A Turn of Cards (Lowland Romance Book 3)

by Helen Susan Swift

  'How do you know? What did I say?' I felt the colour rush to my face.

  'Get some rest now.'

  'I won't rest until I know what I said.' I tried to sit up.

  'You seem to have been hunted by men and dogs,' Doctor Hetherington told me.

  I nodded. Perhaps it was exhaustion made the tears flow unheeded from my eyes. Suddenly I felt a desperate need to tell somebody what had happened and this doctor already knew more about me than anybody else. He had indeed seen more of me than anybody else. I had the sudden realisation that I found it easier to talk to this ugly man than to anybody else.

  'That's what happened, men and dogs.' I heard the rasp in my voice and began to talk, relieving myself of a burden I had carried for ten years. 'I was engaged to marry Lord Findhorn.'

  Doctor Hetherington nodded. 'I did not know that you had such high connections.'

  'I did,' I said. 'However, Lord Findhorn liked the cards.' His Lordship had been my first connection with a gambling man. 'Even so, I trusted him. He was older than me by ten years, and I fell for his smooth experience. I was not the first woman he had charmed.'

  'How old were you?' Doctor Hetherington asked.

  'Nineteen,' I said. 'I was a young nineteen and Findhorn wrapped me around his little finger.'

  The doctor nodded. 'Men like Findhorn look for young women. They know exactly what to say and how to act to make themselves attractive to you.'

  I remembered the smiles and the promises, the small gifts of jewellery and items of clothing. 'Findhorn proposed. He said we should get married somewhere romantic. I agreed, and he said he would make all the arrangements.'

  'Did your parents not have a say in things?'

  'They both died when I was young,' I said. 'A succession of elderly aunts cared for me. My final aunt was pleased to relinquish her responsibilities when Findhorn turned up.'

  'He hunted you down,' Doctor Hetherington said.

  I had not thought of that. 'Perhaps he did.'

  'Did you get married?'

  I was silent for a long time, listening to an array of small birds cheeping and chirping in the doctor's garden.

  'We went through a wedding ceremony,' I remembered my happiness at having caught such a man as Lord Findhorn. I remembered looking at Findhorn as we stood in the courtyard of Crichton Castle as the tall and surprising debonair minister intoned the sacred words. I remembered my delight as Findhorn kissed me and the assembled guests had cheered and clapped.

  'I had no friends there, except those I had met through Findhorn.'

  'Why was that?' Doctor Hetherington asked.

  'I knew few people,' I said. 'I had moved around from aunt to aunt and place to place.'

  'Your life was difficult.' Doctor Hetherington said.

  I did not reply to that. 'After the wedding ceremony, Lord Findhorn held the celebrations in Tynebridge Hall.'

  'I understand,' Doctor Hetherington said.

  'Do you?' I instantly regretted the edge of my voice. It was not the doctor's fault. 'His Lordship brought around a group of his friends and their women.'

  I remember that while the men scared me, the women terrified me. Horrid women of the worst sort, with loud, abrasive voices and cheap finery, long nails and bold eyes, they had viewed me with a mixture of contempt and aggression as they vied for the attention of the men. Until that day I had believed I could control His Lordship, I had honestly thought that his affection for me would prove stronger than his love for the turn of a card. I had not learned that a gambler loses his mind, his senses and his soul the instant a dice is thrown or a pack of cards produced.

  To let you understand, in my time men would gamble on anything, from the speed of a horse to a feat of endurance. Findhorn combined that passion with a lust for power over anybody, especially women.

  'The carriages were lined up outside the hall, gleaming in the rain and with moonshine reflecting from the coachwork.' I could still see the horses tossing their manes and the coachmen sitting in patient groups, smoking their long pipes. I did not understand their mocking looks at me as I entered Tynebridge Hall in my wedding dress.

  Doctor Hetherington sat in the corner of the room, listening to everything I said, his ugly, tired face concerned. I knew he understood as I unburdened my soul of ten years of torment.

  'They gathered upstairs, the same room that Marie had her wedding breakfast, with the chandeliers swinging slowly above and the smoke from a dozen pipes spiralling. The men were loud, the women louder and I tried to catch His Lordship's attention. He ignored me. The cards called loudest of all.'

  Doctor Hetherington nodded again. 'If speaking of this upsets you, Miss Flockhart, don't continue.'

  They had placed the long oval table in the centre of the room and gathered around, yelling and shouting. The cards flicked back and forth, with gloating winners and swearing losers and sometimes His Lordship was in the former camp and sometimes in the latter. They had a break about midnight, and somebody began to sing. One of the women danced, leaping on top of the table to shake and gyrate as the men clapped and roared. Within a few moments, she was peeling off her clothes, and the men were grabbing at her, caressing and touching, stroking and slapping as she moved from one to the other, laughing. She enjoyed the attention and the hands as much as the men did.

  'I think we should go now,' I whispered to His Lordship.

  'The fun is just beginning,' he said and slid his hand up the length of the woman's leg. She pushed against him, and he ripped her skirt off.

  'My Lord!' I said, and he laughed again. 'My husband.' He laughed at that, with his eyes wild and his mouth open.

  'Husband,' he repeated, and his companions roared their amusement.

  Doctor Hetherington lit his pipe and inhaled, watching me, allowing me to relive that night. His eyes were thoughtful. 'This Lord Findhorn laughed when you reminded him you were married?' He asked.

  'Yes,' I said.

  Doctor Hetherington nodded. 'Continue if you wish.'

  'The woman danced for some time and then one of the men, Old Q I think, lifted her and carried her away. I did not watch, and I did not see her again. There were other women, other dancers. The cards came out once more, with higher stakes and loud cursing when men lost.' I closed my eyes, remembering.

  'His Lordship gambled and lost, gambled and lost and eventually, he had nothing left. The men were roaring at him, and he pointed to me and said. 'You can have her.'

  I shook my head, trying to make it into a joke. 'I am your wife!' I shouted.

  They laughed again, and one pointed to the door where somebody lounged, watching. I looked, and the man sauntered across, smirking. It was the minister; or rather the man I had believed was the minister, a tall, red-haired fellow by the name of Duncan McAra.

  'Please remind his Lordship,' I pleaded. 'You are a man of the cloth.'

  'I am no more a minister than you,' the man said, and his laugh cut deeply into me.

  Doctor Hetherington removed the pipe from his mouth. Leaning across to me, he touched my arm. 'Stop if you wish, Miss Flockhart. You don't have to say more.'

  'Yes I do,' I said. 'Please, Doctor.'

  Doctor Hetherington sat back again. 'I'm listening, Miss Flockhart.'

  I told him what happened next. I could not believe that the whole thing had been a quiz, a lark, a trick and I was the victim of a piece of cruelty so horrible I still found it hard to believe.

  'They grabbed me and threw me on the table as if I was a slab of meat. I struggled, screaming, and the men held me down and played the cards on my stomach, banging their hands on them and laughing.'

  'Oh, dear God in heaven,' Doctor Hetherington shook his head. 'Oh, dear God. You were only nineteen.'

  'His Lordship lost,' I said. 'I was handed over to the man who won that hand.' I felt the perspiration soaking through the sheet that covered me as I remembered that day. 'The false minister: Duncan McAra.'

  I recalled his leering face with the red hair tied back
in a neat queue and the perfect white teeth. 'You're mine,' he said and began to paw at me. I screamed and clawed at him, drawing blood from his face. He had squealed like a baby and recoiled, then slapped me so hard that I was dazed.

  That made everybody laugh, so Duncan McAra slapped me again, knocking my head back and forward. 'I lost a tooth,' I opened my mouth wide and showed the doctor the gap.

  'It's not noticeable.' Doctor Hetherington assured me.

  I no longer cared if it was or not.

  'One of the women shouted for a hunt, and before I knew what was happening, they were chanting 'hunt, hunt, hunt', with the woman encouraging the men and Findhorn as vocal as the rest.

  They dragged me outside the house and into the grounds. They were laughing, baying like hounds and giggling, all at the same time, men and women together, including my Lord Findhorn and Duncan McAra.

  I remember pleading to be released, begging them to stop as they spun me around and around until I was quite sick with dizziness, and then they pushed me away and told me to run. I did not know what was about to happen; I only knew it would be unpleasant and I ran.

  'Now!' One of the women yelled. 'Now!'

  I heard the hounds baying, and I screamed and ran and ran. I was dizzy with the spinning, and I staggered. I was never more scared than that night.

  'Miss Flockhart,' Doctor Hetherington's hand was firm on my shoulder. 'Don't upset yourself.'

  'I can't help it,' I said, as the tears flowed freely. 'I can't help it.'

  I was crying freely now as the memories took control. 'I was only nineteen years old,' I said. 'I had no idea about life.'

  Doctor Hetherington was beside me, holding me as I spoke. I gabbled out the words as I sought to release myself from the memories that had shackled me for so long.

  'They released the hounds and hunted me down as if I were a fox. I ran into the woods. I remember the bushes and the thorns and the mud as I ran and ran and the hounds nipped and tore at my heels and then the laughter, the cruel, loud laughter. The teeth were not as painful as the mockery as Findhorn and McAra, and the others followed me, with the brazen laughter of the women screeching in my ears.

  'Miss Flockhart.' Doctor Hetherington was kneeling at my side. 'You don't have to carry on now.'

  For once, Doctor Hetherington was mistaken. I did have to carry on. I had to speak out the memories. 'The dogs pulled me down and worried me until the men came up, and the women with them. I lay in a ball among the thorns and the brambles, with the rain driving down on me and the lanterns bouncing yellow light through the trees. They surrounded me, the men and women and then His Lordship loomed over me.

  'I gambled you and lost,' he said. 'Now Duncan owns you.'

  'They held me down. The women held me down.'

  The faces surrounded me, leering, mocking, joking, bloated white faces and thin, shaking faces, women with savage eyes and men full of lust. Lord Findhorn was grinning. 'We enjoyed the chase, and now you will entertain us further.' I hated that word, entertain. It should have been a happy word. When Turnbull had said that word at the Assembly Rooms, I had nearly fainted. I could not have admitted the experience to George Rogers for decent, dependable man that he was; he would never understand the sheer horror of such an ordeal. George enjoyed excitement; he revelled in danger; he could never have put himself in the place of a woman, helpless in the grip of such people. That was a barrier he could never breach.

  I broke down then and stopped talking. I did not need to say more. Doctor Hetherington knew what would happen next and I could not speak.

  'It's done now,' Doctor Hetherington took me in his arms. 'Oh, you poor wee soul. It's all done now.'

  It was not of course. Experiences of that nature are never done. They are always there, lurking in the shadows of one's mind, waiting to return, waiting to revisit one with nightmares that are all the worse because they are true. I will never be free of these memories.

  I felt safe in the doctor's arms. I felt safe as I cried, and I did not care that he saw me at my most vulnerable and at my worst. Somehow I knew that whatever else happened in the world, I had turned a corner, and things would never be the same again.

  'They raped me.' I said. 'All of them, all the men as the women jeered and held me.'

  The words were said. The memory I had blocked out for ten years was out and I relived every last, odious second. I spoke them to the doctor's battered face, and he listened with his arms around me. I did not tell him everything. Some things I held to myself; one was the final, terrible sorrow; the other was only my secret.

  Chapter Sixteen

  'I've never told anybody that before,' I sipped at my dish of tea, feeling utterly drained and so weak a puff of wind could blow me away.

  'Thank you,' Doctor Hetherington said.

  'Why are you thanking me?' I asked.

  'Thank you for your trust,' Doctor Hetherington had aged considerably over the last few days.

  With the fire bright in the grate and a weak winter sun illuminating the room, I felt better. Or perhaps I felt better because I had told somebody about my ordeal. I was not sure. I closed my eyes, more relaxed than I had been for many years, although the worry of Marie still tugged at my mind.

  'You went to India shortly afterwards,' Doctor Hetherington said.

  'Yes. When the men left me, I ran away.' I did not go into details.

  'How?' Doctor Hetherington passed over a hunk of bread-and-cheese. There was no delicacy in his house. Everything was functional, battered and dependable, rather like the man himself.

  'How?' I repeated the question, temporising as I considered my answer.

  'You were nineteen, you were alone, and you must have been in a state of nervous distress.' Doctor Hetherington said. 'There is more.'

  I could not escape those kind eyes. I knew that the doctor was trying to help, however uncomfortable I felt. 'There is more,' I said.

  'You don't have to tell me,' Doctor Hetherington said. 'But it will help if you do.'

  I did have to tell him. I had thought to keep that last horror to myself. I was wrong. I needed to reveal it to somebody so that no Turnbull or another of his ilk could bring it up in the future. I looked away, gathering my strength.

  'What happened to the child?'

  I started. That was a brutal question, asked in the doctor's most gentle voice. 'You know?' I stared at him in appalling confusion.

  'I'm a doctor.' Doctor Hetherington said. 'There were signs.'

  'Oh, God.' I began to shake. Automatically, I bit into my bread-and-cheese, chewing without taste as the darkness within my head cracked open.

  Doctor Hetherington waited at my side.

  'Yes.' I said. 'When I left Tynebridge Hall I did not know where to go. I had only my one remaining aunt, so I ran there and told her. She was scandalised and blamed me.' I felt the bitterness rise. 'She told me it was my fault; I must have provoked the gentlemen. So she sent me as far away as she could. She paid my passage to India in the hope of what? Of never seeing me again, no doubt, so I could not bring disgrace to the family.'

  The bread-and-cheese was finished. I took the doctor's and started on that as he watched and listened. I had never met a man who listened to me before, and ten years of repressed bitterness and sorrow came out.

  'There was no fault in you,' Doctor Hetherington began, but I interrupted him with my memories, and he closed his mouth, sat back in his chair and listened.

  'Perhaps my aunt realised my condition; if so she did not say and I did not know until I was on the Indiaman bound east. I was nineteen, alone, scared and with a child, the father of whom I did not know.'

  The memory of that voyage returned, the howl of the wind through the rigging, the swaying and creaking of the ship, the ranks of cannon on deck and the flying fish as we reached the tropics. 'There was one woman who befriended me.' She was a sergeant's wife, broad of face, of body and experience. Mrs Kelly, from County Clare and she saved my life if not my sanity. 'I lost the child.
I lost my daughter one night of never-ending storms as we rounded the Cape of Good Hope.'

  No woman who has lost a child needs to hear more than those few words. However, I did not think that any man would understand until I saw the empathetic pain in Doctor Hetherington's eyes.

  'We buried her at sea, and that night I tried to follow her. Mrs Sergeant Kelly stopped me. She was a drunken, foul-mouthed woman with the kindest heart in the world.'

  'Good people come in time of need,' Doctor Hetherington touched my arm and my heart. 'The best angels have dirty wings and clean souls.'

  I was not crying. I was releasing myself and saying goodbye to the daughter I had never named or acknowledged. 'She is at peace now,' I said. Now I could mourn her. Now I had admitted her presence and her early death I could say goodbye.

  'Yes, your daughter is at peace now.' Doctor Hetherington touched my arm, once. 'And you can also find rest.'

  How had he known? I looked away, wondering if he could see inside my head. I did not talk in detail about India. There was no need. 'After eight years I came home,' I said.

  Doctor Findhorn nodded. 'You did,' he said. 'Do you know why?'

  'Perhaps,' I said, and left it at that. I had retained one item of information to myself. I had told the doctor more than anybody else. I had not told him everything.

  Doctor Hetherington cut another slice of bread, smeared it with butter and added a generous hunk of cheese. 'You are a brave woman.'

  'I don't feel brave,' I said.

  'It was brave to return here.' The doctor said. 'What about Lord Findhorn?'

  'I have not seen Findhorn from that day to this.'

  Doctor Hetherington nodded. 'That will be a blessing.'

  'Now Marie is in a similar situation,' I remembered why I had made that mad dash across Midlothian. 'Hector McAra is the son of Duncan McAra. I cannot allow history to repeat itself.'

  'I will come with you to see her,' Doctor Hetherington said. 'Between the two of us, we should be able to help her.'

  'You don't have to,' I said. 'It's not your fight.'

  'Marie Elliot is my patient,' Doctor Hetherington said. He stood up and spoke quietly, 'and you are my friend, I hope.'