Summer had come at last and shafts of light cut through the winter’s dirt on the diamond window panes. Baby William sat on a rug, chewing on a bone teething ring, the sun shining on his curls. I thought I would die of love. My husband lay on his back passing toys to his son, having the kind of conversation only parents have with babies. I knelt behind the baby and studied the perfect line of his neck and my husband looked up at me and smiled with pride.
It was possible, at last, to have the windows open and the sound of horses approaching from the village came from the high, small panes. William stood and straightened his wig. We had few visitors at Terregles and I was glad that we weren’t three women alone. Voices carried up from the courtyard and baby Will stopped chewing and held up his ring to his father, then turned to look at me, lifting his arms to be picked up.
We heard a male voice, then my mother-in-law speak. A stifled cry. We waited, holding our breath. Even the baby was silent. There were footsteps in the passageway and a gentle tap on the door. I knew it was Alice.
‘Sir, madam,’ she curtsied. ‘Lady Lucy has asked me to convey to you the sad news that the Countess of Traquair’s baby has died. She is leaving for Traquair House today and would like you to accompany her. Please, sir and madam, that’s what she asks.’
I scooped the baby from the floor and buried my face in his neck. ‘We must go and pack. Your mother will want to leave as soon as possible.’
William folded his arms across his chest, ‘I’m not going – I can’t. Anyway, a baby’s death is women’s business. I’ll arrange for one of the men to travel with you.’
‘But William, it’s your sister. She’s lost her child. And your mother wants you with her.’
William moved into the shadows of the wood-panelled drawing room and I could hardly see his features. ‘I don’t need you to lecture me on my family duties. I have to be in Edinburgh – it’s politics.’
‘Charles will benefit from your company, another man to talk to. William, please, this hasn’t happened to them before, think how they must be feeling. Imagine if it was our baby, our Will.’
‘They’ve got five children already,’ William’s voice rose. ‘For God’s sake, Winifred, this is Scotland, these things happen. Even to people like us.’
I felt a rage that I could barely control. Who was my husband, this stranger who didn’t understand that every child lost was a tragedy for its family?
‘You are selfish!’ I yelled at him. ‘You prefer to be with Jacobite friends instead of with us, playing at fanciful dreams of glory. It’s just like when Will was born. You should have been here with me.’
William stepped forward into the light and I saw an expression on his face that was new to me, as if a dark cloud had crossed the sun.
He thrust his face into mine and I felt the spit from his mouth on my cheeks. ‘You will never speak to me like that again. Yes, I want to be with men planning a different future for Scotland. I want to be at the heart of things in Edinburgh, not just a Jacobite follower or a nursemaid at home.’
I stepped back from him and held the baby close. ‘Your duty is to be with your family. To help your mother make a success of this estate.’
‘You smother me, Win. You’re naïve and self-centred.’
‘And you are lazy and spoilt.’
Our eyes locked in mutual contempt and then he turned away, slamming the heavy door behind him.
The baby’s howls echoed around the dark room as I paced, fighting for breath. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think. I ran to the kitchen, pushing the child into Alice’s arms. At the door to the still room, I forgot to put pattens under my silk shoes and slid across the muddy yard and into the dairy. I leaned inside the door, breathing the smell of sour milk and silage. Our dairy herd had not yet been put out to grass and they shifted in the pale light, gathering together to stare at me like silent observers. I knocked over an empty pail and the sudden noise made the cows anxious and they stepped back in unison. A dairy maid passed me and bobbed a curtsy.
Grace was making butter. She nodded to a stool and I sat watching her thrust the plunger into the churn, my own heart pounding. Up and down.
‘Can I have a turn?’
Grace watched my pathetic arms try to match her power and rhythm. ‘What’s happened to make you so angry?’
‘I hate him. He’s never here. He does nothing. He lets his old mother do his work. He should be running this estate, not her. He’s nothing but a spoilt child. He thinks he’ll be a Jacobite hero. It’s pathetic.’
Grace gestured that we change places. ‘You forgot to mention that he spends all our money.’
I felt dizzy, as if I might fall. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Open your eyes, Win. The estate was in so much debt from his stay in France his mother had to send everything he bought in Paris, except the clothes, to be sold in Edinburgh.’
Confusion pressed into my temples. I thought my beautiful linen, porcelain and china had been stored away, to be brought out for celebrations. ‘You should have said something, Grace. His mother should have warned me.’
‘You didn’t notice or ask and Lady Lucy will never say a word against the Earl.’
Grace dislikes my husband, I thought. Perhaps she has never liked him. I felt loyalty to William stir but my anger was fresh and bitter. ‘He said I was naïve … and self-centred.’
‘And what did you say to him?’ Grace didn’t look up but I heard the smile on her lips.
‘Nothing,’ I lied. ‘I just asked him to accompany Lady Lucy and me to Traquair. His sister Mary has lost her baby girl.’
‘That’s so sad. Of course you must go but I can see how a man might feel he has no place.’
‘He’d rather be drinking in Edinburgh.’
‘Probably, yes. But you married him for the very reason you hate him right now, his charming spontaneity. That quality doesn’t often accompany thrift and responsibility.’ I watched her pour whey from the churn into a bucket at her feet. ‘Come on,’ Grace put an arm around my waist, ‘let’s go and see the pig. He always makes me feel better.’
We leaned over the low sty wall, scratching the pig’s back, smelling straw soaked with rank urine.
‘He’ll be dead in a few months.’
I grimaced. ‘Chopped up and salted to see us through the winter. More salt pork … don’t you ever wish you were back at St Germain?’
Grace poured the whey into the pig’s trough. He squealed and thrust his snout into the thin milk, grunting with pleasure. ‘I could have stayed – I was asked. I didn’t tell you because my place is with you. Always.’
I was shocked. ‘I’m sorry, Grace, I assumed too much. I am selfish.’
Grace didn’t correct me. ‘Lady Lucy and I work so hard to keep a roof over all our heads and allow your husband to lead the life he chooses. His mother will never restrict him and he won’t change. But you can help, now that the baby is weaned – take some share of the tasks from your mother-in-law and try to keep his spending in check. This is our home now, we can’t look back.’
I looked around at the farm buildings, the smithy and the dairy. ‘But what tasks can I do?’
‘Ask Lady Lucy, I’m sure she’ll be pleased to suggest something suitable. Now, your mother-in-law has to comb the flax in the linen yard before she leaves and I have to finish the butter but then I’ll help you both to pack.’
I watched Grace walk back to the dairy. There was sadness in the line of her shoulders and I could see weight around her hips that hadn’t been there a year ago. Life had settled on us both.
William was wrong, this wasn’t women’s work; this was family work and he, as close to his sister as any brother could be, would have brought her comfort. I felt ashamed that for me, there was pleasure in this visit. Out of respect for Mary, my baby was left at home and for a moment, I felt relief mixed with guilt as I watched the maid lay out one of my French gowns. I would dress for dinner.
I walked to the window and pushed the curtains back with the tips of my fingers. Mary’s arms must ache for the weight and warmth of her daughter and Lucy would comfort her but what could I do? How was it possible for me to mourn a child that had lived but a few months? I could only regret the loss of the person the baby might have become. I knew I shouldn’t wait much longer before I saw Mary but I was afraid. With my French manners and no sense of how to be a real sister to anyone other than to Mary Beatrice, I would be useless.
Standing outside my bedroom door I listened. This house, normally alive with the chaos of five young children, dogs and servants, now felt closed down and in mourning. I tiptoed to Mary’s room and heard Lucy’s voice rise and fall, singing an old Scots ballad I had heard her sing to baby Will. I tapped on the door and entered. The room was dark and hot and Mary was a white shape on the bed. Lucy met me at the door and whispered that her daughter was sleeping. She held my hand in her own small, dry hands, patted my arm and left to see her grandchildren in the nursery.
I sat down and watched as Mary turned and murmured in her sleep. I pulled a cover over her and she opened her dark eyes but did not see me. In repose, she was so like William I felt my love for him return like a wave breaking over dry sand. The memory of his love for me made me tender and I reached out and touched her.
‘Mother?’ She turned towards me and tried to focus.
‘It’s me, Winifred. Do you need anything? Your mother has gone to see the children.’
Mary shook her head and lay staring at the ceiling but she didn’t remove her hand from mine. ‘I need my baby. Where have they taken her?’
I hadn’t expected this question. I had no idea. ‘Charles will have put her somewhere safe,’ I stumbled. ‘You’ll see her tomorrow, at the funeral mass.’
‘I want to see her now. Bring her to me, Winifred.’
Her demand dropped into the still air between us. I hesitated. ‘I can’t do that,’ I whispered. ‘She’s dead, Mary. I’m so sorry you lost her, she must have been a lovely baby.’
‘I just want her back. She must be frightened without me.’ Mary rolled over and her shoulders trembled with silent, hollow weeping until her shuddering breaths told me that she had fallen asleep.
That night, I slept badly. The bed seemed warm only where I lay and every time I turned, my hands and feet searched for the heat of William’s body. Although it was early summer, a wind whispered in the trees of the park and the painful cries of the sheep searching for their lambs made me worried for my own baby. Would Alice comfort him if he cried for me in the night? Would he think I had abandoned him?
I heard a cry and listened. Pulling a shawl around my shoulders, I padded to the door and waited, my chest tight. I heard it again, a desperate calling from the depths of the house. Why did no one stir? I knew it was Mary and that if there was no movement soon, I would have to find her.
The corridors of Traquair filled with long shadows from the light of my single candle. I searched Mary’s room first and found it empty, then followed the distant sounds down into the bowels of the house. I kept my eyes focused ahead in case something fearful lay in the darkness but reminded myself that there was nothing around me except furniture that was there every day. Mary was in the game larder behind the kitchen, amongst carcasses of hare and pheasant, holding against her shoulder a stiff bundle wrapped in white cloth. The room smelt of blood.
‘I’ve found her, Win. They tried to keep her from me. I must feed her. She’s so cold.’
I sat down next to Mary and put the candle on the table where game was prepared. The wood was stained red. ‘Let me see her. Show her to me.’
Mary hesitated, fearing a trick, but I sat very still and folded my hands in my lap, hoping that the failing candle wouldn’t leave us in darkness. With great care, Mary rested her baby in her lap and I unfolded the wrapping from the child’s face and traced my fingers around the stiff flesh of her cheeks. ‘She is a lovely baby.’
Mary nodded and her own fingers followed the path that mine had made. She lifted the baby and kissed her cheek, then cradled the child in her arms and rocked her, humming the lullaby I had heard her mother sing. The candle guttered and died but still we sat, chilled and alone, nursing the dead child. The dark outside the small window turned from black to grey and, finally, she placed the child back in the wooden crate where she had found her. I wrapped my shawl around Mary and together we returned to her room and climbed into her bed. I listened to Mary’s breathing, her head cradled against my breast. In another hour the servants would rise and the house would live again.
Later, in the small priest’s room at the top of the house, I played with Mary’s boisterous children, wondering how I would keep them amused during the funeral mass. Their nursemaids seemed useless, sometimes scolding, sometimes ignoring, sometimes smacking. I thought that I must speak to Mary, once she was well, or her children might become unmanageable. My brother-in-law, Charles, seemed kind but indifferent, regarding his children with puzzled amusement. At last, when Mary arrived with her mother she seemed composed. I had helped her to bind her breasts to stem the flow of milk, as I had learned at St Germain, and her tight black dress and combed hair gave her an unexpected dignity. The sight of the tiny white coffin caused her to stop and bite her hand but her living children distracted her from grief. Mary sat with Charles and the priest began the mass. I paid little attention. My thoughts drifted to my mother and how she had fought the accepted orthodoxy that many babies must die. My miserable faith could not accept that God needed these tiny souls. I didn’t know what had killed Mary’s baby but I had learned from my mother that it could be stopped. I wished my mother still lived and I found that I was crying.
The child was buried in a distant corner of the estate garden close to the River Tweed. It was a swift and discreet burial but Lucy, seeing her daughter’s composure fray, gathered Mary and her grandchildren together and hurried with them to the house. I thought that Lucy’s experience must have told her that the children’s routine would give her daughter some peace. Alone, I made the long walk back to the house, enjoying the sun on my face and the sound of rooks nesting in the woods. I found Charles at the entrance to the formal garden. We drifted together and, without words, turned onto a path where we walked in silence. I sat down on a marble bench and Charles asked me, with courtly politeness, if he might sit next to me. We remained side by side, staring at the luxuriant spring flowers without speaking. I heard a bee move between blossoms, its drone sometimes steady, sometimes broken, as it searched for pollen.
‘Thank you for what you did with Mary last night. I don’t know how to manage these things. She’s usually such a happy little thing. I was unprepared for her grief.’
‘I didn’t know what was best. I wasn’t sure if it was allowed. It just seemed the right thing.’ I looked at Charles but he kept his eyes fixed on the back of the house.
‘It helped her very much and I’m very grateful to you. I wondered if she might lose her mind but now I know she’ll come back to us.’
We remained seated but I felt that Charles had more to say. He cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry William wasn’t able to come.’
‘Oh, Charles,’ I apologised for my husband, ‘if he hadn’t had business in Edinburgh he would have been here. He’s getting involved politically with the Jacobite cause.’
‘Well they’re certainly on the rise again. This country hasn’t done well under the rule of William and Mary. It may provide him with some purpose but I’m not sure that his being active in the restoration of James II will sit well with your neighbours.’
I felt unprepared for such a conversation and tried to shift the ground. ‘I think he’s fallen under the spell of my brother-in-law, Kenneth Mackenzie. Family is very important to him. He’s very fond of Mary.’
Charles frowned. ‘Yes, they’re very alike, both beautiful children. Their mother brought them up to be adored. That’s fine for Mary but William must become a man. His mother isn’t getting any younger. Do you mind me talking to you about this, Winifred? You seem an intelligent young woman and I worry about the burden that will fall on you.’
I hesitated, afraid of more disloyalty. Charles looked at me now and I saw friendship in the lines around his grey eyes.
‘I have only recently learned that our financial affairs are not secure and that my husband’s spending is a problem.’
Charles nodded. ‘I fear that William isn’t here because he owes me money. Had I not lent it to him I cannot imagine how he would have paid his debts. Terregles is a fine little estate, it’s not grand but it should make you all a good living. You will have to learn the business, Winifred, before Lucy passes away. It won’t be good for your marriage but you must set a limit on William’s spending.’
‘But I don’t know how to do that,’ I protested.
‘You’ll find a way. You have a responsibility to your child and all your tenants to make the estate pay. I will help you where I can.’
Disappointment flushed through me. I wanted what Mary had, to be an adored child. But this kind, thoughtful man said I had to be mature and clever, so I straightened my back and shoulders and whispered my thanks for his advice, my unspent tears binding my throat like a vice.
I left the next day, anxious to see my son, but Lucy decided to remain at Traquair to help her daughter. Time spent travelling on rough tracks gave me the chance to think about how I would become the person that Charles expected and yet hold onto the love and respect of my husband. However, I arrived home irritable and dirty, with no plan. William was there and he lifted me from the carriage by my waist, holding me up and swinging me round as if I was as light as air. He put me down and pulled me close, kissing my cheeks, then led me by the hand to the stable yard, where a small white pony tossed his head in greeting. A lad was busy harnessing the pony to a pretty carriage with high, light wheels and leather seats. Alice stood in the shade of the stable arch, dressed in a bonnet and travelling cloak, with Will in her arms. The child saw me and pulled away from her, opening and closing his hands. I carried him over to William, stroking his head with my lips. The smell of his hair made my newly weaned breasts ache.
William gestured towards the pony and cart. ‘Aren’t they lovely? I bought them for you in Edinburgh. We can go out for days together, take Will out.’
I saw the delight in my husband’s face and felt sense desert me. I kissed him, this generous, impetuous young man and felt the happy anticipation of days to come, roaming the countryside together. I pushed my worries into a cold, empty place and didn’t question how they would be paid for.
‘Let’s go out today, Win, down to the coast. The baby and his nurse are ready. There’s food in the cart.’ William’s eyes were bright with excitement.
‘I’m filthy,’ I argued but there was laughter in the protest.
William bent to kiss my neck. ‘You smell perfect.’
On the coast, the sea foamed and churned between jagged, slate rocks that leaned towards the land as if they had been thrown down like a pack of cards. We found a sheltered patch of sand, cut into the dunes and huddled on a rug, looking across to the brown hills of England. Will crawled around us, exploring the shingle. Tiny shells stuck to his fingers and he held out his hands, like starfish, to share this new mystery. Alice held him by his hands to explore rock pools with his bare feet and when they were out of sight, William pulled a blanket over our heads and kissed my lips, ignoring the baby’s howls of fear as icy water rushed over his toes. Worn out by so much that was new, the child slept after we had eaten and we left him with Alice to walk along the beach. William picked a flower and kissed the petals before he tucked the stem into my hair.
‘My darling Win, I love you more than life itself. I missed you so much. I was afraid you wouldn’t come back to me. Can you ever forgive me?’
I leaned into his chest and murmured, ‘Of course I can, I said some awful things too. But William …’ I pulled back so that I could see his eyes, ‘Charles says that we owe him a lot of money.’
William studied the seascape, avoiding my gaze. ‘He shouldn’t have told you, that’s men’s business.’
I placed both hands on his upper arms and faced him. ‘We must live within our means and pay back everything we owe. I’ll help you.’
But William’s eyes dropped to his feet and I let go. We walked on together side by side, back towards our sleeping child, our hands not touching. The joy of the afternoon washed from us and the only sound was the crying from the gulls above.