“No, mate,” Roger said. “I’ll always be your dad, no matter what. And I’ll still be just me,” he added, as an afterthought.
“Oh. Well, I didn’t think ye’d stop, exactly …” A smile touched Jem’s face like a stray sunbeam. “It’s only … what’s different? Because if nothing’s different—why do you want to do it? Why is it important?”
“Ah.” Roger leaned back a little, hands on his knees. The truth was that he rather expected to be different in some indefinable way, even though he also knew with certainty that he’d be the same.
“Well,” he said slowly, “part of it is that it’s formal. You ken Mairi and Archie MacLean back home at the Ridge, aye?”
“Aye.” Jem was eyeing him dubiously, wondering if this was going to make sense. Roger wondered that, too, but it was a legitimate question—and one that he thought might need answering more than once.
“Well, see, we had their wedding at Easter, but they came to it with their wee son, who was born in the autumn of last year. So they’d been living as man and wife for more than a year, even though they weren’t married.”
“Were they no handfast?” Jem’s brow wrinkled, trying to recollect.
“Aye, they were. That’s sort of my point. They made a contract with each other when they became handfast. Ye understand contracts?”
“Oh, aye. Grandda showed me the land deed the old governor gave him for the Ridge, and he explained why that was a contract. Two … er … parties? I think that’s what he said. The parties promise each other something and sign their names to it.”
“Ye’ve got it.” Roger smiled and was happy to get a smile back in return. “So then. Mairi and Archie had that contract, though it wasn’t written down, and what it said—have ye seen anyone get handfast? No? Well, when two people are handfast, they promise to live together as man and wife for a year and a day, and to—do the things a man and wife do, in the way of taking care of each other. And that’s a contract between them. But … when the year and a day are up, then they can decide if they want to go on living as man and wife or if they can’t abide each other and want to go their separate ways.
“So if they want to stay with each other … they do, but if there’s a minister at hand to marry them, they do that, and it’s the same sort of contract, but more … detailed … and it’s permanent. They promise to stay married.”
“Oh, is that what that means, ‘’til death us do part’？”
“Exactly.”
Jem was silent for a moment, turning this over in his mind. In the distance, a church bell rang twice and then was silent: the half-hour bell.
“So ye’ve been handfast to the Presbyterians and now ye’re going to marry them?” Jem asked, frowning a little. “Will Mam not mind?”
“No, she doesn’t,” Roger assured him, hoping it was true.
Another example occurred to him.
“Ye’ve seen your grandda ride out with his men now and then, aye?”
“Oh, aye!” Jem’s eyes grew bright at the recollection. “He says I can go with them when I’m thirteen!”
Roger swallowed his automatic “the hell you will,” and cleared his throat instead. Jamie Fraser had gone on his first cattle raid at the age of eight; in his view of life, as long as the boy’s feet reached the stirrups, why shouldn’t a thirteen-year-old be capable of keeping public order, socializing with Indians, and facing down Loyalist militias?
He’s got to learn sometime, he could hear Jamie saying, with that mild tone that belied the stubborn conviction behind the words. Better early than too late.
“Mmphm. Well. Ye’ve seen when they ride out, your grandda lifts his sword or his rifle as the signal to start?”
Jem nodded enthusiastically, and Roger was obliged to admit that seeing Jamie do that sent a small thrill down his own spine.
“Well, see, that’s the signal that the men are to follow him and go where he leads them. If they come to a place where they need to go in a certain direction, quickly, he’ll draw his sword and point it in the way they should go, so they can all follow at once and not get lost.
“He’s still just who he is—your grandda, and your mam’s father, and a good man—but he’s also got to be a leader, and when he does that, he wears his leather waistcoat and he has his sword in his hand, so everyone knows he’s the leader. He doesna have to stop and explain it to anybody.”