Little Bird Flies

by Karen McCombie

  “We are going to school,” I tell him, ignoring his grumbles of disappointment, “but first we are off to see if we can catch ourselves sight of the gentlemen and ladies that are staying with Mr Menzies…”

  The great, grey, weathered building that is the Laird’s house – it rises up in front of us now, its many gleaming, glinting windows winking in the sunlight. They are so numerous that I have lost count of them whenever I have walked around the outside of the house, while waiting for Ishbel to finish her work (and perhaps give me some small leftover from the kitchen), or during those long weeks when I was young and kept Father company while he rebuilt the crumbling wall around the gardens, to keep the deer from Mr Menzies’ bonnie flowerbeds.

  “It is so tall!” murmurs Lachlan, wondering – as he always does – at the marvel of a building that can be three floors high, when the newer cottages and older blackhouses of the island are hunkered down low to the ground so that the almost constant winds rush smoothly over them.

  The Big House is old too, though not from antiquity, like the ancient standing stones on the moor. Mr Menzies once told me it is a hundred years old and more, built in 1750, by some distant kin of his. There is a portrait of this kinsman on the wall within the house, Ishbel says, along with many other dark, dour, unsmiling people, who cannot surely be related to Mr Menzies, who is always smiling, even though he is white-haired and has no wife and children for company. The Laird has often told Father that he has company enough with the books in his library and the kindness and conversation of the decent folk that make up his staff and tenants.

  “Never a better man,” Father often says of Mr Menzies.

  And what would Father say now, if he saw the three of us begin scrambling over the back wall of the Big House, like troublemaking urchins? I hope he would roar in amusement, as he does when we tell him of the trees we’ve climbed and the waterfalls we’ve ducked, shrieking, under. Or the game with the rowing boats at the cove, where we’ve jumped from one to the other and someone always tumbles into the shallows and cannot get themselves up and out of the waves for laughing.

  As we settle ourselves down on the top of the wall, like three curious, head-tilting sparrows, Mistress Matheson – who cooks and keeps house for the Laird – comes huffing and puffing to the open kitchen door. Fergus and Donal’s mother is a big, comely woman, always ruddy of cheek, but today her face is roast-red as she rubs a hand against her sweating brow. And then she catches sight of we three and seems to brighten.

  “Bridie!” she cries. “Just the girl! Can you come help me?”

  I jump down off the wall and hurry over to her as she disappears back into the kitchen, pausing only to quickly turn and shrug my shoulders at Will and Lachlan.

  The three of us are not the only ones who are confused; as soon as I step into the kitchen – the only room in the Big House I have ever been in – I see the deep frown on my sister’s face.

  “You cannot send her up!” she is saying to a clearly agitated Mistress Matheson, while waving a bloody knife in one hand and a neatly skinned rabbit in the other.

  “Well, what am I to do? We are too busy here to run errands!” counters Mistress Matheson, waving at the table heaving with food, while pots hiss and spit at the range.

  “Is everything all right?” I ask warily.

  “No, it is not,” Mistress Matheson replies. “The gentlemen will take their breakfast shortly. But the ladies do not rise till late morning and will breakfast then. Though a tray must be taken to one of the ladies who does not choose to eat with the family –”

  With that, Mistress Matheson hands me a tray with a small plate of thin-cut bread and butter and a china cup of tea on it.

  “– and if that is not enough, the lawyer gentleman staying complains that he has a chip in his shaving bowl and requires a new one!”

  “But I cannot … I must get to school,” I mumble shyly, as Mistress Matheson dives into a dresser and begins a clanking search – for a suitable shaving bowl, I suppose.

  “Of course you can, Bridie,” Ishbel says with a weary sigh. “Go out into the corridor and you’ll see the back stairs. The lady is on the floor above, the first door you come to. Knock and wait; I think she is dressing, so the ladies’ maid will no doubt answer. Go, quick!”

  And so I take my leave, knowing I must hurry but treading up the cold, narrow, dark staircase so very carefully, scared that my shaking hands will spill the precious cargo. At last, I reach the first floor and push a door open with my shoulder – and stare in surprise at the length of the corridor I find myself in. It is panelled in some fine polished wood, and is longer by far than our whole cottage!

  I want to stare longer, or to tip toe the length of the soft-looking patterned rug that snakes along the landing, but I must not. Balancing the tray on my stronger hand, I use my weaker to gently knock on the nearest door.

  At a loss as to what to say to the sour-faced maid I saw at the harbour yesterday, I am even more at a loss for words when the door is drawn open – and the Black Crow herself peers out at me!

  For the first moment, I am struck by the fact that this woman is so deep in mourning that she wears her veil indoors. A moment more and I am struck by the intricate lacework of the veil itself; it is so very fine, roses and vines entwined.

  Then a glint of eyes peering back at me from under the dark garden of stitch-work is the undoing of me.

  “Your breakfast!” I gabble, placing the tray down on the floor and running back the way I came, as if I had just encountered a sprite in disguise.

  Pattering madly down the stairs, my bare feet land at last on the cool, smooth flagstone of the passageway on the ground floor. Instantly, the very coldness of it stills me, bringing me to my senses.

  I smooth my skirts and my hair, take a deep breath, and prepare to walk back into the kitchen and show my sister that I can handle myself quite well, in fact.

  But before I do so, I see that the door to the right, one that I suppose would lead into the main house, is half open. Mistress Matheson will be expecting me back, of course, but oh, now that I am here – further inside the house than I have ever been – I would so like to see what lies beyond this door, to perhaps just catch a glimpse of the stern-faced portraits in the grand hall.

  I step closer and peer through the gap – then pull myself back in haste as soon as I see someone has had the same idea. The two gentlemen guests are perusing the paintings closely.

  “I suppose you’ll ask him after dinner this evening?” I hear one say.

  “Indeed. Though looking at this place, I wonder that Menzies will have any money to lend me,” the other voice replies bleakly. “Unless these paintings are worth something. What do you think, Jenkins?”

  “I don’t think anything is worth much here,” says the other. Then he says some English words I am not sure of, before I catch some I do know. “Why would the old man not think to turn to sheep-farming? That’s where the money lies!”

  “Sheep? Urgh,” groans the other voice. “How I would hate to be surrounded by such stupid creatures.”

  “But is the old man not already surrounded by stupid creatures, and ones that make him less money?”

  It takes just a second for me to be sure I understood the meaning of that; that both men are now laughing at we islanders, and I think I must gasp too loud in shock. For next I hear an odd noise; a tappiting sound that is coming this way fast – now accompanied by a sharp barking.

  “Come back here, damn you!” I hear one of the men roar as I run clean through the kitchen, ignoring Ishbel’s puzzled stare.

  Clearing the yard in no time at all, I scramble up the wall and sit astride it so fast that you would never know I am weaker than most.

  I’m about to tell Will and Lachlan to jump over the other side with me when Lachlan cries out in delight.

  “Look, it’s a dog, Bridie!” he yelps, as a creature dashes out of the kitchen doorway and stops dead at the sight of us. Its hair is as scruffy as Lachl
an’s but the colour of sand, with a hand-sized “saddle” of brown fur on its back. Small as it is, this little pup has a bark as loud as a hound six times its size.

  “Patch! Patch, come here at once, you little devil…” a man’s voice growls just as fiercely, and one of the men of the visiting party comes barging out of the back door. He is wearing a dark-green tweed sporting suit and brandishing a polished stick I had not noticed in my brief sighting of him in the hallway. Does he … does he mean to use it on the dog if it does not obey his order?

  “No, NO!” shouts Lachlan, and jumps down off the wall, certain too that the angry gentleman is about to cause his dog harm.

  And then what am I to do, but jump back down from the wall to make sure no harm comes to my brother in turn? Alas, I land awkwardly on my twisted foot, and my limp is more acute and slows me down, so that the man has tight hold of Lachlan’s skinny arm before I know it.

  “Let him go!” I order the so-called gentleman.

  “Let him go? You are trespassing on your master’s private property and you ask that I should let this rascal go?” bellows the man, who seems no gentleman to me, however well dressed he is.

  “Now then, what’s to do?” I hear a familiar voice call out, and am relieved to see Mr Menzies come around from the direction of the stables to join us.

  He is not the only one; coming out of the back door of the house is the other gentleman, Ishbel and Mistress Matheson in their aprons, wondering what all the commotion is about. Ishbel’s hands cover her mouth, alarmed by the sight of her sister and brother railing against someone they should not.

  “These scoundrels have entered your grounds, sir, and I’m about to rid them for you,” says the man in his clipped English voice, so different from the soft rolling voices of the Highlands. He talks as if we are vermin, about to be routed and clubbed!

  “Mr Menzies, sir,” Will bursts in, appearing at my side. “You know we meant no harm. We were just––”

  “Just paying me a visit, I’m sure,” Mr Menzies interrupts good-naturedly, especially now he sees the bouncing dog jump up affectionately at Lachlan’s legs. Gently, he pats a hand on Lachlan’s shoulder in such a way that lets the sour-faced man know he needs to release his grip. I am relieved to see him do so.

  “Children, this is Mr Palmer-Reeves, my late cousin’s son, who has brought with him his family and his friend Mr Jenkins,” says Mr Menzies, indicating the man in the doorway, who is smirking now, highly entertained by the goings-on. “They have come to see our sweet island home, as part of their tour of the Highlands.”

  The Laird says that so kindly, which makes me angry for the easy way his guests seemed to mock his hospitality when I overheard them inside.

  But all I can do, must do, is give a reluctant curtsey, and the boys give a brisk bow, before Mr Menzies continues with his introductions.

  “And this fine fellow is Patch, a cairn terrier,” Mr Menzies adds, for the benefit of my brother.

  Lachlan manages a small smile, though he is rubbing at the place where his arm was so tightly squeezed.

  “Mr Palmer-Reeves, this strapping young fellow is Will, brother of George Beaton, who piped you off the steamer yesterday,” the Laird continues with his cheerful introductions. “And Little Bird – I mean, Bridie – and young Lachlan here are the children of a very dear friend of mine, Robert MacKerrie, master stone-mason, a piper and musician himself, and one of the elders among my tenants here on Tornish.”

  A fine speech the Laird has made, but all the time this Mr Palmer-Reeves has a look on his face as if the manure stack by the stables is troubling him.

  “Bridie!” Ishbel suddenly calls out sharply. “The school bell will be ringing any time now. Off with you all!”

  She flaps her apron at us, shooing us away before we cause any more bother.

  “Aye, off with you,” smiled Mr Menzies. “And we’ll see you later, I think, for a little celebration of Beltane?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say to Mr Menzies in Gaelic, with another little curtsey, at the same time grabbing my brother by the shoulder of his jumper and dragging him away from the tongue-lolling dog whose head he’s scratching.

  Quickly, myself, Lachlan and Will hurry off towards the wall, which we scramble up, the crevices providing perfect stepping places for our bare toes and handholds for our roughened fingers.

  At the top, with one leg slung over, I turn my head quickly, scraping back a long, fluttering piece of hair that’s wrapping my neck like a scarf of black wool.

  It seems that as we three take our leave, we are being most keenly watched.

  By Mr Menzies, with a cheery smile.

  By Ishbel, biting her lip, and Mistress Matheson, flapping her flour-covered hand in farewell.

  By Mr Palmer-Reeves, “gentleman”, whose moustachioed scowl is something to see.

  By a small dog, with a stumpy wagging tail – till a sideways kick with a polished boot shushes him.

  By a black figure in an upstairs window, who leaps back as if scalded when she sees that I’ve spied her.

  I shudder, though I know not if it is because of the scowling or being the focus of the Black Crow.

  More likely it is because I can clearly hear the dull ding-a-ding of the school bell and can already feel the sharp smart of Mr Simpson’s cane on my hand for being late…

  CHAPTER 4

  It is good to see Lachlan happy, after his day of caning and shaming.

  And being made to stand in the corner for the ink blots that spoiled his scrawled work.

  It is good that we are all having a ceilidh this first day of May, Beltane, where we celebrate the spring and the blessed summer to follow.

  In Mother’s childhood, and her mother’s before that, and childhoods of mothers for centuries back, Beltane was a time of superstition and tradition entwined, of earnest wishes made to keep cattle safe and crops growing.

  I do not know how it is celebrated in other far-flung places of the Highlands and islands now, if it is at all, but here on Tornish it is a time of entertainment for the islanders, young and old. Most from the other townships have come this fair, warm early evening to the gentle, grassy slope that sits at the foot of the Glas Crags.

  Effie and I are at the top of the slope now, along with Lachlan and some twenty or so of the younger children.

  At the bottom, where the slope becomes meadow, older folk sit on chairs brought out from the nearby houses of our township for their ease. They catch up on news, and tap their feet to the reels the menfolk are playing on their fiddles.

  The older girls and boys are talking too, but with eyes that sparkle and smiles that say more than their words do. (Ishbel has to content herself with the looks and smiles that Donal Matheson throws her as he fiddles alongside his brother.)

  But that is not everyone who is here. Down below, watching the festivities, is the Laird, which is to be expected. But he has his visitors with him, which casts a gloom on this bright Beltane evening…

  “Why must they come?” I say, standing with my hands on my hips as I glower down at Mr Palmer-Reeves and his finely feathered, proud-faced flock. Though one face I cannot make out, since it is covered in a black veil.

  I know I am being unfair, and Mother would chide me for it. For just as I cannot take against all cattle, simply because one cow kicked me when I was milking her last summer, I should not take against the visiting womenfolk, just because I dislike the so-called gentlemen in their party, both of whom mock the Laird, while one presumes to borrow money from him.

  “And why must you speak English when you are with me?” Effie answers my question with one of her own, as she loosens the knot in her bundled apron, which holds the still-warm Beltane bannocks she has baked and brought here for the children now clamouring around us.

  It is not worth answering that question; I often do not know when I am speaking either the Gaelic of home or the English of school. Mother didn’t like for us to slip into English either, but Father says English is s
omething all us islanders must embrace, so that if the need comes, we can make our way in the world. Of course, when Father talks of the “world”, he is talking of the mainland. And those that might go will mostly be the island boys, who – like many of the menfolk – go to the mainland for extra work in lean years.

  The girls of Tornish never go far.

  And because of Father’s promise to Mother, we MacKerrie girls will certainly never go far.

  We will never see marvels like sky-high bridges made of iron, or curiosities like Irish pedlars selling arrays of wares, such as the tin whistle Father bought himself before returning to us from a trip to Oban.

  My sisters and I are expected to marry and make do and stay.

  “Here, take one!” says Effie, holding up the corners of her apron so as to make a cloth bowl of the bannocks. The words are barely flown from her lips when many small hands reach and scramble for one of the round breads that Effie has marked with a cross on one side, especially for Beltane. “And mind, roll them gently. It is unlucky to have one that breaks, or that lands cross-side up!”

  “You’ll put the fear in them, Effie,” I admonish her, thinking that there may be whoops and skirls of laughter now, but there’ll be tears before long from those little children who find their bannock torn open or marked-side up at the bottom of the grassy slope.

  “It is what it is,” Effie says, echoing the words our mother would say, whether she was talking of a bloodied knee one of us would weepily present to her, a bad summer harvest or the wasting cough that came to take her from us three years since. “Will you be wanting one, Bridie?”

  Of course I will have one. I may not hold with the superstitions Effie loves so dear, but I am always happy to fill my belly. So I quickly hold out my hand for the bannock my sister is offering me – and hear her gasp at the weeping red weals of my palm.