Storm Over Rhanna Read online

  Megan glanced at all the appreciative smiles around her and wished – oh how she wished – she had Babbie’s ease of manner and quick repartee. Just then a valiantly suppressed groan escaped Shona and Babbie was on her feet at once, a cool efficient little nurse, shooing everyone out, herding them to the door as if they were sheep.

  ‘And don’t come back unless it’s necessary.’ Megan sounded too harsh and gave a rueful little smile when Niall turned and threw her a look of deep reproach.

  In minutes the room was empty except for Lachlan hovering at the door to say a few last reassuring words to the woman in the bed.

  ‘Lachlan,’ Megan’s voice stayed him, ‘I didn’t mean you of course – there’s hours yet to go but when the time comes, perhaps you’d like to be here.’

  But he shook his head. ‘No, Megan, I’m retired now remember, and so feeble my wife thinks I should be tucked up by ten every night with a good book – a good book, mark you, perhaps she’s of the opinion a bad book might be too much for my poor old heart.’

  ‘Lachy!’ Phebie’s voice came indignantly from the passageway, and with a wink he went out to be seized by his wife and smacked hard on the bottom. ‘You know fine you’d love to be there when the bairn comes,’ she accused softly, ‘that’s the only reason you sprachled along that snowy road tonight.’

  ‘Oh no,’ his protest was too quick, ‘I’d best get home once I’ve warmed my ancient bones with a cuppy.’

  ‘Well I canny go and leave Kirsteen with all this mob to contend with,’ Phebie spoke firmly. ‘You’re here now so you’ll just bide where you are and make yourself useful.’

  Babbie came to join them, closing the door behind her. ‘Phebie’s right,’ she stated, picking up the conversation, ‘for one thing we’ll need a referee to control Bob and Elspeth, and both Niall and Fergus are going to need nursing through this night. They’ve started pacing already, I can hear them in the hall. Forbye all that,’ she placed a persuasive hand on his arm, ‘I would like you here, it will be like old times again – I’ve missed working with you and don’t care who knows it.’

  ‘Well, I do,’ he sounded unusually stern though he kept his voice low. ‘Megan’s a good doctor, Babbie, and I had hoped you would have gotten into your stride with her by now.’

  ‘Och, I have,’ she spoke apologetically, ‘but – oh hell! Why pretend? It hasny been easy, there are barriers there yet. She’s shy and strange here still and just won’t let herself unwind. Besides all that, I know she’s a bittie nervous about Shona. She wanted her over on the mainland and now this has happened – I can feel her tension.’

  ‘Och, alright,’ Lachlan relented so willingly it brought smiles from the two women. ‘But I warn you now, I won’t go near that room again unless she asks me and that’s final. Now I’m going down for a cuppy before Elspeth squeezes the pot dry.’

  Shona tossed restlessly, hot and pain-racked and very, very glad that Kirsteen had thoughtfully tied her hair back with a blue ribbon she had found in the dresser drawer. That little blue ribbon had brought the memories rushing back, made all the stronger by the sight of Mirabelle’s homemade rag dolls smiling down at her from the mantelpiece. The feeling of things past was very strong in the peaceful room, with the fire blazing cheerfully up the lum and the polished wood floor reflecting the orange flames. She could almost hear Mirabelle plodding upstairs with the jug of hot water to fill the rose-patterned china bowl on the dressing table, could almost feel the patient old hands tying the ribbons into her hair . . .

  Overwhelmed suddenly, she felt the slow, helpless tears pricking her lids. ‘I wish Mirabelle was here,’ she choked miserably, ‘auld Biddy too. Oh God, I loved them both and now they’re gone and suddenly I feel very lonely – yet I haven’t cried for either of them for years.’

  Megan turned a hot face from the fireplace where she had been standing gazing quietly into the flames. She had heard the whisperings outside the door – and wished she hadn’t. Those impassioned words of Babbie’s had been low but distinct enough . . . Heaven help her! Would she ever fit in here? It might be better if she went away – back to the world she knew – but not back to Steven Saunders, that handsome, charming creature who had said he loved her but had turned away from her when real beauty and perfection came along. He would be angry at her leaving him, he was the sort of man who always took the initiative in this sort of thing. If she hadn’t come to this faraway island he would have come after her – and she couldn’t take any more hurt, not yet . . . ‘You really loved Mirabelle, didn’t you?’ she forced herself back to reality.

  ‘Ay, I did that, she was the only mother I knew really, my own died having me – here, in this very house. It’s strange, I’ve had three babies but never one born in this dear old house I love so much.’

  ‘Three? But I thought . . .’

  ‘I know. This afternoon I told you about my first little girl but I never told you about my son. I was only sixteen – and unmarried. It caused quite a scandal at the time but I didn’t care. He was Niall’s baby but he was away fighting in the war and knew nothing about it. By the time he came home it was all over. The little boy was stillborn – as perfect a mite as I ever saw – fair and bonny and as dead as last summer’s roses.’ She bit her lip and closed her eyes as a fresh contraction seized her. When it was over she opened her eyes to see Megan standing over her, a deep, sad uncertainty stamped across her young, attractive face.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Megan,’ she said softly. ‘This baby is going to be fine, it’s far too much o’ a fighter to be anything else.’ She frowned. ‘Something bothers you all the time, doesn’t it? You’re lonely, lonely and afraid, that’s what ails you and you’ll never be happy till you get it out o’ your system. At first I thought you were in control of all your emotions, people tend to think that about doctors. Ach, it’s a shame when you think about it because underneath you’re just as fragile and vulnerable as the rest o’ us.’

  Megan’s face had turned white. There was something about this house, this room, this young woman with the wonderful blue eyes whose mother had died giving her life and who once knew someone called Mirabelle . . .

  Suddenly Megan was very comforted by the fact that Lachlan was downstairs, calm and level-headed, and very much attuned to the McKenzies whom he had known all his days on Rhanna and who didn’t overwhelm him as they tended to do her. She moved to the door. ‘I’ll bring you up a cup of tea. It seems to work miracles on the island.’

  ‘I’d like a cuppy better.’ Shona’s dimples showed. ‘It tastes far better than just an ordinary old cup of tea.’

  ‘Right, one cuppy coming up – and I’ll send Niall up with it. You’ve hours to go yet and I’m sure he’s driving them all crazy downstairs with his pacing about.’

  Chapter Five

  It was snowing again. The wind had once more risen to blizzard force and went roaring round the house like an enraged lion. It banged on the door of the byre making the cattle moan uneasily in their stalls; the timbers of the stable shook till Myrtle, the big Clydesdale, snickered with fright and the dogs in the barn next door whined warningly and flattened their ears as if facing a tangible enemy.

  Fergus and Mark James, storm lanterns held aloft, moved about checking the beasts, making sure everything was well and truly tied down before they departed back to the house in amicable companionship, smoking their respective pipes and saying little because that was the way both men liked to be when there was nothing to be said and a waste of breath saying it.

  Fergus had always liked and respected the minister, and though he was no churchgoer he occasionally went along just to hear the other man’s deep, soothing voice recounting sermons that for once made a lot of sense, they were so plain spoken.

  At the kitchen door Fergus paused, his rugged face somewhat embarrassed when he said, ‘I was lonely once, and in my lone, self-centred world I was convinced there was no other way o’ life for me. But I was wrong, there was someone who was willing to shar
e my life, to thole me as I was without trying to change me. The odds are in your favour, Mark, you’re no self-centred pessimist and things will come alright for you in the end.’

  It was a long speech for a man normally so thrifty with words. Mark was taken aback. Through lacy curtains of snow he stared at Fergus, was about to enlarge on the subject but thought better of it on realizing that the other man had just made a statement, not an opening to a conversation. ‘I’ll come in for a wee while, then I’ll get along home.’ He stamped his feet to rid his boots of snow, turned and said briefly, ‘Thanks, Fergus – for saying what you did. I’ll remember it.’

  They understood one another, there was no need for further words. Together they went into the house and back into the parlour where Fergus had lit the fire.

  It had been a long time since the room had been used, and though the dry peats burned ferociously the air was still musty, the corners cold. Draughts moved the curtains, flurries of wind gusted down the lum, inciting sparks to crackle and race over the burning turf.

  Old Bob stirred from a restless nap to prod the fire with the poker in an effort to keep the bitter cold of the night from seeping into his bones. He wished he was back in the cosy warmth of the kitchen but all the menfolk had come in here to escape the bustle of women in the other room, and Bob didn’t fancy being in there ‘among a cackle o’ skirts’.

  Phebie and Kirsteen had spent the last few hours making tea, heating water, and putting Ellie Dawn to bed, an event which had in itself proved a full-time occupation as she was so excited about the coming baby she simply wouldn’t settle down to sleep. In the end Elspeth went upstairs with her and fell asleep exhausted beside the little girl, her bony arms lovingly clasped round a teddy bear. Ellie was fascinated by the sight, so overcome with the novelty of it all that she soon cooried down beside the old woman and sang herself to sleep.

  Kirsteen, coming down to report the incident to Phebie, found that lady snoring in the ingle, her mouth falling open in her rosy face, her little contented snores tickling Tuffer’s ears. Babbie, in a quest for coffee for herself and Megan, popped her head round the door and burst into chuckles at sight of Phebie. Flopping down in a corner of the ingle, she stretched her weary limbs and shook her head when Kirsteen enquired if there was any progress upstairs.

  ‘No, the wee bugger is saving itself for better weather. It could be a few hours yet. Phebie’s doing the wise thing. You ought to get to your own bed, Kirsteen, you’ve done all you can down here. There’s so much steam in the room you could charge folk to come in and have a Turkish bath.’

  But Kirsteen shook her head. ‘No, I doubt if I could sleep. I’ll just sit here with you for a while and have a quiet blether. I’m certainly not going into the parlour, Fergus only stopped in his pacing to go out with Mark to check on the beasts, and from what I can gather Niall and Lachlan are at it too. All three of them are driving old Bob loopy.’

  They sat companionably together in the ingle, talking quietly, though Babbie remained alert for the least sign that would tell her she was needed upstairs.

  No such state of peace existed in the parlour. Niall, Fergus, and Lachlan all paced together, keeping to their separate paths as if a set of invisible lines had been painted on the floor and was apparent only to them.

  ‘All we need is a set o’ traffic lights in here,’ Bob muttered under his breath, ‘tellin’ them when to go and when to stop. ’Tis enough to make the head o’ any sober man go round in circles.’

  But Bob was far from sober. All the men had swallowed a few stiff drams and Bob’s eyes closed drowsily. The only thing to do in a situation like this was to shut it out of sight and, with the drams warming his blood and weighting down his eyelids, he found that an easy enough matter – just as long as you ignored the squeaking of the loose floorboards lying on Niall’s route and listened instead to the reassuring crackle of sparks flying up the lum.

  Bob woke from a long nap and gazed round stiffly, as if hoping that he might have slept the night away and was expecting to find everything back to normal.

  Seeing the three men padding the floorboards in exactly the same fashion as before, he shook his grey head in disgust and got creakily to his feet to go to the window and pull back the curtains. The clouds were thinning, drifting apart, once more exposing the cold face of the moon riding high above Sgurr na Gill. The world beyond the window was not the same one that had greeted him the previous morning. The wind had piled the snow into drifts that humped themselves over walls and hedges; little groups of trees were silvery-black etchings in the virginal fields; moon shadows lay everywhere; silver glints on the hills were icy burns tumbling down through the corries; huddled grey blobs that were sheep were cooried in the lee of walls and trees and might just have been boulders on the landscape but for an occasional movement here and there.

  It was bonny. Old Bob drank in the beauty of it for a long time, though when he finally let fall the curtain his weather report was a gruff one. ‘She’s about blown herself out. Come morning the sun will be shining.’

  ‘Might as well get some proper sleep, Bob,’ advised Lachlan, ‘it’s the womenfolk who are holding the fort tonight.’

  ‘Na,’ Bob took one look at the restlessly prowling menfolk and rejected Lachlan’s suggestion fiercely. ‘Thankin’ you kindly, Doctor Lachlan, but I think I’d be best off wi’ the cats in the kitchen. I hear tell the wildest one o’ them all has fallen asleep wi’ the bairn upstairs so I’ll be safe enough wi’ Phebie and Kirsteen for a whilie.’ Grumbling under his breath he limped through to the kitchen to find Kirsteen and Phebie asleep together in the ingle and a bedraggled Elspeth crouched over the fire sipping tea.

  ‘That bairn,’ she greeted him, ‘she kicks worse than did my Hector wi’ a bellyful o’ drink. I’m black and blue all over and will be sore for a week – but ach, she’s such a bonny, good wee thing and I was the only body wi’ the knack o’ getting her off to sleep.’

  ‘Is there a droppy tea in the pot?’ Bob asked cautiously, eyeing Elspeth’s gloomy face with trepidation and wondering if he would be better off back in the parlour away from her ‘viper’s tongue’.

  But a small glow burned inside Elspeth that night. Her ‘cough bottle’ reposed empty in her pocket, its contents having found their way into the numerous cuppies she had disposed of in the course of the last few hours. To Bob’s surprise she answered his query affably enough and seemed actually pleased to have his company. ‘Ay, that there is. Sit you down here by me and I’ll pour you a cuppy.’

  A strong brew warming his rheumy hands, Bob leaned forward and whispered confidingly, ‘Between you and me, I couldny take any more o’ that three in the parlour. Paddin’ about like caged lions they are, all crashin’ into one another every time one forgets the line he’s supposed to be in. ’Tis as well the minister went home, he has a habit o’ starin’ up the lum as if he was glimpsing heaven.’

  Elspeth raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘That he is – her,’ she stated rather vaguely. ‘The mannie is besotted by her – and him a man o’ God whose thoughts should be as pure as the driven snow out there. She’s a temptress that one, eyes on her as soft as a cow one minute and the next glintin’ like a Jezebel at the very sniff o’ a man.’

  ‘Ach, but the minister’s a lonely man, Elspeth, and the doctor a lonely young woman. You canny deny there’s naught worse than loneliness in a man or a woman.’

  Elspeth dropped her eyes, an action which caused little pockets of dry flesh to sag down over her cheekbones in wrinkled folds. ‘Ay, you’re right there but her loneliness is her own doing for she will no’ let anybody near enough her heart to ease its soreness. Oh ay, that’s what it is right enough. Doctor Megan didny just come to Rhanna for the good o’ her health . . .’ she lowered her voice to a ragged hiss, ‘she came to escape a man – I saw it wi’ my very own eyes.’

  ‘How could you see it?’ Bob sounded scornful.

  ‘Well, you know how that Rachel Jodl moves in all tho
n fancy circles that are never out the gossip columns? Rachel sends the magazines to Ruth McKenzie seeing how she’s interested in seedy literature like that. Well, I was in one day wi’ a message for Lorn from his father and I saw one o’ they magazines lying on a wee table innocent as you like. I thought it would do no harm to have a wee keek at it so I told Ruth I would like to look at the pictures and she gave it to me to take home.’ Elspeth’s eyes gleamed. ‘There inside was an article about a man called Steven Saunders – a rich young playboy was how he was described, wi’ his people owning a yacht building firm on the south coast. There was a picture o’ the lad wi’ a fancy woman hangin’ on his arm. A right wee floosie she was too, wi’ more than half her bosoms peepin’ out her frock, but a title to her name nonetheless. The article said she was just one o’ a string since his break-up wi’ Megan Jenkins, a young doctor who had fled the scene more than a year since wi’ her whereabouts unknown.’

  ‘And will you be after spreadin’ this over the island?’ Bob asked peremptorily.

  ‘Ach no, indeed I will not. I was never a one to spread gossip o’ that nature as fine you know yourself,’ she ignored Bob’s derisive grunt and went on, ‘it will all come out in the end anyway, things like that aye do, but the news will no’ come from me. Though she is no’ all she seems I have often felt sorry for the lass, for as you said yourself she is a lonely cratur’.’ A calculated coyness crept into her voice as her garrulous mood swept her on, ‘Ay Bob, I know fine what it is like. I’ve been lonely myself betimes since Hector’s passing and have often wished the companionship o’ a good man – nothing more than that,’ she added hastily and primly, ‘friendship, that is all.’