Jennie About to Be (51 page)

He sighed. “You are determined. What can I be doing against it?”

“Not a thing, and I might bring you luck.”

“
Luck
!” He laughed. “The only luck for me is bad luck.”

They went out into the street, where the fresh wind had dispersed most of the pungence. Another man and woman had stopped just short of the two stone steps. The woman was wrapped in a full cloak which dragged on the ground as she bent over, and she was sobbing. The man looked up when he felt the presence of strangers, and his face was ugly with strain. His eyes met Jennie's in a naked appeal for help.

Alick was trying to steer her past, but she wouldn't move. “What is it?” she asked the man. “Can I help? Alick, ask him in the Gaelic.”

But there was no need. The woman's hand came from under the cloak groping for Jennie, who took and tightly held it. The man said in a rush, “The fear is at her. You are another woman, you could tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

With a gasping cry the woman bent lower. Jennie put her arms around her and realized that she was pregnant; she kept her head down, her face turned as if in shame, and couldn't seem to stop crying. “Elspeth,” her husband begged.

Alick said grimly, “I am just going, Jeannie.”

“Not without me.” Her eyes dared him to defy her, and he was the first to look away. “Let us take a few minutes to help these people, Alick.” It was too late now to worry about her English accent, and anyway, all she meant to these two was womanly compassion. She guided Elspeth inside. Instead of escaping while her back was turned, Alick followed along with the husband. He was not pleased about it, but he was there.

Nancy was busy drawing ale, and Angus was distributing laden plates at the far end of the room. The box was still empty. Jennie hurried the woman toward it, and once they were all four shut in between the high backs of the settles, they were in a little oasis of quiet. Elspeth took out a handkerchief and wiped her dark eyes. She was older than Jennie but still young, with a comely face wide across the cheekbones and a full mouth, bitten now, and still trembling. The man beside her was less ugly than he'd first appeared; he was plain and bony, but he had a good mouth and intelligent eyes, and he showed a genuine tenderness for his wife. He kept an arm around her shoulders, smiling with anxious encouragement whenever he could catch her eye.

“We are Andrew and Elspeth Glenroy,” he said to Jennie. “And much obliged for your kindness.”

Alick sat beside Jennie, tapping his fingers on the table and watching their nervous dance.
Who are we
? Jennie asked Alick in silence but, receiving no inspiration, changed the subject.

“Have you eaten?”

“I couldn't eat!” Elspeth Glenroy said. Her tears brimmed again.

“Some tea then.” Jennie watched to get Angus's eye. “Is it near your time?” she asked.

“It's three months yet. But it could come early, with the rough seas and if there was sickness.” Angus appeared, his grin blazing.

“Could we have a pot of tea, Angus?”

“I'll be asking herself!” He waded off through the crowd, ignoring any other calls on his attention.

“We went down to look out at the ship, the American one,” Andrew Glenroy said. “Our gear was being taken out on the high tide. And suddenly this fear was at her that the wee one would be born on the voyage, and die, and be buried in the sea. She is healthy; it is a healthy child we would have! And she was ready until now. ‘He will be born in America,' she was saying. ‘He will be no one's tenant.' ” He appealed to Alick. “There's land promised us. We will be our own landlords. And now,” he said despairingly, “she is afraid.”

“If you don't go now, can't you go later?” Jennie asked. “When the baby is born and grown a bit?”

Elspeth nodded eagerly. “Och, it's happy I'd be to go then!”

“If you are not sailing now, how would you live from now until then?” Alick asked Glenroy.

“I am a carpenter and a stonemason. We will live. The trouble is—” He became voluble in his distress, as if sympathy had breached a dam. “I have paid our passage, you see, and for a cabin. The money was hard come by. We've kin we can be staying with; her sister was weeping like a waterfall to see her go. But we can ill afford to lose what I have paid out, and nothing to show for it.”

“Why can't you be going to the captain and ask for it like a man?” Alick said impatiently.

“Och, he has a hard eye on him and likely a hard heart to go with it! It's not only that. I'd be having to face the minister for leaving them without an English speaker. There's not a soul of them, not even him, to make things clear between them and the Yankee captain.”

“A
minister
?” Jennie asked. “On the side of the people?” Alick stopped drumming his fingers.

“Why, it's a whole congregation from Strathbuie going to America. I was mending a hearth at the castle when I was first hearing of it. The minister and the men came to tell the Laird that they were all going before his people could burn them out. They were selling their beasts and their furniture, and the Laird was so happy to clear them without any trouble he said he'd be putting something toward the purse, and he gave every man a dram and was shaking his hand and wishing him luck.” He smiled. “One man had come home from the Army with an arm gone, and finding his wife and his parents under eviction orders. So he thanks the Laird for his courtesy, drinks to
him
, mind you, and says, ‘If the ship sinks on the way to America, we will all be coming back to haunt you and your issue forever. There will be such a crowd of us in this old castle not one of ye'll ever be having a sound night's sleep again!' The Laird took it for a curse and turned white. He tried to laugh, and it was like a skull grinning.”

He took a melancholy pleasure in this. Nancy came to the table with a huge teapot on a tray and four cups. “This is no tearoom,” she announced ringingly, “and I wouldn't want anyone to get ideas.”

“It's a special case, Nancy,” Jennie said, “and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”

“'
E's
a special case.” Nancy flicked Alick on the shoulder and went away again.

Jennie poured the tea, and the Glenroys both drank thirstily. “Tell me about the American ship,” Jennie said.

“It's owned by a man who was born a Scot and went to America as a wee lad—och, in an immigrant ship, too—and rose up to become one of George Washington's generals. He is having this great property, you see, and businessess, and he ships timber to Lewis and such places with no forests. He has been advertising for people to come and settle. To be their own men, not the landlord's.”

His sigh of longing was almost a groan. “I want to go so bad it fairly makes my teeths water.” Elspeth went on calmly sipping her second cup of tea.

“He'll be advertising again, surely,” said Jennie.

“Aye, but will I be getting my money back now? And it will be just as hard to face the minister. He is depending on me, you see. We wanted to go, and I offered myself, knowing he needed me because he has no English. He is a good man, a true man of God. He was born with the gift, and he was not needing the schools and the universities to teach him. But—he has no English.”

“Then who arranged all the business?” Jennie asked. “Who wrote the letters? How do you know this general exists?”

“Och, wasn't he himself born on the estate, and his father a cotter? And now he's a gentleman; in America a man is not having to be born to it. He wrote to the factor. He knows how it fares with us here; he knows about the sheep coming.”

“And you believe the factor?” Alick said contemptuously. “He could be spinning it all out of cobwebs and moonshine just to be rid of you.”

“I believe him!” Glenroy said fervently. “Have we not heard of the General all our lives? He sent for his parents after the colonies won the war. Besides, the factor is not an evil man; he has no stomach for violence. He is wanting a clean conscience.”

“He can never have one,” Alick said. “Those people are all being driven, no matter how they go. There is no room for them in their own country.”

“Let the landlords have it,” said Glenroy. “We will be free men in America. The ship is waiting; a brig, they call her, the
Paul Revere
, for some American hero. She is new and clean, they say. And”—he leaned forward and tapped Alick's chest—“we pay much less than what the law is saying, because the General himself owns the ship. It's couples he wants, and families, no single men above sixteen unless they are old grandfathers who can't be left behind. If they stay and work hard, he will be giving back the passage money after the first year.”

“We've been looking for a ship,” Jennie said. “If we paid you what you've paid for your passage, and you took Alick to the minister now and introduced him as your cousin—” Alick's head snapped up, and she hadn't the bravado to look around at him. If anything stopped her momentum now, she wouldn't know how to get started again. “Your cousin, Alick Glenroy,” she went on smoothly, “who will take your place, with his wife. They both speak English. All that needs to be changed on the passenger list are the first names, you see.”

The Glenroys were gazing at her as if mesmerized. “We are running away,” Jennie said; if she sounded composed, it was because she hadn't the strength to sound otherwise. “My people will never accept our marriage. They will be offering rewards for me soon. But I am over twenty-one, I am old enough to know my own mind, and I do not accept their choice for me. They are not above bringing my husband to trial”— Alick's arm jumped against hers—“for seduction.” She lifted her chin proudly. “If there was any seduction, it was on my part. I will not have his life destroyed, and mine with it. Now you know about us, and we are at your mercy.”

“It's safe you are with us.” Elspeth spoke up while Andrew was still fascinated beyond speech.

“Could we buy your chests and some of your clothes?” Jennie asked. “We came away with nothing. I traded my riding habit for these with a woman we met.”

“Andrew,” said Elspeth, “take your cousin to Mr. MacArthur now. He is staying at the manse here until the ship sails,” she explained to Jennie. “Then you will be going to the ship and getting your tools, and take from the chests the things for the baby and our Sabbath clothes and my wee box, and the rest you may buy, Jeannie Glenroy. There's blankets, sheets, too, and enough pots to set up housekeeping with.”

“Well, then,” said Jennie, feeling as if she were walking the orchard wall at Pippin Grange with a parasol in a high wind, “shall you and I go upstairs and transact the business while the men are about theirs?”

“I must be speaking with you,” Alick said blackly to Jennie.

“When you come back.”

The two men went out, rather like sleepwalkers, she thought with an instant impulse to giggle. She took Elspeth up to the room, where Elspeth lay down gratefully on the bed. Relieved of her fright, she was pretty again, though it was a prettiness that would grow heavy with the years. Still, there would always be an open, honest kindliness there, if not the same touching vulnerability.

“I can't be thanking you as it should be,” she said.

“You
have
thanked me. One good deed repays another.”

“We will go to America,” Elspeth said strongly. “It is only for the baby I am afraid, not for myself.” She smiled. “It will be very nice to have cousins already there.”

“And for us to welcome cousins,” Jennie agreed. She felt dishonest, as she had not felt downstairs. “Tell me about your sister,” she said.

“Och, when she sees us back at her gate!” And to the accompaniment of Elspeth's happy anticipation, Jennie gazed out over the roofs at the American brig in Loch Linnhe and wondered just what she had done.

E
LSPETHI'S VOICE
ran down, and she fell asleep suddenly, like a child.

Jennie considered her situation. She had been seasick all the way up the eastern coast to Banff; how long would it take to cross the Atlantic on the brig
Paul Revere
, even with fair winds for the entire distance, which was not likely? She turned her wedding ring around and around on her finger. It was loose now, she had grown so thin. What a paradox if, in the years to come, one affectionate memory of Nigel should survive: not of their lovemaking, but of the way they had tended each other during their seasickness.

Six weeks of it at the shortest. Could she survive? Would there be daily deaths and burials at sea for those who couldn't? A tempest could bury them all at sea. Lost, lost, lost. No markers, nothing. Gone from the face of the earth.

She had been in mortal fear so many times lately that now she recognized the onset with a dull ache of resignation.
Here it comes again, and I am so tired. All I want from life now is to be safe for the rest of it
.

Jennie, Jennie!
she could hear Papa say.
You're always asking for the impossible. No one is safe, ever. To be in constant danger is the human condition. Never pray for safety, but for courage. And pray to
yourself;
you are the only one who can answer
.

Ah, Papa, she told him, neither you nor I ever expected that I would be running away from a man lying dead in the heather, with a bee walking over his yellow hair
.

Now she slipped away in escape to her sisters: to Sylvia with her young in the rectory; to Sophie running down the oak staircase at Pippin Grange, out the gate and across the sands, her hair streaming in the wind off the North Sea, dogs and young cousins behind her; and to Ianthe walking her charges by Lucerne. All of them were positive in their own lives and thinking she was positive in hers. After all, she was married to a beautiful man with whom she'd fallen in love at first sight, and had gone with him to live in the land which inspired Walter Scott.