She gave a horrified gasp. ‘No, I don’t believe that. I was an awful mess. You’re just saying that to make me feel better, but I can’t …’
His lips stopped her, and he tried to let his long tender kisses tell her that his declaration of love was genuine. ‘Now do you believe me?’ he asked, when he let her go. ‘I love you with all my heart, and I’ll go on asking you to be my wife until you say yes.’
‘No, Dan,’ she protested, when his arms went round her again, but he kissed her until her senses reeled.
At that moment, the housekeeper walked in, coming to a dumbstruck halt when she saw the loving tableau. She soon found her tongue, however, her brows going down as she sneered, ‘So! She’s got you at last, has she? I’m surprised you let her take you in, Mr Fordyce. And whatever she’s been telling you, it’s just a pack o’ lies, for I never touched her.’
Still holding Lizann although she was struggling to get away from him, Dan said coldly, ‘Were you wanting something, Meggie?’
‘I wondered where she was.’
‘If you mean Lizann, I took her in here because she was so upset, and I’d be grateful if you would leave us. I shall talk to you later.’
Meggie was not easily intimidated, but she had never seen his eyes so icy before. ‘Oh … well …’ she stammered, backing away, ‘just mind what I said, for she’s trying to get you …’
‘Lizann has no need to try to get me,’ Dan said, firmly. ‘She got me long ago without trying. Now, shut the door behind you.’
He waited until Meggie had gone. ‘I’m sorry about the interruption. I asked you to marry me, Lizann, and I’m still waiting for an answer.’
‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t … love you. I like you an awful lot, as a friend, but it’s not the same. I’m sorry.’
‘I have enough love for two,’ he persisted. ‘I gave you this job in the hope that you would come to feel as I do, and I was prepared to wait until you did. I’ve spoiled it by springing it on you too quickly.’
She looked at him in deep distress, hating having to hurt him. ‘It wouldn’t have mattered how long you waited, Dan, my answer would have still been the same.’ She stroked his cheek to show how badly she felt about it. ‘It seems awful to refuse you when you’ve been so good to me, but I can’t pretend to love you.’
His searching eyes gave up their quest for a sign of something more than liking. ‘No, my dear, I wouldn’t want you to pretend, and you don’t need to leave.’
‘I was going anyway, and I couldn’t stay after this.’
‘What will you do? Where will you go?’ The words were torn from him.
Recalling how she had felt when she and George had parted in Yarmouth, her heart went out to Dan, but she couldn’t marry a man she didn’t love, no matter how much she liked him, how sorry she felt for him. ‘I was thinking of going to Aberdeen,’ she said gently. ‘I couldn’t go before, when I’d no money of my own, but with you giving me a paid job …’
He gave a rather ironic smile. ‘I made it possible for you to leave? When all I wanted was for you to be here as my wife.’
‘I’m sorry, Dan.’
‘It’s my own fault for taking things for granted. Will you let me do one last thing for you? Let me ask my sister to give you a room …’
‘Oh, I couldn’t …’
‘Aberdeen is a big city. You would never find lodgings on your own. If you don’t want to live with Ella permanently, she would help you to find somewhere else. She might even help you to find a job.’
Lizann gave in. ‘All right, but just till I get other lodgings.’
He moved away from her. ‘I had better go and deal with Meggie.’
‘Please don’t sack her, Dan. I think she was scared she’d lose her job if you took a wife. She was just trying to get rid of me.’
‘And she succeeded,’ he said dryly. ‘I feel like throwing her out for what she did, but she’s more to be pitied than punished.’
‘You’re a good man, Dan, I wish I …’
‘I’ll write to Ella in the morning, but if you don’t feel up to facing Meggie again, you can stay up in your room until you go.’
‘She won’t do anything to me when she knows I’m going away.’
‘Lizann, my dear, are you quite sure you …?’
‘Yes, Dan, quite sure.’
His deep sigh showed his despondent acceptance of her decision. ‘Wait here until I come back.’ He swung round and went out.
In the kitchen, Meggie looked at him apprehensively. ‘I suppose you’ve come to tell me to get out, Mr Fordyce?’
‘I should send you packing,’ he said grimly, but the fear in her old eyes made him hasten to add, ‘but Lizann pleaded with me not to. We both understand why you treated her so badly, so you will be relieved to know she has not accepted my proposal.’
‘She’s refused you?’
He smiled sadly. The old woman obviously could not believe that any girl in her right mind would turn down his offer of marriage – a man who owned a large thriving farm. ‘So you see, Meggie, she wasn’t out to get me. In fact, she is leaving in a few days and I doubt if I shall ever see her again. In the meantime, she is willing to keep working alongside you, but I must make it clear that you treat her properly, otherwise …’
He left the sentence unfinished, and Meggie muttered, ‘I ken I did wrong, Mr Fordyce, but I was that feared for my job …’
‘Yes, I know, but … well, I’ll say no more. I will see about getting a replacement for Lizann … as a maid. She is the only woman I have ever wanted … will ever want, as a wife.’
As he went out, Meggie said, ‘I’m awful sorry, Mr Fordyce.’
And so she should be, he thought. If it hadn’t been for her, he would not have revealed his feelings to Lizann until he was sure of her, but it was too late now. Going back to the sitting-room, he said, ‘You will have no more trouble from Meggie, my dear. She knows her job is safe.’
Lizann sighed. ‘I could have told her she’d nothing to fear from me. I’d better go and finish scrubbing the hall.’
‘It’s all right as it is. Just empty the pail and go to bed.’
He sat down and picked up his pipe when she left him. It pained him to think of all the menial jobs she’d had to do, might still have to do in her next job. If only she wasn’t so stubborn. She had admitted to liking him quite a lot, and given more time, he could have made her love him.
* * *
Three days later, Lizann bade goodbye to Meggie Thow then went into the dining-room to take her leave of Dan. He jumped up from the table and took her in his arms. ‘I’ll be thinking of you every day,’ he murmured, running his rough forefinger down her cheek. ‘And if you don’t get a job in Aberdeen, or if you don’t like it there, please come back. Meggie has got over everything.’
‘I know, she broke down when she apologized to me the day after …’
His kiss prevented her saying more, and when he released her, she turned away, unable to tell him that it wasn’t the housekeeper who made return to Easter Duncairn impossible, it was his proposal.
Walking towards the main road to catch a bus, she recalled how she had felt when she made the journey from Buckie to Pennan. She hadn’t nearly so far to walk this time, and she was in far better health than she had been at that time, but she had the same sense of not knowing what lay ahead. Her spirits lifted when she remembered that the money she had saved was in her pocket, plus what Dan had insisted on giving her. She also had his sister’s address, so at least she would have a home. But Ella Reith, a countrywoman married to the headmaster of a city school, would know nothing about the fish houses which would be the only places offering the kind of work she could do.
Despite having kept house for the Laings for the best part of eighteen months, and working as housemaid at the farm for nearly a year, it did not occur to Lizann to look for domestic work. She had been born by the sea, her roots were by the sea, and it seemed to her that her place w
as by the sea. Besides, gutting fish would help her to remember her meeting with poor George.
PART THREE
1942–1944
Chapter Thirty
Dan opened Ella’s letter with apprehension, but its contents made him smile.
Dear Dan,
I wasn’t too sure about having Lizann when you wrote and asked me, and I only agreed because you sounded so smitten with her. Now I’ve met her, I can see why. She’s a very nice girl, maybe a bit young for you, which is likely why she turned you down, but John and I will work on her and try to make her understand she’s right for you – for she is right for you, Dan, I’m positive of that. John’s quite taken with her too, but you needn’t worry – I’ll keep my eye on him, ha, ha.
I don’t think she’s done anything about looking for a job yet, she’s been too busy exploring the Gt. Western Road area. It will take her a wee while to settle down, I suppose, and I’ll try to put her off looking for anywhere else to live. We’d be happy to have her for as long as she wants – till she decides to become Mrs Daniel Fordyce? You should wait a few months before you come to see her, though. I’ve the feeling she’d shy off if she thought you were pestering her.
I’ll keep you posted.
Yours, Ella.
Slipping the letter back into the envelope, Dan felt grateful that his sister was taking an interest in the girl he loved. She would be able to persuade Lizann to marry him, if anyone could. As for waiting, he would wait a whole year if he thought she would say yes at the end of it.
From the time she arrived, Lizann had felt quite at home in the Reiths’ house in Great Western Road. It was part of a lovely stretch of tall, well-built granite houses on this long west end street which ran out of the city towards Deeside. There was only a small garden at the front, but a large one at the rear, which Ella’s husband John had lovingly tended for the ten years they had been there. Since the outbreak of war, of course, he’d had to trim down the size of his lawn – now just enough to hold his wife’s four clothes poles – and convert all his flower beds into vegetable patches, as instructed by the Min. of Ag. and Fish, as he scathingly called this special Ministry.
From the street the house looked smaller than the farmhouse at Easter Duncairn. But, having more depth than width, there were almost as many rooms, although they were perhaps not quite so big. Downstairs there were the usual dining-room, living-room and sitting-room (for visitors), plus what Lizann thought at first was a library, but Ella called ‘John’s den’, which was lined with books of all descriptions. Being a teacher of English, John Reith had collected hundreds of classics from Ancient Rome right down to those of the early twentieth century, as well as novels by popular modern writers and even some which he laughingly admitted were lurid romances. ‘I may look an old fuddy-duddy,’ he told Lizann, ‘but I still like a little light relief from the daily grind.’ The kitchen was also on the ground floor, a well-equipped, airy room which the Reiths had obviously converted to their liking bit by bit.
The bathroom was upstairs. ‘Still late Victorian,’ Ella had laughed, when she first showed her lodger round. ‘We’ll get round to changing it when we can afford it. The bath’s too big and though we’re always being told just to use five inches of water, it takes ages to run. Don’t be alarmed at the noise the lavatory makes when you flush it. You’ll get used to it … in fact, I’m quite fond of it myself.’
There were three bedrooms on the same floor, two facing the street and the third, like the bathroom, at the back. ‘I hope you don’t mind me putting you in here,’ Ella said. ‘It is actually quieter than the other two, even if it is next door to the lav.’
‘I don’t mind where I am,’ Lizann murmured. ‘I’m really grateful to you for taking me in.’
She would have been happy to stay there but for one thing: she was afraid that Dan might come to see how she was getting on. She suspected that Ella and John knew she had turned him down, and they might not be so friendly towards her if she refused him again under their roof.
Deciding that finding somewhere else to live was her first priority, she did nothing about looking for a job and devoured the Accommodation Vacant column in the Evening Express every day. Most of them stipulated ‘men sharing’, and she had been in Aberdeen ten days before she saw an item offering, ‘Room suitable for one or two women, non-smokers’, with an address in Rosemount Place. After looking it up in a street map, she set out to walk there the next morning, hoping it was a decent district. She found that Rosemount Place was another long street of sparkling granite buildings – not private houses like Great Western Road, but shops at ground level and tenements above. That was the only difference, because it was every bit as clean and tidy.
When she came to the number she was looking for, she went up to the first floor to ask about the room. The landlady was a small, stoutish woman with hair which looked as if it might have been red at one time but had faded to a sandy-grey. She introduced herself as Mrs Melville and took Lizann into a back room looking down on a long narrow stretch of grass. The rest of the view was constricted to the rears of other tenements, with their drying greens back to back with Mrs Melville’s, and it all looked very peaceful.
On learning that the rent was thirty shillings a week with breakfast and an evening meal, she explained to Mrs Melville that she was out of work meantime, but hoped to find a job in one of the fish houses. ‘Will the smell of fish bother you?’ she asked, warily.
The woman smiled. ‘Not me. My father was a trawlerman.’
After arranging to take up residence the next day, Lizann paid a week in advance, and returned to Great Western Road to tell Ella Reith that she would be leaving.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Dan did say you might be looking for digs, but I thought you were happy here.’
‘I am, but … I’m trying to get work in the fish, and you wouldn’t like the smell.’
Astonished that such a lovely young woman would want to work amongst fish, Ella sighed. ‘I don’t think I would. Well, I’m glad you’ve found somewhere to your liking. Where will you be?’
Afraid that Ella might pass her new address to Dan, Lizann said, ‘In a tenement, and the landlady seems really nice.’
She packed her clothes in the evening – still those which had belonged to Adam Laing’s daughter Margaret, but which she hoped to supplement from her wages when she found a job. Next morning she had a glance at the newspaper and saw that a firm in Sinclair Road was looking for experienced fish workers. Not wanting to ask Ella, she waited until she went to her new lodgings, and Mrs Melville gave her detailed directions. ‘We used to have buses and trams both coming down past here – the buses went to the Bay of Nigg and would have taken you almost to the door – but after the war started the Corporation Transport just made them do a shuttle service to Mile End, so we’ve only trams now, and they just go to the Castlegate. You’ll have to come off in Union Street, opposite Woollies, walk down Market Street and carry on past the harbour till you come to Victoria Bridge. That takes you over the Dee into Torry, and I think Sinclair Road’s first on the left.’
Not even stopping to unpack her case, Lizann went out and had only about five minutes to wait for a tramcar. The journey was short and quite pleasant, but when the rails turned into Union Street, she kept her eyes peeled for Woolworth’s store. When she got off she crossed over into Market Street, her spirits lifting as her nose picked up a whiff of the sea, which grew stronger as she went down the hill. She was fascinated to see that the harbour was fenced off by high metal railings – to prevent spies getting anywhere near, she supposed – and she carried on along the outside of the barrier, passing coal boats unloading on the quay and having to watch her feet on the goods railway lines. Wondering if she would be safer on the other side of the street where there was a pavement, she decided against it. She would have to cross back again later and the traffic was quite fierce, with horse-drawn carts holding up impatient lorry drivers who put a spurt on once they managed t
o get past.
The bustle of the Fish Market amazed her, but she would learn that it was much busier in the early mornings. Coming to another of the docks, thronged with trawlers, she saw a bridge ahead and realized that she had not far to go now. There were several fish houses on Sinclair Road, and as she walked along searching for the one she wanted, and trying not to skid on the brine seeping from the wooden boxes piled up outside them, a nostalgic ache started inside her. Most people would turn up their noses at this awful stink, she thought in amusement, but it was like coming home for her.
There were other applicants for the jobs, but when the manager saw how expertly she gutted what he gave as a test, she was amongst those told to start at eight the following Monday morning. ‘It’s piece-work,’ he explained, ‘so the harder you work, the more wages you’ll get.’
Jenny had been at her lowest ebb ever since the delivery of the telegram from the War Office. She had recovered fairly quickly from the deaths of her mother and father, but she’d had Mick to lean on at the time. She had coped with Hannah’s death although she had given birth just a few hours before, but again, Mick had been there for her. She had seen Elsie Tait breathe her last, which had been something of an anti-climax after the shock of learning how her mother-in-law had met her end. She had thought Mick would help her to get over that, too, when he came home, but he would never come home again … and who would help her to get over losing him?
The Berrys had done their best. Babsie, close on seventy, had stayed with her night and day for over a week, had fed Georgie and wee Lizann when their mother was too grief-stricken to think about their needs, and had even kept them amused to save them bothering her. Jake had appointed himself as messenger, shopping from the lists his wife wrote out and carefully noting the prices so she wouldn’t query the change he brought back. All the neighbours had been good, popping in every day to see if she needed anything, though mainly to check that she was all right.
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