“No,” Alex said, “and it’s probably him who abducted the women in question to begin with.”
“It is?” Magnus gave her a surprised look.
“Elizabeth told me how a band led by a man named Burley had cornered the wife market – an endless supply of Indian girls offered to whoever is willing to pay.” She spat in the general direction of where the men had disappeared. “And it was definitely him I saw back in April, with Sykes. Bastard.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Matthew said.
“Because they were six, and you’re only one, and I didn’t want you to do or say something stupid.” She shivered. “He scares me, somehow.”
“Aye.” A man with the eyes of a dead fish was indeed a frightening sight. But gone, thankfully. With a parting pat on Alex’s bottom, Matthew went off to finish his chores.
*
“A word?” Magnus almost overbalanced as he leaned forward over his cane. Matthew straightened up from his inspection of the mare’s hooves and nodded. Magnus led the way back out into the September sun, hopping in the direction of the bench under the white oak.
“Only with me?” Matthew sat down beside Magnus.
“I owe you an apology,” Magnus said gruffly. “I shouldn’t have insinuated that you’re forcing your attentions where they’re not wanted. It’s obvious you don’t have to.”
“Nay, I generally don’t.” Matthew leaned back against the broad trunk and stretched his legs out in front of him.
“But you must try and understand. I – we – come from a time where seven children are seen as excessive, an unnecessary strain on the woman’s health. And every time Alex gives birth, there’s a risk, right? In the here and now, there’s nothing to do if things go wrong.”
“Have you shared this with her?”
“Of course not! But I bet she thinks of it,” Magnus said.
Matthew knew she did. They even spoke of it at times, and all he could do was promise to be there, as he’d been for Jacob and Daniel and wee Sarah. And this time too he would stay beside her throughout the birth, no matter what the midwife might say.
“She says all your children are planned, all of them wanted. But who in their right mind would want three children in three years?”
“Us, apparently,” Matthew replied icily. He relented and exhaled. “They have all been wanted, but not planned. Sometimes God has a finger in the pie as well.”
“The only one with a member in the pie is you,” Magnus bit back. “And as far as I can tell it hasn’t been your finger.”
Matthew burst out in surprised laughter, and after some moments Magnus began to laugh as well.
“It isn’t easy,” Matthew said once they had stopped laughing. He tilted his head in the direction of where Alex was coming out of the house, holding a skipping Sarah by the hand. “I love her, and even if I try to control myself there are times when I can’t. There are times when she doesn’t want me to…”
“Oh, so this baby is the result of a little accident, is it?”
“The new babe? Ah no, the new babe is planned, but wee Sarah now, or Jacob – Rachel was not yet three months when he was conceived.”
“You don’t speak much of Rachel,” Magnus said gently.
“We don’t?” Matthew shrugged. “Aye, we do. With ourselves or the elder lads quite often. Alex says we must, so as to keep her alive in our minds.”
“But you don’t need to do that. The lost child lives forever in your heart anyway.” Magnus sounded sad, and Matthew turned to face him.
“You’re disappointed,” he said with sudden understanding. “All those years you’d created an image of Alex and what she might be like, and now you find her so different to what you thought she would be.”
“She has changed so much.”
“Nay, she hasn’t. You’re looking only at the outside. Inside, Alex is as she always was: quick-witted and opinionated, passionate and reckless...” Matthew stared off into the distance, smiling as he thought of his woman. “She has learnt to hide it better, and that is for the best.”
Magnus shook his head. “She has changed. She’s an obedient little wife, far from the independent woman she used to be.”
“Obedient?” Matthew choked with laughter. “Alex?”
Magnus gave him an irritated look. “Like today. She serves you and all those men dinner, curtseys and leaves the room. That’s very obedient in my book.”
Matthew just stared at him.
“Or when she spends all evenings sewing and mending, listening to you reading the Bible – that’s also a very obedient little wife.”
“Today was her choice. Had she wanted to stay she would, no matter what I had told her. As to the evenings, I was under the impression she liked it when I read to her – and it’s not always the Bible. I’ll ask her, aye?”
“But the thing is you can sit and read while she has to sew. All the time she’s working, not once have I seen her idle.”
“Nor me.”
“No,” Magnus said. “You work quite a lot too. But at least you have the evenings off.”
*
Matthew slid his arms around Alex’s waist and walked her in the direction of the laundry shed.
“What?” she laughed. “Do I smell?”
“Nay, but mayhap you need a nice hot bath. Time for yourself.”
Alex stopped so abruptly both of them almost toppled to the ground.
“Magnus,” she sighed.
Matthew urged her on in the direction of the laundry shed and waited until they were inside before replying.
“He says you always work, that you never have time for idleness, and that I at least have evenings free while you must sew and mend. He says how in your old life you’d sometimes spend days on end doing nothing but loiter in the sun.” He used buckets to transfer the hot water from the cauldron to the tub.
“Yes, and in between I’d work myself ragged, always in a rush, always with my nose stuck in my computer – so much in fact that Magnus would tell me I had to slow down, that I was working myself into an early grave with these long, long hours. I bet he didn’t tell you that.” Alex shimmied out of her clothes, folding them neatly on the broad bench that ran the full length of the wall.
“Nay, he didn’t mention that.” Matthew steadied her as she got into the bath. “Too hot?” he asked when she danced about on the bottom.
“A bit.” She remained on her feet until he had poured in a bucket of cold water. She sat down and tilted her head back to look at him.
“I’m fine, okay?” She caressed his cheek with her wet hand. “Yes, sometimes it’s a bit much, but it is for you as well, isn’t it?” She sank lower into the water and closed her eyes. He didn’t reply, deep in thought as he soaped her and washed her hair.
“I’ll buy some more contracts.” He smiled at the way her eyes flew open. “You need a new maid, and I can use a field hand.”
“But you don’t—”
Matthew shushed her. “Nay, I don’t hold with it, but I won’t wear us both to the bone. We can afford it.” He did sums in his head. The sizeable amount of money they’d brought across had shrunk alarmingly over the last few years, but there was quite a lot left.
“Yes, I suppose we can.” She grinned. “It’s sort of fair, isn’t it, that dear brother Luke is indirectly paying for all this.”
Matthew looked away. A princely sum, Simon had called it once he had concluded the negotiations with Luke. Five hundred pounds as compensation for all the ill turns Luke had done Matthew. Not at all enough, in Matthew’s book, and every now and then he would still wake and want nothing so much as to beat his beloved brother’s face to pulp. His hands balled into fists.
“And then we have the money for Hillview,” Alex said, oblivious to his tense silence. “More than 200 merks when all is said and done.”
Aye, that remained untouched, a general accrual for the future of their children.
“Does it still hurt?” she asked as she dried herself.
Matthew sank down on the bench and nodded.
“Will it always?” Alex sat down beside him and took his hand.
“It was my place, the one constant in my life. Since I was a bairn, I knew I was born to Hillview and would pass it on to my son. But now I never will. I was incapable of upholding the covenant with my people, with the generations that preceded me and the generations to come. I’m the weak link in the chain, the unhardened metal that gave...” He had to laugh at her expression, wildly rolling eyes and a pretend yawn. She didn’t have much patience with him in his maudlin moods, and mayhap that was for the best.
“You did what you had to do, and the chain lives on thanks to your choice. Your sons will grow to manhood in a place where it’s up to them to shape themselves a future, unencumbered by the constraints of class or conventions.”
“...unencumbered by the constraints of class or convention...” Matthew smiled and used a towel to pat at her wet hair. “A philosopher as well?”
“I’ve been known to think – women do at times.”
“They do? In my experience, they mostly talk.”
“Huh,” she snorted.
“It doesn’t matter,” Matthew said as they walked back towards the house. He craned his head back to look at the stars, scattered like randomly thrown specks of glittering glass on a velvet backdrop.
“What doesn’t?”
“If I miss it, yes or no,” Matthew said. Alex faced him, the whites of her eyes a pale bluish colour in the moonlight. “The bairns don’t miss it; to them this is home now. I suppose that means it is.”
“O, my America, my Newfoundland,” Alex quoted.
“...My kingdom, safest when with one man mann’d, my mine of precious stones, my empery; how am I blest in thus discovering thee...” Matthew went on. “John Donne didn’t have Maryland in mind, I reckon.” He grabbed her arse hard enough to make her squeal.
“Poor her,” Alex said. “Imagine walking the world with a name like America.”
Chapter 12
“But why did you give it to him?” Alex looked at the velvet pouch on Matthew’s desk. A collection of coins – however Magnus had found those – but mostly gold, nine small ingots, three to the ounce according to Magnus, that Matthew had handled with appreciation.
“It’s his anyway, right?” Magnus said. “Anything you own is his.”
“Well, thanks for reminding me so succinctly.”
“It’s a belated dowry.” Magnus grinned. “But I did actually set some conditions.”
“You did?”
“That you buy some ready-made clothes for the whole family and that he please, please bring back some books.”
“You might be disappointed,” Alex said. “It’s not as if there are tons of novels lying about.”
“No, but anything else than the Bible, Shakespeare and Don Quijote would be welcome.”
*
“If you’d told me beforehand that the Leslies were coming along, I might have opted for staying at home. As it is, my ears are falling off with her constant talking.” Alex smiled pleasantly at Elizabeth, standing on the other side of the clearing where they’d spent the night. “And I’m not quite sure how she does it, but somehow she always makes me feel lacking. Either my dress is not modest enough, or my hair is too uncovered, or I laugh too loud...” A twist and her hair was up, fastened by a couple of hairpins before she covered it with her cap. She pulled up her stockings and gartered them, the bright red ribbons quickly hidden beneath her skirts. Not quickly enough, though, and she turned her head in time to see Elizabeth’s mouth set in a straight line at this new evidence of Alex’s flightiness.
“And it doesn’t exactly help that all you do is talk to Henry Walton.” Alex dug a hard elbow into Matthew’s side. He uttered a low warning sound and shook his head, stopping with a wince. “Too much to drink?” she said, receiving a beady look in return.
“So what did you talk about all last night?” Alex asked once they were up on the horse, ambling along several yards behind the rest of the party.
“We spoke of his new life here. Of how his building is progressing, and how he will provision himself for the winter, and if the new bairn they’re expecting will be yet another lad, and—”
“Okay, okay, I get the picture.” Alex looked Henry over and stifled a small laugh. “What does a woman as attractive as Kristin see in this bottle-shouldered man?”
“You’re judging by appearances alone.” He shifted in the saddle until her bottom nestled snugly between his thighs. “And I know for a fact he is most well-endowed.”
“What did you do? Line up and measure them?” She laughed at the resulting image. “It must be a comfort for him to be able to leave Forest Spring and his family in Lars’ capable hands – did you notice there was yet another cabin up by now? I suppose it must be meant for when Lars marries that girl of his.” Which she hoped would be soon – repeatedly over the last few weeks she’d seen Lars in the woods around their home, no doubt sniffing round for Fiona. She frowned; there was something off about the huge young man, no matter that he’d make Adonis himself weep with envy.
“He doesn’t have a betrothed,” Matthew said, “or, rather, the betrothed he had is dead.”
“Dead?” Alex craned her head back to look at him.
“Aye, very dead: they found her savaged in the woods a year or so ago. A bear, they reckon.”
“But why would they say he’s still engaged?”
“Mayhap he feels he still is,” he suggested.
Well, that would go some way to explain Lars’ brooding presence, Alex supposed. “How terrible!”
Matthew grunted. “Aye, a very sad story; sad and well-rehearsed.”
“How do you mean?”
“What I said; well-rehearsed, and I doubt Henry was quite as drunk as he appeared to be.” He tightened his hold on her waist. “You’ll not go to see them on your own.”
“Why not? You think it might be dangerous?”
“Grief can be deranging.”
“Grief?” Alex made a derogatory sound. “Not much of that around when you gallop around in the woods and bonk your neighbour’s maid whenever you can.”
“Bonk?”
“You know what I mean.” Alex frowned. “He won’t like it, will he? That Fiona isn’t available to him.”
“Probably not. But that’s something he must come to terms with. And he’s a well-built man, strong and comely. The lasses must be swooning for him.”
Not if they had any sense of self-preservation, they wouldn’t. Into Alex’s brain swam the bruised face of the dead miller’s daughter. She had looked as if she’d run into a rabid bear – a human bear. Coincidence, she told herself sternly. Still, the thought lay like a chafing stone in her mind.
“Do you—” she began, but was interrupted by Elizabeth, who’d halted her horse to wait for them.
“You really shouldn’t be riding abroad in your present condition,” she said to Alex, nudging her horse into a walk beside theirs.
“Oh, I’m alright,” Alex said.
Elizabeth snorted. “That was not what I meant. A woman so obviously with child should remain at home.”
In Alex’s book, that was a huge exaggeration, her hand coming down to rest on the as yet quite discreet swell.
“Really? Why? Do you think I might inspire men to indecent thoughts?” Alex felt Matthew vibrate with laughter behind her.
“Nathan would never allow Celia to leave home while breeding.” Elizabeth ignored Alex’s question. “He’s adamant in that his wife must refrain from too much bustle at present.”
“Did she want to come along?” Alex asked.
“She
pines for her mother at times.” Elizabeth’s tone signalled that this was a major weakness.
“To be expected,” Matthew said. “She’s but sixteen.”
Elizabeth’s mouth pinched together. “She’s a wife now. She should put all her efforts into pleasing her husband and being a dutiful, obedient wife.”
“Just like you’ve always been to Peter,” Alex said.
Elizabeth gave her a long look. “Yes, I have always set my husband first and followed where he has led.” She kicked her horse into a trot.
“As long as he’s walked in the general direction you intended,” Alex said to her retreating back.
Matthew laughed out loud. “You think Elizabeth rules the roost?” He laughed some more and looked over to where Elizabeth had now rejoined her husband.
“Don’t you?”
“Nay, that I don’t. Peter is very much the man in his own house. But he’s wise enough to allow his wife some leeway, to let her think that at times it is she, not he, that decides.”
“Oh, just like you do then,” Alex muttered.
Matthew let his hand slide down to rest on their child and squeezed. “Nay, not as such. You and I take most decisions together.”
*
Two days later, Matthew held in his horse on the outskirts of Providence.
“It’s grown, hasn’t it?“ Alex looked down at the little town spread out before her.
From the docks – about the size of three Olympic pools – four streets, of which three were narrow dirt tracks no more, fanned out up the slope to where the central feature, the meetinghouse, dominated the settlement. To the west a rustic palisade, to the north equally primitive fortifications. Some intrepid souls had built outside the constricting fence, but mostly Providence’s inhabitants preferred to live within their walls.
Around and beyond the docks stood warehouses; even further away were the boarding houses and taverns that served the sailors. The streets were bordered by narrow houses, most of them quite humble, even if here and there somewhat more impressive buildings indicated the worth of their owners. And all of this against the backdrop of the glittering Chesapeake Bay, a wide, smooth expanse of water. A ship was slowly making its way up towards the mouth of the Severn, a dark splotch against all that shimmering blue.
A Newfound Land (The Graham Saga) Page 11
