The Sea House: A Novel (34 page)

I busied myself with preparations for the day ahead, a tour of inspection to three schools on the Knoydart peninsula on the mainland. As I fetched down the ledgers and record books from the shelves, my hand paused for a moment in front of a manuscript wrapped in brown paper, the title in now faded ink: ‘A study of the folk stories of the Western Isles: of mermaids, seal men and Finnmen kayakers, by Dr G. MacIntyre and Rev. A. Ferguson’.

Not a single publisher in Edinburgh had wished to take it, not a single academic in the university had been willing to be associated with such a work. Carfax did me the courtesy of being quite candid when I asked him if he might help us in procuring an introduction to the university publishers.

‘We would have gone along with you, Alexander, with an open mind, so long as you were examining the physicality of species. But you must see, can you not, that after all the support you have been publicly given, with access to the zoology collection and libraries, for you to be seen branching off into superstitions and fairy tales, well it is only going to cause confusion and harm those supporters of Mr Darwin’s theories. You do see that, don’t you?’

One by one, my social connections among the eminent scientists of the university fell away, for while it is perfectly acceptable for their wives to know the clergy and invite them to dine, it is not acceptable to know a schoolmaster, except perhaps to nod at him from across the street.

Thus it was that my enquiries into the transmutation of species had lately become a much less grand affair. I found various species of seabirds along the shore, and mice and other small creatures in the heather, and buried the small carcasses in the soil behind my dwelling. After some two or three months, I was able to dig them up, cleaned as they were by small insects, and wash the skeletons in the stream. I thus began to amass a number of items for the children to study and draw. They in turn delighted in bringing me soft-bodied moles, and insects and bones found on the island. Even gruff fathers were known to present me with such prizes as an entire deer backbone, or an antler set scoured to white by the winter weather. I took great solace in the beauty of such structures, and in the collections of bird feathers and butterflies that I stored in trays in my loft. Once a year, I brought them down to the schoolroom and held open house for the crofters, letting them examine the specimens and giving a somewhat simplistic lecture, in which they took a great interest.

Pride of place was always given to the fossils, of which there was an abundant supply from the basalt rocks of Skye. It was a matter of astonishment to the populace that the black toe ends that they picked up on the beach were not, as they termed them, the Devil’s toenails, but rather seashells dating back millions of years, now mineralised by their long encasement in rock.

*   *   *

Following a journey of two days, by steam ferry and then on foot, I arrived at the first establishment to be inspected – a small Knoydart school isolated in a remarkably green glen. A storm had recently blown over, and the day was of some brilliance as I neared the village, the sea to my right a vivid gentian, bright as a rolled-out bolt of satin; the hills above, the glowing rust of autumn heather.

The teacher in charge of the school was recorded as a Miss Gallies. During my travels, I had met many such women, plain but unarguably good spinster women, dedicated to their pupils, or, as in many cases, saddened widows in middle age, only too glad to take on teaching duties in return for accommodation and the means to support their offspring.

Arriving at the schoolhouse a little earlier than expected, I found the lady not at home however. I was invited by the servant girl to come in and wait, as her mistress was due to return directly.

I entered a porch lined with bookshelves and was led through to a neat parlour stocked with many more books. Here was a person, I thought, as enamoured with the solace of reading as I was. A well-tended fire burned in the grate, and a white cloth covered a side table set with scones and sandwiches in preparation for my visit. The room afforded all the comforts of a well-run household, the brass fender before the fire shining and a red rug covering polished floorboards.

On the walls were several watercolours of the islands, including a view from my old island that I knew well. From their slightly rudimentary execution, I deemed them to be by the hand of the schoolmistress. There was, inevitably, a desk with a stack of school exercise books, a blotter and inkwell. I stepped over to the desk and could not help noticing with some interest that she appeared to be gathering a collection of island stories.

As there was still no sign of the lady’s return, I placed myself by the window to enjoy the landscape, and after a brief time, espied a figure walking along the track towards the house, a slim person in green who walked with elastic agility. As she made her rapid approach towards the house, the lady took off her bonnet, and I saw generously furnished red hair, unsuccessfully tamed by a net, the weight of curls already losing its battle with the wind.

How like Moira she is, I thought, turning from the window, feeling once more the sadness that I had grown accustomed to over the years. I heard the front door open, and stood by the armchair that had been earlier indicated to me by the maid. I heard voices in the hallway, and then the woman appeared in the doorway, and I thought my heart would surely stop beating.

It was Moira! Changed, yes; a woman of some thirty years now, her face sculpted by maturity, but unmistakably and irrevocably my same Moira. The name ‘Gallies’ on the inspection register had been incorrect by one letter. Moira Gillies stood before me. And I saw from the look of horror on her face that she knew it was me.

‘I saw the name on the letter sent to me,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t know. I never thought that it truly might be you. I thought you had taken a parish in Edinburgh. But why are you not a minister any more?’

Yes, the same dear Moira, I thought, as she scolded me. And then I watched her face cloud, for she, more than anyone, knew why I had left my calling.

‘Oh,’ was all she said.

For since that terrible day, I had never had occasion to speak to her about what had happened. The last time I saw Moira was the night I rode away from the manse in the farm trap, Katriona sick and covered by blankets, and no one to help care for my suffering burden as we drove down to the bay near Rodel.

My last view of Moira had been her white and tear-marked face, the stained frock she wore and the sweat-braided hair. Maggie Kintail by her side, silent and grim, as I left them to their task and the dark swallowed them up.

I had never asked how they disposed of the earthly remains of that poor infant, and now as Moira walked to the table and turned her back to me to pour the tea, I understood that I would never find the courage to ask.

Moira held out a teacup and I took it from her, the delicate china needing both my hands to prevent it from rattling – my nerves had started to cause a tremor in my hand, oft troublesome of late. She placed a plate furnished with several items beside me, but I had lost my appetite.

She sat down.

‘I think you will find all the registers in order for you to inspect,’ she told me. ‘We begin lessons in the morning at eight thirty.’

‘I will come to the school then.’

And I searched for a way into some conversation with some easier topic than my role as purveyor of judgement. She drank her tea. After a brief silence we talked of my lodgings nearby, quite satisfactory, the weather, the beauty of the situation.

There seemed no more to say. We sat listening to the wind play over the chimney, both watched the glow of the peat fire. No words to speak of poor Katriona, who had passed away some three days after she came to her aunt’s house. No words to recall all the children, her own flesh and blood, who had slipped from this life and slid into the sea as the Finsbay people crossed the Atlantic to Canada.

Finally, I rose and bade her goodbye.

I walked away from that house with an impression of having left behind me something rare and precious, the very essence of my Moira. In a different time, I thought, if circumstances had been otherwise … And I felt the bitter pulling of my lips into their now familiar set. Not a man I would care to spend time with, I thought, as I saw myself climb the hill to my lodgings; the creased boots that had already done many miles, the tweed jacket and plus fours that served well in all weathers and still had wear remaining in the cloth, but which had worn into the resigned and stretched outline of a man in middle age.

On the morrow I made myself ready and walked down to the schoolhouse before lessons were due to begin. I entered the quiet classroom, which was already warmed by the stove next to the chalkboard. She was at the far end of the schoolroom, standing at some shelves, reaching down a book. She wore a grey and simple dress, a red and grey shawl that added to the brightness of her hair.

All through the morning I watched her, the children eager to please and show off their teacher, sitting up straight, raising their hands en masse in the damp warmth of the parish schoolroom when I questioned them on their maths and scripture. At the end of the morning, the children gone out to play, she stood by her desk, waiting for my verdict.

‘Excellent,’ I told her. ‘You run an admirable and happy school.’

‘After the manse was closed up, I walked over to Carmichael’s school. He gave me work there. It was he who put me forward for the certificate. I gained top mark that year. So you see, you taught me well.’

I wanted with all my heart to talk more. But I said, ‘There is truly nothing to improve here.’

‘When will you return?’

‘In three years.’

Her face fell.

‘That is the normal rate of inspection, but where everything is running so smoothly, I will not need to trouble you again for at least four or five years.’

‘I see. Then I have taught them too well.’

‘No, it is all as it should be. Goodbye then, Miss Gillies,’ I said and we shook hands.

I set off down the track towards my rendezvous with the ferry and then a long walk to the next isolated village. But as I walked on I became aware of what was pressing inside my breast: I had thought that it was my home in the island that I missed so painfully, the white house by the shore, but as I walked further and further away from Moira’s cottage I understood that for me, my home was and always would be where my Moira was.

The rain came in off the sea two miles outside the village and I arrived at the next lodging with raw, cold lungs and aching limbs. The bed sheets that night seemed to freeze my skin, and in the morning my throat had swollen to a constricted mass where only the smallest sips of water could pass. By the time of my return to my own dwelling in Kilmaluag, I was barely able to walk into the house. I collapsed upon my bed until old Jesse found me there the next day, and sent for the doctor.

It was a long illness, and the end of it left me low in my solitude. It was at this time that I began my habit of writing letters to Moira. I did not post these letters, or intend to ever post them, but it was a great release to my soul to pour out my every last thought and feeling to her. Each letter I sealed and addressed, and placed in a growing stack upon the desk. Knowing that my missives would never be seen by her eyes, I did not spare my own sad history. It was my confessional, to spell out all my failings in those pages.

I stayed up late, writing, one night, until the fire burned out, allowing the chill to take hold again. I recall that I lay in bed in fever and despair for a long time, and as I lay there alone for such long hours in the dark, I finally gave up all hope, let every last thing fall from my hands and let the dark universe chill me with its senseless winds. I thought, I will let it come now, I will do the thing that I have feared to do for so long, I will say to myself that there is no God in this world, no divine love that will hold us in the dark. For if there is a God, nothing I can do can reach him.

I waited. Only the darkness answered me.

I think I woke at three, perhaps four, into a cold blackness, listening to the wind rising bleakly over the Quiraing mountains. I opened my eyes on a void without a heart.

It came then, without warning. It came without reason, the room suffused with such comfort and companionship.

You are not alone.

*   *   *

It was some days before I came out of my fevers, but even when my mind returned to clarity, that sudden, intense moment of tryst stayed in my soul. A seed of metal remained, taken from the fire after all had burned away, small to the eye, but solid and dense and true, for a sweetness had kept vigil by me, would not leave me.

And what also became clear to me, as I got up and started to wash, was that the room had been cared for and tidied while I lay sick – the work of dear old Jesse. I sat in the chair by the fire, experiencing a strange sensation of peacefulness, of the limbs relaxing after a long time running.

And then I saw that all the letters were gone from my desk.

‘Oh, don’t you worry,’ Jesse told me when I asked her. ‘I put those in the post for you, sir, and there’s no hurry to pay me for the stamps.’

My dismay at this information may well be imagined. I burned with shame for several long minutes as I recalled all I had written in those pages, a confessional never meant for any human eyes.

In the last of my letters I had asked Moira if she would ever consent to be my wife. I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move or speak, knowing that this letter would now be in Moira’s hands.

I had a reckless moment of hope then, a moment of madness, hoping that she would respond favourably to my letter, but it came as no surprise to me when Moira did not reply.

CHAPTER 40

Alexander

I did not regain full health for some time. Moving from the bed to the chair next to the fire exhausted me. I was only thankful that Moira had had the kindness to ignore my letters. I shuddered with embarrassment to think how she must have felt as she read through my uncensored outpourings and confessions, and how she must have viewed my entreaties that she agree to be my wife. My only consolation was that she was spared from seeing a man so finished in body and mind.