Angel Harp: A Novel

by Michael Phillips

  “For some reason Alasdair went into Aberdeen one day. I think it had some connection to his offshore oil investments. A messenger came to me from the castle while he was away. He handed me a brief letter. I recognized Fiona’s hand instantly. She said she had to see me… urgently. At the time I did not know that Alasdair had gone into the city. I dropped everything and hurried to the castle.

  “I was led upstairs, surprised to be shown into Fiona’s bedroom. She was in bed with Dr. Mair at her side. Her face was pale. She dismissed the doctor, then told me why she had sent for me. Her labor had begun. She was afraid and in pain for more reasons she thought than the pregnancy. She was afraid of dying. I tried to reassure her that such fears were normal during childbirth. She had called me there as a friend, but mostly as a minister. She wanted me to assure her that she would go to heaven. Finally the spiritual uncertainties and questions from before all spilled out. We talked for a good while, though she was interrupted periodically by labor pains. At one point she reached out and took my hand. ‘You were one of the best friends I ever had, Iain,’ she said. ‘I always admired you for what you did. But I am afraid, Iain. You will pray for me, won’t you?’

  “Before I had the chance to reply, suddenly the door flew open and Alasdair burst in. His face was red with rage to see me at the bedside with his wife’s hand in mine. I stood, obviously mortified to have him find me in what looked like such a compromising position. He roared in fury, and I’m afraid used language that did not become him in the presence of a woman, not to mention his wife. I wish I did not have to tell you such things,” he said, letting out a long sigh.

  “But you asked for the whole story. Alasdair was full of threats. His whole demeanor portended violence. Had it not been that Dr. Mair had followed him into the room, I would have been afraid to leave Fiona alone. But the doctor hurried to Fiona’s side and, assured that she was safe, I hurried from the room and left the castle. Now I had more reason than ever to pray for Fiona.

  “The next morning I learned that a girl had been born but that Fiona was dead, that Alasdair was weak and under the doctor’s care, and that the child was safely with Alasdair’s sister, Olivia. My position was precarious so I did not visit the castle that day, but sent condolences to Alasdair by letter. The situation remained extremely awkward. I was not asked to preside at the funeral. A few days later I heard that Alasdair had suffered a collapse and had taken to bed.

  “Rumors almost immediately began to circulate both about the child’s parentage and Fiona’s death, which involved both Alasdair and me. I tried to ignore them. Alasdair left, they say for the Continent, some time later and was gone a year. During that time, certain legal allegations were made which resulted in Olivia’s being named Gwendolyn’s legal guardian. So the situation has remained until now.

  “I am sorry to say that Alasdair and I have only seen one another two or three times since then, and have not spoken a word. I know he still harbors bad feelings toward me for what happened. Every time I set foot in the church I am aware that just over the fence not a quarter mile away lives a man I once loved as a brother whom I have not spoken to in years.”

  Iain let out a long sigh with an expression I can only describe as mingling embarrassment, confusion, and heartache.

  We sat for a long time in silence.

  “I have heard so many conflicting things,” I said finally. “What is the truth in all this? Can one ever really know?”

  Iain shook his head. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “That is the most difficult question in all human relationships—how to resolve differences and conflict and bring healing, when there are so many versions of truth. I am afraid there are some things that no one will ever know until God reveals it all.”

  “But from your sermon, you believe healing and reconciliation are still possible?”

  “I do. I absolutely do. Being of one mind concerning conflicts of the past is no prerequisite for healing, only a mutual desire to forgive and move forward. Complex and selfish emotional creatures that we humans are, resolution is not so important as reconciliation. Healing can take place even where scars remain. The body uses scars to heal over wounds, and perhaps there is a spiritual principle involved, too. In the end, character must surely be the most reliable validation of truth we have to go on.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  Character

  Gone are now those blissful days—

  Too ecstatic while they lasted,

  All the flowers that gemmed my ways

  By misfortune’s breath are blasted.

  —“Maiden by the Silver Dee”

  I scarcely slept that night.

  I could not stop my brain from spinning like a merry-go-round. Weird dreams flitted in and out of my consciousness as I dozed on and off, images of Alasdair and Iain and Gwendolyn and red-haired circus clowns and the three of them spinning around on a carousel of horses, and Olivia Urquhart’s mesmerizing voice hanging like a thick stupefying fog over everything… soft, calm, soothing like an antiseptic drug… speaking in otherworldly chanting rhymes. There is much you do not understand, floated the voice of reason through my dreams… much you do not understand. I know all. You cannot understand… her father’s hand. Only I understand. You cannot know of Alasdair’s youth… only I can tell you the truth.

  Several times I awoke with the words, You cannot understand… only I understand, in my ears. I could not remember whether Olivia had said she was the only one who understood. Yet somehow, after my dreams, I knew that it was what she had meant.

  It was all so confusing!

  How was one to get to the bottom of such a dispute where truth was so nebulous and vague?

  I finally could lie there no longer. I got up, took a shower, and fixed myself tea. It was only six o’clock but the sun was up.

  I went out for a walk. I had not been out so early before. It was gray, drizzly, but not too cold. The thick, misty air suited my mood. Again I sought the cliff paths, where the constant ebb and flow of the waves against the rocky shore never ceased to soothe my spirit.

  As I walked, I found myself praying. It felt good. Somehow I knew I was not alone. But the only thing I could pray was simply, God, help me understand what is going on.

  I walked for some time. Slowly, as I gazed out over the sea, a tiny hole of blue became visible through the gray clouds of the morning sky. I stared at it and knew that beyond it the sun was shining clear and bright. That little patch of blue was like a doorway through the gray mist into the light beyond.

  Suddenly a light burst in my brain. In the same way, perhaps there was also a doorway through the clouds of doubts and uncertainties that seemed so overpowering right then, a doorway into the light of truth. Almost instantly the answer came.

  The doorway through the mists of doubt was individual character.

  It was exactly what Iain had said. Character must surely be the most reliable validation of truth. You have to discern individual character, and let it lead you to truth.

  I walked along trying to absorb what this answer meant. I saw that perhaps I would never understand everything that was going on around me. Iain was right about that, too. Relationships were too complicated. Who but God himself could fully understand all the complexities of the human condition? But I could still follow that little pathway of blue into the light, by looking for true character in people, and by letting character lead to truth.

  With such thoughts, the face of Iain Barclay filled my mind. I could not help smiling. The image I saw was smiling, energetic, animated, occasionally laughing, yet it was a thoughtful face, too, and serious when the occasion demanded it. Iain’s was a countenance that was looking up, trying to follow God in all he did. In an instant I knew that he was not a man who would or even could lie to me.

  I believed him, because I believed in him. He was a man of character. I trusted him.

  I trusted Ranald Bain, too. His eyes shone with the same light—the light of character and truthfulness and humil
ity.

  Slowly the images of the two faces faded from my mind’s eye.

  Into my thoughts came the face of Alasdair Reidhaven. The duke… now my friend… perhaps even more than a friend. It was not a smiling, happy, laughing image like Iain’s had been. Alasdair wore a complex expression, thoughtful but in a different way… pained… yes, perhaps in a way even troubled. But as I continued to watch his face in my imagination, almost as if I were with him and we were talking and he was struggling to find expression, I sensed something in him I had not realized before.

  I saw humility.

  Was it an odd thing to say of a duke? Perhaps. But it was true. He was growing, changing, trying to better himself. Alasdair was far from perfect. He had made many mistakes and blunders. But he knew it. He admitted it. He was trying to grow from them and put them behind him.

  What could be more important than that?

  We all are incomplete. There are flaws in our personalities. We make mistakes. Some mistakes are more serious than others. Perhaps Alasdair had made big mistakes in his life. Maybe he was more flawed as a person than Iain Barclay. But now he was trying to grow. And I respected him for it. It takes humility to admit one’s flaws and try to grow out of them.

  This I sensed in Alasdair. Humility… the humility of character.

  Humility was a virtue that could be trusted. Yes, I believed Alasdair, too. Because I believed, with all his flaws and mistakes, that he had come to possess that indefinable quality called humility. He was a growing man of gradually deepening character.

  Then Alasdair’s face, too, faded from my mind.

  Into it came the face of Olivia Urquhart, whose expression was different from that of the three men. Enigmatic, mysterious, hiding more than it revealed. There were no smiles on her face. Try as I might, I perceived no humility, no humor, no growth. I saw calculation and cunning. I didn’t know what to make of who she was inside.

  Doubt and confusion filled me again. What was I to think? I saw her speaking in that calm, measured, smooth, mesmerizing voice that had become so familiar. I heard nothing, only saw her lips moving. I felt rather than heard the hypnotic power of her voice trying to lure and persuade me to believe what she said.

  My chest began to tighten. My eyelids grew heavy. The doubts increased… doubts about Alasdair… he was evil, a murderer, he was trying to get his clutches into me by pretending to be what he wasn’t. Iain Barclay wasn’t what he seemed. He went about pretending to be—

  No! I said to myself. I couldn’t let myself believe such things.

  Desperately I tried to shake myself awake, to cast off the spell.

  Even as I did so, another face came into my mind’s eye—the wonderful, innocent face of a young girl, a girl who did not know her father.

  I knew something about not knowing one’s Father. I was forty-one years old. Yet it had taken coming to Scotland and all the circumstances of the past weeks to wake me to the fact that God was a Father who loved me and wanted me to be his daughter. But maybe the same thing could be said of Gwendolyn. She had a father who loved her, too, and she didn’t know him, maybe didn’t even know he existed at all.

  It wasn’t right. She had to know her father, because he was aman growing into character, and he wanted to know and loveher.

  Now the image in my imagination changed again, this time into a wonderful one.

  I saw Alasdair and Gwendolyn together, hand in hand… Gwendolyn chattering away in delight to be with the man who had given her life… Alasdair smiling down upon her with the love of a father, maybe even with a reflection of God’s love for all humanity.

  I continued on my way. The images of faces now fading and the sea and the cliffs, the rocky shoreline and the gulls, all came back into focus. As I went, the words of Iain’s sermon returned to me.

  When division exists within humanity, any division—between man and man, between man and woman, between father or mother and son or daughter, division between friends—that division pierces to the very heart of God.

  I realized that perhaps reconciliation was possible without resolving every detail of the past. People could still be reconciled. Healing could still take place. Just as Iain had said, humility was the key.

  It takes humility, great humility to seek reconciliation. Yet humility is the doorway into reconciliation.

  If that was true, and if, mistakes and flaws and all, Alasdair possessed humility, why could not he and Gwendolyn be reconciled? I saw only one thing standing in the way, one person standing in the way.

  Olivia Urquhart.

  How poignant Iain’s words suddenly became.

  It is humility that leads us to be reconciled with our brothers, with our fathers, with our daughters… Humility, my friends. Humility to admit wrong, to recognize that life is not what we had hoped… Humility to apologize. Humility to arise and go to the one we have hurt. Humility is the doorway, my friends. It is the door to reconciliation… the door that leads to our sons and daughters… the door that leads to the heart of God.

  Even as the words from the sermon were still echoing through my head, I knew that before this morning was out, I needed to see the man who had spoken them.

  I felt the familiar injustice and anger starting to rise up within me. I knew the feeling. It was exactly as it had been with the bully on the playground and when I had angrily confronted Clarissa about the prom.

  I began to tremble just thinking about it. Was I about to do something stupid again, something I might regret? Or was truth at stake, and did I have to take a stand, come of it what may?

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Decision at the Bench

  If your heart should faint or fail you,

  Striving sore and toiling long,

  If the wasps of care assail you,

  Clear the way with dance and song.

  —“Hark! How the Skinner’s Fiddle Rings”

  Iain seemed surprised to see me standing at his open door.

  “I need to talk to you, Iain,” I said.

  It was obvious from his expression that he realized some change had taken place within me.

  “I would like to go for a walk, if you don’t mind,” I said. “To my favorite bench, you know.”

  “Sure,” he replied. “Just give me a minute.”

  Twenty minutes later we were walking together on the path out of town thirty meters above the sea.

  “I am sorry for being abrupt when I came to see you yesterday,” I said. “Asking you all those questions. It probably wasn’t fair of me, but I had to know.”

  “Think nothing of it,” said Iain.

  “There is something I have to tell you, too,” I went on. “It has to do with your sermon last Sunday.”

  I went on to tell him of my realizations about God’s Fatherhood, and my thoughts and prayers and my walk on the beach. He smiled a quiet, happy smile and said he was proud of me.

  “Even more than all that,” I went on, “I want to see Gwendolyn and Alasdair together again, reconciled, just like you talked about. I know I am just a visitor here. I have no business being involved. But I can’t help thinking that perhaps I came for a reason, and that this is part of it. But I don’t know what to do. Mrs. Urquhart seems to hate Alasdair. Once she found out that I knew him, she told me not to come visit Gwendolyn again.”

  “She said that?” said Iain, glancing toward me, his forehead clouding.

  “Yes,” I answered. “She was more than insistent about it, she seemed angry at me. I know hate is a strong word. But she seems absolutely determined to keep Alasdair from seeing Gwendolyn, and now me, too. It makes no sense.”

  “It might make more sense than you realize.”

  “But it isn’t right. Surely something can be done.”

  Iain was quiet a long time. We reached the bench and sat down. Whatever he was thinking, I had never seen him like this. At last he drew in a long sigh.

  “You are right.” He nodded with a serious expression. “It makes no sense. Or it
seems to make no sense. As much as she has told you, and as much as I told you, there is even more involved, things from long ago, things that may never come to light. I have tried many times to talk to Olivia. But she is adamant that she will not allow Alasdair near Gwendolyn. It has become an obsession with her. Her feelings toward me are almost as hateful, though for the sake of propriety she behaves civilly toward me. Down inside, however, she despises me, too.”

  “Does it have to do with the night of Gwendolyn’s birth?”

  “Somewhat, perhaps, though that is but the tip of the iceberg.”

  “What really did happen that night?” I asked.

  Iain sighed. “Honestly, I don’t fully know,” he replied. “Knowing both Olivia and Alasdair as I think I do, and knowing Olivia’s predisposition to twist and spin facts to manipulate opinion to serve her purpose, I am inclined not to give her account of events much credibility. But, too, it must be acknowledged that Alasdair was different back then. I am not one to pretend faults and weaknesses do not exist. At the same time, for all his human flaws, I never knew Alasdair to lie.”

  “And Mrs. Urquhart?” I said. “Would she lie?”

  Iain thought a long while.

  “That is a terrible charge to bring against any man or woman,” he replied at length. “But if it suit her purpose, I have little doubt that Olivia would lie. What takes place in her conscience between herself and God, I have no idea. When I became curate I was not happy about her as one of the elders. An elder, in my view, is one who possesses the twin Christlike characteristics of humility and wisdom, and is thus capable of living as an example to the church of discipleship and obedience. I certainly saw neither trait in Olivia Urquhart. But because she possessed enough clout, to put it bluntly, in the local community, and my own standing was at that time a little less secure, I did not feel I could do anything about it.”

  “Why would she spread stories about Gwendolyn?”