Barbara Erskine - The Ghost Tree

Tom looked down at his feet. He managed to master his conflicting emotions; relief that he was not to be beaten; horror at the thought of a tutor of his own and delight that he would once more be in the country. He loved the old tower house of Kirkhill, with the Brox Burn, the broad wild valley of Strathbrock and its distant views of the Pentland Hills, the River Almond less than an hour’s walk away. There he would be able to study all the things which fascinated him most, botany and birds and animals, and when the rain streamed down the windows he could read his way through the mildewed books which remained abandoned in the library.

The summer went much as Tom had planned. He enjoyed enormously his lessons in the improvised schoolroom above the stables. Mr Buchanan, though strict, was a brilliant teacher; he was inclined to allow the boy his head between lessons, identifying, as Tom’s father had done, a streak of brilliance there that he believed would be best channelled by allowing the boy free rein as far as possible.

When the end of Tom’s exile came it was unexpected and deliriously exciting. His brother Harry rode out from Edinburgh with the news.

‘We are giving up the flat in Edinburgh. It’s too expensive,’ Harry said candidly as he sat with Tom over a plate of scones, spread with butter from the mains. He had brought a letter for Mr Buchanan, who sat near them reading it, his expression thoughtful. ‘Papa has taken a house in St Andrews and you are to attend the high school there. Mama is pleased with the development,’ he hesitated for only a fraction of a second, a hesitation into which Tom read a multiplicity of meanings, ‘and we are to go at once.’ On the far side of the table Mr Buchanan looked from one boy to the other with quiet satisfaction. Neither noticed. ‘Anne is not coming with us,’ Harry added wistfully.

Tom looked up. He had stuffed another scone into his mouth and was chewing with much enjoyment. ‘What is she going to do? Has Mama found her a husband?’ he asked when at last he could speak.

‘She’s going to Bath.’

‘Bath?’ Tom stared at his brother in astonishment. ‘In England?’

‘She has been writing to Lady Huntingdon about the church and God and stuff, and she is going to go and help with all that.’ Harry waved his hand in the air expansively. ‘Mama thinks she will be happier there. I heard her tell Papa that Anne is not made to marry.’ He frowned, catching sight of Mr Buchanan’s expression as he glanced up from his letter. ‘We’ll see her often,’ he hurried on. ‘Papa says perhaps we’ll go and visit her.’ Both boys were fond of their eldest sister. She was kind and amusing and had mothered them in ways for which their real mother had little inclination.

Once the plan was voiced it all happened very quickly. Mr Buchanan left for a position at Glasgow University. Friends and servants were left behind with fond farewells and promises of an eventual return. The family’s furniture and clothes and belongings were loaded onto a ship at Leith and sent off to Fife ahead of them, and before the autumn gales had set in they were ensconced in their new home.

Tom was delighted that at last he would be going to school, little realising that one of the reasons for his parents’ move from Edinburgh was, at the strong recommendation of his tutor, to save enough money to pay his fees. He enjoyed St Andrews. He began to study at the university, taking classes in mathematics and natural philosophy and attending Richard Dick’s school of Latin with Harry. He learned to dance, he watched the soldiers on parade and the ships in the harbour, and he explored the countryside and the coastline at every opportunity, striding out with his thumb stick and a bag of food over his shoulder in all weathers. He loved the sea; the waves crashing onto the rocky shore throwing spume high into the air, the roar of the water echoing in the ruins of the castle and the gaunt skeleton of the ancient cathedral that rose so starkly above the cliffs. He shivered as he stood looking out across incalculable distances, setting his shoulders against the long-dead voices that called out from the ancient stones around him.

In the cliff below the spot where he was standing his mother had laid claim to the cave where, so the story went, St Rule had landed on the shores of the ancient kingdom of Fife, bringing with him the precious relics of St Andrew, relics long ago lost to the furies of John Knox and his reformers. The cave was a dark, mysterious place but his mother had had it transformed with seashells, and chairs and tables, and, after she had had steps cut into the cliff to make it easier to reach, she held tea parties there. He disapproved. In some secret place within his soul he thought of the cave as sacred, and besides he knew the locals thought his mother mad. Not that she worried about such things; she had no time for St Andrew, nor for the opinion of her neighbours.

It was here he met the boy. Sheltering in the cave when his mother was busy elsewhere and the icy winds had driven everyone off the streets, Tom caught sight of a lad about his own age, standing by the entrance, looking out to sea. ‘Hey!’ Tom called. He ran to catch him up, but the boy was ahead of him, jumping down the cliff path towards the rocks below the castle. The boy stopped as he reached the sand, glancing back over his shoulder, waiting for Tom, then he ran on, his hair wet with the rain, his jacket flying open in the wind.

He never found out the boy’s name but they played together often, exploring the ruins of the castle and the cathedral, the boy leading him down hidden steps to the sea gate, running along the great curtain wall, balancing high above the sea, climbing off the stones and leaping down the stairs by the postern gate. They spent hours together scrambling on the ruins, on the cliffs, chasing along the sands at low tide, until the reluctant scholar was recalled to his books by his tutors.

It was the day that Harry came to find him and bring him home that he last saw his friend.

‘Mama has sent me to fetch you,’ Harry called. ‘We have visitors from the south with messages from Anne.’

Tom had been throwing stones into the sea, laughing, competing with the other boy as to who could throw them furthest, skimming them above waves that for once were calm.

‘I’ll have to go!’ he called, turning.

The boy had gone. He left no footprints in the sand.

‘Who were you talking to?’ Harry enquired as they jogged down South Street towards their house.

‘No one.’ Tom managed to look nonchalant as he stopped to empty some stones from his shoe. ‘I was shouting at the gulls.’

He knew Harry didn’t believe him, but he didn’t care.

He was happy and excited; not for one moment did he realise that he was about to be given the first great shock and disappointment of his young life.

‘I can no longer afford your fees!’ Lord Buchan was striding up and down the room, his daughter’s letter in his hand. Tom was standing before him white-faced. ‘I am sorry, Tom. If there was another way I would take it, I promise you.’

‘But the university! You promised! I am already going to lectures—’

‘No. It’s not possible and we can’t stay here after all. I am sorry. The fees for your brothers have taken every penny we have.’ The earl’s face was grey with worry and fatigue. ‘You must understand, Tom, that as the youngest your needs have to come last. David will inherit the title when my time comes; and Harry will go into the law. We have to find another way forward for you, and Anne has suggested we join her in Bath. She has a house there, thanks to her friend Lady Huntingdon, and she feels your mother and I could be of use to her in spreading the message about Methodism.’ He glanced at his son’s face; the devastation he saw there was a physical blow. ‘I am sorry, Tom. I know how much store you set by continuing your studies and going on to a profession.’