“We have said what we wanted to say.” Callum moved, cap in hand, towards the door. “I will be coming back if there is anything you want me to do.”
“Thanks, Callum!” Christine pressed his hand. “Will you tell Mrs. Crammond when you go down that I’ve come back?”
Dame Sarah was lying back among-her pillows, a gentle smile in her eyes.
“Such a fuss!” she said. “Such a fuss about an old woman!” Her speech was very slightly slurred and there was a stiffness about the right side of her face which loosened fear in Christine’s heart again. “Agnes Crammond is getting old and nervous!”
“You’re all right?” Christine asked anxiously, stooping to kiss the wrinkled cheek. “You’ve been doing too much.” Dame Sarah shook her head. She did not attempt to speak again for several minutes, and Christine subsided into the chair beside the bed. After a moment or two Dame Sarah’s eyes fixed themselves on the mirror outside the window which held the image of the glen, as if she would embrace again each well-known detail of the land she loved. “Callum said you had made me a work-box,” she mentioned unexpectedly. “One made of shells. I used to have one like that long ago.”
“It isn’t quite finished.” Christine half rose to her feet. “It was to be a surprise for your birthday.”
The vividly blue eyes met hers across the white counterpane.
“I’d like to see it,” Dame Sarah said.
Christine nodded. Her heart felt as if it must burst, yet she knew that she must hide her anxiety as best she could till the nurse or the doctor arrived. Fumbling in the cupboard in her own bedroom, she felt the tears stinging at the back of her eyes, but she could not let them fall. She was not ready for this. She could not let her grandmother go!
Clutching the box, she hurried back along the narrow, stone-walled corridor, conscious of a sudden sense of chill as she looked at the bare grey walls and the lofty, timbered arches of the roof-span far above her. Golden September sunshine slanted down from the high, mullioned windows on to the minstrels’ gallery as she crossed it, but it did not seem to touch her. All warmth and light were suddenly remote.
Mrs. Crammond was in the turret room when she got back. The old servant had carried up a tray, but Dame Sarah had waved any nourishment aside. She held out her left hand for the box, her thin, wiry fingers fastening on it eagerly.
“It isn’t finished,” Christine found herself repeating almost stupidly. “There’s quite a lot more to do—”
“Never mind!” Dame Sarah’s eyes were on the delicate shells already glued into place on the lid, on the intricate pattern which set off their beauty to such advantage and the muted, mother-o’-pearl colourings already trapped for ever under a coat of clear varnish. “I can see how it’s shaping.”
Her eyes took on the distant look which Christine always associated with Callum in his moments of prophecy. It was as if she could glimpse the future in the small, half-finished object under her hand, the final effort on her granddaughter’s part-which would complete what she had begun.
After a minute or two she laid the box aside and closed her eyes.
“Maybe she’ll sleep for a while,” Mrs. Crammond said.
“Yes.”
Christine bent over the bed, but Dame Sarah’s eyes remained closed. She was breathing shallowly, but a faint trace of colour had stolen back into her cheeks.
“I’ll sit beside the window, Crammy,” Christine said. “I’ll wait up here for the doctor.”
How long she waited she did not know. It seemed ages since she had met Rory on the road from Port-na-Keal and had watched the little swirls of dust rising from the brake’s wheels as he had reversed and driven away.
When the nurse came at last, she brought a message to say that Doctor McIlroy was on his way. Someone with a boat anchored in the harbour had gone across to the neighbouring island to fetch him.
Forced to keep her vigil downstairs for the moment, Christine supposed that Rory must have gone back to the Port with the brake to wait there for the doctor, but when the family physician made his appearance shortly after five o’clock it was Hamish who brought him. A flood of relief and gratitude rushed into her heart as she went to meet him. She had thought him halfway across The Minch, but he was here, after all, at the moment when she needed him!
“We had to come back into the Port with engine trouble,” he explained. “We were mooring at the quay when Rory came down with the brake.” He put his arm about her. “I’m sorry about this, Chris—about the old lady, but she is old, you know. We must be prepared for this sort of thing...”
She gazed at him, uncomprehending for a moment, but the words of protest that rose to her lips were never uttered. Someone called her from the top of the staircase—Agnes Crammond, with her hands clasped tightly over her black apron and difficult tears struggling in her eyes, and she went slowly towards the old housekeeper up the broad stairs.
That night her grandmother, hard, determined, tender, brave Dame Sarah, died in her sleep.
There was no sign of her going; only a sound as of a little wind that might just have stirred the topmost branches of the pines above Glen Erradale or filled out the sails of a ship riding the dim horizon’s rim.
Slowly, in the first penetrating light of the new day, Christine went back down the staircase to the deserted hall where, less than a week ago, laughter had echoed among the rafters that were now steeped deeply in the greyest shadow.
She stood at the head of the long banqueting table, aware of loss as she had never known it before. Bereft of both parents in early childhood, Dame Sarah had comprised her world, and it was only now that she became fully aware of how wide that world had been made by her grandmother’s decree. She had not been made to feel bound to Croma in any way.
Conscious of a desperate void in her life, she went to the kitchen to make tea. Agnes Crammond was still upstairs in the turret room and the house felt cold and empty, although she had built up the peats in the grate and pale morning sunshine was already flooding in at the high windows.
As she carried a tray back towards the fire she became aware of a movement near the door—someone waiting there.
“Hamish!” she said, laying down the tray and going towards him.
The sense of forlornness had mounted in her heart and she held out her hands to him in the shadowy doorway.
“All right,” he said, taking her in his arms. “Don’t worry any more. Leave me to take charge. I’ll see to everything for you. Just relax and try to get some sleep—now that it’s all over.”
His voice was kind and reassuring and she was so very, very tired.
“Hamish,” she whispered, remembering that he had gone for the doctor, “I’m glad you came back, so glad that you were here when Doctor McIlroy had to be brought across from Heimra.”
He smiled, not troubling to contradict a wrong impression, and it was many weeks before Christine was to discover that it had been Finlay Sutherland’s boat that had gone across to the other island to bring the doctor back in time.
“One tries to be on hand at the right moment,” he assured her instead. “But you are not to worry any more,” he repeated. “Leave me to see to everything.”
“You’ll tell Rory?” she asked.
“I’ll look after Rory, too,” he promised, leading her back across the hall to the stairs. “It’s early yet. There’s nothing we can really do till the Port begins to stir.”
“Rejoicing and sorrowing all within one week!” she said sadly. “Erradale loved my grandmother. She will be greatly missed.”
“And now you are Erradale,” he reminded her, looking directly into her tear-filled eyes as she turned back on the first stair. “You can work out your own destiny, Chris, wherever you like.”
“I shall find it here—in Erradale,” she told him with a strange conviction in her heart.
Once more he did not contradict her. He considered the moment too emotional for making any lasting decisions. The time for that would come
later, and suddenly Christine looked beyond him to see Callum McKinnis standing in the open doorway.
With the tentative, hesitating movements of the near blind, the old man advanced a step or two into the hall and then stood still. Without a word Christine passed Hamish and ran to his side. Callum’s face had a curiously calm look, like the loch water in the first pale light of a summer’s dawn, and he nodded his head in understanding as she spoke.
“She’s gone, Callum. There was no way of telling—of sending for anyone.” Her voice was almost apologetic as she looked into the still handsome, bearded face of her grandmother’s oldest retainer. “She died in her sleep.”
Slowly Callum made the sign of the Cross.
“I thought that would be the way of her going,” he said. “She was indeed a wonderful woman.” He stood for a moment in silence, reviewing a lifetime of service and love. “An era has passed with her,” he said at last. “Croma could not have changed while she remained, nor could she ever have parted with Erradale. This, indeed, was the only way.” He looked towards the staircase and Christine said:
“You would like to go up, Callum?”
Once again she passed Hamish without seeming to notice him.
All Croma and Heimra and the people from the neighbouring isles came to Dame Sarah’s funeral. They came, too, from the mainland, from Inverness and Oban and as far afield as Glasgow and Edinburgh. The house was full of distant connections of her grandmother whom Christine had never met before, and the next three days passed in a strange unreality. She found herself depending upon Hamish more and more, because he was always there by her side, accepting his judgments because there did not seem to be anyone else to ask. Rory apparently preferred to be out of doors, going about the routine business of the estate, although she was aware of his loyalty, too, albeit from a distance.
Only after Dame Sarah had been laid to rest in the old family vault on the peculiar mound above the harbour which had been the island’s burial ground for centuries, did she realize that Finlay Sutherland had come from Ardtornish to pay his last respects to the woman who had liked him in spite of a host of prejudices.
He came back to the house with the other mourners, but he said good-bye almost immediately.
“If there is ever anything I can do for you, Miss MacNeill,” he offered, holding Christine’s hand in a firm grasp as they parted, “I guess you know you have only to ask.”
“I’m sure of that,” she said, and noticed that he smiled, although she had been quite genuine in her acceptance of his offer.
“You won’t wait and have something to eat?” she asked impulsively as Hamish came towards them.
He shook his head.
“I think you have enough on your hands,” he told her. “And I have several people to get back to Scoraig.”
“You came by sea?”
“Yes. The tide was full across the ford.”
“I see.”
“I’m not taking Jane back,” he mentioned as he turned to leave. “I’ve promised to come for her when she’s seen you through the next few days.”
Jane had been a tower of strength to her, Christine acknowledged inwardly. For two whole days she had planned and worked, answering innumerable questions and sending out messages, contacting people whom Christine might have missed and offended, and generally making herself useful without the slightest fuss. Finlay Sutherland had brought her back to Erradale as soon as he had heard the news of Dame Sarah’s death, and now he was promising to leave her for as long as she was needed.
“It’s very kind of you,” Christine said, walking with him to the door. “I don’t know what I would have done without Jane.”
“That’s the sort of person Jane is,” he said warmly. “The sort of person you need.”
She drew in a deep breath.
“Jane and I have been friends since we were children,” she reminded him.
“If you would like her to stay longer than a day or two,” he suggested, “don’t mind me. The library can wait. I’ve no intention of letting anyone else dabble with it now that Jane has started the job. Besides,” he added briefly, “I guess Jane feels quite happy at Ardtornish now.”
“She told me she had settled in.” Christine wondered suddenly if there was more to Jane’s happiness at Ardtornish than just a job well done. “It—keeps her on the island.”
He looked as if he would have added some comment to that, and then he appeared to change his mind. Perhaps he had reminded himself that this was no time for conflict. He went down the steps into the sunshine, saluting her briefly before he strode away.
“I think perhaps we might have a business talk,” he said, “when you find yourself as settled as Jane.”
“That fellow’s completely insufferable!” Hamish said at her elbow. He appeared to have followed them to the door, although Christine had not noticed him until now. “Imagine attempting to talk business on the day of a funeral!”
“He said ‘when I was ready’.” Christine’s voice was suddenly uncertain. “Jane thinks he is doing his best for Croma, Hamish. Perhaps we have been mistaken about him—too hasty in our judgment.”
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “Don’t you realize that Jane has only one reason for liking the fellow? Can’t you see that she’s mad about him, that she would do anything to find that he thought the same about her?”
“Perhaps he does,” she said with a strange constriction in her throat. “He said he wouldn’t have anyone in her place at Ardtornish—”
“So he did!” Hamish smiled. “That might be a pointer to things to come, and it would certainly solve a few problems in the future. As things are,” he went on carefully, “I’m more or less responsible for Jane. Head of the family, and all that, you know! She’s mighty independent, of course, but the responsibility does exist, I suppose, until she marries.”
He stood watching her, waiting, it would seem, for some sort of reaction on her part, but she did not speak.
“Chris,” he asked after a moment, “what about us? Now that you are more or less a free agent—free to do as you please—we could be married whenever you like.” He drew her towards him, his arm tightening possessively about her waist as he bent to kiss her. “You know I’m crazy about you,” he told her. “Always have been. I was only waiting for the opportunity to tell you.”
Her head went back to avoid his kiss and her heartbeats were suddenly hammer blows somewhere in the region of her throat as she looked into his eyes.
“Don’t look so surprised!” he laughed, drawing her back into the circle of his arms. “This is a proposal, Chris. I want to marry you, and you have only to say ‘yes’!”
Somehow, inexplicably, it was the most difficult thing to say. A week ago—yesterday, even—she would have rushed to meet Hamish halfway, but now she could not.
“I can’t,” she said. “I couldn’t—do a thing like that so soon after Granny’s death. I couldn’t arrange my own particular happiness as quickly as that.”
He frowned as if he would override her decision, and then he accepted it with as much grace as he could muster.
“All right,” he agreed, “I stand corrected, but that doesn’t mean that I shall wait for ever, Chris. I want you—I need you, and there’s no real reason why you should refuse—apart from your respect for the old lady, of course.”
Christine drew her hands away.
“Please can we leave it like that?” she whispered, her lips gone suddenly dry. “That you’ll ask me again in a month or two?”
He smiled broadly.
“A month or two can be a long time, Chris,” he said, “but—we’ll see!”
CHAPTER VII
By the following morning most of the visiting cruisers and small craft had left the shelter of Port-na-Keal and the remainder of Christine’s guests were getting ready to join the afternoon steamer for the mainland.
After they had gone, she thought, the house would seem doubly empty, and it would be then that she would
really know the meaning of loss and loneliness.
She had come to the turret room, almost by way of retreat, feeling that she was nearer Dame Sarah up here than anywhere else, and in the long months of trial ahead, which were blissfully unrevealed to her now, she was to seek the sanctuary of her grandmother’s room, again and again, drawing courage from it in the moments of her greatest despair.
Standing beside the window, she was looking through Dame Sarah’s mirror at the long green glen stretching out before her when someone knocked gently on the door.
“Come in!”
Agnes Crammond put her head into the room and nodded.
“I thought I would be finding you up here,” she said. “Would you have a minute to spare for the lawyer man from Edinburgh, Mr. Tulloch? He says if you could manage to see him it would save him a journey back again later on.”
“Of course.” Christine walked automatically towards the door. “It must be some legal formality he has to clear up.” She paused, gazing at the old woman who had served her grandmother for as many years as she could remember. “You’ll stay on at Erradale, Crammy, won’t you?” she asked. “I suppose I’m in charge now and I shall need your help.”
“You needn’t have asked, Miss Christine,” Agnes Crammond assured her. “I’ll stay, for your own sake, as well as hers.” She nodded back into the room which still remained peculiarly Dame Sarah’s. “She was everything to me—mistress, counsellor and friend. In all the years I knew her she never did a mean action nor failed to show courage in adversity.” Unashamedly she wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I see you growing like her in many ways,” she added as she stepped aside to let her new mistress pass.
“Thanks, Crammy!” Christine said. “I only wish I really deserved such a compliment.”
The lawyer was waiting for her in the hall. He was a tall, rather gaunt-looking man in his early sixties, with thinning hair and a cadaverous jaw. He rarely smiled, but Christine knew that he had served the family well and that her grandmother had liked and trusted him.
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