Mistress of Green Tree Mill

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

  Gossip spread quickly in the crowded city. No sooner had Lizzie Kinge put her signature to a document giving her ownership of another small mill a few streets away from Green Tree than they were talking about it in the jute-barons’ club.

  ‘That woman’s got to be stopped,’ fumed Sooty Sutherland, who had been cannily negotiating the purchase of the little mill and hated to have it snatched from under his nose, especially by Lizzie.

  ‘She’s unstoppable, I think,’ said one of the Brunton brothers, dropping his newspaper and peering at the angry face of his friend.

  ‘No one’s unstoppable. Bigger people than her have gone to the wall. She couldn’t operate if she didn’t get raw jute, could she? She’s no base in India and she owns no ships. She deals through Skelton. We could freeze her out,’ said Sooty, rising to his feet and stamping out of the room.

  Goldie Johanson, who had been snoozing in a corner, opened his eyes when Sooty departed and said to Brunton, ‘He’s never got over being socked by that woman. Good luck to her is what I say.’

  * * *

  The worst blow of a fraught year fell on Lizzie when Skelton turned up at her office and said without preamble, ‘I’ll not be able to let you have any more jute after the next shipment.’

  She glared at him. ‘What do you mean? Are you going out of business?’

  He shrugged. ‘Far from it. I’m expanding, but three of the big fellows have offered to take everything I bring in.’

  Fury rose in her and she wanted to hit him but she fought to keep her voice calm. ‘You can’t do this to me. I bought your jute when other men held off. I’ve honoured our contract even when I could hardly afford twelve shipments a year. You can’t let me down now. I’ve just bought Walker’s Mill at the back of Dens Road.’

  ‘So I heard,’ said Skelton.

  She was immediately made suspicious by his tone.

  ‘Who’s buying so much of your jute that you can’t supply me?’ she asked.

  ‘Mr Sutherland’s one, then there’s Coffin, and Brunton’s are taking the rest.’

  ‘But they’ve their own ships.’

  ‘They need more,’ said Skelton and from his expression she could see that through the years of their business association, this man had never liked her.

  ‘Well, I hope that when this boom ends they’ll stick with you and not leave you in the lurch like they did the last time. You can rest assured that I won’t buy from you again,’ she said, picking up her pen and waving it towards the door in a gesture of dismissal.

  When he was gone her composure cracked and she cast her ink pot through the window in fury and fright.

  Where am I going to get jute? she asked herself and was angry at her lack of foresight in giving all her custom to Skelton. It meant that she had no second supplier to fall back on, now that they were all busy with pre-booked orders.

  For the next week she went from shipping office to shipping office and everywhere met with refusals. Sometimes they were gleeful and at other times it seemed that a warning had reached the shipper before she did. She began to imagine hidden enemies whispering, ‘If you supply Green Tree you’ll not sell to anyone else again.’ Surely it’s my imagination, she thought, surely no one would be so petty? What have I done to deserve such treatment?

  Eventually she was offered a deal by a shipper but at a price she knew was far higher than was paid by any other mill. Reluctantly she accepted. She could not allow her looms and spinning frames to lie idle.

  Her sales force had expanded and were very successful; mills were working smoothly but all her efforts would be wasted if she had no jute. The only thing she could see that would solve her problem was to send someone to India to negotiate directly with the jute growers there. If Charlie was older and not in Canada, he could go. She was on the verge of setting out for India herself when she had a caller at Green Tree.

  * * *

  Goldie Johanson had a cheerful face with tiny bright blue eyes set in deep wrinkles that almost hid them when he smiled. He looked like a colossus in her office but he was not really fat for he carried his weight well and was surprisingly nimble on his feet for such a large man. The most arresting thing about him was his hair that sprang up from his head in a mass of tight curls. Like his sideburns and moustache, it was brightly golden. He must have looked like a cherub when he was a little boy, thought Lizzie, watching him advance across the office towards her.

  After they exchanged pleasantries and he told her that he was an old friend of her father – which she already knew – he sat on a bentwood chair that seemed inadequate to bear his weight and folded his hands on top of his cane. ‘I hear you’ve been having trouble with Skelton.’

  She nodded. It was not her habit to share business secrets with strangers but there was sympathy in Goldie’s bright eyes and she trusted him. Since David’s death she had longed for an understanding confidant. Alex’s mind was too occupied with the price of cheese to fully appreciate the scope of Lizzie’s concerns.

  Tm afraid Skelton’s let me down rather badly,’ she said.

  ‘Mmm, so I heard. Have you found anyone else to bring in jute for you?’ Goldie’s eyes were sharp and intelligent.

  She shook her head. ‘One shipper, but he’s asking a terrible price and can only give me half of what I need. I’m going out to Calcutta to fix something up.’

  The man on the other side of her desk stared at her for a second and then he laughed. ‘Dammit, you would, wouldn’t you? Don’t you bother about booking a passage for Calcutta, lassie. I’ve plenty of ships and plenty of contacts. You’ll have your jute. How many shiploads do you want?’

  She stared at him in disbelief. Tears sprang up in her eyes but she did not shed them. This was all far too exciting to start weeping like a baby.

  ‘I could take a dozen shiploads – and only the best jute, mind,’ she told him.

  He threw back his lion-like head and roared with laughter. ‘I like you. I like your style. Nothing but the best for Mrs Kinge. Don’t you worry. You’ll have what you need. You’ve got Goldie Johanson’s word for it.’

  He never told her that what brought him to her office was overhearing a jubilant conversation between Sutherland and George Brunton in which they counted the weeks until Green Tree Mill closed down.

  ‘I’ve fixed her,’ crowed Sooty, ‘I’ve cooked her goose. Mrs Kinge’ll have to sell up and take up tatting to pass the time. There’ll be some bargains to be picked up at her displenishing sale.’

  * * *

  Bran was sick and growing sicker every day. Before she went to school and when she returned in the evening, Lexie crouched beside his kennel, whispering to the dog and trying to tempt him to eat. His big body was skeletal and his eyes contained all the sadness of the world. When she looked into those eyes, she wept and buried her face in the thickly curling hair of Bran’s neck. He seemed soothed by her attentions but would make no effort to recover. Bran was wasting away, dying of a broken heart because he had lost Charlie.

  Only a few letters had come from Canada giving news of the travellers. George wrote that they had landed safely and were making their way to Toronto where Alex’s contacts had promised to look after them. The tone of his letter was sombre but a more enthusiastic postscript from Charlie was added: ‘This is a great country. I’m very glad we came. I’m well and I hope you’re well. Love to all and to Bran.’

  Lexie took the little note and read it to the dying dog. ‘He’s coming back, Bran,’ she whispered. The animal feebly wagged its tail and laid its head down on extended paws. Please leave me to die, Bran seemed to say.

  A few days later he was found dead in his kennel in the morning and Lexie was so devastated by grief that she was unable to go to school. While she lay sobbing in her bedroom, Maggy gave orders that the dog’s kennel and everything associated with him, his lead, his feeding bowl and the ball he used to run after across the lawn, be removed so that Lexie was spared seeing them again.

  Lizzie was sad, too,
about her son’s dog but she was slightly exasperated by the violence of her sister’s reaction to Bran’s death.

  ‘She’s carrying on as if that dog was human,’ she said crossly to Maggy. ‘It’s not normal the way she’s behaving.’

  Maggy was not book-learned but she was wise in the things of the spirit. ‘Poor wee Lexie. She’s not many folk to love, has she?’ she said.

  * * *

  The train bringing George Mudie from the south steamed across the Tay Bridge on an afternoon in February 1914. His eyes were filled with the view of his native city and a huge weight lifted from his heart as he gazed at its streets and alleyways, at patches of green garden and park, towering chimneys belching smoke. The homesickness that had plagued him since the day he left Scotland disappeared. Soon he would sit in his little home and hear Rosie’s jokes. He’d be tucked up beside her warm, generous body at night; he’d see his daughter Bertha, who was growing into a beauty. How he’d missed them. No matter where he went or what he saw in Canada, the memory of home had blurred his vision.

  It was only when the train came nearer to the town and he saw the grey outline of Green Tree Mill that his heart gave a jump. Soon he’d have to face Lizzie!

  No one knew he was coming home and when Rosie and Bertha came clattering up the steep stairs from their stint at the mill, George sat in his armchair with a broad smile on his face, waiting for them to open the door. The reception was all he could wish for. The two women fell on him with cries of delight, covering him with kisses and engulfing him in their embraces.

  Wiping away a few tears, Rosie eventually cried out, ‘But you weren’t expected for another month! My word, won’t Green Tree be glad to see that laddie of hers. She’s been like a fish out of water since he went away.’

  George’s face suddenly looked haggard. ‘Charlie’s not coming home,’ he said. ‘I’d better get myself across to Tay Lodge and tell his mother.’

  Lizzie and Lexie were having their supper at a vast mahogany table spread with a stiffly starched white cloth and laid with crystal, silver and the finest china, when George was shown into the dining room by an excited maid. Lizzie’s eyes went bright green and the colour left her face at the sight of him.

  ‘Where’s my son?’ she gasped.

  ‘Keep calm, Lizzie,’ said her brother. ‘Nothing’s happened to him. He’s safe. He’s still in Canada.’

  She kept hold of her dinner knife as if ready to attack her brother and her voice sounded strangled. ‘What do you mean? You can’t have left a fifteen-year-old boy on his own in a foreign country, thousands of miles from home. You were asked to look after him!’

  The last words were shouted and George flinched. How could he explain to Charlie’s mother what hell it had been trying to control that boy? Charlie went out at night and did not return till morning, leaving George pacing their hotel room in terror in case his charge was murdered. He took up with ruffians on the boat and again when they landed. He was drinking, gambling, rushing here and there, full of enthusiasm for the new country in which he found himself. Giving Charlie a ticket to Canada was like giving an obsessive painter a new and enormous canvas to cover with his daubs. He was setting about painting not only a town, but an entire country, red.

  ‘I wasn’t able to cope with Charlie,’ said George in explanation. ‘My health couldn’t stand it, Lizzie. He was killing me.’

  His sister looked as if what her son had failed to do, she was prepared to finish on the spot.

  ‘Where is he now?’ she asked through gritted teeth.

  ‘When I last saw him he was getting on a train. They’re building a railway to Vancouver and he’s going to work on it.’

  Lizzie jumped from her seat and rushed around the table like a madwoman. ‘He’s only fifteen! That country’s full of bandits and Red Indians. He’ll be killed and it’s all your fault. You should have made him come home. You should have got the police to arrest him if you couldn’t cope.’

  George looked at Lexie for support but her face showed absolute astonishment.

  ‘The police have enough to do without trying to talk to Charlie. Have you ever tried making him do something he doesn’t want to do?’ George asked the room at large. ‘I tried to make him come home but he ran away. He just about killed me, Lizzie.’

  Charlie’s mother was impervious to excuses. All she could think of was her beloved son – to her mind he was still a little boy – at loose, alone in the wastes of Canada.

  ‘I’ll never see him again. He’ll be killed and we’ll never even be told,’ she wailed, covering her face with her ringed hands.

  Then she drew herself up and walked over to her brother who was still attempting to justify his abandonment of Charlie.

  ‘I never want to see you again, George Mudie,’ she said in a menacing voice. ‘I don’t care what happens to you or your slum family. Get out of my house and never come back.’

  Without another word George turned on his heel and left the room.

  Lexie ran and stopped him at the front door where she threw her arms around his neck. As she kissed him, she saw that he was crying.

  ‘Don’t worry, George. It’ll blow over. You know what she’s like. It must have been awful for you,’ said the girl.

  Chapter 22

  Lizzie was standing beside Goldie Johanson on the dockside watching her latest shipment of hemp being unloaded when he told her, ‘Even if a war does come and they commandeer ships, I’ll make sure you’re still supplied.’

  She looked at him with gratitude shining from her eyes. ‘I don’t know how to thank you. There isn’t any reason why you should help me like this.’

  He grinned at her, his eyes disappearing among the laughter lines. ‘Just put it down to my sense of fair play – and to the jokes your father used to crack when we were sitting for our portraits together.’

  ‘What happened to that picture, was it ever finished?’

  ‘Oh, it was finished right enough. It’s hanging in the Art Gallery now. That was the best place for it because none of us could decide who’d have the honour of hanging it. Haven’t you seen it? Your father looks like a belted earl.’

  On the following Sunday Lizzie decided that she would cheer up Lexie who was still mourning for the dead Bran. ‘Put on your best dress. We’re going out,’ she said.

  ‘Where to?’ asked Lexie. Lizzie was mysterious. ‘Don’t ask. Alex’s going to take us in his motor car.’

  At that moment he arrived in the machine, which drew to a halt with a great banging and snorting like a maddened horse at the door of Tay Lodge. Lizzie’s face showed disquiet. ‘I wonder if it’s safe? Perhaps we’d better go in my carriage after all.’

  But the idea of riding in a motor delighted Lexie, who pleaded, ‘Oh no! Let’s go in the car, please, Lizzie.’

  * * *

  After several false starts they finally arrived at the Art Gallery which rose like a citadel in the middle of the square facing the High School. In a solemn little party they climbed its twisting flight of stairs to the front door and Lizzie inquired of an attendant where they would find the painting of the hunting party at Stobhall. He pointed along a gallery and when they found it they were staggered at its size: it occupied half a wall. At first sight it looked like a battlefield because men on horses were prancing about everywhere. Some had their arms raised, some were levelling guns and others cheered their companions on. It could have been a painting of the victory at Waterloo if they had been wearing scarlet coats instead of sporting clothes.

  The picture brought a smile to Lexie’s face and she cried out, ‘Look, Lizzie, there’s Father!’ pointing to a figure on a rearing horse in the left-hand corner of the painting.

  David Mudie was painted to the life, smiling his broadest smile and with the urbane twinkle in his eye that had won the hearts of many women.

  ‘Doesn’t he look a masher?’ cried his youngest child.

  ‘A masher?’ said Lizzie. ‘That’s not a very nice way of talking ab
out your father.’ She had evidently forgotten David’s transgressions and especially his unconventional way of departing this life.

  Lexie was looking around. ‘Isn’t it a pity there’s no pictures of women here?’ The other walls were covered with portraits of city luminaries – all men.

  ‘I saw one in the other gallery,’ offered Alex, but Lexie shrugged.

  ‘Oh, that was just some picture of a naked woman tied to a rock with a dragon trying to eat her. There ought to be paintings of real women like there are of men. The suffragettes are right. When I grow up I’m going to be a suffragette.’

  Lizzie was horrified. Her planned treat for Lexie was not turning out very well. ‘Don’t be stupid. I’d never allow you to go around burning down houses and tying yourself to railings.’

  Lexie looked at her solemnly. ‘If anyone ought to be a suffragette it’s you. You may own a mill but you haven’t a vote.’

  They rode home again in stiff disagreement and when Lexie was handed over to Maggy, Lizzie and Alex took tea in the drawing room.

  She said pensively, ‘I don’t understand that child. She’s an oddity.’

  ‘Oh, I expect she just tries to shock you,’ he consoled her.

  ‘She’s clever at school. Her teachers say she could go to university. Do you think that would be a good idea?’ she asked.

  He laughed. ‘If she’s a suffragette, she’d surely approve of women’s education.’

  Lizzie was thinking aloud. ‘If I’d had a daughter of my own, she wouldn’t have been like Lexie. She’s such an odd girl. Her mother was too, really…’

  ‘Lexie’s a bonny lassie,’ said Alex, to Lizzie’s surprise.

  ‘Do you think so? That hair of hers is terribly red and all those freckles make her look as if she’s spotted, especially in the summer.’