Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted and she briefly remembered the time before when she’d heard the bird, and then caught a glimpse of the ghostly brown-and-white predator as it had dropped onto its prey. She shivered convulsively. Were the old stories about the bird true, about it being a symbol of death? Had the last time been a warning? And then, faintly in the distance, she heard the sound of a horse’s hooves.
For a moment she thought she had imagined it borne out of desperation and the memory of the laird’s son galloping towards them as she had turned from watching the owl, but no, the sound was nearer now. She didn’t have to think about what she did next, and it was as well her hands tightened on the savage briars because her whole body lifted as she screamed again and again at the top of her voice, terrified that whoever was beyond the tract of the Cut would ride by without hearing her. How long she screamed she didn’t know – it could have been minutes or hours so lost was she in dread and panic – but it was only when a voice bellowed above her, ‘All right, all right, I see you,’ that she became silent. There was a pause, and then, ‘Good grief, it’s the child from the road.’
The laird’s son was standing above her, legs apart and bending slightly forward, and then his stance changed when he dropped to his knees, saying, ‘Shush, shush, don’t cry. Don’t cry. We’ll soon have you out of there.’
‘I . . .’ Abby took a great gulp through her tears. ‘I can’t climb any further.’
‘You just hang on, all right? I’ll come down to you.’
‘No!’ She had lost her woolly pom-pom hat during the climb when it had become entangled on a bramble, and now her silver hair poured down her back, catching the faint shreds of moonlight filtering down from the black sky. ‘No, the pools. You could drown in them.’
‘The pools? Is that why you’re trying to climb up here like a monkey? They’re pretty sound this time of the year and the ice doesn’t usually begin to give until April when the weather lets up. Not that I’d want to run a horse and carriage over them.’
He smiled, but for the life of her Abby couldn’t respond in like manner. ‘But the ice could crack, couldn’t it?’
‘Technically, I suppose.’ His voice became brisk. ‘Anyway, as you’re halfway up the bank we might as well get you the rest of the way. Stay where you are for a minute’ – and then, as if realizing the stupidity of his words, he added – ‘not that you intend to do anything else, of course.’
When he moved back out of sight she wanted to scream again but forced herself to remain quiet. Now that rescue was within reach a weakness was filling her small spent body and she was frightened her hands and feet would lose their precarious grip.
A few moments later, amid grunting and breaking of twigs and the like, he reappeared, thrusting a great branch of a tree, that must have sheared off the main trunk in the winter storms, down the bank to the side of her so that when it reached the ground it stood on its end. After twisting and pushing the branch which was as thick as half a young tree to make sure it was firmly jammed in position, he panted, ‘Look, we’re going to use this to get you up, all right? It’ll give us the anchor we need. I’m going to shimmy down a bit and then reach out to you and hoist you up. Pity we haven’t got a rope handy but I guess you don’t want to wait for me to go and get one? No, I thought not. All right, we’ll do this now but nice and easy.’
She could see he had on stout riding boots that reached to just below his knees and thick leather gloves, but the air was still filled with curses as he edged towards her and the thorns and briars pierced his flesh. Abby had been so petrified she hadn’t felt the cold before, but now her teeth began to chatter.
He was at arm’s length from her when he said, ‘Are you here by yourself or is there anyone else down there?’
‘No, just me. I left my brother and his friends playing somewhere. They . . . they’ll be worried by now.’
‘Let’s not concern ourselves with them for the moment. Can you edge a little to your left? I think I can reach you then. What’s your name again?’
‘Abigail Kirby.’
‘Come on then, Abigail, be brave. I promise you I won’t let you fall. Just try for me, all right?’
It was only when she attempted to do as he asked that she found the brief delay in climbing meant the briars had penetrated her clothing even more deeply. She didn’t dare let go with one of her hands to prise them loose, however, but as she wriggled and arched to work herself free she put herself in more danger. Exhausted and frozen to the marrow, she made one last supreme effort to tear herself free, and in the split second that she felt herself lurch outwards as the momentum of her body jerked her fingers from their hold, a strong male hand grasped her arm.
‘I’ve got you, Abigail, I’ve got you. Now just take a second and steady yourself.’ Nicholas’s voice was soothing and calm, and Abby wasn’t to know that it had been a nasty moment for him too when he had thought she was going to plunge downwards. ‘Feel with your feet and get your balance on the smaller branches coming off the main one, that’s right. See, you won’t fall, this bough will hold you safe. It weighed a ton to move, believe me. We’ll do this bit by bit, there’s no rush. Just take your time.’
Abby was less aware of his actual words than their steady reassuring tone and his hand on her arm. Her next movement enabled him to grab both her arms and bring her in line with his chest where he held her for a moment, before continuing to direct her hands and feet in their upward climb as he stayed a foot or so below her, supporting her as she slowly and painfully ascended.
When she reached the top of the bank she scrambled on all fours away from the edge before coming to sit in a small huddled ball, watching him as he emerged. Standing up, he walked over to her, holding out his hand as he said, ‘Come on, Abigail, let’s get you home. A hot drink and something to eat will work wonders and by morning you’ll be thinking of this as an adventure.’
Even in the shadowed darkness there must have been enough moonlight for him to correctly read what she thought of that as she looked up into his face, because in the next moment he had laughed, hoisting her to her feet as he said, ‘All right, perhaps not an adventure then, but a hot bath and some ointment on those scratches will make you feel more yourself. Where do you live?’
‘With my granda. He’s the shepherd at Crab Apple Farm.’
‘Crab Apple Farm? Yes, I know it.’ He was relieved the child was speaking normally; for a while there he had been worried she’d been scared senseless. He was leading her by the hand as he spoke, and as they walked he kept up a stream of what he would call small talk in the hope it would begin to calm her.
After emerging from the dense thicket and hedgerow Abby found herself in pastureland, and some distance away, his reins looped round the low bough of an ancient tree, she saw the silhouette of the laird’s son’s great stallion pawing the ground in the moonlight. She stopped instinctively. Even from thirty or so yards away the huge beast terrified her.
‘What’s the matter?’ Nicholas stared down at the child he described to himself as fairylike. If she had been one of the will-o’-the-wisp sprites that were said to roam the marshes he wouldn’t have been surprised. Although, he reasoned in the next moment, beneath the seemingly fragile exterior the girl must be a tough little thing to try to climb out of the Cut unaided. ‘Don’t you like horses?’ he asked gently.
Abby hesitated. She could hardly say that his stallion looked less like a horse to her and more like a beast from the underworld with his gleaming body and sharp hooves. The laird’s son’s horse was as different from the placid ones on the farm as chalk from cheese. ‘I’ve never had anything to do with them,’ she managed nervously after a moment or two. ‘My brother and I only came to the country from the town a little while ago.’
‘Is that so? Well, there’s nothing for you to worry about with Jet, believe me. He’s a well-trained animal and he likes people on the whole.’ Admittedly the folk he didn’t favour Jet often took a sly nip at
, Nicholas thought to himself, praying the animal would behave himself in this instance.
The stallion narrowed his eyes and flared his nostrils as they got closer, catching the scent of blood. Whether the horse sensed that Abby was a child and no threat, Nicholas wasn’t sure, but instead of becoming skittish, Jet lowered his magnificent head and allowed his master to lift the little stranger onto his back, remaining perfectly still as Nicholas climbed up behind her.
At first Abby was as rigid as a board as Nicholas dug his heels into the horse’s side and it began to trot forward, but again the animal seemed to sense what was required of it, making no attempt to break into a canter when it would normally have done.
‘I suggest we try and find your brother and the others before I take you home,’ Nicholas said softly after a moment or two. ‘As you say, I’m sure they’ll be worried. Where did you leave them?’
‘Near the crossroads to Morebattle village.’ She paused before she added, ‘But they might be gone by now.’ One thing was for sure, no one would have thought of looking for her in the Cut of all places. ‘We were supposed to be back before dark, so my brother might have decided it was best to go and tell my granda if it got late.’
Once again he was pleased she was talking normally after her fright and the small body that had been so stiff a few moments before was more relaxed now.
When they reached the crossroads Abby was proved right – it was deserted – and so after skirting round for a minute or two and calling Robin’s name, Nicholas turned in the direction of Crab Apple Farm and they set off at a brisk trot once he was sure she was no longer nervous of riding on Jet.
In fact, and to Abby’s amazement, she found all fear had left her. Nicholas had one arm tightly round her waist and with the other he was holding the reins, but although the ground seemed a long way away she trusted him that he would not let her fall. He was different from how she thought he was, she told herself, correcting this in the next instant with: no, not exactly different, but he had another side to him than the one she had seen that day on the road. A nicer side. Her mam had always said that everyone had two sides to them, and that the loveliest person could be nasty and vice versa, and the laird’s son certainly bore this out. Not so Joe McHaffie, though. She screwed up her eyes, as much at the thought of him as at the pain from the scratches – some of them deep and still oozing blood – that were throbbing unbearably. Joe McHaffie was all bad.
The laird’s son had seemed to think that the ice covering the pools would be thick enough to safely walk on at this time of the year; had Joe McHaffie known that? Had he merely been trying to frighten her, or had he hoped the worst would happen? Either way, he’d abandoned her to the cold and dark and her fate without compunction, simply because her mother had refused to marry him all those years ago.
She shivered, causing Nicholas to say, ‘Nearly home now. Look, here’s the turn to the farm and if I’m not mistaken that’s a search party coming down the track.’
He wasn’t mistaken. Her grandfather led the group of men with lanterns walking down the lane, and as Nicholas called out, ‘If you’re looking for a certain little lady by the name of Abigail Kirby you need look no further,’ his tone jovial, Abby heard her grandfather say, ‘Praise to God,’ which she thought was strange as he wasn’t a religious man.
She was aware of the laird’s son handing her down to her grandfather’s arms and explaining the circumstances in which he had found her, and of her grandfather thanking him over and over again and the goodbyes that followed, but she found she couldn’t say a word. She was feeling very strange – sick and dizzy – and the voices seemed a long way off. Her head was on her grandfather’s shoulder, and as she tried to lift it to add her thanks to the laird’s son a whirling darkness took her over, taking her down, down into oblivion.
Abby spent the next twenty-four hours in bed being tended to by Mrs Gibson, one of the farm labourers’ wives. This good lady was a great believer in her special home-made embrocation, the ingredients of which, she told Abby, were a family secret that had been passed down by her grandmother and mother, and which served the family well for all manner of ills. This might have been true, but the rancid oily mixture stank to high heaven and stung like a swarm of angry bees when it was applied to Abby’s lacerated hands and legs and face.
Nevertheless, Abby endured the woman’s ministrations three times a day without complaint, aware that she had given her grandfather, and Robin too, a bad fright, which she felt terrible about.
The morning following the night the laird’s son had brought her home, she had told her grandfather about the goldfinches and how she had come to wander away from the others, explaining that once she had realized the danger she’d inadvertently put herself in, she hadn’t dared to retrace her footsteps over the frozen pools. She made no mention of Joe McHaffie. She had lain awake most of the night wondering whether to relate her mother’s old beau’s part in the proceedings, her wounds smarting and throbbing and her head aching. Eventually she’d come to the conclusion that it would only cause more bad feeling between her grandfather and the McHaffie clan. Joe would deny everything, that was for sure, and she had no proof the farm steward’s son had been at the Cut. It would be his word against hers, something that would inevitably cause folk to take sides.
Once she had made her decision she fell into a deep sleep, and when her grandfather awakened her with a hot drink and a plateful of buttered toast before he went out to tend to the sheep, she had her story clear in her mind. But the incident had both frightened her and put her on her guard, and the latter, she decided, as the long day progressed, was perhaps no bad thing. Joe McHaffie wished her ill, and all because her mother had refused to marry him when they had both been young years ago.
It seemed incredible to Abby that someone would hold a grudge that long, not only hold it but transfer it to someone else, because that’s what Joe McHaffie had done. And the things he had said about her mam – he had to be a bit unbalanced, that was the only answer.
She was still mulling it over in her mind when she fell asleep and she dozed on and off until evening, only getting up when her grandfather agreed she could go downstairs to eat the meal the kindly Mrs Gibson had prepared for them. By the time she went back to bed she was feeling more herself and determined to go to school the following day. She wanted everything to return to normal, or as normal as it could be now Joe McHaffie had shown his true colours.
Eight weeks later Wilbert received a letter from Betty Hammond. It was a short missive and to the point. She had thought it only right and proper to let him know that Edgar Kirby had been found guilty of the murder of his wife, and was sentenced to be hanged shortly. She had been to visit him in the prison, and he had told her that he neither wanted nor expected a reprieve, especially now he knew the children were being cared for by their grandfather, to whom he sent his thanks.
Wilbert brooded on the letter for a while before informing his grandchildren of its contents, and then only when he was sure enough time had elapsed for the death sentence to have been carried out. He knew how his granddaughter thought about her father. He didn’t understand it – in his eyes it had been a cold-blooded murder and deserved the ultimate penalty – but he knew her father’s execution would hit Abby hard.
It did.
PART THREE
Womanhood
1929
Chapter Nine
Now eighteen years of age, to anyone meeting Abby for the first time she would appear like a woman in her early twenties. Her face was beautiful and her skin perfect, and she carried her five foot six inches very straight, making her seem taller. Outwardly composed though she was, it was her eyes that gave the impression of someone older than her years. The mercurial blue-grey colour was arresting and could change with her emotions, but it was the underlying sadness in the depths of her eyes that held the onlooker and made them want to know more about the lovely woman in front of them.
Abby and Robin had lived w
ith Wilbert for almost nine years, and the neighbours who had known them as children in Sunderland would have had a hard time recognizing them now. Robin, too, appeared considerably older than his actual age. Having just passed his sixteenth birthday, the last years of helping his grandfather in the fields and around the farm with the sheep had developed muscles in his upper torso and arms that a man of twenty-one would be proud of.
As soon as he had been able to leave school at the age of fourteen, he had joined Wilbert as under-shepherd, having found in his grandfather a mentor and kindred spirit. And on Wilbert’s side, this beloved grandson who he might so easily not have had any contact with, was the longed-for son he had never had. He now had Robin to follow in his footsteps and it was more than he could ever have hoped for. The two were so one in mind and spirit they could have been identical twins rather than grandfather and grandson.
Both Abby and Robin had adapted so well to the hard Border life that it was rare anyone remembered their beginnings; anyone, that is, but Joe McHaffie and also Wilbert himself to some extent. Much as the old man loved his granddaughter, her likeness to her dead mother was bittersweet. Every day Wilbert was reminded that he had not been reconciled to Molly before her untimely and violent death at the hands of her husband. And he tortured himself with the fact that if he had been, if he had forgotten his pride and taken the olive branch that Molly had proffered in attending her mother’s funeral, he might have been able to prevent what had happened to his daughter.
Thus it was, when Abby had reached her twelfth birthday and Mr Newton had approached Wilbert about Abby trying for a place at Kelso High School, Wilbert’s guilt and remorse concerning the mother had persuaded him he had to do his very best for the daughter. When he had questioned his granddaughter and Abby had confirmed she wanted to attend the high school, he had promised not to stand in her way.
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