Heather Song

by Michael Phillips

  “Thank you, Mr. Jones,” I said with a smile. “I will keep in touch, I promise.”

  He gave me a hug and we parted. I drove back to my father’s house, mine now…or soon would be when the legalities of my father’s affairs were concluded.

  I walked into the house, so silent, so empty, so devoid of the life that had been here such a short time ago…now departed.

  Ichabod. I was truly alone now.

  I walked all through the house, then into the garage, with my father’s workshop to one side. He had loved this area more than any other place in the house. Woodworking had been such a passion for him. His radio sat on the workbench. Beside it sat a bookstand with a Bible opened to 2 Thessalonians.

  Absently I moved closer and gazed at the page. At the end of the last verse, in his familiar hand, were penciled several dates—Feb 1979, Nov 1987, June 1999, Aug 2007.

  Hmm, I thought to myself, what could those mean?

  I flipped to the next book, 1 Timothy. It had similar markings after its final verse. I continued to page forward and back, randomly checking other books—every book of the Bible had four dates, and all in rough sequence through the years 1976, 1987, 1999, and 2008. It gradually dawned on me that I had stumbled upon my father’s schedule of Bible readings. He had been through this Bible four times!

  Even after his death, still more windows into the man were opening to my consciousness.

  I began looking around his workshop. Little handwritten notes—Scriptures, reminders, prayers—were taped or stuck on nails all around me—my father’s reminders to himself to stay spiritually focused. I saw a prayer list full of names I had never heard of—all except one…Angel Dawn Marie.

  Tears came to my eyes. My father had been praying for me! I wondered how long this prayer list had been here.

  I continued to gaze about his workbench. A small bookcase stood at the back to one end of the worktable against the wall, partially obscured by a circular saw and belt sander, with a T square, level, and several long clamps leaning against it. I removed them all and set them aside so I could examine the contents.

  It was a shelf full of Bibles! There was a New English, and a New American Standard, a King James, a Concordant Literal New Testament, something called an Emphasized Bible. Then my eyes fell on a Revised English Bible similar to the one Moira in Crannoch had given Alasdair and me. There were several Revised Standard Versions, two editions of the New International, even something called a Greek-English Interlinear New Testament.

  I had no idea my father studied the Bible in Greek!

  As I pulled out one, now another, every one was thumb-worn, and all with the same dates listed at the ends of the Bible’s books noting the month and year when my father had completed reading them. Most had a Gideons Bible reading schedule stuffed somewhere between the pages. He must have read through the Bible in a different translation every year or two. As I began to tally it up in my head, a remarkable fact dawned on me: My dad must have read the Bible through at least twenty times!

  From being a man I had been dreading to come to Portland to see, he had become a man I was proud and honored to call my father. How thankful I was to God for this year I’d had with him, and that my eyes had been opened at last to the true measure of his eternal manhood.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Aftermath of Another Parting

  The homes of my kinsmen are blazing to Heaven,

  The bright sun of morning has blushed at the view;

  The moon has stood still on the verge of the even,

  To wipe from her pale cheek the tint of the dew.

  —“Callum O’Glen”

  Compared with Alasdair’s estate, my father’s affairs were simplicity itself. As I had already realized, for a lawyer, he didn’t have much stashed away. The outpouring of testimonials at his service no doubt explained where much of his income over the years had gone, as did his penchant for hopeless but worthy cases where some principle he believed in was at stake. His partner Mr. Jones told me that fully half his cases never saw a dollar of income, which frustrated his associates but only added to the esteem in which Richard Buchan was held in many circles. Wherever I went, it seemed, once people learned that I was Richard Buchan’s daughter, their faces lit up with the memory of some story.

  In spite of his generosity, my father had managed to put away some $240,000 in investments, which had been the nest egg he had intended to spend in full-time care as his cancer had advanced. Whatever might be left was stipulated in his will to be split equally between me and the Portland Area Foundation, which was taking over the administration of two smaller foundations my father had started and had been funding—one for Portland-area orphans of veterans, the other for financial and medical assistance for widows of vets. Given his semihippie and, I assumed, antiwar background of the ’60s and ’70s, it was an interesting cause for my father to have devoted himself to—probably another of those aspects of his life with a story behind it I did not know. As it turned out, the whole $240,000 still remained. Both I and the two foundations were the recipients of more than might otherwise have been the case. Mr. Jones sat on the boards of both foundations and was committed to the advancement of my father’s vision. My father had hoped I might also want to be involved in the ongoing work of the foundations but did not want to impose it upon me. Now I wanted to keep abreast of their activities to whatever extent I was able.

  The house he left to me also, which was paid for, and a modest $50,000 life insurance policy. The two men in my life—Alasdair and my father, both now gone—had made sure that I would not have to go to work for a good long while, possibly indefinitely. I felt wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, and I even began to think about what I ought to do to begin getting rid of some of the money they had left me. Until then, I needed to wisely invest the cash and proceeds from the house so as to make the best use of what they had entrusted to me.

  I put the house in Portland up for sale, left everything in the hands of Mr. Jones, and returned to Calgary with a full heart of thankful sadness.

  Flying back on the plane with the box of his ashes, strange to say, I don’t think I had ever felt closer to my father in my life. All the realizations of the previous year culminated in a level of knowing and love that I never could have imagined feeling toward him.

  I took the small box to the memorial garden where it was laid to rest beside my mother. It put me through many emotions to see their two bronze plaques together there side by side.

  I was alone in the world. Suddenly again, my future loomed large.

  As for life after my father’s death, I knew I had to establish some new directions. Obviously I thought about returning eventually to Scotland. But I needed to let more time pass. And my father’s work tugged at me. Was my future meant to include carrying on that work in some way?

  I suppose most people in similar circumstances, without pressing financial worries, would simply have asked themselves, “What do I want to do? What would make me happy ?” and then followed the course that presented itself.

  But things were different for me now. I had been tutored in matters of faith by two men who did not order their lives by what they might want, or even by what they might consider best for them, but by the question “What does my Master want me to do?”

  Along with Ranald Bain and Iain Barclay, who first taught me to see things through different eyes, I also now had the example of my own father—long overlooked—to guide me. It was an example of service, selflessness, and tireless work on behalf of others less fortunate than himself. All around me were examples of giving and sacrifice and dedication to the will of God.

  How could I follow any other course? How could I even think to ask what I wanted?

  Therefore, the question I now asked myself, and the prayer that went with it, was, “God, what do you want me to do?”

  It seemed entirely possible that the answer might be a return to Scotland. But I was not yet sure of that.

  Were the
new directions that must necessarily come to my life to be found in Scotland…in Calgary…or in Portland helping to further my father’s charitable work? A child is largely unaware of the many lives touched and influenced by his or her parents. My father had devoted his life as a Christian to changing lives. I had been too self-motivated for most of my life to recognize the widespread impact of his efforts. Maybe I was supposed to be an ongoing part of that vision now that he was gone.

  Yet Scotland was in my blood.

  I now had two Scottish names. Even though I was back on this side of the magical wardrobe, I could never forget the part of me that would always remain linked to my own real-life Narnia, which happened to be called Port Scarnose, Morayshire, Scotland.

  I was concerned about Alicia; I had not heard from her in a long time—almost nine months, in fact. I had been so caught up with my father’s last days and the increasingly twenty-four-hour nature of his illness and decline, that time had flown by. I had written to her several times but had received no replies. When I tried to telephone, I found that the number at the castle had been changed. I kept telling myself I needed to set aside time to investigate and try information or call Mrs. Gauld, and somehow to get Alicia’s number. But I never did. I wrote another two letters after arriving back in Calgary, but still received no reply.

  My life didn’t settle into its old routine because too much time had passed for that. But I began to establish some new routines while awaiting leading or guidance concerning whether my future lay in Calgary, Scotland, or Portland. I found a church I liked. I gradually made new friends. I played on my harp, though I desperately missed the Queen and lamented her plight, which amounted to being kept in storage back at the castle, wrote a few songs, traveled some, took on two or three new students, and ordered two new harps.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  A Shocking Tale

  Give me the land where torrents flash,

  Where loud tha angry cat’racts roar,

  As wildly on their course they dash,

  Then here’s a health to Scotia’s shore.

  Give me the land of mountains steep,

  Where wild and free the eagles soar,

  The dizzy crags where tempests sweep,

  Then here’s a health to Scotia’s shore.

  —James Little, “Here’s a Health to Scotia’s Shore”

  I had been back in Calgary nearly three months when the doorbell rang one afternoon about three o’clock.

  I glanced out the window as I got up and walked across the room to answer it. There sat a taxicab in front of my house.

  I opened the door and my jaw dropped three inches.

  “Alicia!” I cried and ran forward and buried her in a hug that nearly knocked her over on my porch.

  “Oh, Marie…I can’t believe I’m finally here!” She sighed wearily and went limp in my arms.

  “But what are you doing here?” I said, stepping back.

  “It is a long story…a very long story.”

  “All I can say is that this is wonderful! I am so happy to see you. Come in!”

  “Let me first go pay the taxi—I wasn’t sure I had the right house. I have my suitcase and everything. I came straight from the airport…You’ll be able to help me find a place to stay?”

  “Alicia, what are you talking about?! You’re staying with me.”

  Still standing where she was, she began to cry. I ran back inside, got my purse, and hurried out to pay the cab. The driver carried Alicia’s suitcase and a smaller bag up and set them on the porch. I got Alicia inside and to the couch, where she collapsed in relief and utter exhaustion.

  “Oh, Marie,” she sighed as I put water on to boil for tea, “you can’t imagine what I’ve been through. I didn’t think I would ever get here. The flight is so long. And I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to come.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? It’s wonderful. I am so excited to see you!”

  “It’s just that when I didn’t hear from you—”

  “I just wrote you two weeks ago…and a week before that.”

  “I didn’t receive any letters.”

  “The mail can’t be that slow.”

  “There’s been nothing in four months.”

  “How could that be?”

  “I haven’t heard from you since you wrote just after your father died. That’s why I wasn’t sure you would be here.”

  “I haven’t heard from you either,” I said. “It’s been…Let me see, I think it was about nine months ago…Well, before my father began to fail badly.”

  “But I must have written a dozen times.”

  “Alicia, I have had no letters in all that time.”

  “You didn’t even know I was coming?”

  “Not until I saw you standing on the porch.”

  “It’s all such a bad dream! Now it begins to make sense. I was despondent to hear nothing from you. I thought you had decided to cut your ties to Scotland. I didn’t think you wanted to keep in touch with me.”

  “Nothing could be further from what I was thinking.”

  “Oh!” she wailed. “It’s even worse than I thought!”

  “What is, Alicia? What is going on? You are worrying me. You’re making it sound like some disaster has taken place!”

  “Maybe that’s not so far wrong either—it is a disaster in a way.”

  “What is…what’s going on?”

  “Oh, I’m so tired, I don’t know if I can go through it all,” she said, sighing again.

  “Do you want to take a short nap first? Or have some tea? A brief nap will perk you up and help you get through the day. But no more than thirty minutes, otherwise the jet lag will be dreadful.”

  “Maybe just a cat nap, then. You can wake me when you think it’s been long enough.”

  “In the meantime, I’ll have tea and a snack ready. Come—I’ll show you your room.”

  I pulled Alicia up and we walked arm in arm to my bedroom. I had no other bed in the house, but my hide-a-bed love seat would suit me fine. She plopped onto the mattress facedown without even taking her shoes off, and was asleep in three minutes.

  Promptly thirty minutes later I nudged her awake. Groggily she begged me for a few minutes more, but I knew from experience that to give in would be deadly. I dragged her into the kitchen and placed a steaming strong cup of Nambarrie beneath her nose. Gradually the aroma of the nectar acted like timed-release smelling salts to her brain. She slowly began to come to herself. By the time we were enjoying a second cup, she had revived and was beginning the astonishing tale that had sent her four thousand miles over the polar ice cap in search of me. It was indeed an incredible story. I listened with eyes wide, mouth hanging open, alternating between disbelief and fury.

  “She wasted no time. It was just after you left, three days exactly,” Alicia began, “when Olivia presented herself at the castle. I don’t know where Max was—he wasn’t with her. She did not sound the knocker or ring the bell or anything but simply walked in like she owned the place, which she assumed she did. Everyone knew about your prenuptial arrangement with the duke…Alasdair, God bless him, he won’t mind me calling him that now. It was the talk of the whole place after you left. No one liked it because everyone was fond of you and the duke and no one wanted to see the castle in anyone else’s hands. They pestered me with questions about you, why you left, when you were coming back. I said nothing more than that your father had cancer and that you had to see to him before making any decisions, but that you had said the castle and estate weren’t yours anyway and that everything was in the hands of the solicitors now, just like you told me to say. But people were worried. No one knew what would happen. I think Olivia was on people’s minds even before she marched in and took over. Olivia naturally assumed everything would go to her as next of kin. She apparently knew nothing about the National Trust, and no one else knew anything different…except me, and I couldn’t say anything. But it was no accident that she waited until the minute you were gone before
marching up to the place and moving in and taking over and—”

  “She moved into the castle!” I exclaimed.

  “Right in front of my eyes. I heard footsteps and I went to see who it was who had come walking in. The door wasn’t locked anyway, but she had keys. I don’t know where she got them, or if they were from years before, but she had keys to every room in the place. Two minutes later a lorry drove up and three men got out and began unloading her things.”

  “I can’t believe it. She had the effrontery to just move in without permission, without papers, without anything!” I said.

  “She never said a word to me—just stared through me like I wasn’t there. And she’s been there ever since, assuming herself the duchess now that her brother is dead, and acting like it, too.”

  “How…What is she doing? She surely wouldn’t have access to bank accounts or any official standing with the affairs of the estate.”

  “I don’t know about the money or any of that,” replied Alicia. “Mostly she went around giving orders—telling Harvey and me what to do.”

  “What about Mr. Crathie, what about the National Trust, what about Alasdair’s will? She can’t just ignore all the legalities involved.”

  “At first Mr. Crathie knew nothing about it. She’d been living in the castle a month before he even got wind of it. After he found out he said he couldn’t forcibly oust her—or at least he didn’t want to, preferring to allow things to proceed in an orderly manner, he called it. He tried to hurry the proceedings along and arranged for a reading of Alasdair’s will even though, he said, there remained aspects to be sorted out by Alasdair’s Edinburgh solicitors. He came to the castle and asked Harvey and myself and Olivia to be present.”

  She paused and pulled out a sheet of paper from her purse.

  “Mr. Crathie gave me this summary,” she said. “I brought it with me so I could tell it to you exactly right. The duke left £50,000 each to myself and Harvey Nicholls, with kind words about our years of loyal service, and £75,000 to Jean and Norvill Campbell. A perpetual stipend of £30,000 annually is to be given to the Deskmill Parish Church from the income of the estate, as well as equal yearly stipends to the burghs of Port Scarnose and Crannoch for whatever purposes the town leaders feel will benefit their communities. Alasdair’s sister, Olivia Urquhart, is awarded £400,000, half, if applicable taxes permit, in cash, the remainder to be paid in £50,000 installments over the following four years.”