It was covered with an amazing assortment of things; mostly papers of one sort or another, gas bills, correspondence, notices from the Diocesan Council, loose pages of novels, notes in the vicar's own hand, but also small items like keys, bottle caps, and what appeared to be small car parts, attached with tacks and string.
I browsed idly through the miscellanea, keeping half an ear tuned to the argument going on behind me. (The Duke of Baddingham probably was a Jacobite, they decided.)
My attention was caught by a genealogical chart, tacked up with special care in a spot by itself, using four tacks, one to a corner. The top of the chart included names dated in the early seventeenth century.
But it was the name at the bottom of the chart that had caught my eye: "Roger W. (MacArthur) Brainfield," it read.
"Excuse me," I said, interrupting a final sputter of dispute as to whether the leopard in the Duke's crest had a lily in it's paw, or was it meant to be a crocus?
"Is this your son's chart?"
"Eh? Oh, why, yes, yes it is." Distracted, the vicar hurried over, beaming once more. He detached the chart tenderly from the wall and laid it on the table in front of me.
"I didn't want him to forget his own family, you see," he explained.
"It's quite an old lineage, back to the sixteen hundreds."
His stubby forefinger traced the line of descent almost reverently.
"I gave him my own name because it seemed more suitable, as he lives here, but I didn't want him to forget where he came from."
He made an apologetic grimace.
"I'm afraid my own family is nothing to boast of, genealogically. Vicars and curates, with the occasional bookseller thrown in for variety, and only traceable back to 1762 or so. Rather poor record- keeping, you know," he said, wagging his head remorsefully over the lethargy of his ancestors.
It was growing late by the time we finally left the vicarage, with the vicar promising to take the letters to town for copying first thing in the morning. Douglas babbled happily of spies and Jacobites most of the way back to Mrs. Fiona's.
Finally, though, he noticed my quietness.
"What is it, love?" he asked, taking my arm solicitously.
"Not feeling well?" This was asked with a mingled tone of concern and hope.
"No, I'm quite well. I was only thinking…" I hesitated, because we had discussed this matter before.
"I was thinking about Roger."
"Roger?"
I gave a sigh of impatience.
"Really, Douglas! You can be so… oblivious! Roger, the Reverend Brainfield's son."
"Oh. Yes, of course," he said vaguely.
"Charming child. What about him?"
"Well… only that there are a lot of children like that. Orphaned, you know."
He gave me a sharp look, and shook his head.
"No, Elsie. Really, I'd like to, but I've told you how I feel about adoption. It's just… I couldn't feel properly toward a child that's not… well, not of my blood. No doubt that's ridiculous and selfish of me, but there it is. Maybe I'll change my mind in time, but now…"
We walked a few steps in a barbed silence. Suddenly he stopped and turned to me, gripping my hands.
"Elsie," he said huskily.
"I want our child. You're the most important thing in the world to me. I want you to be happy, above all else, but I want… well, I want to keep you to myself. I'm afraid a child from outside, one we had no real relationship with, would seem an intruder, and I'd resent it. But to be able to give you a child, see it grow in you, see it born… then I'd feel as though it were more an… extension of you, perhaps. And me. A real part of the family." His eyes were wide, pleading.
"Yes, all right. I understand." I was willing to abandon the topic—for now. I turned to go on walking, but he reached out and took me in his arms.
"Elsie. I love you."
The tenderness in his voice was overwhelming, and I leaned my head against his Jacket, feeling his warmth and the strength of his arms around me.
"I love you too."
We stood locked together for a moment, swaying slightly in the wind that swept down the road.
Suddenly Douglas drew back a bit, smiling down at me.
"Besides," he said softly, smoothing the wind-blown hair back from my face.
"we haven't given up yet, have we?"
I smiled back.
"No."
He took my hand, tucking it snugly beneath his elbow, and we turned toward our lodgings.
"Game for another try?"
"Yes. Why not?"
We strolled, hand in hand, back toward the Gereside Road. It was the sight of the Baragh Mhor, die Pictish stone that stands at the corner of the road there, that made me remember things ancient.
"I forgot!" I exclaimed.
"I have something exciting to show you."
Douglas looked down at me and pulled me closer. He squeezed my hand.
"So have I," he said, grinning.
"You can show me yours tomorrow."
When tomorrow came, though, we had other things to do. I had forgotten that we had planned a day trip to the Great Glen of Loch Ness.
It was a long drive through the Glen, and we left early in the morning, before sunset. After the hurry to the waiting car through the freezing dawn, it was cozy to relax under the rug and feel the warmth stealing back into my hands and feet.
Along with it came a most delicious drowsiness, and I fell blissfully asleep against Douglas's shoulder, my last conscious sight the driver's head in red-rimmed silhouette against the dawning sky.
It was after nine when we arrived, and the guide Douglas had called for was awaiting us on the edge of the loch with a small sailing skiff.
"Ahh! it suits you, sir, I thought we'd take a wee sail down the loch-side to Urquhart Castle. Perhaps we'll wait a bit there, before going on."
The guide, a dour-looking little man in weather-beaten cotton shirt and twill trousers, stowed the picnic hamper tidily beneath the seat, and offered me a callused hand down into the well of the boat.
It was a beautiful day, with the burgeoning greenery of the steep banks blurring in the ruffled surface of the loch.
Our guide, despite his dull appearance, was knowledgeable and talkative, pointing out the islands, castles, and ruins that rimmed the long, narrow loch.
"Yonder, that's Urquhart Castle."
He pointed to a smooth- faced wall of stone, barely visible through the trees.
"Or what's left of it. It was cursed by the witches of the Glen, and saw one unhappiness after another."
He told us the story of Mary Grant, daughter of the laird of Urquhart Castle, and her lover, Donald Donn, poet son of MacDonald of Bohuntin.
Forbidden to meet because of her father's objection to the latter's habits of "lifting" any cattle he came across (an old and honorable Upland profession, the guide assured us), they met anyway.
The father got wind of it, Donald was lured to a false rendezvous and thus taken. Condemned to die, he begged to be beheaded like a gentleman, rather than hanged as a felon.
This request was granted, and the young man led to the block, repeating "The Devil will take the Laird of Grant out of his shoes, and Donald Donn shall not be hanged."
He wasn't, and legend reports' that as his severed head rolled from the block, it spoke, saying, "Mary, lift up my head."
I shuddered, and Douglas put an arm around me.
"There's a bit of one of his poems left," he said quietly.
"Donald Donn's. It goes: "Tomorrow I shall be on a bill, without a head. Have you no compassion for my sorrowful maiden, My Mary, the fair and tender-eyed?"
I took his hand and squeezed it lightly.
As story after story of treachery, murder, and violence were recounted, it seemed as though the loch had earned its sinister reputation.
"What about the monster?" I asked, peering over the side into the murky depths. It seemed entirely appropriate to such a setting.
Our guide shrugged and spat into the water.
"Weel, the loch's queer, and no mistake. There's stories, to be sure, of something old and evil that once lived in the depths. Sacrifices were made to it—kine, and sometimes even wee bairns, flung into the water in withy baskets." He spat again.
"And some say the loch's bottomless got a hole in the center deeper than anything else in Scotland. On the other hand" the guide's crinkled eyes crinkled a bit more"
It was a family here from Lancashire a few years ago, came rushing to the police station, screaming as they'd seen the monster come out of the water and hide in the bracken.
Said it was a terrible creature, covered with red hair and fearsome horns, and chewing something, with the blood all dripping from its mouth " He held up a hand, stemming my horrified exclamation.