Beyond Reason

by Gwen Kirkwood

  As winter came round again, Janet worried. Her mother insisted they must save all they could in the parish savings bank. She said it had been her father’s dying wish to put money into the bank so that Andrew could have an education.

  Mr Foster did not allow them to attend the kirk every Sunday, so her meetings with her mother were brief and irregular and there was never enough time to talk. Mr Cole was usually anxious to return to his ailing wife, taking her mother with him, but Peggy Baird always had a warm smile of welcome for Janet. She wished she could have time to talk with the child she had fostered as a babe. Sometimes she had news of Fingal but Mr Foster always wanted to usher Janet away back to Braeheights. He didn’t give her time to talk.

  Other members of the congregation had little to say to Mr Foster, she noticed. Like his farm, he too seemed to exist on the fringes. Janet guessed he did not share his wife’s respect for the Sabbath, or for the minister, and it was only his fear of dying and being burned in hell which brought him to the kirk at all. After the service, he always hurried his brood to the trap, impatient to return home and eat a hot dinner.

  At the end of November Janet heard her mother asking Mr Foster about her wages again. She was dismayed when the big man growled, ‘Wages! What wages?’

  ‘It is the end of the November term. Surely Janet has earned some wages by now?’

  ‘She’s still a bairn.’

  ‘She’s thirteen. And a half.’

  ‘I told ye before, I give her food, and a warm bed at night. What more d’ye want, woman? D’ye want tae take her back wi’ ye?’ Mary Scott looked into Mr Foster’s hard grey eyes. Shaking her head she looked at Janet’s anxious face, seeing her tears of hurt and humiliation. She had worked so hard and had done her best to please everyone. Janet couldn’t remember when her mother had last hugged her with warmth and affection, so when she bent to her now Janet realized it was only so that she could whisper, ‘You’ll have to work a bit harder, lassie. I need the money for Andrew. He’s doing well. We shall be proud of him.’

  ‘Yes, Mama.’ Janet bit back a sob. She didn’t know how she could work any harder, or what more she could do to please Mr and Mrs Foster so that she could earn some money like the other workers at Braeheights Farm. She felt a stirring of resentment. She tried so hard but her mother only had thoughts for Andrew.

  In Edinburgh, Fingal continued his self-imposed task of keeping a watchful eye on Andrew. Secretly, Janet wished he could help her as he did her brother but he was too far away, and anyway what could he do? He had no money of his own. He knew nothing of women’s work, or how hard life was at Braeheights Farm, not only for herself but for Mrs Foster and Molly too.

  Janet loved Mrs Foster’s children but when another baby boy was born in the spring of 1824, she realized it was just as Molly had warned her. Another round had begun, rocking the crib, feeding and bathing, washing, ironing and mending. She had overheard the midwife telling Mr Foster he was going to kill his wife if he didn’t give her a rest from having babies. Molly heard her warning too and her shoulders slumped when she heard her father’s growled reply.

  Janet had noticed how often Molly’s eyes were red and puffy as though she had wept far into the night. Did Molly know her mother’s life could be in danger because of all the babies she had to feed? Was that the reason she seemed so withdrawn and moody, so unlike the friend Janet had known at school?

  Ten days later, Mrs Foster was out of bed and going about her daily tasks once more and Mr Foster whisked Molly off to the byre and the dairy again.

  ‘Aye, and ’tis time you were helping with the milking and the pigs,’ he growled, eyeing Janet closely. ‘You’re a woman grown now.’

  Janet blushed to the roots of her hair. Could Mr Foster have overheard Molly explaining about the monthly bleeding and how it happened to all girls when they became women? She had been terrified at the first sight of blood but Mrs Foster had patted her kindly and shown her what to do. She had said it was not a matter to be discussed with men and boys, so how could Mr Foster know she had become a woman? Surely he could not have been spying on her when she went down to the closet? Her cheeks flamed at the thought. There were two doors to the rickety wooden shed, one for people to use the toilet, and the other, larger door at the opposite end, for cleaning it out twice a year. Sometimes she thought she had heard the hinges of the other door creaking while she was sitting in private on the wooden bench, but she had never seen anyone around when she came out of the closet. She looked up and caught Mrs Foster’s eyes upon her.

  ‘I need the lassie in the house to help me. Can’t you see there’s more to do than ever with another bairn to look after? Is it not enough that you’ve taken Molly to work outside?’

  ‘If I say she’ll learn to milk a cow, that’s what she’ll do. Her mother’s aye asking when I’m going to pay her some wages. She’ll need to earn them first.’

  ‘She does earn them! I couldna manage without her.’ But Mr Foster’s gaze was fixed on Janet, noting her slender waist and the way her dress had grown tight over her budding breasts. His eyes narrowed.

  ‘She’s taller than Molly now, and she eats as much as the lads. I’ll teach her to milk myself.’

  Janet shivered. She had seen Molly milking the cows, sitting on her small stool with her head tucked close into the animal’s flank.

  ‘Aren’t you frightened? Won’t they kick you?’ she had asked fearfully.

  ‘They’re all right, once they get used tae ye, and the feel o’ your hands,’ Molly had told her calmly. ‘There’s worse things than milking cows,’ she added grimly.

  A few days later, Mr Foster led Janet to the byre and set her on the stool. The cow fidgeted uneasily and Janet jumped nervously.

  ‘Steady now, steady,’ Mr Foster said softly, but Janet realized he was speaking to her and not the cow, and his big rough hand was on her shoulder, pressing her down onto the stool. Then his fingers were on her neck, stroking it as he guided her head against the warm flank of the cow. He bent over her and she could feel his hot breath against her cheek as he showed her what to do. As soon as Joe finished milking his own cow, he came to her. Mr Foster straightened immediately. He glowered at his son.

  ‘I’m just showing the lassie how tae milk a cow. She’s never been near one before. She’s nervous as a fawn.’ That was the longest speech Janet had heard Mr Foster utter to any of his sons. Usually he did no more than growl out an order.

  ‘We’ll see she’s all right,’ Joe muttered through tight lips. He was a year younger than herself but since he had left the schoolroom and worked on the farm, Janet felt he seemed years older than her in experience. When his father had left the byre, Janet heard Joe speaking to Molly, his voice low. A little while later when she had finished milking her first cow and was wondering what she should do next, Molly came to stand beside her, holding her own stool in one hand.

  ‘The cows’ll d’ye no harm, Janet. You milk old Roany next. She’s quiet as a lamb. And … and Janet, if Father asks ye, just tell him you’re getting on fine. We’ll help ye, Joe and me. Dinna go with him to the stable, or the hay loft or – or anywhere else on your ain….’ She broke off and bit her lip, her colour high one second and ebbing the next so that her skin seemed as pale as death. Janet frowned at her.

  ‘She doesna ken what ye’re trying tae tell her!’ Joe said impatiently and got up from the cow he was milking. He came to them and put his face close to Janet’s. ‘Ye ken nowt o’ things yet, for all your learning frae the dominie’s books.’

  ‘I pray she’ll never learn, then,’ Molly muttered, while Janet’s eyes moved from one to the other in bewilderment.

  ‘Listen,’ Joe said, as though reaching a decision. ‘D’ye remember the time ye had tae help me take the sow over tae Lowbreer Farm, Janet?’

  ‘Yes, I remember….’

  ‘And Mr Kerr was busy and he told us to put her in the pen beside his boar?’

  ‘Y-yes.’ Janet frowned. Then she shuddered. ‘Sh
e squealed and squealed. I thought the boar was hurting her.’

  ‘Aye, because he – he….’ Joe bit his lip now and looked at Molly for help but Molly’s face was white, her lips pinched. Her eyes had a sunken look as though they could only focus on something inside her head. ‘The boar jumped on the sow and shoved his – his thing into her,’ Joe finished in a rush.

  ‘Ye-es, I remember,’ Janet said slowly, shuddering as she recalled the incident. ‘He wouldn’t let her go but when Mr Kerr came he laughed and laughed because I wanted to rescue poor Aggie from his nasty old boar. He said she would think it was worth all the trouble when she got her piglets….’

  ‘Aye, well that’s what animals do. S-some men act like that – like animals.’ He looked searchingly at Janet and saw her bewildered frown. He scuffed the earth floor with his clog and kept his eyes lowered. ‘So dinna let Father get ye on your ain or he’ll dae the same to you!’ he said in a rush and swung away, his face red with embarrassment as he curried down against the flank of a cow. Janet blinked, unable to take in the meaning of Joe’s awkward phrases. He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant, could he? The blood rushed to her cheeks and she turned to Molly. Her friend gave a brief, unhappy nod and turned away.

  Janet’s work in the byre and the dairy did not last long. The baby was called Ezra and he was only two months old when Mrs Foster took ill again. Every morning she was sick.

  ‘She’s started even sooner this time,’ Molly muttered unhappily as she and Janet heard her mother retching in the washhouse. Baby Ezra was hungry and fretful and between him and Peter, as well as their mischievous brothers, Janet had more to do than she could manage. Sometimes Molly stayed indoors to help with the washing and Janet enjoyed it when they worked together.

  One day when the wind was sending the fluffy white clouds scudding across the sky and the sun was shining, Mrs Foster decided some of the blankets should have their annual wash.

  ‘We’ll do them, Mama,’ Molly told her. ‘You rock the cradle and rest. We’ll give them a good poshing i’ the tub.’

  ‘Aye, ye’re good lassies,’ Mrs Foster sighed wearily. ‘Light the fire under the boiler, Janet, then the water will be hot enough.’

  Janet felt it was almost like old times as she and Molly kicked off their clogs and peeled off their woollen stockings. Together they stood in the tub, holding their skirts high above the water as they tramped the thick blankets, wriggling their toes and enjoying the squelch of the wool and water under their feet. Suddenly Molly stopped laughing. Her eyes narrowed. Her face grew hard as stone. Janet followed her gaze to the doorway and saw Mr Foster leaning against it. How long had he been there? Watching them through his narrowed eyes. There was a strange expression on his face and Janet shuddered. Suddenly she became aware that Molly had dropped her skirts, right down into the water, but she was still holding hers high above her knees and it was on her long white legs that Mr Foster’s eyes were fixed.

  Mrs Foster’s health seemed to get rapidly worse instead of improving as it usually did. The sickness continued and her hands and feet had begun to swell. She was constantly tired and she had stopped putting Ezra to her breast. Molly’s moods of brooding silence returned. Every morning, her face looked pale and drawn, her eyes red and puffy.

  Molly’s small room was directly above her own at the top of the stairs. The older Foster boys also shared the loft but Molly’s bed was partitioned from theirs with a curtain. Mr and Mrs Foster and the two youngest children slept in a small room on the other side of the kitchen. Sometimes during the night, Janet was awakened by creaking on the wooden steps up to the loft. Sometimes strange noises seemed to be just above her head. Twice she was sure she heard Molly sobbing but when she asked her Molly snapped sharply. ‘Ye must have been dreaming.’

  Early one morning Mrs Foster sent Janet to the byre for warm milk from the cow. It was to feed baby Ezra. He had been particularly wakeful and cross during the night.

  Neither Joe nor Molly had heard her approach and Janet was dismayed to overhear Joe speaking angrily.

  ‘If only I was strong enough I’d come through and….’

  ‘Och, Joey. Ye should close your eyes, and your ears. He’d hurt ye for sure if—’

  ‘He’s an evil brute. I wish he wasna our father. I’ll kill him one o’ these nights….’

  ‘No! Dinna say that Joe. Ma needs ye. She needs both o’ us. If it wasna for her I’d be gone frae here—’

  Janet coughed and they both peered past their cows to stare at her in surprise.

  Many Sundays passed but no one from Braeheights Farm was allowed to attend the kirk. Janet longed to see her mother and Peggy Baird. She yearned for news of her brother Andrew and Fingal McLaughlan. One Sunday, she asked whether she could go to the kirk and take some of the younger children.

  ‘I’m sure I could manage the pony and trap now,’ she ventured.

  Mr Foster went red with rage. ‘No one takes the trap except me, young madam. Say your prayers at night and that’ll suffice.’

  As the weeks passed, Mrs Foster seemed to get more and more swollen everywhere. Even her thin face was so puffed up her eyes were hardly visible. Baby Ezra seemed to know his mama was not well and he whimpered constantly.

  ‘Ye wouldna think he was nearly six months old, such a puny wee thing he is,’ his mother lamented wearily.

  She always insisted the older members of the household should be bathed in the tub in the wash house once a week and it was Janet’s job to boil the water in readiness for Mr Foster, then Joe and Luke and Mark on Friday nights. Mrs Foster, then herself and Molly bathed on Saturdays. Usually they looked forward to the luxury of sitting in the big wooden tub together, each washing the other’s hair. Recently Molly had been more moody and miserable than ever and not even the bathing ritual could lift her spirits. It was while she was rubbing Molly’s hair one Saturday night that Janet noticed her stomach was growing quite rounded in comparison to her own flat front. She was almost a head taller than Molly now, but neither of them had ever been fat. They worked too hard for that.

  Once again none of them attended the kirk on the Sabbath but on Monday morning the Reverend Drummond sent Tom Friar, one of his young protégés, with a message for Janet. Her mother wished her to visit. She was filled with excitement.

  ‘Andrew must be home at last!’ she breathed, her blue eyes shining.

  ‘I dinna ken the reason, miss, but the minister said I was to take ye back with me. We’re to go across the fields. He’ll meet ye with the pony and trap when we reach the road.’

  ‘Perhaps Andrew has found work already! Peggy told me he has won one of the highest awards at the university. Fingal sent her a letter.’

  ‘But, ye’ll be back by tomorrow, lassie?’ Mrs Foster asked anxiously. ‘I dinna ken how we shall manage without ye now.’ Janet paused in her eagerness to set out. She looked into the pale, weary face. Mrs Foster seemed an old woman, but Janet remembered she had allowed her to stay, had given her food and found work for her to do when she had nowhere else to go. Her own happy anticipation abated for a moment.

  ‘I will come back. I will stay until you can hire another maid to take my place,’ she promised.

  ‘Ye’re a good bairn. Fetch your cloak, lassie. It’s a bonnie day but it could change by night.’ She looked searchingly at the solemn-faced lad. ‘I hope the news is as good as she thinks it’s going to be,’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘I dinna think it’s good, mistress,’ he muttered. ‘The Reverend Drummond is going tae drive Miss Janet down to Rowanbank himself.’

  Chapter Six

  Janet remembered Tam Friar well. He had been at her grandfather’s school and he was two years older than her.

  ‘So you work at the manse now, Tam?’ she asked as they crossed the fields together.

  ‘Aye, he’s a good man, Reverend Drummond. Some o’ the families would starve if it wasna for him. Some o’ them are breaking stones to improve the road, but we all ken he’s
paying frae his ain pocket so they can hold their heads up and buy victuals to feed their bairns. Last winter he ordered grain from his brothers in Liverpool. He had it brought in the wee boats to Rowanbank so that we wouldna starve after the bad harvest.’

  He led her through a wood, careful not to let the brambles scratch her face. He still thought of her as the dominie’s young granddaughter, but from what he had seen when he arrived at Braeheights Farm she was probably no better off than himself.

  ‘And what do you do at the manse, Tam?’

  ‘Whatever there is,’ he said simply. ‘Sometimes it’s the stables, sometimes I help the minister in the garden. I like that best of all. I wish – I wish….’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘What’s the point o’ wishing? We’re lucky if we’ve food in our bellies.’

  Janet was tired and she was glad when Tam said they would stop for a drink when they reached a burn.

  ‘It’s further than I thought,’ she confided. ‘I’ve never been across the fields before. Mr Foster drives us to the kirk in the pony and trap and we go through a village called Molden.’

  ‘Aye, it’s queer Foster coming all the way down to Rowanbank Kirk, but I heard that Mrs Foster’s mother keeps the Foster lads, the ones who go to school during the week.’

  ‘Some of Braeheights land is in Rowanbank Parish too.’

  ‘It’s still a long way, though, even cutting across country. It must be a fair step for the pony – there and back.’

  ‘It is. Mr Foster doesn’t bring us every Sunday though.’ Janet sighed. ‘I miss not coming to the kirk. I miss not being able to see Mama and Peggy Baird, and – and everyone. I can’t wait to get there. Have we much further to go, Tam?’

  ‘No. We’re in luck today. The burn’s low. I’ll place some stones and help ye across. If it was winter we’d have to walk a lot further to get across.’