‘I found this in Edinburgh. I had to buy two though: one for Jeany and one for Robbie. It’s an expensive business producing twins!’
The child grasped the toy and put the wrong end in her mouth. He picked her up, turned the teether round so that she could gnaw on the coral, and dandled her. She didn’t object.
‘She seems fine and healthy.’
‘She is. But she’s a handful. You never ken what she’ll be into next.’
‘And what about you, Jeany?’
‘Och, I’m fine and healthy too. Have you seen Robbie yet? At Mossgiel?’
‘I’m going there after this. They tell me he’s the image of me, while this wee one is more like her mammy.’
‘That’s the truth.’
He stayed for an hour, drank a glass of wine bought in specially for his visit, and played with the baby, who seemed very taken with him and with her new toy. Mary Armour had left the good glasses out for them. When he rose to leave, he picked up his daughter again and kissed her on both cheeks. She gurgled happily in his arms, batting at his head with her hands.
‘Have you all you need for her?’ he asked, before he left.
‘Aye, I have.’
‘You’ll send me word if you need money? You mustn’t worry. I’ll look after the weans.’
‘There’s no need of money. We can look after her. And your mother will need help with Robbie, surely.’
‘Listen, Jean, I’ve ordered some silk for gowns for my mother and my sisters. But there will be enough for you. In fact…’ he hesitated. ‘In fact, I made sure I ordered enough for you. Black lutestring silk for Sundays. I’ll get them to send a length of cloth down for you as soon as it comes.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but you didn’t need to. You mustn’t feel beholden, Rab. It’s enough that you support the weans.’
‘Well, your father pays for the best seat in the kirk, so you may as well dress for the occasion. I’ll not have the Mauchline matrons and worthies remarking that Rab Burns is ungenerous in providing for the mother of his children.’
So that was all she was to be. The mother of his weans. But the gift was a generous one. James Armour had never bought the very best lutestring silk for the women of his family. In fact silk was at a premium altogether. Before Rab left, he leaned across the child and kissed her on the cheek.
‘My twa Jeanies,’ he said. ‘I’ll come again when next I’m in the town.’
‘When might that be do you think?’
‘I’m going back to Edinburgh after this, and then I’m minded to go on a tour of the Highlands. If I’m to write about my country, I want to see more of it. But perhaps after that. Perhaps in July. I’ll write to you and let you know.’
As soon as he left, her mother emerged to enquire after him. Did he have any plans? She meant where Jean was concerned, of course, rather than any more general query as to what Rab might be going to do next. But Jean could tell her nothing, beyond the bare facts that his poems were going well, the Edinburgh folk were making much of him, he seemed pleased to see her and the weans, and that there would be a length of fine lutestring silk arriving from Mossgiel, a gift from Rab, for a new Sunday dress.
Chapter Twenty-one
On the Banks of Ayr
Louis, what reck I by thee,
Or Geordie on his ocean?
Dyvor, beggar louns to me,
I reign in Jeanie’s bosom!
By early July, Rab was back in Mauchline, but this time he stayed out at Mossgiel and came to the house in the Cowgate in the early evening. His appearance was somewhat alarming. He was as bruised as though he had been in a fight, with a cut across his forehead, and he was limping into the bargain. He looked so unwell, so battered, that Mary Armour pursed her lips in disapproval at the sight of him, but he hastened to reassure her, albeit with less than his usual airy self-confidence.
‘I was not brawling, even though it might look that way. It was a riding accident, Mistress Armour. My horse bolted and threw me when I was riding along the shores of Loch Lomond. It was a lucky thing I wasn’t tipped head first into the water! But I lived to tell the tale as you see.’
When he had kissed and played with his daughter, and perhaps because the house was busy and there was little privacy to be had at this time of the evening, he suggested that Jean might like to walk out with him for a while, if her parents were agreeable and if her mother would put the child to bed for her.
The evening was a fine one, and he observed that Jean was looking pale, although in truth, he looked in rather worse health than she did. All the same, when he suggested that perhaps she needed a breath of air and that a walk around the town would do her no harm, she agreed readily enough.
‘Aye,’ said James. ‘You must go, Jean. You go and tak a turn about the town. Your mother will see the wee lass into her bed, won’t you, Mary? I’m sure you and Mr Burns have things to say to each other.’
Jean could hardly believe her father’s acquiescence, and she caught a glimpse of Rab’s expression, still torn between surprise at their change of heart and disgust at how a modicum of success, a whiff of celebrity and the acquisition of a certain amount of wealth, might do wonders for his reputation. They welcomed him, where before there had been only disapproval. Nevertheless, she was ready to seize any opportunity to be alone with him, so she agreed. Whatever good sense she might resolve to cultivate in his absence always seemed to desert her in his presence. Her mother took the complaining child in her arms. Wee Jean was at that stage where she hated to see her mother leave the house and always wanted to go too, but Mary distracted her while Jean fetched a shawl, and they slipped out together. Rab offered her his arm and soon, instead of taking the promised turn around the town, they were walking out along the Barskimming Road, away from the prying eyes of the Mauchline folk, and towards the River Ayr.
‘Just like old times,’ he remarked. But their conversation was stilted and overly polite at first, as though they hardly knew where to begin.
‘So what really happened?’ she asked, when they were well away from the town. ‘I mean your cuts and bruises, Rab. Did your horse bolt, after all? Was it really a riding accident? My mother thought you must have been in a fight somewhere. Was that what it was? Were you brawling? You can tell me the truth at least.’
He laughed. ‘There was no fight, but there was a battle of sorts!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Ach it was nothing at all. Well, not so very much. It was at Loch Lomond. Three of us. We had been a merry party and we had been at the dancing with the ladies of the house where we were staying.’
‘And at the drinking too?’
‘Just a wee bit. We stayed awake the whole night and saw the sun rise over Ben Lomond.’
‘And then?’
‘Ah weel.’ He looked sheepish. ‘Then we rode on towards Dumbarton, with only a few hours of sleep between us. We dined half way down the Loch, and I’m sorry to say we pushed the bottle there as well. And we were no that fou, but … we were a wee thing merry. So then we rode on soberly enough…’
‘Soberly?’ she laughed. ‘Soberly?’
He grinned. ‘Aye, soberly enough by then. And all would have been well if we had not come upon a Highlandman at the gallop. A big red headed fellow. No saddle or bridle, had he, nothing but a woollen blanket and a hair halter, though I’ll allow it was a tolerably good horse. I was mounted on Jenny Geddes in the usual way. But we scorned to let a Highlander pass us, good horse or no, so off we went with whip and spur. My companions soon fell behind, but you ken Jenny. She won’t be beaten.’
‘Aye, just like her master!’
‘She set up a great pace along the road, and we would surely have beaten our rival fair and square except that just as we were passing him, did the fellow not turn, wheeling his horse in front of me to stop me, when he knew the race was all b
ut lost?’
‘Which it no doubt did – stop you, I mean!’
‘Aye, it did. But himself first and worst, I fear. He went head first into a clipped hedge, with his bare arse showing and great oaths, I suppose, coming out of his mouth, although I could not understand one word of them since they were in his ain tongue.’
‘What about you?’
‘That’s just the pity of it. Down came Jenny Geddes over the Highlander’s horse, and down came your Rab, in between the twa of them.’
‘Good God, Rab!’
‘Ah but she did not trample me, not Jenny. She’s a fine beast for all that she’s no longer young. And the Highlandman and his horse lived to tell the tale and all.’
‘You could have been killed!’
He stopped, looked down at her, her arm tucked through his. ‘Which I sometimes think would not have been such a bad outcome after all. What do you think yourself, Jeany?’
She almost thought him serious. Perhaps he was.
‘I should have been very sad indeed to hear of it,’ she said, primly.
‘Should you? Well, that’s something at any rate. But it could have been much worse. All I had for my sins were the few cuts and bruises your mother noticed and a certain stiffness here and there, and a wee bit lameness which seems to be dissipating even as we walk. Well, the lameness more than the… the stiffness, right at this moment, Jeany.’ He looked down at her, chuckled. ‘But that’s your fault, lass. Oh, and a firm resolution to remain sober for the future and not to indulge in any more racing with wild Highlanders. You’ll be glad to hear that I shall be the very pattern of sobriety from now on.’
‘Will you?’
‘Mostly.’
She was thinking how he had said ‘your Rab’, thoughtlessly. Was he, she wondered, still her Rab even after all that had passed between them, even after her parents had behaved so unkindly to him? Was she still his Jean?
* * *
They walked arm in arm, along the all too familiar Barskimming Road and towards the river. There seemed an inevitability about it, a foolish inevitability. She should have known what would happen. Perhaps she had known what would happen all along. Maybe they were both aware of it and by a sort of mutual but unspoken agreement did nothing to stop it. They had no caution, no care. There was a magic about the evening, with the low sun throwing everything into sharp relief. There was a tangle of honeysuckle: pink and cream and deep yellow in all the hedges or clambering through the trees, and the scent of it was as sweet as wine. You could breathe it in and feel light-headed on it.
At some point on the long walk, he took her hand, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and he threaded his fingers through hers, swinging her arm alongside his. His palm was warm and dry.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked
‘I don’t ken. Where should we go? To the banks of the Ayr, maybe?’
‘Aye – why not? I havenae walked there for a long while, Rab. And I think the last time I was with you.’
It was true. She couldn’t bear to walk there without him, even with her sisters for company.
As soon as they found the river, he was complaining of the pain in his leg from the fall, where he had jarred it and bruised it, like a wean that wants to be kissed better, she thought. They must needs sit down for a rest before going back. It was a warm evening after a dry spell, dryer than usual anyway, and the river was very low and moving sluggishly between flat stones. They stopped in a dell where the grass was long and lush, a hollow fringed with meadowsweet and the last of the marching lines of summer foxgloves, so many soldiers in pink uniform, standing to attention round about, as though guarding it. It overlooked a deep weel, a pool that hardly seemed to move at all. In winter, the river would come tumbling down with a froth of peat from the hills, but now it was quiet, reflective. The midges were beginning their nightly dance over the water.
‘They’ll be nipping us, soon enough,’ he said. But for the time being, the midges were too intent on the water and the swallows came swooping and diving over them, picking them off, their sharp cries filling the air. From time to time, they could see a trout leaping up to a fly, sometimes right out of the water, with the ripples spreading out as it fell back.
‘I should have brought my rod!’ he said.
You couldn’t help but gaze and keep gazing, waiting for the next silvery splash as a fish broke the surface, shedding droplets, coins of light and water.
Somewhere in the thicket behind them came the notes of a thrush, the mavis at her evening song. They fell silent to listen, and then he turned to her and embraced her, and when he did, it seemed as though there was nothing else to be done between the two of them, nothing but this. When they came together it was as natural as breathing. She had never lost her desire for him, had only buried it for a while and, presumably, he felt the same, since there seemed no need even to speak about it. No questions asked, and no replies needed. It was as though everything had been aimed at this one moment. As though some decision had already been made without recourse to either of them. When he was not with her, she thought she might die of wanting him. It was that simple. She had no thought for the future, no memory of the past.
He was gentle, quite tentative, although she had long since healed after the birth of the twins. When he was inside her, she still thought she might die with the pleasure of it. It was a homecoming, the scent of him, the sensation of him.
‘How I’ve missed my wee whaup’s nest,’ he said. ‘My Jean’s downy nest. And no just so wee as it once was, but gey sweet all the same.’
She opened her eyes and saw a luminous sky, and dark leaves above her, felt soft grass beneath her. She could hear the piercing cries of the swallows out over the water, and their own more subdued cries, momentarily silencing the birds.
Afterwards, he held her close and she rested against him for a while, but it was growing darker. A small wind had risen and the midges, driven off the water, were nipping at them, at any areas of exposed flesh. He slapped at his legs. She did the same, and thought there would be tell-tale blotches on places where they had no business to be, places that had no business to be exposed to the air, and to the midges either. They laughed over it, but it was a serious matter.
‘What will your mother say, if she sees?’
‘She willnae see. I sleep with my sisters. And with wee Jeany beside me. Naebody will see.’
‘Best not be scratching at them then. More scandal,’ he said, and she glanced around as though half expecting to see Willie Fisher or James Lamie hiding behind a tree, peering out disapprovingly at them.
‘Do you think we’ve done wrong?’ she asked, anxiously. ‘Do you think this was wise?’
‘Not wise at all, my love, but when have I ever been wise where you are concerned?’
They dressed, and then they walked home together through the twilight, his arm around her waist. When they grew closer to the town, they walked more decorously, her arm in his, like a respectable courting couple. But she could feel his body inclining towards her, the warmth of him. As soon as they were in the Cowgate, he hurried her along the alleyway and, glancing around to make sure that there were no observers, pulled her into the shelter of the back stairs at the Whitefoord Arms and kissed her on the lips. She thought her heart would break when he moved away from her, and she reached out to touch his bruised face. He seized her hand, walked her to the back gate of her house and through into the garden. But he didn’t come in. He said he didn’t want to disturb the household. She could see that the lamps were burning indoors, that her mother and perhaps her father too had waited up, possibly expecting developments of some kind. A formal offer of marriage maybe. She could hardly tell them that marriage was not the kind of offer that had been made. That an offer of an entirely different kind had been made and accepted and enjoyed between the two of them. But not marriage. She hoped none o
f it was written on her face, as it was surely written on her body, midge bites and all.
He said he would have come in, wished her parents good night, but it was late and he must be getting back to Mossgiel now. They were expecting him there, and he didn’t see them so very often. They missed him, his family, when he was away.
‘I miss you too,’ she said.
He sighed. ‘I wish…’ he said, and then hesitated, unwilling to finish.
‘What do you wish?’
‘I don’t ken. I don’t rightly ken, Jeany, and that’s the truth. But I must go. I’ll write to you, though. I’ll write from Edinburgh.’
He walked quickly away, turning into the Cowgate, heading in the direction of Mossgiel. He would be another half hour on the road to get there, even if he went at a fast pace, and she could see that he was limping more painfully now from the riding accident. They shouldn’t have walked so far. She climbed the back stairs, put her hand on the latch, took a deep breath and went indoors.
There were grass stains on her skirts. She was sore, beneath her petticoats, damp, sticky, raw from the unaccustomed lovemaking. But she couldn’t find it in herself to regret even a moment of it.
The regrets would all come later.
Chapter Twenty-two
A Girl out of Pocket
Thou’ll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o’ departed joys,
Departed never to return.
She didn’t see him again for some time, either in the town or at her house. He left Mossgiel in August and journeyed back to Edinburgh where, as far as Jean could tell from the infrequent news of him that reached her, he was either morosely drinking all by himself, or travelling in company with his difficult, prickly and ill tempered friend, William Nicol. Word of him mostly came via his family at Mossgiel, where she would go to visit Robbie. His letters were infrequent now, and she wondered why. But they told her at the farm that he was on another tour of the Highlands, his appetite having been whetted by the first, notwithstanding races with bare arsed Highlandmen and tumbles into hedges. Jean sensed that Nicol liked to bask in the reflected glow of Rab’s success, but like so many people who are all too ready to give offence, he himself was remarkably easily offended.
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