The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3) (42 page)

Sarah looked at her.

“But you believe He killed your son, just to chastise you for not resting when you should have?” she said. “That sounds pretty vicious to me.”

Maggie blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it again and thought for a while.

“It sounds awfu’ daft when you put it like that,” she said eventually.

“That’s because it is,” Sarah said gently. “Don’t you think it more likely that Christ took him because he wasn’t formed quite right, out of kindness?”

“Aye,” said Maggie. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I know I am,” said Sarah confidently. “And I’m also sure that you’re not doing yourself or anyone else any favours by lying here in bed brooding, especially your husband, who must be worried sick about you whether he shows it or not. I’ll admit to you, Beth came to see me because she was worried about you and thought I might be able to help, because I’d lost a child of my own. All that rubbish Sir Anthony made up was just a ploy to get you to let me in the room. Although I will finish washing your hair and make you look a bit fresher. I didn’t want to come, to be honest.”

“Why did ye, then, an ye didna want to?”

“Because I owe Sir Anthony and Beth a lot. And because I didn’t like to think of you torturing yourself because you had no one to talk to. I got through it on my own, but it took a long time. A very long time. And now I’m glad I came.”

“So am I,” said Maggie. “Ye’ve helped me a lot. I think I might get up today, once my hair’s dry.”

Sarah smiled, and tipped Maggie’s head back into the cooling water.

“You’ve helped me, too,” she said. “I hadn’t realised how much I needed to talk, even after all this time. I suppose you never get over it completely. But you come to terms with it and move on. You’ll go on to have more children, I’m sure, and they’ll be lucky, because they’ll have parents who love them.” She lifted the jug and started to rinse Maggie’s hair.

“What about you?” said Maggie. “Are ye no’ hoping to have more bairns?”

“Me? No, it’s not for me. I’m a businesswoman now. And I’m not interested in men. I’ve had enough of them to last me a lifetime.”

“They’re no’ all like your father. There’s some awfu’ good ones about.”

“I know, but I’m not likely to meet one who’s willing to accept what I’ve done. And I wouldn’t lie to a man if I was going to marry him. Better just not to bother. I’m really quite happy as I am. I don’t have to answer to anyone, and don’t want to.”

She towelled Maggie’s hair dry and started to gently comb out the tangles. Some minutes passed in companionable silence, after which Angus appeared with some tea and slightly oddly-shaped biscuits which Beth had baked. He looked approvingly at Maggie, appreciatively at Sarah, winked at her, and left.

“Can I ask ye a question?” Maggie said when his footsteps had receded down the corridor.

“What?”

“How did ye get wi’ child, if your father was so strict? And what did your father say when he found out ye were having a bairn? Or did ye no’ tell him? Ye dinna have to tell me unless ye want to,” she finished hurriedly.

“No, I don’t mind,” said Sarah, who as she said it, realised she didn’t, really didn’t. “No, I didn’t tell him. I used to go out and take food and suchlike to the old people of the parish. Charitable works. It was the only time I went out, my father not being one for letting his children enjoy idle amusements. Village fairs, music, singing and dancing were the devil’s way of tempting you into sin. I quite enjoyed visiting because it got me out of the house, but my older brother always came with me after I was twelve, just in case I might take it into my head to tempt a man into sin with my evil womanly wiles.” She laughed. “I didn’t have a clue what a womanly wile was. My brother Philip did, though. He had his eye on a girl from the village, so what we took to doing was setting off together, then he’d disappear and go courting, and I’d do my visits. We’d meet up at the last house and come back together, demure as you please. Philip hated father, and we both got satisfaction out of fooling him.

Anyway, one day I went to visit Mrs Grimes. I didn’t look forward to calling on her because she was really old and she’d gone a bit strange. She’d ask you the same thing over and over again, and half the time she didn’t remember who I was at all. When I got there this day, though, there was a man with her. I’d never seen him before, but he said he was her son, and he lived over Liverpool way but he was travelling through and had come to see his mother.”

“Was he the father of your bairn?” Maggie asked.

Sarah nodded.

“Every week I went to see Mrs Grimes after that he was there, except once or twice. He was handsome, or I thought he was then, and a lot older than me. I was fourteen and he was maybe twenty-five, thirty. And he had a way with words and something of the town about him, which made him seem really special to me, me having never been out of the village. He was just a sweet-talking shit, I know that now, I’ve met enough of them, but I didn’t know anything then except that children were born out of evil, unspeakable acts. But when he kissed me, that was so nice I didn’t think it could be evil, and then things went on from there and…well, you know how babies are made.”

Both women moved over to the fire, where Maggie dried her hair by fanning it out over her shoulder, while Sarah nibbled on a biscuit.

“I didn’t know what was going on at first,” she continued. “When I was sick, I thought I’d just eaten something that didn’t agree with me. And then I started getting fatter, and I couldn’t understand it because I’d always been thin. I mentioned it to Robert, that was his name, because I was worried he wouldn’t like me if I got fat, and he just got this sort of strange look on his face and said I shouldn’t worry, it was just part of growing up. And then he stopped visiting his mother and disappeared and I never saw him again. I think that’s why I went to Liverpool later. I was hoping to see him there, silly cow that I was.

“After a while, about six months, I couldn’t hide it any more. Stupid as I was, even I knew what was happening then because the baby had started kicking and everything, but I just thought I could have it and not tell father somehow. When he found out he went mad. He made me tell him everything, and I did, except the bit about Philip sneaking off. He flogged my brother anyway, just for not watching over me well enough. And then he beat me, not with his belt like he usually did, but with his fists. I thought he was going to kill me.”

“Did he turn ye out?” said Maggie. “Did your mother no’ stop him?”

“My mother died when I was five,” Sarah said. “No, he didn’t turn me out. He dragged me to church on Sunday and made me stand in the pulpit in front of the whole village while he read a sermon on Delilah and Jezebel and how Satan can be found even at the very door of the house of the Lord. I assume I was Satan, and he thought he was the Lord by then, the bastard. I remember looking down at the sea of faces. I’d never been up on the pulpit before, and all of them were looking at me as though I was dirt. I was standing there, all crooked because he’d kicked me in the back and I couldn’t stand up straight, with my nose broken and my face black and blue and nobody had a kind word or look for me, and I thought then, if this is the house of God and these are Christians, then I want none of it. That’s when I started to hate, which has helped me a lot over the years, even if you’re not supposed to. Hatred gives you strength. He never mentioned the father at all, except to say he was a married man with three children who had been led into temptation by his slut of a daughter, which was a bit of a shock, because I hadn’t known Robert was married till then. He obviously didn’t blame Robert at all, which seemed really unfair, but I still would have stayed at home to have the baby, I think. I didn’t know what else to do. Until he told the congregation that although I was a sinner, and my child would be a sinner, it was his Christian duty as a minister of the Lord to show mercy and bring my bastard up to follow the right path, though it would be very hard, as the baby would be doubly cursed, with bastardy and an evil mother.”

“Or trebly cursed, if it was a girl as well,” said Maggie, who had now got the measure of the Reverend Browne, and whose own troubles had paled into insignificance beside this remarkable woman’s.

“Yes. I hadn’t thought of that,” said Sarah. “Anyway, he never got the chance to beat my child to a pulp. It was knowing what he would do to her that gave me the courage to do what I did. I walked down from the pulpit, down the aisle and out of the door. He shouted for me to come back, but I just kept on, although I had no idea where I was going. And I walked and walked for miles, until it was night and I found a little hut in the woods, all falling down, and I slept there. Next morning I got up and had a look round, and then I decided to stay where I was, on my own. So I patched up the hut as best I could and lived on berries and stuff, and water from the river. Lucky it was summer, or I’d have starved to death. The rest you know.”

“My God, you’re amazing,” breathed Maggie. “Does Beth know all this?”

“No,” said Sarah. “Only you. And I’d rather she didn’t know, or Sir Anthony either. I’m not amazing, I don’t want you to think that. I was just desperate, that’s all. And now I’m not. And I don’t ever intend to let any man try to ruin my life again. Are you going to get dressed, then, if you’re getting up? I could do your hair in a nice simple style.”

“How could I no’ get up now, when I havena been through half of what you have?” Maggie said, a little shame-faced.

“I didn’t tell you this to make you feel pathetic,” Sarah said. “I told you because you asked, and maybe because I needed to tell someone. And you need to get on with your life. You’ve got a good job and a nice husband. Have more children. Bring them up to be kind, gentle people.”

“I’m no’ sure if they’ll be gentle,” Maggie said, struggling into her stays. “But I’ll make sure they’re fair-minded and honest, at least. I’ve got another problem though, one I’ll have to face as soon as I go downstairs. Maybe ye can advise me.” She grinned.

“If I can,” said Sarah smilingly, sensing that this was not going to be an Earth-shattering dilemma.

“How the hell am I going to cope wi’ Sir Anthony and Beth’s smug faces when they see that their wee plot worked?”

“Let them have the satisfaction. They deserve it,” Sarah said. “They’re lovely people.”

“Aye, they are,” said Maggie. “And you’re no’ so bad yourself, either.”

Beth made a final inspection of the cream and gold dining room, eyeing the linen-covered table with approval. It was immaculate. The polished silver and crystal reflected the light from the chandelier and the scented candles on the table. A comfortable padded chair was provided for each diner. Clearly-written name cards were in each place. A huge fire had been burning in the hearth all day to ensure the room would be comfortably warm when the guests arrived.

In the kitchen Maggie was taking charge of the small army of helpers who had been drafted in to prepare the food for the dinner for twelve and the larger buffet meal that would follow for the extra guests who were joining the others in the evening to play cards in the drawing room.

Duncan was instructing the extra servants who had been discreetly hired to take guests’ coats, serve the meal and generally hover, anticipating their every wish. Duncan, Iain and Angus were perfectly capable of dealing with twelve dinner guests and thirty or so card players without help, but it was a sign of wealth and prestige to have a superfluity of servants, and Beth, normally so careless of polite opinion, was out to make a good impression tonight.

She repositioned a knife, refolded a napkin, and looked anxiously at Caroline, who was standing in the doorway watching her friend with an amused smile on her face.

“Is it all right?” she said.

“It’s beautiful,” Caroline assured her. “Perfect.”

“What about the flowers?” Beth persisted, frowning at the elaborate arrangements of white and yellow blooms.

“I’ve never really noticed this before, with you looking so different from the rest of your family,” observed Caroline, “but you really are a Cunningham after all, aren’t you?”

Beth looked up in surprise.

In what way?” she asked.

“In the way you’re fussing and fretting about ridiculous details when everything is absolutely perfect. You’d give Isabella a run for her money at the moment. Stop it. It’s lovely. It will be a perfect evening. Everyone will go away with the impression that Sir Anthony is rich and influential, not least because he
is
rich and influential. That’s what you want them to think, isn’t it?”

“Is it that obvious?” Beth said.

“Only to me, because I know you, and I know how much you hate entertaining and how little you care for the social niceties when you go to other people’s entertainments. You hardly notice the floral arrangements and lighting, and you could be eating roasted ants off banana leaves for all you care, if the conversation is interesting. So the fact that you’ve now noticed that a knife is half an inch out of line is a sure sign you’re up to something.”

Beth laughed, and resisting the temptation to reposition a name card that was not quite central, joined her friend in the doorway.

“You’re right,” she said. “It doesn’t do any harm to remind people of Anthony’s status from time to time, though.”

“True. But this statement is meant exclusively for your brother, isn’t it? What are you trying to tell him?”

Beth cast a final glance round the room then led the way down the hall to the library, which was the favourite room for the family to be intimate and cosy in. She sat down, beckoning Caroline to another seat.

“I’m trying to tell him that even though he’s now irrevocably married to a woman who is far richer than us, with his captaincy in the bag, he does not have either influence or the respect of society, both of which have to be earned, and both of which Anthony has. And that therefore he’d better not hurt Anne, because if he does I, through Anthony, will bring as much of that influence as possible to bear on him. I don’t want him to think he can do anything he wants, without restraint.”