24
LETTER-WRITING: THE GREAT ART O’ LOVE
Oxford, March 1971
Roger supposed that it must rain as much in Inverness as it did in Oxford, but somehow he had never minded the northern rain. The cold Scottish wind sweeping in off the Moray Firth was exhilarating and the drenching rain both stimulation and refreshment to the spirit.
But that had been Scotland, when Brianna was with him. Now she was in America, he in England, and Oxford was cold and dull, all its streets and buildings gray as the ash of dead fires. Rain pattered on the shoulders of his scholar’s gown as he dashed across the quad, shielding an armload of papers under the poplin folds. Once in the shelter of the porter’s lodge, he stopped to shake himself, doglike, flinging droplets over the stone passage.
“Any letters?” he asked.
“Think so, Mr. Wakefield. Just a sec.” Martin disappeared into his inner sanctum, leaving Roger to read the names of the College’s war dead, carved on the stone tablet inside the entry.
George Vanlandingham, Esq. The Honorable Phillip Menzies. Joseph William Roscoe. Not for the first time, Roger found himself wondering about those dead heroes and what they had been like. Since meeting Brianna and her mother, he’d found that the past too often wore a disturbingly human face.
“Here you are, Mr. Wakefield.” Martin leaned beaming across the counter, holding out a thin sheaf of letters. “One from the States today,” he added, with a broad wink.
Roger felt an answering grin break out on his face, and a warm glow spread at once from his chest through his limbs, dispelling the chill of the rainy day.
“Will we be seeing your young woman up soon, Mr. Wakefield?” Martin craned his neck, peering frankly at the letter with its U.S. stamps. The porter had met Brianna when she had come down with Roger just before Christmas, and had fallen under her spell.
“I hope so. Perhaps in the summer. Thanks!”
He turned toward his staircase, tucking the letters carefully into the sleeve of his gown while he groped for his key. He felt a mingled sense of elation and dismay at thought of the summer. She’d said she’d come in July—but July was still four months away. In some moods, he didn’t think he’d last four days.
* * *
Roger folded the letter again and tucked it into his inside pocket, next to his heart. She wrote every few days, from brief notes to long screeds, and each of her letters left him with a small warm glow that lasted usually until the next arrived.
At the same time, her letters were faintly unsatisfactory these days. Still warmly affectionate, always signed “Love,” always saying she missed him and wanted him with her. No longer the sort of thing that burned the page, though.
Perhaps it was natural; a normal progression as they knew each other longer; no one could go on writing passionate missives day after day, not with any honesty.
No doubt it was only his imagination that Brianna seemed to hold back a bit in her letters. He could do without the excesses of one friend’s girl, who had clipped bits of her pubic hair and included them in a letter—though he rather admired the sentiment behind the gesture.
He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed absentmindedly, thinking of the latest article Fiona had showed him. Now married, Fiona considered herself an expert on matters matrimonial, and took a sisterly interest in the bumpy course of Roger’s love affair.
She was constantly clipping helpful tips from women’s magazines and mailing them to him. The latest had been a piece from My Weekly, entitled “How to Intrigue a Man.” Sauce for the gander, Fiona had written pointedly in the margin.
“Share his interests,” one tip advised. “If you think football’s a loss, but he’s dead keen, sit down beside him and ask about Arsenal’s chances the week. If football’s boring, he isn’t.”
Roger smiled a little grimly. He’d been sharing Brianna’s interests, all right, if tracking her bloody parents through their hair-raising history counted as a pastime. Damn little of that he could share with her, though.
“Be coy,” said another of the magazine’s tips. “Nothing piques a man’s interest more than an air of reserve. Don’t let him get too close, too soon.”
It occurred to Roger to wonder whether Brianna had been reading similar advice in American magazines, but he dismissed the thought. She wasn’t above reading fashion magazines—he had seen her do it on occasion—but Brianna Randall was as incapable of playing that sort of silly game as he was himself.
No, she wouldn’t put him off just to raise his interest in her; what would be the point? Surely she knew just how much he cared about her.
Did she, though? With a qualm of uneasiness, Roger recalled another of My Weekly’s tips to the lovelorn.
“Don’t assume he can read your mind,” the article said. “Give him a hint of how you feel.”
Roger took a random bite of the sandwich and chewed, oblivious to its contents. Well, he’d hinted, all right. Come out and bared his bloody soul. And she’d promptly leapt into a plane and buggered off to Boston.
“Don’t be too aggressive,” he murmured, quoting Tip #14, and snorted. The woman don next to him edged slightly away.
Roger sighed and deposited the bitten sandwich distastefully on the plastic tray. He picked up the cup of what the dining hall was pleased to call coffee, but didn’t drink it, merely sat with it between his hands, absorbing its meager warmth.
The trouble was that while he thought he had succeeded in deflecting Brianna’s attention from the past, he had been unable to ignore it himself. Claire and that bloody Highlander of hers obsessed him; they might as well have been his own family, for the fascination they held.
“Always be honest.” Tip #3. If he had been, if he’d helped her to find out everything, perhaps the ghost of Jamie Fraser would be laid now—and so would Roger.
“Oh, bugger!” he muttered to himself.
The woman next to him crashed her coffee cup onto her tray and stood up suddenly.
“Go bugger yourself!” she said crisply, and walked off.
Roger stared after her for a moment.
“No fear,” he said. “I think maybe I already have.”
25
ENTER A SERPENT
October 1768
In principle, I had no objection to snakes. They ate rats, which was laudable of them, some were ornamental, and most of them were wise enough to keep out of my way. Live and let live was my basic attitude.
On the other hand, that was theory. In practice, I had any number of objections to the huge snake curled up on the seat of the privy. Beyond the fact that he was gravely discommoding me at present, he wasn’t usefully eating rats and he wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, either, being a sort of drab gray with darker splotches.
My major objection to him, though, was the fact that he was a rattlesnake. I supposed that in a way it was fortunate that he was; it was only the heartstopping buzz of his rattles that had prevented me sitting on him in the dawn’s early light.
The first sound froze me in place, just inside the tiny privy. I extended one foot behind me, groping gingerly for the doorsill. The snake didn’t like that; I froze again as the warning buzz increased in volume. I could see the vibrating tip of his tail, sticking up like a thick yellow finger, rudely pointing from the heap of coils.
My mouth had gone dry as paper; I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to summon a little saliva.
How long was he? I seemed to recall Brianna’s telling me—from her Girl Scout handbook—that rattlesnakes were capable of striking at a distance up to one-third their own body length. No more than two feet separated my nightgown-covered thighs from the nasty flat head with its lidless eyes.
Was he six feet long? It was impossible to tell, but the squirm of coils looked unpleasantly massive, the rounded body thick with scaled muscle. He was a bloody big snake, and the fear of being ignominiously bitten in the crotch if I moved was enough to make me stand still.
I couldn’t stand still forever, though. Other considerations aside, the shock of seeing the snake hadn’t decreased the urgency of my bodily functions in the slightest.
I had some vague notion that snakes were deaf; perhaps I could shout for help. But what if they weren’t? There was that Sherlock Holmes story about the snake who responded to a whistle. Perhaps the snake would find whistling inoffensive, at least. Cautiously, I pursed my lips and blew. Nothing came out but a thin stream of air.
“Claire?” said a puzzled voice behind me. “What the hell are ye doing?”
I jumped at the sound, and so did the snake—or at least it moved suddenly, flexing its coils in what appeared to be imminent attack.
I froze to the doorframe and the snake quit moving, except for the chronic whirr of its rattles, like the annoying buzz of an alarm clock that wouldn’t shut off.
“There’s a fucking snake in here,” I said through my teeth, trying not to move even my lips.
“Well, why are ye standing there? Move aside and I’ll pitch it out.” I could hear Jamie’s footsteps, coming close.
The snake heard him too—obviously it wasn’t deaf—and revved up its rattling.
“Ah,” Jamie said, in a different tone of voice. I heard a rustle as he stooped behind me. “Stand still, Sassenach.”
I hadn’t time to respond to this piece of gratuitous advice before a heavy stone whizzed past my hip and struck the snake amidships. It sprang into something resembling a Gordian knot, squirmed, writhed—and fell into the privy, where it landed with a nasty sort of hollow thwuck!
I didn’t wait to congratulate the victorious warrior, but instead turned and ran for the nearest patch of woods, the dew-wet hem of my nightgown slapping round my ankles.
Returning a few minutes later in a more settled frame of mind, I found Jamie and Young Ian squeezed into the privy together—a tight fit, considering their sizes—the latter squatting on the bench with a pine-knot torch as the former bent over the hole, peering into the depths beneath.
“Can they swim?” Ian was asking, trying to see past Jamie’s head without setting his uncle’s hair on fire.
“I dinna ken,” Jamie replied dubiously. “I think maybe so. What I want to know is, can they jump?”
Ian jerked back, then laughed a little nervously, not altogether sure that Jamie was joking.
“Here, I canna see a thing; hand me the light.” Jamie reached up to take the splinter of pine from Ian, and lowered it gingerly into the hole.
“If the stink doesna put the flame out, belike we’ll burn down the privy,” he muttered, bending low. “Now, then, where the devil—”
“There it is! I see it!” Ian cried.
Both heads jerked, and cracked together with the sound of splitting melons. Jamie dropped the torch, which fell into the hole and was promptly extinguished. A thin wisp of smoke drifted up from the rim of the hole, like incense.
Jamie staggered out of the privy, hands clutching his forehead, eyes squeezed shut with pain. Young Ian leaned against the inside wall, hands pressed tightly over the crown of his head, making abrupt and breathless remarks in Gaelic.
“Is it still alive?” I asked anxiously, peering toward the privy.
Jamie opened one eye and regarded me under the clutching fingers.
“Oh, my head’s fine, thanks,” he said. “I expect my ears will ha’ quit ringing by next week, sometime.”
“Now, now,” I said soothingly. “It would take a sledgehammer to dent your skull. Let me look, though.” I pushed his fingers aside and pulled his head down, feeling gently through the thick hair. There was a small bruised spot just above the hairline, but no blood.
I kissed the spot perfunctorily and patted him on the head.
“You won’t die,” I said. “Not from that, anyway.”
“Oh, good,” he said dryly. “I’d much rather die of snakebite next time I sit down to my business.”
“It’s a poisonous serpent, is it?” Ian asked, letting go of his head and coming out of the privy. He inhaled deeply, filling his thin chest with fresh air.
“Venemous,” Jamie corrected him. “If it bites you and makes ye sick, it’s venemous; if you bite it and it makes ye sick, it’s poisonous.”
“Oh, aye,” Ian said, dismissing this pedantry. “It’s a wicked snake, though?”
“Very wicked,” I said, with a slight shudder. “What are you going to do about it?” I asked, turning to Jamie.
He raised one eyebrow.
“Me? Why ought I to do anything about it?” he asked.
“You can’t just let him stay in there!”
“Why not?” he said, raising the other brow.
Ian scratched his head absently, winced as he encountered the lump left by his collision with Jamie, and stopped.
“Well, I dinna ken, Uncle Jamie,” he said dubiously. “If ye want to let your balls hang over a pit wi’ a deadly viper in it, that’s your concern, but the notion makes my flesh creep a bit. How big’s the thing?”
“Fair-sized, I’ll admit.” Jamie flexed his wrist, showing his forearm by way of comparison.
“Eeugh!” said Ian.
“You don’t know they don’t jump,” I put in helpfully.
“Aye, I do.” Jamie eyed me cynically. “Still, I grant ye, the thought’s enough to make one a bit costive. How d’ye mean to get him out, though?”
“I could shoot him wi’ your pistol,” Ian offered, brightening at the thought of getting his hands on Jamie’s treasured pistols. “We needn’t get him out if we can kill him.”
“Is he…ah…visible?” I put in delicately.
Jamie rubbed his chin dubiously. He hadn’t shaved yet, and the dark red bristles rasped under his thumb.
“Not very. There’s no more than a few inches o’ filth in the pit, but I shouldna think ye could see him well enough to aim, and I hate to waste the shot.”
“We could invite all of the Hansens for dinner, serve beer, and drown him,” I suggested facetiously, naming a nearby—and very numerous—Quaker family.
Ian erupted in giggles. Jamie gave me an austere sort of look, and turned toward the woods.
“I’ll think of something,” he said. “After my breakfast.”