Serpents in the Garden (22 page)

Jacob became an avid churchgoer. As the weeks progressed, he moved closer and closer to the hunched figure in her pew, his heart thudding loudly in his chest. The day she patted the pew and shifted to allow him to sit beside her, his stomach did an uncomfortable somersault. The afternoon she raised her blue eyes to his and smiled, he was lost. Jacob Graham had fallen in love, and he had no idea whatsoever what to do with the sensations that rushed through him whenever he saw her.

*

“I told you,” Luke barked. “I told you to stay away from her, and instead you’ve been sniffing around her like a dog after a bitch in heat.” He sat down beside Jacob’s bed.

“I love her,” Jacob mumbled through his broken mouth, trying to open his swollen eye wide enough to see his uncle. Richard Collin’s two apprentices had been quick and efficient, cornering him as he came out of the church after yet another rendezvous with Charlotte.

“Love! Pff! And you a married man as well.” Luke lowered his face to stare Jacob firmly in his eyes. “Either you promise to do as I tell you, or I’ll put you aboard the first ship out of here.”

Jacob swallowed heavily. He couldn’t leave, not now that he had a lass to save from an ogre of a stepfather. He looked out at the July evening and nodded. But beneath the bedclothes, his fingers were firmly crossed.

*

“She lies,” Luke told Master Castain. “Richard Collin isn’t taking her to bed. She’s too young for a start; he has always preferred his women somewhat more mature.”

Master Castain nodded. “Let’s hope Jacob stays away from her for now, because next time they will be less gentle with him.”

“Gentle? The lad’s got one black eye, a split lip, and bruises all over his arms and chest!”

Master Castain’s brow wrinkled. “As I said, next time it will be worse.”

Chapter 25

“Leave?” Jenny had to bite her lip to stop it from trembling. “How leave?” Over the last months, she’d succeeded in convincing herself that Ian would forgive her, even if nothing in his behaviour towards her indicated that was the case – rather the reverse.

He avoided any contact with her beyond the necessary, sat for hours studying the baby’s face, and, on occasion, Jenny could feel his eyes bore holes into the back of her head. The cabin stood finished since some weeks back, and Ian had moved in but made it clear she wasn’t welcome to live there with him and their son.

“We ride down to Providence tomorrow,” Ian said, “and you won’t be coming back.”

Jenny’s heart seemed to stop for a second. She bowed her head to brush her lips against the wispy softness of her daughter’s head.

“Not come back?” She cleared her throat and blinked in an effort to stop herself from crying.

“I’m divorcing you, on account of adultery. I assume you won’t contest it, will you?”

“They will put me in the pillory,” she whispered. “I’ll be shamed before all.”

Ian gave her a look that made her twist. “However much you deserve it, I’ll try to ensure it doesn’t come to that,” he said, and left her to pack.

It was late in the afternoon before Jenny fully comprehended what this leaving meant. She stood aghast and listened when Ian explained that Maggie would be staying behind with Naomi, and that Malcolm wasn’t coming with them either.

“My bairns stay with me.”

“Your children?” She found her voice and her anger. “Well, there’s no doubt Malcolm is yours, but Maggie isn’t, you hear? She’s mine, only mine!”

Ian’s face hardened into a mask of dislike. “My birthmother once told Da that the babe she held in her arms wasn’t his, so he let her go and take the wean with her. I won’t repeat his mistake. The lass is born under my name, and will be raised by me and mine, not you.”

“I’ll contest it!” she screeched. “God damn you, Ian Graham, I’ll deny it – all of it!”

“You do that, and I’ll bring forth enough evidence to place you in the pillory for a week.”

Jenny made a run for the baby basket, but Ian was quicker and stronger, easily blocking her way.

He picked Maggie up and held her to his chest. “She won’t miss you,” he said in a cold voice. “She’s but two months old.”

She jerked at his words before slumping in defeat. “And Malcolm? What will you tell him?”

“The truth: how you bedded with another man and shamed us all.”

“You’ll paint me a whore to our son?” Jenny groaned.

“Nay, you’ve done that yourself.” Ian met her eyes, and Jenny wept inside as she realised that any love he’d ever had for her had been swept away by the damage she’d done him. This was a vulnerable man, a man whose manhood had been stripped away from him, and in his eyes the hurt stood naked.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered far too late. “I truly never meant for you to be hurt.”

“But I was,” he replied just as softly. He held out his daughter to her. “You may kiss her goodbye.”

“Now?” she quavered. “Why now? Why not on the morrow?”

“Now. We leave at daybreak.”

*

“I wish I could ride with you.” Matthew clasped Ian’s hand. “But I can’t leave Mark to cope on his own with only Daniel at his side – not now, with all the harvest work.”

Ian waved away his continued apologies. “I know why, Da, and Mama is coming.”

As was Betty, already mounted, her brow set in a permanent expression of worry since the messenger had arrived some days back to let her know her mother was doing poorly.

Matthew gnawed his lip, eyes flying over the loaded pistols that Betty and Alex carried. A very long ride, and he would never have allowed it if he hadn’t known for sure the Burleys were still in Virginia – this courtesy of Thomas Leslie, who had recently returned after visiting one of his daughters there.

He went over to his wife, waited while she finished talking to Daniel, and helped her up on her horse, allowing his hand to remain on her thigh. Her eyes remained stuck on their son, now standing beside Mark. Already as tall as Mark, but nowhere near Mark’s width of shoulders, Daniel had returned home a few weeks ago, and after several days of constant comparisons between this life and his new exciting life in Boston, he’d settled down to pull his share of the workload.

Matthew regarded Daniel with pride. The lad was halfway to being a man, a bright young lad who spoke with enthusiasm about his studies and his teachers. But he was still young enough to have blushed a bright red at his mother’s effusive welcome, an embarrassed “Mama” escaping his lips while Alex hugged and kissed, wept, hugged some more, and finally released him to be greeted by the rest of his family.

“He’s so…I don’t know, so adult somehow,” Alex said, smiling at Daniel.

“Adult? That’s not what you said yesterday.” Matthew grinned.

“Okay, so he’s a very young adult with streaks of infantile behaviour,” Alex amended with a laugh. “I think there’s still a frog or two left in the girls’ room.”

“Aye, well, I’ll set him to chasing them out.” Matthew took her hand. “You don’t have to go. I know it tears at you to ride off when Daniel’s here.”

“No choice, is there? One of us has to be there for him, don’t you think?” She looked over to where Ian had sat up on his horse.

“Take care, aye?”

“Of who? Of me or of him?”

“Of both,” he smiled, “but mostly of you.”

At the top of the lane, she turned and waved, eyes flashing in the sun.

*

Jenny threw a hateful look in the direction of Betty and manoeuvred her mule so that she was as far away from them all as possible. All of her was aching, all of her was swollen, and she’d cried so much during the night she’d thought there were no tears left – until she’d said goodbye to Malcolm.

One fat tear slid down her cheek. Her son had not said a word, standing as close as he could to Ian. But when she’d hugged him, he’d thrown his arms round her neck, and she could feel it, in every inch of him, how hard he was struggling not to cry. Her son, her daughter – lost to her and all because of… She muffled a sob and averted her face from Alex’s concerned eyes. No more weeping, she told herself; it doesn’t serve anyway.

It was hard to keep that promise during the ride down to Providence, and it was even harder not to succumb to tears the day Ian and she stood before the ministers.

“Adultery?” Minister Walker wrinkled his nose and looked Jenny up and down. “And you don’t deny this accusation, daughter?”

Jenny shook her head, keeping her eyes on her clasped hands. If only someone would hold her, not leave her standing this alone in front of the elders of the congregation.

“And you want a divorce,” Minister Walker went on, directing himself to Ian.

“Aye.”

The men before them huddled together in deep discussion, several disapproving looks thrown in the direction of Jenny who shrank further into herself, sinking her nails into the skin of her wrist to stop herself from crying.

“And the post-nuptials are in order?” a minister Jenny didn’t recognise asked. In reply, Ian handed over the contracts, drawn up by Simon.

“Well,” Minister Walker cleared his throat, “that was most generous of you, young Ian.”

Ian hitched his shoulders in a gesture that showed just how unimportant he found this aspect of the whole affair, and Minister Walker nodded compassionately.

“She must be punished,” the new minister said. “Such behaviour cannot be condoned.”

Jenny’s knees dipped, but she remained silent, concentrating on her breathing.

“I don’t want to,” Ian said.

The minister smiled benignly at him. “No, of course you don’t. This is, after all, your former wife. But this is a matter for us to decide, not you.”

“I don’t want to,” Ian repeated. “Isn’t it enough that I have to live through this pain? Must I also be humiliated in public?”

“You? But it isn’t you, it’s her,” the minister said. “A few hours in the pillory to make an example of her to all women here.”

A murmur of agreement rose from his colleagues.

“Aye, and all will ask themselves why.” Ian shook his head stubbornly. “No, I ask you not to do this to me.”

They had walked into the meetinghouse a married couple, and they walked out divorced, with Ian carrying the deeds. The midday heat struck them like a wet blanket, and they hurried for the shade afforded by the meetinghouse building.

“Will you be alright?” Ian asked.

“Do you care?” she snapped back, unable to help herself. She raised a hand to her tender chest and liked it that he noticed, a faint blush colouring his cheeks. Let him realise what he was doing, stealing her daughter from her!

“Not as such.” He shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable. Finally, he gave her a stilted bow and made as if to leave.

“Ian?” He turned back towards her, and she tried to smile, although to her consternation her eyes were filling with tears. “Thank you for not allowing them to put me in the pillory.”

“I promised you, didn’t I?”

She scuffed her shoe back and forth over the cobbles. “Take care of my children.”

“I will.”

There was nothing left to say. For some minutes more, they stared at each other before he shrugged and turned away. “And I do care,” he added as he was leaving.

“I know you do,” she whispered to his retreating back, “and that makes it all such a waste.” Oh God, what had she done? She stood very still until he had disappeared from sight. Never until this moment had she been utterly alone, entirely without protection. Jenny sighed, bent down to pick up her few belongings, and, with a constricted throat, took the first steps of her new life.

*

“So, are you settling in?” Alex asked Joan after having made appropriately impressed sounds as she was guided round the new Melville residence. The small house was surprisingly light, with two small glass-paned windows to the front, and light filtering in from the open kitchen door that gave onto a small yard where a couple of hens were clucking.

“Well enough, even if it’s quite a small place.”

“A small place,” Alex echoed with a laugh. “Shame on you, to disparage our thriving town.”

“Not much bigger than Cumnock.”

“Oh yes, it is, if you include the docks.”

“Ah,” Joan said. “I don’t go there much.”

“No, I don’t think you should, nor should Simon.”

“He does as it pleases him,” Joan said in a cool tone. “As I hear it, Mrs Malone’s attracts its fair share of the male citizenry.”

“And Lucy?” Alex asked to get off this uncomfortable subject.

Joan’s eyes drifted over to her daughter, who was sitting in the small backyard. “Men look at her; all the time they look at her. And she, God help her, she looks back.”

“She has to. It isn’t as if she can eavesdrop or something, is it?”

Joan shook her head. “You know what I mean. Some lasses just have that…that…knowingness about them. No, the sooner she’s wed the better – in particular given her deafness.”

“But not at fifteen!”

“Nay, of course not, but once she’s betrothed, it will be easier.” Joan fiddled with her cup and smiled down at the table. “There’s a lad much taken with her, a right bonny lad of good family.”

“Oh,” Alex muttered, not that interested. She glanced at Lucy, who was sitting on the small bench under the single tree, her head bent over some mending.

“Henry Jones,” Joan continued. “Have you perhaps heard of him?”

“Henry Jones?” Alex strangled a surprised guffaw. “Kate Jones’ eldest?”

Joan leaned forward eagerly. “Aye, that’s him. Rich as I hear it – very rich.”

“Let’s just say I have no fond recollections of his father, Dominic Jones.”

Joan looked nonplussed and Alex sighed.

“Jones was the overseer who so mistreated Matthew, all those years ago in Virginia.” Alex nodded at the shocked look that flew up Joan’s face.

“Hmm.” Joan gnawed at her lip. “The lad seems polite enough. And you can’t hold him responsible for the ill deeds of his father.”

“No, that would be unfair, however biblically correct.”

Joan flashed her an irritated look but didn’t say anything, shifting the conversation to other matters.

*

“I’m not sure.” Betty studied Simon Melville cautiously.

“You’re not sure that you want to remain married, or you’re not sure that you want to end the marriage?”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

Simon tilted his head to one side, and Betty had to quell an urge to laugh. Mama Alex was right: he did look like a large bird.

“Aye, probably, but it’s a question of progression. First, you begin to consider whether you wish to remain married; then you move on to thinking about ending it.” He picked up a leather-bound tome from his cluttered desk and used it as a clumsy fan. “Hot, no?”

“It’s even worse come August.”

“Worse?” Simon looked down at himself. “I’m melting away in this heat!”

“Not a bad thing perhaps,” Betty said before she could help herself.

He raised his brows. “You’ve been talking to my wife,” he said, wagging a finger at her. He leaned forward on his elbows. “Why?” he asked, throwing her entirely. He rolled his eyes at her. “Why do you want to end the marriage?”

“I…” Betty hesitated, uncomfortable under his penetrating eyes. “I’m not sure my marriage is valid,” she ended lamely.

“Aye, it is, as long as you want it to be. You know that, Betty Hancock.” He smiled broadly at her. “And so does your father, which is why you come to me to voice these belated concerns of yours, because should he hear them, he’d insist you come back to live with him while he makes arrangements for a new, rather hasty marriage.”

Betty gave him a pleading look. “I don’t want that.”

“Nay, of course you don’t, because you already know the man you want to marry.” He grinned and winked.

“Yes, but I’m not sure he wants to wed me…”

“No, not at the moment,” Simon agreed. “He’s but recently divorced.”

Betty’s face, her neck, went uncomfortably warm. How could he possibly know that?

He tapped his nose. “In my business, lassie, it comes in handy to read faces. And it’s not as if there’s an interminable supply of young men up in the woods, is it?”