‘Why you?’ Margaret asked. ‘He must have other wealthy friends. The man barely knows you.’

  ‘True, but he knows that I have acquaintances in London. He perceives an advantage there.’

  ‘I see. But what is the cost?’

  ‘Five thousand pounds, from each of us.’

  ‘Mathew,’ she exclaimed, ‘that’s a fortune. It’s nearly all the money that the business has available.’

  ‘I can borrow half of it from the British Linen Bank; that has been agreed already. What do you say?’

  ‘Are you certain this is a good venture?’

  ‘As certain as I’ve ever been. These blast furnaces and their moulded iron will be the stimulus for all sorts of things, not just locomotives.’

  ‘Then do it. You’ve never been wrong yet.’

  Two weeks after Mathew signed the agreement with Sir Graham Stockley, in late November, Margaret went into labour. Her pregnancy had been uneventful. He had wanted to engage a specialist doctor from Glasgow, but she had insisted that Henry Lindsay, the local physician, and Mistress Blyth, the midwife, had seen enough children into the world to know what they were doing.

  The child was a boy, but he chose an unfortunate place to arrive. Margaret felt the first contractions ten days after she had been told she would, in the back of Mathew’s carriage as he was driving them both to the factory in Netherton. He took another road and headed straight for Dr Lindsay’s rooms, but even as they arrived at his door, their son made his first appearance in the world.

  After the midwife had done her work, Mathew carried his wife inside, while the doctor took the baby. ‘That was a close-run thing,’ he murmured, as he laid her on the bed in the surgery. As he spoke he noticed the blood.

  He drew Lindsay across. ‘Doctor. What’s this?’

  The physician shooed him away to admire his son then bent to examine his patient. ‘She has a small tear,’ he said when he was done. ‘Just the one, though, and it will heal fast, wi’ a stitch. He’s a big bairn, your laddie.’

  Mathew was bewildered. His life had been one of method, skill and organisation; everything worked to a plan. Spontaneity did not come naturally to him.

  ‘What do we do?’ he asked. ‘I cannot take her home in the carriage.’

  ‘No,’ Lindsay agreed, ‘that you cannot. They must stay here, until Mistress Fleming heals, then you can take them both home.’

  Work forgotten, Mathew stayed with his wife and child for the rest of the day. Margaret was drowsy, and still in pain from her speedy delivery of such a large baby. The doctor explained that it would be unwise to give her laudanum, as the drug might find its way into her milk. She accepted that without complaint, and her husband watched as she put their son to the breast for the first time.

  The baby had his mother’s red hair, he thought, as he looked at them in the lamplight. The rest of his features were crumpled and unfathomable, but his body was long, an early sign, Mathew hoped, that he might grow to his father’s height.

  He stayed until after the second feed, then left them both to sleep and drove his carriage home. The business was not a worry to him. He had a good foreman, and he had sent a message to him advising him of what had happened, and that he should take temporary charge as they had planned.

  Hannah was waiting for him in Waterloo House. ‘Where is Margaret?’ she asked as soon as she saw that he was alone.

  ‘Taken to her bed in the doctor’s hospital, her and our child. Happy day, Granny.’ He hugged her to him.

  Over dinner, he explained what had happened, and the unusual site of the baby’s arrival. He grinned as he told the story, with relief rather than humour, but his mother did not.

  ‘Bairns are best born in the mither’s ain bed,’ she declared.

  ‘Another piece of homespun wisdom, Mother?’ he suggested.

  ‘No. A truth that every midwife knows, and maist women who’ve had a child will confirm. Better, too, wi’ a doctor nowhere near.’

  ‘Lindsay would be offended to hear you say that, but he did arrive very late in the day. All the work was done by then.’

  Hannah drew him a severe look. ‘His perhaps. Yours and Margaret’s is only jist beginning, and it’ll gang on as long as ye live.’

  ‘And we’ll be proud to do it, proud parents both.’

  ‘What will ye cry’ him?’ she asked.

  ‘That we have still to discuss. Margaret was too tired for any subject to be raised.’

  ‘After you then?’

  ‘No. After my father, perhaps, but there are many Roberts in the world, and maybe another would only add to the confusion. But I won’t choose alone; it’ll be Margaret’s decision as much as mine. Now, let’s toast them both in that fine ginger wine of yours, and then I’m for bed. I have never been so tired since I left the army.’

  It may have been the ginger wine he had drunk, it may have been the blood he had seen, but that night, Mathew’s dream of his newborn son was infiltrated by the return of an old enemy. For the first time in his recent memory, for the first time since Margaret, he was visited by the Voltigeur.

  Forcing himself awake, he sat up in bed, bolt upright, sweat-covered, in damp bedlinen, yet cold and shuddering, with a feeling of dread and an ache in the spot where the Frenchie’s sword had pierced him.

  The clock on the mantelpiece showed only ten minutes past five, but he knew he would find no more sleep that night. He bathed and shaved, forcing his mind to dwell only on his new son, and running over names that he might suggest to Margaret. He was certain of one, but there was another possibility that might require a little tact when he put it forward.

  The cook was still asleep when he went downstairs, so he went into the kitchen, lit the lamps, and cut a slice from a load baked the afternoon before. He spread it with his mother’s damson jam . . . not only the best seamstress in Carluke, Hannah had been, by common consent, its best jam-maker.

  Still hungry he spread another slice, filled a pewter pot with milk, and set both on a tray that he carried one-handed, leaving the other free for a lamp to light the way through to his own parlour, the room he had taken to calling his study.

  He lit all of the lamps and candles, so that he had enough light to read. A low fire was burning in the grate and he chose to sit beside it, putting down his tray on a small table. Before settling down he crossed to his desk and picked up a folder of papers.

  They included copies, sent to him by Stockley, of firm orders from the Robert Stephenson company in Newcastle, for components and wheels for new locomotives. He had never seen a locomotive, but as he had explained to Margaret, he knew of their potential. As he looked at the orders he realised their profitability also, and trusted that the Stephensons had the funds to pay them. If they did, and the cast-iron business grew, then he and Stockley were on the verge of a new level of wealth.

  He had been reading for an hour, making a note here and there, when he was startled by the sound of the doorbell. Mathew had never worried before about the relative isolation of his house, but the arrival of an infant had awakened all sorts of new considerations within him, even making him reconsider his refusal to have firearms in the place.

  He picked up a heavy metal poker from the fireplace and went to answer the call, hoping that it had not awakened his mother.

  Mathew did not recognise the young man who stood there as he opened the door, but he did know the look on the face of a messenger who was fearful of the reception his news might be given.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, more roughly than he might have.

  ‘Ah’m frae Cam’nethan, sir, frae Dr Lindsay. He says ye need tae come richt away. Yer wife’s been taken badly.’

  Two things had made Mathew Fleming a very good soldier. He was a deadly shot with a musket or a pistol, and even more important, he never panicked. And so the feeling that swept over him was completely new to him. He felt his legs go weak, and he grabbed at the doorpost for a moment to steady himself.

  ‘Whit is it, son?’

  His mother’s voice came from behind him, from the tip of the stairs. He turned and saw her standing, in her long nightgown, candlestick in hand.

  ‘It’s Margaret,’ he answered. ‘She’s not well, the doctor says.’

  ‘Then we maun go. Ah’ll be dressed in a minute.’

  ‘You have no need to come, Mother.’

  ‘Oh, but Ah do. That man Lindsay’s no fool, and no’ one tae panic either. God forbid, but ye micht need me, and the bairn too.’

  ‘Very well,’ he agreed, ‘but hurry.’

  He looked at the messenger. ‘How did ye’ get here?’

  ‘Ah ran, sir. It’s what Ah dae. Ah’ll awa’ back the noo’.’

  ‘Can you harness a horse to a trap?’

  The lad nodded.

  ‘Then go round the back to the stable. It’ll be the first box you come to, a black horse. Not the pony, mind. She’s a very old lady and does nothing but graze these days. Do that and you can come back with us on the back of the carriage. You’ll have to hang on tight though.’

  He was waiting for them with the rig when they came out, both mother and son in heavy winter coats. He saw the look in Mathew’s eye and made a decision on the safety of hanging on to the back of a coach driven by such a man. ‘Ah’ll just run back, sir.’

  ‘If you insist.’ Mathew locked the house then handed him a sovereign. ‘Thank you for your trouble, if not your message. Call on me in Netherton and you’ll have a new pair of shoes as well.’

  He turned and held out a hand to help his mother into the carriage, only to have her brush it aside. Hannah Fleming was sixty years old but still supple.

  ‘Dinna’ be hard on the horse,’ she murmured as he eased on beside her and took the reins. ‘It’s no’ his fault.’

  He tried to keep her caution in mind as he drove; indeed he had to, for the sun was well short of rising, the light was poor, and the road was rutted by recent rain. Even so, the animal covered the miles from Waterloo House to Cambusnethan as fast as ever it had.

  There was one light shining in the room above the surgery as they arrived. Mathew secured the rig to a post and made for the door; it opened before he reached it, and Dr Lindsay stepped out to greet him, in great distress.

  ‘Mr Fleming, Mistress Fleming . . .’ he began.

  ‘What is it?’ Mathew demanded

  ‘Childbed fever,’ his mother murmured, beside him.

  Lindsay nodded. ‘Aye, I fear so. Puerperal fever, it’s properly called, but it’s the same. I’ve never seen its onset so fast, though, or seen it develop so quickly.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Hannah sighed. ‘When I heard where the bairn was born. Cleanliness is next tae Godliness, and the seat of a carriage is far frae both.’

  ‘Probably,’ the physician agreed. ‘I promise you, sir, that the midwife and I are believers in hygiene.’

  ‘What can be done for her?’

  ‘Nothing, I fear; it’s in her blood, sepsis. She’s a strong woman, but still she’s burning up.’

  ‘Can I see her?’

  ‘Yes, you should, without delay.’

  ‘And the bairn?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘He’s well, but that’s another crisis. His mother will give him no more milk and he should have a wet nurse.’

  ‘Can ye find one?’

  ‘I’m not sure, and yet it’s urgent. A newborn baby’s a fragile creature.’

  ‘I can.’ Hannah Fleming turned to her son as she spoke. ‘Go tae your wife,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll find a breast tae suckle your boy.’

  Mathew felt a huge surge of gratitude. His mother had never let him down and he knew she never would. He allowed Lindsay to lead him upstairs, past the surgery, to the hospital chamber where the light shone.

  Margaret’s red hair was spread around her on the pillow like a halo. Her arms were by her sides outside the single sheet that covered her, and her face was flushed. Her breathing was rapid but shallow, and her eyes were closed. Her husband had seen many a man die in the army infirmary, and could not hide from or deny the inevitable.

  ‘Is she aware?’ he asked.

  ‘Not for the last hour, nor will she be again, I’m afraid. It’s for the best, sir.’

  ‘What?’ he retorted. ‘No chance to say goodbye is for the best?’

  ‘She’s out of pain. Her blood and her body are full of poisons. She will sleep away now. All you can do is sit with her.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Until she lets go.’

  Lindsay closed the door, leaving them alone.

  There were so many thoughts in his head, so many things he wanted to say to her, so many fervent thanks he wanted to give her for all she had been to him and would always be, but all he could do was try to will them into her unconscious mind, so that she might die in the knowledge that he had come to love her as truly and deeply as he had ever loved anyone, and that she had given him a personal fulfilment he had thought he would never know.

  All that he could say as he held her hand was, ‘Oh, my Margaret, you made me so happy. God’s cruel, that He takes you away.’

  He sat with her for two hours as the sun rose, and brightened the chamber, wiping the moistness from her sleeping face occasionally with clean cloths that the doctor had left. He listened to her breathing, until it became faster, then more laboured, until finally it stopped, and she was gone.

  He stood, and folded her hands across her chest. Then he murmured, ‘Goodbye, my love,’ kissed her on the forehead and then on the lips, and left the room that he knew would always be burned into his brain, another nightmare to curse his sleep.

  When he went downstairs, his mother was waiting. She said nothing, but hugged him, then pressed her face to his shoulder. He knew she was weeping, but would want no one else to see, and so he let her shed her tears, and looked at the doctor.

  ‘You will please ask the undertaker to call on me this afternoon,’ he said. ‘The funeral will be in Carluke, of course, and Mr Barclay will conduct it.’

  As he finished, Hannah stood straight once more. ‘I am so sorry, ma boy,’ she said. She paused, but only for a second or two, and he saw her urgency. ‘We maun go now,’ she told him, ‘and take the bairn wi’ us. His need’s the greatest now, but Ah’ve found someone who’ll look after him like her ain.’

  They wrapped the baby in two shawls. One had been Mathew’s own and the second Hannah had crocheted for him during Margaret’s pregnancy. Then his grandmother carried him outside to the carriage. The horse had been groomed and was feeding from a nosebag.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘Carluke,’ she replied, knowing that she need say no more.

  Chapter Fourteen

  WHEN MATHEW CARRIED HIS son into the McGill cottage, it was the first time he had seen his childhood sweetheart in more than eight years. She was standing with her back to the fire, and she too held an infant in her arms.

  ‘You poor man,’ she said, moved by the sadness in him. ‘You deserved much better. I’m sorry I never met Mistress Fleming, Mathew. David said she was such a good woman.’

  ‘The worst things happen to the best people,’ he replied, in a dull monotone that she could not have imagined hearing from the man she had known for so long.

  She smiled at him, sadly. ‘You should know.’

  ‘I did not mean myself,’ he sighed. ‘Margaret was far too good for the likes of me, that puts his business before everything. Why did it have to happen to her, Lizzie?’

  ‘It lies in wait for all of us who give birth, Mathew. It’s a risky business, regardless of status. Queens have died from childbed fever, so I’ve been told.’

  ‘But you are sound?’

  ‘Yes, I’m among the lucky ones. It’s two weeks since our wee Jean was born and I am back as I was.’

  ‘And she is thriving?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Lizzie said, glancing down at the bundle in her arms, ‘she’s the most biddable child of the three.’

  ‘I was sorry to hear of your loss,’ he said. ‘Your poor wee Wilma, to be taken like that.’

  ‘We bear these things, Mathew. I had practice at it, when I was told I’d lost you, after the great battle. All we can do is love them that are left all the more.’

  ‘I did love Margaret, you know,’ he murmured, rocking his son gently in his arms.

  ‘I know.’ She nodded. ‘And I love David too.’

  ‘You should. He’s a better man than me.’

  ‘He’s a different man from you, the gentlest you could ever meet, but dinna do yourself down. There’s not a soul in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire that’s more respected. You put food on people’s table with your factory. You might only have one eye now, but you see more with it than ten ordinary men.’

  For all his misery, he smiled. ‘You are biased.’

  ‘That may be, but it’s still the truth. Where is Mother Fleming?’ she asked him, suddenly.

  ‘She is gone to see Mr Barclay, to tell him the news, and to ask him to prepare for a . . .’ He broke off and gazed at the ceiling. ‘Last spring, Margaret told me we would have a wedding and a christening in the same year. But she could not have known we’d be having a funeral as well. I would give up everything I own to have her back.’

  ‘Then you’d be wishing that baby unborn,’ Lizzie retorted, ‘that child you cradle in your arms. She would not have wanted that, I promise you, not even as the fever took hold of her. You cannot have her back, and so you will not give up everything. Far from it, you will work all the harder, for your son. David told me of your plans for your factory, with the new products, and of your new venture.’

  ‘There is some risk in both. If one were to fail, I would survive, but if both go badly . . .’

  ‘Mathew, neither will fail, and you know it. Now,’ she said briskly, as she laid the infant Jean in a cradle at the side of the hearth, ‘let me see that bairn of yours. He must be fed.’

  ‘This is a great thing you’re doing, Lizzie.’

  ‘Nonsense, it’s what any woman would do. God knows, if Mother Fleming could, you would never get him off her.’ She frowned as she took the baby from him. ‘Look after her, mind. She was in a fearful fuss when she arrived here. She’d driven hard all the way from Cam’nethan. David had gone to his work by then, but young Matt was still here and he was alarmed when he saw the state she was in.’