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Chapter Text

Dear Miss Beauchamp,

My name is Mary Ann Wakefield. This name means nothing to you, nor does the name William Thomas Wakefield. At least I don’t think it does – not in the way William would have liked. As terrible and rude as this sounds, I think you appreciate my frankness. We are both combat nurses after all. We speak plain or we don’t speak at all.

My brother William served as a paratrooper in the British 6^th Airborne Division. He was injured at the Capture of the Caen Canal and once more at the Battle of the Bulge. I don’t mean to inundate you with questions or to assume the nature of your and William’s association, but as I understood it from his letters, you were one of the field nurses that looked after him during his recovery at the 12^th Evacuation Hospital.

William spoke very fondly of you. ‘The woman mother always warned me about has finally materialized. The bossiest wee lassie’, he wrote, ‘with a mouth on her that would make even the most battle hardened bastard blush, but a kind touch. The kind of touch, that would make any man gladly jump into the depths of hell’. He did have a way with the lasses. Even if you don’t recognize his name, I’m sure you remember his smile and the sound of his laughter. I disregarded his words about you as nothing but the musings of an injured, heavily medicated soldier, who took it as fact that he was about to marry the first bonny lass, who tended to him and made the war a little bit more bearable. Even if everything he wrote about you and the conversations you shared, were nothing more than William’s fever dreams, I am still grateful that he got to know someone as kind and funny as you in these dark times.

By now you must have realized that William never made it home to us. The C-46, which was supposed to take him back to England after his second injury was shot down over the Channel. His belongings arrived three days ago. Among them a piece of paper with your name and address written in a hand writing I didn’t recognize. There was also an unfinished letter, dated Dec. 22th, which he started with that he was back in the field hospital and that he was owing you a dance. He was planning on inviting you to Inverness once the war is over.

If it’s not too much to ask and if you’re not preoccupied elsewhere, I would like to extend my brother’s invitation to you. I know my mother and father are keen on talking with you about William, since you’re one of the last people who spoke with him, but don’t feel pressured to accept out of duty. William wrote to me a total of four letters about his time in France. In all of them he talks about you. If it wasn’t just a fever dream and if you need a place and time to make sense of all of this, then please, Claire, visit us. The flowers are about to bloom soon enough. The birds started with their nesting in the old hedge around the house. It’s quiet here. Almost as if there hadn’t been a war at all. We can arrange for your transportation from Edinburgh to Inverness. A room and bed has been offered by Mrs. Baird, an old friend of the family, who runs a bed-and-breakfast establishment.

I hope this letter finds you,

Mary Ann Wakefield                                                                 

Inverness, March 20^th 1945

~oOo~

Wild flowers were blooming. Carpets of Ramson or perhaps Wild Garlic. Even some Bluebells turned the lower slopes of many hills into an early blue. A most unusual early blue, as Mr. Reynolds had pointed out, once we had left the outskirts of Edinburgh behind. The way he said it, made it seem like a bad omen to ask as to why early Bluebells were of the “most unusual” kind, so instead I opted for the harmless and utterly time consuming topic about the weather, which soon turned into an undergrad lecture about seasonal Scottish plants and flowers, since, as Mr. Reynolds had informed me, his family had been in the flower business since 1888 and famous throughout the Highlands.

Here I was, basking in the warming spring sun, letting my unruly curls be tugged at by the wind and listening to Mr. Reynolds about the satisfaction of helping wee plants thrive, of the quiet sense of pleasure in caring for growing things. He was a gentle man, with the bluest, warm eyes. And although his suit looked worn, it was clear that he liked to put an effort into appearing presentable. He looked older than forty two years but so did I. War had that peculiar talent to rob you off your years in more ways than one.  His daughter, Elspeth Reynolds, had been running the flower shop in Inverness ever since his son had gone to war.

Although the sun was positively searing, I felt a familiar chill engulfing me.  If there was such a thing as an end to war, I had yet to experience it. There was an unspoken uneasiness now, which had creeped into every conversation, every glance, every time eye contact was made with strangers and friends alike. What’s his name? Was he alive? Have you heard of him? What happened to him? I didn’t dare to ask.

William’s easygoing smile popped into my head, his hand playing with my fingers while singing The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie in a low voice as to not wake Mark in the bed next to his, long hours of not knowing whether he was in fact on the C-46 that had been shot down, the silence in the days and weeks afterwards.

“Are ye cold, Miss Beauchamp? I brought extra blankets, just in case. You never know when a Scottish spring turns into a Scottish winter again. Especially when there’s still snow to be found on the mountains. It’s in the backseat. Irish wool. The warmest material you’ll ever know.”

I put on a smile that didn’t fool anyone and draped my jacket closer around my shoulders. “Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. That’s very kind of you but it’s just the chill of a passing cloud.”

He didn’t say anything for the next couple of minutes. The car took a long stretching turn to the left in between two steep climbing hills. Once we passed, a large range of mountains, grass and hills appeared in the distance, the snow on their tops glimmering in the late morning sun.

“Have you ever been to the Highlands before?”

Here we go. I wondered when the interrogation would start. An unmarried English woman from London with no apparent ties to a Scottish family, is invited by said family to the point that people in the community are being asked for accommodation and transportation of said English woman. Yes, how could there ever be raised eyebrows? I knew how it looked like. Mr. Reynold’s glance at my ring finger as well as at my stomach, no matter how discreet he had tried to be about it, had said enough. I didn’t know what Mary did or didn’t tell Mr. Reynolds or Mrs. Braid about the reason for my visit, but it would look suspicious either way no matter how you worded it.

“No, unfortunately not,” I said. Only in stories. And hushed songs. And some soft spoken Gaelic words against my hair when nobody was looking. “Not even to Scotland. First time,” I added almost apologetically.

“You’re in for a treat then.” He gave me a brief but friendly smile. “We are a proud and stubborn bunch. Easy to please as long as there is enough drink and food to go around. But we’re also fierce and loyal. We share what little we have as long as you have great stories to entertain us with.”

“I imagine, me coming to Inverness is the story.”

He laughed, a deep, infectious sound and I smiled back. “Aye, ‘tis. You’ve earned yourself a full months supply of food and bed and breakfast.” He caught the look on my face and added quickly: “Dinna fash. It’s been a long war. We haven’t seen as many people come and go as we used to. Certainly not a young English woman, a combat nurse at that, who was stationed in France. A lot of the lads were sent to Normandy, ye ken.”

There was so much hope nestled in these words. Delicate. Too bright for a direct look. They threatened to suffocate me. All those eyes lightening up, hoping that maybe, for some reason, with some luck or divine interference, I might be able to tell them something, anything about their loved ones. I met William. It stood to reason to assume there had been others. One of the reasons why I thought against coming here.

“So, Mary told you?” It didn’t sit well with me. Being in a disadvantage. Not knowing what was common knowledge. Playing guessing games.

This time Mr. Reynolds made a guttural snort. “A young feller doesn’t talk to his sister about a lass he cares nothing for and a sister doesn’t go out of her way to get said lass to visit the family if she thought the lass indifferent.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” The thought slipped passed my lips before I could get a hold of it. A cruel thing to say. It was the loneliness and the prospect of emptiness that lay ahead that made me say it. I felt embarrassed in an instant. I am not the only one who was suffering. Worse had happened to others. “I’m sorry,” I said, forcing myself to look at him.

Mr. Reynold’s face softened unbearably, but he didn’t take his eyes off the road. “It did. It still does. Nothing of the past has been lost. It will always be there. You’ve lost what could have been. T’s unfair. Will was a good lad. Always the first to help, always smiling. Nothing was able to dampen his spirits. Very popular with the lasses, too.”

The eye-twinkling was evident in his voice. I snorted but couldn’t hide my smile. “So I have been told.” Feeling emboldened I added: “Do I have to brace myself for all the cold looks and behind-the-hand remarks from some of his old flames?”

“Aye. From both now married and unmarried ones I wager.”

“Well, lucky me I guess.”

I hadn’t wondered before but I wondered now how many of the girls in Inverness had found their way into Will’s arms on a Friday night dance and afterwards into a secluded alley, sharing glances and kisses. Maybe even more. I had no claim on him then. It was silly to get worked up about something which had happened before the war had forced our paths to cross. And yet: I found that I strongly disliked the image of Will kissing other girls. Just as I had disliked the appreciative looks and eager smiles some of my co-nurses had given him when I wasn’t the one tending to him. As battle battered, pale, one arm in a cast, a ringing in both ears, a bayonet wound on his thigh and dark circles under his eyes as he had been, he still had drawn in the lasses like bees to a honey pot.  And I couldn’t fault them. Sharp, straight nose, high cheekbones and those grey-green eyes that always held a certain softness to them whenever he regarded you.

I had no claim on him during that time either. Only hopes.

“It’ll be fine, lass,” he said in an almost fatherly manner. “Mary Ann will see to it. She has a certain reputation, ye ken. If she approves of you then all the others will fall in line. They might still talk about you behind your back but they are not going to bother you openly.”

“I’d rather have them do it openly. At least then I know what I’m up against.”

There was another soft laugh. “T’is easy to see why the lad fancied you.”

A flush came unwillingly to my cheeks and I tried to crane my neck as far away from Mr. Reynolds as possible.

“Why did you sign up for the nursing corps?”

“I’d like to think because of the same reason most did,” I answered and shrugged. “I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting around, doing nothing, feeling helpless. Just waiting to get bombed in the Blitz. I thought I could do something Nothing the history books will ever mention but little things. And maybe those would account to something to someone. That…that had seemed like a goo idea to me.” I took a deep breath, focusing on the hills around us, naming every plant and flower I could. Faces I hadn’t thought about in a while flashed before my eyes. Some more focused than others.

“Don’t go there, lass,” said Mr. Reynolds. “Stay here. We still have one more hour to go before we arrive. Tell me about your family.”

And so I did.

I talked about my parents. About Uncle Lamb. The curious circumstances of my upbringing. The Middle East. South America. All the places around the world I thought of as an almost-home. Consequences of what Mr. Reynolds was going to do with all of that information in a small Scottish town where everybody knew everyone be damned.

~oOo~

“Oh, ye are beautiful!” was the first thing Mary Ann said. It was laced with so much genuine surprise bordering on wonder that it made me question the language William must have used to describe me.

The first thing I noticed about her were her eyes. They were the same. Not just in colour. There was that life and warmth in them as she took me in and as they did, it only seemed to enhance their beauty even more. Suddenly I understood what Mr. Reynolds meant when he said, the other girls would fall in line if Mary Ann said so. There was fire and she knew perfectly well how to use it.

Mr. Reynolds next to me, holding my suite case, couldn’t contain his amusement as the bundle of wavey golden hair and moss green dress rushed towards us.

“Miss Wakefield – ” I managed to say before she catapulted herself straight into me. I caught us just in time before she tumbled us both to the ground. I stiffened, not knowing what to do with such a welcome or most importantly with my hands, so I held on to her elbows.

“T’is Mary for ye,” she said, stepping back. “Let’s not treat like strangers.”

Seemed as if corresponding two times while a war was raging and bonding over lost loved ones was enough these days for people to form a friendship.

“Mary it is then. I’m Claire. Thanks for having me. And thanks for sending Mr. Reynolds to pick me up.” I smiled at him. “We had a wonderful ride here.”

“The lass is too polite. By ‘wonderful’ she means to say, I dropped into my passion for herbology and amateurish botany knowledge and she humored me.” He inclined his head courteously in my direction.

“Oh, you didn’t,” laughed Mary. “Well then, I guess you can count yourself as one of us now, Claire, because there is no one left in Inverness or the Highlands for that matter, who hasn’t been forced to sit through one of Kenneth’s lectures.”

“It wasn’t a bother at all,” I insisted. “It’s one of my fields of interest too, after all. Besides, Mr. Reynolds had to listen to an hour of me babbling on about religious practices in ancient Egypt.”

“Mary, did you know that they not only mummified their kings but also animals as an offering to the god whom the species represented?”

Mary shook her head. “I did not but by the sound of it the old Egyptians had some common sense to them.”

That surprised me. “That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone refer to ritual sacrifice as a practice of common sense.”

There was a twinkle in her eyes. It spread and sparked. “Ah, did ye think of us as a bunch of goody-two-shoes church-goers?”

Baffled and slightly embarrassed I looked from her to Mr. Reynolds and back again. “Well, yes?”

“The church is the church, but around here we believe in the Old Folk and in tales of magic. More so than anywhere else in the world. Though Kenneth will go out of his way to persuade you that this spot is reserved for the Irish.”

A drizzle of good solid Scottish weather, as Mr. Reynolds put it, set in and compelled Mary to hush us from the driveway into the house at once while Mr. Reynolds kept talking about his Irish roots. Apparently his great-grandfather had been born somewhere on the southwest of Ireland in a small town called Kenmare. He left during the great famine, didn’t like the rest of England and ended up in Scotland. He married and his second son later got into the flower business.

As Mary introduced me to the housekeeper Mrs. Graham, a tall, string woman with three strands of artificial pearls round her neck, who insisted on unburden me from my jacket, it hit me like a sudden burst of summer rain that it was William’s home I was standing in.

Just like the high glass windows and thick stone walls from the outside had suggested, the Wakefield family home had withstood the stern judgement of time. It felt full. Full of stories. Full of life. Full of merriment. The wooden floor was breathing with every step. There was a lived-in warmth coming from the walls and carpets which made me feel as if I did belong. In every corner a reminder of the generation which came before could be found.

Mrs. Graham walked ahead, pointing at several family heirlooms in the hallway as she did, some of which reached back to the 1750s, while Mr. Reynolds nodded politely, offering an ensemble of ohs and ahs. Mary smiled when she caught me starring at the paintings. She could have told me the people in them were famous or royalty and I would’ve believed her. We passed the door that led to the living room and the adjoined kitchen and the corridor opened up to a spacious room furnished with more than one old wooden desk, book cases that ran from ceiling to floor, a couple of comfy looking stools, two sofas, a table and a fire place. No one was there, apart from a wobbly pile of books and a mass of tattered papers scattered on a desk by the far wall, joined by a lone cup.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding. Mary hadn’t mentioned her parents again after the initial letter. I was glad and disappointed at the same time. Maybe it was better like this. I still didn’t know what to say or how to say it when we meet.   

Mr. Reynolds sat my suite case down next to the sofa. “Will you be fine on your own from here on, lass?” he asked, crinkling that soft smile again.

“Claire was in France,” Mary said matter-of-factly from the side. “She’ll be fine.”

Mr. Reynolds smile didn’t falter. “I promised Elspeth I would be helping her with the Beltane preparations this afternoon.”

“Beltane?” I asked, eyebrows raised. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“Ah, dinna worry. T’s an ancient Celtic holiday. It celebrates the beginning of summer and the renewed fertility of the coming year.”

“We gather around huge fires to feast and dance. For the most part,” Mary added and Mrs. Graham in the back let off a conveniently placed cough. “But some lasses and lads still heed to the old traditions and come together to focus on the fertility part with the utter most care and vigor.” Mary winked at me.

Oh. OH. Heat rushed to my neck and ears.

“Dinna let your uncle hear of this,” said Mrs. Graham, but Mary waved it off.

“He knows. He canna afford to be seen taking too much interest in these rituals but he knows.”

I must have looked even more confused because Mary turned to me and explained: “My uncle is the vicar. You won’t catch him talk about the local druid groups but he is too curious a man to ignore it altogether.”

I’ve had heard of druids before. Of some of their practices. It hadn’t been Uncle Lamp’s main focus of research but some of his colleagues. They liked to discuss their findings in terms of similarities and linked them back to Carl Jung’s archetypes. No wonder Reverend Wakefield was interested: Christianity in all it forms had its share of behavioral patterns universally recognized by people of different believes and cultures as well.

“So, your daughter is organizing the fires this year?” I asked.

Mr. Reynolds nodded. “Her and some of her friends. First time since the war has started. They thought against it for a long time but ever since they had heard that the Americans and Russians have surrounded Berlin, they want to bring back some normality.”

I smiled at the notion. Something normal. We all had learned the hard way that the world was a merrier place when things were just normal. It was more than enough.

“It’s still two weeks away but they are having troubles to gather enough helping hands to erect the fires. I’m thinking about sending for some old friends from Nairn and Muir of Ord.”

My smiled disappeared. The young men were gone. Only the women and old ones remained. Waiting. Hoping.

“I’ll be back by seven,” he continued, “and then drive you down to Mrs. Baird’s bed and breakfast, if that sounds suitable to you.”

“Very much so. Thank you.”

Mrs. Graham, who had been pouring tee into one cup after the other on the table, swirled around, teapot in hand and said: “Ye canna leave now! I’ve prepared a wee bit of refreshment for ye and Miss Beauchamp.”

The ‘wee bit of refreshment’ included a plate of sandwiches, an equally large mountain of butter biscuits, scones with thick clotted cream, tea, sugar and milk. The war truly was coming to an end.

Mr. Reynolds fished one of the biscuits off the tea tray and plopped it into his mouth. “Mmm, thank you. It’s been awhile since I had them. You have outdone yourself, dear Mrs. Graham. But if I don’t go now, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“I’ll see ye to the door then,” Mrs. Graham answered, still slightly muffed but also pleased that her efforts were appreciated. Mary wished Mr. Reynolds goodbye, thanked him and tasked Mrs. Graham with the mission to pack some of the shortbread for Mr. Reynolds and that he was not to leave the house before he had received them. The pair made their way down the corridor, their voices fading away.

We were alone. It could go either way now.

“Let’s sit down and eat some of her refreshments before she comes back and finds that we haven’t touched anything,” I heard Mary say. “She has been baking and preparing since yesterday.”

I followed her to the sofa, feeling slightly uncomfortable by the trouble these people were going to for me. I thought about grabbing one of the stools for a moment, but Mary patted the place next to her with a mildly amused smile.

“Ye need not be scairt,” she said as she placed one cup of tee right in front of me. “I didn’t plan on ambushing you the moment we are alone. Scones?”

“Yes, please.”

She filled my plate with two scones and a generous scoop of cream.

“I didn’t think you would,” I said, sipping away at the tea. It was green, hot and fragrant. Bits of leaf were swirling through the liquid. “It’s delicious.”

“Don’t let Mrs. Graham catch you with an empty cup, though. Unless you’re keen on a reading.”

I sat my cup down. “She reads tea leaves?” I asked, amused.

“Aye. She couldna get the right tea during the war. She canna tell you anything if the leaves fall apart too fast, ye know.”

Entertained know I tilted the cup a little bit to see the leaves at the bottom. “Do tell, are you not going to meet a tall dark stranger who whisks you away to an adventure of epic proportions?”

Mary echoed my amusement with a slight smile. “There are strangers, a’right? But she couldn’t tell if man or woman. Though she was sure that they disappear from my life just as quickly as they came into it.”

My amusement dissipated. For a moment we sat in silence. Not eating. Not drinking. I concentrated on the folded hands in my lap.

“I was mad at you at first,” she suddenly said. “There he was hundreds of kilometers away, in the most dangerous and horrible place on earth and all he did was telling me about some British girl he had met twice and for the most part of your encounters he had been drugged.”

He did talk to me about the horrible things. Joking with his comrades in one moment, watching them die in the next. The weight pressing down on your ribs as if you are underwater and drowning. He was drowning when he was awake. He was drowning in his dreams. Collecting dog tags. Closing eyes forever. Wrenching stiff fingers off guns and ammunition one by one. The screams. The silence. Why would he write about that? And to his sister?

“Why did you write to me then?” I asked.

“For one: I was sure you wouldn’t reply or that the letter wouldn’t find you,” she said, as though to herself. She paused. Eyes looking somewhere I couldn’t follow. “I even considered that you might be still in France or the Netherlands or wherever they would’ve sent you next. Maybe you died. In a bombing. A freak accident.”

Mary looked at my hands first, then up to my face. There was no escape. “It was my responsibility to at least try to contact you.”

By her tone and gaze it was clear she was insinuating something. Something malicious. Something she might have been suspicious of but was finalized upon seeing me. I felt the blood boiling and rising to my face. I took another sip of my tee to extinguish it. 

“You already know what happened,” I said coldly, unable to hide the anger in my voice. “After William I thought about my choices: seeing it through till the end or going back to England, to Portsmouth maybe, and care for the guys they send back. Around February talks about the end of the war started to become more frequent. I asked to be send back to England and when I arrived I put in a formal request for sick leave, which after an examination was granted.”

I locked eyes with her.

“I think you owe me truth, Claire.”

“I see. Is that the reason why you wanted me to come?” I said hotly. “To make sure I wasn’t carrying your nephew or niece?”

Mary Ann grasped my hands in hers and instead of anger, she looked at me with an intensity that filled me with the need to be here, with her, in that moment. To not run away. “No. Will was a decent lad. He would have wanted to do right by you. He wouldn’t have put such a burden on you as long as he was in the field … or without marriage.”

It was like a hit in the pit of my stomach. I was struggling to draw air into my lungs.

“Then,” I cleared my throat, “I don’t know what it is you’re suspecting me of.”

She stood and walked over to the desk next to the window that lead to the patio in the garden. She picked up one of the photographs and came back. Without a word Mary placed it in front of me, sat down and watched my reaction.

My hands started shaking when I tried to pick it up. Two times it slipped through my fingers.

William and Mary in front of what looked like a stone circle. It was summer. Will was wearing shorts. Mary another lovely cotton dress. Their smiles were contagious. William’s hair was longer. A single lock of golden hair was in danger of dropping low on his forehead and he had kept his sides combed but not as short as when I had first met him. He looked like a rebel in the making. I touched him. His smile. The eyes. A bird started fluttering in my chest. It stretched its wings and when it tried to escape a cold hand reached out.

“It was the summer before we enlisted,” I heard Mary say close to me. “We were so young back then. So foolish.”

I sat the photograph back down. The welling in my chest became to much and I took a deep breath. It didn’t stop my eyes from getting glassy.

“I can’t stop thinking about the last thing I said to him,” Mary said, the saddest of smiles tugging at her lips. “It was some nonsense. I don’t even remember what it was exactly.”

She was drowning. And I was about to drown with her.

“The harder I try to remember the details the more he slips away. I…it scares me. A-and sometimes, just for a moment, I forget that he isn’t here anymore. I would run to get the mail and I expect to find one of his letters.”

Mary was still looking at me. Thinking. Assessing. “It’s the first time you’ve seen him since saying goodbye, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “He…he said something in Gaelic to me. I can’t recall what it was and I still don’t know what it meant. They had him on a stretcher and I threatened to chain him down if he didn’t stop wiggling around. He joked, that there was enough room for me under the blanket, that he could smuggle me on board with ease.”

A small, amused laugh escaped me.

“What?” Mary inquired.

I shook my head. “Nothing. Just…teasing me with what a scotsman really wears beneath his kilt.”

That made Mary laugh as well.

“That’s it...” I said slowly, “That’s the last thing we talked about. He said, he would write to me and that he was saving me a dance.”

I felt my mouth twist, fighting against the welling in my chest. I closed my eyes and counted in my mind along to my breaths. I made it barely to five before a hand touched my shoulder.

“Claire, you’re allowed to cry.”

“No, I’m not,” I shouted, voice cracking. “It bloody sucks that I am here and he isn’t! That I get to see you and his home and he doesn’t. All of this is filled with memories of the people that he loved and– I…I don’t know how you do it. I’ve only known him for such a short time.”

I wasn’t able to cry back in January, when I heard the news of William’s death. But here, I sank into Mary’s arms. She stayed with me, cradling me against her, muttering soft Gaelic in my ears.

“You’ve known him in every way that mattered”, she whispered, her own voice filled with tears. They dropped against my cheek. We wept bitterly. I apologized over and over again, though for what exactly I didn’t know. Slowly I began to quiet a bit, lulled by her heart beat and body warmth. Mary started to take deep and long breathes and together we surrendered to the calmness of our minds, tired by the weight of our hearts.

That’s how Mrs. Graham found us.

“Should I prepare the guest room?” she asked and I felt Mary nod.

“No, it’s fine,” I said, backing away in a hurry. “I can walk or I wait for Mr. Reynolds or – “

“Claire,” said Mary and the tone of her voice quenched all and any attempts at false bravado. “You are not a burden. Let me take care of you. Just this once.”

I wanted to shy away from her gaze, but found it comforting instead of embarrassing. That alone almost made me cry again. She helped me to my feet and I nodded. It had been a while since someone had taken the liberty to look after me.

“It’s just … I hardly know you. I hardly knew Will.”

She smiled. “Ah, sometime it doesn’t matter, does it? With some people you just know.”

She offered to help me with my suite case but I declined. I followed her up the stairs, noticing on the way up that one step that always creaked and made it impossible to sneak down to the kitchen undetected, just as William had described and found myself in another long, beautifully decorated corridor. Mary took me left down to the last door on the right.

Mrs. Graham had already covered the four poster bed with fresh linen and rushed passed us to fill the ewer with water. The floral wallpapers were decorated again with paintings but this time they portrayed landscapes. I recognized the one with the stone circle.

“Craigh Na Dun,” Mary explained as she noticed my curiosity. “It’s were we took that photograph. It’s not far from here. We can go there if you like. Or you can take a guide if you want to know more about this area.”

I turned to her. “I’d like that. Thank you.”

She smiled. “I leave you to it then. Just one more thing: my parents won’t be back till Friday. I told them you would arrive on April 22^nd. I thought you might want to have some time to adjust. It’s a lot to take in.”

I stepped towards her, not quite sure whether it was appropriate to hug her so I took her hands into mine. “Thank you, Mary.” I got quiet. She waited. I took a breath. “I’m not pregnant. Not by William or any other man, if that’s what you think how I got my request granted. It was granted because after William I had developed some sort temporary blindness. They said, it was most likely a stress response but they wanted to make sure and transferred me to a specialist in London.”

She shook er head. “That’s not it. I was unsure of your feelings for my brother. I guess, I just need to make sure that he truly was with somebody that cared deeply for him before he died. Everything else – “ Her voice cracked. “I wouldn’t have been able to stand it, ye ken?”

I did. Mrs. Graham left the ewer on the dresser and I wished both of them a good night.

I waited for their steps to fade away before I sat down at the desk in front of the window.

I stared.

Then I cried some more.  

Chapter Text

Sleep didn’t come for a long time. When it did, I dreamed about William.

He was wearing his airborne dress uniform, freshly ironed, not a single thread amiss. An irritatingly mud green colour that didn’t go with anything but bordeaux red and so, as he offered me his hand and I stood to meet him, a striking red dress was swinging with each of my steps.
William was a sight to behold. My heart was painfully aware the closer I got to him.

“At your service, ma’am,” he said, the usual expression of good humor around his lips as he took my hand in his and placed a soft kiss just behind the knuckles.
His eyes didn’t stray and as he watched me, he must have noticed something. A shift to realization spread across his face. A look, which was inquiring me. A look never used on me before. Carefully at first but soon ardently. It drew me towards him, within him. I felt myself slipping into his arms, intertwining my fingers with his and almost shying away from where my hand touched his shoulder and his hand touched my back. Not too low but low enough to make me look away from his eyes to take a sudden interest in the second and third button of his jacket. His hold on me was firm and warm.

Music set in.

I’ve had heard this song many times before, even danced to it with a few men, but where before the slow sensuality made me want to put as much distance as possible between me and my partner, I now felt myself trying to itch closer and closer.

“Is it as you thought it would be?” he murmured and when I looked at him, I had to crane my head back.

“No,” I said and he raised his eyebrows, amusement humming in his eyes. “It annoys me that I can’t be closer to you.”

He laughed softly, dropped his head and his lips graced my forehead. “Better?”

“Well, it’s a start.” Emboldened by his playfulness, I tightened my grip on him and laid my head against his chest, sinking into his presence and the soothing smell that was particular male and particular Will. “Have you ever felt like this before? That, no matter how close you are, it is not close enough?”

“No.” His voice cracked.

“I want to melt against you until I disappear and live within you, until my soul touches yours.” I raised my head just a little bit to assess his reaction. “Does that make sense?”

“Perfectly.” He was showing me a full blown smile again, dimples and all, eyes alive with joy.

“Does it scare you?”

Will shook his head. “Nah, Sassenach. It dinna scair me.” He took me in again. Carefully. Then another smile. “I just didn’t think I would ever get the chance to have this with somebody.”

~oOo~

I woke up in a state of utter bliss. Surrounded by a cocoon of pillows and blankets, I stretched like a cat to my full length and was about to roll myself back into a bun, when I reached for the space next to me. I expected Will to be there.

I touched air and coldness.

It shocked me back to full consciousness and up in bed in an instant.
Memories flushed back, they chased the dream away. A few heartbeats came and went and I wanted the roles to be reserved: that this was the dream and William the real life.

Inverness. Mary Ann. The photograph.

Wrapping one of the blankets against the burning chill, I staggered out of bed, one hand clutching at my chest.

I had left the curtains open. Dawn started to flame in the east. It brought the colours of the garden to life. The rain had stopped during the night. Grass and leaves, flowers and spider webs were glistening in the golden light. A soft mist was dancing between the tress and far off in the distance around the hills.

I opened the windows and took a deep breath, willing the coldness and the youth of the morning to chase the heaviness away. Only the small birds were up and about, flying back and forth between the hedges, chasing and challenging each other for the best nesting spots. I watched them for a while. Mostly sparrows. Some blue tits and blackbirds as well. Their antics drew a small smile from me.

It will be alright. Just not now.

I put on the same navy blue cotton dress from yesterday, washed my face and combed through my wild curls with my fingers, making them look a little less untamed.
I closed the door behind me as slowly as possible and tiptoed towards the stairs. It was quiet. Even though I managed to avoid that one cracking step, I still felt like an elephant on a field of dried crackers.

By the time I made it to the bottom, I was sure I must have woken up the whole of Inverness.

I noticed him almost right away.

The desk by the far wall, which had been vacant yesterday, now was occupied by a tubby man, dressed in black with a clerical dog-collar. He crouched over a heavy looking book, tracing certain lines with his finger and mumbling along in concentration. Only an oil lamp was keeping him company.

The moment I made up my mind to turn around and disappear back up the stairs, I heard him speak up: “Oh, no, no, don’t mind me, Miss Beauchamp. Just an old men spending too much time in the past.”

“I guess, that makes two of us then.”

He left the book open and hurried over to clasp my hand, his round face beaming with genuine delight. His hand were just as warm as his smile. Must be a family thing.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

I smiled back. “The pleasure is all mine, Reverend.”

“Please, have a seat.” He hushed me over to the sofa. “Tea?”

“Yes, very much. Thank you.” Judging by the delicious smell of the pile of scones accompanying the huge tea pot, Mrs. Graham must have been at work for a while as well. I thought about the fresh water and the glass she had left for me in my room.

“You’re right on time for our plans,” he said as he finished pouring a cup for me.

“Plans?” Casting an eye on the book and the papers, I was unsure of what if any help I could be. They looked old. At least two or three hundred years. Not exactly my field of expertise.

Reverend Wakefield followed my gaze and gestured the question away. “Oh, don’t worry yourself. These are strictly my burden to carry. You see, I’m helping a historian from Oxford with his research about one of his ancestors, who was in command of the garrison at Fort William in the 1740s.”

“That’s … commendable.”

As if he didn’t hear me the Reverend went on: “He and his wife are to arrive on Thursday and I’m almost too ashamed to admit, but I still haven’t found suitable explanations for the questions Mr. Randall has.”

“Historians are like small birds. If you feed them to much information, they can’t swallow it anyways.”

It dawned on me then that my sense of humor wasn’t reflecting how a young, unmarried woman should act like: demure, genteel, intelligent but self-effacing. Reverend Wakefield didn’t seem to know whether to laugh or to feel insulted on behalf of every historian in existence. His smooth, bald head creased into a frown.

“That’s what my uncle used to say,” I added.

“Why yes, I believe you’re right,” he finally said and I took a big gulp of tea.

“I take it this area is known for its rich historical past?” It was an olive branch. And I was glad when he took it.

“Aye, the Battle of Culloden―just to name one―took place not twenty minutes from here. It was the last confrontation between the Jacobite army and the British crown. Thousands of clansmen were killed or wounded. It also marked the end of the clan life as the Highlanders knew it.”

Being no stranger to historians in the manic grip of detailing the past, I nodded periodically, added a “Oh really?”, a “So, what does that mean?” or when I actually had a fair understanding of the dates and names he brought up, a more nuanced question at appropriate intervals. Reverend Wakefield was positively beaming at me once more by the time he had covered almost six hundred years of clan life, English occupation, Scottish history and geography. My head was spinning, yet it also left me feeling more connected to this place and its people.

“So, we have arrived in the year 1740. What have you found out about Mr. … Randall’s …?” Reverend Wakefield nodded, “―Mr. Randall’s ancestor so far that has kept you up all night?”

It was the right thing to say. I could see that in spite of outward composure and the occasionally unconscious rubbing of his eyes, he was bursting with glee of whatever he had been working on and with a certain degree of elderly gallantry because his efforts had been noticed.

“Oh, not all night but the better part of it, certainly. And yes, despite one or two setbacks, it was a most gratifying discovery,” he said, taking another sip of his tea, before pausing for dramatic effect and setting the cup down. “The language in all these military dispatches is very guarded as you can imagine but it seems as if Captain Jonathan Randall was entrusted with the job of stirring up Jacobite sentiments among the prominent Scottish families in his area. The point being to smoke out any baronets and clan chieftains who might be harboring secret sympathies.”

“For the exiled Stuart king? Bonnie Prince Charlie?”

“Precisely! We know a notable number of clan chiefs and their members joined the Jacobite rebellion in 1745. Clans such as Clan MacLeod of Lewis, Clan MacIntyre, Clan MacKenzie, Clan MacLean, just to name a few from this region.”

“So far I haven’t heard anything which would grant the title of ‘gratifying discovery’, Mr. Wakefield,” I stated with a certain smile and the utter most confidence in his abilities that he would proof me otherwise in just a minute.

The Reverend humored me and said: “What astute observation skills you have, Miss Beauchamp! Truly wonderful!”

I smiled. This time it was genuine.

“Well, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that digging into clan business isn’t going to make you particular popular with the common folk or with the chiefs for that matter. But Captain Randall or Black Jack Randall―as he was going to be known for in this area―apparently was quite zealous about his task to the point that he was harassing the Scottish countryside above the Border on behalf of the Crown. I found reports of complains lodged against the Captain by various families and estate holders, claiming everything from interference with their maidservants by the soldiers of the garrison to outright theft of horses, not to mention assorted instances of ‘insult’ of unspecified nature.”

“Quite a character, indeed,” I commented dryly.

Reverend Wakefield nodded along but he was thinking about something else: “Complaints against the English in general and during this time period aren’t surprising or uncommon. What is odd, although, is that nothing ever seems to have come of the complaints, even the serious ones.”

“Were officers held to different standards?” I suggested, taking a heartly bite out of one of the scones as my stomach made the absent of some breakfast loudly known.

“Not in the way modern officers are held accountable, no. They could do very much as they liked to some extent. It was encouraged and a sign of good leadership if they handled minor matters without interference of their higherups. But still: some of the complaints would have resulted in criminal charges under English Common Law but for some reason they never did. If they were investigated and then dismissed, that’s one thing, but they are just never mentioned again.”

I was on my second scone when I asked: “Are the files considered to be complete?”

“Very. As my friend of the local Historical Society put it ‘Worth their weight in gold’.”

I wasn’t so sure about that but the sheer, obvious passion for history amused me. “Maybe our dear zealous Captain had a very good friend? Someone powerful enough to shield him from his superiors?”

Reverend Wakefield scratched his head, looking off into the distance. “Could be… had to have been someone quite powerful, though.”

“I’m sure Mr. Randall will be most delighted by your findings,” I said and the Reverend beamed at me in return. “One thing I do know for sure about historians: they don’t like straightforward answers. They like to think and immerse themselves. Tell Mr. Randall what you have told me. I’m confident he has some ideas who might have fostered the Captain and for whatever reason.”

“I must say, Miss Beauchamp, you would have made a fine historian yourself.” He inclined his cup in my direction as if for a toast and went on: “Are you quite sure you have picked the right path?”

“Undisputedly.”
The past hadn’t been a particular concern of mine during my upbringing. Until my parents died. Ever since it has always been in my way. First as a memory, then as a tool to understand why people of certain cultural backgrounds are the way they are. Their traditions, their language, their thoughts. Now the past was haunting me, occupying every conscious and unconscious moment of my life. I felt the ghost of William’s arms around me and the short break the talk with the Reverend had given me, was over. He hadn’t brought up William even once and I realized only now how relieved I was that he hadn’t.

I forced a little smile and told the eager Reverend all about my past under the historical, country hopping regime of Uncle Lamb. Unfortunately it had the exact opposite effect.

“Dear Miss Beauchamp, why didn’t you say so earlier? How splendid! If not a historian by title but by heart you are of course very welcome to join me whenever the call of the past takes a hold of you! I’m working on it mostly in the early mornings and late at night but if I am not here, feel free to conduct research on your own.”

I didn’t think Mr. Randall would appreciate it me―a total stranger―digging in his family’s past, however far removed from the current day the family relations may be, even for the sake of academic and historical achievement, but thanked Reverend Wakefield for his mindfulness anyway.

Right then we heard voices echoing from the corridor. A minute later Mrs. Graham led an older gentleman into the study and the Reverend jumped from his seat as if burned.
“Oh, good gracious! The time! Is it nine o’clock already?”

“’Tis not yet,” the man laughed, shook the Reverend’s hand and patted him on the shoulder. “But I knew ye’d be late anyway. I can see the shadows underneath yer eyes from back home, Reggie. I hope the English professor is payin’ ye well.”

I stood as well and upon my movement Mrs. Graham divided her attention between me, the empty plate on which a considerable pile of freshly baked scones had resided not too long ago, back to me and finally settled on the Reverend with an expression that can only be described as a bull ready to charge.

“Good gracious indeed!”, she huffed, “Dinna tell me ye’ve been here with Miss Beauchamp for the better part of the mornin’ and dinna offer the poor lass any breakfast?”

The disappointment and sheer disgrace of not living up to her hospitality standards made Reverend Wakefield flush around his collar. He threw a rueful glance in my direction, grasping for an apology as he did.

I decided to show mercy: “Don’t worry about me, Mrs. Graham. I engaged the Reverend in a series of questions about the local history and if it weren’t for him persisting on refilling my cup and plate, I would’ve forgotten about eating all together. I think, you might have to give me the recipe for those scones of yours. My grandmother used to make them just like that.”

She looked me over with an air of shrewd evaluation, not entirely convinced but certainly appeased when she answered: “Still, this is unbecoming! Find me in the kitchen next time, my dear. Canna have you survive on nothin’ but scones and tea in this household!”

I promised I would. There had been a few Mrs. Grahams among the nurses back in France. Old and young mother hens alike. Some of them because of duty. Some, because they had realized there was nothing more meaningful than caring and taking care of other people. I wondered what it was I could do for Mrs. Graham without interfering with her sense of hospitality and duty towards her guests.

Said dame now turned towards the other man. “Mr. Crook, have you at least brought the packed luncheon as promised?”

Mr. Crook dutifully held up a bundle big enough to harbor a cheese wheel, smirking as he did. “Aye. Dinna worry. The lass is taken care of.” He twinkled in my direction and upon my puzzled look, snatched my hand with his other one and said: “We haven’t been introduced yet, have we? Mr. Crook, Missus.”

I noticed he tried to hold back on his Scottish accent as much as possible. I shook has hand in return, charmed already. “Miss Beauchamp, a pleasure Mr. Crook.”

“Are ye ready then, lass?”, he asked. “Might still be able to catch the dew on the buttercups, eh?”

Still baffled I looked from him to the Reverend. “I’m sorry, ready for what?”

“Mr. Crook and I are driving to one of the standing stone circles in this area. I’m thinking about showing it to Mr. Randall as well, but I’m a little bit uncertain whether it would be something he is interested in, since these places are also closely tied to old superstitions. Mr. Crook here is collecting herbs and certain plants for Mr. Reynold’s flower shop.”

“There are a few rare ones that grow only around Craigh na Dun,” Mr. Crook explained.

“Mary Ann mentioned to me, you would like to see the stones, right?” the Reverend continued as if Mary had shared quite the delicate information with him and I nodded. “Well, she talked to me yesterday after you had retired to your room. I think it’s a wonderful idea. What say you, Miss Beauchamp?”

It sounded much better than what I had planned: maybe going to town and afterwards sitting in the garden with a cup of tea and watching the day go by.

“Well, let me just grab my coat.”

Mrs. Graham insisted on giving me one of the family’s woolen plaids ‘just in case’ and I didn’t have the heart to refuse her.

We drove in Mr. Crook’s car.
I was nestled on the backseat with two plant presses tightly strapped in as company. It was a leisurely drive through the quiet countryside, contrasted only by Mr. Crooks thunderous laughter every now and then when the Reverend shared some of the newest, at times, outrageous pub stories with him. I smiled along, enjoying the normality of it all.

We did stop at two places to forage some Chickweed and Wild Garlic before we reached the stone circle. Mr. Crook did indeed know a lot about the local plants. More so than Mr. Reynolds. He knew which conditions were needed for them to grow, during which season, what they preferred, what medical uses they had and how to prepare them. I listened intently to the cracked old voice, trying to commit as much information to memory as I could.

It was almost noon when we stopped for our packed luncheon near the base of a flat-topped hill. The grass was an almost impossible green in the sunlight, with rocky juts and crags spread around a well-worn path leading up to a nest of scattered trees and granite formations. It seemed familiar.

“That’s Craigh na Dun, lass,” Mr. Crook said, pointing with a jerk of his head at the hill.

“What’s it famous for?” I asked between taking bites of my ham sandwich.
I had visited Stone Henge once with my uncle and a group of his students. Once the sonorous Cockney tour guide had finished to sensationalize the busload of Italiens in his group with stories about ancient, human sacrifices, Uncle Lamb and his students had crawled over the site for the next three hours to come up with other purposes of the structure that didn’t involve ritual murders. A temple. A burial ground. Something to do with the stars, a place of execution. One student suggested even an open-air market place, which was the one hypothesis Uncle Lamb had deconstructed in full on our bus ride home.

“As you’re probably aware, we have those standing stones all over the British Isles and Europe, some in better shape than others, some differing slightly in orientation and form, but their exact purpose and origin are still unknown,” the Reverend said, glancing up at the hill. “There have been found no bodies or cremated remains unlike with some of the others. I can only tell you that it’s an important place for the people in this area. We come here when difficult decisions have to be made, to think and to maybe find some answers.”

That was a very unhistorical, downright anticlimactical explanation but it was also the most reasonable one I had heard so far. I thought about the photograph. Mary had said it was taken the year before they had enlisted. I wondered what answers Mary and Will had received that day if any. Would he have still left if he knew what fate awaited him?

“Among the local druid groups it’s used as a gathering and celebration site, especial during the changing of the seasons.”

“You mean like Beltane?”

The Reverend scratched his neck and looked quickly sideways at Mr. Crook. “I wouldn’t know about it, of course.”

“Of course,” I nodded, taking a generous bite out of my sandwich to hide the amused smile, that threatened to rush over my face.

As we ascended I had some reservations about the abilities of these two gentleman to climb such a steep path, but in the end it’s wasn’t the tubby Reverend, who was panting and opening the front of his coat. Mr. Crook went ahead of us, extended a gnarled hand and pulled me and the Reverend one after the other over the rim of the hill.

Some of the standing stones were bridled, striped with dim colour. Others were speckled with flakes of mica that caught the midday sun with an alluring shimmer. One thing was clear, though: none of the them were from around this area.

“They are magnificent, aren’t they?” Mr. Crook said behind me, taking my silence for a sign of awe. “They haven’t been moved in over four or five thousand years.”

The photograph had been taken here. Right on the edge of the stone circle. Another wave tried to hit and drown me. I blinked it away. It settled on my chest instead with a broad smile that displayed a row of sharp teeth. I couldn’t stop it. The moment I stepped into the circle my heart screamed out for Will. The busy chirping of the birds started to fade, drowned out by a deep humming noise. First both sounds battled for control, almost like a poorly tuned radio, but the more steps I took, the more dominant the humming became.

“There must be a beehive lodged between the stones somewhere,” I called over my shoulder. The tallest stone of the circle was cleft, with a vertical split dividing the two massive pieces. There, near its foot, grew an interesting plant with orange centers similar to the one Mr. Crook had described to me.

“Mr. Crook, I think I found something!” I shouted and walked towards the plant.

The humming increased. It was the loudest right in front of the stone and although I looked carefully around, I couldn’t find any bees. The urge to touch hit me like a gush of cold winter winds. Touch. Feel connected. Touch what William had touched so long ago. I stretched my palm towards the stone.

A split second of silence.

Then.

"Claire."

I backed away as fast as I could, moving so quickly that I lost balance and was seated on my bum.
I have never heard this voice before. A young voice.A man’s voice. It called me as if it knew me.
And it came from the stone.

Two pair of hands slipped around my arms and helped me up again. The humming stopped.

“Are ye a’right, lass?” Mr. Crook asked, looking me up and down as if I had lost a limp.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I answered quickly, brushing some of the grass off my dress and shoes.

“Thank you.”

I tried to reassure them with a smile but the voice, that called my name was still echoing in my head.

“Are you sure? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the Reverend said, laughing a little at his good-willed jest, while Mr. Crook looked at the tall stone with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“No, apparently just one of the menaces of nature.” I pointed at a chunk of stone on the ground in front of me.

The Reverend nodded. “Ah, yes. I see. Very dangerous.” He allowed himself a twinkle, clapped his hands together and said: “Alright, Bac. What are we looking for again?”
Mr. Crook named the plant and what it looked like once more and soon the Reverend was off wandering between the stones.

I felt Mr. Crook’s stare and looked at him.

“Dinna touch the stones, lass,” he said.

Before I could ask ‘why’, he had walked off as well.

~oOo~

It was the early afternoon when Mr. Crook parked right in front of a shop with huge windows embedded between black wooden pillars, which stood out against the grey stone bricks of the house. A sign above the entrance read in elegant letters: Dalyell’s Thistles. Estd. 1888.

I was keen on seeing Mr. Reynolds again, but also felt the sting of embarrassment that he had offered to drive me to the bed and breakfast, only to be told that I had gone to bed already.

Mr. Crook opened the car door for me, while the Reverend heaved one of the plant presses out of the car and towards the entrance.

When I tried to reach for the second one, Mr. Crook just shook his head and in an fatherly manner said: “Dinna be silly, lass. Here: take the herb bags.”

He loaded my arms with a box which contained both our haul of freshly picked herbs and flowers of the day, as well as bags which seemed to be filled with dried ones. Their smell made me want to roll around in a field of wild flowers.

That desire got even stronger once we had entered the shop. The air was thick with the delicious, spicy scent of drying basil, rosemary and lavender. The shop was equipped with long drying frames netted with gauze, which hang on hooks from the window ceiling. There were large shelves on the right with little pots of herbs crushed into powder. In the middle stood a pedestal filled with buckets full of both native and foreign flowers. Some Bell Heathers for sure, Wood Anemone and Snowdrops but also a few red roses, yellow tulips and freshly cut lavender. And then on the far left was another shelf in front of a long counter, displaying an assortment of mortars, pestles, mixing bowls and spoon. All very clean. In the shelf I spotted baskets with bundles of fresh wild garlic and Chickweed and other plants I couldn’t name but definitely had seen before.

I heard the voices of Mr. Crook, the Reverend and Mr. Reynolds from the direction behind the flower pedestal, where another counter was placed and behind it, a door to a private room. They were talking in Gaelic.

I walked towards the shelf with the freshly cut herbs and put the box on the ground.
A bundle of tiny blue flowers with heart-shaped leaves caught my eyes. I grabbed a handful taking a cautious sniff.

“These will start bleeding,” said a voice from behind me.

I dropped the bundle back and looked into the bluest eyes I had ever seen. Blue in the way only the waters in the Mediterranean Sea or around the coast lines of South America had been. The eyes belonged to a young, blond woman with bright red lipstick and dressed in a lovely white dotted green Sunday dress that danced around her knees. Her smile was infectious but something about her eyes was guarded.

“You must be Claire,” she continued and her tone dropped to a hidden laughter that made me stand taller and square my shoulders. “The town has been humming with talk of ye for weeks.” She clicked the ks like a curse. Her eyes wandered up and down my frame, no doubt noticing my worn, mud caked shoes, my grass stained dress and my wind-blown hair.
I tried to resist the urge to smooth it away from my face.

She huffed. “I guess, war makes desperate.”

“Excuse me?” I said, startled.

Her smile grew wider. She picked up the bundle of tiny blue flowers. “Are ye trying to get rid of a child ye don’t want? These will bring on your flux, but only if ye use it early.” She looked at my stomach. “Too late and it can kill ye as well.”

“You seem to know a lot about it. Experience?” I shot back, feeling under attack but not knowing what for.

Something flashed in her eyes but then she just laughed. “Of course Mary Ann would’ve told you. She was never able to forgive me.”

“I’m sorry. I really don’t know who you are.”

The young woman looked amused, probably recognizing the game I was playing. “My name is Elspeth, Elspeth Reynolds. William and I were engaged before he went to war.” She shifted the bundle of flowers from her right to her left hand, making sure I caught the ring on her finger.

My heart turned cold.
I looked away quickly. She certainly had a knack for making people appear stupid, I could give her that.

“Oh, he didn’t tell ye, did he?” Her voice was way too sweet. “I’m sorry, lassie.”

Looking off to concentrate on a basket behind her, I tried to grasp for something to say. She had ripped out a part of me and stomped and spit on it.
My smile was wounded. But it was better than tears. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Elspeth was about to answer when something behind me drew her gaze away. She made a face as if someone had dumped cow dung right underneath her pretty angled nose.

“Elspeth,” Mary Ann said, “Are ye telling fairy tells again?”

I felt relief wash over me when Mary appeared by my side, a battle prepared smirk on her face.
She was dressed in her nurse shift clothes, a bluish dress beneath a apron and a small white hat securely nestled between her sunny waves.

She noticed the flowers in Elspeth’s hand, cocked her head to the side and said: “Again, really? Ye never learn, do ye?”

Elspeth’s cheeks turned red. She threw the bundle back into the basket. “Was there something ye was needin’, Mary Ann?”

“No,” Mary answered, “Just picking up Claire for a walk around town. Did ye need something, Claire?”

I was on the front lines again. But this time between a lion and a hyena.
“I―yes, I actually I do. I was thinking about getting some flowers for Mrs. Graham.”

“Wonderful, idea, Claire! Elspeth, would ye mind wrapping a bouquet of those tulips?”

Elspeth did mind. But once her father, Mr. Crook and Reverend Wakefield came back from the room in the back, she could do naught but starring daggers at Mary Ann. Mr. Crook and the Reverend joined the “Flowers for Mrs. Graham” mission with much fervor and soon Elspeth was caught in between a healthy discussion of whether they should add some lavender or snowdrops.

In the meantime Mr. Reynolds came over and I had the chance to apologize for yesterday’s inconvenience, which Mr. Reynolds waved off and instead invited me to come to McGregor’s pub tonight. Him and some musicians from around here had a session planned for six o’clock. Within a minute it was settled that everyone was going. Everyone, except the Reverend, who was adamant about finishing the work for the Oxford professor before he arrived in two days time.

It was just before Mary climbed after me into the backseat of Mr. Crook’s car that she put a hand on my arm and said: “We’ll talk. But later, a’right?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice for I feared it would call the tears.

~oOo~

We arrived only five minutes past six, but the pub was already packed.
A noise of contained excitement hung heavy in the air, further emphasized by the expectant glances cast towards Mr. Reynolds and the five musicians, who were sat next to the fire place, tuning their instruments.

“Come,” Mary said and pulled me along towards the bar.
To me the pub looked like a labyrinth. Behind every wall and corner was another row of tables. The walls were decorated with pictures and posters, badges, the Scottish flag and some flags I didn’t recognize but I assumed were colours of the local clans. Everyone had dressed up for the occasion. Suddenly I was glad I had switched the grass stained dress for a cream coloured one and fixed my hair a little bit. Mary was wearing another simple green dress, but this time it had a mud green colour that made her look like she was on duty. I noticed how many people called her name and how her face lit up when she saw who it was. By the time she came back from the bar counter she had greeted and exchanged words with almost half the pub.

“Callen says, Mr. Reynolds reserved a table for us.” She pointed towards a wall across from the fire place.

“What’s that?” I asked, eyeing the amber liquid in her hands with due respect.

“Whisky of course,” Mary shrugged. “One for us ladies.” She pushed one of the glasses into my hand and before I could ask, what that was supposed to mean, held the other one up for a toast.

She looked at me. All amusement gone. “I’m glad you’re here, Claire.”

Her sincerity caught me off guard. “I’m also glad I’m here,” I managed to get out.

We clinked our glasses together. The first nip of the whisky burned a line from my palate to my stomach. The first breath afterwards tasted fruity with something like burned wood in the back. During the second one the flavor wrapped more smoothly around my tongue and started to linger.

“Good, isn’t it?” Mary said and all I could do was nod.

Just then Mr. Reynolds stepped forward and welcomed the crowed. Mary pushed me towards the back, giving Elspeth a smug smile as we passed her table.

“I think ye know this one,” Mr. Reynolds announced. “The Scotsman.”

Whistles, applause and shouting erupted around us for a moment, before everyone went completely quiet. Mary forced me down on the seat across from her on the wall. My eyes fell on Mr. Reynolds.

“Well the Scotsman clad in kilt left the bar one evening fair.”

He had only sang the first five words into the silence and then the crowed joined in to clap the rhythm for him. Mary did as well. It took me only a moment later. Excitement already taking a hold of me.

“And one could tell by how he walked he'd drunk more than his share
he fumbled 'round until he could no longer keep his feet
and he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street
ring ding diddle dliddle add E O
ring ding diddily I Oh
he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street.”

I was fascinated by the storytelling qualities of Mr. Reynolds’ singing voice. Clear and deep, almost with a twinkle and yet, it would have been wasted on big halls.

“Well about that time two young and lovely lassies passed him by
and one looked to the other with a twinkle in her eye
"Do you see yon sleepin' Scotsman so strong and handsome built?
Well I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath their kilt."

Mary cast me a knowing look. Her expression, combined with Will’s memory was enough to make me laugh. I slapped a hand over my mouth to contain it but that only caused Mary to laugh as well.

“Ring ding diddle dliddle add E O
ring ding diddily I Oh.
I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath their kilt.
They crept up to the sleepin' Scotsman quiet as could be
they lifted up his kilt about an inch so they could see.”

I felt a telltale heat rise to my cheeks.

“And there behold for them to view beneath the Scotsman's skirt
there was nothin' more than God had graced him with upon his birth
Ring ding diddle dliddle add E O
ring ding diddily I Oh.
there was nothin' more than God had graced him with upon his birth.”

Well, I was glad that that mystery had finally been solved for me. I patted first my right and then my left cheek, sensing that they had been properly scandalized and grinning like an idiot when I imagined William singing this song instead. He would have teased my socks off.

Mary caught the look on my face, leaned towards me and said: “No harm in looking, aye?”

The blatant display of mischief dancing in her eyes almost made me say ‘aye’ as well. She must have gotten William into all sorts of trouble. I wondered if her parents or her uncle would be willing to tell me about it.

“When we were naught but a rabble of snot-nosed lassies of fifteen, sixteen years of age, it was considered a passage to womanhood to catch a glimpse of a lad’s endowment, especially if you fancied him.”

“Oh, no you didn’t”, I giggled, a girlish sound I had forgotten I was capable of during the war.

Mary shrugged good-naturedly. The glim in her eyes not wavering. “We never touched or anything. Some of us even left small trinkets or ribbons to show our appreciation. Some lasses though thought they didn’t have to abide by the rules.”

Her eyes shot towards Elspeth, laughing and cheering her father on. Her bright smile, the plump blood red lips and white teeth made her shine like a movie starlet. She looked regal as she sat there, surrounded by her friends, girls, mostly younger than her who tried to copy her looks but with limited to no success of achieving the same results.

“What did she do?”

Mary took another sip of whisky. “She fancied my brother. I think, ye noticed by the way she went straight for your throat today. But he didn’t fancy her. Went wi’her to two or three cèilidhean but it dinna feel right to him. Something was missin’.”

To my predicament an image of her and William dancing together, holding hands, being sweet with one another other sprang with ease to my mind. It wasn’t the time nor the place to reduce myself to a state of self pity and misery. Especially not because of someone like Elspeth Reynolds.

“Well, she’s very beautiful,” I acknowledged and Mary looked me up and down as if I was a complete and utter moron. She moved her hand and I half expected her to smack me upside down the head, but instead she fished something from my hair and flicked it across the room.

“’s true. Men value beauty. Some are even blinded by it. But no man in his right mind stays with a lass just because she’s bonnie.” She then pulled on one of my curls with a dry look on her face. “If ye’re fishing for complements, ye won’t get any from me. And the whisky is too good to be wasted on your pity.”

I tried to swat her hand away but she was persistent.

“You’re old enough to know better, Claire.” She ignored my protest, pulled one more time, then let it slip between her fingers. “They also don’t stay because you know how to make them burn. Less beautiful lasses can do that just the same.”

There had been two others before Will. Crushes of the silly kind. Two, who had held me in their arms and kissed me and while I had been still unsure, their breaths had already came short and their bodies taut like a bow string after a few long kisses. It had both frightened and excited me back then, young as I was. To some extent, after my initial surprise had faded, I had prided myself in the knowledge I could bring a man to this kind of state with just a few kisses and touches.

“They stay,” Mary went on firmly, “because you can give them something no other woman has given them before. They can’t name it. They might not even have thought about it before. Until you.” Mary brought the amber liquid in her glass to a swirl, starring at the movement until it was lost. She didn’t say anything else but she didn’t have to.

I reached over the table for her arm. “One day, you have to tell me about him.”

She didn’t look up, but smiled. “Aye, one day.”

We clinked our glasses. The rich, fruity taste of the whisky started to rose from my belly to my head. I breathed an early spring morning in and a part of Scotland out. Mary promised me another glass of a different, more smokey one, maybe Glenfiddich single malt whisky, after we had finished this one. If dignity was to be preserved, there shouldn’t be a third one.

The pub around us erupted into thunderous applause and a set of loud whistles as the music stopped and Mr. Reynolds asked his daughter to come forward.

“Here we go,” Mary sighed, while Elspeth bowed and mustered to appear very humbled as she took the place next to her father. “Brace yourself, Miss Beauchamp, for either a very heartfelt Fear a' Bhàta, The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie, or if they have any mercy on us at all The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.”

My heart dropped.

The accordion started playing and after few beats, Elspeth joined in. At first her voice appeared quite simple. Youthful, crystal clear and charmingly innocent―pleasant overall but without much strength. The Gaelic had no meaning to my ears and yet, the words started to echo poignantly within me, imprinting the story somewhere close to heart.

“Fear a' Bhàta,” explained Mary, still having that sour look on her face, “The Boatsman. He goes to sea and never comes back. His lass stands on the hills above the shores and waits for his return.”

The fiddle started to underline the chorus, sad and somber, bringing a past despair to life. All the relief of not having to listen to this woman singing the song William sang to me, was washed away.

The song was received with a warm surge of applause. Elspeth bowed again, turning to each of the musicians with a smile, clapping along with the pub. Her striking blond hair bouncing as she did.

“Elspeth can look like one of those posh American Hollywood girlies all day long: Will was the one she didn’t get and she’s going to be pissed about it for the rest of her miserable excuse for a life.”

She paused.

I paused.

We locked eyes.

Then I said: “Damn.”

We both burst into a fit of helpless giggles.

Still wheezing I said: “Mary Ann Wakefield, you don’t hold back at all, do you?”

“She’s a nasty banshee who doesn’t grow up. So full of herself, she’s stuck with her nose right up her own arse. If she could, she would marry herself.”

I coughed on the sip of whisky I had decided to take just then and tears bit around my eyes. Mary clapped me on the back, looking a little bit sheepish as she did.

The music resumed. An uplifting tune between bodhran, guitar, harp and fiddle, where the fiddle set the main lead and which had the people clap along again and rise to their feet in no time. Couples, mostly young girls, flocked to the only available space in the pub right in front of the music and started to dance in a skillful display of learned steps and turns, twirls and changing partners, clapping in unison at one specific beat in the song before continuing. I spotted Mrs. Graham and Mr. Crook among them.

“The last time Will took her to a dance was to the Beltane fires. She and her pack of lassies got him and his friend pretty drunk,” Mary suddenly said, all anger gone from her voice. It was as if she was talking about some stranger and not her own brother. But the hand around her whisky glass was tightening with each word.
My eyes locked on Elspeth among the crowd.

“Will said, he had wanted to accompany her home but lost consciousness somewhere along the way. The last thing he remembered was her dragging him into a shielded passageway. When he woke up, she was straddling him and tried to get her way with him.”

All blood left my cheeks. It rushed to a chilly place, as though the winds of winter gnawed on my flesh and when I exhaled, the pits in my stomach felt aflamed. I was up before I knew it with Mary’s hand clasped securely around my wrist.

“Sit,”, she said without looking at me. “Are ye going to throw hands to avenge my brother’s honor?”

“You’re damn right I will.” I don’t think I have ever felt so angry in my entire life. Hopeless, yes. Desperate even. But not anger. Not like this.

“Honorable, but I can’t let you do that.”

“You can’t just expect me to sit here and take it,” I flared at her.

“I can. And I will. Sit.” Her voice was very low now. “It’s been four years, Claire. I won’t let you make a fool of yourself on your second day here. Sit,” she said more firmly with no room for arguments now.

I took a deep breath. My pulse was biting in my veins, urging me, tempting me to shake Mary off and―what? Drag Elspeth by her hair down to the floor? Slap her across the face? In front of her father, the man who has been nothing but kind and caring towards me? I grabbed my glass of whisky and emptied its contents in one gulp. Still coughing I rammed the glass back down on the table with more force than necessary, earning me irritated looks from the people on the table next to us and sat down.

Mary Ann watched me. For a moment we sat in silence. “Will said, he couldn’t tell if anything before that had already happened but the damage was done. My father insisted on marriage. My mother argued, that’s exactly what Elspeth wanted.” Mary drowned the last of her whisky as well. Her face remained impassive as she continued: “I was certain, the brat had gotten herself knocked up by some other bloke, but Will was of course a much better prospect. In the end, we could convince our father to wait until Elspeth was showing. A gamble. One, Will was strictly against at first because it would shame the lass in the public eye as well as tarnish our family name. But it was an open secret, at least for us lassies and even some of the married ones that Elspeth was known to engage in activities considered to be highly improper.” The sour look on her face was back in full force. “Will didn’t go to the pub or to dances anymore. There were still rumors about them but since Elspeth didn’t show any signs of a pregnancy even after four months, the gossip started to dwindle and with the threat of a German invasion looming over Britain, people had other concerns.” A memory passed her, her smile fading into a sad one. “It was around that time, that Will and I thought about enlisting. All of our friends did. Elspeth was caught in a compromising position soon after with a lad from Nairn. They were married within the month.”

“Where is he now?” I asked, “Her husband?”

Mary Ann sighed. “He was dropped over France on D-Day and has been lost ever since. We know his unit was able to make the jump, but no one knows what happened to Arran afterwards.”

As the music stopped and Elspeth stepped forward once more, smiling, I opened my mouth and said baffled: “She is a widow…?”

“Aye. She wore black for exactly one day and then never again.”

My mouth stayed open. Another flash of anger turned in my stomach. “She…you know, everyone is watching me, greeting me and I know everyone wants to ask. Even now. They want to come up to me and ask if I have seen their fathers, brothers, sons. But she, she is the only one who didn’t.” My focus turned to Mr. Reynolds. How such a gentle man had produced such a vile witch of an offspring was beyond me.

“All she wanted to know was, whether Will had gotten me with child.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Now I understand why you didn’t want me to cause a fight.”

“Ye can thank me by buying the next round of drinks for us,” Mary grinned at me, shooting to her feet at once, offering me her hand.

Just on cue another song started and by the looks on Mary Ann’s face, she knew what it meant for me.
The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie.

Elspeth’s voice filled the pub but this time, the words were unable to reach me. All I could hear was William’s voice, hushed and quiet in the field bed, confident and teasing on the day of his release, spinning me around and falling to his knees, performing as if he was on stage in a theatre.

“Come,” Mary said, not quivering in her resolve. “Dance with me.”

“What?”

“Dance with me,” she said again, not the slightest bit discouraged by my response. She yanked at my hand and I followed in line with her steps.

“But I don’t know the steps!” I insisted, panic rising in my chest as we made our way around the surrounding tables towards the dancing couples.

“Aye and no one of course can learn them during a ceilidh,” Mary snorted. “Just follow my lead.”

It took me at least four songs to stop stumbling and throwing my limps ungainly around and another four until I remembered the steps enough to relax and actually enjoy the music and the vigorous beating of my heart. Mary introduced me to her friend Sheena. Another fellow nurse with beautiful copper hair and freckles around her eyes. Between her, Mary and Mr. Crook I had enough patient partners to practice with. Even Elspeth’s cold stare wasn’t able do dampen my spirits.

We passed the rest of the evening with more whisky and laughter.

As the last song, The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, rolled around, we said our good nights and still giggling and singing we made our way back to the Wakefield home. Mary tried her upmost to teach me the lyrics of the Scotsman song but my head was too light hearted and too unserious at this point to remember any lines. Finally she settled for singing it to me, with me adding very intoxicated ring ding diddle dliddle add E Os to the chorus.

It was close to midnight.
The streets were empty, safe for one or two cats, which rushed quietly into the shadows of the nearest building when they noticed us. A light drizzle sat in as we approached the last corner before the Wakefield residence came into view.

Mary stopped in her tracks suddenly.
It took me four or five more steps before I noticed. I looked back at her. She looked ahead, her eyes, the same shape and colour as William’s, unfocused.

“I’m never going to see him again,” she suddenly said. Her hand flew to her mouth to muffle a cry.
There was a sudden flash in the distance, with the crash of thunder following close on its heels. I pulled her into me, arms folded tightly around her back, trying to press the shaking of her broken heart away. She clung to me, her grip forceful enough to be uncomfortable. The drizzle turned to rain. A strong wind ruffled through the leaves.

Still, we stood.

“Come,” I said softly, entangling our bodies slowly but leaving one arm around her waist. “Let’s get you to bed.”

She kept crying all the way up to the house.

The Wakefield home was dark, except for an oil lantern mounted beside the main entrance.

Mary sniffled, fumbling around in her pockets. “I … I forgot the key.” Her lips trembled and another wave of shaking crashed over her.

I squeezed her shoulder gently. “Don’t worry. Your uncle might still be awake. I’ll have a look if he’s in the study. Wait here.”

I threw her an encouraging smile and left the ring of light provided by the lantern.
It was almost as black as the inside of an undertaker’s hat. Hands outstretched, one to the left, one right in front of me, I walked slowly next to the house wall, feet shuffling in the wet grass. I groped carefully in front of me, afraid to run against a bush or tree or a forgotten garden chair. My hands found only empty air. I passed a window. Then the next. I directed my feet closer to the wall and reached a corner.

Around it I spotted a warm, dimmed light coming from one of the tall windows leading to the garden and there, just at the edge of the light, stood a man.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!”
I jumped and went back around the corner, heart beating so fast, I was sure it would break a rip. I took a few calming breaths.

“You’re drunk Beauchamp,” I said, shaking my head and almost losing balance as I did so.

He was still there.

Difficult to see in front of the endless black background of the garden stood a tall, broad shouldered man, looking up at the windows. I followed his gaze. There was no light in any of the windows above. His face was half in the shadows, but from what I could see, he was young and he seemed to be unhappy about something. He was wearing a complete Highland rig-out, complete to sporran and a beautiful running-stag brooch on his plaid, which reflected some of the light. I moved closer. His gaze never wavered and I thought, it could be Mary’s window he was staring at.

“Can I help you?” I asked, almost close enough to appear at the edge of the light.

He didn’t react. Maybe he didn’t hear me over the noise of the wind and another clap of thunder.

So I said a little bit louder: “Are you here to see Mary Ann?”

He turned his head then but before I could get a good look at his face, the screeching of a window being unlocked next to me, drew my attention away.
Reverend Wakefield stood in the tall window, a puzzled expression on his face as he took the situation in.

“Miss Beauchamp…? Good grace! What are you doing out there? And in the rain?”

I felt just as startled as he looked. “I…we…Mary Ann forgot the key. I said, I was going to have a look if you’re still in the study and then I encountered―”
I turned my head and waved into the general direction but the stranger was gone.

“Encountered what?”, the Reverend inquired, sounding intrigued but not alarmed, craning his neck as he did.

I took a few steps further into the garden, looking around, but to no avail. “I saw…I thought I saw someone. A Highlander.” I turned back to the Reverend. “Where you expecting someone?”

“No, my dear,” he said amused. “Can’t say I was.” He was contemplating my face for a moment before he added: “Maybe the ghost from Craigh na Dun followed you? I can’t feature any living person standing about on a night like this.”

“Right,” I said slowly, not entirely dismissing this idea and yet knowing it was complete hogwash. Still I shuddered. I tried to relegate the ‘ghost’ to the back of my mind for now and focused back on Mary, who was still standing at the front door. Crying.

As the Reverend guided me inside, I was brabbling on about Mary Ann in a never ending stream of concerns and explanations. He nodded absorbedly, offered me a cup of medium warm tea against the shivering of the midnight rain and excused himself to go and fetch hie niece.

I watched the darkness of the garden for any movement, half expecting the man to return. But even after the thunderstorm was lightening up the sky right above the house, there was still no trace of the stranger to be found.

It wasn’t until I was back in my room, getting rid of my drenched clothes and closing the curtains to block out the lightening, that I realized there was a possibility that the Highlander hadn’t actually been looking up at Mary’s room.