Love and Music Will Endure (9 page)

‘Oh, Sir, do please stop. I need to speak with you.’

Rev. MacKay halted his spindly, heron legs and looked down his beaky nose at the wiry old woman, gasping as she recovered her breath.

‘It’s big Màiri. You know, Isaac’s widow. She’s been put in prison and accused of theft; of taking clothes from that poor young lady she was nursing when she had barely breathed her last and she can’t understand how it’s happened and she’s to be tried at any moment and can’t defend herself when she doesn’t understand the charge that’s written in English and she’s in a desperate state indeed and I thought of yourself to help her and explain to the sheriff that it’s all a terrible mistake and …’

‘Slow down, woman. You’re gabbling. I don’t recognise you. You’re not one of my flock, are you?’

‘No, Sir, but Màiri is. Màiri MacPherson.’

‘And you say that she is innocent of any wrongdoing?’

‘Of course she is. She’s as honest as the day is long. Some folk might say that she is too honest in speaking her mind but no-one could accuse her of stealing and expect to be believed.’

‘Yes, indeed, she isn’t known for turning the other cheek,’ he noted, frowning.

‘But she was not the one at fault. She has been wrongly accused. She needs someone respected and fluent in English, like yourself, to help her.’

‘Mmm. I shall have to ascertain what the position is. It would avail us nothing to fan the flames of discord before investigating further. Leave the matter with me.’

Morag opened her mouth to protest but her lips froze under the icy blast of the minister’s gaze. Who could she ask now? She shuffled her feet while she ransacked her mind. Hadn’t Jeannie’s husband Angus spoken warmly about the excise superintendent? He always took time to speak to the workers in Gaelic when he came to the brewery, Duncan said. He was a thoughtful and earnest man, no drinker at all. They always teased him and tried to get him to have a wee taste but he would turn them down with a smile – not righteous at all. But where would she find him? Didn’t he live out of the town, towards Clachnaharry? That was much too far to walk. No matter. She would go to the brewery and ask there about him. So she turned her protesting feet back towards the town centre.

She found Angus as ruddy and hearty as she was bloodless and pale.

‘You’re in luck. He was here an hour since and now he’s checking out the inns. Sit yourself down while I go and find him.’

April 1872

Dear Mr Mackintosh,

I trust that you will not consider me importunate in writing to you. I know of your sterling work in improving the amenities of the town. However, I am appealing to you now as a fellow Gael and one of the founders of the Gaelic Society.

If I may set the scene before you: a defendant recently appeared in one of our courts, a native of our own Highland province, a woman speaking in her mother tongue, the language of the Gael. When she was called she seemed not to hear. She was called in a strange tongue and heeded it not. Bye and bye she started up and made enquiry and although she spoke the language of the country there was no-one who
knew what she said or who could speak to her in terms which she could understand. The poor woman must have felt as if she were in the Tower of Babel.

The case was reported as follows in the pages of ‘The Inverness Courier’,

‘A very painful and disgraceful case came before Baillie Simpson at the Police Court on Monday. A nurse named Mary MacPherson was engaged to attend a lady lying ill of fever. The lady, comparatively a stranger in Inverness and living with her family in lodgings, unhappily died and the nurse took advantage of her position in the house to pillage her wardrobe. While the funeral service was being read at the cathedral, she was ransacking the boxes of her deceased mistress. The charge was fully proved and the prisoner was sentenced to 40 days imprisonment.’

A friend of the accused alerted me to the trial. This lady was distraught, utterly convinced that the charge was false. She begged me to use what influence I could. After interviewing Màiri I felt confident that she was speaking the truth in protesting her innocence. So I spoke with Captain Turner, her erstwhile employer. He, poor gentleman was still so stricken by his young wife’s demise that he was incapable of rational discussion. However, I did ascertain from him that Màiri’s services had been offered to him by his friend and fellow officer, Captain Bolland. The latter and his wife were fulsome in their praise of Màiri’s rectitude and honesty. They were at a loss to understand how her character could have changed so dramatically so as to turn her into a thief.

I arranged for the unfortunate woman to have legal representation at her trial, sadly to no avail. While the trial was in progress the young girl who had been employed by the Turners as a maid of all work suddenly left the district. It seems likely that she nursed a grievance against Màiri and had maliciously sought to incriminate her.

Màiri, not surprisingly, feels a keen sense of betrayal and insult. Baillie Simpson spoke to her when she was released, saying that he hoped that she had learnt her lesson. The only lesson she has learnt is that she can have no faith in the justice of Inverness and she is resolved to leave the town. She plans to stay with her daughter in Glasgow and hopes to secure work there as a private nurse.

Like me she is approaching the autumn of her days. She is strong and robust. She resembles a sleeping lioness as yet unaware of her power. In particular she displays a sort of indomitable courage, whether in disregarding her own danger in tending patients suffering from serious infections or in expressing her righteous anger at the injustice she has suffered. Although almost completely unlettered she has a poetic sensibility. She has composed verses about her imprisonment. Much of them furnish a mundane record of events as they unfolded. However, there are signs that she can see beyond her own immediate plight to reflect on the grievous fate of her countrymen. She writes with true sentiment of how,

She would dearly love to return to Skye but her family croft has disappeared like so many others and she would have no means to earn a livelihood.

I obtained for her from the Bollands the favourable reference which is her due. Secondly I suggested that I use my influence to secure her a position at the Royal Infirmary to train as a nurse and midwife. She could then command a more regular income and should she return to Skye she would have the knowledge to ameliorate the condition of the people there.

After reflection she was agreeable to my proposal although she was concerned about her lack of learning, especially in the English language. I was able to tell her that I had secured the offices of Reverend MacKay in this matter. He had already agreed to find her a suitable teacher in Inverness and to make enquiries for further assistance when she moves to Glasgow. He was most expeditious in this matter. Maybe, although he would never admit it, his conscience was pricking him for being so dilatory in her defence earlier.

So, as you will already have surmised, I am going to ask you, in your capacity as one of the leaders of Inverness society, to use your influence to help this woman secure a position at the Royal. Her situation has led me to think again about the plight of our people. My thoughts have tended to concentrate on Highland men as the agents for betterment of the Gaels. After all, woman’s role is one centred on family duties. Yet, as with every rule, there are exceptions. A woman like Màiri, no longer young but with strong, albeit unformed, energies need no longer be confined to the purely domestic sphere. She can enrich the lives of others and inspire young women to attain a modest professional standing.

I shall retire soon from the excise service. I have already contributed articles to the Scottish and Irish press, especially on the land issue and I am keen to establish a newspaper here in Inverness which would provide a voice for Gaels. I shall become a full-time newspaper man and scourge of the ‘Courier’.

Your faithful servant

John Murdoch.

Flora hauled the sack of potatoes up the worn tenement stairs and through her own door. Panting, she left her burden sagging in the corner of the room. Effie was inside, scouring tears away with the back of her hand while bangs and crashes could be heard coming from the tiny scullery beyond. Flora slumped down on a chair and squeezed her younger sister’s hand, ‘What’s wrong,
isean
?’

‘Mamma’s cross again,’ she sobbed.

‘What’s it about this time?’ asked Flora with a sigh.

‘Oh, the usual … the
Sasannachs
and their horrible language.’

The scullery door trembled on its hinges as Màiri flung it open, ‘You should only speak Gaelic at home. I can’t be doing with that wretched English. It’s a slovenly language that limps along shuffling its feet.’ Màiri swung her head like an angry bull, ‘There’s no music to it. And it’s devouring Gaelic speakers, even my own flesh and blood.’ She jabbed an accusing finger at Effie.

The girl looked at her sister for support, ‘All I said to Mamma was that we need to speak English outside so that people can understand us.’

‘So that’s what going to school does for you. It turns you into a traitor to your tongue and your people.’

Flora’s voice was calm, ‘But Mamma, none of us can stop the tide from coming in. We live in a city, we’re not in a wee village on Skye. We have to talk to all sorts of people. If you try to speak Gaelic to them they look down on you and call you “daft Irish”.’

‘What are we coming to? Even the Gaelic chapels hold English services for those who think themselves too high and mighty to
speak to God in the language they learnt at their mothers’ knee. Those
Sasannachs
don’t just take away our land and drive us from our homes. They are taking away our history, our stories and now plucking our very thoughts from their nests too.’

‘We’re not turning our backs on Gaelic, just saying that it’s different for us. We don’t know Skye, except through your stories. Effie and I have only ever lived in towns. We’ve been to school and if you remember Pappa was very keen that we should learn. We speak Gaelic at home but we learnt to read and write in English. That’s the way of the world here.’

‘Well the world’s wrong then,’ shouted Màiri, thumping the table.

Flora stood up, straightening her back and looking up at her much taller mother. She spoke slowly and carefully.

‘Mamma, I know that it’s been hard for you leaving Inverness and coming to Glasgow, especially when you have to sleep at the hospital so often but Effie too has had a hard time. She’s lost her Pappa and her home.’

Both Màiri and Effie sat open mouthed at hearing the normally placid Flora speak so vehemently. The air bristled with tension. Màiri blew her nose thunderously, ‘You sounded so like your dear father then,’ she snuffled. The storm passed over. Her craggy features crumbled and melted into tears, ‘I’m just a useless
cailleach
,’ she sobbed.

‘Come and sit down, Mamma and tell me what’s really upsetting you.’ Flora’s voice was gentle again.

‘I’ll never get my nursing papers. I’ll look such a fool and I’ll be letting down Mr Murdoch and Mr Fraser MacKintosh after all their help.’

‘Why shouldn’t you get your papers? Your English is good now, even though you hate the language and you were an excellent nurse to start with.’

‘I know I’m a good nurse. I can clean the ward from top to bottom and make beds shipshape. I lift patients, feed them, bring them bedpans. I sit with the dying and lay them out when they have breathed their last. I can dress stinking wounds without flinching.’

Both her daughters nodded and smiled. Màiri sat down with a groan.

‘Do you know we had a dresser yesterday, a young student, delicate as a lassie. He was so overcome at seeing a big abscess being lanced under a patient’s arm that he had to rush out to spew up his lunch. When he returned, pale as a corpse he straightaway swooned and fell in a dead faint.’ Màiri gave a harsh laugh.

‘So what’s the matter? I’ve never seen you so overcome before,’ Flora asked.

‘It’s the writing,’ said Màiri flatly, ‘You have to write notes about each patient. If I can take my time I can manage.’

‘So?’

‘Well, today when I was writing up my notes one of the stuck-up First Class nurses was watching me. The first I knew of it was when I heard a snigger. She was looking over my shoulder and nudging her friend so that she could come and laugh at the silly old woman who writes like a child. “Try not to hold the pen as if it’s a weapon,” she laughs and her friend giggles, “and do put your tongue back in. You’re enough to scare the horses.” Why should I have to endure their rudeness? I’m old enough to be their mother, or grandmother even. It took me back to when I was in that courtroom.’

‘They should know better,’ replied Flora, stroking her mother’s arm,

‘But surely you won’t allow cheeky slips of lassies stop you from being a nurse? There must be other older nurses like yourself?’

Màiri sniffed, ‘I suppose so but they’re all rough Glasgow keelies or wild Irishwomen not long off the boat. There aren’t any proper Gaels.’

‘Does it matter where they’re from?’ Flora raised her hand to halt her mother’s glowering protest, ‘It’s different in Glasgow. We have to mix with all sorts of folk.’

Màiri curled her lip in contempt while Flora rubbed her aching back. ‘Well, I need to boil up some of these for our tea,’ she said, dragging the sack of potatoes behind her, ‘If it’s all too much, why don’t you leave the Royal and go back to doing private nursing?’

‘What? And let yon snooty women get the better of me? Have you no faith in your mother?’ Màiri shouted indignantly to Flora’s retreating back. As she closed the scullery door behind her, Flora turned to wink at Effie and put her finger to her lips.

Later that evening Flora lay in bed, watching the shadows reach out across the ceiling and sighed softly.

‘What is it? whispered Effie, curled up beside her.

‘It’s all such a struggle. No, not you, you’re not any trouble but …’

‘It’s Mamma isn’t it? She always seems to stir up a storm when she comes here.’

‘I know she’s had hard things to bear but when she’s miserable she spreads her unhappiness around, like a disease she’s brought back from the Royal.’

‘I thought that nurses were meant to make people better, not worse,’ Effie giggled.

Flora smiled, ‘She always seems so big and sure of herself that no-one thinks she can be hurt, but her pride is wounded when people mock her. Joseph says that she’s too much of a thin skinned Highlander, taking offence and pulling out her dirk when she thinks she’s been slighted.’

‘Pappa used to keep her calm. I know he can’t come back but I wish the old Mamma would return. She used to be fun, singing while she cooked our meals and telling stories when we sat around the fire at night. Now she snarls like a cross old dog,’ Effie stifled a sob.

Flora squeezed her sister’s hand, ‘I know, but things will get better, you’ll see. When Iain comes through from Inverness next week why don’t we all go to the shinty match? Joe can come too.’

‘Aye, it will be something to look forward to. Maybe you and Joe will be able to sneak away for a wee cuddle.’

‘You cheeky rascal! I’ll tickle your feet and make you squeal like a piglet,’ laughed Flora, grabbing her wriggling sister.