Mistress of Green Tree Mill

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

  ‘Mother, sit down. I’ve something to tell you,’ he said.

  ‘What is it? Has Jane lost the baby?’

  The birth was imminent and Charlie was in a state of high agitation, insisting on his wife staying in bed, and filling her room with hothouse flowers.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. It’s Goldie Johanson. He’s had an accident. I didn’t want anyone else to tell you.’

  Her skin shrank and goose pimples stood out on her arms. Her ears drummed painfully and her mouth was dry as she asked, ‘What sort of accident?’

  ‘On one of his ships in the dock. He slipped on the deck in the rain.’

  ‘He’s broken something. I’ll go to him.’ She grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair and tried to struggle into it but Charlie restrained her. ‘He fell overboard, Mother. He was dead when they got him out.’

  She sounded almost reasonable. ‘No. No, Charlie, that’s wrong. Who told you that? They must have mixed him up with someone else. Goldie was like a cat on a ship.’

  Her son helped her to a chair. ‘He’s dead, Mother. I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t true but it is.’

  She sat down and stared at the opposite wall. Staring back at her was her portrait, all aglow with its lovely colours. Her eyes were dry when she turned her gaze to her concerned son.

  ‘I know what you were to each other. I’m brokenhearted for you,’ he whispered.

  When he came in to break the awful news he had been afraid that his mother would become hysterical and make a terrible scene. Though he was very young when his father died, he retained a frightening memory of her transports of grief. To his relief she seemed controlled.

  She asked in a tight voice, ‘Are you sure it’s Goldie who drowned?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I am sure. I was at the dock when they brought him out.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘They’ve taken him to Monte Bello.’

  ‘Yes, they would have to do that, I suppose.’

  Then she sank her head in her hands and began weeping quietly but with such depth of passion that Charlie felt his throat tighten and his eyes fill with tears at the sound of her grief.

  * * *

  ‘Where are you going?’ Lexie asked in surprise at the sight of Ninian. He was normally very casual in his dress but this morning he was wearing a dark suit and stood knotting a black tie round his neck before the little mirror in their flat. ‘I’m going to a funeral. Dress and come with me.’

  ‘Whose funeral?’

  ‘Goldie Johanson’s. You remember him – the big man with all the curly hair.’

  ‘Yes, of course. He was killed a couple of days ago in the docks. Why are you going to his funeral?’

  ‘He gave me one of my first commissions, started me on my career, really. Hurry, Lexie. The funeral’s at ten o’clock and it’s nine already.’

  Her face was stiff as she said, ‘I don’t like funerals. He’d no connection with me except he’s in that big picture in the Art Gallery with my father.’

  ‘Don’t pretend. You know he was Lizzie Kinge’s lover. They’ve been together for years.’

  Lexie looked hard at him. ‘I didn’t think people knew about that. She was always so upright. She thought it was a secret. Even I’m not meant to know.’

  ‘Didn’t I ever tell you that it was Goldie who commissioned me to paint her?’ asked Ninian.

  Lexie was reluctant to go. ‘If she sees me at the funeral, she’ll think I’m making a point. She’ll think I’m only there because of her connection with him… She hasn’t spoken to me for years, you know that.’

  Ninian paused in his tie knotting. ‘He was a good man. They loved each other and she’s your half sister. She’s going to need support today.’

  * * *

  Lizzie, with Charlie at her side, sat stiffly in her pew at the Steeple Church. Around her spread row upon row of dark-clothed mourners. They were whispering among themselves as they waited for the arrival of the cortège.

  A murmur swept the crowd when it was seen that Goldie’s wife was not among the family group that preceded the coffin. His grim-faced daughters walked at the head of the procession on the arms of their male cousins. Both of the girls looked haggard and ageing. Their bloom was over. They were settled into spinsterhood, prisoners of their mother who did not even know who they were any longer.

  Lizzie sat with her head high and her eyes blank. Her whole body ached with an unaccountable pain; her stomach felt like a heavy stone beneath her ribs and her heart actually hurt when she breathed. She was light-headed because she had not been able to eat for three days and the sorrow that preyed on her was like a heavy shawl weighing her down. When she looked up at the church’s rose window which she knew to be a glory of stained glass – blue, green, red and yellow – she saw it in black and white.

  She could not weep. She could hardly speak. She clung to her son’s hand and when the coffin was carried up the aisle, he looked anxiously at her.

  Goldie’s coffin looked enormous. Was he really inside there? Were his hands with the gold signet ring on the little finger of the left one folded on his breast? Were his eyes closed? Did he look the way he did when he was asleep beside her in Gowan Bank?

  A silent shriek of agony sliced through her brain and she closed her eyes, unable to look any longer at his coffin lying stark and bare before the altar table. She heard little of the service and when the congregation stood at the end, she swayed so much that Charlie had to support her. Leaning on him she emerged into the daylight, oblivious to the curious looks of people who knew or had guessed about her relationship with Goldie.

  ‘Do you want to go to the graveyard?’ he asked, but she shook her head.

  ‘I couldn’t bear it,’ she whispered.

  They were turning to leave when Ninian Sutherland stepped out of the throng and took Lizzie’s hands between his with a look of genuine sympathy on his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all he said.

  Lizzie’s eyes glittered with tears as she looked up at him. ‘He liked you,’ she said. ‘He said you’re a great painter. He had excellent taste.’

  Behind the young man stood Lexie, who found herself moved to tears by Lizzie’s ravaged face. Forgetting the rift between them she stepped forward and kissed her sister’s cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Lizzie,’ she whispered, ‘I’m sorry about everything.’

  ‘Don’t, don’t,’ said Lizzie, patting Lexie’s face with her gloved hand. ‘Don’t talk about it, please.’

  Ninian and Lexie watched as Charlie helped her to their car. From the back she looked like an old woman.

  * * *

  Jane’s baby, born a few days later, was a daughter. They decided to call her Olivia.

  * * *

  After Goldie’s funeral Lizzie fell ill and for the first time in her business life she did not go to work for many weeks.

  Dr McLaren attended her. The adjective ‘young’ could no longer be applied to him because his hair was grey and his son was taking up the reins of the practice in preparation for his father’s retirement.

  ‘It’s strange. I was your father’s patient first, then yours and now your son comes to see me as well,’ said Lizzie one day when both McLarens looked in on her.

  ‘Time passes,’ said the third Dr McLaren, who was lacking in humour. His face was solemn as he contemplated the patient.

  ‘What’s the matter with me, Doctor? I feel so tired all the time and I’ve such a dreadful cough,’ she said.

  She had been prone to colds for several years but this winter the cough had become much worse and nothing would cure it.

  ‘Dundee’s a bad place for coughs,’ said the youngest Dr McLaren. ‘You’re suffering from the same thing as the mill workers. You’ve spent too long in your jute mill, Mrs Kinge.’

  She smiled ruefully.

  He went on, ‘You’ll have to take things quietly and not work so hard. Perhaps you could have a holiday somewhere in the sun.’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t want a holiday
. There’s nowhere I want to go. I’ve lived all my life in Dundee and I expect I’ll die here.’

  Before he left the house, the senior McLaren sought out Maggy and said, ‘Keep her quiet. Her heart’s weak and the jute’s affected her chest. Don’t let her work too hard and call me if there’s anything that worries you.’

  When Maggy told this to Charlie he was devastated.

  ‘I’ll take her out and keep her amused. I’ll bring the baby over to see her,’ he promised.

  He was as good as his word. Lizzie took a touching delight in little Olivia but Jane did not enjoy visiting Tay Lodge and often Charlie came visiting alone. Occasionally he persuaded his mother to go to the cinema with him and they sat through films with Fred Astaire, Mary Pickford and occasionally Charlie Chaplin, though he did not greatly appeal to either of them. The picture Lizzie most enjoyed was Blossoms in the Dust with Greer Garson. She wept copiously through it and when they emerged after the showing she said to Charlie, ‘Wasn’t she like Lexie? Her living image, I thought.’

  * * *

  One day when the sun was shining brilliandy Lizzie asked her son, ‘Will you drive me out to Gowan Bank? I’ve not been there since Goldie died.’

  It was a silent journey and when they arrived at the house it looked smaller than she remembered. A winter’s neglect had left it looking bleak and unloved. The paint was peeling, the garden a riot of weeds and the little wicket gate had been blown off its hinges in the autumn gales.

  She stood in the porch and stared around with an expression of despair.

  ‘I can’t go in,’ she said, but Charlie turned the key in the lock and pushed the door wide open.

  ‘Try, Mother,’ he urged.

  The memories came crowding into her mind as she walked from room to room. Gossip had raged about Goldie’s business affairs after his death. People said he was in a bad way financially and they hinted that he might have jumped off the deck of his ship into the dock.

  Lizzie walked around the sitting room pausing in front of favourite pictures and lifting dead flowers from dry vases. All at once she turned to Charlie and said, ‘He didn’t jump. He was far too brave for that.’

  Her son only nodded. In sudden weakness she sat down in Goldie’s chair and started to weep. The tears flowed like a torrent from her. There was nothing Charlie could do to console her or stop her crying. For what seemed like an age she sobbed and choked while he stood impotently at her side, but eventually her mourning ended and she looked up at him with swollen eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve wanted to cry like that for a long time. The tears have been all inside me. Letting them out has helped. I feel better somehow.’

  He found a bottle of brandy tucked away in the back of a cupboard and poured out two glasses. When she had drunk hers she stood up and said, ‘Let’s go home, Charlie.’

  At the doorway she paused and looked back into the house she had loved so much. ‘What am I going to do with it? I don’t want to sell it but I won’t ever come back here again,’ she said quietly.

  ‘It can’t be left empty for ever. It’s a waste of a good house,’ said her son.

  She nodded and frowned before she said, ‘I can’t bear to sell it. I’ll have to think about it. Lock the door, Charlie.’

  On their return journey to Dundee, she suddenly said, ‘Take me to my lawyer in Reform Street – you know where it is.’

  Her legal adviser was surprised to see her but she seemed brisk and businesslike. Without too much preamble she launched into the object of her visit. ‘Do you know anything about how Mr Johanson’s wife and daughters are placed now that he’s dead?’

  The lawyer’s voice was solemn. ‘Not too well, I’m afraid. Monte Bello is on the market. There’s not much money left and the mother needs a great deal of attention. The girls are very worried.’

  ‘How much would it take to make them comfortable? Is it possible to keep Monte Bello?’

  ‘I’d have to ask their own lawyer, but he’s a friend of mine and he’d tell me in confidence. However, from what I do know, I shouldn’t think keeping Monte Bello would be advisable. The place costs a fortune in upkeep. Leave it with me and I’ll find out how things stand.’

  Next day she received a telephone call. Goldie’s family’s situation was serious but not insoluble. The girls had a modest income though not enough for them to live in. The demands of their mother, who needed day and night nursing, were however a serious drain on their resources.

  Lizzie instructed her lawyer, ‘I want to settle ten thousand pounds on the Johansons. Put it in safe securities. They don’t need to know where it’s come from. Tell them it was money due to their father. That’s true in a way. I owe far more than that to Mr Johanson.’

  A few months later a buyer was found for Monte Bello – although again at a pitiful price – and the girls moved with their mother and her nurses to a smaller but still imposing house in Broughty Ferry where they lived in comfort and with the respect of their neighbours. A year after her husband’s death, Mrs Johanson died suddenly from a brain haemorrhage and her daughters took the body back to Archangel for burial. Her heart had always been in Russia, they explained.

  * * *

  While she was recovering her strength, Lizzie spent a good deal of time in her gardens. She was amazed at the loveliness that had been blossoming under her nose almost unnoticed for so many years. The immense herbaceous borders were full of colour – blue delphiniums, white madonna lilies that smelt intoxicating and were planted in clumps among pink spiraea, yellow golden rod and scarlet geraniums. She crossed the velvet lawns with the head gardener and asked him the names of the flowers, especially the roses which made a glory of Tay Lodge’s garden. They climbed over the sun-warmed walls and tumbled down pergolas above her head as she walked along exclaiming over their height.

  ‘I’ve never seen those flowers before. Are they new?’ she cried in delight, bending down to inhale the delicious smell of clove pinks.

  ‘They’ve aye been here,’ said the gardener slowly.

  I’ve been too busy working to notice, she told herself. Green Tree Mill did not worry her so much now. It was surviving though trade was slow. At one time a downturn in trade would have driven her frantic, but now it no longer seemed to matter. Her zest for the cut-throat fight had disappeared.

  Chapter 32

  The plume of purple smoke that rose into the pale blue sky of a summer day startled Dundee. People paused in the street and looked up at it with disquiet. ‘One of the mills has gone up,’ they said to each other.

  Lizzie was sitting in the sun on the terrace where she and Mr Adams had spent so many hours. Before her spread the river and she was happy to realize that looking at it no longer filled her with fear. Its menace had disappeared.

  The gardener came hurrying up to tell her, ‘Ane o’ the mills has gone up. It’s no’ Green Tree, though. It’s too far ower the hill for that. The car’s gone out to find out which it is.’

  Lexie was in the union office on Shore Terrace discussing the arrangements for a forthcoming political rally when a lad came rushing in shouting, ‘There’s a big fire up at Coffin Mill. The whole place has gone up.’

  When she ran into the street, she could see crowds of people hurrying up the hill towards the mill district. A scarlet fire engine rushed past her, men clinging to its sides, its brass bell clanging. A pall of smoke rose above the closely clustering roofs in front of her. She knew most of the women in Coffin Mill, and Bertha worked there. Seized with a deep foreboding, she began to run and kept on running although her lungs felt like splitting and there was a stabbing pain in her side.

  Coffin Mill stood at the end of a grim cul-de-sac which was full of people, milling around with blackened faces. A few were being supported by their friends because they were burned on their arms and legs. Lexie did not wait to ask questions but fought her way to the front of the crowd which was gazing up at the bleak mill building. Some of the watchers were pointing at a line of tiny windo
ws set close together at the top of the wall under the eaves.

  Lexie’s eyes followed the pointing fingers and she gave a gasp when she saw a white face appear at one of the windows. A hand was thrust out. It waved frantically and a gasp of horror swept the crowd.

  ‘There she is, oh poor soul! Oh my God, she can’t get out.’

  With a sickening lurch in her stomach Lexie saw that all the windows were barred with thick iron staves. A group of firemen were attempting to raise a ladder while others directed a hose of water at the flames which were beginning to burst through the shattered glass at one end of the roof. A policeman was holding back the crowd and she struggled towards him. Like everyone else his eyes were on the barred window.

  ‘What’s happening. Who’s in there?’ Lexie asked abruptly.

  The policeman knew her. ‘Oh, it’s you, Lexie. When the fire broke out some wifie went back in for her purse. Another lassie ran in after her to try to get her out. They haven’t come back.’

  Lexie felt faint. Any mill disaster always made her furiously angry. ‘Who are they? Do you know their names?’

  He nodded. ‘One’s a woman called Ida Brown.’

  Lexie nodded. ‘I know her – a widow woman with a houseful of bairns. Was she the one who lost her purse?’

  ‘Yes. She shouted something about the bairns going hungry if she didn’t find it.’

  ‘Who’s the other one?’

  The policeman looked at her with pity in his face. ‘It’s your Bertha, Lexie.’

  Then he put out a strong arm to hold her back because she too was likely to plunge into the chaos of the burning mill. ‘Stand still, lassie,’ he ordered. ‘You cannae do anything. Leave it to the men.’

  At that point the crowd shuddered visibly because a cry for help was heard from the barred window near the roof. Only when it stopped did the crowd react by sobbing.