‘So where did the Patersons go?’ Gil asked, disentangling the various they in the statement.
‘Why they went on to Blackness, like I tellt you, maister,’ said Martin the clerk.
‘Why Blackness? Are they leaving their employment at the Pow Burn?’
‘Well, that’s no what they said,’ said the man. ‘By their conversation, they were still expecting to meet up with Thomas Murray, and they were all to go and talk to some salt-boilers down there.’
The two boys who had been put out sidled back into the house with embarrassed grins, and one of them made his way to the side of the woman who was seated opposite Gil.
‘Mammy,’ he said, in what he clearly imagined to be a whisper, ‘see that man’s big dog?’
‘What’s he doing?’ asked Gil, suddenly aware of the laughter outside in the road. The boy cast him an alarmed glance, and addressed his mother again.
‘He’s been tupping our Fly, Mammy, and she was letting him. Mammy, can I have one of their pups? Can I?’
Chapter Six
‘Dalserf?’ said Lady Cunningham. She waved a hand westward. ‘A mile or two that way, just across the Clyde, but why would you want to go there?’
‘Do you know it?’ Alys asked.
‘It’s on the road between here and Thinacre. It’s Hamilton land, always has been.’
‘Ah.’ Alys digested the fact of a faux pas. She knew that the lands Gil’s father had held, Plotcock and Thinacre, lost to the Cunninghams after the uprising of 1488, were now held by the Hamiltons. This sounded, to judge from her mother-in-law’s tone of voice, as if the two families had been at odds for longer than that. ‘I should like to find out more about Joanna Brownlie,’ she admitted. ‘Her father held Auldton, I think she called it, by Dalserf. He died not long after she was married.’
‘Brownlie.’ Her mother-in-law paused to consider this. ‘In Auldton. It’s a common enough surname in these parts. Who holds it now? No a Brownlie, I think, it’s another name.’
‘That’s likely, I think. Joanna has older brothers, but they were already settled elsewhere when she wedded Matt Crombie,’ Alys supplied. ‘Would any of your household know? Alan, perhaps?’
‘Oh, more than likely. I wonder if they’re kin to the Brownlies over by Thinacre? It’s the same parish, after all.’
Alan Forrest, when summoned, confirmed this idea.
‘Second cousins, they were, mistress, Will Brownlie in Auldton and Tammas at Broomelton just by our bit.’ He paused to consider. ‘Will wedded a Lockhart from this side the river, but she died when her lassie was young. They’d only the three bairns — two boys first, a Tammas again, and Hob, and then the lassie a good while later. A late-come, as they say.’
‘Where are Joanna’s brothers now?’ Alys asked.
‘Now that I couldny say, but likely my wife could,’ suggested Alan, ‘seeing as she’s gossips wi’ Jess Lockhart that dwells by St Andrew’s kirk in the town. Will I send out for her, mistress?’
‘Aye, do that, Alan,’ agreed Lady Cunningham, ‘and then tell Nan I want her, till I get my boots on. I must be off to the horses afore it gets any later.’
Alan’s wife Eppie, drifting across the outer yard with two children in tow and one in her arms, did not appear as a likely source of good information, but when she had settled the two little girls to play house in a corner of the hall, she sat down at Alys’s invitation with her son on her knee and paid more attention to the enquiry than her vague appearance portended.
‘Lockhart,’ she said. ‘Oh, aye, madam, I think Jess mentioned it when the lassie was wedded. What a tale that was! A speak for the whole countryside, it was.’ She pushed a stray lock of waving yellow hair back under her linen kerchief, and bounced the baby. ‘Let me see, what was it Jess said? Joanna Brownlie’s mother’s name was Marion, I think. Aye, Marion Lockhart, and she was a second cousin to Jess’s father and forbye …’ She paused, frowning, and the baby burbled something and tugged at the ends of her kerchief. ‘First cousin to her mother’s good-sister,’ she produced triumphantly. ‘No, baba, leave Mammy’s kerchief alone. Here, chew on a bonnie crust. Num-num-num!’ She produced a baked crust from the pocket of her apron and gave it to her son, who waved it at Alys, burbling again.
‘Would your friend know when this Marion died?’ Alys asked, smiling at the baby.
‘Ten year ago last autumn,’ said Eppie promptly. Her son leaned over and thrust the dried bread at Alys’s mouth. ‘I mind that, for I think Joanna Brownlie’s of an age wi’ me, and I worked it out that she was twelve when she lost her mammy, a sad time for a lassie. Forgive me, madam, he’ll no rest till you take a bite at that. Just pretend, mind.’
Alys obediently pretended to nibble the proffered crust, and the baby beamed at her, received it back and stuffed it into his own mouth.
‘He’s a bonnie fellow. What is his name?’ Alys asked. ‘How old is he?’
‘That’s John. After Alan’s father, you ken. He’ll be a year old in two weeks’ time. You’ve none of your own yet, madam?’
‘I was married only in November.’ Alys managed to ignore the swift glance at her waist. ‘John is a good name. My father has a foster-child who is now a year and a half, and I have care of him. He is also called John.’
‘He’s in Glasgow, is he? You’ll miss him.’
‘I do,’ Alys admitted, and realized it was true. ‘He is just beginning to talk. He says my name already, and his nurse’s, but he had some new words just last week before we came away.’
‘He’ll have more when you get back. Mind you, boys is often late talking,’ said Eppie sagely. She pushed another straggling lock back under her kerchief, and adjusted her clasp on her son. ‘Then they make up for it later.’
‘They do,’ agreed Alys, thinking of the way Gil and her father could talk when they were together. ‘It’s strange, here you are with three lovely bairns, and yet Joanna Brownlie is of an age with you and twice married, and has none.’
‘Aye, poor soul. Mind, her first man could never ha’ done her any good, the way he sickened as soon’s he brought her home, but this one that’s been murdered in the peat-cutting is a different matter, you’d think.’ Eppie glanced round the hall, checked that her daughters were engrossed, and lowered her voice. ‘He’s near as bad as that Fleming that’s sub-steward at Cauldhope. Free wi’ his hands, and full of bold talk. I’ll wager he’s one to insist on his rights.’
‘Mind you, I have heard otherwise about Fleming now.’
‘Oh, aye, now.’ A giggle, a sideways glance, an upward flick of the eyebrows. ‘His culter’s rusted away, all right. That’s three lassies they say he’s persuaded to his bed since St John’s Day last, and then found he couldny stand to do his part. What a judgement on him!’ Another gurgling laugh which made the baby chuckle in sympathy.
‘A judgement?’
‘Well, Agnes Paton in Cauldhope kitchens never had a penny piece for the bairn he gied her last year, that was born at Yule, and he did no better by any of the other lassies. Deserves him right, that’s what I say, and a pity it doesny happen to others.’
‘It’s no way to behave,’ agreed Alys, ‘and him a priest too. And Murray? Is he the same, then? Does he go after other women?’
‘I’ve never heard it,’ admitted Eppie with regret. ‘But you can aye tell, the way he talks, he’d like to. My man says it’s no him that was got out of the peat-digging,’ she recalled. ‘Maybe that’s where he’s vanished away to, he’s gone off to somebody else. Poor Mistress Brownlie.’
‘I wonder what she will do now. Does she have kin? Can she go to them?’
‘Oh, I think she’s well placed up at the coal-heugh, by what you hear,’ said Eppie. ‘She’s got two brothers, I think Jess tellt me at the time, but they’re a good piece older. One of them’s got bairns near her age. They’d maybe no want to take her in.’
‘Two brothers,’ Alys repeated. ‘Where are they, then? I’d have thought they would be here to help her in this trouble.’