A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [215]
“I think that would be an excellent idea.” I went to fetch paper and ink, heart beating a little faster. Marsali was entirely calm; I wasn’t. I’d seen it before, though; I wasn’t sure whether it was fatalism, religious faith, or something purely physical—but women giving birth seemed very often to lose any sense of fear or misgiving, turning inward upon themselves and exhibiting an absorption that amounted to indifference—simply because they had no attention to spare for anything beyond the universe bounded by their bellies.
As it was, my lingering sense of dread was muted, and two or three hours passed in quiet peace. Marsali wrote to Laoghaire, but also brief notes to each of her children. “Just in case,” she said laconically, handing the folded notes to me to put away. I noticed that she didn’t write to Fergus—but her eyes darted toward the door every time there was a sound.
Lizzie returned to report that Brianna was nowhere to be found, but Malva Christie turned up, looking excited, and was promptly put to work, reading aloud from Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle.
Jamie came in, covered with road dust, and kissed me on the lips and Marsali on the forehead. He took in the unorthodox situation, and gave me the ghost of a raised eyebrow.
“How is it, then, a muirninn?” he asked Marsali.
She made a small face and put her tongue out, and he laughed.
“You haven’t seen Fergus anywhere, have you?” I asked.
“Aye, I have,” he said, looking slightly surprised. “D’ye want him?” This question was addressed to both Marsali and myself.
“We do,” I said firmly. “Where is he?”
“Woolam’s Mill. He’s been interpreting for a French traveler, an artist come in search of birds.”
“Birds, is it?” The notion seemed to affront Mrs. Bug, who put down her knitting and sat up straight. “Our Fergus speaks bird-tongue, does he? Well, ye just go and fetch the mannie this minute. Yon Frenchman can mind his own birds!”
Looking rather taken aback at this vehemence, Jamie allowed me to usher him out into the hallway and as far as the front door. Safely out of earshot, he stopped.
“What’s to do wi’ the lass?” he demanded, low-voiced, and darted a glance back toward the surgery, where Malva’s clear, high voice had taken up her reading again.
I told him, as well as I could.
“It may be nothing; I hope so. But—she wants Fergus. She says he’s been keeping away, feeling guilty for what happened at the malting floor.”
Jamie nodded.
“Well, aye, he would.”
“He would? Why, for heaven’s sake?” I demanded in exasperation. “It wasn’t his fault!”
He gave me a look suggesting that I had missed something patently obvious to the meanest intelligence.
“Ye think that makes a difference? And if the lass should die—or mischief come to the child? Ye think he’d not blame himself?”
“He shouldn’t,” I said. “But rather obviously he does. You don’t—” I stopped short, because in fact he did. He’d told me so, very clearly, the night he brought me back.
He saw the memory cross my face, and the hint of a smile, wry and painful, showed in his eyes. He reached out and traced the line of my eyebrow, where a healing gash had split through it.
“Ye think I dinna feel that?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head, not in negation, but in helplessness.
“A man’s wife is his to protect,” he said simply, and turned away. “I’ll go fetch Fergus.”
THE LAMINARIA HAD BEEN accomplishing its slow, patient work, and Marsali was beginning to have occasional contractions, though we had not really got down to it, yet. The light was beginning to fade when Jamie arrived with Fergus—and Ian, met on the way.
Fergus was unshaven, covered with dust, and plainly hadn’t bathed in days, but Marsali’s face lighted like the sun when she saw him. I didn’t know what Jamie had told him; he looked grim and worried—but at sight of Marsali, he went to her like an arrow to its target, gathering her to him with such fervor that Malva dropped her book on the floor, staring in astonishment.
I relaxed a little, for the first time since I had entered