by Emma Fraser
‘“Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal”,’ he mimicked. ‘That doesn’t make sense! What’s the use of learning something that doesn’t mean anything?’
‘I don’t care what it means. I like the sound of it.’
Archie rowed with sure, steady strokes. ‘I’ve read Tennyson. The only poem I like is “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. At least it’s about something.’
Isabel sat up and propped her elbows on her knees. ‘And what do you think that is?’
‘Duty. Honour. Courage. The things that matter to men.’
‘They matter to women too!’ Isabel protested. ‘But I hate that poem. It’s about acting without considering the consequences – about throwing one’s life away on a lost cause.’
Archie regarded her through narrowed eyes. ‘A person shouldn’t think too much. Sometimes a man has to act because it’s the right thing to do for the good of others. A man has to have honour – even if it means losing his life – or he’s not a man at all.’
She folded her arms and glared at him. What could a simple country boy know about honour and duty? But then she remembered the way he’d intervened when Flora McPhee had been so horrible. He’d acted like a gentleman. Could she truly say she was behaving like a lady now?
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘You don’t like to be disagreed with.’
She flushed. For all his talk of honour, she wouldn’t put it past him to throw her out of the boat and make her swim to shore.
After rowing for a few minutes longer he pulled the oars from the water. ‘I dropped a net here last night.’
When he stood the boat rocked and Isabel squealed. ‘Mind you don’t tip us out.’
‘You’ve no need to tell me how to keep a boat afloat.’ He tugged at the net. ‘It’s heavy. I could do with your help.’
Isabel picked her way across the rocking boat until she stood next to him.
‘Try not to fall in. I might not be able to save you. I might not wish to save you.’ The last was muttered under his breath. Isabel chose to ignore it.
Together they heaved on the net until, finally, they had it clear of the water. As Archie had said, it was full of wriggling fish.
‘One more pull and we’ll have it over the side.’
The wet rope bit into her palms and strands of slimy seaweed were clinging to it. Nevertheless she braced her feet against the side of the boat and pulled as hard as she could. Archie must have been stronger than he looked: the net came onto the boat with a rush and, losing her footing on the slippery wood, she fell backwards, landing clumsily in the bottom of the boat. ‘Now I’m soaked,’ she said, mortified.
If she’d expected praise for her endeavours or sympathy for her fall, she went unrewarded. Archie grinned at her. ‘You’ll soon dry out.’
She scrambled back to her seat at the stern and eyed the flapping fish with distaste.
Archie handed her a thick stick. ‘Help me bash their heads.’
‘I will not! Poor things.’
He eyed her incredulously. ‘They’re fish. They won’t feel it.’ She winced as he lifted his stick and brought it down hard on a fish’s head. It flapped once more, then lay still.
‘I can’t do that!’ She wished she’d never agreed to come on this expedition.
‘I thought you were going to be a nurse.’
‘I am.’
‘Then you should get accustomed to putting living things out of their misery.’
‘I shall be healing people, not killing them.’
His grin widened. ‘In that case, I’ll kill these and you can gut them.’
She shuddered. Gut a fish? The very idea. That was what cooks did.
‘What are you waiting for?’ he asked, when she made no move to do as he asked.
‘I don’t know how to gut a fish.’
Archie looked exasperated. ‘Then I’ll show you when we get back to land. Every woman should know how to prepare a fish.’
Perhaps the women he knew. Certainly not her.
Archie studied the sky, where thick clouds were gathering now. ‘The storm’s coming.’ As he spoke, drops of rain fell and the boat rose on the swelling waves. Between the smell of the fish and the choppy sea, Isabel began to feel queasy. ‘Can we go home now?’ she asked.
He peered at her and his eyes softened. ‘You don’t look well. I’ll land the boat near your house. It’ll be quicker for you than walking home.’
‘My house?’
‘Yes. There it is.’ He pointed to the shore.
Sure enough Borreraig House was only a short distance away. It was much closer to Galtrigill by sea. To its left, almost hidden in a copse, was a small brick building Isabel hadn’t noticed before, with a small jetty in front of it.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, as Archie headed towards it.
‘Don’t you know? It’s the boathouse belonging to your house. The women used to change there for swimming.’ He smirked. ‘So no one would see them in their swimming costumes.’
‘I know what a boathouse is,’ Isabel objected. Did he think she knew nothing at all?
Archie tied the boat to the jetty, and as the rain began to fall in earnest, they left the fish where they were and ran towards the boathouse.
Inside there were two armchairs, with most of the stuffing missing, a small table and three wooden chairs, one of which lacked a leg. Cobwebs clung to every rafter and stick of furniture, and although there was a fireplace at one end, the place reeked of mildew. But it was shelter and it wasn’t as if she could invite Archie into the house.
When she shivered, Archie frowned. ‘You should change out of those wet clothes.’
‘They are not too bad.’ She wasn’t ready to go back inside. Whatever this boy’s faults, she couldn’t say he was dull.
‘In that case,’ Archie picked up an intact wooden chair and set it on its legs, ‘sit here while I make a fire.’
He went outside briefly and returned with sticks and lumps of peat. He took a box of matches from his pocket and soon had a blaze going.
‘Can you light a fire?’ he asked.
When she shook her head, his eyes crinkled with amusement. ‘What can you do?’
She lifted her chin. ‘I can play the piano, embroider – oh, all sorts of things.’ Although right at this moment she couldn’t think what. When he grinned, she decided she didn’t like the way he made her feel, as if she were the inferior. She held out her hand. ‘Good day to you. My mama will be looking for me. I must leave you now.’
He took it in his strong, calloused fingers and bowed slightly. ‘Certainly, Miss MacKenzie. If you want to come fishing again, you have only to say.’
Chapter 3
The next morning, Isabel’s father was at the door when she went downstairs for breakfast.
‘Please let Mrs MacKenzie know that I have been called to see a patient and I’m not sure how long I’ll be,’ he said to Seonag, their maid.
‘May I come too, Papa?’
When he hesitated, she played her trump card. ‘I missed you so much when you were in Africa. Please let me come – I’ll be company for you and you’ll be company for me.’
‘I don’t think Mama will approve, Isabel.’
‘But as I intend to become a nurse, wouldn’t it be good training for me? I know neither you nor Mama believe I have the aptitude for it, but this way you’ll see that I do.’
‘Have you been listening at keyholes, Isabel?’
‘No, indeed, Papa!’ She tried to sound shocked. If people spoke in loud voices and left the door open they couldn’t expect not to be overheard. ‘I simply happened to be passing when you were talking to Mama.’
Papa placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Sometimes you’re too clever for your own good, my dear.’ Although he sounded cross, she knew he was amused by the way his eyes were smiling. ‘Very well. You may accompany me. Let’s see what it does to your wish to become a nurse.’
Outside, the cook’s husband, Mr MacDonald, had brought round the h
orse and trap. Her father levered himself onto the seat next to Isabel and passed her his doctor’s bag to hold on her lap.
When they topped the rise the village of Borreraig lay before them.
‘The houses are so small, Papa. They look as if they’re made for fairies, not real people. Couldn’t they have made them bigger?’
He frowned. ‘The people here aren’t rich, Isabel. At least, not as far as money goes. They each have only a small bit of land to work and live on. They build their houses themselves from whatever stones they can find and thatch the roofs with heather and reeds. They might be small but they’re warm and dry. Not everyone is as fortunate as you are.’
Isabel flushed. She hated it when he scolded her.
A couple of children detached themselves from their play and ran alongside the cart, giggling and pointing shyly. Their clothes were full of holes and they had no shoes, but they looked as if they were having fun. Isabel felt a pang of envy as she smiled and waved. Papa would see that she knew perfectly well how to behave towards those less fortunate.
When they came to a cluster of crofts, Dr MacKenzie pulled on the horse’s reins to bring the trap to a halt. A rusting plough lay outside one of the doors and a child sat on it, pretending it was a horse and cart. Each home had a neat peat stack to the side and a pile of creels. Several children stared at the visitors with open mouths. Anyone would have thought they hadn’t seen people before.
A boy of about ten rushed to hold the horse as her father helped Isabel down then looked at her sternly. ‘Now, my dear, if I say you have to go outside you must do so immediately. Is that understood?’
The boy, whom Isabel recognised from school, tied their horse to a post. ‘My mam’s waiting for you, sir.’
The house had only one window and it was so small it let in barely enough light to see. The darkness was made worse by the pungent peat smoke belching from the open fire at the end of the room. It was impossible to think that this was someone’s home.
As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, shapes slowly distinguished themselves. A woman wearing a full grey skirt and a tight-fitting blouse, a plaid scarf covering her hair, came forward and said something in Gaelic.
The boy who had taken the horse hurried to her side. ‘My mother doesn’t have English, sir,’ he said quickly. ‘She thanks you for coming.’
Papa smiled briefly and gave the woman a nod of acknowledgement. ‘And your name, boy?’
‘Alasdair Beag, sir.’
‘So, Alasdair Beag, where is the patient?’ he asked, setting his bag on a rough-hewn table.
Alasdair pulled back some thin curtains to reveal a boy of about twelve lying on a bed recessed into one of the walls. ‘It’s Ian, my brother. We were out with the sheep and one of the rams butted him. His leg was bent at a terrible angle so I ran to get help. We took him home on the back of a cart and he screamed all the way.’ Alasdair’s face was almost as white with fear and shock as his injured brother’s.
Ian scowled at him. ‘I did not!’
‘Ask your mother to light a lamp,’ her father instructed Alasdair, ‘and bring it here so I can see better. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be.’
Isabel knew he was being kind – there was nothing wrong with his eyesight. Anyone would find it difficult to see in the gloom. She suppressed a cough. The smoke made her throat hurt, but she didn’t want to give him any reason to send her outside.
The mother lit a paraffin lamp and passed it to her younger son, who held it over the bed. Isabel crept closer until she was standing at her father’s elbow. She could see something white sticking through Ian’s leg.
Her father’s expression didn’t change. ‘He’s broken his tibia – that’s one of the bones in his lower leg – and it’s come through the skin.’
Alasdair translated briefly and waited for his mother’s reply. ‘She asks if you can mend it,’ he said.
‘I’ll do my best.’
The woman spoke hurriedly to Alasdair. Her brow was knitted with anxiety and she was twisting her hands together. Alasdair heard her out and turned to Isabel’s father.
‘My mother says she has no money,’ he said. ‘She can give you a chicken and some potatoes from the garden. She says I must tell you this now.’
‘Tell her that is most acceptable,’ Papa said. ‘I’m very partial to roast chicken.’
The woman smiled shyly, looking relieved.
Her father turned to Isabel. ‘My bag, please. First, I shall straighten the broken bone before I can set it. It will hurt so I will give Ian something to lessen the pain.’
He washed his hands with strong-smelling carbolic soap in an enamel basin of boiled water that the boy’s mother had filled from the kettle on the stove. Then he laid out the equipment he would need on a freshly laundered white cloth. Ian’s eyes, wide with dread, followed his every move.
‘Now, the important thing is to keep everything as clean as possible,’ he said, with a glance at Isabel. ‘An open wound such as Ian has can become infected very quickly and we don’t want that.’ He took a thermometer from his bag and shook it. ‘From looking at him, though, I think his temperature is normal at the moment. A doctor has to use his eyes as much as his instruments.’ He smiled at Isabel. ‘A nurse too.’
She liked the way he was explaining everything, as if she were a proper assistant.
He placed the thermometer under Ian’s tongue. Then he mixed something together until it was liquid before drawing it into a syringe. ‘Morphine is expensive and difficult to come by,’ he told Isabel. ‘If Ian were an adult, I’d be tempted to straighten his leg without pain relief. Now, Alasdair, do you think you can help me?’
‘I can help, Papa,’ Isabel said, stepping forward.
Her father looked surprised. ‘You’re not frightened?’
‘No, Papa.’ She was a little frightened, and she didn’t like being in the gloomy house with its strange smells, but she wanted to be the one to help Papa with the boy’s leg.
He pushed the needle into Ian’s arm and depressed the plunger. ‘In a few minutes you’ll feel sleepy and your leg won’t hurt so much.’
Papa seemed so relaxed. All the tension that had been in his face since he’d come back from Africa had gone. It was as if what he was doing gave him joy from somewhere inside him. A joy, she realised with a pang, that nothing and no one else could give him.
Whatever he had given Ian appeared to be working: the boy’s eyes were unfocused and his mouth slack. Her father removed the thermometer and looked at it. ‘Good. As I thought. No sign of fever that would indicate sepsis, although that is not to say that he isn’t harbouring bacteria that will lead to an infection. We must keep a close eye on him over the next few days.’
Isabel was thrilled when he said ‘we’, as if she were really helping him.
‘The first thing that needs to be done is to straighten the broken bone. Alasdair, could you hold Ian’s shoulders? Make sure he doesn’t move.’
‘And me, Papa?’ Isabel asked.
‘I need you to hold tight to Ian’s thigh. Grip very hard. Keep holding until I say you can stop.’
He waited until everyone was ready, then pulled Ian’s leg so hard that Isabel thought it would come off in his hand. Ian moaned and Alasdair winced. A couple of minutes later the leg was straight. After that he cleaned the open wound with something he poured from a bottle, then placed cotton pads soaked in the same solution on top. ‘Normally I would stitch the wound together, but not in this case. I’ll splint it and apply a bandage.’
While he talked, he was working with graceful, precise movements. There was no hesitation: it was as if his hands knew instinctively what to do. When he had finished, he gave a satisfied smile. ‘All we can do now is let nature take its course. I’ll show the boy’s mother how to change the bandages and clean the wound, and come back to see him in a day or two. Alasdair, could you tell your mother that? If Ian shows any sign of infection – a red face, or if he is sweating and thro
wing the blankets off – she must send for me immediately. Is that understood? She must only touch his leg when her hands are clean, and she isn’t to use any of her own remedies.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ Alasdair said. ‘She says thank you and God bless you. She asks if you’ll take a cup of tea while I fetch you a chicken and some potatoes.’
‘No, thank you,’ he said, to Isabel’s relief. Now that they’d finished with Ian’s leg, she couldn’t stay in that room a moment longer. ‘I have another patient waiting for me.’ He began to pack his bag. ‘Perhaps when I come back to see Ian.’
‘That was wonderful, Papa,’ Isabel said, as soon as they were on their way again, the chicken and potatoes in a sack at the back of the trap.
‘Did you think so? Why?’
‘You mended that boy’s leg. He was in pain and you made him better. That’s why I want to become a nurse. I’d like to be able to do that too.’
Her father smiled. ‘Nurses don’t set legs, Isabel. One needs medical training to do that. I wonder if you will still think it’s wonderful if the boy dies. He’s not out of danger, my dear. There is a very real possibility that his leg may yet become infected. When a wound is open like his was, there is nothing to stop the germs getting inside.’
‘He’s not going to die! Don’t say that, Papa. Surely people don’t die from a broken leg.’
‘Once infection gets into the bloodstream we have no way of stopping it, except…’ He paused.
‘Except what, Papa?’
Suddenly he looked tired. ‘I’ve taught you enough about medicine for one day. But I’ll tell you about our next patient. The Countess of Glendale has been suffering with her stomach all week. I suspect she hasn’t been eating enough vegetables. You will see that the job of a doctor isn’t always exciting.’
Isabel’s ears pricked up. Wasn’t the Earl of Glendale the landowner whom Archie’s father had argued with? ‘Where does she live?’
‘They’re renting Dunvegan Castle while their home in Glendale undergoes renovation.’
‘Does the countess have children?’
‘I hear so, but as to their ages and whether there’ll be an opportunity for you to meet them, I have no idea. I don’t know the family well, although I have met the earl once or twice in Edinburgh – they have a house in Charlotte Square as well as one here and another in London. I understand they don’t spend much time in Skye.’
