The Endless Forest (83 page)

The woman in the cart, and the people who stood nearby talking to her and to one another, their voices small and distant … Martha was aware only of herself and Daniel, standing so close that she felt the heat of his body. Close enough to touch, but not touching. Waiting.

She drew in a hitching breath and held it for three heartbeats. Then Martha turned and started back for the house.

Behind them the cart began to move again, Florida tossing her head so that her harness jingled. Jemima was still shouting, her voice so strained that the words came out first garbled and then not at all. She hissed and squawked like an angry goose, but the cart moved on and she went with it.

Martha was aware of Daniel looking over his shoulder to watch. Then
he stopped so suddenly that she would have fallen if he hadn’t steadied her.

“What?” she said. “What?”

Daniel said, “It’s Levi. Stay here.” And he ran off at a lope toward the group that had stopped again, just short of the spot where the trail turned into the wood.

Martha watched Daniel moving away from her, and then she jolted out of her waking dream.

She raised her skirts in her hands and ran after him.

Daniel was aware of his father’s steady voice, talking in a tone most people recognized as something to take seriously.

“Levi,” he was saying. “You won’t mind me pointing out that laying in wait with a loaded musket ain’t exactly neighborly.”

“My business is with her,” Levi said, jerking his head toward Jemima.

“I was wondering if you’d ever get around to it,” Jemima said. She sounded almost pleased. “All these years you been thinking about this, haven’t you. Getting me alone and making me pay.”

Ethan said, “We could gag her.”

“You should take your own advice,” Jemima said. “Unless you want me to start talking about
you
.”

Levi held the musket easily, like any tool a man might pick up to fix what was broken. Daniel felt the weight of the knife under his hand. It would be easy enough to disarm the man, if things got that far. If he could make himself do it.

“She wants to talk about my mother,” Levi said. “Let her talk.” He looked at no one but Jemima, even when he was speaking to someone else.

“He wants a confession,” Jemima said to no one at all.

“Now see,” Nathaniel said to Levi. “I know you’re too smart to let her draw you into one of her traps. She’ll poke at you until you boil over and point that gun at her. That’s what she wants, Levi.”

Jemima let out a barking laugh, but Levi’s face was stony. He said, “I’d be glad to oblige you, if you want to die right here and now. As soon as you confess.”

“You first,” said Jemima. “You tell everybody how it was you schemed your way into buying the orchard out from under Callie.”

“I got all night,” Levi said. “I’ll stand here until you feel like talking. I want to know how my ma died. Maybe it’s too late to see you tried and hanged, but I’ll have a confession.”

“Levi,” Callie said. “She’s never going to tell the truth you want to hear.”

“What truth is that?” Jemima said. “The one that makes you feel better?”

Nathaniel stepped right up so that he was towering over Jemima. He said, “’Mima, I’ve had just about enough of your nonsense. Another word and I gag you. You think I won’t do it?”

The lantern light lit only half her face, which looked to Daniel like a mummer’s mask, human and animal all at once.

“Now I think I got a solution that will satisfy Levi and won’t run too contrary to the law. You listening, Levi?”

“I’ve got nothing to say about this?” Jemima tried to sit up straighter.

“Not a thing,” said Nathaniel.

“Go on,” Levi said.

“I say tomorrow we fetch Bookman up here, and we have a hearing. An inquiry, I think you call it, into Cookie’s death. Will that serve?”

Levi uncocked his musket. He nodded. “Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow afternoon. I got a new grandchild trying to make its way into the world and I’d like to be close by for a while. And I don’t doubt there will be some who want to speak to this on the record. Ethan, you think we can take care of this tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes. As long as Bookman hasn’t ridden off somewhere.”

Jemima had been watching this exchange stony-faced, but now she turned her attention to Ethan. “You want a hearing, you had better be ready because I got stories to tell too.”

Ethan seemed to have not heard her at all. To Levi he said, “If you need a hearing, then that’s what you’ll get. Right now I think we all need to get moving.”

“I’m going up to Lake in the Clouds with you,” Levi said. “I’m not letting her out of my sight.”

L
uke was a patient man and never balked at stepping out of the way when he wasn’t needed, but for once his calm had been shaken. When Elizabeth came to find him he was red-eyed and his hair stood up in peaks. He was frantic with worry, and she was here to tell him that there was indeed reason for concern. Ben sat with him, and for once there was nothing in his expression of good humor.

“She never screamed like that before,” Luke said. “With the girls, she didn’t scream like that.”

He hadn’t been with Jennet when Nathan was born, something he had always regretted; Elizabeth had heard him say it.

“It is not the easiest of births,” she said. She sat down across from him and wished for Nathaniel. Maybe Ben saw that in her expression, because he cleared his throat and leaned forward a little.

He said, “If you’ve got news it would be best if you’d come out with it.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “The child is very big, and Jennet’s not making
progress the way we would hope. But it’s not time to despair yet. She wants to see you, Luke.”

He followed her up the stairs and along the hall, passing the empty rooms where his children would normally be sleeping. They had all been sent to Uphill House with Birdie, to sleep two and three to a bed with their cousins.

There was no reluctance in him, but dread and confusion and a contained fury.

Jennet’s moaning could be heard clearly, though the door was shut, and as they approached it spiraled up into a hoarse scream, the kind of scream a man has rarely heard unless he has been in battle. Elizabeth hesitated, and Luke reached past her and opened the door.

The room was well lit, at Hannah’s direction, so that shadows danced on the walls. Both windows were open, but covered with cotton gauze pulled tight and pinned in place to keep the insects out. Whatever breeze this would have provided was countered by the fire in the hearth, where water was kept at a simmer and Hannah burned herbs.

Hannah and Curiosity did not even look in their direction. Curiosity was bent over Jennet’s straining form, her head turned to one side as she felt her way by touch alone, measuring what progress there might be.

Jennet’s scream fell away and Curiosity straightened to look at her while she took a damp cloth from Hannah and wiped her hands.

“You working hard, I know it. The child has got itself stuck, and I’ma have to turn it.”

“Then turn it,” Jennet whispered, her voice cracking. “But let me talk to Luke for a moment.”

Hannah said, “Just a moment, Jennet. Time is of the essence.”

She stood with one hand resting lightly on the mound of Jennet’s stomach, waiting for the first sign of the next contraction.

Elizabeth went to the far side of the bed to refold the pile of linen that needed no refolding, because while Jennet and Luke deserved privacy, it was a luxury Jennet could not afford. Curiosity turned to tend the fire, and Hannah began to organize the tray of medications and herbs. All of them trying not to listen, but of course they heard, every word.

Jennet said, “I’ve made a muddle of this.”

“So you have.” Luke’s voice firm and tender at the same time. “But you’ll figure a way out, you always do.”

“If things gae wrong—Luke, dinnae shake your heid, ye mun hark. Should things gae bad, then the bairns should be raised here. Lily and Simon wad take them, I’ve already talked to her about it—”

“You what?”

“As women wi a speck o sense talk of sic things before the travail starts,” she said with a hint of her old spirit. “Mind me, man. Will ye do as I ask?”

“No,” Luke said. “Because you’ll come through this. You will come through this.”

“Ordering me aboot,” Jennet said. “As ever. I will do my best, but ye mun promise.”

“I promise,” he said.

“Then leave me tae my work. But kiss me first, before ye go.”

It was a full minute after Luke had closed the door behind himself before Elizabeth could trust her voice enough to speak.

“What do you need me to do?” she asked Hannah.

“Talk to me,” Jennet said, answering for her sister-in-law. “Tell me the story of the first time ye saw Luke.”

Hannah turned suddenly. She said, “Oh, I can do better than that. Look Jennet. I found this letter you wrote me more than twenty years ago when Luke first came to stay with you at Carryck.” She pulled it from her apron pocket. “I think it would make you laugh to hear your first opinion of the man who got you on your back—”

“Hannah!” Ma sounded truly shocked and so was Birdie. Curiosity laughed out loud.

“Oh, I hope you do want to hear it,” Curiosity said. “Because I surely do.”

When the next contraction had passed, Jennet blew a damp hair out of her face and agreed that, yes, it would divert her to hear that letter read aloud. Elizabeth opened it and adjusted a candle.

She read:

“Now that your half brother and his mither have settled in at Carryckcastle, I suppose it’s time I keep my promise and write and tell what there is to say. Truth be tolt, tis no an easy task. Ye’ll want to hear guid tidings, and there’s little comfort in the tale I’ve got to tell
.

“He’s a slink mannie, is Luke. Tall and braw and bonnie, and slee as a fox. Cook calls him
luvey
and bakes him tarts wi the last o the pippins. The Earl bought him a mare the likes o which ye’ll no see in all Scotland, as black as the devil and that smart too. The lasses come up the brae—”

Jennet drew in a long gasping breath in response to something Curiosity was doing. Then she said, “Go on, please.”

“The lasses come up the brae for no guid reason but to sneiter and bat their eyelashes at him, and then run awa when Giselle catches sight o them. Even my mother smiles at Luke for all she looks daggers at me and makes me wear shoes….”

The scream started low and spiraled up. Elizabeth dropped the letter and positioned herself behind Jennet to support her shoulders, and it took all her strength to steady her.

Hannah was talking to everyone at once.
Just a moment more
and
Yes, see here
and
Curiosity, do you
and
Take a deep breath
.

It was not meant for her, but Elizabeth took a deep breath even as Jennet went limp in her arms.

“It’s all right,” Hannah said. “She’s just fainted. Curiosity?”

“Just another inch, and—there. Jennet!”

Jennet stirred, and Elizabeth took a rag from the bowl beside her and ran the cool water over the younger woman’s mouth.

“Wake up now,” Curiosity said. “It’s time to have this baby. The next contraction you got to push for all you worth.”

Jennet nodded wearily, leaned forward with Elizabeth’s help, and took the rope made of braided linen and tied to the bedpost.

“It’s starting,” Hannah said. “Now.”

Jennet heaved a deep breath and pushed, and with that brought a son into the world.

Much later, when spirits were high and Luke had come in to sit with his wife and youngest child, Elizabeth remembered the letter. She found it under the bed and held it out to him.

He looked up from his examination of the infant’s crumpled red face. “What is that?”

“Read this aloud to her,” Elizabeth said. “I think you’ll both appreciate it.”

Luke began to read, almost reluctantly at first, and then with growing
interest. When he had reached the point where Elizabeth stopped, Hannah and Curiosity turned toward him to listen.

“I must be fair and report that Luke is a hard worker and there’s naught mean-spirited in him, but he’s an awfu tease and worse luck he’s guid at it, in Scots and English both. I’ll admit that he’s no so donnert as he first seems, for all his quiet ways. It would suit me much better were he witless, for my father has decided that since my guid cousin kens French and Latin (taught to him by his grandmother in Canada, he says, and what grandmother teaches Latin, I want to know?) I must learn them too, never mind that I speak Scots and English and some of the old language too, having learned it from Mairead the dairy maid. But the Earl would no listen and so I sit every afternoon wi Luke, no matter how fine the weather. And just this morn I heard some talk o’ mathematics and philosophy, to make my misery complete
.

“He’s aye hard to please, is Luke, but when he’s satisfied wi my progress, he’ll talk o Lake in the Clouds, and then it seems to me that he misses the place, despite the fact that he spent so little time wi ye there. And he tells outrageous stories o trees as far as a man can see and hidden gold and wolves that guard the mountain and young Daniel catching a rabbit wi his bare hands, and then I ken that he’s a true Scott o Carryck, for wha else could tell such tales and keep a straight face all the while? But my revenge is this: I wear a bear’s tooth on a string around my neck, and he has nothing but the scapular my father gave him when first he came and took the name Scott
.