Highland Ballad Part 11

"What would you explain!" he cried hotly. "That you have been sleeping with a traitor? That you prefer his filthy Scottish bed to mine? That you are a wh.o.r.e, like all the others? Well? Why don't you speak!"

"I am very sorry for you," she said at last. "You are blind, as no man I have ever known. You will never learn, and you will never change."

And with that she turned her back on him.

For a single moment he stood transfixed, loving, and at the same time hating. . .her . She knew him as no one else, and had always spoken the truth. But the words she spoke now were not soothing, were not the gentle words of comfort he sought. Instead they burned, like salt on an open wound.

Pure, blind hatred rose up inside him, devouring all else. He seized her by the shoulders, and with the heat of the primal hunger, turned her towards him. If love would not be gratified, then he would at least have l.u.s.t. For the second time that day, Mary looked into the unseeing eyes of rape. Terror was no longer possible. All she could feel was despair, and pity. This would be the final, unbearable shame for them both.

"Stephen, I beg you. In the name of what you once felt for me, and I for you. Don't do this. Forgive my hard words. I do not hate you. But this..... This can never be."

"Why not? Why can't it?" He pressed her hard against him. "You know you want me." His mouth engulfed hers, then moved greedily to the skin of her throat.

"Stephen, don't . It's not right!" She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. She felt his left hand drag her downward, as his right hand worked to free the remaining b.u.t.tons.

"Stephen. . .no!" She was on the ground, and he had flung aside his coat, looming on one knee beside her. Then with a swift movement of both hands he tore open her slip, the widening V of her dress. Still further, till the treasures of her body lay exposed. His mouth was upon her breast, as his hand swept low to engulf her.

"Stephen! For G.o.d's sake. . .I'm your sister!"

He froze instantly, then lifted his head with a jerk. "You're lying."

"No," she said bitterly. "My mother is the widow MacCain. Your father raped her, then sent her away when he found she was with child. Your father. . .is my father, too." She sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. And the pain in her eyes was more than he could face. Because he knew that it was true.

Then for the first time he seemed to see the bodies, and to realize that they had once been men. And he saw her, his gentle sister, ravaged and distraught by the work of his own hands. He did not feel remorse, which was beyond him. But sorrow he could feel, and even, in that moment, a halting compa.s.sion.

"I'm sorry. Mary. I didn't know..... There's really nothing more I can say." He rose, s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably, trying to reconcile himself to his actions. It was impossible.

"Is there anything I can do now," he said stiffly. "To make it better."

"No. Just go away."

He turned, and started to leave.

"Wait," she said, half against her will. She could not look at him.

"Help me to bury him. Both

of them."

He put on his jacket, pawed the ground with his boot. ".....I'll need a shovel."

"Ride back to the hut. My mother will give you one." She finally looked up at him, and the tears would not stop. "Please leave now. I'm not that strong."

He remounted slowly, and with one last look at her, rode off. Mary was left to prepare her cousin's body, and to seeping thoughts of death and earth.

When Stephen returned, they buried James Talbert. And then the other, placing stones over the mounds to keep the wolves off. There were no other adornments to give them. And even as they worked, the clouds thickened and turned to rain, as if Nature wept, to see the unending tragedy of Man.

Sixteen

"May I take you back to the hut," Stephen said when they had laid the last stone. "I have much on my conscience already. I would see you safely home, at least." He could say no more, nor did she wish him to.

They rode back in silence, and in silence they parted.

With silence, too, did she greet her mother, who asked no questions, but only welcomed her with a strange, apologetic smile. Hardly able to notice, let alone dissect the mysterious change in her, Mary shed her wet and tattered garments, then hung her cloak by the fire to dry. As she put on the nightgown the old woman provided she said blankly, and bitterly.

"James Talbert is dead. I must go and tell Anne this evening. Please don't wake me until then." She lay listlessly in the bed, and after a long, empty pa.s.sage of time, fell asleep. She did not dream.

Her mother returned to her place by the fire, and sat down in a melancholy heap. She felt anxious and utterly lost, without place or purpose in the world.

For a change had in fact taken place in her, with or without her consent. In the troubled hours since her daughter's flight, it had become impossible to think of killing and tearing down. Too clearly did she see, and feel, and remember all the dark, destructive forces that pull the living back to earth, wholly without a woman's schemes.

And she felt this to the core of her being, because she knew that she, too, would soon return to dust.

Because her body was at long last giving out. Beside the painful angina which had plagued her since the night of the Stone, she felt in these bitter, infinite hours a dizziness and blurring of vision which she knew to be the forerunner of stroke.

Her daughter had not yet realized her condition, and for this, at least, she was grateful. As her own life inexorably diminished, she found she thought less and less of herself---of the past---and more and more of her daughter's future. This was both painful and sad, because she saw the tragedy of her own life mingling, and becoming one, with Mary's. How similar. Her love for John MacCain---clean, strong, yet ended by untimely death. Then the desperate, animal attraction to a handsome, brutal man who had broken her heart, and crushed the last of her dreams. He was his father's son..... Then the emptiness, and finally the horrid, burning hatred of all that still lived, loved, and desired happiness.

Her one hope now, strange as it might have seemed but a few days before, was that the girl might still be young enough to heal, and wise enough to seek that healing in the light of life, rather than the darkness of revenge, which had so fruitlessly swallowed the remnant of her years.

Mary woke to find a fresh dress and undergarments waiting at the foot of the bed. After she had dressed, her mother gave her tea and porridge, and to her surprise, did not try to dissuade her from the long journey to the faded cottage. Both of them knew it to be a dreary, and possibly dangerous task. But both, for different reasons, also knew it to be essential. Wrapping the cloak about her Mary went to the door, determined not to look back. Still, something made her turn.

"I may not be coming back for a time," she said. "You understand that?"

"Yes," replied the old woman, in a voice wholly lacking its former strength. "Will you make me one promise before you go? Only make it, and I will rest easier."

"What is it?"

"Promise me. . .that you won't try to take your own life. That you will not let the bitterness fester inside you like an unclean wound, turning slowly to the poison of hate. Will you give me your word?"

Mary looked back at her, confused.

"You have nothing to fear, I'm sure. I should have thought my weak character well known to you by now, and to have removed any such concern. Twice I have set a hard resolve, and twice failed. I doubt if I should ever find the courage."

"Listen to me, Mary." Her mother spoke now so earnestly, and with a desperate entreaty so unlike her, that despite the numb lethargy into which her heart had sunk, Mary felt a qualm of fear on her behalf.

"It is not weakness," said the woman, "to desire life, and to respect it enough...." Tears gathered in the pale, aged eyes that had lost their hard l.u.s.ter. "I fear I have done you a grievous ill. Forgive me!" And she hid her face, ashamed.

And for all the pain this woman had caused her, all the mother's love withheld for so many years, Mary found herself unable to return the injury, now that the chance had come. She went to the old woman slowly, took down the trembling hands, and kissed her on the forehead.

"You are what your life has made you. Of course I forgive you. And I'll make your promise, if you'll make me one in return." Her mother nodded helplessly. "Will you promise to rest, and be gentle with yourself, until I can send a doctor back to check on you?"

... "Yes."

"All right, then. Let me help you to bed, then I'll build up the fire one last time." Her mother was unable to reply. And having done what she said, Mary left her with those words.

Margaret MacCain died three hours later, as a black curtain descended slowly across the field of her vision. A single tear escaped her. She said a silent prayer for her daughter.

And then she, too, was gone.

Mary walked on through the bitter night, the faltering torch she held like a fretted candle in the depths of the dark. The rain had stopped, and the ground frozen solid. Each footstep clumped painfully against the hard, unyielding earth. Her mind was so numbed with pain and loss that she found she could not even think. Time seemed to stop dead in its tracks just to mock her.