Heather Song

by Michael Phillips

  I had no choice but to bring my adventure in Scotland to an end.

  The good-byes were poignant. I had the sense that either man might propose to me if I gave them the chance. My heart was especially torn as I saw Alasdair for the last time. I just couldn’t find the words to tell him. While I was stalling, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small oblong black box.

  “This necklace belonged to my mother,” he said. “I was saving it for Gwendolyn, hoping that…Well, she will not be able to wear it now, and…I would like you to have it, Marie.”

  Alasdair opened the box, then reached out and set it across the table in front of me. It must have contained twenty or more diamonds!

  “I…Alasdair, it’s…I’ve never seen anything so lovely,” I said, fumbling for words. “It’s so kind…I mean, but…I can’t accept a family heirloom.”

  Alasdair looked away. The open box with the necklace sparkling on a black velvet bed sat on the table between us.

  “It’s Iain, isn’t it?” he said after a minute.

  The words jolted me.

  “I’ve seen it all along,” he continued, smiling a little sadly. “I knew you loved him. And I…You need have no worry about me. He is a fine man…You could not do better. Even so…even if you wear it as Iain’s wife…I would like you to have this necklace…as a reminder of…of happy times…times you once spent with a man who cared for you very much, and—”

  He drew in a deep breath and smiled again. “And to remember Gwendolyn,” he added.

  “It is not because of Iain,” I said softly.

  “What, then? Please…,” implored Alasdair. “Say you will accept the necklace, as a token of my—”

  “Oh, Alasdair,” I said, at last bursting into tears. “I am leaving tomorrow!”

  I was crying in earnest now. I couldn’t look at him.

  For a moment all was silence.

  Then I heard his chair slide across the floor. He got up and his footsteps came around the table to where I sat. I stood, and the next moment I was swallowed in his embrace.

  “I knew this day would come,” he said. “It had to eventually.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I said through my tears.

  “I know you were thinking of me,” he said. “I tried to pretend there would not have to be a day of farewell. Inside I knew I was just fooling myself. This will be the most painful parting of my life. But you needn’t worry. Things are different now. I am a changed man. I have known you and loved you and I will never forget you. And,” he added, “if you can…I hope you won’t forget me either.”

  I burst into sobs as I pulled back and gazed deeply into his eyes.

  “Oh, Alasdair!” I said. “How could you even think I would forget you! Some of the most wonderful memories of my life will be of this place.”

  I embraced him again, tight and long, then stepped back. I took his arm and we walked downstairs and outside without another word.

  I left to return to Canada the next day.

  Chapter Two

  Beginning of Auld Lang Syne

  Farewell to the bluebells, and welcome the new bells,

  The bridal bells, pealing o’er the valley and hill;

  Sweet bells that betoken love’s link never broken,

  Though time bring the cloud and the chill.

  —J. S. Skinner, “The Cloud and the Chill”

  After a few lonely months in Calgary trying to resume my former life, I realized it was no use.

  Love never just goes away. It has to be done something with, brought to a resolution. Many people, of course, interpret this need wrongly by thinking of it in physical terms. Nothing could have been further from my mind. Nevertheless, I knew the uncertainty of the situation had to be “resolved” and brought to completion—emotionally, personally, spiritually.

  Even though I had done so to protect the two men from pain, I could not “run away” from the love, or loves, in my heart.

  I had to face my destiny, whatever it was. I had to return to Scotland. I had to decide where my deepest love truly was.

  I made plans without telling a soul. Even as I arrived by bus in Port Scarnose, I still wasn’t absolutely sure what my decision would be…or whether either man would even want me. But I had to find out.

  Whom did I really love?

  After several long, prayerful walks, at last my soul-searching came to an end. I knew my decision. Immediately I set out on a long walk that took me on a familiar route out of town.

  When I reached my destination and saw the huge door in front of me, I paused, drew in a deep breath of final resolve, then reached out my hand and lifted the knocker.

  A minute later footsteps came from inside. Slowly the door opened.

  “Hello, Alicia,” I said to the duke’s housekeeper. “Would you please tell Mr. Reidhaven that he has a visitor who has come to inquire about a certain diamond necklace?”

  When Alasdair saw me a minute later, his face went pale.

  The look of joy flooding his eyes was so childlike it took my breath away.

  “Marie! ” he said in wonder, almost as if I were a specter from his imagination.

  At the sound of his voice, all my fears vanished and I hurried toward him. He received me with open arms. We stood for what seemed like forever.

  “I think perhaps I am now ready,” I whispered at last. “That is, if you still want me to…to wear the diamond necklace you wanted to give me.”

  “Oh, Marie!” he said. “There is nothing I want more. But what about…I mean, have you seen—”

  “Alasdair,” I said, stopping him before he could say it. “I have seen no one else. I came back…to you.”

  It was agony to walk up to Iain’s door later that same day. But he had to hear it from me.

  The moment he saw me standing on his porch, his eyes swam, but he did not allow whatever he might be feeling to spill over. He saw the expression on my face, and I knew he knew.

  I told him that I had come from the castle, where Alasdair had proposed to me and that I had accepted him.

  Only then did Iain approach and hug me warmly, as a brother now, and congratulated us both. I knew his words were utterly genuine, and I knew all over again why I had loved him.

  The day after my visit, Iain called on Alasdair to personally congratulate him and to offer his services, if Alasdair and I so desired, for the ceremony. He was sincerely and honestly happy for us—I think for Alasdair most of all. The whole thing fit no Hollywood script where men compete for a woman’s affections. Iain loved Alasdair in the full sense of brother loving brother. Alasdair’s happiness meant more to him than his own.

  Alasdair and I were married in the gardens of Castle Buchan the following spring, just as the rosebuds were starting to come on. Tulips were in profusion, and rhododendrons. The earth was everywhere alive and bursting forth with the renewal of spring.

  Iain performed the ceremony. Everyone within Deskmill Parish was invited to the wedding, and indeed, so many came that the grounds were overflowing. Ranald Bain, in the full Highland costume of his clan, added the haunting strains of ballad after ballad to the afternoon from the annals of Scottish legend and lore.

  Midway through the afternoon, Alasdair made a speech and toasted the good health of his friends one and all, culminating in inviting the entire community to the harbor that evening to send him and his bride on the newly christened yacht Gwendolyn off into the gloaming on the tide.

  Several hundred people or more accepted the invitation and came to see us off.

  As the Gwendolyn slowly slipped out of the harbor, Alasdair and I stood on the deck returning the waves and shouts of the townspeople. From somewhere in their midst a bagpipe was playing.

  As we cleared the thick cement harbor walls, slowly a familiar tune began to blend in with the pipes. The high, clear tone came unmistakably from Ranald Bain’s violin—the fiddle and the pipes intermingling with the mysterious harmony one hears only in Scotland.<
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  Within seconds, hundreds of voices joined in unison. The words of the Scottish anthem of memories and hopes drifted across the evening waters toward us:

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And ne’er brought to mind.

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  In days of auld lang syne.

  Alasdair looked at me, smiled, and stretched his arm around me. We stood at the rail, gazing back at the harbor and crowd, as both slowly faded into the distance.

  Over and over the strains repeated themselves, the sounds growing ever fainter…

  …auld acquaintance…to mind…forgot…in days of auld lang syne…

  …days of auld lang syne…

  …auld lang syne…

  —until we could hear them no longer.

  Gradually Ranald’s violin also faded from hearing.

  Finally only the skirl of the pipes remained, and that for but another few moments. At last the pipes, too, were gone, and we were left alone.

  Still we stood, gazing back over the Gwendolyn’s wake, until land and sea and sky faded into a purply haze behind us, and we were left surrounded by the reds and oranges of a slowly dying gloaming sunset over the widening Moray Firth of the North Sea.

  Chapter Three

  The Vast Sea of God’s Fatherhood

  The wind is fair, the day is fine, and swiftly, swiftly runs the time;

  The boat is floating on the tide that wafts me off from Fiunary.

  We must up and be away! We must up and be away!

  We must up and be away! Farewell, farewell to Fiunary.

  —Norman MacLeod, “Farewell to Fiunary”

  Alasdair and I planned a voyage of about a month, perhaps six weeks, for our honeymoon—to Malta, Crete, Italy, and the Greek Islands. For someone who had never been anywhere—except to Scotland, of course!—I was so excited.

  Talk about an adventure. Maybe my adventure was still just beginning.

  Alasdair only laughed at my girlish enthusiasm. I was now forty-one, but I felt eighteen.

  “You can go anywhere you like, my dear,” he said. “I will take you anywhere in the world it is your heart’s desire to see.”

  “Really—do you mean it, Alasdair?”

  Again he laughed.

  “Of course,” he said. “Marie, you are a duchess now. You can do whatever you like.”

  “Me? I’m no duchess!”

  “You certainly are. What did you think you would be, marrying a duke?”

  “But the agreement…I thought—”

  “I don’t want to hear any more about that silly prenup of yours! Against my better judgment, I went along because you were so insistent that I was afraid you wouldn’t marry me otherwise. But I managed to sneak in a few private discussions with my solicitors when you weren’t around.”

  “Alasdair, you didn’t…not really?”

  “I did indeed.”

  “But you didn’t change it?”

  “Only in one or two points. I made absolutely certain that as long as I am the duke, you will be the duchess. I know you didn’t care about the title, but I did. It’s done and legal and there’s nothing you can do to undo it. So eat cake, my dear—you are the Duchess of Buchan.”

  “Oh, Alasdair,” I sighed. “You are so good to me! But you do understand, don’t you—we don’t have aristocracy in Canada. It’s hard for me to get used to. I am just so fearful of people misunderstanding my motives. That’s the only reason I insisted on the agreement. I wanted no doubt in anyone’s mind that I was marrying you because I loved you—nothing more. Not even your suspicious sister can spin that into some nefarious design.”

  “Don’t be too sure.” Alasdair smiled wryly. “Olivia is a clever woman. We will doubtless have to contend with her wiles for the rest of our lives. There is no telling what mischief she might yet concoct. In any event, you are the Duchess of Buchan and I hope you can get used to it, because from here on people will treat you differently. They will bow and curtsy and call you my lady or Your Grace.”

  “I’m not sure I can take all that.”

  “It is expected. Besides, with someone who has as many names as you, what’s one more?”

  “Alasdair!”

  “I still haven’t decided whether to be angry with you or not for keeping your Angel from me for so long.”

  “I explained all that.” I laughed. “And what about you? You didn’t exactly come clean with your whole name either.”

  “But I had good reason. I wasn’t keeping a beautiful name like Angel under wraps. The British aristocracy and their long names…​Alasdair Timothy Fotheringay Reidhaven—goodness! With a name like Fotheringay stuck in there, who wouldn’t try to keep it a secret?!”

  “So we were both holding out on each other. That makes us even.”

  “But no more secrets between us,” Alasdair said, laughing. “I still contend that your list has a more aristocratic ring to it than mine…Angel Dawn Marie Buchan Lorcini Reidhaven of Buchan…Duchess of Buchan. You could compete with a king or queen with all that!”

  “It is truly amazing,” I said, “the Buchan as much as the duchess. Now I am a Buchan twice.”

  “Don’t think that fact has escaped me!” rejoined Alasdair. “It’s one of the reasons I knew we were meant for each other. The double Buchan has a ring to it, don’t you think, and qualifies you for the ‘duchess’ all the more—with two Buchan names, you surely have a full complement of Scots blood in your veins. They call the Brodies Brodie of Brodie. We shall call you Buchan of Buchan!”

  “But doesn’t the fact that I’m Canadian prevent my really being the duchess? It is just an honorary title, isn’t it?”

  “I am having that all looked into by my people in Edinburgh. And to be certain of your legal standing…papers will be awaiting us when we reach home with which to file your application for joint citizenship.”

  “Can I really do that?”

  “Being married to a UK citizen, and a duke besides, with all the legal firepower I will bring to the case—absolutely. You will have a UK passport with full citizenship within the year. No, my dear, your standing will be anything but honorary. You are, as I believe they say in the States, the real deal.”

  “Will this fairy-tale dream that I landed into the middle of never cease?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  * * *

  The first several days at sea were magical. I had never experienced anything like it. And on my honeymoon, no less.

  We were alone on the yacht. Alasdair knew every inch of her, knew what to do, and was as skilled a captain as I could have hoped for. When darkness came each night we weighed anchor and put the Gwendolyn to sleep for the night. Captain Travis flew on ahead to Lisbon, where he met us. After that he took command.

  Alasdair was a little quiet when we passed the place off Spain where Gwendolyn had taken ill. But the next afternoon, with Gibraltar looming like a sentinel of history over us, we passed into the Mediterranean and the magic, if anything, increased. We put to shore at Morocco, Barcelona, and Marseilles, then set a course for Sicily and Malta.

  Alasdair got sick as we sailed down the west coast of Italy. Remembering what had happened to Gwendolyn, I was concerned. I wondered if we should put in somewhere, or even return home. But Alasdair wouldn’t hear of it.

  “I have never been seasick a day in my life,” he said. “It’s just a flu bug, or food poisoning from that fish market in Marseilles. I’ll be fine in a day or two.”

  He was right. He recovered, though it took three days and I confess I was more than a little worried. I didn’t like the pale look on his face. I was glad Captain Travis was at the helm with Alasdair free to rest. By the time we reached Crete, he was himself again.

  The Greek Islands were fabulous. It was so warm, the water so clear and blue, the coastline and rocks so white—completely unlike Scotland. We swam off the Gwendolyn almost daily, and put in at dozens of little towns and villages, where we walk
ed the streets and marketplaces and hiked in the hills and toured old ruins and churches and monasteries and obscure family wineries. I must have taken five thousand pictures! Everything was lovely, different, old, historic, picturesque. Europeans have no idea what it is like for an American, whether from the US or Canada, to find oneself in the midst of such antiquity. If Britain’s sites are old, some of the places we saw in Greece and Rome were thousands of years old. It was more than I could comprehend.

  We rounded Buchan Ness and Rattray Head in early July, then passed Fraserburgh and headed again into the dolphin-filled Moray Firth for home. We had been gone almost two months—seven weeks, to be exact. You’d think such a long time at sea would be tiring. But the trip was so leisurely, and the yacht so roomy and cozy and with every comfort imaginable, that it was positively relaxing and restful. Not only did I see more historic sites than I ever dreamed I would see, I read a half-dozen books besides.

  Home!

  I can still hardly believe I was calling a village in northeast Scotland my home.

  Both Alasdair and I were quiet most of the day, reflecting on the voyage and what lay ahead for us. As I stood on the bow of the Gwendolyn, drinking in the tangy warm salt air, a delicious occasional light spray reaching my face, Iain’s words from my first visit to Port Scarnose returned to me:

  “I view God in the way that Jesus spoke of him,” I could hear his voice saying like it was yesterday, “as a good Father waiting with open arms to receive us back home.”

  “Thank you, Lord,” I whispered quietly, “that you are indeed a God to call Father, and that you are helping me grow as your daughter.”

  I heard Alasdair’s steps behind me. He came up and stood beside me.

  “I can tell even from behind that you are lost in thought,” he said.