Island of the Swans (71 page)

The night sky was clearing as stars pierced through wisps of clouds drifting on the horizon. Below, the narrow path was illuminated by a full moon shining down on Castle Hill, which was thickly blanketed with new-fallen snow. Soon, a tiny figure clad in cardinal red emerged from the back of the Lovat townhouse. Jane’s cloak contrasted with the whiteness mantling the ground like a drop of his own lifeblood. She rounded the corner of Middle Close and disappeared into the dark alley that funneled south of the city in the direction of George Square, half a mile away. Thomas rested his flushed forehead against the icy windowpane. The ivory world outside seemed blank and void, drained forever of all laughter and life.

Another pair of sleepless eyes stared down from a third-floor bedchamber. The hour was late, past two, according to the French marble clock on the shelf. For several minutes, Alex had listened to the small, fretful cries of his infant son in the nursery down the hall. The heavy snowfall had ceased, and outside, absolute stillness settled over George Square.

The Duke of Gordon was startled by the sight of a cloaked figure who dashed into the square and ran along the wrought iron fence guarding a small park. The tiny oasis, verdant in summer, sported a few leafless trees whose stark branches were weighted down with snow and silhouetted by crystalline moonlight that illuminated the scene. He heard the front doorlatch click shut and, soon, the sound of Jane’s steps passing by their bedchamber and fading into the distance. The door to the nursery was ajar.

Jane sat in a corner of the room awash in moonlight. Little Alexander sucked greedily at her breast. She was crying quietly. Alex observed her silently for a few moments from the threshold and then pushed the door open wider.

“You saw him,” he said tonelessly.

“Aye,” she said, looking up at him with no attempt to mask the misery etched on her tearstained face.

Her scarlet cloak hung loosely around her shoulders, shielding his son from the drafty room. Only the baby’s tiny feet were visible.

“And you went with him?” Alex continued.

“Aye,” she confirmed, defeat resonating in her voice.

“And you’ve lain with him?”

“No. But what matter? ’Tis all the same to you.”

Alex watched his wife transfer their son’s pouting lips to her other breast, it was hard and round and bursting with milk. He could not disguise the wave of desolation that invaded his body. Jane was correct. Whether she made love with Thomas Fraser this night or not, she still loved the man. She always would. It was all the same.

Wordlessly, Alex retreated to the library downstairs. Still clothed in his grape velvet coat, he stretched out on the leather chaise. Cold shafts of moonlight dissolved into gray fingers of dawn before he finally closed his eyes.

Twenty-Six

D
ECEMBER
1786

T
HE YEAR 1786 SEEMED TO
J
ANE TO BE ONE LONG, DESOLATE
winter with no renewal of spring, or lovely autumnal season of reflection. She had known from the instant she had put the baby Alexander to her breast that she couldn’t abandon her children and flee to Thomas’s side. Having made this painful decision, she and Alex attempted to resume their lives as if Thomas Fraser had not suddenly materialized out of a January snowstorm. But, with each passing month, there was still no restoration of warmth or closeness between them.

Alex spent much of that summer shut up in Gordon Castle, looking after the estate, grooming his menacing falcons, and crossing the progeny of his famous setter, Affric, with other dogs to develop the distinctive black and tan coat to which he was quite partial. There had been four “Affrics” during the nineteen years of their marriage, and Jane sometimes thought Alex’s dogs were the only living things in which her husband had complete trust. In idle moments, the duke would pen rhymes in the dour company of his fiddler-butler, William Marshall, while Mrs. Christie and her young daughter Jean kept house for him. He entertained few visitors.

Meanwhile, Jane and the children, with Nancy Christie to look after them, repaired in June to the old cottages at Kinrara. They lived like woodsmen in the simple thatched abode and surrounding outbuildings of the estate in Badenoch, scandalizing the district by swimming nude on fine days in the River Spey.

The runner from Gordon Castle arrived once a week with a satchel full of missives for Kinrara’s pint-size estate factor, Angus Grant. Sometimes these consisted of terse scribbled messages for the children, but Alex communicated nothing in writing to Jane. His silence spoke eloquently of the abyss that once again had opened between them.

As the August heather burst forth on the moors in all its purple majesty, Jane busied herself accompanying Angus to the logging operations, which were winding down for the year near Loch-an-Eilean.

“We should be matchin’ last year’s production, Your Grace,” Angus speculated one morning, as they watched a cluster of stout pine trunks bumping along the river into the sluice that led to one of the mills. “With the Frenchies so restive, I’ll wager the shipyards will be wantin’ our wood for the Navy vessels, wouldn’t you think?”

“I hope there won’t be war with France, but you’re right, Angus,” she said, squinting into the sun. “’Twas a good year for lumbering.”

It was a lovely summer. From time to time Jane would row over alone to the Island of the Swans, as she’d come to call the small dab of land in the middle of the loch with its tiny, abandoned castle. She took comfort in the sight of its inhabitants: two stately birds and their cygnets swimming in a solemn parade. The swans still made both Loch Alvie and nearby Loch-an-Eilean their home. At the sight of them, Jane’s mind would drift back to those precious few days she had spent in the tower room at the top of the twisting stone stairs. But each time she returned to Kinrara Cottage and saw her children gathered in front of the hearth, or fishing on the river for salmon, or rushing to greet her with a bouquet of wildflowers or an armful of heather, she knew she could never leave them. Then, she would spend the next days trying to convince herself that, by this time, Thomas must have given up hope she would come to him. Presumably, he had wound up his legal affairs and had sailed for Baltimore and a new life at Antrim Hall.

By November, the ducal Gordons and their brood, with the exception of Lord Huntly, who returned to Cambridge for the fall term, were installed once again in the Edinburgh house on George Square. By the time Jane and her daughters and small son arrived, Alex was established in a chamber at the far end of the hall. She ordered her trunk unpacked in their former bedchamber and attempted to take an interest in the winter social season, which was in full swing.

Over breakfast one morning in mid-December, Jane set down her cup of tea and addressed her estranged husband directly.

“I’ve invited a young Ayrshire poet to read his work aloud tonight.”

Alex looked at her from the far end of the dining table. Remaining silent, he merely arched an eyebrow.

“Lord Glencairn and Lord Monboddo are singing the lad’s praises,” Jane continued briskly, “and
The Lounger
calls him a ‘heaven-taught ploughman.’

’Tis hoped William Creech will bring out an Edinburgh edition of the bard’s Kilmarnock poems, if he can generate enough subscribers.”

Jane assumed such an evening’s entertainment would intrigue Alex. After all, he himself was an accomplished poet.

“So… you plan a bit of campaigning for this rhyming farmer from Ayr, do you?” Alex replied in a snide tone, folding his linen beside his plate as if preparing to depart. “Have you met the man—or read his poems?”

“I’ve read a few, yes,” Jane replied carefully, “and I quite like them, but we’ve yet to be introduced. Glencairn asked me if we’d host the soiree. ’Twould give the man the support he needs among the
literati
to persuade Creech to publish him in Edinburgh.”

“Ah… so you consider yourself one of the
literati
these days?” Alex replied mockingly.

“No, of course not!” she snapped, her patience wearing thin. “But I thought the evening would be something that might interest you, Alex,” she continued, trying to keep her temper in check. “You’ve a love of poetry yourself and write beautifully… won’t you come to listen to Robert Burns?”

“Perhaps,” he replied noncommittally.

“Oh, do stop this nonsense!” Jane exclaimed exasperatedly. “Come—or don’t come. Suit yourself!”

She abruptly pushed her chair from the table and stalked out of the dining hall, vowing a silent oath to make no more such foolish overtures toward her husband.

That evening, Jane was pleased to discover that the duke’s butler, William Marshall, turned out to greet with more grace than usual the parade of distinguished guests that trooped into the drawing room in George Square.

And well he should
, she thought crossly. The assembly consisted of the leading literary lights of Edinburgh.

“Good evening, Dr. Blacklock,” Jane said warmly. She extended her hand to the good reverend who had been the first in Edinburgh to rave about the poems written by the unknown farmer from the Lowland county of Ayrshire.

Nearly blind, Dr. Blacklock was a distinguished poet himself, despite his handicap.

“So kind of you to include a sightless old bard like me, Your Grace,” he replied genially. He drew his face close to hers, squinting his eyes to catch a hazy view of his hostess.

“’Tis because of you, sir, that we all gather here tonight,” she answered. “Please partake of our punch. Marshall, here, will see to your comfort.”

The original, crudely printed Kilmarnock edition of Burns’s work had been sent to Dr. Blacklock by a country parson. After it had been read to him by his curate, the reverend had immediately shared it with Professor Dugald Stewart, who was entering Jane’s drawing room behind the portly historian Fraser Tytler.

The Earl and Dowager Countess of Glencairn swept through the door, followed by Lord Monteith, and the painter Alexander Nasmyth. Next to arrive was Henry Mackenzie, whose word was law on literary matters in the city, as proven by the enthusiastic response to his review of Burns in
The Lounger
the previous week. The gray-haired gentleman-poet Lord Monboddo literally had William Creech’s arm in a vise grip as he propelled the reluctant publisher toward Jane.

“So delighted you could join us tonight, Mr. Creech,” Jane said graciously.

“Well,” said the crusty bookseller, “I came to see whether that redheaded giant who stole the last dance from me at the oyster cellar would be in attendance tonight.”

Jane fought to maintain her composure.

“Why no,” she replied, thankful that Alex had not yet made an appearance. “Thomas Fraser was a childhood friend I hadn’t set eyes on in more than ten years. I hear he’s emigrated to America.”

Jane eyed the ill-tempered publisher. She had a sudden urge to use all her charm on this skeptical man on behalf of the young poet she had never met.

“I’ve read some of the work of our guest of honor tonight,” she said, abruptly changing the subject. “’Tis quite noteworthy, though I’m certainly no judge, I assure you. However, I’m pleased to tell you I will subscribe to at least twenty copies of Burns’s poetry, should you decide to bring forth an Edinburgh edition. The one I read from was slipshod and badly presented… a poor effort by a small publisher in Ayr, I believe.”