‘The island I love – the people – well to be truthful I have this awful sinking feeling that I’m being sized up with some suspicion. Mr Grey told me it’s natural for newcomers to be subjected to a certain amount of scrutiny but I think I’m getting more than my fair share.’
Shona played for time before answering and threw back her head in order to escape the full effect of his all-seeing gaze. Her hair escaped its bonds, cascading over her shoulders in waves of exquisite sheen.
‘Damt hair! I swear I’ll get it cut whatever Niall says . . .’ Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘There I go again – forgetting who you are – och, to hell! What does it matter? You’re human after all and it’s easy to forget you’re a minister. That’s why the islanders are sizing you up – you don’t quite fit the usual mould. We’ve been used to the straightforward sort who made sure you never forgot who they were.’ She giggled. ‘Your predecessor wore his cloth even to go fishing though if the weather was bad he smothered himself in oilskins and the men visibly relaxed – Graeme Donald forgot so well he once spent ten minutes cursing before he remembered the minister was on board.’
The minister showed white teeth in a wide grin. ‘If they like informality so much then surely they ought to feel at home with me?’
‘Och, they will, give them time. They’re holding themselves back so that they can get it into their heads that you are a man of the cloth because later, when they’re feeling at ease with you, they’ll remember not to let themselves go too much.’
His smoky gaze stayed on her sparkling face. ‘That all sounds rather complicated but I think I can see what you mean. I’m glad I bumped into you, Mrs McLachlan, you’ve helped to make me feel a bit more hopeful.’
‘Ach, call me Shona, everyone does, the old folks are a bit more formal about such matters, but when I get my official title I find myself looking over my shoulder to see who’s behind me.’
‘All right then – Shona – if you promise to call me Mark during informal interludes like these.’
She didn’t answer but stepped back in some confusion and he looked at his watch.
‘I’d better go, Tina will have my meal ready.’
Shona remembered that Tina, Matthew’s wife, had mentioned something about seeing to the new minister but Shona hadn’t taken her seriously. Tina was an extremely easy-going woman with a devil-may-care attitude towards housework. Time meant nothing to her though somehow she had always managed to be prompt with the family’s meals.
‘Tina is looking to you then?’ The verification was for her own benefit and she was unable to suppress a smile at the remembrance of seeing Tina dusting shelves, her method being to trail a feather duster along a set course while she had her nose buried in one of the romantic novels she avidly devoured.
Mark James reciprocated her smile. ‘Yes, she’s my housekeeper and suits me down to the ground. I can’t stand fastidious women and when I instructed Tina never to disturb my desk she looked at me blankly and I realized that the idea of looking in my study, let alone tidy it, had never even entered her head.’
‘That’s Tina all right. She’s such a peaceful soul you’ll often wonder if she’s in the house at all.’ She glanced along the road. ‘My daughter will think I’m lost, I’ll have to go.’
He glanced at the baby who was studying him with wide-eyed absorption. ‘You have an older child then?’
‘Oh, this isn’t mine, she’s my brother’s baby, Lorna McKenzie. My daughter’s thirteen now.’
‘I’d never have believed it.’ The grey-blue eyes were on her again, assessing her face. ‘You seem – so young.’ She reddened and was at a loss for words and he pulled his gaze away. ‘Please – I wasn’t being personal – just surprised.’ He nodded towards the glen. ‘You’re a McKenzie then which means your father must be McKenzie of the Glen. I’m going up to his house later to arrange some details about the christening.’ His attention fastened on the baby. She was blowing bubbles, her rosy lips pursed, her hearty chuckles designed to bring a smile to the dourest face. ‘So this is the wee one I’ll be christening on Sunday. She’s a bonny baby – a bit like you round the eyes.’
‘She’s Lorn’s double – and of course she has her mother’s colouring – I wish I could lay claim to her but . . .’ She stopped, feeling she’d said enough, and rather more abruptly than she intended, made her goodbyes to the minister.
At the War Memorial she paused and looked back. He was walking along the harbour to the Manse, a tall straight figure with that distinctive air surrounding him like an aura. There were quite a few people busying themselves along the shore but Mark James might have been alone. For all his upright carriage, for all the strength and self-sufficiency she had sensed in him, he looked vulnerable and strangely heart-rendingly lonely.
Ellie had run ahead to Laigmhor, leaving Lorn and Ruth to follow slowly in her wake. Lorn was very quiet and Ruth stole a glance at him, knowing that he was angry because she had made a fuss over Rachel. The sunlight was in his hair, lighting the earth-brown curls to rich copper. His young face was set and stern looking and she saw more of Fergus in him than she’d ever seen before.
They were walking in the shade of the birchwood, the branches were throwing out delicate fronds of cool greenery; sunshine dappled through the leaves, making a golden pattern on the dusty surface of the road; from high above a song thrush was pouring forth a fountain of song which echoed far back into the mysterious shadows. It was all so beautiful and peaceful but it failed to bring comfort to Ruth. She wanted to reach out and touch her husband. Her husband – it didn’t seem quite real yet, everything had happened so swiftly since that fateful meeting by Brodie’s Burn. The hastily arranged marriage followed by a few days on Coll for their honeymoon; Christmas, gone before she had really prepared for it; Lorna’s birth, on her before she realized it was actually going to happen; getting to know her baby before she’d had time to really get to know Lorn, to find out the sort of things which angered him or made him happy. He wasn’t in the least like Lewis, he was much more complicated and stood firm in the things he believed in – to the point of stubbornness. It was a trait she was fast discovering in all the McKenzies and often found difficult to handle. Even so she enjoyed living at Laigmhor, Kirsteen and Fergus had been wonderful, understanding and discreet – yet – she often found herself longing for a home of her own, how much easier it would be to talk to her husband about private matters, to make up differences when they felt like it instead of having to wait till they could be alone in their bedroom. Matthew and Tina were intending to move to a cottage in the village beside Tina’s mother who was getting old, but the house needed a lot of work done on it and it would be a while before it was ready.
She longed to say something to Lorn to break the silence that had fallen between them, knowing he wouldn’t speak first. She had learned that early on in the marriage and as a result it always fell to her to make the peace. But she was damned if she was going to do it today! Although he had objected when she told him she was asking Rachel to be the baby’s godmother he had eventually relented though not without a certain amount of bad grace. He had known that she was going to the boat to meet her friend and there had been simply no call for him to stomp down at her back. She knew he had only done it to embarrass both herself and Rachel. He was behaving like a spoilt and unreasonable child and unconsciously she lifted her head in a gesture of defiance and kept her lips firmly closed.
The feminine scent of her wafted enticingly to Lorn’s nostrils and from the corner of his eye he appraised this new little wife of his with her child’s face framed in its cloud of silky hair. Child she might look, but the soft flowing dress she wore gave lie to the milky skinned curvaceous body underneath. Her small rounded breasts with their pink, flower-like nipples, would have stirred desire in any man as would her hips, creamy and smooth, a sensuous movement to them when desire robbed her of shyness and suffused her limbs with careless freedom. During the first nights of their marriage s
he had held herself back, the inhibitions instilled in her from the cradle battling with her awakening desires. But he had been patient with her, allowing her time to adjust, time to blossom out and come to him when she would. Her full awakening had caught him unawares, he hadn’t been prepared for the wildness in her, for the throwing off of conventions which had cloaked her inner self for so long. It was as if she was reaching out, discovering, taking all the pleasures of the universe at once, carrying him with her into the realms of a new and exciting world. She had been wild, passionate, fierce, gentle, demanding, drowning him in wave after wave of ecstasy. An echo of that night came to him now, making him feel hot as he observed the freckles on her small straight nose, the proud tilt of her firmly rounded chin.
‘Ruthie.’ His hand strayed over the gap that separated them, bridged it by laying his fingers on her arm. ‘I’m sorry about this morning. I still don’t think you should have asked Rachel to be Lorna’s godmother but she’s your friend and you have a right to ask who you like.’
She kept her head high. ‘Indeed I have, Lorn McKenzie! And I’ll go on having my friends even though they may be people you don’t care for. I don’t have many friends I can feel at ease with and those I have I intend to keep – despite what you stubborn McKenzies think or say.’ She gave a sarcastic laugh. ‘Oh ay, you’re no’ the only one, Shona doesn’t approve of Rachel either. She’s jealous I didn’t ask her to be godmother. It’s a side to Shona I’ve never really seen before and I don’t like it – just as I don’t like you telling me what I ought or ought not to do at every turn. I’m sick of it! All my life I had Mam ranting on at me – don’t do this – don’t say that – well—’ Her chin went up further. ‘I’ve had enough. I’ve tried to please you ever since we got married – tried to show you how grateful I was that you had forgiven me for what happened between me and Lewis. I admired and loved you for it but I’m human, Lorn, and I canny go on being grateful all my life. I’m me – Ruth Naomi McKenzie – and I won’t be beholden to anybody anymore.’
His shout of delight startled her. His blue eyes were sparkling and with a quick flick of his wrists he pulled her into his arms to kiss her lips and nuzzle her ears. ‘At last, Ruthie! At last you’ve answered back! I can see life with you is never going to be dull – there will always be something new to discover – you’ve got a lot of coming out ahead of you and my God! I’m the lucky bugger who’s going to be there to see all the changes.’
She was staring at him in bemusement, her face flushed and warm. ‘You mean – you’re not – angry?’
‘Angry! The opposite. A man likes a wife to please him but he also likes a bit of spirit. You’ve been so anxious to give in to me at every turn I was beginning to think you had no will of your own.’
Her brow cleared, she said wonderingly, ‘You spoke first – I’ve just realized it – always before I gave in and made the first move.’
‘Ay, you did that, you’ll have to be firm with me, Ruthie, I’m just as pigheaded as my father but Mother doesn’t allow him to be top dog all the time, she’s got a mind of her own and isn’t afraid to let him see it. I was in the wrong today and I’m not too bloody childish to admit it.’ He plucked a wild rose from the wayside and fixed it into her hair. ‘That’s what you are, Ruthie, a wild rose, soft and shy and dewy yet capable of hurting when you feel like it, that’s the way you were before we got married and the girl I fell in love with – so – if you want us to be happy – show your claws now and then.’ He grinned. ‘I used to think that was the reason girls grew their nails long, so they had something to help them win in a fight. Mind the uproar you caused when you nearly scratched the eyes out of John Baxter? He was calling you names . . .’
‘Saint Ruth,’ she interposed, her expression faraway.
‘Ay, whatever it was you sent him off bloody and beaten with his tail between his legs and that’s how I’ve always thought of you, a gentle lassie slow to rouse but able to let the sparks fly when the need arises – mind you, I hope you never have to go that far with me – I don’t think I could handle you,’ he ended with a laugh and she giggled.
He held her hands and studied her face. ‘You look like a girl ready to go out to a dance – there’s a ceilidh on at the hall tonight – we haven’t been anywhere since Lorna was born – so, how about it, Mrs McKenzie?’
She sighed. ‘Lord, I’d love to but Kirsteen and Fergus are going to Slochmhor for the evening and there will be no one to look to Lorna.’
Shona was coming slowly along the road, her slender figure just topping the rise by the birchwood. Lorn laughed. ‘Oh yes there is, my big sister for one, she’ll be delighted, I’m sure.’
Ruth looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know about that, I get the feeling she canny really be bothered with babies – she shied away from Lorna from the minute she set eyes on her.’
‘That’s what you think,’ Lom’s tones were soft. ‘Ruthie, you have a lot to learn about people. Shona would give her right arm to have a baby like Loma – she wanted a lot of bairns but only had Ellie.’
Ruth looked away. ‘– And the wee boy she lost.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘In a way she did – when she spoke to me at the time I knew I was pregnant. I wasn’t sure but when I mentioned it to Kirsteen she – told me about the terrible time Shona went through – but – I thought perhaps it had put her off having children – heartache can do funny things to people – I imagined that Ellie – had been – a mistake.’
‘A mistake! Ellie’s the most precious thing in their lives! It wasn’t heartache that denied Shona more children – it was just bad luck – you ask her about tonight, she’ll jump at the chance.’
His assumption couldn’t have been more apt. Shona’s eyes were like stars as she heard Ruth’s proposal. Gazing down at the baby she giggled. ‘It looks as though you’re stuck with your Auntie Shona, my babby. You and me and your cousin are going to have a bonny time.’ She became brisk. ‘It will be easier if she stays the night in my house. You two won’t have to rush home and I won’t be wandering up the glen in the small hours with bags under my eyes. I’ll collect some of her things and take them back with me after dinner.’
Lorn threw his wife a grin of triumph as Shona walked beside them, completely wrapped up in the baby who gurgled in the protective circle of her arms.
Chapter Seven
Ruth gazed down at her cherubic daughter. She was peacefully asleep after a night of fretful crying during which she had roused the entire household and caused havoc with the carefully laid plans for the christening breakfast which Kirsteen had taken much of the previous evening to prepare. In the bright hours of the summer dawn everyone had at last managed to get some rest, only to waken in a panic with the realization that they had overslept.
Bleary-eyed and disgruntled they sat around the table in silence, munching burnt toast and gulping down mouthfuls of tea which, though stewed, was hot and sweet and very welcome.
‘She must be teething,’ Lorn decided, thinking of the time spent pacing the floor with his baby daughter bawling lustily in his ears.
‘She’s too young, surely,’ protested Ruth. ‘She’s only two and a half months.’
Fergus rubbed the black stubble on his chin and grinned ruefully. ‘The McKenzies do everything in a hurry and that wee besom’s going to be no exception.’
Kirsteen was at the ironing board, going once more over the ruffles on the christening robe. Lovingly she stroked the cream satin of the garment which had been made by Fergus’s grandmother more than a hundred years before. Each stitch had been exquisitely executed, the fine old French lace which overlaid the bodice and edged the sleeves was as delicate as a cobweb and still as good as the day it had been fashioned. Kirsteen held the smooth material to her face. ‘What a lot of McKenzie bairns have worn this bonny thing,’ she mused. ‘Strange to think the McKenzie men were once able to fit this tiny gown – there must have been – let me see – four of your grandmother’s s
ons and daughters – then you, Fergus, Alick, Shona, Alick’s son – then – no, not Grant . . .’ She looked wistful at the idea of her eldest son missing the chance to wear the McKenzie robe and her voice faltered as she went on, ‘At least Lewis had his turn of it though Lorn had to make do with another,’ she laughed. ‘Your grandmother never catered for twins, more’s the pity. Alick and Mary were like us, only one of their boys got to wear it. After that came Ellie and now wee Lorna – I wonder how many more babies will feel the caress of it against their skin.’
Fergus kissed the top of her head. ‘More than we’ll ever see, that’s for sure – and if I don’t go and shave I’ll be late for kirk and so will you unless you plan to arrive in your dressing gown.’
Light steps sounded on the cobbled yard and Shona came in, delightfully cool looking in a pale green linen suit and a white blouse with ruffles at the neck.
‘You look bonny, mo cridhe,’ Fergus greeted his daughter, then gazing beyond her to the open door, ‘Isn’t Ellie coming? I need her help.’
‘She was at my back when I left.’ A stab of pride pierced Shona’s heart. How her father adored his eldest granddaughter – adored and trusted her. From her infancy he had allowed her to do things for him which he would never dream of allowing any other. She had grown up with his disability and accepted it as easily as she accepted the cold rains of winter and the warm sun of summer. As a baby she had laboriously fastened the buttons of his jackets; as she grew older she tied his shoelaces and attempted to make knots in his tie. Now, at thirteen, she often struck the matches which lit his pipe and had become such an expert at doing his tie he often bemoaned her absences from the island.
Shona smiled at her big handsome father. ‘Baby,’ she teased. ‘Don’t fash yourself, Ellie will be here in time to do your tie.’
As if on cue Ellie arrived, her arms full of wildflowers which she stuck hastily into a vase before dashing upstairs to help her grandfather.
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