‘I told him I loved him. It was out before I thought, so then I’d to tell him I wasn’t a widow, in case he asked me to marry him. I couldn’t tell him Tam was in prison, so I said we were separated, and I’d no idea where he was.’
‘What did Richard say to that?’
‘He said he was sorry I wasn’t free, then he asked if I’d ever considered filing for divorce.’
‘But can you do that when the man’s in jail?
‘It must be possible, or he wouldn’t have said it – he knows the law better than I do – but how can I? If Tam was served divorce papers, he’d go raving mad. He might even break out of prison.’
‘I believe he would.’ Cissie shuddered at the thought of it. ‘So that’s that, is it?’
Phoebe cleared her throat nervously. ‘Well, maybe this is going to sound awful, but I thought of telling Richard I had started a divorce case, then after a while, I’d say it had come through and we could go ahead and be married.’
Cissie’s eyes were like saucers. ‘Phoebe!’ she cried. ‘You can’t do that! For one thing, it’s not fair to Richard, and for another – oh, Phoebe, you’d be committing bigamy.’
They looked at each other uncertainly for a moment, then Phoebe, her shoulders dropping, said, ‘I don’t suppose I could have gone through with it, anyway. But just for a wee while, I thought – oh, I love him so much, and he treats me like no man ever treated me before. He makes me feel as though I’m really somebody, not just a tart he’s picked up.’
Understanding for the first time how much Phoebe had hated the life she had led in Aberdeen, Cissie said, ‘You’ll still see him, though?’
‘If he wants me to, but he might lose interest now.’
They said no more, but Cissie couldn’t sleep for thinking. Phoebe deserved some happiness after all she’d been through, but it was unlikely that she would ever dare to divorce Tam.
Cruising round the streets looking for a promising young thing to pick up, Bertram was delighted to see Millie Winton striding along on her own. She’d been like the damned Elusive Pimpernel, and he’d given up hope of finding her. Stopping the car, he called, ‘Hi, Millie, are you at a loose end?’
‘Why?’ she laughed, not stopping. ‘Do you want to hitch on to me?’
‘Why not?’ He jumped out and took her arm.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To have something to eat, if you haven’t eaten already?’
‘No, I haven’t, I was on my way home.’
He took her to the Caledonian Hotel, very expensive, but he considered it would be money well spent. Millie was good company, and to get her in a receptive mood he plied her with wine while they dined. Soon, her naturally flirtatious eyes were holding his across the table, her knees rubbing against his under the table, and he was sure that she would accept the proposal he meant to make later. He had the looks and the magnetism, hadn’t he? He was waiting until he had her alone, so that he could try some gentle persuasion if necessary, but he didn’t think it would be. She was the youngest daughter of a Member of the House of Commons and his father and grandfather would be impressed if he landed her.
Millie did not demur when Bertram suggested a late night spin, and he drove to his usual secluded spot. ‘Ooh,’ she giggled, as he drew up amongst the trees, ‘I hope you’re not after what I think you’re after, Bertram.’
‘Would you be annoyed if I was?’ he parried, placing his mouth over hers so that she couldn’t answer.
‘Oh, Millie, my darling,’ he breathed in a moment, letting his hands slip down to her breasts. She was kissing him so ardently that he wondered if he should wait until after he had done the necessary before he popped the question, but she had rebuffed him any time he went too far before. It would be better to let her know he was serious this time.
Her pelvis moving under him, she whispered, ‘Oh, Bertram, your kisses were always so thrilling.’
‘Millie, my angel, will you marry me?’ His voice was thick with passion.
Her only reply was to pull him closer, and, believing that this signified acceptance, he squeezed her nipple with one hand and lifted her skirt with the other.
She struggled free. ‘Don’t get too worked up,’ she said, in the supercilious tone which had put him off her before. ‘I’m not one of the little tarts I’m told you dally with.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Word gets around, you know.’
‘But I asked you to marry me and you let me think you . . .’
She gave a little smirk at that. ‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’
Recalling the incident the following forenoon, he thought ruefully that he should have known she was making a fool of him, but he had believed she was playing hard to get and had forced her down on her back to teach her a lesson. That was when her knee came up and caught him on the balls. She’d had to wait until he got over the pain before he could drive her home, and she’d actually laughed when she got out of the car. ‘How did it feel to be at the receiving end for a change?’
He’d still been too sore to retaliate, and had driven away seething. He was finished with girls – toffee-nosed girls like Millie Winton, anyway, who thought they could rule the world because their fathers were somebody and were filthy rich. His own father and grandfather had pots of money – though he wouldn’t get his hands on any of it until the pair of them handed in their cards. He would be quite well off himself when he reached twenty-five and got the inheritance his mother had left him. As it was, he wouldn’t be so bad if his income would only keep pace with his expenditure, but he’d had to take more and more out of his business lately to pay for his pleasures. He’d have to go easy for a while.
‘Bertram, have you a minute?’
Oh, God, he thought. What was coming now? ‘Yes, Cissie?’
‘I was just going to say . . .’ She stopped, then carried on, her cheeks reddening, ‘Did you know your father and Phoebe love each other? Wouldn’t it be great if they got married?’
He was not to know that Cissie was trying to turn his mind to marriage in the hope that he would consider her as a possible bride, nor had he the slightest idea that Phoebe’s circumstances prevented her from marrying, so he was utterly horrified. Fighting back a wave of hysteria, he managed to stammer, ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’
He was glad when Cissie’s head bent to her work again, for it gave him peace to think. He hadn’t suspected that things were so serious between his father and Phoebe, and if they did marry, how would it affect him? Surely the bitch was too old to produce another heir to the Dickson wealth? How old did a woman have to be before her child-bearing days were over, for God’s sake? He didn’t even know when they started. He didn’t know the first thing about the workings of the female body, though he had explored plenty of them. Christ, Cissie had dealt him a worse blow than Millie Winton!
Bertram took a deep breath to steady his jangling nerves. Even if Phoebe couldn’t produce an heir, she would still be dangerous as his father’s wife. He could sense that she didn’t like him – the feeling was mutual – and once she started interfering, he could say goodbye to any more ‘loans’ from his father. But surely Pater wouldn’t marry into the common herd, not when his first wife had been a Moncrieff and could trace her ancestry back to William the Conqueror? Of course, Old Dick’s wife had been a weaver – ‘Worth a dozen Lydias,’ he was fond of saying – so he had likely encouraged their match. He seemed to have a penchant for the lower orders, who were all right in their place, but, Bertram thought viciously, should damn well stay there!
Chapter Eighteen
1922
Since Richard Dickson put the idea of divorce into her head, Phoebe had thought of little else. As her husband, he could give her love and financial security and he would protect her if Tam broke out of jail to look for her. Nobody had ever escaped from Peterhead Prison and stayed free, but there was always a first time, and when Tam set his mind to something, nothing would stop him. Besides, t
here was Cissie to worry about; her father blamed her for having him locked away, and he would likely want to punish her as well.
Having spent months agonising, she remembered that Tam would have no idea where his wife and daughter were. Even if he went to Schoolhill and asked Marie, she couldn’t tell him, for she had only heard them say they might go to Dundee, and Dundee was a big city. They should be safe as houses – shouldn’t they?
Phoebe came to a decision when she was getting ready to meet Richard one night. She would go through with the plan she’d outlined to Cissie: she would tell Richard she had applied for a divorce, wait a month or so and then say the decree had come through. That way he would marry her in all good faith, and Tam would be none the wiser. And even if Tam were to find out, under Richard’s roof not even he could harm her. The deceit would shock Cissie, but it wasn’t Cissie’s life that was being wasted.
Her stomach was churning when Richard opened his car door for her, and he looked surprised when she said, forcing the words out nervously, ‘Would you mind just taking me back to Huntingdon tonight? I’ve something private to say to you.’
They were sitting down in his large drawing room before he said, smiling fondly at her, ‘Now, my dear, what do you have to say that’s so very private?’
She loved him so much that the lie almost stuck in her throat. ‘I’ve . . . I’ve seen a solicitor about divorcing Tam.’ It was out, though she was shaking like a leaf in a force-nine gale.
Richard leaned forward eagerly. ‘Oh, Phoebe, I’m so glad! Does he think there will be any difficulties? How long will it take? What did he ask you?’
Wishing miserably that she had some idea of the procedures involved, she stared hopelessly at him, then a tear trickled down her cheek. Seeing her distress, Richard jumped out of his high-backed leather chair and went to kneel by her side. ‘Oh, my dearest,’ he murmured, taking her hand and squeezing it. ‘Don’t be upset at breaking the marriage vows you made so long ago. Your husband broke his when he left you.’
Her tears gathered momentum, and in the next instant she burst out, unable to stop herself and sobbing as if her heart would break, ‘It wasn’t like that, Richard. You don’t know the half of it.’
‘Don’t cry, my dear,’ he said, compassionately. ‘Tell me what’s troubling you and perhaps I can help. I’d like to know about your life before you came to Dundee.’
Wordlessly, she shook her head, but he persisted, trying to make it sound jocular, ‘Once you’re my wife, you can’t keep secrets from me, so you may as well tell me now.’
‘You won’t want me to be your wife after I tell you.’
‘Phoebe, my dear, I’ll still want to marry you whatever you tell me.’
Her shuddering sigh seemed to be dredged up from the very soles of her feet. ‘You’d better sit down, Richard, it’s a long, complicated story.’
Waiting until he had settled again, she said, unsteadily, ‘I’ll have to start when I was only seventeen, so you can understand better.’ At his puzzled nod, she told him about her life in the Black Isle, and how her father had thrown her out.
‘He must have been extremely narrow-minded,’ Richard said, sadly. ‘Couldn’t you have convinced him . . .’
‘He wouldn’t listen, and in a way, I was glad, for he’d hardly ever let me out of his sight before.’
‘Was that when you came to Dundee? I was sure there was something behind your working as a spinner.’
‘Oh, no! There’s a lot more, worse than that.’ She continued with her story until she reached her arrival in Aberdeen, then she paused and looked at him in despair. ‘I hadn’t been brought up to earn my living, and I didn’t know anything about life in a big city, and when I couldn’t find a steady job, I . . .’ her voice faltered, ‘. . . I found I could make money by . . . selling my body.’
Richard quickly smothered his gasp. ‘You mean you turned to prostitution?’
She could tell by his expression how horrified he was and made a move to stand up and leave, but he gestured to her to remain where she was. His voice was harsh, however, when he said, ‘Go on. You haven’t told me about your marriage, nor why your husband left you. I take it that he found out what you had been doing?’
Shaking her head ruefully, she told him how she had met Big Tam. ‘He knew all about me, that’s why he asked me to go and keep house for him, but what he really wanted was to sleep with me. I didn’t care, for I’d slept with other men, and I couldn’t help liking him.’
While she was speaking, she recalled her promise never to tell anyone that Tam had been the father of Cissie’s child, and not even to blacken his character and make things easier for herself could she break that promise. She cast around in her mind for something that would explain why Tam had been locked away. ‘He didn’t marry me till a long time after, and I was happy for a while, even though he’d an awful temper. When he’d had a few drinks, the least thing would start him fighting. Then he – he got a girl in trouble.’
She was floundering now, and the anguish on Richard’s face was making it more difficult. ‘Her – her father confronted him with it, and he lost his head altogether, Tam, I mean. He – I don’t really know how it happened and I don’t think he meant to kill the man.’ She stopped, thankful that she had invented such a credible story, then ended in a rush. ‘He was tried and found guilty of manslaughter and he’s serving fifteen years in Peterhead Prison.’
Looking pensive, Richard said, ‘I thought I’d seen or heard the names Cissie Robertson and Phoebe McGregor at some time before, and now I remember. There was quite a lot of publicity about the case at the time, and I followed reports of the trial in the newspapers. It was Cissie’s husband he killed, wasn’t it? And her child – his own grandson.’
Phoebe hung her head. At least the police, and the reporters, had never uncovered the whole truth. She waited for Richard to denounce her for being a liar as well as a prostitute, but he was sitting stone-faced, mulling over what had been said. This was much worse, for he wasn’t giving her a chance to defend herself. Miserably, she rose to her feet and left the house quietly. It was all over between them, as she had known it would be when he learned about her past life.
Earlier that same night, Bertram had gone to meet Brenda, the girl Cissie had taken on three weeks before to help her. He had been pleasantly surprised when he saw her first, a fourteen-year-old blonde with wide, baby-blue eyes and full lips. Not only that, she had a silhouette like an hourglass and his hands had itched to squeeze her swinging breasts, so he could hardly believe his luck when Brenda gave him a blatant ‘come-hither’ look. When he found an opportunity, he arranged to meet her and had discovered her to be something of a man-eater. At first, he had enjoyed the novelty of a woman taking the lead, but she was beginning to bore him. He would have to think of a way to brush her off.
When he drew his new Riley up at the Royal Arch – erected in Dock Street many years before for a visit from Queen Victoria – Brenda was waiting, and, watching her as she stood looking down at the water, he cringed with embarrassment at the brevity of her skirt. She was a common little tart, and he should never have had anything to do with her.
She turned round then and came over to him, simpering as he held the door of the car open for her. Once inside, she said, ‘I thought you weren’t coming, Bertram.’
He nearly told her it would be the last time, but he may as well have his fun first. ‘Sorry, my pet, I was held up.’
He kept his eyes away from the long expanse of silk-clad legs; time enough for that. ‘I thought we’d have a wee run somewhere, since it’s so warm.’
There was something different about her tonight, something that made him vaguely uneasy, but, telling himself that her peculiar half-smile only signified pride at being on such intimate terms with her boss, he drove up into the hills and stopped where no one would see or hear them. ‘Out you get.’
She lay down on the old waterproof he kept in the boot for such eventualities, and he was a
bout to kiss her when she pushed him away. ‘My Dad wants to see you.’
He didn’t have to ask why. Only a pregnancy would make a girl’s father want to see the man she was involved with. ‘How far on are you?’ he muttered.
‘I’ve missed twice, and Dad says you’ll have to marry me all the sooner.’
‘I never had any intention of marrying you, you little fool!’ Bertram’s insides were heaving, and he had difficulty in keeping his hands from her throat. This was a sickener, all right, but surely to God he would manage to wriggle out of it. He wanted an heir, but this teenage hussy would not be acceptable to his family as his wife.
Brenda’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I’d never have let you talk me into it if I’d known you weren’t serious about me.’
‘Me talk you into it? That’s a laugh! You damned near had the trousers off me the first five minutes I was with you.’
‘Oh, Bertram,’ she wailed, ‘I don’t know how can you say a thing like that.’
‘It’s true, that’s how! You’ve likely been at it with so many men you don’t even know whose brat it is.’
‘I haven’t been with anybody else, honest I haven’t.’
‘Honest? You little bitch! You haven’t an honest bone in your body. I bet you planned this from the start.’
‘No, Bertram,’ she sobbed, ‘I never wanted this to happen, and my Dad says if you don’t marry me, he’ll have you up for interfering with an underage girl.’
Bertram cursed his own stupidity, but continued to brazen it out. ‘I don’t care what your father says. I’m damned sure I’m not the only one you’ve been messing with, you little tramp, and I’m not taking the rap for your bastard.’ Her loud crying was getting on his nerves, so he snapped, ‘Stop your bawling, for Christ’s sake!’
‘You’re the only one,’ she hiccuped. ‘I swear it, and my Dad’ll make you marry me.’
Knowing how pugilistic some working-class men were, he wondered feverishly how he could get out of this. ‘Look, how about if I pay for an abortion? Would that satisfy him?’
Waters of the Heart Page 16
