Mistress of Green Tree Mill

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

  * * *

  ‘The bobby’s been here about Charlie again,’ said Maggy sadly when Lizzie arrived home that evening.

  ‘What’s he done this time?’ asked his mother. The local police constable was a frequent visitor at her house.

  ‘Somebody broke a window with a football in that big house with the fancy flowerpots in Magdalen Yard. He says it wasn’t him but the maid said she saw an Airedale running away with the laddie that kicked the ball.’

  ‘He’s too old to be kicking footballs around. My God, he’s fifteen,’ wailed Lizzie.

  She paced to and fro, going over his most recent transgressions – broken windows, street fights, impudence to all and sundry, gambling, truancy, lavish expenditure, even coming in smelling of beer, not to mention that he’d been smoking cigarettes for months and had recently progressed to cigars.

  ‘Come and have your supper. He’ll not be back for hours,’ said Maggy.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘But the cook’s made sole with prawn sauce. Lexie’s mouth’s watering.’

  ‘Oh, all right. If she’s waiting for me.’

  Lexie was sitting at the dining table with her red hair neatly brushed. The girl was growing up. All at once she had a look of adulthood.

  ‘That’s a pretty dress. Where did you get it?’ asked Lizzie when she sat down, trying to break the ice between them.

  A flush made the thickly clustered freckles stand out even more. Those freckles and the red hair were two very obvious legacies from Chrissy though Lexie, thank heavens, did not have her mother’s victimized attitude to life.

  ‘You bought it for me last winter,’ she said.

  ‘Did I? It suits you. What have you been doing today?’ Lexie shuffled her knife and fork to and fro on the tablecloth. ‘I – er – I went down to visit George. He’s not very well. What’s consumption, Lizzie?’ The question came out in a quick rush as if it was something that had been on Lexie’s mind for a while.

  Lizzie stared blankly at the girl. ‘It’s an illness. It’s what your mother died of.’

  Lexie nodded. ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘It’s just something I heard today.’

  A tightness came to Lizzie’s throat. ‘About George, you mean?’

  Lexie looked at her. ‘It was just something Rosie said.’

  ‘Did she say he’s got consumption?’

  Lexie nodded. ‘Yes, she did.’

  Lizzie rose from the table and tinkled the silver bell that stood beside her plate. When the maid came in, she said, ‘Send for my carriage. I’m going out.’

  It was a very long time since Lizzie had visited the Vaults but as soon as she entered the courtyard behind the Exchange Coffee House she was carried back in memory to her childhood.

  Suddenly and very vividly she remembered her mother. She relived the night the bridge fell. Her steps speeded up in anxiety to reach her brother. The fates had not relented about her family. George was in danger.

  The door at the bottom of the stair that led to Rosie’s home stood ajar. There was no paint on it, but then she could never remember it being painted. The huge hinges were rusted and pitted with age. The stair was dark and smelt disgusting. She hitched up her long skirt in one hand and began the climb, her shoes slithering on the crumbling steps that were worn to deep hollows in the middle. Her flesh crawled as it had always done with fear that an enormous rat would suddenly jump out at her. She remembered her brother asking Maggy to confirm that the rats dipped their tails into the whisky casks that were stored in a warehouse on the other side of the courtyard.

  ‘Drunk rats!’ she whispered to herself, and with an effort continued her climb.

  The Davidsons’ room was not as poverty-stricken as it had been in the past. A table with a white cloth stood in the middle of the floor and two armchairs were drawn up at the cheerfully blazing fireside. Pottery jugs and framed prints were ranged along the mantelpiece and there was a flowering plant in the window. Rosie turned in astonishment when she saw Lizzie in the doorway. For once her glib tongue failed her and she was lost for words.

  ‘Where is he? Why did no one let me know?’ asked Lizzie.

  Rosie gestured with her hand to the box bed in the corner where the outline of a body could be seen beneath the covers.

  ‘How bad is it?’ Lizzie’s voice was quavering.

  ‘He’s fevered and he’s spitting blood but he’s been worse,’ Rosie told her.

  ‘Lexie said he’s got consumption.’

  ‘That’s what they call it. The doctor says George should go and live someplace sunny. I said the sunniest place he’s likely to go is Wormit,’ said Rosie, pointing in the direction of Fife.

  ‘I’ll pay for him to go to Italy,’ said Lizzie with determination.

  Just then a voice came from the bed: ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. What would I do in Italy?’

  She ran to kneel by the bed. ‘Why didn’t you let me know? How long has this been going on?’ With guilt she realized that it was several months since she’d seen her brother. Business had occupied her mind to such an extent that it shut out everything else.

  Rosie was clattering pans on the hearth. ‘He’s been poorly for a couple of months. He’s not been working.’

  Lizzie looked down at the flushed face of her brother. ‘How are you living?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m working and Johnny sends money,’ said Rosie fiercely. ‘I keep him. He’s my man and I keep him.’

  Lizzie looked round the dark room. Though it was better furnished than when the Davidsons were children, it was still a slum and it horrified her that her brother was lying ill in such a place.

  ‘My carriage is outside. I’ll take you back with me to Tay Lodge,’ she told him.

  Rosie advanced, arms crossed over her bosom. ‘You’ll dae naething o’ the sort. You don’t want to go to Tay Lodge do you, George?’ She pronounced Tay Lodge in exaggeratedly fancy tones.

  George raised his head and said, ‘No, I don’t. Rosie’s looking after me well, Lizzie. Don’t make trouble.’ Then he slumped back on his pillows as the coughing started.

  Lizzie fled the house, but not to go home. Instead she drove to the house of young Dr McLaren, the son of her old friend, and knocked on his door.

  ‘I want you to go and examine my brother. I want to know exactly how ill he is and exactly what should be done for him. I want you to do it as soon as possible.’

  Next day, Dr McLaren appeared at Green Tree Mill and requested an interview with Mrs Kinge. When he was shown into her office, she rushed to usher him to a chair. Her heart was thudding in terror of what she was about to hear.

  ‘You’ve seen George?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What do you think?’ Her eyes were searching his face as she asked the question.

  ‘Your brother has chronic pulmonary tuberculosis,’ he said.

  The word ‘chronic’ sounded like a death knell in Lizzie’s ears.

  ‘Is he going to die?’ she whispered.

  Dr McLaren shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. It’s a very variable disease. The attacks come and go but he’s been well fed all his life and he’s well looked after. Rosie buys him milk and he’s kept warm.’

  ‘Is there anything else that can be done?’

  ‘If you could wave a magic wand and change the climate in this town it might help,’ joked the doctor. ‘Otherwise you mustn’t worry. He’s as well as can be expected. We’ll just have to keep an eye on him.’

  Chapter 21

  Over the following days her anxiety about George was compounded by more worry over Charlie. After being summoned to the Harris Academy to speak to his headmaster, she went home in a towering rage and demanded to see her son.

  He slunk into the room and stood facing his mother, trying to work out how best to win her round. It would take all his skill to soften her this time.

  ‘You know where I’ve been and you know why,’ sh
e began.

  He nodded. She turned with one fist raised to her forehead like an actress and addressed the bookcase.

  ‘To think that I’m slaving myself to death to make some sort of future for you and this is what you do.’

  Charlie hung his head.

  ‘You’re an arrant truant. The school won’t have you back next year. You’re fifteen years old and I want you to go to university but your headmaster says that’s a waste of time.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to university,’ ventured Charlie.

  ‘What do you want? Can you tell me that? The school says you’re unruly and without ambition – you’re the sort of boy that ought to be sent to India. Do you want to go to India?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, but I’d like to go to the Wild West. I’d like to go gold prospecting.’

  ‘My God. You’re my only son. One day you’ll own Green Tree and you talk about gold prospecting. Have you no consideration for your mother?’

  ‘Of course I do. I love you, Ma,’ he said and was rewarded by seeing her face soften slightly.

  Her voice was less angry when she asked again, ‘What do you want to do, Charlie?’

  He pondered the question. The prospect of taking over the jute mill appalled him. He was not temperamentally inclined to be a businessman. The thought of sitting in an office while his looms whirred and roared around him was like a life sentence.

  I’d like to travel. I’d like to see the world. I don’t want to settle down until I’ve seen how people live in other places. I want adventures.’

  She gazed back at him, a iight of understanding in her eyes. It must be Sam’s seafaring blood that made him say such things and if she’d been a boy, she too would have wanted to test the waters outside the safe haven of Dundee. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she told him.

  When she broached the subject of her son with Alex Henderson, he wrinkled his brow and said, ‘Perhaps what he needs is to travel. I don’t think he’ll ever settle until he gets it out of his system – like they used to send boys away on the Grand Tour long ago.’

  ‘But he’s only fifteen. I’d not have a minute’s peace if he went away alone.’

  ‘Then you must find someone to send with him, someone you can trust, someone you’ll be sure will bring him back again.’

  ‘George!’ she said. ‘I’ll send George. They could go somewhere that would suit his health.’

  Alex raised an eyebrow. The idea of Lizzie’s son accompanying her brother to the safe haven of a Swiss sanatorium was almost funny. So was the thought of the two of them touring the Riviera. Charlie would head for the casinos and never be seen again. Secretly Alex pitied poor George going anywhere with that young devil but to Lizzie it seemed like a brilliant solution.

  ‘I’ve heard Canada has a good climate for consumptives,’ suggested Alex, ‘and I’ve a friend who owns cattle ranches there. He sent his own son out to toughen him up.’

  ‘That’s it!’ cried Lizzie. ‘If they go to Canada for a little while, Charlie would surely grow up and George’s health would improve. I must talk to them about it.’

  She did not relish the idea of sending off her son and brother to a distant land but the trip need not last long. Surely six months would be enough for Charlie to learn some sense. He’d been coddled at home for far too long. If George went too, he could see that no harm befell her son and, as Alex said, make sure he came home again when the allotted time was up.

  George was not too hard to convince. His feverish attack had subsided and he was able to work again but he was white and drawn every night when he walked slowly home from his office at Brunton’s Mill. Sometimes he had to lean on Rosie’s arm for the last part of their journey.

  Lizzie pressed her case insistently. ‘I don’t know what to do with Charlie. His schoolmasters think that if he does some travelling he’ll come home a different boy. There’s no one else I can trust to go with him. Davie’s busy with the bar and I wouldn’t trust Robert to go as far as Carnoustie with Charlie. He respects you. You’ve always got on well together.’

  George frowned. ‘But what about Rosie and Bertha?’

  Lizzie persisted. ‘You don’t have to be away long. Only over the winter. It’ll set you up, George, and another winter here could be bad for you if your lungs don’t have the chance to heal properly.’

  When he returned home George repeated what his sister had said. Rosie sat solemn-faced and weighed up the proposition. The offer of defeating the enemy that stalked George was too good to turn down.

  ‘I think you ought to go. It’s only for six months and it could be the best thing for you. That last attack was bad. I’m working and so’s Bertha. We’ll be all right.’

  George went back to see his sister and told her, ‘I’ll go. But I won’t stay longer than six months.’

  What a hustle and a bustle ensued over fitting out the travellers! Lizzie snatched time from her work to go into town with her son while he tried on travelling suits. She also chose suitcases, valises and an enormous cabin trunk.

  ‘I’m not needing all this,’ he protested, but she was adamant.

  ‘You must be properly turned out. I’m not having my son going away with his things wrapped up in a migrant’s bundle. You’re not travelling steerage, remember. You’ll be mixing with well-to-do people.’

  Charlie’s dream was to travel steerage with a bundle over his shoulder and he was determined to lose his paraphernalia as soon as he landed at Montreal, but he did not say that to his mother who bought a tent, a canvas bed, walking sticks, summer and winter hats, a medicine chest and silk shirts as if fitting out an expedition.

  Their passages were booked for the first day of October 1913 and Lizzie was determined to overcome her fear of travel so that she could accompany her brother and son to Gourock, their port of departure on the West Coast of Scotland. The Tay Bridge was still an insurmountable barrier to her, however, and to avoid crossing it they were to travel to Perth by river steamer and board their train there.

  She worked herself up into such a frenzy about the journey that Alex Henderson offered to accompany her and bring her safely home though he’d never travelled farther than Glasgow himself.

  The leavetaking between Charlie and Maggy was tearful. To her he was as dear as her own child, she had mothered him from birth and saw no fault in him. Sobbing, she clung to him on the doorstep of Tay Lodge and had to be helped back into the house by Lexie. The dog Bran ran after the carriage and showed no sign of giving up his pursuit till Charlie alighted and brought him home again. That night Bran would not eat and lay in the front hall with his sad eyes fixed on the repaired front door, waiting for his master’s return.

  * * *

  At Gourock it was heartrending for Lizzie to part with her beloved brother and her darling son at the same time.

  Am I doing the right thing? she wondered as she turned from one to the other, tears pouring down her cheeks, embracing them fiercely. Why did I think of this? she asked herself as they climbed the gangplank.

  ‘Don’t go. Stay with me,’ she sobbed out but Charlie was determined to sail. Sea fever had seized him at the sight of the huge steamer looming on the dockside. He could hardly wait to be aboard and heading towards the distant horizon. By sheer force of will he propelled his reluctant uncle up the boarding steps and into the ship. The last Lizzie saw of them was their handkerchiefs fluttering from the top deck.

  On the way home she abandoned herself to grief and sobbing while a flustered Alex attempted to console her. For the first time in their acquaintance, he took her hand and held it gingerly, saying, ‘It’s a good thing for both of them. They’ll be back home again soon and Charlie will be a different boy.’

  He was clinging to her fingers and though the physical contact between them did not thrill her, it did not repel her either. Perhaps it was time to change the relationship between herself and Alex. Surely they were approaching an age when sex would not be a pressing need? Marriage to Alex would drive away
the loneliness that loomed ahead of her. She allowed him to hold her hand without drawing it away and when they reached the end of the journey, she pecked a kiss at his cheek in gratitude for his support through her ordeal.

  * * *

  While Charlie was away she had time to reflect on the way she had brought him up. Slowly she came to realize that her guilt at wanting to send him to the Mars when Sam died had made her overindulgent towards him. Maggy’s devotion too had not helped. Between them they’d created what Rosie rightly called a rod for their own backs.

  Though she knew that Charlie’s faults were largely of her own making, she would have given anything to have him spirited back from Canada as soon as he went away. She loved him and she missed him.

  Work filled her days but in the dead of night she worried about her impetuous son and about poor George, persuaded to travel so far away.

  She started attending church on Sundays, much to everyone’s surprise, and knelt in her pew with her head bent over her clasped hands praying for the two travellers. She was propitiating God in case he was still intent on punishing her.

  By the end of the year all the mills were working overtime because there was talk of war in the air. Even customers who thought it unlikely were not prepared to take a chance of being caught napping and ordered vast quantities of sacking and jute in advance. The harbour at Dundee was once more busy round the clock with ships coming in from Calcutta. The boom years were back.