Fair Is the Rose (35 page)

R
everend Gordon here tae see ye, sir.”

Eliza curtsied in the open doorway of the spence, then retreated toward the kitchen while Leana escorted their visitor into the small room.

“What’s this you’ve brought me?” Lachlan said in a gruff voice. “ ’Twas a pot of tea I called for, not a minister.”

Leana smiled, as though he were teasing the reverend instead of simply being rude. “Eliza has gone for the tray, Father.” She pressed her damp hands against the folds of her skirts. “Kindly show Reverend Gordon to his chair, and I’ll be glad to pour tea for you both.”

The men sat without a word. Their upholstered chairs were drawn close to the meager hearth, a small table perched between them. “Now then, Mr. McBride.” The minister spoke first, his face much like the day’s weather: cold and gray. “I’ll not stay long, but I do have an important matter to discuss with you.”

“Aye, so Jamie mentioned.” Her father eyed Reverend Gordon with suspicion. Jamie had only told him to expect the minister to call. Though Lachlan missed very little that went on beneath his roof, of late he’d been preoccupied with matters at Edingham Farm and had not pressed Jamie for further details of the minister’s visit.
Thanks be to God
.

Eliza arrived with her tray full of tinkling china cups and saucers and gingerly placed them on the table. “Sirs.” She curtsied again, then stepped into the hall while Leana poured two cups of steaming black tea.

“I’ll leave you gentlemen to your business.” Leana joined Eliza in the hall, longing to find some reason to tarry outside the closed door. “I’d give anything to be a book on his shelf just now,” Leana whispered.
How many times had she leaned against those door panels, eavesdropping on her father? But she was older now, a respectable wife and mother. One did not do such things.

Eliza’s dimples showed. “I canna turn into a book, but I can be a housemaid dustin’ in the hall. Ye see for yerself how it needs a rag taken tae it.” She flapped her white dust cloth and gave her mistress a saucy wink. “Tae
hearken
at the door is a maid’s duty, ye ken.”

“Not this time.” Leana cast a wary glance at the spence. Better not to have anyone listening to what might be said this day. “You’ll please me most if you’ll leave the gentlemen to their tea.”

“If ye say so.” Eliza, plainly disappointed, wandered toward the stair, humming to herself.

Leana turned toward the kitchen. Though she would not eavesdrop, she’d not venture far either. She found Neda by the hearth stirring a pot of muslin kale for supper. Cabbage, barley, and onions swirled round her spoon in a fragrant broth. Leana had told her briefly of the situation that morning, confident the woman would keep the news to herself. “Where are the others?” Leana asked, for the house was quiet.

“If ye mean yer Jamie, he’s hard at work in the pastures wi’ Duncan. The air may feel like winter, but the ewes will be lambin’ afore the month is oot.” Neda tossed a handful of salt into the pot, then brushed off the last grains on her apron. “Annabel’s busy wi’ Ian in the nursery, practicin’ her readin’. As tae yer sister, she’s nappin’ in her room. The puir lass is wabbit, and ’Tis but four o’ the clock.”

“Aye. Dr. Gilchrist said she’d be some time getting her strength back.” Leana said no more. Seldom did she think of Rose’s health and not remember what else the surgeon had said:
unable to bear children
. She could not imagine a crueler sentence levied on a woman’s soul. True to her word, Leana had not told anyone, nor would she. God alone held sway in such matters.

Leana spent a few moments in the stillroom tidying her shelves, then returned to find Eliza’s anxious face at the kitchen door. “Mistress McKie! D’ye not hear? Yer faither is nigh tae shoutin’ at the reverend!” Her hands twisted round her apron strings. “Should we do somethin’? For I fear they’ll come tae blows.”

Neda left her spoon in the soup pot and stepped closer to the doorway, her feet soundless on the brick floor. “Ye kenned it might come tae this, lass.”

“Aye,” Leana confessed. “But I prayed it would not.”

The spence door was flung open with a mighty crash of wood against plaster, causing the copper pots to sway from the kitchen beams.

“Leana!” her father shouted with vehemence.

“Coming.” She gathered her skirts and all but ran down the hall. Reverend Gordon was nowhere in sight, though she heard the sound of hoofbeats on the lawn. Her father was still withindoors, pacing the floor of the spence. “What is it, Father?”

Lachlan’s neck was so swollen inside his collar he could barely get the words out. “I have just been informed that my labors on your behalf January last were for naught.”

“I see.”

“
Do you?
” His teeth were clenched hard enough to snap a stick. “Maybe you do, Leana, and maybe you don’t.”

“Oh.” It seemed the safest thing to say until she learned what else Reverend Gordon might have told him. “What’s to be done, Father?”

“You will wake your sleeping sister, call your husband in from the flocks, and meet me here in the spence. At once.”

At Auchengray news traveled through door cracks like smoke from a fire. By the time Leana informed Neda and reached the door to her sister’s room, Annabel was already splashing cool water on her mistress’s face.

“Rose,” Leana said softly, helping her out of bed. “Father has been told the situation, though ’Tis not clear how much he kens.” She guided Rose down the stair and aimed her in the direction of the spence. “Say nothing until we join you, dearie.” Leana flew out the front door and headed for the byre. The damp ground soaked her calfskin slippers, and a chilling breeze knifed through her linen gown.

Jamie was already heading her way, waving his bonnet at her. “Neda rang the bell,” he explained. “I take it Reverend Gordon has arrived.”

“And departed. In a huff, I’d say.” She took her husband’s arm and walked with him toward the house, past the overgrown hazel plucked
clean last autumn. “Father is in an
ill-scrapit
mood, demanding to see the three of us without delay.”

Jamie kissed her cheek before they crossed the threshold. “Remember, this clerical error is not our doing, Leana. Do not let your father convince you otherwise.”

When they reached the spence, the tea tray was gone. Three wooden chairs were lined up with their backs against her father’s box bed. Rose sat in one, clutching the sides of the chair and looking faint.

Lachlan paced back and forth before the hearth like a snarling dog tethered to a leash. He stopped long enough to point to the chairs. “Sit.”

Leana and Jamie did so, their hands discreetly joined beneath a fold of her skirts. The three of them waited in agonizing silence until Leana started to say something and Jamie tugged on her hand. A warning.

Lachlan planted his feet in front of the grate and folded his arms across his embroidered waistcoat. “I have only now learned of the kirk session’s ‘unfortunate oversight,’ as Reverend Gordon called it. All these months I thought my testimony and my silver had covered your sins. But nae. They’ve been dragged into the cold light of a winter’s day for all the parish to see.”

“That’s not true, Father,” Leana protested. “The whole parish has not been told …” She stopped, realizing what she’d done.

“So.” Her father pinned his gaze on her. “This oversight is not news to my family, eh? I thought as much. The good reverend was not so forthcoming with information as you, Leana. What else do you ken of this affair?”

Jamie answered instead. “He told me first, Uncle, for I had the most at stake.”

“
Och!
” Lachlan turned on him, livid. “Is my silver not at stake? Wasted on the poor, who do nothing to better themselves. And my name, is that of no value? Do you think I relish the thought of the elders laughing up their coat sleeves at this bonnet laird, whose daughter and nephew have lived without the benefit of the kirk’s blessing for more than a year and given him a
bystart
for a grandson?”

“Enough!” Jamie surged to his feet. “Ian is my lawful son. Leana is my loving wife. By habit and repute we are well wed.” His words struck
like hammers, ringing through the room. “We will fix this oversight come the first of March, and we will wipe the dust of Auchengray off our feet come May.”

Oh, Jamie
. Leana bowed her head, lest her relief show on her face.

After a weighty silence, Lachlan spoke in a voice that shook with unspent anger. “Do not make an enemy of me, Nephew.”

“I would make nothing of you.” Jamie’s voice was even, a cold blade against Lachlan’s heated words. “Reverend Gordon assured me you will not attend the kirk session. Our testimonies—Leana’s, Rose’s, and mine—are the only ones required.”

Lachlan’s chuckle was an ugly sound. “Aye? And who will provide the silver?”

“We have no need of silver,” Leana replied.

Rose suddenly sat up straight, like a marionette on strings. “The Buik says, ‘the tongue of the just is as choice silver.’ If I speak the truth, is that not of more value than coins?”

Ignoring her, Lachlan lashed out at Leana instead. “And do you ken the rest of your sister’s proverb, lass?” His voice rose. “Well, do you?”

Aye, she did. “The heart of the wicked is little worth.”

“And would you call me wicked, Daughter?”

Leana did not bend beneath his anger. “ ’Tis what you called me not long ago: ill-deedie. However wicked my behavior may have been on my wedding night, I have freely confessed my sins before God. And before Jamie and Rose. And before you, Father.”

Lachlan’s eyes, dead until now, sprang to life. “See that you don’t confess those sins to the kirk session, or you’ll be spending the Sabbath on the stool of repentance.”

He turned toward her sister. “The only one innocent that night was Rose. It is she who will testify first. And here is what you will say, Rose. For I will not have you spin a different tale than the one I told January last, or I will appear to have given false testimony. The kirk session does not tolerate liars. I care not which woman ends up in my nephew’s bed, but I care very much that I not end up in Dumfries standing before the synod. You will tell the session what I direct you to tell them. Nothing more.”

Rose spoke in a voice as small as a child’s. “What am I to say?”

Lachlan counted each point on his blunt fingers, making sure Rose heard every word. “You will tell them that you never loved your cousin, James McKie. That you wanted him to marry Leana. That you agreed to the wedding out of obligation. That you changed your mind and ran off to Twyneholm. And that you intended your sister to marry Jamie in your stead.”

“But, Father—”

“
That
is what I told them, and
that
is what you will say. Five points, Rose. Repeat them. All of them.”

Her voice shaking, Rose did so, counting on her own hand. “But, Father, ’Tis not the truth—”

“It is
my
truth!” he snapped. “If you hope to marry well someday, you will abide by my wishes, Rose. Otherwise I have a long list of decrepit auld farmers in this parish who’d pay good silver for a bonny wife like you.”

Leana shuddered, thinking of Fergus McDougal, an ill-mannered bonnet laird from the neighboring parish who’d buried his first wife, then appeared at Auchengray two Octobers past looking for a new mother for his children. If her father had had his way, Leana would be well married to Fergus, with his stained teeth and protruding middle, and bearing him more children.

Lachlan McBride’s threat was not an idle one, and his daughters knew it well.

He pointed his finger at Jamie now. “You will be next to testify, Nephew, for yours is the other name that appears in the kirk session record.”

Jamie thrust out his chin, daring him. “And I suppose you have words you propose to put in my mouth as well.”

“Only if you want Leana. And your son. If you do not, say whatever you like. But if you would keep my daughter and grandson as your own, you will repeat what I said on your behalf, which was this: When you realized that Rose did not love you nor want you for her husband and that her older sister was only too happy to join you at the bride stool, you married Leana instead with Rose’s blessing.”

“Forgive me, Uncle,” Jamie said, his words rife with sarcasm, “but how many points was that?”

Lachlan glared at him. “Count them yourself, lad.”

Leana stood as well, if only to draw upon Jamie’s warmth and strength. “And then I will speak to the kirk session, Father.”

“Aye, you will. Yours is the most important testimony of all, Leana, for you have the most to lose: your husband, your son, and your reputation. Listen carefully then. I said that you loved Jamie from the first hour he arrived. That you were certain he cared for you. That your sister came to you, weeping, confessing that she did not love Jamie. That she begged you to marry him instead. And so you did. Say no more than that, Leana.”

“I’ve no need to repeat it,” she murmured. “I’ll not forget what you said.” Leana bit her tongue before a snippet from a psalm rose to her lips—
The wicked plotteth against the just
—knowing that her own sins did not allow her to judge the sins of others.

Lachlan turned his back on them to pour a dram of whisky, then pointed toward the door with his pewter cup, as if he’d grown weary of their company. “I’ve had enough drama for one evening. Tell Neda I’ll take my supper alone in here.”

“Alone you shall be,” Leana said, slipping an arm through the crook of Jamie’s elbow. “For we shall be together. And come the first of March, we shall speak the truth.”

Forty

I must not say that she was true,
Yet let me say that she was fair;
And they, the lovely face who view,
They should not ask if truth be there.

M
ATTHEW
A
RNOLD

A
full moon rose in the eastern sky that first evening in March. In Reverend Gordon’s brightly lit dining room a wood fire was ablaze on the hearth, and candles shone round the room, holding the darkness at bay.