A Newfound Land (24 page)

“But that’s how it is,” Richard stated. “No matter how hard she tries, a woman remains a simple, immoral creature, ruled by her lusty nature, not by sense.”

Okay, that was it, she’d had it; not one more night listening to his misogynist crap.

“What?” Alex said.

“Oh, yes, Mrs Graham, that’s how things are ordered. Even a male child has more intellectual capacity than a grown woman, which is why, of course, it is so important that boys be schooled by men, not by their deficient—”

“Take that back!” Alex glared at Richard across the table. “Don’t sit in my kitchen and tell my sons that their mother is a simple creature on account of her sex!”

Richard gave her a bland smile. “It’s the truth. Eve was made a helpmeet to Adam, a weaker vessel that relies entirely on her husband for guidance and protection. Women lack the cerebral power of men.”

“Bollocks,” Alex said. “And I must say that for a man that professes such great insight into the mysteries of life you’re woefully ignorant.”

“Ignorant?” Richard cleared his throat. “And you’d know better? I think not, Mrs Graham. Loud you may be, opinionated too, but your understanding of intellectual matters is at best limited, at worst non-existent.”

“Oh, shut up! I know more than you do about everything – anything – but the Bible. And even there I’d argue that while you know huge chunks of the Bible by rote, you’ve totally missed out on the underlying message.” She stopped to fill her lungs with air, throwing an angry look in the direction of her silent men. Why the fuck didn’t Matthew or Magnus agree with her? How could Matthew allow this toad of a man to say these things? Richard opened his mouth but Alex raised her voice. “But of course you have; you lack context because you have no understanding of history or geography, and you scoff at any ideas that don’t fall exactly within your limited understanding – extremely limited, if you ask me.”

“Alex,” Matthew interrupted, “that’s enough. You’ll not insult the minister further.”

“Insult him?” To her irritation, her voice wobbled. “And what about when he insulted me just now? Why don’t you berate him for calling me a foolish, opinionated woman?” She slammed the pitcher of beer down so hard the earthenware cracked, leaking beer down the sides to puddle on the table. “So seeing as you won’t defend me, I’ll do it myself, okay? In my opinion, Richard Campbell, you’re nothing but an uneducated charlatan with your head so far up your own conceited arse all of you smells of the shit you spout.”

There; that shut him up. In fact, it shut all of them up. Matthew was looking at her as if he dearly wanted her to go up in smoke; Magnus was biting down on his lip, eyes glittering with laughter; and Richard, well, he’d forgotten how to close his mouth. Alex decided it might be wise to take a little time out and went to check on the soup.

*

For a couple of seconds, the silence was absolute. There were none of the normal sounds a dozen people would make while seated at a table. Instead, it seemed to Matthew that his household had turned into pillars of salt. And then Sarah sneezed, Jacob shifted on his rump, and life returned. Breathing was resumed, feet scuffed at the floor. Spoons were raised, bread was torn off in chunks, as his family continued with their meal. But Richard remained immobile, arms folded over his chest while he stared demandingly at Matthew.

“Apologise,” Matthew said. Goddamn the woman! Aye, Richard had been out of line, but how could she do this to him, humiliate him in front of a minister, showing him to be a man that had no control over his own wife?

Alex ignored him, busy stirring the pot. The kitchen filled with the rich scent of chicken soup, complete with sage and garlic.

“Alex,” Matthew injected his voice with ice, “you’ll apologise to Richard. Now.”

“Matthew…” Magnus said in a warning tone.

Alex turned to face the table. “No, I won’t. He’s a despicable narrow-minded little worm, and if anyone should apologise to anyone it should be he to me.”

“He’s a guest in our home, and you’ve insulted him.” Matthew was all too aware of their silent audience, his sons, his lasses, all looking at him with huge eyes.

“Not my guest, remember?” Alex shrugged, ladling up the soup.

“You must curb that wilful tongue, brother,” Richard said. “A wife to speak to her husband like that...sometimes the only thing that helps is the belt.”

Alex wheeled and swung at him with the ladle. “Get out! Get out of my kitchen!”

“Alex!” Matthew roared, leaping to his feet. He grabbed her, ignoring her angry struggles as he carried her to their room and set her down inside.

“You must apologise.”

“Go fuck yourself,” she spat, face red with anger.

He walked out of the room and slammed the door behind him. He heard her shoot the bolt into place.

*

An hour later, Alex unbolted the door, stalked out to the kitchen, heaved a bawling David from Ian’s arms, and without a further word returned to her bedroom. She had a writhing snake pit inside of her. Never had they argued like this, and had she had Richard bloody Campbell in front of her, she would have been tempted to kick his teeth in. Her stomach growled with hunger and anger, but with an effort she emptied her head of anything but the image of her baby boy, his wide eyes smiling up at her as he fed.

She sat for a long time with him in her arms, hearing how the house went to rest as the summer sky shifted to the dark of an August night outside her window. Finally, she placed David in his cradle and tiptoed out into the kitchen for something to eat, only to find Matthew waiting for her with Richard beside him.

“Apologise to the minister,” Matthew said. In that moment she hated him. How could he betray her like this?

“No.” She blinked back tears she had no intention of spilling – at least not in front of them. “Not unless he apologises to me.”

Richard coughed. “You must go first. You’ve insulted a man of God.”

“A man of God?” Alex laughed hoarsely. “What a joke...an insufferable bigot, that’s what you are.”

“Alex,” Matthew sighed.

“What would you have me do?” Alex swung back to Matthew. “Prostrate myself and abjectly beg for forgiveness?”

“You’ll apologise for the name-calling and for swinging at him with the ladle.”

“Or what? I don’t get to eat in my own kitchen?” She was getting angry again, regretting she hadn’t whacked Matthew over the head with the ladle instead.

“Apologise, Alex.” His voice was cold.

She took a big breath, turned towards Richard and curtsied deeply.

“My apologies,” she said with no attempt at sincerity. “Happy now?” she asked her husband.

“Aye.” He tried to catch her eyes, but she wasn’t having it.

“Well, that’s good. At least one of us is.” She turned on her heel and made for her bedroom, closing the door in his face.

Chapter 28

On the surface, things were back to normal next day, with Alex her usual capable self around the children. She set Jenny and Agnes to do the laundry, busied herself with her preserves, and had Ruth sit on the kitchen table and go through all the multiplication tables. She joked with her boys, sang to David while she nursed him, and served the household both dinner and supper. But some things were different: she chose not to eat with them, and she avoided any kind of contact with Matthew. Richard she treated as if he didn’t exist, staring straight through him with a vague smile on her face.

“You’re making too much of it,” Mrs Parson said, serving Alex a huge slice of honey cake.

“You think?” Alex shook her head. “He humiliated me, in my own home.”

“Ignore him, aye? He’ll soon be gone.”

“I’m not talking about Richard Campbell; I’m talking about Matthew.” She traced a complicated pattern on the table top, a large loopy M. A warm, wrinkled hand came down on hers, giving it a little shake.

“Talk to him, lass.”

“I can’t.” She was tongue-tied with anger, a huge lump of hurt lying across her vocal chords whenever she saw him.

*

The boys didn’t know what to do. Intensely loyal to their mother, they became belligerent and downright rude to Richard, slyly commenting on things he so obviously had no idea about. After a particularly embarrassing situation in which Daniel made it clear he didn’t believe one word of what Richard had to say about the heathen Indians, Richard decided there was nothing to it but to administer a beating. Daniel shrieked like a gutted pig when Richard forced him down over the table, and suddenly Mr Campbell was flying across the room to land hard against the wall.

“If you touch any of my boys again, I will flay you,” Alex told him, eyes boring into him. “You have their father’s permission to teach them, but I, their mother, forbid you to touch them.”

Once again, Matthew came to berate her, demanding what she was thinking, to so discourteously throw his guest against the wall. Alex stared straight through him, giving no sign of hearing one single word.

“I’m talking to you!” Matthew snapped.

Eloquently, she raised first one then the other shoulder. For a moment her eyes met his, and Matthew’s stomach shrivelled at the absolute hurt in that blue gaze. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, to make things better, but he never got the chance. Without a word, Alex left the room.

Matthew had no idea what to do. His wife evaded him, fleeing at his approach. So he concentrated on the remaining harvest work instead, escaping out to the fields early in the morning, returning weary to the bone in the evenings. Not once did she touch him or suggest he should take a bath or in any way indicate she cared one whit for his comfort apart from setting food on the table in front of him. She never spoke to him, her eyes blank the few times he managed to catch them with his own. He hated the silence that grew between them, but he was waiting for her to do something, because he didn’t know how to break through the walls of impenetrable ice she was putting up around herself.

Every attempted conversation was stonewalled. When he reached for her brush to help her with her hair, she stood and left the room, returning only when she assumed he was asleep. Once he reached out to touch her, hoping that by loving her he’d somehow repair this breach, but she lay as stiff and unmoving as a corpse beneath his hand, her face turned to the wall until he gave up and rolled to face the other way. But the night he lay coughing because of all the dust in his lungs, she stood up and went out in the kitchen to return with a mug of raspberry cordial which she handed to him without meeting his eyes or saying a word.

All through this time, Richard walked beside him, an ongoing whispered sermon as to the importance of casting away everything that was not to God’s liking, and surely a wife as wilful as Mrs Graham had to be taught to obey. What had he ever seen in this man to make him quarrel so devastatingly with Alex over him? Matthew wanted to take the minister by the scruff of his neck and shake him into silence, because somehow it was his fault that his wife no longer spoke to him, sprang away at his touch and never looked at him.

After a week of this torture, Matthew had had enough. “You must leave,” he said to Richard.

“Leave?” The wee man straightened up to his full height and filled his lungs with air to protest.

“You heard.” Matthew crossed his arms over his chest.

“But...your lads, your sons! They have need of me, of the schooling I can give them.”

“We’ll manage.” From what he’d overheard yesterday, Alex was correct: Richard Campbell might be well schooled in the Bible, but on any other subject he was most ignorant.

Matthew twisted inside. What had he done, bringing this man back to his family? And all because of a tender conscience on account of that soft, fondling hand and his all too willing cock.

“I can’t go on living in discord with my wife,” he said, irritated for feeling he owed the man an explanation. “And you’re the cause of a rift I must attempt to heal.”

“I am?” Richard stuttered. “You mean she is! A wilful, temperamental woman that is lacking in discipline and respect for her betters.”

Matthew eyed him with a sudden flaring dislike. “Alex is my dearly beloved wife, and you’d best remember that.” He nodded in the direction of Ian, who came over to them leading a saddled horse. “My son will take you to the Leslies or see you some way down the road to Providence if you prefer.”

“Now?”

“Now.” Matthew nodded, wanting him off his property as soon as possible.

*

“Matthew has sent Richard away,” Magnus told Alex, lifting a gurgling David out of his basket to set him in his lap. Alex shrugged and continued with her work, her hands flying as she reaped redcurrants.

“That’s good, right?” Magnus wiped his finger clean before offering it to David to chew on. “Shit! You’re right, he is teething.”

“Tell me about it,” Alex said with her back to him.

“So will you start talking to Matthew again?” The present atmosphere in the household had the consistency of cheese curd, thick enough to slice with a knife.

“Do you think I should?” She sounded disinterested.

“It would help. It’s not much fun being around you at present.”

“Right now it’s not much fun being me,” she said, “but if he thinks sending Richard away is all he has to do to have me mellow on him he has another think coming. Had he done it that same night it might have been enough, but now it’s just too little, too late. Maybe you should tell him that.”

“Me?” Magnus shook his head. “Oh no, Alex, you’re old enough to sort out your own marital issues. I won’t be your go-between.” He placed a hand on her arm. “You’re being childish.”

“I can’t help it,” she whispered, and he could hear how close she was to crying. “I’m so mad at him, and…” She closed her mouth and ducked her head. Magnus sat waiting, but apparently Alex had nothing more to say.

*

As the days progressed without any change in her attitude towards him, Matthew came to understand that he was being punished, that Alex was making him pay for the humiliation he’d put her through. One part of him recognised that she had the right of it, while the other raged at her for doing this to them, and so they drifted further and further away from each other until the day Matthew came into the stable to find her sitting staring into space, the cat purring in her lap.

“What are you doing?” he asked, noting with a twinge to his heart how tired she looked. And today was her birthday, and he wanted to... He sighed, not sure now was a good time to give her the little carving he’d made her.

“Avoiding you.” She tumbled the cat to the floor when she got to her feet. “Although that didn’t work very well, did it?” She moved over to the door but he blocked her way, and just like that he kissed her. He had thought she might perhaps slap him, or not kiss him back, and he was pleasantly surprised to discover she was warm and pliant in his arms, pressing herself as urgently against him as he to her – at least initially.

“No.” Alex twisted out of his hold, scrubbing the back of her hand across her mouth in a gesture that cut him to the quick.

“No?” Matthew gripped her arm. He was panting with arousal and didn’t understand. Only moments ago she’d been like a bitch in heat in his embrace.

“You heard me, I don’t want you to touch me – or kiss me. It disgusts me.”

He looked at her for a long time before releasing her, sending her staggering backwards. He swivelled on his toes and walked off, all of him vibrating with hurt.

*

Alex straightened her bodice, eyes on his retreating back for as long as she could see him. Maybe she should... No, no way. He was the one who owed her an apology, not the other way round.

She didn’t see him all morning and, when he wasn’t back for dinner, Alex began to get nervous.

“Oh God, what am I doing?” she said to Mrs Parson. “How can I risk my marriage because of an overheated verbal exchange with that turd of a minister?”

“Aye, I told you so, no? This has gone on for far too long. It’s time to swallow that pride of yours, Alex Graham.”

“My pride? What about his pride? This is his fault and—”

Mrs Parson held up a hand. “He’s a man. He is entitled to his pride.” Her face softened into a little smile. “They need it so much more than we do.”

Alex wasn’t sure she agreed with her, but their conversation was interrupted by Mark and Jacob coming in from the fields with a tired Daniel trailing them. None of them had seen Matthew.

“He said he’d come up after us.” Mark poured himself some barley water. “He never did.”

Ian returned from where he’d been working, and he hadn’t seen his father either. Nor had Magnus, even though he did think he’d seen Matthew earlier, somewhere in the general direction of the river.

“Stupid man,” she said in an attempt to be mad at him as she jogged towards the woods. “Run off and sulk.” She tightened her shawl and plunged in among the trees, heading in the direction of the river. “And what if you’ve broken your leg or something,” she went on with her little rant, her heart catching at the thought of Matthew physically hurt in the woods. She increased her pace, convinced that he had stumbled over a stone to break his neck, or been bitten by a rattlesnake to die in agony, and all because of her and her need to wound him back for listening to bloody Campbell over her.

Her breathing was coming in loud, uneven gasps by the time she reached the water. He wasn’t there, and Alex gyrated for a while before setting off again, this time deeper into the forest. If he wasn’t here, there was only one place he could go, she told herself, and now she was running in her haste.

Her shoulders sank together with relief when she saw him. He was sitting with his back to her, just on the edge of the abandoned Indian village. If he heard her, he gave no sign of it, remaining very still with his head bowed. In the late August sun, his dark hair showed glints of chestnut, and Alex was overwhelmed by a wave of tenderness for this man that meant everything and more to her. She took the last few steps towards him and put a hand on his head, trailing her fingers through his hair.

He made a strangled sound at her touch. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have done as I did.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Alex stepped over the fallen log and kneeled down to see his face.

He shoved his hair out of the way and locked eyes with her. “Will you forgive me for not defending you as I should have done?”

She cleared her throat repeatedly to say something and finally gave up, nodding instead.

His stance relaxed and he raised his hand to rest the back of his fingers against her cheek. “Do you recollect once, very many years ago, when you told me I was all you had?”

Of course she did; a dark night in Scotland when she’d pleaded with him to put her and her children first – before his religious convictions.

“It’s the same for me. You’re all I have, Alex. All I want and all I need, and when you choose to close me out as you’ve been doing these last few weeks, you leave me standing very alone in a cold and unwelcoming world.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t like it out there on my own.”

“Nor do I.” She cupped his head in her hands and kissed him, allowing him to pull her close.

It was needy and urgent, uncomfortably damp and very fast, with Alex tumbled on her back and Matthew already deep inside of her. He was rough, and so was she, sinking nails into the flesh of his lower back. He bit her, he kissed her, he slipped in a hand below her and lifted her closer and then he came, while still inside of her. Alex stiffened and opened her eyes to his, so close and so green. There was a silent challenge in them, a reminder that she was his wife and she shouldn’t forget that – ever again.

“Happy birthday,” Matthew said with a crooked smile as they made their way back home. He stretched out a hand to clasp her elbow when she nearly overbalanced on one of the mossy stones.

“Thanks.” Between her legs she could feel his stickiness, and all she really wanted to do was to ask him to love her again, but her breasts were beginning to ache and she knew David needed her, so she lengthened her stride and took his hand.

That night, he loved her again, and next morning, and next night… And every time he came inside of her, always with that bright green sheen in his eyes, and Alex was torn between the fear of conceiving again and the burning hunger he woke in her. Oh, what the hell, she thought and succumbed to his touch and his will, leaving it all up to fate. Because it was so wonderful, and he was so gentle, and his mouth made her gasp and beg him to please…and he did, impaling her with slow, forceful movements that made her wriggle and twist with desire.

“I think I’m pregnant,” she told him some weeks later in passing.

“Good.” He kissed her on the cheek before going back to his work.

“Good?” Alex shook her head. “I’m not sure it’s good.”

“But I am, and it’s good for our wee laddie, to have a brother or sister close in age.”

“Extremely close,” Alex muttered.