Women of the Dunes

by Sarah Maine

  Alick was on his feet and had swung a punch, catching Mungo, and Oliver, quite unprepared. It connected with Mungo’s jaw, and the man went down like a stone and landed on the pile of rocks they had just cleared, out cold, and Alick stood over him, breathing hard. Then he glanced across at Oliver. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “You ask me that now!” he retorted, and knelt beside Mungo’s prone form, putting a hand on the man’s heart; to his relief, he found a good strong beat. “Help me lift him off these rocks.”

  But Mungo roused as they tried to do so and shook them off. He sat forward, looking up at them and scowling, his fingers exploring the place where Alick’s punch had landed, his eyes very dark. “That, little brother, was a mistake.”

  “You go near Ellen Mackay again, and so help me God . . . !”

  “Why would God help you! You deny his authority, I heard you say so.” Mungo brushed aside Oliver’s offer of assistance and got unsteadily to his feet, wiping a hand across a bloodied lip, and leaned on the ruin for a moment. “So Ellen has a champion, has she? Two, perhaps.” His glance flickered towards Oliver. “What a honey pot the girl has become. But which of us will have her first, I wonder?”

  Alick went for him again, but Oliver got between them. “Enough! Both of you. Mungo, be off. Enough, I said,” as they squared up to each other.

  Mungo, perhaps because he had injured himself in his fall, or perhaps his purpose was served, backed off with a laugh. “Go in peace then, brother, but stay sharp.”

  Alick stood beside Oliver and watched him go. “You should have told me!” he reiterated, his face set hard. “Why did you not?”

  “To prevent what just happened! Your brother likes to provoke.”

  “Damn him. And poor Ellen! He must be made to leave her alone.”

  Oliver hesitated, but knew he must speak. “Alick. Forgive me, but is there something between you and Ellen, because if so—”

  “There isn’t.”

  “No?”

  Alick turned impatiently aside. “Only a fondness, and a concern that history doesn’t repeat itself.”

  But is that not what history does? Oliver thought bleakly. It repeats itself over and over again, as each generation fails to learn, and is doomed to suffer again in the learning. And looking at Alick’s set expression, he wondered again which of the two brothers offered the greater likelihood of destroying Ellen’s peace of mind.

  Chapter 21

   Libby

  Back in the kitchen of Sturrock House, Libby left Rodri making crisp recommendations regarding homework while she retreated upstairs to pack. When she came down ten minutes later, a lively discussion was under way. “But when, Dad? When I’m ten?” asked Donald.

  His brother scented discrimination. “That’s not fair—and he can’t go on his own even when he’s ten, can he?”

  “You both did well today, but you know how quickly—”

  “I could go with Davy, though, couldn’t I?” Donald persisted. “When I’m ten, he’ll be twelve.”

  “Dad!”

  Charlie’s cry was that of outraged siblings the world over, and Rodri rolled his eyes at Libby. “It’s not a numbers game, it’s when you’re safe, and that’s not yet. And your swimming needs to improve. A lot. Both of you.”

  “I can swim across the bay.”

  “Homework, I said.”

  “So can I, almost.” Charlie looked as if he was spoiling for a fight.

  Rodri put a hand on his head. “Just be content with the bay this summer, unless someone’s with you. High tide or incoming. You know the rules. And I repeat, homework?”

  “Done.”

  “Fine. So who’s for a walk before bed?”

  From the way the boys ran for their jumpers, this was a welcome suggestion, although there were still muttered grumblings as, bonded by a common grievance, they headed for the door. “Coming?” Rodri asked Libby, eyebrows raised.

  They went out through the old front door, down the steps, and along the mossy garden path to the gate, and from there out across the dunes, making for the headland, the boys casting leaping shadows as they ran on ahead. And she thought of how she used to rise early as a child to watch that same sun appear over the horizon on the other side of the ocean. The shadows were long then too.

  Donald fell back with a question. “Did you go kayaking in Canada? On the open sea, I mean.”

  She shook her head. “No, too dangerous. Squalls come up from nowhere and then the waves are huge. Even the fishing boats had to dash to shore sometimes.” Donald absorbed this unsatisfactory response and ran off to rejoin his brother. “Straining at the leash,” she remarked.

  “Don’t I know it.” Rodri watched his sons as they went down onto the beach where they wrestled cheerfully in the sand, venting their frustration like puppies. “But thank you for that. They think they’re invincible at that age, and Davy being two years older sets the bar. Donald’s a sensible lad, but Charlie hasn’t a clue. And anything Davy can do, they have to try.”

  She hesitated, then said, “Alice told me that he’s Hector’s son.”

  “Didn’t I—? I thought I’d said. Aye, though Hector’s barely ever seen him.” He drew in a long breath. “He’s losing out big time, Davy’s such a good lad, but I can’t get past Laila.” They had diverted from the route to the headland and he led her instead to the mound, which had already shape-shifted into a natural form with sand covering the curve of stones. No one could have guessed what had been there. “How long to clear the rest?” he asked.

  “A day, two at most, for two or three students. Even sieving every scrap of sand.” And they had maybe ten students signed up to come.

  He grunted. “And the stonework survey of the church?”

  She calculated quickly, two students per wall, exterior and interior, going slowly. “Two or three days, maybe four.” Then added, “And another day if we do a geophysical survey like the one—”

  “Forget it. Waste of time,” he said, and moved off in the direction of the headland. “And surveying the rest of the bay?” he asked over his shoulder.

  She looked around her, rapidly calculating what needed to be plotted and drawn: the contour lines, the church, the manse, the house, the headland. Was he reconsidering? But why not the geophysical work? “We could do it in a couple of days.”

  “Say three.”

  By now they were on the causeway going out to the headland. He turned back and offered a hand over the slippery rocks as they climbed up to the small plateau, where he stopped and looked down at the fallen stones of Odrhan’s cell.

  “And what would you do here?” he asked.

  She thought again of the drawing they had seen that morning; nothing would be lost by removing the tumble of stones again and seeing what, if anything, remained intact below. “Ideally we’d expose the original shape again, plot it, photograph it—and maybe dig it.”

  He said nothing more for a while but fixed his gaze on the two boys, who were now busy rolling two fishing floats down the dunes, scoring the sand where the floats came to a halt before staggering back up the dunes with them to repeat the game, lit by the rich light of the low sun. “And what will you find?”

  “Who knows—? But O.D.’s drawing suggests that there were bones found on the headland.”

  He nodded. “Hmm. Letting you loose out here is a bit of a risk, though.” She was beginning to recognise that dry smile, and warmed to it.

  “Why so?”

  “I’m not sure I could deal with another body.”

  Out to sea the sun’s disc slipped below a wash of charcoal which had spread above the horizon, and the shore darkened.

  “No guarantees at this stage, I’m afraid,” she said.

  A moment later the sun reappeared and lit the ragged edge of cloud, and hung there suspended for a glorious moment before it began its final descent, setting the clouds and sea aflame.

  “I suppose I’ll just have to chance it.”

  Jen
net lived in a neat whitewashed cottage in a small community a few miles inland from Oran Bridge, and they were on her doorstep early next morning. Rodri drummed his knuckles on the door, opened it, and called out: “Jennet? It’s Rodri.” Libby heard a faint response and he beckoned her in.

  The door opened into a low-ceilinged room which seemed to serve as both kitchen and living room, and in a high-backed chair pulled close to the fire sat a woman with a halo of white hair and bright eyes the colour of Maddy’s. She rose as Rodri entered and allowed herself to be enveloped in a great hug, peeping round him to smile at Libby. Libby smiled back and came forward to take her hand. The old lady barely reached Libby’s shoulder and it seemed quite inconceivable that Angus, that great bear of a man, was her son.

  Rodri introduced them. “Jennet, this is Libby Snow who’ll be running an archaeological dig on the estate this summer. Libby, this is Mrs. Cameron, but everyone calls her Jennet.”

  “And you must too,” said the woman with a bobbing smile. “A dig, eh? Well, well. Will you have some tea?”

  “Aye, but I’ll make it,” said Rodri.

  Jennet gestured Libby towards a settle beside the fire and asked her where she was from while Rodri filled the kettle and set it on an electric ring. Libby told her about the university town where she now lived, but spoke also about Gosse Harbour and her father’s family, watching for a response. There was none, other than a polite interest, but the old woman was examining her carefully.

  Rodri passed round mugs of tea, then settled himself down on the settle beside Libby and came straight to the point. “We’ve come to dredge your memory for scandals, Jennet.”

  “Scandals!” Her eyes seemed to grow sharper. “You know them as well as I do, Rodri Sturrock.”

  He gave a wry smile. “Old scandals, mo chridhe, scandals that you heard as a child.”

  The old lady turned to Libby, her eyes bright and alive. “He’s no more right to be up at the big house than you have, you know. Now, there’s a scandal, if you like! Sturrocks only came after—”

  “No! Not as far back as that, you incorrigible woman.”

  “It’s true! Sturrocks took the land—”

  Rodri groaned. “Alright, we’ll deal with this first. The estate was confiscated after Culloden and given to the Sturrock family, along with a baronetcy, as a reward for loyalty to the crown. Jennet claims descent from the family who were thrown out and never for one minute lets me forget it. By her reckoning, Angus should be sitting where Hector now sits.”

  “And so he should. And then David after him.”

  Libby smiled at the old woman. So much ferocity in so small a frame!

  “Let’s argue that out again another time, shall we?” Rodri said, with a fond smile. “But for now, tell me instead if you ever heard anything about a Sturrock son running off with a local woman.”

  The old woman slurped at her tea, then wiped her lips carefully with a handkerchief before setting down the cup. “But that was years back,” she said.

  Libby felt a jolt of excitement and Rodri leaned forward. “So you do know something?”

  The old lady looked from one to the other. “Only what everyone knew.”

  “And what was that?”

  But the old woman seemed to go off on a tangent. “The old laird fathered children on everyone except his own wife.”

  “Which old laird?”

  “The fifth baronet. Between him and his puny wife, they’d no children who survived them. He buried four infants, or was it five? And that was why your grandfather inherited, because they couldn’t find his brother.”

  Rodri and Libby exchanged glances. “His brother? Who was his brother?”

  “The one that ran off. The one you asked about!”

  Rodri rose and filled their mugs from the old brown teapot, and then sat again. “Tell us about this brother, Jennet,” he said.

  “It was years before I was born, but folk still spoke of it. Alexander, he was, and he ran off with my mother’s cousin, Ellen Mackay . . .”

  Ellen— Libby caught her breath. “You’re related to Ellen?” she said.

  The old woman nodded, then looked back at Rodri with eyes grown suddenly hard. “Ellen Mackay’s mother was Kirsty, and she was the old laird’s bastard. The third baronet. Nothing changes, does it? Well, Kirsty married my mother’s uncle, Samuel Mackay, and Ellen was their child.”

  The room seemed to close in on them as time contracted. Old scandals, Rodri had said, old transgressions, still remembered and repeated, the essence distilled over time and preserved by the telling and retelling. So somewhere, through the twists and turns, Libby was related to this old woman, and to Maddy, and to David. And Rodri—? This woman who sat opposite her in her high-backed chair was of her own grandmother’s generation and came from the same ancient stock. And suddenly the connection that had brought her here felt strong, and real.

  “And she ran off with this Sturrock man?” Rodri asked.

  The old woman nodded. “So they said. She was very lovely, by all accounts, even though she was just a housemaid in the big house—instead of living there as she should have done.”

  “In the big house, not the manse?” Libby asked.

  “Maybe it was the manse, I don’t know, my dear. Some said it was the minister who’d run off with her, others said he’d been caught thieving and forced out.”

  “So two men disappeared around the same time?” Rodri frowned and glanced across at Libby. “When was this?”

  The old woman chuckled. “I can’t remember what year it is now, never mind that far back. But it was long before I was born, and I’m ninety-two.”

  “And who told you all this?” he persisted.

  “Everyone! The old folk still spoke of it, gossip like that had a life of its own when there was no television or anything else to talk about. And then the old laird died and they couldn’t trace his brother. If they had done, then your branch of the family would still be farming in Perthshire and the likes of Hector Sturrock would not have—” She broke off, her lips working. Two patches of colour had appeared on her cheeks and her eyes had grown needle sharp.

  Rodri raised his hand but spoke gently. “I know, I know. Let’s stick to old scandals, Jennet.” She sniffed angrily. “So no one knew what happened to the minister, or to Alexander Sturrock?”

  She shook her head. “They might have done, but I don’t. He was a good man, they said, worth ten of his brother. Same they say about you.”

  Chapter 22

   Libby

  The call from her father came out of the blue.

  Libby had been back at work for a few weeks following her return from Ullaness and was in her office marking essays when the phone rang. Her father rarely called her, and never during the day, so as soon as she heard his voice her heart lurched.

  “It was all very peaceful,” he said. “She just slipped away in her sleep. Best we could hope for.” Libby put down the phone when he’d finished and stared out of the window at the horse chestnut tree which was now bedecked with blossom, overwhelmed by the sudden void.

  Rapid arrangements had then to be made to get herself released from her teaching commitments and booked on a flight to St. John’s in order to reach Gosse Harbour in time for the funeral. The dig would be starting in just over a week, but all the preparation work had been done. It would be tight, but she had to get there. Nothing mattered as much as that.

  She’d had intermittent contact with Rodri over the weeks, agreeing modifications to the arrangements for the summer, redefining the scope of the work. He’d been businesslike, still demanding that the details be spelt out, but obliging. Declan had tried to wrest back control of the project but Rodri had handled him skilfully, still refusing any further work in the nave of the church but agreeing to most other suggestions, keeping him sweet but dealing mainly through Libby.

  “What’s his problem?” Declan had demanded after failing again to persuade him to let them do a magnetometer survey inside
the church. “Ask him, why don’t you, since you’re so damn friendly.”

  And so she had. But she was met by silence at the end of the phone. Then: “Tell the good professor that I don’t want the dead disturbed.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t have to give him a reason.”

  “No, but—”

  “And Libby . . .” He paused. “The day we first met, you told me there had been shots fired at metal-detectorists caught in the churchyard.”

  “That’s right, and you said it wasn’t Angus.”

  “It wasn’t. But how did you know about it? The shots, I mean?”

  She thought back, trying to remember. It was surely Declan who had told her. “Declan.”

  “And who told him?”

  “I don’t know. Shall I ask?”

  “No.”

  “You surely aren’t suggesting that—”

  “I’m suggesting nothing, but I’m confirming, yet again, that there will no below-ground survey done in the church. No electrical resistance survey, no GPR, no magnetometer survey, no conductivity survey. No nothing. Understood?”

  “You’ve been swotting up.”

  “Aye.”

  To what purpose? she wondered, then asked: “Were shots fired at the nighthawks?”

  There was another silence at the end of the phone. “Allegedly,” he said, and she could almost see his smile.

  But all that had been blown away by her father’s news, and when she rang back two days later to tell Rodri about the funeral, there was a different sort of silence. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s a sad time for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “She’d had a good innings. Isn’t that what people say?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it doesn’t help, and she leaves a hole, eh?” It was the right sort of comfort.

  “A huge one.”

  “And we’ll learn no more from her.”

  “I thought that too.” A vital link in the chain had snapped, and all that would survive now would be filtered by her own memory, the details lost, the nuances distorted. And she thought of Jennet and remembered the fierce looks and her tone as she spoke of the past, and thought that it was more than words that told a story. It was the voice itself, the gestures, the shaken head and the smile. All that was gone now, and that part of Ellen’s story, the Newfoundland part, was diminished, a pale echo of the truth that she herself would pass on.