Chapter Five

Assignations

There’s not a bonnie flower that springs

By fountain, shaw, or green,

There’s not a bonnie bird that sings

But minds me o’ my Jean.

The following week, a message came from Ayr to say that the singing teacher was indisposed, having contracted a fever of some kind and lost his voice entirely. Between that, and various more pressing engagements that had to be fulfilled as soon as he was well, it was well into spring before the singing school resumed, before Robert Burns and Jean Armour could do more than pass the time of day with one another.

Jean would not think of going alone to such an assignation, if assignation it could be called. It was one thing to sit in the dark of the fause-house with Rab Mossgiel where nobody could see them, but this was very public. It was supposed to be an innocent enough gathering, a conversation between friends, but it felt like something more, something illicit, and she had a tremor of excitement at the thought that Rab wanted to see her in particular. But Jean would have thought shame to go alone. There had to be a chaperone. And even then it was daring and somewhat inadvisable. The Miller sisters had given off fancying Rab altogether, the reason being that there was a new baby in the parish. Betty Paton had just given birth to a healthy girl child, Bess. She had named Robert Burns in Mossgiel as the father and Rab had admitted his culpability in the kirk. He had agreed to support mother and child, but he had also written a poem to celebrate the event, calling the infant the sweet fruit o’ mony a merry dint. The kirk elders were outraged.

The belles had pretended shock and surprise at the bawdry of it, though they had all giggled over the tale when one or two of the lads had repeated the verses in their hearing. There still seemed to be no question of Rab marrying the lass, but he had offered to bring the child to Mossgiel as soon as she was weaned, to be brought up by his mother and his sisters, so that Betty Paton might not be encumbered with an unsought-for daughter and might be able to find a man willing to marry her.

‘Aye,’ said Jean’s mother drily, when she heard the news. ‘ And it’ll be the women of the family who’ll have all the work of minding the wean!’

But at least Rab had not denied his child or his fault, and there was, so Jean thought, something praiseworthy about a man who would admit to his own mistakes so readily. Too many lads were quick to blame the lass for ‘getting herself with child’ and would deny everything, branding the woman a whore and leaving her to suffer the consequences, unless the minister and his elders might be able to prove otherwise. Then the kirk would do everything possible to force a marriage or at least force some acknowledgment of fatherhood and responsibility. One man had staunchly refused to accept any responsibility for a second baby borne by the same woman, loudly proclaiming before the kirk session that he had lain with her more than nine and a half months previously, and that ‘no woman gets more than nine months for the second child.’ There might even have been some truth in it, as Jean’s mother had knowingly observed. But for a lad to claim responsibility as readily as Rab seemed evidence of his good nature, if nothing else.

The way it went when a lad had his eye on a lass and wanted to know her better, was this: he would choose a public house, although it must be a respectable kind of a place such as the Whitefoord Arms, a place where a young woman might not be ashamed to be seen, and he must arrange a meeting there, just openly enough – perhaps in some quiet but visible snug – so that people could see without really eavesdropping upon the conversation. There was no use going into one of the back rooms, because everyone knew what that meant, and they would gossip endlessly about it, and that would be the girl’s good name gone forever. Mostly a lad would take a crony with him, and the girl would always be accompanied by a close female friend. That way, the lads and the lasses could sit and converse two by two, so that no suspicion of improper behaviour could fall on them, the one pair chaperoning the other. It was a good way to start a respectable courtship. You could fall acquainted, slowly and carefully, and extricate yourself with your reputation still intact if all did not go as well as you hoped.

Jean sometimes wondered how it must be for the gentry who, in spite of their big houses, had no recourse to such kindly contrivances, but who barely seemed to know each other before embarking on a marriage that all too often was arranged by their parents, with scant regard for the feelings of the young people involved. More often than not it seemed to be a financial arrangement with the tocher – the dowry – of more importance than any mutual affection. But perhaps they found their own ways and means of circumventing supervision. Big houses and big gardens must afford some privacy. And after all, the protection afforded by sedate meetings only lasted for a short time.

The previous year, gossip had been rife about James Montgomerie of Coilsfield House that lay between the two towns of Mauchline and Tarbolton. He and his brother were close friends of Gavin Hamilton and acquaintances of Robert Burns as well. If folk loved to spread rumours about their neighbours, there was something even more enticing about scandal among the nabbery. James was a soldier, a big, handsome young man of great charm and energy. He was the youngest brother of Hugh Montgomerie of Coilsfield, also a military man – Sojer Hugh they called him. James had been brought up at Coilsfield. The house stood on the banks of the River Ayr, and when James was not engaged on his military activities, he would come home to Coilsfield where his sociable elder brother would indulge him and his friends with such balls and parties as he thought fit to host. Perhaps Hugh hoped to find a suitable wife for his young brother. Soon it was whispered, and then not even whispered but openly discussed in the streets and change houses of Mauchline and Tarbolton, that charming James had found himself a lovely young wife.

Unfortunately, she was the wife of another man.

Her name was Eleanora Maxwell Campbell of Skerrington House near Cumnock, not far from Mauchline – a pretty name for an accomplished young woman. Some six years previously, Eleanora had married Charles Maxwell, from Dumfries, but the marriage had proved to be unhappy. Jean had seen Eleanora occasionally in the town, visiting the clock-maker or the draper perhaps, or passing through on her way elsewhere, and had envied her fine clothes. But Eleanora seemed doomed to disappointment in life and in love. Her father was something of a spendthrift and so was her brother, who had died while still a young man. Both had been declared insolvent, living on promises and loans. Eleanora, with only a little money of her own from her mother, had inherited the Skerrington estate upon their deaths, but in desperation and in haste, she had then married Charles, believing that his declared income of £500 a year would help her to avoid penury. It was a lie, and she was left to repent her misjudgement at leisure. He had no such sum, but perhaps he had expected a bigger dowry. Perhaps, it was whispered in the town, they had misled each other as to the size of their respective fortunes. However it was, the estate was sequestrated and Charles proceeded to spend whatever small amounts he could get his hands on of what was left of his wife’s inheritance and to treat her with casual disdain, gallivanting here and there while she cared for their two children. She had few protectors in the world other than Gavin Hamilton of Mauchline. He was a good friend to her and acted as factor on the Skerrington estate, attempting to save it from the worst of her husband’s depredations and debts, while mediating as best he could between the perennially warring couple. Perhaps, thought Jean, it was easier to be at war with your spouse in a large house. At least escape would be possible.

While the unhappy couple were visiting Coilsfield House, Eleanora met and was instantly charmed by James Montgomerie. It happened, so it was reported by some of the servants, while her husband was slumbering in Hugh Montgomerie’s library, having imbibed not wisely, but much too well, of his host’s fine claret, and James came upon a weeping Eleanora in the garden. Foolishly, perhaps, James had managed to arrange a series of assignations with Eleanora. The affair had a not-unexpected conclusion when Eleanora fell pregnant with James’s child and when Charles, who had not gone near his wife for some months, realised that he had been cuckolded. Fearing for his mistress’s safety, for Charles was beyond enraged, James had arranged for her to take shelter with sympathetic friends in Paisley. It was here that she had given birth to a son, named James for his father, in November of 1784, while the Burns family were experiencing their first harsh winter in Mossgiel.

The denouement of the drama had been a nine days’ wonder and the subject of intense speculation, not to say entertainment, in Mauchline and Tarbolton, with the Coilsfield servants reporting that Charlie Maxwell had ridden to Coilsfield and hammered on the big front door, shouting for James Montgomerie to come out and face him like a man. James, nothing if not brave, might even have obliged, and then there would have been ‘wigs on the green’ as they said, but he was not at home and the offended husband suspected, with good reason, that he was with Eleanora in Paisley. The servants had threatened to set the dogs on him but Sojer Hugh, a man of great presence and authority, had come out, sent his men away and spoken to Maxwell firmly but quietly, putting an arm round his shoulders, and eventually leading him inside, where he was persuaded to sit beside the fire, drink more claret and weep about the perfidy of women.

The fact of the matter was that Hugh – while despising Charlie Maxwell somewhat – was not particularly happy with James, who had got into this kind of scrape before and would probably do the same thing all over again. Hugh had succeeded in pouring oil on troubled waters and had persuaded Charles Maxwell to go back to Skerrington to await developments. Eleanora, meanwhile, had steadfastly refused to return to her husband, but had taken refuge with friends in Riccarton near Kilmarnock, along with her baby, a big, healthy boy.

While all this was taking place at Coilsfield and beyond, Robert Burns and John Blane had made much more conventional arrangements to meet up with Jean Armour and her friend Christina Morton before the singing school. For a few weeks they spent a pleasant hour, talking together in the snug at the Whitefoord Arms. Christina was more fond of Rab than she was of John, but by now it was clear to her that Rab had eyes only for her friend and there was nothing to be done about that. Since she was a smart and practical girl, not given to repining about what she could not change, she decided to give Jean every chance to get to know Rab better, although not without a pang of worry on her friend’s behalf.

Jean still had an inkling that Rab might be a chancy young man who might slip away from a girl at time of need, for all that he had so readily acknowledged his first child. But there was all the difference in the world between giving a home to a sweet wee daughter when you had your mother and sisters to shoulder the burden of responsibility, and making hearth and home for wife and wean. But although Rab intrigued her, although she was undeniably attracted to him, she resolved that she would not be as easily persuaded as some.

The two by two meetings soon began to pall, however, mostly because Christina began to resent wasting the summer months in John Blane’s company, even to please Jean and Rab. She had her eyes on a better match than a farm servant at Mossgiel. She had fancied Robert Paterson ever since they sat in the schoolroom together and he put burrs in her hair, to her pretended outrage. Paterson kept the draper and general merchant’s shop in the town alongside his widowed mother, and the belles were frequent customers, although even more frequent browsers, who seldom had the wherewithal to buy all that they wanted.

The shop kept linens, everyday woollen fabrics and sometimes silks, although that was a luxury seldom seen in the town and must generally be sent for if wanted. There were pretty printed cottons or muslins, much favoured by the girls for summer gowns. There were common woollen shawls, although such items were mostly homemade; gorgeous stockings with clocks worked onto them at the ankle; and stays, which very intimate items of clothing were kept well hidden away by Mistress Paterson and only brought out when requested. Fine lace was expensive these days and so scarce as to be impossible to find, even if you could afford it, but you could sometimes get Cluny or Torchon in the shop if you were lucky. Good gloves were taxed out of existence or in the case of French gloves, utterly unattainable. But Paterson had haberdashery of all kinds, and you might find silk satin ribbons in a multitude of colours to trim a bonnet, or good, affordable worsted tape, or perhaps a yard or two of trim recovered from an old gown. Mistress Paterson herself was not above scavenging when times were hard, washing what she could and selling second or third hand trims in the shop. There were, besides, glass, brass and bone buttons, threads of all kinds and colours, needles and pins, thread winders and needle cases and a hundred other small necessities of everyday life.

‘Things you could not bear to live without,’ Christina called them. Among these things she numbered Robert Paterson.

She tried to persuade her reluctant beau to come to the Whitefoord Arms, but he said he was too busy in the shop, and besides, he could settle his heart on no woman. If he liked a lass, he would call her a ‘grand cracker’, but there were a number of grand crackers who seemed to be tenants of his heart and he was never quite able to make up his mind to attach himself to any single one of them.

‘He’s far too fond of the siller. If her tocher is good enough, he might fall in love with her on account of it.’

This was what Rab remarked privately to Jean, when they had arrived fortuitously early in the snug at the Whitefoord Arms. Christina was always late these days and John Blane had been finishing a job out at the farm, so Rab had left without him, hoping perhaps to get Jean to himself for a while.

‘He seems fond enough of Chrissie. And I know she likes him fine. Besides, she’ll have a tocher and a good one. Her parents are not short of money.’

‘Well, maybe he is fond of her and maybe not, but tell your friend he’s not a lad to be trusted.’

Jean laughed. ‘And you are?’

‘I’m as trustworthy as the next man, Jeany. And I suppose that’s all that can be said about any of us.’

‘I suppose it is.’

The way he said it made her feel suddenly sad. He must have seen her face fall, the way he seemed to notice everything about her.

‘I’m sorry, Jeany. And who knows? If the right lass comes along…’