The Things We Said Today

by Lise McClendon

  Everyone but Bruno headed into the hall. Merle looked back as they exited the library. Bruno had lit a cigar.

  * * *

  A full moon had risen over the eastern hills, lighting the scene in the valley. Merle sucked in a breath at the sight of it, so welcome and unexpected like a candle after the longest night. After endless clouds and driving rain she had almost forgotten how amazing a clear night sky could be. She felt her head clear in the spring air ripe with the scents of the storm: pine needles, moss, and something sweet that made her think of berries.

  Annie touched her arm. “Merle. I’m going to find Francie. I don’t want her stumbling into the river.” She strode off down the drive toward the place where the bridge had been. Merle looked for Francie in the blue trench coat. Where was she? Pascal, Elise, Jinty, the sheep man and Vanora walked away in the opposite direction, following the beacon of yellow of the sheep man’s mac. Merle ran to catch up.

  The night was cool but not cold. The moonlight made for easy going, except for large puddles that dotted the yard. The huge one just outside the kitchen blocked the door so they’d exited through the front of the house. They climbed higher, passed a stone wall, and turned in through a metal gate. Gunni held it for them but the housekeeper, Vanora, balked, stopping. She was wearing a filthy oiled jacket that was several sizes too big, her housekeeping uniform, a navy dress with a white apron, and ancient red rubber boots. A scarf over her hair was fastened under her chin.

  “I’ll just wait here,” she said, puffing from exertion. “Catch me breath. And snatch up the wee woolies what come back this way.”

  Gunni glared at her. He had a large, lumpy face with blazing deep-set eyes and could really scowl.

  Vanora raised her chin defiantly. “I am to bring ol’ Craiggie his supper. I can’t be traipsin’ about.”

  He said nothing, stepped around her and tramped up through a gently sloped pasture. The rest of them followed.

  For nearly two hours they scoured the hillside for sheep, pushing them down from where they’d sheltered in the trees during the storm, or taken refuge in old ruins or piled into low ground against a stone cliff. Those last were the ones Gunni was most concerned about. Apparently sheep, not nature’s most brainy animals, would panic and clump together, smothering their mates and themselves. Merle watched Pascal and Gunni pull the sheep apart by their back legs, separating them while trying not to be stabbed by thrashing horns. Gunni had a technique of straddling a sheep like a rodeo cowboy, grabbing both horns, and dragging it backwards. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes they both fell over backwards into the mud.

  Merle and Elise left them to their sheep mangling and hiked up the hill, rounding it into the next glen. It wasn’t as wet up here although there were springs and bogs and soggy heather everywhere. Elise complained bitterly as her overlarge boot was sucked off her foot. Merle told her she was proud of her, that sheepherding would look great on her resumé, and they laughed in the moonlight.

  Jinty took off to the South, rounding another hill. She was a solitary figure, trudging at a good clip and calling out to the sheep. Merle mimicked her call, wondering what the hell it meant and where the dogs were. They lost sight of the caretaker as they paused on the ridge.

  A lake — a loch — shimmered in the distance, down in a glen about five miles away, a long, bean-shaped water that must be overflowing its banks. Silver in the moonlight, calm and dark, it was magical. “Oh,” Elise whispered between wheezing breaths. “It’s so beautiful.”

  Merle looked at the sky, sheltered from the moonlight by the rocks of the ridge. Smatterings of stars like spilt milk were flung across the sky, clusters so fresh and close you could touch them. The hills were silent. She looked for dots of white down the mountainside, listened for their bleating. Rocks dotted this side, and fields of low-growing shrubs. But no sheep. The hills were quiet as if recovering from a trauma.

  “Come on, Bo-Peep,” Merle said. “We’ve done our duty.”

  * * *

  By the time they returned, filthy and damp, mud clinging to every pore, Annie and Francie were ensconced by the fire in the drawing room, toasty and warm, cognac in hand. Merle gave a sigh of relief. It would be just like a gothic novel for something awful to happen in the night with the power and phones out. But here they were, all safe and sound.

  Merle and Elise had met Pascal as he’d climbed the hillside looking for them. Jinty’s flashlight was bobbing toward them, across the heath. Gunni, Pascal explained, had his work cut out for him, keeping the sheep from running off in the moonlight, but he had disentangled the woolly pile and was satisfied with their help.

  In the drawing room Elise was regaling them with tales of heroic lamb wrestling as they dried off, peeling off socks and toweling hair, having left coats and boots in the hallway. They could hear Jinty carrying them back to the boot room. “We shouldn’t have dumped everything there,” Merle whispered.

  Francie threw back her cognac. “Dreary old mansion, epic rain, dark and stormy nights: when will this adventure be over, do you think?”

  They all looked at Annie. She had her elbows on her knees, staring into the brandy snifter, swirling the amber liquid. It was Thursday night. Tomorrow everything was to swing into high gear: rehearsal, final fittings, cakes, flowers, special dinner, decorate the hall at the Hydro.

  Would any of that happen now?

  Jinty appeared at the door, holding her muddy boots in one hand. “I’ll just be off then.” Merle felt sorry for her. This weather had made her managerial skills look — what was the word? Blootered?

  “I wonder how Stasia and Rick are doing?” Elise said in the quiet after the door slammed shut. “And Mother and Daddy.”

  “Comfy and dry, no doubt,” Francie said. “Having a fabulous dinner at that hotel where we all could have stayed. Do you think old lady Logan knew a storm was brewing, that’s why she hightailed it into town?”

  “Francie,” Merle scolded. “Be serious.”

  “What a lovely moon, so big and bright,” Francie blithely continued. “Just think of all the people on Earth admiring the moon at the same time. Like a radiant glow of faces turned to the midnight sky.”

  “That was poetic,” Merle said. “Where did you wander, pray tell?”

  “Back that way,” Francie said, waving her arm this way and that. “There are still some bluebells back there, in the woods. Kinda limp but maybe we can revive them.”

  “Amazing you didn’t get lost in the woods,” Annie said, still staring at the floor. The mention of bluebells brought the wedding back to everyone’s thoughts. They were supposed to pick them tomorrow for table decorations. It seemed, well, hopeless. Even pointless. Did Annie even want to get married?

  “I had the moon to guide me. The big, smiley moon wrapped in my arms,” Francie said. She was hilariously drunk. She held up her snifter and seemed offended that it was empty.

  “We need more cognac,” Pascal said, grabbing the flashlight off the table. “I will venture into the dungeons and return.”

  “On the left, in the back,” Bruno called from his prone position on a faded red velvet sofa. Merle stared at him. “Quoi? Just trying to be helpful.”

  “What is it you do in Paris, Bruno?” Merle asked.

  “Eh? Oh, this and that. Mostly wine business.”

  “And you work with Hugh? I didn’t know he was in the wine business.”

  “He’s a financial advisor to a new winery, here in Scotland. C’est incroyable. They can grow grapes in the southern part of the country,” Bruno said. “He brought me here to help the vintners get started. I have some experience.”

  A winery in Scotland, seriously? Merle squinted at him in the dim light. Did Hugh know about Bruno’s involvement in the grape scam? Did Callum?

  “Pascal’s in the wine business,” Francie added unnecessarily. “The catching-bad-guys-in-the-wine-business business.”

  “Thank you, Francie,” Merle said. “I think we’re all aware.”

 
; But not Bruno perhaps. He flashed a questioning look at Elise. She had her eyes closed, hands up to the fire. Merle watched his forehead crease and eyes roll, then with effort, relax. She decided not to pursue the subject. He’d done his time, hadn’t he? Was his current job in jeopardy?

  After Pascal returned with cognac and two bottles of red wine, in case of emergency, and refilled all their glasses, they settled into a quiet funk, staring at the flames dancing in the fireplace. Merle put Bruno out of her mind, feeling a flush of contentment, curling her fingers into Pascal’s big hand. They sat in armchairs near the back, away from the fire. She preferred the shadows, she thought, bringing his hand to her lips and smiling at him.

  The spell was broken when the front door opened with a loud creak. Jinty was back.

  “Is Vanora here?” she asked, slightly breathless in her long coat and boots. Her hair was stringy and wild. “The housekeeper. Miss Petrie.”

  Merle frowned. “Last we saw her she was waiting by the gate.”

  “Isn’t she in her room?” Annie asked.

  “No, mum. Mrs. MacKeegan hasn’t seen her. She didn’t come back to the kitchen for ol’ Craiggie’s supper before Cook went to bed.”

  Merle and Annie went to the kitchen with the caretaker, shining flashlights to try to find the covered dish for the old man. They peeked in the refrigerator, and in the oven, searched the surfaces. It wasn’t there.

  “So she’s taken it up at the cottage,” Annie said. “Doesn’t she keep Mr. Craigg company sometimes?”

  “Aye, with the drink,” Jinty grumbled. “I dunna know why I worry about her.”

  “Because you’re taking care, as a caretaker would.” Annie set a hand on her shoulder. “She’ll find her way back soon. The moon is still bright.”

  At the front door they said good night again. Back in the drawing room, Elise had her head tilted against the chair back, eyes shut. Francie slumped awkwardly in a chair. Bruno lay flat on the sofa, ankles crossed, playing with the buttons on his weskit. Pascal stood and stretched.

  “Bedtime, mes amies. Tomorrow the sun will come out. We will get the generator going and get out of here. I know it. Bon nuit.”

  17

  Friday

  The sun hadn’t risen over the hills the next morning when the screaming woke them.

  Merle sat up in bed. Pascal jumped to his feet, the policeman’s quick response. Below their window the woman’s voice caterwauled, pitching higher. Throwing on her robe, she followed Pascal into the hallway. Annie opened her door.

  “What’s happening?”

  Merle shook her head and ran down the stairs. Pascal was in the back hall, pulling on boots. She rummaged around in the muddy pile and found two that matched, jamming her feet in as she pulled her blue raincoat over her robe.

  Pascal was at the back door. He swung it wide and paused. The huge puddle of rainwater loomed right outside, the one they’d been avoiding. It sat between the house and the women’s quarters, thirty feet wide and lapping right up to the back stoop. At the edge of the water, screaming, stood the caretaker, Jinty.

  “What is it?” Merle said, peeking around Pascal.

  “Mon Dieu.”

  He stepped wide to the left, sloshing through the water to reach Jinty. The woman was hysterical, red in the face, with a seemingly infinite lung capacity. Merle stepped to the edge of the doorway and looked in the muddy water.

  A body floated face down, a woman in a dark-colored dress and white apron, her short brown hair a halo on the surface of the muddy water.

  Pascal grabbed the figure, flipping her over and dragging her out of the lake by her armpits. Strings of hair covered her face, dripping. Her uniform clung to her legs and torso. She wasn’t wearing the oilskin jacket from last night, or the boots, Merle thought, curiously detached. It looked like a scene from a movie, eerie and atmospheric, only in the movie Pascal would do CPR and she would spit up water, cough a little, and all would be well.

  “Oh, Lord, oh, Lord,” Jinty was repeating now, gulping air as she muttered. Merle stepped outside, tucking her nightgown into her coat. She reached the young woman and put her arm around her shoulders.

  “It’s okay now,” she murmured although things were definitely not okay. Just when you thought a wedding week couldn’t get worse. “Take a breath, Jinty.”

  The caretaker sucked in air. “I shouldna gone to bed, I shoulda kept lookin.’”

  “We all should have kept looking,” Merle said quietly, feeling a knot of guilt.

  “We were out lookin’ for sheep, wasn’t we? We shoulda looked for her.”

  “We didn’t know she was lost,” Merle said. Her words meant little to the woman but Merle kept a tight grip on her shoulders, keeping her calm. “Where is Mrs. MacKeegan?”

  Pascal had the limp figure laid out on the grass next to the old chicken coop. He pulled her hair off her face delicately and felt her neck for a pulse. Even at a distance Merle could see how blue her skin was, how lifeless. How long had she been in the water?

  He put his hands together and began to pump on the woman’s chest rhythmically, then giving her breath with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He had to try. But they couldn’t call an ambulance, or take her to a hospital. If the CPR didn’t work there was no alternative.

  Pascal looked up. “Go get my mobile and call emergency,” he called to Merle. “I might have enough power.”

  Mrs. MacKeegan appeared in the doorway to the women’s quarters in her coat and boots, eyes wide in her round face. Merle took Jinty’s arm and pulled her up to the cook. “Take care of her.”

  In the upstairs hall Francie and Elise stopped Merle as she ran by. “What’s going on? Was that screaming?”

  Merle pushed them aside to get to her room. She scrambled through Pascal’s things, found his mobile phone plugged into an outlet by the window. She tried to turn it on. Nothing.

  “Dammit! Does anybody have power on their phones?” She swung back to her younger sisters. “Do you, Elise?”

  Elise shook her head. “Everybody’s phone is dead. You know that.”

  “What about Bruno? Did he bring a back-up charger or something?”

  The three sisters ran down the hall to Bruno’s room. The door was open. Elise fell inside, looking around, suddenly frantic. “He’s gone. His suitcase, his shoes. All his stuff is gone.”

  “Where could he go?” Francie said. “Don’t be silly. He didn’t swim the creek.”

  Merle swore. “Come on. We have to help with the CPR.”

  “CPR? Is it Bruno?” Elise cried. “Oh, God. Tell me, Merle.”

  Merle paused in the main hall and turned back. “It’s Vanora Petrie.”

  * * *

  Annie wore her jeans and wellingtons, bundled in the bulky wool sweater she’d bought on their first day in Scotland. The sunlight was weak but at least it wasn’t raining. From across the wide, creamed-coffee lake she watched Pascal pump on the woman’s chest. Annie held a hand over her mouth, horrified. She felt sick to her stomach. This was supposed to be the day things got better. The sun was out. Calm restored. Recovery from the storm.

  But now things would never be calm. She couldn’t ignore the signs any more. This wedding was a mistake. Coming to Scotland was a mistake. But was what she and Callum shared a mistake? She shook her head, confused. She loved him. But was that enough? If people died, was it enough?

  She backed away from the tragic scene, trying to pull her eyes away. The gravel crunched under her boots. The sheep man emerged from the morning fog in the pasture, muddy and wild. His cap was gone, revealing yellow hair sticking out at angles, dotted with moss and straw. In his filthy mac he approached the yard, his footsteps measured and slow as if he’d been up all night. Then he stopped mid-step. He took in the scene for a beat, glowering at Pascal pounding on poor Vanora, then turned on his heel and walked up the stairs on the side of the coach house.

  Before he opened his door Jinty called out, “Gunni! Come help us.”

  H
ead lowered, he paused. Jinty called out in a strangled sob as he disappeared inside. She was crying hard now, her head buried on the cook’s shoulder.

  Annie didn’t blame Gunni. She too was a coward. She wouldn’t help unless they made her. Death this close was shocking and she was already reeling from this wedding. It was odd, disconcerting, how vulnerable she felt. Normally she was the leader of her pack of sisters, the bold one, the decisive one, brave and practical. But today that was Merle, ordering the younger sisters to do mouth-to-mouth, showing them how, kneeling next to Pascal as they bravely tried to revive the past-hope Vanora.

  How had the woman fallen into a foot-deep mud puddle and drowned? It was inconceivable. Had she been visiting the old man as they thought? Annie glanced up at Moss Cottage. The squat stone building, once whitewashed, was now dotted with lichens and mildew. The paint on the door had long since peeled off, revealing a battered wood surface and rusty iron hinges. She detoured and knocked on the low door.

  “Mr. Craigg?”

  There was no answer. She jiggled the knob. It wasn’t locked. Inside the cottage the air was heavy with woodsmoke and damp. She called his name again. She left the front door wide for the light as she stepped into the sitting area, poked into the kitchen, and gingerly pushed open the bedroom door.

  “Are you there, Mr. Craigg?”

  The bed with its narrow, sagging mattress was empty, a tangle of blankets and quilts. She plunged through the small house then, opening cupboards and closets, peeking under beds and chairs, finding the small privy empty. Where was the old geezer?

  She’d only seen him once, before the storm on the first night when she’d been outside. He’d been walking between the barn and the cottage, a painful journey of shuffling steps and hunched back. He wore an old-fashioned cap with a ribbon down the back, a baggy wool sweater, green trousers, and heavy boots. He looked a cartoon character, she’d thought at the time, but now chastised herself. He was a man of a different time, an old man who had lived a hard, spare life, that was all.