The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [105]
“I haven’t any idea,” I assured him. “Here, I’m going across to McAllister’s fire to borrow a clean clout. I’ll see you at our camp in a bit.”
Not waiting for an answer, I took a firm grasp on the baby and shuffled into the bushes, heading for the nearest campsite. Georgiana McAllister had newborn twins—I’d delivered them four days before—and was happy to provide me with both a clean diaper and a private bush behind which to effect my personal repairs. These accomplished, I chatted with her and admired the twins, all the while wondering about the recent revelations. Between Lieutenant Hayes and his proclamation, the machinations of Lillywhite and company, and whatever Bree and Roger were up to, the mountain seemed a perfect hotbed of conspiracy tonight.
I was pleased that we had managed the christening—in fact, I was surprised to find just how gratified I did feel about it—but I had to admit to a pang of distress over Brianna’s canceled wedding. She hadn’t said much about it, but I knew that both she and Roger had been looking forward very much to the blessing of their union. The firelight winked briefly, accusingly, off the gold ring on my left hand, and I mentally threw up my hands in Frank’s direction.
And just what do you expect me to do about it? I demanded silently, while externally agreeing with Georgiana’s opinion on the treatment of pinworms.
“Ma’am?” One of the older McAllister girls, who had volunteered to change Jemmy, interrupted the conversation, dangling a long, slimy object delicately between two fingers. “I found this gaud in the wean’s cloot; is it maybe your man’s?”
“Good grief!” I was shocked by the watch chain’s reappearance, but a moment’s rationality corrected my first alarmed impression that Jemmy had in fact swallowed the thing. It would take several hours for a solid object to make its way through even the most active infant’s digestive tract; evidently he had merely dropped his toy down the front of his gown and it had come to rest in his diaper.
“Gie it here, lass.” Mr. McAllister, catching sight of the watch chain, reached out and took it with a slight grimace. He pulled a large handkerchief from the waist of his breeks and wiped the object carefully, bringing to light the gleam of silver links and a small round fob, bearing some kind of seal.
I noted the fob with some grimness, and made a mental resolve to give Roger a proper bollocking about what he let Jemmy put in his mouth. Thank goodness it hadn’t come off.
“Why, that’s Mr. Caldwell’s wee gaud, surely!” Georgiana leaned forward, peering over the heads of the twins she was nursing.
“Is it?” Her husband squinted at the object, and fumbled in his shirt for his spectacles.
“Aye, I’m sure it is! I saw it when he preached Sunday. The first of my pains was just comin’ on,” she explained, turning to me, “and I had to come away before he’d finished. He saw me turn to go, and must ha’ thought he’d outstayed his welcome, for he pulled the watch from his pocket to have a wee keek, and I saw the glint from that bittie round thing on the chain.”
“That’s called a seal, a nighean,” her husband informed her, having now settled a pair of half-moon spectacles firmly atop his nose, and turning the little metal emblem over between his fingers. “You’re right, though, it’s Mr. Caldwell’s, for see?” A horny finger traced the outline of the figure on the seal: a mace, an open book, a bell, and a tree, standing on top of a fish with a ring in its mouth.
“That’s from the University of Glasgow, that is. Mr. Caldwell’s a scholar,” he told me, blue eyes wide with awe. “Been to learn the preachin’, and a fine job he makes of it.
“You did miss a fine finish, Georgie,” he added, turning to his wife. “He went sae red in the face, talkin’ of the Abomination of Desolation and the wrath at world’s end, that I thought surely he’d have an apoplexy, and then what should we do? For he wouldna have Murray MacLeod to him, Murray bein