Serpents in the Garden (10 page)

“No king?” he said.

“Not here,” Matthew said, and both of them grinned.

“And the paintings?” Ian asked.

“I don’t know, lad,” Matthew lied. “Magnus reckoned they were depictions of the fall through time, painted by someone who’d had the misfortune of falling repeatedly from one age to the other; someone who desperately tried to paint their way home. Magic, son, black magic.” He swallowed, feeling a twinge of pity for Mercedes, a woman he had never met nor ever wished to meet, but who had by all accounts led a miserable life, thrown hither and thither through time. In his head, he heard a sultry laugh, a soft woman’s voice telling him it hadn’t been all bad. After all, she’d had all those years with Magnus, and… Matthew recited the first few lines of the Lord’s Prayer, relieved when the voice faded away.

“Repeatedly?” Ian croaked.

Matthew nodded. “An accursed existence, don’t you think?”

“Very.” Ian shuddered.

“You can’t help him,” Ian stated after a couple of heartbeats of silence.

“Nay,” Matthew agreed. “Poor man.”

“Farrell will make him pay.”

“Aye, that he will.” Matthew frowned down at his clenched hand. To be free, and have it all taken from you, to be degraded to an animal. To father bairns – and Farrell would make sure the well-built stranger fathered several – and see them sold away from you and not be able to do anything about it. But, most of all, to live that day when you bowed to the ground and admitted that, yes, you were a slave, a beast of burden… Like he himself had done, eighteen years in the past on a plantation called Suffolk Rose, crawling at the feet of that accursed Dominic Jones, may he rot in hell.

Matthew shook himself free of these unwelcome memories, and turned his mind to other concerns. “I’ll be riding back after dinner. I don’t want to be gone for longer than I have to. Will you and Jenny manage on your own?”

“Aye, we will. I met one of the Ingram men in town so we can ride together.” For an instant, Ian rested his hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “Don’t be too harsh on her. She did what she thought best.”

“She was wrong. She should have told me about Angus pawing at Daniel – it isn’t her right to withhold such from me.”

Chapter 11

One of the more irritating things about life in the seventeenth century was that nothing was ever on time – departures and arrivals were at best approximations, dependent on the vagaries of the weather. To ride back and forth to Providence could take anything between five days and eight, and adding a further four or five for the business Matthew had to conduct meant that at earliest he would be back nine days after setting out. So it was with surprise – and some apprehension – that Alex watched Matthew ride into their yard on the afternoon of the seventh day, on a winded Moses with Narcissus an exhausted shadow at their heels.

He only had to look at her and she knew. A lump settled heavily in her stomach, and she turned her head to look at Angus, who was trailing the rest of the household towards the master. Matthew intercepted her look, and his eyes went very green, never leaving hers. Shit, he was mightily pissed.

She hugged herself and went forward to greet him with his children, but hung back. He didn’t stretch out his arm to envelop her in an embrace as he would normally do, but allowed the children to monopolise him instead, laughing down at them, tweaking cheeks and ruffling hair. From the pocket of his coat, he brought out ribbons for the girls, boiled sweets for the boys, and a wooden rattle for little Hannah.

“And Mama?” Adam asked, tugging at his coat tail. “Didn’t you bring something nice back for Mama?”

Matthew threw Alex a cool look. “There are plenty of things for Mama, but they come with the mules.”

Right; stuff like bolts of fabric, needles and thread, a new kettle to replace the old one, but nothing specifically for her – not this time. She tucked her hands in under her arms and retreated a few paces. She wanted to tell him about the Indian and the horrible gift, needed to feel his beating heart under her cheek, but as he made no move to come to her, she stood to the side, feeling abandoned.

*

He had ridden like the wind in his haste to get back home. Home to ensure nothing had happened to his sons while he was gone, but also to reassure himself Alex was still here, with him, and not yanked back through time. The whole incident with the black man had left him edgy and nervous, all too aware of the times he’d nearly lost her.

But on the long ride back, it had been his anger that had swelled and grown, so that when he rode into the yard and saw her standing to the side, he felt at first a weakening relief that she was still here, then a flaming rage that she should have taken it upon herself to decide what he should know or not.

He looked over to where Angus was leading Moses off towards the stable, and his right fist closed. By tomorrow, Angus would be gone, he decided, feeling very small and mean-minded. But what was he to do? Keep him on and risk that one day he would not attempt to woo, but force himself on one of his sons? Angus’ narrow shoulder blades shifted under his stare, and Matthew dragged his eyes away from him to smile down at Samuel, who had taken his hand in an effort to catch his attention.

“Mama saw an Indian,” he said.

“You did?” His eyes flashed over to Alex, who was standing some feet away, her arms crossed in a forlorn gesture over her chest. For some reason she paled, tightening her hold on herself. “Well, did you?”

“Yes.”

“A brave? An Iroquois?”

“I have no idea; he wasn’t wearing Indian garb.” She gnawed at her lip, seemed on the verge of saying something, but shook her head instead. “I can tell you later.”

All through supper, Matthew exchanged but a minimum of words with Alex, submerging himself in his bairns while she busied herself with serving up meat soup, slicing bread, and insisting that all eat at least one carrot stick. When Matthew told the household that he wished to speak to his wife alone, the kitchen emptied so quickly it was almost risible, with Agnes mumbling she would handle the dishes later before darting after Naomi and Betty.

Matthew sat back in his chair and extended his legs towards the hearth. The lesser man in him was enjoying her evident discomfort. “Why?”

Alex hitched her shoulders. “I’m not sure. Maybe because I was afraid you’d overreact and—”

“Overreact?” He looked at her with dislike. “How can I overreact? That man, crawling over our son!”

“It wasn’t quite like that, and it’s not as if he’s undamaged himself, is it?”

“I don’t care if he’s been buggered every night by the men he shared a hut with.”

“He was?” Alex gasped.

Matthew closed his eyes at her innocence. “I have no idea, but men will be men. Angus is a pretty lad, near on girlish. So I guessed. He wouldn’t have survived three years on a tobacco farm without some protection, and he paid for it the only way he could, by offering up his arse.”

“Jesus,” Alex muttered.

“As I said, I don’t care. He touched my lad in an untoward way, and had you told me, I’d have had him off our land that same day – as you well know.”

Alex nodded: that was why she hadn’t told him, because however mad she was at Angus, she was also sorry for him – and for Agnes. But she’d been vigilant, she assured him, ensuring Angus was never alone with her sons.

Not good enough, he told her, not at all good enough. “Never again. You will never take it upon yourself to choose what I should hear or not when it comes to our bairns.”

“But—” Alex protested.

Matthew brought his hand down so hard on the table it made her jump. “Never,” he said, his eyes inches from hers.

“Never,” she promised, and in her eyes he saw just how humiliated she felt. At the moment, he didn’t much care.

“Good,” he said as he got to his feet. “And now I must speak to Angus.”

Angus was mute. He sat slumped on a stool, his mouth slack as Matthew told him in a matter-of-fact voice that he wished him gone next morning. His contract had been revised, Matthew explained, and he was free to go. There would even be a pouch with a few shillings and a change of clothes for him, but he was not welcome to stay.

“Why?” Angus asked. Matthew stood looking down at him for a long time, pity warring with disgust.

“I won’t have you making catamites of my lads,” he said and turned on his heel.

*

“What have you done to your shirt?” Alex asked later that evening, in an attempt to regain some kind of normality between them.

Matthew looked down at his tear. “Oh, that. I caught it on something.”

“Caught it on something,” she mimicked and held out her hand. “Give it here. I’ll have to mend that before I wash it.” Matthew drew the shirt over his head and lobbed it at her before going over to the little writing desk.

Alex was faintly disappointed. The whole idea had been for him to come over and hug her, complaining about being cold. Fine, mister, if that’s the way you want it then that’s the way you’ll have it, and until you ask, I won’t tell you about the damned Indian either. She stabbed the needle through the cloth, not really caring that the resulting mending was nowhere close to her normal standards.

“I’ve been in discussions regarding marriage for Ruth,” Matthew said suddenly.

“Ruth? But she’s a child!”

Matthew gave her an irritated look. “For now, aye. And nothing is set on paper. It’s just a preliminary discussion.”

“With who?”

Matthew continued with his writing, the only sound in the room being the scraping of the quill against the thick paper.

“Who?”

“Henry Jones,” Matthew replied, swivelling on his stool to face her.

“Jones!” Alex let his shirt fall to her lap. “No way. I’m not going to share grandchildren with that bastard – or his wife.”

“That’s not for you to decide,” Matthew snapped.

Alex studied him for a long time. “I see, this is my punishment, is it? For not telling you about Angus.” She crumpled the shirt together and threw it in his face. “Over my dead body, Matthew, you hear?” And then she was out of her chair so fast the candle flame guttered and died. Without a further word, she left the room.

*

Matthew shrugged, tossed the shirt to land in Alex’s basket, relit the candle, and went back to his letter. She’d be back soon enough, even if he heard the door slam as she left the house. He finished his letter and sat for some time before the fire, nursing a pewter mug of whisky. Still no Alex, and with a little sigh he banked the fire and retired upstairs.

He was used to this, Matthew reminded himself as he lay in bed. Alex always did this when she wanted to punish him. Out she’d go to wander in the dark, and he’d be left lying awake and restless in bed, not knowing for sure where she was or if she was hurt. Mostly he’d go after her, but tonight he had no intention of leaving his warm bed to go traipsing around in the dark. The silly woman could sleep in the hay for all he cared. Two nights sleeping on the ground had him exhausted, so he rolled over, pummelled his pillow into a more comfortable shape, and closed his eyes to sleep.

He woke much later, and something was wrong. Alex still wasn’t back, and Matthew’s nostrils were invaded by the smell of smoke. Fire! He was out of his bed so fast he stubbed his toe against the floor, and then he was outside in only his shirt, staring in the direction of his stables. He heard Alex scream, there was a loud clatter and a thud, and he ran in the direction of her voice.

From his cabin came Mark, as undressed as he was, and Agnes came running with Betty at her heels. When Matthew threw the doors open, he was met by a wall of heat. The hayloft was on fire, the horses were shrieking in fear, and on the floor was Alex, lying by the fallen ladder. For an eternal second, he feared she might be dead, his eyes stuck on the blood that was trickling down her face. But then she moaned, pointing upwards to where the loft was burning, and he was suffused with relief that she was alive, no matter that her sleeves were singed and that there seemed to be something wrong with her foot.

Around them, pandemonium reigned. Thick acrid smoke billowed from the loft. Agnes rushed by with her arms full of implements, dropped them just outside the door, and rushed back inside, all the while praying in a high, carrying voice. Mark struggled with the oxen. Betty had managed to lead out one of the horses and was rushing back in for the next one. Matthew swept his wife into his arms and carried her outside, ignoring her unintelligible gibbering.

“Here,” he said to Mrs Parson, who had made it from the house by now. “See to her. I must help with the beasts.”

Mrs Parson creaked down on her knees and wrapped her arms around a crying Alex, nodding at Matthew to go and do what he must.

“The pigs!” Mark wheezed through coughs. “I can’t get the pigs out.”

Matthew rushed over to the pigs’ enclosure. The sow had backed into a corner, screeching in terror at the fire that dripped from the hayloft floor above her home. Matthew threw himself at the stable wall behind her, he kicked and tore, and Patrick was on the outside, grabbing at the planks and tearing them apart until there was a hole large enough for the pigs to escape through.

Behind him, Matthew heard the hayloft give. Just before crawling through the aperture, he turned, transfixed by the conflagration. A blackened, elongated shape plummeted from one of the roof beams to land in the roaring fire.

“Oh God!” he said, his voice cracking. “Dear Lord, no!” With a roaring sound, the last of the hayloft collapsed, and Matthew threw himself outside.

The entire household was standing before the burning stable when Agnes realised one of them was missing.

“Angus?” She turned this way and that, looking for the lanky shape of her brother. “Angus?” There was a wobble to her voice. “Angus!” she shrieked, and threw herself towards the building.

Patrick grabbed at her waist and pulled her back, making low shushing sounds into her hair.

“Oh Lord,” Agnes whimpered when the roof fell down in an explosion of sparks. “Where is he? Where is my brother?”

*

Alex woke next morning with one arm neatly bandaged, her forehead stitched, and her husband fast asleep beside her, still in a shirt that smelled of smoke. She used her aching fingers to prod him, and with a start he woke.

“What happened to you?” she croaked, taking in his torn nails and damaged hands. His hair was singed on the left side, and there was a huge bruise on his face.

“The pig kicked me.” He fingered the purple discoloration.

Alex laughed, even if it hurt like hell. Shit! Well, that’s what you get when you fall from the hayloft. She closed her eyes at the remembered horror. “She’s not the most polite of creatures. Did you get them all out?”

Matthew nodded. “But the hay is gone, and I don’t like feeding them on grain throughout the winter. I’ll have to go to the Leslie place and barter for some feed.” A lot of the oats were gone as well, he told her, and most of the tack and the saddles. Matthew muttered that it would be a costly effort to replace all that. At least the plough was undamaged, and Agnes and Betty had managed to save most of the expensive iron equipment from the blaze.

“That’s good.” Alex fiddled with the tassels of the new quilt. “But Angus…” she whispered. If only she’d been a few minutes earlier, she might have stopped him. If, if, if. If she’d seen the light in the hayloft sooner; if she’d not slipped in the mud while crossing the yard; if she’d been faster up the ladder – oh God!

“We found him, what was left of him that is – a few charred bones, no more.”

“Ah.” She blinked: the swinging body, the stool kicked aside, knocking the lantern off its perch to land in the stacked hay. A matter of seconds, and it was all on fire.

Matthew smoothed her hair off her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“About yon Indian. You should have told me the whole story.”

“At the time, you didn’t seem all that interested, did you?” She turned her face away.

“I was—”

“…pissed off, I know. As does every single person in our household.”

“I had the right of it,” he said, sounding indignant.

“Fine.” She waved him silent. She had no energy to quarrel with him. “Those Burleys, they’re sick obsessive bastards,” she muttered instead.

“Aye, I can’t say I was much thrilled to stand eye to eye with all three of them.”