Outlander aka Cross Stitch - Gabaldon Diana (читать книгу онлайн бесплатно полностью без регистрации .TXT) 📗
Jenny smiled after him, then turned her attention to me. Placing the box on the bed, she threw back the lid, revealing a jumbled array of jewels and baubles. I was surprised to see it; it seemed unlike the neat, orderly Jenny Murray whose iron hand kept the household running smoothly from dawn to dusk.
She stirred a finger through the bright clutter, then as though picking up my thought, looked up and smiled at me.
“I keep thinking I must sort all these things one day. But when I was small, my mother would let me rummage in her box sometimes, and it was like finding magic treasure – I never knew what I’d pick up next. I suppose I think if it were all orderly, the magic would go, somehow. Daft, no?”
“No,” I said, smiling back at her. “No, it isn’t.”
We rummaged slowly through the box, holding the cherished bits and pieces of four generations of women.
“That was my grandmother Fraser’s,” Jenny said, holding up a silver brooch. It was in the shape of a fret-worked crescent moon, a small single diamond shining above the tip like a star.
“And this-” She pulled out a slender gold band, with a ruby surrounded by brilliants. “That’s my wedding ring. Ian spent half a year’s salary on it, though I told him he was foolish to do it.” The fond look on her face suggested that Ian had been anything but foolish. She polished the stone on the bosom of her dress and admired it once more before replacing it in the box.
“I’ll be happy once the babe is born,” she said, patting her bulge with a grimace. “My fingers are so swollen in the mornings I can scarcely do up my laces, let alone wear my rings.”
I caught a strange nonmetallic gleam in the depths of the box, and pointed. “What’s that?”
“Oh, those,” she said, dipping into the box again. “I’ve never worn them; they don’t suit me. But you could wear them – you’re tall and queenly, like my mother was. They were hers, ye ken.”
They were a pair of bracelets. Each made from the curving, almost-circular tusk of a wild boar, polished to a deep ivory glow, the ends capped with silver tappets, etched with flowered tracery.
“Lord, they’re gorgeous! I’ve never seen anything so… so wonderfully barbaric.”
Jenny was amused. “Aye, that they are. Someone gave them to Mother as a wedding gift, but she never would say who. My father used to tease her now and then about her admirer, but she wouldna tell him, either, just smiled like a cat that’s had cream to its supper. Here, try them.”
The ivory was cool and heavy on my arm. I couldn’t resist stroking the deep yellow surface, grained with age.
“Aye, they suit ye,” Jenny declared. “And they go wi’ that yellow gown, as well. Here are the earbobs – put these on, and we’ll go down.”
Murtagh was seated at the kitchen table, industriously eating ham off the end of his dirk. Passing behind him with a platter, Mrs. Crook dexterously bent and slid three fresh hot bannocks onto his plate, hardly breaking her stride.
Jenny was bustling to and fro, preparing and overseeing. Pausing in her progress, she peered over Murtagh’s shoulder at his rapidly emptying plate.
“Don’t stint yourself, man,” she remarked. “There’s another hog in the pen, after all.”
“Begrudge a kinsman a bite, do ye?” he asked, not interrupting his chewing.
“Me?” Jenny put both hands on her hips. “Heavens, no! After all, ye’ve only had the four helpings so far. Mrs. Crook,” she turned to call to the departing housekeeper, “when you’ve done wi’ the bannocks, fix this starveling man a bowl of parritch to fill in the chinks with. We dinna want him fainting on the doorstep, ye ken.”
When Murtagh saw me standing in the doorway, he promptly choked on a bite of ham.
“Mmmphm,” he said, by way of greeting, after Jenny had pounded him helpfully on the back.
“Nice to see you too,” I replied, sitting down opposite him. “Thank you, by the way.”
“Mmphm?” The question was muffled by half a bannock, spread with honey.
“For fetching my things from the Castle.”
“Mmp.” He dismissed any notion of thanks with a wave that ended in a reach for the butter dish.
“I brought your wee bits of plant and such as well,” he said, with a jerk of the head at the window. “Out in the yard, in my saddlebags.”
“You’ve brought my medicine box? That’s wonderful!” I was delighted. Some of the medicinal plants were rare, and had taken no little trouble to find and prepare properly.
“But how did you manage?” I asked. Once I had recovered from the horror of the witchcraft trial, I often wondered how the occupants of the Castle had taken my sudden arrest and escape. “I hope you didn’t have any difficulty.”
“Och, no.” He took another healthy bite, but waited until it had made its leisurely way down his throat before replying further.
“Mrs. Fitz had them put away, like, packed up in a box already. I went to her at the first, ye ken, for I wasna sure what reception I’d get.”
“Very sensible. I don’t imagine Mrs. Fitz would scream at sight of you,” I agreed. The bannocks were steaming gently in the cool air, and smelt heavenly. I reached for one, the heavy boar’s-tooth bracelets clinking together on my wrist. I saw Murtagh’s eyes on them and adjusted them so he could see the engraved silver end pieces.
“Aren’t they lovely?” I said. “Jenny said they were her mother’s.”
Murtagh’s eyes dropped to the bowl of parritch that Mrs. Crook had thrust unceremoniously under his nose.
“They suit ye,” he mumbled. Then, returning suddenly to the earlier subject, he said, “No, she wouldna summon help against me. I was well acquent’ wi’ Glenna FitzGibbons, some time ago.”
“Oh, a long-lost love of yours, was she?” I teased, enjoying the incongruous thought of him entwined in amorous embrace with the ample Mrs. Fitz.
Murtagh glanced up coldly from his parritch.
“That she wasna, and I’ll thank ye to keep a civil tongue when ye speak of the lady. Her husband was my mother’s brother. And she was sore grieved for ye, I’ll ha’ ye to know.”
I lowered my eyes, abashed, and reached for the honey to cover my embarrassment. The stone jar had been set in a pot of boiling water to liquefy the contents, and it was comfortingly warm to the touch.
“I’m sorry,” I said, drizzling the sweet golden fluid over the bannock, watching carefully so as not to spill it. “I wondered, you know, what she felt like, when… when I…”
“They didna realize at the first ye were gone,” the little man said matter-of-factly, ignoring my apology. “When ye didna come in to dinner, they thought maybe you’d stayed late in the fields and gone up to your bed without eating; your door was closed. And the next day, when there was all the outcry over the taking of Mistress Duncan, no one thought to look for ye. There was no mention of you, only of her, when the news came, and in all the excitement, no one thought to look for ye.”
I nodded thoughtfully. No one would have missed me, save those seeking medical treatment; I had spent most of my time in Colum’s library while Jamie was away.
“What about Colum?” I asked. I was more than idly curious; had he really planned it, as Geilie thought?
Murtagh shrugged. He scanned the table for further victuals, apparently spotted nothing to his liking, and leaned back, folding his hands comfortably over his lean midriff.
“When he had the news from the village, he had the gates closed at once, and forbade anyone from the Castle to go down, for fear of being caught up in the moil.” He leaned further back, eyeing me speculatively.
“Mrs. Fitz thought to find ye, the second day. She said that she asked all the maids if they’d laid eyes on ye. No one had, but one of the girls said she thought perhaps ye’d gone to the village – maybe you’d taken shelter in a house there.” One of the girls, I thought cynically. The one that knew bloody well where I was.
