Serpents in the Garden (25 page)

Chapter 28

Matthew hurried over to help his sister off her horse, and it was like lifting a wee lass, all skin and bones. Joan disengaged herself with a little frown, making very clear that she’d have no patience with questions regarding her health.

“And you, Simon, have you become permanently attached to yon horse?” he teased, shading his face to peer up at his brother-in-law.

“I don’t think I can get off,” Simon said. “My legs are permanently splayed, and my privates will never recuperate.”

“Aye well, if you choose to ride a carthorse…” Ian eyed the ugly horse Simon was perched on with some amusement. “Maybe it was the only one that could carry your weight?”

“You shouldn’t make fun of your elders,” Simon said haughtily and dismounted. “Nor should you judge on appearances alone. This is a true Rocinante, it is.” He slapped the horse on its huge rump.

“Rocinante was a very thin nag,” David piped up, looking this unknown uncle up and down. “That horse is fat – very fat.”

“Aye, if it were a lady horse, one would think it big with foal.” Sarah giggled.

“Is Uncle big with child then?” Adam asked.

“Laddie,” Simon replied severely, patting his belly. “This is the accumulation of very many years of wisdom.”

“And good food,” Alex said, making Joan and Matthew laugh.

“And that.” Simon’s eyes leapt from one bairn to the other, looking somewhat taken aback. Well, Matthew reflected with some pride, it was a sizeable brood, and it was one thing to count names on paper, quite another to find oneself surrounded by nephews and nieces.

“Nine bairns and four grandchildren. You’ve been quite productive.” Simon grinned at Alex. “I recall you saying that over your dead body would there be more than five.”

“Things happened,” Alex said.

“Oh, aye. Big things.” Simon eyed Matthew’s crotch insinuatingly.

“Simon,” Joan admonished, but she was smiling all the same.

*

“Two menservants?” Alex asked Mark sotto voce.

“Aye, a reasonable precaution in these times. One man killed and two seriously wounded some days back. Indians against Indians, and they were caught between.” Unspoken between them lay the ever-present threat of the Burleys. Mark reverted to studying Lucy. “I don’t recall her as quite so eye-catching.”

“No, she was an ugly baby. But, lo and behold, the duckling has become a swan.”

That reminded her: she had as yet not told Matthew about Lucy’s effect on Henry Jones. Alex looked at Ruth. Marriage to someone like Henry Jones would ensure material comfort well beyond what Ruth was accustomed to, so maybe she was stupid to refuse to countenance it on account of things that had happened so long ago. She studied her redheaded daughter and was washed by a wave of nausea at the thought of Dominic Jones’ DNA mixing with theirs. No, definitely something that wasn’t going to happen. With a quick smile at Mark, she hurried over to Joan, who was looking rather abandoned now that Matthew had dragged off Simon for a private tour.

*

“You still haven’t told me,” Matthew said to Simon. For the last half-hour, they’d spoken of the Burleys, with Simon interjecting the odd exclamation here and there.

“Told you what?” Simon clasped his hands behind his back.

“Why you’re here.”

“Aye, I have. I had to leave.”

“Simon,” Matthew sighed, “have we not always been honest with each other?”

“No,” Simon bit back, “I recall a hasty ride back from Edinburgh to Cumnock, and not once did you see fit to tell me you’d hanged an English officer – not until after we were stopped and asked about your whereabouts.”

Matthew gave him a long look. “Am I to take it this is something of a similar nature?”

“Somewhat.”

“Ah.” Matthew waited for some more, but for all that Simon looked most concerned, it was clear he had no intention of saying more. Instead, he turned the conversation back to the Burleys, suggesting that Matthew should initiate action to have the brothers outlawed.

“How will that help?”

“Outlawed and with a price on their heads?” Simon gave a little laugh. “If it were me, I’d keep well away from the colony.”

“There’s no one to uphold such, not here. In Providence, it might help, but out here…” Matthew spread his arms to indicate the wilderness that surrounded his home. His only protection here were his Indian allies, thereby increasing his debt of gratitude to Qaachow.

“Still, a first step.”

“Hmm,” Matthew said. Mayhap he was right.

He shared this with Alex when he ran into her by the smoking shed, and immediately regretted doing so. Of late, it took but the mention of the Burleys to make Alex acquire the waxy pallor of a tallow candle, and now she just nodded before changing the subject.

“Apparently Henry Jones’ covetous eye has locked itself on pretty Miss Melville,” she said.

“Aye? Well, she’s a bonny lass.” Matthew was only mildly interested.

“So you’re not going to go all mad and insist Henry must marry Ruth?”

“It never got beyond a suggestion, and, in any case, you were dead set against it.”

Alex flicked at some straw that had gotten stuck to his shirt. “I told you: just the thought of seeing anything of Dominic Jones in Ruth’s future children…ugh!”

Matthew was on the verge of commenting that Henry mostly took after his mother, bonny woman that she was, but given that Alex was a trifle oversensitive when it came to Kate, chose not to.

*

It was almost like old times, back at Hillview, Matthew mused some days later. To have Simon and Joan here, to hear Alex laugh with his sister again, it warmed him all the way down to his toes. And for him to spend evening after evening with Simon, reliving his youth, discussing the matters of the world, it did him good, banishing the constant presence of the Burleys to the back of his mind. Still, he heeded Simon’s advice and, together, they wrote a long description of the Burleys’ colourful career.

Matthew signed the finished document with a flourish, blotted it, and sat back to read it yet again. The house was silent, all hands either in the fields or in the kitchen garden. He looked with irritation at his sprained foot – consequence of an unfortunate stumble yesterday – deciding that one day of rest was enough, and that tomorrow he’d start taking in the barley on the last two fields.

He stretched and hobbled out into the yard, sitting down in a shady spot halfway up the slope that led to the graveyard. They were almost done with the harvest, and this year it was good – it would go a good way to cover Daniel’s fees for the coming school year, and mayhap there would be enough to set something aside for the wee ones. Adam…he smiled: if any child of his had the gift of healing in his hands, it was his youngest, and Matthew had already decided that Adam was destined to be a physician.

From physician, the leap to apothecary was rather short, and Matthew was invaded by images of his Jacob, in London and doing well for himself. His chest expanded with pride at the same time as his stomach twisted at the thought of Jacob spending time with Luke – and quite a lot of time, to judge from his latest letter. He was sorry to hear Luke had lost his second son, and slightly amused at Jacob’s insistence his uncle needed a new wife –
preferably someone old who cannot have children by him but will love him dearly all the same
. He missed his son, especially now when his whole family was collected around him. He was overwhelmed by an urge to write Jacob a letter, and got to his feet in one fluid movement. He could still do that, he noticed with satisfaction, still get to his feet without using his hands – sprained foot notwithstanding.

*

“You don’t have to accompany us tomorrow. The lad rides well protected with us, and I’ll see him on the boat myself.” Simon looked over to where Daniel was lounging on the swing, Ruth and Lucy hovering around him. “Good-looking lad, I dare say Lucy has quite a fondness for him.”

“Cousins, and, besides, she’s already spoken for.” Matthew elbowed Simon hard, grinning at his brother-in-law’s responding wince. “I’d be most obliged. I wouldn’t mind saving myself the round trip down to Providence.”

“Decided then.” Simon hurried off to where Joan was calling for him.

Matthew went over to the swing and tapped Daniel on his shoulder. “Walk?”

They took a long walk, just the two of them, with Matthew listening to Daniel’s enthusiastic descriptions of Boston and the life he led there. Once they reached the river, they sat down on the bank, Daniel commenting that it was never this hot in Massachusetts.

“No?” Matthew chuckled. He stretched out full length beside his son, pulled up a straw of grass and chewed at it, his eyes on the bronzed blue of the August sky. “Are you content?”

Daniel didn’t reply at first. “I think so,” he finally said. “I enjoy school, and the masters say I do well, and it will be exciting to enter university this autumn.”

Matthew rolled over to prop himself up on an elbow. “Will you promise me one thing?”

“What?” Daniel asked, making Matthew smile. Jacob’s automatic reply would have been anything, but Daniel was far cannier than his brother – most of his brothers.

“If you at any time feel this vocation isn’t for you, will you let me know? I don’t want to force you into something that you have no love for, and the ministry requires full commitment.”

Daniel pulled at the grass. “How will I know?”

Matthew sat up and put an arm around him. “All the way to the vows of ordination, you have time to think, lad. It’s a hard road to the ministry, and that’s very much on purpose, because once a minister always a minister. I won’t think less of you if you come and tell me you can’t take those vows. I will think less of you if you take them and don’t uphold them.”

Daniel leaned against him and nodded. “I’ll think beforehand.”

Chapter 29

“What’s this?” Jacob had never seen anything like it before, and leaned closer. The blues and greens leaped out of the small gilt frame, whispering seductively that he should look, come closer and look. Jacob’s stomach turned, and he straightened up, swallowing back on a rush of bile.

“What?” Luke looked up from his correspondence. “Oh, that.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I generally don’t have it out. It’s a wee thing Margaret had after her mother.”

“Her mother?”

Luke grunted. “Aye, she had a mother. All of us do.” He set down his quill. “She died when Margaret was very young – well, we assume she did; here one day, gone the next – and that wee painting was all Margaret had to remember her by.”

“Oh.” Jacob peeked at the picture, closing his eyes at the resulting nausea.

“You don’t like it?”

Jacob wasn’t sure. “It makes me seasick, but the colours…”

Luke came over to stand beside him. “Seasick?” He shook his head. “Nay, not at all. But I don’t much like it all the same, which is why I keep it in one of my drawers.”

“Aye, do that,” Jacob said, his eyes stuck in all that blue and green. But then he remembered why he’d come, and dug into his shirt. “Letters: one from Mama and one from Betty.” This latter one he set to the side, not really knowing what he was hoping for: a heated declaration of love?

Mama’s letter was a long, untidy scrawl, decorated with the odd ink splotch here and there, and he smiled at how she would surely curse every time that happened, blaming the quill, the ink, anything but her penmanship.

Betty living with them? Mr Hancock whipping her? Jacob swam in shame at what he’d done, his eyes leaping to the other news. The stable burnt to the ground, Angus dead, a new baby brother for Hannah, a wee sister for Malcolm, and then this very strange thing about Ian divorcing Jenny ‘on account of her infidelity’. Poor Ian! And Jenny, what would happen to her? He folded it together and after a moment of hesitation, opened Betty’s letter. He swallowed, took his time in smoothing out the pages, and began to read.

*

Luke saw him stiffen, and for a moment assumed the lad had found out he was now a father, but then Jacob began to breathe again, a look of absolute relief on his face. Luke smiled. The lass had changed her mind, and who was happier than young Master Graham, greensick with love for that Foster girl?

The letter included some kind of formal deed, and when Jacob held it out, Luke took it and read it. The marriage was not to be considered valid as it had never been consummated. Betty had signed it, and there was a space for Jacob to sign it as well.

“It wasn’t consummated? You’ve told me you bedded her,” Luke said.

“Difficult to prove it happened if both parties agree it didn’t.”

“And are you just going to relinquish this love of your life?” Luke teased. He looked closer at the document. “Well, well, and look who is her lawyer, if not that wee toad Simon Melville.”

“Simon? Uncle Simon?” Jacob took back the document. “But he’s in Edinburgh!”

“Not, I would say; rather in Maryland.” He played with that for some time. Why would a well-established lawyer leave so late in life? He couldn’t recall Simon as being overly religious, but Joan definitely was. Maybe she had somehow meddled with something she shouldn’t. The timing suited, what with the crushing defeat to the Covenanters last June at Bothwell Brig, and the consecutive hunt for fugitives throughout the south-west of Scotland. Luke frowned: Joan had not been well since the birth of her deaf daughter, and last time he had glimpsed her in Edinburgh he had been shocked by how old she looked. Surely, she wouldn’t do something reckless?

“There!” Jacob signed, wrote a brief covering letter, and sealed the document, addressing it as instructed to Simon.

“And why has she decided she no longer wants to be married?” Luke asked, watching all this with some amusement.

“She didn’t really say. I…” Jacob sighed and looked at his uncle, his ears a bright red. “I don’t think I forced her, not as such, but I don’t think she really wanted to.”

“Ah, a bit like Richard Collin is purportedly doing with his stepdaughter?”

Jacob flew out of his chair. “He forces her!”

“Hmm,” Luke replied, steepling his fingers in his favourite thinking position. Charlotte Foster struck him as an unlikely victim, even more so knowing her eldest sister as well as he did. He hid a small smile at the thought of acrobatic little Frances, now since several years prim Mrs Holmes. Besides, if Richard Collin was bedding Charlotte regularly, it was surprising that she was as yet not with child – her two eldest sisters bred like rabbits. Luke turned this thought over a couple of times before directing the full force of his eyes on Jacob.

“What are you giving her?” he said.

Jacob attempted a look of incomprehension, making him look very much like dear, recently departed Rochester’s pet monkey.

“Jacob,” Luke warned.

“Queen Anne’s Lace,” Jacob said, “and rue and tansy to steep into tea.”

Luke was tempted to slap him. Fool, to meddle in matters as sensitive as these!

“Does Master Castain know of this?”

Jacob shook his head. “No one knows. I barely dare see her, and she goes accompanied to church these days.” So he left her small packages, he told Luke, tucked away under her favourite pew.

“I told you to stay away from her! We both told you to.” Luke frowned at the September rain patterning the window before facing his nephew. “What is it you don’t understand? The lass is too valuable for Richard Collin to let her slip through his fingers.”

“Then why hasn’t he wed her?”

“Why? Because she’s only fifteen, you oaf, and it is not quite a year since her mother died. And I very much doubt that he’s bedding her.”

“Are you calling Charlotte a liar?” Jacob’s eyes tightened into narrow slits of green fire. “Well, are you?” he repeated, balancing on the balls of his feet.

Luke was tempted to laugh. This nephew of his was far more like him than he was his father, and the sheer audacity of continuing to see a lass he had been so explicitly warned away from, not only by Master Castain and himself, but also physically by Richard Collin and his apprentices, deserved some admiration. “I’m just making the point that none of us know. You have only her word, and I have only his.”

“You spoke to Richard?”

The familiar use of the first name was revealing. Jacob was seeing Charlotte far more often than the glimpses in church he admitted to.

“Aye, I did. A casual comment, no more, as to the rumours that he was making free of his ward.”

“And what did he say?” Jacob said.

The man had been most irate: curses had tumbled out of his mouth as he berated whoever it was that was spreading this calumny, grimly promising Luke that should he find him – or her – there would be very little skin left on their backs when he was done.

“He would say that.”

“Yes, I suppose he would,” Luke agreed, thereby mending his bridges with his nephew.

He poured them both some wine, sat down and crossed his legs, regarding Jacob who was still sunk into thoughts of his own – more of dastardly Richard Collin than of fair Charlotte, to judge from his mien.

“It must itch,” Luke said with a small smile.

“Itch?” Jacob looked confused.

“As I hear it, Mistress Wythe no longer has the pleasure of your company.”

Jacob looked away. “I can’t bed her and not love her, can I?”

“No?” Luke beckoned the lad over. “Let me show you that you most certainly can.”

“Now?” Jacob looked at his everyday wear. Luke stifled a little laugh. Where they were going, it was the gold in your purse, not your exterior that counted.

“Now,” Luke said, leading the way to the door.

*

“You have work to do!” Master Castain scolded.

“Aye,” Jacob winced. “But will you please keep your voice down?” He groaned and held his aching head between his hands. “Never, never, never again,” he said, and hurried outside to void his guts. He felt much better afterwards, and even better after Master Castain poured a bucket of ice-cold water over his head.

“Seeing as you’ve not been remiss before, you’ll go unpunished this time,” Master Castain said. “But next time I’ll belt to you.”

Jacob nodded carefully. Somehow, his brain had become dislodged during the night, skidding uncomfortably within his skull at any hasty movement. Jacob sat down and began the tedious process of mortaring the bundled herbs and spices into powder. A fragrant cup of herbal tea was placed before him.

“Ginger, cinnamon and mugwort,” Master Castain said, “and I’ve asked the Mistress to make you some onion soup.”

“Thank you,” Jacob mumbled. “That’s very kind of you, master.”

Master Castain laughed and clasped his shoulder. “Believe it or not, but I have also been young – and very wild, according to my sainted mother.”

Jacob eyed him balefully. Did he have to roar him in the ear?

In his befuddled state, he spent most of the morning without one single complete thought, but, by late afternoon, the small cogwheels inside his head began to interact again, swamping him with memories of the previous night and evening. He glossed over the end, a stinging feeling to his cheeks when he recalled himself, very drunk and very roused, swear his never-ending love to the pretty little whore, who had yawned in his face and told him to get on with it or she would have to charge him double.

To block out these embarrassing recollections, he mulled over his letters instead. More than one year away from home, and this was the first time he’d actually felt the sharp sting of homesickness. He longed for his family, all of them, but in particular for Mama and Da. Not at all for Betty, and he was washed again by that wave of relief that had broken over him yesterday when he’d read her letter. He squinted down at his measuring bowl, and attempted to bring to mind what she looked like, but all he could properly see was that wild hair that always fuzzed into a halo no matter how hard she braided it. He smiled fondly. How she had hated it and how he had loved it… Jacob yawned, pillowed his head on his arms and slept.

*

Jacob was flustered when Helen came into the shop the next day, standing unobtrusively in a corner until he found the time to serve her.

“Willow bark and peppermint,” she ticked off, “sage and, if you have it, tansy.”

“Tansy?”

She grinned at him. “For my face.”

“I’m getting married come Michaelmas,” Helen said in passing, curtseying to Mistress Castain.

“Oh, aye? And is he a nice man this time?”

Helen shrugged. “My father’s choice, and a respectable enough merchant, even if he’s rather old and has very little hair.” She looked yearningly at Jacob’s heavy mane, making Jacob duck his head and hide behind the curtain of fair hair. “I was thinking,” she murmured, “that maybe we could…one more time?”

Jacob studied her. She’d made an effort, the linen very white, and her hair recently washed. His cock swelled. One more time and never again, it begged. Look at her, and you like her soft, round breasts, don’t you?

“Aye, that would be nice. One last time.”

She smiled at him. “Tonight,” she whispered and, with yet another curtsey to Mistress Castain, left the shop.

“I hear Widow Wythe will soon be a married woman,” Master Castain said, coming over to stand beside Jacob.

“Aye, in less than a week.”

Master Castain threw him an oblique look. “And so will young Miss Foster.”

Jacob glared at him. “No, she won’t. She doesn’t want him.”

“And how would you know that, Jacob Graham?” Master Castain could look quite threatening despite his short stature, and now he frowned at Jacob. “I’ve told you: Charlotte Foster is not for the likes of you. Twice, Richard Collin has had you beaten for sniffing too closely around his ward, and if you aren’t careful, it will soon be thrice.”

“I am careful,” Jacob informed him. “Very careful. I don’t see her at all.” Which was not much of a lie: it had been but three times since July.

“Hmph,” Master Castain snorted.

Jacob decided to change the subject. “Will you help me with my reading, master? I’m not entirely comfortable with the preparation of tonics against hair loss.”

“They never work,” John Castain snapped, but then smiled, shaking his sparsely covered head. “But it’s hope we sell, and hope comes best in pleasing colours and agreeable tastes.”

“Oh? Mama says beer is the thing. Beer and lentils.”

“On your head?” Master Castain made a disgusted face.

Jacob laughed out loud. “Nay, you eat them. On account of the vitamins.”

“Vitamins?” Master Castain said before waving his hand at Jacob. “No, son, I already know. It’s something they have in Sweden.” From the master’s tone of voice, Jacob suspected he might be talking a wee bit too much about Mama.

*

“Well done!” Master Castain said halfway through October, clapping Jacob on the shoulder. “You did very well.”

Jacob flushed with pleasure. For hours, he had been drilled by fellow apothecaries, in everything from the use of leeches, to tonics to strengthen the blood or reinvigorate a flagging manhood, and he hadn’t stumbled even once. His head was full of recipes, of herbs and their uses, of how best to draw the essence of elderberries, and what remedy to recommend to someone suffering from excessive flatulence.

“I didn’t list the properties of pomegranate as I should,” he said, somewhat chagrined.

“No,” Master Castain said, “there’s still work to do.”

Jacob nodded distractedly. Charlotte would be crossing London Bridge within the hour, and they had an assignation to meet outside the milliner’s shop halfway across. It was the first time in weeks they had met, and Jacob’s innards were filling with bubbles of expectation. He hurried after Master Castain, shivering in the easterly wind that promised at minimum rain and possibly sleet, and tugged his cloak tighter round him. The hood shadowed his entire face, leaving only his nose to brave the cold full-on.

“Home?” Master Castain said.

Jacob shook his head. This was his afternoon off and, after promising to be back before supper, he rushed off in the direction of the river.