The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits (10 page)

Young Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
Ye unco' sair oppress us,
Our fancies jee between ye twa,
Ye are sic bonnie lasses.

The cavalryman could sit here forever, between the dark head and the blonde, the three of them fixed and fire-lit like some new constellation in the black night. He has no wish to disrupt this scene by leaping to his feet, taking one woman or another away on his tired horse. All he asks is to stay here by the river, hidden away from the loud and reeking world. All he asks is to be part of this.

And then Mary Gray looks at Bessy Bell, and both of them look at him, and he thinks they are about to tell him to leave them for the night, but what Mary asks is what he hoped she was never going to ask: "What news of the war?"

He cannot speak. He shrugs.

"Is our Covenant winning? Or is the King?"

This time he cannot even shrug. "I see no end to it," he says at last.

"When must you go back to your regiment?" asks Bessy Bell, and in the firelight her eyes shine and he cannot tell why he ever turned from her to her friend; cannot remember when or how that choice was made in his heart, as arbitrary as a leaf's turning yellow or red, as random as a battlefield.

His eyes swim; he is weeping in spite of himself. "I will not go back."

They stare at him.

"At Philiphaugh..."

"We heard about the victory," says Mary, smiling at him. "Were you there, at Philiphaugh?"

He stretches out his fingers, stained red in the glow of the dying embers. "What it was," he whispers, "was not a victory, but a massacre."

Not a sound from the women.

"Montrose's army had escaped us, but we caught the Irish regiments in a loop. They surrendered in the end, on General Leslie's promise of safe passage to Edinburgh." He takes a long breath. "As soon as we had their muskets in a pile, and their officers had ridden ahead under guard, we despatched the men and boys."

"You mean he lied, the General?"

He can't tell which of the women has spoken. He nods briefly. "That's war. I've done that much before. But what I must tell you is, what I must say—we were in such a frenzy to avenge our losses at Kilsyth and finish these papist savages for good, we turned on the women."

A whisper, from one or both. "What women?"

"There are always women, in the baggage train; they follow the camp. How else could the soldiers eat, or wash the lice off their shirts?" He speaks harshly. "The Irish had their wives with them; three hundred, I'd say, not counting the children. A few dozen were big with child." His eyes are shut, but he can see it still, in bright colours. "Our pike-men cut them down, then we troopers moved in with swords. There was one woman—when I sliced her open, the infant inside her fell out on the grass."

Bessy's arms around him, with no warning. "Hush," says Mary beside him, stroking his head like a child's. "Don't say any more."

"But-"

"Shhhh," whispers Bessy and they embrace him between them. They hold his pain and contain it, squeeze it into a tiny ball. There is no more fear, no more horror; there is only comfort.

"Don't think about it," murmurs Mary; "it's all behind you now."

"I won't go back," he tells them.

"You won't go back. Stay. Stay here with us."

The cavalryman crouches by the fire, rocked in these women's arms, dazed with happiness. Impossibilities come true. A broken man may be made whole.

"How hot your forehead is," says Bessy, kissing it softly.

He is drifting, confused. His throat is diy and a little bell rings in his ear. His face is wet with salt water. A fire has started up behind his eyes. He has come so far and now he need never leave. The day was long but now it is time to rest. He blinks up at the stars over the patched roof of the hut.

They theekit it ower wi' rashes green,
They theekit ower wi' heather,
But the put came from the burrows-town,
And slew them baith thegither.

He will be dead tomorrow; the women, bruised yellow and orange and mauve, by the end of the week. They will all three lie there on the grassy riverbank, like lovers, and the sun will bake them to leather.

"
Ballad" was inspired by the macabre song "Bessy Bell and Mary Gray. " The lines in italics are quoted from various versions of the ballad, including a nursery rhyme and a comic adaptation by Allan Ramsay. According to a local tradition, recorded in the
Transactions of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland (
1781), it was based on the death of two devoted friends, the daughters of the lairds of Kinvaid and Lynedoch (Lednock) near Perth, who retired to a bower in 1666 to avoid the plague but were infected by a young man who loved them both and came to bring them food. However, as there was no plague in Scotland in 1666, this anecdote probably dates from the plague of 1645, which decimated the population of Perth.

A slice of bridescake and a cup of negus apiece and they are off. Effies parents stand by the front door and wave their hands. John gets in beside her, tucking the laprug round her billowing tartan silk skirt. His man Hobbs ropes their trunks on behind, then lifts the collar of his greatcoat and climbs up to ride with the coachman.

A quarter-mile down the road to Bridgend, the April afternoon begins to darken. John blows his nose with an elephantine roar, leans back, and checks his watch. "Not five o'clock. I'm glad that's over."

"So am I," Effie assures him.

"The Reverend Touch's voice is a trifle hoarse for my taste," he says. "But considering the necessarily upsetting nature of such solemnities, we all bore up rather well."

She puts her small hand over his and speaks breathlessly. "I know you've had a trying fortnight, John."

"Well," he says with a sniff. "Your parents' house is rather chilly."

"No, but—I've been so distracted about Father's losses on the railroads—he can't do much for us, I know—"

He presses one finger to her lips. "Not another word of that, my sweet. You're in my hands now."

"But John, your prospects in life could hardly be called fixed—"

"That's my concern, not yours," he says with a hint of sharpness.

"But I think your parents mind very much about the settlement. Could that be why they didn't come to the wedding?"

"Nonsense, Effie. I told you, their health didn't allow it, that's all." In the silence, John gets out his big handkerchief again. His nose is scarlet at the tip, and twitches like a rabbit's. After the carriage has crossed the Tay, and they have caught a glimpse of Scone Palace through the streaked windows, John sits up straighten "I can hardly see your face, tucked away in that cane bonnet, Effie."

"Well, I suppose I might very well take it off, as there's no one to see." She loosens the strings and lays it in her lap.

"That's much better," he says, smiling down at her, and takes her hand in both of his. "Look, such charming heathery knolls," he exclaims. "We should see some proper hills in an hour or two. Nothing touches me more than mountainous landscape, nothing in the world," he says wistfully. "Not that the Highlands are a patch on the Alps—but time enough for them, when we go to Chamonix with my parents."

"Will I like Switzerland, John?"

"How could you not?" He gives her a look of kindly exasperation. "All that remains to be seen is whether you can bear the heat and the fatigue of walking at high altitudes. I do wish I might show you France too, but those wretched revolutionaries have put paid to that plan."

"Is it true what people are saying," asks Effie, "that there could be dreadfulness here in Britain too?"

His eyebrows almost meet. "Who's been putting such nonsense into your head?"

She speaks with fearful relish. "A hundred thousand of the Chartists are marching in London today, the vicar told me, and it's said they've gathered five million signatures for their petition, and if they don't get their way there'll be blood shed!"

"In that case, it's just as well we're here in the tranquil Highlands," he says, grinning at his bride.

After the dark blot of Birnam Wood—where John coughs and blows his nose for some time, in preparation for quoting
Macbeth—
they pass the ruined cathedral of Dunkeld. When the carriage goes over a rock in the road the couple are flung up in the air, and both break into laughter.

"Sony, Miss, sir," comes a muffled call from the coachman, and Hobbs's upsidedown head hangs at the window for a moment, checking that his master and new mistress are unhurt.

When the footman's head has disappeared, Effie leans against John confidentially. "Why did you many me, I wonder?"

"Fishing for compliments, are we?"

"No," she cries, stung. "But you are a brilliant young man of some name in literary and artistic circles, and of all the girls there are in the world—"

"Why did my heart select Miss Euphemia Chalmers Gray, of Bowerswell, near Perth?"

"Your mother once told me," she remarks carefully, "that you have a tendency to surround people with imaginary charms."

"Well, let's consider the matter." He holds her chin between finger and thumb, at a judicious distance. "Are Miss Grays charms of a chimerical nature?
Item:
she has an exceedingly pretty face.
Item:
she is both lively and kind."

"That's two items in one," Effie points out, squirming.

"
Item:
she plays Mendelssohn moderately well."

She makes a moue.

"Now, on the dark side of the scales, to prove my objectivity—," John growls. "
Item:
the same Miss Gray does not always welcome criticism.
Item:
her health is uncertain, and her talents as a walker are so far untried.
Item:
she likes everybody—"

"Isn't that a virtue?"

"—everybody and anybody, which is most definitely a weakness."

"You're such a queer being!" Effie exclaims with a giggle.

"I?" He makes a face of shock.

"You shrink from society,"—she counts on her fingers—"you write and paint and work like a carthorse, you're prone to dreadful melancholies, and you're besotted with your old Alps."

"You'll never wean me from them. But I do admit I am an odd fellow," John says seriously, peering out the window at the encroaching twilight. "If I had been born into your sex, I doubt I could ever have loved a man like me."

"Don't say that," she says worriedly. "I never meant you weren't easy to love."

"Well," says John, rubbing his hands together, "Heaven never designed men and women to be the same. Marriage is said to be a miraculous yoking of opposites." He interweaves his cold fingers with hers, till they form a tight roof. "Whatever may be flawed, or lacking, in each of us, the other will supply."

They drive on, north by northeast into the ragged hills, and the darkness closes in around them. At Pitlochry, the coachman gets down to light the carriage lamps.

"Tell me, John," Effie murmurs sleepily, "how shall we pass our days?"

He pulls at his whiskers, considering the matter. "Much as we've spent them until now, I hope."

"Oh," she says faintly.

"Except of course that we shall be together, in our rented house for the time being. I shall go into London all day, to the British Museum, or if I'm etching or doing anything that requires good light, I shall go to my old study at my parents' house."

"Couldn't you do that at home with me?"

"No, no," he laughs, "I'd be shockingly under your feet. You'll be busy writing letters to improve your spelling, and trying to read Balzac for your French, and keeping up your piano—though perhaps not for two hours at a time anymore, as in your boarding-school days."

"And I shall have your coat brushed," Effie murmurs, "and mend your gloves, and above all, I shall keep you from wearing white hats!"

"And in return, young Miss Gray, you must rein in your extravagant spending—"

Her mouth begins to turn down.

"—and promise never to wear that excessively pink bonnet."

She sighs like a martyr. "Pink is my favourite colour."

"In this instance you must bow to the superior discernment of a man who has made the beauties of Nature and Art his life's study."

"Very well," she yawns.

"And also," he says, pressing his advantage, "you mustn't let your uncle call you
Phemy
anymore. Effie I've named you, and Effie you'll stay.
Phemy
sounds like the kind of restless girl you used to be, who gadded around town to phrenologists and mesmerists and all manner of charlatans!"

Effie ignores this. "I expect I shall like keeping house, even just a rented one," she says thoughtfully, "and before long I shall have—I mean—," and she falters—"quite apart from any other domestic duties that may arise in the fullness of time."

She waits, watching his profile in the dim of the carriage, but he does not pick up the subject; he has begun to sniffle, again, and is fumbling for his handkerchief. "I dare say you will have to call, and be called upon, most days," he remarks glumly.

"It's not that I'll have to, John; I'll like to."

"Well, it comes to the same thing." He blows his nose violently. "But I trust you won't be flirting with any more young subalterns."

"John!"

He wags his long finger at her. "Admit it, Effie, until our engagement was made public, you were a perfect specimen of a man-trap!"

Speechless, she rolls her eyes.

"But no," he adds more soberly, "all I really fear is that you will encourage the hordes to pester me."

"Oh, I never would!"

"You don't seem to understand, my dear, that even now it's only by a firm rudeness that I am able to shield myself against the importunities of acquaintance-seekers, who long to know me, and talk nonsense about art. The social whirl is as much poison to my health as arsenic would be," he adds fiercely, rubbing at his nose with his damp handkerchief. "When people try to get at me through you—"

"I won't let them," she insists, squeezing his wrist. "Now tell me more about our days," she murmurs soothingly.