Angel Harp: A Novel

by Michael Phillips

  “I wanted to talk to you,” I said, “about Gwendolyn.”

  She looked at me without expression.

  “You might want to think about buying a harp for her,” I went on, “so she can continue after I am gone. I could help you locate one that would be right for her if you like. I know they are expensive, but I think it would really help her.”

  “Help her?” said Gwendolyn’s aunt. “What do you mean?”

  “With… you know, in coping with her condition,” I answered. “It seems that it would help take her mind off her sickness.”

  “What do you know of her sickness?” she said a little irritably.

  “Nothing, really. Mr. Barclay just told me that she isn’t well.”

  “Iain Barclay ought to keep his interfering nose out of other people’s affairs. He had no right.”

  “He meant no harm,” I said. “I asked him about Gwendolyn. He would have said nothing otherwise.”

  “He still had no right.”

  More and more I was picking up hints of some secret hovering over the community. There was more involved than mere rumors about Gwendolyn’s second sight. Whatever it was had to do with Gwendolyn and Iain Barclay!

  I didn’t see Iain all day Saturday. Sunday morning came. I couldn’t get my mind off him. I pictured him in his house getting ready for church.

  I wondered what a minister thought about on a Sunday morning. Did he think of it as a workday? Or did his anticipation build with excitement to be in church and to see all the parishioners again?

  Would he be nervous about his sermon, or eager to mount the pulpit to speak? I had never wondered about such things in my life. But then I had never known a minister quite so well before either.

  In the midst of my reflections, the shocking realization occurred to me that I was thinking about a man like a high school girl. What had come over me? And a minister! I had to get over this!

  The whole thing was really strange. I had considered myself a nonbeliever for the last few years. I’d never gone quite so far as to admit to being an atheist. Though practically speaking maybe that’s what I really was. In either case, here I was obsessing about a minister for whom talking about God was as natural as talking about the weather.

  How weird was that!

  The morning advanced. A few fleeting thoughts plagued me about going to church after all. But somehow I just couldn’t do it. Having my harp to play before had been the ideal excuse, a perfect crutch. I had walked into the church without having to wonder about everything the church stood for, without having to think about what it all meant. I was there to play. That was enough.

  But if I went today, I would have no crutch, nothing to fall back on, nothing to help keep my distance from that meaning. I would have to walk in and sit down in a pew and wonder what people were thinking, and wonder what I was thinking!

  I wasn’t ready to face all that. Not yet. And besides, I would be going for the wrong reason—just to see the minister. The meaning of the church, and the implications of my preoccupation with the man in the pulpit… those were things I couldn’t face just yet.

  Then why hadn’t I just said that I would play again?

  I wasn’t sure. Something about it wasn’t right. Once—that was okay. I had done that as a favor to Iain. But to keep doing it—when I knew, even if the people listening didn’t, that I didn’t believe in what it was all about, didn’t believe in the words of the very hymns, I couldn’t do it. It would have been hypocritical.

  Having tea and talking to Iain Barclay was one thing. He was pleasant. No pressure. No expectations. I enjoyed him. Why not admit it? I liked him.

  But sitting in the church without an excuse, naked, exposed, vulnerable—that meant having to deal with God, with whether he existed, or whether the church and all it stood for, including a nice man like Iain Barclay, was just a sham.

  With God—if he was real—there was no place to hide. There were no excuses, no crutches.

  It was just you and him.

  No, I wasn’t prepared for that. I didn’t want to pretend I was something I wasn’t.

  About ten-fifteen I heard the church bells ringing in the distance. The sound made me feel lonely in my new little Scottish cottage. I felt like I ought to be there. But I didn’t want to be there. That’s where people were—life, singing, happiness… and Iain Barclay’s cheerful smile and exuberant enthusiasm for everything the church stood for.

  And here I was alone.

  I went over to my harp where I had set it up in a corner and tried to play. But something was missing. I couldn’t stop thinking about the church service and the fact that I wasn’t there. I pictured Iain standing in the pulpit. I wondered what he was talking about. Were people paying attention or sleeping?

  I hate to admit it, but I wondered if he had thought of me at all during the morning the way I was thinking about him.

  The hour dragged slowly by, more slowly than if I were actually sitting in a boring church service, though I doubted if any of Iain’s were boring. It was a relief when eleven-thirty came and I knew the service was over. Yet I still felt out of sorts.

  I tried to read, I tried to play my harp, I fixed myself a light lunch, I tried to take a nap, I went for a walk. But nothing worked. Something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t escape the feeling of being drawn by the church even though the service was over and I hadn’t gone.

  About three that afternoon I took my harp out to my rental car and drove out of town. I knew where I had to go. I had to make right what had been wrong all day.

  I drove toward the small Deskmill church, relieved that there were no cars about. There wasn’t a sign of life anywhere.

  I parked and got out, quietly taking in the scene. I felt calm inside, at peace for the first time that day. In the same way as on the first day I had come to Port Scarnose when I had known I would play my harp above the sea, I knew that I had to play again at this church.

  I had to play today.

  I made my way around the church through the broken and dilapidated grave markers, collecting my thoughts. Something here made me feel peaceful and calm. I returned to the car, got Journey, and walked again toward the church. I tried the front door. It was locked and I was disappointed. I went around to the side door, but it was locked, too.

  I looked around and found a sturdy-looking horizontal slab of stone. Surely it would hold me. I took out my harp, screwed on the legs, set it on the ground, and slowly began to play.

  The first notes that came out were from the opening line of the old hymn “This Is My Father’s World.” I hadn’t planned it. My fingers just played.

  I loved that hymn. It had always spoken to me so deeply about the wonders of creation.

  As I played, a completely new thought crashed into my brain like a wave breaking on the jagged rocks of the coast at high tide.

  Who was I playing for right now?

  Was all this just for me? If so, then why the old churchyard? Why had I come here? And why an old hymn about God?

  Was I as alone as it seemed? Was there really no one else to hear me?

  Or might I be playing for someone Else?

  If I was playing for Him—if he was up there somewhere and by some chance could hear me, that was a thought altogether too big to take in.

  A few goose bumps crept up my spine. Maybe I believed in God more than I thought.

  I tried to shake such questions from my mind and just enjoy the music.

  I suppose it should not have surprised me that what came out of my harp continued mostly to be hymns. I was surprised how many I knew from memory. The sound didn’t carry the same as inside the building, yet there was something eerily wonderful about sitting on a gravestone playing all by myself in the middle of an ancient church cemetery. I was surrounded by dead bodies lying under the ground all around me. I remembered a Bible verse, something about a cloud of witnesses. I found myself wondering peculiar things like whether the souls of any of these people whose bones were
here might be hovering about listening to me. It was a little spooky.

  Maybe I was playing for a congregation after all, a congregation of dead people. If there were harps in heaven… if there was such a place as heaven… I wondered what my feeble little earthly harp sounded like to the spirits who might have come down and listened to me.

  After a while my fingers stilled. It was deathly quiet. It was almost as if the birds in the trees had all left, or had stopped singing so they could listen, too.

  I sat for a minute or two just drinking in the silence.

  Suddenly I heard a crack, like the breaking of a twig. It had come from across the churchyard. I glanced toward the sound but saw nothing. My first thought was of a large bird—hundreds of crows lived in the surrounding trees—or perhaps a deer in the woods.

  Then I heard footsteps. Still I saw no one. The sound must be coming from the other side of the stone wall bordering the church property. Whoever it was walked quickly away and the footsteps faded. Several seconds later came a few steps crossing gravel, very faint in the distance, and the dull thud of a door closing.

  Then silence returned.

  I got up, left my harp by the stone, and crossed the churchyard to the wall. It was six and a half or seven feet tall, too high for me to see over even if I jumped. I climbed up on one or two of the horizontal grave markers like the one I had been sitting on. All I could see were the few parts of a roof—turrets and towers and such—on the other side that I had seen before.

  By now my curiosity was up. If someone had been listening to me from over the wall, I wanted to know what kind of place it was!

  I walked along, inspecting the wall to see if there were any breaks where I could get a glimpse through to the other side. There weren’t.

  At last I came to a section of the wall where the overcoating of mortar and plaster had aged so much that it was falling away, revealing the rough stones beneath. I stretched my hands to the top of the wall, which I could easily reach, then put one foot on one of the stones and tried to pull myself up. I managed to keep my foot on it and slowly climbed up the rough stones of the wall, hanging on to the top with my hands and elbows. After a good amount of work, and a few scrapes on my forearms, I succeeded in getting my head up to the top of the wall, just high enough to peer over.

  The sight that met my gaze took my breath away.

  Stretching out in all directions was the most beautiful park and grounds imaginable. Nicely trimmed lawns and gardens and hedges and ponds went on, it seemed, for acres. Widely spaced majestic oaks and beeches spread out great huge branches like a giant canopy over portions of it. In the middle of it all rose the most spectacular stone castle, looking like something out of a fairy tale. Its roof comprised steep angles and towers and turrets and parapets running all the way around. It was a U-shaped building like many of the castles I had seen, taller than it was wide, of light sandstone blockwork, austere yet somehow inviting. It was not a fortress, but a Disneyland castle.

  Quickly my arms became tired holding on to the top of the wall. I jumped back to the ground and returned to my harp with much to think about. My playing at the church was done for the day.

  It didn’t cross my mind until I was getting ready for bed that night that this was supposed to be the day I spent on an airplane between London and Toronto.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Invitation

  Has your dearest friend beguiled you? Wife or sweetheart looked askance?

  Has the gossip’s tongue reviled you?

  Drown the thought with song and dance.

  —“Hark! How Skinner’s Fiddle Rings”

  Two days later, the Tuesday when I should have been back in Canada recovering from jet lag, I was in for the biggest surprise yet of my trip.

  I take that back, my second biggest surprise, following closely on the heels of Iain Barclay’s red head popping up near where I sat on the bench overlooking the sea.

  At eleven in the morning a car drove up and stopped in front of my little cottage—an expensive car. Sleek and black, it looked like someone’s personal limousine. I had the curtains drawn and was playing my harp in the window, where I could just catch a glimpse of the sea through the houses on the other side of the street. I kept playing until the car drove up and caught my eye.

  I had seen that car before!

  A man stepped out, dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform, complete with black-billed cap. He walked to my door and pressed the bell.

  I got up to answer it, very curious and a little spooked by seeing the car again.

  “Good day, ma’am,” the man said in perfect polished Queen’s English, like nothing I had heard in Scotland. “You are, I believe, Miss Buchan.”

  “Yes,” I said slowly.

  “If you will forgive the liberty,” he said, “I called for you at the bed-and-breakfast, where Mrs. Gauld was good enough to direct me here.”

  “I see.”

  “I have come from Castle Buchan on behalf of the duke. He has learned that you are a harpist. He asked me to deliver this.”

  The man handed me an envelope.

  “It is a request to play for him at the castle tomorrow,” he went on. “He asked me to convey that he would be most appreciative if you would accept, and to tell you that I will return for you tomorrow at this same time for your answer, and, if you consent, to take you to the castle. You will be remunerated, of course.”

  Castle Buchan, I thought to myself. That explained the license plate I had noticed on my first day.

  The man nodded, then turned around and walked back to his swank BMW and drove off, leaving me standing a little bewildered with the unopened envelope in my hand. Before I could read what was inside, I saw Mrs. Gauld hurrying toward me along the walk. On her face was an expression of urgent anxiety. I waited and smiled as she came up.

  “Fit did that man want?” she asked.

  “He gave me this,” I said, showing her the envelope. “Apparently the duke wants me to play for him at the castle. Who is he, anyway?”

  “Naebody ye want tae be foolin’ wi’, dear,” said Mrs. Gauld. “ ’Tis why I came, tae warn ye. I suspected somethin’ like this the moment ye took up wi’ the wee bairn. Naethin’ guid can come o’ it.”

  “But what is it all about, Mrs. Gauld?”

  “Jist that wee Gwendolyn is the duke’s daughter.”

  I stared at her with eyes wide in amazement.

  “Though some fowk say different,” Mrs. Gauld went on, inching closer to me and lowering her voice. “’Tis nae evidence in the ither direction except the color o’ her hair. That winna go far in court. An’ I say that fitiver po’er the girl’s got comes fae her father, wha’s in league, they say, wi’ worse than fallen angels. ’Tis the curse that’s the root o’ it—the curse that came when the lassie’s mither died, an’ was passed tae her fae him.”

  “Why does she live with Mrs. Urquhart?” I asked.

  “She is the duke’s sister. She grew up as a lassie in the castle but married a man in the village, wha the duke had nae use for. The moment the lassie was born he disowned her. Wi’ his wife deid, puir lass, he was bitter an’ a’ kennt immediately there was somethin’ wrong wi’ her. The bairn nearly died, too, that verra nicht like her puir mither. Whether it was fae the sickness or the red hair, which she had fae the first, he refused tae hae anything tae de wi’ her. Her aunt took her in. He hasna laid eyes on her sae lang syne.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said. “So the poor girl has no mother and a father who has disowned her?”

  “Ay, he’s an ill man. He owns half the town an’ makes nae frien’s wi’ his high rents. But we canna stan’ here talkin’ aboot sich things on the street, lass. Invite me in for a cup of tea, an’ I will tell ye the rest. I said naethin’ afore because there wasna need for ye tae ken. But wi’ the evil man trying tae get ye into his lair, if somethin’ was tae happen tae ye I wadna forgie mysel’. Ye’re a nice lass. Someone’s got tae tell ye.”

  Chap
ter Sixteen

  No Audience

  Sure, by Tummel and Loch Rannoch and Lochaber I will go,

  By heather tracks wi’ heaven in their wiles; if it’s thinkin’ in your inner heart

  Braggart’s in my step, you’ve never smelt the tangle o’ the Isles. Oh, the far Coolins are puttin’ love on me, as step I wi’ my cromak to the Isles.

  —“The Road to the Isles”

  I didn’t learn much more from Mrs. Gauld than what she had already told me. That was astounding enough. Now I had more reason than ever to continue visiting little Gwendolyn with my harp.

  After she was gone, I opened the envelope and took out the card, gold embossed on front with what I assumed were the duke’s initials: A T R. Inside I read a simple typed message:

  It would bring me great pleasure for you to play your harp for one hour at Castle Buchan, twelve o’clock, noon, the eighth of July.

  A. T. R., Duke of Buchan

  Even after what Mrs. Gauld had told me I saw no reason not to accept, though from the little I had learned I was prejudiced against this man A T R, whoever he was. Furious would be more like it.

  But why turn down a paying gig? How much trouble could I get in? The chauffeur had seemed nice enough.

  Maybe it would pay for another few days in Scotland.

  Perhaps if I played at the castle I would get the chance to tell him what I thought of a man who would refuse to see a daughter as sweet as Gwendolyn who had an incurable disease.

  If only I could get to the castle and back without anyone in town knowing about it. I didn’t want to become the object of village gossip myself !

  I was already discovering, however, that such a luxury would probably not be afforded me.

  I went to the Urquharts again that afternoon. I couldn’t help looking at both Gwendolyn and her aunt differently after what Mrs. Gauld had told me. But I said nothing about what I had heard. I did tell them, however, that I would be away the following day and would not be able to come, but would resume the day after that.