A Scot to Remember

by Angeline Fortin

  No, there was a third reason. Making her granny happy.

  In that, there had been a measure of success. Violet had fussed over her since her return, trying to banish the dark cloud hanging over Brontë without pressuring her to explain her sudden depression. Accepting the date — again, for lunch only — delighted her grandmother.

  Being honest about the results wouldn’t. Lying wouldn’t help matters by giving her hope that something more would come of it.

  “Oh dear.” Violet read the truth on her face before she could respond. “That bad again? I thought in his eagerness the young man might step up his game.”

  “I think he’s given all the game he’s got,” Brontë told her. “I don’t know if he thinks he sounds smart or sophisticated when he drones on and on about the mating habits of the Orkney vole, but I sincerely doubt they migrate to breeding grounds on the shores of Loch Eriboll each year. The little buggers may be good swimmers, but would they paddle a hundred miles across the North Atlantic just to get some? I doubt it.”

  “They could take the ferry.”

  “Sure, if there’s a bus waiting on the other side to drive them the last fifty miles, why not?” Brontë sighed into her wine glass. “He was just so, so stupid.”

  More to the point, he wasn’t tall and broad. He didn’t have mossy green eyes that glinted with suspicion, humor and hinted at the depths of his intelligence. He wasn’t handsome, or charming, or as aggravating in a far more attractive way as...

  Another sigh deflated her. He wasn’t Tris and unfortunately, for the moment, no one else would do.

  “A lot of stupid people go on to live full productive lives, you know.”

  Granny’s wicked sense of humor brought a hint of smile to Brontë’s lips and lifted a bit of the weight off her heart. “As long as he lives it far from me, more power to him.”

  “The next one will be better,” Violet said as she strolled into the kitchen.

  How many times had she heard that? The old girl was ever optimistic.

  “Did you drink all that wine?”

  Brontë squashed her guilt and took a more moderate sip of her wine before calling out, “There’s a bottle of white in the fridge.”

  A few seconds later there was a distinctive pop. She turned back to the diary to the melodious sound of the clink of a glass, slosh of liquid and closing of the refrigerator. Her grandmother shuffled back into the room and sat in her worn armchair with a contented sigh.

  “What are you reading, dear?” She held up the journal and Violet frowned. “Again? Sometimes I regret having ever given that bloody thing to you.”

  “Language, Granny. And I don’t know how you can say that. I love these stories.” Or she had.

  “Aye, and I do as well. Nevertheless, I’ve begun to see a truth in them I never realized before. Something I wish I’d read between the lines long ago.” Her grandmother sipped her own wine. “If I’d figured it out sooner, my life might be very different now.”

  “What is that?”

  “Remember how I told you about my mother and how she dwelled upon what might have been after my father died?” Brontë nodded and she continued, “It was all my grandmother’s fault.”

  “Hazel’s fault? How?” she asked, confused.

  “She refused to move on after my grandfather died. Her failure became my mother’s and my own. We were conditioned to imagine what might have been and to wish for more.” Her granny’s expression grew wistful. “I know what you see in those pages when you look at them, dear, but true love or fate or whatever you think it was didn’t fail my grandmother. She failed herself. She failed my mother by refusing to see the truth.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Love isn’t everything.”

  Staring agape at her grandmother, Brontë didn’t know what to make of her conclusion. Hazel would say love was the only thing. The only thing that mattered. The only thing worth fighting for.

  The only thing worth living for.

  The truth sank in with a sickening weight at the pit of her stomach. Not that Henry didn’t deserve saving — for his own sake, now that she’d gotten to know the exemplary person he was — but Granny was right. Hazel herself may have benefitted from the intervention of a good grief counselor as much as she had from Brontë’s in saving her husband’s life. She’d worn her desolation like a mourning cloak through the rest of her days. Every reiteration of her diary had proven that. The abandonment of her home, her friends, and in many ways, her children all for the sake of her loss. She’d accomplished it so thoroughly there was an entire branch of her step-father’s family — the MacKintoshes, friends of Henry’s — that she’d forsaken so thoroughly that by Brontë’s generation they didn’t even remember the connection.

  But if love wasn’t everything...worth everything, what was?

  “I never intended for you get so caught up in them that you didn’t live a life of your own,” Violet went on. “Your mother was right. They’ve given you unrealistic expectations.”

  “I have a life,” Brontë defended herself. Her expectations were best not addressed. Especially not now.

  “But not love. You mustn’t give up on finding it, dear.”

  Brontë’s forehead wrinkled with the force of her skeptical stare. “Odd advice coming from you, Granny. You never bothered to look after Grandpa died.”

  “Yes. As I said before, my greatest regret. I don’t want you to be me,” her grandmother shot back. “By the time I realized eternal mourning was a poor substitute for a real live man to have and hold, it was too late to do anything about it. Don’t be me, dear. Don’t end up old and alone.” She raised a hand to stifle Brontë’s protest. “I know I’m not technically alone here. I love you dearly, my girl, but you must agree the pleasant company of a granddaughter cannot compensate for the time I squandered. I missed out on years of companionship, romance, and to be honest, sex.”

  She bit her tongue and Violet caught the gesture with another grin. “Hard to imagine us old folks enjoying a warm body, isn’t it?” she said with a laugh. “My point is, you’ve a lot of years ahead of you yet, dear. Trust me, you don’t want to live them alone.

  “Are you saying something is better than nothing then?” Brontë asked. “That settling is better than waiting for something more?”

  Her grandmother fell silent. A frown marring her brow as she sipped her wine. “Perhaps not settling for it precisely.”

  “What then?”

  “Fighting for it.”

  Chapter 30

  “NAY, YE CANNAE BE PULLING that, ye radge bampot. Ye’ll bring the whole thing down on top of us. That. Aye, that! Turn it doon. Doon, ye eejit,” came the bellow, then a lower mumbled, “Ye feckin’ dolton.”

  No one could swear like a Scotsman. A thick Scottish brogue could convey more exasperation than any number of insults. Despite the headache jackhammering her head, the lyrical burr if not the words themselves made Brontë smile as she crossed backstage of the Lyceum. The hubbub involved with the break down of sets signaled that the run of Cyrano de Bergerac had come to an end. The play would move on.

  As would the set director and announcer of all those insults she’d heard coming in. Donell grinned at her as she walked by and tipped his flat cap. “Och, Miss Hughes, there ye are,” his brogue softer and far friendlier than it had been seconds before. “Whit like? Ye look a wee bit peely-wally.”

  How was she? The hangover from hell had set up shop in her head and extended to her stomach. Of course, she looked pale. The liquid contents of her stomach were in full rebellion. “I’m fine.”

  He nodded. “What brings ye about? There’s nae show tonight.”

  “I know. I wanted to get ahead of the next production.”

  Yes. One ingeniously entitled Brontë Travels Back in Time: Part Three. Or was it four?

  “The next one?” He lifted off his cap and scratched his balding head before donning it again. “I dinnae think ye finished wi’ the last one as yet. G
iven the way things were left, that is.”

  His nonsensical comment confused her. “As you know, Cyrano’s run is over. That’s why you’re taking down the sets, isn’t it?”

  The old man shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “That’s no’ the project I was referring to, lass. Ye left a pure tangle of things, aye?”

  As if he might snatch it from her hands, she clutched her purse to her chest, protecting the precious time machine within. To her last breath, she wouldn’t give it up without seeing Tris again. And Donell sounded as if he knew what she’d been up to. How could that be possible when he didn’t even know she’d borrowed his device?

  “Dinnae fash yerself, lass. I’m no’ going to fight ye for it.”

  He did know.

  “Aye, I kent what ye hae. How could I no’? I gave it to ye, dinnae I?”

  Her chin found its way to the floor before she snapped her mouth shout again. “You did? I mean, you did it on purpose? Why?”

  “Why do ye think? I tend to favor people wi’ like-minded goals.”

  I’m not going to ask. I’m not going to ask.

  “How did you know? About them? About me? About —”

  Donell held up a hand to stall her interrogation. “I believe ye’re comfortable wi’ the notion that ye’d be happier if ye dinnae ken the truth, aye?”

  He knew about the excuse she’d given Tris when he’d asked the same question? How?

  “I kent many things, lass. First and foremost, ye’re no’ done wi’ the task I set ye to yet.”

  All her worries about keeping his device from him and he’d done it on purpose? The truth rang through her already aching head. He not only knew everything she’d done, everything she’d gone through, but had planned the whole thing? Knowing he’d set her up did nothing to comfort Brontë and everything to galvanize her temper.

  “Your task? You mean your impossible task? Every time I save Henry another catastrophe rises to take its place. In fact,” — she made a show of checking her wrist for a watch that wasn’t there — “I’m running late on the way to execute another exercise in futility right now. Isn’t that right?”

  Brows high, he shot a wary glance around the stage and caught her by the elbow to lead her down the hall to the costume shop. “Simmer yerself ’ere ye work yerself into a lather, lass.”

  “Simmer myself? I just found out that the enormous pile of shit I’ve been wading through has been orchestrated by...by...by a madman, clearly,” she lashed out at him along the way. Her regrets and fears all swarmed to the forefront, eager to be purged. “What? Do you get some cheap thrill out of playing with people’s emotions? Do you have any idea what you’ve done? To Tris? To me?”

  “I ken well enough ye maun be the most temperamental lass I’ve dealt with yet,” he muttered with a scowl.

  Astonishment forced her to downshift from anger to sarcasm. “So nice to know I’m not alone. What the fuck, Donell? I hurt him. I hurt all of them. And for what? If I save Henry again, there will be something else, won’t there? Then another and another?”

  “And here I thought foreknowledge would save me a fair amount of anxiety. Sit, lass.” He grasped her shoulders and pivoted her toward a chair, though he didn’t go so far as to push her into it. Dazed by his revelations, she sank down. He hovered over and the next thing she knew he stood six inches to the right holding out a glass of whisky to her. “Here. Calm yerself, lass.”

  “It’s ten in the morning.”

  “Ye look like ye could use it.”

  Yes, she could. Brontë took a sip and looked back up at him. “You went and got this, didn’t you? To another time?”

  “To mine. Aye. I needed a moment to collect myself as well,” he told her. “Ye’re a headstrong lass.”

  The temptation to ask him what time he’d come from was great, however she refrained from doing so. He was right. Mired in shock and plagued by a brutal headache as she was, she didn’t need anything more to compound her despair. Someday — certainly not right now — she’d be interested to know who those other temperamental lasses he referred to were.

  “No’ everything works out as planned the first time around,” he explained. “Adjustments need to be made to get them right. Timing is everything. One wee second can send a ripple down the timeline, mucking everything up. Time is nothing to be toyed wi’, lass.”

  The speech had an odd ring to it, and she got the impression this wasn’t the first time he’d delivered it. Not to be toyed with? Ha, from her perspective he did plenty of that.

  “It shouldnae hae been so difficult for ye. Ye’ve been burdened wi’ an unexpected and unfortunate challenge.” With one fingertip, he guided the glass to her lips. “Other parties wanting to undo what ye’ve done. For that, I apologize.”

  The whisky burned a welcome path down her throat. He meant the unforeseen circumstance of one Heath Wyndom obviously. “I’ll succeed in the end then?”

  At least there would be that to offer comfort.

  Donell shrugged. “I’ve learned that sometimes ’tis no’ always possible to save everyone. That no’ everyone is meant to be saved. The icy fate that first took him wisnae meant to be. I’ve seen millions of versions of the future, lass. Save him from this last attempt and he’ll have accomplished his purpose.”

  Was he saying Henry would or would not make it in the end? Confusion muddled her thoughts. Brontë wished she were in a better state of mind to understand what he was getting at.

  “I don’t understand, if I’m not supposed to ultimately save Henry, then why send me back at all? What’s changed between then and now to make him expenda ...?” The thought slipped away as she grasped his ultimate objective. Hazel’s pregnancy. That’s what was different between this time and the last. The unborn baby Phineas. “They’re after the baby?”

  “They’ll seek to prevent his birth.”

  “Who? Who are they?” She jerked her head and took another sip of the whisky. “Scratch that. I’m not ready for that yet. They don’t know Hazel’s already pregnant? What? Is math not their strong suit?”

  “Certain records may have been altered.” He shrugged.

  “Why wait two years after the Titanic to send someone to finish him off then?” she asked. “Why not right away?”

  “Time itself is irrelevant. Years are naught while timing itself is everything.”

  Brontë pondered what he’d said. “You’re saying no matter what I do, Henry will die? I don’t get it. If you wield such a power, why can’t you have everything you want?”

  “Sometimes what we want is not what we need.”

  He’d said that before. The concept worked for her to some extent when applied to her love life but not to Henry’s survival.

  “Yer ancestor has a passel of children he never had before,” Donell went on. “His wife, bairns a plenty to love and comfort...and to draw comfort from. She’ll be happy again when all is said and done.”

  He was wrong about that. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “A comedian of this time that ye’re fond of once said ‘Our job is improving the quality of life, no’ just delaying death,’” he quoted.

  Yes, she was familiar. Robin Williams, God rest him, might have been the greatest philosopher of her time.

  He stared down into his glass then guzzled down the remainder of the Scotch in a manner it was not meant to be. “I ken ye want him to live, lass, but he disnae need to.”

  He was wrong about that, too. Brontë shook her head. “I need him to. Hazel needs him to. His children will need him to.”

  “I’m sorry, lass.” He looked duly regretful. “There is a greater cause at play.”

  “What can be greater than this?” she protested. “Why should children and a loving wife have to sacrifice their father?

  “Why would a father sacrifice his own child?” came his cryptic response. His brogue dropped with emotion. “Why would a man sacrifice the love of his life? When I say great
er good, lass, I mean a cause greater than one man’s life. I’ve fought many battles, the greatest of them all is coming. Ye’ll need to let him go. As we maun all eventually let everyone we love go.”

  Following his example, she drank the contents in a single swallow, and welcomed the dull buzz it brought to her mournful contemplation. “You expect me to sit back and watch him die? I can’t do that.”

  He nodded again. “Ye hate having nae control. Being unable to mold the world to suit ye. All yer life, ye’ve been a dreamer disappointed by an imperfect world. And all the more unhappy for it. If ye’ve learned nothing else from this, what is it, lass?”

  He wanted her to say that she’d learned to let it go. To accept what she couldn’t change and be content with what she had. Not to look back with regret but forward with optimism.

  Brontë couldn’t say that.

  Sadly for him, what she’d learned was to fight. Fight for what was right, for what she wanted and who she loved. She wasn’t going to dwell in the darkness and let it consume her any more. She was going to drag it, all of it into the light.

  He’d see that soon enough.

  For now, he seemed satisfied by her lack of response. “Let me gi’ ye a ride to where ye need to be, aye? Ye’ve got a foe to conquer. And a lover to make up wi’ if I’m no’ mistaken.”

  The suggestion swept away her fierce musings on conquest and reminded her of her failures. “Right. How am I supposed to do that? Tris doesn’t trust me.”

  Donell scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Ye ken, I’ve spent my life moving through time. The future can be a shock for those from the past. Disnae mean ye shouldnae try.”

  “Are you suggesting...?”

  His blue eyes twinkled with humor.

  “I’m suggesting ye keep him close. Verra close.”