Mistress of Green Tree Mill

by Mistress of Green Tree Mill (retail) (epub)

  Caught like a twig in this rushing stream of women, Lizzie was carried in through the mill gate where she stopped at a little gatehouse that looked like a stone pepper pot and asked to see the office manager. Intimidated by her air of confidence and fashionable clothes, the gatekeeper directed her towards the manager’s room.

  She wasted no time in announcing her business. ‘I’m a friend of Mr Adams and my brother George Mudie is considering taking a job here.’

  The manager, a bushy browed individual who was not accustomed to being addressed as an equal by a woman, gazed at her in astonishment. ‘Your brother’s considering taking a job here?’

  Lizzie swept on, ‘He’s not strong and I want to be sure that you’ll look after him properly. I’d like to see the office where he’ll work.’

  A bubble of laughter welled up in the manager’s chest. He knew her father and had always admired his nerve and style. This lassie must have inherited those qualities from David, he thought. Reaching for a brass bell on his desk top, he gave it a tinkle and when a clerk appeared in the doorway, he said solemnly, ‘Please show Miss Mudie the accounts office. Be particular to show her the fireplace.’ And turning to Lizzie he added, ‘It’s always lit in winter time, Miss Mudie.’

  When she returned home, Lizzie was all smiles. George was lying on his bed reading and she plumped herself down beside him saying, ‘I’ve been to visit your new office. It’s very comfortable, small and cosy. When they said you could have the desk by the fire, I said you’d take the job.’

  George sat up, stared at her in consternation, then sank his head in his hands with a moan. ‘Oh, Lizzie, why can’t you leave things alone!’

  * * *

  George’s work in the mill counting house took him even more out of his sister’s life. He made a circle of friends who were unknown to her and went off on weekend rambling expeditions with them, leaving her behind to cope with Jessie, whose health continued to deteriorate. Her pale complexion took on a greenish tinge and her skeletal thinness grew more pronounced.

  By spring her weakness was so disabling that Lizzie found herself forgetting her dislike and urging her stepmother to rest. She even offered to entertain the little boys in her free hours off from the bar.

  One of the most popular public holidays of the year was the day the whaling fleet left the docks for six months in the Arctic where they would stalk and harpoon giant whales. The whole town turned out to see them go because the bounty of whalebones and blubber which they brought back was essential for Dundee’s prosperity.

  On the April morning when the whaling fleet was due to sail, Lizzie told Jessie, ‘Stay in bed. Maggy and I’ll take the boys to see the fleet leave.’

  Little Davie was delighted at being allowed to go to the docks and watch the magnificent whalers sail away. He danced about around Lizzie’s feet, whirling away at a huge iron hoop which was his favourite toy.

  ‘You can’t play with that thing in the crowd. It’ll trip people up.’ Lizzie looked with disapproval at the hoop but when his face fell, her heart softened. Her dislike of him as a baby had been gradually overtaken by affection as he grew older because he was a good-humoured child who took after their father.

  Maggy had the care of his brother Robert who was a different case, a peevish baby who spent most of his life wailing, howling his lungs out for nothing at all. Even tender-hearted Maggy, who loved all children, found it difficult to tolerate Robert.

  When their little party reached the corner of the street that gave a view down to the harbour, they paused in wonder. The dock was so crowded with tall ships that the masts resembled close-packed trees. Each high spar was gaily decorated with brilliant pennants that fluttered in the breeze like the favours of medieval knights at a tournament.

  It was a sight to thrill the heart of anyone with wandering blood, as many of the East Coast Scots possess. The jostling ships induced in them a longing for adventure, for distant lands and exotic scenes.

  The two young women and their charges hurried down into the noise and bustle at the dockside. Crowds had turned out to see the whalers leave and their ears were filled with shouting and singing; with the cries of pedlars; the rattle of metal wheels as handcarts and horse-drawn lorries went over the cobbles. Under all the din ran the muted music of the sea – the sound of creaking wood and lapping water lazily rocking the ships’ hulls to and fro.

  Lizzie and Davie wended their way past groups of people, many of them sailors with sobbing women clasped in their arms. The women were weeping because their men were going away for so long into an unimaginable hell of cold and danger. No whalers’ women were under any illusion that this would be a pleasure trip. Too many men had been lost in the past and there were too many stories of cruel suffering for illusions to be long maintained.

  Standing on the sidelines were old men who had once gone whaling themselves, their pale eyes yearning with sea fever as they scrutinized and discussed among themselves the appointments of this year’s fleet. Little boys, avid for adventure, were hardly able to contain their impatience for the day when they too might be one of the swaggering heroes boarding the wooden ships. It did not occur to them that the harsh reality of pack ice and freezing fogs in the northernmost parts of the world would soon make them wish to be home again.

  Many of their sailor-heroes were not as fine as they might have been because the dockside bars, packed to their doors since dawn, were now debouching staggering drunks while agents of the various captains went around gathering up latecomers. Everyone knew that often entire crews were so drunk that their first day’s sailing was only to the sand bar at the mouth of the Tay where the ships hove to for twenty-four hours until everyone on board sobered up, but that did not detract from the glory of the quayside spectacle.

  Davie, gasping with excitement, was pulling at Lizzie’s hand, urging her to the front where he could get a better view. Allowing him to tug her along, she found herself on the edge of the dock beside a big pitted iron bollard, on which she sat. Both she and her brother were captivated by the drama being enacted before their eyes, forgetting Maggy and the pram, lost somewhere behind them in the press of people.

  It only took a minute. She slackened her grip on Davie’s hand and did not notice his hoop rolling away from him. He ran after it, slipped on the slimy cobbles and tumbled head over heels into the water, sliding like a doll between the dock wall and a ship’s hull. What brought her attention back was a loud splash and a scream from another watching woman… ‘Oh, a bairn’s fallen in! Oh, my God, it’s drowning!’

  The word ‘drowning’ was enough. Lizzie’s head began to swim and a terrible fear swept over her. Who was drowning? Where was Davie? All her old terror of the river, the frightful dreams of her mother’s body being swept out to sea, came back into her mind. She jumped to her feet and stared around with her heart thundering.

  Where was Davie? Surely the demon of the water was not so malign as to take a second member of her family? She ran to the dock edge and elbowed her way through the crowd that was peering into the water. Then she saw it, floating serenely on the greenish water – his beribboned straw hat.

  She put a hand to her throat and screamed, ‘It’s Davie, it’s my wee brother!’ She was tearing off her jacket in preparation for jumping in after him when a figure flashed past her and leapt, feet first, into the water. Some men held her back and she stood shaking violently for what seemed an eternity before a man’s head broke the surface.

  The filthy water streamed down his face, making him look like a seal as he gazed around. The crowd gave a gasp that turned to a cheer when he raised one arm in triumph and showed them that he was clutching something that looked like a bundle of wet rags.

  He swam towards an iron ladder on the dock wall and onlookers ran to help him up the rusty rungs. Their hands reached down and hauled him back on land. In his arms he carried the inert body of a child. Very gently he laid it down on the stone quay.

  With her, teeth chattering Lizzie ran
towards Davie’s little body. He was smeared green with slime and his eyes were closed. Her thoughts were chaotic: You can’t do this, God. You can’t do this. Spare him. If you spare him I’ll go to church again, I’ll believe again…

  Kneeling by the child’s side she sobbed out, ‘Don’t let him die, don’t let him die.’

  A policeman pushed past her and knelt over the child, squeezing down on his chest with outspread hands. Under the eyes of the silent crowd he worked for what seemed like an eternity before, all at once, a gush of foul water spouted from Davie’s mouth.

  At the sight of it a sigh of relief swept the onlookers and Lizzie shuddered as if some spectre had walked away from her. Little Davie was breathing. When he started to cry, her heart beat normally again and she sat down weakly on her heels at the child’s side. Then she laid her arms across the little body and started to weep herself.

  After a moment or two she looked up and saw through her tears that the onlookers were clapping the back of a tall, dark-haired man whose clothes were dripping. A solicitous woman tried to throw a shawl over his shoulders but he declined it with a smile.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m off that ship over there, the Pegasus. Just let me get by. We’ll be off soon.’

  In desperate haste she pushed her way through the throng to reach him, knowing she had to thank him before he went. It was a revelation to her that she could be so upset by danger to Davie. Her relief at his having escaped the evil force that lurked in the river was immense and she was so charged with gratitude and relief that, without thinking, she ran up to the tall rescuer and threw both arms around his soaking body, holding him tight in a desperate embrace.

  ‘Oh, thank you, thank you for saving wee Davie,’ she sobbed, not caring that the slime off his clothes was staining her best dress.

  She heard a laugh. Then she looked up and saw his face. His eyes were golden brown with thick black lashes. At once she dropped her hands because in that instant she became very aware of how tightly she was clinging to his hard-muscled body. It seemed as if the earth opened up beneath her feet. A raging sound filled her ears and she blushed in deep embarrassment at her forwardness. As if he understood, the man’s hands went gently out to steady her, gripping her round the waist for only a few seconds, but to both of them it seemed that the watching crowd disappeared and they were the only people on the dock.

  When she looked at him properly she saw a tanned face, a proud beak of a nose and a firm chin with a deep cleft. He was staring back at her too with a strange sort of recognition and she tried to smile but could not control the quivering of her lips.

  Still holding her around the waist he asked, ‘Was that your bairn?’ She shook her head. ‘No. He’s my brother.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Lizzie Mudie. The wee boy you saved is Davie Mudie.’

  ‘I’m Sam Kinge. Where do you and Davie live?’

  ‘At the Castle Bar – over there. My father would want to thank you, I know…’ She pointed up the hill behind them with a trembling hand.

  ‘I’m going whaling but I’ll be back in six months. I’ll come to see you then,’ said Sam.

  Chapter 7

  Sometimes during the hot summer evenings of 1892, George would pop his head around the swinging glass door of the saloon bar and ask his sister, ‘Coming for a walk? It’s too nice to be shut up in here all day.’

  Lizzie, standing stiff behind the bar in her starched white apron, would turn her head and look at him almost longingly before she asked, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Johnny and I are taking a turn on the Magdalen Green.’ She always shook her head, and after a few refusals he stopped asking. She was acting very strange, he reckoned. There were plenty of workers in the bar, she could go out for an hour to take the air but she seemed afraid to leave the place. Yet she hated bar work.

  George shrugged his shoulders and went off with Johnny to kick a football around on the vast expanse of grass beside the river. Lizzie wished she could explain her feelings to him but she was unable even to sort them out for herself. All she knew was that since young Davie’s close shave with death, her old fear of the river had returned with terrible force. The dreams were worse than ever and if, by accident, she caught a glimpse of the shining surface of the Tay, her legs trembled uncontrollably. She was very afraid that her family had some strange, doomed link with water, that the demons of the deep were only waiting to claim them, one by one.

  Those thoughts were always most terrible in the small hours of the morning. During the day she managed to keep them at bay by hard work. Even Jessie was impressed by the girl’s dedication. She spent almost her entire time in the saloon bar, and if not serving customers was polishing brass and shining glasses. She did not enjoy the work but it was a way of diverting her mind.

  From time to time she would gaze through the open door to the street and see the figures of men and women passing by together. Then the vision of the man with the golden eyes who’d held her waist so tightly came back into her mind and she shivered with an emotion she could not name. How strange that she, who was so terrified of the sea, should be obsessed with the memory of a sailor.

  When the summer was at its height and tar bubbled up between the causeway stones of the roads, cholera appeared in the close-packed slums at the top of Hawkhill. The weak and the undernourished were its first victims but the more people it killed, the more it grew in strength.

  Maggy came into the Castle Bar one morning with a set face and told Lizzie, ‘I’m stopping work. Vickie’s got the fever.’

  ‘Poor wee Vickie. Has your mother called a doctor?’

  ‘We cannae afford the doctor. We’re taking care of her ourselves. There’s a lot of fever in the Vaults. I’m feared that I’ll carry it back here to the wee lads so I’ll stay away till it’s past.’

  Lizzie did not argue. She had no fear of catching cholera herself but she was afraid for her family and especially for George who she still watched carefully, scanning his face for signs of illness. Though he had been much better recently, she was not convinced that he had grown out of his childhood weakness.

  Her face became thunderous that night when George came round the back of the bar to tell her, ‘I’ve been over to the Davidsons’. Wee Vickie’s dying. I wish there was something we could do to help.’

  She turned on him in fury. ‘What are you doing going over there? Those slums are full of infection. You’ll catch fever.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. They need help. I’ll be all right. Anyway, what’s the difference between the Vaults and the Perth Road at a time like this? I’ve just met a man from the mill and he says Mrs Adams has the fever too.’

  Lizzie stared at him in shock. ‘Not Mrs Adams! I went to see her yesterday and she was all right then.’

  George gave a brief nod. ‘Fever doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, Lizzie.’

  When he went out his sister stood with a confused expression for a few minutes. Then, taking off her apron, she said to the head barman, ‘I’m going out. I won’t be long.’ In great haste she ran to the kitchen and, not caring if Jessie, who was lying in bed next door, could hear her, she began ransacking the larder. Soon, with a full basket, she was running over the courtyard in the middle of the Vaults, up the stairs and into the Davidsons’ room.

  It smelt foul although the door and window were open to allow in a breeze from the river. Maggy was bustling about at the fireside and Bertha sat at the side of the box bed, slowly sponging the face of her youngest child.

  She looked up with a blank, stunned expression and said, ‘Oh, Lizzie, she’s dying, poor wee soul. I wish to God it was me and not her.’

  Though Lizzie attempted to reassure Bertha, she knew it was hopeless. The child’s lips were blue. She would soon be dead. Lizzie stayed with them for a little while until the others began arriving home. Then, respecting their need to be alone at such a terrible time, she returned home.

  Vickie died that night. Pennies saved b
y Bertha Davidson from her small wage and paid into a burial fund, provided for a coffin, and the rest of the family scraped together the money for a proper funeral. It was a matter of pride to them that their wee Vic be sent off with proper respect even though they would have to live for weeks on bread and dripping.

  Lizzie and George accompanied the Davidsons to see Vickie buried and walked behind as the children supported their mother home after the little ceremony.

  Bertha was more cough ridden than ever, hawking away after almost every word she spoke. ‘It’s the fibre in my lungs. You can’t work in a mill for thirty years without getting a cough,’ she explained shamefacedly after a particularly bad outburst stopped her in the middle of the pavement.

  Lizzie could see deep anxiety in Johnny’s eyes. In the past few months he had become a man, and was an almost unknown quantity to her now. There was a guarded look on his set face and his eyes were hard and angry. She remembered that people said he was doing so well at work that the Courier’s editor had made him a junior reporter, for he had the power of words and was particularly good at writing reports of the rallies which were frequent in Dundee. The city was a very political place indeed because the Liberals were continually locking horns with the Conservatives there.

  When the party reached the Davidsons’ room, Johnny paced the floor like a caged lion before his emotions burst out. ‘I wanted to make things better for Vickie. Why didn’t she live until I could? I’ll be rich one day.’

  ‘You’re doing well. I’m proud of you,’ said Bertha.

  ‘I want to be able to help you most of all. You’re ill, you shouldn’t be working. You shouldn’t have to send our clothes to the pawnshop every week. But I need time. I need time!’

  Concerned for him, Lizzie rose from her chair and touched his arm. ‘You’re doing everything you can. Don’t be so angry. You’re on your way to great things.’