She ran blindly, on and on, as if her very life depended on her swiftness, taking the shorter way to the sea through the woods. She crossed the metalled road, plunging into the fringe of bog and rocky outcrop which flanked it, heedless of the fact that she sank almost to her knees in the treacherous mud. The light was beginning to fade, but she made out vague figures standing on the top of the cliff and ran towards them.
Before she reached the top she knew that Finlay Sutherland was with the search party. If he had crossed the ford in the teeth of the gale it had been a tremendous feat, something that even the men of Croma would not have attempted unless it was in the utmost emergency, and her heart leapt at the thought. She saw him silhouetted for a moment against the skyline, tall and broadly powerful in his leather coat and dark, peaked cap, looking down at the restlessly tossing ocean beneath him as if he sought some way to conquer it.
There were other figures, but she did not seem to see anyone else, and he turned as she came up.
“It was all my fault,” she gasped. “Callum going down there!” The thought of the stones which the old man had gone to collect was uppermost in her mind, making her oblivious of everything else. “What has happened to him? What has gone wrong?”
“We haven’t found him yet.” Finlay’s voice was strong and cold, beating against her mind with the chill of ice. She heard contempt in it and thought that it was justified. “We know where he is,” he continued levelly, “but it’s going to take us quite a time to get him out.”
“He’s trapped,” someone else said out of the gathering darkness. “Down there under the cliff.”
It was Rory. He had come close and she could see the anger in his face and the sweat of exertion standing out in little beads along the line of his upper lip and on his brow.
“What can I do?” She moved, as if to go forward, but Finlay held her back, his grip like steel on her arm.
“We don’t want another landslide,” he warned grimly. “Too much weight on this section could bring the whole cliff face down, and that would be the. end of any effort we could make.”
“You’re taking a risk, Sutherland, even with one man going over.”
She recognized Hamish’s voice and knew that he had come up behind them, but she did not turn. He must have come across from Muldoanish earlier in the day and joined the search party, but when she did look at him she saw him as if through some dense grey haze. His unsteady voice was clear enough in her ears, however.
“We’ve no right to risk it,” he reiterated. “There would be the added weight of the man on the end of the rope and the two people up here, lowering him over. That would be enough to bring the whole caboodle down and put us all in the sea.”
His ugly, calculating words dropped into a deathly silence. No one spoke, but their lack of words was far more deadly than any spoken contempt.
“Rory and Angus Begg will take the rope,” Finlay said at last in a cool, clear voice.
And you will go over! Oh, no—no! The words surged up in Christine’s heart, shaming her even though she did not utter them. He would go. He would go down over the face of the cliff, lowered and swinging in space until he touched the broken ledge where they believed Callum to be lying unconscious and at the mercy of a rising sea. He would go down there and try to bring the old man back, with the waves pounding and snarling at the jagged rocks beneath him, and the cliff above him a death-trap ready to be sprung by the slightest added weight. For all they knew, the weight of his dangling body at the end of the rope might be enough...
She closed her eyes for a moment, and suddenly she knew what Croma meant to her. It meant Finlay Sutherland. It meant his courage and his help and the love she had been harbouring in her breast for him all along.
She had tried to fight it, trying to remain faithful to an old allegiance, but now she knew that her infatuation for Hamish had nothing to do with Croma. He had embodied all the glamour of the outside world for her when she had been most impressionable, when her easily-given childish heart had been ready to soar on eager wings far away from the island. But now she could see how empty he was, how full of greed and selfishness, and how craven a spirit he could show when there was a need for courage.
When she looked up Rory had knotted the rope round Finlay’s waist, and suddenly all her fear was frozen in her. She could not speak or move. She could only stand there, looking at Finlay and realizing that she had come to love him too late.
If he had loved her, if he had meant it when he had kissed her so possessively, and determinedly, he saw her now with nothing but angry contempt. She read it in his eyes; it was in every line of his sternly-compressed mouth as he passed her and Hamish without a word and walked cautiously towards the edge of the cliff.
Rory and Angus Begg looped the rope round a nearby boulder and stood back. They were tensed and grim, but their hands were strong and their nerve steady. Finlay swung his body over the edge in a waiting silence, and even when he had finally disappeared nobody spoke.
Christine stood gazing at the tuft of grass which he had pressed flat with his foot. It had taken on an immensity of importance, seeming to stand out sharply from the rest of the cliff. The rope, hard and taut, went over it. If it should crumble and disappear their hope would be gone.
The men who had come up from the Port stood in a tight little group several yards away, murmuring under their breaths, and even the muted sound of their voices seemed an added danger. Christine longed to tell them to be silent in case—in case—
She saw the rope quiver and slacken and her heartbeats felt that they would choke her. Far below the smash and roll of the breakers echoed and resounded against the rocks, and great columns of spray fountained upwards, clutching at the land before the demon waves drew back for another onslaught. How far did they reach? How safe could they really expect the ledge to be once Finlay got to it? Was he there now? Or was he being swept away by that terrifying sea, even as Callum had been? They did not know whether Callum was alive or not.
She was not quite sure which hope she clung to with the most tenacity as they waited. Hours seemed to pass that were no more than minutes, and the light grew faint and distant, dying in palest amber above the dark pencil line of the western horizon. The storm had passed, but it had left the land weakened and the sea quivering.
Then, suddenly, a gull flew out, protesting strongly, and another and another. The whole air seemed to be filled with their cries, and for the first time she saw Rory smile.
“He’s on the ledge!” he whispered. “He’s got there. Man, what a feat!”
“Slack off the rope!”
Christine watched the stout hemp running slowly through Rory’s strong hands and the prayer in her heart faltered to her lips.
“Dear God, please let them come back! Let them come back safely...”
“Take it up!” The voice from the edge of the cliff was no more than a whisper as Angus Begg lay flat against the grass, peering over into space. “Easy now! As easily as you can, Rory!”
Inch by tortured inch the rope crept back over the cliff face, and Christine, standing breathlessly beside Rory, saw it being coiled systematically at her feet, as a man coils a rope at sea so that it can be run out immediately in an emergency. Nothing could be done in a hurry, she realized.
She knew, too, that only one man at a time could come up on the returning rope. The weight of two would jeopardize their chances, and she had no doubt about Finlay’s reaction if he had found Callum on the ledge.
When the old man’s white head appeared above the cliff a sound ran through the waiting group on the rough grass that was like a sigh, but Christine could only stand with her heart caught on that last beat, stand and pray, stand and hope, stand and dread.
Callum appeared to be uninjured, but he seemed dazed and uncertain as he rolled over on to the grass. She wanted to rush towards him but she knew that she must not. No one dared to move. They stood there with their breath held.
“Don’t get up,
Callum,” Rory called to the old man. “Roll this way—gently. As gently as you can.”
When he reached them they caught him and pulled him into the shelter of the rock. Someone thrust a flask of brandy to his lips, but he waved it aside.
. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m fine now.”
“God be praised!” someone breathed in the Gaelic close behind Christine and she echoed the prayer deep in her heart.
Finlay was still down there, but somehow she knew that they would get him to safety, too.
The rope went over for a second time, weighted with a clod of rough grass from the peat bog beyond them, and after what seemed an eternity of waiting a faint call echoed up from the cliff.
Slowly, cautiously, the rope was hauled in. Christine’s lips were trembling now and there seemed to be no more strength in her limbs. They would not support her, and when she saw Finlay on the cliff top, at last, she sat down heavily on the boulder and covered her face with her hands.
“It’s all right! Nothing happened.”
She heard his voice after what seemed like an eternity, and when she looked up he was standing beside her.
“Finlay—!” She struggled to her feet. “Finlay—you could have been killed. You could have fallen and been drowned...”
He looked back into her eyes and it seemed that there was pity in his now. Pity or contempt, she thought with anguish, what did it matter, because there was no love?
“I could have been,” he returned in a flat, emotionless voice, “but I wasn’t. Neither was Callum. That should ease your conscience a little,” he added grimly, his glance flicking for a moment to where Hamish stood with the other men from Port-na-Keal. “I’d advise you to get up a notice-board, though, in case anyone hasn’t heard about this.”
She stood for a moment, dazed, wondering what he meant, and then she knew. He had advised her weeks ago to safeguard the people who might use the cliff path by warning them of their danger, and it looked as if she had treated his advice with the utmost disregard and contempt.
At least, that was what he thought, and how could she tell him how wrong he was? She had delegated the task of putting up the notice to Hamish, and that had been carelessness enough in itself.
She would not offer any excuse, even in her own heart. Knowing Hamish, she should have warned Callum personally and seen to the notices herself. The unsure ground should have been pegged or fenced off weeks ago and Callum would have stayed safely in his cottage in the corrie that ran down to the sea.
Slowly the men from the Port began to turn away.
“I’ll see you back home, Callum,” Finlay offered, taking the old man by the arm.
“Finlay,” Christine protested, “you can’t attempt to go back across the ford in the dark...”
He turned to look at her.
“No.” There was a coldness of restraint in his voice which she had never heard there before. “I shall stay the night with Callum and go across in the morning. The storm is over now.”
She had been about to ask him to Erradale, but she knew that he would not come. He preferred to stay with Callum, and who could blame him? He had nothing more to say to her.
She turned away, aware that Rory stood between her and Hamish, but it did not seem to matter that she should return to Erradale alone. She was alone now for ever. Finlay had lost faith in her, and with his faith had gone any chance she had ever had of gaining his love.
CHAPTER IX
Even after heartbreak is accepted, it does nothing to relieve the pain in the heart itself.
Alone at Erradale, Christine plunged into work with the tweed, but even the immensity of her task could not keep her unhappy thoughts at bay. The work itself was far too bound up with Finlay to let her forget him, even for a day, and as Christmas approached and the festivities of the New Year she wondered what he was planning to do at Ardtornish.
Since the accident on the cliff Hamish had gone about his duties on the estate a little more conscientiously than before, still believing in the power he had once held over her. His lazy charm dismissed such things as broken faith with a shrug and a smile, and his plans for the future were gilded by a gay confidence which Christine did not share.
“This could be quite a place, turned into a holiday resort,” he said once when they were discussing Croma. “People want this sort of thing nowadays—a get-away-from-it-all vacation that is different. We could buy another boat and arrange deep-sea fishing trips, and we could support several guns on the hill. We’d have to lay down more game, of course, and we could advertise Askaval as a climbing centre—”
“Which wouldn’t really be honest—or safe,” Christine pointed out. “Besides,” she added slowly, “I need Askaval and the hill for the sheep.” Her eyes went beyond him. “I can’t afford to have all those irons in the fire—not at one time—and the wool gives employment to far more people. The holiday idea is a rather selfish one, I think. As I see it, it could only benefit me, personally, not Croma as a whole.”
“You’re beginning to talk of Croma as if it were one island,” he said, “but it never will be. Sutherland will never finish his causeway. There will always be the division at the ford.”
She looked up, surprised by a venom in his voice that even the initial loss of Ardtornish had not inspired in him.
“He is getting on with it,” she said uneasily. “He is more than halfway across.”
“And you don’t mean to stop him?”
“Why should I?” Her eyes were full and level on his. “It’s for Croma—a good thing for us all.”
He walked off without answering, a sullen look on his dark face which reminded her, vitally, of Rory.
A fortnight before Christmas Jane came round from Scoraig on the steamer. She looked thinner, but in a good many ways she appeared more beautiful. Her eyes had an added depth of gentleness and her lips had a new, sweet curve to them, although somewhere in the background there was a suggestion of sadness.
She was gay enough, however, when she greeted Christine.
“I ought to apologize,” she said, “for not coming sooner, but then, you’ve never been to Scoraig, either! Perhaps it will be different—easier for all of us—when the causeway is finished. It’s quite exciting watching it stretching, bit by bit, across the ford. It’s—like a handclasp!” She paused, momentarily confused, and then she rushed on warmly: “Finlay is hoping to complete it before the spring tides, even in spite of the obstacles in his way—”
She broke off, and Christine said sharply:
“What obstacles?”
Jane looked unhappy, wishing, it appeared, that she had not said quite so much.
“It hasn’t been an easy job,” she evaded. “He had all sorts of hold-ups, you know.”
“At Port-na-Keal, do you mean?”
“There, too,” Jane confessed, looking away. “It has been difficult to get all the material he needed at the right time and—some of the men have been awkward. But Finlay will get over that,” she smiled. “He has a way with people that generally works out in the end. He’s so fundamentally honest himself, you see, that it’s difficult to be anything else with him.”
“I know,” Christine said. She wanted Jane to go on talking about Finlay, even though every word hurt, every personal little inflection in Jane’s voice was like a stab of pain in her heart. “Whatever he thinks, Jane, I haven’t been putting obstacles in his way.”
“I think he realizes that now,” Jane said. “Anyway, come and make your peace with him! I’m the bearer of an invitation. Finlay has some people coming for Christmas, some Canadian friends who are in this country on business, and he would like you to meet them. He believes, among other things, that they may be useful with the tweed when we have enough to export. In the meantime,” she added, “he’s busy planning a wonderful exhibition. We’re getting it all together at Ardtornish for a preview by these friends of his, and then he means to take it to London—in the spring, I think.”
“I—wha
t does he want me to do?” Christine asked, her heart beating faster, a new bright gleam in her eyes. “If it’s for Croma I’ll do anything he wishes, Jane.”
Jane Nicholson smiled a trifle wistfully.
“I thought you would,” she said. “Finlay has worked so hard and he’s got amazing results in a very short time. All Scoraig is spinning and weaving like mad! You’ll have to come and see it for yourself, Chris, to believe just how much we have done!”
Over tea in front of a roaring log fire Christine told her something of the work of the clachan. She spoke with justifiable pride and Jane responded immediately.
“Finlay will be delighted! He’s got such faith in all this, Chris! If we can really make it pay he means to advertise for younger people to come over from the mainland, and that’s what Croma needs most. New blood!”
They were her own words, Christine realized, but she had used them to Hamish, who did not really understand.
“We’ve got to get people to come here and marry and settle down,” Jane said. “Finlay calls us the vanguard, yet neither of the two big houses on Croma are really homes,” she added thoughtfully. “Both you and Finlay are unmarried. He thinks it’s a bad example!”
Christine’s heart twisted painfully.
“Does he feel that he should do something about it?” she asked, wishing as soon as the words were out that she had never put the question because she could not bear to hear the answer if Finlay Sutherland had already made up his mind to marry.
“I don’t know.” The essential sadness which she had been quick to detect was only too plain in Jane’s eyes now. “At one time he did—when he first came to Croma, I think—but now he never speaks of it. I think there was someone in Canada. Perhaps he meant to bring her with him and she refused to come.” Jane rose and crossed to the window. “All I know is that he is still in love—rather desperately in love, I think—but he never mentions marriage now.”
There was a brief, tense silence before Christine said: “These Canadian friends of his who are coming to Ardtornish may help him to make up his mind.”
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