‘What about Dougie and Ian?’
‘They are helping look after their parents. Their older sister, Katrine, is in charge. Have you met her yet?’
I shook my head.
‘She’s about my age. Red-headed.’ Bridgit paused. ‘She looks a lot like you, in fact, except she’s much bigger.’
My heart did a clumsy flip-flop like a badly trained acrobat. There it was again – the hint that there might be substance in the claim that the Moirs were related to me.
‘Can we do anything to help?’
‘I was going to offer some of the stew. You can take it along if you like.’ Bridgit knew I had been looking for a chance to meet the Moirs at home for weeks now.
I gave a jerky nod. ‘All right. Thank you. I’d like to do that.’
An hour later I knocked at the door of Number Five. The door was pulled open abruptly and I found myself face to face with the oldest sister, Katrine. She gave me a hard look.
‘Do I ken ye?’ she asked, wiping a weary hand across her brow.
I fumbled for an answer, too busy ticking off the points where I resembled her – freckles, eyes, curling red hair . . .
‘Um, yes. I mean no. I know your brothers and Jeannie. I work with your mother in the mill.’
She nodded. ‘Och, aye, the wee Sassenach. Can I help ye?’
‘Sorry, I meant to say – I’ve brought you some stew if you would like it. Bridgit cooked it – she’s Irish so it must be an excellent stew.’ I was blabbering but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
She stepped back and waved me in.
‘Thank ye both. I could do with some help, if the truth be told. Ian’s caught the fever and I’m no feeling so good myself.’
Now she mentioned it, she did look unnaturally pale. This family needed rescuing.
Perhaps my family.
‘My name’s Catherine,’ I said as I placed the stew on the stove to warm through. I spotted Jeannie lying on a little truckle bed by the hearth. Her eyes flickered open and she gave me a wan smile. Kneeling down beside her, I brushed her hair off her forehead.
‘How are you, sweet pea?’
‘Getting better, Catherine,’ she whispered hoarsely, slipping her hand into my palm. ‘And ye?’
‘Fit as a fiddle now, just like you will be in a day or two.’
She nodded, though I didn’t like the hectic flush on her cheeks. I raised my eyes to Katrine who was swaying by the kitchen table, a pile of vegetables waiting to be chopped. She shook her head slightly and sighed.
‘I dinna ken what to do, Catherine,’ Katrine suddenly burst out, a sob in her voice. ‘Faither’s mortal sick, Mither is worse, and now Ian.’ I could almost hear the snap as she broke under the weight of responsibility for so many sick people.
I stood up, my duty clear. ‘I tell you what you should do, Katrine: go to bed. There is no point you getting sick as well. I’ll make broth and see everyone gets some.’
Katrine fought a feeble rearguard action – really she was desperate to go into full retreat. ‘The doctor said I must bathe Jeannie to keep the fever down.’
‘I’ll do that. Just let me tell Bridgit where I am and I’ll then be back to stay.’
As soon as Bridgit heard that Katrine was sickening she, of course, wanted to help too. Refusing further argument, we took over the kitchen, ushering Katrine up to her rest. Not long after, Dougie came down from getting Ian into bed, a tough task despite his stocky strength because Ian had been adamant that he should look after his parents and sisters. Wrestled into submission, Ian was now asleep. Relieved to have our company, Dougie insisted on helping Bridgit with the soup, grabbing the little paring knife and setting to on the carrots. He said he welcomed the distraction from worry for his family. Together they prepared enough for the following day while I tended the little girl. Then, leaving Jeannie slumbering, I went upstairs to find the rest of the patients. In the back bedroom Ian was fretful, blankets tossed on the floor. I covered him up and left a cup of water by his bedside in case he woke with a thirst. Katrine was lying quietly in her bed behind a curtain on the other side of the room. I wondered if her problem was exhaustion more than anything as she had dark rings under her eyes. She did not seem unduly hot when I touched her.
Finally, I ventured into the front bedroom. In the double bed I found the most serious cases. I could hear Mr Moir’s pained breathing, the rattle of each gasp. By contrast his wife was very still and for one ghastly moment I thought she might be dead, but no, she was taking shallow breaths. Gingerly I touched her wrist, stroking it gently. What was she to me? That question would have to wait until they were better. I left the bedroom, deciding that they needed sleep more than soup.
‘I’m going to stay until they are recovered,’ I announced on my return to the kitchen.
Bridgit nodded, accepting my decision without protest. Dougie, however, was quick to object.
‘But ye canna do that, Catherine: ye’ll get into trouble with the overseer! He’ll dock your pay.’
‘I don’t care. Your family needs a nurse.’
Dougie frowned. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘You might be next to fall ill. I’ve had this flu already – I won’t get it again.’
‘But ye’re a stranger. Why do this for us?’
That was the question, wasn’t it? Was I really a stranger or one of their blood? Would Dougie know the answer? I had to speak to his mother first; I’d only ask him or Ian as a last resort.
‘I’m doing this because I want to,’ I replied firmly. ‘So let’s not argue about it, please.’
That night, I slept in a chair by Jeannie’s truckle bed. The little girl passed a quiet night and I began to hope that she really was improving. The next morning, she ate a little soup before falling asleep again. At least I could give over bathing her as her temperature had fallen back to normal. That was just as well as I was now required to sponge Ian whose fever had soared. I got several cuffs from him in his delirium as he objected to the tepid water trickling down his neck. On his way out to work, Dougie told me I was welcome to save up the blows and hit Ian when he got better. I said I would look forward to it.
‘And tell the overseer I’ve had a relapse,’ I added.
‘Ye’ll lose another day’s pay, Catherine.’ He was obviously having second thoughts about handing over responsibility for his family to me.
This had never been about wages as far as I was concerned. ‘That’s no matter, Dougie. You’ve got five people relying on you – you’ve got to work.’
Fortunately, Katrine was well enough to tend to her own needs but I soon became familiar with the mechanics of bedpans for the other members of the household. When I had wished to become better acquainted with the Moirs this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.
I suppose you might say, Reader, that the reward for my labours came mid-morning as I tried to get Mrs Moir to take some broth. Sitting her up against some pillows, I gently eased the spoon between her lips. She sipped it, not even bothering to open her eyes, until a spasm of coughing shook her.
‘There, now,’ I said softly, wiping the soup off her chin. ‘When it’s passed I’ll give you some more.’
‘Who is that?’ she whispered.
‘It’s Catherine – from the mill.’
She opened her eyes a crack. The room was in half-light, curtains drawn, so she could only see me in silhouette against the window. Reaching out she took my wrist in her feeble grip.
‘Nae, it’s Jesse: ye canna fool me, lass. Ye never could.’
Rather than annoy her, I agreed. ‘Yes, yes, it’s Jesse. Now take another spoonful for me.’
Mrs Moir’s brow furrowed in confusion.
‘What ye doing here, Jesse? They said ye were dead.’
‘Well, I’m not. I’m here with some lovely soup. I didn’t cook it so it’s bound to be good. You need something to eat, Mrs Moir. You need your strength.’
She batted the spoon away, more interested in the puzzle I presen
ted than the offer of food. Her cheeks were sunken; so frail, she looked as if a puff of wind would blow her away.
‘Ye canna be her. But ye look like her wi’ yer hair all wild.’
I touched my head self-consciously, realizing for the first time I was in her company without my cap.
‘Who are ye?’
My heart was turning over and over like cotton in the carding machine. The moment to tell the truth had arrived.
‘I’m Cat Royal, Mrs Moir. Maudie Stirling if you like,’ I added, remembering the name from the letter.
Mrs Moir’s hand dropped back on the cover. ‘Ye came then,’ she said in a flat voice, not really surprised. ‘I would have come to ye – it was my duty. It would have been better that way. I didna want ye here bringing the shame with ye.’
‘I know. You asked for money to do so.’
She shifted on the pillows uneasily. ‘Ye see how we live, Maudie. There is nae money to chase after Jesse’s mistakes.’
Was she saying that I was one of those mistakes? Her coldness left me empty. This was not the rapturous reunion for which I had once hoped – an outpouring of tears, hugs and joy.
‘Who is Jesse, ma’am?’ My tone matched hers in coolness though inside my feelings were tumbled, scraped and buffeted.
‘Was, lass. Yer mither’s dead. Buried in Stirling where the family came from.’
My hand was shaking. I put the spoon down and clutched my fingers together in my lap. I had been foolish to hope that my mother might still be living. Of course not. Life wasn’t like a fairytale.
‘Will you tell me about her?’
Another bout of coughing racked Mrs Moir’s body. I waited for it to pass. Mr Moir turned over in the bed, mercifully still deeply asleep. I wanted no interruption to this conversation.
‘I’ve never told anyone the whole story,’ Mrs Moir said in a wisp of a voice.
‘I think you should tell me.’
Her eyes locked on my face and she half-lifted a hand to touch my cheek before thinking twice and letting it fall back. ‘I must protect my weans from the disgrace.’
I would swear to anything to get this story from her. ‘I will not endanger you or your family if you would just tell me what I need to know.’
She took a breath. ‘Ye are my wee sister’s first child.’
‘Jesse was your sister?’
She nodded.
‘That makes you my aunt?’ My mind clutched on to this wonderful news: I did have family! Real, proper blood family! ‘And – and Jeannie, Dougie, Ian, Katrine: they’re my cousins?’
She nodded again. ‘But they’re no to ken about ye – they mustna know what wicked things Jesse did.’ Her face looked quite bitter as she spoke these words. ‘I must have yer word on that.’
‘You’d keep my family from me because of something my mother did?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Aye, I would. Ye’ve gone the same way. I read the stories. I ken ye, Maudie. Ye’re just like Jesse.’
Those wretched pamphlets! A rogue publisher had stolen my manuscripts and then sensationalized them, making me out to be a thief, queen of London’s underworld, to improve their circulation.
‘I’m nothing like that. You shouldn’t believe everything you read, Aunt.’ The word tasted strange on my tongue – uncomfortable.
‘Dinna call me that!’ Her hand made an angry swipe towards me, as if she was wiping my words out of the air. I flinched, feeling as if I’d been slapped. I grappled for my self-control, reminding myself she was sick and weak.
‘All right, Mrs Moir, I give my word. Tell me about your sister, please.’
I could hear the sound of the mill in the distance, spinning, spinning without pause. How I wanted to draw out the threads of my life story from this woman, but unlike those looms she was broken, exhausted, offering only bits and pieces, not enough to weave a whole cloth. ‘Please.’
Mrs Moir sighed, her breath wheezy. ‘She was a wild lass, Jesse Stirling. In love with the pleasures of the town, theatre, dancing. She couldna settle to a quiet life and a douce home. Ran away wi’ an actor when she was sixteen. Our faither disowned her for the shame she brought on the family.’ Distressed by the memory, she struggled for breath, her chest heaving. I waited as patiently as I could for her to be well enough to continue. ‘She went to London. Sent me word secretly from time to time.’
‘The actor? What was his name?’ I asked eagerly.
‘It doesna matter, lass. He left her. She never said he was yer faither. I dinna ken how Jesse lived – poorly, I’ve nae doubt – but she had ye and managed for a year or two. Then she met someone else – a countryman from these parts. She got with child again, reckless lass. She had to choose – go with him to have the baby or stay with ye. She said she kenned ye’d be well looked after at the theatre – that it was best for ye. Her man didna like her wee by-start. Wanted to marry her, he did, but nae wi’ the evidence o’ her bad behaviour hanging on her skirts. His family wouldna accept her wi’ ye in tow.’
Mrs Moir fell silent again, the tale proving too much for her strength. So I’d been just a millstone round my mother’s neck that she cut free to take the second chance she’d been offered.
‘But she left me on the theatre steps on a cold winter’s night,’ I said hoarsely. ‘I could have died.’
‘Nae, she watched ye being picked up and taken inside. She said yer faither’s people would look after ye. She regretted the necessity of leaving ye, but she had a new life, a countryman to look after her, and a new baby to think of.’
‘My father’s people?’
‘Aye, ye were begotten backstage, lass. A true child of the theatre, Jesse said.’
‘Did she tell you who my father was?’
‘Nae. With Jesse, there was always more than one possibility. She was a wicked lass – nae morals at all.’
So the truth about my father was forever lost to me. Whoever he was, he probably never knew I existed.
‘And then what happened?’
‘The Scotsman – his name was Kenneth Bruce – didna seem to mind her ways. She married the man, came back to Scotland and had a wee lad. She died a few days later – God’s judgement nae doubt on her ill deeds. Her husband passed away a year or two after.’
I squeezed my knuckles until they hurt. ‘And the boy – did he live?’
‘Aye. He came to us for a while but couldna settle – just like his mither. Ran off with some o’ his faither’s kin – cattle thieves the lot o’ them. Last I heard they were living in an old tower house in the hills.’
We sat in silence for a long while. I had an aunt who didn’t want to know me, a brother who lived with thieves, a mother who had chosen her security over her own child, abandoning me to who knows what fate in London.
I smiled with sour self-knowledge. Pop, pop, pop: that was the sound of my soap-bubble fantasies breaking at the pinprick of truth.
‘What is his name?’ I asked softly.
‘Who? Yer brother?’
I nodded.
‘Why, Rabbie o’ course.’ She gave a throaty chuckle that turned into a pained cough.
‘Why “of course”?’
‘Robert Bruce – wee Rabbie Bruce. My sister always had a hankering for drama so she named him after a Scottish king.’
‘And she named me Maudie. Was I christened?’
‘Nae, I doubt it, lass. That ramstam sister o’ mine never went to kirk in London. She likely forgot.’
Of course, my feckless mother would be so careless. I didn’t even have a legal name. At least that left me free to choose my own. Maudie Stirling? Who on earth was that? No one anyone wanted.
Mrs Moir rubbed at her throat fretfully. I offered her a sip of water and then she sank back on the bed. ‘I’m tired, Maudie. Leave me be now. I’ve told ye all I ken. I’m sorry about Jesse – about yer mither. Some people canna be saved.’
Despite my desire to pick over the information and draw out every last thread from her memory, I knew it
would be cruel to push a sick woman any further. I stood up, taking the unfinished soup with me.
‘Thank you for telling me, Mrs Moir. I’ll let you sleep now. But I’m not Maudie. I’m Cat Royal.’
Between my nursing duties, I spent the rest of the day pondering Mrs Moir’s tale. For the moment my emotions were frozen, my brain struggling to comprehend the facts. The gap that had once held the imaginary mothers of my dreams had been filled by a red-haired Scottish lassie on a collision course with the tough world of the London streets. That particular carriage-crash had produced me. She’d hauled herself out of the wreckage, found a husband, grasped a new life and then promptly died.
But none of my relations had bothered to find me until evidence of my continued existence had been thrust upon them. That hurt, driving home just how unwanted I was.
But at least my cousins were blameless. The news that Jeannie, Katrine and Ian were so closely related to me made the task of caring for them even more poignant. I wanted to whisper to them who I was as I cooled their faces with a cloth; I longed to ask for their love in return for mine; but my promise to Mrs Moir held me back. And if I had spoken, would they have recoiled in horror as she had done and assumed I was a bad apple in the family basket, just as their mother warned? But they at least knew me for myself, and had become my friends. If I could persuade Mrs Moir to acknowledge me, would they be happy to accept me as their cousin?
And I hadn’t promised not to make myself known to my half-brother, had I, Reader? Wee Rabbie Bruce, living with cattle thieves – but still my kin. Was he aware I even existed? I wondered.
Bridgit and Dougie came in from work soon after seven.
‘How are they?’ my cousin asked.
‘All quiet. Ian seems much better this evening. I’m most worried about your mother – she’s not roused since this morning.’
I was secretly afraid I’d overstretched her strength; her condition had gone downhill since our conversation.
Dougie clattered up the stairs. Jeannie sat up in her little truckle bed, looking sweetly tousled.
‘Where’s my mither?’ she asked.
I crouched at her side. ‘Still in bed, sweet pea. How are you feeling?’