Grace in Thine Eyes (17 page)

Hugh was waiting on the lawn, his hat back in place. “Ye dinna hae flat feet, d’ye, Mr. McKie? Fishermen canna abide a
sclaff-fittit
passenger. ’Tis
unchancie
, ye ken.”

“Not to worry,” Jamie assured him, doing little to hide his smile. “My arches are sufficiently high. I’ll not bring the men ill luck.”

The male cousins shook hands once more. “Godspeed.” Benjamin seemed genuinely sorry to see Jamie leave. “When you return at Lammas, bide a wee while, aye?”

Lammas
. She pressed her hands to her stomach, glad she’d not eaten much veal.
Such a long time away
.

“I shall look forward to my return,” Jamie promised. As the minister stepped back, her father turned toward her, holding out his arms, a tender expression on his face. “Davina?”

She fell into his embrace.
Oh, Father
. Though she squeezed her eyes shut, she could not stop her tears.
Who will ever care for me as you do?

Jamie held her against his chest, smoothing his hand over her hair. “Two months, my darling daughter.” His voice was low, edged with emotion. “Then I will come for you. And make things right with your brothers. Depend upon it.”

Twenty-Two

And life is thorny, and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
S
AMUEL
T. C
OLERIDGE

T
hey’ll soon be banging the ten o’clock drum, lad.”

Will lifted his pewter tappit-hen, eying Sandy across the tavern table. “And when they do, I’ll be drinking John Dowie’s ale, and so will you.” Above him tallow candles sputtered in a wooden chandelier, the yellow light reflected in the polished drinking vessels lining the shelves and hanging from wall hooks. Plates scraped clean of toasted cheese and beef tripe waited to be collected from their table.

Parliamentarians and antiquaries, lawyers and booksellers alike convened nightly at the tavern by West Saint Giles. Will’s gaze circled the small room, noting the patrons fishing out their watches and wiping the last drop of ale from their mouths. Let the rest of the town toddle home to bed at the sound of the drum. His night had only begun.

“O Dowie’s ale! thou art the thing,” Will sang to himself before swallowing another mouthful. Some said Edinburgh ale was so potent it could glue a drinker’s lips together. Will insisted if he could still sing, he could still drink. He slapped his waistcoat to be certain his purse was where it belonged.
Aye
. Plenty of silver for a serious debauch.

Sandy wagged his head, half smiling. “Auld Reekie’s sons blithe faces wear.”

“Aye, don’t they just?” Will downed another long swallow, the folded letter from home still clutched in his left hand. He’d almost thrust it into the candle flame twice, then stopped when his gaze fell on the address written in their mother’s elegant hand.
William and Alexander McKie, College Wynd, Edinburgh
.

He could not fault her for the letter’s
hatesome
contents. The blame
rested squarely on Jamie McKie’s broad shoulders.
Your father has arranged for Davina to spend the summer with our cousins, the Stewarts, on the Isle of Arran
.

“Arranged,” Will muttered, taking a final swig before banging the empty tappit-hen on the table with a noisy clink of its ornamented lid. “The same way Father arranged for us to move to Edinburgh, I suppose. Does the man never tire of playing God?”

Sandy rose, weaving only slightly as he reached for the pewter tankards. “Perhaps Davina wanted to go to Arran. Have you thought of that?” He went off in search of fresh ale, leaving Will to stare at the dying coal fire and contemplate a response.

Did you want this, lass?
The news would be easier to bear if she’d chosen to go. Yet, even if she did relish a visit to the island, Davina was not the issue. ’Twas Father’s broken promise that rankled. “How can you watch over our sister,” Will growled under his breath, “when she’s on an island days away from Glentrool?”

He unfolded the letter again, punishing himself with yet another reading.
I trust you are finding your place in Edinburgh
. Will scanned the smoky, windowless room—one of several in the busy tavern—certain this was not the place his mother meant. He read on.
Glentrool is woefully empty without my twin sons
. At least Mother missed them. No mention of Father or Ian in that regard.
Your older brother continues to court Miss McMillan
. Will snorted at that. Once Ian married and produced an heir, there would be no hope of
heirship
for him or for Sandy.
Now that June is here, the gardens are lovely
. That comment eased his ire a bit, picturing his mother with an apron full of colorful blooms.

But then came the fateful line that ruined everything,
Your father has arranged for Davina to spend the summer …
Two long months without one of the McKie men to guard the lass, to escort her safely about, to keep her from harm. Who were these Stewarts of Arran? Will could not recall hearing much spoken of them. Was there a strong enough man among them, one worthy of the task?

Nae
. He alone knew what was best for his sister.

Will creased the folds with a rough hand, nearly tearing the stationery
in the process. His mother’s words were still emblazoned on his mind.
Your father has arranged …

The letter had arrived in the afternoon post. After a single reading, he and Sandy had marched up the Cowgate, bound for John Dowie’s in Libberton’s Wynd, intending to feed their hostility with black pudding and drown their anger in ale. Sandy had been marginally successful, growing more philosophical by the hour.
Perhaps Davina wanted to go
.

“Hech!” Will dragged a hand across his jaw, rough with beard stubble, trying to remember if he’d shaved that morning. After a month without a valet, the two of them had become lax in their grooming. The professors did not notice, and the lasses did not care.

I fear our sister will have a lonely summer without us
.

Will abruptly sat up, banging his head on the wall behind him. He rubbed the back of his scalp, cursing himself for his carelessness.

“ ’Tis my fault,” he told Sandy when his brother returned, tappithens in hand. “
I
am the fool who mentioned to Father that our sister would be miserable this summer.” Will slumped in his chair, stung by the realization. “He never would have packed Davina off to Arran if I hadn’t made so daft a statement.”

“You don’t know that, Will.”

“Aye, but I do!” he roared, eliciting a stern glance from a gentleman whose head poked out from behind a brown paper screen meant to offer a measure of privacy. Lowering his voice slightly, Will said through clenched teeth, “The laird of Glentrool takes pleasure in ordering his offspring about.”

Sandy toyed with the lid of his tankard. “He also was pleased to pay for our tuition and fill our wardrobe with new clothes and line our pockets with silver.”

Will swore. “You’re on his side now, is that it?”

“You know better,” Sandy said evenly. “Father was purchasing our forgiveness, nothing more.”

“An odd turn of events when ’tis he who has yet to forgive us. Ten years, Sandy.
Ten years.
”

His brother shrugged as if weary of the subject. “Drink your ale. If
we tarry much longer, we’ll find naught on the dark streets but thieves picking our pockets or
limmers
raising their skirts.”

Will downed the balance of his drink, half standing as he did. “We must write to her, you know.” The tappit-hen landed hard, another outlet for his frustration. “A long letter. Tomorrow after Professor Gregory’s lecture.”

Sandy frowned at him. “Write to Mother, do you mean? Or to Davina?”

“Both,” Will shot back, then curbed his anger. Sandy was not to blame, not for a moment. “We’ll write Mother to thank her for her letter. Without it, we’d have no knowledge of Father’s negligence. And then we’ll write Davina to pledge our devotion to her, even from so great a distance.”

“Should we not write to Father?”

“
Oo aye
,” Will growled. “As soon as ever he writes us.”

Twenty-Three

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting,
For fear of little men.
W
ILLIAM
A
LLINGHAM

T
en days, Davina!” With an artless sigh, Abbie dropped beside her on the low stone monument. “Ten days and you’ve almost filled the pages of your sketchbook.”

Davina smiled as she retied the broad silk ribbons of her straw bonnet, grateful for the elongated front brim that protected her complexion from the sun. The morning had been delightfully dry, though each day on Arran offered a variety of weather: rain, clouds, sun, wind, and always a hopeful patch of blue.

Abbie burst into rhyme, “ ‘Barnaby bright! Barnaby bright! The longest day and the shortest night.’ Though this
is
Saint Barnabas’s Day, ’tis not the longest day of the year anymore. Not since they added twelve days to the calendar all at once.” She groaned dramatically. “What a nuisance that must have been for our grandfathers!”

Davina simply listened, more aware than ever of the difference in their ages. Was she this childlike at fourteen, skipping across lawns, throwing herself about?
Aye, and sometimes still
. She blushed at the thought, for indeed the Stewart sisters brought out an aspect of her nature she’d thought relegated to the nursery. Under their playful influence, Davina had clapped her hands, spun round on her toes, and danced over the Clauchland hills with joyous abandon. No wonder they thought she was a fairy come back to Arran.

She flipped through her sketchbook until she located a drawing finished earlier that week, then held it out for Abbie’s approval.

“Sakes me!” The younger sister peered at the page, her brown curls
bouncing as she shook her head in disbelief. “Wherever did you see the wee folk?”

Davina winked and pointed to her head.
Only in here, lass
. Her fanciful drawing showed a mischievous creature poised on a rock, her rose-petal gown outlining a lithe body, her gossamer wings unfurled. A daft notion, nothing more.

Abbie looked over her shoulder toward the manse, then whispered, “Betty thinks you truly
are
a fairy. She says you glide rather than walk. And that all fairies play musical instruments, though none perhaps as well as you, Cousin.”

Once they’d heard Davina play, the Stewarts did not let an evening end without an hour of tunes round the hearth. And if guests appeared at the door, they were presented with Davina and her fiddle more quickly than they were served tea.

Abbie eyed the house again. “Have you noticed the tiny bells Betty carries in her apron pocket? They’re meant for protection.”

From me?
Davina looked at her in astonishment.

“You see, those who’ve lived on Arran for generations respect—aye, even fear—the
sith.
” When Davina wrinkled her brow at the word, Abbie explained, “ ’Tis Gaelic for ‘fairy.’ The sith dance on a
sithean
, a fairy hill, which is why the farmers in our parish plow with care, so they won’t disturb them.”

Davina had already been introduced to numerous examples on their daily walks. Helen Murchie showed her a moss-covered mound in her garden. Ivy Sillar pointed to a flat-topped stone rising from the burn behind her cottage. A perfect circle of bluebells grew on Sarah McCook’s lawn. And on the hill above Peg Pettigrew’s farm stood a sheltering hawthorn tree, bent by the wind.

Davina had responded to each neighbor’s proud discovery with a look of interest; now she wondered if they expected her to return at midnight for a round of dancing.

Abbie averted her gaze. “You’ll forgive me for saying so, but most fairies have a physical … well, a deformity that makes them … different.”

Ah
. Davina touched Abbie’s hand, hoping to put the girl at ease.
Though her parents had shared a few details in advance, the topic of her muteness had not been broached since her arrival.

“I’m sorry.” Abbie still could not look in her direction. “I should not have …”

Davina quickly wrote across a blank page.
Please do not apologize. I lost my voice when I was seven. An accident
. To temper the harsh truth, she added,
No fairies were present
.

When Abbie read the words, a sad smile crossed her lips. “Cate and I have grown exceedingly fond of you.” Her eyes shimmered in the morning sunlight. “We are certain you had a sweet voice.”

Touched, Davina wrote,
My father insists I sounded like my fiddle
.

“Oh, your
father
!” As if glad for a change in subject, Abbie sat up, hands clasped beneath her chin like a red squirrel with a newfound acorn. “What a fine-looking man. Though quite old, of course. Are your brothers half so braw?”

Davina pictured the three of them and answered with a broad smile.
Aye
.

Abbie said, “Too bad
they
won’t be coming to take you home,” then she blushed to her light brown roots. “Well … ah … show me what you are drawing now.”

Nodding toward the crumbling east wall of the auld stone kirk, Davina turned to a fresh page and began to sketch the square carving before her. Within the raised edge was an old crown, the year 1618, and in large letters a stern admonishment: F
IR
G
OD
.

Abbie rolled her eyes. “Surely they meant to write ‘
Fear
God.’ ” She hopped to her feet a moment later. “I’ll leave you to your sketching. Cate should be home from the Kelsos’ soon, and Mrs. McCurdy has promised salmon fritters for dinner.” Abbie set off for the house, humming a lilting air Davina had played yestreen.