SCENE SEVEN
(All except ELLEN. TOTTIE brandishing a letter, LIZA, desperate, furious, trying to get it back. A silent, quite vicious struggle, shoving, wrestling, pinching, kicking. And TOTTIE wins)
LIZA: Give it me.
TOTTIE: No.
LIZA: It’s mine.
TOTTIE: No.
LIZA: It’s not yours.
TOTTIE: Sas-katch-e-wan.
LIZA: It’s not yours.
TOTTIE: My daddy’s been away for a hundred year.
LIZA: You can’t read anyway.
TOTTIE: I can so, I can.
Collop Monday,
Pancake Tuesday,
Ash Wednesday,
Bloody Thursday.
Lang Friday.
Hey for Saturday afternoon;
Hey for Sunday at twelve o’clock,
Whan a’ the plum puddings jump out o the pot.
(Throughout this recitation LIZA is trying to shut her up, shout her down:)
LIZA: That’s not reading. You can’t read. Daftie! You can’t read,
(TOTTIE is upset. LIZA beginning — slightly — to take pity on her, but still irritated and fearful for her letter. A moment’s pause. TOTTIE gets out the letter — keeping it well away from LIZA’S snatching hands, begins to ‘read’ it:)
TOTTIE; (‘reading’ the letter)
‘Here’s tae ye a’ yer days
Plenty meat and plenty claes
Plenty porridge and a horn spoon.
And another tattie when a’s done.’ ( … ) I can so, I can read.
LIZA: Here. I’ll read it to you. ( … ) It’s a story. There’s a story in the letter — from Steenie, my brother. I’ll read you the story.
(Very slowly TOTTIE gives in, gives LIZA the letter. As LIZA opens the letter TOTTIE suddenly changes mood, all excitement, all smiles, jumps, dances about, laughing, yelling, yelling at the top of her voice)
TOTTIE: Hey-ey! Oooo-oh! Hey-ey! Liza’s got a letter. Liza’s reading a letter. A letter. A story. A story. A letter. Sas-katch- e-wan!
(They all come forward, as for a story: it is, for them)
LIZA: (reads) ‘Dear Sister: I am writing letting you know I am in good health. The country is good if a man keeps his health. The land costs eleven shillings and thruppence an acre, but we must take up our axes and cut down the trees. Should he not take land, a man gets four shillings a day and his meat which is no bad wage. Donald McPhail is here, I am staying with him still, he has sixty acres, and Walter Brotherston from Coldstream, one hundred acres.
‘The winter here is long. The ice floats in the lake like so many peats, and some the size of a house. The Indians say that Hell is made of snow and ice, and they say that heaven is alive with buffalo. There is buffalo everywhere for eating, they belong to no master. There are no masters here, and no stewards, and no pride. If a man be civil he is respected. I have dined with gentlemen and been asked to say the grace. My — (She stops dead, astonished) my wife —’
(They wait for enlightenment, amused, curious)
LIZA: (reads) ‘My wife Emily joins with me in her best respects to you. This letter is brought by her father, Mr Monroe, who is going home to Edinburgh owing to his health.’
(They wait — surely there’s more?)
LIZA: (reads) ‘Your loving brother, Steenie.’
(But surely there’s more?)
LIZA: (reads) ‘PS. Tell John Mackintosh if he comes he need bring no axes, just the clothes for the voyage.’
(LIZA stares at the letter, nonplussed, lonely)
TOTTIE: (softly) Buffalo… Buffalo…
MAGGIE: Men!
SARA: But it’s a grand letter, Liza, and grand news of Steenie. You must write to the wife, you’ll get more crack from his wife.
JENNY: (suddenly, merrily, jigging about)
Woo’d and married and a’
Kissed and carried awa!
(She and TOTTIE jigging about, trying to get LIZA to jog/dance also — but LIZA is still taking in the news of the letter, half-thrilled at the news, at any news, half let-down… bewildered… at the gaps in the news, at the fact that Steenie, now married, belongs to her less. TOTTIE and JENNY dance around her, jostle, even push her, but she doesn’t join in)
TOTTIE, JENNY:
And is no the bride well off
That’s woo’d and married and a’!
(They’re all thinking over the news. LIZA is silent, holding her letter, tracing the seal, the writing, with her finger. She pays only intermittent attention to the ensuing conversation, goes off to some quiet corner to sit with her letter, or goes offstage)
SARA: Walter Brotherston! A hundred acres! (She starts to laugh) Well, he was a young limmer and no mistake! Remember the night of that kirn at Westlea?
MAGGIE: (frosty) I certainly do.
SARA: (enjoying herself) There were half a dozen bairns — the wee ones, just babies — sleeping in the hay at the farthest end of the barn. Oh, they were good as gold, not a cheep out of them, and of course around dawn everyone started for home, and the mothers were tired out, and the babies sleeping like the dead. So it wasn’t till later, till they were all home, that they found out what Walter had done!
MAGGIE: He should have been whipped!
SARA: It wasn’t just him, it was Jamie as well. They’d changed the babies round. They’d changed all the clothes, the bonnets and shawls. Six babies! — and all of them home with the wrong mother!
JENNY: But they’d notice, the mothers!
SARA: (laughing) Eventually! What a squawking and screeching across the fields — it sounded like a fox had got amongst the hens.
MAGGIE: (muttering under SARA’s words) A swearing scandal, that’s what it was!
SARA: The blacksmith’s bairn was away up the hill with the shepherd and his wife! And Maggie’s wee Tam ended up in the village, who was he with again, Maggie, was it Phoebe?
MAGGIE: (grim) I went to feed and change my bairn — and he’d turned into a lassie! Oh, you can laugh. But there’s many a baby been changed by the Gyptians — so what was I to think? He was never a Christian that Walter Brotherston — and neither’s that scoundrel Jamie Dodds. They aye watch him at the kirk! He’ll more likely take money out the plate than put anything in.
JENNY: And when he does put something in, it’s only a halfpenny.
SARA: There’s plenty he gives that no one knows of. He gives to the needy. Many a time.
MAGGIE: (grudgingly) He’s a grand worker. I’ll grant you that.
SARA: Ay. ( … ) The maister will be keeping him on, likely.
(A pause. These days they are all nagged by the same thought)
SARA: Has he spoken to Andra yet, the maister?
MAGGIE: No. Not yet. Has he spoken to you?
SARA: No.
JENNY: You don’t need to fret, Sara. Ellen said you were biding on.
SARA: Well, he hasn’t spoken yet.
MAGGIE: Maybe he’s waiting till he’s paid his rents. He’ll be paying the rents on Friday — down at the inn. They say the Marquis’ll be there to collect in person this year. And the usual grand dinner for the tenants.
JENNY: Hare soup. And goose. And plum pudding. And whisky ‘as required’.
(They dwell on this in silence. The conversation is becoming des ultory, the scene ends (and light fades) quietly, conversationally)
JENNY: The chimneypiece at the inn takes up most of one wall. I’ve seen it from the yard, I’ve keeked through the window. They don’t need candles with a blaze like yon.
(They dwell on this too)
TOTTIE: Plum pudding. Buffalo.
JENNY: I wish I was a hedgehog… or a frog…
TOTTIE: You’re a cuckoo!
JENNY: I wish I was. A frog. A cuckoo. I don’t know what they do in the winter, those beasts. But you never see them working the fields.
(Everyone has left by now, except TOTTIE)
Buffalo, buffalo, run up to heaven
For they want you all dead.
And you’ll soon be all gone.
(Suddenly boisterous) Hey for Sunday at twelve o’clock
When all the buffalo jump out the pot!
I can read, I can. I can write, too. I can write a grand letter. ‘Dear Kello, what fettle? I am in good fettle, hope this finds you in the same. Did you see me in the glass? I saw you in the glass when the clock struck twelve. I want a clock that strikes twelve. I want to lie down right, not leaning up agin the stack. I want a plaidie on the bed, it canna hurt that way. “Come under my plaidie, the night’s going to fa’.”’ (She is maybe almost half-singing the next line, very softly, very low)
Come in frae the cold blast, the drift, and the snaw Come under my plaidie, and lie down beside me There’s room here, dear lassie, believe me, for twa.