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Chapter Sixteen

W e stood facing each other. It had been almost half a year and so much had happened, and it had changed us both. Joan wore her hair scraped tight under her bonnet. There were dark circles under her eyes and her dress sleeves were grubby. Her skin was rough. She was thinner. She was not the old, proud Joan that I knew.

‘I should never have written to you,’ I said. ‘It was not an invitation for you to come and find me.’

‘Sister, I am sorry,’ she replied, the words rushing out. ‘I know I’m the last person you want to see, but I had to come. Much has happened.’

Something bad. I could tell by the way she spoke, rapid and breathless. Was it Spencer? Had he returned? Or had Da hurt Ma? I should never have left.

‘Tell me now,’ I urged her.

‘You have ruined our mother and father with your disappearing act,’ she said, tears springing to her eyes. ‘We are the talk of the tea men. There were rumours you’d run off to find Spencer and stolen some money from Da’s stash. Folk were calling on Da at all times of the day and night to check nothing had been taken. Now they are saying Ma and Da are not to be trusted, if they can’t keep their own daughter in check. Marrying out of fishing, to a rogue like Spencer, then both of you disappearing altogether. Smuggling is all about trust, Maggie. They don’t trust us any more. Da’s getting the cold shoulder from everyone in the Mussel Inn, and now he’s either out on that boat or sitting in his chair, drinking. Ma thinks he’ll come a cropper at sea if he doesn’t stop and she will end up having to work at Eskmills. I came to find you, in desperation.’ Joan pulled a kerchief from her sleeve and wiped her eyes and nose. The kerchief was as grubby as her sleeves, and I felt the most terrible pity for her. And the most terrible guilt.

‘I ran away because of you,’ I told her.

‘I know it, and I felt awful that morning when I woke up and you were gone. I’ve been a bad sister. I did the worst thing a sister can do.’

‘So when you say I have ruined Ma and Da, what you mean is we have ruined Ma and Da,’ I retorted. ‘And I don’t even care if I have ruined Da, for he is rotten already. But you, Joan Dickson, ruined my marriage.’ I folded my arms.

‘I am a wicked girl,’ she sobbed.

‘Why Spencer? Of all the men in Musselburgh, why my very own husband?’ I started to cry myself, I couldn’t help it – all the emotions I had forced away were here now, pouring from me. It was the sight of her. The sound of her, the way she clicked her jaw and sniffed.

‘I think I was taken by great passions,’ she heaved out. ‘Of anger and lust and greed. I am weak, Maggie. I have all the wicked traits they preach against in kirk.’

I shook my head at this truly sorry sight.

Then she lifted her head. ‘But don’t blame me for everything,’ she begged. ‘I did not send you packing; you decided to go. You alone. And I had to go back home and tell Ma and Da and pretend I had no idea why.’

I took a deep breath and gathered myself together to ask the dreaded question. Deep in my belly, the babe flickered in anticipation.

‘Has there been any word from Spencer?’ I asked. ‘Anything from the sailors. Rumours even?’

‘Folks say he was taken onto a big ship that was headed south to help fight a war,’ she said. ‘Far south. Spain.’

Oh! The babe kicked at that.

‘Spencer cannot fight a war,’ I cried. ‘Spencer can’t fire guns or defend himself from navy men. He will die. He will drown.’

‘You still love him then,’ Joan said.

I had not thought so, until these last days. I had thought I hated him. But I carried his child. His kicking child. Both sailing their own waters now, miles from each other.

‘I am Spencer’s wife,’ I said.

Joan stuffed her kerchief back into her dress sleeve.

‘And you had a caper with him in my bed, didn’t you? When you were supposed to be at choir.’

She nodded.

‘And he told you all sorts of stories about the ladies in Gothenburg and how fancy and sophisticated they are.’

‘He did, and it made me feel fancy and sophisticated too, and it was exactly what I needed to hear. Oh but, Maggie, it was just what you needed to hear too. You were mibbie a bit green to believe he would stay true to you.’

Oh, I had been green all right. Perhaps I ought to forget all about him. But then what would I tell the baby when it asked about its da? A hero lost at sea? Or that one day Daddy might be back. Any day now.

‘You are doing well for yourself now, Maggie, aren’t you, though?’ Joan interrupted my thoughts, as she’d always had a habit of doing. ‘To afford a letter sent by post.’

‘I am doing all right,’ I agreed.

She screwed up her face.

‘There’s something new about you, though. You look well. Wholesome. It must be the change in the air.’

Oh God, she will guess, she will guess. ‘I am the same as I ever was,’ I huffed, pulling my shawl about me.

But Joan was undeterred. She came closer – so close I could feel her breath on my face. She smelled like home: of old smoke and old fishing lines. I must have smelled the same once. She put her finger on my chin and tilted my face up.

‘Oh, you are wearing rouge, you wench!’ she shrieked. ‘Rouge right there, on your cheeks. ‘Are you a whore, Maggie? Is that what’s become of you in Kelso?’

‘I am not a whore, you cheeky cow,’ I told her. ‘I found some rouge lying around, left by another patron at the inn where I live. And how long have you been in Kelso anyway?’

She blushed. ‘A couple of days,’ she admitted. ‘I arrived at the River Inn, but I couldn’t face speaking to you.’

‘So where have you been sleeping?’

‘Two nights under the stars,’ she said. ‘When I told Ma I was coming to find you, she gave me ten shillings, but I did not want to waste them.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ Joan was impossible. ‘Anything could have happened to you. Men are passing in and out of this town all the time. Thieves and runaways, and all sorts. And besides all that, there are parish officers who police the town for immoral behaviour, and there’s a House of Correction down the road where you’d be sent as a vagrant.’

‘Well, I’m a vagrant no more,’ she replied firmly. ‘I’ve found you. So we can be together now, can’t we? You and I. Sisters again.’ She took my hands in hers then and squeezed them.

My sister had betrayed me, but it was far more Spencer’s fault than Joan’s. She had been an idiot, but her trip to find me was her way of trying to make things right. I could not turn her away. I could not risk the silly girl being picked up by the parish. She would not last a night in a jail. I would have to take her into my room with me. Even if it was only for a few days. Then I would send Joan home and get on my way to London.

But how I would hide my pregnancy from her, and avoid being dragged home to have the baby and live with Ma and Da for the rest of my days, I did not know.

I took Joan back to the River Inn and she was welcomed into the bosom of the place, for no one knew my history with her and they thought her a devoted sister indeed who had come to join me. Joan gave Mrs Baxter one of her shillings and that was her booked in for the week, and I was determined she would be on her way back up the road after that. I knew Ma’s motives – Joan’s too – were not for my welfare, but because they needed to show everyone that I was safely returned. I hadn’t thought it through, hadn’t really cared about the consequences of my running away. But they had been severe.

Joan did not take to life at the River Inn as I had. She did not like the rough edge of the men in the parlour, for they leered at her in a way she had not been leered at before, and far more than they leered at me. Back home, Da’s reputation ensured that local lads did not really mess us about. Here, we were only really under the protection of the Baxters. And the patrons were not handsome charmers like Spencer. They were men of the road, some of them running from gambling debts or the law, and others desperate for the sight of a woman.

Joan would spend her days aimlessly wandering the market, coming back talking of lengths of cotton chintz, candlesticks, china cups and buttons, but only in a half-hearted way, as she knew she had no hope of affording such goods. Ma’s shillings were emergency monies, not to be frittered.

I did not give her a glimpse of the key around my neck or make any mention of the locked drawer that stood between our beds. I did not quite trust my own sister not to bolt with my savings, back home or to London, or anywhere.

Joan spent her evenings sitting edgily in the parlour for only as long as it took to finish a small plate of supper, before heading back to our room. At night she would lie in her bed and I in mine, and we would talk. The dark made us honest.

‘I do not much fancy it here.’ That was her favourite thing to say.

‘Are you not enjoying seeing the world a bit?’ I finally asked. ‘You always told me you’d marry a man of the world. You won’t find many of them in Fisherrow.’

‘I do want a fine man,’ she said. ‘A mill owner or a landowner’s son. The men I’ve seen so far here all seem to be on the make. Heading south to make a fortune, or trading this and trading that. I want the sort of man who is already made or has a decent job. And mibbie there aren’t any in Fisherrow, but there are one or two in Musselburgh.’

Ah, Joan had finally set her sights on someone back home. That explained her restlessness. I did not probe her more, but it made sense. Her talk was all of going home and making sure Ma was all right. Of how we would all have to stick together and look after Ma, for she was feared Da would knock her black and blue one of these days. Each time Joan opened her mouth, my heart sank. I felt myself being pulled back to Fisherrow, helplessly fighting the drag. It was the drone of her voice, the catch in her throat. As I drifted off to sleep I was there in the box-bed. I was five, or twelve, or fifteen again. Then I was back in my marriage bed, with Spencer – only Joan had spoiled it for us.

Then there was a snake. It would coil up from under the bed, tongue flickering, tasting the air. I would wake up with a start, my hand on my throat, trying to pull the serpent off me. Drenched in sweat.

‘You are talking in your sleep,’ Joan would murmur. ‘Why have you started doing that?’

I kept my secret from her for no more than a couple of weeks.

I had been down in the stables, talking to Jack the ostler again, begging him for any news of my coachman. ‘Have any of the other drivers seen him, or heard news of where he may be?’ I asked.

‘I will enquire,’ Jack promised, looking wary. ‘But if you’re planning on leaving, you’d better tell the Baxters first. You’re a good pair of hands to them.’

He had thrown me, truth be told, with that remark. I didn’t want to tell anyone any of my plans, for it never bode well for me. I nodded, folding my arms in front of me. Absent-mindedly I must have stroked or patted my belly. Upstairs, Joan had been watching me from the window, wondering, no doubt, why I was talking to the stable boy.

When I got back to the room she stood, hands clenched at her sides. She had been through my belongings. She had pulled my creel from under my bed and had gone through it. The linen bolt, pure white and clean, now lay spread across my bed. The box of pins opened. The bonnet beside it.

She regarded me with fresh eyes, narrow and suspicious, resting on my belly.

‘You are fat,’ she said. ‘Fat with a child.’

‘That’s no one’s business but mine,’ I replied.

‘Let me see,’ she insisted, coming towards me and putting her hands on me. She felt me, her hands pressing against me. ‘You are far gone,’ she gasped, leaping back. She looked scared.

‘I am not so far gone,’ I told her. ‘I am a few months gone, that’s all.’

She shook her head and cupped her hands over my stomach again.

‘Maggie, you are well gone. That smock hides it, but your breasts are huge and your belly’s like a turnip.’

‘What do you know about these matters?’ I retorted. ‘Nothing. You are no midwife. You know nothing of birthing.’

‘I’ve seen plenty of the fishwives at the end of their pregnancies,’ she said. ‘And that is what you look like. When did you last bleed? We need to work it out.’

‘I’ve another three months to go,’ I told her. ‘But it must stay a secret. Things are strict here. The Baxters think me unwed. They are under scrutiny from the parish officers, who don’t like this inn. The officials think it immoral, with all the comings and goings of folk, and they keep a close eye on all of us. If anyone was to suspect I was with child, it would be disastrous. I can’t support the child myself, with no husband. I could be put in the House of Correction, Joan.’

‘But you are married,’ she said. ‘You have done nothing wrong. Simply tell the truth.’

‘How could I do that?’ I cried. ‘I would be whipped for such lies. I have got myself into a bit of mess, that much is true, but I will get myself out of it, just as I have always looked after myself.’

‘Well, we need to go home and that is all there is to it.’

‘No, Joan. You go home and I am going to London. That is my plan. Your coming here has not changed it one bit.’

‘I am going nowhere yet,’ she retorted.

I said nothing, but let Joan believe she was taking charge. I let her fuss about me and put me to my bed that night. I confess I let her do all of it with no complaint. I felt exhausted. So I was relieved to lie in bed and let Joan bring me bread soaked in milk. She vowed not to tell the Baxters yet, and I knew she wouldn’t, for she felt exactly as I did. We did not want them – or anyone else in Kelso – deciding our fates.

We lived like this, oddly, for a week or so. When I say ‘oddly’, I mean that we lived side by side as we once had, but with something between us. Not merely the babe. But something unsettled, as though we were back to being enemies again. My exhaustion continued. My feet ached and my belly did too. It would start to tighten, with a dull ache that spread down the length of me; then just as I began to wonder what was causing the ache, it would subside.