“Yes, it is.” Roger found there seemed to be something sticking in his own throat, and hastily cleared it. “It’s absolute proof. To me.”
Something lit in the depths of her eyes, and the smile grew real. Then the tears welled up and overflowed as she lost her grip once and for all.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last. She was sitting on the sofa, elbows on her knees, face half-buried in one of the Reverend Mr. Wakefield’s huge white handkerchiefs. Roger sat close beside her, almost touching. She seemed very small and vulnerable. He wanted to pat the ash-brown curls, but felt too shy to do it.
“I never thought… it never occurred to me,” she said, blowing her nose again. “I didn’t know how much it would mean, to have someone believe me.”
“Even if it isn’t Brianna?”
She grimaced slightly at his words, brushing back her hair with one hand as she straightened.
“It was a shock,” she defended her daughter. “Naturally, she couldn’t – she was so fond of her father – of Frank, I mean,” she amended hastily. “I knew she might not be able to take it all in at first. But… surely when she’s had time to think about it, ask questions…” Her voice faded, and the shoulders of her white linen suit slumped under the weight of the words.
As though to distract herself, she glanced at the table, where the stack of shiny-covered books still sat, undisturbed.
“It’s odd, isn’t it? To live twenty years with a Jacobite scholar, and to be so afraid of what I might learn that I could never bear to open one of his books?” She shook her head, still staring at the books. “I don’t know what happened to many of them – I couldn’t stand to find out. All the men I knew; I couldn’t forget them. But I could bury them, keep their memory at bay. For a time.”
And that time now was ended, and another begun. Roger picked up the book from the top of the stack, weighing it in his hands, as if it were a responsibility. Perhaps it would take her mind off Brianna, at least.
“Do you want me to tell you?” he asked quietly.
She hesitated for a long moment, but then nodded quickly, as though afraid she would regret the action if she paused to think about it longer.
He licked dry lips, and began to talk. He didn’t need to refer to the book; these were facts known to any scholar of the period. Still, he held Frank Randall’s book against his chest, solid as a shield.
“Francis Townsend,” he began. “The man who held Carlisle for Charles. He was captured. Tried for treason, hanged and disemboweled.”
He paused, but the white face was drained of blood already, no further change was possible. She sat across the table from him, motionless as a pillar of salt.
“MacDonald of Keppoch charged the field at Culloden on foot, with his brother Donald. Both of them were cut down by English cannon fire. Lord Kilmarnock fell on the field of battle, but Lord Ancrum, scouting the fallen, recognized him and saved his life from Cumberland’s men. No great favor; he was beheaded the next August on Tower Hill, together with Balmerino.” He hesitated. “Kilmarnock’s young son was lost on the field; his body was never recovered.”
“I always liked Balmerino,” she murmured. “And the Old Fox? Lord Lovat?” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “The shadow of an ax…”
“Yes.” Roger’s fingers stroked the slick jacket of the book unconsciously, as though reading the words within by Braille. “He was tried for treason, and condemned to be beheaded. He made a good end. All the accounts say that he met his death with great dignity.”
A scene flashed through Roger’s mind; an anecdote from Hogarth. He recited from memory, as closely as he could. “ ‘Carried through the shouts and jeers of an English mob on his way to the Tower, the old chieftain of clan Fraser appeared nonchalant, indifferent to the missiles that sailed past his head, and almost good-humored. In reply to a shout from one elderly woman – “You’re going to get your head chopped off, you old Scotch cur!” – he leaned from his carriage window and shouted jovially back, “I expect I shall, you ugly old English bitch!” ’ ”
She was smiling, but the sound she made was a cross between a laugh and a sob.
“I’ll bet he did, the bloody old bastard.”
“When he was led to the block,” Roger went on cautiously, “he asked to inspect the blade, and instructed the executioner to do a good job. He told the man, ‘Do it right, for I shall be very angry indeed if you don’t.’ ”
Tears were running down beneath her closed lids, glittering like jewels in the firelight. He made a motion toward her, but she sensed it and shook her head, eyes still closed.
“I’m all right. Go on.”
“There isn’t much more. Some of them survived, you know. Lochiel escaped to France.” He carefully refrained from mention of the chieftain’s brother, Archibald Cameron. The doctor had been hanged, disemboweled, and beheaded at Tyburn, his heart torn out and given to the flames. She did not seem to notice the omission.
He finished the list rapidly, watching her. Her tears had stopped, but she sat with her head hung forward, the thick curly hair hiding all expression.
He paused for a moment when he had finished speaking, then got up and took her firmly by the arm.
“Come on,” he said. “You need a little air. It’s stopped raining; we’ll go outside.”
The air outside was fresh and cool, almost intoxicating after the stuffiness of the Reverend’s study. The heavy rain had ceased about sunset, and now, in the early evening, only the pit-a-pat dripping of trees and shrubs echoed the earlier downpour.
I felt an almost overwhelming relief at being released from the house. I had feared this for so long, and now it was done. Even if Bree never… but no, she would. Even if it took a long time, surely she would recognize the truth. She must; it looked her in the face every morning in the mirror; it ran in the very blood of her veins. For now, I had told her everything, and I felt the lightness of a shriven soul, leaving the confessional, unburdened as yet by thought of the penance ahead.
Rather like giving birth, I thought. A short period of great difficulty and rending pain, and the certain knowledge of sleepless nights and nerve-racking days in future. But for now, for a blessed, peaceful moment, there was nothing but a quiet euphoria that filled the soul and left no room for misgivings. Even the fresh-felt grief for the men I had known was muted out here, softened by the stars that shone through rifts in the shredding cloud.
The night was damp with early spring, and the tires of cars passing on the main road nearby hissed on the wet pavement. Roger led me without speaking down the slope behind the house, up another past a small, mossy glade, and down again, where there was a path that led to the river. A black iron railroad bridge spanned the river here; there was an iron ladder from the path’s edge, attached to one of the girders. Someone armed with a can of white spray-paint had inscribed FREE SCOTLAND on the span with random boldness.
In spite of the sadness of memory, I felt at peace, or nearly so. I’d done the hardest part. Bree knew now who she was. I hoped fervently that she would come to believe it in time – not only for her own sake, I knew, but also for mine. More than I could ever have admitted, even to myself, I wanted to have someone with whom to remember Jamie; someone I could talk to about him.
I felt an overwhelming tiredness, one that touched both mind and body. But I straightened my spine just once more, forcing my body past its limits, as I had done so many times before. Soon, I promised my aching joints, my tender mind, my freshly riven heart. Soon, I could rest. I could sit alone in the small, cozy parlor of the bed-and-breakfast, alone by the fire with my ghosts. I could mourn them in peace, letting the weariness slip away with my tears, and go at last to seek the temporary oblivion of sleep, in which I might meet them alive once more.