Pat McIntosh - The Stolen Voice

‘He was an innocent. He’d likely go straight into Our Lady’s arms, for I ken he was baptised, so he’s in a better place and his people are better without him and all.’

‘But surely — ’ Alys had protested. The older woman looked pityingly at her across her needlework.

‘Out here, the way they work the land, they’re never more than one bad summer away from famine. It’s a thought to feed a bairn that willny work for you in its turn.’

She heard her own voice, talking to Gil. I may not know about country life, but I have lived in towns all my days . Quite so, she thought.

‘So it was the Good Neighbours,’ she said aloud.

‘It was. And Dalriach might as well blame the fire on them and all, if it stops Caterin making trouble for young David. What do you think of that matter now? Sìne tells me he has spent the day in the loft in the kirk and won’t come down.’

‘I think the Good Neighbours may take Davie back soon as well.’

‘Do you now?’ Lady Stewart’s needle was arrested again. ‘Even though Patrick has accepted him?’

‘Maybe because Patrick has accepted him.’

So now she stood near the edge of the circular kirkyard, too hot in her best black velvet headdress with the gold wire braid and a great black cloak borrowed from her hostess, and watched while Andrew Drummond, in the vestments out of the kist in the priest’s house, committed his mother and his nephew to the earth. He was dry-eyed, his harsh voice giving nothing away; round him the men of the family in their best clothes watched solemnly, Jamie Beag and Patrick, Davie with Murdo Dubh beside him. The other men of Dalriach were present, a stranger in plaid and feathered bonnet who must be the son-in-law, and a few men of the Kirkton still in their working shirts, but none of the folk from the glen, and no women at all apart from herself and Lady Stewart, not even the boy’s mother.

‘They’ll bury Sir Duncan tomorrow,’ said Lady Stewart. Alys nodded; that much she could understand. St Angus’ fair had been postponed till after the priest’s burial; the entire parish would wish to see Sir Duncan to his grave and be at the fair as well, and three days in a row away from the harvest was too much.

Robert was present in the kirkyard too. He had acted as Andrew’s clerk for the Mass. Watching him now, Alys recognized that he had placed himself where he need not see Davie Drummond, though every so often he could not help looking for him. Davie, on the other hand, was conspicuously not looking at Robert.

‘I’m glad to see Robert about,’ said Lady Stewart. ‘Sìne says he never crossed the threshold of Sir Duncan’s house yesterday, either, I feared he was going to fall into melancholy. He’s done well by the old man, poor laddie. It’s been a hard road for him.’

Alys nodded again, thinking of the moments before Sir Duncan died, and then of Lady Stewart’s reply when she had asked about the red-haired man.

‘Red hair?’ she had said. ‘No, I don’t think so. Most of our people are dark, except the MacGregors, and he doesn’t sound like any MacGregor I can think of. And if Sìne’s right he was up at Dalriach and all,’ she added thoughtfully.

‘He was going bald. His hair was back behind his ears.’ Alys demonstrated the retracted hairline.

‘What was his accent? Ersche or Scots?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alys said in dawning disbelief. ‘He just spoke to me. That’s strange, I can usually tell the difference.’

The mourners were tossing clods of earth into the grave. Sir William stirred, and muttered a prayer, then strode forward to say something appropriate and accept the invitation to ride back to Dalriach. Lady Stewart crossed herself and said:

‘That’s over, then. It’ll no be the same in Glenbuckie without her.’

‘I suppose Mòr will take her place,’ said Alys deliberately.

‘It will hardly be Caterin,’ said the other woman. Alys nodded. The whole of Balquhidder was buzzing with the news the ubiquitous Sìne had brought her mistress yesterday, of how, while the young Drummonds were down at the Eagleis Beag in the twilight, watching the deathbed with the rest of Sir Duncan’s parish, a tall, broad-shouldered stranger had walked into Dalriach, summoned Caterin from her house out into the yard, and spoken to her sternly. Curiously, nobody had got a close sight of the man, and there were many different versions of what he had said, overheard from one corner or another. Caterin herself was no help; she had not uttered a word since, and seemed unable to make any sound at all except, so Sìne reported, a wordless singing of one of the hymns to St Angus.

‘I’d best visit her, I suppose,’ continued Lady Stewart. ‘What is it, Murdo?’

Murdo Dubh replaced his feathered bonnet in order to take it off to them both.

‘The Drummonds are wondering,’ he said obliquely, ‘if Mistress Alys could be sparing them a little longer of her time. In the kirk, if you would be able.’

She looked at him, and then eastward, to where the road out of the glen lifted to the Beannachd Angus stone. Three horsemen — only three? — had halted by the stone. She glanced at Lady Stewart, who nodded slightly.

‘I’d be honoured,’ she said. Who were the riders? she wondered as she picked her way past the open grave. Who was missing? One of them had not uncovered his head, surely that one was Gil?

The interior of the kirk was dark after the sunshine, and full of Drummond men standing about awkwardly in silence. She followed Murdo in, and Andrew’s harsh voice said, ‘I thought this was a family matter.’

‘Mistress Alys is a good friend to the family,’ said Patrick, which did not strike Alys as an adequate answer. Andrew appeared to think the same way, for he snorted and flung away into the chancel where he began extinguishing candles.

‘I wished her here,’ said Davie. Behind Alys the door was still swinging ponderously shut. The daylight flickered as if a branch stirred across the opening. ‘I have a thing to say to you all,’ he went on, swallowing hard.

‘I am thinking we mostly know it,’ said Patrick after a moment.

‘What, that I’m not — ’

‘I never thought it,’ said the brother-in-law, ‘nor herself neither.’

‘That you are not our brother David.’ Alys’s eyes were becoming used to the gloom, and she saw the glance Patrick cast at Andrew, who was still moving about in the chancel.

‘David is my father,’ said Davie.

‘We thought that must be it. Is he well?’

‘He has the joint-ill, but otherwise he’s well. He sends you his greetings.’

The conversation seemed quite unreal. Alys stood watching, gauging the reactions of the men present. Patrick was solemn; Jamie was still stiff and embarrassed; Murdo was puzzled. Davie was braced like a crossbow.

‘Why?’ asked Patrick.

‘Why did I deceive you?’ There was a break in the voice, as if Davie would weep on little more provocation. ‘I never planned to, I swear it. But the cailleach took me for — and then how could I — ’

‘Och, no, that’s a wee thing,’ said Patrick. ‘It gave her such pleasure to think you had come home, it’s easy enough forgiven. But why did you come?’

‘My father dreamed,’ Davie swallowed. ‘He dreamed of the house in flames. Three times he dreamed it, and he was wishing to come home and — and warn you all, or see what had come to you — but he had so much to do, and he — he sent me instead.’

‘But then the — the Good Folk set fire to the Tigh-an-Teine,’ said Jamie slowly, ‘only because you were here.’

There was a long, long pause. Then Davie Drummond slowly tipped his head back and howled, one deafening syllable of denial. Alys jumped forward and seized him by the arms, and Murdo Dubh grabbed his shoulders.