Free Jennie About to Be by Elisabeth Ogilvie Page B

incantation. “The Gilchrists of Linn more . Will that be us?”
    â€œYes, and we’ll start a new dynasty. How would you like to be a matriarch?”
    â€œPlease, Capting, I’d like to be married first, Your Worship.”

Seven

    S EVERAL TIMES Jennie wondered uneasily if she should contribute her sovereigns toward the expense of the wedding. In her rare moments alone she often read Papa’s letter, hearing his voice speak the words:
    â€œThis is for you to have and to hold, to use as you will. I wish it could be for some startling, inexplicable, wonderful, irregular cause, some bold stroke for a woman to make. In any case, it is not to be fribbled away on fashions, on trips to Bath and Brighton. But if ever you or yours are in need, your father will have put out his hand to help you.”
    No . This was not the time to use the sovereigns. She hadn’t asked for anything more than for her and Nigel to be joined by a parson, and a family breakfast afterward. But Aunt Higham was stage-managing the affair, and she was enjoying herself, and Uncle Higham went around these days in a mood of Olympian benevolence. Whether it was because an awkward young girl would soon be off his hands or he was genuinely touched by young love and spring weddings, one accepted without question the gifts of the gods.
    Her sovereigns were safe then, and the small quarterly allowance from her mother would also come into her own hands. The only question was whether she should tell Nigel about her gold hoard.
    First things first. Get married, get to Scotland and settled in her own house, and then make up her mind.
    She dismissed her conscience.
    Uncle Higham said Nigel’s decision to give up his commission was very sound. “Sheep will be the salvation of Scotland. Wool’s always in demand. Like wine, coal, and cotton [a few of the interests which supported his family in comfort in Brunswick Square]. The confounded Americans have lifted the embargo, and there’s a monstrous big market waiting.”
    Aunt Higham was briefly disappointed, having seen Jennie as a colonel’s lady, and good at it if only she could remember to keep her mouth shut. But Nigel came of the landed gentry, and even if the land happened to be in Scotland, she conceded that there were some very fine estates north of the Borders, and Edinburgh was a grand city, she had always understood.
    The children were more loudly disappointed, the girls because he would no longer wear a uniform and would not even be married in one. Derwent was furious and would hardly speak to him at first. Nigel won him with an invitation to come to Scotland and learn how to fish for a salmon. “I shall come and fetch you myself,” Nigel promised. “Just as soon as your arms and legs grow a little longer.”
    At intervals after that, Derwent, thinking himself unobserved, could be seen getting very red in the face, squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth, in an effort to grow .
    One night when Sophie came in to kiss Jennie good-night, she burst into tears, and Jennie rocked her in her arms as if she were still five.
    â€œDarling, it’s not the end of the world!”
    â€œBut it’s so far away!” Sophie wailed.
    â€œNo farther than Pippin Grange is from London. Well, not too much farther. You travel north instead of south, that’s all.”
    â€œBut it’s so wild up there! The Highlands are nothing like the Borders; they still have wolves and bears. The people don’t speak English, and they’re savage. They rose against the King!” She braced back, dark eyes staring to impress Jennie with this ultimate horror.
    â€œSome, not all, and it was sixty-three years ago this month,” said Jennie, “and you’ll recall that Papa told us the poor devils who thought they were fighting for the true King were so viciously slaughtered that even a good many Englishmen thought it was too much blood