He sat down at the kitchen table, watching as she poured him out a cup of tea, this stranger who was so familiar to him. Her knuckles were clenched white and she kept her gaze averted.
“Please sit down for a moment.” She edged herself into the chair opposite him. “I saw you in the doorway and thought for a moment that … but I was wrong.”
“I know who you must be.”
“Please tell me who you are. I could see at once that you’re one of the MacKenzies.”
She laughed, a scratchy sound. “Not one they admit to. Poor Mistress MacKenzie, torn between her Christian duty and her sense of shame. I’m the dirty family secret, the bastard child.” Tom flinched. “Not hers of course. His, her husband’s. Not a moral man. A woman in every port.”
“I don’t even know your name.”
“Màiri.” Tom waited, but she said no more.
“How did Mistress MacKenzie learn of your existence?”
Again the grating laugh before she replied, “She didn’t for many years. He was away a lot and could keep his misdeeds secret. He did at least provide for my mother but that all ended when he was drowned.”
“So how did you come to meet her?”
“By chance, on the ship. I dropped my bag coming aboard and a man stopped to help me. My brother, Murdo. We looked at each other and he nearly dropped the bag again. Our father passed his features on to both of us. He was said to be a handsome man.” She looked hard at Tom. “I’m not speaking out of vanity. Beauty is a curse. Men pursue beauty. They only care about the face, not the woman herself.”
Tom looked down, thinking how he was guilty of that obsession too.
“I couldn’t endure staying on Skye any longer. I wanted a new life but I was too scared to fly far. I took Mistress MacKenzie’s offer to stay as their servant.”
“And do they treat you well?”
“Aye, except when strangers like you interfere.”
She sat with her eyes closed while Tom drank his tea and willed himself to stay quiet. After what seemed an eternity her eyes snapped open and probed his face again,
“I’ll tell you about what happened to your friend that day.”
And she did as the wind swooped and the gulls wailed outside.
“There isn’t a day when I don’t wake up with wet cheeks for that life lost, twice over,” she finished. “It’s God’s judgement on me.”
“I’m in no position to judge.”
“What will you do now?”
He took out the creased drawing from the pocket of his jacket. “You must tell me what you know about her.”
She avoided his gaze, her hands scrabbling together in her lap. “But you’ve found another love now.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes, I have but I won’t give up hope of finding her.”
He wanted to shake her but instead he sat rigid. Finally she whispered, “I can tell you who she is, but I’ve no idea where she is.”
She told him, the words wrenched from her throat. Tom stumbled to his feet and mumbled his farewells. He left her hunched over the table, her body heaving with unshed tears.
“You look like a man who’s hunted all day and not caught anything to eat,” Silent Owl said, when they set off again.
That night Tom lay sleepless, his thoughts writhing. While he sought her, he thought he was following a lighthouse beam, but all the time it was a wrecker’s lantern to lure him onto the rocks.
He had a more urgent worry. He was convinced that Mistress MacKenzie knew about his desertion. She had given no sign that she would betray him, but she might change her mind. If she did he would have to escape before he was arrested. First though he must protect his family. Iain was still inexperienced. Many people disapproved of him taking a native wife and wouldn’t help him as they would one of their own. Even if Janet MacKenzie kept quiet, he might not be so lucky another time if someone else recognized him. He wished there was someone he could confide in. He had shunned making friends because he didn’t dare trust anyone. Maybe he could ask Emma’s advice? But did she understand his predicament? Her last letter suggested not. He remembered the gist of her words:
I plucked up my courage and went to a meeting of a photographic society. When they recovered from their shock at the sight of me they didn’t know how to speak to me. They seemed amazed that I could carry a camera, let alone take any photographs. What was it Dr. Johnson said about hearing a woman preach and it being like seeing a dog balancing on its hind legs? It wasn’t done well but he was surprised it was done at all. Fred raises no objection to my hobby. He finds it mildly amusing but it’s hard to persevere when you feel patronized. I would love to be free to travel as you are and to be paid for my efforts.
She couldn’t see beyond her comfortable world to understand the danger of exposure he lived with all the time. Well, she made her choice when she became a doctor’s wife. He could travel but he was as cursed as if he were aboard the Flying Dutchman. Never able to settle in port. Condemned to be always looking over his shoulder.