The Flight of Gemma Hardy (18 page)

“Was I christened? Do I have godparents?”

“I don't think so,” said Mr. Sinclair. “And I doubt it.”

“So does that mean”—Nell stood completely still—“that I'm not welcome in the church?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Everyone is welcome in the church, especially children. Godparents are just an extra. I don't have any either.”

Inside the air smelled of cold stone, and, faintly, of snuffed candles. Sunlight shone through the many windows. “It's amazing,” I said, gesturing down the aisle to the rose window at the far end, and up to the vaulted ceiling.

“It is,” said Mr. Sinclair. Like many houses of worship, he explained, St. Magnus had begun in bad behaviour. Earl Rognvald of Norway had thought a cathedral would secure his claim to the Orkneys and get rid of the current earl. Since the twelfth century the building had been used as a prison, a market, a court, a seat of government, and a place to dry sails. “I can't help noticing,” he added, “that scripture doesn't appear on your timetable. Are you neglecting Nell's moral education?”

Not waiting for an answer, he suggested to Nell that she sit down to draw her picture. Once she was settled on a chair, with her sketchbook, he said, “Come with me.” We set off down the south nave. I could feel my muscles flexing in my calves and thighs, my lungs filling and emptying, my hand, still hot from the sting, throbbing quietly. Beside me Mr. Sinclair measured his step to mine. He was eight inches taller than me; the ceiling was many feet—fifty, a hundred—taller than either of us.

“You didn't answer my question,” he said as we stopped beside a gravestone on the wall. “ ‘August 1750,' ” he read. “ ‘Here was interred the corps of Mary Young . . . She lived regarded and dyed regretted.' I've always liked that.”

“If you want me to teach scripture, I will.”

“Actually,” he said, still studying the stone, “I asked if you were neglecting Nell's moral education.”

Scarcely knowing how to explain myself, I said that I didn't teach scripture because I didn't feel qualified, but I hoped Nell would go to Sunday school and that, as her reading improved, we could read the Gospels together.

“Let me ask another impertinent question,” said Mr. Sinclair. “Do you believe in God?”

In Latin a question was phrased differently according to whether the answer yes or no was expected, but Mr. Sinclair's tone gave no clue to his expectations. “I don't know,” I said. “I used to because of my uncle, but since he died I've met plenty of people who claim to be good Christians and wouldn't cross the road to help a starving child. If that's what it means to believe in God, then I'd rather not. What about you?”

“I'm afraid”—we started walking again—“I'd give the same answer, but I'm sorry to hear those words from you. When I was your age I would have answered yes and it made everything easier.”

“Of course it's easier,” I said, “if you have parents and plenty of money. God's in His heaven and all's right with the world.”

“The war started when I was fourteen,” he said quietly.

Before I could apologise we stopped at another stone. This one was to the memory of Thomas Smith, who had died on 12 September 1811. “ ‘He lived beloved and died regretted,' ” I read. “Being beloved is better than being regarded.”

“That just shows how young you are,” said Mr. Sinclair. “Regard lasts longer than love and can lead to it, but love—”

Whatever pronouncement he was about to make was lost as Nell appeared around a pillar. We both admired her drawings. Then the three of us went to see the statue of Earl Rognvald holding a model of the cathedral; his tunic was shorter than my most daring skirt. From the chapel Mr. Sinclair led the way up a narrow stair. We passed the huge workings of the church clock and the three bells that chimed the hour before we emerged onto the roof, beside the spire. Kirkwall, the island, the harbour, and the sea lay before us.

“What an amazing view,” I said.

“Can we see the rest of Scotland?” Nell asked.

“No,” said Mr. Sinclair. “We're facing the wrong way, and it's too far.”

“What about Glasgow?” she persisted. “Can we see Glasgow?”

“No,” he said more gently, realising what she was asking, “Glasgow is part of Scotland. Even if the church tower were twice as high we couldn't see it.” He was explaining that the cathedral had once been on the shore—much of Kirkwall was built on reclaimed land—when, almost beneath our feet, the bell began to strike. We stood there, counting, until it reached twelve.

Only on the way home, when Nell was safely asleep in the back of the car, did I have the chance to ask again if he wanted me to teach her scripture.

“Not unless you want to. What I want is for her to know the difference between right and wrong, not to be trapped, like her mother, in a single passion.”

“Surely,” I said shyly, “she must have had more than one, else Nell wouldn't be here.”

He glanced over at me. “Clever but wrong. Sometimes Alison didn't care what she did, or was too drunk to mind who touched her.”

“I thought people with money”—we were passing the only grove of trees I had seen on the island—“could solve these problems.”

Mr. Sinclair laughed. “You haven't a clue what you're talking about. They can. But that would have meant Alison admitting that she was pregnant, and even at six months, she wouldn't. She was as stubborn as the wind. That helped her to walk again, but that didn't stop a baby coming.”

“So no one wanted Nell.” I turned to look at her where she leaned against the door, eyes closed, lips parted.

“Want, don't want, who cares. ‘The world is everything that is the case.' ”

“Who said that? You spoke as if you were quoting.”

“A philosopher named Ludwig Wittgenstein. He was an Austrian Catholic who gave away all his money, fought against Britain during the First World War, and ended up with a chair at Cambridge University.”

“ ‘If a lion could talk,' ” I said happily, “ ‘we could not understand him.' But you're wrong. Children don't understand lots of things, but they know when they're not wanted. You wait to grow up, like a prisoner in a deep, dark dungeon.”

“You obviously had an idyllic childhood.” He patted my knee, once, firmly. “Just keep teaching Nell the way you are. Make her read and write and don't let her be too different from other people. One eccentric in the family is quite enough.”

I knew he meant himself and I wondered, yet again, why he had never married. I had asked Vicky, and she had said she didn't know. He knew many people, he earned a pretty penny, he had a bonny tongue. Not long after Alison's accident, there had been rumours of an engagement but no fiancée had followed. We slowed down to turn onto the road to the house, and I asked if a Gypsy woman had brought him a fish.

“So you've been spying on me,” he said lightly. “Yes, she did—two delicious sea trout. Unfortunately they were a bribe, not a gift.”

“I don't need to spy on you,” I said. “The whole island does that.”

As I went to open the gate I thought that he and I were opposites in almost every respect: wealth, family, upbringing, position in society. He had been Hugh Sinclair all his life and had a hundred people to say so. Whereas I had scarcely a dozen who knew I was Gemma Hardy and no one who knew I had once been someone other than Gemma Hardy.

chapter nineteen

T
he next morning Vicky announced that five guests would be arriving that afternoon: three by plane from London and two by ferry from Edinburgh. She bustled around, airing the rooms and making beef Wellington. Nora picked a posy for each dressing-table. Angus cut the lawn ready for croquet and badminton. The prospect of company put Nell in a flutter. “Will we have dinner with them, Gemma?” she asked. “Should I practise my croquet?” Dinner was unlikely, I told her, but she would probably get to play croquet. I too had my hopes, although I did not voice them. We spent the afternoon hitting balls, awkwardly, through hoops.

On the stairs that evening a woman and a man, wearing matching white Aertex shirts, each gave me a hearty handshake and introduced themselves as Rosie and Dale Miller. The island was so peaceful after Edinburgh, they exclaimed. The other guests, two sisters and a colleague of Mr. Sinclair's, I did not see until church the following day. They arrived just as the bell fell silent. First came Jill, dark-haired and sturdy and wearing a pretty blue frock, then Coco, rearranging her blond hair even as she strolled down the aisle. Neither wore hats or gloves. As for the colleague, Colin, he was a pleasant-looking man in a suit. Rosie and Dale followed. Mr. Sinclair brought up the rear, frowning, irked, I thought, by their tardiness.

For the next few days the house was even busier than usual. The six of them explored the neighbouring islands and visited various golf courses. Coco, I gathered, was a keen golfer, and so were Rosie and Dale. Closer to home they played croquet and billiards. In the evenings the sounds of conversation and laughter rose from the library and the dining-room. Nell begged to sit on the stairs, just to listen to the merriment. I sat with her, gazing absently at a book, wishing I didn't feel like a servant, wondering why I minded.

Then Vicky announced that tomorrow, if the weather was fine, Mr. Sinclair planned an expedition to Skara Brae, the Stone Age village. Nell and I were to go too, and he had asked me to make sure that she understood what she was seeing. I had been in the library only twice since his return. Now, while the guests were out, I searched the shelves and found an island history. As Mr. Johnson had told me on the ferry, the village had been buried for thousands of years, only re-emerging in 1850 when a great storm blew the sand away.

On Thursday the skies were clear and the temperature so warm that both Nell and I wore summer blouses. After chores and an hour of lessons, we helped Vicky carry the food out to the car. I sat in the back, making sure the baskets of provisions didn't slide around. While she drove, Vicky reminisced about the time she had visited Skara Brae on a school trip with the history teacher.

“He kept calling it a village, so I expected a main street and houses, but there's just six or seven wee dwellings, half underground, with pathways between them. I remember thinking it would be a cosy place to spend the winter if everyone you liked was nearby. A boy called Tom and I sneaked off to one of the houses and pretended we were making supper. The teacher gave us an awful scolding.”

“Why?” said Nell.

At Claypoole I had been surrounded by women who had no use for men, and I had assumed Vicky to be a member of that tribe. Now, as she winked at me in the rear-view mirror and explained the teacher's reaction—we were there to study, not play—it occurred to me that she too would rather be beloved than regarded.

The other cars were already parked. While Nell scampered over to join her uncle and his friends, I helped Vicky spread the rugs on a grassy knoll beside the village and set up a folding table for the food. She had made quiches and salads, sliced a ham, baked bread, and brought homemade cheese and butter. When everything was laid out to her satisfaction she dispatched me to tell Mr. Sinclair. He was standing looking down into one of the houses, pointing out the details to Coco.

“Those slabs on either side of the door were the beds,” he said, “and the rectangle in the middle was the hearth. When I was a boy you could still find crofts on the island, with the fireplace in the centre of the room.”

“But the bed is so small,” Coco exclaimed. She was wearing a tight white T-shirt and a lavender-coloured skirt that fluttered around her bare legs. The heels of her white sandals kept sinking into the turf.

“People were smaller then, smaller even than Gemma. Picture it covered with sheepskins, a nice pillow of dry grass, your fire and your larder a few feet away, your family and your neighbours within hailing distance.”

I announced that lunch was ready, and Mr. Sinclair clapped his hands. “Excellent. We'll eat now. Then take a nap on the Stone Age beds. Coco, this is Gemma. The au pair.”

“How do you do?” I offered my hand.

“Hi.” She raised her hand, the nails a brilliant scarlet, in a little wave of dismissal. Meanwhile Nell had run over and was tugging at her uncle's sleeve, asking if she could sit with him.

“Oh, please,” Coco murmured.

I couldn't tell if Mr. Sinclair had heard, but he told Nell to sit with Vicky and me. Children and servants, I thought. “After lunch,” he added, “you can be our guide, tell us what you've learned about the village.”

While everyone else praised the food and ate heartily, Coco, I noticed, drank two glasses of wine but barely touched her plate. When the platter of cheese was passed around, she made an excuse about watching her weight.

“Let me do that,” said Mr. Sinclair, still holding out the platter. “Vicky made this one from our own milk, and the oatcakes are baked in Stromness.”

“Vicky,” she said, glancing in my direction and cutting the smallest possible wedge of cheese.

“The housekeeper,” he corrected. “I showed you the dairy with the churns.”

Coco tilted her head so that her fair hair slipped over her shoulder. “I had no idea you were such a farmer, Hugh. This is a whole new side of you, wandering around, studying the backsides of cows.”

“I'm not a farmer,” he said. “Not like my father; he was out in the fields rain or gale. He knew exactly how many head of cattle he had, how many bushels of oats. I remember he asked me once if I could point to one thing I had made in the last year. When I told him I'd helped to arrange a loan to Heathrow Airport, he laughed in my face.”

I was curious to know how Coco would respond to this speech, but before she could answer Jill called over, “Guess what Colin's been telling me? His grandmother was a witch. She used to take part in ceremonies around the standing stones.”

“Not a witch,” protested Colin. “She had second sight. She foresaw her husband's death, and she always knew when a storm was coming. The fishermen used to consult her.”

I had been too interested in the women to pay much attention to Colin. Now I understood that he was not just a London friend of Mr. Sinclair's; he had grown up on the island. As for Jill, I'd discovered that she was training to be a vet. The day before, while I was feeding the calves, I had overheard her ask Seamus if she might accompany him on his rounds. “You couldn't keep up with me,” he had said curtly. Undeterred, she had walked the fields with Colin, and later told Mr. Sinclair that the cattle were first rate, but the sheep might benefit from introducing some of the newer breeds, which produced more wool and had a lower mortality rate. All this was reported to me by Vicky. “Seamus will have kittens,” she had said, “if he hears a girl saying his precious sheep aren't up to snuff.”

Nell had dutifully perched between Vicky and me to eat, but as soon as her quiche was gone, she threw her crusts onto the grass and began to flit around, trying her charms on the guests. She talked to Jill and Colin for a few minutes, then moved on to Dale and Rosie. The night before, Rosie had won the badminton tournament, and today she was dressed for a country picnic in a neat blouse, slacks, and walking shoes. She asked Nell which beach she liked best and what other islands she had visited. To my relief Nell answered politely. Then she asked if Rosie liked Petula Clark.

“I don't really know her music,” Rosie said apologetically. “Is she one of your favourites?”

I had never thought to wonder at Nell's choice of names for the calves, but now, as she listed several songs, I realised that even then she had been thinking of her mother. I pictured her at the top of St. Magnus, asking if she could see Glasgow. Perhaps when she was older we could go there for a visit. Vicky was gathering the food and I stood up to clear the plates. My years at Claypoole had made me acutely aware of people's leavings. I noted Rosie's and Dale's shining plates, Jill's and Colin's empty, save for a few shreds of lettuce, Coco's filled with food the pigs would have loved, and Mr. Sinclair's not spotless but close.

“Look at the little bird,” Coco said. Several birds had discovered the crusts Nell had thrown on the grass.

“It's a pied wagtail,” I said. “They eat all kinds of insects and in winter their faces get much whiter.”

“A wagtail,” Coco exclaimed. “What does it mean that all these birds associated with you-know-what are so small. Little willy wagtail? Little cock robin?”

I knew there was something behind her words that I didn't understand; still, I had to correct her. “Things are often different for birds,” I said. “Look how beautiful the male peacock is with his huge tail, and the male mallard is gorgeous with his green head and white necklace. The females don't need to be flashy to attract attention.”

But Coco had no interest in learning more about birds, or at least not from me; she was already turning back to the houses. “Perhaps we'll find a necklace,” she said. “Or a chalice, whatever that is. Wouldn't that be super?”

I was about to explain that a chalice was a metal drinking cup, and also that any finds belonged to the government, but before I could speak, I felt Mr. Sinclair's gaze again. He gave me a little nod and allowed Coco to take his arm. She made a show of tottering over the short grass and then bent to remove her sandals. Her toenails were the same scarlet as her fingernails. While Nell and I sat with our sketchbooks to draw the village, she climbed down into one of the houses and insisted on trying a Stone Age bed. Knees to her chest she could barely fit on even the larger of the slabs.

“I feel like a sacrificial maiden,” she said.

“Not exactly a maiden,” called Jill from the next house. She was bending over the dresser, examining how the stones fitted together. It was easy to picture her in a white coat, splinting a dog's leg.

“Come and join me,” called Coco, waving at Mr. Sinclair.

His shoulders gave a little twitch and he clambered down to perch on the stone shelf. “Maybe this was the seat reserved for the wise elders,” he said, “which meant anyone over twenty-five. So tell me”—he turned to Nell—“what Gemma's taught you about the village.”

“The houses are all the same,” she said in her best explaining voice. “Each has two beds, and a fireplace and a dresser where people kept food and necklaces. In the book we read, it said that one of the houses had a place for limpets. Some of them have chairs. They think the village used to be farther from the sea. Gemma says they'll find out more when they dig more.”

“And how old are the houses?”

“At first they said Iron Age but now they think neo . . . neo.”

“Neolithic,” I said. “New Stone Age.”

A few feet away Coco was twisting and turning on her stone bed in a way that seemed designed to draw attention to her long tanned legs. Mr. Sinclair summoned Nell to show him her picture. She said she needed five more minutes. While I watched, she sketched in Coco and her uncle. She gave him a club and a beard, and Coco an off-the-shoulder bearskin and thick eyelashes. At their feet she drew a little tangled heap. “What's that?” I said.

“Coco's shoes,” she whispered.

After Nell had shown her drawing to Mr. Sinclair and he had praised her depiction of him and the houses—“though you didn't do Coco justice”—I led her down to the beach. We played hopscotch on the damp sand until we heard Vicky calling.

On the drive home Nell said, “Does Coco want to marry Uncle Hugh?”

“She's certainly setting her cap at him,” said Vicky.

“So then”—I couldn't see Nell's face but I could hear the pleasure in her voice—“I'd have an aunt as well as an uncle.”

“Of a kind,” said Vicky. We exchanged glances in the mirror.

That night, when Nell was at last asleep, and the sounds of revelry from the dining-room reminded me of a pack of hounds in full cry, I sneaked out of the house, retrieved my bicycle, and headed to the village. I had no plan other than to find Todd. I would be in his presence, and whatever happened would happen. Perhaps we would simply sit side by side, talking about university and his studies, perhaps . . . I knew only that the sight of Coco laughing and squirming on the stone bed had made me reluctant to climb quietly into mine. Would Mr. Sinclair be happy with someone who didn't know a pied wagtail from a mallard? The Iron Age from the Stone Age? And what would happen if she became the mistress of Blackbird Hall? I pictured Nell at a school like Claypoole. My lovely room, my job, gone in a flick of her scarlet nails.

“Au pair,” Coco would say incredulously, shimmying her blond hair.

When I got to the village, Nora's house was dark. Perhaps, I thought, they were visiting a neighbour. I walked my bike down the road, studying the lit-up windows of the houses on either side, hoping to spot Nora, or Todd. I would tap on the window and Todd would look up with a smile. In one house I glimpsed the minister and his wife, in another the postmistress and her sister. If Nora and her family were visiting, it was farther afield. On impulse I stopped at the one place in the village I could legitimately enter at any hour. Leaning my bike against the wall, unclipping my light, I pushed through the gate into the churchyard. In all my weekly visits I had never before stopped to look at the graves. Now I began to walk up and down the rows, shining my torch on the stones, some new and upright, some old and perilously aslant. I came upon several Sinclairs, including Vicky's parents. At last I found Mr. Sinclair's brother.