Time Shall Reap
by
Doris Davidson
This eBook edition published in 2012 by
Birlinn Limited
West Newington House
Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS
First published in 2007 by Birlinn Ltd
Copyright © Doris Davidson 1993
The moral right of Doris Davidson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.
eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-551-2
ISBN 13: 978-1-84158-598-7
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
To Doreen, who read this book chapter by chapter as it came off my typewriter in its original, raw state, and who read each revision with the same enthusiasm. She once remarked that it would be the happiest day in her life when she saw it in print ... well, here it is!
My thanks also go to my daughter, Sheila, for her continued encouragement, and to Amy for the sustained interest she has shown in my writing.
November 1914
It was ‘black as the Earl o’ Hell’s waistcoat’ – a favourite expression of her father’s which had conjured up terrifying images in her mind when she was younger, for it had been easy to imagine him on friendly terms with the devil – even the steadily-deepening snow reflected the darkness of the sky above. Elspeth Gray pulled her shawl up to cover her nose. She had been breathing through her mouth and the wool for some time, but facing the way she was now thick flakes were going up her nostrils and down the back of her throat, making it difficult to breathe at all. She should have listened to her mistress and set out before the storm was so bad, for she could see nothing in this raging blizzard, and she should have reached home long before this.
She concentrated all her strength on putting one foot past the other, but her seventeen-year-old brain was awash with morbid speculations. The dykes must be completely covered by now; what if she’d gone off the road altogether and was wandering round in circles? If she collapsed from exhaustion her body wouldn’t be found until dawn, and maybe not even then, for it could be buried under a foot of snow. Nobody would see her until the thaw came, and by that time she would be frozen solid, her blood turned to ice.
Panic rising in her tight chest, she plodded on with her eyes closed and a prayer in her heart.
Dear God, please let me see the lights in the cottar houses soon.
She did not have much faith in the power of prayer and waited for only a short time before lifting her eyelids, but, miraculously, in the brief second before she was forced to lower them again, she saw a faint glow in the vast blackness. It was the very first time one of her prayers had been answered, but God must have known it was the most desperate she had ever put up, and she would never complain again about having to go to church every Sunday.
But why was there only one light? There were four cottages provided for the married farm servants at Mains of Denseat, built in a little row at right angles to the road. Shielding her eyes with one hand, she peered steadily ahead, and was dismayed to see that the glimmer of light was closer now, swaying from side to side. It wasn’t a house at all, it was somebody carrying a storm lantern. At first, she felt bitterly disillusioned that God could dash her hopes so callously, then her heart began to thump with fear of this unseen man, but in the next instant she chided herself for being silly. Whoever he was, she should be glad that she wasn’t the only person in Auchlonie to be out in the storm.
Relieved, she bent her head and took a deep breath before making another effort to carry on, but glanced up cautiously every few seconds. The gap between her and the bearer of the lantern was narrowing slowly, and when she judged that she was within hearing distance, she called out, ‘Excuse me, can you tell me ...?’ Her words seemed to be blown away as soon as they left her mouth, and she broke off with the intention of trying again in a minute or so, but the lantern was held up, and a deep, startled voice exclaimed, ‘God Almighty! Elspeth Gray! What in God’s name took you out on a night like this?’
Unable to see his face, she had no idea who he was, but he knew her name and she responded to his concern. ‘I’m coming home from my work, but I think I’m lost.’
‘You’re past your house, I can tell you that, but I’ll see you back.’ Her elbow was fixed in a vice-like grip, and she was turned round and propelled along at such speed that she stumbled and would have fallen if the man had not put his arm round her to steady her as she held her side and gasped for breath. ‘I’m sorry, Elspeth. I was going some fast for a wee slip o’ a thing like you.’ The wind abating suddenly, he lowered his voice. ‘I’ve seen you wi’ your mother an’ father in the kirk, that’s how I ken’t who you were. I’m John Forrest, in case you were wondering.’
Now she understood. ‘I’ve seen you in the kirk, and all,’ she said, shyly, her heart beating madly, and not just from exertion. She could have added that she had often dreamed about him at night, like all the other single females in the district – and maybe some who were not single – for he was a handsome young man, but she hadn’t seen him in the kirk for some time and wondered if he had been away.
Without the force of the wind at their backs, they walked on at an easier pace, but John kept his arm around her, and in only a few minutes, he said, ‘Here’s your house, lass.’
She looked round somewhat sadly, and could just make out, in the flickering glow from the lantern, the low wooden gate poking through the snow like the first tips of the daffodils in spring.
‘You haven’t much to say for yourself, have you, Elspeth?’
She knew that he was teasing her, and searched desperately for some means of keeping him with her for a little longer, but she lacked the experience to make a light-hearted reply. ‘Will you not come in for a heat at the fire?’ she said, at last, in desperation. ‘You’ve a good bit to go yet, and you must be soaking.’ The invitation was apologetic, for she was apprehensive of his reaction to such unmaidenly behaviour. It wasn’t seemly for a young girl to ask a man to her house unless he had declared serious intentions, and they had only just met properly for the first time. Would he be disgusted?
But John Forrest showed no disgust, and scrabbled with his hands until he could find the latch, pushing the virgin snow into a wall behind the gate as he opened it. Striding to put her boots in his footprints on the path, she wondered what her mother would say about her taking a young man home with her. Thank goodness her father wouldn’t be in, for he would show his anger, no matter who was there.
A pot of soup was on the hob, the fire was glowing in the range, but otherwise the kitchen was in darkness, and there was no sign of her mother. Elspeth pumped up the Tilley lamp on the table and lit it with a taper, then turned round to face the tall stranger, for he was a stranger to her, though she knew that half the girls in the village had set their caps at him at one time or other. As far as she knew, though, he had never shown interest in any of them, for all the pairings in and around the village of Auchlonie were discussed in the workroom, and his name had never once been coupled with anybody else’s.
Having blown out his lantern, he set it on the table and turned to heat his hands at the fire, but, sensing that she was looking at him, he swivelled round and raised his eye-brows, waiting for her to speak.
‘Sit you down,’ she whispered, pointing to her father’s wide high-backed chair.
He looked ruefully at his dripping clothes, reluctant to sit in case he soiled the cushions.
‘You could take off your coat for a while.’ Perplexed as to where her mother could be, she scarcely dared to look at him as she said it. It was bad enough bringing him in with her in the first place, but it was a thousand times worse when the house was empty.
Taking off his lugged bonnet and his long greatcoat, he spread them over the fender in front of the fire then straightened up, and because she had not known he was a soldier, the stretch of bare knees between his kilt and his long socks came as a surprise to her. ‘I’ll help you off wi’ your boots, lass,’ he said, pushing her gently into her mother’s chair.
He knelt on the floor to lift her sodden skirts before he untied her laces, and she had to brace herself against the back of the chair when he pulled off her boots and set them inside the fender. Then, taking one of her stockinged feet in his hands, he massaged it until her numb toes tingled and she wiggled them to let him know that the feeling had come back to them. She had a strong urge to stroke his dark bowed head, or to bury her face in his dark curls, and was shocked at herself for even thinking such things.
He kept hold of her second ankle, looking up now with his serious brown eyes, so serious that she dropped hers in some confusion.
‘How old are you, Elspeth? I’m twenty.’
‘I’m going on eighteen.’ She was not long seventeen, but what were a few months back and fore? ‘I work for Miss Fraser, the dressmaker.’
‘I used to work for my father, but I was just an ordinary farm-servant like the rest, and ... here, you’re shivering, lass.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, firmly, knowing that her trembling was not a result of the cold. She had never been so close to any man other than her father, and it was the nearness of John Forrest’s muscular body and the manly smell of him that was making the butterflies flutter in her stomach and the shivers race up and down her spine.
‘I wanted to see a bit of the world,’ he continued, ‘not just this wee corner of Aberdeenshire, and I was all set to go to Canada last year, but my father refused to sign the papers. I meant to go next February, as soon as I was twenty-one and could sign for myself, but the war started, and I was in the Terriers, so ...’
‘The terriers?’
‘The Territorials of the Gordon Highlanders, and I’ll not be able to go till we lick the Huns. We’ve been training in Perth since the beginning of August but we’re being sent to France when I go back.’
A tight band squeezed Elspeth’s chest. Was she to lose him so soon, the first man who had ever put an arm round her and made her feel like a woman? ‘Will your mother not be wondering where you’ve got to?’ she murmured.
This made him laugh. ‘She knows I can look after myself. It was her that sent me to the Mains to ask if they’d sell her some eggs, for her hens have gone off laying, but they’d none to spare. That was at dinnertime, and the storm was just starting when I got there, so they made me wait to see if it eased a bit. Well, I waited for hours but there was no sign of it stopping, but the cook wouldn’t let me come away till she gave me something to eat.’