Women of the Dunes

by Sarah Maine

  Rodri looked up. “Oh, but you’ll be—” He stopped, glanced at Alice, and started again. “If you’d like to, you can stay here, we’ve plenty of space and the spare room’s all made up. You’ll be very comfortable, but I’ll take you back to the pub if you prefer.”

  “Much better, Rodri,” said Alice, and she left the kitchen, her arms piled high with ironed clothes, ponytail swinging. “Well done.”

  And at that Libby had to laugh and agreed she would like to stay.

  Chapter 6

   Libby

  Alice had taken her across the hall into what must be the core of the old tower house and up an extraordinary carved staircase to a room off a galleried landing. “Settle yourself in,” she said, “and then come down for some lunch. Bathroom’s through there,” and she left.

  It was a lovely room, a corner room with two windows, one overlooking the garden, the other with views stretching out to the headland. Libby could see the stream with the ruined church and the manse beyond, once the focus of a scattered community. And she thought of Ellen going about her daily chores, escaping perhaps to step across the stream as Libby had done and walking out onto the headland. And if she leaned out Libby could just see the roofless cottages where Ellen might have lived.

  She turned back to examine the room; the old-fashioned sleigh-style bed looked gloriously inviting. The door Alice had indicated opened into a bathroom which had doubtless once been a dressing room with a tiny fireplace, now dominated by a deep ball-and-claw-footed bath with an overhead shower arrangement. It was a triumph of Edwardian plumbing, but would she dare use it? There was a fine sink with a marble surround and a toilet with overhead cistern and chain, apparently in good working order. A little period piece. But everything was very clean, and Alice had put thick fluffy towels on top of the old radiator which was gurgling into life, and left a pink-striped dressing gown on the bed.

  Rodri had brought up her bag and she surveyed the contents, thinking that what had seemed enough for a weekend was inadequate for a longer stay. She had a quick wash, in scalding water, tidied her hair, and went out onto the landing and took in her surroundings. The panelling on the walls looked very old but everything else appeared Victorian in date, and decidedly shabby, almost as if the house had settled into that time, and saw no way of moving on.

  She examined the paintings on the staircase as she went downstairs: romantic highland scenes for the most part, many foxed and yellowing, interspersed with mediocre portraits, presumably of past baronets and their families. One of these took her attention, not so much for the individual, who was resplendent in full highland dress, but for the background. It encompassed not only the church with a high cross beside it but, by skewing perspective, the painter had included the headland, and out on the tip was Odrhan’s cell, restored imaginatively into a small chapel. Libby peered more closely, and saw two figures standing beside it. Ulla, presumably, with fair hair cascading to her waist, and Odrhan, the monk, facing her and holding an improbable hook-ended staff.

  Dear God—

  She found her way back to the kitchen, drawn by the sound of voices. Rodri Sturrock had disappeared, but Alice was sitting at the table chatting to another woman and they looked up as Libby came in. “All sorted? Rodri’s gone to see a customer and then on to school for a football match. He says you’re to take it easy, and I agree. This is Maddy. Maddy, Libby.”

  “Hello,” said the newcomer, and Libby thought she had never seen such incredible green eyes, their colour sharpened by her red hair. “I’ve been hearing about your day.” She spoke in a soft, lilting voice which proclaimed her to be a local. “That bruise looks dreadful.”

  “Rodri always drives like a maniac,” said Alice, “so we’ll blame him. Come and have some lunch. And I’ve lit the fire in the library so you can put your feet up in there afterwards. Maddy and me’ll be heading for the dairy when we’ve eaten.” She bent to the Aga and pulled out a quiche which smelt wonderful. “And we want your opinion of this. It’s a new recipe.”

  Foodies, Libby remembered her saying, and as they ate she asked about their business. What did they make? “Everything,” Alice replied. “At the moment we’re specialising in butter, as well as smoked cheeses, smoked fish, and anything else we can think of.”

  “And shortbread,” said Libby, with a smile.

  “Aye, shortbread, and tatty scones and oatcakes. Bread and fancies. Jams and pickles. We’re still working out what sells best. The big hotels are our mainstay, although other people are getting to know us and word’s spreading. We were just at a big food fair, networking, selling too. Lots of new orders. We’re partners, Rodri, Maddy, and me.”

  Libby struggled to see Rodri Sturrock making jam, and said so. Alice gave a hoot. Maddy smiled and said, “He’s mostly tied up with running the estate, but he does the admin, and promotion.”

  “And he shoots things,” Alice added. “All the macho stuff. Rabbits, pheasants, and deer, and we host rough shoots in season. Maddy’s dad supplies the salmon and smokes it for us. We’re a proper little cooperative and it’s beginning to pay off.”

  “Fantastic,” Libby said. “How long have you been at it?”

  “When did I move up here?” Alice turned to Maddy. “Eight years ago?”

  “Nine. When David was two.”

  “Aye, nine. Time flies.”

  When lunch was finished, Alice hustled Libby into the library, refusing point-blank to let her help with the clearing up. She gestured to a low armchair by the fireside and pulled over a footstool. “Go on, feet up, pamper yourself. I’ll bring some tea through before we go off, and we’re only across the courtyard if you need us. Get yourself settled.”

  The fire looked inviting, but Libby stood where Alice had left her, looking around and taking in the extraordinary room. It was part of the later addition, and clearly designed when Scottish Romanticism was in high vogue. Oak panelling and bookshelves lined three sides of the room, the fourth being mainly filled by a large bay window overlooking the garden. A frieze of carved knotwork decorated the shelves and above them were panels depicting elongated birds with improbable legs carved in low relief. The plaster coving and ceiling displayed thistles and rowanberries in complex interlace patterns. Celtic revivalists had been furiously at work. Not to everyone’s taste, perhaps, but when newly completed the room must have been quite extraordinary.

  And it must have cost a fortune.

  But these were more straitened times. The furnishings were worn and faded and stained plaster above the window suggested leaking gutters; the days of gracious living at Sturrock House, it appeared, were long gone. Through the window she could see a neglected lawn, a playground for the moles, while rhododendrons and broom spilled from the borders with unfettered abandon. Daisies too were doing well.

  Her eye was caught by the brackets supporting the window seat and she bent to examine them. They had been carved into the stylised trunks of trees, each one uniquely gnarled, with spreading branches and carved foliage flattened to provide the seat.

  “Blame the third baronet.” Alice appeared in the doorway, a tray of tea in her hands.

  “What an extraordinary room—”

  “Makes me feel like a hobbit.”

  Libby laughed. Straightening, she saw that the upper panes of the windows had been painted. Some had heraldic devices but one showed a ship with a striped sail, another the headland on which stood a monk and a tall woman, their clothing blown by the wind as they watched the ship pulling away from the shore towards a crescent moon.

  “It’s Ulla, isn’t it, and Odrhan?”

  “Aye. They get everywhere. The barmy baronet went a bit over the top.” She set the tray down and Libby moved on to the second window, which showed Odrhan standing over a grave.

  “Is he the one in highland dress, on the stairs?”

  “And a daft expression on his face? Aye, that’s the one. He’d a screw loose, if you ask me. Spent shed-loads of money turning the place into a Celt
ic theme park. These windows are famous, they tell me, so it’s a good thing they aren’t at the front of the house or they’d have suffered the same fate as the dining room ones.”

  “Meaning?” she asked, but her eyes were fixed on the figure of Odrhan.

  “Football. Cost Rodri a fortune in restoration. Now, are you going to sit yourself in front of that fire, or do I have to rope you down?” Libby went and sat, while Alice built up the fire. “Good girl. And we’re just across the way if you need us.”

  She closed the door behind her and left Libby alone in the room, where the silence was broken only by the quietly ticking clock on the mantelpiece and the gentle sound of peat settling in the hearth. Even the ends of the fire irons had been forged into tall Celtic crosses, and the coal scuttle was thistle-shaped; the iron fireback proclaimed a coat of arms. No detail had been over-looked, and the room must have changed little from how it had looked a century ago.

  She picked up her teacup and saucer, then looked back at the window with its depiction of Odrhan and was swamped again by a deep sense of unease. For there could be no mistaking the jewel which hung on his chest—a gold cross with a single central stone—identical to the one which had slipped from an envelope onto her lap just one week ago.

  Chapter 7

   May 1890, Ellen

  If she had been allowed to choose, Ellen would have spent all her time in the library at Sturrock House. Polishing the carving along the edge of the bookshelves, she would run her eyes along the rows of leather-bound books with their gilded lettering wondering what mysteries they contained, and let her imagination run wild. It was a fault in her, her mother often said, her imagination, and she should learn to curb it. She smiled to herself and moved on to clean the leaded window glass, tracing the painted figures with her forefinger and picturing them as living souls. On dull days the scenes appeared heavy with foreboding, foreshadowed by what she knew of the legend’s dark twists and turns, but on days like this when the sun streamed through the glass to light Ulla’s yellow hair, the painted waves beyond the painted headland seemed to dance, and then Ellen’s imagination broke its bounds. Her finger followed the outline of Odrhan’s form where he stood looking at Ulla, the lovely pagan whom the ocean had delivered to his rocky retreat. Had he loved her? Ellen asked herself this question every day, moving aside the cushions on the window seat so that she could stand on it and reach to the glass horizon. She spat on her cloth and gently rubbed at the flow of Ulla’s painted gown, and the vivid colours glowed like jewels.

  And had Ulla learned to love the chaste monk or remained true to her dead lover?

  Ellen had invented her own versions of the legend in which she allowed Ulla to survive beyond the birth of her child. Some days she decided that Ulla had lived virtuously with Odrhan, raising Harald’s child as their own, growing old and wise into her twilight years. But on others, guiltily, she wondered if the child was Odrhan’s and if the monk had cast aside his vows and taken Ulla for his lover, though this would have condemned him to—

  “Ellen! Are you still in here?” Mrs. Dawson appeared at the door. “And the fire’s not laid—! Look sharp, lass, or they’ll be back and the room stone cold.”

  She had forgotten.

  Mungo Sturrock was returning.

  She stepped down and hastily put the window seat cushions back in place. Murmuring an apology, she dropped to her knees beside the hearth and began sweeping the ashes from the grate.

  She must be gone from here before he arrived, long gone.

  “And when you’ve finished, take a duster up to Mr. Mungo’s room. If it’s aired then you can close the windows, but don’t light the fire until they get here. Check that the coal scuttles are full. And stop your daydreaming, girl.” With that, the housekeeper swept from the room.

  Ellen worked fast now, panic quickening her movements. Avoiding Mungo Sturrock in the library was desirable, but it was vital not to get trapped in his bedroom. After last time, when he had cornered her there, she always checked his whereabouts before going to do his room, stoically risking censure from Mrs. Dawson. If she complained she would not be believed—and anyway she would likely fare no better than Maria, a former housemaid. When the girl’s waist had begun to thicken, her whole family had disappeared; some said they had been given passage to America, but no one knew for certain.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the final pane of the painted window, which depicted the return of Erik, seeking vengeance. Erik, she had long ago decided, must have been like Mungo Sturrock, handsome but coarse in his ways.

  Quickly she laid the fire, brushing the last bit of ash back into the grate as she lit it. There was wood and peat enough, but filling the coal scuttle would have to wait. She collected her dusters and left, giving the banisters a superficial rub as she hurried upstairs. And she could not confide in her mother either, knowing what she knew, and besides, her mother had enough to deal with. Ellen stopped and rubbed a little polish onto the newel post so that a smell of lavender and beeswax would cloak her neglect of the banisters themselves. And she nodded towards the portraits; their frames too would have to wait.

  She reached the galleried landing just in time to hear the front door open, and then voices rose from the hall. Here already! She backed against the wall and stayed there a moment, her hands splayed on the panelling behind her, and listened, hearing the master’s deep voice, and then Mr. Mungo’s drawl, but there was another voice too, a lighter tone, and she heard Mrs. Dawson exclaim: “Mr. Alexander! Goodness me. How are you, sir?”

  Ellen raised a hand to her heart. So both brothers had returned.

  “I’m well, Mrs. Dawson. And yourself?”

  “Nicely, sir, thank you. I’ll have your room aired at once. Is Ellen still in the library?” She heard the library door open as the housekeeper checked. “No, but the fire is lit—” Then Ellen heard Lady Sturrock’s voice as her ladyship came out of the morning room.

  “Alick, you dreadful boy! Why did you not tell us? Mrs. Dawson, have Ellen bring some refreshments—”

  But Ellen must first be found! She glided soundlessly across the landing and into Mr. Mungo’s room, pulling the door closed behind her. She would be safe here now while they were all busy a-greeting each other, and someone else would have to bring them their tea. Rapidly she scanned the room, closing the windows and whipping her duster over the surfaces. Another quick check and she was done, out and away, the empty coal scuttle in her hand as she headed for the back stairs. So Mr. Alick was back—! She suppressed the little jump that her heart gave, and then paused. Wait— If she went down now, she might be in time to be sent to the library with the tray. She lingered, torn by indecision, until she saw that Fiona, the kitchen maid, was coming up the back stairs.

  “Mrs. Dawson’s looking for you,” the girl said.

  “Have you been sent to do Mr. Alick’s room?”

  “Aye—”

  “I’ll do it.” Ellen thrust the coal scuttle at the girl. “Fill this for Mr. Mungo’s instead. And then light his fire.” She gave the girl no time to protest but turned and went quickly back across the landing.

  Mr. Alick’s room had been shut up for weeks and was airless, so she flung open the windows, pausing a moment to let the air cool her burning cheeks, then went to lay the fire. It would take the chill off, so she lit it; he might find it welcoming. The sheets could well be damp, so she turned back the covers and continued her dusting, her mind jumping from one thing to another as it did when she was excited. And then she stopped in the middle of the room to catch her breath, and looked around. What else could she do for him? It was a nicer room than Mr. Mungo’s, which seemed right, and being a corner room it had two windows, one overlooking the church and the manse, the other out towards the headland and the sea. If she had this room, she would sit by the window each night and watch the moon rise over the waves and imagine— She stopped. No time for that now. She went back to the dressing table and rubbed hard to bring a gleam to the wood. Later
she would come back and run the warming pan over the sheets and remake the bed.

  Tam appeared at the door carrying a leather valise and a small trunk on his shoulder. He took them through to the dressing room, and when he had gone Ellen stood looking down at them. Mr. Alick must be planning to stay a while then, a week or two at least— Ought she to unpack for him, or wait until she was told? She would dearly like to do him that service.

  Then the door swung open and he was there, filling the doorway. “Gosh! How truly splendid, a fire lit and my bed turned back. I’ve a mind to crawl straight in and sleep for a year.” He gave her his open, ready smile. “How are you, Ellen?”

  She made a little bob and dropped her head to hide her flaming cheeks. If Mungo Sturrock was Erik, then by the same token, in the dark solitude of the night, Alick Sturrock was Harald—

  “I’m well, thank you, sir.”

  —and she was Ulla.

  It was a game she had invented in childhood, acting out the legend, and occasionally the two brothers had joined in. Alick Sturrock had had to double for both Harald and Odrhan as Mungo refused both roles, the one dying too early, the second a mere churchman. The boys’ preferred part of the legend was Ulla’s escape from Erik, and they would act that out using sticks for a prolonged sword fight, but it was never very satisfactory because Mungo was stronger and refused to let Harald escape with Ulla. He preferred to re-create the return of the vengeful Erik, but there had been no role there for her, Ulla being long gone. The boys had soon grown out of the play-acting, of course, scorning such childish folly, although the game had continued in Ellen’s imaginings.

  “And your mother?” Mr. Alick asked her as he stooped to his valise. “How is she keeping?”

  “Much the same, sir. No worse, anyway. Would you like me to unpack for you?”