Free An Island Apart by Lillian Beckwith

give you the necessary money.’
    â€˜Ach, there will be no need for you to do that,’ he demurred.
    â€˜But you must take the money,’ she insisted proudly. She wasn’t going to have him thinking she would allow him to spend money on her before they had made their marriage vows.
    Immediately divining the reason for her insistence he slanted her a faintly roguish smile. ‘I will not buy the portmanteau until after we are wed,’ he promised her. She treated him to a spectral nod of acceptance, feeling curiously relieved, not so much because there would be no need for her to dip into her own small savings but because his conduct had banished her uncertainty about his attitude to money. She knew Island men were as a rule sensible about money matters but she’d heard stories of the odd one or two who were so ‘money hungry’ their dependents suffered miserably. Ruari MacDonald was plainly not one of them, she concluded.
    She felt even more assured when the next moment he said, ‘I will need to buy a ring for you to wear, will I not? A gold wedding ring?’ She looked speculatively at her bare hands resting in her lap. ‘Is that not the way of it?’ She acknowledged his question with a grave smile. ‘How am I to know the thickness of your finger?’ he asked. There was a hint of eagerness in his tone. ‘You will take time to meet me at the jeweller’s shop?’
    â€˜That I do not intend to do,’ she told him. ‘I believe it is not the custom, but I will take the measure of my finger with a piece of wool,’ she promised him. ‘I’ve heard tell it is the way it is done,’ she added quickly in case he should think she was speaking from previous experience. As his lips shaped to ask a further question she forestalled him by saying, ‘I will leave the piece of wool on the tray on top of the dressing table in your bedroom.’
    Just at that moment she glimpsed Meggy passing the window, and then heard the thump of the back door and felt the draught as it opened and closed. Rising from the chair she said, ‘I must away now and set Meggy to preparing the vegetables.’ He looked at her questioningly as she picked up the tray.
    â€˜Will I come to the kitchen tonight?’ he asked.
    â€˜Not tonight. We could not be sure of having it to ourselves.’
    â€˜You will not forget about the wool?’ he called after her as she was leaving the room.
    â€˜I will not forget the wool,’ she assured him with a coy grin.
    That same evening in her bedroom she took her few clothes out of the wardrobe and inspected them carefully. It would be nice to buy something new for her wedding, she thought, but what money she’d managed to save she was not going to squander on clothes which might not be suitable for Island wear even supposing she could take the time off to go shopping for them. She held up her Harris Tweed suit on its hanger. It was almost new and looked in as fresh a condition as it had looked on the day when it had been given to her by a young woman who’d stayed briefly at ISLAY while en route to Gibraltar where she was to marry and settle down. The young woman had told her she had been a schoolteacher on the Isle of Lewis; her fiancee had lived in Edinburgh but had now been transferred to Gibraltar, from where he’d written to say she would need only lightweight clothes for the climate there so the suit was something she could very well dispense of. Observing that they were of similar build, the young woman had suggested Kirsty should try it on. The suit had fitted perfectly with the result that Kirsty had been persuaded to accept it as a gift. She’d used it only for church going on fine Sundays and consequently it had seen very little wear.
    Satisfied that it was ideal for a wedding at this time of year, she returned the suit to the wardrobe and took out her cherished Burberry. Ever since she had see