Robb whirled on Perry. “You got plague aboard? In Christ’s name, why aren’t you flying the Yellow Jack?”
“Of course there’s no plague aboard! It was in Scotland months ago.” Perry stopped. “
Scarlet Cloud! She never arrived?”
“Four weeks overdue. No word, nothing. What happened? Come on, man!”
“Shall I tell him, Culum lad, or do you want to?”
“Where’s Father?” Culum asked Robb.
“Ashore. He’s waiting for you ashore. At the valley. For the love of God, what’s happened, Culum?”
“Plague came to Glasgow in June,” Culum said dully. “They say it came by ship again. From Bengal—India. First to Sutherland then Edinburgh, then it came to us in Glasgow. Mother’s dead, Ian, Lechie, Grandma—Winifred’s so weak she won’t last. Grandpa’s looking after her.” He made a helpless gesture and sat on the arm of the sea chair. “Grandma’s dead. Mother. Aunt Uthenia and the babies and her husband. Ten, twenty thousand died between June and September. Then the plague disappeared. It just disappeared.”
“Roddy? What about Roddy? My son’s dead?” Robb said in anguish.
“No, Uncle. Roddy’s fine. He wasn’t touched.”
“You’re certain, are you, Culum? My son’s safe?”
“Yes. I saw him the day before I left. Very few at his school got the plague.”
“Thank God!” Robb shivered, remembering the first wave of the plague that had mysteriously swept Europe ten years ago. Fifty thousand deaths in England alone. A million in Europe. Thousands in New York and New Orleans. Some called this plague by a newer name—cholera.
“Your mother’s dead?” Robb said, unbelieving. “Ian, Lechie, Granny?”
“Yes. And Aunt Susan and Cousin Clair and Aunt Uthenia, Cousin Donald and little Stewart and . . .”
There was a monstrous silence.
Perry broke it nervously. “When I berthed in Glasgow, well, Culum lad was on his own. I didn’t know what to do, so I thought it best to bring him aboard. We sailed a month after
Scarlet Cloud.”
“You did right, Isaac,” Robb heard himself say. How was he going to tell Dirk? “I’d better go. I’ll signal you to come ashore. You stay aboard.”
“No.” Culum said it aloud as though to himself, deep inside. “No. I’ll go ashore first. Alone. That’s better. I’ll see Father alone. I must tell him. I’ll go ashore alone.” He got up and quietly walked to the door, the ship rocking smoothly and the sweet sound of the waves lapping, and he left. Then he remembered and came back into the cabin. “I’ll take the dispatches,” he said in his tiny voice. “He’ll want to see the dispatches.”
When the longboat pulled away from
Thunder Cloud, Struan was on the knoll where the Great House would be. As soon as he saw his eldest son amidships, his heart turned over.
“Culummmm!” he roared exultantly from the top of the knoll. He ripped off his coat and waved it frantically like a man marooned six years who sees his first ship. “Culummmm!” He tore headlong through the coarse brier toward the shore, careless of the thorns and forgetting the path that led from the shore over the crest to the fishing village and pirate nests on the south side of the island. He forgot everything except that here was his darling son on the first day. Faster. And now he was racing along the shore, ecstatic.
Culum saw him first. “Over there. Put in over there.” He pointed at the nearest landing.
Bosun McKay swung the tiller over. “Pull, my hearties,” he said, urging them shoreward. They all knew now, and word was flying through the fleet—and, in its wake, anxiety. Between Sutherland and Glasgow lived many a kin and in London Town most of the rest.
Culum got up and slipped over the side into the shallows. “Leave us.” He began to splash ashore.
Struan ran into the surf that swept the beach, heading straight for his son, and he saw the tears and shouted, “Culum laddie,” and Culum stopped for a moment, helpless, drowned in the abundance of his father’s joy. Then he began running in the surf too, and finally he was safe in his father’s arms. And all the horror of the months burst like an abscess and he was weeping, holding on, holding on, and then Struan was gentling his son and carrying him ashore in his arms and murmuring. “Culum laddie” and “Dinna fash yoursel’ ” and “Oh ma bairn,” and Culum was sobbing, “We’re dead—we’re all dead—Mumma, Ian, Lechie, Granny, aunts, Cousin Clair—we’re all dead, Father. There’s only me and Win’fred, and she’s dead by now.” He repeated the names again and again, and they were knives in Struan’s guts.
In time Culum slept, spent, safe at last in the strength and warmth. His sleep was dreamless for the first time since the plague had come. He slept that day and the night and part of the next day, and Struan cradled him, rocking him gently.
Struan did not notice the passing of the time. Sometimes he would talk with his wife and children—Ronalda and Ian and Lechie and Winifred—as they sat on the shore beside him. Sometimes when they would go away he would call to them, softly lest he wake Culum, and later they would come back. Sometimes he would sing the gentle lullabies that Ronalda used to croon to their children. Or the Gaelic of his mother or Catherine, his second mother. Sometimes the mist covered his soul and he saw nothing.
When Culum awoke he felt at peace. “Hello, Father.”
“You all right, laddie?”
“I’m all right now.” He stood up.
It was cold on the beach in the shadow of the rock, but in the sun it was warmer. The fleet was quietly at anchor, and tenders scurried back and forth. There were fewer ships than before.
“Is that where the Great House’ll be?” Culum asked, pointing to the knoll.
“Aye. That’s where we could live in the autumn till the spring. The climate’s bonny then.”
“What’s the valley called?”
“It has na a name.” Struan moved into the sun and tried to dominate the brooding ache in his shoulders and back.
“It should have a name.”
“Little Karen, your cousin Karen—Robb’s youngest—wants to call it Happy Valley. We’d’ve been happy here.” Struan’s voice grew leaden. “Did they suffer much?”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell me about it?”
“Not now.”
“Little Winifred. She died before you left?”
“No. But she was very weak. The doctors said that being so weak . . . the doctors just shrugged and went away.”
“And Grandpa?”
“The plague never touched him. He came like the wind to us and then he took Win’fred. I went to Aunt Uthenia’s to help. But I didn’t help.”
Struan was facing the harbor without seeing it. “You told Uncle Robb?”
“Yes. Yes, I think I did.”
“Poor Robb. I’d better get aboard.” Struan reached down and picked up the dispatches, half buried in the sand. They were unopened. He wiped the sand off.
“I’m sorry,” Culum said. “I forgot to give them to you.”
“Nay, lad. You gave them to me.” Struan saw a longboat making for shore. Isaac Perry was in the stern.
“Afternoon, Mr. Struan,” Perry said cautiously. “Sorry about your loss.”
“How’s Robb?”
Perry did not answer. He stepped ashore and barked at the crew, “Hurry it up!” and Struan wondered through the numbness of his torn mind why Perry was afraid of him. No reason to be afraid. None.