The Exile of Sara Stevenson

by Darci Hannah

  “Why, I knew where they were from, Ma!” he said, coming to stand beside her. “They’re ridin’ one of his horses!” And then he turned to us, looking suspicious again. “And I bet they dinna even ask before they took ’im!”

  “Hughie! Mind your tongue or ye’ll get no tea! Please excuse the lad,” she asked, looking plaintively to us. “His father’s been gone a few days now and he thinks whenever his da’s away that he can act like the man of the house.”

  “Well, I, for one, think it commendable,” I said, looking at the boy. “Young Mr. MacKay seems a fine, capable young man. Wise too.”

  “Aye, a bit too wise for his mother!”

  We sat around the table drinking sweet tea with oatcakes and jam. It was, undoubtedly, the best-tasting meal we had eaten since we arrived on the Cape. There was nothing fancy about the little croft, nothing imported or store-bought anywhere to be seen. And for this—this little pile of stones, capped with a wad of thatch and sitting in the middle of nowhere—Mary MacKay was grateful. And then I thought of my own home in Edinburgh. Mine was a fine home, a grand home, and because of its grandness I had sneered at this little dwelling. This croft was everything to Mary MacKay, and with an unfamiliar longing, while looking at this happy little family—a family who struggled to eke out a living on a forgotten strip of land—I realized that Mary MacKay had so much more than I. She was loved, and needed, and fairly worshipped by her children. And the look in her eye as she spoke of the unseen Mr. MacKay, who had gone to town to visit some fishermen, told me she fairly worshipped him as well. Her home was clean, her children clothed, fed and happy and she could obviously cook, for the oatcakes were delightful. There was also a wonderful-smelling stew cooking over the fire. And the irony was that none of these skills Kate or I had yet managed.

  “May I ask you something?” I said to our hostess when I had finished my tea. “Whatever you have cooking over there smells wonderful. One of the reasons Kate and I took the horse and ventured out on such a day, unbeknownst to the keepers,” I added for the sake of young Hughie, “was to gather some insight on cooking. Neither Kate nor I know what we’re about in the kitchen and we were wondering if you might give us some advice?”

  “Ye dinna know how to cook?” the boy blurted, looking at me with incredulity dripping from his wide blue eyes.

  Again I felt the fool. “No, I’ve never learned,” I admitted frankly, and flashed a self-effacing smile. “We try all the time but with little success, I’m afraid.”

  “Why, what sort of a woman canna cook? I never heard the like!”

  “Hughie! That’ll be enough out of ye!” Then turning to me, “Why, of course I’ll help. I’d be honored. But do ye mind me askin’ how it is ye’ve survived all these years without being able to cook?”

  “Well I guess I’ve never had to.”

  “Ye never had to?” she repeated, ruminating over this little admission. “If ye dinna have to cook, what is it ye do, then?”

  I was stunned by this question, humiliated even, and while I thought of an answer—looking at my hostess and her precocious little boy, who was staring at me with mouth agape … as if I were a traveling oddity at a county fair—Kate replied for me. “Why, she shops. She’s very good at it too. And when she is not shopping or drinking tea, she reads books and writes love letters.”

  “Kate!”

  “Is it true?” Mary asked, looking evenly at me.

  Unable to lie to this woman, a woman who was the paradigm of domestic industry, I nodded and hung my head. “Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

  “Ye can read and write?”

  I looked up. “Ah, yes. I can.”

  “Tell me, if I gave ye a letter, could ye read it to me?”

  “A letter? Why, of course. I’d be happy to.” And without another word she got up and went through the door to the other side of the croft. Hughie, for all his ten years, remained at the table and held me in his scrutinizing gaze.

  She came back a moment later with a letter in her hand. “Hughie, will ye be a dear and put Maggie down for her nap?” The boy looked as if he would argue, then thought better of it, and carried the little girl through the door, casting one more arched glance behind him. Mary looked a bit nervous as she handed the letter across to me. “It came a week ago,” she explained. “My Hugh read it, said it was from my brother, and then he left for town the next day. I asked him to read it to me, and he did too, very kindly, but I’ve the feeling he dinna read it all. There looks to be more to it than the words he read, and what was in the letter that made him leave so hastily, I canna tell. I’m no’ sayin’ that my husband’s a liar, mind ye, but perhaps he’s keepin’ something from me?”

  “Well,” I began, looking at her, “have a seat and I shall read it, then you can decide for yourself.”

  The letter began, as every good letter should, with a salutation, and I read:

  November 5, 1814

  Dear Mary and Hugh,

  ’Tis been a long time on the continent and I’ve grown very fond of it here. France is particularly lovely, and since the war, with old Bony safely in Elba, there’s plenty of opportunity for those who seek it. I have handed in my musket and now turn my sights on other ventures. Yet even more alluring than profitable business opportunities, I’ve found a special person who makes me very happy. Her name is Isabella and she speaks very fine English.

  I looked at her with raised eyebrows; she smiled and urged me to continue.

  Her family has long been supporters of the Bourbons and so they are happy now that their king has been restored. But that makes little difference to me. I am happy and look forward to peace as well as a long life with Isabella beside me. We plan to wed this winter. Hopefully we can manage a visit next summer. Wish me well, sister.

  All my love to you, Hugh and the children,

  Fergus

  “Well, it seems your brother’s quite happy in France,” I denoted, stating the obvious.

  “Aye, ’tis grand, certainly, but is that all … is that all it says?”

  “Ahh … no. There’s more, an aside really or postscript, though it’s not indicated as such,” and I read the rest of the hastily scrawled lines at the bottom.

  Brother: I will be arriving in March as planned on the spring tide, and hope to make a run every month thereafter if it can be arranged. The signal, as always, remains three. Tell the lads. Be ready.

  “It looks as if your brother will be coming this March,” I said cheerfully, but Mary was not smiling.

  “That last part was the part Hughie dinna read … But why? Why keep it from me?”

  Kate and I looked to each other. “Well, what do you suppose it means?” Kate inquired with her fine dark brows pulled close together.

  “I dinna know,” Mary mused, shaking her head softly.

  “Ma,” came wee Hughie’s voice. The boy poked his head in the doorway, the sound startled his mother out of her reverie and she spun around. “I dinna mean to interrupt, but they are plannin’ to leave today, are they no’?” He indicated they by jerking his bushy head to us. “I just thought I should ask because the snow is no’ letting up and ’tis comin’ on to blow.”

  “Blow?” I uttered stupidly.

  “Aye, a right nasty storm,” he said with a sly twinkle in his eyes. “The kind what makes travel aye muckle difficult, especially with such weight and upon a stolen horse forbye.”

  After a wee word in her son’s ear, followed swiftly by his awkward and ingenuous apology, and after several futile attempts to convince us to stay, Kate and I were packed onto poor Wallace, with a crock of strawberry jam, a dozen hen’s eggs and plenty of good instruction for a quick, failsafe supper. After learning that Mary could not read I insisted on teaching her and her son, realizing it was a way I could be useful to the people here. In exchange for this service, which Mary seemed eager for if only on her son’s behalf, she would bequeath to me her knowledge on the domestic arts, concentrating on the more useful skills of cooking and makin
g preserves. She was hopeful, more so than I, and we parted with a budding friendship and the promise of meeting again soon. Just before we left the safety of the little barn, Mary hastily passed us two dark green bottles containing some type of spirit, stating that it was a present. She then said a blessing over us in the Gaelic, and we were on our way.

  We were indeed in need of a blessing, I realized as soon as, heading back to the road, we crested the little hill leading from the MacKay croft, for the wind had picked up and the snow was driving into us at a near horizontal angle. The weather was bad enough, not one of God’s creatures dared stir on such a day but us, and to make matters worse Kate sat behind me berating me like a daft granny, swearing that I was the most foolhardy person alive. Why had she gone with me in the first place? she wondered aloud. Robbie was going to be right furious! What had we been thinking? We were both going to die! And at one point, when we had to get off the horse and walk up a steep snow-covered hill with heads bent against the biting wind that nearly tore the coats off our backs, she even cried. But I did not. I grabbed her mitten-covered hand, shouted for her to keep moving and pulled her along, smiling all the while because I now had a friend. Mary MacKay and her precocious children were a breath of sunshine in this land of chilling darkness, and if I was made to suffer for my foolishness, then so be it. We had just made it to the top of the hill and were getting ready to mount back up when I saw a sight that knocked the breath from me.

  He was there, appearing like an amorphous dark shadow behind a veil of white, sitting on a horse that mirrored my own. It was unbelievable. Had we been gone for that long? And if the weather was not enough to frighten me, the sight of him was.

  “I’ve been looking for ye,” was all he said, his voice as cold and biting as the wind. “Your husband’s been very worried, ma’am,” he added, coming closer, directing his comment to Kate. But it was I who felt inclined to answer.

  “You forget, I don’t have a husband, and therefore am answerable to no one but myself,” I replied defensively.

  “Aye, and if there ever was a woman who needed a husband, it would be you.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Get on the horse,” he ordered, ignoring me. “Help Mrs. MacKinnon up and give me the reins.”

  “I can manage just fine!”

  “Sara, for God’s sake, please be a good lass for once and do as Mr. Campbell wishes!” cried Kate, very near tears again. “I’m frozen clear through, I cannot feel my legs, and I want to get home and see Robbie before I die!”

  Mr. Campbell dismounted and came storming over. He took Kate by the waist and lifted her into the saddle with a gentleness that belied his anger. “You,” he said, turning to me, and there was nothing gentle about it, “climb up behind her and grab hold of her. She’s freezing. Use your body to shield her from the wind and give her whatever warmth ye can.” He laced up his hands to assist me. Without question I did as I was told and swung up behind the saddle, holding tightly to Kate. And without another word, Mr. Campbell led us home.

  When we arrived, Robbie was there waiting, and came running over to us, pulling his wife down before we ever made it to the courtyard. He took her in his arms and carried her into the cottage, leaving me alone with Mr. Campbell. “I’ll take care of the horses,” he said plainly as we dismounted in front of the stable. “You get yourself into the cottage, take off those frozen clothes and climb into bed. I’ll be there in a minute to have a word with ye.”

  “I’m not tired,” I stated boldly, even though I was, and walked past him to retrieve the little sack Mary had packed for us.

  He grabbed my arm and yanked me around. “I’m not asking you! I’m telling you! You get into the cottage, take off those clothes and get into bed! And then you’re going to tell me why it is ye feel ye can do whatever it is ye please around here.”

  “Mr. Campbell, sir,” I replied haltingly, fighting not to lose my temper, “it was my decision to leave the lighthouse grounds, and though I took longer than I intended, I have not forgotten that I have duties. And I intend to fulfill them.”

  He gave me a piercing look with his crystal aquamarine gaze. “Och! I dinna want ye to make supper! What I want, Miss Stevenson, is for ye to do as I tell ye and get into bed! By God,” the expletive exploded from his mouth in a breath of frustration, “is it not enough that ye coerced poor, guileless Mrs. MacKinnon into going with ye on your daft errand? She could have died! You could have died out there too! This is not Edinburgh! And Wallace is my horse! Ye had no right taking that beast! He’s lighthouse property and therefore none of your own. A woman in your condition ought to have more sense … ought to have more respect … ought to be more mindful …”

  “I understand,” I replied with ambivalence and left him to his angry tirade. I could hear him breathing heavily behind me, trying to expel his pent-up anger as he stood beside the two steaming horses. A pang of guilt shot through me as I trounced through the deep snow of the courtyard. Yet like my cold, shivering body, I pushed it aside; for my self-indulgent pride was much stronger, nearly impenetrable, I thought, and it was all I had left to me, to defend myself—to keep me warm in the night. And I would show Mr. Campbell I was not a woman to be pushed and prodded like a malleable, docile heifer.

  Thankfully it takes a good deal of time to rub down a horse properly, and more still to stable two, and Mr. Campbell did everything properly. Thankfully for me, because I used this time to my advantage by hanging a kettle of water over the fire, changing my clothes and then starting on supper. I fried a rasher of bacon, as Mary had instructed, mixed a spoonful of the fat into the oat flour, added enough water and a pinch of bicarbonate, until I had a sticky dough. It was a good dough, I thought, especially so since it didn’t require the use of yeast. I pulled the bacon from the pan when it was done and put it in a tray, keeping it warm near the fire, and then I fried the little disks of dough, keeping diligent watch over them lest they burn. They didn’t, and these I removed to make way for the eggs. I scrambled and fried them in the rest of the bacon fat, mixing them until they were thoroughly cooked. And these too I kept warm by the fire. I washed and set the table, put out the pot of jam, poured the boiling water into the teapot to steep the tea. And then I made up a tray for Kate. I found her in bed with a warm brick by her feet and Robbie sitting beside her talking in a soft, soothing voice.

  “May I come in?” I asked, stirring them from their moment of marital privacy.

  “Sara,” said Robbie, a look of displeasure in his eyes until he saw the tray in my hands. “Why are you not abed?”

  I smiled and offered contritely, “Because I thought it more important to bring food and hot tea for my dear friend. I think it will help.”

  “Aye,” he agreed cautiously. “Come in.”

  I set the tray down and sat next to Kate. She was all bundled in a flannel nightgown and cap, tucked into bed with the coverlet drawn to her chin. Seeing her there, under the tender concern of her husband, made me slightly jealous and I secretly longed for Thomas. Would he have fussed over me so? Would he have put me in flannel, placed a hot brick in my bed and used his body to warm me? Or would he have treated me with scorn and derision, berating me for my stupidity like Mr. Campbell? Never in life. Thomas Crichton loved me, and damn me, but I missed him!

  “How are you not cold? How are you not frozen straight through?”

  “Because the thick layer of foolishness I wear keeps me from it.” She smiled at this. “I’m truly sorry, Kate. I used poor judgment and hopefully I’ve learned my lesson. But look here, do you see? I made those.”

  “Truly?” she said with the right mixture of astonishment and disbelief touching her eyes. She sat higher and admired my golden-brown oatcakes. “Oh Sara, why, they’re lovely!”

  “They are.” I beamed with pride. “Yours are on the table, Robbie, and there’s a bottle of ale for you as well.”

  “Ale?”

  “I think. Why don’t you go see?” With a
gentle kiss on his wife’s forehead, he left us.

  “So was he very angry with you?” Kate asked as soon as her husband was out the door.

  “Angry as the devil, hotter too. He’s not unlike my father, Kate, a tireless despot. But whereas my father has the divine right to govern me, me being his daughter and all, Mr. Campbell has no such right.”

  “He is the principal light-keeper.”

  “I understand, but he’s not my keeper. Now, eat up. I want to see his face when he realizes that I disobeyed another of his orders. I slaved over the fire rather than lounged in bed.”

  Kate giggled. “My, how very unlike you.”

  “Yes, isn’t it?”

  I was not disappointed. Mr. Campbell was stunned. He looked at the table, smartly set and displaying plates overflowing with delicious-smelling food, and seemed at a loss whether to chide me for my willful disobedience or commend me for my efforts. Yet so late in the day, and having had nothing but watery oat porridge for sustenance, his growling belly held mastery over his finer sensibilities. He looked at me with his mesmerizing eyes and there I saw an expression quite foreign to him: heartfelt appreciation. But as quickly as it came it went and he frowned, stating, “I thought I made it clear ye were to get to bed.”

  “And so I shall, sir, just as soon as I’ve eaten.” I then sat down at the table that for once seemed pleasantly welcoming instead of rudely repellent, beckoning for both men to join me. As they silently helped themselves to the rashers, eggs and oatcakes (or bannock, as Mary had called them) from the overflowing platters, I pulled from the bag Mrs. MacKay had given me one of the bottles. With all eyes on me, I poured out three glasses of a dark, purplish liquid and handed them around.

  “What’s this?” Mr. Campbell asked, picking the glass up and regarding it with due skepticism.

  “A token of my sincere apologies. And I am apologetic … to both of you for my actions today.”

  “Aye, ye better well be, for they were—”