5
When he returned home a month later, my cousin was a very different person. He had somehow reached full manhood in the interim, and he came back with evidence of a new maturity stamped into his every aspect. He did not tell me that he and Mirren had become lovers or that he had taken her to wife. There was no need. Even I, callow and unworldly as I was, could see the new strength in him, reflected in the way he spoke and acted. The carefree exuberance of love-stricken youth that had marked him before his departure had been replaced by a sober deliberation, and his former preoccupation with the distant, unattainable Mirren had been replaced by a quiet determination to bring her to Elderslie as his wife.
Those changes were clear as day both to me and to his family, for his aunt and uncle were nothing if not astute. But there were other, even more profound changes afoot by then, as well. Will’s entire life had begun to change in ways that neither he nor I could ever have anticipated, and even though I have been a Christian priest now for half a hundred years, I still tend to think of those changes in terms of intervention by the pagan Fates of whom the ancients spoke in fear and dread. Although these changes did not at first appear to be radical, each one, with hindsight, brought about the end of my plain, hard-working friend and cousin Will and the simultaneous emergence of his alter ego, the implacable, the terrifying William Wallace.
It began during that visit to Lamington, where he arrived to find Mirren under siege from the love-smitten woodsman Graham of Kilbarchan. Mirren had not expected Will’s arrival, and her wholehearted delight at seeing him was witnessed by the hapless Graham, who saw in it the death of his own hopes of winning her. Graham of Kilbarchan vanished that same night, not to be seen again.
It was the suddenness of that disappearance that finally brought both Mirren and Will back to thinking of him again. Days had gone by since either of them had seen him, and that began to alarm Mirren because there had not been a single day in the previous five weeks when she had not seen him everywhere she went. Will, typically, had not given the fellow a single thought, relieved to be rid of the man’s irksome presence. But Mirren knew that Graham of Kilbarchan would not simply fade graciously away; she came to expect he would seek redress for the humiliation he would believe she had thrust on him.
She waited anxiously to be summoned into her father’s presence to explain what Hugh Braidfoot would construe as her disgraceful conduct towards a well-qualified suitor. But the days passed and no summons came. Her father’s treatment of her remained as it had always been, benevolent and even doting; his attitude remained unchanged, at once loving and slightly bemused by her flourishing beauty. And still they saw no sign of Graham.
Days later, filled with guilt, she spoke to Will about how badly she regretted her treatment of the woodsman, though she had intended no harm. Will kissed away her misgivings, assuring her that there was nothing she could have done to alter any of what had happened, and finally she came to believe him and allowed herself to believe that the sorry affair was over.
But it was far from being over.
Will went looking for me in the library on the day he returned through Paisley, and Brother Duncan sent him to find me among the cloisters, where I was studying my breviary, pacing back and forth in the familiar space with my eyes closed much of the time, memorizing the texts set for me that day. I was so engrossed that I did not see him arrive, and I have no idea how long he had been sitting watching me by the time I finally noticed him perched on a stone bench, one foot flat on the seat with his back against an archway and his right knee raised against his chin, enfolded by his arms. The sight of him startled me, and he grinned, his white, even teeth flashing amid the dark curls of his suddenly rich beard.
“Priest,” he said, his eyes flickering with mischief. “When do you start to shave your head?”
“When I’m ordained,” I told him, feeling the glad rush of wellbeing that always hit me at the sight of him. “When did you get back?”
“Today, this minute, and I came to see you first. They’ll be expecting me at home, though.”
“They’ve been expecting you this past week. And Lamington?”
“It’s there, where I’d been told it was. A wee place, like Elderslie. But I enjoyed it.”
“And yet—? It could have been better?”
“It could. I had to leave Mirren there.”
“Ah. And when will she come here?”
“As soon as I can arrange it.”
I detected a hint of uncertainty in his response.
“Can you arrange it?”
“I think I can. I have to. Otherwise life will not be livable.”