The Exile of Sara Stevenson

by Darci Hannah

  “Why, Mr. Campbell! Here you are, dear sir. I came to let you know that the MacKays have arrived … But forgive me, you must already know that, having such a vantage point over us all. Mr. MacKay was most anxious to speak with you, especially so after learning his son had ventured into the lighthouse without his permission. I believe you are acquainted with Mr. MacKay?”

  The men regarded each other warily from across the room. Robbie stood smiling politely while awaiting a formal introduction. Yet before introductions could be made, a pleading reproach came from across the room, interrupting the silent standoff with a resounding “Daaa!”

  “Step away, Hughie. I thought we discussed that ye would wait until your mother and I arrived.”

  “But, Da, ye were taking a muckle long time about it. And the ships were passing, coming about in a line! ’Twas a grand sight indeed.” His blue eyes widened, expressing the wondrous sights he’d seen.

  “Do not argue, lad! Step away.” Wee Hughie looked in my direction and crossed his spindly arms over his spare torso. The look of displeasure he gave me was comically reminiscent of Mr. Campbell’s.

  “Da, please! Ye said I could, and Mr. Campbell was only telling me about those ships. Surprisingly, the man knows a lot.”

  “Aye, that he does,” replied Mr. MacKay as he walked over to the telescope. He then took his son by the arms and, squatting before the boy so as to better look him in the eye, said evenly, “But ye disobeyed me, Hughie, and a good lad never disobeys his father.” This had an instant effect on the boy and he hung his head in shame, all the infantile bravado deflating from his youthful frame with those few reproachful words. I found it a strangely moving scene, very telling of the powerful relationship between father and son, and fought the urge to wrap my arms around the little creature and comfort him myself.

  Mr. Campbell pushed himself away from the wall in one lithe move to stand closer to father and son. “I believe the fault is mine, MacKay, not the lad’s. I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was to wait. He’s a good boy, bright too, and he’s welcome back whenever he wishes. Aye, Hughie? Now, may I introduce my new man, Mr. MacKinnon, come late last fall to the lighthouse?” The men shook hands, but the tension between Mr. Campbell and the Highlander was still very much alive and dangerous. Then, turning to me, he said with a sugary smile, “Miss Stevenson, would you be a dear and take this young man back to the cottage for some biscuits and tea? We’ll be along shortly. I believe Mr. MacKay and I have some matters to discuss.”

  It was apparent that neither wee Hughie nor I wanted to leave so promising a scene, one that might reveal something of Mr. Campbell’s dark nature and why Hughie’s father was so wary of the man. All eyes followed us to the door as I led the boy by the hand, waiting for us innocents to be safely out of earshot before they unloaded. Yet once over the threshold, with the door safely shut behind us, I sat on the top step and shooed Hughie away. “Go,” I whispered. “Go back to the cottage. I’ll be along in a moment.”

  The boy didn’t budge.

  “Hughie, go,” I seethed. But the boy just looked at me, a sly smile playing on his ten-year-old lips.

  “Come away with me or I willna go at all,” he threatened.

  “You’d not disobey your father again? Good lads do not disobey their fathers.”

  “What about ye?” he whispered back. “Ye are disobeying your man. He told ye to get to the cottage, but ye stay. Why?”

  “I stay because he’s not my man. And I’m not a child. And ye should not be arguing with adults. Now go,” I shooed, and turned to listen, placing my ear to the door.

  “Campbell, what the hell are ye thinking!” boomed the voice of Hugh MacKay. “Using my boy like a pawn in your wee sick game. Goddamn ye, ye soul-sucking gomeral!”

  I looked beside me. The boy was still there, looking as intrigued by these words as I felt. I made to reproach him again, insisting that he leave, yet before I could he put his fist in front of the door, holding it an inch away and threatening to knock.

  “What kind of ill-mannered devil-spawn are you?” I chided in a hushed whisper.

  He slid down beside me, fist still poised by the door, looking at me with his wide blue eyes. “My da doesn’t like Mr. Campbell owermuch, yet I find I like the man very well. I want to know why, Miss Sara, there is such distrust.”

  “Me too,” I whispered back. I thought a moment. The child had me in a stalemate. “All right,” I conceded, unwilling to miss the conversation. “You can stay. But I warn you, we must be quiet and say not a word about this to anybody.”

  It was agreed, and we sat squished together on the cold top step with our ears pressed to the door, straining to listen.

  “I was not using your boy, MacKay. I said he’s a smart lad and I meant it. But I did want to talk with you. You and the rest of the men on the Cape have kept your distance, and I respected that. But things have changed. Shipping will be picking up, and I have no wish to repeat the events of last fall.”

  “Nor do we. But ye have little respect for our wishes; ye have no personal involvement here.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “When I heard that two women were living at the lighthouse I thought that maybe perhaps I was wrong. Mayhap ye do have a vested interest here, bringing a wife—a budding family. But then I learned from my own wife that the young woman, that rather brave and comely child ye let ride to my croft in a blizzard, no less, was no’ your wife! Could ye no’ even commit to a lass as fine as that? Do ye flaunt the fact that she’s living with ye, tending your home … sleeping under your roof? And yet ye will no’ even give her the protection of your name? What kind o’ man are ye?”

  Mr. Campbell’s voice came dark and even. “I’ll thank you to leave Miss Stevenson out of this discussion. And her character is above reproach. She is indeed a very fine, very beautiful young lady, but she is not my woman, nor is she ‘living’ with me. She is only under my protection until her husband returns for her, and that is all.” I put my hand over my heart at this seamless recovery, thankful that Mr. Campbell was as convincing a liar as I.

  “Poor thing. Well, take care nothing happens to the lass. Ye have quite a reputation for disaster, and I wonder at the man who would put her under your care. May I suggest, for a start, not letting her ride across the parve in a snowstorm?” I felt a jab in my ribs. I looked next to me and saw that wee Hughie was intimating his father’s exact sentiment with an expression that was insulting coming from one so young. I ignored him.

  “That was her own doing. We had no idea the women were gone. And I ask you to leave Miss Stevenson’s affairs to me.” I reciprocated in kind to the boy next to me, making my own painful point.

  “Well, I shall pray that ye let no harm befall the lass, because my wife speaks mighty highly of her. But ye see, I know all about ye, Campbell. Jamie Chisholm had a cousin what sailed with ye in the year oh-seven. The death ship they called it, aye? Ye lost, what?—over half your men?”

  “That was different.”

  “Was it? And when three men of the Cape die doing your bidding, including one of your own, how does that affect ye? Apparently no’ much. Ye risked nothing personally. Ye barely flinched over your own man’s death, and nary a tear was shed over the others. ’Twas inhumane! Did ye even care that those men’s families were ruined? Poor Mrs. MacDonald no’ only lost her husband and son, she lost her croft; she lost everything! And now the poor wee creature is reduced to toiling in a weaver’s mill just so she willna starve! Three men died that day, Campbell, two families ruined, and yet ye press us for more. We dinna ask ye here. We dinna want ye here! We were fine enough without your wee tower invading our land.”

  “I know that you did not ask me here. But here I am, and all I ask is that ye rethink your position. There were four wrecks last year, seven the year before. Many died. If we could but send a boat out, just to pick up the survivors, we’d at least save some lives.”

  “Aye, perhaps. But you’re a cursed man, Campbel
l! Everyone knows it,” came a voice wrought with extreme passion. “Can ye no’ see it? By God, I pity ye. I pity thon poor, sweet young woman in your care, and I pity Mr. MacKinnon here and his wife! Because every venture ye touch—every path ye cross—ends in death and disaster. Do ye think that by sitting in this tower, saving mariners’ lives, ye’ll buy back all those wretched souls ye lost? We are no’ your redemption here, man! The men o’ the Cape canna save ye! Your job is to illuminate the coast, and that is all! Keep the light if ye must. But keep to yourself!” It was a scathing speech, one that even I was sorry for, and I wondered at the meaning of it. Could such a thing be true? Was Mr. Campbell truly cursed? And in the silence that followed, my heart went out to the heartless creature, for no one deserved such treatment. When at last he did reply, I was shocked. He sounded so nonplussed—his character had been raked over the coals yet he remained calm, nonchalant even.

  “So you’ll do nothing? When a ship wrecks off your coast, you’ll sit back and watch men die?”

  “We do what we’ve always done, Campbell. They’re foreign ships, none of our own.”

  “And for centuries your people have made a profit by their loss. I know. I know all about it. But what if they were Scottish? What would you do then?”

  Mr. MacKay replied a bit defensively. “Our lads know these waters. They know the tides, the currents, the risk o’ the breakers. I have no fear for them.”

  “Like you know these waters?” Mr. Campbell riposted. “Och, I’ve seen ye, MacKay. I’ve seen the way ye handle a boat. You were not always a shepherd, were ye?”

  It grew quiet.

  “How long have you lived on the Cape? Five years? Seven? Why did ye come here, MacKay? Certainly there’s not much appeal for a man like you to coddle a flock of sheep all day.”

  “What do ye ken of life in the Highlands?” demanded the booming voice. “What in God’s name do ye know of trying tae keep a family alive? Ye have no family, Campbell! Ye Lowlanders live in another world altogether, and I wouldna expect ye to understand our ways here.”

  “Perhaps not,” came the voice of well-schooled control, “but I’ll put the question to ye again, all the same. What if ye had a vested interest in a ship cruising these waters, MacKay? Shall we say a French ship, for instance, coming in the dark of night, perhaps dropping anchor just off Kervaig Bay?”

  Again Mr. Campbell’s question was met with silence.

  “If anything were to happen to such a ship, would ye not want to be prepared? To at least be able to preserve the life of her crew?”

  “What are ye saying?”

  “I’m saying that I have a fine view of these waters and the ships that cruise them. I know a lot more of what goes on here than ye might think. For instance, I know how hard it is to eke a living off this barren land.”

  “Are ye using the blackmail on me, then?”

  “Nothing of the kind. I’m simply asking for your help. The men listen to you, MacKay. Persuade them that it’s in their best interest to show up at the jetty early on the morning of the tenth of March. I have two boats in dry-dock there that I’d like pulled around to Kervaig Bay. Mr. MacKinnon has also expressed his wish to me to be a part of such an endeavor. I admit that I’ve used poor judgment in the past. Perhaps the jetty is not the place to stage a rescue, and I deeply regret the incident last autumn. I do grieve for them, you know,” he reflected softly. “But perhaps with you in charge of the rescue boats, the men will have more confidence in their practice.”

  “Me? In charge? But I dinna want to be in charge! I want nothing to do with ye!”

  “Nor do I want to see men die needlessly. Come, now, take my hand, Hugh, and let us pretend, for the sake of the womenfolk, that the air is clear between us.”

  Silence fell over the room. I envisioned two wolves, huge and male, teeth bared as they circled each other, hair bristling as they struggled for dominance. And then suddenly came the scuffling of feet. Hughie gave a tug on my sleeve. “What?” I hissed, my ear still pressed to the door.

  “Take off your shoes, quick!” he ordered, and his were off in a trice. He then began tugging on my own. I understood. The men were coming and we needed to leave in silence. I unlaced my white little half boots and carried them with me as Hughie and I raced down the tower stairs in stocking feet. We were not a quarter of the way down the spiral when we heard the door open. Heavily booted feet wasted no time hitting the steps, striking the cold stone with a solemn force, the loud, purposeful strides shadowing our retreating forms. Hughie grabbed my hand and pulled me along, willing me to move faster. We reached the bottom landing and bolted out the door, onto the shoveled walkway. I was not as fast as I had once been—my lungs were short of air, my body heavy—and poor Hughie was terrified of being found out by his father, though no more terrified than I. We suffered the cold, wet gravel with aplomb, because we had little choice. And when we came bursting through the cottage door, causing some amount of alarm as two startled faces stared at us over teacups poised before their lips, I covered for our unprecedented entrance by exclaiming, as I doubled over to catch my breath, “Whew! I should really know better than to challenge a boy half my age to a footrace! Congratulations, you win, Hughie!”

  “And ye should know better than tae be so foolish for a woman in your delicate cond …” Kate chided on cue, though she trailed off rather unheroically when she realized what she was saying. Yet she was too late with her recovery. Mary MacKay was a perceptive woman and knew how to put two and two together. She looked at me, looked questioningly at her son, who, for all his trickery, was no good at hiding guilt, and then took a sip of tea.

  “Tell me that you two were not really engaged in a footrace?”

  “No, Mama. But we were running.” This frank admission, coming from such a cherubic face—the wide, guileless blue eyes, the rosy cheeks flushed nearly to the color of the tousled hair—was, admittedly, disarming. It became evident to me then why parents didn’t eat their young, when all logic suggested that they should. By God, I would have forgiven the little heathen anything if he had looked at me that way!

  While wee Hughie was working on his mother with his practiced, doe-eyed look, Kate peered out the window. The men were emerging from the tower, their faces set in reflective grimaces, not one of them looking as if they had fully enjoyed their experience together. She cast me a quizzical glance, came to some conclusion and said, “Well, take off your coats and come to the table. You’d best be sitting down when they enter. For I don’t think they’d take very kindly to the knowledge that you two were eavesdropping.”

  “Kate, I commend you. You’re growing sharper by the day.”

  “Only because you insist on playing with fire!”

  • • •

  The men were remarkable in the fact that although wee Hughie and I had overheard their heated and biting discussion, illustrating somewhat the problem between the keepers and the men of the Cape, the three gentlemen put aside their differences and continued through the rest of the afternoon with a stoic calm, eventually reaching something like cordiality, and at the end, even daring to venture into realms of neighborliness. While we women had no end of topics to discuss, the men talked of inane things like sheep-dip, the speed it should take to shear the fleece (which, according to Mr. MacKay—or Hugh, as he begged us to call him—should take something like under a minute) and the fall-time activity of culling the herd, which I found a little distasteful, especially since wee Hughie took such pleasure in describing to me his personal experience of hacking off the head of a ram that refused to die.

  Because of our wayward adventure, where we huddled together on a cold step, listening furtively to a conversation neither of us had any right to hear, a sort of friendship had developed between us. Yet what titillated the mind of a ten-year-old boy was seldom apt to garner the same emotion from a mature woman of nineteen. Hughie was a bright lad. He knew this, and took a perverse pleasure in describing for me his exploits.

  “The
first blow I delivered tae the beast only gashed him in the neck, and the pain o’ it caused him to bolt like a frightened hare,” he exclaimed, wide-eyed, while illustrating the speed of the ram by shooting out his hand. “I chased him round the pen, and he was spurting blood like the de’il spews fire, and me not doin’ a verra good job of it, for the blood was muckle slippery and I fell quite a few times. Yet I continued on, round and round, chopping at him with my bloody axe. Finally, my da wrestled the beast to the ground so I could finish him proper! Seven bloody tries and I’d done it! ’Twas the completest thing, though my da wouldna let me keep the heid on account I made a muckle mess of one of the eyeholes.”

  “Oh my,” I declared unenthusiastically, my heart going out to the unfortunate beast that fell under this misguided child’s hand. “What a rich pastoral life you paint for me, Hughie. Certainly such experiences are telling of a young man’s character.”

  “Aye, the lad’s persistent!” Mr. Campbell asseverated before I could reply, and he gave his new young friend a conspiratorial wink. Mr. Campbell had insisted on sitting beside me, feigning a warm and healthy relationship for the sake of our guests. I commended him. He was a fine actor, and I, for the sake of appearances, upheld my end admirably well. Hughie sat on my other side while his parents—mother Mary beaming with parental pride and father Hugh staring stone-faced at the smartly dressed pariah next to me—were seated directly across from us. Kate and Robbie took up the ends, performing the duties of host and hostess with commendable fortitude, although their eyes did give away, from time to time, the incredulity they felt at the interplay between Mr. Campbell and me.