Cat's Cradle

  He pushed me aside. ‘Ye lie. My mither was a good woman. She wouldna have had any by-starts.’

  His refusal to listen set light to the fuse on my anger again. I was furious he was making me out to be the villain of this piece when I had been the victim. It was time he acknowledged that. I dodged in front of him again.

  ‘For your information, our mother left me on a doorstep in London in order to marry your father and have you. If that makes her a good woman, then I’m an eight-foot giant.’

  I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, spoken partly through jealousy as all along I’d been acutely aware that he was the child she had chosen over me. Rabbie looked fit to explode, red in the face, fists clenched.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that,’ I said, holding my hands out in front of me to keep him away. ‘She must have been trying to survive the best she could. Good and bad don’t really come into it. I don’t remember her either so we’ll never know.’

  Rabbie stabbed me in the chest with a finger to emphasize each word. ‘I . . . dinna . . . believe . . . ye.’

  He took off up the stairs, leaving me to follow or not as I liked. Trailing after him in the dark, I wondered if I could make a run for it, but the entrance to the tower house was barred for the night when I checked – no escape there. I couldn’t think of another way out, windows on the lower floors being no more than arrow slits, nor could I stomach the idea of leaving my friends.

  So, choosing warmth over my cold cellar, I entered the main chamber. The Bruces were seated around the fire, empty plates witness to the fact that they’d just finished eating. Bridgit perched in a window niche with Jamie. They both looked up on my entrance and I gave them a brief smile to signal all was well.

  ‘Well, if it isna the wee Sassenach!’ crowed Malcolm. ‘Rabbie’s sister from London!’

  All the Bruces with the exception of Rabbie seemed to find this very funny.

  ‘So kind o’ ye to pay a family visit. Why dinna ye tell us where the bequest is and be on yer way?’

  ‘You’ll let us go?’ I asked doubtfully, rubbing my arms to stop shivering.

  ‘My word as an honest man.’ Malcolm Bruce’s smile was chilling.

  The big grey-bearded man who had knocked me down earlier was sitting on a bench opposite Malcolm. He now laughed meanly, ‘Aye, we’ll let ye go – we’ll set ye loose on the moss in the middle o’ the blizzard. But it seems to me ye might just choose to stay here the night.’

  ‘Wheest, Willy! Keep yer tongue between yer teeth,’ chided Malcolm.

  The big man just laughed the louder and took a gulp of his drink.

  I moved a step closer to the fire. Rabbie was again sitting on a stool by the hearth but he wasn’t looking at me. Instead he was toying with a knife, stabbing it in and out of its scabbard.

  ‘The truth is –’ I cleared my throat. This was a more hostile audience than even the one that had thrown rotten eggs at me in Kingston.* ‘The truth is, there is no bequest. I came only to tell Rabbie that I had discovered that we were brother and sister. The note was bait, to get him alone to give me a chance to explain.’

  ‘I told ye there wasna money in it for us,’ grunted Willy to the chief. ‘Ye should get rid of her – she’s trouble, she is.’

  Malcolm did not reply to his adviser but narrowed his eyes at me speculatively. ‘Ye still claim to be Jesse’s wean?’

  ‘So I’ve been told. Jesse Stirling left me behind in London.’

  Malcolm crossed his legs at the ankles, his muddy boot nudging a big black lump of a dog lying on the hearthrug. It growled softly but did not shift. ‘My uncle, her husband, didna mention a lass from an earlier marriage.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t. There wasn’t a marriage. I was a . . .’ I shrugged, ‘. . . a mistake, I suppose.’

  ‘Dinna listen to her,’ interrupted Rabbie, digging the knifepoint into a log. ‘She’s speaking ill o’ my mither who canna answer back.’

  Malcolm poked his little cousin in the arm. ‘Yer mither speaks through the lass, Rabbie: she is the spit o’ Jesse. I ken the lass spoke true the moment she made the claim.’

  What! He knew?

  Rabbie leapt to his feet, fist clenched around the knife hilt. ‘Nae. Ye always said my mither was a fine woman.’

  Malcolm smiled, unperturbed by his cousin’s warlike stance. ‘Aye, that she was. So she kept quiet about her by-start? That only means she was a canny one. Are ye no going to greet yer sister now ye ken the truth?’

  To my horror, I realized that Malcolm was taunting the boy, pouring oil on his fiery temper.

  Rabbie said nothing, just glared at me. I tried a smile but my lips would not cooperate. Why was Malcolm purposely stoking up Rabbie’s anger? Was he hoping to see him lose his control?

  ‘Look, there she is. Come all this way to see ye.’ Malcolm gave him a little push towards me.

  ‘I want naething to do wi’ her.’ Rabbie sheathed the knife and stormed out, disappearing up the stairs. I couldn’t believe it: my brother didn’t even want to know the truth!

  I swallowed down the tears that had gathered at the back of my throat. ‘That was cruel,’ I said, ‘telling him like that.’

  Malcolm laughed and beckoned me closer. ‘Aye, life is cruel, lass. Now the lad has gone away, tell me where the bequest is hid.’

  I sat down heavily on my brother’s abandoned stool. I felt chewed up and spat out. Rejected again.

  ‘I told the truth. There is no bequest.’ I shook my head wearily. ‘The Moirs are poor. What could our aunt possibly have left Rabbie?’

  ‘Ye tell me. Ye had the letter.’

  ‘I’ve explained that already. What could be more valuable than finding out you had a sister?’

  ‘I believe Rabbie can think o’ a rickle o’ things he’d rather have.’

  I crossed my arms on my knees and bent my head forward to rest on them. It must have been past midnight and I felt exhausted.

  ‘What do you intend to do with us, Mr Bruce?’ asked Bridgit from her corner, stepping in to draw attention from me.

  ‘I havena made up my mind. Ye might still have something for me –’

  ‘I swear that we don’t,’ I interjected.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I canna let ye go and make trouble wi’ the law. I’ll tell ye before noon what I’ve decided. Willy!’

  The old man sat up with a jolt from his daze. He’d been cuddling a jug of whisky like a child would a rag doll. ‘What now, man?’

  ‘Take our guests to the upper room and give them some blankets. We dinna want them freezing the night.’

  Grumbling, Willy grabbed a lantern and beckoned us to follow him. We followed him in silence, saving our discussion until we were alone. The old man led us up the uneven stone steps, his vast shadow like a cloak of darkness at his heels making it hard for us to see our way. Jamie stumbled once or twice until he finally succumbed to putting on his glasses. He gave me an embarrassed smile when he saw that I had noticed.

  Passing a number of closed doors on the steep climb up, we emerged on to a narrow rampart at the very top of the tower, at the level of the pitched roof. A few yards away, a door opened off the battlements into another storeroom. From the gentle cooing and acrid odour of bird droppings, I could tell we were also near the dovecote.

  Entering the attic, Willy took three blankets out of a large chest and threw them towards us.

  ‘Make yerselves at home,’ he said, managing to make it sound a sinister offer. ‘I’ll leave ye the lantern but dinna forget to blow it out before ye sleep. Naebody will come and save ye if ye set light to the place and ye’ll be the first to burn.’

  With that he left us, his boots ringing on the stones outside. Out of sight, his strong voice bellowed a song to the echoing passageway:

  ‘Gie him strong drink until he wink,

  That’s sinking in despair . . .’

  The rest of the words were lost in the night.

  ‘What a horrid man,’
Bridgit said when the noise of his departure had faded. ‘He hit you earlier.’

  From my kind friend, this was a serious insult.

  ‘Yes, horrid,’ I replied, clutching my shawl closer to my shoulders. ‘There’s a razor-edge to him, unlike Malcolm who seems half-decent, apart from his stubbornness about the bequest and a cruel desire to taunt his cousin. I can’t understand Malcolm. Doesn’t he like Rabbie?’

  ‘I expect he sees him as a rival,’ explained Jamie as he listened at the door for a moment. ‘Before his death, Rabbie’s faither ruled the roost. Malcolm is worried your brother will grow up and try to take his place. He’s trying to keep him down under his boot-heel. Nae wonder Malcolm was so pleased to meet the by-start sister. Ye’ve given him a weapon to use on the lad.’

  ‘Lovely. That explains why my brother is so delighted to see me.’

  No noise from the battlements, Jamie tried the door. To our surprise it opened, but before we could get too excited about this we discovered that the door to the stairs down was bolted from the other side. Unless we jumped off the snow-covered roof and flew away like the doves, we were trapped.

  ‘Rope?’ suggested Jamie.

  We searched the stores by lamplight but found none. I turned my examination to our blankets, wondering if we could tie them together, but we were at least forty feet off the ground and I doubted we had enough cloth to make a decent rope ladder.

  Bridgit was the first to give up this idea. She sat down on her blanket and wrapped it around her.

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I think we should wait till morning.’

  Jamie yawned and nodded. ‘Aye.’

  I showed my agreement by grabbing my blanket and cuddling up close to Bridgit. The storeroom was freezing and full of draughts.

  Jamie noticed my shivers. ‘It’s going to be cold the night wi’out a fire. We must make the best defence we can. I’ll drag some o’ these boxes around us. Maybe that will help.’

  Bridgit and I got up to assist him in sliding the chests and barrels into place. Soon we had constructed a little castle within a castle with just enough space for three cold inhabitants. We settled down once more, with the lantern by our feet.

  Bridgit slipped her arm around my shoulders. ‘All right?’ she asked.

  ‘Everything’s just fine and dandy.’

  Jamie nudged my foot in a friendly gesture. ‘I tried to talk to Rabbie, Catherine, but he wouldna listen. Maybe tomorrow he’ll feel different about it all.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I’d save your breath to cool your porridge – he’s not going to change so quickly.’

  ‘What do you think they will do with us, Jamie?’ Bridgit asked. She was trying to sound brave but her voice shook a little. We all pretended not to notice.

  Jamie shrugged. ‘I canna say. I think if they were going to kill us, they would have done so. Even the Bruces do not like to murder in cold blood. And ye heard the man: one o’ us is a sister – that does mean something to Malcolm. He willna harm his cousin’s kin wi’out good reason.’

  ‘So we should just sit tight?’ I asked doubtfully.

  ‘Aye. We have nae choice, do we?’

  ‘True, Socrates. Very philosophic.’

  Jamie snorted. Bridgit looked confused. ‘Who is Socrates and what’s he got to do with anything?’ she asked.

  ‘An old Greek who liked asking questions.’ I scrubbed my forehead, finding it hard to believe I was stuck at the top of a tower discussing ancient philosophers when we weren’t even sure whether a bunch of ruffians were going to let us live on the morrow. ‘Never mind. Let’s go to sleep.’

  Summoned the next morning to hear Malcolm’s judgement, we stumbled wearily into the main chamber. None of us had slept very well, thanks to a combination of anxiety and cold. The Bruce clan were gathered, including some females who hadn’t been present the night before. A tall woman with a square jaw and thick black brows stood behind Malcolm’s chair, declaring her status as his wife by her stance. Her eyes widened when she saw me and she stooped to whisper something in her husband’s ear to which he nodded in reply. Rabbie skulked in the window niche, an empty bowl on his crossed knees. That reminded me how hungry I was. Would the Bruces feed us? Perhaps I should do something to get put back in the food store downstairs?

  Malcolm stood up and the chatter in the room died away. He tossed a plaid blanket over his shoulder, treating it like a badge of office or Roman toga.

  ‘I have decided,’ he announced, ‘for the sake of our wee Rabbie,’ here he cast an insincere look of concern at his cousin, ‘I need to find out what bequest his aunt left him. So the morn, I’ll go with the Kelly lad to New Lanark and talk to Rabbie’s kin.’ There was a general murmur of agreement in the room. ‘His sister will stay here the while until we uncover the truth.’

  My heart sank. It seemed I would have to endure yet more of the Bruces’ cold hospitality.

  ‘What about Bridgit?’ Jamie chipped in bravely.

  Malcolm shrugged. ‘The Irish lass can stay or go as she likes, as long as she realizes that any trouble she brings upon us will fall first on her wee friend.’ He resumed his seat. ‘Help yerselves to some breakfast.’ He waved us to a cauldron over the fire. ‘I want to leave as soon as ye’re done.’

  We quickly filled three bowls with porridge and retired to a corner.

  ‘What do ye think?’ whispered Jamie.

  ‘Better than I expected,’ I admitted. ‘You and Bridgit will be out of here and when he finds out there’s nothing he’s bound to let me go.’

  ‘I’m not leaving you,’ Bridgit muttered staunchly. ‘I promised his lordship I’d stick by you.’

  ‘Of course you’re going!’ I protested. ‘You’d be foolish to miss this chance. You can be far more help to me on the outside than stuck in here. And as Jamie said last night, I’m the last one the Bruces are likely to hurt, seeing how I’m kin to one of them.’ I was no more eager than she to be left on my own but it was so obviously the best choice in unpleasant circumstances. ‘Besides, I need you to contact Frank for me. When we get out of here we’ll be penniless and we still have to get home.’

  Bridgit was not about to jump to my orders. She looked at me, then at Jamie, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. ‘What do you think I should do, professor?’

  Jamie frowned at my determined expression then turned back to Bridgit. ‘I think Catherine is right: better for ye to be in New Lanark than here. If they dinna let her go, we can find a way to persuade them. It will be easier to do that if ye are away wi’ me.’

  ‘And though Rabbie may not like the fact that I’m here, he’s not likely to harm me, is he?’ I was not entirely sure of this myself, but it seemed a reasonable argument to make to Bridgit.

  She nodded slowly. ‘I’ll go back with Jamie. But Cat, if we don’t hear from you after seven days, we’ll come back and get you – bringing help this time.’

  ‘Agreed – but I doubt it’ll come to that. If they’re reluctant to let me go, I’ll just slip away. I’ve had some practice at that.’

  An hour later I watched from the battlements as my two friends trudged through the snow in the wake of Malcolm Bruce. The grey tower house thrust from the valley slope like an island from an icy sea, and I felt like the lone inhabitant on lookout, watching the last boat leaving for safety. It was a quiet morning for such desperation. Everything was beautifully still, woods frozen in a white tableau, tree-dancers holding a pose for our applause. In the pale blue sky the moon lingered late, hanging like a curled feather on a satin counterpane.

  Once the three travellers had disappeared, I went back down the stairs, at a loss as to what to do with myself for the next few days. Most of the men had left to tend the livestock and haul in firewood while the women were chattering in the main chamber, preparing dinner and minding the smallest children. I peeked in, aware of being an outsider to their daily activities. But, fortunately, Malcolm’s wife spotted me hovering by the door.

  ‘Well, if it isna J
esse’s by-start. Come in, lass.’ She beckoned me to the trestle table where she was chopping root vegetables for the pot. ‘Ye have the look of yer mither as I told Malcolm when I first saw ye.’

  It increased my feeling of strangeness to know that I was surrounded by people who knew my mother better than I did. By rights she should belong to me, but in truth she was always going to be theirs in ways I could never match.

  ‘Can I help?’ I asked, gesturing to the paring knife.

  ‘Aye, everyone in the tower pulls their weight. Take a bench beside me.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  ‘Och, ye do have fancy London ways! That would make Jesse cackle if she could see ye now. Ye can call me Nan.’

  I nodded and picked up the knife to set to on a bunch of carrots.

  ‘Would you tell me about my mother, Nan?’

  The woman’s lips bent into a smile. ‘She was a lively one. Had her man – old Kenneth – running like a fox with a torch tied to his tail; that made us women laugh. She wasna wi’ us long before she died, but she came like a comet streaking across our heavens, lighting up our world for a while.

  ‘We all mourned her when she didna survive the birth. And Kenneth wouldna marry again after she were dead, even though he had the wean to think o’. I always thought it was a love match.’

  But one that did not include the inconvenient child left in London. Nan’s words unwittingly painted a picture of a heedless woman who drove everyone to distraction, leaving chaos in her wake.

  ‘Did she ever mention me?’

  ‘Nae, but the midwife told me Rabbie wasna her first wean. I thought that meant Jesse must have lost one, but it were too late to ask. The last thing I expected was for ye to show up on our doorstep. She left ye to be fostered, did she?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I mumbled in reply. And I suppose from my mother’s point of view, Drury Lane theatre was a safe foster parent in uncertain times – loving and generous, always there, not likely to abandon one of its own no matter what the provocation.

  ‘Och, dinna fret, lass, about yer mither. Have ye no thought that maybe she meant to come back for ye when she’d had the wean? Giving Kenneth a lad would have made her the apple of his eye – he would have done anything for her after that,’ Nan suggested, correctly reading my melancholic expression.