Serpents in the Garden (19 page)

*

Betty was picking flowers, meandering through the woods closest to the farm. She broke off a twig of new birch leaves and added it to her sizeable bouquet, wondering whether to give it to Alex or Mrs Parson. To her surprise, she could hear the river and realised she’d walked in a circle, lost in her daydreams.

Jenny was sitting by the water, and Betty hung back. Since that episode in October, Jenny had avoided her just as much as she’d avoided Jenny, and, even if she could see Jenny was crying, Betty suspected her presence was not what Jenny needed or wanted.

She was considering what to do when Patrick appeared on the path above them, leading one of the mules. He came to an abrupt stop at the sight of Jenny, left the mule, and went over to where Jenny was sitting. He didn’t touch her; he didn’t seem to talk to her either. He just sat down beside her and rested his hand close to hers. Two little fingers brushed against each other and hooked together. Very, very slowly, Jenny leaned her head against his shoulder, and, just as slowly, his arm came up to hold her close, his other hand sliding up to rest on her belly.

Betty sank down into a crouch. Poor, poor Ian.

Chapter 22

“What should I do?” Betty asked Mrs Parson, once she’d finished telling her what she had witnessed back in October as well as the recent tender scene down by the river.

Mrs Parson arranged her flowers in silence, deep in thought. “What do you think you should do?”

“Tell Ian?”

Mrs Parson shook her head. “That’s not for you to do, lass.” She exhaled loudly. “You must tell Matthew, aye?”

Betty looked at her, aghast. “I can’t talk to him about… Couldn’t you?”

Mrs Parson sat back down in her chair. “Nay, that I can’t. It’s not I that have seen anything, is it? But if you can’t tell Matthew, then you must tell Alex.”

*

“Bloody hell,” was what Alex said, feeling how her knees weakened so abruptly she had to sit down. “And you’re sure you saw them having sex back in October?”

“Sex?” Betty looked confused.

“Fornication,” Alex elucidated.

All of her twisting, Betty repeated her earlier description, and Alex had to agree it left very little room for an alternative interpretation.

“At the time, I thought he might have forced her, and she begged me not to tell on account of the shame always being the woman’s.” Betty pulled at her lower lip in a gesture that made her look remarkably like her father. “Now I’m not that sure – although at first she seemed terribly aggrieved with him, kicking and hitting at him.” She moved restlessly in her seat. “Was I wrong not to tell?”

“Hmm?” Alex looked at her blankly. “Oh! No, no, of course you weren’t. She asked you to keep it quiet.” It would have been much easier if Betty had held to that promise, Alex reflected, because now there was no way back – glossing it over and pretending nothing had ever happened was out. She’d have to tell Matthew and then… She quailed.

Matthew’s reaction was one of absolute stillness. In the shaft of sunlight falling in through the wide open barn doors, his eyes went a deep gold, his pupils shrinking down to pinpricks. It made him look rather sinister; the impression further helped along by the way his hand gripped the hammer.

“So now we know.” He sat down with a thud.

“Unfortunately.” Alex sat down beside him and scrubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “Oh God, what do we do?”

He stared down at the floor. “I have no choice,” he said in a voice that was on the point of breaking. “I can’t let this lie. I must tell him.”

“Or not – after all, it might work itself out. If we send Patrick away and—”

“I have to,” he cut her off. “I can’t keep something like this from him. It would be wrong.” He bowed his head further and mumbled something.

“What?” Alex asked.

“I was just quoting the Holy Writ:
Father, if thou be willing remove this cup from me…
But he won’t, will he?” Matthew stood up, and from the slump of his shoulders to the way he held his hands, Alex could see how heavy this burden was.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Matthew extended his hand to her. “I don’t think I can do it without you.”

It felt like a wake, this slow trudge up to where Ian was hewing logs into shape for his cabin. He saw them coming, and his right arm dropped, the axe falling out of his hand. He looked from one to the other in a way that reminded Alex so much of how he’d been as a boy, a child torn in two because no one could tell him for sure who his father was. She smiled wryly. To her, it had always been obvious that Ian was Matthew’s, not Luke’s – every single line of the tall body facing them screamed it out loud: that he was Matthew Graham’s son. His son in more ways than one, Alex shivered, because now they were to tell him that his wife had betrayed him, just as his mother had betrayed his father.

“Jenny,” Ian whispered. “Something has happened to Jenny and the babe.”

Alex’s heart went out to him – to them both – as Matthew went over to his immobilised son and wrapped his arms around him.

“Not as such,” Matthew said, and Ian slumped. Matthew led him over to sit, keeping an arm around him. It was terrible. Even for her, standing to the side, it was almost unbearable to hear Matthew tell his son that his son’s wife was being unfaithful, and it was made even worse by the brittle look in Ian’s eyes, a pleading expression that begged them to laugh and tell him this was all in jest.

*

It didn’t register at first. Ian heard what Da was saying, but somehow he couldn’t string the words together into sentences that made sense. And then his brain connected the random words into a meaningful whole, and for a moment the world tilted.

“Betty?” Ian kicked at the ground. “She saw?”

His parents nodded, and he kicked again. Was that why the lass looked at him the way she did? Was she sorry for him, when he’d thought her in love with him? When Mama told him about that day in early March up at Forest Spring, he flew to his feet.

“You knew already then, and you didn’t tell me?”

“Not for sure. How could we tell you something like this without knowing for sure?” Mama placed a hand on his sleeve. “But now we do know, and we have no choice but to tell you.”

“Thank you,” he said, twisting out of her hold.

He sat down beside Da again, and felt a strong arm come round to hold him close. It didn’t help, because all of him was disintegrating, small parts of him floating off into the air and disappearing like melting snowflakes. How could she do this to him? Whore! His hands knotted themselves, all of him was shaking, and had he had her in front of him he would have… His hands itched. He was within his rights to punish her, to whip her until she bled, and throw her out to face the world, and, God, he wanted to, very much did he want to. Patrick he was going to hurt, that much he knew, but he didn’t really care about him – it was her betrayal that had him swimming in a sea of burning rage. He lowered his head and concentrated on breathing. One breath, two breaths, three breaths…

“The babe might still be mine,” he said after a long, strained silence.

“Aye, but we’ll never know for sure,” Da said.

Ian shrugged and looked away. “Apt, isn’t it?” He attempted a laugh but failed miserably. “Here I spend most of my childhood not knowing who my father is – and Mam couldn’t tell me either – and now I am to welcome yet another ambiguous child into the world.”

“You’re my son,” Da said, gripping his shoulder.

Ian shook himself free. “You don’t know that; not for sure.”

Da opened his mouth to protest but Ian waved his hand at him. “You’re my da. I made that choice very long ago. But we will never know.” He got to his feet again, picked up his axe, and returned to the log he had been working on when he saw them. “I want to think,” he said, sinking the axe hard into the wood. “Alone.”

He sent wood chips flying; he chopped and chopped, venting anger and humiliation on the length of timber at his feet. He choked on his rage, a hard knot working itself up and down his gullet. God, how gullible she must have found him! He drove the axe head into the wood, and worked until his shirt stuck to his back.

It helped to gouge his way through the log. With each stroke, the red anger inside of him receded, the heat that threatened to boil over cooled, until he was left with a controlled, icy rage that lay like a lid across the angry whipping thing in his guts. The babe, he reminded himself as he envisioned various scenarios, he must think of the wean. And so Ian made up his mind to not do anything at all – for now.

“She’ll be birthing soon,” he told Da with a callous shrug, “and then I’ll see.”

It cost him to keep his voice this low and matter-of-fact, and it cost him even more to nod in the direction of Patrick and find a smile for Jenny, but he did, even if he set Malcolm beside him as a bulwark between Jenny and himself. Nor did he attempt to touch her, or converse with her beyond the small talk over the kitchen table. Once he’d finished his food, he told the table at large he’d be working late in the carpentry shed, ruffled Malcolm’s hair, and escaped outside.

*

“Another evening like that and I’ll burst,” Alex said to Matthew later. She tucked the quilts around Adam’s small body and smiled down at her three sons, lying so close together in their bed. At Ian’s insistence, Malcolm was sleeping downstairs with his parents, and Alex guessed he would be wedged between his mother and father, however little bed space that left for Ian and Jenny.

“If he wants it this way then that’s the way it’ll be,” Matthew replied, trailing her into the girls’ room.

Ruth as always slept on her back, one hand thrown high above her head, the other resting on her chest, while Sarah was her normal whirlwind self, the bedclothes tangled round her legs. Matthew freed quilts and sheets, ensuring Ruth got her fair share back, while Alex smoothed down hair and kissed brows.

“What will Peter say?” he asked once they were in their bedroom.

“Nothing compared to what Elizabeth would have said,” Alex said. “Her favourite daughter to so shame the family.”

“Mmm.” Matthew worked the willow twig over his teeth, splashed some water in his face and retired to sit on the bed.

“They’d have flayed her.” Alex sniffed at her latest concoction. “You like it?” She held out the stone jar to him.

Matthew smacked his lips together. “It makes me think of a nice piece of pork.” Right; not quite the effect she wanted to achieve. Alex shoved the jar to the side and decided to go easier on the thyme next time round.

“Ian might,” Matthew said. He stretched out on the bed, gesturing for her to join him.

“Might what?” Alex slid down to lie beside him.

“Whip her. He’d be within his rights.”

“Bloody barbaric… Hey, you’ve stolen my pillow.” She made a grab for it.

“I like this pillow.” He sank his head into it.

“So do I,” she said, but gave up at the sight of his smirk. She’d get it back tomorrow anyway.

“So how would you see Ian deal with his adulterous wife?” Matthew asked, spooning himself tight around her.

“I don’t know…divorce her, I suppose.” Alex felt a twinge of pity for Jenny, soon to be cast out on her own.

“And the bairns?”

“The children stay with him; at least, Malcolm does.” She turned to face him. “It is a grievous thing to take a baby from its mother.”

“Aye, but it’s his right.”

“And what rights does she have?” Alex asked, even if she already knew the answer.

“None.” Matthew rolled over onto his back. “An adulterous wife has no rights, no rights at all.”

*

It gave Ian very little satisfaction to exact his revenge on Patrick. He looked down at the gasping man and was disgusted: with Jenny, with Patrick, but just as much with himself for having set upon an unsuspecting man. Patrick groaned and righted himself to a sitting position.

“What was that for?” Patrick slurred.

“You know why. You have been making free with my wife.” Patrick began shaking his head. Ian loomed over him, hands fisted. “Don’t lie to me.”

Patrick licked his lips, looked away. “I never meant it to happen,” he croaked, his shaking hands held up in a conciliatory gesture.

“Since when?”

“Last summer.” A taunting look appeared in Patrick’s eyes, and Ian’s next blows had blood spurting from Patrick’s nose, his mouth.

“Get out,” Ian said. “Get yourself off our land while you can, aye?”

Patrick fled.

He didn’t like it how disapproving Mama looked when he recounted what he’d done to Patrick.

“What would you do then?” Ian challenged. “In your time?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have kicked the crap out of him – or her in my case. Divorce her, that’s what you’d have done in my time – and found out if the child was yours, which isn’t an option at present.” She came over to join him by the workbench. “The first question you have to ask yourself is if you love her. Love her enough to try again.”

Ian cleared his throat. “I’ve tried. All through these last months, I’ve tried, but she…and now it’s too late. I can’t forgive her for this.” He threw the piece of wood he was presently working on into a corner.

There was another complication as well, a complication in the form of wild reddish-brown hair and eyes to match, but he pushed that thought away from him. He had never acted upon it.

“If it had been the once, or at least no more than a couple of times, then maybe I could. But from what Patrick confessed, it has been going on for nigh on a year. A year of putting horns on me and laughing at me behind my back.”

“I don’t think Jenny’s been laughing at you. She cares too much for you.”

“Not enough to remain faithful. Not enough to ensure the wean she’s carrying is mine.” A bitter taste flooded his mouth. “No, I don’t love her enough to try again. I don’t love her at all, not after what she’s done to me.”

“And the baby?”

“The wean is mine.” Ian went over to stand in the doorway.

“You don’t know that,” Mama said from behind him.

“It’s mine. I won’t let it go.” His eyes rested for a moment on Naomi, who walked by outside with Tom tucked neatly into a shawl and Betty laughing by her side. As if on cue, the lass turned her head in his direction, and for an instant those red-brown eyes met his, sending a flash of heat through him.

“Just as long as you hold to that.” Mama ducked under his arm and turned to face him. “A child deserves to know where it belongs – but I don’t need to tell you that, do I?”

“Nay, that you don’t.” He stretched out his hand and tweaked at a curl that had escaped from her thick bun.

“Mama,” he whispered in a broken voice. “My mama.”

“Always,” she said, standing on her toes to kiss his brow.