An Echo in the Bone, Page 92

  “Aye, she’s come back. But for what?” she cried. “What good is a faery-woman too coldhearted to lift a finger to save Ian?”

  He was so staggered by this that he couldn’t do anything but repeat “Coldhearted? Claire?” in a dazed fashion.

  “I asked, and she denied me.” His sister’s eyes were tearless, frantic with grief and urgency. “Can ye not make her help me, Jamie?”

  The life in his sister, always bright and pulsing, thrummed under his fingers like chained lightning now. Better if she let it loose on him, he thought. She couldn’t hurt him.

  “ Mo pìuthar, she’d heal him if she could,” he said, as gently as possible without letting go of her. “She told me ye’d asked—and she wept in the telling. She loves Ian as much—”

  “Don’t ye dare be telling me she loves my husband as much as I do!” she shouted, jerking her hands out of his with such violence that he was sure she meant to strike him. She did, slapping his face so hard that his eye watered on that side.

  “I wasna going to tell ye that at all,” he said, keeping his temper. He touched the side of his face gingerly. “I was going to say that she loves him as much—”

  He’d intended to say, “as she loves me,” but didn’t get that far. She kicked him in the shin hard enough to buckle his leg, and he stumbled, flailing to keep his balance, which gave her the opportunity to turn and fly down the hill like a witch on a broomstick, her skirts and shawls whirling out like a storm around her.

  DISPOSITIONS

  CLEANSING OF WOUNDS, I wrote carefully, and paused, marshaling my thoughts. Boiling water, clean rags, removal of foreign matter. Use of maggots on dead flesh (with a note of caution regarding blowfly and screwworm larvae? No, pointless; no one would be able to tell the difference without a magnifying glass). The stitching of wounds (sterilization of needle and thread). Useful poultices. Ought I to put in a separate section on the production and uses of penicillin?

  I tapped the quill on the blotter, making tiny stars of ink, but finally decided against it. This was meant to be a useful guide for the common person. The common person was not equipped for the painstaking process of making penicillin, nor yet likely to have an injection apparatus—though I did think briefly of the penis syringe Dr. Fentiman had shown me, with a faint twinge of amusement.

  That in turn made me think—briefly but vividly—of David Rawlings and his jugum penis. Did he really use it himself? I wondered, but hastily dismissed the vision conjured up by the thought and flipped over a few sheets, looking for my list of main topics.

  Masturbation, I wrote thoughtfully. If some doctors discussed it in a negative light—and they most certainly did—I supposed there was no reason why I shouldn’t give the opposing view—discreetly.

  I found myself still making inky stars a few moments later, thoroughly distracted by the problem of talking discreetly about the benefits of masturbation. God, what if I said in print that women did it?

  “They’d burn the whole printing, and likely Andy Bell’s shop, too,” I said aloud.

  There was a sharp intake of breath, and I glanced up to see a woman standing in the door of the study.

  “Oh, are you looking for Ian Murray?” I said, pushing back from the desk. “He’s—”

  “No, it’s you I was looking for.” There was a very odd tone to her voice, and I stood up, feeling suddenly defensive without knowing why.

  “Ah,” I said. “And you are… ?”

  She stepped out of the shadowed hall into the light.

  “Ye’ll not know me, then?” Her mouth twitched in an angry half smile. “Laoghaire MacKenzie… Fraser,” she added, almost reluctantly.

  “Oh,” I said.

  I would have recognized her at once, I thought, save for the incongruity of context. This was the last place I would have expected her to be, and the fact that she was here… A recollection of what had happened the last time she had come to Lallybroch made me reach inconspicuously for the letter opener on the desk.

  “You were looking for me,” I repeated warily. “Not Jamie?”

  She made a contemptuous gesture, pushing the thought of Jamie aside, and reached into the pocket at her waist, bringing out a folded letter.

  “I’ve come to ask ye a favor,” she said, and for the first time I heard the tremor in her voice. “Read that. If ye will,” she added, and pressed her lips tight together.

  I looked warily at her pocket, but it was flat; if she’d brought a pistol, she wasn’t carrying it there. I picked up the letter and motioned her to the chair on the other side of the desk. If she took it into her head to attack me, I’d have a little warning.

  Still, I wasn’t really afraid of her. She was upset; that was clear. But very much in control of herself.

  I opened the letter, and, with the occasional glance to be sure she stayed where she was, began to read.

  15 February 1778

  Philadelphia

  “Philadelphia?” I said, startled, and looked up at Laoghaire. She nodded.

  “They went there in the summer last year, himself thinking ’twould be safer.” Her lips twisted a little. “Two months later, the British army came a-marching into the city, and there they’ve been since.”

  “Himself,” I supposed, was Fergus. I noted the usage with interest; evidently Laoghaire had become reconciled to her older daughter’s husband, for she used the word without irony.

  Dear Mam,

  I must ask you to do something for love of me and my children. The trouble is with Henri-Christian. Because of his oddness of form, he has always had some trouble in breathing, particularly when suffering from the catarrh, and has snored like a grampus since he was born. Now he has taken to stopping breathing altogether when he sleeps, save he is propped up with cushions in a particular position. Mother Claire had looked in his throat when she and Da saw us in New Bern and said then that his adenoids—this being something in his throat—were overlarge and might give trouble in future. (Germain has these, also, and breathes with his mouth open a good deal of the time, but it is not a danger to him as it is to Henri-Christian.)

  I am in mortal terror that Henri-Christian will stop breathing one night and no one will know in time to save him. We take it in turns to sit up with him, to keep his head just right and to wake him when he stops breathing, but I do not know how long we can contrive to keep it up. Fergus is worn out with the work of the shop and I with the work of the house (I help in the shop, as well, and so of course does Germain. The little girls are great help to me in the house, bless them, and so willing to care for their little brother—but they cannot be left to sit up with him by night alone).

  I have had a physician to look at Henri-Christian. He agrees that the adenoids are likely to blame for the obstruction of breathing, and he bled the wee lad and gave me medicine to shrink them, but this was of no use at all and only made Henri-Christian cry and vomit. Mother Claire—-forgive me for speaking of her to you, for I know your feelings, but I must—had said that it might be necessary to remove Henri-Christian’s tonsils and adenoids at some point, to ease his breathing, and plainly this point has been reached. She did this for the Beardsley twins some time ago on the Ridge, and I would trust no one else to attempt such an operation on Henri-Christian.

  Will you go to see her, Mam? I think she must be at Lallybroch now, and I will write to her there, begging her to come to Philadelphia as soon as possible. But I fear my inability to communicate the horror of our situation.

  As you love me, Mam, please go to her and ask her to come as quickly as may be.

  Your most affectionate daughter,

  Marsali

  I set down the letter. I fear my inability to communicate the horror of our situation. No, she’d done that, all right.

  Sleep apnea, they called it; the tendency to stop breathing suddenly when asleep. It was common—and much more common in some sorts of dwarfism, where the respiratory airways were constricted by the skeletal abnormalities. Most people who had
it would wake themselves, thrashing and snorting as they breathed again. But the enlarged adenoids and tonsils obstructing his throat—probably a hereditary problem, I thought distractedly, for I’d noted them in Germain and to a lesser extent in the girls, as well—would aggravate the difficulty, since even if the reflex that causes a person short of oxygen to breathe kicked in belatedly, Henri-Christian likely couldn’t draw the immediate deep breath that would waken him.

  The vision of Marsali and Fergus—and probably Germain—taking it in turns to sit up in a dark house, watching the little boy sleep, perhaps nodding off themselves in the cold and quiet, jerking awake in terror lest he have shifted in his sleep and stopped breathing… A sick knot of fear had formed under my ribs, reading the letter.

  Laoghaire was watching me, blue eyes direct under her cap. For once, the anger, hysteria, and suspicion with which she had always regarded me was gone.

  “If ye’ll go,” she said, and swallowed, “I’ll give up the money.”

  I stared at her.

  “You think that I—” I began incredulously, but stopped. Well, yes, she plainly did believe I would require to be bribed. She thought that I had abandoned Jamie after Culloden, returning only when he had become prosperous again. I struggled with the urge to try to tell her… but that was pointless, and quite beside the point now, too. The situation was clear and sharp as broken glass.

  She leaned forward abruptly, her hands on the desk, pressed down so hard that her fingernails were white.

  “Please,” she said. “Please.”

  I was conscious of strong, conflicting urges: on the one hand, to smack her, and on the other, to put a sympathetic hand over hers. I fought down both and forced myself to think calmly for a moment.

  I would go, of course; I’d have to. It had nothing to do with Laoghaire, or with what lay between us. If I did not go, and Henri-Christian died—he well might—I’d never be able to live with myself. If I came in time, I could save him; no one else could. It was as simple as that.

  My heart sank precipitously at the thought of leaving Lallybroch now. How horrible; how could I, knowing that I left Ian for the last time, perhaps leaving them all and the place itself for the last time. But even as I thought these things, the part of my mind that was a surgeon had already grasped the necessity and was setting about the business of planning the quickest way to Philadelphia, contemplating how I should acquire what I needed once there, the possible obstructions and complications that might arise—all the practical analysis of how I should do what had so suddenly been asked of me.

  And as my mind clicked through these things, the ruthless logic overwhelming shock, subduing emotion, it began to dawn upon me that this sudden disaster might have other aspects.

  Laoghaire was waiting, eyes fixed on me, her mouth firm, willing me to do it.

  “All right,” I said, leaning back in my chair and fixing her in turn with a level look. “Let’s come to terms, then, shall we?”

  “SO,” I SAID, eyes fixed on the flight of a gray heron as it crossed the loch, “we made a bargain. I’ll go to Philadelphia as quickly as I can to take care of Henri-Christian. She’ll marry Joey, give up the alimony—and give her permission for Joan to go to the convent. Though I suppose we’d best get it in writing, just in case.”

  Jamie stared at me, speechless. We were sitting in the long rough grass at the side of the loch, where I’d brought him to tell him what had happened—and what was going to happen.

  “She—Laoghaire—has kept Joan’s dowry intact; Joan will have that, for traveling and for her entry to the convent,” I added. I took a deep breath, hoping to keep my voice steady. “I’m thinking that—well, Michael will be leaving in a few days. Joan and I could go with him to France; I could sail from there on a French ship, and he could see her safely to her convent.”

  “You—” he began, and I reached to squeeze his hand, to stop him speaking.

  “You can’t go now, Jamie,” I said softly. “I know you can’t.”

  He closed his eyes, grimacing, and his hand tightened on mine in instinctive denial of the obvious. I clung to his fingers just as tightly, in spite of the fact that it was his tender right hand I held. The thought of being parted from him for any amount of time or space—let alone the Atlantic Ocean and the months it might take before we saw each other again—made the bottom of my stomach fall away and filled me with desolation and a sense of vague terror.

  He would go with me if I asked—if I even gave him room for doubt about what he must do. I must not.

  He needed this so much. Needed what small time remained with Ian; needed even more to be here for Jenny when Ian died, for he could be her comfort in a way that not even her children could be. And if he had needed to go and see Laoghaire out of guilt over the failure of their marriage—how much more acute would be his guilt at abandoning his sister, yet again, and in her most desperate time of need.

  “You can’t leave,” I whispered, urgent. “I know, Jamie.”

  He opened his eyes then and looked at me, eyes dark with anguish.

  “I canna let ye go. Not without me.”

  “It… won’t be long,” I said, forcing the words past the lump in my throat—a lump that acknowledged both my sorrow in parting from him and the greater sorrow for the reason why our separation wouldn’t be a long one.

  “I’ve gone farther by myself, after all,” I said, trying to smile. His mouth moved, wanting to respond, but the trouble in his eyes didn’t change.

  I lifted his crippled hand to my lips and kissed it, pressed my cheek against it, my head turned away—but a tear ran down my cheek and I knew he felt the wetness of it on his hand, for his other hand reached for me and drew me into him, and we sat pressed together for a long, long time, listening to the wind that stirred the grass and touched the water. The heron had set down at the far side of the loch and stood on one leg, waiting patiently amid the tiny ripples.

  “We’ll need a lawyer,” I said at last, not moving. “Is Ned Gowan still alive?”

  MUCH TO MY astonishment, Ned Gowan was still alive. How old could he possibly be? I wondered, looking at him. Eighty-five? Ninety? He was toothless and wrinkled as a crumpled paper bag, but still jaunty as a cricket, and with his lawyer’s bloodlust quite intact.

  He had drawn up the agreement of annulment for the marriage between Jamie and Laoghaire, cheerfully arranging the annual payments to Laoghaire, the dowries for Marsali and Joan. He set himself now just as cheerfully to dismantling it.

  “Now, the question of Mistress Joan’s dowry,” he said, thoughtfully licking the point of his quill. “You specified, sir, in the original document, that this amount—may I say, this very generous amount—was to be endowed upon the young woman upon the occasion of her marriage and to remain her sole property thereafter, not passing to her husband.”

  “Aye, that’s right,” Jamie said, not very patiently. He’d told me privately that he would prefer to be staked out naked on an anthill than to have to deal with a lawyer for more than five minutes, and we had been dealing with the complications of this agreement for a good hour. “So?”

  “So she is not marrying,” Mr. Gowan explained, with the indulgence due to someone not very bright but still worthy of respect by reason of the fact that he was paying the lawyer’s fee. “The question of whether she can receive the dowry under this contract—”

  “She is marrying,” Jamie said. “She’s becoming a Bride o’ Christ, ye ignorant Protestant.”

  I glanced at Ned in some surprise, having never heard that he was a Protestant, but he made no demur at this. Mr. Gowan, sharp as ever, noticed my surprise and smiled at me, eyes twinkling.

  “I have no religion save the law, ma’am,” he said. “Observance of one form of ritual over another is irrelevant; God to me is the personification of Justice, and I serve Him in that guise.”

  Jamie made a Scottish noise deep in his throat in response to this sentiment.

  “Aye, and a fat lot o’ goo
d that will do ye, and your clients here ever realize ye’re no a papist.”

  Mr. Gowan’s small dark eyes did not cease to twinkle as he turned them on Jamie.

  “I am sure ye dinna suggest such a low thing as blackmail, sir? Why, I hesitate even to name that honorable Scottish institution, knowing as I do the nobility of your character—and the fact that ye’re no going to get this bloody contract done without me.”

  Jamie sighed deeply and settled into his chair.

  “Aye, get on with it. What’s to do about the dowry, then?”

  “Ah.” Mr. Gowan turned with alacrity to the matter at hand. “I have spoken with the young woman regarding her own wishes in the matter. As the original maker of the contract, you may—with the consent of the other signatory, which, I understand, has been given”—he uttered a dry little cough at this oblique mention of Laoghaire—“alter the terms of the original document. Since, as I say, Mistress Joan does not propose to wed, do you wish to rescind the dowry altogether, to keep the existing terms, or to alter them in some way?”

  “I want to give the money to Joan,” Jamie said, with an air of relief at finally being asked something concrete.

  “Absolutely?” Mr. Gowan inquired, pen poised. “The word ‘absolutely’ having a meaning in law other than—”

  “Ye said ye talked to Joan. What the devil does she want, then?”

  Mr. Gowan looked happy, as he usually did upon perceiving a new complication.

  “She wishes to accept only a small portion of the original dowry, this to be used to provide for her reception into a convent; such a donation is customary, I believe.”

  “Aye?” Jamie raised one eyebrow. “And what about the rest?”

  “She wishes the residue to be given to her mother, Laoghaire MacKenzie Fraser, but not given absolutely, if you follow me. Given with conditions.”

  Jamie and I exchanged looks.

  “What conditions?” he asked carefully.

  Mr. Gowan held up a withered hand, folding down the fingers as he enumerated the conditions.

  “One, that the money shall not be released until a proper record of the marriage of Laoghaire MacKenzie Fraser and Joseph Boswell Murray shall be written in the parish register of Broch Mordha, witnessed and attested by a priest. Two, that a contract be signed, reserving and guaranteeing the estate of Balriggan and all its inclusive goods as the sole property of Laoghaire MacKenzie Fraser until her death, thereafter being willed as the aforesaid Laoghaire MacKenzie Fraser shall so dispose in a proper will. Thirdly, the money shall not be given absolutely, but shall be retained by a trustee and disbursed in the amount of twenty pounds per annum, paid jointly to the aforesaid Laoghaire MacKenzie Fraser and Joseph Boswell Murray. Fourth, that these annual payments shall be used only for matters pertaining to the upkeep and improvement of the estate of Balriggan. Fifth, that payment of each year’s disbursement shall be contingent upon the receipt of proper documentation regarding the use of the previous year’s disbursement.” He folded down his thumb and lowered his closed fist, and held up one finger of his other hand.

  “Sixth—and lastly—that one James Alexander Gordon Fraser Murray, of Lallybroch, shall be trustee for these funds. Are these conditions agreeable, sir?”

  “They are,” Jamie said firmly, rising to his feet. “Make it so, if ye please, Mr. Gowan—and now, if no one minds, I am going away and having a wee dram. Possibly two.”

  Mr. Gowan capped his inkwell, tidied his notes into a neat pile, and likewise rose, though more slowly.

  “I’ll join ye in that dram, Jamie. I want to hear about this war of yours in America. It sounds the grandest of adventures!”

  COUNTING SHEEP

  AS THE TIME GREW SHORTER, Ian found it impossible to sleep. The need to go, to find Rachel, burned in him so that he felt hot coals in the pit of his stomach all of the time. Auntie Claire called it heartburn, and it was. She said it was from bolting his food, though, and it wasn’t that—he could barely eat.

  He spent his days with his father, as much as he could. Sitting in the corner of the speak-a-word room, watching his father and his elder brother go about the business of Lallybroch, he couldn’t understand how it would be possible to stand up and walk away, to leave them behind. To leave his father forever behind.

  During the days, there were things to be done, folk to be visited, to talk to, and the land to be walked over, the stark beauty of it soothing when his feelings grew too heated to bear. At night, though, the house lay quiet, the creaking silence punctuated by his father’s distant cough and his two young nephews’ heavy breathing in the room beside him. He began to feel the house itself breathe around him, drawing one ragged, heavy-chested gasp after another, and to feel the weight of it on his own chest, so he sat up in bed, gulping air only to be sure he could. And finally he would slide out of bed, steal downstairs with his boots in his hands, and let himself out of the kitchen door to walk the night under clouds or stars, the clean wind fanning the coals of his heart to open flame, until he should find his tears and peace in which to shed them.

  One night he found the door unbolted already. He went out cautiously, looking round, but saw no one. Likely Young Jamie gone to the barn; one of the two cows was due to calf any day. He should go and help, maybe … but the burning under his ribs was painful, he needed to walk a bit first. Jamie would have fetched him in any case, had he thought he needed help.