“What happened to her husband, the woman from Skye, I mean,” I asked, “—the duke’s grandfather?”
“He lived a lang life, but went mad in later years. They say once he began seein’ her ghost he was ne’er the same. He was found deid one day in his bed. The present duke’s father was away in the south at the time as a yoong man. Some say the auld man took his own life wi’ poison, but I dinna ken. But the curse has been on the place ever syne. The duke’s father was aye a strange ane, too, as was his wife, and they had but ane son, too, that’s the duke fit’s the duke now, an’ his sister—”
By now I was shaking my head with confusion, trying to keep three generations of dukes straight!
“—an’ his marriage was as ill-fated as the ithers. His wife, puir thing, died wi’ oot e’er layin’ eyes on wee Gwendolyn. ’Tis the curse o’ the druid folk fa came fae Skye, an’ ’tis been in that castle e’er syne, an’ all wha hae tae do wi’ it an’ wi’ any o’ the dukes, they all come tae ill.”
She took in a deep breath and let it out, as if punctuating her final words with an emphasis that ought to tell me all I needed to know.
“Well, no harm came to me, Mrs. Gauld,” I said. “I heard no strange noises and the duke treated me with courtesy. I think he enjoyed my harp. And now I am going to Edinburgh, so you have nothing to worry about.”
“I am glad t’ hear it. But they say he has been callin’ on ye, lass.”
“Only once. And, my goodness, that was only two hours ago. Do you mean to tell me you heard about it already?”
“Word spreads fast in a wee village the likes o’ Port Scarnose.”
“But in two hours!”
“There’s eyes everywhere, lass.”
“Do people really care so much what the duke does that they watch his every move?”
“Nae one cares aboot the duke, dear. ’Tis yersel’ they’re curious aboot. Fan the duke comes callin’ on a lass fa’s new tae toon, folk tak notice.”
“He didn’t come calling on me, Mrs. Gauld.” I laughed. “We just went for a walk. It was perfectly harmless. He is a lonely man, there in the castle by himself. I saw no harm in it.”
“An’ Gwendolyn’s a lonely lass.”
Her words stopped me in my tracks. I had no reply.
“Jist watch yersel’, lass,” she said after a moment. “Jist watch yersel’. Things arena always fit they seem.”
“I will, Mrs. Gauld,” I said.
“I also took a walk up the Bin,” I said. “I met an old shepherd who lives in a stone cottage and tends sheep. I thought I had stepped back into the nineteenth century!”
Mrs. Gauld nodded. “Aye—Ranald Bain.”
“You know him?”
“All Port Scarnose kens Ranald Bain, puir man.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He lost his puir wife six years syne. She was oot walkin’ tae Findlater, they say. ’Twas a fine day, but cauld, wi’ wet on the rocks an’ in the shadows. When she wasna back by afternoon, Ranald came doon fae the Bin an’ went searchin’ for her. He foun’ her at the base o’ Findlater, sae he said. Slipped on the bank is what folk said an’ we’ve nae reason tae doobt it. ’Tis nae way tae lose a loved one—the puir man. The children o’ the village tell dreadfu’ tales aboot him, the way they do when they’re feared o’ someone fa luiks different than the rest, an’ there’s folk fa winna gae near him. There’s stories aboot him like aboot the duke an’ Gwendolyn. But in his case, they’re naethin’ but auld wives’ gossip, naethin’ mair.”
“He told me he had a daughter who also died.”
“Aye,” said Mrs. Gauld, nodding once again. She grew quiet and thoughtful. I had obviously asked about something involving more than met the eye. “She went oot walkin’ alang the sea an’ wasna seen agin. A dreadfu’ thing it was. But that was many lang years syne, when we was all yoong. I was achteen at the time.”
“Did you know her—Mr. Bain’s daughter, I mean?”
“Aye, lassie,” she replied, again looking away. For a moment I wondered if she was going to start crying.
“Were you and she friends?” I asked slowly.
“Aye, but I was a wee bit older, ye ken.” She brushed at her eye, then looked back at me and forced a smile. “Winifred was aye everyone’s frien’. All Port Dochy lo’ed Winny Bain, comin’ doon fae her father’s croft ilka day tae the school, wi’ her straw-blond hair blawin’ in the wind, an’ her happy smile. Wasna a lad in a’ Port Scarnose that wasna in luv wi’ her. An’ she was as kind an’ thoughtful as she was bonnie.”
Again Mrs. Gauld looked away. Now the tears were flowing from her eyes in earnest.
I reached out and placed my hand on her arm.
“Mrs. Gauld, I am sorry,” I said.
She drew in a deep breath and again wiped at her eyes. “Thank ye, dear,” she said. “’Twas a lang time syne. But whiles it a’ comes back like ’twas yesterday, an’ I maun hae a wee greet.”
“It must have been awful for you, to lose someone you were so close to.”
“Aye. Wasna an easy thing. But losin’ a frien’s no the same as losin’ a dochter. Puir Maggie… puir Maggie Bain—she ne’er got ower it.”
It was quiet again for a minute and I tried to change the subject. When I stood to leave a few minutes later, Mrs. Gauld again warned me about the duke and reminded me that people noticed everything I did. I glanced up and saw Tavia watching me. I left feeling more self-conscious than I had been before.
Was everybody in the village really watching me so close?
Chapter Twenty-six
The Curate and the Latitudinarian
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
My darling, my darling.
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
The young Chevalier.
—“Charlie Is My Darling”
I left Mrs. Gauld’s and went to see Iain.
“Hi, Marie!” he said enthusiastically when he answered the door. “I was just going to go over and see if I could find you. I thought you might like to come over for supper tomorrow night.”
“Oh, I would,” I said, “except that I’m leaving in the morning. I’ll have to take a rain check.”
“Leaving… what!”
“Only for a couple of days,” I said. I couldn’t help laughing at his expression, like my leaving was the end of the world. “I decided to take a drive down to Edinburgh.”
“I thought you didn’t like cities,” said Iain, inviting me in.
“I don’t usually,” I replied. “But if I’m going to do the tourist thing, it seems I ought to see it.”
“Your Scottish excursion hardly seems to qualify as doing the tourist thing.” Iain laughed. “Most tourists don’t cancel their flights and rent cottages for indefinite periods of time.”
“I suppose you’re right. Okay, then let me rephrase it—if I’m going to pretend to be a Scot, it seems I ought to visit Edinburgh.”
“That makes sense. Then don’t miss the zoo and the penguin parade—every day at two in the afternoon.”
“That sounds fun. How long does it take to drive down there?”
“Do you drive fast or slow?”
“Slow.”
“Are you going through Aberdeen, straight down through Huntly, or along the Spey?”
“I don’t know. Which is best?”
“None, they’re just different. Driving conservatively, all three will take you about four hours or slightly more. The nicest route for scenery,” he added, “in my opinion at least, is the direct route south through the Cairngorms—to Huntly, then to Ballater and south to Perth. You’d be on smaller roads, but it’s beautiful.”
“I’ll look at my maps. That sounds good.”
It was quiet a minute. There was so much I wanted to tell Iain. But how could I bring up Sunday’s church service without Saturday’s drive into Aberdeen coming into it, and how that day had ended? As if reading my mind, it was Iain who brought it up instead of me.
“You know, I’ve been wanting to tell you,” he said, “how much I enjoyed our drive into Aberdeen on Saturday.”
“I did, too,” I said. “Thank you for taking me.”
“Oh, thank you. It is so nice to get out and away and just have the chance to talk with someone who is…”
He sighed as if struggling for the right words.
“Not from around here,” I suggested.
“Yes—exactly!” rejoined Iain. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the people here. I love my parish. But when you’re locked into the life of a church, the perspective cannot help but tend inward. You see everything through churchy eyes, so to speak, and that’s not necessarily always good. Sometimes you need to break out of that to get a larger view, a wider outlook. It’s true of churches, of communities, of spiritual philosophies and points of view. You need a more expansive vantage point to keep you from getting ingrown.—Hey, this is pretty good! I ought to be writing this down… potential sermon material.”
I laughed again. Sometimes Iain’s down-to-earth manner caught me off guard.
“What I was trying to say,” he went on, “is that talking with you helps break me out of all that.”
Now it was my turn to be thoughtful. His look from Saturday returned to my mind.
“You really don’t mind, do you,” I said at length, “that I’m not a Christian?”
“Mind—of course not!” he replied. “I find it more invigorating that way. You challenge and mentally stimulate my mind. I love the dialogue. Besides, whether you’re a Christian or not, you are still God’s child.”
“You don’t think of them as the same?”
“Being a Christian and being God’s child?”
I nodded.
“Not at all.”
“What’s the difference, then?”
“A Christian is a follower or a disciple of Jesus Christ. Making yourself his follower is something you do by choice. It is a decision you make at some point when you say, ‘Jesus Christ is my master and I intend to make myself his disciple. From this point on my life is not my own. My goal henceforth is to do what he says, to follow his example, to see life as he saw it, to treat people as he treated them, to think as he thought.’ That’s what it means to be anyone’s follower.”
“But you say I am God’s child whether I’m a Christian or not.”
“Who else could possibly be your Father but God? Your earthly father, of course, but I mean, who is the Father of all mankind?”
“God, you mean?”
“Of course. Who gave mankind life? We are all God’s children. He is our Father. He sired us, brought us into being.”
“What about people who don’t believe in him?”
“Even atheists are God’s children, though they don’t acknowledge the relationship. Many earthly sons and daughters don’t lovingly acknowledge their parents either. They are their parents nonetheless.”
“What about the elect and, and all that? I thought Christians believed only the elect were God’s children.”
“That view is a relic left over from a Calvinism that ought to have been tossed on the scrap heap of failed belief systems long ago. I know millions of people still believe in Calvinism’s false portrayal of God, but I am not one of them. I hate the very term the elect. It conveys such dreadful wrong about the nature and character of God. Not just wrong, it implies evil at the heart of the Godhead. I loathe the very thought of it.”
“You continue to surprise me!” I laughed. “For a minister, the things you say seem scandalous.”
“I am certain many would agree. I would not speak so strongly from the pulpit. For one in my position, I have to walk carefully and allow people to grow slowly. Casting aside the constraints and false doctrines of long-held traditions is fearful. It takes time for religiously trained people to get used to the idea of a larger God. Especially here.”
“Why here?”
“In Scotland, I mean. Many vestiges of Calvinism remain in the Scottish church. This is where Calvinism first took root outside Geneva. I always try to gently open eyes to the fact that the God of Calvin and Knox and the Father of Jesus Christ are two very different portrayals. As for me, I cast my lot and my future with the Father of Jesus Christ.”
I did not reply. I was starting to get that overwhelmed feeling again. I decided to change the subject.
“Where did all these ideas come from?” I said. “I mean, how did you come to hold such, uh… unconventional perspectives? I mean—don’t get me wrong, I like what you say. But even you say that they are unusual views, especially in Scotland.”
Iain laughed to hear me talk about him so.
“There is a man who took me under his wing,” he answered. “Ireally was a scamp when I was young. Though much of it was harmless fun, by the time I was fifteen, the boyish mischief was gradually becoming more serious. I could have gotten into some pretty serious trouble had I continued along that road.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, and I have the man I told you about to thank for that. For reasons I still don’t completely understand, he saw something in me, even though he hardly knew me. He saw where I was headed. He grabbed me and stopped me in my tracks and set me on another road. I owe him everything, literally. I owe him my life, my faith, my ministry.”
“But was he the one, like I asked before, was it because of him that you came to hold such unconventional views?”
“Indirectly. He taught me to think, to think for myself, to look at things from many vantage points and consider implications and consequences. The first thing he forced me to think about was myself—who I was and where I was headed. I was just a kid, but he got my attention. I listened, and gradually I began to change. After that, he helped me learn to think about many things—spiritual things, where I was going in life and what I wanted to make of myself. He constantly turned my eyes toward the bigger picture. Eventually he led me into faith. It was in his stone cottage, with him and his wife, that I prayed to give my heart to the Lord. It was there, a few years later, where I reached the decision to go into the ministry. And the dear man and woman—they substantially financed my education. I would not be where I am today without them. How well I remember that night,” he added with a smile. “It was in the middle of winter and the wind was howling through the trees. I had spent the afternoon helping him round up his sheep and get them safely into the pens because snow was in the air. Then about dusk we went in. His dear Maggie had just taken a batch of fresh oatcakes out of the oven—”
“His Maggie!” I interrupted in surprise. “You don’t mean, the man you’ve been talking about—it’s not Ranald Bain?”
“Yes!” exclaimed Iain. “Don’t tell me you’ve met him?”
“Yes!” I laughed. “I’ve been to his cottage twice. He and I spent an hour or two just yesterday playing together—he on his fiddle while I played his grandfather’s harp.”
“That’s brilliant! I can’t believe you actually met him. But the old harp, its strings are broken.”
“I restrung it.”
Iain laughed again and shook his head. “I can’t wait to hear the two of you together.”
“But I am a little puzzled,” I said. “In both my visits to Mr. Bain’s house, he hasn’t said a spiritual word. Well, I think he may have mentioned God. But other than that, I would never have guessed him to be such a man as you describe.”
“He is not pushy about faith. He was a little pushy with me, I will admit, but that was because I needed it. Generally, however, he is not evangelistic about his views. He trusts God to see to all things in the proper time.”
“Is he as unconventional as you in his beliefs? Is that where you come by it?”
“Not at all. It may surprise you to learn that Ranald Bain is about as conventional in his doctrine as you could imagine. Theologically, he is actually a thorough Calvinist.”
“Now I am really confused,” I said.
“Let me take that back—Ranald is totally unco
nventional in this: He does not feel that everyone has to believe exactly as he does. He values individual prayer and thought and scriptural study over doctrine. Maybe I should say he values each individual’s quest for truth above his own particular viewpoints. In that sense he is unconventional and certainly un-Calvinistic. So he taught me to think, to ask questions. He taught me how to pray, how to take every uncertainty to God in prayer, and how to dig in the Bible to discover truth. He taught me by his own example, but never pushed me to adopt his doctrinal conclusion on every matter.”
“What an unusual thing.”
“Unusual, and wonderful. It led to some of the most invigorating discussions. He sharpened my mind, my intellect, my whole spiritual being. In the end I came to many conclusions different from his. Yet he is not bothered by that. Do you remember what I said earlier about God being the Father of all mankind?”
I nodded.
“Ranald disagrees with that view completely. I’m not sure whether he fully believes in a predestined elect, but he does believe that God is the true Father only of those who are saved. He and I have spent hours discussing this one issue. Yet we both find the difference stimulating because neither of us is so arrogant as to think we possess the full truth. Likewise, he still adheres to the traditional Calvinist doctrine of the total depravity of man, while I do not. I believe that good exists in all humanity, whether saved ornot. Yet we rejoice in the unity of our faith in spite of those differences.”
“That is so interesting, and unusual.”
“It is,” Iain nodded. “Ranald is what I would call a latitudinarian. His acceptance of people is broader and wider than his doctrine, which is one of the reasons I respect him so highly.”
Angel Harp: A Novel Page 18