Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (25 page)

“Am I to deduce that you’re actually planning to start a partisan band of your very own?” I asked, trying to keep it light.

“Oh,” he said, in a similar tone, “I thought I might. Nay so much for the raiding and killing, mind—it’s been a long time since I rode in a raid,” he added, with a distinct note of nostalgia. “For protection on the Ridge, though. And then…as the war goes on, well…it might happen that a wee gang might be of use here or there.” This last was added in such a casual manner that I sat up straight and gave him a narrow look.

“A gang? You want to start a
gang
?”

He looked surprised at that.

“Aye. Had ye not heard that word before, Sassenach?”

“I have,” I said, and sipped from the cup of wine, in hopes of inducing calm. “But I didn’t think
you
would have.”

“Well, of course I have,” he said, lifting a brow at me. “It’s a Scottish word, no?”

“It is?”

“Aye. It’s just the men ye gang oot with, Sassenach.
Slàinte.
” He took the cup from me, lifted it in brief salute, and drained it.

MANDY AND I STOOD
on either side of the table—she standing on the bench—looking down into the small yellow bowl between us with intense concentration.

“
How
long, Grannie?”

“Ten minutes,” I replied, and glanced at the silver filigree chiming watch that Jenny had lent me. “It’s only been two. You can sit down; it won’t happen any faster just because we’re watching.”

“Jes it will.” She made this pronouncement with a calm confidence that made me smile. Seeing that, she tossed her head and said, “Jemmy says you gots to watch hard or it gets away.” Realizing that she’d taken her eyes off the bowl, she thrust her head forward and glowered sternly into it, forbidding the yeast to slither over the side and crawl away.

“I don’t think he meant yeast, sweetheart. Probably rabbits.” Still, I couldn’t bring myself to turn away. I sniffed the air over the bowl, and Mandy did the same, with great vigor.

“I’m sure the yeast is good,” I said. “It smells…yeasty.”

“YEEeeestee,” she said, nodding agreement and snorting.

“If it wasn’t still active—still good—” I explained, “it would smell bad.”

I’d wait the full ten minutes, so I could show her the foam that active yeast makes when you mix it with warm sugar-water, but I was sure in my own mind that the yeast was all right—and felt relieved on that account. One
could
make raised biscuits with soda ash, but it was a good deal more complicated.

“We’ll put some of the yeast in milk,” I said, spooning a large dollop from the small crock in which I kept the starter into a clean one. “To make more for next time.”

Jamie’s head appeared in the doorway.

“Will ye lend me the wee lass for a minute, Sassenach?”

“Yes,” I replied promptly, grabbing Mandy’s hand an inch away from the full—and open—sack of flour on the table. “Grandpa needs you to help him, sweetheart.”

“Okay,” she said affably, and stuffed one of the raisin cookies we’d made earlier into her mouth before I could stop her. “Whaffoont, Gmp?”

“I need ye to sit on something for a moment.” Jamie’s long, straight nose twitched at the scent of butter and raisins, and his hand snaked out toward the tray.

“All right,” I said, resigned. “
One.
But eat it in here, for God’s sake; if the boys see you with that, they’ll be in here like a swarm of locusts.”

“Wasslocst?”

“Mandy! Have you got
another
cookie in your mouth?”

Mandy’s eyes bulged as she made a heroic effort and swallowed most of what was in her mouth.

“No,” she said, spraying crumbs. Jamie finished his own cookie and swallowed, somewhat more neatly.

“That’s good, Sassenach,” he said, nodding at the tray. “Ye’ll make a decent cook yet.” He grinned at me, took Mandy by the hand, and headed for the door.

Lacking anything like a cookie jar—could I make one? I wondered. Doubtless Brianna could, once she’d resurrected her kiln—I shoveled the fresh cookies into the smaller kettle and put a large plate on top, then picked up two of the big river stones we kept by the hearth to use as bed warmers when the truly cold weather came and put them on top of the plate. It wouldn’t deter the boys, but it would keep insects and—maybe—marauding raccoons out. The kitchen walls were sound, but there was no glass in most of the windows as yet.

I gazed thoughtfully at the kettle for a bit, envisioning the possibilities, and then lugged it down the hall to the surgery, where I shut it up in the cupboard where I kept distilled spirits, bottles of saline solution, and other items unlikely to attract anyone’s interest. I heard Jamie and Mandy out on the front porch, talking, and went to the front door to see what they were up to.

Jamie was on his knees, scraping the wood of what was clearly meant to be a toilet seat—Mandy-sized. “Try that,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “Sit on it, I mean.”

Mandy giggled, but did.

“Whatsis for, Grampa?”

“Ken the wee mouse that got into your room last week?”

“Jes. You caughts it in your hand. Did it bites you, Grampa?” she asked with sympathy.

“Nay,
a leannan,
it ran up my sleeve and jumped out my collar and made off across the landing and into our room and hid under your grannie’s good shoes. D’ye no remember that?”

Her small brow furrowed in concentration.

“Jes. You scweamed.”

“Aye. Well, now and again we have wee mice—and other wee beasties—who run to hide in the privy, if something’s frightened them outside. Now, such things mostly willna hurt ye”—he raised a finger at her—“but they might give ye a start. And if one does, I dinna want ye to loose your hold and fall down through the hole into the privy.”

“Eeeeyewww!” Mandy said, giggling.

“Dinna laugh,” Jamie said, smiling. “Your uncle William fell into a privy some years ago, and wasna best pleased about it.”

“Who’s Unca Willam?”

“Your mam’s brother. Ye’ve no met him yet.”

Mandy’s small black brows drew together in a frown.

He glanced briefly up at me and lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Nay point in not talkin’ about him,” he said to me. “Likely we’ll see him again, before too long.”

“Sure about that, are you?” I said dubiously. True, there hadn’t been any open acrimony the last time Jamie and William had met in the flesh, but there hadn’t been any indication that William had reached a sense of resignation regarding the circumstances of his birth, either.

“I am,” Jamie said, eyes on the hole he was drilling. “He’ll come to see about Frances.”

I heard a tiny intake of breath behind me and glanced round to see Fanny, who had come down the trail from the garden, a basket full of greenery on her arm. Her lovely face had gone pale and her eyes quite round, fixed on Jamie.

“Will he—you think he’ll…come?” she said. “Here? To see me?” Her voice rose and cracked a little on the last word.

Jamie looked at her for a moment over his shoulder, then nodded.

“I’d come back, Frances,” he said simply. “So will he.”

I WENT BACK
to the kitchen to check the yeast. Sure enough, there was a dirty-looking foam on the surface of the water—and the watch indicated that it had been eleven minutes. Checking the ingredients for the biscuits, though, I discovered that some miscreant had eaten all the butter from the kitchen crock and we had no lard. No one else was in the house; Jamie and Mandy were still chatting on the porch. Time enough for me to nip up to the springhouse and fetch enough cream to churn more butter while the biscuit dough was rising.

I was making my way slowly along the path from the springhouse, carrying two heavy pails of cream-laden milk, when I saw a woman approaching the house. She was tall, with a determined step, and wore a black dress with a broad-brimmed straw hat that she held with one hand to prevent it sailing away on the breeze.

Jamie had disappeared, probably to fetch a tool, but Mandy was still on the porch, sitting on her new toilet seat and singing to Esmeralda. She paid no attention to the woman—a more elderly lady than I had thought from her stick-straight posture and easy gait; closer to, I could see the lines in her face, and the gray hair showing at her temples beneath the cap she wore under her hat.

“Where is your father, child?” she demanded, stopping in front of Mandy.

“I dunno,” Mandy replied. “This is Esmeralda,” she said, holding up her doll.

“I wish to speak with your father.”

“Okay,” Mandy replied amiably, and resumed singing. “Ferra JACuh, Ferra JACuh, dormi
vooo
…”

“Stop that,” the woman said sharply. “Look at me.”

“Why?”

“You are a very impertinent child and your father should beat you.”

Mandy went very red in the face and scrambled to her feet, standing on her new seat.

“You go away!” she said. “I fwush you down the toilet!” She slapped her hand at the air, miming a handle. “WOOOSH!”

“What in the name of perdition do you mean by that, you wicked child?” The woman’s face was growing rather red, too. I had stopped in fascination, but now set down the buckets, feeling that I had better take a hand before things escalated. Too late.

“I put you in the toilet and I fwush you like POOP!” Mandy shouted, stamping her feet. Quick as a snake, the woman’s hand shot out and cracked against Mandy’s cheek.

There was a split second of shocked silence and then a number of things happened at once. I lunged toward the porch, tripped over one of the buckets, and fell flat on the path in a deluge of milk, Mandy let out a shriek that could have been heard as far as the wagon road, and Jamie popped out of the front door like the Demon King in a pantomime.

He grabbed Mandy up in one arm, leapt off the porch, and was nose-to-nose with the woman before I had even got to my knees.

“Leave my house,” he said, in the sort of calm voice that made it clear the only other option was instant death.

To her credit, the lady wasn’t backing down. She snatched off her broad black hat, the better to glare at him.

“The girl spoke rudely to me, sir, and I will not have it! Evidently no one has sought to discipline her properly. No wonder.” Her gaze raked him scornfully up and down. Mandy had stopped shrieking but was sobbing, her face buried in Jamie’s shirtfront.

“Well, speaking of rudeness,” I said mildly, wringing out my wet apron. “I don’t believe we have the honor of your acquaintance, do we?” I wiped a hand on the side of my skirt and extended it. “I’m Claire Fraser.”

Her face didn’t lose its expression of outrage, but it froze. She didn’t say a word but backed away from me, one step at a time. Jamie hadn’t moved, other than to pat Mandy comfortingly; his face was as fixed and stark as hers.

She reached the edge of the path, stopped dead, and lifted her chin toward Jamie.

“You are all,” she said evenly, sweeping her hat in an arc that encompassed me, Jamie, Mandy, and the house, “undoubtedly going to Hell.” With which pronouncement, she tossed a small package onto the porch, turned her back upon us, and sailed away like a bird of ill omen.

“WHO THE DEVIL
was that?” Jamie asked.

“Da Wicked Witch,” Mandy answered promptly. Her face was still red, and her lower lip pushed out as far as it would go. “I
hates
her!”

“Quite possibly,” I said. I bent and gingerly picked up the small package. It was wrapped in oiled silk, tied with an odd-looking cord, with a number of extraneous knots. I lifted it to my nose and sniffed cautiously.

Even through the murky scent of the oiled silk, the bitter smell of quinine was strong enough that I could taste it at the back of my mouth.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I said, looking at Jamie in wonder. “She’s brought me Jesuit bark.”

“Well, I did tell ye, Sassenach, that if ye mentioned your need of it to Roger Mac and Brianna, likely ye’d get some. And in that case,” he said slowly, looking at the direction in which our visitor had disappeared, “I think perhaps yon woman is maybe Mrs. Cunningham.”