An Abandoned Woman (Murray of Letho Book 4)

by Lexie Conyngham

  ‘Did I hear you say there was to be a ball, Mr. Robbins?’ asked Iffy, her eyes bright and wide.

  ‘It’ll mean a lot of hard work for you, if it is not beyond you,’ Mrs. Mutch warned them, then added musingly, ‘Salmagundi ... eight good sides of beef ...’

  ‘It’ll be lovely,’ said Iffy. ‘All the ladies in their best finery, all the gentlemen as handsome as can be.’

  ‘What do you ken of balls?’ asked Robbins, half-amused.

  ‘I heard all about them when we lived in Edinburgh, Mr. Robbins! I think it’ll be just beautiful!’

  ‘They’ll be in the gallery, I suppose, for the dancing,’ said Mrs. Mutch. Mrs. Chambers appeared from the stillroom, smelling sweet.

  ‘We’ll have to have the gallery floor polished,’ she added to Mrs. Mutch’s remark, ‘and the curtains all brushed out. I wonder will he want to use the bedrooms at either end? We could take down the beds and clear them to have light refreshments and cards, and they can come down to the dining room for their supper. Or maybe he’ll have more people to stay overnight: I think some of them will be coming quite a distance. Such a lot to plan!’ she sighed, but the light of battle was in her eyes.

  ‘Have you heard Miss Isobel is out, now?’ Robbins asked her.

  ‘Oh, dear, she won’t want the nursery quarters any more, then. That’ll mean another bedchamber on the first floor taken up. Never mind: we’ll manage. But I must start writing things down ...’ She hurried off to her room to begin a plan of campaign.

  ‘So who all will be there?’ asked Iffy, not to be deterred from her romance. Mrs. Mutch dropped a bowl of flour and butter in front of her and indicated that she might start rubbing them together.

  ‘Mr. Murray, Mr. Blair, Mr. Kennedy – I suppose,’ Robbins began, counting on his long white fingers. ‘Mrs. Freeman, Miss Isobel, Mr. and Mrs. Fairlie, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Fairlie – the master says they’ll be back by then, and of course will have to be honoured. Miss Fairlie and Miss Mary, Mr. John Fairlie, Mr. and Mrs. Feilden. Now, the Georges or the Helliwells?’

  ‘Mr. Helliwell is not one for the dancing,’ remarked Mrs. Mutch. Effy reappeared and with a glance at the kitchen clock, on her own initiative took the boiled eggs off the heat, setting the pan on the back doorstep to cool. Mrs. Mutch was visited by a gratified smile.

  ‘It is a sad thing for Mrs. Helliwell, however. But Mr. George does enjoy a dance.’

  ‘Aye, a bit too much sometimes, or so I’m told.’ Mrs. Mutch frowned.

  ‘I’m sure it’s just the exertion he enjoys,’ Robbins met her eye, then looked away. ‘I’ve seen him after a village dance in a state of complete disarray, his cravat in two tails down his front, his coat gone and his shirt open.’

  Mrs. Mutch tutted.

  ‘I trust we’ll have no displays of that kind at Letho House,’ she said. ‘It’s high time Mr. George began to act as a gentleman of his age should. Effy, girl, what’s the matter with you?’

  Effy had begun to peel a panful of potatoes, into which she was now inexplicably crying. On closer inspection, she was found to have cut well into the tip of her finger with the little knife, producing the kind of pain that was likely to render anyone speechless for a minute or two. Mrs. Mutch took a strip of linen from a dresser drawer and wound it tightly round the finger, stanching the blood.

  ‘Take it to Mrs. Chambers later and she’ll put some salve on to help it heal,’ she instructed Effy. ‘Now, stop crying and get back to the potatoes. You’re a good girl.’ The shock of the unaccustomed praise was almost harder than the pain, and Effy did sob for a few more minutes, but dutifully peeled the potatoes regardless. Iffy looked at her sister curiously, but seemed to lack the impetus to do anything more: a quick slap on the hand had to be administered to remind her to keep going with the flour and butter.

  ‘Well,’ said Robbins, returning to the subject of the day, ‘perhaps the Georges and the Helliwells will sign a truce for the evening. After all, with half the county there they might not even meet.’

  ‘I hope wee Anna is well enough to let the Helliwells go.’

  ‘She should be, from all I hear,’ Robbins affirmed. ‘I wonder if the older Miss Kirk will be asked? Or any Edinburgh friends?’

  ‘I daresay we shall hear all when the time comes,’ said Mrs. Mutch. ‘Jellies, of course, and do we have enough geese? Or will we have to buy some? We have the gooseberries, for Carlisle told me yesterday. And fruit creams, of course.’

  Robbins saw no need for his further participation in this conversation, and finishing his ale he withdrew, keys chinking, to the wine cellar, to select the wines for dinner and decant them.

  V

  ‘That was a grand sermon this morning,’ said Melville heartily as the elders gathered for their meeting after Sunday service. ‘“Be not wise in thine own eyes” – I’d say that could be for a good number in this parish. “Be not wise in thine own eyes”, eh? “Fear the Lord, and depart from evil”. A grand text, that.’

  ‘I notice,’ said Kenny, acidly, ‘that he omitted to dwell on the verse further on about the Lord blessing the habitation of the just. He’d be expecting the Lord to come down personally and rebuild his manse like a latterday miracle.’

  ‘I find I dinna care for your language, Mr. Kenny,’ Ninian Jack rebuked him.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Kenny dejectedly. ‘Sorry.’

  Ninian Jack raised his eyebrows but said nothing further. Outside it was still hot, and although the church was cool and dim their best collars stuck to their necks and their smartest coats caught them under the arms, tight and sweaty. It made for a grumpy lethargy that was no use for anything.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Melville cheerfully, unaffected, ‘with the price of building work these days only the Lord could afford it.’ He was oblivious to Jack’s scowl. ‘This war in the Peninsula will do terrible things to the prices. Did you ken Watson’s brother’s boy is going to Edinburgh to join up?’

  ‘I did not,’ said Jack, ‘but it would not surprise me. What a family.’

  ‘His poor brother died of shame, I reckon,’ Melville continued. ‘That woman he married was never faisible. She brought down a good family.’ He paused, hearing something. ‘Oh, aye, Watson! We were just saying about your nephew, off to take the King’s shilling!’

  ‘Aye, well,’ said Watson, pleased enough not to be asked again about Nan. ‘He hasn’t made much of a hand at anything yet but rammies with the other boys – I hear he broke a stair in the schoolroom last month, Kenny. It’d be as well if he would go and rammie with Bonaparte and do some good for a change.’

  The other elders nodded sober agreement, then straightened up as the minister came in with Baird behind him.

  ‘How is wee Anna?’ asked Ninian Jack when they were all seated. Mr. Helliwell gave one of his rare smiles.

  ‘She’s grand now, I thank you, Mr. Jack, and thank you all for your good wishes and prayers. You saw her out at church today?’

  ‘Oh, aye, she was looking braw,’ said Melville.

  ‘Though a wee bit thin, still,’ said Baird thoughtfully. The minister’s smile diminished. Ninian Jack quickly changed the subject, thinking mildly sinful thoughts about Baird.

  ‘So we are to have a Communion, then, eh?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Melville, ‘when was that to be again?’

  ‘A fortnight hence,’ the minister reminded him, ‘on the tenth of July. As usual we shall distribute the Communion tokens next week, and if all the ministers asked respond favourably we shall have preaching on Saturday as well as Sunday. I have already consulted Mr. Murray, and he is agreeable that all servants at Letho House will be free to attend for at least part of the day, and I understand that the servants at Dures House –’ he could not bring himself to name Mr. George, and had in fact asked Murray to contact him for this purpose ‘- will attend under a similar arrangement. The mills and the smithy will close for both days, of course.’

  ‘I have parochial rolls prepared,’ Ninian
Jack went on helpfully. ‘If you can each take the part for your division of the parish and visit each household this week, you can let me know next Saturday who should receive tokens and I will have the right number held ready for Sunday.’ He handed out long narrow sheets of paper to each elder, listed in his neat, sloped hand. Melville took his eagerly, Kenny reluctantly.

  ‘Have they all to be done this week?’ he asked, staring at the list with distaste.

  ‘They have, you heard what I said,’ said Jack. ‘I want no one late, for we might not have enough tokens and I want to know as soon as possible.’

  ‘Not enough tokens?’ said the minister. ‘How could that be?’

  ‘We have more people that might be eligible this time, Mary Fairlie, for instance, and her new sister-in-law will be here by then, and Mr. Murray’s guests that are all good church-goers and well-kent to be respectable. And there are more come of age. And there’s just been the one death in the parish since the last Communion, if you don’t count the pauper woman, and just the one family that moved away, the Scotts at Pitmen that went to Glasgow, so we have only a few spare tokens to give to the new ones,’ he finished with satisfaction at a point well made. Mr. Helliwell was worried.

  ‘I’ll come and count them with you later and we’ll see. There might be some old ones in the kist in the vestry.’

  ‘So who are we having to preach to us?’ asked Kenny listlessly. ‘They’ll ask us when we go round, you ken.’

  ‘Mr. Thomson of Alloa has accepted,’ said Mr. Helliwell, feeling in his pocket to produce a rough list.

  ‘Aye, he’s no so bad,’ said Baird.

  ‘We have no had him before,’ said Jack. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I heard him after my brother’s wedding in Dollar,’ Baird explained. ‘Nice language, I’d say, or he had that day, anyhow.’

  ‘Mr. Telfer,’ said the minister. ‘He was at Motherwell, but he’s between kirks just now.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Kenny dubiously.

  ‘Aye,’ said the minister, ‘but he’ll do for the afternoon. Maybe in the kirkyard.’

  ‘Maybe in the inn,’ said Melville, ‘from what I hear.’

  ‘I’ve tellt you before about gossip,’ Ninian Jack reproached him. ‘Who else, Mr. Helliwell, sir?’

  ‘Well, the next one has not yet replied, but Mr. Murray has also written to ask him. It’s Dr. Inglis of Greyfriars in Edinburgh.’

  Watson met Melville’s eye.

  ‘Foreign missions,’ said Melville.

  ‘He’s a very great man,’ said Ninian Jack.

  ‘But a very bad preacher,’ argued Kenny. ‘I’ve heard him too. His kirk is always lending him out.’

  ‘He was the Moderator of the General Assembly three years ago,’ the minister reminded them. ‘We should be honoured if he deigned to visit a little place like Letho.’

  ‘Indeed we should,’ said Jack firmly, glaring at his fellow elders.

  ‘Then there is Mr. Stoddart from St. Leonard’s.’

  ‘Fire and brimstone and death and destruction!’ said Melville, Kenny and Watson all together, like schoolboys imitating the foibles of their master. The minister tutted, but gave a short laugh.

  ‘Aye, well, he could start the morning in the kirkyard well enough, for his voice carries bravely.’

  ‘It’ll carry back to St. Leonard’s,’ said Melville, ‘if we point him in the right direction.’

  ‘The next is a schoolmaster from Cupar – you ken Mr. Christie with the one arm?’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Kenny. ‘Now, he is a good preacher. I wish I had been taught myself by any man as principal as him.’

  ‘Mr. Leslie from Kirkcaldy,’ Mr. Helliwell read the next name.

  ‘I have not heard him,’ said Melville.

  ‘He’s a new man,’ Mr. Helliwell explained. ‘He is just an assistant yet. I have heard that he is good, and thought anyway we should make him welcome. The last one is a Mr. McCulloch who is recently come from Ireland, so I doubt any of you has an expert opinion to express upon him, either,’ he finished drily, and put away his list.

  ‘Here,’ said Melville, who had been glancing intermittently down his own list of parishioners he was to visit. ‘Cullessie House is on this.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Ninian Jack, ‘what of it?’

  ‘Well, what am I supposed to do there?’ he asked truculently. ‘Miss Parnell Kirk is unlikely to be admitted to Communion, is she?’

  ‘There is Mrs. Kirk,’ said Mr. Helliwell, ‘who should not be dismissed simply because her niece has fallen from grace’ – everyone at this point avoided looking at Watson, but he reddened anyway – ‘particularly since the fall does not even seem to have occurred while the niece was even in Fife. There are the servants also, though I admit we have had some trouble there before. As for the older Miss Kirk, that is more difficult, as she seems to have known of her sister’s condition for some time. However, I believe we may have one solution to the problem of both the Misses Kirk – I believe that they are in fact Anglican, which makes them the responsibility of the Episcopalians.’

  ‘All up to them, then,’ said Melville with a relieved smile.

  ‘Well, not entirely,’ said the minister, half to himself. ‘I must go and visit her soon and see how she does.’

  The elders looked at one another and nodded, for in the circumstances, with Anna recovered and her rescuer still so ill, they could understand.

  VI

  Minutes of the Kirk Session meeting held at Letho Parish Church, on the 26th. June, 1808. Meeting opened with prayer.

  Today the minister preached on the text of the Book of Proverbs, Chapter Three.

  It was announced that a Communion service is to be held on the tenth of July next. The elders are to examine their parishioners this week and Communion tokens will be distributed next Sunday.

  Nan Watson, maiden of this parish, having been called to compear before the Presbytery accused of a trilapse of fornication, continues in her absence from the parish.

  The poors’ funds were counted and distributed, and examined by the minister.

  Closed with prayer,

  Ninian Jack,

  Session Clerk.

  VII

  Murray and Mrs. Chambers had met by chance in the gallery late on Sunday afternoon, and were inspired to discuss the matter of the forthcoming ball, which was all, in any case, that the servants seemed to be able to talk about.

  ‘I am anxious,’ said Murray, as they paced out the dimensions of the room together, ‘that you will all now be attending the Communion service the day before the ball, and the preaching the day before that, and will not have time to prepare. Naturally there is no question of you not going to church, but I wonder if we should postpone the ball for a day or two? The invitations have gone out, of course, but we could change it if necessary.’

  Mrs. Chambers seemed to reflect, though in fact she and Mrs. Mutch had already discussed the matter.

  ‘We feel that most dishes will be prepared by then, and those that can be done only at the last minute would be done on the Monday anyway. Of course, the same reasoning applies to the moving of furniture and the cleaning of rooms. These curtains, for example,’ she fingered the rusty red cloth, ‘should be taken down and brushed this week, anyway. I think it will not inconvenience anyone if we begin to prepare the two bedrooms beforehand, and to put more chairs out along the walls now.’

  ‘There are some chairs in one of the attics, are there not?’ asked Murray, trying to think where else he had seen them. They had been made locally, but quite well, in what seemed to be enormous quantities, and had the family crest alone, with no shield, on the splat.

  ‘No,’ said Mrs. Chambers, ‘unfortunately they were last put in the cellars. William and Daniel began dusting them down yesterday. We can roll up the carpets and polish the floor first thing on Monday morning.’

  ‘Good,’ said Murray. He hoped it would not be quite this hot for the ball, with his high collar rubbing his swea
ty neck. ‘I hope the pantry and stillroom are cool enough for the food,’ he said suddenly, struck by the implications of the heat.

  ‘We are bringing some large blocks in from the icehouse on Wednesday if the weather stays hot. As it is, the damp of the building is for once in our favour.’ She smiled.

  ‘Is the building work disturbing you much?’

  ‘They are mostly at the back of the wing at present, and are finished by the time the men retire to that part of the building at night. There is a little noise in the kitchen, but not much yet.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said Murray, distracted. Through the window, in the distance down the drive, he could see a vehicle of some kind approaching the house, slowly. There was a heat haze in the park, and he could not yet focus on it. Mrs. Chambers followed his gaze.

  ‘Who can that be on the Sabbath?’ she asked.

  ‘No one whom I am expecting,’ Murray replied. It was a small vehicle, drawn, as far as he could see, by only one beast – a small pony, perhaps? Maybe even a donkey.

  Indeed it was a donkey. As the equipage reached the junction at the beginning of the carriage sweep, it was at last revealed as a donkey and small dilapidated cart, containing some baskets and one driver, cramped with spider-crooked legs in a small space. For all the speed the cart was making, the driver might have been more comfortable walking. He was wearing a bright parsley mix riding coat and round hat, and it was with quite a shock that Murray finally recognised him as his erstwhile houseguest, Kennedy.

  The Cullessie cart and donkey, as presumably they were, meandered not to the front door but towards the stable block. Murray craned to see them through the gallery window. He met Mrs. Chambers’ curious gaze and, too impatient to wait for an announcement, ran to the staircase and down into the hall, out through the front door, collecting inadvertently a couple of eager spaniels, and round through the archway to the stable block, in the blessed parasol of the little wood beside it. Kennedy had unhitched the donkey and a stable boy was taking it to a shady trough, while Kennedy himself was collecting up the baskets from the back of the cart. When he saw Murray, he gave a smile that did not quite reach his eyes, and bowed as best he could. Murray went to help him.