It was always my intention to work in the business and continue your tradition, Dad. I fully expected to marry in the Fellowship. When I started traveling to sell your work to stores and suppliers, I never imagined deviating from that course. I certainly never expected to fall in love. But as much business as we did supplying Grant Tulloch of Philadelphia with your pieces, and being away from home as much as I was, this meant that occasionally I found myself invited to the Tulloch home. Grant was friendly to me and, knowing I was a Quaker, as was his family, and without a son of his own, I suppose he took me under his wing. Thus it was that I met his daughter Alison and unexpectedly I did fall in love.
At first it did not occur to me that this would cause division between us since Alison’s family were faithful Quakers. I see how naïve I was and that I should have discussed it with you and sought your counsel ahead of time. But when it became clear that the more progressive leanings of Alison’s family were not compatible with the beliefs of our Fellowship, I pulled away, and eventually, of course, we were married, not in secret exactly because her family was part of it, but in secret from you.
I am so sorry. I was wrong in how I handled it. I was young and so sure that Alison and I were meant for each other that I’m afraid the hubris of youth overpowered my good judgment. My parents-in-law, Grant and Mary, both urged me to talk to you and nearly withheld their blessing until I did. But I was headstrong. When they saw that we would probably elope if they made an issue of it, they reluctantly gave in.
That was four years ago. I now see the wisdom in what Grant and Mary advised. I am not a great deal older and wiser, but at least I am a little older and I hope becoming a little wiser. I want to see you and make amends. I am even hoping that a way might somehow open for us to work together again. At present I am assisting Grant in his business, but my dream is to bring the Ford and Tulloch businesses together.
Whatever may be your thoughts, however, and I know such may not be possible, mostly I simply want to see you. In fact, now that I have written this, I think I would rather tell you everything in person. I don’t think I will mail this. I want to ask your forgiveness face-to-face. I want you to know Alison and learn to love her like I do.
And of course I want you to hold our dear little Alonnah in your arms, your granddaughter, the new light of our lives.
Your loving son,
Chad
The mood in the Ford home that evening after Loni’s grandparents had read the unsent letter from their son was nothing like that of the previous night. They had leftovers for supper around a subdued and somber table. There was no popcorn later. Neither did David’s laughter sound as they sat talking quietly and as Loni’s grandmother wept softly.
“What happened when my parents were killed?” asked Loni.
“Black ice on the road,” answered Mr. Ford. “A car from the opposite direction skidded and forced them off the road.”
“How did I survive the crash?”
“The police said that the only explanation was a miracle, that an angel must have been in the back seat with you. The driver’s and passenger seats were crushed beyond hope. But it was as though an invisible barrier went up between the front and back seats. They found you strapped in your car seat, crying but without a scratch. It happened not far from here. One of the policemen knew us, and when the identification was made, brought you to us. We contacted Grant with the news. He had lost his wife to cancer the year before you were born, and his mother only a few months after your birth. He was hit with too much grief all at once. Learning of his daughter’s death sent him into a deep depression. By mutual consent we decided that we would raise you. Despondent and without a wife, poor Grant was in no position to care for a baby. He went into a long, slow decline after that and never really recovered. We contacted him a few times and tried to learn what we could about your mother and Chad. But he cut himself off, not only from us but from everyone.”
David said little, feeling like an intruder in the deep personal griefs that had been hanging over the family since before Loni was born. By the end of the evening, however, though he had only known the Fords a day and Loni a month, he was forever bound up in the life of this dear family.
On this evening all four were in their rooms by nine.
Fifteen minutes later, Loni heard a light knock. The door opened a crack.
“Come in, Grandma,” said Loni, who was seated in a chair opposite the bed and had just opened her great-grandmother’s journal.
In her robe, Mrs. Ford walked in and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I hope you won’t feel me intruding, dear,” she said. “I haven’t really come to tuck you in like I used to.”
“I could jump under the covers and let you,” said Loni with a smile.
“That isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. Though it is tempting. Childhood always disappears much too fast for those watching from the outside. Children are anxious to escape it. Parents and grandparents never have enough of it.”
Mrs. Ford paused. Her eyes were still red from the evening.
“I wanted to thank you for sharing Chad’s letter with us,” she said at length. “I’m sure you must have wondered if you should, knowing it would be painful.”
Loni nodded. “I did. But I felt you would want to know.”
“It was painful, of course, to be reminded of the tragedy. Yet I would not have wanted never to know how he felt. God bless the dear boy—it warmed my heart to hear his words, tears and all. Thank you again.”
“Of course, Grandma.”
Mrs. Ford rose to go, then turned. “Your David is one of the nicest young men I have ever met.”
“He is something special,” agreed Loni.
“When you and he are talking, you have the same look in your eyes you used to have in the showroom. He is good for you, Alonnah. I can see that you care for him.”
Loni rose from the chair. She embraced her grandmother affectionately. “Thank you, Grandma, for everything you did for me. I love you.”
“I love you too, dear. Good night, Alonnah.”
“Good night, Grandma.”
As soon as her grandmother was gone, Loni again opened the journal and returned her attention to her great-grandmother’s story from ninety years before.
64
Duty and Destiny
Without definite plans and having no idea what to expect when he arrived in the States, David had purchased a round-trip ticket and was scheduled to return on Friday. After two days at her grandparents’, however, Loni was eager also to show him the capital. And she was anxious for David to meet Maddy.
They had not talked specifically about what Loni would do. It was clear that David hoped she would return to Whales Reef. His hints were more than obvious. Though why she would do so was ambiguous, and for Loni awkward and unclear. She knew that feelings for David were stirring within her. For his part, David gave no indication what he himself might be feeling. His story about Audney was unsettling to say the least. She was gorgeous. If Audney had not stirred David’s blood, thought Loni, why would she? The most he had said was that he did not want to lose the friendship that had sprung up between them.
But what did that mean?
They departed early Friday morning in Loni’s rental car, with many fond farewells and hugs and kisses from the Fords. Dressed in the same blue traveling suit she had worn on the train six days earlier, Loni carried the matching jacket to the car and laid it in the back seat, then took the wheel and they set out.
Loni had wanted to leave early to give them time to travel along some of the country roads so that David could see rural America up close and personal. As they drove along Highway 1 toward the Maryland border, David’s eye was drawn to the red-brick buildings of a small college on their left.
“Lincoln University,” he said as they passed the sign leading into the campus. “That’s your most revered president, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Abraham Lincoln,” answered Loni. �
�He ended slavery and was then assassinated.”
“Is this a famous school?”
“Not that I know of. I wasn’t even aware it was here. There are hundreds of schools and buildings and streets named after Lincoln in the U.S. He and George Washington are the most famous names in our history.”
“Yes, we are taught something about them along with our own notables.”
“Which are?”
“Our history’s famous personalities, you mean?”
Loni nodded.
“That depends on whether you are asking a Scot or an Englishman!” laughed David.
“I’m asking a Scot.”
“I would say Saint Columba, Kenneth MacAlpin, William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots, and Bonnie Prince Charlie. If you include men of letters, you would have to add Robbie Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and George MacDonald.”
“A considerably longer list than ours.”
“We have been at it longer.”
The car fell silent. Both were silent.
“David,” Loni said at length, “would it be too personal for me to ask . . .”
She hesitated.
“Go on,” said David. “Nothing is too personal.”
“I am embarrassed to ask, but . . . why didn’t it work out with Audney? She seems like the sweetest girl in the world, and with such spunk.”
“That is personal,” laughed David.
“Sorry. I’ll withdraw the question.”
“No, it’s okay.”
He thought a moment.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Who can say why love happens? You’re right, Audney is sweet and has spunk. She’ll take on anyone, including Hardy! As I said, I love her like a sister. But . . . and please understand I do not mean to disparage her in the least—Audney means the world to me—yet like many on the island, Whales Reef is all she knows. That brings with it an innocence that is wonderful, but there are things I can’t talk about with Audney. If I can say it like this, her worldview is limited. Much of what interests me would be lost on her. She isn’t curious about the wider world and the meaning of life. She takes things as they come and is satisfied with that.”
“And you’re not?” said Loni.
“No, I’m not satisfied to take things as they come. I want more. I want to know what they mean. I want to think about big things, to understand life and the world and God and myself more deeply. I’m fascinated and curious about everything life has to teach me. But if I said all that to Audney, she would laugh in her sweet way and say something like, ‘Ah, David, ye make my heid spin wi’ a’ yer theories an’ high thoughts.’ She wouldn’t be mentally hungry enough to try to understand. She knows I’ve written books but has never even asked to see them. She isn’t curious about what makes me tick. It sounds like I am criticizing her, but—”
“No, not at all,” said Loni. “I hear the love in your voice.”
“I suppose what it boils down to is that our friendship is more superficial than I wish it were. But I take it for what it is and I’m grateful for it.”
“I think I understand.”
“When I met you, on the other hand, almost from the first moment we started talking about substantive things—”
“Until I got mad at you.”
“Well, there is that!” he laughed. “But we won’t mention it. What I was going to say is that we really talked. You knew things about me in those first five minutes that Audney probably still doesn’t know.”
“Such as?”
“Nothing specific. I just have the feeling that you probably began to have a sense of what makes me tick.”
Loni smiled. “I see. Yes, maybe I did at that.”
“I hope it was mutual, that I began to sense what made you tick.”
“But in my own way I’m provincial too,” said Loni. “I haven’t traveled like you. Until my trip to Scotland last November, I’d never been out of the U.S.”
“Provincial—are you kidding?” exclaimed David. “You live in Washington, the center of the political world. That alone gives you a larger perspective than people on Whales Reef could fathom. It’s more than that, of course—you are interested in things. You are a thinker. Immediately I felt a freedom with you to be myself, to say anything about anything—spiritually or about finances or travel or the world. I knew you were on the same wavelength. Not that you would agree with what I might say, but you would understand how I was thinking, and even why I was thinking what I was.”
Again they drove on in silence, enjoying the countryside.
“May I ask you another question?” said Loni as they went.
“Of course.”
“I’m grateful and flattered that you came all this way to see me, and for bringing my journal!” she added with a grin. “And for what you said about our friendship. But I’m still a little confused. I mean . . . really, David, why did you come? And why are you subtly urging me to return to Whales Reef?”
“You noticed!”
“I could hardly help it!” she laughed.
“You do have a way of going right to the heart of things. That question is as difficult to answer as the first.”
David drew in a breath and thought again for a minute.
“I know you have much to think about,” he began at length. “You’ve said that you do not plan to live in the Shetlands. That’s fine—we all understand that. You are an American, you have a life and a job and friends and family here. No one is expecting you to be different than you are. I know this is a big change. It will take time for you to sort it all out. You need to make the decisions facing you slowly.
“However, when your great-grandfather came here to the United States and essentially relinquished his inheritance, I’m not sure he did the right thing. Maybe he did, I can’t say. He followed his heart, they say. Yet some of the consequences that resulted from that decision may not have been the best for the people of the island. Now destiny has brought back his posterity at an important time in the island’s history in the person of one Alonnah Emily Ford. We mustn’t take that lightly. I know you think you can do what needs to be done from here, or that you can put things in my hands. Maybe that will be possible eventually. But I think it will take time, and I believe those are decisions you need to make there. God has somehow seen fit against all odds to bring the contents of the two rolltop desks and the key and the locked study all to light. You have been the instrument by which it happened. So again, I would say that destiny, fate, God . . . has appointed you with the responsibility of the future of the island, not me.”
“Jason MacNaughton said something similar on the first day I met him,” said Loni, nodding, “about my duty. It was a new idea. Most Americans today are not big on old-fashioned values like duty to God, family, country, and one’s heritage. But Jason’s words took root in my brain. I don’t seem to be able to escape my duty. Maddy once called it my destiny. She said I had to go to Whales Reef.”
“I’m glad you took her advice. What I would add is that, as you face decisions that will impact not only your future but the future of Whales Reef, you first get to know the place, its people and culture. And as I said, those decisions would be best made on the island. You need to spend time among the people who love you before you decide what you are going to do.”
“The people there don’t love me.”
“You would be surprised. There are some who do.”
“They don’t even know me.”
“They are learning both to know you and love you. The laird’s people are family. Even those who haven’t yet learned to love you are devoted to you as their laird. I realize you have much to consider. I know you have your work. But if there is any way you could come back with me, I’m happy to help in any way I can. I’m just talking about spending more time there now, while the mill is getting up to full strength again, walking the lanes of the village, visiting with people. The villagers need to feel a connection with you, to know you car
e about them. In time, of course, your life here will resume. They will understand that. They will even take pride in the fact that their laird is a financial wheeler-dealer from America’s capital.”
Loni could not help but laugh.
“The point I am trying to make is that you need to give them time to get to know you as a friend as well as a laird. The island needs you for a while longer.” David paused, then added, “And in a way I haven’t entirely figured out yet, maybe I need you too.”
Loni was rescued from the dilemma of a reply by turning into the gas station she had been looking for. She pulled to a stop, and both got out to stretch and take a break while Loni filled the tank.
“It’s chillier than I realized,” she said as they returned to the car a few minutes later. “Unusual for July.”
She took her blue tailored jacket from the back seat and slipped it on before climbing back behind the wheel. As she pulled the seat belt across her lap, something hard pinched against her side. She fished into the pocket of the jacket she had not worn since leaving Philadelphia days before.
Her eyes shot open as her hand closed around the small jewelry box.
Resuming their trip, Loni did not utter a word. The silence went on for more than ten minutes. Whether David sensed the change in atmosphere, Loni could not tell.
“Uh . . . David,” she said, “there’s something I have to tell you. I wish I didn’t have to, but I can’t keep such an important thing from you.”
“You are under no obligation,” said David.
“Maybe not to you, but I am to myself. I have to tell you.”
David waited.
“Remember those flowers beside the door,” said Loni after another moment, “on the first day you came to the Cottage to see me?”
“I do,” said David with a smile. “The big blooms with flags and the Statue of Liberty.”
“That’s it—tacky in the extreme. I was embarrassed for you to see it.”
“We Scots occasionally do tacky as well.”
“They were from . . . well, there’s a guy in Washington—”
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