The Betrayal of Maggie Blair - By Elizabeth Laird Page 0,40

were on me now, in clouds. I opened my bundle, took out my girls' clothes, and put them on. They felt comfortingly familiar after the strange freedom of my legs in the trousers. My cap was on a moment later, so that my head was protected.

I gathered up the moss I'd collected. It was damp, but it made a soft place to lie on. I needed to get some sleep. I was tired to the bones, as I had been the day before, and tomorrow would be worse. I lay down, wrapped my plaid around the rest of me, and was asleep a moment later.

***

A clatter of stones and a gasp of surprise woke me up. For a moment I was confused, not knowing where I was, then everything came back to me. A jag of fear made me scramble to my feet and crouch, ready to run.

"Don't—don't hurt me! Please!" came a girl's voice.

I knew it at once.

"Annie!" I was up and snarling like a springing cat, claws out, reaching for her face to hit and scratch it. "Thief ! Liar!"

"No, Maggie, please, you don't know, you..." she babbled, her hands over her face.

I hit out at her with a great blow, and she fell backwards onto a soft boggy patch, luckily for her. Before I could attack again, she had curled up like a little animal and started to cry loudly.

"Shut up, you little fool. They'll hear you. Or is that your plan—to get me caught again? If you do, I'll kill you."

"No!" she cried, much too loudly. I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the drover's bothy, but it was still too dark to see that far.

"Will you shut up?" I hissed at her, but she'd won the first battle. I'd lost the wish to hit her again. She disgusted me so much, I didn't want to soil myself by touching her.

"Maggie, I'm really, really sorry. You don't know—I never thought things would go so far. It was Mr. Macbean who made me say all that, about the ashes up the chain and flying and you taking your clothes off and everything. I didn't want to at all! I..."

I wanted to lift my foot and stamp on her, like you would on a nasty insect, but then I remembered the look on her face when she'd spoken against me, the second time. She had been frightened and even sorry, I had to admit.

"Just let me tell you. You'll understand, I know you will." Her wheedling voice made my skin creep. "You can kill me afterward if you want to. I wouldn't blame you. I wouldn't even mind very much."

"Very good, Annie. You think you can get around me, like you get around everyone else. Keep trying. You won't succeed."

"No, please, Maggie!" She was half sobbing. "Listen! I'm going to have a baby! It was Mr. Macbean. He—came to me. Often, in the night."

I was so astonished that I sank down onto a boulder. I wanted to burst out laughing but kept it in for fear of the noise.

"The old goat! The old hypocrite!"

"Yes," said Annie eagerly, seeing her advantage. "He's so awful, Maggie—you've no idea—and really hard and stern. And he promises things, and he preaches and prays, and all the time..."

She was coming closer to me, and I was afraid she was going to touch me. I moved back hastily. I didn't want to laugh anymore. The harm this girl had done was rising up in me, and anger was threatening to choke me again.

"He promised me things. Mrs. Macbean was ill before Ebenezer was born, and he said she was sure to die, he knew the signs on her, and she'd never live through the birth, and he'd marry me, and I'd never have to go hungry, and I'd have a nice new plaid and gown every year. If I didn't do what he wanted, he said he'd send me home. I would have died first! You don't know my daddy, Maggie. He's a drinker. He beats me. There's never enough to eat at home. I never had anything pretty to wear till I started working at Scalpsie."

She started crying again.

"Stop sniveling," I snapped, knowing as soon as I'd spoken that I sounded just like Granny. Annie made an effort and drew in a shuddering breath.

"And then—that night, you remember, you were there! Mrs. Macbean started having Ebenezer, and I saw that he didn't want her to die at all, because he rode