Here Burns My Candle Part 41

Marjory lifted her head, like a roe deer sensing danger in the wood. "Mr. MacPherson, how is your father?"

Rob's shoulders sagged a bit. "He's not sae young as he ance was, and the cauld is hard on his joints. The prince has given him leave to come hame after Falkirk. I leuk for him at oor shop in a day or two."

Mrs. Edgar opened the kitchen door enough to peek round it. "Mem, yer daughter-in-law is asking for ye."

Marjory excused herself, though not without a pointed glance at Elisabeth. "I'll not be a minute."

Left alone in the kitchen with Rob, Elisabeth cast about for a safe topic of conversation.

"Tell me, Bess." His voice was low, warm. "What's on yer mind this nicht?"

Sixty-Three.

Wha drew the guid claymore for Charlie?

An' claw'd their backs at Falkirk fairly?

JACOBITE BALLAD.

E lisabeth ran her finger along the edge of the dresser, scrubbed clean by Mrs. Edgar's diligent hands. "My thoughts, as always, are with my husband. And with your father." She looked up to find Rob listening intently. "Angus was very kind to me when I moved to Edinburgh."

Rob shifted his stance, moving a bit closer. "Onie time ye came by the shop, ye brightened his day. And mine as weel."

"You barely spoke to me," she reminded him.

He shrugged. "What could a tradesman's son say to a Hieland beauty?"

"Oh, Rob. You think too little of yourself," Elisabeth scolded him, "and far too much of me."

He sobered at that. "Mair than ye ken, Bess."

The door to the kitchen quietly opened. "Your sister-in-law is resting," Marjory said. "Mr. MacPherson, will you join us for supper?"

Rob glanced at Elisabeth, then took a step toward the stair door, putting some distance between them. "Thank ye, mem, but I must be hame whan my faither returns."

They both walked Rob to the door, sending him on his way with a pocketful of Mrs. Edgar's saffron cakes and a thick slice of cold mutton. He paused on the stair. "Ye'll not leave the hoose 'til ye hear from me, aye?"

Elisabeth heard his words for what they were: a warning. "We shall look for you and your father on the morrow," she said, matching her confidence to his. She watched him descend the stair, then bolted the door, a dead, metallic sound meant to make her feel safe. Instead, she felt cut off from the world, isolated, and closed in. An uncomfortable sensation for a woman raised in the Highlands with its endless expanse of sky and mountain. How did Rob bear living in the city? How, for that matter, did she?

"Shall we return to The Seasons?" Marjory held up the small book.

Elisabeth needed more than poetry on such a night. "Might we read from the Scriptures instead?"

Her mother-in-law lifted her eyebrows but did not object.

They sat at the dining table, the large Bible open, a single candle lighting the page. Elisabeth turned to the psalms and began reading aloud. The simple exercise both calmed and invigorated her, perhaps because the phrases themselves held such power. Be thou my strong rock. Thou art my rock and my fortress. The Nameless One had never given her such words to speak.

Janet joined them at eight for a quiet supper: steaming plates of chestnut soup flavored with bacon and rich with pigeon. A fitting meal for a cold, wet, miserable night. With each spoonful Elisabeth thought of Donald, wondering when he'd last enjoyed something hot and nourishing. Come home, my love. Let me care for you.

When the clock struck nine, Elisabeth bid the household good night and prepared for bed. Even after Mrs. Edgar skimmed the warming pan round her sheets, Elisabeth could not stop trembling from the cold. Then she remembered the Braemar plaid hidden in her clothes press. She slipped out of bed and pulled out the wool, as broad as her father's loom and four ells long. After unfolding the plaid over her bedcovers, she crawled beneath them both. 'Twas not the same as having Donald by her side, but at least she was finally warm. She blew out her candle, closed her eyes, and sought the refuge of sleep.

Elisabeth barely heard the frantic pounding on the stair door. Was she dreaming? Or was the sound coming from another house a floor above or below them?

"Leddy Kerr!" Mrs. Edgar burst into her room. "'Tis Mr. Baillie, come with news!"

Elisabeth flung off the bedcovers, then wrapped herself in her father's plaid and darted through two bedchambers. She found the household standing in the drawing room, their hair and clothes disheveled from sleep, and their landlord, Mr. Baillie, holding a lantern and breathing hard.

"I'm visiting each hoose," he said between gasps, "starting with Mr. Hill in the garret. And now I've come to yer door, certain ye'd want to be told." He drew himself up. "The Jacobites were victorious at Falkirk."

A moment of stunned silence. Then a burst of joy.

"G.o.d be praised!" Marjory sang out, clasping Elisabeth's hand, squeezing hard. "They are safe. My sons are safe."

My beloved husband. Elisabeth smiled through her tears. "And Angus MacPherson too."

Even Janet, who seldom wept, dabbed at her eyes.

Mrs. Edgar threw her ap.r.o.n over her head, weeping, while Gibson patted her shoulder. "A' is weel, Mrs. Edgar. A' is weel."

"Ye're the only ones glad to hear the news," Mr. Baillie grumbled. "Though I dinna think meikle o' that Hangman Hawley."

"Is he deid?" Gibson looked hopeful.

"He's returned to Edinburgh this verra nicht," the landlord reported. "Messengers are shouting the news up and doon the High Street. Several hundred o' Hawley's men are deid and hundreds mair taken prisoner."

Several hundred. Elisabeth's joy was quickly tempered by the thought of so many lives sacrificed. "How long did the men fight?"

Mr. Baillie shook his head. "I dinna ken, Leddy Kerr. The weather was frichtsome. They say a vile rain, blowing hard from the south, hit the dragoons square in the face."

"Serves them richt," Gibson said under his breath.

Elisabeth remembered the autumn afternoon when they'd stood at the window and watched the young dragoons march by with their polished bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. How many of them lay on the b.l.o.o.d.y ground at Falkirk, run through by a Highland claymore? She did not blame her Jacobite brothers for doing what they must. But hundreds of mothers, Scottish and English both, would soon learn their sons were no more.

Mr. Baillie pulled off his hat long enough to smooth back his gray hair, then reclaimed his lantern. "I've mair folk to visit who've not heard the report. After a'murky sky. The princes, 'tis the middle o' the nicht." He lumbered out, leaving the Kerr household wide awake.

"This calls for a pot o' chocolate," Mrs. Edgar said, then hurried off to the kitchen, taking Gibson with her.

Janet was the first to speak. "Might the prince return to Edinburgh? And our husbands with him?"

"Take care you do not hope too much," Marjory cautioned her. "We'll know more when we see Mr. MacPherson."

"Aye," Elisabeth said, gazing at the black, rain-soaked windows. "We will."

After such an eventful night, the household slept later than usual the next morn. Mrs. Edgar did not rise until eight o' the clock, when the first gray light illumined her kitchen windows. Elisabeth slept until almost ten, the other women an hour later still.

A steady rain had rendered the city gray and lifeless. Elisabeth sat at table with a dish of porridge, noticing the frayed and thinning places in her black gown. Mrs. Edgar did what she could to keep it clean, using the juice of an orange for ink stains and removing candle wax with a hot coal wrapped in linen. But daily wear had taken its toll. Just two more months and she would quietly retire her mourning clothes, never forgetting the brother in whose honor she wore them.

When Mrs. Edgar brought her toast and orange marmalade, Elisabeth invited their housekeeper to join her. "Keep me company?"

"Och, Leddy Kerr." Mrs. Edgar glanced at the dowager's closed door. "It wouldna be richt."

"Please?" Elisabeth patted the empty place beside her. "I cannot possibly eat all this toast, and your mistress would not have us waste a single piece."

Mrs. Edgar perched on the edge of the chair, ready to leap up at the slightest footfall, though she managed to eat two pieces of toast nicely browned at her own hearth. Only a skim of b.u.t.ter, Elisabeth noticed, and none of her mother-in-law's favorite marmalade, made from expensive oranges imported from Seville. When Janet's door opened, Mrs. Edgar curtsied and ran for the kitchen, leaving behind a plate full of crumbs.

Not long after their late breakfast, it was time for a pot of tea, and then an hour later, dinner. The afternoon dragged on, the rain never stopping. Rob had promised to supply them with candles, but in the meantime they carried one from room to room rather than leave any unattended. Elisabeth rather liked the practicality of it, but she could tell Marjory was grieved at having such economy forced upon her.

Friday eve's jubilation was all but forgotten when the gray afternoon faded into evening. By five o' the clock the windows were black once more, and the rooms were filled with shadows. Elisabeth tried to embroider but could not hold her needle steady enough. She tried to read but could not concentrate.

When she offered her services in the kitchen, she was turned away by Mrs. Edgar, who gently reminded her of her place.

"D'ye see, Leddy Kerr?" The housekeeper held out her hands, red and chapped from years of labor. "Now hold oot yer hands." Reluctantly Elisabeth complied, embarra.s.sed by the comparison. "Dinna say ye're sorry," Mrs. Edgar told her, "for this is the work the Lord has given me."

Elisabeth could do naught but praise the woman for her faithful efforts, though she was still left with empty hands and empty hours, waiting for the MacPhersons to appear. "A day or two," Rob had said. When Sat.u.r.day drew to a close without a word, the Kerrs were left anxious and weary, too tired to stay awake and too nervous to sleep.

"If you'll not mind, I'll stay up and read a bit," Elisabeth told her mother-in-law.

"Suit yourself, my dear. Mrs. Edgar will see that you're warm enough."

Curled up on the sofa in the drawing room with her plaid wrapped round her and fresh coals added to the grate, Elisabeth felt like a tall child being tucked into bed. "Ye've only to call oot, Leddy Kerr, and I'll hear ye weel enough from the kitchen."

Bidding her good night, Elisabeth held The Seasons in one hand and propped her head in the other as she began to read about Summer, the child of the sun. Engaged at first, she found by the fourth page that her attention was waning and the pull of sleep was harder to resist. When the book slipped from her hand, she stirred just slightly, then drifted back to sleep, the heat from the coals warming her face.

This time Elisabeth was the first to hear someone knocking at their door.

Three sharp raps, then two.

She almost threw her plaid across the hot coals, so quickly did she rise. They're here! She hastened to the door, not caring that her hair was mussed and her dress wrinkled. Rob would not mind. Nor would his dear father.

Her hands shook as she undid the bolt, then yanked the door open, holding her breath until she saw him, until she was sure. "Angus!"

Father and son stood on the landing, Angus slumped against Rob's shoulder, both of them bleary eyed and soaked from the rain.

"Please, come inside." Elisabeth pulled them into the house, surprised at how slowly Angus was moving. He looked older, the lines in his face carved with the sharp blade of hunger. When a startled Mrs. Edgar popped her head round the kitchen door, Elisabeth ordered claret and meat for the men, then led them to the nearest comfortable chairs, sending Gibson off to hang up their wet coats and fetch more coal.

Only when the MacPhersons were seated did Elisabeth notice how unkempt Angus was: his shirt filthy, his kilted plaid matted with blood, as if he'd not paused once on his long journey home. "Surely you've not come straight from the field at Falkirk?"

Angus hung his head. "I had to, Bess."

She pulled her chair closer, her heart thudding in her chest. "Angus, what has happened?"

He looked up, his red-rimmed eyes filled with tears. "I have verra bad news."

Elisabeth stared at him. He cannot mean. He cannot...

"Nae..." The word came out on a sob. "Please..."

Rob reached for her hand, but she leaped up, desperate to escape the truth she saw in their eyes. "Not... my husband..."

Angus stood. "I am sorry, Leddy Kerr."

"Nae!" she cried and sank to the floor.

Sixty-Four.

O weep, O weep, ye Scottish dames!

Weep till ye blind a mither's e'e!

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

M arjory sat up in bed, her heart in her throat. An anguished cry echoed through the house. Elisabeth? Aye, and male voices too.

Marjory tossed aside the bedcovers, trying not to imagine the worst. She heard her daughter-in-law weeping, the mournful sound bringing tears to her own eyes. Why, Elisabeth? Why are you crying?

Yanking a robe over her shoulders, Marjory ran barefoot across the carpet, praying, praying. When she flung open the drawing room door, she found her daughter-in-law collapsed on the floor.

"Lady Elisabeth!" Marjory knelt beside her at once, barely noticing Rob MacPherson and his father, who stood back to make room for her. "My dear girl, what is it?"

Elisabeth looked up. Her face, contorted with pain, was almost unrecognizable. "Lord Kerr..."