The Crofter's Daughter

by Eileen Ramsay

  ‘Och, Mairi, a terrible drink problem, more like,’ said Ian when she had finished telling him the tale. ‘You found yourself another Billy Soutar. You shouldn’t be let out without a keeper.’

  ‘Would you care to order?’ asked a refined voice above them.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ian, ‘please. Two haddock and chips with bread and butter and tea. And two cakes please, a yellow one and a pink one.’

  At the thought of a pink cake, Mairi sat back and looked ten years old again. Ian stared at her, wondering at the strange ways of women, and knew that if Colin was angry, his anger would be directed against his son.

  But apart from vowing that if his children were ever let loose in a city again, he and his hired man would both be with them, Colin said nothing.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The weather broke on the day of the harvest dance and rain clouds scudded down from the north and vented their anger on Forfarshire.

  Colin looked out of the window at an already darkened afternoon and watched the great beeches bending and bowing before the fury of the wind. ‘You’d be better to stay by the fire the night, lassie. It’s no weather to let a dog out in.’

  ‘I am not a dog,’ smiled his daughter as she pirouetted before him in the dress she had just turned up. ‘And I am going to dance every dance tonight. I’ll wear my coat, Dad, and my boots – till I get there.’

  Colin smiled at the picture of his daughter dancing with her great, heavy, but very necessary, boots.

  ‘I’ll take you in the trap and come back for the pair of you. I’m not leaving one of my horses out in weather like this.’

  Mairi chose not to argue. She would not win and so the effort would have been wasted. She just prayed that no one else would be arriving at the same time to see her being brought to the party like a little girl.

  Five of her friends and acquaintances turned up at the same moment, the Blacks driven by Jack himself, and Robin, who had been given a lift by a young married couple from a farm nearer to the village and the schoolhouse. This was no night to stand around greeting one another and Mairi was delighted since she had no wish to even speak to Robin Morrison. She had, however, a lowering suspicion that he felt exactly the same way about her and she determined to show him that she cared nothing for him or his opinions.

  She filled her card with initials, mostly J.B., and knew without a doubt that she was the most popular and therefore envied young girl at the dance. She danced too with Sinclair who was also enjoying his last few days at home before the university term began. When Robin and his partner were near her in the course of a dance she could hear her own laughter, louder and sillier than anyone else’s, and she hated herself.

  ‘You sound like old Agnes Dalrymple when she gets a dram at ne’erday,’ remonstrated Ian. ‘What’s bothering you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Mairi and danced past him, laughing louder than ever.

  At the second interval several of the young men went outside ‘to see if it’s still raining’.

  ‘They’re away for a smoke,’ complained Edith. ‘I’ve tried it, have you, Mairi? I’ve stopped though because Robin says it’s a terrible unfeminine smell. I wouldn’t like to be thought unfeminine. Would you?’

  ‘I don’t care what Mister Morrison thinks about me.’

  ‘That’s obvious, if you don’t mind my saying so, or the other boys either. One or two of them were giving you . . . knowing looks.’

  Mairi gasped. She would die of embarrassment; she prayed for the ground to open and swallow her up, or for the roof to be blown off, anything that might make this dreadful evening end.

  ‘You have a foul mouth, Edith Black, and just mind that no one washes it out with carbolic soap.’

  Trembling, Mairi turned away and hurried outside. Edith must not see how much she had hurt her. The men were huddled under a tree and so Mairi slipped out and ran around the corner to the back of the hall to the ruins of the old church. She leaned against a broken stone pillar and began to cry, until eventually the peace of the building stole over her and she relaxed, stopped sobbing, and wiped her nose.

  ‘Oh, I hate you, Robin Morrison,’ she breathed into the silence.

  ‘I know.’ The voice was sad. ‘You’ve been telling me for years and I keep asking myself why?’

  Robin emerged from behind another pile of stone. He looked wary. ‘Don’t yell at me, Mairi. I only followed you because one or two of the lads have had a dram or two – they brought flasks – and a man with a drink can be awful silly.’

  ‘Not half so silly as some women without drink,’ sniffed Mairi.

  He came closer and she saw that he had her coat. ‘You’ll catch your death,’ he said as he slipped it around her shoulders.

  She could not thank him. Instead she asked him how his mother was keeping.

  ‘I see an awful difference in her since I went away,’ he said sadly. ‘Her letters were always so brave, so full of me and what I was doing, and when I asked her how she was, she ignored that bit and I let myself think that was because it was so inconsequential, her health, I mean.’

  What could she say? They stood silently together listening to rainwater running off the broken roof and dropping from sightless windows.

  ‘Could I ask you to keep an eye on her for me, Mairi? Ian doesn’t notice; he’s not really too interested in people he doesn’t love. He notices your dad and you – his letters are full of you – and he sees me but . . .’

  ‘Everyone else he cares about is a dead poet,’ Mairi finished for him and they both laughed.

  ‘I don’t think that’s strictly true but it’s near enough.’ He straightened up off the pillar against which he had been leaning. ‘We’d better go in or we’ll be talked about.’

  She walked ahead of him back around the hall and at the door she stopped. ‘If I think there’s a change I’ll make sure Ian tells you.’

  The door opened and there stood Jack. ‘Well, where have you been, Mairi? The dance has started and since my partner was missing, I couldn’t get into a set.’

  ‘I don’t think I have to tell you anything about my activities, Jack, but I’m sorry if I’ve missed the dance. I was talking to . . . an old friend.’ She could almost feel Robin relax behind her as she took Jack’s arm and went into the hall with him.

  For the rest of the evening she was a model of propriety, dancing with all the young men to whom she had promised a dance, saying little and laughing less. Sometimes she saw Robin across the hall but he avoided her eyes and she turned away from him too. He was her old enemy; she had disliked him all her life and nothing had changed. But it had. He had cared enough for her – or for Ian – to watch over her and he had shared his worry about his mother’s health. Little things? Major things? She did not know. She welcomed her father so heartily that he worried and could hardly wait to get her off to bed so that he could quiz his son.

  ‘Mairi? She had a great time. Danced every dance. She was pleased to see you because she was ready for her bed and maybe she was pleased to have half the men in the area miserable because she left early. Don’t ask me about women. I just let her get on with it and stay out of her way.’

  Colin stood up and Ian remembered how his father had towered above him when he was a child, terrifying him into stupidity.

  ‘You didn’t let anybody bother her?’

  ‘Dad, she had every able-bodied man in the area wanting to dance with her. She was even outside with Robin for a few minutes.’

  Colin relaxed. Robin? She would be all right with Robin. ‘I don’t want her outside with Jack Black.’

  ‘I think she’ll make her own mind up about Jack, Dad. You’re the one reminded me she’s no a wee lassie. She’s near twenty. She’ll be worrying soon that she’s an old maid.’

  ‘An old maid, my Mairi, never! Mind you, I’m in no hurry to let some man have her and you watch her with Jack Black.’

  He stomped off up the stairs leaving Ian to lock the doors and mend the fires. Ian
looked around the comfortable homely room when he had finished, picked up his precious book, and followed his father upstairs.

  Suddenly his father had faith in him? Misguided or was it just that the older man had no real notion of what a single-minded young woman could do? In his own room he looked at his strong farmer’s hands.

  ‘I couldn’t begin to keep an eye on our wee Mairi but I can make sure Jack Black knows I’ll break every bone in his body if any harm comes near her.’

  *

  Jack Black, of course, had no intention of harming Miss McGloughlin in any way. He had become quite used to being the most sought-after young man in the area and he did not much like it when the Dominie’s son came home for holidays. This had been a very pleasant year with him off roaming all over Europe. But he had come back and he and Mairi had been outside together during the dance. If a girl was not loose, and Mairi was certainly not that, she went outside only with someone very special, someone with whom she was walking out. Jack had got used to thinking of Mairi as Ian’s wee sister who would be there whenever he sought her out and here she was outside with Robin Morrison. He thought long and hard about his plan of campaign.

  He had been told often enough by the females of his acquaintance that a well-set-up man on a horse was a splendid and even exciting sight.

  On the day after the dance, after the church service and the ritual of Sunday dinner was over and all the elders were snoring gently by the fire, hands resting on well-fed stomachs, he saddled Bluebell, still handsome in spite of his advanced age, and rode slowly over to the McGloughlins’ farm. He carried with him the first of the autumn’s brambles, picked by Edith and ready for a pie.

  In answer to his prayers, Mairi was outside surveying the damage done to her flowers by the storm.

  ‘Can I help you tie them up, Mairi?’ he asked in a sympathetic voice. ‘I just rode over with these brambles I picked before church but I’ll be happy to help you repair the damage.’

  Mairi had looked up at the sound of his voice and now she smiled as she took Edith’s hard-won brambles. ‘How lovely, Jack, we’ll have these with cream tonight. None of ours are ripe enough yet. Where did these come from? That sheltered spot by the burn, I suppose.’

  Jack had absolutely no idea and so he mumbled and stayed on his horse.

  ‘I’ll take these inside,’ Mairi said. ‘Come in and have a cup of tea with us, Jack.’

  Jack was aware of exactly where he stood with Mairi’s father and he knew why. He hesitated. ‘If you bring the twine . . .’ he began.

  ‘Not on a Sunday, Jack. It’s only necessary work that gets done here on the Sabbath. Look, Dad,’ she said as Colin appeared in the doorway, ‘look at these lovely berries Jack picked. I’ve asked him in for a cup of tea with us.’

  Colin looked from the berries to their donor. ‘You have early brambles, Jack. Kind of you to share. I take it your mother has as many as she needs.’

  ‘Oh, aye, and it’s Edith makes the jellies in our house. A grand hand with jam and jelly is our Edith.’

  Colin grunted. ‘Well, tie up Bluebell, and come in for a cuppa. Ian’s away to the schoolhouse if you wanted a crack with him.’

  ‘Who would want to talk to Ian when Mairi was in the same room, Colin,’ said Jack and Mairi blushed while Colin watched her with trepidation clutching his insides.

  ‘Talking’s fine,’ he said and led the way into the farmhouse.

  Jack sat down at the fireside across from Colin while Mairi made some tea and buttered scones. She had been happy all day notwithstanding the devastation wrought in her flower garden by the wind, and the men could hear her singing.

  ‘Pretty sound,’ said Jack gingerly.

  Colin was none too fond of Jack. He had watched him grow, a wild, spoiled young lad, and he knew the truth in some of the rumours that sometimes swept the area, but he found himself smiling at the young man who relaxed perceptibly. ‘Aye, she has a sweet voice. A woman singing at her work is a comfortable sound.’

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if you could hear our Edith,’ said Jack. ‘If she would just stick to the piano playing we’d be happier.’

  They laughed together companionably and Mairi saw them and the dull day brightened further.

  ‘It was good of the wind to stay away till the harvest was over,’ she said as she encouraged the men to eat. ‘The shepherds say we’re in for a bad winter.’

  ‘Ach, if there’s anyone with more gloom and doom in him than an Angus farmer,’ laughed Jack, ‘it’s an Angus shepherd.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to be marooned up past Hunter’s Path with snow up to the window sills,’ said Mairi as she poured Jack a second cup of tea, giving him, at the same time, her most devastating smile.

  There was more than one handsome young shepherd up in the hills. Jack suddenly realised that he would have to be more careful with Miss McGloughlin.

  ‘No reason for you ever to be that far up the glen, is there, Mairi?’ he asked anxiously. She had danced with two of the boys from the glen, now that he minded.

  ‘A bad snow comes,’ said Colin, ‘she’ll be snug and safe by my fireside.’

  Jack heard the unspoken warning and applied himself to his scones. They were delicious, as was the home-made jam. The room was clean and tidy, not nearly so luxurious as his father’s own much-grander farmhouse, but it was rather pleasant to sit across the table from a very pretty girl even with her father glowering at him from beneath shaggy eyebrows.

  He did not outstay his welcome. He complimented his host on the warmth of his fire and his hostess on the lightness of her scones and then he left. Mairi saw him to the door.

  ‘I could come by and tie up those flowers for you tomorrow, Mairi,’ he offered as they stood together beside the placid Bluebell.

  ‘Ian or my dad’ll do it, Jack. They have me fair spoiled between them.’

  ‘Will you walk home from church with me next Sunday – if the weather’s fine?’

  He had not meant to say it. He had no real idea of why he had come; he knew only that it was suddenly very important that he did come and that Mairi begin to walk out with him.

  Mairi looked up at him and wondered if he would bring her a coat on a cold night.

  Jack turned from her and easily climbed into his saddle.

  A good-looking man on a fine-looking horse is . . . pleasant to look at, thought Miss McGloughlin, and agreed to walk with him – depending on the state of the weather.

  ‘Walking home with Jack Black, lass? Ian’ll walk too,’ decided Colin. He did not want his daughter’s name linked with that of the handsome young farmer.

  Mairi looked at her father in exasperation. ‘Ian will not either, Dad. This isn’t a declaration. It’s just a walk; two people walking home from church together.’

  ‘Your brother likes a walk.’

  ‘Then he can walk in the other direction. Dad, Jack and I will walk home from church. Half of Angus is on that road on a Sunday morning. What in the name of Heaven do you think we’re going to do?’

  Embarrassed, Colin blustered, ‘What a way to talk to your father? What do you think we’re going to do, indeed. Jack Black has not the best reputation, Mairi, and I don’t want my daughter’s name mixed with his.’

  ‘That old story about his mother’s kitchen lassie having a baby? Honestly, Dad. If you could see the way the girls hang on poor Jack. He just attracts gossip.’

  ‘I don’t want mud attaching itself to my lassie. Jack’s dad owns his farm. He’s a good-looking laddie and knows it. He’s spoiled, Mairi, used to getting what he wants.’

  ‘Me too, Dad,’ laughed Mairi and almost danced past him into the kitchen where she began to wash dishes. Once again she was singing.

  Colin sat down by the fire with his paper but, no matter how he tried, he could not follow the news. Instead he saw all the advantages to be gained from having Jack Black as a son-in-law. If anyone could tame him, Mairi could.

  ‘But not yet,’ said Colin fierc
ely to the column that reported the disgraceful price of potatoes by the ton. ‘No, my wee lassie.’

  *

  His wee lassie went for her walk watched over by all her elders and betters and it was seen that Jack never so much as laid a hand on Colin’s lassie but instead watched her solicitously as she walked demurely beside him – but not too close.

  And the young couple walked home every Sunday after that when the weather was fine. And then one day Jack asked Colin if he might drop by the farm and sit with Mairi in the front room and Colin agreed. Next they went by train to Dundee where they watched a theatrical performance. Jack was bored to tears but Mairi was enchanted by the whole thing and he found himself thinking that he could watch her face, as she watched the actors, for the rest of his life. He planned to kiss her when he walked her home from the station; he could feel excitement building up inside him and he was terrified that it would show, but Mairi noticed nothing and when she saw her father with his trap at the station she ran to him in excitement and not in disappointment.

  ‘There’s snow threatening, Jack, and she has on her light shoes,’ explained Colin as he avoided the young man’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, Dad, it was wonderful,’ sang Mairi, completely unaware of the undercurrent. ‘I think I will leave home and become an actress. Don’t you think that must be the most wonderful . . . well, you can hardly call it a job, can you?’

  ‘You’ll do fine looking after the house and the family, Mairi,’ said Colin gruffly but Jack calculated that if he took Mairi’s side – and he was sure she had no real desire to leave home – he would rise in her estimation.

  ‘I think she’d make a wonderful actress, Colin, in fact I bet you could do anything you wanted to do, Mairi.’

  ‘Until tonight all I’ve ever wanted to do is be a farmer.’

  Both men hooted with laughter, drawn together by their patient tolerance of the silly twittering of their women. ‘A farmer? Surely you mean a farmer’s wife?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Mairi angrily as they trotted along. ‘I’ve far more interest in the farm than Ian and maybe even you, Jack, and I wouldn’t be the first woman to run a farm.’