With an abrupt movement Phemie jumped down from the wall and walked off, but before she disappeared among the orchard trees she turned her head, face anguished, and called back to Aylie, ‘I was right. You don’t understand. I knew you wouldn’t understand.’
* * *
The first day of August, the day of the big Lammas Fair at Melrose, was one of the few holidays farm workers got in the year. Aylie was up at first light, hanging out of the attic window and watching wreaths of mist rising up from the bed of the burn.
‘It’s going to be fine, it’s going to be a hot day,’ she cried in delight, but the other two occupants of the maids’ room only groaned.
‘Keep quiet, you,’ grunted the cook. ‘We don’t have to get up for another hour. You’ll waken them with your din.’
Aylie went over to Phemie and shook her gently by the shoulder. ‘Get up, Phemie. Let’s get all our jobs done early and then you can come with me to the fair. I’m meeting my mother there.’
She did not add that she was also hoping to meet Hugh, whom she had not seen since the night in the schoolroom. Sometimes, if she woke early in the morning, she lay in bed and luxuriated in the memory of what it felt like to ride with her arms round his waist and her face pressed against his back. She shuddered in ecstasy at the memory, going over and over every second of their ride together.
‘I don’t want to go to the fair,’ said Phemie. ‘As soon as I’ve done my work, I’m coming back to bed. I don’t feel very well.’
‘But you can’t miss the fair!’
Lammas Fair days were the highlights of Aylie’s life. She loved the crowds and the noise, the side shows and the rings of carefully groomed animals that were hung over by vying farmers and shepherds. She loved to seepeddlers displaying their wares, the men trotting out horses for sale and the gypsies telling fortunes.
‘I’m not going.’ Phemie sounded determined.
It struck Aylie that she was afraid she might meet her father at the fair. He would almost certainly be there. So she knelt down at Phemie’s side of the bed and whispered into her ear, ‘I’ll stay with you all day, nobody’ll get near you. I promise I’ll not leave you for a minute.’
But Phemie turned her face into the pillow and though her voice came back muffled, it was even more determined. ‘I’m not going to the Fair and that’s that.’
* * *
Jane was waiting for her daughter in Melrose square and they embraced affectionately.
‘You’re getting so tall,’ said the mother, holding the girl away from her and admiring the new print dress and the way she had coiled up her abundant hair. Her own hair was still thick but its brilliance was fading, like the draining of colour from autumn leaves.
Aylie took her mother’s gloved hands in hers and held them palm up. ‘Oh, Mam, you’re still wearing those pokies even on a hot day like this. Are the hands still giving you pain?’
‘A bit, but today they’re fine. They’re always not so bad when it’s warm. I wear the pokies because I think they look so ugly, so red and swollen. I used to have such nice hands.’
‘Bondagers don’t have nice hands for long,’ said Aylie sadly, and threw her arms round her mother’s neck to give her another kiss.
Together they climbed the steep road to where the fair spread out over the slope of the nearest Eildon. There were hundreds of people milling around and many of them knew Jane, stopping to speak to her or touching their hats with respect when she passed. She was a Cannon, the daughter of Alice Armstrong, and now honoured also in her own right as a successful healer and a skilled midwife. As always Aylie felt proud to be walking with her stately mother through the throng.
They stopped at a stall where men were throwing balls at a battered line of cut-out heads, but when Jane realized that the heads with their cockaded hats were meant to represent Frenchmen she turned away her face. They paused beside peddlers who had spread their wares out on the grass, and Jane bought a length of lace while Aylie tried to make up her mind between a piece of printed cotton that would make a good headcloth or a bundle of multi-coloured ribbons out of which she could make a favour.
In the end she opted for the ribbons and, purchases completed, mother and daughter climbed on up the hill. At one tent the same loud-voiced man who had busked at Earlston was trying to attract people in to look at a pair of dead Siamese twins, and Aylie and Jane shuddered, agreeing that was something they did not want to see. They did pay a few pennies however to go into the big marquee where the gardeners from the big houses round about were displaying their best produce, especially flowers in huge bunches that filled the hot air under the canvas with heavenly scents. The smell of cloves from carnations and musk from roses filled their nostrils as they exclaimed in wonder over the bouquets and the size of the mammoth vegetables. It had been a good growing summer and, if the rain held off, promised to be another successful harvest.
They were almost ready to sit down and spread out the food Jane had brought on the grass when they saw the old tailor, Phemie’s father, in the distance. He was heading towards them and Jane paused to speak to him but Aylie hung back, sullen faced.
When he went on his way, her mother said, ‘Why were you so rude to him? He’s the father of that girl you work with and you’ve known him all your life.’
Aylie looked at her mother. Could she risk telling her?
‘Mam, he’s not as good a man as everybody thinks.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, his daughter talked to me about her father the other day and – he’s not as good as he seems, that’s all.’
Jane had keen eyes and now she fixed them on her daughter. ‘What did she tell you?’
‘She said he sleeps with her. That he’s slept with her since she was seven years old.’ They were whispering now, leaning towards each other as they sat on the grass.
The news, as Aylie had expected, astonished and repelled her mother, but to her relief she saw that Jane was not disbelieving.
A look of infinite pity came on to Jane’s face as she said, ‘Oh, poor lassie, what a terrible thing. I’d never have guessed it.’
‘She won’t tell anyone,’ offered Aylie.
‘Just as well. She’d stir up a hornet’s nest for herself and for him if she did,’ was the reply. ‘Oh, poor lassie, poor, poor lassie. But she’s well away from him now, isn’t she? She doesn’t go home, does she?’
Aylie shook her head. ‘Never. She hasn’t been home for years, she never leaves Myreheugh. I wanted her to come with me today but she refused. I can understand why, I suppose – she knew he’d be here. She hates him.’
The mother and daughter sat in silence staring at the happy crowd around them. Little children ran from group to group, dogs barked, men shouted, buskers incited the crowd to spend money. Farther up the hill a dentist was pulling teeth on top of an open waggon. They could see people climbing into the chair he had tied down to the waggon floor and opening their mouths for his terrible pincers. The pain of their toothache must have been truly terrible to suffer his ministrations to get rid of it, Aylie thought.
Then she saw Hugh, coming through the crowd towards her and flaunting a girl on his arm. He was wearing his coat with the shining buttons and a pair of tight white buckskin trousers, and as usual she thought he looked magnificent. The girl who clung to him was a bold-eyed, full-lipped hussy with a ribboned straw hat on the back of her head and a very low-necked dress. She was laughing loudly and looked drunk.
As soon as she saw Hugh, Aylie swiftly turned her head away, but he had been seeking her out and came over to stand beside them with a broad smile on his face. It was obvious he’d been drinking too. Bending down, he struck out a hand in greeting to her mother.
‘You’re Aylie’s mam,’ he said. ‘Do you remember me? I’m Gilbert Kennedy’s son.’
Jane took his hand gingerly. ‘Where’s your father now? Has he a good place?’
‘Oh, aye, it’s a grand place with a gentleman near Yetho
lm.’
‘That’s where you come from, isn’t it?’ Jane said.
He nodded, with a grin, saying, ‘Yes, all the gypsies come from Yetholm. That’s our native place.’
Then he turned to Aylie and asked, ‘Are you enjoying yourself, my wee wildcat?’
At this the girl on his arm pouted and pressed herself against him so that he turned and gave her a quick kiss. When the couple wandered off into the crowd, Jane looked at her daughter’s face and, with a pang, saw the pain there.
‘He’s a real gypsy that one,’ she said soothingly. ‘They’re not to be trusted, the gypsies.’
Aylie could not understand him. Why had he deliberately come to flaunt the girl in front of her? Why had he sought her out? It was almost as if he were playing some game, either with her or himself. He was so strange. One moment he was a womanizing ruffian whom she thoroughly disliked, and the next a man she would follow to the ends of the earth. She could not understand it and her heart felt heavy with the pain of trying to work it out.
* * *
During the harvesting Aylie fell into her bed every night, too exhausted even to rub her sore legs and arms with the harvesters’ embrocation her mother had made up for her from a mixture of vinegar, turpentine, powdered camphor and egg. Sleep overtook her as soon as her head touched the pillow and she was startled into wakefulness each morning by the sound of the foreman’s shouts breaking into her sleep. She was even too tired to dream about Hugh.
On the fifth morning of the harvest she felt so stiff that she could hardly rise. It was still dark when she staggered towards the door but in the dim light she saw the figure of Phemie curled up in bed with her knees drawn up towards her chin. There was an expression of pain on the girl’s face and the greyness of her cheek against the yellowed pillow cover startled Aylie.
Phemie turned her head and whispered, ‘I wish you could stay with me today.’
Aylie paused, one hand raised to the hat which she was tying on her head.
T wish I could, but I can’t. I’ve got to be in the field before six. But I’ll try to come back and see you at break time.’
Phemie did not answer but turned her head away again.
Soon afterwards the cook got up, swearing and stumbling around as she dressed herself.
‘Don’t leave me, Mrs Mather,’ whispered Phemie. ‘I’m not well.’
The old woman looked malevolently towards the girl. ‘You’re never well! What’s wrong with you now? You’d better stir yourself or Missus’ll be up here with a stick for your back.’
Phemie’s voice was feeble. ‘I’m sick. Really sick. Please tell Missus that I can’t get up.’
The cook recoiled in fear. ‘What’s wrong? Is it a fever?’
The girl’s head shook slightly. ‘I don’t know. I’m ill. My stomach hurts. Please stay with me, don’t leave me, please don’t leave me.’
She reached out one white arm towards the old woman but the cook stood back from her, refusing to touch her, fearing contagion. Then she slammed out of the room, leaving the sick girl alone.
When she complained to the mistress in the kitchen that Phemie was ill and could not leave her bed, the reaction, as she had expected, was fury.
‘That girl’s useless. We need all the help we can get at harvest time! I don’t know why the master keeps her on. She’s a lazy, idle slut. You go up and tell her to get up and come down here this instant.’
When the cook returned to the bedroom Phemie was lying, eyes wide open and face distorted with pain. Even a woman as unsympathetic as she knew that something was very far wrong with the girl.
‘She’s really sick, I think, Madam,’ she told her employer back in the kitchen. ‘Perhaps we ought to fetch a doctor.’
The mistress was parsimonious and she saw no need to waste money on a maid. ‘Nonsense, there’s no need to go to that expense. If she’s ill we’ll leave her for a few hours and then you can take a look at her again.’
The next time the cook went upstairs Phemie was crying. When she saw the figure standing in the doorway she reached out with both arms and cried, ‘Oh stay with me, please don’t leave me, stay with me.’
But the cook banged the door shut and cried out, ‘I can’t stay with you. I’ve got work to do.’
Because she had promised Phemie that she would come back to see her during the day, Aylie ran into the farmhouse at twelve o’clock but was told by the cook that she was not to go upstairs.
‘Phemie’s asleep, don’t disturb her. If you try to go up there, I’ll report you to the mistress,’ she ordered.
Feeling uneasy, the girl went back to the fields and in the house, the grumbling cook was preparing the supper alone when there was a piercing scream from the room above her head. She was stood stock still in front of her cooking range, wondering what to do, when Phemie came rushing down the rickety ladder. Her face was wild and her nightgown was covered with bloodstains. Without speaking to the cook she rushed over to the dresser where she seized a carving knife from the rack and ran back up the little ladder again.
Her eyes rolling in terror, the cook stood aghast, unable to speak, and as soon as Phemie disappeared she ran into the main part of the house to fetch the mistress. Together, very tentatively, the women climbed the stair to the bedroom. Everything was very quiet up there now and they popped their heads carefully through the door to see Phemie lying amid tumbled covers on the blood-marked bed, her arms and legs outstretched and eyes staring at the ceiling.
‘My God, I think she’s had a bairn,’ whispered the cook in horror.
The mistress, tight-lipped, advanced towards the bed and lifted the bloodstained knife from where it lay on the floor.
‘What have you done with it?’ she asked the girl, but there was no reply. Phemie just kept on staring upwards. The woman was even more abrupt the second time she asked. Leaning down, she shook the girl’s arm. ‘Tell me what you’ve done with it? Where is it, you little whore?’
Phemie seemed to be stricken dumb. Her eyes never left the ceiling and her arms hung limp at the sides of the bed. Tears ran down her cheeks though there was no sound of sobbing.
The mistress told the cook, ‘Here, take the knife. We’ve got to find it. She’s had a baby all right.’
Together they went round the little room, throwing back bedding, turning out the only cupboard and throwing out the clothes that were folded up on the shelves – but to no avail. Then the cook knelt down and lifted up the drooping bedcovers to look under the bed. She stayed stooped for a moment and then she stood up, her face more grim. ‘It’s down there, Missus, and I think it’s dead.’
The mistress bent down too and stared beneath the bed. When she stood up she told the cook, ‘Fetch my husband. Tell him to go for a constable. She’s cut its throat.’
* * *
Aylie was on the top of a corn rick, building up the sheaves that the other women tossed up to her, when she saw a trap coming spanking up the lane with two men in it. Less than an hour later it left again and what looked like a body was lying on the floor of the trap between the men.
It was dark by the time she got back to the farmhouse where the cook was excitedly waiting for her, breath heavy with whisky and face flushed because she had rich gossip to impart.
‘Oh my, have you heard the news? Phemie had a bairn in my bed this afternoon – and then she cut its throat,’ she whispered hoarsely into Aylie’s ear as the girl sat down at the kitchen table and began to ease off her working boots.
A cold chill seized Aylie’s heart. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing and asked, ‘What, what did you say?’
‘Are you deaf? That whey-faced bitch, your friend Phemie, had a bairn, a wee laddie, and she cut its throat with one of my knives from the kitchen. She got it when I wasn’t looking. I found the bairn under the bed. You should have heard the mistress!’
‘Where’s Phemie now?’ Aylie asked.
‘She’s where she belongs, in the jail. The constables came and t
ook her away. What a fuss she made, yelling and howling like a dog. They had to tie her up like a chicken.’
‘Oh, poor Phemie, what a terrible thing. She must have been out of her mind. Oh, I wish I’d been here to help her.’
The cook stood back, outraged. ‘You help her! You’d want to help the murderer of her own bairn. You’d better not let the mistress hear you saying that.’
Aylie too looked angry and she stood up abruptly, asking, ‘Where’s the mistress now? I want to speak to her.’
The cook sounded pious: ‘Poor soul, she’s had a terrible day, she’s in the parlour but she’ll not speak to the likes of you. Poor woman, she’s had a terrible shock.’
Meg Mather, who normally could say no good of her employer, was now thoroughly on her side. But Aylie was not in the mood to listen or to sympathize with either of them. She swung out of the kitchen into the dark passage, and on into regions she had never penetrated before to the sitting room where the mistress sat with her embroidery frame beneath the portraits of her family.
‘What do you want?’ the woman asked in disbelief when she saw the bondager standing in the doorway in her stocking feet.
‘I want to know where they’ve taken Phemie,’ Aylie said.
The mistress sounded well satisfied as she replied, ‘They’ve taken her to Jedburgh of course, to the jail. She’ll have to go on trial for killing her child.’
The girl eyed her coldly and demanded, ‘Didn’t anybody think to ask her why she did it?’
The insolence of this girl was beyond belief but her directness made it impossible not to answer her.
‘No, of course not, why should we? The sight of the poor dead body of the wee baby was enough.’
Aylie came farther into the room and shouted, ‘That girl was abused by her own father. She was terrified of men. She wouldn’t know what was happening to her when she had that baby, didn’t you give her any sympathy, didn’t you ask her who was responsible?’
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