The Exile of Sara Stevenson

by Darci Hannah

  The house was still dark but for the glowing of the fire. Robbie and Kate were asleep, as they should be, and Mr. Campbell was well into his second watch of the night. I placed a couple bricks of peat on the glowing coals to stoke up the fire, and then, with the thought of a nice pot of tea to cheer me, I threw on a coat and went to fetch a pail of water from the cistern.

  I was used to the cold by now, but I didn’t like it much. I longed for warmer days, which I knew lay just around the corner. There was, however, a perceivable mildness to the air, and its presence was indicated by the thin gauzy fog that had settled in. Yet I had no trouble seeing the lighthouse or the room that sat just beneath the great lantern. I looked at the window, awash with light, but could not see Mr. Campbell sitting there. I continued on my errand, and on my return I looked again. This time I caught a glimpse of him as he paced the room, dark head bent in consternation, jerking every now and again at some unseen interruption. He appeared a hungry predator trapped in a cage.

  Dawn was just beginning to show itself as I swung the kettle over the gentle flame. It wasn’t a very hot fire. I thought of adding another brick then thought again, recalling Mr. Campbell’s example of thriftiness, and decided to wait patiently for the water to boil. It would never do to stare at the kettle, which, to my humiliation, I have done many a time without success. Water would take its sweet time to boil and no amount of wishful thinking could alter that, so, after preparing a pot with the correct measure of tea leaves standing at the ready, I decided to pull my coat back on and head to the edge of the promontory, to a place I sometimes went to gaze at the sea.

  It was an eerily still morning on the Cape, gray and foggy. Gannets and kittiwakes were beginning to stir, rending the air with their echoing cries. The sea, far far below me, was a dark, undulating mass and, as I stared at it, marveling at the hypnotic movement, something in the east caught my eye.

  It was a little skiff, close into the coast and coming out from what looked to be the cove to the jetty. The sight of it, the suddenness of which it appeared and the pristine beauty of the small craft against the dark water evoked in me a strange, disjointed feeling—a feeling heightened even more by the sudden prickling of my skin. I had never seen this particular boat before, but I did hear that at times fishermen would come to the lighthouse jetty in the warmer months to drop off post from Durness, or to sell the light-keeper a basket of fish. I watched the little skiff for a moment as it sailed, seeming to glide effortlessly on the undulating water, and then it turned from the coast in one elegant, sweeping motion. The white sails adjusted then filled. And the little boat headed into a wall of murky fog. Only when it had disappeared completely did I look up at the lighthouse to see if Mr. Campbell had seen it too. I could see his silhouette still pacing between the three windows in my view, head still bent in deep concentration as he silently worked out his demons. Excited, and filling with hope, I had no wish to disturb him—no desire to confront the man—and so, without another thought, I headed straight to the jetty.

  I saw there a little package sitting on the end of the pier next to the postbox. It was an odd sight; a little unnerving even. The jetty was a lonely, desolate place but for the few birds and gray seals that called it home. As I walked out to retrieve the package—the first form of post to arrive in the four months I’d been here—I felt an odd sensation of foreboding, a sensation that magnified tenfold when I saw that the package was addressed to one Sara Crichton, Keeper of the Light, Cape Wrath. At the sight of these words, my hands started to tremble uncontrollably.

  Crichton.

  It was with great effort that I picked up the package and, as if carrying the most sacred of relics, brought it back to the cottage, having not the will to open it yet. I walked along the frozen road through the open moorland while the morning sun attempted to break through the mist. Every step of the way was shrouded in mystery and a terrible, perplexing feeling I had no name for.

  The great light apparatus had already been extinguished by the time I reached the courtyard, and the smell of burnt toast hit me as I came through the door of the cottage. Oddly enough this had a calming effect on my nerves, for it meant that Kate was about preparing the morning meal.

  “Where did you get off to?” she questioned, still bent near the fire, pulling the blackened toast out of the iron. “Hell and damnation, I scorched it again!”

  Robbie, who was studiously reading an outdated Edinburgh Review at the table, as if the old news was news to relish, looked up at his wife’s outburst. “I have no idea what you’re complaining about, love, ’tis the same every morning. If you put a thick enough layer of those currant preserves that kind woman Mrs. MacKay brought by, you don’t even notice the taste. Come, now, Kate, Sara’s arrived.” Then, noticing for the first time the package in my hands, he exclaimed, “Whatever have ye got there?”

  This brought Kate from the fire and, dropping the scorched toast in front of me, next to the pot of fresh brewed tea, she observed, “Why, Sara, if you’re not shaking like a leaf! Dear heavens, sit down! You’re cold,” she stated, eyeing me suspiciously. And then, concern flooding in, she called out to her husband, “Robbie, pull the wee blanket from the settle and wrap it around Sara. If you’ve gone and made yourself sick again,” she warned me in a frighteningly similar manner my mother would have used, “I’m not responsible!”

  “No. I assure you, I’m fine,” I replied, still trembling.

  She cast me a skeptical glance then poured out a cup of the strong tea. This she pushed before me then relieved my hands of the package. As I sipped the hot liquid, willing it to soothe my tumultuous insides, she took one look at the inscription, set the box down and crossed herself in the manner of the Catholics. “Sweet gentle Jesus,” she uttered, attracting her husband’s full attention. “’Tis from that devil’s buckie! That wicked lad!” she breathed, and then held me with her accusing brown gaze. “How … where did ye come by it?”

  I grabbed the package back and held it protectively. “I … I saw a little sailboat leaving the jetty this morning.”

  “A boat? When?” demanded Robbie.

  “At … at the hour of dawn,” I uttered, and at the thought of it my skin came alive again with the same indescribable tingling.

  “You were out on the promontory watching ships at the hour of dawn?” he questioned, looking rather disturbed by this. There was no need for me to reply. He already knew the answer. “And did Mr. Campbell happen to see this wee boat as well?”

  “I … I …” I stuttered, and shook my head. “No, I do not think he did.”

  “So ye went down to the jetty alone?”

  “I’m … afraid that I did, Mr. MacKinnon,” I admitted, feeling a welling of guilt at my impulsivity; for Robbie was a kind, decent soul and I truly hated to disappoint him. “But the moment I saw the little boat,” I felt compelled to explain, “I knew that it carried something special.” And though it made perfect sense to me, Robbie MacKinnon failed to understand this.

  “Was anyone else about?” he probed with furrowed brows.

  “No. The place was deserted. There was just this package.”

  A derisive look passed between husband and wife. But this time the meaning was not lost on me. “You do understand, Sara, that Mr. Campbell has absolutely forbidden you to venture beyond the lighthouse bounds unescorted?”

  “I believe he said something on the matter to me, yes.”

  “And still ye went down there alone, in the frozen light of dawn … and in your delicate condition forbye?”

  “When you put it like that, sir, you make it sound very ignoble and grasping. The truth was I had no wish to disturb the man. He appeared busy, and you must know how he hates to have anyone invade his tower uninvited.”

  “Could ye not have called up to the man? Sound does travel up the tower marvelously, you know.”

  “No sir, the thought never occurred to me.” Which, unfortunately, was the truth.

  Disgruntled, Robbie stood up fro
m the table and walked to the window. After meditating on the view for a moment he turned to both Kate and me. “Campbell’s coming. I suggest you open the wee package before he arrives. And then you can explain to him why it is you went down to the jetty alone, when by all logic and reason ye should have told one of us what ye were about.”

  I needed no more prompting than that to open this intriguing piece of mail.

  Aside from the disturbing inscription linking my name with Thomas Crichton’s, it was an unremarkable package by all standards: small, square, wrapped in brown paper and tied off with a length of twine. Robbie handed over his knife and I hurriedly cut the string and gently peeled back the paper. Before me sat a polished wooden box, cherrywood, by the look of it. It was not familiar to me, and for that I was slightly relieved. Yet when I lifted the lid my heart stopped. For there, peeking up beside an ink-splattered page, was a link from a silver chain. Ignoring the note I grabbed the link, knowing instinctively what it was. Again I was taken with the now familiar tingling—the touch of my skin against the silver link igniting my every nerve. And then I pulled from the nest of wood shavings a silver pocket watch—my silver pocket watch: the exact same one I had given Thomas in the hayloft of the Fergusons’ barn. As it slowly revolved on its chain, reflecting the golden light from the candles, my hand began to tremble.

  “What is it? What is it, Sara?” uttered Kate as all eyes were fixed on the watch. Yet I had not a voice with which to answer her, for the watch had turned enough to reveal the inscription on the back: To my beloved Thomas, eternally yours, Sara 1814.

  A sound, odd and foreign to my own ears, escaped my lips—like the sound a wounded animal makes at the moment of death. I was in agony. Something in me had died. And tears of hurt and rage coursed down my cheeks unchecked. Thomas Crichton had returned my watch! Goddamn the bastard and his blackguardly soul to the depths of hell!

  On impulse, as if out of some deep, primitive, atavistic response, I emitted a shockingly vulgar grunt and flung the object of pain from me, without heed, at the door. I was anticipating the impact of silver and glass on wood, followed by an explosion of gears and springs, yet instead all I heard was a muffled expulsion of air followed by a resounding: “What the devil?”

  Mr. Campbell, to my astonishment and great embarrassment, stood in the doorway, windblown and dark hair askew, holding Thomas’ watch by the chain while regarding me with an odd mixture of curiosity and chagrin. “Tell me, Miss Stevenson, is it a gift or a curse that ye bestow on me this morning?”

  The man could see from my face, and the faces of our companions as well, that I was too distraught to speak. In one deft move he yanked the chain, sending the silver disk airborne, and caught it in the palm of his hand. Then, without another thought to the object that had assaulted him, he walked over to the table and stared into the box. He examined the brown paper, took note of the name inscribed in black ink and saw how the little gift had upset the whole mood of the cottage. “Oh? It is a curse, I see.” He had spoken plainly, but his words held a deeper meaning for us both. And then he looked into my eyes with his own incandescent ones. “Do you mind telling me, lass, where it is you found this?”

  “Did you not see it?” I asked, looking just as intensely at him. “Did you not see the little skiff this morning?”

  “A skiff? Here? When was this?”

  “This morning … at the jetty!” Yet I could see from the look in his wild eyes that he had not.

  “Was it the tender ye saw?” he inquired, his eyes squinting in puzzlement. I shook my head. “Well, what did it look like, this little skiff of yours?” he demanded, a little too sharply.

  Obviously he was more concerned with having not spied the little craft himself than the fact that I had just witnessed the return of a sacred gift. “I … I don’t know!” I spat, shifting marvelously from hurt to anger. His look of impatience, combined with the unwillingness to move on, spurned me to add, “Well, it wasn’t big, just a mast and a jib, I suppose. I didn’t get a good look at it, at any rate. It was foggy, as you know. And I’m not nearly as adept at recognizing such things as you are.”

  He raised a sardonic brow and continued his chuff interrogation. “You saw a strange ship at the jetty this morning and you went there alone without saying aught to me on the matter?” Yet instead of berating me, as would have been normal for him to do, he schooled his baser emotions and nodded his acceptance of the fact that I had. And then, thankfully, he turned his attention to the watch.

  He held it gently in his hands, almost lovingly, admiring the work of the master watchmaker, Mr. Arnold. From the little I knew of Mr. Campbell, I was well aware that he was a man who appreciated science and mechanics, and the work of artisans who could combine such complex things into a highly accurate, utilitarian object of beauty and wonder were not lost on him. I watched as he flipped the timepiece over. His pale eyes scanned the very personal inscription, and although he knew the nature of the demon I battled—was now, in fact, holding a piece of the man in the palm of his hand—he gave nothing away. He turned the watch over again. At last he looked me in the eye and softly said, “I wonder at a man who could forfeit such a treasure.” And the way his eyes locked on to mine, the pointed way with which he spoke, made me to understand he was not speaking entirely of the watch. It was a kind sentiment, yet kindness from Mr. Campbell came at a dear price, I had learned. Warily, I took the watch from his hand, and as I did he asked, “Surely he’ll have explained it in the note?”

  “I … I …” I stammered, looking dumbly at the light-keeper.

  “She hasn’t read the note yet, Mr. Campbell,” interjected Kate, watching us keenly. Although I had never made mention of this watch or its significance before, Kate, dear Kate, was a canny one, sharp and suspicious, and she added with due weight, “The sight of the watch and the mere fact the package was addressed to Mrs. Sara Crichton was a wee more than the poor dear could bear just now.”

  “Perhaps …” began Mr. Campbell, sitting down for the first time, and pausing just long enough to pour a cup of tea, “perhaps it would be best if you read the note. Maybe there’s a reason the watch came back to you, aye? I find it never pays to jump to unnecessary conclusions.” And then he put the cup to his lips and took a long sip, all the while still watching me. I could see that even he—an emotionally costive man, on all accounts—knew that any reason that would compel Mr. Crichton to return such a watch would not be a satisfactory one to me. However, fate had played its hand. It was now my apposite torture that I find out. Without any relish of my task, I excused myself from the table, collected my package and took it away to the quiet haven of my room.

  • • •

  I had to read the letter twice, it was so unbelievable. Yet in the end I believed some terrible mistake to have taken place; I didn’t know how else to put it, and I was hard-pressed to find another explanation for so bizarre a tale.

  The letter, written in a small, neat hand (thankfully, not Thomas’), began with an introduction. The author was one Alexander Seawell of Oxford, who not only stated he was a scholar of history at the university there, but a collector of antiquities as well, and most recently finished a stint as a soldier fighting on the continent. He apologized for the delay, the appalling notice, and offered his deepest condolences, stating that the chronometer was so beautiful and rare that he had been in half a mind to keep it for himself, and would have too if it were not the wish of a dying man that it be returned to his young, pregnant wife, presumably me. When I read these words my chest grew so tight it was nearly impossible for me to draw breath. It was as if a great crushing weight were pressing down on me, forcing life and breath from me, while the pulse in my heart dropped to my stomach, lurching and retching with every involuntary thud. For the words the man wrote were proof that Thomas was indeed dead, and the rest of the letter was lost in a blur of tears and half-breath, hiccuping sobs.

  I allowed myself more than a few shameful moments wallowing in this deprecatory
state before I forced myself to stop. It was then I reminded myself that I was pregnant and living on Cape Wrath, a cruel predicament brought about by the very man I was crying over—a man who had used me shamefully, professed his undying love by stating he’d move heaven and earth so that we could be together and then fled to the safety of the continent when the yoke of responsibility proved too much, no doubt forgetting all about me until guilt and death finally caught up with him. I dried my eyes and read further.

  It was then I discovered Mr. Seawell was not writing of Thomas but of another man, a James Crichton, who was a soldier (not a sailor) and had fallen in battle many months ago on the fields of France. From that point on, as I continued to read the letter, I grew ever more curious and felt a deep resounding sadness for this Sara Crichton, to whom the letter was addressed. For I was Sara Stevenson, not Crichton, and the man who I once believed I loved was not James but Thomas … a renegade sailor and debaucher of women, damn his soul! Yet oddly enough the pocket watch was definitely the one I had purchased at the watchmaker’s shop in the Luckenbooths that day long ago on the Royal Mile. It was indeed the fine silver detent chronometer by the renowned John Roger Arnold. How it had found its way into the hands of a soldiering Englishman, I could not venture a guess, but it had, and that very fact called for a letter to be written in return, demanding a bit more detail than a flippant allusion to the request of a dying soldier on the fields of France! And so, filled with questions, raging passion and more than a little discordancy, I plucked a quill from the holder, stirred the ink in the pot a measure and scribbled out my first letter from Cape Wrath to a Mr. Alexander Seawell of Oxford.