Serpents in the Garden (17 page)

“Are you okay?” Alex said.

“Okay?” The man laughed weakly. “She asks if I’m okay…” His head snapped up. “Okay?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah, one of those expressions as yet not invented.”

“No way!” The man struggled to sit. He squinted at her. “Lucky you, you’re white.”

“Yes, I suppose that helps. What have they done to you?” Her eyes rushed over a body that looked very much the worse for wear.

“Done?” He coughed and dragged at his feet. “First, they stripped me, then they branded me on my butt, and then they dragged me out to work in the fields.” He held up large hands in her direction. “I’m a musician,” he said with irony. “I play the piano – Beethoven sonatas mostly. I never will again, will I?” Two fingers had been broken and inexpertly set. “Not that I’ll ever see a piano again.” He closed his eyes and emitted a low whimper. “I wanna go home. I hate this fucking place, and I’m still not sure what happened. All that thunder, and the ground kind of caved in, you know? So much light; bright, bright light.”

Alex shivered, recalling with precision her own fall through time. Terrible, goddamn awful, and she’d been fortunate enough to end up at Matthew’s feet, not like this poor guy, landing in a time and place in which he was automatically taken for a slave.

“You were on a crossroads, right?”

He nodded. “Just outside of Salisbury.” He eyed her hopelessly. “There’s no way back, is there?”

“Not as such.”

He groaned and hid his face in his hands. “God, I hope they kill me tomorrow, because I sure don’t want to live like this.”

Alex wanted very much to touch him or take his hand, but there was no way she could reach him, just as there was nothing she could say. “What’s your name?” she asked instead.

“My name?” He coughed again. “Apparently my name is Noah. I’ve been forcibly christened, even if I tried to tell them I was already baptised.” He studied his hands in silence. “Leon, my name is Leon White. Ironic, huh?”

A rough hand yanked Alex off her perch, and she fell heavily to her knees.

*

“Mistress Graham?” Mr Farrell looked her up and down when she was marched into his yard.

“Master Farrell.” She curtsied, glaring at the man who was holding her arm.

“She was conversing with the runaway slave,” the man informed Mr Farrell.

“Now, why would you do that, Mistress Graham?” Mr Farrell nodded at the man, who unhanded her.

“Curiosity, I suppose,” Alex replied, trying to look shamefaced. “My husband won’t allow me to witness the punishment tomorrow, and I’d heard it was a huge man, black as the night with red eyes.” She shrugged and tried out a discontented pout. “He looked rather ordinary to me.”

Mr Farrell looked at her and burst out laughing. “Disappointed, my dear?” He shook his head and rearranged his features into a mask of severity. “I’ll have your husband sent for, to accompany you home. I dare say he’ll punish you as he sees fit.”

*

“I have a good mind to belt you,” Matthew hissed, a firm grip on her arm as he led her towards the inn. “The lasses have been so concerned for you, fearing all kinds of things, and then I’m summoned to collect you as if you were a recalcitrant child! What were you thinking of?”

“I was going to set him free, but that was kind of impossible to achieve, wasn’t it?”

“I will belt you,” he promised and tightened his hold.

“You try that, Matthew Graham, and let’s see in what shape your balls emerge,” she spat back.

He stopped and shook her.

“Ow!”

“You’re my wife and you’ll do as I say.”

“You didn’t tell me not to, did you?” she pointed out logically.

Matthew groaned, but released his hold. “I didn’t think you’d attempt something that half-brained.” He took her hand instead. “Mr Farrell has decided not to punish him here, on account of it being too much for female sensibilities. Instead, he’ll take him down to the slave docks and there make an example of him.”

“Will he die?” she quavered, imagining one torture worse than the other.

“Die?” Matthew looked away. “Oh no, Alex. Yon Noah has assured himself a long and painful life of servitude.” Much, much worse than dying, his voice told her.

“Leon,” Alex corrected, “his name is Leon.”

Matthew sighed. “Leon then. But by the time he dies, he won’t remember.”

*

It was well after midnight when Alex gave up on sleep. Beside her, Matthew slept heavily, and on their pallets her girls were lost in dreamland, one sprawled on her back, the other curled into a ball. Alex rose and tiptoed through the room, collecting her clothes and shoes as she went. The door creaked. Alex held her breath and counted to fifty, but neither Matthew nor the girls as much as stirred. She opened the door wider and squeezed out onto the landing. Behind her, she heard Ruth cough.

Five minutes later, Alex hurried through the darkened streets of Providence, clutching the chisel and mallet she’d lifted from the inn’s stables. Her stomach contracted into a hollow of fear, and every few paces she hesitated, thinking that maybe she should go back, because this little excursion could really backfire. But there was no choice, not if she wanted to be able to live with herself, and so she pushed on, nearly dying of fright when a male voice cut through the night. She shrank into a nearby bush. The voice was complemented by other voices, and a group of men walked by, leaving a stench of piss and beer and general grime in their wake.

There was no moon, so she walked almost blind down the little passage that led to where Leon was being kept. She bumped into the shed, shoulder first. A few paces to the right, and she could make out the light gap she’d been peering through previously, now a dark rectangle in the stout wooden walls of the shed.

“Leon?” she whispered, scratching at the wall. “Are you there?” No reply. Alex used the chisel to tap at the wall. “Leon?”

“Uhh?” A hoarse cough, followed by the sound of chains scraping against the ground.

Alex set the chisel to one of the planks, brought down the mallet, and winced at the loud splintering noise. There were no warning shouts, no barking dogs, and so she did it again, pleasantly surprised by how rotten the lower end of the planks were. In a matter of minutes, she’d created a hole, and after one last look round, she slithered through it.

Leon was a dark shape a foot or so away from her.

“Hi,” she said, and the big man laughed, a rather wheezy sound.

“Hi,” he replied, “how’s things?”

“Stressful,” she said, using her hands to inspect the chain that fettered him. The sound the chisel made on the iron links was like that of a loud gong.

“Shit,” she said when a dog began barking.

“Let me.” Leon took over mallet and chisel. He must have skinned himself at some point because she heard him suck in breath, but he drove the mallet down furiously several times. The dog was at the shed doors, barking excitedly. From somewhere in the yard came a curse; booted feet rang over the cobbles.

“Hurry!” Alex hissed.

“I’m trying,” Leon hissed back, and finally the chain gave.

The hole seemed smaller this time. Alex’s skirts got stuck, she couldn’t move forward or backwards, and now she could hear someone unlocking the door to the shed. Oh God, oh God. Any moment now and they’d be inside the shed, and how was she to explain this? She bit back a surprised gasp when hands grabbed at her shoulders. With a tearing sound, she was pulled outside. Matthew? Yes, Matthew, in shirt and breeches only.

Leon came crawling after, but whatever advantage he had was shrinking fast, because there were angry shouts in the shed, and here came the dog, poking his head through the hole. Matthew kicked the animal, hard. The dog howled and retreated.

“Go, run, man!” Matthew shoved Leon in the direction of the nearby alley. “Up,” he said to Alex, motioning towards the roof.

“Here?” To Alex, that seemed a very bad idea. They’d be like cornered rats.

“There’s no time!” He helped her up, heaved himself after, and they lay as flat as they could.

In a matter of minutes, the area round the shed was full of men and dogs. Lanterns threw weak beacons of light on trampled grass. Mr Farrell himself made an appearance in nightshirt and coat, and, after having inspected the hole, he shrilly told his men to find the accursed slave, find him and bring him back – alive. Dogs bayed, the men set off at a steady trot, and it didn’t require all that much intelligence to conclude that the odds for Leon getting away were ridiculously low.

Matthew had them remain on the roof until the sounds had faded in the distance. Once they were back on the ground, he crawled into the shed, returning seconds later with the chisel and mallet.

“Can’t leave them here, can we?” he said, leading them off in the direction of the inn. He didn’t take her hand, he didn’t talk to her, and in the returning light, Alex could see just how angry he was in the set of his shoulders.

They were passing the graveyard when Matthew came to an abrupt halt.

“What?” Alex whispered.

Matthew pointed down the road before throwing the chisel and mallet over the low graveyard wall. Towards them came a triumphant procession, headed by Farrell’s eldest son. Four men were dragging a gagged and tied Leon behind them, and Alex bit back on a sob at the sight of him. Bring him back alive, Mr Farrell had said, and alive Leon most definitely was, no matter that he looked as if he’d been savaged by the dogs.

“Mr Graham!” Young Farrell stopped, eyes flying over Matthew and Alex. For a long time, his gaze lingered on the tear in Alex’s skirts, on her hands that she suddenly realised looked rather the worse for wear after worrying at the wall planks. She retreated to stand behind Matthew, clasping her hands behind her back.

“Edward.” Matthew bowed slightly.

“Out and about this early?” Edward Farrell asked, eyes drifting yet again to Alex, who gave him a weak smile.

“As you see,” Matthew said with a shrug.

“Ah, and may I enquire why?”

“Is it of your concern?”

“It may be. This slave…” He broke off to point at Leon. “…attempted to escape a few hours back, and how he succeeded in breaking his chains is a right mystery.” Edward pursed his mouth. “We suspect an accomplice.”

“Not me,” Matthew said.

“No, no, of course not! But mayhap your wife? She did show inordinate interest in the man earlier, did she not?”

“Not my wife either,” Matthew said, sounding very affronted.

“So why is it she is looking so…well, pardon me…dishevelled?”

“She sleepwalks.” Matthew sighed. “A right nuisance it is, aye?”

“Sleepwalks?” Edward gave Alex a curious look. “But she is fully dressed.”

“Aye, this time. At times, she wanders round in shift and nowt else.”

“Ah,” Edward said, an interested gleam in his eyes, as if he was imagining what she might look like in her chemise and nothing more. The young man bowed and stepped aside to give them precedence down the street. Matthew bowed back, offered his arm to Alex, and off they went. When they passed Leon, Alex threw the unfortunate man a sidelong look. Two dark eyes met hers, and the anguish in them tore her heart to shreds.

“Sleepwalking?” she said as they approached the inn. He had dropped her hand the moment they had left the Farrell party behind.

“I had to think of something.” He wheeled, bringing eyes an unusually light green very close to hers. “You are a fool. How could you do such?”

“I had to.”

“And have you helped him, do you think?”

Alex looked away. If possible, she’d made things worse for the poor man.

“Well? Have you?”

“If he had gotten away…”

“Gotten away? Where to? The man is, however unjustly, a branded slave! Someone would always find him.”

“I…” She wet her lips. “…I just had to try, I guess.”

“Fool,” he repeated, “and what if I hadn’t woken, what then? What if they’d apprehended you there in the shed?”

Alex hitched her shoulders; she hadn’t really considered that part. “I guess Mr Farrell would have yelled a bit.”

“Yelled a bit?” Matthew’s voice soared into a falsetto. “Dearest Lord, spare me! They’d have hanged you, Alex; for theft.”

“Oh,” she said, her hand fluttering against her neck.

“Aye, oh, indeed.” Matthew spat to the side and entered the inn, clearly not caring if she followed or not.

Chapter 20

Alex snuck into the room well after him, and it sufficed with one look for Matthew to conclude she’d been weeping – for the unfortunate Leon, he assumed.

Daylight was seeping through the shutters, patterning the interior of the room in elongated streaks of light, but Matthew was so drained after the recent events that he just had to stretch out on the bed. He covered his face with his arm, peeking at his wife as she hesitantly moved in his direction. Thank you, Merciful Father, he prayed, thank you for Ruth’s cough that woke me, because if not…

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, sitting down on the bed.

He clasped her hand hard in his. “Think, Alex, beforehand, aye? You’re no mindless lassie to act so rashly.”

She inhaled, a long ragged breath, and nodded.

“Come here,” he said, patting at his chest. “Come here, my heart.” Her lower lip wobbled, the corners pulled down as they always did when she was about to cry. He shushed her, pillowing her head against him. Some time later, she slept, a warm breathing weight on his chest. Matthew stared at the ceiling. He’d never be able to sleep, not when his brain was an explosion of jumbled images from the passed night.

“Da?” Sarah shook him hard, and Matthew reluctantly opened an eye to find his youngest daughter’s face scant inches from his.

“What?” He yawned, sitting up.

“I’m hungry.”

“So am I,” Ruth said, popping up beside her sister. Matthew had to smile. Where Sarah’s hair stood like a messy haystack round her face, Ruth had already braided hers and placed a cap on top.

An hour or so later, the lasses had been safely deposited with Mrs Walker. Matthew had business to conduct with one of the timber merchants, and he’d decided that he wanted Alex with him, to keep an eye on her. Yesterday had been overly exciting, what with the Burleys and yon Leon, and Matthew intended to ensure today contained no such spicy ingredients.

“A word, Brother Matthew?”

Matthew sighed when he recognised the voice, but stopped all the same, sending an admonishing look at his wife.

“Mr Farrell,” he said, inclining his head in a polite greeting. Beside him, Alex curtsied.

Mr Farrell nodded curtly. “And how is your wife today?”

“As you can see, she is well.”

“Hmm.” Mr Farrell twirled his cane, his normally rather fleshy mouth set into a displeased gash. “I find it too coincidental,” he blurted.

“What?”

“Don’t give me that, Brother Matthew. You know full well what I’m referring to. First, your wife is found talking to my slave. Come night, said slave escapes. Mighty strange that: a man chained to a pole contrives not only to strike the chains off, but also succeeds in creating a hole through a stout plank wall – with no tools but his hands.”

“Aye.” Matthew nodded. “That is right strange, that is.”

“He had an accomplice,” Mr Farrell said. “How else explain it.”

“An accomplice? Another slave, you think?”

“No, Brother Matthew, I think not. I think your wife.”

“My wife?” Matthew pulled his brows together into a ferocious scowl. “What makes you say such?”

Mr Farrell took a step or two back. “I hold you in the highest regard, Brother Matthew, and never would I utter such an accusation lightly. But, as I said, I don’t believe in coincidences. On the same night my rebellious slave escapes, your wife is apparently sleepwalking through our settlement, and in the process she not only tore her clothes, but somehow mangled her hands.”

“I do that a lot when I sleepwalk,” Alex put in, “tear my clothes, I mean. I fall over.”

Matthew glared her silent. “I can assure you, my wife it was not, and I’d gladly take on anyone who says differently.”

“We’ll see.” Mr Farrell adjusted his hat. “I dare say he’ll tell us the truth – ultimately. There is only so much pain a man can bear.”

“The word of a slave counts for nothing,” Matthew said, but his heart was thronging his throat, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Alex had gone very still.

“Interesting all the same.” Mr Farrell looked Matthew straight in the eye. “I expect you to be present at his punishment so you can hear first-hand what he has to say.”

“His punishment?” Alex said. “How can you even think of punishing him? He looked close to death this morning!”

“That slave has to be taught a lesson,” Mr Farrell said, “and, once I’m done with him, he’ll be as docile as a lapdog.”

“He’s not a dog, he’s a man,” Alex flared.

“He’s a slave, Mrs Graham, a disobedient, difficult slave.” Mr Farrell gave her a crooked little smile. “And why should you care? Unless, of course, it was you that helped him.”

Alex went a bright pink. “I most certainly didn’t!” She sounded insulted rather than guilty. “That doesn’t mean I can’t feel sorry for him.”

“Most inappropriate,” Mr Farrell said severely before turning away.

“Shit,” Alex muttered to his retreating back. She cleared her throat. “Maybe we should leave, now.”

“How would that help?” Matthew said. “No, we have to brazen it out, no matter what yon poor bastard says.”

Matthew was so sickened by the brutality he was forced to witness later that afternoon that it was only through staring intently at his shoe buckles that he succeeded in retaining his composure. Mr Farrell was true to his word, stripping his absconding slave of every shred of human dignity before he was done, at which point the tall man was reduced to a whimpering, crawling creature that abjectly begged his master for forgiveness. But no matter how the man was tortured, no matter how deeply the leaded tips of the flogging whip sank into his flesh, he refused to name his accomplice, screaming that he didn’t know, Jesus, he didn’t know, but he thought it might be a man.

Afterwards, Mr Farrell approached Matthew and apologised for his accusations. Matthew bowed and assured him it was already forgotten, and as they were strolling back towards Mrs Malone, he asked if Mr Farrell had considered selling the slave, troublemaker that he was. In reply, the trader laughed, saying that, now that the man was well and truly broken, he had no intention of selling him – ever.

*

Alex wasn’t in the mood for church next day. Matthew’s terse description of what had befallen Leon had left a sour taste in her mouth, and the thought of running into Farrell at church made her want to throw up. Worst of all, there was absolutely nothing she could do to help the poor man – nothing at all.

All through the sermon, she sat lost in a silent monologue with God, entreating him to pull out a spectacular lightning bolt or two and propel Leon back to whatever time it was he came from; alternatively, fry Mr Farrell to a crisp. Every now and then, she dropped out of her internal musings to ensure her girls were behaving as they should, which was quite unnecessary given the fact that Matthew’s presence was enough to guarantee they sat like angels throughout the long service.

“I don’t want to be a nun,” Sarah said afterwards. “And I’m that sorry for Daniel. Is this what he’s going to do? Talk people to death?”

“Shh!” Alex suppressed a laugh. “That wasn’t the best sermon, and I’m sure Daniel will find a way to liven things up a bit. He could start by keeping it substantially shorter and sweeter.”

Sarah looked doubtful, saying that in her opinion Daniel had a tendency to ramble.

Ruth poked her with a sharp elbow. “No, he doesn’t. It is just that you never listen, so he has to repeat it, several times.”

“Will you be sorry to be going back tomorrow?” Alex asked her daughters as they strolled back towards the inn. She was walking arm in arm with Matthew, while their daughters skipped around them.

“No,” said Sarah.

“Aye,” said Ruth.

“Yes? Why?” Alex asked.

In response, Ruth indicated a group of girls her own age that were walking a few yards before them. “It is nice with all the people.”

Sarah made a dismissive sound. “I miss home, and I miss our brothers and the woods and our river.”

“So do I, but I wouldn’t mind going to school.” Ruth sounded very yearning.

“Lasses your age don’t go to school,” Matthew said, making Alex roll her eyes. So bloody unfair, that their brightest child, their Ruth, was by gender excluded from any kind of higher education.

“Not even in Boston?” Ruth asked.

“No, not even there. The skills a lass needs she has to learn at home.”

“Huh,” Alex began, but broke off, staring down the street. It couldn’t be, could it? She blinked, looked again. It was, oh my God, it was! With a whoop, she tore herself free from Matthew, and off she went, running at full pelt. From behind her, she heard Matthew’s loud exclamation, and to her great irritation it only took him a couple of seconds to sweep by her, a sound of pure joy hanging in the air behind him.

“I can’t believe it!” Alex hugged Simon, Joan and little Lucy – not so little anymore – and then did it all again. “Oh, my God, what are you doing here?”

“I would expect that to be obvious,” Simon Melville said, “we want a slice of currant cake and some of that new-fangled tea that you’re so fond of.” He was visibly shaken, wiping at his eyes between hugging his brother-in-law and Alex. “It’s good to see you, Matthew,” he said hoarsely, and Matthew looked back at him with eyes as wet, and nodded that, aye, it was.

Alex wasn’t quite sure whether to cry or smile when they hugged each other again, these two men that were almost like brothers, for all that one was short and shaped like a bulging barrel while the other – her hunk – was an impressive six foot two with not an ounce of excess fat on him.

“You look just the same,” Alex said, although that wasn’t strictly true, at least not in Joan’s case. Matthew’s sister had always been very thin and very tall, hovering around six feet, but the last decade or so had permanently rounded Joan’s shoulders, and there was a gauntness to her face that made Alex worry she might keel over at any moment. But Joan’s eyes, grey and luminous, were just the same, fringed with the thick dark lashes she shared with her brother.

Simon did look very much himself, emanating that general likeness to a fat, strutting pigeon, even if his girth had expanded dramatically, reminding Alex of a mother of twins in the last month of gestation. But his eyes were still an inquisitive, mischievous blue, his hair still fluttered in reddish strands around his head, and he still heaved himself up and down on the balls of his feet while he talked.

“And she’s stunning,” Alex said, indicating Matthew’s niece. Lucy Melville was indeed so beautiful that men were already taking note of this new arrival, quick looks being thrown her way and then thrown again when they took in the general roundness of her, eyes just like her mother’s, and hair somewhere in between her father’s reddish colour and Sarah’s blond, hair that hung, surprisingly, uncovered and unbound down her back.

“And deaf,” Joan reminded Alex.

“Not that much of an impediment, it would seem.” Alex inclined her head in the direction of where the girls were walking in front of them.

“She lip-reads,” Joan said, “and she always carries paper and a stub of coal with her. And she talks with her hands, but you won’t understand that, I fear.”

“So why are you here?” Matthew said. “You’ve never indicated any wish to leave Scotland.”

An unreadable look flashed between Simon and Joan.

“Nor did you,” Simon retorted. “As I recall, it took a lot of convincing to make you see you had to go, for the sake of yourself and your bairns.”

“Are you saying you had to leave?” Matthew said.

Simon came to a stop and turned to face Matthew. “I’m fifty-one. All my life I’ve spent building a practice in Scotland. Do you think I’d be here unless forced to?” He stuck a finger down his collar and grimaced. “And it’s a frightfully hot place – hot and damp, like.”

“Hot?” Alex said. “This isn’t hot; this is comfortably warm. It’s better up where we live, up in the higher country.”

“So why?” Matthew repeated.

Simon squirmed. “I had to.” From the set of his mouth, it was clear that for now that was all he was going to say.

Repeatedly, Alex clasped Joan’s hand, smoothed her hand over Lucy’s head, ignoring the irritated ducking movement this generated. To Alex, all of this was a dream come true, except that of course it wasn’t, because something must have gone very wrong for them to set out so late in their lives to build a new existence for themselves. Also, there was a reticence between Joan and Simon, and with all her antennae waving madly, Alex caught far too many looks between them, heard too many undertones in the comments they made to each other. Behind her sister-in-law’s back, she caught Matthew’s eyes, and from his infinitesimal nod, she understood that he noticed it too: the silent but constant reproach oozing from every pore in Joan’s body.

*

Alex took Joan for a walk, leaving the girls in the care of their fathers. After a guided tour through the town, they strolled off along the water, opposite to where the ship from which the Melvilles had disembarked earlier that morning lay at anchor, small boats plying back and forth.

“How fortuitous,” Alex said, “that you should arrive today, on our last day here.”

“Do you have to leave tomorrow?” Joan asked.

“We’re riding with a party. It’s best not to ride alone.” Especially not now, when the risk of running into the Burleys was significant. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she stroked Joan over her thin arm. “It’s so good to see you, and once you’ve settled in, maybe you can come up and visit us for some weeks.”

“Settled in? Here? In this small place so far from home?” Joan kicked at a stone and burst into tears.

“Oh, Joan.” Alex hugged her sister-in-law. “It’ll be alright. It does have its advantages, you know. Like much less rain and fog in winter, and none of that constant grime hanging in the air like it does in Edinburgh.”

“I like Edinburgh,” Joan snivelled. “I didn’t want to leave.”

“No, in general, you don’t want to leave your home, do you?” Alex pulled them down to sit on a rock facing the water. “So, why did you?”

Joan burst into a new bout of tears.

“It would have been better if he had visited the whores,” she said, once she’d gotten herself back under control. “I could have understood that, aye?” She blushed and looked away. “I can’t…not since several years, on account of always being in pain.” Joan placed her hand on her abdomen – ever since Lucy’s birth, she had been plagued by constant pain in her nether parts. Joan straightened up and looked at Alex. “So I wouldn’t have liked it had he gone with the whores, but he’s a man, and men have needs. Instead, the wee daftie had to fall in love, and not only fall in love, but with the wife of one of the aldermen.”