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To
Those hundreds of aspiring musicians, young and old,
and their parents, relatives, and friends,
who through the years have enjoyed and marveled at
the music from the harp studio of my wife, Judy Phillips.
The harp is indeed a magical instrument whose music,
touching us on so many levels, cannot but remind us a little
of God’s angels and their invisible work among us.
Chapter One
The Dream
Could I but sojourn with thee only
In some green glen, secure and lonely,
Then neither glory, fame, nor treasure,
Could ever bring me half such pleasure.
—“My Pretty Mary”
There was a time in my life when a dream of mine almost died.
I was forty years old and alone in the world. I had been married but was widowed six years before. My mother was dead, and though my father was still living, we weren’t close. I had no children, no brothers, no sisters, and sad to say, not even any close friends. Life had begun to progress as a gray drudgery of year following year.
Turning forty woke me out of my lethargy. I realized I didn’t want the rest of my life to just drift by without ever doing anything…having an adventure.
That’s when I remembered my dream.
It wasn’t anything spectacular, not something anyone couldn’t have done. It was just to take a summer trip to Scotland. I wanted to travel and see places I had never been. I wanted to play my harp on a high mountain or maybe on a cliff overlooking the sea. So before I suddenly realized I was fifty, I decided to do something about it.
Music in general, and especially the music of the harp, was one of the most important ingredients to the dream. It was the music of the Celtic countries that had through the years gotten under my skin, creating a longing that I wanted to fulfill. I had a vague sense that I possessed Celtic blood. Maybe that’s why I liked the music. Something about the melancholy nature of Celtic harmony probes the soul in a way other music cannot. The melodies and themes of its folk songs and ballads draw you in. At that phase of my life, the haunting melancholy of Celtic music resonated with a loneliness that was stirring inside me. It is music you feel, not just hear. You want to be there.
I’d always thought that one of the reasons music gets so deep into the human consciousness is that people are “tuned” in different ways like musical instruments. Some have talkative, frilly personalities like a flute. Others are natural leaders like a trumpet. Others are full and complex like a viola or cello.
I also thought that all men and women possessed an innate personality that was tuned in either a major or a minor key. Not that some were always happy and others always sad. Some of the world’s most triumphant and joyous music is composed in minor keys. But an inherent difference exists between the sound and the texture of the two that I think is replicated in people as well.
My personality was one that vibrated to the rhythms of life in minor keys. Celtic music stimulated the melancholy harmonies of those chords. Its melodies resonated within me in ways I could not explain. And I wanted to allow that inner resonance to take place where the music originated.
That’s how my adventure in Scotland began.
I packed my small harp as one of my two allowable bags and flew from my home in Alberta, Canada, to London, took the train north to Inverness, and there rented a car and drove around, staying in B and Bs and getting to know Scotland. My name is Angel Marie. But because I play the harp, and to avoid the inevitable jokes about harps and angels and heaven, I have always gone by just the Marie.
After a week, I realized I wasn’t getting to know Scotland. I was learning a few isolated facts about its colorful history. But I was getting to know only tourist stops where busloads of people stopped to buy souvenirs. That wasn’t what I’d had in mind. I didn’t want to be a “tourist,” I wanted to connect in a deeper way with places and people. I wanted to feel the reality of Scotland.
Therefore, purely at random, while driving through a quaint little seacoast village, knowing not a soul but liking the look of the place, I booked a bed-and-breakfast and decided to stay for a week, maybe if I liked it even two. The name of the village was Port Scarnose. It was situated on the most gorgeous headland overlooking the Moray Firth of the North Sea, where I had heard that if you were lucky, you might see dolphins swimming in the temperate waters of the Gulf Stream.
That’s where my Scottish adventure began. It turned out to be more of an adventure than I imagined would ever happen to me!
While playing my Celtic harp a few days later on an overlook above the sea, a voice startled me. I was surprised to see a red-haired man appearing from amid the shrubbery, raving about my beautiful music. I quickly learned that he was the energetic curate of the local parish church—Iain Barclay. We talked and hit it off, and a friendship developed. He invited me to play my harp for his church, which I did.
It may not seem like such a big thing to meet a minister and then accept an invitation to play for his church. But it was a big deal to me. I didn’t consider myself a religious person, a “Christian,” if you like. I had once been active in church but had drifted away after the death of my husband, and I gradually quit believing much of anything. I wouldn’t have called myself antagonistic to spiritual things, but I wasn’t really interested either.
The trouble was, I liked Iain Barclay. He wasn’t pushy or religious, he was accepting and gracious…and fun. But I have to admit it seemed a bit strange the first time we had dinner to realize I was having a date with a minister !
But I liked him. There it was. I couldn’t help it.
Out on the same path I also met the most enchanting little redheaded girl walking along the path above the sea. Immediately I fell in love with her and she fell in love with my harp. Even as I let her strum a few notes, I could tell she had the gift of music inside her. She was a little odd, in both mannerisms and speech, and it crossed my mind whether she might have savant tendencies. Her name was Gwendolyn. The woman with her, whom I took for her mother, was in fact her aunt and legal guardian.
After running into her a second time, I made inquiries about where she lived and offered to begin teaching her to play the harp. Gwendolyn’s aunt Olivia was cool and distant and did not warm to my involvement. But she agreed to let me bring my harp to their house so that Gwendolyn could learn to play.
I was enthralled. The music Gwendolyn made was ethereal and otherworldly, like nothing I had ever heard in all my years of teaching harp. It wasn’t long before the idea came to me that I should record her playing.
Unknown to me at the time, the church where I had played happened to sit across a high stone wall from the estate and castle of the local duke, enigmatic recluse Alasdair Reidhaven. The duke had overheard my playing in the churchyard one day from over the wall and was mesmerized. As a result, I received a written invitation to play at the castle. When I arrived at the castle, however, the duke never showed himself. I played for an hour in solitude, wondering what was going on. I would later learn that the duke was listening to me from behind a room divider.
I wasn’t as alone as I thought!
From both my experience at the castle and negative talk around the village, I couldn’t help forming an “attitude” toward the duke, building up an image of him in my mind as heartless and rude.
Meanwhile, more local relationships developed as my stay in Port Scarnose lengthened—particularly with an eccentric sheepherder and “crofter” by the name of Ranald Bain who lived on the slope of a nearby mountain. Ranald was a fiddler as well as a shepherd. Afte
r several more visits, we began making music together and had the greatest time! Ranald’s wife, Margaret—he always called her “Maggie”—had been dead six years, the same as my husband, and though he didn’t talk about it, there seemed to be something mysterious about her death. They had lost their only daughter, Winny, many years before, when she was still in her teens. Her death, too, was a mystery no one talked about.
Out of the blue, another invitation to the castle appeared—this time to dinner! In spite of my attitude about the duke, whom I still had never seen, I accepted. What I was not prepared for was to find him shy, awkward, apologetic for what had taken place earlier, and, though a little peculiar, altogether likable.
I was especially not prepared, after seeing Curate Barclay several more times and realizing that something was beginning to click between us, for Duke Reidhaven to appear at the door of my cottage in person. According to everyone I’d talked to, he never showed himself in the village.
Now there he was, standing in front of me, inviting me out for a walk!
The duke, no less! Had my simple three-week vacation to Scotland turned into an adventure or what?
But actually the walk was nice. I liked the duke, too. He began to loosen up and told me stories of his boyhood. That’s when I first learned that he and Iain Barclay had been childhood best friends. They hadn’t spoken in years, however. Something serious had come between them. I had no idea what.
By this time I had developed several friendships. Because of Gwendolyn’s harp playing I felt a sense of purpose in what I was doing, and I decided to stay for a while longer.
I couldn’t go home yet.
My decision obviously also had to do with the two men I was seeing regularly, though I’m not sure I was able to admit it to myself right then. But whatever I was ready to admit or not admit, I postponed my return flight to Canada, left the bed-and-breakfast, and rented a self-catering cottage in the village.
How long I would stay, I had no idea.
My life now began to get complicated. My long talks with Iain Barclay about spiritual things were penetrating deep into my heart. I began to think about God in new and liberating ways. This could not help deepening the bond I felt with Iain. At the same time I was seeing more and more of the duke.
Though I didn’t fully recognize what was happening at first, eventually it began to dawn on me. That’s when I knew I had a problem—I was involved with two men.
An even bigger shock awaited me. I learned that Gwendolyn was the duke’s daughter, raised after his young wife’s death by the duke’s sister, Olivia Urquhart. Here, too, something strange was going on. The duke never saw his dear little daughter. When I asked about it, Olivia gave me plausible enough reasons. She said the duke was dangerous, that she was protecting Gwendolyn from him. She told dreadful stories about the duke, insinuating that he may have even killed his own wife.
None of these tales squared with what the duke told me, nor with the character of Alasdair Reidhaven as I was getting to know him. Someone wasn’t telling the truth.
The longer I was in Port Scarnose, the more intertwined became the relationships in which I had become entangled. Complexities hinted at murders, madness, jealousies, and hatreds from the past.
What was I in the middle of? I felt like I’d landed in the middle of a Gothic novel.
I also gradually learned that Gwendolyn was seriously ill, with only a few years to live. It was a shocking thing to find out, but I determined to do all I could to make her life as rich as possible. I hoped my harp would bring her solace and peace.
Gwendolyn’s illness, the events surrounding her birth, the death of the duke’s wife…all of it deepened my questions about the mysterious Reidhaven family. Somehow Olivia seemed to hold the key to everything. Bad blood obviously existed between her and all three of the principal men who had become my good friends—Ranald Bain, Olivia’s brother, Alasdair, the duke, and Iain Barclay, the curate. In spite of much I did not understand, however, the music of my harp seemed to be exercising a healing influence in the lives of the people who heard it. For that I was grateful.
Though I still did not know what was at the root of all the mysteries, Iain Barclay and I went one day to the Urquhart home and insisted that Olivia allow us to take Gwendolyn to see her father. In silent fury—and uncharacteristically…I couldn’t figure out why she gave in so quickly—she reluctantly consented.
The reconciliation between father and daughter was one of the most wonderful things I have ever witnessed. Gwendolyn was clearly frightened as she and I approached the castle hand in hand. Despite my reassurances, she could not escape her thoughts of the terrible things her aunt had told her about Alasdair, the duke.
“You don’t think I am mean, do you?” I asked her.
“Oh, no, Marie!” replied Gwendolyn. “You are the nicest person in the whole world.”
“You can trust me, can’t you?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Well, I know your father, Gwendolyn. He is not so very different from me. I know that he loves you very much. He wants you to know him just like I know him,” I said. “So I have come to take you to him, so that you can know him just like I know him. Can you trust me, Gwendolyn?”
“I will try, Marie.”
“Then trust me that your father loves you, too.”
We stopped in front of the great oak door. I looked down at her and gave her a smile of reassurance.
“Would you like to ring the bell or use the knocker?” I said.
She stretched up on her toes and turned the bell-knob. Then we waited.
After several minutes we heard heavy steps approaching. When Alasdair appeared, the look of joy on his face was such that no one could possibly be afraid.
It was the expression of a father’s boundless love.
When his gaze settled on the red-haired girl beside me, his eyes were misty. He stooped down and smiled.
“This is your father, dear,” I said.
“Hello, Gwendolyn,” said Alasdair in a soft, husky voice.
“How do you know my name, sir?” said Gwendolyn timidly.
“Because I am your father,” replied Alasdair, smiling and blinking back tears. “I have known you all your life, though I have not seen you for many years. You do not remember, but you have been here before.”
“In this castle?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“You were born here.”
“I was?”
“Would you like to see where?”
“I think I would.”
As I left father and daughter alone, I was crying my eyes out in happiness.
I saw neither of them for over half an hour. I was sitting on a bench in the garden and heard a happy shout followed by footsteps. I looked up to see Gwendolyn running in her awkward gait toward me, followed by Alasdair hurrying to keep up.
In Gwendolyn’s eyes was a look of radiance such as I had not seen on her face before. She ran straight into my arms.
“Daddy is nothing like what Mummy said,” she said excitedly. “He is as nice as you, Marie. I sat in his lap and he told me stories. He told me about my real mother. I think my real mummy must have been nice. I saw her picture.”
The joyous reunion was the beginning of happy times for father and daughter. I had never seen Gwendolyn so full of life. Meanwhile, Olivia was furious at being coerced into allowing Gwendolyn to visit her father, and she took no joy in the blossoming relationship between Alasdair and his daughter. By this point I think she hated me, and my music, too, for my part in bringing Gwendolyn and Alasdair back together.
Sadly, the reunion came too late. Almost immediately Gwendolyn took a turn for the worse. It soon became obvious that she was dying. As the day she first saw Alasdair was one of the happiest days of my life, the last day of her life, as Alasdair and I sat at her bedside, was surely the most heartbreaking.
“Will you play for me on the angel harp?” Gwendolyn asked me. Her voice wa
s so soft I could barely hear it.
“Of course, sweetheart,” I replied.
I began the song that had been inspired by the first sounds to come out of her playing on my harp, which I called “Gwendolyn’s Song.” Though I played softly, the sound seemed to fill the room. The moment Gwendolyn heard the familiar melody, she leaned her head back on the pillow, a smile of peace on her lips.
“One of the angels told me she heard you when you were playing once in the church,” she said. “She said she wants me to play for her, too.”
Gradually the tiniest sound came from the bed. My fingers stilled and I listened. Gwendolyn was gazing up out of the pillow into Alasdair’s face. She was singing.
“A baby came to Mummy and Daddy. I had just begun to be…”
She stopped to take a breath. Her voice was faint.
“Mummy and Daddy,” she tried to go on. “Mummy and Daddy…loved baby. That baby…was me.”
The tiny voice fell silent.
I stood and went to Alasdair’s side. As I glanced down upon the bed, Gwendolyn’s eyes were closed. The light had faded from her face, though the remnant of a smile lingered on her lips.
She had taken her music to share it with the angels.
They say death brings healing and renewal, if only you know where to look for it. Though the whole community mourned Gwendolyn’s passing, no one could deny the new life everyone felt as a result of the reconciliation between Alasdair Reidhaven and Iain Barclay that took place during Gwendolyn’s final days.
With Gwendolyn gone, I suddenly had to face reality. Whether I had been completely clueless all this time, or whether it was a slow-dawning realization that only now became obvious, it was at Gwendolyn’s funeral that a shocking truth finally broke over me:
I was in love with two men!
The worst of it was that these same two men had already been separated by their love for a woman years before—Fiona, Gwendolyn’s mother. Now that they were finally reconciled and their friendship restored, I could not let such a thing happen again. I cared too much about both of them to run the risk of allowing either relationship to go further.
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