The Girl with the Creel

by Doris Davidson

Knowing that this was not true, Jenny couldn’t help gasping. She had thought she was the cause of Lizann leaving, but what Elsie had said to her was far worse.

  The hoarse, low voice started again. ‘I … told Hannah … at the time.’

  Another piece of the jigsaw slotted into place in Jenny’s mind. It had been Elsie who made Hannah change so suddenly for the worse, and that was why the old woman had shouted, ‘It was her!’ when the baby was being born. She had always been puzzled about that. Sick at heart, she could only say, ‘It’s all right, Elsie. I won’t tell anybody.’

  But Elsie wasn’t finished yet. ‘There’s more.’ Her hands fluttered frantically now. ‘The day … your Lizann was born …’

  Her voice tailed away, and Jenny waited anxiously, afraid that Elsie would die before confessing the rest. After about ten seconds, however, she seemed to dredge up enough strength to carry on. ‘I couldn’t stand … any more …’

  Her eyes fixed on Jenny, she hesitated then whispered, ‘A pillow … over her … face.’

  Aghast, Jenny couldn’t think what to say. How could she give comfort to this woman, this murderer, when she wished with all her heart that she was dead. She had known Elsie wasn’t to be trusted, but she had never dreamt that she was so evil.

  ‘Jenny?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sorry.’ It was the merest breath, and in the next instant there was no movement, no life.

  In a panic now, ashamed at what she had been thinking, Jenny looked around for the nurse, who came hurrying over. ‘I think she’s …’ Jenny murmured.

  The girl went to the bed and felt for a pulse. Then she looked up and shook her head. ‘Yes, I’m afraid she’s gone.’

  With the nurse eyeing her in pity for losing her friend, Jenny went out to the corridor and sat down heavily on a chair. She shouldn’t have come. She should have let Elsie go to her grave with everything on her conscience … but she hadn’t known what she was going to hear. She had imagined it would be something more about being unfaithful to Peter, which would have been bad enough, but this? She daren’t tell Mick. It would be enough to send him clean off his head. She couldn’t even tell Peter, for he’d been as upset as any of them when Lizann left, and she couldn’t hurt him even more by telling him that his wife had murdered Hannah. In any case, neither of them could do a thing about it now. Nobody could.

  ‘Did Mrs Tait die?’

  The voice startled her. She hadn’t noticed the policeman waiting to take her home. ‘Yes.’

  Gathering that she didn’t want to talk about it, he said, ‘I’m sorry,’ but asked nothing more. Nor did he say anything on the drive back to the Yardie, but as Jenny got out of the car, he said, ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You look a bit shaky. Do you want me to come in with you?’

  ‘No thanks, I’m fine.’

  She let herself into the house, and put on the kettle, hoping that a cup of tea would help her to pull herself together. She couldn’t drag her mind away from what she had learned, however, and eventually came to the conclusion that she would have to face up to being burdened with Elsie’s secret for the rest of her life.

  Life on board a corvette in the Mediterranean was even more hectic than in the Atlantic; the whole German Navy seemed to be concentrated here. The crew of the Hercules had had very little sleep for weeks. Several battleships had been sunk, and morale was beginning to slip. Being stuck in the engine room, Mick hadn’t seen Peter for some days, so when he came on deck one night for a breath of air and saw his friend leaning over the rail, he went across to him. ‘How long’ll this calm last?’

  ‘God knows,’ Peter muttered, ‘but it’s bloody welcome. I’ve lost count of the times I thought we were goners.’

  ‘Aye, it’s been hairy.’ Mick hesitated for a moment, his eyes on the water below. ‘Peter, it’s maybe bad luck to say this, but if … anything happens to me, will you make sure Jenny’s all right?’

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen to you, man.’

  ‘If it does … do you promise?’

  ‘Of course I promise.’

  Mick had expected to be asked to look after Elsie, but after a short pause Peter said, ‘Will you promise me something, and all? If Lizann turns up again, will you tell her … I’ve never stopped loving her?’

  ‘But … you said you might try to make a go of it with Elsie.’

  ‘I thought about it, but there’s no way I …’ Peter sighed. ‘Lizann’s worth a hundred of Elsie’s kind. It was Lizann’s face I kept seeing every time I thought we’d had it, and I know I’ll be thinking of her when I die … in the war, or from old age. I’ll never forget her …’

  The shrill hooting of the alarms blocked out his last words, but as they moved to man their action posts, he shouted, ‘Promise me, Mick?’

  ‘I promise.’ Reaching the hatch, Mick yelled, ‘Fingers crossed we come through this,’ before he swung himself round to go down to the engine room again.

  Rumours were flying fast in Buckpool, each person’s speculation being added to when it was passed on, and by the time Jenny heard them she wondered how much was true. One version was that Elsie had gone to Elgin to meet an airman from Lossiemouth and he’d pushed her into the street because she’d been flirting with somebody else. Another was that she’d been running away with a Seaforth Highlander who had shoved her out of his lorry when she told him she was married with three children.

  Jenny wished now that she had been more sympathetic towards Elsie when she came to the Yardie that last time. Maybe, when she told Lenny she was expecting, he’d denied it was his; with him turning his back on her as well as the woman she’d thought was her friend, would that have made her desperate enough to kill herself? Jenny couldn’t believe that. Elsie was a survivor. She would have found a way out. Besides, she hadn’t needed to go to Elgin to throw herself under a truck; there was a never-ending stream of trucks, lorries and buses whizzing along Main Street every day. She had led a reckless life and done some awful things, but whatever she had done didn’t warrant a death like that. It would likely come out that she’d been pregnant, and with Peter having been away for so long, folk would know it wasn’t his. When he came home he’d be a laughing-stock, and poor soul, he didn’t deserve that on top of everything else.

  Jenny was surprised when Elsie’s mother came to her door in a terrible state. Mrs Slater introduced herself, then said tearfully, ‘She used to say she was great chums with you, so do you know what was going on? She asked me to keep the bairns till she went to Aberdeen, but it was Elgin she was in.’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’ Jenny wished she hadn’t been dragged into it. ‘We’d words, you see, and I never saw her again, except at the hospital for a wee while.’

  ‘Aye, they told us she’d asked for you. Did she not say anything?’

  Hating herself for having to lie, Jenny said, ‘She wanted to make it up with me, that’s all.’

  ‘Did you know she was expecting?’

  Feeling a guilty blush creep up her neck, Jenny could not deny this. ‘That’s why we’d the row.’

  ‘Did she tell you who the father was?’

  Crossing her fingers at this second falsehood, Jenny muttered, ‘No.’

  Mrs Slater wiped her eyes. ‘I suppose I’ll never know, and what does it matter now? You know, Jenny – you don’t mind if I call you Jenny? – she’s aye been a handful, and I thought I’d be landed looking after …’ She stopped to wipe her eyes again. ‘Thank God the three she had were legitimate, the poor wee mites, and maybe they’re better with me, though I never thought I’d be looking after bairns again at my age. But me and Chae’ll see they want for nothing.’

  Lizann had not seen much of Dan lately, the weather had been so cold and stormy. It would have been no pleasure to wade ankle-deep in snow, no matter how much she looked forward to talking to him. Anyway, Meggie hadn’t ventured out, either, and he didn’t want her to know. Not that she could find any fault with what they did, Lizann thought, for i
t was all very innocent.

  On the first dry night in March, Meggie having taken the chance to go to Wester Duncairn, Lizann decided that she may as well go out too. It wouldn’t matter if Dan didn’t come, it would be good just to get out in the fresh air again. She went upstairs for her coat, and when she went down he was in the hall putting on his.

  ‘I thought you’d be going out tonight,’ he grinned.

  They had to keep walking smartly – it was too cold to have a seat on a fallen tree as they had done in the Indian summer of September and early October. Lizann was happy listening to Dan’s deep voice telling her that he was thinking of buying a tractor, and what a help it would be during the ploughing, planting and sowing.

  They went as far as their usual turning place and were coming back on the other side of the burn when he said, ‘I hope you’re still getting along all right with Meggie?’

  ‘We’re not exactly chums, but we get on fine.’

  ‘I know she can be a bit difficult, but she’s been … well, practically mistress of the house since my mother died. She still treats me like a wee laddie sometimes.’

  Without stopping to think, she said, ‘Have you never thought of taking a wife?’

  He was so long in answering that she realized how forward she’d been and was about to apologize when he gave a soft, humourless laugh. ‘Yes, I have thought about it, but I know the lady won’t have me if I ask.’

  ‘But you …’ she stopped, because her tongue had almost run away with her again. ‘I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.’

  ‘We’re friends aren’t we?’

  ‘You’ve been a very good friend to me, Dan,’ she said, earnestly. ‘I’d never have got through the two funerals if it hadn’t been for you, nor been able to pay the doctor and the undertakers. And you sent all Adam’s things to a roup and gave me what they sold for when it wasn’t mine to take.’

  ‘It wasn’t much, and I know he would have wanted you to have it. Now, tell me what you were going to say a minute ago.’

  ‘You said your lady friend wouldn’t have you if you asked, but how do you know? You should try … she might say yes.’

  There was another pause before he said, ‘I’ll consider it.’

  ‘Don’t take too long, then. She could meet somebody else.’

  Dan came to a halt when they crossed the wooden bridge, and neither of them noticed the dark figure dodging out of sight behind a tree. ‘Here we are again.’ He gave a long sigh, as if reluctant to leave her. ‘I’ll say goodnight here, my dear, sweet Lizann.’ He bent his head and kissed her cheek before striding away in the direction of the byre.

  Astonished by the kiss and the endearment, she didn’t move for a few moments, then, telling herself that they had been a thank you for the advice she had given him, she walked on into the house, still unaware of the watcher who had seen and heard both.

  When the kitchen door closed behind the girl, Meggie came out of her hiding place, her face darkened by an almost apoplectic rage. If she hadn’t had a sore head and come back early, she’d never have found out what was going on. ‘My dear, sweet Lizann,’ the master had said, and it hadn’t needed the kiss to prove something was brewing – had been brewing for a good while, by the look of it. And it was all that young madam’s doing, for Dan Fordyce wouldn’t have done that if she hadn’t encouraged him. But if she thought she could trap him into making her mistress of Easter Duncairn, she had another think coming. Meggie Thow wasn’t going to stand by and wait till her job was taken out of her hands. She would watch the little monkey like a hawk now, and make her life such a misery she’d be glad to pack her bag and leave.

  Lizann could not understand why Meggie had changed towards her. She had done nothing wrong, as far as she knew, yet the housekeeper was picking on her for the least little thing, and she was getting so nervous that she was dropping dishes and breaking them, which brought more trouble down on her head. Besides that, she was made to work on until sometimes eleven o’clock at night, tasks which she used to do only occasionally but had to do almost daily now. This meant that she couldn’t go out in the evenings, not even on Thursdays, because the housekeeper always left her long lists of things to do.

  After being cooped up inside for some weeks, and in a state bordering on nervous exhaustion, Lizann decided to take a risk one night when Meggie left to visit her friend. She had to get out, if only for ten minutes to shift her pounding headache, then she’d feel more able to do her chores.

  Waiting a short time in case Meggie came back for something, Lizann opened the back door and took a few deep breaths of the honeysuckle-scented air. Then she set off, but was only halfway down the path to the burn when a triumphant voice cried, ‘I ken’t it! I ken’t you’d sneak out as soon as my back was turned, you two-faced besom!’

  It was so unexpected, and so shameful to be caught, that Lizann burst into tears. ‘I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was just …’

  ‘I ken fine what you were doing, but you’re not getting away wi’ it. You’re not getting your claws into Mr Fordyce.’

  ‘But I wasn’t …’

  ‘You needna think I’ve been blind to what’s been going on. Making up to him, and maybe sneaking into his bed, for all I ken.’

  ‘No, no!’ Lizann was bitterly hurt that the woman could even think such things.

  ‘It maybe hasna reached that stage yet, and it never will now. I’ll make damned sure you never get him!’ Meggie grabbed Lizann’s arm and shoved her roughly towards the open door, and one last vicious push sent her sprawling on the kitchen floor.

  Coming out of the sitting-room on his way to bed, Dan almost fell over Lizann, who was on her knees in the hallway, her head bent over a pail. ‘God Almighty!’ he exclaimed. ‘I could have broken my neck, and yours, too. Why in God’s name are you scrubbing the floor at this hour of the night?’ It struck him suddenly that she hadn’t lifted her head, and his tone softened. ‘What’s wrong, Lizann? Are you sick.’

  ‘No,’ she mumbled, her hand going up to her eyes.

  ‘Look at me,’ he ordered, ‘and tell me what’s wrong.’

  She still didn’t look up. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  Bending, he hoisted her to her feet and turned her to face him, her swollen eyes making him long to kiss away her troubles, whatever they were. Not yet sure of how she felt about him, he put an arm round her waist and led her into the room he had just left. Closing the door, he said, gently, ‘Tell me, Lizann.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she gulped.

  ‘You wouldn’t be crying for nothing. Come on, my dear, tell me.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she repeated, but his sympathy was too much for her, and the tears she’d tried to keep him from seeing flooded out again.

  She leaned against him gratefully as his arms went round her. ‘My dear sweet girl,’ he murmured, patting her shoulder, ‘it surely can’t be as bad as that.’

  ‘It’s Meggie,’ she sobbed. ‘She’s being awful to me.’

  ‘You should have told me. I’d have put a stop to it.’

  ‘I thought I could put up with her, but I can’t, not any longer.’

  Now she had started, it all came hiccupping out. ‘She must have seen us … that last night you came walking with me.’

  He looked bewildered. ‘There was nothing to see.’

  ‘You kissed my cheek … and called me your dear, sweet Lizann because I’d told you … your lady friend might marry you if you asked her.’

  ‘I have no lady friend,’ he said, quietly.

  She was too fraught to take this in. ‘It all started the morning after that … so she must have seen you.’

  ‘What started?’

  His voice was so harsh that she knew Meggie was in for more than just a telling-off, but she could do nothing except carry on; she would have to leave the farm anyway. She told him that the housekeeper made her pay for the things she broke, and made her work late every night, at which he said, ‘So that’s why I haven�
�t seen you for so many Thursdays.’

  She went on to tell him about the one time she had gone out and the housekeeper had been waiting for her. ‘She started accusing me … Dan, it was awful.’

  ‘What exactly did she accuse you of doing?’

  ‘She said I’d been …’ Lizann couldn’t bring herself to repeat the vile thing the old woman had suspected. ‘She said I’d been making up to you, and I wasn’t, Dan. I wasn’t!’

  Dan’s anger at his housekeeper was building up, but he kept his voice gentle. ‘Go on, my dear.’

  ‘She gave me such a shove when we were coming in, I fell on the floor and skinned my knees. And I knocked against the table, and the willow pattern tureen I’d washed after dinner fell off and smashed. She said it was your mother’s favourite dish, and she lifted the ladle and hit me on the face. I’d the mark for weeks.’

  ‘She actually hit you … with the ladle?’ He was boiling with fury at Meggie, but tried to keep it under control so that he wouldn’t distress Lizann any further.

  ‘And she’s been punching my back every time she goes past me … and I’m all black and blue.’

  ‘Oh, my dear Lizann,’ he burst out, ‘I never dreamt that she was ill-treating you.’

  ‘I thought she’d get tired of it … but it’s been months and …’

  She looked into his face now, so pathetically that he just had to kiss her trembling mouth, and having kissed her, he was lost. ‘Oh, my darling girl,’ he moaned, ‘I’ll make sure that she doesn’t hurt you again.’

  Fully believing that he was still consoling her, she gulped, ‘But you can’t sack her. She’s been here a lot longer than me, so it’s me that’ll have to leave. How much notice will I have to work?’

  ‘You are not going to leave. I want you to marry me, my darling.’ His grey eyes searched hers for some sign of affection, even gratitude, but she stared back at him in dismay.

  ‘You can’t marry me to stop Meggie hitting me. She’d think I made you do it, and she’d be nastier to me than ever.’

  ‘You don’t understand, my dear. It has nothing to do with Meggie. I’m asking you to marry me because … I love you. I’ve loved you since the very first time I saw you – selling fish at my door.’