The Girl with the Creel Read online

  Her eyes took an admiring glance round the kitchen, and she couldn’t help thinking how much better it looked now than when she’d first seen it. Adam and his young wife hadn’t long been married at the time, and they’d only had a few bits of furniture, but it hadn’t taken Peg long to make it into a proper home. As she used to say, ‘It’s the love that’s in it that makes a home.’ She’d been a right one, had Peg, a hard worker who hadn’t been afraid to scrimp in order to save for the things she wanted. She’d had her heart set on a moquette suite she had seen on one of her rare visits to Banff, and though it had taken her years, she had eventually managed to buy one which was very similar. The armchairs were a bit worn after so long, but they were still comfortable … once you knew where the loose spring was. If you didn’t, you soon found out!

  The couch, being less sat upon, still looked brand new … almost. Only an area on the right-hand side, slightly lighter than the rest and with a tinge of pink to it, showed where Peg had scoured off the ochre Adam had spilt on it when he first painted the kitchen walls. That was in the days when wallpaper was too costly for cottar folk, and only available in shops in the towns, anyway. So it had been a case of ochre – a sickly yellow or an equally sickly dark pink – or whitewash. Being houseproud, Peg had opted for whitewash after the fiasco, and it had certainly made the room look brighter, even if the least little mark showed. Give her her due, though, she had never once complained about the extra work it gave her.

  Martha suddenly recalled her mind to the present. Adam was taking an awful long time, over an hour, but he’d likely be finding it difficult to cross the fields in this weather. And he’d likely stay a while with the beasts once he’d fed them, for he liked to speak to them, to gentle them as if they were bairns. And he did look on them as bairns, she supposed – his bairns.

  Another hour passed before Adam appeared, by which time his sister was imagining that he had fallen into a snowdrift and couldn’t get out, but her relief was tempered with dismay when she saw that he was holding his chest. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Give me a minute to come to myself,’ he puffed.

  She filled the teapot while she was waiting, but forgot about it when he said, ‘I’ll need you to come outside and help me.’

  Puzzled, but asking no questions, she put her shawl round her head and flung her coat round her shoulders before following him out. ‘Leave the door open a wee bit,’ he ordered.

  She wasn’t prepared for what she saw in the slim shaft of light that sneaked out from the kitchen lamp, and clutched at her breast in horror. ‘Heaven help us! Is it a man or a woman?’

  Not bothering to explain how he knew, Adam muttered, ‘It’s a woman and I’d say she’s at death’s door, so we’d best get her inside.’

  The woman wasn’t heavy, but it still took them some time to lift her rigid body off the barrow and through the doorway. They laid her on the sofa, and while Martha went to get something to cover her, Adam looked down on the prostrate figure with critical eyes. ‘She looks like a gypsy to me.’

  Coming in, Martha said thoughtfully, ‘I’m not sure I want a gypsy in the house, she could put a curse on us.’ But she tucked the blanket all round the woman’s legs. ‘Her coat’s frozen solid,’ she murmured, then, recognizing the black garment, she peered at the bloodless face. ‘It’s the lassie that comes round with the fish! Oh, the poor soul!’

  She lifted the blanket and held up one of Lizann’s legs. ‘Look, she’s had to tie bits of canvas round her shoes.’ Without undoing the strings, she pulled canvas and shoes off together, then, going down on her knees, she gently massaged the almost black toes poking through the holes in the stockings. ‘I hope she hasn’t got frostbite. You’ll have to fill a pig for her, Adam.’

  She was rubbing the hacked hands when her brother came over with the earthenware hot water bottle, and she put it between the layers of the doubled blanket. ‘It would be agony for her if her feet touched it.’

  For the next fifteen minutes, Martha did her best to coax her patient back to life while Adam stood helplessly beside her. At last, the young woman gave a low moan and moved her head. ‘She’s coming round,’ Martha said jubilantly.

  ‘Thank God!’

  At the sound of their voices, Lizann opened her eyes and looked from one hopeful face to the other in strained wonderment. Martha took her hand. ‘Just rest there a while.’

  Her mission accomplished, she rose to fill the kettle again, and when she was setting it on the fire, she motioned to her brother to join her. ‘It was a close thing,’ she whispered. ‘If you hadn’t …’

  ‘Aye,’ he nodded. ‘God knows how long she could have lain there.’

  ‘How did you find her?’

  ‘I was coming back from the byre, and I tripped over something … I thought it was a stone off the dyke … and I bent down to shift it … in case somebody else fell and hurt themselves … but it wouldn’t move.’

  He stopped for breath, but Martha urged him on. ‘The snow melted with the heat of my hands … and I saw it was a head … so I raked about till I got an arm and there was still … a pulse. So I went for the old barrow, though I’d an awful job getting her on … and I took her here … it was nearer than the farmhouse.’ He leaned back on his chair, exhausted by saying so much.

  Martha gave a humourless laugh. ‘Meggie Thow wouldn’t have thanked you if you’d taken her there.’ The kettle on the boil, she poured out the tea she had infused before and made fresh.

  Going over to Lizann, she slid one arm under the girl’s head and held the cup to her lips. When it was empty, she said, ‘I’m going upstairs to make a bed ready for you.’

  Always uncomfortable alone with females other than his sister, Adam sat down by the fire, but in a few minutes Lizann croaked, ‘Was it you … that took me here?’

  Embarrassed, he bobbed his head a few times, but when she attempted, unsuccessfully, to put her feet on the floor, he burst out, ‘Bide there till Martha comes back.’

  ‘Your wife?’

  ‘My sister.’

  When Martha appeared again she said, ‘Are you feeling better, lass?’

  ‘She’s not fit to walk,’ Adam observed.

  ‘The bed’s made up, but I’ll …’ She looked at Lizann apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, lass, I’ll have to wash you first. We thought you were a gypsy, your face is that ingrained with dirt.’

  ‘I’d nowhere … to wash myself.’

  Martha felt even more pity for her. ‘I’ll soon have you clean. Get the bath through, Adam, and make it ready for her.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Lizann protested, weakly, glancing at the man.

  ‘He’ll bide in his room till we’re finished,’ Martha said, firmly.

  The bath filled, Adam helped to move Lizann to the fireside before he left the kitchen, then Martha stripped her and took her weight till she sat down in the warm water. ‘I’ll leave you to soak,’ she said, and went through to Adam. ‘Her underthings are just in rags, so go into my chest of drawers and get one of my vests for her, and a nightgown … and a pair of knickers, I’ll come for them when she’s ready.’

  Returning to Lizann, she set about getting her clean, which turned out to be quite a difficult task because, embarrassed at being seen naked, she persisted in trying to hide her intimate parts. ‘Modesty’s all right in its place,’ Martha muttered, ‘but we’ll never be done at this rate.’

  Defeated, Lizann remained still and stared at the fire while the old woman scrubbed every inch of her body until she was satisfied that it could be made no cleaner. The drying and dressing would have overcome a woman with less determination than Martha, but at last she got Lizann decently covered and called to Adam. ‘You’ll have to give me a hand to get her up to Margaret’s room.’

  Brother and sister made a cat’s cradle with their hands for Lizann to sit on, but when they reached the stairs, they saw that there wasn’t room to take her up that way. ‘I could carry her,’ Adam offered.

/>   Martha was about to say he wasn’t fit for that, but having seen how sharply the girl’s ribs and shoulder blades protruded from her emaciated body, she changed her mind. ‘Well, there’s nothing of her, so I suppose … just watch and not strain yourself.’

  Holding her under the knees and round her back, he lifted her in one seemingly effortless movement. ‘She’s light as a feather,’ he smiled, as he started up the steps.

  When he laid his burden on the bed, he looked at Martha for guidance on what to do next. ‘Go down and fill the pig again,’ she told him.

  ‘Who’s Margaret?’ Lizann asked, when he went out.

  ‘Adam’s daughter. He was forty when she was born, so that would make her nearly twenty-eight now. She was working in an office in Edinburgh and married the boss, but they emigrated to Australia five years ago.’

  When Adam took up the hot water bottle, Martha wrapped it inside an old pillowcase and pushed it under the bedclothes. ‘I’ll leave you to rest now,’ she told Lizann. ‘You’ll not be fit for anything for a long time yet.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘You’re welcome to bide here for as long as you need.’

  ‘But I can’t pay …’

  ‘I’m not wanting anything from you. Good gracious me, if you knew how often I’ve wanted another woman to speak to, instead of sitting every night with that brother of mine. He’s that dour, it takes him all his time to string a couple of sentences together sometimes.’ She went out, leaving Lizann with a faint smile on her face.

  ‘I’d right like to know why that poor thing was in such a state,’ the old woman said when she went downstairs. ‘She looks like she hasn’t had a square meal for ages, and you’d think somebody would’ve noticed she wasn’t fit to be trailing about like she did. She’ll not sell any more fish for a good while.’

  ‘She’s real bonnie when she’s clean,’ Adam remarked, self-consciously. ‘Curly black hair and brown eyes … and fair skin. She’s nothing like a gypsy now.’

  ‘She’d have been better looked after if she had been a gypsy.’

  Adam stroked his nose. ‘You’ll have to give her something to eat.’

  ‘Empty bellies shrink, so I’ll just make a bowl of saps when she’s had time to come to herself. That’ll be a wee bit of nourishment.’

  When she took up the saps – two slices of bread soaked in hot milk and sprinkled with sugar – Martha had to spoon it into the girl’s mouth, and was pleased that she supped most of it. ‘Are you thawing out yet?’

  ‘My feet’s tingling now,’ Lizann said, shyly.

  ‘That’s a start. Would you like the pig filled again?’

  ‘No … thank you.’

  Martha shook her head sadly when she went downstairs. ‘She’s not used to folk doing anything for her, the poor soul, and what’ll she do when she’s on her feet again? She wouldn’t make much from selling fish, and I think she’s been living rough. That’s why she hadn’t been able to keep herself clean.’

  They sat pensively for some time, then Martha picked up the poker and stirred the coals in the fire. ‘Adam, you wouldn’t think of letting her bide here?’

  He looked at her in astonishment. ‘For good?’

  ‘Aye. Once she’s better, she could help me in the house, and maybe in the summer she would help you in the garden. We’re not so able nowadays to do things, and we’re aye getting older.’

  ‘We can’t pay her anything.’

  Martha had already thought of that. ‘It seems to me she’s hardly had any money to herself for a long time. I think she’d jump at the chance to work for her keep.’

  Adam chewed this over for a few minutes, then said, ‘She’ll need new clothes. You said yourself she was in rags.’

  ‘There’s still some of the things Margaret took here before she went to Australia, and they’re about the same size.’

  Adam had no answer to this. ‘We’ll see, then.’

  Knowing her brother as she did, Martha was satisfied that the battle was as good as won. It all depended on the girl herself agreeing to it.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Going into the byre the following morning, Dan Fordyce found that his cows had been given their usual ration of hay, cattle-cake and mashed turnips, and he was very thankful to have a man like Adam Laing in his employ. The old man never neglected his work whatever the weather, and it was to be hoped that he hadn’t suffered any ill effects. Continuing on his way, Dan discovered that the overnight gales had blown most of the snow against the dykes and the ground had a thick covering of solid ice. There would be no outside work done today again, he mused glumly, but he was soon to make a more disquieting discovery.

  Carrying on his round of inspection, he decided to go and ask about Adam when he was finished, but twenty minutes later, as he made his way carefully over the ice, his eye was caught by something in the field to his left. On investigating, he saw that it was a creel, almost submerged under a frozen drift. ‘God Almighty!’ he exclaimed, remembering the fish he’d had for supper last night, though it hadn’t dawned on him that his housekeeper had bought them from the young fishwife. Even in the blizzard, that poor girl had called as usual, but why had she cast her creel off here? She couldn’t have had much to sell in this weather, so possibly she had sold all she had and gone home without the basket. It would have been an encumbrance to her with conditions underfoot so bad.

  His mind eased, he aimed a few idle kicks at the base of the drift and had another nasty shock when he saw several fish embedded in the chunk of ice that sheared off … and even more in the space it left behind. The creel hadn’t been empty! The girl wouldn’t have abandoned what was her livelihood! Had she felt ill? Had she collapsed somewhere farther on? His eyes circled the vast expanse of whiteness but saw nothing apart from several round, iced eruptions which he knew were really the large boulders which bedevilled his ploughmen, a legacy from Pictish times that nothing would shift. Desperate to find out what had happened to the girl, he went back to his house to ask if Meggie knew anything.

  ‘She was a good bit later than she usually is,’ she told him, vaguely.

  ‘When was she here?’ he demanded, his stomach tight with dread.

  ‘Oh now, it would have been … maybe twelve, maybe a bittie after. I didna think to look at the clock.’

  Her sarcasm angered him. ‘Why didn’t you take her inside, woman? The storm had started by then.’

  ‘She was anxious to get on. She did look kind o’ funny though, now I come to think on it.’

  ‘And you still let her go? Good God, Meggie, why didn’t you take her inside? Wherever she gets her fish, she …’

  ‘I think it’s Pennan.’

  ‘That’s a long way to come in weather like this.’

  ‘She didna need to come,’ Meggie said, defensively, ‘and if she’d had ony sense, she wouldna.’

  ‘She probably couldn’t afford to lose a day’s takings. I can’t think how she managed to get as far as this, and it looks as if she didn’t get any farther. Her creel’s lying out there.’

  Trying to make up for what he evidently considered her short-comings, Meggie muttered, ‘Maybe one o’ the cottars’ wives took her in.’

  He was off before she finished, going as quickly as he could over the treacherous ice. Judging by where her creel was, she had not been going to his cottar houses, but she could have been disorientated … she might have realized her mistake and found her way there eventually. It was worth a try. About to knock at the first door he came to, he spotted the old barrow he’d always meant to burn standing on the next path and wondered why Adam had been using it. A possible solution coming to him, he vaulted the dividing fence and rapped on the Laings’ door.

  It was Martha who opened it. ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Fordyce. Come in.’

  ‘I won’t come in, thank you. I came to ask if you saw the fishwife yesterday. You see, I found her creel, and I …’

  ‘Adam found her,’ Martha smiled. ‘He took her here in t
hat barrow.’

  ‘Thank God for that!’ he cried, not caring what she thought of his concern for the girl. ‘I was afraid she was lying dead somewhere.’

  ‘She was near death when we took her in, but she’s young and she’ll get over it, though it’ll take her a while to get her strength back. I’m sure she hadn’t had anything to eat for weeks, she’s like a skeleton, but I’ll feed her up.’

  ‘She couldn’t be in better hands.’ Remembering that he had meant to call here anyway, Dan said, ‘I saw Adam had fed the cattle yesterday. He shouldn’t have gone out in weather like that. Is he all right?’

  ‘It’s a good job he did go, or he wouldn’t have found the lassie, but don’t worry, he didn’t come to any ill. A wee sniff, that’s all.’

  ‘Tell him to take a few days off. I’ll get the other men to attend to any of his jobs that need doing, and I’ll see to the animals myself.’

  ‘I’ll tell him, Mr Fordyce, but I can’t guarantee he’ll listen. He’s not a one for sitting about on his backside doing nothing.’

  Dan’s eyes twinkled as he touched the peak of his lugged bonnet and turned away. He wished that he could have seen the girl for himself. He couldn’t come and ask about her again, because he didn’t want to give Martha or Meggie any cause for gossip. But … why shouldn’t he use the creel as an excuse? Returning the girl’s property would be regarded as an act of kindness, but he would have to wait until he could get it out of its ice prison.

  Looking around the room, Lizann gave a sigh of contentment. It was just as sparsely furnished as her last room – only a tallboy and a padded chair in addition to the bed – but so much nicer. There was a cross-stitch runner on top of the drawers, the padding on the chair picked out one of the colours on the pristine cover on the quilt. The linoleum was highly polished, with a mat at each side of the bed. Although an attic, it had a proper window which made everything look really bright. There was a tiled fireplace, not that much bigger than the one she’d had at Pennan, but sending out far more heat. It had been burning when she woke, but she didn’t know which of her benefactors had come up to light it.