Fair Is the Rose

by Liz Curtis Higgs

  Only one pair of eyes that met hers shone not with peace but with sorrow.

  Rose.

  Fifty-Three

  One common fate we both must prove;

  You die with envy, I with love.

  JOHN GAY

  Five days. That was all that remained before Jamie and Ian were lost to her. The Almighty had comforted Leana each Sabbath on the cutty stool, and Reverend Gordon had blessed her with forgiveness. But nothing could stem the tide of time, nor undo what was done.

  Monday brought clouds and a threat of rain as Leana worked in the garden, turning over the soil with her fork, keeping her hands busy until Ian woke from his nap. Her physic garden was the first to show signs of life. Wild arum, with its glossy, arrow-shaped leaves, unfurled above the soil. The downy stalk of cowslip promised a yellow head of flowers in another month. She worked a handful of sand into the soil round the neat spears of shepherd’s-purse, thinking of her beloved shepherd on the hills.

  While she gardened this week, Jamie would spend every waking hour with the ewes, examining them, preparing them. As the lambs dropped lower in their wombs, the ewes grew swaybacked and restless, bleating for attention, their udders swollen with milk. Leana felt every bit as unsettled and ill at ease, desperate to hear Jamie’s calming voice, her breasts full as she tried to wean Ian. Five days. And then no more.

  Tuesday afternoon she found the note Rose had hidden among the leaves of her French writing paper before she’d presented the gift to her on her birthday. One sentence, unsigned: Leana, can you ever forgive me?

  She held the note with both hands, staring at the familiar swirl of letters. If Rose was referring to her testimony before the kirk session, there was nothing to forgive. Her sister had merely told the elders the truth, though Jamie insisted otherwise. Leana gripped the note harder. Perhaps there was one thing, one unforgivable thing. Ian. She crumpled the paper in her hands. Four days left.

  On Wednesday Rose knocked on the nursery door while mother and child were stacking wooden blocks. Leana was not surprised; Rose had been shadowing her since Sunday, observing her with Ian, her eyes full of questions. May we speak later? Perhaps that hour had come. Leana looked up from the floor where she sat with Ian in her lap. “What is it, dearie?”

  Rose took a tentative step inside the nursery. “I hoped you might teach me …” She looked about the room, avoiding her gaze. “That is, I need to learn how to care for Ian.”

  “Aye, you do.” Leana rubbed her cheek on Ian’s downy head, willing her tears to stop before they began. I must do this. I must. “Sit you down, Rose. Here on the rug.”

  Rose did as she was told, tucking her skirts round her, their knees almost touching. Ian sat between them, banging blocks together with glee. Rose could not take her eyes off the child, smiling at his antics. She adored Ian; Leana had known that from the first. But would she love him enough to tend to him when he was sick, to discipline him when he was naughty, to hold him when he cried for no reason? Will she love him as I love him?

  Leana took a steadying breath and circled her hands round Ian’s chest, holding him long enough to place him in her sister’s lap. Letting go of him, even for a moment, took all the strength she possessed. “I will teach you what I can, Rose. Many things Ian will show you himself, over time. Won’t you, lad?”

  Now that he faced his mother, Ian became even more animated, tipping toward her, trying to reach her nose with his fingers when she bent down, squealing with delight when she pulled away just in time.

  Rose looked at her in surprise. “Do you play with him like this often?”

  “Every moment I can.” Leana pulled her apron up to hide her face, then peeped over the edge of it as his eyes widened, watching her, before his face bloomed into a smile. “Include him in your daily tasks, Rose. If you are carding wool, keep him away from the sharp teeth and let him sit at your feet with a handful of wool. If you are helping in the kitchen, be certain he is safe from the fire while he bangs at a pan with a horn spoon.”

  Rose laughed, leaning round to look at Ian. “You like to make noise, don’t you, young man?”

  “Children are roarie,” Leana agreed. “When he starts to greet and carry on, think through a list of possibilities. Has he wet his linens? Is he hungry? Is he tired? Is something poking him? Does he need to be held?”

  Her sister’s mouth fell open. “But which one should I do?”

  “All of them, in the most sensible order, ’til the lad is content.” Leana leaned forward and kissed his button nose. “Make no mistake, ’Tis a great deal of work, mothering. Annabel will help you. And Neda.”

  “And you will be here,” Rose was quick to add.

  “Aye.” Leana ran her thumb across his bare toes, counting each one. “I will be here.”

  The sisters took turns entertaining Ian until he began to fuss and swat at them, as if two mothers at once were too many to please. Leana stood and gathered the babe into her arms, then helped Rose to her feet as well. “Time for your first lesson, Rose. Do you remember our list?”

  Rose’s hands shook as she unwrapped the child’s soiled linens. She made a face, then quickly recovered. Her movements as she changed him were clumsy, but her attention was fixed on the task. Even Leana could not deny that Rose was trying her best, much as it grieved her to admit it. What had she expected? That Rose, who loved children, would not love Ian? That she would fail miserably and refuse to care for him? That she would beg Leana to continue as Ian’s mother, dismiss the wet nurse, and all would be as it was before?

  Nae, Leana. Nothing would ever be as it was before.

  Mother, stepmother, and child spent most of the rain-soaked day together. There were moments—few, but dear—when both sisters laughed at Ian and exchanged a warm glance or when their hands touched and neither of them pulled away. Leana kept one thought uppermost in her mind: Ian’s happiness. His welfare was all that mattered. If Rose was to nurture him, then Leana would see that she was well prepared.

  When Ian settled down for his afternoon nap, the sisters tiptoed down the stair in search of a bracing cup of tea. Annabel served them in the front parlor with a wary gaze, treating them more like guests than family. “If ye need oniething else, ladies, ye ken whaur tae find me.” She curtsied and left them to their treacle scones as a steady rain pelted the window sill.

  Without Ian to cushion the tension between them, Leana realized they were behaving like polite strangers, chatting about the weather, the lambing season, safe things. No mention was made of the wedding to come or the wet nurse. Or Jamie. Or Ian. When their conversation dwindled into an awkward silence, Rose stood long enough to add another brick of peat to the fire, for the room had grown cool. She reclaimed her chair, drawing it closer, then pinned Leana with a troubled gaze.

  “Did you … find my note? In the writing paper?”

  Finally it had come. The question she could not answer. “I read it yesterday.” Leana spread a thin coat of butter on the last bite of her scone, waiting.

  “What say you then?” Her sister’s hand rested on hers, stilling her butter knife. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  Leana searched her heart for an honest answer. “I love you, Rose—”

  “Nae!” Rose fell back on her chair, her hands falling limp to her sides. “You always say that, but ’tis not what I asked you. I need to know if I’m forgiven. For Jamie. For Ian. For all of it.”

  Leana pushed aside her plate, ashamed to find her hands shaking. “I cannot say that I love you and not forgive you. They are twinborn, Rose. Love and mercy.”

  Rose turned away, pressing her cheek against the upholstery. “You say the words, Leana. I wonder if you mean them.”

  Leana stared out the window as if the rain held some answer she could not find inside her. “I want to mean them, Rose,” she said at last. “How can I fault you for speaking the truth? Or for wanting a man who was meant to be yours?”

  “But the truth that
I spoke cost you everything.”

  “Not quite,” Leana reminded her. “You are still my sister.”

  “Och!” Rose’s voice tightened on the word. “Small comfort, that. A sister who is selfish and hatesome like Father. Aye, and spiteful and envious and willful. Everything you are not.”

  “That’s not so, Rose. I have my own ledger of sins to account for.”

  Her sister wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Name one.”

  Did she dare speak the truth? “I will tell you the most shameful one, Rose: I will never stop loving Jamie.”

  Her sister stared at her in disbelief. “But you cannot have him.”

  “Nae.” Leana stood, brushing the crumbs from her skirt. “I cannot.”

  Fifty-Four

  Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep,

  Who lost my heart while I preserv’d my sheep.

  ALEXANDER POPE

  The first lambs arrived early Thursday, born to a mature ewe who wasted no time delivering her twins onto the dewy grass. She licked them clean while Jamie watched with a shepherd’s pride, having cut the cords with a dull knife to reduce the chance of bleeding. The twins were up on their tottery legs within the hour with the ewe nudging them toward her udder. Jamie eyed each lamb’s tiny tail; if it ticked back and forth like the pendulum of a clock, the lamb was getting milk. He watched their small bodies fill out and their stomachs grow tighter.

  “She’s a good mother,” he commented, nodding at Duncan, who’d joined him. “ ’twill be a long day. I’ve heard ewes grunting hither and yonder.”

  “Aye, there are shepherds stationed a’ o’er the braes. Yer lambs are the first of mony. And twins at that.” Duncan slapped Jamie on the back. “ ’Tis a good sign, lad. Usually wi’ blackface, half gies ye twins, and the ither half drops ane. We’ll see how yer luck holds.”

  As he made his rounds across the hills and pastures, Jamie found a dozen or more ewes hard at labor, noses pointed up, straining to bring their lambs into the world. A second ewe of the morning bore twins, then a third. He’d chosen the tups with care, making sure all were twinborn as well, but the odds were against so many ewes birthing two lambs. Even so, as the day progressed, the lambs continued to come in pairs. One ewe laboring on Auchengray Hill tried to push both out at the same time. Without a shepherd’s guiding hand, the ewe would die and the lambs as well. Jamie reached inside her to tie a string betwixt the two front legs of one lamb, then positioned its head before pulling it out. The second lamb quickly followed.

  He paused, thinking of the McKie brothers: Evan. Then James. Had he been born first instead of his brother, his past, present, and future might have looked verra different. No fleeing to Auchengray to escape his brother’s wrath. No Leana. No Ian. And no Rose. In two days he would claim her as his rightful wife. God help me. Until then he would deliver lambs and pray for his own deliverance from an impossible situation.

  When he came upon a newborn lamb struggling to breathe, Jamie grasped it firmly by the hind legs and swung it round him in an arc, expelling the phlegm in its throat by sheer force. The startled lamb wobbled about for a moment before finding its balance and tottering after its mother. “Well done, lad!” Duncan crowed, watching from an adjoining pasture. Jamie waved at him, relieved to have control over something, however fleeting.

  Neda dispatched a basket of venison pasties for the hard-working shepherds by way of one of the servant lads, for there was no time for dinner at the mains. ’Twas the gloaming before Jamie staggered back home, exhausted but satisfied. He would sleep with his window open, listening for anguished bleating overnight, the sure sign of a ewe in distress. ’twould be a shame to lose any lambs after such a remarkable day of twin births, all healthy.

  Leana greeted him at the kitchen door, bearing Ian on her hip. “Neda tells me Auchengray’s hills are covered with lambs.”

  “Aye.” Jamie grinned in spite of his weariness. “We’ve had more than our share of good fortune today.” Moving toward the stair, he extended a familiar invitation. “Come, Leana. Keep me company while I dress for supper.”

  A soft gasp sounded behind him. “Jamie, I cannot …”

  Och, man! Could he not think before he opened his mouth? “Forgive me.” He turned back to find a wounded look in her pale eyes. “My fault entirely. Habit, I’m afraid.” A habit he’d enjoyed. Having her near. Seeing her blush as he dressed. Stealing a kiss whenever Hugh looked the other way. How could such simple pleasures be gone forever?

  He could not even touch her cheek now to comfort her or brush the hair from her brow. Instead he bent and kissed their son, hovering over the child’s head nestled against his mother’s heart. For longer than he should, Jamie reveled in Leana’s warmth and the sweet scent of lavender that wafted from her gown.

  “Jamie,” she murmured.

  How he loved hearing her speak his name. “Aye, lass?”

  “You must change your shirt before supper,” Leana reminded him, though she did not move. “And I must feed your son.”

  “So we must, on both counts.” Jamie reluctantly lifted his head, glad to see her faint smile. “Will you walk with me up the stair at least?”

  They mounted the stone staircase side by side, shoulders barely brushing, as Jamie told her more about the lambing. No sooner had they reached the top than Rose came sailing out of her room, almost knocking them over.

  “Oh!” Rose stepped back, palms up. “Goodness, I did not expect …” She lowered her hands and her eyes as well. “That is, I was … looking for you, Jamie.”

  “I’m escorting my … my son’s mother up the stair,” he explained, as Leana disappeared into the nursery with Ian. Whatever was he going to call her if not his wife? He could not call her his beloved, though she was. Nor his lover, for that she was no more. Nor his friend, for the word hardly suited. Nor his cousin, for he had two of those: one whom he loved and one whom he was about to marry. Again.

  The second of the two eyed him now, waiting to have a word with him. “After I’m properly attired, Rose, I’ll meet you in the front parlor before your father rings the supper bell at seven.”

  Her features brightened. “I’ll go at once.”

  Jamie dressed, though he was in no hurry to join her. Whatever did the lass have on her mind? A fool’s question. They had spoken very little of the wedding. Now it loomed before them. It was not the brief ceremony that concerned him but all that would come after.

  He found her standing by the front window of the parlor, her thick braid trailing down the back of her embroidered gown. She turned slowly—for effect, perhaps—as candlelight illumined each feature. Rose was altogether lovely; he could not deny it.

  “Jamie.” Her soft voice seemed an affectation as well. “Have you thought about our wedding night?”

  As little as possible. But he could not say that. “Only that it will be … difficult. For both of us.”

  Her smile faded. “But I love you, Jamie. ’twill not be difficult for me.” When he said nothing, she hastened to fill the silence. “You learned to love Leana. Perhaps you will learn to love me once more.”

  “Perhaps.” Och! What are you saying, man?

  As if that single word were an invitation, Rose glided across the room until she stood before him, her forehead almost brushing his chin, so near that he could no longer look into her eyes. Her heathery scent assaulted him instead, and her breath tickled his neck. “Since you are aware that I … I may be barren …”

  He stepped back, seeking an escape. “We dinna ken that for certain, lass.”

  “But the only way to be certain is …” She had the decency to blush. “The only way is for us to … try.”

  ’Twas clear she had no inkling of what trying entailed. “If it is a child you want, we already have Ian to raise.”

  “And I love your son,” she was quick to say. “I do.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He had no reason to doubt her; Leana h
ad said the same.

  “But I want children of my own, Jamie. Your children.” She rested her hand on his coat sleeve, her fingers plucking at a loose thread. “When we come home from the kirk on the Sabbath eve, might we retire to … to my room rather than yours? ’Tis awkward to think of sharing the same bed where you … where my sister …”

  “Fine.” He would not defile so sacred a place.

  Her tone grew more uncertain. “You will … do your duty by me, won’t you, Jamie?”

  “Aye.” Heat crawled up his neck. “As long as you understand ’twill be duty, not pleasure.”

  She gave a small shrug. “Call it what you like, as long as it might … as long as I …”

  “Wheesht.” He wrapped his hand round her forearm, making very sure she was listening. “If you do not bear children, Rose, ’twill not be because I fail you as a husband, but because God chooses not to bless your womb.” The supper bell punctuated his sharp words as Jamie released her and strode out the door. Was it a husband she wanted or naught but a tup to give her children?

  When they entered the dining room in tandem, both bristling, Lachlan ignored them, while Leana aimed her gaze at her empty pewter plate. Ashamed at his outburst, Jamie could not look at Rose. Nor could he look at Leana, who seemed embarrassed for him. He bowed his head instead and begged for mercy. Two more days.

  Lachlan spoke a brief grace over the table, then ordered the meal served. Annabel and Eliza swept into the room with steaming dishes of barley broth thickened with peas, carrots, and turnips. “Barley bannocks, too?” Lachlan muttered. “Have we naught in our cupboards but barley?”

  Neda stood by the door as usual, directing the servants. “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir. I’ll see we have mair variety at table supper next.”

  Rose sat up straighter, as if she’d just thought of something. “Neda …” Her tone was sweeter than syllabub. “Might you serve hare soup on our wedding night?”