“I cannot tell you how I come to be in France, only because it might endanger my husband to do so. Let me only say that I am here involuntarily, and that if I can get back to England, I will never contact you in any way again, under any circumstances. And I must tell you before you decide whether or not to help me, that I cannot return openly to England and there is danger to you if I am discovered in your company.”
“That’s more honesty than I expected,” Gabriel said. “It seems not to be in my interest to assist you! However, danger isn’t something that unduly worries me. If it did, I would not be in the line of business I am.”
Beth smiled.
“But the risks you take are calculated,” she said. “So it’s only fair to tell you that there is risk to being discovered helping me, so that you can decide if you wish to.”
“And if I say no, what would you do? Would you abandon your attempt to cross to England?”
“No,” she replied. “I will do whatever I have to to return. I would row across the Channel if I was capable. If you cannot help me, then I will seek another way.”
“Even though it would be very dangerous for you to do so?”
“Danger is not something that unduly worries me, Mr Foley,” she said.
He laughed again.
“In approximately four days,” he said, “weather permitting, a sloop will be going to England. It will contain four hundred casks of very fine French brandy. Or, if you wish, four hundred casks of very fine French brandy, and one cask of Mrs Abernathy. It won’t be very comfortable for you, but I can make sure there is sufficient air for you to breathe, food and drink, and blankets to cushion you from any injury. You will be my personal cask of brandy.
I will be accompanying the sloop, so will make sure that you arrive safely, failing shipwreck or being boarded by the navy, in which case it will be every man or woman for themselves. And as I cannot trust every member of the crew, this being a joint venture as it were, concealing you in a barrel will mean only a very few people will need to know you are aboard at all, which will be safer for you. Do you have accommodation in Calais?”
“Yes,” she said, surprised by the question.
“Good. One of my trusted men will escort you home. Take a couple of days to think about it, if you wish.”
“I have already made my decision,” Beth said. “I will come with you. If I can afford it. What is your price?”
“Do you remember the last time we met?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes, of course I do.”
“Well, because of your courage and consideration in riding to warn me, both myself and several of my men are sitting here free, instead of swinging from a noose at Tyburn. You have paid for your voyage in advance, Mrs Abernathy. I only wish it could be more comfortable for you. But it will be better than swimming, at least, especially at this time of year. Keep whatever funds you have to help you in your search for your husband. I truly hope you find him. He is as remarkable a man as you are a woman.”
“I could say the same for you, too, Mr Foley. Thank you,” Beth said.
“You are most welcome. And now that you have an interest in keeping me alive, you may have your knives back. May I trouble you for a demonstration of your throwing skills?”
Beth was only too happy to oblige, with the result that twenty minutes later, while she was being escorted back to her room by the beak-nosed man, Gabriel Foley was standing before a very indifferent oil painting of a bowl of fruit, which now had a slit through the stem of the apple, the very centre of the orange, and the thin blue stripe decorating the earthenware bowl the fruit was in. He shook his head in admiration.
“A shame you’re so devoted to your husband, Mrs Abernathy,” he said softly to himself. “You would make a wonderful Mrs Foley, otherwise.”
Back in her room Beth went to bed, happier than she had been in a long time. She felt a little sorry for Michael, but only a very little, managing to dismiss him from her mind with ease. She lay for a time, planning. Once she landed in England, she would make her way north as quickly as possible, taking the cheapest form of wheeled transport possible, and staying in indifferent inns. The chances of her meeting anyone who knew her were infinitesimal, and as she was believed to be dead there would be no descriptions of her in circulation.
She turned her mind to Paris, wondering how Paul, Elizabeth, Raymond and Rosalie were. Their final farewell had been heartrending, all the more so because they all knew that the likelihood of them ever meeting again was very remote. Beth had given Rosalie the beautiful turquoise dress which she had tried on in Martinique, and which matched the ribbons that had resulted in the scars she carried on her back.
“When you are settled in Paris, I would like you to wear this dress and go to the opera one night, or to a play if you prefer, and think of me, as I will think of you,” Beth had said.
Rosalie had promised faithfully that she would do that, and that she would treasure the dress forever, and one day would tell her children about the wonderful lady who had given her and her father their freedom.
Beth fingered the amulet that she still wore around her neck, and that she would continue to wear, as she had promised Raymond. It had served her well so far. She had not really expected to find Gabriel Foley in Calais; she had only attempted to do so because she had thought the slight chance that he would be there worth the effort of searching.
She had thought that when she left her friends the unbearable loneliness would descend on her again. But even though she had been alone since the coach carrying her had turned the corner on the outskirts of Paris, taking her new friends away from her forever, she was not lonely.
She had a purpose, and while she could actively follow it she would not be lonely. She refused to contemplate how she would feel were she to find out Alex was indeed dead.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Wise words, and ones she intended to follow. She turned over in the narrow bed, and still grasping the amulet in her hand, went to sleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Scotland, March 1748
The two groups of MacGregor men had jogged steadily for a few miles, but now that they were nearing home they slowed to a walk, chatting whilst eating their provisions of bread and cheese, and handing round a couple of flasks of ale they’d taken from the redcoats they’d encountered the previous day, who were now sleeping peacefully and eternally under a foot of peat and some carefully arranged heather.
Angus brought up the rear with all but three of the clansmen who were still engaged in the business of ambushing British soldiers, either for the sheer love of killing the enemy, or in the fulfilment of the blood oath they’d sworn. A few months ago they had finally abandoned the feileadh mòr in favour of the legal breeches and stockings. They still carried illegal arms, of course; but if a large group of redcoats was to appear on the horizon, they would have time to abandon them in the heather and gorse, becoming a small group of innocent Campbells out hunting for food and unlikely to be arrested. Since the Act of Grace had been passed in June the military presence had been scaled back somewhat, and those soldiers who were still stationed in Inversnaid, Fort William and the other barracks were no longer raiding the villages and isolated homesteads with the frequency and savagery they had eighteen months previously.
Which was making it harder, though not impossible for the MacGregors to find redcoats to kill. Angus had already decided that as soon as they reached the requisite number to call the oath fulfilled, he would tell Alex that he wanted to stop the ambushes. He had changed in the last months, partly due to becoming a father, partly due to the sheer weariness of killing, and partly because of the three men walking together in front of his group.
Alone of all the clan, Alex, Iain and Kenneth had opted to continue wearing the illegal belted tartan kilt of the Highlander which would identify them immediately as outlaws even from a
distance, and which they could not abandon in the heather and gorse.
This was the outward demonstration of an inner problem that Angus had been thinking on since shortly after his brother had returned from France the previous October. At first Angus had been overjoyed to see Alex back with his clan. The first thing he’d done of course was to show off Alex’s new nephew and namesake, about which Alex had been genuinely delighted. Then he had told him the clan news, and the decisions he’d made as stand-in chieftain.
Alex had called a clan meeting the day after he’d returned, had accepted the commiserations about Beth’s death coolly and then had changed the subject before anyone could request details about what had happened in London, instead telling them about his visit with Lochiel and Charles, and stating that he now believed any chance of a further attempt at restoring the Stuarts was minimal, but that for himself he intended to continue killing redcoats until his oath was fulfilled, after which he would decide what to do next.
And then Alex had retired behind a wall of emotionless detachment that no one, in spite of numerous attempts, had managed to breach in five months. Outside of conducting clan business, which he did as efficiently as ever, he never laughed, rarely smiled, spoke only when necessary and spent the evening hours staring into the fire, his face hard and devoid of expression.
Initially Angus and Morag had thought to remain in Alex’s house after his return. There was certainly enough room for them all and Alex had told them they were welcome to stay. But the change in the MacGregor chieftain was so profound it cast a gloomy atmosphere over the household, so that after a couple of weeks of attempting and failing to engage him in conversation, or indeed in anything of a light-hearted nature, they had moved out, leaving him to stare into the fire alone of an evening.
Now, listening to the laughter and chatter of the men with him, and contrasting it with the grim silence of Alex, Kenneth and Iain ahead, Angus felt the unbearable sadness that comes from watching someone you love profoundly die by degrees, whilst being helpless to prevent it. In fact, this was even worse than that, for Alex, still young, strong and physically healthy, might well live for many years. But inside he was all but dead, and Angus could see no way to bring him back to life again. He had thought about it all through the long winter nights, and had discussed it with his wife, already pregnant with their second child. Neither of them could come up with any solution.
Finally he had gone to see Kenneth, who had listened intently while Angus poured out his worries about his brother and his concerns for the clan. He ended up saying more than he’d intended to; but then Kenneth had always been there for him, solid, dependable and completely trustworthy, and had loved and protected him for as long as he could remember, whenever Alex or Duncan had not been around to do so.
“Duncan’s dead, and I’ve come to terms with that now,” Angus had told the older man, “but Alex isna, yet I feel like I’m grieving for him as though he is. What can we do to make him happy again?”
Kenneth had smiled, but without humour.
“Ye canna do anything for him, laddie, no more than ye can do anything for Iain, or myself for that matter, although I’m a different case frae they two. Iain and Alex are just passing their time here until they can join Maggie and Beth. It’s worse for Alex, for he had the hope of her being alive, and he canna find a way back from the second blow, except for the killing. It’s the only thing keeping him going, the hate. I can understand that, for I’ve felt it myself.”
“But you’ve laughed and danced since…” Angus hesitated, afraid to speak the name no one ever uttered to the giant MacGregor’s face.
“Since Jeannie died. Aye, I have. And sometimes I’ve felt the pleasure of being alive, and felt guilty for it because the woman I loved is in the grave, and I put her there, which makes it worse, although I ken it had to be done. I’m about ready to move on wi’ my life now, though. But they two, no, they canna do it, and it grieves me too, but there’s nothing to be done.”
“So why are you still wearing the kilt, and still keeping wi’ them on a raid, if ye can move on? Ye ken the danger of wearing the tartan, man.”
Kenneth had stood then and clasped Angus by the shoulder, gently for him, although it still left bruises.
“Because they’re fighting recklessly with no regard for their lives, and perhaps it would be kinder to let them die in battle, but I canna do it. I’m protecting them as best I can, and praying every night that they’ll find a reason to live other than hate. Ye’ll no’ be telling them that, though.”
Angus hadn’t told them that. But it had made him love Kenneth even more than he already did, and it reassured him that the giant clansman was still looking after Alex and by doing so was looking after him too. Because as damaged as Alex was, Angus could not imagine a life without him in it. He had always had a somewhat unrealistic belief that he and his two brothers would grow up together, get married, have children who played and squabbled with each other, and then, in some far-off distant future, surrounded by grandchildren, would die, old and fulfilled.
Duncan’s death had shaken that belief badly. But until last October he had still had Alex. There must be something he could do to get him back. He would think of a way. He had to think of a way.
But now, as they made their way along the track that led to home, the snow melting and winter turning to a watery spring, Angus was still no closer to finding a way to breach Alex’s formidable emotional defences.
About two miles from home they were met by Lachlan and Jamie.
“What’s amiss?” Alex, the first to reach them, asked.
“Nothing!” Lachlan replied. “It’s just Ma sent us to see how far away ye were, that’s all. Isd!” he added to Jamie who, hopping from one foot to the other with excitement, had been about to speak.
“Well, it’s clearly something then,” Alex observed.
“It is,” said the irrepressible Jamie. “But Ma said she’d hang me from the roof beam an I tellt ye.”
“Then ye mustna tell me,” Alex said. “Learning when to keep a secret is a very important lesson for a clansman, and I’m proud of ye for keeping silence. Away hame and tell your ma we’ll be back soon.”
“They could have walked back wi’ us,” Dougal said, the group at the rear now having caught up.
“No they couldna, because Jamie would have tellt his secret, and then been upset about it,” Alex replied.
“Seems like it’s good news, anyway,” Angus said.
“Aye,” Alex said indifferently. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough.”
They carried on together, six of them discussing what it might be, three of them, as was their custom, keeping their speculations, if they had any, to themselves.
When they arrived back at the settlement, the clansfolk were sitting silently on the ground near their chieftain’s cottage. Janet was standing next to the bench outside Alex’s house, and sitting on the seat was a very old, wizened and filthy man dressed in rags, who none of them recognised. As Alex neared them the old man made a move to stand, but Janet laid a hand on his shoulder and he subsided.
“I tellt ye,” Janet said belligerently, looking up at her chieftain with tears in her eyes. “I tellt ye, but ye wouldna believe me.”
Alex’s brow furrowed slightly, and he looked from her to the stranger on the bench. His thin greying hair hung matted and verminous to his shoulders, he had a long unkempt beard, and the tattered remains of what had once been a shirt revealed a skeletal body covered with scars and sores, some weeping, some scabbed.
Angus stepped forward and was just about to recite the formal offer of hospitality to a stranger, as Alex showed no sign of doing so, when to his surprise his brother showed an emotion, for the first time since he had greeted his tiny namesake.
“Jesus Christ,” Alex said, dropping to his knees in front of the man and clasping him very gently by the shoulders. “Simon?” With great care, he drew the man into an embrace, heedless of the suppurating wounds an
d the lice. “Dear God, man,” he said, his voice breaking, “what have the bastards done to ye?”
The skeletal figure laid his head on his chieftain’s shoulder and started to weep.
Angus looked at Janet in shock. Simon? This couldn’t be Simon! Simon was at least thirty years younger than this man and stockily built, with thick brown hair. It wasn’t possible that this man could be Simon.
“I tellt ye,” Janet repeated, her voice almost a whisper now, tears running down her cheeks. “I tellt ye he wasna dead, that he’d come home. Ye wouldna believe me, none of ye.” Her face crumpled and Kenneth moved forward, scooping her up as though she was a child and hugging her.
“It’s as well ye didna say aye to me when I proposed to ye, then,” he said. “I’d have made a bigamist of ye, and a cuckold o’ him. We’d have had a blood feud on our hands.”
“Put me down, ye big loon,” she said, laughing through her tears.
Alex was talking to Simon very softly, so softly that no one else could hear what he was saying. Then he shifted position slightly, and lifted his clansman off the bench, his face registering shock at how little he weighed.
“Janet,” he said. “Ye were right, lass, and I’m sorry we doubted ye. Ye’ll be moving into my house until Simon’s recovered.” When she opened her mouth to object, he shook his head and she subsided into silence. “I’ve a comfortable bed, which he’ll be needing, and a good fireplace wi’ a chimney to keep the room warm for him. Get the bairns and the belongings ye’re wanting. I’ll move into your house for the present. Lachlan, away and fetch some water for warming and some cloths. Peigi, bring some of that comfrey salve of yours.” Then he turned and without another word carried his fragile burden into his house, closing the door behind him.
Angus turned to the rest of the clan, who had all clearly been expecting some sort of a speech from their chieftain, a welcome for Simon, a request to know what had happened to him, a declaration of an imminent celebration for the return of a man who all of them, excepting only one, had believed to be dead and rotting or buried somewhere on Culloden Moor.
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