A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [514]
In the midst of the laughter at this, the sound of a knock at the front door passed unnoticed—or would have, if not for Jemmy and Aidan, who had been playing in Jamie’s study, rushing into the kitchen to tell us about it.
“I’ll get it.” Bree set down her darning, but I was already on my feet.
“No, I’ll go.” I waved her back, picked up a candlestick, and went down the dark hallway, heart beating fast. Visitors after dark were almost always an emergency of one kind or another.
So was this one, though not any kind I might have expected. For a moment, I didn’t even recognize the tall woman who stood swaying on the stoop, white-faced and gaunt. Then she whispered, “Frau Fraser? I may—may I komm?” and fell into my arms.
The noise of it brought all the young women rushing to help, and we had Monika Berrisch—for it was indeed Mr. Wemyss’s putative bride—laid on the settle, covered with quilts, and plied with hot toddy in nothing flat.
She recovered quickly—there was nothing wrong with her, really, save exhaustion and hunger—she said she hadn’t eaten in three days—and within a short time, was able to sit up eating soup, and explain her astonishing presence.
“It wass my husband’s sister,” she said, closing her eyes in momentary bliss at the aroma of split-pea soup with ham. “She did not want me, effer, and when her husband had the bad accident and lost his wagon, so there was not so much money to keep us all, she did not want me more.”
She had, she said, yearned for Joseph, but had not had either the strength nor yet the means to withstand her family’s opposition and insist upon returning to him.
“Oh?” Lizzie was examining her in a close, but not unfriendly manner. “What happpened, then?”
Fraulein Berrisch turned large, gentle eyes on her.
“I could not bear it more,” she said simply. “I wish so much to be with Joseph. My husband’s sister, she wish me to be gone, so she will give a small bit of money. So I came,” she concluded, with a shrug, and took another small, greedy spoonful of soup.
“You . . . walked?” Brianna said. “From Halifax?”
Fraulein Berrisch nodded, licking the spoon, and put out a foot from under the quilts. Her shoes had worn entirely through at the sole; she had wrapped them with random scraps of leather and strips of fabric torn from her shift, so her feet looked like bundles of filthy rags.
“Elizabeth,” she said, looking earnestly at Lizzie. “I hope you do not mind I komm. Your father—he is hier? I hope so much he does not mind, too.”
“Umm, no,” I said, exchanging a glance with Lizzie. “He isn’t here—but I’m sure that he’ll be delighted to see you!”
“Oh?” Her gaunt face, which had shown alarm at hearing that Mr. Wemyss was not here, grew radiant when we told her where he was.
“Oh,” she breathed, clasping the spoon to her bosom as though it were Mr. Wemyss’s head. “Oh, mein Kavalier!” Beaming with joy, she looked round at all of us—and for the first time, noticed Rodney, snoozing in his basket at Lizzie’s feet.
“But who is this?” she cried, and leaned forward to look at him. Not quite asleep, Rodney opened round, dark eyes and regarded her with a solemn, sleepy interest.
“This is my wee bairnie. Rodney Joseph, he’s called—for my Da, ken?” Lizzie hoisted him out of his basket, chubby knees pulled up under his chin, and laid him gently in Monika’s arms.
She cooed over him in German, face alight.
“Granny lust,” Bree muttered to me, out of the side of her mouth, and I felt laughter bubble up under my stays. I hadn’t laughed since before Malva’s death, and found it balm to the spirit.
Lizzie was explaining earnestly to Monika the estrangement resulting from her unorthodox marriage, to which Monika was nodding, clicking her tongue in sympathetic understanding—and I did wonder how much of it she grasped—and talking baby-talk to Rodney all at once.
“Fat chance of