Mathew's Tale, page 10
‘Will I have to move to Netherton?’ McGill asked, tentatively.
‘Not if you do not want to. I’ll give you my old trap; you can ride to Waterloo in the morning, pick me up and we will go the rest of the way together. What is your notice at the estate?’ he asked, briskly.
‘The end of this week.’
‘Good, you start on Monday. On that day I will send Ewan, my coachman, up with the trap. He will be there at seven fifteen, and you can pick me up at seven thirty. It will be the start of a new era for us both, David, and I welcome it.’
Chapter Sixteen
DAVID MCGILL FITTED INTO his friend’s business empire very quickly. He won the respect of the men under his supervision and surprised himself, and in truth surprised his new employer, by the speed with which he grasped the mechanics of the company, Netherton Leather Goods, as it had been renamed.
He was more than a merely adequate replacement for Margaret, although Mathew would never admit as much, not even to himself. The closest he came to revealing his feelings was over dinner one night at Waterloo House with Sheriff Stirling and Sir Graham Stockley, his two confidants.
‘It makes me laugh,’ he said, although his face betrayed not a hint of a smile, ‘when I think of those fools, the Cleland twins. They leave their estate in the hands of a man who does not understand anything beyond a column of figures, having dismissed the very person who was capable of using it to keep them in good fortune all their days. Mark me, it will come back and bite them.’
‘I sense you do not like the brothers,’ the Sheriff chuckled, his port glass halfway to his lips.
‘Robin,’ he replied, ‘I am honestly indifferent to those men. Our society has created them and we must accept their existence, but the easiest way to live with them is to ignore them and let them proceed on the course they have charted, towards to their own inevitable downfall.’
‘Inevitable?’
‘From what I hear, yes; I sound out Mr Armitage on occasion, when I see him at the kirk. Even run as inefficiently as it is, the estate might support the lifestyle of one profligate, but not two, gentlemen, not two. The brothers will have to change, or fail.’
‘Or marry well,’ Stockley suggested. ‘Neither has yet found a wife.’
‘That is true,’ Mathew conceded, ‘but I do not see a queue of comely candidates stretching from here to Edinburgh. Enough of those two, though, they are not worth our consideration. I apologise for raising their name at this table.’
The Waterloo House dinners had been reintroduced in the second year after Margaret’s death. Stockley and Stirling were always on the guest list, but otherwise the events were political as much as social, as Mathew knew that his own standing and that of his business interests were inextricably linked.
Always, Mathew listened more than he spoke. He never sought to dominate a dinner table, but to allow his guests to express themselves. When his view was sought he gave it, but always stressed that he spoke from a rural perspective, with little or no experience of city life or of great affairs of state.
‘You, sir, are of the officer class,’ he told the Earl of Teviotdale at one event. ‘I was only a corporal.’
‘So was Napoleon,’ the aristocrat countered. ‘He went from the ranks to rule most of Europe, until you helped beat him at the battle after which your house is named. You, on the other hand, went on to become a sergeant. But where is Napoleon now? As dead as poxy old King George the Fourth, while you, Iron Baron, are building an empire of your own, based on contraptions that might have made Bonaparte invincible had they been available to him.’
That exchange taught Mathew two valuable lessons. The first was that a wise guest at an event of influence should know in advance every available fact about every person at that table. The second was that while his saddles and his valises might have made him his original fortune, it was his position in heavy industry that gave him his status in the new society that was beginning to develop throughout Great Britain. ‘Iron Baron’ they called him, yet never ‘Leather Baron’, even though, in those products, his business had become the biggest in the land.
His new standing was emphasised in the year before his fortieth birthday, when a letter was delivered by special messenger to his home. It bore the seal of the Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Devonshire. Hannah was looking over his shoulder as he tore it open.
‘Whit does it say?’ she demanded.
‘Ssh, Mother, let me read it.’
The language was flowery, courtly, but he went straight to the essential paragraph.
‘His Majesty, King William the Fourth,’ he read aloud, ‘is minded, in the light of your standing in the community, to appoint you to the office of deputy to the Lord Lieutenant of Lanarkshire, His Grace the Duke of Hamilton.’
‘What does it mean?’ He had never seen his mother so excited, the great knower of her station in life. ‘That ye’re a lord?’
‘No,’ he laughed, ‘well short of that. The Duke of Hamilton is the King’s representative in the county. He stands for him at events he cannot attend himself, which means in practice nearly all of them. The Duke cannot guarantee always to be able to perform this function and so he has deputies who stand for him as required. Sheriff Stirling is one.’
‘Whit will ye have tae do?’
‘Wear a fine uniform and shake hands with folk, I imagine. No more sergeant’s stripes for me, Mother,’ he laughed.
As he mentioned his old rank, he knew in the same moment who had put his name forward.
The deputy lieutenancy proved to be no more onerous than he had imagined it would be. The uniform would have been shared with the Sheriff, but Mathew’s height and breadth of shoulder made that impossible, and so a new one had to be commissioned.
He wore it rarely but had done so on the fine June Sunday that his life changed for ever. He was not long returned from an event in Hamilton, and was playing with the seven-year-old Marshall on the lawn in front of the house, beside one of the silver birches that he had planted for Margaret, because she had said once that she liked them, when he saw a youth running up the drive, at full pelt.
‘Hold up, hold up,’ he called out. ‘What’s the panic?’
The young runner skidded to a halt, his chest heaving. It took him more than a few moments until he could catch his breath enough to speak. In that time, Mathew recognised him as Billy Fisher, from Carluke, Joel’s son and Jane’s older brother.
‘Mr Fleming, sir,’ he exclaimed when he could, ‘I’m sent by Mr Barclay, to ask ye if ye’d be so good as to come to the manse at once.’
He was oddly irked by the lad’s deference, but put that to one side.
‘What has happened?’ he asked, calmly, although he was disturbed.
‘Ah dinna’ ken, but they say Sir Gregor Cleland is deid.’
More to it than that, Mathew thought at once. Men die, even young men, and while Gregor Cleland might have been the Laird, his passing alone should not be the cause of an emergency summons.
‘A few moments, Billy,’ he said, ‘and I’ll be with you.’
Ewan Beattie was in his lodging above the stable, but he had already driven him to Hamilton and back that day, and so he decided to let him lie. Instead, as soon as he had delivered Marshall back into the charge of Miss Liddell, he put on a short jacket, went back outside and saddled his horse, a chestnut that he had named Victor. He had told Hannah nothing more than the simple truth, that John Barclay wanted to see him, at his convenience.
Mounted, he reached down and offered the young runner a hand. ‘Get up behind me, Billy. She can carry two for all the distance we’re going.’
The young man was not the best passenger, and so Mathew had to go more steadily than he might have wished; consequently it took them more than the normal half-hour to reach Carluke.
As soon as he arrived at the green in front of the kirk, he could see that there was something serious afoot. Villagers, men and women, were standing around in groups, and not one of them was smiling; indeed, Beth Fisher, Billy’s mother, was in tears. He brought Victor to a standstill to let the boy dismount, and then trotted him forward towards the manse, speaking to no one on the way.
The minister’s housekeeper, whose name he did not yet know, opened the door to him. He strode straight into the parlour . . . to find Lizzie and her children sitting on the sofa in a tight, tense group, and Barclay in an armchair, his face white.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked at once.
Lizzie looked up him; her face was stained with tears and her eyes were puffy. She looked old, and that alarmed him. ‘David has been arrested,’ she replied. ‘The Sheriff’s men came and took him away.’
‘Why? What cause could they possibly have had? And what’s this about Gregor Cleland being dead?’
‘The two must be connected,’ John Barclay said, rising to his feet. He looked at the boy. ‘Laddie,’ he said, ‘tell your story.’
Young Matt stood also. The boy was fifteen and on his way to being full grown. Mathew saw that there was a mark on his face, a vivid red weal that ran from his forehead down and across his cheek, as if in mimicry of his own scar.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he exclaimed, in a voice that had become deeper than his father’s.
‘Nobody is saying it is,’ the minister told him gently. ‘Just carry on.’
‘I was playing, in the roadway,’ he began. ‘Some o’ the village lads and I; we were just chasing, kickin’ a ball made out o’ old clothes. We were doing no harm at all, Mathew, honest.’
‘Fine,’ Mathew murmured. ‘I do not think for a minute that you were. Go on, as Mr Barclay says.’
He nodded. ‘I never saw the carriage, the Laird’s carriage. I had my back to it as it cam’ up the road. One o’ the other lads kicked the ball. It went over ma head and I turned to run after it and almost ran under one o’ the Laird’s horses. The beast was startled; it reared up and the carriage was shaken. Only for a second or so, mind,’ he added.
‘I can see that it would be rocked, but it wasn’t near to overturning, was it?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘Did you know the coachman?’
‘The Laird was drivin’ himself. There were two ladies in the carriage, finely dressed, and no’ from Carluke. The Laird’s brother was alongside on a horse. It had one o’ your saddles,’ he noted, as if the detail was important.
‘After startling the horse, Matt,’ Mathew asked, ‘what did you do?’
‘I said I was sorry, very sorry, right away, and I reached out my hand to calm the animal, just to soothe it. But the Laird, he shouted something at me, words I’ve been told are foul, and then he lashed out, he hit me across the face with his whip.’
Mathew felt a cold rage within him. ‘Who saw this?’ he growled.
‘Only my father. Ah never saw him, but he’d been watching us play. All the other lads ran off, but he came towards us. Ah’ve never seen my father angry before, but he was fair ablaze. He went up to the carriage and he grabbed the Laird and hauled him right out of his seat and down on to the ground, then he leaned over him slapping him once, twice, three times. The ladies, they were laughing, thinking it was great sport, even though my father was shouting, saying he was going to thrash the Laird within an inch of his life. And that’s when the other one fired.’
‘The other one?’
‘The Laird’s brother; Gavin, I think they cry him. He’d got off his horse, he drew a pistol, he pointed it at my father’s back, and he fired. But he missed, and he shot the Laird instead.’
‘And he killed him? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘I dinna ken, Mathew, I’ve never seen anyone shot before.’
‘Where did the ball strike him?’
Young Matt tapped the centre of his own forehead, less than an inch above his nose. ‘There.’
‘Then he killed him, for sure.’
‘Oh my,’ Lizzie whispered, a hand to her mouth. ‘But he meant to kill David.’
‘What happened next, Matt?’ Mathew asked.
‘My father stood, but before he could even turn round, Gavin Cleland hit him with the pistol he’d just fired, and it knocked him down. I went to help him. As I did, Gavin gathered up the Laird in his arms and put him in the carriage. Then he tied his horse to the back, got up in the seat and drove away, at speed.’
‘Did your father recover?’
‘He got up, but he was dazed and his eyes were funny. I asked him what we should do. He said we should go to the manse and that was what we did. Mr Barclay came out to meet us. He had heard the shot.’
‘But nobody saw it?’
‘No. Nobody at all, other than us that wis there.’
Mathew turned to the minister. ‘John, what did you do?’
‘I took them in, of course. They both had wounds; young Matt’s you can see, and David had a cut to the head. I bathed them both. As Matt said, David was dazed at first but he recovered most of his senses after a few minutes. I told him that the incident had to be reported to Sheriff Stirling, in Lanark, but I deemed that neither was fit to ride. So I told them both to go home and wait there, and then I summoned the beadle, our worthy church officer. I bade him carry the message to the Sheriff’s clerk, and he did. But when he got there he was told that the occurrence was already known, and by that time . . .’
‘The Sheriff’s officers came to our door,’ Lizzie exclaimed, her voice a wail that alarmed, saddened and enraged Mathew, simultaneously.
‘They burst into our home and they seized David. They treated him roughly and bound his wrists in chains, and put him in their black carriage. Then Gavin Cleland arrived, with some ruffians from the estate. He ordered the children and me out of the house. He told me we were evicted, then he had his men take all our furniture and possessions outside and smash them in the street. Young Matt would have fought them, but I held him back. I told him I could not lose husband and son in the same day.’
‘Then I’ll fight them tomorrow,’ the boy growled.
‘No, you will not!’ Mathew barked. The force of his censure startled everyone, most of all little Jean, who started to cry. He knelt by her side and stroked her hair as she cowered against her mother.
‘There now, wee one,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sorry, I should not have shouted. Your brother only spoke as I would have at his age.
‘But,’ he continued as he rose to his feet once more, ‘what I said still goes. You cannot fight these people, Matt, not with your fists. You can only do it with the law, and that is how we must rescue your father. There is nothing to be done tonight, but tomorrow you and I will go to Lanark. We will see Sheriff Stirling, and you can tell him your story. He is a good friend of mine, and a fair man; I expect we’ll bring David back with us.’
‘But our home, Mathew,’ Lizzie said. ‘What of that?’
‘Well, first and foremost,’ he retorted, ‘Sir Gavin, as I suppose he’ll be called now, having killed his brother, will find that he is short of the rent, for John and I will let it be known in and around Carluke that anyone who occupies that cottage will incur our displeasure. And you, you’ll have better lodgings. Until we can find something permanent, you and your bairns will move into Waterloo House with me. I will ride back and send my carriage for you and the effects that those people left untouched.’
‘That’s not much more than our clothes, but we’ve nothing to carry them in.’
‘Then I will send cases, and tell my coachman to help you fill them.’
She made to speak, but he cut her off. ‘Lizzie,’ he smiled, but sadly, ‘do you think Mother Fleming would have it any other way?’
Chapter Seventeen
HANNAH FLEMING’S ETERNAL CALMNESS was tested by the news that her son brought from Carluke, but by the time the three houseguests arrived, it was fully restored.
She welcomed them in and then took complete charge, allocating bedrooms, and placing Jean in the care of Miss Liddell, a proposition which the little girl accepted as soon as she saw Marshall. Hannah said nothing to any of them about David’s predicament, waiting instead until the family had been fed and had retired for the night, and she and Mathew were alone.
‘This is a terrible business,’ she said, as they sat together in the gazebo that had been built a year before with such nights in mind. The midsummer sun was fully set but a blue glow remained in the northern sky, bathing the garden in its light.
‘True,’ her son agreed. ‘Gregor Cleland was as big a waste of a baronetcy as there has ever been, but nobody should die like that, shot down in the street.’
‘Perhaps but let’s you and me no’ waste oor time mourning him. Our concern must be for poor David. How will it go wi’ him, do ye think?’
‘As I told Lizzie, I hope that he will return with us tomorrow.’
‘But ye’re afraid he won’t?’
‘I’m not certain of it,’ he admitted.
‘Surely yer friend the Sheriff will see reason when he hears the boy’s story.’
‘Robin Stirling, the man, is my friend, but a good Sheriff can have none of those, nor show favour to anyone. I know Martin Knox, the Sheriff’s clerk, too; he would not have sent those officers for David unless he saw good cause.’
‘That was my thought too,’ she murmured.
The next morning Mathew rose early, and rode to Netherton, to advise his managers that neither he nor Mr McGill would be available that day, and that they should take instructions from his secretary, a capable man named Gabriel Spence whom he had hired not long after Margaret’s death and who had earned his trust.
When he returned to Waterloo House, Lizzie and her son were dressed and ready for the road.
‘There is no need for you to come, my dear,’ he told her. ‘Young Matt saw what happened yesterday; you did not. It’s his word that the Sheriff needs to hear.’
‘But I must support my husband, Mathew,’ she protested. ‘Miss Liddell says that she’s happy to look after Jean while I’m gone.’
