Here Burns My Candle

by Liz Curtis Higgs

  Marjory asked, “Have you tried Mr. Sprott of Blackfriars Wynd?”

  Janet was across the room and standing by Gibson’s side in a trice. “I have oft given Mr. Sprott my custom,” she said with a confident toss of her hair. “If I go with you, we’ll come home with candles.”

  Marjory frowned. “I’m not sure that’s wise. Mr. MacPherson cautioned us against leaving the house.”

  “Oh, but most of Hawley’s men are gone,” Janet said with a careless shrug. “Anyway, ’tis not far to Mr. Sprott’s. And with Gibson by my side, you’ve no need for concern.”

  Elisabeth moved toward them, a knot of fear tightening inside her. She knew Janet was weary of being withindoors, just as she was. But the king’s soldiers were still patrolling the High Street. Furthermore, they’d identified every Jacobite household and were ruthless in their search for spies and informants. Janet was neither, of course, but suspicion alone could land her in the tolbooth.

  ’Twas too great a risk.

  Seeing Janet reach for her cape, Elisabeth acted quickly. “What if you sent a note with Gibson instead? Your words alone might prompt Mr. Sprott to accept our shillings.”

  “A woman can be far more persuasive in person.” Janet’s mind was clearly made up. Her cape was already settled round her shoulders. “If you’ve shillings in your pocket, Gibson, I am ready.”

  Elisabeth tried again. “Could we not wait and ask Mr. MacPherson to help us?”

  “We have but two candles left,” Marjory explained, “and Mr. MacPherson has not been to see us in days. He may very well have joined his father at Falkirk. I’m afraid we must do what we can, Lady Kerr.” She placed two shillings in Gibson’s weathered hand. “Bring back four pounds of tallow candles. And take good care of my son’s wife.”

  Janet, looking pleased with herself, led the way across the threshold. She and Gibson soon disappeared round the curve in the stair.

  Marjory bolted the door behind them, then turned to Elisabeth. “You are unhappy with me for letting her go.”

  “Nae,” Elisabeth assured her. “Janet was determined to leave no matter what anyone said.”

  “Perhaps you are right.” Marjory sighed, tightening the strings of her leather purse. “As you often are, my dear.”

  After nearly four months without Donald and Andrew beneath their roof, Elisabeth had watched each woman’s distinct personality emerge. Marjory gave in to Janet too easily, and Janet never gave in at all. The role of peacemaker had fallen to Elisabeth just as it had when she lived at Mrs. Sinclair’s boarding school.

  Seeing her mother-in-law’s troubled expression, Elisabeth asked, “Might I read to you?” On Monday last Marjory had pressed some of her precious shillings into Gibson’s hand and sent him to Mr. Creech, the bookseller, to purchase a replacement for Donald’s ruined copy of The Seasons.

  She handed Elisabeth the book from the mantelpiece. “When my son returns home, he will be heartbroken to find his library gone.”

  Nae, he will be furious. “Which of the seasons shall I read?” Elisabeth asked.

  “Not Winter,” Marjory said firmly. “Give me a taste of Spring, and let me pretend it is not the middle of January.”

  They sat together on the sofa, which was drawn close to the fire. Elisabeth positioned the candlestand so she might read the tiny print. Marjory could not afford the larger copy with its fine leather binding and settled instead for a clothbound edition hardly bigger than a deck of playing cards.

  Elisabeth gazed at the opening page. Aye, here was the needed respite.

  Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come,

  And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,

  While music wakes around, veil’d in a shower

  Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.

  When Elisabeth paused, Marjory said, “Did I tell you James Thomson was schooled in nearby Jedburgh? His mother, Beatrix, once told me her son spent each New Year’s Day burning most of his writing from the year past.” A ghost of a smile flitted across Marjory’s features. “I don’t suppose we could convince our Janet to do the same with her poetry?”

  An unexpected knock sounded on the stair door. Three sharp raps, then two: Rob MacPherson’s signal.

  Elisabeth put aside The Seasons and hastened to greet him. When she reached the entrance hall, Mrs. Edgar was already pulling open the door to usher him within.

  “Leddy Kerr.” His countenance matched the darkening clouds beyond their windows. “News from Falkirk.” He strode into the drawing room, his greatcoat flapping about his boots. “Mrs. Kerr will want to hear this as weel.”

  “She’s not here,” Elisabeth told him. When she explained where Janet had gone and why, Rob’s sullen mood did not improve.

  “Have I not made clear the danger ye’re in whan ye leave this hoose?”

  “Aye,” Marjory assured him, “but we’re in need of candles, and Janet thought…well…”

  “I’ll see that ye have a stone o’ candles come the morn.”

  “Bless you,” Marjory said. If accepting a tradesman’s help chafed at her sensibilities, she kept it well hidden.

  “The news, then.” Rob did not take off his hat or gloves nor take an offered chair. “General Hawley is at Callendar Hoose near Falkirk, whaur the guid Lady Kilmarnock is busy keeping the man from his duties for King Geordie. Meanwhile, the Jacobites had a council o’ war and determined to fight Hawley’s troops. And the toun folk have filled the streets o’ Falkirk as if ’twere a mercat day, thinking to watch the battle.”

  Elisabeth’s heart pounded, imagining the scene. “Are they fighting even as we speak?”

  Rob’s gaze was even. “I canna say, leddies. The news is cauld lang afore it reaches Edinburgh. But, aye, ’twould seem this is the day, mebbe even the hour. Ye can be certain the prince and his men are ready. The last I heard from my faither, yer lads were in guid health and prepared to fight.”

  Without thinking, Elisabeth reached for Marjory’s hand. Her mother-in-law returned her tight clasp. “Promise you will come at once when you know the outcome?”

  “Depend upon it, guid news or ill.” Rob glanced at the windows facing the square. “At the moment I’m bound for Blackfriars Wynd to see Mrs. Kerr safely home.” With that, he was gone as abruptly as he’d come.

  Standing in the quiet house, listening to the blustery wind, Elisabeth released Marjory’s hand with a light squeeze and asked, “Would a cup of tea help?”

  “It might.” Her mother-in-law met her gaze as if truly seeing her rather than looking past her. “At least ’twill keep our hands warm and our minds occupied.”

  Mrs. Edgar brought them a proper tea, including cream and saffron cakes, served on mismatched china cups and plates rescued from a wooden kist. With fewer plenishings and no bed curtains, Marjory’s bedchamber sounded almost hollow. The clink of cup and saucer, the stirring spoon, the fork against the china, all were more noticeable. Neither woman had much to say, and their eyes were repeatedly drawn to the threatening sky.

  When the clock struck half past four, Marjory jumped at the sound and dropped her fork on the plate with a terrible clatter. With a soft cry, she leaned back, one hand on her heart. “However will I keep my wits about me through the evening?”

  “I imagine ’twill be the morn before we hear any news,” Elisabeth said, wishing it were not so. The battle at Gladsmuir had lasted a mere quarter hour. But twice as many men were gathered at Falkirk. The conflict might last for hours, even days.

  Darkness was upon them. The first drops of rain had just begun splattering against the window when they heard Gibson’s voice at the door. Both women hurried to the entrance hall and found the manservant distraught and Rob grim and silent.

  Janet was the color of fine sifted flour.

  “Whatever has happened?” Elisabeth asked her as gently as she could.

  “A dragoon…pulled me…against a wall. But he…Mr. MacPherson…” With a moan Janet collapsed into Elisabeth’s arms.
>
  “Oh, my dear!” Elisabeth tried to support her, but her sister-in-law’s limp body was too heavy for her. “Mr. MacPherson, if you will …”

  “I have her.” Rob lifted Janet with ease and carried her to her bedchamber, with the household on his heels.

  Mrs. Edgar took charge at once, tucking extra pillows beneath Janet’s head and slipping off her shoes. The housekeeper soon had a cool, damp cloth on Janet’s forehead and a cup of water pressed to her lips. “She’ll be needing air,” Mrs. Edgar said pointedly.

  Rob inclined his head toward the kitchen. “’Tis best if we speak elsewhere.”

  A moment later Marjory and Elisabeth were standing with him in the warmest corner of the house. Rob addressed their concerns at once. “She wasna harmed, merely frightened, and I canna blame her. Whan I found them, a dragoon had pushed Gibson to the ground, and Mrs. Kerr… weel, she told ye herself.” A tremor moved across his broad shoulders. “’Twas guid I arrived whan I did. Onie later…”

  Marjory did not look down quickly enough to hide her dismay. “However can we thank you?”

  “I ken ’tis difficult, but if ye’ll stay withindoors—”

  “We will,” Elisabeth pledged. “After all, we cannot expect you to watch over us every hour.”

  Rob’s gaze was steady. “I’d gladly do sae, Leddy Kerr.”

  Marjory lifted her head, like a roe deer sensing danger in the wood. “Mr. MacPherson, how is your father?”

  Rob’s shoulders sagged a bit. “He’s not sae young as he ance was, and the cauld is hard on his joints. The prince has given him leave to come hame after Falkirk. I leuk for him at oor shop in a day or two.”

  Mrs. Edgar opened the kitchen door enough to peek round it. “Mem, yer daughter-in-law is asking for ye.”

  Marjory excused herself, though not without a pointed glance at Elisabeth. “I’ll not be a minute.”

  Left alone in the kitchen with Rob, Elisabeth cast about for a safe topic of conversation.

  “Tell me, Bess.” His voice was low, warm. “What’s on yer mind this nicht?”

  Sixty-Three

  Wha drew the guid claymore for Charlie?

  An’ claw’d their backs at Falkirk fairly?

  JACOBITE BALLAD

  E lisabeth ran her finger along the edge of the dresser, scrubbed clean by Mrs. Edgar’s diligent hands. “My thoughts, as always, are with my husband. And with your father.” She looked up to find Rob listening intently. “Angus was very kind to me when I moved to Edinburgh.”

  Rob shifted his stance, moving a bit closer. “Onie time ye came by the shop, ye brightened his day. And mine as weel.”

  “You barely spoke to me,” she reminded him.

  He shrugged. “What could a tradesman’s son say to a Hieland beauty?”

  “Oh, Rob. You think too little of yourself,” Elisabeth scolded him, “and far too much of me.”

  He sobered at that. “Mair than ye ken, Bess.”

  The door to the kitchen quietly opened. “Your sister-in-law is resting,” Marjory said. “Mr. MacPherson, will you join us for supper?”

  Rob glanced at Elisabeth, then took a step toward the stair door, putting some distance between them. “Thank ye, mem, but I must be hame whan my faither returns.”

  They both walked Rob to the door, sending him on his way with a pocketful of Mrs. Edgar’s saffron cakes and a thick slice of cold mutton. He paused on the stair. “Ye’ll not leave the hoose ’til ye hear from me, aye?”

  Elisabeth heard his words for what they were: a warning. “We shall look for you and your father on the morrow,” she said, matching her confidence to his. She watched him descend the stair, then bolted the door, a dead, metallic sound meant to make her feel safe. Instead, she felt cut off from the world, isolated, and closed in. An uncomfortable sensation for a woman raised in the Highlands with its endless expanse of sky and mountain. How did Rob bear living in the city? How, for that matter, did she?

  “Shall we return to The Seasons?” Marjory held up the small book.

  Elisabeth needed more than poetry on such a night. “Might we read from the Scriptures instead?”

  Her mother-in-law lifted her eyebrows but did not object.

  They sat at the dining table, the large Bible open, a single candle lighting the page. Elisabeth turned to the psalms and began reading aloud. The simple exercise both calmed and invigorated her, perhaps because the phrases themselves held such power. Be thou my strong rock. Thou art my rock and my fortress. The Nameless One had never given her such words to speak.

  Janet joined them at eight for a quiet supper: steaming plates of chestnut soup flavored with bacon and rich with pigeon. A fitting meal for a cold, wet, miserable night. With each spoonful Elisabeth thought of Donald, wondering when he’d last enjoyed something hot and nourishing. Come home, my love. Let me care for you.

  When the clock struck nine, Elisabeth bid the household good night and prepared for bed. Even after Mrs. Edgar skimmed the warming pan round her sheets, Elisabeth could not stop trembling from the cold. Then she remembered the Braemar plaid hidden in her clothes press. She slipped out of bed and pulled out the wool, as broad as her father’s loom and four ells long. After unfolding the plaid over her bedcovers, she crawled beneath them both. ’Twas not the same as having Donald by her side, but at least she was finally warm. She blew out her candle, closed her eyes, and sought the refuge of sleep.

  Elisabeth barely heard the frantic pounding on the stair door. Was she dreaming? Or was the sound coming from another house a floor above or below them?

  “Leddy Kerr!” Mrs. Edgar burst into her room. “’Tis Mr. Baillie, come with news!”

  Elisabeth flung off the bedcovers, then wrapped herself in her father’s plaid and darted through two bedchambers. She found the household standing in the drawing room, their hair and clothes disheveled from sleep, and their landlord, Mr. Baillie, holding a lantern and breathing hard.

  “I’m visiting each hoose,” he said between gasps, “starting with Mr. Hill in the garret. And now I’ve come to yer door, certain ye’d want to be told.” He drew himself up. “The Jacobites were victorious at Falkirk.”

  A moment of stunned silence. Then a burst of joy.

  “God be praised!” Marjory sang out, clasping Elisabeth’s hand, squeezing hard. “They are safe. My sons are safe.”

  My beloved husband. Elisabeth smiled through her tears. “And Angus MacPherson too.”

  Even Janet, who seldom wept, dabbed at her eyes.

  Mrs. Edgar threw her apron over her head, weeping, while Gibson patted her shoulder. “A’ is weel, Mrs. Edgar. A’ is weel.”

  “Ye’re the only ones glad to hear the news,” Mr. Baillie grumbled. “Though I dinna think meikle o’ that Hangman Hawley.”

  “Is he deid?” Gibson looked hopeful.

  “He’s returned to Edinburgh this verra nicht,” the landlord reported. “Messengers are shouting the news up and doon the High Street. Several hundred o’ Hawley’s men are deid and hundreds mair taken prisoner.”

  Several hundred. Elisabeth’s joy was quickly tempered by the thought of so many lives sacrificed. “How long did the men fight?”

  Mr. Baillie shook his head. “I dinna ken, Leddy Kerr. The weather was frichtsome. They say a vile rain, blowing hard from the south, hit the dragoons square in the face.”

  “Serves them richt,” Gibson said under his breath.

  Elisabeth remembered the autumn afternoon when they’d stood at the window and watched the young dragoons march by with their polished brass buttons. How many of them lay on the bloody ground at Falkirk, run through by a Highland claymore? She did not blame her Jacobite brothers for doing what they must. But hundreds of mothers, Scottish and English both, would soon learn their sons were no more.

  Mr. Baillie pulled off his hat long enough to smooth back his gray hair, then reclaimed his lantern. “I’ve mair folk to visit who’ve not heard the report. After a’murky sky. The princes, ’tis the middle o’ th
e nicht.” He lumbered out, leaving the Kerr household wide awake.

  “This calls for a pot o’ chocolate,” Mrs. Edgar said, then hurried off to the kitchen, taking Gibson with her.

  Janet was the first to speak. “Might the prince return to Edinburgh? And our husbands with him?”

  “Take care you do not hope too much,” Marjory cautioned her. “We’ll know more when we see Mr. MacPherson.”

  “Aye,” Elisabeth said, gazing at the black, rain-soaked windows. “We will.”

  After such an eventful night, the household slept later than usual the next morn. Mrs. Edgar did not rise until eight o’ the clock, when the first gray light illumined her kitchen windows. Elisabeth slept until almost ten, the other women an hour later still.

  A steady rain had rendered the city gray and lifeless. Elisabeth sat at table with a dish of porridge, noticing the frayed and thinning places in her black gown. Mrs. Edgar did what she could to keep it clean, using the juice of an orange for ink stains and removing candle wax with a hot coal wrapped in linen. But daily wear had taken its toll. Just two more months and she would quietly retire her mourning clothes, never forgetting the brother in whose honor she wore them.

  When Mrs. Edgar brought her toast and orange marmalade, Elisabeth invited their housekeeper to join her. “Keep me company?”

  “Och, Leddy Kerr.” Mrs. Edgar glanced at the dowager’s closed door. “It wouldna be richt.”

  “Please?” Elisabeth patted the empty place beside her. “I cannot possibly eat all this toast, and your mistress would not have us waste a single piece.”

  Mrs. Edgar perched on the edge of the chair, ready to leap up at the slightest footfall, though she managed to eat two pieces of toast nicely browned at her own hearth. Only a skim of butter, Elisabeth noticed, and none of her mother-in-law’s favorite marmalade, made from expensive oranges imported from Seville. When Janet’s door opened, Mrs. Edgar curtsied and ran for the kitchen, leaving behind a plate full of crumbs.

  Not long after their late breakfast, it was time for a pot of tea, and then an hour later, dinner. The afternoon dragged on, the rain never stopping. Rob had promised to supply them with candles, but in the meantime they carried one from room to room rather than leave any unattended. Elisabeth rather liked the practicality of it, but she could tell Marjory was grieved at having such economy forced upon her.