Holy Terror in the Hebrides (2 page)

“End of the road, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced in a strong Scottish accent. “If ye’re goin’ to Iona juist for the day, the last bus for Craignure leaves at two forty-five; ye’ll want to catch the two-thirty ferry. And I want ye to know, yon deer were laid on specially for your entertainment. No extra charge!”

Amid the laughter I heard several American voices asking, “What did he say?” A good many of my countrymen were apparently traveling to Iona today. Maybe, I thought hopefully, the disagreeable pair were on a day trip, and I wouldn’t run into them again. As we all got off the bus I gave them a casual glance. They looked all right, a wiry little woman with a tanned, weatherbeaten face, dressed in a rumpled khaki jacket and pants, and a large, amiable-looking black woman, her comfortable folds encased in a bright pink sweat suit. All the same. . . .

I straightened my hat, collected my luggage, and walked the few steps to the boat that was waiting for us at the jetty.

It was the tiniest excuse for a ferry I’d ever seen. There was room for two cars, maybe three if they were all subcompacts. No wonder tourists couldn’t take cars over! Only one vehicle was making the crossing this time, and after it was situated, the foot passengers boarded by the same ramp, getting our feet a little wet as a wave curled up under the boat and licked the jetty. Most of the car deck was open to the sky, but there was a steep ladder leading to the rudimentary upper deck that circled the boat, so I abandoned my bags and climbed.

This was a true British Tourist Authority kind of day. The sun glinted off the waves, the ultra-blue sky held only a few decorative clouds, artfully positioned, and the chill, salty air was a tonic. I could feel my town-tainted lungs growing cleaner with every breath. Gulls screamed overhead, a stirring sound for those of us who must spend most of our lives far inland. I sighed happily and surveyed the horizon.

There, dead ahead as the boat left its harbor and veered out into Iona Sound, was the fabled Isle of Iona, spread out before me, drawing nearer every moment.

I’d done some reading about Iona. Its important history goes back to the year 563, when a monk named Columba established a monastery there from which Christianity spread to all Scotland. The island is tiny, about four miles long by a mile or so wide, and from where I stood in the bow of the ferry it looked even smaller than I’d imagined; I could see both ends of it. The Abbey was unmistakable, the only substantial building in sight. In fact, aside from a little clutter running along the middle of the near shore, presumably houses and shops, there were no other buildings visible at all. I could unfocus my eyes a little and imagine the island as it must have looked when St. Columba, not yet a saint, just a monkish exile from Ireland, approached it with his fellow monks in their frail little boat. Except, of course, coming from the south, it would be another viewpoint he got—

“Just like the Irish to send a saint off to a bleak place like this, isn’t it?”

The accents were American, and belligerent. I turned, a little startled. A young woman in blue jeans and T-shirt had come up behind me and was surveying Iona with a critical look. In her twenties, I guessed, tall, slender, and very attractive, or she could have been if she’d made any sort of effort. All the effort seemed to be in the other direction, however. Her curly, dark hair was cut short, no makeup sullied her pale cheeks or lovely, dark eyes, and her clothes were much too large for her. She disdained any kind of sweater or jacket, despite the brisk wind. Her backpack was businesslike and well-worn.

“I’m afraid I don’t know a lot about the Irish, actually. Are you—?”

“Italian-American. Teresa Colapietro.” She held out a hard, cold hand and gripped mine firmly.

“Dorothy Martin. You seem to know something of Iona’s history. I’m afraid I’d never heard of it until a week or so ago, so I’ve only read a little.”

“If you can believe what you read. Most religious history is a load of crap. Miracles, cures, who-knows-what, all performed by a lot of dead white males, and written down by a lot more of them.”

A pugnacious attitude always makes me take the opposite point of view. “But surely there are many famous women in the history of the Church. I mean, take Teresa of Avila, for example—”

Her namesake shrugged off Teresa of Avila. “Hysterical. If reported correctly, which isn’t likely. The original pack of male chauvinists, that’s the Church. Now when God gets Her way, and women get to be priests and cardinals and popes, it’ll be a different story. I’m a nun, by the way, Congregation of St. Hortense, but don’t bother to call me ‘sister’; I don’t believe in titles for the religious.”

Well! I’d known that some of the new nuns were pretty political, but I was taken aback, all the same. Fortunately, I didn’t have to come up with a reply. A series of loud clunks from below meant the big car hatch was opening; we were there.

“See you later.” Teresa-not-of-Avila waved and sprinted down the ladder. I followed at a creakier pace. By the time I’d remembered where I’d put my luggage, and found my ticket to show as I disembarked, I was the last one off the boat.

I don’t know exactly what I’d expected, but the scene on the jetty wasn’t it. Of course there weren’t any taxis lined up to meet the boat; this wasn’t a city. My reading had told me that there were only about ninety inhabitants of the island, most of them crofters—part-time farmers. But how was I to get my luggage to the cottage?

The only transportation I could see was a couple of horse-drawn wagons lined up behind a sign advertising tours of the island. They looked appealing; the horses were well-groomed animals, the wagons clean and freshly painted. I approached the first one, driven by an attractive young woman.

“I’m staying in a cottage some friends rented for a couple of weeks. They said it’s at the end of the road, and I’m not sure I can carry my bags that far. Dove Cottage, it is. Could you take me there?”

“Surely,” she said, her voice soft and lilting. “Climb up; I’ll see to the bags.” She dealt easily with the suitcases, climbed onto the driver’s perch, and clucked to her horse, who woke from his gentle snooze, obediently wheeled the wagon around, and headed up the village street. “Why ‘Dove Cottage,’ by the way? Does it have a dovecote or something?”

My driver chuckled. “Ye’ll find a good many things on Iona have to do with doves. ‘Iona’ means ‘dove,’ ye see, in Hebrew. And ‘Columba’ is ‘dove’ in Latin.”

“What a coincidence, then, that Columba happened to come here. Or does the name of the island date from after he came?”

She shrugged. “That’s the sort of thing ye might ask the people at the Heritage Centre. They know the history of this island back millions o’ years to when it thrust oot o’ the sea. I’ll show ye the centre, if ye like.”

“I’d like that very much, but later, perhaps. I’m tired, and I want to get settled.”

We rode past small houses on our left, while on our right gardens stretched down to the sea in a riot of color. There were all kinds: well-disciplined gardens with roses and neatly clipped lawns, gardens left to their own sweet will with wildflowers, heather, and several different kinds of thistle, one untended garden that was little more than a weed patch, but all of them bright with blossoms. And, sure enough, hedges of fuchsia towered everywhere, so thick with purple-and-magenta blossoms that I could hardly see the leaves, and so sweetly scented that a sort of living veil of bees surrounded them. I decided to admire them from a discreet distance.

Just before the narrow street became someone’s drive, my driver pulled her horse to a stop. “Here we are, then. Dove Cottage. If ye have your key, I’ll help ye with the bags.”

I stayed where I was, on the high backseat of the wagon, in a sudden horrified paralysis.

My key. The key Lynn had driven down from London especially to give me. Where was it?

I rummaged frantically in my purse, but I already knew. I could see the key, exactly where I had put it so as not to forget it, on the little hall table right next to the door.

I looked at my driver, who stood waiting, a quizzical expression on her face. “I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid, but I think I left the key at home. Do you know where the owners live? They might have another one they’d be willing to let me use . . .”

I trailed off as she shook her head. “This is just a holiday cottage. The Fergusons live in Inverness, I think. The postie would know.”

It didn’t matter, really, whether the postmaster had the Fergusons’ address. If they weren’t here on Iona, there was no practical way to get a key until tomorrow at the very earliest. Unless—“They wouldn’t have given one to a neighbor, I suppose? In case of emergency? Or left one with the police?”

She tried to hide her amusement. “There are no police on Iona; we’ve no need of them. The nearest constable is on Mull, in Bunessen. And I doot they’d give a key to their property to anyone here on Iona; they’ve a poor opinion of islanders, have the Fergusons, and they’re none so trusting. Ye can ask.”

But her tone of voice told me the answer.

“No, you’re probably right. I suppose I’ll just have to find a hotel, or a B and B, if you have the time to take me around.”

“Oh, I’ve the time, but I doot, this late in the season—the Argyll is full, I know. We passed it juist a few houses back, but they’ve a New Age group in for the week. Americans. And the St. Columba, up the hill, closed airly this year to be redone. Ye might try the Iona; it’s new, and not so many people know about it.”

“The Iona, then, by all means.” The horse patiently turned the wagon in the narrow road, and we clopped back the way we had come, turning right when we neared the jetty to head up the hill toward the Abbey.

“That’s the Nunnery we’re passin’. I might as well give ye a bit of a tour while we’re aboot it. It was built airly in the thirteenth century and flourished until the sixteenth, when all the nuns
and
monks were turned oot by the reformers. And round here, on your left, is the Heritage Centre. They’ve some fine wee bits and pieces to see, and if ye get hungry, walkin’ aboot, they do lunch. Homemade soup and sandwiches, and home-baked sweets.”

I was starved. I resolved to check out the Heritage Centre the moment I’d found a room for the night.

“That’s the parish kirk next to the centre. Church of Scotland, ye know, Presbyterian, you Americans call it. Yon garden belongs to the St. Columba Hotel; they grow nearly all their own vegetables.
And
they run the wee shop across the road, there, books and woolens.”

It sounded an odd combination, but appealing; I made another mental note.

“And here we are. Shall I wait for ye, in case they can’t put ye up?”

“Oh, yes, please.” I clambered down from my high perch, feeling stiff and stupid and every minute of my age.

The hotel was in what obviously had been a house, and a very large house for Iona. I knew that Iona used to be part of the Duke of Argyll’s vast property, and assumed that the house had belonged to him or whoever he put in charge of the island. This would be, then, a miniature version of the “country house” hotels popular in England. I pushed open the great front door, petted the friendly gray tiger cat who lay on the counter, and rang the bell.

I was in luck. The pleasant woman who answered the bell had a charming face and a melodious, rather English-sounding voice; went to an English school, was my guess. She introduced herself as Hester Campbell and assured me that, yes, they could accommodate me, they had several rooms free, not large, but with en suite facilities (which, in Britspeak, meant a bathroom), if that would suit?

At that point a roomy closet would have been fine, so long as it had a bed. A private bath was an unexpected luxury. I gratefully signed the register and asked for my key.

“Key? Oh. Well—certainly there must be one somewhere—if you’d like me to look . . .” Mrs. Campbell had clearly never run into this particular eccentricity on the part of tourists, but was prepared to put herself out if I insisted. I smiled, accepted the idea that Iona was a place where police weren’t needed and hotel rooms didn’t have to be kept locked and, at my hostess’s insistence, stepped into the lounge for a moment while she went out to deal with my bags.

There were seven people in the lounge, sitting in little silent clumps, and I recognized three of them. Teresa-not-of-Avila sat next to a very attractive young man with fair hair, dressed in a pale blue sweater and wearing one small gold earring. He shifted his feet uneasily and avoided looking at the nun. In a corner sat the two women from the bus, petulant expressions on both their faces. So they were staying on the island, were they? Well, perhaps I could avoid them.

A burly, bearded, sixtyish man in a sports jacket sat by himself, turning the pages of a magazine, and a very thin, pale young man with big, awkward hands and bad skin sat in front of the fireplace next to a strikingly lovely silver-haired woman in her fifties, both of them staring into space. As they became aware of me, every face turned in my direction, and every one of them wore the same expression.

Surely it was my imagination that all these strangers looked at me with naked hostility.

A
LAN NESBITT TELLS
me I havesound instincts, and should pay more attention to them. I will regret for the rest of my life that I did not heed my instinct then, and leave Iona by the next ferry.

In any event, I told myself I was imagining things, turned away from the unwelcoming faces, and dismissed the matter. I went out to pay my obliging driver and book a full tour of the island for the next morning, took possession of my room, and unpacked (with the aid of the cat, who was introduced as Stan and who found it necessary to sniff every article of my luggage). A quick glance in the mirror told me I looked neat, at least, which at sixty-something is often all that can be expected, so I pulled my hat to a little more rakish angle, smiled at myself, and hied off to the Heritage Centre before they stopped serving lunch.

The lunchroom was a tiny room at one side of the museum; if the building had originally been the manse for the parish kirk next door, as seemed likely, this might have been a spare bedroom. The ambience was amateurish, with a distinct aura of church basement, but the thick soup was warming and delicious, the sandwiches were made of crusty homemade bread, and the woman serving me, the last customer of the day, was friendly. A short, plump, cheerful woman wrapped in a businesslike apron, she bustled about clearing tables and putting things away in the minute kitchen, chatting all the while. Finally finished with her chores, she poured herself the last cup of coffee and sat down to share the last two brownies with me.