The House of Lyall

by Doris Davidson

  The House of Lyall

  To Jimmy – chief cook, cleaner and bottlewasher since I started writing. Until then, I had no idea that husbands could come in so handy. They can’t half hide their lights under bushels.

  Thanks to Susan Opie, my editor, who sorted out the muddle in which I managed to find myself. The House of Lyall would have been far less readable without her help.

  This eBook edition published in 2014 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  Copyright © Doris Davidson, 2000

  First published in 2000 by HarperCollins

  This edition first published in 2006 by Birlinn Ltd

  The moral right of Doris Davidson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-84158-472-0

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-700-4

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Contents

  Part One: 1894–1903

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part Two: 1917–1947

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Part Three: 1955

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  PART ONE

  1894–1903

  Chapter One

  It had never crossed Marion Cheyne’s mind before, but then she had never seen so much money before, and she didn’t recognize what she was feeling as temptation, never having come across that before, either. So her hand was as steady as a rock when she picked up five sovereigns and dropped them into the pocket of the apron which enveloped her from neck to feet. Some in born sense of preservation, however, made her stir the silver and copper around the remaining golden coins with her finger, so it wouldn’t be noticeable at first glance that any had been removed from the shallow china dish. This was actually meant to hold bonbons, but Mr Moodie deposited his small change in it every night – farthings, ha’pennies and pennies as a rule, with the odd thrupenny or sixpenny bit amongst them, sometimes even a shilling or a florin, but never gold, and certainly never a heap of gold like today.

  Finished here, she walked to the door, but the telltale jingle accompanying each step made her stop to tie the coins tightly inside her handkerchief; then to be doubly sure they would not betray her, she stuffed the solid little bundle into the pocket of her drawers. This act of secrecy, an admittance that what she had done was wrong, didn’t bother her as much as it should have done. If the gentry were as stupid as leave big amounts of money lying about, they deserved to be robbed.

  Not that the Moodies were true gentry. Even if their house stood on its own, hidden from curious eyes by the spreading trees that had given it its name, Oak Cottage wasn’t much different from the rest of the houses on that stretch of the turnpike – most of them built of the pink granite quarried in Peterhead. Of course, he was manager of the North of Scotland Bank’s branch in the Square, and went to work every morning in a black suit and a white shirt with a winged collar, and a moleskin hat jammed on his head, but that didn’t give him the right to think he was better than his neighbours. Apart from Mary McKay – who was employed by the council to assess the old and infirm inhabitants of Tipperton with a view to putting them in the poor’s house – they were mainly shopkeepers, and most of them could buy and sell him.

  Her mind returning to matters in hand, Marion realized that she would be under suspicion the minute he discovered the loss of his five pounds – there were only herself and the mistress who could have taken them, and he wouldn’t blame his wife. Well, it didn’t matter, for Marion Cheyne would be well away by the time he came home. She’d been thinking of leaving anyway. It wasn’t that Mr Moodie had done anything out of place, but with him sleeping in a different room from his wife, their servant was taking no chances of being roped in as his bed-warmer … or maybe worse! She would be fifteen next week, old enough to fend for herself, so why shouldn’t she go to Aberdeen and look for a better job? No one would miss her at home – her father was too much taken up with his new wife to care a docken about his daughter, and Moll, her stepmother, couldn’t stand the sight of her, which didn’t really matter because she hated her. They’d already got rid of her young brother by sending him to work for a horse-breeder in England somewhere, though it had pleased Kenny, for he’d always been mad about horses and wanted to be a jockey some day.

  When Marion went into the kitchen, Mrs Moodie was dampening the first lot of clothes they had washed earlier and rolling them up for her servant to iron in the afternoon with the rest. The girl had nothing against the woman, but she could feel her cheeks reddening at the thought of what lay hidden under her skirts, so when her mistress looked up and said solicitously, ‘You look flushed, Marion. I hope you’re not coming down with something,’ she was quick with her reply.

  ‘I’m not feeling very well.’

  The result was surprisingly gratifying. ‘You had better go home,’ Mrs Moodie said, ‘and don’t come in tomorrow unless you feel better.’

  Presented with a perfect means of escape, Marion had the sense to take advantage of it, and within minutes was walking through the back gate and round on to the drive. It had happened so quickly she had no time to make plans, but one thing she did know – she couldn’t go home. Her stepmother would see she wasn’t really ill, and would go on and on at her till she was trapped into saying something she shouldn’t. If she owned up to the stealing, she would be hauled back to Oak Cottage to confess. The only thing she could do to avoid that was to go with just what she was wearing, but the five sovereigns, now beginning to weigh on her conscience as well as on her hip, would be enough to pay her fare and buy some new clothes.

  Squaring her shoulders, she flung her head back, and with her long copper-coloured hair streaming out behind her, she strode out as if she hadn’t a care in the world. And neither she had, she assured herself, for she had burned her boats and there was no use worrying. As she walked past the cemetery, she remembered some boys at school telling her the spirits of the dead lurked near the gates to catch sinners and criminals, and even though it was only ten to eleven on a bright October morning, icy shivers ran down her spine and her heart seemed to be beating inside her mouth. Terrified, she pulled up her skirts and sprinted well past the danger area, until common sense told her she was being daft. Only bairns believed in ghosts. There were no such things, in the cemetery or anywhere else.

  She slowed down a bit, but kept
running because the track branching off to the left led down to the sawmill where her father worked and she wanted to get past as quickly as possible. She couldn’t chance being seen by any of his workmates or their wives, though there wasn’t much risk of that with all the trees in between the cottages and the road. In a valiant effort to bolster her conscience, she started to whistle – her poor dead mother used to say that whistling maidens and crowing hens weren’t lucky, but it had never broken her of the habit – stopping only when she neared the first houses in the village proper. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself in case any of her stepmother’s cronies saw her. She had often moaned that the whole of Tipperton might as well be a burial ground for all the life there was in it, but today she was thankful that it was so.

  Long before she came to the smiddy she could smell the smoke, and feel the heat of the almost molten metal, and hear the clang as the smith shaped another horseshoe. She used to watch him on her way home from school, fascinated by his skill yet shuddering at the thought of the agony the horses must suffer when he shod them, but this time she hurried quietly past.

  Reaching the crossroads, she dithered over whether to turn left over the river in the hope of being picked up by a carter taking a load of vegetables to Aberdeen – she didn’t know when the coach ran, and in any case, she could hardly stand about here where everybody would see her – or to turn right and make for the railway station. She would certainly be out of-sight there, for it was well out of the village and she had often played there with the other bairns in the school holidays. The sight of a stranger getting off was a source of endless diversion and speculation for them.

  It occurred to Marion that a train for Aberdeen came through about half-past eleven. She wouldn’t have long to wait, and she had more than enough money to pay the rail fare, so she turned right.

  She was on heckle-pins while she passed the shops, but strangely, there weren’t many women about that morning, and nobody she knew. Then she remembered that it was Monday, washing day for most housewives – she couldn’t have timed this better if she’d tried.

  There was quite a commotion inside and outside the Mart, where farmers from miles around came to buy and sell beasts and grain, and to have a news with old friends, but she didn’t recognize any of them and, in any case, they were all too busy to notice her. In another few hundred yards, she hurried past the tall, grim building which had a brass plate on its gate proclaiming it to be ‘Tipperton Institution for the Aged, Destitute and Incurable’, an awful grand name for what everybody in the place knew was really the poor’s house, only steps away from the entrance to the station.

  She was about to turn in, congratulating herself on getting there without being seen, when, coming towards her, she spied a sight familiar to the whole village: Mary McKay on her bicycle, her hat jammed down on her head, her skirts flapping about her legs. She was the very last person Marion wanted to see, a terrible gossip who kept everybody informed about everybody else’s business except her own and, crossing her fingers, the girl prayed she would go past without stopping. No such luck!

  ‘What are you doing up here at this time of day, Marion Cheyne?’ Mary asked breathlessly, as she drew up alongside.

  ‘Mrs Moodie sent me with a message to …’ the girl cast about for a name that would sound plausible, ‘… to Miss Fraser up the moorie.’

  The nurse noticed her hesitation but did not remark on it. ‘I’ll not waste your time, then, for she’ll be expecting you back.’

  Unaware that the woman had suspiciously moved into the lane to the poor’s house from where she could check unseen whether she carried on along the road to the moor, Marion turned into the station with relief that nobody would know where she had gone. Tipperton being little more than a halt, there was only one railway employee. Dod Cooper was station master, issuer and collector of tickets, porter, signalman, post office sorter and general dogsbody … but not a nosy parker. He kept his tongue between his teeth, as the saying went, and Marion was sure that he wouldn’t say anything to her father or anybody else about her presence at the station.

  Glancing at the big clock on the back wall of the wooden shelter, she saw that she had still ten minutes to wait, and to pass the time and keep out of sight, she paid a visit to the WC, which reminded her to resurrect what was the sum total of her possessions … five gold pieces. Then she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror – her face white and strained, her hazel eyes wide and anxious, her coppery hair carfuffled from hauling off her big apron before she left Oak Cottage. She hadn’t a comb, so the only thing she could do was to run her fingers through the tangles until they looked smooth. Thank goodness her hair was dead straight, and so easily tamed. Moistening a corner of her handkerchief with her tongue, she scrubbed her cheeks to bring some colour back into them, and was quite pleased with the result. Surely Dod Cooper wouldn’t notice anything strange about her now.

  Ten minutes later, after concocting a lie about why she had handed over a sovereign for a ticket that cost less than a shilling – she said one of her aunties had given it to her so she’d have something to spend when she went to Dundee to see her mother’s other sister – Marion almost collapsed into a seat in an empty compartment. Not a soul knew where she was going … even Dod Cooper couldn’t tell the bobbies if they started asking, for he thought she would buy another ticket in Aberdeen to take her to Dundee. She could hardly believe how easy it had been, right from the beginning, as if fate had guided her, encouraged her, and she hadn’t strayed far off the straight and narrow when all was said and done. She had grasped at an opportunity, and who could blame her for that?

  Her thoughts now ventured further ahead. She hadn’t had the cash for very long, but it gave her a feeling of power, of not being at anybody’s beck and call. It was a good feeling, and she wanted to be like this all her life. It wouldn’t be easy to get a position where she would come in contact with the upper classes in Aberdeen, but she was prepared to work her way up until she landed amongst people with lots of money, and then … then she could marry a rich man and live in luxury until she died. Love didn’t come into her scheme of things – though it would be nice if it did turn up somewhere along the way. Whatever, in future Marion Cheyne would make sure that her every action would be to her own advantage.

  When Alfie Cheyne went home at mid day, looking much older than his forty-one years after six hours’ hard work at the mill, his wife, nudging thirty but with the hourglass figure of a twenty-year-old due to the tight lacing of her stays, was not her usual flirtatious self.

  ‘That lassie o’ yours has run off.’

  His greying brows plummeted. ‘Run off? Dinna speak daft, wumman! She’s at the Moodies’ where she’s supposed to be … is she nae?’

  ‘She left there this morning. She was goin’ into the station this foreneen when Mary McKay saw her, an’ she never come oot again, for Mary waited half an hour an’ more, so she said. An’ when she went up an’ asked Dod Cooper, he hummed an’ hawed then said she was awa’ to Dundee. So I went an’ asked Mrs Moodie if she kent onything about it, an’ she said there was money missing.’

  ‘But my Marion wouldna steal!’ Alfie gasped.

  ‘Well, Mr Moodie had left twelve sovereigns for his wife to pay for a new table an’ chairs she was gettin’ delivered, an’ when the cart came from Aberdeen an’ she went to pay the man, there was only seven left. Marion must have ta’en the other five, for there was naebody else there. Oh, she’d said she wasna feeling well, an’ Mrs Moodie sent her hame, but she didna come back here.’

  Her triumphant sneer annoyed Alfie. Why had she thrust this worry on him when all he wanted was to eat his dinner in peace and have a wee nap before he went back to work? He’d got precious little sleep at nights since he’d wed Moll. He’d thought he was the luckiest man on God’s earth the first month or so, and told himself many a man would give his right arm to change places with him, but by Govie, you could get too much of a good thing.

>   ‘Have you nothing to say about her?’ Moll demanded suddenly.

  ‘What can I say?’ he mumbled. ‘If it was her that took that money, an’ it looks like she must have …’ He halted, rubbing his hand over his wiry beard. ‘If it was just a shillin’ or two, it wouldna be so bad, but five sovereigns! That’s near what I get for a twelve-month slaving in the mill an’ filling my lungs wi’ sawdust.’ Thinking that it might be as well to keep on his wife’s good side – he might fare a lot worse if he got her dander up – he said quite decidedly, ‘Well, a’ I can say is good riddance to her!’

  That made her beam with pleasure. ‘It’ll just be me an’ you, noo, Alfie.’

  He nodded. ‘Aye, Moll, just you an’ me.’ And if she carried on the way she’d been doing, he thought morosely, he’d be a wizened old man before he was fifty, his manhood drained off him. Looking at it from the other side, though, she was a damned good-looking wench who knew how to please a man, and there were worse ways to end his days than taking full advantage of what was legally his.

  ‘You’ll be ready for your stovies now, then?’

  She had almost purred the words, and Alfie’s saliva was flowing as he watched her filling a bowl with creamy milk, heaping his plate and then sticking a quarter of oatcakes in the middle. This was the traditional way to eat this dish, the milk being necessary to wash down the dry triangle of oatcake and barely moist stoved potatoes. For dinners like this every day he would gladly put up with Moll’s nightly appetite.

  Something else struck him as he took a quick sip of milk to clear his gritty mouth. ‘Are the Moodies going to report her to the bobby?’ he asked, wiping his moustache and picking up his fork.

  ‘She says he’ll likely want to, but she’s goin’ to tell him it was his ain fault for leaving so much money where Marion could get her hands on it, an’ ony young girl would have been tempted. Eat that up afore they’re caul’ now, for I’ve got a apple dumpling for after.’

  When Marion came out of Aberdeen railway station, her ears were assaulted by the bustle and din, and her nose by the strong smell of fish. Not that she didn’t like fish – she got it once a week at home – but she wasn’t accustomed to the stink of it all around her. Horses clopped over the granite setts, their carts piled high with wooden fish boxes leaking streams of brine on the road, or loaded with big beer barrels looking as though they would come toppling over at any minute. The leather-aproned carters whistled blithely, and mostly untunefully, as they flicked the reins to show their trusty steeds who was master.