And then the word miraculously went round that the harvest was ready and McGloughlin was hiring. Men and women, but not his wee lassie, could work ten or even twelve hours a day, stopping at noon for a piece and a cup of tea. Colin did not give ale, not until the day’s work was done, and then he and Ian would dish it out from a pail to men and women both, and Mairi would watch from her bedroom window and wish that she could run like the children among their elders and listen to the stories, often bawdy, always funny.
Robin had seen a different harvest in Italy, the grape, but the camaraderie had been the same, and oh, how Mairi Kathryn McGloughlin would have liked to kirtle her skirts above her knees and stamp those grapes, but wild horses could not have pulled that admission from her.
When the haystacks were standing in the fields it was time to dig the potatoes and to find time to laugh at the fat bellies of the golden turnips that vigorously pushed themselves from their earthy bed; they could wait there until the frost and no harm done. And the work filled days, and nights marched on and at the end of the harvest when September was telling the trees that it was time to wind down in preparation for winter, Robin Morrison returned home from Italy and he brought Mairi a small glass fish from a fabled city where there were no streets and the buildings floated in water like the lilies on the duckpond.
Mairi was amazed. No one outside her immediate family had ever given her a gift before. In fact she could count on the fingers of one hand the presents she had had in her entire life: a cloth doll, a book, ribbons when the tinkers came with their wares, a peach from the laird at the picnic, wonderful but not much, oh, and primroses still wet with dew.
She looked at the little fish with its golden tail defiantly flipping and its little pink body shimmering in the afternoon sunlight and she knew that it was the most beautiful thing that anyone would ever give her and, while her heart melted inside her, she frowned.
‘Why, Robin?’
He did not misunderstand. ‘Because it reminded me of you.’
She blushed. It was so achingly delicate and lovely. ‘Of me?’
‘Yes. Look at it. It’s saying, “Here I am, ready to take on the world.” I saw it and I thought of you.’
Her fingers clenched themselves around the tiny work of art and she seemed to feel the little heart beat and she could not hurl it at him because it would break.
‘I hate you, Robin Morrison,’ she said and, once again, slammed the door in his face.
CHAPTER FIVE
There was a harvest dance in the village hall. The harvest was over and the fruit of several months of back-breaking labour – with some help from the variable Scottish climate – was gathered in. It had been a good harvest and grain and seed potatoes had been sent south on the train, that same train which Mairi watched from her bedroom window.
Colin added his figures and then added them again. Yes, it had been a good harvest.
‘Here, Mairi,’ he said as he turned from his chair at the table to where his children stood watching and waiting breathlessly for the smile or the frown that would tell all. ‘Buy a new frock for the harvest dance. You could do with a new shirt, our Ian, but I’m sure you’ll find a book.’
Buy? A dress from a shop? Wordlessly Mairi clutched the coins to her and thought delightedly of which shop should be honoured by her patronage. She would put on her Sunday coat and hat and – she would take the train to Dundee! One of the big shops would be sure to have the dress that would make Robin Morrison regret that he saw her as a feisty termagant.
‘Dundee?’ bawled Colin. ‘On the train on your lane? You shall not and I can’t go with you because of the cattle sales. Ian, you’ll take your sister into Dundee on Saturday and make sure she sticks to the High Street . . . maybe Reform Street, at a pinch.’
Ian groaned and Mairi grinned. She could handle Ian.
She turned from her brother with a swish of skirts. ‘You can away and find yourself a bookshop. With a big publisher in Dundee, there’s bound to be a bookshop for brainy folk, or were you planning on buying that new shirt you need?’ she teased as she slipped into the kitchen. If she was going into a shop she would need to make sure she had on the cleanest underwear that the sales lady had ever seen. She would wash her gloves too and maybe her Sunday frock. If the weather held she could get it out and dried and ironed tomorrow.
*
‘Don’t let her out of your sight, lad,’ warned Colin on the Saturday morning. ‘Didn’t I see the smile of pure mischief she gave when she heard me say I was busy. If there’s enough money left after the train fares, take her to Lamb’s restaurant at the top of Reform Street for her dinner, or Draffen’s if she gets stuck there in the dress department.’
‘Don’t you want to take her, Dad?’
Colin turned from the pegs at the door with his cap in his hand. His face and voice were serious. ‘More than anything, laddie, but you’ve not experience enough for the sales and, besides, I know fine you’re dying to buy yourself your own book.’
Ian flushed and Colin laughed but it was a gentle, understanding laugh. ‘You’ve my frame, Ian, but your mother’s brain and I’m pleased that you’re clever. Write your poems if you like. I’ve no objections if the work’s done properly.’
He had said more than he meant to say and he was embarrassed. Daft soft gowk that he was. He took refuge in simulated annoyance. ‘Are you going then or do you plan to walk sixteen miles?’
Mairi squeaked with nervousness. She had rushed downstairs in a flurry of skirts and a too-generous application of bottled toilet water. Now she looked at the clock and at her father. ‘You have the worst sense of humour in the whole of Angus,’ she told him.
‘Just as well I’ve the worst nose as well,’ he said drily. ‘You’ve as much scent on as would do five lassies.’
He wished he had said nothing – it would have blown out the train windows on the way to Dundee – for here was Mairi squeaking again and rushing back upstairs to scrub her neck and behind her ears.
‘I’ll need to take the pair of you in to Arbroath,’ he told Ian who had resettled himself with the paper. ‘Serves me right for getting between a woman and the impression she wants to make.’
Ian looked up. ‘A woman? It’s only Mairi.’
‘Exactly,’ said Colin and went out to hitch up his horse.
When his sister, now smelling slightly of carbolic soap, joined him on the cart Ian took a good look at her. Goodness, she was even sitting differently, her back straight, her knees together, her cotton-gloved hands demurely in her lap. Ian watched the hands. They did not look as if they could deal the unwary a sharp blow but he knew to his cost that they could.
Her eyes were shining with excitement and it was obvious that she wanted to forget that she was this mysterious creature called woman and jump up and down with joy on the bench the way she would have done – yesterday. He was more full of trepidation himself but he was looking forward to being on the train and to taking Mairi for a meal at a real restaurant. He lifted his own chin a little.
Colin left them at the station. He did not promise to meet them on their return; a new dress and a book would hardly weigh his children down on the four-mile walk home. Mairi and Ian, in their turn, could barely wait for him to go. This was their adventure and they met it unflinchingly in their different ways.
Ian bought the tickets, trying to sound as if he bought tickets for train journeys every other day. Mairi sat on the very edge of the wooden seat and then almost jumped up and began to pace the platform and then, at last, at last, the train came steaming and snorting and roaring around the corner and by some miracle hissed itself to a halt right in front of the platform. For a moment Ian panicked. How did the doors open? – but the guard was there and when he and Mairi were seated on a hard bench across from two elderly ladies who smiled at Mairi’s dancing eyes, the guard waved his little green flag and the train wound itself up and belched out of the station.
And there was the sea, and, oh look, ou
r farm and our house and there’s my window and today the train can see me and I can’t see it because I am inside it and I am going to Dundee where I will buy a ready-made dress for a dance.
Carnoustie came rushing to meet them with its magnificent golf course and beautiful hotel.
‘Look, Ian, look. I’m sure you have to be a millionaire to stay there.’
And there was Monifieth and Broughty Ferry with houses like palaces – and then Dundee. The noise, the smell, was overwhelming.
‘What do I smell, Ian?’
‘Fish and, I don’t know, beer, I think.’
‘Can I smell jute?’
Ian frowned and tried the air like a dog on the scent. ‘I don’t know what jute smells like. Now come on, Mairi, take my hand crossing the road. I’ve never seen so many carts and look at the carriages! They cannae be going to the kirk on a Saturday.’
‘It’s ladies going shopping – like me,’ laughed Mairi and, ignoring his hand, she danced away from him. He cursed under his breath and followed her.
How did she know so unerringly where she was going? They were on the High Street where the smell of fish from open shop fronts was more pervasive.
‘Now Draffen’s is just down there, Ian. You go and find a bookshop and then come back for me and we’ll go for our tea like jute barons.’
He did as he was bid. He wanted to go but it would have been useless to argue anyway and so Mairi Kathryn McGloughlin found herself in the middle of Dundee on a Saturday afternoon with nearly three pounds in her purse. She would not go into the shop, not just yet. She would walk and she would look and she would remember.
The first thing Mairi noticed was that most of the women who were shopping were extremely well dressed. She would see a carriage draw up at the front of a shop; the door would open and first a highly polished boot of the finest soft leather would emerge, to be followed by yards of the best material excellently tailored. On top of all would be a hat – and such a hat! Perhaps there was a large brim – Mairi favoured them – and piled around the crown and trailing over the brim would be yards of fine tulle or silk or feathers. Superb. One hat made her laugh. For all the world, the elderly lady who was wearing it looked as if she had balanced on her head one of Father’s finest cabbages.
‘And she had to pay a lot more than Dad gets for his cabbages,’ Mairi said to herself as she stored the memory to share later with her brother.
A sudden gust of wind reminded her that it was almost October, by blowing some leaves along the gutter, and Mairi, in her best coat, shivered. And that was when she noticed the children. Children of all ages and sizes, all of them dirty and all of them without shoes. They did not seem to care as they ran in and out among the shoppers, getting in the way, their shabby clothes doing little to protect them from the elements.
‘Now watch out for some of that lot, hen,’ advised a portly middle-aged woman who had come out of one of the fish shops. ‘They’re no better than they should be and they’ll have your purse if you’re not careful. Just come in from the country, have you? They’ll have you marked.’
She bustled off and Mairi tightly clutched her purse with its precious coins and sighed at the knowledge that she did not look nearly so sophisticated as she had hoped. Then she brightened. She was going to buy a shop-made dress. No one would mistake her for a country girl then. She turned and hurried off to Draffen’s.
And there at the door was one of the children, a girl with uncombed, tangled hair and the loveliest blue eyes peeping out from a grimy tear-streaked face.
‘Got a ha’penny, miss?’ she whined, rubbing one bare foot against the other leg as if to warm it.
Mairi had the woman’s words of warning in her head and so she did not reach for her purse immediately.
‘And if I have and I give it to you, what will you do with it?’
‘Give it to my mam for some bread,’ came the answer. The girl looked up at Mairi and opened those incredible blue eyes even wider.
Mairi loosened the string on her purse. ‘And where’s your mother?’
The girl lowered her head. Mairi saw the thin shoulders shake and she heard a sniff. ‘In her bed, miss, coughing and sneezing and that weak she can’t lift her head.’
‘Tuberculosis?’
‘We can’t afford the doctor, miss, but if you give me a penny I can get her some food.’
Mairi knew that tuberculosis was one of the diseases that was prevalent in Dundee. The conditions in which many of the poorest people lived, herded into tenements that were damp and vermin-infested, encouraged such illnesses.
She looked at the girl who was once more staring at her with those eyes that said, never in my life have I told an untruth.
‘If I give you some money will you buy your mother some nourishing broth?’
The tangled mop of hair nodded vigorously.
Mairi took out a shilling. She could still afford a storebought dress. She looked down into the child’s eager, hungry eyes. Perhaps she was lying but her body could not lie. It told a tale of hunger and perhaps abuse. She thrust the purse at the girl.
‘Here, take it, get your mother a doctor and buy yourself some hot food.’
The girl grabbed the purse and stood for a moment poised like a little bird for flight. ‘You mean it? You’ll no yell that I robbed you?’
‘No.’
The girl began to back slowly away from Mairi as if she did not quite believe her and then, when she was some few feet away, she turned and disappeared into the Saturday shoppers and Mairi was left alone on the pavement. She shrugged her shoulders. Maybe the girl was lying but she, Mairi McGloughlin, had three frocks in her cupboard and good food on the table every day of her life.
‘I can look at the dresses in Draffen’s and make something over,’ she told herself and feeling thoroughly depressed – is virtue really its own reward? – she went into the hallowed sanctuary that until today she had only read about.
The shop smelled of perfume, expensive perfume, quite a difference from the street outside, and Mairi’s heart lifted. There were more important things in life than new dresses and many of them were free. She pretended that she was the daughter of one of the jute barons and that a little maid walked behind her ready to carry any parcels lest madame exhaust herself. This was such a strange picture even to madame that she laughed out loud and was frowned upon by several of the extremely superior-looking sales assistants.
Mairi walked up several flights of stairs and lost herself in china and hats and materials and lingerie. She stood close to an elderly lady who was buying a dinner service for her daughter. Several attendants scurried around with different patterns and at last the pattern was selected.
‘Everything,’ ordered the customer.
‘For eight, madam?’ asked the senior sales assistant solicitously.
‘Good gracious, no. For twelve,’ said the dowager and Mairi noticed that apart from her signature in a little book she was required to give no further information.
They must know her, thought Mairi. I bet she owns the shop but if I did I’d be nicer to the hired help.
She stayed in the china department long enough to choose her own pattern, lots and lots of delicate flowers on white china so fragile that Mairi feared her work-worn hands might break it.
She found a sales assistant in Hats who knew perfectly well that her young customer could not afford her models but who was obviously tired of putting hats on imperfect heads. Mairi found herself glad that she had given away her money, for a totally impractical summer model – greatly reduced to three shillings and ninepence, ‘and maybe they’d take the ninepence off too’ – was perfect on Miss McGloughlin’s auburn curls.
‘Those yellow roses do suit you,’ said the assistant and Mairi, looking at the wide-brimmed hat with its huge cabbage roses, was forced to agree.
‘Such a shame I didn’t see it a few months ago,’ said Miss McGloughlin shamelessly and the girls parted company, both delighted with the past half h
our.
She did not venture into Gowns but went instead to look at materials while she congratulated herself that really to make one’s own clothes was so much more sensible and original. She finished with a visit to the overly modest lingerie department where she asked to see a satin chemise and smiled at the sales girl who could not make up her mind whether the girl on the other side of the counter could or could not afford any of her delicate frivolities.
‘Too chilly in the country.’ Mairi dismissed the expensive nothings and went to meet her brother.
At first he did not notice her empty hands, being too busy with his own brand-new book on whose fly leaf he had already written Ian Colin McGloughlin.
‘Look, Mairi, Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, first published in 1871 and this edition with additional poems reprinted every year since 1907. Come on, we’ll go to Lamb’s because I didn’t spend all the money Dad gave me and I’ll let you read a few of the poems.’
They were in the restaurant and seated at a table before Ian noticed that there was no precious parcel.
‘Och, Mairi, you couldn’t make up your mind. Do you want to get a later train?’
‘I gave the money away.’
At the sound of the words, Mairi’s heart began to thud rapidly. She had given away all of Dad’s hard-earned money, Ian’s too, of course.
‘Dad’ll kill me,’ she whispered.
Ian looked at her. She had done some pretty appalling things for which Colin had scolded her severely but nothing so stupid as this.
‘No he won’t. Come on,’ he said, standing up, ‘we’ll use the tea money for a frock.’
Mairi looked at him and smiled. He was the world’s very nicest young man, easily. ‘No, we won’t,’ she said. ‘It was to a poor wee girl whose mother’s got a terrible disease.’
The Crofter's Daughter Page 5
