Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [43]
They were in a garden somewhere; there were lawn chairs, and a table with drinks in a background dappled with the scattered light of tree leaves. The faces showed clearly, though—laughing, faces alight with youth, eyes only for each other.
Posing formally, arm in arm, mocking their own formality. Laughing, Claire half bent over with hilarity at something Frank had said, holding down a wide skirt flying in the wind, her curly hair suffering no such restraint. Frank handing Claire a cup, she looking up into his face as she took it, with such a look of hope and trust that Brianna’s heart squeezed tight to see it.
Then she looked at the last of the pictures, and realized what she was looking at. The two of them stood by the table, hands together on a knife, laughing as they cut into an obviously homemade cake. A wedding cake.
“And for the last, an old favorite that you’ll know. This song is said to have been sent by a Jacobite prisoner, on his way to London to be hanged, to his wife in the Highlands …”
She spread her hands out flat on top of the pictures, as though to keep anyone from seeing them. An icy shock went through her. Wedding pictures. Snapshots of their wedding day. Of course; they’d been married in Scotland. The Reverend Wakefield wouldn’t have done the ceremony, not being a Catholic priest, but he was one of her father’s oldest friends; the reception must have been held at the manse.
Yes. Peeking through her fingers, she could make out familiar bits of the old house in the background. Then, reluctantly sliding her hand aside, she looked again at her mother’s young face.
Eighteen. Claire had married Frank Randall at eighteen—perhaps that explained it. How could anyone know their mind so young?
“By yon bonnie banks, and by yon bonnie braes,
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond,
Where me and my true love were ever wont to gae …”
But Claire had been sure—or she’d thought so. The broad clear brow and delicate mouth admitted of no doubt; the big, luminous eyes were fixed on her new husband with no sign of reservation or misgiving. And yet—
“But me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.”
Oblivious of the toes she stepped on, Brianna blundered out of the row and fled, before anyone should see the tears.
“I can stay with you through part of the calling of the clans,” Roger said, “but I’ve a bit to do at the end of it, so I’ll have to leave you. Will you be all right?”
“Yes, of course,” she said firmly. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
He looked at her a little anxiously, but let it pass. Neither of them had mentioned her precipitous departure earlier; by the time he had made his way through the congratulatory well-wishers and gone to find her, she had had time to find a Ladies’ and get herself under control with cold water.
They had spent the rest of the afternoon strolling through the festival, shopping a bit, going outside to watch the pipe-bands’ competition, coming in half deafened to see a young man dance between two swords crossed on the ground. The photographs stayed safely out of sight in her handbag.
It was nearly dark now; people were leaving the eating area and heading for the open stands outside, at the foot of the mountain.
She had thought the families with young children would leave, and some did, but there were small bodies and sleepy heads drooping among the older people in the stands. A tiny girl lay limp, sound asleep on her father’s shoulder as they made their way into one of the upper rows of the stands. There was a clear, flat space in front of the bleachers, in which a huge heap of wood had been piled.
“What’s the calling of the clans?” she heard a woman ask her companion in the row ahead. The companion shrugged, and Brianna looked at Roger for enlightenment, but he only smiled.
“You’ll see,” he said.