A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [667]
“She wasna best pleased about it, but she said she kent her Christian duty. The auld besom barely fed us, and ’twas me took care of Malva.”
He was silent for a bit, and so was I, thinking the best—the only—thing I could offer him now was the chance to speak. He pulled his hand from mine, leaned over, and touched the gravestone. It was no more than a lump of granite, but someone had gone to the trouble to carve her name on it—only the one word, MALVA , in crude block letters. It reminded me of the memorials that dotted Culloden, the clanstones, each with a single name.
“She was perfect,” he whispered. His finger traced its way over the stone, delicate, as though he touched her flesh. “So perfect. Her wee privates looked like a flower’s bud, and her skin sae fresh and soft. . . .”
A sense of coldness grew in the pit of my stomach. Did he mean . . . yes, of course he did. A sense of inevitable despair began to grow within me.
“She was mine,” he said, and looking up to see my eye upon him, repeated it more loudly. “She was mine!”
He looked down, then, at the grave, and his mouth turned in upon itself, in grief and anger.
“The auld man never knew—never guessed what we were to each other.”
Didn’t he? I thought. Tom Christie might have confessed to the crime to save one he loved—but he loved more than one. Having lost a daughter—or rather, a niece—would he not do all he could to save the son who was the last remnant of his blood?
“You killed her,” I said quietly. I was in no doubt, and he showed no surprise.
“He would ha’ sold her away, given her to some clod of a farmer.” Allan’s fist clenched on his thigh. “I thought of that, as she grew older, and sometimes when I would lie with her, I couldna bear the thought, and would slap her face, only from the rage of thinking of it.”
He drew a deep, ragged breath.
“It wasna her fault, none of it. But I thought it was. And then I caught her wi’ that soldier, and again, wi’ filthy wee Henderson. I beat her for it, but she cried out that she couldna help it—she was with child.”
“Yours?”
He nodded, slowly.
“I never thought of it. I should, of course. But I never did. She was always wee Malva, see, a bittie wee lass. I saw her breasts swell, aye, and the hair come out to mar her sweet flesh—but I just never thought . . .
He shook his head, unable to deal with the thought, even now.
“She said she must marry—and there must be reason for her husband to think the child his, whoever she wed. If she couldna make the soldier wed her, then it must be another. So she took as many lovers as she might, quickly.
“I put a stop to that, though,” he assured me, a faintly nauseating tone of self-righteousness in his voice. “I told her I wouldna have it—I would think of another way.”
“And so you put her up to saying the child was Jamie’s.” My horror at the story and my anger at what he had done to us was subsumed by a flood of sorrow. Oh, Malva, I thought in despair. Oh, my darling Malva. Why didn’t you tell me? But of course she wouldn’t have told me. Her only confidant was Allan.
He nodded, and reached out to touch the stone again. A gust of wind quivered through the holly, stirring the stiff leaves.
“It would explain the bairn, see, but she wouldna have to wed anyone. I thought—Himself would give her money to go away, and I would go with her. We could go to Canada, perhaps, or to the Indies.” His voice sounded dreamy, as though he envisioned some idyllic life, where no one knew.
“But why did you kill her?” I burst out. “What made you do that?” The sorrow and the senselessness were overwhelming; I clenched my hands in my apron, not to batter him.
“I had to,” he said heavily. “She said she couldna go through with it.” He blinked, looking down, and I saw that his eyes were heavy with tears.
“She said—she loved you,” he said, low-voiced and thick. “She couldna hurt ye