—
Just after we woke Meg for the third time, we heard Anna moving about downstairs.
Angus climbed to his feet. “Well, I suppose I’d better let her know what’s happened. Then I have to step out for a while—I have a wee bit of business to take care of.”
A few minutes later, Anna raced up the stairs and into the room. When her eyes landed on Meg, she burst into tears. I rushed around the bed to hug her.
“It’s evil, Maddie, that’s what it is,” she said, crying into my shoulder. “Pure evil. What kind of a monster would do such a thing? To our poor, sweet Meg, of all people. Meg, who has no kin at all.”
“I don’t know,” I said helplessly. “I really don’t know.”
—
When Anna calmed down enough that I believed she’d remember the doctor’s instructions, I left to get some sleep.
As I walked down the hall toward my room, I noticed that the door was ajar. I had been in a rush when I got the quilt, but the daylight behind it gave me pause. I clearly remembered replacing the Blackout frame after eavesdropping on the dance.
I crept up to the door and gave it a little push.
My room had been completely torn apart. The dresser drawers were wide open and empty, the top one yanked out completely. Everything I’d kept inside—my personal littles, slips, nightgowns, stockings, and books—had been flung randomly about the room. My dresses, trousers, and sweaters had been ripped from the closet, and the suitcases and trunks I’d kept stored behind them had been hauled out, opened, and overturned. Even my cosmetics case had been dumped, and then hurled with such force that one of the bronze hinges from the tray stuck out to the side like a broken wing.
Someone touched my shoulder. I spun around, flattening myself against the wall.
It was Ellis, of course. His face was gaunt and his complexion yellow. The expression behind his red-rimmed eyes seemed vaguely conciliatory, solicitous even.
“Maddie?” he said, inching forward and cocking his head. He forced his parched lips into a smile. “What have you done with the pills, Maddie?”
My mind spun, but I couldn’t hide what I’d done. I couldn’t magically conjure up more.
“I flushed them,” I said.
His wheedling façade was replaced in an instant by fury.
“You did what? When?”
“I don’t know. A while ago.”
“What in the hell possessed you to do such a stupid thing? Jesus!”
“You did,” I said.
He looked dumbfounded.
“Oh my God. Oh my God,” he said quietly, to himself. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and began gasping for breath.
I moved sideways, feeling the wall behind me and trying to find my door. My fingers found and curled around the edge of the doorframe.
He raised his face abruptly, looking at me with stricken eyes. “What the hell happened to you, Maddie? When did you become so hell-bent on destroying me?”
My mouth opened and closed, but I couldn’t find an answer.
He turned and launched himself down the hallway, weaving from side to side and banging into the wall when his legs failed to straighten.
I slipped into my room and bolted the door. Then I collapsed on the bed and surrendered immediately to a deep, dreamless sleep.
—
When I woke up and realized that almost nine hours had gone by, I rushed back to Meg’s room. It was well past the time Anna usually returned to the croft, and close to the time hungry customers began to arrive.
She was curled up in the chair with my quilt over her legs, as I had been earlier. I paused at Meg’s bedside, gazing down at her battered face.
“How is she?” I whispered.
“Angus gave her some morphine just now, so she’s out again. He says we don’t have to wake her up anymore. Alas, he also says that when she is awake, she still has to take deep breaths and try to cough.”
I sat on the floor beside the chair, with my legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. “I’m sorry I slept so long. I can take over now. Has anyone done anything about dinner?”
“There’s no need. Angus tacked a sign to the door saying ‘Closed Due to Illness’—illness, for goodness’ sake.”
I could only shake my head.
Anna sighed. “It must be very bad indeed since the doctor didn’t give her castor oil. Before anything else, you get a dose of the castor oil. I don’t even see that he’s left a tonic—he always leaves a tonic. How is she supposed to recover without a tonic?”
She looked at me as though I should know. When I raised my hands to indicate that I didn’t, she sighed again.
“Rhona’s got a soup going downstairs and I’m sure Mhàthair is mixing up all kinds of tea right at this very moment, but Angus says we’re not to give her anything until Dr. McLean says it’s all right.”
A quiet moan rose from the bed. We sprang to our feet.
Meg moved restlessly beneath the bedclothes. Anna wrung out a cloth and mopped her brow, then dabbed her lips with something from a small jar.
“Lanolin,” Anna whispered. “We’ve no shortage around here. Unfortunately, it does leave you smelling a bit like a sheep.”
Meg went still again. Anna and I returned to our spots and stared into the flames. They were hypnotic.
Anna finally broke the silence. “Are you cold? Do you want the quilt?”
“I’m all right, thanks. It’s toasty in here. I don’t think I’ve been this warm since I got to Scotland.”
“I suppose your house in America is very warm.”
“Temperature-wise, sure,” I said.
Anna peered sideways at me. “Is everything all right? Only I couldn’t help but hear the racket earlier, with your husband shouting and stumbling about the way he was.”
“No, not really,” I said. “Things are actually pretty dismal.”
After almost a minute of sneaking expectant glances, Anna broke down. “I don’t mean to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, but sometimes it can help to unburden yourself.” She turned deliberately away, presumably to ease my confession.
I hesitated, but not for long. “I think I’m going to get a divorce,” I whispered.
“A divorce!” Anna’s head whipped around, her eyes so wide I could see the whites all the way around. “You’ll be like Wallis Simpson!”
I recoiled. “I certainly hope not. I only plan on getting the one—if I can even figure out how.”
As Anna reflected on this, she turned back to the bed. Her eyes remained huge.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” I said. “I’ve shocked you.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head vehemently.
As a silence swelled between us, I plunged into despair. I couldn’t stand the thought of Anna not liking me anymore.
“You think I’m awful, don’t you?” I asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “It’s plain to see how he treats you. It just hadn’t occurred to me there was anything you could do about it.”
I thought of the cockerel confined under his basket on Sundays, and realized that divorce was probably not an option in Glenurquhart.
“Does he know?” Anna asked.
“No, and I have to keep it that way for now, because after I tell him, I’ll have to live somewhere else. If I can find somewhere else.”
“Oh aye,” she said, nodding. “I can imagine it would be miserable indeed to remain under the same roof once you’ve broken the news.”
I looked at Meg’s swollen, bloodied face, and thought of the cracking sounds the door had made as my enraged husband threw himself against it, trying to get to me.
“I’m worried it might be worse than that.”
Anna’s eyes flew from me to Meg and then back again, widening in understanding.
We looked hopelessly at each other, then resumed staring at the fire. It cast long shadows that danced all the way across the ceiling before turning sharply down the far wall, like they were following the folded crease in a piece of paper.
Although in the scheme of things I’d said very little, I’d probably said more than I should have. But I wondered if what I’d told her might have set the tone for a few more confidences.
“Anna,” I said, “I know it’s none of my business, but will you please tell me what happened to Angus? I know he’s the one on the gravestone, the one who didn’t die. But I know nothing else.”
She frowned and blinked, studying me as she considered my request.
My face began to burn. I’d made a mistake, asking about things I had no right to know. I turned toward the opposite wall, filled with shame.
Behind me, Anna sighed heavily.
“Well,” she said, “you won’t hear it from him, because he doesn’t talk about it, and while I’m not one for the blather, it’s not what you might call a state secret, so I don’t suppose he’d mind.”