Chapter 42
For a while they drove in silence, retracing their steps back into Kyle of Lochalsh.
Then Emma said, “In answer to your question, I suppose she read about it in the newspaper’s archives or heard the story when she was being driven around the island.
Then her fertile writer’s brain could have invented a clever plot based on what she read, and by sheer luck she hit upon what really happened. ”
“Yes, you may be right,” Tony said.
Emma stared out of the window, looking back at the island. “She’s going to be angry when she learns that she can’t use her plot.”
“So we should head for home now?” Tony asked.
“I suppose so,” she said.
“It will be too late for me to return the hired car tonight, so we’d better drive until it gets dark, then find somewhere to stay along the way.”
“All right,” she agreed. She still couldn’t shake off the tension after the events of the day. Getting back to the safety of London and the south seemed like an excellent idea.
They came into Kyle, and as they were negotiating the narrow streets, Emma looked around and saw an old-fashioned grey stone school building.
She thought she heard Melrose’s voice again.
“Isla. That’s a pretty name.” The governess who had returned to look after her father and Melrose had fallen for. Was she a real person?
“Hold on a minute, Tony,” she said. “There was a governess whom Lucy’s father dismissed a few weeks before she died.
It’s unlikely she’s still alive, but in Iris’s book Melrose falls for her, and Iris never got far enough for us to know whether she left to go to Glasgow with him.
I’d love to know if she was real or not. ”
“And you think she might be here?” he asked.
“Her father was the schoolmaster and that’s the old school building.”
“I doubt he’s still in residence all these years later.” Tony grinned. “He’d be about a hundred and twenty-nine.”
“All the same . . .”
“All right,” he said amiably and turned into a narrow lane that ended at the schoolhouse. It was a sorry sight, with weeds growing up through the playground and a broken window.
“Clearly not in use any longer,” Tony said.
A man came towards them, wheeling a bike. Tony hailed him. “What happened to the school?”
“They built a new one, all steel and glass—primary and secondary all in one,” the man said. “That’s progress for you.”
Emma summed up the man. Aged fifty or more.
“Would you remember the schoolmaster here, when you were a boy? Did he have a daughter?”
“Mr Anderson?” The man’s face brightened up. “Aye, who could forget him, or his cane? Many’s the stroke I got on my backside.”
Emma’s pulse quickened. Anderson. Iris had used the real name, the only other real name in the story, apart from Jock. “He had a daughter?”
“Aye. He certainly did. She who taught the school herself for years until she retired.”
So she hadn’t gone to Glasgow. “She’s not still alive, is she?”
“But she is. And still hale and hearty at ninety. Walks her dog every day.”
“Where would we find her?”
The man swivelled around. “You see that row of cottages on the waterfront. She lives in the white one in the middle, the one with the green front door.”
“Thank you.” Emma beamed. The man nodded and continued to wheel his bike away.
“The governess is still alive.” Emma gave an excited glance to Tony. “She may be able to fill in a missing piece.”
They drove down to the waterfront and knocked on that green door. A slim and gaunt elderly woman opened it, blinking in surprise at two strangers standing there.
“Are you wanting a bed and breakfast?” she asked. “Because then you’d need Mistress MacClean’s at number twelve.”
“Are you Miss Anderson?” Emma said. “I wanted to talk to you. About Lily Patterson and what happened to her.”
A shadow of pain crossed the woman’s face. “That poor dear girl,” she said. “What is your interest in her after all these years?”
“I’m helping to research a book,” Emma said, “and going through newspaper archives I found the story mentioned.”
“You’d better come inside then.” Miss Anderson opened the door. They stepped into an immaculate but tiny living room. A fire was burning in the hearth and a Skye terrier lay on the rug. He stood as they approached, tail wagging, and came to greet them.
“This is Hamish,” Miss Anderson said. “He loves visitors, especially when they feed him cake. Sit yourselves down and I’ll make us a cup of tea.”
The ancient rocking chairs were covered in crocheted rugs.
There were china dogs on the mantelpiece and a photograph of a man with white hair—the schoolmaster father, Emma supposed.
There was a crocheted cloth on the table and a bowl of fruit.
A warm and friendly room. Hamish the dog came to Emma and curled up at her feet.
Tony stood as Miss Anderson carried in the tray. “Can I help?” he said.
“Ach no, it’s no trouble,” she said. She had a soft, gentle voice.
“I’m not quite the invalid yet.” She smiled and Emma could see that she must have been pretty once.
She still had the fine cheekbones and hardly any wrinkles.
She poured tea and handed them each a cup. Emma drank hers before speaking.
“You were the governess to Lily Patterson?” she asked.
“Aye, I was. Miss Lily had taken her lessons with her brother’s tutor until he was sent away to school, so I was hired then, and such a bright little girl she was, so willing to learn.
” She paused, savouring memories. “And she liked having me there, not that much older than her really. Another young woman to giggle and gossip with. It was lonely for her, sure enough, shut away in that big, cold place. I spoke to her father about sending her off to school, too, but he said there was no point in educating females. They’d make a match for her and she’d be gone.
” She looked up at Emma, eyes still bright.
“That was how men thought in those days, didn’t they?
We were a chattel to be traded. You’re lucky to be living now. ”
“Yes,” Emma agreed. “But then her family brought in a companion for her?”
“They did. Catriona MacLeod, the fisherman’s daughter, she who had grown up with no mother and had been running wild.” She looked up at Emma. “Now how on earth did you know that?”
“It was mentioned in the newspaper clippings,” Emma said, avoiding her gaze. “And I interviewed an old lady living near the castle. She said they called her the Wild Girl.”
“Aye, they did and she was. When she first came to us she was like a wee savage, grabbing food off the table and disappearing out onto the shore when she felt like it. But soon she got the feel of being a young lady. She wore Lily’s dresses and she came to love learning as Lily did.
They became really close. They adored each other.
Like two peas in a pod they were, inseparable. ”
“The sister Lily never had?”
Miss Anderson leaned closer. “Aye, well, that may not be so far from the truth. I heard on good authority that she really was the laird’s bairn, you know.
He was known to be free with his favours, so to speak.
None of the maids were safe from him, and Catriona’s mother, well, she was the flirty type by nature so I suppose it was inevitable.
Anyway they married her off rapidly to Angus MacLeod, and they couldn’t have given her a worse fate.
He was an awful man, a drunk, a bully. No wonder she killed herself. ”
“So she really killed herself? I wasn’t sure.”
“Aye. Threw herself off a rock into the sea and drowned.”
“Poor Catriona,” Emma said.
“Aye. Poor wee scrap. But her life had really turned around before the tragedy happened.”
“So tell me about the tragedy,” Emma said.
“There’s not much I can tell since I had been dismissed shortly before. Told I was no longer needed as Miss Lily was going to marry Mr Graham.”
“What did you think of that?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t have much to do with him, but what I saw I did not like, and I thought he was wrong for Lily. I told them so and that’s partly why I was dismissed. Lily certainly didn’t take to him. She said to me, ‘Andy, you have to help me run away if they’re going to force me.’”
“And she was trying to run away.”
Miss Anderson sighed. “Aye, she was.”
“Do you know whether she was in love with that Mr Blaine or was she just using him to take her to the mainland?”
“I wouldn’t have said she was attracted to him.
She thought he was a nice man, kind, wanting to do good, but that would have been enough for her.
I remember Catriona once said she thought he was handsome, and Lily said, ‘Oh no. Rather ordinary-looking.’ Of course that could have been to hide her true feelings.
You never know with girls. They can be quite tricky and secretive. ”
Emma was phrasing questions in her head. “You had gone when Lily drowned,” she said. “What do you think really happened?”
“They say that Mr Graham did not take kindly to losing his future bride to a commoner and took his revenge,” she said. “But I’d be more inclined to think it was Lily’s brother.”
“Her brother?” Emma stared in surprise.
“He was always so possessive about his sister, unhealthily so, if you want my opinion. If he found out she was sneaking away he’d have stopped her.”
“You think he damaged the boat then?”
The old woman stared past Emma, out of the window where seagulls were now whirling, their screeching cries echoing. “I don’t know what to think any more. I’ve asked myself over and over could I have foreseen it and been able to stop it.”
“So what do you think happened to Mr Graham?” Emma tried to keep her voice even.
“The dear knows.” She shook her head. “If he was guilty he took off. If he wasn’t, then Lily was no longer available, so he went elsewhere.”
“And Catriona? Did she come to see you after the tragedy?”
She shook her head, more fiercely this time.
“I never saw her again. I’ve always wondered if she was responsible for it.
Those rips in the sail. An angry person did that.
Did she damage the boat and then regret it and kill herself?
It would not have been entirely out of character.
She was certainly dramatic and unpredictable enough.
She loved Lily and Lily was going. What would become of Catriona after that?
She wouldn’t be welcome to stay on at the castle.
Maybe she went back into the wild and died there eventually, away from people, like some wounded animal. ”
“I’m sorry to have brought back painful memories,” Emma said. “We shouldn’t keep you any longer.”
“It’s all so long ago now,” Miss Anderson said. “It feels like a book I once read. But it was a strange case that baffled the police, and now we’ll never come to the truth.”
“You’ve been here your whole life, and never married?” Tony asked. He had been silent until now.
“There was my father to look after,” she said softly.
“He was never a well man and I couldnae leave him to take care of himself. He lived into his nineties and by then . . . I was already an old maid. But I got great joy from teaching the children here until I retired, and the people are very kind. They all keep an eye on me.”
“There was never a handsome policeman?” Emma asked, almost shocked that she had said it.
The old woman looked surprised. “What a strange thing to ask.” She paused, examining Emma’s face. “There was a young man once, but I could nae leave my father.”
“His name wasn’t Melrose?”
Miss Anderson shook her head. “It was Thompson. And he was a painter, come up here for the summer. My father was quite frail by then.” She gave a sad little smile.
What a disappointing life, Emma thought and wondered if Iris had intended to make things right for Miss Anderson, at least in a book. She wanted her to marry Melrose and live happily.
“One last thing,” Emma said. “Do you remember a lady writer coming to visit you before the war? An Australian?”
Miss Anderson’s face lit up. “You mean Iris Blackburn, don’t you?
Yes, she did pay me a visit when she was up here, doing research for one of her books.
I read a lot and I recognized her right away from her book jackets.
She wasn’t as famous in those days, and she was surprised I knew who she was.
She was very kind and left me a nice check for the help I had given her.
Not that I could tell her anything that wasn’t in the archives. But the money was much appreciated.”