Love's Reckoning

by Laura Frantz

  Quickly she took inventory. All was as she’d left them—the borrowed books, the journal, and an unfamiliar volume of red leather underneath. The Poetry of James Thomson. Intrigued, she opened the flyleaf.

  To Niel Ballantyne for services rendered, Sir John Murray, 1765.

  A hundred questions sprang to mind, begging answers. Had he meant this for her? Her fingers touched one gilt-edged page after another, lips parting in surprise at the scrap of paper marking a particular poem. On it he’d written a note in a hand far finer than a man of his station should possess.

  Eden, I did not mean to take your room, nor your books. Silas

  Putting a hand to her trembling mouth, she tried to staunch her emotion. She was unaccustomed to such kindness. And she knew then he wouldn’t mock her, nor read what wasn’t his. Nay, he’d shared something of his own. Never having heard of the poet Thomson, she was intrigued. She couldn’t wait to begin, but chores awaited. For now two lines would have to suffice:

  Thine is the balmy breath of morn,

  Just as the dew-bent rose is born . . .

  Clutching the book to her heart, she sought a hideaway in the busy kitchen till her work was done. Since Elspeth would soon be up and about—indeed, had shocked them all by going to the smithy at dawn and ruining her best slippers in the snow—the kitchen was not safe. Nearly on tiptoe, Eden traded the warm room for the cold hall, peeked into her parents’ bedchamber, and found Mama nursing Jon by the hearth.

  The summer parlor, then. ’Twas her favorite room by far. Full of cast-offs from Hope Rising, it had a pretense of grandeur and nearly made her forget she was a prisoner of the farmhouse. The plaster walls were covered with copper-red paint, and the overall impression was charming, if a bit discordant. In winter the room was closed off, as the family preferred the smaller parlor with its mammoth hearth adjoining the dining room.

  Closing the door, Eden shivered. The icy floorboards seemed to penetrate the soles of her shoes. Everything smelled of dust, disuse, and beeswax. Pondering the furnishings, she chose a seldom-used secretary, its heavy lines forbidding. Surely no one would bother looking here. She hid her things and then left hurriedly, making her way to the weaving room, when a sudden hiss stopped her cold.

  “Eden Rose!”

  The strident voice couldn’t be ignored. Pushing open the bedchamber door, she opened her mouth to answer, but Elspeth galloped right over her. “What were you doing in the summer parlor?”

  Panic engulfed her. “Putting something away—”

  Elspeth placed a cautionary finger to her lips. “Come in and shut the door. I don’t want anyone to hear us.”

  Eden did as she bid, albeit reluctantly. Smoothing her apron, she sat down on the edge of the bed, wondering about the high flush on her sister’s face.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he was so handsome—or so amusing?”

  The apprentice? Eden made her face appropriately blank. “I hadn’t . . . noticed.” This was only partly true. She’d noticed far too much—but none of the things Elspeth did.

  Rolling her eyes, Elspeth resumed her usual exasperation. “How are you to catch a husband with your head in the clouds?”

  “’Tis not my husband we’re discussing, but yours,” Eden reminded her.

  “Yes, you’d best remember that.” A smile thawed Elspeth’s coldness, and her blue eyes sparked. “I suppose he’ll suffice, though I’ve never cared much for Scotsmen. You know those MacMasters and Gows with their drunken antics over the hill. They’re so . . . unpredictable. Like a greased pig on market day. One never knows which way they’ll go next.”

  Like you, Eden thought but didn’t say. Perhaps you’ve met your match.

  “How are you feeling?” she said instead, tucking in an unkempt bed corner.

  Leaning back against the bank of pillows, Elspeth sighed and fingered her braid. “I’m hungry and bored. You must light a lamp, bring me my sewing. Mama wants me to rest, but I need to finish those pillowslips for my dower chest.”

  Eden’s eyes drifted to the twin trunks fashioned by their grandfather’s hand on either side of the small hearth. Elspeth’s bore her initials, its smooth walnut lines pleasing in their simplicity. Eden’s was embellished with leaves and flowers much like the ones on Silas Ballantyne’s fine rifle. And while Elspeth’s was but half full, her own was burgeoning. Some days she could barely close the lid without rearranging half the contents.

  “Would you like something to eat?” she asked, hoping to change the current of conversation. “Mama and I made chicken pie and apple cake.”

  “I’m surprised there’s any left. How is the Scot’s appetite?”

  “He has fine manners,” Eden admitted.

  Unlike many of the men who’d sat at their table, he’d not wiped his mouth on his sleeve or licked his fingers or belched at meal’s end, nor asked for a second serving, though he’d eaten more bread. Wheat was scarce in Scotland, he’d said.

  “We’ll see how he fares with Papa at the forge.” Elspeth looked toward her dower chest absently. “Best not be hunting up the parson just yet.”

  Eden nearly sighed aloud in relief, seizing on the chance to distract her from any further probing about the parlor. “The parson’s been quite busy. Two of the Greathouse tenants wed last week, though Wealthy Heinz and John Masters eloped, or so Margaret Hunter told me.”

  “Eloped?” Elspeth wrinkled her nose. “How dull! No wedding dress nor cake nor gifts.”

  “’Tis romantic, I think.”

  “You would. I plan to be married in the summer parlor. In your yellow silk.”

  Hearing it, Eden felt a sinking dismay. ’Twas her favorite dress—a cast-off from Jemma Greathouse, who’d grown too stout to wear it. Elspeth had had a fit when Jemma sent it round in the carriage from Hope Rising right before Christmas. The memory bruised Eden still.

  “’Tis a snub!” Elspeth had stormed through angry tears. “They’re always gifting you, inviting you to the house!”

  “But ’tis too small for you. Look how narrow the bodice and sleeves are.” Eden had pointed out the obvious, feeling the heat of Elspeth’s anger and fearing the consequences.

  Since childhood Eden had often found her treasured things cut up or soiled with ink. To avoid this, she had often given over the coveted item. But this gown, which she’d hoped might be saved for Philadelphia . . .

  “I’ll soon fit into the dress, once I leave this bed.” Elspeth’s eyes, now cold as creek ice, brooked no argument. “Just bring round some toast and tea, no cake. And don’t forget my sewing.”

  Eden returned to the kitchen, her mind on more than the yellow silk. She felt weighted with the vision of her sister standing in the parlor at some hazy date in future, holding hands with Silas Ballantyne. Elspeth was altogether too eager to wed. To appease Papa and Mama, perhaps, who were weary of her waywardness?

  Whatever the reason, fidelity was not her sister’s strong suit. She liked to dally, never settling on one suitor for long. So many men came to do business with their father. Elspeth flirted with them all, or so it seemed, only to sneak out with someone at night. Eden hadn’t an inkling who the babe’s father might be. Though in time, once the boy grew long-limbed and strong of feature, wouldn’t his parentage be plain? And the truth be told?

  However wayward, Elspeth liked her secrets and was good at keeping them. It seemed a very small thing that Eden had her secrets as well. Just a journal and some borrowed books, a plan for the future. But Elspeth . . . Eden felt caught in a sticky web of deceit. Her sister was the spider and Silas Ballantyne was the poor, unsuspecting insect that had wandered into her and Papa’s path.

  6

  Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  “Play for us, Silas!”

  The childish voices were like a song, carrying musically over moor and heather as tendrils of fog lay like white ribbons in the lowlands. Adjusting his plaid, Silas turned, finding a veritable troupe trai
ling him.

  “D’ye think the sheep would listen to such music?” He snagged the smallest child about the waist with his crook, smiling as she squealed with delight. “I’ve not brought my fiddle this day, lassie.”

  The sheep had long since scattered, and he was tempted to shoo the noisy bairns home, then remembered they had no crofts to return to. The October air was chill, and some of them lacked shoes, their thin, shivering limbs drawing his notice and sharpening his concern.

  “Go on wi’ ye now,” he growled, eyes damp.

  “Our maithers sent us oot while they pack the carts,” the eldest boy said. “They dinna want us underfoot. The laird says we’re to be gone by noon or else.”

  Aye, noon. Silas knew the decree well enough, though his own family was exempt.

  “I dinna want to be gone to the coast!” the smallest girl wailed. “Faither doesna like to fish. And Maither cries and cries . . .”

  “Ye know what they’ve said if we dinna obey—they’ll burn us oot like they did the tenants o’ Sutherland,” another said.

  “Look!” one boy cried, stabbing a dirty finger at the sky. “It’s begun!”

  Silas let his crook fall from his fingers and felt a ripple of fear at the ominous words. The children were running now, toward the blaze, toward certain danger—

  With a hoarse cry he shot up like a loosened spring, limbs bound in a tangle of bedding, eyes wide open and heart slamming in his chest. The dream receded, that black day dwindling down to ashes in the firestorm of his thoughts. His gaze landed on the violin beneath the west window, the bow resting along the sill, reminding him of where he was—abed in the garret room, not digging for charred corpses in a blackened hovel.

  He was here, in Pennsylvania, the Franklin stove leaking smoke, the backlog he’d added to the fire at midnight the true culprit. Opening the iron door, he scattered the glowing remains and added more wood, lighting a candle before shutting it soundly.

  What he’d give for a little peat. A croft. His own thin bolster with its woven plaid. The sweet sound of music beneath smoky rafters. The familiar slant of sunlight through a narrow window. Sitting on the unfamiliar bed, he tried to calm his muddled thoughts and stem the tide of memory. His father had been aging. His mother was ill. The duke had promised they could remain. But in the end the laird had not kept his promises.

  By fleeing Scotland and coming to the American frontier, he hoped the past would loosen its leaden grip. Though he bore other, visible wounds like the stripes across his back and his branded thumbs, none retained so vile an ache as the memories. They clung to him like the chill of the River Tay, as hard to dislodge as the Scots blood that flowed through him. His beloved mother had been wrong.

  Not all wounds of the heart healed.

  His restless gaze swung to the far wall, where the lone candle burnished his fiddle a deep russet. How was it that a man could switch countries and dwellings and clothes, but habits were harder to alter and heredity always held sway? Since boyhood, he’d not been content to look at the instrument’s fine lines without feeling the need to bring it to life with his bow. His father had been the same. Unlike here, there’d been more music in their home than silence. Playing was an act of worship, his father said. And so their humble cottage had been more kirk. Even in the assembly rooms of Edinburgh and Aberdeen and the more familiar ballroom of the duke of Atholl, there’d been a reverence in the most strenuous reels and jigs. Those who listened to his father play went away changed. And then they came back again.

  Picking up the instrument, he felt a sudden solace. That he was his father’s son there could be no doubt. In Scotland’s southern Highlands, he was not so much Silas as Niel Ballantyne’s son. In musical circles it had been much the same, even without a fiddle in hand. But here in America he could be whom he pleased. He could even change his name. And he need never take up a fiddle again.

  If he set it down once and for all, might it not stay the memories?

  Still, a hundred strathspeys and slow airs filled his head and heart, each bringing its own echo of the past. Was it any wonder, after such a dream, he felt like playing a lament instead? Picking up his bow, he began to play so low and slow it couldn’t possibly be heard. Or so he hoped. Liege Lee didn’t seem like a man much given to music.

  For once Eden was still abed as dawn warmed the windowpane. Drawing on her dressing gown, Elspeth looked down at her sister, lingering on the tangle of hair spread upon the pillow—a sheen of queer, crimson gold. In winter it darkened to ruby; in summer it seemed sunlight itself. Why she insisted on wearing it down as she’d done her whole childhood mystified Elspeth. It made her look like a girl, not a young woman of nearly twenty. But that was all well and good, she mused, if the Scot had a wandering eye.

  Opening the door, she nearly winced at its squeaking. Sliding through a crack was no longer a simple matter. The babe had turned her into her ample mother, a fact she hated. She could hardly look at her son or hear his cries without feeling stouter. Now that her milk had come in, her bosom felt like a boulder even bound in the loosest stays. The mere brush of fabric against her skin sent every nerve shivering. She needed to be abed, but curiosity called her forth. She simply must know why Eden had been poking about the summer parlor.

  The neglected room felt encased in ice this morning. Evidences of Hope Rising were everywhere, stinging her afresh. When old Greathouse had died the year before, the mansion’s rooms had been emptied and fine Philadelphia furniture brought in. The heir, David, was as frivolous as his uncle had been frugal. All of York had benefitted, though there had been more than one brawl over a London-made clock or piece of French crystal. Rather than hold an auction as any sensible man would do, David and his foolish female cousins had given most everything away. Though Eden was awed by their benevolence, Elspeth felt only contempt, as did their father. Secretly he’d turned around and sold some of the items they’d received.

  Wanting to escape the room as soon as possible, Elspeth began opening drawers and compartments for she knew not what. Her airy-headed sister was always reading and scribbling in spare moments. Likely she fancied herself a female poet. Time spent at Hope Rising was no doubt giving her lofty notions. Or was there more?

  Her searching hands stilled. Could Eden be smitten with David Greathouse? Or David with her?

  A river of envy seemed to flood her soul. Though the Greathouses were far above their humble station, it would be just like David to cast conviction aside much as he had Hope Rising’s furniture and marry beneath him. As heir, he could do as he pleased, surely.

  Slamming shut a drawer, Elspeth remembered the Greathouses were in Philadelphia till spring. With so many city belles for David to choose from, Eden’s charms would fade away or be forgotten. Or so she hoped. Slightly mollified, she left the summer parlor. What did it truly matter? Her own future seemed equally sunny with the coming of Silas Ballantyne.

  Was the man trying to be obstinate, or was he simply testing him? Silas wondered. Standing with the anvil between them, Liege and Silas had been double-striking a particularly challenging piece of iron but couldn’t get into the needed rhythm to finish it. Each blow of the master’s hammer was slightly off-center, thus throwing Silas out of sync. His impatience spiked with every miss. Mayhap the old man’s gout was plaguing him.

  Liege Lee’s very presence was plaguing Silas.

  Though snow still blanketed the landscape, the forge’s fire was an inferno, turning the situation more tense. The linen shirt Silas wore, mended so many times it was threadbare, clung to him in places. Sweat slicked his brow and trickled down his back, making him want to scratch his new beard. Liege was only slightly less damp, perspiration catching in his graying whiskers and shining off his creased forehead, his stocking cap lopsided.

  ’Twas his third day of service. Mayhap it was time to test the master. Extending a steady hand, he reached for Liege’s hammer as it hung limply by his side and saw a flash of anger contort his face. But Liege stood by silent
ly as Silas worked with both tools, finally beating the piece into submission.

  “Egads, man!”

  Silas waited for further condemnation or praise, but Liege said no more. Handing him the finished work to inspect, Silas moved on to the next need, a particularly challenging copper latch for a well-to-do tradesman. Despite his attention to his task, Silas was aware of endless silhouettes darkening the smithy door. Though the weather was frigid, men still came. To have something made or mended. To talk trade or politics or simply warm themselves by the fire while they waited.

  The morning passed in a whirl of work, each project requiring a different tool and skill, and always a careful eye. Before Silas had finished forging a link on a broken chain, Elspeth appeared, summoning them for dinner. Though he turned his back to her and removed his leather apron, he felt her eyes on him. Unlike Eden, who kept to the house, she always seemed to be hovering.

  “When she’s well, she’ll assist us,” Liege had announced that morning when Elspeth brought him the ledgers.

  When she’s well . . .

  Though pale, she looked robust, Silas thought. Hardly the invalid he’d envisioned when Greathouse had first spoken of her. He refrained from saying the smithy was no place for a woman. Injuries—burns—were easily gotten. And the male attention she was sure to garner was not a thing to be trifled with, surely.

  Bending over his work, Silas had asked quietly, “What is your daughter’s malady?”

  Silence.

  Though he didn’t look at Liege, he sensed the man’s surprise and confusion. Apprentices did not question their masters, and Silas expected a swift reminder. But instead of uttering a rebuke, Liege mumbled about his gout.

  Silas thought of it now as he followed Elspeth down a rock path overhung with what looked to be an unfinished arbor. Rose canes, pruned severely, stood layered in old snow on both sides. She walked slowly, he noticed, and he felt a spasm of guilt. Mayhap she was ill. His suspicions, easily aroused due to his own misfortunes, were likely out of place here. Judge not lest ye be judged. He’d best take things at face value till he knew the moods and rhythms of this strange household.