For a time.
But now he was in two minds, his capricious heart pulled in two directions, and she sensed that her prior claim on him was stronger, with all the weight of their twins behind it. With all the weight of his natural affection for her. May Campbell might be the sweet spring flower, ripe for the plucking. She was like the pale may of her namesake in the hedgerows, flowers that powerfully scented the air for a few weeks and were as suddenly gone. What did that mean? That Jean was like the roots beneath, the tangle of handsome, vigorous life that kept the banks of the river in place. Or the striking but elusive purple orchid of Ayrshire: the baldeirie. But the truth was that she was sure of none of this. She could not fathom him and she doubted if he fully understood her, either.
Quietly, carefully, she suggested that a trip to Edinburgh might be no bad thing, even if they did think him a curiosity and come to gape at him. He would certainly be welcomed there. It would be good for him to be celebrated. And it was by no means so far or so dangerous as the Indies. He would be able to come back and visit his children as often as he liked. She was careful not to say that he would be able to come back and visit their mother, as well. If she felt a pang of conscience for May Campbell, she put it firmly to the back of her mind. She had more than herself to consider now. She had the other Jean and Robert. They mattered more.
* * *
In very early November, Jean was shocked to find Mauchline buzzing with the news that May Campbell, Highland Mary, dairymaid at Coilsfield, nursemaid to Gavin Hamilton’s baby son and Jamie Montgomerie’s ‘friend’, had died at Greenock on the Clyde, after a short illness. Jean had pieced the sorry tale together from Rab, or as much as he could or would tell her, which was little enough, and from Gilbert, who had learned what he could. It seemed that May’s father, Archie Campbell, had been as delighted by his daughter’s attachment to Rab Burns as James and Mary Armour had been about Jean; that is, he was horrified that a good, God fearing lass should have promised herself to a young man notorious for his irreligious verses and his bastard weans. The man was nothing but a rake, whatever the Edinburgh lords and ladies might say of him. Her mother was more encouraging, more inclined to forgive. And May herself – who knew what May felt?
The young woman had spent some weeks happily visiting relatives in and around Campbeltown. She had also, seemingly, procured a new position in Glasgow, in the respectable household of one Colonel McIvor, so it was clear that she had not been expecting to go to the Indies with Rab. Not at that time, anyway. It had so happened that May’s elder brother was going to Greenock to take up an apprenticeship as a carpenter in that town in October. May had planned to be there some weeks earlier, in September, supposedly in order to be in plenty of time to take up her new situation. But the term date wasn’t until Martinmas, in November. That was when her new position would start. Jean found herself wondering if poor May had hoped or even planned to meet with Robert Burns before he left for the Indies. Was that why she had tried to go to Greenock early? Had Rab suggested it? Even Jean knew that he had been planning to sail aboard the Bell at the end of September. But whatever he might have said to his Highland Mary about going to the Indies and leaving old Scotia’s shore, he had not gone. Something, or some combination of events, had changed his mind.
As it turned out, there had been delays with Archibald’s vessel, and May and her brother had not set out until October. Had Archie planned it, Jean wondered, in hopes that the poet would already have left the port? Had he arranged the delays himself as a means of keeping his daughter safely at home in Campbeltown? Or was it simply down to the seasonal hazards of wind and weather? In the event, the sloop had a very rough passage through October winds and high seas, and Archibald must have found himself regretting the delay. May was very sick on the crossing and still very poorly when she disembarked at Greenock and took up lodgings along with her brother.
Not long after their arrival, May’s brother had attended a ceremony to mark the start of his carpentry apprenticeship, had supped far from wisely and had become very unwell. May attended to him as best she could, but she soon fell ill herself, although whether she was already sickening after the sea voyage, nobody could say for sure. The fever was of a type that seemed to spread within a building, perhaps even, uncannily, from bed to bed. Her brother recovered as May sickened. It was typhus, rife in Greenock at that time, especially in the cramped lodging houses where they were staying. May would have been better off in breezy Campbeltown. How her father must have regretted the voyage afterwards.
Some members of the family thought she had been infected with the ‘evil eye’, that somebody had cursed her, which gave Jean a momentary pang of guilt when first she heard of it. Had she ever really wished ill to May Campbell? Well, perhaps not, but she had not wished her well either. Rab was hers. May didn’t love him, not as she, Jean, did, so what was she doing promising herself to him? May’s friends and relatives in Greenock had taken seven smooth stones from a channel where two rivers crossed, bathed them in milk and then given her the milk to drink, but the remedy had no effect. Her brother lived and thrived, but Highland Mary sickened, her mind confused, her frail body burning up like a torch and dwindling to nothing. She had called for water, but they would not give it to her. Water was thought to be deadly for those suffering from such fevers as this. She had whispered, through cracked lips, that if it was God’s will, she would be happy to recover and be Robert Burns’s wife, but she knew that she was dying and was equally happy to go to her God.
When she heard this story, Jean thought fiercely that she would certainly not have been equally happy to go to her God. How like daft May Campbell frae Dunoon, she thought, and then felt ashamed of herself for her lack of charity. The news of the girl’s death had come to Rab himself, late one November afternoon, in a letter brought up to Mossgiel. He had taken it to the window to catch the last of the light in order to read it, and had then gone out into the wintry twilight and the rain, walking about for hours, overwhelmed by grief. The poor lass was dead and he blamed himself. Perhaps he blamed himself even more, felt even more guilty, because it came as the solution to a terrible dilemma for him. Jean had noticed how grief over a death seemed to increase in proportion to the guilt of the mourner. How family members who had not spoken for years and had not even liked each other very much might be stricken with regret upon hearing that the object of their derision had passed away.
The news spread throughout the town, of course. And the story was embellished with each telling. The girl had been waiting at Greenock for Rab Burns to join her, marry her and take her to the Indies. Or marry her, take a room for her, but leave her behind, while he went to seek his fortune. Or make her his mistress and abandon her. The story varied according to who was telling it and how much they approved or disapproved of the poet. Also, she may or may not have been carrying Mossgiel’s child. Or Montgomerie’s child. Or no child at all – (Jean thought the last was probably closer to the truth.) She had died of the fever. Or the plague. She had died in childbirth. Who knew? Who could be sure? One thing was certain. Poor May Campbell was dead and gone, and whether Rab Mossgiel or Jamie Montgomerie or some noxious fever was to blame, she would never be coming back to Mauchline again.
Not long after the news of her death came to Mauchline, Jean had a vivid dream about May, with her soft, pretty face, her fair hair, and air of vulnerability. She was running in desperation through the shrubs and bushes and long grasses towards the sandstone cliff beside the River Ayr. Jean saw the pain on her face, felt the warmth of her between them, she and Rab, as they walked with her to the dairy at Coilsfield.
She woke with a start, and a pang of real regret for the waste of such a life, thinking, who among us has not loved unwisely and lived to regret it afterwards?
Chapter Twenty
Letters and Visits
Thy sons, Edina, social, kind,
With open arms the stranger hail;
Their views enlarg’d, their liberal mind,
Above the narrow, rural vale.
Late in November, and while still keeping his option of sailing to the New World open, Rab went to Edinburgh, and Jean stayed at home in the Cowgate with the twins. During his time in Edinburgh and when he was elsewhere, travelling about the country, he wrote to her. He wrote infrequently, but she treasured his letters. There was talk of another edition of his poems, three thousand copies, to be published in April. There was talk of a position in the excise. There was still debate about Jamaica, but he did not think he would go at all now. (Jean’s heart could not help but leap for joy at that piece of news.) He was feeling unwell and the city did not suit him. In the next letter, he was feeling much better, excited and happier than he had been for some time. The city had its dark side, but a great deal of elegance.
As he had suspected, he was something of a curiosity. He was invited out a good deal so that people could gaze in wonder at the captive Ayrshire Bard. ‘Like the armadillo!’ he wrote. The Duchess of Gordon had taken him under her wing. There was talk of a portrait or more than one. The food was very fancy, but he did not like all these tarts and pastries. Give him a good haggis or simple Scotch collops any day. Would Jean like to have a cookery book? He had seen a cookery book here and thought he might get it for her one day. He craved a plate of bannocks and his brother’s sweet milk cheese and a mug of his mother’s ale. He had been very drunk and could not well keep to the line when he was writing. (That was true, she thought, looking at the note he had scrawled.) He was not drinking much at all and was as sober as she could wish him to be. The ladies seemed to like the idea of a ploughman poet. The girls who flocked to see him, to hear him read his verses and to pay him compliments were pretty, but they were not Jean.
He admitted that he was missing her.
‘I dreamed of you last night,’ he wrote, once. ‘And felt a miserable blank in my heart when I awoke.’
She knew that this was an unthinking compliment, thrown in at the end of the latest letter because he could never resist charming her, but she hugged it close for all that. Edinburgh had certainly taken the Ayrshire Bard to her heart. It seemed to Jean, reading the short letters he found the time to write, that he was flying, like one of those daring aeronauts she had heard about who went up in balloons full of hot air, high, high above them all. She wondered when and where he might come back down to earth.
In the next letter, in the spring of 1787, he gave her some inkling. He was thinking about another farm, about renting a place in Dumfriesshire from one Patrick Miller of Dalswinton. He intended to travel there and look it over, although he had no great hopes of the land being in any better condition than Mossgiel, and that was poor enough. He might see her and the children as he was passing through Mauchline on his way back.
When she could no longer pretend that the twins were not weaned, Robbie went to Mossgiel. He was growing by the day, eating heartily of whatever porridge or milky mess they placed before him, a sturdy little lad, and he had a look of Rab about him: no denying his father, they said in the town. Jean was smaller, finer and the image of her mother. Jean could not bear to let Robbie go, but her parents said she must, it had all been agreed between the two families, and she could see no other option. Rab’s mother and sisters were kinder and more understanding. The baby wept bitterly at first when she tried to leave him, the tears rolling down his chubby cheeks, and she wept even more bitterly all the road home, but he was soon installed as a small prince in the Mossgiel household, everyone’s favourite. They told her to come and see him as often as she pleased, which she did, whenever the weather was clement, wrapping Jean up close to her in her shawl and carrying the one twin out to spend time with the other.
Robbie grew happy and placid at Mossgiel, accepting his mother’s and his sister’s sudden appearances in his life and their subsequent absences with equanimity. Jean did not want her two children to grow apart from one another, not if she could help it, and she still had the faint but diminishing hope that Rab might come back and ask her again to marry him. She would lie in bed at nights, going over it all in her head, wondering how she could have done things differently. To her shame and mortification, she realised that her parents had changed their tune completely. Word of Rab’s Edinburgh fame had spread to Ayrshire, and James was forced to admit that they had made a mistake. Jean had been right to go against their wishes. In fact, he wished that she had been firmer in the face of their opposition. Mary was indignant at first, but then persuaded to agree with him. All unexpectedly, Rab Mossgiel was a success. There might have been a prosperous future for their daughter. But after all, the fact of the twins’ existence was undeniable. He had never sought to deny his fatherhood. Perhaps they could persuade him that the marriage had been legitimate after all, that in the eyes of the law and the Lord, he was still married to Jean. Dismayed by the hypocrisy rather than the change of heart, Jean refused to discuss it. When they tried to broach the subject with her, she pretended that she didn’t understand them. She would not demean herself so far as to beg Rab to come back to her. If he was destined to come back, perhaps he would, but she would not be a party to any more duplicity.
He came back to Mauchline, but only briefly.
He had written that he planned to visit Mossgiel, where he was anxious to see his son. Besides that, he planned to enjoy the company of a few old friends including Gavin Hamilton. But he also wished to see his ‘twa Jeanies.’ He planned to spend the first night of his visit at Johnnie Dow’s before going on to pass a few days at Mossgiel. Could he come over and see his daughter first thing in the morning? There was no invitation for Jean to slip across the alleyway. No invitation to an assignation at the back door of the Whitefoord Arms, she noticed, and she had too much pride to ask him. But perhaps he thought there was no more need of secrecy, and he was right. He could come over to see his daughter, and welcome. So said her parents when she cautiously enquired if Rab might visit.
* * *
Jean dressed in her best: a new cotton gown, printed with red and blue flowers. Her waist had almost resumed its girlish proportions and it fitted her, although she thought the stays might suffocate her. Mary offered to help her with her hair, but Jean was having none of it, although she allowed Nelly to comb her curls for her and thread a scrap of blue ribbon through them. She splashed cold water on her face, scrubbed at her cheeks until they were pink, bit at her lips to plump them up. When he came to the door, just a little late, her mother welcomed him in. James had made himself scarce, taking the boys with him. Rab seemed curiously formal to her, his boots well polished, his hair tied back and a silver headed stick in his hand. He looked like a gentleman. Like Mr Hamilton. But more handsome. She was holding baby Jean in her arms so that he couldn’t help but see the resemblance, dark curls, two bonnie lassies together. Jeany was ten months old and almost walking now, hauling herself up on this or that piece of furniture whenever she was allowed. She squirmed and fidgeted, trying to get out of her mother’s arms. When she screwed up her face and frowned at the strange man, he tickled her and she started to laugh instead.
‘D’you ken your daddy, my bonnie lamb?’ he said, and she stretched out her chubby arms to him.
Mary Armour, satisfied with this welcome, shooed the other children out of the room, and followed them, leaving the couple alone with the child between them.
‘You’ll have plenty to talk about, son!’ she said.
Jean rolled her eyes behind her mother’s dignified, departing back and Rab gazed after her in disbelief.
‘Am I mishearing, Jeany? Did your mammy just call me “son” or have my months in the city affected my ears?’
Jean shook her head. ‘No. You didn’t mishear. And believe me, I’m black affronted by her. By both of them. I’m so ashamed, Rab. They have changed their tune where you are concerned.’
‘As has half of Mauchline, so it seems.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My fame and fortune – if fortune it can be called which I very much doubt – seems to have gone before me. Folk who would once have viewed me as a bad influence, a fornicator for sure, now seem to be fawning over me. It sickens me somewhat, I’ll admit.’
‘No just my mother and father then?’
‘Och, no just them. All kinds of unexpected folk. I’ll tell you, Jeany, here’s something that will amaze you. I passed James Lamie as I rode into the toun and would you believe, he tipped his Kilmarnock bonnet to me and gave me a kind of a bow. A grudging acknowledgment, with his face tripping him, but an acknowledgment all the same. I almost fell off my horse. All that remains is for Holy Willie Fisher to welcome me into his home for a dram or two, and I’ll consider myself to be in a perpetual dream!’
‘There has been a lot of talk about you.’
‘But not from you, Jeany?’
‘You ken fine I say naething about you, and they keep silent about you where I am concerned. They have no idea in the least what I think.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘You know what I think of you. Very much what I have aye thought of you, Rab.’
‘You mean no very much. That’s what you said to me on the bleach green.’
‘You ken fine what I mean. And how much I love you still.’
He coloured, but didn’t respond.
The child began squirming again, and Jean set her daughter down on the rug where she amused herself by picking at the corners of rags of which it was made. Then she crawled over to her father with amazing rapidity and hauled herself up on his knees, smiling at him all the while. ‘Dada,’ she said, although whether it was a real word or a babble of sound, they couldn’t have said. Rab seemed delighted enough with it and with her. He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a coral teether with a silver top.
The Jewel Page 19