by Ruth Glover
He was, Tierney thought, beautiful, all things a man should be.
Robbie Dunbar. He was indeed all Tierney’s heart had dreamed of, all her body needed, all her mind could imagine. And he was not to be hers. Not ever.
Tierney had not known that love, being an intangible thing, could be felt so keenly. Was it possible, given time, for the anguish and grief to ease? Perhaps. But love would endure, unchanged, for all of life, and this Tierney never questioned. Whatever life brought her from this day forward, wherever she was and however far from him, she would go on loving Robbie Dunbar.
And he had declared his love for her. Not in words but in that one deep, speaking look. One long look, saying everything. After that passionate, heart-to-heart message of undying love, filling her with its exhilaration and joy, had come the pain. Such pain! For something so tender, such desperate misery! For something so precious, such loss!
Remembering, they gazed broodingly over the pulsing sea, the bending sky. And, seeing, comprehended neither.
Did his eyes mist, as did hers?
Was her throat aching, as was his?
So passed a few moments in time, a broken bridge that could never be recrossed to the way things had been.
“Robbie . . .” It was a whisper.
“I couldna go, lass,” he answered abruptly, “withoot sayin’ guid-bye.”
“Aye.”
“I’m awa’ tomorrow, Tierney. The Solway, berthed in Aberdeen, will lift anchor at noon, and I—”
“Aye.”
“I go, but I willna go heart-free.”
“I know.” How well she knew! With every word, every glance, the bonds tightened.
“I canna. There’s nae mair to be said for it. And still—I maun go.”
It was as simple as that: He would not go heart-free. But he would go.
He swung around to face her, his hand reaching to touch her, and drawing back.
“Time to go,” he said roughly. Back down the hill, back to reality. Time to leave all dreaming, all supposing, all hoping.
“It’s guid-bye, lass,” Robbie continued doggedly, meeting Tierney’s eyes with a sick determination. “I’ll nae be seein’ ye again.”
And then Robbie touched her. For the first and last time, Robbie touched her. It would be a touch to remember the remainder of her days.
Tenderly Robbie reached for her and took her chin in his hand. Tenderly he turned her face toward him. Tenderly he placed a hand on each side of her face, her tear-streaked face, and looked deeply into her eyes. Slowly her eyes closed and her face lifted.
With a low sound which, on a less fine man would have been something between a curse and a groan, Robbie dropped his hands, stepped back, clenched his jaw, and rasped, “I canna, lass. I canna! I canna kiss ye, else I’d never leave ye.”
And so saying he took one stumbling step backwards, turned on his heel, and was off, leaping and bounding like a madman down the steep hillside.
And so Robbie Dunbar took his departure from Tierney Caulder. And so, through a shimmer of tears, Tierney Caulder watched her true love grow smaller and smaller until, as she had known it would be, he disappeared altogether.
Never, as long as Tierney Caulder had known Anne Fraser, had Anne avoided meeting her; it was unthinkable.
Anne Fraser was one of those fortunate individuals whom nature had touched—body and soul—with perfection. She had a face like an angel, cream-colored, daintily pink as to cheeks, dewily red as to mouth. Surrounded by a cloud of soft dark hair, her features combined to give her an expression of unusual sweetness. With a softly rounded figure, which might well develop into that of a full-bodied woman by middle age, still nothing would erase the basic simple beauty of her face and form. By temperament she was good-hearted, good-natured, good-tempered. Anne was too kind to hurt a flea, everyone agreed. Neither did deception have any part in her makeup; she was naturally honest, without pretense. In light of these things, what happened was curiously puzzling.
Having left Fenway sitting with her father, Tierney used the free time one afternoon to do some necessary shopping. Making her way to the Dunbar shop, it was to see, ahead of her and coming out of the town’s only place to buy provisions, the familiar form of Anne Fraser. Her shawl was quickly pulled over her head; though her face was partially obscured, there was no mistaking the figure for that of Anne Fraser. And there was no mistaking her gown, which was as well known to Tierney, who had helped stitch it, as her own.
And yet it could have been a stranger, a stranger hurrying on her way. Or was it possible that Anne didn’t see her, Tierney wondered, perplexed.
“Annie! Wait! Annie!” Tierney called. At the second summons Anne slackened her pace, hesitated, then quickened her steps and once again pursued her hasty course in the opposite direction.
It was so unlike Anne that Tierney was almost deceived into thinking she was mistaken and it was someone else, after all. But that was ridiculous! Annie it surely was.
Tierney watched Anne disappear around a corner. What could have been so pressing that she had no time to spare for a few words with her friend? Only slowly did the realization come that Anne’s face, mostly obscured by her shawl—briefly seen, quickly concealed—was not quite as usual.
A mark . . . a bruise, perhaps? Surely if it were innocent, meaningless, an explanation would have been ruefully offered, perhaps even laughingly.
There was no time to follow; perhaps Anne had counted on that. At any rate, Tierney, troubled at heart, uneasy and not knowing why, watched her friend out of sight before she entered the shop and began assembling the items she needed.
“Was that Anne?” she asked Willa, who was presiding behind the counter.
“Aye—poor thing.”
“Poor thing?”
“Dinna ye see her bruise? I askit what was wrong, and she jist pretended like she didn’t hear me.”
“Ye askit, and she dinna say?”
“Reet. She was, well, flustered, rather. Kep’ her head doon and did her buyin’ and jist hurried oot o’ here. Poor thing.”
“Why do ye keep sayin’ poor thing?” Tierney asked, her concern for Anne making her peevish.
Willa shrugged. “It looked sore,” she said defensively. “All black an’ blue.”
“Well, there’s a perfectly guid explanation, I’m sure,” Tierney offered doggedly and wondered why she bothered defending a bruised cheek to this child.
Only afterwards did she make a connection with what was really troubling her. Hidden away but not forgotten was the incident of several weeks ago when Anne had been in tears over something and had refused to talk about it. Now Tierney recalled the occasion and found herself becoming more and more alarmed. Was something, after all, seriously amiss at the Fraser croft? Something that Anne did not want to talk about, did not want known?
The days were too full and Da was too ill to pursue the conjecture. Anne might as well have been on the moon for all the opportunity Tierney had to see her.
When next at kirk—Fenway again doing duty in Malcolm’s sickroom—Anne’s pleasant face showed only the smallest stain, and it might have been overlooked except for Tierney’s keen study of it. Though Anne flushed under Tierney’s scrutiny, the smile on her lips remained fixed, and she returned her gaze steadily.
Once again there was no opportunity to speak privately; Anne seemed to see to that. She remained surrounded by others, and though Tierney darted meaningful looks at her, with signals that her friend should have caught, Anne either misunderstood or deliberately ignored the questions that flashed from Tierney’s eyes.
Walking home no wiser than when she went, Tierney was as annoyed as she was anxious; it was a troubling combination. What was wrong with Annie, anyway! Whatever it was, it seemed clear Anne intended to ignore it, even act as if it didn’t exist. And did it? Tierney found herself questioning her own judgment. Everyone sustained bruises from time to time; everyone found themselves hurried and unable to stop and talk, even for a good fr
iend.
Once home, Tierney dismissed her concerns for Anne the second she stepped inside: Malcolm was slumped half out of his chair, pale as death itself, and breathing shallowly.
Fenway had apparently just leaped to his feet, overturning his chair, and could think of nothing to do but wring his hands and cry, over and over, “Wha’s wrong wi’ ye, auld gowk! Wha’s wrong . . . wha’s wrong?”
“Help me, Fenway!”
Tierney ran across the room to her father’s side, and with Fenway’s meager assistance raised Malcolm, tipping his head back and clearing his air passages. Leaving Fenway to hold the flaccid body in place, Tierney flew to bring a wet cloth and began bathing her father’s brow, alternating with rubbing his hands. It seemed ages before Malcolm stirred, his head bobbing on his thin neck like a bruised flower on a broken stem, his eyes half open and apparently unseeing, his mouth slack.
Stepping to the doorway Tierney called a neighbor who was walking past, and between them they got Malcolm into bed. Though Fenway stood around helplessly for a while, there was nothing he could do, and eventually he returned to his own fireside. Tierney couldn’t blame the old man; he had simply been doing her a favor by sitting with the invalid, probably dozing in his chair when Malcolm collapsed. Hard of hearing, poor of vision, Fenway never knew when his charge slipped into unconsciousness. Upon waking and seeing that something was amiss, he had struggled to his shaky feet, and was in the midst of an anxious outcry when Tierney returned home.
The village of Binkiebrae, with its two dozen or so poor, low dwellings, could not boast a doctor of its own. There was nothing a man of medicine could have done that had not already been done; everyone knew old Malcolm was worn out and fading away, and nothing could change that. Maggie Gaul, the next best help, was soon present. Malcolm was made comfortable and warm, propped to ease his breathing, which was labored and slow, and watched tenderly—by Maggie who had known him since his boyhood, Tierney who loved him and grieved over his final, difficult misery, and others who came in the next few days to do what they could.
Among them, bringing eggs and milk, was Anne. Even in the dim room and in the midst of her distraction, Tierney’s keen eyes caught the half-hunted look on Anne’s face—once again something had happened.
“Annie,” she said, shaking her friend’s arm gently, “sum’at’s wrong. I know it.”
Anne didn’t attempt to deny it. How could she, with her miserable expression speaking for her?
“Aye, Tierney,” she admitted. “You know it; you know it verra well. I willna hide it from you any longer. I hoped ’twould come to naught. . . . But it’ll wait; I canna stay and talk aboot it, with your da so sick an’ all. Anyway, it’s goin’ to take mair time than we have jist now.”
With Malcolm’s every breath threatening to be his last, Tierney knew there was no alternative, and though she longed to insist, she sighed, lifting her shoulders in helpless resignation.
“Promise you’ll coom as soon as you can when . . . when it’s all o’er, Annie. I canna bear to think of you goin’ through sum’at and me not standin’ by you. What it is I canna imagine.”
“Dinna fret. I’ll be a’reet . . . I think . . .” Anne’s voice faltered.
The end, when it came, was peaceful for Malcolm Caulder. He died as he had lived, quietly, to himself. That it happened in the wee hours of the morning was not unexpected; it seemed to be when people gave up, gave in, and, unresisting, left one abode for Another.
A God-fearing man all his life, Malcolm had no need to fear now.
Sitting at his bedside, as she had for so many long hours of so many long days and nights, Tierney had fallen asleep. Perhaps it was the absence of sound that woke her; the long, slow rale was silenced at last. As she opened her eyes, she was immediately intensely awake and aware, and the stillness brought her heart into her throat. There was no need to check pulse or breath—Malcolm was no longer there.
It was her first coherent thought—Da’s gone. The shell of a man, all that had lingered of her once-powerful and vital father, rested, quiet and empty, at her elbow, but Da was gone.
Dawn was so close, and James was so needful of his sleep, that Tierney sat at the side of her father’s earthly remains until a weak sun streaked the sky and light began to filter in with its assurance that life went on. It always had, and it always would. But without Malcolm Caulder.
Now Tierney roused herself, slipped quietly out to the pallet at the side of the fireplace, and touched her brother. James’s eyes flew open; even in the gloom she could see the question in them. Is he gone, then?
“Da’s gone, James,” she said quietly. “I dinna know in time to wake ye . . . I’m sorry—”
In spite of the long months of expectation, an involuntary sound of grief escaped James’s throat, and he covered his face with his hands. Tierney ran her hand gently over his dark tousled head, as together they did their mourning for the good man who had brought them thus far and would never guide or direct them or provide for them again. It was, perhaps, the threshold of maturity for both of them—James to carry on without the wisdom and strength that had always been there for him, and Tierney to face total responsibility for herself in a way that had never been necessary before. For James—along with marriage to Phrenia—there awaited the new step into becoming fully and completely the head of a home; for Tierney—what?
Thankfully there was no time to pursue the strange and new thoughts that surfaced at that moment. Time would bring answers; time would bring solutions.
“Get dressed, James,” Tierney said eventually, “and get Maggie.”
The slow cortege, as it wound out of Binkiebrae the next day, over the hill to the burial ground, had a simple dignity that relieved the occasion of being just another pathetic moment—there was so little to show for a lifetime of living and loving, working and striving. But the friends walking behind the coffin spoke of the goodness of the man whose mortal remains rested so lightly on the strong shoulders of Binkiebrae’s stalwart males. “A guid mon,” they said, and the words were a fitting eulogy.
With Malcolm laid to rest beside his wife, the mourners returned briefly to the Caulder home. Maggie and others had cleared the place of any signs of death and sickness and provided food. Soon everyone said their farewells, and life, for the good people of Binkiebrae, went on in its familiar, unchanging fashion.
Closing the door behind the last departing guest, Tierney turned to the room where she had been born and lived all of her eighteen years, and knew it to be a different place. It was James’s. And Phrenia’s. James, whatever his thoughts, moved restlessly about the room.
Watching him and understanding, Tierney released him. “Go on, James, to Phrenia. I don’t mind. It’s something I’ll hae to get used to . . . the empty hoose.”
Though he gave his sister an apologetic look, James was obviously relieved and took her up on her suggestion. He was not accustomed to lingering around the house in the daytime, and it was not fitting to go about work or business of any kind on this day. But time spent with Phrenia—that was allowable. James made his way gladly to the home of her parents, where the young couple—guardedly, lest they seem too precipitate—planned for the happy day, now in sight, when they would marry and set up housekeeping, and life would go on as it should.
With evening coming on, the house almost unbearably empty around her, Tierney lit a lamp and pulled the kettle into position to begin its boil for another cup of tea. The room seemed to echo silence. . . .
The stillness was broken by an outside sound, something Tierney couldn’t identify, something, someone, touching, scraping the door. Tilting her head, listening, she heard it again.
“What—” she murmured, finding the sound foreign, strange.
Once again the peculiar scrabbling came from the threshold. Tierney set aside the teapot, stepped to the door, reached for the latch, turned it—
With a crash the door slammed inward. Startled, Tierney stepped back, and just in time t
o avoid being struck by the figure that had been crouched there and that now tumbled into the room.
Out of the bundle of clothes, torn and askew, came a sound like the mew of an injured animal. Horrified, Tierney watched as the figure slowly stirred, raised itself slightly, and fell back to the floor.
“Annie? Annie!”
Annie!
It was indeed Annie. Battered and soiled, with her dark hair escaped from its confines, spreading like an ominous cloud about her head and shoulders, she crouched at the doorway. No sound escaped the prostrate figure, but when Tierney knelt and attempted to lift her, the face that was raised to hers was runneled with tears.
Tierney wasted no more time on speech. Getting her arm around Annie, she lifted her until she could slip her arm firmly around her waist. Then, Annie doing a sort of hop on one foot, they progressed enough so that Tierney could shut the door.
The room closed around them, quiet and shadowed; the fire flickered invitingly against the evening’s chill, and the lamp shed its steady, cheering glow over all. Annie, as though come into a haven, gave a long, shuddering sigh, and sank onto the settle before the fireplace. Not knowing whether to tend to whatever injury there might be or simply to offer comfort, Tierney knelt at her friend’s knee.
“Annie. Can ye talk, lass?”
Anne’s head drooped. “Aye,” she whispered. “Though I dinna wish to.”
“Even now!”
“I canna imagine where ’twill end, once ’tis said.”
“’Twill end here, Annie, if that’s what ye wish.”
“It must, Tierney.” Fresh tears ran, silent and unchecked, from Anne’s puffed eyes.
“Lean back, Annie. Get yer breath. I’ll be back in a second.”
Annie obeyed, as one deathly weary, deathly ill. Tierney searched out the cloths used during her father’s illness that were washed and carefully stored away for any future need (nothing went to waste in the crofts and shanties of Binkiebrae). A little hot water from the kettle, a little cold water from the pail, and Tierney applied the warm and comforting application to Anne’s face, dabbing away the soil and tears, exposing bruises and a cut not noticed before.
