Mountain Laurel

by Lori Benton

  Malcolm was looking straight at the standing shadow. “‘O, won’t you go with me? For to keep our garments clean.’”

  Ian must have been outside the cabins again when they started for the ridge. How many nights since he caught her outside had he waited there? But if he’d come up the ridge for her, why stay behind after she pretended to leave? He could have caught her on the path by now and . . .

  Her heart seized with hope. She didn’t know why he’d come, but she hoped she knew why he stayed.

  Malcolm stopped singing and stared into the dark beyond the fire’s reach. “Ye aim to keep me waiting the night long, Mister Ian? Or will ye come into the light?”

  Not a twitch from the shadow hovering among the graves.

  “The Father’s been waitin’ for ye to come home. Spirit’s calling. The Son blazed the trail. All ye need do is walk it.”

  There was a tussle going on, unseen. It made the night air press down, damp and heavy as a coming storm. Then with the snapping of twigs the tension broke.

  Ian stepped into the clearing.

  Seona’s heart wrenched at sight of him in the firelight, tall and drawn, hair tangled, shoulders hunched in what she read as shame. Then his head lifted and in his face was something else, bright and fragile as a nest-egg. He folded up before Malcolm, going to his knees.

  “Tell me, Malcolm. Tell me of your Jesus.”

  Malcolm showed less surprise than she might have done, had Ian Cameron put that question to her. Your Jesus?

  “Surely, Mister Ian, ye’ve heard the gospel afore now?”

  Firelight bathed Ian’s cheek, shining off his tears. “Aye, but I want to hear it from ye. Tell it to me the once more, as ye know it. Please.”

  Turning her back on the two men she loved most in the world, Seona made her way down the ridge alone. She wanted to be at Ian’s side, to lay her hands on his head and welcome him into a new kindred. But it wasn’t her place. Nothing that happened in that clearing was going to change that.

  Her foot caught on a root and she landed hard on her knees, scraping her palms. The pain jarred loose a sob, but she stood and kept on, walking away from Ian one step at a time, clinging to thought of the arms that welcomed him home this night. Those same arms held her too, and no height or depth, no man or angel, was going to change that either.

  PART VI

  June–October 1794

  “O to Grace how great a Debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let Thy Goodness, like a Fetter, bind my wandering Heart to Thee.” I stood a lad beside you and sang those Words—or pretended to—more times than I can recall. They were yours then. Now I can in Truth call them mine.

  38

  Just in from the fields, Ian barely glimpsed the departing rider before the curving lane took the familiar form from sight. He washed quickly in a bucket outside the stable, stripped off his work frock, and went up to the house in his shirtsleeves. His uncle’s door was open, his uncle abed, Lily seated in a chair drawn close.

  Ian advanced into the room, frowning between them. “Uncle, was that your solicitor just leaving?”

  Uncle Hugh made no answer. Lily rose and came to Ian, urging him toward the door.

  “Lily, I need to speak to—”

  “Ye can’t, Mister Ian, unless ye want to speak of Aidan. His mind’s cast back.”

  Ian threw a vexed look at the bed, recognizing the haze in his uncle’s eyes. Had the solicitor found him so? As Lily shut the door behind them, he asked, “Why wasn’t I sent for when the man arrived?”

  “I was with them,” she began, but footsteps on the front stair drew Ian’s attention. When he turned back, Lily had fled catfooted to the back door and was gone in a swish of homespun.

  The skirt that skimmed toward him from the front stairs was made of finer stuff. Though the gown’s line was long and loose, its tiny puffed sleeves bared Rosalyn’s arms nearly to the shoulder. As she reached him, Ian got an eyeful of its neckline, cut low and gathered in tight below the bosom. While he wouldn’t call the pale fabric sheer, she clearly wore no normal stays beneath it.

  He wrenched his eyes up. A smirk curved Rosalyn’s mouth. “Admiring my new gown? It’s a Grecian style.”

  “Is there no more to it? Have ye a kerchief or a shawl or . . . something?”

  Rosalyn’s brittle laughter broke off when he blocked her attempt to step past him. “Pardon me, Cousin. I wish to speak with Papa Hugh.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “I’ve purpose enough. Let me pass.”

  “I meant there’s no point.”

  “Oh.” Her face fell in disappointment. “One of his spells?”

  “Not that I’d have let ye in to see him regardless. Rosalyn, the gown’s unseemly.”

  She wrinkled her nose at his sweat-darkened shirt. “Which are you then, pot or kettle?”

  No surprise the smell of honest work offended her. “Is there something I can do for ye?”

  Rosalyn raised her chin. “I meant to do something for you.”

  “And what is that?” he asked warily.

  “Relieve our family of this wretched state of affairs you’ve created. I mean to ask Papa Hugh for Seona as a wedding gift. She’ll come to Chesterfield as my maid. You can keep the child. I suppose you mean Judith to tend it alongside hers?”

  Had Ian not been stunned immobile, he might have slapped her.

  She speaks from the bitter well of her upbringing, and you are not her judge. In that suspended moment, the admonition seemed to come from a source apart from himself. Clinging to restraint, he said, “Ye’ll ask my uncle no such thing.”

  Rosalyn arched a brow. “Afraid he’ll oblige me?”

  “He has more decency than that.”

  “And I do not, you mean? You’ve thought the worst of me from the beginning.”

  “Rosalyn—”

  “Oh, Cousin. It no longer signifies.” She dismissed his opinion with a wave. “But so you know, I wouldn’t have taken Seona away to spite you. I’d have done it to spare my sister.”

  “And if ye did,” Ian said, “it would be ye in Judith’s place. Or d’ye not know at all the man ye’re marrying?”

  Spots of pink bloomed in Rosalyn’s cheeks. “Of course Gideon would sire half a dozen pickaninnies on her! What is that to me?”

  “I’d think it would be something to ye.” He’d spoken with a gentleness that surprised even himself, given the shock that had coursed through him at her admission. It certainly caught her off guard; he saw the glitter of tears in her eyes, but she let not a one of them spill.

  “I don’t give a fig how many slaves Gideon beds, because he’ll never want anything so preposterous as to marry one or claim one of their brood as his own.”

  Anger, astonishingly, had gone clean out of him. What remained was pity—for the facade she was prepared to wear lifelong in exchange for wealth, comfort, and position. “Ye’ve made your choice, Rosalyn. Let me make mine.”

  Her mouth curled in disdain. “You and Papa Hugh—cut from the same cloth, the pair. You’ll pretend to give up Seona, but you won’t, and you’ll sacrifice everyone’s happiness on the altar of your pining heart. And that, Cousin, is a greater wickedness than anything Gideon can lay claim to. So go ahead. Keep your doxy tucked up in her cabin, favor Seona and her brood as I know you will, and while you’re at it, crush my sister’s heart—though she’s ninny enough to let you do it and bear her shame in silence.”

  She flounced away in her revealing gown, returning down the passage. Ian hadn’t moved when she turned to mount the stairs, a waiting target for her parting shot: “I hate this place. It never was my home. Aside from Mama, I’m finished with the lot of you!”

  After a wash and change of clothes, he stretched out on the bed—and smelled it as his head touched the pillow. Roses. The crash of memories brought him full awake. Fishing beneath the pillow, his fingers closed on the fragrance’s source: a muslin pouch, cinched and tied.

  What misguided notion had possessed
Judith to scent their bed with roses?

  The thing that tied it gave away its purpose: a double lock of hair, gold and mouse-brown, twisted together. A love charm. Had she snipped the lock of his hair while he slept?

  You’ll pretend to give up Seona, but you won’t.

  He’d not let Seona near Gideon Pryce for a moment, could he prevent it, much less surrender her defenseless to the man’s appetites day and night. But were his own motives in wanting her near more pure?

  Cast out the bondwoman and her child.

  He couldn’t. He hadn’t the legal right, not until his uncle’s death. Had his uncle ever petitioned the General Assembly? If not, he could press him again to do so. But the child would have to leave North Carolina with Seona. His child.

  He flinched from the notion.

  “What, then?” he said aloud, desperate for the answer even as he feared it. “What must I do?”

  That answer dropped like a stone into his storm-tossed spirit, sending out ripples that left still water behind. He was to do nothing, as Rosalyn predicted he would do. He was to wait.

  Could he have heard right? Or was this merely what he wanted to hear?

  It was still there, clear, emphatic. Wait.

  Was this how the Almighty spoke to a man? This small voice, this peace that made no earthly sense?

  He was still holding the pouch when Judith came into the room. Laden with a tray, she turned her back to shut the door, giving him time to shove the charm under his pillow. He started to get up to help her, but she set the tray carefully on the bed.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb your rest. I thought we’d sup in here.”

  A simple meal, soup and bread—but he wouldn’t be forced to sit across from her sister at table. For that he was grateful.

  “Are ye well this evening?” he asked her, constrained and formal; she appeared tired as she drew up a chair.

  “Mama says the sickness should have passed by now.” She gave an embarrassed shrug and spread a napkin over her knees, then eyed the soup with some trepidation.

  Ian reached for the bread to break it. “Try some of this first. Lily hasn’t told ye anything’s wrong, has she?”

  Holding a chunk of bread, Judith peered at him over the rim of her cup. “Would she tell me?”

  “Aye. She would. Lily wouldn’t do anything to harm ye or the child.”

  The child. He hadn’t yet called it his aloud.

  Favor Seona and her brood as I know you will . . . Rosalyn had joined them regardless, it seemed, still speaking bruising truths into his soul. He did his best to banish her but ate with little conversation for her sister, who seemed content with the silence. Before Judith finished her soup, Ian lay back on the pillows, the scent of roses sweetly painful, but roused at the clink of dinnerware and took hold of Judith’s hand.

  “Leave it. Would ye like me to read to ye?”

  Her face brightened. “Burns?”

  Ian smiled wryly but capitulated. Judith liked him to read the man’s romantical works, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, with his faint accent ridiculously broadened. “I can manage a verse or twa. But first . . .”

  She was reaching for the volume when he withdrew the love charm. Her eyes held mortification. “Oh . . . you weren’t meant to find that.”

  “I know. I’m sorry ye felt ye had to resort to old wives’ foolery to . . .” Gain my affection, he couldn’t say, reproached by the yearning in her eyes. “How did ye know what to use?”

  “Maisy’s mama, back in Virginia—she was a conjure woman among Daddy’s slaves. Maisy told me what to put in it. It’s not just roses.” Judith bit her lip, misery in the sag of her shoulders.

  Ian leaned across the bed and brushed a straggle of hair from her face. He didn’t ask what else was in the pouch. “We’ll find our way without such things. All right?”

  Judith raised her eyes, searching his face. Firming her small chin, she took the muslin pouch and with unaccustomed decisiveness threw it onto the hearth. A symbolic gesture; they’d have no fire in the room again for months. He’d make certain the thing was gone by morning.

  Despite the cold hearth there was a new warmth in the room. Outside the day was fading. Ian lit a candle while Judith settled on the bed.

  “I marked where we left off. ‘My Father Was a Farmer.’”

  “Aye, right.” Ian lay beside her. Pitching his voice to mimic his mam’s Lowland speech, he began the poem of the son who left his father’s farm to seek an easy fortune. “‘My father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O / And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O . . .’”

  In the middle of the fifth stanza, as the son left off his failed schemes and returned to work the soil—to plough and sow, to reap and mow—Judith interrupted him.

  “Do you like being a farmer, Ian?”

  “Aye, lassie. I like it weel.” He’d answered flippantly but hearing the words out of his mouth knew them for true. He stared at his hand, splayed on the page, noting new calluses from spade, ax, and plow. Minding the slaves’ lighter steps coming in from the field that evening, he said, “Today’s Saturday.”

  “And tomorrow the Sabbath,” Judith said. “Though there’s no meeting for us to attend.”

  “There is . . . if ye wouldn’t mind a bit of manure on your shoes.”

  “You mean the Reynolds’?”

  He’d surprised her with the notion, but why not? He’d yet to tell John of what happened on the ridge, the night he followed Seona, Malcolm, and the others. Time he did so.

  “Would ye come with me tomorrow to worship with our neighbors?”

  Tiredness lifted from Judith’s face. “I’d like that, Ian. Yes.”

  39

  JULY 1794

  Seona set the basket of herb cuttings on the worktable, then waddled to a corner. Sweat streamed down her face as she lowered herself onto a stool. Her temples throbbed with the heat. Her back had pained her fierce since the wee hours and her belly felt tight as a prized hogshead.

  “Mama, I want this baby out of me.”

  Lily put aside a wiped plate and came to kneel in front of her.

  Naomi dropped pone into a pan, already preparing supper though dinner was barely past. “You hungry, Seona?”

  “No room in me for a bite.” Wincing at a pain beneath her ribs, she pressed the spot until her belly shifted. “How can it move in there?”

  Lily’s eyes held sympathy, but there was no more relief to be had from the fidgety little so-and-so bent on kicking her insides to jelly than there was from the swelter of a July afternoon.

  “Is he moving as much as a few days ago?”

  He. “It’s a boy, Mama?”

  “We’ll see.” Lily gave her a secretive smile, then waited for her question to be answered.

  Seona sighed. “Maybe not quite as much. Why?”

  “They don’t move as much right before their time. Sometimes,” she added at Seona’s pointed look. “It’s always different, girl-baby. Is the pain like it’s been the past few days?”

  “Just the backache.” She didn’t bother saying how much worse it was today, how she longed to have someone knead her back like bread dough. Lily’s hands moved over her belly in circles, pressing gently. Soon those hands would catch her baby—a comfort, but one as thin as skin. Underneath it, fear stirred, as rooted inside her as Ian’s child. She closed her eyes.

  “Give her some water. She’s red as a beet.” Naomi’s voice seemed to come from far away.

  Lily pressed a horn cup against her hand. Seona took it, drank long, and came up for air like someone drowning. Lily took her hand and guided it low, to where her belly curved under. “Here’s the head, turned and ready. Not long now.”

  Naomi’s voice floated above them. Malcolm needed to come in for his dinner afore the flies swarmed it. Would Lily step out and give a holler? Had Esther eaten afore she went to the field with dinner for the hands and Mister Ian? Were Miss Judith and the mistress done at the house table? What a
job of work keeping hungry mouths fed . . .

  Seona had seen Ian heading out at daybreak with the field hands to sucker the tobacco plants. She pictured him working down the rows, skin browning and hair bleaching in the sun, toiling for a future she couldn’t begin to hope in. Where did she fit into that future? Where did her child fit? Her chest ached with a love so mingled with grief she feared they’d never untangle. Like skeins of wool snarled together, red and black . . . blood and dark waters flowing away to streams and rivers and an ocean she would never see . . .

  Her head fell forward, yanking her back from a doze. The baby moved, stretching her until she felt ready to split. Pain burned above her hips. Voices spoke around her, the sound like tumbling water, like the falls in the hollow where the birches grew. Yellow shimmered across her vision, dazzling as those leaves in the sun.

  The touch of a wet cloth on her face shocked her eyes open. Hands grasped her, holding her upright.

  “Are ye all right, a leannan?”

  Seona blinked into a face framed in lambs’ wool, felt the dry touch of old man’s skin on her hand, her face. “Malcolm? Did I swoon?”

  “Like to do so again ’less you leave this stifling kitchen.” Naomi thrust into view, hands planted on broad hips. “I asked Miss Judith could you go down by the creek for a spell. She said—”

  “I said it would be fine.”

  That voice cleared the last of her daze. Naomi stepped aside and there was Miss Judith, white-faced under her garden hat, setting down the dirty plates she’d brought from their table herself.

  Lily and Naomi thanked her. Seona kept her eyes lowered until the scuff of well-shod soles told her Miss Judith had gone.

  Ian ate with his uncle’s field hands in the tree-shade above the farthest tobacco field, admiring the view down the green rows stretching nigh to the far-off creek-bottom. Esther was gone, scampering back over the heat-shimmered fields like a rabbit to its burrow. In addition to the usual fare, the girl had brought pastries, tiny pies bursting with sugared apples. Enough for all. Naomi could cook a toad to perfection, but her pies were something to transport a man. The field hands had whooped at the sight.