Fair Is the Rose

by Liz Curtis Higgs

  Leana would not make the same mistake. Nor would she allow a surgeon to come knocking on Auchengray’s door with his spring lancets and his bleeding bowls. She would see to Rose’s recovery using prayer, common sense, and God’s provision from her garden. “I’ve something to help you sleep, dearie.” She handed Rose a small glass of water mixed with a dollop of rum and a tincture of chamomile harvested last summer when she could still manage in the garden. “ ’Tis the very thing for your raw throat and that unco cough of yours.”

  Rose drank it down without complaint, then sank onto the pillows. Her eyes drifted shut. “Fever … few,” she said faintly, her voice cracking.

  Leana put aside the drained cup. “Aye, you have a fever, too. Bear with me, Rose. You’ll feel better soon.” Dipping one cloth after another into the lukewarm water, then squeezing out the excess, Leana draped the wet fabric on her sister’s arms and neck, on her calves and feet, and all round her face, whispering an entreaty as she put each cloth in place. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. As she finished covering her sister with prayers and compresses, there was a knock at the door, and Neda quietly entered the room.

  “We’re awa tae kirk now …” The older woman’s words drifted off as she looked at the patient, then at Leana, eyes widening with concern. “Ye’re sure ye ken what ye’re aboot?”

  Leana froze, dismayed by the question. What if she did not know and her remedies made Rose worse rather than better? Suppose her sister’s illness wasn’t a common cold but pneumonia? Or influenza? “Oh, Neda.” Leana’s voice caught. “Please God, I’m doing everything I can.”

  Neda drew her into a mother’s embrace, pressing her head against her shoulder. “Now, lass. Nae one could do better, for nae one loves yer sister mair than ye.”

  Leana sniffed, dabbing at her nose with a spare cloth as she gazed at her sister. “I pray that’s true. I do love my sweet Rose.”

  “Aye, ye do.” Neda rested her hand on Rose’s brow, turning the cloth once more. “Read the Buik tae her, Leana. I’ll have Duncan bring it up tae the room afore he leaves.” She touched a hand to Leana’s cheek in parting. “Ye ken the truth and the One wha penned it. Let yer sister hear it from yer lips today, for she needs it sairlie.”

  Neda slipped out the door, opening it enough for Leana to overhear Ian in the next room fussing a bit, wanting his breakfast. “Sleep well, Rose. I won’t be lang.” Leaving the door slightly ajar in case Rose should wake and call out for her, Leana hastened to the nursery, where Eliza had Ian cradled in her lap.

  The sandy-haired maid glanced up. “Is that yer mither, wee boy?”

  Ian’s arms flapped like a barnacle goose taking flight. Leana, laughing at his antics, scooped him up and bussed his sticky cheeks with kisses. “Aye, ’tis your mother. As glad to see you as you are to see her.”

  Eliza stood, for there was one chair in the small room. “I’ll awa tae kirk, then, if it pleases ye.”

  Leana released the quiet girl with her blessing, then put Ian to her breast without delay, grateful for a peaceful moment in the midst of a troubling morning. She stroked his head, delighting in the warmth of his skin, the silkiness of his hair, humming in tune with the sweet little noises he made. A languid half-hour passed without a sound in the house, save Duncan’s delivery of the family Bible to Rose’s bedroom. Leana rested her head on the high-backed chair and let her imagination carry her to Loch Trool, for her feet would travel there soon enough. Jamie called it the loveliest spot in all of Galloway with its steep green braes and a sparkling loch nestled between them. Not far from the water’s edge rose the stony walls of Glentrool, a massive house meant to last for generations. “ ’twill be your home, Ian,” she told her son, bringing his tiny fingers to her lips and brushing them with a kiss. “And mine.”

  True to his pattern, Ian sank back into sleep. Though it wouldn’t be a long nap, it would give her time to care for Rose and tidy his room a bit. Not a true cleaning, for it was the Sabbath, but enough to put her mother’s mind at ease. She made quick work of it, stacking Duncan’s latest present, a set of carved blocks, and Neda’s colorful rattles, wiping the surfaces of his crib, sweeping his soiled linens into a basket. “Sleep, my little prince,” she said, leaving the door ajar and moving to Rose’s room next door.

  Her sister was still asleep, as expected. “Not to worry if you don’t awaken while I read to you, dearie.” Leana settled into the bedside chair. “I’ll benefit from hearing it as well.” Thoughtful Duncan had placed the thick Bible on the table beside the bed and moved the chair closer, for the book was too heavy to hold in her lap for very long. Fishing out her spectacles, Leana lit a second candle, still squinting at the text as she began to read. She spoke slowly and clearly, on the chance Rose might merely have her eyes closed and be listening after all.

  “By faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Leana paused, letting the words penetrate the soil of her heart. Faith, aye. She understood that. But peace? How could a mother ever know peace once a bairn left her breast, once he toddled from her arms into a dangerous world? Like Rose, toddling off to Dumfries and coming home ill?

  The answers were there, woven through the words: The peace was from God, and with God, and through God. Leana pressed her damp hand to the page, praying as she did. May God grant you that peace, dear Rose.

  Thirty

  A malady

  Preys on my heart that medicine cannot reach.

  CHARLES ROBERT MATURIN

  God, help me. Rose could not even whisper the words, so swollen was her aching throat. She could pray the words, however, and so she did. Please help me. ’Twas a fool’s request, considering she’d turned her back on the Almighty and crossed the threshold of Lillias Brown’s cottage. Please forgive me.

  She forced her eyes open. Mere slits squinting at the meager light. Leana had come and gone all morning—or was it many mornings? After yanking back the bedcovers, her sister had draped damp cloths across Rose’s bare skin, leaving her trembling, feverish, and alone in the murky room. Why had Jamie not come to see her? Or her father? Or Neda? Maybe they had come. Maybe they’d given her up for dead. She clawed at her bedcovers like one climbing out of a drugged sleep. A tincture Leana had given her perhaps. Was her sister a wutch like Lillias? Her words had been soft and her touch gentle. But perhaps her intent was less benign.

  Feverfew. Aye, she’d told Leana. Hadn’t her sister listened? Hadn’t she understood?

  Forgotten words returned in fragments, bobbing through her mind like boats without moorings. The wutch’s herbs and spells are for you alone. Jane’s voice. Laughing as she said it. Choose another, Rose, for I am blithely wed. Only Jamie could be so heartless. My little daughter lieth at the point of death. Her father. Or was it Reverend Gordon, reading from the Buik? Nae, ’twas Leana who’d read to her.

  “Leana.” It came out on a croak. When no one appeared at the door, Rose tried another name. “Jane,” she struggled to say. But Jane lived in faraway Dunscore. And wasn’t Jane sick too? “Susanne.” Nae, she would never come. Jamie. She could not even bring herself to speak his name aloud, for then she might weep, which would make her throat hurt even more.

  A tap at the door, faint as it was, startled her.

  “Rose, it’s me.” Leana came in bearing a tray. “The others will be home from services soon,” she reminded her. “I thought it best to feed you before your bedroom is filled with anxious faces.” She put down the tray, then tucked a napkin beneath Rose’s chin. “Will you try some applesauce? ’Tis the same as I fed Ian a bit ago.”

  Rose stared at the cup of strained fruit and her sister, horn spoon in hand. Had it come to this, being fed like an infant? Mortified, she faced toward the wall.

  “Please, Rose. You’ll need your strength if you’re to recover.”

  She closed her eyes and waited for her sister to grow weary of persuading her. It was some time before Leana put aside her things and tiptoed out of the
room. Rose tried to sleep, but sleep would not come. She tried to sit up, but her body would not cooperate. When she stretched out a badly shaking hand toward the abandoned applesauce, she misjudged the distance and knocked it off the tray. The pottery cup shattered, spilling its contents across the painted wood floor.

  Leana returned at once. “Poor dearie. You were hungry after all.” There was no judgment in her expression, no scolding in her voice. “Let me clean this up, then we’ll see about a fresh cupful.”

  Rose had no choice but to let herself be fed.

  “I did this when you were a babe,” Leana confided, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “Neda helped me tie you into a high-backed chair with one of my sashes. I spooned porridge into your sweet mouth until your cheeks looked like a squirrel’s.”

  Rose waved away the rest. It was too humiliating. And it hurt to swallow.

  Leana did not argue but instead wiped Rose’s face clean, then found a brush and began pulling it through her sister’s hair in long strokes, humming as she did.

  Rose did not have the strength to resist her, nor after a time did she want to. With her scalp tingling, she sank deeper into the heather mattress. Her eyelids felt sewn shut. Many minutes passed before voices on the stair caught her ear.

  Leana bent closer. “ ’Tis the family, home at last. I’ll insist they not tarry. Will that suit you, Rose?”

  She cared little who visited her bedside or how long they stayed, only that she might sleep. And sleep she did.

  When she woke, even the gray shadows in the room were gone, and it was well night. Not a candle was lit, though she heard someone breathing in the chilly darkness. She mustered her strength, straining her voice to speak. “Leana?”

  “ ’Tis I, Rose.”

  Jamie. Her heart thudded in her chest. “Oh,” was all she managed to say.

  “Since you were well asleep, I thought it safe to take my turn by your bedside.” She heard the slight smile in his voice. “Leana is quite adamant: one visitor at a time.” A scrape of a chair and he drew nearer. “Shall I light a taper?”

  “Nae.” She swallowed with some difficulty. Surely she must look as horrid as she felt. “Who … else?”

  “Neda spent the first hour with you, then Duncan, then Annabel.” His voice was low, soothing. “Leana will come knocking any moment if she hears you are awake. You’ve slept the Sabbath away.”

  To have Jamie so near, all to herself, and not be able to speak to him was torture. She dragged her hand across the bedcovers, hoping he might clasp it in his. Instead it slid off the edge of the box bed and dangled above the floor.

  Jamie lifted her hand back in place, barely touching her. “Poor Rose. You truly are in a bad way.” He eyed her with compassion, nothing more. “Were others at your school ill? Before you left, I mean?”

  “Jane … Grierson.” Every word was an effort. At least she would not have to explain that her sickness came from breathing the foul air of the wutch’s cottage. From swallowing her eldritch herbs. From riding through a winter rainstorm. Rose counted it a miracle she was not already dead. And what of her dear friend? Had she recovered or grown worse? Rose managed two more words—“Write Jane”—before she sank into a feverish slumber.

  When she stirred again, gray sunlight filled the room. Annabel was dusting her dressing table, lifting each item with care, putting it back in precisely the same place: the silver-edged hand mirror, the stiff-bristled brush and ox-horn comb, the wooden box of hairpins, the round tin of face powder, the elegant bottle that once belonged to her mother, now filled with fresh rose water. Rose watched the maid’s efficient movements, remembering when the girl had first come to them from Aberdeenshire, timid and clumsy. Since then Neda had taught her to read, to clean properly, to help in the kitchen. Her skills as a lady’s maid were less adept, but Rose would see her trained soon enough.

  When she said the girl’s name in a gravelly whisper, the servant whirled about, her dusting cloth waving like a flag. “Miss Rose! Ye’re awake then. I’ll find Mistress Leana.”

  “Nae.” Rose coughed, a terrible barking sound. When she’d recovered enough to breathe, ragged as it sounded, she aimed her gaze at the breakfast tray beside her bed. “Drink.”

  Annabel complied at once, lifting a tepid cup of tea to her lips. “Steady as she goes.” Despite the maid’s efforts, the tea dribbled down Rose’s chin, staining her linen nightgown. “Och! I’m sae sorry, miss.”

  The door swung open. “What have we here? Is Rose awake, and you’ve not called me?” Leana’s face appeared above Annabel’s shoulder, her expression more haggard than usual. “We’ve not slept a wink worrying about you, dearie. Come, Annabel, let me care for my sister while you finish dusting the room. We’re sure to have more visitors, for Rose was missed at services yestermorn.”

  Rose shook her head, though it made her dizzy, and forced one word past her aching throat. “Nae.”

  “Nae visitors?” Leana laid the back of her hand along the curve of Rose’s neck. “Perhaps ’tis best, for your fever has not passed.” She brushed a cool cloth across each cheek and round her chin, dabbing at the spilled tea as well. “Naturally we’ll welcome Reverend Gordon. As to the others, suppose I have Neda fill them up with cakes and shortbread, then send them on their way.”

  Rose was relieved to hear it. ’Twas customary in the Lowlands to visit the ill, to crowd the sickroom until a patient could barely catch her breath. She’d made many such visits herself; in the future she might reconsider. For the moment one matter weighed heavy on her heart, and that was Jane. She must write her at once, inquire after her health, and beg for her forgiveness. To think of Jane feeling this poorly because she’d dragged her off to find a wutch on a winter’s day!

  She’d mentioned sending a letter yestreen, but Jamie had not understood. Rose spoke more firmly this time. “Write Jane.”

  “Your friend from Carlyle School? You’d like me to send her a letter?” Leana deposited the cloth into a bowl of water, then dried her hands on her apron. “If you’ll tell me what’s to be done, I’ll gladly scribe it for you.” Leana returned a few minutes later with her writing desk, which she perched on her lap. “Now, say only what is necessary. I’ll flesh out the rest of it.”

  For every phrase Rose forced between her parched lips—“Sick too.” “Very sorry.” “Please write.”—Leana penned a full paragraph, reading each one aloud, waiting for Rose’s approval. They’d no sooner finished the brief letter when Leana took out a fresh sheet of paper. “Dearie, I’ve discussed this with Neda …” Her voice trailed off as her earnest gaze studied Rose’s face. “We think it prudent you not resume your schooling for a bit. Suppose I write and tell them so, and we’ll post both letters at once.”

  Even nodding her head required more strength than she possessed. Rose lifted her hand briefly, then let it fall. “Candlemas,” she whispered.

  “Aye, we can enclose your offering for Mistress Carlyle to spend on candles for the school.” Leana’s pen moved across the paper in graceful sweeps. “Your friend Jane will no doubt be hailed the Candlemas Queen come the morn’s morn.”

  Rose closed her eyes, praying that Jane would travel to Carlyle School on schedule, that after breakfast on the second of February, Jane would present the schoolmistress with the largest donation of silver—the Candlemas Bleeze—and earn her paper crown. Please God, let it be so. Let Jane be well.

  Leana glanced at the window, repeating the oft-told rhyme.

  If Candlemas day be dry and fair,

  The half o’ winter’s to come and mair;

  If Candlemas day be wet and foul,

  The half o’ winter’s gone at Yule.

  “We’ll pray for wet and foul then, shall we? I’ve had enough of winter, and I ken you have as well. Father thinks it was your ride home in the chaise that brought on this unco cough of yours.”

  Let them think what they liked. Rose would hardly dispute it, not if it spared the
m from knowing the truth. She alone was responsible for the sickness that crawled through her body like a serpent, wrapping itself round her throat until she could barely draw breath.

  Thirty-One

  I am not the rose,

  but I have lived near the rose.

  HENRI BENJAMIN, CONSTANT DE REBECQUE

  How does Rose fare?” “Whan will she be weel?” “Is yer sister sae fauchie we canna see her?”

  A shower of questions greeted Leana each time she stepped outside Rose’s room. Household servants, worried neighbors, farm workers—all loitered about the house, getting underfoot and pleading for news. Neda served shortbread and tea, but the well-meaning folk would not be moved, so great was their curiosity aroused by the strange malady come to Auchengray.

  Murmuring her thanks, Leana slipped through the motley assembly in the dining room and knocked on the spence door, hoping she might find her father within.

  “Enter!” His voice sounded more gruff than usual. She would tread with care.

  Latching the door, Leana joined him by the small hearth. He sat in his favorite upholstered chair, its dimensions thronelike, nursing his morning dram. “Father, I’ve come about Rose.”

  “Och!” He banged his pewter cup on a thin-legged table, making it dance to his disagreeable tune. “Is nothing else worthy of discourse in this house?”

  “You’re right, ’Tis wearying. But my sister is dreadfully ill.” Leana folded her hands to keep them from shaking. He’d always affected her thus. She thought nothing of it, for didn’t all fathers strike a note of fear in their daughters’ hearts? “Neda and I wondered if Rose might remain home this week rather than return to Carlyle School.”