Heather Song

by Michael Phillips

  The lessons continued. The ten went by, I bought her ten more. Alicia went to Inverness every chance she had. For the next few months, flying lessons dominated her life. Before long she was going for her license. With every spare minute she studied books and rules and codes and maps and charts and radio and radar and navigation protocols and flight plans. We went to Ranald’s frequently and kept him posted on her progress. I think he was almost as excited as she was.

  Alicia had to log forty-five hours in the air and pass a rigorous series of tests, both written and in flight. She was making day trips all over Scotland, practicing the routes and gaining familiarity with all the airports. She was actually going to do it! And she was determined to do it in record time.

  The day she passed her final test, she asked Ranald and me to accompany her on her maiden flight as a qualified pilot—to Perth, she suggested.

  “I’ve never been up in a little plane,” I said, not particularly eager.

  “You’ll love it,” insisted Alicia. “There’s nothing like it. I feel like a bird up there. It’s so peaceful.”

  Finally I agreed, though still with more than a little trepidation.

  She and Ranald had the time of their lives as we flew down to Perth a week later. Speaking for myself, I was scared out of my wits. My knees were wobbly when we landed and I staggered into the airport reception room. We had lunch in Perth—a very light one for me!—and then had to fly back. I wasn’t sure I could make it.

  I sat in the passenger seat behind Alicia and Ranald, my knuckles white the whole way as I clutched the hold-bars beside me, listening to them laugh and talk airplane lingo and compare their RAF stories. Ranald took the controls for part of the flight home. Even though he said he hadn’t flown an airplane in thirty years, in all honesty I have to say that I felt a little more secure. Alicia was entirely competent. But somehow when you get into an airplane, you feel better seeing a man with gray hair at the controls.

  We returned to Port Scarnose and I remained wobbly and airsick. We had been home about an hour when Alicia came to find me. I was lying on one of the couches in the Great Room, still feeling woozy.

  “You have a visitor,” she said.

  “Oh, do I have to?” I groaned. “I’m not sure I’m up to it.”

  “I think you will want to see this one,” said Alicia. Her eyes sparkled with a strange light and her lips wore a mysterious smile.

  I looked up at her with a forlorn expression.

  “You really have to, Marie,” she said. “Trust me.”

  I dragged myself to my feet and followed Alicia downstairs. She disappeared somewhere en route. By the time I reached the front door, I was alone.

  I drew in a breath to steady my nerves, then opened the door. A sharp gasp of surprise escaped my lips.

  There stood Iain, two dozen yellow roses in his hand.

  “Duchess Reidhaven!” he said exuberantly, “a bouquet from Aberdeen, the city of roses, delivered by special messenger, just for you.”

  “Iain!” I exclaimed. “Now it is my turn to ask— What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think? I am here to see you. We have to talk, Marie.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Spey Bay

  When dew drops load the grassy blade, in summer’s rising morn;

  What time the flow’rs with regal garb, the verdant fields adorn—

  As shines upon the varied scene the golden gleams above;

  The vision brings to mind again, my first and early love.

  —Neil MacLeod, “My Love of Early Days”

  If I was light-headed and weak-kneed on the bumpy little plane flight over the Grampians to Perth, seeing Iain at my door with flowers in his hand certainly didn’t help my precarious mental equilibrium. I’m surprised that a full-fledged attack of emotional vertigo didn’t lay me out flat in a faint.

  My knees, I confess, did buckle slightly and my head swooned. Before I could put my swirling thoughts in order, Iain had whisked me to his car. The castle entryway passed in a blur, as did the village of Port Scarnose. I didn’t even possess sufficient wits at that point to worry that Mrs. Gauld would see us and immediately send a new round of gossip over the invisible wires of town chatter.

  I suppose some small talk must have passed between us, though I can’t remember. I was in a sort of waking stupor. When I began to come to myself, we were driving along the coast road through Port Gordon. The salt air of the sea through the open window had revived me.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” replied Iain. “I thought perhaps Spey Bay. I understand the dolphins have been running.”

  “That would be fun. I haven’t been there in ages.”

  “It seemed a safe place to have a talk, far enough away that we might not be recognized.”

  “It’s only fifteen miles—we might be recognized. Everyone knows the crop of red hair of Deskmill’s former curate.”

  “And the face of Buchan’s lovely duchess. But we’ll risk it!”

  By the time we parked at the mouth of the river Spey and walked through the sea grass across to the rocky shore, I was feeling invigorated and at last over the effects of the plane ride earlier in the day.

  “You’ll never guess where I had lunch today,” I said.

  “Where—Puddleduck…Linda and Eddie’s?”

  I laughed. “Not even close. The Highlander in Perth.”

  “Perth—that’s a three-hour drive.”

  “But only an hour by plane. We flew down for lunch and back. That’s why I haven’t been feeling well.”

  “We?”

  “Alicia and Ranald and I.”

  “What, alone? Who was flying the plane?!”

  “Alicia just got her pilot’s license—it was her first solo with passengers.”

  “No kidding. What an adventure.”

  “I was terrified.” I laughed.

  “And Ranald?”

  “He flew part of the way himself. He had the time of his life.”

  “That’s right—he was an RAF pilot.”

  Gradually it quieted as we walked away from the river mouth and the dolphin crowd thinned.

  “I haven’t yet answered your question about why I am here,” Iain began at length.

  “Or said for how long,” I added.

  “Actually…,” replied Iain slowly, “my sister is with me. We came back to Scotland to stay.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad!” I exclaimed, looking excitedly into Iain’s face. “You’re really moving back! Why that’s…that’s wonderful!”

  The gush of words poured out of my mouth before I could moderate my enthusiasm with the proper decorum of a duchess.

  “Oops, sorry!” I said sheepishly. “Maybe that was a little over the top.”

  Iain laughed with good-natured delight.

  “No bother at all,” he said. “Suddenly our roles are exactly reversed from the last time. In London it was me falling all over myself at seeing you again. Actually, that’s what I want to talk to you about—that reversal of our roles.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Again it was quiet. Iain was thinking. Whenever he had something to say, he took his time to collect and organize his thoughts.

  “I had been praying for some time for leading, even for a sign of what I was supposed to do,” he began. “I knew neither Katie nor I were content in London. We were marking time. We were fish out of water. Scotland always beckoned. But making a change had to be right—at the right time and for the right reasons. We needed to return north. It was where our hearts were. But I couldn’t make a move too soon, given the circumstances. I had to let you and Alasdair establish your lives together.”

  “What if he hadn’t died, would you ever have come back?”

  “I don’t know—perhaps after I felt enough time had passed. But when that might have been, I cannot say. Obviously Alasdair’s death changed the dynamics of what a return to Scotland would mean. But it didn�
�t make a decision any easier. Actually, just the opposite. In one way, it made me even more reluctant than ever.”

  “Why would that be?” I asked.

  “It is hard to explain. Don’t you see—how could we not have drawn closer together during a time of vulnerability for you?”

  “I suppose I can see that. And people would have talked.”

  “It ties in with why I left; it ties into everything. I was very protective of Alasdair, even of his memory. I had come to realize how alike the two of us were as boys…and also as men. To fall in love with the same woman—twice! That’s a little unusual. As different as were our backgrounds and outlooks, we were somehow wired inside similarly. I think that’s why we were close.”

  “Alasdair felt it, too,” I said. “I knew there were times, though he said nothing, when he literally ached for missing you.”

  An expression of pain passed over Iain’s face. “If only there might have been another way,” he sighed. “Yet, as close as I felt to him, somehow I realized that this time Alasdair would have found a way to be the selfless one, and would have encouraged you and me to be as close as we wanted to be. I just couldn’t let that happen, even though it would have been a testimony of Alasdair’s growth and maturity as a man. I could not do anything that might in the slightest way come between you and him, even your memory of him. I had to know beyond doubt that you still loved him and would always love him. I want you to always love him…even if, at any time and for any reason, I were to have a role in your life again.”

  “I will, Iain,” I said. “Have no worry about that. My love for Alasdair is secure in my heart.”

  “I know that,” he said and nodded. “I know it now. But I wasn’t absolutely certain about it before you came to see me. I had seen neither of you in four years. I could not know how things might stand. After the time we spent together in London, as wonderfully close as I felt to you, I knew beyond a doubt that you loved Alasdair in death no less than you had loved him in life. That is when I realized that nothing I ever did would, or even could, diminish that love. It was a great burden lifted from me. I no longer had to protect Alasdair from anything I might do.”

  I smiled—sadly but contentedly—with reminders of Alasdair, as well as to be reminded how much the two men esteemed each other.

  “In time,” Iain concluded, “I recognized that as the sign I had been waiting for, the sign that I was finally free to return to Scotland.”

  “What were you talking about before,” I asked, “about the reversal of our roles?”

  “Only that I had waited for you to come to see me,” replied Iain. “I waited for you, as the saying goes, to make the first move, though I mean nothing beyond that than that you were the one to take the initiative in a relationship that I had basically cut off—and cut off completely.”

  “At first, I admit I was angry with you for leaving without a word,” I said, “and even a little upset that you didn’t get in touch when Alasdair was dying.”

  Iain did not reply immediately. Much seemed to be passing through his mind.

  “It was difficult to know how to handle,” he said at length.

  “Why didn’t you contact him or come?”

  “It was a complicated situation, at least for me. I don’t know if I did the right thing or not. I agonized in prayer. As I said, my reasons, right or wrong, were to make sure I did not place either of you in a vulnerable position, or in any way complicate what you were having to face. After your visit, as I reflected on the courage it took for you to come to me, having no idea why I had left or knowing whether I was married, I began to reevaluate the whole thing, even wonder if I had, in fact, handled it wisely. I still think it was the right thing to do. However, I began to think that perhaps it wasn’t right of me not to contact you after I learned of Alasdair’s death. I had my reasons—”

  “I would like to hear them.”

  “Perhaps there will come a time for more than what I have just told you. But since you came to London, I have done a great deal of thinking. Soul-searching would be the more appropriate term. I realized that I had put you in an awkward position, having to come to me to tell me about Alasdair. I’m sure that was hard for you. Yet with that behind us now, whatever were my reasons, once I saw how secure your love for Alasdair truly was, and how you and he had grown together, and what a fine, noble woman of dignity you had truly become, suddenly things changed for me. I began to realize not merely that I could return to Scotland, but that I must return. If some further destiny, some further plan of God’s lay in the future for me, for us…I had to find out, and be willing to find out…have the courage to find out…even trust you enough to find out.”

  “Trust me ?” I said. “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “Perhaps my former reluctance stemmed from thinking you weaker and more vulnerable than you were,” replied Iain. “If so, I apologize for that. Yet once I saw how you had grown, saw your strength, saw your security in who you were, I realized I could trust you enough to handle seeing me again, and to know what to do with me in the larger picture of your life.”

  “I see.”

  “And now, whatever there is between us,” Iain went on, “whatever there might be, whatever there is supposed to be, it would not be fair or right of me to wait for you again. After that walk in Kensington, I knew I had to come to you. It was time for me to take the initiative. There was so much that remained unsaid that day, so much I wanted to say. But I was hesitant, still protective of Alasdair’s memory and your feelings. As time went by and I realized that your love for one another was eternal, I was liberated for the first time to admit that my own feelings for you had never died. I knew that I had to find out what was in my heart, and what might be in yours. Maybe it is too soon. If so, I will turn around and leave. But I have to give us the chance to say what we couldn’t say before, and to feel what maybe we couldn’t feel before.”

  At the words find out what is in my heart, my own heart leaped. Iain was using exactly the same words to describe what I had been thinking for myself.

  “But your moving back…,” I began, fumbling for words. “What are you going to do?…Where will you live?…How will we—”

  I didn’t even know what I was asking. Suddenly I was feeling very much like a schoolgirl!

  “I mean…the church…Reverend Gillihan—”

  “I have no designs on his job,” said Iain. “Nor am I ready again to occupy a pulpit. I know there are many unanswered questions. The last thing I want to do is complicate your life. I will keep my distance, if you like.”

  “No, no, it’s not that. I just—”

  “As far as the daily logistics of the move,” Iain added, “I’ve taken a job in Huntly—a construction job. Actually, I like construction. It’s out of doors, it’s physical, there’s a sense of accomplishment—you see visible and tangible results of your work every day. It’s a rewarding way to make a living.”

  “Huntly, but that’s so far,” I said, obviously a little disheartened.

  “Not far, really,” rejoined Iain. “Only half an hour. I seriously contemplated Aberdeen and Inverness.”

  “Oh, Iain, that would be way too far!”

  “We don’t want to make it any more complicated than it already is.”

  “I don’t mind a few complications,” I said with a smile.

  Iain laughed, then grew serious again.

  “Marie,” he said, “I don’t know where this will lead. I only know I had to come north to give the Lord a chance to do whatever he might want to do. But we cannot engineer it. If there is something between us, Marie, God must do it.”

  Iain stopped and looked over at me with the most tender childlike smile, almost a smile of wonder.

  “What am I saying?” he said. “If…It is obvious that something is happening between us. It is clear to me, I don’t know about you. It was obvious to me five years ago. It was obvious to me when I saw you standing at my door. It was obvious to me when we were wa
lking through Kensington Park. My heart feels things when I am with you that I feel at no other time.”

  I listened with a full heart. Of course I knew.

  “But just because something is happening between us,” he went on, “doesn’t mean we are to pursue it. It doesn’t mean it is necessarily right. That’s why we have to wait to see what God says. As great as is my love for you, it will always be a love that must be subordinate to my love for and obedience to God. That’s what’s wrong with the world—people think that feeling love is the only justification for pursuing it fully. But that’s a wrong perspective. Feeling love doesn’t mean love is to be pursued. Some loves are to be denied so that they contribute to greater purposes, even higher loves. I was privileged to deny my love for you for the greater good of Alasdair’s love. It is one of the great joys of my life—a bittersweet joy, but a joy nonetheless—to have been given the privilege of loving you and to sacrifice my love in order that Alasdair’s might flower in its fullness. So love may exist—but we may be called upon to deny it, to relinquish it for a greater good.”

  He drew in a long breath and exhaled slowly.

  “I don’t yet know where it is leading,” he said. “But I had to come back to find out.”

  “Do you think we will be called upon to deny it?” I asked. I was almost fearful of what might be Iain’s answer.

  “I don’t know, Marie. Honestly, speaking from the depths of my heart, I have to say I hope not. But long ago I ceased to rule my own affairs. I am under orders. Until those orders come, my motto is…to wait.”

  I smiled. I hoped not, too. But if Iain was now trusting me, I knew that I could likewise trust him.