The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [246]
“If ye want the child, Claire, I will take her, and manage whatever comes.”
If I wanted her. I could feel the soft weight of the child, sleeping on my breast. I had forgotten the intoxication of motherhood for years; pushed aside the memory of the feelings of exaltation, exhaustion, panic, delight. Having Germain and Jemmy and Joan nearby, though, had reminded me vividly.
“One last question,” I said. I took his hand and brought it down, fingers linked with mine. “The baby’s father wasn’t white. What might that mean to her?”
I knew what it would have meant in Boston of the 1960s, but this was a very different place, and while in some ways society here was more rigid and less officially enlightened than the time I had come from, in others it was oddly much more tolerant.
Jamie considered carefully, the stiff fingers of his right hand tapping out a silent rhythm of contemplation on the head of a barrel of salt pork.
“I think it will be all right,” he said at last. “There’s no question of her being taken into slavery. Even if it could be proved that her father was a slave—and there’s no proof at all—a child takes the mother’s status. A child born to a free woman is free; a child born to a slave woman is a slave. And whatever yon dreadful woman might be, she wasna a slave.”
“Not in name, at least,” I said, thinking of the marks on the doorpost. “But beyond the question of slavery . . .?”
He sighed and straightened.
“I think not,” he said. “Not here. In Charleston, aye, it would likely matter; at least if she were in society. But in the backcountry?”
He shrugged. True enough; so close as we were to the Treaty Line, there were any number of mixed-breed children. It was in no way unusual for settlers to take wives among the Cherokee. It was a good deal rarer to see children born of a black and white liaison in the backcountry, but they were plentiful in the coastal areas. Most of them slaves—but there, nonetheless.
And wee Miss Beardsley would not be “in society,” at least, not if we left her with the Browns. Here, her potential wealth would matter a great deal more than the color of her skin. With us, it might be different, for Jamie was—and always would be, despite his income or lack of it—a gentleman.
“That wasn’t the last question, after all,” I said. I laid a hand over his, cold on my cheek. “The last one is—why are you suggesting the notion?”
“Ah. Well, I only thought . . .” He dropped his hand, and looked away. “What ye said when we came home from the Gathering. That ye could have chosen the safety of barrenness—but did not, for my sake. I thought—” He stopped again, and rubbed the knuckle of his free hand hard along the bridge of his nose. He took a deep breath and tried again.
“For my sake,” he said firmly, addressing the air in front of him as though it were a tribunal, “I dinna want ye to bear another child. I wouldna risk your loss, Sassenach,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. “Not for a dozen bairns. I’ve daughters and sons, nieces and nephews, grandchildren—weans enough.”
He looked at me directly then, and spoke softly.
“But I’ve no life but you, Claire.”
He swallowed audibly, and went on, eyes fixed on mine.
“I did think, though . . . if ye do want another child . . . perhaps I could still give ye one.”
Brief tears blurred my eyes. It was cold in the lean-to, and our fingers were stiff. I fumbled my hand into his, squeezing tight.
Even as we had spoken, my mind had been busy, envisioning possibilities, difficulties, blessings. I did not need to think further, for I knew the decision had made itself. A child was a temptation of the flesh, as well as of the spirit; I knew the bliss of that unbounded oneness, as I knew the bittersweet joy of seeing that oneness fade as the child learned itself and stood alone.
But I had crossed some subtle line. Whether it was that I was born myself with some secret quota embodied in my flesh, or only that I knew my sole allegiance must be given elsewhere now . . . I knew. As a mother,