lipped and distant whenever Shona’s ungainly little figure appeared on her premises.
‘Serves McKenzie right,’ Behag told her cronies. ‘His nose might come out of the air now his lass is known to have such lusts of the flesh.’
‘You’re a jealous auld Cailleach,’ grinned Erchy. ‘It’s for want of a man up your own skirts you’re such a greetin’ baggage.’
Erchy had always enraged Behag by his teasing remarks which were too much near the truth for comfort and she flounced to kirk on Sundays to stare at the stained glass window and pray for the salvation of Erchy and sinners like him.
Tina gave Shona endless cups of tea and lots of advice and Mairi delighted in detailed accounts of each of her confinements always ending up with, ‘Ach, poor Wullie was always afeard I wouldny come through and promised never to touch me again. But he’s a man! He’s a man so he is and likes fine his wee bit play.’
Nancy came more to the farm than ever with her four sticky children trailing at her heels. She beamed at Shona’s hard lump of a belly and became motherly and comforting, all the while listing gory details ‘Ach, but never mind, you’ll be fine. Biddy might be an auld Cailleach but she’ll see you come through. My, she must have seen more bums in her lifetime than she’s had cups o’ tea.’
Shona listened and waited and grew increasingly impatient with her clumsy stomach which was tight and neat to be harbouring an eight-month foetus but which neverthele
ss made her feel ugly and untidy.
The war was worsening and she fretted for news of Niall. His last letter had been angry that she hadn’t told him about the baby sooner. ‘It is the child of our love, mo gaolach, and it was my right to know about it. I dream of you and our times of love and I long to be back on dear clean Rhanna. The stink of war is growing worse by the minute. I smell of it, the mud and the filth and the first thing I’ll do on Rhanna is sit naked in Brodie’s burn and let the sweet cold water from the mountains wash the war out of me. I love you, mo gaolach, and I’m worried and unhappy that I can’t be with you when you need me most.’
It was the beginning of June and the warm winds of the Gulf Stream fanned gently the sweet new heather on the moor. Cows and sheep grazed contentedly in the lush pastures and the island had the browsing lazy feel that summer brings to green places.
Shona felt hot and uncomfortable and spent a lot of time by the open window of the parlour, now fresh with new paint and white muslin curtains. Fergus had acquired a wireless set, powered by accumulators which had to be recharged occasionally by the generator on the young laird’s estate. The islanders were dourly impressed by the strange piece of machinery that could make enough power for such a modern wonder as electricity to come on at the turn of a switch.
Todd the Shod already owned a small generator which proved its worth in the smiddy and he had felt himself to be a man of some importance since its acquisition. But he guarded it jealously and continually bemoaned the cost of its running, considering it unprofitable to use it for anything other than the blacksmith business. The arrival of the young laird’s generator, and the fuss of its unloading on to the harbour, was a day to be remembered in Portcull. The huge piece of machinery swayed precariously on the end of the cattle pulley and Todd watched from his doorway and wished mildly that the whole contraption would go crashing on to the cobbled pier.
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