The Shadow of the Sycamores

by Doris Davidson

  She found two boxes, Ludo and Nine Men’s Morris and the strange double-imaged photographs, which looked three-dimensional when seen through a special wooden instrument. That would keep the boy happy for hours at a time if she could only find the viewer. Thrusting her hand right to the back of the cupboard, her fingers touched a package. It didn’t feel like any of the games but curiosity made her lift it out. Her heart gave a jolt when she pulled back the wrappings. She should have known her mother would treasure this – Jerry’s balmoral bonnet with the antlered head badge – the badge of the Gordon Highlanders.

  She had been too engrossed in worrying about Leo for her brother’s death to make the impact it should have done and regret made her run her fingers round the headband, a little crumpled now. Laying it flat on the table, she put one hand inside and used her other hand to get rid of the creases. That was how she came across the two documents, folded length-ways so that they could fit into the band – as a stiffener, perhaps.

  She flattened the stiff paper and read the first while she smoothed the second. A birth certificate! Her father was right, then. Jerry had fathered a child before going overseas or maybe while he was over there. She checked the date – October 1915. Father: Jeremy Rae; Residence: The Sycamores, Near Drymill, Aberdeenshire; Occupation: Gardener. Mother: Anna Cairns; Residence: The Sycamores, Near Drymill, Aberdeenshire; Occupation: Nurse.

  Mara’s hands were shaking as she picked up the second document – the marriage certificate. This would satisfy her parents, she thought, but it was strange that Jerry had never let them know about it. Then she drew a sharp breath. The birth had come only two months after the wedding! Oh, dear!

  She laid the two documents side by side in front of her. She didn’t know what to do. If she showed them to her parents, her mother would be dreadfully upset, hurt that her son had kept this a secret from her, and her father would likely be cock-a-hoop that he’d been right all along. Was it right to cause so much distress to one and to give the other the means to justify himself? There was no doubt that he would follow up this information to find the proof he needed. It would be like unleashing a rabid dog and letting it set off on a trail of destruction.

  The fact was that William Henry Rae would be coming up for twenty-five, not old enough to be Maggie’s father – therefore, Laurie Fiddes was not the grandson Henry Rae thought he was.

  But there was a grandson … somewhere. The question was should she tell or should she destroy the evidence and keep the information to herself?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  ‘They’ll take a while to settle down,’ Fay remarked towards the end of August.

  ‘Aye.’ Reading his morning paper, Henry was not giving his full attention to her. The headline ‘WAR WITHIN DAYS’ was alarming – Chamberlain’s assurance of ‘Peace in our time’ had been a hollow promise – but he didn’t want to upset his wife by telling her of his fears. It might all fizzle out.

  The forecaster, however, had hit the nail exactly on the head. Less than a week later, with Hitler having ignored the ultimatum he had been given, Britain declared war on Germany and those who remembered the last conflict shook their heads when younger men said, with a laugh, ‘It won’t last long this time.’

  Henry and Fay, along with all the others who had lost loved ones in Kaiser Bill’s war, were saddened by the thought of all the young men who would be mowed down this time.

  ‘I’m just glad we’ve nobody they can take,’ Henry said, as the Prime Minister’s broadcast came to an end. ‘The war can’t possibly last till wee Laurie’s old enough.’ As he said it, the thought struck him that Billy Webster was the right age and he was thankful that his wife hadn’t realised it.

  In November, Maggie’s letters began to be more guarded but Fay could read between the lines. ‘I think they’re having a struggle to make ends meet,’ she observed. ‘She’s speaking about taking a job if I don’t mind keeping Laurie for a bit longer. Of course I don’t mind but I hope things get better for them, poor souls.’

  The note that came with the small parcel at Christmas had Fay in tears. ‘She’s apologising for not buying anything for us – they could only afford a little toy for Laurie. Should I send some money to her?’

  Henry shook his head. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, my Fairy.’

  She was determined to do something to help them. ‘I’ll bake some things for them, then. It’ll be a New Year gift so they can’t object to that, surely. And I’ll maybe buy a new blouse for Maggie and a shirt for Billy.’

  Henry smiled affectionately.

  Maggie was more forthcoming in her next letter. ‘I’ve got a job as chambermaid in the same hotel as Billy and we’re saving to buy our own place. I’d like somewhere with a garden for Laurie but it would take us years and years, so it is out of the question. As it is, it will take us a long time. Everything here is so dear. I’m desperate to see Laurie but I can’t afford the fare. Anyway, I know he is being well looked after, though I am sorry you are being left with him for so long.’

  ‘I’m not sorry,’ Fay murmured. ‘He’s a wee angel.’

  ‘He is that.’ Henry was even more convinced by now that the child was, if not his grandson, at least his great-grandson, and considered it only right and proper that they were under the same roof.

  Mara was quite concerned about her parents. Although Maggie had given them a reprieve – an extension, as it were – they would be absolutely devastated when she took her son away. Thinking about it one night, it occurred to her that William Henry would be old enough to have a family of his own. If she could just learn where he was, she might be able to present her parents with a real great-grandson. All she had to do was trace Anna Cairns, Jerry’s widow, and she would learn the whereabouts of his son. It seemed an easy matter until she remembered that she could not apply to The Sycamores for information. It had been commandeered by the army during the last war and someone had told her that it had been turned into a swanky hotel in the early twenties.

  Yet there must be somebody who had worked there who still lived in the area – maybe even a person who had been interested enough to have taken away all the records of the place before the army moved in. How could she find out?

  It was then that she remembered Max Dalgarno, her father’s boyhood chum. He and his wife hadn’t visited for a long time, though they hadn’t lost touch altogether. Nora always enclosed a letter with her Christmas card and there had been no mention of them ever having moved house. Max would know the men who had worked with Jerry and Nora would know the maids and nurses. They might not know where those people were now but it was worth a try.

  ‘I wonder what it is Mara wants to know about Jerry?’ Nora took the letter back from her husband and slid it into the envelope again.

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ he replied, grinning mischievously. ‘I’m not a mind reader.’

  ‘You know what I mean. It must be something really serious. Jerry was killed in … 1916 … or was it 1917? What would there be to find out after all this time?’

  ‘Who was at The Sycamores that might know something? The only one I can think on would be Dod Lumsden. He was head gardener when Jerry started so he must be retired by this time.’

  ‘Beenie might know something,’ Nora said, suddenly. ‘She’d stopped working there by the time Jerry started but she might have heard something.’

  ‘That’s it, then! Give Mara her address.’

  ‘I can’t. She flitted about ten years ago and I mislaid her last letter. I’ve lost touch with her altogether.’

  ‘Well, that just leaves old Dod … if he’s still alive.’

  ‘Do you remember his address, Max?’

  ‘Not the address but it was the second house along the road to Drymill. She’ll easy find it if you tell her that.’

  Mara set off on her bicycle the Saturday after she received Nora’s letter, which, fortunately, the other woman had had the foresight to get her daughter to address – ‘in case you do
n’t want your mother to know you wrote to me.’

  It was a lovely day in June, the countryside was looking beautiful and the roadsides were spattered with the yellow, blue, purple and white of vetch, bluebells, foxgloves, star of Bethlehem. Her thoughts, however, were on what may lie ahead. Would the old gardener still be alive? Even if he was, would he know anything? Would his memory be reliable if he did tell her something?

  The cottage was easily found and, although Mara’s courage ebbed when she lifted the doorknocker, she told herself sternly that it would be daft to give up when she’d come this far. Her knock was answered by a harassed-looking woman a bit younger than herself, an infant in her arms, a toddler at her skirt and another, slightly older, peeping out shyly from behind her. ‘Aye?’ she said.

  Mara smiled encouragingly. ‘I’m looking for Dod Lumsden. Is this …?’

  ‘There’s nae Dod Lumsden here.’

  ‘He was head gardener at The Sycamores at one time – before the last war, I believe.’

  ‘You should ask Aggie. She’s bidden in the hoose next door for well over thirty year. She’ll ken if there was ever a Dod Lumsden here. No,’ she added, hastily as Mara made to leave, ‘she’s in wi’ me the now. She comes in every morning for a fly cup.’ She vanished for a few moments to be replaced by a heavily built woman who eyed the stranger with deep suspicion.

  Mara cleared her throat. ‘Um, I’m trying to find Dod Lumsden. He worked at The Sycamores before the last war.’

  ‘That’s richt. This is the hoose he bade in but he died … oh, it must be seven year ago.’

  ‘Oh!

  Mara’s disappointment was so evident that Aggie burst out, ‘His auldest lassie bides in Drymill, though, next the butcher. I canna mind her married name but her first name’s Dot. Dorothy, that is.’

  ‘Thank you very much and I’m sorry to have troubled you.’

  ‘It was nae trouble.’

  Mara was aware of the woman watching her as she cycled off but it was only to be expected away out here where they likely hardly ever saw anybody. Her spirits had lifted a little, though the end was not really in sight. This Dot person was not likely to know anything about Jerry, or his wife, but she had to try.

  The late gardener’s daughter was a cheery, round-faced little woman of round about fifty, who nodded as soon as Mara said her brother’s name. ‘Jerry Rae? Aye, I mind there was a lot o’ speak about him at one time. I was in service in Aberdeen at the time but there was still rumours flying round when I come hame weeks after. You’d best come in, lass.’

  She insisted on making a pot of tea before she settled back, with obvious enjoyment, to tell her tale. Her first words, however, warned Mara that she was not about to hear the whole story.

  ‘I dinna think onybody kens what really happened and some folk say one thing and some say another but this is what I heard. There was this young lassie, you see, and the young lad that was under-gardener put her in the family way. He did the decent thing and wed her and the bairn was born just aboot two month on.

  ‘Now, you’ll understand, that was a right scandal in them days, even worse than it is now, but there was mair to it than that. Some said he wasna the father at all. They said it was one o’ the dafties, an aulder man, but I think they were trying to get a better story out o’ it. Whatever, the bairn was born and things were going fine for the young couple, then the lassie disappeared. My father was one o’ the search party and when she was found, he helped to carry her back to the hoose. She was in a terrible state, and – this is what made folk wonder – she was never seen again, neither was the bairnie, neither was the daftie and the lad himsel’ enlisted in the Gordons and was away in days.

  ‘Of coorse, the story went roon’ that he’d found oot he wasna the father and he’d killed the three o’ them and ran off.’ The woman’s hand jumped to her mouth, ‘Oh, I’m sorry! I clean forgot he was your brother …’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Mara muttered, her whole body suspended in some kind of acid, which was eating at her very core. ‘You’d better carry on.’

  ‘That’s aboot it – as far as I ken. Everything was hushed up and then the army took ower the place and that was the end.’

  ‘What do you think happened, though?’ Mara asked, desperate to know if her own thoughts were on the right track.

  ‘Well, I wouldna like to say. Maist folk think he’d found out the bairn wasna his and he’d killed the three o’ them – yet my father aye said Jerry was a real nice laddie. He believed the daftie had killed the lassie and the infant and then maybe he’d committed suicide and Jerry was that broken-hearted he enlisted. Whatever happened, though, it was a real tragic business, right enough.’

  Mara wondered if her legs would hold her if she stood up but she had to get away. ‘Thank you for telling me … Dot. It has explained something for me.’

  Her legs did carry her out to the roadway but her progress back to Ardbirtle was slow and unsteady. As she had said, something had been explained to her but other questions had been raised. Why had Jerry never told them he was married, that he had a son, that they had both died in strange circumstances? Yet she knew now that there was no great-grandson for her to present to her parents. They had been shocked by Jerry’s death, but thank God they had no idea of what he must have suffered while he was still alive.

  As soon as Mara came in, Fay could tell that she was upset. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, after a while.

  ‘No.’ Mara had never told a deliberate lie in her life and she could not do so now, although she camouflaged it to save hurting her mother. ‘Not really. I’ve just heard a really sad story about a young lad who had to marry his girl because she was expecting and then he lost both the baby and his wife.’

  ‘Lost them? You mean they died? Poor boy.’

  Mara could not let this misconception go. ‘It was worse than that. Everybody thought they’d been killed.’

  Fay eyed her daughter uncertainly. ‘Murdered, do you mean?’

  ‘Some people think so, apparently, but, as far as I could gather, there was no evidence of that. I think it’s just a rumour that got out of hand – bits been added to it over the years.’

  ‘Over the years? How many years exactly?’

  ‘It happened during the last war – 1916 or 1917.’ Mara knew for certain that it had been 1916 but sensed that her mother was dangerously near to discovering the person in the centre of the controversial tragedy.

  Fay now showed that she was indeed suspecting that it was Jerry. ‘Mara,’ she said, softly, ‘you may as well tell me. You’re far too upset for it to have been a stranger – to have been anybody but … your brother. Am I right?’

  Nodding, Mara rose to take the package out of the dresser and Fay watched in surprise as she pulled the stiff paper from the headband of Jerry’s balmoral.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, apprehensively.

  The marriage and the birth certificates were now revealed and the two women tried to find an acceptable reason for them to have been kept secret.

  They were both in tears when Henry walked in with Laurie. ‘My God!’ he exclaimed. ‘What’s up? Has something happened to Maggie or Billy?’

  Fay stretched out a hand to him. ‘Sit down, Tchouki, dear. I’ll take Laurie through to the kitchen to help me get some supper ready and Mara can tell you something she learned today.’

  It was not until the little boy had been put to bed that the three adults could discuss anything and the two documents were spread out on the table. They had been gnawing at possible versions of what might have happened in 1916 for perhaps an hour when Henry muttered grimly, ‘I can’t understand it. If nothing out of the ordinary had happened, why did they have to hush everything up? There would have been no need for that.’

  Mara frowned. ‘You think those three were murdered?’

  ‘Or took their own lives … except the infant, of course. Somebody …’ Henry’s voice tailed off, as he realised who was the most likely suspect for
that.

  They sat for hours, going over and over every likely solution, even not so likely solutions, but the only logical suggestion they came up with was that, when Jerry found out that he was not the baby’s father, he had gone berserk. Knowing that the natural father was a patient in what was in reality a mental institution, he could have been afraid that the child they had spawned would also be tainted. He had killed all three and enlisted in the army to escape retribution.

  Henry was not entirely satisfied with this scenario. ‘The Superintendent and his wife were bound to have known what was going on. They’d have reported Jerry to the police. They couldn’t possibly have hushed it up. And, don’t forget, he came to see us the day he enlisted and was back before he was sent abroad. He never said a word about a wedding or a baby or anything else.’

  Mara pulled a face. ‘I was remembering, though. It was when we were all at sixes and sevens – if you think back. Janet had died first, then Nessie, then Grandfather and I hadn’t heard from Leo for such a long time that we thought he’d been killed. Even if Jerry had wanted to tell us, he probably didn’t like to upset you more by saying he’d married one of The Sycamore’s nurses because he’d put her in the family way. Then, after it had all gone wrong, he’d been eaten up with guilt and shame at what he’d done.’

  ‘If he did it,’ Fay murmured sadly. ‘I can’t think that Jerry would have killed anybody, no matter what they’d done to him. It wasn’t in his nature. He never lost his temper, he was always quiet, placid – not like Andrew.’

  ‘I can’t help feeling you’re right, my Fairy,’ Henry sighed, ‘though I don’t suppose we’ll ever learn the truth of it.’ His fingers kept returning distractedly to the birth certificate and they half-detected a kind of roughness at the part which gave the mother’s occupation.

  Mara was more positive. ‘And I can’t help feeling that there is somebody who can tell us – if we can just find him … or her.’