Shadows over Stonewycke Read online

  Though the sky was blue and the sun shone brightly, the air was frigid as only January in northern Scotland could be. Even the faintest hint of wind would have given the air cruel fingers with which to reach in and lay hold of the very marrow of one’s bones. But on this particular morning the wind was quiet, and Allison did not mind the frosty chill as she traipsed along the icy path. She had been out walking at this same early hour every morning for the last week, hoping that the barren frozen landscape of her surroundings would in some miraculous way instill a new peace into her consciousness.

  She sighed, then stooped down to scoop up a handful of the snow, and her thoughts were diverted to the more pleasant paths of her childhood. How she and her brothers and sister had always delighted when the first snows had fallen! Little May, the youngest of the four, had been too small to join in to much of the winter mayhem, but occasionally their mother would bundle up the little one and Allison would take her for a wild ride down the hill on the sled.

  And the snowball fights!

  Her brothers were merciless as they stood behind their stockpiled cache of icy ammunition, pelting whomever chanced by, regardless of age, sex, or religion. Occasionally they grudgingly admitted that even she had a pretty good arm for a girl.

  Allison smiled. Those had been happy times. Her mother and father had made Stonewycke a joyful place to grow up. But just as quickly as the involuntary movement tugged at her lips, it began to fade.

  They were all grown up now. Sled rides and snowball fights and stories read by Mother and Daddy while the four of them snuggled cozily under a blanket seemed far in the past these days. And if the years themselves had fallen short in the maturing process, the war was rapidly finishing the job. Ian, the eldest, a pilot in the RAF, was stationed in Africa, and Nat was with the 51st Highland Division of Scotland. After distinguishing themselves in France at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation, Nat’s division was being reassigned and Nat hoped for a place in a newly formed commando unit. Both were men now, seasoned soldiers, yet Nat was not yet even twenty-one years old.

  Time was passing so quickly. Allison was now twenty-five. The war had come suddenly to dominate their lives, changing them all, forcing maturity upon them perhaps before its rightful time, pushing them onto paths they might otherwise never have chosen. Yet Allison wondered if she could truly lay the blame for her own mixed-up life on this war. If she questioned herself honestly, she had to admit that her confusion had begun long before Adolf Hitler had stormed through Poland. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment. There was not a particular day she remembered when she could say, “Then it was when the joy began to fade . . . when things began to unravel.” It had come upon her gradually, and the moments of discontent remained so mixed with alternating seasons of joy that she was still not entirely certain what was happening.

  Before her thoughts progressed further, she glanced down at her palm still holding its handful of snow, now unconsciously molded by her gloved fingers into a round ball. With a swift motion she flung it into the air, watching it arch back to earth, falling with a silent puff of white spray into a snowbank. If only she could cast her tensions away so easily!

  What had gone wrong? It had all started out so wonderfully!

  During those weeks and months following his near-fatal wound, she and Logan had been blissfully in love. Everything had fallen perfectly into place for them—their meeting, their new spiritual priorities, their hopes for the future. The first injection of realism, if such it could be called, into the idyllic season of the budding of their young love came when her mother and father counseled them to wait rather than rush immediately into marriage. They were young—especially Allison, only seventeen at the time. And Logan needed time to establish a living, a legitimate one, capable of supporting a family.

  They had waited, Logan perhaps more patiently than Allison. The trip to London was made as planned. Allison, Joanna, and Logan had seen much, met some of Logan’s old friends, and had a pleasurable time cementing their new relationships one with another. Even Joanna and Allison seemed to have discovered each other in many respects for the first time. After their return to Stonewycke, Logan once again took up his duties as mechanic to the estate and surrounding crofts.

  At length the wedding was planned for February 1933, almost a year from the day Logan had entered into their lives. Ironically, in hindsight, it also coincided closely with Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. If that had any significance at the time, Allison was certainly unaware of it. The forebodings from the Continent did not become ominous for several years to come.

  However, the death that previous December of her great-grandfather suddenly made a February wedding seem unthinkable. Who could possibly plan a wedding with the loss of such a beloved family patriarch so fresh? With old Dorey’s passing at ninety, the whole community mourned. Yet in spite of the loss of her beloved, Lady Margaret would have them wait no longer than the summer. And so the much anticipated event finally took place in June of 1933.

  It was a day long remembered in the environs of Port Strathy, rivaled only by the wedding of Joanna and Alec in the scope of its hospitality. But unlike Joanna’s, which was held in the local church, Allison’s took place on the estate itself, in the lovely gardens tended by Lord Duncan, in special tribute to the beloved man.

  There could not have been a more perfect day. Allison cherished no more misguided notions about class distinctions, and the whole valley was present, from poorest to wealthiest, from refined to most humble. Patty Doohan was bridesmaid, along with Sarah Bramford and Olivia Fairgate. Allison wore her mother’s exquisite wedding dress of sculptured lace and pearls; Logan looked even more debonair than usual in his pinstriped dark blue tuxedo and tails. Several times throughout the day he was heard to say, If only Skittles could see me now! But notwithstanding the absence of his old friend, he had managed to bring Molly Ludlowe north by train, as well as his mother from Glasgow. Joanna welcomed them warmly as they had her when she visited them before the wedding. She made them feel completely a part of the family and after the ceremony, both stayed on with her in the castle for a week.

  Everyone commented on what a striking couple the two newlyweds made. The wait had done them good, for now Allison was sure that it was not only in appearance that they were so perfectly suited. There were many ways in which they complemented each other. Logan enjoyed Allison’s independent spirit, but was not intimidated by it. Allison both admired and needed the strong masculine protection and leadership Logan gave, and at the same time could not help loving his easygoing, lighthearted nature. They had seemed so right for each other. Could it be that the very qualities that had originally drawn them together had now turned against them?

  Something her great-grandfather had said to her before his death came back with increasing frequency these days: “I believe God has brought you and Logan together, my dear. I see a bond growing between the two of you that reminds me of your great-grandmother and me when we were your age. Your love will surely count for much in the Kingdom. But—” Here Dorey’s ancient brown eyes deepened with intensity; Allison knew he spoke not mere words but feelings born out of his depth of experience. “But the path He has laid out for you may not be free from pain and sorrow.”

  Allison had been touched by the words at the time, for she loved and highly respected her great-grandfather. But, in the idealism of youth, it was easy to shrug them off as springing more from the pessimism of old age than any reality she needed concern herself with.

  Yet as the words came back to her on many occasions these days, she had grown to see them as the result of his wisdom, not any misplaced elderly melancholia. The deep sensitivity that had worked its way into his nature through the years of his solitude had given him vision to perceive what lay down the road for the young couple. Dorey and Logan had also spoken privately together for an hour while Dorey lay in the bed from which he would not arise.

  Allison had always wondered if that last conversation between
the two men had somehow concerned the same matter. Logan had been solemn and subdued afterward, but never revealed to a soul what had transpired between them.

  If Dorey had sensed trouble in the union, the logical question Allison found herself asking was: Why had he done nothing to prevent it? Allison had come to respect him more than she might at one time have cared to admit; they would have listened to his counsel.

  Yet even as she debated with herself, she knew what he would have said. Child, she could hear his voice saying, this love is ordained of God. It is to be. It may be a love that will know sorrow, that is true. Of that kind of love I am intimately familiar. But while we are upon this earth, it is our response to the sorrows the Lord sends that carve out the cavity within our natures to hold the joy He pours into them. The greater the sorrows, the greater the possible joys, and the greater our potential service to Him. Love your young man, and marry him, and serve the Lord with him. And when sorrows come, as they surely will, let them deepen your love and enlarge your capacity to receive God’s life.

  Yes, that is what Dorey would have said.

  And she could not imagine, even now, life without Logan. She had loved him then, and she loved him still.

  Yet, could she be sure that love would be enough?

  3

  South to London

  Not long after the wedding, Logan began to grow restive.

  Working as the estate mechanic had been all right for Logan Macintyre, bachelor, ne’er-do-well, and sometimes con man. But as son-in-law to nobility, he began to see the grease on his hands from a different perspective. He cared nothing at all for class distinctions; neither did the family into which he had been grafted in the tradition of Ian Duncan and Alec MacNeil apply any pressure for him to “better himself.” Yet pride is a strange phenomenon, often showing neither logic nor sense, and assuming a variety of intricate disguises. Slowly Logan’s self-respect began to dwindle. He felt like a leech, taking but never giving, living off the family spoils and offering nothing substantive in return. He had fended for himself all his life, and now he was reduced to taking what the lower side of his nature called “hand-outs” from his wife’s family.

  He did not doubt their love and their acceptance of him. Yet he could not keep from feeling less a man for being under the protective covering of Stonewycke. To keep his eroding respect for himself intact, he needed to make something of himself and his marriage on his own.

  “But, Logan,” Allison tried to tell him, “you work hard, and more than earn your way.”

  “Do you think we’d ever afford a place like this on fifteen pounds a month?” he rejoined caustically. He hadn’t wanted to argue, but he was frustrated—mostly with himself.

  “Well, maybe not . . . but, then, none of us could actually afford Stonewycke, if you think about it.” Allison had tried to lighten the heavy atmosphere, but Logan was in no mood, especially since he had just arrived at a decision that would not make Allison happy.

  “I want to move to London,” he said flatly.

  Allison stared into his face blankly. The greatest irony about his statement was that only a couple of years before, Allison had longed to escape the boredom—as she considered it then—of Stonewycke. She had dreamed of an exciting life in the city. Edinburgh would have suited her fine. But London! That would have been the fulfillment of all she could have desired!

  But now, with new priorities, new commitments—not only to Logan, but also to family, to land, and not least of all to her faith—she had come at last to feel an intrinsic part of everything that Stonewycke represented. How could she even think about leaving at this particular moment? Lady Margaret was ailing, and her mother feared she might not be with them much longer.

  A time of tension followed. Logan was unhappy where he was, that was clear. Allison was miserable for him, but she could not bear the thought of leaving. Without anything settled, life managed to go on, but a strained silence came to characterize what had once been a relationship full of laughter and shared joys.

  One day about a month later, Logan received a mysterious letter. He opened it privately and not until that evening did he show it to Allison. She bit her lip as she read it, then looked up at him, unable to speak.

  “I’m going to take the job,” he said with finality, leaving Allison little room for refutation.

  The letter was from a friend in London who was opening a restaurant. He had offered Logan a position.

  “But you have work here,” she replied.

  “Work, maybe. But no future.”

  “How can you say that? Someday you’ll—”

  “Someday I’ll what? Be an even better mechanic! Don’t you see, Allison? Sometime I’ll have to get out on my own.”

  “But why, Logan? Why now? We’re in the middle of a depression. We’re secure here for the present. Why risk that?”

  “It’s just something I have to do.”

  “But what do you know about the restaurant business? It doesn’t make sense for you to jump at the first thing to come along.”

  “You said it—we’re in a depression. I’m lucky to have such an offer.”

  “But things couldn’t possibly be as good for us in London as they are here.”

  “There’s just no way I can make you understand,” he said, throwing down the letter and stalking away.

  Allison might have continued to rebel at the idea, but the following day her mother and great-grandmother took her aside for a long, soul-searching conversation. When she left them she knew what she must do.

  “Stonewycke will still be here once he knows what he wants to do with his life,” they reminded her. “Stonewycke will always be here. And we will be here for you, too.”

  Perhaps she had known all along what her answer to Logan must be, but the two older women had guided her in the right direction, helping her to see where her true love must lie.

  Leaving Strathy had not been easy—for either Allison or Logan. Tears had flowed that day without restraint. For despite Logan’s determination to stand on his own two feet, he had developed—perhaps more than he realized on the conscious level—a deep love for old Stonewycke. Not only was it the place where his dear ancestor Digory had lived, but it was also filled with recent memories. Here Logan had met his God. Here, on these lovely heather hills, his and Allison’s life together had begun. And here they had pledged their lives to each other.

  Logan did not carelessly walk away from all this, but he was doing what he felt he had to do. What made it the hardest on him was his certainty that he did not have the family’s approval in his decision. Logan still had much to learn about the family into which he had come. Had he been able to summon the courage to reveal his hidden fears and motives openly to Alec and Joanna and Lady Margaret, he would have quickly discovered their understanding and compassion to be far-reaching and filled with tenderness. They would no doubt have supported him, perhaps even applauded his high principles, though they might well, at the same time, have cautioned him to be heedful of pride. Above all, they would have held him up in prayer while wrapping him in the understanding arms of love.

  But Logan had lived too long encased in a protective shield designed to mask his innermost feelings. It went against his very nature to open his soul and reveal all. And the door seemed to shut all the more tightly when his feelings of inferiority began to harass him. God was at work, slowly peeling back one layer of his inner being at a time. But Logan was not yet ready to yield himself entirely up to the process and say, “Thy complete will be done with me.”

  Once Allison had resigned herself to the change, she and Logan settled down to their new lives and found renewed happiness in each other. They located a flat in Shoreditch, not far from Molly Ludlowe. It was no Stonewycke, and was noticeably threadbare for a girl who had grown up, if not with wealth, at least in a comfortable home, free from want. Allison made a commendable attempt to turn the tiny place into a home. She painted the dingy rooms, hung curtains, and arranged a few prin
ts she had brought from Scotland. Here and there were scattered reminders of Strathy.

  Almost to Allison’s surprise, after some time had passed she began to find the city life appealing. She had always sensed that the agrarian nature had not run quite so deeply in her blood as in her mother and her ancestors. And when that truth bore in upon her even more forcibly after a couple of years in the city, she was not certain whether to be happy or sad. She hoped she was not an anomaly in the strong line of Stonewycke matriarchs that had maintained their vigilant watch over the northern valley for more than a century. Certainly the same Ramsey and Duncan blood coursed through her veins. Yet she found herself thrilled to dress up to attend a play or a concert—not a frequent occurrence, since Logan would accept very little financial help from her family—almost as happy as she knew Lady Margaret had been to walk the Scottish hills.

  Even in the midst of the worldwide depression, the young couple managed to live adequately. Logan’s personality insured his success in his friend’s enterprise. Despite their gradual drifting apart, Allison found plenty to occupy her time. Many of her former acquaintances, having finished school or married, had come south to the social and financial hub of the world, and she began to mix with them as before.

  But Allison’s friends did not appeal to Logan, and he shied away, keeping more and more to himself. Not that he minded their blue blood, or so he told himself. Such things had never bothered him before. But he wanted to make something of himself. He wanted more in life than had previously been his, and he didn’t want to slide into it like the Bramfords and the Fairgates and the Robertsons. He could hardly help resenting their genteel ways. His motives were not ones of greed; he simply wanted to better his lot, to stand on his own two feet. And at the same time, by virtue of his marriage, he felt compelled to provide Allison with a standard of life he thought she deserved. Mixing with her friends only seemed to emphasize his deficiencies. He would become something first; then he would be able to walk in such circles with head high.