The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (21 page)

She saw at once that she'd made a mistake as Uncle Blair, who had been leaning forward, drew back and frowned. Annie bit her lip, aware that the spell she had so artfully woven had been broken.

Uncle Blair said doubtfully, "And so you left the Isle of Bute and the protection of your master's house, and undertook this long and dangerous journey for the sole purpose of asking Maggie to forgive you?"

I couldn't tell from his voice whether he approved or not. Neither could Annie.

"It was Tam," she said at last. "'You'll never rest easy, Annie,' he told me, 'and the Lord will never accept your repentance, if you don't go in person and throw yourself on the mercy of the girl you have wronged.' Isn't that so, Tam?"

Tam jerked in his seat, and I was sure she'd kicked him under the table.

"Eh? Oh, aye. Yes. That's right." He was nodding, but licking his lips nervously at the same time. I saw then that she had acquired some kind of hold on him and that he was terrified of her.

All eyes now turned to me. Uncle Blair leaned across the table and picked up my hand.

"My dear, the Lord said,
'If thy brother repent, thou shalt forgive him.'
Annie has repented, Maggie. Will you forgive her?"

It was too much. My heart was pounding. I was panting as if I'd run up a mountain. I leaped to my feet, knocking over a stool.

"Can't you see, all of you? Don't you understand? She's a liar! A cheat! A thief ! She ran away from Bute because she was afraid of being punished for adultery. She must have got rid of the baby she was carrying. She's come here because she's desperate and she knows you're good and kind, and you'll take her in and look after her, but she'll destroy you, like she destroyed my granny and tried to destroy me. Don't listen to her! I'm begging you! Don't!"

It was no good. Uncle Blair was shaking his head sadly at me, and Aunt Blair had leaned down over Andrew's cradle, turning her back on me. Blinded by my tears, I stumbled to the door and ran outside into the driving rain.

***

It was Ritchie who found me much later. I had thrown myself down against a bale of hay in the barn and had gone from storming tears, through fist-clenching rages and wild schemes of revenge, to the quiet misery of despair. Since I'd come to Ladymuir, I'd found a healing calm, and though I hadn't been truly happy, I'd been accepted by a kindly family. Now I felt as if a malignant hand was reaching out to drag me back to the terrors and violence of the past.

I couldn't speak to Ritchie, who was standing diffidently in front of me, embarrassed by my distress.

"Are you all right, Maggie?" he said at last.

"No. Of course I'm not all right. I don't know what to do."

He squatted down beside me. He had been so shy with me up till now that I hardly knew how to speak to him.

"She's a one, that Annie," he said.

I picked up a wisp of straw and knotted it around my fingers.

"She's the best liar I've ever met, anyway," he went on.

My eyes flew up to meet his. A sprout of hope took root.

"You mean she didn't fool you?"

"I saw her kick the old man. To make him back up her story. She scares him. Why would he be afraid of her if she was a good person? That kick was vicious. What's she got on him, do you think?"

I threw the straw aside and sat up.

"It could be lots of things. Tam—he's kind and I love him, but he's weak and easily scared. He's always in trouble. She'd only have to threaten him with the law over a debt or something, and he'd not be able to stand up to her."

He cleared his throat.

"It wasn't just the kick. When you told us your story, it came out different. It was hard for you to tell. I thought you were brave, the way you decided not to hide things from us. That girl was all smooth and clever. Everything about her felt wrong to me."

I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him, but if I had, he'd have bolted out of the barn and up onto the moor like a startled deer.

"Ritchie, you've no idea! Just to know that you believe me!"

"I do, Maggie, and I always will."

There was a quiet steadiness in his voice that warmed me through. I looked at my shy cousin, with his square Blair features and direct blue eyes, as if I was seeing him for the first time.

"But she's convinced my father," he went on. He saw the distress in my face and said quickly, "No, not that. It's not that he doubts you. But he believes in the girl's repentance. You know what he's like, Maggie. He's thrilled to see a sinner return to the Lord and seek forgiveness in such a dramatic way, like a story in the Bible."

"He'll never make me say I forgive her!" I said fiercely. "How can I, when she's not a bit sorry for anything she's done and hasn't confessed to the half of it? She tried to murder us, Ritchie, Granny and me. And what's she done with her baby?"

"There'll be time enough to find out," Ritchie said, standing up and turning to look out of the barn toward the house. "My father's said she may stay with us while he finds her work on a farm near here."

"He'll be sorry," I said, and snorted. "He might as well take in a poisonous snake."

Across the courtyard, the door of the house opened.

"Ritchie, are you there?" called Martha. "Mam says you're to come in for the evening worship. Where's Maggie?"

Ritchie put out his work-hardened hand to pull me to my feet.

"We'd best go inside. Put a brave face on it, Maggie. You know my father. Once he has an idea in his head, there's no use trying to shift him. If he's decided to trust that girl, he won't be swayed."

I tried, in the short distance from the barn to the house, to pick the wisps of hay off my gown and smooth back my hair, knowing how much my aunt disliked untidiness. But when I saw the family, sitting around the cleared table with the Bible already open in front of my uncle, I knew I'd wasted my efforts. Annie had used the time well. She was sitting in the privileged position beside Aunt Blair, rocking Andrew in her arms, while Nanny leaned against her side, sucking her thumb contentedly. Tam had retreated to a stool by the fire and looked up at me with his eyes full of misery and apology. Grizel stood beside him, frowning, her arms crossed on her chest. She gave me a grim little nod, as if to tell me that she, for one, hadn't fallen under Annie's spell. Martha still hovered by the door.

Uncle Blair looked at me gravely as I slipped into my usual place on the bench, with my back to the wall.

"Come here, you dear little thing," Annie cooed to Martha, "and sit by me."

But Martha scrambled onto the bench beside me, cramming herself against me and flinching from Annie's outstretched hand. Uncle Blair frowned, not liking a display of feeling at prayer time.

"From the Gospel according to Luke," he said, and began to read. "
'What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if
he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.'
"

He looked across at Annie, who with Andrew's rosy face nestled in her arms and Nanny, now twisting one of Annie's curls around her finger, made a picture of sweet goodness that curdled the blood in my veins.

"The angels in Heaven tonight are rejoicing over your repentance, Annie," Uncle Blair said with a happy smile, "as we, too, rejoice. And we will pray for our dear Maggie, that the Lord will work in her heart and bring her to forgive the wrongs that you have done her."

When the long, long prayers were over at last, it was time for bed.

"Grizel, you will sleep in the other room," Aunt Blair said. "Annie will share the box bed with Maggie."

I said nothing, but I pulled Grizel back as she went into the other room.

"Go back to our bed," I whispered to her. "I'd rather share a ditch with a mad dog than sleep in the same bed as her."

Grizel grinned at me.

"Don't blame you either."

"Where are you going, Maggie?" Aunt Blair called out as I opened the door to the next room.

I managed to smile meekly.

"Annie will sleep better without me beside her," I said. "I'm an awful one for wriggling in bed."

She gave me a sharp look but said only, "Well, dear, take a blanket from the press and a pillow too."

I didn't even try to sleep. I lay on my back, looking into the rafters with unseeing eyes, my mind seething with anger and anxiety.

Tam stole into the room so quietly that I didn't know he was there until he laid his hand on my arm, making me start up in fright.

"Shhh, Maidie, it's only me," he whispered. "I've come to say goodbye."

"What do you mean, goodbye?" I hissed back at him. "Tam, why have you done this to me? Why did you bring her here?"

The pale light of a full moon seeped into the room around the ill-fitting shutter, and in its dim glow I could see him look back anxiously toward the door.

"Be careful. She'll hear." His fingers were trembling. "I'd swear she can hear through walls of stone. Oh, Maidie, she made me bring her here! I didn't want to—not at all! After you'd escaped, I knew I had to get off the island too. I wanted to go to Glasgow, where a piper can always pick up a groat or two. But she latched on to me. She forced me to bring her along."

"Forced you!" I said sarcastically. "How could a girl force a grown man like you?"

"You don't know what she's like." He was shuddering all over now. "She was a sweet wee thing at first, all soft and kind. She took me in. And it was true, she couldn't travel alone without a man to help her. I was sorry for her, with the baby coming and all. But when we got to Glasgow, she ... she..."

"She got rid of it, didn't she, Tam?"

"Yes! There was an old woman who used some herbs and did what she was paid to do—you'd not want to know more, Maggie. And after that, Annie turned on me and said if I didn't do what she asked, she'd say I'd caused her to abort her child with witchcraft. She'd got your Granny hanged, and she'd do the same to me."

"But why did she want to come here? What does she want with me?"

"She didn't have anywhere else to go. You're the only person she knows on the mainland. She knew that your uncle was a well-set-up man. Respected. What can a girl do, alone in the world? She reckons she can worm her way in here and make them like her, so they'll speak for her to a respectable family. She wants a good position as a servant, and then she'll try to catch herself a husband. She'll be after that cousin of yours, I can tell you." He covered his face with his hands. "I wish I was a better man, my darling! I wish I was a braver one! I wish I hadn't brought this trouble on you!"

I could never stay angry with Tam for long. I put out my arms and hugged his poor, thin, trembling old body.

"Where will you go, Tam?"

"Eh? I don't know. Anywhere. Everywhere. Edinburgh, maybe."

"But where are your pipes? Have you lost them?"

I saw the shine of his solitary front tooth as he grinned.

"I hid them in a haystack down by the lane. Your uncle's not the man to appreciate my music, so I thought."

"God bless you, then, Tam," I whispered. "I'll never forget how you saved me from the gallows."

But I was speaking to an empty room. He had already slipped away.

Tam's disappearance hardly made a stir the next morning.

"Where's old Tam?" Uncle Blair asked, looking around vaguely as we took our places at the table for morning prayers. "Did he slip away in the night like the wee shadow he is?"

Annie pursed her lips.

"He's not a very
good
person, I'm afraid."

I had to clamp my mouth shut to stop myself from flying out at her, and in doing so I bit my tongue, which hurt so much that I couldn't have spoken, anyway.

"I'm sorry he's gone," Uncle Blair said. "I would have liked to express my gratitude in due form. He was wonderfully brave to rescue our dear Maggie as he did from the Rothesay tolbooth, even though he had to tell untruths to achieve it. And he was clever also to send her off the island with that good man Archie Lithgow."

I could see that Annie didn't like that. Her eyes shifted from side to side as she tried to think of a dart to prick me with, but fortunately Uncle Blair had already opened the Bible and had begun to read.

There was a stir at the door as we finished our breakfast, and Mr. Barbour, our stout, red- faced neighbor, came in. My uncle jumped up from the table with unusual eagerness, almost upsetting his bowl.

"What is it, Stephen? Has he come?"

"Has who come?" asked Aunt Blair, bewildered.

"Mr. Renwick! It's Mr. Renwick, isn't it?" Ritchie said eagerly. "Is he in Kilmacolm already?"

She frowned at him.

"Mind your tongue, Ritchie. Maggie, Grizel, get along to the barn and look for eggs. Take Annie and show her where the hens like to lay. Go on!"

She almost shooed us out of the kitchen.

Annie lingered by door, pretending that she'd dropped something and was looking for it, but I saw that she was only trying to eavesdrop. I dragged her away.

"Ouch! Don't hold my arm so tight. You're hurting me," she complained.

I let go reluctantly. I was longing to get her away from the house, so that at last, out of earshot of the family, I could pour out my fury. Grizel looked from me to Annie and back again.

"Never mind the eggs. I'll gather them in," she said with one of her jerky nods, and went into the barn.

Annie dodged my arm, trying to follow her.

"No, you don't," I said. "You're coming with me."

She hesitated, then shrugged, and followed with surprising meekness as I led her down to the kail yard, out of sight and hearing of the house.

"Maggie, listen," she began, as soon as we reached the rows of sprouting cabbages.

"No. You listen to me." I knew her poisoned tongue. She'd got around me cleverly, the night we'd met on the shore of Bute, with her tears and her entreaties. I was determined to speak first before she could try her tricks on me again. She had the sense, I could see, not to try and rouse my pity again.