Alice and I slept like the dead after our night at the big house. She’d been quiet on the way home and thoughtful. She only said she was pleased the boy had pulled through, and didn’t mention anything else. We checked on the animals, who thankfully were all fine after the storm, and then fell into bed.
She was still quiet when we woke a few hours later. We had some food and then Alice said she was going for a walk on the beach. I didn’t argue. She obviously had something on her mind and there was no doubt that last night had been hard. I was so sorry I’d not been able to save the tutor, nor Isobel. I felt her death weighing heavily on me. A young woman taken too soon would always bring sorrow, but I also worried that Gregor Kincaid would blame me. I knew he didn’t like me. Didn’t trust me. He hadn’t wanted me there last night and had only come through desperation and fear. And I’d let him down and given him another excuse to make accusations against me.
I watched Alice from the window as she left our cottage and walked down towards the harbour. She liked watching the fishing boats, I knew. I thought she was soft on one of the fishermen though she hadn’t said anything to me. I just had a feeling. Her shoulders were slumped and I hoped a walk would cheer her up.
I sat down at our table and spent the next hour or so writing up my records from last night. I had given the boy a different treatment – a stronger catnip tincture than I’d used before – so I was pleased it had done the trick. But the treatment I’d given Isobel hadn’t had an effect. I thought she had been too far into her illness and my treatment too late, rather than it not working. But I wanted to write my notes and get it all straight in my head. Different doses for different people was a delicate art and I needed to be careful.
I’d almost finished when there was a knock at the door. Davey Kincaid was there, looking a different man from the pale-faced worrier he had been the previous night.
‘Widow Seton,’ he said politely. ‘May I come in?’
I did not like being called Widow Seton. I objected to existing only in addition to my dead husband, beloved as he had been to me. But I didn’t argue. I simply said: ‘Call me Honor.’
Davey looked strange in the cottage in daylight in a way he hadn’t when he’d come calling in a panic in the middle of the night. He was tall and well fed and his clothes were bright. I was proud of our home, but suddenly seeing it through his eyes, I felt uncomfortable.
‘Can I offer you a drink?’ I said politely, hoping he’d say no.
‘No, thank you.’
I let out a breath of relief.
‘I wanted to come and tell you how grateful I am for your efforts last night,’ Davey continued. He looked ill at ease, too, I noticed. He held his hat in his hand, turning it around and round in his fingers. ‘If Christy had …’ His voice cracked and he stopped talking.
‘How is he this morning?’
‘Sleepy and weak, but on the mend,’ he said. ‘I really thought we were going to lose him.’
‘And your mother?’
‘Bossing everyone around from her bedchamber.’
I swallowed.
‘And your brother?’
Davey shifted on his feet. ‘Sad,’ he said. ‘And angry.’
‘I am sorry I couldn’t do more to help Isobel.’
‘She went downhill very fast,’ Davey said. ‘I know you did everything you could.’ He paused. ‘Gregor often opts for anger over other emotions. He is angry now but soon it will become sadness. I’m sure of it.’
I nodded, unconvinced. Gregor was looking for reasons to discredit me, and I knew his dislike would not be tempered by my failure to save his wife.
Davey put a hand on my arm, reassuringly. I looked down at it in surprise. I’d not been touched by another adult in a long time. ‘I want you to know that I am grateful, no matter what Gregor says.’
I felt a tiny shiver of fear. What did he mean by ‘no matter what Gregor says’? Had Gregor been saying that it was my fault Isobel had died? I wanted Davey to go, to leave me to my notes and my thoughts, but instead he looked like he had more to say.
‘I know Gregor can be brutish.’ He paused. ‘He is my brother and underneath it all he does have a heart. He always looks out for me.’
Again, I was not persuaded. I remembered Davey following his brother around like a lamb when we were children. And I remembered the stories about Davey’s fondness for cards and his foolishness with money, and not for the first time, wondered if his wealthy brother had paid his debts.
‘Thank you for coming,’ I said, hoping he’d take the hint and leave. But he cast an eye around Thistle Cottage.
‘This is a lovely home,’ he said.
I almost scoffed. It was so different from his own house that I didn’t believe for one moment that he thought it was lovely. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘You have plenty of land.’
‘I have enough.’ I was firm.
‘Your husband ensured you were taken care of.’
‘He was a good man.’
‘Evidently.’
Davey looked round once more, his gaze falling on my records. ‘These are yours? These notes?’
‘Yes.’ I felt as though I was being inspected. ‘Actually, I was just writing up everything I used last night when you arrived, so if you’ll excuse me …’
‘You keep notes on your treatments?’
‘It’s useful to be able to look back at what I used, when.’
‘You can read and write, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘May I?’ He didn’t wait for my reply, simply began leafing through my notes. I watched, wondering what he was looking for. But it seemed he was simply interested in what I’d written – pausing every now and then, reading a sentence or two out loud under his breath, nodding, and occasionally shaking his head.
‘This is extraordinary,’ he muttered. ‘Such detailed descriptions.’
Despite myself, I was flattered by his interest. Other than Alice, there was no one I could share my findings with.
‘I keep a note of everything, no matter how insignificant it may seem at the time,’ I told him. ‘Sometimes it helps in the future.’
He looked at me. ‘You are a woman of science.’ His expression was full of wonder and I felt a flush of pride.
‘I am a widow with a working knowledge of plants,’ I said modestly.
He looked down at the open page. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’
‘Women have been doing this for generations. I learned from my mother, and she learned from hers. And not just in my family. Women across Scotland do the same. We have cared for the people of this town for hundreds of years. We deliver babies and dress wounds and cure ailments …’
‘And banish the plague.’
‘I don’t think it was the plague,’ I admitted. ‘I have tended to plague victims and they rarely recover as your son did, nor only suffer mildly like your mother. I’ve been comparing symptoms in my records.’
‘So not the plague, then? Something else?’
‘That’s my thinking. Though I don’t know what. The speed of their illness was nothing I’ve seen before.’
Davey looked impressed. ‘You do a wonderful job.’
‘I do the same as others,’ I said briskly, thinking of the other women I knew who also made medicines from plants, or cared for women in childbirth, or helped the dying to be comfortable. ‘The only difference is I write it all down.’
‘I’ve read Culpepper,’ Davey said. ‘I believe your research is just as good.’
I hadn’t read Culpepper. I didn’t know what it was. So I just smiled. ‘You’re interested in medicine, then?’
‘I am.’ Davey nodded vigorously. ‘Fascinated. I would like to study more, but Gregor wants me here.’
‘Do you always do as he tells you?’ I was teasing, gently, but Davey looked stern.
‘I do.’
There was a pause.
‘Perhaps you could do both,’ I suggested.
‘I worry I’m too old now, for learning. I should leave that to Christy.’
‘We’re always learning,’ I said. ‘Don’t give up so easily.’
He smiled at me and I thought how nice-looking he was. Tall and broad-shouldered. Strong. My thoughts surprised me. The only man I’d ever looked at in that way was my John. I felt my cheeks flame. Davey held my gaze for a second and then dropped his eyes back to my records.
‘I have friends at Edinburgh University who would be interested to see these books. They could learn so much from you.’
‘I don’t think so.’ I laughed, though I didn’t think it was funny. This was my work. My learning. I didn’t want to share it. I went to where he stood and took the book from him, shutting it and then holding it tightly to my chest. He looked amused. ‘You’re right,’ he said, though I’d not spoken. ‘Guard this knowledge, Honor. It is your future.’
Or my undoing, I thought.
‘I’ll not keep you any longer,’ Davey said. He put his hat on and made for the door, just as Alice came in.
‘What are you doing here?’ she said.
‘Alice!’ I was shocked by her rudeness.
She looked unrepentant for a second, then her face softened. ‘How is Christy?’
‘He is doing well, thank you. I came to tell your mother how grateful we are for your help.’
‘Please wish him well.’ Alice looked uncomfortable but I didn’t know why.
‘I will indeed. You are welcome to visit him whenever you like.’
Alice gave him the ghost of a smile and Davey turned his attention to me. ‘I have very much enjoyed seeing your work,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I could come again and you could tell me some more about what you do?’
‘I would like that,’ I said honestly. I was pleased to have someone so interested.
With another smile, Davey let himself out of the door and we heard his footsteps recede.
‘Why so rude?’ I asked my daughter, starting to tidy away my notes.
She glowered at me. ‘I don’t trust the Kincaids.’
‘I have no time for Gregor, but Davey seems pleasant enough.’
‘He is in his brother’s pocket and too interested in your land,’ she said. ‘That’s why he wants to visit, and why he is being kind.’
‘He is interested in medicine, not our land.’
She made a disbelieving sound deep in her throat. ‘That’s what he wants you to think.’
‘What’s wrong?’ I said. She wasn’t usually so prickly and I was worried about her.
With a sigh, Alice sat down on her favourite chair by the fire. ‘Nothing,’ she said. She looked up at me. ‘Do you think your tincture cured Christy?’
‘What else could it have been?’
She shook her head, and looked despairingly up at the ceiling. ‘It couldn’t have been anything else. But there was a shadow in the room, and it lifted.’
‘That happens.’ I’d been present at many deaths and many near deaths, and I’d seen that shadow many times.
Alice sighed again. ‘Kyla saw.’
‘She saw the shadow?’
‘Not exactly. She said the room got lighter.’
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. ‘What did you say?’
‘I told her it was the dawn.’
I nodded. ‘Was it the dawn?’
Alice looked at her feet. ‘Maybe.’ She swallowed. ‘But then I saw Kyla talking to Gregor. And I was worried she might have said it was something else. Put ideas in his head, perhaps? Made him think it could be …’ She swallowed. ‘Witchcraft.’
My head rang with the word, but I swallowed down my fears and forced myself to smile at Alice. ‘Nonsense,’ I sang. ‘They were probably talking about Isobel, or about Lady Kincaid. Nothing to worry about. Christy is well, and so is his grandmother, and we should be glad.’
Alice looked at me, her eyes roaming my face, looking for any sign that I was lying. I kept my gaze steady. ‘Now, are you hungry? What would you like to eat?’
I got up and busied myself by the stove, putting on a pot of water to boil for vegetables, and unwrapping some cheese. I turned away from Alice as I worked, hoping she couldn’t see how much my hands were shaking.