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.
“Oh, has she gone visiting?” I asked. “I’m so sorry; I wanted to thank her for her gift. And I’d brought a few things for her …” I gave Roger a sideways glance that said, Now what?
“No, she’s just gone foraging by the creek,” the captain said, with a vague wave of the hand toward the woods. “She, um …”
“Oh, in that case,” I said hastily, “I’ll just go and see if I can find her. Why don’t you and the captain have a nice visit, Roger, while I look round for her?”
Before he could say anything else, I picked up my skirts, stepped neatly over the line of white stones, and made for the woods, leaving Roger to his own devices.
“AH … PLEASE COME in.” Cunningham yielded to circumstance with some grace, opening the door wide and beckoning Roger inside.
“Thank you, sir.” The cabin was as orderly as it had been on his first visit, but it smelled different. He could swear the ghost of coffee hung invitingly in the air. My God, it is coffee …
“Do sit down, Mr. MacKenzie.”
Cunningham had recovered his composure, though he was still giving Roger sidelong glances. Roger had composed a few opening remarks, but those had been designed to deflect Mrs. Cunningham until Claire could get her oar in. Best just get it out, before either of them comes back …
“I recently had an interesting conversation with my cousin-by-marriage, Rachel Murray,” he said. Cunningham, who had been bending to get a coffeepot that was keeping warm in the hearth, shot up like a jack-in-the-box, narrowly avoiding braining himself on the chimney breast, and turned round.
“What?”
“Mrs. Ian Murray,” Roger said. “Young Quaker woman? Tallish, dark, very pretty? Baby with a loud voice?”
The captain’s face took on a somewhat flushed, congested appearance.
“I know whom you mean,” he said, rather coldly. “But I am surprised to hear that she should have repeated our conversation to you.” There was a slight emphasis on “you,” which Roger ignored.
“She didn’t,” he said easily. “But she told me that you had said something she thought I should know, and recommended that I come and talk to you about it.” He lifted a hand, acknowledging the surroundings.
“She told me that you preached on Sundays to your men in the navy—and that you had found it … ‘gratifying’ was the word she used. Is that in fact the case?”
The flush was receding a bit. Cunningham gave a short, unwilling nod.
“I cannot see that it’s any business of yours, sir, but yes, I did preach when we rigged church, on those occasions when we sailed without a chaplain.”
“Well, then. I have a proposition to put to you, sir. Might we sit down?”
Curiosity won out; Cunningham nodded toward a large wheel-backed chair that stood to one side of the hearth, and himself took a smaller one at the other side.
“As you know,” Roger said, leaning forward, “I am a Presbyterian, and by courtesy referred to as a minister. By that, I mean that I’m not yet ordained, though I have completed all of the necessary studies and examinations, and I have hopes of being ordained soon. You’ll also know that my father-in-law—and my wife, mother-in-law, and children, for that matter—are Catholics.”
“I do.” Cunningham had relaxed enough to show disapproval. “How can you possibly square such a situation with your conscience, sir?”
“One day at a time, for the most part,” Roger said, and shrugged, dismissing this. “But the point is that I am on good terms with my father-in-law, and when he had a cabin built to serve as a schoolhouse, he also invited me to use it for church services on Sunday. We had a small Lodge of Freemasons established at that time—this was more than three years ago—and Mr. Fraser also permitted the Lodge to use this structure in the evenings for their own purposes.”
To this point, he’d been looking earnestly into Cunningham’s face, but now he glanced down into the smoldering hearth as he mentioned Freemasons, to give the man a moment to make up his mind—if there was anything to make it up about.
Possibly there was. The captain’s earlier discomposure and disapproval had receded like a melting glacier—slowly, but surely. He didn’t speak, but his silence had a different quality now; he was eyeing Roger in an assessing sort of way.
Nothing to lose …
“We met on the level,” Roger said quietly.
Cunningham drew a visible breath and nodded, very slightly. “And we parted on the square,” he said, just as quietly.
The atmosphere in the room shifted.
“Allow me to pour you some coffee.” Cunningham got up, fetched cups from a sideboard that looked as though it had been abducted from its London home, and handed one to Roger.
It was actually coffee. Freshly ground. Roger closed his eyes in momentary ecstasy, and recalled what Rachel had said about being served tea. Evidently the captain had kept his seagoing connections. Was that who the two mysterious visitors had been? No more than smugglers?
They sipped in a guardedly companionable silence for a minute or two. Roger took a last, luxurious mouthful and swallowed.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “the cabin was struck by lightning a year ago, and burned to the ground.”
“So Mrs. Murray told me.” The captain drained his own cup, set it down, and raised a brow at Roger, nodding at the coffeepot.
“If you please.” Roger handed over his cup. “Had Jamie Fraser been living on the Ridge at the time, I’m sure he would have rebuilt it—but owing to the … erm, fortunes of war … he and his family were unable to return immediately. But I suppose you know that.”
“Yes. Robert Higgins informed me of that when I made application to settle here.” The shadow of disapproval fell across his face once more. “Mr. Fraser seems a gentleman of unusually flexible principles. Appointing a convicted murderer as the factor of his property, I mean.”
“Well, he thinks I’m a heretic, and he puts up with me. Or perhaps that’s what you meant by ‘flexible principles’?” He smiled at Cunningham, who had choked on his coffee at the word “heretic.” Better take it easy; Masonic brotherhood might have limits …
Roger coughed, giving Cunningham time to finish doing so.
“Now, the proposition I mentioned to you. Mr. Fraser is willing that the cabin be rebuilt on its original location, and used for all of its previous purposes. He’s also willing to supply the raw timber for the building. As I’m sure you know, though, he’s in the process of building his own house, and can’t spare the time or money to complete the cabin until next year.
“So what I should like to propose, sir, is that we—you and I, and Mr. Fraser—should pool our resources in order to accomplish the rebuilding as soon as possible. And once the building is habitable, I propose that you and I take it in turns to preach there, on alternate Sundays.”
Cunningham had frozen, cup in hand, but the outer crust of coldness and reserve had melted. Thoughts were darting behind his eyes like minnows, too fast to catch.
Roger put down his half-finished cup and got to his feet.
“Would you like to go and look at the site with me?”
THE CREEK WAS easy to find. There was no well near the house yet, so the Cunninghams must be carrying water, and that being so … yes, there was a trail going off into a scrim of dogwood bushes, and within moments the sound of burbling water reached my ears.
Finding Mrs. Cunningham might be a little harder. Would she have gone upstream, or down? I tossed a mental coin and turned downstream. A good guess; there was a slight bend in the creek and a muddy spot on the near shore, showing the marks of many feet—or rather, the marks of one or two pairs of feet making frequent visits—and a series of circular marks and scuffs showing where a bucket had been set down.