Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (53 page)

“Come sit down with me inside for a moment, will you, Fanny?” Not waiting for acquiescence, I beckoned her to follow me back to the house. I pushed aside the canvas sheet that was substituting for the front door of our emergent house and led the way into the cavernous space of the kitchen. The canvas covering the door stirred gently with the sound of sails, and the space had a soothing dimness, broken only by light from the open back door and the two windows that looked out onto the well and the garden path.

We had a table and benches, but in addition there were two serviceable three-legged stools, one rather decrepit wooden chair that Maggie MacAllan had given me in payment for midwifing the birth of her granddaughter, two small kegs of salt fish, and several packing cases that hadn’t yet been broken down for their lumber, whose presence increased the ambient illusion of being in the hold of a ship under sail. I motioned Fanny to one stool and took the other, sighing with the pleasure of taking the weight off my feet.

Fanny sat, too, looking mildly apprehensive, and I smiled, in hopes of reassuring her.

“You really needn’t worry about William,” I said. “He’s a very resourceful young man. He’s just…a bit confused, I think. And maybe angry, but I’m sure he’ll get over that soon.”

“Oh,” Fanny said slowly, “you mean nobody told him that Mr. Fraser is his father, but then he found out?” She frowned at her clasped hands, then looked up at me. “I think I’d be angry, too. But why is Mr. Fraser angry? Did he give William away?”

“Ah…not exactly.” I looked at Fanny in some concern. Within a very few minutes, without knowing it, she’d managed to touch on a good many of the family secrets, including the very hot potato of my relations with Lord John.

“Mr. Fraser was a Jacobite—do you know what that means?”

She nodded uncertainly.

“The Jacobites were supporters of James Stuart, and fought against the King of England,” I explained. “They lost that war.” A hollow place opened under my ribs as I spoke. So few words for such a shattering of so very many lives.

“Mr. Fraser went to prison afterward; he wasn’t able to take care of William. Lord John was his friend, and he raised William as his son, because neither of them thought that Mr. Fraser would ever be released, and Lord John thought that he would never have children of his own.” I caught the distant echo of Frank’s advice, like a spider’s whisper behind the empty hearth:
Always stick to the truth, as far as possible…

“Was Lord John wounded?” Fanny asked. “In the war?”

“Wounded—oh, because he couldn’t have children, you mean? I don’t know—he was certainly wounded, though.” I’d seen his scars. I cleared my throat. “Let me tell you something, Fanny. About myself.”

Her eyes widened in curiosity. They were a soft light brown gone almost black as her pupils went large in the shadows of the kitchen.

“I fought in a war, too,” I said. “Not the same war; another one, in a different country—before I met either Mr. Fraser or Lord John. I was a—healer; I took care of wounded men, and I spent a lot of time among soldiers, and in bad places.” I took a breath, fragments of those times and places coming back. I knew the memories must show on my face, and I let them.

“I’ve seen very bad things,” I said simply. “I know you have, too.”

Her chin trembled slightly and she looked away, her soft mouth drawing in on itself. I reached out slowly and touched her shoulder.

“You can say anything to me,” I said, with slight emphasis on “anything.” “You don’t ever have to tell me—or Mr. Fraser—anything that you don’t want to. But if there are things that you want to talk about—your sister, maybe, or anything else—you can. Anyone in the family—me, Mr. Fraser, Brianna, or Mr. MacKenzie…You can tell any of us anything you need to. We won’t be shocked—”
Actually, we probably would be,
I thought,
but no matter.
“And perhaps we can help, if you’re troubled about anything. But—”

She looked up at that, instantly alert, unsettling me a little. This child had had a lot of experience in detecting and interpreting tones of voice, probably as a matter of survival.

“But,” I repeated firmly, “not everyone who lives on the Ridge has had such experiences, and many of them have never met anyone who has. Most of them have lived in small villages in Scotland, many of them aren’t educated. They
would
be shocked, perhaps, if you told them very much about…where you lived. How you and your sister—”

“They’ve never met whores?” she said, and blinked. “I think some of the men must have.”

“Doubtless you’re right,” I said, trying to keep my grip on the conversation. “But it’s the women who talk.”

She nodded soberly. I could see a thought come to her; she looked away for an instant, blinked, then looked back at me, a thoughtful squint to her eyes.

“What?” I said.

“Mrs. MacDonald’s mother says you’re a witch,” she replied. “Mrs. MacDonald tried to make her stop, when she saw I was listening, but the old lady doesn’t stop talking about anything, ever, except when she’s eating.”

I’d met Janet MacDonald’s mother, Grannie Campbell, once or twice, and was not overly surprised to hear this.

“I don’t suppose she’s the only one,” I said, a little tersely. “But I’m suggesting that perhaps you should be careful about what you say to people outside the family about your life in Philadelphia.”

She nodded, accepting what I’d said.

“It doesn’t matter that Grannie Campbell says you’re a witch,” she said thoughtfully. “Because Mr. MacDonald is afraid of Mr. Fraser. He tried to make Grannie stop talking about you,” she added, and shrugged. “Anyway, nobody’s afraid of me.”

Give them time, child,
I thought, eyeing her.

“I wouldn’t say that people are
afraid
of Mr. Fraser, really—but they do respect him,” I said carefully.

She ducked her head a little, indicating that she knew better but wasn’t going to argue with me.

“Sometimes,” she said, “one of the girls would find a protector. Once in a very long while, he would even marry her”—she sighed briefly at the thought—“but usually he just would make sure that she had good food and nice clothes, and nobody would hurt her or use her badly.”

I didn’t know quite where this was going, but tilted my head inquiringly.

“When my sister met William again near Philadelphia, he th-
said
that he would take her and me both under his protection. She was so happy.” Her small, clear voice was suddenly thick with tears. “If—if we could have stayed wif him…”

Jamie had told me exactly what had happened to Fanny’s sister, Jane—and had done so in the bare minimum of words, his terseness betraying just how deeply it had shocked him, and how deeply it had wounded both him and William. I got up and knelt down by Fanny, gathering her into my arms. She wept almost silently, in the way of a child hiding grief or pain for fear of attracting punishment, and I held her tight, my own eyes stinging with tears.

“Fanny,” I whispered at last. “You’re safe. We won’t let anything happen to you, ever again.”

She hiccuped and shuddered briefly, but didn’t cling to me. She didn’t move away, either; just sat on her stool, quiet and fragile as a wounded bird, her feathers fluffed to keep what life she still had.

“William,” she said, so low I could hardly hear her. “He asked Mr. Fraser to look after me. But…Mr. Fraser doesn’t have to. I’m not weally under hith protection.”

“You are, Fanny,” I said, into the limp linen smell of her cap, and patted her gently. “William gave you to him, and—”

“And now he’s angwy with Will-iam.” She pulled away, knuckling the tears from her eyes.

“Oh, dear God. You mean you’re afraid that we’d put you out, because Mr. Fraser has a—um—difference of opinion with William? No. No, really, Fanny. Believe me, that won’t happen.”

She gave me a doubtful look, but nodded dutifully. Clearly she
didn’t
believe me.

“Mr. Fraser is a man of his word.”

She looked at me for a long moment, a frown puckering the soft skin between her brows. Then she stood up abruptly, wiped her sleeve under her nose, and curtsied to me. “I won’t talk to anybody,” she said. “About anything.”

I HAD MADE UP
my mind what to do about Denny within moments of shouting “pigheaded Scot!” at Jamie, but the ensuing conversation with Fanny had momentarily driven the matter out of my mind, and what with one thing and another, it was late the next afternoon before I managed to find Brianna alone.

Sean McHugh and his two biggest lads had come in the morning—with their hammers—to help with the roofing of the kitchen and the framing of the third story; Jamie and Roger had been up there with them, and the effect of five large men armed with hammers was much like that of a platoon of overweight woodpeckers marching in close formation overhead. They’d been at it all morning—causing everyone else to flee the house—but had broken for a late lunch down by the creek, and I’d seen Bree go back inside with Mandy.

I found her in my rudimentary surgery, sitting in the late sun that fell through the big window, the largest window in the New House. There was no glass in it yet—there might not be glass before spring, if then—but the flood of unobstructed afternoon light was glorious, glowing from the new yellow-pine boards of the floor, the soft butternut of Bree’s homespun skirt, and the fiery nimbus of her hair, half-bound in a long, loose plait.

She was drawing, and watching her absorbed in the paper pinned to her lap desk, I felt a deep envy of her gift—not for the first time. I would have given a lot to be able to capture what I saw now, Brianna, bronze and fire in the deep clear light, head bent as she watched Mandy on the floor, chanting to herself as she built an edifice of wooden blocks and the small, heavy glass bottles I used for tinctures and dried herbs.

“What are you thinking, Mama?”

“What did you say?” I looked up at Bree, blinking, and her mouth curled up.

“I said,” she repeated patiently, “what are you thinking? You have that
look.
”

“Which look is that?” I asked warily. It was an article of faith amongst the members of my family that I couldn’t keep secrets; that everything I thought was visible on my face. They weren’t entirely right, but they weren’t completely wrong, either. What never occurred to them was just how transparent they were to
me.

Brianna tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowed as she examined my face. I smiled pleasantly, putting out a hand to intercept Mandy as she trotted past me, three medicine bottles in hand.

“You can’t take Grannie’s bottles outside, sweetheart,” I said, removing them deftly from her chubby grasp. “Grannie needs them to put medicine in.”

“But I’m gonna catch leeches wif Jemmy and Aidan and Germain!”

“You couldn’t get even one leech into a bottle that size,” I said, standing up and placing the bottles on a shelf out of reach. I scanned the next shelf down and found a slightly chipped pottery bowl with a lid.

“Here, take this.” I wrapped a small linen towel around the bowl and tucked it into the pocket of her pinafore. “Be sure to put in a little mud—a
little
mud, all right? No more than a pinch—and some of the waterweed you find the leeches in. That will keep them happy.”

I watched her trot out the door, black curls bouncing, then braced myself and turned back to Bree.

“Well, if you must know, I was thinking how much I should tell you.”

She laughed, though with sympathy.

“That’s the look, all right. You always look like a heron staring into the water when you have something you can’t quite decide whether to tell somebody.”

“A heron?”

“Beady-eyed and intent,” she explained. “A contemplative killer. I’ll draw you doing it one of these days, so you can see.”

“Contemplative…I’ll take your word for it. I don’t think you’ve ever met Denzell Hunter, have you?”

She shook her head. “No. Ian mentioned him once or twice, I think—a Quaker doctor? Isn’t he Rachel’s brother?”

“That’s him. To keep it to the essentials for the moment, he’s a wonderful doctor, a good friend of mine, and besides being Rachel’s brother, he’s married to the daughter of the Duke of Pardloe—who happens to be Lord John Grey’s elder brother.”

“Lord John?” Her face, already glowing with light, broke into a brilliant smile. “My favorite person—outside the family. Have you heard from him? How is he?”

“Fine, to the best of my knowledge. I saw him briefly in Savannah a few months ago—the British army is still there, so it’s likely he is, too.” I’d thought out what to say, in hopes of avoiding anything awkward, but a script is not a conversation. “I was thinking that you might write to him.”

“I suppose I might,” she said, tilting her head and looking at me sideways, one red brow raised. “Right this minute?”

“Well…soonish. The thing is, Jamie’s just had a letter from one of his aides—from the army—I’ll tell you about that later. Anyway, the gist of it is that Denzell Hunter was captured by the British army and is being held in a military prison camp at Stony Point.”

“Captured doing what?” She sat up straighter and set her lap desk aside. She hadn’t been drawing a sentimental portrait of her daughter, I saw—it looked like a floor plan of something, embellished with small marginal sketches of apes. “You said he’s a Quaker?”

I sighed. “Yes. He’s what they call a Fighting Quaker, but he doesn’t fight. He joined the Continental army as a surgeon, though, and was evidently scooped up off a battlefield somewhere.”

“Sounds like an interesting man,” she remarked, the brow still high. “What does he have to do with me writing to Lord John?”

I explained, as briefly as possible, the connections and possibilities, concluding, “So I—we—want to see that the duke knows where Denny is. Even if he can’t get him released directly—and knowing Hal, I wouldn’t bet against him doing exactly that—he
can
make sure that Denny’s well treated, and naturally he’d find Dottie and see she’s taken care of.”

Bree was watching me with a curiously analytic look on her face, as though she were estimating the shear forces on the girders of a bridge.

“What?” I said. “John was a good friend of yours. Before, I mean. I should think you’d want to write to him in any case.”

“Oh, I do,” she assured me. “I’m just wondering why
you
aren’t writing to him. Or for that matter, why aren’t you writing to ‘Hal’? Since you’re on first-name terms, I mean.”

Damn.
I couldn’t outright lie; questions of honesty aside, she’d detect it instantly.
Stick to the truth as much as possible, then…

“Well, it’s Jamie,” I said reluctantly. It
was,
but I felt some scruples about dropping him in it with Bree. “He had a falling-out with the Greys a little while ago. They’re not on speaking terms, and if I were to write to John or Hal, he’d…take it amiss,” I ended, rather weakly.

Being her father’s daughter, she instantly put her finger on the crux of the matter.

“What sort of falling-out?” she asked. The analytical look had gone, subsumed by curiosity.

Well, that was it. I could either say, “Ask your father,” and she bloody
would,
or I could bite the bullet and hope for the best. While I was still trying to make up my mind, though, she went on to the next thought.

“If Da would mind about your writing to Lord John, why wouldn’t he mind me doing it?” she asked reasonably. She’d laid the drawing on the counter, where I could see it clearly. The little apes all looked like Mandy.

“Because he theoretically wouldn’t know I’d told you there was a falling-out to begin with.”
And with luck, he might not find out you’d written it.
The room was warm with sunlight, but I was feeling uncomfortably hot, my clothes prickling and wilting on my skin.

“Okay,” she said, after a moment’s thought, and reached for a quill. “I’ll do it right now. But”—she said, pointing the quill at me—“unless you tell me what this is all about, I’m asking Lord John. He’ll tell me.” He bloody well might. He’d told Jamie, for God’s sake…

“Fine,” I said, and closed my eyes. “He married me, when we thought Jamie was dead.” Total silence. I opened my eyes to find Bree staring at me, both eyebrows raised, her face completely blank with incomprehension. And then I remembered my conversation with Fanny. I thought she would keep quiet about the conclusions she’d drawn. But if she didn’t…

“And I slept with him. But it’s not what you think…”

At this inauspicious moment, Jamie walked past the window with Sean McHugh. They were talking, both of them looking upward, Jamie pointing at something on the upper story. Brianna made a noise as though she’d tried to swallow a pawpaw whole, and Jamie glanced in at us, startled.

I felt as though I had swallowed a hand grenade, but I hastily pounded Brianna on the back, making an “It’s nothing” gesture at Jamie. He frowned, but McHugh said something and he glanced away, then back at me, still frowning. I waved him away more firmly, but he said, “A moment,
a charaid,
” over his shoulder to Sean and strode toward the window.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I muttered under my breath, and thought I heard a strangled laugh from Brianna.

“Is the lass all right?” Jamie asked, thrusting his head through the window and lifting his chin at Bree, who was huddled on her stool, gasping a little.

“I—fine,” she croaked. “Swallowed s-something…” She waved feebly at the counter, where a mug of something sat among the scatter of dried herbs and crockery.

He lifted one eyebrow but didn’t pursue the matter, instead turning to me.

“Can ye come up? Geordie’s smashed his thumb wi’ a hammer. He says it’s naught, but it looks sideways to me.”

I felt as though I’d just run a mile on a full stomach.

“All right,” I said, wiping my sweaty palms on my apron. I glanced over my shoulder. “Bree—I’ll be right back.” The scarlet was fading from her face.

“Mm-hm.” She coughed and took a deep breath. “Don’t fall off the roof.”

BRIANNA PICKED UP
the sketch of a potential schoolhouse and stared at it for a minute, but she wasn’t seeing windows and benches. She was—with a mixture of horror and profound curiosity—envisioning her mother in bed with Lord John Grey.

“How on
earth
did that happen?” she asked the sketch. She set it down again and turned to look out the window, now empty and tranquil, with its view of the long slope that fell away below the house, filled with flowering grass and clumps of dogwood. “And how in bloody hell am I ever going to be able to look John Grey in the eye next time I see him?”

For that matter, looking her father in the eye…Okay, she could see why Da would have a problem with her mother writing to John Grey. Despite her perturbation, a shocked giggle escaped her and she clapped a hand to her mouth.

“I do like women,”
he’d told her once, exasperated.
“I admire and honor them, and for several of the sex I feel considerable affection—your mother among them, though I doubt the sentiment is reciprocated.”
Her diaphragm gave a small, disconcerted lurch at that. “Oh, really?” she murmured, recalling his last remark on the subject:
“I do not, however, seek pleasure in their beds. Do I speak plainly enough?”

“Loud and clear, your lordship,” she said aloud, torn between shock and amusement. People changed, of course—but surely not
that
much. She shook her head. Her breathing had slowed, but her bodice still felt too tight. She put a finger in the top of her stays to pull them out a little, and then felt the tremble in her chest.

“Oh, bloody hell…” she whispered, and grabbed the edge of the stool to keep from falling. All the blood had left her head and her vision had gone white. Her heart had stopped again. Literally. Stopped.

One…two…three…beat, goddammit, beat!
In panic, she thumped the heel of her hand hard against her breastbone. And then gasped when it did start beating, with shock at the startling thud in her chest, as much as with relief. And then it was off like a hare at a greyhound race, juddering in her chest, leaving her breathless and terrified, hand pressed flat to her chest.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it…” she whispered through clenched teeth. It had stopped before, the racing…it would stop again…But it didn’t.