My eyelids grew heavy as I listened. I had to shake myself almost physically to keep my wits about me.
“How was Alasdair troubled?” I forced myself to ask.
“He was disturbed—emotionally, if you know what I mean,” replied Mrs. Urquhart. “And he had a violent temper. I lived in terror of him as a young girl. And he—”
She broke off. The look on her face said that something she had not intended had about slipped out. A long silence followed. She seemed to be recalling something horrid.
“There is also the matter of his wife’s death,” she went on after a moment. “He probably did not tell you about it?”
“He said she died in childbirth.”
Mrs. Urquhart smiled a knowing smile and nodded, a little sadly it seemed. “Poor Alasdair,” she said. “He never could face the truth of what happened.”
Again her voice softened. Once more I felt myself growing drowsy.
“He even invented a story about appendicitis,” she went on, “so as not to have to face his own guilt. The poor man. He is so desperate not to face the truth of what he has done. I feel so badly for him.”
“What did happen, then?” I asked.
“You don’t know, Marie?”
“I would like to hear it from you.”
“He hit his poor wife, Marie.”
She said the words as if expecting me to be shocked, as if it pained her to have to say it.
“She was already weak from the birth,” she went on. “When he saw that she had given him a daughter instead of a son, and when he saw the child’s red hair, it brought back all the jealousy of his suspicions, and he flew into a rage.”
“What suspicions?” I asked.
“Of an affair she had been involved in before they were married. The doctor left the room and I grabbed the child to hurry it to safety before he could strangle it. I only returned in time to hear the poor woman screaming for her life and to see Alasdair deliver a dreadful blow to the side of her head.”
“You saw him hit her?”
“Oh yes, dear.”
“You are saying that he actually killed his wife?”
“Those are not my words, dear. I would not accuse my brother of murder. But it came to be widely believed. When the authorities sought to question him as a result of the doctor’s testimony, he fled to the Continent. Since nothing was ever proven, no actual charges were filed.”
“What about your testimony, if you were the one who actually saw it?”
“I would never testify against my own brother. What kind of woman do you think I am? Even so, I knew I had to get the child out of the castle as soon as possible. I feared for her life. In his state at the time, there was no imagining what Alasdair might do. I was terrified. That night of the birth brought back all the fears of my own childhood. But now it was for the child I feared rather than myself. I could not allow him to harm her.”
“But later, after all that, he says he wanted to raise Gwendolyn himself, but that you refused to allow it.”
“I have already explained that, dear. Oh, Marie, it is impossible for you to understand. Alasdair was in no position to give Gwendolyn a proper home. I did what was best for the poor girl. There were still so many legal complexities surrounding his wife’s death.”
“He says that you had yourself named the legal guardian for Gwendolyn to prevent him from having any contact with her.”
“I had to, dear. It was the only means to protect dear Gwendolyn. Believe me, I harbor not the slightest ill will. Whatever Alasdair has done to me, I bear him no malice.”
“And you and your husband never had children of your own?”
“That is true. That was our decision. When all this took place we decided to take Gwendolyn in, even though it would be a great sacrifice for us. We did so out of love. That is another story Alasdair has allowed himself to believe, that we could not have children and that I was motivated by some twisted desire to possess other people’s children. Poor Alasdair, he is so bitter against me. It has blinded him to the truth. This vendetta keeps him from being able to look at things realistically. I feel sorry for him. He needs to forgive, as I have done. But I see little hope of it as long as such bitterness is in his heart.”
“Are you saying that you have forgiven him?”
“Certainly, dear.”
“But you will not let Gwendolyn see him?”
“It would be too stressful for her. You know she is not well. She is happy with us. She thinks of my husband as her daddy. It would be too disrupting to her fragile constitution, especially now. It is best to let things remain as they are. The court authorities agreed, saying that it would be too difficult for her to be taken back and forth between different homes, and that it was best that she remain with me.”
“But is it right?” I asked. “It is not the truth.”
“The truth, dear… according to whom?” Again Mrs. Urquhart’s voice grew soft and mesmerizing.
“Just the truth,” I struggled to say. “He is her father.”
“Physically perhaps—though that is not known for certain. As I said, Alasdair himself had suspicions. But for all practical purposes, if he is her father, he abandoned that role in her life years ago.”
“What do you mean, if he is her father?” I said. “Who else would be her father?”
“Why, Iain Barclay, of course.”
My jaw dropped three inches and my face went pale.
Mrs. Urquhart saw the look of shock on my face and showed surprise. “Oh, dear,” she said, as if she had blundered. “I merely assumed, as you have been seeing both men, that you knew.”
My throat was suddenly dry. My head was spinning. Had I not been sitting down, I’m afraid I would have fainted.
“Iain Barclay,” I managed to croak. “You cannot be serious. The curate?”
“I am sorry, Marie,” replied Mrs. Urquhart in a sensitive and sympathetic voice. “I had no idea you did not know. The love triangle involving them is common knowledge in the community, though no one really knows the full truth of what happened. Obviously I do not believe the rumors myself. People who spread such things should be paid no heed. I love Gwendolyn as my own flesh and blood, as my niece. That is why I have taken her in as I have. I am only telling you what some people believe. It no doubt explains why the two men haven’t spoken in years.”
I sat stunned. Suddenly all my questions about Gwendolyn and Alasdair had evaporated.
Chapter Forty-five
A Third View
We’ll meet where we parted in yon shady glen,
On the steep, steep side o’ Ben Lomond,
Where in purple hue the Hieland hills we view,
And the moon looks out frae the gloamin.
The wild birdies sing and the wild flowers spring.
An’ in the sunshine the waters are sleepin’:
But the broken heart it kens, nae second spring,
Tho’ the waefu’ may cease frae their greetin’!
—“Loch Lomond”
I was worn out emotionally. What had I gotten myself mixed up in!
I wanted to go for a long walk on the beach or along the headlands and forget about it all. I even thought about just packing up my few things, getting in my rented car, and driving away and going back to Canada on the first available flight.
I walked for a while to try to calm down.
I cried a good deal, too. But the next interview I needed to have couldn’t wait. If any more hammers were going to drop on my head, I wanted them over with.
Thus it was that about two hours later I found myself walking up the path to Iain’s house. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.
“Marie!” said Iain when he opened the door. He always seemed so happy to see me. But I was too full of conflicting thoughts and emotions to return his smile. Part of me wanted to fall into his arms and have him tell me everything was going to be all right, and then talk to me about God’s loving Fatherhood.
/> But suddenly he looked different. I could not help it—Olivia Urquhart had planted seeds of suspicion in my mind. My eyes went to his bright red-orange hair and my heart sank with doubts. For the first time since coming here, I wasn’t sure I could trust Iain. Odd words and mysterious looks came back to me from our first conversations whenever Gwendolyn came up.
Every time I brought up Gwendolyn or Alasdair or the past, Iain became quiet and subdued. There were obviously secrets I didn’t know. What if everything hinted at by Olivia Urquhart was true?
It would kill me. But I had to know.
I hated thinking such thoughts! But I could not dismiss them from my mind. Once the doubts were there, I couldn’t make them go away. She had planted doubts about both Iain and Alasdair.
They were tearing me apart inside.
Iain saw immediately that something was wrong. My eyes were probably still red.
“Marie, what is it?” he asked, leading me gently inside and helping me to a chair.
“I have to talk. I need to ask you… there are some things I’ve heard,” I fumbled. “I have to…”
I didn’t know what to say. I glanced away, my eyes filling again.
Iain waited patiently until I had stuttered my way through telling him that I had heard a rumor about him and the duke and his late wife and young Gwendolyn.
He nodded as I finished, then smiled sadly.
“I am sorry, Marie,” he said. “I hoped you wouldn’t have to hear about all that. I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. There was just no need. I hope you can see the wisdom of that statement. It is nothing but the sordid gossip of a soap opera best left to the auld wives that traffic in such wares. I would ask you where you heard it, but I refuse to stoop to their level.”
“I just have to know whether it’s true. I’ve heard so many things about the duke, and now about you, I’m just confused. I care about… about everyone. I have to know.”
“Do you want to know the whole story?” asked Iain. “Everything?”
Feeling the same fear clutch my chest as when I was talking to Alasdair, I swallowed hard and nodded.
Iain drew in a long breath. He was quiet for several minutes. I had never seen him so silent and reflective.
“It is not easy,” he began after some time, “when a child of a small town grows into man’s estate, as they say. Though he may put away childish things, it is not so simple for those who knew him as a youth to recognize the change. I would not go so far as to speak of prophets being without honor. Yet there is a principle involved that applies to all who find themselves as men walking the same streets and byways that were also the scenes of their boyhood. Those who were his elders during the days of his youthful mischief do not readily relinquish their perceptions.
“In my own case, I was a scamp, a scallywag of the first order, fully deserving of my disorderly red mop of hair. My school chum was the duke’s son, who, before he was sent away to private school, attended school in the village. The adventures we had together, and the scrapes we got into, would have filled a book. They kept half the town angry and the other half laughing. Many a time we were hauled before the old duke, young Alasdair’s father, for stern reprimands, though his position kept us from serious consequences at the hands of the local magistrate. Most of the locals put the blame on me for instigating the troubles that seemed constantly to surround us. Eventually Alasdair was sent south to Eton, then to Oxford. That the mischief largely ceased after that in no way changed local opinion about me. It got around that my father had given me a whipping and told me that if I didn’t mend my ways he would not lift a finger, nor would the duke now that Alasdair was gone, to keep me from the consequences of my foolishness. There wasn’t a word of truth in it. I’m not saying that my father didn’t whip me when I deserved it—bless him—but such was not the case when Alasdair went away to school.
“—By the way,” he added. “Ranald tells me that he thinks very highly of you. I find it remarkable, Marie, how you have managed to work your way into the hearts of so many in our village.
“In any event, the long and the short of it was that I did begin to pay more attention to my studies and gave neither my father, the old duke, nor the townspeople more cause for concern. But the change was due more to Ranald Bain than anyone else—because he cared enough to confront me. I owe him as much as one man can owe another. And because of him I also began to take matters of faith more seriously than most young men. I nearly shocked my poor father into dropping the whisky glass in his hand several years later when I announced that I had decided to pursue a university education and a career in the church. In the years since the apples, Ranald had mentored me in faith, teaching me to think and pray and begin walking as a disciple of Jesus Christ and his Father. Attending university was no easy thing to do coming from a poor background as I did, even with Ranald’s and Margaret’s help. But, as you can see well enough, I managed it, though that is getting ahead of the story.
“Alasdair and I both returned to Port Scarnose, having seen nothing of one another in nearly six years. We tried to rekindle the former friendship, or perhaps I should say I did. But we were by then much too different. He was a sophisticated Oxford graduate and had grown into manhood steeped in the class distinction, which, in spite of what anyone may tell you, is far from dead in this country. That I had pulled myself out of my humble beginnings to gain an education almost the equivalent of his in no way changed the low station of my birth. My new status was rendered meaningless in his eyes by the fact that I was using my education in the church. He would himself be the duke one day, and I could tell he looked down on me for the religious turn I had taken. Ithink it embarrassed him that he and I had once been closer than the brothers neither of us had.
“We had but one thing in common after our return.”
Iain paused. A nostalgic wave seemed to pass briefly across his face.
“That,” he added, “was a young lady by the name of Fiona.”
Again he paused, this time for longer. I could tell that his thoughts had drifted back and that he was reliving events from years before.
“Fiona came to Crannoch while we were both away at university,” Iain resumed at length. “Her pedigree was humble enough. She was neither aristocrat nor peasant, but the daughter of a local antiques dealer recently arrived from Edinburgh, a man of both means and some stature in the community for he was also the author of several books. Fiona was stunningly beautiful. Her family had not been in the area a week before she was the chief subject of conversation from Findectifeld to Banff, turning heads and breaking hearts wherever she went, not unlike Winny Bain years before.
“Alasdair returned from Oxford and of course heard of her instantly. Alasdair was different then… thin, muscular, dashing—an aristocratic young man in the classic mold. They were already seeing one another when I returned from England. In my initial attempts to rekindle my friendship with Alasdair, Fiona and I inevitably crossed paths, and… well, I am embarrassed to admit that I was smitten with her along with everyone else. I had studied for the ministry, and was serious about my faith, but I was a young man susceptible to the same influences that have moved young men to both bravery and foolishness throughout all time. I did not actually pursue her as I suppose you might say because she and Alasdair were fast becoming what is called an item. But as we both lived in Port Scarnose we could not help running into each other, and a friendship began to develop.”
I was getting a very weird feeling, like I had been here before, that a story was being told that I was part of, or an old story that I had once been part of, and maybe was destined to be part of again. Shudders went through me. I didn’t like the sound of it—two men… the same woman. But I did my best to hide what I was thinking.
“As you might imagine,” Iain went on, “it did not enhance my relationship with Alasdair. He was furious whenever he saw us talking or walking together. But he needn’t have been. I liked Fiona. We had some wonderful times together. We b
ecame good friends. And I think there was a hunger, a spiritual hunger within her. It seemed she was longing for something I might be able to give her, not as a man but spiritually. Yet it was a place within her I never seemed entirely able to connect with. There was a mystery about Fiona, too, that seemed to prevent her from being able to enter into life’s spiritual dimension, though I think part of her wanted to. It was a puzzle.
“In any event, I was convinced in my own mind that she loved Alasdair. So I gradually distanced myself from the whole situation. The upshot was that their engagement was announced about a year later, and they were married a year after that. I was not curate at the time. I was still in training and was reading and filling in for churches throughout the northeast of Scotland. I was invited, however, and did attend their wedding, which was held at the castle.
“I saw little of either Alasdair or Fiona after that, only if we happened to pass in town. I was filling in regularly at the church here by then. The Deskmill Parish minister, old Reverend Cowie, was aging and in ill health. The older people of the parish were not altogether in favor of the young scamp Reddy Barclay, as I had been called as a boy, occupying their pulpit. But the younger people seemed to respond to my youthfulness and energy. When Reverend Cowie retired, there happened to be a shortage of potential candidates—the church goes through ebbs and flows in that regard. It being a small and out-of-the-way parish that had always struggled financially made it a difficult vacancy to fill. The long and the short of it is that I was fortunate to be named curate.
“Then came word that Fiona, now the Duchess of Buchan, was pregnant. All the auld wives of the village followed the times and seasons in minutest detail. Every visit Dr. Mair made to the castle was duly noted, and as the time drew near, expectation mounted. It wasn’t exactly like Charles and Diana, but something similar to it. The duke and duchess were our own local royalty, and Fiona was every bit Diana’s equal in beauty. People loved her and every eye was on them.
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