I recommend Eddi Reader's renditions of Burns' songs if you fancy some music while you read. Very nice!
Part 3
"Ladies and gentlemen... If I might have your attention please."
Merida would forever be envious of how easily her mother could switch from her usual Scots accent to blander neutral English. Even more so of her ability to project her voice and instantly gather everyone's attention. The microphone in her hand was clearly decorative: a visual aid and little more.
Elinor stood all regal elegance and patience, as a hush descended upon the room. She waited just that little moment longer to ensure all eyes were on her before continuing.
"Thank you, every one of you, for making it to Mor'du Oil's annual Burns Supper. We at Mor'du take great pride in our Scottish roots and heritage, as you no doubt noticed with my husband's hearty rendition of the Ode to the Haggis. Our head Fergus loves to share his appreciation for guid ol' Rabbie Burns and Scottish food, and I hope that all of you, by the end of tonight will leave satisfied and merry."
At this, Elinor swept her arms around her in a bow, extending her welcome with her actions as well as her words. Merida smiled. Her mother's eyes seemed to twinkle as she stood back up, hands clasping over one another as she grinned at her.
"It is customary, on the night where we celebrate our national bard, for some speeches to be made."
Merida heard a small groan from her left. She had to muffle a chuckle at Jim's anxious face. She'd forgotten how much he disliked long speeches. She recalled fondly his dead-eyed gurn from one of their more tedious lectures at university. Her hilarity from it had certainly helped keep her awake through the drone of boring words back then. She had much faith, however, that Jim's current dread was misplaced. Her parents were good at choosing speakers, and the speeches were never boring.
"Ah wonder who's bin picked fur th' foremaist speech this year..." Wee Dingwall whispered, as if reading Merida's thoughts.
"Tis nae one o' yer folks?" The startled mutter came from McIntosh. The two were quickly hushed by MacGuffin.
The exchange however, had surprised Merida. As her mother went on with the usual pleasantries expected of the welcoming speech, she puzzled over the notion. It wouldn't be one of the Dingwalls delivering the first of the guest speeches? Mor'du Oil's Burns suppers usually had three of them. Though the latter two guest speeches had been delivered by a wide variety of people over the years, it was, in Merida's memory at least, highly unusual for the first of them not to be delivered by one of Wee Andy's parents. After all, it was hard to find such avid fans of Robert Burns' life, works and personal accomplishments. It was pretty much tradition to let them geek out at this time of year.
Who on earth could it be?
"It may come as a surprise to some of you..." Elinor continued on with her speech. Her words seemed to recapture the focus of those who'd drifted off, bringing new interest to the ones who'd sat through too many of these events. "But it is for the first of our speeches that I have asked one of our aforementioned foreign guests to take the stand."
Elinor's smile seemed directed at Merida's table. Merida felt her eyebrows shooting up into her hairline. She turned her eyes to Kristoff, the immediate foreigner to come to mind. There was no way it'd be the American Jim or Wendy from England. She knew them well enough to know they had little interest in Scots biographies. Could it be that the reindeer loving Scandinavian was secretly a fan?
The blond man was grinning, but he had none of the nervousness she'd expect of the speaker due to stand and be announced shortly... though he did look suspiciously eager. His brown eyes had shifted away from the event's hostess to the woman sat between him and the redhead. Merida had to resist the urge to blurt out something stupid.
Elsa merely nodded, smiling back up towards Elinor as she reached for something below the table. From her seat, Merida could see the white-haired woman pull some notes from her bunad's handy purse.
"Everyone, in immortal memory of the bard Robert Burns, I shall ask Elsa Gyllenblom, the new director of Arendelle Solutions to come before you and share a few words."
All eyes turned to where Elinor had extended her arm to, the mature woman in blue smiling encouragement to the younger one sat beside her daughter. Elsa Gyllenblom kept a neutral face, not a single tremor noticeable or an ounce of hesitation apparent as she stood. She glided off her seat, gracefully adjusting her embroidered shawl. She gave Elinor a genial smile as she made her way to the stand, her head and shoulders straight, her steps confident...
Merida felt a lump forming in her throat. She'd had the notion that Elsa wasn't much older than her, being Kristoff's friend and all. Now that she'd heard the girl's surname, she knew this to be fact. Memories of conversations overheard, of her parents talking about this and that to one another... "The Gyllenblom girl" was all that the redhead had known her as... She was the daughter of some family friends who'd taken over the running of their company at the tender age of twenty-one just last year. This was the one whose mention had her mother taking on a wistful look as she caught her daughter stealing an apple or hiding some pie. This was the one who got brought up whenever school grades were mentioned and futures discussed.
Watching Elsa reach for the microphone, the perfect image of the poised professional, Merida knew that she could never compare. Elsa was everything her mother was, seemed to be everything her mother had tried to teach her to be.
The leaden feeling in her stomach must have shown on her face, because Jim was suddenly leaning towards her. She had a brief moment to give thanks for the creation of the electronic cigarette that Jim had recently acquired and shown off at his return from the snowy smoke break with Alice and McIntosh. His breath was noticeably not that bad smelling.
"Hey, you alright?" His whisper showed every bit of concern she had come to expect from her classmate come best friend when it really mattered.
"A'm fine." She mumbled, patting his hand away.
She turned her attentions back to Elsa. Her mother had now sat down and the white-haired young woman was clearing her throat.
Merida made an effort to ignore her increasingly dour mood. It wasn't fair to the young lassie.
"Thank you Mrs Dunbroch." The microphone was perfectly vertical in the maiden's grasp. Her icy gaze swept around the crowd lazily before resting on Kristoff. He gave her the thumbs up. Her smile became a touch warmer. The hand holding her cards waved down towards her own outfit. "I apologise, I do seem to stand out, but I wouldn't have been comfortable wearing tartan to an event such as this. Especially not after being asked to speak about Robert Burns and his life."
She paused, giving the audience a moment to observe her outfit, or those who hadn't noticed it already at least. A few appreciative murmurs could be heard rumbling through the crowd, along with the odd chuckle.
"As many of you know, Robert, known as Rabbie, was born in 1759, in the western Scotland region of Ayrshire. The seventh son of a farming couple, he worked the land and was home taught. He wrote his first poem aged just fifteen. His life wasn't easy. Labouring the land was hard work and it is not for nothing that he is sometimes called the Ploughman Poet. It wasn't until he was twenty-three that he met Captain Richard Brown, with whom he formed a friendship that would encourage him to live life as a bard."
There seemed to be a faint tremor in Elsa's voice at this point, as she looked upon her fellow Scandinavian friend. Merida suddenly wondered about the basis of their friendship and how it had come about.
"Think about it. He was a farming lad in the eighteenth century trying to make it as a poet, writer, and lyricist. This was an uphill struggle, with finances being a major issue for many years. That he was so prolific in spite of all this is a testament to his friend's faith in him, his love for his art, and, inevitably..." Elsa smiled a genuine crooked grin at this point, causing Merida's heart to falter. Was this a crack in the mask of perfection she saw? "... his constant infatuation for the ladies who would be the recipients of many of his songs, as well as the cause of many more of his troubles."
"It was from such troubles that he first considered working abroad. Becoming a father thrice in the space of the year, with two different women, he had to accept a friend's offer to work in Jamaica. This did not stop him from courting a third woman in preparation for the voyage. Robert Burns had a consummate heart."
As Merida had anticipated, Jim was finding himself entranced by the tale rather than bored. Her parents' novel choice of Elsa as spokesperson for the bard's life was paying off. Even the likes of McIntosh, who normally liked to sit back and preen during these speeches was paying rapt attention, while the critical Dingwall and McGuffin nodded in approval. It helped that Elsa was using a very different approach to the one the Dingwalls normally used, focussing on the hardships rather than the romances, the friendships rather than his loves.
"While trying to accumulate funds for his immigration, he set about getting some of his poems published while sleeping on couches in various friends' houses. The Kilmarnock volume, his first published collection of works, was an unexpected and immediate success." Merida paused in the sipping of her beverage. There seemed to be a hint of wistfulness in Elsa's voice, a lowering of tone that betrayed a certain melancholy... Maybe she was just imagining things. "He abandoned the trip abroad for a life in the city of Edinburgh. Over the next two years he built many connections, made himself a name and began contributing to a collection of songs in old Scots with James Johnson. After a few more romances in the city, he returned to the woman who was once his wife and would end up being the mother to nine of his twelve children, Jean Armour."
"Robert Burns's love for Scotland and a simple life was such that he refused a position in London and another in Edinburgh. This did not stop him from being involved in politics, expressing deep sympathy with the French Revolution and advocates for reform. He disapproved of slavery, inequality of many sorts and was deeply patriotic. It is no wonder that his works went on to inspire not just his fellow Scots, but also others around the world." Despite her initially soured mood, Merida could not help but smile upon hearing the conviction in the Scandinavian woman's voice. She truly was a good speaker, putting emphasis where it needed to be, pausing just long enough for meanings to catch up to words where breaks were necessary. "His direct, spontaneous and sincere style reached hearts as far away as Canada and Russia and has influenced many since. People all around the world commemorate today his free-spirit and this is well deserved."
"I am from Norway." She said simply. "I wear today the traditional dress of my country, the Bunad, our equivalent to your kilts and tartans if you will, to honour a man who valued his homeland and its traditions. I speak to you because I value his message: that one should be free to be who they want to be, no matter their birth, or circumstance. And love freely, in any way one chooses to."
She raised her hand, a small glass from the stand now nestled amongst the cards.
"A toast: in immortal memory of Rabbie Burns."
A cacophony of chairs and feet replied, as the people stood and raised their glasses too.
"Rabbie Burns." The echo came, rumbling, loud, respectful and heart-felt.
Merida raised her glass high, Elsa's words resonating inside her, giving her a new insight into the words of the bard. She felt as though the platinum blonde's words deserved another toast to freedom. It was something the redhead was more than willing to drink to.
There was loud applause as the young Gyllenblom curtsied and left the microphone in Fergus Dunbroch's hands.
"Weel dane! Ah mean, well done! Thank ye, Elsa lassie, fur such a bonnie speech. " Merida's father seemed to be wiping a tear from his eye as he turned to face the room, raising his hand to encourage the continuing applause. "Lads, ye'r gang tae aff' tae wirk hard tae raise the bar efter that yin."
Clearly Dunbroch senior had already gotten well stuck into the whisky, his Scots so pronounced that it was becoming hard to follow for the likes of Jim and Wendy. Merida nodded approvingly at Elsa as the white-haired woman came back to sit beside her. She smiled warmly back to the redhead, just as she had when they'd first been introduced.
It was then that Merida remembered Elsa mentioning a meeting with her father earlier on in the week. With the added realisation that Elsa was in fact the director of Arendelle Solutions, Merida suddenly realised where that meeting would have taken place, and exactly what the Norwegian woman had been told about her.
"Och gods, na. Please na." She quietly prayed, suddenly mortified by visions of her father's informal meeting room. "Da, a'm aff tae murdurr ye."
Next to her, Jim and Elsa seemed completely oblivious to her distress as they watched a young man from across the room nervously make his way over to where Fergus was standing in the centre of the dance floor. The Dunbroch daughter found it hard to focus on the Toast to the Lassies and the one to the Laddies that followed, despite them being the usual highlight of the evening for her.
"A pint o' cider, please."
"Sure thing! Comin' richt up." The barman replied with a glass in his hand as he went to the relevant tap. He dodged past the bustle of his colleagues, fellow bar staff attending to the large crowd that was accumulating at the outlets. Merida watched as the pale liquid poured forth, a half-hearted smile on her face as she listened to one of the barmaids exchanging banter with a punter next to her. Above the chatter of the crowd, the speakers in the ballroom had started playing some recordings of Burns' more famous songs. The speeches were finished, the ceilidh band was getting set up, and the young redhead had found herself very much in need of a drink.
"Taa." She said as the man put the drink in front of her. She went to give him exact change, though after a moment's thought added a small tip. He had been very prompt after all.
Taking her beverage with her, she wandered over to an awning not far from the bar. She wasn't ready to go back to her seat just yet. She worried at her lip, tasting the fermented apple juice there.
"Whit's th' maiter wi' me th' nicht?" She muttered. She glanced at the crowd, spotting the tall McIntosh and MacGuffin in the queue. She should be chatting merrily alongside them, not moping in the corner. She looked back towards their table, shortly, before averting her eyes again. The two Norwegians were still there, presumably talking in their own tongue about the speeches while the others were away. She sighed. "Honestly..."
She hated feeling wound up like this without acting upon it. If ever she found something frustrating, her normal response was to confront it with her complaints and be done with it or look for some outlet that involved a lot of energy. Sure, the dancing would be starting up shortly, and boy did she feel ready to show them all how it was done but... If she couldn't figure out why she was feeling so out of sorts in the first place, even Scottish highland dancing wouldn't do the trick.
The young Dunbroch girl set her eyes upon one of the many portraits of Robert Burns hanging around them, surrounding curtains lit up in a dramatic display. It was a fairly plain ink drawing, simple shading but not without life. She was starting to find his wee quirk of a smile quite darn cheeky.
"Heh." The last time she'd felt such unjustified resentment for an inanimate picture was when she was sixteen. Damn, whatever it was bugging her had truly gotten under her skin if it was making her think back to that night.
It wasn't as though she was completely clueless as to what was irking her. The Scottish redhead felt embarrassed, tricked... worthless. All that because of a foreigner she had only met that evening: it just didn't make sense. It wasn't fair to Elsa. The Gyllenblom girl hadn't meant to make Merida feel that way. Merida liked the blonde: there was something fearless about her, a composure that rang true, something Merida felt was all too rare in this world. The redhead hated nothing more than the pretence of composure. Why hide one's fears? Why hold back if you clearly want to say something?
That'd be why Merida was feeling so out of sorts. There she was trying to maintain a façade as she worked out exactly how to come to terms with her inner turmoil. It was a façade the likes of which had led to a falling out between Elinor and her daughter. She hated it.
"Hey..." The frown on Merida's face soon vanished as she looked up to Wendy. The English girl had an earnest smile as she came to lean against the pillar beside her. "You seem quite distracted tonight. Normally you're always busy talking it up with the lads."
"Maybe a've caught a cold?" She shrugged, eyeing some of the smokers returning from the snowy outdoors. It was amazing how much white stuff could get stuck on some of the party-goers heads.
"We both know that's not true." Wendy smiled, but she was looking fixedly at a point by their table. "She seems to have made quite an impression on you. That's quite something."
"Wha? Who?" She tried to hide the squeak in her voice with a sip of her cider. Why did Wendy have to choose tonight to be so perceptive? The girl was normally too busy mothering the boys to pay Merida much heed.
"Elsa." Wendy in turn took a sip from her wine before looking at Merida. There seemed to be a twinkle of mirth in her eyes. Merida's cheeks were feeling the heat. "It's rare to find anyone who captures your respect so quickly. I'm sure Kristoff's quite chuffed."
"Wendy..." The growl with which the name came out was pretty threatening as growls go. Merida should know, being the elder sister to three wee devils. "Quit playing aroond, whit's that suppose tae mean?"
"Merida." Great, Wendy had her teaching assistant voice on. The redhead resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her friend. The brunette placed a beseeching hand against the bare skin of her arm. "What I'm saying is that I've only known you a couple of years now, but if there's one thing I know about you, it's that you are not easy to impress."
Ginger eyebrows scrunched together in confusion as Merida tried to process this. Drinks waiters snuck past them, trays either full of drinks or empties as the two girls looked into each other's eyes. Seeing that the redhead continued to be puzzled, Wendy sighed.
"Miss Dunbroch, renowned archery champion, crusher of hearts and scourge of bullies nationwide, can you honestly tell me that you don't hold yourself to a high standard? You always work hard to reach your goals. You set the bar high in whatever task you set your mind to and you hold others to that same standard. We notice when someone surprises you by somehow meeting it."
"Ah... No, ah'm..." It took Merida a long moment to find her words, loose bangs finding their way into her eyes. " How dae ye explain mah grades then? "
"Everything you set your mind to, Merida..." Dark blue met sky blue eyes. She did have a point. Merida had made no secret that she'd only chosen to do her course in Social Studies and Management to keep her mother happy. She'd pretty much succeeded on that point, good marks or no.
With a sigh she relented. "A'richt." A pause as she relaxed. A smile grew on her face as Wendy helped her put her conundrum in words. "A'm impressed."
And now that the word was out, suddenly it all began to make sense in her head. Her feelings of inadequateness vanished and the more manageable respect she'd felt before finding out Elsa's surname was back. There was still the nagging embarrassment of what her father would most certainly have told the Norwegian woman about her, but it was now a benign, what-can-ye-do resigned feeling that could be put aside. Warmth and relief filled the redhead with nothing but gratitude for her friend's reinforcing words.
"Feeling better now?" Wendy's shoulders relaxed. "Good. Now you can stop your moping and come reassure Jim and the rest. They thought you were still stewing over that joke the lad made talking about the lassies."
"Whit, that joke? But t'was hilarious!" There was a chipper note back in Merida's voice, and Wendy clearly grinned upon hearing it.
"Of course you would find it funny," the English girl's head shook in mock shame. "You tomboy."
" Aye, aye. Let's see who's th' fairest oan th' dancefloor th' nicht then, missy." The challenge was clear. If Merida were being perfectly honest with herself, she was starting to feel the heady mix of Whisky and Cider chipping away at her already weak restraint. Any competition had better watch out.
"I look forward to it." Wendy laughed. The brunette knew full well that she would have trouble keeping up at the best of times. And it sounded like the band was pretty much ready to start the first set too.
Hearing the sounds of fiddle and accordion amplify as the Burns' recordings faded away, Wendy's escort MacGuffin showed up to take her by the hand once they put their drinks down on the table. Merida quickly downed her pint. She put the empty glass down along with her clutch, a sharp thud sounding at her quick gesture. With great energy, the redhead waved to her friend and unfortunate victim for the first dance that night.
"Oy, Jimmie lad!" The young American looked startled as she bounded towards him. Fear, a rare emotion for him, gleamed in his eyes as her intentions became apparent. "Arr ye ready fur some proper dancin'?"
What little was left of the taming Elinor had imposed upon her daughter's hair was now gone, fiery locks flying wild and free. In her enthusiasm for dancing, she did not notice the confused look sent her way, by someone resolutely glued to their seat.
Icy blue eyes looked on with concern as the caller talked into their microphone.
To be continued...
In reply to Guest:
You are right to some degree, I am half Scottish and have been living in Scotland for over ten years now. This story's setting is drawing heavily on my personal experience of my home and places of work, and it is really quite a pleasure to indulge in it this much. I do need to do research too as I write this (anything Norway related but also for details about the Bard and such like - this chapter especially!) Research is fun, and it sometimes brings about new ideas one doesn't consider otherwise.
So thank you, and many thanks for the review!