Wild Heritage

by Wild Heritage (retail) (epub)

  The Red Lion Hotel was closed and its door barred against importunate late drinkers, so there was no one who could tell her where Grandma Kennedy might be. She sat down heavily on the bench used by MacPhee and her sisters during the afternoon – was it only a few hours ago? – and stared bleakly over the rubbish-littered square. Then, in spite of her determination to stay awake, she fell asleep.

  It was cold and still dark when she woke with a shudder. The town clock chimed, telling her the hour was five. A few desolate-looking people were drifting over the square. Oh, thank God, one of them was Bill the busker.

  She ran over to him and took his arm, ‘Where’s Grandma Kennedy?’ she asked.

  His eyes were bleary and bloodshot and he smelt of drink but he recognised her. ‘Carroty Kate! My mother’s down in her van in the field by the river. What do you want with her?’

  ‘I want to come with you. I’ve changed my mind about her offer.’ Kitty was shivering with cold and fear. Bill, a kindly man, took his woollen muffler off his neck and draped it round hers.

  ‘You’d better not wake her up so early. She’ll take your head off. We’re planning to be on the road by six. You can speak to her then.’

  There was no point beating about the bush. ‘Bill,’ she said urgently, ‘I’ve got to hide. Somebody’s after me. Please don’t make me stay where I’ll be seen. Let me go to where she is. I can hide beside her van till she wakes up. Just take me there, please.’

  There was no mistaking the urgency of her appeal and Bill did not waste time asking the whys and wherefores.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, taking her arm.

  They walked quickly down a broad road to a field that stretched along the riverbank. In the far corner, beneath a grove of sheltering trees, six dray horses were grazing beside a cluster of caravans painted with big letters advertising the boxing booth.

  The only one that was not garishly covered with slogans was Grandma Kennedy’s. Hers was dark plum-red with gold trimmings and fancy curlicues painted around the door and window.

  Bill was tiptoeing when he approached it. ‘She’s not awake yet,’ he said softly to Kitty, indicating the closed door.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ said the girl. For shelter she crawled under the van and lay down behind one of the huge wheels that were also decorated with swirls of gold leaf.

  Bill bent down and whispered to her, ‘You’ll hear her getting up but don’t be too hasty. She’s always in bad fettle in the morning.’ Sleep overwhelmed Kitty again as she lay on the grass and in the event it was Grandma Kennedy who heard her snores and wakened her. A stick was pushed under the van and jabbed into Kitty’s ribs.

  ‘What d’you think you’re doing in there?’ asked a hoarse voice. ‘Come out and let me have a look at you.’

  When the girl’s head appeared out of the shadow beneath the van, Grandma cried out in surprise, ‘The red-headed lassie! What are you doing in there? Have you changed your mind?’

  Kitty clambered to her feet and said, ‘Yes, I want to go with you. When are you leaving?’

  ‘Huh, you’re in an awful hurry all of a sudden, aren’t you? What’ve you done? Stolen your mistress’s silver? I don’t want to be bothered with thieves or people chasing after them.’

  Grandma Kennedy did not seem as eager to recruit Kitty as she’d been the previous evening.

  Kitty said stoutly, ‘I’m no’ a thief. I’ve never stolen anything in my life…’ Except my knife, she thought.

  Her vehemence softened the old woman a bit, and she asked in a gentler tone, ‘Well, why are you so keen to come with us now when you wouldn’t consider it yesterday?’

  Kitty decided to tell the truth. ‘I’m running away because last night I stabbed a man who was attacking me,’ she said.

  ‘How do you mean? Was he going to force you into letting him fuck you?’

  ‘Yes, he was trying to rape me – and his friends were watching. One of them put him up to it. It was awful. I fought hard but he was stronger than me… I could hear his friends laughing…’ The full horror of what she might have endured if she had not found the knife in time, struck her with awful force and she shuddered at the memory of Liddle’s horrible laugh when Walter grabbed hold of her.

  Grandma Kennedy looked sympathetic but not particularly shocked or surprised. ‘Men, they’re a lot of dirty devils,’ she said coolly. Then she added, ‘You stabbed him you say. What with?’

  Kitty reached into her pocket and produced the bone-handled knife. ‘With this,’ she said, handing it over.

  The old woman took it into her hand with respect. ‘That’s a neat little thing, handy to have about you. Did you hurt him?’

  ‘He fell down groaning and Liddle, that was the man who put him up to it, shouted at me that I’d killed him and they’d hang me for it. Then I ran away.’

  ‘Quite right too,’ said Grandma Kennedy briskly. ‘But there’s no proof he’s dead, is there? Where did the knife go? Into his guts? Into his chest?’

  Kitty tried to re-enact the scene in memory and held up a hand to show Grandma Kennedy what happened. ‘He was leaning on me while he opened his pants. I used my right hand like this but I couldn’t get much space so I jabbed at him this way…’

  She made a short jabbing action, watched with interest by Grandma. ‘You jabbed straight at him?’ she asked.

  The girl nodded. ‘Yes, straight. I couldn’t turn. He was pushing against me with his… thing…’

  ‘Was he taller than you?’ was the next question.

  ‘No, heavier but not taller. His face was against mine too and he was sweating… ugh…’

  Grandma Kennedy was matter-of-fact. ‘That’s all right. Don’t go on any more. I think you probably hit him in the shoulder. That wouldn’t kill him providing they got help to him in time. Unless he bled to death of course… But don’t worry too much, there’s a chance he’ll be all right.’

  She was discussing it in the same way as she’d talk about a black eye given to one of her boxers. Kitty felt some of her terror seep away to be replaced by a little of her habitual optimism. Maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right.

  Grandma Kennedy saw the lightening of the girl’s expression and hurriedly added, ‘Not that I think you should bank on it. I wouldn’t advise you to go back to find out. You’ve done the right thing coming to me. I’ll take you with us when we leave here. Get up into my van and stay out of sight till I come. I’ll tell you when it’s all right to show yourself again.’

  Kitty was overwhelmed with gratitude. She wanted to throw her arms round the old woman’s neck and hug her but desisted because of Grandma’s formidable aspect. ‘I’ll never be able to thank you. But won’t you get into trouble if the policeman finds you’re helping me to get away?’ asked Kitty.

  The wiry old woman was halfway up the van steps by this time and she looked down at the girl. Her eyes were sympathetic as she said, ‘When I was about your age I was raped. I remember how terrible it was. I remember how much I hated the man, how I wanted to kill him. If I’d had a knife, I’d have stabbed him too. I know you’re telling me the truth because you were telling me my own story. Come on, get into the van and stay hidden. We’re on our way to Carlisle and must be off early. We still travel slowly, not like the trains.’

  Inside, the caravan was painted dark green and there were more gold leaf scrolls running along beneath the roof. Wooden shelves flanked little windows at each side. Candlelight showed shelves filled with colourful pieces of china, not the rough earthenware figures that Kitty had seen in Camptounfoot houses, but fine china painted all over with sprays of flowers. She particularly admired an elegant teapot with a curving spout and bouquets of roses painted on its side. The bed was a high bunk with cupboards beneath it and there was a table hinged to the wall beneath the window. On the opposite side to the bed ran a long bench with cushions on which a scruffy-looking little black dog was sleeping in the middle of the biggest and softest cushion of all.

  When they enter
ed, it looked up and wagged its tail at Grandma but snarled at Kitty.

  ‘It’s all right, Toby. She can come in,’ said the old woman and the dog laid its head on its paws but its golden eyes were watchful.

  ‘Will he bite?’ asked Kitty, indicating the dog when she saw that Grandma was about to go out and leave her alone in the caravan with Toby.

  ‘Only if you touch anything that belongs to me. Just sit quietly and he’ll not bother you. Lie down and go to sleep if you like. You look as if you need it.’ Then the old woman bustled off leaving the two occupants of her caravan suspiciously eyeing each other.

  Kitty sat very still on the bed, hardly daring to move, but in time she toppled over sideways sound asleep and when that happened Toby closed his eyes and went to sleep too.

  They were wakened by the noise of a horse being backed into the van shafts. Then someone jumped into the box and they went lurching and swaying out of the field. Toby ran to the window and stared out wagging his tail. It was obvious that he liked being on the road and travelling changed his mood, for when Kitty got up and stood beside him so that she could see from the window too, he didn’t bother to snarl at her.

  They went in cavalcade at walking pace down the road to the south, crossing over the bridge at Rosewell, across the town square and through the village of Camptounfoot.

  Kitty stood back from the window so that no one could see her as she was carried past familiar cottages where people were rising for another day. There were already children in Camptounfoot’s street and she caught a glimpse of Jo walking down to the river.

  ‘Goodbye, goodbye,’ she whispered. If she’d seen her mother or Tibbie Mather, she probably would not have been able to contain herself and would have jumped down to hug them.

  The line of vans made a slow pace going up Camptounfoot Hill but when they reached the top, the going was easier and the horses began to trot as they rounded the corner past Falconwood. From her vantage point at the window Kitty saw the land she’d helped to work. The bondagers were in the turnip field with MacPhee at their head, bending over in the back-breaking work of gathering up the roots to feed to the sheep during the winter. In the distance she could see three ploughs, each pulled by a pair of horses with a man holding onto the handles as they travelled up and down over the field and the broken earth unfolded behind them like the waves of a sea. It was too far, however, for her to make out which of the farm men were ploughing. Everything looked normal and it seemed that no one had missed her or that anything out of the way had happened. It was as if she’d dropped into the river like a stone and the water had closed over her.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was some time before people realised that Kitty Scott had disappeared. At Falconwood and Camptounfoot it was thought she had gone to work in Duns; at Duns her new employers thought she had postponed her arrival until the normal hiring day change in May.

  When it was eventually discovered that she had vanished off the face of the earth, there seemed to be no explanation for it because Walter Thompson put his stabbing – a flesh wound it turned out – down to an incident at the fair and Tom Liddle kept his mouth shut about the attempt to rape Kitty.

  She won that money in the boxing booth, said everyone, and just took off with it without telling her mother or anyone else where she was going.

  When Tibbie heard this story she furrowed her brow remembering the last meeting she’d had with Kitty. ‘I can’t understand it,’ she told Marie. ‘She told me she was going to Duns. She sent you her love and asked me to keep in touch about her mother… It’s not like her to say one thing and do another. I hope she’s come to no harm. Wee Lily’s worried about her but Big Lily doesn’t give a fig.’

  Marie rubbed the scar on her thumb reflectively. ‘I think she’ll be all right, Tibbie. Kitty’s a survivor,’ she said. It was a lovely day and her heart was singing because the previous day she’d seen Murray, for he’d stood watching while she sketched in the Roxburghs’ garden. At one point their hands brushed when he bent to pick up her painting box and her skin still prickled where he’d touched it.

  She was counting the days till she could see him again. Next Tuesday evening perhaps, four long days to put in dreaming about him. In a strange state of mind, half bemused delight and half suspended animation, she mooned around the village, making little sketches, talking to Tibbie, helping with the housework, stroking the cat, listening to the gossip… The only excitement was when her brother came over from Maddiston.

  On Sunday afternoon he appeared at the door unexpectedly. It was raining and the women rushed towards him, fussing while he took off his coat and unwound the muffler from around his neck.

  ‘You’d better have a wee dram to get the cold out of you,’ said Tibbie, bringing out the whisky bottle.

  David hadn’t touched alcohol since his experience with Mr Henderson at the fair, so he primly refused but he did not seem his usual melancholy self. He had something special to tell them, he said.

  They both looked at him expectantly, wondering what sort of surprise he was about to spring on them. ‘Something very nice happened to me yesterday,’ he said.

  Tibbie hoped he’d met some nice girl he wanted to marry but had the sense not to voice this wish. Marie racked her brains to think of something her brother had always wanted and could not come up with a thing. Their failure to guess his secret did not displease him. It meant he could drag out the suspense.

  ‘I’ve just been given the best present I’ll ever get, I think,’ he told them.

  They looked back at him with smiles on their faces till Marie’s tolerance broke and she said, ‘Do tell us, David. What is it?’

  ‘I’ve been made manager of the Maddiston mill,’ he announced with a note of great pride.

  The effect was everything he desired. His sister and Tibbie gaped at him in astonishment, exclaiming together, ‘Manager! How did this happen?’

  ‘Coleman got drunk again yesterday morning and fell down in the yard when Mr Henderson was there, so Henderson sent him off and made me manager. I take up my new position on May the first and as soon as Coleman and his wife move out of the big house, I’ll move in.’ This was what he had been working and planning to achieve ever since he stepped into the mill office but it had come sooner than even he expected.

  ‘That’s wonderful for you, David,’ said Marie. Then she shook her head a little and added, ‘But what about poor Coleman? You always said he was a nice man. What’s going to happen to him?’

  Her brother shot her a hard look. ‘He’ll go back to where he came from I expect. He’s a nice enough man but he drank and that meant he couldn’t do his work properly. He was too soft. The workers made a fool of him.’

  It was obvious that when David was in charge things would be very different. All he wanted now was for the ex-manager to get out of the way as quickly as possible, and he longed to move into the mill manager’s big house. He was literally counting the hours and praying that there would be nothing to hold up Coleman’s departure.

  ‘But you’re so young,’ gasped Tibbie.

  ‘I’m not… I’m twenty-one,’ protested David. In fact, Mr Henderson had been told he was twenty-four and he could pass for that easily.

  His sister and Tibbie were over their first surprise by this time and told him how clever he was. They both said they were proud of how well he’d done.

  ‘That Mr Henderson must think a lot of you,’ said Tibbie admiringly.

  David smiled and looked across at his sister as he said, ‘Well, you know what this means, don’t you? You’ll have to start packing your things, Marie. I should be moving into the big house in the next few days and so there’s no need for you to go back to Edinburgh because as well as getting the house, I’ll be earning two hundred pounds a year!’

  Tibbie gasped again, showing the admiration he yearned for, but Marie’s reaction was not what he’d expected. She did not seem at all pleased.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve done so well, I’
m happy for you but I’m not going to Maddiston,’ she said coldly.

  ‘But you’re almost finished with this painting business. You must have learned enough. Now you can settle down. I need you to look after me,’ he spluttered.

  ‘I’m not going to live in Maddiston and I’m not going to stop attending my classes,’ she repeated, clenching her fists, infuriated because he treated her painting as a trivial pastime, like fancy needlework.

  He leaned forward and said angrily, ‘I think it’s time my sister stopped taking charity money. I’m earning enough to keep you now.’

  Her face was scarlet. ‘I don’t take charity money. Lady Godolphin sponsors me because she recognises my talent. One day I’ll repay her by painting a lovely picture for her.’

  He snorted derisively. ‘Some payment. What she wants from you is the feeling that she has some simple country girl dependent on her bounty. You make her feel generous and kindly. You’re a fool to stand for it, bowing and scraping to her, “Yes, Lady Godolphin” this and “No, Lady Godolphin” that. It makes me sick. Don’t you realise what you’re doing? Haven’t you any pride?’

  Marie stared at him with a feeling of sickness rising in her throat. ‘I don’t bow and scrape… I only treat her with the respect that I’d give to anyone of her class.’

  David launched himself into a tirade now. ‘Why’s she better than us? Just because she married a fop with a title, that’s why. We’re as good as she is, better because she’s coloured, or hadn’t you noticed that? She gives money away and you think she’s marvellous, but she’s got so much that she doesn’t miss it. It’s like you giving a crust of bread to a tramp at the door. For God’s sake, don’t make yourself into an object of charity. I don’t want you to be beholden to anybody.’ Dim, long-banked-down memories of his downtrodden mother came sharply into his memory, making his fury stronger.

  Marie shouted back at David, ‘You only want me to be beholden to you. That’s what you mean. You don’t want me to get free of you, to have a life of my own. Lady Godolphin doesn’t ask anything of me but you do, you’re the one who wants a slave and I’m not going to give up the chance I’ve been given for you or anyone else.’