The Inheritance

by Michael Phillips

  “My wife is of mixed Scottish and Irish extraction. She says that Celtic harmonies get deep into your soul in a way no other music can. It is music you feel. You want to be there.”

  “The moment I heard it, I felt as if I had entered another world.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” said the shopkeeper. “I find that Celtic music transports you to wild seashores and lonely moors and desolate mountains. Before you know it, you’ve left the stress and pace of the modern world behind.”

  “Strange words for a man with a shop in the middle of D.C.!” laughed Loni.

  “If I could move my shop to the tiny Irish village of my wife’s ancestors, I would do so in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, to make a living selling antiques, we have to be where there are customers. So my wife and I satisfy our love for the old country by visiting Ireland, Scotland, England, or Wales once a year to buy for the shop. That way we get the best of both worlds.”

  “I see what you mean. You are fortunate indeed.”

  Loni left the shop feeling strangely warmed by the serendipitous encounter.

  13

  Relinquished Dreams

  EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA

  An aging man of eighty-one, stooped slightly in the shoulders but still vigorous, beard and hair white as snow, the latter poking out from beneath the edges of a wide-brimmed hat, stood in front of a large, red, two-story wood farmhouse. He was watching four men half his age pull down the final straps onto a flatbed wagon piled high with a good portion of his most prized possessions.

  He had helped them load every item on the wagon. His assistance lifting tables, bookcases, benches, sideboards, routers, jigsaws, chop saws, and a variety of ornate cabinets—some but half completed—was far from superfluous. He had shouldered more than his fair share of the load as they had hoisted up the heaviest of the tools and machinery. Some of the equipment beneath the ropes had been crafting fine furniture in his workshop for a dozen decades—far longer than his own years. The youngest of his nephews, even in this insular agrarian society where honor of one’s elders was sacred, was astonished by the old man’s vitality.

  The hard work of the afternoon was behind them. All that remained now was to secure the load . . . and for him to come to terms with the passing of a legacy. Where he stood observing a lifetime of love and labor come to an end, he presented the image of a powerful man who had lost only a portion his manhood’s strength. He pretended to supervise the ritual of ropes and knots, but his heart stung him afresh as he said a silent good-bye to the life he had known. But he would shed no tears until his nephews and their sons were gone.

  His dreams had been dying a slow death for some time now. Many tears had already fallen. Today represented but the final nails driven into the invisible coffin of his hopes and expectations. It was time to bid farewell to them one last time and allow what fragments of those dreams might remain to follow new generations.

  Perhaps the pursuit of dreams, then laying them to rest, were inevitably yoked seasons in the cycle of life. Every alpha had its omega. Beginning and end. Spring’s planting was followed by autumn’s freeze. The land must go fallow that it might bear fruit again.

  The oldest of the four turned from the wagon and walked toward the house.

  “I think that’s about it, Uncle William,” he said.

  “Looks like you’ve got it tight and secure.”

  “I think so. It’s only three-quarters of a mile. We’ll take it slow.” He allowed a tinge of sadness to express what he knew words could not.

  “We’ll make you proud of us, Uncle William,” he said, extending his hand.

  “I know you will, Jacob,” said the older man as the two shook hands affectionately.

  “The name and heritage will continue.”

  “I am certain you will do them both proud.”

  “Thank you, Uncle William.” He stood a moment. “So,” he said, “we’ll be off then. We want to get everything inside before dark.”

  He turned to the tractor and climbed up into the seat. His uncle turned, walked up the steps toward the house, then sent his gaze back around again to observe their departure. He stood still watching from the porch five minutes later as the wagon clattered slowly along the narrow dirt lane into the distance behind the tractor, the sons of his nephew walking behind it. At length he turned one last time, opened the door behind him, and slowly walked inside. His wife was standing at the kitchen window. The two embraced.

  “Well, Anabel,” he said, forcing a smile, “there goes my life . . . and my father’s and grandfather’s before me.”

  “It’s still in the family,” said his wife, a graceful woman of seventy-nine whose stateliness still held in spite of a mane as white as her husband’s. “That’s something to be thankful for. The name will go on.”

  “Not exactly how I envisioned it,” the man said.

  Husband and wife left the kitchen and sat down in their two favorite chairs in the adjoining living room. Silence filled several long minutes.

  “I never really expected it to come to this,” sighed the man at length. “All those early years when my father was still alive, Chad running around in the shop making toys from scraps of wood, then as he grew going on occasional sales trips with me, and later when Dad was scaling back and I was assuming more of the workload . . . I assumed Chad would carry on after me, as I was taking over from my father, just as he had learned the trade from his father. It never entered my mind that it wouldn’t go on, that Chad wouldn’t value the family business like I did.”

  “He might have in time,” said his wife. “There’s no way to know what might have been. I don’t think he lost his love for woodworking, even for the family business. It’s just that he fell in love. But who can tell? He might have come back.”

  “We will never know,” William said. “And even after what happened, I somehow still never expected this day. I suppose I was shortsighted, blind to the reality that we would get old and that this day had to come. I thought she would eventually embrace our life, carry it on with her own husband and family. I simply never . . .”

  He turned away and brushed a gnarled hand across his face.

  “I never expected for the two of us to be sitting here like this,” he went on in a faltering voice, “old, alone, no youngsters around . . . the house quiet. How can I not help feeling that I somehow failed? Failed my ancestors, my family, even failed you.”

  “Oh, William, you haven’t failed me. We have had a good life in spite of our loss, in spite of what people said about us. I wouldn’t trade my life for any woman’s in Pennsylvania.”

  “What about the criticism? Surely you haven’t forgotten—”

  “Of course not. Some of my closest friends were among them, God forgive them. I haven’t forgotten how much their gossip hurt.”

  “But what if it was true—that somehow it was our fault?”

  “You don’t really believe that?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not. The fact is, two generations under our charge left the community. It is difficult not to blame myself.”

  “As I have said before, Chad didn’t leave the faith, he left our Fellowship. But there are many others less strict. Ours is one of the rare exceptions in the wave of liberalism that has infected the Society.”

  “I should have seen it coming. It was my fault for allowing him to be exposed to the world. I should have seen that he wasn’t strong enough to withstand its temptations.”

  The woman sighed. “I understand your grief, William. I harbor similar doubts myself. It’s been so many years. Then a day like today comes, another letting go, and it seems like yesterday.” She, too, blinked back tears and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

  “But we cannot look back,” she went on in a tone of mingled determination and resignation. “The Book says that any man who sets his hands to the plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom. As you are haunted by whether you did right by our son, I am troubled by the same questions
about his daughter. What might I have done differently?”

  “She had more doubts at an earlier age than we realized. She may have been destined to leave the moment she arrived on our doorstep.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I have the feeling she was compelled by a past she knew nothing about. It was always pulling at her. She was never at peace here.”

  “I hope she is at peace now. Will she ever come back, William?”

  “To stay, you mean . . . to live?”

  His wife nodded.

  “I cannot imagine it. This was never her home.”

  “I wonder where that home is,” said the wife, her tone reflective.

  “I doubt she even knows.”

  Neither attempted to find further answers to their questions. The house grew eerily quiet.

  “Now that Frank’s boys will be using most of your tools and equipment,” said Anabel, at length breaking the silence, “what will become of the workshop and storeroom?”

  “I kept enough tools to stay busy. They will still sell what I am able to make. I do not intend to sit and do nothing. When I can no longer even do that . . . well, who can say? We’ve crossed one bridge today. Let’s save that next bridge for a later time.”

  “Whatever the future holds,” she said, reaching for his hand, “we have each other, William. I am more thankful for that than you can imagine.”

  14

  The Muckle Room

  WHALES REEF, SHETLAND ISLANDS

  David Tulloch returned from his early ramble to the North Cliffs and the unbidden reminders of the past prompted by it. Walking into the home where he had spent his entire life, he made his way straight to the kitchen and poured water for the day’s first pot of tea.

  Sipping at the cup in his hand, he wandered into the Muckle Room, not so large or “great” as the great room of his uncle’s house, so styled by his great-great-great grandmother. Esther Walpoole was an English lady of sufficient distinction to look with undisguised disdain on the traditional heritage of the family into which she had married. She had come north to marry Ernest’s father, William, but had never forgotten—nor let anyone else forget—that she was first and foremost, born and bred, an Englishwoman.

  One of the first orders of business after her union with the Shetlander was the construction of a grand new domicile for the laird and chief and his wife on the east side of the island. Fortunately for David, old William Tulloch’s wife had been so consumed with designing and furnishing their new quarters that she had neither remodeled nor dismantled the Old House, or Auld Hoose as it had been known ever since. His present home had come down through the generations, finally to him, looking much the same, David assumed, as it had years before she moved from it. Esther Walpoole Tulloch had her new “cottage,” so to speak, and he now had her old one.

  For one who loved tradition, loved all things old, loved his family legacy and its Scottish roots, every inch of the place was precious to him.

  David’s gaze strayed across the wall opposite. Exquisite nineteenth century oak bookcases were filled from floor to ceiling, mostly with volumes passed down through the decades—the family library had been divided about equally between the two houses—along with those he had added himself. Most of his own personal library used in his research, however, he kept in his office upstairs.

  The room held two sideboards, several writing tables, and three glass cases full of china, silver, and pewter, vases, goblets, and glassware. Though old, none of the contents was of particularly high antiquarian value. The Chippendale furniture, Delft ware, and collection of Derby porcelain that had come north with Esther Walpoole’s dowry was all still displayed in what had become her new home.

  Between windows and above sideboards and cases, the three walls of the Muckle Room adjoining the books were colorfully accented with traditional Scottish memorabilia resembling a Highland hunting lodge more than a family home—faded tartans, a variety of swords, dirks and sgian-dubhs, a ram’s head, two antlered stag heads, a coat of mail, a shield, and an ornately painted Tulloch family crest. From two large hooks hung an ancient set of decaying bagpipes that would never make music again. Few Norse-minded Shetlanders were enamored of such things. Nearly every item in the room had come from the Highlands of mainland Scotland with old Ranald MacDonald in the early 1800s.

  David’s eyes fell on the harp in the corner of the room reportedly belonging to his great-grandmother, Moira Tulloch. For decades it had stood where it sat on this day, serving no purpose other than lending one more element of subtle charm to the aura of Celtic tradition. No one to his knowledge had played it since her time. The poor thing was missing several strings and fully a third were broken.

  With cup of tea in hand, he walked over to it and plucked one string, then another. The random sounds without melody were yet curiously peaceful. They filled the room with melancholy reminders of days gone by.

  The solitary vibrations penetrated deep into David’s soul. The death of his best friend at twelve had shattered his innocence. Losing his father a short time later deepened the scar. It took time for his youthful laughter to return. When it did, what sounded from teenage David Tulloch’s lips was no longer the laughter of childhood but of youth gradually growing wiser in the often painful ways of the world.

  As the mantle of the chieftainship settled upon his own shoulders at his father’s passing, and as manhood overtook him, David’s buoyantly optimistic nature returned. His smile and humor were sufficient to charm most of the village mothers and grandmothers who, a dozen years before, had wondered if he would ever amount to anything. Once the emotional spiritualisms of the Fountain movement spent themselves, and the broken families and friendships left in its wake began the process of restoration, life on the island slowly returned to what it had been before. Except for his cousin Hardy, who inherited his father’s disdain for David’s side of the family, most of the fishermen and their wives took to their young chief.

  Though he rarely spoke of it, David never forgot the divisions that had nearly destroyed their community and had indeed split the church. If schoolmistress Barton and parish minister Aedon had not been gone from Whales Reef by the time he became chief, he would have taken what steps lay in his power to oust them. As it turned out, such was not necessary. By David’s twenty-first year the island was well on its way toward the healing of most former breaches. Though hard feelings remained in some quarters, at least the village was able to worship again as one.

  Sunday services in the parish church, however, rarely included the new chief. In the aftermath of the Fountain’s cultish influences, David found himself embarking on a spiritual quest he knew could never be satisfied with the teachings of a church . . . any church. He had to discover the truth on his own. Amid his quandaries and quest, David took refuge in the Gospels. There his aching soul found sustenance. The red letters of his New Testament sent down roots into every corner of his being. His resulting spiritual journey had been amply rewarded in the years since with strength of character and a depth of wisdom well beyond his years.

  But his spiritual pilgrimage had been a quiet and inward one, occupying that region of his being where he kept the memories of Armund and his father, and the bitter reminders of the erstwhile prophetess and prophet. Even the classmates who had watched him squirm away from the touch of Sister Grace, and who, like him, had suffered from the Fountain’s mischief could not completely understand the inward quest those memories prompted in David’s heart. They were not driven to discover what it all meant.

  More than anything else, what set David Tulloch apart from his fellow islanders was his intense drive to know truth. He was a complex man with both a jovial, gregarious side seen by the world and an inner nature informed by the pain of loss. These two seemingly opposite sides of his psyche joined as one into a fierce determination to protect the people of the island from any outside influences that would once more disrupt their way of life.

  Even as the tones from the harp
strings slowly dissipated, the striking of the half hour turned David’s glance toward a large grandfather clock standing in the opposite corner. Its reverberating chime subdued the fading tones of the instrument into silence.

  David gulped down the remainder of his tea, returned the cup to the kitchen, then grabbed coat, hat, and walking stick from beside the door. Moments later he strode for a second time that day out into the chilly morning, this time to the village and a visit to his uncle at the Cottage.

  15

  A Tough Fisher Breed

  LERWICK, SHETLAND ISLANDS

  As the chief walked through the quiet morning toward the village, twenty miles away in Lerwick on mainland Shetland, the city’s wholesale fish-processing warehouses were noisy beehives of activity.

  Mornings were always busy as fishing boats came in from a night on the water—or after several nights—to unload their catches. The holds and scales and ice machines could scarcely keep up.

  Cod had been running especially well for the past several weeks. Warehouses were full and ships laden with the sea’s bounty sailed daily for Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, and the Continent. Freshness and supply determined price. A load of herring, salmon, haddock, sole, mackerel, or cod brought into Lerwick before eight had to be in an iced container on its way south by six that same evening, arriving in markets ready for a thousand vendors, from door-to-door fish vans to major supermarket chains. Nobody wanted old fish.

  Fishing was a feast-or-famine enterprise. The Shetlands had been enjoying its abundance for several years. The hardened seafarers reminded themselves that it couldn’t last forever. Notwithstanding continental complaints about the overfishing of North Sea cod, however, Shetland’s fishermen were enjoying it while they could. Those owning their own crafts were making out best of all.

  David’s third cousin Hardar Tulloch, one of Whales Reef’s toughest, most outspoken but certainly skilled fishermen, had just unloaded his two boats after several days at sea. Most of his crew roomed in Lerwick and would soon be off to their showers and beds and a few days’ rest before heading out again.