Serpents in the Garden (The Graham Saga)

by Anna Belfrage

  *

  It was a bright-eyed Ian who joined them for supper that evening, even if he had to excuse himself halfway through.

  “You okay?” Alex asked, half rising from the table.

  “Aye.” Ian motioned for her to sit down. “I just need to lie down.” Slowly, he made his way from the kitchen, the cane thumping against the floorboards.

  All the same, Alex hurried through her meal, delegated the cleaning up to the girls, and went to find Ian. He was lying very still, his jaw clenched, and it took Alex some time to work through his back. Once she was done, she helped him into a clean shirt and busied herself plumping up his pillows, smoothing down quilts and sheets. Ian was nearly asleep when she kissed him on the brow and tiptoed for the door.

  “Mama?”

  Alex stopped at the door to look back at Ian, a dark blob against his pillow.

  “Yes?”

  “I move back to my cabin tomorrow,” he said in a voice that left no room for discussion. “Betty will manage.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she will.” Alex made to turn away, but his voice stopped her yet again.

  “Mama?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Thank you.” It came out very gravelly.

  “You’re welcome, son.”

  *

  For a man who had never before spent more than his nights in bed, the sudden immobility was a chafing fetter. Ian woke and began the automatic roll out of bed, only to be painfully reminded of the fact that any movements now had to be considered and planned. The wall opposite his bed became dented as he vented his frustration by throwing whatever he had at hand to fly unerringly across the room.

  “At least both your aim and your arm are good,” Betty said when he crashed yet another earthenware mug. “But maybe you could throw something that doesn’t break?” He glared at her, but when she used a piece of coal to draw what he thought was a cow, but she sulkily informed him was a catamount on the wall for him to aim at, his lips twitched into a smile.

  He tired easily. The walk across the yard to the stable was enough that he had to catch his breath, but once there, among the animals, he was comforted, because these were things he still could do, even if it all took much longer than it used to. Pain became his constant companion: at times, a dull, throbbing ache; at other, short, sharp twinges that had him doubling over. But he refused to let the pain rule him, and so he curried, he milked, he shooed the beasts out to graze once he was done, he fed the piglets and the sow, and spent hours verbalising his frustration to the pigs. The sow twitched her ears now and then, occasionally stuck an inquiring snout into his crotch or nibbled at his wooden cane, but Ian was sure she understood.

  It was hell at times. Ian swore and cursed; he cried when no one saw, hating this body of his for no longer moving as fluidly as it once had done. He did the strange exercises Mama had set him, lying on his front while he lifted arms and legs, ignoring the warning twinges when he overdid it. Stubbornly, he extended his walks, waving away offers of help, and there were days when Betty would have to go out to look for him and find him half lying, half sitting, incapable of moving as much as a toe.

  He resented them all sometimes: from Da, who so casually bent to swing Maggie up to sit on his hip, to Mark, a carbon copy of himself as he used to be, agile and strong. But it was getting better, and the day he struggled all the way to the river by himself, Ian whooped with joy. For a long time, he stayed in the water, swimming lazily back and forth and relishing the fact that it didn’t hurt – not at first. Afterwards, he barely made it out, and when Betty found him, he was shivering with cold in the grass, unable to crawl to where he had left his clothes.

  “Don’t overdo it,” Mama warned one afternoon, coming to sit beside him under the oak.

  “I have to. I must be back on my feet.” He nodded his head at the ripe fields. “The harvest is in full swing.”

  “And you’ll not take part,” Alex said, “not this year.” She helped him to stand and handed him the cane. “You have many years before you. Either you recognise your limitations and live a good life within them, or you ignore them and push yourself so hard you permanently damage yourself.”

  “I’m already a cripple,” he said bitterly.

  “Ian…” Mama took a firm grip of his arm. “You’ve been up and about three weeks, no more. And look at you: you stand, you walk, you can sit, have sex with your wife.”

  Ian was somewhat flustered, but nodded a grudging agreement.

  “This’ll take a long time to mend,” she continued, “and it will never mend entirely, but it will get better – much better. Will you ever be able to work four weeks in a row from dawn to twilight harvesting? Probably not. Will you be able to work at all? Probably yes.”

  “Probably yes,” he reminded himself later that evening. “Probably yes, probably yes.”

  “Yes what?” Betty yawned beside him.

  “Nothing,” he replied. “Don’t mind me, love. I was just thinking aloud.” He rolled over on his front, shoving the pillow out of the way. “Will you please?” He fell asleep under her hands, a cloud of peppermint scent around them both.

  *

  It had been a strange homecoming for Daniel: none of the happy loud welcome of last year, even if Mama hugged him until he thought his bones would break. And then there was Ian, a pale, strained version of the brother he remembered, and Da, who looked haunted.

  On top of this, Daniel was very confused to find Minister Allerton at Graham’s Garden, and even more when the minister stated his intention to stay and help through the harvest now that the eldest Graham son was injured.

  “But you’re not a farming man!” Daniel blurted. The Allertons he had met were merchants, and the minister’s brother was a prominent man in the Boston community.

  “We all are to begin with,” Minister Allerton said cheerily. “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then a gentleman, as John Ball said.”

  “For which he was hung, drawn and quartered,” Mama pointed out.

  “Yes, unfortunately.” Minister Allerton looked grave. “But then, very many men have met with a similar fate for similar reasons. Besides, he was right: all men are born equal in the eyes of Our Lord. It’s the life he leads that should distinguish a man, not his ancestors.”

  “I totally agree,” Mama said, “which is why I have major issues with all this predestination stuff.”

  “Stuff?” Minister Allerton raised a brow.

  Daniel shifted from foot to foot, throwing a pleading glance at his da. Could he please nip this discussion in the bud?

  “All that blather about how some men – and a smattering of women, I suppose – are offered grace depending on God’s whim, not their actions, while the rest sink into perdition…” Mama shook her head. “Strikes me as a most unjust God.”

  “God is unjust,” Minister Allerton said, “at least from a narrow human perspective. We can never attempt to comprehend his infinite mercy and wisdom – which is why we must assume he knows best. As is stated in the Holy Writ: Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

  “Huh,” Mama snorted, “then what’s the point? If already at birth it’s predestined whether you will go to heaven or hell, why bother?”

  “Firstly, because you never know to whom God will extend grace,” the minister said, “and secondly because even if God has chosen you as one of the saved, you must prove yourself worthy.”

  Mama mulled this over for some time. “No, sorry. I still can’t accept it. That means that your actions can only count against you, never for you, so once damned, always damned, no matter how saintly a life you lead.” She stood to fetch the pies from the pantry, and Daniel took the opportunity to steer the conversation elsewhere.

  “You mustn’t mind what Mama says,” Daniel said to the minister after dinner. “She can be somewhat frivolous at times.”

  “Frivolous?” Minister Allerton gave him a stern look. “What a disparaging comment to make.�
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  “She doesn’t really know much about matters of faith, and you must keep in mind that she’s Swedish.”

  “She’s a woman with doubts – all of us have them at times. Her arguments against predestination have been raised many times before, by men both wise and learned. One doesn’t wave away doubts as being misinformed. One strives to convince instead.” The minister’s mouth set, and Daniel groaned quietly. This could become a very long month.

  *

  Some days later, Daniel was sitting in the long slope just above the kitchen garden, swamped by the sensation that he was no longer part of this life: he was a visitor, as much an outsider as the exhausted minister. The grey wood of the buildings, the fields that shone golden in the setting sun, and the glittering band of the river – it was all part of a world that he had stepped out of.

  All day, Daniel had been longing for home and it had been a disagreeable insight to realise that he was home – these were his people, this was his place. Except that it wasn’t, not anymore. Now, it was Boston he thought of as home; it was with Temperance Allerton, not Ruth, that he shared his hopes for the future, his everyday concerns.

  He heard Ian’s shuffling progress behind him and closed his eyes. To see his big brother so damaged cut him to the quick, and even more it galled him that everyone else seemed to consider things were still the same, that Ian was unchanged, despite the fact that he had to walk with a cane. Ian stopped beside him, but where before he would have dropped to sit, that was no longer possible, so instead Daniel stood, making Ian smile wryly.

  “Does it still feel like home?” Ian asked, surprising Daniel.

  “No.”

  Ian just nodded, as if this was to be expected. “But, when you’re there, don’t you miss it?”

  Daniel considered this for some moments. “Yes, I do.”

  “And Ruth?”

  Daniel nodded. Very much he missed her, but she didn’t seem to miss him much, did she?

  Ian smiled down at him, still a couple of inches taller. “Much more than she lets on.”

  “Does it hurt much?” Daniel asked as they made their way back down.

  “Aye.” Ian turned to face him, and in his unshielded gaze Daniel saw just how much it hurt, and what effort went into concealing it. “But I could have been dead,” Ian said with a little shrug that conveyed how weak a comfort he found this.

  Daniel dug his bare toe into the grass. “That would have killed her.”

  “Who? Betty?” Ian smiled.

  Daniel gave his head an irritated shake. “Mama, of course.”

  “Mama?” Ian sounded very surprised.

  “She loves you best. We all know that.” Daniel smiled at the dumbfounded expression on his brother’s face. “We don’t mind, aye? And she can’t help it, can she?”

  Ian cleared his throat, looking like quite the daftie with his mouth hanging open.

  Daniel grinned and went to find Ruth.

  Chapter 41

  “Something’s going on.” Alex turned suspicious eyes on Mark, Daniel and Ian in turn, only to be met by three blank faces. She let her eyes travel over to Minister Allerton, who put on his best bemused face. “None of you will ever win an Oscar,” she said, biting back a laugh at their confused expressions. Well, if they weren’t telling, nor was she. She had already tried Mrs Parson, only to be met by a satisfied little cackle, and Naomi had blinked and widened her eyes, assuring Alex she had no idea.

  “All of you,” she said wagging her finger at the four present. “You’re all in on it.”

  She cornered Agnes in the dairy shed, and after spending close to half an hour discussing the cheese, she casually let drop that her birthday was in five days.

  “Aye, we all know that.” Agnes concentrated on pouring the cream into the churn.

  “You do?”

  Agnes fitted the wooden lid and took hold of the churn-staff.

  “Aye,” she said, before becoming as close-lipped as the others.

  Alex rolled her eyes and went to look for Betty whom she found in the kitchen garden.

  “I hate surprises,” Alex confided to Betty. “I really, really hate them. So I hope Matthew isn’t planning something. Not that there’s any reason he should. After all, forty-nine is a very unimportant birthday, isn’t it?”

  Betty’s bright eyes twinkled. “I have no idea, Mama Alex. Mayhap you should ask Da?”

  “Huh,” Alex snorted, “minx.” She stalked off, leaving Betty to harvest the corncobs all by herself.

  Even the children were in on it – not the youngest, obviously – and Adam quickly changed the subject by taking her by the hand to inspect his latest patient.

  Alex almost threw up. “It’s cruel to leave him alive,” she said, picking up the deformed kitten. “Its back is broken.”

  Hugin leaned in a bit too close, a gleam of interest in his black eyes that had nothing to do with the diagnosis. Alex flapped her hand at him, and the raven hopped out of reach, clattering its beak at her.

  “So was Ian’s,” Adam said.

  “No, honey, it wasn’t. If it had been, he wouldn’t be walking. He hurt his back badly, but he didn’t break it. But this…” She held up the mewling kitten. “…this back is cleanly broke. See? Its hind legs just hang.”

  “So, what do I do?” Adam used his finger to caress the little head.

  “We end its suffering.”

  “Is that what you would have done to Ian?” Adam asked in a small voice.

  “God, no!” But he would have wanted us to, she thought.

  *

  “…and then of course I had to kill it,” Alex said with a grimace, when she recounted the incident to Matthew.

  “How?” Matthew asked.

  “I wrung its neck.” Alex shuddered. One sharp crack and the little animal was dead. She helped Matthew unharness the oxen, and gave him a concerned look. “How are you?”

  In the whirlwind of the last few weeks, they had barely spoken. First, Alex had been entirely focused on Ian, then the harvest had begun in earnest, and Matthew worked and worked, with Mark and John Mason his constant shadows. Minister Allerton and Daniel had done their fair share, as had David, but the brunt of it fell on Matthew, and he had worked from well before dawn to late into the evenings, stopping only to eat and sleep.

  “Tired.” He felt old, he muttered, his body protested at being used this way, his knees and back ached, and his shoulders had stiffened into a permanent band of pain.

  “You should have told me,” she said.

  Matthew shrugged. She had enough to do with her own harvesting, keeping them all fed, and on top of that minding and chiding Ian.

  “Men! Come here, you.” She extended her hand to him.

  “Better?” she asked an hour or so later, smiling down at him.

  “Mmm.” He was almost asleep in the hot water, his body relaxed. She washed him, singing softly under her breath. He smiled as she sang about summer breezes and how deep her love was.

  “I like that,” he said, humming along with the chorus.

  “You do?” She splashed water in his direction. “I used to dance very, very slow dances to this.”

  “Did you now?” His eyes cracked open. “You’ve never danced a slow dance with me.”

  “You’ve never asked me to, have you?”

  “…but when I ask you to…” he said, his eyes fully open.

  “…well, then I will,” she promised and pushed his head under water to rinse his hair.

  Once he was clean, she dried him, patting her way down his body. She slowed her hand over his crotch, running a tentative finger down his penis. It twitched in response. Alex stroked it again, thinking that she couldn’t quite remember when they’d last made proper love. Since Ian’s accident, there hadn’t been time for more than the odd, urgent coupling, often just as they were drifting off to sleep. But now…

  “Lie down,” she said, pointing at the bench. He was naked, she was dressed, and when he made as if to undres
s her, she shook her head. Not yet, not until he was quivering with need.

  She kissed her way up his legs, all the way from his toes to his groin. Her hand on his member, a fleeting kiss to its tip, and he groaned. Alex smiled and concentrated her efforts on his eyes, his beautiful mouth, his neck. A series of swift kisses down his sternum, her cheek resting against his belly while her hand fondled and teased, and he exhaled, sinking his hand into her hair.

  “For pity’s sake, woman,” he said, sounding very hoarse.

  Alex slid upwards to kiss his mouth. For a long, long time, they kissed. He rolled her over, smoothing the hair off her face. She gripped his ears, pulling his mouth down to hers. He shoved her skirts out of the way and plunged into her.

  “I needed that,” he said afterwards.

  “So did I.” Alex gave him a brief kiss. “Massage? I think you need that too, right?”

  It was as she was working out the tensions in his back that he began to cry. Not a noisy, sobbing weeping, but a low, heart-rending sound, and Alex stopped what she was doing and leaned her cheek against his back.

  Matthew hid his face against the bunched linen below him and wept, and she cried with him, for the young man who would never again run unhampered through the woods, or walk for hours behind the plough, safe in the strength of his own body.

  “It won’t be that bad.” Alex wiped at her eyes. “He can already walk without his cane for short stretches.”

  “But he could never walk on the moors like you and I did,” Matthew said, “and I was older then than he is now.”

  Alex didn’t reply. She stroked him over his head until he fell asleep, sitting cross-legged beside him as he slept.

  *

  “Now,” Alex said, prodding Ian’s side a bit too hard. “Tell me what is going on.”

  “Mama!” he protested, laughing. “Will you resort to torturing a weakened man?”

  “You bet, and it’s much easier to torture someone who’s already lying down.” She peered at the healed scar, her hands soft when she inspected his flank. “That doesn’t hurt at all, does it?”

  Ian shook his head.