The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [472]
It was a small parcel, a box of some sort, sewn up carefully in oilskin and tied with twine for good measure. It was heavy. I shook it, but the only sound was a soft clunking, as though whatever lay within was padded. The label read simply “To Mr. James Fraser, Esq., Fraser’s Ridge, the Carolinas.”
“Well, what do you suppose this is?” I asked the donkey. It was a rhetorical question, but the donkey, an amiable creature, looked up from her meal and hee-hawed in reply, stems of fescue hanging from the corner of her
mouth.
The sound set off answering cries of curiosity and welcome from Clarence and the horses, and within seconds, Jamie and Roger appeared from the direction of the barn, Brianna came out of the springhouse, and Mr. Bug rose up from behind the manure pile in his shirtsleeves like a vulture rising from a carcass, all drawn by the noise.
“Thanks,” I said to the donkey, who flicked a modest ear at me and went back to the grass.
“What is it?” Brianna stood on her toes to peer over Jamie’s shoulder as he took the package from me. “It’s not from Lallybroch, is it?”
“No, it’s neither Ian’s hand . . . nor my sister’s,” Jamie replied with no more than a brief hesitation, though I saw him glance twice to make sure. “It’s come a good way, though—by ship?” He held the parcel under my nose inquiringly. I sniffed and nodded.
“Yes; there’s a whiff of tar about it. No documents, though?”
He turned the package over, then shook his head.
“It had a seal, but that’s gone.” Grayish fragments of wax clung to the twine, but the seal that might have provided a clue to the sender had long since succumbed to the vicissitudes of travel and Mr. Wainwright’s pack.
“Ump.” Mr. Bug shook his head, squinting dubiously at the package. “Not a mattock.”
“No, it’s nay a mattock-head,” Jamie agreed, hefting the little parcel appraisingly. “Nor yet a book, let alone a quire of paper. I havena ordered anything else that I can think of. D’ye think it might be seeds, Sassenach? Mr. Stanhope did promise to send ye bits from his friend’s garden, aye?”
“Oh, it might be!” That was an exciting possibility; Mr. Stanhope’s friend Mr. Crossley had an extensive ornamental garden, with a large number of exotic and imported species, and Stanhope had offered to see whether Crossley might be amenable to an exchange; seeds and cuttings of some of the rarer European and Asian herbs from his collection, for bulbs and seeds from what Stanhope described as my “mountain fastness.”
Roger and Brianna exchanged a brief look. Seeds were a good deal less intriguing to them than either paper or books would be. Still, the novelty of any letter or package was sufficient that no one suggested opening it until the full measure of enjoyment should have been extracted from speculation about its contents.
In the event, the package was not opened until after supper, when everyone had had a chance to weigh the parcel, poke and sniff at it, and offer an opinion regarding its contents. Pushing his empty plate aside, Jamie finally took up the parcel with all due ceremony, shook it once more, and then handed it to me.
“That knot’s a job for a surgeon’s hands, Sassenach,” he said with a grin. It was; whoever had tied it was no sailor, but had substituted thoroughness for knowledge. It took me several minutes of picking, but I got the knot undone at last, and rolled the twine up tidily for future use.
Jamie then slit the stitching carefully with the point of his dirk, and drew out a small wooden box, to gasps of astonishment. It was plain in design, but elegant in execution, made of a polished dark wood, equipped with brass hinges and hasp, and with a matching small brass plate set into the lid.
“From the Workshop of Messrs. Halliburton and Halliburton, 14 Portman Square, London.” Brianna read it out, leaning across the table and craning her neck. “Who on earth are Norman and Greene?”
“I havena