The Skylark's Secret(89)

The thought of having to move away to somewhere else dismays me far more than I’d ever have thought possible. Over the past months, as I’ve pieced together my family history, it’s as if roots have begun to grow, slowly, quietly, beneath my feet, binding me to Keeper’s Cottage. This place has become a home for me and Daisy and it hurts to think of leaving. I can’t imagine saying goodbye to Bridie and Elspeth and the other mums in the toddler group. I can’t imagine no longer being able to make music with the next generation of children to grow up in the crofts along the loch, passing on the traditional songs in the way they’ve been passed down to us over the centuries. And, most of all, I can’t bear to think about leaving Davy behind. But he’s managed to carve out a living for himself here, and that’s something I’m going to have to seek elsewhere. Just as so many have done before, I’ll have to leave Ardtuath sooner or later, go and find a job in a city to support myself and my child.

I thank the postie brightly, trying not to let my problems show, and wave him off on his way before taking the pile of letters inside. I chuck the brown envelopes on to the kitchen table, putting off opening them while I read the solicitor’s letter. It’s not exactly informative, just a brief note asking me to call and make an appointment to come to the offices in Inverness at my earliest convenience. I put it on top of the pile of brown envelopes and busy myself making Daisy’s lunch as she pushes a tractor around my feet, humming to herself.

Once Daisy’s gone down for her nap and I’ve finished wiping mashed potato off her high chair – she insists on feeding herself these days, and the result is often messy – I phone the lawyer’s office. The nice woman who fields my call tells me she ‘really couldn’t say, dear’ what the meeting was about, but she makes an appointment for me to go and see Mr Clelland next Monday afternoon.

Then I fetch my chequebook and with a sigh of resignation begin to open the rest of the post.



The offices of Macwhirter and Clelland Solicitors are tucked into a discreet side street behind the castle. I take a seat, perching on the slippery leather sofa and nervously smoothing my skirt over my knees. After so many months of rural living, it’s been a little nerve-wracking driving into the city and finding a parking space. And I’m anxious to know what Mr Clelland has to say. In my more hopeful moments, I’ve imagined a life insurance policy that would allow me to stay at Ardtuath for a few more months. On the other hand, lying awake in the wee small hours of the night, I’ve imagined a problem with taxes or death duties that means I’ll be plunged into debt.

Mr Clelland emerges at last from behind the door with his name on it and smiles at me, his eyes magnified by his thick-rimmed spectacles. ‘Miss Gordon? Do come through.’

He settles himself on the other side of the leather-topped desk and picks up a sheet of official-looking paper from the pile before him. He glances at me over the top of his specs and says, ‘Now then, I’ll begin at the beginning, shall I?’



I’d planned to have a bit of a day out in Inverness, popping into Marks for some new clothes for Daisy (she’s pretty much grown out of everything I brought with me from London now), and buying a few exotic bits and pieces for the store cupboard, like curry powder, that the local shop doesn’t stock. But in the end, when Mr Clelland shows me to the door I sleepwalk back to my car and drive straight home. Along the way, I scarcely register the views of the hills and the sea in my haste to return to Keeper’s Cottage and share my news with Davy, and Bridie and Mairi, and Elspeth.

I left home this morning a poverty-stricken single mum. I am returning a wealthy woman. A woman who could never have dreamed of the opportunities that lie before her now.





Lexie, 1980




Davy tops up my glass and the bubbles froth to the very brim before settling again. He raises his own glass in another toast. ‘To Lady Helen Mackenzie-Grant and Flora Gordon, the women who made all this possible.’

There’s a round of applause before the fiddles and flute strike up again, playing ‘Flora’s Waltz’, the piece that the band have composed especially for my mum. The lilting melody suits her perfectly with its beautifully simple rise and fall, and as I listen I can picture her gentle smile. She is with me here tonight in the big house as we launch the Centre for Traditional Music, which I’ve established in her name. She could never take up her rightful place here in her lifetime, but now the empty rooms will be filled with life and laughter and music. The songs my mum used to sing will resonate from the panelled walls and the corniced ceilings and – at last – Flora Gordon will be mistress of Ardtuath House.

It’s to be a place where people will come from far and wide, and everyone will be made welcome: all generations and backgrounds, beginners and experts, people who want to make their own music. People who want to find their own songs to sing.

I think my grandmother, Lady Helen, would approve, too. At the meeting in Inverness, Mr Clelland had explained to me that on her death, her entire estate – the proceeds from the sale of the house in London as well as the sale of the house and lands at Ardtuath – had been put into a carefully managed trust. She had specified that an amount was to be paid each month to Flora Gordon of Keeper’s Cottage, Ardtuath, to enable her to live there and raise her child. And on Flora Gordon’s death, the trust was to be dissolved and the capital made over in full to the then about-to-be-born grandchild of Lady Helen Mackenzie-Grant, who would be her sole heir.