Women of the Dunes

by Sarah Maine

  “You do it.” She threw the matchbox at his face. He released her hand to catch it while his other arm encircled her waist.

  “Be nice, Ellen!” he said, and pulled her towards him, sealing her mouth with his.

  She could not breathe. Tobacco, hard lips, and his tongue, like that other time. Every sense revolted, but instinct told her not to struggle, and she went limp and heavy in his arms, feeling his muscles tauten to support her. She let her head loll away from him. “Ellen?” Then, “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” He began to lower her onto the settle beside the fire, and as he did she twisted in his arms, as lithe as a seal leaving the rocks, and ducked under his arm. As she did her elbow caught the side of his nose and she saw blood spurt as she fled, and she heard him swear as she slipped through the door. She sped across the hall, looking neither right nor left, making for the door leading into the servants’ passage, and so failed to notice Alick Sturrock on the stairs. He looked after her in astonishment. “Ellen?”

  But she did not hear him, so she did not stop.

   Oliver

  Oliver sat at his desk, tapping the end of his pen against his teeth, and stared out of the window, suffering the anguish of remorse; if only time could somehow be rewound. And the suggestion had been his—! He groaned out loud. Several of his congregation had stopped him in recent days and expressed their disapproval of the work at the headland. Others shook their heads, warning him of the risks of disturbing what ought not to be disturbed, or made oblique comments about how uncommonly harsh the weather was, how wild the seas, glancing up at him from under lowered brows. He had gone from amusement to irritation with such ignorance and then arrived at the guilty recognition that he should have considered more fully the sensibilities of his largely uneducated and superstitious flock. But by then the damage had been done.

  The best way to put the matter right, he had decided, was to address it directly in next Sunday’s sermon. He would take the opportunity to explain to them something about the early Irish monks who had brought the teachings of God to Scotland’s rocky coast, while gently scolding them for their un-Christian belief in malevolent spirits, and so allay their fears. But, he thought as he ran his fingers through his hair, the task of combining a history lesson with a rebuttal of mysticism was proving difficult.

  A sound outside the door interrupted his deliberations and he looked up, recognising the cheerful tones of Alick Sturrock. “I’ll show myself in, Mrs. Nichol, no need for ceremony.”

  Oliver rose as the door opened. “Alick! The very man. Come in, and help me.”

  Alick strode in, tossing his hat onto a side table. “Of course. With what?”

  “My sermon.”

  He grimaced. “Ah. Then I am very much not your man—”

  “Mrs. Nichol, some tea, please, if you would be so good.” He gestured to a seat by the fire. “Tell me, Alick, has anyone expressed concerns to you about our work on the headland?”

  His visitor dropped into a chair beside the sluggish fire. “ ’Fraid so, and Mama told me people have approached her too.” He paused. “And Ellen spoke to me again. Said we should put the stones back.”

  “She waylaid me too and said the same”—Oliver settled into the other chair—“and told me that people were talking. I thought I’d try to reassure the congregation in this Sunday’s sermon and explain—”

  “What will you say?”

  “That a belief in malevolent spirits is at odds with Christian teaching.”

  Alick gave him a quizzical look. “What about Lucifer and his henchmen?”

  “That’s quite another thing.”

  “Is it?”

  Mrs. Nichol tapped on the door and entered bearing a tray of tea and scones, and Alick leapt to his feet to clear a space on a side table. “Scones too. How splendid!” The old housekeeper beamed a smile and withdrew.

  Alick’s gaze followed her departure. “Do you have anyone else in service here, besides Mrs. Nichol?”

  “No—”

  “She’s looking much older these days.”

  Oliver laughed. “Is she? Well, I don’t take much seeing to, you know.” He rose to pour the tea.

  Alick took a cup from him, and Oliver saw him surveying the bleak room, noting the patch of damp under the window and the threadbare rug on the painted wooden floor. “Perhaps not— But even so.”

  Oliver smiled. “My wants are simple and easily satisfied. Now, to return to Lucifer, he is—”

  “You should have someone else,” Alick interrupted, speaking quickly. “Besides Mrs. Nichol, I mean. Someone younger, to help her. Ellen Mackay would be ideal, you know, she’s a quiet, pleasant girl, and Mama could spare her.” Oliver paused, his teacup half raised. “She’d be close to her mother’s cottage then, and could pop in now and then and keep an eye on her.”

  “Is there concern about Mrs. Mackay?” Oliver felt a pang at the thought of neglected duties, but his guest was avoiding his eyes.

  “The poor woman grows frail, I believe.”

  Oliver contemplated him, saying nothing. This sudden concern seemed forced, rehearsed even. “My dear fellow, I neither need nor can support another servant.”

  “I can persuade Mama to cover the cost, I know I can.” There was a determined set to Alick’s jaw, and Oliver realised that this was the real reason for his visit; he could imagine what lay behind it, although a direct reference seemed inappropriate.

  “Have you spoken to Ellen about this?” he asked, probing a little.

  “Lord, no. Not until I’d sounded you out . . .” Alick seemed suddenly to warm to his theme. “. . . and it strikes me we ought to make you more comfortable here. Some more help, some work on the house—you’ve some rot in that windowsill, I see—and there must be some surplus furniture in the big house which would make this place more homely. Ellen is very nice in her ways, you know, and would bring a woman’s touch. And she’d still go home in the evenings, of course, to sleep,” he added, “and care for her mother. It’s barely a stone’s throw away, and if she doesn’t go out onto the headland in the evenings—” He stopped, then continued on a divergent tack: “There are plenty who could fill her role at the house if we find ourselves short. Give it a try, why don’t you?”

  So Ellen’s safety had become a concern, had it? Mungo must be making a more serious nuisance of himself. Mr. Alick wouldn’t let anything happen to me, Ellen had said, and it seemed that she was right.

  “I will consider it,” Oliver said, in a neutral tone. Whatever else was at stake, Ellen must be protected. “If Lady Sturrock agrees.”

  “She will. And now, tell me more about this sermon of yours.”

  Oliver remained beside the fire for some time after Alick had left, not troubling to repair it as it burned low. Then he lifted his head and looked about him, seeing the room as Alick must have seen it, stark and cheerless. For himself, he barely noticed. Once, perhaps, the old manse had had pretensions of graciousness, though on a scale befitting its purpose and just sufficient to reflect prestige back to its patrons at Sturrock House while remaining well short of rivalling them. But that had been before the Free Church had lured away most of the congregation, rendering the manse something of an anachronism.

  And its occupant largely irrelevant.

  He knew perfectly well that he owed his position here to Lady Sturrock’s connections, a thinly disguised patronage of the type which had lain at the root of the Disruption that had split the church a generation ago. But such matters now raised indifference rather than ire amongst the community, the larger part of which simply slipped past St. Oran’s Church on their way to the overflowing Free Church built by the labours of their fathers over on the next bay. His own congregation, outside the family and servants, numbered barely a score.

  He rose and went to stand at the window, looking out towards St. Oran’s. Had the church really come to the end of its purpose after so many centuries? He felt his failure to woo back the errant congregation very personally. Since his ar
rival they had tolerated but largely ignored him, until the ill-judged excavations had attracted their censure, and caused widespread offence. And now Alick was offering to press for improvements to be made to the manse! Oliver recognised that this was sparked to mask a need to provide protection for Ellen, rather than by real concern for his personal comfort, and of course he was perfectly ready to provide the necessary sanctuary. What Alick had failed to consider, however, was how this arrangement, combined with improvements at the manse, might raise eyebrows and invite comment. His congregation already saw him as an adjunct of Sturrock House, partisan to the estate’s interests, and detached from the realities of their lives and woes.

  He turned back to his desk and looked moodily at the notes he had been assembling for the sermon, and felt his earlier enthusiasm for the theme evaporating. Alick had been amused at the thought of him discoursing on the early Irish fathers and their missionary role. “But it will make the point that Christianity was brought by wise and devoted men like Odrhan,” Oliver had insisted. “A man who was prepared to tend the wounds of his enemy and convert a fallen woman, and who died protecting a child of pagan parentage—”

  “It’ll be that pagan element they worry about,” Alick had said, with a smile.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Us stirring it up.”

  “What nonsense!”

  “Is it? Ellen said you mistook her for Ulla’s ghost.”

  Alick’s smile was suddenly too much like his brother’s, and Oliver felt his face flush with annoyance. “She simply startled me. I was absorbed in my drawing. But there must be some way of convincing people that their concerns are not only groundless but wrong-headed.”

  When Alick spoke again, the mockery had gone, and Oliver received a troubling insight into the workings of his friend’s mind. “The problem is, of course, that you’re seeking to replace one mythology with another. You tell them not to believe in spirits, and yet you require them to believe unquestioningly in the Holy Spirit. You reassure them that there are no malevolent spirits, but the church teaches them to fear Satan. It’s not that they are ignorant people, my friend, but rather that they will see the inconsistencies.”

  Oliver had been more deeply shocked than he showed. “Christian teaching cannot be compared with folklore and mythology!”

  “At one level, both are stories, are they not?”

  Oliver shook his head as he reran their conversation, and began gathering his papers into a heap, angry enough to burn the lot and recourse to some fiery sermon written by a firebrand predecessor, promising everlasting damnation to disbelievers, but something stayed his hand. Alick, it appeared, was questioning not simply his choice of career but, more fundamentally, his own faith, rejecting Christian teaching along with a study of the law, and his parents’ wishes. If so, then Oliver’s duty was plain. He had listened sympathetically to Alick’s woes regarding his studies, but a loss of faith required a sterner approach—and Alick, he was fast learning, was prepared to argue such matters.

  He slumped back into the chair, weary suddenly and filled again with self-doubt, not for the first time questioning his own calling. Was he any more suited for the ministry than Alick was for the law? Or was this malaise simply from being here at Ullaness, undermined and in a false position, little more than a lapdog to Lady Sturrock? What good was he doing here? Not only was his brand of Christianity rejected by the common people, he now had to confront superstition from his flock and atheism from his patron’s son!

  How much worse could things get?

  Chapter 19

   Libby

  They returned to the papers in the dining room, but the mood had lightened.

  “What we need now, Libby Snow,” Rodri said with a slow smile, “is to find an account of the theft, and then I can have you arrested for harbouring stolen goods.” He pulled another box file towards him. “A new incentive.”

  “It’s Nan you’ll have to go for,” she replied, responding to the smile. “Are you prepared to persecute an old lady?”

  “To the bitter end.”

  But they found little else of interest. Concerns over household expenditures, final demands from tradesmen, a poacher sent to Inveraray gaol, a vacancy at the manse, repairs needed to the gutter. “Some things never change,” Rodri muttered. “I wonder if Angus might know something—better still, his mother, Jennet. She’s maybe our best bet, sharp as a pin, and as old as the hills.” Then he glanced at the clock. “You coming with me to collect the lads? We can talk as we go.”

  He drove fast as before, and the Land Rover bounced over the uneven ground. “Did Ellen have other children?” he asked, as they sped along. She felt relaxed now, and it was good to be able to discuss Ellen with him, to get another perspective.

  “No. Just the one son, and he went to the bad. A handsome tearaway, my grandmother said.”

  “Probably a Sturrock then. Keep going.”

  “He disappeared when Nan was just five, so she never knew him. Her mother took to the bottle after he left and fell over the harbour wall one night.” And Libby thought again of the wooden house overlooking the bay where small boats rode at anchor, their high prows lifting on the waves, weighed down by the outboard motors on their stern boards, and by loss. “So my grandmother went to live with her grandparents, but by then Ellen was like a wraith, she said, thin and fragile, and in a world of her own.” She remembered Nan’s words: “She’d drift around the house in a vague sort of way and whenever the weather was fit she’d take her shawl and set off to the point and stand there staring out to sea. Folks said my father had grown up wild, with his drinking and his women, because he was starved of her love, but she might have been made of crystal, the way my grandfather handled her—”

  “Come back from wherever you’ve gone.” Rodri’s voice returned her to the moment. “You said that Ellen used to live in one of the old cottages, and worked at the manse. Your grandmother told you this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we should be able to track her down. Jennet might know, or there might be something in those papers about who lived in the cottages and paid rent.” He drove fast, every bend and twist as familiar as the lines on the palm of his hand. The sheep seemed to anticipate him, leaping aside as the Land Rover rounded hairpin bends, and he raised a hand to vehicles which pulled into passing places as they approached. “But I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me about the connection,” he said as they hurtled over the potholes. “You could have stayed quiet about the cross.”

  Why had she not? So much had happened since their first encounter that she was no longer sure. “I needed to get a feel of the place, and the Sturrock estate had not been welcoming.”

  He glanced across at her. “No?”

  “No.” They drove on in silence.

  “Better now, though?” Again that sidelong look.

  “It’s improving. But then we found the body.”

  “And you remembered what your grandmother had told you.”

  “And worried about what else we might discover.”

  “So did I.”

  She looked at him. “Meaning?”

  “I thought you’d find treasure, and then Laila would flog it, and it would be gone.”

  This man was full of contradictions. “Was that why you didn’t want us coming to dig?”

  “Partly, yes, and Hector took some persuading.”

  “Still smarting over the chalice, I suppose.”

  “That and a natural indolence. I actually think it was Laila who decided the matter—seeing potential cash.”

  They drove on in silence until they came out from under the shadow of the trees at the head of the estuary and turned onto the small road leading to the cottages where Angus and the women lived. And as they followed the line of the shore, she saw two figures down at the shoreline throwing stones at a floating branch.

  Then a third appeared from behind a boulder and joined in.

  Rodri stopped the Land
Rover, and lowered the window and sat a moment, looking at them. “That’s what really matters, you know, those lads, and giving them the best chance. And holding things together here, if I can.” He watched them a little longer, then put two fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle.

  Three heads jerked round, and the boys abandoned their sport and came tearing towards them, leaping over mooring ropes and fish crates to arrive panting at the side of the Land Rover, eyes asparkle.

  “We’re having a cook-up.”

  “Alice tried to ring but you’d already left.”

  “We can stay, can’t we?”

  “Libby too.” This from David, with a shy smile.

  “And can we take the kayaks out?”

  “Beyond the bay . . .”

  Rodri put up a hand and the babble ceased. “Yes to the cook-up. Yes to Libby too. Yes to the kayaks. Usual rules apply. No to beyond the bay.”

  “But if you’re here?”

  “And Angus is on his boat—”

  “Although he’s stripping down the engine just now,” David added.

  “Thank you, David. The voice of reason. Usual rules apply or it’s no to the kayaks. Got it? Now, shift yourselves so I can go and park.”

  The boys turned and pelted back down the beach towards the kayaks, satisfied with the deal, and Rodri started the Land Rover again, driving off to park beside the caravan that had been promised for the dig. “You OK with that?” he asked as he pulled on the handbrake. “Cook-up means sausages cooked on the beach, Angus in charge.”

  “And the usual rules?” Rodri was holding things together pretty well, it seemed to her, and the boys were robust and lively. Grounded and secure.

  “That’s for the kayaks. Life jackets at all times and not beyond the mouth of the estuary without an adult. One day I’ll have to weaken, but not yet. David could manage it, and maybe Donald. But not Charlie.”

  Alice came out of the cottage as they left the Land Rover. “I just tried to phone you,” she said.

  “I heard.”