Little Bird Flies

by Karen McCombie

  “Is – is all quite well?” I ask warily, seeing that both Ishbel and Caroline are holding hands and looking most peculiar; smiling, and yet it is as if they have been caught in the midst of a delicate conversation, perhaps?

  “We were going to wait till your father and Effie got here,” Samuel chatters, “but I’m not sure we can hold in our news, can we, Caroline?”

  “Indeed not, my dear,” says Caroline, with no hat and veil here indoors to conceal the high feeling that makes her cheeks so very reddened. She almost meets my gaze, but then looks away sharply. Why?

  Oh…

  Immediately, I blush too. Are they about to tell us the best of news? That they are to have a child?

  “I have had the most splendid offer,” Samuel announces instead. “A bank in London has offered me a commission to paint the portraits of their partners. All of their partners. It will pay exceptionally well, and will employ me for the best part of a year, perhaps more!”

  Foolishly, all I understand of this is that my first guess at their news was wrong. It takes my brother, sounding like the nervous child he once was, to ascertain the truth of what Samuel is telling us.

  “You are leaving us?” he asks, with a crack in his voice.

  “For just a year, I promise,” says Samuel, grabbing Lachlan by the shoulders.

  “To go to London?” I add, now that I regretfully understand what has been said. “Is this because of…”

  “…the ghosts”, I want to say, though no one else calls the human reminders of our past by this name. But Caroline understands my meaning surely enough.

  “No,” she says brightly, lying, I can tell. “It is just such a wonderful opportunity for Samuel!”

  Yes, I am angry at the idea of our uncommon but wonderful family breaking up, but how can I blame Caroline? For perhaps was not the fate Mr Palmer-Reeves had planned for her as bad or worse than what might have happened to Father? Would I not run from the memories of it, if I was able?

  “Perhaps you could come and visit us!” Samuel says as brightly as he can muster, now that he sees the effect the news has had on Lachlan and I. “We had actually hoped that we could tempt Ishbel to come with us, in fact…”

  No, no, no! I cry inside, not able to bear the notion of being even more torn asunder.

  “…but she has sadly declined,” adds Caroline, her own expression a confusion of happiness and regret. “She does not wish to leave you all.”

  The hammering of my heart eases. Of course Ishbel would not wish to leave us, not after what we have been through together, I think to myself as I look to my sister, whose gaze has dropped to the floor. For my sisters and I, leaving Tornish meant we found how much we loved one another.

  Samuel appears to be about to speak again, but there is a sudden, sharp cracking sound – one that startles the breath from my throat, it is so like the crack of a gunshot – till my senses accept it is just a knocking at the apartment door.

  Father’s rhythm of a knock.

  Ishbel drops Caroline’s hands and hurries to answer it.

  Those of us left in the studio hear the heavy clunk of the door handle turning and the beginning of “Hello” leave Ishbel’s lips – and then comes such a ragged scream!

  We are all of us up and racing in an instant. Coming out of the bright room and into the duskier hallway, at first I make out Father catching hold of Ishbel as she faints. Then a figure behind him steps forward.

  Which ghost made human is this? I fret. Till all at once, I recognise him.

  “Fergus? Fergus Matheson?” I call out, scarce believing my eyes.

  “Aye, Bridie,” says the now bearded but still handsome young man in the doorway.

  A quarter-hour passes until we are all settled and seated in the drawing room, with Effie now arrived, and Ishbel revived, though she is still shockingly pale and her eyes cannot be drawn from Fergus’s face (I think she must have thought him his brother Donal, her favourite, when she first opened the door to him and Father).

  “You bumped into each other at the harbour?” Effie is asking, catching up on the little she has so far missed.

  “I was heading for the shipping office, when I saw the fine figure of your father,” Fergus explains, turning the cap he holds in his hands. “I swear I have never been so glad to see anyone!”

  “Is he not looking well?” says Father, patting Fergus firmly on the forearm, as if he cannot quite believe him solid and surviving, after the bad business on the island.

  “Indeed,” Samuel agrees heartily. His dealings with the Matheson brothers and George were few, but he has come to know everything of what happened leading up to our family’s flight from Tornish. “Where have you been this last year?”

  “Working on a large farm south of here,” says Fergus, with a slow nod that seems to indicate that was a decent enough outcome for him, compared to what could have been. “And tomorrow I am to set off to Canada; there is plenty similar work there, and the chance, by and by, to have land of my own.”

  “My, my…” Father mutters thoughtfully. “I have read in the newspapers that America has passed a Homestead Act, so folk can have their own place there too, in the western territories.”

  At that turn in the conversation, I sense whispers begin to whirl in the back of my mind, but I will not let myself listen to them.

  “What of Donal? And George?” I demand, a little too loud, a little too impolitely, I think, but what does it matter?

  Is it not what we all wish to know, especially Ishbel and Effie? My sisters may have accepted their new circumstances with good cheer, but it does not mean that they do not have their times of wondering and worrying about their former beaus. I see both now stiffen at my question, holding themselves steady for whatever answer Fergus might have for them.

  “George was headed towards Aberdeen when we parted,” Fergus explains. “There are fishing fleets all up and down the north-east coast, and he knew he could easily get work that way.”

  “And – and did he? Is he well?” Effie asks nervously.

  “I suppose so,” Fergus answers her, twisting his cap in agitation, aware of the effect of his words.

  Indeed, with no set plan or place to settle in, how would Fergus find how George fared? And what a tragedy that is. One person moves here, another there, and family or fond friends find themselves parted, lost to each other forever, very likely. Oh, I cannot bear to think how very quickly and easily that terrible loss can happen…

  “And Donal?” I hear Ishbel ask, in a very soft, barely-there voice.

  “Ah, now he is well,” Fergus says more surely, and I see Ishbel’s tight shoulders slacken at the good news.

  But then Fergus seems to stumble in his conversation, as if he is uncertain how to continue. It is left to Father to tell Ishbel of her intended’s fate.

  “Donal got work on the same farm as Fergus,” he says, reaching over to take Ishbel’s hands in his. “But he left Scotland this spring, bound for the diamond mines of South Africa. Fergus received a letter from him last month, saying he is quite set with work, and … and is recently wed.”

  Wed.

  A small word that is like a bruising blow to the chest to Ishbel, who crumples where she sits, her head bowed.

  So now both my sisters have knowledge – though it hurts rather than salves them – of the boys they cared for. What of mine? My dear friend, if not sweetheart?

  “Is Will still on Tornish? Or is his family gone from there now?” I question Fergus, thinking of the Laird’s intention to push all the tenants from Tornish as soon as was possible.

  Will: the one “ghost” of my past that I would dearly love to see, and to see made real.

  “Sorry, Bridie – I have no news at all from the island. I have not dared send a letter, and seen no one from that part of the world for this last year,” Fergus says ruefully. “I had hoped your Father might have news for me!”

  Father shakes his head slowly, for we too have worried over the danger of gett
ing word to friends back on the island, in case anyone should intercept the correspondence and cause trouble for our friends.

  There is a thoughtful silence for a moment, which is broken by the hiccuping sobs of Ishbel.

  “I had better go, I think,” said Fergus, getting up as if to take his leave.

  In the flurry of refusals that follow, with Father and Samuel and Caroline insisting Fergus stay, my sisters and I sit quiet in our own reveries.

  Yes, I am as unsettled as Ishbel and Effie, though for a different reason.

  Fergus’s unexpected visit is over, but it has made the whispers of my secret self grow ever louder and more insistent by the minute.

  CHAPTER 17

  I marvel at the marionettes.

  These wooden dolls seem so animated and of human form that I can scarce believe they are not the fabled fairies and Little Folk of the Highlands brought to life!

  They are painted in bright colours, dressed in brighter costumes still. And by way of their wires, they are made to talk and act in a manner that is quite charming.

  Every child sitting on the grass of the neat garden square is open-mouthed in wonder, when they are not laughing loudly at the foolish antics of the puppets, that is. The message Mrs Lennox wants them all to know – about the evils of drink – has not yet become clear, but the story will lead to that soon, I am sure.

  With the audience so entertained, I think to step away, to help clear things at the refreshment tables. For there – as well as at the coconut shy, the skittles run, the hoop-throwing and other such games and diversions – all is quite quiet, now that the marionette show works its magic.

  “Ha! They are like a huddle of dirty little rats, are they not, Mother?”

  At the sound of the familiar voice, my weaker foot lets me down, and I stumble.

  This ghost from my past, her mean-spirited words take me back to the first time I heard her speak, on Beltane evening a year past, when her honey-dripped voice mocked the island children and their traditions. The night she gave such a queer smile when the old Laird died, bless his soul; a smile I realised later told of a dark and greedy heart.

  “Yes, quite, Kitty!” I hear Mistress Palmer-Reeves purr in agreement.

  They are both here, then? But Mrs Lennox promised she would not invite them. I suppose they were told about the show, innocently enough, by some of the other ladies helping out today.

  “Why this Mrs Lennox thinks she make a difference to the lives of such riff-raff I do not know,” I hear the Laird’s awful wife prattle on. “An urchin will never be more than an urchin.”

  And this urchin can bear it no longer.

  I am shaking as if the so-called fine ladies are actual spectres; ones who will wrap their chill arms around me and drag me back to a dark and frightening time I wish to forget.

  In the normal way of things, I might think myself small but strong, but not right now. Suddenly I am as weak as I have ever been, and there is such a rushing in my ears and a blackness in my head as I turn and race towards the table of women who are assisting today.

  But among them, where are my sister and Caroline, or even Mrs Lennox?

  Perhaps my panic has made me blind; I stare frantically, but cannot make out any of them in the blur of puffed skirts, helping hands and nodding heads in neat hats.

  And so my panic balloons, and all I am able to do is run; run away from the grassy square as fast as I am able, though I know not where to go, where I might feel safe.

  I find myself hurtling across the top of the road where Mrs Lennox lives when I hear something familiar…

  A bark. And another.

  A volley of barks, in fact – followed by a terrible howl and whimpering.

  “Patch!” I call out, and hurry down towards some confused gathering of dark figures by Mrs Lennox’s gate, one still with his leg cocked, as if he has just delivered a sharp kick.

  Our little dog; he is a way away from the group, wriggling in pain on his side. “Patch!!”

  “Steady! Be still!” I hear one of the figures order.

  But in this chaos of figures, my attention is on our pup; I fall to the dusty ground by his side, where he whimpers and yet strives to give my hand a fond lick.

  “Is it yours, miss?” a gruff voice asks, and I look up to see there are three men close by me on the pavement; two policemen who hold tight an angry, clench-jawed older lad between them. It is one of the policemen who questions me.

  The strange thing is, all three of them look familiar!

  A moment’s confused thought provides me with some answers. The two policemen: they had stopped by the fair round the corner very recently indeed, to check that all was well – and have a sup of fruit punch while they were at it.

  But why the wretched, angry creature between the police should be known to me I cannot say…

  “Yes, yes – the dog is mine!” I say haltingly, as I try to gently pick up Patch, now whimpering pitifully. “What has happened here?”

  An older, white-haired gent answers from the front garden of the house next door, with his shaken wife beside him, clinging to his arm.

  “Your dog is quite the hero!” says the old gentleman. “This lout had broken into Mrs Lennox’s house, but your dog’s barking alerted us to the act, and when I came out here, I was lucky enough to see these policemen at the top of the street and call out to them.”

  “We caught him coming out the window, his pockets full,” says the other policeman. “Your dog might be little, but it is a fighter and would not let go this brute’s ankle while we caught hold of him.”

  “Aye, and it got clout for its trouble,” says the older gent, with a shake of his head. “Pity it was not a bigger sort who could do more damage to the likes of him. Or better still, that it were two dogs, and one could have given chase to the fellow’s imp of an accomplice, that ran away so speedily!”

  The older lad launches a gob of spit in the direction of the white-haired gent and his wife, and gets a thump on the chest with a truncheon for his trouble.

  “We’d better get him to the cells,” one of the policemen explains to the clearly disgusted gent. “Can you alert the owner of the property, sir, and tell her to come to the station?”

  “I know Mrs Lennox,” I say hurriedly. “And she is just at the fair you have come directly from!”

  It is my nature to think to go, but my movement seems to cause pain to Patch and he whimpers more terribly.

  “Just on the square, there? Let me fetch her!” says the old gent, as the policemen wrestle the lad off. “You attend to this little hero of yours…”

  With my head reeling at so many turns of events, I carefully walk into Mrs Lennox’s garden and slowly sit down on her front doorstep, all the while cradling the shivering bundle in my lap.

  “I think I have seen you before, my dear,” the elderly lady says, wringing her hands agitatedly as her husband hurries off.

  “My sister is maid to Mrs Lennox,” I tell her.

  “Ah yes, a lovely girl she is,” I hear the woman say. “Only the other day I was chatting to her and…”

  The lady’s words drift on, but something in the bushes of the garden, the tiniest of movements, makes me freeze.

  Someone is huddled under the rose bush.

  A pair of desperate, pleading eyes gaze up at me.

  A shaking finger is placed to pinched lips drained of colour, begging for silence.

  Now all is clear, as if a grey sea mist rises to let the shifting shapes take form.

  The older lad held between the policemen, that brute who broke into Mrs Lennox’s house … I saw him once before! This week, in fact, at the harbour. My brother had his hand slipped in that grown lad’s coat pocket. And the “imp” that was mentioned – the accomplice that got away – it was Alec, wasn’t it?

  The brute and Alec; they knew that this particular house would be empty of its owner and staff this afternoon, because there was a third accomplice, who told them so.

  And t
hat third accomplice was my own brother.

  “Let me go and see if I have some warm blanket for that poor wee scrap,” I hear the old lady neighbour say. “I won’t be long.”

  As she shuffles off, the tatters of my recent daydream drift unsettlingly in my head. What I face here is as hard and sharp and difficult as any perilous rocky climb.

  But I have not the time to dwell on dreams and difficulties; distant, higher-pitched voices of ladies alert me to the fact that Mrs Lennox, Caroline, my sisters and all manner of outraged committee members of the Temperance Movement will be here shortly.

  And all that comes to me is the words I regularly speak to Mother at Eliza Garnett’s angel: “I will always protect him, I promise.”

  With a heavy heart, I glare at Lachlan and hiss, “Go! Out through the back garden – hurry!”

  For the first time in a long time, my now sobbing little brother does as he is told, scampering on his hands and knees like a dog himself, and not a moment too soon.

  “Oh, dear me! Dear me!” Mrs Lennox calls out, as she hurtles through the garden gate.

  “Are you all right?” Ishbel calls out, rushing to me, quickly followed by Caroline.

  Behind them, a gaggle of women chatter in concern, flapping around like geese bothered by a buzzard.

  And standing outside on the pavement, drawn by the excitement no doubt, I see my ghosts – Mistress Palmer-Reeves and Miss Kitty.

  And it is the strangest thing; they may be dressed in finery and flounces, but the older and the younger woman look washed-out and woebegone. The dullness of being wealthy on a bleak island has made them sick at heart, I think. Tornish’s quiet beauty will have passed them by, as they struggled with their fools’ umbrellas in the storms of winter and the blustering breezes of spring alike.

  They’ll have watched the island empty of folk at the Laird’s orders, becoming more of a solitary prison with every cheerful, good family that left.

  The Mistress and Miss Kitty are broken and bowed, no matter how they try to retain their pride, and … and I fear them no more.