Grace in Thine Eyes

by Liz Curtis Higgs

  I fear our sister will have a lonely summer without us.

  Will abruptly sat up, banging his head on the wall behind him. He rubbed the back of his scalp, cursing himself for his carelessness.

  “ ’Tis my fault,” he told Sandy when his brother returned, tappithens in hand. “I am the fool who mentioned to Father that our sister would be miserable this summer.” Will slumped in his chair, stung by the realization. “He never would have packed Davina off to Arran if I hadn’t made so daft a statement.”

  “You don’t know that, Will.”

  “Aye, but I do!” he roared, eliciting a stern glance from a gentleman whose head poked out from behind a brown paper screen meant to offer a measure of privacy. Lowering his voice slightly, Will said through clenched teeth, “The laird of Glentrool takes pleasure in ordering his offspring about.”

  Sandy toyed with the lid of his tankard. “He also was pleased to pay for our tuition and fill our wardrobe with new clothes and line our pockets with silver.”

  Will swore. “You’re on his side now, is that it?”

  “You know better,” Sandy said evenly. “Father was purchasing our forgiveness, nothing more.”

  “An odd turn of events when ’tis he who has yet to forgive us. Ten years, Sandy. Ten years.”

  His brother shrugged as if weary of the subject. “Drink your ale. If we tarry much longer, we’ll find naught on the dark streets but thieves picking our pockets or limmers raising their skirts.”

  Will downed the balance of his drink, half standing as he did. “We must write to her, you know.” The tappit-hen landed hard, another outlet for his frustration. “A long letter. Tomorrow after Professor Gregory’s lecture.”

  Sandy frowned at him. “Write to Mother, do you mean? Or to Davina?”

  “Both,” Will shot back, then curbed his anger. Sandy was not to blame, not for a moment. “We’ll write Mother to thank her for her letter. Without it, we’d have no knowledge of Father’s negligence. And then we’ll write Davina to pledge our devotion to her, even from so great a distance.”

  “Should we not write to Father?”

  “Oo aye,” Will growled. “As soon as ever he writes us.”

  Twenty-Three

  Up the airy mountain,

  Down the rushy glen,

  We daren’t go a-hunting,

  For fear of little men.

  WILLIAM ALLINGHAM

  Ten days, Davina!” With an artless sigh, Abbie dropped beside her on the low stone monument. “Ten days and you’ve almost filled the pages of your sketchbook.”

  Davina smiled as she retied the broad silk ribbons of her straw bonnet, grateful for the elongated front brim that protected her complexion from the sun. The morning had been delightfully dry, though each day on Arran offered a variety of weather: rain, clouds, sun, wind, and always a hopeful patch of blue.

  Abbie burst into rhyme, “ ‘Barnaby bright! Barnaby bright! The longest day and the shortest night.’ Though this is Saint Barnabas’s Day, ’tis not the longest day of the year anymore. Not since they added twelve days to the calendar all at once.” She groaned dramatically. “What a nuisance that must have been for our grandfathers!”

  Davina simply listened, more aware than ever of the difference in their ages. Was she this childlike at fourteen, skipping across lawns, throwing herself about? Aye, and sometimes still. She blushed at the thought, for indeed the Stewart sisters brought out an aspect of her nature she’d thought relegated to the nursery. Under their playful influence, Davina had clapped her hands, spun round on her toes, and danced over the Clauchland hills with joyous abandon. No wonder they thought she was a fairy come back to Arran.

  She flipped through her sketchbook until she located a drawing finished earlier that week, then held it out for Abbie’s approval.

  “Sakes me!” The younger sister peered at the page, her brown curls bouncing as she shook her head in disbelief. “Wherever did you see the wee folk?”

  Davina winked and pointed to her head. Only in here, lass. Her fanciful drawing showed a mischievous creature poised on a rock, her rose-petal gown outlining a lithe body, her gossamer wings unfurled. A daft notion, nothing more.

  Abbie looked over her shoulder toward the manse, then whispered, “Betty thinks you truly are a fairy. She says you glide rather than walk. And that all fairies play musical instruments, though none perhaps as well as you, Cousin.”

  Once they’d heard Davina play, the Stewarts did not let an evening end without an hour of tunes round the hearth. And if guests appeared at the door, they were presented with Davina and her fiddle more quickly than they were served tea.

  Abbie eyed the house again. “Have you noticed the tiny bells Betty carries in her apron pocket? They’re meant for protection.”

  From me? Davina looked at her in astonishment.

  “You see, those who’ve lived on Arran for generations respect—aye, even fear—the sith.” When Davina wrinkled her brow at the word, Abbie explained, “ ’Tis Gaelic for ‘fairy.’ The sith dance on a sithean, a fairy hill, which is why the farmers in our parish plow with care, so they won’t disturb them.”

  Davina had already been introduced to numerous examples on their daily walks. Helen Murchie showed her a moss-covered mound in her garden. Ivy Sillar pointed to a flat-topped stone rising from the burn behind her cottage. A perfect circle of bluebells grew on Sarah McCook’s lawn. And on the hill above Peg Pettigrew’s farm stood a sheltering hawthorn tree, bent by the wind.

  Davina had responded to each neighbor’s proud discovery with a look of interest; now she wondered if they expected her to return at midnight for a round of dancing.

  Abbie averted her gaze. “You’ll forgive me for saying so, but most fairies have a physical … well, a deformity that makes them … different.”

  Ah. Davina touched Abbie’s hand, hoping to put the girl at ease. Though her parents had shared a few details in advance, the topic of her muteness had not been broached since her arrival.

  “I’m sorry.” Abbie still could not look in her direction. “I should not have …”

  Davina quickly wrote across a blank page. Please do not apologize. I lost my voice when I was seven. An accident. To temper the harsh truth, she added, No fairies were present.

  When Abbie read the words, a sad smile crossed her lips. “Cate and I have grown exceedingly fond of you.” Her eyes shimmered in the morning sunlight. “We are certain you had a sweet voice.”

  Touched, Davina wrote, My father insists I sounded like my fiddle.

  “Oh, your father!” As if glad for a change in subject, Abbie sat up, hands clasped beneath her chin like a red squirrel with a newfound acorn. “What a fine-looking man. Though quite old, of course. Are your brothers half so braw?”

  Davina pictured the three of them and answered with a broad smile. Aye.

  Abbie said, “Too bad they won’t be coming to take you home,” then she blushed to her light brown roots. “Well … ah … show me what you are drawing now.”

  Nodding toward the crumbling east wall of the auld stone kirk, Davina turned to a fresh page and began to sketch the square carving before her. Within the raised edge was an old crown, the year 1618, and in large letters a stern admonishment: FIR GOD.

  Abbie rolled her eyes. “Surely they meant to write ‘Fear God.’ ” She hopped to her feet a moment later. “I’ll leave you to your sketching. Cate should be home from the Kelsos’ soon, and Mrs. McCurdy has promised salmon fritters for dinner.” Abbie set off for the house, humming a lilting air Davina had played yestreen.

  A capricious breeze fluttered her pages whenever she lifted her pencil, making it difficult to sketch. When another gust nearly closed the book on her fingers, Davina gave up drawing and thumbed through some of her artwork from two months past. Her mother’s cherished roses. Grandmother’s rowan. The corner of the garden where she’d weeded with her mother, waiting for Father to return from Edinburgh, and the wo
rds she’d written that afternoon. I look forward to our summer together. Instead they were spending the summer far apart, all of them.

  Davina quickly turned the page before a wave of homesickness washed over her.

  Ah. The perfect antidote. She looked down at the page with the thumb-worn corners and smiled at the thickness of his wavy hair, the generous shape of his mouth, the firm jut of his chin. Dreaming of him was no longer necessary, not when he lived in her thoughts and in her sketchbook, ever close at hand.

  “There you are, Davina!” Cate came flying across the lawn, her eyes shining with excitement.

  Startled, Davina closed her sketchbook in haste and stood, trying not to look guilty.

  Cate clasped her free hand and squeezed it tight, so out of breath she had to gasp between words. “I have the most … wonderful news! Guess who’ll arrive … on Arran … Tuesday next?”

  Twenty-Four

  O, what are you waiting for here? young man!

  JAMES THOMSON

  You did say Tuesday at noon, Mr. McKie?”

  “Indeed I did.” Jamie stood, greeting the younger gentleman with a bow, while the mantel clock in the drawing room struck the hour.

  Graham Webster bowed as well, his smile wreathed in a closely trimmed auburn beard. Before Jamie could offer him a seat, Graham drew a letter from his waistcoat pocket. “I traveled by way of Monnigaff this morning, and among the mail waiting at the inn was this post for Glentrool. I took the liberty of paying the postage. I trust you’ll forgive me for handling your letter.”

  “Nothing to forgive when you did me a kind service.” He reached for his coin purse. “May I reimburse you?”

  “Think nothing of it, sir.”

  “Much obliged.” Jamie noticed three things as he placed the letter on the tea tray: The postmark was Edinburgh, the writing was Will’s, and the address was Mrs. James McKie. “How was the weather for your ride, Mr. Webster?”

  Quiet and unassuming, Graham Webster had not exchanged a dozen words with Jamie in the last year, yet his reputation spoke for him. Honest in his dealings, well mannered and well traveled, he was a fine shot and a good horseman. And handsome, according to the women of the household. Jamie paid no attention to such things, though he did notice the man was no longer wearing the black armband of a grieving widower.

  “A stiff westerly breeze escorted me through the glen,” Graham said as Jamie offered him an upholstered chair, the most comfortable in the room.

  “I know the value of a brisk wind, having sailed from Arran a fortnight ago.” They both sat, a small table positioned between them in anticipation of tea. “If not for a hard wind blowing from the west, we might still be paddling our way to Ayr.”

  Graham’s expression, always sincere, grew more so. “Miss McKie is enjoying her stay on the island, I trust?”

  Jamie had been asked the same question—on the Sabbath, at market, in the village—countless times since returning home. “She is keeping quite busy,” he began, then motioned Jenny forward with her tea tray. “We received a letter last week describing her adventures on Arran. Frequent visiting of parish cottages and farms, apparently, and rambles over the hills and glens.”

  The moment his tea was poured and milk added, Graham took a lengthy sip, no doubt parched after the eight-mile ride from his estate in neighboring Penningham parish. “Your daughter is expected home at Lammas?”

  “Aye.” Jamie sensed something lurking behind the young widower’s question. Was he making polite conversation or a pointed inquiry? To his knowledge, Graham Webster had courted no one since his wife’s passing, not even after his year of mourning had ended. Surely the proprietor of Penningham Hall had no interest in Davina. The lass was but seventeen.

  Jamie studied him more closely. “You’ve come to discuss a purchase of sheep, I believe.”

  “Aye, sir. Sheep.” Graham cleared his throat. “As my property rests on the banks of the Cree with woods to the south, hills to the west, and moss to the north, I’ve not much grazing land, but I’m keen to have a healthy flock of blackface.” His smile was genuine, if a bit strained. “I saw no need to look further than Glentrool, renowned for its fine breeding.”

  Jamie acknowledged his compliment with a nod. “I’ll tell Rab you said so.” Mr. Webster had more than sheep on his mind; no gentleman fiddled with his shirt cuffs over livestock. “We had particularly fine lambs born three springs ago. The flocks are freshly sheared and will be ready for market in another few weeks. I’d be pleased to have my herds deliver twentyscore to Penningham.”

  “Begging your pardon, Mr. McKie, but fivescore was what I had in mind.” Graham spread out his hands in apology. “ ’Tis not the expense, mind you, but the limitations of my property. Until I have more land cleared …”

  “Fivescore it is, then. Shall we say … sixty pounds?” Though an honest price, Jamie waited for a lesser offer, which any canny Scotsman would extend. Unless the buyer, however competent, was interested in the seller’s daughter.

  Graham agreed to the full price at once. “Sixty pounds sterling it is. My factor will arrange things.”

  “ ’Tis done, then, Mr. Webster.” Jamie had to drink his tea to keep from grimacing. Would Davina be his next order of business?

  “Sir, I do wish you’d call me Graham.”

  “Fine.” Jamie uncrossed his legs. “Now, if we’re quite finished—”

  “How nice to see you, Mr. Webster.” Leana stepped into the drawing room, curtsying as both men stood. “I hope you will join us for dinner. Though our noontide meals are less elaborate, Aubert assures me you’ll not taste better veal flory on the Continent.”

  “It’s been a decade since I visited Florence, Mrs. McKie. I will no doubt find your cook’s veal pie far superior.”

  Jamie followed his guest into the dining room, more convinced than ever of Graham’s intentions: Visitors were expected to refuse a meal at least once, if not twice, until pressed into staying by their host; this young man had not hesitated for a second.

  A genial guest, Graham consumed proper quantities of every offering, praised their hospitality after each course, and extended an invitation for dinner at Penningham Hall at the McKies’ earliest convenience.

  “Is it your wish that our daughter be included?” Jamie asked, gauging his reaction. “And our son Ian?”

  Graham remained cooler than he expected. “By all means, sir.”

  As they reclaimed their chairs in the drawing room for sherry and biscuits, Leana said, “Mr. Webster, I believe you have just celebrated a birthday.”

  Graham accepted a glass of sherry. “Aye, my thirtieth. On Thursday last.”

  “My housekeeper and yours spoke in the kirkyard on the Sabbath,” Leana explained. “I hope you’ll forgive the mention of something so personal, but thirty years is significant. A time when one evaluates what has been and considers what will be.”

  “I quite agree, Mrs. McKie.” Graham watched the maidservant curtsy and close the drawing room door, then positioned himself so he faced them both. “In the process of evaluating my future, I have come to realize that I will most honor my wife’s memory by marrying again.”

  “How wise you are,” Leana said softly. “Do you have a young lady in mind, sir?”

  “I do,” he confessed, putting his glass aside. “Your daughter.”

  Twenty-Five

  Guilt is present in the very hesitation,

  even though the deed be not committed.

  CICERO

  Jamie swallowed the myriad objections that threatened to choke him, except one. “Davina is too young.”

  Graham held up his hands, a gesture of surrender. “I am in no hurry and will gladly court her for however long you deem appropriate. Your daughter’s youthful innocence—her purity, if you will—is part of her charm.”

  “You do know …” Leana wet her lips. “You do understand …”

  “Aye.” Graham spared her the rest.
“I remember when the accident happened. My wife and I were newly wed. Davina … ah, Miss McKie … had strewn rose petals from your garden across the kirk step on our wedding day. A few weeks later …” Sympathy shone in his eyes. “I cannot imagine your suffering.”

  Jamie started to say, ’Twas the worst day of our lives, then held his tongue. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

  “I know what the physicians have said,” Graham continued, “but your loosome daughter is whole in every way that matters. You can be certain her many gifts and talents would be appreciated at Penningham Hall. I do not …” His strong voice faltered at last. “I do not fool myself that she bears any affection for me, yet I can assure you that I would love and cherish her completely.”

  Jamie stared at Graham’s hands, larger than his own. Felt his stomach clench at the thought of those hands on his daughter. He listened to the man recount Davina’s many fine attributes—all the praiseworthy comments a father might want to hear—yet he could not bring himself to smile and nod and affirm and agree when everything inside him wanted to scream in protest. Nae! Not yet. Not ever.

  Ashamed of his reaction, Jamie forced himself to ask in as civil a tongue as he could, “Is Davina aware of your interest?”

  “Not to my knowledge, Mr. McKie. I wanted your permission before even approaching her.”

  Jamie shot to his feet, irritated by Graham’s thoughtfulness. The man had no faults whatsoever. Except his desire to woo Davina.

  “We will discuss the matter with our daughter,” Jamie said, looking down at him more sternly than necessary. “Nothing is agreed upon until we are certain of her willingness to be courted. And even then, sir, you will proceed slowly.”

  Graham stood, and their eyes met. “I will respect whatever decision you and your family reach. Kindly inform me when that time comes.” He stepped back and bowed. “Mrs. McKie, Mr. McKie, thank you for your indulgence.”

  Leana, ever the gracious hostess, saw him to the door, leaving Jamie to pace the carpet, more annoyed with himself than he was with Graham. He had known this day would come. Why did it unnerve him so?