Mistress of Green Tree Mill

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

Sam had been sailing with Captain Jacobs for nine years. As mate of the Pegasus his share of the profits was larger than the other crewmen’s, but although the ship was one of the most successful of the Dundee fleet, in 1898 and 1899 it was a struggle for his family to survive six months on what he brought home. He and Lizzie lived in the hope that next season would be a better one and she, money wise because of her lessons from Mr Adams, eked out their spending with care.

  Sam always handed over his earnings to her and she deposited them in a savings bank at the corner of Dens Road. It gave her real pleasure when the manager came beaming out of his office to speak to her and one day he even offered her a glass of sherry, signifying that Mrs Kinge was a customer of consequence. She relished security and while other women read magazines or novels in their leisure hours, she added up her bank book, reckoning the interest due on it. Her afternoons were spent conferring over the financial columns with her old friend in Tay Lodge.

  Mr Adams was overtaken by frailty and rarely went out of the house. Lizzie was concerned when George’s conversation showed her how lax was the management of Green Tree Mill.

  ‘The men in the office don’t bother looking for work. They’re all growing old and don’t want to be bothered, like Mr Adams himself. Most of the young fellows in the office spend their days reading the newspapers or throwing paper darts at each other,’ he told her.

  She debated bringing the matter up with Mr Adams but decided against it when she saw how weary he looked as he half sat, half lay in his easy chair in the bow window overlooking the river. Enough money was coming in to keep him in comfort for his remaining years. It was not her concern what happened after that.

  ‘Don’t you wish you were doing something else?’ she asked her brother when he talked about his idle days at work.

  He shrugged. ‘Not really. Look what happened to Johnny Davidson.’

  She was interested. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘I had a letter last week. He had a hard time when he got to New York. He said he was homesick for Dundee. Then he went to Chicago to find his Uncle Tommy. That was terrible. His uncle was living in a worse slum than the Vaults and working in the meat market – all noise and blood and killing. It nearly drove Johnny daft.’

  ‘Is he coming home then?’ she asked.

  George shook his head. ‘Not him. He’s off to San Francisco. He says it’s sunny there and you can pick oranges in the street.’

  ‘Oh, poor Johnny,’ sighed Lizzie, remembering the boy with such high hopes of making his fortune. She was holding her son Charlie on her knee as she listened to George and hugged him to her, hoping in her heart that he would never be driven away from his native land by hunger.

  He had grown into a bonny boy with fair curly hair and ingenuous blue eyes that gave no hint of the mischief inside his head. He looked very like Lizzie’s father and according to his mother and her maid he was without doubt the finest child ever born.

  Day and daily they leaned over his cot in adoration, remarking on his handsomeness. When he squawled, they said it was a sign of spirit; when he smiled they took it that he was bestowing his personal benison on them.

  When the little boy threw a tantrum, Lizzie’s father always said, ‘My word, that’s just like his mother! You went on the same way when you were wee, Lizzie. Remember the time you broke my Meissen figurine? You’ll have some fights with that one when he’s bigger.’

  Sometimes Lizzie felt guilty when she took Charlie down to visit Chrissy at the Castle Bar where the girl was still stitching away at her embroidery like the Lady of Shalott in Tennyson’s poem. She longed for a child and when Lizzie watched her playing with Charlie she remembered the hunger to hold a baby that had once consumed her too. Poor Chrissy suffered a series of miscarriages. She could carry babies three months but no longer, it seemed, and each disappointment left her more bloodless and transparent than before.

  Like Lizzie, George had become fond of Chrissy and often when she and Charlie visited, she found her brother keeping his stepmother company. He was still drinking, still low in spirits, but Chrissy seemed to be able to soothe him. Lizzie often wondered what they talked about when they were alone.

  One evening when she was with Chrissy, George came rushing in, pounding one fist against the other as he said fiercely, ‘Chrissy, he’s done it again! He’s a brute. Her face is black and blue and the marks on her arms are terrible. It’s a miracle he didn’t kill her.’

  Chrissy put down her embroidery frame and made soothing noises while Lizzie gazed from one to the other in amazement. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Rosie – your Maggy’s sister. She’s been having a lot of trouble with that man she married. George found her bleeding in the courtyard last week and took her to the doctor. Surely he’s not done it again, George?’

  ‘He’s run off but if I could get my hands on him, I’d kill him.’

  Lizzie, remembering the size of Jock Rattray, counselled, ‘You’d best leave things alone. Don’t get involved. Rosie’s a big strong woman, well able to look after herself.’

  ‘Not against Big Jock,’ said George angrily.

  Later, as she slowly walked home holding her son’s hand, Lizzie thought about George’s outrage. How upset he’d been: But he’s always been close to the Davidsons. They’re like brother and sisters to him and Rosie’s the only one left at home in the Vaults… Rosie and wee Bertha.

  Bertha was such a bonny child, who looked too fine and well bred to be a bairn of the Vaults. I wonder who fathered Bertha, said Lizzie to herself, not for the first time.

  * * *

  Bad times and good go in cycles, and in 1900 trade began to take an upturn and the whaling catches improved. The jute mills were working overtime because of the war with the Boers and it looked as if a golden future stretched ahead for everybody. Even Chrissy seemed stronger and more vigorous when she announced that she was pregnant. By the time she told Lizzie, she had managed to go for four months without mishap. Delighted by this news and affected by the enthusiasm that comes to women when their friends are pregnant, Lizzie began to plan a second baby herself.

  ‘It’s time Charlie had a brother or a sister. He’s going to be far too spoiled if he’s an only child,’ she told Sam.

  A month later, however, Chrissy aborted again.

  * * *

  Lizzie was disappointed not to become pregnant herself by the time Sam set off for the 1902 whaling season but she consoled herself: There’s plenty of time. I’m still young.

  In Sam’s absence she spent even more time with Mr Adams than before but the old man was too tired now to be subjected to the noise and energy of Charlie and, in the afternoons when his mother went to Tay Lodge he was given into the care of Maggy.

  ‘You’ve not to take him into the Vaults,’ Lizzie always warned when Maggy was sent out to walk the boy in his sailor suit and straw hat.

  The demure pleasures of public parks however were too tame for Charlie. He preferred the Vaults where a crowd of young hooligans kicked tin cans to and fro on the cobbles. It was not difficult for him to persuade Maggy to ignore his mother’s ban and while she visited her sister and their friends in the rabbit warren of houses, he played with the boys till his face was filthy, his knees bleeding and his white suit stained and dirty.

  It was then that panic set in with both of them. Maggy had to stand her charge in a bucket of water in Rosie’s home and wash him, wailing all the time, ‘What’ll your ma say?’

  ‘I don’t know what the fuss is all about,’ Rosie said when she came home from the mills, ‘he’s just normal. He’s a wild little devil.’

  ‘His ma thinks it’s dangerous for him here,’ said Maggy, frantically brushing at the stains on the sailor suit.

  ‘Dangerous for him? If you ask me the Vaults should be protected from Charlie and not the other way about,’ laughed Rosie.

  When his games were over Charlie liked falling asleep on Maggy’s lap while she and Rosie sat gossiping and sip
ping tea. Sometimes, though his eyes were closed, his ears were pricked and he was taking in everything that was said, and occasionally chipping in with his own comments.

  He exerted his will over the malleable Maggy by a mixture of affection and threats, winding his arms round her neck and kissing her apple cheek. If that did not work, he threatened her.

  ‘You mustn’t tell Ma I’ve been playing with the boys. If you do I’ll tell her about your beau.’

  Maggy flushed scarlet at this. ‘Don’t be daft. I haven’t got a beau.’

  Charlie rolled his blue eyes at Rosie. ‘Yes you have. I saw you talking to that man in the apron next door. That’s your beau, Maggy.’

  Maggy was incapable of prevarication. ‘That’s only a man doing carpentry work for our neighbour,’ she protested, but young as he was Charlie knew he had her in his power.

  Rosie’s interest was caught by their exchange. ‘What’s all this?’

  Maggy was flustered. ‘It’s just a fellow doing some carpentry work for our neighbour. His name’s Willie Brewster. Anyway, you can’t speak! Not with what you’re doing.’

  Something told Charlie that if he was to pretend to go to sleep there would be an interesting exchange between the sisters so he closed his eyes, lolled his golden head – and listened. In fact he did fall asleep eventually and in time he was wakened by Maggy.

  ‘It’s time we went home. Your dad’s ship’s coming in soon. You have to go to bed early so’s you’re not tired when he comes back.’

  They walked home up the steep Hawkhill, pausing at the windows of Charlie’s favourite shops. He liked walking with Maggy because she never hauled him past the best stopping places – the confectioners with jars of multicoloured Keillers’ boiled sweets; the corner toy shop where painted tops, china-headed dolls and a huge wooden Noah’s Ark filled the many-paned window. He loved that Noah’s Ark and stopped to gaze at it with his face pressed to the glass. The tiny animals were so lifelike, striped zebras, a grey elephant and his mate, a pair of growling tigers… ‘Oh my, I’d like that,’ sighed Charlie.

  ‘Maybe your ma’ll buy it when your da’s ship gets in,’ said Maggy, because Lizzie was given to wild gestures of generosity when Sam came home. She gently tugged at the boy’s arm to prise him away from the window. ‘Come on now, we’re awful late, your ma’ll be worried.’

  That night when Charlie was being bathed, he said to his mother, ‘I think Uncle George’s awful lucky to live in the Vaults. I’d like to live there.’

  Lizzie was soaping his back and she laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, Charlie. Your uncle George doesn’t live in the Vaults.’

  ‘He does,’ said Charlie, sticking out his lip.

  ‘He doesn’t.’

  ‘He does. He lives with Rosie and Bertha. Rosie told Maggy today.’

  * * *

  His mother tried to assure herself that he was talking nonsense. He’d misunderstood something he’d heard. But then, Charlie was so definite and he was not often wrong… She resolved to question George on the matter the next day.

  She was sitting with Chrissy, who was pregnant again, on the following evening when George came home from work. She heard him rummaging about in his bedroom, then he came through with a carpet bag. When he spotted his sister he looked put out.

  ‘Are you going away somewhere?’ she asked, staring at the bulging bag.

  ‘I’ve my own life to live, Lizzie,’ he said defensively.

  ‘I never said you hadn’t. Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m moving out and I’m not going far, just to the other side of the road.’

  She furrowed her brows as if trying to visualize the layout of Castle Street. ‘Let’s see,’ she said. ‘There’s the savings bank opposite and then that line of shops. Are you going to lodge with someone?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Then where are you going?’ she demanded.

  George shrugged, looking at Chrissy who had her head bent over her sewing as if trying to make herself invisible. Lizzie felt sure Chrissy knew all about George’s plans, and was angry that she had not been let into their secret.

  ‘You might as well know but you’ll not like it. I’m going to live in the Vaults,’ he said.

  So Charlie was right. How awful to be told such news by her four-year-old son! She clutched her throat as if George had dealt her a blow.

  ‘The Vaults! The slums. You can’t. What about your chest?’

  George snorted. ‘I’m tired hearing about my chest. My chest’s all right. I wish you’d stop treating me like an invalid. I’ve got another life and I like it better.’

  Lizzie would not leave well alone. ‘Where about in the Vaults are you going?’

  ‘You might as well know that too. It’ll be out soon anyway. I’m moving in with Rosie Davidson. I’ve wanted to do that for years.’

  She stared at her brother. It was almost impossible to imagine him with Rosie. He was so thin and quiet, Rosie so large and noisy. Then she remembered the fine blondeness of Bertha.

  ‘Rosie’s bairn isn’t yours, is she?’ she asked in disbelief.

  He nodded. ‘She is.’ He seemed proud to be able to claim Bertha.

  ‘But… but you must have been a bairn yourself when…’

  ‘When I fathered her, you mean? I was seventeen.’

  ‘Did you deny the bairn was yours?’ asked an astonished Lizzie.

  ‘Of course not. I’m proud she’s mine. She’s a grand wee lassie. It’s Rosie that wouldn’t let on. She didn’t take me seriously. It was just a bit of a lark for her – she didn’t expect to get pregnant. I asked her over and over to marry me but she went off and married that brute who beat her up instead.’

  It seemed impossible to Lizzie that Rosie Davidson from the slums would refuse to marry her brother.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You may well ask,’ said George. ‘Maybe she didn’t want the Mudies looking down on her.’

  ‘You don’t mean me, do you?’ asked Lizzie. She and Rosie had never hidden their dislike for each other and Maggy’s sister was always keenly aware of the gulf that Lizzie felt divided her family from the Davidsons. ‘She didn’t want me looking down on her?’ she asked again.

  ‘That was part of it,’ he agreed, ‘but there was more than that. She educated me in sex like she’d give a bairn a sweetie but I fell in love with her – I think I’ve always been in love with her. She’s awful independent is Rosie. Then she went and married that carter. I took to the drink then, I was so miserable.’

  ‘Is she going to marry you now?’

  George shook his head. ‘No. She says one wedding’s enough for her. Rattray’s gone off with another woman, though, and I’m going to live with Rosie. She’s fond of me – and I love her.’

  Lizzie’s thoughts were jumbled and angry. First of them was that Rosie Davidson had some cheek treating her brother like a toy dog. Then she was angry that Rosie was dragging George down to her level. Maybe if Rosie and Bertha could be persuaded to leave the Vaults and dressed up a bit, they’d pass as respectable… She considered suggesting this but a look at George’s face warned her against it.

  ‘Oh my God, I don’t know what to think,’ she sighed.

  ‘It doesn’t really matter what anybody thinks,’ said George, ‘I’m going to live with Rosie.’

  Chapter 12

  Sam’s ship did not come when it was expected. Days went past without any news and then the fleet started straggling in dispiritedly because they’d had a bleak season. No whales had been caught at all and, what was worse, news came that one of the fleet, the Diana, had been abandoned to the crushing ice. Some of her crew returned home on other ships of the fleet but twelve men died of their privations.

  Every day Lizzie went down to the dockside with her father to pick up what news they could. David had many friends there and he sought them out in bars and coffee houses but none of the returned men knew anything about the Pegasus.

  ‘Don’t take on, Lizzie. Sam’ll
be safe. I’m sure of it,’ David reassured his tense daughter on the fourth morning of their vigil.

  She was so strung up that she could hardly speak. At home Maggy hushed Charlie and kept him in the cosy little kitchen, out of his mother’s way. She was afraid that the least annoyance might drive Lizzie into one of the blinding furies that had not been seen for so long.

  Even in driving rain, Lizzie walked back and forward from Lochee to the Castle Bar, for she needed physical exercise to prevent her sinking into anguish. As she hurried along she saw nothing and recognized nobody, her mind was so full of images of Sam – Sam dead in wastes of ice; Sam injured and far away from her; Sam’s ship drifting in uncharted seas till all the men died of cold and starvation. Such things happened, she knew that only too well.

  The year before, a whaling ship sailing out of Hull had failed to return on time. After many weeks, the owner and the families of the crew gave it up for lost. A memorial service was held in a church overlooking the sea and the congregation were singing the first hymn when a shout had come that the ship was sailing into harbour. Lizzie’s heart gave a wrench at the thought of the agony of the weeping women in the church – and she could well imagine the joy with which they welcomed their men’s return.

  Oh God, let Sam’s ship come sailing home like that one in Hull, she prayed as she walked along.

  The agony lasted for a week. Lizzie ate nothing. The weight dropped off her bones like melting snow and she was almost gaunt by the eighth day when, just after dawn, as the mill hooters were shrieking, a banging on the door wakened her household. Lizzie sat up in bed, her heart beating so fast that she found it difficult to breathe. The bedroom door opened and Maggy stared round it at her, a wordless question in her anxious brown eyes.

  Lizzie nodded. ‘You go, you go, Maggy!’

  David Mudie stood on the doorstep, his hair ruffled and his clothes unusually dishevelled as if he’d thrown them on.

  ‘Tell her the Pegasus has been sighted off Broughty Castle. The tide’s out but they’ll be in before dinnertime. Tell her quick, Maggy. Sam’s coming home.’