by Emma Fraser
The maid let her into the house. It no longer felt like home – it hadn’t for a while. Nevertheless, as the familiar smells of beeswax assailed her nostrils, she felt a pang of longing for her childhood so intense it almost took her breath away.
‘Oh, Miss Margaret, it is good to see you. We never thought someone would manage to get word to you.’ Betty said, taking her coat.
‘Word to me? About what?’
‘About your father. Him being sick.’
‘My father is sick?’ Only then did she remember what Dr Sinclair had said about her father being too unwell to receive him. Surely he couldn’t still be ill?
‘The master is very poorly, Miss. Madam is with him now. Shall I let her know you are here?’
‘No. I’ll just go up.’ She took the stairs two at a time, pausing to catch her breath outside her father’s bedroom door, before knocking and marching straight in.
The curtains were closed and it took a while for Margaret’s eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness. Her mother was by her father’s bed, sewing by the light of an oil lamp.
‘Margaret!’ she murmured, placing her embroidery aside and rising. ‘My dear. It is so good to see you, so good of you to come. How did you know?’ She took Margaret’s hands in hers and kissed her on both cheeks. It was as if she’d only seen Margaret a couple of days earlier and that all that had happened was only a figment of Margaret’s imagination.
‘How is he?’ Margaret asked, removing her gloves.
‘I’m not dead yet. I can still speak for myself.’ The voice came from the bed. Softer, quieter, less forceful than she remembered, but still with that unmistakable ring of authority.
She crossed to his side and looked down at him. He was far thinner than he’d been the last time she’d seen him, his grey skin stretched across the bones of his face. Lying in bed he looked smaller, almost vulnerable, and the anger she’d nursed towards him for so long faded. She’d thought she’d shout at him – pummel his chest with her fists – scream at him. Now all she felt was a detached pity.
‘How are you, Father?’
A spasm of coughing prevented him from answering for a while. ‘You’re the doctor. You tell me.’
She took his wrist in her hand and felt for a pulse. It was weak and rapid. Judging by her father’s flushed cheeks and over-bright eyes he had a fever too. ‘What does your doctor say?’
‘Bloody fool says I’ve bronchial pneumonia.’
‘I suspect he’s right.’
‘Says there’s nothing to be done. I’ll either survive it or I won’t.’
‘He’s correct there too.’
‘He also says your father has a tumour on his lung,’ Margaret’s mother whispered. ‘He doesn’t think he has more than a year, if that.’
Margaret absorbed the news for a few moments. Her father had cancer. It would kill him if the pneumonia didn’t.
‘Where is my grandson? Is he here?’
So no mention of Elizabeth, then. Her father might be dangerously ill, but he hadn’t changed.
‘They are in a safe place. Where you can’t get to them.’
A spasm of coughing kept him from speaking for several minutes. ‘For God’s sake, Margaret, bring them to me. Do you really intend to keep my grandson from me, even now? When you know I’m dying?’
‘I know what you did, Father.’
‘What are you talking about, girl?’
‘I know you arranged to have evidence suppressed that would have helped free Alasdair and I suspect you paid Johnston to do the same.’
‘I warned you I would if you didn’t sign the children over to me.’
‘Then you admit it?’
‘What difference does it make now?’
So she was right! Until this moment she hadn’t been certain. A wave of hot anger washed over her. ‘Alasdair could have hung! He was innocent – and you knew that!’ Her pulse was beating hard in her throat. ‘You separated him from me and the children for no reason. Was there no limit to your wickedness?’ She was shaking so much she could barely speak. ‘But you’ve lost, Father. Despite everything, you have lost. Alasdair can prove his innocence beyond doubt. Nothing you or anyone else can do will prevent that from happening.’
Her father’s expression hadn’t changed. ‘So what did bring you here? Did you hear I was dying and decided to come crawling back looking for your inheritance?’
‘You know me better than that, Father. I don’t want your money.’
He shook his head. ‘You’ve always been a fool. But despite your foolhardiness, you’ve always managed to get what you want, haven’t you? You have a lot more Bannatyne in you than you care to think. In other circumstances you might have been a worthy successor for the business.’
‘If I’d been born a man, you mean?’
A glimmer of a smile crossed his face. ‘You’re tougher than many men. If your fool husband had agreed to my offer of a job, you could have been running Bannatyne’s alongside him.’
‘Is that all you can say? No apology? You should be getting down on your knees begging my and Alasdair’s forgiveness.’
Her father didn’t reply. Not even being within touching distance of death would make him admit he was wrong.
‘Bring me the boy,’ he grunted.
‘You can see him soon. You can see them both. When I decide the time is right.’
Her father struggled into a sitting position. ‘God damn it. I want to see James Fletcher now!’
‘When you’ve recovered from your fever. Not before. And,’ she warned, ‘I’ll be bringing Elizabeth to see you too. She is not to feel as if she is of no consequence. So you’ll pay her attention or I’ll remove both children immediately and won’t allow you to see them again. I’ll be with them all the time to make sure.’
If possible her father’s face flushed an even deeper red. Then he gave a small laugh. ‘As I thought. Underneath you’re not so different to me, after all.’
A few moments later, her father’s eyes closed and Margaret and her mother stepped out of the room and into the drawing room next door. ‘You will bring the children to see us?’ Margaret’s mother asked. ‘I long to see them again.’
‘I never wanted them to grow up not knowing you. But you made your choice. You must have known that Father intended to have them live with you – that he intended to take custody of them. How could you have agreed?’
‘You think your father asked my opinion? He hasn’t done for years.’
‘Why do you let him treat you the way he does? Why did you never stand up to him? You could have divorced him – people do these days, you know. It’s not as if you mix enough with society to give a fig if they ostracised you.’
Her mother flushed. ‘Do you really think it would have been that easy? I have no money of my own and no means of earning it. If I had left your father I would have been destitute – and he would never have allowed me to see you children.’
‘But you could have left when we were grown up. He couldn’t have stopped us from seeing you if we chose.’
Margaret’s mother sank into a chair. ‘I loved your father once. He wasn’t always like this. Oh, he was always determined to succeed, always used to getting what he wanted – not so different to your young man. But when the boys were killed something in your father died too. Something died in both of us. All the joy went out of life. We’d lost both our sons. Life could never be the same after that. The world is endlessly grey without them and I, for one, look forward to the day when I can join them.’
A memory came flooding back. They’d been in Helensburgh. Fletcher and Sebastian had still been alive. It was the long, hot summer just before the war. Although on the cusp of becoming a woman she’d still been a child – the protected, loved and spoilt only daughter. Back then they couldn’t imagine the bloodbath that was to come. Instead, there was an air of excitement – everything and everyone seemed more alive, more vital. Her father had taken a rare day off work and they’d all gone out
on her father’s boat, sailing it across to Largs, Fletcher and Sebastian shouldering each other out of the way as they took turns at the helm. She remembered sunshine, a picnic, bees, happiness. She, Sebastian and Fletcher had swum in the sea while her parents had watched benevolently. It was the last time she could remember her mother being happy. The last time she could remember them all being together.
‘You still had me,’ Margaret whispered. ‘I missed Fletcher and Sebastian too.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I’ll always miss them.’
Her mother’s eyes glistened. ‘You were always such a happy, self-contained child. You didn’t seem to need anyone or anything.’
But she had. When her brothers had died she’d needed her mother just like her own children needed her.
‘I have no right to expect you to forgive me,’ her mother continued. ‘I’ve let you down – I know that. I should have been a better mother to you. I wanted to be – I just couldn’t.’ She looked at Margaret, her face wet with tears. ‘I wish our lives could have been different. If I could change the past I would. Please give me the chance to make amends now.’
Margaret’s heart softened. How could she refuse? There had been more than enough bitterness.
Over the next few days Margaret took turns with her mother by her father’s bedside. There was little either of them could do except try to lower his fever with cold cloths and aspirin. She sent her father’s chauffeur for the children and Dolina and soon they too, wide-eyed and a little dubious, were ensconced in her parents’ house.
Eventually the fever broke and her father began to recover. It would, Margaret knew, be only a short reprieve. Although she doubted she could ever forgive him, she couldn’t bring herself to keep the children from him. Not when he didn’t have long left.
At first they were stiff with him, a little fearful. But as the days passed and they spent longer with him, to Margaret’s surprise, the children quickly overcame their initial awe of her father and he kept to his side of the bargain, directing the odd question to Elizabeth and apparently listening attentively to her answer. While Elizabeth remained wary of him, James Fletcher, with his usual indiscriminate affection for anyone who was kind to him, adored him. He would sit up next to him on the bed and demand to be read to. Whenever her father stopped, he would bossily insist that he carry on.
But if James was her father’s clear favourite, Elizabeth was Margaret’s mother’s. The change in her mother was astonishing and if Margaret hadn’t seen it for herself she would never have believed it. Gone were the pallor and listlessness she’d come to associate with her mother over the last years. Instead was a middle-aged woman full of vigour. It was as if whatever life was leaking out of Margaret’s father had found its way into her mother, reinvigorating her.
She no longer spent time in Helensburgh and, even more surprisingly, retreated to her room only for a short nap after lunch. Then she would rise and insist on taking the children for a walk in the Botanic Gardens, sometimes accompanied by Margaret, sometimes on her own. Margaret knew that it was largely due to Elizabeth and James’ demanding, amusing and loving presences constantly around her.
This is how it should have been, Margaret thought. The children should have always had the love and affection of their grandparents.
But, despite a softening in her father’s attitude, Margaret couldn’t quite forgive him, was still wary of him. She doubted that the hurt, mistrust and anger she felt whenever she looked at him would ever truly disappear.
In the meantime, reassured that her father wasn’t in immediate danger of dying, she took the children to visit Mairi and Toni. They spent a couple of happy hours together before Margaret and the children took their leave. She wanted to see Peggy too.
Her old servant and her mother were delighted to see her, and Peggy scooped the children into her arms, soaking them with her tears. Mrs McQuarrie had deteriorated in the time Margaret had been away and Margaret knew that she, like her father, was not long for the world.
Before they left, Peggy thrust a letter into her hand. ‘This came to the flat a few days after you left when I was still settling things. I didn’t know where to send it so I kept it with me.’
The letter was addressed to Mr and Mrs Morrison although Margaret didn’t recognise the handwriting. She opened it to find a banker’s draft for fifty pounds and a letter. She and Alasdair, the letter read, were now shareholders in a fast-developing pharmaceutical company. This was their first dividend, and the writer – a Mr Jack Winter – anticipated that there would be many more to follow. He thanked Alasdair once again for loaning him the money that he’d invested in the company. ‘We’re putting most of the profit back into research. As a shareholder I’m sure you’ll agree that’s best. I am looking forward to showing you what we are doing and should you manage to come to New York I’d be delighted to see you.’
She should have had more confidence in Alasdair’s investment. If only this letter had come six months ago, how different everything might have been.
The following afternoon, when her mother had taken the children shopping for new clothes – she’d been aghast at the children’s wardrobe – and Margaret was sitting by her father’s bedside, he cleared his throat.
‘I’ll not live to see the summer.’ He gave her a sly smile. ‘You do know that James Fletcher will still get everything.’
‘He’s only a boy.’
‘Which is why I’ve made you executor!’ There was a note of triumph in her father’s voice. ‘You can’t turn your back on Bannatyne’s now.’
‘I know nothing about running a shipyard, Father. Even if I had any interest in doing so.’
‘The shipyard needs to continue. We’ll be even richer if war comes.’ He dropped his voice. ‘There will be more jobs than ever before for the people of Govan. Let the shipyard go into decline and you’ll be doing them out of a livelihood. I can’t imagine that’s what you want.’
‘Still determined to get your way, Father? Who is running it now?’
‘Ferguson. He does all right, but he has no imagination. Besides, he’s not getting any younger either. The firm needs new blood.’
‘Then find a new manager. There’s bound to be someone amongst your thousands of employees.’
‘No one I can trust as much as family.’
‘You of all people have no right to talk of trust.’
‘That husband of yours can run things.’
‘He could, whether he would want to is another matter.’
She turned her back on her father. Fat blobs of snow slid down the window pane. She watched the people hurrying to get back home. A tram trundled along the road, stopping to pick up passengers. A man stood on the street holding out his hands in the universal sign of want and a few feet along from him was another. There were many more just like them – women too – on the streets of Glasgow. The people of Govan and beyond needed the work the shipyard could bring. She and Alasdair could yet do a great deal of good. Bannatyne’s under their control could make so much difference to so many lives.
She turned away from the window and towards her father. ‘I will speak to Alasdair. But this is how it is going to be. If Alasdair wants to be involved in the shipyard then you will sign over full control of your businesses to him and to me. You will have no more to do with any of it.’
‘Over my dead body.’
‘It is your choice, Father. But believe me when I say it will be the only way Bannatyne’s will continue and prosper.’
Chapter 43
Margaret sat in her position at the front of the public gallery, nibbling her lower lip. Under her gloves her hands were perspiring. It had been just over three months since she’d seen him, and she’d changed. So would he have. A man couldn’t spend time in prison in fear for his life and not be affected.
And despite Firth and Alasdair’s confidence, it could all still go wrong. Boyd could yet retract his confession.
Firth, wearing a new suit and a dazzling white, stiff-collared
shirt, his hair neatly combed and with no evidence of ash to be seen, was already at the table. In the formality of the court room he seemed to have increased in both height and presence. Mr Williams, Alasdair’s advocate, was beside him, a striking and imposing figure in his black gown and horse-hair wig.
Yesterday, Margaret had received a letter from Dr Alan. Sinclair had been arrested and questioned, but Kirsty couldn’t, or wouldn’t, identify him as her attacker. It seemed the police might never know for certain who had raped Kirsty. However, Sinclair had left the island and so far hadn’t reported her to the GMC.
She heard a rustle and smelled a whiff of expensive perfume and looked up to find Lillian, looking every inch Lady Lillian in her wide-brimmed hat and matching velvet dress in deep burgundy. ‘Couldn’t let you go through this on your own, darling.’ She squeezed Margaret’s shoulder. ‘Forgive me for not coming to you before?’