A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [263]
I laid the cotton-wool pad on a stone to dry out, and came back, hoping that they were all too groggy now to continue their philosophical speculations. I didn’t want them following that line of thought; let it get around the Ridge that ether separated people from their souls, and I’d never get anyone to let me use it on them, no matter how dire the situation.
“Well, thank you all for helping,” I said, smiling as I entered the room, relieved to find them all looking reasonably alert. “You’ve done something very useful and valuable. You can all go along about your business now, though—I’ll tidy up.”
Malva and Lizzie hesitated for a moment, neither girl wanting to leave Bobby to the other, but under the impetus of my shooing, drifted toward the door.
“When are ye to be wed, Miss Wemyss?” Malva asked casually—and loudly enough for Bobby to hear—though she certainly knew; everyone on the Ridge did.
“In August,” Lizzie replied coolly, lifting her small nose half an inch. “Right after the haying—Miss Christie.” And then I shall be Mrs. McGillivray, her satisfied expression said. And you—Miss Christie—without an admirer to your name. Not that Malva attracted no notice from young men; only that her father and brother were assiduous in keeping them away from her.
“I wish ye great joy of it,” Malva said. She glanced at Bobby Higgins, then back at Lizzie, and smiled, demure beneath her starched white cap.
Bobby stayed sitting on the table for a moment, looking after the girls.
“Bobby,” I said, struck by the deeply thoughtful expression on his face, “the figure you saw under the anesthetic—did you recognize it?”
He looked at me, then his eyes slid back to the empty doorway, as though unable to keep away.
“Oh, no, mum,” he said, in such a tone of earnest conviction that I knew he lied. “Not at all!”
43
DISPLACED PERSONS
THEY HAD STOPPED to water the horses by the edge of the small lake the Indians called Thick Rushes. It was a warm day, and they hobbled the horses, stripped, and waded into the water, spring-fed and gloriously cold. Cold enough to shock the senses and, for a moment at least, drive away Jamie’s moody contemplation of the note MacDonald had delivered him from John Stuart, the Indian Superintendent of the Southern Department.
It had been complimentary enough, praising his celerity and enterprise in drawing the Snowbird Cherokee into the British sphere of influence—but had gone on to urge more vigorous involvement, pointing out Stuart’s own coup in directing the choice of leaders among the Choctaws and the Chickasaw, at a congress he had himself convened two years before.
. . . The competition and anxiety of the candidates for medals and commissions was as great as can be imagined and equalled the struggles of the most aspiring and ambitious for honours and preferment in great states. I took every step to be informed of characters and filled the vacancies with the most worthy and likely to answer the purposes of maintaining order and the attachment of this nation to the British interest. I urge you to strive for similar good results to be achieved among the Cherokee.
“Oh, aye,” he said aloud, popping up among the rushes and shaking water from his hair. “I’m to depose Tsisqua, nay doubt by assassination, and bribe them all to install Pipestone Carver”—the smallest and most self-effacing Indian Jamie had ever seen—“as peace chief. Heugh!” He sank again, in a rush of bubbles, entertaining himself by cursing Stuart’s presumption, watching his words rise up in wavering quicksilver balls, to disappear magically at the bright light of the surface.
He rose again, gasping, then gulped air and held his breath.
“What was that?” said a startled voice nearby. “Is it them?”
“No, no,” said another, low and urgent.