Seven Stones to Stand or Fall

by Diana Gabaldon

  So I drove my own mother to insanity and destroyed her life. Her heart had risen into her throat, a hard, pulsing lump that hurt with each beat. Still, she had to speak.

  “The shock, you said.” She licked dry lips. “Was it just…me? I mean, was it rape, do you think?”

  To Minnie’s infinite relief, Mrs. Simpson looked aghast at the word.

  “Nom de Dieu! No. No, certainly not.” Her mouth twisted a little as she recovered from the brief shock. “Say what you will about Raphael, I’m sure he’s never taken a woman who wasn’t willing. Mind, he can make them willing in very short order.”

  Minnie didn’t want to hear one word about willing women and her father.

  “Where, exactly, are we going?” she asked in a firm voice. “Where is my mother?”

  “In her own world, ma chère.”

  IT WAS A modest farm cottage, standing by itself at the edge of a broad, sunny field, though the house itself was sheltered by well-grown oaks and beeches. Perhaps a quarter mile farther on was a small village that boasted a surprisingly large stone church, with a tall spire.

  “I wanted her to be close enough to hear the bells,” Mrs. Simpson explained, nodding toward the distant church as their coach came to a halt outside the cottage. “They don’t keep the hours of praise as a Catholic abbey would, of course, but she doesn’t usually realize that, and the sound gives her comfort.”

  She looked at Minnie for a long moment, biting her lip, doubt plain in her eyes. Minnie touched her aunt’s hand, as gently as she could, though the pulse beating in her ears nearly deafened her.

  “I won’t hurt her,” she whispered in French. “I promise you.”

  The look of doubt didn’t leave her aunt’s eyes, but her face relaxed a little and she nodded to the groom outside, who opened the door and offered his arm to help her down.

  An anchorite, her aunt had said; Sister Emmanuelle believed herself to be an anchorite. A hermitess, fixed in place, her only duty that of prayer. “She feels…secure, I think,” Mrs. Simpson had said, though the creases in her brow showed the shadow of long worry. “Safe, you know?”

  “Safe from the world?” Minnie had asked. Her aunt had given her a very direct look, and the creases in her brow grew deeper.

  “Safe from everything,” she had said. “And everyone.”

  And so Minerva now followed her aunt to the door, filled with a mixture of anxiety, astonishment, sorrow, and—unavoidably—hope.

  She’d heard of anchorites, of course; they were mentioned frequently in religious histories—of saints, monasteries, persecutions, reformations—but at the moment the word conjured up only a ridiculous vision of St. Simeon Stylites, who had lived on top of a pillar for thirty years—and, when his niece was orphaned, generously set her up with her very own pillar, next to his. After a few years of this life, the niece had reportedly climbed down and decamped with a man, much to the disapproval of the history’s author.

  The door of the cottage opened, revealing a large, cheerful-looking woman who greeted Miriam Simpson warmly and looked with pleasant inquiry at Minnie.

  “This is Miss Rennie,” Mrs. Simpson said, gesturing toward Minnie. “I’ve brought her to see my sister, Mrs. Budger.”

  Mrs. Budger’s sparse gray brows rose toward her cap, but she made a brief bob in Minnie’s direction.

  “Your servant, mum,” she said, and flapped her apron at a large calico cat. “Shoo, cat. The lady’s none o’ your business. He knows it’s nearly time for Sister’s tea,” she explained. “Come in, ladies, the kettle’s a-boiling already.”

  Minnie was in a fever of impatience, this interrupted by stabs of icy terror.

  “Soeur Emmanuelle, she still calls herself,” Mrs. Simpson had explained on the way. “She spends her days—and often her nights”—her wide brow had creased at the words—“in prayer, but she does have visitors. People who’ve heard of her, who come to ask her prayers for one thing or another.

  “At first, I was afraid,” she’d said, and turned to look out the coach window at a passing farm wagon, “that they’d upset her, telling her their troubles. But she seems…better when she’s listened to someone.”

  “Does she…talk to them?” Minnie had asked. Her aunt had glanced at her, then paused for a few seconds too long before saying, “Sometimes,” and turning toward the window again.

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself, clenching her fists in the folds of her skirt to avoid strangling Mrs. Budger, who was slowly, slowly puttering around the hearth, assembling a few slices of buttered bread, a wedge of cheese, and a mug on a tray, at the same time fetching down a chipped teapot and three more stone mugs, a dented tin tea caddy, and a small, sticky blue pot of honey. It doesn’t matter if she won’t speak to me. It doesn’t even matter if she can’t hear me. I just want to see her!

  8

  THE BOOK OF HOURS

  IT WAS A TINY stone building with a thatch; Minnie thought it must once have been a lambing shed or something of the kind. The thought made her inhale, nostrils flaring—and she blinked in surprise. There was certainly a smell, but it wasn’t the warm agricultural fug of animals; it was the faint tang of incense.

  Mrs. Simpson glanced up at the sun, halfway down the sky.

  “You won’t have long,” she said, grunting a little as she lifted the heavy bar from the door. “It’s almost time for None—what she thinks is None. When she hears the bells, she won’t do anything until the prayer is done, and often she’s silent afterward.”

  “None?”

  “The hours,” Mrs. Simpson said, pushing the door open. “Hurry, if you want her to speak with you.”

  Minnie was bewildered, but she did certainly want her mother to speak with her. She nodded briefly and ducked under the lintel into a sort of glowing gloom.

  The glow came from a single large candle set in a tall iron stand and from a brazier on the floor next to it. Fragrant smoke rose from both, drifting near the sooty beams of the low ceiling. A dim light suffused the room, seeming to gather around the figure of a woman dressed in white robes, kneeling at a crude prie-dieu.

  The woman turned, startled at the sound of Minnie’s entry, and froze at sight of her.

  Minnie felt much the same but forced herself to walk forward, slowly. Instinctively, she held out a hand, like one does to a strange dog, presenting her knuckles to be sniffed.

  The woman rose with a slow rustling of coarse cloth. She wasn’t veiled, which surprised Minnie—her hair had been roughly cropped but had grown out somewhat; it curved just under her ears, cupping the angles of her jaw. Thick, smooth, the color of wheat in a summer field.

  Mine, Minnie thought, with a thump of the heart, and stared into the woman’s eyes. Mrs. Simpson had been right. Mine, too…

  “Sister?” she said tentatively, in French. “Soeur Emmanuelle?”

  The woman said nothing, but her eyes had gone quite round. They traveled down Minnie’s body and returned to her face, intent. She turned her head and addressed a crucifix that hung on the plastered wall behind her.

  “Est-ce une vision, Seigneur?” she said, in the rusty voice of one who seldom speaks aloud. “Is this a vision, Lord?” She sounded uncertain, perhaps frightened. Minnie didn’t hear a reply from Christ on the cross, but Sister Emmanuelle apparently did. She turned back to face Minnie, drawing herself upright, and crossed herself.

  “Erm…Comment ca va?” Minnie asked, for lack of anything better. Sister Emmanuelle blinked but didn’t reply. Perhaps that wasn’t the right sort of thing for a vision to say.

  “I hope I see you well,” Minnie added politely.

  Mother, she thought suddenly, with a pang as she saw the grubby hem of the rough habit, the streaks of food on breast and skirt. Oh, Mother…

  There was a book on the prie-dieu. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she walked past her mother to look at it but glanced up and saw the crucifix—it was a rich one, she saw, polished ebony with mother-of-pearl edging. The corpus had been mad
e by another, truer hand, though—the body of Christ glowed in the candlelight, contorted in the grip of a knotted chunk of some dark wood, rubbed smooth. His face was turned away, invisible, but the thorns were carved sharp and vivid, sharp enough to prick your finger if you touched them. The outflung arms were only half freed from the wood, but the sense of entrapment, of unendurable agony, struck Minnie like a blow to the chest.

  “Mon Dieu,” she said aloud. She said it in shock, rather than by way of prayer, but vaguely heard the woman behind her let go a held breath. She heard the rustle of cloth and straw—she hadn’t noticed when she came in, but the floor was covered in clean straw—and forced herself to stand quite still, heart beating in her ears, though she longed to turn and embrace Sister Emmanuelle, seize and carry her, drag her, bring her out into the world. After a long moment during which she could hear the woman’s breathing, she felt a touch on her shoulder. She turned round slowly.

  Her mother was close now, close enough that Minnie could smell her. Surprisingly, she smelled sweet—a tang of sweat, the smell of clothes worn too long without washing, but incense perfumed her hair, the cloth of her robe, and the hand that touched Minnie’s cheek. Her flesh smelled warm and…pure.

  “Are you an angel?” Emmanuelle asked suddenly. Doubt and fear had come into her face again, and she edged back a step. “Or a demon?”

  So close, Minnie could see the lines in her face—crow’s-feet, the gentle crease from nose to mouth—but the face itself was a blurred mirror of the one she saw in her looking glass. She took a breath and stepped closer.

  “I’m an angel,” she said firmly. She’d spoken in English, without thinking, and Emmanuelle’s eyes flew wide in shock. She took an awkward step backward and sank to her knees.

  “Oh, no! Don’t do that!” Minnie cried, distressed. “I didn’t mean it—I mean, Je ne veux pas…” She stooped to raise her mother to her feet, but Emmanuelle had clapped her hands to her eyes and wouldn’t be moved, only swaying to and fro, making small whimpering noises.

  Then Minnie realized that they weren’t just noises. Her mother was whispering, “RaphaelRaphaelRaphael,” over and over. Panicked, she seized her mother’s wrists and pulled her hands away from her face.

  “Stop! Arrêtez! Please stop!”

  Her mother stopped, gasping for breath, looking up at her. “Est-ce qu’il vous a envoyé? Raphael L’Archange? Êtes-vous l’un des siens?” “Did he send you? Raphael the archangel? Are you his?” Her voice quivered, but she had calmed a little; she wasn’t struggling, and Minnie cautiously let go.

  “No, no one sent me,” she said, as soothingly as possible. “I came on my own, to visit you.” Groping for something else to say, she blurted, “Je m’appelle Minerve.”

  Emmanuelle’s face went quite blank.

  What is it? Does she know that name? Mrs. Simpson hadn’t said whether her mother might know her name.

  And then she realized that the bells of the distant church were ringing. Perhaps her mother hadn’t even heard her speak.

  Helpless, she watched as Emmanuelle got laboriously to her feet, stepping on the hem of her robe and staggering. Minnie made to take the woman’s arm, but Emmanuelle regained her balance and went to the prie-dieu, quickly but with no sense of panic. Her face was composed, all her attention focused on the book lying on the prie-dieu.

  Seeing it now, Minnie realized at last what her aunt had meant by “None” and “hours.” The book was a small, elegant volume with an aged green cover, set with tiny rounded cabochon jewels. And as Emmanuelle opened it, Minnie saw inside the glow of beautiful paintings, pictures of angels speaking to the Virgin, to a man with a crown, to a crowd of people, to Christ on the cross…

  It was a Book of Hours, a devotional volume meant for rich lay people, made during the last age, with the psalms and prayers intended to be said during the monastic hours of worship: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. None was the ninth hour—the prayer said at three o’clock in the afternoon.

  Emmanuelle’s head was bent over the open book, and she was praying aloud, her voice soft but audible. Minnie hesitated, not sure whether she should leave…but no. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her mother—the more so as the woman probably wouldn’t notice her trying to take her leave. Instead, she came quietly to the prie-dieu and knelt down beside Emmanuelle, in the straw.

  She knelt close enough that the pink linen of her gown nearly brushed the white habit. It wasn’t cold in the shed, not with the brazier going, but nonetheless she could feel her mother’s warmth and, for just a moment, surrendered to the vain hope she had brought here—of being seen, accepted, wrapped in her mother’s love.

  She closed her eyes against the starting tears and listened to Emmanuelle’s voice, soft and husky but sure. Minnie swallowed and opened her eyes, making an effort to follow the Latin.

  “Deus, in adjutorium meum intende; Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina…” “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me…”

  As the recitation of the Office of None went on, Minnie joined timidly in the prayers she could read adequately. Her mother took no notice, but Emmanuelle’s voice got stronger, her back straighter, as though she felt the support of her imagined community around her.

  Minnie could see that the book was very old—at least a hundred years, maybe more—and then realized with a small shock that she had seen it before. Her father had sold it—or one very like it—to Mother Hildegarde, the abbess of le Couvent des Anges, a hospital order of nuns. Minnie had delivered it to the good mother herself a year or so before. How had it come here?

  In spite of the rawness of her own emotions, she found a small sense of peace in the words, even when she didn’t understand them all. Emmanuelle seemed to grow both quieter and stronger as she spoke, and when she had finished, she stayed motionless, gazing up at the crucifix, an expression of the greatest tenderness on her face.

  Minnie was afraid to rise, not wanting to disturb the sense of peace in the room, but her knees couldn’t stand much more kneeling on the stones of the floor, straw covering or no. She took a deep breath and eased herself up. The nun seemed not to have noticed, still deep in communion with Jesus.

  Minnie tiptoed toward the door, which, she saw, was now open a crack. She could see a movement of something blue through the gap—undoubtedly Mrs. Simpson, come to remove her. She turned suddenly, on impulse, and went back quickly to the prie-dieu.

  “Soeur Emmanuelle?” she said very softly, and gently, slowly, laid her hands on her mother’s shoulders, fragile under the white cloth. She swallowed hard, so her voice wouldn’t shake. “You are forgiven.”

  Then she lifted her hands and went quickly away, the glow of the straw a blur of light around her.

  9

  WELL PAST MIDNIGHT

  IT WAS TIME.

  Argus House had fourteen bedrooms, not counting the servants’ quarters. So far, Hal had not been able to bring himself to sleep in any of them. Not his own. He hadn’t lain there since the dawn when he’d risen from Esmé’s warm body and gone out in the rain to face Nathaniel.

  “On your bloody croquet lawn!” he said aloud, but under his breath. It was after midnight, and he didn’t want to wake any inquisitive servant. “You pretentious nit!”

  Not Esmé’s chaste blue and white boudoir next door, either. He couldn’t bring himself even to open the door, not sure whether her ghost might still linger in the scented air or whether the room would be a cold and empty shell. Afraid to find out, either way.

  He was standing now at the head of the stairs, the long corridor of bedrooms lit at this late hour by only three of the dozen sconces, the colors of a half dozen Turkey rugs melting into shadow. He shook his head and, turning, went downstairs.

  He generally didn’t sleep at night, anyway. Went out occasionally and roamed the dark paths of Hyde Park, sometimes stopping briefly to share a fire with some of the vagrants who camped there. More often sat up reading in t
he library ’til the wax from melting candles pattered onto tables and floors and Nasonby or Wetters came silently in with scrapers and new candles, even though he’d ordered the footmen to go to bed.

  Then he’d read stubbornly on by the new light—Tacitus, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, Pliny, Julius Caesar—losing himself in distant battles and the thoughts of long-dead men. Their fellowship comforted him, and he’d fall asleep with the dawn, curled up on the blue settee or sprawled on the cool marble floor, his head cushioned on the white hearth rug.

  Someone would come silently and cover him. He’d usually wake to find someone standing over him with a luncheon tray and would rise with aching limbs and a foggy mind that took ’til teatime to clear again.

  “This will not do,” he said aloud, pausing at the door to the library. Not tonight.

  He didn’t go into the library, though it was brightly lit in expectation of his presence. Instead, he reached into the bosom of his shirt and pulled out the note. He’d been carrying it ever since it had arrived at teatime, reading it again and again—and now opened it to read again, as though the words might have altered or disappeared.

  His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is pleased to invite you to visit him to discuss your proposals regarding the re-commissioning of the 46th Regiment of Foot, a project which is of the deepest interest to him. It would perhaps be most convenient for you to attend the princess’s garden fête at the White House on Sunday, 21 June. A formal invitation will be sent you this week; should the arrangement be agreeable to you, please reply in the usual fashion.

  “Agreeable,” he said aloud, and felt an unaccustomed tingle of excitement, as he had every time he’d read the note. “Agreeable, he says!”