The Sea House: A Novel (24 page)

But the back of my neck was prickling, my lungs were tight. There was an awful pressure in the air, a will that was refusing to let me pass in the shadowy darkness.

She was there. I could feel her malevolence, how she wanted to bring me overwhelming unhappiness, to drown me in her grief.

‘Tell me who you are,’ I said to the dark.

Almost like a reply, I had an odd feeling, like a half-forgotten word, there on my tongue, waiting to be spoken.

Surely there’d been another time when I’d stood in a hallway like this, waiting and alone, with my hand on the cold paint of the newel post.…

I gasped, put my hand to my mouth. I saw her; I saw that solitary child, waiting, always waiting, in the hallway of a stranger’s house.

It always started with a stranger’s hallway, another foster home, the blank walls opening onto unknown rooms. The uncomfortable smells of someone else’s home. She was small and distressed and she was seared by grief, every nerve end raw and vulnerable.

Not everyone was kind in those places. Things I couldn’t bear to recall. The last and the worst placement was the home. The dawning realisation that you didn’t matter, that no one was going to care if you slipped off the world.

I learned to keep away from the so-called house father, Terry, and the mates he’d ask round to his flat.

The day I finally walked out of the children’s home, I walked away from that small, lonely figure. I left her and all her swirling sadness behind, left her standing alone in that last, cavernous hall.

That’s what I’d believed; but now I saw how she’d waited for me, standing her ground close by. All that time, she’d waited for me to turn and see her. And ever since the baby had started to grow inside me, the wall I’d so carefully constructed between me and her had started to fade. Finally, it had allowed her to put her hands out and pull me back to her, her every moment crowding back in, live with fear and distress.

I reached out and pressed my hand hard against the cold paintwork, needing to make sure I was there in the present and not scattered through time. My heart was still racing horribly fast as unbearable feelings swarmed in. I was so afraid of her, and so ashamed for her, that refugee child with her stink of poverty, of stale fat and rancid onion from her poor refugee meals; the sort of child that nobody wants around.

All those years, I’d worked so hard not to see her, that girl from the home; to forget her, deformed somehow by what she’d seen and done and been.

And yet she was just a child. Not even grown. All that had happened to a child.

Something cracked in my chest and pity began to seep out. She hadn’t done anything wrong. And she was so, so lonely.

I stood very still. For the first time, I let her come to me. And she brought with her all her heavy load of fear and grief. I sank slowly down on the step, my bones broken, the pain and the sorrow of being so unwanted rushing in on a dark tide.

You left me.

And I wanted it to stop. I was sobbing now. I banged my head back against the wall, kept on doing it. One pain to drive out another. As I fought for air, I saw how Mum could do what she did, how she could slip away beneath the water; all I wanted was that peaceful place, the peacefulness of a body rolling in oblivion.

I made myself stand up, sliding my back up against the wall, staggering upright. I was holding onto my swelling stomach, clinging on.

I waited till she faded, waited till I could breathe again, then I went through to the cupboard where we kept the bottle of Laphroaig, poured a glass, and let the hot liquid burn my throat.

CHAPTER 26

Alexander

I slept that night with my head on my books and awoke in the morning to the sound of Maggie Kintail banging on the study door and calling out in urgent Gaelic that His Lordship’s factor was here to see me. I brushed down my clothes and thought to straighten my books and papers, strewn as they were across the floor, but the factor gave himself entry into my study directly. I greeted him, very conscious of my personal disarray, and from thereon the day went from bad to worse.

The factor for Lord Marstone was on his way to the extensive tracts of farmland that he had bought for himself around Borve. I did not find Mr Stewart good company at the best of times, so I was dismayed to see him move about the room, taking his time, examining the bookshelves and my pictures with bemused attention, as if he must see if there might be something of value – something he might wish to acquire. Satisfied that this was not the case, he settled himself comfortably in my chair as a man who will leave only when he has completed his business to his liking.

Mr Stewart possessed the flat vowels formed in the lower jaw and the progressive ideas about farming that come from the vast estates along the east coast of Aberdeenshire, where a landlord may own a thousand acres put to wheat or beef cattle. It was open knowledge that Mr Stewart had done very well for himself as His Lordship’s factor, building a house that ranked second only to the castle. Solid in person, with the broad shoulders of a man of considerable physical strength, he was some twenty years older than I, and apt to labour the point.

‘So the farm’s doing well here, Alexander?’ he said, leaning over to take a slurp from his tea, which he held from the top in a fist of fingers, as if the handle were too fragile for his particular needs.

‘I believe so. I must confess that I leave the running of it to the MacAllisters, who have far more experience in these things, and who will no doubt continue to run things just as smoothly for the next incumbent.’

‘That’s probably a wise attitude,’ he said, draining his tea and raking through the plate of baking for something he liked. He broke a scone and threw half in his mouth. ‘But this is a lot of land to care for. His Lordship’s left a generous piece for the clergy. Are ye aware, Alexander, that the church land runs from here right to the other side of the island?’

‘I have seen the deeds, but not given it much thought.’

‘Oh aye, from here all the way to the village of Finsbay on the other side. You could say that it’s you who owns Finsbay.’

I gave a laugh. ‘Well, I hardly think of it like that.’

‘Being a landlord, it comes with benefits and it comes with duties, Alexander. Have ye heard that there’s a whole influx of squatters there right now who’ve been cleared from Uist, turning the place to squalor and ruining the land? His Lordship’s no pleased, Alexander.’

I felt my face grow hot.

‘I have been considering how best I might help them and I see now, it is truly remiss of me not to have begun sooner. As it is my responsibility, then I can assure His Lordship that, with his permission, I have some schemes that might improve their lot. I shall set off tomorrow and—’

‘I haven’t finished relating to you the wishes of His Lordship. Just hold on there now. There’s no place for the squatters over there in Finsbay, and it’s your duty, Alexander, to tell them they canna’ stay. The boat will come for them on Friday, and my secretary will come along with us to keep accounts of how each man may pay for his passage.’

‘But where will the people go?’

‘They’ll leave for Stornoway for a ship that goes to Canada. I hear it’s a very nice place, Canada. Plenty of land over there. They are fortunate that we have arranged this for them. The men will come by in the morning and we will go with you to Finsbay.’

He handed me a letter.

‘As soon as we arrive, you will call the villagers out and read it to them. Then my men can set to work.’

I heard him leaving the house as I unfolded the paper and began to read it through. It was an order for eviction, pertaining to every person recently arrived in Finsbay, signed by Stewart.

I ran out. Stewart was climbing up into his dogcart, his broad back to me.

‘I cannot read this to the people,’ I called out.

He did not turn but seated himself and took the reins. The horse moved a step or two to the side, nervous.

‘As the incumbent in Lord Marstone’s gift, Reverend, it’s your legal duty to do so – that’s if you wish to remain the incumbent. You’ll be adding your own signature there.’ And he rattled away towards his farms at Borve.

*   *   *

After much praying, I resolved that I must speak with Marstone about the injustice being meted out upon this unfortunate refugee class. It was now late afternoon and would soon be dark, but I saddled up the horse and rode out to Avenbuidhe Castle, determined to convince His Lordship of a more humane course of action.

It was against my every inclination to make that journey, so anxious was I as to how Miss Marstone might construe the visit, but as my horse’s hooves echoed around the shouldering hills that hemmed in the castle, I slid down from the beast resolved to accept whatever she should say to me. I pulled on the bell at the great oak door. Even though they must have been aware of my arrival, it was a long time before a man answered. From his dress I saw that he was far below the usual rank of servant who attended the door of such a house.

‘Lord Marstone,’ he told me, ‘is no receiving visitors.’

‘But this is a matter of great urgency. It is imperative that I speak with His Lordship immediately.’

‘Well, that’s as may be, but you canna’ come in and he will not see you. The Miss is sick and we’re to let no one over the threshold. The doctor’s gone and put her in the quarantine. Half the staff have left already, and the other half is wanting to leave. I’m leaving here for the boats, soon as I can.’

‘But will she recover?’ I asked, stunned by this news of poor Katriona. ‘What is the matter with the good lady?’

He shrugged his shoulders, went to close the door.

‘But wait, at least you must let His Lordship know about this urgent matter. I will write a note.’ I searched for a stub of pencil in my pocket, tore a page from my pocketbook and began to scribble. ‘And please, please will you convey my sincere best wishes and my prayers to Miss Marstone for her well-being and full recovery to health. May I not come in and see her?’

The man drew back, shook his head.

‘That you can’t. And I can’t take your message or your paper. He’ll no want to know. There’s no one but the Miss’s own maid and the Glasgow doctor allowed up there to speak with him. And there’s no one here that will dare to go up there and cross him.’

As I stood stupefied by this information, he suddenly closed the door. I remained motionless under the portico for some time, but there was nothing more for me to do but return by the way I had come.

As darkness fell, it was only the instincts of my horse picking its way over the stony track that prevented a laming. I hardly noticed where I was going, so perturbed was I in my thoughts, my mind returning to that quiet hollow in the sand dunes. I was now convinced that it was surely the turmoil of those moments that had caused her to fall prey to some illness. How had it happened, that I had let matters slide so disastrously into chaos?

My thoughts returned to that day.

So swiftly she had loosened her dress at the front, slid it from her shoulder, a marble bust of ideal form emerging from the folds of blue silk.

She took my hand, placed it on the cold whiteness of her skin and in the next moment we stood closely embracing in that sheltered place, no sound reaching our ears but her faint breath. Once or twice a soft, damp pattering of sandfalls from the great cliffs of sand dunes around us.

But gradually, effortfully, I began to return to my senses, and with a struggle against my very nature, I pushed her away, using more force than I intended, so that she staggered a little. She moved to approach me again, but I held her away at arm’s length. Her face stared into mine, startled, confused.

I turned my own face away. ‘You must cover yourself.’

‘But we shall be married, Alexander. We can be married tomorrow. I shall come here and live with you.’

She moved towards me again.

‘Katriona, you are young and impressionable and you cannot understand what you are saying or what you are doing. I am to blame, for letting this happen. I must resign from your father’s parish, and then you can go about your life in peace. One day, you will be of age to marry, someone your father will approve of, when you can understand more of what love is.’

She gave me a look of such pinched bitterness and began to pull up her dress, but she was weeping so much that she stopped and abandoned herself, unmoving, half dressed. I had to help her with her buttons, smooth her hair with my fingers and try to attach it in its net. All the while she did nothing to resist, like a person turned to water, broken of all resolve.

‘Don’t go,’ she said quietly, her eyes cast to the ground, tears falling. ‘Let me at least know that you are still here. Promise me you won’t resign. I won’t ask you such questions again.’

She gave a long, tired sigh, wiped her face with her hands and began to walk towards the manse. I followed.

‘Will you think very badly of me?’ she said into the wind.

‘Katriona, the fault was all mine. Never yours.’

But her head remained bowed, and it took us a long time to regain the house, so fatigued was she. As soon as we arrived, she stepped up into the trap and let the pony walk on, not turning her head or saying goodbye.

*   *   *

As my horse now made its way through the drizzle of rain precipitating from the darkness, my heart constricted with guilt to think of how she must have returned home, already in the first throes of her sickness, and fallen into her mortal fever the very next day.

Then it began to dawn on me, that surely this fever must already have been acting upon her person, must surely have been the cause of her strange and sudden behaviour; the incipient fever weighing down her fragile limbs as she let circumstances buffet her about, falling into my arms with the streams of sand, jolted by the stones in the path as she rode home in her little wooden carriage.

No other cause, I reasoned, no other cause could explain her sudden moods.

As soon as I was home, I went to my study and fetched the whisky from the cupboard. I stoked up the peats to get some warmth into the chill air and sat at my desk, trying and failing over and over again to formulate some plan for the affair in Finsbay the next day. And all the time I was never completely able to escape the din of my anxiety for Miss Marstone.