A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [274]
“You’d better come and sit down.” I led him to the small bench Jamie had made me, set beneath the shade of a black gum tree that overhung the north side of the garden.
He sat, head drooping and hands trapped between his knees. I took off my broad-brimmed sun hat, wiped my face on my apron, and pinned up my hair more neatly, breathing in the cool freshness of the spruce and balsam trees that grew on the slope above.
“What is it?” I asked gently, seeing that he did not know how to start. “Are you afraid that perhaps you don’t love her?”
He gave me a startled look, then turned his head back to the studied contemplation of his knees.
“Oh. No, ma’am. I mean—I don’t, but that’s no matter.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. I mean—I’m sure we should grow to be fond of one another, meine Mutter says so. And I like her well enough now, to be sure,” he added hastily, as though fearing this might sound insulting. “Da says she’s a tidy wee soul, and my sisters are verra fond of her indeed.”
I made a noncommittal sound. I had had my doubts about this match to begin with, and it was beginning to sound as though they were justified.
“Is there . . . perhaps someone else?” I asked delicately.
Manfred shook his head slowly, and I heard him swallow hard.
“No, ma’am,” he said in a low voice.
“You’re sure?”
“Aye, ma’am.” He drew a deep breath. “I mean—there was. But that’s all done with now.”
I was puzzled by this. If he had decided to renounce this mysterious other girl—whether out of fear of his mother, or for some other reason—then what was stopping him from going through with the marriage to Lizzie?
“The other girl—is she by chance from Hillsboro?” Things were coming a little clearer. When I had first met him and his family at the Gathering, his sisters had exchanged knowing glances at mention of Manfred’s visits to Hillsboro. They had known about it then, even if Ute had not.
“Aye. That’s why I went to Hillsboro—I mean, I had to go, for the . . . er . . . But I meant to see . . . Myra . . . and tell her that I would be married to Miss Wemyss and couldna come to see her anymore.”
“Myra.” So she had a name, at least. I sat back, tapping my foot meditatively. “You meant to—so you didn’t see her, after all?”
He shook his head again, and I saw a tear drop and spread suddenly on the dusty homespun of his breeches.
“No, ma’am,” he said, his voice half-choked. “I couldn’t. She was dead.”
“Oh, dear,” I said softly. “Oh, I am so sorry.” The tears were falling on his knees, making spots on the cloth, and his shoulders shook, but he didn’t make a sound.
I reached out and gathered him into my arms, holding him tight against my shoulder. His hair was soft and springy and his skin flushed with heat against my neck. I felt helpless to deal with his grief; he was too old to comfort with mere touch, too young—perhaps—to find any solace in words. There was nothing I could do for the moment save hold him.
His arms went round my waist, though, and he clung to me for several minutes after his weeping was spent. I held him quietly, patting his back and keeping watch through the flickering green shadows of the vine-twined palisades, lest anyone else come looking for me in the garden.
At last he sighed, let go, and sat up. I groped for a handkerchief, and not finding one, pulled off my apron and handed it to him to wipe his face.
“You needn’t marry right away,” I said, when he seemed to have regained possession of himself. “It’s only right that you should take a little time to—to heal. But we can find some excuse to put the wedding off; I’ll speak to Jamie—”
But he was shaking his head, a look of sad determination taking the place of tears.
“No, ma’am,” he said, low-voiced but definite. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Myra was a whore, ma’am. She died of the French disease.”
He looked up at me then, and I saw the terror in his eyes, behind the grief.
“And I think I’ve got it.”
“YE’RE SURE?”