Eighteen Couper Street

by Millie Gray

  After Anna had left, Andy asked Rosie if Father Kelly could be trusted. “Of course,” she replied indignantly. “He’s a good man – an ordained priest of the only true faith.” Andy was so engrossed in his own concerns he ignored Rosie’s remarks about the only true faith so she continued, “But why would you, a staunch Protestant, want to see him?”

  “Rosie, I know something about Gus that’s so serious that I could make him marry Bella by threatening to expose what he’s guilty of.”

  “But wouldn’t that be dangerous, Andy? Please, don’t be a hero. We need you. Look here at wee Davy. Does he not come first?”

  Andy went over to the dresser and took out writing paper, pen and ink. Then he sat down.

  “You see, Rosie,” he said as he wrote, “when I catch up with Gus – and believe me I will – I’ll leave him in no doubt that Father Kelly has a letter written by me outlining his crimes and that if anything happens to me the good Father will give you the letter and you’ll take it immediately to the police. So, my dear Rosie, it will be in Gus’s best interests to marry our Bella in order to keep my mouth shut!”

  10

  GUS

  Anna, being a slave to cleanliness and addicted to fresh air, had flung the kitchen window open wide and the glow of the May sun shone into the room.

  “Auntie,” a cowed Bella asked, “why can’t I sit up on the sink bunker and just look out into the street? It’s been years since you’ve allowed me to go out.”

  “Bella, since I found out about your,” Anna coughed to signal disapproval before continuing, “condition I had you leave Crawford’s to save you getting a red face. Then I begged Sandy to give you a job at night looking after the dead.”

  “Yeah, and why did you do that?”

  “Because the dead wouldn’t be able to notice that you were piling on the beef in areas that you should not be piling it on!” Bella looked nonplussed. Anna sighed. “And therefore, being dead, they couldn’t inform the world at large what you and that,” Anna stopped again, this time to allow a long remonstrating pause, “seducing, Mr – blooming – Cochrane had been up to!”

  “But did you not say that Uncle Andy might catch up with him in India, because he’s working on a tramp steamer there, and send him home to marry me?” Anna just looked at the wall. “And I would like being married now. And I could be. Lots of lassies get married when they turn sixteen.”

  “That right?”

  Bella nodded, “And they also get to keep themselves and not have to hand over their pay-packets unopened to their …”

  “Look, Bella, while you’re under my roof you’ll not be keeping yourself. And might I remind you that since you started to look like a stranded whale and I could no longer safely let you out you haven’t earned a penny.”

  Before Bella could retaliate Rye flung the door open. “Anna, it’s a disaster.” Rye stopped abruptly as she stared at Bella.

  “It’s not a disaster – it’s curable,” Anna quickly responded. “Didn’t my poor Bella no go and get a wee, very wee doze of that … that … elephantiasis … when she was in Glasgow last month.”

  Rye went over and grabbed Anna’s hand. “Not Bella’s disaster – the troop train!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just that, och … you mind how we waved them off at the Central Station on Leith Walk. Proud they were to have volunteered to serve King and Country.”

  “Aye, but what’s the panic? They were only going to take part in training exercises at Larbert, so they must have got there by now.”

  “Their orders were changed and they were being sent out to reinforce the troops at Gallipoli. Oh God, I wish my James hadn’t listened to his boss and joined up.”

  “But, Rye, you’re no making sense. What’s happened?”

  “The train they were travelling on to Liverpool – it crashed at Gretna!”

  “What?” exclaimed Anna, who felt her spine chill as terror gripped her.

  “Aye, hit a stationary train and then … oh … they say they hadn’t got over the shock of what had happened when the London to Glasgow Express, going like a bat oot o’ hell, ploughed into the scattered carriages. Burst into flames, they did. Oh Anna, they say us relatives have to go up to the Royal Scots Drill Hall in Dalmeny Street where they left from,” Rye was now sobbing loudly, “and wait for more news. But Anna, my bairns are too wee to go with me so I’ve naebody to support me – unless you chum me?”

  Anna, who was thinking of all of Leith’s young men who might have lost their lives, nodded sombrely. Instantly she lifted her coat off the door hook but remembered to mumble to Bella, “And you, my lady, get back into the bedroom and don’t move out of it for one minute until I get back.”

  Hundreds of people had gathered at the drill hall in Dalmeny Street. Everyone in Leith knew someone who was in the Royal Scots 7th Battalion Volunteer Brigade so it was only natural that so many would congregate there.

  Rye was relieved when she was taken aside by an officer and advised that she would probably be taken by train to the hospital in Carlisle where the injured were being treated.

  Unfortunately, three hours later when the list of the dead was posted on the outside notice board, James Pratt was among the names. He would be returned to Leith in one of the one hundred and twenty coffins that arrived back at the drill hall in Dalmeny Street over the following days.

  It was difficult for Anna to persuade Rye to leave Dalmeny Street where an uneasy echoing silence had engulfed the crowds. Holding onto her as they travelled down Leith Walk, Rye insisted they stop at the Central Station and then again at the Foot of the Walk where they joined the traumatised groups that huddled together for comfort.

  Three and four days later, 25 and 26 May, these same people stood silently to attention as the full military funerals for the men’s coffins that had been returned to Dalmeny Street made their way up Leith Walk and then down Pilrig before arriving at Rosebank Cemetery for a mass burial.

  Standing beside Rye, who was surrounded by four of her eight children, Anna’s tears brimmed over as she witnessed the devastating grief of the whole community of Leith. Men, women and children were all weeping sorely and Anna realised it would take a long, long time for the wounds of this cruel accident to heal, conceding in Rye’s case that they might never do so.

  Returning from the funeral, Anna glanced up at the windows of the Couper Street tenements and noted that most windows still had their blinds drawn in a mark of respect for the dead. Tears brimmed in her eyes again as she acknowledged that this war where young men in their thousands were being maimed or killed seemed (to her) not to have a real purpose and was therefore senseless – unlike the fight for women’s suffrage where she had been at the forefront of the battle.

  Slowly climbing the stairs to her home her thoughts had turned to Rye and how she would cope in the coming years. Surely, she thought, the government will provide her with a pension or some means of financial support so that she can provide for her bairns. That would be the very least a grateful country could do.

  Opening the door, Anna sensed a presence in the room but because her curtains were still drawn she wasn’t quite sure. Advancing to the window she drew back the curtains to let the daylight flood into the room. On turning round she gasped, for looming in front of her stood the figure of Gus Cochrane!

  “How the devil did you get here?” she demanded.

  “Well, thanks to your – let’s say persuasive – brother who unfortunately caught up with me in India, I was left with no other option than to jump the tramp ship and join the first steamer coming back here.”

  Anna knew she should have asked him what he meant about her brother being ‘persuasive’ because it could not have been in a physical sense. After all, Andy was only five foot seven and of a slim build, whereas Gus was very tall and muscular.

  Removing her coat Anna found it difficult to keep her contempt for Gus in check. She was a woman who abhorred physical violence and had to
be sorely tried before she would so demean herself as to lash out. However as she looked at Gus Cochrane’s sullen face she not only wanted to attack him verbally for the dishonour (as she saw it) he’d brought to her door but she also had a mounting desire to clench her fists and soundly punch his handsome face.

  Deciding to put into practice her own advice to control both pain and anger she took four deep breaths and focused her eyes towards a spot on the wall before finally asking, “And have you spoken to Bella?”

  “No. I only just beat you getting up the stairs and there was nobody at home. So I took it Bella was at work.”

  “At work! Haven’t you the savvy to work out she’ll be due in the next four weeks,” exclaimed Anna, who snorted angrily before going on, “and I’ve got to keep her hidden in case anybody discovers that you’re … no better than … a philandering child rapist!”

  Gus lifted his hands defensively and held them out. “Look, I admit I was ill and got quite carried away the first time, but after that she was keener than me!”

  Anna, who had no wish to hear what she already suspected – that Bella could be easily ‘persuaded’ to be a bit shameless at times – brushed brusquely past Gus. On opening the bedroom door she sharply called out, “Bella! Come here!”

  Emerging from the bedroom Bella gently stroked her swollen breasts. “Auntie,” she emphasised, “I did hear someone come into the house but I did as you said. Honestly, I’ve stayed in the room since you went away.”

  It was then that Bella saw Gus. Without warning, her knees buckled and weeping bitterly she dropped to the floor.

  Gus, bristling with malevolence due to his resentment at being pushed into a shotgun wedding – especially to Bella, who he considered inferior to him – surprised Anna when, without saying a word, he bent down and lifted Bella’s pitiful form up and into his arms.

  Immediately Bella raised her eyes towards Gus and as the tears ran down her wan face you could see a different kind of rage growing within him. Why, he thought, had such a helpless creature, whose only crime was to want love and affection, been imprisoned within this dreary hovel? Denied daylight by a woman, a professed practising Christian, who insisted she just wanted the very best for Bella? Did she really believe that what she’d inflicted on poor Bella was in any way charitable? Awash with pity Gus stroked Bella’s thick black hair before whispering, “Never mind,” but he had to hesitate, swallow a large gulp, before grudgingly adding, “my dear, I’m here now.”

  Bella wiped her nose with the back of her hand before spluttering, “Do you mean you’ve come home to marry me? Make an honest, respectable woman of me?”

  Anna knew Gus was tempted to say “Not really” because she could read in his demeanour that being tied to Bella would only be done under duress so all he could do was nod.

  Before anything further was said the door opened and Rosie, carrying Davy in her arms and with Johnny and Ella in tow, came in and sat down on the fender stool. “Aye, it’s a sad, sad business,” lamented Rosie. “Breaks your heart, so it does.” She then squinted at Gus. “Here. How did you get home on leave and my Andy hasn’t?”

  “Jumped ship, he did,” crooned Bella, who couldn’t hide the delight she was now experiencing. “And just,” she sighed, “so he could ask me to marry him.”

  Rosie looked at Bella’s bulging form and then at Anna. “And by the look o’ things my Andy has just got him back in time.”

  “Aye, you’re right, Rosie,” confirmed Anna, before looking directly at Gus and Bella. “And quite enough time’s been wasted so you pair get away to the registry office, right now.” Gus, however, seemed reluctant, or was it maybe that he didn’t know where the registry office was, so she quickly asked, “You do know where it is – in Fire Brigade Street.”

  “He’s no from Leith,” Rosie, quickly pointed out, “so he’ll no ken Fire Brigade Street is just what Leith people caw Junction Place ’cause the fire brigade work out o’ there.”

  A contemptuous look from Anna withered Rosie before she added, “And see about getting a special licence.”

  “Oh, Auntie,” wailed Bella. “Are you saying you want me to go out in broad daylight?”

  “Aye, they close at three o’clock which means they’re only open in the daylight – so you’d better get a move on.”

  “B–but, b–but what will people think … when they see this?” Bella now gave her stomach a slow massage with both hands.

  Rosie and Anna looked at each other and Ella gave a sly snigger, as they silently agreed it was far too late to bother about what people thought and that the matter had to be sorted without delay.

  By the time Gus and Bella returned from the registry office, Rosie and her bairns had gone home. Anna had been pleased, though not to see Rosie go. Ella, her niece, on the other hand … well, she was always glad to see the back of her. She had tried not to have reservations about Ella, but she was a spoiled, envious child who always had been her mother’s favourite. Anna, on the other hand, had always favoured Johnny and, as for Davy the latecomer, who could help but love him – poor wee mite?

  “We can get married in a week’s time,” Bella blurted out as soon as she came in the door.

  “In the registry office?” asked Anna, trying to keep the disapproval she felt for that kind of wedding from her voice.

  “Naw. We’ve also been up to see the minister in St Thomas Parish Church and he says that since I’m one of his flock he’ll marry us in his manse.”

  Anna felt her shoulders sink with relief until she looked at Gus’s set face. Gone was the compassion he had shown for Bella – to be replaced by a thunderous expression.

  Bella however seemed not to notice. “All this excitement has been too much for me so I’m going to have a lie down,” she said, smiling coyly at Gus so that Anna knew she was hoping he would join her – but he didn’t!

  “So, you’re going to stand by her?” Anna asked as soon as Bella was out of earshot.

  Gus looked directly into Anna’s eyes before replying, “And I suppose you want me to believe that you don’t know that your brother gave me an ultimatum that leaves me with no other choice?”

  Anna was bewildered. “What are you talking about?” she spluttered.

  Bringing his face up to hers, Gus hoarsely whispered, “Just because your brother always does what you want and since you demand a ring on Bella’s finger and thus saving your bloody torn face – I have further to incriminate myself and make a show of marrying your wanton niece – or suffer the unpalatable consequences.”

  Swallowing hard, Anna realised for the first time that her brother, her Andy, knew something about Gus and he had blackmailed him into coming back. But what was it? And should, or should not, this marriage go ahead? she wondered.

  “And for why?” Gus went on. “Just to make sure that your Bella’s child won’t appear to be the bastard it is! And even if the truth about me does eventually come out … sympathy will be with Bella and she won’t be shunned.”

  Anna was now panting with fear. The only reason she could think of as to why Gus was saying such things was that somewhere on his travels he’d got married, and Andy – and only Andy – knew about it. Reluctantly she thought her poor Bella would unknowingly be tied to a conniving bigamist! But why was it that she, a devout Christian, thought that would be better for Bella than being an outcast when people found out she was the unwed mother of an illegitimate child?

  Gus however wasn’t really aware of Anna’s dilemma and went on, “Well, Miss Campbell, I might have to go through with this marriage sham but, believe me, the world is a big, big place and people go missing in it!”

  Unable to take in what she was hearing, Anna stammered, “Are you saying you won’t be setting up home with Bella?”

  “What I’m saying,” cackled Gus, “is that I could possibly get swallowed up in India, Australia or wherever – I know plenty folk who have! Oh yes, Miss Sanctimonious, the ink won’t be dry on the certificate before I’m sailing away
into the deep blue yonder.”

  “But what will I tell Bella when you go?”

  “That, like you, I’ve been well and truly sunk in more ways than one.”

  The day of the wedding, Bella was at fever pitch. She had wanted to be married in white but Anna had to remind her that white was only for virgins and that she, being eight months gone, was hardly that. To soften the blow Anna had stitched Bella up a lovely roomy, very pale, nearly white, lilac taffeta dress. She felt no guilt about this because, she argued with herself, to be truthful Bella was really still a virgin in so many other ways. She had also had to make up a frock for Bella’s best maid, Jane Gibson, a long-time pal from schooldays.

  Gus, on the other hand, who was meeting them up at the manse, had managed to pay a dollar to persuade a seafaring stranger to act as his best man.

  Walking along Couper Street and on to Coburg Street, Anna prayed that Gus would not jilt Bella. The poor soul had begged, from the first day he’d arrived back, to let him share her bed. This request was hastily denied with Anna pointing out that she was in no position now to prevent the happenings of eight months ago. However, no way would she allow fornication she knew about to take place in her house. Bella had protested that there would be no fornication, just a wee kiss and cuddle, as she was too cumbersome for anything else. Anna didn’t reply but the look of contempt on her face clearly said, “No. Most certainly not!” Nonetheless she did manage to mutter, “Look, as he’s a sailor he can bunk in the Sailors’ Home on the Shore.”

  Anna need not have worried. Whatever it was that Andy had threatened Gus with was still working and he and his best man were already in attendance even though Gus’s demeanour was truly hostile.

  The minister immediately began the wedding service and had just got to the part where he asked Bella if she took Gus as her lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold … when it was evident she could hold out no longer. So instead of saying, “I do,” she let out a gasp as her breaking waters turned her lovely pale lilac dress to purple.