Jennie About to Be (52 page)

The happy views of the sisters went up in fire like the thatch when she realized that by now they were in mourning for her, believing she'd been dragged off and probably murdered by the man who had killed her husband. She put her fists to her mouth to cram back the inarticulate sounds that tried to force their way out. Her whole body shrieked and strove for action; if she could have jumped up and run to them now without stopping, she would have done so. She felt wild enough, strong enough. Was this the strength of a madwoman? she wondered, trying to hold herself in the chair.

The seizure slowly loosened its grip on her, and she slumped over the table with her head on her arms. She felt as weak as if she'd actually been running for leagues, but lucid. She laid out her deeds and her prospects in the unsparing Arctic light of reason.

She didn't return to the Pict's House, or to any earlier time, and castigate herself for what she should or shouldn't have done. That was over and done with; nothing could change it. She went back to the last hour. In a two-minute speech which seemed to have been made by someone else inside her skin, she had exchanged the certain embraces of her family (a week away from her at the most) for six weeks or more of ghastly uncertainty. (Except that she could be sure of being seasick.) An epidemic might break out on board ship, and she would die that way, or Alick would, and her attempts to atone would thus have killed him as surely as if he'd been hanged. Or they both could die along with everyone else if the ship was destroyed.

But if it works—if it works
. Hope was like the slow push of the blood back into frostbitten fingers and toes. Agony and life in one. If it worked, Alick would be safe beyond a doubt. If he didn't want to be one of the General's settlers, he could go anywhere he chose. She could keep herself by teaching, or work as a servant if she had to, until she had accumulated enough money and bravery to put her on a ship to England.

So all she had to fear was the first voyage; she'd worry about the second when the time came; she'd already survived Jock Dallas and the flooded corrie. She'd promised Alick a ship, and there lay the brig
Paul Revere
. Why not take all this as a sign that they would actually step foot on American soil?

And see Red Indians, Derwent
. She wished she could hug him now and kiss his pugnacious little face.

No more sentiment. The essential thing now was to put an end to her sisters' anguish at once; she could let them know she was alive without pointing at Alick. Elspeth slept quietly on, and she let herself out of the room as quietly as a professional thief.

The room downstairs sounded as busy as before. Jennie opened the door and peered gingerly around it. Nancy wasn't in sight, and a skinny man with a big Adam's apple was behind the bar.

“Mistress?” Angus came to her, his radiance undimmed by the odorous murk.

“I was looking for Nancy.”

He pointed past her at the door across the hall. “She will be just resting her feets now, Mistress.”

“Then I won't disturb her—”

Angus darted across the hall and knocked neither loudly nor tentatively, but with a nice blend of good manners and self-assurance.

Nancy responded promptly. “
Now
what?” she snarled.

“The lady is here, Mistress MacNichol.” He winked at Jennie as if they were of the same age and station, and went back across the hall.

Nancy opened the door and said graciously, “Well, Lidy X, please to step in.”

Her parlor was cluttered and gaudy, but immaculate. All glass and metal surfaces winked and shimmered, and a little coal fire made it very hot. “I'm sorry to disturb your rest,” Jennie said, “but I wanted to tell you we have engaged our passage. We sail tonight.”

“I surmised something was up! Those 'eads together over the teacups. I was just 'aving a bit of read and a laydown, and then I was coming up to see you, with this.”

She reached behind a violently magenta sofa and brought out an elderly carpetbag. “It's me own,” she said. “
What am I keeping it for?
I says to meself. I'm going nowhere. So I might as well let it go for a few shillings. And I bought you both a change of clothes, such as they are. I looked in all the seams, and I couldn't find any animules. But shoes I couldn't find for those narrow feet of yours.”

“The brogues will do on the ship, and I'll find a shoemaker as soon as we land.”

“If it's not in the wilderness, and
if
you land,” said Nancy gloomily. “I've put in two towels, too, and you'll 'ave that scented soap. Now 'ave you thought of your other needs?”

“Other?” Jennie was blank.

“Your monthly flow! Of course, if you and 'im been 'oneymooning from there to 'ere, you might not 'ave the problem for the next nine months. Be a good thing aboard ship, I should think. 'Ard to manage in close quarters.” She slapped her thigh. “Oh, what a blush!”

Jennie touched a very warm cheek with very clammy fingers. “But we—I mean—we have been too tired and too apprehensive—”

“Well, then!” Nancy was triumphant. “I packed away something in the bottom of the bag for you.”

“I can't tell you how much I appreciate all this,” said Jennie. “Do I owe you any more money?”

Nancy emphatically waved that away. “So you've found you a ship as soon as this.”

“Yes, the people you saw us with decided not to go at the last moment, and we are buying their tickets.”

“That's a bit of luck, if you fancy a long voyage in an immigrant ship,” Nancy said caustically.

“This is the American vessel. It's new and clean, better than most, they say. Nancy, if I write a note to my sister, would you mail it after we're gone? I'll give you the money to have it franked, and for the paper and ink.”

“I'm a pauper if I can't supply that. Besides, if you leave tonight, I can let the room again and make double on it.” She drew out a chair from the table by the window. “Everything's there. Trimmed those pens myself just yesterday. Paper in the drawer. I like a good, thick, elegant paper,” she said carelessly. “Sealing wax and candle
there
. When you're finished, just leave it under me rook from Brighton, and I'll see it on its way tomorrow.” She went toward a door opening into another room. “I'll go back to my book. I don't 'alf fancy this Mrs. Radcliffe.”

You and Charlotte
, Jennie thought. She imagined Charlotte weak and ill from weeping, and she couldn't bear it. She sat down at the table, and in the next room a bed creaked as Nancy settled onto it with a sigh of pleasure.

“Dear Sylvia and William,” Jennie wrote. “I am alive, and I am well, and I am going to America. I have done no wrong, but other persons have. Believe me. Please let the Highams know I am safe. Kiss Sophie for me and send Ianthe my dearest love. I embrace you in my heart and will come back from America to do it with my arms. Tell the babies their aunt Jennie adores them. Good-bye, but only for now. Your loving sister Jennie.”

She folded the letter and addressed it to the rectory and sealed it. She placed the polished stone on it and would have called to Nancy, but she heard a strongly melodious snoring from the bedroom, so she tiptoed out with the carpetbag.

Elspeth was still asleep; she must not have really rested for days. Jennie went to the window and looked out at the brig
Paul Revere
again.
I am going to America!
she thought incredulously.
It's as if I were going to the moon
.

There were feet on the stair and a rumble of men's voices, a tap at the door, and Alick and Andrew came in. Andrew carried his plaid like a sack over his back. Elspeth stirred and turned sleepily toward him, and he smiled as if she were the only other person in the room. “My tool chest is just there on the landing.” He lowered his tartan bundle to the floor. “Everything else is here.”

She sat up and put out her hand to him. “I thank you, Andrew. And we will be sailing to America when
he
is ready.” She patted her swelling front. “What was Mr. MacArthur saying?”

“He was disappointed, but he bore up well, when I told him the other Mistress Glenroy could be teaching English words on the voyage. He is very anxious himself to be learning them. You are not offended, Mistress?” he asked Jennie.

“Not in the least! I wish I'd thought of it myself!” She sounded too jovial, and she was not eager to face Alick yet, but she was very aware of him.

“Elspeth, lass,” Glenroy said, “there is a cart going away now. They were seeing their kin off at noon. We can be traveling with them halfway to your sister's if you are ready.”

“Dia, I am ready!” She almost sprang off the bed, blooming like a peony.

“We haven't settled with you yet,” Jennie said.

“Imagine forgetting that!” Elspeth said merrily.

The cabin fare, the clothes, blankets, and household goods took most of their combined shares of sovereigns, but it left them enough so they wouldn't step onto American soil with empty purses. Elspeth hugged and kissed Jennie, and cried again. They all went downstairs, the men carrying the heavy tool chest. When they came out onto the step, a cart drawn by a dapple gray garron was coming slowly up the street through the human traffic; an elderly pair, white-haired under mutch and bonnet, sat on the seat. The man stopped the pony by the step and gave Andrew a ponderous nod. His wife had been crying, but she brightened when she saw Elspeth, and called her “mo ghaoil” as if she'd always known her. Alick and Andrew lifted the chest into the cart, the tartan bundle went in, and Elspeth was heaved up to sit on the chest. Andrew took up his position beside the garron.

The men shook hands without speaking, and Elspeth wiped her eyes and called promises to Jennie. “We will be meeting in America! It's the fine ceilidh we'll be having!”

“Yes, we will,” Jennie answered. “A whole week of them!”

The old man, having had enough of all this, spoke to the pony. Elspeth would have kept waving and calling back all the way up the street, but the old woman engaged her attention. Andrew, walking beside the pony, looked back once, lifted his bonnet, and then faced forward again.

“Is it mad you are?” Alick said ferociously. “Do you know what you are
doing?
” If gray eyes could bo said to blaze, his did.

“Yes, but this is no place to discuss it.” Jennie went inside and up the stairs, and he followed her. The instant they confronted each other behind a closed door she seized the advantage before he could open his mouth.

“You need a wife for this venture,” she said. “In name only; I don't propose to embarrass you. When you are well established and your wife through her
own
efforts has saved enough for her ticket, she will go home to see her family. If something keeps her from coming back, I am sure the General won't evict you, poor man, because you have lost your wife.”

He ripped off his bonnet and slammed it against the wall. “You are so ignorant! A lady like you to travel in those conditions! Not only dangerous but dirty! Aye, the ship looks clean enough now, she has been just carrying timber, but when they begin to get sick—at both ends, you understand—”

“A lady like me!” She mocked him. “Why Alick, I'm no more than a gypsy right now, but I can pass as a good wife long enough to help you. And as for dirty—there'll be plenty of saltwater to wash in. We have a cabin, remember, we can keep it clean ourselves, and we'll have a change of clothing from the chests, besides what Nancy bought for us.” She nodded at the carpetbag. “You might start by having a wash now under the pump out there in the yard, so we'll go aboard
Paul Revere
like the respectable Glenroys that we are. That beard makes you look like a pirate, but I'm sure Mr. MacArthur will vouch for you.”

She held out a towel from the rack. “You won't want this scented soap, I suppose. Why don't you ask for some in the kitchen?”

He yanked the towel from her hand and walked out.

Nancy brought them coffee, rolls, and cold meat. She drank a cup with them and wished them Godspeed, dubiously. “I 'ope you 'ave plenty to eat, that's all.”

“I was hearing that the captain has put enough oatmeal aboard for an army,” Alick said. “Orders of the General.”

Nancy blew the General away like a feather. “Oh, '
im
! And what about water? Oh, the tales they tell about water stored in indigo casks and going poison, if it's not bad to begin with!”

“The water casks are new wood,” Alick said. “Everything about the ship is new. This is her—her—”

He glanced at Jennie, who said, “Her maiden voyage.”

“And is the captain new, too? Is it '
is
maiden voyage?”

Jennie, exacerbated by nerves and knowing Alick was the same, kept expecting him to fly apart in one way or another, but surprisingly he laughed.

“He is not looking very new, Nancy. And he has been here before, in another ship.”

Belligerently Nancy came up with more objections. “Think about the cholera, and the dysentery, and the typhoid! One ship arrived in Nova Scotia with everybody, passengers and crew, sick with typhoid, and they'd been dying like flies on the way. I feel it's my duty to warn you, you two being babes in the wood, so to speak.”

“And you have warned us,” said Alick. “You have done your duty, Nancy, and I am thanking you. Jennie, we can be going aboard now.”

It would take them perhaps ten minutes to reach the shore, but Jennie had faced with less trepidation the walk from Linnmore to Fort William. All the fears that surrounded the voyage were as nothing compared to the anticipation of being seized before they boarded the ship, or afterward, before the ship sailed; she remembered those search parties, and she knew that Alick was remembering, too. He had a deathly pallor, and she sensed that the hands which laid the plaid over his shoulder were not steady.