by Emma Fraser
He shook his head. ‘They would. But strikes are last resorts, Margaret. I’ll not bring the men out, have them suffer weeks without pay, because of something that is between your father and me.’
And then she was in his arms, the warmth of his breath on her neck as he drew her tight against him, holding her as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.
‘What will you do now?’ she murmured into his chest.
He pressed his lips against her hair before pushing her gently away from him so that he could look at her. ‘I’ve got two arms and two legs, haven’t I?’ He laughed. ‘I’ll find another job and another firm to take me on. Your father doesn’t own the whole of Glasgow, you know.’
However, it seemed her father wasn’t content with destroying Alasdair and his future, but hers too. When she returned to the hospital that evening she was summoned into Dr Quigley’s office. The older doctor was unusually sombre – even for her.
‘Please take a seat, Dr Bannatyne.’
There was no offer of tea, no friendly how are you getting on?
‘I’m afraid that the board of governors are to meet to discuss terminating your employment at the hospital.’
Margaret’s stomach knotted. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my work, is there?’
‘On the contrary, you have the makings of a fine doctor.’
‘Then why?’ she asked, although in her heart she already knew.
‘Your father is a major contributor to the hospital. He says unless the hospital dispense with your services, he’ll withdraw his subscription. I understand one of the committee – Mrs Waterstone – is a close friend of his. It is she who raised the motion.’
Margaret’s heart sank. ‘Mrs Waterstone and my father have been friends for years, that’s true.’
‘Why on earth would your father exert pressure on the board to have you removed from the staff?’
‘He and I have had a disagreement.’
‘It must have been a serious one for him to take the line he has. Do you feel able to tell me what it is about?’
‘Nothing more than my courting someone he doesn’t approve of.’
‘Is that all? Are you quite certain? Has there been any other impropriety I should know about? As you’ll appreciate, we have every right to insist that the doctors working here have the highest moral standards.’
‘I can assure you – apart from seeing someone my parents don’t approve of and perhaps the sin of keeping it from them longer than I should have, I have done nothing wrong.’ She was mortified and furious in equal measure. How could Father do this to her? It was unforgivable of him. If he thought she would capitulate and give up Alasdair then he didn’t know her at all. Her mind ran on. She would have to find another post. The Asylum was the obvious choice. They were always looking for doctors and as far as she knew her father wasn’t a subscriber. She could apply for a resident position which would mean she could live in. Mental illness wasn’t the area of medicine she wanted to pursue but if it came to a choice between that and giving up medicine altogether, she would take whatever she could get.
‘I don’t wish to leave, but I see you have no choice but to let me go,’ Margaret continued, rising to her feet. ‘I have patients I need to pass on to someone before I leave but I shall see to that immediately.’
‘Please, sit down, Margaret,’ Dr Quigley said, using her Christian name for the first time. ‘I haven’t agreed to let you go. I have no liking to be told what I may or may not do in my hospital, no matter how powerful or how rich the man.’
‘What about the hospital committee? Won’t they have the final say?’
‘Yes. They will. But the committee is made up of thirty determined women, the majority of whom are either doctors at this hospital or who refer patients here. They, like me, are tired of being told what they can and cannot do. Many of them served during the war and proved themselves to be excellent doctors – at least as good as any man. Yet when the war was over, and even now, posts that they once held have been taken from them and given to their male colleagues. Not everyone feels this is unjust, but there are many who do. I believe that when it’s put to the vote, common sense and justice will prevail.’
Margaret felt a tiny flicker of hope. ‘But what about the loss of his subscription? Knowing my father, it will be substantial.’
‘Do you remember Mrs Little?’
Margaret was unlikely to forget the lady with the uterine prolapse she’d seen near the beginning of her time at Redlands. The wife of a landowner, she’d been too embarrassed to visit her usual physician and had been suffering for years unnecessarily. Margaret had sorted her problem easily and saw her at home every few weeks to check her pessary was still holding things in place.
When Margaret nodded, Dr Quigley continued. ‘She’s a good friend of mine. I took the liberty of speaking to her about you. I don’t know what you did for her,’ she held up her hand although Margaret had no intention of breaking her patient’s confidence, ‘and I don’t want to know, but whatever it was she certainly took a shine to you. She’s like me. She doesn’t care to be bullied. She has offered to compensate for any funds your father might withdraw and to add some more besides. Don’t worry, she’s rich enough not to notice.’
Margaret swallowed the hard lump she had in her throat. The kindness of the women was unexpected. They might be doing it partly to stand up to her father, but for them to even think of it was so much more than anyone could have asked.
‘I don’t know how to thank you and the committee – or Mrs Little.’
‘My dear, carry on working as hard as you have been. That’s all the thanks any of us want.’
Chapter 13
Although she still had a job, despite his confidence Alasdair didn’t find a solicitors’ firm prepared to take him on when he qualified. Margaret was certain her father had something to do with that too. Neither was Alasdair able to find another shipyard to hire him as a riveter; instead he was forced to take a job down at the docks as a labourer. Unfortunately an ordinary labourer earned far less than a time-served tradesman, so Alasdair had to work double shifts just to pay his board and lodgings. On top of everything he still had to find the time to study for his law exams.
It made the little time they were able to spend together doubly precious. They spent most of it in his flat, her reading while he pored over his books, until inevitably he would look up, grin and pull her into his arms as they tumbled onto his bed. When the weather was fine, they walked in their usual haunt, the Botanic Gardens. Whenever she tried to treat him to even a cup of tea he would shake his head. Sometimes they visited Mairi and Toni. Unlikely as it had seemed only a few months ago, she and Mairi had become friends. Mairi knew Margaret and Alasdair were together but if she also suspected they were lovers, she never said. Occasionally Alasdair would bring his fiddle with him, and she always knew by the way he held her eyes when he was playing just for her. She would return his gaze, letting the haunting music envelop her, her heart lifting and falling depending on what he played.
Except the last time they were there, she noticed that he played a borrowed a fiddle instead of his own. She waited until he was walking her back to the hospital before she asked about it.
‘I lent mine to a friend,’ he’d replied, not meeting her eyes.
She felt a pulse of anger. ‘Don’t lie to me, Alasdair. If you start lying to me, then what we have together means nothing.’
‘Ssshhh! Keep your voice down! We don’t want the whole of the West End to hear, do we?’
‘I don’t give a fig about anyone else!’ She stopped and put her hands on her hips. ‘I’m not moving another inch until you tell me where it is.’
He gave her that slow smile that always made her heart melt. ‘I always knew you were a stubborn woman, Margaret Bannatyne. Very well, then. If you must know, I sold it.’
Her chest tightened. She should have known. It had been her birthday the week before and he’d treated her to dinner in a smart caf�
�, explaining that his sudden rise in means was from working some extra shifts on a building site.
She knew he had his pride, she just never realised how much. ‘Oh, Alasdair! It was your father’s fiddle, your most treasured possession.’
Fire burned in his eyes. ‘No,’ he said softly, ‘you’re the most precious thing in my life and nothing and no one matters more to me.’ He stepped towards her and cupped her face in his hands. ‘One day, I promise you, I’ll be making enough money to afford to buy a dozen fiddles just like it.’
‘But what of your dream of becoming a lawyer? What if you can’t find a firm to take you on?’
The light in his eyes burned brighter. ‘Don’t give up on me, Margaret.’
‘That will never happen – not in a thousand years.’ She grabbed his shirt and pulled him towards her. ‘As long as you promise that you’ll never give up on me.’
‘I could no more do that than cut off my arm.’
‘In that case, you idiot, kiss me.’
They agreed to wait to get married until after he’d passed his law exams and secured a permanent position as a solicitor’s assistant. Even though her time at Redlands was almost at an end, Margaret had gone to see Dr Quigley to tell her of her impending nuptials and to ask whether the board would see fit to keep her on until that time. To her surprise Dr Quigley had been warm in her congratulations. ‘This country needs couples to marry and have children,’ she’d said, clasping Margaret’s hands. ‘We lost so many young men during the war that it’s important to bring new life into this world again.’ The second surprise was when the board of directors agreed to extend her contract for a few more months. At least she’d be able to put aside some money for her and Alasdair’s future together.
When Alasdair passed his exams and with marks so exceptionally high that he found a firm of solicitors who were delighted to take him on, they happily set a date for their wedding. It was a small affair. Margaret had written to her parents informing them that Alasdair was now a qualified solicitor and that they were marrying. She added that she hoped they would attend their wedding. When there was no reply, Margaret had to accept that they would not come. In the end there was only Lillian and Charles, now her husband, Dr Quigley and one or two of the nurses from Redlands as well as Toni and Mairi and a couple of Alasdair’s friends from the shipyard. Despite the small number of guests, Alasdair had insisted they marry in church. ‘It won’t feel right,’ he’d said, ‘unless we marry in God’s house.’
Her dress was a simple cream gown embellished with lace round the neckline. Lillian had insisted she borrow her diamanté tiara and she’d worn it with a small veil and the necklace her parents had given her on her eighteenth birthday. Alasdair wore the new suit he’d bought to celebrate securing a position as a fully qualified solicitor. She thought he’d never looked more handsome.
As she walked down the aisle on Charles’s arm she wished it could have been her father giving her away. It should have been her father.
However, she refused to let her parents’ absence spoil her happiness. When she stood next to Alasdair at the front of the church, it was with absolute certainty that she would give up anything and everyone to be with this man.
After the service was over, they went to an inexpensive hotel restaurant to have lunch. Alasdair had booked a cottage on the west coast for a few days but they’d be spending their first night as man and wife in the flat they’d found together in Garnethill and where they were to start their married life. It was more than they could really afford – with two bedrooms as well as a large kitchen, a separate sitting room, and an indoor bathroom with hot and cold running water. He’d also insisted they employ a daily and Margaret had quickly hired the services of Peggy, an older woman who had a kindly face and who had once worked as a maid at Redlands.
‘My earnings can only improve with time,’ Alasdair had said, when she’d queried whether they could afford it all. ‘Might as well start how we mean to go on. In a few years I expect to have enough saved to buy our own place.’
They were going to try for a baby immediately (Alasdair wanted five, she thought two was enough, so they settled on three) and with this in mind, Margaret hadn’t taken on any new patients over the last few weeks. She would continue to look after the women who were already booked under her to have their babies but as they delivered, her case load would naturally dwindle to nothing. She had every intention, however, of returning to work as soon as the children were old enough and while she was at home she planned to keep up to date with medical advances.
After their wedding breakfast they took a taxi cab to their new home, which was on the top floor of a red sandstone tenement in Garnethill. At the foot of the stairs, Alasdair scooped her into his arms.
‘You can’t carry me all the way up!’ Margaret protested.
‘I can – and will – carry you to the ends of the earth if I need to.’
However, he was breathing deeply by the time he reached their front door. He put her down so he could retrieve the front door key from the pocket of his waistcoat, and once it was unlocked, he’d picked her up again and carried her over the threshold, kissing her thoroughly before placing her back on her feet. ‘Whew, Mrs Morrison, I think you might have to lose a few pounds.’
She laughed and looked around their new home. Peggy had laid a fire in the grate and it still burned brightly. There were flowers in the vase on the table and another small bunch on the mantelpiece. Her trunk had been sent on to the flat a week earlier and Peggy had unpacked all her belongings. Very little of her old life was in that trunk; only the things she’d taken with her to Redlands: some clothes, her coat with its fur-trimmed collar, three hats and her silk underwear. Everything else, apart from what she was wearing, had been left behind at her parents’ homes with only the tiniest frisson of regret. Where would she wear her evening frocks and furs anyway?
She took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom. She’d asked Peggy to leave her purchase in the bottom drawer of the bureau and now she bent down to retrieve it. When she held the fiddle out to Alasdair a slow, disbelieving smile crossed his face.
‘I promised myself I’d get it back for you,’ she whispered.
‘The same one?’ He looked incredulous.
‘It took me a while to find it, but I did eventually. The pawn shop had sold it on already and the new owner wasn’t keen to part with it. Luckily I persuaded him.’ She didn’t say he’d only agreed to sell it back to her at twice what he’d originally paid. Although it had cost her almost the equivalent of a month’s salary, it was worth every penny to see the look in her husband’s eyes.
He took the fiddle from her and caressed the wooden instrument with gentle fingers. Then he picked up the bow and, holding her gaze, played the same tune he had the day they’d met again in the bar. After the last notes died away he placed the fiddle back in its case, turned to Margaret and looked at her with soft grey eyes. ‘I still can’t believe that God blessed me with you. You could have had anyone and everything you ever wanted yet you chose me.’
‘You are all I ever wanted. I would live on bread and water for the rest of my life as long as I could be with you.’
He gripped her by the shoulders. ‘It will take time and I doubt I’ll ever be as rich as your father, but I promise I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy.’
‘Oh, my darling, I’m already the happiest woman on earth,’ she said, stepping into his arms.
Elizabeth Elspeth Morrison was born one cold and wintry January morning in Redlands Hospital. Dr Quigley insisted on it. As soon as her daughter wrapped her tiny hand around Margaret’s finger, she knew she had fallen in love for the second time in her life. It made it all the harder to understand how her parents, her mother especially, could continue to stay away from their only child. There was nothing Elizabeth could ever do that would make Margaret turn from her. She’d written to her parents again, telling them about the birth of their grandchild, but once more th
ere was only silence in return.
But she had a new family now and it was to them she owed her time and energy. She threw herself into motherhood, putting all thoughts of her parents firmly behind her, and after a longer wait than she and Alasdair had expected, James Fletcher Sebastian was born almost three years after Elizabeth.
Margaret loved being a mother. Sometimes, as her children slept, she would sit and watch them, willing them to wake up soon so that she could hold them in her arms again. At times, however, when the children were sleeping and Alasdair was at work, she felt restless, as if something was missing. She adored her small family, knew she was the luckiest woman in the world, but deep down she still wanted to be more than Alasdair Morrison’s wife and Elizabeth and James’s mother. She wanted to be Margaret again. Dr Morrison. That, however, would have to wait until the children were older and attending school. In the meantime she kept up to date with the latest medical journals, paying a shilling or two to attend lectures at the Western Infirmary and sometimes leaving the children in Peggy’s care so she could go to Govan and see as many as she could of those who were sick and didn’t have the money for a doctor.