The Life She Left Behind

by Jessica Blair

Genres: Sagas; Western Romance

Synopsis

As a young widow with futures to secure for her two daughters, Glenda McKinley is torn between remaining at her beloved estate Pinmuir in the Scottish Highlands, or following the plans her deceased husband made to join his brother in America. Though her inclination is to stay among all that is dear and familiar, she is forced to reconsider when her daughter Caitlin's health takes a turn for the worse and the family doctor suggests a change of scenery would do her good.

The family's imminent departure for Colorado comes as a blow to Ros, the eldest girl, who has fallen in love with Clive, son of their estate manager. For her sister's sake, however, she agrees to try life on her uncle's cattle ranch and the family travel half the world away to start anew.

America is a whole new world to the McKinley family, and in spite of the hospitable welcome they receive from Gordon McKinley, the scale of the country and hard realities of ranch life come as a shock to the family who pine for the things and people they left behind in Scotland.

When a gentle, unassuming cowboy falls for Glenda, she has a strong incentive to stay and make a new life. But with Ros yearning for the man waiting for her back in Scotland, can the family ever find true happiness when each must pursue a different dream?

Release date: April 6, 2017

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 336

Sample

‘One last wave!’ forty-two-year-old Glenda McKinley instructed her daughters as she drew her thick plaid shawl more tightly around her shoulders against the chill that had arrived with the lowering of the sun on this April day of 1878.

Her eyes were fixed on her husband John whose strong arms were sending the rowing boat scudding in the direction of the tiny island in the loch, near to its opposite shore.

He was still thin after a severe chest infection and Glenda now recalled the handsome strong, young man with slightly curled dark hair that had first won her heart. He was still relatively young at forty-two years of age but he was leaner and his hair and beard now had streaks of grey; his skin dark and tough with the wind and sun that also gave these Highland mountains their wonderful subtle colours.

‘Just a little longer, Mama,’ pleaded sixteen-year-old Caitlin.

‘There’s a lot to do before your father returns, and that won’t be long with the light fading,’ countered her mother.

‘He should have gone earlier as you suggested, Mama,’ put in nineteen-year-old Rosalind, a little tetchily.

Glenda knew what was upsetting her eldest daughter but, deciding this was not the moment to chide Rosalind, held back a reprimand. Instead she said, lacing her words with encouragement, ‘Come on, let’s see how Mrs Lynch is getting on with the cooking. When we’ve done that we’ll go and dress ourselves in our best attire.’

‘We’ll give Papa the surprise of his life,’ laughed Caitlin.

‘Are you sure he knows nothing of your plans?’ asked Rosalind.

‘Yes,’ replied her mother. ‘He doesn’t suspect we are doing anything special. The staff have been sworn to secrecy.’

‘This is so exciting!’ cried Caitlin quickly, putting aside any sorrow she felt on leaving.

‘So don’t you give it away by over-reacting,’ warned her sister.

‘I’m not stupid,’ snapped Caitlin.

‘Now come on, let’s not bicker.’ Glenda waved her daughters into the house and headed for the kitchen. Within a few minutes Mrs Lynch was reassuring her that the celebratory meal would be ready by the time the master was ready to sit down.

‘So there is nothing more for us to do?’ Glenda enquired.

‘Nothing, Ma’am. You and the young ladies should go and enjoy getting ready.’

Glenda and her two daughters hurried up the stairs to their rooms. Twenty minutes later they all reappeared on the landing.

‘Oh, Mama, you look wonderful,’ gasped Rosalind, looking with both excitement and sadness at her mother’s beautiful peacock-blue gown that complemented Glenda’s Celtic red hair and emphasised a still trim figure.

‘You do, you really do!’ added Caitlin, not wanting to be left out.

Glenda laughed. ‘You’ve seen this dress before. The present situation did not warrant my buying a new one.’

‘I know, Mama, but you seem to glow and make it look special on what is really a sad occasion. Our last night at home.’

‘Thank you very much.’ She stepped back a little and took in her two daughters, Ros, so much like her father with her high cheek bones that were accentuated whenever she smiled and Cat, the young ‘tom-boy’, whose love of the outdoors had tanned her pale skin; but her real beauty shone from within, lighting up her hazel eyes. ‘You two look just as lovely in those dresses; perfect to walk down the stairs with me when your father comes in.’

‘Should I start my lookout now, Mama?’ asked Caitlin, her tone filled with the expectation of how her father might react when he saw the three of them standing on the stairs dressed in their finest just for him and for the dream they were to follow.

‘Why not?’ replied her mother. ‘We don’t know exactly when he will leave the island, except that he won’t be late.’

‘I’ll get the best view from here,’ announced Cat, heading for the window seat at the end of the landing.

‘A good loud shout when you first see him,’ said Rosalind. ‘Don’t miss him by daydreaming about the future.’

‘As if I would,’ muttered Caitlin, as she ran to the seat and settled her gaze across the loch towards the castle that stood, a half ruin, on the tiny island a short distance away. She followed the sun’s rays touching the mountain-tops with an ever-changing light that also took every opportunity to spread enchantment into the glens and, closer to home, the trees her father had planted when her and Ros had been toddlers. She smiled at the memory of them insisting that he should name them all. She must not miss the first signs that her father was heading home.

Glenda smiled to herself at her youngest daughter’s determination to play her part in the surprise. ‘Come, Rosalind, we may as well be comfortable while we wait.’

They went down the stairs and settled on to a comfortable, slightly faded sofa in front of the blazing log fire in the sitting room. Glenda looked at her daughter, staring at the leaping flames as if they were not there. The sparkle had faded from Rosalind’s eyes recently.

‘Still worried about leaving Scotland?’ Glenda asked her gently.

Rosalind screwed up her face. ‘Not exactly worried but I don’t really want to go. I love this land. I love our Scottish mountains. I love my home, all our memories of every room in this house. I want to take them all with me.’

‘So do I,’ said Glenda. ‘I’m locking them away in my memory so I’ll have them with me wherever I go. You try and do the same, then you and I can share them whenever we want.’

‘So why are we going?’

‘You know the last few years have been difficult for us, Rosalind. Your father and I are getting older and have no son to take on such a large estate with challenging farming conditions. Your father’s illness last year took a lot out of him and now he feels he wants a better life for us all and believes that we can find it in America. He has not taken this decision lightly. He has consulted your Uncle Gordon who’s been in America for sixteen years now. He tells us there is good land available from which we can live well. We should be able to build ourselves a solid and profitable future. We are lucky to have his advice from which to profit.’

‘I know, but life there won’t be the same as it is here.’

Glenda smiled. ‘It won’t, but it might be better; Uncle Gordon believes so. After moving around he has now finally settled in Colorado. He also agrees with your father’s decision not to sell up here, so that if ever any of us wishes to return, we can do so. That’s why we are leaving the furniture, our best clothes and so on. We have to see what life in America is like before we make a final decision.’

‘Is that a promise, Mama?’

‘You know it is, and also that the estate is being placed meanwhile in the capable hands of Mr and Mrs Martins; Jessie will keep her eye on the house and Greg will look after the estate helped by his son. Your father has given Greg and Clive carte blanche to do as they think best to keep the estate a viable proposition. So, you see, you can be reassured once again that Pinmuir House, Loch, its castle and lands, are being looked after…’

Her words, which she saw were reassuring her eldest daughter, were cut short by a piercing scream that echoed through the house.

Glenda started. A chill ran through her at the sound of further screams. The colour drained from Rosalind’s face. ‘Caitlin!’ she cried, leaping to her feet. Her mother was close behind her as they reached the hall.

‘Mama! Mama!’ Caitlin, racing down the stairs, was shaking so much she could barely get the words out. She flung herself at her mother.

Glenda grabbed her by her upper arms and shook her slightly. ‘What is it, Cat? What’s wrong?’

Caitlin gasped, ‘Fire… fire!’

Glenda released her, turned and rushed to the front of the house. She yanked open the oak door and even as she plunged outside saw dark smoke and flames rising from the castle. She started towards the loch but after a few steps realised it was useless – John had their only boat!

‘Papa!’ gasped Rosalind, following her mother. She was aware of someone beside her, turned, grasped his arm and said, ‘He’s over at the castle, Clive! The boat is still tied up there. Get help… quick!’

A shocked Clive acted immediately. Thankful that he had come from his home on horseback, he sent the animal galloping in the direction of their nearest neighbour, a mile along the shore of the loch.

There was still enough light to distinguish any movement on the island but all Glenda could see were the devouring flames, their macabre dance reflected in the still waters of the loch.

Caitlin clung to her mother, and Rosalind huddled close to them both. Glenda felt the weight of the inevitable settling over her, even though she tried desperately to cling to some last shred of hope.

Glenda waited on the shore. She resisted Mrs Martins’ attempts to persuade her to return to the comfort of the house, and found strength in Rosalind and Caitlin’s refusal to leave her side.

‘Mama, will Clive be long?’ The plaintive note in her youngest daughter’s voice tugged at Glenda’s heart.

‘I hope not, love,’ she replied.

‘He’ll be as quick as possible,’ said Rosalind. ‘I hope he finds Mr McBain at home.’

‘Won’t Mr McBain have seen the fire?’ asked Caitlin.

‘Not from where the family live,’ said Glenda. ‘The spur of the mountain protrudes into the loch and masks their view in this direction.’

‘Come on, Clive. Hurry up, hurry up!’ chanted Rosalind, half to herself, but Caitlin caught the words and joined in.

Glenda moved restlessly from one foot to the other, wishing there was something more she could do. She knew the people who had gathered by the lochside would wait until news arrived and be ready to help if needed. She wanted the McBains to arrive with their boat and then she could get to the castle, find John alive and unharmed, safe from the fire that still gnawed at the stone walls as if seeking their complete destruction.

The minutes passed by slowly with people speculating as to what the delay might be. Tensions were mounting. Then the sound of a galloping horse penetrated the gloom. The suspense eased and hope balanced on a knife-edge.

‘The McBains are on their way!’ yelled Clive as he hauled his horse to a halt. He swung out of the saddle and ran to Mrs McKinley. ‘They shouldn’t be long, Ma’am.’

‘Thank you, Clive,’ she returned, anxiety in her voice.

He glanced at Rosalind who echoed her mother’s words almost silently, which he acknowledged with a small reassuring smile.

‘How many boats are coming, Clive?’ asked his father.

‘Two,’ he replied.

‘Good,’ said Greg Martins, who started choosing the men he would like to accompany him over to the island.

‘I’m coming too,’ Glenda announced firmly.

‘No, Ma’am. You’d be better here, looking after your daughters.’

‘No!’ screamed Caitlin. ‘I want to go too. I want Papa!’

‘The wind is too strong for you to go. You stay here and look after your mother,’ said Greg in a gently persuasive tone. ‘You’ll be doing an important job.’

His eyes met Glenda’s and she nodded.

‘You’ll do that for Mr Martins, won’t you?’ her mother asked the girl.

Caitlin tightened her lips and bowed her head in acceptance.

‘We’ll do it together, Cat,’ said Rosalind.

Jessie Martins stepped out of the group of people who had gathered in spite of the cold when news of the fire had spread among the estate workers. She turned to the cook. ‘Mrs Lynch, let us go into the house. We’ll make a warm drink for everyone.’

Glenda nodded her approval but she herself stayed close to the water’s edge. ‘Off you go and help, girls,’ she said to her daughters.

‘No, Mama. Mr Martins wants us to look after you,’ said Caitlin.

‘Very well.’ Glenda allowed herself a little smile at her daughter’s acceptance of her role.

With every passing minute their attention veered between the direction from which the boat would come and the spectacle of the burning castle nearly a mile away. Horror filled Glenda’s eyes at the realisation that the timbers, supporting the stone walls, had started crashing to the ground, and without them parts of the roof had started to cave in also. Her eyes were now fixed on the disintegrating building and she saw the sudden leaping of flames and dust thrown up to the sky.

Glenda flinched. ‘John, John… where are you?’

‘The boats! The boats!’ There was hope in the cries that went up, started by Caitlin.

Men rushed into the water, ready to grab and haul in the boats as soon as they reached the shallows. Shouts rang out, orders were willingly taken, the beach came alive with willing would-be rescuers, but then words of warning were uttered as the early-evening sky over the island filled with billowing smoke. Another castle wall had collapsed and the danger they faced was emphasised once again.

‘No, Mrs McKinley. No!’ Glenda had stepped determinedly towards the boats as soon as they touched the shore. Mr Martins’ attention was on her at once. He reached out to stop her, stumbled but managed to grab her arm and hold on as he fell. Willing hands hauled them both to their feet.

‘Take your daughters into the house. You can do no good here, Ma’am. The men will do their best.’

‘Come, Mama,’ said Rosalind, taking her mother’s hand.

As Glenda felt her other hand taken by Caitlin and heard her younger daughter’s sobs, she nodded towards Greg. They watched the boats leave and then walked slowly to the house.

Glenda sank on to the first chair she saw, took her two daughters in her arms and then succumbed to the ministrations of Mrs Martins, who said gently, ‘You must be exhausted. I know it will be hard but go to your room and try and get some sleep, Ma’am. I’ll keep my eye on what is happening here.’

Glenda nodded and reluctantly went to the room she shared with her husband. Her daughter followed her.

Two hours later a noise disturbed Glenda. She woke with a start, trying to grasp where she was and why. After a few brief moments realisation dawned with a sense of alarm and an intense desire to see John. So as not to wake her sleeping daughters she slid carefully from the bed. She threw a shawl around her shoulders and stepped over to the window. She eased aside a curtain so she could look out. There was no movement on the shore so she knew the men were still on the island. She still expected John to come back, striding in the side door of the house, casting off his old tweed jacket in the lobby to go and settle inside his study. Surely she would once again walk in to see him with a glass of whisky in his hand, turn to smile at her before he settled down to work. She would kiss him again, wouldn’t she? Her wait would have to continue.

 

Clive and his friend Tim, with four other men, having quickly gathered provisions in case they needed to spend the night on the island, started to move along the shoreline away from the castle. Their knowledge of the loch and local conditions had led them to believe that if John McKinley had fallen into the water, in an attempt to leave the burning castle, he could have been washed ashore further along the lochside. With light fading from the sky they made camp in the shelter of some rocks and held on to the hope that a new day might yet bring success.

A bright morning sun heightened their expectation and they lost little time in renewing the search.

Clive called out, ‘There’s an outcrop of rocks ahead that should give me a good view. I’ll push on and scale it.’ With the approval of the others, he left them at a quick trot and, reaching the mound, started up it. From the top he signalled to the search party.

Clive surveyed the jumble of rocks beneath but nothing claimed his attention. He decided to move further to the right before continuing along the shore. After a hundred yards he stopped on the brink of a gully that dropped sharply to meet the waves of the incoming tide. His eyes widened. Excitement gripped him. Was that a rock… or clothing?

He yelled to attract his companions. ‘Here, over here!’ He pointed where he wanted them to go.

Tim signalled their acknowledgement. They closed ranks as they moved closer and closer to the gully. Clive held his position. If the bundle was not what he thought it was, his guidance might still be needed. Anxiety gripped him as he watched. He held his breath when he saw them reach the heap and bend down to examine it. One of them straightened up slowly. ‘It’s John!’

Then any hope Clive still had was dashed as two of the men gesticulated with their thumbs down. He scrambled back in a cascade of rocks, heedless of the danger. Suddenly he was on the shore and running towards the grim-faced group.

‘Dead when we found him,’ one of them reported. ‘With the strengthening wind he’s taken a beating on the rocks.’

Words lodged in Clive’s throat at the thought of breaking the news to the McKinleys. How could he face Rosalind and Caitlin? What could he say?

 

As the boats neared the McKinley home the men saw Glenda and her daughters rush to the shore. Eyes met and held. That brief moment of time marked the last moment when there were still those who believed that John might yet be alive.

The men carried him carefully, a blanket over him, towards the group of onlookers on the shore.

Glenda felt her elder daughter’s grip on her tighten and knew Rosalind had guessed the truth: this could be no one but her father. A choking cry came from Caitlin as she too realised what lay so still beneath the blanket. All three of them stood without moving, frozen by grief.

A dreadful silence prevailed as the estate workers watched the rescuers approach Glenda McKinley and lower their burden gently to the ground at her feet.

Mrs Martins and Mrs McBain came close to Rosalind and Caitlin to hold them back. Turning and resting her head on Jessie Martins’ shoulder, Caitlin sobbed uncontrollably for the father she had loved.

Glenda, with tears streaming down her face, fell to her knees and folded back the blanket from his face. There was a moment’s pause. Then, as she took her husband in her arms, the cry of a haunted soul reverberated across shore, loch and hillside. ‘Oh, John, why? Why, why, why?’ There was no answer, only shuddering sobs from Rosalind and Caitlin.

After a few minutes Glenda kissed him, laid him gently down, and stood up. The men dropped the blanket over him again but as they lifted his body one edge slipped and, in the seconds that it took to re-cover him, Caitlin turned and saw a horribly deformed face, covered with lacerations and bruises, and barely recognised it as belonging to her beloved father. She tried to cry out but no sound came. She was transfixed by the horror of what she had seen. Then she was aware of her mother holding out her arms and indicating to her daughters to walk beside her. They led the sad cortège to the house where Glenda directed them to lay John on his bed.

 

Tears stained the paper on which Glenda wrote to her husband’s brother in America.

 

Dear Gordon,

It is with an aching heart that I write to tell you that John died yesterday. He had gone to the castle in the late afternoon. It seems that he fell and probably injured his leg knocking over an oil lamp that started a fire from which his only escape lay in the loch. Sadly that and the rocks were too much for him.

The tragedy is still too recent for me to write more now, except to say that, our American dream is shattered and will remain unfulfilled.

God keep you at this tragic time.

Your loving sister-in-law,

Glenda

‘It has been a hard day, Ma’am,’ said Mrs Martins as Glenda and her daughters came into the house after seeing the last of the mourners leave. ‘I told Mrs Lynch to prepare some tea for you. I’ll let her know you are ready for it.’

‘Thank you,’ said Glenda, weary after a day when she had been obliged to act with composure despite the wrenching sorrow inside her.

As they were settling themselves Caitlin asked, ‘Mama, don’t you think your relations could have come to Papa’s funeral?’

‘I agree with you, Cat,’ put in Rosalind indignantly. ‘You and I don’t know them but they could have come, for Mama’s sake.’

Glenda gave a weak smile. ‘I didn’t expect them to, not after all these years.’

‘Why? It’s not as if they live far away – only ten miles or so as the crow flies.’

‘The rift has become too wide. Your grandfather was adamant that if I married your father, I would be an outcast as far as the rest of my family was concerned. I was cut off without a penny. No one else dared to contest that, and they were all banned from contacting me in any way.’

‘But you didn’t obey him,’ pointed out Rosalind.

‘I loved your father too much to lose him.’

‘What exactly happened when you said you would marry Papa?’ asked Caitlin.

‘I had to leave home immediately, with only what I stood up in.’

‘That was cruel,’ said Caitlin in disgust.

‘What did you do then, Mama?’ asked Rosalind, who had always wondered about her scarcity of relatives.

Glenda paused. She had never told her daughters the full story but now felt it was the right time. They were older and needed answers to the questions she had previously shrugged aside.

‘Your father was angry when I told him that I had been cast out. He was all for confronting my father there and then, but I persuaded him not to. It would only have led to more trouble.’

‘What happened to you then?’

‘Your father persuaded me to go home with him.’

‘To this house?’

‘Yes. Your uncle Gordon and your father were living here together. Immediately your uncle was aware of the situation, he invited me to make my home with them. I have ever been grateful for that invitation. Your father and I married immediately, to avoid any scandal, and were very happy.’ Her voice caught in her throat at the thought that her life could no longer be the same.

‘If you were all happy together, why did Uncle Gordon leave?’ asked Rosalind.

‘Didn’t he like children?’ Caitlin suggested.

‘No, no, no!’ Glenda protested quickly. ‘He loved the two of y. . .