To A Far Country

by Oliver, Marina

  'Naturally she does,' Flora said, feeling a pang that she would never have another baby to show off.

  ***

  'He's beautiful, Jane,' Flora said, holding the child in her arms and showing him to her own curious pair.

  She had walked up during the afternoon, both children riding on a pony Jamie had purchased the previous summer for her to use, and in future to pull the trap he meant one day to build.

  'He's tiny!' Jenny said, looking in awe at Angus's delicate fingers.

  'You were once as tiny,' Flora told her, laughing. In truth, she'd forgotten herself how small newborn babies were. 'Don't you remember Matthew when he was a baby?'

  'Me not small, ever!' Matthew declared angrily, stamping his foot. 'I's big as Jenny!'

  'Yes, laddie, ye're a braw giant,' Eliza said.

  'Me be soldier.'

  Flora shuddered. Not that, please. For the first time she truly understood Eliza's distress when she'd heard about Colin joining the army. She glanced at the older woman whose mouth was pursed, her eyes bleak.

  'Ye might have more sense by the time ye're old enough,' Eliza said gruffly.

  'I was sorry to hear about Andrew going,' Flora said softly.

  Eliza shrugged. 'He's old enough to make his own silly mistakes. Though how he expects his father to work his farm as well as ours, I don't know! By the time he comes home again he'll have it all to do again, all the clearing and fencing. That's if the Americans don't burn us all out.'

  Isabella bustled in then to say she thought Jane was tired. 'Come and have a cup of tea with me,' she suggested to Flora. 'Meg will take the children to play with my brood.'

  Bruce had built a double cabin, with a connecting door, and Isabella and her family occupied one half. Flora promised to come again soon, and went through with Isabella.

  She was sitting on one of the benches Bruce had made, sipping tea, and praising Isabella's drop scones, when there was a tentative knock on the door.

  'Who can that be?' Isabella asked as she stood up. 'More visitors for Jane, I suppose.'

  Outside Flora could see a woman, her silhouette dark against the weak winter sunshine. She seemed to be carrying a bundle over her shoulder, her shape was oddly irregular. Suddenly this shape moved and Flora realised it was a child's head.

  Isabella had stepped back, her body swaying, and Flora hastened to her side, afraid she was about to fall. She looked up, blinked, and looked again at the woman.

  'Annie?' she asked doubtfully.

  It was Annie, but so changed as to be almost unrecognisable. She was pitifully thin, that could be seen even through the thick, ugly stuff gown and the ragged tartan plaid wrapped round her shoulders. It had snowed earlier in the day, and her clothes seemed wet. It looked, Flora thought in amazement, as though she had slept out in them. Her face was drawn, deep shadows beneath her eyes, the roses gone from her cheeks, and her lips so pale they seemed invisible. Her curls, once so glossy and bouncy, were straggling, uncombed.

  'Can I come in?' she whispered, and a racking cough made her double over with pain.

  Isabella seemed incapable of action, but she was standing firmly enough. Flora took the child from Annie's arms, pulled her inside and shut the door on the bitter cold, and led the girl to sit beside the table. She pushed over her own cup of tea. There was no time to wait for more to be brewed.

  'Drink this. It will help.'

  The child was small, pale and thin, with lack-lustre eyes. Flora did some swift calculations. They had left Quebec in May, a year and a half ago. Annie had been at least three months pregnant then, so her child was about a year old.

  Flora unwrapped the shawl, knitted but full of holes, from the child's thin body, and wrinkled up her nose at the pungent aroma which assailed her. She glanced at Isabella, who was staring at Annie hungrily.

  'Isabella, she needs you. Have you any medicines? Bayberry? Or cloves?'

  Isabella roused herself. 'Mary gave me some bayberries.'

  'Then make an infusion, while I wash the child.'

  She glanced at the small bundle Annie had dropped to the floor, and decided to find what she needed elsewhere. By the time she had heated some water, cleaned the child with some pieces of rag, and wrapped it in a warm, clean shift of Isabella's, Annie was beginning to look better. She had stopped coughing, and on Isabella's urging had stripped off her wet clothes and put on some of her mother's.

  'Put her to bed,' Flora advised. 'Are you still suckling the baby?' she asked.

  Annie shook her head. 'My milk dried up a month back. She has porridge, when I can get some, and sometimes goat's milk.'

  Isabella had recovered her wits. 'Get into my bed, lass, and I'll feed the wee one. There's porridge left in the pan, and a jug of cow's milk. What's her name?'

  Annie lay down, and gave a huge sigh of relief. 'Bella, for you. Oh Ma! I'm so glad to be home!'

  She was asleep within seconds, and Isabella looked from her to Flora, than at the child who was sitting where Flora had put her, on a rag rug close to the fire. There was a little colour in her cheeks, but her eyes were huge in the thin face, and she was far too docile.

  'She's not long for this world, poor little mite,' Isabella sighed.

  'She'll recover with some good food and care,' Flora said bracingly, but secretly she thought Isabella was right. Annie, however, looked equally likely to succumb. Flora strongly suspected the girl was consumptive. 'Can you manage? I ought to be away soon, before it gets dark.'

  'You have your own family to see to. Of course I'll manage. Meg's a good girl, she helps me as well as Jane. And Eliza might suggest something for that cough. It bothers me.'

  The next morning Meg came down, her face stormy.

  'She came here looking for Andrew!' she announced angrily. 'Her French lover throws her out, and she thinks another man will welcome her and her brat! Serve her right he isn't here!'

  'Is that what happened?' Flora asked.

  'It's what she might have expected! When his family saw she was pregnant, the sly creature, they dismissed her. Her fine lover didn't support her then! He meekly went back to France, they thought a spell in the army there would knock some sense into his head, so they packed him off within days.'

  'How did she survive?'

  Meg shrugged. 'The usual way, I suppose. She says she saved some money, but not enough to pay for a passage to York. She walked, and begged for food. She says.'

  'All that way? It's hundreds of miles!' Flora gasped. 'And where did she have the baby?'

  'Some Scots settlers found her in labour on the road somewhere, took her in, but then they sent her to a convent where they said the nuns would look after her. When she was strong enough, she ran away.'

  'And has been walking for a year or more? Through last winter?'

  'I don't think so!'

  'What do you mean?

  'She says she found jobs, first in Montreal, and saved enough to pay for a boat to Kingston, when her money ran out. Then she thought she could earn more for the rest of the way.'

  'Why do you doubt her?'

  'I don't, but I suspect it was not the sort of job she told Isabella, as a housemaid! There's a garrison in Kingston.'

  Flora frowned. 'The army? You think she had a lover, and perhaps he had to leave because of the war?'

  'Isn't that the obvious explanation?'

  'But why didn't her lover give her money to pay for a passage? She'd walked for most of the way. She's so thin, and her feet were terribly sore and blistered.'

  'There was a battle. She said she was so frightened she ran away without the wages she was owed.'

  'Another battle? Why haven't we heard?'

  'It was nothing, from what Eliza said when I asked her. One of the American ships chased one of ours into the harbour, but that was all. They were shooting cannon at one another, but I don't think anyone was killed. Or only one or two. It's a poor excuse for running away.'

  Flora decided not to enquire further. Annie had been unfo
rtunate to catch the evil Captain Duclos' fancy, then foolish to believe her French lover, but she had survived, however she had managed it. If she could recover from the cough she had, she could start life anew.

  ***

  When Jamie said he was riding to York for a few days, to buy the stallion he'd need in the spring, she was tempted to ask him to find out where Andrew was, and if he was likely to be sent to the front. Then common sense prevailed just in time. Jamie would never believe she asked purely for Eliza's sake, believing he might have friends who could find out more than William could. He'd be sure to assume she was anxious on her own account.

  While Jamie was away she kept busy with preparations for Christmas. She was determined to make it a happy occasion for the children, and had secretly been making toys for them, a rag doll for Jenny and a red-coated soldier riding a stuffed cloth horse for Matthew. She had made Jamie a waistcoat, in dark green silk embroidered with the bell heather which was the MacDougal clan flower. The day he was due home she wrapped the presents and hid them under the clothes in her chest.

  He arrived just before dusk, and she took the eager children out to greet him.

  He kissed them but barely looked at her. They were exclaiming over the stallion on the leading rein, a magnificent chestnut with bold eyes and a long, thick mane.

  'Take my horse, if you will,' Jamie said curtly. 'I must put this fellow in the new barn.'

  During the summer Jamie had built a special barn where the stallion could be stabled. He led him there now, while Flora lifted the children onto the tired riding horse's back for the short ride to his own stable at the end of the barn the mares inhabited. This was new this year, too. Their herd was growing fast, and next summer some of this year's foals which they had kept would be sold for a good price. Heaven knows, she did not wish the war to continue, but it had sent the price of horses soaring. Jamie would have had to pay highly for the stallion, more than last year, and he would need higher prices for his own stock to pay for it.

  The children, even Matthew, knew to keep out of the way of the horses. They sat quietly on a pile of hay while Flora took off the saddle and bridle, slipped on a headcollar and tied the weary horse to a ring in the wall while she rubbed him down. There was a net of hay which he nibbled as she worked, and then she poured a bucket of warm mash into the wooden manger, and moved the bucket of water she had left ready earlier in the day to where he was least likely to kick it over.

  She checked all the mares were comfortable, then took the children back to the cabin where supper, a venison stew, was simmering in a cauldron over the fire.

  Within seconds Jamie followed her in, and the children clambered onto his lap.

  'What did you bring us?' Jenny demanded.

  Jamie smiled at her, and showed them some sweetmeats.

  'But not before supper,' he warned. 'And only then if you eat your meat and those potatoes I can see baking in the fire.'

  At last, worn out and content, they went to bed and slept almost at once. Flora sat by the fire and picked up her embroidery.

  'Flora, put that down. I want your full attention,' Jamie said quietly.

  She looked up, startled. Ever since Andrew had attacked her he had only spoken to her when absolutely necessary. 'What is it?' she asked, her heart beginning to pound at the coldness in his voice.

  In reply he pulled a small packet wrapped in cotton out of his pocket and flung it into her lap. She glanced up from it to look at him, puzzled. His eyes were bleaker than she had ever known them, and his jaw was clenched into a rigidity she could almost feel.

  'Open it. I hope you can explain.'

  Slowly she unwrapped the piece of cotton cloth, and then gasped in utter shock. Wide-eyed, she looked up at him.

  'Where did you find them?'

  In her hands she held the pearl necklace and earrings, and the diamond ring, all of them stolen from her either on the boat or in Quebec.

  'More to the point, who did you give them to?'

  Speechlessly she shook her head. 'I didn't give them to anyone. I wouldn't. Yes, I tried to buy fresh eggs and milk from that monster Duclos, for Rosie, but I'd never have parted from them for any other reason.'

  'Then how does it happen that Andrew had them in his possession?'

  'Andrew?' Flora was shocked. 'Andrew had them? Are you saying he stole them from me? I don't believe it!'

  'Then you must have given them to him, as well as your favours!' he snapped.

  'No! I didn't! Neither! Oh, I'm so confused. That time you found us together, I was not willing! He was trying to rape me! Why won't you believe me?'

  'And those baubles? How did he come to have them?'

  Flora shook her head. 'I don't know. I discovered they were missing when we were in Quebec.'

  'And conveniently forgot to tell me, I suppose. Was it going on even then? Your liaison with him?'

  Flora sprang to her feet, forgetting the sleeping children. 'I had no liaison! I didn't tell you because I was ashamed, frightened, and so miserable because you were neglecting me!'

  'That I don't believe. I've never been harsh to you. If they had really been stolen you should know I would not have blamed you. You had a guilty conscience.'

  Flora stared at him, and shook away the tear which was forming in her eye.

  'They were stolen, and,' she added, recalling how she had discovered it, 'Meg and Eliza were there when I discovered it. It was when I was preparing for that party, at Christmas, just after Matthew was born.'

  'So it was going on even then?' Jamie said, and Flora could see a hint of doubt in his eyes.

  'Nothing was going on,' she insisted.

  'The jewels were gone. It does not matter who knew then, you could have given them to Andrew before that conveniently public discovery. But I still cannot understand, if what you say is true, why you did not tell me.'

  It was useless to try and explain. 'What did Andrew say? Did he explain how he had obtained them?'

  Jamie laughed grimly. 'He claimed to have won them from someone else, a man whose name he had forgotten. There is no help to be had from him.'

  'How – how did you get them?'

  'I won them, of course.'

  'But you said you never won from poor men,' Flora said swiftly.

  'My wife has never had a lover before, or at least I assume Andrew was the only one so favoured. Or were there others? Take them, put them away safely this time, and I trust that whenever you wear them you will remember all about your perfidy.'

  ***

  Chapter 15

  For the next few months Flora escaped whenever she could to go and help Isabella. Annie was very sick, often suffering from fever. None of Flora's medicines, nor the ones Mary brought, seemed to help.

  Meg resented the attention being lavished on Annie, though she adored little Bella, who began to put on weight and lose the wan expression she had worn on her arrival. Meg was only too pleased to bring Bella and take care of Flora's children while Flora worked in the barns, grooming and feeding all the horses. She was glad of their undemanding company, their warmth, their friendly company.

  Without them and her children she didn't think she'd have been able to endure Jamie's cold contempt. Once she had rounded on him in despair.

  'Why don't you send me away if you hate me so?' she demanded.

  He turned away. 'I don't hate you. You're my wife and the mother of my children. Whatever you've done I can't forget that.'

  'I've done nothing,' she insisted. 'All you can condemn me with is not telling you the jewels had been stolen.'

  He sighed. 'I wish I could believe that, Flora, but I caught you with Andrew, once. How can I know how many other times there've been?'

  'You don't believe me. It's easier to believe your wife's a whore than believe Andrew's a thief. Oh, I know he's always wanted me, and if I hadn't met you I might have married him. But I swear to you that I've never given him any encouragement. He surprised me that day, and he's strong. I couldn't escape,
and I was so glad to see you!'

  It made no difference. He was implacable. Flora abandoned any attempt to make him believe her. She would work so hard each day that she fell into bed exhausted, and then she did not miss him quite so much.

  It was therefore with astonishment that she came into the cabin one day to have him tell her to pack for a few days in York.

  'You want me to come with you to York?' she repeated blankly. 'Why? You've never taken me before.'

  'The garrison commander wishes to meet you. He's invited us to a reception. You still have your fine gowns, and you must wear your pearls.'

  'What about the children? I can't leave them.'

  'Jane and Bruce will have them while we're away.'

  'You've already arranged this? Without asking me if I wanted to come with you?'

  'I needed to know if it was possible before I asked you.'

  'I don't wish to come,' Flora retorted. 'You want to show off a possession, that's all! You want me to wear the pearls just because you wish to impress a soldier, to appear a wealthy man and not a simple backwoods farmer. Well, I'm sorry, but I am not going to accommodate you.'

  'You will come,' he said coldly. 'If you don't come willingly I'll carry you there unwillingly. But I think you'll reconsider. I have sufficient money now to purchase some better furniture, and glass windows. I thought we might choose the tables and chairs together.'

  It was an olive branch, Flora decided. Much as she hated the idea of appearing to give way to threats, or bribery, she would swallow her pride and comply. Perhaps Jamie wanted a new start. Maybe this was his way of telling her.

  'Very well,' she said, her voice quiet. 'I'll do as you wish. But who will care for the horses when we're gone? One or two of the mares might foal soon, it's almost the end of April.'

  'Brendan's brother Patrick has arrived from Ireland. He's a groom, he's used to working with horses. Brendan's farm isn't big enough for another man, but I will need more help after the mares foal, so I thought I would offer him a job. He can live with them normally, but while we're away he'll sleep here.'