The Lost Lights of st Kilda

by Elisabeth Gifford

  Poor Mrs Munro. She’d told me how she’d cried when the call came for her husband to be minister on St Kilda. They’d told God they were ready to go anywhere in the Highlands to spread the word, expecting at the worst a little manse by a sky-mirrored loch, a garden to tend and a neat bevy of crofters, a town nearby for the shopping. They’d never pictured St Kilda.

  ‘Chrissie,’ she said to me one drear winter’s day as she looked out on a thick fog sealing the village off in a low, grey space, a cold dampness in everything, the dark near at four in the afternoon. ‘I do not think I can do another winter here. My own dear piano, that’s what I miss most. That and some company.’ Which was hard to hear since I was standing there with her. But I did understand her loneliness.

  The children were back in their seats now, hope tamped down like a fire under ash for the night. Rodderick sat back down on the child’s bench once more. Tormod laboured on with the story of the English ant and grasshopper, all eyes going back to the window again and again.

  She wasn’t being unkind to make the children’s shoulders droop, Mrs Munro. Out here in the Atlantic, it is necessary to learn to defer hope of any contact for months on end, although this winter had been terribly bad for feeling cut off, with the storms never ending.

  A second blast of a steam whistle sounded jaunty across the water. All the faces looked up, Rodderick back at the window in three strides. ‘Miss, the reverend’s down there on the jetty, and I can see the men putting out the boat.’

  ‘We will end school early today,’ said Mrs Munro, excitement in her voice. ‘But first we will finish with a hymn.’ It was our custom, and nothing else to be expected that we must sing all the verses entire before she would open the school door, but ‘There is a Blessed Land’ did seem interminable long that morning. Another blast and the children were out of the door like spring lambs let out of the sheep fank.

  Everyone in the village, some forty persons, were walking or running down the grassy slopes to gather at the jetty. The men were already out on the water in the little village boat, shipping out with great briskness, oars beating the water in time. Even the breeze was all a flutter, flying a hundred flags of cheerfulness for being back in contact with the outside world again.

  Mrs Munro had pulled on her new tweed coat woven and sewn by Mr MacKinnon, and stood eyes screwed up, the cold, spring wind taking liberties with her hair. ‘Yes, it is the Hebrides. News from home. And the orders we placed. A whole wheel of cheddar and salt beef I put down. And blacking for the stove. And new boots at last.’

  Something big was being winched down from the Hebrides’s crane, a great wooden box, slowly lowered into the small village boat. The women on shore set up a wail each time the boat rose up in the water, sure the rowing boat would topple over with such a precarious load. We could see the men were standing and holding on to it and untying the ropes fast as they could.

  The boat made its way back slowly, tantalizingly. And plenty of time to make out as it neared that it was weighed down not only with the great flat box, but also with something else: two strangers. One was standing with his fists on his hips, his long coat held back, fair hair.

  ‘Bless my soul if it isn’t Archie,’ cried out my grandmother. ‘The image of his father. It’s him, the laird’s son.’

  I narrowed my eyes to see something of the fair-haired boy who had half killed six-year-old Callum by teasing him on to go down the cliffs – until I had put a stop to it. Or the tall, tearful boy hiding in the feather store. And yes, surely this creature was Archie Macleod himself. I smiled at our fancy we would wed one day. Chrissie, he’d say, such ideas we had when we were children. Or perhaps he’d say nothing about his old promise but I’d tease him anyway.

  I wondered who the man sat next to him was, getting out of the boat as it ran onto the pebbles, shorter than Archie, thick dark hair, a small ruddy face with a little brown beard, a boy being a man, his trousers rolled up to his knees, bare legs in the icy water, laughing as he gave his lankier, fair friend a lift on his back through the waves to the shore.

  We all ran down to the beach to meet them since the wooden box was too heavy a thing to be lifted onto the jetty and was being manhandled out of the boat onto the sand, the dogs, collies and retrievers and all mixes in between, running in and out of the surf in a happy frenzy.

  With everything so windy and busy, I could only take in Archie Macleod in snatches, like gusts of wind blowing me against my will, knocking me off step, for he had become a creature handsome and glowing. Taller, a long narrow face cut fine as white china, shades of blue under the eyes. I caught a clean-cut nose like a bird beak, round blue eyes, a mouth that would not stop smiling. And I could not stop the gladness inside me to see him again, filled to bursting as I waited for his cheery, ‘Chrissie, it’s you,’ his face bright as he saw me again.

  But no such thing came about. He was past me and gone up the village in a few strides, waving to all like royalty. I felt angry at myself for such foolishness in expecting him to remember the child I was, but all the same, my heart was away with the children and the dogs following Archie, and nothing I could do to stop it.

  And why should he recognize me, for there I was, the same plain blue dress and apron that all the women wear, the same square checked scarf over my hair and tied around my shoulders? So why should I expect Archie to pick me out or remember me among all the others? Oh, but I did want him to notice me and remember the boldness of the girl who had led him across the wind-blown hills. But we stood in a quaint row, just like one of those photos the tourists liked to take showing the St Kildans as picturesque and backwards remnants from a bygone age, a relic, while the rest of the world had hurtled on into a new century.

  I followed the villagers back up to the pier where a handful of tourists were now alighting. Among them were two girls, narrow coats with fur collars and hats shaped like bells close on their heads. The taller one, her coat made of a soft lustrous leather, raised her arm and called out, ‘Archie, yoo hoo. Come and give a girl a hand, would you?’

  I saw Archie running down to the jetty, handing her up from the boat while she clung on to him and giggled, though she was tall and strong enough to manage on her own, in my opinion. The second girl made her own way. Archie’s friend went to offer a hand. She did not take it.

  The tall girl had the simpering, amused look of one who has done something daring in coming to see such a place. The children were delightful, and the dogs were delightful and so darling, and oh look at the houses. Goodness, do people really live in such small places?

  They made their way over to greet Mrs Munro and the reverend – easy to mark out since he was the only one with a wide white band round his neck – while my mother and the other women at the jetty’s end started carrying up the sacks unloaded from the second boat, the men roping them to the women’s backs. I picked up a small box and drifted nearer to the manse. There were introductions, Archie, Fred Lawson and also the misses Flora and Sylvia, who were just there for the day and absolutely had to buy some of the marvellous tweed here. ‘And socks, isn’t it, Archie, that one really should buy here?’

  ‘The best walking socks.’

  ‘First you must come and take tea then we will show you the village. And what a lot of things have arrived with you,’ said Mrs Munro. ‘All our orders I think.’

  ‘It’s as requested,’ Archie replied. ‘But I’m afraid the men will need to make a second trip to bring in the things Fred and I have brought with us for our stay. There’s quite a lot.’

  ‘You’ll be staying a while, then?’

  ‘You did get my letter a few weeks ago? We’ll be staying through the summer – if that’s not an inconvenience.’

  ‘No letter came,’ said Reverend Munro, ‘but it’s always the way here. Nonetheless, you’re welcome. More than welcome. It is a great pleasure for us to have visitors. We can put these gentleman in the spare room, can’t we, Margaret, in the manse?’

  A quick look of bewilde
rment on Margaret Munro’s face as she thought of the stores she kept in there. ‘Of course. And if I may ask what it is that is in the large box, Mr Macleod?’

  ‘That is something for you, Mrs Munro.’ He was beaming with mischief, and if I thought before that Archie Macleod could not get any more handsome, then that smile changed my mind.

  The village men had set the box on logs, rolled it up to the grass and left it in front of the manse garden. The minister, who was the son of a crofter and not averse to working his glebe with a spade himself, took a crowbar and helped them carefully lever a side panel away. His two young children were running around asking to help and being denied it, boys of ten and six in beautiful knitted jerseys and thick ribbed socks with turn backs, boots laced up firm well above the ankles and polished to a shine. Archie and his friend were equally well shod in good leather. I looked down at my own battered shoes and all the bare feet of the children from our village street.

  The sides of the crate were off now, the children coming close to see a second wooden box inside, but this one polished to a glow, standing in the middle of a great envelope of crate sides laid on the ground. The minister’s wife went over, lifted the long lid jutting from the side and tapped some of the white keys that lay like a run of whale’s teeth. Then she put both hands to the board, paused for a reverent moment, and began to play a tune. I did not know what it was – now I know it well: ‘Nearer My God to Thee’, one of the great Sankey hymns. Her husband came and stood beside her and began to sing. Back in Berneray where he was raised, the minister was known as a great singer. Then he began a Gaelic song that we do not know here, but it was about a sailor lost to his sweetheart and how she waited for him on the cliffs day after day all the same.

  The piano was a beautiful thing with its deep voice, the wood golden like butter fried in a pan and giving off with a sweet, vinegary smell of varnish and polish – the second time I fell in love that morning. There were small flowers inlaid in the front in ivory and darker woods, and below them two brass candlesticks in case you wanted to play in the winter evenings and needed to lighten the dark.

  Mrs Munro had tears in her eyes. ‘Mr Macleod, I can’t thank you enough. But I don’t understand. How is it here?’

  ‘The Lady’s Benevolent Fund in Edinburgh took the news very much to heart when they heard how bereft you were without your piano and so I was charged with making sure it reaches you safely.’

  I felt so proud of my Archie then, that he had done something so kindly for Mrs Munro. It had been a long while since we had a family living in the manse cottage, which had stood so lonely away down by the sea. Some had said that since there are so few of us left on the island we wouldn’t get a new minister again but now that Mrs Munro had her music, perhaps they would stay a while longer than a year. I was ready to run over to Archie and tell him what a good thing he had done – if I thought he’d have known me from Adam.

  Mrs Ferguson took the two young ladies off to look at the socks and guillemot eggs and tweed that they might like to buy. I could hear the sharp voice of Miss Sylvia as they went off up the path, declaring how very darling everything was, and so unspoiled and should we all just live like this, Flora dear?

  ‘I can see you, doing without taxis and gin and the Kit-Kat club for about five minutes,’ Flora replied.

  An hour later and Mrs Munro was greatly grieved. The piano was too big to get into her sitting room, the turn between the front door and the parlour proving too narrow. For the first time, I saw the resolve to make the best of everything crumble and sag in her long face before she could remove herself a few paces to keep her tears private from the village women who had come to help. But she soon came back brisk and determined and said, ‘Well, are there no other rooms at the back of the manse we might try? Or am I to come out here in all weathers each time I want to play?’

  ‘Would it be such a bad thing to play hymns here in God’s own church?’ said Archie, taking in the hills and the bay with a sweep of his arm.

  She did not stop to listen to such nonsense, but went off in the hope of finding a wider door entrance. We all knew she would find no such thing.

  Old Finlay MacQueen, six feet tall, with his long white beard and thin wind-dried face, regarded Archie with a long stare. ‘They’d be playing amid the storm of God’s judgements, the wind and waves coming in fifty feet high out there on the shore.’

  ‘We’ll house it somewhere, Mr MacQueen,’ Archie reassured him.

  ‘So long as you comprehend it’s not to go in the church,’ Finlay replied. ‘We can’t allow that. There’s always people who see fit to try and change our ways. I recall back when widow MacDonald was a girl about to be wed to Donald MacDonald, God rest his soul. Didn’t the papers get heed we was short of a vicar and send one out from the main land? And with him a whole boat filled with nonsense, hair oil and fish knives and health salts and a giant pork pie and a fancy dress that didn’t fit the girl and a great church pipe organ for the marriage, when we never in our church praise the Lord other than with our God-given voices, our only songs the psalms from the Bible. And a host of newspaper men came too, wanting to take pictures. Poor Annie, she was so mortified and embarrassed to think of the whole world knowing she was about to get married. We sent the boat back, pork pie and all, never unloaded a thing. They wanted us to have a minister from another denomination but we waited until a minister from our own Free Church could come out to do the marriage. So remember we’ll not have any piano in the church here. We will make a joyful noise in our old way.’

  ‘Indeed you will,’ said Archie pleasantly.

  In the end, the schoolroom’s door was the only one the piano would fit through. Then Mrs Munro fussed about and checked it, letting each key sound through the room. ‘Well, it’s almost right, Chrissie, if you didn’t know any better. It will have to be left like that till it settles then my Duguld will tune it fully.’ She gave one last look at it before leaving to see about the visitors at the manse, wistful because there would be no evenings playing music in a warm parlour with the family gathered round, all singing her English hymns.

  I was meant to hurry behind her to dust and unpack but I did linger a moment in the quiet, only the wash and suck of the waves falling on the beach for company, lifted the lid and tried out a few notes before I hurried to follow her.

  Out on the grass I found Mrs Munro standing in her doorway watching a small fortress of sacks and boxes being carried up to the manse.

  ‘All these things they’ve brought,’ she said, her hands on her hips. ‘What’s to be done to store everything? And the back room not ready. And where’s Kate?’

  No sign of Kate the housekeeper nearby, no doubt down on the pier still helping unload the boat. Mrs Munro looked grateful as I told her I’d see to what needed to be done to make their room ready. I called out to Lachie and we had the meal bins and sacks carried out to a cleit nearby and the room swept by the time we heard the Reverend Munro and the boys on the path, Mrs Munro showing them in and giving a description of our quaint and none-too-clean, it seems, ways. A last few sweeps of the broom and they came in. ‘And this will be your room,’ she told Archie and his friend. Not like this, with a broom in my hands, did I want him to recall the girl I was. I stood turned away and I was only too glad that Archie still showed no recognition.

  ‘May I give your girl a penny for her trouble?’ the dark-haired boy with the little beard asked. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know her name.’

  ‘We don’t like to spoil the villagers. Please don’t feel you should do that,’ Mrs Munro said.

  I decided I’d leave Mrs Munro to help herself then, and I put the broom away.

  ‘You’ll have a hard time of it learning their names to begin with,’ I heard Archie telling his friend as I left. ‘They’re all a Gillies or a MacKinnon or a MacDonald. Confuses newcomers no end.’

  I could see the misses Sylvia and Flora coming up the path arm in arm in their long coats, like two seals barking away in E
nglish.

  ‘Honestly, Sylvia, why would you need walking socks? When would you ever use such a thing?’

  ‘Somebody might ask me to his estate, darling, you know, to shoot things.’

  ‘Oh, Sylvia.’ And in they went, though their strident voices still drifted out over the manse garden. ‘Cooee, just us. Mrs Munro, such a darling house. . .’

  I stood outside on the grass, wondering who these girls were who knew Archie so well. There was much still to be taken inside, a chest with the initials A M, a box with a trumpet attached – a gramophone – a crate of bottles, boxes of books. So many other strange things Archie Macleod and his friend needed to endure the harshness of a few weeks on St Kilda.

  I thought of the dirty-kneed boy that I’d once shown how to catch a puffin in a snare. Archie had insisted on setting it free again, no matter how much I scolded him that we depended on the puffins for much of our sustenance.

  I had realized something that day, that though Archie might speak the Gaelic from his nurse, his Gaelic words meant different things. Archie was from another world to mine. And as to a promise he had made to a girl long ago, that was blown away on the wind between our worlds.

  My mother called to me to help with the carrying down at the jetty. Lachie from next door roped a sack of potatoes on my back. I walked bent forward, the sack weighted secure on my back. It is always an amazement to visitors to see how we women on St Kilda think nothing of carrying such loads. But wasn’t it Archie and his friend coming down the slope with the two English girls? I pulled my scarf over my face and tried to hurry by as fast as I was able, but the boy with brown hair said it wasn’t right to let women carry such a load and didn’t he try to take the sack? He all but toppled me, since it was well secured. I scurried on, best I could, with my scarf pulled down around my flaming cheeks to hide the shame of being so pitied before Archie.