The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (5 page)

***

For the rest of the day, I found myself looking about at the familiar sights of home with new eyes. The old cottage with its rotting roof, the kail yard with its raggedy rows of cabbages, the stream running over the pale stones of its bed, Blackie's field, the beach and the sea and the mountains of Arran beyond—all seemed strange and distant, as if I had parted from them long ago and had returned only as a visitor for the briefest time.

She'll make Ebenezer die, I know she will,
a voice kept repeating inside my head as I drove Blackie back from the field toward the byre when darkness was beginning to fall.
And if he does die, they'll blame her for it. They'll blame me too.

I had a strange fancy that I could see hostile faces everywhere I looked: evil, grinning mouths leering up at me from the water in the stream, glittering eyes peeping down from the tree, hands with long white fingers reaching out to clutch me from the hedge. I could hear angry whispers too, hissing at me in the wind.

You must leave. You must go away,
the voice in my head said.
They'll hate you here forever, even if Ebenezer lives.

The idea of leaving the only home I had ever known frightened me so much that I stopped dead, and Blackie, who had been walking behind me, nearly bumped into me and gave a reproachful
moo.
I had never been farther from Scalpsie Bay than the towns of Kingarth and Rothesay. The Isle of Bute was my whole world. Beyond it were strange realms peopled by fearsome creatures, the monsters and giants and goblins that filled Tam's stories.

I pushed the thought aside. Where could I go, if I left the cottage at Scalpsie Bay? Who would take me in? I had no relatives on the isle. My father had come from a place called Kilmacolm, over on the mainland. A brother of his lived there still, as far as I knew—my uncle Blair.

I had sometimes dreamed of being spirited away from Granny to live with my uncle Blair. I had a picture of him in my head that was as real as the black bulk of the cow plodding along beside me. My uncle would be a big man like my father, with a deep voice, slow in speech. He wouldn't get drunk or shout at people. He wouldn't pinch and slap children. He wouldn't go about with dirty clothes half hanging off him. He would be orderly and respectable and liked by everyone. His family would eat well and often, and they would have fresh linen and a new clean plaid to wear when the old one fell into holes. And Uncle Blair would have a wife. She would be a sweet-faced woman with a soft voice, like—but here my imagination always failed me.

My best memory of my father was of him swinging me up in his arms when I was a little girl. He would do it every time he came home from a trip. I'd scream with fear and joy and clutch at the silver buckle he always wore on his belt. It was his drover's buckle, which had gone with him wherever he'd roamed with the cattle. It had been his surety, he said, his treasure, something he could sell if trouble came to him.

The buckle was mine now. It had been taken from my father's body before they buried him and given to me. I kept it tucked away behind the salt box on the shelf, and often I'd reach up and touch it, as if it was a good luck charm.

Trouble was coming to me, I was certain of it. And the buckle would be my surety, as it had been my father's.

I hurried over the last bit of field, tugging Blackie's halter to make her walk faster, and as soon as she was safe in her stall, I went into the cottage and pulled out the salt box, wanting to hold the buckle and feel its reassuring metal in my palm.

The shelf was bare. The buckle was gone.

I felt along the shelf, sure that I would find it. But I didn't.

Granny's moved it,
I thought.
She must have put it somewhere safer.

Then an awful suspicion came to me. What if Granny had taken the buckle and sold it? What if it was my buckle that had paid for the food and drink for the riotous night before?

I dropped the idea at once. Granny was hard, she was always angry and often cruel, but she was never underhanded. A strain of honesty ran through her like a thread of gold through a dirty cloth. She might rant and curse and say the harshest things, she might strike out with her fists and send me out to do most of the work, but she could never lie and she would never steal.

I stood there, frowning, as I tried to remember when I'd last seen the buckle. It had been only the previous morning. The salt box had been moved a little way along the shelf to make room for one of Tam's black bottles, and the silver of the buckle had gleamed out at me from among the cobwebs.

The cobwebs. Annie. She had talked about the cobwebs. She had been standing beside the shelf when I was feeling for the eggs in the crock. I saw again in my mind's eye how suddenly she'd moved away from the shelf, and how her hand had hidden itself in her shawl. And why had she run so fast out of the cottage, as if she was being chased?

I knew then, as surely as I knew my own name, that Annie was a thief and that she had stolen my buckle.

"What's all this? Why are you standing there like a gatepost when there's work to be done?"

Granny's voice at the door startled me.

"My buckle. It's gone. Annie must have stolen it," I blurted out.

"That girl of Macbean's? What was she doing here?"

I wished then that I'd held my tongue, because I had to tell Granny that I'd given Annie an egg. To my surprise, she only smiled triumphantly.

"So the girl's a thief? I'm not surprised. We'll have them on that. I'll get you yet, Macbean! My granddaughter's silver buckle—her dowry from her father—stolen by your servant."

Why did I break out crying? Why did such a feeling of desolation sweep over me? I'd learned a long time ago that tears were no route to Granny's heart. She would be more likely to stop them with a slap than a kiss. I stumbled to the door, careless of the cold December drizzle and the darkness that had now fallen, wanting only to go into Blackie's byre and lay my head down on her rough warm neck and cry there.

But Granny barred my way.

"Aye, girl, you may well cry." The rough sympathy in her voice was so unexpected that I was shocked into silence. "The world's a cruel place, but there's no need to burden the poor dumb cow with your troubles. Sit down by me."

She set her three-legged stool by the fire, sat down, and drew her skirts up over her knees so that she could warm her legs. I fetched my stool and sat down too.

"They'll be going past on tiptoe soon on their way home from Macbean's, stuffed full of the meat and wine that by rights we should have enjoyed too. But we're to take no notice of them. I've had my say." She laughed, the sound rasping in her throat. "I've given them something to think about. Did you see them run up the lane, the dafties? Each one as terrified as a hare when she smells the fox. As for that fool of a prating minister..."

She lapsed into silence, staring into the fire, and her face was full of a fierce joy as she relived her triumph.

"But I've something to say to you, Maggie."

She pointed up to the whiskey bottle on the shelf. I fetched it down for her, glad to see that it was nearly empty. She took a long pull at it, shook it to check that nothing was left, and set it down regretfully.

"Crying on a cow's neck is no way to fight your battles. You've got to take the war to the enemy. Make them fear you. If Macbean hadn't been afraid of me, he would have got me out of this cottage long ago. Just because you're a girl and you'll be alone in the world when I'm gone, you're not without power."

Her eyes, reddened with peat smoke and whiskey, stared into mine. A chill hand closed around my heart.

"Granny, you wouldn't—not Ebenezer! You wouldn't hurt..."

Her heavy brows snapped together, then she threw her head back and laughed.

"Hurt that miserable little scrap? He'll need no help from me to find his way out of the world. Maggie, what are you thinking? That those precious fools are right? That I'm a witch? The Devil's servant? With the power of life and death?"

It was what I had been fearing, in my heart of hearts.

"No," I lied, "but when you said, out there in the lane, that evil had come to you all your life..."

"And so it has. I was a farmer's daughter, from Ettrick. Two good plaid cloths I had and a plate of meat once a week, summer and winter. Sickness took my parents. Your grandfather brought me here and fished the herring from Scalpsie Bay. Much good did he do me, for the sea took him as it took your father. He left me with this miserable cottage and no more money than a pauper."

"But you had my mother."

"Mary. Yes."

She seldom spoke of my mother, except when she wanted to compare me unfavorably with her. I held my breath, willing her to go on. She only heaved a sigh.

"Your father came and took her. She died. He died. And here we are, you and me. Evil came to me, you see? All my life. Sorrow and death and evil. One after another."

I'm not an evil,
I thought rebelliously.

She read my mind, as she often seemed to do, and jabbed a dirty finger toward me.

"You, Maggie, are no evil, but the hope of my life. And I wish good on you. Only good. But you're weak. If they harm you and insult you, you cry and run away. You must turn. Show them you're not afraid. You must be angry, Maggie."

Much good anger does you,
I thought.
Everyone fears and hates you. Even I'm scared of you, most of the time.

Aloud I said, "So you think I should go up to Macbean's and shout at them all and make Annie give me back my buckle?"

She gave me a shrewd look.

"Is that a dig at me? I suppose I've earned it. And it's what I would do, right now, if there'd been more in this whiskey bottle to give me the courage. But we'll bide our time on the buckle. The moment for it will come. Fear's a great weapon, Maggie, and when you're poor and alone, it's the only one you have."

Ebenezer Macbean lived for another six weeks. All that time I watched the comings and goings from the Macbean farm with dread, but as the weeks passed and nothing happened, I began to feel hopeful that Granny had been wrong and that he would live after all.

Granny and I were out in the kail yard, binding sticks into the hedge to stop Blackie from breaking through. It was a wintry February day, the sky as gray as the heaving sea. Granny looked up to watch a skein of geese fly overhead.

"
'Wild geese, wild geese, going to the hill,'
" she muttered.

"
The weather it will spill,
" I finished automatically in my head.

I looked in the direction they were flying, as I always did, to see if there were rain clouds in the sky and caught sight of a woman, her head uncovered, her hair flying wild, running down the lane toward us. Granny had seen her too.

"Here she comes, with trouble on her, but I won't pity her, for she'll bring that trouble to us, you'll see."

Jeanie Macbean's rage and grief were almost choking her as she reached our gate. She clung to it, her hand to her side, trying to get her breath.

"You wicked—you vile—murderous—
witch!
" she gasped. "You killed him. You killed my Ebenezer!"

"Now, Jeanie," Granny said, with unusual mildness. "You know that isn't true. I would never harm a child. Come inside. Sit down for a while."

"I—wouldn't cross—your threshold—to save my life!" Mrs. Macbean said, panting. "Why, Elspeth? Why did you do it? It was because of the christening, John said, because you weren't invited. I wanted you to come! I told him! He said you weren't to be asked, because of the respectable folk of Kingarth. But to kill the wee man just for that! To take his life!"

She began to sob, unable to go on, hitting at the gate with her fists.

"Jeanie," Granny said, sounding almost pleading. "Will you listen to me? It was I who brought that child into the world. Why would I harm him? I tried to charm away the evil from him at your hearth, but your man wouldn't let me. There was a sickness on him from the start—the blue on his lips and in his face. I've seen it before. I knew what it meant. I didn't say it to threaten you, but to warn you, Jeanie. That was all."

It was the nearest thing to an apology that I'd ever heard Granny make, and I breathed a sigh of relief, sure that it would convince Mrs. Macbean. She wanted to believe Granny, I could see it in her face, but then came a man's shout from up the lane. Mr. Macbean was running toward us, his face dark with rage.

"Get away from her, Jeanie! Don't go near her! The witch'll kill you too!"

I was learning more about Granny that day than I'd ever learned in my whole life, and now I saw, for the first time ever, that she was afraid. It set up an answering fear in me, turning my insides to water.

Say something soft,
I silently urged her.
Say you're sorry that Ebenezer died. Tell him what you told her. Tell him you didn't harm him.

But Granny took a deep breath and scowled. She would follow her own rule, I could see, and try to make her enemies fear her.

The look she turned on Macbean was as hard as a blow and cold enough to freeze the man's liver. He shuddered under her stare, turned pale, and put his arm around his wife's waist.

"Come home, Jeanie, before she puts the evil eye on you too. She's of the Devil, and it's the minister who'll deal with her."

"You see, Maggie?" Granny said triumphantly as we watched Mr. Macbean support his wife's tottering steps up the hill. "I made them fear us. Now they'll leave us alone."

But they won't,
I thought.
They won't.

They came for us in May, when the late primroses were still making yellow splashes on the banks. The first I knew of the trouble to come was the sight of Tam hurrying down the lane on his sticklike legs, his tattered coat flapping around him.

"Where's Elspeth?" he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

"Here she comes now." I nodded toward the distant figure of Granny, who was walking back from the shore, carrying the finds of the morning bunched up in her apron. "Why? What's the matter?"