Epilogue
My beloved Da,
So much has happened since last I held your hand and heard your voice. I am writing you this letter (which I will let tomorrow’s tide take out into the Solway) to tell you that while I have grieved you deeply, I have also done as you bid me.
Lucy is home, or rather, she is with me here in the cottage you intended for Maman. It has not been without hardship, but I believe in my heart that Lucy will someday find her peace.
As have I. Love’s loss took me to the most profound depths of darkness—for Jamie, for Lucy, for you and Maman—but it is finding love anew which has returned me to the light. Searching out and bringing Lucy home led me to the heart of my heart.
Oh Da, you would sigh and shake your head and pretend displeasure that I’ve fallen for another Englishman—another army officer, even (although that is well in his past).
But you would not mean it because you would see, as I do, that there can be no one who loves and cherishes me more.
He tends my heart ever so carefully with his own.
M’athair, you would find so much in him to admire.
He is steady and gentle and kind, mo gràdh, mo chridhe, Nathaniel.
He is often solemn; it is a challenge to tease a smile from him—although I do so often as I can because his smiles are all the more beautiful for being rare.
Every day I miss you and Maman. Jamie, too, for he was a good husband and a good man and there is love enough in the world to miss him even as I have found joy with Nathaniel.
I carry you each within my heart. In doing so, none of you will ever be truly lost to me. I understand that now, Da. And I have chosen happiness.
Your spideag beag sings daily once more.
Very soon it will be lullabies, when my own little one comes in another three months.
She will learn of her father’s heritage and mine so that both of our families may live on through her: that she is descended on her mother’s side from a proud Scots family and an old family of France, and on her father’s from Kentish oystermen and caretakers of the land.
We will teach her French so she will know her grandmother’s tongue and Gàidhlig, as you taught me long ago, so that she knows yours.
And I will teach her, too, to sing.
D’nighean ghràdhach / Your loving daughter,
Isobel Blackmore