Lark Returning

by Lark Returning (retail) (epub)

  Blaize stood up and took her hand. ‘Don’t worry. You’re a very different kind of woman. Let us dance, too. Do you like dancing?’

  ‘Oh yes, I like dancing. At least I can do that like other women,’ she said.

  A local country air was being played and the dancers held hands, turning in time to the beat, smiling into each other’s faces and bowing now and then, advancing and retreating in stately measure. Blaize and Jane danced in perfect unison, as if they had rehearsed it and as he looked into her face, he felt himself drawn deeply into the eyes which today seemed to have taken on the aquamarine colour of her gown. He saw that the irises were, like her skin, flecked with little golden dashes. She was a goddess. Why had he never noticed that before?

  She in turn stared back at him, every nerve in her body alert to the touch of his hand. She felt the blood beating through him and in unconcealed fascination she greedily drank in every part of his face – the high cheekbones, the deep sardonic grooves at the sides of his mouth, the tender curl of the hair on his neck.

  Then their eyes met and everything became very solemn, the music was muffled by the beating of their hearts. Like two people in a trance they stared at each other and when the dancing finished they stood awkwardly apart as if embarrassed at being caught in an unseemly show of private emotion.

  Neither of them spoke and when they returned to the table to join Jacques and Christian, it was time for the toast to the Emperor. All the Frenchmen stood gravely up, the gathering darkness of the evening making them look magnificent in their old uniforms, and raised their glasses high. Then, still standing, they sang the ‘Marseillaise’. Though the guests did not join in, they were deeply impressed by the solemnity and genuine emotion of their hosts. That reminder of the difference between them, the knowledge that in spite of good fellowship, the French and the British were still at war, that in Europe their armies were battling bloodily against each other, brought the night’s festivities to an end. Christian’s party returned to the alehouse yard where the pony was patiently waiting in a straw-filled stall and Jacques reharnessed it while Blaize pulled on the shafts of the cart and buckled up the leather traces. Then the women drove off into the velvet darkness waving and calling farewell. Their magic night was over.

  * * *

  Blaize did not visit the abbey for a week although every day she looked for him. Christian came over to the abbey to tell Alice that Jacques had asked Mr Gleridinning for her hand in marriage and the big house was full of the noise of shouting, of coming and going and family arguments. In spite of her apparent frailty she was a doughty fighter, and it was obvious that in time she would wear her father down. Jacques, she pointed out, was a surgeon and who needed a surgeon as a husband more than she did? He was as rich as the Glendinnings, with a considerable property in France. His family was older and more distinguished than hers.

  At the end of the week her father reluctantly gave his consent, but the couple had to agree to wait until the war was over. According to his newspaper, the Kelso Chronicle, that would not be too long, for events on the Continent definitely going the way of the Allies now. Boney would soon be beaten and when peace came, they could be married.

  The harvest was in full swing while this was happening and the bondager gang was working frantically till late at night, till the moon rose high in the night sky and the owls flitted around the hedgerows. They cut the corn, tied it up into sheaves and threw them with pitchforks up on to the high-piled harvest waggons. Even at midnight they were still hard at it and would go on working under the light of the harvest moon until the early hours of the morning.

  Christian came out with some servants from the big house with pitchers of beer and a jug of whisky for the men and found Alice in a corner of the field, bending painfully down and winding lengths of twine round the heavy-headed swatches of corn that the reapers had left behind.

  ‘Oh Alice, you shouldn’t be out here working. You’ve not been well. Go home this minute,’ said the girl.

  Alice raised a weary face, the lines on it deeply etched by the moon’s silver beams.

  ‘Miss Christian, you ken fine that I can’t go home. I’ve got to work at harvest time for our house. It’s part of our bargain, it’s our rent. If I don’t work, we could lose the house.’

  ‘Rubbish. I wouldn’t allow it. Go home this minute and I’ll tell the steward I sent you.’

  ‘You mustn’t interfere. It’s not right. It’s not fair on the others. Just leave me be. This field is nearly finished and I’ll go home then.’ Her voice was cracked and wavering.

  Forgetting her own happiness, Christian ran across the field to where her father’s steward was supervising the loading of the carts.

  ‘You’ve got to let Alice go home,’ she ordered him. ‘She’s not well.’

  ‘She’s one of the best workers, we can’t do without her. It’s going to take every hand we have to clear this field tonight. You mind your own business, Miss Christian, and let me mind mine.’

  The girl stared round at the faces of the men watching her. They were blank and impassive. Among them she saw Adam Cannon and his son. Even they were not going to protest on Alice’s behalf, they could not afford to.

  ‘But she’s ill,’ she protested.

  ‘She’s still working, that’s all I know,’ said the steward. ‘Harvests won’t wait for anybody. That lassie over there had a baby yesterday but she’s back at work today.’ He pointed to the figure of a bondager at the far side of the hay waggon. She was tossing sheaves of corn up into the air on the point of a pitchfork.

  Christian’s astonishment showed in her face. ‘She had a baby yesterday?’

  The steward smiled, showing dirty, broken teeth. ‘They’re not like well-born ladies, Miss, they’re not like you.’

  When the harvest was finished everyone was almost too weary to talk but it had been one of the best harvests for years, and both Glendinning and his steward were jubilant. Not a drop of rain had fallen during the two weeks of harvesting and now the bins were full of winnowed corn and the yard full of stacks, stoutly built and covered with plaited straw to withstand the hardest winter winds.

  On Saturday night, Mr Glendinning was giving his workers a kirn, a harvest supper and dance, in the big barn. Even the most tired was infused with new energy at the news. Christian came to the abbey to tell the Cannons about the party and she was so excited that two round spots of red burned in the middle of her cheeks and beads of perspiration dotted her upper lip. She kept wiping them away as she talked and complained about the oppressive heat.

  ‘Father says that the weather’s going to break soon, there’ll be a storm any day now. I hope it waits till after the kirn.’

  Jane listened to the once-again repeated story of the long-fought-for engagement with a smile on her face but pain in her heart. She felt guilty for envying Christian. Blaize had not even bothered to come to see her in spite of the way she thought he had felt when they danced together in Melrose.

  ‘Will Jacques be at the kirn?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh no, unfortunately not,’ said Christian. ‘He’s not allowed to go outside the town after eight at night, you know. He wants to come but he can’t get here.’

  * * *

  1813 – GOOD HARVEST – GOOD CHEER… Jock was making a huge placard to be hung at the end of the barn during the kirn. He spelt out the words with leaves, branches of berries and flowers and when it was finished it was a brave sight. Jane stood in the open door and watched him at work, his face serious as he painstakingly sorted out the materials he had collected early that morning. Since he was a little boy, Jock had made the harvest banner. It was his annual artistic expression and each year he tried to surpass himself.

  She clapped her hands. ‘It’s your best yet, Jock,’ she called to him. ‘It’s really lovely.’

  He turned to her and grinned broadly, an unusual thing for him these days because his expression had recently been generally gloomy.

  This was not a tim
e for gloom however, this was a time for taking a rest, for looking back on labour and giving thanks for an abundant harvest. Even the people who would receive no financial benefit from this year’s generous bounty were rejoicing. Their work would be safe at least for another year at Charterhall.

  The barn, built of the same neatly dressed sandstone blocks as the abbey and probably plundered from its ruins, was swept out and decorated for the kirn.

  Barrels of porter, benches and tables filled half of the floor space. The other half was cleared and dusted with chalk for the dancing that would follow the feast.

  Charlie Glendinning sat at the top table, face afire, with his son, young Charlie, on one side and his daughter Christian on the other. He was drunk before the kirn started and during the proceedings kept banging a pewter mug on the table top and shouting in a slurred roar, ‘Everybody have a drink. Everybody drink to the harvest. It’s the best for years.’

  Three musicians were tuning up their fiddles outside the doorway when the Cannon family arrived, and as the oldest fiddler caught sight of Alice and Jane he said, ‘You’ll give us a song tonight, ladies? We’ll play your special songs for you.’

  ‘I’m not much good at singing now,’ said Alice, ‘but Jane here’ll sing. She’s better than me.’

  ‘You were the best singer I’ve ever heard,’ said the fiddler. ‘I’ll never forget how you sang at my brother’s wedding. It brought tears to every eye in the room.’

  Alice was pleased. ‘Oh, that was long ago,’ she said, but she was still smiling as she sat down at her place in the middle of a long bench.

  Jane looked at her mother with love and admiration. The strong body was thin and stooped now, and sometimes Alice audibly caught her breath with pain. But she never complained so the family usually managed to deceive themselves that death had been defeated. They told themselves that, miraculously, Alice was going to live longer than anyone had guessed when she first became ill. Jacques was taking a keen interest in her and persisted in trying a variety of medicines and treatments. His latest notion was to confine Alice to a strict diet of milk, eggs and vegetables, instead of the normal labourer’s fare of oatmeal porridge and salt meat. Though she lost weight on it, her energy seemed to have returned.

  As she thought gratefully about Jacques’ solicitude for her mother, Jane’s mind reverted to Blaize. He had not been over to see Alice for more than two weeks. Why had he abandoned them? Was it her fault? Had she been too forward with him at Napoleon’s birthday party? Had she shown too clearly how much she loved him? The pain burned in her heart and, as if to deny it, she turned to Jock who was sitting on her right and gave him a most brilliant smile, taking his hand as she did so.

  ‘I meant it when I said the banner this year is the best you’ve ever done. It’s like a big painting of flowers. Where did you get them all?’

  He grinned happily again. ‘Miss Christian told the gardeners to give me the run of the garden. She’s in grand form these days now that she’s going to marry the Frenchman.’

  Jane looked over the row of heads at Christian, febrile with excitement in her white silk gown.

  For a chilling second a feeling of terrible grief swept over the watching girl. It scared her badly because she had experienced moments of foreboding like this before. Once, when her grandmother was visiting, she had known that the old woman would die very soon and indeed she died the following week. Another time, even more frightening, on a misty autumn evening she had looked out of the window in the abbey and seen a silent procession with a coffin passing beneath the old yew tree. But there had been no funeral that day and what she saw was a presagement. She was terrified at her powers when three days later the old schoolmaster, who had been kind and encouraging to all the local children, died and was buried in the abbey grounds.

  She told no one of her uncanny and unwanted powers, and when she felt them take her over, she tried to rationalize them away. Tonight however she could not drive away the terrible grief she felt at the sight of Christian.

  The revellers ate, they drank, they danced and they sang. Soon even Jane, her head swimming from the strong ale, forgot her troubles and in response to the cries of the crowd, agreed to give them a song. They all whistled and clapped as she walked towards the group of musicians and stood gravely beside them, adjusting the folds of her skirt with her hands and nervously clearing her throat. When she had told the men what songs she would sing, she threw back her fine head and launched into music in a clear, thrilling soprano.

  She knew the sort of songs her audience liked for she had grown up hearing her mother sing them. They liked the sad old dirges mourning the men lost in Border wars against the English, and she sang of sorrow and the devastation of humble homes. She sang the songs of exile and the songs that spoke of the love all Borderers feel for their secluded, landlocked countryside. When she responded to the urgings of the audience to sing a song called ‘My Peggy’, she poured extra feeling into it…

  ‘Love never more shall give me pain,

  My fancy’s fixed on thee,

  Nor ever maid my heart shall gain,

  My Peggy, if thou dee.

  If fate shall tear thee from my heart,

  How shall I lonely stray.

  In dreary dreams the night I’ll waste,

  In sighs, the silent day.

  I ne’er can so much virtue find, nor such perfection see,

  Then I’ll renounce all womankind, my Peggy, after thee.’

  Her father, thinking of the sick wife at his side, wiped his eyes with his hand as his daughter’s power of music stirred his heart. Then, embarrassed, he looked away from her towards the doorway and saw that a group of men were standing in the shadows, listening in silence.

  Adam Cannon took a second look. Was that not Blaize, the Frenchman, muffled up in a plaid and wearing a blue shepherd’s bonnet? He blinked but when he looked again the figure had vanished. It could only have been a trick of the light, he thought.

  Jane finished her recital in gayer mood with the traditional song that ended all convivial parties, ‘Guid Night and Joy be wi’ Ye A’. As the last notes died away, her audience began to straggle off home in a happy frame of mind. Satisfied, she walked across the floor towards Jock, whose face was burning red. He looked as if he were drunk, an unusual thing for him, because he was normally very sober. He staggered to his feet when he saw her coming and threw an arm round her shoulders.

  ‘It’s a braw night,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Come with me to the stackyard, Jane.’

  The smell of whisky on his breath repelled her and she drew away from him, a recoil that did not go unnoticed.

  ‘Oh, Jane,’ he groaned, ‘what’s happened to you? You won’t even give me a kiss these days.’

  She felt great pity for him and forced herself to turn her head and peck him lightly on the lips. ‘There, I’ve kissed you,’ she said lightly, but he was not satisfied.

  ‘Marry me, Jane, marry me. We’ve waited too long. I want to marry you now,’ he implored, but she knew that it was all too late.

  ‘Go home, Jock,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re a little bit drunk and you’ll feel different in the morning.’

  She watched him reeling off towards the bothy cottage that he shared with his mother, and her heart was sore. At one time, only a few months ago, she would have married Jock but now she knew that it would never happen.

  Alone and lonely, she walked out of the farm courtyard, leaving behind in the barn the last revellers, men and women lying across the table tops with their heads among the empty ale pots. Her father and mother had gone home already and her brother was nowhere to be seen. Probably, she thought, he’d be sporting in the hay shed with one of the bondagers. She knew which girls would not be averse to a bit of sport like that on a kirn night and she didn’t blame them. With such a moon, with the air sultry and heavy with the smell of newly threshed corn, with the fumes of the porter she’d drunk stirring her brain, she would like to sport in the hay too �
� with the right man.

  * * *

  The outline of the abbey buildings could be seen rising above the trees and she wondered if she’d hear the monks singing tonight. Moonlit nights were the best time to hear them.

  She paused in the middle of the flight of worn old steps that led to the cloister yard and waited, head cocked and listening, but there was no monkish chanting tonight. Then suddenly a tall, dark figure stepped out of the shadows and grasped her arm. A scream rose in her throat but she quelled it when she saw that the face beneath the slouched shepherd’s bonnet was Blaize’s.

  ‘I heard you singing in the barn,’ he whispered in a choked sort of voice. ‘I didn’t know you could sing like that.’

  ‘You didn’t think I could dance either,’ she whispered back with a little laugh, suddenly madly happy but unable to still her racing heartbeat. He drew her into a little alcove where the old monks had once kept their books and held her close.

  She laid her head on his chest and whispered, ‘You shouldn’t be out. You’ve broken your curfew.’

  ‘I know. I had to come. I wanted to see you. I borrowed this plaid and bonnet from a man in the alehouse. He said I looked like a Border shepherd in it.’

  He was proud of his disguise and indeed he could pass as a local in the darkness of the night. They stood closely together, not speaking, only enjoying the physical nearness, the delight of being together. His grasp on her was loose, as if he were sure she would not want to break away.

  She sighed deeply and broke the silence between them by saying, ‘Why have you not been near us for so long? I thought you’d abandoned us.’

  ‘I couldn’t come. I’m a married man, you know I’m a married man, Jane.’

  She nodded. ‘I know that. It doesn’t make any difference to me.’

  He shook his head. ‘Listen, you must understand. My wife’s in France and I’m fond of her but I haven’t really missed her since I was taken prisoner. And now, this has happened –’ He bent his head and very carefully kissed her on the lips. She felt as if she were about to die with happiness. He smelt of lemon grass and rosemary, and her stomach lurched with desire as he touched her.