Jennie About to Be (27 page)

Iain and Dougal stood somberly at the horses' heads. Iain kept his head turned away toward Linn Mor, ignoring her approach, and the boy stared at his feet. She stroked a horse's face and said, “How long does it take to go to Rowanlea, Iain?”

“Five hours, it may be. With a stop.” He faced her. “Mistress Gilchrist, it is not as we were led to believe,” he said bluntly.

“
We?
”

“My brothers and their families live in Glen Bheithe. By tonight they will be homeless. I thank God my parents are not alive to see this day.”

“Iain, what are you talking about?”

“
You
know, surely! That is why the mistress wants to be away just now. So when she comes back, there will be only the walls standing, and the smoke will have gone away.”

“What are you talking about?” she repeated.

“The evictions. We all thought the Captain would not do it. There was talk of a school for the children. It was
believed
.”

His eyes did not judge; they were worse than that. It was as if he did not see her any more; it was the way he looked at Christabel.

“The Captain won't consent to the evictions!” she exclaimed.

“It will happen,” he said, “before nightfall.”

“No,
no
!” Her voice rose, and she cut it off and looked around; the front door remained closed. “The Captain came here believing one thing; then he found out another. He was very shocked. He has been trying to convince his brother that the clearing must not happen. He wants to renew the leases now, and then the writs of evictions cannot be legally served.”

The familiar Iain returned, except that he was not merry. “Och, but it's glad I am that you didn't know! I said from the first the young Mistress has eyes as honest as these lads here. ” He nodded at the horses.

“Then you do believe me?” she insisted, trying to keep watch on the front door. “My husband wanted to be alone with his brother these few days so he could persuade him without outside influences.” Was she a madwoman, talking thus to a servant? But Highlanders were different; they perceived you as a human being and expected the same perception from you. It had been the same at Pippin Grange, or else the Hawthornes simply weren't cut out to live on too exalted a plane.

He said gently, as if to a child, “I believe that you believe what you say. But I know the reek of burning thatch will lie over Linnmore this day.”

She grew heated with indignation. “If you're sure of that, why are you still working for these people? Why aren't you with your brothers now, to help them?”

“Because my wages will help them more,” he said stolidly. He moved to open the chaise door, ending the conversation.

She got back in her seat just in time before the front door opened and Armitage saw Christabel and Lily out. Christabel was unbecomingly flushed and short of breath, yapping at both servants. Lily, looking as remote as ever, followed her, carrying a jewel case. Iain assisted them to their seats and mounted the box; Armitage closed the front door, and to conquer the turmoil in herself, Jennie imagined him suddenly leaping into the air, clicking his heels, whooping like a drunken trooper, and commencing a manic and possibly indecent dance with the cook and parlormaid.

It was an enchanting vision, but it didn't work. She couldn't see anything but Iain's face; she heard nothing but his words. Christabel was talking, and it was a meaningless babble. The carriage rounded Linn Mor and turned onto the beech avenue. Jennie, trying to contain her inner trembling before it became external and visible, still hadn't the slightest idea of what the other woman was saying. Lily stared at that invisible point between Christabel's head and Jennie's.

The chaise rolled over the first bridge and now ran smoothly along between fields of growing crops and fertile pastures. The small flock of Cheviots were scattered like daisies across a green velvet slope.

“Ah, there's a splendid sight!” Christabel exclaimed with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, and it was as if she had run the point of a parasol into Jennie's stomach. She knew she could not possibly endure a five-hour drive to Rowanlea. She could not possibly endure a three-day visit there without knowing what was going on at home.

Nigel's warnings spun in her head; she
had
to go; she was the reason for the invitation and for Christabel's going. But she still had sense enough to know that Christabel, with all her gowns and jewels packed, wasn't going to give up three days of pleasure just because her young sister-in-law, the spoiled, giddy, capricious creature, balked.

“Eugenia, why is your hat
off
?” Christabel demanded all at once.

Jennie swallowed to moisten her throat and said loudly, “I have to stop at the farmhouse. Lily, will you signal Iain?”

Christabel exclaimed in annoyance. “Really, Eugenia, you could have done that at Linnmore House while I was getting my sapphires. Heaven knows what the accommodation is
here
.”

“It's not that,” said Jennie. “I'd like my luggage set down, too. I am ill this morning and shouldn't be traveling. I'm not completely over whatever struck me a few days ago.”

“Ill?” As disturbed as she was, Jennie couldn't help being amused at what Christabel suspected.

“Yes. I must get out, or disgrace myself and soil the carriage.” Young Dougal opened the door and handed her out, then set her small trunk down on the side of the road.

Christabel said grudgingly, “We might wait a bit, until you feel like traveling on.” Mrs. Elliot was coming out from the farmhouse.

“Please don't wait, Christabel. I shan't feel like going on.”

“But will you be all right here, Madam?” Lily surprisingly asked.

“Yes, thank you, Lily. I'll be better now that I'm on my feet. It was the motion of the carriage.”

“I know what you mean, Madam,” Lily said fervently.

“How shall you get home from here, Eugenia?” Christabel called in a glass-cutting voice. “Oh, I forget. You're an accomplished walker. Whatever happens now is on your own head. So be it. Drive on, Innes.”

Dougal returned to the saddle. Iain touched his hat again to Jennie, and the chaise moved away.

“There's not a soul here to drive you home, Mistress Gilchrist,” Mrs. Elliot said. “Will you not come in and rest a wee bittie and have a good cup of tea?”

“I'm going to walk home from here, Mrs. Elliot. I'll come in and change my shoes, and then if I may leave my things here—”

“The lad will bring it all over later.” Between them they carried the little trunk into the kitchen to keep it from the dogs' attentions. Warm new loaves graced the scrubbed trestle table, with a scent which under other circumstances would have made Jennie's mouth water. At Pippin Grange she'd have been begging for a thick brown heel spread with new butter. How long it had been, how far had she come. . . . Her head swam as she leaned over her trunk, looking for her walking shoes.

Mrs. Elliot walked out to the road with her. She was a sunny soul with no clouds in her universe; if she'd heard any dark rumors, they didn't affect her conduct. Besides, she doubtless had the average Low-lander's contempt for the people of the moors. Up until nearly a century ago the Highlanders had been regarded as savage tribes who occasionally descended from their mountains to steal cattle and anything else they could put their hands on. Before that, the Romans had tried to contain them behind fortified walls, but without much success.

It was true that nowadays the term
a Highland gentleman
possessed a certain burnished charm, and the Highland regiments were respected. But these with their poor gardens, their few animals, their hovels where the peat smoke escaped through a hole in the roof, what were they? Even people of their own name and remotely of the same blood despised them.

She said thanks and good-bye, and set off. Nigel expected to be with Archie all morning, perhaps all day. He needn't know until night that she had returned.

She crossed the bridge and turned left onto the bridle path that led away from the beech avenue and directly to Tigh nam Fuaran. She walked through a mist of bluebells, with birds calling overhead and fluttering through the underbrush. It was as if only songbirds and bluebells inhabited the world. How could there be anything wrong? She was shocked that she could even entertain the question. Iain Innes with his Celtic gloom was responsible; someday she'd tell Nigel, and they'd laugh, but not today; she didn't want to make trouble for the man. It would be a long time from now, perhaps when they lived at Linnmore House with their growing family about them. . . .
Nigel, do you want to know why I really came that day?

She left the woods opposite her house. Its gray stone was warmly washed with sunlight, windows were open here and there, and the curtains moved in the breeze. Crossing the driveway to the front door, she expected to hear the inevitable bursts of song or laughing, but she heard only the birds, as if they had truly taken over the world. The front door was unlocked, as usual; it was barred only at night.

The house was silent, and there was no one in the orderly kitchen. If the work was done, the girls could have run home for a bit. Why not? Mrs. MacIver might be up in her room, or she could have gone out for a walk, possibly over the ridge with the two maids.

Everything felt so good and so natural here that she was a little ashamed of her panic in the carriage. But the conversation with Iain sprang up in her mind again like a fire mistakenly thought to be dead; backing away from the deadly heat of it, she accused herself of having a shallow, easily terrified nature, with no faith whatever in Nigel, who should be the rock in her life. He was going to be exasperated with her, if not outright angry, and she deserved it.

At the same time she took pleasure in being alone in her own house for the first time in her life, and she wandered around, shifting a chair or an ornament; she looked at herself in the mirrors and sat on the sofa before one of the drawing-room fireplaces and tried to imagine herself being a hostess to a roomful of people.

She supposed it must come, even though nothing could enhance the life she and Nigel lived now. She sighed, not unhappily; the best thing about a party was talking it over afterward in bed.

She took a lump of sugar and went out to visit Dora, who came running the length of the paddock with her mane and tail streaming, pleased to see her and patently begging for a good chance to stretch her legs—or so Jennie was pleased to consider the vehement welcome. She went to the stable and called for Fergus. He appeared, looking sleepy as always.

She asked him to saddle Dora, and went up to her room and changed into her bronze-colored riding habit, leaving off the hat; who was there to see and disapprove? Christabel was a good distance away, and Nigel was going to disapprove of her for entirely different reasons, but in the meantime why waste a glorious day by worrying? She scooped up her skirt and ran downstairs.

Dora was ready for her outside the paddock, Fergus holding her head. Jennie was halfway across the lawn when a downdraft from the ridge swept low over the trees, carrying familiar pungence. She stopped; in the blue sky above the pines, gauzy specters like clouds were being born. She began to run. Fergus, too, was looking up, sniffing like an animal. The mare kept tossing her head nervously and blowing.

“What is that?” Jennie called.

“Burning,” Fergus said.

“K
EEP HER HERE
,” she said, and ran. When she reached the crest of the ridge, she could not believe what she was seeing, yet it was there before her, as hideous as one of the story paintings that had haunted her as a child, like “The Massacre of the Innocents.” The wind carried not only the fresh gusts of smoke from flaming thatch but the indescribable din of terrified animals and children, men shouting, a woman screaming.

She saw one man trying to keep another from putting the torch to his roof; he was knocked out of the way, and as he went sprawling backward, a woman sprang at the arm of the torchbearer, and she too was swept aside. She scrambled to her hands and knees and then onto her feet, and ran into the cottage. The man with the torch kept shouting in at her, and when she didn't come, he set the fire anyway, and the thatch went up in a roar of black smoke and dirty flame. The woman came out, huddled over and holding herself together in a way that made Jennie's stomach crawl.

She heard herself shouting crazily, “Stop this!
Stop
!” She looked around wildly for someone, anyone, to go and help them. Then she saw the cluster of horses and ponies kept from harm's way over on the road near the peat. One of them, standing out among the others because of his height and color, was Adam.

So Nigel was down there somewhere. “He's trying to stop it,” she said aloud. “Archie went ahead with it, but Nigel's trying to stop it.” She went down the hill, trying to watch her footing but still see the scene below, and as her perspective shifted, she saw Nigel standing like a rock in the midst of chaos. He was looking at something in his hand. Near him Morag's father and mother were dragging a chest from their cottage, and Morag hurried out behind them with her arms full.

Surely Nigel would help them; that was why he was there. So why did he keep staring at what he held in his hands? All at once he lifted his other hand high, and brought it down fast, and a man darted into view with a torch and fired the thatch before Morag was ten feet away from it. Jennie could hear the roar.

Morag's mother stood as if turned to stone by the sight, and Harnish sagged over the chest. Morag ran to Nigel and spat in his face; the gesture was clear to Jennie. He swung his arm, and the backhanded blow nearly knocked the girl off her feet.

Jennie began to run, lost her balance, and tumbled down into the little valley. As she struggled up, she saw two small children running from the fires toward the brook, one dragging the other by the hand. They were nowhere near the stepping-stones when they plunged into the stream. Their heads strained above the deep fast flow, mouths wide in cries drowned out by the noise of the water. Clutching hands appeared and disappeared. Jennie threw herself headlong, fell into the brook, and regained her footing by a miracle. She waded waist-high in the rushing current and grabbed for the children with an insane strength, getting one by the shoulder and the other by the hair. She hauled them ashore before their frantic hands could drag her down with them.