From the distant High Street, the bells of Saint Giles marked the hour of six as the last of the prince’s men turned onto the road heading east.
Forty-Three
Words are mighty,
words are living
ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER
E lisabeth was numb.
She hovered as close to her bedchamber fireplace as she dared, shivering from cold and exhaustion, unwilling to shrug off her wool cape until some feeling returned to her stiff fingers and toes.
The evening had ended badly. Once the prince departed Holyroodhouse and the immense crowd dispersed, an empty sedan chair could not be found, not even with a whole fistful of sixpence to offer. Poor Gibson was beside himself. The Kerr party had little choice but to trudge home, arriving in Milne Square with icy feet and chapped faces.
Elisabeth’s heart and mind seemed frozen as well. Donald was truly gone. Not a half mile downhill but many miles away with no promise of when he might return. Yet she had asked for help and received it. She had said, “You are forgiven,” and meant it.
A voice had stirred inside her. No mistaking that.
Mrs. Edgar came up behind her with a cautious step. “Leddy Kerr, if I may.” She gently lifted the cape from her shoulders. “I’ll have Gibson add mair coals to yer grate.”
“Our dear Mrs. Edgar.” She smiled down at her. “However would we manage without you?”
A moment later Gibson appeared with the coal bucket. He held a handkerchief pressed to his nose, his cheeks still red from the cold night air. “Will there be anything else, milady?”
“Aye.” Elisabeth noted his sagging shoulders. “A good night’s rest for you.”
“Bliss ye,” he said with a weary smile, then bowed and took his leave.
Elisabeth closed her eyes. Finally. Alone.
She eased out of her mourning gown and the usual array of petticoats, glad Donald was not on hand to see her ungraceful efforts. At least her whalebone stays, laced in the front, were easily undone, as were the tapes securing her pocket hoops. When nothing remained but her linen chemise, she pulled the pins from her hair and bathed herself at the washbowl, grateful for the hot water but less so for the chilly air. Brushing her hair beside the fireplace, warmed by the rising heat, she finally stopped shivering.
As she finished the last few strokes, Elisabeth absently scanned the row of leather-bound volumes that lined the mantel before her. Scottish poets, mostly: Barbour, Dunbar, Barclay, Lindsay, Thomson. She loved hearing Donald read his favorite verses aloud, enjoying the cadence of them, the varying tempos, like music without notes.
Her brushing slowed as she considered again the words that poured into her heart in the palace forecourt earlier that evening: Hearken unto me. Nae, they were not merely words; they were poetry.
On impulse Elisabeth reached for the nearest book at hand, Ramsay’s Tea-Table Miscellany, and began paging through, thinking to find something akin to what she’d heard echoing inside her. She paused at a verse Donald once read to her with a bemused expression on his face.
Altho’ I be but a country lass,
Yet a lofty mind I bear—O,
And think myself as good as those
That rich apparel wear—O.
A clever appraisal but nothing at all like the words she’d heard.
As she replaced Ramsay’s Miscellany, Elisabeth eyed the thick family Bible, which lay turned on its side, lest it tumble into the fireplace and take the others with it. Donald once said his father had treasured the Scriptures and read from them nightly. Now the sacred writings were seldom touched in the Kerr household, though her mother-in-law could quote long passages when it suited her. Words she’d learned as a child, the dowager explained. Words that had mattered a great deal to her once.
Elisabeth opened the heavy book, carefully balancing it on the broad mantelpiece. She turned the leaves, the paper faded with age, the print small but still legible. Near the center were pages upon pages of poetry. Her gaze alighted on one verse among the many.
When I consider thy heavens,
the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which thou hast ordained.
Her eyes widened. ’Twas the same voice she’d heard that evening. Different words, yet surely from the same source, infused with truth and with power. And there was her old friend, the moon. Ordained, the verse said, by thou. Meaning the Nameless One? When Elisabeth reached the last verse, she found her answer.
O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Thy name. She stared at the page, trying to reconcile what she’d always thought to be right with what the Bible said to be true. The One who ordained the moon was not nameless. He was the One to whom Reverend Wishart prayed by name. The Lord, the Almighty.
Elisabeth closed the book with a soft thud, though her confusion was not so easily put aside. Why would the Almighty speak to her when she’d always sought the counsel of another?
Help me. That was all she’d said. So few words.
But Someone had heard. And Someone had answered. Perhaps even now the Almighty was present in her bedchamber. Watching over her. Listening to her.
Unnerved by the thought, she quickly blew out the candles round the room, then slipped beneath the covers, and waited for the night to wrap her in its silent embrace.
Elisabeth rose later than she meant to, lulled back to sleep by the steady rain ushering in a cold, wet November day.
Her mother-in-law’s light tapping at the door had awakened her. “You’ve been hiding from us all morning,” Marjory chided her gently. “Come have tea.”
Elisabeth dressed in haste and joined them at the dowager’s table. Janet and Marjory were both wearing green costumes of different hues. Elisabeth eyed the gold silk edgings on Marjory’s gown, the cream-colored lace on Janet’s. She was content to wear her black gown, but her fingers itched to create something new with her needle. Perhaps that afternoon she would see what might be done with the blue watered silk in her clothes press.
Mrs. Edgar sailed into the chamber with her tea tray. “Ye’ll not go hungry this forenoon.” Cinnamon, ginger, and clove mingled in the air as she served her rich gingerbread brimming with sultanas. If Janet’s appetite was any indication, her morning queasiness was well ended.
Their cake enjoyed and their teacups refilled, the three women settled back in their chairs, quietly taking stock of one another. Marjory put into words precisely what Elisabeth was thinking. “What will this new life of ours be like without Donald and Andrew close at hand?”
“I’ve wondered that as well,” Janet said, staring at the rain-drenched windows facing the square. “I confess I very much like calling upon my friends each day and hope I might continue to do so.” She turned to Marjory, her gaze skipping over Elisabeth as if she weren’t there. “Unless you object, Lady Marjory.”
“While your sister-in-law is in mourning, you may keep up appearances for us,” Marjory told her, “until it becomes improper for you to do so.”
Janet frowned. “Whenever would it be…oh!” Her cheeks turned crimson. “Of course.” She looked down at her lap as if to hide her embarrassment, but the color continued creeping round her face until it reached her hairline.
How odd, Elisabeth thought, to see her sister-in-law so flustered. Janet was not one to shy away from delicate subjects. Quite the opposite.
Gibson paused in the open doorway. “Leddy Kerr?” When Marjory waved him in, he pulled the Caledonian Mercury from his coat, taking care not to drag the Jacobite broadsheet across his wet sleeve before placing it on the table. “Will ye be wanting the Evening Courant this afternoon?”
“I see no need,” Marjory told him, patting the broadsheet. “Mr. Ruddiman’s paper will keep us informed of the prince’s whereabouts. ’Tis all the news we require in this household.”
“I’ve a report from the toun as weel,” Gibson said, a note of pride in his voice. “Mair than five thousand o’ t
he prince’s men have assembled at Dalkeith on foot and five hundred on horse.”
“A respectable number,” Marjory agreed. All three women instinctively turned toward the south-facing windows as though by some miracle they might catch a glimpse of the army five miles away.
No sooner had Gibson quit the room than he reappeared with a visitor. “Mr. MacPherson for Leddy Kerr.”
When Elisabeth looked to the door, Rob MacPherson’s dark eyes were aimed in one direction: hers. She held out her hand in greeting. “Your father said you might call on us. And here you are.”
“Milady.” He seemed to fill the room with his broad frame and thick head of hair.
“Will you join us for tea?” She signaled Mrs. Edgar, who was standing nearby, looking a bit anxious, as she always did when visitors arrived.
“I canna tarry,” he said. “Minding the shop, ye ken.”
“So you are.” Elisabeth did not quite meet his gaze. The awkwardness of their last encounter before the prince’s ball still stretched between them like a spider’s web.
He cleared his throat. “Leddy Kerr, if ye’ll not mind, I’d like a wird with ye. Alone.”
The seriousness of his expression brought her to her feet. More ill news from Braemar, she feared. Or was it from the prince? “This way, Mr. MacPherson.”
Inviting guests into one’s bedchamber was a common practice in the crowded rooms of Edinburgh, but Elisabeth seldom did so. Without a tea table like Marjory’s or a long, silk-covered couch like Janet’s, her room was not arranged for visitors. Instead she had Rob move two of her upholstered armchairs beside one of the long windows overlooking the High Street.
“Now at least we may sit,” she said, “though our prospect has little to recommend it, Mr. MacPherson. Naught but gray sky and gray rain.”
His eyes narrowed. “Will ye still not call me Rob? We’ve kenned each ither for nigh unto twenty years.”
“Another Jacobite reminding me of my age,” she scolded him lightly, thinking of Simon. Four-and-twenty. Like blackbirds in a pie. “I mean only to show you the utmost respect, Mr. MacPherson.”
Rob frowned but did not argue. When he lowered himself onto one of her upholstered chairs, he eased his impaired foot aside without comment.
Elisabeth knew that John Elder, the shoemaker from Marlin’s Wynd, had fashioned a special shoe to hide Rob’s club foot and improve his gait. But she would never draw attention to it. Instead, she met his gaze and smiled. “Tell me what brings you to Milne Square.”
“Ye do, Bess.” He leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees, his dark gaze sincere. “’Tis certain I’ve niver found a warm walcome from onie ither in this hoose.”
“Surely the dowager—”
“She tolerates me, aye, but she doesna think me worthy of yer acquaintance.”
Elisabeth opened her mouth to differ and then remembered the Sabbath morn in Milne Square when the dowager made her feel very small indeed. “I must apologize for my mother-in-law,” she finally said, keeping her voice low. “She is not intentionally unkind. ’Tis just her way to be…” Haughty? Condescending?
“Rude,” he finished for her.
“Oh now, Mr.—”
“Nae. We both ken ’tis true. The leddy has guid manners, but she doesna aye bear them about.”
Elisabeth knew the proverb well and could not argue. The dowager’s behavior was proper but not always kind. Hoping to put an end to the matter, Elisabeth reminded him, “You’ve still not told me why you’ve come.”
Rob reached inside his brown wool coat. “I’ve brought something for ye.”
As he withdrew his hand, Elisabeth wondered at the cost of a silver thimble large enough to fit on his sizable thumb. “Your father boasted that none in Edinburgh had a finer hand with a needle than you.”
Rob shook his head. “My faither is an auld man with a soft heart and puir eyesight.” He held out what he’d drawn from his coat. “Yer husband bid me deliver this, Bess. Said I was to hand it to nae one but yerself.”
Forty-Four
In a man’s letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
E lisabeth took the letter, still warm from Rob’s waistcoat. “When did my husband give you this?”
“Yestermorn at the inn.” His gaze was even, revealing nothing. “Lord Kerr said ye were not to read it ’til he was gone.”
She studied the neatly folded paper sealed with a dollop of candle wax and a thumbprint. What might Donald put in writing that he could not tell her in person?
“I dinna ken what his lordship has written, but I pray ’tis the truth.” Rob abruptly stood and held her gaze until he turned to go. “Guid day to ye, Bess.”
He quit the room before she could answer him, leaving by way of Janet’s empty bedchamber, then the drawing room, as if he meant to avoid the others. The stair door opened and closed a moment later, and he was gone.
The truth. Elisabeth examined the outside of the letter, which bore no name or address. Odd. Even privately delivered letters, which did not travel through the Post Office, were usually addressed in the event they were lost en route.
She edged closer to the window and its meager gray light, then broke the seal and unfolded the single paper, her apprehension growing. Not only was her name not on the outside; it was not on the inside either, though the letter was clearly from Donald. She recognized his hand at once.
Thursday morning, 31 October 1745
Lord willing, we will see each other this evening in the palace forecourt before I depart. Whatever you can or cannot manage to say or do, I am determined to give you a complete accounting—for my sake as a means of confession, but most of all for your sake.
When she saw what followed, Elisabeth sank deeper into her chair. Why, Donald? Why must you tell me this? In his bold, almost careless handwriting he’d scrawled the names of all his conquests. Many women. Stunned, Elisabeth whispered their names aloud.
Susan McGill of Warriston’s Close
Maggie Hunter of Brown’s Land
Barbara Inglis of Libberton’s Wynd
May Robertson of Dickson’s Close
Jane Montgomerie of Geddes Close
Betty Jameson of Boswell’s Court
Lucy Spence of Halkerston’s Wynd
A blur of faces rose before her. Fair hair, brown hair, red hair, black hair. Some younger, most older than she. They were not among the gentry. She did not know them well. Yet she had stood beside them at the Luckenbooths, eying the gold jewelry at Mr. Low’s. Sat across from them at the Tron Kirk on a Sabbath Day. Reached for the same ribbon at Mrs. Auchenleck’s millinery.
Nae! How could she see these women in the High Street without weeping, without crying out, without calling them what they were? Hizzies. Limmers. Howres.
Her stomach in knots, she stared down at the letter, desperate for an end to the pain. But Donald had not finished unburdening his conscience.
I am sorry to report there were also a handful of maidservants about the city, whose names I do not recall. And Anna Hart, as you no doubt surmised.
I have a weakness…
More than a weakness. A sickness.
Tears stung her eyes. Not because of the scandalous number, but because of the appalling manner in which Donald Kerr used women and cast them aside. Her hands gripped the letter so tightly her nails dented the paper. You are not the man I married. You are not the man I loved. My Donald was caring and thoughtful and true…
Nae. She was deluding herself still. Her husband was none of those things. With her eyes swimming, she could barely make out the rest.
I would never burden you with this if I did not believe, with all my heart, you would rather know the worst and be done with it.
Did he think this knowledge would somehow put her mind at rest? That knowing the truth would make it easier to bear? Oh, Donald. I do not know which of us is the greater fool.
There are no others. In the months to come, if you hear my
name whispered about, you will know what is true and what is false.
You are the false one, Lord Kerr. Angry with herself, angrier with him, Elisabeth yanked the handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it to her wet cheek. False to me, false to your family.
Please destroy this and do not bind these names to your heart. I have promised to change, and so I shall.
She huffed at his letter as if Donald himself were standing before her. How could he change his ways while riding through English villages full of maidservants who might gladly welcome a handsome Scotsman into their beds? Elisabeth wanted to believe him—what faithful wife would not?—but she had no evidence of change and far too much proof of wrongdoing.
She read the last paragraph, the letters growing smaller as he neared the bottom of the paper.
If you forgave me before I left, now you know the full extent of your mercy. If you have not forgiven me, then we are of the same mind, for I cannot forgive myself.
There was no signature. Any man might have written it. Had the letter fallen into the wrong hands, only the women listed would be at risk of public scandal. Donald, how could you be so heartless? She squeezed her damp handkerchief until her fingers hurt. And how could I have been so blind? Hadn’t she ignored the evidence? Dismissed the gossips? Pretended his flirting meant nothing instead of facing the truth unfolding before her eyes? Aye, a hundred times, aye.
You are forgiven.
She’d said the words last night, drawing upon a power not her own, knowing only that Donald had been unfaithful yet ignorant of all the shocking details. But she could not unsay what had been said nor undo what had been done. And what of his conquests, this litany of women? Was she expected to forgive them as well?
Elisabeth leaned back against the upholstery, letting her anger and disappointment and heartache wash over her, too exhausted to wrestle with her feelings any longer. As if from miles away, sounds floated through the house. Marjory and Janet chatting softly in the next room. Mrs. Edgar preparing dinner in the kitchen. Gibson setting their places at the drawing room table.
Unbidden, one of the names from Donald’s letter pricked her memory like a needle. Lucy Spence of Halkerston’s Wynd. Elisabeth sat up, her mind clearing. Hadn’t she met Lucy on Wednesday eve in Milne Square? The young widow without the beggar’s badge, who’d held out her hand for a coin.
Here Burns My Candle Page 25
