And Those Who Trespass Against Us

by Helen M MacPherson

  "Then you two should get on famously. Why, once winter gets here, with your combined stubborn pride, there may not be any need to light a fire in the house. So, how many disagreements have you had so far?" Alexander smiled. "Why Cat, I do believe you're blushing."

  "I'm not the only one in the family with pride," Catriona deflected. "Who do you think I got it from?" The two shared a laugh. "As for Katherine, we've had our disagreements. We still share a lot of common ground though. She has a desire to help the less fortunate families of the district, and she's been doing very well." Catriona took a sip from her watered-down scotch. "They've very much accepted her."

  Alexander snorted. "I didn't think I'd live to see the day when you said you had so much in common with a nun. There must have been changes around here since I was gone," he said good-naturedly. "What else has happened?"

  Catriona tried to marshal her thoughts. Rather than commence from when Alexander left, she elected to work backward. Hopefully this would buy her the time she needed to find the words to explain what had happened.

  He contentedly listened to the occurrences of the town, occasionally stopping and asking her to expand on some minor point or another. She told him about the first visit Katherine had made to the ladies of the district, and Mrs. Greystone's reaction to Catriona escorting her to the front of her house.

  Alexander grinned. "You can't help yourself, can you? You've always taken great delight in upsetting that fossil."

  "If I didn't carry on so, then what would she and her old cronies talk about? There's hardly any other excitement out here and, besides," Catriona added, a cheeky gleam in her eye and a smile on her mouth, "she deserves it."

  Her smile sobered when she realised she'd arrived at the day of Katherine's arrival and the dust storm. She swallowed the remains of her drink and rose to make another. She picked up Alexander's empty glass and refilled it, again with a greater portion of whisky than water.

  Alexander frowned as he took his glass.

  "Things must have changed, Cat." He accepted the crystal tumbler from her and cradled it in his hands. "Two whisky's in such quick succession. I don't think I've ever seen you drink so much, except when you allow things to get to you. As I remember, the last time you consumed too much I ended up having to carry you to bed. Of course, all you did the next day was vow and declare you'd never touch another drop. Don't tell me the new sister is driving you to it."

  Catriona looked away, innately aware of how easy Alexander could read her. "It's not like that. I thought it would be nice for us to share one together. We very rarely get the chance, what with you touring the country all the time and me stuck here."

  Alexander's brows furrowed and he rubbed his chin. He leant forward in his chair, locking Catriona's eyes with his own. "You're hiding something, Cat. What's the matter? Have those old witches in town upset you with their gossip? I've told you to ignore them. Their cruel talk isn't worthy of a response from you."

  Catriona looked down at her hands and shook her head.

  "You're scaring me. What's wrong?"

  Catriona put down her drink and leant forward, so Alexander's face was inches apart from hers. "For once it's got nothing to do with them." She slowly blinked and exhaled. "Alex, not long after you left, the town was hit by a dust storm, much bigger than any we've had in the last fifteen years. This one caused untold devastation. I gather you didn't return through town on your journey home?" He shook his head. "Then you won't know what it did to the place. Most of the shops made of wood were blown apart." At his look of concern, she took another drink.

  "At the height of the gale a number of people sought refuge in the Town Hall. So much debris was blown about in the street it was a natural place for everyone to go. The Town Hall collapsed." Her voice wavered. "Most of the people inside it were killed."

  A slight twitch formed below Alexander's eye. He looked away, rose, and walked to the windows, hands thrust into his pockets, back turned to her. "I'm terribly sorry it happened. If there's anything we can do for the people who've suffered, that you haven't already done, then we will." Alexander turned and stared intently at Catriona. "Cat, where's Coreen?"

  Catriona tried to speak but the words wouldn't come. Silent tears fell down her cheeks. Alexander crossed the room and knelt in front of her. He held her arms with his hands and looked steadily at her. "Catriona, where's Coreen?"

  She lowered her face to regain her composure, but without success. She raised her head. "She's gone," she managed, her voice barely above a whisper.

  Alexander's face ran the gamut of emotions from disbelief to anger. "What do you mean she's gone? Please tell me she's left. Say that the sister out there convinced her to return to Sydney. I can be packed in the hour and ready to follow her." He desperately searched her face. "You see Cat, I've wonderful news. I've found someone who'll marry us."

  To prolong the inevitable would only make it worse. She gently removed his hands from her arms and firmly held on to them. "You don't know how much I wish I could say she's merely left here. But it's not true." Alexander's face resembled a child's who suspected his Christmas was about to be ruined. "She was in the Town Hall on the day of the dust storm. I'm sorry, Alex, she was dead by the time they found her."

  Alexander pushed himself away. Unable to steady herself, Catriona fell back into the chair. He silently paced the room like a caged animal. He closed the distance between them, roughly grabbed her, and shook her. "It's not true, you're hiding something. That nun out there has convinced her to return to England. That's it, isn't it? I bet that's why she was sent out here. I won't have it, I tell you! And I won't have her in our house!" Loosening his grip, he wheeled toward the door.

  She barely caught his hand in time and held it in a vice-like grip. "It has nothing to do with her!" Maintaining her grip, she calmed her tone. "She's dead, Alexander. You can't imagine how I wish she wasn't, but she is. Katherine arrived on the day of the dust storm. It's not Katherine's fault or any one else's. There's nothing anyone could have done to save the people in the hall."

  Alexander lost his battle to maintain his composure, and his face puckered up, like a child's does only seconds before they cry. Collapsing to his knees, he noiselessly wept. Catriona followed him to the floor. Unable to offer any words of comfort to ease his pain, she put her arms around him and gently rocked him, as he had done for her the day their parents died. Thinking back on that day, and about Coreen, she too wept.

  During the course of the late afternoon and early evening, Catriona managed to move him from his position on the floor and back into one of the chairs. She only left the study twice--on both occasions to get more water for the scotch.

  THROUGHOUT THE LATTER part of the day, Katherine tiptoed through the house, listening to the muted sounds of weeping and words coming from behind the closed door of the study. Occasionally she could make out Catriona's emotionally charged and pained voice sharing in Alexander's sorrow. She longed to give her relief from the burden she was bearing.

  In an attempt to guide her thoughts elsewhere, she wrote a series of lessons for the Connor children, who she hadn't visited since the incident with the bushrangers. She paused, her mind's eye suddenly filled by the smiling face and challenging words of the enigmatic Mary Carraghan regarding who she lived with.

  Lost in her thoughts, she started at Catriona's entrance. Catriona wordlessly refilled the crystal jug and then returned from whence she'd come. Katherine watched her leave, her own emotional awareness heightened. Again the laughter and challenging words of Mary Carraghan pervaded her thoughts: "Does that not leave you living with a woman? If you weren't a nun, what do you think would be said about you?"

  Despite her attempts to concentrate on her lessons, Mary's words relentlessly circled her mind like carrion to prey, and her thoughts dwelled on her own shocked refusal at the mere mention of such actions between two women. What concerned her more was the unfamiliar emotion Mary had evoked in her, one she also felt with Catriona. Shaki
ng her head, she put down her pencil, placed a lit lamp centrally on the kitchen table, and retired to her room.

  CATRIONA DREW THE curtains and raised the wick of the lamp on the occasional table between her and Alexander. She picked up her drink, very much aware she'd dispensed with water for her brother some hours ago. She looked at his red-rimmed eyes. "Do you remember when Coreen first arrived?"

  "Like it were only yesterday." He wiped his nose. "She tried to get back in the carriage as the train pulled away from the station. I thought she was going to fall between the tracks." He took a long draught from his drink and searched the room, as if hoping to see her standing there. "I'll never forget that day we were both in the store and she stood her ground with the ladies over their spiteful words about me." He sighed heavily. "That was when I realised I loved her."

  Catriona reached across and softly stroked his hand. "She loved you too, with all her heart."

  He covered his face in his hands. "Oh Christ, Cat, what am I going to do?"

  Catriona's eyes watered and she hugged him. "I don't know, Alex, I just don't know." She shed tears not only for Coreen but for Alexander also. He was more than her brother. He was the best male friend she'd ever had. He never lectured her on her lifestyle. After his initial comments regarding her unmarried state were met with stubborn silence, he had never pressed the issue.

  As the shadows lengthened, his voice became more slurred and the pauses between his words increasingly prolonged. Finally the rise and fall of his chest and his closed eyes signaled he was asleep. She shook her head and fought to keep her eyes open. "We better get you into bed." She steadied herself, bent over him, and linked her hands under Alexander's arms.

  Six feet of dead weight made it nigh on impossible for her to do any more than move him forward. With a combined day of physical and emotional effort working against her, she gently eased him against the back of the chair.

  She straightened and headed for the kitchen. A trimmed lamp cast solemn shadows around the empty room. Catriona glanced at the kitchen clock, only then realising the lateness of the hour.

  KATHERINE WAS IN an Irish dreamscape, on a misty early evening in her parent's country garden. The sounds of a string quartet wafted through the open ornate glass doors of her father's house, across the grass to where she danced with a stranger. They danced with a familiarity that could only be borne through close knowledge of each other. Try as she might, she couldn't make out her partner's face. Suddenly a shaft of light fell between them and Katherine realised she was looking at Catriona.

  "I'm sorry to wake you, but I need your help."

  For a moment Katherine wasn't sure if the face in front of her belonged to her dance partner. "What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice muddled with sleep.

  "I'm here because this is my house. Why else would I be here?" Catriona drew the lamp away from Katherine's face and placed it on her bedside table. "I apologise. I didn't mean to sound so harsh," she softly said. "Please, I need your help."

  "What time is it?" Katherine rubbed her eyes, shaking herself free from the tendrils of her dream.

  "It's past midnight. I've managed to put Alex asleep with the assistance of two decanters of good scotch, but now I can't move him."

  By the sounds of her voice, Katherine could tell she'd also consumed her fair share of whisky.

  "I'm pretty sure that between us we'll be able to move him from the study to his room."

  Katherine pulled back her bedcovers and got out of bed. "Maybe we should prepare his room first." She reached for her slippers and put them on.

  "You're right. Can I use your lamp? Mine's just about out of oil, and I'd prefer not to go back in the study to get one of those lamps until we're ready to move him." Catriona reached to pick up the lamp.

  "Of course, but maybe you should let me carry that." She looked at Catriona's confused face. "So you can show me where Alexander's room is."

  In Alexander's room Katherine lit one of the lamps from her own. Catriona grabbed the edge of the bedspread and pulled it down. "I've managed to remove his belt, to make him a little more comfortable. This'll allow us to lay him fully clothed on the bed. I'll take off his shoes there, and then we can cover him. I don't wish to do anything else, in case he wakes."

  Halting in front of the study, Catriona quietly opened the door to check on him. "Thank God, he's still asleep," she whispered. "If you take one side, I'll take the other."

  Catriona placed one of Alexander's arms over her shoulder and then held on to his hand. Katherine mirrored her action and they rose as one.

  Katherine grunted with the initial effort of lifting him. Despite his height and drunken weight, between them they managed to half-carry, half-drag him down the hall into his room. He woke only briefly before his head again sagged. Katherine was remotely conscious of the ripping of material during their efforts and sensed the hem of her cotton nightgown would be in need of repair in the near future.

  They lowered him onto the bed. "I'll go around the other side," Catriona said. "So we can get him closer to the middle."

  After concerted pushing and shoving, they finally achieved their task. Katherine straightened and stepped back from the bed. She closed her eyes and placed her hands in the small of her now-aching back.

  She heard the sound of his boots dropping to the floor. "I'll just pull these covers over him, Katherine, and then we can both get some sleep."

  Katherine nodded, preoccupied with massaging a tender spot at the base of her spine. Suddenly sensing someone in close proximity to her, Katherine opened her eyes. Catriona stood in front of her, her gaze focused on Katherine's chest. Katherine looked down, only then realising the tearing she'd heard earlier was the front of her nightgown. One side had slipped. One of her breasts was silhouetted in the lamp's light, the curve of it obvious, with the hint of a nipple showing.

  CATRIONA COULDN'T DRAG her eyes away from a sight which, aside from her own body, she hadn't seen in such a long time. Sensing something was wrong, she raised her eyes to meet Katherine's stare who, by her look, was very aware of Catriona's gaze. Her features were inscrutable. Yet Catriona sensed no anger, moreso an unreadable calm. Ever so slowly, and without breaking eye contact with Catriona, Katherine raised her hand to the torn fabric and pulled it back onto her shoulder.

  "I think it's time for you to go to bed," Katherine quietly said. She trimmed the lamp by Alexander's bedside, and raised her own. She motioned Catriona to follow her.

  Katherine had barely taken a handful of steps from Alexander's room when she heard a muffled sound behind her. She wheeled and saw Catriona catch her foot on the hallway runner and fall. She attempted to get up, a feat hampered by her current unsteady state. Katherine rushed to her aid.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't see it there, which is funny as I suppose it's always been there. I'm so tired I think I could go to sleep here and never wake up."

  Katherine precariously held onto her lamp in one hand while attempting to help up Catriona with the other. "That's understandable given the day you've had. I wish I could say things will be easier when you wake, but something tells me you and Alexander may not feel the best. Can you open your door for me? I've run out of hands."

  Catriona opened her door, walked through, and promptly collapsed on her bed.

  KATHERINE AGAIN PULLED her nightgown over her shoulder. She placed her lamp on the bedside table and centralised Catriona on the bed, as they had done with Alexander. She struggled to remove Catriona's boots, finally placing them at the foot of the bed. Mindful of Catriona's words about removing Alexander's belt, Katherine did the same. Her ignorance regarding the item of clothing made her fumble with the belt as she attempted to unclasp it. Finally successful, she began to pull the belt through the loops of the trousers.

  Catriona eyes opened and she abruptly sat up. Her hands encased Katherine's. "What are you doing?"

  Feeling like she'd been caught doing something wrong, Katherine could only manage to stammer. "I was loose
ning your belt so it doesn't dig into you during the night."

  Catriona let go of one of Katherine's hands in order to unthread the belt through the loops in her trousers. She placed it beside her on the bed.

  Mesmerised, Katherine couldn't tear her eyes away from Catriona. Her breathing hitched. With deliberate slowness, Catriona cupped Katherine's hand to her face. She let it rest there only fractionally, then turned her head and placed a soft kiss in the hollow of Katherine's palm.

  Katherine was riveted to the spot as a warm sensation filled the pit of her stomach.

  Catriona let out a deep sigh and released Katherine's hand. "Thank you for your help. I doubt I'd have been able to move Alex without you."

  Katherine's confounded gaze alternated between her own hand and Catriona.

  Catriona lay back on the bed and closed her eyes. "Go to bed, Katherine. I expect tomorrow's going to be a long day."

  She silently picked up her lamp and left the room. On entering her room, she closed the door and mechanically placed the light on her bedside table. She lay down, too confused to sleep. Only then did she master her breathing which, until a moment ago, had made an able accompaniment to the staccato beating of her heart. She wondered if she'd been a part of what just happened, or if, indeed, it had been the epilogue to her surreal dream.

  Lifting to her face the hand Catriona had kissed, she knew it had occurred. Her face was on fire, her feelings in turmoil. At first she'd been shocked when she saw Catriona looking at her like she had in Alexander's room. She couldn't precisely read Catriona's features in the muted light nor did she need to--the charged air between the two was enough.

  She was even more confounded by the realisation that, once she'd recovered from her initial shock, she'd been flattered to think someone was looking at her in such a way. She knew what passed between them shouldn't be happening. But the feelings Catriona evoked in her warred with her ability to act rationally. After trimming her lamp, she rolled over and lay in darkness, trying to calm the confused emotions coursing through her.