“Lass, I canna see what ye are seein’. Help me, lass. Tell
me what to do,” he whispered in confusion. She terrified him when she did this,
leaving him reeling in a world of uncertainty. He feared one day she would
leave into that other world and not return.
Her eyes flickered, and her fingers closed around his. “I am
fine, Rory,” she murmured.
“Alys, you tear the breath from me when you do that. I think
the first thing we need do is find a physician.” He hid his insane fears behind
a mask of practicality, but he couldn’t completely conceal his concern.
“Even could you find such an unlikely personage out here, he
would merely say, ‘Aye, and she’s with bairn, lad. Call me back in five months
or so.’”
Rory grinned weakly at her mimicry. “I’ll not survive that
long if you persist in doing this. Do you have any idea how many stairs there
are out there?”
Alyson laughed and struggled to sit up just as the
housekeeper bustled in with a tray and a young girl hurried after her with a
pitcher of hot water.
She didn’t have time to explain that she had seen the
snowstorm again, only a little clearer. He might say these hills did not
receive the snow of their northern heights, but she knew differently. The
landscape she had seen in her vision was only a snow-covered version of the one
outside their window right now.
If she could do naught else, she could prepare their home
for the winter storm. She glanced around as the servants bustled about, then tugged
on Rory’s hand. “When will you next hear from Dougall?”
He raised a questioning eyebrow. “I have not sent him far.
We established a method of sending messages through Glasgow long ago. Why?”
“I will need to order a number of things from London or Edinburgh
or wherever one can obtain materials here. I suspect we may be sleeping on the
only linen in the house.” She whispered this last so as not to offend the
servants adding peat to the fire.
Rory frowned. “I cannot afford to be sending the
Witch
on shopping trips for luxuries, Alyson. You saw last night how the people here
must live. We would do better to study the situation and see how best to use
our resources.”
Alyson stared at him in dawning comprehension. Far from
using their marriage to fatten his pocket with her wealth, Rory meant not to
use it at all! There could be no other reason for his parsimonious ways.
Furious at his stubbornness when so much could be done with that worthless
accumulation compounding interest in some London vault, Alyson sat up and tried
to push past Rory’s broad frame.
“I never saw such a stubborn, pigheaded, mule-minded,
intolerably arrogant excuse for a gentleman in all my life! I thought Dougall
would be more reliable, but I’ll send my requests to Deirdre and Mr. Farnley and
they will see to them for me. You may freeze yourself blue in some garret if
your conscience requires, Rory Maclean, but I’ll not see the people in my
household suffer needless discomfort for the benefit of your pride. Go away. I
wish to change out of these dratted muddy clothes.”
The two servants stared in astonishment as the laird rose
and performed an icily correct bow. When the hard-featured gentleman stalked
out, they didn’t know whether to hurry after him or stay with the lady. Not
until they realized tears poured down the lady’s cheeks did they grasp the
first hint of tragedy. The laird had all the strength; the lady had only her
beauty with which to defend herself.
In the way of the world, the servants divided between
themselves. The housekeeper hurried after the master to see to his needs. The
young maid stayed to help the lady from her gown and to see to her comfort. So
it was that the remainder of the household divided as the days passed.
Alyson had little experience in running a household, particularly
a newly acquired one in which none of the people had worked together before. She
wished desperately for the experienced butler and head housekeeper of her
grandfather’s establishment as she contemplated the enormous task ahead.
The caretaker had seen that the walls remained standing and
the roof didn’t collapse, but he had not seen to the little things like the
mice in the larders, the leaks in the casements, nor the mold in the pantries.
The kitchen had only a cavernous fireplace for cooking. The dinnerware was a
motley assortment of cracked pottery and pewter. The magnificent Jacobean
pieces of furniture with which the house had originally been furnished nearly
two centuries before had rotted from neglect. There was scarcely a suitable
pallet left for the very limited staff of servants which Rory had provided.
Since no one had been there to stock the larder over summer,
lists of necessary supplies had to be drawn up—with the primitive kitchen and
the distance they would have to be hauled in mind
Alyson was almost ready to surrender at the hopelessness of
the task, when the young maid who had become her staunchest ally made a casual comment.
“Me mam used to work fer yer gran’ther when he was alive.
She said ’twas a fine hoose then, and there were none that went beggin’ that
came here. It will be good to see those times ag’in.”
Sitting at the knife-scarred kitchen table, Alyson looked up
from her endless list to study the dark-haired girl sweeping the ashes in the
fireplace. “Where is your mother now?”
The girl swept the pile into a bin. “’Twas a poor summer
year before last, and she was sickly. When the winter turned cruel . . .”
She shrugged her shoulders in resignation. “It will be different nae that ye’ve
coom. She always said, even when the laird died, his lady saw none went hungry.
Of course, that was before the uprisin’ an’ a’ that. There’s few left to look
after nae.”
Alyson set about her list-making with new will. It was
her
neglect that had allowed these lands
to lie fallow too long. Her Cranville grandfather had known nothing of this
place or the tenants’ reliance on their landlord during times of hardship.
She
had known it. Her grandmother had
drummed the importance of her responsibilities into her from an early age. She
had just never understood the amount of personal responsibility involved. A
steward had sounded sufficient to her. She could see now that it was that sort
of lax thinking that had brought the land to rack and ruin.
With so many of the Highland landowners driven from their
estates and the lands left to waste in His Majesty’s coffers, there were none
to personally oversee the tenants and crofters, to give them aid or education
as the lairds had in the past. Absentee landowners were little better than King
George. Both demanded their rents without consideration of what the tenants had
to do to provide them. And then they complained when the people turned to
cattle stealing for support. No wonder the honest, ambitious ones found a way
to emigrate.
Alyson knew she did not need to preach her newfound lessons
to Rory, even had she the opportunity. He was already out every day and half
the night compiling his own lists. She knew he ranged farther afield than her
own small holdings, to be gone so much of the time, but she had expected that. The
estates that had once been his were within riding distance.
She had become so accustomed to his absence in London that
she did not really begin to worry until she caught a chance remark in the
stairwell.
“They say there’s no respectable girl will work there with
Lord Drummond home. ’Tis a shame, it is, with the rightful laird livin’ in this
drafty auld place when he might have a’ that.”
Alyson stiffened and waited for more, but the voices drifted
down the stairs. Rory had not mentioned that his English cousin was in
residence. She had assumed he was just another of the absentee landlords living
in London. Rory’s threats to one day have it out with Drummond took on new
meaning. Had he already been to his cousin to offer for the estate, then?
She wanted to question him, but the day’s tasks and her body’s
new, demanding needs drained her of the ability to stay awake until he came
home. When he did arrive in the wee hours, he made his bed in the room across
from hers, leaving her to sleep undisturbed until after he was gone in the
morning.
Alyson raged inwardly, but she presented a docile expression
to the servants as she discussed the various needs of the household. Let Rory
right the world on the outside. She would start at home.
Those items that could be found locally began arriving
within the week. Alyson watched in satisfaction as the blanket chests began to
fill with fine woolens and the linen wardrobes with finely woven sheets. Dried
and salted meats, potatoes, and sacks of oatmeal filled the empty pantries and
cellars. Next year there would be gardens and jams and jellies from the fruits
her grandmother had said were to be found. For now, such luxuries would have to
come from afar. Alyson signed still another invoice for the latest shipment of
plain woolen yard goods and posted it to Mr. Farnley. Let him make what he
would of it, along with the other lists of necessities she had sent to him.
Alyson suspected Rory still managed her finances. The post
to him from London was formidable. If he did not wish to discuss it with her,
she would not lower her pride to inquire. He would just have to discover her
purchases from Mr. Farnley.
Slowly she learned the names of the servants and their
various capabilities. They all knew her story, knew her for a sailor’s bastard,
but they still held a respect for the Maclnneses and a wariness of the memory
of her grandmother. Often she caught them watching her with suspicion when she
drifted through a room without speaking, her mind on other things. But as
rumors of her pregnancy made the rounds, they relaxed their guard, and she
actually caught an occasional smile on their faces.
There were no smiles the night the rain turned to wailing
winds and sleet, and Alyson discovered a more heartbreaking facet of this life.
She shivered at the howling storm even though workmen had lined the windows
with paneled shutters, and a seamstress had sewn heavy draperies to cover the
shutters. Fires burned in all the grates, but nothing kept out the howl of the
wind. Terrified for Rory’s safety, Alyson walked the floors and refused to be
comforted.
The noise outside was such that she almost didn’t hear the
faint pounding at the great oaken door. Since the castle overlooked a cliff,
there was only one entrance to the tower. Rory would not have lingered to knock
at his own gate.
The servants had retired to the warmth of the kitchen,
leaving Alyson to struggle with the massive door. A gust of wind blew it wide
once she had it unlatched, sending her staggering backward. In the doorway
stood two forlorn figures, one carrying a tattered woolen shawl in her arms,
protecting the tiny form wrapped inside against her breast.
Alyson studied the two scarecrow women, while hurriedly
ushering them in out of the cold. They wore no cloaks or coats, and their tartans
had frozen into shapeless mounds around their shoulders. In the meagre warmth
of the hall, the ice coating them began to drip from their garments. Alyson
gasped in horror as she realized both women wore nothing but rags on their
feet. Her gaze flew to the weathered, worn lines of the older woman’s face and
read the bleakness there.
“They say the Maclean has returned,” the visitor managed to croak
through cracked lips, speaking slowly but in a thick accent. “Is he here?”
“He should be here soon. You must come in and dry
yourselves.” Alyson couldn’t help observing the younger woman clutching the
infant. The child hadn’t moved or uttered a cry since they entered. She had
never tended a baby, had never had close contact with one, and her hands itched
to touch the tiny bundle, to see the child’s face. The young mother’s
expression had frozen at sight of Alyson, but she limped toward the warmth of
the fire.
Their tattered rags left a trail of water across the planked
floor. Obeying an urge that had no voice, Alyson took off her shawl. She
slipped the warm wool around the frozen bundle and lifted the child from its
mother’s arms. The young woman stood helplessly, her large eyes dark in an
emaciated face, as she watched Alyson cuddle the child in her arms.
It was only when Alyson removed the soggy wool covering the
infant’s face that the horror crept into her bones. She glanced past the young
mother, to the older woman, who met her gaze with unflinching sadness.
“Hush, Mary,” the older woman said to the whimpering younger
one. “The lady will only take Jamie to the kitchen to get warm. Everything’s
fine now.”
Alyson caught the warning in the woman’s carefully
pronounced words, and grateful for any excuse to flee, practically ran from the
room.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she opened her mouth to call
for help as she entered the kitchen, but nothing emerged. The servants sitting
around the fire stared as she wordlessly held the bundle of rags. Her
expression apparently smote them with helplessness, until the elderly
housekeeper recovered and shouted to Alyson’s young maid.
“Meg! Take Lady Alyson upstairs.” The housekeeper removed
the rags from Alyson’s arms, and then exclaimed in Gaelic, causing several of
the others to jump to their feet.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Alyson asked, her eyes searching the
other woman’s for verification as she reluctantly surrendered her small burden.
“Aye, lass. Many a bairn born this time o’ the year has not
the strength to live. Yer own will be born in the spring, and a fine time that
will be. He’ll be a big strapping lad, ye will see. Dinna fash yerself o’er it
nae. Yer man willna be likin’ to see ye so.”
The girl Meg tried to lead Alyson away, but the emptiness in
her arms where the infant had been would not let her leave. Unaware of the
tears still streaming down her cheeks, she silently returned to the waiting
women, scarcely aware that Meg still followed.