Heather Song

by Michael Phillips

  Even before Alicia finished reading me Mr. Crathie’s summary, I was crying. It was like hearing Alasdair’s own voice again.

  “Mr. Crathie hoped Alasdair’s generosity toward Olivia would mollify her,” said Alicia, glancing up from the paper, “and result in a harmonious resolution to her ‘takeover’ of the castle, was what he called it. He came to talk to her several times prior to the reading of the will, trying to be reasonable, trying to explain that she had no legal rights insofar as the castle was concerned. That’s when he and I first met. That’s when he told Olivia about the castle being turned over to the National Trust, trying to persuade her to remove herself so there would be no unpleasantness later. But it was all to no avail, and she, of course, hearing that, was furious at Alasdair. The reading of the will only made matters worse. She sat silent and obviously fuming over the paltry sum, as she called it, that she had been left. I could see it immediately. I recognized the look. I knew what she was thinking. In her eyes she had not been given her rightful due. She immediately enlisted her own solicitors to contest the will.”

  “Can she do that?”

  “She is doing it,” replied Alicia. “Mr. Crathie said that his hands were tied as long as the thing was working its way through the court system. Once she filed legal papers, it had to be seen through. She has successfully blocked the final resolution of all Alasdair’s affairs. He said she could tie up a resolution to the estate for years. Any show of force, he said, would only make her position stronger in the end. The fact that she is next of kin is a persuasive factor. And of course the National Trust, he says, will never touch a property that is entangled in a lawsuit. So they have backed off for the present as well.”

  “Where does it stand now?” I asked.

  “Basically unchanged,” replied Alicia. “Only the most preliminary petitions of Olivia’s lawsuit have been filed. Meanwhile, Olivia is still at the castle, daring anyone to challenge her. She has closed down all access to the castle grounds, changed all the locks and phones, and has erected imposing iron gates and threatening signs warning against trespassing. Where Alasdair tried to win the goodwill of the community, she is doing everything she can to alienate everyone within twenty miles. She has fenced up all the public access routes and public footpaths that you and Alasdair opened. She had the gate into the churchyard bricked up. She put your harps and all your things in the worst possible place, off in one of the coldest and most remote storerooms that get no heat. It can’t possibly be good for them. I know she did it out of spite. Then finally she began raising rents all through Port Scarnose and Crannoch.”

  I sat shaking my head in disbelief.

  “That was when I began writing you frantic letters—months ago. I guess we know what happened to them, as well as yours to me.”

  “Could Olivia actually intercept our mail?” I said. “That would be a crime.”

  “I don’t think Olivia views legalities in the way most people do. She justifies in her mind anything that suits her ends. She has allies, too. She can convince anyone that everything is so reasonable. It’s almost hypnotic, until you cross her and see the flash in her eyes. I’ve seen it. Once I began standing up to her, everything changed. I saw things I had been blind to for thirty years.”

  “But how is she intercepting our mail?”

  “Adela—she works at the post office.”

  “Of course! I had forgotten. But you make it sound like Olivia has other allies?”

  “No one wants to alienate her. If she does win in court and succeeds in convincing some judge to award her the castle and control of the estate, they know that she will never forget those who opposed her. People are walking very carefully.”

  “Everyone?”

  “No, thankfully. Others are mad. Everything is in an uproar. Everyone wants you back, Marie. Well, not everyone. The community is split. People are afraid to speak openly. Everyone is careful for fear of a careless word getting back to Olivia. It’s like living in an occupied country with spies everywhere. The whole atmosphere has changed. Those who are on our side came to me in secret asking if I’ve heard from you yet. I wrote and wrote, but when we didn’t hear from you—”

  I was furious at how Olivia had changed everything and was interfering with the village and the people’s lives. Maybe I was more my father’s daughter than I realized!

  “I’m sorry, Alicia,” I said, reaching over and placing a hand on her arm. “She must have…Oh, it really makes me furious! I don’t even know what to say!”

  “It’s not just Adela’s being at the post office. She’s at the castle now, too—as Olivia’s constant eyes and ears.”

  “Surely you don’t mean she’s living there?”

  “Yes.” Alicia nodded. “She’s Olivia’s new housekeeper.”

  “What about you?”

  “Two months ago Olivia fired me. She gave me a week to be out.”

  I drew in a sharp breath of outrage.

  “Please come back, Marie,” said Alicia. “Everyone is depending on you. That’s why we decided that one of us had to come…to beg you if we had to—”

  “You keep saying we. We who? Who else is in this with you?”

  “Nigel and me…Mr. Crathie, I mean.”

  “But what can I do?” I said. “It is out of my hands. I have less legal standing than Olivia now that Alasdair is gone. Mr. Crathie knows that better than anyone. He drew up the document that ended my legal standing with the Buchan estate immediately upon Alasdair’s death.”

  “That may not be altogether correct, Marie. It is true that that is how things appeared to stand until recently. Nigel…that is, Mr. Crathie, came to see me privately two weeks ago. I’ve been staying with Tavia. He and I have, uh, seen a good deal of one another this year,” she said, hesitating briefly. I thought I detected the slightest of blushes but said nothing. “He knows that you and I are close and that I was trying to contact you. He had something momentous to tell me, he said, something he had just learned himself. Actually, he was a little annoyed at being, he felt, used by Alasdair. Yet at the same time I know he was pleased. That’s when we made arrangements for me to come see you secretly.”

  “Secretly?”

  “Before Olivia herself learned of it, or it was made public.”

  “Before what was made public? Alicia, you are being very mysterious.”

  “Three weeks ago Mr. Crathie was contacted by Alasdair’s solicitor in Edinburgh, a Mr. Murdoch. Apparently it took so long because, aware of the lawsuit pending that Olivia set in motion, he had taken the thing through probate court in private, consulting barristers and judges to make absolutely certain nothing could rear its head later. And the way Alasdair did it, signing conflicting documents so close to one another, involved legal complications that he had to make completely sure of before making it known.”

  “The way he did what ?…Alicia, please!”

  “The prenuptial agreement…Alasdair voided the agreement you and he drew up.”

  “What!”

  “He signed a later document in Edinburgh. Don’t you remember, just before the wedding when you and I were working on the plans and your dress and everything, you told me he had gone to Edinburgh to see his solicitors. That’s what he was doing in Edinburgh. He was taking steps to ensure the continuity of the estate.”

  “I can’t believe it could be true. There has to be some mistake.”

  “Nigel reviewed it backward and forward and was on the phone for two days with people all over Scotland.”

  I sat listening as one in a dream.

  “There is no prenup in effect, Marie,” Alicia said. “Alasdair left everything to you after all…the castle, the management and administration of the entire estate, everything. You are still the Duchess of Buchan.”

  The smile on her face was too precious.

  “There must be some mistake,” I repeated.

  “Maybe Alasdair foresaw what would happen,” said Alicia. “I don’t know, but Nigel has already been
to Edinburgh to meet with Alasdair’s other solicitors personally. He says it is legal and binding. The prenup is null and void. That’s when he asked me—Nigel, I mean—he asked if I would come tell you in person, and implore you to return—for the good of the estate, the community, everyone.”

  I sat stunned.

  “Just when I thought my life was beginning to simplify…I never wanted to be anything but Alasdair’s wife.”

  “That’s what he wanted you to be, too,” said Alicia. “And in every way, with all that entailed.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Maybe Alasdair recognized what your being his wife actually meant more fully than you did.”

  Alicia’s words sobered me. It was something I had never considered. Perhaps I had never recognized the full implications of what wife meant. Maybe it was Alasdair who had seen more deeply into the larger scope of what our marriage signified than I had.

  “Marie, you are the Duchess of Buchan, whether you like it or not,” said Alicia.

  We sat silent a long time.

  “And Olivia?” I said at length.

  “As yet, Olivia knows nothing of it.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Nine-Tenths of the Law

  I mourn for the Highlands, now drear and forsaken,

  The land of my fathers, the gallant and brave;

  To make room for the sportsman their lands were all taken,

  And they had to seek out new homes o’er the wave.

  Oh shame on the tyrants who brought desolation,

  Who banished the brave, and put sheep in their place.

  Where once smiled the garden, rank weeds have their station,

  And deer are preferr’d to a leal-hearted race.

  —Henry Whyte, “I Mourn for the Highlands”

  Needless to say, Alicia’s surprise visit and stunning news threw me into a tailspin of renewed uncertainty.

  She slept twelve hours that night. I slept about two! My mind was racing. I still did not believe it could really be true. But I had no choice other than to return to Port Scarnose until the thing was resolved. True or not, I was at the center of it. Many people, the whole community, the future of Alasdair’s estate…much depended on a resolution. I had to do my part to help in that process. I still cared nothing for the title or the property. But I cared very much for Alasdair’s legacy, and that his desires for the good of the community were carried out. I might not fight on my own behalf, but I would fight for Alasdair.

  The uncertainty of my immediate future had been decided for me. As is often the case, God used circumstances to point the way.

  I notified Mr. Jones of the developments. I told him I would be in touch with him from Scotland if matters came up in connection with the sale of my father’s house or whatever else might require my signature. Where I would be in Scotland was anyone’s guess, but I told him I would let him know. I warned him not to contact me by regular mail. He wished me luck.

  Alicia and I flew into Aberdeen a week later. She had just managed to get over her jet lag from the one flight before returning over the Atlantic again. This time, however, she was keyed up and excited, and the flight went by quickly. In her mind the mere fact that I was on my way back would take care of everything.

  In my own mind, I wasn’t so sure. I had agreed to return because it seemed the right thing to do. But the next step after that remained cloudy in my mind.

  It was during the plane flight back to Aberdeen that my resolve clarified about what I was to do. My heart and mind were so full of my father. He had become completely changed in my thoughts, though it was really I who had done the changing. Everything was different now. I was a daughter in a way I had never been before. I was the proud daughter of Richard Buchan, a good and honored man of integrity and principle and courage. For the first time in my life, I wanted to make my father proud. And I had come to realize how much like my father I really was. I had inherited more of that old sixties’ fire from him than I ever knew. I had to fight for truth, for justice, for right…because that’s what he would have done.

  All the way back to Scotland, though I suppose I should have been asking myself what God wanted me to do, what I was actually asking myself was, “What would Alasdair and my father want me to do?” Yet sometimes such questions help toward discovering what God wants, too.

  What finally sealed my decision, strangely enough, was an article in one of the airline magazines about Sidney Poitier. In speaking of his devotion to his father, I saw a powerful truth, and I realized that I felt exactly as he did. “My father was a certain kind of man,” he said. “I saw how he treated my mother and his family and how he treated strangers. And I vowed I would never make a film that would not reflect dignity and honor on my father’s character and name.”

  What an incredible thing for a successful man to say. In spite of all he had accomplished, his father’s character was ever before him as a guiding principle for his own conduct. Even as I read his words, I made the same vow to myself, and to God. From that point on in my life, as far as I was aware of and to the best of my ability, I would try to do and say nothing but what would reflect dignity and honor on the character and name of both my fathers—Richard Buchan, my earthly father; and the Creator and God of the universe, the Father of Jesus Christ, my heavenly Father.

  In keeping with that, I would fight for truth on behalf of the villagers of Port Scarnose and Crannoch, and for the legacy of Alasdair Reidhaven, Duke of Buchan.

  We had been in touch with Mr. Crathie by phone. He was at the airport to meet us.

  He and I shook hands. The look that passed between him and Alicia as they met confirmed my suspicions. Something was definitely brewing between them!

  “I think it best, Mrs. Reidhaven,” said Mr. Crathie as he turned his car out of the precincts of the airport and started along the A96, “that you do not stay in Port Scarnose or Crannoch at first. For you to be seen would tip our hand. I have taken the liberty of booking you into a very nice bed-and-breakfast in Elgin.”

  “I am still bewildered by everything,” I said. “Surely there must be some logical explanation to all this other than…”

  My voice trailed away. I still had a difficult time putting into words everything Alicia had told me.

  “I’m afraid the only explanation,” the lawyer replied, “is that the duke feared what his sister might do and wanted you to inherit in spite of your objections. I admit that it is difficult to understand in light of what almost appears his deception to both of us in signing what he knew to be, or knew would soon become, a spurious document—one that would be certain to cast clouds of debate and doubt over his affairs. It is this aspect of the thing that has troubled me from the moment I learned of the Edinburgh affidavit, and which is sure to be analyzed up, down, and sideways in court if Mrs. Urquhart’s suit goes forward. Your late husband’s mental state will almost surely be called into question, and that likelihood, I must confess, troubles me. However, I can only assume that the duke felt his actions with the two documents would lead to a greater good, and that he was thus justified in signing what amounted to a false prenuptial agreement. But so that everything will be clarified in your mind—as you are obviously now the key player in all this—I have arranged for Mr. Murdoch to meet with us in three days, at my office in Elgin. He will explain everything to you. At that time we will attempt to decide upon a strategy for proceeding in the most efficacious manner to meet the legal complications that the duke’s sister has thrown at us all.”

  “What will you do, Alicia?” I asked.

  “Return to Tavia’s and pretend nothing is going on,” she answered.

  “That may be a little problematic,” interjected Mr. Crathie. “You gave her my number, I take it?”

  “With my being gone, I thought she should be able to contact you…just in case?” replied Alicia.

  “And she did,” rejoined Mr. Crathie. “She telephoned me three days ago. Apparently Mrs. Urquhart has been ask
ing about you. Her suspicions have been raised. The other lady—what’s her name?”

  “Adela…Adela Cruickshank?”

  “Right—Cruickshank…She has been questioning everyone in town about your whereabouts, asking if anyone has seen you or knows where you have gone. Rumors have apparently begun to fly. We have to think through our movements very carefully.”

  “What do you mean, Mr. Crathie?” I asked.

  “We have to get you into the castle before she gets wind of it and is able to secure a restraining order against you. That’s why I don’t want to arouse her suspicions.”

  “But how? Alicia said she has locked the castle up tight—with new locks and gates and everything.”

  “She has done precisely that. Whether she is on firm legal footing is debatable, but the fact is, she has made the castle and grounds almost impregnable. You cannot simply show up at the front gate. She would deny you entry and be on the phone to her solicitors the next minute, with an injunction against you drawn up within the hour. It might not prove legal in the long run, but she could continue, in a sense, to hold the entirety of the duke’s estate hostage for the duration of a court battle, and remain in possession of the castle all that time. I would not be surprised to see her use every tactic she can to delay things and keep everything tied up as long as possible.”

  “I simply can’t understand how she could get away with it.”

  “She has a legal case that can be made. In the hands of the right barrister, I fear that case could be made quite persuasively. It would be argued that you were a continent away having publicly disavowed any interest in or claim to your husband’s property. She is the legal next of kin. She simply acted on what facts she possessed, assuming herself now the duchess, and, acting in good faith, moved back to her childhood home and the seat of the Buchan estate. That will be her claim.”