Mistress of Green Tree Mill

by Mistress of Green Tree Mill (retail) (epub)

  She was silent for a little while, remembering the almost fatalistic attitude of the girl who was soon to be her mother-in-law. Chrissy had treated David like some well-intentioned uncle and had behaved with deference towards Lizzie. It was embarrassingly obvious that she saw her fiancé’s daughter as an imposing older woman. She certainly didn’t act like she was madly in love – or even mildly infatuated, come to that. Lizzie’s voice was musing as she remembered the meeting with Chrissy…

  ‘She was well dressed – and everything looked new. As if she was all dolled up to make a good impression. I suspect my father thinks she’s rich. But she wasn’t at ease in her clothes. I hope he’s right.’

  ‘It sounds as if they might both be in for a shock then,’ said Sam, and fell deeply asleep.

  * * *

  David Mudie sat at his third wedding dinner and surveyed his new wife.

  Chrissy MacAndrew was thin and freckled with dark red hair and a beaky nose that made her look like a half-fledged bird which its parents had abruptly chucked out of the nest and told, ‘Get on with it, you’re on your own.’ This impression was heightened by the fact that she was painfully shy, so shy that she drew attention to herself by her efforts to be unnoticed.

  She caught his eyes on her and glanced anxiously from beneath her looped-up wedding veil. He smiled reassuringly because he was a kind man but she did not smile back – only flushed and looked down at her dinner plate.

  With a feeling of foreboding, David looked round at the other wedding guests in an effort to catch the eye of someone more convivial who would help drive away melancholy. This wedding looked like being a terrible mistake. His eye was caught by Lizzie, dressed most elegantly in violet-blue corded silk and looking like a young duchess. Oh, yes, Lizzie had taken after him. There was a piratical streak in her too though she did not fully realize it. What a pity she wasn’t a laddie.

  Beside her sat her husband. Their mutual adoration poured out like cream for all to see. Sam loved her as much as she loved him, thank God. David would have suffered to see Lizzie giving so much love to someone who did not appreciate it.

  On Lizzie’s other side sat George. David’s man-of-the-world eye discerned the reason for the flush in his son’s cheek and the wild look in his eye. George was drunk.

  In recent weeks he’d started coming home drunk late at night, hardly capable of climbing the stairs. That was something he had never done before. In the past David had bemoaned the fact that his son was a bookworm who did not enjoy ‘manly’ pursuits, but now he worried about the life of dissipation that seemed to have claimed George. His hands shook in the morning and he had stopped caring about his appearance. No one knew the reason for this sudden switch from a life of contemplative sobriety. Looking at George across the table, David’s face showed open concern.

  Jessie’s sons, the lads, sat beside their half brother. It was a mistake to have allowed them to sit together because they were kicking each other under the table and grabbing for the biggest bits of icing off the wedding cake in spite of Lizzie reaching across George and cracking the boys across the knuckles with her fork.

  Their father regarded them like specimens from a zoo, as if they had little to do with him. He doubted if Chrissy would have the authority or capability to knock some manners into them.

  His thoughts returned to Chrissy. His only hope was that she was as rich as her brothers had promised. The bride’s two brothers were now sitting down the table from the bride and groom, their eyes hard and calculating. He was honest enough to admit to himself that Chrissy’s dowry was the reason he had married her. It was a bargain that was not going to be easy for either of them. She was so young in every way that he knew marriage would be a hard struggle.

  I’ll play fair by her. I’ll try hard to make her happy, he swore to himself and smiled again at the girl. She smiled back nervously. Oh, poor lassie. She was terrified of him and he was a man who appreciated earthy, witty women. But he had to remember he’d brought this on himself. Chrissy had that farm. She had her dowry, written into the marriage settlement. Nine hundred acres in the Carse of Gowrie. David knew well enough what that translated to in terms of cash.

  Sitting at his wedding spread he indulged in a mild reverie. He saw himself as a gentleman farmer, riding round his acres every morning on a neat little cob, wearing polished gaiters and a brown high hat, presiding over harvest suppers, attending the cattle market, meeting his friends, standing his hand, holding shooting parties on his own land… His mind ran on in pleasant dreams till he was brought back to earth by wee Davie’s voice asking him across the table, ‘Da can I have some more cake?’

  The boy was holding out an empty plate with an expectant look, and David thought ruefully, I’ve been looking for more as well.

  It was only greed that had made him marry Chrissy, and now he was beginning to fear that the bargain would not live up to his expectations.

  Chapter 11

  During the summer after her father’s marriage, Lizzie divided her time between Mr Adams with whom she had resumed her pleasant days writing letters and reading newspapers, and her new mother-in-law Chrissy.

  Lizzie had grown very fond of the girl and in the afternoon when she was not at Tay Lodge she went to visit Chrissy.

  The month of June was unusually warm and sultry and, though Lizzie was fond of walking, she was surprised to find it an effort to cover the distance between her home and Tay Lodge or the Castle Bar, so she rode on the open top decks of rattling tramcars, watching the fascinating city life swarming around on the pavements beneath her.

  One hot afternoon she arrived at Mr Adams’ house with her face ghastly white.

  The parlourmaid who admitted her gasped, ‘Oh, ma’am, are you all right? Come and sit down.’

  The servants, who knew her well because they had all been in the Adams’ service for years, hovered over her, gave her brandy and chafed her hands until she recovered. As she was preparing to return home in a cab called by the anxious Mr Adams, Mary-Ann the housekeeper patted Lizzie’s arm.

  ‘You’ll have to start taking things easier. When’s it due?’

  That night Lizzie visited Dr McLaren and to her delight learned that the suspicions she had not allowed herself to consider were correct, she was nearly five months pregnant. It was like being given an opulent and totally unexpected gift, her heart’s desire.

  As the child grew within her, she changed and softened.

  * * *

  When Maggy told her that Rosie was marrying a man called Big Jock Rattray who drove a brewer’s dray and delivered casks of ale to the Castle Bar, she sent a gift of a set of china to the room in the stone tower. A short note of thanks from Rosie arrived in return.

  ‘Rosie’ll be able to settle down now. Is she stopping work?’ Lizzie asked.

  Maggy shook her head in surprise. ‘Oh no, she’s staying at Brunton’s. She doesn’t want to bide at home all day. She’d miss the company.’

  Lizzie felt that Rosie had made a sensible decision to maintain her independence because Big Jock, though a handsome and convivial fellow, was fond of his beer, with a reputation for getting drunk on Saturday nights – but, she reflected, he was not alone in that.

  ‘Is Big Jock the father of wee Bertha?’ she asked next.

  Maggy said, ‘I don’t know,’ in a tone that implied there would be no discussion of that subject.

  Lizzie was surprised at how the news of Rosie’s marriage affected George. He was even more depressed than he had been when Johnny went away but that had not surprised her because the two had been friends all their lives.

  Far more than Lizzie, George had been close to the Davidson household and now he felt that the family door would be closed against him. It was obvious that he did not like Big Jock.

  Instead of disappearing in the evenings with his own friends, he took to visiting Lizzie at Lochee Road and sat for hours in her parlour, talking about books in a rambling sort of way. He was never entirely sober, not eve
n during the day, and there were many nights when he drank himself into insensibility.

  Her concern made her tackle him about his drinking. ‘Whisky’s not good for someone with your trouble.’

  ‘What trouble is that?’

  ‘Your chest, your weak chest,’ she said, exasperated.

  ‘Oh, I thought you meant my heart,’ said George with a little laugh.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with your heart. The doctor Mrs Adams called in for you said you’ve a strong heart. It’s your chest that’s the problem, and weak-chested folk shouldn’t drink too much,’ scolded Lizzie.

  ‘Oh, don’t fuss, Lizzie,’ said George, reaching for the decanter before she could whisk it out of his reach.

  * * *

  Dr McLaren was growing old and about to retire from practice but he agreed to deliver Lizzie’s child because she was afraid of entrusting herself to other hands. With any luck Sam would be back from the sea when the baby was due but Lizzie and her father worked themselves into a state of panic about the birth. It took all Dr McLaren’s diplomacy and common sense to calm them.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he told Lizzie. ‘You’re as strong as a horse. I’ve known you since you were born – I delivered you, for goodness’ sake. If ever there was a woman able to bear children without trouble it’s you. I’ll look after you, Lizzie.’

  Charlie, son to Sam and Lizzie, was born on an autumn morning when swallows were lining up for their migration on the branches of the apple trees of Lizzie’s little garden. His father had arrived home the day before so Charlie timed his arrival well.

  As the doctor had predicted, it was an easy birth. Lizzie’s father and his young wife were keeping company with Sam in the sitting room and when it was all over, Lizzie sat up in bed like a queen holding court with her family around her. Her face radiant, she cradled the baby in delight, exclaiming over and over again at its perfection. Suddenly, as if tired by all the fuss, it burst into loud howling.

  ‘My word, he’s got a good strong voice. He’ll even out-yell you, Lizzie,’ said her father with a laugh.

  Maggy lifted up the crying child and cuddled it to her. ‘Hush, hush,’ she soothed. ‘What is it you want? We’ll get it for you.’

  Then she turned to the gathering and said, ‘He’s going to be boss, is this laddie.’

  That was how Charlie got his nickname. For ever after that he was referred to as ‘the Boss’.

  * * *

  Lizzie enjoyed wheeling her baby in his carriage along the road to Tay Lodge where the maids enthused over Charlie while she sat with Mr Adams, or down the hill to visit Chrissy. One day she asked her young stepmother the question that always bothered her:

  ‘Why did you marry my father?’

  She and the shy and reticent Chrissy had grown to be friends, and there was enough understanding between them for her to broach the subject. The stick-thin girl wakened the same maternal and protective feelings in her as her own baby.

  Chrissy lifted her head from the Berlin work that seemed to occupy all her time. She was stitching bead eyes on to the faces of two little girls in a garden and Lizzie noticed that one of the children had a pronounced squint. Her poor young mother-in-law was not much good as an embroiderer, though Berlin work was not hard. All you had to do was follow the pattern.

  ‘My brothers said I ought to,’ she sighed.

  Lizzie knew and disliked Chrissy’s two brothers – coarse, loud-mouthed men with mean little eyes who drank more than was good for them.

  ‘But you didn’t have to do what they told you.’

  Another sigh. ‘They brought me up. My mother and father died when I was just a bairn. I always did what they told me. Besides, your father’s a good, kind man. He’s not a bad husband.’

  Lizzie nodded, pleased. David was a kind man, but living with him could not be easy because Chrissy hardly ever saw him. Marriage had not made him give up his bachelor pursuits and he and his wife lived together as polite strangers. She languished in the sitting room above the bar like a wilting lily. At the end of the first year of marriage she became pregnant but lost the child at three months. Robust Lizzie, full of maternal pride at her own thriving child, pitied the poor lassie who had no idea what it felt like to share life with someone of her own age, a man who could be a demanding lover as well as an amusing companion. Lizzie’s Sam was her talisman against all evil, she relied on him to see her through whatever storms life threw at her. As if she was aware of Lizzie’s unspoken thoughts, Chrissy bent her head over the Berlin panel again. She did not seem to notice the disfiguring squint.

  ‘My brothers thought your dad had money and they knew he’d be kind to me,’ she whispered.

  How ironic! Lizzie knew that David’s motive for marrying was to repair his own fortunes, but that had not happened. Her father had confided in her that the canny brothers farmed Chrissy’s lands to their own advantage, twice a year handing over a sheet of accounts that read like fiction, detailing the ravages of bad harvests, blight, dishonest workers and poor springs that rotted the crops in seed. The farm income of which he’d had high hopes turned out to be little more than Lizzie paid Maggy.

  ‘But surely you weren’t in need of money. You’ve your share of the farm. It’s yours, isn’t it? You could sell it if you wanted?’ she asked Chrissy.

  The girl glanced up under her brows at David’s imposing daughter, so confident in herself, so smartly dressed, so secure in the love of her handsome husband, so unaware of what it was like to be the pawn of others.

  ‘When I married your father I hadn’t come of age to inherit. My father’s will said that I wasn’t to have my share till I was thirty. By that time my brothers’ll have made sure there’s not much left.’ Her voice was hopeless.

  Lizzie felt exasperation when she heard this recital. Chrissy lacked backbone. She’s one of life’s victims, she thought with despair.

  As she was gathering her things together and dressing the baby in preparation for returning home, her father arrived in a great flurry, smelling of cigars and pomade – and something else. Lizzie sniffed suspiciously. Yes, she was right – brandy!

  He had aged a great deal recently. For a long time he looked younger than his years but almost overnight his hair and neat beard had gone white. He was still tall and straight but his complexion had reddened and there was a frailty about him that had not been there before. Advancing age had not slowed him down however and he went racketing around town as usual, though the expeditions to the country were not so frequent. He had been badly shaken when one of the Keillers, his particular friend and a man younger than himself, died suddenly; but later that death seemed to make him more determined to live his own life to the full and enjoy every moment.

  His cigars were still the best Havanas, his suiting exquisite, his cob always perfectly groomed and his gig glossy. He owed bills left, right and centre but his creditors were so impressed by his appearance that they never worried about their money.

  All this ran through his daughter’s mind as she watched him stepping gaily over the carpet to kiss his wife’s cheek and then pay the same respect to her. Under his arm he was holding a large, flat circular package carelessly wrapped in tattered brown paper. Seeing her eyes on it, he laid it reverently on the table.

  ‘I’ve got a real treasure here, girls, just wait till you see this!’

  Like a child at Christmas, he tore off the paper to reveal a beautiful silver platter, larger than a big dinner plate and embossed with a raised design round the rim and in the centre.

  Lizzie, who was always eager to inspect her father’s finds, ran over to look at the platter more closely. The raised design showed a woman’s head in profile with long, loose hair streaming down her back. A bouquet of large trumpet lilies flourished in her hand. The workmanship was superb and the romantic, flowing design was very unusual.

  ‘How lovely,’ she sighed, tracing the woman’s face with one finger.

  David was smiling as he watched her. ‘You
’ve got taste, my Lizzie. You can tell a fine thing when you see it. This is the very latest thing from Paris and it’s solid silver. The design’s by an artist called Alphonse Mucha. He’ll make a name for himself that fellow, mark my words. My brother found it in an auction and I just had to buy it.’

  But Lizzie was frowning as she inspected the rim of the platter. Her finger had picked out a dent.

  ‘Oh, what a pity. It’s dented!’ she said.

  David hurriedly put his hand over the offending mark, muttering, ‘That doesn’t matter. It can be hammered out by a silversmith. Look at that design.’

  But Lizzie, annoying as ever, would keep on about the dent. It was almost as if she guessed he’d dropped the treasured dish out of the gig as he was driving home. If his damned pony hadn’t shied at the tramcar on Union Street, it would never have happened.

  You couldn’t hide things from Lizzie, though. She looked up at him and asked accusingly, ‘Did you make that dent?’

  He nodded like a shamefaced little boy.

  ‘You shouldn’t drink brandy during the day. You’re as bad as George!’ she said disapprovingly.

  * * *

  Since 1860 the fortunes of the city of Dundee had been steadily rising. With each year more mills were built, more new buildings appeared, the docks and the railway system were enlarged and trade of every kind boomed. So it was a sore shock, in the last decade of the century, when a depression hit the jute trade. As if the fates were not content to leave it at that, whaling also suffered a series of bad years. A city that had grown accustomed to prosperity shuddered, and it was the poor who felt the cold wind first.