Snowflakes in the Wind

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘But you’re both so young.’

  He sighed, but then he said, ‘Abby, I don’t feel young, not inside. I think what happened with Mam made us both grow up quick. From when I came here I’ve known exactly what I want in life and it’s to work as a shepherd an’ marry an’ have a family of my own. I know you don’t want the same and we’re different. Chalk an’ cheese, I suppose. But . . . but you’re my sister and it’s important you understand. I love everything to do with being here. Like at clipping time when the air’s full of the smell of hot tar and sawdust and the sheep, and the swallows twittering round the farm buildings blends in with the clank of the shears and the voices of the men and sheep.’

  Abby stared at him. It sounded almost poetic. ‘I know, and you’re good at what you do, Granda’s always said that, but marriage, Robin. It’s a big thing.’

  ‘It’s the natural thing, for me an’ Rachel.’ He covered her hand that was on his with his other hand, turning to face her. ‘I’ve asked her to come to the cottage tomorrow morning to meet you and Granda. Christmas Day is the only time the inn shuts, but she’ll still be cooking for them all later in the day, Christmas or no Christmas.’

  ‘Oh, Robin.’ He sounded so bitter about Rachel’s family.

  ‘Will you give her a chance? Make her welcome?’

  ‘Of course I will. You shouldn’t have to ask that.’

  ‘And I’m sorry an’ all, lass. About saying what I said about Galashiels and the nursing and all of it. I . . . I suppose at the back of me I’ve felt once you go from here you’ll never come back. I’ve been sitting here thinking and I know I’ve always gone on about your learning an’ the high school being a waste of time, but it’s because I don’t want you to leave. But you’ve got to do what you want, same as I have. I see that now. And it’d be selfish to try and keep you here when your heart’s not in it.’

  Abby didn’t know what to say. This was a side of her baby brother that was new to her, and if it was Rachel who had brought it out then she was grateful for that, if nothing else.

  Robin’s voice softened still further when he murmured, ‘Don’t cry, lass. Come on, come on.’

  ‘I . . . I thought you weren’t bothered about me going when you said about Rachel coming to live here.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Course I don’t want you to go. You’re my sister and’ – his voice became gruff with embarrassment – ‘I love you.’

  The following morning when Abby awoke she lay for a while cocooned under the blankets in the freezing room, thinking back to the evening before. Christmas Eve had always been a difficult time but this one had almost been joyous. She and Robin had been back to normal, something she would have thought impossible earlier in the day, and her grandfather’s relief had been palpable. After their evening meal her grandfather had brought out a box of sugared almonds he had bought specially for the occasion, and they had sat round the fire together drinking home-made blackcurrant wine and chatting. It had been a special time and each one of them had been aware of it and the changes that would soon take place.

  Sliding out of bed she went to the window and peered out into the still-black morning, although the snow brought its own luminescence to the scene. It had piled itself on the deep windowsill outside, forming a drift halfway up the panes which meant it would be lying thickly on the ground. Abby frowned to herself. She had arranged to meet Nicholas that afternoon some way down the lane so no one from the farm would see them, but it was going to take some explaining if she said she was going walking in such conditions.

  She would think of something. She nodded to the thought, her shoulders hunched against the cold. It wasn’t snowing at the moment but if it started again, the farm would soon be cut off from the outside world, though Border folk were used to that. Sometimes in the worst of winter the farms and hamlets were isolated for weeks in a frozen world of their own.

  Would he come if the weather worsened? And then she remembered the look on his face when she had agreed to meet him. He would come.

  Lighting the lamp at the side of her bed, Abby dressed and made her way downstairs. Once in the kitchen she stoked up the range and added more wood and coal to the flickering flames, before doing the same to the glowing embers in the grate in the sitting room.

  By the time her grandfather and Robin came downstairs a few minutes later, the black kettle was on the hob and boiling, and within a moment or two the tea was mashing in the teapot. It was six o’clock. Once the menfolk had drunk their tea scalding hot they went out to see to the sheep that had been brought into the lower fields because of the weather, and as they opened the door of the cottage a feathery drift of snow fell inwards across the cork matting.

  ‘We’re goin’ to have to bring ’em all into the barns if this keeps up,’ Wilbert said to his grandson as they trudged out into the bitterly cold morning, leaving Abby to sweep the snow out through the door before getting on with the breakfast she’d have ready and waiting for them when they returned. It was the same routine she had done a thousand times and more, but today for some reason it seemed poignant. Whether it was the fact she would soon be leaving the farm for Galashiels, or meeting Nicholas the day before, she didn’t know, but she felt even more emotional than ever this particular Christmas.

  She was clearing a path with the shovel from the cottage door ten minutes later when she thought she caught sight of someone in the distance down the farm track that led to the lane. The sky was still dark but the small figure showed up clearly against the white snow. Abby squinted, trying to see clearer, and as she did so the person stumbled and then fell.

  Throwing down the shovel, Abby hurried as best she could towards the sprawled shape that was making no effort to rise, thinking as she did so, Who on earth is it at this time of the morning and on Christmas Day too?

  She became more perturbed the nearer she got because she realized the person was a young woman with no hat or coat and furthermore she was lying face down in the snow as though she was dead. As Abby got within arm’s length the girl moved and struggled to sit up and it was then her long hair fell away from round her face. Abby gasped with shock – she couldn’t help it. There was no way of knowing whether the girl was normally pretty or plain because her face was a swollen, bloody mass of bruised flesh. Her eyes were narrow slits in the blackening puffiness and her lips were drawn back slightly, showing a gap where one of the front teeth was missing.

  Falling on her knees, Abby put her arms round the girl who was shivering violently. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ she found herself murmuring, trying to lift her up. ‘Come on, we need to get you in the warm. Lean on me, I’ll help you.’

  Somehow she managed to get the girl on her feet but only because she was taking most of the weight of her body, and they began to stumble towards the cottage, both nearly going headlong more than once before they reached the narrow stretch of path Abby had cleared. As they reached the doorstep of the house Andrew McHaffie stepped out of his, only to stand transfixed as he looked at them. ‘Get my granda.’ Abby was gasping for breath as she was virtually carrying the girl, but when Andrew didn’t at first respond she practically screamed at him, ‘Get my granda.’

  As the farm steward hurried off Abby managed to haul the limp figure across the threshold, heaving her over to the old sofa in front of the sitting-room fire and dropping her down onto the big soft cushions. Kneeling beside her Abby touched the girl’s hand which was icy cold and caked with dried blood. ‘Who’s done this to you?’ But she already feared she knew the answer. This had to be Rachel, and if her parents had beaten her this badly Robin would go and see them and there would be hell to pay.

  When she saw the girl’s distorted lips try to move, Abby said, ‘No, don’t try to talk. I’m sorry, don’t try to talk. Lie still and I’ll get some blankets.’

  She flew upstairs to her bedroom and gathered the blankets and eiderdown off it before dashing downstairs and covering the still figure on the sofa with them. Hurrying across
to the range, she lifted the kettle off its steel shelf at the side of it and poured some hot water into one of the stone hot-water bottles that were kept as spares in the cupboard. After she had pulled off the girl’s sodden boots she chaffed her icy-cold feet for a few moments, trying to instil some warmth into the blue flesh, and then placed the hot-water bottle at her feet before tucking the blankets more tightly around her.

  It was at this juncture that Robin came bursting into the house closely followed by Wilbert.

  ‘Oh, Rachel.’ The words were a groan as he fell on his knees beside the sofa, putting his arms round her as gently as one would handle a newborn babe. ‘Rachel, Rachel . . .’

  ‘Who did it?’ Wilbert looked at Abby who shook her head indicating that she didn’t know. ‘Well, whoever it was they want stringing up,’ he added grimly.

  Abby motioned with her hand for her grandfather to say no more. They needed to calm Robin down. Her brother was quite capable of taking Rachel’s father on and in a physical fight between the two, Robin might come off worse. Quickly mashing a pot of tea, she half-filled a cup and added two heaped spoonfuls of sugar before pouring in enough milk to make the tea lukewarm. It would be all Rachel’s swollen bloody lips would be able to stand. Taking it to Robin who was still kneeling at the side of the sofa, tears in his eyes, she whispered, ‘Get her to drink this, there’s plenty of sugar in it for the shock. She needs to get warm inside and out, poor thing.’

  ‘I’ll kill them.’ Robin took the cup from her and the look on her brother’s face frightened Abby. She didn’t care about harm coming to Rachel’s parents – they deserved beating to within an inch of their lives too – but if Robin attacked them who knew where this would end? Her brother was angry enough for murder.

  Rachel stirred for the first time since Abby had got her onto the sofa. ‘It wasn’t my da, Rob.’ They could only just make out her words. ‘Ma did it. She . . . she found out about us.’

  ‘But I bet your da stood by and did nowt as usual.’ To Robin the guilt was equal, and Abby and Wilbert agreed with him.

  ‘He . . . he pulled her off me in the end. And . . . and it was my fault. I knew she was drunk but I wouldn’t agree to stopping seeing you.’ Tears were seeping out of the swollen slits of Rachel’s eyes and trickling down her cheeks. ‘That’s what made her so mad. She went barmy, even da couldn’t hold on to her and she kept fighting him to get back to me.’

  She had said Rachel needed to stand up to her parents, Abby thought guiltily; for once in her life the girl had and look at the result. Her mother was a monster. It was hard to imagine any woman could do this to her own child.

  Any misgivings Abby had about her brother’s relationship with this girl were swept away in a wave of compassion and sorrow. Rachel needed Robin. It was as simple as that, and it was clear her brother loved Rachel to distraction. She watched him as he held the cup to Rachel’s poor lips and helped her to drink. It made Abby want to cry.

  It was a few hours later. The smell of the Christmas dinner cooking in the range pervaded the house but the peace of the night before was absent. Rachel was warmly tucked up in Abby’s bed, hot-water bottles at her feet and sides, and had been fast asleep for an hour or so after the doctor Wilbert had fetched from Morebattle had come to the farm in his horse and trap. He had stitched the inside of Rachel’s lip and given her a powerful sedative before coming downstairs with Abby to the sitting room where Robin and Wilbert were waiting, their faces grim.

  ‘She’s lost a tooth and two more are loose but hopefully they’ll settle,’ he told them. ‘It will be some time before we know whether the injuries she’s received will leave permanent marks, but apply the ointment I’m giving you every three hours for the next week or so. Her face is a mess at present but she’s young and nature heals. She’s in shock, and no wonder. That woman wants locking up.’

  ‘Do you know Mrs McArthur?’ Wilbert asked.

  ‘Everyone knows Mrs McArthur,’ said the doctor, shaking his head. ‘Or at least of her. She’s drunk more than she’s sober, and her husband makes no effort to keep her under control despite the fact that he’s a great hulking brute of a man. I’ve heard rumours before of how she is with the children but this is beyond the pale. I shall be calling in to see her within the next twenty-four hours, make no mistake about that. If the girl names her mother to the police as I have advised her to do, Mrs McArthur will find herself enjoying the luxury of His Majesty’s prison in the forseeable future.’

  ‘She won’t do that, Rachel, I mean,’ said Robin quietly. ‘She’s loyal.’

  ‘Misplaced loyalty can do as much harm as deception.’ The doctor’s gaze held Robin’s. ‘Tell her that from me, would you? I take it you care for the girl?’

  Robin nodded. ‘Very much.’

  ‘And she won’t be returning to her parents?’

  ‘Not while I have breath in my body,’ said Robin grimly.

  ‘Then it might be worth threatening Mrs McArthur that you will see to it Rachel goes to the police if she touches one of the other girls. Apparently it’s only her daughters she goes for and up to now Rachel has always tried to protect them, but with her gone . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Dreadful woman.’ He met Wilbert’s eyes. ‘Perfectly dreadful woman.’

  Wilbert nodded. ‘That about sums it up, Doctor.’

  ‘I shall read Mrs McArthur the riot act. If you follow up with threatening to set the law on her, it might afford some protection for the other girls in the future.’ The doctor’s voice became brisk. ‘I must be going. My wife is doing a grand Christmas lunch for her parents and mine, and it would be a brave man who was late for it.’

  That had been over an hour ago. Since the doctor had left, Abby, Robin and their grandfather had been sitting downstairs discussing how to handle Mrs McArthur. Robin was adamant Rachel wouldn’t go to the police, but they agreed that if Wilbert and Robin went to see Mrs McArthur and convinced her otherwise, it might help Rachel’s sisters. Robin was all for going straight over to the inn this minute, but Wilbert and Abby had persuaded him to leave it to the next day when he had calmed down a little. They were both worried he would lose his temper and make things even worse, which wouldn’t help Rachel in the long run.

  Abby found her hands were trembling as she dished up the Christmas Day fare at midday. Only another couple of hours and she would meet Nicholas. Rachel was fast asleep and so the three of them ate together downstairs but without much appetite after the events of the morning.

  Once the meal was over, the men disappeared outside to do certain jobs that were necessary, Christmas Day or no Christmas Day, and Abby saw to the dishes and tidied round after checking on Rachel, who was sleeping soundly. The doctor had said the sedative would probably knock her out for around twenty-four hours and that was all to the good. Sleep was better than any medicine he could give her, he’d added, because in a case such as this the mind needed rest as well as the body.

  It was just after two o’clock when the men returned to the house and it had started to snow again, which was the last thing Abby wanted. Nevertheless she was determined to keep the rendezvous with Nicholas. She let her grandfather and Robin take off their coats and caps and boots, and slip their feet into their slippers which she’d put to warm by the fire. After making them a cup of tea and cutting a large slice of Christmas cake each for them, she said casually, ‘I need a spot of fresh air, I’ve got a headache coming. I’ll just have a short walk outside for a while.’

  Two heads turned as one from the armchairs positioned in front of the crackling fire. ‘A walk?’ Robin stared at her. ‘It’s snowing.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘And the wind’s getting up.’

  ‘Better I go now then before it gets too bad. Rachel is asleep and won’t wake up for hours, probably not until tomorrow morning according to the doctor.’

  Wilbert shook his head. ‘It’s not the day for a stroll, lass. Come and sit yourself down with us.’

  ‘I will when I come back. I won’
t be long.’ She was already pulling on her hat and coat.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  As Robin went to heave himself out of the armchair, Abby forced a light laugh. ‘Don’t be silly. Sit yourself in front of the fire for a bit. You ought to be here just in case the doctor’s wrong and Rachel does wake up. I won’t be long.’

  She left her brother muttering something about, ‘As daft as a fruitcake,’ and walked outside still buttoning her coat.

  The wind was beginning to whirl the big fat flakes in a frenzied dance and the cold made her gasp as she took her first breath. Already the path from the cottage she had cleared earlier was half an inch thick with snow, and as she pulled on her woollen mittens she again asked herself if Nicholas would come on such a day, and it being Christmas Day too. He had said they had a houseful and that he could slip away without anyone noticing, but it was a good walk from the laird’s house to the farm and with the weather worsening . . .

  She plodded down the farm track with her shoulders hunched and her head bent against the swirling snow, thinking Robin was right – she must be daft. He wouldn’t come, and he probably wouldn’t expect her to venture out either.

  When she turned into the lane the drifts either side of the road were at least six foot deep, and once more she told herself she was daft, acknowledging at the same time that she could no more have sat in the cottage all afternoon than fly to the moon. If he wasn’t at their agreed meeting place so be it, but at least she would know. Quite what she would know she didn’t pursue in her mind.

  Pushing as she was against the snow-filled wind she didn’t notice Nicholas until he reached out and took her arm, and then she gave a little shriek of surprise.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but you nearly walked past me.’ He smiled at her and it wasn’t the effort of having battled through the snow that made her feel weak at the knees. ‘I didn’t know if you would come,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve been standing here cursing the snow.’

  ‘I said I would meet you.’