Serpents in the Garden (The Graham Saga)

by Anna Belfrage

  Jacob made a face. Preparing for an illustrious visitor meant he, Jacob, had to scurry over the exhibition beds and ensure it all looked perfect, while Ned chased the gardening lads to shear the grass of the paths as short as they could get it. Then they were expected to melt into the background as Master Castain in his best velvet coat expounded on the various plants to a patron at best capable of recognising lemon balm, at worst only there because he had to be.

  It was evening by the time Jacob remembered he had a letter to read, and eagerly he opened it to find it contained but a short note for him, and a sealed letter to be delivered to Uncle Luke. For all that he was now a man rather than a lad, Jacob was beside himself with curiosity. His mama write to Uncle Luke? He read his own letter twice only to find it contained very little news – except for the fact that the new field hand, John Mason (who, his mother informed him in fact was a mason, from a long line of masons down on the south coast somewhere, and wasn’t that interesting? No, Jacob thought impatiently) was giving Agnes the eye, and about time it was that this nice young woman found herself a man, no matter that she had the intellect of a confused hen.

  It wasn’t until the next day that Jacob had the opportunity of delivering the letter to Luke.

  “What does she say?” Jacob asked, forcing himself to remain seated when what he wanted to do was rush over and snatch the letter from Luke’s hand.

  “I imagine that should she have wanted you to know, she would have told you,” Luke replied in a teasing tone, but a deep crease between his brows indicated he was concerned by what he had just read.

  *

  Luke folded the letter and stood up, wandering over to stare out at the June twilight. How could Alex know anything at all about a painting he kept hidden from public view? He read the short paragraph again. Destroy it, he read, and never look for too long or too deep into its swirling midst. Why not? Luke was most intrigued. Please do not let my son look too close, nor any of your own children unless you wish to see them disappear before your eyes. Luke felt a ripple of disquiet move up his spine. Black magic… Margaret’s mother… And once again, how did his sister-in-law come to know?

  “Uncle Luke?” Jacob’s face was very close to his own.

  “I think we need to do some experimenting, dear nephew. Wait here.”

  Luke returned a half hour or so later, with the kitchen lad in tow. At their entrance, Jacob rose from the window bench.

  “Now,” Luke said to the kitchen lad. “When I tell you to, I want you to look very closely at the painting.”

  The laddie blinked. Two large brandies had him somewhat unsteady on his feet, and, in his hand, he clutched the golden guinea Luke had given him. Jacob stood a few feet away, looking green around the gills.

  Luke frowned. “Ready? Keep your eye on the lad, and if anything happens to him, grab him.”

  “And if something happens to me?” Jacob asked.

  “I’m right here.” Luke cocked his head at his nephew. Jacob was not only pale, he was sweating profusely, eyes firmly averted from the wee painting.

  “Right then, lad, look and look deep,” Luke said.

  The kitchen boy stepped up close to the table, staring down at the painting. At first, nothing happened, and Luke was on the point of discontinuing this disappointing little exercise when the painting began to sing, a hushed humming that made Luke sway where he stood. From a white point at its centre, bright light gushed forth, and the kitchen lad uttered a muted ‘oh’, extending first one, then the other hand towards the dazzling light.

  Dear God! Luke’s stomach heaved violently. The lad’s arms were gone, and now his head, his torso were fading as well. The laddie screamed and tried to back away, but it would seem the painting had him in a vice, dragging the hapless bairn into invisibility. Jacob grabbed hold of the lad’s breeches and pulled.

  “Help me!”

  Luke rushed forward to take hold of a foot. Together, they threw themselves backwards and the lad shrieked like a gutted pig. For a sickening moment, Luke feared they’d not be able to hold him, so strong was the force that was attempting to swallow him.

  One concerted heave, and the lad landed on the floor, his eyes squished closed.

  “God in heaven…” Jacob was shaking all over, staring from the picture to the lad who was now curled together, holding his head between his hands.

  “Most fortuitous that you grabbed him when you did.” Luke attempted to sound calm.

  “Aye, there was very little left of him.” Jacob sank down to sit against the wall. “Please…” he said, indicating the painting. “Please cover it.”

  Luke did, and Jacob slumped, breathing heavily.

  The lad struggled to sit. “Me head,” he groaned, “it hurts fair to kill me.” His face, his neck, what was visible of his hands and arms – all of him was covered in large, black bruises.

  “More brandy.” Luke rang for one of the footmen and instructed him to ply the lad with brandy until he fell asleep.

  “He…” Jacob coughed. “Did you see? He…Oh Lord, what is this?”

  “I’m not sure.” Luke wrapped the painting in an old shawl and returned it to its drawer. The canvas hummed with life, and Luke slammed the drawer closed. This was witchcraft: black, dangerous magic. He made a note to himself to ensure the lad was kept well and truly drunk for a couple of days before being sent off to the Oxford house.

  “Burn it!” Jacob whispered. “You can’t keep something like that!”

  “I won’t, of course I won’t. Dear Lord, what if one of my children were to come upon it?”

  Jacob nodded, reclining against the wall with his eyes closed. “How could Mama know?”

  “That, I fear, is something you must ask your mother.”

  “Aye, I suppose it is,” Jacob said.

  They never spoke of it again.

  *

  The day Jacob did his final examinations, Luke presented him with a new set of clothes. In sober, well-cut broadcloth, new silk stockings, new shirt and a cravat to match, Jacob felt most conspicuous. In particular, it was the shoes with their two-inch heels and impressive rosettes that had him moving with exaggerated caution, very aware that he overtopped every single man around him – including his uncle.

  Afterwards, as a newly confirmed apothecary, Jacob invited Master Castain to supper, and, by the time they returned home, the short summer night was nearly over, the sky a delicate shade of pink. They stood for a long time by the river, watching the anchored ships.

  “I’ll miss you,” Master Castain said.

  “And I you,” Jacob replied.

  “If…” Master Castain coughed a couple of times, found a handkerchief to wipe himself fastidiously around the nose and mouth, and cleared his throat. “If you ever need it, there’s a place for you here, with us.” His only child was not yet twelve, he added, but with time she would inherit a profitable business.

  Jacob laughed. “Wed little Isabelle? I think not, master. She scares me as it is.”

  Master Castain joined in his laughter. Isabelle was a headstrong child, he admitted with quite some pride.

  “I must go home,” Jacob continued, watching as one of the ships on the river unfurled its sails.

  “And it helps, of course, to return an educated man,” Master Castain said with a hint of bitterness.

  Jacob clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll plant a herbal garden of my own one day, and I’ll name it after you.”

  “Me?” Master Castain flushed with pleasure.

  *

  Jacob wasn’t quite sure what to say, but Helen looked at him with such open pleading in her eyes that he finally gave a small nod.

  “Not much of a godfather,” he said. “It’s not as if I’ll be able to contribute to her upkeep or such.”

  “Keep her we can do ourselves.” Helen smiled at the babe in her arms. “Here.” She handed him the child.

  Jacob had held weans most of his life, and automatically he adjusted his hold so that the head
was supported by his arm. A pretty enough child, he supposed, with fair, long lashes and a generous mouth. “What will you name her?”

  “Rachel.” Helen met his surprised look calmly. “For her father’s sister.”

  “Oh.” Had he ever told her of his dead sister? He suspected he had. Still, Rachel was a common enough name, wasn’t it? A mere coincidence, no more. He stared down at the sleeping wean, quelling an urge to undo the laced cap and see if she had any hair.

  “I’ll never forget you, Jacob Graham.” Helen smiled, reclaiming her daughter.

  “I don’t think I’ll forget you either.”

  She laughed and ducked her head. “No,” she said in a sultry voice. “I don’t think you will.”

  As he stood to leave, she took hold of his coat lapel, and stood on her toes to give him a kiss. “Thank you,” she said, “for everything.”

  *

  Luke insisted on accompanying Jacob down to the docks, standing to the side as the man Jacob told him was the captain greeted Jacob with a hug.

  “You’ve grown,” the captain said, craning back to meet Jacob’s eyes.

  “Nay, I haven’t.” Jacob grinned. “You’ve shrunk.” He beckoned for Luke to join them, so he did, noting how the captain’s face tightened as he approached.

  Luke frowned. As far as he knew, he had never laid eyes on this man before, but from the way the captain was staring at him, it would seem the captain had the advantage of knowing exactly who he was.

  “This is Captain Miles,” Jacob introduced, “long since a friend of the family.”

  “Aye,” Captain Miles said, “ever since I had the pleasure of helping Mrs Graham on her voyage to find and reclaim her abducted husband.”

  “Ah.” Luke didn’t extend his hand, but kept them as clasped behind his back as the captain kept his own.

  “Terrible,” Captain Miles went on. “An innocent man be carried off as an indentured servant.”

  “Hmm,” Luke mumbled. It was Margaret’s fault that particular scheme to permanently rid this world of brother Matthew had failed. It had taken years for him to forgive Margaret for helping Alex finance her rescue mission. Even now, twenty years later and with a nephew before him he would never have known had it not been for the success of that expedition, a nasty coil of resentment shifted inside of him. It was best if they never met again, his brother and him, he reflected. Too much anger, far too much. And yet…Luke looked at his nephew and hoped that Matthew would understand that what he had done for Jacob, he had really done for him – his lost brother.

  “I already know all that,” Jacob said, bringing Luke tumbling back to the present.

  “You do?” Luke said.

  Jacob hitched his shoulders. “They don’t talk about it, not much, but enough that we all know how our dastardly uncle had Da clobbered over his head and carried off to slavery.”

  Luke squirmed, making Captain Miles grin.

  “And still you wanted to meet me?” Luke asked, ruefully recognising that he wanted this young man to like him, even love him.

  Jacob regarded him out of eyes that were uncomfortably like Matthew’s. “As I said, it wouldn’t be polite not to.” With that, he swept Luke into a long embrace, and Luke wrapped his arms around him and held him hard, so very hard.

  Chapter 40

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Ian, what do you expect?” Alex glared at him. “Seriously, you’re the worst patient I’ve ever had.”

  “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Mrs Parson said, shoving Alex out of the way to inspect the healing wound.

  Ian had been unconscious when they brought him in, and that was, in retrospect, a blessing. It had taken hours to clean out his gaping side wound, and then they’d had to open it again a few days later, pus spurting out of an abscess the size of an egg. But now the wound had closed, with Ian complaining more about the itch than the pain.

  Mrs Parson prodded at the pink scar tissue and straightened up. “You stay in bed, at least the week out.”

  Ian groaned, but subsided against his pillows.

  “I don’t think I’d want to live if I can’t move,” Ian confided to Matthew one evening. He shifted his legs, a spasm of relief flying across his face at the verification that they seemed to be working.

  “Mmm,” Matthew replied, moving his stool so that he sat very close to Ian. At Alex’s insistence, Ian was in the big house. At Ian’s insistence, he was in the parlour so that he could see his family going by.

  Ian craned his neck to look at the overcast sky. “Raining?” he asked.

  “Not yet, but it will – soon enough.” Not too much, Matthew hoped, not this close to harvest. He studied his son for a while, and took a big breath. Alex insisted he had to be told, now. “You’ll find it difficult to move at first.” Constant pain, Mrs Parson had predicted after seeing Ian’s lacerated back. Strong experienced fingers had dug their way along his spinal knobs, the crease between her brows growing deeper and deeper the closer to the pelvic area she got.

  “I imagine so,” Ian said. “After four weeks flat on my back, I don’t think my legs will easily recall how to walk.”

  “It may be that you’ll never walk as you once did.” Matthew’s heart shrank to the size of a walnut at the expression on Ian’s face.

  “How do you mean?”

  Matthew clasped Ian’s hand. “The damage to the back is severe, Ian.”

  His son closed his eyes and turned his face away.

  *

  “He says he’ll never walk again,” Betty said to Alex. “That’s not what you told me.”

  Alex sighed from the other side of the raspberry canes. “Honestly, I don’t know. None of us knows. I think he’ll walk. After all, he can move his legs and feet, but I also think he’ll find it painful at times.” As far as they could ascertain, two of his vertebrae had been damaged, and Alex suspected such injuries never fully healed – at least not on their own.

  “No full days on the fields,” Betty said.

  “No, probably not.” Alex switched baskets, filling the next one with blurring speed. “Swimming might be a good start.”

  “Swimming?” Betty poked her head through the canes. “Why would that be useful?”

  “Because you float, and there’s no weight to press down on the spine as you move.” She gave her daughter-in-law a thoughtful look. “Let’s try, this afternoon.”

  Minister Allerton said he thought swimming was an excellent idea. When Betty had received news of Ian’s injury, the minister had offered to accompany her and Ruth home. Once at Graham’s Garden, he had been invited to stay and done so, an interested and supportive observer of everything Alex and Mrs Parson did. He bombarded them with questions, clearly very impressed by how clean everything was kept – knife blades held in fire and dropped into boiling water, bandages boiled and dried before they were used. Even if Alex was at times tempted to stuff his mouth, mostly she enjoyed his company and unfailing optimism.

  “I can help carry him.” He was still in his prime, the minister told her, not yet thirty-five. He flexed his arms and straightened up to his middling height.

  “I think he’ll prefer to walk,” Alex said.

  “Walk?” Mrs Parson said. “That’s a fair bit, Alex.”

  “I don’t propose that he walk all the way down there today, but he must make a start.”

  “There are moments when I’m right grateful you’re not my real mother, and this is one of them,” Ian hissed through gritted teeth. He was covered in sweat, his legs trembling after having crossed the yard on his own two feet, with Betty propping up one side and Alex the other.

  “Bullshit.” Alex grinned, helping him to sit on the stool that David was carrying for them. Bad idea: he whitened with pain. “Lie down instead.” She spread her shawl for him in the grass. “On your front.” She pulled his shirt out of his breeches before tugging them down to bare his buttocks.

  “Mama!”

  Alex ignored him and beckoned Betty over.
/>
  “Oil,” she said. “That, and warm hands.”

  She showed Betty how to massage the rigid small muscles along his spine, how to work her way down to the gluteus. Under their hands, Ian at first relaxed; then began to fidget in a way that made Alex smile.

  “Everything else on him is in working order,” she said to Betty before getting off her knees. She winked and motioned for David to come with her and leave them alone. “Call me when you need us, okay?”

  “Witch,” Ian murmured from where he had his head pillowed on his arms. “She planned this, didn’t she?”

  Betty looked about and had to laugh. Alex definitely had, ensuring Ian had made it all the way to her primitive bower, a mass of mock oranges and rose brambles left to grow as wild as they wished, but very secluded. Betty kept her hands on Ian’s sun-warmed back, moving them in a way that made Ian groan. Clumsily, he rolled over to look at her.

  “Everything else is in working order,” he mimicked with a smile. “I don’t want to know how she knows that.”

  “But it is.” Betty closed her hand round his cock.

  “Aye,” he said, and his eyes widened at what she was doing to him.

  “Betty,” he moaned, and his fingers twisted into her hair.

  *

  “See?” Alex said, watching Ian bob up and down by the river shore. “Just what he needs.”

  Matthew snorted from where he stood beside her. “There are other things he needs more.”

  “And he has had them as well.”

  Ian had looked blissfully content when Betty had called for them, had even allowed Matthew and the minister to carry him down to the river for his bath and swim.

  “He is nice,” Alex said, nodding in the direction of the minister, who stood close to the water’s edge shouting encouragements to Ian.

  “You shouldn’t sound so surprised,” Matthew chided. “Are you implying most ministers are not?”

  “Prigs, most of them, inflated, bigoted, and surprisingly ignorant.”

  “Alex!”

  “Richard Campbell, need I say more?”

  “Hmm,” Matthew replied, his cheeks shading into an uncharacteristic pink. Well, they should – after all he’d sided with that obnoxious minister against her.