“Mmphm. And d’ye ken what to do for a nervous complaint, then?”
“What sort of nervous complaint?”
He pursed his lips and frowned, as though unsure whether to trust me. The upper lip came to a slight point, like an owl’s beak, but the lower was thick and pendulous.
“Well…’tis a complicated case. But to speak generally, now”—he eyed me carefully—“what would ye give for a sort of…fit?”
“Epileptic seizure? Where the person falls down and twitches?”
He shook his head, showing a reddened band about his neck, where the high white stock had chafed it.
“No, a different kind of fit. Screaming and staring.”
“Screaming and staring?”
“Not at once, ye ken,” he added hastily. “First the one, and then the other—or rather, roundabout. First she’ll do naught but stare for days on end, not speaking, and then of a sudden, she’ll scream fit to wake the deid.”
“That sounds very trying.” It did; if he had a wife so afflicted, it could easily explain the deep lines of strain that bracketed his mouth and eyes, and the blue circles of exhaustion beneath his eyes.
I tapped a finger on the counter, considering. “I don’t know; I’d have to see the patient.”
The minister’s tongue touched his lower lip. “Perhaps…would ye be willing maybe, to come and see her? It isn’t far,” he added, rather stiffly. Pleading didn’t come naturally to him, but the urgency of his request communicated itself despite the stiffness of his figure.
“I can’t, just now,” I told him. “I have to meet my husband. But perhaps this afternoon—”
“Two o’clock,” he said promptly. “Henderson’s, in Carrubber’s Close. Campbell is the name, the Reverend Archibald Campbell.”
Before I could say yes or no, the curtain between the front room and the back twitched aside, and Mr. Haugh appeared with two bottles, one of which he handed to each of us.
The Reverend eyed his with suspicion, as he groped in his pocket for a coin.
“Weel, and there’s your price,” he said ungraciously, slapping it on the counter. “And we’ll hope as you’ve given me the right one, and no the lady’s poison.”
The curtain rustled again and a woman looked out after the departing form of the minister.
“Good riddance,” she remarked. “Happence for an hour’s work, and insult on the top of it! The Lord might ha’ chosen better, is all I can say!”
“Do you know him?” I asked, curious whether Louisa might have any helpful information about the afflicted wife.
“Not to say I ken him weel, no,” Louisa said, staring at me in frank curiosity. “He’s one o’ they Free Church meenisters, as is always rantin’ on the corner by the Market Cross, tellin’ folk as their behavior’s of nay consequence at all, and all that’s needful for salvation is that they shall ‘come to grips wi’ Jesus’—like as if Our Lord was to be a fair-day wrestler!” She sniffed disdainfully at this heretical viewpoint, crossing herself against contamination.
“I’m surprised the likes of the Reverend Campbell should come in our shop, hearin’ what he thinks o’ Papists by and large.” Her eyes sharpened at me.
“But you’ll maybe be Free Church yoursel’， ma’am; meanin’ no offense to ye, if so.”
“No, I’m a Catholic—er, a Papist, too,” I assured her. “I was only wondering whether you knew anything about the Reverend’s wife, and her condition.”
Louisa shook her head, turning to deal with a new customer.
“Nay, I’ve ne’er seen the lady. But whatever’s the matter with her,” she added, frowning after the departed Reverend, “I’m sure that livin’ wi’ him doesna improve it any!”
* * *
The weather was chill but clear, and only a faint hint of smoke lingered in the Rectory garden as a reminder of the fire. Jamie and I sat on a bench against the wall, absorbing the pale winter sunshine as we waited for Young Ian to finish his confession.
“Did you tell Ian that load of rubbish he gave Young Ian yesterday? About where I’d been all this time?”
“Oh, aye,” he said. “Ian’s a good deal too canny to believe it, but it’s a likely enough story, and he’s too good a friend to insist on the truth.”
“I suppose it will do, for general consumption,” I agreed. “But shouldn’t you have told it to Sir Percival, instead of letting him think we were newlyweds?”
He shook his head decidedly. “Och, no. For the one thing, Sir Percival has no notion of my real name, though I’ll lay a year’s takings he knows it isna Malcolm. I dinna want him to be thinking of me and Culloden together, by any means. And for another, a story like the one I gave Ian would cause the devil of a lot more talk than the news that the printer’s taken a wife.”
“‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave,’” I intoned, “‘when first we practice to deceive.’”
He gave me a quick blue glance, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
“It gets a bit easier with practice, Sassenach,” he said. “Try living wi’ me for a time, and ye’ll find yourself spinning silk out of your arse easy as sh—， er, easy as kiss-my-hand.”
I burst out laughing.
“I want to see you do that,” I said.
“You already have.” He stood up and craned his neck, trying to see over the wall into the Rectory garden.
“Young Ian’s being the devil of a time,” he remarked, sitting down again. “How can a lad not yet fifteen have that much to confess?”
“After the day and night he had yesterday? I suppose it depends how much detail Father Hayes wants to hear,” I said, with a vivid recollection of my breakfast with the prostitutes. “Has he been in there all this time?”
“Er, no.” The tips of Jamie’s ears grew slightly pinker in the morning light. “I, er, I had to go first. As an example, ye ken.”
“No wonder it took some time,” I said, teasing. “How long has it been since you’ve been to confession?”
“I told Father Hayes it was six months.”
“And was it?”
“No, but I supposed if he was going to shrive me for thieving, assault, and profane language, he might as well shrive me for lying, too.”
“What, no fornication or impure thoughts?”
“Certainly not,” he said austerely. “Ye can think any manner of horrible things without sin, and it’s to do wi’ your wife. It’s only if you’re thinking it about other ladies, it’s impure.”
“I had no idea I was coming back to save your soul,” I said primly, “but it’s nice to be useful.”
He laughed, bent and kissed me thoroughly.
“I wonder if that counts as an indulgence,” he said, pausing for breath. “It ought to, no? It does a great deal more to keep a man from the fires of hell than saying the rosary does. Speaking of which,” he added, digging into his pocket and coming out with a rather chewed-looking wooden rosary, “remind me that I must say my penance sometime today. I was about to start on it, when ye came up.”