Jennie About to Be (19 page)

“What does the very special tenant do besides fish in the loch?” she asked.

“Devil if I know. Perhaps he's like the lilies of the field; he neither toils nor spins. We'd better go back now.”

“What's over the hills and far away, as the song goes? More lochs? More cottages? How far is it to Roseholm from here?”

“Many miles to Roseholm, through the hills.” They turned the horses homeward. “But just along the road here, not too far, there's the Pict's House. We could bring out a bottle of wine and a cold bird and have a picnic. There's a jolly little stream where we can cool the wine and water the horses and dabble our bare feet like a couple of happy infants. Would you like that?”

“I'd adore it. Will the Pict be at home?”

He laughed. “It's always been called the Pict's House, but the minister and some other learned bodies think it's a monk's cell. They say there was a monastery four hundred years ago where Linnmore House is now.”

“Wouldn't it be marvelous if Linnmore House were haunted by a hooded monk? But I suppose Christabel wouldn't allow it.”

“Not if he couldn't tell her what's all the go in London.”

“Just the same, I shall ask Archie about it. It will be a change of conversation next time we're there.”

“There may be something in the library about it,” Nigel said. “Archie never reads if he can help it, but over the years the family's acquired quite a respectable collection of books.”

When they came into the house, Morag told them she and Aili had been putting new candles in the sconces and in the branches of the girandole mirror. “Would you be pleased to look? Everything is ready now.”

Dutifully Nigel and Jennie went into the drawing room and admired enough to satisfy the girls, who then left them alone.

“I have a dreadful thought,” said Jennie.

“What is it?” He looked worried.

“We have no excuse now for not entertaining Archie and Christabel. And Morag is aching for us to show off all this. Christabel, of course, will look down her nose at it. Besides, I've told Mrs. MacIver I want everything Scottish, and you know how Christabel is about
that
.”

“I shouldn't worry, my duck. We have some leeway because this is still our honeymoon.”

With a grateful passion she embraced him under a painting of Venus in a heavenly chariot drawn by doves.

T
HE NEXT DAY
began with showers before daylight that continued into late morning, and Jennie had no excuse not to write letters to her aunt and her sisters. She wrote to Lady Geoffrey also, and bullied Nigel into adding a page. The postbag went out on Sundays when the family drove to church in the village.

In the afternoon the showers let up, and a drying northwest wind blew across from the mountains. Nigel and Archie had business in the village, and Jennie was in suspense expecting a summons from Christabel to come and keep her company.

But no note came, and she could kiss Nigel good-bye with an enthusiasm not wholly due to his charms. He rode off to meet Archie by Linn Mor and go on from there. Jennie got quickly out of the house in case Christabel was belatedly seized by a deadly impulse and sent for her. She took a lump of sugar to Dora on her way to freedom; she had promised Nigel she wouldn't ride anywhere without him until she and the mare were thoroughly acquainted. “We
are
acquainted,” she argued. “I know I can trust and handle Dora anywhere.”

He shook his head. “Please, Jennie.” So she gave in. It was nice to be so treasured.

She walked along the outside paddock wall, and the mare cantered along inside. Raindrops flashed on every twig, and Jennie's shoes were already damp, and so was the hem of her dress. She wore no bonnet and had wrapped herself in a russet merino shawl.

At the far end of the paddock she reached for Dora's head. “Goodbye for now, love. We'll have splendid rides together.”

But the mare had seen something. She threw up her head to free it and stared past Jennie, her ears attentively pricked. Jennie turned around.

A solitary figure stood motionless on the road, so all at once
there
that it could have simply materialized from the stuff of bad dreams: dark bonnet pulled low, dark clothing, and the dark face just guessed at, so the eyes under the bonnet were unseen, but seeing, and they were watching her.

It was the first time outside Linnmore House that she felt unwelcome here; the resentment, or worse, came in all but palpable waves through the light airs of spring. She gazed steadily, unwilling to turn her back on she knew not what. At last she lifted her hand and called, “Good afternoon!”

But the words faded on an expiring breath as he went on without another look toward the ridge. He disappeared into the coppice, and in a few moments he reappeared on the track above it, small at this distance and moving fast. She gave him time to go over the ridge and vanish before she followed, and when she reached the crest, there was no sign of him. Her bad reaction seemed only silly now; he must have been one of the men from the cottages, wondering whether he should speak to her or not. Perhaps he worked in the stables or on the grounds of the mansion and had a free hour or two.

She had not been up here long enough to get over the impression of seeing into another world, and she doubted if she ever would. The moor kept changing colors as the day brightened and darkened. The loch was choppy today and looked cold under the clouds, summery-warm in the sun. The hills were plum-purple one moment, pale mauve the next.

With a sigh of pleasure she sat down on the fallen tree. The sounds of life around the cottages came to her now clearly, now muted, depending on the wind, and sometimes she heard the whistles of the raptors riding the upper air. She felt she could sit here for hours and never be bored.

There was a hiss of caught breath behind her, and she jumped and looked around. Morag had just come up over the crest. She was bareheaded, her black curls loose around her forehead and ears; she wore a tartan shawl over her blue dress and white apron, and carried a small basket.

“I was not expecting to see anyone,” she said, the red rising up her throat and into her round cheeks. “My work is done for a little while. Mrs. MacIver said I might go for an hour.”

“Well, so you may,” said Jennie. “But why and where?”

“My father has not been well. I was taking him a wee sup of wine. It's Mrs. MacIver's own,” she added quickly. “She made it last summer, from brambles.”

“That can be very helpful for certain things,” said Jennie gravely. “Do you live down there?”

“Where the little cow is pulling at the thatch. Och, she is a stubborn one,” Morag said fondly. “New green to eat, but she will pull at the old thatch. She was always set on her own way, from the moment she came out of her mother and first got to her feet.”

“I've known cows like that,” said Jennie. “Does Aili live down there, too?”

“Yes, she is my cousin.”

“May I walk down with you, Morag?” Jennie hadn't planned it, but there it was.

“The path is just this way.” Morag hurried ahead; the back of her neck was pink and vulnerable under the loose wisps of hair. Hidden by the thickening spring growth, the path crossed the hillside, always going down until it dropped into a narrow transverse valley that hadn't shown up from the crest. It was deep enough so Jennie, looking back, could see the tops of the pines, but not where she had been sitting. They forded by stepping-stones a rushing brook cutting deep into the slope, then followed the track among erratic boulders on gradually flattening ground. The suggestion of peat smoke was now an acrid fact.

Morag stopped and looked back. “It's not very tidy,” she said, not ashamed but warning.

“I don't care about that,” Jennie said. “You don't go home at night, do you? You may, if you'd like to.”

“The cottage is crowded. It gives them more room if I stay away, and I have a room of my own at Tigh nam Fuaran.”

A few children playing a mysterious game among the random boulders saw Jennie and Morag first. They took one look at Jennie, ignored Morag's greeting, and scampered off to the cottages, shouting. This set a dog barking, which brought in a chorus of sheep and goats. The cow left off twitching at the thatch and bellowed with astonishing volume for the size of her, and the other cows joined in.

“They will be ready for us!” Morag said. “How can they not be?” She led the way between two cottages, with hens scurrying before them clucking hysterically. The children's warnings brought out everyone who hadn't seen the girls already, hushing children and dogs impartially.

Most of them smiled and spoke as their names, delivered in Morag's nervous English, came too fast for Jennie to repeat. She shook hands with everyone; the men took off their bonnets; the women bobbed. There were no young men except one, very pale and gaunt with flaming red hair, who walked with two sticks; she remembered seeing him from the ridge. Most of the other men were graying or already white, leathertanned, but with young eyes. There were two pregnant women. One was young and blooming in comparison with the other, who looked sallow and worn-out with childbearing; four children pressed against her skirts like chicks around a hen, and one rode her hip.

There must have been about fifteen children altogether, of all builds and coloring. The oldest was a wiry boy who might have been an undersized fourteen. All were barefoot; all gazed at Jennie with the same sober curiosity the animals showed, but she got one delightful answering smile from the baby on its mother's hip.

Morag saved her mother and father for the last. The woman with her sleeves rolled upon reddened arms, taking Jennie's hand without hesitation, was unmistakably Morag twenty years older, years which had not defeated the gray eyes. Her hair was still as black as Morag's, twisted back from her broad face but showing curly wisps. She had missing teeth, but no cramped grimace of a smile to try to hide the fact. She shook Jennie's hand hard, and she didn't bob.

“Och, the lad chose a bonny one!” she exclaimed.

I don't want Morag to look like that in twenty years
, Jennie thought,
but if she can be that merry
and
courageous, the rest won't matter
.

The father was cadaverously thin, grayish about the mouth, but with a sparkle in his deep-set pale blue eyes. “I was ghillie to the Old Laird,” he said. “I mind the morning he poured me a dram and said, ‘Drink up, Hamish. Drink to my new son!' God willing, I'll drink to
his
son before I die. To many sons.”

“Many lads and lasses
both
,” said his wife, winking at Jennie.

“You're Hamish?” she exclaimed. “You taught him to fish!”

“That I did,” he said. He was pleased.

“I'm so glad to meet you all,” Jennie said. “I'm so glad to be at Linnmore.” She took care to place the accent right.

“When will he be coming to see us?” the young red-haired man asked.

“Soon! He has not been able yet to come down, his brother is keeping him so busy, but he told me about the times when he was a boy here.”

Another man stepped forward. He was short and broad, with red cheeks and a crest of white hair. “Will you tell him, if you please, that we are ready to work on the roads, or indeed anywhere? Except on the enclosing.” He shook his head at her. “Never on that.” There was gentle shushing all around.

She asked quickly, “What do you mean by ‘the enclosing'?”

“It is nothing to concern you, Mistress Gilchrist,” the red-haired man said. “We are wishing to work, to pay our rent. We are not lazy. It is only that all work stopped when Mr. Grant went away.”

“I will tell the Captain tonight,” Jennie said.

Approval and hope ran through the group like wind through a wheat field. The pregnant young woman cried out, “Tell him my husband was a soldier, too!” She put her hand on the forearm of the gaunt red-headed man with the rwo sticks, and he nodded awkwardly at Jennie. She tried to think of something to say that wouldn't sound silly or patronizing.

She was saved by Morag, who said, “My cousin Alasdair Gilchrist. He is Aili's brother. He was wounded at a place I don't know how to say.”

“Corunna,” the soldier said hoarsely.

“But he lived,” said the red-cheeked man. “I was a soldier, too, and I lived. Four others from these cottages have died in foreign lands. There are three there now. Alive or dead, we have no way of knowing. . . . And many more altogether from the estate.”

“The General, they say, is a great man,” a cool new voice interposed. “A rising man. But it seems he needs too many Highlanders to climb on. Sometimes I think he must drink their blood.”

It was the man she had seen on the road; he hadn't been in the group when Morag introduced them, but now he sat on his heels against a wall. Morag's mother spoke to him in Gaelic, and he answered in English, smoothly sardonic.

“I have nothing but good wishes for the Captain and his lady. What does he have for us?”

There were murmured objections to his rudeness and reassuring glances at her. An old woman patted her arm, as if soothing a child. She lifted her chin, and said loftily, “He has at heart the best interests of all the people of Linnmore.”

The man smiled. It was a humiliating smile; it ridiculed her. After all the cordiality she'd been made to feel inept and frivolous, a little girl playing at Lady of the Manor.

“I must go back now, Mistress Gilchrist,” Morag said.

“Yes, we'll go.” Jennie caressed the fair head of the baby on its mother's hip and got that marvelously uncomplicated grin. It comforted her, and she ducked her head to kiss the baby's crown.

“Beautiful,” she said to the mother. “All the children are beautiful.” They were not, but she knew they were so to their mothers. “Good-bye, everyone!”