Chapter Thirteen
LETHAN VALLEY
My mother, of course, noticed the difference in me since I returned from Tarras Moss.
She allowed me a week to think things over, a week in which we lost three cattle to a Veitch raid and the Yorling got to know the men of the valley.
A young servant gave me the message that Mother wished to see me.
'Her Ladyship was insistent,' the girl said.
'She always is,' I told her, sighed, and made my way to my mother's chamber.
Mother sat by her spinning wheel. She looked deep into my eyes. 'You are a woman now,' she said.
About to deny it, I knew that would be pointless. 'I am,' I said.
'So now you know.' Mother bent her head to her spinning. 'Was it the Tweedie Passion?'
'It was all of that,' I said. I expected her to ask who I had bedded, but she did not.
'You will be more ready to bed Robert Ferguson then,' Mother said, without looking up. She worked the foot pedal, so the spinning wheel hummed rhythmically.
'I may not be able to do that,' I said quietly. 'Or not unless he is a very forgiving man.'
Mother looked up with a strange, crooked smile on her face. 'Oh? And why is that, pray?'
'I am no longer whole,' I said. 'As we just discussed. I am no longer virginal.'
The expression on Mother's face did not alter. 'Do you think that Robert has never known a woman? He is twenty-one and the heir of Whitecleuch.'
'Robert would never betray me in that way,' I began hotly until I realised what mother had said. 'He is the younger son; he is not heir. That is one of the reasons that you do not think him a fit husband for me.'
'No Ferguson of Whitecleuch is a fit husband for a Tweedie of Lethan,' Mother said, 'be he heir or be he bastard; you are of superior blood and bearing. That is a fact. However, the situation changed last night. Robert's brother had a bit of an accident.'
'What happened?' I asked.
'He died,' Mother said flatly. He was up at the summer shieling bringing in the cattle and he did not come home.
The Fergusons found his body this morning at the foot of Posso Craig; it looks as if he lost his footing at night and fell over the craigs.
Dead as a three-day old corpse, which means that Robert is now heir. '
I knew Posso Craigs well, a semi-circular hill with one end sheered away in vicious cliffs. It was an accident inviting a victim.
'Now that Robert is heir to Whitecleuch,' Mother said, without expressing any regret for the passing of his unfortunate brother, 'the situation here, as I said, has altered.
Even as heir to the lands, Robert is a poor choice for a husband.
However, given that his lands abut ours and are at the bottom of the valley, it would be advantageous if you and Robert were wed. '
I stared at her. This was my Mother, cold-bloodedly telling me that although Robert was not a suitable man, she would favour our marriage to blend our lands together.
Of course, as the senior house, Robert would become Robert of Lethan; he may even take the name of Tweedie, in fact, I would insist on that, but we all knew who the real power would be.
Mother would be in control of the entire Lethan Valley from the headwaters at Lethanhead to Lethanfoot where the Lethan Water drained into the mighty Tweed, and from where the Spirit of the Tweed had emerged to woo my distant ancestor. That was a story I no longer found unbelievable.
'I remember you telling me that he would not be a suitable husband until he proved himself as a man,' I said, with more heat than I intended.
'Situations change, Jeannie.' When Mother glanced up from her spinning her eyes were every bit as hard as Wild Will's had been.
'You had no interest in Robert's older brother.
He was going to marry the daughter of a burgess in Peebles, a man who did not belong to any significant family; a nobody.
We would have controlled him without any effort.
Now that Robert is heir to the land, anything could happen. '
I sat down on a creepie stool, the three-legged stools that we used where we did not have chairs. 'I have long known I would marry Robert; if he will still have me.'
Mother sighed and looked up from her spinning. 'You bedded a man,' she said. 'You are a Tweedie woman. The wonder is that you waited so long.'
'There was nobody I desired so much,' I said.
She faced me. 'Now you have tasted that desire, you will never lose it. It will come on you when you least expect it and you will have to slake it.'
As I thought of Hugh, the desire that Mother spoke of increased. I felt my heartbeat increase and the strangest prickling sensation in a very personal place. 'Yes, Mother.'
'That may not always be with Robert,' Mother said calmly. 'A husband is for duty; pleasure you may have to seek otherwise.'
I felt my mouth open in astonishment. My mother was advising me to commit adultery.
'It is the Tweedie way,' Mother said without any expression on her face.
'Did you…?' I could not complete the question.
'I am not a Tweedie by blood,' Mother said.
'Father?'
'He is all Tweedie,' Mother said flatly.
'Oh.' For the first time in my life, I reached out to offer support to my mother. I squeezed her arm. 'I did not realise.'
'Well, now you do,' Mother said. 'There are many little Tweedie bastards running about the Borders. You have met at least one of them.'
For one terrible, horrible moment I thought of Hugh until I remembered that he had been a Veitch. However lusty he may be, Father would not have bedded one of our enemies. 'The Yorling,' I said.
'The Yorling,' Mother said. 'There are others. More importantly, I want you to make sure you wed Robert.'
'He will know I am not whole…' I gestured down at myself as I blurted out the stark physical fact.
Mother snorted. 'For God's sake woman! Is that all that's bothering you? Half the women in the Borders are not entire when they are wed, without ever having known a man.'
'How?' I felt hope rise inside me.
'You ride astride your horse,' Mother said flatly. 'Think what that could do to you.'
'Oh?' I looked at Mother as if I had never seen her before, which in a way I had not. I had known the mother but not the woman. 'Mother: are you saying I should not tell my husband the truth?'
'You tell your husband what he needs to know and what he already knows,' Mother said. 'You tell him nothing that he can use to your disadvantage.'
'Yes, Mother.' My mother had run my father's tower and lands all my life without ever, to my knowledge, betraying his trust. Her wisdom was not to be ignored. Yet I did not wish to live a lie with a man who I trusted and who would trust me.
'You are worried about not being honest with Robert,' Mother said.
'I am,' I said.
'Then let me tell you that your best friend Kate Hunnam has been making sheep's eyes at your good friend Robert for the past few months.'
I smiled. I knew Robert better than Mother did. 'That won't matter to Robert. He is not very interested in women.'
Mother raised her eyebrows. 'He may not be very interested in you, Jeannie. He seems to be very interested in Kate.'
I felt myself stiffen. 'Are you sure, Mother?' I knew she would not tell me if she was not sure.
I cannot write how I felt. I can only write what I did.
I turned on my heel and left Cardrona Tower with more anger in me than I had ever felt before.
It was not the same feeling as I had with Hugh.
That anger had been tempered and controlled, however passionate my love-making had been.
This new anger was all-consuming. If Mother was right, then Robert and Kate had been at least contemplating something behind my back for some time.
My mistake with Hugh was sudden; theirs was calculated.
I grabbed Kailzie who had served me so well in escaping from Liddesdale, did not bother with saddle, bridle, or stirrups and ordered the gatekeeper to open for me in a snarl that he did not recognise as coming from the laughing girl he knew as Jeannie.
I remember that mad dash down the Lethan Valley with the little cottages all getting ready for the night and the river flowing soft and sweet at my side as I whipped that poor horse along.
There was an owl calling although I did not hear its mate, and I paid no heed to the surprised but friendly greetings of the people I knew so well.
My mind was so filled with the thoughts of betrayal, of my best friend Kate with my chosen man Robert, that I nearly forgot my own treachery as I rode, mouth open and hair flowing behind me.
Whitecleuch Tower is situated on a small knoll, a knowe as we term it, not far from the opening of the valley. It is set above the floodplain of the river with very solid stone walls and a stout barmekin.
The gatekeeper knew me well enough not to challenge my entry even at that time, and I jumped off Kailzie, ordered a surprised and sleepy servant to care for him and was soon bounding up the stairs two at a time to the great hall.
It was empty except for two young servants sharing the straw with a few dogs, and one scared kitchen maid with her sweetheart crouched in a corner.
'Where is the young master,' I demanded, more imperiously than I had ever been in my life. I had not realised that my mother's blood was strong within me. I may be a Tweedie, but I was also my mother's daughter. 'Where is Robert Ferguson?'
The servants cowered away from the look in my eyes, or possibly from the horse whip I forgot that I still carried.
'Upstairs, my lady.' The kitchen maid quavered, as her sweetheart put a protective arm around her. Good man, that.
'In his quarters?' I asked.
'Yes, my lady,' the kitchen maid said and added bravely, 'I think it best if you did not enter unannounced…'