A Newfound Land (29 page)

“Have you at least written it all down?” Thomas said, from where he was riding just in front of Matthew.

“I have. I’ve left it with William Hancock – together with my will.”

“Good.” Thomas nodded.

“Good? If it comes to that, I’ll be dead.” But it wouldn’t come to that, he comforted himself. Burley was far away, and he was capable of defending himself, a better swordsman by far than most.

“Nothing will happen.” Peter held in his horse to wait for them. “As long as you don’t say anything, Jones won’t do anything.”

“It’s not Jones I’m worried about,” Matthew said. “It’s Burley.”

“A long ride from where he lives to where you live,” Peter said. “With time, he will forget, Matthew.”

“You think?” Philip Burley struck Matthew as a man capable of holding a grudge for a lifetime.

“Or die. Men as disreputable as he is tend to live brief lives.” Peter clapped his heels to his mount, making the horse break into a trot. “We’d best pick up pace,” he called over his shoulder. “If you’re not home in time for the birthing, you’ll be a dead man anyway.”

Matthew laughed and urged Moses into a canter. His wife waited for him; a wean was soon to be born. Life would go on, he told himself. Nobody would kill him; nobody would tear his family apart. He wouldn’t allow it, and for now he was strong enough to keep them all safe. For now.

Chapter 35

“I don’t think I want to do this ever again,” Alex said, and Matthew wasn’t sure if it was her that was incapable of unclasping his hand, or him that just couldn’t let go. Her hair was plastered to her sweaty brow, her legs were still shaking with the effort of giving birth, and on her stomach lay the latest addition to their family. Her left arm encircled the wean – a lad. She licked her lips and took a shaky breath.

“I don’t think I want you to either,” Matthew said just as unsteadily.

It had been a long, hard struggle, this their eighth child, and Matthew was washed by a wave of tenderness at the sight of her reclining against the pillows, still in her soiled shift, the entire room smelling of blood and sweat and fear.

His son mewled and moved his limbs in a crawling motion, the small head lifting and butting hard in its search for food. Matthew disentangled his hand from Alex’s and lifted the wean to lie at her breast, watching with the same wonder he always felt as this new life latched onto the offered nipple and began the arduous work of feeding. Alex moaned, a hand coming down to press at her lower belly. She made a face at her as yet uncovered legs and the mess between them.

Mrs Parson patted her on her thigh. “I’ll fetch some warm water and then we’ll get you into a clean shift and clean sheets.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Alex smiled, her eyes blinking. She shifted the wean to her other breast and leaned into Matthew, her head heavy on his shoulder. For a moment, he thought she might have fallen asleep like that, the babe at her breast, and he draped his arm closer around her and the wean both.

“You were wrong.” Her voice drifted up with a note of satisfaction. “And I was right. A boy.”

“Aye, you were.” Matthew laughed into her hair, but then he began to weep, and she crawled as close as she could and cried as well.

“So what’s his name?” Alex asked some time later. There was some colour in her cheeks, the room had been aired and cleaned, and she was sitting up in her best chemise, ready to receive the rest of the family. Matthew stroked her hair and kissed her brow.

“Samuel.” Matthew lifted his son to lie in his arms. “Samuel Isaac Graham.”

“Samuel? Such a big name for such a wee lad.”

He smiled at Alex’s choice of words – she didn’t even notice. “He’ll grow.”

“Oh, he will, and let me tell you he was pretty big to begin with.” She grimaced, unlaced her chemise and placed their bonny lad at her breast.

*

“Samuel Isaac,” Magnus held the baby in his arms and studied him for a long time. Two new grandchildren in fifteen months and both so alike at the moment of their birth they could be twins. A tuft of dark hair, eyes that were an indefinite shade of muddy blue, and a long mouth, curved into an involuntary smile.

“They could bear a stamped legend,” Magnus joked. “You know,
Made by Matthew Graham
.”

“It’s a good mould, and if they turn out anything like their father once they’ve grown up—”

“Spare me the panegyrics. I already know you consider Matthew Graham to be God’s gift to womankind.”

“No,” Alex yawned, “but he’s definitely God’s gift to me.”

*

“That’s what you’ve been waiting for,” Mrs Parson said to Magnus some weeks later, nodding her head in the direction of the baby basket where Samuel slept under the cover of a thin linen cloth.

“Yes, I thought that I should at least get a peek at him before I died.”

Mrs Parson studied him with her head tilted to one side. She reminded Magnus of a huge magpie, with those bright black eyes framed by a white linen cap and white linen collar.

“I know,” he mumbled, “I look more dead than alive.”

Mrs Parson made a dismissive sound. “You look very thin – emaciated even. But that isn’t dead, is it?”

“It will be; soon.” These days, the headache was a constant, and increasingly the pain was such that he wanted to yank his left eye out to allow whatever it was that was growing in him expansion room.

“Aye, probably.” Mrs Parson folded together her knitting and came over to place a hand on his head. “Another pipe?”

He gave her a grateful look. Alex had this strange notion about rationing his weed, insisting overconsumption would make him an addict. Rather hilarious, given that he would be dead long before his addiction became a problem. Magnus sighed. Right now, all he wanted was for this to be over.

*

“What day is it today?” Magnus asked Alex a few days later. He craned his head back to look out at the pale blue summer sky but closed his eyes with the effort.

“Midsummer’s Eve.”

How apt, Magnus thought, to die on the longest day of the year. He lay in silence, listening to the sounds around him. Sounds of life, of continuity: Samuel’s soft snuffling from where he slept in his basket only feet from his ear, David’s piercing screams from outside, and Agnes’ low soothing voice, shushing him. In the distance he could hear a horse – probably Moses – and there were birds, and hens cackling, and the ubiquitous sound of young, vibrant beings, his grandchildren, tumbling around in the summer afternoon.

He smiled at Jenny’s tuneless singing, recognised the tread of Matthew’s feet on the kitchen floor – there was that damned plank that always creaked – and from beside him came the clicking sound of Mrs Parson’s knitting. He listened some more and heard that one sound was missing. Alex was holding her breath, and that meant she was trying very hard not to cry. He moved one hand in her direction and immediately her fingers closed over his.

“It’s not too bad,” Magnus lied. It was fucking terrible! Whenever he opened his eyes, it was like having a red-hot needle poked through his tender cornea, so he preferred to keep them closed. Behind his eyelids swirled blacks and blues and the occasional dash of bright vermillion and orange and sometimes – thank heavens – a soothing green, and then it all began again and he was in so much pain that sometimes he could feel each individual strand of hair as a hurting, aching extremity. He sighed; he should have taken his planned overdose months ago, but he’d been too much of a coward, and since then he’d used up all his pills, buying himself short reprieves from the pain.

He heard Matthew enter the room, hesitating for a few seconds before pulling up a stool to sit beside Alex. It almost made Magnus laugh; like a
lit de parade
, the adults of his family converging to watch him die. He twisted his face towards the twilight that hovered outside the small window.

“I always knew,” he said.

“Knew what?” Alex asked.

“That I’d die at dusk.” He turned his face to the wall. Soon he’d be dead, and never again would he see the trees or the clouds, never would he walk over fields, brush his legs through knee-high grasses. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered except for the pain that inhabited his head, the humongous effort it was to keep on breathing. There was a numbness in his chest, a squeezing sensation as if his heart was cramping. Air. He needed air, and he sucked and sucked, but nothing seemed to reach his lungs. No click, click, click from his right-hand side; instead, Mrs Parson’s hand closed over his, her breath warm on his cheek as she leaned over him.

“Go with God, Magnus Lind,” she said, and he heard it in her voice that he was dying, that any moment now he’d be dead, and he didn’t want to be.

In Magnus’ head, things happened that were frightening and awe-inspiring – like being high on something far more potent than marijuana, his brain dissolving into extraordinary fireworks. Everything was spinning; he saw bands of shifting colours and he shot forward through time and there was Isaac – in Stockholm, Magnus noted with pleased surprise. He was dragged backwards in time, he whizzed past Alex, and there was his Mercedes. He squinted because he’d never seen her so old, but there she was, her dark hair a beautiful silvered grey covered by a lace mantilla, and he realised she was back in her time, living out her life, and all of him shrivelled in panic. I don’t want to die if she’s not there waiting for me! Idiot, his brain jeered, no one’s waiting for you – you don’t believe in the afterlife, do you? No, Magnus Lind, this is the final curtain call, and soon... No! He shrieked in protest at God, at the bursts of light that were falling like confetti in his head.

Hands on his arm, someone kissed his cheek, dragging him back to a glimmer of real life. With an effort, he opened his eyes.

“Alex?
Lilla hjärtat
?”

“
Pappa.
” She clasped his groping hand and held Magnus as he began the final fall from life. It no longer hurt. It was all a soothing cold that was like rustling silk over his poor, aching brain. It grew dark. The spinning slowed to a gentle twirling and he could no longer hear, but he could still feel Alex’s hand in his.

It grew even darker and it was very cold but it didn’t matter because now there was a growing point of light and in it he saw Mercedes. She was young, her hair fell free down her back, and she held out her hand to him and smiled.

“Mercedes?” he whispered.

“
Estoy aquí
,” she murmured. “I’m always here
, amor m
í
o
.”

*

“He’s gone,” Mrs Parson said.

Alex extricated her hand and placed it on Magnus’ cheek. So cold, so no longer him... She turned to Matthew and held out her arms. Wordlessly, he gathered her to him, and she sat in his lap and was rocked like a child while she cried. But in her head she saw Magnus and Mercedes wander off hand in hand into a deep, restful blue, and very faintly she heard her father laugh, a sound of pure, unadulterated joy.

Chapter 36

The coffin was lowered into the waiting hole, and on shaky legs Alex took the few steps required to deposit her posy on the dark wood.

“Alright?” Matthew’s hand rested for an instant on her arm. She nodded and retreated to stand to the side while the men began filling in the grave, shovelful after shovelful of dark, moist soil landing with a thud on the wooden lid.

“Devastated,” Jenny told Elizabeth in an undertone. “She took to her bed for the following day.”

Alex frowned, but pretended not to hear, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

“Really?” Elizabeth whispered – well, tried to. “She looks strangely ravaged for an expected death. It’s a miracle her father held on this long, what with him being nothing but skin and bones.”

“Ian says it’s on account of her only ever having had a father,” Jenny said.

“Ah,” Elizabeth said. “Yes, she is a singularly lonely person, isn’t she? No siblings, now no parents…”

Alex turned their way, tired of pretending she couldn’t hear a word.

“How’s Celia?” she asked Elizabeth, smiling down at Jenny’s baby, Malcolm, fast asleep in his mother’s arms.

Elizabeth’s lips pursed for an instant. “She has me a trifle concerned. She has swollen most significantly of late in both hands and feet, complains about headaches and a constant mauling backache.”

“Swollen? Like with dropsy?” Mrs Parson popped her head in between them.

“Yes.” Elizabeth gave Mrs Parson a worried look.

“She’s due shortly, no?” Mrs Parson asked.

“In a fortnight, we reckon.”

“Any bleeding?”

Elizabeth made a scandalised sound. “I won’t discuss my daughter-in-law’s private matters at a funeral. It isn’t seemly!” She swivelled her head this way and that to ensure no one was listening and then dropped her voice. “Yes, but not much.”

“Hmm,” Mrs Parson said, looking very concerned.

*

“She’s dead?” Jenny stared at Mrs Parson. “Celia? But...” Jenny sat down with a thud. “How?”

Mrs Parson’s shoulders were bowed, and for the first time Alex noticed that Mrs Parson was in fact quite old – even very old by the standards of the here and now: sixty-four or thereabouts.

“Sit down,” Alex said. “I’ll bring you something to drink, and then you can tell us.”

Mrs Parson just nodded, yet another indication of how affected she was by the whole thing. Alex returned with a mug of sweetened tea and a slice of rich currant cake.

“Thank you.” Mrs Parson placed her hand over Alex’s.

“The baby?” Alex asked as a starting point.

“A lassie,” Mrs Parson said, stirring her tea. “Healthy enough, although not as bonny as her brother was when he exited the womb. The afterbirth came undone during the birth, and there was nothing I could do to stop the bleeding. She bled to death.” The mug shook when she raised it to her mouth. “Not a sound did she make. She just looked at me…” Mrs Parson’s voice broke. “She just looked at me.”

*

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Alex said to Elizabeth at the second funeral in less than a month.

Elizabeth looked at her from dull eyes. “Thank you, she was a good daughter-in-law, was Celia, and we’ll have problems finding someone to fill her shoes.”

Alex looked over to where Nathan stood white-faced beside his father with his little son in arms. “It must be difficult for him.”

“Yes, they were fond of each other.” Elizabeth sounded a bit strange, her eyes stuck on one of her maids. The girl, a delicate blonde with a baby in a shawl, squirmed under her mistress’ look.

Once Celia was safely in the ground, Peter Leslie invited the men to his study. Alex wanted to go home, but Matthew gave her a helpless look and followed his host, leaving Alex to trail Elizabeth and the other Leslie women to the kitchen.

The table groaned under the combined weight of the platters holding everything from cheese to pickled tongue, and after a few mugs of beer, Elizabeth was back in good old form, haranguing everyone within earshot about the deficient morals of her papist maids.

“Little slut!” she spat, jerking her head in the direction of the girl with the baby. “No sooner did she get here but she ended up pregnant.”

“All on her own?” Alex said.

“Of course not,” Elizabeth snorted. “No divine intervention, just a scheming wanton taking advantage of my poor Nathan.”

“Poor Nathan?” Alex set down her mug. “What if it’s the other way around?”

Elizabeth’s face took on an unhealthy hue, so when Mary grabbed at Alex’s sleeve and suggested they step outside, she complied.

*

Matthew spent an hour or so enclosed with the Leslie men and a good whisky, after which he went to find his wife. Alex was sitting in the shade with Mary and, from the set of her mouth, he could see she was right upset. Once he followed her eyes across the yard to where the serving wenches were sitting, he knew why.

“Fond of each other!” Alex said as he helped her up on Moses. “He was so fond of his wife he impregnated one of the indentured girls. And now that unfortunate woman – who, by the way, has had her contract extended – is nursing not only her child by Nathan, but Celia’s little girl. Probably apt poetic justice in Elizabeth’s book.”

“You’re being unfair,” Matthew chided. “She’s the only nursing mother there.”

“Huh,” Alex sniffed and took off her cap, complaining she was hot.

“Will he marry her, do you think?” she asked a bit later, leaning back against him. Samuel squirmed inside her shawl, a small red fist appearing to wave at the world.

“She isn’t good enough, and if I’m not mistaken she’s also Irish.” But she was a comely lass, wee Ailish, with those elfin features and eyes like crushed violets.

“Irish? And what does that have to do with anything?”

“She’s not of the right faith, she being a papist and all.”

“Sometimes...” She threw both arms up in the air in an exasperated gesture which almost led to them falling off the horse. “Oh, what the hell!” she finished. “It’s a petty, small-minded world at times.”

“Aye, but now and then people surprise you.”

“They do?”

Matthew chuckled and held her tight. “You wait and see, lass. I fear Elizabeth and Peter Leslie have somewhat of a surprise coming.”

“You do?”

“Och, aye, I do.” He slowed Moses to a walk and buried his nose in her uncovered hair. “I love you,” he murmured.

“You’re only saying that because you’re hoping for some action, Mr Graham. More or less now.”

“I am? And how would you know?”

“Let’s just say that I have a long-standing relationship with that part of you that’s presently nudging at my arse.”

He laughed, pressed himself a wee bit closer and turned off the bridle path. Once he’d halted Moses, he dismounted, somewhat gingerly because of his erection.

“Will you join me?” he asked, bowing.

“As if you need to ask.” She smiled down at him.

*

“You look like a fairy, or a wood sprite,” he said drowsily, lying back with his head pillowed on his arms. The sun filtered through the canopies of the tall trees that surrounded them, casting dancing shafts of golden light to gleam on moss and stones, on his discarded boots and on her, his woman. She was rosy from their recent lovemaking, sitting in only her shift, her hair hanging undone round her shoulders, their son at her breast.

“You look pretty other-worldly yourself.” She smiled, drawing a finger down his naked torso. He shivered at her touch, the skin prickling in anticipation. Samuel burped, expelled something that sounded like a contented mewling and fell asleep, his head pillowed on his mother’s shoulder. She placed their son on his chest, and he cupped his son’s head, his wee bum.

“Did you think it would be like this?” she asked, lying back down beside him on the makeshift bed consisting mainly of her skirts and shawl.

“Like what?” He let his head fall over to meet her eyes.

“Did you think it would get so much better as we got older?” Her cheeks coloured a deep pink. “Or maybe you don’t think it has gotten better,” she said, making him smile.

“It has, on account of us knowing better how to please each other.” He shifted Samuel to lie beside him before rolling over towards his wife. With a light finger he traced her brows, the delicate pointed tip of her ear. “I didn’t think it could get better, and in some ways it hasn’t – after all, I no longer rouse as easily after the first time as I used to.” He brushed her nose with his own, kissed each of her eyes in turn.

“You don’t?”

His thighs parted under her touch. “Nay, not as fast, but fast enough.” He kissed the corner of her mouth and laid her down on her back, drawing out long strands of hair to decorate her pale skin. “We didn’t get very far with the Song of Solomon, did we?” he said, sliding his hands up her thighs. Skin as soft as velvet, smooth and warm under his palms. His thumbs brushed over her privates. She sighed, lifting her hips towards his touch.

“No, we never get very far beyond the first lines. But I do believe we have the sentiment down pat.”

“Aye,” he breathed against her ear. “That we do.”

“I’ll be riding down to Providence at the end of next week,” Matthew said once they were back on the horse. “I have to be there on the first of August.” A long, slow afternoon spent in a clearing in the forest had left him heavy with sated desire, somnolent near on, and it would appear his wife was in the same state, seeing as it took her some time to reply.

“To Providence?”

“I must be there for the meeting of the militia.” Matthew grimaced. “What with the repeated attacks on outlying settlements during the summer, it’s all set to explode. Thomas and I will be riding down together. With Jacob.”

“Jacob?” Her voice squeaked.

“As we decided – the lad’s to go into apprenticeship, setting him up on his way to becoming a man.”

“You decided.” She closed her arms round the wean and said nothing more.

Matthew sensed the tension radiating from her but chose not to say anything. She had to learn to let them go.

*

The night before they were scheduled to leave, Alex came and found Matthew in the stables.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice heavy with tears. “Please don’t make me let him go.”

“It’s a good opportunity for him. And you’ve had a year to prepare yourself.”

“I can’t send away my ten-year-old boy, not now, with the countryside in upheaval and you soon off to ride with the militia and…” She took a big breath and knotted her hands in her apron. “I just can’t.”

Matthew went back to his currying, thinking as he worked. Behind him, he could hear her breathing, the restless shifting from foot to foot as she waited for him to reply.

“One more year,” he said, turning to face her.

“Thank you,” she whispered, “thank you so very much.” She almost curtsied but stopped herself at the last moment. He smiled slightly. Some weeks shy of forty-two, his wife had seemingly learnt that ultimately most things were his decision, not hers.

“You may kiss me if you wish to show your gratitude in an appropriate, wifely manner,” he teased.

Alex’s head flew up and a bolt of bright blue hit him squarely in the eyes. “I don’t.”

“Oh aye? But I do.” He grabbed at her and pulled her close, ignoring her half-hearted attempts at wresting herself free.

“I’ll take him down to Providence with me anyway,” Matthew said to Alex as they made their way to the house. “It might be good for him to meet Hancock in person already now.” He frowned at the thought of the upcoming discussions with the lawyer, but decided Hancock would understand the motherly concerns – in particular given the escalating tension between natives and whites. “That way he can see where he will live and acquaint himself with the town – and meet the Hancock lasses.”

“Lasses? They have children?”

“Six lasses, the three eldest wed already, but the three youngest remain at home.” The youngest was of an age with Jacob, he told her, and as he recalled a cheerful, polite lass. “It won’t come amiss with a friend.”

“No, a friend is always good.”

He smiled. The Hancock lassie would be a good match for his Jacob, but he saw no reason to broach this subject yet.

*

Alex had to bite back a smile at her son’s over-excited face. Jacob was bouncing up and down on the mule, so eager was he to ride off alone with his da.

“I’ll bring you back something nice,” he told his sisters. “Mayhap some of those sweets you liked so much last year?”

Sarah nodded eagerly.

“A book,” Ruth said gravely. “Could you find me a book, do you think?”

Jacob promised he would try, his hand clutching the few coins Alex had given him.

“What do you want, Mama?” he asked when she came over to pat him on the leg.

“Me?” She raised her eyes to his. “I want you to come back, Jacob. That’s the best gift I can wish for.”

She laughed at how pleased he looked, patted him on the cheek and went over to where Matthew was already astride Moses.

To her husband, Alex had other words to say. She stood holding on to his stirrup and waited until he bent his head to hers. “Stay away from him, Matthew. This time don’t go anywhere close to Dominic Jones. Promise me you won’t.”

“I’ll give the man as wide a berth as I can.”

“Good.” Her eyes moved to the loaded pistol at his belt and she nodded approvingly. One doesn’t enter the viper’s nest unarmed.