The Firebird

by Susanna Kearsley

He said it lightly, but I knew then that this wasn’t about winning me a prize, because my brother did the same thing, sometimes, when he felt the need to prove himself. He went all manly and competitive.

  I must have stung Rob’s pride, I thought, implying that the day had taken more from him than he could handle, so in penance I stood by and let him demonstrate how wrong I’d been. He did it so decisively that in the end the showman finally stopped him, made a gesture of defeat, and with a long pole hooked one giant purple unicorn down from the ceiling.

  Rob handed it on to me, looking decidedly pleased with himself. “There you go, that’ll mind ye of Scotland.”

  It would remind me of much more than that, I knew. “Thanks,” I told him. “But what on earth am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Anything you want to. That’s the point,” he said, “of having one.”

  It proved, if nothing else, to be a brilliant conversation starter. On our way back down toward Sint Jacobsstraat we met a half a dozen strangers who felt moved to stop and chat and comment on my unicorn, and it drew a lot of interest from the knot of men who’d spilled out from the Old Bill Pub across from our hotel, to stand and drink their pints there on the pavement near a little chalkboard sign that read: “Live Football.”

  Rob got talking with them, friendly as he was, and learned they’d come from Belfast just this morning, and done duty as the honor guard this evening at the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate. And so of course he bought them all another round, but when they tried to urge him to stay longer, have a drink with them, he shook his head and told them thanks, but no.

  “You’ve better things to do, eh?” one man joked as we were leaving.

  “Aye.” Rob smiled in reply, but there was nothing in his tone or face to match their own suggestive laughter as we started off again along the pavement, and he didn’t sling his arm around my shoulders as he’d done when we were dating. Both his hands stayed in his pockets as he matched his steps to mine. It was like walking with my brother.

  The hotel’s front façade was a bright blaze of light, the glass doors sliding open as we neared them, but instead of heading through them Rob walked on and led me farther down to where the car sat parked along the quiet square of green before the looming shadow of the church.

  The street was darker here, although the sulfur-yellow streetlamps fixed along the gabled rooflines of the huddled houses made the rain-washed cobbles glitter gold in places.

  Rob said, “Let’s put your wee friend, there, in the boot.”

  He traveled well prepared. I watched him shift a first-aid kit, a toolbox, and a duffle bag to make room for my unicorn, and then from underneath a folded tarp he took a heavy woolen tartan blanket. And another.

  “What are those for?”

  “Well, it’s like I said.” He slammed the boot securely closed and locked it, turning back to me, his eyebrow lifting. “I have better things to do.”

  The covered passageway of brick beneath the houses where we’d stood that afternoon was now closed up, great wooden garage doors securely locked against intruders, but there still remained the sheltered spot beneath the trees where we’d sat first this morning. The narrow street here, with the banks and trees all down the one side and the few dark shuttered houses on the other, was so quiet I could hear the murmur of the moat that ran unseen behind us.

  As Rob spread one of the blankets down I said, “You’re mad. We’ll freeze to death out here.”

  We wouldn’t, I knew. It was only that sitting with Rob in the daylight was different from sitting with him in the dark.

  “Have ye no faith at all?” He was waiting for me to sit down, so I did, with reluctance. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll be off back to London, and Anna’s still well stuck in Ypres.”

  “She could be here awhile,” I said.

  “Aye, so she could.” He sat too, close beside me but giving me space. “But we won’t be.” The heavy warm weight of the second wool blanket shut out the night’s chill as Rob tucked it around me. “We’ve only the one night left.” Holding his hand out, he looked at me. “Let’s make it count.”

  Chapter 18

  Anna knew that she was not the only one within the convent’s walls who felt alone. Sometimes at night she heard a woman weeping, softly distant, and the melancholy sound stole down the corridor and seemed to wrap around her own small body lying silent in her bed, and give a voice to her own misery.

  She’d thought that it might be Dame Clare. She’d heard the story from the older girls, about the young and tragic lady who had loved a soldier from the Regiment of Clare, that gallant regiment that charged a nearby battlefield ten years before and captured the enemy’s colors for their bravery, those colors that now hung within the choir here at the convent. But the lady’s soldier fell in that same charge, and grief had brought her here to live and be a pensioner and daily make her peace with that same God who’d cruelly taken all her dreams.

  Dame Clare, thought Anna, had a cause to spend her nights lamenting, but the other students told her it was not Dame Clare she’d heard. The weeping woman was, they said, a new arrival to the convent, neither nun nor pupil.

  “I was told,” one of the older girls said, hushed and speaking slowly so they’d not be overheard at dinner, “that her lover was an English spy, who wooed her for the simple fact her family lived at St. Germain and had connections to King James. But finding she could tell him nothing useful, he abandoned her, and now he’s gone to Paris and her shame has been discovered, so her family sent her here.”

  The older girls thought this was wildly romantic, and one of the younger girls thought it a scandal, but Anna just thought it unfair.

  After all, it hadn’t been the sad young woman’s fault that she had caught the eye of someone so deceitful, and had trusted him, and Anna thought it very wrong the spy was still at liberty while the young woman had now been disgraced and shut away.

  When she said so to Sister Xaveria after their prayers the next morning, and asked her how God could allow such injustice, the nun asked, “And how did you hear of this?”

  Anna explained, ending with, “…and so she telt me that it couldnae be Dame Clare.”

  They were still standing in the choir of the convent church, and Anna cast a quick look upward at the captured flags that hung above them, swaying slightly to the unseen movement of the air.

  “She telt me,” Anna added as an afterthought, “that Dame Clare disnae weep.”

  “’Tis true.” Sister Xaveria looked up, as well. “She does not weep. She prays.”

  “Ye’ve seen her, then.”

  “Of course. She’s lived here with us ten years now, of course I’ve seen her. So have you, I should imagine.”

  “I have not.”

  “We rarely see the things we don’t expect to see.”

  Anna, not understanding, asked, “And did she lose her lover in that battle, truly? Is that why she shut herself up here?”

  Sister Xaveria smiled. “We are not shut off from the world, my child. Not even here. We merely seek to live more fully in the world, without distraction, so we may more clearly hear God’s voice and do His bidding.”

  Which did not answer Anna’s question, but she’d learned that Sister Xaveria often preferred to ask questions rather than answer them, so it was not a surprise when the nun asked, “And where have you heard this sad tale of Dame Clare? Not from any of us, surely?”

  “No. From the other girls. Some of their parents, at court, heard the story, but I reckoned you’d ken the truth of it better than anyone.”

  “Oh yes? And why me, particularly?”

  “Because,” said Anna, “your own sister married a man of that regiment.”

  Sister Xaveria’s eyebrows rose until they touched the smooth edge of her wimple. “And where did you learn of that? No,” she said, raising a hand, “do not tell me. I can see I ought to teach tomorrow’s lesson from the Proverbs, starting with ‘Qui ambulat fraudulenter revelat arcana q
ui autem fidelis est animi celat commissum.’” She translated, for Anna’s sake: “‘A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he who is of faithful spirit concealeth the matter.’ Do you know what that means, Anna?”

  “Aye.” Anna nodded.

  “And what does it mean, then?”

  “It means that what’s heard in the kitchen,” said Anna, “should never be said in the hall.”

  The nun’s mouth twitched. “Exactly.”

  She might have said more, but at that moment Anna saw something that made her stop listening. Near the far wall of the chapel, beyond the dark bars of the grille, stood a man looking up at her father’s stone monument. A man with brown hair tied back over his collar, his hands clasped at a soldier’s ease behind him. With his back to her, he looked like…

  “Captain Jamieson!” she called out in delight, and leaving Sister Xaveria’s side made a rush to the bars. “Captain!”

  “Anna,” the nun warned, rebuking her for calling out so loudly in the sanctity of church, perhaps, or simply for behaving in a manner unbecoming to young ladies, but the shout had served its purpose.

  Anna watched the man turn round, and with a stab of disappointment she saw it was not the captain, but a slightly younger man who peered toward her through the shadows of the church.

  Unclasping his hands he strode forward, relaxed at first, then as though being compelled, his gaze fixing on Anna’s small face with increasing amazement. His eyes lifted once, to the nun standing just behind Anna.

  “Sir,” the nun veiled her face as she greeted him, “you are most welcome.”

  “Sister Xaveria.” Dropping his gaze back to Anna, he asked in a low voice, “Whose child is this?”

  Anna stared at him, not understanding the flash of emotion that twisted his features as though something pained him. “Her eyes… and her hair… she’s the image of…” Pausing a moment, he gathered himself and then asked again, hoarsely, “Whose child is this?”

  Anna felt Sister Xaveria’s hand on her shoulder, a gentle and steadying hold, reassuring. The nun told her, “Anna, this is Mr. Maurice Moray, youngest brother to the Laird of Abercairney. And your uncle.”

  ***

  Sitting in the parlor with the Abbess Butler and Sister Xaveria together with her on the one side of the grille, and looking at her Uncle Maurice sitting on the other, with the full grace of a gentleman, his back straight and his head up, proudly, Anna wondered whether her own father had once looked like that.

  But no, she thought. Her uncle’s eyes were blue, and Colonel Graeme had been firm in saying that her own eyes were the color of her father’s, like the sea in winter, mingled gray and green. The color that her mother had so loved.

  And her father’s face had surely been more handsome.

  He was trying not to stare at her. “I did not know.”

  The Abbess Butler gently said, “Nor did your brother. I believe his wife decided it was safer to conceal the child.”

  “His wife?” Reacting as though from a blow, he sat back in his chair. “Where is she now, this wife? Is she well cared for? Is she—?”

  Gently interrupting him, the Abbess Butler said, “Your Uncle Graeme will, I have no doubt, tell all to you when next you see him.”

  “God,” he said, then caught himself, and rubbing one hand on his brow apologized for uttering profanity in such a holy place. “’Tis only that… I did not know.” His gaze fell warm on Anna’s face and searched for something there, but what it was she could not fathom. “She does have his features, does she not? It is as if he were not… were not…” Cutting off the final part of what he might have said, he sharply turned his head toward the window and developed a fierce interest in the plain unchanging view of tiled rooftops that it offered. Quietly he said, “He was the best of us.”

  The room sank into silence for a moment, as though all the adults’ thoughts had merged in one sad place.

  The Abbess Butler finally asked, “How fare your other brothers? Did you leave them well in Scotland, or have they come over with you?”

  “No, and no,” was his reply. “They are not with me, and I did not leave them well.” He exhaled heavily. “My brother Robin has again been taken captive, and there’s none will give me word of how he does, though I do fear that, having entertained him now so many times, the English will be keen to see him suffer when he comes to trial. As for my brother Abercairney, he was with us all the time at Perth until the king came, but he sickened and became too ill to come away when we made our retreat. It was his wife who found us passage finally, in a ship sent from the South Firth.”

  “Us?” the Abbess Butler asked. “Then you do have companions?”

  “Aye, Sir Thomas Higgons came, as did Sir William Keith and his son George, and Mr. Graeme, Newton’s son. We had designed for Gottenburg, but found the winds too contrary, and then a Danish frigate did detain us several days at Copenhagen, but at length,” he said, “we made Danzig, and there we took to land. The roads are wearying, but safer than the sea.”

  “Will not you let us host you here in lodgings for the night?”

  He shook his head. “I thank you, no. I could not pass so near to Ypres without a visit to your church, to see John’s grave, but I did not intend to stop for long. The others have but gone to find a meal and fresher horses, and will soon return to fetch me. Then we must continue on to Paris,” he explained, “for I am carrying a goodly sum of money for the king, and will not rest until I put it in the safe hands of his agents there.” He seemed to think of something then, and focusing on Anna, asked the nuns, “Have you sufficient funds to care for her? I have not much that is my own, but what I have is yours, and I could surely borrow from the funds I carry if—”

  The abbess raised her hand. “Your Uncle Graeme has already generously supplied her needs.”

  He gave a nod of understanding, and what might have been regret. “And were it peacetime, she would surely find a home at Abercairney, and a cheerful playmate in her cousin James, my nephew. Or with Robin and his family—he has several sons and daughters now.” His smile was thin, and hardened against memory. “But these times are far from peaceful, and my family, for its honorable history, has no place where it can stand with any safety.”

  “We will keep her safe.” The Abbess Butler did not look so old, thought Anna, when she spoke like that, in such a bold, determined tone. “And to that end, it would be better, sir, if you did not inform your other brothers of her being here, nor mention her to anyone in Paris.”

  He agreed. “You may rely on my discretion. For my part, it is enough to know that something yet remains of John.” His gaze searched Anna’s face a moment longer, then he looked her squarely in the eye. “Your father was the best of us,” he said again, but with more force this time, as though he wanted to be very sure she understood. “He was a good friend, and a better brother, and a man of honor. Mind that, now.”

  She raised her chin and said, “I ken fine who my father was.” There was no trace of insolence in how she spoke the words, nor yet a tone of argument, but simply an assertion of the fact.

  Her Uncle Maurice stared a moment, then the corners of his mouth turned upward slightly. “I perceive you do not have his looks alone,” he told her, “but also his temperament, God help ye.” Softening, he said more gently, “God help ye,” and rose to his feet.

  “I shall write,” he told Sister Xaveria, “if you’ll permit it.”

  “Of course.”

  And they blessed him and wished him Godspeed.

  His first letter arrived three weeks later, addressed not to Anna herself but to Sister Xaveria, and saying nothing of any importance, but Sister Xaveria read it out loud to her anyway. “Tell my niece,” he’d written, “that her father loved to read, and I do hope she will apply herself most diligently to her studies, that she may do likewise.”

  Anna tried.

  She had a gifted ear for languages, and soon could understand and follow much of what the Flemish-speaking la
y sisters were saying while they worked, but printed words were something altogether different. Through the long heat of the summer and the early autumn she applied herself as diligently as she could, and still each time a letter came to Sister Xaveria from Uncle Maurice in Paris, the nun without asking would read it aloud, as though knowing the effort would bring Anna frustration.

  Perhaps, Anna thought, that was why Captain Jamieson had never written a letter yet to her, from where he had gone. He was waiting until she could read them.

  The thought made her try all the harder, until her hand ached in the evening from copying out the full alphabet, over and over, and she slept too soundly to hear the mysterious woman who wept still, but rarely.

  And then, at the start of November, she took out the song sheet the captain had given her, as she did every day, and traced the bold slanted handwriting, and for the first time the lines and the loops formed themselves into shapes with a meaning.

  She held her breath, not daring to believe it as her eyes raced downwards… there it was, her favorite of the verses, and she read—she truly read—the words the wandering maiden’s steadfast lover sang:

  …cease thy weeping,

  now listen to me,

  For waking and sleeping,

  my heart is with thee

  Anna’s tight chest could scarcely contain all her fullness of joy and of pride, and so eager was she to reveal her discovery to Sister Xaveria that she was practically running when she reached the classroom.

  The nun turned from the window. “Anna! You are very early.”

  Anna caught her breath. “Aye, Sister Xaveria. I—”

  “You must try to say ‘yes,’ Anna.”

  “Yes, Sister Xaveria. I—”

  “It is just as well that you are here, for we’ve received another letter from your uncle.” As the nun withdrew the letter from her habit, she asked smiling, “Shall I read it to you?”

  Anna would have said that she could read it for herself, but she knew well how rude it was to interrupt an elder, and Sister Xaveria had already begun to read aloud. As with each letter that had come from Uncle Maurice, there were several references to Anna and her studies, and to facets of her father’s life, as though her uncle sought to piece together for her sake a whole and rounded image of his brother by revealing him in parts, in minor words and deeds and preferences that only someone close within their family would have known.