Mathew's Tale (8 page)

‘Very well,’ he agreed, ‘but hurry.’

He looked at the messenger. ‘How did ye’ get here?’

‘Ah ran, sir. It’s what Ah dae. Ah’ll awa’ back the noo’.’

‘Can you harness a horse to a trap?’

The lad nodded.

‘Then go round the back to the stable. It’ll be the first box you come to, a black horse. Not the pony, mind. She’s a very old lady and does nothing but graze these days. Do that and you can come back with us on the back of the carriage. You’ll have to hang on tight though.’

He was waiting for them with the rig when they came out, both mother and son in heavy winter coats. He saw the look in Mathew’s eye and made a decision on the safety of hanging on to the back of a coach driven by such a man. ‘Ah’ll just run back, sir.’

‘If you insist.’ Mathew locked the house then handed him a sovereign. ‘Thank you for your trouble, if not your message. Call on me in Netherton and you’ll have a new pair of shoes as well.’

He turned and held out a hand to help his mother into the carriage, only to have her brush it aside. Hannah Fleming was sixty years old but still supple.

‘Dinna’ be hard on the horse,’ she murmured as he eased on beside her and took the reins. ‘It’s no’ his fault.’

He tried to keep her caution in mind as he drove; indeed he had to, for the sun was well short of rising, the light was poor, and the road was rutted by recent rain. Even so, the animal covered the miles from Waterloo House to Cambusnethan as fast as ever it had.

There was one light shining in the room above the surgery as they arrived. Mathew secured the rig to a post and made for the door; it opened before he reached it, and Dr Lindsay stepped out to greet him, in great distress.

‘Mr Fleming, Mistress Fleming . . .’ he began.

‘What is it?’ Mathew demanded

‘Childbed fever,’ his mother murmured, beside him.

Lindsay nodded. ‘Aye, I fear so. Puerperal fever, it’s properly called, but it’s the same. I’ve never seen its onset so fast, though, or seen it develop so quickly.’

‘I knew it,’ Hannah sighed. ‘When I heard where the bairn was born. Cleanliness is next tae Godliness, and the seat of a carriage is far frae both.’

‘Probably,’ the physician agreed. ‘I promise you, sir, that the midwife and I are believers in hygiene.’

‘What can be done for her?’

‘Nothing, I fear; it’s in her blood, sepsis. She’s a strong woman, but still she’s burning up.’

‘Can I see her?’

‘Yes, you should, without delay.’

‘And the bairn?’ Hannah asked.

‘He’s well, but that’s another crisis. His mother will give him no more milk and he should have a wet nurse.’

‘Can ye find one?’

‘I’m not sure, and yet it’s urgent. A newborn baby’s a fragile creature.’

‘I can.’ Hannah Fleming turned to her son as she spoke. ‘Go tae your wife,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll find a breast tae suckle your boy.’

Mathew felt a huge surge of gratitude. His mother had never let him down and he knew she never would. He allowed Lindsay to lead him upstairs, past the surgery, to the hospital chamber where the light shone.

Margaret’s red hair was spread around her on the pillow like a halo. Her arms were by her sides outside the single sheet that covered her, and her face was flushed. Her breathing was rapid but shallow, and her eyes were closed. Her husband had seen many a man die in the army infirmary, and could not hide from or deny the inevitable.

‘Is she aware?’ he asked.

‘Not for the last hour, nor will she be again, I’m afraid. It’s for the best, sir.’

‘What?’ he retorted. ‘No chance to say goodbye is for the best?’

‘She’s out of pain. Her blood and her body are full of poisons. She will sleep away now. All you can do is sit with her.’

‘How long?’

‘Until she lets go.’

Lindsay closed the door, leaving them alone.

There were so many thoughts in his head, so many things he wanted to say to her, so many fervent thanks he wanted to give her for all she had been to him and would always be, but all he could do was try to will them into her unconscious mind, so that she might die in the knowledge that he had come to love her as truly and deeply as he had ever loved anyone, and that she had given him a personal fulfilment he had thought he would never know.

All that he could say as he held her hand was, ‘Oh, my Margaret, you made me so happy. God’s cruel, that He takes you away.’

He sat with her for two hours as the sun rose, and brightened the chamber, wiping the moistness from her sleeping face occasionally with clean cloths that the doctor had left. He listened to her breathing, until it became faster, then more laboured, until finally it stopped, and she was gone.

He stood, and folded her hands across her chest. Then he murmured, ‘Goodbye, my love,’ kissed her on the forehead and then on the lips, and left the room that he knew would always be burned into his brain, another nightmare to curse his sleep.

When he went downstairs, his mother was waiting. She said nothing, but hugged him, then pressed her face to his shoulder. He knew she was weeping, but would want no one else to see, and so he let her shed her tears, and looked at the doctor.

‘You will please ask the undertaker to call on me this afternoon,’ he said. ‘The funeral will be in Carluke, of course, and Mr Barclay will conduct it.’

As he finished, Hannah stood straight once more. ‘I am so sorry, ma boy,’ she said. She paused, but only for a second or two, and he saw her urgency. ‘We maun go now,’ she told him, ‘and take the bairn wi’ us. His need’s the greatest now, but Ah’ve found someone who’ll look after him like her ain.’

They wrapped the baby in two shawls. One had been Mathew’s own and the second Hannah had crocheted for him during Margaret’s pregnancy. Then his grandmother carried him outside to the carriage. The horse had been groomed and was feeding from a nosebag.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘Carluke,’ she replied, knowing that she need say no more.

Chapter Fourteen

W
HEN MATHEW CARRIED HIS
son into the McGill cottage, it was the first time he had seen his childhood sweetheart in more than eight years. She was standing with her back to the fire, and she too held an infant in her arms.

‘You poor man,’ she said, moved by the sadness in him. ‘You deserved much better. I’m sorry I never met Mistress Fleming, Mathew. David said she was such a good woman.’

‘The worst things happen to the best people,’ he replied, in a dull monotone that she could not have imagined hearing from the man she had known for so long.

She smiled at him, sadly. ‘You should know.’

‘I did not mean myself,’ he sighed. ‘Margaret was far too good for the likes of me, that puts his business before everything. Why did it have to happen to her, Lizzie?’

‘It lies in wait for all of us who give birth, Mathew. It’s a risky business, regardless of status. Queens have died from childbed fever, so I’ve been told.’

‘But you are sound?’

‘Yes, I’m among the lucky ones. It’s two weeks since our wee Jean was born and I am back as I was.’

‘And she is thriving?’

‘Oh yes,’ Lizzie said, glancing down at the bundle in her arms, ‘she’s the most biddable child of the three.’

‘I was sorry to hear of your loss,’ he said. ‘Your poor wee Wilma, to be taken like that.’

‘We bear these things, Mathew. I had practice at it, when I was told I’d lost you, after the great battle. All we can do is love them that are left all the more.’

‘I did love Margaret, you know,’ he murmured, rocking his son gently in his arms.

‘I know.’ She nodded. ‘And I love David too.’

‘You should. He’s a better man than me.’

‘He’s a different man from you, the gentlest you could ever meet, but dinna do yourself down. There’s not a soul in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire that’s more respected. You put food on people’s table with your factory. You might only have one eye now, but you see more with it than ten ordinary men.’

For all his misery, he smiled. ‘You are biased.’

‘That may be, but it’s still the truth. Where is Mother Fleming?’ she asked him, suddenly.

‘She is gone to see Mr Barclay, to tell him the news, and to ask him to prepare for a . . .’ He broke off and gazed at the ceiling. ‘Last spring, Margaret told me we would have a wedding and a christening in the same year. But she could not have known we’d be having a funeral as well. I would give up everything I own to have her back.’

‘Then you’d be wishing that baby unborn,’ Lizzie retorted, ‘that child you cradle in your arms. She would not have wanted that, I promise you, not even as the fever took hold of her. You cannot have her back, and so you will not give up everything. Far from it, you will work all the harder, for your son. David told me of your plans for your factory, with the new products, and of your new venture.’

‘There is some risk in both. If one were to fail, I would survive, but if both go badly . . .’

‘Mathew, neither will fail, and you know it. Now,’ she said briskly, as she laid the infant Jean in a cradle at the side of the hearth, ‘let me see that bairn of yours. He must be fed.’

‘This is a great thing you’re doing, Lizzie.’

‘Nonsense, it’s what any woman would do. God knows, if Mother Fleming could, you would never get him off her.’ She frowned as she took the baby from him. ‘Look after her, mind. She was in a fearful fuss when she arrived here. She’d driven hard all the way from Cam’nethan. David had gone to his work by then, but young Matt was still here and he was alarmed when he saw the state she was in.’

‘I know,’ he admitted. ‘And I will take care of her, I promise. But you, are you really able to do this, feed two babies?’

She laughed. ‘Man, have you never heard of twins? Sir Gregor Cleland and his brother thrived well enough . . . though more’s the pity, some would say.’

‘Yes, but twins tend to be smaller babies, do they not? This lad here’s a bruiser.’

‘I will have enough,’ she insisted.

‘Then I will send you extra milk, vegetables, meat, chicken, all the extra you need. And a cot and bedding and clothing and soft napkins for the child, for both the children, and coal for the fire, and oil for the lamps . . . and I’ll find a wet nurse as quickly as I can, I promise.’

‘No!’

Her sharpness took him by surprise.

‘I will foster this child for as long as is necessary, until he is ready to be weaned. It will be hard for you, Mathew, but he must stay here with us until then. I won’t have another woman suckling your Margaret’s bairn. I am fit and I am healthy; you know that. How could you guarantee that in someone else? I promise you, if I find that I canna cope, I will tell you, but I know that I can.’

‘Has David agreed to this?’

‘Of course. I sent young Matt to fetch him home when Mother Fleming arrived. He is of the same mind as me, be sure of it.’

‘Lizzie,’ he exclaimed, ‘that is a great commitment. If you wish, you and David and your children could move into Waterloo House, with Mother and me.’

‘And then move out again when the time comes? You are a generous man, Mathew, but this is our home and here we must stay. As you can see, it is one of the biggest of the estate cottages. Your wee man will be fine here with us, and you can come and visit him, every day if you like. “Wee man” indeed,’ she chuckled. ‘What will you call him?’

‘That,’ he replied, ‘you will find out at the christening, where you and David will be godparents. If Mr Barclay agrees, that will take place the day after Margaret’s funeral.’

‘Then go to him,’ she said, ‘and complete the arrangements, while this wee mite and I attend to our private business.’

Still stunned by the day’s mournful events and by the speed with which they had transpired, Mathew did as she instructed, with the promise that he would be back in the evening, when David McGill would be at home.

The cottage was just inside the Cleland estate boundary, a little over half a mile from the parish church. As if to spite him the sun had come out and was shining; it was unseasonably warm. He was perspiring within his heavy coat as he reached the door of the manse. He was about to knock when it was opened for him, by Jessie.

‘My condolences, sir,’ she murmured. ‘The meenister is in the parlour wi’ your mither.’

‘The things in your life this room has witnessed,’ Barclay said, as Mathew entered. ‘I can hardly credit this. Of all the ladies, I’d have thought your Margaret was the least likely for this to happen.’

‘My mother believes it was where the birth took place that was the cause,’ he replied. ‘She may be right. There are cleaner places than the bench in an open cabin, barely a yard from a horse’s arse. When can you do the funeral, John?’

‘In two days’ time, on Saturday morning, if that is agreeable to you and to the undertaker.’

‘It is acceptable to me,’ he answered, brusquely. ‘Margaret had no family left to need to be advised. As for the undertaker, he will do what he’s told. There should be a reception, I believe.’

The minister nodded, briefly. ‘Of course. The lesser hall is the usual choice. Jessie will bake for it, she’s still able, remarkably, and you may have alcohol if you wish.’

‘I do not,’ he snapped, bitterly. ‘If only there had been alcohol handy to clean that damned seat, Margaret might still be alive.’

‘Life is fu’ of “ifs”, son,’ Hannah said, gently, ‘but when we’re lookin’ back the way, nane o’ them mean a damned thing.’

‘Your mother is right,’ Barclay concurred. ‘There was nothing to be done. Self-reproach can only harm you and your child. Speaking of whom, in accordance with what Mrs Fleming has asked, I propose that he be baptised at morning service on Sunday. He was born in another parish, but that means nothing to me.’

‘I thank you for that. The McGills will be godparents.’

‘Have you chosen a name?’ the minister asked.

‘I have, subject only to David’s agreement, which I hope he will give. My son will be christened Marshall Weir Fleming, after his mother, and also his foster mother. If anyone looks askance at that, they will be welcome to discuss their feelings with me, but at their peril.’