The Treasure of Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  He took out the single sheet of paper from inside the case. Nothing much was there. A few dates, two or three names and addresses, a description of the goods themselves, and estimated antique value.

  Slowly he placed the report back inside and closed the case. He hoped this satisfied him. He didn’t relish another visit here anytime soon, though before the entire episode could be brought to a conclusion, he would no doubt have to—

  His thoughts were immediately curtailed as the taxiing airplane suddenly accelerated toward takeoff. Well, at least I’ll soon be out of this cold, he thought. The sight of the tarmac speeding by under them with several abandoned hangars in the distance reminded him of the unexpected pre-flight business that had distracted him an hour earlier. He supposed his boss did know what he was doing. As innocent as the whole affair had sounded, somehow he had picked up a tail after all. Well, that was all taken care of now. In another moment he felt the tires leave the runway.

  The plane banked around sharply to the left, and was soon climbing to 33,000 feet, on a heading that would take them over Portugal, and then along the western coast of Africa to their refueling stopover. But he would not see anything. It would be dark all the way until just prior to their final touchdown.

  15

  The Bluster ’N Blow

  As Hilary stepped out of her rented Fiat, she could not help wondering how much this scene had changed from that time sixty years ago when her grandmother Joanna had first beheld it.

  It was just past one o’clock in the afternoon. She had found a hotel last night in Aberdeen, on Union Street not far from the station. This morning she had rented a car, and then driven the rest of the way to Port Strathy. Now she stood, breathing deeply of the clean salt air, in front of the Bluster ’N Blow.

  The sturdy stone walls, clean and smooth from the constant exposure to the sea spray and northern winds, the high windows that, as she recalled from her stay the night before the funeral, let in so little light, the ancient and worn oak tabletops, the huge stone fireplace—it had no doubt changed little in the past hundred years.

  Hilary glanced in the opposite direction, down Port Strathy’s main street and chief region of commerce. There had been no automobiles when Joanna had arrived; now a half dozen or ten of varying ages and makes could be seen. Yes, times had changed. Yet here she stood, just as had Joanna so long ago—equally uncertain about how to proceed, with her future before her, wondering what it might possibly hold.

  Well, Hilary thought to herself, this is my story, not Joanna’s. It’s a different world now, a different Stonewycke. I may as well see what awaits me. . . .

  With these thoughts, and the realization that her own part of whatever story lay ahead would never find its way into Joanna’s journal, Hilary turned back toward the inn, and walked inside.

  A Mr. Fraser Davies ran the Bluster ’N Blow these days—a likable fellow in his late fifties, soft-spoken and almost genteel in his manner. Hilary knew little about him, however, for she had studiously avoided unnecessary encounters with the local folk during her previous visit. This time she purposed to be a little more friendly.

  No one was present in the lobby, if such could be called the rustic entryway, with its oak halltree and single padded bench. Toward one side opened the expansive Common Room filled with tables and benches. Straight ahead a flight of stairs wound to the first floor. She set down her luggage and tapped at the bell on the desk. Before long its sharp note brought a response.

  Wiping his damp hands on a dishcloth, Mr. Davies strode with easy, unhurried steps in through a door behind the counter, which Hilary assumed led to the kitchen.

  “Good afternoon to you, miss,” he said. “Can I help you?” His tone carried a definite Scottish burr on its edges, yet there was at the same time a certain refinement in his soft voice. He paused, seeming to study her for a moment, until recognition dawned. “Why, ’tis Miss Edwards, isn’t it? I remember you from last month, though I didn’t get to see much of you, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Yes, Mr. Davies. You’re right, I’m back,” answered Hilary. “And I’d like a room, though I’m afraid I don’t have a reservation again.”

  “Hoots! You won’t be needing one this time of year. Don’t think I’d know what to do with a reservation if it jumped out at me.”

  Hilary laughed, but Davies went right on.

  “We were a bit busier than usual then on account of the funeral, you know, but a full house of guests is hardly the norm around here. It’ll pick up some years at the Yuletide, then not again till spring. But today, Miss Edwards, you may have your pick of any room in the place.”

  He brought out a thick black ledger-book from underneath the counter. “Just sign here,” he said, flipping the pages open.

  Hilary saw that there had been only two other guests to stay at the inn since she had last signed. She jotted her signature and address on the next empty line, while Davies sorted through a box of keys.

  “Here you go,” he said, handing her one on a round brass ring. “Same room as last time, if that suits you.”

  “That would be fine, Mr. Davies. Thank you.”

  He hurried out from behind the desk, took her two pieces of luggage, and led the way up the stairs behind him to her room. Hilary was relieved he was not an inquisitive man, or at least too polite to probe about her present business in Port Strathy. He merely opened her door, set her cases down inside, and asked if she would be wanting a late luncheon.

  “Yes, that would be nice,” answered Hilary. “Perhaps just a bowl of soup and a slice or two of fresh bread, if you have it.”

  Davies nodded, then left Hilary alone, pulling the door closed behind him.

  As Hilary kicked off her shoes and lay back on the clean, soft bed, she could not keep her mind from straying to Lady Joanna’s first stay at the Bluster ’N Blow. What a shock it must have been, as shy and retiring as she was then, to have gone back downstairs that first evening of her stay to discover that the conversation among the men concerned none other than herself. How mortifying to find that she was the center of local speculations!

  Port Strathy had grown considerably since then, boasting a population of some 1,600 today, compared to the 750 back in 1911 when Joanna had arrived via hay wagon over the hills from Northhaven. Fortunately, thought Hilary, my own arrival seems to have gone completely unnoticed by everyone except the innkeeper.

  Without realizing it, Hilary soon dozed off. When she awoke, she found herself feeling uncharacteristically timorous as she freshened up and prepared to descend the stairs to the Common Room. Had Joanna’s ghost visited her while she slept, leaving a dose or two of timidity behind as a reminder of that earlier time? But no knot of gossiping Scotsmen greeted her. Instead, a cheery fire burned in the hearth, warming the room furnished with a half dozen or so old English style dining tables with their high-backed benches. Mr. Davies was the only one present in the room and was blowing the fire to life with a small hand-held leather bellows. He heard Hilary’s step and turned to give her a friendly smile.

  “Hello, Miss Edwards. I was wondering what became of you.” He hung the bellows up on a hook over the hearth.

  “I’m afraid I fell asleep,” replied Hilary.

  “No harm done. The soup’s still warm.”

  “Oh, thank you. It will feel good.”

  “Nothing like it on a day like today. There’s a storm brewing up out there. The temperature’s already dropped ten degrees since you arrived.”

  “I hadn’t even noticed. But now that you mention it, I suppose it is a bit chilly.”

  “You get attuned to such things when you live in a fishing village. Here the weather can make or break a man. You’re from London, if I recall?”

  “Yes. As you might expect, I’ve had very little experience with country life.”

  “I do understand. My own background is certainly not agrarian either.”

  “I thought I detected a hint of refinement in your voice,” said Hilary.
>
  Davies laughed. “A shrewd bit of detective work! But after twenty-five years in Strathy, I am probably in danger of losing all vestiges of my former life. A life, I might add, quite different from this one.”

  “You intrigue me. I’ll have to probe that mystery later. Did you take over the inn from Sandy Cobden?”

  “Ay! That I did. You know some of our history, do you?”

  “Not as much as I’d like to.”

  Davies grinned and his brown eyes twinkled eagerly. “Don’t be saying such a thing if you’re not meaning it, miss!” he chuckled. “I’ve been known to bore the socks off many an unsuspecting traveler who offered me less of an invitation than that.”

  “But I am interested,” said Hilary. “I’m a reporter. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s potential here for an interesting story.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, is that what has brought you to our little town?”

  “Not exactly, but I certainly wouldn’t ignore a good story if one should come along?”

  “Whom do you write for?”

  “The Berkshire Review.”

  “Ay. I’ve read it. You must be the editor then, now that I put the names together.”

  Small-town innkeepers were hardly the Review’s prime market. Yet she should not have expected anything to meet normal specifications in this unique town.

  “That’s right. I really would love to learn whatever of the Bluster ’N Blow’s history you’d care to tell me.”

  “Let me get your soup, and then I can lecture to your heart’s content.”

  Davies turned and disappeared into the kitchen, returning in a few minutes with a tray bearing a large bowl of steaming potato soup, along with several generous slabs of hearty brown bread. But it was the pot of hot tea served afterward which Hilary enjoyed most, for Davies, with her “kind permission,” brought another cup and sat down to join her.

  “I don’t mind saying,” he began, stirring cream and sugar into his tea, “that I love this old inn. That’s why I go on and on so about it at the least provocation. It seems to hold the heritage of the town together in a way, almost as much as the castle up on the hill.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind my saying,” said Hilary, “though you do a wonderful job of it, you somehow don’t fit my expectations of a small village innkeeper.”

  She paused and sipped her tea. “You remind me instead of a museum curator I once interviewed,” she went on. “There’s a kind of reverence in your manner, as if this place means more to you than a building to get a glass of ale and rent a bed.”

  Davies smiled, obviously taking Hilary’s observation as a compliment. “You are a very astute judge of character, I must say. The Bluster ’N Blow is much more to me than that. All the more that I nearly did not measure up to its standards, precisely because of my un-innkeeper-like character.”

  “Do you mean it took a while for the townsfolk to accept you? I take it you had a city background?”

  “It wasn’t the townsfolk themselves as much as the laird himself, or old Doc Alec, as the people still called him all his life, God rest his soul.”

  “Oh?” Hilary arched an eyebrow. What could there have been in this gentle-appearing man for her grandfather not to approve of?

  “You see, Lady Joanna and Doc Alec were looking for a different sort after Sandy died. More the type you were expecting, I think.” He paused for a swallow of tea. “Sandy left no heirs, so it fell to Doc Alec to find someone to run the place. He wanted—how should I put it?—an earthy sort, a humble farm type. Maybe a local man and wife whom the people already knew, whom he could be sure would keep the traditions of the place alive. I was an Assistant Professor at King’s College in Aberdeen at the time, and I hardly fit the bill. They were wary of having an intellectual. They didn’t think the local folk would accept me. Fortunately my years on the school debating team served me well, and I was able to convince them to give me a try.”

  “How did you change their minds?”

  “My love of history helped, along with changes in my heart following the war. I suppose the same thing was happening to many returning soldiers. Priorities change, and the meaning of life changes too. For me, I found that the cloistered life of the university no longer had its former appeal. Oh, there are advantages to a life in the city. But the older I grew the more my childhood roots began to beckon me. Having come from a family of innkeepers, I had always harbored a dream of one day retiring from teaching to operate an inn. Well, when I chanced to hear about the status of the Bluster ’N Blow, I asked myself, ‘Why not now?’ So I took an early retirement from the university, and embarked on a second career. The cream on the cake is that this inn is a veritable heaven for a lover of history such as myself. I believe the MacNeils were finally able to see this love in me, and to see that part of my vision for the inn was to preserve its historical integrity.”

  Davies paused to refill their cups. “So your curator analogy is actually quite apt.”

  “Does the estate control all of Port Strathy, then?”

  “Of course at one time all the lands, even the environs of the town, were owned by the estate and governed by it,” answered Davies, growing more comfortable now that the conversation had shifted from his own history to that of the region. “Over time, however, the control of the various properties was gradually released, probably for economic reasons. Then in 1911, Lady Margaret and Lady Joanna, in a decision that quickly became local legend and endeared the family to everyone in the area even more than before, relinquished a huge portion of the land, granting full ownership to the individual resident crofters.”

  “But the inn was excluded from this?”

  “The Ramsey and Duncan clan never exactly owned the inn. Through the years it has exercised a controlling influence over major transactions and changes in ownership. The family has retained this authority, as I mentioned in my own case, right up to this present day. But the inn is actually owned by its individual operator. The Bluster ’N Blow has always operated on its own charter. Back in 1741 Colin Ramsey deeded the property that was to become the site of the inn to his friend, Archibald Munro, to whom he owed a certain debt of gratitude. But no Ramsey, except the Ladies Margaret and Joanna, ever gave away a chunk of their land without attaching strong conditions. Such was especially true back in the eighteenth century. That was just four years before the ’45, you know—significant times in Scotland’s history!” He paused, grinning sheepishly at his tendency to stray from the point.

  “But as I was saying,” he continued, “Colin’s motives may have been purely economical, for, besides the land, he invested a large portion of cash in his friend’s project. Thus, a provision was written into the title that should the inn pass from the hands of Munro’s direct descendants, the estate maintained the power to choose the new owner, or, if expedient, to reclaim the property. The family has exercised that right ever since, but I think Lady Atlanta Duncan was the first to use that prerogative for purely aesthetic purposes. She cared a great deal for the land, not only for its economic yield, but also for the heritage bound up in the land in and of itself. That devotion has passed down through the generations ever since.”

  “And Lady Joanna wanted to be certain that the character of her beloved valley did not change,” said Hilary thoughtfully. Even as she said the words the memory of her grandmother’s face rose into her mind from that day they met in her London office.

  “Changes cannot be avoided,” Davies went on like the historian he was, “and Lady Joanna knew it. She wasn’t adverse to change as such; the transfer of the property gave evidence of that. She wanted to see Port Strathy prosper, and in the twentieth century, you can’t remain static and prosper too. The coming of new times has brought new economic demands on landowners. But the Bluster ’N Blow is a landmark, though you won’t find it in any tour book. And that is what she wanted to preserve—the sense of history. I mean, if the London Bridge can be sold to an American, anything can happen in this day
and age.”

  Davies drained off the last of his tea, then smiled at Hilary. “If you’re not completely bored, you might be interested in seeing my pride and joy.”

  “With pleasure,” said Hilary.

  They rose, and he led the way to the back wall of the Common Room, which Hilary had not noticed before. Hanging on the wall was a series of finely carved wooden plaques, each boasting engraved gold plates underneath, one plaque honoring all of the various owners of the inn all the way back to Archibald Munro. Below, framed in glass, was a brief written history of each owner with a pen-and-ink drawing of his likeness.

  “This is wonderful!” exclaimed Hilary. “And you did all of this?”

  “I had a time of it with some of my predecessors, of whom I had only a name and vague hearsay as to their looks and physical features. But I felt from the very beginning that my job here entailed more than simply providing food and beds.”

  Hilary was still examining the wall as he spoke. “Queenie Rankin . . .” she mused aloud. “Why, she’s just as I imagined her!”

  “You do know more than the average person about our little corner of the world, Miss Edwards!” Davies was both pleased and curious.

  “Yes . . . I suppose that’s true,” was all Hilary could think to reply.

  “But I don’t recall ever seeing you here before the funeral.”

  “No, I . . . that is . . . well—” but she broke off, flustered, and unable to come up with a quick lie.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Edwards,” Davies said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry. Please forgive me.”

  “An apology is not necessary, Mr. Davies. I’ve been plying you with enough questions, you’re surely entitled to a few.” Then, because she could think of no reason not to, Hilary added, “I met Lady Joanna recently. She showed me a journal she had kept about the history . . . of her family.”

  “Ah . . . you’ve seen her journal.” He spoke as if that suddenly placed an indelible bond between them. “It’s wonderful, is it not? She honored me, though she would never think of it in those terms, by showing me it also. I’ve done a bit of writing—nothing important, just university papers—and she wanted advice. She also felt it would help me in this endeavor,” he added, gesturing toward the wall.