Wild Heritage

by Wild Heritage (retail) (epub)

Wee Lily noticed it first. ‘Has a wasp stung you?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye, a wasp, that’s what did it,’ said Kitty, attempting to hold her hands behind her back, but Wee Lily grabbed for the injured one and said, ‘Let’s have a look. My God, there’s yellae stuff coming oot o’ it. Look, Ma. Look at this. Isn’t it terrible!’

  Big Lily cast an indifferent eye over the red and swollen thumb. ‘I’ve seen a man lose his finger when it looked like that,’ she said. ‘I hope you can still do your work. You needn’t think you’re getting off it.’

  ‘Maybe she needs a doctor,’ suggested Wee Lily.

  ‘We havenae the time nor the money for doctors,’ was Big Lily’s reply. ‘Tak’ her over to Tibbie and see what she can do.’

  Tibbie wrinkled her brow as she gently held Kitty’s hand in hers.

  ‘What a queer thing!’ she said. ‘Marie cut her thumb in the same place as this. I dressed it for her the day before yesterday and it’s nearly healed now, though I think it’ll leave a scar. What have you two been playing at? Were you touching broken glass or a sharp knife or something down there at the river?’

  Kitty shook her head. She was feeling feverish and light-headed and her thumb hurt worse than ever. All she wanted to do was to lie down and go to sleep. Tibbie treated her kindly, washed the thumb and made her steep it in a bowl of warm water in which she dropped oil of lavender. The fumes were very soothing and Kitty felt her head swim while Tibbie anointed and dressed the thumb.

  ‘It’ll no’ fall off, Tib, will it?’ asked Wee Lily anxiously.

  ‘No, Lily, but she’ll have to try to keep it clean. In a couple of days I’ll look at it again.’ Then Tibbie turned to Kitty and told her, ‘Don’t go playing with knives, that’s my advice to you. You’re too old for that sort of carry-on.’

  Back in the bothy Big Lily eyed Kitty’s white bandage and asked Wee Lily, ‘What did Tibbie say?’

  ‘She said it’ll be all right if we keep it clean. She told Kitty no’ to play with knives.’

  The innocent words rang out in the room like a clarion call and Kitty felt her whole body freeze in terror as she saw her grandmother stiffen. Big Lily was sharp and never missed anything that interested her.

  ‘She said what?’ she asked.

  ‘Tibbie told Kitty no’ to play wi’ knives. She said she must have been messing about with a knife to get a cut like that.’

  Big Lily turned to her granddaughter, who was sitting very still with her heart beating in her ears like a hammer. ‘How did you cut your finger?’ she asked.

  ‘A bit o’ glass… a bit I found on the riverbank…’ Kitty stammered. She did not have the time to get out any more words, for her grandmother’s hand caught her along the side of the head and sent her flying from the chair.

  ‘You bloody little liar you. You’re the one that took my knife, not Jake. You’re the thief, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m not, I’m not,’ Kitty protested but she was wasting her breath. Big Lily was on to her with terrible fury, hands slapping, boots kicking. She lay huddled on the floor and covered her head with her bent arms while punishment rained down on her. She was saved by her mother, who jumped between them and pushed the furious attacker away from the girl. ‘Leave her be. You’ll kill her,’ she cried out.

  ‘She deserves to be killed. She’s a bloody thief. She took my knife and blamed it on Jake. She’s like her father, a rogue through and through. Where’s my knife? Give me back my knife!’ Big Lily’s last shouts were addressed to Kitty who lay gasping on the floor.

  ‘I havenae got your knife,’ she protested. It would have taken torture on the rack to get the truth out of her. The knife represented all the hatred between her grandmother and herself and she was determined to be the winner of the war between them.

  At first she thought that she had got away with it because for several days Big Lily retreated into a state of silent antagonism and stalked around the farm not speaking to the others. Her presence in the bothy was like a black, overhanging cloud but, fortunately, she took to leaving them alone in the evenings after the work was over, disappearing without saying where she was going.

  On the fifth evening she came back before nightfall but she was not alone. When she pushed open the bothy door, a dark figure was standing at her back and she said loudly, ‘In ye go, Jake. Mak yersel at hame.’

  To the astonishment of her daughter and granddaughter, she pushed the ragged, figure of Jake into the circle of firelight. After he was sent away from Townhead, they’d heard he was taken on as a labourer at the Rosewell abattoir, not a job for the squeamish. To anyone who would listen he related his grievances against Big Lily, but now it seemed as if he and his persecutor were on friendly terms again because she actually offered him a mug of ale, which he accepted.

  Then she turned to Wee Lily who was sitting with her jaw hanging in astonishment and said, ‘Get up and fetch ale for Jake. You’d better get used to lookin’ after your husband.’

  Wee Lily’s face went red and then white. She shook her head slowly and said, ‘Aw no, Ma. I’m no’ getting merrit.’

  Big Lily’s reply was very definite. ‘You’re marrying Jake and that’s an end o’ it.’

  Kitty sprang to her mother’s defence. ‘But she doesnae like him. She’s feared of him,’ she cried as she ran across the floor and put both arms round Wee Lily’s shaking shoulders.

  Big Lily charged over and grabbed the girl by the hair, jerking her head back cruelly. ‘This is no business of yours. You’ll no’ even be here to see it happen. You’re oot o’ here tomorrow. I’ve fixed that up too.’

  Kitty stood her ground. ‘I’m staying here to look after my mam.’

  Big Lily laughed. ‘She’ll no’ need you to look after her when she’s got a man in her bed and another bairn in her arms. You’re going to Falconwood. I’ve fixed up with Tom Liddle to take you as his bondager lassie. Now we’ve got Jake back, you’re no’ needed here.’

  Wee Lily, huddled stricken in her chair, seemed to come to life. ‘No’ Tom Liddle, Ma, dinna send her to Tom Liddle. Ye ken what he’s like wi’ lassies.’ For all her simplicity, she relished gossip and never forgot what she’d been told.

  Big Lily answered her daughter without looking at her because she was staring ferociously at Kitty. ‘What does it matter with her kind? That’s all they’re good for,’ she said gleefully.

  Jake, who’d been standing in the middle of the floor twisting his cloth cap in his hands, suddenly turned and made for the door but Big Lily grabbed his sleeve and held on to him. ‘You’re staying here. It’s her that’s going,’ she said nodding in Kitty’s direction.

  Wee Lily burst into loud tears. ‘I dinna want to get merrit. I’m fine the way I am.’

  ‘Nonsense. It’s time you were wed. You’re twenty-eight years old and you can have other bairns,’ said her mother briskly.

  Kitty, made brave by anger, stepped between the two women. ‘You can’t marry her to him…’ she said pointing scornfully at the shambling figure of Jake.

  Big Lily stared bleakly at her. ‘It’s got nothing to do wi’ you. She’ll do what I tell her. She hasnae ony choice and when I hand you over to Tom Liddle I dinna care if I never see you again.’

  Early next morning, before dawn broke, Kitty was marched the mile and a half over the hill to Falconwood by her grandmother. Neither of them spoke a single word on the way. All the girl took with her was an old work skirt and a frayed staw hat that Big Lily had hauled out of the trunk beneath the bed. On her feet were the broken boots. She hadn’t even had time to dig up her precious tin box.

  The farmyard at Falconwood was deserted but she could see that it was excessively neat and tidy with fresh paint everywhere and not a single weed daring to grow between the cobblestones in front of the stable door.

  Big Lily knocked on the door of a cottage standing at the end of a line and facing a little burn. A grey-haired woman answered and all Big Lily said, with a sideways thrust of her chin, was, ‘Th
is is her.’

  A hand came out and beckoned to Kitty to enter the cottage while her grandmother turned on her heel and marched off without a word of farewell. The cottage kitchen was dark but Kitty soon became aware that two pairs of cold, hard eyes were staring at her.

  Both of the Liddles were in their fifties, a childless, pious, sour-looking pair. Mrs Liddle always wore black, which gave her the appearance of a professional mourner and she was renowned locally for her God-fearingness because she attended church in Rosewcll twice every Sunday in spite of the handicap of severe rheumatics which made her walk like a slow crab. Her husband Tom had a mean, narrow mouth, tiny suspicious eyes, and a red-mottled complexion. His grey hair was always greasy and marked in runnels by the comb he used to tidy it; his shoulders were narrow and his legs bowed.

  While his wife stood surveying Kitty with her arms crossed over her breast, he sat at the table slurping up porridge with evident relish. Then, as if to emphasise his superiority, he handed his wife his empty plate and said, ‘I’ll have some more of that.’

  She hobbled to the fire and ladled out another large helping. Nothing was offered to the newcomer whose stomach was rumbling with hunger and whose mouth watered, but she kept her expression impassive because she did not want them to know how much she longed for something to eat.

  Her eyes scrutinised Liddle and she thought, What an ugly little man. He must have been ugly even when he was young. The fear of him, which had oppressed her ever since she saw her mother’s reaction to his name, lightened. I’m capable of coping with that little whelp, she thought scornfully.

  Her gaze disconcerted him and he spoke. ‘I hope you’re no’ yin of them idlers. We havenae ony time for idlers here.’

  ‘I’m not scared of work,’ said Kitty.

  ‘Your granny’s a good worker but your mother’s a daftie. I hope you dinna take after her or you’ll be no use to me and I’ll have to send you back,’ was his next remark delivered in a sneering voice.

  Kitty hated it when people made disparaging comments about her mother. ‘My mam’s a good worker too,’ she protested.

  Mrs Liddle chipped in with, ‘That kind work well enough when they’re told what to do. She was dropped on her head when she was wee, wasn’t she?’

  Kitty glared at the woman. ‘I dinna ken. She’s just a little bit slow, that’s all, but she’s able to work well enough.’

  ‘What’ll happen to her when your granny goes?’ said Mrs Liddle sanctimoniously.

  ‘I’ll take care of her,’ said Kitty fiercely.

  Seeing that she wasn’t going to gather any gossip from the girl, Mrs Liddle became brisk. ‘When my man’s done eating,’ she said, ‘you can take the dishes out to the back door and wash them. Then fill the coal bucket and sweep the hearth.’

  There was a bucket of scummy-looking water outside the scullery door in which Kitty dipped the plates and cutlery. The sun was up now but a chill mist was drifting up the valley. Her fingers tingled with cold as she dipped them in the water and she felt herself shuddering, for her grandmother had omitted to buy her a jacket and the shawl she’d got from Tibbie had been left behind. She had only the thin covering of her cotton blouse to protect her from the cold.

  She went back inside and soon warmed up because she was kept busy. Mrs Liddle sat at the side of the fire, watching her do their chores. When she finished she was told, ‘Now you’d better get yourself across to the yard as quick as you can. Liddle’s waiting for you.’

  It was half-past six and the Falconwood workers were all lined up in the farmyard, waiting to be inspected by the steward, Mr Laidlaw. When he arrived Kitty was surprised to see that he looked as if he might be a lawyer or a minister. He held a sheet of paper from which he solemnly read out the tasks of the day, detailing some men to field work, some to carting and others to cleaning out the sheds. The women he left to the last.

  When Liddle and his co-workers hurried away, Laidlaw turned to Kitty, who was standing on her own.

  ‘You’re a new face. Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m Kitty Scott. Liddle’s new bondager,’ she said. She could not bring herself to call Liddle ‘mister’ or use his first name.

  Laidlaw nodded. ‘Oh yes, I remember. He spoke to me about you. You’re from Camptounfoot, aren’t you? I knew Craigie before he was sent to Edinburgh.’

  Kitty nodded. She’d never seen Craigie but had heard plenty about him throughout her life. His presence seemed to brood over the district though he was forty miles away.

  Laidlaw went on, ‘We’ll find you something to do. MacPhee can take you in hand.’ He turned on his heel and called out, ‘MacPhee, come here.’

  Kitty was to discover that nobody ever called the bondager forewoman at Falconwood anything but MacPhee. If she’d been given a first name it had been forgotten long ago. MacPhee was very tall, as tall as Big Lily who was nearly six feet, but she was thin instead of heavy. In fact, she looked as if she’d been put together from the broken, gnarled branches of a tree – even her fingers looked like tied-together bundles of twigs. Her face beneath the tied-down bondager’s bonnet was deeply wrinkled, pale and lugubrious. Kitty felt a nervous giggle rising to her lips when she saw this tall, gaunt apparition advancing towards her through the early-morning mist.

  ‘Take this lassie in hand. Find her something to do,’ said Mr Laidlaw.

  MacPhee gazed at Kitty and asked, ‘Do you no’ hae a jaikit, lass?’

  Kitty shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘You’ll need a jaikit. I like a’ my woman to be well turned-oot.’

  Kitty nodded, wondering how this piece of news could be sent to Big Lily, but MacPhee seemed to have the power of reading her thoughts and obviously knew a lot about the bondager’s bairn.

  ‘I doot your granny will nae gie you one. I’ll see what I can find. Come on,’ she said and Kitty followed her across the yard to where the other bondagers were waiting.

  There were seven of them altogether counting Kitty and MacPhee – two girls not much older than Kitty; two young women in their twenties and an older woman with russet-apple cheeks and a sweet smile. It was the last one to whom MacPhee spoke. ‘Rosie, you must have an auld coat in your hoose. Will you give it to this lassie? She’s Liddle’s new girl, you know.’

  The woman called Rosie nodded and smiled at Kitty. ‘Och aye, of course. There’s plenty of jaikits in oor place. My lassie left yin behind when she got married last year. Wait here and I’ll go to get it.’

  While she was away, MacPhee gave out the work orders for the day, detailing some of the women to cleaning out the cattle court; sending others to hoe turnips and telling Effie, one of the younger girls, to take Kitty and clean out the hen-houses.

  When Rosie came back with a bundle in her arms, the bondagers all gathered round Kitty and helped her into a black jacket that was a good deal too big for her. They rolled up the sleeves and buttoned it up, then stood back and congratulated themselves. ‘That’ll do just grand. It’ll keep you warm anyway. If you went out wi’oot a coat in the winter time you’d soon dee of the galloping consumption,’ they told her.

  Kitty was surprised at their kindness. She had not been treated that way by many people during her short life and wondered why they were taking so much trouble with her.

  As they hurried to the field where the hen-houses stood, Effie grinned at her and said, ‘You’re lucky. MacPhee’s taken a shine to you.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Kitty had thought MacPhee very grim.

  ‘Because she’s given you an easy job. If she didn’t like you, you’d be in the cattle court shovelling shite.’

  Kitty laughed. ‘Cleaning a hen-house isn’t an easy job either.’

  ‘It’s naething to oor cattleshed,’ Effie told her. ‘When you do that you’re up to the waist in glaur and it takes days to get rid o’ the stink.’

  They worked well together, Effie wielding a brush and Kitty the big shovel. When they’d amassed a big pile of chicken droppings, Ki
tty was sent for a barrow into which the droppings were piled and she had to wheel them to the dung heap. By this time she’d taken off her new jacket because the sun had risen, promising another fine day. In its warm rays the dung heap steamed virulently and the smell seemed to hang around it like a miasma, a veil of stench.

  At mid-morning Effie threw down her brush and sat on the grass with the hens pecking about her legs. ‘Come on an’ eat your piece,’ she said to Kitty.

  ‘What piece?’

  ‘Dinna tell me that old bitch Annie Liddle didnae gie you a piece? You’ll have to steal one from her tomorrow. Come on, share mine. I’ve plenty.’

  She handed out a slice of bread and cheese to Kitty, who took it gratefully for her hunger was prodigious by this time.

  ‘I’ll give you a tip,’ said Effie. ‘What you have to do is warn Liddle that if he doesnae treat you right you’ll tell Mr Laidlaw. He’s mortally feared o’ the steward because he’s on his last warning with him. After the business wi’ the last wee lassie, Laidlaw said if there was any more trouble he’d put Liddle off the place.’

  ‘What wee lassie?’ asked Kitty curiously.

  Effie pulled a face. ‘His last bondager. He takes in charity bairns. Nobody else’ll give their lassies to him… he’s funny wi’ them if you know what I mean.’

  Kitty’s heart felt cold in her chest. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  Effie was eager to tell her. ‘The poor wee soul was only ten years old. Her name was Bessie Maddiston. She was a foundling and they called her after the place her mother left her. She was that terrified of Liddle she’d start to cry if he as much as looked at her.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ asked Kitty.

  ‘She died. Something went wrong with her inside the women said. She’d been bothered by Liddle and she was bleeding. She never said a word against him, though. She was too scared I think. The Liddles didnae send for a doctor soon enough and she died… She wasnae the first one that had trouble. The lassie before her ran away. You look out for yourself, Kitty, and if there’s any trouble, run for MacPhee. Liddle’s almost as scared for her as he is for Laidlaw.’