Chapter 6: The Wedding Night

Niall shut the gate on the whole glen and dropped the bar himself.

Through the planks I heard the crowd breaking up.

An old man said, "He ate nothing at his own wedding, mind."

Hamish's horse went last, at a walk.

Morag put a plate of cold mutton in front of me, and a bottle of whisky beside it, and left the kitchen without a word.

I ate it standing up.

Niall stayed at the window with his back to me.

"You should not have said it," he said.

"You said it back."

"I could not let him take you."

"I know," I said.

"That's why I picked you."

He turned around.

He looked wretched, and so beautiful it was hard to look at him, with the lamp behind his white hair.

"I will give you the tower bedroom," he said.

"The door locks from the inside."

"I will sleep in the cellar, as I always do."

"You will be Mrs. Kerr in law and nothing more, until you have decided what you want."

"I know what I want."

"You have known me a day."

"I've known you a hundred years," I said.

"I saw you in the vision before I saw you in the road."

"I've been looking at your mouth since Hamish's counting room."

He didn't answer.

I picked up the lamp and went up the stair to the tower room, and I did not lock the door.

It was a round stone room with a fire already lit, a huge bed hung with moth-eaten red velvet, and a chair.

I sat in the chair.

An hour later I heard him on the landing.

He didn't knock.

He stood outside the door for another hour, and I could hear him not breathing.

At last I said, loud enough to carry, "If you're going to haunt the corridor all night, Niall, come in and do it properly."

The door opened.

He stood there with his hands at his sides and his eyes already black.

"You are making a mistake," he said.

"Then make it with me."

I stood up and unbuttoned the tweed jacket, and let it drop.

I took the darned grey dress by the hem and pulled it over my head.

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