Just Beyond Tomorrow

by Bertrice Small

  “I canna remember,” he said, feeling a bit guilty that she had seen his disapproval of her when she was being so generous. He sat up and put his long legs over the side of the bed. His head spun for a moment, but then cleared. He sat for a time, and then he arose. While his shoulder hurt like hell, he felt all right otherwise.

  “Lucy has roasted a nice joint. I can smell it from here,” she said with another smile. “Come along. If you feel any weakness, I will help you.”

  He slowly descended the staircase, and she led him into her little dining room, indicating he sit at one end of the table. Her old servant came forth from the kitchen carrying a platter upon which was a roast of beef. There was already bread, butter, and cheese upon the table along with a plate containing a roasted chicken. The servant didn’t wait to ask. She simply piled his plate with food and ordered him to eat. He saw his hostess hide a smile. When he had finished everything that had been put upon his plate, she brought him a dish of egg custard and some strawberry jam. He greedily spooned it up. And all the while his glass was kept filled with good red wine that he recognized as coming from his family’s estate at Archambault in France. He finally pushed himself back from the table.

  “The old woman is a good cook,” he remarked.

  “Her name is Lucy,” Barbara said. “You ate well, so I may assume you are on the road to recovery. Again, my lord, I do apologize for shooting you last night. I did not expect visitors, and certainly not Charlie. I hope you can forgive me.”

  The wine had mellowed him, and he thought, who was he to stand in judgment of his brother and Barbara Carver? As Charlie had pointed out, he was a Stuart, and it was a well-known fact, at least in Scotland, that Stuarts had large appetites for life. “Ye couldna hae waited until ye received a hail?” he asked her.

  “If I had not, you might be dead,” she said. “I aimed for your heart, Patrick Leslie “

  “Ye’re a poor shot,” he told her with a small grin. “God help us when a woman hae a gun. If ye hae been my wife, I would be dead, for Flanna is an excellent shot wi’ a bow. Aye, I forgie ye, Barbara Carver. Ye hae nursed me well, and fed me even better.”

  “You are very different from Charlie,” she noted.

  “Aye,” he agreed. “He’s an Englishman, born and bred, but I am a Scot, born and bred. Still, we are brothers and love each other dearly. Our mam gave birth to five sons, two Englishmen and three Scots. I have two English sisters and one Scots sister, but we are all family and loyal to one another.”

  “You must be that you came down from Scotland to try and dissuade Charlie from being with the king,” she noted.

  Lucy bustled into the dining room. “Someone’s coming!” she said. “Best to hide our visitor, mistress.”

  Barbara Carver arose quickly. “Come with me, Patrick Leslie.” He followed her into the little parlor, watching with amazement as she went over to the fireplace and, reaching inside, touched the far wall, which immediately swung open. He needed no urging, and carefully avoiding the blaze in the hearth, he stepped over and around it to fit himself into the niche behind the fireplace wall. “I’ll come and get you when our visitor is gone. Depending on who it is, it may be a while.”

  Old Lucy shoved a flask into his hand with a nod. Then she and Barbara closed the back wall of the fireplace on him. Patrick looked about him. The space was small, but not impossible. He could stand if he chose, or there was a trifooted stool to sit upon. To his surprise, the space was not stifling despite its location. He uncorked the flask and sniffed. Wine. Well, he didn’t need it now, having just finished a good meal. He put the stool into a corner of the little space and, sitting down, closed his eyes.

  Her musket in hand, Barbara Carver hailed the incoming visitor, and then cursed softly beneath her breath. It was her Puritan protector. Setting the gun by the door, she put on her most cheerful smile. Then, remembering the magnificent stallion in the stables, she hissed to Lucy, “Go and take his damned horse lest he see Lord Leslie’s beast and ask questions.”

  Lucy hobbled out just as Sir Peter arrived and slid from his mount. “Give the beastie to me, yer worship,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.” And she moved as quickly away from him as she could, clutching the horse’s bridle.

  “Darling!” Barbara cried softly, and opened her arms to him.

  “My dear,” he chided her, “go inside lest someone see you.”

  “Oh, Peter, it is already night,” she protested prettily, but she obeyed him.

  He entered the house and kissed her briefly. “I cannot stay, but I wanted to come and tell you what has happened.”

  “Oh”—she pouted—“and I have been so naughty, sir. I truly need a spanking.” Then she sighed.

  “Elsbeth knows I’m here. She insisted I come and warn you of the villains traversing the countryside right now. She invites you to our home for safety’s sake. I told her you would not come, but she still was adamant that I come to make certain that the poor widow was safe. I must return almost immediately.”

  She pouted at him again. Her breasts were very visible over the top of her gown, and he could scarce take his eyes from them.

  “So, madame,” he said, “you are in need of some correction?”

  She smiled seductively, putting a single finger in her mouth and sucking on it. She lowered her eyes to allow her eyelashes, which were dark in comparison with her hair, to brush her cheeks. Then she held out her hand to him. “Come upstairs with me,” she tempted.

  “I can’t, but your parlor will do nicely, my dear. First I shall punish you for your naughtiness, and then I will tell you what has happened before I return home to my wife. Come, madame!”

  Barbara Carver felt her cheeks grow pink as she considered just how much of what would go on in her parlor could be heard from behind the fireplace wall, but there was no help for it. She allowed Sir Peter to usher her into the room. He sat upon a chair, and she dutifully put herself over his knees. Her skirts were immediately, indeed eagerly, raised, and he began to punish her smooth white bottom with blows of his gloved hand. She squealed and wiggled as was her custom until finally he cried, “Enough!” She was then hustled across the room and bent across a tabletop, her skirts still uplifted. He entered her almost at once, sobbing, pumping her briefly before releasing his juices. Stepping away from her, he lowered her skirts and helped her to rise.

  “Ah, my dear,” he said as they now sat together upon the settle, “you are as always such a comfort to me.”

  “I am glad,” she murmured. ’Odds fish! The man knew nothing of making love. “I know how difficult these times are for you, Sir Peter. But tell me now, for I am so very eager to learn what has happened. A peddler passed by last week and said the king’s army was in Worcester. Is it true?”

  “It was,” Sir Peter replied. “The king has been justly beaten, and while his person is still at large, rest assured, my dear, that God will deliver him into our hands for execution shortly.”

  “Then, you know where he is?” Barbara pressed.

  “Well, no, but we are on his trail,” Sir Peter said pompously, “and we will certainly catch him. Who in England will shelter him but for possibly some of the traitorous Catholics? If those he believes are his adherents were English, would there not have been a popular uprising in his favor? But there was not. The man who calls himself King of England came over the border with a small troop of his Scots rabble. We will soon have Scotland under our thumb as well. Then there will be no place for this Charles Stuart to hide. The criminals who supported him, however, may be roaming the countryside, my dear, and so you must be vigilant. It is unlikely that they have come to the southwest, but these Scots are not very intelligent. They have probably, with their leader, fled north, but we are in pursuit. In a very short time we will catch this man. We have already begun executing those traitors in Worcester. We’ve torn down the city’s walls in punishment and rounded up as many Anglicans and Catholics as we could find. Depending on the nature of their crimes,
they will either be jailed, transported, or executed.” He arose. “I must be on my way home, my dear. You should be safe, but be on your guard nonetheless. It is unlikely anyone will come your way.” Then Sir Peter took his leave of Barbara Carver.

  She watched him go from the doorway of her house, and when he had disappeared over the hills, she hurried into the parlor to open up the priest’s hole. There she found Patrick dozing peacefully, his back against the wall. She woke him, relieved that he had not been a party to her embarrassment. Then she told him what Sir Peter had disclosed.

  Patrick nodded. “Charlie was right to leave before dawn for Bristol,” he said. “Now the question is when can I return north.”

  “I think we must wait until the furor has died down. Once the king is either caught or successfully makes his way to France, then you will be safe to depart. I have travel papers that just require the filling in of a name. Sir Peter gave them to me months ago in the event that I should want to make a journey of any sort. But you must wait, Patrick Leslie. I could not face Charlie again one day if I got you killed or imprisoned. Promise me that you will do nothing foolish. I know how you long to be back at your beloved Glenkirk with your wife and new child, but you must be patient, if not for yourself, for them.”

  “For a time, at least,” he promised her. “I need to know more before I dare to venture home, Barbara Carver.”

  The king had, indeed, escaped Worcester, going through the same gates his cousin had earlier exited through. The Duke of Hamilton had been killed that day in the fighting, but the king was accompanied by the Scottish Lord Lauderdale, the Earl of Derby, and the Duke of Buckingham. The king’s only contact with Roman Catholics had been with the French priests who served his mother and the Irish who occasionally peopled his father’s court. Now, on the advice of Derby, he put himself into the hands of the English Roman Catholics and discovered while they were faithful to their church, they were also the loyalest of the loyal to their king and to their country.

  Disguised as a laborer, he sheltered first with the Penderells, a family of yeoman farmers at their farm, Whiteladies, in Shropshire. They hid him in the woods and attempted to get him into Wales, but to everyone’s distress, the local militia was holding all the bridges over the Wye. The king was then taken to Boscobel, where he was hidden first in the house, then the gardens, and finally he was forced to climb an oak tree where he hid as Cromwell’s men searched all about below him. By the seventh of September, but four days after his defeat, he was at Moseley Hall. On the tenth of the month, disguised now as a tenant farmer’s son, he escorted Mistress Jane Lane, a royalist’s daughter, to visit a friend at Abbot’s Leigh near Bristol. Mistress Lane had the proper passes for traveling.

  He remained briefly at the manor of Abbot’s Leigh, unrecognized by the family. He was, however, recognized by the family’s butler. The butler, glad to be of service to his king, advised Charles to take Mistress Lane and ride across Somerset. Following the man’s advice, the king reached Trent Hall on the sixteenth of September. He was now under the protection of his old friend Francis Wyndham and a group of royalists.

  They could not find a ship at Dover. The ports all along that particular part of the coast were full of Cromwell’s soldiers preparing to leave for Jersey to take it and the other Channel isles under their protection. The royalists set about to find a ship that could sail from the Hampshire or Sussex coast. Locating a suitable and sturdy vessel, they quickly brought the king aboard. On October fourteenth, he sailed from Shoreham, landing at Fecamp in Normandy two days later. By the twentieth of October, all of England knew that Charles Stuart had escaped Oliver Cromwell’s grasp, and while he was not there, England still had a king.

  Upon hearing the news as she shopped in the nearby village, Barbara Carver told Patrick Leslie that it was now safe for him to return home. She had enjoyed his company, but it was time. He departed before first light on the morning of October twenty-second. Old Lucy had baked him a supply of oatcakes and filled his flasks with both wine and water. He thanked her and bid her farewell. Mistress Carver had told him the night before that she would not be up when he went, and so he had said his good-byes the previous evening, thanking her for her care. His shoulder was now healed but for the scar.

  He rode north, and then north and east, over the next weeks, always taking the road less traveled, never stopping where he might have to speak with anyone lest they know him for a Scot and call the local authorities down upon him. It was lonely, and it was cold as the autumn began to near winter. He crossed the border just north of Otterburn, riding across the Cheviot hills. He avoided Edinburgh, taking a ferry across the Firth of Forth, riding across Fife and ferrying across the Firth of Tay. He crossed the South Esk, the North Esk, the rivers Dee and Don. The hills rose up all around him, and he stopped briefly to take his plaid from his saddle and wrap it about him for warmth, because now he would not be arrested if someone saw him or spoke to him. His heart began to beat faster as he suddenly realized that he was recognizing landmarks. He pushed the big dappled gray stallion harder. The cold air smelled of home. Then suddenly he exited the forest, and ahead of him stood Glenkirk Castle. He had been on the road for over a month, and he was tired, but tonight he would sleep in his own bed, with his beloved wife.

  Flanna stood atop the battlements of Glenkirk as she did each afternoon, looking south, seeking him, willing him home. Her breasts were swollen with her milk that was even now beginning to seep through her gown. She sighed, and was about to turn away when she saw the rider. He was yet distant, but she knew. In her heart she knew it was her Patrick. Flanna, her pulses racing, forced herself to climb carefully down the ladder from the rooftop to the corridor below. Then she dashed down the several flights of stairs, racing into the hall, shouting, “He’s home! He’s home!”

  She ran from the hall and out the door of the castle into the courtyard, shouting. She ran through the courtyard and beneath the iron portcullis across the oaken drawbridge. Her bodice was soaked through with her milk, her red hair was flying, and she smelled like a cow, but she ran directly toward him. And he jumped off his stallion before he had even pulled it to a stop and ran to her, enfolding her in his arms, swinging her about. They laughed as if they were mad. Then the laughter died as suddenly as it had begun, and Patrick Leslie kissed his wife as she had never been kissed before, and was kissed in return in the same fashion.

  “I knew ye were nae dead!” she finally said as together they walked back to the castle.

  “Who said I was dead?” he asked, surprised.

  “Ye dinna come home, and we heard the king was beaten and fled to France. I hae never seen so many peddlers as I hae seen this autumn, all of them filled wi’ news and eager to share it, though how much of it was true, I dinna know. What kept ye so long in England?”

  “Welcome home, my lord!” Angus Gordon was beaming as Patrick entered the hall. He shoved a goblet of wine into the duke’s hands.

  “Ah, here ye are safe and sound, and us so fearful for ye,” Mary More-Leslie said, and then she began to weep.

  Patrick hugged his housekeeper. “Now, Mary, I only went down into England to fetch my brother,” he soothed her.

  “And where is that feckless laddie?” she demanded.

  “In France, lo these many weeks.” He laughed. “Where is Henry?”

  “In England, lo these many weeks,” Flanna parroted him. “Did ye think I was going to wait until ye returned to hae the bairns? I sent him home a week after I hae them. And a good thing, too. Do ye wish to see yer sons, my lord?” She took him by the hand, leading him across the Great Hall to two cradles by the fireplace above which hung the portrait of his ancestor, the first Earl of Glenkirk.

  Patrick Leslie stared down in astonishment. Two! He had sired two sons!

  “They’re already baptized, so ye’ll hae to be content wi’ their names,” she told him. “We couldna be waiting for ye to finally wend yer way home, Patrick Leslie.”

  “What ar
e they called?” he asked. Two. Two sons!

  “The next duke is James, and the Earl of Brae is Angus,” she said quietly. “They were born on the nineteenth of August.”

  His sons stared up at him dispassionately. They were as alike as two peas in a pod. Each had a head full of black hair. Each had blue eyes, but then he remembered all babies began with blue eyes. They were plump and very alert.

  “Well?” Flanna demanded.

  “They’re wonderful!” he exclaimed.

  “Is that all ye hae to say to me? My family was delirious wi’ delight when they learned I hae given ye twin sons, Patrick Leslie,” she told him, “and all ye can say to me is wonderful?” Then she laughed, for from the moment she had said sons, he had gotten a dumbstruck look on his face that was yet there. Then she once again became aware of her now very wet bodice, and said, “The bairns must be fed.”

  And there was Aggie, unlacing Flanna’s bodice and exclaiming with distress at the condition it was in, not to mention her chemise beneath. Flanna sat by the fire and undid the chemise. Aggie handed her first one child, and then the other. The children began immediately to suck noisily upon her breasts, the milk bubbling about their little mouths as they greedily nursed.

  Patrick stared, fascinated, at his wife’s white breasts with their pale blue veins. His sons obviously had voracious appetites. Drawing up a chair, he sat by her side. “How do ye tell which one is which?” he asked her.

  “Jamie hae wee mole just above his left lip, but Angus does nae. Yer mam hae just such a mark in her portrait. I checked to see if it were nae a bit of dust, but it isna,” Flanna told him.

  “Nay, it isna dust,” Patrick said. “ ’Tis a family marking.”

  “Then, ye can certainly hae nae doubts anymore,” Flanna said softly, and she looked directly at him.

  “Did we nae settle this months ago?” he demanded of her.

  “Aye, but I wanted to be certain,” she said sweetly.

  “Jesu, woman! They both look just like me!” he swore softly.