The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [78]
“What an amazing view,” I said.
“Can we see the rest of Scotland?” Nell asked.
“No,” said Mr. Sinclair. “We’re facing the wrong way, and it’s too far.”
“What about Glasgow?” she persisted. “Can we see Glasgow?”
“No,” he said more gently, realising what she was asking, “Glasgow is part of Scotland. Even if the church tower were twice as high we couldn’t see it.” He was explaining that the cathedral had once been on the shore—much of Kirkwall was built on reclaimed land—when, almost beneath our feet, the bell began to strike. We stood there, counting, until it reached twelve.
Only on the way home, when Nell was safely asleep in the back of the car, did I have the chance to ask again if he wanted me to teach her scripture.
“Not unless you want to. What I want is for her to know the difference between right and wrong, not to be trapped, like her mother, in a single passion.”
“Surely,” I said shyly, “she must have had more than one, else Nell wouldn’t be here.”
He glanced over at me. “Clever but wrong. Sometimes Alison didn’t care what she did, or was too drunk to mind who touched her.”
“I thought people with money”—we were passing the only grove of trees I had seen on the island—“could solve these problems.”
Mr. Sinclair laughed. “You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. They can. But that would have meant Alison admitting that she was pregnant, and even at six months, she wouldn’t. She was as stubborn as the wind. That helped her to walk again, but that didn’t stop a baby coming.”
“So no one wanted Nell.” I turned to look at her where she leaned against the door, eyes closed, lips parted.
“Want, don’t want, who cares. ‘The world is everything that is the case.’ ”
“Who said that? You spoke as if you were quoting.”
“A philosopher named Ludwig Wittgenstein. He was an Austrian Catholic who gave away all his money, fought against Britain during the First World War, and ended up with a chair at Cambridge University.”
“ ‘If a lion could talk,’ ” I said happily, “ ‘we could not understand him.’ But you’re wrong. Children don’t understand lots of things, but they know when they’re not wanted. You wait to grow up, like a prisoner in a deep, dark dungeon.”
“You obviously had an idyllic childhood.” He patted my knee, once, firmly. “Just keep teaching Nell the way you are. Make her read and write and don’t let her be too different from other people. One eccentric in the family is quite enough.”
I knew he meant himself and I wondered, yet again, why he had never married. I had asked Vicky, and she had said she didn’t know. He knew many people, he earned a pretty penny, he had a bonny tongue. Not long after Alison’s accident, there had been rumours of an engagement but no fiancée had followed. We slowed down to turn onto the road to the house, and I asked if a Gypsy woman had brought him a fish.
“So you’ve been spying on me,” he said lightly. “Yes, she did—two delicious sea trout. Unfortunately they were a bribe, not a gift.”
“I don’t need to spy on you,” I said. “The whole island does that.”
As I went to open the gate I thought that he and I were opposites in almost every respect: wealth, family, upbringing, position in society. He had been Hugh Sinclair all his life and had a hundred people to say so. Whereas I had scarcely a dozen who knew I was Gemma Hardy and no one who knew I had once been someone other than Gemma Hardy.
chapter nineteen
The next morning Vicky announced that five guests would be arriving that afternoon: three by plane from London and two by ferry from Edinburgh. She bustled around, airing the rooms and making beef Wellington. Nora picked a posy for each dressing-table. Angus cut the lawn ready for croquet and badminton. The prospect of company put Nell in a flutter. “Will we have dinner with them, Gemma?” she asked. “Should