Serpents in the Garden (The Graham Saga) Page 4

  Blood rushed so quickly out of her head, Alex felt faint, no matter she was sitting down.

  Matthew leaned forward to clasp her hand. “I’ll think of something, lass.”

  “Of course you will,” she replied with a false smile.

  *

  It took Alex several days to regain some kind of equilibrium, but when one day after the other passed without any incidents, she managed to shove the Burley bogeymen into a dark and rarely visited corner of her brain, submerging herself in the demanding day to day instead. Foremost on her mind was Daniel’s imminent departure for Boston, and when she saw her son making for the river, she called for him to wait and hurried over to join him.

  “Are you nervous?” Alex fell into step with Daniel, extending her stride to match his. At thirteen, Daniel already overtopped her, and now he smiled at her and shortened his steps.

  “Aye, but not in a bad way.” He stared off across the harvested fields, shifting his shoulders.

  Alex patted him on his cheek. Thirteen and already on his way out into the world… For the last year, he’d been living down in Providence, with Minister Walker, and Alex was secretly very impressed by how much he had learnt in such a short period of time. She liked Walker, and had tried to imprint in Daniel that there was a minister to emulate, a man that combined a deep knowledge and love of the Bible with huge quantities of compassion and humility.

  Matthew had howled with laughter when she’d shared this view of Minister Walker with him, saying that, aye, the minister was a right godly man in many ways, but he was no paragon of human virtues – what with his frequent and regular visits to Mrs Malone’s little establishment. That had stumped Alex. She’d forgotten about the minister’s visits to the brothel. Should they really have Daniel staying with him in that case? Matthew had laughed yet again, assuring her he had no fears whatsoever on that count – the minister partook of beer, no more, and Mrs Walker would ensure their son was kept well away from the seedier parts of Providence.

  “I suppose it’s a comfort for you that the Walkers will be in Boston the first few months.” It was a huge relief for Alex, making it much easier for her to relinquish him, and he’d be living with Harriet Leslie and her husband, which was almost like family. Almost… Neither she nor Matthew had ever met Naomi’s elder sister.

  “Aye.”

  She threw Daniel a look. One more year of school, and next year he’d begin to study divinities. She took a deep breath. Matthew wouldn’t like her for asking him, but she had to. “Do you want to become a minister?”

  He turned blue eyes her way, and it tugged at her heart to see the uncertainty in them. “Da wants me to.” He gnawed at his lip, muttered something about not wanting to disappoint Da, not now with Jacob— He interrupted himself abruptly.

  “It’s your life, and if you don’t want it, I’ll talk to him, okay?” But she could see he wasn’t about to take issue with his father’s decision – at least, not yet.

  “Will you come and visit, do you think?” Daniel asked.

  “No, I don’t think so – we simply can’t afford it. But you’ll be coming down once a year to visit us.”

  Daniel nodded, his whole face brightening. She smiled at him, patted his cheek, and detoured to their little graveyard, with Daniel following.

  Alex brushed off some dry leaves from her father’s headstone and placed a freshly cut rose on the stone. Stupid man, she thought as she traced his name, to decide to go time-travelling with a brain tumour.

  She’d never forget the total surprise – no, that went no way to describe her feelings – the utter, terrified shock, when she found him hanging in a thorn thicket after his fall from their time to this time.

  For the first year or so he’d been fine, but then the brain cancer had come back, and so he’d died, centuries before he was born. She swallowed, her insides churning – they always did when she thought about the stranger aspects of her life, and this definitely included the reappearance of her father in her life, just as it included her own free fall through time and her strange time-travelling mother. Nope, don’t go there.

  “You never talk of your mother,” Daniel said from behind her. What was he: some sort of mind-reader?

  “I don’t?” Alex turned to face him with a strained smile. “That’s probably on account of her being Catholic and long dead.” And a witch – a reluctant witch, to be sure, cursed with the ability of painting portals through time, small squares of whirling blues and greens that somehow trapped your eyes and sent you flying from one age to another.

  Poor Mercedes: she’d had no true control over the magical powers that lived in her fingers, and so she’d been flung out of her age, desperately trying to paint her way home with zero success. As a consequence, she’d littered the world with these goddamn dangerous scraps of art.

  “A Catholic?” Daniel’s voice quavered. Alex gave him an irritated look.

  “I’ve been raised a Protestant,” she said, even if that was a huge lie. Until she met Matthew, she’d been at best agnostic, at times an atheist, and every now and then she wondered if perhaps God looked down at her and laughed His head off. She could live with that, because after all she owed Him big time, didn’t she? Without divine intervention, she would never have met Matthew, of that she was sure.

  “So you are of the faith,” Daniel said, sounding relieved.

  “Faith? I would argue Catholics are of the faith as well, as are Anglicans and Protestants, and to some extent even Muslims and Jews.”

  Daniel gaped at her.

  Alex watched him with some amusement, but with substantially more exasperation.

  “You know this, don’t you? The People of the Book, that’s all of us who believe in the single God. Muslims do, Jews definitely do – they’ve been doing it for far longer than anyone else – and all Christians do.”

  “You can’t say such, Mama. Muslims and Jews don’t go to heaven, and nor do any but those of the faith. And then only if you’re accorded grace and have lived a life of virtue.”

  “Oh, really? And what’s a life of virtue?”

  “For you, it’s being a dutiful wife to Da, a good mother to your bairns. A righteous woman is man’s foremost helpmeet, bending to his stronger will and better sense.”

  He sounded so prim she nearly laughed him in the face: her thirteen-year-old son telling her she was subservient to her husband – unfortunately an opinion he shared with most men, and a large majority of the women, living in the here and now.

  Alex gave him a long look. “Tell me, would you say Ruth or yourself is better at ciphering?”

  “Ruth,” Daniel mumbled.

  “And who would you say is best read – you or Ruth?”

  “Ruth,” he repeated, colouring slightly.

  “And if one day you were to marry a woman as smart as Ruth is, would you bend her to your stronger will, or would you take decisions together with her?”

  Daniel was silent for some time. “I would take decisions together with her,” he finally said, sounding as if he didn’t mean it.

  “Like your father and I do.”

  “You do?”

  Alex laughed at his surprise and stood on her toes to ruffle his dark hair. “That’s what defines a smart woman. She makes sure everyone thinks it’s her husband who decides everything. And a smart husband, he makes sure he involves his wife – if nothing else because it makes his home life so much nicer.” With a quick wave, she hurried off in the direction of her kitchen garden.

  *

  “Da?” Daniel sat down on the workbench.

  Matthew chipped off yet another piece of wood from the table leg he was making before looking at him.

  “Aye?” He held up the leg to measure it against the others, swearing under his breath when he noted a minor disparity. Well, he could disguise that with some woodworking. A clambering vine would look nice up the legs, and maybe he could somehow work that into the tabletop.

  “Do you always talk to Mama before t
aking decisions?”

  Matthew bit back on a smile. “Not always. There are things I decide on my own.” He saw Daniel nod with satisfaction. “Just as she does,” he said, making his son’s face shift into an expression of surprise.

  “You let her?”

  Matthew grinned. “Son, who do you think decides what to sew, when to launder, what to grow in the kitchen garden? Who do you think orders the accounts, decides what to sell at the markets?”

  “You?” Daniel tried.

  Matthew shook his head. “A good wife is a woman with a head on her shoulders, and it is a foolish man who doesn’t let her use it.” He looked down at his son with a small smile. “You wed a woman for many reasons. You wed her to keep you warm at night, to give you bairns and care for you. But first and foremost, you wed her that she be a good companion to you through life, and that includes discussing all decisions with her.” He went back to his table leg. “And if you don’t, you might find yourself very cold at night,” he added as an afterthought, his eyes on Betty who was sitting by herself on the rope swing.

  *

  Solitude was a precious commodity in the Graham family, Betty reflected, using her bare toes to set the swing in lazy motion. Wherever she went, she was surrounded by people – sometimes very small people like Adam, who would stick his hand into hers and not say much, at times the constantly talking Sarah, who wanted to know everything about Providence, this tantalising town that she had never seen, despite being all of ten.

  Having grown up without brothers except for sweet little Willie, she watched with fascination when David, Samuel, Adam and Ian’s son, Malcolm, rolled together in wild games that very often resulted in one or the other of them crying. A lot of time Betty spent with Naomi, three years her senior and already showing with her second child. It made Betty jealous to see Naomi and Mark, and she longed for Jacob, for him to hold her hand and help her over stiles like Mark did with his wife. Betty inhaled, held her breath and exhaled, eyes on the sky.

  This was a strange household: the women went about with their heads uncovered – well, not Mrs Parson or Agnes, and not, thank the Lord, when there were visitors – meals consisted to a large extent of raw vegetables, and Betty had been horrified when Alex had told her that bathing in the Graham household meant undressing and getting into the cold water of the river there to wash yourself.

  “Naked?” she had squeaked, watching with apprehension as Agnes, Ruth and Sarah undressed and hurried into the water, apparently enjoying what to Betty seemed a most excessive way of keeping clean.

  “It helps,” Alex informed her before shedding her clothes and leaping in after the girls.

  Betty sat back on the swing and increased her speed, bending and extending her legs until it seemed to her she was flying. If she were to let go at the highest point, she would be sent hurtling into space, and maybe the speed would be enough for her to fly all the way to where Jacob might be. Jacob… She suppressed a little sob. What if the Regina Anne had met with disaster and was now a wreck at the bottom of the sea? How would she ever know?

  She increased the speed even more, and all around her the trees were blurring. At the highest point, she let go. For an instant, she soared, before the earth came rushing towards her, and she landed hard on her knees and hands. Betty Hancock – or was it Graham? – hid her face in her arms and cried.

  *

  From a distance, Alex watched and ached. Pretty bubbly Betty retreated into silences and escaped them as much as she could, her beautiful carnelian eyes mostly shielded by her long reddish lashes, her gorgeous hair braided and hidden from view under a huge lace cap. God damn you, Jacob. How could you do this to her?

  “Do you think he’ll come back to her?” Alex asked Matthew later that evening. To us, she meant, her head filling with images of her Jacob.

  “Oh, he will. He has given the lass his word, and I’ll hold him to it.”

  “You’re forgetting her father.”

  Matthew looked down at her, lying pillowed against his chest. “You think he’ll wed her elsewhere?”

  “Don’t you?” Alex fiddled with his chest hair, tugging at the brindle curls.

  “Aye, probably, and there’s not much I can do to stop him.”

  “I think the main question is if you should.”

  “You think I shouldn’t?”

  “To me, it all seems very rash.” Alex fiddled some more, circling his nipples. “But for her sake, Matthew. Because it would break her heart to be forced into marriage with another.”

  “Aye, she loves him.”

  “Hmm.” In Alex’s opinion, no sixteen-year-old was mature enough to know what they wanted out of life, but then she thought back to Mark and Naomi, contracted at thirteen at Mark’s insistence, betrothed at sixteen, and wed just after he turned eighteen. “They’re all in such a hurry to become adults.”

  His chest vibrated beneath her cheek. “That’s on account of them not knowing what it’s like.”

  Alex propped herself up to look at him. “But with Jacob there’s a real problem, isn’t there? Ian and Mark could marry as young as they did, because they’re already set up – both of them will inherit land. But how is Jacob to support a wife?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think William will welcome him back to his practice.”

  Chapter 5

  Halfway through the first week of September, Alex decided a visit to Forest Spring was long overdue.

  “If the mountain doesn’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must come to the mountain.” She wrapped her new shawl around her shoulders.

  “I don’t think Jenny will take kindly to being likened to a mountain,” Matthew said, before going back to his work.

  “Who would?” Alex dropped a kiss on his head and held out her hand to Adam. “Want to come?”

  “It’s a long walk for a wee lad,” Matthew warned.

  Alex bent down to scrape at something sticky that decorated Adam’s worn smock. “I can carry him part of the way.”

  “I can walk.” Adam lifted his bare leg in the general direction of his father. “Look, Da, I have strong legs.”

  “Aye, you do, laddie, very strong.” Matthew smiled at his son. “Take Angus with you,” he added, looking at Alex. She made a face but didn’t even try to argue; a male escort was a prerequisite.

  With Angus a silent shadow in her wake, Alex strolled along hand in hand with her youngest son, listening to his very long account of how Daniel had helped him set Mrs Pollyanna’s leg.

  “…I held her, and she squawked something terrible, she did.”

  Alex smiled down at him. “How did she break her leg to begin with?”

  Adam shrugged. He had found her lying on her back in the hencoop, and gone rushing for help.

  “She’s getting on a bit, honey. Soon she’ll be dead.”

  Adam looked up at her from wide, dark hazel eyes. “Not yet.”

  “No, of course not,” Alex murmured.

  Their youngest son collected hurt animals, and over the last year, the stable had seen a badly injured sparrow that had died despite Matthew’s best efforts, a frog with no legs that Alex had secretly bashed to death to put it out of its misery, a baby raccoon that expired in less than an hour, and the newborn piglet that Adam had dragged half alive from below its farrowing mother. The piglet thrived, and Alex had recently confided to Matthew that she was going to have major problems slicing ham from a pig that had once been called Arthur.

  They had detoured off the path to pick chanterelles when Alex spotted the gleaming yellow hats in a mossy hollow. She smoothed down Adam’s curling hair, allowing her fingers to linger on his nape. Her youngest son was a restful person to be with, had been from the moment he entered the world. Placid and calm as a baby, he was now a placid and calm three-year-old who gracefully allowed himself to be pampered by the rest of his very large family.

  From one son her thoughts leapt to another: her Jacob. Where was he now, her boy, and was he alright? Her belly tur
ned at the thought of weeks at sea, and especially in boats that in her considered opinion should be restricted to small lakes. Alex was swamped by a sudden wave of loss. What if Jacob never came back? Maybe he would disappear into a life very far from here, and all that she’d ever get from him would be the odd letter, like once a year or so. It made her heart shrivel. She wanted him here, close. She wanted to thread her fingers through his thick blond hair, and see him rear back in irritation at this far too motherly gesture.

  “Mama?” Adam tugged at her hand. He pointed at the approaching horse, a wide grin on his face.

  Alex smiled. To Adam, his big brother Ian was very close to God, coming second only to Da in his inner ranking.

  Ian held in his horse and grinned back, lowering Malcolm to the ground to allow him to throw himself at his granny.

  “Off to visit us, are you?” Ian asked.

  “Not you as such,” Alex told him, hugging Malcolm back. “I see you all the time, don’t I? I was planning on having a cosy chat with Jenny.”

  An unreadable expression flashed across Ian’s face and then the smile was back, hazel eyes regarding her warily. “A chat?”

  She knew him too well to be fooled by his bland smile. For an instant, she met his eyes, could read in their depths just how much he was hurting. His lashes swept down and, from the set of his mouth, Alex knew there’d be no point in trying to talk to him – at least not now.

  “You know,” Alex said instead, “about how best to turn a heel, or if it makes sense to use butternuts to dye homespun.” And somewhere along the way, she intended to interrogate Jenny as to the true state of the Ian-Jenny marriage, although it didn’t exactly take a genius to conclude things were far from peachy.

  “In that case, maybe I should take both lads back with me,” Ian said. Adam nodded eagerly, clearly not all that keen on visiting Forest Spring if Ian wasn’t there.

  “You do that.” Alex swept the surrounding woods and looked back at him with a frown. “Is she alone?”

  “Nay, Patrick’s there, repairing a fence.” Ian’s brows pulled together for an instant. “And you? Should you be walking alone?”