Grace in Thine Eyes (13 page)

“An
unco
place, even on a bright May morn,” her father murmured as the toll bar dropped into place behind them. “Be glad we’re not here on a
dreich
November eve with a cold north wind in our faces and the sky black with rain.”

Davina had more present concerns on her mind. With each sharp turn round Rowantree Hill, she feared the road might disappear beneath her. All at once she was there, at the highest point, looking down into a valley that stretched so far below her she feared she might faint.

“Steady, lass.” Her father gripped her elbow, holding her in place. “ ’Tis a slender track, to be sure, and a precipitous drop. Four hundred ells or more. Stay close to the hillside and away from the edge of the road.” A half smile creased his face. “And try not to look down.”

There was nowhere else to look
but
down.

Her father started down first, speaking softly to Magnus. She followed, keeping a tight rein on Biddy lest the wide-open vista unnerve the mare. To her right, narrow gorges dissected the hillside, the clefts as deep as a man was tall. To her left, the road was edged with thin air. Keeping an eye on the burn weaving its way along the valley floor, Davina held her breath until Biddy was at last walking along its banks and the hazardous descent was behind them.

Her father drew his horse next to hers. “You’ve earned a brief respite, and so have our mounts. The bridge o’er the River Stinchar lies
just ahead. Suppose we break here for our dinner.” They dismounted, spread their plaid across the grass, then sat down to enjoy Eliza’s pickled herring and cheese. After giving the horses time to graze and drink their fill, Jamie stood and shook the crumbs from the wrinkled plaid.

“I’d hoped to hear a fiddle tune, but we’ve still eight miles of hilly country to cover. This evening, aye?” He fell silent as he helped her get settled on Biddy.

Davina sensed he was about to say something, then hesitated. She rested her hand on his shoulder, prompting him to look up at her, certain he would understand.
Tell me, Father
.

“How like your mother you are,” he said at last. “ ’Tis simply this, Davina: When I compare our day to the ones spent with your brothers en route to Edinburgh …” He rubbed his hand across his jaw, though he could not hide his disappointment. “I do not blame your brothers entirely, for I’d given them but two days’ notice. Still …” He sighed heavily.

So the twins’ journey had been trying. She’d suspected as much.
Poor lads
. As they crossed the bridge and left the Stinchar behind, Davina sorted through what she knew to be true: Her father still blamed Will and Sandy for her muteness. And her brothers would never forgive themselves if he did not show them mercy first.

Please, Father. Forgive them
.

A startling notion began circling round inside her. If she could bring herself to write those words, could she show them to her father without trembling?

Aye
. That very night when she sat across from him at table, her book and pencil in hand, she would plead on behalf of Will and Sandy.
’Twas an accident, Father, and long ago
. Her brothers had defended her for a decade. Could she not do one courageous thing in return? She prayed she would be strong when the time came, then set her mind on the hours ahead.

They traveled on through the afternoon, lifting their hands to greet farmworkers in the fields and shepherds on the hills. “Not much longer to Crosshill,” her father informed her, eying his pocket watch as they neared a crossroad edged with yellow-centered
gowans. “
We’ll be there
by six. ’Tis a small settlement. Handloom weavers, mostly. I’ve in mind a particular cottager who might make us welcome.”

Though she’d never traveled thus, Davina had heard the stories:
Kintra
folk were known for their hospitality. If supper and a bed were needed by a traveler, obliging farmers and villagers provided for their unexpected guests, even if it meant family members slept three to a mattress or a kettle of soup was thinned with water. Inns were the stuff of coaching routes; in the countryside, a knock on a cottage door was sufficient.

The hills were behind them now, the velvet green landscape gently rolling as they came upon a row of single-story cottages. Her father smiled at her, though the weariness lining his face was unmistakable. “Shall we see if Michael Kelly of Crosshill is receiving visitors?”

They dismounted at the unpainted door of a
bothy
no different than its neighbors: dry
stane
walls with straw fitted in the cracks rather than mortar; a thatched roof, held down with rocks on taut ropes of hemp; one small window without glazing, the shutter hanging open on a leather hinge; peat smoke curling out a bent chimney poking through the rooftop.

Her father knocked, then stood back. They did not have long to wait. The door was flung open by a spry, red-haired man of uncertain years, who blinked at them from the shadowy interior of his cottage.

Father nodded at the man. “Good day to you, Michael.”

Davina hid her smile when she got a good look at him, for the weaver was as small as the tollkeeper was large. With an Irish name and wiry red hair, who was to say Michael Kelly wasn’t a leprechaun?

“An’ a
guid
day tae ye, sir.” The man bowed politely. “Ye’ve stood on me
thrashel
afore, aye?” He stepped aside, waving them within. “Ye’ll pardon me for not recallin’ yer name, sir, but if ’tis
ludgin
ye’re needin’, ye’ve knocked on the
richt
door.”

Davina followed the men inside, amused that the humble weaver did not remember the laird of Glentrool. Such a thing would never happen in Monnigaff parish. While the man saw to their horses, Davina studied their lodgings. Rough pine covered the dirt floor, and the plain, square hearth bore no mantelpiece. Two iron lanterns hung on either side of the loom, which took up a third of the one-room cottage, leaving
space for a table with two benches and a single bed, low to the floor. Still, the bedcover was finely woven wool, and the iron stewpot gave forth the savory aroma of barley.

Michael lugged their saddles through the door and hung them near the hearth, then washed his hands with the pitcher and bowl beside the bed. “Ye’ll be joinin’ me for supper, aye?” He served their meal in simple crockery bowls with horn spoons. “Traded ’em from a tinkler,” Michael explained, running his small thumb over the smooth contour of the spoon carved from ox horn, a specialty of the traveling Gypsies. “What aboot yerself, sir? What’ll ye gie me for yer
nicht’s
sleep? ’Twill not be yer
siller
, for I wouldna ask for it.”

“I can tell a good tale,” Jamie offered. “And I’ve all the
blether
from Monnigaff, if you care to hear it.”

“Aye, that’ll do,” the small man agreed. “What aboot yer
dochter
?” He regarded Davina with a curious gaze. “She’s too
quate
tae spin a yarn.”

“Oh, she has much more to say than I do.” Jamie nodded toward her saddle. “My daughter speaks by way of notes, rather than words.”

“Hoot!” The man leaped to his feet. “The fiddle is yers, lass?” In an instant he had the green bag in his hands and held it out to her reverently. “Stay as lang as ye wish, miss, and eat
whatsomever
ye like.”

She quickly tuned her instrument, then launched into a cheerful air. One melody led to another, from strathspey to reel to jig. While her father tapped out the rhythm on the tabletop, Michael danced round his cottage with unabashed exuberance. A passerby draped himself through the open window to listen, then the door was propped ajar for the whole neighborhood to hear. Unbidden, the cottagers of Crosshill soon came in to join the weaver in his revelry, dust rising from the wooden planks beneath their feet, their voices lifted in song.

My heart was ance as blithe and free
As simmer days were lang;
But a bonny, westlin weaver lad
Has gart me change my sang.

The throng begged for more, and she could not refuse them, having never entertained a more appreciative audience. Roses were plucked
from nearby gardens and strewn at her feet, bairns were carried to the cottage for her blessing, and half a dozen starry-eyed lads seemed about to propose.

Jamie was the one who finally drew the curtain on her performance. “We’ve had a long day’s journey, and another awaits us.” He nodded at Davina to put her fiddle away, lest one more song be coaxed from her hands. An hour passed before the cottage was truly empty, for her father felt compelled to share a bit of gossip as promised. In rural areas, visitors were the only source of news, every crumb was a feast, and no one left until they’d had their fill.

When the door finally closed on the last visitor, Davina was given the bed, Jamie a pile of woolen blankets, and the weaver curled up on the floor near the hearth. The chaff-filled mattress was nothing like her heather bed at home, but tired as she was, sleep would not elude her long.

While her father arranged his bedding, Davina carefully wrote out her question by the faint lantern light. She’d show it to him tomorrow morning on horseback. Though he might look elsewhere while he weighed his answer, he could not ride off and leave her. She had to try, for her brothers’ sake.

Davina closed the book, her pencil marking the page.

Seventeen

Good, to forgive;
Best to forget.
R
OBERT
B
ROWNING

J
amie sat up all at once, as if someone had tapped his shoulder while he slept.

A faint gray light filtered through the cracks in the shutter. Morning had broken, but only just. The shadowy loom with its tautly drawn warp, its shuttle and treadle, provided his bearings. Beyond the battered door a cock crowed, and the horses shuffled their feet. Whether he was well rested or not, his day had begun.

He bathed his face and hands in a washbowl, using tepid water and a sliver of lye soap. On the other side of the cottage Michael Kelly slept like an Irish setter, nose to knees in front of a hearth gone cold in the night. He would rise before long and attend to their breakfast. However mean his lodging, Michael was a generous host.

Jamie dried his face with his shirttail, gazing down at the narrow bed that cradled his sleeping Davina. With her hands pressed beneath her high cheekbones and her long red lashes fanned across her pale skin, she looked younger. Though not so young she might awaken and still be able to speak.

“
Good morning, Father. Shall we visit the lambs today?
”

He had never forgotten the sound of her voice. Like the sweetest notes on her fiddle.

My darling girl
. Jamie reached down, longing to brush her soft cheek, yet not wanting to wake her. If love alone could heal his daughter, he would touch her throat and make her whole. But that task belonged to another.
Come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed
. How many times had he prayed those words, to no avail?

Davina, perhaps sensing his nearness, slowly opened her eyes. She
mouthed the word, “Father,” then took his hand to help her sit up, looking closely at him, as if she’d not seen him in days instead of mere hours.

Behind them a candle sparked to life. Michael was awake and busy at his labors. He added peat to the grate, then disappeared out the door with a pair of buckets. The Water of Girvan was not far to the north; its steep banks would require careful steps on so misty a morn.

“Less than a dozen miles to the harbor at Ayr.” Jamie kept his voice low, as suited the hour. “We’ll wait to see whether the fog lifts, though even if it does not, the road is easily followed.”

He buttoned his waistcoat while Davina neatly plaited her hair, her hands as graceful as her mother’s. Her red mane was soon beribboned and swept over her shoulder. So much for his concern about his daughter managing without her maid.

The weaver returned with a muted bang of the door, water sloshing in his bucket. “Yer horses are drinkin’ from the
ither bowie
,” he informed them. “I’ll hae yer tea quick as I can. Will
parritch
do tae break yer fast?”

Jamie assured him porridge would suffice, then winked at Davina as he asked their host, “How is it that a man named Kelly sounds like a Scot?”

“Och!” He swung his teakettle over the heat. “Me
faither
was Irish, but me mither was from Ayrshire. ’Twas she
wha
raised me.”

She’d also taught him how to make porridge, Jamie decided, sitting down half an hour later to a steaming bowl of cooked oats, lightly salted and topped with butter. Davina ate a spoonful now and again while he downed the contents of two bowls. His daughter was always quiet, but she was not always still; this morning she was practically motionless, her left hand resting on her sketchbook. He’d noticed her with pencil in hand yestreen. Had some worthy subject caught her eye in Michael’s cottage and set her to drawing?

Putting aside his teacup, Jamie nodded toward the well-worn book. “Will you show me your latest entry?”

Her eyes widened.

“Perhaps later?”

Davina nodded briskly, then quit the table, clearly impatient to be going.

“ ’Twould seem we’re away,” Jamie told their host, who was already seated at his loom, raising and lowering the treadles with his feet, throwing the shuttle back and forth across the warp in a practiced rhythm. “You’ve not asked for silver, Michael, but I’ve left two shillings by your plate.”

The weaver nodded his thanks in time with his pedaling. “I’m obliged tae ye, sir. May yer open hand
ayeways
be
fu’.
”

Magnus and Biddy were brushed and saddled, waiting for their riders, when Jamie and Davina stepped out of doors. Dense, moist air swirled along the row of cottages, like the breath of a living creature.

“Rising from the river,” Jamie guessed, helping his daughter get settled before mounting his own horse. “If the sun shines tomorrow, your mother would contend ’tis a rightful thing. ‘Mist in May and heat in June bring all things into tune,’ or so gardeners say.” He guided their horses round to the north. “Walk on,” he told them, and the second day of their journey commenced.