She was secretly amused to find that Hugh could more than cope with his sister’s sometimes crafty remarks, interspersing them with slightly more logical views of his own. But she was also discovering that in spite of her rather childish ways Jill could be very intelligent when she felt like it, and she wondered if the girl had ever thought of a career. It might have channelled all that nervous restlessness into more rewarding spheres. A light sigh escaped her. Probably, like herself, Jill had been over-protected, as Hugh had so ruthlessly pointed out last night. It was perhaps a pity that he didn’t apply the same theory to Jill, although she doubted whether he would recommend the same remedy for both of them.
After a night of rain the skies had cleared from the west to give an almost cloudless sky. As the sun struck hot against the inside of the Land-Rover Sara struggled out of her anorak, which was becoming uncomfortably warm. Underneath, her thin denim trousers and shirt felt cooler, and with a ribbon from her pocket she tied back her heavy hair from her face.
“You’d better not forget your anorak when you get out,” Hugh warned, glancing at her quickly as she moved awkwardly in the confined space. “You might need it later.”
“I won’t,” she murmured, looking away from him as she turned to drop the jacket behind her. Seated tightly in the middle between him and Jill, she could feel the hard pressure of his leg when she moved and her heart shook.
Defensively she edged nearer to Jill, feeling Hugh’s mocking eyes resting on her hot face. She tried to keep her own eyes steadily on the road ahead, tracing her pale, nervous hands over hen temples, hoping desperately that the clarity of her thoughts didn’t show.
She felt a sense of relief when they passed through the village of Gribun and he told her briefly about a huge boulder set between two houses on the roadside.
Apparently in the last century a young couple had come to live there on their wedding night. But a violent storm had blown up, and a huge rock had crashed from the cliffs above, crushing the house and occupants, who were never seen again.
Sara shuddered as Hugh paused reflectively, but Jill only shrugged and said lightly, “Hugh’s off on his hobbyhorse again, Sara. For goodness’ sake don’t encourage him, or we will never reach Iona today!”
He replied drily over Sara’s head as his foot touched the accelerator, “One day, Jill, you might feel a certain sympathy.”
“But not an obsession with the past!”
Sara’s sensitive ears caught Hugh’s impatient sigh as he drove swiftly on. “Time isn’t relevant. It would be a tragedy in any age.”
Jill sniffed. “But you did say that given time one can get over most things?”
“Exactly. But I didn’t imply that one forgets completely.”
Listening to their polite sparring, Sara became convinced that in some way it related to a previous conversation regarding Colin, and her body tensed with apprehension. With Jill there was no knowing what she would come out with next, and even though she had promised to behave, that was no guarantee that she would. Being so much in love it must be difficult for Jill always to hide her resentment, but after all, it was partly her own fault that she had chosen to hide Colin instead of making another attempt to sort things out.
As they argued it seemed to Sara that there existed between the two of them a light camaraderie, but little genuine understanding, and she was relieved when Hugh, as if tiring of the topic, suddenly started talking about something else.
The southern half of Mull appealed to her. It was very mountainous and rugged, but Jill only looked bored when she pointed this out, and didn’t reply.
“One day we’ll come down and explore some of this area properly,” Hugh smiled, apparently pleased at Sara’s interest. But she wondered if, like his bird-watching promise, he would ever remember.
Jill wanted to stop at Bunessan farther along the coast and grumbled when Hugh insisted that there wasn’t time. “I promised to meet John Finley at two o’clock,” he explained. “I don’t want to keep him.”
Jill stared at her brother crossly. “You didn’t ask Beth today,” she retaliated, with the obvious intention of annoying him, Sara thought curiously.
“A bit late in mentioning it,” Hugh retorted drily. “As it happens she’s very busy with preparations for the ball, but she’s coming to dinner this evening.”
He must have asked Beth to dinner when he had seen her out last night, Sara thought hollowly, feeling a sudden coldness. If Beth came this evening that would make three nights running, although she was forced to admit that previously it had only been for coffee, not dinner.
She heard Jill asking, “Will John Finley be taking us across as usual on his boat?”
“He wants to go himself, so he’s taking us,” Hugh, replied, as he glanced at his watch.
Sara’s eyes strayed to the fine gold watch strapped to his strong brown wrist as she considered the undue haste with which Jill had changed the subject when Hugh mentioned the ball. Was it, she wondered, because Jill wasn’t going? Her own mind shied nervously away from the moment when he must discover that she was going herself with Ian McKenzie.
Ian had been in touch with her again only that morning, and reluctantly she had agreed to accompany him, having run out of logical excuses. In a way she was rather looking forward to it, and couldn’t really account for her state of indecision. Unless it was fear of Hugh’s ambiguous remarks?
At Fionnphort, six miles from Bunessan, they met John Finley, a man quite a bit older than Hugh, who took them to Iona in a small boat powered by an outboard motor.
“He came here a few years ago,” Jill whispered as the two men talked. “He’s a sort of writer. Documentaries and autobiographies, that sort of thing. Nothing very financially rewarding. He stayed in a cottage like Colin’s when he first came, and then purchased an old derelict property. Hugh happened to be around at the time and, to cut a long story short, helped him turn it into a habitable dwelling. And now whenever we want to take a short trip he insists on obliging. Only don’t tell Hugh that I told you. He doesn’t like me talking about it.”
“I see ...” Sara frowned as she leaned over the side of the boat, watching it cleave through the blue waters. Hugh Fraser was a strangely complex man. Her head turned, her eyes drawn against her will to his dark profile. Even in repose there was a cynical line to his mouth, yet he would go out of his way to help a complete stranger. The hard-headed business man, yet with some strange power to move her. Something inside him which seemed to reach out and hold her by steel-like invisible bonds. Her own response was too disturbing to contemplate easily, and she looked away, giving all her attention to the fast growing island.
The Sound was narrow, and once across they quickly dropped anchor by the jetty. Hugh quirked a friendly eyebrow at Sara as he helped her off the gently rocking boat. “If you’re interested in statistics,” he said briefly, glancing at her sparkling wind-flushed face, “Iona is three miles long by one wide, and about a hundred people live here.”
Once away from the jetty they walked through the village to the cathedral. The village itself was quiet, most of the day visitors having already gone. Hugh, tall and dark, walked slightly behind the two girls pointing out places of particular interest, linking them briefly with authentic pieces of history.
Sara couldn’t take it all in. “I’ll never remember the half of what you’ve told us,” she smiled wryly, her eyes alight as she gazed around. “I’ll have to buy a guidebook, I’m afraid.”
“You can certainly do that,” he agreed amiably. “But you’ll find plenty of books relating to Iona in the library at Lochgoil. It makes fascinating reading.” Jill started trailing behind, managing to look completely bored. “I’ve been here before,” she grumbled, when Sara asked what was wrong.
“Once!” Hugh retorted, glancing impatiently at her glum face before Sara could reply. “And you could come here a hundred times and still find something you hadn’t seen before.”
“But it’s all so old!”
Jill protested indignantly. “And you know I never did care much for history at school, or anywhere else, for that matter! Take that graveyard, for instance ...” She pointed an imperious finger to the graveyard of Oran, who was one of St Columba’s disciples. “Forty-eight kings of Scotland are buried there, along with four of Ireland and eight of Norway. Uncle David never tired of reciting the numbers to me when I was a child. That’s how I remember so well. My mind boggles even to think of it!”
Her expression was so comical that Hugh seemed to smile in spite of himself, but Sara wasn’t surprised when soon afterwards Jill announced that she would rather go and see if she could find someone to talk to at the hotel.
“I’ll see you there later,” she said with a careless wave of her hand.
John Finley was spending the afternoon with a friend who had recently come to live on the island. Hugh explained this as he and Sara went on alone, approaching the cathedral along the Street of the Dead, along which kings and chiefs were borne for burial.
The beauty of the cathedral took Sara unawares, and her pulse-beats quickened. Unlike Jill, she had always been receptive to the beauty and atmosphere of old buildings, and her first sight of the cathedral with the sun revealing the sparkling rosiness of the granite held her spellbound.
“It’s quite impressive, don’t you think?” Hugh watched her face keenly as he took her arm.
As she nodded silently he smiled slightly, urging her gently on, his dark face thoughtful.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it before,” she confessed, finding her voice, too aware of the steely strength of his fingers through the thin material of her shirt.
They went in through the main doorway of the cathedral which he told her dated from A.D. 1500, and paused beside the tenth-century Celtic cross of St Martin with its tall stone shaft richly carved with pictures of Daniel in the lions’ den, and numerous other well-known Biblical figures.
Behind the cross they went to the tiny chapel of St. Columba, believed to be built on the site of his own cell. Sara liked the idea of the undying light burning inside, but like Hugh, didn’t much care for the naked electric bulb.
“What a pity it couldn’t take a more authentic form,” she remarked, regarding it doubtfully as they passed on through the west door into the nave.
“It would look better,” he agreed, guiding her from one place of interest to another. On the Norman east wall he drew her attention to a superb oil-painting by Le Maitre of Christ crucified. Although the north transept was dimly lit, there was no mistaking its quality.
What a pity, Sara thought idly, as she gazed entranced, that Colin wasn’t with them this afternoon. This magnificent painting, the cathedral, the whole concept, would surely have appealed to his artistic nature.
Hugh instantly, subtly, sensed her shifting mood. “What is it, Sara?” His gaze turned on her with a hint of irony, a curious invasion of the senses which she strove to reject.
“Nothing ...” Skilfully she evaded an answer, pushing back tendrils of hair from her hot brow as she turned too quickly from the painting and walked through the north door into the cloister. Feeling rather foolish, she stopped beside a large bronze sculpture of the Virgin Mary, which she noted nervously was modern, and erected there in 1959. She felt Hugh closing in behind her.
“Such a pity you can’t bear to tell me what’s bothering you, Sara. Am I such an ogre?”
“Of course not.” Her pulse jerked. “I’ve never thought so.” She urged herself to greater efforts “This afternoon you’re being very kind.”
His eyes were suddenly hard and mocking again. “So well said, but somehow I’m not convinced. There was definitely something, my little coward!”
She stood staring at him, half in, half out of the shadows, poised warily, almost on the verge of flight, her eyes not meeting his, fixed on the deeply shadowed deft of his chin.
There was a moment’s silence, then he said almost grimly, “Well, since you appear to have lost your tongue, and I seem to have exhausted my supply of information, we might as well go and try to find Jill. At least she never appears to be lost for words.”
She was silent, waiting for the turmoil inside her to lessen, as reluctantly she left the cathedral and they walked back through the village to the hotel.
“In any case,” he added, more evenly as she stumbled before him, “I think you’ve seen enough for one day. If you try to take in more, you might only get mental indigestion. We can always come back.”
Soon after they finished tea Hugh suggested that they went for a short walk down the island to Sandeels Bay until it was time to meet John Finley.
Jill, pleading tiredness, preferred to stay and talk to some young students who were staying at the hotel, and Hugh, mindful of her recent operation, agreed.
Sara and he went alone. Sara, eager to see as much of Iona as possible in the hour they had left, thought it would be silly to miss such an opportunity, even if it did provide him with the occasional chance of taunting her whenever she said or did anything foolish. She must learn not to take any notice!
The road ran south, close to a sandy shore, its inland side flanked by crofts,. It didn’t go any farther than a place called the Big Strand, but as it was ebb tide they were able to walk over the sands a few hundred yards to Sandeels Bay.
The bay was small and extremely beautiful, the terrace sloping in runs below a big cliff thickly covered with ivy. The top of the cliff was capped with heather which would bloom pink as the year advanced. The whole spot was absolutely deserted, which surprised Sara. She had imagined that there would be other tourists about.
The bay curved deeply, the white sands dazzled, and the rocks she saw were silvered with lichen. Rock pools beckoned, full of delicate, many-hued seaweeds, while before them, over the green swell of sea, lay the far distant mountains of Mull their tops hazed by pale grey cloud. The air was pure and very light, and there was a clarity of colour on Iona which seemed to invade even her seas.
Sara, almost forgetting Hugh for the moment, knelt down to remove her canvas shoes before starting to roll up the wide bottoms of her slacks. She was unprepared, and put out a startled hand to stop herself from tumbling over, when he drew her abruptly but silently into the cover of the rock.
“If you wait here for a second,” he said quietly, disregarding her startled glance, “before you start paddling around in those pools, we might see some oyster-catchers. I promised to take you bird-watching, didn’t I?”
Despite the heat and a day full of adventure, she felt a stir of excitement, even while she detected a teasing note in his voice and a mocking gleam in his eyes. If he considered that half an hour on a sandy beach settled his birdwatching obligations—well, who was she to argue?
There might be something here of value to Colin Brown, although why he should keep coming to her mind she didn’t know. She supposed the answer lay in her subconscious anxiety about Jill, along with her own quite genuine interest in his job.
“Look!” Hugh nudged her gently, seconds later, as several oyster-catchers settled on the beach not far away. “They’re probably looking for crabs. If you sit quite still we might see one catch one.”
Sara tried to do as he said, but the confined space bothered her. They were caught in a deep cleft of rock, his shoulder almost touching her own. Sand trickled through her bare toes, a curiously sensuous feeling, and her heart was beating much faster than it should be. Soon he might notice it. With a small sigh of desperation she turned her head towards the shore.
The birds, she saw, were bulky, black and white with deep bills of orange-red, and emitted a peculiar sharp kleep, and at times, when they were agitated, about something a rather frenzied piping sound. Noisy and seemingly sociable, they dug in sea pools with three-inch bills amongst the seaweed with some success. One seemed to catch a particularly large crab, but lost its catch to a herring gull which alighted beside it.
“May the best man win,” Hugh exclaimed lazily, as the birds fle
w off on a noisy foray.
“Doesn’t he always?” Sara retorted idly, as she groped for her sandals, her interest in the birds, and even the sea disappearing. It was time to go.
“I’d like to think so.” He leaned back indolently against the rock, blocking her escape route, obviously in no hurry. “But it doesn’t always happen. Women, I’ve found, are contrary creatures. They can develop obsessions for a man’s weaknesses, and are often blind to his lack of sterner qualities.”
Sara looked at him quickly. Was he referring to anyone in particular? Cautiously she said, “You may be right.” Bending forward, she ran her slim fingers through the fine sand, her hair clouding her face, hiding her expression. She wouldn’t argue. Why end such a perfect day on a note of dissension?
But her intuition proved right when he asked abruptly, “Do you think Jill still hankers after her artist?”
Sara had a theory that if one constantly looks for disaster it is sure to arrive. This, then, was such a moment! How glad she was that because of her hair he could not see her startled reaction, or did his sharp eye notice the tensing of her fingers in the sand? How could she answer without straying too far from the truth?
As she hesitated painfully, she felt his eyes scrutinize her face and said quickly, “She probably does. I should think it more than likely.”
“She hasn’t confided in you?”
“Why not talk to her yourself, Hugh?”
His black brows shot up. “You’re being deliberately evasive!” His words stung like gravel chips. She could never hope to fool him completely.
“Sara!”
At his brief exclamation her head came up with a jerk. So near that she could see the sharp lines about his mouth before she looked straight into his eyes. “Hugh ...” Faintly she was aware that she used his name freely. “When Jill’s mother returns wouldn’t you reconsider and meet this man? He must surely have some redeeming qualities?”
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