MEN WERE SO SCARCE THAT Kirsty did get a job on the estate. Conscription had come in and most able-bodied men had gone to the Front. The work was hard and the hours were long but, to her surprise, she found that she was healthier than she had ever been before. She missed Jamie-John terribly but when she was working in nearby fields, Jessie would wheel him down to watch his mother at work and they could eat their midday meal together. Kirsty wrote to Jamie every week: the letters of a woman who had been married for years and years, not those of a breathless young bride. She painted a picture of the changing seasons and of the progress of their small son. Jamie wrote as often as he could. Sometimes weeks would pass without a letter and then several would arrive at once:
This is not the land in the Dominie’s geography books . . . I would like fine to see France when its fertile fields are not swimming in blood or its blue sky not hidden by choking clouds.
Mostly, however, he wrote about his hopes for their marriage and its future:
Oh, Kirsty lass, what a man you have married, for I should tell you that I never slept a wink that last night. I kept thinking of you and wondering, dare I be brave enough to go to her . . . to ask her. I wanted so much to hold you, Kirsty, but was so feared that you would turn from me in horror. No, I made a promise and I’ll keep it, but oh, I love you, lass. Does not the smell of you that comes to me in dreams keep me sane in this insanity. I wish I could really believe in why I’m here, or at least understand. Sanity is you and Jamie-John and the land.
Kirsty wept over that letter. ‘I should have gone to him. Why didn’t I? I wanted him, and in the Dell I wanted Hugh.’ Hugh?
The Colonel obviously had seen nothing in the baby’s face. When they came face to face outside the castle, Kirsty’s heart had certainly played a tattoo, but he had said only, ‘Grand wee laddie,’ as he returned to his car. It was several days, however, before Kirsty quite relaxed, and by that time she had been well into working with the harvest.
‘Oh, I’ll never take a simple slice of bread so much for granted again, Mother,’ she said as she stretched out in front of the fire, tea over, the baby in bed.
‘You’re looking well on it.’
‘I’ll have bigger muscles than Jamie when he returns.’
Jessie laughed. ‘The old Scots saying, “Hard work never killed anybody”, must be true, Kirsty, for you’ve never looked better.’
‘I enjoy being out in the fresh air, but there’ll be no work in the winter unless I can get something with cattle, and I’m afraid of the big brutes.’
‘Surely we’ve saved enough to help us through?’
‘We’ll manage, I suppose, but we must have depended quite a bit on Jamie’s poaching, and there’s been no fish from Meg for a while.’
‘She’s got over not being asked to the wedding?’
‘She’s forgiven me, I think, but she hasn’t really forgotten. Then there’s the baby.’
Meg had hoped to conceive a child during her brief honeymoon, but had not.
‘Oh, sometimes it takes a while,’ said Jessie. ‘When this war is over . . .’
Everything was ‘When this war is over’. Would it ever be over? Had there been a time when it never was? The days at Burnside with the Buchanans and Miss McNeil seemed like a life that must have belonged to another girl. The innocent lass, interested mainly in the swing of her petticoats or her shining brown curls, who had been so shocked and disgusted by Mr Buchanan’s abhorrent behaviour, seemed to have nothing to do with this strong, supple young woman who looked back from Kirsty’s mirror. ‘You did take your teaching seriously,’ Kirstly consoled her mirror image, ‘and you were good, or’ – and here maturity helped her out – ‘at least you were well on your way to being good, and it’s a senseless waste.’
‘I shall join the suffrage movement, Mother, when this war is over, and petition for women’s rights.’
‘I don’t think there is a suffrage movement any more,’ said Jessie in a tone that said quite plainly, ‘Thank goodness.’
The suffragettes had been quiet over the period of hostilities, directing their not inconsiderable efforts to fighting the common foe instead of injustice.
‘Mother, I’m surprised at you. We’re fighting a war such as man has never before experienced or even contemplated. More men are dying in a day than fell in whole wars, and you think we’ll go back to what we were before. Never! Maybe no actual battles have been fought on British soil, but things like attitudes and prejudices are being wiped out and life will never be the same.’
‘The papers say it has to be over soon. There will be a final push and it’ll all be over.’
A few weeks later Kirsty took Jamie-John into Arbroath on the train to visit his Auntie Meg. There had been a letter from Meg telling how lonely she was with her husband and brothers away, and how bored she was since there was little fish being caught.
Mrs Stewart was in the town at the little family shop and Kirsty and Meg looked at each other a little warily after many months of avoiding one another.
‘I’m sorry we haven’t kept up, Meg,’ said Kirsty after the first few strained minutes, when they had exhausted the questions about their husbands and families. ‘I’ve been so involved with the baby and then working. I’m a land girl, you know.’
‘I wondered why you were so brown, but it suits you, Kirsty.’
‘So Mother says.’
They drank tea and nibbled biscuits in an awkward silence and finally Kirsty bent down to fuss over Jamie-John, who was perfectly content on the floor with some spoons.
‘To be honest with you, I was hurt you never invited me to your wedding,’ Meg burst out at last. ‘And then when the baby came so early I understood and I was angry again . . .’ She stopped in mid-sentence as Kirsty stood up. ‘Och, Kirsty, I wasn’t making a moral judgement. I was hurt you didn’t trust me to understand, to be there with you.’
Kirsty looked at her. How could she explain that she had never once thought of Meg or her appraisal, that all she had been able to think of for months was Hugh Granville-Baker dead on a battlefield? Obviously, since Meg knew neither Hugh nor Jamie, she had not realized the truth of the baby’s parentage. There was surely no need for her to know. Very few people in the Aberannoch community had even met Hugh, and she was doing her best to keep the baby as sheltered as possible. Soon, surely, Hugh’s parents would sell the castle and then she and her secret would be safe.
‘I didn’t doubt your friendship, Meg,’ she was able to say honestly. ‘It just wasn’t an easy time for me.’
‘Oh, morning sickness, you poor thing.’ Meg was obviously very happy to wallow in a lovely woman-to-woman talk about marriage and pregnancy. ‘You know, for a few weeks after Will went, I was sure I was . . . in the family way. I even bought some things, nappies and a wee rattle. Silly, isn’t it?’
‘I’m sorry, Meg, but you’ll have children when Will comes back. Sometimes it takes time.’
‘Time? You got married and didn’t even tell me about it, and the next thing I hear is that there’s a baby on the way sooner than it should – and, oh Kirsty, I was so jealous, I almost hated you.’
What could she say?
‘I’m sorry, Meg.’
‘He is beautiful and so good. Will he come to me, do you think?’
Jamie-John Cameron had made another conquest.
Mrs Stewart came back from the shop and was delighted to renew her old friendship.
‘You shouldnae hae held away, lassie. Is it no’ the guid lassies that get caught? You’re aye welcome in this house, and this braw wee mannie forbye. And noo tell me all aboot yer mither and yer man. Are no’ a’ my laddies away and we miss them sair, do we no’, Meggie?’
It had been a successful visit and on the train back to Aberannoch Kirsty was deeply content. She had missed her friendship with Meg, and could now look forward to renewed visiting. And in the basket by her side, under a covering of damp seaweed, lay a fine healthy haddock.
*
Winter came and with it an end to Kirsty’s employment, but her allowance from Jamie came regularly and there was little hardship at the Dingle Cottage. She ached for the war to end and for Jamie to return. The baby was growing so quickly and she was sad that Jamie missed all the firsts: the first tooth, the first words. By the end of 1917 Jamie-John was already talking quite coherently and his mother and grandmother wondered at his intelligence. Had there ever been such an advanced child?
‘If only the war would end . . . if only Jamie would come home . . .’ Kirsty echoed the thoughts of women all over Europe.
Kirsty sat alone beside the fire and waited for 1918 to come in. It had somehow seemed important that, this Hogmanay, she stay awake and welcome the New Year. Surely, surely this year of 1918 would bring an end to the war and a beginning to a new and fulfilling life with Jamie, the Jamie she had come to know and to love through his letters. Kirsty sat, her book forgotten on her lap, and admitted what she had never before fully accepted: she loved Jamie Cameron and she wanted him in every way. He was not Hugh. Hugh: she saw him, heard his voice, every time she looked at his child. She would never forget him, she did not want to forget. But her mourning was over and she wanted Jamie, Jamie who had given her a name to save her from disgrace and who had given her baby a father. She rose from her chair, and as 1918 came in she wrote to Jamie and poured out her love and longing.
*
In May 1918, five weak British divisions were sent to the quiet sector of the Chemin des Dames to recuperate. Jamie’s section went with them. He did not know of the indecision among the Chiefs of Staff as to how, or even if, to defend the area. He did not particularly care. Only Kirsty’s letters pressed against his heart reminded him that he was a human being. She loved him: she loved him and he longed for the war to be over. He did not know that French Intelligence was lulled into a sense of security and that a heavy German build-up was not even suspected.
At 1 a.m. on the 27th May, Jamie-John Cameron’s second birthday, the third battle of the Aisne began. The zone of fire was over ten miles behind the front line and every position, every village, farm, chicken coop, every road, bridge, railway line and bus stop was systematically shelled. Gas came with the shells, so that the British were blinded, and to make matters worse there was a morning fog.
‘They’re in league with the devil,’ cried the corporal next to Jamie. ‘They can make the fog come whenever they want it.’
Jamie did not reply.
The Corporal turned. He was alone. Where Jamie Cameron had been was a pool of mud and blood and some bits of clothing.
‘Pair bugger,’ said the Corporal. ‘And on his bairn’s birthday.’
*
Kirsty had to tell Jamie’s parents of his death. They had never responded to any invitation she had issued, and she had never been asked to visit their small cottage.
‘You’re still the Dominie’s lassie to them,’ Jamie had explained, ‘and you know I never got on with my father. It’s best to keep away. Cissie will visit you if you ask her.’
The telegram arrived on a Wednesday morning when Kirsty was alone with her son. She opened it dully, knowing full well what it would say, and then she sat for a long time staring at nothing, at years and years of nothing, until the baby demanded her attention and she rose, like an old woman, to attend to him.
‘Why, Jamie-John?’ she asked as she unbuttoned him. ‘Why? He was such a good laddie all his life.’
She helped the toddler sit on his pot and sat down beside him on the carpet. ‘Your daddy’s not coming back, Jamie-John.’
That was when she realized that Jamie’s parents would have to be told. She should, perhaps, have waited for Jessie.
‘I can’t write a note,’ she told the little boy. ‘I wrote a note when you were born, but they never said anything. I can’t write them a note today, I’ll have to see them. Come on. Let’s go for a walk.’
She wrapped the child up warmly and set off across the fields to Pitmirmir farm. The outside of the Cameron cottage was neat and tidy, but there were no rows of cabbages or potatoes or Brussels sprouts growing to keep the family through the winter. Jamie had always planted vegetables for his mother and her large family, and no one had taken on this task when he had gone to the war. Kirsty knocked at the door and eventually it was opened and thick smoke and a blond little boy tumbled out together.
‘Mammy, it’s a wuman wi’ a bairn,’ the boy yelled back into the house.
A moment later Kirsty was face to face with her mother-in-law. She held out her hand to Jamie’s mother.
‘Hello, Mrs Cameron. I’m Kirsty, Jamie’s wife.’
The woman looked at her coldly. In the worn face Kirsty could see the remains of what had once been freshness like Jamie’s. ‘I ken fine who ye are. Whit dae ye want here?’
‘I have bad news, Mrs Cameron. May I come in?’ The truth of the news she was carrying had only just hit Kirsty, and she knew that if she did not sit down she would fall. ‘My Jamie, my Jamie came from this?’ her heart was crying.
Mrs Cameron staggered back into the smoke-filled front room. ‘My laddie,’ she said. ‘It’s my laddie.’
‘Yes,’ began Kirsty . . .
‘Don’t you come in here, bitch, whore! Don’t you come in here! You took my laddie, the only good thing in my life, and you sent him away tae get killt. He wouldnae hurt nothing, my Jamie, a gentle laddie that liked books and flooers and playing wi’ his wee brithers. He’d nivir hae gone tae the war if he’d been happy. He found oot that bastard wisnae his, didn’t he, ye jade? Look at him, look at him. His faither’s face is plainted on him. Ye werenae guid enough fer him, were ye? Jist guid enough tae lie wi’. Get away afore I hit ye, ye slut!’
The door slammed shut with a violence Kirsty had only once before experienced. ‘Slut, whore!’ She had been called that before. Was it more accurate now?
She grabbed Jamie-John’s hand and ran and stumbled across the stubble fields, the child protesting and crying all the way. Jessie met them on her way back from the castle and without asking anything picked up the child and soothed him.
‘There, there, Grandma’s wee darling. It’s all right. Hush now, hush,’ she murmured as she hurried beside her daughter to the security of their cottage.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Oh, Jamie-John, did Mother frighten you?’ Kirsty took her child and held him closely. Over his head she looked up at her mother. ‘Jamie’s dead,’ she said, ‘and I thought I should tell his parents. Oh, Mother, I’ll never forgive myself, never.’
‘Tea,’ said Jessie. ‘Sit down, Kirsty. I’ll see to the child and then we’ll talk.’
*
And so Kirsty was allowed to mourn for Jamie and, in mourning for her husband, she was able to mourn for Hugh. The tears that she had kept hidden two years before flowed now and mixed with the genuine outpouring of grief for Jamie: Jamie, her husband who had never been her husband; Jamie, the poet who had been unable to write poetry. After the grief came anger, anger at the futile waste of young men, of old people, of unborn babies, of the very buildings ravaged by war. She cuddled Jamie-John to her until he protested vehemently and restored her equilibrium.
‘His own mother didn’t know just how good a man he was. She thought I’d tricked him into believing Jamie-John was his child. But he didn’t go because he was unhappy, Mother, did he? He said it was time.’
‘He’d have been called up anyway, dear. You mustn’t feel guilty. He knew you loved him.’
‘I was never a wife to him. I gave him nothing and I don’t even know whether he got the last letters I wrote to him.’
That was the nightmare that Kirsty took to bed with her night after night. If only Jamie had known of her growing love for him. If only he had known that she had wanted to be his wife in every way. Every night, unable to sleep, she sat and stared into the fire.
‘I’m twenty-four years old. I have loved two men and they are both dead. I have a two-year-old son and an ageing mother. How am I going to keep them alive? I am a teacher who is not allowed to teach. I must find a job.’
The future for Kirsty Robertson Cameron looked very bleak.