Here Burns My Candle Part 14

"And what if Prince Charlie and his men are victorious? Have you considered that? If the Stuarts are restored, my t.i.tle will be worthless and Tweedsford lost."

"'Tis not likely," Marjory said with a sniff.

"Do not be too sure." Andrew folded his napkin haphazardly and dropped it beside his plate. "The prince has already taken Edinburgh. Who knows what the hours ahead may hold?"

Elisabeth glanced at the time. Almost nine o' the clock. "Gibson?"

She beckoned him closer. "I wonder if you might make a brief visit to Mrs. Turnbull's."

"For ale, Leddy Kerr?"

"Nae," she said softly, "for news."

The manservant bowed and was gone in a trice, the door closing soundlessly behind him.

Janet stifled a yawn, then gazed meaningfully at her husband. "Sir, 'tis time we retired. I did not sleep well last night."

"Nor did I." Andrew was on his feet at once, bidding the others a good night before taking Janet's arm and disappearing with her into their bedchamber.

Elisabeth stared across the room at the dying fire, more ash than coal. Sitting with her back to the windows, she felt the cold night air seeping through the shutters. Autumn was upon them in earnest with winter not far behind.

Had she not felt a keen bite in the wind atop the Salisbury Crags? Colder still was the silence. Effie Sinclair's tea had warmed her and the lady's company more so, but Elisabeth would never forget the frozen stillness that followed her down that hill. She had done all she knew to do and said all she knew to say. Would it be enough?

Come home to me, Simon. Come home to us all.

Only her husband and mother-in-law remained with her at table. Neither appeared inclined to leave, though the air between them was as chilly as that out of doors. At least Marjory had not asked Donald where his sympathies lay.

Mrs. Edgar cleared the table in haste, perhaps sensing her mistress's mood. "Guid nicht to ye, Leddy Kerr," the housekeeper said and took her leave.

"Will you have a gla.s.s of port by the fire?" Donald asked his mother.

"What I will have is the truth." Marjory pressed her back into the chair as if settling in for a long evening. "You have informed me that Simon Ferguson is a Jacobite. I'd already suspected as much. And your wife has confessed that she, too, is a traitor-"

"Mother!" he said sharply.

She held up her hand. "When a Kerr opposes the reigning king, no other word will suffice. Her misplaced loyalty is no surprise to me. I feared such all along."

Elisabeth tamped down her anger but could not still her tongue. "Because I am a Highlander?" she asked, wis.h.i.+ng her words did not sound so sharp.

"Nae," Marjory insisted, "because you hide things. Even from your husband."

"You go too far," Donald warned her. "My wife does not keep secrets."

Marjory stood, throwing down her napkin like a gauntlet. "We shall see." She practically marched into her bedchamber and left the door ajar as she continued into the next room.

Donald frowned. "Whatever is she after?"

"I cannot imagine." Elisabeth couldn't see past the corner of Marjory's bed nor through the open door beyond it. Her great-grandmother's ring was safely on her right hand. All else she carried in her heart.

A moment later the dowager reappeared in the drawing room, concealing something among the folds of her skirt. "You'll recognize this, I'm sure." She held out a small book with a look of triumph.

Heat crawled up Elisabeth's neck. "My Ladies' Diary." She accepted it gingerly, as one would a scalding hot cup of tea. Had the dowager read her scribbled notes? Could she possibly have understood them?

Marjory eyed her son. "This almanac belongs to your wife, does it not?"

"'Twas a Yuletide present," Donald said evenly, "from me."

"Lady Kerr, kindly explain the meaning of your many notations."

Elisabeth drew a long, steadying breath. "I follow with great interest the phases of the moon." She opened the book with care, intending to show Donald only the monthly calendars. "Farmers and gardeners do the same, of course. In my case the moon has a more...ah, personal meaning."

She stopped short. Personal meaning? However would she explain that? When her husband plucked the book from her hands, she nearly gasped. Nae, Donald! She cared little what her mother-in-law thought of her, but her husband's opinion was another matter.

"Personal, you say?" He opened to the first page and looked down at the line of poetry written in her hand. "John Dryden's translation of Virgil," he said, smiling. "A favorite of mine as well." He pointed at another line, written on the second page. "But this, I'm afraid, I cannot unravel."

Elisabeth translated the Gaelic, hoping the phrase would signify nothing to the Kerrs. "Comes the night before the day."

He nodded as if the phrase was not wholly unfamiliar. "Day unto day uttereth speech," he said, "and night unto night showeth knowledge."

She did not recognize the words, but she liked them. "A poet from your bookshelf?"

The dowager pounced on her words. "Do you not know the psalms, Lady Kerr?"

"Oh! I... that is..." Foolish, foolish Bess.

Donald rescued her at once. "King David was indeed a poet. And the Bible holds a place of honor on our shelf." He slowly paged through the monthly calendars. "I see you chart the moon's journey very closely, milady. Month in and month out."

"I do," Elisabeth admitted, searching for a simple explanation to give her husband. Stargazers, fortunetellers, and mariners followed the moon's phases. But she was none of those.

Donald closed the small volume and placed it in her hands. "We'll speak of it no more, dear wife, for I know the truth."

Twenty-Four.

Stay a little

and news will find you.

GEORGE HERBERT.

E lisabeth woke with a start, still clinging to the wispy fragments of a dream. Mist rising from the ground on a cold autumn night. The skirl of a bagpipe. And Donald, looking into her eyes, smiling as he spoke. I know the truth.

When he'd uttered those words last eve at table, her heart had nearly thudded to a stop. I know the truth. She'd feared her husband had discovered her wors.h.i.+p of the Nameless One, now that she was uncertain she even believed in the auld ways. What a cruel irony that would have been!

As it happened, Donald had meant something else entirely. When she found the courage to ask him in the privacy of their bedchamber, Donald had kissed her brow, then explained, "'Tis obvious you follow the waxing and waning of the moon each month as a means of reckoning...ah..."

"My courses?" When he'd nodded, relief had poured over her like a plumpshower on a spring day. She could never lie to her husband. But if he came to a wrong conclusion, sparing them both, what benefit could be found in correcting him?

Donald slept beside her now, his body curled toward the fireplace. She envied him his restful pose. Constantly worried about Simon, she'd tossed and turned most of the night, chilly one moment, overheated the next. Gibson had returned from Mrs. Turnbull's with little to report. In the anxious hours ahead they were sure to have news from the battlefield.

Guard him and keep him safe. She'd shouted those words to the pale moon. Will you not help him? Soon she would have her answer. No wonder she could not sleep.

The room was as black as newly mined coal except for the flickering seam of light along the door to Marjory's bedchamber. Was her mother-in-law awake, or had she left a candle burning through the night? Elisabeth eased from the bed, tiptoed to her door, and listened until she heard Marjory's slow, even breathing.

They'd not ended their day together well. Marjory had quit the drawing room in a huff, her parting words as sharp as any bayonet. "Would you be loyal to this family, Lady Kerr? Or to the relatives you left in Castleton of Braemar?"

"I hope I may be true to both my families," she'd said. Wasn't that a daughter-in-law's duty?

But now in the dark of night, Elisabeth realized she'd spoken amiss. She was not loyal to either family. She'd fled from her mother's cottage, abandoned her only brother, and never found her way back home. As for the Kerrs, she lived with them, yet honored another king, wors.h.i.+ped with them, yet entreated another G.o.d.

Elisabeth stared into the remains of the fire, numb with a kind of grief. She had always thought herself faithful. But clearly she was not. Not to anyone.

Nae, la.s.s. You are faithful to Donald.

Her heart lifted at the thought. Aye, she was a faithful wife who loved her husband completely.

Elisabeth hastened across the room, needing to be near him, needing to know that Donald was truly hers and that she'd not failed him too. She quietly slid beneath the bedcovers and fitted her body against the warm curve of his back. A deep sense of relief washed over her. Donald, my husband, my own.

Taking care not to wake him, she slipped her arm round his waist and let her eyes drift shut. Time would answer some of her questions. Another hour of rest might calm her fears. But the man who shared her bed offered her the deepest solace of all.

"Peace to you, my love," she whispered and drifted off to sleep.

Elisabeth's spoon clattered onto the rim of her china plate, her porridge forgotten, the morning's peace shattered. "What is it, Gibson? Good tidings or ill?"

"Dragoons, milady, charging up the High Street!" Red-faced and panting, Gibson stood at the end of their breakfast table. "Four royal lads riding hard from Gladsmuir."

"Are they bound for the castle?" Andrew cried, nearly standing.

"Come, Gibson!" Donald urged him. "You must know something."

"Let the man catch his breath," Elisabeth said, resting her hand on Donald's. "Just tell us what you can, Gibson. Has the fighting begun?"

"Aye, milady." He hastily straightened his livery, then offered a belated bow. "And ended."

Janet gasped. "Ended?"

"I ken verra little," Gibson said apologetically, "but the dragoons are seeking sanctuary up at Edinburgh Castle."

A look of horror filled Marjory's face. "Do you mean to say... the Highland rebels... have... won the battle?"

"I canna be sure, mem." Gibson looked down at the floor as if ashamed to be the bearer of bad news. "But, aye, 'twould seem they did."

Elisabeth's hand flew to her mouth, stifling her cry of joy. Victory! Oh, Simon.

Donald was already on his feet. "Come, Andrew. We'll make for Mrs. Turnbull's and see what other news can be had."

Without thinking, Elisabeth grasped the sleeve of his coat. "Might I join you?"

"Lady Kerr!" Marjory admonished her. "'Tis no place for a gentlewoman-"

"On the contrary." In one graceful motion Donald drew Elisabeth from her chair to his side. "My wife's place is here. With me."

Andrew glanced at Janet, seated next to him, but her only response was a petulant sniff. He stood as well, nodding at Donald, his expression stoic. "The three of us, then."

They hastened down the stair and into the gray morning light. News had spread quickly, and the square was crowded with folk seeking answers. How had a ragged army of rebels bested King George's men? Women wept into their ap.r.o.ns while men with unkempt hair and bannock crumbs in their beards stumbled about the square. Boisterous lads chased after one another with wooden sticks, pretending to be soldiers, making their younger sisters shriek with terror and delight.

Elisabeth took each brother's arm as they traveled across the High Street toward the tavern next to the Tron Kirk. "'Twill be more crowded withindoors," Donald warned her, raising his voice lest his words be lost amid the noisy throng. He steered them round the muck and refuse, then quickened their pace at the sound of hooves thundering up the street.

A small company of dragoons galloped by-their uniforms torn, their faces haggard-and shouted to all who would listen.

"The rebels cut us down!"

"Hundreds are dead!"

"All is lost!"

However glad she was for a Highland victory, Elisabeth remembered the Sabbath last when the same lads had trotted through the city, polished and proud, engaging in swordplay for sport. "They were so young," she murmured, imagining the wives and mothers who would see their loved ones no more.

"Aye," Donald said grimly, then guided the threesome through the tavern door.

Crowded as it was, heads turned when the Kerrs entered. Far more men than women filled the long, narrow room with its dearth of windows and abundance of wooden chairs and tables, all spoken for.

An older fellow with copious whiskers but few teeth bobbed his head in their direction. "Lord Kerr, yer leddy is walcome to my chair." He brushed off the seat with his bonnet, then bowed and fitted the wool cap back on his head.

Murmuring her thanks, Elisabeth sat at a well-scrubbed oak table. Two of his friends gallantly sacrificed their places as well so Donald and Andrew could join her.

Her husband pulled the tallow candle closer, the wax nearly spent, the flame guttering. "You'd be the talk of Mrs. Turnbull's this morning, Lady Kerr, if 'twere not for more pressing matters." He ordered a small gla.s.s of sack for each of them, then called out to John Elder, a shoemaker from Marlins Wynd and a proud Jacobite, seated at the next table. "Mr. Elder, what news have you to share?"

The shoemaker grunted as he turned in his chair, his posture bent from years of stretching leather over a wooden last. Yet his blue eyes sparkled, and his mind was as sharp as the point of his awl. "I'll tell ye whatsomever I can, Lord Kerr. A story o' woe for some, blithe tidings for ithers."

Donald gripped him on the shoulder. "None can spin a tale like you, John."

He folded his hands, the creases lined with dye, and leaned closer. "The stars still shone bricht in the nicht sky whan the princes men made their way o'er a bog to face the royal army. Their brogues are made o' soft leather, ye ken, and they had nae horses, so the Hielanders couldna be heard."

At that moment Mrs. Turnbull appeared with wine and a fresh candle. "Here ye be, Lord Kerr." The red-headed proprietor plunked down three gla.s.ses without spilling a drop, lit the new candle from the old, fitted it into the candleholder with its puddle of soft wax, then took her leave-all done in the blink of an eye.