The Cottage

by Michael Phillips

  She drew in a breath and stood. Trying to shake away the remnants of her nap, she gathered her wits and walked to the front door. She half expected to see some familiar face come for a return engagement, though which of her former visitors might be calling again she had no idea. The sight that met her when she opened the door, however, took her breath away.

  A huge man stood towering above her, easily six-foot-four and 240 pounds. If she hadn’t known him for a Texan from the cowboy hat and alligator-skin boots, the first words out of his mouth would have confirmed the fact quickly enough. Her two island cousins, the one muscular, the other tall by Shetland standards, would have been dwarfed beside him.

  “How do,” he said in a booming drawl. “I reckon you’d be Miss Ford.”

  Loni stood gaping, trying to absorb the incongruous sight. “I’m sorry . . . you’ll have to excuse me,” she said after a moment. “I just woke from a nap and . . . I confess, I am a little bewildered. Am I still in the Shetlands . . . or did I somehow get transported to Dallas?”

  The big man roared with a sound as gregarious as the rest of his manner.

  “You’re still out in the middle of nowhere,” he said, still laughing, “you can take it from me!”

  “I must admit, it’s nice to hear someone I can understand for a change, although your accent is noticeable enough.”

  “You know what us Texans say—we don’t speak with an accent, it’s the rest of the country that talks funny!”

  “If you say so,” laughed Loni. “At least I can understand you. But what in the world are you doing here? I thought I was the only American for miles.”

  “There’s a bushel of us ’round about these oil fields up here.”

  “Of course. I should have thought of that. I suppose you look like an oilman at that.”

  “Jimmy Joe McLeod, ma’am,” said Jimmy Joe, removing his hat and extending a hand. “I’m right pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  A quizzical expression passed over Loni’s face as she took in the stranger’s name, but she couldn’t immediately place it. With the sound of America in her ears, not even realizing it, the Loni came forward to replace the persona of Alonnah.

  “As you surmised,” she said as she shook the offered hand, “I am Loni Ford. I still don’t know what you’re doing here, but would you like to come in?”

  “Don’t mind if I do, ma’am.”

  Loni led the way into the house. Jimmy Joe glanced about with obvious surprise as he crossed the expansive entry hall and followed her into the Great Room.

  “This is mighty plush. Wouldn’t know this island had a place like this. Looks like the lounge of a five-star hotel.”

  He eased his large frame down and nearly filled the couch.

  “They tell me it is what they call a manor house,” said Loni. “I’ve only been here a couple days myself. From what I understand, this has been the home of the laird for more than a century.”

  “The laird—that’s what they call their head honcho?”

  Loni smiled. “Something like that.”

  “Well, they got their own way of doing things, that’s for sure.”

  “I’ve noticed that too,” she replied.

  It was silent a few seconds. Loni was still wondering to what she owed the pleasure of this unexpected visit. Her visitor seemed to sense her unspoken question.

  “What I’m doing here,” said Jimmy Joe, “is that you and I got a little business to tend to, though you might not have been told about it yet. You are the new owner of all this?” he added, gesturing around the room. “I got the right Ford, ain’t I? You are the lady that inherited old Macgregor Tulloch’s land?”

  “That’s right,” answered Loni. “Though I haven’t actually signed the papers to accept the inheritance yet.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Jimmy Joe with more interest than he allowed himself to reveal. “Well . . . don’t reckon that changes things. Once you do, then we’ll get down to business.”

  “What kind of business, Mr. McLeod? I didn’t realize that the late Mr. Tulloch had business interests in Texas.”

  “Wasn’t nothing in Texas. It’s his property here he and I were negotiating about.”

  “Negotiating . . . in what way?”

  “He was planning to sell me the island, that’s what,” replied Jimmy Joe. “Best thing we coulda done for these folks.”

  “Nobody told me anything about it,” said Loni, clearly taken aback.

  “I ain’t surprised. We were talking in private, keeping the thing under wraps, know what I mean? Didn’t want folks getting all riled up. You know how these kind of folks are.”

  “But what could you possibly want with all this?”

  “Investment, that’s what. Ain’t that your game—investments? Done a little investigating about you. That’s why I figure you and me’s cut outta the same cloth. Property up here in oil country’s gonna skyrocket one of these days.”

  “I thought it already had.”

  “I mean really take off. I figure why not get in on it, and in the meantime do these poor folks some good.”

  “How would your buying the island do that?” asked Loni.

  “The money, what else? I was fixing to split the profits sixty-forty with the old Tulloch fellow, so that he could pass on the island’s good fortune to his people. I could make them all rich and still come away with a little profit for myself.”

  “What exactly would have been the terms of the split?”

  “The island folks and their laird would get the sixty, of course. I ain’t no greedy man.”

  Loni sighed. “I can hardly believe this. The lawyer handling the estate mentioned nothing about it.”

  “He didn’t know. Like I said, it was just between the old laird fellow and me.”

  “You and Macgregor Tulloch had actually struck a deal about his selling the property on the island?”

  “Yes, ma’am. My people were arranging everything. But then the poor old geezer up and died before we could close the deal. That’s why I’m here, so you and I can get the thing finished.”

  Loni gazed out the window, trying to take in this sudden rush of new information. “Well, I must say,” she said after another pause, “this takes me quite by surprise. I will have to think about everything you’ve said.”

  “You don’t want to be thinking too long, ma’am. We need to get moving on this thing.”

  “Surely there’s no urgency.”

  “You know what they say, a good investment waits for no man . . . or woman neither.”

  Words she had heard from her grandfather many times rushed back into Loni’s memory. God is never in a hurry. Not only were their sentiments on haste versus caution complete opposites, so too, thought Loni, was everything about the two men.

  “Still,” she said, “I need to think about it.”

  “Don’t mean to rush you,” added Jimmy Joe. “I’ll be in Lerwick another couple days. Why don’t you come into the city and you and I’ll have dinner and we’ll hammer out the details? ’Course you gotta sign them papers first,” Jimmy Joe went on as if everything had been decided. “You got a solicitor handling all that . . . London, Edinburgh?”

  “The man handling the estate is in Lerwick.”

  “So much the better! You come into the city—how ’bout the day after tomorrow? That’ll give you all the time you need to think things over. You and I’ll go see this feller of yours, then we’ll have dinner and see what we can do.”

  Jimmy Joe rose. Still reeling, Loni followed him to the door.

  “I’m fixing to make you a rich little lady, Miss Ford,” said Jimmy Joe. “Get ready for your life to change.”

  And as abruptly as he had appeared on her doorstep, the big Texan was gone, leaving Loni staring at his retreating Range Rover from the open door of the Cottage with his last words still ringing in her ears.

  My life’s already changed about as much as I can handle for one week, she said to herself. I’m not
sure I can handle much more.

  17

  Busy Hands

  For the rest of the afternoon and evening, Loni tried to read. But she was too distracted by the events of the day to concentrate. Finally she put aside her great-grandmother’s journal and wrote for an hour in her own.

  She was in bed by 8:30 with The Scent of Water by English novelist Elizabeth Goudge, a book she had discovered on one of the bookshelves in the Great Room. It hardly seemed the kind of fare Macgregor Tulloch would have appreciated, although she really had no idea what sort of man he was or what might have been his taste in books.

  The next morning, Loni went out again. Her brain was still on a roller coaster after yesterday’s visit with the big Texan. She was hardly planning her steps but found herself on a path leading west from the Cottage. When a few buildings and chimneys became visible, she struck out over the springy turf in the direction of the village.

  Approaching Whales Reef fifteen or twenty minutes later from the north, Loni came to a narrow lane that led between the cottages at the edge of town. Full of thoughts of the past, aware that she could well be retracing her great-grandmother’s very steps, she hardly noticed the stares that followed her tall blond form.

  She came out on the main street of the village and glanced to her right and left. She was on the opposite side of the inn and square where she had walked yesterday. She turned away from them and soon found herself on her way out of town westward in the direction of the ferry landing.

  Where was the great hotel that had once attracted so many visitors to Whales Reef? Had it been torn down in the years since her great-grandmother was here?

  She looked up the hill to her right. There was the church with its tall steeple looming as a silent monument to the spiritual tradition of the island. Closer at hand, she saw another large rectangular building and a wide drive leading up toward it. Envisioning the island during her great-grandmother’s time, it seemed the hotel where she had stayed must have been near this very spot.

  She walked up the long drive. The building in front of her was by far the largest she had seen on the island, of two stories and, though run down, with surprisingly ornate touches of design that spoke of better times. At first glance it almost appeared abandoned except for a red van parked in front. The lights on in the windows also indicated human activity. She approached and tentatively tried the front door. The handle turned, and the door swung open. She walked inside.

  The sight that met Loni’s eyes was as unexpected as seeing Jimmy Joe McLeod at her door the previous afternoon. She found herself gazing into a huge room where fifteen or twenty women of varying ages were engaged in the most extraordinary activities. Some sat at spinning wheels. A small group to her right sat in a circle knitting. At the far end of the room several large looms were busy weaving some colorful pattern of cloth.

  The moment she walked in, the buzz of conversation accompanying the hum of the spinning wheels instantly ceased. Fingers stilled. Looms stopped. Every eye turned toward her.

  Loni smiled nervously at a woman near the door at one of the spinning wheels.

  “Hello,” she said. “I, uh . . . I was just out for a walk and I—”

  “Ye’ll be wantin’ tae see Mr. MacBean, I’m thinkin’,” said the woman without waiting for Loni to finish. “Rakel,” she called across the floor, “gae up an’ tell Mr. MacBean that the American lass is here tae see him.”

  A young woman about her own age at the far side of the room jumped to her feet and bounded up a flight of stairs against the opposite wall.

  Loni waited awkwardly in the heavy silence. A moment later a man emerged from an upstairs office. He descended the stairs and came toward her.

  “You would be Miss Ford, I take it,” he said, extending his hand. “I am Murdoc MacBean, the factory manager.”

  Loni smiled and shook his hand.

  “Yes, I’m Alonnah Ford . . . er, Alonnah Tulloch Ford. I’m sorry to interrupt. I was out for a walk and just happened in. I don’t mean to inconvenience you, but I didn’t actually come to see you. I was looking about, wondering where the old Whales Reef Hotel used to be.”

  “This is the hotel, or was many years ago,” replied MacBean, doing his best to speak in understandable English.

  “This building?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It fell into disrepair after the hotel closed. Then laird Wallace, one of your own great-uncles, I’m thinking—folks are saying that you are descended from Wallace’s older brother, as I understand it.”

  “I admit to being confused about all the connections myself,” said Loni.

  “What I was saying was that when Wallace was laird, he undertook to save the auld hotel, which was in a bad state and near collapse, they say. He modernized it and converted the place into a woolen mill, as you see it now.”

  “How wonderful. It would have been a shame for it to be lost.”

  “Aye. It has been a boon for the island’s folk, especially the auld women and fisher wives.”

  “Oh . . . how is that?”

  “Giving them paid work, ma’am. The mill sustains the island’s economy, along with the fishing of course. We sell our wool products all over Britain.”

  “I see.” Loni scanned the large room. “Yes, it certainly seems full of productivity,” she said, though at the moment all activity had stopped. Every eye remained glued on the American newcomer. Every ear was straining to hear the conversation in progress near the front door.

  “We’re not so busy at the moment,” said MacBean. “What you see is less than half our normal staff. Times have been difficult, you might say.”

  “Are orders for your products down?”

  “Not a bit, ma’am. We have more orders than we can fill. ’Tis the financial complications of the inheritance, you see, all the waiting and with the mill’s bank account suspended, though no doubt you know all about that. We haven’t had the capital to operate. We had to cut hours and staff.”

  “Actually I know nothing about it,” said Loni. “What does the inheritance have to do with the mill’s finances?”

  “Laird Macgregor—Mr. Tulloch, that is—he owned the mill. The building, the business, like the rest of the island, are all the laird’s. When he died, the money stopped flowing on account of the confusion about his heir, you know—folk thinking his heir was the chief but then finding out about yourself. You should talk to the chief about it. He understands more than I do with the solicitors and bank and all.”

  “I didn’t know about all that. I only learned of the inheritance two weeks ago. And all this time your mill has been without capital?”

  “That’s about it, ma’am. It has been a difficult year, especially for the women without other livelihoods. These women you see working today, most of them haven’t been paid in three months. They’re hoping for better times now that you’re here.”

  “Why with me here?”

  “You’re the laird, ma’am. ’Tis your mill now. These ladies work for you. With you here, the accounts will be unfrozen and we’ll have capital to operate again. At least that’s what we’re hoping. Like I say, you’ll have to talk to the chief. He knows the details.”

  “I was given to understand that the chief wouldn’t have inherited anyway.”

  “Oh, aye—some said that Hardy would inherit. But it doesn’t matter now that you are here.”

  Loni’s brain was doing its best to absorb the flood of information. Suddenly this inheritance that had dropped into her lap was bigger than just a house. Here was a once-thriving business whose future depended on the outcome of the inheritance. No wonder people were anxious about what she would decide.

  She was beginning to understand the looks and stares and whispered comments. It was not merely her taking the inheritance away from their chief or the fisherman Hardar. There was more at stake. And a flamboyant Texan was waiting in the wings to buy it all and, if he was right, make her and all these people wealthy. Yet apparently none of them knew a thing about it. />
  She smiled again at the mill manager, a pensive smile. “Well, thank you for the information, Mr. MacBean. I suppose I will continue my walk.”

  “Would you like a tour of the factory, ma’am?” asked Murdoc.

  “Yes, I would,” replied Loni softly. “But I think another time.”

  “At your convenience, ma’am.”

  Loni walked toward the door. Behind her the buzz of activity gradually resumed.

  She glanced back one last time. The hum of several spinning wheels made music in her brain. As the hubbub rose, gradually out of the mists of the past came faint echoes of an orchestra and a ballroom filled with dancers, waiters scurrying between tables, festive merrymakers enjoying an exotic adventure to the northernmost reaches of the British Isles.

  She had envisioned the setting as she had read of it in her great-grandmother’s hand. Now it all seemed to come to life in her mind’s eye.

  18

  A Legacy Begins—The Hotel

  WHALES REEF, 1924

  A freelance journalist turned from the bar where he had just ordered a thick pint of dark stout and surveyed his surroundings.

  This has to be the most incongruous scene I have ever laid eyes on, thought Robert Glendenning.

  Filled with the music of a live orchestra, the expansive ballroom of the Whales Reef Hotel might have been set in the middle of Mayfair or Kensington. The wide oak dance floor, the glittering chandeliers, the period furnishings of Georgian vintage, all combined to exude an atmosphere of regal luxury.

  What could a glamorous party of Londoners—the women with dresses designed in Paris, ears and necks and wrists bedecked in jewels and lavish finery, the men in tuxedos and sporting silk cravats and gold cuff links—be doing in such a remote place?

  To many Englanders the very word Scotland struck horror at thoughts of the untamed north. Savages brandishing claymores, forsooth! Half-naked men traipsing over snow-covered mountains in kilts. Yet indeed, it was to the wilds of Scotland’s Shetland Islands that this evening’s merrymakers had come.