A Maxwell Maligned (Laird of Lochandee) (4 page)

Apart from the poor price she had been forced to accept, Gertrude Maxwell was still reflecting on Taffy’s shrewd observation about the high quality of the butter she had sold to him two weeks ago.

‘You never grumbled about the quality before,’ she told him.

‘A-ah, no, but then you never let me have your best butter before – at least not recently. A mistake was it? Taffy got the wrong batch, eh? I expect you sell your best butter to the fellow Sedgeman? Fancies your daughter, does he? That’s what I hear ...’

‘I sell nothing to Peter Sedgeman!’ Gertrude bristled. ‘I would not have him and his grocer’s cart near my house.’

‘So, a fluke it was then, a fortnight ago? Beautiful butter it was. Churned to a grain and worked just enough – neither greasy nor still holding the water. Two pounds of it I was keeping for me and my girls.’

Gertrude knew the butter had been good. She had been surprised by its quality. She had set Rachel to churn and work the butter, fully expecting to take over herself and give the girl a thorough tongue-lashing. She had kept a watchful eye on the dairy and been surprised at the easy rhythm with which the girl churned, and the songs she hummed as she worked. She had even gone down to the burn to get the coldest water she could obtain to keep the perfect grain of the butter. She had worked it as deftly and lightly as a woman twice her age. It was clear that she enjoyed the dairy work too, and Rachel O’Brian’s enjoyment of life at Windlebrae had no part in Gertrude’s scheme. She dispatched her to the fields to hoe turnips and made the butter herself after that. The galling thing was that Taffy had noted the difference.

Chapter Five

‘Y
OU
’
LL HAVE TO MOVE
out, girl.’ Gertrude issued the order abruptly as soon as supper was over. ‘We need the coldest room for setting the cream.’ Rachel met her fierce glare with startled eyes. Guilty colour flooded her cheeks. Had Mistress Maxwell discovered she had spent her afternoon idling with Ross in the sunshine? Where would she go? What would she do? Panic gripped her.

‘What do you mean, Gertie?’ Cameron asked sharply.

‘What I said. We need to keep the cream cooler. The butter must be the best we can make. And the milk cows need the clover pastures to get the best flavour.’

‘But you have never set the creaming pans in that wee room before.’

‘The market for butter has never been as bad before,’ Gertrude retorted. ‘People can’t afford to buy it. Besides there’s stuff called margarine in the Co-operative store. Taffy says some of his customers are buying it instead of butter because it keeps longer.’

‘So that’s it!’ Cameron exclaimed. ‘I wondered why you’ve been looking so grim since you came home.’

‘Grim!’ Gertrude’s eyes flashed, her mouth opened …

‘All right! All right, m’dear,’ Cameron soothed, holding up a placating hand. ‘Though I can’t see what difference it will make setting the cream in that wee room where Rachel sleeps. It’s no cooler than the dairy in summer. If that’s what you want I expect Rachel will soon clear out her bed and her box.’

‘It is what I want. If she wants to go on staying here she’ll have to sleep in the loft above the byre. It’s hard enough to keep our own family.’ She spoke as though Rachel was invisible.

‘Mother! She can’t sleep there!’ Meg and Ross protested in unison. Cameron’s eyes narrowed. There was something irritating Gertrude. He knew the signs, but why did she vent her spleen on a bit of a lassie who more than earned her keep?

Rachel flushed unhappily. She knew Gertrude did not like her, or want her here, but where else could she go?

Ross had told her the farmers round about barely made enough to keep their families. He said the ground above the neighbouring farm rose steeply and their neighbour’s was the last farm up the glen which was suitable for keeping dairy cattle. He had explained that Windlebrae was better situated because it was on a south facing slope and it had more fertile land beside the burn which ran right through the farm.

‘Perhaps I should look for other work?’ she said uncertainly.

‘Indeed you will not, lassie,’ Cameron objected strongly. ‘We made a promise to your father. This is your home for as long as you want it.’ He glared at his wife. Her thin mouth grew even thinner.

‘The May term was the time to look for work if you’d wanted it,’ she snapped. ‘The twenty- eighth of November will be the next hiring day. You’ll need to get a bus into the town to get there.’

‘She will not be getting there. You will go to no hiring fair, lassie, not while I have breath in my body.’

‘Rachel can easily sleep in my room.’ Meg wondered how her mother could be so cold and unfeeling towards a girl who had no family of her own. The cream would not keep any better in Rachel’s tiny room, cheerless though it was. Why did she make her so unwelcome? Why did she want to get rid of her? Why did she dislike her so?

Meg and Ross were especially kind and sympathetic in the weeks which followed. Cameron Maxwell did his best to liven up the atmosphere with his gentle humour. She was growing fond of the old man and she looked forward to Wednesdays when his wife went to market. Since that first afternoon in the High Meadow she and Ross had spent any brief spell of leisure together, finding contentment and an easy companionship.

Sometimes they walked hand in hand wandering aimlessly, chattering like school children, then rushing back when Gertrude Maxwell’s return from market loomed perilously near. Often they had no more than half an hour together because the tasks she had set claimed all their time. They were happy just sitting in harmony on a grassy knoll, or racing breathlessly against a stiff breeze to find a blessed calm in the shelter of the ancient beech tree. They were kindred spirits, filling an unacknowledged loneliness in each other. They found pleasure in small things, like the simple perfection of a dainty flower, or the heady perfume of a hedgerow. The exquisite song of a bird above their heads hushed them instantly to silence. The simple delights of nature took on a new meaning when they were together.

One afternoon, after a strenuous race up the hill behind the farm, Ross laughingly caught her in his arms and kissed her. It was a gentle, fleeting kiss, almost childlike in its butterfly caress, but it had been enough to awaken the age-old awareness of a man and a woman. The ready blush coloured Rachel’s skin.

‘I do believe that is the first time you have been kissed,’ Ross said. ‘Tell me I am right, dear Rachel.’ He brushed a gentle finger across her mouth, wonderingly. ‘Am I the first to take such a privilege?’

She nodded shyly. Ross seized her slight figure and swung her round in joyous glee.

‘You are as light as a feather, yet I often forget you are so young. You are as skilled as any woman in the house and in the dairy, and you have borne so many troubles already. We all forget you are scarcely more than a child.’

Rachel’s head jerked up.

‘Is that how you see me, Ross? As a child?’ He looked at her then, intently, his eyes moving over her small neat features, her thick burnished hair escaping from beneath the ridiculous cap his mother insisted she should wear. He thought there was a shadow of anxiety in her blue eyes, but her lips were red and faintly mutinous. One day she would be beautiful and she would have spirit. His heartbeat quickened. One day she would be his. His eyes widened as the thought came to him.

‘No,’ he said huskily, ‘No, I do not think of you as a child.’ Without warning he cupped her face in his work roughened hands and kissed her lips, lingering this time, feeling a yearning within him which he knew could swiftly turn to passion. He lifted his head and heard the soft lingering sigh as he released her. For a moment he was silent, his heart filled with an impossible desire. Then he smiled.

‘You see,’ he whispered softly, ‘Kissing gets even better with practice.’

Willie and his horses were mowing down the grass ready to make the hay. Everyone prayed earnestly for fine weather. A good crop could make all the difference to the survival through another winter. Hands were blistered and sore, tempers were short as they turned and re-turned the rows of grass to make the most of the summer sun.

‘I’ll have to get my own field of hay in as soon as this is finished,’ Willie said. He turned to look at Meg and Rachel.

‘I hope you will come down with Ross and help us in the evenings, if you are not too weary.’ He winked at Meg. ‘I think you will enjoy it this year.’ Meg flushed and Rachel looked at her curiously, wondering what Willie’s unspoken message conveyed.

It did not take Rachel long to interpret Willie’s meaning the first evening she went with Meg to the small paddock behind Willie’s cottage. Peter Sedgeman, the grocer, was already there, wielding his long two-pronged fork. He greeted Meg warmly and as they worked he was never far from her side, talking quietly as they moved along the rows. The air was fragrant with the scent of newly mown hay and the atmosphere was happy.

Ruth brought a jug of her freshly made lemonade to refresh them and for a little while they sat together on the warm grass enjoying the peace and the evensong of the birds. The weather was calm and settled but it could change without warning. They all worked steadily until the purple shadows of evening crept over the sky. When Willie called a halt Ross beckoned Rachel and they strolled together over the field towards the Windlebrae boundary, leaving Meg and Peter Sedgeman deep in conversation.

‘We’ll walk slowly to give Meg time to catch us up. If Mother suspects she’s talking to Peter there will be trouble.’ Rachel nodded agreement. It suited her to walk slowly, and not just for Meg’s sake.

‘Mr Sedgeman seems a pleasant man, but he has such a wistful look. He makes me feel sad.’

‘His wife died soon after the twins were born so he has his hands full. She was an orphan and had been brought up by Peter’s parents. I think it was probably a marriage of convenience after Peter’s parents died. Anyway she is dead now and Peter employs a housekeeper to care for the children. Ruth saw her once and thinks she is a slovenly creature.’

‘No wonder he looks so unhappy.’

They reached the boundary wall and Ross turned to lift her over, but before he let her go he held her close and kissed her until she gasped for breath. Only then did he set her on her feet again. He vaulted easily over the wall himself and pulled her back into the circle of his arm.

‘We’ll wait here for Meg.’

It took two more evenings at Willie’s hay. They finished earlier than they had expected on the last evening. All day the weather had been sultry and the air seemed to hang heavily, pressing their clothes against sweating bodies.

‘It looks like we shall have thunder before morning,’ Willie remarked. ‘Ruth and I can’t thank you all enough for helping us get the crop in safely.’

‘I’m going across to the burn to cool my feet,’ Ross said. ‘Anyone else fancy a paddle?’ He looked at Rachel but she looked at Meg for guidance. It was Peter Sedgeman who answered.

‘Meg and I will meet you at the boundary wall in about an hour.’ He took Meg’s elbow and squeezed it gently. ‘That all right, Meg? I want to hear what your mother said last night. It would give us a chance to talk properly?’ There was pleading in his brown eyes. Meg nodded.

‘I’ll leave the paddling to you two youngsters,’ Willie laughed, glancing at Ross and Rachel. ‘I’ll go and wash myself at the pump.’

So Rachel and Ross wandered over a small meadow and down a slope to where the burn looped onto Windlebrae land and back again.

‘All of this semicircle of land floods when we have the winter storms,’ Ross told her. ‘It’s as though the water is in such a hurry it is trying to find a short cut to the river. It will be fairly low just now but there is a decent pool in the hollow down there by the trees.’

‘If it is wet and cool it will be wonderful,’ Rachel sighed, glancing down at her boots and feeling the heat in her woollen stockings. She wondered how Meg and Mrs Maxwell managed to work at all in the heavy corsets they both wore. Meg had told her only the other day it would soon be time for her to wear them too, now that she was growing into a woman and her figure was developing. They had been preparing for bed. Rachel blushed when Meg eyed her narrow waist, her slender buttocks and small firm breasts, comparing them with her own rounded curves.

‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you, dearest Rachel,’ Meg chuckled. ‘As a matter of fact I’m glad Mother decided she wanted to use your tiny room for setting the cream. It’s lovely having you share my bedroom – almost like having a young sister. Mind you it can be so hot up here under the eaves in the summer. Sometimes I throw off my nightgown and the bedclothes to try to keep cool. I expect Mother would be shocked if she knew.’

‘I never had anyone to talk to before – n-not about girl’s th-things,’ Rachel stammered shyly.

‘Well you have now so if ever you are worried about anything just tell me and I will help if I can.’

‘I thought I was going to die,’ Rachel confided, ‘the first time there w-was blood. I ran to Minnie’s house.’

‘Did she explain that it was a natural part of being a woman?’ Meg asked curiously, remembering her own alarm and how grim and abrupt her own mother had been, how brief and unsatisfactory her explanation.

‘She said it was only a sign I was a woman grown and nothing to worry about. She said I must keep myself clean and behave like a young lady and I would come to no harm.’

‘Mmm …’ Meg murmured doubtfully. ‘I suppose that’s sound advice.’ She was hardly qualified to offer any better herself, she thought ruefully.

Rachel’s attention came back to Ross as he threw himself down on the springy turf beside the burn. He unlaced his boots, peeling off his thick socks, and wiggling his toes with relief.

‘Come on Rachel, surely you are longing to cool your feet? The first time we met you had been paddling in the burn.’

He edged nearer the water and dangled his feet in the flowing stream. Rachel bit her lip. His back was towards her. Swiftly she pulled up her long grey skirt and unlaced her boots. Guiltily she pulled down her stockings and laid them on the grass.

The running water was deliciously cool on their hot skin and Rachel soon forgot any pretensions to hide her ankles and act like a lady. She laughed with delight as her toes slipped on the smooth pebbles. Ross bent to roll his trouser legs up as far as they would go, revealing his long muscular calves. She watched him enviously, wishing she could do the same.

‘I would have had them off altogether if you had not been here,’ he grinned.

‘Do you want me to leave then?’

‘Indeed I do not!’ He seized her hands. ‘You know how much I like your company, dearest Rachel.’ Then the merry sparkle left his blue eyes and he stared down into her face intently.

‘I’ve never been very sure what this thing called love is, but I’m beginning to think it must be what I feel for you.’ He watched the delicate colour rise in her cheeks and she lowered her eyes shyly. He released one hand and gently touched the golden crescent of her lashes where they rested on her cheek. Then his hand slid behind her back and he drew her closer, holding her tenderly as he bent to kiss her lips. Around them the clear water of the burn rippled on its way.

Rachel was growing more familiar with Ross’s kisses now and her natural shyness was disappearing as her ability to please him grew. Tentatively she slipped her arms around him and felt the beating of his heart against her own. His kisses deepened with passion as he felt the soft yielding curves of her body against his own. His foot slipped on a large pebble and he almost lost his balance. Rachel had not noticed until then how wet the hem of her dress had become. She lifted her skirt a little and hastened out of the water. Ross followed, flinging himself on the grass and waving his feet in the air to dry them.