Chapter Fifteen
‘Dear God, what a sight you made, steaming down the loch like that!’ Gladly called up from the stone jetty, bundled in a mac and sou’wester as he wound the mooring rope around the bollard. The rain was still driving hard, the winds with no intention of letting up. ‘We thought it was pirates coming to pillage us! MacLeod’s gone off hiding all the family silver!’
Colly and Campbell ran down the path from the castle, fastening their coats too.
Effie, still atop the mast, closed her eyes with relief as she felt the Lady Tara stand steady at last as she was secured fore and aft. She would never forget the welcoming sight of Dunvegan Castle, sitting atop a rock at the head of the loch: ancient turreted towers and thick buff stone walls promising safe haven.
She would never admit it to anyone, but she hadn’t known how much longer she could have stayed up there. As she had feared, the strapping was worked loose by the nudging wind; she’d had to re-secure it several times, gripping the mast with her legs as she worked with her arms. There had been nothing to hold her up there but her own muscles and willpower.
She descended slowly and carefully, lowering herself hand over hand until her bare feet touched the deck again. She was soaked through, her hair streaming rivers down her back, her dress now a second skin bunched around her thighs.
‘...What?’ she asked, as she saw the two men looking at her with astonished expressions. ‘Oh. I don’t look much of a lady, is that it?’ she asked, slicking her hair back and wringing it out like a towel.
‘How the devil did you do that, dear girl?’ Gladly asked, looking one part horrified, two parts impressed.
‘It was fine—’
‘How could you let her?’ He looked at Archie, now three parts horrified.
‘ You try stopping her!’ Archie replied, throwing out an exasperated arm. He dropped his hands on his knees and let his head hang; he looked spent too. He had been wrestling the boat on the stormy sea for hours. ‘Besides, there really was no other choice. The mast was about to give and if we’d ended up in the water...’
‘What in blazes happened to it?’ Gladly asked, staring at Effie’s makeshift strapping binding the masthead together.
Archie peered up at it too, still doubled over. ‘I think it might be the spreader, or the forestay tension. I’m not sure till I can get up there and take a closer look.’
‘Well, now’s not the time. You look cream crackered, old bean.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Here, take my hand,’ Gladly said, holding his out for Effie. For once, she accepted, stepping onto dry land with shaking legs. Her muscles were cramping and she realized her teeth were chattering.
Archie accepted help with disembarking too, just as Colly and Campbell reached them.
Colly tore off his coat and draped it over Effie’s shoulders, but it was a case of bolting the stable door; she was soaked through, she couldn’t possibly get any wetter. ‘Hot bath, immediately,’ he said, looking concerned. ‘Pneumonia is no fun, let me tell you.’
Molly flashed through Effie’s mind, and she winced in pain. It had been a year and a month now since her friend’s death, but she still missed her with a visceral ache.
‘Why on earth did you choose today of all days to make the journey?’ Campbell asked Archie, looking flabbergasted as they began walking back.
Archie sighed. ‘There was a break in the weather and we decided to take the chance on...outrunning the storm.’ He didn’t look at Effie, didn’t throw the blame on her, even though it was all her fault.
She looked around her suddenly, realizing something now she was properly able to take a breath.
‘And we couldn’t flag you in advance to let you know we were coming. Telephone lines are down on Raasay so we’ve had no comms for days.’ He looked at the other men. ‘Has there been a search party out for her?’
‘Oh no, not at all,’ Campbell said, unperturbed. ‘There was no mystery. Peony saw her getting on board—’
Effie’s head whipped up. Peony had seen her getting on the wrong boat, knowing full well they were all supposed to sail together – knowing that Effie could end up alone with Archie – and hadn’t spoken up to stop her?
‘Sholto wasn’t happy at the mix-up, of course, but at least he knew she was safe.’
Effie looked from one face to another. ‘So, then...where is he?’ Was he inside, too angry with her to come out?
The men all shared an ominous look.
‘Ah yes, well, you see – losing you wasn’t our only drama to contend with.’
She felt an immediate bolt of fear, far worse than anything she had just experienced out on the water. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
Gladly cleared his throat. ‘Well, the thing is...that is...I’m sorry to say the countess, his mother, has had a stroke.’
‘What?’ Effie whispered. ‘No!’
‘I’m afraid so. She’s alive, but it was a bad one. The prognosis is not good.’ Gladly bit his lip. ‘Sholly’s gone back home to DH.’
Effie turned on the spot, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. She had thought clinging to a mast in a tempest had been the worst she would have to contend with today, but storm winds were still blowing. Sholto’s mother had almost died.
The question was, were they to blame? Had Sholto’s determination to marry her contributed to this – or even caused it? Effie had caught the look Gladly, Campbell and Colly had shared just now. Had Sholto said something? Had he thought the same?
‘Is...is he coming back?’ she croaked.
There was a marked hesitation as the men shared glances again.
‘He asked if you would telephone him once you got over here,’ Gladly said, his eyes kind.
‘Aye, I must...’ she breathed.
‘But first things first. You’re to do nothing before you’ve had a hot bath and warmed up,’ Colly said. He was hunched over as the driving rain pelted him, quickly soaking through his clothes. She knew she ought to give back his coat; she had little need of it herself – wet was wet – but her mind was as scattered as her body was spent.
They rounded the head of the loch, staggering uphill towards the castle’s rocky perch, past moss-addled rowan trees, silver birches and thick clumps of rhododendron. Now that they were closer, faces were visible at an upstairs window. Effie could just imagine Bitsy and Peony sitting there with sour expressions on seeing that she had not only returned but sailed in like a corsair.
They walked in, an impressive oak staircase immediately rising in front of them, a bull’s head – motif for the MacLeods – mounted on the wall. The women appeared suddenly at the top step, so refined in their day dresses and stockings, hair set into neat primps. They stopped in apparent alarm at the state of Effie. The difference between them all had never been more acute now she had reverted to her natural feral state: barefoot, hair tangled, weatherbeaten.
Veronica moved first, running down the stairs and removing the dripping macintosh. Effie was shivering uncontrollably, the dress a sodden rag bunched around her bare thighs.
‘Come, we’ve put you in the Lewis suite. There’s a bath drawn. We’ll get you warm in a jiffy.’
Effie nodded, even though all she wanted was to find the telephone and hear Sholto’s voice telling her it was all going to be all right. But would it be? She had woken this morning to bright skies and optimism for her future, but everything had changed again, the ground no firmer beneath her feet than that heaving, swirling sea. First she had been taken from Sholto and now he had been taken from her. It felt like an omen, a karmic lesson being delivered that the world would not bend to their will. Love was not enough.
Veronica wrapped an arm around her, peeling her away from the men. She felt Archie’s eyes on her back watching her go and she turned briefly, catching hold of his bleak look. This wasn’t the ending either of them had wanted.
‘Sholto?’
‘Effie.’ She heard the sigh of relief in the word, as if she was comfort. Home. She closed her eyes and could see him, exhausted and tense in his library, just as she was exhausted and tense in the library here. She would give anything to see him right now, to hold him.
‘Gladly just told me about your mother...How is she?’
There was a pause. ‘Not well, I’m afraid. The doctor says she suffered a significant trauma. She’s still with us, but...not as she used to be.’
Effie bit her lip, not quite sure what that meant, not wanting to press. His voice was right in her ear, but she felt the distance between them. ‘I can come back,’ she said in a small voice.
There was a long pause.
‘...No.’ The word was soft, its message sharp. ‘I’m sorry. I...’ She heard him take a deep breath and knew he was steeling himself to say what had to be said – the very conversation he had refused to have with her when he’d returned to Oban in November. ‘It’s just that...it’s very difficult here at the moment, and the doctor has advised no...no undue stress.’
She closed her eyes, knowing she was the undue stress. ‘I understand.’ Her voice was a whisper.
‘...Do you? I mean do you know I want you to be here, but that it’s just...’ She could hear his struggle to hold back his emotions. To do the right thing. Place head over heart. ‘...She’s my mother.’ His voice cracked and she saw in that moment the scale of his conflict, the very thing she had seen all along and he had sought to deny. He had thought he could turn his back on his family and choose his happiness over their wishes, but death hovered now, a spectral shadow casting them all into gloom. He could no longer run. He had to decide between them.
‘Sholto, of course I do. I lost my mother when I was young...I would give anything for another day with her.’ Tears were sliding down her cheeks but her voice was steady, if thick. ‘You must be with her. You must.’
There was a long silence and she knew he was struggling for composure too. They both knew what they were saying: for as long as his mother lived, Effie must stay away; but there was no hope after death either, for to reunite would be to disrespect his mother’s memory. He was checkmated, unable to move freely in any direction. Effie would never be good enough for his family, and his defiance in insisting otherwise had come at too high a price.
Neither of them spoke for several long moments as they listened to each other’s breathing, reading their thoughts.
‘...What will you do?’ he asked flatly.
‘You mean, where will I go?’ She could hardly stay here at Dunvegan. James MacLeod was the consummate host, but his parents – good friends of Sholto’s parents – would take an even dimmer view of her now, in light of the countess’s illness. She could spend no more than a night here. ‘Back home to Lochaline, I expect.’
But it wasn’t home. She had spent less than a week there in total. It had been a landing point only; a springboard that had propelled her from St Kilda to Dumfries House.
‘My father’s there at the moment anyway,’ she added. He had gone to stay with Old Fin for Christmas and Hogmanay, feeling strange about staying alone on the Dumfries estate with no sign of Effie. ‘I’ll call and tell him to stay.’
Sholto hesitated. ‘He’s very welcome to continue to make use of the cottage.’
She closed her eyes, feeling every pause, every polite word like a sabre swipe, though she knew Sholto was trying not to hurt her. On the contrary, extending use of the grace and favour property was a kindness, but if she was no longer working for the earl – and how could she now? – nor together with Sholto, then her father couldn’t possibly remain there without her.
‘Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine,’ she said quietly. ‘But would you...would you send on our things?’ She didn’t think she could bear the prospect of returning to Dumfries to pack up. To be there and not see him...
‘Of course. I’ll have someone see to it straight away.’
She heard him flinch, his eagerness to help her in any way misplaced here.
Another silence bloomed. There was so much to say and yet words couldn’t help them now. Feelings couldn’t compete with facts. She had had no idea that his wink as he had left her with a drunk teenage viscount, back in the Gathering Hall in Portree, would be their last moment together.
Perhaps it was better that way. She never could have faced him and said goodbye; she would have clung to him and begged him to reconsider, even though she knew they were out of options and out of time. Events had overtaken them, and perhaps there was mercy in that.
‘Goodbye, Sholto. I’ll pray for her. I’ll pray for you all.’
‘I love you, Effie...’ His voice broke. ‘I’m sor—’
She replaced the handset, feeling the sob break free from her too. But the fates had spoken, the axe fallen. Their predicament could not be undone. She had known loss before.
She felt the sorrow rise up through her body in rolling waves as she staggered over to a high-backed library chair and sank into it, weeping pitifully at the loss of her only dream. She could see no future without Sholto in it. How was she supposed to smile again when her heart had been ripped from her body, still beating...? How was she—
Behind her, the library door opened, a crescendo of laughter carrying down the hallway. Effie froze, knowing it would be Gladly or Colly or Archie looking for her; she didn’t want anyone to see her like this, weakened and pathetic. She couldn’t speak to them in this state, say out loud that the engagement was over, that she was going to slip back into the obscurity from which she’d come...
She waited for the door to close again – she was hidden from view here – but instead she heard footsteps coming in. She lifted her feet off the ground, lest they could be seen, huddling into a small ball. The chair backed onto the room from here; she would only be seen if her friendly hero insisted on walking all the way round to find her – but the footsteps stopped halfway along; she heard a light tapping on the book-lined wall behind her, the squeak of a hinge.
Effie bit her lip, realizing it must be her host, a man she scarcely knew, attending to private business in his own library. Immediately she felt like an intruder, her desire for privacy transformed into something more shady.
She didn’t stir, even her tears slowing their march down her cheeks. She heard something jangling lightly before the hinge squeaked again and was followed by a click.
Footsteps, retreating.
Effie waited for the door to open again, but something...an instinct had her hackles up. As she heard the twist of the knob, she quickly peered around the wing of the chair.
What she saw made her blood run cold. It made no sense – there was no explanation at all that she could think of to account for it.
What was he doing here?