Bury Her Deep by Catriona McPherson Page A

calmly, when he said to me:
    ‘Please excuse me, Mrs Gilver. It sounds as though some poor soul is in extremis tonight.’
    At that moment, Lorna appeared through the connecting door into the dining room – a short cut from the kitchen, I guessed – and her father nodded at her. ‘Lorna will take care of you,’ he said. ‘Sleep well and I will see you in the morning.’
    ‘Poor Father,’ said Lorna once he had gone.
    ‘Yes indeed,’ I said. ‘I should have thought that being summoned to deathbeds in the night might make him regret those naughty little boys at Kingoldrum even if nothing else did.’
    ‘He does miss them sometimes,’ she answered, ‘but Luckenlaw called and my mother was very happy to come home again, I think.’ She looked as though she were about to say more, but at that moment Mr Tait hurried back into the room.
    ‘Mrs Gilver,’ he said. ‘I wonder if I could trouble you for a minute of your time.’
    ‘Father?’ said Lorna, half rising from her chair.
    ‘More unpleasantness, I’m afraid, Lorna,’ he said. ‘More of the same.’
    She made as though to follow us out – I, of course, had leapt to my feet as soon as he spoke – but he raised his hand to stop her.
    ‘No, my dear,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you mixed up in this.’
    ‘But Father, our guest?’ she protested.
    ‘Was a nurse in the war,’ said Mr Tait. ‘You don’t mind, Mrs Gilver, do you?’
    Between remembering that Lorna did not know that I knew what more of the same unpleasantness would be, and making sure to look suitably puzzled as a result, and also trying not to think about what I might be just about to witness, as well as trying to contain my eagerness to get at it, whatever it was (within reason), I could neither assemble a sensible expression nor summon a sensible response, and so I simply squeezed Lorna’s hand and left the room after her father, at a trot.
    In the sitting room across the hall, horribly cold now hours after the teatime fire had begun to die down, Jessie the cowman’s wife was perched on the edge of a chair hugging her arms and trembling slightly either from fright or from chill.
    ‘Oh, my goodness,’ I said, guilt washing over me. ‘Oh my poor dear girl.’
    Mr Tait was at that moment taking possession of a blanket and a steaming cup of something which a maid had brought to the room. He handed the cup to Jessie and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders with the tender dexterity the father of an orphaned daughter might be expected to show. She lifted the cup to her chin, breathing in the steam, and slowly her shivering began to ease. She was no more than twenty-five, at a guess, getting careworn – the wife of a farm worker has no easy time of it – but still young enough for the sweet steam from a teacup to turn her face instantly bonny and pink.
    ‘Now, my dear,’ said Mr Tait, with infinite patience in his tone. ‘You must tell Mrs Gilver everything. She’s here to help.’
    ‘It was jist like they said,’ said Jessie after another stiff swig of her drink. ‘A dark stranger.’
    ‘Start from the beginning,’ I told her. ‘You and Mrs Hemingborough left Lorna and me at the gate, and then what?’
    ‘We kept on up tae the corner,’ said Jessie, ‘and turnt into the farm road. My wee hoose is halfway along and the farmhoose is at the end, so I got hame first and Mrs Hemingborough carried on. I should have gone straicht in, but  . . . I dinna ken, maybe because it was such a lovely nicht with the moon and a’ that  . . . anyway I jist stood at my gate a while.’
    ‘You weren’t frightened?’ I said.
    ‘I was not,’ said Jessie. ‘I didna believe in this stranger, to be honest. Pardon me, Mr Tait, but it’s the truth.’ Mr Tait inclined his head graciously. ‘I always thocht that believin’ in all-what-have-you was for them as had a big wage and a wee family and no’ the other way on. I’ve been that proud and that sure o’ myself.’ She began