Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone
- Автор: Гэблдон Диана
- Серия: Outlander #9
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Delacorte Press
- ISBN: 978-1-473-51900-8
- Жанр: Исторические приключения
Электронная книга - «Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone». Краткое содержание книги:
The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . . .
Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same. It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell’s teakettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split and it won’t be long until the war is on his doorstep. Brianna and Roger have their own worry: that the dangers that provoked their escape from the twentieth century might catch up to them. Sometimes they question whether risking the perils of the 1700s—among them disease, starvation, and an impending war—was indeed the safer choice for their family. Not so far away, young William Ransom is still coming to terms with the discovery of his true father’s identity—and thus his own—and Lord John Grey has reconciliations to make, and dangers to meet . . . on his son’s behalf, and his own. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer to Fraser’s Ridge. And with the family finally together, Jamie and Claire have more at stake than ever before.
It was necessary to walk up and down the yard several times, listening to Cinnamon’s excited account of exactly what he had said, and what Lord John had said, and what he had thought when Lord John said it, and …
“So you are going to write a letter, aren’t you?” William finally managed to interrupt him sufficiently as to ask.
“Oh, yes.” Cinnamon grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Will you help me, Guillaume? Help me decide what to say?”
“Ouch. Yes, of course.” He retrieved his crushed hand and flexed the fingers gently. “Well. I suppose that means that you’d like to remain here in Savannah for a bit, in case there should be a reply from Captain Stubbs?”
Cinnamon seemed to pale slightly, whether at the thought of receiving such a reply, or at the possibility that he might not, but he took a huge breath and nodded.
“Yes. Lord John was so kind as to invite us to remain with him, but I think that wouldn’t be right. I told him I’ll find work, a little place to live. Oh, Guillaume, I’m so happy. Je n’arrive pas à y croire!”
“So am I, mon ami,” William said, and smiled; Cinnamon’s delight was catching. “But I tell you what—let’s go and be happy together over supper. I’m going to drop dead of starvation any minute.”
34
The Son of a Preacher-man
THE MEETING HOUSE, AS everyone had taken to calling the cabin that was to serve the Ridge as schoolroom, Masonic Lodge, a church for Presbyterian and Methodist services, and a place for Quaker meeting, was now finished, and in the afternoon of that day, the reluctant schoolteacher, the Worshipful Master of the Lodge, and the three competing preachers met—spouses brought along as congregation—to inspect and bless the place.
“It smells like beer,” said the nominative schoolteacher, wrinkling her nose.
It did, the smell of hops strong enough to compete with the fragrance of the raw pinewood of the walls and the new benches, so freshly cut as still to be oozing a pale golden sap in places.
“Aye,” said the Master. “Ronnie Dugan and Bob McCaskill had a difference of opinion about whether there should be something for the preachers to stand on besides the floor, and someone kicked over the keg.”
“No great loss,” replied the husband of the sole practicing Quaker on Fraser’s Ridge. “Worst beer I’ve had since wee Markie Henderson pissed in his mother’s brew tub and no one found it out before the beer was served.”
“Oh, it wasn’t quite that bad,” the Presbyterian minister said, presumably on the judge-not principle, but he was drowned out by a general buzz of agreement.
“Who made it?” asked Rachel in a low voice, glancing over her shoulder in case the miscreant brewer should be in earshot.
“I blush to admit that I supplied the keg,” Captain Cunningham said, frowning, “but I’ve no notion of its manufacture. It came up with some of my books from Cross Creek.”
There was a general murmur of understanding—punctuated by a grunt of disapproval from Mrs. Cunningham—and the topic of beer was tabled by unspoken general consensus.
“Well, now.” Jamie called the meeting to order, opening one of his spare ledgers, this now devoted to the business of the Meeting House. “Brianna says she’s willing to teach the wee bug—er, the bairns—for two hours in the morning, from nine o’clock until elevenses, so spread the word about that—she’ll be starting after the harvest. And if any of the older lads and lassies canna read or write yet, they can come to learn their letters … when, a nighean?”
“Let’s say ‘by appointment,’” Bree replied. “What about slates—do we have any?”
“No,” Jamie replied, and wrote down Slates—10 in his ledger with a pencil.
“Only ten?” I said, peering over his arm. “Surely there are more children than that to be taught.”
“They’ll come once they’re sure Brianna won’t beat them,” Roger said, grinning at his wife. “I think we can find out where to get slates from Gustav Grunewald, the Moravian schoolmaster; I know him and he’s a good sort. I’ll paint you a blackboard to use until we get them.”
“I know where there’s a decent chalk bed,” I chimed in. “I’ll bring some back when I go up there tomorrow after cranesbill.”
“Desks?” Bree asked tentatively, glancing round. The room was spacious and well lighted, with windows—so far, uncovered—in three of the four walls, but there were no furnishings beyond the benches—apparently whoever had wanted to construct a podium had lost the argument.
“As soon as someone has the time, mo chridhe. It willna hurt them to hold their slates on their knees for a bit, and ye’ll no have more than a few before the autumn. They need to be working until the crops are in, ken.” Jamie flipped over a page.
“Business of the Lodge … well, that’s for the Lodge to deal with. Now, we’ve been accustomed—last time we had a gathering place—to have the regular Lodge meeting on a Wednesday, but I understand that the captain here would like to have that night for a church service?”
“If it does not discommode you too much, sir?”
“Not at all,” Roger said, causing the captain to look sharply at him. “You’d be more than welcome to join us at Lodge, of course, Captain.”
Cunningham glanced at Jamie, who nodded, and the captain relaxed, just slightly, with an inclination of his own head.
“Then it will be regular meeting of the Lodge on Tuesday, and … we’ve been accustomed to use the cabin as a meeting place on other evenings, just socially, aye?”
“Bring your own stool and bottle,” Roger clarified. “And a stick of wood for the hearth.”
Mrs. Cunningham snorted in a ladylike fashion, indicating what she thought of free-form social gatherings of men involving bottles. I rather thought she had a point, but Jamie, Roger, and Ian had all assured me that the informal evenings were a great help in finding out what was going on around the Ridge—and just possibly doing something about it before things got out of hand.
“So, then.” Jamie flipped to a new page, this one headed Church in large black letters, underlined. “How d’ye want to manage Sundays—or is it Sunday for Friends, Rachel?”
“They call it First Day, but it’s really Sunday, aye,” Young Ian put in. Rachel looked amused, but nodded.
“So, will the three of ye hold service—or meeting,” he added, with a nod to Rachel, “every Sunday? Or d’ye want to alternate?”
Roger and the captain eyed each other, hesitant to say anything that might seem confrontational, but determined to claim time and space for their nascent congregations.
“I will be here each First Day,” Rachel said calmly. “But given the nature of Quaker meeting, I think perhaps it would be best if I were to come in the later part of the afternoon. Those who attend service earlier in the day might find it useful to sit and contemplate in the quietness of their hearts what they’ve heard, or to share it with others.”
“Mam and I will be there, too,” Ian said firmly.
The two preachers looked surprised, but then nodded.
“We’ll also hold service every Sunday,” Roger said. “The third commandment doesn’t say, ‘Thou shalt keep holy the Lord’s day twice a month,’ after all.”