Revenge and Retribution (The Graham Saga)

by Anna Belfrage

  Next morning, someone brought her a candle, and, from the rapid movements of Minister Allerton’s mouth when he came down the stairs, she gleaned that he was angry with her jailers for leaving her so helpless and alone. There was breakfast as well, a heel of bread and a mug of warmed ale, and Lucy recalled she had not eaten since yesterday morning. A lifetime away, a world of clean linen and bright colours with a man in her bed, and in the nursery close at hand, her children. Frances, she mouthed, Jeremy and James.

  Once she was alone again, she withdrew her picture, and now it did sing to her, loudly like an angel’s choir, softly like the wind as it dragged through the summer trees. But it didn’t help. She stowed it away. She wanted to go home, wishing yesterday had never happened.

  She must have fallen asleep, waking up with a start when someone shook her shoulder. Lucy sat up, at first not quite recalling why she was here, or why Minister Allerton and his two companions looked so grave. She had never liked Lionel Smith, not quite understanding what Kate saw in this pompous man, and over the coming hour, she grew to like him even less. He was enjoying this, standing straight and self-righteous before her as he expounded on the gravity of her sins, her depravity and oh, so certain death.

  She widened her eyes. Death? For what? An accident that she had never intended to happen? It wasn’t her fault the painting had tried to eat the child, was it? But the others, Lionel nodded, and Lucy felt a stirring of fear in her belly. What others? Her handwriting stood clean and strong against the sheet, and she looked from one to the other of her interrogators.

  Minister Allerton protested, but Mr Farrell insisted, and Lucy was undressed before them, down to her shift. The painting fell out of its petticoat pocket, and she threw herself after it, but Lionel was swifter, snatching it out of her reach. Look at it, she screamed in her head, look at it and fall. He almost did. At the last minute, Mr Farrell shoved him aside, covering the painting with Lucy’s skirts. And then they turned on her, and when she saw what Farrell was holding in his hands, she knew this was going to hurt.

  *

  “She has confessed,” Minister Allerton told Simon later that afternoon. He was still upset by the spectacle he had been forced to witness, and had insisted someone be brought to help Lucy with her whipped back. But she had confessed. Yes, she had written in a shaking, disjointed hand, yes, she had tricked Barbra and Moll into looking too deep. Not the others, not at all. She had never meant for them to fall, neither Eileen nor Cynthia. But Barbra and Moll…defiantly, she had raised her face to look at them. Whores, she had written, and my husband their whoremaster.

  “The Lord have mercy on her soul,” Simon said. “The lass has committed perjury. She hasn’t done something like that, I tell you. It’s the painting that is evil, not her. And she didn’t create it, that she didn’t.”

  Chapter 24

  Peter Leslie died quietly in the night five weeks after his second stroke. His hand was held by his brother, easing him out of this world and into the next. If there was a next, Alex thought, lifting her face to look at the November skies. The grave was being filled in, and now Peter lay side by side with his first wife, the redoubtable Elizabeth, mother to ten of his children and dead of smallpox before the age of fifty-four. Jenny and Nathan stood close together, the only two of that sizeable brood to be here to say farewell to their father.

  Ailish and the children stood to the side of Nathan, and a few steps further back, the grieving widow was held in an iron grip by her cousin. Not that Constance was on the verge of fainting or in any way showed signs of distress, but it would seem Thomas Jefferson was taking no chances that his vitriolic cousin do something to shame herself permanently in the eyes of the minister.

  Afterwards, Nathan invited them all inside. In the parlour, tables groaned under massive amounts of food: partridges stewed in wine and allspice, pies, a platter heaped with cabbage and sausages, salted venison, bread, several rounds of cheese for which Leslie’s Crossing was justly famous, and in pride of place, a boiled pig’s head, decorated with dried fruit.

  “Two more nights,” Matthew said to Alex in an undertone. “Then they leave.”

  “Will he marry her, you think?” Alex asked, nodding at where Constance was talking to her cousin.

  “Likely, I imagine. Her brother recently died, so the match is a good one.”

  “And he likes her.” Alex couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.

  “Aye,” Matthew chuckled. “Mayhap he enjoys having his tonsils probed.”

  “All men do,” Alex said before going over to talk to Thomas who stood alone and forlorn in the large parlour.

  “It brings it home.” Thomas sighed, thanking Alex for the glass of wine she pressed into his hand.

  “Brings what home?”

  “That the hourglass is running out. It’s only me now. Of the seven Leslie siblings, only I am left alive, and here, at the Crossing, I’m the old man, displaced in the day to day by Nathan and my Adam.” He gave her a crooked smile and adjusted his wig. “Time to read and ponder life’s mysteries.”

  “And do you?”

  Thomas laughed. “It is that or knit, dear Alex, and I never learnt to knit.”

  “Your Adam is not yet eighteen, so it isn’t as he can cope without your help.”

  “No,” Thomas said, “and my lands are still mine, not his. But soon—”

  “You’re just depressed by all of this,” Alex broke in, patting him on his arm. “This whole last month with Peter, and then Constance like icing on a cake – no wonder you’re maudlin! You’re only – what – twelve years older than Matthew?”

  “Eleven,” he corrected.

  “See? Not even close to seventy yet. Too early to sink one leg into the grave, Thomas Leslie. And what would Matthew and I do without you?”

  She made him laugh with that, and he gave her a warm hug and kissed her on her cheek, all under the disapproving eye of Minister Macpherson. Not that she cared, having found the minister as unlikeable on this occasion as on their two previous meetings. Today, the minister had let drop that his dear friend, Richard Campbell, had sent his regards, hoping that Mrs Graham had developed a more becoming respect for her betters with advancing years and wisdom. As if. Richard Campbell had the intellect of a newt, and looking into Macpherson’s piggy eyes, she saw more self-righteousness than intelligence.

  *

  On the other side of the room, Matthew served himself some more cider, watching Constance sidle up to the minister, an obsequious simper on her face.

  “Not seemly,” Constance said. “A man dead, and his brother fondling the all too eager neighbour’s wife.”

  “Hmm.” The minister nodded.

  “Are you casting aspersions on my wife now, wee Constance?” Matthew said. “Can you ever open that mouth of yours without spewing venom or lies?”

  Constance went a vivid and unbecoming pink.

  “Minister,” he went on, “a right good sermon, it was.”

  The minister smiled complacently, commenting that his sermons were always good, spiced with brimstone and fire, a reminder to all that each soul balanced precariously on the edge of everlasting damnation, and only a chosen few would make it through the narrow stile to heaven.

  “Very uplifting,” Alex agreed, joining them. “Especially for the mourners.”

  Matthew pressed his boot-clad foot down hard on her toes. She threw him a warning look from beneath her lashes.

  “We must be riding back. The wind is picking up, and there’ll be rain or snow before nightfall.” Matthew bowed to the minister, waited until Alex curtseyed, and led her towards the door.

  “How can you say it was a good sermon? How about talking about green pastures, gambolling lambs, and the comforting presence of angels? You know, paint a picture of a happy and contented Peter, now reunited with his wife, instead of reminding us all that the probability he had gone anywhere else but to hell is microscopic.”

  “We don’t believe in gambolling lambs,”
Matthew said somewhere between a laugh and a reprimand.

  “Well, I do,” Alex retorted.

  *

  Late next afternoon, the minister rode into Graham’s Garden with a dark-clad man beside him that Alex recognised as Kate’s secret lover. At present, Lionel was apparently acting on behalf of the Providence elders, his eyes wide with curiosity and something else when they studied Alex. She didn’t like the look in those inquisitive eyes, nor the air of suppressed excitement that emanated from the minister. She couldn’t help it. She snuck her hand into Matthew’s, despite the fact that this made the minister frown.

  “It is a grave matter, this is,” Minister Macpherson said once they were inside, his eyes travelling the collected Graham household.

  “What is?” Matthew asked.

  The minister took his time, lowering himself to sit in the proffered armchair, but shaking his head in a refusal when Agnes in a hushed voice asked if he would like some beer.

  “We are talking witchcraft,” the minister continued, small eyes darting from one to the other.

  “Witchcraft?” Alex gave him a blank look. “What? Where?”

  “We dinna rightly ken,” the minister replied, lapsing into the broad Scots accent he generally kept well suppressed. He coughed. “But we know for sure it’s in Providence. It might be here as well.” He locked eyes with Alex who just looked back, managing to look unperturbed.

  “Here? I don’t think so,” Matthew said. “This is a God-fearing home, minister.”

  “Hmm.” The minister shared a sly look with Lionel, nodding almost imperceptibly. “Tell them.”

  Lionel’s story left them all shocked.

  “Lucy?” Matthew said. “Wee Lucy do that? Nay, I can’t believe it!”

  “All the same, there is a witness to tell of how that vile piece of magic near swallowed a child, and since then she has confessed that it was her that caused the young women to disappear.” Lionel sounded smug.

  Alex felt her fingers being crushed to the bone by Matthew’s grip. She swallowed and swallowed. A painting, oh my God, one of Mercedes’ time squares. But how? And then she recalled the conversation with Joan back in June, how Joan had admitted that they had received a painting from England some years back, and how Lucy had been ordered to burn it. Stupid girl! Young, bright and curious, she must have looked at it and somehow decided not to destroy it.

  The minister retook the conversation. “We are not here to only appraise you of these events. No, I’m afraid we are here on a much more serious matter. It has come to our attention that Mrs Graham has dabbled in paintings such as these, and the elders of Providence request your presence at an inquest Wednesday a week from now.”

  “My wife? What are you on about?” Matthew’s voice shook with anger.

  “It’s your brother-in-law who insists,” Lionel cut in. “He says that your wife is well-acquainted with these cursed pictures.”

  “Simon?” Matthew shook his head. “Simon said that?”

  “Acquainted? How acquainted?” Alex was quite impressed by how unperturbed she managed to sound.

  “He didn’t say,” Lionel said. “No more than that you knew what these evil things were all about.”

  Constance had been watching the proceedings with bright eyes, and now she took a small step forward. “Oh dear,” she said with a pursed mouth. She looked Alex up and down with exaggerated caution. “Well, one shouldn’t be surprised. Witches beget witches. No wonder you’re so fond of all your potions and such.”

  “I have no idea what you’re referring to,” Alex snapped, “but I can tell you one thing, and that is that you’ve just outstayed your dubious welcome. Get out, and get out now!” She raised an arm and pointed at the door. “Now.”

  “Witches beget witches?” Minister Macpherson looked expectantly at Constance who remained where she was, a small satisfied smile playing over her lips.

  “Her father,” Constance said.

  “My father?” Alex’s voice climbed into very painful registers. “What do you mean?”

  “He just dropped out of the sky one day,” Constance confided in a low voice to the minister.

  “He did what?” Ian laughed, and turned to face the minister. “I don’t know what the woman is on about, but I can assure you Magnus Lind was not a witch, in any way.”

  “Fiona said—” Constance began but was interrupted by Ian.

  “Fiona was nowhere close, and I don’t think she has ever insinuated Magnus was a witch, has she?” He swung round to face Fiona, who shook her head, quailing under that cold, penetrating look.

  “Yes, you did,” Constance said. “You told me. How one day he was found hanging face down in a huge thorny thicket, and you said how strange it was that he seemed not to have walked here, as neither the Leslies nor the Chisholms had seen him, and how could he have found his way without asking for directions? So, how then had he come here? Had he flown across the sea to perch in that thicket?”

  “I never said he was a witch,” Fiona said, “and I’ve never said Mistress Graham is one either.”

  “So how did he come to be there?” the minister asked with interest.

  Ian hitched his shoulders. “I don’t rightly know. He babbled about seeing a bear and running for his life, and then stumbling off the hillside to land as he did, but I fear it was a raccoon, aye?”

  “A raccoon?” Lionel snorted.

  “If you haven’t seen one before, and it’s not yet daylight and they are halfway up a tree staring at you, they come across as rather strange – in particular, if you’re a man in your seventies, exhausted from days of travelling.”

  The minister’s mouth stretched into a brief smile, shaking his head in dismissal of this little aside. “So, Mistress Graham, have you ever dabbled with these paintings?”

  “Dabbled?” Alex shook her head. “That I have not. But I may have seen something like it once.”

  “In which case, it won’t be a great matter for you to appear before us in Providence.”

  “No.” If it hadn’t been for Matthew’s continued grip on her hand, she would have fallen or screamed, but with his fingers round hers, she could still breathe normally.

  “Good.” The minister heaved himself out of the chair with considerable ease for one so large. “We’ll ride down together, three days hence.”

  *

  Matthew accompanied the minister and Lionel to their horses, and turned back to the house. He was swaying with anger, his guts heaving at Simon’s betrayal. What in God’s name had he said, in his desperate attempts to clear his daughter? They would deny ever having used the painting, and it wasn’t as if Alex had ever tricked someone to fall as Lucy seemed to have done. She had only used it to help her lost son home.

  “Out.” Matthew’s eyes bored into Constance.

  “Now?” Constance looked out at the darkening skies.

  “Now. I won’t have you one more night under my roof, foul-tongued and evil-minded as you are.”

  “It’s about to rain,” Thomas Jefferson protested.

  “I don’t care. And you’re welcome to stay, but she isn’t.”

  “Fiona can stay,” Alex offered.

  Matthew made an indifferent sound, his eyes never leaving Constance who stood twisting her hands round and round. “You have packing to do,” he said.

  “I must protest,” Thomas Jefferson began, “it’s not right, to—”

  “You heard me!” Matthew’s fist crashed down into the table, making all of them jump and him wince as the unhealed wound on his shoulder broke open. “I won’t have a woman who accuses my wife of being a witch under my roof.”

  “But still—” Thomas tried again.

  “No.” It came out with ice-cold finality. After a minute or so of eyeballing, Thomas gave up and gestured for Constance to go and pack.

  “A viper,” Mark spat, following her progress out of the kitchen. “Whoever marries her does best to keep that in mind.”

  *

  “
How could he do that?” Alex had said that so many times by now, in a range of emotion from incredulity through anger to sadness. “I – no, we – trusted him, and he does this. The paintings have nothing to do with me, nothing at all, and he knows that.”

  “I don’t know.” Matthew’s hair stood straight up from his repeated scrubbing at it, and his eyes gleamed dull in the deep hollows that surrounded them.

  “I don’t want to go,” Alex whispered. “I’m scared.”

  “Scared? Of them? Nay, that you need not be, lass.”

  She shook her head in exasperation. “Not them. After all, I’ve never done anything wrong. Of the painting.” She gave herself a little hug. “I hate the idea of seeing one of those paintings again. It’s as if they drag me towards a precipice.” Her insides did a slow elevator ride up and down. Just as she panicked whenever thunder rolled too close, or avoided anything resembling a ninety-degree crossroads…she swallowed. She belonged here, was rooted here, but there had been a couple of times when it had all been a bit too close for comfort, time snapping literally at her heels as it attempted to drag her back to that future where she had been born.

  “I’ll hold you,” he promised. “All the time, I’ll hold you.”

  She didn’t even try to look comforted by this. They both knew how close a thing it had been last time.

  That night, Alex was unable to sleep, and finally she slid out of bed to go and stand by the burning candle in the window. So many years ago since she’d last seen one of Mercedes’ paintings…more than twenty. She leaned her head against the cold glass, shivering in the draught.

  Seven, Isaac had been at the time, narrow over the shoulders and with those knobbly knees that some boys have and others don’t. And so frightened, not fully understanding what had happened to him. Well, who would? What child could comprehend a fall through time? In a hesitant voice, Isaac had explained how he had found one of Mercedes’ paintings, and how, in a corner, he’d seen his lost mama, and reaching for her, he’d been sucked into the painted maelstroms.