Little Bird Flies Read online

  “Mr Simpson did this?” she asks, though she knows my answer is to be yes. No one else but the schoolteacher has an instrument so thin and harsh and takes such pleasure in using it. “Let me see your other hand…”

  I lift the arm that is weak, and see tears prickle in Effie’s eyes as she beholds the marks on my withered hand.

  That irks me; I will not have pity. To use her words and Mother’s, my hand is what it is and serves me well enough. I am about to whip it away from her gaze when she lets go an apron corner, allowing the leftover bannocks to tumble, and wraps both her hands around mine, rubbing them as if her care will make the weals disappear.

  “Oh, listen, George has heard news that will cheer you,” Effie says as she rubs, making my heart quicken. “A fisherman from the mainland says that Mr Simpson is leaving the parish. He is to take himself off to Australia for a new life!”

  Ah, my heart heaves with joy – to be free of our schoolteacher is a Beltane blessing indeed! But behind the joy, my dark secret burbles and belches, turning the joy sour. For I suddenly ache to have the freedom that Mr Simpson has lying yawning before him for the taking…

  “Does that not please you, Bridie?” Effie says, frowning a little, not understanding why a shadow has passed across my eyes.

  “It does, it does indeed!” I tell her, pushing the searing jealousy away and forcing myself to smile. “Now, shall we do as Lachlan and the others have done and roll our bannocks?”

  Effie’s face lights up in a wondrous, childlike way, banishing for once her tight, often-cross countenance. For a moment, I recognise the dear playmate she was to me, before Mother left us. Her hands suddenly dropping away from my fingers, she cries, “Mine will reach the bottom first!”

  And with that, she bends and scoops a fallen bannock, rolling it after the children that are already lowping and shrieking their way down the slope towards the music and the gathering below.

  I grab another discarded bannock and toss it too, scampering down the hill in a zigzagging style – like the scuttle of a crab, Will calls it – so as to keep my balance.

  A breathless few moments later the ground beneath my bare feet flattens out, and I toss the hair away from my face the better to see where my bannock has settled.

  But what I see is a company of children standing so forlorn, staring down at the ground as if they are beholding some terrible misfortune.

  “Bridie!” Lachlan calls out to me. “The bannocks, they are all broken or crossed, every one of them!”

  “Every one of them…” Effie repeats his words in dark wonder, as two of the littlest girls cling to her skirts and snivel. “This is a bad omen, is it not?”

  “This is simply bread, is it not,” I retort sharply, keen to quell the rising emotion I sense growing.

  “Little Bird is right,” says Mr Menzies, joining us with his warm smile and his arms wide, as if appealing for calm. “This is just bread, and this is just a game, a jest.”

  “What is happening here?” says a soft, high voice, and I turn to see we are joined by the girl, Mr Palmer-Reeves’ daughter.

  This close, I have the scent of her; a piercing, sweet smell, like some kind of perfumed flower. The bonnet she wears, made of a brushed felt the colour of buttermilk, is dotted with clusters of cloth roses. Beneath its brim, perfect curls of golden hair frame her face. I think she might be the most remarkable thing I have ever come across, and I instantly regret the fleeting bitter thoughts I entertained at the top of the slope.

  “Ah, Miss Kitty,” says the Laird, bending to pick up a bannock, “you see before you a very old tradition the children enjoy. Most of the time!”

  Miss Kitty? I roll the English name around in my head and decide I like the trill of it.

  “My!” says Miss Kitty, blinking at the bannock the Laird has passed to her. “How very … silly!”

  With that, her gloved fingers daintily drop the bannock to the ground as if she’d been given a cowpat to hold. And in that instant I realise this Miss Kitty is remarkable – remarkable in her likeness to her awful, grasping father.

  “Oh!” murmurs Mr Menzies, taken aback. “Well! Um, well, I think it is perhaps time we made merry and danced… Here, Little Bird, I’ll take you for my partner in this jig!”

  I know that I am a favourite of the Laird’s, and I am happy for that, and happy to be this generous gentleman’s partner. Happy to walk towards the dancers on his arm as the rude, golden-haired girl watches.

  At a wave from Mr Menzies, the musicians play louder and faster and I am pulled into a sudden crowd of dancers, skipping and spinning and tossing skirts around me.

  “Bravo, Little Bird!” Mr Menzies laughs and claps his hands, as I skip and spin and toss my skirts with the best of them.

  From the corner of my eye I see that Miss Kitty and her party are all staring at us with faint disgust, as if faced with some drab herd of beasts in a zoological menagerie.

  But I choose to care not. Encouraged by the Laird’s applause, I do another full spin. And yet, though it is done at speed, with my skirt and petticoat fanning around me, I have the strangest sensation.

  It is as if all around me the world is quite slowed. Slowed enough to note clearly the faces of the people around me, young and old, musician and dancer, crofter and visitor.

  Each one portrays such an expression of surprise! But wait; it is more than that, much more. It is horror.

  And as my oddly torpid circling spins me back around to face my partner in the jig, I see what this horror is about.

  At my feet lies the Laird, groaning, clutching his chest.

  In a lightning moment, Father and the other elders rush to his aid, and I am jostled this way and that, like seaweed in the current.

  “What is happening? What is wrong with him?” Mr Palmer-Reeves bellows, hurrying towards the throng of helpers.

  I see Father slowly rise, tears clearly visible in his blue eyes.

  “It is no use, sir,” Father says in English.

  For a moment my muddled mind is fixed in Gaelic and does not listen clearly to the meaning of what Father has said. Or maybe it is because I cannot trust that I do understand it, not when I see Mr Palmer-Reeves’ reaction. For what decent man would turn to his family and raise his eyebrows, as if he has just heard some surprisingly good news?

  And what wife and child, along with a lawyer friend of supposed high standing, would return similar looks – or even risk a small, victorious smile, as Miss Kitty has just done?

  Only the grandmother, the Black Crow, seems to sway and need steadying by her maid. Though what odd emotion might have caused that, I do not care to guess at, for I trust none in that party to have a normal, decent human feeling.

  But my gaze is torn from the loathsome visitors when I see the other elders follow Father’s lead, rising forlornly to their feet and pulling the caps from their bowed heads.

  It is then that poor Mr Menzies is visible to me again. He is lying straight and still, his wise old eyes wide open, though they see nothing of the blue sky above him.

  A stunned moment of silence hangs over the gathered islanders, before the waves of grief that are sure to come.

  And in that moment, I swear that all the birds of Tornish cry out in a chorus of sorrow and loss.

  This Little Bird tilts her head back, opens her throat and joins them.

  CHAPTER 5

  The rain has pummelled down all day.

  Heavy sheets of it fell on the long slow funeral procession.

  It drummed steadily on the roof of the packed little church during the service, practically drowning out the sweet Gaelic hymns Mr Menzies always found so moving.

  And at the graveside, it matched the flowing tears and quickly turned the earth to a sludge of mud around our feet.

  It hammers down still, now on the patiently standing men in the yard of the Big House.

  “Ishbel?” I whisper, since it is a day for low voices. “Why does he leave them this way?”

  The �
��he” I speak of is Mr Palmer-Reeves, who Father and the other island elders are awaiting, so that they can pay their respects.

  “Perhaps he knows nothing of our ways,” says Ishbel, straightening the dry skirt I have brought her, so that she does not walk through the corridors of the house with the mud-soaked one she wore to the funeral earlier.

  I stare out of the window at Father and the men, who are posed like steady soldiers, silent, eyes front, hands clasped in front of them, acting as if they are unaware of the rain that runs down their necks and drips from their beards. Whatever my sister says, I cannot think that paying respects is a tradition that is not understood in a worldly place such as London, where Mr Palmer-Reeves hails from. Where I wish he would return to.

  “Shouldn’t someone tell him they are there?” I beseech her.

  I see Ishbel and Mistress Matheson exchange looks.

  “Mr Palmer-Reeves knows full well that they stand there,” Ishbel says, her cheeks looking more hollow than usual.

  “And he chooses instead to drink whisky and smoke cigars and have a fine old time with that lawyer friend of his,” grumbles Mistress Matheson, gazing out worriedly at her own soaked husband.

  “Well, I think they cannot call themselves gentlemen,” I mutter blackly.

  “It is not your place to think any such thing,” Ishbel says angrily, as she ties a fresh apron around her waist. “We have a new Laird and we must just bear it.”

  A rage boils within me, for I do not know how I can bear it. This time last week, I was tearing down the side of the Glas Crags, my heart soaring with possibilities, expecting a day I would never forget. How could I know it was to be the first day when the island would change for the worse?

  “Listen, while you’re here, Bridie, will you go upstairs and fetch something?” says Mistress Matheson. “Maude, the maid girl to the ladies, says there is some mess left lying outside Miss Kitty’s door. It seems it is below Maude to deal with it herself.”

  Truth be told, I do not wish to step further into the house. I do not wish to come across the new Laird, who cared not one jot for the old Laird. I do not wish to see any of the ladies, who chose not to attend the funeral just because of the weather, fearing their pretty dresses might be spoiled.

  I just want to rush outside, take Father’s arm and go home.

  But Mistress Matheson and Ishbel look worn to the bones with work and grief, and so of course I do as I am bid. Hoping the dog is safe shut in the drawing room with its master, I quickly pad up the dark back stairs and find myself once again on the landing of the floor above.

  In a blink, I have hurried past the Black Crow’s room, past more doors to unseen rooms, past a grand staircase with thick polished bannister – the stairs for the rich folk, of course – and am headed towards the far end of the corridor. There, a large window spills light on to a mound of something by a closed door.

  Coming close, I see the mound is a white pillow, though it is clearly stained. And beside it, a broken cup that must have contained tea or coffee.

  Just as I bend to take it, wondering how this mishap might have happened, a shrill screech of fury and a smashing sound makes me leap away from the door.

  “Shh! My darling, quiet yourself!” says a voice inside.

  “How can I, Mama!” I hear Miss Kitty say sharply. “I tell you, I will not stay here. We must go back to London. Just because we now own this drab island, it doesn’t mean it must be our home!”

  “My sweet,” Mrs Palmer-Reeves tries to console her. “Your father just explained it to you. We dared not tell you of his money worries before, but now, inheriting this place solves our problems. We can rent out the London house, and live here for a year or two quite comfortably. And by then, Papa’s business interests will be fully recovered, I’m sure, and––”

  “But if we had money worries, why did Papa take in that stupid woman in the first place?”

  There is a creak on the wooden treads behind me, and the sound of a little gasp. I hardly dare turn round, and yet I do – and see the Black Crow standing at the top of the grand staircase, a gloved hand to her lace veil.

  She has heard the loud, harshly spoken words, it seems, and has recognised herself in the mean description just given.

  Still, it is not my place to be here, or to be seen to be eavesdropping. And so with trembling hands, I grab the pillow and broken teacup and scurry past the statue-still old lady with a muttered, “Pardon me”, as I head towards the servants’ staircase.

  “Oh, what a waste of a bonnie cup!” sighs Mistress Matheson as I hurtle downstairs and into the haven of the kitchen and drop my burden on the wooden table.

  “Here … for your trouble,” says Ishbel, handing me a thick slice of ham from a leg she is carving.

  But I have no taste for it. Instead, I shake my head, throw my thick shawl over me and slip out of the back door.

  Father studies me as I walk towards him and the other good men that stand with him. His soaked red hair and beard are darkened to a deep rust.

  “Away home with you now, Bridie,” he says softly. “It is not a day to be out if you can help it.”

  Staring up at his strong face, I feel my own rage returning, that a man like he and the other elders might be ignored in such a callous way.

  “Father, it is not fair!” I announce.

  “Aye, but it is what it is, my dear,” he says calmly.

  Something about him using Mother’s words makes my anger rise … but this time it is directed towards Father and Mr Matheson and Mr Beaton and the others. They are strong-minded, true-hearted men; why do they not stand up to a feeble character like Mr Palmer-Reeves?

  “Because it is the way of the Highlands,” I practically hear Mother patiently telling me, telling us all as we grew up. “Forever, folk lived in clans, with a chieftain to watch over them, like a father to his family. And Mr Menzies might be a laird in a suit and not a great chieftain with a kilt and sword, but he treats us well, does he not?”

  Not every father is kind, though; and just as some chieftains of the distant past must have been bullies and rogues, we know from the nearer past of the Highlands that plenty of lairds have treated their folk more like beasts of the fields than humans.

  And we may well have one of that type about to rule over us now, which makes me want to fly off from Tornish even more, and get every islander to rise like a flock and leave with me!

  But we are flightless, stuck, trapped.

  CHAPTER 6

  When she has clouded thoughts, who else should a girl confide in, if not her mother?

  “I am trying to be like you and be accepting of the way things are … but it is hard,” I say, as I set the posy of wild flowers by Mother’s small headstone. “And I am not the only one struggling. Effie - she is worse than ever! She is seeing signs in every overcast sky, every burnt oatcake, every hen that does not lay. She is certain that bad times are ahead, and because of it her temper … oh, her temper is high indeed!”

  Father has tried to calm my sister but she will not settle. Though I know he too worries what the future may hold. It has been near a month since Mr Menzies’ funeral, and yet Mr Palmer-Reeves chooses not to become familiar with his tenants. He has been back and forth to the mainland, seeing to legal matters, Father presumes. And this week past the whole family were gone to Glasgow, where Mrs Palmer-Reeves and Miss Kitty planned to buy some “better” things for the house, she announced to Mistress Matheson before they left.

  In the new Laird’s absence, across the island, the mood is very brooding, as they worry what his plans will be for the place. And now that Mr Simpson has packed away his hateful cane and taken his leave of the school, the islanders know not when the next teacher will arrive for the benefit of their children, as the new Laird must organise that with the school authorities. But is that something he would bother himself to do? He certainly didn’t bother to see Father and the other elders that afternoon in the rain, after the funeral.

  Yet undau
nted, Father has promised the people of the townships that he and the other elders will ask for a meeting with Mr Palmer-Reeves as soon as is possible. But until then, the only thing certain is that this afternoon, a boat is expected, bringing Mr Palmer-Reeves and his family and their “better things” to us, for good or for ill.

  “And Ishbel, well, she is so very quiet that I wish she would shout and scold me so that I recognise my own sister,” I carry on to Mother. “Of course, she is worrying that the new Laird may wish to dispense with the workers at the Big House and replace them with his own people, brought from his London residence.”

  Wouldn’t it be a wonder if Mother could answer me back? How I would love her advice, to give to my sisters. Not that either of them would heed me, of course.

  I close my eyes and try to see her face, to imagine her telling me gently that it is what it is, but her face is hazy to me, softened with the mists of time. Why, I’m even seeing the softening of Mr Menzies’ features in my head, and he has only been departed for a few short weeks.

  But I think that if – by some mystic, magic force – Mother’s words suddenly did come to me, I would simply hear her fretting that her three daughters are not the sisterly friends they once were. She oftentimes said that women bear their hardships in a quieter way than men, and felt most strongly that all young girls should learn to look out for one another. Of course, with Mother’s passing, Ishbel and Effie unfortunately took Mother’s wisdom to mean they must look after me by bossing and scolding and––

  “Little Bird!” a shout rings out.

  I glance up – past the white stone urn perched on the headstone that marks Mr Menzies’ resting place – and see Will sprinting down the lane that passes the churchyard, his cap in his hand lest it flies off his head in his haste.

  Quickly, I kiss my fingertips and press them against Mother’s modest headstone and push myself upright. It’s a moment’s work – though not perhaps a very respectful one – to fling my legs over the low wall in a flurry of skirts.