‘Get help. Quickly,’ he said in a low voice to one of the servants before he went to Ruth’s side.
Downstairs, in the kitchen, Andrew’s ma was coming to the end of her tether. Her face was pink and shiny and her eyes darted from one to another of the ten or more people crowded in there. She called out, ‘Take the sal volatile upstairs at once, Bessie. In the cupboard over the sink, girl!’, then, louder, ‘The smelling salts. Lady Campbell has fainted.’
Someone said, ‘I’m not surprised. She won’t have any more say in the running of the estate now the Commander’s signed it over.’
‘He’s what?’ came the reply.
‘Tell us later,’ Ma ordered. ‘It can wait.’ She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead with a smile and a pretence of weariness before turning to Flora and saying, ‘Sorry, lass. What a day to come and meet me. But we’ll have a right wee blether when the wedding’s over.’
Then she gave her attention once again to the kitchen sides – the bunkers, Ma called them – that were laden with trays of food. There were tiny triangular sandwiches and sliced brown bread and butter. On an enormous silver platter lay a salmon mousse, moulded into a fish shape, decorated with lemon and lime slices and surrounded with a creamy tarragon mayonnaise. There was tender cold roast beef, the thin pink slices overlapped on a bed of shredded lettuce laid out on ashets – the Scottish name for the huge china serving plates that were dotted about the kitchen. There was an ashet of cold roast ham with dressed sweet apple slices; there were ashets of sausage rolls and sliced ham. Green salads and cold potato salad filled great glass bowls and all were being carried by hired staff. They scurried, loading food on to trolleys under Ma’s watchful eyes, putting the trolleys in the lift, sending them up to the waiting-on staff who had earlier laid out tables for twenty people in the dining room.
Flora said tentatively, ‘Can I help you, Mrs Stewart?’, her cheeks flaming as they always did when she was self-conscious. They had not had a chance to be alone yet. Ma still did not know that Andrew had proposed to her.
‘It’s all right, lass,’ Ma said before turning away again and calling out, ‘Don’t take the trifles and fruit compotes up yet,’ to one of the kitchen maids – and back again to say to Andrew, ‘Take Flora outside. They’ll be going down to the garden for photographs, the Commander told me.’ She smiled, took Flora’s hand in hers and passed her over to Andrew. ‘Don’t get in the way. Stand well back.’
Andrew led Flora outside to find a sheltered spot out of the blazing sun, which would be ideal for photographs and torture to her. He said, ‘What a devil not being able to tell Ma.’ Then, ‘This wedding is a big surprise to me.’ He took her hand and led her to a shady corner by the servants’ side door where a rose tree, rampant with yellow blooms, clambered all over the porch. He said, ‘Remember I told you about them? You could have knocked me down with a feather! Ruth Bickerstaffe marrying the Commander only days after I saw her and Mike Hamilton riding out, ignoring everyone.’
‘Maybe you were mistaken,’ she said. Andrew had told her that he thought the woman who was now Lady Campbell was no better than a whore. ‘Best to think that anyway.’
‘Why?’
‘Because your ma still works here.’
‘You are like Ma, you know.’ He slid an arm about her waist and pulled her close. ‘I’ve never heard you say a bad word about anyone.’
Flora said, ‘I like your ma. Will she take to me?’
‘She already has, I can tell,’ Andrew replied with absolute confidence. He knew Ma’s every facial expression. She was going to love Flora as much as he did. ‘You’ll have a chance to talk to her when this wedding breakfast’s over.’
It was two o’clock. Andrew said, ‘Kiss me before they come out and catch us,’ and she did, pressing her soft lips on his, quick and light like the brush of petals. He held her tight for a few moments, whispering in her ear, ‘I love you, Flora. Let’s go. Let’s be on our own somewhere, as soon as we’ve told Ma we’re getting married.’
She pushed him away gently, for she was afraid that someone would see them. ‘Let’s keep it a secret,’ she said. ‘If we tell them, we’ll never get away on our own.’ Then, seeing his crestfallen face, ‘I love you, Andrew. I want to be your wife.’
No girl had ever loved a boy as much as she. Then a chilling premonition that these were their last hours together came sweeping over her, just as she knew it would for the dozens of young couples that day who were marrying at registry offices and churches all over the land. She thought about the evenings of songs and music round Mr Davidson’s piano – Andrew playing the popular songs, Mr Davidson the traditional airs, and she singing her heart out, delighting them. Would there be any more such times? She clutched his hand. ‘I’m afraid for you – for where you’ll be sent, tomorrow.’
‘I’ll be all right, love. We’ve got the best captain in the navy, and the best ship.’ He gave her the smile that made her head spin. He had beautiful teeth, white and even in his wide, generous mouth. Flora thought he looked like Clark Gable, only younger, more manly and handsome. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him again, quickly because she could hear the kitchen staff, noisy in the passageway behind the door. On the lawn a photographer was setting up his tripod, looking through the little viewing window then going to set small stones and sticks to indicate where the groups would pose.
Andrew pulled her aside, clear of the doorway. Ma came out and said in a voice high with excitement, ‘I’ll stand here with you two. Then I can point them all out to Flora,’ as the guests came round from the front entrance to gather in little knots around the photographer. The bride and groom appeared and Flora, catching Ma’s excitement, said, ‘Isn’t she just beautiful – and he’s good-looking.’
Hearing Andrew’s chuckle, Ma said, ‘Wait till you see the Commander and Lady Campbell – they are like film stars.’ She ignored Andrew and said to Flora, ‘Give me a hand up, love. I’ll have to stand on the wee stone wall to see properly.’
Flora eagerly gave Ma both hands. Ma didn’t let go but pointed excitedly with her free hand while she gripped Flora’s and said, ‘Here they come! The Commander and Lady Campbell!’
Flora looked – and the smile left her face, a metallic taste came into her mouth, her face drained of colour and her knees buckled. The Commander was the man – the magistrate – who had put her away in Guthrie’s, twice.
Andrew caught her before she could hit the ground. Ma wanted to watch the wedding party, so he made light of her anxious offer to help get Flora inside. ‘It’s the heat,’ he said. ‘She’ll be better out of the sun,’ and he half carried his fainting darling through the door and into the dark, cool kitchen, where he pulled out a chair and made her sit.
She was shaking violently – as violently as when she’d dropped into his arms a year ago. He rinsed a cloth under the tap and held the cold drench of it to her forehead, but she grabbed his hand and started to cry. ‘Take me away, Andrew. I’ve got to go back. I can’t stop here …’
‘All right. But what’s up?’
‘I’ll tell you. Not here. Please … please … Andrew?’
It was as if she had been struck dumb, for she could not speak at all on the way from Ingersley to the station at North Berwick. It took her two hours to quieten and tell him what was wrong and even then she could not tell him everything, for he’d never understand why she had lied to him for all this time.
Now, at five o’clock, with only seven hours left, they strolled on Edinburgh’s beach at Portobello, barefoot and hand-in-hand. Andrew put his arm about her waist and made her come closer so that he could feel her hips moving in harmony with the swing of his left leg, her head resting against his shoulder as they went. He said, ‘I don’t think the Commander would have recognised you, love. You are eighteen now. You were fifteen when he sent you to Guthrie’s, and that was only because your gran was dead and you had nowhere to go.’
She smiled up at him, and love for her came stabbi
ng through him like a physical thrust that was as exciting as it was painful.
‘They wouldn’t be able to send you back to Guthrie’s if we were married.’ He wanted desperately now to be married to her, to be with her, to love her and know her body. He stopped. They were too far down the beach. ‘Let’s go back,’ he said.
They turned to retrace their steps and she slipped her arm through his. He could feel, through the thin stuff of her dress, her firm round breast pressing against his arm. She said, ‘Jessie Fairbairn says a girl can legally call herself married in Scotland without going to church.’
‘How?’
‘By habit and repute. You have to live with your man and use his name. Then, after a time you announce before witnesses that you are his legal wife . . . by habit and repute. It’s how Jessie married.’
‘I didn’t know.’ He stood stock still. ‘What difference can a registrar or a preacher make, anyway? We’ll legalise it on my next leave.’ He took her in his arms and, not caring a whit if anyone saw them, kissed her long and hard until his head was reeling with the honey taste of her mouth and the sweet, urgent response in the body that was pressed so close he had to stop before he embarrassed himself and her. He asked, ‘Does spending every minute of my time with you – wanting to spend every day of my life with you – count as living together?’
‘It must do.’
‘And you call yourself Flora Stewart?’ he said. She had stuck to the Stewart name ever since he’d lied to Mr Davidson, saying she was his sister.
‘Yes.’
‘Then we’re married.’ He kissed her again. ‘Come on, love,’ he said. ‘We’ll have our own wedding feast. I’ll buy you fish and chips on Portobello High Street.’
She laughed and clung to him. ‘What about the ring?’
‘There’s a jeweller’s shop near the cafe. Let’s run . . .’ He grabbed her hand and ran with her across the soft sand until they reached the esplanade, where they put on their shoes. Then, arm-in-arm and sedately, they went to the jeweller’s shop. Andrew bought twin plain gold bands and demanded that the jeweller engrave them while they waited: Flora Stewart. Married Andrew. 2.9.39, and on his, Andrew Stewart. Married Flora. 2.9.39. The jeweller said that usually people bought the rings well before their wedding day and chose to inscribe a message of love not a matter of fact. But he said it affectionately and shook their hands and wished them a long and happy marriage.
Andrew put the rings into his pocket and they crossed to the noisy cafe, where he bought plaice and chips with peas, bread and butter and tea; the most expensive fish supper on the menu. There they toasted the marriage with cups of tea and whispered endearments over the laden, enamel-topped table. ‘We’ll put the rings on at Waverley Station, before I go,’ he said.
Flora’s eyes were brimming with tears of love and fear for him mingling unbearably. ‘How much longer have we got?’ she asked.
‘Three hours.’ ‘Let’s go quickly then.’ An hour later, at Waverley Station, jam-packed with soldiers, sailors and civilians, couples clung together, backs to the crowd, whispering farewells and last-minute declarations of love, and in their midst Andrew could not find a seat anywhere.
‘We have to find a quiet place,’ he said, and took her out of the station on to the bridge that faced the steep-sided valley that was once a loch. They went hand in hand through the Saturday crush in Princes Street Gardens across the road from the famous shopping boulevard. They walked beneath the shadow of the two-hundred-foot Scott monument that resembled the spire of a Gothic church, and hurried through the people who were strolling past the classical National Gallery. Further on a great bronze trooper on horseback faced the castle and the medieval Old Town – a maze of steep cobbled streets, steps and alleys that clung to the ridge of the Royal Mile, which dropped steeply from the castle at the top to the Palace of Holyrood House at the foot. They were searching for a quiet corner of the gardens where they could exchange rings and seal their solemn promises with kisses.
They reached the West End of the city before Andrew found the place he was looking for. Under the shadow of the castle that loomed on its rock high above them, and in the dark hollow behind St Cuthbert’s church, a place that saw sunlight for only a few hours each day, was a graveyard surrounded by an eight-foot wall. The gate was unlatched and he led Flora through it, closing it carefully behind him, into the tree-filled green gloom and dank dampness that was cool and welcome after the heat of the day.
The silence was astonishing. On two sides of the little graveyard trams, motor cars and buses were rattling by, yet inside, under the wall where the sound was muffled by the overhanging trees, nothing stirred.
Flora dropped Andrew’s hand to study the tombstones, though the sun was going down behind the castle and long shadows came slanting across the hollow where the graveyard lay. He could only just make out the names on the sandstone obelisk and memorial stones. Flora turned to him and said, ‘This is the place we learned about in school. The graveyard where the grave robbers …’
‘ . . .carried out their gruesome trade,’ Andrew said. ‘The Resurrectionists dug up the dead to sell the corpses to the anatomy students at the medical school.’ He put his arms about her and held her tight. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I’m on holy ground. I’m safe with you.’
He had lost the light-hearted air of this afternoon and now she could feel his tension – a kind of desperation in the bones and sinews of his strong arms. He stopped kissing her and said, ‘I’m not interested in history or the dead beneath our feet. I want us to make our vows and put the rings on.’
She whispered, ‘Andrew, I want to be married properly. I want you to love me,’ for her head was light with longing, and love and desire was flaming in her.
There was a weeping willow whose branches touched the ground, making a cave, a secluded vaulted area around the trunk. ‘We won’t be seen under the weeping tree,’ Andrew said. He bent double and took Flora into the dappled darkness of the den of leaves and branches, there to sit on the dry grass with his arms about her.
‘I wonder what this tree has seen,’ he said. ‘Do you think it was weeping in the eighteenth century when the bodies were being snatched?’
She laid her cheek in the clefted hollow between his neck and shoulder. ‘It’s not going to witness weeping and wailing today.’
Andrew unwound her hair, let it fall and fanned it out about her shoulders. She said softly, ‘It’s as good as a proper wedding isn’t it?’
‘Every bit,’ he breathed. ‘Lovers marry over an anvil at Gretna Green. A weeping tree is more fitting for a wedding than a blacksmith’s shop.’ He buried his nose in her hair and smelled the sweet cleanness of it. He said, ‘Do you know the words of the marriage service?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you been to a wedding?’
She said, ‘Dozens. I’ve sung at choral weddings at St Philip’s.’
He pulled her up into the kneeling position he had taken. Then he leaned forward briefly and said, ‘You say them. I’ll follow.’ He slipped his hand into his pocket, brought out the rings and laid them on the sandy space between their knees. ‘I’m ready.’
He was deadly serious and a tremor went through Flora as she faced him and clasped his right hand. The scent of dry grass and the soft brush of the willow leaves was making her feel solemn yet faint as she said, ‘Do you, Andrew Stewart, take me, Flora Macdonald, to your lawful wedded wife?’ A lump in her throat made the words sound strangled.
He held her hand steady. ‘I do.’ And, not letting go, ‘Do you, Flora Macdonald, take me, Andrew Stewart, to your lawful wedded husband?’
‘I do,’ she whispered. ‘Will you promise to love me and keep me only unto thee, forsaking all others, as long as we both shall live?’
‘I will.’ Andrew nodded solemnly to her.
‘And I promise to love and honour and obey you, my lawful wedded husband, until death us do part.’
Flora said, ‘Now say after me. With this ring I thee wed. With my body I thee worship and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.’
He said the words slowly and deliberately and then he put his arms about her there, under the weeping tree, and felt desire burning through her in the lips that clung to his own and the arms that were winding about his neck and the soft hands that were threading through his hair.
He was trembling as he took off his tunic to make a pillow for her head, and shaking violently when she pulled him down on top of her. She waited, lips parted, eyes gone misty with tears and love and longing. He said gently, ‘I want you so much, Flora. Would you believe me if I told you I want you so much I’m in pain from wanting?’
‘And me,’ she murmured. ‘I want to do it before you go.’
‘What if you have a baby?’
‘Jessie Fairbairn says you can’t get a baby the first time,’ but his mouth was on hers and there was nobody to see them in the dark little cave that the weeping tree made for them.
He unfastened her dress, spread it open and tenderly caressed the soft, creamy skin of her breasts. She was his, his wife, and he loved her to distraction. He was dazzled by the beauty of her body that seemed to absorb and reflect the last of the light that came glancing over the tree, piercing the leaves and throwing light and shade over her. His love was a stabbing pain in him and yet he felt humbled that she had chosen him.
He was hard and hot and needful and she was helping him out of his clothes and he could not hold himself back. His mouth locked on to hers, tasting the sweetness of her, while he slid his hand along her slender white thighs and slipped his finger into the hot, slippery, tight little depths of her and felt her opening for him, moaning softly. It was happening so fast, for her as well as himself. He had never dreamed it would feel this way – never dreamed that he would be on fire, desperate for her as he lowered himself in against the quick resistance of her virginal state.
Flora's War Page 13