The Road to Rowanbrae

by Doris Davidson

  ‘I dinna care aboot other folk … but I suppose it would be embarrassin’ for you if I bade here?’

  Mrs Phillip hesitated. ‘Well, yes … have you ever heard from your husband since he left you?’

  The old fear gripped Mysie again. ‘No, nae a thing.’

  ‘That’s a pity, because if you had known where he was you could have divorced him, but this means that you will not be free to marry the child’s father.’

  ‘No.’ What was the point of trying to make out different? It wasn’t true, but it was what everyone believed.

  Now that Mrs Phillip knew, Mysie saw no reason not to tell Meggie when they were alone. ‘You were lucky. It’s me that’s landed wi’ a bairn.’

  ‘Oh, Mysie!’ The girl was sympathetic, not triumphant, as she had every cause to be.

  ‘It’s my ain fault, I’m auld enough to ken better.’ Mysie gave a sad laugh. ‘An’ here was me tellin’ you to watch.’

  ‘Does the mistress ken?’ At Mysie’s nod, Meggie went on, ‘What did she say? Did she gi’e you the sack?’

  ‘She was awfu’ nice about it, but she would like me to leave afore folk notice onything.’

  ‘What’ll you dae?’

  ‘I havena had time to think yet.’

  ‘Look, Mysie, I’ll nae tell onybody, nae even my ain mother, for she would tell Jean Petrie, an’ she would tell a’body, an’ you ken what folk are like roon’ here.’

  ‘I ken what they’re like,’ Mysie said, wryly.

  A few weeks later, Mysie had just gone upstairs when Meggie, back from a visit to her parents, burst into her room without knocking. ‘Doddie Wilson’s been killed.’ In her pregnant state, the abrupt announcement was too much for Mysie, who crumpled in a heap, and Meggie, out of her mind with fear, raced downstairs to the sitting room. ‘Oh, Ma’am, Mysie’s dropped doon dead.’

  Mrs Phillip jumped up, alarmed until she recalled her cook’s condition, then, presuming that it was probably a faint, she took the smelling salts out of a cupboard and followed the terrified girl up to the top floor. After wafting the bottle vigorously under Mysie’s nose a few times, she was rewarded by a spluttering cough. ‘Do you feel better now, Mrs Duncan?’ she asked solicitously. ‘You gave Meggie a dreadful fright.’

  Mysie’s eyes were fixed on the girl. ‘It’s nae true? I was dreamin’, wasn’t I? Doddie hasna been killed?’

  Mrs Phillip’s eyes softened even more. ‘Ah, so that’s it?’

  Meggie hung her head. ‘I’m awfu’ sorry, Mysie, but it is true. It was in the day’s Press & Journal, for Da let me see it in the list o’ Casyou … al … ities.’

  ‘I’ll fetch the newspaper from the morning room, Mrs Duncan, if Chrissie hasn’t thrown it out.’

  As Mrs Phillip went out, Mysie sat down on the bed to cuddle Sandy, who had been awakened by all the commotion, and Meggie burst into tears. ‘Oh, Mysie, I’m sorry for comin’ oot wi’ it like that. I was that cut up …’

  ‘Dinna worry aboot it. I’m sorry I gi’ed you a fear.’

  ‘I thought you’d died o’ shock.’

  ‘If that was how shocks took me, I’d ha’e died lang ago.’

  ‘Mam said you’d had your share o’ troubles.’ Meggie did not repeat Belle’s further remark – ‘This is a judgement on her an’ Doddie for livin’ in sin.’ – for she had said too much already. When Mysie received the newspaper from Mrs Phillip, she went straight to the end of the Casualty list. ‘Corporal William Winpenny, Turriff … oh, I mind on Willie Winpenny – he was at the school wi’ me. Private George Wilson, Fyvie.’ Looking up at her mistress pathetically, she explained. ‘He put his father doon as next o’ kin, so it’s him they’d tell’t.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Margaret Phillip laid her hand on her cook’s shoulder. ‘I did not know his surname, and I did not realise that it was your … Doddie’s death when I read it.’

  Meggie was still sniffling. ‘My Da said Doddie had tell’t him his father bade at Fyvie, that’s the road he ken’t it was him and nae some other George Wilson.’

  ‘Go and make some tea, Meggie,’ Mrs Phillip instructed, ‘and take Sandy with you to help you carry the things up here.’ Waiting until they went out, she said, ‘It would be better if you left the area quite soon, Mrs Duncan. I have heard that some of the local women have vile tongues, especially Petrie’s wife, and probably the children at school would taunt Sandy about what they heard at home.’

  ‘But I’ve nae place to go. Jess Findlater hasna room an’ ony road, she couldna keep us for naething for months. I’ll ha’e to get another job for a while.’

  ‘What about your mother? Where does she live?’

  ‘Oh, I couldna go to my mother.’ It was the last thing Mysie would have wanted to do. ‘I havena seen her since the day o’ my father’s funeral – that’s mair than eleven year ago. I did write to her for a good while, then she got wed again.’

  Incorrectly assuming that Mysie’s stepfather had refused to let his wife have anything more to do with her, her employer sat down on a chair, her brow furrowing in deep thought, while Mysie sat on the edge of the bed, wishing that she knew how Doddie had been killed, and wondering mournfully if he’d had time to think about her before he died. Then her mind turned to her mother again, and she felt very thankful that she would never know the terrible things her daughter had done.

  Mrs Phillip startled her by exclaiming, ‘I have the perfect solution. My aunt’s cook-housekeeper is leaving shortly, I don’t know exactly when, but I am sure she would be delighted to have you. She is eighty and has rather a wicked temper, which is why her housekeepers never remain long with her, but if you could put up with her, it would be a home for you. Even if she only lives for a year or so it would give you time after the baby is born to arrange your own future. I’ll be very sorry to lose you – you’re such a good cook, and trustworthy, which is more than can be said for your predecessors – but I honestly think that this would be a beneficial move for you, if not for me.’

  Mysie, although still in shock about Doddie, was not blind to the pitfalls in this. ‘She might object to Sandy, though, an’ what aboot …? A’ auld wumman wouldna be ower happy aboot me expectin’ a bairn oot o’ wedlock.’

  ‘I will tell her that your husband has been killed, and I am sure she will be glad to take you in. I am going to Aberdeen on Saturday, so I will suggest it then.’

  Another thought occurred to Mysie. ‘If I leave, you’ll need another cook, so … what aboot Meggie?’

  ‘Can Meggie cook?’ Mrs Phillip seemed doubtful.

  ‘She’s a real good cook, an’ I learned her mysel’.’

  ‘That is a good enough recommendation. Meggie it shall be.’

  The requested tea being brought in then by Meggie and Sandy, nothing more was said, and when Mysie and her son were left alone, she lay down beside him, still fully dressed. He looked at her sadly. ‘Mam, will Doddie never be comin’ back?’

  ‘No, my lambie. He’ll never be back.’ Although her heart was aching, Mysie had accepted it as God’s will, and whether it was a punishment on them for what they had done, or if it had been destined for Doddie to die young, it made no difference – he was gone. Cradling her son in her arms, she reflected that, while she had lost the only man she had ever loved, Sandy had lost two fathers, and he was only ten years old.

  ‘Mam, will you nae rage me if I tell you something?’

  ‘No, my loon.’ Mysie wished that he would keep quiet. She couldn’t make conversation with him, not yet.

  ‘It was me set fire to oor hoose.’

  She jerked up. ‘You? Oh, God, Sandy, what …?’

  ‘I didna mean it, Mam. I was tryin’ to fill the lamp, to let you see I was as good as Doddie, but …’

  Trembling herself, she held his shaking body, sure that his poor little brain was turned with what had happened, but when he calmed, he told her the truth about the night of the fire. She felt numb when he finished, and he looked up into her face pitifu
lly. ‘I wanted to let you see you didna need Doddie, but I never wanted the hoose to burn doon.’

  Through ice-cold lips, Mysie murmured, ‘I’m sure you didna, an’ it was a pure accident, so dinna blame yoursel’.’

  The boy gave a sobbing hiccough. ‘I wish Doddie could come back, though. I ken noo I did like him. It was just … I wanted you to love me best.’

  Her throat constricted, and it took a great effort to say, ‘It’s a’ past, my lambie. Lie doon an’ sleep like a good loon.’

  He shook his head, still agitated. ‘But Mam, I …’

  Having already had more than enough to cope with, she said sharply, ‘Lie doon an’ sleep. My brain’s fair deaved wi’ you.’

  He closed his eyes and lay still, but it was quite a time before his deep, even breathing told her that he was asleep. Poor little Sandy, she mused, as she undressed, to think he’d had that on his mind all this time. He shouldn’t have been messing about with paraffin at all, although she understood his reason for it, but she should have realised at the time how deep his jealousy of Doddie had gone. The fire was really her fault, not Sandy’s.

  Turning out the lamp, she slid in beside her son, and let her thoughts turn to Doddie again. She would never be sure now whether or not he had killed Jeems, but she would keep loving him until the day she died herself. She would never forget him no matter what happened in the future. The future. It couldn’t be worse than the present, and it would be best to leave Burnlea, with all its memories, good and bad, and do as Mrs Phillip had suggested, but … an eighty-year-old bad-tempered woman?

  Mysie sighed in resignation. She had survived worse things than that in her life, and nobody in Aberdeen would know of her previous troubles. She would be Mrs Duncan, mother of one child and expecting another – a woman whose husband had been killed in action, a war widow like hundreds of others – and the sooner the move came, the better.

  Because Miss Wallace’s housekeeper was working out her month’s notice and would not be leaving until the middle of January, Mysie saw the new year of 1918 in at Burnlea House. She had been grateful that Mrs Phillip had not invited any guests for Christmas dinner, because she was sure that she could not have coped – it was only four weeks since Meggie had told her about Doddie’s death. Jess Findlater, of course, had been full of commiserations about Doddie and about the expected child, even offering to take her and Sandy in until it was born, and she had been rather hurt when Mysie refused, but had agreed with her that it might not have worked.

  As the time for taking up her new post drew nearer, Mysie became more and more apprehensive. It would not have been so bad if she could have gone while she was steeled for it, but having so long to wait, she’d had more time to think, and was not sure now if it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t the cooking or the housekeeping that worried her – she had been used to that – it was the city itself … and the old lady. Mrs Phillip had said that she had told her aunt that Mysie was expecting a baby, and that Miss Wallace hadn’t seemed to mind, but you never knew with women as old as that.

  On the early afternoon of the eighth of January, with only a week to go until the big day, Janey came running downstairs and gasped, ‘There’s a Gordon wantin’ to speak to you, Mysie.’

  Her face blanching, Mysie grabbed the table. Was it possible that the army had made a mistake? ‘Is it Doddie?’

  ‘I dinna ken who he is, but the mistress tell’t me to put him roon’ to the servants’ door. That’ll be him noo.’

  Mysie was rooted to the spot, but Meggie ran to answer the knock, and brought in a broad, stoutish young man who took off his flat bonnet and stood nervously in the middle of the floor ‘Mysie?’ he said, looking from one to the other.

  Mysie nodded, her heart too full of memories to speak. ‘I think you’d best sit doon,’ the man said, gently. She sank down on the nearest chair. ‘If it’s aboot Doddie, I ken he’s been killed. I saw it in the paper.’

  He was obviously relieved that he would not have to break the bad news to her, but before he could speak again, Meggie took it upon herself to say, ‘Janey, awa’ you go back up that stair an’ dinna be so nosey.’ She turned to Mysie. ‘I’ll be in the scullery if you need me.’

  There was a moment’s silence after the two girls left, then the soldier cleared his throat. ‘Me an’ Doddie was chums, you see, and’ I was wi’ him when he … I thought you’d like to hear aboot it.’ At her nod, he took a chair over to sit beside her. ‘I’m Alick Slessor. Me an’ Doddie met up when he come back aff leave at the beginning o’ September. His battalion had been at Wipers afore, an’ a lot of them had been killed, so them that was left was put in oor battalion. Weel, me an’ Doddie was on guard duty one nicht, wi’ the Bosche’s lines just across No Man’s Land, an’ we started speakin’ aboot hame – him aboot you an’ Burnlea, an’ me aboot Mary, that’s my lass, an’ Auchbogie. There wasna that big a distance atween where we bade, an’ we took to each other right awa’, an’ after that, ilka time we were thegither, we spoke aboot hame … when we wasna gettin’ shelled. We was often scared, but there was nae a man among us wasna, though some wouldna admit it.’

  He was talking now as if he had forgotten about Mysie, his eyes dark with horrific memories. ‘The Bosche was puttin’ up awfu’ barrages. I’ve seen some reports in the papers since I come hame that said we could ha’e beaten them if the good weather had kept up, but we hadna the ammunition. The rain an’ sleet turned a’thing into mud – naething but mud as far as you could see, an’ great muckle shell holes. Of course, the only time you could see them in the dark, was when the Very lights went up, or mair shells burst.’

  Mysie said nothing – what was there to say? Alick continued. ‘The snaw was even worse, the cauld gettin’ right into your bones. Twa o’ the officers came roon’ one day, in their fine uniforms straight fae tailors in London, an’ when a lad complains it was cauld, one o’ the officers says, “Get off your jackets, men, and give the horses a rub down, that will keep you warm.” Weel, we was near tellin’ them to tak’ aff their ain jackets, but you canna speak back to an officer, or you’d be put on a charge. Then we were marched to Bourlon Wood, an’ once we were dug in, the artillery opened fire, an’ so did the enemy’s. We had three days o’ that, an’ on the last day, me an’ Doddie was thegither as usual. There was a bit o’ a lull, an’ one minute, he was speaking aboot you, an’ the next minute he was blawn to bits.’

  ‘Oh!’ Mysie’s agonised cry recalled her presence to him, and he looked at her anxiously. ‘God, lass, I’m sorry. I came to br’ak it to you gently, an’ I was that carried awa’ I’ve made things worse. Oh, I’m sorry!’

  She fought back the tears. ‘Dinna be sorry. I was wantin’ to ken how he was killed.’

  ‘He didna feel onything – it happened ower quick. At the end o’ that day – I’ll never forget the date, 25th November 1917 – when they tallied up the casualties, there was 55 officers and men killed, 253 wounded an’ 78 missin’.’

  They sat silently, Alick Slessor remembering the horrors of the small wood outside Ypres and the comrades who had fallen, Mysie remembering Doddie as he had been in August when he was home.

  At last the young man looked up. ‘I’d better be goin’.’

  ‘Will you nae wait for a cup o’ tea? Meggie’ll nae tak’ a minute to mak’ ane.’

  ‘No, thank you. It was snawin’ real heavy when I came in, an’ I dinna want to be gettin’ lost in a drift.’

  Mysie grasped his outstretched hand. ‘You’ve a few mile to go, though, will you manage a’ right?’

  ‘My father let me tak’ his sledge, an’ his horse is weel used to the deep snaw.’

  ‘It was awfu’ good o’ you to come an’ tell me aboot Doddie.’

  He gave her hand a firm squeeze as he went out, the telling having been as much of an ordeal for him as it had been for her. When Meggie came through, eager to hear what he’d had to say, Mysie told her as much as she could remember and they sat for a few minu
tes trying to imagine what it had been like for the men who had fought in that village in Belgium.

  At last, the kitchenmaid said, ‘Does it nae mak’ you feel worse, kennin’ how Doddie was killed?’

  Mysie wiped her eyes, then gave a contented sigh. ‘No, I dinna feel worse, Meggie. I sometimes used to wish the army had sent his body back, so I could ha’e buried it, but I see noo they couldna, an’ I feel a lot better for kennin’ he died thinkin’ aboot me.’

  PART TWO

  Chapter Seventeen

  The little maid who opened the door at Ashley Road looked so timid that Mysie was sure Mrs Phillip’s aunt must be a proper tartar, but she gave her name, and added, ‘I’m expected.’

  Sandy, very quiet since he confessed about the fire, kept close to her as they were taken along the hall and shown into a gloomy room crammed with large furniture and ornaments. At the far side, in a huge chair which practically hid her from sight, an old lady was writing at a beautiful mahogany bureau, but she swivelled round at their entrance.

  Waiting for her new employer to speak, Mysie took stock of her. Her yellowing-white hair, very sparse, was drawn severely back from a long angular face, her rather deep-set eyes were a piercing grey and her thin, blue-veined hand, spotted with the brown pigment of advanced age, still held her pen. ‘So! You’re Mrs Duncan?’ she said, at last.

  The deep voice came as a surprise. ‘Aye, Miss Wallace.’

  ‘You don’t look very sturdy, but Margaret, my niece, assured me that you were quite wiry.’

  ‘I’m f-fit for ony k-kind o’ hoosework,’ Mysie stammered.

  ‘As long as you keep the house clean, I shall be happy. The maid, Gladys, will help with that, but you will have to attend to the ordering of provisions, the cooking, and to me.’ The cold eyes turned to the boy. ‘This is your son?’

  ‘Aye, Sandy. He’s new eleven, an’ he sleeps wi’ me, so as lang as there’s a double bed …’

  ‘An eleven-year-old cannot sleep with his mother! It is most indecent, and I will not have indecency in my home.’