The Laird of Lochandee

by Gwen Kirkwood

  Could she be seriously ill? His life had taken on a new light since she came to Windlebrae. She had become his friend and confidante – and more. His cheeks flushed and he felt his insides clench at the thought of her in his arms, held close to his heart.

  Ross changed trains at Dumfries without trouble. So far, so good. The see-saw of his spirits rose again. There were a number of people waiting at Lockerbie station when the train lurched to a halt but Ross and Jim MacDonald recognised each other at once.

  ‘You’re just like your mother. I thought that when I saw you at Connor O’Brian’s funeral. That’s what made me speak to you.’ Jim nodded. ‘Aye, I’d recognise you anywhere’

  ‘Like my mother?’ Ross was surprised. ‘Most people say I am a Maxwell. Maybe that’s because I’m the only one who plays the fiddle.’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I …’ Jim MacDonald floundered. He stared intently at Ross. Then he gave an exasperated sort of sigh. ‘Anyway, there’s a neighbour of mine over there. He would like us to give him a hand to get some Ayrshire stirks out of the railway wagon and turned onto the road for home. Throw your case into the trap – the big one over there with the red and green wheel boards.’ Ross quickly obeyed as Jim MacDonald shouted, ‘Here they come!’

  The stirks trotted briskly onto the wide main street, guided by an eager collie dog and Bill Murdoch’s teenage son. Ross sprinted after the animals. He caught up just in time to prevent them turning onto the wrong road. He learned later it went south towards Annan, the Solway Firth and on to Carlisle.

  Jim MacDonald drove over the railway and up a steep road out of the town. According to his mother the MacDonald family had prospered since they moved south. It seemed incredible that she was encouraging him to improve his own prospects after all the years of repressing every idea or suggestion he ever made.

  At first Jim MacDonald was silent, apparently deep in thought, as the trap jogged along narrow country roads, bright hued with the autumn leaves, some still clinging to the branches, others strewn in a russet carpet on the road beneath. They passed over a bridge and Ross saw the river below.

  ‘The land seems fertile,’ he remarked.

  ‘Aye, there’s some of the best, and some of the worst, on the estate.’

  ‘Do you live in this direction?’

  ‘No. Our land is down the road Bill Murdoch took. We are about two miles from him. The farm we are going to see has been without a tenant for some time. The Factor, Mr Shaw, will be meeting us there. He’s offering the farm for a year rent-free. He says it needs a young man, a strong one, who is not afraid of hard work. I have not seen it myself, but …’ He broke off frowning and Ross felt he had something on his mind.

  After a short silence he flicked the horse’s reins. His name was Flash and he was a strong young gelding with a hint of Clydesdale in his breeding. He broke into a smart trot, although the road was beginning to rise and bend first one way and then the other like a giant corkscrew. The land on either side rose with it. Patches of rushes and heather began to appear. The fields were less green. Jim MacDonald turned to look at Ross, his eyes shrewd and thoughtful.

  ‘Look, laddie, what did Gertie say exactly? I mean to bring you here today?’

  ‘Why, just that you knew of a suitable farm for me,’ Ross shrugged, puzzled. ‘And that it was an opportunity I must seize if I wanted to farm on my own.’ Jim MacDonald seemed to be waiting for more. ‘That’s all,’ Ross told him. ‘Is there something else? Something more she should have told me?’

  ‘I’d say there was a lot more,’ Jim muttered darkly, ‘A whole lot more – but then I never did understand how Gertie’s mind worked.’ They both fell silent but as the road curved round one bend after another with the land rising ever more steeply in front and on either side, Ross sat up stiffly.

  ‘I think, Mr MacDonald, I am beginning to understand why she wanted me to come so far away.’ His lean jaw clenched, his eyes were bleak with disillusion. He felt sickened. ‘I think you should turn around and get me back to the station. I will take the next train back to Kilmarnock. This land is worse than anything around Windlebrae. Our neighbour’s farm will be vacant soon but she would not even consider letting me tender for that. I would not move so far away to rent this kind of land if it was rent-free for ten years!’

  ‘Ah, don’t be too hasty, laddie,’ Jim MacDonald soothed. ‘It’s good enough sheep land, even if it is a bit steep in places.’

  ‘There’s even less money in sheep than there is in milk! We can scarcely give them away!’ Ross tried not to shout. ‘Surely you know they are bringing in mutton from the other side of the world now?’ He felt angry and let down. His mother did not wish him well at all he thought bitterly. Was she trying to make a fool of him? Sending him on such a journey? Or did she just want rid of him? Anywhere, at any price? ‘I do not want a farm in this area. I will not stay! Turn around, please Mr MacDonald. I’m sorry you have been put to so much trouble.’

  ‘We’ve come this far. We might as well take a look now. It’s not much further and the Factor will be waiting for us. We canna leave him in the lurch. I would not like to offend him.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Ross took a deep breath, ‘that’s the real reason I am here – because you want to help the Factor find a tenant. You and your family want to keep on the right side of him?’ He knew he sounded blunt, arrogant even, but he was bitterly disappointed. Jim MacDonald’s eyes flashed and an instinctive jerk on the reins brought the horse to a sudden halt. He turned to glare at Ross.

  ‘I have no need to keep in with the Factor. He knows well enough how I farm my land. No, young man, I have no need to curry favour with anyone.’

  ‘Then why did you insist I came today – not yesterday, or tomorrow, or next week. You wanted me here today. Why?’

  ‘I …? I wanted you here?’ Jim stared at him in disbelief. ‘Look here, laddie, I reckon we have got things wrong somewhere. I got a telegram from Gertie yesterday, asking – no, telling me – to meet you off the train today. As a matter of fact it was not very convenient. I had promised to help Bill Murdoch get his stirks from the station. It’s quite a walk for frisky young cattle. I didn’t have any option but to meet you with so little warning. You are lucky the Factor could see us at such short notice. I had to go down to the village and ask Doctor Lawson to contact him on his new contraption. A telephone, he calls it. Amazing thing it is. He talked just as though Mr Shaw was in the same room. They made arrangements for us to meet.’ He rubbed his temple. ‘Where were we? Oh, yes, I told Gertie about the farm being vacant when I was up there. I was just agreeing with Cameron that farming was in a bad way and poorer farms were falling derelict for want of tenants in every area. It was not in my mind to set you up here. I’d say you were a bit young to be considering taking on a farm of your own yet. You must be ...’ He paused while he did some mental arithmetic. ‘Aye, you must be about twenty.’

  Ross nodded absently. He was still puzzled and angry. Jim MacDonald seemed to sense his mood and his expression grew less stern.

  ‘Gee-up, Flash,’ he urged the horse forward. ‘Put this down to experience, laddie. It will be good for you to meet the Factor and talk with him. Don’t be too critical. It’s not his fault if you have come on a wild-goose chase. There’s a lot of farmers struggling to keep going. I’ve heard of a couple who are emigrating to Canada.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what I should do,’ Ross muttered disconsolately.

  ‘In the telegram Gertie said she would write me a letter. Maybe I’ll know better what is in her mind when I get it.’

  ‘She put a letter in my case,’ Ross remembered. ‘Do you want it now?’

  ‘No. When you get to my house will be time enough. My wife’s looking forward to meeting you. I have two laddies of my own. They rent farms just a few miles away. I wouldn’t be surprised if they come over to meet you too.’ Ross felt a little comforted by the idea that someone welcomed him.

  He was silent as he walked beside the Factor an
d Jim MacDonald over the boundaries of the farm. It had certainly been neglected. There were pools where the drains should have been repaired and vast patches of rushes, whins and bracken. Huge gaps yawned in the stone walls which bordered many of the fields.

  ‘It looks to me as though the sheep must have run wild,’ he commented at last.

  The Factor and Jim MacDonald came to a halt.

  ‘Well I’m glad you have not lost your powers of speech altogether,’ Jim grunted.

  ‘I get the feeling you are not very impressed, young man?’ Mr Shaw raised his bushy eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘No, Sir, I am not.’ Ross was civil but firm. ‘I expected the land would be a great improvement on our own, but this is much steeper and wetter. I would dearly like a farm of my own, but not just any farm.’

  ‘You mean you want to start with the best,’ Mr Shaw commented wryly. Ross flushed.

  ‘No. If a farm had room for improvement I would not mind hard work. I’m used to that. I can do most things – hedging, ditching, ploughing, sheep shearing, milking. Father insisted we learned to do everything, but I like dairy cattle best.

  ‘And you think this place cannot be improved?’

  ‘Even I could improve it!’ Ross exclaimed, ‘but I could never make it fit for milk cows. We must be fairly high above sea level up here?’

  ‘We are and I can’t say I blame you, especially if you have set your heart on milking cows.’

  ‘I’m more familiar with cows. I’m sorry if I have wasted your time.’

  ‘That’s all right. There was always a chance I might have found a tenant.’

  ‘Well I must say it’s even worse than I had expected,’ Jim MacDonald admitted. ‘We may as well be getting back. Ross is staying with us tonight and taking the train back to Ayrshire tomorrow,’ Jim explained.

  The two men chatted amiably as they walked back to the farm steading where the horses were enjoying a nosebag of oats to revive them both for their homeward journeys. Ross felt too deflated to join in the conversation. He wished he could have gone straight back to Windlebrae and shared his disappointment with Rachel. She was always gentle and understanding.

  Ginny MacDonald was a plump motherly woman who welcomed Ross with genuine warmth and plied him with food until he thought he would burst. Her two sons were blithe and cheerful. They told him about their own farms. Both wanted to breed pedigree Ayrshire cattle but agreed with their father that in the present farming doldrums they would be happy just to pay their way and survive.

  They plied him with questions about Windlebrae and any of their distant relations with whom he might be acquainted. Eventually they rose reluctantly, pushed their chairs back from the large kitchen table and declared they must make their way back to their own homes and beds if they were to be up in time for the milking.

  ‘I enjoyed meeting your family,’ Ross told Jim MacDonald. ‘It has made the journey seem almost worthwhile after all.’

  ‘I’ll show you your bedroom,’ Ginny MacDonald beamed. ‘I’ve aired the bed so I hope you sleep well, son.’

  ‘I feel tired enough to sleep for a week,’ Ross smiled down at her.

  ‘My, but you’re a handsome laddie when you forget your troubles!’ she chuckled.

  ‘You’ll not forget to bring me Gertie’s letter, Ross?’ her husband reminded, puffing hard on his pipe to get it to draw.

  Ross found the letters in his case. Disappointment and anger made him rip open the one for him.

  He was astonished to find five large ten pound notes inside. Fifty pounds! It did not make sense. Could it be that his mother had genuinely thought the farm would be suitable for him? There was a letter beside the packet and he began to read.

  The first sentence was like a punch in the stomach. He slumped onto the side of the bed. He read the sentence again. He read it a third time. It was brief. It was stark. He was stunned.

  ‘It can’t be true!’ he muttered. The colour drained from his face as he read on. “To Ross, It is time you learned the truth and made your own way in the world. You are no kin to me. You were born out of wedlock. I have treated you as a brother to my children. Knowledge of your true parentage would have brought shame to their good name. The evil shadow of your birth would have cast itself upon them. I am a God-fearing Christian. I tried to bring you up the same. I have failed in that. I fear you will bring more shame to me and mine. Now you must go your own way.

  I am not without charity even in these hard times. I enclose money but in return I insist that you never return to Windlebrae, or to this area. Cameron’s health is uncertain. Another scandal could kill him and you would be responsible.

  Meg and Willie are in ignorance of the disgrace your birth brought upon us. I trust they will remain so.”

  Ross read and re-read the letter. It was stiff, like its writer. There were no words of tenderness. Could he ever have expected any? Should he have guessed? His mind was in turmoil. The woman he had believed was his mother was no kin at all. He had no right to the love he had craved, no right to anything … food … clothes, not even the roof he had shared. Nothing. Certainly not the fifty pounds to buy his absence, and his silence.

  Oh yes, it was clear to him now why she had given him the money. She never wanted to see him again. He was nothing. He was nobody. He was like a plant without roots.

  “Your true parentage”. The words echoed and re-echoed around his brain. Who was he? Why had the Maxwells taken him in?

  As through a thick fog he heard Jim MacDonald calling up the stairs.

  ‘Did you find Gertie’s letter for me? Ross?’

  He rose stiffly from the edge of the bed. He had no idea how long he had sat there, hunched, his thoughts milling round and round. His brain felt numb. He picked up the letter addressed to Jim MacDonald and descended the narrow stairs like one in a nightmare.

  ‘Mercy me, laddie!’ Ginny MacDonald greeted him. ‘Are you ill? Is it something you’ve eaten?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ His voice was no more than a croak and he cleared his throat with an effort. ‘I am all right, thank you.’

  ‘You dinna look it,’ Jim frowned. ‘Sit down in that chair while I see what Gertrude has to say.’ His eyes met his wife’s concerned stare and he jerked his head towards the corner of the room. Ginny scuttled to an oak cupboard fixed to the wall and reached down a bottle of whisky and two glasses. It was her husband’s cure for all ills. She poured two stiff measures and carried them back towards the fire.

  Ross hesitated when she proffered one to him, then he reached out a shaking hand and grasped the glass.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs MacDonald. Thank you.’ He lifted the glass, tilted back his head and drained the lot. Jim MacDonald raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Well, well,’ he mused. ‘That was not the first time you’ve tasted whisky.’

  ‘No.’ Ross acknowledged grimly. He breathed deeply, desperately trying to control his quivering nerves. The amber liquid warmed him. Gradually his hand steadied. He became aware of Jim MacDonald eyeing him shrewdly. ‘I am not a drunkard, if that’s what you are thinking,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No! I was offered it often enough after a night’s fiddling. Once only I accepted all that I was offered. That was lesson enough.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it. Whisky has its uses. I’d say you have had a shock?’ His eyes moved from the letter in his own hand to the page still grasped tightly in Ross’s fist. He had been unaware that he was still clutching the single sheet. He glanced down at it.

  ‘A shock?’ He gave a harsh laugh, but to his dismay there was almost a sob in it. ‘You could say that.’ His mouth tightened and his square jaw jutted, but a pulse beat visibly in his temple as he strove for control. He felt as though he had been beaten inside out, then back again, but the pain was not in his body.

  ‘The cure for shock is a cup of hot sweet tea,’ Ginny insisted, bustling to shove the big kettle back onto the fire to boil the water.

  ‘Pleas
e, don’t bother for me,’ Ross protested.

  ‘It’s no bother, son,’ Ginny smiled kindly down at him. ‘I couldn’t rest if I let you go to bed in your present state.’

  Son. Her words, her gentle smile, the comforting pat on his shoulder were almost Ross’s undoing. He was alarmed to find himself on the verge of tears. He was a grown man. He couldn’t remember shedding tears since the day he fell out of a tree when he was five years old, and here he was swallowing a huge knot in his throat like some stricken maiden. He coughed huskily. When he looked up he saw Jim MacDonald’s blue eyes were blazing and his face was ruddy with rage.

  ‘That’s just typical of Gertrude McQuaid. Just like her old grandmother! My father used to say the old woman could cause trouble in an empty field.’ He looked across the hearth at Ross. ‘She didn’t have the courage to tell you to your face! Did she? That’s the trouble, isn’t it? You’ve just found out? Is that what’s in your letter?’

  ‘That I’m a – a bastard?’ Ross’s tone was bitter. ‘That she is not my mother?’ He nodded. His mouth twisted but whether in pain or scorn it was hard to tell.

  ‘When you get over the shock, I reckon you might be grateful for that,’ Jim muttered. `Does she say she doesn’t want you back at Windlebrae? You would bring shame to her family?’ He mimicked his half-cousin’s waspish tones. `For God’s sake they are grown men and women!’ He muttered an oath which made his wife raise an eyebrow.

  `Gertrude’s father ruined her when she was a girl. Since she grew older she’s always been a bit unbalanced whenever things didn’t go her way. Holier than the saints one minute and supping with the Devil the next. Cameron must have been a saint to put up with her all these years.’

  ‘Do calm down, Jim,’ his wife said quietly. ‘It isna good for you to get so upset.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll be upset, Ginny, when you read this letter.’