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Back The Mourning Necklace
Chapters (48)
  1. Cover
  2. Kate Foster
  3. Dedication page
  4. Public Notice
  5. PART ONE
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. PART TWO
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-One
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. PART THREE
  30. Chapter Twenty-Three
  31. Chapter Twenty-Four
  32. Chapter Twenty-Five
  33. Chapter Twenty-Six
  34. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  35. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  36. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  37. Chapter Thirty
  38. Chapter Thirty-One
  39. Chapter Thirty-Two
  40. Chapter Thirty-Three
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. EPILOGUE
  45. HISTORICAL NOTE
  46. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  47. About the Author
  48. Also by Kate Foster

I go back to the landlord and tell him I shall lease it for the next quarter – see how I like it. Then I tell Ma and Joan that we have a new place to live.

And that is how, by and by, Da returns to Fisherrow, for I was not happy to pay for him to live in an inn for the rest of his days. And Joan and Ma come to live with me in Musselburgh. And we do cause a scandal, I can’t deny that. All over Fisherrow, and Musselburgh town too, they talk of how we upped and left, and how my half-hanging and my high ways had made me into a different Maggie than the meek one they had long known. But we do not care, for me and Ma and Joan fill the place with chatter and laughter and stories. Happy stories and sad stories, and here is a sad little one.

It is a cold October day when I finally lay my poor Susanna to rest.

The gravediggers at St Michael’s do not have much of a job of it, for the coffin is tiny. But one day I will rest with her. I made sure to buy us space.

It has rained and the east-coast wind has made quick work of the kirkyard trees, stripping them down to their bare branches and making my heart feel stripped bare too. It is the yellow part of autumn, when there is so little of the season left, and such bitterness in the air that we might as well call it the start of winter. But now Susanna is finally in the ground, at home, near to me, where she can close her eyes and take her blissful slumber.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Fisherrow
November 1724

It’s late on Friday afternoon and the market is starting to die down. I am waiting on the harbour-front for Mr Munroe, who has asked me to join him on a walk around Musselburgh golf links. The golf links are not a part of town that I’m familiar with. Fishing folk have little time for pastimes or pursuits and, if we do, we prefer the indoors to the outdoors. ‘The golf links!’ Joan had said, when I had told her I’d be late home. ‘That’s where the ladies and gents go for romantic walks.’ Joan knows all about the golf links too, as she’s been busy with her own affairs of the heart. Her lad’s not a mill owner’s son as such, but has a highly regarded clerking role and hopes of being a manager.