At the Water's Edge (22 page)

A
ngus scooped Meg out of my arms as though she weighed nothing.

“Pull back the bedclothes,” he ordered, sending me scrambling across the floor. “And you,” he said to Hank, who'd appeared in the doorway with a candle, “bring that in and light the others.”

Angus laid Meg on the bed and drew the covers over her pale, naked form. She rolled onto her right side, crying quietly. Her left cheek was bloodied, her eyelid ballooning. Blood trickled from her nose, and her lip was split.

“Where else did he hurt you,
m'eudail
?” Angus said softly, sitting on the edge of the bed. He stroked the top of her head as though she were a child. She just wept.

“He kicked her in the ribs,” I said. “Hard.”

Angus swung his head around. “And what were you doing out there? You could have been hurt as well.”

“I was going to kill him.”

He stared at me for several seconds.

“I'm going to get Dr. McLean,” he said, standing up. “There's a first aid kit in the kitchen. It's tucked in behind the—”

“I know where it is,” I said. “I'll get it.”

Angus nodded and turned to Hank, who had by then lit the other candles.

“You—fetch some logs from the peat stack downstairs and get a fire going in here. And light the hall lamps. It's going to be a long night.”

I ran down the stairs, feeling my way in the dark to where I knew there was a flashlight. I located the white metal tin with the red cross and knocked down the soap flakes in my haste to grab it. As I sprinted back upstairs, I passed Hank on his way down.

I sat on Meg's bed, flipped open the lid, and soaked some cotton wool with iodine.

“Oh, Meg, I'm so sorry. This is going to sting,” I said, before dabbing the gash on her cheek. She didn't so much as flinch.

Her left eye had shut completely in my short absence—the flesh above the socket had expanded and rolled over, creating a grotesque new lid. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth to the pillow, and, with a fresh wave of horror, I wondered if she'd lost any teeth.

Hank returned with an armful of logs.

“I have to get some compresses,” I said. “She's swelling badly.”

I got two large metal bowls from the kitchen and took them out back, leaving the door wide open. I fell to my knees on the frozen ground and scooped up snow, throwing it into one of the bowls and punching it down until ice crystals formed and tore at my knuckles. When I couldn't pack it any harder, I ran back inside, pausing just long enough to kick the door shut with my bare foot. I paused at the sink to fill the second bowl with water, set it on top of the first, and dropped a pile of clean rags into it.

When I appeared in the doorway with the stacked bowls, Hank turned his head, but otherwise didn't move. He'd managed to get a small fire going and stood awkwardly in front of it.

“Hank, the hall lamps,” I said.

He sprang into action.

I set the bowls on the bedside table, wrung out a cloth, and draped
it across Meg's forehead. I folded another and laid it on her cheek, right under her eye.

Then I sat beside her, stroking her tangled hair and making shushing noises until I realized my fingers were sticky with blood. When I investigated, I found that a chunk of her hair was missing, leaving a patch of bright red scalp exposed.

I cleaned that as well, before covering it with yet another cold cloth. Meg didn't react to any of it.

As I waited for Angus to return with the doctor, there was nothing I could do but sit with her, swapping out the compresses when they were no longer cold and watching the water turn pink. I'd never felt so helpless in all my life.

Dr. McLean banished everyone while he examined Meg, so the rest of us went downstairs to wait. As far as I could tell, Ellis had slept through the entire thing. That, or he was dead, but I saw no reason to check. If he was dead, he'd still be dead in the morning.

Hank and I sat by the dampened fire. Angus lit a lamp and paced. He'd pulled on a sweater before heading out into the night, but I knew Hank had already seen his scars. They were impossible to miss.

When Dr. McLean finally emerged from the stairwell, I leapt to my feet.

“How is she?”

The doctor set his bag on the floor and adjusted his glasses. “I've given her morphine, so for the moment she's comfortable, but she's taken a very serious beating. Do you happen to know the brute responsible?”

“Aye,” said Angus. “And he's taken a wee beating himself.”

“Will she be all right?” I asked.

“She has a concussion, a great number of contusions, bruising of the spleen and kidney, and at least three cracked ribs. She lost the top molars on the left side, and the bicuspids are loose, although they might take hold again.”

“We need to call an ambulance,” I said. “Surely she needs to go to the hospital.”

“Ordinarily I'd agree,” said Dr. McLean. “But under the circumstances, if there's any possibility she can be cared for here, I think that would be preferable.”

“What circumstances?” asked Angus.

“The hospital is in Inverness,” the doctor explained, “which is suffering from a fuel shortage and an outbreak of respiratory illness. Chest congestion is the last thing the poor girl needs with cracked ribs, so I'd strongly prefer not to expose her. But if you do keep her here, you'll need to watch her very closely.”

“What do we do?” I asked.

After a pause, I realized everyone was staring at me. I turned to Angus.

“I know you're busy elsewhere during the day, but between Anna and me, I'm sure we can manage. Maybe Rhona can come back for a while.”

“Maddie,” Hank said slowly. “Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

“I know exactly what I'm doing…Angus?”

It was the first time I'd addressed him by his Christian name in front of anyone else. He looked hard into my eyes.

“Maddie…” Hank said in the background.

“Please,” I said to Angus. “The doctor said she'd be better off here, and I'll hold up my end. I promise.”

He turned to Dr. McLean and nodded. “She'll stay here.”

Hank sat quietly as the doctor gave instructions for Meg's care.

We were to watch for signs of shock—paleness, a drop in temperature, a weak or rapid heartbeat. If that happened, we were to call an ambulance immediately, because it meant she was bleeding internally. Also, because of the concussion, we were to wake her once an hour for the next twelve hours to check her mental acuity.

“I would normally have you compare her pupils at the same time, but I'm afraid that won't be possible with the swelling. However, each time you wake her, she must take five or six deep breaths to ward off pneumonia. If she can manage to cough, all the better. She will not want to, but it's critical. I left morphine on the dresser. With your experience in the field, I assume you're comfortable administering it?”

“Aye,” Angus said grimly.

“Good. Well. Unless you have any other questions, I'll be off.”

He picked up his bag and went to the door. Angus walked with him.

“And the animal who did this—you say he's been dealt with?”

“For the time being,” said Angus. “But if you should happen to be called out to one of the lumberjack camps tonight, may I recommend you take your time, or perhaps even a wrong turn?”

“Aye,” the doctor said. “With the Blackout, it can be very difficult to find your way in the dark. One might even say impossible on a night such as this. I assume you'll be paying a visit to the commanding officer tomorrow?”

“That I will,” said Angus. “And I may well pay a visit to the man himself.”

The doctor nodded. “Under the circumstances, I can't think of a single reason to try to dissuade you. Good evening, Captain Grant.”

Hank looked up sharply, and my heart began to pound.

I was right. It was him—he was the Angus on the stone.

A
lthough my heart was racing from learning the truth, the rest of me was bone weary. We all were, and slogged back upstairs in single file—I followed Angus, Conall followed me, and Hank brought up the rear.

I stopped cold when I saw Meg. I hadn't thought she could look any worse.

“Dear God,” I said, creeping closer to the bed.

The doctor had stitched up the cut on her lip, as well as the gash that ran vertically down her cheek. The latter was terrible to behold—a makeshift black zipper, encrusted with blood, and indisputable proof that she'd be permanently scarred. I wondered if the missing teeth would hollow out her face, and hoped to God she wouldn't lose the others. Despite all this, she appeared to be in a deep sleep.

Hank cleared his throat. He lingered in the hallway, just beyond Meg's door.

“So, do you need me to grab more logs, or…?”

What he was really asking was if he could go to bed, and I hated him for it.

“We'll manage,” said Angus.

Hank hung around a few seconds longer before disappearing. I could only imagine what he'd tell Ellis in the morning, but there was nothing I could do about it.

When Angus went to get more ice, I retrieved a quilt from my own room, pushed the chair around so it faced Meg, then settled into it, tucking my feet beneath me.

“You should go to bed,” Angus said when he came back. “I'll sit with her tonight and Anna can take over in the morning.”

“I'd like to stay, if you don't mind.”

“I don't mind, but unless I manage a wee bit of rearranging, you'll probably be on your own in the afternoon.”

“That's all right.”

He stoked the fire, then crouched against the wall. I snuck a quick peek. He was studying me.

“So you were going to kill him, were you?” he asked.

“I meant to, yes.”

He gave a soft laugh. “You surprise me, Mrs. Hyde.”

“Maddie. I'm just Maddie. Anna and Meg have been calling me that for weeks, except when my husband is around.”

He looked at me for a very long time, and I wondered how much he had figured out.

“I'm afraid it's time,” he said forty minutes later.

Meg was difficult to rouse, but we finally managed it by calling her name and tapping the backs of her hands. Angus asked if she knew the date. She replied that it was Valentine's Day and began to cry.

It was her fault, she mumbled through broken lips. Rory had been in his cups, and she should have known better than to be coy about the stockings, never mind scolding him the night before. He was a good man, really he was—she was moving to Nova Scotia with him after the war. She'd seen the “Welcome to Canada” film just the week before, along with all the other girls who were going to marry lumberjacks when the war ended.

“Hush now,
m'eudail
,” said Angus.

“What if he doesn't come back?”

Angus and I exchanged glances.

“You've got to take some deep breaths now,” Angus said. “Only five, but they must be deep.”

“I can't,” she wept. “You don't understand. It hurts.”

“You've got to, Meg,” I said. “It's doctor's orders. You don't want pneumonia, do you?”

Angus and I helped her roll onto her back and held her hands, counting aloud as she valiantly filled and emptied her lungs. Her cries were heart-wrenching, but as soon as we counted to five, she turned onto her side and drifted off.

“Thank God for morphine,” Angus said. “She probably won't even remember we woke her.”

“How long before her next dose?”

“Not quite four hours. I'll give it to her just a wee bit early to stay ahead of the pain. It's better than trying to catch up to it.”

As he sat back down, I wondered if he was speaking from personal experience.

“What will happen to Rory?” I asked.

“There's no saying. But I can tell you this—he'll never lay a finger on her again.”

The fire danced in his brilliant blue eyes, and I knew Meg would be safe from Rory forever, even if she didn't want to be.

With everything else that had gone on that night, it was hard to believe that Ellis was still locked in his room, quite possibly tied to the bed. I wanted to crawl across the floor to Angus and tell him everything. I wanted to ask him about his own family. I wanted to feel his arms around me, and to wrap mine around him. I wanted to feel the blood coursing through his veins as he vowed to protect me, because I would believe him.

Just after we woke Meg for the third time, we heard Anna moving about downstairs.

Angus climbed to his feet. “Well, I suppose I'd better let her know what's happened. Then I have to step out for a while—I have a wee bit of business to take care of.”

A few minutes later, Anna raced up the stairs and into the room. When her eyes landed on Meg, she burst into tears. I rushed around the bed to hug her.

“It's evil, Maddie, that's what it is,” she said, crying into my shoulder. “Pure evil. What kind of a monster would do such a thing? To our poor, sweet Meg, of all people. Meg, who has no kin at all.”

“I don't know,” I said helplessly. “I really don't know.”

When Anna calmed down enough that I believed she'd remember the doctor's instructions, I left to get some sleep.

As I walked down the hall toward my room, I noticed that the door was ajar. I had been in a rush when I got the quilt, but the daylight behind it gave me pause. I clearly remembered replacing the Blackout frame after eavesdropping on the dance.

I crept up to the door and gave it a little push.

My room had been completely torn apart. The dresser drawers were wide open and empty, the top one yanked out completely. Everything I'd kept inside—my personal littles, slips, nightgowns, stockings, and books—had been flung randomly about the room. My dresses, trousers, and sweaters had been ripped from the closet, and the suitcases and trunks I'd kept stored behind them had been hauled out, opened, and overturned. Even my cosmetics case had been dumped, and then hurled with such force that one of the bronze hinges from the tray stuck out to the side like a broken wing.

Someone touched my shoulder. I spun around, flattening myself against the wall.

It was Ellis, of course. His face was gaunt and his complexion yellow. The expression behind his red-rimmed eyes seemed vaguely conciliatory, solicitous even.

“Maddie?” he said, inching forward and cocking his head. He
forced his parched lips into a smile. “What have you done with the pills, Maddie?”

My mind spun, but I couldn't hide what I'd done. I couldn't magically conjure up more.

“I flushed them,” I said.

His wheedling façade was replaced in an instant by fury.

“You did
what
? When?”

“I don't know. A while ago.”

“What in the hell possessed you to do such a stupid thing?
Jesus!
”

“You did,” I said.

He looked dumbfounded.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” he said quietly, to himself. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and began gasping for breath.

I moved sideways, feeling the wall behind me and trying to find my door. My fingers found and curled around the edge of the doorframe.

He raised his face abruptly, looking at me with stricken eyes. “What the hell happened to you, Maddie? When did you become so hell-bent on destroying me?”

My mouth opened and closed, but I couldn't find an answer.

He turned and launched himself down the hallway, weaving from side to side and banging into the wall when his legs failed to straighten.

I slipped into my room and bolted the door. Then I collapsed on the bed and surrendered immediately to a deep, dreamless sleep.

When I woke up and realized that almost nine hours had gone by, I rushed back to Meg's room. It was well past the time Anna usually returned to the croft, and close to the time hungry customers began to arrive.

She was curled up in the chair with my quilt over her legs, as I had been earlier. I paused at Meg's bedside, gazing down at her battered face.

“How is she?” I whispered.

“Angus gave her some morphine just now, so she's out again. He says we don't have to wake her up anymore. Alas, he also says that when she is awake, she still has to take deep breaths and try to cough.”

I sat on the floor beside the chair, with my legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. “I'm sorry I slept so long. I can take over now. Has anyone done anything about dinner?”

“There's no need. Angus tacked a sign to the door saying ‘Closed Due to Illness'—illness, for goodness' sake.”

I could only shake my head.

Anna sighed. “It must be very bad indeed since the doctor didn't give her castor oil. Before anything else, you get a dose of the castor oil. I don't even see that he's left a tonic—he always leaves a tonic. How is she supposed to recover without a tonic?”

She looked at me as though I should know. When I raised my hands to indicate that I didn't, she sighed again.

“Rhona's got a soup going downstairs and I'm sure Mhàthair is mixing up all kinds of tea right at this very moment, but Angus says we're not to give her anything until Dr. McLean says it's all right.”

A quiet moan rose from the bed. We sprang to our feet.

Meg moved restlessly beneath the bedclothes. Anna wrung out a cloth and mopped her brow, then dabbed her lips with something from a small jar.

“Lanolin,” Anna whispered. “We've no shortage around here. Unfortunately, it does leave you smelling a bit like a sheep.”

Meg went still again. Anna and I returned to our spots and stared into the flames. They were hypnotic.

Anna finally broke the silence. “Are you cold? Do you want the quilt?”

“I'm all right, thanks. It's toasty in here. I don't think I've been this warm since I got to Scotland.”

“I suppose your house in America is very warm.”

“Temperature-wise, sure,” I said.

Anna peered sideways at me. “Is everything all right? Only I
couldn't help but hear the racket earlier, with your husband shouting and stumbling about the way he was.”

“No, not really,” I said. “Things are actually pretty dismal.”

After almost a minute of sneaking expectant glances, Anna broke down. “I don't mean to stick my nose where it doesn't belong, but sometimes it can help to unburden yourself.” She turned deliberately away, presumably to ease my confession.

I hesitated, but not for long. “I think I'm going to get a divorce,” I whispered.

“A divorce!” Anna's head whipped around, her eyes so wide I could see the whites all the way around. “You'll be like Wallis Simpson!”

I recoiled. “I certainly hope not. I only plan on getting the one—if I can even figure out how.”

As Anna reflected on this, she turned back to the bed. Her eyes remained huge.

“I shouldn't have said anything,” I said. “I've shocked you.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head vehemently.

As a silence swelled between us, I plunged into despair. I couldn't stand the thought of Anna not liking me anymore.

“You think I'm awful, don't you?” I asked.

“Don't be ridiculous,” she said. “It's plain to see how he treats you. It just hadn't occurred to me there was anything you could
do
about it.”

I thought of the cockerel confined under his basket on Sundays, and realized that divorce was probably not an option in Glenurquhart.

“Does he know?” Anna asked.

“No, and I have to keep it that way for now, because after I tell him, I'll have to live somewhere else. If I can find somewhere else.”

“Oh aye,” she said, nodding. “I can imagine it would be miserable indeed to remain under the same roof once you've broken the news.”

I looked at Meg's swollen, bloodied face, and thought of the cracking sounds the door had made as my enraged husband threw himself against it, trying to get to me.

“I'm worried it might be worse than that.”

Anna's eyes flew from me to Meg and then back again, widening in understanding.

We looked hopelessly at each other, then resumed staring at the fire. It cast long shadows that danced all the way across the ceiling before turning sharply down the far wall, like they were following the folded crease in a piece of paper.

Although in the scheme of things I'd said very little, I'd probably said more than I should have. But I wondered if what I'd told her might have set the tone for a few more confidences.

“Anna,” I said, “I know it's none of my business, but will you please tell me what happened to Angus? I know he's the one on the gravestone, the one who didn't die. But I know nothing else.”

She frowned and blinked, studying me as she considered my request.

My face began to burn. I'd made a mistake, asking about things I had no right to know. I turned toward the opposite wall, filled with shame.

Behind me, Anna sighed heavily.

“Well,” she said, “you won't hear it from him, because he doesn't talk about it, and while I'm not one for the blather, it's not what you might call a state secret, so I don't suppose he'd mind.”

I'd imagined a million scenarios since the headstone first caught my attention, but none was as tragic as the truth. The only body beneath it was the infant's.

“Mhàthair helped deliver her, in this very room,” said Anna. “It's almost certainly the last time there was a fire in the grate. The wee mite lived only a few minutes, God rest her soul. That was nearly the end of Màiri right there. Then, a month to the day later, the telegram came saying Angus was also gone. I was here when Willie delivered it. It's still in the lockbox downstairs. It came on Valentine's Day, of all days.”