Eventually the whole of central Westminster was so congested with pedestrians that sometime after eight o’clock the police had no choice but to close off the circle around Parliament Square to cars, taxis, and bus traffic and allow the growing and restive throng to pour into the streets.
Seven
Three there were who would not be among the throng of celebrants that evening.
During Andrew’s final hours with his mother and father at Derwenthwaite the day before, he had paid one final visit to Duncan MacRanald, telling him what he was returning to London to do. He had hoped to persuade the old Scotsman to travel south with him. Duncan had been such an important part of all that had happened, and Andrew wanted him to share in it.
But MacRanald would have none of it, nor could Andrew hope to change his mind. He would be happier here, Duncan said, among the hills, within sight of Scotland’s ridges. He did promise, however, actually to read the local paper for the next few days.
Then Andrew returned across the hills to Derwenthwaite.
“Are you and Mum planning to go down to London with me tomorrow?” he asked his father as soon as he located him.
“We hadn’t really decided, son,” Harland Trentham replied. “I think your mother would like to be there, but the trip would surely tax her. To tell the truth, I would be more comfortable remaining here. But what would you like us to do? From the sound of what you plan to do, all eyes will be upon you. You’re the man of the hour now. I’m sure we could manage it if you really want us there.”
Andrew thought a moment.
“How about your inviting Duncan to the Hall for dinner with you and Mum, so he could watch the newscast with you on the telly?”
“Would he come?”
“I don’t know. Be convincing.”
“It sounds like a capital idea,” said Mr. Trentham. “I like that much better than a long trip with your mother. We’ll do it—it will be fun. I’ll ride out and invite him this very afternoon.”
And now, as the London streets filled to bursting with people and noise and anticipation, after a wonderful dinner and a warm rekindling of childhood affection, Harland and Lady Trentham sat with their honored but humble guest watching the BBC’s coverage of events as they unfolded outside the Palace of Westminster in London.
Clustered throughout the room also sat the rest of the household staff. This was no time for ceremony or rank. Their own Andrew was about to make history. Something about the occasion seemed to demand that they all share it together.
The former Tory firebrand Waleis Bradburn Trentham would have given anything to be present outside the Palace where she had spent so many years at the center of Parliament’s affairs. If she had been stronger, nothing would have kept her away. But the spirited, politically minded lady had learned much in the past year about acceptance—and now she accepted her diminished circumstances with a good grace that still surprised those who knew her best. She was happy for her son and contented herself with watching the proceedings quietly with husband and friends.
When Andrew’s figure first came on the screen some minutes later in full Highland attire, every eye in the sitting room at Derwenthwaite Hall filled with tears, Duncan MacRanald wept most freely of all.
Eight
It was the alert and roving eye of Kirk Luddington himself who saw the light above Big Ben go out just before nine-thirty that evening, signaling that Parliament was adjourned. Whatever the result, the vote had been cast.
He gave a great shout to his crew, and immediately all other news agencies followed. By the time the first MPs made their appearance a few minutes later, Luddington and a hundred more reporters were ready for them.
When Andrew Trentham exited the Palace of Westminster, still clad in the tartan of his Gordon clan, the screech and wail of the pipes threatened to drown out the chiming of Big Ben himself ringing out the time of nine-thirty.
Now rose a clamor from the loyal and jubilant Scots—from London, from everywhere!—awaiting their modern-day Robert Bruce. They hoped he had, if not sent the usurper back over the border, then invaded England at the heart of its dominance, and with stealth and cunning was about to carry off the victory . . . and the blue-and-white flag of St. Andrew back to Edinburgh.
At least with such importance would the nationalistic Scottish papers imbue the Commons vote on the morrow.
The film crews—everywhere now—madly tried to obtain footage of the incredible phenomenon. Most were running live reports, though they had to share the momentous event with what was estimated as ten thousand spectators.
Paddy Rawlings saw that her ambitious colleague had no intention of relinquishing either his microphone or his lead role in front of the BBC’s lights. With a shove of final encouragement from Bill at her side, at last she stepped forward just as the cameras were about to switch on.
“I’ll take it from here, Kirk,” she said, reaching forward and laying her hand on the microphone.
He looked at her in astonishment, then broke into a laugh. The message from Pilkington had come two hours ago, but he had not believed the American neophyte would press the matter if he made it difficult enough for her.
“Don’t worry, Rawlings,” he said. “I’ll open and get us rolling, then give you the mike after a bit.”
“No deal, Kirk. The story’s mine, the interview’s mine. You know it as well as I do.”
“But you don’t—”
“Mine, Kirk—now stand aside gracefully before you are embarrassed in front of our colleagues.”
Incredulous, Luddington loosened his grip on the microphone. As Paddy’s fingers closed around it, a surge of adrenaline swept through her.
Slowly Luddington backed a few steps away, even as the lights flashed upon his inexperienced colleague. The producer called his technicians into action.
Paddy drew in a deep breath, then turned to face the camera with every appearance of poise and confidence.
“For those of you who have just joined us,” she began without concern for her accent, “we are standing across the street from the Palace of Westminster, where the House of Commons has just adjourned from a historic session voting on what is known as the Scottish Bill, calling for a progressive phasing in of full sovereignty and independence for Scotland. The doors are open and the members are now filing out. . . .”
She had only begun her opening remarks when she saw that Andrew was crossing the street and moving in her direction. Signaling to the cameraman to follow, and continuing to speak into the camera, Paddy began moving, hoping to intersect with him. But the crowd was so thick as to make movement nearly impossible.
“Mr. Trentham . . . Mr. Trentham!” shouted thirty reporters at once.
Above the tops of a hundred heads, however, Andrew was glancing this way and that, looking for only one face among them all. At last he spotted her.
Paddy knew from the contact of his eyes and the smile he cast her that she had been the island in the sea of faces he had been searching for, and that the look was meant to convey, Don’t go away . . . I’ll be with you eventually! She stumbled with her words momentarily, but quickly recovered and went on.
Finally Andrew managed to inch his way through the crowd, ignoring the pleas of Paddy’s many competitors and the dozens of microphones being shoved toward him. A few minutes more, and he emerged through the thick mass of people.
He nodded and smiled to Paddy and her husband, who was struggling to keep near her.
“Bill,” he said as they shook hands.
“Congratulations!” returned Bill. “It looks like you’ve set something off!”
But already Paddy was pulling Andrew by the elbow and trying to turn him toward her cameraman. Seconds later she began to speak, attempting to introduce him.
As she held her microphone toward him, gradually the din subsided.
“This is a great day,” said Andrew in a triumphant voice, “not only for Scotland, but for all the UK and for the cause of free sovereignty e
verywhere.”
The pause that followed gave opening for twenty questions called out simultaneously, accompanied by shouts and cheers and bagpipes throughout the throng behind. Andrew dismissed them with a wave of the hand.
“I will answer but one question,” he said. “That is to tell you the decision of the Commons on the matter under consideration—the answer is Yes! . . . Scotland shall have her independence again!”
Shouts behind him erupted.
“I will make a further statement,” he added, seeking still to be heard before his voice was overwhelmed, “in my interview later this evening with Patricia Rawlings.”
Andrew and Paddy exchanged knowing smiles. Both of their triumphs on this day, in many ways, had been won together.
Andrew tried to step away. Immediately, without foresight or planning, a processional emerged out of the bedlam, with Andrew Trentham at its head and five hundred pipes wailing behind him. Photographers and reporters followed, doing their best to press close to the man who had suddenly become the most talked-about individual in the whole land.
But his protective piping Highland schiltron would have none of it and now closed ranks around him. Onward they proceeded, to strains of “Scotland the Brave,” “Amazing Grace,” and “Flower of Scotland,” while the loyal Scots celebrants followed in their train much as the Highlanders had followed Bonnie Prince Charlie through Edinburgh.
The procession made its way around Parliament Square, then around Westminster Abbey and finally, ten or fifteen minutes later, back to the front of the Palace near the unchanging countenance of Winston Churchill’s gruff and unimpressed presence.
Nine
As he approached the statue and the procession slowed, to his disbelief Andrew looked ahead to see the tiny smiling red-crowned figure of Leigh Ginevra Gordon standing awaiting his triumphant return at the head of his victorious trail of admirers.
“Ginny!” exclaimed Andrew, breaking into a laugh of incredulity and running toward her.
“I couldna let ye hae yer moment o’ victory wi’oot sharin’ it wi’ ye,” she said, flashing the wide smile he had pictured so many times in his mind’s eye since last seeing its reality when they were together on the peak of Lochnagar. “But I hardly ken yer face wi’oot yer beard! I only saw ye twice wi’oot it, an’ the last time was frae up in my window when ye was talkin’ t’ my father, an’ I was too mixed up o’ mind t’ take a guid luik at ye.”
Andrew burst into another laugh, this time of delight. The next moment, though neither had planned it, she was in his arms.
“I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you!” said Andrew. “I intended to leave tomorrow for Ballochallater, and this time I did not intend to take no for an answer. I was going to make you see me whether you wanted to or not.”
“Please,” groaned Ginny, “dinna remin’ me what a goose I’ve been.” She was nearly yelling to be heard. “I’m sorry, an’ I winna treat ye so rude ever again. I hope ye can forgive a lassie her confusion.”
“All is forgiven,” said Andrew, “—on one condition.”
“An’ jist what might that be?”
“That you will accompany me once again to the top of Lochnagar.”
“In that case, Mister Andrew Trentham—though I’m still a wee bit partial t’ the Andy Trent—ye hae my promise that I’ll gae there wi’ ye the very day ye set foot again in Ballochallater.”
Ginny stepped back as Andrew released her, and now Andrew saw the small entourage that had come with her.
“Alastair . . . Shorty!” he exclaimed. “You’re all here!”
He and Alastair Farquharson shook hands. Their eyes met briefly as Alastair nodded and smiled. Andrew leaned toward the big man and lowered his voice.
“I thought you told me you were never coming back to the big city,” he said.
“I couldna weel miss all this,” replied Alastair. “An’ noo that I ken the place like an expert, ’tis nae so fearsome.—An,’” he added more softly, “I’m happy fer ye an’ Ginny.”
Andrew smiled, gave the big hand another squeeze, then turned again toward Ginny.
“But . . . but how did you—?” laughed Andrew.
“In the airplane o’ a friend o’ Angus MacLeod’s,” she answered, “—wha phoned t’ tell us what ye’d dune.”
“How long have you been here?”
“We only jist noo got here through the crowd.”
Behind her, Andrew now saw Ginny’s father standing by, fully clad in Gordon kilt to match his own.
Andrew took two or three steps toward him.
“Well, laird,” he said, smiling now himself, “what do you think of the city?”
“A mite ower big fer the likes o’ us! But it still has a few things t’ recommend it.”
“And now you see the result of my conversation with you and Duncan!” he rejoined.
“So dinna keep us in suspense,” said Ginny with a grin. “Hoo did ye vote?”
“Let me just say this—the Commons is still in a state of shock,” laughed Andrew. “Labour’s government is secure, but I can’t say the same for the United Kingdom.”
“’Tis a braw muckle tartan ye’ll be sportin,’” said Ginny’s father, gesturing toward Andrew’s kilt.
“Ay, isna it noo?” rejoined Andrew gaily. “An’ ’tis aye my ain. Do ye suppose that makes ye yersel’ my ain chief too, laird?”
Ginny and her father laughed heartily.
“Not bad fer a Sassenach,” said Ginny with a mischievous smile.
“I doobt anyone’ll call him a Sassenach after tonight, Ginny,” corrected her father.
Ginny slipped her hand into Andrew’s arm, and the two of them began a second victory march around Parliament Square. Laird Finlaggan Gordon took Andrew’s left arm, and they were followed by Shorty and Alastair and the rest of the Scots. As they passed them again, Andrew hailed Bill and Paddy Rawlings, gesturing for them to join in at the front of the procession. Paddy handed her microphone to an astonished Kirk Luddington, and she and Bill now ran and fell into step beside Andrew, Ginny, and her father.
Behind them, the rising crescendo of chanting and cheering drowned out any further hope of conversation.
At first Andrew could not make out what was being said. Then finally the words of all those who had followed him in the procession around the cathedral began to come clear.
Hail, Caledonia! rose the words of the Scottish throng.
Hail, Caledonia! . . . Hail, Caledonia!
Then gradually the chants turned to song, and before long the entire spectacle of ten thousand voices joined in the massive singing, to the accompaniment of two or three hundred bagpipes, of “Scotland the Brave.”
It was only too bad, Andrew thought as they walked with the throng of singing Scots following behind, that Sandy and Kendrick Gordon and their wives . . . and Ginevra and Brochan . . . and Robert the Bruce and his groom Donal . . . and Gachan and Darroch and Fionnaghal and Malcolm Canmore and Queen Margaret . . . and Dallais and Breathran and Kenneth MacAlpin . . . the priests Columba and Fintenn . . . Maelchon and Foltlaig and Cruithne and Fidach . . . even the ancient Wanderer and his sons and grandsons—if only they could all witness this moment of crowning triumph for the people who had come after them.
And then again, reflected Andrew further, perhaps they all are here among us in spirit . . . watching after all!
He hoped they would be pleased by what he had done.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance that hinders us . . . and let us run with perseverance the race set before us.
—Hebrews 12:1
Epilogue
Late summer had come once again to the Highlands of Scotland.
The annual Games at the Spittal o’ Ballochallater—just two years after the appearance in the small Scottish village of a mysterious Englishman going by the name of Andy Trent—was such as the region had never seen. It had been billed as the most important
Highland Games event of the year, and had even rivaled the Edinburgh Tattoo in publicity. No one who attended was disappointed.
The surrounding hillsides could not have been more resplendent in their royal garb of purple, as if all Scotland’s kings and queens from the past were gazing down and giving their sanction to the proceedings.
So many visitors and guests came from throughout Scotland, Cumbria, and London that traffic clogged roads throughout all the central Highlands. And when was the last time the prime minister and half of Parliament had attended any event in Scotland, much less a small celebration in such an out-of-the-way place that a year ago would have been lucky to boast more than a hundred or two people?
Of course, it was not often that a Highland Games was put to use as a backdrop for the most celebrated public wedding in Scotland in decades, one which would unite one of the country’s most famous and admired politicians with a feisty Highland veterinarian, whose bright orange-red crown barely reached up to the Honorable Gentleman’s shoulder.
Ever since the announcement had been made several months after the historic vote in Parliament, and shortly after one of Andrew Trentham’s many visits to Ballochallater, during which a very significant conversation with Leigh Ginevra Gordon was held on the slopes of Lochnagar, the country had talked of nothing else. By the time the long-awaited wedding approached, the name Ginny Gordon was nearly as well known as that of her husband-to-be. Women throughout the kingdom were in love with her.
The list of honored guests was so long that there was no room in the village to put them all up: Andrew’s parents, Harland and Lady Waleis Trentham, Duncan MacRanald, William and Patricia Rawlings, Andrew’s London housekeeper, Dorothea Threlkeld, Prime Minister Richard Barraclough, Dugald MacKinnon and other members of the SNP, many of Andrew’s Liberal Democratic colleagues, and dozens more. Every man, woman, and child of Ballochallater, of course, considered themselves the most honored guests of all, though they did not have to travel to attend. Did they not know, they insisted to one another, that the laird’s daughter was bound to make her mark on the world one day? They had foreseen it all along.
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