Crucible by S. G. MacLean Page A

head.
    ‘Hugh was a stonemason, a master of his craft. He was a good deal older than me – he had been my mother’s first child, I her last. When Richard, my husband, was in Germany pursuing his medical studies, Hugh took me in. I managed his house and he took care of me. He found work aplenty here, and brought other masons to work with him. When Richard at last returned from the continent, Hugh allowed us to live here together. When he died, he left me this house. The men he worked with went their own way, and I lease the yard out to one of his old apprentices, a master now himself, for a reasonable rent.’
    I could not see how any of this touched on the fate of Robert Sim, and my impatience must have shown on my face.
    ‘I am coming to the matter now,’ she said. ‘We lease out the yard, but the lodging house the workers stayed in when they were not engaged on projects out in the country is there.’ She pointed to a squat stone building at the far end of her own garden, near the kirkyard wall. ‘My husband is often called out at night, or away for a few days, to see to patients. I did not wish to have a group of men living so close. A little over six months ago, I decided we should clear out the lodging house and lease it to some family, or a young married couple. Richard saw to the clearing, with the help of a friend …’ Here she hesitated.
    ‘A friend? Who? Robert?’
    She looked away from me. ‘Not Robert. I cannot tell you his name. But he came, and he helped. Some of what they cleared from the place – a few tools, some materials – was sold to other craftsmen in the town. But they found something in there – I don’t know what – that made them stop in their work. I wanted to go in and sweep the place out, for it had not been swept or cleaned since my brother died, but my husband would not let me – he said he would do it. And indeed, for the next few evenings, he and his friend worked at the place with brooms and buckets, and had candles burning and a fire in the hearth at night. It was shortly after that that Robert first came. I was out, fetching coals, when he came through the gate. Richard was nothere and had not warned me to expect anyone, and I was so frightened to see a man just come through the gate like that, I dropped the coals. Robert insisted on gathering them all up and taking them into the house for me.’
    ‘And that was the beginning.’
    ‘If you like,’ she said.
    How far could I probe into those moments, those small incidents that can take two people from acquaintance, to the first awareness of desire, to love? Robert had not chosen to confide in me about Rachel Middleton, and those remembered moments were all that she had left. I would leave them to her. But then, a possibility entered my mind.
    ‘You were going to come to me for help. Is it that … are you with child, Robert’s child?’
    ‘What? No, no.’ She shook her head, emphatic. ‘It is not that at all. It is just that – we have few friends in the burgh; our own doing, our own choice.’
    It was a strange admission, but I had not the inclination to pursue her on it. ‘But your husband’s practice does well, does it not? He attends to several patrons of wealth and growing influence in the town.’
    ‘Oh, yes. But none of them would endanger their own position to help us, should danger come.’
    ‘What danger are you talking about? Do you believe your husband found out about your adultery with Robert? That he murdered Robert Sim?’
    ‘No,’ she said, angry, determined. ‘No!’ Her eyes hadfilled with tears. ‘Before now, I feared only malice, and that I have faced before and faced down before. But now, after Robert, I do not know. I fear for my husband; we have no one to turn to and no one who will speak for us. Robert always said you were a good man. And that you had courage.’
    I could not understand her, and she did not seem to understand why it was that I could not. ‘I fear Robert spoke too well