Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
MORRIGAN
The three women examined the etchings closely. The artwork didn’t differ greatly from the flyers Morrigan had brought back from Inverness. Making a mockery of son of Scotland was the central theme. The nuns and students were depicted around the edges.
“Now that I’ve met her,” Morrigan said, “it’s easier knowing we were correct about how she uses the periphery of the artwork.”
Maisie agreed. “It would have been impossible to locate her without the clues that placed her at Barn Hill.”
Morrigan watched her and Fiona continue to study every detail.
She had no idea where Madame Laborde was taken.
Until Aidan gave her these, they had no way of knowing if the woman were still alive.
Actually, they still didn’t know for certain.
These could have been made from the drawings the artist was delivering to Sir Rupert the day they met in the gardens of the estate in Inverness.
Morrigan had spoken to Searc about it when he returned to Dalmigavie after the trial. Now that they knew who she was, he had his people searching for her. But so far, nothing had come back. Even Mrs. Goddard was at a loss regarding where she’d gone, and she was quite concerned about it.
Maisie shook her head and stepped back from the table. “It’s truly a shame that Madame Laborde should waste her talent supporting the wrong side.”
“One would think she could have earned a decent income doing caricatures for your newspaper friends in Edinburgh and Glasgow,” Fiona said.
“I doubt they would pay as well as Sir Rupert and the Home Office.”
Morrigan agreed. “If money is her only motivation, then she’s aiding the side with the deepest pockets.
” She thought back over her conversation with Mrs. Goddard and Madame Laborde.
“She’s a widow who has fallen on hard times.
She has no family to go to. She’s needed to rely on the charity of women who are strangers to her. ”
“Are you justifying her actions?” Maisie asked.
“Not at all. But it’s important to understand her desperation.
” Morrigan owed her freedom to the artist. If she had not prodded her to go, reminding her of the consequences of what could happen, she might had been foolish enough to face Sir Rupert.
“When it comes to survival, the fact that we’re women stacks the cards against us.
Take away marriage and inherited title and wealth, and we must rely on some talent that we’re not averse to marketing.
Marriage is not always an option or a preference. ”
The two women stared at her for a moment and then exchanged a look.
Maisie was the first to speak. “Has he asked you?”
“Who? Asked what?” Morrigan turned away and sat on the bed, smoothing her skirts. She had the answer to both of those questions, but she was unsettled. She didn’t know what to make of how easily Aidan’s attentions left her starry-eyed and hopeful, in spite of everything.
Still, they had no understanding as far as she was concerned, and she couldn’t imagine how there ever could be. The obstacles were too many to count.
Maisie sat on the bed next to her. “Pray don’t forget who you’re talking to. I know you. What happened between you and Mr. Grant before he left?”
“Nothing.” Morrigan was definitely not going to tell them that she’d kissed him. Twice.
“He’s coming back,” Fiona said.
“He has to come back. He’s standing for the election when the time comes,” Maisie affirmed. “Niall told me Searc and Cinaed already have a number of social events planned for him to attend around Hogmanay.”
These would be social events where he’d be introduced to at least a dozen unmarried women who would no doubt make better wives for a politician. The pang of jealousy was sudden and sharp and left Morrigan disturbed. She stood and walked to the window.
The mountains heard that Samhain had come and gone, and a dusting of snow covered the peaks in the distance. The seasons were changing. Time was moving on.
Morrigan thought of the words Madame Laborde said to her in the garden. Look at you. No home, no family of your own, no dowry, and no prospect of marriage. You have no future, Miss Drummond.
“And no talent,” she said aloud.
“Who has no talent?” Maisie asked.
Morrigan turned around and faced her friends. The artist had none of those things either. But the woman had her art. It was her only real means of survival. “I have no talent.”
“That’s not true. You’re talented in so many ways.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” she told Maisie. “Isabella is a fine physician. You, an accomplished writer. Fiona, you’re a revolutionary.”
“That’s not a talent,” Fiona said with a laugh. “It constitutes a lifetime of trouble.”
They liked to tease, make less of what they did. But Morrigan knew the truth. She valued what they’d done and continued to do.
“You’ve accomplished things. You and Maisie established the Female Reform Society in Edinburgh.
You have motivated women to break their chains and speak up.
For representation. For just laws.” Morrigan looked from one to the other.
“But what have I done that has been worthwhile? And what can I do in the future that means anything?”
“I don’t know a tougher woman than you.”
“Or any woman braver,” Maisie agreed with her friend.
“And what am I going to do with that? Disguise myself and join an army? Become a rebel leader and haunt these hills?”
She looked over her shoulder at the distant mountain peaks. Perhaps there had been a day not so long ago that such a life attracted her. But no longer. She’d always wished to be independent and proficient. She’d strived to protect herself so that no one would ever be able to abuse her again.
“My training with those weapons fulfills a need in me, like eating and drinking. It’s a regimen. I don’t consider it a talent. It certainly provides me with no way of supporting myself or contributing to society.”
“For years, you worked at your father’s side. Isabella swears that no medical student who ever assisted her matched your abilities,” Maisie said. “Have you considered becoming more proficient in the area of medicine? You could study under her. She’d love to have you beside her.”
“Isabella is university-trained. And she’s brilliant.
Beyond her academic training, she is also a born healer.
And she has a way about her that makes people accept her.
She doesn’t let narrow-minded prejudices and fears get in the way of the care she provides for her patients.
And she’d never turn her back on anyone who needed help.
” Morrigan thought of how Isabella continued to care for Wemys after learning the truth about him, regardless of how much she abhorred him.
“She and my father both could separate their feelings and their duty. I don’t have that ability. ”
Fiona motioned to the stack of books on the bedside table. “You’re a reader.”
“You could write,” Maisie suggested.
“You have a wicked sense of humor,” Fiona added.
“That’s true,” Maisie agreed. “Your tongue is as sharp as the dagger you carry in your boot. And I know. You’ve poked me with it enough times over the years.”
“There you have it. You could write satire,” Fiona concluded. “Prose versions of the kind of work Madame Laborde produces.”
“I can’t be someone else. I can only be myself. Even if I don’t know exactly who that is. Even though I have no idea right now what the future holds or where I want to be a year from now, or ten years.”
Morrigan turned to the window and pushed open the panels.
A blast of cold air hit her in the face—exactly what she needed to stop the tears suddenly welling up in her eyes.
She couldn’t understand what made her bring up such a topic.
In her mind, the fog swirling around the future was getting thicker.
She doubted that anything said here would help her see what direction she was intended to go.
Maisie approached her from behind and wrapped her arms around her. Morrigan leaned her head back against the woman who had become a sister.
“I could suggest that this upheaval within you is due to the possibility that you’re in love, but I fear you might throw me out this window.”
“I think that is a suggestion right there.”
“Am I wrong?”
Maybe she was in love, she thought. But that wasn’t the reason for her unhappiness.
“Do you remember this past August? How you fussed and worried and had to talk to Niall before you two were married?”
Maisie sighed. “That was a difficult moment for me.”
“I know it was. You knew who you were, and you wanted to make certain that he understood your dreams. That he respected your chosen path.”
“Everyone finds their own path. But for some people it takes time,” Maisie said softly. “This is just a morning mist that is obscuring the future right now. You need to keep moving forward, one step at a time. The path will show itself.”
“I pray that you’re right. But sometimes I feel like I hear a bell tolling, far off in the distance. I move toward it, thinking it’s beckoning me toward the start of something new . . . but then I freeze. My fear is that my past will one day be exposed and become quicksand beneath my feet.”