by Darci Hannah
At first I believed that Mr. Campbell hadn’t even realized that anything had changed between us, for he was just as withdrawn as was I. We had come to a sort of placable understanding of each other after the dumbfounding scene in his bedroom over the “book.” We each, I believe, in our own way felt rather sorry for the other, each of us so ignorant of the other’s circumstances, and I especially looked the fool. Mr. Campbell had the good grace to overlook my assumption that he had wanted me as a man wants a woman. I believed he was too troubled to want anything but peace now, and having me around offered none. He often went to great lengths to avoid me, and I respected that. He even took more of his meals in his room, or in the tower. He too, I noticed, avoided Kate, and once we even took the same circuitous route around to the backside of the cottage just to avoid being seen by her. It was the first time our eyes had met since the day the second letter from the antiquarian had arrived. And all I could think to greet him with was a churlish “Good day to you, Mr. Campbell. I hope you and your netherworld friends are faring well?” At this greeting he pulled up, allowing me to slip right past him through the seldom-used back entrance of the cottage.
As April came, bringing with it a burst of warmer air, I found I was finally able to garner my thoughts enough to pen a venomous letter to my family, thanking them once again for all the kindness shown to me in my time of need. Certainly Scotland had never seen such a shining example of Christianity abound from her verdant shores! What a gift to the nation was the family Stevenson! I begged them not to lose sleep over my health, as I was blooming, literally. I glowed. I danced. I frolicked. I told them the Cape was just lovely this time of year, and how lucky I was to experience such extremes of weather! Certainly not many young ladies of my acquaintance had such a chance—more’s the pity. Kate was charming as ever and was becoming quite a hand at keeping her husband happy (here I underscored “happy” several times). Lastly, I let slip how I had seen so many handsome sailors cruise past the lighthouse since I had been in residence, and how one in particular was now carrying on a correspondence with me. I wished love to all and signed only with initials before smashing my seal into the glob of hot wax. Then, before I took my letter to the jetty landing, along with another for Mr. Seawell, apprising him briefly of my latest setback, I took a moment to scribble a note for Mr. Campbell. It was only two lines, short and to the point! I finished packing some things into my basket, pulled on my best pelisse and slipped the note under Mr. Campbell’s door, certain he would find it come morning. And then I left the cottage.
I never gave a thought to running away, for there was really no place to run. But I did feel it necessary for my continuing health that I get away from the lighthouse and her noxious inhabitants for a spell, and for this little holiday I knew I could count on Mary MacKay for a fortnight of kindness.
It was a clear dawn, the sun just beginning to make its presence known as I started down the road. Flocks of migrating birds had begun to fill the skies and as I walked along, watching black wings obscure the fading stars, the music of a thousand feathered voices kept me company. At the jetty, after navigating the steep road, I deposited my latest batch of letters, noting with an inward smile that my missive to Mr. Seawell was gone. I had not spied the little craft that had carried it away myself, but that, I rationalized, was due to having been preoccupied and fretful over my own predicament. And then, battling the weight of the wiggling protuberance that was Thomas’ child, I climbed out of the cove and made for the MacKay croft.
Wee Hughie was the first of the family to spot me as I came over the rise that brought the homestead in view. He had been out front stalking the many chickens that ran harum-scarum before him, when he happened to look my way and, leaving his sport for the sake of hospitality, came dashing over with the speed only those raised in the hills seemed to possess.
“Have ye come to deliver me one of your lessons? I thought we were done with a’ that?”
“Never.” I smiled and handed him my basket to carry. “You’re far too bright to give up on, and I’m far too stubborn to do so. Sorry, dear boy. You’ll just have to put up with me for a while longer yet.”
He paused a moment, falling back a few steps, and then bounded forward again. “You’ve run away, haven’t ye?” he challenged with boyish zeal.
I kept walking, cast him a sideways glance and replied truthfully. “Something very like that; but only for a little while. I shan’t burden your family overlong, but I would very much appreciate your company for a while. By the way, you’re a very perceptive young man.”
“Only because I knew you’d run away. Ye dinna belong there, Miss Sara. Ye dinna belong there wi’ that man!”
The child was undoubtedly wise beyond his years and just for voicing what I knew to be true I felt the urge to give him a great hug, but I refrained. I did, however, turn him to face me. “You do know that the book you saw the last time you were at the lighthouse was a book of anatomy? ’Tis the study of the human body. It appears that Mr. Campbell was, at one time, a doctor.”
“Mr. Campbell was a doctor?” I could see he was having a hard time wrapping his wee head around that one. “Weel, what about it?”
“Well, doctors are required to study such things,” I told him. “It’s how they familiarize themselves with their art. They need to have an intimate knowledge of how the human body works if they’re going to fix it. Most anatomy books are of men, but sometimes the need arises for a specific study of women. We’re different from men, you know.”
He cocked his carrot-topped head. “Aye, I know. Ye say doctors are required to read such books?”
“Yes, I believe they are.”
“Well then,” he proclaimed with a grin that could only be termed roguish, “I shall be a doctor for certain when I grow up!” And then he bolted forward, heralding my arrival boisterously to the house.
As luck would have it I was just in time for breakfast. Hugh, with his daughter squirming on his lap, was already seated at the table; Maggie assiduously attacked a piece of buttered toast that was held protectively in both hands.
“Why, Sara,” said Mary, arising from her stool by the fire where she’d been stirring a pot of porridge and came to greet me. “What a pleasant surprise. Are ye come alone, then?” Her pretty face, with its fine dusting of freckles and wide blue eyes, had a puzzled look as she held me at arm’s length after a welcoming embrace.
“I am,” I replied. And with a tone to my voice that was meant to set her at ease, I explained how I had been out early walking, and how it felt so good to be moving that I had decided to continue the entire way. She smiled politely at this, glanced fleetingly at the unfamiliar basket in her son’s arms and demurred to me how honored … how pleasured she was.
“Hughie, did ye fetch the eggs yet?” she directed to her son. The boy, having been disturbed in the midst of his task, set down the basket and dashed out again. “We’ll have tae take those daft birds in yet,” Mary mused, watching his retreating back, “as there’s likely tae be a wicked storm before long.”
“A wicked storm?” I questioned. “But it’s a glorious morning, by all accounts.” At this statement husband and wife looked to each other.
It was Hugh who spoke first. “Aye, ’tis glorious enough for the now, Miss Sara, but did ye, by chance, happen tae take notice o’ the wind?”
“Of course. It’s still blowing, as it always is.”
This elicited a smile from the handsome Highlander. “Aye, but did ye notice how ’twas backing?”
“Backing?” I questioned, sitting down to a hot cup of tea. “I don’t believe I’m familiar with the term.”
“The wind has shifted direction, Miss Sara. Which means that by evening a storm will likely be upon us. Perhaps,” he added, a charming smile touching his lips as his eyes caught his wife’s, “’twould be wise if ye stayed here with us for a spell … that is, if it wouldna be too much of an inconvenience?”
“How kind of you, sir,” I replied since
rely. “And I will take your advice, but only if you can assure me that it won’t be too much of an inconvenience to have me here.”
“Inconvenience?” he chided, setting down his mug with a sly grin. “Nay, Miss Sara, ’tis no inconvenience tae have ye here. Mary could use the company, and as for wee Hughie, I believe that havin’ ye for our guest might stop his gob for a bit. The lad’s been verra worrit about ye of late.” Hugh glanced at his wife, who responded with a softly concurring smile. Then he looked back to me and added with a wink, “If ye havena guessed, Miss Sara, the lad’s a might taken with ye.”
• • •
I thoroughly enjoyed my breakfast with the MacKays. Sitting at the little table, a table made with love by the man of the house, I watched how this family interacted with one another, how they smiled, how they teased, how they laughed. It was such a change, such a welcome change.
Maggie was undoubtedly the center of attention, parroting in her toddler language nearly everything that was said, her cherubic face beaming with delight. She loved to eat, especially toasted bread. It was a huge game with her, for every time she’d pluck a piece off the platter and set it on her own plate, she’d make a show of reaching for the jam. This was Hughie’s cue to steal the toast from her and eat it himself. Once the jam jar was in her chubby grasp, she’d look down on her empty plate and exclaim with surprise, “Toos! Where toos?” Then she’d look to her brother, cheeks stuffed like a squirrel, and cry with chagrin, “Ewee! Ewee eat ma toos!” Then the little hands would reach for another piece, and the whole game would start again, only sometimes it was “Da” who took her toast, or “Ma.” It was silly; it was charming. And in the end little Maggie not only got a whole plate of her own toasted bread to eat, but also a whirl up into her father’s arms and a kiss on the cheek before he headed out the door for the day.
To my surprise he set the child in my crowded lap; gladly I took her. She was surprisingly heavy, and warm, and irresistible. Instinctively my arms came around her, I pulled her to me and began a nonsensical conversation while the man of the house, arms now empty, took up his wife in a playful embrace. As I whispered a silly rhyme about the Duke of York into the child’s ear, my eyes strayed to the couple. Hugh MacKay was a tender man, a good man and a husband who was inclined to kiss his wife warmly on the lips—as if she was his most beloved treasure. I watched covertly as he tilted her head up to his, and then bent to whisper something in her ear that made her giggle.
I knew that kind of smile.
I had smiled like that when I was with Thomas Crichton. And suddenly, selfishly, I wanted what Mary MacKay had … I wanted her life. She was with the man she was meant to be with—the man she loved, the father of her children. She lived in a shabby little bothy on the edge of nowhere, and yet she projected a radiance that many of the wellborn were lacking. I watched as Hugh turned to go, the look on his face serene and placid. He was a man comfortable in his own skin, a man satisfied with his lot in life. He ruffled the hair of his boy as he passed, their resemblance unmistakable. He instructed the lad to come out and assist him once he had finished his chores. And then, plucking his hat from the hook while performing a quick nod to us ladies, he left the cottage.
It was only after the house was quiet, Maggie put down for her nap and wee Hughie out with his father, that Mary pulled me to the table and asked pointedly, “So will ye tell me now, Sara, why ’tis you’ve come? Dinna tell me ’twas for the sake of the walk. For even a blind man could see that something’s troubling ye. Hughie’s also let on that something might not be quite right up at the lighthouse.”
I sat back, taking a moment to form my thoughts. Then, throwing all caution to the wind, along with any pretext to dignity I might have had left, I asked, “Your son, for his age, is mightily perspicacious. Tell me, Mary, what would you do … what would you do if someone told you they were going to take your baby from you when it was born and give it to a foundling hospital?”
She didn’t speak for a long moment. The little bothy was dead quiet but for the soft crackling of the fire as she sat staring at me in reflective silence. And then she inquired, “Would I happen to be married?”
I slowly shook my head. “No, unfortunately you may have overlooked that little detail along the way, although if it’s any consolation, it was in the forefront of your mind.” Unable to look her in the eye any longer, I lowered my gaze to the table.
“Unwed.” The word alone sounded forlorn coming from her gentle lips. “Well then, ’tis easy.” I looked up; her face was alarmingly blank. “Were anyone meaning tae take a bairn from me I’d scratch out their bloody eyes, I would.” A wicked grin appeared. “Of course, that would only be after I had already cut out their cold, black heart!”
• • •
Mary MacKay was a good listener, and as the winds backed and shifted out on the bay of Kervaig, and as they grew in might and wrath with every gust, I poured out my story to her. I told her about my love for Thomas Crichton. I told her about my family and how they reviled such as he. I told her how we planned to elope and how I had waited and waited in the rain for Thomas to come, but he never did. I told her of Kate’s betrayal, whereupon hearing this tawdry complaint from me she nodded her head and uttered sagely, “I might have guessed some bad blood stood between ye.” There was my banishment to Cape Wrath, my relationship to the puzzling Mr. Campbell and the latest affront by my family: to be rid of the child and the stigma I carried. It was only the second time since falling in love with Thomas that I had a sympathetic ear, the first being, of course, Mr. Scott those many months ago. But here on Cape Wrath was another female, with a woman’s heart, a woman who relived my tumultuous affair with her own emotions lying close to the surface. Her empathy was the motherly understanding and concern I craved but had been denied.
When I had told her just how matters stood, I lastly, without any mention of the odd little skiff, told her of the letters from Mr. Seawell—how enigmatic yet comforting they were.
“Ye say ye never met the man and yet he was in possession of your timepiece?”
“Yes, that’s right. Here,” I said, and pulled from my bodice Thomas’ magnificent silver chronometer.
She held it gently in the palm of her hand then turned it over to stare at the inscription on the back. She looked up; her eyes delivering a now familiar questioning look.
“Try sounding it out,” I coaxed.
Her lips formed the words slowly: “To … my … be … be …”
“Beloved,” I offered.
“Beloved,” she repeated, and looked up, “Thomas?”
“Yes. Very good. Go on.” The next word was a bit of a struggle for her, but she read the last two with little problem.
She repeated the inscription aloud, still marveling at the engraving. “To my beloved Thomas, eternally yours, Sara.” She looked up again, this time her eyes glistening with moisture. “Oh dear, dear child,” she bemoaned. “Do ye truly believe he’s dead, then?”
“I don’t know what to believe. I pray not … and I hope to learn the truth eventually.”
With maudlin eyes, she handed back the watch. I tucked it home.
“Could … did ye ever think that maybe Mr. Seawell is really your Thomas?”
I came alive at the suggestion, but then I shook my head. “I don’t see how he could be. Besides, the writing is all wrong. I know Thomas’ writing very well. He has a unique style … a poet’s gift with words. He used to write me poems and letters. No. I’m afraid the letters are not from him.”
“His writing was different, ye say?”
“Very,” I assured her, vividly recalling each and every word he had ever written to me in the bold, round hand, meticulously practiced to cover his humble beginnings. “Besides, Mr. Seawell is a scholar, a man who had the very good fortune to be well educated. My Thomas was never afforded that sort of chance. And Mr. Seawell appears to have suffered quite traumatically himself.”
Mary leaned forward on her elbows, her blue
eyes cunning and mischievous, very like her son’s. “Ye say he’s well educated and suffered cruelly? Does this mysterious letter-writer of yours also happen tae keep a lighthouse and harbor a fancy tae draw unmarried women … naked?”
“So …” I swallowed. “So you’ve heard about that, have you?” It was my turn to be embarrassed, and I could barely look at her, hanging my head in shame. “I suppose the man has his reasons for what he does. But what is it you’re suggesting, Mary?”
“I’m suggesting, dear, that perhaps your mystery man doesnae dwell so verra far away after all. Mayhap he’s very near but wants ye tae think the letters come from a man very far removed from it all. Perhaps … perhaps ’tis an easier way for a recluse tae make contact with a beautiful young woman? After all, he did have in his possession a very intimate drawing of ye.”
“He did indeed!” I huffed, going red at the thought. “And he had no right to draw that!”
“But he did,” Mary added softly. “Although I highly doubt he intended for ye, or anyone else for that matter, to find it, dear. But my point is that a man only draws what captures his imagination. And ye, Sara, have captured his.”
I looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “I was forced on him!” I stated defensively. “He despises me! And what you’re suggesting is utterly preposterous! Mr. Campbell is nothing like Mr. Seawell! Mr. Seawell appears very literate, very soulful. He was a man once deeply in love and when his wife and child died he tried to kill himself. Mr. Campbell doesn’t appear to be capable of loving anything at all, and as for killing himself, ha! Out of the question. He’s a man who’d rather kill than be killed. Besides, how would he have gotten hold of my watch?”
