The Road to Rowanbrae (2 page)

‘Oh, I couldna say onything to him. I've never been able to stick up for mysel'.'

‘If you dinna, you'll be makin' a stick to br'ak your ain back.' Jess took a gulp of tea. ‘It beat me what ony lassie could see in him, but it was what your father saw, eh? Ach weel, it'll maybe turn oot a' right in the end. You'll maybe mak' a decent man o' the ill-mannered de'il yet.'

Mysie laughed. ‘An' hens'll maybe lay duck eggs.'

Clapping her hands, Jess cried, ‘Here's me thinkin' you'd naething in you, but that's the road, lass. Keep your he'rt up, an' mind, if you ever need a friend, you've only to come to me.'

‘That's good o' you, Mrs Findlater.'

‘Jess.'

‘It's awfu' good o' you, Jess. I'll mind that.'

‘I'd best get back to Downies, for Jeems'll nae be pleased if he sees me here.' Jess patted Mysie's shoulder sympathetically before she strode out, the wind flapping her black skirt and making wisps of her mousey hair fly in all directions.

Before Jeems came in again, Mysie had made the bed in the other room, given the kitchen a tidy up, scrubbed the table and had potatoes and cabbage boiling at the fire. He lifted his spoon as she set his dinner in front of him, then disgusted her by wolfing the food down as though he hadn't seen any for days. It wasn't until he'd finished eating that he looked round the room appraisingly. ‘Aye, it needed a real wumman aboot the place. I whiles had the miller's quine in, but she didna dae very much. Did you mind to feed the hens and milk the coo?'

‘Aye did I, an' I had Jess Findlater in for a cup o' tea.' She deemed it best to tell him in case he found out.

‘Jess Findlater has nae business comin' inside my hoose when I'm nae here,' he roared, his beetling eyebrows almost meeting over his bulbous nose. ‘There's never been nae comin's an' goin's afore, an' that'll nae change though you're here.'

‘You canna stop me takin' her in, Jeems.' Mysie held her breath – the retort had come out involuntarily – and, in the deathly silence that followed, she was afraid to look at him, but was thankful that he hadn't risen to strike her, as she'd been half afraid he might.

He gave a grunt, making her jump. ‘Ho, so the little cattie's got claws, has she? You're nae the sharger I took you for, quine, but you're a' the better for that. You can ha'e Jess Findlater in for a cup o' tea noo an' then, but just her. I'm nae wantin' a' the weemen roon' aboot comin' in an' gawkin'.'

‘I'll nae tak' naebody else in.' Mysie's thumping heart slowed down. ‘Jess Findlater's a real kindly body.'

‘She is that. Her an' Jake are good neighbours, nae like some o' the other nosey tinks that bide aboot Burnlea. Noo, you'll ha'e to milk Broonie again afore suppertime.'

Mysie sat down abruptly when he went out. She had stood up to Jeems and got away with it, but she might not be so lucky next time. It wasn't really fair, for she had always dreamt of meeting a young man, who would court her gently and treat her like a lady. He wouldn't have needed to be a rich man – that would have been expecting too much – as long as his kisses made her swoon with love. Then, when he was sure of how she felt, he would have carried her away from Turriff on a white horse to a house where they would live happily ever after. He would have been handsome, with dark hair curling round his ears, and eyes that held smouldering passion in their depths. Oh, that was the kind of man she was meant for, not a dour forty-something-year-old with a face like a sow's backside, as Jess had so expressively described it.

Smiling, she rose to her feet and went to the back porch for an old rag to clean the smoke-blackened mantelpiece. Vigorous rubbing had no effect, so she moistened the cloth with water from the kettle, sprinkled on some salt, and within minutes she was rewarded by the emergence of a tiny area of deep reddish-brown. It would take time, she thought, but she was determined to master the house, and maybe lick her husband into some kind of better shape.

On Friday, Jess took Mysie to the general store in what was euphemistically called ‘the village' by the residents – a small higgledy-piggledy cluster of run-down cottages. ‘There's aye a puckle weemen in Dougal's on a Friday,' she had told the girl the previous day, ‘so if you come wi' me, I'll introduce you. It's as weel to get it ower quick.'

The three customers in the shop turned to stare at them when they went in, and Mrs Mennie, behind the counter, lost track of the prices she was totting up. Highly amused by the impact they had made, Jess laughed. ‘This is Mysie, Jeems Duncan's wife – Jean Petrie, her man's grieve at Fingask; Belle Duff, fae Wellbrae, the croft nearest the kirk; Alice Thomson, her man's the souter; Dougal Mennie an' his wife, Rosie.'

Mysie was embarrassed at the way the women were sizing her up, but she smiled a shy acknowledgement to each stiff nod, and was glad that at least the shopkeeper gave her a friendly smile in return. It was Mrs Petrie, the farm foreman's wife, ferret-faced and thin-lipped, who spoke first. ‘We never thought you'd be so young, Mrs Duncan. You dinna look auld enough to be left the school.'

‘I was in service in Forton Hoose in Turra for mair than twa year,' Mysie mumbled. ‘I'm sixteen.'

‘Sixteen? An' Jeems must be wearin' on for fifty, that's a big difference.' Jean was not famed for diplomacy, and the other women thought nothing of her observation.

Dougal Mennie, however, a rather stout man with bushy white hair and a pleasant, chubby face, felt obliged to intervene. ‘That's none o' oor business, Mistress Petrie, an' dinna forget, there's mony a good tune played on an auld fiddle. I'm weel past fifty mysel', an' Rosie has nae complaints. Noo, if that's a' you're needin', I'll coont it up, for I've other folk to serve, as you can see.'

‘Dinna put it on, then, for we're near the end o' the term an' there's nae muckle left in my purse.'

‘I never charge mair than I should,' he said, sharply, for Mrs Petrie always rubbed him up the wrong way. ‘Two shillings an' fivepence three farthings, if you please.'

She paid him and packed her purchases into her basket while Rosie Mennie handed change to Mrs Duff, and the two women left together. Mrs Thomson, the shoemaker's wife, dying to find out what her friends thought of the incomer, bought only two items and hurried out to join them, their heads going close together to discuss, Jess thought as she watched them, what Mysie could have seen in Jeems.

It crossed her mind that they would never guess, not in a month of Sundays, that he'd paid thirty pounds for his wife, and she smiled as she turned to lay her surplus butter, eggs and cheese on the counter. Mysie doing likewise, they soon came to an amicable agreement with the shopkeeper as to what they could have in exchange. The system of barter suited both sides. The crofters' wives could obtain such necessities as sugar, salt or paraffin without money having to change hands, and Dougal made a profit when he sold their fresh produce to retailers in the city. Luxuries like clothes had to wait until their husbands sold potatoes and other vegetables when they went into town themselves.

Passing the little group outside, Jess remarked, ‘If there's onything else you want to ken about Mysie, you've only to ask.' Glaring into their uncomfortable faces for a moment, she said, ‘There's naething, is there? Weel, good day to you, ladies,' emphasising the last word with great sarcasm.

Mysie waited until they were out of earshot before she gave vent to her mirth. ‘Oh, Jess,' she gasped, almost doubled up, ‘what a terrible wumman you are.'

‘It's just fun,' Jess giggled.

The clip-clop of horse's hooves behind them made them both turn round. ‘It's the laird's carriage,' Jess said, importantly. ‘His coachman tak's him into the toon, for he's got some kind o' business there.'

They both stepped nearer the ditch at the side of the road, and as the vehicle rumbled past, Jess gave a cheery wave, the blue-liveried driver inclining his head to her in a stiff nod, and the laird himself smiling broadly. ‘He's a fine man, Mr Phillip,' she told Mysie. ‘We hardly ever see his wife, though, for she doesna like mixin' wi' the common folk.'

‘He looked awfu' young to be the laird,' Mysie observed, as they moved back into the middle of the road.

‘He hasna been laird for very lang. It was his father when I come here first, but he died sudden, an' this ane fell heir. He hasna ony bairns yet, but nae doot they'll come. The gentry need sons to pass on their estates to.'

‘Where aboot do the Phillips bide?'

‘Burnlea Hoose – the drive up to the Big Hoose is between the kirk an' Wellbrae, the Duffs' place, but you canna see the hoose for the trees. The whole o' Burnlea, village as weel, belongs to the Phillips. Noo, what was we speakin' aboot?'

‘We was laughin' aboot you sayin' yon to …'

‘Oh, aye. They're gossipin' bitches that lot. Alice Thomson an' Belle Duff's nae quite so bad, but never tell Jean Petrie ony o' your business, for she'll spread it roon' wi' that muckle added on you'll nae recognise it when it comes back to you.'

‘I ken what you mean, for we'd a Jeannie Tosh at hame an' she was the very same. The biggest gossip on twa feet.'

‘She wouldna beat Jean Petrie, she's the world's worst.'

Mysie giggled. ‘I dinna think you like her.'

‘I canna stand her, an' she'll be watchin' you like a hawk, noo, to see if you're in the family way, an' coontin' to see if it happened afore the weddin'.'

Mysie's face coloured. It was too early yet for her to be in that condition, but if her husband's nightly pounding into her was anything to go by, it wouldn't be long before she was. He started pawing and probing as soon as they went to bed, making her do things to arouse him and sickening her with his animal noises that grew louder and faster as his passion increased.

That night, when he rolled off her at last, he said, ‘I ken you dinna like it, but I want twa loons so's I'll be sure there's somebody left to carry on here after I die.'

‘Twa?' she murmured in some dismay.

‘In case something happens to ane o' them,' he explained. Imagining what her life would be if she produced a string of daughters, Mysie came close to jumping up and running as far from Rowanbrae as she could, but she was bound to this monster by her marriage vows – and by the bargain he'd made with her father – and he would likely find her wherever she went. ‘You ken,' Jeems went on, ‘I never saw ony other lassie that I wanted to be the mother o' my bairns. I thought aboot Nessie White, the miller's lassie, for a while, but she's a bit saft in the head, an' when I saw you yon day at the Show, I thought, that's her. You'd a fine pair o' hips on you, an' twa grand paps, so I ken't you'd be a good breeder, though you'd nae beef on you nae place else.' Revolted by his coarse honesty, Mysie was thankful when his snoring told her that he'd fallen asleep, and she thought over what he'd said. He wanted two sons, so she would do her best, but as soon as she produced them, she wouldn't let him touch her again if she could help it. Enough was enough of that.

At breakfast the following morning, Jeems said, ‘I'll leave you to get the water the day, quine. Eck Petrie's wife's been lookin' at me queer this week, for it's aye the wives that go to the well, nae the men.'

‘You should ha'e tell't me,' Mysie murmured, ‘an' I'd ha'e went fae the first day I was here.'

‘Ach weel, I've went mysel' for years, but there's aye some gossipin' weemen at it, an' they get right up my back.'

As Mysie was to find out, the well was used by several women with sources nearer their homes, but who made the icy purity of the soft spring water an excuse for meeting and gossiping with other wives in the area. As she drew nearer, she could see Jean Petrie – cottared at Fingask where pipes provided a tap in the yard as well as in the farmhouse – holding forth to Belle Duff – living at Wellbrae, she must be near a well – and Alice Thomson, who were hanging on to every word. A little apart from them, a buxom girl with a vacant expression was watching a fat, cheery-faced woman cranking up a pail, both apparently uninterested in the gossip. The woman, however, looked round and smiled when Mysie walked up. As before, Jean Petrie was the first to speak. ‘So Jeems has made you come yoursel' the day, has he? I thought you might be ower genteel to carry water, seein' you come fae Turra.'

Mysie felt her hackles rising. ‘I've daen a lot harder work in my time, but Jeems never asked me afore.'

Turning to her two henchwomen, Jean sneered, ‘We'll need to excuse her, her just bein' wed for a week. It's nae wonder Jeems stopped comin', for the twa o' them must still be real tired in the mornin's, ha, ha.'

Alice Thomson laughed obediently. ‘Aye, it's hectic nichts the first wee while, afore it tails aff.'

‘My Rab never tailed aff,' sighed Belle Duff, ‘but I dinna ken aboot Jeems, though I wouldna fancy lettin' him touch me at a'.'

Setting her yoke on her shoulders, the fat woman turned to Mysie. ‘It's you that'll need to excuse them, Mrs Duncan, for they've minds like middens. I'm Pattie White, fae the mill.' She held out a podgy hand, which Mysie shook gratefully, then attached her pails to the ropes swinging from her yoke. ‘I'll likely see you again, but mind, lass, haud aff o' yoursel', or this three'll trample right ower you. Come on, Nessie.'

Followed by the girl, she moved away, her enormous rear end wobbling in her efforts to walk steadily so as not to spill her precious cargo, and Mysie, noticing that the other pails were already filled, went past Mrs Petrie to fill hers. Jean looked at her archly. ‘Are you settlin' in a' right noo, Mrs Duncan?'