Women of the Dunes Read online

  To his astonishment, Alick swung on his heel and was out of the door. Oliver watched through the window and saw him appear a moment later and bend to Ellen, a hand on her shoulder. “It’s mostly just in the mornings, sir,” Mrs. Nichol said.

  Something in her tone made him turn to look at her, and then the implication of her words hit him. “In the mornings, Mrs. Nichol?” he said, and the housekeeper nodded, her face a picture of dismay. He gaped at her and her eyes fell; fleetingly he wondered if she imagined him to be the author of Ellen’s misfortune, and in the next instant realised that same question would be in everyone’s mind. His next thought was Alick. “You’ve told no one, I trust?” he said, and she shook her head. “Then I must ask you to remain silent. Do you understand? If Ellen is . . . if Ellen’s illness is something other than . . . than an illness, then we must take steps—” But what steps could possibly be taken?

  The door opened and Alick strode into the room, his face a mask. “That will be all, Mrs. Nichol,” he said. “I’ve suggested to Ellen that she goes and lies down.”

  Mrs. Nichol gave a bob and left without a word, head down.

  “Mungo!” Alick spat.

  “No!” Oliver stared back at him. “Did she say so?”

  “No, but nor would she deny it. And as it was neither you nor I, my friend, who else could it have been?”

  Oliver sank into one of the two armchairs and put his head in his hands. Dear Lord, how completely had he failed her! And she had borne the assault alone, without support, said nothing, and now must bear its consequences. But when had it happened? He tried calculating back.

  “And where was your loving God, Oliver, when he forced himself on her?” Alick’s bitterness echoed his own, and he had no answer.

  It must have been just before Mungo left. And then he remembered the scurrilous note he had left, and understood what it had told them. Good God, the very day her mother died! But even as he absorbed the blow, a solution began to form in his mind, one that made his breathing become more rapid, and his heart beat strong.

  Alick’s next words shattered it.

  “It was Ellen I wanted to talk to you about. I’m planning to take her with me. There is no place for either of us here— My parents would never agree, of course, so it must be done without their knowledge.” He shook his head, staring down at his feet. “And now this! But it makes no difference. Mungo’s child will be my child, our child, and will be the better for it.”

  Oliver’s mouth became dry with the taste of ashes. “You’ll take Ellen—?”

  “I love her, and how could I leave her now?” The words were simply said, but when he swung round, Oliver saw that his eyes were ablaze. “It was when you said what you did the other day that I realised that she was a part of me, and has been all my life. I’ve held back from any declaration because of her grief, not knowing what Mungo— But I will take her with me and make her safe.”

  Oliver’s dreams crumbled around him.

  “But your family—” he said, through the mist of despair.

  “I shan’t tell them, and you mustn’t do so either. The devil of it is that Mungo is due home any day, and so you must keep Ellen away from him. She trembled when I mentioned his name, and if my parents learn what he has done, God knows what would happen to her. They’d stop at nothing to cover it up, you know. Pa’s ruthless. No. I’ll bring forward my plans, and we will go.”

  “But has she said that she will go with you?”

  And so to the final nail.

  “She did, just now.”

  When Alick had gone, Oliver stood staring out of the window, and wondered why it was that here, on the west coast, summer did not fulfil the promise of spring. The bright, clear, sun-filled days which had heralded his arrival had not been followed with warmth and sunshine but had become burdened with overcast skies, heavy with cloud, as if a muslin shroud had been cast over the land. The gorse was brown now, the joy of the yellow iris gone, and the wild roses were shedding their petals, their perfume soured. So soon faded— There was rain on the wind.

  A storm was brewing, and what a storm it would be—

  And he, of course, would be held responsible.

  Later, when he spoke to Ellen, he sensed a change in her, a new strangeness. She seemed calmer, and yet even more distant, unreachable but now in a different way, as if she had slipped into another world, a vague world of her own creating. When gently questioned about her encounter with Mungo, she described it as if it was a story, something which had happened to another person; and although she began to shake and clasped her arms across her breast, she told him in detail how she had sought the cool glade, described seeing her reflection in the pool, and how she had bathed her feet and legs there. And then Mungo had thrown pebbles into the pool: “Three of them, one after another. I thought how odd it was that there would be fish there, and the ripples spread so wide, right across the pool.” And in the same odd story-telling voice she had explained how she could not find her shoes and how Mungo had stepped across the stream in one stride, and taken her. “He always was a violent man, you know,” she said, in a vague way, and he wondered a little at her words.

  He asked her too about Alick, and she had turned to give him an almost ethereal smile of such blissful happiness that he had had to drop his eyes. “He says that he’ll take me away from here, far away, and that we’ll raise this child as if it was our own. And this time all will be well.” He asked her what she meant, and she had looked confused and been unable to answer. “I’ve loved him always, Mr. Drummond,” she said, and repeated, “and this time it will be alright.”

  And so over the next days Oliver found that the manse became a trysting place. What Mrs. Nichol made of it all he could only imagine, but he felt powerless to act, accepting that his days here were numbered, and that as soon as Alick left with Ellen then he too would go. It would not trouble him overmuch, he decided, for with Alick gone and Ellen gone, there was no longer any point in staying. He would begin again—alone. Like Odrhan.

  Until then, however, he sustained himself by going through the motions, visiting the sick and the needy, conducting services he no longer believed in, and answering whatever summonses came from the big house.

  On one such occasion, the details of Alick’s imminent departure were discussed with satisfaction by his mother. “He needs an occupation,” Lady Sturrock had said. “And this will give him one. He is something of a dreamer, I fear, and this will make him approach life in a more practical manner. He spends a great deal of time at the manse, he values your company, I know, but I sometimes wonder what else draws him there—” She had let the remark hang there, but there could be no mistaking her meaning. “Alick needs to get out into the world and make his mark, as befits his position. Mungo does too, of course, but Sir Donald has decided that once he returns, he must begin to learn how to run the estate.”

  To run, or run to ruin? Oliver wondered.

  It was two days after this conversation, and just as the evening shadows were lengthening, that Alick burst into the manse in a high passion. “Where’s Ellen?”

  Oliver looked up from his desk. “She’s in the house somewhere. Why?”

  “She’s not in the kitchen.”

  Oliver put down his pen, feeling very old. “What is it, Alick?”

  “Mungo’s back, so she must stay indoors! He arrived just before dinner. It was all I could do to sit down at table with him, and then he started goading me, you know the way he does, all insinuation and sly remarks to which you can’t respond! Or not in front of Mama, anyway. He’s the very devil—” He flung himself into a chair. “I had to come away, out of sight of him, or I could not be answerable for myself.”

  “Alick—”

  “So you must marry us at once—tonight. Everything is arranged. The passage is booked; we’ll leave here tomorrow and sail on Thursday.”

  Oliver stared at him in horror. “But I can’t marry you, just like that!”

  “Why not?”r />
  “Surely you must see—”

  Alick’s face was rigid. “No, Oliver, I don’t.”

  “But, I can’t—”

  “You damn well can! I know that much of the law. Irregular it might be, but it will be a marriage nonetheless. Mrs. Nichol can bear witness.”

  “Mrs. Nichol has gone to her daughter’s.” And Oliver doubted whether she would return; he had sensed a growing disapproval from her. If she decided to speak to Lady Sturrock, then all was lost.

  “You must marry us anyway, in the church, in the sight of God. In the sight of God, Oliver! Why should the rest matter to you? And then Ellen will feel safe, she will at least feel married, and we can pay for the sheriff’s warrant in Glasgow before we sail and make all right and tight. I’ll not leave with her unwed!”

  And how could he, a minister of the cloth, refuse? If any other of his parishioners had come before him with such a request, especially with a child on the way, he would have had no qualms, for anything was to be preferred to a sinful association. But Sir Donald was unlikely to appreciate that argument; the sin of misalliance would outweigh all others.

  He became aware of Alick scowling at him. “You hesitate, my friend,” he said.

  “No, Alick,” he replied, his heart leaden. “I do not. We will find Ellen, and I will wed you tonight.”

  Alick leapt to his feet, his face transformed with joy. “That was why I had the copy made of the cross, you see. It is for her! A wedding present. The two crosses will serve to bind us, and I’ll buy her a ring when we get to Glasgow. Where are they?”

  “You left them here, so I put them with the chalice.” He retrieved them from his desk.

  “Good. Put them in your pocket while I go and find Ellen.”

  And so, that evening, by the light of candles lit on the altar of St. Oran’s Church, Oliver swallowed his despair and married Alick Sturrock and Ellen Mackay. They exchanged their vows quietly and were bound by the exchange of the two crosses, one of which, if the legend told true, Odrhan had given to Ulla as a token of her conversion, and then buried it with her when she died.

  Or maybe it too had been given as a love token, Oliver thought, as he left the lovers alone in the manse and set out to the headland. A crescent moon cast a silvery sheen on the ocean, and from somewhere came the piping cry of a seabird. Had Odrhan loved Ulla only as a godly man, or, as Ellen herself had suggested, had he been her lover? If so, then the monk had fared better than himself.

  He went and sat with his back to the ruin, now returned to its former state, and thought of the bones they had reburied under the floor just feet away, and of the skull with its clean-edged cut, a testament to Erik’s wrath. At least Mungo would have no reason to come after Alick as Erik had done, hell-bent on retribution and to claim his child. Perhaps he would never know it was his.

  Alick had explained his plans to Oliver earlier. “We’ll leave tomorrow evening, after dinner. Everyone will imagine that I’m here with you and won’t look for me until morning, and so we’ll get a good start. I’ll bring the trap down to the manse and be all ready to go; we’ll travel to Balemore, leave instructions for the trap to be returned here in a day or two, and travel on from there to Glasgow.”

  Oliver rested the back of his head on the stones and let the breath of the soft night soothe him. When Alick was safely away, he would tell Lady Sturrock that he was leaving, and go. Cowardly, perhaps, but it would avoid the inevitable outcry once news of Alick’s arrival in Newfoundland, with Ellen, was received.

  He looked back towards the church, the scene of his failure, and wondered if his successor would make a better job of it; it pained him to think of it standing empty. As for himself, he would go back to Cumnock perhaps, to the soft lowlands away from this wild western coast.

  And so, according to the plan, after dinner next day, Oliver heard the rumble of the trap, and a moment later Alick strode into the study, his eyes alight. He had long since given up the formality of knocking, and with Mrs. Nichol still away there was no need for subterfuge. Oliver rose as he entered and found his hand engulfed in both of Alick’s. “All set. I cannot thank you enough, my friend.” Oliver returned him a tight smile. “Where is she? Is she ready?”

  “Upstairs, I imagine, assembling herself.” Earlier Ellen had come down to talk to him, to say her farewells, and from her too there had been a radiance.

  “I’ll run up and fetch her. I want to be away at once.” Oliver heard him go upstairs, calling her name; then a moment later he heard him descend, and he must have gone into the kitchen for it was a couple of minutes before he appeared again at the study door. “She’s not here! Her bag is there, strapped down and ready, but she’s not in the house.”

  “But I saw her, not an hour since.”

  Alick frowned, and then his brow cleared. “She’ll have gone out to the headland! She was saying yesterday how she will miss the place. Oliver, will you go and fetch her while I put her bag in the trap and turn it, ready to go? I’m anxious to be off.”

  And so Oliver picked up his coat and set off once more for the headland.

   Ellen

  She had had to come one last time. She needed to say her own quiet farewell to the spirits who she knew, despite what Alick said, were there, just beyond the veil. In the ether. She could hear them rustling through the grasses, their voices echoing in the call of the gulls, their breath soft on her cheek. She had to tell them that this time all would be well— A fulmar swooped low, and just for a moment its shadow startled her in the half-light of evening, and her hand closed over the little gold cross that hung from a chain around her neck. Alick could have thought of no better token to symbolise their vows, and it was warm in her hand. She would carry Ulla with her always now.

  The sun was low over the horizon and soon it would set, and when it rose again she would be far away from here, fulfilling Ulla’s dream to be with her lover, and soon—

  “Ellen?” She turned at his voice.

  “I’m here. And I’m ready to go now.”

  “Go where, my nymph?” A figure appeared from behind the ruin, his shadow darkening the headland.

  Ellen froze. Erik—! Somehow her thoughts, and her intentions, had summoned his spirit.

  “And with whom, I wonder?” He came close and put his hands on her shoulders, pulling her to him. “I have been watching for you, sweet Ellen. I thought you might come here.”

  Reality hit her hard, and she braced herself against him. “Let me go!”

  “I fear I disappoint— Did you expect my brother?” She struggled, but he easily controlled her. “Or was it Drummond?” He held her away from him, examining her face, his eyes dark with mockery. “And where are you going?”

  “I’m leaving, Mungo, with my husband,” she said, and the words gave her the courage to lift her head.

  Mungo’s face registered surprise, followed swiftly by a frown. “Your husband?”

  “So stand aside and let me pass!”

  “Not so fast, little nymph, first tell me—”

  Then there was the sound of someone else scrambling over the rocks, and he turned.

  Oliver heard voices blown back on the rising wind and quickened his steps. As he clambered up the rocks, he heard Ellen, and then the deeper tones that could be only one man. “Ellen!” he called out, and came around the side of the ruin, breathless and his heart pounding. Mungo turned to greet him, a strange smile on his face.

  “Oho! Well met, minister.”

  Oliver ignored him. “Come away, Ellen.” He put out a hand to her and she took it, gripping his fingers tight.

  Mungo let her go, then threw back his head and laughed. “My compliments, Drummond, I didn’t know you had it in you! And congratulations, though God knows it must have been an irregular sort of affair. Did you conduct the ceremony yourself, give your own responses? A rather thin cloak of respectability, don’t you think, but then she’s been under your roof for weeks now.” Something in his tone warned Oliver that Mungo
must be encouraged to continue in his error. But what had Ellen told him? “Think of the scandal, my friend, a man of God running off with his housemaid!”

  “Come, Ellen,” he said, and put his hand under her elbow, guiding her past Mungo.

  But Mungo took hold of her other arm. “I’m really not sure I can condone this, you know, Drummond. I have to consider—”

  A movement behind them made all three of them turn. “Let her go, Mungo.” Alick spoke quietly, but Oliver’s pulse leapt.

  Darkness was falling fast now, but there was still light enough to show the expression of unholy amusement which sprang onto the face of Mungo Sturrock. “Alick too! Dear Lord, a veritable ménage!” He released Ellen, who went over and stood beside him, and Alick put a protective arm around her.

  Oliver saw Mungo’s eyes narrow and the amusement vanish. He spoke quickly. “Go now, Alick, and take Ellen. I will explain matters to your brother—”

  “No! No one leaves.” And to Oliver’s astonishment he saw that a gun had appeared in Mungo’s hand. “So you’re the lucky man, are you, brother? But this cannot be permitted.”

  “Put that away, man,” said Oliver, seriously alarmed now. “Alick. Go!”

  Mungo moved to block the way. “No, Drummond, you go. And take the drab back to the manse. You and I, Alick, are going to bear these happy tidings to Pa.”

  “And will you also tell him of the rape?” Oliver asked, putting out a hand to stay Alick, who had moved forward.

  Mungo scoffed. “What rape?” he replied. “Bring forth your witnesses, minister! Besides, he’d understand that better than this misalliance, believe you me! And he’ll send the baggage packing, along with you, Drummond! And you’ll be glad to go, if I know his temper.”

  “Alick and Ellen are man and wife, Mungo, married in church in the sight of God. Nothing can come between them now, so let them go on their way—”

  “And bring disgrace to my family?”

  “Disgrace!” said Alick. “You talk of disgrace! How many brats have you already fathered? Well, this time it will be different.”