Mistress of Green Tree Mill

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

  ‘How terrible for you. Why were you sent there?’

  No matter what he was going to tell her, it would not change the way she felt about him.

  He looked into her eyes. ‘I was afraid you’d run away if you heard about the Mars, but I had to tell you. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. Not all the boys on the Mars are bad, Lizzie. My brother and I didn’t do anything wrong.’

  ‘You have a brother? Have you any other family?’ Her voice was soft.

  Sam’s eyes were cold as stones. ‘My brother Arthur’s two years older than me. We were born in Aberdeen but our parents weren’t happy. When I was five our father left – later he sent us to the Mars.’

  Lizzie’s face expressed outrage and astonishment. ‘He sent you to that awful place! He can’t have any heart.’

  She remembered hearing that a few unfortunate boys were sent to the training ship because they were poor and destitute or as a preparation for a naval career by families who believed in subjecting sons to rigorous discipline.

  Sam’s face was set in hard lines as he continued with his story. ‘He didn’t want us. He had another family somewhere. Sometimes he sent a little money, but not much. Our mother went mad about a year after he left and her family kept us, but they were grudging. They told our father he should take us but instead he sent us to the Mars.’

  Lizzie’s heart overflowed with pity as she reached out and put a hand on his cheek, whispering, ‘Oh, Sam, it must have been terrible for you.’

  Although she and George had known sorrow as children and lost their mother when they were small, they had been taken care of by a loving father and experienced none of the sufferings that Sam and his brother had endured. Her heart was filled with pity for him.

  ‘Where’s Arthur now?’ she asked.

  He leaned towards her as if he wanted to hug her close. ‘He’s a policeman in Glasgow and doing well. He’s coming to Dundee to see me next week. I want you to meet him. Our mother’s in the madhouse in Aberdeen. I go to see her sometimes but she doesn’t know me. I’d take you if you’d come. God knows what happened to our father. We never saw him again after he sent us away.’

  The sharing of this story brought them even closer together and Lizzie was full of such love for Sam that she wanted never to be parted from him. As they walked back slowly to the Castle Bar, he suddenly stopped before the window of a smart shop in Exchange Street and pointed out a grey silk frilled parasol with a chased silver handle.

  ‘I’d like to buy you that. It would suit you – you’re so elegant and ladylike,’ he said.

  They went into the shop and made their purchase but Lizzie would not leave until he allowed her to give him a gift in return. In her purse she had a week’s wages from the bar and she spent it all on a long white silk scarf of exquisite fineness that looked well against his tanned skin.

  As she looped it round his neck, he stroked the silk and told her, ‘I’ll wear this every time we go to the theatre. We’ll be a fine pair.’

  * * *

  For the first time since early childhood, Lizzie was truly happy. She and Sam were together every day and their happiness was so obvious that even Jessie was affected by it and gave Lizzie time off without too much complaint.

  Sam was anxious on the day that Arthur was due to arrive from Glasgow. When he alighted from the train, Lizzie who was waiting with Sam on the platform recognized the family resemblance and liked him immediately. He was as dark as his brother, but not as forthcoming or humorous, for Arthur was a solemn fellow, perhaps because he was the oldest and also because of the job he had chosen to do.

  The two brothers sat talking together in the Castle Bar with Lizzie listening, drinking in information about their different worlds.

  Arthur talked about police procedure; about patrolling the streets of Glasgow in company with his partner; about fights on Saturday nights in the Gorbals when razors flashed and murders were often committed.

  Sam talked of the ferocious hunt after the monsters of the deep, using words like ‘crang’ which she learned meant the carcase of a whale; ‘flenching’ which described the terrible process of cutting blubber from the whale’s body; or ‘milldolling’ which was the lowering of a boat from the bowsprit of a whaling ship to break the pack ice in front of it. As she listened to him, she saw a faraway look come into his eyes. It was clear that he loved his dangerous life in the wastes of ice and respected his adversaries the whales that blew up spumes of spray on distant horizons which his eyes searched in memory. It would be pointless for her even to consider trying to persuade him to give up the sea.

  At Christmas he asked her if she would go to Aberdeen with him to visit his mother. Unfortunately, a few days before they were due to leave, Jessie fell ill again and Lizzie had to stay at home. When Sam returned he was looking very sad.

  ‘How was your mother?’ she asked him.

  He shook his head. ‘She was raving. She didn’t know me. All she did was scream and try to attack me. They tied her up and took her away. The doctor said it’s best if I don’t go back. They think I remind her of my father.’

  Now more than ever Lizzie felt that she must look after Sam. He had no one else to care for him.

  Her preoccupation with him made her unaware of the rapidity of the deterioration in Jessie’s health. The invalid was looked after by Maggy and it was not an easy task.

  ‘Eh’m giving my notice.’ Maggy, bristling like a little terrier with her hair falling into her eyes, shocked Lizzie out of her dream of love one February morning. When she saw the distress of the little maid, Lizzie felt a pang of remorse. For months she had neglected Maggy, had paid her little heed except as a provider of work. Now she was sorry and she asked gently:

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Eh’m giving my notice. Rosie can get me into the mill. I’m fed up with being ordered about here. That one up there isn’t for standing another day.’

  ‘Oh Maggy, you can’t leave us. You can’t go away. What would we do without you?’

  ‘You’ll be getting married soon to that big sailor. He’s a grand fellow and he’ll look after you. Georgie’s not going to be at home for ever either. Your dad’ll have to stay at home and look after her.’ Maggy gestured with an angry fist.

  Maggy had a point. They all left the querulous Jessie to the maid. But living without Maggy was unthinkable. Lizzie was determined there was to be no fleeing into the mills for her.

  ‘Oh, don’t go, Maggy. Not when I need you most of all. I’ll speak to my father. We’ll get extra help. You won’t be burdened so much, I promise you.’

  Maggy was easily won round. She had not really wanted to leave the family that was as dear to her as her own, but she would not give in lightly and only muttered, ‘All right, I’ll gie it a try – but if things don’t get better I’m off, mind.’

  * * *

  The crisis with Maggy made the family turn their attention to Jessie. It was obvious she was really ill this time and they decided to seek medical advice. The next day Lizzie and her father sat at the patient’s bedside as Dr McLaren questioned her about her symptoms.

  ‘Where’s the pain? When is it worse? Does it hurt when you breathe?’

  The woman on the bed had shrivelled away to a shadow. Her skin was the colour of clay; her eyes were dull and her hands plucked nervously at the hem of her bed sheet as she answered the doctor’s questions. When the examination was finished, McLaren left the room with a nod to David to follow him.

  ‘It’s not good, I’m afraid. You’ll have to prepare yourself for losing her.’

  David was shattered. He had not expected this and felt a rush of guilt for the off-handed way he had treated Jessie over their years together.

  ‘How long – how long has she got?’ he stammered.

  ‘Perhaps six months, perhaps less, but certainly not more,’ said the doctor.

  If Jessie had not been so sunk in lethargy she would have been suspicious of the change in the family�
��s attitude towards her. David sat by her bed every afternoon, and during business hours he never left the bar. Lizzie divided her time between the bar and the invalid, dancing attendance on the sickbed and curbing her tongue when Jessie made caustic comments about her fancy clothes or her love-struck look. George and the little boys were tactful when they looked in. Even Maggy seemed subdued and took more care when she worked around the house.

  As she grew weaker, it was decided to alert Jessie’s only sister, a widow who lived near Abroath, to the fact that she was dying. The sister descended on them at the beginning of March and though she was even more fault-finding than Jessie, she was welcomed, especially by Lizzie, for her arrival meant that there was more time to spend with Sam. The date for the whalers’ departure, 14 April, was near, and every hour was precious.

  The understanding that they were to be married had grown between them without actually being voiced, but one afternoon as they sat in the Ladhope Park, he formally proposed to her. She looked at him with love as she replied, ‘Of course I’ll marry you.’

  ‘Then let’s do it before I leave for the Arctic.’

  There was nothing in the world she wanted more but Jessie’s end was near and her father was distraught, too upset to consider a marriage in the family.

  ‘It wouldn’t be right to be married when my stepmother’s so sick,’ she said.

  Sam’s eyes took on their distant look, as if gazing over miles of snow-covered ice floes. ‘It’s a dangerous world in the Arctic, Lizzie. There’s no telling what could happen to the Pegasus. I know it’s selfish but I want to marry you so much. I don’t care if we only have a small ceremony with no fuss. Let’s make the most of the time we’ve got. We must be married.’

  All her old terrors came rushing back. She clung desperately to him to keep him safe within her arms. Even if they were only man and wife for a few days, she knew they had to be married.

  Chapter 9

  Three days before the whaling ships were due to sail, Lizzie Mudie rose early in the morning and did all her tasks in the saloon bar before she dressed in a gown of cream satin and lace – made up out of one belonging to Mrs Adams. Then Maggy, with her own hair in cloth curlers, stood over Lizzie as she sat at the dressing table and carefully combed out the long tresses, coiling it into lustrous whirls and piling it high.

  ‘You ought to wear the pearls,’ she said. ‘They’d look bonny against that dress.’

  The two girls looked into the red morocco jewel case and carefully extracted a string of cream-coloured beads and a pair of pendant earrings shaped like flowers.

  When Lizzie was dressed to her satisfaction, Maggy stood back and surveyed the reflection in the glass. ‘My word, you’re bonny,’ she said without a trace of envy.

  Half an hour later they went downstairs to where David and George were waiting. Lizzie’s face lit up when she saw how smart they looked. Her brother was sporting a brightly coloured silk cravat and had a flower in his buttonhole.

  ‘You look quite a masher, George,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not every day my sister goes off to be married,’ he told her with a laugh as he handed her into the carriage.

  It was a small wedding because Jessie was too ill to leave her bed. Maggy fussed around in the church vestibule and as the minister spoke the words of the ceremony, she shed noisy tears from a back pew though afterwards she went up to Sam and apologized.

  ‘I wasnae greetin’ because I’m sorry she’s marrying you. I think you’re grand. It’s just that weddings aye make me bubble.’

  ‘They make me bubble too,’ said Sam, wiping a tear from his eye with a large white handkerchief.

  Lizzie felt nervous before the ceremony began but when her father led her up to stand beside her handsome Sam, she was immediately calmed by the love in his eyes. A great joy welled up inside her, a feeling of unblemished delight like a religious revelation, and she smiled with such radiance that it dimmed the light streaming in through the stained-glass window.

  After the ceremony she walked out of the church like one enchanted and stood with yellow and blue crocuses spangling the grass around her feet. People spoke to her, people kissed her, people shook Sam by the hand and smiled at the couple but Lizzie’s soul was flying away up in the eggshell-blue sky above the steeple, soaring like an angel over the shining river.

  ‘She’s almost bonny today,’ whispered her uncle’s acid wife, looking at the bride. This remark was overheard by Maggy who was staring at Lizzie and Sam as if she’d created them singlehanded.

  ‘What do ye mean, almost bonny? She’s just beautiful,’ she barked.

  The reception in the Castle Bar lasted only an hour because of Jessie’s illness, then Sam and Lizzie slipped away to the Queen’s Hotel where they had taken a suite. They were not to emerge again until sailing day.

  The initial attraction that had sparked off between them proved to be no illusion. Lizzie was passionate and so was her husband. She entranced Sam because there was no false modesty, no maidenly shyness in her. After their first night together, she was as avid for love as he was, as insatiable in her desire. They clung together in the huge bed and watched the sun rise and set again outside their window. The only interruption from the outside world was the arrival of trays of delicious food at meal-times. They slept, woke, made love and slept again. They abandoned themselves to delight without a thought for anything else. Sam was going away for six months and they were determined to enjoy every moment of the time they had together.

  On the last night, they were melancholy.

  ‘How can I live without you? How can I bear the nights on my own?’ wailed Lizzie.

  He stroked her hair and wiped away her tears. ‘Every night I’ll think about you. I’ll remember this. When you’re lying in your bed, I’ll be lying beside you in my dreams,’ he told her.

  Three days, seventy-two precious hours, passed all too quickly. On the last morning, they rose and dressed, interrupting each other every now and then with passionate kisses and embraces, but at last there could be no more delay. Sam opened the door and stepped aside to allow Lizzie to pass into the corridor. She looked back over her shoulder at the rumpled bed and determined to store the picture in her mind for the next six months.

  The scene on the dockside was one of desolation. Now her old fear was upon her again; now she was one of the women who wept, one of the tearstained creatures who hugged their men and sobbed in anguish and fear. She clung to Sam as if she could not let him go and tears coursed down her face in torrents. ‘Don’t go, don’t go,’ she sobbed.

  He was distressed for her, murmuring reassurances. ‘I’ll be all right. I promise I will. I’ll take care.’

  His captain, Ben Jacobs, came bustling along the quay and clapped him on the back. ‘Is this your wife, Sam? Well, lassie, there’ll be a good catch this year. He’ll bring back a lot of money. You’ll be able to buy a bonny wee house.’

  Lizzie went on sobbing and Sam’s last words to her were, ‘Oh, Lizzie, my dearest, don’t cry. It breaks my heart to see you.’

  ‘Don’t go, don’t go, stay here with me, Sam,’ she still pleaded.

  Gently he undid her grip from his jacket, tenderly prising open the fingers. Then he turned up the palm of her right hand and planted a kiss in it. ‘Hold that for me, Lizzie. Hold it till I come back. Don’t be afraid.’

  Slowly she closed her fingers on his kiss and the tears on her face mingled with the soft rain that was drifting in from the river.

  White-faced and tragic, she watched as the tall ships went tacking out of the harbour with the wind filling their sails. One after another in a stately procession, they headed for the mouth of the river and she followed the Pegasus with her eyes till it was out of sight.

  As she walked slowly back to the Castle Bar she met Maggy with her sister Rosie in the crowd. She had not seen Rosie for a long time and felt glad to have company to distract her from her desolation. As they walked along it struck Lizzie that something was differ
ent about Rosie. She’d always been a bonny girl but now she was blooming and she’d put on a lot of weight too – her stomach was bulging. Then it struck her. Rosie was big with child. Pregnancy suited her, her fair hair shone, her pale skin gleamed like silk, her rosebud mouth pouted and she had grown as fat as a contented cat. Lizzie could not hide her surprise or take her eyes off Rosie’s spreading waistline.

  The girl gave a laugh and said, ‘I’m having it in two months.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were married. Maggy never said anything.’ Lizzie glanced at Maggy, surprised at not hearing this bit of Davidson family news. Maggy looked away but Rosie laughed, a knowing sort of giggle.

  ‘Och, I’m no’ married. You can have a bairn without a wedding ring, you know.’

  Lizzie had heard talk about Maggy’s blonde sister. People said Rosie was no better than she ought to be and that she was often seen out on the streets on Saturday nights with a band of raucous mill girls, drinking gin in local bars and making eyes at laddies.

  With her own body still burning with memories of Sam’s lovemaking, Lizzie could not honestly feel disapproval, but it was difficult to know how to react to such effrontery. Though she revelled in lovemaking, she would never have gone to bed with Sam before marriage and her outraged morality showed in her face.

  Rosie laughed again. ‘You look as if you’ve had a terrible fleg. But dinna worry, having a bairn’s no’ catching.’

  * * *

  A month after the whalers sailed away, Jessie Mudie died. When her will was read, the only person who showed satisfaction was her sister, who had been left five hundred pounds.

  George and Lizzie were left nothing, but neither of them expected a legacy. The big surprise was how Jessie took revenge on her husband. She left the Castle Bar to her sons Davie and Robert. Their father was only to look after it for them and draw a small salary from it until such time as Davie was old enough to take over for himself.