Moving furniture was something I could do that made me feel I had a purpose. There was a second, plainer chair that had no cushions but a seat of woven cane. I brought that, too, and found a third chair in the farther corner that was partly broken and had one leg shorter than the rest but did consent to bear my weight if I sat very carefully.
While I was taking care of this, I set my book and papers on one corner of the table. By the time I’d finished, Lily had spread out an offering of cheese and bread and cups of ale, with bowls of nuts and raisins.
Helen had recovered. “I apologize. I did not think I was so weak.”
“It is not weakness,” Lily told her. “You’ve a bairn that’s stealing space beneath your ribs and leaving you no room to breathe when climbing, that is all. I’ll wager even the sergeant would find stairs a struggle if he were in your condition.”
Helen smiled at that. “You’re very kind.”
I stole a handful of the raisins and remarked that, if I were in her condition, I would not be climbing stairs. “I would be sitting with my feet up, letting people wait upon me at my leisure.”
“Liar,” Helen called me. “You’ve been like a caged bear all this week, unable to get out of doors. You’d never make it through confinement.”
Lily asked her, “Will you stay in town when your time comes?”
“No, my husband’s family home is in the Borders, near to Minto. He would like me to go there, for it is sure to be quieter. And safer,” Helen added, “if the Jacobites continue to cause trouble.” She looked at me. “We’ll have to bring you with us, when we go. For company. The country is a pretty place but there’s no true society, and one can only take so many turns about the garden before going altogether mad.”
My mouthful of raisins prevented me from answering, but Lily said that taking turns about a garden sounded lovely.
“There was a garden where I lately lived,” she said, “and spending time in it was truly close to my idea of heaven. Anyway, you’ll have your bairn to keep you company this time, so you’ve small chance of being bored. Is it a lad or lass you’re wishing for?”
I saw how her smile disarmed Helen.
Helen smiled back. “I know that men are always hoping for a son to be their firstborn, but in truth, I privately am wishing for a daughter. I do not understand the mind of boys. I don’t believe that I would know the way to raise one.”
I could feel my grin, I couldn’t help it. “We’re not so mysterious,” I promised her. “We may play more roughly, and lead with our fists when words would do, but I assure you that our feelings are the same as yours and run as deep.”
Both women looked at me with softened eyes, and Helen asked me, “Truly?”
“Aye.” Deliberately I pulled my gaze from Lily’s and told Helen, “If you had a son, you’d no doubt find him a devoted one.”
“You give me hope,” she said. “If I could know they would all be like you, then I would happily have only sons.”
Lily smiled. “My husband’s mother had all boys, and was content.”
I saw my opening. “You also said your husband had a cousin, Margaret Graeme. What became of her?”
It was a gamble. Lily would be well aware she’d never mentioned Maggie to us during the inquiry—I could see her searching backward through her memory now, confirming this—which would have made her wonder why I’d asked the question in that way. I only hoped she’d realize I had phrased it so that she could speak of Maggie without having to reveal, in front of Helen, any details of her life in Leith. She need not mention Barbara Malcolm, nor the house in Riddell’s Close, nor any of the—
“You mean Maggie.” Lily met my gaze with level eyes that knew exactly what my game was, but her light tone betrayed nothing of the kind. “She teaches music at a school nearby for daughters of good families.”
That surprised me. “Music?”
“Yes. She is accomplished on the virginals, and also sings most sweetly.”
I was trying to imagine where young Maggie Graeme, with her background, would have learnt such arts as those, but I could think of no way to ask Lily without being indiscreet.
Helen said, “I have always wished that I could play as well as others do, but I have not the patience nor the ear for it, I fear.”
Lily commiserated, “Nor do I. But Maggie always loved to sing, and we did live for several years near Greenock with a kind woman who saw Maggie’s love of music and arranged for her to take her lessons at the great house there.”