The Prodigal Son

by Belfrage, Anna

  “What’s the matter?” Joan came into the kitchen, with Lucy snug in a shawl at her chest.

  “Mark.” Alex explained and ended by throwing yet another worried look out the window. “I’ll have to go and look for him. Will you keep an eye on Miss Scatterbrain and Jacob for me?”

  Joan nodded that of course she would.

  “He won’t be far, he’s just a laddie.”

  Nowhere! Not in the stable, not in the barn. Not up around Margaret’s cottage, nor in his hideout under the blackberry brambles that only he and Alex knew about. Alex was hoarse from calling his name, and in the falling dusk her lantern spread a pathetic beam of light.

  She knocked on the miller’s door and Andrew opened but said that no, wee Mark hadn’t been up here, but maybe he was in the… he jerked his head in the direction of the isolated shed that Matthew had used to harbour Sandy during the summer.

  Andrew walked her over: a large, handsome boy with an engaging grin and the IQ of a hamster. But no Mark there either, and Alex had to work hard to stop herself from crying, smiling a quick thanks at Andrew before hurrying off to… She stopped mid step. Surely Mark wouldn’t have done something that dangerous? She eyed the swollen river with misgiving. After a month of heavy rains the millpond was overflowing into a churning millrace, spilling back with a froth of angry water into the normally placid little river.

  She fell as she made her way down the river bank, sitting down hard on her rump.

  “Shit,” she muttered, looking at the water with dismay. Not deep, not for her, but Mark was not quite six. She took off shoes and stockings, bunched her skirts up as high as they would go and with lantern in one hand and skirts in the other waded through the cold waters towards the gnarled oak.

  “Mark?” Her throat hurt with the effort. “Mark? Are you there?” There was a rustling motion over her head. “Mark? Come down son.” He did, appearing by her side so suddenly that she gasped.

  He was wet to well above his waist, and when Alex threw her arms around him he began to cry. She sat down and held him as close to her as she could, rubbing her hands up and down his sodden clothes.

  “We have to get you out of this,” she said and stood him up, stripping off breeches and stockings. She took off her shawl and wrapped it around him, took him back into her lap and rubbed him some more.

  “What happened?” she asked once Mark had calmed down. He buried his face against her and refused to answer.

  “Mark, tell me. Did Ian hurt you?”

  Mark began crying again, and Alex shushed and patted him, telling him things would be alright, she was here, wasn’t she, and no one would hurt her boy as long as she was around. Mark relaxed, his small body heavy in her hold, and she sat rocking him back and forth.

  “He said he’s Da’s son,” Mark said, and for an instant Alex was sure her heart stopped.

  “Really?” She even managed to inject her voice with mild incredulity.

  “He said Hillview should be his – his father told him so, that it should be Ian’s.” Mark took a deep breath. “Is it true? Is he Da’s son?” He looked at her from under a curtain of tousled hair.

  Alex hugged him close. “Listen to me, Mark Graham. Your father has two boys; Mark and Jacob. That’s it. Ian must have misunderstood.”

  “But he said…” Mark sounded hesitant.

  “What?” Alex said.

  Mark looked away. “He said Da said so as well,” he whispered.

  Somehow Alex managed to laugh. “He did?” She laughed again, shaking her head. “Well, I’m not sure what Ian might have heard, but he got it all wrong.” Alex rose and extended her hand to Mark. “Now, we have to get home and I hope you can find your way back in the dark, because I’m not sure I can.”

  Mark puffed up; of course he could. Alex stifled a small smile and let him lead her in the direction she had come.

  They met Simon and Matthew halfway back, and Matthew rushed towards them.

  “You should be spanked,” Matthew said, hugging his son. “You’ve had your poor mama out looking for you for hours.” He handed Mark to Simon. “Now you go with Uncle Simon, and it’s supper and bed directly, aye?”

  Mark nodded and burrowed his face into Simon’s neck .

  “Are you alright?” Matthew peered at Alex. She leaned against him, exhausted. She wanted to be carried as well, fed and tucked into bed.

  “Tired, and wet, and very hungry, and pissed off at Ian.” And at you, she added silently, for words you slung at your brother in anger two years ago that now come back to bite us.

  “Why is that?” Matthew said. “Did he harm our Mark?”

  Alex gave him a short summary, feeling how he stopped breathing, holding his breath for a long time before expelling it.

  “Dear Lord,” he groaned. “Poor lad.”

  Alex wasn’t certain if he meant Ian or Mark.

  “You’re going to have to talk to him.”

  “Aye,” Matthew said, “it would seem I must.”

  Ian didn’t even attempt to hide when Matthew entered the stables.

  “Come here,” Matthew said, and at his tone Ian moved towards him. He looked at the lad, cataloguing the evident similarities, from the hair through the eyes and skin tone to the way the chins were cleft and how both of them had a slow, wide smile. Except that neither of them was smiling now.

  Ian’s eyes were puffy with crying and Matthew’s heart went out to him – no doubt the lad had been imagining all sorts of terrible things befalling wee Mark. With a strangled sound Ian plunked down in a heap of straw, stretching out his legs in front of him.

  “Am I? Your son?” Ian wiped two thick lines of snot from under his nose. Matthew sighed and sat down beside him.

  “Nay, you’re Luke’s son. That’s what your mother says, and she should know.” He could see the lad struggle with this and cleared his throat. “You were conceived in wedlock – while your mother was wed to me.”

  Ian’s eyes widened, and Matthew twisted inside.

  “To you?” Ian whispered.

  Matthew nodded.

  “But…” The lad swallowed. “Was she… with both of you?”

  “Aye, she was. With both of us.” Matthew felt terrible saying this, painting Margaret as some sort of whore.

  Ian’s mouth fell open. “But then you don’t know, none of you know!” He scrambled up and away.

  “Ian!” Matthew had him by the shoulders and pulled him close, ignoring the flailing arms, the loud hiccupping sobs.

  “Who am I?” Ian moaned, hiding his face against Matthew’s shirt. “If none of you know, then who am I?”

  “You’re Luke’s son, ” Matthew repeated, ignoring how much it hurt him to say it. He cradled Ian’s face between his hands and forced the lad to look at him. “It may be that we don’t know for sure whether it was my seed or Luke’s that planted you, but that doesn’t matter, not anymore. You have a father who loves you, a mother who adores you and an uncle who loves you as well.” The look in Ian’s eyes made Matthew want to close his own, but he kept them open, meeting that green gaze as well as he could. “It’s the caring that counts, lad, not the planting. The farmer who seeds the ground and leaves someone else to care for the growing crop can’t come back and claim the harvest, it belongs to the man who tended it, no?”

  Ian nodded uncertainly.

  “But sometimes,” Matthew went on, “sometimes the farmer who did the planting wants to claim the harvest – especially if the crop has been well cared for.” He gave Ian a swift hug and smiled shakily. “You’re a right bonny lad; a lad to be proud of, to love and to care for. And I would have dearly wished that you were mine, but you’re not. You’re Luke’s. But you’re my nephew, my kin. And I love you very much.”

  For a long time Ian neither moved nor spoke, standing very close to Matthew. At last the lad coughed and wiped his eyes.

  “I love you too,” he said, and darted off into the night.

  Matthew sank down to sit on the floor. He hope
d he’d said the right things to the lad, but it had cut him to the quick to renounce any claims to fatherhood, giving the boy permanently to Luke. “You should have been mine,” he said out loud, “you were meant to be mine.”

  It struck him that the only man who could possibly understand what this conversation had cost him was his brother, and for the first time in years he wished for an opportunity to sit and talk to Luke. He dismissed the notion as quickly as it had surged; Luke would sit and talk to him the day he had first nailed Matthew to his chair with a sword or two, and that was not something Matthew intended to allow to happen.

  He was staring at nothing when he heard the tip tapping of clogs and lifted his head to see Alex smiling down at him.

  “I don’t know what you told Ian,” she said, sitting down beside him. “But whatever it was you’ve made him very happy. He’s asleep now, one arm thrown over his cousin.”

  “I told him he was Luke’s son.”

  “Well, that explains it, what boy in his right mind would prefer you over that paragon of virtues?”

  Matthew chuckled, toying with a strand of her hair. “I told him I love him, but that he’s not mine, however much I wished he was.” He closed his eyes, resting back against the wall. “I have a fine nephew and it will have to do instead.”

  “You have two sons as well, and soon perhaps even three. ”

  “Not perhaps,” he said, placing a hand on her belly. “This wee one is a lad.” He stood up. “I’m a fortunate man. Three healthy bairns, a strapping nephew and another wean on its way.” He helped her up and draped an arm over her shoulder. “And then I have a most marvellous wife. Very opinionated, mind.”

  “Says who? The likewise opinionated Sandy Peden?”

  Matthew felt his cheeks heat at the insinuation that he had been discussing his wife with his friend and minister, but nodded.

  Alex made a dismissive sound. “He’s scared of women, probably had a domineering mother or something.”

  Matthew coughed. Mrs Peden might have been a lot of things, but domineering was not the first word that sprang to mind.

  “Mrs Peden was a meek and demure woman, like you are not.” He slid his hand down to grip her buttocks. “They say regular spanking helps.”

  “Spanking?” Alex lifted her eyes to him. “You try and I’ll knee you where it really, really hurts. Besides, you’d never be able to hold me down.”

  Matthew laughed and raised his brows. “You’d best not tempt me. I’ve told you before, that should I want to, I can always make you obey.”

  “In your dreams, mister,” she huffed. “Pervert, you probably get a hard on just thinking of me fighting back.” A deft touch of her hand made her burst out laughing and she rushed off, only to be brought up short.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” Matthew murmured, taking her hand and guiding it to his crotch. “You’ve woken the beast.”

  “Beast?” she spluttered, cupping what she could reach through the cloth. “Not much of a threat, is it?”

  “Aye, the beast. So now you must make haste up to bed and take care of it.”

  “No way, I’m starving. Your little beast thing will just have to wait.”

  He shook his head. “Priorities, wife,” he said. “You need to be taught a bit about them.”

  “I’m warning you; I’m very, very hungry, so don’t blame me if I bite something off by mistake.”

  Chapter 9

  November rolled into December, and weeks of fog and rain shifted to days that were crisp and dry, cold enough to make noses begin to run after just a few minutes out. The day it snowed for the first time the children capered about with their tongues extended to catch the drifting snowflakes, whilst Joan and Alex stood and watched from the kitchen door. Lucy at two months was an alert baby girl, her eyes widening when Alex scooped up some snow and placed it in her little hand. The small fingers clenched and a miniature snowball appeared.

  “Strong,” Alex commented. Lucy was a healthy, blooming girl. Unfortunately, Joan seemed incapable of seeing this, stuck on the fact that her daughter was deaf, and therefore, as she now confided with a sigh, probably simple – all deaf people were.

  “No they’re not, but it’s difficult to cope without one of your senses, and that makes other people think they’re stupid.” Alex lifted Lucy out of Joan’s arms and hoisted her into the air, making the baby squeal. “She’s perfect. We’ll just have to help her overcome her deafness.”

  The one very good thing with winter was how things slowed. Days started later and ended much sooner when the dark closed down upon them. Alex enjoyed these long, candlelit evenings spent with the children and Joan, but mostly with just Matthew in the privacy of their bedroom. Dominated by the four poster bed, it was a rather bare room – uncluttered and airy despite its size – containing a large mule chest, a stool, a table and two pewter candlesticks. The chamber pot was tucked away in a corner, there was always a pitcher of clean water and as Alex hated sleeping behind dusty bed hangings, she’d thrown them out. Sometimes they played draughts, on other occasions Alex would amuse Matthew by singing her way through one rock song after the other. At times he’d join in, singing along in his dark voice, and sometimes Alex even got him on his feet to do some dance moves, which generally resulted in her laughing her head off and him chasing her around the bed.

  If Alex liked the long, dark evenings, Matthew enjoyed the late dawns. A slow, leisurely awakening, moments of undemanding proximity in the warm cocoon of quilts he shared with his wife. He moved closer, his morning erection prodding at her arse. Alex rolled towards him with a yawn and stretched. The worn linen of her shift had torn during the night and at her movement one round breast fell into full view, making him laugh.

  “What?” She peered at her chest. “Oh that; I guess it’s time to tear this into clouts.”

  “You look…” he began.

  “Sexy?” she suggested with a smile.

  Nay, not ‘sexy’, not with her sleep encrusted eyes and the imprint of her pillowcase on her rosy cheek. He tweaked her messy braid and kissed her nose. “You look like a rumpled angel,” he said, “innocent and…” Young – aye, like a wee lassie woken from sleep to soon.

  “Innocent?” Alex laughed. “Is that good or bad?”

  Matthew tugged at her hair, releasing one long curl after the other to decorate their pillows. She stroked his head and traced the outline of his mouth. With a satisfied rumble he pillowed his head on her shoulder, her arms coming up to hold him close. No words, just a melting together, a physical nearness that filled him with such deep peace that he would gladly have remained like that for a whole day.

  The scream had them breaking apart. With a bang their door opened and Mark tumbled inside. Matthew covered his half-naked wife with a quilt and turned to frown at his son, irritated at having this pleasurable moment so rudely interrupted.

  “What?” He had already verified that Mark was not in any way harmed.

  “Rachel, it’s Rachel. She’s put leeches all over Ian’s… err… legs.”

  “She has what?” Alex sat up, holding the sheet to her chest. “Where did she get leeches?” She narrowed her eyes at Mark.

  “I only wanted to show them to her – I told her to be careful with them.”

  “Careful,” Alex said, “that’s a word that doesn’t exist in Rachel’s vocabulary, and you know that, Mark Graham.”

  Matthew resigned himself to having to get out of bed and sort this situation, because something told him Rachel had planted the leeches somewhat higher up than on poor Ian’s legs, and from the nursery a string of desperate little yelps continued to be heard. Alex swung her legs out of bed to go with him, but Matthew shook his head.

  “Nay. You stay.” He pushed her back down, kissed her and gave her a stern look. “Don’t move, Mrs Graham.”

  “Aye, aye , sir.” With a happy sound Alex burrowed deeper into their bed.

  “All over his arse and privates,” Matthew sighed later. “A few
of them were dead when I got there.” Alex shrugged; she wasn’t a huge fan of leeches, she told him, the only reason she kept some was because they helped to reduce swelling around injuries.

  “And how is he?”

  “Complaining he has been severely weakened, but I promised you’d make pancakes for breakfast.”

  “Oh, you did?” She stretched and yawned. “Well, lucky you; I think we still have the eggs for it. And Rachel?”

  He gave her a quick look. “Ten, one for each wee beastie. Hard enough to smart, no more.” He was restrictive with corporal punishments, but when he considered them necessary he administered them without asking her opinion – a source of some contention. As he’d expected, she looked displeased. “I know you don’t like it, but sometimes a sore arse is the best way to rub in a lesson.”

  “You think?”

  “Aye.” Besides, it was his duty as a father to discipline his children, but he didn’t say that, knowing it would launch them into an acrimonious debate. Instead he stood up and pulled the covers off her, grinning at her protesting noise. “Get up. You have a household to fry pancakes for.”

  “Hey, how about someone making me breakfast for a change? Preferably served on a tray in bed.”

  “Someday,” he promised, “but not today.”

  The peace of the morning was interrupted by the jangling of harnesses, and Matthew’s jaws clenched when the troop of dragoons rode into his yard.

  “The third time in a week, and today is Sunday.”

  “They probably want to make sure you’re not holding a conventicle,” Alex said.

  Matthew said something foul under his breath and went out to meet them, followed by Alex and Joan.

  “They’ve got Williams with them,” Joan said. A battered and bruised Davy Williams was sitting his horse unsteadily, his hands tied to the saddle. Behind him sat a man Matthew had never seen before, but from his dark garb and worn demeanour he concluded this must be yet another fugitive minister.

  “Please,” Alex murmured, putting a hand on Matthew’s tense back. “Please…”

  He nodded to indicate he had heard, and when she slipped her hand into his, he splayed his fingers to braid their hands together. More for his sake than for hers, because unless she anchored him and held him back, he feared the anger in him would leak out and then there was no knowing what he would do.