Your coatie’s shorter by a span
Yet deil an inch the less, lassie.
Rab was dallying with pretty Nancy McLehose in Edinburgh. While the letters were flying back and forth between them, sometimes on an hourly basis, while the poems, gifts and trysts were coming thick and fast, Rab was trying very hard indeed to forget about Jean and not to worry too much about whether people were speaking of her in any way. Jean herself, meanwhile, was struggling to keep her condition hidden from those closest to her.
Extraordinarily, she managed to keep the pregnancy a secret until the following February. Around New Year, Doctor Mackenzie confirmed that he could hear two heartbeats. She was expecting twins again. He asked her if she had had any word of support from Rab, to which she could only reply that she hadn’t. Not a word of encouragement or even pity for the plight in which she found herself. Perhaps he was hoping that Jean would lose the child, leaving him free to pursue his amours in Edinburgh. Then he would be able to resolve not to make the same mistake three times over. But he didn’t know that it was twins again. Mackenzie said that he would try writing a longer letter to his friend, telling him the true state of affairs.
Ever since the death of her daughter, Jean’s appetite had deserted her. Although her belly was swelling inexorably, her face had grown thin, and if it was not easy, then it was certainly possible to disguise her condition, what Rab pleased to call her ‘appearance’, especially in winter. She told everyone that she was feeling the cold all the time, which was true, and she huddled herself into shawls as well as lacing her stays ever tighter, desperately hoping that she was not injuring the babies inside her.
The blow, when it came, fell suddenly. Early in February, not long before Valentine’s Day, her mother came into the room all unexpectedly when she was dressing herself, and screamed, ‘Oh dear God, Jeany, what have you gone and done now?’
She had, as she could not help but admit, ‘got herself with child’ all over again. And by the same man as well.
‘Thank heavens your father’s away at his work,’ was all Mary could say at first. ‘But this’ll be the death of him, Jeany!’
Jean thought it might be the death of her too, but what was she to do? After a good deal of fretting and fussing, Mary hustled her errant daughter round to Doctor Mackenzie’s house, having wrung from Jean the unwelcome admission that he, at least, had been aware of her condition for some time, and had promised to send the news to Rab in Edinburgh.
‘And have you had any word from the fornicating skellum?’ Mary demanded, as soon as they were inside, driven to treating the innocent Mackenzie with a discourtesy that made Jean hang her head in shame.
Mackenzie was embarrassed that he should be placed in this position, that much was clear. He seemed furious with his friend for abandoning Jean, but anxious that she should not fall to the censure of her parents and the kirk session all over again.
‘Heaven help us when Jeany’s father finds out!’ Mary took hold of her daughter’s arm and shook her in exasperation. ‘D’you no have the sense you were born with?’
Jean began to weep, not loudly, but with the tears simply streaming down her face. Mackenzie glanced at her and felt fit to burst out crying himself, from pure sympathy.
‘I confess I have no idea what to do next!’ he told the women, handing Jean his handkerchief. ‘But you’d best dry your eyes, lass. Mistress Armour, will you leave her here for the moment? If anyone asks about her, tell them that she is unwell and is seeking some physic from me. But is there nowhere she could go so that she would be away from the town and the gossips for a while? Have you no friends or relatives who might take pity on her?’ He was still a single man, and it would be very inadvisable for him to take her in without the protection of the weans’ father, with so much scandal clinging to her name, even though there were a couple of female servants in the house. He had his own professional and personal reputation to consider.
Eventually, Mary went back to the Cowgate and Mackenzie left Jean alternately dozing and weeping in front of his study fire while he rode out to Mossgiel to consult with the Burns family there. Gilbert had grown very fond of Jean. The news surprised and shocked him, but he, at least, was deeply concerned.
‘I’ll confess, I’m heartily ashamed of my brother,’ he said. ‘I would hardly credit it, but how can I question Jean’s honesty?’
‘No. The lassie’s telling the truth, that much is clear.’ Mackenzie thought that Gilbert seemed more like the elder of the two brothers himself in point of sense and responsibility. ‘The obvious solution would be for you to take Jean in here at Mossgiel, but I can see you’re short of space,’ he said.
‘Aye, we are. And I think my mother is very reluctant to go against Rab’s wishes in his absence.’
‘What are his wishes?’ Mackenzie asked.
‘Who kens? Not me, that’s for sure. These days, his talk is all of Nancy, or his letters are, anyway. He calls her his Clarinda, would you believe, and she cries him Sylvander.’
It was clear that the assumed names disgusted Gilbert even more, perhaps, than the relationship, the affair or whatever it was. Privately, Gilbert thought that Nancy was like a minor fever in his brother’s blood, virulent and dangerous while it lasted, but soon over. He couldn’t say as much to Mackenzie, or to Jean, in case he was proved wrong. You never could tell with Rab.
Eventually, they settled between them that they would beg shelter for her with kindly Willie Muir and his wife at the mill, beside Tarbolton. Willie was a trusted acquaintance from the Burns family’s Lochlea days, a crony of Rab and Gilbert’s father, rather than the lads themselves. James Armour was a business acquaintance as well, and Jean had visited the Muirs with her mother from time to time. Mary packed up some of Jean’s belongings and sent one of the lads to carry the box across to Mackenzie’s house, as soon as darkness was falling over the town, giving them a measure of privacy. Then Mackenzie himself took Jean the five miles to Willie’s Mill in a borrowed gig. If anyone enquired too closely as to her whereabouts, they would be told that Jean had gone on a visit to old friends, much as they had fended off inquisitive neighbours when Jean was in Paisley.
‘But what will your father say?’ Mary repeated. ‘And how am I going to tell him?’
James Armour didn’t faint this time. If anything he seemed more sad and disappointed than angry. A day or two later, he sent word to Willie’s Mill that Jean was not, under any circumstances, to show her face in the Cowgate again, or not until Mossgiel had agreed to shoulder his responsibilities. The shame would be too much for James and his wife to bear, and would damage the reputation of the whole family.
The Muirs, husband and wife, told Jean that she was very welcome to stay with them throughout her whole confinement if need be. Mackenzie offered to pay them for her bed and board, but they refused indignantly. They owed it to the family in memory of Rab’s father, if nothing else. The two men had been friends and Willie had admired William Burness tremendously. Once the babies were born, Willie and his wife hoped that Rab would be more inclined to come round to the idea of marriage again, although Jean did not seem very hopeful.
‘This isn’t like Rab,’ said Willie to Dr Mackenzie. ‘Not the good-hearted lad I thought him. Not his father’s son at all. Why has he abandoned her?’
He liked Rab and he liked Jean and he couldn’t understand why they didn’t simply make a match of it. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that they were meant for each other. This would not have happened, he thought, if Rab had not gone off to the wicked town of Edinburgh and been puffed and praised out of all proportion to his deserts.
‘The Bard!’ he said to his wife, with a certain amount of scorn. ‘They’re calling him the Bard. But I’m thinking his Bardship needs to take some responsibility for his ain human failings.’
Even when a man was flying high, celebrated, made much of, he needed a
good steadfast woman at home, a wife to bring him back down to earth. That’s what Willie thought. He was reminded, so he told Jean, in an attempt to cheer her, of the ballad of Tam Lin and his lass, Janet, who had borne his child and then bravely rescued Tam from the Queen of Faery. Perhaps Rab needed a woman brave enough to rescue him.
Perhaps Willie was more right than he knew.
At any rate, it was at Willie’s Mill that Rab found his erstwhile jewel towards the end of the month. He was riding from a visit to Ellisland, the farm he was considering renting in Dumfriesshire, and on his way home to Mossgiel. When Rab came to the mill, Willie was not reassured, not at first. Willie thought that he had changed, and not for the better either. The young man strode into the house with an air of condescension. Strutted in. Cock of the walk. That’s how Willie would have described it, and how his wife did describe it later, full of indignation, voicing both their concerns.
‘Would you credit it? Would you credit the pride of the man in his fine clothes? And poor Jeany Armour carrying his weans all over again!’
Maybe he was tired after his long journey, and maybe he was worried and unhappy about Jean. Well, of course he was unhappy about Jean. But she was his responsibility now and yet he seemed reluctant to admit his guilt, reluctant even to engage in conversation with her. To her dismay, Jean sensed something close to revulsion in him at the sight of her swollen belly and ankles, her blotchy, tearstained face. Her vulnerability seemed to inspire a kind of cruelty in him, rather than the kindness Willie and his wife had anticipated, the support Jean had hoped for. She saw it in his face. Everything about her irritated him. Last time, she had been defiant. Now, she could not hide either her desperation or her desire to please him, and he seemed to think her fawning, vulgar, insipid. She was no fool, and she could tell that he was comparing her in his mind’s eye to somebody else. At the time, she didn’t know who it might be. She had heard rumours of some Edinburgh lady with whom he was enamoured, but whenever she tried to question them, Rab’s friends, even Doctor Mackenzie, would clam up, claiming not to know what he was up to. Later, she realised he must have been thinking about Nancy McLehose, and wishing that she was as polished, as ladylike, as proper and pretty and clever. He did not acquit himself at all well, seemed reluctant even to take her hand, never mind embrace her. He stared at her as coldly as though she had been a stranger and said, ‘What in the name of God have you done now, Miss Armour?’ and she rushed out of the room in tears again.
Willie, watching all this, could hardly contain his wrath. He was disgusted with his young friend.
‘Rab, Rab, could you not have found it in you to behave more kindly to the lass?’
Still the lad persisted with his lordly manners, his condescension.
‘She exasperates me. Heaven help me, she has no pride and no dignity. Did you see the way she fawned over me? Willie, she does not have the sense she was born with!’
The older man’s dismay spilled over into fury.
‘Aye, and you have some sense, I suppose! But no pity? No humanity? Ken, lad, I’m surprised you can find a hat big enough for that head of yours, but I suppose there are many wonders to be had in Edinburgh! Where is this coming from?’ continued Willie, when Rab didn’t rise to the bait. ‘She must have been good enough for you at one time. More than one time, evidently. What would your father have said? Or have you grown too grand for honest Ayrshire folk like us? For kindly folk like your friends and family?’
Rab had the grace to blush although he maintained his truculent manner. ‘No. No, you ken fine I haven’t, Willie. But maybe there are some things I have outgrown, and I haven’t the least idea what I am to do with her.’
‘You seemed to have ideas in plenty about that a few short months ago!’ Willie took a deep breath to steady himself. ‘Listen, lad. She’s welcome to stay on here until you make up your mind. She’s a good girl and no trouble to us at all. But if you are genuinely asking me what you should do, I’ll tell you.’
‘Go on.’
‘If you don’t intend to marry her, you need to acknowledge that her predicament is your responsibility at least. And to do it publicly. Find her a room in town, close to her mother, if her mother will not take her in. Mary Armour should at least forgive her enough to help her with her confinement. And James should not object.’
‘She says her mother will not have her back or help her in any way. And I suppose I am the culprit.’
‘Well, you are, are you no? It taks twa to mak a wean, Rab. She will need some help when the babies are born, and I doubt if you intend to be by her side for long. You’ll be awa back to that Edinburgh. So you’ll need to find her some shelter, a room and a bed, and you must give her some support. You owe her that much at least. And if you don’t find her ladylike enough for your fine city tastes now, just ask yourself if you have treated her like a lady, the lady she most surely is, in our eyes, anyway.’
Rab was silent for a moment. ‘Where should she go?’
‘That’s for you to decide. Dr Mackenzie says he has a room you could tak for her. Not in his house but next door, in the same building. The tenant left recently, and he has not let it yet. She will need furniture, chiefly a bed. And who else to supply it but the father of her weans?’
‘You don’t think much of me, do you?’ Rab said, in a low voice.
‘Not just at this moment, son, no. I do not. And I can tell you this much. Your father would have been black affronted, so he would. He would have been most profoundly ashamed of you. And so am I. So are we all that used to love you.’
The observation hit home, as it was meant to do.
‘You’re right, of course.’ Rab was suddenly subdued. ‘But I can’t help the way I feel, can I? All the same, I’ll make my peace with her as far as I can. I’ll ride back into Mauchline and see what I can do. If I send a message, once the room is ready, do you have a gig you could bring her in?’
‘Aye, I’ll see she gets there safely, for the lass cannae walk or even ride, that’s for sure, not in her condition.’
* * *
He took the room for her. Her parents were reluctant to furnish it, so he found her a good mahogany bed and Willie Patrick carried a chaff mattress across from the house in the Cowgate. Mary had allowed that, or at least James had pleaded and Mary had conceded. It was a nine days’ wonder in the town, and the change houses were alive with the scandal of it. Jean Armour was expecting twins all over again, and Rab Mossgiel had come home from Edinburgh to assist her in her friendless state. The kirk session kept unduly quiet on this occasion which was, so Jean found out later, almost entirely down to Daddie Auld, who had decided that she had suffered enough. He seemed to think that it might be better if the kirk kept well out of it for the time being and let things take their course, however it might end. Rab purchased some few pieces of furniture for her, borrowing the rest from Mackenzie and from Nance Tinnock over the way, bringing one or two home comforts from Mossgiel, things that his mother and sisters had wished to send for her. They pitied her, even while they were reluctant to challenge Rab.
In fact, his mother had said, ‘You’ll be marrying the lass now, likely?’ but he had raised dark eyebrows and said, ‘What gars you think that, when she has no claim on me? She had her chance and she rejected me. She has no claim that I ken! My affections lie elsewhere now. I’ll support the weans when they come, but that’s all.’
Agnes knew that when her son was in this truculent frame of mind there was no arguing with him, so she kept quiet, hoping for the best. Gilbert too counselled caution. Rab could be stubborn when he chose but these moods seldom lasted long. His natural good nature always reasserted itself.
Willie Muir brought Jean and her few possessions into town. By the time they got there, she was feeling very sick. The rutted road, the cold, damp evening and the stench of the horse didn’t help. He could see that Rab was waiting for her, so he thought it best to
leave the two of them alone together, hoping that they might finally make their peace with one another. He deposited her, bag and baggage, beside the stable where Mackenzie kept his horse, and turned right around to get home to the mill before daylight failed entirely.
‘Good luck to you, my dear Jeany!’ he said, as he left. ‘And mind, if you need us, we’re just along the road. You’re welcome back any time. It’s been a pleasure having you in the house, lass.’
The stable was empty, Mackenzie having been summoned to the bedside of a sick patient, and Rab pulled her inside where the twilight hardly reached.
‘This is very good of you. Good of you to find a place for me.’
But if she had hoped for a change of heart, she was wrong. He had been drinking, that much was clear, perhaps in Nance Tinnock’s over the way. His breath smelled of whisky. He pulled her close to him, or as close as her belly would allow, and he muttered in her ear, ‘Don’t think this means ought, Jeany.’
‘No. I don’t.’ She rallied, momentarily. ‘Although they are your weans, Rab.’
‘How can I be sure?’
It was what she had feared he might say all along, but it still felt as though he had stabbed her through the heart.
‘They are yours. You ken fine they’re yours. There’s been naebody but you.’
‘Maybe so. But you have nae claim on me.’ His voice was thick. It didn’t sound like Rab at all. ‘Let me hear you say it!’
‘I have nae claim on you.’
It wasn’t true though, was it? Even as she said the words, she knew that she had every claim on him. But he seemed to be very angry, almost to the point of tears. Once, she had seen a neighbour’s dog corner a big rat near the outhouse at the back of their house in the Cowgate. The rat had bared its teeth, backed against the wall. The image came into her mind now.
He persisted, ‘I don’t care what advice you’ve been given by Willie Muir or Mackenzie. You have nae claim on me, neither in life nor in death. I would have been glad to marry you. I did marry you but you rejected me. You broke your word. Now you want what you cannae have, but I’ve moved on, Jeany, onwards and upwards. I’m the Bard now. Folk know my name. Beyond a room and a bed, you have nae claim on me whatsoever!’
The Jewel Page 22