Mountain Laurel

by Lori Benton

  Ian soon learned Pryce had understated matters on that score. According to his aunt, they had been advised of a miracle cure, “sure to bring bloom to the cheek, tone to the languid pulse, and vigor to the wasted frame.” Ian’s acquaintance with the plan had come too late for intervention, even if upon reflection he’d have taken that course. Who could say the springs wouldn’t do his uncle good? He might even have begun to anticipate the lengthened trip, were it not for Rosalyn.

  She made her request at supper—his uncle joining them for the first time since his collapse—after Pryce’s visit. “Papa Hugh, might I be permitted to accompany you and Cousin Ian to Salisbury?”

  In the seconds of stunned silence that prevailed over the table, Ian assured himself there was no cause for concern. His uncle would forestall such foolishness. But he’d forgotten how the girl could charm—when she set her mind to do so. While he watched, perplexed by her persistence, Rosalyn weathered her stepfather’s resistance with talk of shops and change of scenery and the everlasting boredom of the farm.

  Sensing his wavering, Ian cut in, “We’ve no intention of lingering in Salisbury. We’ll stay at most one night—hardly time for ye to stroll the shops.”

  Confronted with this dire prediction, Rosalyn didn’t blink. “That will be sufficient to satisfy my expectations.”

  “But who will escort ye? I’ve business to attend, as ye know.”

  Surely his business wouldn’t occupy him more than a few hours, she contended, and didn’t he also have purchases to make? “If I must, I will content myself with visiting the shops you patronize.”

  “It would mean accompanying us to the mountains as well.” Ian drew an easier breath, certain this would settle the issue. “Or did ye expect us to bring ye home first?”

  “Why, Cousin, it would positively thrill me to see real mountains, for I never have, save our hills and ridges.” Having swatted away his protests like so many buzzing flies, Rosalyn appealed to her stepfather. “It’s been a hundred years since I went anywhere other than to meeting or Chesterfield.”

  That won a teasing smile. “Ye wear those years well, Daughter.”

  “It would be a good experience for her, Hugh,” Lucinda said, surprisingly in favor of the notion. “Why not permit it?”

  “For one thing,” Ian said, “we’ve no idea what amenities these springs may boast. I’m prepared to camp rough on the riverbank.”

  “Camp?” Lucinda raised her brows. “It seems you weren’t favored with Gideon’s full account of the place. The springs were purchased by a gentleman with every intention of catering to invalids who come to take the waters.”

  Ian alone seemed conscious of his uncle’s quiet wincing at invalids.

  “Gideon assures us there’s an inn on the property now,” his aunt added. “It’s quite respectable.”

  Judith had sat silent throughout the conversation, Ian noted. His uncle must have made the same observation. “Ye’re gey quiet on the subject, Judith. Have ye no fancy to see the mountains?”

  Judith briefly raised her eyes to Ian, then said, “No, Papa Hugh. I shall do very well here at home and . . . await your happy return.”

  Would that her sister showed such sense. Ian made a last attempt to drum a bit of it into her pretty head. “Rosalyn, ye’ll not be coddled. Lily’s to come along to help care for my uncle. Not to serve ye.”

  “I shall do very well without a maid,” Rosalyn asserted. “I could even be of assistance. Papa Hugh, don’t you agree? Cousin Ian has his business to attend. It would be to everyone’s benefit for Lily and me to tend you while he’s occupied. I’m certain she can tell me what is needed.”

  “All right,” his uncle said, caving in at last. “Aye, ye may come along—if ye’re truly minded to do as ye say and be a help and no’ a hindrance. And pack only the one trunk, for we’ve all Ian’s desks to convey.”

  Over the following days Rosalyn made good on her promise, shadowing Lily, asking after the proper dose of laudanum or the nature of the herbs in her stepfather’s teas. Were they calming? Did they induce vigor? Bring on sleep?

  Ian took to avoiding his uncle’s room. Continuing to protest Rosalyn’s presence on the journey, no matter how begrudged, had begun to feel mean-spirited. What couldn’t be changed must be endured, a feat more easily accomplished when Seona was near.

  The trees high on the ridge were beginning to blush scarlet, but inside Ian’s shop it felt like spring. While Seona filled his pattern book, he filled the air with wood-scent and memories, letting fall a stream of boyhood recollections—his earliest of Scotland, which he strained to recall for her; Boston and the hardships of the British blockade, the hungry time when his father was caught outside the city with the militia; British retreat and different ships at anchor; the playing of militia-soldier in the cobbled streets; sled parties, fishing boats, ocean brine and seashells—as he flowed in on the tide of his past, feeling his way into her soul.

  They didn’t speak of kinship, her future, or his uncle, who sat by the fire in his room, summoning strength for the journey. He simply poured out his history, spilling memories with abandon, until the day the final beeswax coat was rubbed to a silken sheen, the desks were wrapped and stowed in the wagon, the canvas raised, and his uncle made comfortable in the sheltered bed. Rosalyn and her one trunk were ensconced therein, protected from dust and sun.

  While he hitched Ruaidh to the wagon’s bed, Ian found his gaze winging across the stable-yard where Seona stood with Lily, heads bent in earnest talk. Watching them, he felt a pang so wrenching he almost went to Seona himself. Then Lily broke away and hurried to him. He handed her up onto the board. Climbing up beside her, he took the reins and chirruped to the horses.

  He’d a final glimpse of Seona standing alone, staring after them, arms wrapped in solitary embrace. Then the wagon creaked into motion down the drive.

  Seona sat at the worktable, shoulders aching after hefting wash all day. The bread dough Naomi readied for morning filled the kitchen with its yeasty smell. Malcolm’s cane chair was drawn near the fire where he sat, chin low on his chest. Ally had gone to help Jubal put the stock to bed. She thought about going to see the filly, Juturna, but laid her head on her arms instead. . . .

  “Ye’ll have never seen the sea?”

  She shook her head and told him no, while from the stool she watched him saw through a length of poplar. His forearms were sun-browned, sprinkled with bleached hairs that curved round his wrist. His hand on the saw was long-fingered, lean and graceful in its shape.

  “Tell me about it, the sea.”

  Through the chinks in his words she saw a boy racing barefoot over wet sand and splashing his feet in something like their creek, only colder, darker, and no end to it. Then the boy stopped and hunkered down, and she tried to draw the thing he’d bent to pick up off the sea bank, a thing he called a sand-dollar . . .

  “What’s ailing you this evening?”

  Seona raised her head to see Naomi looking up from her kneading. Missing Ian. It was in her mind so fast she almost let it slip. “Missing Mama.”

  She didn’t want the talk she sensed coming and got to her feet. Too late.

  “Might as well say it. Your mama ain’t the only one you miss.” Naomi gave the dough a punch. “Mister Ian wanting you by him all the time, it seem.”

  Malcolm hadn’t lifted his chin off his chest, but she knew he wasn’t sleeping.

  “Most times Thomas is with us.” It was all Seona could think of to say. They were seeing more of Thomas these days. The mistress wouldn’t have him in the big house with Ian and Master Hugh gone. The day they left, he’d shifted his things down to the cabins. She’d given him hers and her mama’s and taken her pallet next door to Naomi and Malcolm’s, rather than cleaning out the rickety one that stood empty save for cobwebs, dirt, and spiders.

  Naomi ignored her mention of Thomas. “We know Mister Ian been filling your head with stories of his kin up north, like you got some pressing need to know a
ll that. I’m telling you now because I done worked this row with—” The fire shot a hiss of sparks across the hearth bricks. Naomi turned to stamp them out. “You mark me, no good’s gonna come of it.”

  Seona caught the snag in her words. I done worked this row with your mama, her mind filled in behind Naomi’s back. And all this time she’d no more than half believed it. Mama and Master Hugh . . .

  “Am I no good?”

  Malcolm’s head was up now, heavy-lidded eyes sorrowful and concerned, but it was Naomi who answered. “Ain’t nobody in this kitchen ever thought such a thing of you. Was you and your mama our own blood, we couldn’t love you more’n we do.”

  Seona was glad at her words but wasn’t sure Naomi had taken her meaning. Or maybe she had. Maybe they all had and she was the simple one, netted like a bird in a bush, caught between Ian and Master Hugh and her mama and everyone on both sides of the warming room with their closed faces and their shove-away words and their secrets.

  A chill crept under the door from the dark outside, curling around her feet.

  “That isna what Naomi meant,” Malcolm said. “Your mama carries a mountain of grief along with her love for ye. Naomi wants to see ye spared that. So do we all.”

  Pain pressed sharp against her breastbone. “Spared the love or the grief?”

  Naomi plunked the bread dough into a bowl and covered it to rise. “The two goes hand in hand for the likes of us, but you don’t got to make it worse than it has to be. There’s no future in you pining after a white man.”

  They stood outside the stable with their heads bent close, drawn off from the wagon where Mister Ian waited. “This work ye’ve been doing for him,” Lily said, “’tis done now. I’ve kept quiet, but now I’m speaking up. After we come back, don’t be going no more to Mister Ian’s shop.”

  Seona felt rebellion surging down to her toes, but the fear at the back of her mama’s eyes unnerved her.

  “Girl-baby, can’t ye see what’s happening? Keep on like ye’ve been and time’ll come when ye could ask that man anything and he won’t be able to tell ye no.”

  She wanted to ask was that such a bad thing, having that kind of power over a white man. The very idea seemed thrilling, but hardly possible. “Mama, don’t talk foolish—”

  “Foolish? Wake up to what ye’re doing.” Lily gripped her shoulder. “They’re waiting on me. God keep ye, girl-baby.” Lily kissed her and went. Seona watched Ian’s strong hands lift her mama onto the wagon, wishing it was her he was pulling up beside him.

  Pining after a white man. Naomi’s words to her now rocked her back on her heels. “Wasn’t my daddy a white man?”

  “You know as much if you look in a glass. That’s all you need know.”

  “How you figure that’s all I need know? Ian—Mister Ian—you want to know what he thinks? He says—”

  “Seona.” Malcolm’s tone silenced her. “When Mister Ian’s back with us, do what ye can to put off his attentions. That’s all anyone’s askin’.”

  What about what she was asking?

  Her head was down, her eyes on the flagstones. A crack split the stone just inside the door. How long had it been there, and why hadn’t she ever noticed?

  “Can’t you see it’s for the best?” Naomi asked.

  “It’s a hard-shelled creature, a lobster. Ye take it from the sea and boil it, then crack it open and eat the meat inside—fresh with butter and salt.” He smacked his lips like a hound waiting on its supper.

  Seona shook her head, trying not to laugh. “I can’t picture it.”

  “It’s like a crawdad, aye? Only bigger and bloody red when boiled.”

  He took the pattern book off her lap and the lead from her hand; her breath caught when their fingers brushed and she minded that kiss, every blinding second of it. They’d never mentioned it again. He’d never tried to kiss her again. Did he want to, or wish he’d never?

  When he turned the book round again, her face was hot with the thoughts she’d been having, until she saw what he’d put on the page and laughed. The odd-jointed thing bore no likeness to any crawdad she ever saw. He laughed too, eyes merry as the boy’s she minded from long ago.

  “Ye see why I need ye so much? I cannot draw to save myself.”

  Don’t look a white man in the eye—she’d been told that since she could mind. But she’d forgotten how to look away from his. Not with his smile washing her like sunlight, and his words swirling in her head.

  I need ye so much.

  PART III

  October–November 1793

  I stand upon a Riverbank, not knowing should I wade in, taking her with me, or step back from this perilous Shore and find another way. What would ye do?

  17

  They crossed the Yadkin River by ferry, no small undertaking with horses and wagon. While Ian’s uncle and cousin remained under canvas, Lily stood on deck with him, near the cross-tied team. She seemed fascinated with the rocking, creaking, watery procedure—a tad chary as well, bracing herself as the rope-guided craft lurched free of its moorings and settled beneath their weight.

  “My da and I made this crossing years back without a dunking,” Ian assured her as the ferryman strode the deck, poling toward the opposite bank. “And it’s a sturdier craft by far than was provided then. Have ye never crossed a river before?”

  “No, Mister Ian. I’ve never been more than a day’s ride from Mountain Laurel, ’til now.”

  Behind them Rosalyn said, “Neither have I but twice since Papa Hugh brought us from Virginia. We cannot all be as footloose as you, Cousin.”

  Ian turned to see her clambering from the wagon’s interior. Between the ferry’s rocking and her hampering petticoat, she lost her balance and nearly tumbled to the deck. He hastened across the battens and ropes to reach her. “Did I not ask ye to remain within?”

  “Papa Hugh wished to see the river.” Rosalyn gestured to the opening in the wagon’s canvas, through which his uncle peered. “I was attempting to help him.”

  “If ’tis a bother, lad,” his uncle said, “I’ll stay put. I dinna mean to unsettle the horses.”

  “No, sir. Ruaidh doesn’t blink at a crossing and the team’s steady enough. Let me help ye.”

  Rosalyn arched a brow at his inequitable solicitude but held her peace and scooted aside to give her stepfather room to maneuver.

  Disembarked from the wagon, Uncle Hugh stood at the ferry’s raised gangplank, in full force of the river’s breeze but out of the way of the ferryman, a burly fellow who touched his hat before turning to pole down the ferry’s length. When Rosalyn’s straw bonnet hove into view beside him, Ian watched the river and the wooded patchwork of the approaching bank.

  “It’s brisk on the water,” she said.

  “Ye might have brought out a shawl.”

  Rosalyn stared ahead, mouth a curve of unhappiness. Color flushed her cheeks and moisture spiked her lashes. The wind might account for either. Still Ian took her chilled hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. She appeared so taken aback by the kind gesture his conscience smote him. “Ye must think me utterly out of humor.”

  She raised her eyes, so blue as to dazzle. “Whereas I must seem an outrageous nuisance. I’m quite sensible of it,” she said when he made to protest. “But I shall make you think better of me.”

  Ian caught the glance of the passing ferryman—one that conveyed the man’s blatant admiration of his cousin and amicable envy. It caught Ian off guard. Had he grown inured to Rosalyn’s beauty in so short a time? He’d thought her one of the most alluring lasses he’d ever laid eyes on that first night at Mountain Laurel, across the candlelit supper table—and in the night, when she’d sought his comfort in her shift. More than her exquisite features and abundant gold hair, there was the tiny waist, the rounded hips, one of which was just now pressed against his thigh.

  Another face filled his mind, eclipsing her fair comeliness. A face framed in riotous dark curls . . . He edged away from Rosalyn just enough th
ey no longer touched so intimately.

  They were past midchannel, marked by a wooded islet already tinted with autumn hues. Uncle Hugh was gripping the ferry’s side, watching the approaching bank. Suddenly he faced them, expression lit with such pleasure the marks of years and illness seemed to melt away.

  “D’ye mind it, lad, first time we made this crossing? Ye were in such a fizz, scampering aboot, I thought ye’d gi’ yourself a dunking midstream.”

  Only the river’s lap against the ferry’s tarred planking broke the silence.

  Rosalyn stared.

  Lily’s face was a careful blank.

  There was a queer sort of twisting in Ian’s belly. “’Twas Da and me made this crossing when I was a lad, on our way to see ye. I never made it with ye, Uncle. Did I?”

  He knew he hadn’t.

  The pale blue of his uncle’s eyes cleared, but the light went out of them. “Aye . . . Ian. Of course ye didna.”

  Business with Edward Stoddard was conducted in the Salisbury inn where they’d taken lodging. Paid for his labors and satisfied with the transaction—Stoddard had requested six more desks, to be completed over the winter—Ian found his uncle asleep in one of two rooms they’d hired abovestairs. Lily sat at the window, mending in her lap, but rose to meet him at the door. “He may sleep for the night, but if he wakes, I’m hoping he’ll take a bite of supper.”

  Ian glanced to where Lily’s simples box lay open on a table by the bed, filled with packets and paper twists. The door of the adjoining room where, he presumed, Rosalyn rested from the journey thus far, was closed. “I’ve business in town. Best I see to it. We’ll make an early start tomorrow.”