"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 compassion.
"I'm sorry. Mary. I didn't know..... There's really nothing more I can
say." He rose, shifted 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 passage 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 luster. "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.
She continued.
Passing without fear the Standing Stone, she regarded it now in blank
wonder, that she could ever have thought it more than a broken and
projecting bone of the lifeless earth. It fell behind her plodding
footsteps, an impotent slab of nothingness.
A wolf cried out in the distance, and she did not even care. Right
foot, left foot, followed one another in mindless, meaningless rhythm.
All was dead for her. Nothing lived, nothing moved, nothing breathed.
There was only this one last task to perform, and then oblivion.
At long, impossible length her weary footsteps took her along a
familiar path, past a silent dell wreathed in scrub oak and maple.
White crosses of stone shone dully in the moonlight, in a hollow she
had once held sacred. A name was spoken in her mind, and in distant
memory a hand caressed her face. She felt a moment of profound
sadness, for a love that had died. But even that lost sorrow faded,
till she knew that it was truly over.
Up the shallow hill to the cottage. She turned the knob of the
thrice-familiar back door, and entered. Through the kitchen, into the
passage to the main room, where a fire was burning brightly. Her aunt
looked up as she entered, from the same armchair in which she had left
her. A man stood beside her, with eyes so deep and piercing.....
She collapsed to the floor. Michael James Scott lifted her in his
trembling arms, and carried her to his mother's bed.
Part Two:
The Fortress