Mistress of Green Tree Mill

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

  Appalled by such cold-heartedness, Lizzie said, ‘Oh, Charlie, I’m sorry…’

  Unable to bear the emotion, he rose quickly to his feet and went running from the room.

  Chapter 30

  The 1930s did not start well. On 1 January people woke up to the horrifying news that sixty-nine children had been burned to death in a cinema fire in Glasgow. After that storms raged for weeks, sinking ships and wreaking devastation up and down the country. By summer the recently elected Labour Government of Ramsay MacDonald, for which the working classes had high hopes, proved ineffectual and unable to do anything to halt the rising tide of poverty and unemployment. The country sank deeply into the grip of a depression which was to last for a long time.

  The collapse of the union movement was disheartening for Lexie. People had no stomach for fighting any longer, they only wanted to survive and were prepared to put up with almost anything in order to do so. Mill owners cut wages and imposed rigorous working schedules; the queues at the dole offices stretched for hundreds of yards and her heart ached when she walked up the Hilltown and saw pinch-faced children running around with no shoes to their feet and only rags on their backs. Nothing had improved in spite of all her efforts, in many cases things were worse than they had been ten years before.

  Dissillusion drove her more deeply into Communism. She moved into a flat in Stobswell with Ninian Sutherland and their home became the meeting place for people who were, like them, dissatisfied with society. Sometimes they travelled to London where they conferred with Comintern agents whose real names were never revealed.

  The relationship between Lexie and Ninian was stormy, but the longer they lived together the more she loved him and the more anxious she was to hide her attachment from him because he scoffed at the bourgeois idea of marriage.

  He told her that she was free to take other lovers. ‘There’s no such thing as infidelity when people are free agents,’ he explained, but she wanted no one else and when she saw him showing interest in other women she felt such jealousy that it was a physical pain. This too had to be hidden from him for she feared that if she became clinging he might leave her.

  He was growing more and more successful and sought after because, in spite of the slump, his paintings continued to sell, mostly through a gallery in London. The adulation he received from art lovers, many of them rich women, caused Lexie much secret heartache.

  Ninian’s father Sooty was one of the first victims of the slump. His mill shut down and Sooty suffered a stroke which his furious wife blamed on her son.

  ‘The shame of the way you’re carrying on with that Mudie lassie is killing your father,’ she raged.

  When Sooty died quite soon afterwards, his will revealed that Ninian had been left nothing. He did not care.

  ‘Property is theft anyway,’ he said. ‘Even if I’d been left money I wouldn’t have accepted it. My mother can have all there is – she’ll need it to live on.’

  Ninian’s mother was not grateful and refused to receive her son.

  Sooty’s affairs were in such a tangle that it was decided the house in the Perth Road and all its contents should be sold by auction.

  On the day of the sale Lexie accompanied Ninian to Rivermead to see his old home being sold up. It was the first time she had been inside and she was staggered at its opulence, which made Tay Lodge seem modest. There were bronzes bought in bulk from France and marble statues from Italy; walls were covered with enormous paintings of dead grouse and bleeding stags; the staircase walls and landings were lined with halberds, battleaxes and suits of armour.

  ‘I can’t imagine you growing up here,’ gasped the girl as she moved through the rooms with the curious crowd.

  Ninian shrugged. ‘It taught me what not to like, but there are some things I want – sentimental things mostly. I hope I can buy them.’

  He was only successful with one lot. For a pound he secured a little picture of a woman’s head in a battered gilt frame. When they returned to their flat he unwrapped his purchase with delight. ‘This picture’s the thing I wanted most of all from that entire houseful. Look, it’s lovely. I think it’s by Rembrandt.’

  It was a drawing of a woman’s head done in red crayon. The draughtsmanship was masterly. Ninian held it up to the light and sighed, ‘Marvellous. I was madly in love with her when I was small. She used to hang on the nursery landing. The first time I saw you, I thought you were this painting come to life.’

  She peered closely at the picture. The face was like hers – the same long curving lips and narrow, high-bridged nose, the same thick red hair.

  ‘She hasn’t any freckles,’ she said.

  ‘They come extra with you, leopard lady,’ laughed Ninian.

  * * *

  At the end of the summer Alex telephoned to say that Alice had given birth to a son, Alastair. Maggy answered the phone, holding the stork-like black apparatus gingerly with one hand while the other pressed the hearing cup to her ear. She was suspicious of modernity and only her pride of position as head of Lizzie’s household made her insist on answering its ringing. Similarly she nearly always made an excuse and avoided going out in the motor car that Lizzie had recently bought and learned to drive herself.

  It fell to Maggy to break the news of the birth of his son to Charlie and his mother.

  ‘I’m glad it wasn’t a girl. I’d rather have a daughter,’ he said, and putting on his hat drove off in his roaring car. He did not come back for a week.

  Lizzie felt great pity for her son and that sympathy deepened when Alice arrived at Tay Lodge with her husband on a Sunday afternoon about six weeks after the birth to display their baby. Charlie was not at home but it seemed as if she enjoyed rubbing salt into Lizzie’s wounds because she held up the child and said, ‘You’re looking very gloomy, Lizzie. I’ll bring the baby out here on Sundays to cheer you up.’

  Lizzie’s arms longed to hold the child and when she glanced across at Maggy she saw that her longings were shared. Maggy’s hands were actually twitching. She hardened her heart and folded her own hands firmly on her lap, but Maggy gave in and stretched out hers for the sleeping Alastair. She loved all children, but the knowledge that this little boy was dear Charlie’s made him very special.

  Her eyes went from the baby to Lizzie, who felt tears prick her eyelids. The outrage she felt now about the birth of Charlie’s son was over Alice’s cruelty. If only she and Maggy could enthuse about the child. If only they could say to each other, ‘He’s got his father’s nose! Isn’t he like our Charlie was when he was little?’

  When Alex proudly took his unexpected heir away, Lizzie looked around at her beautiful possessions, so static in their places, so untouched. Her heart ached. She said to Maggy, ‘What we need is a child in this house.’

  The awareness that there was no one after Charlie to inherit her lovely house and all the pretty things she had collected, preyed on Lizzie’s mind. For the first time in many years she began to really look at the possessions she had collected with magpie-like intensity. She rearranged them, lifted them up and examined them, ran her hand over the satin-smooth furniture and consciously felt the soft pile of the carpets beneath her feet. By doing this she recaptured some of the thrill that Tay Lodge had given her as a child, but it saddened her that there was no other child to experience the same delight. Lexie had been a disappointment. Her distaste for the secluded life of Tay Lodge had never been hidden.

  ‘I want a grandchild,’ cried Lizzie to herself. ‘I want a granddaughter to take the place of the daughter I never had.’

  She felt tired and depressed, the zest had gone out of her life and Maggy was worried by her listlessness. She fussed around Lizzie, fetching and carrying, guarding her privacy, hissing at Charlie when he did appear at home, ‘Don’t upset your mother…’

  One night he arrived looking unusually cheerful and asked Maggy, ‘How’s Ma?’

  ‘She’s tired. She’s had a busy day at the mill. Don’t you upset her!’

>   He was beaming. ‘I’m not going to upset her. I’m going to please her, I hope. Where is she?’

  Maggy gestured towards the drawing room.

  ‘You come too and hear my news. Come on,’ said Charlie.

  Lizzie had been dozing and opened her eyes at his approach. He did not waste time with leading up to the subject.

  ‘Ma,’ he said, from his stance in the centre of the carpet, ‘I’ve decided to get married.’

  Maggy behind him clapped her hand to her mouth in astonishment but not before they heard her say, ‘At last!’

  Lizzie sat up in surprise, blinking her eyes. She was unaware that her son had been courting anyone special since the end of the affair with Alice.

  ‘Who’s the girl?’ she asked, ‘Do I know her?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. I don’t know her name myself yet. I’ve only seen her at a bus stop outside the infirmary. She’s a nurse there but I’m determined that I’m going to marry her. She’s the loveliest thing you ever saw.’

  Lizzie had learned caution in her dealings with Charlie. Though she felt disappointment at this extraordinary announcement, she knew better than to protest. ‘I hope she feels the same way about you,’ she said.

  Charlie discovered that the girl’s name was Jane Collins. When he stopped her on the street as she was leaving work, she was frightened and looked around, preparing to take flight.

  He doffed his hat and asked, ‘Would you do me the honour of letting me take you out to dinner?’

  Her first thought was that he was mad, though he looked normal enough. His clothes were expensive and he was standing beside an enormous motor car, holding the door open for her to step inside. She retreated towards the wall and shook her head. ‘Certainly not,’ she said and started to run.

  He was waiting in the same place the next day, wearing a large silk bow tie and a jauntily tilted hat.

  This time she said more to him: ‘Leave me alone or I’ll call a policeman.’

  On the third day he presented her with a bouquet of flowers which she tried to thrust back into his hands, but he persuaded her to keep them, saying, ‘They’ll die if you don’t take them home and put them in water.’

  On the fourth day she was becoming almost used to him but was thoroughly exasperated when she asked, ‘Why are you bothering me?’

  ‘Because you’re the loveliest girl I’ve ever seen in my life,’ was the reply.

  She flushed and looked confused so he pursued his advantage. ‘Don’t keep on running away from me. I’m going to win you,’ he told her.

  Within six months he’d succeeded.

  The wedding took place in the parish church of Jane’s home village in Perthshire. She was one of a large family – four enormous brothers acted as ushers in the church. Her father was a builder in a small way. Her mother had been a kitchenmaid in the local big house before she married and was thoroughly imbued with an attitude of reverence towards the rich and powerful. They were astounded by their daughter’s luck in landing a husband whose mother owned a jute mill and when Lizzie drove up in her huge car with a uniformed chauffeur and a maid in attendance carrying her furs, they were so intimidated that they could hardly address her directly.

  Lizzie was painfully aware of their feelings. She felt alien and isolated among them but she smiled and acted graciously because Charlie was obviously deliriously happy. Like his mother and grandfather he was a collector of beautiful things and his best find so far was Jane.

  On the occasions when the girl had been brought to meet her future mother-in-law there had only been stilted conversation. Jane was hideously nervous and overwhelmed by Tay Lodge. She seemed convinced that Lizzie was jealous of any woman who would take away her son. In fact Lizzie was happy that Charlie was marrying – after all he would not see thirty-five again – but very anxious that she would not lose contact with him or his family. He was all she had and her anxiety made her over-possessive.

  On his wedding day Lizzie sat in her pew beside Maggy on the groom’s side of the church and scrutinized the bride as she walked down the aisle on her father’s arm. Charlie had chosen well. Jane was dark haired, with a magnificent classical profile. She was not tall but slim and elegant with long, aristocratic hands and feet in spite of her humble birth. Her face, as she stood at the altar, had the serene beauty of a Botticelli nymph. Lizzie hoped that the serenity and passivity did not imply that her son’s wife was stupid, for she had not been able to draw the girl out enough to discern the quality of her mind.

  She did not realize that her smothering concern antagonized Jane. It was Lizzie who chose and paid for their first home, at Newport on the other end of the Tay Bridge. From her bedroom windows at Tay Lodge, she could see its windows glittering in the sun.

  It was Lizzie who booked and paid for their honeymoon in Italy.

  It was Lizzie who filled the larder with delicious food on the day they arrived home; it was Lizzie who escorted Jane into the huge furniture shops and said to the eager assistants, ‘Put it on my bill,’ if the girl expressed an interest in anything, no matter how expensive.

  When Charlie was settled in his new house, and still not showing any sign of starting work at Green Tree, his mother decided it was time to discuss the future with him.

  ‘Do you want me to appoint you as my deputy at Green Tree now?’ she asked hopefully.

  He shook his head. ‘Jane and I’ve been talking about that, Ma. You know I’ve never been interested in the mill. I’m sorry, because I know what it means to you, but that’s the way it is. I wouldn’t be any good at the business if my heart wasn’t in it.’

  She had half expected this. ‘What do you intend to do then? I’m quite prepared to continue paying you an allowancebut I’m not going to increase it now you’re married because it’s not good for you to go on living like a playboy. You’ll need some sort of job.’

  ‘We’ve been thinking about that. I know you’ll not approve but what I would really like to do is be a bookmaker.’

  She felt her heart begin to race. If this had been said to her a few years ago when her temper was less controllable, she would have beat him around the head but she restrained herself and said, ‘You mean someone who takes bets, don’t you? A gambler? That’s a very chancy business.’

  ‘It is, but I’ve been betting for years and, between you and me, I’ve done rather well. They say I’m lucky.’

  Her mind was racing too. She was a rich woman. She could afford to allow him to indulge himself for a few years yet. It was wrong, she knew by now, to go along with Charlie’s every wish but they had established a pattern that she found impossible to break. ‘What do you need to start?’ she asked, thinking that when he came a cropper soon, that would be an end of it.

  He surprised her. ‘I don’t need anything. I’ve enough capital already. I told you I’ve been betting and doing well. I just thought I’d tell you that I don’t want to take over the mill – and by the way, we think Jane might be having a baby!’

  Chapter 31

  While she waited for the birth of her grandchild, Lizzie recognized that her over-attentiveness was annoying her daughter-in-law. She resolved to leave the couple alone and passed more and more time at Gowan Bank with Goldie. They did not advertise their attachment but were less anxious to hide it than they had been in the beginning. Sometimes they were seen together at functions in the city and people had long ago stopped nudging each other at the sight of them.

  Gowan Bank was a refuge that had never lost its enchantment. Lizzie furnished it comfortably over the years but they still lived there without servants, making their own bed and doing their own cooking. Not being waited on hand and foot, not being watched all the time, was like a holiday after their over-staffed mansions.

  One brilliant morning, Lizzie turned in bed in the cottage and saw that Goldie’s hair on the pillow beside her had gone grey. The curls were still as thick as ever but the brilliant yellow had faded – and she had never really noticed. She put out a
tentative hand and touched his head. He buried his face further down into the pillow and made a snuffling noise. At the sound she felt her love pour out towards him like a serene river and she laid her face against his broad back, saying, ‘I love you, Goldie. I really love you.’

  They were both more reluctant than usual to leave Gowan Bank that day, lingering for hours in the garden, inventing excuses for each other so that they put off their time of departure till afternoon.

  Goldie was in a brilliant mood as he drove her to Dundee and she responded with equal gaiety, happy to see him so optimistic because she knew that for the past year or two he had been plagued by business problems.

  Her mill had dropped production seriously during the slump but was still profitable. Goldie’s concerns were more seriously affected. The shipping trade was cut by more than a quarter and his investments in America disappeared in the crash. She did not know exactly how his fortune had suffered but suspected that it was badly depleted and his expenses were still heavy. Monte Bello cost thousands of pounds to maintain every year but, after having sold the Argyll estate and seen the confusion it caused his wife, he would never consider cutting back on her lifestyle in any other way. It was his way of making up for loving Lizzie.

  When they parted at the Green Tree gate, he leaned over from the driving seat and said to her, ‘You know how much I love you, don’t you? You know I’ll always love you.’ Sobered, she paused with one foot on the running board. Something in his voice made a little flicker of fear stir inside her.

  ‘I love you too. I love you so deeply that you’re part of me,’ she told him. Then they parted.

  * * *

  It was Charlie who brought her the news next morning. The good weather had disappeared and a wind was dashing rain like pebbles against her office window. Her son’s face was hard and drawn. He looked old as he entered the room and closed the heavy door behind him. She half rose from her chair when she saw him.