Chapter 8

Welcome home Len

Elizabeth and Margaret Marchwood reappeared, now robed in long dark green velvet robes, each train held by a little girl, carefully carrying the precious burden. Elizabeth's had golden flowers on hers, while Margaret's were white. They walked side by side through the crowd, which parted and stood back to let them through.

"Mr Fraser," said Elizabeth, very properly, and to the quiet amusement of all the adults, "on behalf of all the Hamlet Club, and Queens past and present, we welcome you home."

"The Club would like you to accept this gift from us all, in recognition of your bravery," said Margaret, holding out a small gift wrapped in silver paper to him.

"Thank you, Hamlet Club and Queens," smiled Len, acknowledging the tribute without embarrassment. This was not the first time that grateful thanks had been conveyed to him and he had learned to accept it with dignity, no matter how little he might feel it was deserved.

"What was I to do, let Dr Hamilton drown?" he had said privately to Joan. "Any other fellow would have done the same. I just happened to be the nearest one."

"I am very glad to be home here with you all, and I look forward to the day that you can teach me how to do your beautiful dances." There was a great cheer at this, and the violin took up a tune at a nod from Elizabeth, Queen Buttercup. Margaret would take her turn at the violin shortly, for Rosalind could not be expected to play for long.

Joan and Len were seated to the side of the barn, with baby John's pram tucked in beside them. Roger and Rosalin were able to spend a few moments greeting them properly, and each being introduced to the other, before they were ushered to chairs near Joan and Len, with other older onlookers. Ivor Quellyn had also introduced himself to Roger and Rosalin, and conversed genially with them while the dancers went through their first dance. Rosalin was intrigued by the dancing, brought up as she had been in the Scottish dancing traditions.

After a few minutes, Roger nudged Rosalin, and spoke quietly to her. "Look at the person sitting next to Mrs Fraser. They could be sisters?"

Rosalin started when she saw the second woman with curly dark hair, so similar to Joan Fraser. This must be the mother, also Mrs Fraser, that Aunt Rosamund had called Jandy Mac. But the resemblance that Rosalin noticed was not just to Joan.

Surely there was a look of Aunt Effie when she was younger? A brightness in the laugh, the shape of the face and Aunt Effie's characteristic turn of the head? And the dark hair.

Rosalin felt a strange mixture of dismay and interest. Was there a stranger who belonged to her family, whose history she knew nothing of? What if she were like the man from Canada, Jeffrey Macdonald, whose visit had created such a strain, and would want to pursue some claim on the family?

There had been an unpleasant time for Rosalin's great aunt Aunt Kirsty when her nephew, Jeffrey Macdonald, Rosalin's uncle, had visited from Canada six years ago. He claimed that a letter was in existence, in which the current Earl's grandfather granted ownership of Vairy Castle to his first wife, Phemie Macdonald Kane and her descendants. That marriage was short-lived due to her death in childbirth. The existence of the letter was proven, but such a bequest was not possible under the terms of inheritance, and so the letter had no legal value. The Canadian, whom Rosalin could not bring herself to call Uncle, had returned to Canada empty handed and she hoped would never come back again.

Rosalin remembered the conversation with Aunt Rosamund a few weeks before, when she had struggled to remember what the nickname Jandy Mac stood for. Could there be a connection between this Jandy Mac, and Aunt Effie? And to Aunt Kirsty, and the Earl himself? And to Rosalin herself?

Rosalin knew, and had told Roger's cousin Patricia, that she had had an uncle who had gone out to Australia, and married a Fraser girl, an emigrant to Australia from Vairy. Incredible as it seemed to her, perhaps this Jandy Mac was somehow related to that uncle?

"Perhaps I have a cousin or aunt I never knew," thought Rosalin. "It would be nice to have another relation, more than one, still living. She looks kind. They both do!" She realized that, if Jandy Mac was her relative, then so were Joan and small John. The prospect of being related to young Mrs Fraser was very appealing, for they already had the Countess in common as a friend. How surprised the Countess would be!

"How can I ask her about her family?" asked Rosalin of her husband Roger that evening. "I can't just walk up to her and say, I think we may be related."

"Why not?" said Roger. "But you deal with this your own way, my girl. Perhaps when we visit the Frasers tomorrow a way will become clear to you."

"Don't you see, though," said Rosalin, "that if I am related to them, then they may also be related to Uncle Geoffrey and Rosamund? I am sure if Rosamund already knew that, she would have mentioned it. There may be some reason why it has never been discussed that we don't understand."

Roger looked thoughtful; this was an aspect of the situation that had not occurred to him. He had been friends with the folk of Kentisbury Castle for a long time, and no Australian connection had ever been referred to.

"Perhaps you are right to take it slowly," he said. "But they are all such great friends. I can't believe it would be anything other than a source of pleasure to realise they are related."

A smiling Queen Elizabeth, or Buttercup, came to invite Rosalin to join a longways dance, and, hastily changing her shoes, Rosalin spent the next hour enjoying the novelty of the English dances. Her own experience of Scottish reels meant that she picked up many of the dances quickly, and Roger watched with increasing pleasure as her light figure and golden hair moved among the crowds of dancers.

The next morning, a tour of the Abbey was undertaken in the company of a girl who wore a long white woolen robe, and wore a badge titled "Abbey Guardian". She introduced herself as Rachel, and Roger and Rosalin followed her through the buildings of the Abbey, and then down through well-lit passages into the crypt where they could see the grave of the old lay brother, Ambrose, who had saved many features that belonged to the church, during the dissolution of the monasteries, and ended his days in the old gate-house. They heard of the discoveries of the tunnels, the bells, the tithe-barn, the jewels and plate of the cathedral, and, as friends of the family, more personal stories of the Abbey family. As with all previous visitors of sensitivity, the Abbey began to weave its spell of welcome on them.