Scandal's Daughters

Chapter 18

Disapproval hung as thick as the scent from the rose vine outside the garden door by the time Elspeth made it home. Even at a run, she had arrived home after the Aunts had already returned from the village kirk.

“We missed you at services, Elspeth,” Aunt Molly began in a voice laden with reproach.

“I am sorry.” And Elspeth was, deeply so. She had not missed a Sunday service—barring illness, which had only happened once, when she had come down with a fever—in all the twenty odd years she had lived with her Aunts at Dove Cottage. “I woke early and thought it was a fine day for the thatching, and once we got working, I seem to have lost track of the time. Though the roof is well finished and very stout now, so you’ll have no worries it will leak come winter.”

“Elspeth,” Aunt Molly chided. “What has come over you? It isn’t like you to miss something as important as divine services.”

“I am sorry.” There was really nothing else Elspeth could say.

But she would not regret her morning. She would not allow any remonstration to dim her memory of her last few hours with him. What a lovely going away present those last golden hours had been.

“I’ll just get the breakfast eggs started on the boil.” She unloosed the strap of the creel from around her neck and headed for the kitchen.

Aunt Molly stepped into the doorway, blocking her way. “Where did you get that creel?” She turned toward the garden, almost as if she could see through the worn bricks and boards to the dusty collection of auld fishing gear in the shed. “It’s been years since we’ve had any new fishing equipment here.”

“No.” Elspeth swallowed the dry apprehension in her mouth, but gave them the honest truth. “I borrowed it from Mr. Cathcart.”

“Who?” Isla cupped her hand to her ear and then looked to Molly, as if for translation.

“Mr. Cathcart,” Elspeth repeated, even as she could feel the telltale heat creep up her neck.

“Mr. Cathcart? From up at Cathcart Lodge?” Isla was still confused. “I didn’t know there was anyone in residence. However did you meet him?”

But Aunt Molly had not been born yesterday, nor even the day after. “Elspeth Otis.” She looked at Elspeth over the top of her spectacles. “Your neck is going all pink.” She had always been able to detect even the flimsiest fib when Elspeth had been a child.

“I met Mr. Cathcart in Edinburgh,” she admitted.

“Edinburgh?” Aunt Molly still did not comprehend. “But how did you get his creel?”

Elspeth gave up all prevarication. “Because he has come here, to Dove Cottage. Mr. Hamish Cathcart is the man who has been repairing our roof and pretending to be a gardener.”

“Pretending?”

“Yes, Aunt. Because he’s not really a gardener or a thatcher.” Because Elspeth was tired of pretending, too. “He’s a publisher of books. And he’s publishing my book, or rather my father’s book.” She corrected her presumption, but the subtle difference was lost upon the Aunts who stared at her as if she had finally run irretrievably mad.

It was Aunt Molly who finally spoke. “Nay.”

It was such a simple, little word, but it hit Elspeth with the force of twenty years of denial. Twenty years of holding back. Twenty years of being called, “Elspeth!” in that disparaging tone, of not being legitimate, of never being thought good enough.

“Aye. It’s my legacy from my father, my fortune, those books. And I refuse to listen to you disparage him. I won’t hear another word against him.”

“Nay,” Aunt Molly said again, as if she could deny Elspeth any such legacy. “There is nothing you need from such a man. Have we not given you everything you need? Have we not given you a home and made you feel welcome?”

“Nay.” It was Elspeth’s turn to deny the charge. “You have. But—”

“It’s that devil’s cub, Augusta Ivers, who’s turned your head, and turned you against us.”

“Nay. Aunt Augusta was everything kind and encouraging—”

“Encouraging you to consort with strange men!”

Elspeth prayed for patience. “Not consorting, Aunt. Contracting—working with him the same as any author.” If one kissed every author one contracted, and thatched their roof and fished for their breakfast in the morning sunshine.

“Have you lain with him?”

The blunt question felt more like an accusation. “Nay! How could you ask such a thing?”

Her voice was hot and tight and scratchy with the pain—the pain of knowing she was breaking their frail old hearts as well as her own.

“You’ve changed since you went away, Elspeth. We hardly know you anymore.”

She hardly knew herself anymore. Perhaps she never had.

But it was past time.

Something within Elspeth changed in that moment—something that refused to be cowed, refused to regret. “Perhaps I have.” She firmed her voice. “Perhaps I’m not afraid of changing. Perhaps I want to be transformed.”

She had wanted it, with all her soul.

“That huzzy encouraged you, no doubt.” Isla finally said her piece.

Hurt and anger banked for twenty years gave her a stronger voice. “Speak of me how you will—how you always have, as if I’m not good enough. But you leave Lady Augusta Ivers out of it. She has been nothing but kind and generous and thoughtful—”

“And I suppose we haven’t?” Aunt Molly’s voice was becoming shrill.

Elspeth tried to stay calm and modulate her own voice, even as she felt the heat of tears searing her eyes. “That’s not what I said.”

“You’ve said quite enough, Elspeth Otis.” Aunt Molly’s tone was emphatic and dismissive. “Quite enough.”

“Blood will out, I’ve always said,” Isla added.

“Aye,” Molly sniffed. “And I’m afraid to say it’s true.”

There was nothing more Elspeth could say. Nothing more that she wouldn’t regret.

Blood would out, they said. Well, perhaps it was time to make it so.