Chapter 11 #3
Voices arrested her progress as she passed near the small parlour adjacent to the servants' entrance. Low, urgent, speaking rapidly in Gaelic. She recognised Mrs Douglas' softer tones immediately, and after a moment the sharper voice of Malcolm's great-aunt joined the conversation.
Elizabeth knew she ought not to eavesdrop. It was dishonourable, ill-bred, everything a gentlewoman should avoid. She took a deliberate step forward, fully intending to pass by quietly and grant them their privacy.
But the voices rose sharply in both pitch and intensity before she could move beyond earshot.
The older woman's tone grew harsh, openly accusatory, while Mrs Douglas responded with equal vehemence, her words tumbling rapidly over one another.
Though Elizabeth could not comprehend a single word of their Gaelic, the anger and distress between them was unmistakable, filling the air like smoke.
Then one word rang out with perfect clarity, cutting through the incomprehensible stream like a bell.
“Malcolm? Breugaire!”
Elizabeth froze in place, her hand still reaching toward the banister. The Gaelic word had been hurled like a weapon, heavy with accusation and rage.
Silence fell with shocking suddenness, as though someone had drawn a heavy curtain across the conversation. For a moment Elizabeth heard nothing but her own heart beating too quickly in her chest.
Then footsteps approached the door. Elizabeth stepped backward hastily, but her retreat came too late.
The door swung open with considerable force and Mrs Douglas burst through, her round face flushed scarlet, her eyes bright with tears that had not yet spilled but threatened to at any moment.
Behind her came Mrs Fraser, that tall and formidable woman with iron-grey hair pulled back severely from a face that time and hardship had carved into deep, unforgiving lines.
Her eyes were like flint, hard and sharp and utterly unyielding.
Those eyes fixed upon Elizabeth with such piercing intensity that she quite forgot to draw breath. The old woman's gaze held her pinned like a butterfly to a board, searching and measuring and judging with an acuity that was deeply unsettling.
“Miss Bennet.” The older woman's English was heavily accented, each word carefully formed as though she were translating in her mind even as she spoke.
Her tone carried no warmth whatsoever. “You are abroad late this evening. Or perhaps you were seeking something in particular? Some conversation that was not meant for your ears?”
“I was merely...” Elizabeth forced herself to meet that penetrating stare. “I thought to visit my father's study and select a new book. I heard voices but did not mean to intrude.”
The woman's gaze did not waver for even an instant. She appeared to be weighing Elizabeth against some internal standard, measuring her character and finding it... what? Wanting? Satisfactory? It was impossible to read in that carved face. Then, quite deliberately, she reached out and took Mrs Douglas’ elbow in a grip that clearly brooked no resistance whatsoever.
“Come. We shall finish this discussion elsewhere, away from curious ears that comprehend nothing of what they hear.” The words were directed at the nurse, but her eyes remained fixed on Elizabeth as she spoke them, as though trying to communicate something vital that she dared not or could not speak aloud in this house.
They swept past Elizabeth without further acknowledgement or explanation.
Elizabeth stood alone in the dim corridor, listening to their footsteps fade into the distance, her pulse still racing uncomfortably.
She did not speak Gaelic, but she knew that word.
She had encountered it in a book prior, and while she could not remember its exact meaning right then, she knew it was something negative.
“Breugaire,” she whispered out loud.
Then, quite suddenly, memory surfaced with perfect clarity.
Last winter, confined to the house by particularly heavy snow that had made even the short walk to Meryton impossible for nearly a fortnight, she had amused herself reading through her father's extensive collection of travel writings and accounts of distant lands.
One volume in particular had captured her attention, a detailed account of travel through the Scottish Highlands that had included at its conclusion an extensive glossary of Gaelic terms and common phrases for the benefit of English travellers venturing into that foreign territory.
Elizabeth hastened into the study, her slippers making soft sounds on the carpet runner. She browsed quickly through the shelves, before retrieving A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Drawing it down, she turned swiftly to the appendix at the rear of the volume.
Her finger traced down the columns of foreign words and their English equivalents whilst the taper cast wavering shadows across the yellowed pages, making the letters dance and shift. There. Near the bottom of the second column.
Breugaire. Liar.