“Was she with child then?” Katherine asked.
The words painful to hear, Charles pursed his lips and nodded, looking from one woman to the other. They wanted to know too much. He didn’t like that. Images passed through his mind as he tried to sift the unimportant facts from the rest. But he couldn’t manage them, and he began to tremble.
Filling a small glass with wine, May-Jewel put it in his hand and echoed Katherine’s question.
He drank from the glass, then answered. “She were given ta dark periods an’ were many a time found hidden aboot the place, one time sittin’ an’ rockin’ in the garret, other times sittin’ an’ rockin’ in the wine cellar.”
The women exchanged knowing glances.
“Was Garth the one she was carrying then? Or did she have another child?”
His stance weakened and his shoulders drooped. How many more questions? His memory shivered as if it were naked. Time and events rolled around his head, becoming entwined and melted into one undistinguishable lifetime. He rubbed his temple, trying to discern one act from another, one day from another. Then he remembered. “Aye. The second bairn… ’twere a girl…” his voice faded to a whisper. “ ’Twere born dead. The master be gone ta the penal island then… and…” His words trailed off until they came no more. In his mind’s eye he reviewed the cold images of the past, and they frightened him.
“When Charles,” May-Jewel impatiently prodded, “when did Lady Edythe give birth to Garth?”
Charles closed his eyes as if trying to remember. But he knew when it was as if it were yesterday. “ ‘Twas in ‘31. The first of Est, mid-way past the feast of Lughnasadh.”
“It’s an agrarian feast in August,” Katherine whispered seeing May-Jewel’s puzzlement. “Garth was born August 1831. Go on Charles.”
“When the master returned that time, Lady Edythe wouldna’ let him touch the babe, sayin’ he couldna’ have no part of him. The master left agin an’ he stayed away from the manor seven or eight years. When he agin saw the boy, he were a big strappin’ lad.”
“What happened after Sir Robert returned?”
“The master moved ta the west wing, leavin’ her and the boy ta themselves.”
“She must have died from a broken heart,” May-Jewel uttered, her voice tight with pain as if she was the one Robbie had forsaken. She couldn’t believe it of the Robbie she knew and loved.
“Nay, ‘twere young master Garth’s doin’,” Charles replied. His mouth tightened with anguish. He then wished he could take back the words that he had so hastily spoken.
“That can’t be true!” Katherine gasped, envisioning the gray eyes that had searched hers only an hour before. They weren’t the eyes of a murderer.
“’Twas what Sir Robert told everyone. But I ne’er believed it. “ ‘Twere just a wheen o’ blethers from an angry man, an’ the Sheriff-court lay ‘twere an accident.”
May-Jewel, flushed with morbid curiosity, asked, “How did she die?”
“She fell doon the east wing stairs.”
“But why did Robbie say that his son had done it?”
“I dunna know. I coom on the scene an’ young Garth standin’ atop the steps like a cairn, a heap o’ stone. The master done accuse him. The boy ne’er shed a tear, then or at her layin’ away.”
For the first time in her life, Katherine felt pity for someone else, for the child Garth. “What became of the boy then?”
“Father and son stayed in ta manor for a couple o’ years. But they dinna get on an’ had nought to do with each other. The boy grew wild an’ had a hand in many childish but wrong doin’s. Then the master sent the boy away ta his great uncle in India.”
Katherine trembled for Garth’s plight was like her own. He sent his own son away! Just like he did me, she lamented. Her heart broke for the boy who was so much like herself, alone and lonely.
“He sent him away?” May-Jewel’s cry echoed.
“Aye. The boy were just shy o’ his twelfth year. ‘Twas pitiful how the lad stared at the Master with those broodin’ eyes o’ his, as if he be accusin’ his father of the same deed he himself be accused o’. An’ ne’er a word passin’ ‘tween them.”
“And yet you say that the man that arrived today is Sir Robert’s son, Garth?” asked Katherine. “What makes you so sure?”
“I told ye, ‘tis his eyes! He has the image o’ Lady Edythe in them.” Charles, having had enough of the conversation and their probing questions, shook his head, as if to push the memories back into the sarcophagus of his mind, and started to walk away.
“Wait,” Katherine said, “in which wing will we find Sir Robert’s quarters? Where would his private papers have been kept?”
“The solicitor took most of the Master’s papers with him an’ what he dinna take, Mister Fleming had sent ta his Edinburgh office when he took the Master’s bedchambers for himself.”
How presumptuous of Alex, Katherine thought, but she didn’t dwell on that. She suddenly remembered that she wanted to ask him about the maid. “One more thing, Charles, what do you know of Selina, the small dark woman who came to me as an
