The Betrayal of Maggie Blair

Chapter 3

The gossips of Scalpsie Bay had been right. The whale stank as it rotted. Foulness hung in the air, and even the seagulls, which had feasted on the flesh at first, would not tear at the carcass anymore.

The other news was that a new minister had come to the church at Kingarth. His name was Mr. Robertson.

"A busybody, by the look of him," Granny said sourly, watching the man's lean, black-coated figure stride energetically up the lane toward Macbean's. "He'll be after us to go to the kirk every week, so he can insult us from his pulpit. They're all the same. Crows in black suits."

I watched for the minister coming back so that I could take a peep at him. There were hardly ever strangers in Scalpsie Bay, and a new face was always a wonder. I hid behind the hedge and looked through a gap. Just as he came into view, a swan flew overhead. The minister took off his round, broad-brimmed black hat and looked up at it, letting me get a good view of him.

Mr. Robertson was a young man, lean and pale. His hair fell in thin fair wisps to his shoulders. His skin was pink, not reddened or tanned by the wind and sun, as everyone else's was in Scalpsie Bay. He looked clean all over. There were no smears on his face or hands, and no specks on the black cloth of his coat.

I had thought that all ministers were like the last one had been: red-faced, old, stout, and angry. I thought they would all have a loud, booming voice and a frowning face. I was so surprised at the sight of this earnest, nervous-looking young man that I craned forward clumsily and set the hawthorn twigs rattling. He picked the sound up at once and came right up to the hedge, then bent down and stared through it, so that our eyes were no more than a foot's length apart.

He started with surprise when he saw me and straightened up. I had to stand up too, though I was so embarrassed I wanted only to bolt into the cottage. He settled his hat back on his head and pulled at the two white bands that fell from his collar over his black-clad chest. He was trying to look dignified, I could tell.

"You'll be Maggie Blair," he said. "And yours is a face I've yet to see in the kirk on the Sabbath day."

He was trying to sound severe but spoiled the effect by giving a gigantic sneeze that made his pale eyes water.

"H-how did you know my name?" I stammered.

"I know the name of every soul in my parish." He wiped his nose on a snowy kerchief that he folded carefully and tucked inside his sleeve. "And I'm discovering things about some of them that sadden me. You live here with your grandmother, Mistress Elspeth Wylie, isn't that so?"

I nodded warily. In my experience, mention of Granny usually involved severe disapproval.

"When was the last time that Mistress Elspeth brought you to the kirk, Maggie, to hear the word of the Lord?"

I looked down. In truth, it had been more than a year since Granny and I had tramped the four miles to the kirk and back again. Once the old minister's coughing had started, he had been like a fire damped down. He'd lost the strength to chase after his lost flock, and Granny was certainly not going to go to him of her own accord. Luckily, I thought of a way to change the subject.

"When's the baby to be christened, Mr. Robertson?" I asked.

He looked harassed.

"What baby would that be? There's one by every hearth hereabouts."

There was only one baby in my world.

"Ebenezer Macbean," I said.

Mr. Robertson raised his thin eyebrows.

"Tomorrow! Didn't you know? The whole parish seems to have been summoned to the..."

He broke off, his eyes fixed on something behind me. I turned to see Granny appear at the cottage door, holding a bucket of water. I knew she'd seen the minister, but she slung its dirty contents in our direction, anyway, making him jump backwards. Then she set it down and marched toward me, her arms crossed on her chest. I couldn't look at her. I was ashamed of her dirty clothes, wild hair, and blackened teeth. Beside the minister, so neat and scrubbed, she looked like a straw man set up in the fields to scare birds.

"Who's this keeping the girl from her work?" she demanded, pretending not to know Mr. Robertson. "Oh, it's you, Minister."

"And good morning to you, Mistress Elspeth," he said gravely. I glanced at him sharply, but he looked more alarmed than mocking. He coughed awkwardly. "I'm glad of the chance to speak with you. I've been at my parish three months already, and I haven't seen you or your granddaughter on one Sabbath day."

Granny's bare, hard-soled feet were planted firmly apart on the rough ground, but now she bent one knee and slapped a beefy hand down onto her hip.

"Pain in my joints," she said. "Ill health. A recurring fever. I'd never be able to walk such a distance."

Mr. Robertson pursed his lips.

"Oh, now, I saw you in Rothesay not one week ago, and it's a full two miles farther to walk."

"I know that fine, Minister." Granny's head was thrown back, and she was staring down her nose at him. "Crawled all the way, didn't I, on my hands and knees. The pain—you can't imagine."

Knowing how fast Granny strode along the lanes, covering the miles at a steady trot, I had to stifle a giggle.

A pink flush of irritation colored Mr. Robertson's cheeks.

"Mistress Elspeth, I have to remind you that it is your duty, both by earthly and heavenly law, to attend divine service at your parish kirk on the Lord's Day. If you fail to do so, you will incur a fine. Do you understand?"

Granny pretended to cringe in fear.

"A fine!" she whined. "Oh, sir, don't take from a poor old widow woman the little she has and leave her destitute!"

Mr. Robertson held up his hands, as if defeated, and began to back away.

"Hear the psalmist's words, Mistress Elspeth, and if you won't hear me, hear him." And he began to intone, in a surprisingly strong voice, "'Enter his gates and courts with praise, to thank him go ye thither...'" but before he could finish, a gust of wind snatched off his hat and sent it rolling down the lane. He ran after it, with Granny's mocking laughter following him.

"The wind heard you, Mister Minister, blowing the empty air out of your mouth, and it couldn't help joining in!" she said, a little too loudly.

Then, turning back toward the cottage, she let out a shriek. Blackie had wandered in from her pasture and was tearing at the shaggy thatch and turf that hung low off the cottage roof.

"You Devil's bit! You creature of Satan!" she screeched, beating Blackie away from the roof with her fists. The wind must have carried her words along the lane because I saw the minister stop in his tracks with shock, then bend over and hurry on, one hand clamping his hat to his head.

***

Annie appeared that afternoon. She came tripping down from the farm, her shawl pinned under her chin just loosely enough to let the curls escape from it to frame her face. I suppose she thought it pretty that way. I thought her plain silly. She carried a basket on her arm, and I guessed she was on her way to ask for contributions from the neighboring farms for the christening feast.

The christening feast. It occurred to me, as I saw Annie, how odd it was that no news of it had come to us. I remembered, too, that in the past few days Mr. Macbean had spurred his horse to go faster as he passed our cottage. The truth hit me as sharp as a blow.

We've not been invited. I'll not get the chance to hold baby Ebenezer. Everyone else is to go, but not Granny and me.

I was desperate not to believe it. I put up a hand to smooth back my hair, made myself smile, and called out, "Hello, Annie. Where are you away to? How's the baby, anyway?"

She raised her eyebrows when she saw me, in the sneering way she had.

"Eb-e-ne-zer's just fine." She separated out the sounds to make the long name seem even grander. "And I'm fetching eggs from the folks at Ambrismore for the christening."

My fingers curled tightly into my palms.

"The christening, eh? When's that to be?"

"Tomorrow of course. Everyone knows..."

She pretended she had made a mistake and clapped her hand over her mouth, but above her twitching fingers her eyes were dark with malice.

"We couldn't have come, anyway," I said, as carelessly as I could. "Granny's not well."

I couldn't help looking down toward the beach where Granny was bent over, vigorously pulling something out of a clump of seaweed. Luckily, Annie didn't notice.

An idea hit me.

"I've three eggs to spare. I'll give them to you if you like. For the christening."

Three eggs. They were a treasure to us. They'd be enough, surely, to buy us an invitation.

Annie nodded without answering, and I opened the little gate into our yard for her. She was right behind me as I went into the cottage, and turning around I caught a curiously greedy expression on her face.

She thinks it'll be all dirty and messy in here, I thought with disgust, and she wants to spread stories about us.

I was glad that I'd swept the floor that morning, washed the table, and arranged the dishes neatly on the shelf.

"I see you're not fussy about spiders, then," she said at last, pointing triumphantly at the tangle of webs in the corner where the roof beam came down to meet the stone wall.

"Annie, you'd never clear away the spiders' webs?" I was genuinely shocked. "Not when there's a baby in the house?"

"And why wouldn't I? Dirty, creepy things."

I was amazed at her ignorance.

"Don't you know that they're lucky? Don't you know that the spiders spun their webs around the baby Jesus to keep him hidden from the soldiers?"

She looked confused for a moment, then frowned suspiciously.

"Did you read that in the Bible? Oh, I forgot. You can't read, can you?"

"No, but it'll be there." I spoke with a confidence I didn't feel. "It must be. Lucky spiders? Everyone knows."

Her eyes were sweeping the cottage again. They rested disdainfully on Sheba, who was staring at her unblinkingly, lashing her tail from side to side.

"Get me those eggs, Maggie. I've to get on or Mrs. Macbean will be after me."

I regretted my offer now, but there was no going back on it. I went to the corner of the room by the chest, where it was quite dark, and put my hand into the crock where I'd placed the eggs that morning. I could feel them, round and smooth, under my fingers. Three eggs! And all for nothing. Annie wouldn't even tell Mrs. Macbean that I'd given them. There'd be no invitation, however many eggs I handed over.

"Oh," I said, trying to sound surprised, and hoping that the darkness of the corner would hide my lying blush. "There's only one here, after all."

As I turned, with the egg in my hand, I saw Annie move quickly away from beside the shelf where she'd been standing. She was settling her shawl again, tight under her chin.

"I'll be off, then," she said, putting the egg in the basket, and without a word of thanks, without even looking at me, she scuttled out of the cottage as if the Devil was after her.

***

Something woke me in the middle of the night. I don't know what it was, but I knew at once that I was alone. Granny had gone.

She had taken the news of the christening more quietly than I'd expected, though I saw the flesh around her mouth whiten as she clamped her lips tightly together. When she had finally spoken, she'd sounded more contemptuous than angry.

"They'd not have dared in your granddad's day. Mucky midden-crawlers! My man once cleared a room of the likes of them with one swing of his ax." Then, to my surprise, she noticed the tears drying on my cheeks and put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't think of them, Maggie. There's better company to be had than cold-hearted psalm singers like Macbean."

Better company! Her words came back to me as I lay with my eyes open, looking up into the pitch-dark cottage room.

Tam, I thought. She'll have gone to Tam.

I sat up, woken properly by a surge of fury.

They don't want us at Macbean's, and she didn't even ask me to come to Tam's. Well, I'm going, anyway.

I went to the door and looked out. The night was mild for December, the moon full and shining dully through thin low cloud. There was no rain in the air and enough light to see my way to Tam's old shack.

I was going back inside to fetch my shawl when I heard from some way off the heart-lifting, spirit-dancing skirl of the pipes. The sound wasn't coming from Tam's tumbledown hovel under the hillside, but from up near Loch Quien, the little loch that lies half a mile or so between the hills behind the beach. I was running up the lane, called by the music, before I knew what I was doing.

The piping stopped on a half note, and its enchantment vanished in a second. Thicker clouds had crossed the sky, shutting out the moon's thin light. I shivered.

This is daft. I must go home.

As I turned, a flicker caught my eye. A fire was burning up on the knoll at Ambrisbeg, halfway along the edge of the loch.

That's where they'll be.

It was a hard business finding my way up there in the dark, working around thickets of gorse, squelching through bog, and stumbling against stones. I ended up in a dip with the firelight out of sight, and I'd have given up and gone home if the piping hadn't started again. I could hear voices too—whoops and shrieks of laughter. I was closer than I thought.

Something held me back from running into the circle of firelight to join the revelry. I suppose it was the thought of Granny's certain rage. At any rate, I wanted to stay hidden and watch. I knelt behind a boulder and peeped over it, almost sure the tree above me would shelter me from view.

They had lit a fire in the center of a circle of stones, and by its light I could see eight or ten people. Apart from Granny and Tam, there were a couple of soldiers back from the wars who spent the winters lying in barns or ditches, begging for food, and Daft Effie from the Butts, whom the farm boys teased, and Peter the serving man from Ardnahoe. I suppose there were two or three more whom I didn't recognize.

A cloth had been laid on the ground, and there were some oatcakes on it and bones stripped of meat. Tam's black bottle lay on its side, empty, along with two others. Tam had taken the mouthpiece of his bagpipe away from his lips, and now he let the air out of the bag so that it wailed like a dying animal, making everyone lurch about with laughter. Then he put it to his mouth again, and as his fingers flew to a fast jig, they shook themselves like dogs at the sound of the hunting horn and they danced, arms flying, legs leaping, plaids and shawls unraveling, hair wild, and eyes lit up with joy. My feet itched too, and my fingers tapped out the rhythm on the boulder.

I had to join them, I had to get up and dance, and I was starting to my feet when I caught a movement away to the side. Peering into the dark, I saw the oval paleness of a face. Someone else was standing, watching from the shadows.

I sank back down again, not knowing what to do. Tam's fingers were racing over his chanter, and the dancing was faster than ever. I saw Granny stoop and pick up a wisp of straw. She flung it in the air. It caught a leaping spark from the fire and flared into flame, rising up like a living thing into the air.

"Fly, fairies, fly!" yelled Granny. "By horse and hattock, go, go!"

The wisp burned out and disappeared. The music stopped. I looked back into the shadows. The face had gone. I wasn't sure, now, that I'd seen anything there at all.

It was as if Tam's piping had held the revelers' wits together, because as soon as it stopped, they seemed to fall apart and began stumbling about, laughing stupidly and clinging to each other, groping for the empty bottles and holding them to their lips in the hopes of squeezing out a few last drops.

They're just old drunks after all, I thought, and I was weary, as if I'd run a long way. I wanted my bed. I turned to slip away, and as I felt my way back down the hill from Ambrisbeg to the cottage, I heard Granny's cracked voice rise in a hideous song.

"Tinkletum, tankletum," she was singing.

The words seemed to follow me, gaining in volume, becoming harsher and more threatening.

"Tinkletum, tankletum, tinkletum, tankletum, TINKLETUM, TANKLETUM!"

The words were still drumming in my ears, making me shiver with more than the cold, as I lay down on the straw in the cottage and pulled my plaid up over my ears.