Jennie About to Be (37 page)

She said valiantly, “I'd go alone if I could, and not be a responsibility. You could move faster alone.”

“You could go back.” There was more life in his voice than in his eyes. “I could return you to the sight of the road.”

“
No
!” The violence made his lids flicker. “I'm sorry if that's what you want, but no, I cannot go back. Besides, it would put you at risk, to lose all this ground.”

Alick sketched a movement, half bow, half shrug.

“We'd best be moving quickly on.”

“All right. I'll keep up. I told you I wouldn't be a hindrance.”

But she was afraid of that as the day wore by. She'd had only the oatcake, and she began to feel faint and struggled silently with her weakness. When he called a halt in a pine grove on the side of a hill, she dropped like a log onto the floor of warm dry spills and lay on her back. The tall tops swayed in circles in a wind barely felt down here; clouds blew over, great puffs undershadowed in amaranth smudged with soot.
It will rain and rain
, she thought.
Of course it has to rain. And there'll be no way to get dry, so the fugitives will die of congestion in the lungs, and that will be the end of a brief and terrible story
. . . .

In the meantime her feet burned and throbbed, and she sat up to take her boots off. He had been sitting on a log a little distance away, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, bonnet and plaid thrown off. Now he lifted his head and said sharply, “Don't take them off. You'll not be getting them on again.”

He brought out the food Parlan had given him and used his dirk to cut off crusty bread and the hard, strong cheese. “We'll have a wee bit of the ham when we stop near water, for it'll be salty. A woman in the village gave this food to Parlan. His was burned up.”

She chewed dutifully to start the saliva flowing to moisten the food. Night came late in the Highlands in warm weather. How many hours until it was too dark to see? She cautiously wriggled her hot toes, wondered how long the soles of her boots would hold out.
If I survive
, she thought ironically,
I may walk out of the mountains on bare soles tanned hard as iron
.

She tried deliberately to see Nigel's name cut in a polished granite gravestone, but she could not. Everything closed up in her from her stomach to her throat until she could not even breathe. She stared at Alick's ear and turned-away cheekbone in mute panic until suddenly he looked around, reached over, and gave her a hard shake. She gasped, and air rushed into her lungs. She twisted away from him, fighting tears. She heard him get up, and the soft susurrus of his boots on the slippery brown needles, going away.

He is
leaving me
, she thought with no surprise.
I was a disaster to him back there; I am a liability to him here
. . . . Then she saw the bonnet, plaid, the stick and the sack, still lying there.

She stood and limped off in another direction, going behind some gorse on the edge of the grove. Here she relieved herself, carried back to doing the same thing on a Northumbrian hillside.

When she went up the hill again, Alick had picked up his things and was ready to move.

“Will we walk all night?” she asked, trying to sound strong.

“Not tonight. Only until dark.”

“Do you have a place in mind for stopping?”

“Yes, I have known it since I was a boy.”

They went on in silence, up through the resinous ruddy shade of the pine grove to a world without trees where the sun still shone, and a wind blew hard at their backs, driving them across creased slopes of lead-gray rock; they descended into shadow like cold water, and eerie silence pulsed against her eardrums. She felt as lost as if they were alone on the moon.

Then, all at once, they came into a small glen where rowan and hawthorn were in blossom, and young-leaved birches gave an atmosphere of domesticity. The sheltered air was fragrant with spring scents, and musical with birds and the sound of a little stream.

She had been doggedly following him, watching his feet and her own footing, trying to shut out the desolation by ignoring it. Now she cried out in astonishment and relief, as if she had just awakened from a nightmare. They drank from the shallow stream, and no water so far today had tasted like this. She said eagerly, “Is this where we will stay?”

“No.” He got up from his knees.

“Oh, why not?” she pleaded. “The grass is so soft. Look, primroses, violets! I didn't know there were such places among the mountains.”
And I am so tired
, she went on in silence.
I could fall over and sleep like a stone here
.

“No one could pay me enough to make me sleep in this glen,” he said. “The place is up there.”

In despair she looked where he pointed, and through a gap in the delicate foliage she saw another cruelly barren slope. The sunset was turning the rock to an angry red that was more threatening than the gray.

But it was evening at last; she supposed she should be grateful for that. She took her stick and followed him out of the glen, up through the thinning trees toward the cold glow. She could look back once in longing to the shadowy little sea of green and white, and then a bend in the track took her away from it forever.

They didn't go all the way up to the rock but stopped just outside the last pines. The place where they were to stay was a crude cave in the side of the hill, hardly more than an overhang of the ancient rock heaved up from the earth's boiling heart. The floor of it was earth, and there was one sign of human occupation, a rusty, battered pannikin.

Alick held the pannikin toward the western afterglow. “No holes,” he said with grim satisfaction. “I was wondering was it still here. There's a spring below, just off the track. I'll be getting us some water.”

He left her. She sat with her back against the wall, shut her eyes, and felt herself swooning toward sleep; no frightening images now, just black billows coming endlessly toward her, a night sea with neither stars nor whitecaps.

Reluctantly she awoke when he came back, lifting heavy lids. He set down the pannikin almost full of water, and took out their food. They had more off the loaf, more cheese, a slice of ham apiece, and drank water from the rusty vessel.

“Did you leave that here?” she asked him.

Busily eating, he nodded.

“How long ago?”

He shrugged one shoulder, swallowed what was in his mouth, and said, “Four years. A miracle it is to find it without holes eaten through it.”

“Perhaps that is a good sign for us. For
you
,” she said timidly.

“Perhaps.”

“Who travels this track?”

“No one, now. It is safe for us.”

“Where does it go?”

“For me, to Fort William and the immigrant ships.” He settled against the wall, and tipped his head back, stretched out his legs, and crossed his ankles. In the fading light the whip mark was not so clear. He spoke with more ease, as if the soreness were going from his throat. “Once I am safely away, you will go to the authorities and say I dragged you away with me so you could not inform against me. Then you can go home. They will arrange it for you.”

“Would I not be forced back for an inquiry?”

“Linnmore is rid of me. That is what they wanted. But if you should have to explain, make me out a villain so black-hearted they will weep with pity for you.”

They were silent. The black billows were gathering up at the outer rim of her consciousness, a night tide beginning to return. Did she dare to take off her boots? Right now she felt nothing but the half-sickening, half-ecstatic slide toward the dark. From far off the soft Highland voice said, “When they know you are alive, they will surely send you the things you treasured.”

But he will be under a stone
, she thought she answered, but she couldn't be sure. What was she doing
here
? Falling asleep on bare earth in a mountain cave, after the nights with Nigel in the big tester bed?

All over. How could it be so suddenly, and not finished by his death but by him? . . . She roused herself to ask drunkenly, “What treasures did you leave behind? Beside the pony?”

“Mata, yes. And a few things.” She knew it was a great deal for him to be saying. “A brooch my mother set great store by. A shawl of my grandmother's weaving, and the silver buckles from my father's shoes. And his Doune pistol is still there.” Life stirred in his voice like rising wind among dead leaves. “A beauty she is. A pistol made by a gunsmith of Doune is a valuable thing these days. I am told that the English make presents of them to foreign kings. This was made for my grandfather Linnmore; she has gold inlaid, and his name inscribed. He gave her to my father. If I had her now, I could take her to America with me and sell her there, and I would begin my new life with gold in my pockets. But Archie will have her now,” he said absently. “He always wanted her.”

“Tell me more about your father,” Jennie said.

“I never was knowing him. He went to America with Fraser's Highlanders when the colonies rebelled. I was born after he left, and he was killed there. My grandfather wept, my mother told me.”

“And your mother?” she asked gently. “How long—” She didn't finish, sensing that he would not answer. “My mother died when my little sister was born.” She went on. “I was six then. And my father's heart failed him when he was riding home from town one day last summer.” She was surprised to speak the words with such composure, even knowing that if Papa's heart were still strongly beating, she would be safe at home in Pippin Grange.

“I am sorry for that,” he said politely.

“There is no school on the estate,” she said. “Who taught you?”

His abrupt laugh was harsh. “No one! My grandfather said I was to be educated, so I would have more of life than to be raised for a soldier. That was his wish, but it was not in his will.”

“No schooling whatever then?”

“No, but I still wouldn't go as a soldier to free them of my presence. No man alive could make me do that. Take the English King's shilling and fight for
him
? What harm has this Bonaparte ever done
me
? What harm had the Americans ever done my father? He should have deserted, and stayed alive.” He stood up. “We are needing to sleep.”

She crawled out from the shelter, managing not to groan as her limbs were forced to move. In the clear blue-violet twilight Alick went down toward the pines, and she walked to some low shrubs a little distance from the cave. Something small scampered away, and she stamped her feet in warning before she squatted. Afterward she cleaned herself with a handful of bracken; she'd done this before, too.
Very useful knowledge now
, she thought ironically.
It's a pity I can't tell Alick how well prepared I am in wilderness ways
.

When they met again, he gave her the plaid, and she protested. “This habit is wool, and I have sufficient beneath it.”

“
Take it
.”

She took it. She planned to sleep sitting up, her back against the wall, rather than lay her head on the earth; she had a childish fear of things crawling into her ears. But the ache to lie down and stretch out was unbearable. She spread the plaid and lay from corner to corner of it, leaving two corners to bring up over her. She loosened her clothing as much as possible, wishing she could get rid of her boots and stays; then she lay with her arms folded under her head, watching him. He sat at the cave entrance, an immobile silhouette against the luminous night sky.

She hoped he was sleeping, and she felt guilty about having the plaid. But the black night tide was now murmuring hypnotically in her ears, and with a sigh of surrender she turned on her side, curled up, and drowned.

S
HE DREAMED
she was being chased by the deerhounds in the portrait at Linnmore House. They slavered with bloodlust, their eyes fiery red, their voices echoing and reechoing through her head. She was running, with her hands over her ears trying to shut out the sound, thinking she would die of terror in the next instant. She stumbled, pitched forward, and one had her by the foot. She would be tossed and torn like a rabbit; she
was
the rabbit, helpless in their great teeth—

The grip on her ankle tightened and shook her. “Wake up, wake up! It's only a dream you are having!
Wake up
!”

Sobbing and moaning, she fought clear of the nightmare into the gray half-light. “Where are the dogs? I heard them, I
heard
them!”

“You heard yourself.” Alick was a shadowy figure kneeling beside her. He sat back on his heels. “And so did every bird and beast within ten miles.”

“Did I wake you? I'm sorry.” Her voice trembled with reaction to the death escaped if only in a dream.

“No harm done. I nap like a cat.” He got up. “There'll be no dogs, not even ghosts of dogs, so you can drop them out of your night terrors. Get up now, we should be on our way.”

There was a lake of mist below them, submerging all but the tops of the trees. He disappeared into it. When she was out among the low shrubs, the dew wet her boots and soaked the hem of her habit; there was plenty of moisture on the useful bracken, so she washed her face and hands with it, and dried on her scarf.

Their breakfast was more bread and cheese, and he had brought up another pan of water. The food tasted better this morning because she had rested in spite of the nightmare. Remembering that sent tremors over her, and he said sharply, “You'll not be taking a chill?”

“I don't take cold easily. I was remembering the dogs, the way they sounded and looked. No wonder Archie was afraid of them. And the poor deer!”

“The Old Laird never hunted with them. He was not a hunting man. Neither is Archie, but since herself became mistress, her Sassenach friends come in the summer and autumn, and great is the slaughter of anything that runs or flies.”