Jennie About to Be (32 page)

“Plain food properly cooked suits us,” Jennie said. “I told Mrs. MacIver I would like to try Scottish dishes, and she did very well. You can do the same, I'm sure.”

“Aye, I can. But havers! It was the dreadful thing these Hielanders did, to flit like that!” Her full mouth turned censorious. “But that's the nature o' the beast.”

“They had good reason to go, Lizzie. Their families needed them; some very sad things have been happening around here.” Lizzie opened her mouth, but Jennie moved smoothly on. “Our laundress won't be coming. I don't like to burden you with more beside the cooking and general housework, but you would be paid separately for washing if you could manage it until we find someone.”

“Och, it'll be nae trouble!”

“Upstairs there's a damp riding habit and tights—”

“Did ye tumble frae your horse?”

“No, I lost my footing and tumbled into a brook.” She could not bring herself to tell this earthy girl that she wanted the clothing destroyed; but she needn't wear it again. “Some of the Captain's clothing is in the washhouse. When you are ready to wash, Fergus will help you with the water.”

“Tom was telling me about yon Fergus. He's a daftie, then?”

“Not at all! He's slow of speech, but a genius with the horses. He's to be fed in the kitchen, and fed well. He's especially fond of coffee for a treat. The others were patient with him, and I hope you will be, too.”

“Dinna ye fash yerself, Mistress. I've as kind a heart as ye could find.” Her lack of false modesty would have been refreshing if Jennie had been happier.

“I'll leave you then,” she said. “I'm going for a walk.” She carried the spencer over her arm; the uncertain sun was warm, but the shade was cold. Turning her back inexorably to the ridge, she walked to the front of the house and took the road to Linnmore House.

When she came to the pasture, she left the drive and crossed the meadow, ignored by the occupants. She ached for exercise that would work her body to the limits of its strength, and perhaps when she had reached that topknot of ancient rock she would have also reached some compromise or pattern for her future existence.

She walked along the edge of the woods, looking for the obvious start of a footpath. In the meantime Meall na Gobhar Mor disppeared; she could see only a gently rising slope of birch, beech, and fir. She waded in translucent green seas of wet young ferns and bracken, following first one way and then another, always trying to keep the open fields in sight through the trees to her right.

Suddenly she heard a man's voice very clearly and looked down through the trees and saw the roofs of the stable block of Linnmore House. She sat down abruptly at the foot of a huge oak, among violets and the fragile pink-striped blossoms of wood sorrel.

She sat there for some time, overcome by an almost frightening languor. She could hardly hold her head up without support. She settled herself more comfortably into the grass, leaning back against the massive trunk.
If I were a witch
, she thought drowsily,
I could be sitting here ill-wishing the Master and Mistress of Linnmore House. I realy ought to try it; I might have hidden powers
. She smiled sadly at this, and fell asleep.

It was a heavier sleep than she'd had all night, as if she felt perfectly safe out here. From
what?
she wondered groggily as she tried to get her eyes open and move her leaden hands and feet.

She had no idea what time it was; she hadn't bothered to pin her watch to her dress. What did time matter anyway? She had all her life ahead of her.
Tomorow, and tomorow, and tomorow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
. The very words dropped on her like iron weights. She got up quickly, hugging her spencer around her against a new chill in the air, and went back the way she had come. But slowly this time, yawning enough to blind her eyes with water and occasionally stumbling.

She had revived by the time she returned to the pasture. When she reached the road again, she looked back, and there was the Hill of the Great Goat in its familiar place against the dappled northeast sky.

“I'll find you yet,” she threatened.

Now she was driven to the ridge; she had to go there and get it over with. It was like going to see the dead body of someone you had loved, or someone for whom there was no other mourner. It was the last duty you could do for him.

She scrabbled quickly up the track; no Narcissus reverie over the fern-fringed pool this time.

She half expected to see at least one sign of life there, even that of an animal, but the complete emptiness shocked her. There was nothing moving, not even a hen that'd escaped capture. Everything and everyone gone, gone, gone. The word tolled in her head like a bell. Not even wisps of fire still lived; showers in the night had taken care of smoldering thatch.

Yesterday morning the rooster had announced the sun; kids bleated after their mothers; children awoke; women arose and revived the peat fires that had been smalled for the night; men took buckets and went for water.

This morning the roofless cottages already looked like old ruins, not even of interest to the crows.

She turned away, beyond tears, feeling old herself. Abstractedly she patted one of the pines as if it were Dora. All morning at the back of her mind Lizzie Lindsay's tune had been just barely audible. Now she went on with the verse she had been trying to ignore ever since the girl first sang:

She went directly up to her room to avoid any conversation with Lizzie, though she would have liked a pot of tea. As she passed up the stairs, the silence of the house was that of bereavement. The ticking of the clocks had a sorrowful cadence.

Directly she entered the bedroom, she smelled Nigel's eau de cologne; then she saw him through the open door to his dressing room. He stood naked as Apollo, taking fresh smalls from the press. Without looking around, he said curtly, “We're expected for dinner. If you choose not to go, I'll say you're not well.”

“If I'd gone, you and Archie would be dining alone. So—” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Christabel arrived home this afternoon.”

“I suppose she cut her visit short because there was no need to go on with the charade,” Jennie observed.

He didn't deny that it had been a charade. “It was only to save you pain,” he said. “That's what we all wanted.”

“No, it was to get a meddlesome nuisance out of the way,” she said in a flat, tired voice. “Did you tell them about my school, and then did you all three have a jolly laugh at my innocence?”

“I have never mentioned your school! I have never laughed at you!” His whole body flushed. A less beautiful man would have been ridiculous standing there naked and angry. Not Nigel. This body had been her possession and could be again, every superb inch of it. He was excited now by an aphrodisiac combination of her indifference and his indignation.

“Jennie!” He came toward her. “To hell with dinner, let us sleep together again and make everything all right.”

“Neither that nor a new puppy will make it all not have happened.” She backed and turned away. “I'll go with you to dinner.”

She shut the door on him and went downstairs to tell Lizzie they wouldn't be eating here, and she could go back to the farm for the night whenever she pleased.

“My but the Captain's a heartsome, strappin' man!” Lizzie told her with enthusiasm, and Jennie smiled. She returned to her room and looked over her gowns. Christabel would be decked out like a drum horse on parade; very well, so would Jennie be, but with considerably more taste.

She dressed in a velvet-spotted white gauze over a pink silk slip, and wore pink tourmalines with it. She touched her throat, earlobes, and the inner fold of her elbews with the subtle scent given her, surprisingly, by Lady Clarke. Her long sleep under the oak tree had rested her, and she had more natural color in her lips and face. She knew that by candlelight she would look about seventeen, which couldn't please Christabel.

It was unbelievable that she and Nigel should be dressing for dinner with a closed door between them and that it was her doing. But she had no temptation to open it.

Lizzie came bounding up the stairs to announce the dogcart, and Jennie wrapped herself in an India shawl she had never worn before. Lizzie admired it tremendously, also Nigel's forest green wedding coat. She saw them off, beaming like a proud nanny, and Nigel played up to Jennie before her and young Dougal. It came easily to him, as all his deceptions came, and she was forced to play a part to protect her pride.

A
T LEAST
he didn't insist on making light conversation on the ride.

The sun had stayed out long enough to give them a golden evening light, and Christabel and Archie stood out on the steps waiting for them. Christabel
outside
, instead of guarding her complexion? Perhaps she had thought it was safe to breathe the air, now that the vermin had been removed. She was all ablaze with her jewels and a capucine crepe gown much garnished with gold embroidery; the strong nasturtium color was wrong for her, but it was extremely fashionable outside the Highland wilderness.

“Well, here we are!” Nigel called before the pony stopped. He jumped out, but before he could hand Jennie down, Archie was there. He set her on her feet and took both her hands in his, his head tilted archly.

“Wee Jeannie! I've missed you!”

“We're so glad you've recovered, Eugenia.” Christabel was civil in a wintry way. “We were about to walk down to the pond and admire the daffodils. They're very fine this year.”

“Very fine.” Archie pulled Jennie's hand through his arm and patted it. Nigel offered his arm to Christabel.

“I had a new sweet-scented variety set out last year,” she said. “They're intended to be late, to follow the common kind that have always been there.”

“I believe my mother set many of those out,” said Nigel, adopting her drawing-room manner. “Very bright and jolly, what?”

“Delightful!” she said with a simper. “I'm certainly not criticizing your mother's good taste. But it's charming to have them keep coming along. I had these bulbs smuggled in from Holland. Yes, I confess it!” she said playfully.

“Christabel, you're unpatriotic,” said Nigel, and she tittered. A phenomenon.
Is this what Nigel's arm does to her
? Jennie wondered.
If she had a fan, she'd be tapping him with it and saying, “La, sir!”

“Ah, now!” Archie drew in a long, snorting breath. “There's a whiff of it already. Breathe deeply now, Jeannie. Isn't that a bonny fragrance?”

“I'm afraid I can't smell anything,” she said with the sweetest of smiles. “There is such a scent of smoke in my nostrils; I can't seem to escape it.”

“You should have no peat fires at all in your house,” said Christabel, “not even in the kitchen. There is no getting rid of the reek of it.”

“It's not peat,”Jennie said. She felt Nigel's shift of stance as if bracing himself. “It's the stench of burning thatch, and of roof timbers that weren't saved, and feather mattresses and bedding that couldn't be gotten out in time.” She knelt gracefully and put her nose to one of the crisply frilled creamy blossoms. “Even this near I barely smell the flower. . . . I wonder what they are all doing now, and where they were last night when it was showering. If we have a long wet period before some shelter can be found, it could be the death of some of the very old and the very young. There's a new baby—if it's still alive. The mother went into labor while her home was being burned down.”

The elongated shadows of the other three fell across her and the flowers and reached the water, but they were the shadows of statues. Then Christabel said, “They will be wanting to serve dinner. My chef has excelled himself today, he claims. We shall see.”

So they were going to ignore it. Well, if the chef could excel himself at dinner, so could she. She would make it truly memorable for them. She rose and took Archie's arm again, and again he patted her hand, but his haw-haw was nervous. They began their sedate stroll up the lawn in the sunset light.

“The cuckoos have returned,” said Nigel.

“Have they?” Christabel asked. “I hardly know one bird from another, except for the blackbirds, of course. Tiresome things and so common. They go on and on.”

“Is there any special reason for the chefs great effort?” Jennie asked. “Has there been another victory like Trafalgar? Has Sir Arthur Wellesley captured Napoleon?”

Archie took the opportunity to squeeze her hand and whinnied happily. “We haven't heard the latest intelligences from Spain, Jeannie, dear, but there's no doubt Wellesley* will do it. And when he rids all Europe of Boney, he'll be given a dukedom.”

Nigel seized on the subject so avidly that it was pitiful, if she'd been of a mind to pity. Almost contentedly she listened to the two men do the topic to death. Nigel was passionately patriotic for a man who'd gladly resigned his commission; Archie blazed with the fervor of a man who had no sons to lose. Tenants' sons who died or would die on European battlefields were no concern of his, especially since he no longer had any tenants except on the farms and in the village.