The Cottage

by Michael Phillips

  He could not possibly have envisioned the complications that would arise from his kinsman’s failure to leave a will. Everyone had assumed as a matter of course that David would inherit both estate and title of the aging clan patriarch. No one had foreseen that the heir hunter employed by the courts would discover more potential legitimacy to Hardy’s claim than first met the eye, and then find an even closer heir no one had ever heard of in America. Nor did anyone suspect that unscrupulous oil interests had for some time been greedily eyeing the prime location of Whales Reef for their own ends.

  The future of the island had been hopelessly complicated by the freezing of Macgregor Tulloch’s assets pending resolution of the probate investigation. Unknown to anyone on Whales Reef, the laird’s secret benevolence had for decades provided for many on the island through the subsidizing of the Whales Reef woolen mill. Suddenly that financial support had been turned off. Now a year later the future of the factory and its various enterprises was in more doubt than ever.

  David watched as Hardy disappeared into the Cottage. The entire chain of events flew through his brain like an arctic nor’easter. A flurry of conflicting thoughts surged within him as he relived the year of ups and downs in the controversy over his distant cousin’s inheritance.

  He knew exactly what Hardy was doing. He had been watching his cousin charm unsuspecting young women since they were both teenagers. It was not difficult for David to imagine how Hardy was subtly wooing her trust. Most girls came to their senses soon enough. In this case, however, Hardy needed to succeed only long enough to persuade the innocent Miss Ford to relinquish control of the island’s property to him. She might conceivably fly back to the States without realizing what she had done.

  The moment his two cousins were inside, David strode down the far slope of the hill toward the North Cliffs.

  ———

  As Hardy Tulloch and Loni Ford sat down to tea and oatcakes in the Cottage, and while David Tulloch was traipsing over the spongy moor of the island, a large black Range Rover came bounding along the single-track road of mainland Shetland. Seeing the road coming to an end ahead of him, the driver ground the big SUV to a stop a few yards in front of the small wharf.

  He swore at the sight.

  Patience was not a virtue he had cultivated in his personal or business life. He let out an exasperated sigh. This was not an inconvenience he had budgeted for. However, there was nothing he could do but cool his heels and await the arrival of the ferry that would take him across the isthmus to Whales Reef. He had no choice but to sit and wait.

  He removed a silver flask from the pocket of his coat. Good thing he’d filled it to the brim with single malt before leaving the hotel in Lerwick.

  11

  Memories and Quandaries

  His mind full of many thoughts, David reached the North Cliffs. He eased himself onto the thick sea grass a short distance from the edge and gazed out to sea. Sensing his master’s mood, the sheepdog tucked in beside him.

  For all his soul-searching and benevolent words to the islanders about making the American woman feel welcome and giving her their support, watching Hardy disappear into the Cottage tied a knot in David’s stomach. Long-dormant resentments rose within him—toward Hardy’s father and toward the American man and woman who had divided the people of Whales Reef. Their toxic religious fanaticism had created such self-righteousness between friends that it cost the life of three villagers, including his best friend.

  Now another American was in the Cottage at Hardy’s mercy.

  The irony was so thick he could cut it with a knife. A tall American woman . . . returning to Whales Reef as heir to everything on the island. How could fate play such a cruel joke on him?

  Unbidden memories washed over him from out of the past.

  ———

  A ten-year-old boy, book of drawings in his hand, sprinted away from the village school, terrified at the touch of Sister Grace’s hand as she tried to coerce him to repent of his sins. His flight cost him a whipping from his father, though he had chosen that over the humiliation of returning to the school and lying to Miss Barton and Sister Grace by saying he was sorry for what he had done.

  Two years later that same boy stood on the harbor wall staring out to sea, a terrific storm howling around him, giant waves pounding the shore like thunder, the wind tearing the tips off incoming whitecaps in a frenzy. Behind him a dozen men of the village, including his cousin Hardy’s father, stood stoically watching the desperate attempt to return to land by one of their fellow fishermen who had been caught off guard by the sudden storm. So deep had the exclusivity of the Fountain of Light defiled their souls that they would lift no finger to help one of their own, because he had not “seen the light.” With tears in his eyes, the boy watched the laboring Bountiful in the distance, with his friend Armund aboard, slowly sink into the deep.

  The boyhood calamities that had shaped him seemed to assault his life every two years. As a young teen he stood looking out over the same water on the opposite side of the island. His tears on that fateful day had already been spent in the hour since learning that the sea had claimed another life from among the fishermen of Whales Reef. The victim this time was Angus Tulloch, the chief himself. As the youth stood gazing at the expanse of gray-green water, a cold, eerie calm descended upon the son as he contemplated throwing himself over the precipice and joining his dead father.

  The fourteen-year-old, now heir apparent to the chieftainship, had not done so. But the reality and strength of the primordial urge forever reminded him that life was both precious and fleeting. In an environment as hostile as the Shetlands, nothing could be taken for granted.

  ———

  David’s thoughts returned to the present. He had weathered those youthful storms. Though the pain of loss remained, he hoped he had become stronger from them. He had learned that God was to be found in neither prophets nor churches, but in the depths of the heart yielded to its Maker. He had lost a father, but he had discovered a Father. For that he was eternally grateful.

  However, he was still a mortal man. A man with emotions, weaknesses, ambitions, dreams . . . and perhaps fears.

  Now he was facing a new crisis. He found himself reliving the same question that had haunted him since the uncertainty and controversy over his uncle’s inheritance had changed the fortunes of Whales Reef: What was the right thing to do?

  The American heiress seemed like a pleasant young woman. But she was utterly ignorant of all that was at stake. Hardy knew that fact as well as he did, and was not above exploiting it.

  Alonnah Ford had admitted to coming to the Shetlands for the purpose of getting the property off her hands. A terrible feeling in David’s gut feared that Hardy would be the beneficiary of her unwitting generosity.

  She had no way of knowing who Hardy really was. Was it his place to speak up? To do so would make him look worse than Hardy—low, grasping, greedy. The very idea was more than distasteful.

  What action was demanded by right and truth when the only way to make that truth known was to divulge someone else’s evil intent?

  Was silence always the right course?

  When did it serve the greater good to do that which, in other circumstances, might be wrong?

  How well did he really know this American called Alonnah Ford? He might tell her everything and she laugh in his face.

  One fact was borne upon him with devastating clarity. The coming of Alonnah Ford to the island had complicated the dilemma of the inheritance all the more.

  12

  The Journal

  After Hardy’s departure Loni drew in a deep breath and glanced around her. There was so much to think about—chiefs and fishermen, cousins and bakers, antagonistic women and friendly English booksellers. And still the great question hanging over her, what to do?

  Her eyes fell on the journal beside the chair in front of the fireplace. Somehow she had the feeling that the answers she sought—about her past and perhaps her
future as well—were waiting to be discovered in that nine-decades-old mysterious volume that had lain buried so many years in a drawer in her grandfather’s desk back in a barn in rural Pennsylvania.

  Slowly she walked toward it, hesitated a moment, then picked up the book, grabbed her sweater from the couch, slipped on the flats that were certainly better than heels or pumps for exploring the island, and set out for the fresh air and open spaces.

  She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the big man who had just left. It was hard to imagine him as her cousin . . . even a third cousin. Unconsciously her nose twitched as she walked through the foyer. The hint of fish still lingered.

  He seemed nice enough. She couldn’t hold being a fisherman against him. Fishing was obviously the lifeblood of the island and an honorable profession. He seemed genuinely willing to help. And as she herself said, if he was a more deserving heir than she, it was only logical that she rely on him.

  She walked toward the shore, then along the sandy stretch of beach between the Cottage and the cliffs.

  As she went, the island’s solitude gathered around her. The stretch of beach came to an end, and difficult rocky bluffs rose ahead of her. Loni turned inland, away from the coastline, and struck out across the heathery moorland.

  Where was it, she wondered, that the youngster Sandy Innes was sitting with the dying sparrow so many years ago, with the two who had shared the poignant moments with him?

  She would discover soon enough that the book she was carrying in her hand would give her another perspective of that same encounter through the young woman’s eyes.

  Had her steps taken her inland and north as she left the Cottage, she would have met her other and more introspective cousin on his return from the North Cliffs to the Auld Hoose. As it was, the two passed within three hundred yards of each other like proverbial ships in the night.

  ———

  Hardy left the Cottage in rare spirits and walked back to the village with a jaunty step. If his appeal of the probate decision failed, he was confident that he could win over the American girl until she was putty in his hands.

  The crew of the Hardy Fire was standing by to shove off the moment he reached the harbor.

  “Cast off, lads!” he cried, jumping aboard from the quay.

  “Ow, Hardy—ye smell like a woman!” exclaimed Rufus Wood.

  “Nae for long, Rufus!”

  “And just look at you,” put in Gordo Ross. “I’ve never seen you so turned out in my life.”

  “Canna be any explanation than that a woman’s caught yer fancy,” added Wood.

  “Ye winna be far wrong,” said Hardy, a twinkle in his eye. “An’ a bonnier one than anyone’s seen on this island, an’ wi’ money besides unless I’m no the judge o’ character I think I am,” he added with a grin.

  “Are ye goin’ tae marry her, Hardy?” asked young Ian Hay.

  “Gie me time, Ian . . . jist gie me time!”

  Ten minutes later they had passed the harbor wall and were steadily picking up speed as the next ferry left the Shetland side for its twelve-minute crossing to Whales Reef. Plowing through the water, the Hardy Fire sent a turbulent wake toward it.

  ———

  At the bow of the ferry, observing the fishing vessel disappear in the distance, stood a big man sporting a white ten-gallon hat. He had no idea that the skipper of the well-appointed craft that had sent the ferry rocking was the very man his people had been negotiating with for almost a year in an attempt to gain control of the island he was now approaching.

  Even before they docked, the Texan was scanning the shoreline toward the site his engineers had earmarked for the oil refinery he intended to build here.

  The ferry bumped against the wood planking of the dock a few minutes later. The newest visitor to Whales Reef strode back and climbed into his rented Range Rover, glancing one last time at the red fishing boat disappearing around the coastline of the island.

  ———

  Wandering inland from the sea, Loni spied ahead a large flat rock—the topmost third of a boulder mostly buried in the earth. It was set into the barren landscape, inviting occasional passersby to pause a moment in whatever business brought them here.

  Loni approached, sat down, and set the brown leather journal on her lap. She looked about in every direction. She was completely alone. Quietly, peacefully, she drew in several long draughts of the refreshing sea air.

  She pulled her sweater more tightly around her shoulders and opened the volume recounting her great-grandmother’s first visit to this very place, and the voyage across the Atlantic that brought her here.

  The Journal of Emily Hanson, she read in a careful hand inside the cover.

  Loni turned to the first page. There were the same words with which she had begun the tale yesterday:

  I am so excited! A month ago I learned of an opportunity to travel as a lady’s companion to the Shetland Islands of Scotland.

  When Dean Wilson told me why she wanted to talk to me, I couldn’t believe my good fortune! She explained that her aunt needed a traveling companion for an excursion to the Shetland Islands.

  At first, Daddy objected to my going. But after meeting Mrs. Barnes, who was so nice and full of enthusiasm about my accompanying her, Mama made it almost impossible for him to say no. As it turned out, Grandma Hanson was the most enthusiastic of all about the trip. She told Daddy that I was going and that was all there was to it. . . .

  13

  A Legacy Begins—The Crossing

  NEW YORK HARBOR, THE UNITED STATES, 1924

  A young woman of twenty-two stood at the rail of the Norwegian ocean liner Viking Queen bound from New York to Glasgow. She was certainly no world traveler, yet here she was embarking on the most unforeseen adventure imaginable.

  She was on her way to the British Isles!

  As she stood gazing over the side of the massive vessel, Emily Hanson’s brain was quivering with excitement.

  It had all begun a month before. Returning to her boardinghouse after morning classes, her landlady handed her an envelope that had come by messenger. It bore the stamp of the Dean of Women for Wilmington College. Would Emily come to her office at her earliest convenience?

  “Hello, Emily,” Dean Wilson had said when they were alone. “I asked you here to inform you of an opportunity that has come up. I am aware of the topic for your senior thesis. I think you would be well-suited for what I have in mind.”

  Dean Wilson paused briefly. “My fifty-eight-year-old aunt was widowed three years go,” the dean went on. “She is scheduled to embark shortly on a trip to Great Britain. There she will join a Northern Adventure Tour to the Shetland Islands. My aunt is hoping to find a personable young woman to make the trip with her, at her expense of course. With your major in biology, and knowing of your interest in naturalist studies, I thought of you. I have told my aunt about you. She is very anxious to meet you.”

  “What would I have to do?” Emily asked.

  “Simply be my aunt’s companion, share her accommodations, take meals with her, help her pack. My aunt is healthy and self-sufficient, but she needs someone with her, to talk to—a friend to share the trip with. You would not be a maid but a companion.”

  All the arrangements were quickly made. Emily’s parents took her to New York. Now here she was about to set sail across the Atlantic toward whatever unknown destiny fate had marked out for her.

  One of Emily’s hands clutched the rail so tightly her knuckles turned white. The other waved to her mother and father on the quay below. Emily could tell that her mother was crying.

  Beside her, Miles Hanson stood stoic, the brim of his black hat hiding whatever emotion he may have been feeling to watch his youngest daughter embark for worlds unknown. Of seven or eight generations of faithful Friends, Miles Hanson traced his spiritual lineage to George Fox and the beginnings of the Quaker movement in seventeenth-century England. Quakers in general were socially ahead of their time. Yet in spite of what he ju
dged his progressive outlook on life, these were strange new times for men like Miles Hanson. Quaker women were growing accustomed to making their own decisions. Getting the vote was but the beginning.

  Notwithstanding his objections, therefore, his wife and daughter made the necessary arrangements for Emily’s adventure on their own. While they sought his blessing, in the final analysis Miles Hanson had had very little to say about it.

  A deep resonant blast sounded from the ship’s horn. Emily felt a tremor beneath her. The Viking Queen slowly moved away from the dock and picked up speed. With the skyscrapers of New York’s skyline looming behind them, gradually her parents faded from Emily’s view.

  Though they were still surrounded by land, a wave of aloneness swept through her. Yet it was bracing, like a dash of ice water in the face. It was a good aloneness—challenging and stimulating.

  A few minutes later they steamed by the Statue of Liberty. As she gazed up at the famous monument, a feeling of pride in her native land rose in Emily’s heart. For the first time in her life, she would be leaving American soil. Lady Liberty’s strong, stoic, resolute, almost heroic face seemed to invite the question: What did it mean to call oneself an American?

  True, Emily thought, it was English blood that ran in her veins. When did one cease being English and become an American? Maybe she was not leaving at all, but returning . . . returning to the land of her roots, where her Woolman and Borton ancestors had come aboard The Shield in 1678. That shipload of intrepid Quaker immigrants were but the beginning. Quakers poured into the middle colonies of the United States for generations afterward. Led by William Penn’s vision of peace, equality, and justice, they had established the most balanced and equitable colonial societies anywhere in the vast British Empire.

  Yes, thought Emily, she would call herself an American. She was not only proud to be an American, she was proud to call herself a Quaker.

  A voice intruded into Emily’s thoughts.

  “Oh, there you are, Emily dear.”