Elaine Coffman - [Mackinnons 06] (12 page)

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure.” Looking down at
her, he opened his arms.

She stepped into them.

That night, in bed, Cathleen stared into the darkness,
unable to sleep, thoughts of Fletcher Ramsay keeping her awake. His words
haunted her. How could a man of eight and twenty years have so much feeling, so
much understanding and compassion? There was a gentleness in him that seemed to
reach out to her. She had never met anyone like him. Never.

Like her, he had suffered loss and tragedy, and yet how
different from her he was, being a man who confronted life; a strong and brave
man who weathered whatever life offered him and met it face to face. While she
was a woman who would avoid confrontation at all costs, a woman who chose to
run, to hide from the things that could cause her pain, he met his fear,
challenged it, and would not back down. She had let her fear take control of
her life and could not imagine conquering it.

She rolled over, remembering the touch of his hand, the feel
of his lips upon hers. Even more than the memory of desire was the memory of
there being no fear. He had gained an access to her that no one else had, not
even her grandfather, and yet she was not afraid of him.

Why?

She closed her eyes to say her prayers, and was reminded of
a piece of scripture that spoke to her heart. “‘
Fear not’,
” she
whispered. “Genesis.”

When her prayers were finished, she thought again of the man
called Fletcher Ramsay. She had known him only a short while. It was much too
soon to form any opinion. He might appear to be gentle and kind and
understanding for now, but time would tell. She knew that the devil’s principal
method of attack was by temptation. Was that what Fletcher Ramsay was about?

Was she deceiving herself, then? Was he, like the devil, a
creature of beguiling and deception?
“‘Bread of deceit is sweet to a man;
but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel’,
” she whispered.
“Proverbs.”

But even as she said the words, her thoughts were elsewhere.
He is a good man
, she thought.
He is good to all things…just like
water
.

And with the smoothness of water running over stones, Cathleen
Lindsay drifted off to sleep.

By the time Fletcher arrived at David’s house the next
morning, the old minister was sitting in the parlor, sorting through documents.

“You are working early.”

“Thought I’d get an early start,” David said, looking up.
“Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“Cathleen made breakfast before she left. There is still
plenty in the kitchen, if you’re hungry.”

Fletcher grinned and rubbed his stomach. “I think I’ll take
you up on that.”

He went into the cozy, warm kitchen, where the table was
covered with a simple cloth, the customary pot of flowers in the center. A
crockery bowl and a spoon had been set out for him. He looked around the room
as if for the first time. Her presence hovered about him, almost a tangible
thing, for she was here, in this room, even when she was not present.

This was Cathleen…this kitchen that displayed such loving
care, this kitchen with its soft touches, this kitchen where everything had
order and a purpose.

After eating the scones and porridge she had left for him,
he returned to the parlor. “Where is Cathleen today?” he asked David.

“Tuesday is her day to minister to the poor,” David said,
without looking up from his work.

“She must have left early.”

“Oh aye, she is always out early on Tuesdays. Excited as a
hen walking on hot coals, she was. It does my heart good to see her so happy.”

While he was glad to hear of her happy mood, Fletcher could
not help wondering what day was Cathleen’s day to minister to herself. The word
“no” seemed unacceptable to her, for over and over he had seen and heard about
how she gave effortlessly of her time and support to others, never thinking to
save a little of it for herself.

Taking a seat across from David, Fletcher turned his
attention to the document. Soon he was lost in his task, unaware that he had
been working for three hours straight, until he heard David sigh wearily.
Looking up, he asked, “Find anything?”

David shook his head. “Nothing with your family name on it.”

Fletcher heard the weariness in David’s voice and, upon
closer inspection, saw the fatigue in his face, the faint circles under his
eyes. He felt guilty for allowing his enthusiasm and his drive to spread to
David. The minister wasn’t a young man, and now that Fletcher looked, he saw
many signs that David was pushing himself more than he should.

Knowing that the man would never admit to his own
exhaustion, Fletcher feigned his by rising wearily to his feet and rubbing the
back of his neck. “How about calling things to a halt for today?” he asked. “I
don’t seem able to concentrate. After five or six hours of this, I start
feeling worn out and frustrated. Perhaps I’ll go for a ride. I was raised to be
a lumbering man, don’t forget. I’m not accustomed to spending so much time
indoors.”

Going outside, Fletcher knew he had done the right thing
when David rose to his feet and said something about taking a little nap.

Going outside, Fletcher mounted his horse and took off down
the lane at a fast clip. Before he knew it, he had ridden all the way to
Glengarry.

While he was in town, he decided to post a letter he had
written to his mother. Then, as he rode out, he noticed a crowd gathering for
the Tuesday sheep auction. He decided to turn down a narrow lane, hoping to
avoid the babble of men and sheep that enveloped the narrow streets around the
pens. He had no idea where the lane would take him, but he would soon find out.

Before long he found himself in the poorer section of the
village, a place where the houses were built one against the other and sewage
ran in an open gutter in the middle of the street. Even the smell here was
different from the rest of the village, as if it was a way to confirm the
degradation and wretchedness of the poorer classes who lived here. Everywhere
he looked he saw poverty, ignorance and idleness.

He also saw Cathleen.

Just as he rode past a long row of ramshackle houses at the
edge of town where a group of dirty children played shinty with sticks in the
street, he saw her—or rather her wine-colored hair flashing brilliantly in the
midday sun. She was surrounded by a group of ragamuffin children and did not
see him.

Fletcher pulled his horse to a stop. It was his intention to
watch for just a moment, but the instant his gaze rested upon her, awareness
seemed to explode inside him in a rainbow of bright, intense colors. How odd
that even in a crowd he could sense her presence; how odd to find her in this
group of children as if time had handed him a miracle.

He was always learning something new about her and he
realized that today was no different. It hadn’t taken him long to learn that
Cathleen did not lead an idle life. Now, it was apparent to him that these poor
people knew her very well—knew her and loved her, for every person she passed
nodded at her and said, “God bless you.”

Even when surrounded by poverty, there was a heart-wrenching
charm about the children scattered around her, and how lovely they were, how
beautiful in their innocent frankness—ignorant, poverty-stricken children
utterly unskilled in the art of hiding their feelings, which were as pure and
beautiful as Cathleen appeared to him now.

He watched her lithe, graceful motions with a mixture of awe
and delight. Her bonnet was thrown back, and the richness of the sun’s bounty
fell full upon her. How fair and sweet that face, and how vivid the color of
her hair that curled as innocently as a child’s about her forehead.

Never had he seen her face so radiant as when she stooped
down, took the hem of her apron, and wiped the dirty smudges from the face of a
little girl. The child then put her arms around Cathleen, who hugged her
tightly. Fletcher felt a hard, jealous pang in the vicinity of his heart as he
observed this.

Even from where he sat upon his horse, he could see that
Cathleen was moved almost to the point of tears. How sad it was that a woman
who obviously loved children as much as she did was destined to live the life
of a spinster.

And yet, in spite of her own lackluster future, she inspired
such hope in these people. How much right she did for these who had been done a
great and inexplicable wrong. As he watched her gather the children about her
beneath the lofty branches of a great, sweeping tree, he realized that the soul
and nature of Cathleen was revealing itself to him in yet another way—through
her interactions with others.

She seemed to him very alone, even while surrounded by
children. Something fluttered in his chest, a tender regard for her, and it
struck him that he was experiencing emotion on a level that he had never
experienced before. He was aware of the sun’s warmth upon his face, the flutter
of leaves overhead, the gentle breathing of his horse, the grass that grew on
the fellside—all things he had taken no notice of before. It was a strange, new
awareness. One that he could not let go any more than he could let go of the
feelings for her that grew inside him.

She was no more beautiful than a hundred women he had seen
and had before, yet there was something about her that kept him entranced, kept
him looking just a little harder and digging just a little deeper to find the
treasure that he knew lay deep inside her.

Other women he had known possessed certain predictable
traits that made him know their coyness, and their flirty ways could never be
mistaken for sincerity. Cathleen had no time or use for other women’s mental
trappings. Life, for her, was not a game, something to take out and pleasure
herself with like a frivolous party dress and then put away. The will to
survive was strong within her. As was the will to protect.

Fletcher was reminded of a dove that flies off in the
opposite direction from her nest, hoping to draw the intruder away. He had a
suspicion that Cathleen was like that, doing her deeds of benevolence, her acts
of kindness and Christian charity, in order to draw attention away from the loneliness
and unfulfillment, from all the things that were lacking in her life.

He watched her movements as she told the children a story,
her voice soft and comforting, her hands moving in a way that was both
captivating and feminine. He realized then that she had looked up and seen him,
and he was instantly aware of her discomfort, her insecurity. Cathleen could be
friends with a man, but she was wary of anything beyond that.

Why was it so damned important to him to try to change that
for her? He realized suddenly that he wanted her to look at him with an
expression that was different from those she bestowed upon her neighbors and
her animals, and even her grandfather for that matter. He wanted to see her
eyes light up the moment he walked into the room. He wanted her to seek out his
company. He wanted her to give him some small token of recognition, to show
that his presence in her life meant something to her.

He saw her look away, returning her attention to the
children, and he realized that he would never get those things from her. But
then, it seemed not to matter. He could no more stop his fascination with her
than he could stop his quest to restore his father’s title. Spurring his horse,
he rode toward her.

Cathleen had hoped that Fletcher would keep his distance.
Now, as he approached, she knew that even this part of her existence, where she
worked with the poor children of the village, was not to be hers alone. He
would disrupt the story she had started telling the children.

Such were her thoughts, so she was completely dumbfounded
when he rode on past her without so much as a wave and stopped where a group of
older boys were playing shinty.

She could only watch as he dismounted and tied his horse,
then walked toward the boys. After talking to them for a few minutes, he did
the strangest thing. He began playing shinty with them, taking up the stick to
strike the ball of hair, sending it rolling down the street.

Soon the younger children lost interest and she went on with
her story. When she finished and the younger children scattered, she stayed
where she was, content to watch Fletcher play.

When the game was over, he untied his horse and walked
toward her, his clothes torn and soiled, his face dirty.

“I didn’t know you played shinty,” she said, smiling at the
sight of him.

He laughed. “I didn’t, but I sure do now.”

“Aye,” she said, “you were quite good, especially for your
first time.”

“Tomorrow I will be black and blue and sore all over. I have
a feeling I will decide then that it was also my
last
time.”

She laughed.

“Want me to give you a ride home?”

“I enjoy walking at this time of day.”

“Mind if I walk with you?”

“No.”

He tucked the reins to his horse in the back of his belt and
fell in step alongside her.

They walked along, talking about the children, the problems
with the poor in the village, the weather, California. Then the talk dwindled
and they walked on in silence.

Not far from her cottage, she broke the silence. “Are you
hungry?”

“Starving. I’m hungry enough to eat a dried buffalo.”

Cathleen stopped and gave him a curious stare. “A what?”

“A dried buffalo.”

“What in heaven’s name is a dried buffalo?”

“It’s buffalo meat that has been dried.”

She rolled her eyes. “All right. What is a
buffalo?
”

“It’s a big animal with a hump—”

“Oh, like a camel.”

“No, it’s nothing like a camel. Its hump begins right behind
its horns.”

“Horns? Oh, it’s more like a cow, then?”

“Well, not exactly. It is sort of like a cross between—that
is, it resembles… It’s more like a…”

“Yes?”

“What’s for dinner?”

She laughed. “Perhaps you can draw me a picture sometime,”
she said, turning in at the gate and following the lane to the cottage.

Fletcher did not arrive back at David’s house until after
ten the next morning, and when he did, he met David coming out the front door.

“Go on inside,” David said. “I’m on my way to town. Robert
Cameron has sent word that he has some important church matters to discuss with
me. I’ll be staying for dinner.”

Fletcher nodded. “I’ll get started, then. Say hello to
Robert.”

“I will. Oh, before I forget—Cathleen is over at Mrs.
Drummond’s. Her husband was in an accident with a haying machine and Cathleen
is helping the doctor set his leg.”

“When will she be back?”

David shrugged. “Who knows? Cathleen will return when she is
ready…or when she runs out of causes. And one more thing. Don’t be surprised
when you go into the kitchen, and be sure you leave the door closed.”

At Fletcher’s curious look, David added, “Old Mrs. Tawesson
sent over a basket of goodies for Cathleen.”

“Hmmmm. Maybe I’d better have a look, just in case I get
hungry.”

David laughed. “You willna get more than a mouthful of
feathers.”

“Feathers? As in birds?”

“Feathers as in owls. There are two baby ones in the basket.
Seems they fell out of a nest and Mrs. Tawesson was afraid they would die.”

“So she brought them to Cathleen.”

“Aye, it is a common enough occurrence.”

“And keeping the door closed? Is that because of the cats?”

“Aye.”

“What do baby owls eat?”

David chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “Cathleen will
know.”

Yes
, Fletcher thought,
she will
.

Fletcher saw David off in his gig, then went inside to work.
After two hours he found a faded piece of paper that had the name Douglas
Ramsay written on it, but the rest of the page was water marked and illegible.
It wasn’t a bit of help to his cause, but simply finding one of his ancestor’s
names spurred him on.

His stomach growled. He realized how hungry he was, so he
stopped working and made his way toward the kitchen, stumbling over the yellow
tabby that was sleeping in the middle of the floor. The tabby let out a hissing
squeal and shot beneath a nearby chair.