UNCLE CHAY MET HER AT the station. He had borrowed the farmer’s trap, and Jessie had covered a hot brick with a blanket and put them on the floor to warm her daughter with. As she wrapped the warmed blanket around her shoulders, Kirsty felt her mother’s warmth and love enfold her and she relaxed, determined to enjoy the few days of holiday.
‘Your mam’s fine, Kirsty,’ said Chay. ‘She gets on fine wi’ the lassie, teaches her cooking and sewing and such. Bett’s walking out. She’ll make some man a fine wife, thanks tae Jessie.’
And Kirsty was delighted to see for herself that her mother was much better in body and had almost come to terms with her loss.
‘Your Uncle Chay’s a fine man, Kirsty, but I miss you so much. If we could only get a wee cottage or a house in Arbroath, I could come back and look after you.’
‘That would be so wonderful, Mother.’ Should she tell her mother her worries over the headmaster’s erratic behaviour? No, better to keep it to herself and look forward to the day she qualified. Not long now.
‘I’ve had time to think,’ Jessie went on, ‘and I believe we should have approached the Colonel about a cottage on the estate. There might have been one we could have had.’
‘You are happy with Uncle Chay, aren’t you, Mother? I couldn’t bear it if you were miserable.’ Both of us, thought Kirsty sadly, both of us miserable and unable to help one another.
‘As happy as I can be without you and my dear John, but I have high hopes for Uncle Chay and young Bett.’
Kirsty looked at her mother, shock and disbelief written large on her face, and Jessie laughed.
‘Kirsty Robertson,’ she said, ‘why so shocked? He’s a good man, and not fifty yet.’
‘But he’s old enough to be Bett’s father, and besides, she’s walking out.’
‘Just because the man she wants hasn’t asked her yet doesn’t mean she should sit at home and knit with me,’ said Jessie complacently.
‘Oh, Mother,’ laughed Kirsty happily. She was still shocked by her mother’s – and Bett’s – attitude to love and marriage, but it was wonderful to see Jessie beginning to emerge from the cocoon of grief which she had wrapped around herself.
‘What plans are you two hatching for the holiday?’ asked Chay as he came in from feeding the cattle. ‘Here’s Bett with a meal ready for a queen . . .’
‘Or a king, Uncle Chay,’ said Kirsty, and giggled at the mystified look on his face.
Later as she snuggled down beside her mother in the best feather bed, she gave herself up to imagining the unbelievable joy it would be to live with her mother and to set off for school in the morning knowing that Jessie would be waiting in their own little home for her return.
‘When I qualify, Mother,’ she vowed as she fell asleep. ‘There’s just a little over a year left.’
Just a little over a year. It sounded no time at all, but it was to be the longest year of Kirsty’s life.