A Breath of Snow and Ashes (120 page)

“What—” began the boy. He got no further. Jamie dropped Mr. Wemyss’s arm, took two strides, and punched the Beardsley twin in the stomach with sufficient force that he doubled over, dropped the chickens, staggered back, and fell down. The chickens flapped off in a cloud of scattered feathers, squawking.

The boy writhed about on the ground, mouth opening and closing in a vain search for air, but Jamie paid no attention. He stooped, seized the lad by the hair, and spoke loudly and directly into his ear—in case it was Kezzie, I supposed.

“Fetch your brother. To my study. Now.”

Mr. Wemyss had been watching this interesting tableau, one arm draped across my shoulders for support and his mouth hanging open. It continued to hang open as he turned his head, following Jamie as he strode back toward us. He blinked, though, and shut it, as Jamie seized his other arm and, removing him neatly from me, propelled him into the house without a backward glance.

I gazed reproachfully at the Beardsley on the ground.

“How
could
you?” I said.

He made soundless goldfish mouths at me, his eyes completely round, then managed a long
heeeeee
sound of inhalation, his face dark purple.

“Jo? What’s the matter, are ye hurt?” Lizzie came out of the trees, a pair of chickens clutched by the legs in either hand. She was frowning worriedly at—well, I supposed it
was
Jo; if anyone could tell the difference, it would surely be Lizzie.

“No, he’s not hurt,” I assured her. “Yet.” I pointed a monitory finger at her. “You, young lady, go and put those chickens in their coop and then—” I hesitated, glancing at the boy on the ground, who had recovered enough breath to gasp and was gingerly sitting up. I didn’t want to bring her into my surgery, not if Jamie and Mr. Wemyss were going to be eviscerating the Beardsleys right across the hall.

“I’ll go with you,” I decided hastily, gesturing her away from Jo. “Shoo.”

“But—” She cast a bewildered glance at Jo—yes, it was Jo; he ran a hand through his hair to get it out of his face, and I saw the scarred thumb.

“He’s fine,” I said, turning her toward the chicken coop with a firm hand on her shoulder. “Go.”

I glanced back, to see that Jo Beardsley had made it to his feet and, with a hand pressed to his tender middle, was making off toward the stable, presumably to fetch his twin as ordered.

I glanced back at Lizzie, giving her a narrow eye. If Mr. Wemyss had the right end of the stick and she
was
pregnant, she was evidently one of those fortunate persons who doesn’t suffer from morning sickness or the usual digestive symptoms of early pregnancy; she was, in fact, very healthy-looking.

That in itself should have alerted me, I supposed, pale and green-stick as she normally was. Now that I looked carefully, there seemed to be a soft pink glow about her, and her pale blond hair was shiny where it peeped out under her cap.

“How far along are you?” I asked, holding back a branch for her. She gave me a quick look, gulped visibly, then ducked under the branch.

“About four months gone, I think,” she said meekly, not looking at me. “Um . . . Da told ye, did he?”

“Yes. Your poor father,” I said severely. “Is he right?
Both
of the Beardsleys?”

She hunched her shoulders a little, head bowed, but nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“What—what will Himself do to them?” she asked, her voice small and tremulous.

“I really don’t know.” I doubted that Jamie himself had formed any specific notions—though he
had
mentioned having the miscreant responsible for Lizzie’s pregnancy dead at her feet if her father wished it.

Now that I thought, the alternative—having her wed by morning—was likely to be somewhat more problematic than simply killing the twins would be.

“I don’t know,” I repeated. We had reached the coop, a stoutly built edifice that sheltered under a spreading maple. Several of the hens, slightly less stupid than their sisters, were roosting like huge, ripe fruits in the lower branches, heads buried in their feathers.

I pulled open the door, releasing a gust of ripe ammonia from the dark interior, and holding my breath against the stink, pulled the hens from the tree and tossed them brusquely inside. Lizzie ran into the woods nearby, snatching chickens out from under bushes and rushing back to shove them in. Large drops were beginning to plummet from the clouds, heavy as pebbles, making small, audible splats as they struck the leaves above.

“Hurry!” I slammed the door behind the last of the squawking chickens, threw the latch, and seized Lizzie by the arm. Borne on a whoosh of wind, we ran for the house, skirts whirling up round us like pigeons’ wings.

The summer kitchen was nearest; we burst through the door just as the rain came down with a roar, a solid sheet of water that struck the tin roof with a sound like anvils falling.

We stood panting inside. Lizzie’s cap had come off in flight, and her plait had come undone, so that her hair straggled over her shoulders in strands of shining, creamy blond; a noticeable change from the wispy, flyaway look she usually shared with her father. If I had seen her without her cap, I should have known at once. I took time to recover my breath, trying to decide what on earth to say to her.

She was making a great to-do over tidying herself, panting and pulling at her bodice, smoothing her skirts—all the while trying not to meet my eye.

Well, there was one question that had been niggling at me since Mr. Wemyss’s shocking revelation; best to get that one out of the way at once. The initial roar of the rain had slackened to a regular drumbeat; it was loud, but conversation was at least possible.

“Lizzie.” She looked up from her skirt-settling, slightly startled. “Tell me the truth,” I said. I put my hands on either side of her face, looking earnestly into her pale blue eyes. “Was it rape?”

She blinked, the look of absolute amazement that suffused her features more eloquent than any spoken denial could have been.

“Oh, no, ma’am!” she said just as earnestly. “Ye couldna think Jo or Kezzie would do such a thing?” Her small pink lips twitched slightly. “What, did ye think they maybe took it in turns to hold me down?”

“No,” I said tartly, releasing her. “But I thought I’d best ask, just in case.”

I hadn’t really thought so. But the Beardsleys were such an odd mix of the civil and the feral that it was impossible to say definitely
what
they might or might not do.

“But it
was
. . . er . . . both of them? That’s what your father said. Poor man,” I added, with a tone of some reproach.

“Oh.” She cast down her pale lashes, pretending to find a loose thread on her skirt. “Ummm . . . well, aye, it was. I do feel something terrible about shaming Da so. And it wasna really that we did it a-purpose . . .”

“Elizabeth Wemyss,” I said, with no little asperity, “rape aside—and we’ve ruled that out—it is not possible to engage in sexual relations with two men without meaning to. One, maybe, but not two. Come to that . . .” I hesitated, but vulgar curiosity was simply too much. “Both at
once
?”

She did look shocked at that, which was something of a relief.

“Oh, no, ma’am! It was . . . I mean, I didna ken that it . . .” She trailed off, quite pink in the face.

I pulled two stools out from under the table and pushed one toward her.

“Sit down,” I said, “and tell me about it. We aren’t going anywhere for a bit,” I added, glancing through the half-open door at the downpour outside. A silver haze rose knee-high over the yard, as the raindrops struck the grass in small explosions of mist, and the sharp smell of it washed through the room.

Lizzie hesitated, but took the stool; I could see her making up her mind to it that there was really nothing to do now but explain—assuming that the situation
could
be explained.

“You, um, said you didn’t know,” I said, trying to offer her an opening. “You mean—you thought it was only one twin, but they, er, fooled you?”

“Well, aye,” she said, and took a huge breath of the chilly air. “Something like that. See, ’twas when you and Himself went to Bethabara for the new goat. Mrs. Bug was down wi’ the lumbago, and it was only me and Da in the house—but then he went down to Woolam’s for to fetch the flour, and so it was just me.”

“To Bethabara? That was six months ago! And you’re four months gone—you mean all this time you’ve been—well, never mind. What happened, then?”

“The fever,” she said simply. “It came back.”

She had been gathering firewood when the first malarial chill struck her. Recognizing it for what it was, she had dropped the wood and tried to reach the house, only to fall halfway there, her muscles going slack as string.

“I lay upon the ground,” she explained, “and I could feel the fever comin’ for me. It’s like a great beast, aye? I can feel it seize me in its jaws and bite—’tis like my blood runs hot and then cold, and the teeth of it sink into my bones. I can feel it set in then, to try to break them in twa, and suck the marrow.” She shuddered in memory.

One of the Beardsleys—she thought it was Kezzie, but had been in no state of mind to ask—had discovered her lying in a disheveled heap in the dooryard. He’d run to fetch his brother, and the two of them had raised her, carried her between them into the house, and fetched her upstairs to her bed.

“My teeth were clackin’ so hard together I thought they’d break, surely, but I told them to fetch the ointment, wi’ the gallberries, the ointment ye’d made.”

They had rummaged through the surgery cupboard until they found it, and then, frantic as she burned hotter and hotter, had stripped off her shoes and stockings and begun to rub the ointment into her hands and feet.

“I told them—I told them they must rub it all over,” she said, her cheeks going a deep peony. She looked down, fiddling with a strand of hair. “I was—well, I was quite oot my mind wi’ the fever, ma’am, truly I was. But I kent I needed my medicine bad.”

I nodded, beginning to understand. I didn’t blame her; I’d seen the malaria overpower her. And so far as that went, she’d done the right thing; she did need the medicine, and couldn’t have managed to apply it herself.

Frantic, the two boys had done as she’d said, got her clothes awkwardly off, and rubbed the ointment thoroughly into every inch of her naked body.

“I was goin’ in and oot a bit,” she explained, “wi’ the fever dreams walkin’ oot my heid and about the room, so it’s all a bit mixed, what I recall. But I do think one o’ the lads said to the other as he was getting the ointment all over, and would spoil his shirt, best take it off.”

“I see,” I said, seeing vividly. “And then . . .”

And then she had quite lost track of what was happening, save that whenever she drifted to the surface of the fever, the boys were still there, talking to her and each other, the murmur of their voices a small anchor to reality and their hands never leaving her, stroking and smoothing and the sharp smell of gallberries cutting through the woodsmoke from the hearth and the scent of beeswax from the candle.

“I felt . . . safe,” she said, struggling to express it. “I dinna remember much in particular, only opening my eyes once and seein’ his chest right before my face, and the dark curlies all round his paps, and them wee and brown and wrinkled, like raisins.” She turned her face to me, eyes still rounded at the memory. “I can still see that, like as it was right in front o’ me this minute. That’s queer, no?”

“Yes,” I agreed, though in fact it was not; there was something about high fever that blurred reality but at the same time could sear certain images so deeply into the mind that they never left. “And then . . . ?”

Then she had begun to shake violently with chills, which neither more quilts nor a hot stone at her feet had helped. And so one of the boys, in desperation, had crawled under the quilts beside her and held her against him, trying to drive out the cold from her bones with his own heat—which, I thought cynically, must have been considerable, at that point.

“I dinna ken which it was, or if it was the same one all night, or if they changed now and then, but whenever I woke, he was there, wi’ his arms about me. And sometimes he’d put back the blanket and rub more ointment down my back and, and, round . . .” She stumbled, blushing. “But when I woke in the morning, the fever was gone, like it always is on the second day.”

She looked at me, pleading for understanding.

“D’ye ken how that is, ma’am, when a great fever’s broken? ’Tis the same every time, so I’m thinking it may be so for everyone. But it’s . . . peaceful. Your limbs are sae heavy ye canna think of moving, but ye dinna much care. And everything ye see—all the wee things ye take nay notice of day by day—ye notice, and they’re beautiful,” she said simply. “I think sometimes that will be how it is when I’m dead. I shall just wake, and everything will be like that, peaceful and beautiful—save I shall be able to move.”

“But you woke this time, and couldn’t,” I said. “And the boy—whichever it was—he was still there, with you?”

“It was Jo,” she said, nodding. “He spoke to me, but I didna pay much mind to what he said, and I dinna think he did, either.”

She bit her lower lip momentarily, the small teeth sharp and white.

“I—I hadna done it before, ma’am. But I came close, a time or two wi’ Manfred. And closer still wi’ Bobby Higgins. But Jo hadna ever even kissed a lass, nor his brother had, either. So ye see, ’twas really my fault, for I kent well enough what was happening, but . . . we were both slippery wi’ the ointment, still, and naked under the quilts, and it . . . happened.”

I nodded, understanding precisely and in detail.

“Yes, I can see how it happened, all right. But then it . . . er . . . went on happening, I suppose?”

Her lips pursed up and she went very pink again.

“Well . . . aye. It did. It—it feels sae
nice,
ma’am,” she whispered, leaning a little toward me as though imparting an important secret.

I rubbed a knuckle hard across my lips.

“Um, yes. Quite. But—”

The Beardsleys had washed the sheets at her direction, and there were no incriminating traces left by the time her father returned, two days later. The gallberries had done their work, and while she was still weak and tired, she told Mr. Wemyss only that she had had a mild attack.