‘Marietta’s dead, probably murdered, though they’re not going to do anything about that,’ Tim said savagely. ‘Her body was found on the hill. She’d been there for a long time – about three months.’
Mrs Rush was shocked but not too surprised. ‘I thought something terrible had happened to her. She was so good about coming to see her bairns. They’ve been worried about her, especially the wee boy. The wee girl’s a bit too young to worry for long. Oh, what’ll I tell them?’
‘You’ll have to tell them the truth,’ whispered Hannah.
Mrs Rush looked doubtful. ‘I’ll tell them she’s dead, but not how it happened. They needn’t know anything about that. I’ll say she died of a fever.’
‘What’s going to happen to them now?’ asked Tim.
‘She left me a good bit of money,’ Mrs Rush said quietly.
Hannah remembered the two fair heads side by side at the deal table and tears rushed to her eyes. ‘I hope they’re not separated. We’ll help you – we’ll give you money if you need more.’
But Nanny Rush shook her head. ‘By the looks of you, you’ll be having a bairn of your own to care for soon. We’re all right just now. We’ll manage fine. I’m not poor – I’ve got the school and they’re good bairns. I’ll not give them up, don’t worry. They’ll not end in the Poor’s House or an orphanage if I can help it.’
Mariotta’s broken body, wrapped in a shroud, was buried next day in the pauper’s communal grave by the Abbey wall. Tim was working but Hannah went and stood beside the only other mourners, Mrs Rush and the two weeping children. When the earth was thrown in on top of their mother, she knelt on the grass and gathered them in her arms, ‘Your Mother’s in heaven now,’ she said, swallowing back her own tears. ‘She’s watching you from up in the sky. She doesn’t want you to be too sad for her.’
‘Oh, but I miss her, I miss her,’ sobbed the poor little boy and his younger sister, frightened, put her face against his shoulder and wept too. When Hannah left them in Mrs Rush’s cosy parlour, she walked back to the camp with many different emotions fighting inside her – grief and anger and confusion among them. She kept hearing Bullhead’s jeering voice: ‘Does your lassie know what went on between you and Mariotta?’ Was she feeling jealousy? If she was, she must put it out of her mind. But she was also feeling terrible pity for Mariotta, and for her children. Along with that pity she felt anger at whoever had killed her for, like Tim, she knew that Mariotta had been murdered. And worst of all, she felt remorse. ‘Why didn’t I open my door that night? Why was I so scared?’ she asked herself over and over again, because now she was certain that Mariotta had lain on the step, scratching with her fingernails at the door she had painted with flowers, imploring to be let in and kept safe from a terrible death.
The news that a woman’s body had been found on the hill, and that she was one of the inhabitants of the navvy camp – a prostitute, even, said the rumours – swept the district and was discussed with shocked horror in farmhouses, cottages and mansions alike. For some time a few of the local wealthy ladies had operated charitable schemes for the more miserable navvy families, and Marietta’s murder accelerated their kindly impulses. Appalled by the hopelessness and brutality of the lives of some of the people inhabiting the camp, they decided to form an evangelising committee to bring love and Christianity to the navvies.
Mrs Maria Anstruther, ever generous in her donations to good causes, was asked to be on the committee – an honour she eagerly accepted because it meant that her family was at last accepted into the inner circle of Border society. Realising that she would need all the help she could get, if she was not actually to exert herself, she struck up a sort of armed alliance with Bethya… ‘You help me and I’ll help you,’ was the hidden message. If Bethya assisted her mother-in-law on the committee, Mrs Anstruther would see to it that her son’s wife was launched into good society. It was an offer that the younger woman could not afford to refuse and they both knew it, for Bethya’s dreams of finding a man to take her away from Gus and Bella Vista would never come true until she moved in a wider circle. Her mother-in-law was well aware of her ambitions and by now silently concurred with them. Anything that might remove Bethya from her life, she would foster.
So they sank their differences; dressed in their most glorious gowns they held fund-raising tea parties for charity. Their hospitality was so lavish and their house so magnificent that invitations to these parties were the most sought-after in the district. Word of them eventually reached the ear of the old Duchess. Intrigued, and slightly annoyed that someone was usurping her position as chief mover in such affairs, she summoned the Anstruthers and their fellow committee members to Greylock Palace for tea.
When Francine heard about the Duchess’ invitation, she clasped her hands together in excitement. ‘This is the beginning! How wonderful. What will you wear?’
Bethya glittered with anticipation. ‘My green silk – with a bonnet. It’s an all-woman affair and I must look elegant, but not too fashionable or dashing.’ She was already establishing a local reputation as a leader of fashion, and other women waited to see what she ordered from London for each season before instructing their seamstresses to copy it. She made friends by being generous in lending patterns and fashion magazines which were sent to her from Paris and, most of all, by not minding when other ladies turned out in blatant copies of her own clothes.
The old Duchess was indifferent to fashion, however. She still wore the elaborately ruffled, beribboned and tightly corseted satin dresses that had been in fashion when she was a bride. She even stuck a black beauty spot in the shape of a sickle moon on her cheek if she was trying to be very smart. Bethya’s magnificence was therefore wasted on her, but anyway she was not concerned with costume. There were more important things on her mind as she rose to address her guests in the long drawing room overlooking the loch that gave her home its name.
‘I expect you’ve all heard about the body of that poor woman being found on our hill,’ she began. The Three Sisters were almost part of her garden as far as she was concerned. A murmur of voices told her that they had: ‘Dreadful, shocking, horrific sight, I believe,’ they said.
‘Of course I was against bringing navvies into this part of the world from the beginning, but they are here now and we must do our best to help them. They’re drunken and godless so it’s up to people who have been more carefully nurtured to try to save those who are prepared to listen.’
Her audience stared at her, wondering what remedy she was about to suggest to cure the navvies’ social ills. Bethya, who had seen poverty in India that made the navvy conditions seem salubrious, was suddenly struck by the contrast between the Duchess’ glorious sitting room and the turf-roofed huts in the field outside Rosewell. Greyloch Palace’s drawing room made the salon in Bella Vista seem vulgarly opulent because its style was that of well-tended antiquity. The furniture gleamed with a silken patina of age; the walls were covered with family portraits going back three centuries; the silk of the French hangings was worn so thin that they were almost transparent but they hung beside paintings worth a king’s ransom.
The Duchess was well-launched into her speech. ‘I have had a number of texts printed and the younger women among us must take over the task of distributing those among the navvies and their families. When they do this, they must also invite these people to a soiree in the Rosewell Town Hall, where the Parish Church Minister will preach to them and try to point out the error of their ways. I don’t expect we’ll save many of them, but at least we’ll be able to give them a good meal – and many of those women and children look as if they could do with it.’
Bethya warmed to the imperious old woman then; the Duchess was no fool. Behind her there was a rustle and servants began passing among the guests, handing out sheets of paper. One was put into her hand and she saw that it contained several quotations from the Bible and a homily about leading good, clean, Christian lives. At the bottom of the sheet was an invitation
to the soiree in Rosewell Town Hall in two weeks’ time.
When every woman had been given her paper, the Duchess rallied her troops. ‘Now each of you must take twenty of these and pass them out among the navvies and their people. Make sure they get into the right hands. Don’t leave the work to your servants because they’ll probably just stick the sheets under a hedge. Pass them out yourselves.’ She spoke with the authority of one who had never had an order questioned or disobeyed, and her audience dutifully folded up the papers and put them into bags or reticules, though from their expressions it was possible to tell that many hearts sank at the task which had been laid on them.
Normally when they were forced to go out together, Bethya and her mother-in-law travelled in stony silence, but the Duchess’ tea party overcame Mrs Anstruther’s habitual taciturnity and as soon as she was in their carriage, she burst out, ‘What nonsense! What good does she think that’s going to do? They’ll never read those texts. I’ve seen her sort going around preaching to the Indians. They just eat the free rice and then go back to worshipping their own foul idols again.’
Bethya enjoyed needling Gus’ mother so she said innocently, ‘But we’ll be spreading the word of God. It won’t fall on stony ground, I’m sure. I think the Duchess is quite right: these poor people need to be told that they’ve been living the wrong way and there’s another road they can take.’
Mrs Anstruther shot a glance of suspicion at the bright young face beside her but Bethya only widened her eyes to make them look more innocent. ‘Humph,’ she snorted. ‘I doubt if it’ll work, but we have to do what she wants or we won’t be asked back. You can take my texts with yours and spread them around. I’m too old for that sort of thing.’
* * *
When an open carriage full of smartly dressed women stopped on the road under the towering embankment, the navvies labouring on top of the earthen mound all stopped work, leaned on their spades and started cheering. Not for them the diffident attitude of most working men towards the employing classes.
Mrs Stewart, the wife of the Rosewell doctor, who had been roped in by Bethya to help distribute the texts, went pale.
‘Why don’t we just leave them here by the side of the road and tell the men to pick up one each when they finish work?’ she pleaded, brandishing her bundle of paper.
Bethya fixed her with a scathing eye. ‘The Duchess was most emphatic that each text should find its way into a navvy’s hand,’ she said uncompromisingly.
‘The Duchess doesn’t have to do it though, does she?’ groaned Mrs Stewart, and the other two ladies in the carriage made agreeing noises. They didn’t want to get out and walk the gauntlet of cheering navvies either.
‘You are being silly,’ said Bethya, standing up from her seat, adjusting her bonnet and waiting for the liveried coachman to open the door for her. When he did, she stepped to the ground with an air of royalty. The navvies’ cheers grew in volume. She was sorely tempted to sweep them a curtsey but knew that would cause great scandal to the respectable Rosewell ladies whom she had dragooned into helping her.
‘What a good thing the Duchess has chosen to do this during the fine weather,’ she thought to herself as she proceeded in stately fashion down a stony path towards a group of men working around a rising pillar of stone. She opened her cream-coloured silk parasol as she went and twirled it gently behind her head. In the bag that swung from her wrist she carried a sheaf of texts. The men stopped what they were doing and stared. As she drew closer she saw that one of them was the man who had been with the crazy young fellow who had tried to attack Francine in the grounds of Bella Vista. ‘Thank heavens he’s not in the working party at least,’ she thought. The memory of his crazy attack made her step falter slightly but she gathered her courage and went on.
The tall blond man she recognised stepped forward with a smile on his face. ‘Good day, mum. Is there someone special you’ll be louking for?’ he said in a strange countrified accent. She frowned. Surely he hadn’t talked like that before? She seemed to remember he had sounded quite civilised.
‘I’m a member of the Rosewell and District Ladies’ Temperance Society,’ she said with her most fetching smile. That was what the Duchess had decided they should call themselves. ‘Temperance in all things,’ she’d said when deciding on the title.
The navvy raised his eyebrows almost to his hairline. Was she imagining it, or did his hooded eyes glitter with malice? But she must be wrong for he was smiling very sweetly as he asked, ‘What did you say the name woz?’ in an even thicker accent.
She flushed. ‘The Rosewell and District Ladies’ Temperance Society.’ This time her tone was slightly sharper. ‘I’ve brought you some texts and an invitation to a temperance soiree in the Corn Exchange next Sunday evening.’
She thrust a couple of sheets of paper at him and he seemed to be overcome with gratitude. ‘Oh dear lady, how kind of you. Give me some more and I’ll take ’em to me friends.’ Then he turned his head and cried out, ‘Here lads, this lady’s come to invite you to a temperature party.’
‘Temperance, a temperance party,’ she interrupted, and he beamed brightly back at her.
‘Oh, of course, a temperance party. It’s just that I’m ignorant, so I am. Thank you, mum. We’ll be there.’
She thrust the rest of her bundle of paper at him and, scarlet-cheeked, hurried back to the carriage. She knew very well that he’d been making a game of her and she was furious but did not want to show it.
Mrs Stewart, cool under a green parasol, leaned forward and asked, ‘What happened? We saw you talking to that tall one in the white shirt. Did you give him the texts? You’re very brave, my dear.’
Bethya leaned back and smiled. ‘Of course I gave him the texts, and he said that he and his friends will certainly attend the soiree. Now let’s go back to Bella Vista for tea. I’ve done enough for one day.’
Texts and invitations were distributed in the camp as well and put to various uses by the people into whose hands they were pressed. Hannah was given one by an earnest lady in black as she stepped out of the gate one day on her way to visit her mother. When she returned home to Benjy’s that night, she found it in her pocket, smoothed it out and put it on the shelf beside the ornamental china. Tim came in later, saw it, picked it up and said, ‘Sydney’s been passing these out. He’s keen on the idea of us all going to the soiree. He’s up to some devilry, I think.’
Hannah liked Sydney but she commented, ‘Oh, he shouldn’t do that. They’re only trying to help after all.’
Tim glared at her. He hated the idea of being an object of charity. Memories of the time when his mother was dying in Ireland after they lost the farm were too painful. He knew what it was like to be dirt-poor and hopeless. Then they’d needed charity and, though he was only a child, he’d sworn to himself that he’d never need it again. ‘They can keep their damned help,’ he said hotly. ‘I’m not going and neither are you, Hannah. We’re decent-living people. I earn good money by the sweat of my brow and I don’t need the likes of them telling me how to behave!’
Hannah was tired and irritable. It had been a very warm, humid day, her back ached in a funny way and though she could not admit it to herself, the memory of Bullhead’s jibe about Tim and Mariotta still rankled. ‘You’re always the best, aren’t you, always perfect,’ she stormed. ‘You don’t think they might be acting out of kindness. You might not need charity and help but there’s plenty of others in this camp that do. I think it’s kind of them to bother.’
He was tired too. His eyes were flashing as he turned on her. ‘You’re not going, Hannah. You’re not to go to be looked down on by them.’
She flounced across the floor, or as near flounced as she was able to in her condition. ‘I’ll go if I want to. My Mam and I always used to go to the Ladies’ Church soirees at Christmas for the widows and orphans of the two parishes. This isn’t any different.’
Furious, he shook her arm. ‘Don’t go, Hannah. Don’t dare to go.’
>
‘And what would you do? Hit me – like Bullhead hit Mariotta? You surely wouldn’t do that. You worried about her enough.’ Then, appalled at what she had said, she stopped and stared at him.
He dropped her arm and turned for the door. ‘I’m going to see Sydney,’ he said, and left the house. When he came back an hour later she smelt beer on his breath. Neither of them mentioned what had happened and were scrupulously polite to each other for the next few days until the memory of their first fight began to fade.
* * *
When Sunday came neither of them mentioned the soiree. Hannah had been subdued all day and at about three o’clock she rose from her chair with a sigh and said to Tim, ‘I think I’ll go and lie down in bed for a little while. My back aches.’
He lowered the newspaper that he had been studiously reading in an attempt to make her believe that he’d completely forgotten about the soiree. ‘I’ll rub it for you,’ he offered, and she smiled her old smile at him.
‘You would too, wouldn’t you?’ she said, then sighed, ‘But we can’t make love any more. Is that why we’ve been arguing? I feel so heavy and ugly. Will I ever be pretty again?’
He stood up and hugged her. ‘You’re beautiful. I’ve never seen you look so beautiful. I love to see you like that with your round little belly sticking out in front. I feel I ought to be down on my knees worshipping you. Don’t worry, you’ll be back to your old self soon and then you won’t be able to stop me getting into bed with you, morning, noon and night just like it used to be.’
She laughed and laid her head on his chest. ‘Ah, that’ll be lovely,’ she whispered.
They were standing like that when the door opened to admit Sydney and Naughten, both dressed in their best with their hair plastered down. Sydney was sporting a scarlet neckerchief instead of his usual white stock and Tim cocked an eye at it. ‘Going out in navvy gear, are you? What about the well-tried stock, then?’
A Bridge in Time Page 31
