Mathew's Tale (6 page)

Chapter Nine

‘Y
E’ COULDNAE IMAGINE IT
,’ Hannah Fleming declared, as she looked around the reception room, larger and more lavish than any she had ever seen.

‘In eleven years ye’ve come frae a Waterloo far away, tae another Waterloo here in Lanarkshire, if that’s what ye really do plan tae call it. Ah’m very proud of ye, my son.’

‘It is ironic indeed, Mother,’ Mathew agreed, ‘that two places so far apart should have the same name, with no other connection between them.’

‘And a’ this is yours?’ She touched the fabric of a large armchair.

He nodded. ‘Ours, Mother. It will be your home too.’

‘But Mathew, Ah like our wee place in Cam’nethan. We dinna need onything bigger.’

He smiled. ‘Mother, I spent six years of my life sleeping in a tent . . . if I was lucky; often enough we had to make do with the open air. I crave living space, and now that I can afford it, after eight years of hard toil, I will have it. If you want to stay in Cambusnethan, you may, but why cut off your nose to spite your face?’

‘But this house is awfu’ big, son; it’s got an upstairs, it’s got lamps built intae the wa’s, and fancy paper on them too, and five bedrooms, and rooms tae bath in. No’ tae mention places inside tae do yer business, and running water tae tak’ it away.’

‘And water heated by a boiler, Mother,’ he chuckled, ‘not a kettle, don’t forget that.’

‘But twa parlours, Mathew,’ she exclaimed. ‘Wha needs twa parlours?’

‘I do. If I choose to meet with a customer or a supplier at my home, I’ll have a private room for that purpose. The way we’ve lived until now, I can’t do that.’

‘And a’ that land,’ she persisted. ‘It’s only fine folk that hae hooses wi’ a’ that land.’

‘Wars have been fought to change that situation, Mother,’ he pointed out. ‘There is a parliament in London to change that.’

‘Aye,’ she laughed, a rarity, ‘and did ye no’ tell me that fool Captain Feather’s a member? That’s a mark o’ what that’s worth.’

‘Lieutenant Colonel Feather now; I will never forget the look on his face when I called on him on my first visit to London, and told him who I was. I told you, he remembered the letter straight away.’

She nodded. ‘And he was richtly mortified,’ she said. ‘At least he had the guid grace tae send me his apologies. What an eedjit.’

‘Victor’s a fool to you maybe, but he’s the right sort of man to have in Parliament, an ex-soldier with humanity in him, as is Wellington himself. They say that the Duke wept after the siege of Badajoz when he saw the bodies piled high. I fought with these men, and I’m glad that they’re showing interest in governing the country. And Mother, it is not a sin to have wealth. A man can be rich and righteous.’

‘Och, laddie.’ She paused, hesitated, then blurted out, ‘Are we no’ gettin’ above oor station?’

‘No, we are not,’ he insisted. ‘Mother, your days of taking in sewing are long since over, yet you do not seem to have accustomed yourself to that fact. Have I always been an obedient son?’ he asked.

‘Apart frae when you insisted on joining the army, aye,’ she conceded, ‘you have.’

‘Then obey me, for once in your life. Let me move you in here.’

She frowned. ‘If ye must. Ah’ll come and live here, as your housekeeper.’

‘No, ye’ll come and live as my mother, I have a housekeeper in mind already.’

Hannah displayed her most inscrutable smile, but said nothing. Her son hesitated, but only for a second or two.

‘We’re not above our station, as you put it, Mother. I was a common soldier not an officer, but I can tell you that those commanders who were the most respected were those that had earned their rank through hard work at the military college, rather than those who claimed it through social status. I have what I have because I’ve worked for it over the last eight years, since we left Carluke, worked just as hard as they did. I have earned it. What would you rather I did? Hide it away?’

‘Ah suppose not,’ Hannah conceded, ‘but ye must hae an awfu’ lot o’ money tae buy this.’

He shook his head. ‘No, this place did not cost as much as you think. It was built by a man called Schultz, a Prussian. He was an inventor who had come to work in Glasgow, and much of what’s in this house is of his creation. It has its own pure well and its water is pumped into the house by a steam engine, fired by a furnace in the cellar, then stored in a big tank in the loft. It also heats some of the water and stores it in a second tank up there. Whatever you want, hot or cold, it can be drawn within the house, not from a well-head outside. More than that, the heat from the furnace isn’t wasted; there is a piping system that spreads it through the rooms. Can you not you feel it?’

She pursed her lips. ‘Aye,’ she said, grudgingly, ‘it is warm in here for April.’

‘See? I tell you, the man was a genius.’

‘Then why were ye able to buy the place as cheap as ye say?’ she challenged.

‘Schultz died,’ he replied. ‘His family were all in Prussia and they instructed his lawyer in Glasgow to sell it as quick as he could. His lawyer knew my lawyer and it was offered to me, furniture and everything.’

‘How did he die?’ she asked, casually. ‘Did he bile tae death in his iron bath?’

He smiled. ‘Not exactly. He was in England supervising the building of a locomotive engine that he had designed. It exploded under pressure and he was killed.’

‘Michty! So this hoose could blow up too?’

Mathew laughed. ‘No, not a bit of it. Mother, I am not that daft. I had my own engineer check it over. It is safe, I promise you.’

‘Mmm.’ Hannah nodded. ‘A comfort. It’s no’ that clever it’ll kill us a’.’ She threw him an appraising glance. ‘It’s closer tae Carluke too,’ she observed.

‘Waterloo House is within that parish,’ he conceded.

‘So Mr Barclay’ll be oor minister again.’

‘He will be.’

‘And when we go tae his kirk we may see . . .’

‘We may. Indeed we probably will.’ He sighed. ‘Time has passed, Mother; we have all become different people. David and Lizzie are happily married . . . although,’ he paused, ‘David’s last letter had some news I wasn’t going to trouble you with. Their second child, the wee lass they christened Georgina; she died last month, of the scarlet fever.’

‘Och!’ Hannah flinched as if she had been struck. ‘Whit a thing. And after she miscarried wi’ the other one. But the boy, he’s a’ richt, aye?’

‘He’s fine, from what David tells me. They call him wee Matt, on account of John Barclay making a mistake when he put his name in the parish register and spelling it with an extra “t”. He’s a strong healthy laddie, and good at the school too, his father says.’

‘Then Ah hope they don’t make the mistake Ah did. Ah hope they send him tae Lanark Grammar. Mathew, I dinnae allow myself tae say “if only” very often, but if only I had let you go there.’

‘What would have been different?’ he asked her. ‘Father would still have died. The recruiters would still have arrived.’

‘Aye, but ye’d have been a scholar then, on your way tae bein’ a lawyer perhaps.’

‘And away to Edinburgh, like Braxfield, to be an advocate and maybe one day a hanging judge? No thank you. I put no trust in those people.’ He put his strong hands on her shoulders. ‘Mother, when I became indentured to my father, it was not only because it was what you wanted me to do. It was what I wanted to do as well. I’ve never regretted that.’

‘No?’

‘Not at all. If I was a lawyer I would still be scratching out a living. King’s Counsel at thirty-three years old? I doubt it. But thanks to my trade and my skills, I was able to design a saddle based on those I saw the French and the Spanish use, and with professional help I managed to patent it.

‘Now I have customers all over the nation, including the military. I have orders from America and from Europe, and even from France and Spain, ironically. I employ men, the most skilled men, to make them in a proper manufactory, not just one at a time in a wee workshop. I pay them good wages and I make a fortune myself. But to keep me humble, I still make my own footwear and yours . . .’

‘And Margaret Weir’s?’

His expression remained unreadable even in the face of his mother’s raised eyebrow, a gesture that was for her almost coquettish.

‘And Mistress Weir,’ he conceded. ‘She’s a friend as well as an employee.’

‘And she will be housekeeper here; am I right?’

‘That is my intention.’

‘Will she occupy the servants’ quarters?’

‘No,’ he replied, ‘one of the bigger rooms; that is my intention also.’

His mother shook her head, then lowered herself into the armchair she had admired earlier, directing her son towards the one that faced it.

‘Mathew,’ she declared, stiffly, ‘will ye please stop using such guile. The whole o’ Cam’nethan knows that ye’re sharing Mistress Weir’s bed. Well, ma cousin Elspeth does, and that’s the same thing.

‘There are some that disapprove, like that mealy-moothed auld weasel o’ a minister and his dried-out wife, who probably allows him access tae her once a year, if he’s lucky enough . . . or unfortunate enough, frae the look of her. But most folk say, “Why should they no?” when they finish their gossip.

‘Mistress Weir’s a widow woman whose late husband was a minister o’ the Kirk. You are a single gentleman of means. Indeed, ye’re seen as a catch.’

Mathew shook his head. ‘I thought Cambusnethan was big enough to allow us a bit of privacy,’ he chuckled.

‘Then ye’re a dreamer, son. There are no people more closely watched than beddable widow women, unless they be single men wi’ a bit o’ money.’

‘You’ve told me what most people say, Mother. What do you say?’

‘I say that Ah tried to bring you up tae be honourable, and Ah’m not sure ye are. If ye have feelings for this woman, ye should see that employing her and bedding her at the same time might lead the wrang sort of people tae think the wrang thing, and even to say it.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that one or two stupid, nasty people are calling her a hoor a’ready,’ she said. ‘No’ in my hearing, mind, but they are, Ah ken. If ye move her in here, what will they say? More still, if we will be goin’ back tae Carluke Parish Church, will she come wi’ us? If she does, how will that look?’

‘Should I care?’

‘Of course ye should,’ she snapped. ‘Ye could be in the next pew tae Mr McGill and his wife, with your fancy wumman. Wid that be richt? Better, much better, for you, and for Lizzie too, if she was yer wife. Mak’ her an honest woman, Mathew. She has your respect, that I dinna doubt, but she’s entitled tae the respect of a’body else.’

He sighed. ‘Very well, Mother. I’ll give it some thought.’

‘Do that, or mair folk will be saying what some are saying a’ready, that you live in hope o’ an accident or an illness befalling David McGill, so that you may slip back in where ye were before.’

Chapter Ten

M
OST PEOPLE SEEING MARGARET
Weir for the first time described her as handsome, rather than pretty. She had strong features and brassy red hair, a gift from an Irish grandmother, she said, and her build was solid rather than sylph-like. Those qualities underlined rather than disguised an inner strength that had drawn Mathew Fleming to her, when she had come to him seeking employment in his factory in Netherton three years before.

The interview had been brief. After she had given him her life story . . . born in Glasgow twenty-eight years earlier, to a tailor and a housemaid, educated at a parish school, married to the Reverend Samuel Weir at the age of twenty-three and widowed two years later . . . and shown him references, he had handed her a copy of Jonathan Swift’s
Travels of Mr Gulliver
, and asked her to read a chapter, then given her a line of numbers and asked her to add then multiply them.

Both tasks accomplished, he had employed her as a clerk, as he had known he would the moment she walked through the door. Margaret was a highly capable woman, who would be a help to his business, and more than that, he had taken an instant liking to her, as had happened occasionally in the Cameron Highlanders, when a recruit had arrived with a personality that breathed new vigour into war-tired, jaded soldiers.

Since arriving in Cambusnethan with his mother, his tools, his skills, his plans and his pony, but little else, Mathew Fleming had become a slave to constant toil. In little or no time, he had established himself as a boot and shoemaker and repairer, at prices he knew his customers could afford. At the same time he had engaged a draughtsman to produce proper copies of his plans for the new saddle that he had already begun to manufacture, and then a lawyer to secure patents for the design.

His masterstroke had been to take a gamble on the cost of a journey to London . . . by the fastest stagecoach . . . and to run to ground his former captain, Victor Feather. Not unnaturally, the officer had been astonished to see him and even more astonished to learn how his career had progressed.

Feather retained considerable influence as an aide to the Duke of Wellington, who had been as much a politician as a soldier. He arranged field trials for the sample saddle that Mathew had taken south with him, and within two months the first order had arrived, for a quantity beyond his imagination. With money borrowed from the British Linen Bank, he had equipped his factory in Netherton, close to Cambusnethan, and had watched his business grow, working on production along with his men, and ensuring that the promised quality was maintained at all times.

Soon, the Netherton Saddle, as it became known, was in demand not only by armies but by even more civilians, as word spread, by mouth but also by announcements placed in
The Times
of London and in the fledgling
Scotsman
newspaper in Edinburgh.

Mathew knew nothing but his business as it grew, and that suited him as it helped put the tragedy of his loss in Carluke out of his mind, although never out of his heart.

One of the virtues that endeared Margaret Weir to him very quickly was that she worked whatever hours he asked of her without complaint. They were close within six months, and intimate within another year, initially within the confines of a small bedroom that Mathew had equipped for himself above the factory, but later also in Margaret’s house in Gowkthrapple, a short distance from the factory.

He liked her smile. There were few lights in his life, beyond his mother, his business, and one of whom he would no longer allow himself to think.

David McGill was a faithful correspondent, as he had promised he would be, but his letters, while usually cheery, were sometimes difficult to read, as Mathew found himself searching between the lines for hidden signs that all might not be well between him and his wife.

The growth of his relationship with Margaret eased that for him. He was able to think of Lizzie, if not less frequently, in a more detached way. There had been a second significant benefit. He dreamed no longer of the last great battle and of the Voltigeur dying on his bayonet.

‘Would it offend you, Mathew,’ Margaret asked, ‘if I asked for time to think about your proposal?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not at all. It’s a decision that any woman has a right to consider properly.’

She smiled; a shadowy smile, under the lamplight in the drawing room of his fine new house. ‘Just as you considered your offer of marriage for some time before making it?’

He laughed at her retort. ‘Touché. And I apologise for that. If it means that you reject me, though, I’ll be sore hurt. Please, take all the time you need, as long as you accept in the end.’

‘Now I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was jesting. I know the way your mind works, and how important your business is to you; your fault, if such it be, is that you think of nothing else. Of course I accept . . . although . . . in the circumstances it might have been better had you asked me a few weeks back.’

He stared at her. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that we may have a wedding and a christening in the same year. I’m having your bairn, sir. I had been about to tell you, when you surprised me.’

‘Then we’ll go to Carluke at once,’ he exclaimed, ‘and see John Barclay. The banns will be called, and we’ll be married as soon as they allow.’

‘A quiet wedding, yes?’

‘Any kind you like.’

‘That’s what it will be, then.’

A thought leapt into his head. ‘Would you mind,’ he asked, ‘if I ask David McGill to be my groomsman?’

‘Why should I mind? I’ll be a friend to his wife, I promise, as she should be to you by now.’

He took her hand. ‘You are right, Margaret, as well as generous. My mother . . . who will be very pleased at our news, by the way . . . thinks the same: enough time’s past, and our lives are what we’ve made of them.

‘You and she have got the same good heart, my dear, and I’m proud you’ll be my wife.’