WE MET MRS Mackenzie, a busy, grey-haired matron in whom I remembered Colin’s lively mother, and Iain Mackenzie’s wife, Maisie, a tall, sandy-haired woman of about fifty. Then we were introduced to Anne’s daughter, who was sleeping soundly in an old-fashioned cradle. She had been christened Helen, after her great-grandmother, and of her lineage there could be no doubt. The faces of babies differ widely. In some the features are determinedly neutral. They are baby faces, and time must elapse before they begin to assume their distinctive characters. In others the character is present from birth and they seem to enter the world as complete people. Such a one was Helen. She was instantly recognizable as a Mackenzie and as Anne’s daughter. She had dark hair and a perfectly shaped nose and the chin and the mouth of her mother and her grandfather. The genes of Fortuny, Verna and Colin’s mother might never have existed in this world: they had been side-stepped entirely. Helen had been born where she belonged. And for once, I think, I saw Verna lovable, when she looked with starry eyes at her granddaughter. In that there was no falseness. I felt that baby was going to be spoiled.
‘Oh darling. When is the christening?’
Just the wraith of a smile came into Anne’s eyes. ‘Not yet, mother. Too much has happened. I don’t feel ready for that just now.’
‘We have not regular kirk services here,’ beamed Mrs Mackenzie. ‘The preacher fits us in with a wheen other parishes.’
‘But couldn’t we have the christening in Ullapool?’
‘That is an overlong journey for a tender wee bairn.’
Verna looked unconvinced. I could see that she was planning such a christening as Ullapool would long remember, and in this I imagined, from the glint in his eye, that James Mackenzie was not far behind her. For a moment the tragedy was forgotten in considerations of pure bliss. But not by Anne.
‘There won’t be any christening. There won’t be anything till Earle comes back.’
Verna’s glee was checked. ‘But, darling, we must make plans for the future.’
‘There isn’t any future. Can’t you see that? There hasn’t been any future since Wednesday.’
‘My dear, life does go on.’
‘No.’ Anne shook her head decidedly. ‘It stopped then. Up there on the cliff.’
‘Ach, that was just foolishness,’ James Mackenzie chided. ‘No harm will come to your laddie. I ken Sinclair and he kens me. And here is Colin’s friend come to make all right.’
‘He can’t make all right.’
‘And who better? Is not he a famous man in London? I swear he will settle this matter as quick as a salmon jumps over a rock. And then your laddie will come home, and you will be bonnie as a briar rose. Ach, now, put your fears away. It is a sad affair, but we have weathered the worst.’
Anne looked at me. Her eyes were piteous. ‘Did they let you talk to Earle?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I had a long chat with him. I’m convinced that Earle is innocent.’
‘You see?’ James Mackenzie said quickly. ‘The business is all in hand, lassie. The Superintendent would not be for committing himself unless he was sure as the Butt of Lewis.’
‘I never thought he was guilty.’
‘And who did? Have I not given you word and hand?’
She faltered. ‘What did he say of me?’
‘He told me he loved you,’ I said. ‘And to be sure to tell you.’
She turned away. James Mackenzie jigged his shoulders. ‘It is true that the laddie is leal,’ he said. ‘I am not the worst judge of a man and I marked him as soon as he whistled in here. You picked a true heart, my harebell. He will always treat you kind and fair. You have taken a wrong step but he will not fret you with it – and why would he, when the bairn is as fair as your own?’
Anne dropped her head over the cradle. ‘He’ll forgive me for that,’ she said.
‘Then what will he not forgive you?’
‘I betrayed him,’ she sobbed, and ran from the room.