Nicholls opened the door for me and led me inside where, again, I was met by the lady. If she took note that I was wearing the same dress, she had the courtesy not to show it.
“Hello, Ms. Buchan,” she said. “I am Miss Alicia Forbes, the duke’s housekeeper. I will show you to the dining room.”
I followed her in a completely different direction than before, turning right before we reached the grand staircase and walking what seemed to be most of the length of the ground floor. We made two or three more turns, and by the time we arrived I doubted I could have found my way out by myself.
Miss Forbes stopped in front of a set of double doors. She placed her hand to the door, then paused and glanced toward me. There was that look I had noticed in her face before, almost, strange to say, of relief and gratitude.
“Thank you,” she said in little more than a whisper. “Thank you so much for coming!”
Just as quickly as she had dropped it for those two or three seconds, the mask of her station and position returned. She opened the two doors, and stood aside. “You may go in,” she said in a professional tone. “The duke is waiting for you.”
I walked in, tentatively I must admit. Even if it hadn’t been for all the mystery leading up to it, the fact was, I had never met anyone as important as a duke in my life. And in a fairy-tale setting like this—a real castle!—I suddenly felt very small and intimidated.
My first glimpse inside showed a lavishly appointed dining room, not so huge as the other room but full of tapestries and paintings, antique furniture against the walls, including several ornate sideboards. In the center, running three-quarters of the length of the room, stood a long oak table that looked as if it could seat twenty-five or thirty. Only two places were set, on opposite sides of one another in the middle. It was an incongruous sight, the two place settings dwarfed by the enormity of the table.
At the far end of the room, a man stood at a window with his back turned. He wore a dark blue suit, and all I knew of him at first glance was that he had a full head of black hair that showed some gray around the edges and ears. I was beginning to feel as if I had been dropped into the middle of a Gothic novel. At the sound of the door, he immediately turned and walked toward me.
He smiled as he approached and held out his hand. Nothing can prepare you for a moment you’ve built up in your mind. What exactly I had been expecting, I’m not sure. I suppose I had an image of what he would look like, and it was shattered in an instant.
I don’t know if I had been expecting the Beast or Prince Charming. But he was neither.
Actually—this sounds very weird!—maybe he was a little of both.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and large. I don’t know that I would call him heavy, but he was a big man. His face, too, was large and somewhat irregular, with a strong wide jaw and low forehead. He was not a handsome man… plain, almost homely. Iwouldn’t call him ungainly, but he certainly wasn’t dashing or suave. Kind of a “gentle giant,” to use a cliché. But being prepared after all that had happened for him to be standoffish and proper and modern and sophisticated, and expecting to dislike him, I was disarmed by his simple smile of almost old-fashioned welcome. It wasn’t a gregarious smile, just a nice, simple one. Even as his hand came toward me, I noticed that it, too, like the rest of him, was huge, like the paw of a bear. It was a hand that could crush mine in a single grip!
“Hello, Ms. Buchan,” he said, his voice a deep bass, “I am Alasdair Reidhaven.”
“I am Marie Buchan,” I said, returning his smile and reaching out my hand. He took it and shook it with a gentleness that was in such contrast to his almost lumbering gait. I wasn’t really prepared to like him yet I found his touch almost a relief.
“Come, please sit down,” he said, extending one arm and leading me to the table. He pulled one of the chairs out, helped me scoot in, then walked the long way around the head of the table in his somewhat uneven gait and sat down opposite me.
“I realize this may be awkward for you,” he said, picking up a bottle from the table and pouring half a glass of wine into each of the two goblets in front of us. “But I hope you will find it pleasant enough.”
His voice as he spoke, in contrast to its depth, was subdued and soft. He spoke slowly.
“It is awkward for me, too, I confess,” he went on. “I have few visitors because I keep mostly to myself. The villagers consider me a recluse and most hate me. But I cannot help it—I am a private man. I would not socialize even if I lived in more modest surroundings. But as I am a duke, and I live in a castle, whatever I do leads to talk.”
At last I found my voice. “Why did you invite me, then?” I asked.
“Because…” he began, then hesitated and glanced away. “Because your music moved me. I wanted to meet you. I had never heard a harp, up close, by itself, before last Sunday when you were playing in the churchyard. I heard the sound from my window. I hurried downstairs and outside, curious to know where it was coming from. I crept toward the stone wall around the church grounds and listened. The music was magical. It possessed a quality I cannot explain. It aroused deep feelings within me. So I instituted inquiries to see what I could learn about you.”
Before either of us said anything further, a side door opened and a man dressed like a butler came in carrying two bowls of soup. He set them before us and left. Slowly we began to eat, though I cannot say I was very hungry. I was feeling too jittery.
“I felt the same enchantment listening to you play day before yesterday,” said the duke.
“You were listening from behind those tapestry dividers?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Most people seem to find the harp as intriguing to watch being played as to listen to,” I said.
“Perhaps I was shy to show my face,” he said, almost with a sheepish expression. “I think I built you up so in my imagination that I—”
He hesitated and drew in a breath.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I apologize if it was difficult for you. I promise that should I ever be so fortunate as to hear you play again, I will listen in the open where I can see you and you can see me. And I would, I confess, like to see your harp as well, now that I have heard it.”
The meal progressed, slowly and with light conversation that remained a little stiff. He asked me about how I had come to play the harp and why I was here and how long I would be in Port Scarnose. I managed to answer his questions without bringing up Gwendolyn, though she was on my mind. My anger toward him softened. He was not the kind of man you could easily be angry with. He seemed insecure, shy, lonely. I felt, I don’t know—almost sorry for him.
When we finished with lunch, he showed me around the ground floor of the castle. We walked slowly and the conversation remained formal. I never did completely relax. Neither did the duke. He continued to move a little awkwardly, never seeming to know what to do with his two large hands. He appeared unsure of how to conduct himself with a guest. Or maybe it was that he felt awkward in the presence of a woman. But he played the role of host bravely, if woodenly. He told me about various of the antiques and tapestries and of the identities of the men and women in the paintings, and I nodded and commented. I might as well have been on a tour of one of the castles I had seen earlier with the duke as a tour guide in training.
We walked past a great pendulum clock on a wall and it began to strike the hour of three. Suddenly I remembered.
“Oh, my goodness!” I said. “I’d forgotten, the time got away from me. I need to get back to the village. I have been taking my harp to a little girl to play in the afternoons—”
I paused for a second.
“Her name is Gwendolyn,” I added. As I did, I glanced at the duke out of the corner of my eye. But if the name meant anything to him, he hid it well. “I’m already late.”
“I will show you to the front door and have Nicholls drive you home,” said the duke, then turned and led the way. Whether it was the mention of Gwendolyn or the abr
uptness of my departure, the suddenness of the change seemed to throw him.
“I appreciate your coming very much,” he said as we reached the main front door. “Very much indeed.” He turned and disappeared back inside, while I followed Nicholls out to the car.
Chapter Twenty-one
The Look
Maxwellton braes are bonnie,
Where early fa’s the dew,
And ’twas there that Annie Laurie
Gave me her promise true.
Gave me her promise true,
Which ne’er forgot will be,
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I’d lay me doun and dee.
—“Annie Laurie”
My visit to the Urquharts immediately upon returning from the castle seemed different. Probably only to me.
Having a secret changes you inside. I now had two secrets I waswithholding from Gwendolyn and her aunt—what I had heardabout them from Mrs. Gauld, and that I had twice visited thecastle to which, if Mrs. Gauld was right, they both had intimate connections.
I would have to mention it sooner or later, if only to find out whether what I had heard was true. But I didn’t feel I could bring it up out of the blue. I was still very much aware, in spite of what Iain had jokingly said, that I was an incomer, a stranger. I did not really know these people and their ways.
Gwendolyn was happy to see me as always. She played with abandon and seemed particularly receptive to the small doses of instruction I gave to guide her technical progress. Mrs. Urquhart seemed more distant than usual. It might have been my imagination. But it seemed plausible that she might have heard rumors about my going to the castle. She had probably also by now heard that I had seen Iain Barclay on a number of occasions. It was clear enough she didn’t like him.
As I was leaving I asked about a plan I had been revolving in my mind.
“Gwendolyn,” I said, “would you mind if I brought a tape recorder and recorded you playing the harp?”
“What is a tape recorder, Marie?” she asked.
“It is like your CD player,” said Mrs. Urquhart. “She has a CD player,” she added to me. “She plays children’s CDs.”
“Yes, it’s like that, Gwendolyn,” I said. “Except that it will make music of you playing.”
“That will be fun! May I listen to it?”
“If you like.”
I left their house and went straight to Iain’s. I didn’t want to have secrets from him. I hadn’t told him everything about myself, but I knew I needed to tell him about my second invitation to the castle. I owed him that much.
He invited me in for tea and we had a nice visit. As always when the duke came up in conversation he was quieter than at other times. I guess he had secrets, too.
I had only a little pocket cassette recorder with me. I took it to Gwendolyn’s the next day and was so pleased with the result, though the quality wasn’t very good, that I determined to try to find something that would make a better recording.
On Saturday Iain picked me up about nine-thirty and we drove into Aberdeen. I had a great time. It was nice to be a passenger and not have to worry about roundabouts and narrow roads and parked cars—especially after we got into the cobblestone streets of Aberdeen’s Auld Toon.
By now we were comfortable enough with each other that conversation flowed freely and we were able to laugh and have fun together. I hadn’t enjoyed a man’s company so much since my husband was alive. I found a good compact recorder with an electronic microphone for making higher-quality recordings of Gwendolyn. Iain took me all around Aberdeen. We walked the cobblestones of the Old Town where he told me stories of his university days. We browsed in a used bookstore at the top of the hill on the edge of the college grounds where Iain said he used to spend most of his spare money as a student. We went to dinner about five at a little bistro off The Green.
It was as we were sitting across from each other waiting to be served that I realized this thing had progressed beyond the level of mere friendship.
A lull came in the conversation.
I was fiddling with my napkin in my lap. As I looked up, Iain was staring straight into my eyes across the table with the most intense expression full of unspoken feeling.
My heart skipped a beat and I quickly looked away.
His look unnerved me. I knew that look. I knew looks like that were not the kind he would give passersby on the street or the men and women in his congregation.
When I dared glance at him again, he smiled. His expression had returned to normal. But something changed between us in that moment.
I think that’s when we both knew.
The drive back from Aberdeen to Port Scarnose was quieter than any hour during the day. I suppose we were both tired after a long day. Sometimes you just run out of things to talk about.
But there had also been that look.
Iain dropped me off. He let me get out of the car by myself and did not walk me to the house. I think he sensed the potential awkwardness of it. We both stumbled over our good-byes with many pleasantries about how we had enjoyed the day and that we should do this again soon. Iain didn’t say a word about church, as I knew he wouldn’t.
Even as I was getting ready for bed an hour later, reflecting on the day and all that had happened, I had already decided to attend the service the following morning.
Chapter Twenty-two
Follow Me
When we ponder o’er the past,
And the reckoning day at last,
We are lost amid His wondrous power and love,
Let us dream among the flowers,
Mid the scented birchen bowers,
Till He draw us in a fond embrace above.
—“Where the Roses Blush and Bloom”
The Deskmill Parish Church was laid out in the shape of a cross, with rows of pews in each of the four arms of the cross facing the center. The raised pulpit stood against one wall in the center facing diagonally the nave where the four sections of the cross met. From where he stood on any Sunday morning, Iain could see to the end of two of the alcoves, but not the other two. The bottom end of the longest, where the main door opened, was especially obscured from his line of vision since the pulpit pointed away from it.
That’s where I had decided to sit. I did not want to distract him. Nor did I want to be distracted myself. If I was going to church, I wanted to be there for the right reasons, to see if there was something I was meant to learn, to find out, to get from it, not to see Iain, or for him to see me.
I drove into the parking lot about five minutes before ten-thirty. A few people were still walking from their cars to the church. Most everyone was already inside.
I sat and waited.
The second set of bells echoed into silence at ten-thirty on the dot. I got out of my car and walked slowly toward the church. The front door was closed and I heard the organ prelude coming from inside. It was about two minutes past ten-thirty.
Gingerly I opened the door and slipped inside. Having to crowd past several people, I found a place securely in the next to last pew. Iain was just walking up into the pulpit.
By the time the sermon came, my thoughts were calm. I tried to listen quietly and thoughtfully. Hearing Iain’s voice without seeing him, knowing that he didn’t know I was there and was, in a sense, talking to everyone else but me, was an odd sensation. It was like being able to observe him while remaining invisible, like a fly on the wall as the saying goes.
“My friends,” he began, “I would like to call your attention this morning to one of the singular encounters in the New Testament—that between Jesus and the man we call the rich young ruler. You know how it goes—the young man asks Jesus what he must do to be saved, and Jesus replies, Keep the commandments. The young man says he has kept them. Then Jesus tells him he is still lacking one thing. Sell all you have, he adds, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. We all know the conclusion: The man went away sorrowful, because h
e was veryrich.
“I am especially fond of the version of the story that appears in Mark’s Gospel,” Iain said. “As the encounter begins, Mark says, ‘Jesus, looking at him, loved him.’ The Lord’s prescription for happiness was founded in no legalistic religiosity—it was founded in love. Jesus loved him. That is why he made the demand he did. That look of love is the foundation of this story’s importance. Jesus did not tell him to give up his possessions to be critical or because he did not want the young man to be happy, but because he loved him and he did want him to be happy. Jesus knew there was only one path to that joy. And he told the young man what it was.”
Iain stopped for a moment. The congregation waited in silence.
“Let me suggest,” he went on, “that we are all like the young ruler, each in our own way. We have certain possessions that are dear to us. I do not necessarily mean material possessions. Material possessions, money, mammon—of course these may prevent us from drawing close to God. But in the majority of cases, these are not the chief culprits. I would say, rather, that it is private and internal possessions that cause us to keep God at arm’s length. We each have things that keep us from following the Lord all the way, that hinder us from heeding his, Come, follow me. They may be possessions of the mind and the intellect. For many they are possessions of the heart. They may be ideas, doctrines, intellectual crutches. For some they may be ideas of disbelief. For others they may be ideas of doubt. We cling to them and they obstruct our growth. They keep us from true happiness and fulfillment, yet we cling to them for dear life. It is a curious thing, is it not—that we hold fast to the very things that prevent the deepest fulfillment inlife.
“What are your reluctances? What are mine? What are our secret, hidden treasures?”
Again the church went silent. It was some time before Iain resumed.
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