His eyes traveled the length of the room, settling on Sheila’s. A cry broke from her lips, followed by his name. “Oh! Gillan!”
He fell to his knees, one hand out to grasp the support of a stool, just as Sandy Wilson came thundering up the steps to the upper hall. Sheila started forward, but he held his other hand low, and spread out in a stopping motion. She stopped. “What is it, Gillan? Can ye talk? Are ye only weary, or is it something—”
Sheena and Alisdair had by now recognized him, but were still rooted to the spot in their amazement. The open doorway then showed Sandy, followed by the astonished Mrs. Conaghey. The lanky Sandy had tears in his eyes and a purpling bruise on his face. He was wrangling the cap in his hands something terrible. All eyes turned back to Gillan as he emitted a low strangled sound, something between a cough and a shout. Sheila tried again, kneeling in front of him and looking up into his face. “Gillan, can ye talk? Are you hurt?”
She was cut off by the roar from his person, which was itself cut short as Gillan crumpled forward in pain. Sheila turned toward her younger daughter. “Sheena, go run and fetch the doctor who lives by the kirk. And if you see your brother or sister, hie them hence, for God’s sake. Where is Muirne with that water?”
Sheena bolted toward the door, but stepped gingerly around the space Gillan took up near its entrance. Alisdair edged toward his mother, his gaze locked on the crumpled figure all the while.
“Da?” he whispered. The great shaggy head came up, but not far enough to look out at his son’s eyes. The hand on the ground reached forward to grasp something. Alisdair moved forward and caught the wandering hand in his own. He put it to his cheek and soothed his father. “Don’t worry, Da, you’re home. We’ll take care of ye now.”
Sheila looked with mute distress at Sandy, who couldn’t yet put two words together in the face of such a homecoming. Muirne returned then, nearly losing her hold on the buckets as she careened to a halt behind her father in the doorway. “I nearly ran into Sheena—” Her eyes sought her mother’s.
“It’s your father come back, and in a bad state.” Sheila took the buckets and dumped their contents into the tub heating on the brazier. She tossed in a few cloths in preparation. But how to lay him out? she wondered.
“Gillan,” Sheila said. “Can you make it to the bed, man?” he gave no sign of hearing at first, but when Sandy lined up on one side and Muirne on the other, he pushed himself up from the floor into a position between them. They barely managed to get under his arms before his full weight pulled downward again, but they did. They pulled and dragged him over to the far wall where the bedding was, and laid him down as carefully as they could. He fell the last few inches with a gasp.
Alisdair moved to sit next to his father where he could make sure to observe his chest rising and falling with breath. Sheila stirred the barely-warm water with a wooden spoon, her eyes staring determinedly down into the pot, not allowing her shock at yet another strange entrance into their lives to engulf her in despair. Muirne asked about a doctor and was informed that’s what Sheena was about. She grabbed the buckets back and went for more water, returning rather more quickly.
“I’m to the grocer’s now to fetch Neil.” The mention of the name caused Gillan’s head to turn and a groan to escape his lips. “And I hope Sheena is back before me with the doctor,” Muirne added.
She was. As Muirne vanished out of sight past the corner, Sheena hove into view from their one window from the other direction. She was accompanied by Mr. Coldwell, Pictou’s resident doctor, carrying his black bag.
Mrs. Conaghey ushered the doctor into the room, and finally sought Sheila’s eye. “Is there aught I can do for ye, missus? Is your boy coming in? Do you need any cloths or smelling salts?”
“Yes, I think we will need more clean cloths, thank you, Mrs. Conaghey. And Muirne is out seeking Neil. We should all be together soon, and—” her voice had caught, and she steadied herself, resuming her determined stare. “We shall see what the doctor says,” she said simply.
Mr. Coldwell was already examining Gillan, shucking off his stained coat and shirt to examine him. They saw the large bruises then: yellowing around his right shoulder, a purple one below his left ribs, a yellow-green mass on his upper left arm. And the wide cuts on his neck and hands that had been stuffed with a paste of herbs and bound with strips of his former shirt. Sheila was appalled, and could not help but show it. What had happened to her optimistic, strong man? Why on earth had he been assaulted in such a fashion, since a methodical assault it did indeed resemble. Or maybe a very bad tumble down a hill? The speculative questions flew around and around in her head, and soon she felt dizzy enough to sit down herself.
She looked to Gillan, seeing only his boots hanging off the bed since the doctor obscured her view of him. Those boots—she shivered. They weren’t his.
As the doctor was cataloguing Gillan’s ills, Sandy started talking in a low murmur.
“There weren’t nothing we could do, missus, they just set upon us! They worked us both over, but seemed to concentrate on Mr. MacLean here.”
Sheila interrupted. “Who did it, Sandy?”
“We couldn’t see them, missus. They came upon us just at sundown on the road back. We had news of a new sawmill to start and so were setting back, when these two big men fell into attack, without saying a word! So strange I couldn’t believe it, until the second one hit me across the shoulder.”
Sheila saw how he was standing, with one shoulder higher than the other, the weight on one foot. “Ye’re nae hurt too then, Sandy?” The doctor glanced over his spectacles at this.
“Not as badly as this. But do sit down, boy. I’ll see to you next.”
Sheila wanted to ask Sandy more questions, but then Neil rushed in, followed by Muirne. Sheila saw her son’s eyes wild with something; was it fear? Anger? More like the desperation of an animal cornered. He approached Gillan’s body and gazed at his face.
On hearing Muirne’s hurried message, he had bolted out of the shop without so much as an excuse hurled in the direction of the shopkeeper. Muirne had run in his wake, shouting for him not to be mad, to slow down, to wait for her. But he’d had to make it back to Gillan’s side in time—Muirne had said he looked bad enough to die. Neil needed to see him, tell him about their situation here, their prospects. That might give him will to live, if his failures in the city had cast him down.
What he was confronted with here was not merely failures, however. His stepfather had indeed been badly beaten. Dr. Coldwell’s cleaning out of the cuts with alcohol had made even the semi-conscious Gillan cry out in a pitiful, gurgling way. He applied another solution and put on clean bandages. When he had cleaned him up as best he could, he gave the family his prognosis: three broken ribs, multiple inflammations of the internal organs, most worriedly the spleen, and a dangerous fever. They heard his orders with solemn attention: rest, broth and hot milk, and keep him warm.
“I’ll be back to check on him this evening, and bring my bloodletting implements. We’ll worry about those ribs once he’s past the fever.”
They all turned to Sandy once Mr. Coldwell left. He couldn’t give them much more information other than how the trip had gone up until the attack: they’d met that old Mr. Brown near Tadoussac, as had been written, and there’d been no love lost between them. They’d seen the new sawmill near Quebec City, and Sandy had been impressed. They’d started back full of optimism. Then those mysterious blackguards had fallen on them, and it had been a miserable struggle the next twelve days to make their way eastward through the wilderness to Pictou.
“We did get a lift the last thirty miles with a Pictou farmer, though,” he said.
None of it comforted them, not even the lift. There was no reason for two men to attack them so fiercely on the road, as they had no money to steal. And for Sandy, who was lanky as a beanpole and about as solid, to have suffered less damage? They must have had it in for Gillan. But why?
The MacLeans settled in fo
r a long night and an uncertain morning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The doctor came back in the evening, and let several pints of blood into the specially cut china bowl. Neil stayed at Gillan’s side to make sure he didn’t move and upset the process, while Sheila watched, her eyes dark and her gaze empty. Dr. Coldwell left a number of bottles with her, the contents of some of which were to be drunk, while others were to be spread across the places where the skin had been sliced open to prevent infection. They had all dropped into deep sleep following the astonishment of Gillan’s dread appearance and the despair following the doctor’s diagnosis.
Sheena was the first to wake. She rolled over to look at where her stepfather lay to make sure it hadn’t been a dream. His large body was still visible under the blankets, unmoving. Her mother lay curled up on the floor beside, her head resting on the side of the wrapped mattress, an arm outflung toward her charge. Sheena sniffed.
She rose and crept over to them. There was as yet little light from the day, but the coals in the brazier cast a reddish glow over things and made their outlines visible. She looked down on her stepfather, willing him to open his eyes, but he made no move. Sheena felt her breath coming fast, and felt she was about to panic with the sadness that hung over the whole scene, their whole life. She grabbed her thick shawl and quickly retreated to the outside hallway, where she took a few steadying breaths, then descended the stairs.
She collected the refuse that could feed her chicks from the back dooryard, and went to tend them, taking comfort in their simple-minded gratitude. She waited in the cool dawn, breathing in the foggy air. When she saw movement in the upstairs window, she was reluctant to start back to their rooms. It was a cooler morning than they had been used to during their summer trips to the ridge.
Sheila was up next and bustling around to rouse everyone for the day’s work. When she came to Sheena’s place and found it empty, she looked sharply round. When she saw her younger daughter creeping back in a few minutes later, she expelled her breath slowly, and called to her with a look and a hand.
“Where’ve you gone, Sheena?”
“I—I was just out for some fresh air, Mother. It’s nice and cool out today, it is.”
Sheena had not thought her mother would notice or worry. She wriggled under her mother’s continuing stern gaze. “I have a small project, Mother, that I’m working on. It needs tending every morning and night, but other than that, it’s a surprise.” She spoke softly, hesitantly.
Sheila grabbed her in a hug. “Oh, my girl, I’m not doubting. Of course it’s fine, my good girl. You’ll let me know when it’s no longer a surprise?” Sheena nodded, relieved.
The others had woken, taken a cup from the water pitcher, and gone out for their own, not-so-secret chores. Sheila remained with her husband to doctor him, accepting that they would not be going back to the ridge for some time.
The family was back together for the noon meal, Gillan still unconscious, but emitting a groan from time to time. They held a family conference over what might have happened.
“Don’t you think that Macrieff man may have had summat to do with it?” Neil asked. “He’s mentioned in Da’s last letter, and we know he was a fair rascal last time they met.”
The younger children looked questioningly at Sheila at this remark, for they did not remember any Mr. Brown of Macrieff. Sheila sighed.
“Aye, well, that Mr. Brown deserved more’n he got, let me tell you. He was certainly a rascal, and it’s no wonder he’s here, as no one on the island would want him. The wonder is that your father would have run into him. It may well be Brown, Neil, taking it out on your father here where there is little law and order.”
Muirne looked at the sleeping form, and whispered, “Could it have been about unions? I know there was talk about them at home, causing mischief when there was a strike on. Do they do that here too, where Father might have been going to get work?”
“Oh, I doubt it,” said Sheila. “Too many people wanting to work, I’d wager.”
They fell silent again.
“What are we to do about him then?” Neil asked. “Are we to stop work on the ridge while the weather is so fine, and find ourselves homeless still at the end of the summer? It’s already close on September, and it gets colder here than at home, and quicker, they say.”
“Or we split up again,” Muirne said. The sadness now fell around them thicker than before. It seemed to fill the air like so much thick cotton, but then there came an insistent knocking from down below. Evidently Mrs. Conaghey was out on her round again, and someone wanted to be let in. Alisdair jumped up to perform the duty.
He came back trailing a slack-jawed Mr. Turner in his wake. Apparently he had been apprised. As he stood in the doorway, he attempted to make excuses for his appearance. “I am so very sorry to drop in on you without invitation, ma’am. I had thought to accompany you back up the mountain, and so came to seek you in town. I had no idea—”
“My husband’s only just arrived yesterday, Mr. Turner. Although he did encounter Mrs. Conaghey and pass a few words, so the whole town may already know,” said Sheila.
A brief grimace came and went on the man’s face. “Had I known—” his voice ended abruptly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sure you don’t need me here. I shall go. I wish him a rapid recovery.” Without a glance at Muirne, he turned and left the doorway he had occupied. She felt some urge to go after him, but decided it could wait, if it happened at all. Would Mr. Turner still want her with yet another burden into the bargain?
When there was a change in Gillan’s symptoms later that day, the doctor was called back, and his violent shivering was deemed to be a result of an infection settling into fever. Sheila stayed close to him, mopping his brow, listening for any words from the mouth of her husband, sensing the end was near.
The others came and went, dozed and woke later in the night, and constantly wondered what had happened to bring their father so low. What would happen to them now? During one vigil, Muirne hovered close by her mother’s side. Sheila had been fairly passive but Muirne noticed when she started making a small noise. She was trying not to awaken anyone, but she was sobbing. Muirne put her arm around her mother’s waist as they knelt by the bed, and her mother clutched at her head. Muirne could feel the heaving of her chest, but felt only bleakness herself.
“Muirne?” her mother whispered.
“What is it?”
“I’ve been such a bad wife, these past months.” Her eyes were bleak and staring at the unconscious Gillan as she whispered her guilt to Muirne. “I haven’t loved him as I should have done.”
Another grimace of pain on Sheila’s face.
“But, Mother, I’m sure you—”
“No.” It came out grating and low. “I took back my trust from him. And he knew it. It was the last thing he needed.” She turned to her daughter. “When you marry, Muirne, ye mun work through it for yerself, but never desert a man who’s done his best by ye.” Her last syllable curled up into a high-pitched sob, ripped from the mouth of the woman who was trying so hard to keep it in.
***
***
Past two o’clock it was when Sheila closed his eyes for the last time. Neil was up, saw what she’d done, and came over to put his arm around her. She wept, but quietly. Now, in the dark, she could weep for all the harsh blows Fate had dealt them in the space of a year.
“We’ll pay for his burial on credit,” she choked out. “And go back to the ridge.” Neil smoothed the cloth over her shoulder blades, wondering what would be done about Muirne’s two suitors, but electing not to bring it up until after the burial. He would talk with Muirne when the time came and see what she wanted. For now, it was mourning time. The mourning of more than just a husband and a father, but of their hopes of a new start for the family. It would be a new start, but for a rather broken family.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
They held the wake the next night. Mrs. Conaghey’s large front
room was pressed into service, and many people crowded in to pay their respects to the newcomer’s family, now left without a protector. Sheila oversaw things in a borrowed black gown, while her children settled for their darkest clothes.
Mr. McLachlan came and presented his formal regrets to Sheila. He paused and pulled an envelope from his coat pocket. He continued in a different vein.
“Mrs. MacLean, I had procured the final document releasing claims for the prior owners of the ridge property. I had meant to give it to you yesterday, but thought it best not to interrupt at such a moment. However, now, I thought it best that you have all the information at your disposal, so you may decide how to proceed.”
Sheila, although somewhat numb from shock and the long parade of visitors, blinked at his speech. “Thank you, Mr. McLachlan. We know very well you could have held onto this longer for your own advantage, so I do thank you indeed for coming forward with it now. We will certainly need to discuss this in our family to decide what—where to go and how—well, it affects everything,” she finished.
Mr. McLachlan had the good grace to bow slightly and return a compliment to the family before moving away discreetly. Flustered, Sheila’s eyes sought Neil’s; he was talking with one of the shopkeepers from the village. Muirne was sitting alone at the table where Gillan was laid out. Neither of her children looked up to meet her gaze. She yearned for a quiet moment in which to break down.
Some of the visitors had just gotten out their fiddles and a guitar however, so she realized she would not have her moment for at least another hour. As she tamped down the emotion welling up, she felt a surge of gratitude for these near-strangers who made them feel so at home, so welcome. The next moment she wished again that they would all retire, as a wave of panic hit her concerning their future. She decided to go sit by Muirne as the music caught the attention of the crowd.
The Keening Page 21