‘I shan’t go to school today,’ said Martha, ‘but by tomorrow, wait till you see, I’ll be as right as ever. The house can do without cleaning today.’
The mouth relaxed a little farther.
‘The doctor thinks ye’ve some muckle to dae,’ said Aunt Josephine. ‘“Hoots, awa’, doctor,” I says, she’s managin’ grand.” “O ay, grand, “he says, “but ye’d better get a woman in to notice you.”’
‘If only she would,’ thought Martha swiftly. ‘O God, I’m tired.’ But she read the note of entreaty in Aunt Josephine’s voice.
‘We don’t want a woman, do we?’ she said.
The grimness went quite away from Miss Josephine’s mouth.
‘It gings clean by my doors,’ she said, ‘fat’n a way fowk can like to hae strangers aboot them. They’re like the craws amang the wifie’s tatties. I mind fine, fan I was stayin’ wi’ that cousin o’ yer grandpa’s, her that was terrible ill, there was twa fee’d weemen in the hoose − a cook an’ a hoosemaid. I crocheted a cap to the hoosemaid, but nae to the cook. I didna dae richt. I should ’a’ gi’en her a cap tae. But she was sic a discontented besom. She micht ’a’ been mair contented if she had gotten a cap.’
Its natural pleasant line was restored to Aunt Josephine’s mouth. She talked gaily on of the fee’d woman of half a century before and forgot the project to fee a woman on her own behalf.
‘Matty and me’ll jist scutter awa’,’ she said to the doctor. ‘Her play’ll seen be here. We’ll manage grand.’
He looked at the girl’s sunken eyes. They were not sunken because of Aunt Josephine, nor yet on account of the bairns at Slack of Mar: but that was her own affair.
‘Term’s nearly over,’ she said. ‘Of course we’ll manage.’
‘It can’t be for long,’ he told her as she saw him out.
But they had said that so often. The holidays came and Miss Leggatt was still smiling and serene, and viewed her growing kail plants with satisfaction; and Martha drew in her lip and wondered what was to happen about her visit to Liverpool. That visit had been promised for a year, and for a year she had luxuriated in the thought of it. Now − ? Aunt Jean and Aunt Leebie came occasionally to Crannochie, though Aunt Leebie was fragile now and ailing nearly all the time. ‘Leebie’ll dee first o’ us a’,’ Aunt Josephine had always said; and Leebie herself accepted the probability as a distinction. It was a melancholy business for her to come and look on Josephine usurping, as it were, her right. She came but seldom. Aunt Jean came, brusque and brief, and found rust on the pan lids. Aunt Margot came, once only, harassed with flesh. But none of them offered to relieve Martha, and she was too proud to ask.
‘She could get a body in for a whilie, surely,’ said Emmeline, who knew of the invitation to Liverpool.
‘She wouldn’t like it,’ Martha said.
‘Oh well, ye’ll need to humour her. She’s gey far on her way,’ Emmeline responded, and thought no more about it.
‘There’s mair last in her nor a body wad ’a’ thocht,’ said Geordie, who did not know of the Liverpool project but had overheard the last few words between his wife and his daughter before the latter left again for Crannochie. He was wanting his daughter home. Matty might have her head stuffed with queer notions, but he liked her presence about the doors.
‘Fat way wad she nae get a wumman?’ he asked Emmeline. ‘Has she nae the siller?’
‘O ay, she has the siller, but she has mair, she has the sense to keep it. What ill-will hae ye at Matty’s bidin’ wi’ her?’
‘O, nane ava’, but that the lassie wad need her holiday.’
‘Holiday eneuch for her to be awa’ fae the geets, surely to peace,’ said Emmeline. Remembering a disclosure Martha had inadvertently made anent Aunt Josephine’s marketing, however, she added, ‘But she’s funny wi’ her cash.’
‘We’re a’ funny wi’ something,’ Geordie answered, stretching his legs out in the sun. Matty, he reflected, was funny with her notions about book-learning, and sleeping in the field − ‘like the nowt,’ he thought − and now there was Madge trying on the same caper; and Emmeline was funny with her notions about other folk’s bairns. There he paused, ruminating.
Emmeline had designs upon another baby boy.
Unfair, Geordie pondered, to bring another bairn there without even telling Matty. It was for Matty’s sake the others had been sent away, and Matty, it was to be expected, would not be long an absentee from home.
On Martha’s next visit home, meeting her in the field on her way to the house, he told her of her mother’s intention.
Martha’s anger blazed. She broke out upon her mother.
‘Where are you getting him?’ she asked, after having intimated her displeasure. Some illegitimate outcast, she supposed.
‘Hingin’ on a nail i’ the moss,’ said Emmeline shortly.
Martha could be conclusive too.
‘Well, mind,’ she said, ‘if you bring that child here and you fall ill again, I won’t look after him. So you can please yourself. I mean it, mind.’
‘Ye’re terrible short i’ the trot the day,’ said Emmeline.
Martha’s anger blazed again.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I want to know what my bed’s doing out in the field.’
‘Oh, is’t oot? That’s Madge, the randy. Fancy nae bringin’ it in a’ day. That’s her sweirness −’
‘Do you mean to tell me that Madge is sleeping in my bed?’
‘Weel, fat’s a’ the temper for? Ye did it yersel! Why sudna she?’
‘It’s my bed,’ cried Martha passionately. ‘She can take her own bed outside.’
‘Yon lumber o’ a thing −’
‘And she’s had my sheets. Hasn’t she? I know she has −’
‘The sheets’ll wash, surely to peace.’
‘I’ll never sleep in them again after her.’
‘Weel, dinna, then. Ye wad think she was a soo.’
‘She’s worse,’ cried Martha in a transport of rage; she had no idea that she hated Madge so much; and the girl herself coming in at the moment, she emptied out the cataracts of her wrath.
Madge gave her a contemptuous stare and began to spread a bit of oatcake with jam. She did not trouble herself to answer back. There was something horrible in her self-possession.
‘Mind you about that infant, mother,’ said Martha, swinging round
