In Loving Memory by Jenny Telfer Chaplin Read Free Book Online

I love him like my own.”
    Maggie dried her tears and stormed at him. “Well, hell and damnation to that for an answer, not too much in the way of comfort for me there, now is there? Our own, our very own beloved wee Scott is gone, gone never to return and here what do you do? Just gibber on about how you love the bastard like your very own. He is not your very own, never was, never has been and never will be. Your own beloved wee boy is dead, can you still not comprehend that, big stupid Radical that ye are. Ye’re a coarse unfeeling shell of a man.”
    “And ye’re a cold heartless bitch wantin to play God choosing which child should die and which should live.”
    Maggie knew that from that moment on, never again would their wedded lives have the slightest measure of loving kindness, closeness or happy togetherness. It was over, that aspect, over as surely as if a court of law or ministers of the Kirk had decreed, “This sham of a marriage is over, null and void.”
    That night and despite their many past rows regarding his Radical involvement, for the first time in all their years of marriage, Fergus and Maggie slept as far apart in bed as they could physically manage within the bounds of the fairly narrow wall-bed.
    As she yet again cried herself to sleep that night, again and again Maggie asked God, “Why? Why God, why take to yourself the child of a loving union and yet spare that bastard child, the fruit of my sorrow, my shame, my humiliation? Why leave him, the very sight of him to taunt me for the rest of my life? So much for all my prayers. Thank you dear God, thank you for nothing, sweet damn all.”
    After another blazing row a purple-faced Fergus stormed out of the house.
    Maggie gave a grim smile. At least nowadays, it isn’t always the same topic we row about. Now we have a choice, the Radical movement, my on-going hatred of Ewan or as today, my coldness to Fergus and my withholding of what he now frequently refers to as his ‘marital rights’. Marital rights, indeed. Don’t I have any such rights, what about my right not always to comply with his wishes and desires? What about my right to refuse to work day and night in caring for the home, the two children, the physical needs and whims of my Lord and Master?
    Who in their right mind would ever want to be a woman? We’re slaves, nothing other than slaves to men. Perhaps in some future age, women will come to their senses, have a voice , a will of their own, but I cannot see it ever happening in my lifetime.
    As these thoughts raced through Maggie’s brain, she thought. Damned if I care anymore where Fergus has now gone at such high speed. Maybe he’s got a fancy woman somewhere, a woman whose husband works nightshifts and who would welcome his advances. Well, he’s welcome to her, for any given favours, for I’m damned if he’ll get any such special treatment in my bed. What was it he called me? A heartless, evil bitch, an un-natural mother, not to mention the rest of my many other attributes.

 
    Chapter 10
     
    August 1820
     
    As Fergus came into the cottage on the evening of 30th August, his face was ashen, his shoulders were bent like an old man and with what looked to Maggie like a single desperate act of despair, as with the last breath in his body, he tossed aside a pamphlet the black print of which screamed out, ‘MURDER, MURDER, MURDER.’
    Maggie said not a word but her raised eyebrows prompted her husband to say, “Aye, weel, might ye wonder, Maggie. Just ye take a read at that pamphlet and ye’ll wonder no more, for that’s what we were handing out this afternoon... while they were hanging by the neck and then bloody butchering poor old Weaver Wilson.”
    Maggie took the printed sheet in her hands and read, “May the ghost of the butchered Wilson haunt the pillows of his relentless jurors... ‘MURDER, MURDER, MURDER’.
    Maggie read and reread the words, examined the accompanying poster, thought for several moments, then