Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [520]
“Do you know?” I whispered, soundless. “Do you know she has a son?”
There was no answer, but peace came gradually over me in the quiet of the night, and I fell at last over the edge of dreams.
65
RETURN TO FRASER’S RIDGE
Jocasta was loath to part with her newest relative, but the spring planting was already very late, and the homestead sadly neglected; we needed to return to the Ridge without delay, and Brianna would not hear of staying behind. Which was a good thing, as it would have taken dynamite to separate Jamie from his grandson.
Lord John was well enough to travel; he came with us as far as the Great Buffalo Trail Road, where he kissed Brianna and the baby, embraced Jamie and—to my shock—me, before turning north toward Virginia and Willie.
“I’ll trust you to take care of them,” he said quietly to me, with a nod toward the wagon, where two bright heads bent together in mutual absorption over the bundle in Brianna’s lap.
“You may,” I said, and pressed his hand. “I’ll trust you, too.” He lifted my hand to his lips, briefly, smiled at me, and rode away without looking back.
A week later, we bumped over the grass-choked ruts to the ridge where the wild strawberries grew, green and white and red together, constancy and courage, sweetness and bitterness mingled in the shadows of the trees.
The cabin was dirty and uncared for, its sheds empty and full of dead leaves. The garden was a tangle of old dried stalks and random shoots, the paddock an empty shell. The framework of the new house stood black and skeletal, reproachful on the Ridge. The place looked barely habitable, a ruin.
I had never felt such joy in any homecoming, ever.
Name, I wrote, and paused. God knew, I thought. His last name was open to question; his Christian name not yet even considered.
I called him “sweetie” or “darling,” Lizzie called him “dear lad,” Jamie addressed him with Gaelic formality either as “grandson” or “a Ruaidh,” the Red One—his dark infant fuzz and dusky skin having given way to a blazing fair ruddiness that made it clear to the most casual observer just who his grandsire was—whoever his father might have been.
Brianna found no need to call him anything; she kept him always with her, guarding him with a fierce absorption that went beyond words. She would not give him a formal name, she said. Not yet.
“When?” Lizzie had asked, but Brianna didn’t answer. I knew when; when Roger came.
“And if he doesna come,” said Jamie privately to me, “I expect the poor wee lad will go to his grave wi’ no name at all. Christ, that lass is stubborn!”
“She trusts Roger,” I said evenly. “You might try to do the same.”
He gave me a sharp look.
“There is a difference between trust and hope, Sassenach, and ye ken that as well as I do.”
“Well, have a stab at hope, then, why don’t you?” I snapped, and turned my back on him, dipping my quill and shaking it elaborately. Little Query Mark had a rash on his bottom, that had kept him—and everyone else in the house—awake all night. I was grainy-eyed and cross, and not inclined to tolerate any show of bad faith.
Jamie walked deliberately around the table and sat down opposite me, resting his chin on his folded arms, so that I was forced to look at him.
“I would,” he said, a shadow of humor in his eyes. “If I could decide whether to hope he comes or hope he does not.”
I smiled, then reached across and ran the feathered tip of my quill down the bridge of his nose in token of forgiveness, before returning to my work. He wrinkled his nose and sneezed, then sat up straight, peering at the paper.
“What’s that you’re doing, Sassenach?”
“Making out little Gizmo’s birth certificate—so far as I can,” I added.
“Gizmo?” he said doubtfully. “That will be a saint’s name?”
“I shouldn’t think so, though you never know, what with people named Pantaleon and Onuphrius. Or Ferreolus.”
“Ferreolus? I dinna think I ken that one.” He leaned back, hands linked over his knee.
“One of my favorites,” I told him, carefully filling in the birthdate and time of birth—even that was an estimate,