Moorland Mist

by Gwen Kirkwood

  ‘Don’t think you’ll get away here to cast your big eyes at every man in trousers. You’re to go no further than the garden or you’ll find yourself back where you’ve come from, whatever Dick might say. Just because your father once helped us out of a bit of a scrape, he thinks he can use us how he pleases.’

  ‘I’m sure Dad doesn’t mean to use you,’ Emma protested. ‘He told me he would pay for my keep.’

  ‘Ugh, he told you that, did he? Well, don’t think that means you can sit there acting like a lady, doing nothing. I’ve enough to do without looking after the likes of you.’

  ‘I’m used to working if you tell me what you want me to do,’ Emma said firmly.

  It hadn’t taken long to discover her aunt was slovenly and lazy with no method to her housekeeping, and whatever anyone did to help she was never pleased. Emma remembered there had been a girl in her class at school like that and she had tried to bully everyone else. Davy had told her to stick up for herself and she would find the girl was all right underneath. He had been right. Emma was beginning to think Aunt Vera was a bully too but it was not so easy to stick up for herself when she was here in disgrace. She shared Milly’s bed in the same room as the boys, and each night she wept into her pillow when the children were asleep.

  One morning the postman brought a letter for her but Vera snatched it out of her hand before she could open it.

  ‘But it’s from Mother,’ Emma protested.

  ‘So you say, you little slut. I don’t trust you. I’ll see who it’s from.’ She was not the best of readers and the page was closely written so it seemed to Emma that it would take for ever. Vera looked up. ‘There’s no need to stand there gawping,’ she snapped. ‘Get that washing hung on the line. You can read this tonight when you’ve finished the day’s work.’

  Vera had a high-pitched screeching voice which carried through the open door. The postman heard her raging. He saw Emma carrying the big basket of washing down to the clothesline which ran alongside the wall of the long narrow garden. He paused out of sight of the house and gave a low whistle, beckoning Emma while keeping hidden by two gnarled apple trees.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Emma asked politely, brushing away her tears. She longed to read the letter from home.

  ‘Nae, lassie, I dinna need any help but you might be glad o’ mine if you’ve come to stay wi’ yon woman. I pass this way every day on my way to the farmhouse. Mistress Donnelly makes me a cup o’ tea, see, before I deliver the letters over the hill.’

  ‘I–I see,’ Emma said uncertainly. He was a man older than her father and he had a cheery, weather-beaten face. She couldn’t help responding to his grin with a faint smile.

  ‘If you write a letter, private like, put a stamp on and hide it beneath one o’ these stones on the corner.’ He poked at the wall. ‘See, here’s a nice big flat stone that would keep your letter dry. You hide it under there and I’ll take a look when I pass by.’

  ‘Th-thank you,’ Emma said, ‘thank you so much.’ She gave a huge sigh. ‘I-I’m afraid Aunt Vera doesn’t like me so …’

  ‘Eh lassie, yon woman doesna care for anybody, even her ain bairns, the poor wee diels.’

  This was true. Even the teacher in the village school remarked on the neat darn in Milly’s stocking and the patch on Bobby’s trousers.

  ‘Yes, Miss Yates,’ Milly said proudly. ‘Cousin Emma has come to live at our house. She darned my stockings and patched Bobby’s trousers.’

  ‘Did cousin Emma wash and brush your hair too?’ Miss Yates asked.

  ‘Aye, she did,’ Bobby said with disapproval. ‘She made us sit in the tin bath then she poured water over our heads. It was horrible.’

  ‘But you look clean and smart now, Bobby,’ Miss Yates said encouragingly. ‘You’re like the other children now. I’m sure you’ll be glad your cousin has come to stay.’

  ‘Well, she did make a lovely bowl o’ custard and a rhubarb pie,’ Bobby conceded.

  ‘Aye, and she made scones on a girdle. Our dad says they’re like what Granny Greig used to make but Mother says Emma is wicked ’cos she’s going to have a baby and she hasna got a husband,’ Milly said.

  ‘I–I see,’ Miss Yates said. ‘Well, I’m pleased your cousin is teaching you how to keep yourselves clean. Remember, “cleanliness is next to Godliness” and I like all my pupils to come to school with clean hands and faces and neatly brushed hair.’

  This was something the Greig children had never done and whatever her sins, Miss Yates considered the unknown cousin had brought a little bit of good into their lives.

  Unfortunately, the more praise Emma earned from Dick or the children, the more Vera vented her spleen on her. It was spite and jealousy which made her hide the letter until night. When she handed it over, her expression was ugly as she recalled her sister-in-law’s query to Emma.

  Dear Emmie,

  I do wish you could have stayed at home with me. Are you happy with Dick and Vera? Are they looking after you and feeding you well so you have a healthy baby?

  Please, Emma, you must tell me who the father is. If he is single your father will persuade him to marry you. If you can’t or will not tell us who he is, your father says the baby will have to go to the nuns so that you will be free to earn your living again.

  Emma gasped at that and began to whimper softly. It was the first time she had really considered the future with a baby. She clutched her stomach with both hands as though cradling the baby and protecting it. She would never let them take her baby away, never. She read the rest of the letter but her heart was heavy, even when her mother mentioned the knitting.

  I was going to send some wool to knit clothes for the bairn but it costs a penny halfpenny to post two ounces and another halfpenny for every extra two ounces so I’m knitting a wee set o’ clothes myself while your father is at work. I can’t bear the thought of my own grand bairn in the care of strangers, Emma. I pray you will tell us who the father is.

  The following evening, Emma asked her aunt if she might have a sheet of paper to reply to her mother’s letter.

  ‘A sheet of paper to write letters?’ Vera snapped. ‘D’ye think I’m made o’ money?’ In fact, Vera could only just manage to write her name and address so she had no desire to write any letters. She resented Emma’s request.

  ‘I’ll ask Mistress Donnelly if I can buy a sheet o’ writing paper for ye, lassie,’ Uncle Dick offered.

  Later, Emma heard the raised voices and harsh words which passed between him and her aunt after she had gone to bed, and she guessed the quarrel was because he had offered to help her. She fingered the little copying ink pencil which she always kept in the pocket of her dress. It had a silver-coloured tin cover to protect the point. Davy had given it to her the first Christmas she spent at Bonnybrae so that she could write their mother a letter in the middle of the month. The writing turned purple if the paper got damp and she had thought it was magic. Davy explained it had been invented twenty years earlier by putting a dye into the graphite which made the pencil lead. It was one of her greatest treasures.

  If only she had thought to bring a few sheets of paper and an envelope. She had been too shocked to think of anything after being sent home from Bonnybrae at a moment’s notice, then ushered away from her own home to be left in this wilderness with Aunt Vera. Her mother had told her to bring some money and to hide it under the mattress. She had brought four shillings and nine pence, and she would have welcomed the three mile walk to the village to buy her own writing paper but Aunt Vera never let her out of her sight.

  Uncle Dick did not bring the promised sheet of paper. Emma never knew whether Mrs Donnelly didn’t have any or whether he had changed his mind after the row with Vera. In desperation, she wrote up and down over her mother’s letter and hoped she would be able to read it. She put a line through her address on the envelope and wrote her mother’s address neatly in between, thankful the schoolmaster had insisted on neat handwriting when she was at school. She waited unti
l Aunt Vera was outside haranguing the paraffin man, who called once a month with oil for the lamps. He sold candles, pots, pans, clothes lines and pegs. She had found a small stub of sealing wax, so it was an easy matter to melt it with a match in her bedroom and seal the envelope.

  The following morning when she was hanging the washing, she put the letter under the stone with a three-penny piece. She used a piece of slate to scribble a message asking the postman to buy three penny stamps and stick one on her letter. She prayed he would understand. Rab Craig did understand. He showed his wife the letter.

  ‘I know the lassie has gotten herself in trouble and that’s a sin, but she doesn’t deserve to be in Mistress Greig’s clutches. I’ve never seen the door step washed and scoured before, nor the bairns bathed and their hair brushed. Every day she’s hanging out washing.’

  ‘Aye, Vera Greig has always been a lazy creature,’ his wife said. ‘So what are ye wanting me to do, Rab? I ken ye’ve some bee in your bonnet.’ Her eyes twinkled as she looked up at him.

  ‘She wants me to buy three penny stamps but I reckon she’ll need paper and envelopes to go with ’em. Can you spare any?’

  ‘I can. I wonder if the lassie can knit? She could borrow a pair of my fine needles and I’ve a skein o’ lemon-coloured wool left frae when I knitted the pram set for oor Maisie’s wee bairn.’

  ‘I’m sure she’d be glad o’ that. Miss Yates frae the school says she’s the neatest darner she’s ever seen and she patched young Bobby’s trousers, so I expect she can knit.’

  ‘I’ll make up a wee parcel and we’ll put the paper and envelopes and the two spare stamps inside, but ye’d best be sure to hand it into her ain hands. I dinna trust Vera Greig an inch.’

  It was Jim Sinclair who drove the milk over the hill road to the nearest station to catch the morning milk train into Glasgow. Beside him, William sat silently, watching the passing fields and wondering if he would see them again. People of his acquaintance didn’t travel much. They couldn’t afford it. Under any other circumstances he would have rejoiced at the opportunity to go all the way to Yorkshire on the train. Cousin Drew had sent a wire back to say he would meet the train at Wakefield station. That seemed to reassure his father but breakfast had been a swift and silent meal with Maggie unable to hold back her tears. She had cared for William a lot when he was young and their mother had been so frail.

  Together the brothers rolled the milk churns to the edge of the platform, then William seized his carpet bag from the cart and prepared to mount the train.

  ‘I’ll miss ye, Will,’ Jim said gruffly. For a moment William thought his brother was going to clasp him in a farewell hug and he was relieved when he settled for a hearty slap on his back. They were not a family who showed their emotions. Their mother had seen to that. ‘Have you got the sandwiches Maggie made for you?’

  ‘Aye, they’re in my bag. Tell her I’ll write as soon as I’m settled.’

  True to his word, Drew Kerr was waiting at the station when the train drew into Wakefield station. William was relieved to see a face he recognized. He had left behind everything that was familiar and he longed to know how Emmie was, and if she was happy in a strange place.

  ‘You’ll be tired and hungry after the journey,’ Drew said. ‘We need to move to the other station to catch the local train, but we could go into the Boy and Barrel for a pie if you like.’

  ‘There’s more than one station in the same town?’ William asked in surprise.

  ‘Aye. You’ll see the cattle pens for the market when we get there. They’ve opened another railway line across country to carry coal and steel to the mills and to the coast for export. They finished building the cathedral recently. Wakefield is a city now. Everything is growing fast. We’re in the midst of industrial development here but there’s a lot of good land if you can get it, but Annie gets homesick for the peace o’ the hills back home,’ he added gravely. ‘She’s killed the fatted calf to welcome you. We try to speak our best English since we moved here so she’ll enjoy hearing her own mother tongue again, and news of the folks we knew.’

  He gave a sideways grin. At thirty-eight, he was fourteen years older than William but he still had a boyish smile and twinkling blue eyes. He was not wearing a cap and his thick mop of fair hair gleamed in the sunlight.

  ‘You’re picking up a Yorkshire twang yourself,’ William remarked.

  ‘Och, hardly that! But the locals canna understand me if I talk in broad Scots. What’s more, you’ll have a problem understanding some o’ them when they talk broad Yorkshire. It’s like a foreign language when they get together. You wait until you hear Tom Wright, the blacksmith. I’ve left the pony and trap with him in Wilmore village.’

  ‘I can imagine what he’s like frae what I heard o’ the station-master,’ William said.

  They chatted comfortably with a carriage to themselves for most of the way as the train puffed its way from one small station to another. About six miles from Wakefield, they climbed down onto the platform at Wilmore and collected the pony and trap from the blacksmith a few hundred yards down the street.

  ‘So tha’s bringin’ another Scots lad to these parts, eh?’ the man said, eyeing William up and down. He stood feet apart, hands on hips as though planted there. He was not tall but his muscles bulged above his rolled up sleeves.

  ‘This is a young cousin of mine,’ Drew introduced them. ‘He’s here to visit but if you hear of any good farms coming to let, we might persuade him to come back and settle here, eh, William?’ He gave a teasing grin and a wink.

  ‘He should have been here afore Lady Day if he wanted a good farm. Tha’s over late, lad. It was the best farm in these parts.’

  ‘Oh?’ William blinked, remembering that Drew knew nothing yet of his situation, or that he was here to stay. ‘I would be interested to hear of any farms coming to let,’ he said cautiously, ‘but what’s this about Michaelmas and Lady Day?’

  ‘Och, they have some strange ways down here, William.’ Drew grinned and looked at Tom Wright. ‘We hold our hiring fairs at the end o’ May and end o’ November when the men and maids move to other places, and tenants take up their farms or give notice to the factor to quit.’

  ‘Well, tha’ll not change us, Drew Kerr. March an’ September are the rent days in these parts. Mind, there’s some landlords let at Whitsun. That’ll not be much different to your May term. Maybe it’s so they draw rent every quarter day.’

  ‘Sounds strange,’ William said.

  ‘Aye, this cousin of yours thinks we’re a queer lot but he’s getting used to us. We reckoned he had some peculiar ways when he first came but they seem to work for him, leastways he pays his bills on time and he’s not gone bankrupt yet, not like some folks near here.’

  ‘Are you meaning the folks from Manor Farm? I heard they’d given up but that son of his didna deserve the tenancy. He never got out of his bed in the morning,’ Drew said with disgust. ‘And he ran after women half the night from what I hear. I’d have put him out long since if he’d been my laddie,’ he added, turning to William.

  He grinned at Drew, knowing they had both been brought up by stern fathers who commanded respect.

  ‘Your bairn is halfway to being a farmer already, Drew, at least from what we read in Aunt Florrie’s letters. He’s not yet ten years old, is he?’

  ‘He’ll make a farmer, I dinna doubt,’ Drew smiled proudly. ‘He milks his own cow night and morning, and he has a pig and a calf to rear.’

  ‘Aye, he’s a grand lad,’ Tom Wright agreed. ‘The way he handles them Clydesdales when he brings them to be shod, the lad puts many a man to shame.’

  ‘Well, it’s time we made for home or Annie will think we’re lost,’ Drew decided. Once they were in the trap and out of the village, he grinned at William. ‘It’s just the same as back home. You need to keep the right side o’ the blacksmith. They know everything that’s going on and they hear all the gossip. They can do ye many a good turn, or a bad one if ye get the
wrong side.’

  ‘Aye, so I should imagine,’ William said. He swallowed hard. ‘I should tell you why I’m here before I see Annie. You can explain my situation to her later.’

  ‘Oh? Sounds serious,’ Drew said, his eyebrows raised. ‘Quarrelled with Uncle James, have ye? He always worried that ye wanted to spread your wings before the feathers had grown, I remember.’

  ‘You could say that, I suppose,’ William said. ‘But I’m twenty-four now. I’m here to look for a farm of my own to rent. I hadna reckoned on waiting until September, though, but if that’s the way things are done, I shall need to find work and have a look around the area until then.’

  ‘You’re serious?’ Drew’s eyes widened. ‘Is this with, or without, Uncle James’s blessing?’

  ‘I expect Mother will be writing to tell your mother all her troubles so you’ll hear about things soon enough.’ William said with faint bitterness. ‘I’ve upset her badly so Father is more displeased. I need to get married. Emmie was a maid at Bonnybrae …’

  ‘Whew,’ Drew whistled. ‘That certainly will not be suiting Aunt Mary and her friends frae the kirk. You were playing a bit near home, though, weren’t ye?’ He glanced at William’s brooding expression. ‘What’s she like, the lassie?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with Emmie except she was my mother’s maid,’ William said bitterly. ‘She’s seventeen, sweet-natured, innocent, pretty. She’s from a decent family and she’s a grand worker. It will make it easier for her when she arrives down here if folks think we’re married already, though. The bairn will be born in June.’