Land of Heart's Desire Page 16

  Jane looked round at the books still piled high on tables and windowsills.

  “I’d like to get this finished,” she decided, “although it’s a temptation to come on a day like this!”

  “Be tempted, then!” he urged with the special smile he kept for Jane. “You can work like fury to-morrow to make up for it.”

  “Yes, Jane,” Christine pressed, suddenly nervous of going alone with Finlay. “Come with us. Stay at Erradale, if you like, overnight, and walk back in the morning.”

  “Do you see how idleness grows!” Jane laughed. “Perhaps some other time, Chris.”

  She found a headscarf and came to the jetty to see them off. The new boat was moored in the bay and Finlay rowed out to it with a certain amount of pride.

  “This is something I’ve wanted to do ever since I came,” he said. “Scoraig needed a heavier boat.”

  He handled it easily, and Christine watched the channel of water widening between them and Jane and felt the steady throb of the powerful engine under Finlay’s hand. She walked aft, standing in the roomy cockpit beside him to wave to Jane until she was no more than a dark speck against the pale stonework of the jetty which they had used so often in days gone by.

  For a long time Finlay did not speak, and then he said casually:

  “What do you think of her?”

  Christine turned from the sea.

  “The boat? She’s just what Croma needed.” She paused, looking back at the broad, powerful wake widening out behind them, scoring the blue bay in a steady arc of white. “Does she belong to you?”

  He smiled, his eyes very green in the clear afternoon light.

  “Shall we say I have a share in her?” he answered.

  “Always like that!” she exclaimed. “A finger in every pie!”

  The green eyes narrowed a fraction, steadying deliberately on hers.

  “Wouldn’t it be kinder to call it an interest?” he suggested. “I have an interest in—a great many things on Croma.”

  She could not pull her gaze away from his, and for a fraction of a second time itself seemed to stand still. There was only the ocean and the dwindling shore, and the rocks ahead of them as they neared the Rhu Dearg that marked the end of the ford. The lighthouse on distant Pladda stood up, cool and white, against the vast grey-blue of the sky, accentuating its emptiness, but the sense of aloneness which she had always known and understood was different now. It caught at her heart with longing and sadness, yet she was not alone. Finlay Sutherland, tall, powerful, alert to every changing circumstance, was by her side.

  She looked away, confused, and what she saw was his strong hands on the wheel of the boat he had bought for Scoraig—for Croma, if she wished it.

  CHAPTER VIII

  After her visit to Ardtornish it seemed to Christine that time sped far more quickly than usual. The wool she had asked for arrived at Erradale the following day, brought round in the new boat by Rory, and work in the glen began in earnest.

  She found herself immersed in it to the exclusion of time, learning what she could from the older women as they worked and, in consequence, the affairs of the estate itself were left pretty much in Hamish’s hands.

  Regularly, at the beginning of each week, they met in the business-room at Erradale and Hamish submitted a brief summary of the work he had done. It was an awkward little interview in many ways. Hamish, she felt, was half resentful of having to account to her for most of his activities, and always, when it was over, she heaved a sigh of relief, ringing for Mrs. Crammond to bring in their coffee in a happier frame of mind.

  Hamish, too, would relax then and become his old, charming self.

  The autumn weather had been kind to them. A mellow and soft October had merged in a mild November, without frost or gale to harry them or stop the progress of the work on the causeway. Christine was so often at the clachan, however, that she had not found time to walk to the ford. She promised herself almost every day to go and see what the new road looked like, but always something more urgent would come in her way. Hamish offered her no information whatsoever in that direction and she found herself unable to question him about Finlay Sutherland, or Rory, either. She knew that Rory was supervising the work on the causeway, but that was all.

  Jane had come once or twice to see the work at the clachan, admiring the wonderful mohair stoles which the women had begun to weave. Their glowing colours hinted at all the shades of autumn and spoke gaily of the coming spring—muted purples, and pale golds and deep, rich reds; blue the colour of an April sky and the bright challenge of daffodil yellow, and green like the sea in deep places as it lifted gently with the tide. All the colours of Croma were there, the very essence of the island, and, in time, they would be woven gently and lovingly into the island tweed.

  Jane took a parcel of stoles back to Scoraig with her and they were bought and paid for immediately. It seemed that Finlay Sutherland had established some sort of agency in the south—whether in Edinburgh or London, Christine did not know—but already it was producing results.

  Towards the end of November and completely out of the blue, a new boat appeared in the harbour at Port-na-Keal, and before very long she was told that it belonged to Hamish. The fishing trips across The Minch had been continued because of the mild weather and Archie Campbell’s boat had long been unseaworthy.

  This, then, must be Hamish’s answer to the problem of his off-duty hours. Christine could not try to curb his enjoyment or suggest that he might work a little harder. After all, he was staying on the island, and that was what she had wanted. Croma needed the stimulus of youth more than anything else, and Hamish, surely, was part of Croma. Deep down he must be aware of his own roots stretching into this sparse, stony soil that gave back nothing for nothing; deep down he must have acknowledged his obligation to work for this island that had given him birth.

  Then, one day, with a devastating sense of shock, she realized what he had done. The boat, which was his new toy, had been ordered in her name.

  “We needed it,” he told her calmly when she came upon the bill. “If we are to do anything on this island we must keep up with Sutherland at Scoraig, and that means we must have a boat. If we are to get away when we feel that we must,” he added, attempting to put a conciliatory arm about her waist, “a boat is an absolute essential. You know as well as I do what it can be like here in the winter.”

  She stared across the desk without being able to think for a moment while slowly, shatteringly, something seemed to crumble in her heart.

  ‘‘You bought this,” she said, “without telling me—without asking?”

  A dark colour stained his cheeks and his handsome mouth twisted as he withdrew his arm from her rigid waist.

  “Damn it all, Chris,” he said, “either I’ve got to have a free hand on Croma or I quit!”

  There was a tense, almost breathless silence.

  “It would depend,” she said slowly, “what you mean by a free hand.”

  “Precisely what I say.” Some of his habitual ease of manner had returned and he smiled down at her with all the old amusement in his eyes. “I’m not the type who likes to be taken to task over details, you know, especially by a woman.”

  He reached out and tried to pull her towards him, but Christine was in no mood for his light lovemaking.

  “We’ve got to face facts about this,” she said as steadily as she could. “Croma isn’t paying its way—not our half of it anyway. It hasn’t been paying for some time because my grandmother had the money to indulge her own generosity. She saw it was going back into the estate, from where it had sprung, but, towards the end, she knew things couldn’t always go on that way. There had to be a new start—new blood pouring in, if you like—and that’s what I’m trying to do. I want you to help me, but—buying boats we don’t need at several hundreds of pounds isn’t the way.”

  “You have no objection to the Scoraig boat, I take it?” he suggested with dangerous calm.

  “None whatev
er. I don’t have to pay for it,” she reminded him tersely. “I hope we will be able to afford a boat of our own one day, although I don’t think it will be to take me away from Croma.” Her eyes left his face to linger on the wide stretch of moor and sea framed in the deep embrasure of the window behind him. “I am—content here. Perhaps you think that an odd sort of word to use,” she added, “but it’s how I feel. I shall be content on Croma for the rest of my life.”

  “Working at the clachan?” he smiled. “You will tire of that in time. It’s a novelty with you just now, but repetition soon wears one down. Wait till you begin to think of Paris in the spring or the Corso on a summer’s day, with all the flowers out along the way to Amalfi and the sea! Wait till you want to paint again and there isn’t the inspiration you need on your cramped little Hebridean isle—”

  She knew that her wide-eyed stare had halted the angry spate of his words long before he had finished all that he wanted to say; she knew that he was instantly sorry when he had uttered them, but above all she knew how revealing they were. He had stayed on Croma for some purpose of his own, not for Croma’s good.

  Little fragments of her love seemed to be falling away in her heart—trust, and the memory of their shared youth, and faithfulness, all seemed to be receding farther and farther from the present moment, yet she could not give them up without a struggle.

  “You don’t mean that, Hamish,” she said. “You know that I can find all that I shall ever need on Croma, and so could you. I’ve even discovered that I can paint here—better, in fact, than I ever did in Rome or Paris. I’ve found a different sort of approach to my work, and you will, too.”

  He smiled.

  “You sound quite sure,” he said, “but wait and see!”

  When he would have kissed her she avoided him and he looked angry for a moment, as if he would sweep her without question back into his arms, and then he shrugged and turned away.

  “You needn’t worry about the boat,” he said. “I’ll get rid of it.”

  She bit her lip, knowing how near she had come to tears, how frustrating everything had suddenly become and how weak she was even to think of keeping the boat, but she wanted to keep Hamish on the island, she had wanted that more than anything else, «at first...“If you think we really need a boat,” she began, acutely aware of capitulation, “perhaps we can—think about it.”

  “Of course we need it,” he said. “But that’s beside the point. There’s nothing in your head at the present moment but an obsession with wool and spinning and weaving. It will bring you in a nice, meagre little profit in the spring, perhaps, but it won’t keep Croma going. What we really need is a bigger fishing-fleet at Port-na-Keal and some repairs done to the harbour.”

  “We’ll do all that,” she said, “in time.” Her voice sounded almost strangled. “If we had this boat, Hamish, could it be used for fishing?”

  “That’s what it is,” he said. “A conversion. Of course we can use it.” His dark face was suddenly lit with enthusiasm. “Come out and let me show you her paces,” he invited, “before the light fails.”

  She shook her head.

  “Another day,” she said when he had reached the door. True to his promise, Hamish began to use the boat for fishing, but it was not long before Christine discovered that it was the old gamble with the sharks. He was evidently experimenting with a new harpoon which he hoped to have ready for more exciting adventures in the spring, and the weather was still mild enough to let him venture as far as Muldoanish once or twice a week with the ancient, shifty-eyed Campbell as his companion.

  Now that she came to think about it, Christine could not remember Archie Campbell holding down a job for more than a month or two at most. He was the proverbial beachcomber, with no thought for to-morrow, feckless and carefree and with nothing to show for sixty-odd years of living but a decrepit boat and a fund of stories embroidered largely by his own imagination. Dame Sarah had helped the old rascal on to his feet again and again, but always with the same result. Archie went back “to sea”, only to leave it again as soon as it “disagreed with him.”

  The first storm of the year struck the island in December, and, as if to make up for the leniency of the weeks behind them, it raged ferociously for three full days and nights, tearing at the trees round Erradale as if it would uproot them in its wanton fury and clawing at the cliff face with all the savagery of an incensed wild beast frustrated of its legitimate prey.

  Clouds the colour of gunmetal lowered over the glens, pressing down against Askaval and obscuring the jagged peaks of higher Scuirival where already the snow lay deep in the corries and clothed the highest pinnacles in their winter mantle of white.

  Christine struggled up the glen road with supplies for the clachan because Hamish was marooned over on Muldoanish and there was no one else to go. She drove the brake erratically on the uneven mountain road, bouncing over the ruts and just escaping the ditches by a miracle. They were running like a river in spate and water poured down from the hillsides, cascading into the burns that ran, brown and noisy, by the side of the road.

  Far to the north she could see the clouds banked densely with their burden of snow, but it would fall first on the mainland, on the higher peaks of Wester Ross, so that Croma might escape it, as so often happened. A lacy edging of white crowned Scuirival all winter and sometimes the snow came tiptoeing into the glens, but always like some shy goddess never prepared to stay. The sea, washing endlessly round Croma’s rocky shores, kept her away. The snow goddess was afraid of the sea, because once she was touched by him she would die, submerged for ever beneath his cold and exultant waves!

  Christine stayed two days at the clachan before she could return. The fury of the gale as it made its onslaught on the hills held little terror for her, but the road by which she had come—the only road—was virtually impassable.

  There was nothing to worry about, however. She was made comfortable in one of the low, turf-roofed cottages, there was peat and wood in plenty to keep her warm and the hum of Morag MacGregor’s spinning wheel to send her thoughts winging into the past.

  Women came from the other cottages and they sang at their work, always in the Gaelic. The lovely, soft lilting airs stirred Christine’s heart to a new response, their sadness bringing a mist before her eyes, their gaiety sending her feet tapping to the rhythm of the flying wheels.

  The light left the glen early, but they worked on by the glow of the stirred peats before they finally lit the widely-shaded lamps which hung from the rafters on brightly-polished chains. It was the sort of experience she might have longed for and never found, she realized when she was ready to leave, and she had learned much during her enforced stay. She had seen the island women at their best, the industry and patience that went into. all their work, and the cheerfulness, too. Nowhere had she found a single grumble.

  Content, she thought. Content to work and live in peace.

  She was surprised by the amount of work they had got through during those isolated hours. Seven of them in one little house had produced a pile of wool which would be added, with pride, to the stock already gathering in the disused smithy yard. There was a quantity of mohair, too, from the large herd of goats that grazed in the upper reaches of the glen, and this had already been dyed ready for the setting up of the looms.

  Pride seemed to choke her as she handled the incredibly soft, long-haired strands, for this was Croma, this was her island come to life again, not dying as she had feared, but breathing once more, its pulse strengthening day by day, its lovely, cloud-crowned head held high.

  She drove back down the waterlogged glen road with new hope in her heart, hope for Croma, hope for the future, and, mingling with it, a strange certainty about her own happiness.

  She had scarcely reached Erradale House, however, before she realized that some sort of disaster had occurred there. The gale had abated, but everything was dripping wet and several trees were down. She saw it all as a sort of vague background to the main
issue as she parked the brake and ran back to where Agnes Crammond was standing in the doorway as if she had been waiting for her return for a very long time. The old housekeeper’s face was strained and colourless and stray ends of wispy grey hair blew loosely across her forehead, as if she had been out, hatless, in the wind. The boots she wore were heavily caked with mud and marked with sea water.

  “Crammy!” Christine cried, “what is it? What has gone wrong?”

  “It’s glad that I am to see you back,” Mrs. Crammond told her before she would answer her question. “We knew you were safe enough, up in the glen, but there was no way of getting through.”

  “Yes,” Christine acknowledged breathlessly, “I was safe enough. But what has happened here? You’ve been out, Crammy—out on the shore.”

  “Ay.” The old woman nodded. “We’ve all been out—since earliest morning. Callum has disappeared.”

  “Callum?” Christine’s heart seemed to freeze in her breast. “What could have happened? What could have become of him?”

  “The cliff has given way.” Agnes Crammond’s voice was grim, her tone almost fatalistic. “He should have left that cottage of his long ago, when it was first seen that the cliff was unsafe. The man had no right to be there, and him all but blind!”

  “You mean that—his cottage has gone?” Christine could not believe that such a thing could be true. “Crammy, it can’t just have fallen into the sea. It was up in the corrie, sheltered and safe—”

  “Safe enough, except when the cliff came down and cut off the road to it—the road along the shore,” Agnes explained grimly. “We thought at first that he was in the cottage, but when we got through it was empty. Someone had seen Callum gathering his wee stones along the bottom of the cliff earlier in the day when the tide was out and there was a lull in the storm...”

  Christine was no longer listening. A surge of water seemed to be drumming in her ears, the heavy, fateful sound of giant waves pounding implacably against a rock-girt shore, and she began to run, not waiting for Agnes to tell her any more or even to follow her.