Chapter 10
TEN
‘Of course, he’s not the same since his wife died,’ Aunt Chrissie leaned over and murmured confidentially to Sorrel as she took another biscuit from the pile on the plate next to her.
Aunt Joan had got derailed into talking about the wedding with Heather.
Bluebell sat in the middle, listening to both conversations and interjecting here and there.
‘Who?’ Sorrel asked, alarmed at her aunt’s sudden change of tack. Both aunts had become more frail since she’d seen them last, but Aunt Chrissie seemed less focused than Joan.
‘Your beau. Tam Blackwood.’ Her aunt shot her a wise look, and Sorrel thought that she might reconsider her diagnosis. Maybe Aunt Chrissie wasn’t losing it.
‘How do you… Why do you mention him?’ Sorrel asked. Her phone pinged. She looked at the screen.
Sorrel. Call me. This is unacceptable behaviour.
It was from Simon. Surreptitiously, she turned the phone over so that the screen was facing down.
You’re a fine one to talk to me about unacceptable behaviour, she thought, angrily. He could wait, and stew in his own guilt.
‘Your mother told me that he walked in when you’d just got home yesterday. Must have been quite the shock?’ Aunt Chrissie looked at her great-niece inquisitively.
‘Yes. It was. What did you say? About Tam having a wife?’ Sorrel pressed her aunt. This, she wanted to hear. She didn’t want to hear from Simon.
‘Oh, yes. Nice girl, though we didn’t really know her. He moved to the other side of the island about a year after you left. Then we heard he’d got married. Don’t know the family. Funny name. Not sure that they were from the island.’ Chrissie was starting to meander.
‘She died?’ Sorrel prompted her aunt. Bluebell broke into the conversation.
‘I didn’t know whether to tell you or not.
We all knew, of course. But I didn’t know that I should say anything in my emails, so I didn’t,’ she began.
‘I did meet her, though. Once. Violet and I were hiking up the Old Man of Storr. They were on the path coming down; we were on our way up. I recognised him straightaway. They stopped and said hello. Her name was Beth. It wasn’t a funny surname.
Beth Rogers. She seemed nice. They seemed happy. ’
‘Not Scottish.’ Aunt Chrissie sniffed. Bluebell rolled her eyes.
‘Oh.’ It was a lot to take in. Somehow, Sorrel had never considered the fact that Tam might have found someone else. But of course he had. Of course he would find someone. He was a catch. ‘How did she…?’
‘Illness of some kind. I don’t know the details. I think it was one of those hereditary things that just come out of the blue. Mum might know.’
‘Oh, no. That’s terrible.’ Sorrel winced. ‘She must have been young?’
‘Thirty, maybe? Yeah. Pretty young.’ Bluebell shook her head. ‘He’s been back local for a few years now. I guess he didn’t want to leave the island, but maybe he didn’t want to stay where they’d lived, either.’
‘I heard that he built her a lovely memorial.’ Chrissie wiped her eye with her hanky.
‘A cairn, up on the coast. He was always a thoughtful boy. It breaks my heart to think he’s known such sadness in his young life.
’ She fixed Sorrel with a penetrating gaze.
‘All the more reason for him to find happiness now, before it’s too late. ’
‘Aunt Chrissie. He’s not going to die.’ Bluebell rolled her eyes. ‘It is a sad story, though.’
‘You never know, lassie,’ Aunt Chrissie said, darkly.
‘He will have thought that about this Beth. And then one day, she’s gone.
Death is ever present,’ she added. ‘When I go, at least I can say I had a full life. That poor girl didn’t.
I wouldn’t want any of you girls to go to the grave without knowing love.
Without having your own children. Your own home. ’
‘Not everyone wants children, Auntie,’ Sorrel said, patiently. ‘Or love. There are other things.’
‘Oh, pfft. Yes, yes, you career girls.’ Aunt Chrissie sighed. ‘It’s all very well, with your power suits and your Teasmades…’ Aunt Chrissie clearly thought it was still the 1980s, Sorrel thought. ‘But they won’t keep you warm at night.’
‘I’ve got a heated blanket, Auntie,’ Sorrel replied, tersely. ‘It’s a lot more reliable than a man.’
Later, Claire showed Sorrel up to her room.
She’d only been working for the Laird a few years; she wasn’t Mrs Travers, a strict fifty-something, with a merry glint in her eye, whom Sorrel remembered from being at the castle as a child.
Mrs Travers had yelled at the children if they made a mess, but also made huge slabs of tablet and flapjack that she’d slice up in the kitchen for them when they’d been good.
Claire, by contrast, wasn’t much older than Sorrel and seemed practical and down to earth. Sorrel supposed that times had changed in the running of a castle, though she felt a little nostalgic about Mrs Travers.
Sorrel was happy to find that she’d be staying in one of the bedrooms that she’d liked as a child: Uncle James’s wife, Evelinda, was a collector of quirky fruit-and-vegetable-inspired ceramics.
They were dotted around the castle here and there, but Evelinda stored most of the pieces in this bedroom.
As children, they’d called it the Cherry Room, inspired by a lamp with cherries moulded onto the ceramic base, which sat by the bed.
Sorrel had always been fascinated with the ceramics in this room: a large jug in the shape of a cauliflower; a butter dish in the shape of a corn on the cob; various vases in the shapes of fruits, grapes, an orange, a pineapple.
Most of the crockery was arranged in a row on shelves in one corner, but some of the pieces also sat on tables and windowsills.
When they were young, the girls had come in and played ‘shops’ in this room, pretending that the fruit and vegetables were real. That was until Angus had decided that he had fallen out with James over all of that ‘who was the real laird’ business.
‘Towels are in the cupboard here.’ Claire opened a dark wooden door in the wall to reveal a cupboard in the recess behind. Inside were a stack of fluffy light blue towels with the Balhennie Castle logo monogrammed in the corner in black. ‘You’ll remember where the bathroom is, down the hall?’
Sorrel nodded. ‘I remember.’
‘Aye. Well, I’ve made the bed up for you, and there’s an electric blanket if you get cold.
His lordship has dinner at six sharp, and I put out a help-yourself breakfast in the dining room in the morning.
Anything else, come and find me in my office, or I’ll be there and about.
’ Claire gave her a brisk nod and went to the door.
‘Your great-aunts are on the ground floor, by the way,’ she added, a smile at the edge of her lips.
‘So they won’t be bothering you too much. Unless they feel like coming upstairs.’
‘Right. Okay.’ Sorrel grinned. ‘Thanks.’
When Claire left, Sorrel sat on the bed and let out a long sigh. It was a sigh she felt she’d been holding on to for two days. Finally, she could have some time to herself.
She got into bed. It didn’t matter that it was lunchtime. She didn’t care.
I could stay in here forever and never go anywhere or do anything ever again, she thought.
She groaned as there was a knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
‘Hey.’ Bluebell pushed the door open and stepped into the room. ‘They put you in the Cherry Room, then?’
‘Yeah.’ Sorrel sighed inwardly. It was lovely seeing her sisters again. But would just an hour alone be too much to ask? She’d thought that staying at the castle would mean she’d get more peace than being at home.
Maybe not.
‘Remember when we used to play up here? Evelinda hated it. She thought we were going to break her weird china.’ Bluebell went over to the shelves and gazed up at the rows of vases and jugs. ‘I think she’s got new ones. Look. Peas.’
‘Well, it’s been a long time since we were here.
’ Sorrel sat up in bed; even though she craved alone time, it was progress that Bluebell had come to find her.
She’d been so withdrawn and quiet since Sorrel had come back.
‘So, that was sad news about Tam Blackwood’s wife,’ Sorrel added, seeing if she could make Bluebell talk a little more than she had so far.
‘Yeah. Tragic, really. I wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t left. Between you and him.’ Bluebell sat on the end of the bed and played with the lace coverlet. There was clearly something on her mind.
‘I don’t know. It’s ancient history now.’
‘Maybe. I reckon he still holds a candle for you.’
‘I very much doubt that.’ Sorrel thought about last night when he’d stepped into the caravan. The shock she had felt through her body. It had been like being stabbed in the heart. ‘If anything, he’ll be mourning Beth for the rest of his life. Not me.’
‘Well, you were the one that got away.’ Bluebell shrugged. ‘We all loved Tam. We all wanted you two to be together.’
‘I wanted that too. I didn’t stop wanting it just because I went away,’ Sorrel blurted. The words came out without her being able to control them. As soon as she’d said them, she regretted it. Not because it wasn’t true. But because it was something she didn’t want to admit to herself.
What was the good in wanting anything with Tam Blackwood, then or now? She hadn’t been able to stay to have it. She hadn’t been able to pursue a relationship with Tam. She’d felt that she had to leave. Had she been right? She thought so at the time.
Now, maybe, she wasn’t sure.