The Flight of Gemma Hardy

by Margot Livesey

  “Uncle Hugh, look, this is a starling’s egg.” She plucked an egg from the cotton-wool-lined box where we kept our finds and held it out to him.

  “Nell. Please come and sit down.”

  “Gemma said this one might be a curlew’s.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “She’s excited by your visit.”

  But even as I spoke, Nell gave a quick, mischievous glance over her shoulder; she knew exactly what she was doing. Furious, desperate, I stood up and walked to the window. A bee, its legs knobbed with pollen, was buzzing against the glass. Come in and sting someone, I thought. I could feel Mr. Sinclair watching me as I reached to open the window wider.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “Nell seems to have forgotten her schoolroom manners.”

  Turning to face him, my right hand grazed the sill. “Oh,” I gasped.

  “What is it?” said Mr. Sinclair. He was suddenly by my side.

  “The bee,” I said. “It stung me. Poor thing.”

  “Why poor thing?” said Nell as Mr. Sinclair said, “Let me see.”

  “Because once a bee uses its sting it dies.” I held out my hand and there, at the base of my thumb, was a red bump surmounted by the flimsy dark sting.

  “We need tweezers and warm water and bicarbonate of soda,” said Mr. Sinclair. “Nell, make yourself useful and go and fetch Vicky. Tell her what happened.”

  “It’s just a bee,” I murmured, but she was already gone. Mr. Sinclair brought over a chair and I sat down by the window. The beech trees swayed beneath my gaze and I had to keep blinking to steady them. He pulled over a second chair.

  “Once, when I was Nell’s age,” he said, “my brother and I were out exploring near the Sands of Evie.” He described how one of their dogs had chased a rabbit into the Broch of Gurness and stumbled into a wasps’ nest. “We tried to brush them off, but there were so many and they were buried in her fur. Roy wrapped her in his jacket and carried her down to the sea. She died from shock, but at least the water calmed her. She always loved swimming.”

  As he spoke, the beech trees grew still and, because he was looking past me, I was able to steal a glance at him. His eyes were not, I saw, the deep blue I had thought, but only seemed so between his dark lashes. Their colour was closer to the light blue of the Scottish flag. He was still talking as Vicky appeared, with a bowl of warm water, a pair of tweezers, and Nell. He stood up and surrendered his chair.

  When Vicky had gone again, leaving me soaking my hand in the warm water, he said, “There, you look better. You were quite pale for a few minutes. Now that I’ve turned your morning head over heels, how about an educational outing. We could visit St. Magnus Cathedral, if you feel up to it.”

  “Oh, please,” said Nell.

  “Hush,” he said sharply. “Let your elders and betters speak. What do you think, Gemma?”

  I stood up and walked three times around the table. “I think I feel fine.”

  Mr. Sinclair gave an approving nod. “No vapours for you. We’ll leave in ten minutes. Nell, bring your crayons and your sketchbook.”

  The red sandstone cathedral was a familiar sight, standing as it did in the middle of Kirkwall, but on previous trips to the town I had always been too busy to go inside. Now I followed Mr. Sinclair and Nell up the steps to the beautiful arched doorway.

  “This is part of your heritage,” he said to her as he opened the door. “Your grandfather was christened here and your grandparents were married here. I want you to draw a picture of the inside. Several if you like.”

  “What’s christened?” said Nell.

  “Miss Hardy?”

  “When a baby is christened she’s given her name as a Christian and welcomed into the church. Sometimes she has godparents, parents in God, who promise to help her be good.”

  “Was I christened? Do I have godparents?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Mr. Sinclair. “And I doubt it.”

  “So does that mean”—Nell stood completely still—“that I’m not welcome in the church?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Everyone is welcome in the church, especially children. Godparents are just an extra. I don’t have any either.”

  Inside the air smelled of cold stone, and, faintly, of snuffed candles. Sunlight shone through the many windows. “It’s amazing,” I said, gesturing down the aisle to the rose window at the far end, and up to the vaulted ceiling.

  “It is,” said Mr. Sinclair. Like many houses of worship, he explained, St. Magnus had begun in bad behaviour. Earl Rognvald of Norway had thought a cathedral would secure his claim to the Orkneys and get rid of the current earl. Since the twelfth century the building had been used as a prison, a market, a court, a seat of government, and a place to dry sails. “I can’t help noticing,” he added, “that scripture doesn’t appear on your timetable. Are you neglecting Nell’s moral education?”

  Not waiting for an answer, he suggested to Nell that she sit down to draw her picture. Once she was settled on a chair, with her sketchbook, he said, “Come with me.” We set off down the south nave. I could feel my muscles flexing in my calves and thighs, my lungs filling and emptying, my hand, still hot from the sting, throbbing quietly. Beside me Mr. Sinclair measured his step to mine. He was eight inches taller than me; the ceiling was many feet—fifty, a hundred—taller than either of us.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said as we stopped beside a gravestone on the wall. “ ‘August 1750,’ ” he read. “ ‘Here was interred the corps of Mary Young . . . She lived regarded and dyed regretted.’ I’ve always liked that.”

  “If you want me to teach scripture, I will.”

  “Actually,” he said, still studying the stone, “I asked if you were neglecting Nell’s moral education.”

  Scarcely knowing how to explain myself, I said that I didn’t teach scripture because I didn’t feel qualified, but I hoped Nell would go to Sunday school and that, as her reading improved, we could read the Gospels together.

  “Let me ask another impertinent question,” said Mr. Sinclair. “Do you believe in God?”

  In Latin a question was phrased differently according to whether the answer yes or no was expected, but Mr. Sinclair’s tone gave no clue to his expectations. “I don’t know,” I said. “I used to because of my uncle, but since he died I’ve met plenty of people who claim to be good Christians and wouldn’t cross the road to help a starving child. If that’s what it means to believe in God, then I’d rather not. What about you?”

  “I’m afraid”—we started walking again—“I’d give the same answer, but I’m sorry to hear those words from you. When I was your age I would have answered yes and it made everything easier.”

  “Of course it’s easier,” I said, “if you have parents and plenty of money. God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world.”

  “The war started when I was fourteen,” he said quietly.

  Before I could apologise we stopped at another stone. This one was to the memory of Thomas Smith, who had died on 12 September 1811. “ ‘He lived beloved and died regretted,’ ” I read. “Being beloved is better than being regarded.”

  “That just shows how young you are,” said Mr. Sinclair. “Regard lasts longer than love and can lead to it, but love—”

  Whatever pronouncement he was about to make was lost as Nell appeared around a pillar. We both admired her drawings. Then the three of us went to see the statue of Earl Rognvald holding a model of the cathedral; his tunic was shorter than my most daring skirt. From the chapel Mr. Sinclair led the way up a narrow stair. We passed the huge workings of the church clock and the three bells that chimed the hour before we emerged onto the roof, beside the spire. Kirkwall, the island, the harbour, and the sea lay before us.

  “What an amazing view,” I said.

  “Can we see the rest of Scotland?” Nell asked.

  “No,” said Mr. Sinclair. “We’re facing the wrong way, and it’s too far.”

  “What about Glasgow?”
she persisted. “Can we see Glasgow?”

  “No,” he said more gently, realising what she was asking, “Glasgow is part of Scotland. Even if the church tower were twice as high we couldn’t see it.” He was explaining that the cathedral had once been on the shore—much of Kirkwall was built on reclaimed land—when, almost beneath our feet, the bell began to strike. We stood there, counting, until it reached twelve.

  Only on the way home, when Nell was safely asleep in the back of the car, did I have the chance to ask again if he wanted me to teach her scripture.

  “Not unless you want to. What I want is for her to know the difference between right and wrong, not to be trapped, like her mother, in a single passion.”

  “Surely,” I said shyly, “she must have had more than one, else Nell wouldn’t be here.”

  He glanced over at me. “Clever but wrong. Sometimes Alison didn’t care what she did, or was too drunk to mind who touched her.”

  “I thought people with money”—we were passing the only grove of trees I had seen on the island—“could solve these problems.”

  Mr. Sinclair laughed. “You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. They can. But that would have meant Alison admitting that she was pregnant, and even at six months, she wouldn’t. She was as stubborn as the wind. That helped her to walk again, but that didn’t stop a baby coming.”

  “So no one wanted Nell.” I turned to look at her where she leaned against the door, eyes closed, lips parted.

  “Want, don’t want, who cares. ‘The world is everything that is the case.’ ”

  “Who said that? You spoke as if you were quoting.”

  “A philosopher named Ludwig Wittgenstein. He was an Austrian Catholic who gave away all his money, fought against Britain during the First World War, and ended up with a chair at Cambridge University.”

  “ ‘If a lion could talk,’ ” I said happily, “ ‘we could not understand him.’ But you’re wrong. Children don’t understand lots of things, but they know when they’re not wanted. You wait to grow up, like a prisoner in a deep, dark dungeon.”

  “You obviously had an idyllic childhood.” He patted my knee, once, firmly. “Just keep teaching Nell the way you are. Make her read and write and don’t let her be too different from other people. One eccentric in the family is quite enough.”

  I knew he meant himself and I wondered, yet again, why he had never married. I had asked Vicky, and she had said she didn’t know. He knew many people, he earned a pretty penny, he had a bonny tongue. Not long after Alison’s accident, there had been rumours of an engagement but no fiancée had followed. We slowed down to turn onto the road to the house, and I asked if a Gypsy woman had brought him a fish.

  “So you’ve been spying on me,” he said lightly. “Yes, she did—two delicious sea trout. Unfortunately they were a bribe, not a gift.”

  “I don’t need to spy on you,” I said. “The whole island does that.”

  As I went to open the gate I thought that he and I were opposites in almost every respect: wealth, family, upbringing, position in society. He had been Hugh Sinclair all his life and had a hundred people to say so. Whereas I had scarcely a dozen who knew I was Gemma Hardy and no one who knew I had once been someone other than Gemma Hardy.

  chapter nineteen

  The next morning Vicky announced that five guests would be arriving that afternoon: three by plane from London and two by ferry from Edinburgh. She bustled around, airing the rooms and making beef Wellington. Nora picked a posy for each dressing-table. Angus cut the lawn ready for croquet and badminton. The prospect of company put Nell in a flutter. “Will we have dinner with them, Gemma?” she asked. “Should I practise my croquet?” Dinner was unlikely, I told her, but she would probably get to play croquet. I too had my hopes, although I did not voice them. We spent the afternoon hitting balls, awkwardly, through hoops.

  On the stairs that evening a woman and a man, wearing matching white Aertex shirts, each gave me a hearty handshake and introduced themselves as Rosie and Dale Miller. The island was so peaceful after Edinburgh, they exclaimed. The other guests, two sisters and a colleague of Mr. Sinclair’s, I did not see until church the following day. They arrived just as the bell fell silent. First came Jill, dark-haired and sturdy and wearing a pretty blue frock, then Coco, rearranging her blond hair even as she strolled down the aisle. Neither wore hats or gloves. As for the colleague, Colin, he was a pleasant-looking man in a suit. Rosie and Dale followed. Mr. Sinclair brought up the rear, frowning, irked, I thought, by their tardiness.

  For the next few days the house was even busier than usual. The six of them explored the neighbouring islands and visited various golf courses. Coco, I gathered, was a keen golfer, and so were Rosie and Dale. Closer to home they played croquet and billiards. In the evenings the sounds of conversation and laughter rose from the library and the dining-room. Nell begged to sit on the stairs, just to listen to the merriment. I sat with her, gazing absently at a book, wishing I didn’t feel like a servant, wondering why I minded.

  Then Vicky announced that tomorrow, if the weather was fine, Mr. Sinclair planned an expedition to Skara Brae, the Stone Age village. Nell and I were to go too, and he had asked me to make sure that she understood what she was seeing. I had been in the library only twice since his return. Now, while the guests were out, I searched the shelves and found an island history. As Mr. Johnson had told me on the ferry, the village had been buried for thousands of years, only re-emerging in 1850 when a great storm blew the sand away.

  On Thursday the skies were clear and the temperature so warm that both Nell and I wore summer blouses. After chores and an hour of lessons, we helped Vicky carry the food out to the car. I sat in the back, making sure the baskets of provisions didn’t slide around. While she drove, Vicky reminisced about the time she had visited Skara Brae on a school trip with the history teacher.

  “He kept calling it a village, so I expected a main street and houses, but there’s just six or seven wee dwellings, half underground, with pathways between them. I remember thinking it would be a cosy place to spend the winter if everyone you liked was nearby. A boy called Tom and I sneaked off to one of the houses and pretended we were making supper. The teacher gave us an awful scolding.”

  “Why?” said Nell.

  At Claypoole I had been surrounded by women who had no use for men, and I had assumed Vicky to be a member of that tribe. Now, as she winked at me in the rear-view mirror and explained the teacher’s reaction—we were there to study, not play—it occurred to me that she too would rather be beloved than regarded.

  The other cars were already parked. While Nell scampered over to join her uncle and his friends, I helped Vicky spread the rugs on a grassy knoll beside the village and set up a folding table for the food. She had made quiches and salads, sliced a ham, baked bread, and brought homemade cheese and butter. When everything was laid out to her satisfaction she dispatched me to tell Mr. Sinclair. He was standing looking down into one of the houses, pointing out the details to Coco.

  “Those slabs on either side of the door were the beds,” he said, “and the rectangle in the middle was the hearth. When I was a boy you could still find crofts on the island, with the fireplace in the centre of the room.”

  “But the bed is so small,” Coco exclaimed. She was wearing a tight white T-shirt and a lavender-coloured skirt that fluttered around her bare legs. The heels of her white sandals kept sinking into the turf.

  “People were smaller then, smaller even than Gemma. Picture it covered with sheepskins, a nice pillow of dry grass, your fire and your larder a few feet away, your family and your neighbours within hailing distance.”

  I announced that lunch was ready, and Mr. Sinclair clapped his hands. “Excellent. We’ll eat now. Then take a nap on the Stone Age beds. Coco, this is Gemma. The au pair.”

  “How do you do?” I offered my hand.

  “Hi.” She raised her hand, the nails a brilliant scarlet, in a little wave of dismiss
al. Meanwhile Nell had run over and was tugging at her uncle’s sleeve, asking if she could sit with him.

  “Oh, please,” Coco murmured.

  I couldn’t tell if Mr. Sinclair had heard, but he told Nell to sit with Vicky and me. Children and servants, I thought. “After lunch,” he added, “you can be our guide, tell us what you’ve learned about the village.”

  While everyone else praised the food and ate heartily, Coco, I noticed, drank two glasses of wine but barely touched her plate. When the platter of cheese was passed around, she made an excuse about watching her weight.

  “Let me do that,” said Mr. Sinclair, still holding out the platter. “Vicky made this one from our own milk, and the oatcakes are baked in Stromness.”

  “Vicky,” she said, glancing in my direction and cutting the smallest possible wedge of cheese.

  “The housekeeper,” he corrected. “I showed you the dairy with the churns.”

  Coco tilted her head so that her fair hair slipped over her shoulder. “I had no idea you were such a farmer, Hugh. This is a whole new side of you, wandering around, studying the backsides of cows.”

  “I’m not a farmer,” he said. “Not like my father; he was out in the fields rain or gale. He knew exactly how many head of cattle he had, how many bushels of oats. I remember he asked me once if I could point to one thing I had made in the last year. When I told him I’d helped to arrange a loan to Heathrow Airport, he laughed in my face.”

  I was curious to know how Coco would respond to this speech, but before she could answer Jill called over, “Guess what Colin’s been telling me? His grandmother was a witch. She used to take part in ceremonies around the standing stones.”

  “Not a witch,” protested Colin. “She had second sight. She foresaw her husband’s death, and she always knew when a storm was coming. The fishermen used to consult her.”

  I had been too interested in the women to pay much attention to Colin. Now I understood that he was not just a London friend of Mr. Sinclair’s; he had grown up on the island. As for Jill, I’d discovered that she was training to be a vet. The day before, while I was feeding the calves, I had overheard her ask Seamus if she might accompany him on his rounds. “You couldn’t keep up with me,” he had said curtly. Undeterred, she had walked the fields with Colin, and later told Mr. Sinclair that the cattle were first rate, but the sheep might benefit from introducing some of the newer breeds, which produced more wool and had a lower mortality rate. All this was reported to me by Vicky. “Seamus will have kittens,” she had said, “if he hears a girl saying his precious sheep aren’t up to snuff.”