The Skylark's Secret(83)
Flora begged him not to go, but the very next day Ruaridh marched down to the base and asked for a transfer to the escort ships. And, because they needed a signalman, he was given a berth on the Cassandra, whose name indeed turned out to be a portent of doom. Ruaridh was lost as the last-but-one convoy was returning to Loch Ewe after a safe run through to Murmansk, the ship’s bows shot away by a German torpedo.
And so it was that the next time Mr McTaggart cycled along the road towards Ardtuath, he passed the gates of the estate and turned in at Keeper’s Cottage with the telegram that would break – again – the hearts of Iain and Flora, just three months after they’d learned the news of Alec.
‘So that was it, then,’ I say, once I’ve digested the story that my mother’s best friends have told me. The tragedy of it makes me want to weep.
No wonder Mum found it hard to talk about my father. She must have felt so guilty about writing that awful letter to him. About him sailing to his death not knowing how much he was loved.
Then the awful realisation hits me, too, that she might have felt responsible for her own brother’s death. Sir Charles’s fury at Alec’s love for Flora must have played a part in his grief-stricken rage, detonating his outburst at Ruaridh. Both my father and my uncle were war heroes, but now I understand how complex Mum’s feelings must have been about the part she imagined she’d played in their deaths.
And, in the end, what had it all been for? Could we ever really have belonged in the world of the Mackenzie-Grants? Mum’s last faint hope of that ever coming to pass died with Alec. She never met anyone else. Many of the men who left their Highland homes to fight in that war never returned, so there was another generation of women, just like there’d been in the aftermath of the previous war, whose prospects of marriage were slim to none. Mum had been one of those single women, living her quiet life in the little lochside community among the hills, bringing me up in Keeper’s Cottage with Grandad, until he died just after my fifth birthday.
I sit in silence for a while, mulling it all over. But at last I ask, ‘What happened to the Aultbea Songbirds?’
‘We never sang in public again, apart from in the kirk, after Alec and Ruaridh died.’ Mairi’s voice sounds softly wistful. ‘But, Lexie, it meant so much to your mum when you won that scholarship to the school in London. She felt then that you were being given the opportunity she’d never had. To share your voice with the world.’
I know her words are meant kindly, but I wince, feeling even worse now that I’ve let them all down. And my mum in particular. She’d been careful never to put pressure on me, but now I can see how much my career must have meant to her – so much more than I’d ever realised.
I pick up the photo of Mum with the wind blowing her hair and the sun on her face, her expression full of a love that was taken from her so brutally. Then I set it back on the mantelpiece with a sigh. As I look round, I catch Bridie and Mairi exchanging a glance.
‘What?’ I ask.
Bridie shakes her head and presses her lips together, as if the words might escape, unbidden, unless she refuses to let them.
But Mairi reaches across and pats her hand. ‘It’s time she knew the full story, Bridie. So she can understand.’
‘Understand what?’ I say, my eyes darting from one face to the other.
Bridie’s expression is wary, closed off as she tries, one last time, to keep the secret that she’s held tight for so many years. Almost thirty-four years, to be precise: my lifetime. But Mairi nods, encouraging. And so, reluctantly, Bridie tells me the rest.
Flora, 1944
Iain glanced over at Flora as he finished his breakfast. ‘You don’t have to come, you know.’
She reached for the teapot and topped up his cup. ‘I’m coming with you, Dad, and that’s the end of it. You can’t manage the garron as well as the guns up there with Sir Charles. You know what he’s like; he has his heart set on his Christmas venison. Even if he hadn’t asked you to bring me along to help with the stalking, I’d have wanted to lend you a hand.’
Her father blew the steam from his tea and looked at her over the rim of his cup. ‘Are you sure you’re up to it, lass? Not still feeling too wabbit?’
Automatically, Flora laid a hand on the rounding of her belly. She was only four months along, but she’d discovered that she’d not been able to button her trousers that morning. She found a belt in Ruaridh’s drawers, which had still never been emptied – neither of them had had the heart yet – that would do to hold them up. ‘I’ll be fine, Dad, honestly. I’m not so sick these days, and I’ll only be sitting quietly with the garron while you go up to the ridge.’
Neither of them needed the reminder that there was no one else now, in any case, with Alec and Ruaridh gone. The Laverock boys, though they had proven themselves dogged and determined beaters on grouse and pheasant drives, were still on the young side to have the patience and the stamina for stalking.
She stood, clearing the bowls into the sink, and then handed her father a newspaper-wrapped packet of sandwiches for his pocket. She pulled on her jacket and threw her plaid shawl over her shoulders, partly for warmth and partly to help conceal the swell of her stomach from Sir Charles. She didn’t want to add to his rage and grief at the loss of his only son with the news that the gamekeeper’s daughter was carrying his grandchild. She’d been tempted to tell Lady Helen, who might have been glad to know a part of Alec lived on, but the last time she had seen her at a meeting of the Rural, Flora had turned away, unconsciously shielding her belly with a protective arm, worried that the dark purple bruise on her ladyship’s cheekbone might be supplemented with worse if Sir Charles’s anger were to be further compounded.