St James' Fair

by St James Fair (retail) (epub)

  It stood in its box, gazing nervously around with its glossy skin shivering slightly like moving silk. Odilie went into the box and ran her hand down the mare’s neck, which calmed the animal and it turned its head to nuzzle her arm.

  The girl smiled slightly but her eyes were shadowed and thoughtful as she looked across at her father and said, ‘I know why you’ve bought her. It’s to make me feel guilty for behaving so badly. You shouldn’t try to bribe me.’

  Canny raised a hand in an unspoken gesture of peace and asked, ‘Do you like the horse, my dear?’

  ‘She’s beautiful, so fine and strong too,’ said Odilie but her voice was still mournful.

  ‘She’s a beautiful goer. Covers the ground like a charger and jumps anything. Try her out, miss,’ chimed in Stevens who was watching the interchange between father and daughter and feeling sorry for Canny.

  To his disappointment Odilie shook her head. ‘Not now, it’s too hot. I shall take her out tomorrow.’ Then seeing the look of dejection on her father’s face, she took his arm and led him from the stables. ‘You’re very kind to me – too kind, perhaps. I said that I’d go to dinner with the Duke and I won’t let you down. I’ll keep an open mind about him till then.’

  Canny groaned, ‘This is all for your benefit – everything I’ve done has been for you. I know Martha thinks I’m wanting to show Lauriston how much I’ve risen in the world but it’s not true. I’m doing this for you…’

  His daughter paused and looked at him. ‘You’re really a remarkable man, Father, aren’t you? You’ve come a long way. Is it true you were born behind the Cross Keys over there?’ She gestured with her hand in the direction of the square.

  He nodded. ‘In a bothy at the back and so was Martha. Our father was an ostler and he drank something terrible. Our poor mother had to beg food for us. Then one day he was killed in a carriage accident on the way to Sprouston. He was drunk at the time of course and folk said it was his own fault. They put us in the Poors’ House.’

  Odilie gripped her father’s arm harder. ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Six or seven, I suppose. Martha was a year older. I remember how angry I felt at the way my mother was treated…’

  ‘She died young, didn’t she?’

  He shrugged. ‘Yes. She got consumption and couldn’t fight it. That was when I ran away to Berwick and joined a ship and Martha went into service. I was eleven and she was twelve.’

  There were tears in Odilie’s eyes when she leaned forward impulsively to kiss his cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, Papa. I’m really sorry. I’ll behave myself from now on, don’t worry. If you want me to marry the Duke, that’s what I’ll do. When I hear stories like yours and Grace’s it makes me feel very fortunate.’

  Canny looked at her with love and then, to change a subject that touched him deeply, too deeply, he asked, ‘What’s Grace been telling you?’

  ‘About her mother, how she never knew her and how cruel her father is. I’m surprised at you having that man for your lawyer, Papa.’

  Canny shrugged. ‘He’s a good lawyer. Sometimes pleasant, kind fellows are not as good as the villains.’

  ‘You must have been away from Lauriston when Grace’s mother died,’ said Odilie and was surprised to see a shifty look come over her father’s face. So he did know something about it.

  ‘I didn’t know her but I knew her father, old Davie Allen,’ he conceded.

  ‘What was he like?’ asked Odilie, who was anxious to find out as much as she could for her friend.

  ‘Oh, a grand man, a good man. They say he was awfully fond of his lassie… He tried to do the best for her.’ Canny’s voice trailed off and a strange look crossed his face again. No matter how much Odilie urged he would say no more.

  A short time later a little boy went running through the town carrying a hastily penned note from Odilie to Grace. He pushed open the gate of the Elliot house and found the girl in the garden playing ball with her youngest half-sister, six-year-old Amelia.

  ‘Note from Havanah Court,’ he said shortly, pushing it into her hand.

  Grace was about to walk into the house with it and lay it on her father’s desk when she noticed that the superscription bore her own name. Ignoring Amelia’s whines about the cessation of their game, she split the seal open with her thumbnail and read the words written in Odilie’s sprawling hand… ‘There’s some mystery about your mother. Even my father acts strange when I ask questions, but I’ve found out some things. Come as soon as you can and I’ll tell you. P.S. Have you ever heard of Bettymill?’

  Every word was like a golden nugget to Grace, who read the note over and over again, then stood hugging the piece of paper close to her chest with an abstracted and faraway look on her face. Amelia totally ignored, gave up tugging at her skirt and ran indoors to whine at her mother instead.

  Slowly Grace followed her into the house but not to Hester’s sitting room. Instead she headed for her father’s study where the family’s books were kept. The big Bible was there on a dusty shelf and she pulled it down, turning to the flyleaf. Lucy Allen was written in a girlish hand and beside it was a pair of double lines to denote a marriage pointing to Andrew Elliot, also written by the same person. There was a date ’797 in brackets and a little arrow led down from the sign of union to one word written in different coloured ink. It said Grace and beside her name was another date, 1798.

  Her eyes slowly filled with tears as she gently spread her open palm over the page. ‘Grace – that’s me,’ she sighed and imagined her mother dipping her quill in an inkpot to write the five letters – G-r-a-c-e. Perhaps the baby that was Grace herself had been lying beside her when she did so. Lucy must have been happy when she wrote her daughter’s name. The girl had a sudden surge of emotion and a sense of identity because now she felt some link with her lost mother. Even if Odilie’s aunt was acting strange, she at least knew something about Lucy Allen. Martha probably carried a picture of Grace’s mother in her mind’s eye. As soon as she could Grace was determined to leave Viewhill House and hurry to Havanah Court where Odilie was waiting with her information.

  Before she could leave however, Hester came storming into the library and said accusingly, ‘Amelia tells me a boy brought a letter and you opened it. You’ve no business to read your father’s letters.’

  ‘It wasn’t sent to my father. It was for me.’

  A look of disbelief crossed Hester’s face. ‘And who was writing to you, pray?’

  ‘It was from Odilie,’ said Grace, folding up the letter and pointedly putting it in her pocket.

  Hester snorted. ‘Oh, from the grand Miss Rutherford, your special friend. But don’t you worry. She’ll soon drop you when she moves into Sloebank Castle and makes finer friends. You won’t be having notes from her then. She’ll not need a crippled maidservant hanging on to her skirts when she’s the Duchess.’

  Grace felt a tide of anger rise in her. She wanted to attack Hester so badly that the effort of controlling herself was almost unendurable. Instead she took a deep breath and said, ‘Where’s Bettymill, Hester?’

  The question stopped her stepmother like a blow. ‘What? What did you say?’

  ‘I asked where’s Bettymill?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wondered if it was the old mill where Jessie used to take me sometimes when I was little. Her brother the carrier used to let us ride out there on his cart.’

  ‘She took you out to Bettymill…’ Hester sounded amazed but recovered herself quickly and added, ‘Jessie came from Bettymill, that’s why she took you there.’

  ‘I remember there was an old man living there, who was he?’

  Hester gobbled like a turkey, ‘Your father would have sent Jessie off if he’d known she was taking you there.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I go? What’s all the mystery? Has it something to do with my mother?’

  Hester advanced on Grace with her fists clenched. ‘Your mother was a whore,’ she hissed, ‘and you’d probably be one too if you
weren’t crippled and ugly. Get up into your room and stay there till your father comes home and hears about this.’

  * * *

  All evening Odilie waited impatiently for a visit from Grace but none came and there was no answer to her note. She sent Joe Cannonball out to find the boy who’d carried the message to Viewhill for her and he came back with the information that Miss Grace had received the note and read it in the boy’s presence.

  ‘I hope there’s nothing wrong with Grace. I was sure she’d come down when she got my note,’ Odilie told Martha.

  Her aunt only clicked her tongue and said, ‘She’s probably got things to do up there. That step-mother of hers keeps her busy. Hester won’t get her own hands dirty because she doesn’t like remembering she was once a servant.’

  ‘Elliot married a servant after his wife died?’ asked Odilie in surprise.

  Martha gave an irritated shrug as if she’d inadvertently let something slip. ‘He did that. He married his wife’s maid,’ she said and bustled off in her newly acquired evasive manner.

  After supper Odilie sat alone in her boudoir looking out at the moonlight on the water and wondering about Grace. She did not know that the object of her concern was also spending the evening alone but in Grace’s case, supperless and locked in an attic room. Being locked up without food was not an unusual punishment for Grace and she had come to accept it without protest for it was at least better than a beating and she always kept a book and an apple hidden in the room to pass the time.

  Tonight however she did not want to read for she had much on her mind as she sat staring up at the tiny square of window glass in the roof with her chin in her fists. She was thinking about Lucy Allen. ‘Your mother was a whore,’ Hester had cried and her face had gone scarlet and her eyes looked deranged when she said the horrible word. Was she driven by malice? Grace hoped so because she had a mental picture of an idealised mother with a smiling face and tender hands. She was sure Hester was only being wicked because from the deep recesses of her memory she could almost summon a gentle vision of Lucy, a figure that was misty and without definition like someone walking ahead of her in a dream.

  The mention of Bettymill had obviously thrown Hester into a panic. Was it the place where Jessie used to take me, wondered Grace? Judging by Hester’s reaction, she was certain it was. She concentrated her mind and found herself vividly remembering the old man who lived there. He smelt of snuff and had a long grey beard and trembling hands. She used to be upset because he always wept when he saw her… She remembered his tears and how scared she’d been of him though he was gentle and kind. If Bettymill was the name of his house, she remembered it as warm and welcoming. They used to sit in a big room with a leaping fire in the grate and lots of pretty things to look at around the walls – pictures and coloured plates, shining brass and gleaming copper. The house had been bowered in trees and everything was very green and quiet with only the sound of running water and the creak of a slowly turning mill-wheel to break the silence. She also had a vague memory of going into the mill itself and being transfixed in wonder by the sight of the huge, ponderously rotating cogwheels and the air hanging above her head like a veil enmeshed with millions of motes of grain floating in it. Her ears had been filled with the sound of gentle creaking that lulled her like a lullaby or the rocking of an infant’s cradle… creak, creak, creak, so slow and so rhythmic. It was amazing how much she could remember when she really tried. Her last memory before she fell asleep was of the smell of Bettymill, a moist and mossy scent that came back to her so strongly that it seemed to fill her little room.

  When she woke, it was almost dark. She had apparently been forgotten for no one came near her. From below she heard the sound of her father’s voice and the clatter and din of the children going up to bed. Her tension gradually eased as she realised that she was being left to cool her heels. Her father was not coming up to her as Hester had threatened and she wondered if her step-mother had fulfilled her threat of reporting to him what had happened that afternoon. Probably not – but why not, she wondered?

  She could not fully relax however until she heard her father and Hester making their way to bed. Grace was fully awake but her window did not give a view of the ground for it stared into the sky and as she gazed upwards she saw a skein of swifts dashing across the glass searching for their night-time roosts. Then, a little later, the bats came out, swooping past on their way to skim over the surface of the river below the house. Finally the moon rose, sailing slowly across the skylight like a huge blood orange, pillowed among long narrow clouds. The fascinated girl was almost hypnotised by the smiling face on its surface. Its glory, its mystery and magic entranced her, for it was a lover’s moon. How lucky for some people, she reflected, that such a moon should be shining at the time of the Fair.

  The magic of the moon made her at last bring forward the subject she had been pushing into the background of her mind ever since she realised that Fair Day was so close. She had not allowed herself to discuss it even with Odilie, although she had tentatively mentioned the young man who’d helped her across the wooden footbridge last year. She had not told her friend what a fine young man he was – tall and straight and very gentlemanly in his ways although he was dressed like a countryman. He’d seen her stagger and almost fall in the pushing crowd on the narrow bridge and had put out a hand to steady her. Then he helped her down the steep steps and when she was safe on the grass, he smiled at her in such a way that her heart turned over. She remembered the feeling still and for a long time she’d lulled herself to sleep with the memory of his smile. She treasured it like a gift.

  The wonderful thing about the young man was that her lameness did not seem to repel him. He did not hurry away from her in embarrassment but walked along with her, chatting about the various attractions on display and measuring his steps to hers. They had spent almost an hour together before she told him that it was time for her to return home, which was not true really but she did not want to be a burden and expected him to be relieved to be rid of her. She thought that he was only being kind in not breaking away himself. By taking her leave, she was trying to make it easy for him but he had actually looked disappointed to lose her.

  ‘Can’t you stay a little longer?’ he’d asked.

  Flustered, she shook her head. ‘I have to go. My step-mother will be waiting… There’s things to be done at home.’

  ‘I’m sorry you can’t stay. My name’s Adam Scott. I’ll look for you at the Fair next year,’ he told her when they parted.

  Now, a year later, Grace looked at the moon and thought about Adam. Would he remember her this year? Would he really be looking out for her at the Fair? Don’t be silly, she told herself. It’s not likely that he’ll give you a single thought, for you’re only a pathetic cripple and there are dozens of much prettier girls to catch the eye of such a handsome fellow. But she had thought about him so much and she had so little self-regard that she was afraid to risk disappointment. If she went to the Fair and saw him with another girl on his arm, her secret dreams would be shattered. She would lose them; they would crumple like an eggshell in her hand. Rather than risk that it would be better not to go to the Fair at all. She decided to make some excuse to Odilie and get out of going. Most important of all, she decided that she’d stop dreaming about Adam Scott.

  * * *

  The moon that entranced Grace and filled her with romantic longings was having a similar effect on Odilie, who sat wrapped in a Paisley shawl in her bedroom window brooding about love and marriage. Her thoughts were bitter, however, because it seemed it was to be her fate to marry a man who did not sound like the sort of husband of whom she had dreamed. Try as she might, Odilie could not bring herself to the state of mind that would accept such a marriage, despite the huge advantages it would bring. As a consolation, she tried to imagine the reaction of the girls who had teased her so cruelly at school when they heard the news – Odilie Rutherford, the negress, a Duchess! She would become someone th
ey would have to curtsey to and defer to in status. She would walk before them all in precedence and have them over her but she would despise them and herself for it. Perhaps this is what it means to grow up, she thought sadly as she sank her dark head on to her hand. Perhaps this is the first realisation of reality. Perhaps love as it’s written about in books of poetry is just an illusion.

  * * *

  The moonlight was shining just as brightly over the huddled houses of two tiny villages called Kirk Yetholm and Town Yetholm that were tucked away, half a mile apart, in a fold of the Cheviot Hills seven miles south of Lauriston. The villages were almost on the border between Scotland and England in an area long known as the Debateable Lands because for centuries they belonged to no one in particular and had changed hand at intervals, Scottish for some years before reverting to England, but neither monarchy was ever able to establish official government there. The people of these lands lived by their own rules and the result was little in the way of law. The most lawless community of all were the gypsies of Kirk Yetholm.

  For a hundred years they had made this village their winter base because they had been granted the right to live there rent free by a local landowner for whom one of their number had performed a great service – he’d saved his life in a foreign battle. With the protection of such a powerful man, the Romanies, who were hated and feared by the population in general, moved in and made their homes in a huddle of dilapidated cottages known as Tinkler’s Row. Over the years they increased their numbers until by the early 19th century there were four main families, almost two hundred people of ‘Egyptian’ blood living in Kirk Yetholm.

  For most of the summer, farmers and villagers in the district round about breathed easily because, from the coming of spring until the frosts of autumn, the gypsies abandoned their hovels in Kirk Yetholm and went wandering over the face of the countryside in horse-drawn waggons, but they made an exception for the time of St James’ Fair. A few days before it began they all came straggling back home to prepare for the event which was a high point in their annual calendar. It was there that they made enough money – by fair means or foul, by horse-dealing, fortune-telling, selling horn spoons and tin pots, by thievery and trickery of all kinds – to provide for themselves and their families over the winter.