Chapter and Hearse by Catherine Aird Page B

the direction of his gesture. In the far corner of the hall a buxom young woman was lurking in the shadows. She was weeping, stifling her sobs as best she could. Her face was almost invisible under a woven kirtle, but what he could see of her visage was swollen by tears. Here and there strands of blonde hair extruded from under the woollen garment. She would have been comely enough, he thought, had it not been for her obvious distress.
    â€˜Morag,’ amplified the Laird, still not letting his gaze fall on her. ‘Jeannie’s nurse.’
    Rhuaraidh Macmillan, though, took a good look at the weeping woman. Irony of ironies, she was standing under the traditional Christmas osier and evergreen kissing bough – the ivy and the holly there to ensure new growth in the spring to come. This had been suspended from a handy rafter – not too low to kiss under, not too high to be too difficult to secure. The apples and mistletoe in the kissing bough would have been an important part of the hogmanay festivities until those had come to an end the night before – Handsel Monday, as ever was. The kissing bough would have been fixed firmly enough for sure: it was considered very bad luck if it were to touch the ground, because in nature the parasitic mistletoe plant always hung downwards …
    Perhaps, he thought, that was what had happened at Castle Balgalkin, because there was ‘nae luck aboot this house, nae luck at a’. That was beyond doubt, whatever had befallen the girl.
    The young woman under the kissing bough let forth a loud sob as she saw the Sheriff’s eye rest upon her. Wrapped tightly round her shapely shoulders was a shawl; this she held with its edges closed together, as if for greater protection against the outside world. Rhuaraidh Macmillan, no amateur in these matters, was well aware of how frightened she was. And no wonder, if the dead child had been left in her charge.
    â€˜Morag Munro,’ said Hector Leanaig roughly. ‘She’ll tell you herself…’
    â€˜The bairn wasna’ there in her bed when I woke up,’ said the young woman between chattering teeth. ‘Handsel Monday or no’.’ She stared wildly at the Sheriff. ‘And I’d warned her…’
    â€˜What about?’ asked Macmillan mildly. No good ever came of frightening witnesses too soon. He’d learned that a long time ago.
    â€˜Handsel Monday, of course,’ said Morag, visibly surprised. ‘Did ye not mind that yestre’en was Handsel Monday?’
    â€˜Tell me,’ he invited her. Nothing was to be assumed when Sheriff Macmillan was going about his business of law and justice, nothing taken for granted. Not even the ancient customs attached to Handsel Monday.
    â€˜â€œWhen all people are to stay in bed until after sunrise”,’ she quoted, ‘“so as not to be meeting fairies or witches”.’
    Hector Leanaig said dully, ‘The first Monday in January, that’s Handsel Monday. You know that, Rhuaraidh Macmillan, as well as I do.’
    â€˜Jeannie knew it,’ Morag Munro gulped. ‘And I told her she wasna’ to leave her bed until I came for her in the morning.’ The young woman dissolved into tears again. ‘And when I did, her bed was empty.’ Her shoulders shook as her sobs rang round the hall. ‘She was gone.’
    â€˜And Mistress Leanaig?’ asked Sheriff Macmillan, suddenly realizing what it was that was missing from the mise-en-scène and what it was that he had been subconsciously expecting as a backdrop to this tragedy: the unique and quite dreadful wailing of a mother suddenly bereft of one of her children.
    â€˜She’s away over at Alcaig’s,’ said Leanaig thickly. He jerked a shoulder northwards in the direction of the firth. ‘They say her father’s a-dying.’
    Macmillan nodded his ready comprehension. Mistress Leanaig, he knew, was the only daughter