She closed the thick dictionary and thought that if Ninian Sutherland knew what the words meant, he must have been implying that there was more in common between Lizzie and herself than she had ever realized.
* * *
The 1920s were a period of stagnation for the jute industry. Owners of big mills spent most of their time on sporting estates in the Highlands or travelling abroad. There was no investment being made in an industry that was only managing to wash its face, and people with money preferred to invest abroad, especially in America.
Like many of his friends Goldie bought an estate in Argyllshire where his now totally deranged wife and their daughters spent the summers. He tried to interest Lizzie in buying one too or in foreign investment, but she refused to entertain either idea.
‘Safe securities are the places for my money,’ she told him. ‘Don’t talk to me about estates or ten per cent interest or things like that. I’ll take my three and a half per cent and be pleased with it. I don’t want any extra worry.’
Green Tree had now become a group of mills, and unlike most owners she was still buying new machinery and modernizing at every opportunity. Other mills continued to use machinery that had been out of date at the end of the century and their owners secretly laughed at Mrs Kinge for her spendthrift ways.
As usual, the drop in orders had its most telling effect on the working people. Month by month and year by year, all over Britain the numbers of unemployed rose. The country seethed with discontent. Men who had expected that the terrible bloodletting of war would be rewarded by better living conditions were now bitter. Their anger erupted in the Great Strike.
On the first day of May 1926, the miners of Great Britain announced their intention to strike and called on all other workers to back them up. The Communist Party rallied to the cause and their activists were out on the streets encouraging support for the strikers. One of the people who left their work benches and took up the crusade was Lexie Mudie.
With the green hat tight on her head, she went out early and walked from mill to mill, intercepting workers on their way to work and waiting for them to leave at lunchtime. When the midday hooter blew, she was standing with a loudspeaker in her hand on the pavement outside Green Tree Mill.
A clerk took the word in to Lizzie.
‘The lassie in the green hat’s at the gate. She’s telling the women to come out on strike.’
The fame of the girl in the green hat had spread fast in Dundee. To the workers she was a sort of Joan of Arc, and there had even been a song made up about her; to the employers her role was that of a female devil.
Lizzie jumped up from her desk and ran out of her office with clerks streaming behind her.
A crowd of women was clustered around a figure standing on a soap box and shouting: ‘Oppression – exploitation – fair shares – equality!’ The words soared out above the heads of the audience as Lizzie elbowed her way to the front. When she found herself beside the speaker, she saw it was Lexie and her face first registered amazement – then rage.
Reaching up a hand she pulled at the hem of Lexie’s coat and shouted, ‘Come down off that. How dare you cause trouble at my mill? I fed and clothed you when our father died. How can you do this to me!’
Lexie looked down from her superior height and brushed Lizzie away with one hand as she continued to shout, ‘Join your brothers the miners – leave your looms – stay at home – it’s the only way we can beat them!’
Lizzie continued to pull at the thin cloth of the coat and was rewarded by a ripping noise. Lexie heard it too and lashed out with an angry hand that narrowly missed Lizzie’s face. Both of them were raging now and Lizzie was shouting, ‘Is this gratitude? You’d have starved to death if it hadn’t been for my kindness.’
Lexie paused and pointed a finger at Lizzie as she said loudly, ‘Don’t talk about kindness. You’re the one who wanted to send your own son to the Mars. There’s women working here who’d sooner starve than do that to their bairns.’
As the crowd clapped and jeered, Lizzie seemed to collapse and went back through the crowd to her office where brandy was brought and a doctor summoned because her pulse was racing so furiously that they feared she was having a heart attack.
Taken home and put to bed by Maggy she wept and ranted. ‘How could she say that to me in front of all those women? Who told her that awful story?’
Maggy guessed the story came from Rosie, whose dislike of Lizzie had never diminished. But she said nothing and Lizzie still raged. ‘I’ll never speak another word to that girl. She’s dead and buried as far as I’m concerned. Don’t even mention her name to me.’
Her solace during those troubled days was Goldie, who visited her every day. He soothed her anger and calmed her hysteria. He even attempted to put the strikers’ side by pointing out the terrible conditions of some workers.
‘But they don’t have to live like that, surely. They don’t have to drink the way they do and carry on like savages in the streets at night. There’s well-doing folk among them as well as paupers. Anyway, I pay better wages than most bosses.’
‘I’m not saying it’s you that’s wrong. Perhaps it’s the whole system that needs changing,’ suggested Goldie.
‘You sound like Lexie. How can I change things? If I did, the others would freeze me out. They’ve tried before. I’ve a living to make.’
She always became frantic when disaster threatened her mill and there was no reasoning with her in those moods. Green Tree was her creation. A moribund concern when she took it over but now, thanks to her efforts, a huge complex with a turnover of more than a million pounds a year. The sound of the thudding machinery and the carts of jute rattling through her gate were testimonies to Lizzie Kinge’s success which she craved in the same way as an addict craves opium.
‘Relax,’ said Goldie, stroking her hand, but she was too excited to listen to him.
‘I can’t relax, not now. When this strike’s over I’ll relax.’
The strike was called off on 12 May. It was no victory for the strikers and Lizzie looked grimly satisfied as her workers straggled back with pinched and hungry faces. Once again striking had cost them money and gained them nothing.
* * *
‘Young Sutherland’s having an exhibition. He’d like you and me to go.’ Goldie brought this news with him one golden autumn afternoon when Lizzie was feeling particularly pensive.
‘When is it?’ she asked.
‘Tonight. My car’s outside. Let’s go.’
In the gallery they walked from picture to picture making admiring comments, for Sutherland had lived up to Goldie’s expectations and his works were masterly. A crowd had gathered at the far end of the gallery and when Goldie and Lizzie approached, they saw that the attraction was two pictures of a nude woman. In one the model was sitting on a tumbled bed. In the second, larger picture she lay on her side against a background of tropical plants. She looked like a resting cat staring out of the canvas with defiance, unashamed of her nakedness. Her body was lean and almost boyish, with small pointed breasts; her legs silken and very long; her hair was burning red.
‘It’s Lexie! It’s my sister,’ gasped Lizzie grasping Goldie’s arm in horror.
‘They’re wonderful paintings.’
‘That’s not the point. That girl’s a Mudie. What’s she doing posing naked? It’s shameful!’
Just then Ninian came up and spoke over Goldie’s shoulder. ‘Do you like them? I’m going to exhibit the big picture in Paris next month.’
Lizzie turned angrily. ‘That girl’s my half sister, you know.’
Ninian looked innocent. ‘Of course I know. She’s here. Have you seen her?’
‘I’m seeing more than enough of her in those pictures,’ said Lizzie, outraged. ‘Why did she do it? Was it to shame the family?’
‘Oh, surely you don’t think that. Posing in the nude isn’t a crime.’
‘Perhaps it’s not a crime to you but I don’t consider it the sort o
f thing that’s done by respectable women,’ she snapped, and swept out.
Goldie only stayed behind long enough to murmur a few words of apology to Ninian and then he ran after her.
He caught up with her on the pavement and grabbed her arm. ‘I can’t believe you’re behaving like this,’ he protested.
The face she turned towards him was strained. ‘It’s so shaming. I’ve worked hard to be respectable, to live down the scandal when my father died. I don’t understand Lexie. I think she sets out to hurt me.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, come with me to Gowan Bank, it’s so long since we were there,’ he said. Without resistance, she allowed herself to be led away and driven off in the darkness to their secret place where they spent the night.
Next morning she did not go to Green Tree and Goldie did not go to his office either. They had a whole day together, making love, laughing, walking along the river bank, and ended it by frying eggs for their supper in a battered old frying pan on the kitchen range.
He made her see how unreasonable she had been about Lexie’s picture.
‘But they must be lovers,’ she said as dusk crept into the corners of the little sitting room and Goldie rose to light the paraffin lamp.
He said nothing.
Lizzie went on, ‘He couldn’t paint her like that if he wasn’t her lover.’
Goldie trimmed the lamp’s wick and then nodded. ‘Yes, they are. It’s all over town. Old Sooty’s mad about it. He can’t believe his son’s involved with a relative of yours. It’s nearly given him a heart attack.’
Lizzie laughed. ‘Lexie’s scored him off for me. Will they marry?’
Goldie shook his head. ‘Apparently not. They say it’s against their principles. You know what these folk are like – free love and that sort of thing.’
‘I wonder which one of them’ll crack first?’ mused Lizzie.
* * *
After the Great Strike Lexie Mudie could not find a job in any of the Dundee mills. Everyone knew she was the girl in the green hat, and no gatekeeper would let her past his portal. She became a full-time jute trade union organizer with an uncomfortable habit of turning up at every dispute no matter where it took place, and though she earned little money, Rosie and Bertha paid for her food and provided her with a home.
* * *
By 1929 the two daughters of David Mudie were firmly ranged on opposite sides of the conflict between vested interests and labour. Lexie was the champion of the workers and Lizzie was one of the most influential of her opponents.
It was a bad year. On 28 October 1929 the London Stock Exchange felt the first shock waves from the stock market collapse in America, and panicked investors began selling shares.
Next day Goldie returned from the Highlands where he had been visiting his family. He was looking strained and worried – the first time Lizzie had seen him so distracted, for he was invariably cheerful.
‘Will it last?’ she asked as he showed her the doleful headlines in the newspaper.
‘I don’t see it ending soon,’ he said. ‘Thank God you were sensible, Lizzie. You must be about the only person I know in Dundee who’s not been investing outside and won’t be hit by this. Sit tight and wait for it to blow over.’
‘But what about you?’ she asked.
He gave a grim smile. ‘I’ll sit tight as well and hope to weather the storm. I’m putting the place in Argyll on the market though there’ll not be many people around with the money to buy at the moment. Look at that…’
And he pointed to a photograph in the newspaper of a ruined New York investor posing beside a magnificent car he was offering for sale in the street for one hundred dollars.
‘If you need anything I’ll help,’ she told him.
He gripped her hand. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t be necessary. Not yet anyway.’
He looked at her sadly and continued, ‘Perhaps you should sell up and go to live in the South of France or something. Charlie’s not interested in Green Tree, is he? The jute trade is dead but you could live like a queen on what Green Tree’s worth.’
‘I’ll never leave you,’ she said with utter conviction but Goldie’s sad expression did not change.
‘The doctor examined my wife last week and said she could live for years, but she doesn’t know who I am. She doesn’t know who anybody is. Her mind’s gone completely but her body’s all right. She could outlive me. Why should I keep you when another man might want to marry you?’
It was the first time they had talked about Goldie’s wife in such bald terms. Lizzie knelt beside his chair and said gently, ‘I love you. It doesn’t matter to me that we can’t marry. I’m married to you in my heart. It’s true there are times when I wish I could show everybody how we feel, but that’s not as important as loving you and being loved by you.’
He put his arms around her without speaking and they clung together for a long time like two children in a storm.
* * *
Inevitably industry was affected by the stock market crisis. Factories closed down, shops ceased trading and more and more people were thrown out of work. Not even the unions could help them when they had no bargaining power.
Every day Dundee rang with rumours of more closures, more lost fortunes, more ruined dreams. Houses that had been in the hands of their owners’ families for generations came up for sale and were bought by predators for a fraction of what they would have fetched six months before. Goldie’s Highland estate sold for a pittance and his wife came back to Monte Bello, where she wandered the rooms wringing her hands and weeping. She could not explain what was wrong but it was obvious that she missed her home in the mountains.
On the last evening of that fateful year, Maggy banked the fire in the drawing room and asked Lizzie, ‘Are you having company tonight?’
It had become the custom to celebrate the turn of the year with Alex, Alice and Charlie, but Lizzie shook her head. ‘No. Alex telephoned to say Alice is unwell. I’ve no idea where Charlie is. Only you and I will see this New Year in, Maggy. Sit down and have a glass of sherry with me.’
As the hands of the clocks crept near to midnight the two women relived the past, talking about Martha and David, Georgie’s battle against consumption, Maggy’s mother and wee Vic.
‘What’s happened to Johnny?’ Lizzie asked.
Maggy’s face lightened. ‘He’s doing well. He’s rich. The gypsy wife was right about Johnny.’
The melancholy of the departing year made Lizzie’s mind return over and over to Sam. For a long time she had wanted to discuss her strangely mixed feelings but she knew no one who might understand. She stirred the coals with a brass poker and asked Maggy, ‘Do you know about me and Goldie Johanson?’
Maggy nodded. ‘Aye.’
‘Do you think it’s wrong?’
‘No. You were lonely. You need him and he’s a good man. You’re not doing any harm.’
Lizzie’s eyes were abstracted as she talked. ‘I can’t work out how I feel. I loved Sam – I did love him, didn’t I?’ She turned a worried face towards Maggy.
‘Oh aye, you loved him right enough.’
‘And when he died, I nearly went mad. It still hurts when I remember how I felt.’ Lizzie put down the poker and held her hands over her face.
‘Dinna upset yoursel’. It’s past,’ soothed Maggy in the voice she used when she comforted hurt children.
Lizzie gave a shudder and began again. ‘It’s not that I don’t love Sam any more. It’s just that I love Goldie as well. And I love him differently. I can’t explain it. Can you love two people at once? Does it take away from one to love someone else?’
‘Sam’s dead. You’re alive,’ said practical Maggy.
‘You don’t understand what I’m trying to say. You go to church, don’t you?’
‘Aye. Every Sunday.’
‘Do you believe that you’ll go to heaven when you die?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Do you believe you’ll meet your mother and wee Vic in h
eaven?’
‘Oh, I hope so. You meet the folk you love. The minister was on about that last Sunday.’
‘What I don’t know is, who will I meet? Will it be Sam? Do I love him or Goldie best? I don’t know.’
At that point the clocks struck midnight and Maggy rose from her seat to cross the hearthrug and kiss Lizzie on the cheek.
‘Dinna you fash yoursel’. Neither you nor Goldie are dead yet anyway. It’ll all work out.’
The chimes were dying away when they heard the front door open and Charlie’s footsteps crossed the hall. He peered into the drawing room and said, ‘Oh, you’re still up. Happy New Year.’
He kissed them both and Lizzie said, ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
He sat down in the chair that Maggy vacated as she left and said, ‘I don’t feel like celebrating. New Year makes me gloomy. I remember the war…’
She patted his hand. ‘It’s over, Charlie.’
He looked sadly at his mother and said, ‘There’s something else.’
‘What is it? Have you been investing and lost your money?’
‘No, the only investment I’ve ever made is on a horse. It’s Alice. I know you don’t approve, Mother, but she’s hit me hard.’
Charlie really loved Alice. Their attachment was longstanding and had to be more than an illicit fling. I should have seen that long ago, thought Lizzie.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘She’s pregnant.’
‘Is it yours?’
He nodded, staring into the fire. ‘Yes, it is. And I want it. I’d love to be a father.’
‘What does Alice say?’
‘She won’t leave Alex. She’s staying with him and she’s going to pretend the baby’s his. She’s smart, she’ll arrange it.’
‘Does Alice love you?’
‘I don’t know. She said she did – but she’s canny. I’m not as good a bet as Alex. He’s having trouble with his heart and she says he’ll die soon and leave her a rich widow…’
Mistress of Green Tree Mill Page 34