31
ORPHAN OF THE STORM
I FELL ASLEEP, leaning against the bank, with Jamie’s head on my lap. I dreamed luridly, as one does when cold and uncomfortable. I dreamed of trees; endless, monotonous forests of them, with each trunk and leaf and needle etched like scrimshaw on the inside of my eyelids, each one crystal-sharp, all just alike. Yellow goat-eyes floated in the air between the tree trunks, and the wood of my mind rang with the screams of she-panthers and the crying of motherless children.
I woke suddenly, with the echoes of their cries still ringing in my ears. I was lying in a tangle of cloaks and blankets, Jamie’s limbs heavily entwined with my own, and a fine, cold snow was falling through the pines.
Granules of ice crusted my brows and lashes, and my face was cold and wet with melted snow. Momentarily disoriented, I reached out by reflex to touch Jamie; he stirred and coughed thickly, his shoulder shaking under my hand. The sound of it brought back the events of the day before—Josiah and his twin, the Beardsley farm, Fanny’s ghosts; the smell of ordure and gangrene and the cleaner reek of gunpowder and wet earth. The bleating of goats, still echoing from my dreams.
A thin cry came through the whisper of snow, and I sat up abruptly, flinging back the blankets in a spray of icy powder. Not a goat. Not at all.
Startled awake, Jamie jerked and rolled instinctively away from the mess of cloaks and blankets, coming up in a crouch, hair in a wild tangle and eyes darting round in search of threat.
“What?” he whispered hoarsely. He reached for his knife, lying nearby in its sheath on the ground, but I lifted a hand to stop him moving.
“I don’t know. A noise. Listen!”
He lifted his head, listening, and I saw his throat move painfully as he swallowed. I could hear nothing but the chisping of the snow, and saw nothing but dripping pines. Jamie heard something, though—or saw it; his face changed suddenly.
“There,” he said softly, nodding at something behind me. I scrambled round on my knees, to see what looked like a small heap of rags, lying some ten feet away, next to the ashes of the burned-out fire. The cry came again, unmistakable this time.
“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.” I was scarcely aware of having spoken, as I scrambled toward the bundle. I snatched it up and began to root through the layers of swaddling cloth. It was plainly alive—I had heard it cry—and yet it lay inert, almost weightless in the curve of my arm.
The tiny face and hairless skull were blue-white, the features closed and sere as the husk of a winter fruit. I laid my palm over nose and mouth and felt a faint, moist warmth against my skin. Startled by my touch, the mouth opened in a mewling cry, and the slanted eyes crimped tighter shut, sealing out the threatening world.
“Holy God.” Jamie crossed himself briefly. His voice was little more than a phlegmy crackle; he cleared his throat and tried again, glancing around. “Where’s the woman?”
Shocked by the child’s appearance, I had not paused to consider its origin, nor was there time to do so now. The baby twitched a little in its wrappings, but the tiny hands were cold as ice, the skin mottled blue and purple with chill.
“Never mind her now—get my shawl, will you, Jamie? The poor thing’s nearly frozen.” I fumbled one-handed with the lacing of my bodice; it was an old one that opened down the front, worn for ease of dressing on the trail. I pulled loose my stays and the drawstring of my shift and pressed the small icy creature against my bare breasts, my skin still warm from sleep. A blast of wind drove stinging snow across the exposed skin of my neck and shoulders. I pulled my shift hastily up over the child and hunched myself, shivering. Jamie flung the shawl round my shoulders, then wrapped his arms round us both, hugging fiercely as though to force the heat of his own body into the child.
The heat of him was considerable; he was burning with fever.
“My God, are you all right?” I spared a glance up at him; white-faced and red-eyed, but steady enough.
“Aye, fine. Where is she?” he asked again, hoarsely. “The woman.”
Gone, evidently. The goats were huddled close together under the shelter of the bank; I saw Hiram’s horns bobbing among the nannies’ brindled backs. Half a dozen pairs of yellow eyes watched us with interest, reminding me of my dreams.
The place where Mrs. Beardsley had lain was empty, with no more than a patch of flattened grass to testify that she had ever been there. She must have gone some distance away in order to give birth; there was no trace of it near the fire.
“It is hers?” Jamie asked. I could still hear the congestion in his voice, but the small wheezing sound in his chest had eased; that was a relief.
“I suppose it must be. Where else could it have come from?”
My attention was divided between Jamie and the child—it had begun to stir, with little crablike movements against my belly—but I spared a glance around our makeshift camp. The pines stood black and silent under the whispering snow; if Fanny Beardsley had gone into the forest, no trace remained on the matted needles to mark her passage. Snow crystals rimed the trunks of the trees, but not enough had fallen to stick to the ground; no chance of footprints.
“She can’t have gone far,” I said, craning to peer round Jamie’s shoulder. “She hasn’t taken either of the horses.” Gideon and Mrs. Piggy stood close together under a spruce tree, ears morosely flattened by the weather, their breath making clouds of steam around them. Seeing us up and moving, Gideon stamped and whinnied, big yellow teeth showing in an impatient demand for sustenance.
“Aye, ye auld bugger, I’m coming.” Jamie dropped his arms and stepped back, wiping his knuckles beneath his nose.
“She couldna have taken a horse, if she meant to be secret. If she had, the other would have made a fuss and roused me.” He laid a gentle hand on the bulge under my shawl. “I’ll need to go and feed them. Is he all right, Sassenach?”
“He’s thawing out,” I assured him. “But he—or she, for that matter—will be hungry, too.” The baby was beginning to move more, squirming sluggishly, like a chilled worm, its mouth blindly groping. The feeling was shocking in its familiarity; my nipple sprang up by reflex, the flesh of my breast tingling with electricity as the tiny mouth groped, rooted, found the nipple, and clamped on.
I gave a small yelp of surprise, and Jamie raised one eyebrow.
“It . . . um . . . is hungry,” I said, readjusting my burden.
“I see that, Sassenach,” he said. He glanced at the goats, still snug in their sheltered spot by the bank, but beginning to shift and stir with drowsy grumbles. “He’s no the only one starving. A moment, aye?”
We had brought large forage nets of dry hay from the Beardsley farm; he opened one of these and scattered feed for the horses and goats, then returned to me. He stooped to disentangle one of the cloaks from the damp heap of coverings, and put it round my shoulders, then rootled through the pack for a wooden cup, with which he purposefully approached the grazing goats.
The baby was suckling strongly, my nipple pulled deep into its mouth. I found this reassuring so far as the health of the child was concerned, but the sensation was rather unsettling.
“It’s not that I mind at all, really,” I said to the child, trying to distract both of us. “But I’m afraid I’m not your mother, you see? Sorry.”
And where in bloody hell was its mother, anyway? I turned slowly round in a circle, searching the landscape more carefully, but still discerned no trace of Fanny Beardsley, let alone any reason for her disappearance—or her silence.
What on earth could have happened? Mrs. Beardsley could have—and quite obviously had—hidden an advanced pregnancy under that mound of fat and wrappings—but why should she have done so?
“Why not tell us? I wonder,” I murmured to the top of the baby’s head. It was growing restless, and I rocked from foot to foot to soothe it. Well, perhaps she had feared that Jamie wouldn’t take her with us, if he knew she was so far gone with child. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to remain in that farmhouse, whatever the circumstance.
But still, why had she now abandoned the child? Had she abandoned it? I considered for a moment the possibility that someone, or something—my spine prickled momentarily at the thought of panthers—had come and stolen the woman from the fireside, but my common sense dismissed the notion.
A cat or bear might conceivably have entered the camp without waking Jamie or me, exhausted as we were, but there wasn’t a chance that it could have come near without raising alarms from the goats and horses, who had all had quite enough to do with wild beasts by this time. And a wild animal looking for prey would clearly prefer a tender tidbit like this child, to a tough item like Mrs. Beardsley.
But if a human agency had been responsible for Fanny Beardsley’s disappearance—why had they left the child?
Or, perhaps, brought it back?
I sniffed deeply to clear my nose, then turned my head, breathing in and out, testing the air from different quarters. Birth is a messy business, and I was thoroughly familiar with the ripe scents of it. The child in my arms smelled strongly of such things, but I could detect no trace at all of blood or birth waters on the chilly wind. Goat dung, horse manure, cut hay, the bitter smell of wood ash, and a good whiff of camphorated goose grease from Jamie’s clothes—but nothing else.
“Right, then,” I said aloud, gently jiggling my burden, who was growing restless. “She went away from the fire to give birth. Either she went by herself—or someone made her go. But if someone took her and saw that she was about to deliver, why would they have bothered bringing you back? Surely they’d either have kept you, killed you, or simply left you to die. Oh—sorry. Didn’t mean to upset you. Shh, darling. Hush, hush.”
The baby, beginning to thaw from its stupor, had had time to consider what else was lacking in its world. It had relinquished my breast in frustration, and was wriggling and wailing with encouraging strength by the time Jamie returned with a steaming cup of goat’s milk and a moderately clean handkerchief. Twisting this into a makeshift teat, he dipped it in the milk and carefully inserted the dripping cloth into the open maw. The mewling ceased at once, and we both sighed with relief as the noise stopped.
“Ah, that’s better, is it? Seas, a bhalaich, seas,” Jamie was murmuring to the child, dipping more milk. I peered down at the tiny face, still pale and waxy with vernix, but no longer chalky, as it suckled with deep concentration.
“How could she have left it?” I wondered aloud. “And why?”
That was the best argument for kidnapping; what else could have made a new mother abandon her child? To say nothing of making off on foot into a darkened wood immediately after giving birth, heavy-footed and sore, her own flesh still torn and oozing . . . I grimaced at the thought, my womb tightening in sympathy.
Jamie shook his head, his eyes still intent on his task.
“She had some reason, but Christ and the saints only ken what it is. She didna hate the child, though—she might have left it in the wood, and us none the wiser.”
That was true; she—or someone—had wrapped the baby carefully, and left it as close to the fire as she could. She wished it to survive, then—but without her.
“You think she left willingly, then?”
He nodded, glancing at me.
“We’re no far from the Treaty Line here. It could be Indians—but if it was, if someone took her, why should they not capture us as well? Or kill us all?” he asked logically. “And Indians would have taken the horses. Nay, I think she went on her own. But as to why . . .” He shook his head, and dipped the handkerchief again.
The snow was falling faster now, still a dry, light snow, but beginning to stick in random patches. We should leave soon, I thought, before the storm grew worse. It seemed somehow wrong, though, simply to go, with no attempt to determine the fate of Fanny Beardsley.
The whole situation seemed unreal. It was as though the woman had suddenly vanished through some sorcery, leaving this small substitute in exchange. It reminded me bizarrely of the Scottish tales of changelings; fairy offspring left in the place of human babies. I couldn’t fathom what the fairies could possibly want with Fanny Beardsley, though.
I knew it was futile, but turned slowly round once more, surveying our surroundings. Nothing. The clay bank loomed over us, fringed with dry, snow-dusted grass. The trickle of a tiny stream ran past a little distance away, and the trees rustled and sighed in the wind. There was no mark of hoof or foot on the layer of damp, spongy needles, and no hint of any trail. The woods were not at all silent, what with the wind, but dark and deep, all right.
“And miles to go before we sleep,” I remarked, turning back to Jamie with a sigh.
“Eh? Ah, no, it’s no more than an hour’s ride to Brownsville,” he assured me. “Or maybe two,” he amended, glancing up at the white-muslin sky, from which the snow was falling faster. “I ken where we are, now it’s light.”
He coughed again, a sudden spasm racking his body, then straightened, and handed me the cup and dummy.
“Here, Sassenach. Feed the poor were sgaogan while I tend the beasts, aye?”
Sgaogan. A changeling. So the air of supernatural strangeness about the whole affair had struck him, too. Well, the woman had claimed to see ghosts; perhaps one of them had come for her? I shivered, and cradled the baby closer.
“Is there any settlement near here, besides Brownsville? Anywhere Mrs. Beardsley might have decided to go?”
Jamie shook his head, a line between his brows. The snow melted where it touched his heated skin, and ran down his face in tiny streams.
“Naught that I ken,” he said. “Is the wean takin’ to the goat’s milk?”
“Like a kid,” I assured him, and laughed. He looked puzzled, but one side of his mouth turned up nonetheless—he wanted humor just now, whether he understood the joke or not.
“That’s what the Americans call—will call—children,” I told him. “Kids.”
The smile broadened across his face.
“Oh, aye? So that’s why Brianna and MacKenzie call wee Jem so, is it? I thought it was only a bit of private fun between them.”
He milked the rest of the goats quickly while I dribbled more nourishment into the child, bringing back a brimming bucket of warm milk for our own breakfast. I should have liked a nice hot cup of tea—my fingers were chilled and numb from dipping the false teat over and over—but the creamy white stuff was delicious, and as much comfort to our chilled and empty stomachs as to the little one’s.
The child had stopped suckling, and had wet itself copiously; a good sign of health, by and large, but rather inconvenient just at the moment, as both its swaddling cloth and the front of my bodice were now soaked.
Jamie rootled hastily through the packs once again, this time in search of diapering and dry clothes. Fortunately, Mrs. Piggy had been carrying the bag in which I kept lengths of linen and wads of cotton lint for cleansing and bandaging. He took a handful of these and the child, while I went about the awkward and drafty business of changing my shift and bodice without removing skirt, petticoat, or cloak.
“P-put on your own cloak,” I said, through chattering teeth. “You’ll die of f-frigging pneumonia.”
He smiled at that, eyes focused on his job, though the tip of his nose glowed redly in contrast to his pale face.
“I’m fine,” he croaked, then cleared his throat with a noise like ripping cloth, impatient. “Fine,” he repeated, more strongly, then stopped, eyes widening in surprise.
“Oh,” he said, more softly. “Look. It’s a wee lassie.”
“Is it?” I dropped to my knees beside him to look.
“Rather plain,” he said, critically surveying the little creature. “A good thing she’ll have a decent dowry.”
“I don’t suppose you were any great beauty when you were born, either,” I said rebukingly. “She hasn’t even been properly cleaned, poor thing. What do you mean about her dowry, though?”
He shrugged, contriving to keep the child covered with a shawl, meanwhile sliding a folded sheet of linen dexterously beneath her miniature bottom.
“Her father’s dead and her mother’s gone. She’s no brothers or sisters to share, and I didna find any will in the house saying that anyone else was to have Beardsley’s property. There’s a decent farm left, though, and a good bit in trade goods there—to say nothing of the goats.” He glanced at Hiram and his family, and smiled. “So they’ll all be hers, I expect.”
“I suppose so,” I said slowly. “So she’ll be a rather well-to-do little girl, won’t she?”
“Aye, and she’s just shit herself. Could ye not have done that before I’d put ye on a fresh clout?” he demanded of the child. Unfazed by the scolding, the little girl blinked sleepily at him and gave a soft belch.
“Oh, well,” he said, resigned. He shifted himself to better shelter her from the wind, lifted the coverings briefly, and wiped a smear of blackish slime deftly off the budlike privates.
The child seemed healthy, though rather undersized; she was no bigger than a large doll, her stomach bulging slightly with milk. That was the immediate difficulty; small as she was, and with no body fat for insulation, she would die of hypothermia within a very short time, unless we could keep her warm as well as fed.
“Don’t let her get chilled.” I put my hands in my armpits to warm them, in preparation for picking up the child.
“Dinna fash yourself, Sassenach. I must just wipe her wee bum and then—” He stopped, frowning.
“What’s this, Sassenach? Is she damaged, d’ye think? Perhaps yon silly woman dropped her?”
I leaned close to look. He held the baby’s feet up in one hand, a wad of soiled cotton lint in the other. Just above the tiny buttocks was a dark bluish discoloration, rather like a bruise.
It wasn’t a bruise. It was, though, an explanation of sorts.
“She isn’t hurt,” I assured him, pulling another of Mrs. Beardsley’s discarded shawls up to shelter her daughter’s bald head. “It’s a Mongol spot.”
“A what?”
“It means the child is black,” I explained. “African, I mean, or partly so.” Jamie blinked, startled, then bent to peer into the shawl, frowning.
“No, she isn’t. She’s as pale as ye are yourself, Sassenach.”
That was quite true; the child was so white as to seem devoid of blood.
“Black children don’t usually look black at birth,” I explained to him. “In fact, they’re often quite pale. The pigmentation of the skin begins to develop some weeks later. But they’re often born with this faint discoloration of the skin at the base of the spine—it’s called a Mongol spot.”
He rubbed a hand over his face, blinking away snowflakes that tried to settle on his lashes.
“I see,” he said slowly. “Aye, well, that explains a bit, does it not?”
It did. The late Mr. Beardsley, whatever else he might have been, had assuredly not been black. The child’s father had been. And Fanny Beardsley, knowing—or fearing—that the child she was about to bear would reveal her as an adulteress, had thought it better to abandon the child and flee before the truth was revealed. I wondered whether the mysterious father had had anything to do with what had happened to Mr. Beardsley, for that matter.
“Did she know for sure that the father was a Negro, I wonder?” Jamie touched the small underlip, now showing a tinge of pink, gently with one finger. “Or did she never see the child at all? For after all, she must have given birth in the dark. If she had seen it looked white, perhaps she would ha’ chosen to brazen it out.”
“Perhaps. But she didn’t. Who do you suppose the father can have been?” Isolated as the Beardsleys’ farm had been, I couldn’t imagine Fanny having the opportunity to meet very many men, other than the Indians who came to trade. Did Indian babies perhaps have Mongol spots? I wondered.
Jamie glanced bleakly around at the desolate surroundings, and scooped the child up into his arms.
“I dinna ken, but I shouldna think he’ll be hard to spot, once we’ve reached Brownsville. Let’s go, Sassenach.”