Island of the Swans (19 page)

Despite the stuffiness of the room and the cloying sweetness of Jamie Ferguson’s eau de cologne, Jane felt a shiver slice between her shoulder blades. Fighting an unaccountable sadness that had settled on her since her encounter with the melancholy duke, Jane allowed Jamie to lead her to a place in the long line of dancers strung the length of Prestonfield’s ballroom.

In one hour it would be midnight
, she thought, brightening.
1767… the blessed year Thomas would be coming home.

Nine

F
EBRUARY
1767

J
ANE’S AUNT
, E
LIZABETH
M
AXWELL, SANK INTO A CHAIR NEXT
to the fireplace in the small guest bedchamber of her sister-in-law’s house, her infant asleep in its wooden cradle. She felt exhausted, not only from the preparations for her niece Catherine’s recent nuptials, but also from the routine of rising twice each night to feed little Montgomery and keeping a firm hand on her three other boisterous children in the cramped quarters of Hyndford Close.

Elizabeth pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and closed her eyes. Outside the weather had turned bitter, in contrast to the sparkling warmth of Catherine’s wedding day earlier in the month. It was only three in the afternoon, and already, sleet scratched against the darkened window pane. She sighed, and allowed her mind to indulge in a recurring daydream, inspired by the news that her husband would soon be sailing back from America.

“Aunt… Aunt!”

Elizabeth’s eyes flew open. She could hear Jane’s shouts and running footsteps from two floors below. The door to her bedchamber burst open and her niece approached her excitedly, heedless of little Montgomery, whose eyes also flew open with a start.

“Jane! Jane,
please
!” Elizabeth hissed, pointing toward the cradle. “Quiet! He’s just got off to sleep!”

Jane froze to the spot, her hand covering her lips apologetically.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she whispered loudly, the excitement in her voice translated into a hoarse croak. “But Fiona says there’s an officer of the Black Watch downstairs, come lately from America. He says Uncle James has asked him to come by to see you. He’s been shown to the sitting room.”

“Go ask Fiona to bring us tea,” Elizabeth replied without hesitation. “’Tis nearly time, as it is. And you go amuse him while I dress.”

As she tidied her blond hair and quickly donned a simple day dress over her shift, she darted a last, quick glance at little Monty, who had settled back into dreamless sleep. As she closed the door gently behind her and proceeded down the chilly corridor to the sitting room, Elizabeth tried to formulate all the questions in her mind about a place that seemed as far away to her as the moon.

“Aunt Elizabeth!” Jane declared with a look of obvious relief when her aunt entered the room. A ruddy-cheeked, stocky gentleman rose awkwardly and crossed over to Elizabeth briskly. The grim set of his mouth and the blue bonnet he was twisting in his broad, bandaged hands told her that he had been an impatient guest for Jane to entertain with polite conversation while waiting for Elizabeth to appear.

“You’re Captain James Maxwell’s wife, Mistress?” he inquired as formally as if he were an adjutant at a court martial.

“Why yes, I certainly am,” Elizabeth replied, attempting to keep the amusement from showing on her face. Jane rolled her eyes to the ceiling in mock despair behind the back of the gruff-mannered officer. “You know my husband?’ Elizabeth inquired.

“Only met him briefly,” the officer answered. “I am Captain Fergus MacEwen, Forty-second Foot. Your husband was sent as my replacement at Fort Pitt, so we were together just a few days before I left on orders to return to Scotland.”

“Well, you’re very kind to take the time to come and tell me something of James,” Elizabeth said smoothly, indicating the only comfortable chair in the small room suitable for the rotund officer. “Fiona will be bringing tea shortly, or would you prefer a whiskey, Captain?”

“Whiskey,” MacEwen replied, as if he needed it badly.

He sat down, only to rise again and pace in front of the mantelpiece. Suddenly he turned toward Elizabeth and spoke to her directly, as if Jane weren’t in the room.

“Your husband asked that I call on Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat, first and then proceed to you—and that I have done.”

Jane started at the mention of the Fraser name.

“The dreaded burden has come to me of informing both your households that Thomas Fraser of Struy was killed in an Indian skirmish in October, less than a month after his arrival at Fort Pitt. Three of our number were slain and two more gravely wounded.”

Jane sat transfixed in her chair, staring at Captain Fergus MacEwen as if he were an escaped inmate from a lunatic asylum. The letter they’d received from Uncle James in December had reassured them about the relatively calm state of affairs the troops had encountered en route to Fort Pitt.

“Pray tell us what happened. Captain,” Elizabeth said urgently, walking quickly across the room to put a firm hand on Jane’s trembling shoulder. All the color had drained from the young girl’s face and she seemed hardly to be breathing. As difficult as it would be for the lass to hear the details of Thomas’s death, Elizabeth wanted to force her niece to remain where she was and to listen to what, undoubtedly, would be the most accurate account of events occurring many thousands of miles across the sea. Elizabeth had known too many military widows who remained tortured for the rest of their lives because they were told nothing about their husbands’ final hours or how they died—merely that their loved ones had been killed in His Majesty’s service and were never coming back.

“You two are no
relation
to young Fraser?” Captain MacEwen asked, squinting at Jane in the dim afternoon light filtering into the room. “Just friends and neighbors, so to speak?”

“That is correct,” Elizabeth intervened quickly, forestalling any attempt by Jane to interrupt. Jane, however, seemed incapable of speech; for she merely stared at the soldier, as if he were mad.

“Well,” began MacEwen, who had remained standing, “as you know. Lieutenant Fraser was a young pup, new to the service, which probably plays a part in what happened, if y’get my meanin’…” His bandaged meaty hands gripped the back of his chair. Elizabeth tightened her hold on Jane’s shoulder. “Well, at any rate, young Fraser, along with Captain Maxwell and the other soldiers, arrived at the fort by canoe in early October.”

Captain MacEwen seemed more at ease, now that he had launched into the narrative he’d so recently imparted to Simon Fraser.

“Soon after, the Mingos attacked one of the scout’s barks as it came up the river, but the lad made it into the fort with only a nick on his arm.” MacEwen glanced at both women a moment and then rearranged his bulky form in his chair. “A few days later, your husband, Mistress Maxwell, was down river for four days at a trading camp and dispatched a letter to you, he said, telling you that he and the lads would be sailing home this July…” MacEwen shifted uneasily in his chair. “That was right before the unfortunate incident.”

Incident!

Elizabeth felt a rush of anger at MacEwen’s incredible insensitivity. Jane’s dark eyes had dilated until they seemed black with despair, but still, the lass did not utter a sound.

“There’d been that exchange of fire with the Mingos, so our commander sent me, Lieutenant Fraser, and ten other Highlanders out to try to contact our other scouts. We wanted to see whether this was just a minor brush with the Redskins, or the beginning of troubles, like we had with Pontiac in Sixty-three.”

The burly captain licked his dry lips nervously, as if he were getting to the most difficult part of his story. He glanced uneasily at Jane, whose immobile features gave her the appearance of a marble statue standing sentinel at a crypt. Captain MacEwen hesitated and then continued, in spite of the girl’s stunned demeanor.

“I had urged the men to adopt the custom of dressing in Indian garb and to fight as we clansmen do, moving between rock and tree to avoid the arrow’s shaft, y’see. The Brits in their damn fool red coats are sitting targets, they are, so the men were happy to do a bit of fancy dress. Young Fraser
seemed
the ablest of the lot and I saw that he painted himself up good and proper. In fact, the lads had a fair field day getting ready to go out on patrol,” he chuckled, as if enjoying a private joke.

Elizabeth walked over to the sideboard and poured three glasses of whiskey as the heavy-set captain continued his tale. She handed the amber liquid to MacEwen without interrupting his narrative and turned, nodding a silent command for Jane to accept the glass of spirits she held out to her. Obediently, Jane took the glass in her trembling hand, but didn’t drink its contents. She merely held it in her lap, unaware that the stub of her right forefinger was no longer masked in the handkerchief she invariably carried in the presence of strangers. The lacy square had fallen to the floor and formed a small, snowy peak at her feet.

“Well,” the captain continued, as if to get the worst over quickly, “our patrol was taken by surprise. After a steamin’ hot morning, trampin’ through thick underbrush and being eaten alive by mosquitoes, I allowed the men to stop by a rivulet for refreshment. With no warnin’, out o’ the damned bushes—pardon an old campaigner, Mistress—out o’ the thicket came this pack o’ howling savages war-whoopin’ and hollerin’ and they set upon us.”

Captain MacEwen paused to sip his whiskey and stared balefully out of the sitting room window at the bad weather that had all but obliterated the fading afternoon light. He gazed at the sleet-covered panes as if they were a reminder of the horror that had greeted him on that sultry noonday, the previous October. Jane sat motionless, her drink untouched, her eyes glassy, her gaze unfocused. She breathed in shallow, anguished gasps.

“Both sides were battling at close range,” MacEwen continued, his voice animated for the first time since his recitation began. Obviously relishing the memory of combat, his bandaged hands carved semicircles in the air, recreating the scene for his stunned audience. “Our lads picked off at least a dozen of ’em bastards—beggin’ your pardon again, ladies—but war whoops from over the ridge proved our men would soon be far outnumbered. I ordered the lads to retire and all but three headed into the underbrush to try to get back to the fort. Young Fraser and two other men shouted they’d stay behind… a kind of diversion, I suppose they thought ’twould be… while I lead the rest to safety.”

MacEwen eyed both women carefully for any hint of the same scorn that had been implicit in Brigadier General Fraser’s reaction when MacEwen had told him this part of the story earlier in the day. As a veteran of the ’59 Siege of Quebec, Simon Fraser felt that leaving only three men to act as rear guard had been suicidal. However, the two ladies voiced no censure, but continued to stare at him wordlessly.

“That’s the procedure, y’know, ladies. A Captain’s duty is to
all
the lads to do his best, so that the majority don’t come to harm.”

“We understand perfectly, sir,” Elizabeth said quietly.

“Well… right,” he replied uncertainly. “When the three didn’t return, a party was mounted the next morning with every available man for the search. Just before sunset we came upon a sight so monstrous, so foul… never in four years in the wilderness have I seen the like o’ it. Broadsword or tomahawk—both weapons cut the same.” Elizabeth appeared at his side, ready to pour the Captain a second whiskey when he paused for breath. The three of them silently watched the topaz liquid drain into his glass. “The bodies were killed Indian-style, if y’take my meanin’. The lads were so new to our acquaintance, and I’m sorry to say they were scalped and mutilated beyond recognition… arms… legs… ’twas like a grisly puzzle, sortin’ it out. We didn’t rightly know who was who, so everyone was buried together.”

Jane’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes clamped shut. She stood up abruptly from her chair and turned away to face to the window. Elizabeth anticipated her cries, but none came.

“We laid what was left o’ the lads side by side beneath the banks of the Monongahela with all three names on a common marker.” MacEwen downed his second whiskey with a quick gulp, wiping his lips with the back of his bandaged hand. “I wonder if ’twas our dressing as Redskins that made ’em so vengeful…” he mused, as if trying with four months’ hindsight to fathom the reason for the extreme brutality of the killings. “Captain Maxwell arrived back at the fort some hours after the bodies had been borne to the stockade and buried by the river, but ’twas he who saw to it that a proper stone was made for the grave.”

Elizabeth glanced over worriedly at Jane’s back. Slowly her niece turned around, her face a mask, revealing no emotion whatsoever. She sat down once again, frozen on the edge of her chair, as if she hadn’t heard a word Captain MacEwen had said.

“I know this is one of the most painful duties a fellow officer is called upon to perform,” Elizabeth said, offering a cue to their visitor that he could decently bid them farewell. “And the Maxwell household is deeply grateful that you took the time to inform us of this tragedy so we might better offer comfort to our neighbor, Simon Fraser.”