He thought maybe he’d walk up to the Meeting House in order to sit and think about the other prospect before him, but that seemed still too public, and instead he crossed the creek at the stepping-stones and turned up the hill behind the house, meaning to climb up to the Green Spring. But Claire’s garden was at hand, and on impulse he opened the gate and, finding no one there, walked in.
He seldom came to the garden and was struck at once by the early-autumn scent of it, so different from the pure tang of the woods. The air smelled of fresh-dug earth and composted manure, the bitter scent of turnip tops and cabbages and pungent onions, with through it all a wafting smell of late flowers, stronger than the sweet, heady scents of high summer, with faint odors of resin and anise.
Claire had planted sunflowers, thick against one wall of the palisades, and at the sunflowers’ feet, coneflowers—he could tell those, they stuck up in the middle—and goldenrod, and a lot of other flowers he couldn’t name, but liked. There were pretty purple ones he thought were cosmos, with tiny white-and-yellow butterflies flitting through them, and some that were red and yellow; he’d have to ask her.
“For the bees,” she’d said, telling everyone about them at dinner.
The bees were enjoying themselves now among the flowers; he could hear their hum, like the vibration of a loose, plucked string.
“Hey,” he said to them, suddenly but softly. “I’ve had a letter from Davy Caldwell. I think it’s on. I think—I hope—I’m going to be ordained. A Minister of Word and Sacrament, that’s what they—we—call it. Presbyterians, I mean,” he added, assuming that these might be Catholic bees and thus unfamiliar.
He didn’t suppose that “ordained” meant anything to a bee. They all hatched out of their wax cells with an unshakable sense of their purpose in life, after all; no need of decision or ceremony. It felt good to say it out loud, though.
“Ordained,” he repeated. “I’ll be going to Charles Town, to ease the way. Ye like to know things like that, Claire says. Brianna and the kids are going, too; they’d like to see the ocean, walk barefoot on the beach.” If there aren’t a lot of British warships floating in the water … “And then we’ll go on to Savannah. Brianna’s going to paint someone’s portrait.”
The sound of children yelling and laughing down by the creek came to him faintly, as soothing as the hum of the bees, and he felt as though he could stand here forever, in a state of happy peace.
Then there was a sudden, much louder screech, and he forgot peace instantly. He leapt to his feet, searching for the direction of the scream, heard it again, and shot out of the garden as though the sound had been a fork jabbed into his back.
He saw it at once as he burst through the trees onto the creek bank—a square of white, floating, swirling, in the middle of the creek. The wind had maybe taken it—
But before he could reach the edge of the stream, Cyrus’s long body launched itself from the opposite shore and crashed into the water, arm outstretched, and he saw Cyrus’s enormous hand close on the sodden paper in the instant before both were submerged.
“No!” Fanny was screaming. “No! No! No!” She had blundered into the stream, too, and was trying vainly to reach Cyrus and the paper, but the water was deeper here and was pulling at her skirts and she was staggering, shoes slipping in the mud and slime of the streambed.
Roger kicked off his own shoes, waded out, and grabbed Fanny around the waist.
“It’s all right,” he was saying urgently, dragging the girl through the current toward shore. “It will be all right!” But Fanny, who knew perfectly well that it wouldn’t be, went on shrieking, struggling mindlessly to reach the last remnant of her sister.
Dear Lord, show me what to do … What was there to do? he wondered. He set Fanny down, and the girl sank to her knees, curled up like a dying leaf, and went dead silent, bar great shuddering gasps for air.
“Daddy, Daddy!” Mandy, who was strictly forbidden to cross the creek alone, had just skipped over the stones like a cricket and now grabbed Roger’s leg, whimpering in panic.
Voices from uphill. The boys had heard the screaming and were running through the—oh, bloody hell—
“Get out of the garden!” Roger bellowed. The crunching noises of feet through turnips ceased instantly, and he dismissed the potential damage from his mind, needing all his attention to detach Mandy from his soggy leg while trying to say comforting things to Fanny.
Fanny was breathing like a winded horse. Worried that she might hyperventilate and pass out, Roger squatted down next to her and laid a hand on her narrow, heaving back.
“Fanny,” he said gently, “you’re soakin’ wet. Come inside. We’ll get ye some dry clothes and something hot to drink.” He put an urging hand under Fanny’s elbow, trying to get her to rise, but Fanny pressed her crossed arms tighter against her curled body and shook her head. The deep gasping had lessened, though, beginning to give way to sobs.
Squelching noises announced the hesitant approach of Cyrus, and Roger looked up at him, tall, gangly, and dripping, his face dead white.
“Mistress …” he said, and swallowed, having no idea how to go on.
“It’s no your fault, a bhalaich,” Roger began, but Cyrus shook off the halting words and collapsed to his knees in front of Fanny.
“Mistress …” he said again, tentative. Fanny ignored him completely, but he reached out his closed hand and opened it slowly under her nose.
The paper was little more than a soggy, crumpled ball in his palm. Roger heard him swallow again.
Fanny made a sound as though he’d driven a spike into her belly, snatched the remnant of paper from him, and cradled it against her chest, sobbing as though her heart would break.
I suppose it already is broken, poor little thing …
“Mo chridhe bristeadh,” Cyrus whispered, his face crumpled with misery. “B’fhearr gu robh mi air bathadh mus do thachair an cron tha seo ort.” Shattering is my heart. I would that I had drowned before I allowed such evil to come upon you.
Fanny made no answer and wouldn’t move. Roger exchanged a helpless look with Cyrus, but before he could try again to move Fanny, the boys had arrived, full of shocked questions. Germain had the flannel cloth with the rest of Fanny’s treasures, picked up from the creek bank and bundled in his hand.
“Cousin …?” he said tentatively, his hand with the bundle hovering between Fanny and Roger. Fanny didn’t move to take it, so Roger nodded at him.
“Thanks, Germain. Take it to the house, will ye?” He rose, his knees stiff, cold wet stockings puddling round his ankles. “Jem? Take Mandy and the boys and go along to the house with Germain. We’ll … be up directly.”
The boys all nodded, round-eyed with concern, and left with Mandy, glancing over their shoulders and beginning to murmur to one another.
Cyrus was beginning to shiver, the cold wind passing through the wet thin cloth of his shirt and breeks. Roger put a hand on his bent head—even kneeling, his head reached well above Roger’s waist.
“It will be all right,” he said in Gaelic. “You did no wrong. Go home now.”
Cyrus looked up at Roger, then helplessly at Fanny’s bowed head. After a moment, he nodded jerkily, got up, and bowed to her before turning and walking slowly away, glancing back, his face full of trouble.