‘But you can’t do that!’ Melda wailed. ‘A lady in your position? You can’t tell a downright lie!’
‘I will, if you force me to. I am fighting for my family’s good name, remember, and that means more to me than anything. I dislike making threats, but I am prepared to go to any lengths to …’ Taking in a deep breath, Marianne hesitated before going on. ‘On the other hand, if you will only be reasonable, we can work out something to your advantage.’
Melda stared at her. She had gathered earlier that the laird’s wife could be devious, so what had she hatched up now? ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you may not have heard, but Jean Thomson is leaving me at the end of next week. She has been my personal maid since I was married, and I have worried that I may not find another one so dependable.’
‘You’re offering me her job?’ Melda was astounded. ‘But wouldn’t that …? When they notice I’m expecting … it would look like you’re admitting it’s Ruairidh’s.’
‘No one will notice your condition. I have told my husband, ever since we heard about Ranald, that I need a decent holiday to help me accept it, but he is always too busy to spare the time. He suggested taking me to London next time he goes, but there are reasons I do not want to go there, and in any case, his trips last for only a few weeks, and we need longer than that.’
Wondering what was coming, Melda decided that nothing Lady Marianne said or did would surprise her – but she was wrong!
‘How far on are you?’
‘Nearly three months now.’
‘Good! I will book a holiday for myself and my companion …’
Mystified, Melda murmured, ‘Companion?’
‘Have you not understood? If I employ you to replace Thomson, it will explain why you have visited me twice in one day, but it will also let me take you away from all prying eyes. We will leave as soon as possible – Thomson will instruct you in your duties first – and no one we know will see you again until after the birth, which, of course, will be in a reputable maternity home or small hospital. Until nearer the time, we can take lodgings somewhere as mother and daughter, and to save tongues wagging, we can say the boy you were going to marry was killed in the war. I’ll pay all expenses.’
Almost struck dumb by the thoroughness of this plan, Melda managed to say, ‘And the conditions …?’
Shrugging, Marianne smiled. ‘You let me arrange for the adoption of the child. You don’t ask to see it.’ She paused with her eyebrows raised. ‘You have not been writing to Ruairidh, have you?’
Melda’s head-shake encouraged her to go on. ‘Good, but part of the bargain is that you will never tell anyone about this, ever! Your father does not know, I hope?’
‘Oh, no, I couldn’t tell him – he’d have thrown me out.’
‘I doubt it, but it is good that he doesn’t know, and Ruairidh must never know, either,’ she stressed. ‘You will stick by that, otherwise …’ She left the sentence unfinished.
The veiled threat had been the deciding factor, Melda recalled, and in just over three weeks, she had travelled to Aberdeen on the train with her employer. They had been met at the station by the man she had seen with Ruairidh after the memorial service for Ranald, introduced by Lady Glendarril as Andrew Rennie, the family solicitor, who was to pay all expenses incurred by them while they were away. He it was who had organized everything – the booking of their rail tickets to York, the finding of the cottage just outside the city, the booking of the Brightfield Maternity Home for Unmarried Mothers somewhere nearby, even the hiring of a woman to cook and clean for them for as long as they needed her.
‘Why York?’ she had asked, when they were on their way south.
‘I’ve always wanted to go there,’ Lady Glendarril had replied, and Melda had had to be satisfied with that.
She had enjoyed their stay, though. The little house was perfect for their purpose, being set in the lovely Yorkshire countryside and just a short bus ride from York itself. Until Melda became too large to feel comfortable travelling, they took days out here and there; to Ripon to see the lovely old cathedral and, a bonus, the street market which was in full swing the day they went; to Robin Hood’s Bay, where they took a walk along the stretch of golden sands before they lay down in the late autumn sun to rest; to Scarborough, much busier, but not so quaint. They also took numerous separate days to explore York itself, taking the bus right into the centre of the city each time. They made for the minster on their first visit, being overawed by the beauty of its architecture as they stood outside, and after walking around inspecting the interior, they sat down for almost an hour, marvelling at the peace which descended on them.
It was when they came out into the sunlight again that Melda said, ‘I still don’t know if I’m doing right, but this is like a holiday to me and I’m glad I came.’
Marianne patted her arm a little self-consciously. ‘I know how much you’ve been suffering over the decision you made, but believe me, it’s best. We have got to know each other better, and I hope you do not think so badly of me now?’
Melda certainly didn’t feel so antagonistic towards her, but there was still a bitterness there.
For the rest of their visits to York, to see the castle, to walk the walls, to search out all the ancient buildings, they felt easier with each other, and by the time spring came and Melda was only able to waddle along some of the lanes around the cottage, she was looking on Marianne as a benefactor she was indebted to.
And indeed, when her pains began, the older woman had taken her to hospital in a hired car and the young nurse had told her that her ‘mother’ would wait outside the labour room until the birth was over. Of course, she had been too drugged to notice whether or not Lady Glendarril was there when she was taken out.
‘Now, you understand everything you have to do?’ Marianne asked. ‘Or do you want me to go over it again?’
The elderly matron bridled a little at this. Never in her life had she needed to be told anything twice. ‘Yes, of course I understand, Mrs Bruce,’ she said, in a voice as starchy as her uniform. ‘But I do not understand why –’
‘You are not being paid to understand.’ Marianne retorted. ‘Just do as I have told you. It really is best for everyone concerned.’
She had no fears that the woman would break her promise. She had seen the greed that lit up her eyes at the first mention of money, and she wasn’t being asked to do anything illegal. If it had been against the law, Andrew would have had nothing to do with it.
‘We always like to see the couple who are adopting,’ the matron said nervously, still unsure.
‘I have talked to them,’ Marianne said firmly, but untruthfully, ‘and the solicitor who arranged the adoption has known them for some considerable time, so you have no need to worry. They will be ideal parents.’
The matron still looked doubtful, but her hand shot out to accept the envelope Marianne handed her. ‘Thank you, Mrs Bruce, but I would like to point out that I would not have entertained your plan if I had not needed the money. I am due to retire in just over a month, and my mother is getting to the stage where she will need a lot of medical attention. I was worried that I might not manage to pay the doctor’s bills … nor for the medication she may need.’
Marianne watched her tucking the envelope into her handbag. Two hundred pounds would keep the mother in medicines for a long time. ‘Now that we have settled everything, I will take a peek into the nursery and then I’ll have a word with Melda before I leave. When will she be fit to come home? I don’t want to risk her seeing any of the other babies and getting upset, and I can have her collected by car.’
‘In that case, and since it is a week since her delivery, you can take her away tomorrow, provided you keep her in bed for another seven days. We usually insist on a fortnight’s stay, but these are rather different circumstances.’
Going into the corridor, Marianne drew in a deep, shivery breath. That was the worst part over, and the rest was up to Andr
ew. In the nursery, she stood between the two cots looking down at the sleeping infants with mixed feelings. Neither she nor Melda had thought of the possibility of two babies although there was a long history of twins in Hamish’s family – both Hector and Hamish himself being twins – and they were so lovely, so feminine, so tiny, so complete … but she must harden her heart. They must be sent away, so that even if Melda had an urge to try to find out what had happened to them, she wouldn’t know where to look.
Marianne turned to leave but her eye was caught by a bundle of pillows lying on a cabinet, and what came into her mind then was so awful that she felt faint, and yet … and yet … Heaving a sigh, she turned and went out. It would have been the best way, but she couldn’t do it.
‘I still can’t believe it!’ Melda sobbed. ‘Nobody said a word about my baby being ill …’
‘They hadn’t wanted to worry you,’ Marianne soothed, trying to ignore the pang of unease that stabbed at her. She had thought that with Melda never having seen her baby – she hadn’t been told there were two – she wouldn’t be so distressed, but she had been weeping sporadically ever since she’d been told ‘it’ had died.
‘I want to go home,’ Melda hiccupped suddenly. ‘I want my mother!’
‘No, no, my dear. We’ll have to wait a week or two, you’re not fit to travel yet.’ Neither could she be taken home from a supposed holiday in this state, Marianne warned herself. As a doctor, Robert Mowatt would know something was wrong. She had landed in a proper mess with her lies, but that’s what she got for manoeuvring other people’s lives, and she’d have done anything to save her family’s line from contamination.
For the next few days, all Melda could speak about was her dead child. ‘If I could only have seen him,’ she wailed one afternoon. ‘It’s awful to think I gave birth to him and never saw him. You should have let me see him, m’Lady. Nobody would have known … even if he had lived.’
Marianne swallowed the lump of whatever was choking her, repentance, grief, guilt, shame, she couldn’t quite tell which … maybe all four … and fear? But nobody could find out. Nobody … ever!
Melda excused her pallor when she eventually went home by saying she’d had a high fever from something she had eaten while she was away, and her father innocently compounded the lie. ‘It must have been botulism,’ he nodded. ‘That’s food poisoning, and it can leave you wabbit for a long, long time.’
Melda searched in vain for an equivalent of the Scots word but she needed more than one to come anywhere near it – pale, sickly, run-down, exhausted. Yes, wabbit was exactly how she felt, and she was thankful for her father’s timely remark. She would also remain forever grateful for the speed at which Lady Glendarril had spirited her away. Nobody, not even her father, would ever guess why.
The only person she would have wanted to know, she thought wistfully, was Ruairidh, but if she told him, his mother would spin him that awful lie. She had been cut to the quick by that threat, wondering what her Ladyship had against her, but had realized that she was desperately trying to protect her son. If Ruairidh had found out about the baby, he would have insisted on giving it his name, and marrying her would have been an open admission that he was the father of her child. However loyal to the laird’s family the local folk were, they would take it for granted that The Master had raped her, although they might not think any the less of him for it. The gentry did that sort of thing, didn’t they? That was their attitude, but it was to avoid this that she had promised Lady Glendarril she would never tell him.
But the infant hadn’t lived! So why shouldn’t she tell Ruairidh when he came home? It would draw them closer to have made a son together and lost him. If he confronted his mother, though, wanting to know why she had kept it secret, she might still swear blind that the father was an unknown soldier. No, Melda decided, it was probably safer to leave things the way they were.
She was snapped out of her reverie by her mother saying, ‘What’s up with you, Melda? You’re away in a dream.’
Given the afternoon off this first day back to tell her parents about her holiday, she was glad to have plenty to talk about, and described the sight-seeing in great detail. When she ended, however, rather lamely at the point where she had been ‘taken ill’, her mother looked shrewdly at her but said nothing until the doctor was called away.
‘I can’t understand why Marianne would want to stay in a little cottage in Yorkshire away from her husband and friends. Not that I’ve ever heard about many of her friends going to the castle, just that man who’s supposed to be her solicitor.’
‘He is her solicitor,’ Melda pointed out. ‘She’d got him to arrange everything for her, and he’d taken in hand to pay all the bills for the trip, though she didn’t run up a lot. I think … I know she hadn’t got over Ranald’s death, and then with Jean Thomson leaving, it was too much for her. That’s why I agreed to go with her. She maybe looks a strong woman with nerves of steel, but she’s not really. She knows what she wants and makes sure she gets it, but she has a soft side. I couldn’t have wished for a kinder person to look after me when I came out of hospital.’
Her mother pounced on this. ‘You were in hospital? She should have let us know if you were as bad as need hospital treatment.’
Her face scarlet at revealing part of her secret, Melda tried to laugh it off. ‘It wasn’t nearly as bad as that. I shouldn’t have been in a hospital at all, but she said she was responsible for me and she’d never forgive herself if …’
Flora gave a satisfied sigh. ‘She’ll still be all on edge, of course. After losing one son, she must be worried about the other one, still over there in what was enemy territory.’
Her teeth clenched because she, too, was worried about that one, Melda could only nod at this.
‘Is she keeping you on as private maid, or whatever she calls it?’ her mother wanted to know now. ‘You should never have taken the job on, not when you’d been accepted for Aberdeen University. You know your father always wanted you to follow in his footsteps as a doctor.’
‘She hasn’t said,’ Melda admitted, only realizing it at that moment. She had always dreamed of being a doctor, but what was the point of launching into a long degree course at this time? The war had been over for months now, and surely Ruairidh would soon be home and they could be married. His Lordship had boasted to her that his son was one of the Army of Occupation left in Germany to make sure the Armistice wasn’t broken, but Lloyd George couldn’t keep them there for ever?
She was so sure that it would work out for Ruairidh and her that it didn’t cross her mind to have any doubts.
At the castle, Marianne’s mind was also on Ruairidh’s return home. With the war over, he was in no real danger now, so she hoped that he would not be demobilized for some time yet … long enough for her to persuade Melda to take up the chance of a career as a doctor. Once at Medical School, she might fall in love with someone else, and a battle between Ruairidh and his mother would be averted.
Laying down his newspaper, Hamish observed, ‘It’ll be good to have Ruairidh home again.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. She could sense his unspoken wish that Ranald, too, could have come home, but she couldn’t bear to have him say it.
Her husband, if she had but known, was just as unable to mention their dead son as she was, and it took him a few moments to stifle the great sorrow he felt. ‘You haven’t told me much about your holiday,’ he said at last. ‘I hope you found the peace you sought? And how did you get on with Melda?’
‘It was very peaceful,’ Marianne smiled, ‘a tiny cottage in Yorkshire, and Melda was an ideal companion. She had lost … a boy she was fond of, so she had some idea of how I felt.’
‘She’s a nice lass,’ Hamish nodded. ‘You know, maybe it’s too soon to say this, but I would quite like Ruairidh to marry a girl like her.’
His words cut through his wife’s senses like a knife. ‘A girl like Melda,’ she said hastily, ‘but not her.’
Hamish looked at her sadly. ‘Why not? She comes of a good family –’
‘She does not!’ Marianne shouted. ‘She –’ She broke off and her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I should have told you long ago, only I thought it wouldn’t be necessary, but she’s not Robert and Flora’s child.’ She stopped to lick her dry lips. ‘Oh, Hamish, I can’t speak about it.’
‘You can’t leave me in the dark now,’ he said sharply. ‘If she’s not the Mowatts’ child, whose child is she?’
Unable to look him in the eye, she muttered, very quickly so as to get it over with, ‘She’s Duncan Peat’s child, the baby everybody thought had died with Grace, but Robert gave her to Flora because she had just lost theirs, and nobody was any the wiser.’
Looking mystified, Hamish stroked his chin. ‘But Grace and Duncan were both decent people, too, so why …?’
Seeing remembrance dawning darkly in his eyes, Marianne whispered, ‘Now do you understand?’
Aware that the memory of the minister’s attack on her had upset him again, Marianne let the matter drop. He would likely recall how the man had taken his life in Hill-side Mental Hospital and proved himself to be insane. Surely Hamish couldn’t think Melda was a suitable wife for Ruairidh now?
Chapter Twenty-two
Melda could not fathom Lady Glendarril’s logic. She would have thought that she would want to keep her maid-cum-companion rather than have her leave after less than a year, but it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to the decision she herself had made. She was not going to begin a medical degree course even if her employer had promised to finance her throughout her years of study, not now that Ruairidh was coming home. If he had stopped loving her and didn’t want to marry her, she might consider a career, but otherwise, no.
There had been an air of excited expectancy in the castle, in the whole glen, since word got out that the 8th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers was being relieved of its peace-keeping duties on the Black Sea, where it had been posted from the Rhineland some months after the armistice, and the men should be home within the next week or two. Melda lingered over the thought of seeing Ruairidh so soon, her happiness so intense that her heart ached.
The House of Lyall Page 31
