The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (20 page)

But the babies were already screaming again, as if the moment's pause had increased their strength. Mr. Irving took out a large handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

"Mr. Blair," he said, leaning right down from the pulpit and shouting in my uncle's face, "for decency's sake, sir, these people all respect you. Do something! This riot is blasphemous. The Devil is among us!"

"Of course, Mr. Irving, for decency's sake," said my uncle, nodding enthusiastically. He stood up, turned his back to the minister, and put up his hands to call for silence.

"Neighbors! Friends!" he bawled. "Jesus said,
'Let the little children come unto me,'
and I say, teach them to do what's right, for decency's sake!"

Behind his back, Mr. Irving was nodding, but I could see what he could not. There was a broad, encouraging grin on my uncle's face, and he was winking again, at one grinning mother after another.

"Well, Mr. Irving, carry on with your duty," he said, turning back to face the minister, then settling himself down on his stool again. "But you'll never get far with that list of yours. Best to proceed to a psalm, don't you think? The singing will quiet the little ones."

Without waiting for the minister's permission he began to sing, in his rich bass voice:

"
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice...
"

The women began to sing with him, as loudly as they could, but they sang all in a different key, out of time and out of tune. Their voices cracked with the effort, and they kept their faces straight with difficulty as the noise in the little church, bouncing back off the stone walls, grew so terrible that I had to clap my hands over my ears.

Mr. Irving's face had gone from red to white.

"Enough, I say! You generation of vipers! Enough!"

"But the psalm, Mr. Irving, you cannot stop us from singing the psalm," bellowed my uncle.

For a long moment, Mr. Irving stared at him, scarcely able to control the shaking that convulsed him. Then he stumbled down from his pulpit and, pushing through the throng of women and children, fled to the door. Ritchie and the other young men, standing solidly together, bowed low as he approached, so low, in fact, that they blocked his way. He hit out at them with his hat and fists, and then he was through them and gone, his long black legs carrying him at a gallop back to the safety of his manse.

"Martha! Nanny! Stop that at once!" Aunt Blair shouted, glaring at the little girls as she jiggled the now-hysterical Andrew up and down against her shoulder. "I've never been so ashamed in my life!"

But Uncle Blair had picked up his daughters and, sitting with one on each broad knee, he kissed their tears and rage away.

"The Lord spoke out of the mouths of babes," he said. "Take the poor wee man outside and feed him, Isobel, before he cries himself into a fit."

The church was emptying fast. Outside, there was a most un-Sabbath-like atmosphere of festival as the excited children were allowed, for once, to run around the churchyard. The women, settling themselves on gravestones, unbuttoned their gowns to feed their squalling babies, and the men, their laughter now over, talked in small urgent groups.

"Did you see the minister's face, Father?" Ritchie said eagerly, as we set off down the long lane toward home. "Stop lurching about like that, Nanny."

He shifted Nanny, who was riding on his shoulders. Nanny had not forgotten her quarrel with her sister and was leaning sideways to pinch Martha, who was sitting behind her mother on the horse.

"Of course I did." Uncle Blair allowed himself a crack of laughter, but then his tender conscience made him say, "It was a terrible thing to see, though, a man so humiliated. I almost felt sorry for him, instrument of the Evil One though he is."

"Sorry!" retorted Aunt Blair. "You'll be sorry when the Black Cuffs come and force you to pay the fine. A year's income! It means ruin for us, Hugh."

"Where's your faith, woman?" Uncle Blair said peaceably. "The Lord will provide. Look, Ritchie! There! A hawk! It's going to dive!"

He caught Ritchie's arm, and they stood still to watch the great bird fold its wings and plunge to the earth, to rise a moment later with a baby hare in its talons.

But I was watching my uncle and my cousin, and not the bird.

My father and I would have loved each other like that,
I thought.

"Did you hear any news there in the churchyard, Father?" Ritchie asked in a low voice as we plodded on.

"About what, son?"

"The man. The preacher. Mr. Renwick."

The name meant nothing to me, and knowing that I wasn't meant to hear, I hurried on.

The early morning had been bright, but a bank of black clouds was building in the west, promising a storm. We could see rain fall in drifting curtains across the hills, coming ever nearer to us. Aunt Blair dug into the pony with her heels, and it broke into a reluctant trot, while the rest of us quickened our pace.

The rain struck as we branched off the lane onto the track for Ladymuir, and Grizel and I began to run, holding our plaids over our heads so that we could hardly see where we were going.

Puddles had already formed in the farmyard, and I was splashing through them, shoes in hand, when a well-known voice behind me called out, "Maidie, Maidie, don't run past your old friends!"

I whipped around and saw two figures standing in the shelter of the barn. Tam was holding his blue bonnet in his hands, his weak mouth open in a toothless smile, his eyes wet and pleading like a dog who is afraid of being kicked. And beside him, her head tilted to one side and a sweetly innocent smile curving her pretty mouth, stood Annie.

I was so shocked at the sight of Annie and Tam that I thought they were evil spirits come to drag me back to Bute and the gallows. I even looked past and behind them, half expecting to see Mr. Macbean and Donnie Brown and even Granny herself. But then Tam said, "You're surprised, Maidie, and I don't wonder, for I'm amazed to be here myself," and Annie rushed forward and put her arms out as if she was my long-lost best friend and wanted to hug me.

I stepped back, out of her way. The thought of being touched by her made my flesh crawl.

"Who are your friends, Maggie?" Uncle Blair said pleasantly. "They must be in dire need if they have been forced to travel and break the Sabbath day."

Before I could say a word, Annie broke in, "Oh, yes, please, sir, we would never have committed such a sin, only..."

She faltered, looking at Tam. I knew she was casting about for a reason that would please my famously Puritan uncle. I could see that already she was trying to worm herself into his good graces, and my heart sank even further when I saw that he was smiling at her.

"Well, well," he said. "No doubt your reasons are good." And he waited, his eyebrows raised, expecting her to speak. When she didn't, he looked inquiringly at me.

"That's Tam," I said unwillingly. "The piper from Bute. Andshe 'sA nnie, who—who—"

Uncle Blair's brows had snapped together, while Aunt Blair drew in a shocked breath and pulled Martha and Nanny close.

"You are the young woman who gave false witness at my niece's trial?" Uncle Blair said sternly. "Who tried to send her to the scaffold? Who lay with a man in adultery?"

Annie burst into tears.

"Oh, sir, oh, please, it was all a dreadful misunderstanding. I never meant—I honestly believed..."

Aunt Blair stepped forward.

"Where's the child?" she demanded. "The baby you bore in sin? What's happened to the baby?"

Annie looked from her to my uncle, her face a perfect study of innocent bewilderment.

"What child? I don't have a child! How could I, when I'm not yet married, and I'm—I'm a virgin?" She turned to me, shaking her head sorrowfully. "Oh, Maggie, what have you been telling them? I knew you didn't like me, but I would never have thought you'd tell such lies."

I could hardly believe my ears.

"Tam!" I burst out. "Tell them! How can you stand there and listen to this? Tam!"

But Tam was shuffling uneasily from one foot to another.

"Well, now, Maidie, I wouldn't want to—girls' quarrels, you know. Is there any chance, mistress, that you might give us a little water to drink and just a crumb to eat? It's been an awful long road to walk."

I don't believe that anyone, not even the greatest rascal in Scotland, could appeal to my uncle's kindness and hospitality and be turned away. Though he looked grave, he invited Tam and Annie into the house and made Grizel set extra places for them at the table. I was speechless, struck dumb by Annie's impudence.

Tam could hardly wait until the long grace had been said but fell on the cheese and oatcakes with such ravenous hunger that I thought he would choke, and though I could tell he was disappointed that the jug held water and not whiskey, his smile to my uncle was one of simple gratitude.

"I knew little Maidie's good folks would not turn away a starving man," he said, "for starving I am, and so's this girl here, or we would have been, but for your kindness."

No one answered. Tam became aware of the disapproving silence at last and seemed to shrivel into himself. Annie, who had eaten with modest delicacy, shooting glances around the table as she assessed one person after another, heaved a great sigh, and, laying down her spoon, said, "Now I know that what everyone says hereabouts is true. You are godly people, full of Christian charity for the hungry and homeless. Anyone else would have thrown a wretched sinner like me out to starve up there on the moss. Oh, sir, mistress"—she clasped her hands and looked beseechingly, first at my uncle, then at my aunt—"if you only knew how sorry I am for the wrong I did to Maggie! How deeply I repent! I've struggled with the evil in my heart, and I've undertaken this long journey, full of perils, only so that I could cast myself on the floor and beg her to forgive me."

She was acting her part so well, with brimming eyes and little catches in her voice, that even I might have believed her if she hadn't lied so blatantly about her baby. Her words made me feel as if I'd been smeared with dirt. I put my hand into the pocket of my apron to feel my father's buckle, afraid that she might somehow have stolen it again already. The touch of it brought back the terrible memory of the trial, Granny's defiance, and the desperate nights in the tolbooth.

"Uncle," I protested. "Don't listen to her. Please!"

But it was too late. I could see that he was touched by the sight of a beautiful sinner repenting, a straying lamb returning to the fold.

"Maggie," he said with his usual gentleness, "this child has done you a terrible wrong, but if her repentance is real, the Lord has already forgiven her, and you must find it in your heart to forgive her too."

I thought I would choke.

"Aunt, please, you don't know her! She's..."

But my aunt was impressed, I could see, by Annie's prettiness, by the curls escaping from her cap, and the dimples in her soft pink cheeks. Annie had now turned her swimming blue eyes on me.

"You must believe me, Maggie! I know now that what I said was—well, not quite true. But I honestly believed it. I really did think Mistress Elspeth had evil powers and had consorted with the Devil. When I remember how she swung the baby around the hearth and cursed him before he died..." She shuddered artistically and stole a look at Aunt Blair. I could see that this shaft had found its mark. "And what I saw, that night at Ambrisbeg—"

"Where you had gone to meet your lover!" I interrupted furiously.

The smile she turned on me was full of understanding sorrow.

"I don't blame you, Maggie, for making up such lies. But it's not true. You know that. I admit that I was—have been a creature of sin. It wasn't earthly lusts that drove me to that place that night. It was the Devil himself, luring me, calling me to the witches' Sabbath. I was even—I admit it freely!—tempted to offer myself to the service of the Evil One! I was willing to let myself be seduced by him!"

"There was no witches' Sabbath," I said hotly. "Granny wasn't a witch. You know that. Be careful what lies you tell."

My anger had been growing like a surging wave, gathering to break in violent spray on rock. I could feel wildness in me. I wanted to make Annie fear me. I wanted to threaten her with Granny's haunting from beyond the grave, to terrify her with incantations and hints of enchantments, but I pulled myself up. I'd seen where the use of that kind of power had led. It was no way out for me.

"How can you know that there was no witches' Sabbath," Annie was asking me in a tone of deadly innocence, "unless you were there yourself?"

"Because I was there! I told you that before. I didn't take part. I watched. I'd woken up and Granny wasn't there. I was angry at always being left alone and I went out to find her. All I saw were some poor old people, the lonely ones of the isle, who had lit a fire to warm themselves and were drinking a drop too much, and dancing and singing for comfort and friendship. Ask Tam! He was there! You tell them, Tam. Did the Devil come to you all that night?"

All eyes turned to Tam, who was caught in the act of putting his hand out to take the last morsel of cheese from the platter. He withdrew it hurriedly.

"No, no, of course not. The evil gentleman himself ? I never saw. But then, the whiskey, you know. How can I remember who was there and who was not?"

He subsided with a cough.

I saw that Annie was satisfied. She'd planted seeds of doubt in the family's minds. They had believed my story entirely and had been sure that both Granny and I had been victims. Now they were not so certain. Annie cleverly pushed her advantage. She clasped her hands and looked at me pleadingly.

"The Lord has shown me that I was too sure in the evidence I gave about that night. The light was bad, it was cloudy, and the Devil was in my heart. I
thought
I saw—but I should have said at the trial that I couldn't be certain! I didn't understand, Maggie. I didn't know what they were planning to do to Mistress Elspeth and you. If I had, I'd have lied. I'd have
perjured
myself to save you!"