Cullah put his hand against his chin. At length he said, “It is a good name. A fine one.” He picked her up, as tiny in his hands as a loaf of bread. “Gwyneth? Eugenia? Gwenny, my love? Wee darling, Eugenia Gwyneth. Besides, she likes it. She smiled. And don’t tell me any prattle that it was just her tummy bubbling that made her do it. Yes, she’s our wee Gwenny. It suits her ladyship fine.”
“Eadan, you are smitten beyond all reason.” I adored him for the way he adored Gwyneth. Yet, fear clutched at the back of my neck as if it were a hand, or a strike from old Birgitta’s goat stick. Best never love a child too much. Best never think they are yours to keep. This one was not a week on this earth, and might be snatched away from us any moment. I knew so many women, now, who suffered the loss of so many, sometimes three or four children carried away in a single night by some scourge or other. As Cullah placed Gwyneth in my arms I snuggled her to me and kissed her perfect little bald head. Kissed her pinched-shut eyes. No, I will not love you, I promised myself. The women in my life whom I have loved, even those I have not, have all left me for death’s dark shadows. I whispered, “Gwyneth, leave me not.” The babe smiled again. “And be not so pretty a thing that your father’s heart breaks never to mend when you do.”
I studied her little form with apprehension that I had not felt at the births of my two sons, for though in the years of their births the chief source of our income had been the making of small coffins, we had been left unscathed. This year of Gwenny’s arrival was a year of no plagues, no fevers or distempers other than mild cases of quinsy or colds. That alone filled me with dread. This delicate woman-child had no reason to die, had been born with a shield, I thought. At least for now.
At least for now.
*
By May of 1746, when I was twenty-seven, we had five children. Brendan, Benjamin, Gwyneth, Barbara, and Grandan Stuart, a wee boy with his father’s dark hair already thick upon his head at birth. Our lives were peaceable though I was always tired. When I looked back at those days later, I wonder I ever made it through a day. My house was never clean. No furniture went without scratches. The winters were long indeed, with the children confined indoors. Yet, never did I feel as haggard and as filthy as I had living in the Haskens’ house. My children’s clouties were cleaned daily, and Cullah built a walk-through to get to the barn where we boiled and soaped daily.
We heard of Indian attacks, but they were always some distant place. New France had spread to the west, but none of that affected my family. We feared little, and life was pastoral, gentle, broken only by a squabble among the children.
My husband and I had rare cause to disagree, but then, we had rare time to speak to one another. Other than my consternation at Jacob adding some tale or other of ghosts or fairies to frighten the children into being good, I felt happy. I wove when I had time, simple cloth for children’s clothing, though I made myself notes of things I had seen or imagined and wished to try. A silken weft on threes. A line of indigo, heavy-twisted, on tens. I spun if the children were quiet or asleep, though sometimes I fell asleep at my wheel. I even learned to knit in my sleep, I believed, often surprised at what I had done though my mind felt no more lively than a turnip.
One summer’s day Cullah came in the door and said, “Wife, bring the children here to me.” I thought at the time it was an odd thing because every day, unless one of them was asleep, they came running to him when he returned from working. Grandan was nursing at the time, and I had long ago left off covering myself unless there were strangers in the house. The baby slupped at my breast and for a moment Cullah lost his grim expression and smiled, though it was but a moment. “From now on, your grandfather Jacob is coming to live in this house. He is getting old, and I want him to be here.”
“What is wrong?” I asked.
He turned away as if there were some answer in the stones of the fireplace. “I’m worried. He’s old. Some preacher walking the streets today spoke of doom. The Highlanders are gone. Not just defeated, butchered to the last. Culloden field. The British have killed us. My God. There is not a clan left, Ressie. Not a man left alive. Not a babe.”
“Was this the cause for which you sent forty pounds? La, husband. Do not weep. Our lives are good, Cullah. There is corn growing in the garden, our little ones are—”
“Stop! Say nothing more. You will pull ghosts from the trees by saying aloud we have some they want to prey upon here. I have to tell Pa. All our kin are dead. Do not wait up for me.”
“What about your supper?” I asked, thinking that was what he meant.