Page 6 of The Midnight Secret

Death was coming again to St Kilda.

Chapter Two

Jayne watched from the rocks as the men brought over the last of the animals to board theDunara Castle. They had been going back and forth in the smack for two days, bringing down the sheep from An Lag in small groupings, and Hamish had caught a black eye off one particularly angry ewe who kicked while he rowed. Now they were towing the cows behind the small boat, ropes looped around their horns as they mooed in bleak protest. Jayne had never seen such a curious sight, and she wondered what the animals must make of it all; they had no context for the historic event of which they were a part. They didn’t know the beginning of the end had begun.

Wooden trunks now sat outside every door, looms and spinning wheels were set against the walls, the slates cleaned in the schoolhouse, the hearths gradually growing cool. Every family was down to one cooking pot, one wash pot, their beds and tables and chairs. The rest of their worldly belongings were packed, and for the first time in their lives the villagers felt themselves held in a state of abeyance – no longer fully here, but not yet left. She saw how everyone kept looking out to the bay, as if checking the cargo ship was still there or else keeping an eye out for theHarebellthat was coming to spirit them away tomorrow. She sensed they were half expecting amessage to come that it was all off, a misunderstanding; they’d be staying here after all.

But with every passing hour, that likelihood was fading. Amid the teeming activity in the glen, realization was sinking in that this really was their final day in their ancestral homeland.

That there was no chance of rain made the transition simpler. The skies were baked a deep sapphire blue, the late summer sun pulsing down on a languid sea. Jayne looked around as she knitted, watching the buttercups and pink thrift nodding in the meadows, hearing the wrens singing loudly from hidden crevices in the dyke, and thought St Kilda had never looked more beautiful. Was this her goodbye? An apology for the harsh winter and all the others before it, which had taken so much from them? Or perhaps she was trying to make them stay, beguiling them with warmth and comfort and pretty views.

Only the seabirds were unmoved, whirling in their thousands in a white lattice in the sky and shrieking at one another as they dived for fish to bring back to the colonies on the cliffs. For them, life would grow easier now too. After tomorrow they would be predators and not prey; no more men on ropes snatching their eggs or grabbing at their necks.

Jayne heard footsteps, the rustle of a skirt, and looked back to see Rachel MacKinnon making her way over the rocks. ‘Of all the things I shall miss about this place, one shall be this familiar sight of you on the rocks,’ the woman said with her apple-cheeked smile.

‘Rachel,’ Jayne grinned. ‘No wee ones?’ Rachel had nine children in all, the youngest being only eleven months. It was so rare to see her without them, it was like she was missing a limb.

Rachel settled herself on the smooth rock beside her, tanned feet and slim ankles peeking from her skirt. A look of calmsettled upon her face as she looked out to sea and gave a happy sigh. She tossed her red hair back and looked over at Jayne. ‘Ian’s taken them up to the gap for a last look...He said it’s for them to remember, but really it’s for him.’

‘Aye. Norman’s been the same. He’s been out almost every hour for the past few days.’ She had heard him stir from the bed a few hours after their nightly ritual, when he had supposed her asleep. He’d moved soundlessly for a big man, only the click of the latch on the front door telling her he’d gone back outside as the moon shone. ‘He says he’s helping Mathieson, but whenever I catch a sighting of him he’s up a slope, taking in the views.’

‘And he was one of the keenest to leave, too!’

‘He was,’ Jayne nodded. ‘I think the service tonight will be fair heavy in spirit.’

‘Aye,’ Rachel sighed, watching closely as the Gillies’ cow was hoisted, helpless, onto the boat. ‘The Reverend’s not stepped outside today.’ She gave a small groan. ‘I imagine he’ll be wanting this sermon to frighten the devil from our heads, with all the temptation we’ve ahead of us now.’

Temptation: it was an alien concept for a community that had only ever focused on existence. Lorna’s promises of more and better, once only a mirage, were slowly beginning to take on solid forms. For the younger men, that meant the new lassies they would soon meet, while the older men talked of earning a wage and feeling the weight of coins in their pockets; the children wanted to see motor cars and go to the pictures; the women dreamt of a wireless, hot running water and private lavatories.

The two women sat in companionable silence for a while. Jayne had – uncharacteristically – dropped a stitch on the last row, and she went back, rehooking it on the needle. Of course,she knew perfectly well she no longer needed to knit any socks. There would be no more tourists to buy her wares before they departed now, and the rent quotas for MacLeod had been fulfilled, the barrels of fulmar oil and sacks of sheep wool, tweeds and feathers assessed already by the factor in the featherstore and now loaded onto the ship. But knitting was the only way she knew to quell her restless spirit. It concealed her shaking hands and gave her body something to do as she waited for the clock to run down and fate to run its course. It was the only way she could appear normal as she alone anticipated the swing of the blade.

‘Your Mhairi’s been working hard on the high slopes,’ she said. ‘She and Effie have done a fine job of bringing the flocks over.’

‘Aye. I’ve missed her, but it looks like Donald’s plan to send the girls over there for the lambing wasn’t so harebrained after all. They only lost three in total and there were plenty of triplets. Did I hear right, we’re twenty-eight over last year?’

‘That’s what Norman told me.’

‘So then we’ll make some coins at the roup between us all. We needn’t have fretted so much after the sheep drama—’ She stopped herself, her hand shooting out to Jayne’s arm in quick apology.

‘It’s all right,’ Jayne said. ‘I know what y’ meant.’ Over sixty sheep had been lost in that snow storm, but the successful lambings this spring had more than made up the numbers. It meant Molly’s death had been needless; they could have all stayed indoors that fateful day and they’d have still come out with a profit this summer. ‘No sign of Flora, of course.’

‘Aye,’ Rachel said in a sombre tone. Terrible news had come in the past few days, which had laid the girl low. Flora’s fiancé, James Callaghan, a rich businessman from Glasgow,had been on an expedition to Greenland, but word had come that his ship had been caught and crushed in the ice. ‘Lorna says she took the news awful bad. It must have been made all the worse by the fact that she was so close to being reunited with him. She was right on the cusp of stepping into her new life.’

‘Has Christina been over to see her?’

‘She tried, but Mhairi told her Flora’s gone to Cambir Point. She wants to be alone for a while.’

‘She didn’t even want to see her own mother?’ Jayne asked, surprised. Flora and Christina had always been so close.

‘That’s what Christina was told,’ Rachel shrugged. ‘And with things so busy here, it was difficult anyway to spare the time to get over there. At least she’ll see her tomorrow, no matter what. And Flora’s got Mhairi with her, so she’s not alone over there.’

Jayne started on a new row of stitches.

Rachel lay back on her elbows, enjoying the sea view. ‘Did y’ hear Mary’s tightenings have started?’

‘No!’ Jayne gasped. ‘Will the baby come today?’

Rachel shrugged again. ‘Lorna’s been monitoring her most of the day but she says her waters are still intact, so she’s probably a way off yet. Y’ know what it’s like with firstborns; they tend to drag their heels.’

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