Mathew's Tale (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

‘W
HAT WILL WE DO
, Mathew?’ Lizzie asked, her face twisted unattractively by yet more anxiety. Her son was perched beside her on the arm of her chair; he looked far more exhausted than any fifteen-year-old should.

‘First, you will calm yourself, please,’ he replied. ‘But not with the brandy,’ he added. ‘That can darken a person as easily as it lightens her. After that? This is what I propose. Tomorrow, the three of us will go to the new minister at Cambusnethan; he is a young man, I’m told, and his congregation like him. I will explain to him our situation and you will ask him if he will conduct David’s funeral service.’

‘Is the Cam’nethan graveyard not consecrated?’ young Matt asked.

‘It is, but I have somewhere else in mind for your father. One of my fields, up behind the house, the one where the horses graze, and the cows that give us our milk, it rises to a hilltop. I would like to bury David there, and raise a stone to him; his grave will be fenced off, and I will leave room for others, if you wish. His soul is with God, and that is what matters; his body is entrusted to us.’ He looked at Lizzie. ‘What do you say to that?’

She smiled, and once again she was beautiful. ‘I say, can I choose the epitaph?’

‘Of course; that is your privilege. What will it say, do you know yet?’

‘Oh yes,’ she replied at once. ‘It should read, “Here lies a good and gentle man, who died blameless, as he lived.” Or will that be too long for the stone?’

‘The monument will fit the epitaph, not the other way around.’

David McGill’s funeral service was set for six days after his death, at noon. Those who attended would do so at Mathew’s personal invitation, and the leather factories were to be closed for the day as a mark of respect. Only one person declined: Sheriff Robin Stirling sent his written apologies, saying that he was deeply troubled by the part he had played in David’s death and felt that his presence there might be wounding to his widow and children, to whom he presented his sympathies and deepest regrets.

‘What does that mean?’ Lizzie asked when he showed her the letter on the day before, in the summer house, in the afternoon.

‘It means that my friend is worried that he was deceived when he committed David for trial, for he is as just a judge as lives, and any miscarriage at all, not only a fatal one, is anathema to him.’

‘He may judge this correctly, though,’ she said. ‘I understand his position, but Matt still bears resentment towards everyone involved. I am working on him, but it will take time. He is changed, Mathew.’

‘No wonder.’

‘He says he will not return to Lanark Grammar. He is afraid his classmates would taunt him. If they did, I am afraid of what he would do. I tried to reason with him, to tell him that education is a weapon in the hands of a man who knows how to use it, but he would have none of it.’

‘Nor I,’ Mathew chuckled. ‘Its absence has done me no harm. Let him leave, Lizzie. He will be none the worse of it either, and you will spare the other boys a few broken pates by letting him have his way. We will find work for him between us. He may be too young for his father’s old position, but there are many things I could have him do, and teach him. Stockley and I are building a new foundry in Yorkshire and expanding Coatbridge still further. I always have need of men; the busier he is and the more he sweats, the less time he will have to brood.’

He smiled. ‘But then again, he might prefer to work for his mother. I spoke to Peter Wright yesterday; he will sell me the shop, and his house. He is going to live in the cottage his daughter has run away from. Congratulations, shopkeeper.’

Lizzie’s mouth fell open. ‘I did not think you serious when you said that,’ she gasped.

‘When was I ever flippant? The business is done.’

‘Mathew,’ she said, suddenly serious, ‘I will not be your kept woman, or be seen to be.’

‘Nor would I wish you to be. You will pay me rent, to give us each a clear conscience, but only when you are established in the business and we can both see that it can afford it. The arrangement between Peter and me is private; it will seem that he has given you the shop out of remorse, for his son-in-law’s action.’ He beamed. ‘Come on, Lizzie, just say yes, will you?’

‘Oh, very well, and thank you, landlord.’ She laughed lightly, then looked up at him. ‘Did you have a hand in our Daphne’s vanishing?’ she asked.

‘Let us just say that Mr Grose was given a choice, and took the wiser option. That was only for your cousin’s sake, though. I am not inclined to be gentle with anyone who has been involved in this awful thing, even those who think they are beyond my reach.’

‘The judges are beyond everyone, are they not?’

‘They think they are, but it is not so simple. They have power, but our constitution, such as it is, places them apart from Government, so they cannot reach beyond their own sphere, and even there they can only judge what is brought before them. They are outside of the politics of the nation. Do you understand?’

‘I think so,’ she replied. ‘I read the newspapers too, remember.’

‘Then you may know this also. The Lord Advocate does not simply head the Crown Office and direct prosecution. He is a member of the Government in London, and its voice in Scotland. Thus, that office has great political power, and in it, James Douglas was impervious. And yet he has given it up.’

‘Why would he?’

‘Because his mentality is that of an Edinburgh lawyer, not a London politician. He never aspired to be Prime Minister; he always sought Scotland’s highest judicial office and as Lord Advocate he was able to appoint himself into it.’

‘Appoint himself?’ Lizzie repeated. ‘Surely not.’

‘That is the way these games are played, believe me. Douglas will also believe he can appoint his own successor as Lord Advocate, through the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne. Who will he choose? My friends are certain it will be his close friend Gordon Graham, KC. Well, we will see about that.’

‘What can you do about it?’ she asked

‘Perhaps nothing, but . . . the Duke of Wellington may be a Tory and not a Whig, and he may no longer be Prime Minister, but he remains the towering figure in Westminster. He has the ear of King William, and everyone knows it. Retired or not, the Duke’s suggestions are orders. And who is as close to him as any? Colonel Sir Victor Feather, MP, the very same headstrong young man who wrote to my mother nineteen years ago, to tell her she was childless, and who has been mortified by his mistake since he discovered it.’

He leaned towards her, confidentially, lowering his voice in case it could be overheard. ‘Where do you think my military orders came from at first, those that made me rich? Where do you think they come from still? Through Victor, I have met the Duke, on my visits to London. He remains fiercely loyal to his veterans, and I am of his party. James Douglas thought he could threaten me with financial loss, but he had no idea. But it may be I can harm him. When it became clear that David was doomed, I wrote to Victor, and told him every piece of the story. We will see what comes of that.’

‘These things are beyond me,’ Lizzie confessed.

‘Then forget them. Leave them to me. To be honest, I dinna ken how I understand them, but I do. I must have brought the knowledge back from the dead. If so, a damaged liver was a price worth paying. As for my eye, I read ten times as much with one as I ever did with two.’ He paused. ‘Enough of all that though, let us take care of David tomorrow, then I can move on. Once that is done, all sorts of things are going to happen.’

The funeral took place on a brisk, sunny day, in the clear Lanarkshire air. There were over fifty mourners present, including Sir Graham Stockley, three managers from Coatbridge and over a dozen workers from Netherton. They were brought on coaches hired for the occasion, as were thirty villagers from Carluke, including the Fisher family and Peter Wright. John Barclay would have been admitted had he attended, but he did not.

They all followed the coffin as it was borne up the hill on the shoulders of Matt, Mathew, the two undermanagers from Netherton and two of David’s brother elders from Carluke, who had shown their solidarity by resigning from the kirk session. Andy Sutherland, the Cambusnethan minister, conducted the service exactly as Mathew and Lizzie had hoped, reverently and with a light touch. He praised David’s goodness, and added, at Mathew’s request, ‘Only those who accused him so falsely know why they did that. They do not know the storm that is coming, but there is one thing of which they may be assured. Their sins will find them out, and when they do, they will beg forgiveness of the man they have wronged.’

The service ended with the Lord’s Prayer.

As Mathew lowered his friend into the grave, he recalled the last time he had performed that office, and regretted the way he had been played. As he had done then, with Gavin Cleland, he looked up towards the head of the coffin, into young Matt’s eyes. They were dry, and burning with anger.

The burial over, they left the diggers to their task, and Lizzie led the company back to Waterloo House, where a buffet lunch had been prepared. Paul Johnston had attended also, and Innes Irvine; after a while, Mathew drew them aside, from conversation with his mother, who seemed charmed by them both.

‘What news from Edinburgh?’ he asked.

‘The surprise of the decade,’ the young advocate chuckled. ‘As was expected, James Douglas was confirmed as the new Lord President as soon as Lord Cooper’s funeral was done with, but when the Home Secretary’s delegate revealed the name of the new Lord Advocate, in Parliament House itself, as Douglas was introduced formally to the court, what a stir there was. I thought Gordon Graham would turn purple when Edward Cooper, KC, was announced.’

‘How did Douglas take it?’

‘Strangely, with the resigned look of a man who thought he had played a winning hand only to see it trumped. Would you not say so, Paul?’

‘I would,’ the solicitor agreed. ‘Cooper’s father could not stand our new Lord Justice General, and now his son has all the power. And I would also wonder aloud, Innes, why our patron here does not seem surprised.’

‘Gentlemen,’ Mathew said, ‘nothing about your city will ever surprise me again. I would like to be quit of it completely, but I cannot yet. Paul, I have a further commission for you, a most urgent one. I need unimpeachable people, for however long it takes. This is what I want you to do, as soon as you are back in the capital, but Innes, given your position as an advocate, perhaps you should not hear it.’

As the advocate went off to say his farewell to Lizzie and Matt, he gave Johnston short, clear instructions. ‘See it done, and as soon as you are satisfied with what you have, send for me.’

Chapter Thirty-Four

I
N THE WEEKS THAT
followed David McGill’s funeral, Mathew ensured that no one had an idle moment. The purchase of the shop was expedited, and Lizzie went to work there at once, but when Mathew discovered that Peter Wright had neglected the fabric of the house, he insisted on having it completely refurbished and largely refurnished before he would allow her and the family to take up occupancy.

However she was able to make an immediate impact on the business. Principally it had been a grocery, selling food and essential provisions, but Lizzie decided to widen the range to include personal items of interest to mothers and their children, and others chosen to bring more men through the door. By the end of August, Peter Wright’s weekly takings had increased by two-thirds.

In the meantime, young Matt had been put to work with Ewan Beattie, Mathew’s thinking being that physical labour was the best way for him to work out the anger that still burned within him.

The coachman had been given a small promotion, which put him in overall charge of the upkeep of the Waterloo House, its lands and all its livestock, not only the horses but the few cattle and sheep that Mathew had inherited from the previous owner, everything but the hens and pullets, which remained Hannah’s prerogative, as they always had been. Tam Jackson, the gardener, was happy with the arrangement, as he knew his limitations and had always been a man who preferred to work to instructions rather than use his own initiative. He was happy, too, to make use of Matt’s physical strength, which increased as the high summer months went on, and as his youthful frame filled out.

Finally, at the beginning of September, the house beside the shop was fit for occupancy, and the family took up residence. The only person less than pleased was Hannah, who had become a
de facto
granny to Jean as well as Marshall, and had enjoyed having them both under the same roof.

‘They will always be close, those two,’ she prophesied to her son, ‘but never more than that. It wouldna’ be richt, since they were both suckled at the same breast.’

Mathew said nothing. What was right and what was not between a man and a woman was beginning to weigh upon his mind.

‘How are you finding folk in the shop?’ he asked Lizzie, as they sat in the parlour, the evening before she left for Carluke. The high season was on the wane and autumn was taking its place, making the summer house too cold for that time of day.

‘They are kind and courteous, in the main,’ she told him. ‘They are respectful, although some might be . . . how can I express it? . . . a wee bit reserved, and might be saying one thing while thinking another.’

‘What do you hear of John Barclay?’

‘I hear that his congregation is not much more than half of what it was, and that his Sunday School is empty altogether. His sermons are dull and lifeless, they say, and his collection plate is light in coin, unless the Laird is there, when there might be an extra shilling in it.’

‘And has he been? There much, I mean.’

‘One of two Sundays, that is all. Except,’ she added, ‘Joel Fisher told me that two weeks ago, Cleland was there, but not alone. His fine young lady from Edinburgh was with him, and her father, and her mother. Joel said that the minister was a’ flustered, and kept tripping over his own tongue in the sermon and even in prayer.’

‘Douglas?’ Mathew exclaimed. ‘You are telling me that Lord Douglas came to David’s kirk, and worshipped there? My God, I did not think the man so crass. What was the sermon that John kept falling over, did Joel say?’

‘Aye, he did. It was very Old Testament, the text was of the sins of the father being repaid unto the seventh generation.’

‘Indeed?’ he murmured. ‘No wonder he tripped; old John may have recovered some of his courage.’

‘Then good for him. You may be too hard on him, Mathew. He’s an old man and afraid for the little future that he has.’

‘Can you forgive him?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Lizzie replied, without hesitation. ‘Think on the prayer you told me David was saying as he died. What does the Lord tell us in it? “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” He was telling us, you and Matt and Jean and me, to forgive him. And so I can.’

‘Then perhaps I will too. If you agree with this, next time his housekeeper comes on to the shop, give her a message for him from us both. She should tell him that I would like him to visit David’s grave and pray for him there. It would be a form of penance, in my eyes, and probably in his too.’

He paused, as she nodded agreement. ‘But Gavin Cleland?’ he continued. ‘Can you forgive him?’

Her eyes darkened. ‘No, never. I am not that good a Christian.’

‘And neither am I. Lizzie, I made that man a promise and I plan to keep it.’

‘Then I trust you to do so; all I ask is that you keep Matt out of it.’

‘He will be in at the death, in a manner of speaking, but that will be all. My word on that too.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now, you have been asking me about my business but saying nothing of yours. I have noticed your absences over the last few weeks. Is all well or have you suffered for your absence in June?’

‘Suffered? Far from it. Stockley and I have been increasing our foundry capacity as fast as we can to meet our orders, which grow by the day. Railways are the future, as I have said since we began, and we are bound unbreakably to the builders of the new steam locomotives that will make them. The leather business made me one of the richest men in the Upper Ward, but cast iron goes far beyond that.

‘I have been re-investing much of my profit back into the enterprise, and now own three-quarters of the company, not the half I started with eight years ago. My absences, as you call them, have taken me to Glasgow and London, and also to Liverpool and Manchester. A railway is already running between those two places, with great success.

‘The growth will be incredible, Lizzie. My dream is to go from Glasgow to London by the railway. I might not live long enough, but there is a chance of it. Our children, yours and mine, they certainly will.’

‘You’ve become prophet now,’ she remarked. ‘Nothing you do will ever surprise me.’

‘This might. I have been diversifying, investing in different areas.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, you have become a landlord, in Carluke.’

‘Ah, more than that, lass. I have gone into corn. Do you know, there is only one corn merchant in the whole of Lanarkshire? Well, there is, and I have bought the business. The owner wished to retire and I have obliged him; the manager will continue, with my guidance only. He has already secured a contract to buy the Duke of Hamilton’s entire arable production, wheat, oats and barley, everything, for the next five years, with prices according to quality.’

‘What made you think of that?’ Lizzie asked. ‘You’re no landsman, Mathew.’

‘Do not be so sure. I am a countryman at heart, and I care about the fortunes of Lanarkshire. I have done even more than that. There are two slaughterhouses in the county, that is all, one in Wishaw and one in Lanark. They are owned by a single company, and I have bought that too. Think of it, Lizzie; as the railways grow, meat, corn, all sorts of produce will move around the country at speeds we can only dream of. Demand will grow and quality will be sought. I have already spread the word to Gavin Cleland’s tenant farmers that they must think of the future.’

Lizzie’s eves narrowed, and then she smiled: it was the first full-hearted smile he had seen from her in many weeks.

‘Mathew Fleming,’ she laughed. ‘You are a terrible man, in your own charming way.’

‘Me? Everything I do is for the common good, before my own enrichment. In fact of all the things I hold dear, wealth is the least, and I only enjoy that because of the things it allows me to do.’

‘And what do you hold dear?’

‘My son,’ he responded. ‘My mother. And you and yours, as I always have. Nothing much else.’

‘Then we have them in common,’ she murmured, her face half in shadow, even in the brightly lamplit room, ‘for I would list the same things. Mathew, what is to become of us, of you and me? People will talk, you know; indeed they do already.’

He looked into the hearth, in which unlit logs were waiting for the time when they would be needed.

‘Then let them do so, and let time pass,’ he said, softly, ‘until I believe that I have discharged the obligation that I hold to David, and the promise I made on his behalf. After that, I will believe he can rest in peace, and I will feel free to speak to you of the future. Until then, I still see you as the wife of my best friend.’