The Name Of Love

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Book excerpt

Chapter One

Cauldneb, East Lothian, Scotland
October 1787

I never liked my name. Mary Agnes Hepburn. The Hepburn part was acceptable, just, but Mary; plain old Mary followed by Agnes. Agnes, for goodness sake. I cannot think of an uglier name than Agnes. I used to ask my mother why she could not have chosen something a little different, something mysterious or romantic, but no, Mary Agnes it was and Mary Agnes it had to remain.

'Mary was the name of queens,' Mother told me, with a smug smile that did not help in the slightest.

'Well, the queens can keep it,' I said.

'So must you,' Mother's smile did not falter. And that was her final word on the matter.

It was many years before I became reconciled to my name and then only in the most unusual of circumstances. I will relate them by-and-by, but as in all tales, it is best to start at the beginning and finish at the end, so that is what I shall do. Now, bear with me, please, as I wend through this story, and I hope you will smile when I smiled, cry when I cried and feel all the emotions in between. Being Scottish as I am, I am not very good at showing my feelings, but when I do, nobody is in any doubt of what they are. Just stand clear when I unleash my temper, and all should be well.

Perhaps it was because of my plain Mary name, or maybe because of my black temper, but I was not the most popular of women. I had a tendency to remain apart from other people, which drove my parents to distraction. I was, and am, also stubborn, wilful and generally a thrawn besom, as we say in Scotland. I don't think there is an exact English translation, but a cantankerous troublemaker may be as close as you will get. In short, I am my own woman and always have been. You may see what I mean as I unravel the tale of my name and the sealed document that waited to spring its unpleasant ambush upon me.

One thing I did enjoy was to be outdoors where the cool rain could wash my face. I always preferred bird-song to the most beautiful choral music, and the singing of the wind to the most accomplished of formal orchestras.

'You'll never find a husband that way,' Father said when he came across me working in our walled garden that late autumn day of 1787. 'Leave that sort of thing to the servants.'

'I like it here,' I leaned on the handle of my fork. 'I like working with plants and animals.'

Father shook his head. 'What sort of man will want a wife with a sun-browned face and rough hands?'

'I'm not looking for a man,' I said, truthfully enough, for I had long given up the idea of romance. That sort of thing was for others, not for women such as me. Knights on white chargers ride to the rescue of beautiful princesses with fanciful names and long golden locks, not plain Marys with often-tangled red hair.

Father dismounted and whistled for the stable-boy to care for Hector, his horse. Father always gave his horses the name of Classical heroes, so he had Hector, Ajax and Achilles. Homer would have been proud of him. Personally, I always preferred the name and character of Ulysses to Hector. I like a man with brains as well as brawn. Perhaps that was one reason I could not find a man who would suit me. My male contemporaries were good men enough, dependable workers, honest as the day was long, but take them away from farming, and their minds would flounder like a coach in a peat bog.

'Now, Mary,' Father put his one arm around my shoulders. 'You must start to think about your future. Your mother and I won't be here forever, you know.'

'I know,' I said. 'In about twenty or thirty years I will worry about that.'

'You don't want to be an old maid,' Father said. 'You don't wish to live a lonely life.' He spoke quietly, as he had done so often before. Although I knew he meant to give kindly advice, I was not in the mood to listen. 'Your mother and I are perfectly willing to help find you a decent man. There are dozens who would leap at the chance of marriage with you.'

'Name one,' I said as my temper heated up. 'Name one decent man who would leap at the chance of marrying a sun-browned woman with rough hands. Name me one decent man who would leap at the chance of marrying me for myself; not a man who would marry me because in twenty or thirty years I will fall heir to your property.'

That was rather a long speech for me, for I was not prone to conversation.

Father smiled. I suppose that after twenty-odd years of marriage to my mother, a woman's temper did not bother him much. 'I will do better than name one, Mary. I will bring one to meet you. Then I will bring another and another until you meet a man with whom you feel comfortable.'

'Comfortable!' I allowed my temper to control me, rather than me controlling it. 'I don't want a man with whom I feel comfortable! I want a man who loves me.'

Father raised his eyebrows in that infuriating manner he had. 'I thought you were not looking for a man at all.'

'I'm not.' My temper calmed as quickly as it had arisen. I was not sure if Father had trapped me or if I had unwittingly revealed a truth I did not wish to have known.

'That's all right then,' Father kissed me on the forehead. 'You won't have any objections to your mother and me looking for you.' When he stepped back, tall, bronzed and kindly, I knew that I would never find a man like him. That was another part of my trouble, you see; I had a father who could do anything, and I had never met a man, young or old, who could match him in temperament or ability.

'You won't find a man for me,' I told him.

'Maybe we will and maybe we won't,' Father said, 'but if not, it won't be for want of trying.' His smile took ten years off his age. I could easily see why Mother had fallen for him all these years ago.

As I watched him stride into the house, whistling, I knew that life was going to become that little bit more complicated. When Father decided to do something, he put his whole heart into it, whatever it was. I sighed, remembering his efforts to improve the few hundred acres that we called our own. Not content to supervise the new drainage scheme, Father had to go down with pick-axe and shovel to lead the workers in the field. When we built new field boundaries, he was there, lifting and carrying the stones for the dry-stane dykes that now snake across our land. When he had new cottages for the tenants built, he helped draw up the plans and ensure every home had slate roofs and a decent vegetable garden; very impressive for a one-armed man. With that sort of example, is it any wonder that I like to spend my time out-of-doors rather than sitting quietly sewing, painting or playing the pianoforte like other unmarried women are supposed to do? I have only my father to blame for that, bless his interfering heart.

Perhaps it is because I am an only child without any brothers that Father treated me as much like a son as a daughter until he realised that girls should be brought up differently. By that time it was too late, the damage had been done and rather than sitting prettily, I liked to ride on horseback dig holes in the garden or walk in the muir. Is it any wonder that I could not find a man? Which man would want a woman as unconventional as I was?

Even knowing Father's unflagging energy, I was surprised just how quickly he began to round up the local bachelors and bring them to Cauldneb House, our less than romantically-named home. For those of you who can't translate guid Scots, cauld is what you may term as cold and a neb is our word for a nose, so we lived in Cold Nose House. It is hardly an evocative name, but once you have experienced one of our winters, or indeed one of our springs or autumns, you will understand the aptness of the description. The wind here howls straight from the north and east, cutting through layers of clothing like a knife of ice.

Unfortunately for romance, the neb in question is not the nose situated on a human face. Our neb is a protuberance on a range of high muirland or low hills, thrusting north-eastward toward the German Ocean. A muir, you understand, is what you may call a moor.

If you have read my account so far, you may wish to know where Cauldneb happens to be located. You will realise by now that we are in Scotland. Fine; so your first thought may be for the majestic Highlands with its tartan-bedecked clansmen with their Gaelic speech and great chiefs. We are not up there. Cauldneb is in the south of the country, a score of miles east of Edinburgh, on the northward slopes of the Lammermuir, exposed to winds from north, east and west. There are many good points; the views are splendid, over the plain of East Lothian, across the chopped blue bite of the Firth of Forth to the fertile fields of Fife. Our fields were equally as lush as those in Fife, which was another major factor in Cauldneb's favour. Oh, and the Firth of Forth is an inlet of the German Ocean, like a smiling mouth inviting trade into the heart of Lowland Scotland.

For good or bad, Cauldneb was home. King Malcolm II, the Destroyer, had granted the lands to the precursors of the Hepburn line back in 1018. Although there are other Hepburns in the area, we predated them by some centuries, owning Cauldneb without ever becoming ennobled or grasping for more. We were and are happy with our wee bit land; our blood and sweat had made it what it is, and generations of our ancestors lie in the local Kirkyard. Some, naturally, have ventured abroad.

Simon Hepburn rode to the Third Crusade from the ancient, crumbled keep that predated our house. Walter Hepburn fought with the Grey Wolves against English invaders in the 14th century. David Hepburn crossed to High Germany to fight the good fight for somebody or other in the Thirty Years War and my father, Andrew Hepburn had lost an arm experimenting with a new reaping machine.

And now there was me, plain Mary, the last of the line. Father's quest to find me a husband was not entirely from a desire to save me from lonely spinsterhood. He also had the interest of the family in mind. So did my mother.

'You see, Mary,' Mother said, 'there is only a limited time during which you can produce a baby. That is why women marry young. You are already twenty years old.'

Produce a baby. How cold-blooded that sounded. How practical. How unromantic. 'I know how old I am, Mother.'

'Well then, Mary, it's high time you thought of somebody else for a change.'

That was grossly unfair.

'Think of your poor father. He needs to know the family line is secure before he dies.'

Before he dies? Father is forty-five years old and as fit as Neil Gow's fiddle.

'You have to find a husband, Mary.'

Yes, Mother. So you keep telling me.

'So what are you going to do about it?'

That was how mother spoke. She ranted about her own thoughts and ideas and then demanded my answers to problems that only she believed existed.

'I believe that Father has it in hand, Mother.' I said, as much to keep the peace, or rather to get some peace, as anything else.

'Good.' Mother's mood altered as rapidly as a sparrowhawk catching its prey. Was I the prey? 'We'll soon have you all settled with a respectable man, Mary, don't you worry.'

'I was not worrying, Mother,' I assured her. That was no longer correct. I was beginning to worry now. I had no intention of being rushed into marriage with some dull-as-ditchwater supposedly-respectable man who was probably twice my age. Or with some brain-numbed clodhopper of a farmer whose imagination did not extend past the nearest midden heap. A midden heap is a dunghill, in case you were wondering.

I tried to push the thought of my parents' matchmaking out of my mind by helping Mr Mitchell the gardener. Middle-aged, with perennially dirty hands, he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of every plant in the garden. I enjoyed his company, which annoyed my mother, who pretended to care for me mixing with the servants even less than Father did.

'Don't get too familiar,' Mother said. 'The servants are not our friends.' She arrived in the walled garden when Mr Mitchell was explaining the elements of grafting. Mr Mitchell was making sure I understood each step before progressing to the next.

'Mitchell!' Mother often spoke sharply to the servants when she was trying to convince me of my elevated position. 'Cook needs more potatoes.'

'Yes, Mrs Hepburn.' Mr Mitchell said. 'I'll get them to her directly.'

Mother watched him stroll away. 'You'd better get washed, Mary. It is not a gentlewoman's place to get her hands dirty.'

'Maybe I'm not cut out to be a gentlewoman,' I said.

'Maybe not,' Mother was unperturbed. 'Be that as it may, you are a gentlewoman. None of us can escape our destiny.'

'I can try,' I said.

I knew that mother was correct. I was the last Hepburn of Cauldneb. It was my destiny to produce sufficient heirs to ensure the continuation of the family line.

'We are what we are born to be,' Mother told me. 'We have a guest coming a week this Saturday. Mr John Aitken.' Her smile wrapped around me like a snake. 'You'll like him.'

'Oh.' I could not think what to say. John Aitken. 'I don't know any Mr John Aitken. I thought I knew all the local gentlemen.'

'Mr Aitken has recently moved into the area from up north,' Mother's smile did not falter. She touched my shoulder. 'The family has purchased Tyneford. You don't know him, Mary. I know that you will like him.'

'Will I?' I looked away. 'I should choose my own man.'

'If you find somebody,' Mother said, 'let me know, and I'll judge his suitability.' She stepped toward the exit of the walled garden. 'I've already judged the suitability of John Aitken.'

'I might not like him,' I said.

'You will,' Mother told me. 'He is very respectable and eminently suitable.'

When Mother left, I felt as if she had closed the door on my life. I knew my mother. In her eyes, the match was done and dusted. It was only a matter of time before I walked down the aisle and became Mrs John Aitken, a respectable married woman to raise a whole brood of little Hepburn-Aitkens suitable to continue the family line for another seven hundred years. I knew that Father would try to persuade this John Aitken fellow to change his name to Hepburn.

The thought that Mother had already decided my future was not pleasant. I could not bear to remain where I was. I had to move, I had to walk. I had to feel the wind in my face and the ground under my feet.

With the name John Aitken rolling around inside my head, I nearly ran from our walled garden.

Nowadays everybody had heard of Lammermuir or Lammermoor as some people tend to spell it. Sir Walter Scott immortalised it in his novel The Bride of Lammermoor, which brought hundreds of readers to our neck of the woods. However, in my day nobody came to Lammermuir. The mail coach from London to Edinburgh passed at a distance, and the odd hardy traveller ventured onto the heights to cross to the villages of the Merse, the fertile, lowlands of the far south-east of Scotland. Apart from the farmers and shepherds and an occasional gaberunzie man - that's a wandering pedlar - very few people knew Lammermuir.

Let me explain. Lammermuir is a plateau of low heather-ridges on the south-east shoulder of the nation, bleak, empty and open to the grey sky above. I had grown up wandering the muir, so I knew it well. It was bare, wind-tortured and in winter desolate beyond description. I loved it. I loved the space. I loved the emptiness. I loved the wildlife, the wild hares and the lizards, the kestrels and sparrow hawks. I loved the plants peeking from the burns that gurgled through the heather. I liked the fact that I could be alone with my thoughts.

That afternoon, my thoughts were as dark as the peat holes that waited to trap the unwary. I was used to my life of freedom; now I knew that would change if my beloved mama married me off to some unknown stranger. John Aitken: what an uninspiring name.

To access Lammermuir, one has first to negotiate an initial steep slope that leads to what is essentially a plateau. I took the slope at speed, leaning my hands on my thighs to propel my legs through the heather. Ignoring the rasping of my breath, I pushed on, to reach the summit with my heart pounding.

Lammermuir stretched forever before me with a constant breeze stirring the heather, so it appeared like a browny-purple sea. As always, I stood there for a long minute to drink in the scenery and taste the Lammermuir wine. That is what I call the scent of this magical area, where the breeze carries the fresh smell of the heather, sometimes mingled with earthy peat or the wild aroma of sheep. The combination of space, heather and fresh air, all under a canopy of God's good heaven, makes Lammermuir a place like no other. It is my bit, as we say here.

When the hammering of my heart calmed down, I walked into the muir. I took long steps, revelling in the freedom, enjoying the play of light from the sky on the undulations of the landscape. I breathed deeply, trying to forget Mother's intention to marry me off to some unknown man. John Aitken. The name seemed as dull and featureless as one of the boulders that littered this muir. After half an hour of constant walking, I perched on a handy rock to think.

When I smelled the smoke, I knew that all was not as it should be. As there was no house in the area, there were only two possibilities; either some careless person had set the heather on fire, or somebody was operating a whisky distillery. Of the two, the latter was more likely. At that time there was open warfare between the illicit whisky distillers and the Excisemen the length and breadth of the country. The tax on small-scale distilling was so high that only a very few could afford it, leading to hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal distilleries springing up. Most were in the Highlands, but we had our share in the Lowlands as well. Naturally, the government were opposed to this tax evasion, and employed a small army of officials, often backed by regular soldiers, to quell the trade.

I knew that some of these illegal distillers could be a little bit rough, so you will forgive me being cautious as I approached the source of the smoke. Now, you may be wondering why I did not turn away completely from any source of danger. Well, if the truth is told, I am generally not an inquisitive sort of woman, but I do like to know what is happening, especially in my own muir. Lifting the hem of my skirt away from the longest of the heather stems, I slowly approached the smoke, watching for the ankle-trapping peat holes that wait for the unwary.

The distillery was so cleverly hidden that I could not see it. All I could see was the drift of smoke above the heather. If I had not known Lammermuir, I might have believed the smoke was mere mist. Going down on all fours, I crawled closer, feeling for an opening.

'Who the devil are you?' The voice was nearly as unfriendly as the hard hand that grabbed my shoulder and yanked me upright.

I looked around, squirming in the man's grasp. 'I am Mary Hepburn,' I said, more chagrined at having been caught than afraid. 'Who are you?'

The man was of middle height, with an unshaven face and red-rimmed eyes. He was not in the slightest bit handsome. 'Mary Hepburn, are you? What are you doing snooping around here, Mary Hepburn?'

'I live around here.' I twisted in his grasp, trying to escape. I may as well have tried to fly to the clouds. 'You, however, do not.'