Land of Heart's Desire Read online

  “This is most kind of you,” he said, following her as she led the way to the library. “There are one or two points we may have to discuss, and I feel your grandmother would have wished you to know the true state of affairs in connection with your inheritance.”

  “She made it quite clear that there would not be a lot of money,” Christine acknowledged, closing the door behind them. “She didn’t pretend about that, Mr. Tulloch, or about anything. I know that she contemplated selling the estate less than a month ago, when she thought I wasn’t interested in returning.”

  James Tulloch coughed and averted his eyes.

  “The number of death duties the estate has had to pay in the past twenty years was, of course, the reason for your grandmother’s concern,” he pointed out. “And now there will be more.”

  He paused, waiting for her to speak, and Christine said: “You are trying to tell me, Mr. Tulloch, that I am far from being a rich woman, but I already know that. I have not been expecting a fortune, you know. I don’t suppose I would know what to do with one if I had it. I would probably fritter it away on objets d’art, so it’s just as well!” She smiled and he smiled thinly in return.

  “There will be nothing to fritter,” he remarked somewhat dryly. “On the contrary, I’m afraid that you are going to find the estate rather heavily in debt.”

  Christine blinked uncertainly.

  “It—can’t be all that bad,” she said. “My grandmother was carrying on—keeping our heads above water.”

  “But only just.” He began to take some legal-looking documents out of the brief-case he had brought with him. “I have all the details here, if you would care to go into them. Your grandmother had asked me to make a full assessment a few weeks before she died. I’m afraid,” he added apologetically, “that it is rather worse than she expected.”

  Christine bit her lip.

  “You’re not trying to tell me that Erradale will have to go?” she asked, but before he could confirm her fear or supplant it by a more encouraging hope, she added: “Because I don’t mean to let it go! Whatever it costs, whatever else there may be to give up, I’ve got to stay here. It’s what I know I’ve got to do. It’s what she wanted.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, “that is true. The one rather important circumstance is the existing debts. In a good many ways your grandmother was rather lenient with her tenants, Miss MacNeill. Rents were never collected, for instance, where there was sickness, and the arrears were forgotten about afterwards. She erred always on the generous side. In other matters she was quite a good business woman, but the times and conditions in the Islands were against her. She recognized, I think, especially towards the end, that the island was dying.”

  Christine, who had not been looking at him, looked up now.

  “You’re wrong there, Mr. Tulloch,” she said, her golden-flecked eyes fully on his. “She would never have admitted a thing like that. What was wrong was me. I wanted to try my wings, I suppose, to wander off to new places, to—pursue a rather selfish desire of my own, and she wouldn’t stop me.” She sat with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, small and straight in the high-backed chair, with a look of Dame Sarah about her that even the lawyer, hardened in experience, was forced to recognize. “I don’t intend to sell Erradale, if that was what you were about to suggest—for the best, I’m sure. I intend to stay here to fight, if need be, and if—anybody has made an offer for my home you can turn it down on my behalf. I have some money of my own, I believe?”

  He glanced down at a sealed envelope and smiled.

  “A little,” he agreed almost pityingly, “but I would not advise you to squander your personal bequest in such a way.”

  “I don’t feel that I shall be wasting my money by putting it into the estate, Mr. Tulloch.” She smiled across at him decisively. “Will you make the necessary adjustments for me and let me know, after that, just how I stand?” They had come to an end of the argument and the lawyer rose to his feet.

  “Your grandmother mentioned that this money should be kept quite apart from the estate,” he reminded her.

  “She also said that I must use it as I wished,” Christine told him, her thoughts deep in the past. “She said it never had been MacNeill money, but I am a MacNeill, Mr. Tulloch. What other purpose could I possibly use it for?”

  She did not expect an answer and he gave her none. He had argued too often with her predecessor not to know that Erradale could demand any sacrifice from the MacNeills.

  “May I wish you luck?” he said instead, rising and holding out his hand. “There are one or two documents here that I would like you to sign, and then I must go for the steamer.”

  They remained closeted together for another half-hour, at the end of which James Tulloch was left in little doubt about the quality of MacNeill determination.

  “I remember your father,” he said, “so well. He was a fine gentleman, worthy of a great heritage. It was a tragedy—a very great tragedy—when he died.”

  When he had gone Christine sat for a long time staring at the rows of books which lined the wall facing her, and suddenly she realized that she was thinking about the new laird of Ardtornish. Had he, she wondered, made a final direct offer for Erradale?

  Perhaps not. Perhaps he was too busy helping Jane in that other library on the far side of the ford. Helping her and falling in love with her, perhaps.

  That was what Jane wanted, no doubt, and Hamish had said that Jane would be a valuable asset to him. An asset where the islanders were concerned, because they would accept him more readily as Jane Nicholson’s future husband than as the stranger in their midst.

  When her last guests had waved their final good-byes from the steamer’s rail she went in search of Hamish.

  “I was on my way to look for you,” he said. “I have a proposition to put forward!”

  “I wish you would,” she smiled. “I’m rather short of propositions at present.”

  His look was oddly calculating.

  “I think you need someone behind you, Chris,” he said. “Some man.”

  “There’s Rory,” she answered immediately.

  “Rory’s all right about the estate,” he allowed, “but that’s not exactly what I meant. If you won’t marry me right away,” he added slowly, “at least give me the right to protect you.”

  She smiled at that.

  “I don’t think I’m the type who needs to be protected,” she said, “but if you would like to help I’m quite sure that we could work together.” She broke off, her new seriousness melting in humorous self-criticism. “Hamish!” she laughed, “don’t ever let me grow pompous! One would almost have thought just now that I was employing you!” “Why not?” he suggested warily. “I might even be able to serve you as faithfully as Rory.”

  The veiled sneer in the words was lost to her as she embraced this new idea with characteristic enthusiasm.

  “It would mean,” she pointed out eagerly, “that we would all be back on the island—you and Jane and Rory and me—just as it used to be, and that’s what Croma needs. Young blood—youth, energy, hope! Young people who can look ahead and not backwards, was how Callum put it. We can’t possibly fail, can we?”

  “No,” he said slowly. “This could be a new beginning.”

  “I wish we had a bigger margin for success,” she mused thoughtfully as they walked back towards the house. “As it is, there’s not much more than Erradale and our bare hands.”

  “What do you mean?” He had stopped in his tracks to look at her.

  “Money,” she told him. “I haven’t got a lot of money, Hamish. My mother left me some, but I’ve sunk all that in the estate. After my grandmother’s debts are paid there will be very little left. She was a most generous landlord.”

  He walked on in silence, brooding over what she had told him.

  “I think you have been very foolish,” he said, at last. “You could have cut your losses and sold out.”

  “Sold Erradale?” She stared at hi
m incredulously. “You don’t mean that, Hamish!” She forced a smile. “You would have done exactly the same if you had the same chance at Ardtornish.”

  He did not contradict her.

  “What plans are you making?” he asked. “What do you mean to do?”

  “I haven’t had much time to think,” she confessed. “All I can feel sure about just now is that Erradale will be safe—for the present.”

  “Well,” he said almost reluctantly, “it rather seems as though we are in this together.”

  It was the beginning of what turned out to be an uneasy partnership. Vested with her authority, Hamish strolled about the estate making enemies wherever he went. Among the first of these was Rory, who came to Christine less than a fortnight later to tell her bluntly that she must choose between them.

  “I can’t go on working with Hamish undoing everything I’ve done,” he complained angrily. “It must be either him or me.”

  Not quite prepared for such an ultimatum, Christine attempted to reason with him.

  “But, Rory, I shall need you both!” she protested. “Hamish isn’t really interfering with your running of the estate, but he has to ask questions if he is to keep the accounts in order.”

  “If it stopped at asking questions,” Rory said darkly, “I wouldn’t object, but it’s—more than that.” His face grew red with embarrassment. “This isn’t just a personal thing,” he got out. “I’m thinking about you.”

  Christine put a friendly hand on his arm.

  “I know you are, Rory,” she said. “But don’t worry.” She hesitated for a moment and then confided in him. “Would it help if you knew that Hamish had asked me to marry him?” she asked.

  He swung round, his brown eyes confused and disbelieving at first, and then something seemed to die in them, like a light suddenly extinguished.

  “So that’s it?” he said. “Well, I wish you luck. You may change him.”

  “Rory,” she said after a minute, “it isn’t official. Not yet.” She held out her hand. “Please change your mind about going,” she begged.

  He shook his head.

  “I’ll be happier away from the island now. There isn’t room for Hamish and me here.”

  “Not even if I asked you to stay—for Croma’s sake?” He did not look at her.

  “It’s better that I should go.” His hands clenched and unclenched at his side. “There might come a time when words wouldn’t be enough and I might cause you sorrow by some foolish action.”

  “No, Rory,” she said gently, “I don’t think you could. Think over your refusal and try to see eye to eye with Hamish and I will have a word with him.”

  She knew that he did not think it would be any good, and when, a week later, Hamish came to the business-room at Erradale House and told her that Rory had gone she could not pretend surprise.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “He took a particularly gloomy view of an order I gave,” he informed her with an indifferent shrug. “I suppose we nearly came to blows over it. Rory always did have a fiendish temper. It goes with red hair, doesn’t it?”

  “I wish you hadn’t provoked him,” she said without thinking. “He’s sensitive, but he’s very, very loyal. I depend upon him a great deal. The sheep were his job.”

  Hamish lit a cigarette with studied calm, blowing a circle of smoke into the air above his head and gazing at it abstractedly before he answered.

  “We’re better off without him,” he said. “He would have had to go sometime.”

  “Why do you say that?” she demanded sharply.

  “Simply because he’s a trouble-maker and something of a fanatic into the bargain,” he returned complacently. “Believe me, my dear Christine, I know Rory only too well!”

  “But he’s been doing all sorts of useful things with the sheep!” Christine, protested. “And experimenting with the wool. I can’t afford to lose him—not at this time of year. Please try to get him back.”

  He drew deeply on his cigarette, exhaling slowly and deliberately before he spoke.

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” he said. “He left the island an hour ago.”

  She sat back in her chair, defeated. Tears were very near her eyes as she thought of what Rory had done, calling it perfidy in a sudden flash of foolish anger, but knowing in her heart that she had accused him wrongly.

  “I’m sorry,” she said unsteadily. “I could have used you both. Now we will have to get an extra shepherd from somewhere to help Dan out, but don’t ask me where! There aren’t so many people looking for jobs on Croma these days.”

  “Leave it to me!” he said with confidence, but she knew that it might be weeks before anything would be done.

  Hamish was like that. He considered time leisurely. There was plenty of it and no hurry to perform the task in hand.

  She watched him go with a new, strange restlessness. He had asked her to marry him one day, and a year ago—a month ago, even—she would have considered his proposal as the gateway to all the happiness this world could hold for her, but now she was not so sure. She wanted him to be right for Croma, too.

  It should not be demanding too much of him, she thought unhappily as she made her way from the house an hour later for her customary walk along the cliff. Marrying her and settling down at Erradale House would be a sort of second chance for him now that he had lost Ardtornish—through no fault of his own.

  Could he, she wondered suddenly, have hung on to Ardtornish just a little longer?

  Walking along the cliff path with the wind in her face, she watched the sheep grazing high above the sea and knew a sudden fierce pride in possession as she looked at them. With any luck, she could double the flock by this time next year and put Erradale wool back on the open market again. The grass up here was thick and green, a lush, springy cushion crowning the beetling brow of the cliff. In places it had been cropped close, but in others it was almost untouched.

  Subconsciously her mind fastened on the fact. The sheep were avoiding these places. Large tracts of the cliff top had remained ungrazed for weeks, possibly months.

  Quickening her footsteps, she climbed rapidly, but already she knew the answer. It did not take the wide cracks in the path nor the sudden glimpse of a whole section of cliff bitten clean by erosion to convince her of danger. The sheep had sensed it and kept clear, feeling the ground beneath them insecure and crumbling. Sensible creatures that they were, they no longer used the winding track they had made along the edge, where the grass had always been sweeter, and the path which the villagers had guarded as their right of way for centuries went within inches of the deserted sheep track.

  She mentioned the matter to Hamish as soon as she returned to Erradale.

  “Good heavens, Chris!” he exclaimed, “the path has been there for hundreds of years. It’s not going to fall away in a matter of seconds. Why bar it to the villagers now?”

  “Because it’s unsafe, and the children use it searching for gulls’ eggs along the cliff. It’s a favourite walk in summer, too, with the old people.”

  “All right,” he agreed amicably, “we’ll put up a notice before the summer comes round.”

  “I’d like it done now,” she told him firmly. “It should be fenced off, or at least pegged. It must be made obvious, and I’ll print another warning notice for the village board.”

  He came behind her, dropping a light kiss on the nape of her neck.

  “Quite the little business woman!” he said. “But you worry too much. Come out to Muldoanish with me,” he invited. “I’m going to the other side of The Minch for the week-end.”

  “I haven’t time to go fishing,” she told him sharply. “Besides, I hate sharks!”

  He laughed, kissing her lightly on the cheek.

  “Do you know what Rory’s doing, by the way?” he asked. “He’s moved over into the enemy camp with a vengeance—helping Sutherland to build a new road from Scoraig to the ford!”

  “I—when did you hear t
his?” she demanded to hide her surprise.

  “An hour ago. Sutherland’s yacht was in the Port. He’s laying it up for the winter at Morrison’s yard.” He laughed amusedly. “Old Sandy Morrison hasn’t had a maintenance job like that for years. He’s fussing round Sutherland as if he had given him the entry to the Kingdom of Heaven!”

  “Sandy’s a craftsman,” Christine reminded him tartly. “At one time his yard produced launches that were second to none in the. Islands, but now he has only the fishing boats to repair.”

  “Sutherland, it would appear, has given him an order for a launch. Something more substantial than the yawl, I suppose, for use in the winter.” Hamish took out a cigarette and lit it, watching her leisurely. “We ought to have some sort of boat at Erradale, too,” he mentioned. “Then we wouldn’t be so dependent on the steamer, nor the ford, either, for that matter,” he added with a grim smile.

  “We can’t afford a boat just now,” Christine decided briefly. “There are lots of things I shall have to do without until I make Erradale pay its way.”

  “A boat isn’t exactly a luxury,” he reminded her. “Not on Croma. To my mind it’s an absolute necessity. We’re practically marooned without one.”

  She turned away.

  “Not just now, Hamish,” she repeated. “The steamer will do me very well if I should want to get to the mainland for a day or two.”

  He looked as if he might argue the point and then he shrugged and left her. He wasn’t a good agent. She had to acknowledge the fact, but perhaps he would learn in time, and, now that Rory had gone, she had no other choice.

  Curiously disturbed by the fact, she took longer over her own work than usual. Forms and assessments were pouring in, most of them requiring her personal attention, and she, also, was a new broom. If she had allowed herself time to think she might well have become overwhelmed by the magnitude of her task, but Erradale was full of interest for her and she responded to the challenge with all the resilience of youth. Not least among these interests was her desire to put Croma’s colour and beauty on to canvas, and so very often, when she had not been able to see the way ahead with any clarity, she had flown to brush and canvas for solace.