The House of Lyall

by Doris Davidson

  What else could Ruairidh’s mother have against her? The boot should really be on the other foot. It was her fault that the other baby, her first grandchild, hadn’t lived. If she’d just let it be born where it should have been born, everything would have been all right. But maybe it wouldn’t, Melda conceded sadly. Maybe it had been meant to die all along. If it hadn’t, she would have always been wondering where it was, what had become of it … and remembering that it had been conceived on the day she had learned of Rannie’s death, which wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought. She had been grateful to Lady Marianne for seeing her through that pregnancy and saving her from being the butt of gossip in the glen, but she’d only done that for her own sake, to preserve the good name of her family, and its pure blood line.

  But she had better not start her marriage off on a sour note by tackling the woman about her present attitude, Melda mused. Ruairidh wouldn’t want friction between his wife and his mother, but she wouldn’t knuckle under to the woman if she started ordering her about. She was the next Lady Glendarril, wasn’t she? With a sob in her throat, she turned to her husband.

  When it came to the last month, with Melda’s belly appearing to be almost at bursting point, Hamish excused Ruairidh from all duties at the mill to let him be with his wife as much as possible. ‘She’s just a young slip of a thing,’ he explained to his wife. ‘She has no idea what childbirth means, and she needs him here with her.’

  Marianne couldn’t help thinking that she had been little older when she produced Ranald, and that Melda did know what childbirth meant, but she didn’t feel like arguing with him. She had her old worry on her mind again. She couldn’t possibly allow Melda to keep her child if it turned out to be a boy, bringing the possibility of madness into the Bruce-Lyall blood. The problem was, she’d only had Hamish to contend with last time, unobservant and gullible. It had been easy to pull the wool over his eyes and whip the girl out of sight, but Ruairidh was different. He’d been furious, and had refused when his father had told him to book Melda into an extortionately expensive maternity home in Edinburgh rather than trust the local ‘howdie’ to bring this special child into the world, because he couldn’t bear the thought of her being taken away from him.

  Robert Mowatt, of course, as the man the whole glen thought was Melda’s father, was out of the question, they were all agreed on that, which relieved both Marianne and the young mother-to-be, for the doctor would know as soon as he examined the girl that this was not her first pregnancy. It was he, however, who gave Hamish the name of a highly recommended trained midwife.

  A solution to the problem of what to do with the baby occurred to her which made her draw a deep shuddery breath. Could she possibly ask Robert …? Would he do for her what Andrew Rennie had done before? It would be worth trying, and it would only be necessary if Melda produced a boy.

  Before the arrival of the trained midwife from Edinburgh, everyone in the castle was affected by the tense nervousness that seemed to pervade the place, but Nurse Crombie, as starchy as her voluminous apron and the cap sitting squarely on her straight greying hair, had an efficient manner that inspired confidence. She organized a special room for the confinement, and when Melda’s first pains began, she shepherded the girl there and banned Ruairidh from even opening the door.

  ‘The father can not be present at the birth,’ she lectured when he protested vehemently at being excluded. ‘It is just not done, and I will look after your wife. Nothing will go wrong, I assure you.’

  Marianne, however, categorically refused to be kept out, but was such a nuisance that Melda asked her to go down and keep Ruairidh company.

  Having timed the contractions for hours, Nurse Crombie rang for a maid when it was clear that there was some complication, and asked her to send someone for the doctor. Luckily, Robert was on his way and arrived five minutes later, his face grim as he took the stairs two at a time. The tension was building to a climax now, in the room upstairs, in the sitting room, even in the kitchens, where Mrs Burr boiled endless kettles of water to make tea.

  Ruairidh’s walking up and down irritated his mother, also in a highly emotional state, and she barked, ‘For goodness’ sake, sit down. You’re not helping anything by tramping about like a raging bull. And put out that cigarette. You’ve done nothing but smoke since I came in.’

  ‘A cigarette might help you, too, Mother,’ he snapped. ‘You’re like a hen on a hot girdle, hodging about on that chair.’

  Both realizing that they might say something unforgivable in their agitation, they kept quiet until Robert came in. Holding his hand up to stop the double flow of questions, he sat down wearily. ‘It’s a girl, a real whopper – 9 pounds 4 ounces, but they’re both well. Let Ruairidh go up to see them first, Marianne. You’ll get your turn.’

  When the door closed behind the young man, the doctor said, ‘It’s a pity it’s not a boy. She had a rough time and I’ve told her she shouldn’t have any more. I’ll leave you to tell Ruairidh.’

  Marianne felt as though she had just been set free from a dank prison cell. It was a girl! It would be an only child! She had been worrying for nothing!

  Dorothea was the axis round which the world of Castle Lyall revolved. From the laird himself down to the little scullery maid, they were besotted by her. In the nursery, her every move was watched by Nurse Shepherd, who had been employed after Nurse Crombie moved away to attend her next confinement, and when the perambulator was put outside in the sunshine, her slightest squeak had someone running to pick her up. And the tiny red-faced bundle soon became a podgy, golden-haired, blue-eyed beauty who could smile when it suited her but found she got more attention if she went into a tantrum.

  ‘She’s got a right wee temper, that one,’ Mrs Burr observed one day when the child was barely a year old.

  ‘Aye, Cook,’ Ruby smiled, ‘but she’s such a bonnie wee toot you canna help but like her.’

  ‘They’re going to spoil her, though, running after her like that.’ She gestured towards the nurse, who was haring across the lawn to lift her charge. ‘Still, if I’m right, she’ll no’ have things all her own way for much longer.’

  ‘Oh, my!’ Ruby said in dismay. ‘Melda’s no’ expecting’ again, is she? The doctor said she wasna to have another ane.’

  ‘I’d say she was in her third month, by the look o’ her.’

  ‘Well, we’ll be in for it now. The mistress’ll no’ be pleased.’

  Marianne was definitely not pleased when Melda at last plucked up courage to tell her. ‘You stupid girl!’ she burst out. ‘You know you shouldn’t –’

  Melda, however, was subservient no longer. ‘It was Ruairidh’s idea as much as mine,’ she interrupted. ‘Dorrie’s being made too much of, and the only way to stop that is to give her a brother.’

  ‘A brother?’ Marianne echoed faintly. ‘How can you be so sure it’ll be a boy?’

  ‘I can’t be sure, of course, but Ruairidh wants a son.’

  ‘But you’ll be endangering your life, didn’t you remind him of that?’

  ‘No, I deliberately made light of any problems. I want a son as much as he does – a son and a daughter, the perfect gentleman’s family.’

  ‘I think you should talk to your father. Um … how far on are you?’

  ‘Four months.’

  Marianne bristled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘Because I knew what you and my father would say, and neither of you can do anything about it now.’

  Their eyes locked, each knowing what the other was thinking, yet bound by old promises not to speak of it.

  As Marianne had foreseen, Robert was truly angry when Melda did acquaint him of her condition. ‘I told you!’ he shouted. ‘Your womb … oh, I can’t explain it to you, but you’re going to have to look after yourself. No lifting Dorothea, no running, even hurrying, and you’ll have to lie flat for at least the last two months.’

  ‘Is it as bad as that?’ Melda faltered.

  ‘I
wouldn’t have advised you against a second child otherwise. I’d better speak to Ruairidh.’ He looked at the pale girl sadly. ‘You won’t have to let him …’

  ‘I can’t expect him not to.’ She paused, her eyes filling with tears. ‘He might look for somebody else.’

  ‘He’d have me to reckon with if he did!’ Robert declared hotly.

  ‘Father, don’t say anything to him, please. I’ll be very careful till the baby’s born and I’m sure I’ll be all right.’

  ‘As long as you remember then.’

  For the next three months, Marianne and Melda were on the defensive when they spoke to each other, but when the young mother-to-be was ordered to lie flat in bed, her mother-in-law surprised her by being very attentive. Marianne had more or less resigned herself to Fate. What she actually told herself was that there was many a slip ’twixt cup and lip, as she had heard Miss Edith say more than once.

  As it happened, the old saying was truly prophetic. Melda lost the baby near the end of the seventh month, and her father pulled no punches when he tackled his son-in-law. ‘God knows what you think you’re doing, Ruairidh. I advised Melda last time that she should not have any more, but I am going to order it this time. If you make her pregnant again, you will be as good as passing a death sentence on her.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Ruairidh was appalled. ‘I’d never do anything to hurt her, Robert, you know that.’

  ‘But you are young and virile, and passion is no respecter of intentions, however sincerely meant, and even if you practise birth control, which is used all over nowadays, there would always be a chance that you’d forget, or something would go wrong, and … where would you be? You could possibly get the son I know perfectly well you want, but you would probably lose your wife. I would advise a hysterectomy as soon as possible.’

  ‘A hysterectomy? What does that involve?’

  ‘It is an operation to remove a woman’s reproductive organs.’

  Ruairidh looked utterly shocked at this. ‘Is this a … dangerous operation?’

  ‘There is always danger when an operation is performed, but methods are improving all the time, and I would say there is little chance of anything going wrong. A few weeks in hospital, possibly a month or two of being careful not to do anything strenuous, and then she should be as right as rain.’ He hesitated before stating what should have been obvious but which had clearly not occurred to Ruairidh. ‘It means, of course, that she can have no more children.’

  ‘I see.’ His face blanching, the younger man fell silent, obviously turning it over in his mind, but at last he murmured, ‘I’d rather have Melda fit and well than have a son and heir, if that’s what you’re worrying about. Will it be up to her to decide whether or not …?’

  ‘I will give her the choice, and you must persuade her that if she does not agree to it, her health will deteriorate …’

  Marianne’s relief on hearing this news made her feel as if she would be at peace for ever, though she wished that she had known from the outset that Ruairidh and Melda had been destined not to have a son; she could have saved herself years of fretting. She revelled in the thought that only the purest of blood would run through the veins of future Glendarrils, whoever inherited the title.

  It was not altogether surprising that Marianne overlooked the possibility that her granddaughter – also granddaughter of Duncan Peat – could eventually produce a son, who would be heir after Ruairidh, could be the next but one Lord. It had been so long since Andrew Rennie had told her that the title could be passed through the distaff side, and so much had happened in the years between, that she had blotted it from her memory. As far as she was concerned, the danger of contamination was finally over.

  The folk of the glen, of course, ignorant of Melda’s real parentage and believing the title had to be passed directly to a male, were bitterly disappointed that the Bruce-Lyall line would stop with the present Master. Mima Rattray, as usual, held forth to all who entered the post office. ‘It’s an awful pity Master Ranald was killed. He’d have made a string of sons to carry on his name.’

  One brave soul had the temerity to put her right on one point. ‘Only one would have inherited the title, though.’

  The postmistress gave her head an irritated shake. ‘I know that! What I meant was he’d have made sure there was aye a son to follow on. Like, if there was another war.’

  ‘There can never be another war, Mima. The Great War, as they’re calling it, was the war to end all wars, wasn’t it?’

  Feeling that she was coming off worst in the discussion, Mima tutted loudly. ‘You never know, Maggie. Nothing on this earth’s ever certain, and if there was another war, Master Rannie would have had plenty stand-bys.’

  Maggie thought it wise to climb down now, but she couldn’t resist one last barb. ‘Aye, well, you’re maybe richt, but Master Rannie’s no’ here now, is he?’

  She had left virtually nothing for the postmistress to take as surrender. ‘No,’ she admitted, truculently, ‘I was just saying …’

  The entry of another customer brought this difference of opinion to a close, and Maggie went out quite pleased at having beaten Mima for once. The postmistress, however, immediately started up the same subject again, knowing that little Lizzie Black was easily browbeaten.

  Dorothea took full advantage of being the centre of attention in the castle, screaming her head off when she didn’t get what she wanted, and by her second birthday, she was beginning to get out of hand altogether. Her father, therefore, issued instructions that she must be disciplined, that she would have to learn to control her temper.

  Ruby, of course, was loud in protest at this … in the kitchen. ‘Poor wee Dorrie, she’s only two, for goodness’ sake. What does he expect?’

  Mrs Burr shook her head. ‘She’ll have to learn. She’s that spoiled she thinks the whole place revolves round her.’

  ‘So it should, she’s such a bonnie wee thing with her fair curly head and rosy cheeks. She’s that like her father, with the same blue eyes and all, but she’s got her mother’s spirit, if you ask me.’

  ‘Melda had aye plenty spirit,’ chimed in Jessie Black. ‘I was at the school wi’ her, and she was awful clever. We could never understand why she didna go to the university in Aberdeen, for we was sure her father wanted her to be a doctor like him. Of course, she was aye close to the laird’s boys, an’ maybe that’s when she made up her mind on being mistress here some day.’

  Mrs Burr, a native of the glen who had married a Glaswegian and only returned to her place of birth when he died, now said, ‘Mima Rattray tell’t me once there was mair atween her an’ Master Ranald than folk kent. Becky Drummond once tell’t her that Ranald tell’t her he was meetin’ Melda in the woods – an’ that was on the last nicht o’ his last leave, poor soul.’

  Jessie frowned. ‘But a’body kens Becky Drummond tell’t lies. I never believed a word she said, though she was the minister’s lassie.’

  Ruby, as Melda’s personal maid – although she was more often doing a housekeeper’s work – was closer to her than any of them. ‘Ranald was a bit o’ a rogue though, an’ I think she saw through him. Any road, you canna deny she loves the Master.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right there,’ Mrs Burr sighed. ‘And he loves her, and all. They’ll make a fine laird and his lady when the time comes.’

  With her daughter taken over by the nursemaid, Melda felt time weighing heavily on her hands, and decided one day in the autumn of 1922, to cycle down to the mill to see what exactly went on there. Unlike his father, Hamish welcomed his son’s wife’s interest in the family business and took her through every process himself. She was intent on seeing everything, but he did notice that she spent more time in the design department than anywhere else. Joking, he said, ‘Would you like to try your hand at creating a new patterned cloth?’

  ‘Would I like?’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands, ‘I’d be delighted.’

  Although most of the men in the department had kno
wn Melda as a child, and had heard then that she was clever, they were still amazed at the technicality of the drawings she produced and the suggestions she made as to the colours which should be used in the checks. Hamish was absolutely stunned, and said she could come in as often as she liked to give him some more ideas.

  The only person who was not pleased about her newly discovered talent was her mother-in-law. ‘Your father wasn’t happy about me going round the place,’ she reminded Hamish.

  ‘I am not my father,’ he smiled, ‘and things are different now. We have quite a few women workers – some of the men did not come back from the war, remember.’

  They both fell silent at that, remembering the tall fair-haired boy with the twinkling eyes and ready charm who had not returned either.

  Before Melda took up her appointment, as she thought of it, even if her father-in-law had not meant it as such, she decided to take a day in Edinburgh to see the kind of materials that were most popular in the shops, for ladies’ and gents’ wear.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Ruairidh asked. ‘You surely don’t want to tie yourself down to a job, do you?’

  ‘I’d love to tie myself down,’ she laughed, ‘especially to a job I’d really love doing. I feel useless at home, you know, spending most of my time out with the dogs, or chatting to one of the gardeners. Your mother does her bit, looking after the needs of the glen folk, so why shouldn’t I do something, too? Nursie hardly ever lets me spend any time alone with Dorrie, so …’

  ‘I see your point. Well, if you like, I can come with you and we’ll make it a little holiday – say a long weekend? What d’you think? Or we could make it London, if you like?’

  ‘I think Edinburgh’ll do for a start.’

  Somewhat taken aback at first by their proposal, Hamish suddenly became very enthusiastic, sending off telegrams to the managers of several stores asking for their cooperation.