Chapter 5
The library had been stripped of comfort rather than dressed for sorrow.
A length of crape dulled the principal glass above the mantel.
The sconces had been left unpolished; their light died against dark shelves and winter panes.
A coal fire worked low in the grate, banked hard and giving heat without welcome.
Nothing had been set out for ease. No decanter waited on the side table; no tea tray softened the hour; no extra candles had been lit beyond those required for paper, ink, and law.
Black ribbon crossed the corners of Julian’s portrait.
Painted the summer before Cambridge, he still had the careless beauty of a young man certain that consequence would wait for him.
One hand rested upon a folio he had never read; beyond his shoulder, the painter had placed Glenbride beneath a sky kinder than any Scotland had ever owned.
Marjorie Kerr sat beside her mother with her son asleep against her shoulder, and could not stop looking at him.
Not the child. Julian.
The artist had caught the tilt of his head, though not the mischief in it.
He had given Julian his father’s height, his mother’s colouring, and the clear, heedless brightness that had made the whole house turn towards him.
Gold warmed the painted edge of his hair; blue deepened the coat across his shoulders.
He had been continuity made handsome, hope made careless, joy entering every room before him.
The painted hand lay calm upon the folio.
Julian’s true hand had never rested so long upon any book unless someone watched him.
Alexander stirred against her breast. Marjorie settled one hand over his back and felt the small, stubborn beat of him beneath wool and linen. Her son lived. Her brother hung upon the wall.
Every man in the room had come to decide which fact mattered less.
Her father stood at the hearth, one hand braced against the mantel.
Mourning had not bowed Alexander Ashby, sixth Earl of Ashby.
It had pared him down. His face held the colour of old stone, and his mouth looked carved for refusal.
He had buried his only son in the family vault and returned to the house as though grief were another tenant to be brought to heel.
Lady Isobel sat at Marjorie’s side, upright, dry-eyed, and still.
Her rosary lay in her lap untouched. The countess had not put a finger to the beads since Mr Armitage opened his leather case.
She had given Glenbride a daughter first, then Julian four years later, and had borne no child after him who lived.
In that room, her silence carried the full weight of that history.
Across the black-covered table, Mr Armitage of Edinburgh arranged his papers with care.
Marjorie had known his name all her life.
It appeared on marriage articles, settlements, copies, extracts, and those letters her father read twice before burning.
He belonged less to the family than to the line.
Mr Ballantyne, the family’s man of business from Berwick, sat beside him with his spectacles low upon his nose.
Ballantyne knew the rents, farms, debts, tenants, and old quarrels; if Mr Armitage spoke for the lineage, Mr Ballantyne spoke for the land.
Dr Kerr, the rector, occupied the chair nearest the door, one finger kept between the pages of his Bible.
He was a distant cousin of Marjorie’s late husband, near enough to claim concern and far enough removed to offer none.
When she had first returned to Glenbride widowed, he had spoken of resignation, Providence, and the duties of young mothers with the complacency of a man who had never buried a wife.
Major Robert Kerr of Drumcairn lay in his own ground, far from Glenbride, and this Dr Kerr had neither his kindness nor his claim.
His Bible seemed to Marjorie a poor weapon against parchment.
At the far end of the room, Hugh Ashby stood near the shrouded glass. Her father’s younger brother, Julian’s uncle and her own, had entered Glenbride all her life with the practised ease of a second son: necessary at need, harmless in neglect. Julian’s death had changed the shape of him.
He had not taken a chair.
That, Marjorie thought, was the first honest thing he had done.
“Begin,” her father said.
Mr Armitage unfolded the uppermost paper. “My lord,” he said, “this is the extract from the Register of Tailzies respecting the lands and lordship of Glenbride, recorded in the year 1760.”
“I know what it is.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Mr Armitage lowered his eyes to the page. Lawyers looked down before they struck.
“The lands of Glenbride, with the castle, mills, farms, woods, fishings, teinds, and pertinents thereto belonging, are settled upon Alexander Ashby, sixth Earl of Ashby, and the heirs-male of his body lawfully begotten; whom failing, upon Lord Julian Ashby and the heirs-male of his body lawfully begotten; whom failing—”
The room held its breath without meaning to.
Marjorie did not. She had learnt, in widowhood, that breath must be governed when nothing else could be.
Alexander Kerr stirred against her breast, as if the words had reached him through sleep.
“—upon Hugh Ashby, brother-german to the said Alexander Ashby, sixth Earl of Ashby, and the heirs-male of his body lawfully begotten; whom failing, upon the heirs-male whatsoever named in the schedule annexed.”
No one moved. The coal shifted in the grate with a small red fall.
Lady Isobel’s fingers closed once around the rosary. “And my grandson?”
Mr Armitage raised his eyes. “Lady Marjorie Kerr’s son, my lady?”
“Alexander Kerr,” the countess said. “The earl’s grandson.”
“He is of Ashby blood, my lady.”
“That was not my question.”
The lawyer looked again at the deed. He did not need to.
“He is not named in the destination.”
Marjorie’s hand remained upon her son’s back. Beneath her palm, his small heart persisted with an insolent steadiness no parchment could command.
Her mother said, “Explain.”
“The tailzie carries the estate through the heirs-male of Lord Ashby’s body, then through Lord Julian’s heirs-male, then through Mr Hugh Ashby and the heirs-male of his body. Lady Marjorie’s son descends through the female line. The deed does not admit him.”
“Because he is my daughter’s son.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Yet he is my husband’s grandson.”
“Yes.”
“He is Julian’s blood.”
“Yes.”
Marjorie saw her mother hear the futility of another question. Lady Isobel’s hand closed upon the rosary, then stilled.
At the far end of the room, Hugh Ashby had not moved.
There was no pity in his face. Pity would have been easier to despise.