Wild Heritage

by Wild Heritage (retail) (epub)

  ‘I was reared to work with them but I got away and I’m glad I did. I’m not going back on the land either. But I love my mother and I don’t want her to be shut up like a prisoner – you should know what that’s like – for the rest of her life.’

  ‘Take her away wi’ you then,’ suggested Craigie.

  ‘I would but she’ll not leave Big Lily.’

  He stared at her and said, ‘And you don’t like Big Lily. You’ll no’ take her.’

  Kitty nodded her head without speaking.

  ‘Was she hard on you?’ asked Craigie.

  ‘Very hard,’ Kitty told him.

  ‘It doesnae seem to have done you much harm,’ he said, looking pointedly at her golden jewellery and expensive clothes.

  She ignored that and went straight to the point. ‘I’ve a proposition for you. Instead of Helen selling the farm to some stranger, why doesn’t she sell it to me? That way, Scotts would still be there, people of your own blood.’ She accurately guessed that this would strike a chord with Craigie.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘And what sort of price would you be offering? It’s worth a lot of money.’

  She was cool. ‘We could have it valued. I’d offer a fair price.’

  She had not enough capital to buy a farm but was confident that she’d find it. She’d borrow if necessary. Robbie Rutherford or even Freddy might lend her the money. She’d pay it back with interest. That problem would come later, however. At the moment she had to persuade Craigie to see her point of view.

  ‘I don’t need money,’ he said bleakly. ‘What do I need money for in here? And I’m not going to sell my land. It’s been in the family too long.’

  ‘It would still be in the family if you sold it to me,’ said Kitty. Pride in her family’s long association with Camptounfoot made her eyes shine.

  With his talent for guessing what was in people’s minds. Craigie knew what she was thinking and said caustically, ‘I dinna ken how long your Irish father could trace his ancestry, though. Not very far I’ll be bound.’

  She glared at him. ‘Ancestry’s all very well providing you look after the people you’re related to. You’re not doing much about Big Lily and Wee Lily, are you? If you really cared about your family, you’d let them stay in the bothy till they die, even if they couldn’t work. They’ve both been good servants to you and they’ve never received much for it, either in money or in thanks. That farm would have gone back to thistles after you were sent up here if it hadn’t been for my grandmother. She ran it as well as any man could have done and now she’s being put out because she’s too ill to work! You wouldn’t do that to a horse, would you?’

  Craigie’s eyes glimmered while he listened to this outpouring but then he grinned wickedly and said, ‘No, I’d shoot a horse that was too old to work.’

  She groaned and stood up. ‘I can see I’m wasting my time. But I’m warning you that Helen may get permission to sell the farm, and then there’ll be no Scotts there any more. You’d do better to sell it to me.’

  ‘And what would you do with it?’ he asked sardonically.

  I’d hire men to work it and I’d let my mother and grandmother stay there to oversee what was being done. Big Lily’s body might be worn out but there’s nothing wrong with her mind.’

  ‘And what about Helen?’ asked Craigie.

  For a moment Kitty was nonplussed. She hadn’t given much thought to Helen. ‘I’d find her a house in the village. She’s living in misery in the farmhouse. I’d find out what she wanted to do…’

  Craigie waved a hand, dismissing Helen. ‘She’s daft. Always has been. She’d do what she was told. But nobody’s said I’m going to sell, have they? I’d have to see the colour of your money first.’

  Kitty was preparing to leave. ‘A minute ago you said you didn’t care about money. You’re only playing with me, aren’t you?’

  Craigie leaned forward in his bed and she could see how painfully thin he was. ‘I don’t have to care about money. I’ve got treasure in the farmhouse, treasure beyond what you ever dream about. Even Helen doesn’t know what I’ve got there. That’s why I’m not selling anything…’

  Kitty snorted. ‘And what good will it do you? What good has it ever done you? It’ll lie where you’ve hidden it till some stranger digs it up.’ Craigie groaned as if in pain and a guard came hurriedly up to say to her, ‘You’ll have to go now, miss. He’s an ill man.’

  She lifted her gloves off the bed and stood up. ‘Goodbye Grandfather,’ she said coldly.

  He lifted his head, which had fallen forward when he groaned and looked up at her. His eyes were pale yellow like the dog that guarded his sister’s house.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘I told you. Scott,’ she said surprised.

  ‘I know it’s Scott. What’s your first name? What did they call you?’

  ‘Kitty.’

  ‘Just Kitty. Not Katherine.’

  ‘Just Kitty.’

  Craigie grinned. ‘I don’t suppose they’d be able to spell Katherine…’

  ‘You know damned well that neither of them can even write,’ was her last riposte.

  She was furious when she walked back to the station. I shouldn’t have come. He was just playing with me. He’s a horrible old rogue and not mad at all. He’s totally sane. He was very lucky not to be hanged for shooting Bullhead, she was thinking.

  On her return to Camptounfoot, she went to the bothy and told the bondagers. ‘I’m going to find you a house in the village. I’ll pay the rent for you. You won’t have to go to the Poors’ House.’

  Big Lily glared bleakly at her. ‘And what will we use for money? We’ll have nae wages coming in.’

  ‘I’ll give you money,’ said Kitty.

  ‘I dinna want your money. I’d rather go to the Poors’ House,’ said Big Lily.

  Wee Lily was sobbing quietly behind her mother. ‘I dinna want to leave Townhead. I’m feart to go away.’

  Her mother turned on her, saying sharply, ‘I dinna want to leave here either but there’s naething else to do. You should have taken Jake back when I told you to and had another bairn and this would never have happened.’

  Kitty tried to make the peace. ‘I’m going to find you a place to live,’ she said firmly to Big Lily, ‘and I won’t give you any of my money. I’ll give it to her…’ She pointed at Wee Lily as she spoke.

  ‘Pshaw,’ spat her grandmother, ‘how long’ll that last? It’ll be the Poors’ House for us in the end.’

  Though she asked everywhere, there wasn’t a house for rent in Camptounfoot. She could have got a cottage in Rosewell for five shillings a week but she knew the bondagers would regard going to live in Rosewell with the same dread as they would have felt about emigrating to America. She hated the idea of failure but it looked like she had failed.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  On the morning of the bondagers’ last day in the bothy, Kitty woke up in her room at Falconwood with a splitting headache and a terrible sense of having lost a battle.

  Wee Kate was in her cot in the same room and Kitty lovingly cared for the child before she dressed herself. She’d have to go into Christopher’s nursery later because Kitty had to go to Townhead and force her grandmother to do what she wanted. The thought of the tussle ahead made her head ache even more.

  She was hurrying to leave the house when Tibbie came along the hall crying out, ‘There’s a letter come for you, Kitty. It looks very official. It’s got a big seal on it with a stamp and a lawyer’s name.’

  With an expression of dread on her face, Kitty split the seal with her fingernail and drew out a sheaf of closely written sheets of paper. The first page was headed with the name of an Edinburgh lawyer.

  Tibbie watched with undisguised curiosity as the covering letter was perused. She saw Kitty shake her head and furrow her brow as she read it again without giving any clue as to its contents. After she’d gone through it a second time, she gazed at Tibbie for a few seconds and
then said very slowly, ‘I can’t believe this. There must be some mistake.’ Tibbie anxiously clasped her hands because she was afraid that the girl had received bad news. ‘Oh what’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘Matter? Tibbie, dear Tibbie, nothing’s the matter! It’s amazing.’ Then Kitty grinned, the old impish look taking over her face. She threw the papers in the air and whooped, ‘I can’t believe this! I simply can’t believe this! I thought he didn’t like me…’

  ‘Who didn’t like you?’ asked the confused Tibbie.

  Emma Jane Maquire, hearing the noise, came out of the breakfast-room and looked curiously up the stairs to the landing where Kitty was throwing her arms around Tibbie and clasping her so tight that she gasped, ‘Don’t, you’re hurting me. What’s happened?’

  ‘He’s left me the farm… I mean he’s given me the farm. Craigie’s given me Townhead,’ she cried.

  ‘Oh never,’ gasped Tibbie in disbelief. ‘Craigie never gave anything away in his life and certainly not Townhead.’

  Kitty was kneeling down collecting the papers she’d so carelessly thrown around. Reaching up she thrust the covering letter from the lawyer into Tibbie’s hand. ‘Read it for yourself. Read what it says there…’

  Tibbie read, and like Kitty, she had to read it twice before she cried down to Emma Jane in tones of wonder, ‘The lawyer says that Craigie was so impressed by Kitty that he’s made a deed of gift and passed his ownership of the farm and all its contents on to his granddaughter, Kitty Scott. Isn’t that amazing?’

  Then she added in a softer tone to Kitty, ‘It says he’s done it because you look like his mother. You reminded him of his mother, that’s why he’s done this.’

  Kitty shook her head disbelievingly. ‘He never said anything at the time. He was quite hostile really.’

  ‘I remember his mother,’ said Tibbie, ‘though she died when I was just a bairn. Craigie must have been twelve then. She died in an accident, something about a cart overturning. She was a big, upstanding woman with red hair. I haven’t thought about her for years. Isn’t this the strangest thing! Who’d ever have expected it!’

  Kitty was rereading the legal papers enclosed with the letter. ‘It’s all very official, all in lawyer’s language… I can’t understand half of it. I’ll have to go to a lawyer in Rosewell and have it explained before I do anything. I’d better go there now.’

  She was away for an hour and the lawyer she consulted could hardly believe what he was reading either, for he knew Craigie Scott’s reputation for meanness.

  He folded the papers up eventually and said, ‘It’s perfectly legal. You own Townhead farm, Miss Scott. He’s given it to you. His sister Helen’s still living there, you say. There might be trouble with her.’

  ‘Yes, I thought that too. Perhaps you’ll come with me when I go to see her,’ said Kitty, mindful of Helen’s broadsword.

  ‘I’d be delighted,’ said the lawyer, sensing that he’d just acquired a good client. ‘When will be suitable?’

  ‘Now, straightaway, immediately,’ Kitty told him.

  Helen was not surprised to see them. When she answered the door she was carrying a letter similar to the one Kitty had received. ‘Craigie says I’ve to do what you tell me. He’s sent me money and told me that’s my share. I dinna understand any of this,’ she said distractedly.

  The lawyer took the letter from her hand and read it. ‘He’s sent you five thousand pounds, Miss Scott. That’s a lot of money. It’s your inheritance. You’re a rich woman.’

  ‘Am I?’ asked Helen. All the financial transactions in their family had been handled by Craigie and it could have been five pounds or five hundred for all that it meant to her.

  ‘What will you do now that young Miss Scott here has been given the farm?’ asked the lawyer gently. Kitty stood back and left this delicate matter to him, for she guessed he’d be better at it than she would.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Helen, looking round the cobwebbed hall.

  ‘Would you like a nice little house in Rosewell and a maid to look after you?’ suggested the lawyer, who’d seen the decrepitude of the place.

  Amazingly Helen nodded. ‘Aye, that’d be nice. I’m sick o’ this place and if Craigie’s no’ coming back, I don’t think I’ll stay.’

  It seemed too easy to be true but Helen meant what she said. In her mind she’d been holding the fort for Craigie and now her responsibilities were at an end. She turned and wandered off into the gloomy depths of the farmhouse while Kitty and the lawyer stared at each other.

  ‘Do you want me to handle her moving?’ he asked and Kitty nodded.

  ‘Oh, please do.’

  Now that Helen was taken care of, Kitty was at last able to go to the bothy where she found her mother pottering frantically about among bundles and bags. There was not a lot because they had few possessions. Her grandmother sat staring into the black hearth. It was the first time Kitty had ever seen the fire out.

  ‘You’re late. I thought you said you were coming early. This isn’t early,’ snapped Big Lily.

  ‘Has the cart come yet?’ Wee Lily asked.

  ‘It’s not coming, Mam,’ said Kitty, ignoring her grandmother but Big Lily refused to be cut out.

  ‘Why not?’ she growled.

  Kitty turned to her. ‘Because you’re only moving down the road to the farmhouse. You’re going to live there from now on.’

  ‘I am not,’ snapped Big Lily. ‘That’s a cold, cheerless place. I never liked it.’

  ‘It’s better than the Poors’ House,’ protested Kitty, wishing that they’d ask how this turn of fortune had come about because she wanted to astonish them.

  She turned to her mother. ‘Don’t you want to live in the farmhouse, Mam?’

  Wee Lily was cuddling little Jake and they both looked confused. She said, ‘No’ really. I’d rather stay here.’

  Exasperated, Kitty had to break the news without them asking. ‘Well, listen to this. I got a letter this morning telling me that Craigie’s given me the farm. Helen’s moving to Rosewell and you can live in the farmhouse.’

  Slow-thinking Wee Lily didn’t take it in properly but Big Lily reacted immediately. ‘You’re daft. Craigie wouldnae gie his farm away – especially to you.’

  ‘He did and I’ve a lawyer’s letter to prove it. He said I looked like his mother so he gave me the farm.’

  Big Lily sighed. ‘The police must have been right when they shut him up for being daft. Like his mother, you say. I cannae remember much about her but folk used to say that she had a sharp tongue on her – like you, I suppose.’

  If Kitty was downcast at the reaction to her great news, she was even more disappointed when both her mother and her grandmother refused to leave the bothy.

  A compromise was reached in the end. They would allow the bothy thatch to be repaired, new glass to be put in the windows and a proper fireplace built. They would even allow her to divide the barn-like structure into rooms and make a new front door but they wouldn’t leave it.

  ‘How are you going to manage when all the building’s going on?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s no trouble, we’ll just live in a corner,’ they said. Anything rather than move out.

  When she announced that she was going to hire a ploughman and a labourer they were shocked. ‘What a waste of money!’ cried Big Lily.

  ‘It’s not,’ said Kitty. ‘This farm hasn’t been looked after properly since Craigie went away. You tried but there was too much work for you and I don’t want either of you working any longer. You can retire now.’

  But they didn’t want to retire either.

  ‘What would we do wi’ oursel’s?’ asked Wee Lily piteously.

  ‘All right, go on working if that’s what you want but not so hard, please,’ pleaded Kitty. At least, she thought, she’d be able to give them money, even if it was in the form of a wage because that was all they would accept.

  While she was waiting for Helen to be moved out of the farmhouse
and to take possession of her property, Kitty determined to do something about David Benjamin.

  The thought of giving up Kate saddened her but she knew that she had to go to see Marie’s brother eventually. She had to decide whether it would be better for the child to go to him or stay with her.

  Legally, she had no claim on the baby. If anyone did, it was David because Kate’s document of birth registration gave only the name of her mother, Marie Benjamin. It was necessary to go to see him. What she did after that depended on whether she judged him capable of giving Kate the love and attention she needed if she was going to grow up well and happy.

  Kitty’s pride in the child was so strong that she could not hide her away from her family at Camptounfoot much longer. Already, she guessed, the Falconwood servants would be spreading the news that Kitty Scott had arrived back with a baby in a basket and no father for it.

  That afternoon she left the baby with Tibbie and hired a cab from Rosewell station to take her to the Maddiston mill.

  David Benjamin had matured so much that he looked like a man of forty and was excessively respectable. His blond hair was oiled and slicked down and any resemblance he’d ever had to Marie was long gone.

  He shook hands with Kitty gravely and stood watching her while she perched on a chair before his desk.

  ‘I’ve come about Marie,’ she said.

  He held up a hand. ‘I heard she’s dead. Robbie Rutherford sent me a note. I got it last week. He said he’d asked you to go to Paris to find her and that you were with her when she died.’

  Kitty nodded. ‘I was…’ Her voice trailed off sadly as she wondered if she should describe Marie’s death to him. Even thinking about it brought tears to her eyes and she feared she would break down.

  He apparently did not want to hear, however, for he turned to the window and said in a remote voice, ‘It was inevitable that she’d destroy herself, I suppose.’

  ‘She had consumption!’ protested Kitty.

  ‘Her way of life made it worse. Her friend, Miss Roxburgh, told me she drank alcohol.’ He sounded totally uncompromising.