Wild Heritage
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
A Bridge in Time Series
Copyright
‘The seed of the cedar will become cedar; the seed of the bramble can only become bramble.’
Saint-Exupéry
Prologue
Ten years had passed since an army of navvies swarmed into the peaceful Border countryside to create an innovation which was to transform the lives of local people, though at first they were reluctant to accept its benefits.
When the navvies tramped away they left as their legacies a road to the outside world in the form of a network of railway lines, a beautiful railway bridge over the river Tweed, an unmarked grave-mound of their dead in the burying-ground of the abbey at Rosewell… and several fatherless children.
This is the story of three of these navvy bastards.
Chapter One
1866
Nanny Rush lay dying.
She had grown so thin that her body made only a small mound beneath the white bedcover. Harsh raspings of painfully drawn breath from her half-open mouth almost drowned the sound of sobbing from a young girl kneeling by the side of the bed with her face sunk in her hands.
‘Oh Nanny, dinna die, dinna die. What will we do without you?’ this girl implored.
‘Hush, hush,’ said a small, stout woman standing by the side of the bed. Her voice was concerned and sympathetic, so the weeping girl turned towards her and was comforted by the touch of soft hands on her back and whispered words. ‘You’ll be all right, dinna greet, Marie.’
‘Tch, tch, what a way to carry on,’ said the dying woman’s sister Martha who was standing on the other side of the bed, her hard grey eyes staring at the others. ‘Take that greetin’ bairn downstairs, Mrs Mather. She’ll upset my sister,’ she said.
With gentle hands Tibbie helped the girl to the door and whispered, ‘Go and sit down in the parlour with David. Have a drink of milk and something to eat.’
The girl always seemed sickly. Although she was eleven years old, she looked about nine and there was a worrying transparency about her skin often seen in consumption sufferers. When she was told to eat, she refused with a shake of the head.
I’d rather stay with Nanny. What if she wakes up and wants me?’
Tibbie soothed her. ‘If she does, I’ll call you, I promise.’
The girl closed the door behind her and the women heard her footsteps tiptoeing softly down the wooden stairs.
Then Martha raised her eyebrows and said, ‘What right has she to be weeping and wailing as if she was real kin?’
‘But she’s as good as kin,’ protested Tibbie.
Martha snorted, ‘No she’s not. She’s greetin’ because she’s losing a soft berth. And she’s from a bad background. What sort of name’s Marie? It’s a name for Papes.’
What she was saying was heard by the woman in bed, for Nanny’s eyelids flickered, she gasped and reached out an emaciated hand as she groaned, ‘Tak care o’ my bairns when I’m gone.’
Tibbie hurried over to the bed and wiped the waxen face with the corner of her apron. ‘Rest easy, Nanny. The bairns’ll be all right,’ she told the suffering woman.
Nanny’s once bright blue eyes opened and stared into her friend’s face. ‘I’m dying, Tib,’ she whispered, ‘but I dinna want my bairns to go into the Foundling Home. I’ve left letters about them in a box on the downstairs mantelshelf.’
Wordlessly Tibbie patted her hand and soon Nanny was asleep again, her breathing harsh and shallow. The watching women glanced at each other for this signalled the approach of the end.
‘She’s nearly gone. I’m going to bring up the bairns so they can say goodbye to her,’ said Tibbie, rising to her feet.
Martha frowned. ‘You’re being silly. They’re just foundlings after all.’
Tibbie glared and replied fiercely. ‘That doesnae stop them loving her.’ Then she opened the door and called down the stairs, ‘David, Marie, come up now.’
Two frightened-looking young people with poker-straight pale blond hair and vulnerable white faces came hurrying upstairs. Like his sister, the boy seemed younger than his real age for though he was often taken for eleven or twelve, he was actually fourteen. When they entered the room he was holding his weeping sister’s hand.
‘Say goodbye to her,’ said Tibbie and obediently they bent over the dying woman, pressing their lips to her cheek. David was able to control his tears but Marie broke down sobbing. ‘I dinna want you to go, Nanny, dinna leave us. You’re all we’ve got,’ she implored.
Martha pulled her roughly back from the bed. ‘Get a grip on yourself, girl,’ she said harshly.
In a swift movement the boy jumped between them and the ferocity of his stare was frightening. ‘Get your hands off my sister,’ he hissed.
Startled, Martha dropped her hand from the girl’s shoulder but to cover up her confusion she said loudly to Tibbie, ‘Did you hear that? Did you hear the way that laddie spoke to me and him only a guest in this house?’
Scandalised at the prospect of a row breaking out beside a death-bed, Tibbie said urgently to the boy, ‘Take Marie downstairs, David.’ Without speaking he put an arm round his sister’s shoulders and led her away.
Then the flustered Martha hissed, ‘I ask you, did you ever hear the like? That laddie’s a bad lot. Mark my words, he’ll come to no good like all his folk before him.’
Tibbie’s plump face was flushed. She was angry but fought to hide it for Nanny’s sake. ‘The bairns are upset,’ she said grimly.
‘Huh, he’s no’ shedding any tears. He’s only bothered for himself,’ replied Martha.
Tibbie turned back to the sick woman whose face was bedewed with sweat. ‘I’m going down to get some warm water so’s I can wipe her poor brow,’ she said, lifting a china basin from the washstand. Having to talk to Martha was annoying her.
Downstairs David and Marie were standing in the tiny lobby by the front door and she could tell from the way they straightened up when they saw her that they were bracing themselves forbad news. She shook her head to tell them that Nanny was still alive.
‘Is it certain that she’ll go? She’s been ill before and got better… maybe this time too…?’ David’s voice quivered as he spoke.
Tibbie shook her head. ‘No, lad, I’m sorry, not this time. All we can do is try to make it as easy as possible for her.’
Grief for her dying friend swept over her like a wave as she spoke, for she had been holding her sorrow back so as not to upset the children. Now she could hold out no longer and sank down on the stairs with tears flowing down her cheeks. The young people stared at her. When they saw Mrs Mather weeping they knew that Nanny would soon be dead.
‘I’m sorry,’ sobbed Tibbie. ‘She’s my oldest friend. There’ll never be anybody else like her. When she goes, a lot of me will go with her
Marie squeezed onto the step beside the weeping woman and put a hand on
her shoulder.
‘It’s not fair,’ she sobbed. ‘Why does Nanny have to die when…?’ Her voice trailed off as she looked upstairs and Tibbie knew she was wondering why God was taking Nanny when Martha, the oldest sister, was so obviously thriving. The girl had been too well trained in Christian consideration, however, to speak her thoughts.
David was more forthright. ‘We don’t like Martha,’ he said.
‘I don’t care for her myself,’ replied Tibbie, though she usually thought it unseemly to criticise adults before children.
‘Will she want to take us away with her when Nanny…?’ His voice trailed off for even he, trying so hard to be grown up, could not say the word ‘dies’.
Tibbie shook her head. ‘I don’t know what she wants. Nanny left a letter about you. We’ll have to see what it says.’
The children nodded. It was unthinkable for any of them to open Nanny’s letter before she died. They would wait.
Then the door above their heads opened and Martha’s footsteps were heard on the stairs. The boards creaked beneath her tread as she came slowly down towards them. When she reached the lobby she gave a nod, almost of satisfaction, and said, ‘Well that’s that, she’s gone.’
Tibbie felt a surge of anger that made her cheeks flush. Not for the first time she wondered how sweet-natured Nanny could have a sister like Martha. ‘You should have called us,’ she snapped.
Martha raised her eyebrows. ‘Should I? I’m her sister. I’m the only blood kin here. Anyway she went very quietly. Now we’ll have to start arranging things.’
She stepped dry-eyed into the parlour, ignoring Marie and David who were clinging together weeping.
‘Where’s this box of letters she was talking about?’ she asked advancing on the mantelpiece. Mutely David pointed to a battered red tin box that stood among bits and pieces of brightly coloured pottery.
Martha lifted it down and rummaged among the contents. ‘There’s two letters here,’ she said in surprise, turning them over in her hands before she handed one to David. ‘One’s for me and the other’s for you…’ It was obvious that she thought it unsuitable that her sister should leave a letter for him.
To Tibbie’s disappointment, Martha slipped her letter into her pocket. She wasn’t going to read it in front of them. David wiped his eyes and turned his letter around in his hands as Tibbie asked, ‘Do you want to read it now or keep it till later?’ There was curiosity shining in Martha’s eyes.
‘I’ll read it later,’ he said and the letter went into the pocket of his jacket.
The ever-practical Tibbie made tea and poured it out. Although the children drank it rather than hurt her feelings, she could see they were both utterly exhausted, for it was almost midnight and they had been up, watching over Nanny since dawn.
‘Away you go to bed and Martha and I’ll do what’s necessary,’ she gently told them and they didn’t argue.
‘That pair’ll have to go on the parish,’ Martha told Tibbie the moment the parlour door closed behind them.
‘Your sister wouldn’t want that. What does she say in her letter?’ was the bleak reply.
Martha brought the letter out of her pocket and opened it with her back turned to Tibbie. It did not take long to read and when she had scanned its few lines, she swiftly folded it up and put it away again.
‘What does she say about the bairns?’ asked Tibbie.
‘Nothing.’ Martha sounded shifty and an expression of incredulity crossed Tibbie’s face. ‘But…’ she protested.
‘But nothing. They’ve had all they’re getting off my sister. They should have been on the parish years ago. They’ve been living off her charity too long, taking money she could ill afford.’
‘She never thought about it like that. She loved them as if they were her own bairns. You heard what she said up there,’ protested Tibbie. She wished she could get her hands on Nanny’s letter and read what it really said.
Martha was intransigent. ‘That was only because she never had any bairns of her own. She was a soft touch for that mother of theirs. And you know what she was, don’t you?’
‘Their mother was a poor soul,’ snapped Tibbie.
Martha sneered. She was a whore and God knows who their father was, or even if they were fathered by the same man… They’re navvy’s bastards and blood will out, you mark my words. They’ll come to no good, neither the two of them. It’s as well my poor sister died before she saw them revert to type.’
Tibbie’s face was scarlet in the firelight. She wanted to hit the self-righteous woman before her.
‘You shouldnae talk like that about folk you never even saw. Not all the navvies were bad. My own lassie Hannah married a navvy and a better man never walked this earth.’
For once Martha was disconcerted. She had forgotten that Tibbie’s girl Hannah had made a precipitate marriage to a navvy called Tim Maquire who came to Rosewell to oversee the gangs of men building the new railway. It had been a scandal at the time but folk changed their tune about it when Hannah and her baby died in a cholera epidemic up at the navvy camp.
‘There’s exceptions to every rule,’ she said in a mollifying voice. ‘All I’m saying is that those two upstairs’ll have to go on the parish. They’ve no money and no home and my man Willie wouldn’t have them in our house
‘That’ll be a relief to them,’ snapped Tibbie. She liked Martha’s husband Willie even less than she liked his wife. He was a miller, gluttonous and mean-minded with a reputation for crooked dealing and giving short weight in his flourmill outside Kelso. Willie had done well in business by nefarious methods and Martha liked coming back to her native town of Rosewell to show off her fine clothes and smartly painted dogcart, but people who knew her only laughed and whispered to each other about how many sacks of oatmeal Willie had adulterated to pay for his cart and pony and Martha’s feathered bonnets.
Stung by Tibbie’s tone she glared and snapped, ‘Dinna lose your dander because I forgot your Hannah ran off with a navvy. I’m just telling you I’m going to make arrangements with the parish for those two upstairs because I want them out of this house tomorrow.’
Tibbie was pulling her shawl over her shoulders preparing to go home. She whirled round to say angrily, ‘Don’t worry about making arrangements as you call them. I’ll take them in. Nanny knew you wouldn’t treat them right. She had you sized up. Tomorrow morning I’ll take them away. They’ll not bother you any longer than they have to.’
Martha bristled but all she said was, ‘That’s good.’ She had got what she wanted.
* * *
Before nine o’clock next morning, Tibbie returned to Nanny’s house in Rosewell and found Marie sitting with David in the parlour while Martha bustled about, very busy and preoccupied.
As soon as she saw Tibbie she announced, ‘Go up and look at her. She’s a perfect picture. I’ve dressed her in her best nightgown and made the bed with her wedding sheets. Go up and see her.’
Reluctantly Tibbie did as she was told, for she did not like looking at people when they were dead, preferring to carry a picture of them alive and happy in her memory. In the low-ceilinged bedroom she found everything as Martha had described. Nanny lay in state with her hands folded on her breast and ruffles of lace around her white face.
At the sight of her, grief hit Tibbie like a sharp blow in the chest and drove the breath out of her lungs.
‘Oh my dear,’ she sobbed, dropping onto a chair by the bed. She remembered her friend as she had been when they were both young – Nanny aged seventeen dancing in a flounced dress; Nanny aged thirty, in a stiffly starched white cap, weeping in sympathy when Tibbie’s husband died; Nanny bravely accepting the fact that she would never be able to carry a child full term. But she was so sweet-natured that she did not envy her friend’s daughter Hannah… And now both she and Hannah were dead. The pain of old grief mingled with the new stabbed Tibbie’s heart.
Patting her friend’s ice-cold hand for the last time, she sobbed, ‘I’
ll miss you sore. I’m sorry you’ve gone.’
Then, wiping her eyes, she rose to go back downstairs where the children were waiting. By their feet lay two small baskets and they were dressed for outdoors.
‘You must be in a hurry to get back home,’ said Martha without even offering her guest the usual cup of tea or mug of ale that was pressed on callers in the poorest household at such a time.
Tibbie nodded grimly. ‘I’ve things to do right enough. I see the bairns are ready. Is that all they’re taking just now?’ she asked, pointing at the baskets.
‘That’s all they’ve got,’ snapped Martha.
‘But what about their books and Marie’s paintbox?’ said Tibbie in surprise. Nanny, who taught a dame school in her parlour for many years before she took ill, had encouraged their love of learning. She had especially encouraged Marie’s gift for drawing by giving her sketch books and boxes of paints.
Martha glared. ‘The books and the school things are part of my sister’s estate and she’s left it all to me.’
A glimmer of suspicion showed in Tibbie’s eyes. ‘Is that what the letter said?’ she asked.
‘What business is it of yours?’ Martha wanted to know.
‘None, none. It’s just that Nanny and I used to talk about things when she first got ill… She told me things,’ said Tibbie.
The other woman began bristling like an angry cat. ‘I can’t help what she told you. All I know is what was in the letter and she never left a will. If she’d not wanted me to have her things she should have made a will. Not that she’d much to leave. She wasted a lot of money when she was alive.’
As she said this her eyes went to David whose cheeks flushed scarlet at the words.
Tibbie sighed. ‘Poor Nanny trusted folk. That was her trouble. She probably thought she didn’t have to leave a will. She’d have done the right thing and she expected other folk to act the same way.’
Her meaning was not lost on Martha, who turned away and stared out of the window as Tibbie said to the children, ‘Come on then, let’s get back to Camptounfoot. You’re coming to stay with me now.’
Wild Heritage Page 1
