“Mrs. Blackwood,” he began once we were seated, “your husband came to my firm in 1985 with very specific instructions about a bequest that was to be delivered to you under particular circumstances.”
“1985?” I repeated. “That was nearly forty years ago. What kind of bequest requires four decades of waiting?”
“The kind,” he said, folding his hands, “that depends on the completion of exactly forty years of marriage. Your husband was quite specific about the timing.”
I felt a strange chill as his words triggered a memory I’d buried so deeply I’d almost forgotten it existed.
Suddenly, I was twenty‑eight again, standing in our tiny first apartment just outside Boston, having one of those silly newlywed conversations about the future. We were surrounded by cardboard boxes and hand‑me‑down furniture, the soundtrack of our life a mix of traffic, distant sirens, and the low hum of our rattling window AC.
“If you can stand being married to me for forty years,” Bart had said, grinning that mischievous grin that first attracted me back when we met on an American college campus, “I’ll give you something impossible to imagine.”
I’d laughed, told him he was ridiculous, and said that forty years felt like an impossibly long time when we’d only been married for five minutes. We never mentioned that conversation again, and I’d assumed he’d forgotten it.
Apparently, he hadn’t.
“Mr. Thornfield,” I said slowly, “are you telling me Bart remembered some silly bet we made as newlyweds?”
“Mrs. Blackwood,” he replied, “your husband never forgot anything that truly mattered to him. And from what I’ve seen, this particular promise mattered a great deal.”
He opened his briefcase and withdrew three items: an ornate golden key that looked like it belonged in a medieval castle; a sealed envelope with my name written in Bart’s careful, old‑fashioned handwriting; and a smaller envelope that appeared to contain an address.
“Your husband’s instructions were very specific,” he said. “If you completed exactly forty years of marriage—which you did, Mrs. Blackwood, precisely eleven days before his passing—I was to give you these items and this information.”
I stared at the key. It was heavy and obviously antique, with intricate Celtic knotwork carved along its length and small jewels embedded in its head.
“What does this key open?” I whispered.
“I believe,” he said, “that the letter will explain everything. However, your husband insisted I emphasize one particular instruction. You are to handle this matter entirely alone. He specifically requested that you not involve your children or any other family members in whatever you discover.”
“Not involve Perl and Oilia?” I repeated, stunned. “That seems strange. We’ve always been a close family. We raised them here in the States. We tell each other everything.”
“I’m simply conveying your husband’s explicit instructions,” he said gently. “He was quite emphatic on this point.”
After Mr. Thornfield left, I sat in Bart’s favorite armchair—the one by the living‑room window that looked out on our quiet American cul‑de‑sac—holding the mysterious key and staring at the envelope containing his final message to me.
Forty years of marriage had taught me that my husband was capable of elaborate surprises, but this felt different, heavier, more significant than his usual romantic gestures.
At last, I opened the letter with trembling fingers.
“My dearest Rose,” it began in his familiar hand, “if you’re reading this, it means you kept your end of our bargain and stayed married to me for exactly forty years. It also means I’m no longer alive to see your face when you discover what I’ve been planning for nearly four decades.
“Do you remember our conversation in 1985 about impossible gifts? You laughed when I promised to give you something unimaginable if you could tolerate being my wife for forty years. Rose, I meant every word of that promise, and I’ve spent the better part of our marriage making it come true.
“The address in the second envelope will lead you to something I’ve prepared for your future. A future I hoped we’d share together in our retirement years, maybe splitting time between America and Scotland, but which I now realize you may have to enjoy without me.
“Rose, this is perhaps the most important instruction I will ever give you: Go to Scotland alone. Do not tell Perl and Oilia about this letter or what you discover there. I know it seems harsh, but trust me when I tell you that our children’s love for you is genuine, but their interest in what I’ve prepared might not be.
“Use the key. Enter the castle. And remember that you have always been my queen, even when you didn’t know you deserved a crown.
“All my love, always and forever,
Bartholomew.”
I read the letter three times before opening the second envelope, which contained an address in the Scottish Highlands:
Raven’s Hollow Castle
Glen Nevis
Inverness‑shire
A castle.
Bart had casually mentioned a castle in his letter, as if we were talking about a rental cabin on a lake in Maine. But we had never owned property outside of our modest American home. We had never had the kind of money that made international real estate even a remote possibility.
Yet the key in my hand was real, heavy, and cold. The letter was in Bart’s unmistakable handwriting. The address looked legitimate enough. I could look up Raven’s Hollow Castle online and see whether it existed.
That’s exactly what I did.
I spent the rest of the evening at the kitchen table with my laptop, researching the property. I discovered that Raven’s Hollow Castle was, in fact, real: a sixteenth‑century fortress in the Scottish Highlands that had been restored to its original grandeur.
The photographs took my breath away. A magnificent stone structure with towers and battlements, gardens that looked like something out of a fairy tale, all set against dramatic Highland mountains. But according to every website I found, the castle was privately owned and not open to the public. There was no information about who owned it, when it had been purchased, or how one might arrange to visit.
As I prepared for bed that night in Connecticut, I made a decision that would have seemed impossible that same morning. I was going to Scotland to discover what Bart had been planning for forty years. And I was going to follow his instructions about keeping the journey secret from our children.
Some promises, apparently, were worth keeping, even when the person who made them was no longer alive to see them fulfilled.
Part 2
