Little Bird Flies Read online

  “What is it?” I ask my friend, whose cheeks burn red from the effort of running. He leans on the dyke I have just leapt over to catch his breath.

  “The boat is here,” he pants, leaning his hands on his britches as he gasps. “The new Laird has told me … he has told me to fetch some men to help unload his goods and baggage. A ferry has come too, carrying horses and two gigs that are being taken off.”

  No sooner has Will panted those words aloud than a dull, thunderous clatter of hooves comes thundering along the lane from the direction of the harbour.

  At the sound of it, I find my weakened hand flailing for a grip of something, anything, to keep me balanced, for the world seems momentarily unsteady to me.

  And what my fingers fix on is a sprawling branch of the yew tree whose leaves in the summer shelter Mother’s grave.

  “Hey, boy!” shouts the moustachioed gentleman, pulling his horse to a standstill as he towers over my friend. “Did I not give you specific instructions to fetch some assistance?”

  At the same time Mr Palmer-Reeves barks his orders, a fine little gig trundles along to join him, pulled by a white horse and with the little cairn terrier trotting alongside. Behind the driver of the gig sit Mrs Palmer-Reeves and Miss Kitty. For now, her eyes once again dart over me, settling on my foot that shows beneath my skirts, and the odd angle of it. Her mouth makes a shape that shows her disgust better than words ever could.

  For a hot, angry moment, I think to step back, so that the trunk of the yew tree blocks the girl’s view of me, but I have never been shamed of anything about myself, so instead I put my twisted foot forward and lift my chin high.

  Miss Kitty meets my eye, then looks away, as if the very sight of me is displeasing to her. So it seems all the “better things” she and her mother have bought have not improved her mood any.

  “Don’t waste your breath on the boy, dear,” the new mistress calls out to her husband in the meantime. “Remember, he will only have the most basic of English.”

  As Will and I listen, understanding every word spoken, I find that I am now staring at the most peculiar thing balanced above the mistress’s head. Held by a stick, it is a tiny confection of lace in the shape of a very small dome. It is like a fool’s version of the black umbrella Mr Menzies uses – I should say used – to keep the rain from him when he paid visits to his tenants. But there is no rain on this glorious early June day…

  “Shoo! Off with you! GET MEN!” the mistress yelps at Will, waggling a white-gloved hand at him.

  Will frowns at her, as if he has no knowledge at all of her meaning – which makes me shake with laughter that I must not let loose.

  “MEN!” Mr Palmer-Reeves repeats, pointing in the vague direction of the lane up ahead, where a fork leads left to the Big House and right towards the nearby crofts, and onwards to the rest of the island. “GET MEN TO THE HARBOUR. NOW!”

  His last words are near lost as a second, less fine gig catches up to the first, this one containing the Black Crow and the sulky maid I saw her with on the Palmer-Reeves’ last visit. The Black Crow’s head inclines towards me … is she looking at me too? What thoughts are writ on the face beneath the veil, I wonder? What I do know is that I should think of her now as Miss Tulliver. “Miss” and not “Mrs”, Ishbel assured me. So perhaps the old lady is a spinster great-aunt, and not grandmother? Ishbel’s job is to help cook and clean and carry below-stairs, so she can help me no more with that notion.

  With a sigh and a sharp shake of his head, Mr Palmer-Reeves impatiently pushes his horse forward into a gallop, and the two gigs quickly start up and follow him off along the lane.

  Before they disappear from view, it pleases me to see the dainty carriages hit the rutted dry mud up ahead, shaking the very bones of the travellers inside.

  “MEN! GET MEN TO THE HARBOUR NOW!” barks Will, sticking his chest out and mimicking our new Laird.

  With a grin, I snap a long twig off the overhanging tree and hold it upright above me, as if I too had one of those lacy fool’s umbrellas.

  “Shoo! Off with you!” I similarly mimic the new mistress.

  Will and I are both lost in laughter when we hear an almighty clatter.

  “Confound it!” someone exclaims.

  And there, in the lane, is a young gentleman, wearing some manner of floppy cravat at his neck, and with a maroon-coloured coat that is made of the loveliest of soft cloth, the like of which I have never seen. He has about him a bag strapped to his back, another worn across his chest, his hands free to carry wooden boxes by their leather handles. There is a contraption of wood – long strips fixed together somehow – on the dusty ground, which he must have been conveying over his shoulder or had tucked under one arm.

  “Here,” Will says in English, trying to pick the thing up since the young gentleman would struggle to do so, he is so burdened.

  I hurry to help too: as Will lifts the long strips they splay out in a most peculiar way, and he is unable to contain them.

  “Thank you,” says the young gentleman, laying his boxes to the ground and wrestling with the errant legs of the wooden contraption.

  “What is this?” I ask him outright, first in Gaelic and then quickly in English.

  “It’s an easel,” says the young man, spinning the thing upside down and then setting it upright. Now we can see that the three strips are legs, and that at about the height of the young man’s waist there is some kind of ledge.

  He looks at myself and Will and sees that we are none the wiser.

  “I am an artist. When I paint, I place my canvas here. Do you see?” he says, tapping at the ledge that lies halfway up the long strips.

  “An artist, you say?” I repeat, now seeing that his dress and long, floppy hair are different indeed from the starched-suited gentlemen that have come to the island in the past to visit Mr Menzies.

  “I am indeed. But I should introduce myself… How do you do? My name is Samuel Mitford,” he says politely, as if Will and I were a well-dressed, well-mannered lord and lady of the manor instead of two barefoot and bamboozled children. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “H … hello,” I reply haltingly, as I shyly shake his solid hand with my weak one. If he notices, he says nothing. “I’m Little Bird. Bridie MacKerrie, that is.”

  “Little Bird?” says this Mr Samuel Mitford, with an interested raise of his eyebrows. “How poetic.”

  The foolish rush of heat to my cheeks is not poetic. But I am very, very grateful and surprised by the compliment. I am also relieved that his attention is now turned to Will so he cannot see my giddiness at his words.

  “And I am William Beaton,” says Will assuredly. “And I must go, since I am on an urgent errand for the new Laird!”

  With that, he rushes off, taking the right turn where the lane forks, so that he can find the men at work on the land nearby my township.

  “Well, I am quite lost,” says the young gentleman, looking this way and that. “Might you show me the way to go, Little Bird?”

  How strange it is to hear someone who is neither Will nor dear Mr Menzies call me that name! But strange in a pleasing way, I must confess.

  I drop a quick curtsey, then pick up one of the boxes that are laid on the ground.

  “The Big House is this way,” I tell him, heading for the left turn of the fork in the lane. “Are you kin of the new Laird, sir, if I may ask?”

  “You certainly may, and no, I am not,” says Mr Mitford with a smile, as he picks up his easel contraption with a rattle and a clank and follows me. “I am tasked to paint a portrait of Mr Palmer-Reeves, here on his estate, and it was arranged that I meet him and his family in Glasgow just this morning, before we set sail.”

  “Oh. Will you be staying long on Tornish?” I ask, knowing nothing of how long a thing such as a portrait might take.

  “A few weeks,” he replies. “My … what a view!”

  As he exclaims at the sight of the Big House towering above the strong walls that
Father built, with the woods like a great, green blanket behind it, I can’t help but frown.

  “Sir, that is no view. You must climb the Glas Crags to see a true view. Or visit the waterfall, or the standing stones on the moor, or the lochan, or the pretty cove to the north…”

  My babbled words are drowned out by a frantic barking from the little cairn terrier, tearing out of the open ironwork gates towards us as if we needed a fanfare for our arrival.

  “Ha! This little fellow was quite taken with the seagulls that accompanied us on our trip today. He was barking his hellos at them on the deck of the steamer!” says Mr Mitford, while Patch bounces and darts around our feet as we enter the courtyard. “Though it earned him a smack or two from his master…”

  Of course, I have already seen how at ease Mr Palmer-Reeves is with his stick around the dog. I am troubled at the memory, yet for now my mind is fixed on the steamer and the adventure it must be to sail on such a thing.

  “How I’d love to see the rooms of a ship like that,” I say wistfully, as we walk closer to the front entrance of the Big House, with the heavy double doors open wide to the tiled hall beyond. “I have not even been on the little ferry boat that comes to us from the mainland.”

  “Well, perhaps while I am here on Tornish, I can describe it to you,” says my companion, “and tell you tales of Glasgow and the like!”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr Mitford!” I say, a small ripple of pleasure in my stomach at the very thought.

  “Samuel, please,” he replies, as we walk though the tall entrance gates and into the grounds. “I tell you what – in return, Little Bird, perhaps one day you can be my guide, and show me these truly special views Tornish has to offer? I would very much like to see and sketch the landscape while I am here.”

  “Samuel”? I cannot call a grown man, a gentleman, by his first name, surely! Though now that I study his friendly face, I see he cannot be very much older than Will’s brother, or the Matheson lads. Past his twentieth year, I’d guess, but no more than twenty-two or three.

  “Yes, I would like that, Mr–– Mr Samuel,” I say with a nod, while he shrugs and laughs kindly at my shyness.

  At the sound of his laugh, something catches my eye … a movement in the darkness of the hall of the house up ahead. I blink my eyes and see the Black Crow – Miss Tulliver – standing at the bottom of the huge staircase. She must have been observing us, and now that she has been caught, the woman in the shadows turns and disappears upstairs.

  How the old lady puzzles me; I never thought how unknowable a person is if their face is covered. You cannot be sure whether you must fear them or pity them, whether they watch you with curiosity or with loathing…

  “Bridie!” I hear my name urgently hissed, and see my sister Ishbel hurrying over to me, one hand gathering up her skirts and apron as she runs, the other holding a bat of bent cane-work I know to be a carpet-beater. I hope she does not mean to chase me from the courtyard with it!

  But the joking thought flits away as I see the stark warning in Ishbel’s grey eyes. And in that moment, I realise my place is not at the front of the Big House, certainly not now Mr Menzies is gone.

  “I’m sorry, my sister is in need of me,” I tell Mr Samuel, as I put down his boxes and go to meet Ishbel halfway.

  “Thank you for your help, Little Bird!” Mr Samuel calls out, as he watches Ishbel press her hand against the small of my back and turn me around towards the big iron gates.

  “Quick,” she whispers, though there is no one close by to hear. “You must not let the new folk see you, or we will both be in trouble.”

  “But I was only helping the Laird’s guest,” I protest, practically being rushed off my feet by my sister’s haste. “He is an artist, come to paint Mr––”

  “Well and good,” Ishbel interrupts, “but you are not a child, Bridie. You know we must all be careful, till we get a measure of Mr Palmer-Reeves.”

  For the first time in a long while I take a proper look at my eldest sister. Her face – as thin and pale as Effie’s is round and fair – seems gaunt and haunted. Sallow circles lie beneath her black-lashed eyes as if all the weight of the world rests on her shoulders.

  And with reason, I suppose. Ishbel wants nothing to change. She wants her work here at the Big House to continue till such time as she marries Donal Matheson (though she would shush me for saying that, as she is but seventeen, of course, and so nothing is set or certain). She pictures herself in a cosy house not far from Father’s, where she can bring up any children that she and her future husband are blessed with. She wants all this, but Mr Palmer-Reeves – without knowing – has the power to take that away from her…

  “Before you go, have this,” says Ishbel, pulling a lump of fresh bread from the pocket of her apron and pressing it into my good hand. “Mistress Matheson gave me it for my dinner. Now, get yourself home; Effie will have chores for you to do, I am sure of it.”

  I am sure of it too. And now I find myself shooed to the far side of the gates, as Ishbel retreats back inside the tall perimeter wall with a wan smile.

  Turning to walk off along the rutted lane, I look down at the food Ishbel has given me. The bread must be made from wheat that the old Laird had stocked; it is much lighter and finer than the bannocks of oat that we have at home.

  Before I know it, and before I take the first bite, I am skipping like a little child with gladness, but glad for what I am not really sure.

  For this treat of crusty bread?

  No; it is for what my secret, guilty self feels this very moment.

  While the whole island waits and worries and watches the incomers with dread – my father and sisters included – I am suddenly shot through with the sense of hope and happiness. Because at last, something has happened on this tiny island. Even though I miss Mr Menzies with all my heart, even with the look of that haughty Miss Kitty and the ignorance of her so-called educated father, it feels as if … as if today, this afternoon, a window might have opened to the world!

  For there has never been a person such as Mr Samuel visit Tornish. A gentleman who talks to me and Will as if we are worth talking to. And an artist, no less, with his colours and imagination and stories, I hope. I so wish to speak with him and hear what a city as great as Glasgow is like. Is it full of long roads filled with the likes of the Big House, as far as the eye can see? And I hear there are buildings laid out on land the size of fields where hundreds of people work, making iron or cloth that it is supplied the whole country over; nay the world over. I’ve heard Father say there’s a harbour full of steamships and sail ships and hustle and bustle. What does a city like that look like and sound like? Those are the stories I want to hear…

  As I muse on this, eating and skipping my way home, the sun slips away, casting a cold shadow where there was warmth.

  Gazing up at the bruise-coloured clouds above, wet drops dot my bare arms. If I was Effie, I might think the elements were warning me not to be so foolish or fanciful. But I quickly shake the thought away, for I am not my sister, looking for reckonings of trouble at every turn.

  A stormy sky is just a stormy sky.

  It is what it is, and I look forward to whatever small pleasures the future will bring.

  Some change can be good, can it not?

  A sudden crack of thunder sends me scurrying quickly for home and shelter, lest the hammering rain wash the desperate hope inside me clean away.

  CHAPTER 7

  I hate Sundays.

  There: another secret my mother would be shocked and shamed by if she knew of it.

  But it is true; this day of the week fills me with dread. The preacher that comes over on the ferry from the mainland is very old. So old he is deaf, and thinks his mumblings in the church are adequate for us to hear his supposed wise words. They are not.

  And I do not hate Sundays only because of the deaf preacher and his droned sermons that no one can fathom … it is because I must wear my best clothes, which includes black wool stocking
s that itch till I could scream and ill-fitting black boots that were first Ishbel’s, then Effie’s. To be truthful, no boot, no matter how keenly crafted, would neatly match my twisted foot. It is trapped now, and even with laces loosely fastened, the bones and muscles protest at the tight grip of this leather restraint.

  “Bridie! Be still!” Ishbel snaps at me as we stand outside the church with all the other tenant folk of Tornish.

  Like them, our family is waiting to thank the preacher for today’s mumbled wisdom – though he might merely have reeled off every meal he has eaten over the last month, for all we understood of his sermon. But the new Laird and his household are first to speak with the preacher, of course.

  “Leave me be, I am disturbing no one!” I tell Ishbel, as I put my boot against the wall of the church so that I can reach my lace and try to slacken it further. Though that is not so easy; my bad hand is good enough for most that I need it to do, but the very smallness of the knot is vexing to my weakened fingers.

  “For shame!” hisses Ishbel. “Folk can see your petticoat!”

  “And folk can see yours, hanging on the line every wash day,” I mutter back, under my breath, as I work hard at the stubborn knot.

  At this angle, if I tilt my head a little, I can also slyly glance the way of the Laird and those who straggle around him. Apart from the few London servants that have newly joined the household, the Mistress is there, as you would expect, holding her tiny fool’s umbrella above her head, to the amusement of the island children. Miss Kitty is causing amazement and giggles in equal measure with her enormous new bonnet, made of neatly woven straw with a fluff of feathers stuck upon it. And close by, in her shroud of dark wool, silk and lace is the Black Crow, Miss Tulliver, who seems to shrink into herself as much as Miss Kitty stands haughty and proud.

  It has been more than a week since the new Laird came back from his jaunt to Glasgow, and until today, no one had seen hide nor hair of him or his family except for those, like Ishbel and Mistress Matheson, who work in the Big House. Though Ishbel, whose time is spent mostly in the kitchens and outhouses, has in truth seen little of the family, except for Miss Tulliver taking solitary walks around the walled garden. Ishbel also talks of the little dog, who on occasion scampers where he should not and gets a smack for it, and the steward, ladies’ maids and grooms and such from London who all have nothing but contempt for the islander staff who wait on them.