The House of Lyall

by Doris Davidson

  ‘If they like what we send them, they’ll double it, maybe treble or more. It’s just a pity we can’t make up the uniforms, too.’

  ‘If we can run full out making the cloth, I’ll be happy,’ sighed Ruairidh.

  On the first Wednesday in June 1941, Archie Grassie telephoned Dorrie to say he would come to see her on the Sunday, because he was leaving Aberdeen on Monday.

  Over the next few days, she was glad she was kept so busy. She had no time to brood during the day, and even when she went to bed, she was so tired that she fell asleep without even wondering where Archie might be sent.

  They met in their usual place in the woods on Sunday afternoon, and as soon as she joined him, Archie said, ‘I think I’m being sent to North Africa, and I’m glad to be going where I’m needed.’

  Dorrie didn’t feel at all glad. He would be in the heart of the fighting. What if he didn’t come back? She couldn’t voice her fear for him, she didn’t want to instil fear in him, but she couldn’t let him go without telling him how she felt. She waited until they came to the small glade where they had often tossed their thoughts and ideas to each other. Without a word, they stopped and sat down side by side and she turned to look at him. He wasn’t what anyone would call truly handsome, but she loved the way his dark hair curled, and his fair skin made his brown eyes look almost black. His nose was inclined to be sharp, though, his mouth …

  She gulped. She didn’t want him to go to North Africa. She didn’t want him to go anywhere, but was it safe to tell him that? ‘I’ll miss you,’ she whispered.

  His hand caught hers, and she looked up into his eyes, losing herself in the depth of them. ‘Will you?’ he murmured. ‘Not as much as I’ll miss you.’

  They gazed at each other for several long moments, and then he sighed, ‘Why did it take me this long to find out I love you?’

  ‘I’m the same,’ she burst out rapturously. ‘I’ve just realized.’

  With the realization came the need to kiss, to touch, to get to know each other in the fullest way, but not in haste. They made the most of every second of the time they had left, and somewhere in the midst of the passion, a proposal was made and accepted.

  Some time later, they had to force themselves to break the spell and make their way back through the trees. ‘I’d better come in with you, my darling,’ Archie said, as they neared a side door. ‘I expect your father would like me to ask him properly for your hand.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she grinned, ‘and we’d better not tell him I’m all yours already.’

  ‘And every part of me is yours,’ he assured her, giving her one last kiss.

  Marianne was furious. If it wasn’t bad enough that Dorrie’s blood was one-quarter inherited from an insane minister, the headstrong girl was determined to marry the minister son of another minister, which meant that any children they had would be … what was a half plus a quarter? – three-quarters? That couldn’t be right, could it? – whatever it was, there had better be no children of this marriage. It was unthinkable that the heir to the Glendarril title would be three-quarters a man of God … even more than that if you took Melda’s real mother into account, for Grace had also been the daughter of a minister.

  Marianne’s obsession about Duncan Peat had deepened over the years into a phobia which included all ministers, a paranoia with neither reason nor rhyme behind it, which ridicule from her husband had forced her to keep hidden. No matter how hard she had tried to make Ruairidh understand that he shouldn’t, he had given the two young people his blessing. No one paid any attention to her nowadays, she fumed. Gone were the days when everyone in the glen looked up to her and asked her advice when they were in any sort of trouble. Of course, with so many of the men called up or going off to fight of their own free will, most of the women were heads of their households and had learned to be strong.

  What hurt her most, Marianne decided, was the way her own family treated her. She had been relegated to looking after the creche while Melda had taken complete charge of the mill, to let Ruairidh direct his full attention to the running of the estate … she said. It was true that the factor who had collected the rents from the tenant farmers and crofters, and the estate manager who used to arrange for any repairs necessary to the cottages, had both been called up, so Ruairidh did have everything to do himself, but they could let her have responsibility for something. She was capable of so much, and any elderly woman would manage to control a bunch of skirling under-school-age brats.

  Her mind returned to the problem of Archie Grassie. He would have left Aberdeen by this time, and seemed to think he was bound for North Africa, where the war was not going too well for Britain, so maybe she was worrying for nothing. According to Lord Haw-Haw, the Germans and the Italians had the British in full retreat, so Archie might be killed – or would God not permit that to happen to a minister, a padre, as Archie called himself? There were rumours that some troops of the Highland Division were to be sent to Glendarril for mountain training. She hadn’t liked the idea of hundreds of soldiers of all ranks milling around, but if one young officer managed to take Dorrie’s fancy … she could send one of those ‘Dear John’ letters to Archie.

  After all, he hadn’t had time to buy her a ring, so they weren’t really engaged. Not officially.

  * * *

  When it came, some three months later, the Invasion of Glendarril, as Ruairidh dubbed it, was not as big an upheaval as they had imagined, and his mother was quite pleased that only officers were billeted in the castle itself. This meant that Dorothea saw them every day, which would take her mind off Archie Grassie … hopefully. The lower ranks were distributed throughout the glen, in all houses large enough to sleep at least two, and with so many husbands and boyfriends away, everyone could foresee trouble – a proliferation of trouble. The school hall, which had formerly staged only concerts put on by the pupils at Christmas, was appropriated to provide weekly entertainment for the troops, and, because of the closeness of the original small community and the relatively small number of soldiers foisted upon them, no difference was made between officers and other ranks at the dances and various other amusements arranged by the Entertainments Officer.

  The females in the glen soon adapted to the change. From fifteen to fifty, they welcomed the attention paid to them by these uniformed strangers, who did not remain strangers for long; who, in fact, soon got to know some of the women just as intimately as their absent husbands. Not to be outdone, the young girls, ignoring their mothers’ warnings, relinquished their maidenhood at the first asking. It was all very exciting for both sexes – days spent working hard, and nights, to put it plainly, spent in every bit as physically demanding a manner, but so much more enjoyable.

  As one young soldier sighed ecstatically to the boy who shared his room, ‘If this is war, Lachie, I hope it goes on for ever.’

  His friend, however, a tubby lad from the island of Islay, was finding the pace just a little too hectic. ‘I chust hope I can keep going, Chamie,’ he muttered. ‘That Chanet would neffer let me stop if she got her way.’

  Jamie gave a loud guffaw. ‘And you’re complaining? Make the most of it, Lachie boy, and pray the powers that be have forgotten about us. If they haven’t, we’ll likely be posted to somewhere in the jungle or some other Godforsaken hole with no dames!’

  The powers that be had their sights on all regiments, all battalions, of course, wherever they were, even in the most remote outpost, and with no prior notification – except a coded message to Lord Glendarril, telling him that the training had been completed – evacuation of the first batch of soldiers was speedily effected, and great was the consternation – the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth – of their hostesses when it was discovered that the men had virtually disappeared overnight. Five young girls, one barely fifteen, had been left pregnant, and fathers were vowing vengeance on the ‘horny buggers’ who had done the dirty deeds. The trouble was, they learned to their greater disgust, that their daughters
didn’t even know their names in most cases. Three mothers of girls who had been seduced, willingly or otherwise, were keeping their own secrets – two whose husbands had been overseas for more than a year, and one whose spouse thought he must have been drunk when he fathered the child his wife was carrying, because he couldn’t remember a blessed thing about it.

  Most of the pregnancies were kept hidden for as long as possible, only four anxious mothers booking the services of the ‘howdie’ as soon as they recognized the symptoms their teenage daughters were displaying and got the truth out of them.

  Soon, as more soldiers came and went, even the most timid of the maids in the castle was telling lies in order to meet a soldier. ‘Please, Cook,’ little Evie pleaded on the day following her usual afternoon off, ‘Ma wasna lookin’ good yesterday an’ I wanted to see what like she is the day.’

  Mrs Burr’s eyes held compassion that first time and the girl was allowed an hour off, but on the request being repeated just two days later, she tumbled to what was going on. ‘So your mother’s no better, is she?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘That’s funny, for Ruby saw her last night goin’ to the Rural meetin’. But maybe you’ve got a different mother these days? Wi’ a khaki uniform?’

  Evie’s face turned crimson, and remembering the girl’s age, Mrs Burr said, ‘You’re only fourteen, lass, ower young to be goin’ wi’ lads. Wait till you’re sixteen, that’s time enough.’

  The thought of the handsome youth she had met, the memory of his kiss, gave Evie the courage to protest indignantly. ‘But he’ll likely be sent awa’ afore I’m sixteen, an’ I promised to meet him. Please, Cook, even just half an hour?’

  ‘Ach, I’m a right auld fool,’ observed the woman, nodding her permission, ‘but just this once, and you be careful, mind. Dinna let him tak’ advantage o’ you.’

  Although this was exactly what the maid hoped he would do, she shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh no, Cook! I’ll no’ let him touch me.’

  At eight o’clock, therefore, Evie was hurrying through the rose garden to the side gate, her heart beating twenty to the dozen, her mind set on one thing. ‘I’ve only got half an hour,’ she told the young soldier when she reached their trysting place.

  Bobby McIver needed no second telling and wasted no time in getting down to business, as Evie related to Jessie, her bed-mate, later that night. ‘He started in kissin’ right away, an’ we didna even tak’ a walk, for he had me doon on the grass in aboot twa seconds.’

  ‘Ooh, Evie!’ Jessie was not a great conversationalist, but the two words were enough to show how eager she was to hear more.

  ‘So then he was kissin’ me some mair, an’ openin’ my buttons at the same time, an’ he says, “That’s fine big tits you’ve got, Evie,” an’ I was fine pleased aboot that, for I used to think they were ower big, made me top heavy, like.’

  ‘Go on, then. Once he had your buttons open …?’

  ‘Oh, I canna tell you what it felt like, Jessie. He was kissin’ me there, an’ all, and I went a’ shaky an’ there was thrills goin’ richt doon me, so when he put his hand up my skirt I didna stop him …’ She stopped to look appealingly at her friend. ‘He said he was showin’ me how much he loves me, an’ oh, it was good.’

  ‘But you havena tell’t me …’

  Evie told her, in her own explicit words, because she didn’t know the polite way to describe what she and the boy had done, but she would have been less than happy if she had heard what Bobby McIver was telling his friend.

  ‘She’s a walk-ower, Gibby. She only got a half-hour off, an’ she was as desperate for it as me. A coupla minutes an’ we was lying down, another coupla minutes an’ I had her tits out, another coupla minutes an’ she was letting me do the needful.’

  ‘Lucky bugger!’ muttered Gibby. ‘You should’ve asked her if she’d a chum for me.’

  ‘She’s no’ off again till Friday, but I’ll see what I can do.’

  Thus it came about that Jessie was enlisted, very willingly, into the deception that followed. In order to see the boys as often as they could, the two maids sneaked out every night after they were supposed to have gone to bed, splitting into pairs as soon as they met their lads. For Gibby, it was his first time with a girl, yet that didn’t stop him from ‘doing the needful’ as Bobby had described it, and besides Jessie was an ‘older woman’ and soon showed him the ropes, and all four participants went to bed after their meetings thoroughly satisfied in every way.

  This happy, carefree situation carried on for several weeks, until, one night on their way back to the cottage where they were billeted, Gibby asked about something that was puzzling him. ‘I hardly like to say this, Bobby, but has Evie tell’t you something?’

  ‘Tell’t me what?’

  ‘Well, me an’ Jessie was four nights withoot it ’cos she’d the curse, but you and Evie …’

  Realization came with the impact of a punch in the face, and Bobby’s eyes widened in apprehension. ‘She hasna said onything, but, my God, Gibby, you’re right enough. She hasna had the curse. Oh Christ, man, what’ll I dae?’

  His friend looked at him with deep pity. ‘You should have used a French letter like me, but it’s ower late now. There’s no sense in shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, as my granda used to say.’

  ‘Never mind your bloody granda! What can I dae?’

  ‘There’s nothing you can dae, as far as I can see. She’s just newly fifteen, so you canna wed her, an’ I think it’s against the law to …’ He paused, then said, ‘You say she hasna said onything yet? Maybe she doesna ken what it means? Maybe we’ll be oot o’ here afore it dawns on her?’

  ‘You’d better no’ say onything to Jessie. She surely doesna ken, either.’

  ‘I’ll no’ say a word, but you’d better hope it’s no’ lang till we’re posted.’

  If Evie noticed a slight cooling off in her lover’s ardour, she said nothing to him nor to Jessie, putting it down to the rumour that was going round that the boys’ unit would soon be leaving the glen, and it was not until they had actually gone, without either boy promising to keep in touch, that it came to her that she and Jessie had just been used. What did not occur to her, however, was that she was carrying Bobby McIver’s child, at least not until Ruby happened to pass a comment on how fat she was getting, and even then, it was Jessie who put two and two together.

  ‘Hey, Evie, you’re no’ … that Bobby didna land you in the family way, did he?’

  ‘What?’ Evie’s face blanched, then the colour flooded back. ‘I dinna ken. How dae you …?’

  ‘Has your monthlies stopped?’

  ‘I havena had them for a few month noo, but that suited me fine. Bobby wouldna have been …’

  ‘Oh, God, Evie, you’re expectin’! Did you no’ ken the signs?’

  Mrs Burr was not at all pleased, and cursed herself for being so stupid. Evie was easy meat for the likes of them soldiers; one kiss and she’d likely have been opening her legs. But however sorry she felt for the maid, she could do little to help, except promise to go with her when she confessed her sin to Lady Marianne. ‘We can wait another month maybe, but her Ladyship’s aye been real understanding to other lassies in the same predicament.’

  As it happened, she did not have to carry out this task. Two mornings later, an agitated Jessie came running into the kitchen. ‘Evie’s no’ in her bed, an’ I never heard her goin’ oot.’

  The poor girl was found floating in the pond in the rose garden, but Jessie, good friend that she was, only said when questioned by the laird and the doctor, that Evie had been upset because the lad she’d been in love with had been sent away. Mrs Burr drew her own conclusion, also Robert Mowatt, and probably half the women in the glen, but her death had come as such a shock that not one person passed any comments on it.

  As the months passed, Robert Mowatt became angrily aware that the population of the glen was to be greatly increased thanks to the activities of the young soldiers, and likel
y of the officers, too, who should have set a good example. In fact, the doctor reflected one day when he saw Meggie Park waddling along to the shop – her stomach grossly fat although her husband had been a prisoner of war in Germany for almost two years – he wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of the married men in the glen who had not been called up had jumped on the bandwagon. If they happened to fill a belly or two in the process, the women concerned could always blame the army.

  A compassionate man, Robert could sympathize with the poor souls who’d had little or no loving since their men went off to war, so he let it be known that he would attend such confinements free of any charge, be they the result of a liaison with a soldier or with a neighbour’s husband.

  ‘How can we expect people to behave decently?’ he asked Ruairidh when the laird went round for a chat one night. ‘The whole world’s been turned upside down by war, and peace-time ethics and rules have gone out through the window.’

  ‘You know,’ Ruairidh observed, his eyes twinkling, ‘I sometimes wish I’d been a lot younger so I could have had a fling, too.’

  ‘You’re not that old.’

  ‘I’m over forty, and what would my mother have said if I’d put some girl in the family way?’

  Robert grinned roguishly. ‘She’d have been delighted if it had been a boy.’

  ‘Aye,’ Ruairidh sighed, ‘she’s still going on about there not being an heir to follow me.’ He paused, considering the wisdom of saying more, then decided to get it off his chest. ‘And she’s still got that old obsession about ministers. She even let slip the other day that she’s pleased Melda never had a son to inherit Duncan Peat’s insanity.’

  It was the doctor’s turn to hesitate. ‘I wish she could see sense. I’ve told her over and over again that Duncan Peat was not mad, just temporarily off balance, and I can vouch for Melda being as sane as any of us – saner maybe, for she has a good sensible head on her shoulders, which is more than I can say for Marianne, at times.’