An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana (читать книги TXT) 📗
He had to stop again, as pain was radiating through his hand and up his wrist. He stretched the fingers, stifling a groan; a hot wire seemed to stab from his fourth finger up his forearm in brief electric jolts.
He was more than worried for Fergus and his family. If Beauchamp had tried once, he would try again. But why?
Perhaps the fact of Fergus’s being French was not sufficient evidence that he was the Claudel Fraser that Beauchamp sought, and he proposed to satisfy himself upon this point in privacy, by whatever means came to hand? Possible, but that argued a coldness of purpose that disturbed Jamie more than he had wished to say in his letter.
And in fairness, he must admit that the notion of the attack having been executed by persons of inflamed political sensibility was a distinct possibility, and perhaps of a higher probability than the sinister designs of Monsieur Beauchamp, which were both romantical and theoretical to a high degree.
“But I havena lived this long without knowing the smell of a rat when I see one,” he muttered, still rubbing his hand.
“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!” said his personal figurehead, appearing suddenly beside him with an expression of marked concern. “Your hand!”
“Aye?” He looked down at it, cross with discomfort. “What’s amiss? All my fingers are still attached to it.”
“That’s the most that could be said for it. It looks like the Gordian knot.” She knelt down beside him and took the hand into hers, massaging it in a forceful way that was doubtless helpful but so immediately painful that it made his eyes water. He closed them, breathing slowly through clenched teeth.
She was scolding him for writing too much at once. What was the hurry, after all?
“It will be days before we reach Connecticut, and then months on the way to Scotland. You could write one sentence per day and quote the whole Book of Psalms along the way.”
“I wanted to,” he said.
She said something derogatory under her breath, in which the words “Scot” and “pigheaded” featured, but he chose to take no notice. He had wanted to; it clarified his thoughts to put them down in black and white, and it was to some degree a relief to express them on paper, rather than to have the worry clogged up in his head like mud in mangrove roots.
And beyond that—not that he required an excuse, he thought, narrowing his eyes at the top of his wife’s bent head—seeing the shore of North Carolina drop away had made him lonely for his daughter and Roger Mac, and he’d wanted the sense of connection that writing to them gave him.
“Do you think you will see them?” Fergus had asked him that, soon before they took leave of each other. “Perhaps you will go to France.” So far as Fergus and Marsali and the folk on the Ridge were concerned, Brianna and Roger Mac had gone to France to escape the oncoming war.
“No,” he’d said, hoping the bleakness of his heart didn’t show in his voice. “I doubt we shall ever see them again.”
Fergus’s strong right hand had tightened on his forearm, then relaxed.
“Life is long,” he said quietly.
“Aye,” he’d answered, but thought, No one’s life is that long.
His hand was growing easier now; while she still massaged it, the motion no longer hurt so much.
“I miss them, too,” she said quietly, and kissed his knuckles. “Give me the letter; I’ll finish it.”
Your father’s hand won’t stand any more today. There is one notable thing about this ship, beyond the captain’s name. I was down in the hold earlier in the day, and saw a good number of boxes, all stenciled with the name “Arnold” and “New Haven, Connecticut.” I said to the hand (whose name is a very pedestrian John Smith, though no doubt to make up for this distressing lack of distinction he has three gold earrings in one ear and two in the other. He told me that each one represents his survival from the sinking of a ship. I am hoping that your father doesn’t know this) that Mr. Arnold must be a very successful merchant. Mr. Smith laughed and said that, in fact, Mr. Benedict Arnold is a colonel in the Continental army, and a very gallant officer he is, too. The boxes are bound for delivery to his sister, Miss Hannah Arnold, who minds both his three small sons and his importing and dry-goods store in Connecticut, while he is about the business of the war.I must say that a goose walked across my grave when I heard that. I’ve met men whose history I knew before—and at least one of those Iknew to carry a doom with him. You don’t get used to the feeling, though. I looked at those boxes and wondered—ought I to write to Miss Hannah? Get off the ship in New Haven and go to see her? And tell her what, exactly?All our experience to date suggests that there is absolutely nothing I could do to alter what’s going to happen. And looking at the situation objectively, I don’t see any way … and yet. And yet!And yet, I’ve come close to so many people whose actions have a noticeable effect, whether or not they end up making history as such. How can it not be so? your father says. Everyone’s actions have some effect upon the future. And plainly he’s right. And yet, to brush so close to a name like Benedict Arnold gives one a right turn, as Captain Roberts is fond of saying. (No doubt a situation that gave one a left turn would be very shocking indeed.)Well. Returning tangentially to the original subject of this letter, the mysterious Monsieur Beauchamp. If your father’s—Frank’s, I mean—if you still have the boxes of papers and books from his home office, and a free moment, you might go through them and see if you find an old manila folder in there, with a coat of arms drawn on it in colored pencil. I think that it’s azure and gold, and I recall that it has martlets on it. With luck, it still contains the Beauchamp family genealogy that my uncle Lamb wrote up for me, lo these many years ago.You might just have a look and see whether the incumbent of the name in 1777 was perhaps a Percival. For the sake of curiosity.The wind’s come up a bit, and the water’s getting rough. Your father has gone rather pale and clammy, like fish bait; I’ll close and take him down below for a nice quiet vomit and a nap, I think.All my love,
Mama
STAG AT BAY
ROGER BLEW THOUGHTFULLY ACROSS the mouth of an empty stout bottle, making a low, throaty moan. Close. A little deeper, though … and of course it lacked that hungry sound, that growling note. But the pitch … He got up and rummaged in the refrigerator, finding what he was looking for behind a heel of cheese and six margarine tubs full of God knew what; he’d lay odds it wasn’t margarine.
There was no more than an inch or so of champagne left in the bottle—a remnant of their celebratory dinner the week before, in honor of Bree’s new job. Someone had thriftily covered the neck of the bottle with tinfoil, but the wine had of course gone flat. He went to pour it out in the sink, but a lifetime of Scottish thrift was not so easily dismissed. With no more than an instant’s hesitation, he drank the rest of the champagne, lowering the empty bottle to see Annie MacDonald holding Amanda by the hand and staring at him.
“Well, at least ye’re no puttin’ it on your cornflakes yet,” she said, edging past him. “Here, pet, up ye go.” She hoisted Mandy into her booster seat and went out, shaking her head over her employer’s low moral character.
“Gimme, Daddy!” Mandy reached for the bottle, attracted by the shiny label. With the statutory parental pause as he mentally ran through potential scenarios of destruction, he instead gave her his glass of milk and hooted across the champagne bottle’s fluted lip, producing a deep, melodious tone. Yes, that was it—something close to the F below middle C.
“Do again, Daddy!” Mandy was charmed. Feeling mildly self-conscious, he hooted again, making her fall about in a cascade of giggles. He picked up the stout bottle and blew across that one, then alternated, working up a two-note variation to the rhythm of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
