Chapter 21 #2
“Too much flour?” Rory asked solemnly.
“Too much panic.”
“That’ll do it.”
“The sage-to-thyme ratio has apparently been wrong since Sam was twelve,” Abigail continued. “Now he brings it up every year like he’s presenting evidence before Congress.”
“What’s Congress?” Tobias asked from the doorway.
“A governing body.”
Ewan looked interested. “And they concern themselves with herbs.”
“Honestly? Probably less than they should.”
Duncan frowned thoughtfully.
“So this holiday is centered around oversized birds, arguments, and disappointment.”
“That’s football,” Abigail said automatically. Then had to explain football again.
Rory frowned. “We’ve circled back to football.”
“It’s a sport.”
“With violence,” Duncan recalled.
“And disappointment.”
“That sounds Scottish,” Ewan observed.
Mrs. Gable wiped flour from her hands and straightened suddenly.
“Well,” she announced, “we canna have a feast day passing unmarked. Not in this house. Not while I’ve breath left in me.”
Abigail blinked.
“Mrs. Gable, you really don’t have to—”
“Out.”
“What?”
“Out of my kitchen. Sit by the hearth or go for a walk.”
Then she pointed directly at Rory.
“You. Henhouse. Three hens.”
Rory stood automatically.
“Tobias, we need smoked herrings in case the hens go stringy.”
“Yes, Mrs. Gable.”
“And tell Ewan to fetch a cask of the second-best whisky from the lodgings cellar.”
Rory paused near the door.
“Second-best?”
“Aye. And dinna touch the Banff.”
Something close to reverence crossed Ewan’s face.
Duncan actually removed his cap briefly.
“I had no intention of touching the Banff,” Rory said carefully.
“The Banff is for Saturday.”
Abigail looked between them.
“What’s Saturday?”
Mrs. Gable narrowed her eyes.
“If ye think I’m explaining every sacred household matter before noon, ye’ve another thought coming.”
After that the house felt more alive. Not all at once, but steadily, as though warmth itself spread room to room.
Ewan arrived first rolling a whisky cask through the back door with the exaggerated care one usually reserved for unstable explosives.
“Second-best,” he announced gravely.
Mrs. Gable inspected it.
“Hm. Acceptable.”
Ewan leaned toward Abigail.
“The Banff once made Duncan sing directly to a chicken.”
“I heard that,” Duncan shouted from outside.
“Aye,” Ewan shouted back. “And the chicken’s still offended.”
By half past one the kitchen had become noisy enough to push back her homesickness.
Tobias brought smoked herring wrapped in cloth and smelling sharply of oak, smoke, and salt. Tavish arrived with apples, while Duncan contributed two bottles of small beer nobody requested but everyone accepted.
The room filled with warmth, voices, and the rich delicious smell of roasting hens turning slowly above the fire while neeps and tatties cooked beneath the drippings.
Brown bread rose beside the hearth.
Crowdie from Pittendrum appeared from whatever secret vault Mrs. Gable maintained for worthy occasions.
Then came apples cored and stuffed with honey and cinnamon.
“The cinnamon,” Mrs. Gable informed Abigail sternly, “has waited all year, so ye’ll appreciate it properly.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.”
Outside, the rain and wind eased. Inside, candlelight turned the kitchen windows gold against the coming dark.
And somewhere between Tobias trying to understand cranberry sauce, not the kind that came in a can but the Martha Stewart version, (“Ye mix berries with fruit and sugar?”) and Duncan trying to steal scraps from the pie crust, Abigail stopped feeling like she was merely surviving here in the past.
They all sat down together at five. Small whisky cups waited beside every plate while Mrs. Gable poured a thumb of amber liquid into each before taking her own seat at the head of the table opposite Rory.
Mrs. Gable looked once around the table.
“For what we have,” she said simply. “For who is at the table with us this day. Amen.”
“Amen,” the table answered.
“Eat.”
And they did.
The men attacked the meal with the focused determination of people who’d spent weeks living mostly on oats, stew, and meager meat.
Tobias burned his fingers stealing potatoes before the bowls had fully settled.
Duncan used his bread to mop drippings from his plate while pretending not to notice Mrs. Gable watching him.
Ewan burned his tongue almost immediately.
The dining table had never been meant for this many people, but Mrs. Gable had solved the problem by have them drag in two narrower trestle tables and covering the whole uneven arrangement with mismatched linen cloths that nearly reached the floor on one side and hovered several inches short on the other.
Candles burned low and golden between platters.
The room smelled of roast goose, chicken, onions browned in butter, fresh bannocks, rosemary, and the rich dark gravy Mrs. Gable had declared “too good for common weekdays.”
Abigail sat halfway down the table next to Rory with Duncan on her right, though Duncan appeared substantially more interested in the food than the conversation.
Tavish stared openly at the roasted bird occupying the center platter.
“So ye’re telling me,” he said slowly, “Americans truly gather every year specifically to eat a bird large enough to feed thirty people?”
“It’s usually turkey,” Abigail said.
“That isnae reassuring.”
“It’s basically a giant chicken.”
“Giant” and “chicken” shouldna belong in the same sentence,” Tobias muttered into his ale.
Across the table, Mrs. Gable snorted.
“That creature could carry off a bairn.”
“It cannot carry off a child,” Abigail protested, laughing despite herself.
“No’ after we’ve roasted it, certainly,” Ewan said dryly, making everyone laugh.
Rory leaned back slightly in his chair, watching her over the rim of his cup with that quieter sort of amusement he rarely allowed fully onto his face.
“And this happens every year?” he asked.
“Every November.”
“For what purpose?”
“To be grateful for each other.”
Tobias frowned suspiciously at the bowl Abigail had set near the potatoes.
“And what’s that horror?”
“Cranberry sauce.”
The entire side of the table went still.
“Also called fen-berries. I traded a scarf I knitted with one of the traveling merchants in the village,” Abigail explained. “I obviously couldn’t get oranges or pineapple, but you’ll get the idea.”
“Why is it beside the meat?”
“Because that’s where it goes.”
“That canna possibly be true.”
“It’s tart and a little sweet,” Duncan observed, already spooning some onto his plate with the calm concentration of a man making serious culinary decisions.
“Aye,” Tobias said. “That’s the problem.”
Abigail laughed hard enough she nearly spilled her wine.
“You people eat blood pudding.”
“That’s different. Blood kens what it’s about.”
Mrs. Gable pointed her spoon toward the gravy boat.
“And this,” she declared, “is simply broth that fell into flour.”
Even Rory laughed at that, low and sudden beside Abigail, the sound warm enough to loosen something tight inside her chest.
Duncan, meanwhile, had quietly helped himself to a fourth serving of roast goose while everyone argued over the cranberry sauce.
Abigail noticed first.
“Duncan.”
He looked up slowly.
“What?”
“That’s your fourth plate.”
“Aye.”
“You’re not even pretending to pace yourself.”
“I’m laboring through winter,” he said with perfect seriousness. “The body requires strength.”
Tavish pointed at him. “He said the same thing after Mrs. Gable made oatcakes last week.”
“And I was correct then as well.”
Mrs. Gable shook her head toward Abigail.
“Feed working men once and they develop expectations.”
“Feed Tavish twice and he starts talking about feelings,” Ewan added.
“I do not.”
“Ye cried over the stew a few weeks ago.”
“That was excellent stew.”
The laughter rolled easier after that. The kind built from cold weather, exhaustion, and people forgetting themselves for a little while around candlelight and warm food.
And through all of it Abigail became increasingly aware of Rory beside her.
His sleeve brushing hers now and then beneath the crowded table. His hand occasionally steadying a dish before it slid on the uneven boards. The rare sound of his laughter arriving unexpectedly beside her like warmth slipping through a cracked door.
For one moment, with candlelight flickering gold against the stone walls and the windows fogged white from heat and breath, it almost felt less like visiting another century and more like belonging inside it.
Rory reached one-handed for the whisky, winced faintly as his shoulder protested, and immediately found Mrs. Gable smacking the back of his wrist with a serving spoon.
“Sit still.”
“I merely intended—”
“Aye. And next ye’ll intend yerself straight back into Janet’s hands.”
That visibly sobered him.
Abigail laughed hard enough her ribs hurt. Somewhere during the second course she set down her spoon.
“In America,” she said quietly, “on this day every person at the table is named aloud and something is said about them.”
The room stilled as Mrs. Gable lifted her whisky cup slightly.
“Then ye’ll name us, lass.”
Emotion rose hard into her throat. She looked first toward Mrs. Gable.
“For Mrs. Gable. For the bread. For the delicious meals.”
Mrs. Gable sniffed once.
“For Ewan. For bringing me tea Sunday morning at four o’clock and pretending not to notice when I tripped over my own skirts.”
Ewan stared very hard into his whisky.
“Aye well,” he muttered, “we’ve all tripped over our feet.”
“For Tobias. For the fish.”
Tobias nodded solemnly around a mouthful of potatoes.
“For Tavish. For the apples.”
Color crept faintly into Tavish’s ears.
“For Duncan,” Abigail continued, “for the small beer. And for not telling Mrs. Gable I broke the dairy crock last Tuesday.”
Duncan choked outright.
Mrs. Gable slowly lowered her spoon.
“You what?”
Duncan pointed immediately at her, a look of betrayal on his face even as he grinned
“Ye said we were taking that to the grave.”
Laughter rolled warmly around the table until even Mrs. Gable surrendered.
“For the bread. For the fire that keeps us warm. For the roof.”
Her voice lowered further.
“And for Rory.”
The room stilled as he looked at her across the candlelight.
Abigail swallowed once.
“For the man who found me on the rocks and carried me up the path.”
Rory set down his cup carefully and drew one slow breath without looking away from her.
“For the morning at the shingle.”
Mrs. Gable exhaled softly behind her whisky cup like a woman setting down a basin she’d been carrying too long.
The fire settled low in the hearth.
Then Tobias lifted the whistle. A plain Scots tune Abigail didn’t know. Duncan joined in by the second verse, his rough low voice threading through the kitchen while candlelight flickered softly across weathered faces and steaming plates.
She didn’t understand all the words. Not fully. But halfway through the song, while Rory watched her across the firelight with something entirely unguarded in his eyes, she thought perhaps she understood the feeling of them.
And when he caught her looking at him, he didn’t look away. Abigail didn’t say I’ve fallen in love with you.