Chapter 32

Wednesday, 29 June, 1698

Returning to Riddell’s Close, Lily was met at the door by Maggie, who taking her by the hand, half danced and half dragged her past the front rooms to where warm talk and laughter spilled into the back passage from Barbara’s chamber, which meant Walter and his wife had brought the bairn.

Archie was not over tolerant of bairns within his workroom anymore, so since the birth of Walter’s son in February, Barbara’s chamber, normally off-limits to the family, had become the place to gather when the bairn was brought to visit. It was a comfortable room, with soft furnishings, and if it had not been designed for that function, well, “What’s more important than family?” asked Barbara of Archie, one morning.

Dryly he’d answered her, “Earning your keep.”

“I’ve earned it twice over.” Barbara had matched his tone, ending the argument, likely because Archie knew she was right.

Barbara had fewer gentlemen visitors now, and she went out less frequently. She seemed more tired these days. She often did not wake in time to take her morning draught, and was asleep again when Lily had just started to prepare for bed. She’d said to Lily several times there was no need to worry, she was only wanting rest.

Archie, on hearing her say that, had rolled his eyes. “Ye’re wanting feeding. Ye’ll be naught but bones if ye keep going on as ye are.”

All of them were thinner, it could not be helped. Meat was scarce, as were barley and wheat, and although Captain Gordon still carried in cargoes of food when he could—no doubt some of it stored out of sight belowdecks with his ballast—their meals had grown plainer and smaller to make their provisions last until the harvest.

Barbara, in her selfless way, served up more for the rest of them than for herself, but Archie last week had set down a jar of honey-colored paste beside her plate at dinner, saying, “That’s from the apothecary. He said if ye take a spoonful daily, it will help to make ye strong again.”

At first, Lily had been suspicious. But then she’d seen Archie’s eyes, and realized he was genuinely worried.

“He does care for me, in his way,” Barbara had told Lily years before, and Lily’s observations bore this out. It was a tragedy that Archie could not care for Barbara in the way that she deserved, but if he had a heart at all, then Barbara was the only person who had ever been allowed to come within its reach.

Even today, when Lily stepped into Barbara’s chamber and joined the others, she noticed that Archie, who stood by the wall, wasn’t watching the bairn. He was looking at Barbara with quiet concern.

But his head turned when Maggie brought Lily in. “Home from your wanderings, are ye?”

“Aye.” She kissed Walter and his wife warmly. “I’m sorry I’m late.” Lily hadn’t been ready to come straight home after she’d watched Jamie leaving. She’d feared that her face would reveal her emotions, so she’d walked awhile longer, taking the roundabout way from the Tolbooth Wynd into the Kirkgate and down past the churchyard and back up the curve of St. Giles’s Street into the close.