Drums of Autumn

  when they pick that one up.”

  “What do you mean, it’s not yours?”

  “What I said,” he replied matter-of-factly. “It isn’t mine. The house and land belong to the church; Dad lived here for near fifty years, but he didn’t own it. It belongs to the Parish Council. The new minister doesn’t want it—he’s got money of his own, and a wife who likes mod cons—so the Council’s putting it to let. Fiona and her Ernie are taking it, heaven help them.”

  “Just the two of them?”

  “It’s cheap. For good reason,” he added wryly. “She wants lots of kids, though—be room for an army of them here, I can tell you.” Designed in Victorian times for ministers with numerous families, the manse had twelve rooms—not counting one unmodernized and highly inconvenient bath.

  “The wedding’s in February, so that’s why I’ve got to finish the clearing up over Christmas, to give time for the cleaners and painters to come in. Shame to make you work on your holiday, though. Maybe we’ll drive down to Fort William Monday?”

  Brianna picked up another book, but didn’t put it in the box right away.

  “So your home’s gone for good,” she said, slowly. “It doesn’t seem right—though I’m glad Fiona will have it.”

  Roger shrugged.

  “Not as though I meant to settle in Inverness,” he said. “And it’s not as though it were an ancestral seat or anything.” He waved at the cracked linoleum, the grubby enamel paint, and the ancient glass-bowl light fixture overhead. “Can’t put it on the National Trust and charge people two quid each to tour the place.”

  She smiled at that, and returned to her sorting. She seemed pensive, though, a small frown visible between her thick red brows. Finally she put the last book in the box, stretched and sighed.

  “The Reverend had nearly as many books as my parents,” she said. “Between Mama’s medical books and Daddy’s historical stuff, they left enough to supply a whole library. It’ll probably take six months to sort it all out, when I get ho—when I go back.” She bit her lip lightly, and turned to pick up a roll of packing tape, picking at it with a fingernail. “I told the real estate agent she could list the house for sale by summer.”

  “That’s what’s been bothering you?” he said slowly, realization dawning as he watched her face. “Thinking about taking apart the house you grew up in—having your home gone for good?”

  One shoulder lifted slightly, her eyes still fixed on the recalcitrant tape.

  “If you can stand it, I guess I can. Besides,” she went on, “it’s not that bad. Mama took care of almost everything—she found a tenant and had the house leased for a year, so I could have time to decide what to do, without worrying about it just sitting there vacant. But it’s silly to keep it; it’s way too big for me to live in alone.”

  “You might get married.” He blurted it out without thinking.

  “Guess I might,” she said. She glanced at him sidelong, and the corner of her mouth twitched in what might have been amusement. “Someday. But what if my husband didn’t want to live in Boston?”

  It occurred to him quite suddenly that her concern over his losing the manse might—just possibly—have been that she envisioned herself living in it.

  “D’you want kids?” he asked abruptly. He hadn’t thought to ask before, but hoped like hell she did.

  She looked momentarily startled, but then laughed.

  “Only children usually want big families, don’t they?”

  “Couldn’t say,” he said. “But I do.” He leaned across the boxes and kissed her suddenly.

  “Me too,” she said. Her eyes went slanted when she smiled. She didn’t look away, but a faint blush made her look like a spring-ripe apricot.

  He wanted kids, all right; just at the moment, he wanted to do what led to kids a lot more.

  “But maybe we should finish clearing up, first?”

  “What?” The sense of her words penetrated only vaguely. “Oh. Yeah. Right, guess we should.”

  He bent his head and kissed her again, slowly this time. She had the most wonderful mouth; wide and full-lipped, almost too big for her face—but not quite.

  He had her round the waist, his other hand tangled in silky hair. The nape of her neck was smooth and warm under his hand; he gripped it and she shivered slightly, mouth opening in a small sign of submission that made him want to lean her backward over his arm, carry her down to the hearth rug, and…

  A brisk rapping made him jerk his head up, startled out of the embrace.

  “Who’s that?” Brianna exclaimed, hand to her heart.

  The study was lined on one side by floor-to-ceiling windows—the Reverend had been a painter—and a square, whiskered face was pressed against one of these, nose nearly flattened with interest.

  “That,” said Roger through his teeth, “is the postman, MacBeth. What the hell is the old bugger doing out there?”

  As though hearing this inquiry, Mr. MacBeth stepped back a pace, drew a letter out of his bag and brandished it jovially at the occupants of the study.

  “A letter,” he mouthed elaborately, looking at Brianna. He cut his eyes toward Roger and beetled his brows in a knowing leer.

  By the time Roger reached the front door, Mr. MacBeth was standing on the porch, holding the letter.

  “Why did you not put it in the letter slot, for God’s sake?” Roger demanded. “Give it here, then.”

  Mr. MacBeth held the letter out of reach and assumed an air of injured dignity, somewhat impaired by his attempts to see Brianna over Roger’s shoulder.

  “Thought it might be important, didn’t I? From the States, i’nt it? And it’s for the young lady, not you, lad.” Screwing up his face into a massive and indelicate wink, he oiled past Roger, arm extended toward Brianna.

  “Ma’am,” he said, simpering through his whiskers. “With the compliments of Her Majesty’s Mail.”

  “Thank you.” Brianna was still rosily flushed, but she’d smoothed her hair, and smiled at MacBeth with every evidence of self-possession. She took the letter and glanced at it, but made no move to open it. The envelope was handwritten, Roger saw, with red postal-forwarding marks, but the distance was too far to make out the return address.

  “Visiting, are ye, ma’am?” MacBeth asked heartily. “Just the two of ye here, all on your ownie-o?” He was giving Brianna a rolling eye, looking her up and down with frank interest.

  “Oh, no,” Brianna said, straight-faced. She folded the letter in half and stuffed it into the back pocket of her jeans. “Uncle Angus is staying with us; he’s asleep upstairs.”

  Roger bit the inside of his cheek. Uncle Angus was a moth-eaten stuffed Scottie, a remnant of his own youth, unearthed during the cleaning of the house. Brianna, charmed with him, had dusted off his plaid bonnet and placed him on her own bed in the guest room.

  The postman’s heavy brows rose.

  “Oh,” he said, rather blankly. “Aye, I see. He’ll be an American, too, then, your uncle Angus?”

  “No, he’s from Aberdeen.” Other than a slight pinkening at the end of her nose, Brianna’s face showed nothing but the most open guilelessness.

  Mr. MacBeth was enchanted.

  “Oh, you’ve a wee bit of Scots in your family, then! Well, and I should have known it, now, you wi’ that hair. A bonnie, bonnie lass, and no mistake.” He shook his head in admiration, lechery replaced by a pseudoavuncular air that Roger found only slightly less objectionable.

  “Yes, well.” Roger cleared his throat meaningfully. “I’m sure we don’t want to keep you from your work, MacBeth.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble, no trouble at all,” the postman assured him, craning to catch a last glimpse of Brianna as he turned to go. “Nay rest for the weary, is there, my dear?”

  “That’s ‘no rest for the wicked,’ ” Roger said, with some emphasis, opening the door. “Good day to you, MacBeth.”

  MacBeth glanced at him, the shadow of a leer back on his face.

  “A
good day to you, Mr. Wakefield.” He leaned close, dug Roger in the ribs with an elbow, and whispered hoarsely, “And a better night, if her uncle sleeps sound!”

  * * *

  “Here, going to read your letter?” He plucked it from the table where she had dropped it, and held it out to her.

  She flushed slightly and took it from him.

  “It’s not important. I’ll look at it later.”

  “I’ll go to the kitchen, if it’s private.”

  The flush deepened.

  “It’s not. It’s nothing.”

  He raised one eyebrow. She shrugged impatiently, and ripped open the flap, pulling out a single sheet of paper.

  “See for yourself, then. I told you, it’s nothing important.”

  Oh, isn’t it? he thought, but didn’t say anything aloud. He took the proffered sheet and glanced at it.

  It was in fact nothing much; a notification forwarded from the library at her university, to the effect that a specific reference she had requested was unfortunately not obtainable via interlibrary loan, but could be viewed in the private collection of the Stuart Papers, held in the Royal Annexe of Edinburgh University.

  She was watching him when he looked up, arms folded, her eyes shiny and lips tight, daring him to say something.

  “You should have told me you were looking for him,” he said quietly. “I could have helped.”

  She shrugged slightly, and he saw her throat move as she swallowed.

  “I know how to do historical research. I used to help my fa—” She broke off, lower lip caught between her teeth.

  “Yeah, I see,” he said, and did. He took her by the arm and steered her down the hall to the kitchen, where he plunked her in a chair at the battered old table.

  “I’ll put the kettle on.”

  “I don’t like tea,” she protested.

  “You need tea,” Roger said firmly, and lit the gas with a fiery whoosh. He turned to the cupboard and took down cups and saucers, and—as an after-thought—the bottle of whisky from the top shelf.

  “And I really don’t like whisky,” Brianna said, eyeing it. She started to push herself away from the table, but Roger stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “I like whisky,” he said. “But I hate to drink alone. You’ll keep me company, aye?” He smiled at her, willing her to smile back. At last she did, grudgingly, and relaxed in her seat.

  He sat down opposite her, and filled his cup halfway with the pungent amber liquid. He breathed in the fumes with pleasure, and sipped slowly, letting the fine strong stuff roll down his throat.

  “Ah,” he breathed. “Glen Morangie. Sure you won’t join me? A wee splash in your tea, maybe?”

  She shook her head silently, but when the kettle began to whistle, she got up to take it off the fire and pour the hot water into the waiting pot. Roger got up and came behind her, slipping his arms around her waist.

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said softly. “You’ve a right to know, if you can. Jamie Fraser was your father, after all.”

  “But he wasn’t—not really.” Her head was bent; he could see the neat whorl of a cowlick at her crown, an echo of the one in the center of her forehead, that lifted her hair in a soft wave off her face.

  “I had a father,” she said, sounding a little choked. “Daddy—Frank Randall—he was my father, and I love—loved him. It doesn’t seem right to—to go looking for something else, like he wasn’t enough, like—”

  “That’s not it, then, and you know it.” He turned her round and lifted her chin with a finger.

  “It’s nothing to do with Frank Randall or how you feel about him—aye, he was your father, and there’s not a thing will ever change that. But it’s natural to be curious, to want to know.”

  “Did you ever want to know?” Her hand came up and brushed his away—but she clung to his fingers, holding on.

  He took a deep breath, finding comfort in the whisky.

  “Yeah. Yes, I did. You need to, I think.” His fingers tightened around hers, drawing her toward the table. “Come sit down; I’ll tell you.”

  He knew what missing a father felt like, especially an unknown father. For a time, just after he’d started school, he’d pored obsessively over his father’s medals, carried the little velvet case about in his pocket, boasted to his friends about his father’s heroism.

  “Told stories about him, all made up,” he said, looking down into the aromatic depths of his teacup. “Got bashed for being a nuisance, got smacked at school for lying.” He looked up at her, and smiled, a little painfully.

  “I had to make him real, see?”

  She nodded, eyes dark with understanding.

  He took another deep gulp of the whisky, not bothering to savor it.

  “Luckily Dad—the Reverend—he seemed to know the trouble. He began to tell me stories about my father; the real ones. Nothing special, nothing heroic—he was a hero, all right, Jerry MacKenzie, got shot down and all, but the stories Dad told were all about what he was like as a kid—how he made a martin house, but made the hole too big and a cuckoo got in; what he liked to eat when he’d come here on holiday and they’d go into town for a treat; how he filled his pockets with winkles off the rocks and forgot about them and ruined his trousers with the stink—” He broke off, and smiled at her, his throat still tight at the memory.

  “He made my father real to me. And I missed him more than ever, because then I knew a bit about what I was missing—but I had to know.”

  “Some people would say you can’t miss what you never had—that it’s better not to know at all.” Brianna lifted her cup, blue eyes steady over the rim.

  “Some people are fools. Or cowards.”

  He poured another tot of whisky into his cup, tilted the bottle toward her with a lifted brow. She held out her cup without comment, and he splashed whisky into it. She drank from it, and set it down.

  “What about your mother?” she asked.

  “I had a few real memories of her; I was nearly five when she died. And there are the boxes in the garage—” He tilted his head toward the window. “All her things, her letters. It’s like Dad said, ‘Everybody needs a history.’ Mine was out there; I knew if I ever needed to, I could find out more.”

  He studied her for a long moment.

  “You miss her a lot?” he said. “Claire?”

  She glanced at him, nodded briefly, and drank, then held out her empty cup for more.

  “I’m—I was—afraid to look,” she said, eyes fixed on the stream of whisky.

  “It’s not just him—it’s her, too. I mean, I know his stories, Jamie Fraser’s; she told me a lot about him. A lot more than I’ll ever find in historical records,” she added with a feeble attempt at a smile. She took a deep breath.

  “But Mama—at first I tried to pretend she was only gone, like on a trip. And then when I couldn’t do that anymore, I tried to believe she was dead.” Her nose was running, from emotion, whisky, or the heat of the tea. Roger reached for the tea towel hanging by the stove and shoved it across the table to her.

  “She isn’t, though.” She picked up the towel and wiped angrily at her nose. “That’s the trouble! I have to miss her all the time, and know that I’ll never see her again, but she isn’t even dead! How can I mourn for her, when I think—when I hope—she’s happy where she is, when I made her go?”

  She gulped the rest of her cup, choked slightly, and got her breath. She fixed Roger with a dark blue glare, as though he were to blame for the situation.

  “So I want to find out, all right? I want to find her—find them. See if she’s all right. But I keep thinking maybe I don’t want to find out, because what if I find out she’s not all right, what if I find out something horrible? What if I find out she’s dead, or he is—well, that wouldn’t matter so much, maybe, because he already is dead anyway, or he was, or—but I have to, I know I have to!”

  She banged her cup down on the table in front of him.

  “
More.”

  He opened his mouth to say that she’d had a good bit more than she needed already, but a glance at her face changed his mind. He shut his mouth and poured.

  She didn’t wait for him to add tea, but raised the cup to her mouth and took a large swallow, and another. She coughed, sputtered, and set the cup down, eyes watering.

  “So I’m looking. Or I was. When I saw Daddy’s books, and his handwriting, though…it all seemed wrong, then. Do you think I’m wrong?” she asked, peering woefully at him through tear-clogged lashes.

  “No, hen,” he said gently. “It’s not wrong. You’re right, you’ve got to know. I’ll help you.” He stood up and, taking her under the arms, hoisted her to her feet. “But right now, I think you should maybe have a bit of a lie-down, hm?”

  He got her up the stairs and halfway down the hall, when she suddenly broke free and darted into the bathroom. He leaned against the wall outside, waiting patiently until she staggered out again, her face the color of the aged plaster above the wainscoting.

  “Waste of Glen Morangie, that,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and steering her into the bedroom. “If I’d known I was dealing with a sot, I’d have given you the cheap stuff.”

  She collapsed on the bed, and allowed him to take off her shoes and socks. She rolled onto her stomach, Uncle Angus cradled in the crook of her arm.

  “I told you I didn’t like tea,” she mumbled, and was asleep in seconds.

  * * *

  Roger worked for an hour or two by himself, sorting books and tying cartons. It was a quiet, dark afternoon, with no sound but a soft patter of rain and the occasional whoosh of a car’s tires on the street outside. When the light began to fail, he turned on the lamps and went down the hall to the kitchen, to wash the book grime from his hands.

  A huge pot of milky cock-a-leekie soup was burbling on the back of the cooker. What had Fiona said to do about that? Turn it up? Turn it off? Throw things into it? He peered dubiously into the pot and decided to leave well enough alone.

  He tidied up the remains of their impromptu tea—rinsed the cups and dried them, hung them carefully from their hooks in the cupboard. They were remnants of the old willow pattern set the Reverend had had for as long as Roger could remember, the blue-and-white Chinese trees and pagodas augmented by odd bits of ill-assorted crockery acquired from jumble sales.

  Fiona would have all new, of course. She’d forced them to look at magazine pictures of china and crystal and flatware. Brianna had made suitable admiring noises; Roger’s eyes had gone glassy from boredom. He supposed the old stuff would all end up at the jumble sale—at least it might still be useful to someone.

  On impulse, he took down the two cups he’d washed, wrapped them in a clean tea towel, and took them to the study, where he tucked them into the box he’d set aside for himself. He felt thoroughly foolish, but at the same time, somewhat better.

  He looked around the echoing study, quite bare now save for the single sheet of paper on the cork-lined wall.

  So your home’s gone for good. Well, he’d left home some time ago, hadn’t he?

  Yeah, it bothered him. A lot more than he’d let on to Brianna, in fact. That was why it had taken so bloody long to finish clearing out the manse, if he was honest about it. True, it was a monster task, true, he had his own job to do at Oxford, and true, the thousands of books had had to be sorted with care—but he could have done it faster. If he’d wanted.

  With the house standing vacant, he might never have got the job finished. But with the impetus of Fiona behind, and the lure of Brianna before…he smiled at the thought of the two of them: little dark, curly-headed wren, and tall fire-haired Viking. Likely it took women to get men to do anything much.

  Time to finish up, though.

  With a sense of somber ceremony, he unpinned the corners of the yellowed sheet of paper and took it down from the cork. It was his family tree, a genealogical chart made out in the Reverend’s neat round hand.

  MacKenzies and more MacKenzies, generations of them. He’d thought lately of taking back the name permanently, not just for the singing. After all, with Dad gone he didn’t mean to come back much more to Inverness, where folk would know him as Wakefield. That had been the point of the genealogy, after all; that Roger shouldn’t forget who he was.

  Dad had known a few individual stories, but no more than the names for most of the people on the list. And he hadn’t known even that, for the most important one—the woman whose green eyes Roger saw each morning in the mirror. She was nowhere on this list, for good reason.