Page 42 of A Scot in the Storm
“There now. Ye’ll learn.”
Abigail nodded weakly.
“Tell me, lass.” Mistress Haldane folded her hands in her lap. “Who was yer minister, in the town ye canna quite remember?”
There it was. Not the fish. The fish had only softened the ground first.
Abigail’s fingers tightened around her teacup.
“I cannot bring his name.” She kept her eyes lowered. “I remember a church. Plain windows. Black coat. Wooden pews. But not the parish.”
Mistress Haldane smiled exactly as before.
“The Lord minds what we forget.”
The kitchen seemed suddenly warmer and colder at the same time.
“Yer mother, then. Where is she laid?”
“America.” Abigail answered plainly, the way Rory had taught her to answer dangerous things. “West of where we sailed from.”
“Nae husband or family. Nae parish. Nae minister.” Mistress Haldane’s voice remained gentle. “And a long road between Scotland and America.”
She wasn’t being cruel. That was the frightening part. She was simply measuring the holes in Abigail’s story one by one.
“Well,” she said finally, “many a woman has started fresh at the kirk door. Ye’ll be welcome there.”
“Thank you.”
“Keep the loaf and milk. Margaret will show ye how to salt the herrings.”
Then she rose and departed with the quiet decisive grace of a woman who never slammed doors because she never needed to.
Silence settled over the kitchen after she left. Mrs. Gable broke it first.
“Ye’ve a day. Maybe two.”
“Until what?”
“Until Isobel’s brother sends letters to every harbor master between Aberdeen and Leith asking after a missing American passenger.”
“Cathcart.”
“Aye.” Mrs. Gable scraped the pot thoughtfully. “And ye’ll want the Captain to hear what was said here before the magistrate hears it elsewhere.”
Abigail looked down at the blood seeping through the linen wrapped around her thumb.
“Mrs. Gable?”
“Aye?”
“I’d like to learn the herring properly.”
At that, Mrs. Gable actually laughed.
“Aye, lass. Come here then.”
The rest of the day continued its personal war against her dignity.
