Two young lovers find themselves trapped by circumstance on a remote Scottish island. Valentine Thorndyke, a handsome but reckless young man burdened with debts of twenty thousand pounds, is deeply in love with Fay, a beautiful and delicate girl who has been pressured by her financially desperate mother into an engagement with Euan Mackreth, the wealthy and considerably older laird of Glen Orchol Castle. Val and Fay meet secretly on the rocky shores of Loch Rhuy, painfully aware that their passion is without practical future, their circumstances offering no escape from the social and financial bonds that constrain them. During their clandestine meeting at the water's edge, Val urges Fay to elope with him to his friend Archie's yacht, anchored nearby. Fay, torn between desire and conscience, cannot bring herself to give a clear answer. Wracked with guilt over a lie she recently told Euan when he questioned her about her meetings with Val, and unable to simply say yes or no to elopement, she proposes instead a romantic and reckless alternative. Inspired by a story she once heard of a French couple who surrendered their fate to their horses' wanderings, she suggests they push their small rowing boat from shore, discard the oars, and let the tide carry them wherever it will, pledging to accept without resistance whatever dawn brings, whether rescue, elopement, or death. Val agrees enthusiastically, secretly confident that the currents will carry them toward Mull and the waiting yacht, where a signal would quickly bring rescue and freedom. Both swear a solemn oath under the dark sky. The oars are thrown overboard and the boat is released onto the ebbing tide. As they drift out of Loch Rhuy, the atmosphere grows ominous. A curlew cries three times after sunset, a local omen of imminent death. The night grows oppressively hot and dark, and the signs of an approaching storm multiply. Their hopes of sighting the yacht or a passing steamer gradually fade as currents carry them unpredictably from loch to loch in the darkness. Hours pass in mounting tension and near silence. Fay grows troubled, haunted by regrets, by memories of Euan's trusting face, and by a sense of moral entanglement she cannot shake. As dawn approaches and the storm bears down upon them, she blindfolds herself with her handkerchief, unable to face what is coming. At last the light breaks, and the dawn reveals that they have spent the entire night drifting in a great circle, carried out of the loch on one side of the island only to be brought back in on the other. They land on the familiar shores directly beneath Glen Orchol Castle itself. As Val drags the boat ashore and lifts Fay onto the beach, a breathless fisher boy runs toward them with urgent news. Euan Mackreth, while walking the clifftop path the previous evening to survey a site where he intended to build a pavilion for his future wife, had slipped and fallen heavily onto a rock ledge some twenty feet below, sustaining injuries believed to be fatal. His aged steward Angus held him through the night until help arrived. Fay's absence had also been discovered, and a search party had been organized, eventually finding both Euan and learning simultaneously of Fay's return by boat with Val. Fay makes her way along the shore to where Euan lies dying, his face ashen, surrounded by silent gillies and his imperious sister Lady Clancy, who attempts to bar Fay's approach. But Euan opens his eyes, and his gaze draws Fay to kneel at his side. With his last failing breath he whispers to her that had she only waited, it would not have been for long, suggesting he had known he had little time left to live. He dies moments later. Kneeling beside the dead man, Fay understands with finality that the path with Val is closed. When Val urges her to leave, believing fate has reversed its decree in their favor now that Euan is dead, Fay gently contradicts him. She tells him that Euan's heartbroken dying gaze will forever stand between them, that whenever she looked at Val she would see not his eyes but Euan's, and whenever she touched Val's hand she would feel not warmth but the cold of death. She takes Euan's hand reverently in her own. Val, having no answer, turns and walks away.
By Catherine Louisa Pirkis · First published 1873 · Genre: Victorian Fiction, Domestic Fiction, Social Commentary