It began one light evening early in May, when they were getting ready for bed. Davie had paused for a moment to admire the view from the bedroom window—the sky a light gold over the dark ridge of the moor, while the fields and woods nearer the house were in deep blue shadow—before closing the curtains, and he turned back into the room to see Alan standing by the chest of drawers, smiling down at something held in his hand.
Davie crossed the room and slipped his arms round Alan’s waist. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘I can’t blame you for being sentimental about it.’
Alan replaced the silver button in its box in the drawer and leaned into the embrace with a little laugh. His feelings about Davie keeping the button deserved a better word than “sentimental”—they had done when, at about this stage on the night of his return to Scotland, he had realised what it was that Davie had been looking at so fondly when he first saw him up on the moor. Davie had wondered whether to stop wearing it after that night, since he obviously didn’t need it as a token of remembrance anymore; but he liked to feel the button there on its chain round his neck, and Alan clearly liked it too, and so he had gone on with it.
‘I’m only sorry I never gave you anything before you left,’ said Davie now, musingly. ‘If we’d had a little more time... There’s all sorts of old heirlooms up in the attics, beautiful jewellery and things. I’d have found you something.’
‘You “never gave me anything”—now, that’s nonsense,’ said Alan happily. ‘No, Davie; jewellery is a fine thing, but I had all I needed here.’ And he moved Davie’s hand to rest over his heart.
It was then that the certainty came to Davie. He turned Alan round in his arms, and taking Alan’s hand in his again, looked very intently at it and said, ‘Well, but it’s not too late. I could still find something for you now. In fact’—he took a breath, and met Alan’s eyes—‘I think I would very much like to give you a ring, if—if you’ll accept it from me.’
Alan understood. He was very still; his hand only held Davie’s more tightly. Then, ‘Ay,’ he said, quietly and smiling, ‘ay, Davie, that I will.’
Their friends all took the news in their own particular ways. Ebenezer shook Davie heartily by the hand and said in a few words how pleased he was. Jannet, who had been very fond of Alan ever since they had got to know each other, was delighted that now he, too, would be her nephew; Sandy ran round their feet yapping his approval. The ex-sailors threw them an engagement party at the Bam & Anchor, and Mr Rankeillor told them cheerfully that marriage was, after all, a legal arrangement, and if they wanted any help or advice on that side of the question they knew where to go.
And then there were the letters of announcement to be written to everyone farther away. They sat down together in the study one evening, at either side of the big desk, to do these, and while Alan set about writing to Ardshiel, his chieftain over in France, Davie chewed the end of his pen and considered how best to tell Mr Campbell.
This was a puzzling question. In truth he wasn’t sure how Mr Campbell would take the news. The minister had never been exactly happy to hear about Davie’s adventures in the Highlands; Davie sometimes almost suspected him of thinking that, in spite of everything Davie had gained here at the house of Shaws, it would perhaps have been wiser to have stayed quietly at home in Essendean.
But he needn’t have worried... or, at least, he needn’t have worried in that direction. A reply came from Mr Campbell within the week, containing his hearty congratulations on Davie’s engagement, and his regret that they had not seen each other in so long, and that he had never even met “your Mr Stewart”. And—
‘All right, Davie?’ asked Alan. Davie was reading the letter at the breakfast table. ‘Not bad news?’
‘No,’ said Davie. He put down the letter and returned to his breakfast. ‘It’s from Mr Campbell,’ he went on, having swallowed a mouthful of scrambled egg. ‘He’s very pleased to hear the news, and—and he wants to come and stay here for a week or so, to see me, and meet you.’
‘I see,’ said Alan. He had been about to take a bite out of a slice of toast, but now replaced it carefully on his plate and leaned back in his chair.
If Davie had been unsure how Mr Campbell would react on hearing about his engagement to Alan, he was not very uncertain how Alan would react to the prospect of a week-long visit from Mr Campbell. Alan’s feelings about Campbells in general had always been quite plain, and it wasn’t as if there was no reason for it. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he said, a little anxiously. ‘I know it’s not—I mean, it’s not the best timing, but I did tell him he could come and stay here whenever he liked’—that had been before Alan came back, and now Davie inwardly cursed himself for not foreseeing that something like this would happen sooner or later now he was here—‘and he is my oldest friend, you know. I can’t just put him off.’
‘Of course not,’ said Alan, picking up his piece of toast again. ‘And no, I don’t mind. I mean, I would rather not be beset by Campbells at every moment of my life, but he is your oldest friend, as you say, and I think I can manage to be civil to him for a week.’
Davie looked carefully at him; and Alan’s expression, which had taken on something of the dramatic expressiveness with which he sometimes concealed strong emotion, softened.
‘—For your sake,’ he added, reaching across the table to place his free hand over Davie’s. ‘All your friends are happy for you—of course they are!—and I want to meet them, even the ones I don’t exactly agree with.’
Davie smiled and squeezed his hand, and said, ‘Yes. Thank you, Alan.’
And so Alan Breck Stewart, who had faced undaunted the might of the Hanoverian army at Culloden, who had evaded the redcoats hunting him all across the Highlands as the supposed murderer of Colin the Fox, faced his greatest challenge yet: spending a week being polite to a Campbell.
On a fine afternoon a few weeks later Mr Campbell made his appearance outside the door of the house of Shaws, hauling a large suitcase.
‘Davie!’ he cried, putting the suitcase down and coming forward with outstretched hands. ‘Oh, it’s good to see you again—and this old place,’ he added, gesturing to the house.
‘Yes, good to see you,’ agreed Davie, shaking his hand—‘and this is Alan—Mr Campbell.’
‘Mr Stewart—of course,’ said Mr Campbell, in a voice from which some of the heartiness had certainly gone.
Alan extended his own hand firmly. ‘Very pleased to make your acquaintance,’ he said, and Mr Campbell took his hand with a murmur of agreement.
‘Come in,’ said Davie. ‘You must be tired after your journey.’
‘Ay, it’s a fair long way, isn’t it?’ said Mr Campbell, at the same time as Alan said, ‘Here, I’ll take your suitcase,’ and picked it up. Davie smiled at him behind Mr Campbell’s back as they went into the house.
Mr Campbell got settled into his room and had a short rest, and after that, since the weather was so good, Davie suggested a tour of the garden. Alan joined them, and the three of them set off together, Davie walking ahead to point out those features of the garden of which he was especially proud.
‘They’re a fine thing, these new-fangled vegetables,’ remarked Mr Campbell, inspecting the leek beds. ‘And that pear tree, there, against the wall—those branches make a beautiful sort of geometrical pattern, don't they? That would be just the thing to add some order and harmony to a background.’ He held his fingers up like a frame and inspected the espaliered pear tree, moving his hands around so as to set it against different backgrounds and nodding to himself.
They walked on; and now Mr Campbell saw fit to leave the subject of artistic geometry, and instead began talking to Alan.
‘So, Mr Stewart,’ he said, ‘you’re from the Highlands, I hear?’
‘From Appin,’ said Alan.
‘Appin... Oh, in Argyle, that’ll be?’ said Mr Campbell. ‘Ay, it was from somewhere about that way that my grandfather came—he was a distant connection of the Duke, you see. But I don’t know much about the history. He moved down to Essendean, and our family have all stayed put there ever since.’
‘And I have lived much of my life in France,’ said Alan, ‘but I’m no less an Appin Stewart for that. But of course you feel differently,’ he added.
‘Oh, indeed‚’ said Mr Campbell with a laugh. ‘Though I’ve never had cause to go to exotic places like France.’
‘No doubt you have not,’ said Alan. He stuck his hands in his pockets, fixed his gaze on the tops of the trees above the garden wall and went on, ‘The Campbells have plenty of land in Argyle, after all, and plenty of freedom to live there or in the Lowlands... though I hear it wasn’t always so, not in the days of—’
Here Davie rather hastily turned round and began, ‘Won’t you look at these—er, these lovely flowerbeds?’ And while Alan abruptly broke off from his speech, Davie took Mr Campbell’s arm and drew him aside. Mr Campbell looked slightly surprised, but pronounced the flowerbeds very nice, lovely colours, weren’t they... and after this point the conversation kept safely to gardening.
Alan disappeared again as soon as they returned to the house (he had some terribly important work to finish up in the study), and he and Mr Campbell did not meet again until supper that evening.
‘Now, Mr Stewart,’ said Mr Campbell, leaning forward over his soup, ‘you were telling me about France earlier, weren’t you?’
‘I believe I was,’ said Alan, sitting back in his chair in a carefully casual manner.
‘You must tell me more! What sort of a place is it?’
Well, he wasn’t asking about why Alan had gone there. It was an improvement. ‘It is a very large place, with many things in it,’ he said, smiling. ‘What is it you want to know about?’
‘Oh, the—the people, the food, the language—whatever you like to tell me about,’ said Mr Campbell, waving his hand expansively and looking happily at Davie. ‘As I was saying, I never had any reason to go there myself, but I like to hear about all these faraway places. It must have been an adventure, living there, mustn’t it?’ Alan had looked up sharply at the first part of this speech, but there seemed no cause for alarm; indeed, the minister really looked a little wistful.
‘I suppose it was that,’ said Alan. ‘Well... I was in Calais lately—you know I was in the French King’s service,’ he added in explanation, and with only a slight significant emphasis. ‘A French garrison town is a curious thing, and perhaps especially one by the seaside...’
And he launched into a series of stories about the scenes, people, customs and memorable events of Calais and the French army. Most of them were things he’d already told Davie, since they had spent the first days and weeks after their reunion doing their level best to tell each other pretty much everything they’d been doing since parting—and Davie, who had a good memory, did notice where he was leaving certain things out and smoothing certain other things over. But he sprinkled the stories with jokes, of a tone and sensibility suitable to a Campbell and a minister, and answered the many interested questions Mr Campbell put to him, and was altogether perfectly polite and gracious.
A long time later, following a description of Versailles as Alan had seen it once on a visit—and Mr Campbell listened with a mixture of correct disapproval of that notorious place and its frivolous splendours, and fascinated wonder, which Davie struggled not to laugh at— they at last all rose from the table and said their goodnights.
‘Thank you, Alan,’ said Davie, placing a hand on his shoulder, as they climbed into bed.
But the cheer and good grace of his storytelling had gone from Alan, all in a sort of slump when the door had closed behind Mr Campbell. He paused in the middle of untying his hair, looked at Davie for a long moment and then said, ‘You’re welcome,’ in a very cold voice. Then, ‘—What was I making all that effort for?’ he exclaimed, a moment later. ‘For a fool who keeps banging on about “Appin in Argyle” as if he didn’t care what Colin the Fox and his like did there!’
He shook his head with a brief, determined motion; then he lay down with his back towards Davie and said no more.
Some minutes later, lying in the darkness, Davie abruptly said, ‘Oh, Alan, this won’t do,’ and before he could continue—with an apology, a sympathetic question, a more understanding thank-you, he didn’t know what—Alan had already said, ‘No, no it won’t,’ and turned back to him. ‘I do know what I’m making all this effort for, Davie. I’m sorry.’
And Davie replied that he was sorry for letting Mr Campbell go on like that, and that he’d try to make sure there wasn’t any more of it; and Alan smiled. Then without any more words they returned together to their more usual position in each other’s arms, and stayed there.
Mr Campbell’s visit continued, and slightly to Davie’s astonishment, went really very well. There was no more talk touching on the history of the Campbells and the Stewarts. The storm clouds that had seemed to be gathering during that walk round the garden (er, metaphorical storm clouds which served as a vehicle for emotional expression, as Mr Campbell might have put it; it was really a fine, sunny day) dispersed like so much morning mist, and the weather, both impressionistic and literal, went on being fine all week.
Davie couldn’t say he enjoyed the visit very much, though. True, it was nice to see Mr Campbell again—and he was his oldest friend, after all, and had known his parents in the old days—and he certainly didn’t dislike the minister, on the contrary; but, well, they probably wouldn’t have been great friends if Mr Campbell hadn’t known Davie’s parents and been familiar to him all his own life in Essendean. That kind of relationship is all very well, but it’s often not the sort of thing that can sustain a week-long visit, especially at such an interesting time of life as Davie was now in. And he was anxious about Alan and how he was bearing the effort of it all. Alan’s depressed mood of that first night had not returned—he seemed as fine as the weather—but since that night Davie had always been aware that it was an effort. Alan was so stubbornly proud, and Davie didn’t always understand the whats and whys of his pride—in fact he privately thought parts of it were downright silly—but he loved Alan for it, as he loved everything about Alan, sillinesses and contradictions and all.
Still, the week had its high points. There was the Wednesday evening, when two things happened which went some way to dispersing the lingering Stewart-Campbell tensions. The first was that Mr Campbell, reminiscing with Davie about old days in Essendean, told the story of how Davie, aged seven or eight, had once fallen into the village duck-pond and turned up at the minister’s door all dripping with pondweed, too ashamed to go to his mother. Davie hid his face in his hands, but Alan’s laughter almost made up for the embarrassment. And the second thing was Mr Campbell’s discovery that Alan was a musician. Looking round the room during a lull in the conversation, he happened to see one of Alan’s songbooks lying on a side table, picked it up and said, ‘Oh, is this yours, Mr Stewart?’ in a tone of some interest.
‘Yes,’ said Alan, and was going to continue, but Mr Campbell, leafing through the book, interrupted him.
‘Will you give us a song? Hey, look at this one: “Cam Ye O’er Frae France”! That’s funny, because it’s just what you did, isn’t it?’
‘Let’s maybe not have that one,’ said Alan, hastily reaching over and taking the book from Mr Campbell’s hands. ‘Not this one, either,’ he added as he turned over “Charlie Is My Darling”.
‘But you’ll sing something for us, Mr Stewart, won’t you?’ said Mr Campbell. ‘I do like a song now and then,’—his tone suggesting that liking a song now and then was something slightly, enjoyably, daring and rebellious.
‘Of course—just let me find something...’
‘How about one of Mr Rankeillor’s songs?’ suggested Davie, and added in an aside to Mr Campbell, ‘Mr Rankeillor is a friend of ours. He’s a lawyer, but he’s taken up songwriting as a hobby.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Alan; and sitting forward on the edge of the sofa the better to project his voice, he sang for them Mr Rankeillor’s latest composition—a sad little song called “Yesterday”.
‘Oh, now, that’s beautiful,’ said Mr Campbell when it was finished. ‘You have a real talent—and so does this Mr Rankeillor! Will you give us another?’
‘Gladly, Mr Campbell,’ said Alan, with a pleased look at Davie. ‘Let me see... well, Mr Rankeillor wrote this one, and I translated it. It’s called “Lon-dubh”.’
And he sang for them his own Gaelic rendition of the lawyer’s song about a blackbird.
‘So, this Rankeillor fellow,’ said Mr Campbell, when he had pronounced this song even more beautiful than the first, ‘he’s a lawyer, you say, but he writes songs too?’
‘Yes,’ said Davie. ‘Well, he kept coming up with these little catchy phrases, you know, and one day I said to him, why don’t you start writing them down and try to make something of them? So he did. And then our friends at the Bam & Anchor are all really musical, and one day when he was having his breakfast there they got their instruments out and started making up some tunes to go with the words. And since then Mr Rankeillor’s just kept going with it. He says he feels like he’s found his true calling in life.’
‘His calling...’ said the minister thoughtfully. ‘That reminds me of something I think you once said to me, Davie... maybe there’s something in that, after all.’
‘Maybe there is,’ said Davie, and smiled over at Alan. ‘As for Mr Rankeillor, we’ll go over to Queensferry tomorrow and I’ll introduce you to him, if you like. I’m sure you’d get on well together.’
‘Ay, let’s do that,’ said Mr Campbell happily.
‘You know, Davie, laddie,’ said Mr Campbell, ‘to tell you the truth, I wasn’t quite sure about this Mr Stewart of yours at first. These Highlanders can be awfully tricky people, especially the Stewarts, so I hear... But I was wrong. He’s a very nice young man. And’—with a hand on Davie’s shoulder—‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.’
‘Thank you,’ said Davie, really touched by these final words, whatever he’d thought about the ones before.
It was the last evening of Mr Campbell’s visit. Alan had gone to bed early, on the excuse of leaving the old friends together, and they were sitting up in the library talking of old times, and Essendean and Davie’s parents, over a glass of whisky.
‘Thank you,’ said Davie again. ‘I’m glad you think so.’
‘In fact, Davie—’ began Mr Campbell, and then hesitated.
‘Yes?’
‘Ah, no,’ said Mr Campbell. ‘I’ve something to say to you, but I ought to say it to both of you, together. It can wait till tomorrow.’
Davie was slightly curious about this; but mostly he was just happy and relieved that Mr Campbell and Alan had managed to get along so well after all, and although he was fond of Mr Campbell, on the whole he was glad that this rather trying visit was coming to an end. Tomorrow Mr Campbell would be gone, and he and Alan would have the place to themselves again... and they could get on with the interesting business of wedding planning.
The next morning Mr Campbell made his departure. Alan was looking—thought Davie—just a little bit overly cheerful when they met in the front hallway to see their visitor off, but surely that could be excused. And he did manage to turn the look into a polite smile for Mr Campbell’s view.
‘It’s been a pleasure seeing you again, Davie,’ said the minister, shaking hands with both of them, ‘and getting to know you, Mr Stewart. If you’re ever in the Highlands, now, be sure to call in at Inveraray and remember me to my old Clan Campbell kinsfolk, won’t you?’
‘We’ll see you again at the wedding, I hope,’ interposed Davie, before this could go any further. (Of course they must invite Mr Campbell; but it would be a busy day with loads of people there, and no occasion for either him or Alan to spend much time in the company of any one guest.)
‘Of course!’ said Mr Campbell. ‘And actually,’ he added in a suddenly more serious tone, ‘I had something to ask you both about that. You’ll be wanting a minister, of course, for the wedding, and—well, I would be honoured if you might let me do it.’
‘I—’ stammered Davie. He had not foreseen this. Words failed him for a few moments more—long enough that Mr Campbell began to look just slightly worried, and it was probably that which, without leaving time for his better judgement to make itself heard, kicked Davie into saying what he said next. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Campbell, I—of course we’ll be delighted.’
Mr Campbell beamed. ‘I certainly will be seeing you, then! Goodbye, now, Davie, Mr Stewart—all the best!’
Davie opened the front door for him, and then he was gone.
Davie closed the door and turned round. Alan had not moved from where he was standing by the foot of the stairs.
‘Why did you say that, Davie?’ he said. He didn’t sound angry or outraged, which Davie’s thoughts had already caught up sufficiently for him to expect; he spoke very quietly and looked rather lost.
‘I don’t know,’ said Davie with a groan. ‘But he meant to be kind, and he’s my oldest friend, and—how could I say no to his face, Alan?’
‘Ay, I see that,’ said Alan, in the same strange voice. Davie went up to him, but Alan stepped back before he could reach him. He nodded once or twice, more to himself than to Davie. Davie hesitated; he would much rather have had a great big shouting quarrel than this.
Then Alan turned round and disappeared into the passageway, and a few moments later Davie heard the sound of the back door closing.
The fine summer weather of earlier in the week was over; it was downright cold this morning, and a fog had drifted in from the firth. Alan had not walked very far before the house of Shaws was hidden from sight entirely. Good; he wanted that just now.
He had been doing so well this week, or so he’d thought. Even when Mr Campbell, the tiresome fool, found the most ignorantly offensive things possible to say about Inveraray or the Duke of Argyle or whatever other Campbell rubbish—even when he and Davie laughed together over something from Davie’s childhood or some people from Essendean whom Alan had never heard of... he had been perfectly polite, and had really thought it was worth it. Not anymore. Mr Campbell was Davie’s oldest friend. He would be the perfect choice for the minister at Davie’s wedding. Ay, and he was always welcome—quite at home—in this great big grand Whig house and with the fine, fortunate Whig gentleman who was its laird. No reason to go to France, indeed. A Campbell always knew how to pick the winning side, and damn what was right. That he, Alan Breck Stewart, had ever thought to come here!...
He had been walking furiously, and by now was somewhere round the back of the orchard—everything looked strange in this fog. The path ahead of him branched off into the wood from which the estate of Shaws got its fuel. Here he stopped—suddenly, as if all the energy had gone out of him in a moment—and sat down in the fork of an old coppiced ash and buried his head in his hands.
A memory had come back to him, insistent and cruelly vivid: Rob Og Macgregor, his old friend, Cluny’s man, flinging off his cloak to reveal the treacherous Campbell tartan underneath.
That was it. They picked the winning side... and everyone who got the choice would be better off as a winner. Yes, that was always the way of it...
Alan’s head snapped up from his hands, and he stared wildly at the fog curling between the apple trees in front of him.
What was he thinking?
Davie had been there when Rob Og betrayed him and tried to sell him to the Campbells. Rob had offered Davie a share of the money—the acclaim of all Scotland—the Campbell tartan to wear, and a place on the winning side. And what had Davie done?
Alan made an agonised sound halfway between a groan and a sob, and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. Then he lowered his arms, slowly, and looked at the ring on the fourth finger of his right hand. It was, indeed, an old heirloom which Davie had unearthed from the attics, but with the stones re-set by an Edinburgh jeweller in a pattern Davie had chosen himself. There was a large, rather dark, sparkling sapphire in the middle, and on either side a tiny, brilliant garnet. He had always thought of Alan in blue, Davie had said when he gave him the ring—blue, with just a hint of red, like his old French coat with its scrap of Royal Stuart tartan hidden inside.
Now Alan, holding his right hand in his left, bent down and kissed the ring. He had been a daft, silly, ridiculous— See what being shut up in a house with a Campbell for a week did to your mind!
He jumped to his feet and set off at a run back towards the house.
‘Alan! There you are, I’ve been looking—’
This was as far as Davie got before he was caught up into Alan’s arms and hugged so tightly that further speech was impossible. A few more moments of laughing and clutching at each other in a delighted relief that didn’t need words to explain it, and then Davie tried again:
‘Alan, I’m sorry. I should have remembered how much the whole—Campbell thing matters to you. I mean, I did! But—oh, I’ll write to him and say no, we’ve made other plans, or something—’
‘You will? Really?’ Alan drew back slightly, keeping hold of Davie’s elbows, and looked at him.
‘Of course! It’s not like I specially want him to do it.’ Davie pulled himself together enough to manage something like solemnity, and said, ‘The important thing, Mr Stewart, is that I’m marrying you.’ He emphasised this point with a prod to Alan’s chest, the other arm still holding him by the waist. ‘I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Everything else is just... details.’
Alan looked down at his feet and let out a shaky breath. ‘Davie,’ he said, ‘I’ve been very unfair to you. I’m sorry.’
Davie just shook his head; then he kissed Alan firmly.
‘You know what,’ said Alan a little while later, ‘keep Mr Campbell. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter... and there’s no need to disappoint him, the silly man.’
Davie laughed, but he looked slightly shocked all the same. ‘Are you sure?’ he said.
Alan gave a decisive nod. ‘It’s you I care about, Davie. That’s the only important thing. Just like you said.’
Which just goes to show: if you let the person you love into your heart—show them your true feelings and what really matters to you—as Mr Rankeillor might have said, you really can start to make it better.
And then there was only the rest of the wedding planning to do.
Alan declared that he wanted a simple ceremony, quiet and with no unnecessary frills, and if Davie suspected that the motives for this might include a wish to keep the minister from being over-prominent, well, that was understandable; he happily agreed.
‘Oh, but you’ll find our Annie something to do, won’t you?’ said Karen beseechingly, when they explained this to her one morning at the Bam & Anchor. ‘She’d just love to be a flower girl or something. Besides’—lowering her voice—‘it would be good for her. She’s a sweet child really, but she is going through just a bit of a, you know... piratey phase lately. It’d give her something else to be interested in.’
Davie and Alan exchanged glances across the table. Then Alan turned round in his seat and said, ‘Would you like to be a flower girl, Annie?’
Annie—swinging her legs on a bar stool and drinking an Irn-Bru—nodded vigorously. ‘Ay, ay!’ she said, putting down her drink and going over to their table. ‘You can count on me, Alan, Davie. Sailor’s honour.’
Annie was the offspring of no-longer-Bloody Karen and no-longer-an-outrageous-flirt Gordon, who in their new reformed characters had settled down very happily together. If it might have been expected that growing up among a lot of ex-pirate gastropub-keepers would make a child a touch peculiar, Annie had at least a healthy sense of her own importance—and, to her mother’s despair, a strong hereditary love of plying up and down the local river in a home-built dinghy singing ‘Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum!’ (Or a can of Irn-Bru, as it might be.)
Now she shook hands solemnly with Alan and Davie in turn; and so one important post was filled.
‘And you’ve got to have a party!’ said Jannet the next day. ‘We’ll throw you a proper party, won’t we, Ebenezer?’
Ebenezer hesitated for just a moment—just long enough to think of the cost of a wedding reception, for old habits do die hard sometimes, and then to think of something better—and then said firmly, ‘Yes, of course. It’s our responsibility as your uncle and aunt, neither of you having parents still here.’
Jannet beamed. ‘We won’t let you down!’
And there was one more question that must be considered.
‘What are you going to wear, Alan?’ asked Davie. ‘I was thinking—’
‘Ah, now, don’t tell me that!’ said Alan, holding up an emphatic finger. ‘That’s supposed to be a secret. I know just what I am going to wear, and you shall see it on the day, and not before.’
And so on this point Davie—who had been planning for himself a new smart kilt, jacket and tie, the sort of thing that might be unimaginative but was traditional and could always be depended on, and who was now very curious as to what Alan’s interesting fashion sense might come up with—was left to wonder.
The day dawned clear and still, with that gentle sharpness that the early morning has when summer is just giving way to autumn. Davie, opening the window on a view of shorn fields and laden apple trees and light golden-blue sky, smiled to himself; it looked like being a fine day.
He was alone for now: Alan had gone to stay with a party of his own friends who had arrived from the Highlands the day before (taking with him a small suitcase containing his mysterious outfit), and Mr Campbell was lodging with his brother minister at Cramond Manse. For a little time—before Jannet and Ebenezer, who were to help him get ready and accompany him to the kirk, arrived—Davie walked along the passages and through the rooms of the house, thinking of what they had been during the long years of Alan’s absence, and what they had been since his return, and what they might be in the years to come.
Then the doorbell sounded, closely followed by his uncle and aunt’s shouts of greeting, and a whirl of preparations and activity and emotional good wishes began which ended, how much time later Davie really couldn’t have said, at the door of the kirk.
‘All ready?’ asked Gordon, who was accompanying his daughter with the all-important flowers. He winked at Davie. ‘Ah, Davie, your days of outrageous flirting are over now!’
‘I don’t think I ever had—or wanted—’ began Davie, while Gordon, oblivious, clapped a hand on his shoulder and continued with, ‘No, but married life is a fine thing, really.’
Here Annie pressed forward and held something up for Davie’s inspection.
‘Look at my ship!’
Karen had got her a nice basket to carry the flowers in—they’d both shown it to Davie for his approval just the other day, but... Annie must have made a few improvements to it since then. Among the mass of flowers were several masts and a quantity of sails, turning the basket into a sort of miniature mimic of the ships that lay at anchor in the Firth at Queensferry. From the masthead flew a tiny Jolly Roger.
It was impressive work. ‘Superb,’ said Davie.
Annie grinned. Then Gordon left them to take his place inside the kirk (‘You know what you’re doing, sweetheart?’ ‘Ay, ay, cap’n!’); Mr Campbell appeared and greeted Davie heartily; and then Alan arrived.
It was a funny thing, but although Alan was a Highlander to his very bones, Davie had never actually seen him in Highland dress, nor could he really picture him wearing it. It just wasn’t him, somehow. And that wasn’t what he was wearing now—not exactly. The main part of his outfit was a grey coat of the latest French cut, over a shirt decorated with abundant and immaculate lace, and below that he wore breeches and stockings and a new, shining pair of silver boots. It was just that he had swathed this costume in an outer layer of so much Stewart tartan—the Stewart of Ardshiel, deep crimson with stripes of green and blue—that he looked like... he looked like nothing so much as James of the Glen’s cave.
He carried it effortlessly. Mr Campbell looked a little nonplussed, but said nothing.
‘You look... magnificent,’ said Davie quietly. Alan smiled.
‘Well, then,’ said Mr Campbell, ‘if you’re ready, gentlemen, then let’s begin.’
Davie took Alan’s arm, carefully shifting a fold of the tartan aside in order to do so, and they began their procession into the kirk and up the aisle—the organ playing, Mr Campbell walking solemnly behind, and Annie scampering ahead flinging flowers from her ship-basket over, and occasionally at, the heads of the congregation.
Their friends from the Bam & Anchor were all there: Karen and Gordon, who gave their daughter a wave and a thumbs-up as she passed; Toothless Nigel and Terry the barman standing side by side; Barry, sporting his formal leg for special occasions, and Keith the no-longer-a-Thief. (The moustached and beret-ed sailor whose name, very embarrassingly, neither Davie nor Alan had ever actually managed to find out was playing the organ.) Then there were Jannet and Ebenezer, glowing with pride in the front pew, and Mr Rankeillor. On the other side of the kirk were Margaret—Mrs James of the Glens—and her children, with an assembly of Stewart cousins and friends. (If any of them were surprised to see the ceremony being conducted by a Campbell, they were polite enough to say nothing about it.) Behind them, his auburn head towering over those of the rest of the congregation, was a cousin from the Cameron side of Alan’s family whose husband, standing beside him now, was not only a Whig but an Englishman—and had remarked to Davie the day before, with a smile, that he and Alan were in good company.
As he took Davie’s hands in his and made his ‘promise and covenant to be a loving, faithful and loyal husband to you...’, it was in Alan’s mind—and he suspected very much that it was in Davie’s too—that this was not a new thing, after all. They had made their vows to each other, hadn’t they, aboard the Precariosa before that fight against the sailors, years ago... Well, Alan knew how to hold Davie’s hands without crushing them now, at least. He smiled at the memory; Davie smiled back.
And when they took the rings and placed them on each other’s fingers, saying each in turn that he gave the ring ‘...as a symbol of all that we have promised, and all that we shall share’, its true meaning was clear. No, it was not new; they were affirming all the vows they had made then, taking them from that past into the future they were to share. Their old promise to stay ‘by your side’ was renewed today, and given a new meaning.
There followed an ecumenical blessing given by Mr Forbes (the Episcopalian minister of Leith, a great friend of them both and—just incidentally—a staunch Jacobite, and no great admirer of Campbells). Then the signing of the marriage schedule: their signatures, thought Davie, did go well together, the neatly fluent David Balfour alongside the bold flourish of Ailean Stiùbhart—and then the moustached sailor struck up the organ for the singing of the final hymn.
Outside the door the new husbands had only time to exchange a smile—though one full of meaning—before the flood of congratulations, greetings and general exuberant chatter began. The sailors, naturally, were first.
‘Karen and Gordon, Alan and Davie... Who’s gonna be next?’ cried Keith, grinning round at the others. He elbowed Barry in the ribs. ‘What about you and Nigel, eh?’
‘Oh, now,’ began Nigel, ‘I don’t think there’s any call—’ but he was interrupted by the arrival of Annie, who appeared running out to the front of the crowd.
‘Davie, Alan, I saved some flowers for you!’ She lifted up her ship to exhibit its contents. ‘Here you go.’
The bounty which she had thrown so liberally about the kirk had been hothouse flowers, the sort of showily beautiful garden varieties that made good decorations. At this time of year there weren’t so many local wild flowers in bloom, but Annie’s supply had nonetheless included a few of the late-flowering species that there were, and she now held out some sprigs of them—meadowsweet and heather.
‘Thank you, Annie,’ said Alan, and he took some of the meadowsweet and tucked it carefully into Davie’s buttonhole. ‘We couldn’t have asked for a better flower girl.’
Then they all made their way over to the house of Shaws; Barry exchanged his formal leg for his party leg; and it was time for an afternoon of serious celebrating. There were tables set up in the big dining-room in case of bad weather, but bad weather had, surprisingly enough, not made any appearance so far, and so the party could take place largely outside. All the tenants on the estate of Shaws had been invited, of course, and quantities of friends and neighbours from Cramond and Queensferry, as well as the guests who had been at the ceremony. As for the fare—well, anyone comparing the hospitality on offer to the guests here, to the meagre bowl of porridge which Ebenezer had given Davie on his first arrival at the house of Shaws years ago, would have been furnished with a real demonstration of the marvels of character development.
The sun was setting when Alan—having just said goodbye to Mr Forbes and his wife, who were on their way back to Leith—stepped back from the immediate surroundings of the party and stopped to look around. The sailors had brought their instruments over, and were playing Mr Rankeillor’s “All You Need Is Love”, while Jannet and Ebenezer led an energetic dance to the music; the lyricist himself was deep in conversation with Mr Campbell (who had not bothered Alan all afternoon; he strongly suspected Davie of having made considerable and deliberate efforts in this direction). Over by the duck pond Annie and a couple of small Stewarts with whom she had made friends were launching her ship—its sails set in their full majesty, Jolly Roger flying—on a bold voyage of adventure. Closer at hand stood the table on which the wedding presents were collected. Among the various practical household things, ornaments and flowers there was a framed picture of the house of Shaws, done in bright watercolours, in which the pear tree by the garden wall made an elegant foreground detail and a bright, emotionally expressive blue sky looked over the scene.
Where was Davie?...
He found him after a little searching, sitting on the grass-grown bank up by the house from whence the footpath led up onto the moor, watching the party with a quiet smile on his face.
‘Good day?’ he asked as Alan sat down beside him.
‘A good day,’ said Alan. He took Davie’s hand in his and ran his fingers over the new ring upon it.
‘I was getting just a bit tired out by all that,’ said Davie, inclining his head towards the centre of the party, ‘—but from up here it’s almost peaceful, isn’t it.’
Alan smiled. He was right: at this distance the music, shouts and laughter, the whirl of the dance, all the colourful movement, faded or blended from noise into a quiet harmony. Beyond it the last of the sunlight fell over the moor and the heather in bloom.
They watched it all for a few more minutes together, and then they got up and went hand in hand into the house. Here, the door closed behind them, Alan could do what he had been wanting to do for some time, which was to gather Davie in his arms and pull him into a long kiss. He took up the folds of his plaid in his hands as he did so, so that Davie was enveloped in it; at this Davie smiled so that Alan felt the smile against his own mouth, and leaned in closer.
‘I love you,’ murmured Alan as they drew apart—not very far apart. He rested his forehead against Davie’s and settled his arms, and the tartan, more firmly round Davie’s shoulders.
‘I know that,’ said Davie, still smiling. He brought his hands up to rest against Alan’s chest. ‘You love me so much you were willing to be married by a Campbell—’
‘Oh, Davie, don’t go on about that,’ said Alan with a theatrical groan. ‘Not now.’ Davie laughed.
‘All right, I won’t,’ he said. ‘Not now.’
And pretty soon neither of them was thinking about Mr Campbell, or anything besides each other and the present moment, any more at all.