Alex hid a small smile. Elizabeth came because she missed her daughter, and even more because she resented the way Jenny was integrating herself with the Grahams.
*
“There you are.” Alex poured them all some herbal tea and added a generous dollop of honey to her mug.
“You look well,” Elizabeth said, although her eyes remained on her pregnant daughter.
“Thank you.” Alex ran a hand over her belly; five months to go and already a pronounced bulge. “I wouldn’t mind if this was the last one.” She caught the amused glance that flew between Mrs Parson and Elizabeth and frowned. If she had any say in things, this would be the last one.
“I’ve myself birthed fifteen, and four of them after my fortieth birthday.” Elizabeth looked over to where Jacob was helping Ruth and Sarah with their numbers. “It’s them that are your crown of glory,” she said, her eyes softening when they rested on Jenny. “It is in procreation that woman fulfils her destiny and does penance for the fall from grace.”
Mrs Parson nodded in agreement. “A man blessed with a fertile wife must ensure she gives him as many bairns as she can, for they in turn will also be fruitful.”
“How Darwin,” Alex muttered under her breath. “But what about the women who can’t?” she said out loud. “Those who are barren or who for some other reason just can’t?”
“They must pray,” Elizabeth replied. “Somehow they’ve displeased the good Lord and must abjectly beg for his mercy and forgiveness.”
“Oh.” Alex sipped at her tea.
“I have news,” Elizabeth said, in an abrupt change of subject. “Our militia rode down a group of those heathen savages, south-west of here, and now peace has been restored.” She gave a satisfied little cackle. “I suppose the sight of real soldiers made them think twice about disturbing the order of things.”
“The order of things?” Alex couldn’t help it; she just had to bait this woman.
“White man, Alex. You know that, surely? White man is set to rule his coloured cousins on account of his greater wisdom and spiritual development.”
“Lucky them; here we come, steal their land, break the treaties we have negotiated with them, and when they protest and try to push us back, we ride out in force to kill them. Seems very fair and just to me – God-given proof of the white man’s spiritual supremacy.”
“You have no understanding of what you’re saying,” Elizabeth said. “This land has been granted us by God that we may build a society founded on God’s word here in the wilderness, where no man was before.”
Alex opened her mouth to launch herself into a heated reply but what could have become an infected discussion was cut short by loud, agitated barking interspersed by what Alex recognized as Mark’s voice, raised in alarm. She flew out of her chair, and at her shoulder went Elizabeth, both of them making for the door.
“Sweet Jesus in his meadows,” Elizabeth exclaimed.
“A bear?” Alex swallowed and rushed towards her son, the perpetually loaded musket in her hands.
“Can you shoot?” Elizabeth panted from beside her.
“Not really.” Alex could barely talk, her eyes glued on the large yellow dog and what looked like a gigantic brown shape snarling at it. Behind the dog stood Mark, with the rounds of sausage he’d been sent to collect from the smoking shed cradled in his arms.
“I can.” Elizabeth took over the musket.
By now the bear had seen them, turning small, ill-tempered eyes in their direction and rising to stand on its hind legs. Narcissus growled. With lowered head, bared teeth and the hackles along his yellow back standing straight up, he looked menacing, and apparently the bear thought so too, swaying from side to side. The dog lunged and the bear roared, its front paws swiping.
The musket exploded, and there was blood and skin everywhere. For a shocked instant, Alex was convinced Elizabeth had missed her target, blasting Narcissus or Mark into non-being, but then the bear dropped back onto all fours and lumbered off in the direction of the forest, blood flowing down its flank. Halfway there it crumpled, slowing over several paces before it hit the ground with an excited Narcissus leaping around it. Alex stumbled towards her son, who fell into her arms with a muffled whimper.
“Why didn’t you throw him the sausages?” she said. “Why not yank down a ham and throw it at him as well?”
“I couldn’t,” he said into her shawl. “I couldn’t move so scared was I.”
A wild-haired Ian came galloping from the woods where he’d been logging, musket in one hand and axe in the other, and skidded to a halt.
“Are you alright?” His eyes flew over them.
“More or less,” Alex said, and they were – well, except for poor Narcissus, who was standing with one leg held clumsily off the ground.
“Good shot,” Ian said to Elizabeth before raising his own musket and blowing a hole in the bear’s head.
“Good shot?” she snorted, but smiled all the same. “With less than fifty feet between me and the beast, it’s not that impressive, is it?“ She came over to where Ian was standing beside the dead animal and prodded at it with her toe. “Young – and very thin, considering the time of the year.” Which was probably why it was skulking round the farm to begin with, she theorized.
“Aye.” Ian lifted one of the oversized paws. “Old injury.”
“I want to see.” Mark squirmed in Alex’s arms. “Let me go.”
Alex reluctantly did, following him to where Elizabeth was peering at the badly healed cut across the pads.
Ian straightened up and frowned in the direction of the stable. The animals sounded half-crazed with fear, and from the pig’s end came a series of loud thumps.
“I’d best go see to the beasts,” he said to Alex, who was staring at the brown heap that had until recently been a bear. “Mark, you come with me, and then we’ll see to your dog.”
Mark nodded and hurried after Ian. Alex was tempted to rush after him, but knew Mark would prefer if she didn’t. Instead, she retrieved the sausages from the frozen ground and made her way back to the house with Elizabeth in tow.
*
“So much snow,” Alex said a couple of days later. She shoved open the door and placed a booted foot on the thick white carpet. It crunched beneath her weight. “He’ll be cold,” she added in a worried tone.
“Perhaps, but snow insulates.” Magnus gave his daughter a reassuring hug before calling his grandchildren together, promising them they were going to do some serious playing in the snow.
“Did you get much snow, back in Sweden?” Daniel wallowed after Magnus up the hillside. His woollen cap was pulled down tight over his ears, and he had to hold his arms out from his body on account of the two shawls he had cross-tied over chest and back. Magnus smiled down at mini-Michelin and looked at the others, just as bundled.
“Masses and masses,” Magnus exaggerated, hoisting Sarah to sit on the primitive sled he’d knocked together in Matthew’s wood shed. “So we did this a lot.” He shoved at her and stood back to grin when she flew down the inclination, squealing with exhilaration.
“Do you miss it?” Jacob asked.
“Miss what?” Magnus’ head was beginning to throb. The sunlight threw reflections off the pristine snow that hurt his eyes. He squished them shut to block out the spinning circles of black that were crawling across his field of vision.
“Offa?” Jacob stuck his hand into Magnus’ and squeezed.
“I’m okay.” Magnus took a series of short, quick breaths. He opened his eyes wide. “See? Right as rain.” He even managed to smile. “Yes, I do miss it,” he said, in an effort to think about anything, anything at all but the clanging in his head. “Just like your father misses Scotland.”
“Very much,” Jacob nodded, “but not all the time – not anymore.”
“Do you?”
Jacob looked at him and smil
ed, his hazel eyes a brilliant emerald green in the sunlight. “Nay, not really. But one day I think I’ll go back, to see it. Da never will.” It sounded so much as a prophecy that Magnus felt the hairs stand up along his spine and shoulders.
“You don’t know that. Look at me: seventy years old and here I pop up in Maryland. Not something I expected to happen.” No, because he’d assumed he’d be ending up in Hillview. “Go on,” he motioned Jacob towards the others. “Take your turn, son.” He remained where he was, gritting his teeth as he battled the pain in his head. His fingers were already digging for a pill, a momentary relief. Still enough, he comforted himself. Even if I take one now, there’s still enough to end it all before it becomes unbearable.
An hour or so later, a very happy but very wet troop of children entered the house. Alex alternated between scolding and laughing as she undressed them and rubbed them warm before serving them all something hot to drink.
“Will you ever go back, do you think?” Magnus asked Alex once they were alone in the kitchen. The whole space was garlanded with drying clothes, the smell of damp wool overlaying the rich scent from the pot of hip soup that stood on the table. Alex dipped her ladle, brought up a serving of dark red hot soup and poured them both a refill.
“No,” she said. “How can we?”
“But you’d want to?”
She shrugged and looked away. “If wishes were horses... Anyway, what is there for us to go back to? Hillview is gone, and Matthew is still a convinced Covenanter, a man who won’t back down from his Presbyterian beliefs and kowtow to the Church of England. Besides, we could never afford to.” She surveyed the whitewashed walls of her kitchen, ran a hand over the table top, and smiled. “So this is home for us now; until we die.”
“Until we die,” Magnus echoed. Which in his case was going to be bloody soon. He gave Alex a little smile. “A good home,” he said, and was gratified by how pleased she looked.
“You think?”
“I do.” He closed his eyes and yawned. Beside him, she fidgeted, and he opened one eye to see her twisting her wedding ring round and round her finger.
“He’ll be back,” he said, one hand coming down on hers.
She nodded, one single tear sliding down her cheek. “I pray, all the time I pray that he’ll come back to me this time as well.”
Magnus didn’t say anything. He just squeezed her hand.
*
He came riding down the lane just after daybreak, and the first person he saw was his wife balancing over the frozen ground, emptied chamber pot held aloft. The early morning sun threw shards of glittering light off the snow at her feet and touched her dark hair to glint in deep bronzes and reds. He opened his mouth to call her name but she was already darting towards him, and he smiled at how her hair came undone from its messy braid, how her face was lit from within at the sight of him.
He was off the horse and she threw herself at him, arms winding themselves tight around his neck as he swung her round in a slow arc before setting her down again.
She raised her hand to his face to trace a shallow cut on his newly scraped skin. “You’ve shaved,” she said.
“I had to. It was mostly grey; made me look frightfully old.” He hugged her again, smiling at how her womb had hardened into a perceptible roundness.
“And the babe?” He placed a tender hand on the small of her back to hold her closer.
“He’s doing quite well, I assume,” she replied, and in her eyes he could see she already loved the unborn wean.
“She is,” he corrected, and kissed her brow.
“He – yet another boy that looks just like his father.” She ran light fingers over the skin under his eyes. “You’re tired.”
Aye, he was tired and dirty, and in his head were images he didn’t want to have of defenceless Indians being put to death by enraged colonists, of Jones staring at him along the length of a pistol, certain death gleaming in his eyes. He closed his eyes at the memory. He’d tell her later, but not now.
“Bath?” she suggested.
“Bath,” he agreed and lifted her onto her toes to kiss her.
The laundry shed was cold, their exhalations blooming like miniature clouds in the frigid air. Soon she had the fire going, and Matthew swung the cauldron to hang over the flames. He sat down on the bench, exhaustion creeping through his limbs. Three days of hard riding, cold nights and bad food were taking their toll. When Alex came to sit beside him, snuggling up close enough that her hair tickled his nose, he sneezed, slipping an arm round her waist to hold her close. The fire crackled, the bench creaked, and he could have sat like this for ever, relishing her proximity.
“Okay?” she asked after a long while, tilting her head back to regard him.
He nodded, struggling with his boots.
“God, I’ve missed you,” she said.
He threw her a look, thinking she was right bonny in only her shift and her cloak.
“Here I am.” He reclined against the wall. “Have your way with me, woman.”
She laughed, placing a hand on his crotch. His cock swelled under her touch, and he spread his legs for her, closing his eyes as her deft, strong fingers caressed him through the heavy cloth of his breeches. She had a good hand, his wife, and his member stretched and preened, warmth pooling in his loins.
The water came to the boil, and Alex rose and retook her hand, leaving him bereft. She filled the wooden tub and steam enveloped them, the scents of crushed lavender and rosemary making him sniff in appreciation.
“Come here.” Alex beckoned, and he complied, shedding clothes in his wake. Hot water sent painful tingles through his cold extremities, his skin going from white to bright red in a matter of seconds. His wife knelt by the tub, dipped the washcloth and began washing him. Hands, shoulders, stomach...he sat forward to give her better access to his back. Her arms came round his neck, her mouth leaving a series of soft imprints down the side of his face. The washcloth travelled over his chest. She repeated the movement, but this time she rubbed the wet cloth over his left nipple. It hardened into a miniature pebble.
“Close your eyes,” she murmured. He did, and the cloth traced the scars decorating his front, stopping for a while to inspect his bruised ribs.
“What’s this?”
“I fell off my horse.” Albeit with a little help… He grimaced, shoving the unwelcome images of the Burley brothers away from him.
“You fell?” She sounded incredulous.
“Not now; we can talk about that later. Go back to your work, lass.”
“My work?” She kissed his shoulder. “Aye, aye, sir.” Slowly, she dragged the cloth down his front to his privates. The cloth stroked his crotch, his balls. He opened his eyes.
“Close them.” She stilled her hand. He closed his eyes. Her tongue flicked against his lips, but when he opened his mouth in expectation of more she laughed. The washcloth on his member, wrapped around him as she moved her hand up and down, and Matthew groaned, lifting his buttocks off the bottom. That tongue again, now on his chest, her mouth closing round his right nipple. Teeth nibbled him, her grip on his cock tightened, and he opened his eyes again.
“Kiss me, wife.”
Alex brushed her lips against his.
“I said kiss me,” he growled.
“What, like this?” She took hold of his ears, holding him still as her lips moved against his. He raised a hand to her head and kissed her back, his tongue invading her mouth. She spluttered and tried to rear back. Matthew took a firm grip of her waist and pulled her into the tub.
Alex gasped. He kissed her again. Her wet shift clung to her skin, outlining her breasts, her swelling belly. His woman. He suckled her nipple through the sheer linen, and her mouth fell open, hands fluttering around his head. Blood rushed through his body, his pulse pounding loudly in his temple. His cock thudded, his balls near on ached
. So many weeks without her, so many nights longing for her warmth. He gripped her round arse and lifted her on top. With a little sigh, she took him inside. He lay still, she moved – up and down, up, up, down. Alex leaned over him, her eyes burning into his.
“Welcome home,” she said. “Welcome home to me!”
Chapter 33
“For God’s sake, Alex, you’re what? Seven months pregnant? Let me do this, okay?” Magnus snatched the spade from her.
“For God’s sake, Magnus, you’re what? Seventy-two and with brain cancer? I can do this myself,” she bit back, attempting to take the spade off him. She scraped one clog off against the other to dislodge the damp earth that had gotten stuck underneath and inspected her little kingdom. Magnus began to laugh, but insisted that she wasn’t doing any more digging.
“You know Matthew would agree with me, so no digging. You have sons to help you if you consider me too decrepit.”
“Decrepit? With the amount of food you put away, how can anyone consider you anything but hale and hearty?” Mrs Parson made an amused sound and bent down to inspect the lavender bushes.
“Look who’s talking. It’s not as if you live off salad leaves and water, is it?” Magnus extended his hand to help Mrs Parson straighten back up. “I’ll take the girls with me and go nettle hunting. I’m sick of cabbage and wrinkled carrots.”
“That makes two of us.” Alex waved him off.
“How can he eat so much and dwindle as quickly as he does?” Alex asked Mrs Parson once Magnus was out of earshot. The last few weeks had tinged Magnus’ skin a permanent grey due to fatigue and illness.
“It eats him from within, and I think he’s in constant pain.”
“How much longer do you think?”
Mrs Parson muttered that she had no notion but thought it doubtful he would live over the summer.
Alex looked in the direction of their little graveyard, and a whisper of cold crawled up her spine.
Increasingly, Magnus began escaping into the woods, ostensibly to collect nettles, or check on his maple trees. He’d spent the winter carving a number of wooden spouts and now had several trees from which he was collecting sap. In reality, he wanted to be alone, and during the long walks he took mental stock of his life, from those early years of protected childhood in the far north to these last few years in a day and age he shouldn’t be in. Sometimes he spoke to Matthew about God, amazed and reassured by Matthew’s bone-deep conviction that God did indeed exist.
A Newfound Land (The Graham Saga) Page 29