Here Burns My Candle (44 page)

Mrs. Edgar approached from the kitchen. “Did ye not invite Mr. MacPherson to stay for dinner? ’Tis not but crawfish soup and mutton chops, but I’ve plenty to spare.”

Elisabeth heard the faintly scolding note in her voice. “We’ll invite him to sup with us over Yuletide,” she promised. “At the moment I’ve a letter to read before dinner.”

Seeing the others round the fireplace, Elisabeth slipped through the kitchen and then Janet’s bedchamber to reach her own, avoiding the drawing room. She unfolded the letter, not surprised to find it began without date or address.

My Darling Wife,

I miss you every waking hour and pray that you are content.
I would give all I own in this world to hold you in my arms.

Oh, my love
. Elisabeth not only heard Donald’s voice; she felt his touch and almost tasted his kiss.
Content?
Not until he was home. Not until she was in his embrace.

I trust you received a letter shortly after I left and have destroyed it.

The paper was gone but the names remained.
Susan McGill, Jane Montgomerie, Lucy Spence
. Guilt pierced her heart at the much-rehearsed litany.
He did not ask you to remember them, Bess. He asked you to forget
.

She looked down at the letter through a veil of tears.

If you have chosen to withdraw your forgiveness, none would fault you, least of all your husband. Until then, I cling to the three words you spoke in the forecourt and pray I may someday deserve them.

You are forgiven
. Words she could not take back even if she wanted to. And she no longer wanted to.

Was mercy deserved? Earned? Or simply received? She only knew it was never ending.
His mercy lasteth ever
. On the Sabbath at the Tron Kirk, the precentor had sung those words over and over. Each time she’d sung them in response, the truth sank in a wee bit deeper.
His mercy faileth never
.

Only two more lines of Donald’s letter remained. How she wished he might have written page after page! That he wrote to her at all in the midst of an army encampment was a gift that would suffice for many an anniversary to come.

Elisabeth read the last of it, letting each word do the work often.

The anniversary of our marriage approaches. I will spend the day giving thanks for my bonny wife, who was faithful when I was not.

Yours.

“You
are
mine, beloved,” she whispered, smiling through her tears. “And I am yours.”

When all of Scotland fasted on Wednesday for King George, Elisabeth fasted and prayed for her husband. When royalist troops began to pour into Edinburgh from the west, she strengthened her resolve with a verse from Scripture:
Ye shall not fear them: for the
LORD
your God he shall fight for you
. And in late December, when the broadsheets reported the Duke of Cumberland was pursuing the rebel army into Scotland, Elisabeth drew comfort in this assurance: Donald was drawing near.

Sixty

Enter upon thy paths, O year!
Thy paths, which all who breathe must tread.

BARRY CORNWALL

T
he new year began in silence and in darkness. Marjory shivered in bed, the covers pulled round her neck. She could not tell the time since the dragoons had stolen her mantel clock, but daylight was surely hours away.

Before retiring for the night, Marjory had snuffed all the candles in her bedchamber and instructed the household to do the same. Hogmanay revelers spying even a flicker of light in their windows would have climbed the turnpike stair and come banging on their door, certain they’d be welcomed and served a dram of whisky no matter how late the hour. As it was, the cacophony from the High Street below had kept Marjory awake long past midnight. The skirl of the bagpipes, the ringing of the Tron Kirk bells, and the sounding of ship horns in Leith’s harbor ushered in the year 1746 with the usual uproar.

On her first Hogmanay in Edinburgh, Marjory had leaned out their High Street window, intoxicated with the sheer excitement of it all-Donald on one side of her, Andrew on the other, and a bemused Lord John half asleep in his favorite chair. Two weeks later her sons lay in their beds, struggling to breathe. Two years later Lord John lay in this bed, drawing his last breath.

Marjory had learned to dread January. ’Twas the longest month of the year, with its short days and its endless, frigid nights. The sun seldom shone, the clouds never moved except to spill copious amount of rain or snow or both, and the cold winter fog, called
haar
, crawled in from the sea and lingered all day. The household burned coal and candles as if they cost nothing to replenish, and a decent cut of fresh beef could not be found in the Fleshmarket, not for all the guineas beneath her floor.

There were precious few coins now. Fewer every day. She could not
bear to think what Lord John would say if he knew she’d gambled their fortune on an exiled prince.

Marjory sighed into the pitch-black room.
I miss you, John. So very much
. She quickly blinked to stem her tears. Ill luck came to those who wept on New Year’s Day. Instead she touched the empty pillow beside her, remembering the many tears she’d cried in seasons past.

She was forty when he died, past her childbearing years. When her time of mourning ended, Marjory discovered that any man who looked at her twice—Lord Drummond among them—was counting her money, not courting her favor. Within a few years she decided she did not need a husband. She had her sons, and they had their wives. Come summer, a grandchild would be placed in her arms. Janet had yet to reveal any details. Perhaps her babe would arrive sooner. If so, ’twould be quite small, since Janet’s waist had yet to expand so much as an inch.

Marjory had not been that fortunate. With each of her lads, she’d grown to the size of a sedan chair and moved about with the same lack of grace. Her confinement kept her from public disgrace, but she’d been embarrassed to have Lord John see her in such an ungainly state. With Andrew serving the prince, Janet and he both might be spared those awkward months. Then Andrew could return to find his child born and his wife as he remembered her.

But if Donald and Andrew came home sooner, no one would be happier than Marjory. Nae, not even their wives. As their mother, she’d known them from their very first breaths, with their mouths open wide and their plaintive cries piercing her heart.

My bonny wee lads
.

Marjory threw back the covers, cold air putting a swift stop to the renewed threat of tears. But oh, they were dear boys, grown into fine men. The prince and his army were in Glasgow now, less than fifty miles west. To think of her sons so close! She was glad they were in Scotland to greet the new year. If Almighty God still took notice of her, she prayed he might bring her sons home before month’s end.

Marjory located her slippers by feel, not by sight, and exchanged her sleeping jacket for a simple gown that laced up the front. She imagined the time near six o’ the clock, the hour when Lord John died. Wasn’t she
the one who’d stopped the pendulum and draped the looking glass and opened the window? Every New Year’s Day since, she’d awakened at the same time as if prompted by some inner voice. She found the annual ritual comforting. It was a quiet, solitary way to honor the father of her sons.

As she tiptoed across her bedchamber, Marjory noticed again how clean everything smelled. Last evening Mrs. Edgar and Gibson worked tirelessly at their Hogmanay tasks: scrubbing every corner of the house, sweeping the coal grates, and carrying out the ashes, making the house ready for the new year.

Marjory found a candle stub at last and bent over her coal fire to light the wick. She wrinkled her nose at the offensive smell of tallow, a constant reminder of their reduced circumstances. When the Rising was over, she would purchase beeswax candles by the pound.

Holding her taper aloft, Marjory walked into the empty drawing room, taking care not to stub her toe on the chair legs. She squinted at the clock.
Quarter after six
. The table was set for breakfast, though she cringed when she saw wooden plates instead of fine china and horn spoons rather than sterling silver. She had good dishes and silver at Tweedsford, of course, but did not dare bring them to Edinburgh with more royalist soldiers marching into town almost daily. The High Street was thick with them.

Marjory started toward one of the windows overlooking Milne Square when a sharp knock at the stair door made her nearly jump out of her skin. “Gibson!” she cried, her candle shaking as she hastened for the entrance hall, fearing the worst.
Not the dragoons. Not again
.

Gibson tottered to the door, his fringe of hair mussed, his livery wrinkled from sleep. He pulled open the door, then announced in a gravelly voice, “Mr. MacPherson.”

Marjory glared at the man who filled her doorway, her alarm quickly turning to vexation. “Sir, whatever are you doing calling at this hour?”

Rob bowed, a solemn look on his face. “Meikle guid luck to this hoose,” he said, “and meikle guid luck to this family.”

She recognized the blessing at once, a Hogmanay tradition.

Gibson nodded approvingly. “He makes a verra guid first foot, mem.”

Marjory could not argue the point. Since the ideal “first foot”—the person who first crossed one’s threshold on New Year’s Day—was a dark-haired bachelor, Rob MacPherson more than qualified.

“I waited yestreen,” Rob explained, “thinking to come at midnight, but I didna see a candle in the window, so I couldna knock. Until this morn.”

Had he watched their windows all night? Marjory could not decide if the idea was disconcerting or comforting. “And have you brought the proper gifts?” she asked, guessing the answer.

“Aye.” From inside his greatcoat Rob withdrew a piece of coal, a silver sixpence, a crumbling piece of cake, and a fine bottle of Bordeaux.

She stared at him in amazement. “The streets are run amuck with the king’s soldiers. However did you manage to land such a prize?”

Rob shrugged. “I ken a free trader or two.”

Marjory had no doubt of that. Jacobites delighted in supporting smugglers, who cheated the king of his excise taxes. “’Tis only right we make you welcome, however early the hour. Gibson, will you take Mr. MacPherson’s coat and see if Mrs. Edgar is stirring?”

“Weel stirred,” the housekeeper assured her, sailing into the entrance hall from the kitchen, patting her white cap in place. “Het pints and black bun will be on the table in nae time, mem.”

Rob’s sober countenance lightened at the mention of the Yuletide staples. “Will your daughters-in-law be joining us?” he asked, following Marjory into the drawing room.

“Lady Kerr often rises before the rest of the household,” Marjory told him, “but I cannot speak for Mrs. Kerr.”

Within the hour all were present, tucking stray hairs in place and rubbing the sleep from their eyes. For good or for ill, the tailor’s son was almost a member of the family now and did not seem to mind if the Kerrs appeared at table a bit disheveled.

Elisabeth was quiet that morning. When het pints were served—spiced ale mixed with eggs, cream, and sugar—she held the warm drink in her hand but barely tasted it. And when black bun was brought forth
from the oven—a fragrant cake stuffed with currants and nuts—Elisabeth pinched off a small bite and left the rest.

Rob eyed her closely, but then, he always did. “Too early for such rich fare, Lady Kerr?”

“Perhaps.” She offered a wan smile. “I did not sleep well. Too much commotion in the street.”

“There’ll be meikle mair o’ that,” Rob said grimly, his pint drained and his plate covered with crumbs. He looked round the room as if to be sure all were listening. “I’ve come this morn to give ye news ye’ll not be glad to hear.”

Sixty-One

I feel my sinews slackened with the fright,
and a cold sweat trills down all over my limbs,
as if I were dissolving into water.

JOHN DRYDEN

N
ews?” Marjory stared at the tailor’s son, her hands quickly turning to ice. “I thought…that is, I was certain Lord Kerr and his brother were safely in Glasgow. Did you not tell me so yourself, Mr. MacPherson?”

“I did,” he was quick to say, “and they are in Glasgow, for the moment. But ’tis yer ain safety that worries me. On the morrow General Hawley’s men will begin arriving in Edinburgh. And ye must be ready, leddies, for this man’s reputation is worse than the Duke o’ Cumberland’s.”

Marjory looked at her daughters-in-law and saw her own apprehension reflected in their young faces. Royal or not, Cumberland was known to be cruel in his dealings. If Hawley was more contemptuous than his master, Rob was right to be concerned.

“The man’s a bully,” Rob continued. “Henry Hawley fought the Jacobites at Sheriffmuir in the last Rising. He’s carried the stink of it in his nostrils ever since. They say his quarters are decorated with the bones of a deid soldier. And that he’s not above hanging his ain men after a defeat. Mark my wirds, he’ll build a gallows in the toun whan he arrives.”

Marjory sank against the back of her chair, stunned. “If he kills his own men, what must he do to his enemies?”

Rob merely nodded, his silence more frightening than his words.

“You said we must be ready,” Janet prompted him.

He leaned forward. “Come the morrow ye must
licht
candles in a’ yer windows to show yer lealty to King Geordie. If ye dinna do sae, the approaching troops will break a’ the glass.”

Elisabeth gaped at him. “In the dead of winter?”

“Aye. The windows o’ empty houses will be broken as weel. ’Tis why monie folk round the toun are offering the king’s troops a glass o’ spirits, a pound o’ bread—whatsomever it takes to appease them.”