Women of the Dunes

by Sarah Maine

  Rodri glanced at her, awaiting an answer. “I just applied for the job,” she said, “and got it.” He made no response and she changed the subject. “So will you send the file on to your brother?”

  “I’ll tell him I have it, summarise its contents, include my own recommendations, offer to forward it, and await a response.”

  “And?”

  “I won’t get one.” The exasperation was impossible to miss.

  “Has your brother lived abroad for long?” she asked, after a while.

  “Donkey’s years. And he spreads himself about—Norway, France, Italy.”

  “Does he come home often?”

  “No.” The response was curt, with the subtext to drop it, and so they continued in silence. After a mile or so they turned off down a narrow single-lane road which wound its way through rough grazing land divided by old stone walls, many of them tumbled into mossy heaps. Sheep wandered through openings where gates had long stood open, sagging on rusty hinges, bound with brambles. Was this still estate land? she wondered. Making it pay its way must be a challenge.

  Rodri drove fast and carelessly, causing her to wonder if the accident had not been wholly her fault after all. “You didn’t mention the little cross we found,” he said. “I thought you would.”

  She was taken off-guard. A pulse started in her throat, but Rodri kept his face forward. “I was following your lead.”

  He acknowledged that with a half nod and said nothing more. She turned her attention back to the view from the window, and rehearsed again the arguments that had gone through her head last night. If she told him what lay hidden in her chest of drawers, she would have to tell him about Ellen, about what her grandmother had told her. And if the cross had been stolen from Sturrock House, then she was branding Ellen a thief. She needed more time to think it through, and to hear back from Nan.

  The road wound its way uphill round tight bends and blind corners which gave awesome views over great sweeps of land, climbing ever higher until they reached a little plateau which opened up a wider landscape broken by small lochans, then dropped downhill again to skirt the edge of a narrow sea loch. An old stone jetty stood by the shore and beside it were the rotting remains of a timber wharf festooned with seaweed. A handful of fishing boats lay askew on the low-tide flat, their mooring ropes stretched to rusty iron rings on the jetty, trailing ribbons of kelp. Several kayaks had been pulled up above the tide line, and beyond them along the shore were three stone buildings. One, judging by its shape, had once been a chapel and looked as if it had recently been reroofed. The other two were traditional cottages, and both had curtains at the windows.

  An old caravan stood beside one of them and Rodri parked in front of it. “I’ll see if anyone’s at home,” he said, and she watched him tap on the front door of one of the cottages, then push it open. A moment later he emerged with Angus, and beckoned her to join them in front of the caravan. “Would this be any use to you in the summer?” he asked, gesturing to it. “If we can get it shifted down to the site.”

  A dry roof, somewhere to keep paperwork, or wet-weather tea breaks. “It would be fantastic.” If there was still to be an excavation, of course. But why the sudden helpfulness?

  “It’s in better nick than I remembered,” he said, kicking the tyres. “Is it roadworthy, Angus?”

  “We’ll get it that far,” he replied.

  “That’s sorted then.” And then they were back in the Land Rover again and away, with a nod and a wave. He drove on to where the track petered out and there was space to turn. “Alice lives there, next door to Angus,” he remarked, as they drove back past the cottages, “with Maddy and David.” So that’s another piece of the jigsaw, thought Libby, but she still didn’t think she had the whole picture, and wondered again about the single-line frown on David’s forehead. “And the old Free Church is now our smokehouse, newly roofed. Good that, don’t you think? Hellfire and damnation reduced to premium oak–smoked salmon.”

  She laughed. “It’s a lovely spot. Isolated, though,” she said, especially for a growing boy. There had once been other houses, she saw, ruined shells now vanishing into nettle patches and gorse, thick-walled structures, some with gable-end chimneys, and one with sagging roof timbers surviving, still supporting patches of rotting thatch. But the community was long gone.

  “If you asked David, he’d not have it any other way,” Rodri replied, with his unnerving habit of reading her mind. “Which is just as well, all things considered.” He left it at that, and her eyes swept the inlet where a pair of oystercatchers had lifted off, piping their alarm, to settle on a rock on the far side. “And my lads love it down here. They can walk round from home in just half an hour, following the shore.”

  My lads. Not including David? “And do they?”

  “Aye. All the time.”

  They drove back up the single-lane track and eventually rejoined the wider one which, a couple of miles further on, connected with a main road, and Libby recognised this as the point where she had turned off on her journey north. But now they turned the other way, and a few miles further on they came into a larger community which had a garage fronting onto the road. And there, parked to one side, was her car.

  “Looks like it’s done,” she said, as Rodri pulled up alongside.

  A man came over to them, wiping his hands on an oily rag. “All sorted, Mr. Sturrock,” he said. “Good as new. And the front brake pads were wearing so we replaced them while we were at it.” He nodded towards Libby. “You need them sharp round here.”

  You did indeed. “Thank you,” said Libby, swinging her bag off her shoulder. “And so what do I owe you?”

  But the man looked at Rodri. “You said to—”

  “That’s right, I did. We’ll have a bite next door first and collect it after.” Rodri gestured to the adjacent pub. “Is the Land Rover alright where it is?” The man nodded and returned to his garage while Rodri headed towards the pub, leaving her to follow.

  The place was simple and unpretentious, and Rodri was no stranger there. Several people greeted him, some addressing him respectfully as Mr. Sturrock, others as Rodri, and the landlord with a cheerful familiarity. “What’ll it be?”

  Libby waited until they’d ordered drinks and sandwiches and settled themselves at a corner table before tackling him about the repair bill, but he waved her words aside. “I told you I’d sort it. And it’s done now, so leave it.” He took a drink, dismissing the subject. “I want to ask you more about this ground-penetrating equipment. How accurate is it?”

  That was a surprise. “Are you changing your mind?”

  “I need to give Hector the facts.” He smiled blandly and took another drink.

  Briefly she described the various techniques, then added, “Declan will be delighted that you’re considering his proposal.”

  “Don’t raise the man’s hopes.”

  The landlord arrived with the sandwiches and stayed chatting for a moment. When he had gone, Rodri turned back to her. “So, is Libby short for Elizabeth?”

  “No. Liberty.”

  “Liberty! Unusual.” He tried it out. “Liberty Snow. Sort of Quakerish, or New England.”

  She hesitated. Was this an opening she should take? “My grandfather was a New Englander.”

  He bit into his sandwich. “Tell me more.”

  “There’s not much to tell. He went north and settled in a little fishing port called Gosse Harbour, on the east coast of Newfoundland, north of Trinity, and married my grandmother. I spent a lot of the school holidays with them there.” She watched his face carefully, but the mention of Gosse Harbour got no reaction.

  He continued chewing. “And so what brought you to Ullaness, Liberty Snow?” She found that she wanted to tell him. “Just the profession of the curious?”

  “More or less. I saw the field school job advertised and I knew a bit about the site, and the legend, so I grabbed the chance.”

  He took another bite. “Exciting stuff, eh?” />
  “Definitely.” But something still held her back.

  “It’s strange, you know—” he said, contemplating the fire for a moment, then continued, “you grow up with old stories for as long as you can remember, and believe they’re simply personal to you, or your family or your place in the world. Just some local tale, something no one else knows or cares about.” He looked back at her. “I was a grown man before I realised that the Ullaness legend was known beyond the area, or that there was interest in it. Hector started collecting references to it once when he was laid up, and found that there’s all sorts written about it—but I suppose you already know that.” He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. “I was amazed, but at the same time it felt a bit intrusive, which is nonsense, of course. No one can lay claim to little private bits of the past.”

  “Is that how you see the excavations, as intrusive?” And she thought of all those clauses spelled out in the contract: No recovered finds, of any and all types of material, will be taken off the estate without written consent from the Agent. Any objects loaned for study will be returned, undamaged, within a period agreed with the Agent. All objects remain the property of the estate. . . . It was, in part, this uncompromising tenor which made her reluctant to raise the subject of the cross. Was it Rodri who had insisted on those clauses, or his brother?

  “A bit. Not so much now. You’ve got me interested.”

  Something in his tone made her look at him, but he was chewing steadily, his expression unreadable.

  “And what happens if your mound produces something of national interest?” she asked, to fill the moment.

  “That’ll be for Hector to say.”

  “Will it?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Of course.”

  “Won’t you try to—what was it you said—guide his decision-making?”

  She had meant to tease, but it fell flat and his face hardened. “If you find anything of national interest which has value, it won’t be me doing the guiding, it’ll be Laila.”

  “Laila?”

  “Hector’s wife. If you find anything like the chalice, then Laila’ll be over here like a shot.” He gave her a twisted smile. “And it would rather beg the question of ownership, don’t you think? Same with that bloody chalice. It was swiped from some monastery, if the legend’s anything to go by, and then buried out on the headland. In fact it was stolen twice before it arrived here, once by Erik the Viking, and then nicked from him by his brother. And then lifted again last year. A holy relic, stolen three times, and once worth killing for.” He stood up and gave a wry smile. “Damn thing would have been better left in the ground, composting nicely. Shall we go?”

  Chapter 14

   May 1890, Oliver

  Oliver Drummond sat at his desk in what served as both dining room and study, and stared into middle distance. He was finding it difficult to concentrate; his mind kept returning to the conversation he had had with Ellen Mackay, out on the headland. How she had startled him! He had been ruminating, with some bitterness, on the theme of the power of lovely women to blight lives, and that thought had brought him to Ulla. Her charms had apparently captivated two brothers, disastrously for both if the legend was to be believed, but he also wondered how the celibate Odrhan had fared in the encounter; clergymen never seemed to come off well in dealings with the fairer sex.

  And then Ellen had arrived and touched on the very point. “But he loved her only as a godly man, not a lover?” she had asked, implying that godly love was a lesser, not a greater thing. And he thought briefly of the provost’s daughter, who had apparently felt the same, and then put the memory aside.

  He should have chided Ellen for such words, of course, but they sprang from a naïveté that was childlike, almost fey. How charmingly unaffected she was! She might be able to read, but she was uneducated, rather susceptible, perhaps, with thoughts unchecked. And had she any idea how lovely she was? He allowed himself a moment to contemplate her blue-green eyes. Where had she sprung from, he wondered, to be so well-favoured, so delicate and fine-boned?

  But the poor girl must live in a state of constant anxiety if what he understood of her mother’s illness was true, so small wonder that she took refuge in daydreams. And that, he supposed, was what he had been doing himself, musing on what he had read in Sir Donald’s book, trying to separate the facts from the romantic embroidery of the would-be poet baronet. No Byron he! Out there, though, beside Odrhan’s cell with water on three sides, it was all too easy to dream, suspended in time and space, with just a narrow causeway connecting the headland to the shore. Odrhan had chosen his site well, and Oliver felt himself very much in sympathy with the man, a missionary amongst the godless.

  And then Ellen had appeared as if from nowhere, and expressed such unexpected ideas! The past was not lost, she had implied, just rendered invisible by the passing of the years; a sentiment with echoes of the pagan.

  He pulled out the drawing he had made of the little oratory and studied it again. It was now little more than a pile of tumbled stones overgrown with thistles and nettles, but he had begun to discern a shape to it with courses built up by overlapping the stones towards a rounded roof, long since caved in. Had no one, in all these years, thought to ask what might be inside? He felt a thrill at the thought.

  It would not be too great a job, surely, to shift the fallen roof stones and find out.

  He sat, the sketchbook open before him, and stared out of the window. So far his duties had been light, his flock few in number and dutiful. Not godless, perhaps, but indifferent, and he was cynical enough to realise that his main purpose here was to provide support for Lady Sturrock, a good Christian woman, thoughtful of the tenants’ bodily needs and mindful of their souls; but he was learning that his presence brought resentment from other quarters. Resentment, and contempt—

  He glanced across at the clock above the fireplace and put the sketchbook away, schooling his mind to the matter of his sermon. This evening he had been bidden to the big house for dinner and there would be no time later to complete it.

  Following his arrival two months ago, Oliver had eaten several times at Sturrock House and found it something of an ordeal, compensated for, however, by the excellence of the food and wine. Would it be beef tonight, he wondered, as he selected the best of his shirts, ideally accompanied by a good rich claret? Fatted calf, perhaps, to greet the return of the Sturrock sons. Alexander Sturrock’s arrival had, he understood, been unexpected, and was for some reason contentious, so would he qualify as prodigal? Oliver considered the word as he dressed; as it embraced both the concept of repentant return and that of reckless waste, perhaps both sons, in their ways, could claim the fatted calf.

  So it might be beef, then. He could only hope.

  He dressed carefully, sponging a mark off his trouser leg. The Sturrocks usually dressed for dinner, but they seemed not to expect it from him, which was just as well. It was hard enough to make ends meet without unnecessary expenditure on smart evening clothes. His shoes, at least, he need not blush for. He kept them for such occasions, wearing stouter footwear to tramp the local paths and roads.

  He left the manse and stepped carefully, mindful of them as he made his way across the stream and up the track towards Sturrock House, avoiding the marshy patches and thinking that it would be more difficult to do so on the way back, after dark.

  He went through the garden gate and up the gravelled path to the front door, where a lantern had been hung to light his way. Sir Donald Sturrock greeted him as he was ushered into the drawing room. “Ah, Drummond! Come in, and for God’s sake bring some leaven to the party. You know Mungo, of course, but you’ve not met my younger son, Alexander. I rely on you to talk some sense into him.”

  Oliver shook the proffered hand and felt an instant liking for the open-faced young man who stood smiling before him. He resembled his mother more than his father, with fine regular features and intelligent eyes, and he grimaced at his father’s words. “How d’ye d
o,” he said. Then Oliver bowed to Lady Sturrock and greeted her elder son, who was sat at his ease beside the fire. Mungo nodded in return.

  Lady Sturrock, an elegant lady in her early fifties, patted the seat beside her. “How are you, Mr. Drummond?” There was no sign of Miss May Sturrock, Sir Donald’s ancient aunt, sister of the late baronet, who seemed to reside somewhere in the shadows of Sturrock House. Usually when Oliver came to dine she was present, and he had found conversation between the four of them heavy going, but tonight he sensed a more pressing tension in the air.

  Mungo contemplated him with bored indifference while Alexander asked, in a friendly manner, where he hailed from. “I grew up in Cumnock,” Oliver replied, “though lately I have been in Glasgow completing my studies.”

  “You hear that, Alexander, completing his studies,” his father remarked, handing Oliver a glass of whisky. It was a drink he abhorred, but he took it.

  “Perhaps the church would suit Alick rather better than the law,” drawled his brother.

  Alexander Sturrock ignored him. “I was in Edinburgh, though I spent time in Glasgow too,” he said, continuing to address Oliver. “Such a city of contrasts, don’t you think? Abject poverty and yet amongst it all such a flowering—”