More Full of Weeping

By Susan Delaney

From the grimy streets of 1920s Glasgow to the peat fires of the Outer Hebrides during the Great Depression, More Full of Weeping is the story of Hugh MacSoirbheas. He begins life as that rarest of things: a happy orphan, learning Gaelic from a caretaker at the orphanage, the woman who named him and whose daughter becomes Hugh’s closest friend. Though desperate to remain where he is, he is intrigued when he learns that he is to be taken in as a foster child on a Gaelic-speaking island off the Scottish coast. Little does he know that on this remote croft he will face enemies, gain allies, fight for his beloved language, and ultimately solve the mystery of his own parentage. At heart, More Full of Weeping is a very human story of powerlessness and prejudgment being overcome by love and perseverance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Delaney
• Release date: Aug 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476241845

Susan Delaney

Susan Delaney started life in the Midwest but moved east in early adulthood, first to Bucks County, Pennsylvania and then across the Delaware River to New Jersey. She has a passion for many things, including art (her degree is in Art History), travel (at least *being* in new places, rather than the flying involved in getting to them), ice hockey (lately just watching, but once also playing--though never very well), listening to music (folk, classical, and many other genres), and meeting interesting people (and most people are interesting once you get them telling their own personal stories). She has had a number of jobs, including strange ones in her youth - like ice painting and pickle-packing - and some less fascinating ones involving editing and proofreading and even typing (with two fingers - the way she has written her novels).

Book preview

More Full of Weeping

A Novel

Susan Delaney

Praise for Susan Delaney’s first novel A Star to Sail By:

… captivating…a moving story…

—Publishers Weekly

… a first rate rising romance star!

—Borders

… a beautiful, gentle and charming tale that follows the genesis of the relationship between two lonely souls.

—Jill M. Smith, Romantic Times Magazine

An exceptional debut novel and an author to watch

—amazon.com

Delaney’s fast-paced, colorful style, is a winner.

—Michele Cooper, The Times (Trenton, New Jersey)

I found the time-travel story fascinating and the quality of the writing superb.

—Nellie McNeill-Sanders, The Galley

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012 Susan Sancinito

Published by MHB Publishing

Cover photograph © 2012 Susan Sancinito

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

ISBN-10: 1434885585

ISBN-13: 978-1434885586

This is a work of fiction and all characters and situations are products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as representing any real person(s) living or dead. Glasgow actually exists, though.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrievable system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

for Jane and Louis

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the expert advice and assistance on all things Scottish and Hebridean she received from: Sheelagh Murray, Di Reed, Eileen Bell, and, most especially, Kathryn Kate Jackson née Robertson of North Uist and West Sussex.

The Stolen Child by W. B. Yeats

Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water-rats;

There we’ve hid our faery vats,

Full of berries

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you

can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim grey sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances,

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you

can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you

can understand.

Away with us he’s going,

The solemn-eyed:

He’ll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

For he comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

From a world more full of weeping than he

can understand.

1886 (from Crossways, 1889)

Chapter 1

Glasgow, April 1920

In her defense, Iseabail MacAskill’s hand did shake as she signed the papers that released her from all claim to her illegitimate child. All the blanks had been neatly filled in, fleshing out the skeleton of the document with information, before she’d affixed her name, permanently severing, or so she assumed, all ties with her newborn son. He was an orphan now.

She was not a cold woman, only a very young one, and even as she unsteadily penned her signature she was not yet nineteen years of age.

Thus the event had finally arrived that was meant to give Iseabail back whatever chances she had had of a good life, to physically remove the bi-product of the sin for which, she’d been assured, God had already forgiven her. The knowledge that her shame incarnate would no longer complicate her future failed to reassure her in any significant way, and she found no pleasure in the act of giving the boy up. The fact that she couldn’t say if she loved or hated the baby’s father did nothing to mitigate her pity for the poor soul, and her only act as his mother had been to insist on his baptism in the Church, a detail that had been agreed upon before she’d even taken up residence at the charitable home for wayward women who wanted to hide their transgressions from the world. At least, she felt, his soul would be safe.

Soon enough it would be time for her to go, to leave behind what had until recently been a part of her own flesh. Tears blurred her vision and she wondered if it were possible that she would ever again feel joy such as she’d felt the fateful week of the child’s conception. There had been utmost despair then, too, and she couldn’t help feeling in her youth and naïveté that surely one or the other of these two emotions must prevail in the new life she was about to begin.

On the day Iseabail MacAskill’s infant came into the world, Helena Eddowes, titular head of both the small residence for unhappily expectant mothers and its larger adjunct orphanage, was away in London visiting with her grown daughter, her son-in-law, and the little heirs to the Eddowes Biscuits Ltd. fortune. In consequence, when the child was brought to Dolina Matheson, the competent overseer of the day-to-day care of the orphan children, the job of naming him fell by default to her. Normally a task as small as this would have been hers by rights, but Mrs. Eddowes had sentimentally attached herself to the chore of bestowing names, and not even Dolina had yet trespassed on this, the older woman’s, domain.

Is it himself, then? Dolina asked with a smile when the small mewling bundle was first placed in her arms. She drew back the baby blanket, which she knew had been knitted by some well-meaning member of the Glasgow Meeting, the better to view the boy’s tiny face. And how is it after looking outside the day? she asked, glancing up again at old Morna Anderson, the midwife who had crossed to the orphanage with her tiny human cargo, adding, It came on for quite a blow last night.

It’s a fair enough day noo, but who’d hae thocht it efter sic a wild nicht? I cannae mind sich a stushie! A’ that rain and the wind greetin’ like a lost soul… Ah, weel…, replied the sturdy Mrs. Anderson. It was fortunate that Dolina had become proficient in understanding Scots during the past few years she’d spent in Glasgow; like English, it was by no means her native tongue.

Och, but it’s turned oot tae be a seilful wind efter a’, Mrs. Anderson continued. Nae only his it ta’en off the rain we’d been huvin’ for weeks on end, but jist you leuk what it’s gone and brocht us, she said, beaming affectionately into the folds of wool.

"Aye, soirbheas, we’d be calling it at home – a favorable wind, right enough. And I’d say it will have been worth the trouble mother and son must have given you on such a night," Dolina said.

Oh, aye, Mrs. Matheson. This yin here has the look of a lad o’ pairts tae him, I sweer.

Dolina smiled at the prediction of a rosy life for the tiny waif, but it was a smile tempered by her certain knowledge that, whatever his innate gifts, the odds were stacked against him. Well, he certainly has a deal of hair, she offered, looking with more sympathy on the baby now softly sleeping in her arms, snugly oblivious of his uncertain future.

Aye, that’s whit Ah telt his mither when he come oot. Then she asked me, wi’ tears just waiting tae fa’ from her ee as though she wuz feart tae hear the answer, what color his hair wuz. I telt her, ‘tis black, same as yer ain,’ but she only gret a’ the mair.

"Somehow he puts me in mind of my brother Ùisdean – Hugh, that would be, in the English," Dolina amended.

Him that wuz lost in the War? Mrs. Anderson asked gently.

The very same, Mrs. Anderson, Dolina responded. And do you know, I think I shall name the boy in his honor.

Dae yea think that’s wise?

I’d hardly like to leave the wee lad nameless until Mrs. Eddowes’ return.

Ah only meant, weel, we a’ ken as tae how there’s nae sense in gettin’ attached tae these wains.

You’re right, of course.

And whit aboot Mrs. Eddowes, then? She sets such store by the gaein’ o’ names.

This lad’s mother—to what place does she belong?

The islands, same as yer sel’. Ah don’t mean Skye, o’ course, but ain o’ them wee sma’ places where they’re Papists.

Uist, perhaps?

Ah don’t richtly mind the name, but a’ through her delivery she was speaking the Gaelic richt enough, like I’ve heard you dae wi’ yer ain wee lassie.

Then Hugh it is. And I think something Highland would be in order for his surname, considering his heritage, don’t you think?

But, Mrs. Matheson, what wid Mrs. Eddowes be sayin’ aboot that? Ye ken how she likes tae mind the shires of her ain country in the namin’ o’ wains.

Aye, I do as well, but these children are not English, Mrs. Anderson, and though she means no harm, I’m thinking, in calling them the likes of Tom York and Margaret Essex, having such names can’t be a favor to them once they’ve left here. She maybe is thinking she would make Englishmen of them, but they’re despised by the English because they speak like Scots and mistrusted by their own people for their English names.

I’m sure it’s a’ weel meant on Mrs. Eddowes’ pairt. She’s only a bittie glaikit on account o’ her no’ bein’ raised here.

"I’m sure you’re right; it is no doubt only a thoughtless act and not an intentionally unkind one. Mrs. Eddowes is a good and generous soul, and I, of all people, should and do know that, but how often misery begins in mere thoughtlessness!"

Aye, weel, afen eneuch, I’m sure.

Now, then, it’s customary for Highland names to express parentage and here that clearly won’t do. I could give him his mother’s name, but I wouldn’t want to tempt him to try to find her one day. It’s enough that these children are rejected once when they’re too young to know it, she said and thought for a moment before continuing. I have it. MacSoirbheas it will be. ‘Son of a favorable wind.’ It’s certain sure he can claim no other father.

Aye, that’s all too true, for most of these poor wains.

Is the mother doing well?

Aye, she’s young and will recover soon enough. But it cannae be easy losin’ your ain flesh and bluid.

I should imagine not, Dolina replied, though little enough imagination was required on her part. Well, I thank you, Mrs. Anderson, for bringing Hugh to his new home. I understand he is to be baptized on Saturday. I’ll make certain that’s he’s ready for off at the proper time.

As it turned out, Hugh did not receive the sacrament of Baptism as his mother had specified until nearly three weeks later. A cough became steadily worse day after day until pneumonia made it uncertain whether the infant would last through another night. But gradually, as early spring gave way to the warmth of May, it looked as though the boy who simply would not thrive might just live to see a succession of birthdays. Throughout his ordeal, whenever possible Dolina Matheson would look in on Hugh at the orphanage’s small infirmary, and her three-year-old daughter Bessie kept a nearly constant vigil at the small boy’s side. As it became clearer that he would recover, Dolina went so far as to bring him into her own room at night to ensure that no relapse would occur.

The million miles of clearest blue sky that had ridden in on the tail of the wind that heralded Hugh’s arrival held on for longer than anyone expected, and so it was that once the boy had both recovered and had had his sins removed by the local parish priest, Dolina and her daughter Bessie, at the little girl’s pleading insistence, were able to take him out in a pram, something that was to become a weekly occurrence.

Out in the sunshine, Bessie fussed over her tiny charge, adjusting his blankets more times that the light breeze that was blowing could possibly have disarranged them.

Leave him be, love, Dolina admonished half-heartedly, for she knew how little pleasure there was to be had for her daughter among so many abandoned children. Of necessity, obedience and quiet were the watchwords of the institution from which Dolina gained her livelihood, and Bessie, though not herself an orphan resident, was not immune to following the rules that kept order.

They spoke to each other in Gaelic, the language in which Dolina had been raised on the isle of Skye. Though circumstances decreed that most likely they would have to remain in Glasgow for years yet to come, other than during all-too-brief visits home to the island, Dolina was determined that her daughter should not lose the ways of her own people.

Must he go back to the nursery now, Mummy? Bessie asked. Couldn’t he always stay with us in our rooms?

Don’t be silly, lass. One day he’ll be adopted or boarded out and where will you be then if you’ve begun to think of him as a brother?

No one will be after taking him now, Mummy.

Why on earth not? He’s fit now and soon will be as strong as any lad his age. I’d even venture to say he’ll be handsome once he’s put on some weight and got a bit more color in his cheeks.

Because he was sick, Mummy, and now he only hears me on one side.

Are you certain sure? Dolina asked.

Oh, aye. I whisper to him and sing, but he only turns to see where I am if I stay on this side, she said, indicating the boy’s right ear.

Oh, dear, that is a blow, Dolina replied, adding softly, At least no war will have him now.

Stirrings of discontent were already to be heard in Glasgow among those who had fought in the late Great War to make Britain a fit country for heroes to live in and who now were lucky to hold a job at even the lowest of wages. The future legendary poverty of the nineteen-thirties was still some years ahead, but the industries many had believed would carry the British economy forever —coal, iron and steel, shipbuilding, and textiles—were all hurting. Dolina herself knew how lucky she was to have a place that ensured she and Bessie need not go without basic necessities. Still, when she looked up at the imposing façade of her place of employment, she couldn’t help but wish her view were instead composed of the green hills and blue sea of Skye.

The main building, that of the orphanage proper, was a nineteenth-century structure in the style of a Tudor Great House, whose sandstone exterior on clear evenings turned red as spilled blood in the light of the setting sun. In the years before hard times an ornate iron fence had been put up all around the property, not so much to protect Victorian neighbors from the children, but rather to keep the world out. Dolina was nearly certain, though, that the frowning edifice itself, with its carved declaration Eddowes Home for Orphans, would have been enough to repel the merely curious.

Its unwelcoming impression, created by architecture poorly chosen, belied the hearts of its founders; for the Eddowes were Quakers, dedicated to peace and service to those less fortunate than themselves, which meant nearly everyone, and especially to those in need of protection from an oppressive world. The irony that Dolina should find herself in the employ of pacifists because of war was seldom far from her mind.

Inside the building there were more inscriptions etched in stone, over doorways and across the vast lintel of the mantelpiece in the great room that served as both schoolroom and dining hall for the orphanage’s inhabitants. All Biblical quotations, the first to be encountered upon entering read To Thee the helpless can entrust their cause; Thou art the defender of orphans. Dolina often wondered if it wasn’t offering false hope to the children residing at the Eddowes’ Home to so specifically single them out for God’s protection. At least her daughter Bessie had a father, she thought, if only just.

Other words carved in stone at the orphanage offered lessons in behavior and a plea for acceptance of one’s lot in life: A Merry Heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. and I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. Yet another allowed for the possibility that at times these might fail to keep up the spirit: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Over the door to the great room that acted as a school five days a week was the saying Whoever loveth instruction loveth knowledge, but across the great mantel therein ran the abiding Golden Rule that was the cornerstone of the Eddowes’ code of conduct: Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. Dolina could see daily Mrs. Eddowes’ intention to follow this maxim of St. Matthew’s as the guiding principle of her life, though her reach did sometimes exceed her grasp – through well-meant but misplaced idealism rather than due to bad intent.

No, the real irony to Dolina was to be found elsewhere in the quote chiseled above the door to Mrs. Eddowes’ own office: The work of righteousness shall be peace… How many times the older woman must have viewed those words in silence and wondered what she had done wrong that her only son, raised to abhor violence by his Quaker parents, a young man with a legitimate right to be excused from fighting as a conscientious objector, should have gone lightheartedly off to war.

Once, in bitterness, Mrs. Eddowes had blamed it on the fact that she had not prevailed in her wish to have her son Philip educated in England as his older sisters had been, that a desire to do something heroic was a Scottish national disease that her son had quite naturally caught through long-term proximity. After her brief outburst, the older woman had apologized to Dolina, realizing that, after all, the suffering caused her by her son’s actions had been limited to the months of worry felt by her and by her husband. Dolina, for her part, couldn’t help but agree to some extent with Mrs. Eddowes’ assessment of the Scottish character, at least as she’d seen it through the behavior of her husband Neil. During the leave in which Bessie had been conceived, he had tried to explain to her the irresistible call of the tune as a piper led the men into battle. Dolina was reminded daily, as well, of the Gael’s penchant for actions demonstrating bravery and leading to glory, by the photograph of her husband that stood even then at her bedside. Taken before he left for France, in the image Neil stood in uniform, grinning proudly at the camera, standing side by side with his best friend and fellow enlistee, Sandy MacRyrie, who not long after lay in pieces upon a French farmer’s field. The Germans had called these regiments the Ladies from Hell because of their kilts and fierce Highland ways, and the first time Neil had shown himself to her dressed as a soldier, Dolina had felt nationalistic pride surface in herself, as well. But now she felt that it was difficult to justify a war, even one to end them all, that left as many men dead or broken as this one had. A popular music hall tune about a Scottish soldier called The Waggle o’ the Kilt had once upon a time had Dolina gleefully singing along with its infectious humor as it played on the minister’s wife’s Victrola:

"He’s a braw, braw Hielan’ laddie,

Private Jock McDade.

There’s not anither soger like him

In the Scotch Brigade.

Rear’d amang the heather,

You can see he’s Scottish built

By the wig-, wig-, wiggle wiggle waggle o’ the kilt."

But even Harry Lauder, the immensely popular and jubilant entertainer who had written and recorded the song, had not been left untouched by the war. Though knighted for his efforts to cheer the troops, Sir Harry had lost his only son.

How Dolina had once laughed when she’d heard those delightful lyrics, thinking of her own Neil marching along in uniform, every inch the Highlander. Now the thought of him in his glengarry, service tunic, kilt, sporran, and hose gave her only feelings she needed to repress: those of anger and a longing for what might have been.

Though it went against her nature to be dishonest, Dolina was determined to bury from view any emotions of that sort. To be an object of pity at her place of work would be bad enough, but to make Neil feel as though he had in any way let her down, she felt, would be unpardonable. At least the long walk with her daughter Bessie at her side and little Hugh in the perambulator would give her ample time to ready herself for the visit to the veterans’ sanatorium where Neil now resided. What shelling and bitter cold had been unable to accomplish, German poison gas had, and the fighting unit known as Private Neil Matheson had ceased to be a factor in the British cause from the moment his gas mask had failed to properly function. Had he died, his would have been a hero’s death. At the first scent of the deadly chemical, a young English lieutenant in his trench, newly assigned to the front, had become hysterical, preventing others from preparing for the assault in his tumultuous panic. Neil had grabbed hold of him as he would a recalcitrant sheep balking at the fank, and forced a mask over the youthful Englishman’s face before donning his own. Lieutenant Philip Eddowes had lived, though he would for the rest of his life shy at loud noises and be haunted by hideous nightmares; Private Neil Matheson’s lungs, however, would never fully recover. Even walking for any length of time was more than his breath would allow, and he spent most of his days in a wooden wheelchair with a plaid across his knees, reading newspapers, playing cards, and, weather permitting, soaking up a bit of sun.

The way things had turned out seemed monstrously unfair to Dolina on the rare occasions she permitted herself even to consider it. And unreal. She’d grown up with the certainty that one day she would be a crofter’s wife. No other idea had ever so much as crept into her imagination, and now here she was, working for wages, both miles and worlds away from her island home. At least her husband’s act of common sense under fire had also ensured that their daughter Bessie’s needs would be met. Dolina was grateful that Neil had rescued the Eddowes’ son, and she never allowed herself to wonder if Philip Eddowes wasn’t at least in part to blame for the pitiful condition of his savior. Still, seeing Neil reduced to what he now was hadn’t gotten any easier now that the war was over. Countless veterans, she knew, were in worse state, and many more had made the supreme sacrifice in battle. Then the influenza epidemic that had followed, and had only ended the previous year, had claimed many more lives, preying on healthy people in their twenties, thirties, and forties all over the world. Dolina knew she was lucky in many respects, and a day never went by that she didn’t say a prayer of thanksgiving for at least having her family alive though not untouched by the many horrors that had marked the new century.

Counting her blessings, she acknowledged that though Neil would never be as vital as he had been, she and Bessie could at least talk to him in the flesh rather than have to pay visits to his grave or worse, to only imagine the final location of his remains. Women over the age of thirty now had the vote. Armed conflict, it was hoped, was to be a thing of the past. Her position at the orphanage included a safe place to live that could be as warm and welcoming as she chose to make it. Her daughter was a constant delight to her and now, well, now she had Hugh as well—though for how long it was difficult to say. Why Bessie had chosen a sickly boy from among the many infants that had passed through their doors was a mystery to her, but, for the time being, she would discourage nothing that brought happiness without sin to her little girl’s life.

Nearing the sanatorium, Dolina ordered her thoughts and prepared her emotions for her weekly visit to her husband, a smile finding its accustomed place on her face as she thought of how she might cheer Neil’s life a little by her presence. As she and Bessie rounded a corner with the infant carriage, an unexpected whip of wind fluttered her skirt and nearly removed her hat. She automatically wondered what this particular blow might bring. Perhaps it was in her Celtic nature to see foreboding or promise in every storm and rainbow that followed. She recognized the ridiculousness of her superstition: surely the weather had little to do with human events, and the same gale that brought trauma to one might also bring gladness to another. The wind that she had earlier deemed favorable merely because it had coincided with the birth of one unimportant and unwanted boy could very well have spelled either death or great rejoicing for persons far more notable than those in her own sphere. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, for once this change in the weather would mean nothing at all.

Chapter 2

Glasgow, July 1927

Hugh had reached the age of seven, what the nun responsible for preparing him for his First Holy Communion called the age of reason. It was to be a year of unprecedented and unforeseen changes for Hugh, although it would have taken very little to upset the routine of his existence. Other than his walks