The Scottish Prisoner (Lord John Grey #3)(25)
Author: Diana Gabaldon

The cry was not repeated but hadn’t come from the nursery above. It had definitely come from down the corridor to his left, where the guest rooms lay. And, to his knowledge, no one slept at that end of the corridor save Jamie Fraser. Walking very quietly, he made his way toward Fraser’s door.

He could hear heavy breathing, as of a man wakened from nightmare. Ought he go in? No, you ought not, he thought promptly. If he’s awake, he’s free of the dream already.

He was turning to creep back toward the stairs, when he heard Fraser’s voice.

“Could I but lay my head in your lap, lass,” Fraser’s voice came softly through the door. “Feel your hand on me, and sleep wi’ the scent of you about me.”

Grey’s mouth was dry, his limbs frozen. He should not be hearing this, was suffused with shame to hear it, but dared not move for fear of making a sound.

There came a rustling, as of a large body turning violently in the bed, and then a muffled sound—a gasp, a sob?—and silence. He stood still, listening to his own heart, to the ticking of the longcase clock in the hall below, to the distant sounds of the house, settling for night. A minute, by counted seconds. Two. Three, and he lifted a foot, stepping quietly back. One more step, and then heard a final murmur, a whisper so strangled that only the acuteness of his attention brought him the words.

“Christ, Sassenach. I need ye.”

He would in that moment have sold his soul to be able to offer comfort. But there was no comfort he could give, and he made his way silently down the stairs, missing the last step in the dark and coming down hard.

14

Fridstool

BY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, THE INSIDE OF JAMIE’S HEAD WAS buzzing like a hive of bees, one thought vanishing up the arse of the next before he could get hold of it. He badly needed peace to sort through it all, but the house was nearly as busy as his mind. There were servants everywhere. It was as bad as Versailles, he thought. Chambermaids, wee smudgit maids called tweenies who seemed to spend all their time trudging up and down the back stairs with buckets and brushes, footmen, bootboys, butlers … He’d nearly run down John Grey’s young valet in the hallway a minute ago, turning a corner and finding Byrd under his feet, the lad so buried under a heap of dirty linen he was carrying that he could barely see over it.

Jamie couldn’t even sit quietly in his room. If someone wasn’t coming in to air the sheets, someone else was coming in to build the fire or take away the rug to be beaten or bring fresh candles or ask whether his stockings needed darning. They did, but still.

What he needed, he thought suddenly, was a fridstool. As though the thought had released him in some way, he got up and set off with determination to find one, narrowly avoiding embranglement with two footmen who were carrying an enormous settee up the front stair, it being too wide for the back.

Not the park. Aside from the possibility of lurking Quinns, the place teemed with people. And while none of them would likely trouble him, the essence of a fridstool was solitude. He turned toward the hall that led toward the back of the house and the garden.

It was an elderly Anglican nun who’d told him what a fridstool was, just last year. Sister Eudoxia was a distant connection of Lady Dunsany’s, who’d come to Helwater to recuperate from what Cook said was the dropsical dispersion.

Glimpsing Sister Eudoxia sitting in a wicker elbow chair on the lawn, wrinkled eyelids closed against the sun like a lizard’s, he’d wondered what Claire would have said of the lady’s condition. She wouldn’t have called it a dropsical dispersion, he supposed, and smiled involuntarily at the thought, recalling his wife’s outspokenness on the matter of such complaints as iliac passions, confined bowels, or what one practitioner called “the universal relaxation of the solids.”

The sister did have the dropsy, though. He’d learned that when he came upon her one evening, quite unexpectedly, leaning on the paddock fence, wheezing, her lips blue.

“Shall I fetch ye someone, Sister?” he said, alarmed at her appearance. “A maid—shall I send for Lady Dunsany?”

She didn’t answer at once but turned toward him, struggling for breath, and lost her grip on the fence. He seized her as she began to fall and, from sheer necessity, picked her up in his arms. He apologized profusely, much alarmed—what if she were about to die?—looking wildly round for help, but then realized that she was not in fact expiring. She was laughing. Barely able to catch breath but laughing, bony shoulders shaking slightly under the dark cloak she wore.

“No … young … man,” she managed at last, and coughed a bit. “I’ll be all … right. Take me—” She ran out of air but pointed a trembling finger toward the little folly that roosted among the trees beyond the stable.

He was disconcerted but did what she wanted. She relaxed quite naturally against him, and he was moved at sight of the neat parting in her gray hair, just visible at the edge of her veil. She was frail but heavier than he’d thought, and as he lowered her carefully onto the little bench in the folly, he saw that her lower legs and feet were grossly swollen, the flesh puffing over the straps of the sandals she wore. She smiled up at him.

“Do you know, I believe that is the first time I’ve found myself in a young man’s arms? Quite a pleasant experience; perhaps if I’d had it earlier, I should not have been a nun.”

Dark eyes twinkled up at him from a network of deep wrinkles, and he couldn’t help smiling back.

“I shouldna like to think myself a threat to your vow o’ chastity, Sister.”

She laughed outright at that, wheezing gently, then coughed, pounding her chest with one hand.

“I dinna want to be responsible for your death, either, Sister,” he said, eyeing her with concern. Her lips were faintly blue. “Should I not fetch someone for ye? Or at least tell someone to bring ye a bit of brandy?”

“You should not,” she said definitely, and reached into a capacious pocket at her waist, withdrawing a small bottle. “I haven’t drunk spirits in more than fifty years, but the doctor says I must have a drop for the sake of my health, and who am I to say him nay? Sit down, young man.” She motioned him to the bench beside her with such a firmly authoritative air that he obeyed, after a furtive look round to see that they were not observed.

She sipped from the bottle, then offered it to him, to his surprise. He shook his head, but she pushed it into his hand.

“I insist, young man—what is your name? I cannot go on calling you ‘young man.’ ”

“Alex MacKenzie, Sister,” he said, and took a token sip of what was clearly excellent brandy, before handing back the bottle. “Sister, I must go back to my work. Let me fetch someone—”

“No,” she said firmly. “You’ve done me a service, Mr. MacKenzie, in seeing me to my fridstool, but you will do me a much greater service by not informing the people in the house that I am here.” She saw his puzzlement and smiled, exposing three or four very worn and yellowed teeth. It was an engaging smile, for all that.

“Are you not familiar with the term? Ah. I see. You are Scotch, and yet you knew to call me ‘Sister,’ from which I deduce that you are a Papist. Perhaps Papists do not have fridstools in their churches?”

“Perhaps not in Scottish kirks, Sister,” he said cautiously. He’d thought at first it might be a sort of closestool or private privy, but probably not if you found them in churches.

“Well, everyone should have one,” she said firmly, “whether Papist or not. A fridstool is a seat of refuge, of sanctuary. Churches—English churches—often have one, for the use of persons seeking sanctuary, though I must say, they aren’t used as often these days as in former centuries.” She waved a hand knobbed with rheumatism and took another drink.

“As I no longer have my cell as a place of private retirement, I was obliged to find a fridstool. And I think I have chosen well,” she added, with a look of complacency about the folly.

She had, if privacy was what she wanted. The folly, a miniature Greek temple, had been erected by some forgotten architect, and while the site had much to recommend it in summer, being surrounded by copper beeches and with a view of the lake, it was an inconvenient distance from the house, and no one had visited it in months. Dead leaves lay in drifts in the corners, one of the wooden lattices hung from a corner nail, having been torn loose in a winter storm, and the white pillars that framed the opening were thick with abandoned cobwebs and spattered with dirt.

“It’s a bit chilly, Sister,” he said, as tactfully as possible. The place was cold as a tomb, and he didn’t want her death on his conscience—let alone laid at his door.

“At my age, Mr. MacKenzie, cold is the natural state of being,” she said tranquilly. “Perhaps it is nature’s way of easing us toward the final chill of the grave. Nor would dying of pleurisy be that much more unpleasant—nor much faster—than dying of the dropsy, as I am. But I did bring a warm cloak, as well as the brandy.”

He gave up arguing; he’d known enough strong-minded women to recognize futility when he met it. But he did wish Claire were here, to give her opinion on the old sister’s health, perhaps to give her a helpful draught of something. He felt helpless himself—and surprised at the strength of his desire to help the old nun.

“You may go now, Mr. MacKenzie,” she said, quite gently, and laid a hand on his, light as a moth’s touch. “I won’t tell anyone you brought me here.”

Reluctantly, he rose.

“I’ll come back for ye, how’s that?” he said. He didn’t want her trying to stagger back to the house by herself. She’d likely fall into the ha-ha and break her neck, if she didn’t freeze to death out here.

She’d pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him, but he’d folded his arms and loomed over her, looking stern, and she laughed.

“Very well, then. Just before teatime, if you can manage it conveniently. Now go away, Alex MacKenzie, and may God bless you and help you find peace.”

He crossed himself now, thinking of her—and caught a look of horror from one of the kitchen maids, coming through the back gate of Argus House with a long paper-wrapped parcel that undoubtedly contained fish. Not only a Hielandman in the house, but a Papist, too! He smiled at her, gave her a tranquil “Good day,” and turned to the left. There were a couple of small sheds near the big glasshouse, probably for the gardeners’ use, but it was late enough in the day that the gardeners had gone off for their tea. It might do …

He paused for an instant outside the shed, but heard nothing from within and boldly pushed open the door.

A wave of disappointment passed through him. No, not here. There was a pile of burlap sacks stacked in one corner, the imprint of a body clear upon them, and a jug of beer standing beside it. This was someone’s refuge already. He stepped out and closed the door, then on impulse went round behind the shed.

There was a space about two feet wide between the back wall of the shed and the garden wall. Discarded bits of rubbish, broken rakes and hoes, burlap bags of manure filled most of the space—but just within the shelter of the shed, just out of sight of the garden, was an upturned bucket. He sat down on it and let his shoulders slump, feeling truly and blessedly alone for the first time in a week. He’d found his fridstool.