“My what?” He looked startled, and then offended.
“Oh—it just means a cleaning woman,” I said, realizing that he’d leapt to a not-unreasonable eighteenth-century interpretation of the meaning of “skivvy.” “Anyway, they said they were looking for Captain Cunningham. And as it was about to rain …”
It was. The wind was moving through the grass and through leaves and needles and twigs; the whole forest was breathing and the clouds had covered more than half the sky, big, black, and dangerous with flickering lightning.
Brianna came out, holding a towel, and offered it to me.
“I put those men in your study, Da,” she said. “Is that all right?”
“Aye, fine,” he assured her.
“Wait, Bree,” I said, emerging from the towel as she turned to go. “Would you and Fanny go down to the root cellar and fetch up some vegetables and maybe … I don’t know, something sweet—jam, raisins … We’ll have to feed them, whoever they are.”
“Sure,” she said. “You don’t know who they are?”
“Fanny says the young one is an officer,” Jamie said. “Beyond that—we’ll see. Come along in, Sassenach,” he said, putting an arm about me to shepherd me inside. “Ye need to get dry—”
“And clothed.”
“Aye, that, too.”
THE ROOT CELLAR wasn’t a long walk from the smoke shed, but it was on the other side of the big clearing, and the wind, unobstructed by trees or buildings, rushed them from behind, blowing their skirts out before them and whipping Fanny’s cap off her head.
Brianna got a hand up and snatched the scrap of muslin as it whirled past. Her own hair, unbound, was flailing round her face, and so was Fanny’s. They looked at each other, half-blinded, and laughed. Then the first drops of rain began to fall, and they ran, gasping and shrieking for the shelter of the root cellar.
It was dug into the side of a hill, a rough wooden door framed in with stacked stone on either side. The door stuck in its jamb, but Bree freed it with a mighty jerk and they fell inside, damp-spotted but safe from the downpour that now commenced outside.
“Here.” Still breathless, Brianna gave the cap to Fanny. “I don’t think it’ll keep the rain out, though.”
Fanny shook her head, sneezed, giggled, and sneezed again.
“Where’s yours?” she asked, sniffing as she tucked her windblown curls back under the cap.
“I don’t like caps much,” Bree said, and smiled when Fanny blinked. “But I might wear one for cooking or doing something splashy. I wear a slouch hat for hunting, sometimes, but otherwise I just tie my hair back.”
“Oh,” Fanny said uncertainly. “I gueth—guess that’s why Mrs. Fraser—your mother, I mean—why she doesn’t wear them, either?”
“Well, it’s a little different with Mama,” Bree said, running her fingers through her own long red hair to untangle it. “It’s part of her war with”—she paused for a moment, wondering how much to say, but after all, if Fanny was now part of the family, she’d learn such things sooner or later—“with people who think they have a right to tell her how to do things.”
Fanny’s eyes went round.
“Don’t they?”
“I’d like to see anybody try,” Bree said dryly, and, having twisted her hair into an untidy bun, turned to survey the contents of the cellar.
She felt a rush of relief and reassurance, seeing at once that a good three-quarters of the shallow shelves were filled: potatoes, turnips, apples, yams, and the bright-green ovoids of slowly ripening pawpaws. Two large, lumpy burlap bags stood against the far wall, probably full of nuts of some kind (though surely local nuts hadn’t ripened yet? Perhaps her parents had traded for them …), and the cellar was filled with the sweet-wine scent of drying muscats, hung in clusters from the low ceiling to crinkle into raisins.
“Mama’s been busy,” she said, automatically turning the potatoes on one shelf as she selected a dozen to take. “I suppose you have, too,” she added, smiling at Fanny. “You helped gather all of this, I’m sure.”
Fanny looked down modestly but glowed a little.
“I dug up the turnips and some of the potatoes,” she said. “There were a lot growing in that place they call Old Garden. Under the weeds.”
“Old Garden,” Bree repeated. “Yes, I suppose so.” A shiver that had nothing to do with the chill of the root cellar rose up her neck and contracted her scalp. She’d heard about Malva Christie’s death in the garden. And the death of her unborn child. Under the weeds, indeed.
She glanced sidelong at Fanny, who was twisting an onion off its braid, but the girl showed no emotion about the garden; probably no one had told her—yet, Bree thought—about what had happened there, and why the garden had been abandoned to the weeds.
“Should we take more potatoes?” Fanny asked, dropping two fat yellow onions into the basket. “And maybe apples, for fritters? If it doesn’t stop raining, those men will stay the night. And we haven’t any eggs for breakfast.”
“Good idea,” Bree said, quite impressed at Fanny’s housewifely forethought. The remark turned her mind, though, to the mysterious visitors.
“What you said to Da—about one of the men being an officer. How did you know that?” And how did Da know you would know something like that? she added silently.
Fanny looked at her for a long moment, her face quite expressionless. Then she seemed suddenly to have made up her mind about something, for she nodded, as though to herself.
“I’ve seen them,” she said simply. “Lots of times. At the brothel.”
“At the—” Brianna nearly dropped the pawpaw she’d picked off the upper shelf. Her mother had told her about Fanny’s past, but she hadn’t expected Fanny to bring it up.
“Brothel,” Fanny repeated, the word clipped short. Bree had turned to look at her; she was pale, but her eyes were steady under her cap. “In Philadelphia.”
“I see.” Brianna hoped her own voice and eyes were as steady as Fanny’s, and tried to speak calmly, in spite of the inner, appalled voice saying, Jesus Lord, she’s only eleven or twelve now! “Did … um … Da—is that where he found you?”
Fanny’s eyes welled quite suddenly with tears, and she turned hurriedly away, fumbling with a shelf of apples.
“No,” she said in a muffled voice. “My—my sister … she … we … we wan away togevver.”
“Your sister,” Bree said carefully. “Where—”
“She’th dead.”
“Oh, Fanny!” She’d dropped the pawpaw, but it didn’t matter. She grabbed Fanny and held her tight, as though she could somehow smother the dreadful sorrow that oozed between them, squeeze it out of existence. Fanny was shaking, silently. “Oh, Fanny,” she said again, softly, and rubbed the girl’s back as she would have done for Jem or Mandy, feeling the delicate bones beneath her fingers.
It didn’t last long. After a moment, Fanny got hold of herself—Bree could feel it happen, a stopping, a drawing-in of the flesh—and stepped back, out of Bree’s embrace.