The Shadow of the Sycamores

by Doris Davidson

  The first flight laboriously, but safely, negotiated, the landing was easier but they still had the middle flight, another landing and another flight to go before they reached ground level. After many hair-raising near-calamities, they were on the second last step when Beenie, the scullery maid, came out of the kitchen, halting in amazement when she saw what was going on. Afraid that Janet would sink down if he removed the support of his left arm, Max scowled a warning to the girl and shook his head to let her know to keep quiet. She kept looking at them till they reached her, her mouth as well as her eyes wide open. Then understanding seemed to strike her and she ran to hold the kitchen door open for them.

  With three of them working together, it was much easier to get Janet to the stable, where she was able to sit down on the chair Beenie had taken with her from the kitchen. Max now hitched one of the horses to the only completely covered carriage. At least the poor woman would be shielded from the wind.

  Having completed the part of his plan that had given him most cause for concern, Max turned to the two girls when his patient was sitting inside the conveyance. ‘You had better go back and lock that door again, Nora,’ he said firmly, ‘and then I want you both to carry on as usual. I don’t want anybody else to know about this.’

  ‘What about you?’ Nora wanted to know.

  He took a moment or two to answer. He hadn’t thought of what would happen after this. ‘I think I’ll manage to get back tonight but it’ll likely …’

  ‘You’re coming back?’ gasped Beenie.

  ‘If I dinna, Ledingham’ll get the police on me for stealing the horse and carriage and God kens what else. Will you two manage to find some excuse if onybody wonders why I’m not in for my supper?’

  It was young Beenie who supplied an answer. ‘You could say you went to meet your lass seeing Ledingham and the cook was baith awa’.’

  ‘You’d get a richt row for that if he found oot,’ Nora warned. ‘You’re supposed to be ill.’

  ‘I’m going to get a bloody awful row in any case,’ Max muttered, wryly. ‘Well, I’d best get going. Mind what I said, now.’

  ‘How’re you feeling, Janet?’ he asked when he swung himself up on the seat.

  Under cover, Janet was still recovering from the not-altogether-gentle handling she’d had to suffer but she would have borne worse pain than that to be free of her husband. Max Dalgarno had only doubled her fears. ‘Don’t worry about me, laddie. I’ll be fine now – wherever you’re taking me.’

  ‘I’m taking you to Henry,’ he told her, somewhat tentatively.

  ‘Oh, thank God for that. Henry and Fay’ll look after me. They’ll get me back on my feet in no time.’

  The two young Raes, despite their shock at seeing her in such a poor condition, welcomed Janet warmly into their house, asking no questions but letting her know that she had a home with them for as long as she wanted. Then, after making her sup a small amount of strained and diluted lentil soup, Max wolfed down two platefuls of the thick original while Fay went to make a bed for Janet on the couch in the parlour. Climbing the stairs would be too much for her for a few weeks yet. The two men practically carried the exhausted woman through and Fay insisted on staying with her to make sure she fell asleep.

  Alone with his old school friend, Max related what had been happening. ‘It’s a damned good thing you wrote me that letter,’ he ended. ‘I’d say we just got her away from that bugger Ledingham in time.’

  ‘I wish I’d written sooner,’ Henry moaned. ‘No, I should have gone to find out why we hadn’t heard from her.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have let you see her.’ Max lapsed into a brief, pensive silence, then said, ‘Ledingham’s been taking up with the new cook he got in.’

  This surprised Henry even more. ‘I’d never have put him down as a ladies’ man. By what Janet said, he’d loved her since they were at school. Then, when he learned she’d been seeing a sailor, he got wed to somebody else. Gloria, Janet said her name was.’

  Max snapped his fingers. ‘Gloria! That’s it. Nora heard him saying “Glo …” and he said he could never remember to call her Kate. Well, well, then! Mrs Rattray’s his first wife?’

  A bewildered Henry muttered, ‘But … she’s supposed to have died. Janet was sure he’d murdered her. That was why she was so scared of him.’

  ‘She’s right to be scared of him,’ Max declared. ‘I’m near sure he’s been trying to do away wi’ her. He’ll want to get back to his Gloria, now she’s turned up again.’

  ‘We’d better not tell Janet she’s back from the dead. She’s not up to the shock.’

  Max gave a dry laugh. ‘I’m not sure I’m up to the shock I’ll get when I go back.’

  For all his seeming light-heartedness, however, the immensity of what he had done was festering in his mind as the carriage bowled along the road to The Sycamores. He had got away with it so far but, once Ledingham came back and found Janet gone, there would be a God-awful row. He would know right away that somebody had helped Janet – she wasn’t capable of walking out by herself. Then the questions would start and he wouldn’t be happy till he’d got at the truth. The trouble was, he, Max, was the only one who had been away from the place, so he would be the obvious suspect. There was no getting round that.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  Her husband’s loud whisper told Fay that he had not been asleep either. Despite talking about it for hours the night before, what had happened was too momentous to be pushed to the back of their minds. ‘What?’

  ‘What’ll Innes Ledingham do when he finds out Janet’s not there?’

  ‘I suppose he’ll start looking for her.’

  ‘And he knows how close she was to me so he’s bound to come here first.’

  ‘Oh,’ Fay gasped, ‘that’s right. What’ll we do?’

  ‘We can’t ask anybody else to take her; we don’t want other people knowing. In any case, it’s up to us to look after her, seeing Max brought her here.’

  ‘I hope he doesn’t lose his job because of it.’

  ‘Losing his job would be the least of it, my Fairy. Ledingham could report him to the police for abducting her.’

  ‘He surely wouldn’t do that?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past him – he’s devious enough for anything.’

  They looked at each, realising that they might be in just as much trouble as Max Dalgarno. ‘I’d better go down to see how she is,’ Fay said at last, ‘and you should try to think of something we can do.’

  Henry could think of nothing else. If it were not for his wife and his two little children, he would face anything, any punishment, for Janet’s sake, but, if he lost his job, it would be his family who would suffer. He might have asked Abby to take the poor woman in but her new baby had not been well since his birth, five weeks ago, so she had enough to contend with. Besides, everyone at The Sycamores knew he had a sister and Ledingham would go to her if he didn’t find his wife here.

  If only Janet was well enough to go upstairs. There was a little bolthole in the closet in the attic – possibly put in originally to hide a priest during the troubled times of the Jacobite rebellions. He had only come across it by accident when they were clearing out some of the previous tenants’ rubbish. He had taken out the well-worn leather couch and the small table with the intention of throwing them out but Fay had stopped him.

  ‘This would be a good place for our children to play,’ she had smiled. ‘That will be a few years yet, of course, so give these things a good scrub, and cover them when you put them back, to prevent the dust and cobwebs clinging to them again.’

  That had been before Andrew was born, Henry recalled, but even then, Fay had been determined to have more than one child. His mind turned to Janet again. It would be a long time yet before she was fit to run up there and hide if anyone came looking for her.

  Noticing the time, he jumped out of bed – he had never once been late for work since he became the Tow
n Officer and he didn’t mean to start now. He could hardly go downstairs today in just his flannel linder and long drawers like he usually did so he pulled on the moleskin trousers that he wore to sweep the streets. His jacket and dark cloth cap were hanging in the porch. The uniform he had been given – a smart snouted cap like naval officers wore, a neat dark blue broadcloth jacket with brass buttons and trousers to match – was only to be worn on official occasions – if the court was sitting and he was acting as usher, for instance, or if he had a proclamation to make in his other capacity as bell ringer/town crier.

  His first sight of Janet in the pale light of morning gave him quite a shock. Her eyes were so deeply sunk that it looked as if she were wearing heavy black-rimmed glasses. The rosy cheeks he remembered were ashen and clapped against her cheekbones so as to make them stand out like coat pegs. And her neck was pathetically scrawny.

  Her lips quivered as soon as she saw him. ‘Oh, Henry,’ she moaned, holding out her stick-thin arms, and he ran to hold her, his heart almost breaking at the thought of what she must have gone through.

  ‘You’re safe here,’ he managed to get out, ‘We’ll take care of you.’

  Then he went out to the small lean-to at the back door, where Fay had a basin of hot water ready for him to wash. He had stopped shaving his upper lip almost a year ago and now had an abundant moustache which, he felt, was more in keeping with his position as Town Officer, a job that, although not very far up the ladder of success, still held some degree of responsibility. Unfortunately, he had become so well known since he took over the job that he would have no time to think. Every person who passed him would call out, ‘Aye, aye, fine day, T H,’ or, from the more refined, ‘It is cold enough for snow, Mr Rae,’ or, from the older men, with a twinkle in their eyes, ‘You’re aye kept busy, then, Tchouki?’ Sometimes, he even got the name he preferred – Henry – but he answered to anything. What did it matter? He had nothing to hide now.

  This thought pulled him up sharply, making him stop towelling his neck. He had worse to hide now. He was harbouring a woman who had been removed from her husband’s home without his knowledge. Shaking his head at the predicament in which he had been landed, Henry finished drying himself and went through to get his breakfast.

  The morning had passed normally for Max, whose mind was a little easier. Not one soul had thought anything of him not being there for supper the night before – a blessing he owed entirely to Nora. As she told him when he was on his way to the kitchen for his breakfast, ‘The grieve did ask where you was last night and I said you was still feeling sick. They all heard Ledingham telling you to go back to your bed yesterday so you’ve nothing to worry about.’

  He had something to worry about, though. As soon as Ledingham came back, he’d go up to speak to his wife and find out she wasn’t there. Then the rumpus would start. He wasn’t an obvious suspect now, of course. He had been in bed ill, so how could he have spirited the woman away?

  ‘Are you feeling better, Max? You’re still a bit white round the gills.’

  He looked up from thinning out the winter cabbages to find the head gardener eyeing him in some concern. ‘I’m nae just right yet, Mr Lumsden, but I am a bit better.’

  ‘Well, if you start feeling bad again, just go back to your bed. Better another one day off than a week or more.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right. Thanks.’

  He kept on working, hoeing the vegetable garden as if afraid that any weeds he left would engulf the whole place, including him. He barely stopped to take a few bites of the oatcakes and cheese Nora had made up for the men’s dinner pieces and, when the clock on the bell tower struck six, it was with reluctance that he laid past his tools and made his slow way inside.

  There was absolute silence in the kitchen, an eerie foreboding silence, warning him that the discovery had been made. With stomach churning, he took a lingering look at the Superintendent. The man was gripping his mouth and his knuckles showed white as he clutched his soup spoon. Not only that, but he never lifted his eyes from his plate – an indication that he had deep, deep thoughts to ponder over. Aye, the man had much to ponder over, Max thought with some satisfaction, moving his gaze to the cook. Mrs Rattray was even more agitated. Her face was scarlet, as if she had taken part in a terrible row – which she probably had. She was likely the only one Ledingham had told. At the moment, he was most likely trying to work out how to go about solving the mystery of his missing wife but his first reaction would have been to let fly at his paramour.

  Despite the situation holding the possibility of dire consequences for him, Max felt exhilarated – he had a sense of living on the edge of danger with the challenge of trying to outwit this fiend of a man. Ledingham only toyed with his food and was first to leave the table, shoving back his chair abruptly and stalking out without a word. Next to go were the nursing staff, who had their charges to get washed and settled for the night, and then, in twos and threes the other men gradually went out. They were obviously bursting with curiosity over what could be going on but were unable to discuss it in front of the cook, who, as they were all well aware, had some hold over the Superintendent and would tell tales to him at the drop of a hat.

  Because of their own preoccupations, not one of the others noticed that Max held back – not even Mrs Rattray who darted out abruptly, leaving Nora and Beenie to clear the table and do the dishes.

  Max gave a loud, relieved sigh. ‘What’s been happening, Nora?’

  She gestured to the scullery maid to close the door and they sat down at the table again. ‘He’s raving mad,’ she reported in triumph. ‘He didna go up right away for he took Mrs Rattray into his sitting room first.’

  ‘And?’ prompted the young man impatiently.

  Little Beenie stepped in now. ‘I took ben a tea tray to them to see if I could hear what they were saying,’ she chuckled. ‘I thought I might catch them having a last canoodle so I just gave a wee tap and opened the door. What a shock I got! He was on top o’ her …’

  ‘That’s enough, Beenie!’ Nora scowled. ‘You was just being nosy and, any road, you shouldna ken aboot things like that at your age.’

  The fourteen-year-old grinned mischievously. ‘I didna ken … but I ken now. He’d her bloomers doon and …’

  Having heard enough, Max interrupted her. ‘Well, that’s it. If he ever finds out it was me that got Janet away and reports me to the bobbies, I’ll tell them he married Janet when he was still married to his first wife.’

  Nora could see the flaws in this statement, however. ‘They wouldna believe you.’

  ‘They would if you and Beenie back me up.’

  ‘No, Max. He’s a Superintendent, she’s supposed to be a respected cook and we’re just skivvies. The police are bound to believe whatever he tells them and it’ll be the worse for us. He can have us arrested and put in the jail.’

  ‘But they could check up and see …’ Max broke off at a sudden memory. ‘There must be a record of his marriage to Janet in the register here.’

  Nora shook her head at his naivety. ‘He could tear that page out, you ken how he is. If he’s desperate, he’ll do anything to save his skin.’

  Beenie piped up again. ‘But I’m a witness to what he was doing …’ Looking at both the scowling faces, she offered her last trick. ‘He was … um … fornicating wi’ a wumman that’s nae his wife.’

  ‘Beenie,’ Max sighed, ‘that’s just the point. Mrs Rattray, as she calls herself, is his wife; it’s Janet that’s not legally married to him.’

  The girl digested this information, then she, too, sighed. ‘Aye, so she’s nae. It’s her that’s been forn …’

  ‘Beenie Dickie! Just shut up, would you?’ Nora could stand no more of the scullery maid’s twitterings and turned to the young gardener again. ‘We’ll have to wait and see what happens, Max. We can’t do nothing else.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right.’ He strode out, shaking his head at their helplessness.

  Fay was in a fine
state of nerves. Terrified that Innes Ledingham or the police or both would turn up and find Janet in the parlour, she had locked the door the minute Henry left for work. She had also been trying to keep her small son quiet so that their guest could get some much needed rest and the knock on her door at half past ten made her heart jump into her mouth. If she’d had the chance, she would have ignored the summons but little Andrew had already bounded into the tiny porch and was trying to turn the knob so whoever was there would know they weren’t out.

  Her hands trembling, she turned the big key in the lock and edged the door open just enough to find out who was there.

  ‘What’s wrong, lass?’ Nessie pushed past her. ‘The door still locked at this time o’ the day?’

  Trying to prevent her stepmother-in-law from seeing what she wasn’t meant to see, Fay made it all the more evident that she wanted to hide something and Nessie asked again, ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’

  The ever-helpful Andrew supplied the answer his mother was determined not to give. ‘It’s Auntie Janet!’ he smiled, pointing to the parlour door. ‘She’s in there and she’s not well.’

  Nessie turned the familiar name over in her mind. ‘Auntie Janet? The cook from The Sycamores?’ She moved swiftly to the other door, opened it a fraction and took a quick glance inside. ‘Aye, Fay,’ she murmured, as she closed the door as silently as she had opened it, ‘I can see she’s ill but why’s she here?’

  Having no experience of dealing with a situation of such delicacy, the young woman was at a loss for a moment or so, then, deciding that she may as well tell the truth, she said, ‘Stay here like a good boy, Andrew, till I speak to Grandma.’

  She drew Nessie back into the porch and gave the tale as she knew it, answering the woman’s questions with a shrugged, ‘I don’t know anything more.’

  With her innate perspicacity, Nessie did manage to fit most of the puzzle together and stood for a moment pondering over it. Then she looked keenly at the younger woman. ‘You’re scared her man’ll come looking for her?’