Mathew's Tale (9 page)

Chapter Fifteen

M
ARSHALL WEIR FLEMING REMAINED
part of the McGill household until he was a year old. As good as his word, his father visited him almost every day, calling in the morning, while the child was awake, before going to the factory, where he was spending most of his time. The only person in the family who felt neglected was Hannah, although she too called on her grandson in Carluke, and as he grew into his third trimester, and the weather grew milder, she often sent a carriage so that Lizzie could bring him, and his foster sister, to Waterloo House.

On her first visit, Hannah saw that she was overwhelmed by the size of Mathew’s home, and by its grandeur.

‘I always knew he would do well, Mother Fleming,’ she said, ‘but this makes me very proud of him. As you must be too,’ she added.

‘We both always were, lass,’ Hannah replied. ‘But if ye think this is fine . . . My son speaks to me about his business, now that he doesna’ hae Margaret tae share with. Most of it goes ower ma heid, but that which sticks . . .’

She smiled. ‘He now has another leather factory, makin’ baggage o’ his own design just as fast as he can sell it. As for the cast-iron cairry-on in Coatbridge . . . that Ah do not understand . . . he says fares better than he and his partner had ever hoped for.’

‘That is very good, but does he have time for himself?’ Lizzie asked.

‘No, but he disna’ want ony. He says he likes tae work, as it keeps his mind frae settling on other things.’ She looked down at the sturdy seven-month-old Marshall, wriggling as he sat in her lap, as if he was ready to climb down and walk. ‘Perhaps when this wee man comes hame, it will help him.’

‘I think so,’ the child’s foster mother said. ‘His face seems lighter, and younger, all the time he’s with him.’

The only days on which Mathew did not visit his son were those when he felt compelled to be at Coatbridge, to involve himself in the iron foundry. Each one was something of a chore, for the industrialised ward of Lanarkshire was a place he had never known before, and he was struck by its contrast with the quiet rural community in which he had been raised. To him, the place was squalid, the air unclean and the people coarse. Every time he went there he travelled in his oldest clothes.

And yet, there was an energy about it that drew him back; he understood that it was the sort that generates wealth, and as long as that was fairly distributed, it had to be accepted. The only disagreement that he and Sir Graham Stockley had was over his proposal that the workers should be given production targets and paid a small bonus for timely completion of an order.

The mine owner had been sceptical. ‘Is it really necessary?’ he had asked after the proposal had been tabled.

‘No, it is not,’ Mathew had replied. ‘The real question should be, “Will it be productive?” In my experience, in my other companies, it has increased production by up to twenty per cent, with no loss of quality. You are confident, Graham, in the skills and commitment of our workforce? Good, I say, now let us give them a chance to demonstrate those qualities and be rewarded for it.’

In the two months that followed the introduction of the bonus scheme, production in the Stockley Fleming foundry increased by twenty-five per cent. Three months after that, the order book had doubled, and a second hot-blast furnace had been commissioned.

The return of Marshall to his family home took place the day after a party held in the McGill cottage to celebrate his birthday and Jean’s, and on the same day as the memorial service for his mother, held in Carluke Parish Church. Mathew had instructed it and had decreed that it would happen annually, as long as John Barclay remained in the charge. The minister was bereaved himself by that time, as his dear old Jessie had slept away two months before.

The service over, Mathew stood at the door of the kirk, so that he could thank each member of the congregation for their attendance as they left. There had been no dinners at Waterloo House for just over a year, but his friend Sheriff Stirling was there nonetheless, along with several other prominent people in the wider community.

And two others: Sir Gregor Cleland and his brother were the first to leave. Mathew had not even glanced at their family pew and was surprised to see them. He looked more closely at them than he had on the day of their father’s funeral. They were slight figures, small babies grown into small men, he thought, with pinched faces and no warmth in their eyes.

‘Our condolences, Mr Fleming,’ Sir Gregor said, not offering a handshake.

‘I thank you,’ he replied, ‘although this is as much a service of celebration of Margaret’s life as of grief for her passing. Since neither of you knew my wife, or myself for that matter, I’m surprised that you have graced us with your presence, but nonetheless, I thank you again.’

‘Not at all,’ Gavin retorted, and then gave a small mocking snigger. ‘We simply wanted to cast an eye over you, Fleming, that’s all. Or should I call you “One-lamp”?’ As the brothers walked away, their laughter floated back to him.

The last member of the congregation to emerge was Philip Armitage, the factor. ‘Did you suggest to your masters that they come here today?’ Mathew asked him, having accepted his formal greeting.

‘No, Mr Fleming, I promise you that I did not. I can tell by your tone that you’re not best pleased to see them. Did they give offence?’

‘If I deemed that they besmirched Margaret’s memory,’ he replied, ‘they would have, and there would be consequences. But they did not, so I have no regard for them. Tell me, man, how do you manage working for toerags like those two, after the old Laird?’

‘It’s a change for the worse, sir,’ the factor admitted, ‘but in truth they do not impinge on my daily life very much, for I rarely see them. They spend much of their time in Edinburgh, and even in London on occasion. All they do is send me their bills for the paying . . . but I imagine McGill has told you that.’

In that moment he remembered why he had disliked the man. ‘Why should you imagine that?’ he asked coldly. ‘David does not discuss estate business with me, any more than he would discuss mine with you . . . or what he knows of it, which is not much.’

‘My apologies, sir,’ Armitage exclaimed, obviously alarmed by his outburst. ‘I meant no slight on Mr McGill.’

‘Accepted.’ Mathew’s curiosity had been pricked. ‘How goes the estate, then?’

‘Not as well as it did under Sir George. Half the staff in the big house have gone.’

‘I knew that some had; Ewan Beattie, the coachman, works for me now. I suppose if the brothers are absent much of the time, they have no need for as many people.’

‘True, but it’s not just that, sir. The tenant farmers are all having their rent increased at Candlemas. The Laird wanted it done for Martinmas, but there was no time to give notice.’

‘Do they know yet?’

‘No, and some of them will find it hard to pay. The brothers will not mind that; they seem to think they can farm the land themselves and make more profit.’

‘Can they?’

‘Candidly, no. I will find myself hiring on displaced tenants to do the same job for a minimum wage. The factor is usually the least popular man on an estate, Mr Fleming, but that will make me truly hated, if it comes to pass.’

Mathew was shocked, genuinely. ‘Is Gregor that cruel?’

‘In my view, no, not Sir Gregor. The brothers have the same looks, but not the same mind. Gavin is the dominant one, and between the two of them . . . and the two of us, mind . . . what he says is what happens.’

He was about to say that he had heard such a suggestion before, when they were interrupted by young Matt. ‘Mathew,’ he called out as he ran towards them, ‘Mother Fleming says Ah’ve to ask you if you’re coming.’

He smiled. ‘That was not a question, Mr Armitage,’ he said, ‘it was a summons. Good luck with your task. It is not one that makes me envious.’

The two shook hands and Mathew left, with his young near-namesake, to answer the call.

‘We’ll miss Marshall when he’s gone,’ the boy declared as they headed for the McGill cottage.

‘There will be no need for that, Matt. He will not be going awful far, so you can come and visit him, as often as your mother and your father will allow. That’s when the school is not in term of course.’

‘Can Ah bring a friend?’

The question took Mathew by surprise. ‘Who would that be?’ he asked.

‘Jane Fisher. She and I sit together in the schoolroom. She whispers answers to me when I dinna ken them.’

He smiled, and felt a surge of pleasure. John Barclay’s prayer, and no doubt the prayers of her parents, had been answered those nine years ago. The child who had been baptised on the day of his return had confounded the doctor and midwives by surviving infancy, and was growing up healthy and unblemished.

‘Of course you may,’ he said, ‘with her parents’ consent.’

Life goes in cycles, he mused. Twenty-five years earlier another boy and girl had sat side by side in that same schoolroom.

Matt and Jane did visit Marshall, often, when he was established in his nursery in Waterloo House, under the supervision of his grandmother, and under the daily care of his governess, a stout spinster named Meg Liddell, who had been recruited through the church. She had come with John Barclay’s personal recommendation, but had only been hired after an hour-long interview with Hannah, from which Mathew had been excluded. She looked formidable, but in fact she was jolly, and seemed to live for the child who was her charge.

Once again, Mathew’s life had a routine, even if there was a void at its heart, of which he was reminded every time he looked at his son, but most of all when he saw his red hair shining in the firelight.

His business activity became less frantic, also; the saddles continued to sell, with their international markets growing, but the baggage range soon came to rival them in terms of turnover and profitability. As he and Margaret had anticipated, demand began to spread through the social classes, leading him to introduce lower-cost items, serviceable but made from less expensive leather.

Yet this growth was exceeded by that of Stockley Fleming. Within two years, Mathew was able to repay the money he had borrowed to invest in the venture. He had done so entirely from the dividends that it paid him, even allowing for investment in the rapid growth of the mill. By 1830, the company was the biggest employer in Coatbridge, and its two founders were known as ‘The Iron Barons’, locally and beyond.

In that same year, a crisis arose close to Mathew. He and David McGill had both become elders of Carluke Parish Church, and met regularly at the kirk session meetings. On one of those, McGill was so unusually distracted, that the minister had to reprove him for his inattention.

Business was hardly concluded before Mathew took him into a corner of the kirk’s lesser hall.

‘What’s ailing you, man?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve never seen you looking so vexed, other than when you lost your wee Wilma. Is Jean sick? I saw young Matt on the way in so it canna be him.’ He paused. ‘Or is it Lizzie?’

‘None of us,’ David replied. ‘There’s no sickness in the house, I promise you.’

‘Then what is it?’

‘Whatever it is, Mathew, it’s my concern, not yours. I’ll find a solution.’

He shook his head, firmly. ‘David, man, anything that upsets you so much is my concern, whether you like it or not. Now out with it, for you know I will find out if I set my mind to it.’

His friend sighed. ‘It’s the estate. I have been dismissed from my position. Mr Armitage told me today that my services are no longer required. If that is not bad enough, from now on I will be expected to pay full market rent for the cottage . . . full market rent being whatever the Laird says it is. I am stunned by this, man. I never saw it coming.’

‘Damn the Laird!’ Mathew barked. ‘I know about the Clelands; their reputation is well set among my business friends and social acquaintances. Gregor and his brother are a pair of profligate wasters, with their workers and their tenants paying the price for their excesses. They have crossed me twice, those pipsqueaks. It was of no importance to me then, but when they harm my friends, it is. Well, you can thumb your nose at them, David, for you will come and work for me.‘

‘No!’ McGill exclaimed. ‘Begging you for employment is the last thing I’d ever do.’

‘You are not begging me at all,’ Mathew retorted. ‘How many times have I asked you if you would join my company? Tell me, please, for I have lost count myself. This is not charity; I have need of a capable man like you to supervise the managers of my leather businesses. At the moment neither of them can do a damn thing without reference to me. The pay will be two pounds a week; Sundays off, of course, and two weeks paid holidays a year.’

‘Two pounds a week! Mathew, that’s well over twice what I was paid by the estate. It’s far too much.’

‘Hah!’ he laughed. ‘That’s something I have never heard before, a man wanting lower wages. David, it is what the job is worth to me, and whoever takes it, that is what he’ll get. But I would much rather it was you than someone else, for it is you I want, for your skills and experience, not your friendship.’

‘Will I have to move to Netherton?’ McGill asked, tentatively.

‘Not if you do not want to. I’ll give you my old trap; you can ride to Waterloo in the morning, pick me up and we will go the rest of the way together. What is your notice at the estate?’ he asked, briskly.

‘The end of this week.’

‘Good, you start on Monday. On that day I will send Ewan, my coachman, up with the trap. He will be there at seven fifteen, and you can pick me up at seven thirty. It will be the start of a new era for us both, David, and I welcome it.’

Chapter Sixteen

D
AVID MCGILL FITTED INTO
his friend’s business empire very quickly. He won the respect of the men under his supervision and surprised himself, and in truth surprised his new employer, by the speed with which he grasped the mechanics of the company, Netherton Leather Goods, as it had been renamed.

He was more than a merely adequate replacement for Margaret, although Mathew would never admit as much, not even to himself. The closest he came to revealing his feelings was over dinner one night at Waterloo House with Sheriff Stirling and Sir Graham Stockley, his two confidants.

‘It makes me laugh,’ he said, although his face betrayed not a hint of a smile, ‘when I think of those fools, the Cleland twins. They leave their estate in the hands of a man who does not understand anything beyond a column of figures, having dismissed the very person who was capable of using it to keep them in good fortune all their days. Mark me, it will come back and bite them.’

‘I sense you do not like the brothers,’ the Sheriff chuckled, his port glass halfway to his lips.

‘Robin,’ he replied, ‘I am honestly indifferent to those men. Our society has created them and we must accept their existence, but the easiest way to live with them is to ignore them and let them proceed on the course they have charted, towards to their own inevitable downfall.’

‘Inevitable?’

‘From what I hear, yes; I sound out Mr Armitage on occasion, when I see him at the kirk. Even run as inefficiently as it is, the estate might support the lifestyle of one profligate, but not two, gentlemen, not two. The brothers will have to change, or fail.’

‘Or marry well,’ Stockley suggested. ‘Neither has yet found a wife.’

‘That is true,’ Mathew conceded, ‘but I do not see a queue of comely candidates stretching from here to Edinburgh. Enough of those two, though, they are not worth our consideration. I apologise for raising their name at this table.’

The Waterloo House dinners had been reintroduced in the second year after Margaret’s death. Stockley and Stirling were always on the guest list, but otherwise the events were political as much as social, as Mathew knew that his own standing and that of his business interests were inextricably linked.

Always, Mathew listened more than he spoke. He never sought to dominate a dinner table, but to allow his guests to express themselves. When his view was sought he gave it, but always stressed that he spoke from a rural perspective, with little or no experience of city life or of great affairs of state.

‘You, sir, are of the officer class,’ he told the Earl of Teviotdale at one event. ‘I was only a corporal.’

‘So was Napoleon,’ the aristocrat countered. ‘He went from the ranks to rule most of Europe, until you helped beat him at the battle after which your house is named. You, on the other hand, went on to become a sergeant. But where is Napoleon now? As dead as poxy old King George the Fourth, while you, Iron Baron, are building an empire of your own, based on contraptions that might have made Bonaparte invincible had they been available to him.’

That exchange taught Mathew two valuable lessons. The first was that a wise guest at an event of influence should know in advance every available fact about every person at that table. The second was that while his saddles and his valises might have made him his original fortune, it was his position in heavy industry that gave him his status in the new society that was beginning to develop throughout Great Britain. ‘Iron Baron’ they called him, yet never ‘Leather Baron’, even though, in those products, his business had become the biggest in the land.

His new standing was emphasised in the year before his fortieth birthday, when a letter was delivered by special messenger to his home. It bore the seal of the Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Devonshire. Hannah was looking over his shoulder as he tore it open.

‘Whit does it say?’ she demanded.

‘Ssh, Mother, let me read it.’

The language was flowery, courtly, but he went straight to the essential paragraph.

‘His Majesty, King William the Fourth,’ he read aloud, ‘is minded, in the light of your standing in the community, to appoint you to the office of deputy to the Lord Lieutenant of Lanarkshire, His Grace the Duke of Hamilton.’

‘What does it mean?’ He had never seen his mother so excited, the great knower of her station in life. ‘That ye’re a lord?’

‘No,’ he laughed, ‘well short of that. The Duke of Hamilton is the King’s representative in the county. He stands for him at events he cannot attend himself, which means in practice nearly all of them. The Duke cannot guarantee always to be able to perform this function and so he has deputies who stand for him as required. Sheriff Stirling is one.’

‘Whit will ye have tae do?’

‘Wear a fine uniform and shake hands with folk, I imagine. No more sergeant’s stripes for me, Mother,’ he laughed.

As he mentioned his old rank, he knew in the same moment who had put his name forward.

The deputy lieutenancy proved to be no more onerous than he had imagined it would be. The uniform would have been shared with the Sheriff, but Mathew’s height and breadth of shoulder made that impossible, and so a new one had to be commissioned.

He wore it rarely but had done so on the fine June Sunday that his life changed for ever. He was not long returned from an event in Hamilton, and was playing with the seven-year-old Marshall on the lawn in front of the house, beside one of the silver birches that he had planted for Margaret, because she had said once that she liked them, when he saw a youth running up the drive, at full pelt.

‘Hold up, hold up,’ he called out. ‘What’s the panic?’

The young runner skidded to a halt, his chest heaving. It took him more than a few moments until he could catch his breath enough to speak. In that time, Mathew recognised him as Billy Fisher, from Carluke, Joel’s son and Jane’s older brother.

‘Mr Fleming, sir,’ he exclaimed when he could, ‘I’m sent by Mr Barclay, to ask ye if ye’d be so good as to come to the manse at once.’

He was oddly irked by the lad’s deference, but put that to one side.

‘What has happened?’ he asked, calmly, although he was disturbed.

‘Ah dinna’ ken, but they say Sir Gregor Cleland is deid.’

More to it than that
, Mathew thought at once.
Men die, even young men, and while Gregor Cleland might have been the Laird, his passing alone should not be the cause of an emergency summons
.

‘A few moments, Billy,’ he said, ‘and I’ll be with you.’

Ewan Beattie was in his lodging above the stable, but he had already driven him to Hamilton and back that day, and so he decided to let him lie. Instead, as soon as he had delivered Marshall back into the charge of Miss Liddell, he put on a short jacket, went back outside and saddled his horse, a chestnut that he had named Victor. He had told Hannah nothing more than the simple truth, that John Barclay wanted to see him, at his convenience.

Mounted, he reached down and offered the young runner a hand. ‘Get up behind me, Billy. She can carry two for all the distance we’re going.’

The young man was not the best passenger, and so Mathew had to go more steadily than he might have wished; consequently it took them more than the normal half-hour to reach Carluke.

As soon as he arrived at the green in front of the kirk, he could see that there was something serious afoot. Villagers, men and women, were standing around in groups, and not one of them was smiling; indeed, Beth Fisher, Billy’s mother, was in tears. He brought Victor to a standstill to let the boy dismount, and then trotted him forward towards the manse, speaking to no one on the way.

The minister’s housekeeper, whose name he did not yet know, opened the door to him. He strode straight into the parlour . . . to find Lizzie and her children sitting on the sofa in a tight, tense group, and Barclay in an armchair, his face white.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked at once.

Lizzie looked up him; her face was stained with tears and her eyes were puffy. She looked old, and that alarmed him. ‘David has been arrested,’ she replied. ‘The Sheriff’s men came and took him away.’

‘Why? What cause could they possibly have had? And what’s this about Gregor Cleland being dead?’

‘The two must be connected,’ John Barclay said, rising to his feet. He looked at the boy. ‘Laddie,’ he said, ‘tell your story.’

Young Matt stood also. The boy was fifteen and on his way to being full grown. Mathew saw that there was a mark on his face, a vivid red weal that ran from his forehead down and across his cheek, as if in mimicry of his own scar.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he exclaimed, in a voice that had become deeper than his father’s.

‘Nobody is saying it is,’ the minister told him gently. ‘Just carry on.’

‘I was playing, in the roadway,’ he began. ‘Some o’ the village lads and I; we were just chasing, kickin’ a ball made out o’ old clothes. We were doing no harm at all, Mathew, honest.’

‘Fine,’ Mathew murmured. ‘I do not think for a minute that you were. Go on, as Mr Barclay says.’

He nodded. ‘I never saw the carriage, the Laird’s carriage. I had my back to it as it cam’ up the road. One o’ the other lads kicked the ball. It went over ma head and I turned to run after it and almost ran under one o’ the Laird’s horses. The beast was startled; it reared up and the carriage was shaken. Only for a second or so, mind,’ he added.

‘I can see that it would be rocked, but it wasn’t near to overturning, was it?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘Did you know the coachman?’

‘The Laird was drivin’ himself. There were two ladies in the carriage, finely dressed, and no’ from Carluke. The Laird’s brother was alongside on a horse. It had one o’ your saddles,’ he noted, as if the detail was important.

‘After startling the horse, Matt,’ Mathew asked, ‘what did you do?’

‘I said I was sorry, very sorry, right away, and I reached out my hand to calm the animal, just to soothe it. But the Laird, he shouted something at me, words I’ve been told are foul, and then he lashed out, he hit me across the face with his whip.’

Mathew felt a cold rage within him. ‘Who saw this?’ he growled.

‘Only my father. Ah never saw him, but he’d been watching us play. All the other lads ran off, but he came towards us. Ah’ve never seen my father angry before, but he was fair ablaze. He went up to the carriage and he grabbed the Laird and hauled him right out of his seat and down on to the ground, then he leaned over him slapping him once, twice, three times. The ladies, they were laughing, thinking it was great sport, even though my father was shouting, saying he was going to thrash the Laird within an inch of his life. And that’s when the other one fired.’

‘The other one?’

‘The Laird’s brother; Gavin, I think they cry him. He’d got off his horse, he drew a pistol, he pointed it at my father’s back, and he fired. But he missed, and he shot the Laird instead.’

‘And he killed him? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘I dinna ken, Mathew, I’ve never seen anyone shot before.’

‘Where did the ball strike him?’

Young Matt tapped the centre of his own forehead, less than an inch above his nose. ‘There.’

‘Then he killed him, for sure.’

‘Oh my,’ Lizzie whispered, a hand to her mouth. ‘But he meant to kill David.’

‘What happened next, Matt?’ Mathew asked.

‘My father stood, but before he could even turn round, Gavin Cleland hit him with the pistol he’d just fired, and it knocked him down. I went to help him. As I did, Gavin gathered up the Laird in his arms and put him in the carriage. Then he tied his horse to the back, got up in the seat and drove away, at speed.’

‘Did your father recover?’

‘He got up, but he was dazed and his eyes were funny. I asked him what we should do. He said we should go to the manse and that was what we did. Mr Barclay came out to meet us. He had heard the shot.’

‘But nobody saw it?’

‘No. Nobody at all, other than us that wis there.’

Mathew turned to the minister. ‘John, what did you do?’

‘I took them in, of course. They both had wounds; young Matt’s you can see, and David had a cut to the head. I bathed them both. As Matt said, David was dazed at first but he recovered most of his senses after a few minutes. I told him that the incident had to be reported to Sheriff Stirling, in Lanark, but I deemed that neither was fit to ride. So I told them both to go home and wait there, and then I summoned the beadle, our worthy church officer. I bade him carry the message to the Sheriff’s clerk, and he did. But when he got there he was told that the occurrence was already known, and by that time . . .’

‘The Sheriff’s officers came to our door,’ Lizzie exclaimed, her voice a wail that alarmed, saddened and enraged Mathew, simultaneously.

‘They burst into our home and they seized David. They treated him roughly and bound his wrists in chains, and put him in their black carriage. Then Gavin Cleland arrived, with some ruffians from the estate. He ordered the children and me out of the house. He told me we were evicted, then he had his men take all our furniture and possessions outside and smash them in the street. Young Matt would have fought them, but I held him back. I told him I could not lose husband and son in the same day.’

‘Then I’ll fight them tomorrow,’ the boy growled.

‘No, you will not!’ Mathew barked. The force of his censure startled everyone, most of all little Jean, who started to cry. He knelt by her side and stroked her hair as she cowered against her mother.

‘There now, wee one,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sorry, I should not have shouted. Your brother only spoke as I would have at his age.

‘But,’ he continued as he rose to his feet once more, ‘what I said still goes. You cannot fight these people, Matt, not with your fists. You can only do it with the law, and that is how we must rescue your father. There is nothing to be done tonight, but tomorrow you and I will go to Lanark. We will see Sheriff Stirling, and you can tell him your story. He is a good friend of mine, and a fair man; I expect we’ll bring David back with us.’