Highland Sisters

by Anne Douglas

  ‘Why, I shouldn’t wonder if a chair or table of his ended up over the road from here, eh? That’d be only what he deserves.’

  ‘Over the road?’ Rosa repeated.

  ‘At Holyrood, of course! The Palace of Holyrood House, no less, where the royals like only the best and the best is Daniel, mark my words!’

  ‘Please make space for tea!’ cried Mrs Lang as Daniel wheeled in the loaded trolley, smiling at Rosa and perhaps wondering why she was so particularly starry-eyed.

  Of course, she told him when they were at home and took pleasure in seeing his eyes also light up, though he just shrugged and said he was only doing his job.

  ‘But I’ll admit,’ he added after a moment, ‘that I am very lucky, Rosa, to be doing just what I’ve always wanted to do. To feel the right wood for my pieces, to see it when it’s still nothing and to make it into something beautiful! Never ceases to thrill me, make me truly satisfied.’

  She gave him a long, thoughtful look from her fine, dark eyes, then shook her head.

  ‘Yes, you are lucky,’ she murmured. ‘And I envy you. Because what do I do, then? Stay at home and clean the house, do the washing, the cooking?’

  ‘Why, Rosa, darling, isn’t that what women do?’ Daniel drew her towards him. ‘And isn’t it important, making a home? Don’t ever think it’s not! And have you forgotten, we both said we wanted children? When they come along, your days are going to be filled and no mistake!’

  ‘They won’t be along yet a while,’ Rosa said, freeing herself from his arms and flinging herself into a chair. ‘And in the meantime, what do I do? It’s so boring in this flat, Daniel, you’ve no idea. I can’t keep on cleaning it!’

  ‘Well, while you’ve got the time, why don’t you just get to know Edinburgh?’ he asked reasonably. ‘Go to the galleries and the museums, learn about the city – it’s the capital city, after all. There’s plenty you could do.’

  ‘Think so?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘It’s winter, not far off Christmas. Not the best time to see places.’

  ‘All right for the galleries if you go early before they close when the light goes. Come on, cheer up, Rosa. At least at the moment, we’re free.’

  ‘Free – at the moment? What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, there’s something I haven’t told you.’ Daniel had lowered his eyes. ‘You know I got a letter this morning?’

  ‘I didn’t see it. Who was it from?’

  ‘Brace yourself.’ Daniel tried to laugh. ‘It was from my mother. She’s planning to come down for Christmas.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ cried Rosa. ‘Oh, our first Christmas!’

  ‘Well, it was that or New Year. I thought Christmas would be easier.’

  ‘Daniel, anything to do with your mother is never easy!’ Rosa sighed deeply. ‘I was wondering if Da might have come, but he said it’s too far and too expensive. Might as well get your ma’s visit over with, then. She was bound to want to come sometime.’

  ‘Suppose you’ll have no time now to see any galleries? Daniel asked, smiling. ‘Won’t you be cleaning the place from top to bottom before Ma comes?’

  ‘Whatever I do, it won’t be enough. Might as well not bother doing anything at all.’

  But both Daniel and Rosa knew that that was never going to happen.

  Twenty-Eight

  Mrs MacNeil’s visit at Christmas was just as irritating as Daniel and Rosa had expected it to be, but what could they do? When she described the flat as quite unsuitable, and the other tenants not the sort of people she’d expected Daniel to be living near, all they could do was cross their fingers and keep their mouths shut. Which didn’t stop Mrs MacNeil from asking why the front steps weren’t cleaned, and if everybody took turns at the stairs, why did it look so neglected, so absolutely thick with dust?

  ‘I wouldn’t say it was that,’ Rosa was driven to say, but her mother-in-law only sighed and asked if Rosa had eyes in her head.

  Now why couldn’t Daniel find a nice little house, then, somewhere away from people like the tenement tenants? What nonsense to say such houses didn’t exist and if they did they’d be too expensive! Every town had nice houses – you just had to look for them.

  ‘No point in explaining,’ Daniel told Rosa. ‘Ma doesn’t understand Edinburgh living.’

  ‘Doesn’t want to understand anything,’ Rosa retorted. ‘What day did you say she was going home?’

  To be fair, she had brought generous presents for Christmas – a handsome knitted sweater for Daniel, a pretty blouse for Rosa – and when these were praised on Christmas morning, she tossed her head and accepted the praise as her right. No praise, however, went to Rosa for the bed jacket she had herself knitted for Mrs MacNeil, which was described as being far too big. How on earth did Rosa expect her to wear something so huge? And what a strange colour! Could it be blue or green? Where on earth had Rosa found the wool – if it was wool!

  ‘I’ll just check on the chicken,’ said Rosa, longing for Mrs MacNeil to move away from the range, but there was no hope of that. The flat was far too cold, she complained – she just hoped she didn’t catch her death!

  In spite of the grumbles from her mother-in-law, Rosa’s first effort at cooking a Christmas dinner was a success, and when Mrs MacNeil had gone afterwards for a nap, Rosa and Daniel washed up and went out for a walk on their own.

  ‘Sorry about Ma,’ Daniel said as they stepped out together, glad to be alone. ‘She’s just got in the way of complaining about things – doesn’t mean half she says. And she’ll be gone soon.’

  ‘Day after Boxing Day.’ Rosa sighed. ‘Can’t say I’ll be sorry.’

  Yet when she had to accompany Mrs MacNeil to the station as Daniel had to go back to work, Rosa did suddenly and surprisingly feel a rush of sympathy for her. In the wintry temperature, she looked cold and thin, almost woebegone, and would, Rosa knew, be going back to an empty house where probably no friend would call round, as Mrs MacNeil had so few friends. Impulsively, Rosa gave her a hug, at which her mother-in-law looked surprised, and cried, ‘Safe journey! Take care now!’

  ‘I will, but you be sure to keep in touch and tell me all your news. About that sister of yours, eh? She still in America?’

  ‘Yes, she’s still in America,’ Rosa answered unwillingly. ‘Da had a card.’

  ‘And she’s still with Mr Rory? Fancy that lasting!’

  ‘Your train’s coming,’ said Rosa, picking up Mrs MacNeil’s case. ‘I’ll help you in with this.’

  ‘I’ll take it, give it here—’ Mrs MacNeil landed a frosty kiss on Rosa’s cheek. ‘And you be sure to tell me when you’ve something interesting, eh?’

  ‘Interesting?’

  ‘Well, I’ll be wanting a grandchild one of these days, won’t I? Here’s the train.’

  As she was eventually settled into a compartment, her case on the rack and her knitting on her lap, Mrs MacNeil did at last thank Rosa for having her, and Rosa said, wondering if the heavens would fall down on her, that it had been lovely having her. Maybe she and Daniel would try to get home to the Highlands one day.

  ‘Aye, and see your dad before he marries that widow woman next door, eh?’ Mrs MacNeil cried, managing to get in a last barbed remark before the train carried her away.

  Oh, my, thought Rosa. Oh, my! Thank the Lord that’s over, then! Where can I get a cup of tea?

  Twenty-Nine

  ‘Be sure to tell me when you’ve something interesting,’ Mrs MacNeil had told Rosa at the station, which meant when there was a grandchild on the way, but Rosa had never thought somehow that that would happen. She didn’t know why, she just somehow couldn’t see herself as ‘expecting’, even though it was understood that she and Daniel wanted children. Which was why she got the shock of her life when, after she’d finally got to see the doctor who saw the tenement folk if they could manage his five-shilling fee, she was told to prepare for a baby in August.

  ‘August?’ she’d cried, at which sharp young Doctor Napier had frowned.


  ‘Aren’t you pleased, Mrs MacNeil? You should be – this is the first, isn’t it? Time for regrets when you’ve five or six at home already.’

  ‘Oh, I am pleased!’ she answered hurriedly. ‘It’s just that I never thought it would happen to me. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Why ever not? A fine, strong young woman like you? In my opinion, you’ll sail through it. Won’t need my services. You’ll do well with the midwife – no need to worry about that.’

  Which was true; Rosa had no need to worry about the midwife for, only two weeks after she’d seen the doctor, she lost the baby.

  ‘Lucky I hadn’t told your mother,’ she sadly remarked to Daniel later, when they’d recovered a little from the shock of what had happened. ‘She’d have been so disappointed.’

  ‘I’m disappointed, too, Rosa. I’d been thinking, if it was a boy, I’d get him interested in wood carving – always good to get an early start.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Daniel.’

  ‘No need for you to feel that!’ He held her close for a moment. ‘But we’ll try again. Second time lucky, eh?’

  ‘I don’t know if I feel ready for that.’

  ‘Well, when you do, I have the feeling all will be well. Why not? Didn’t the doctor tell you you’re ideal for being a mother?’

  ‘I just hope he’s right.’ Rosa shook her head. ‘Think I’ll write to Da now, and then your ma. They should be told what’s happened.’

  ‘Be sure to say we’re trying again.’

  She did say that, but later, after the second miscarriage which came in the early days of March, there would be no more news of grandchildren, for Rosa had been given the bad news that she would never be ‘expecting’ again. Something had gone wrong for her after the second failure and she and Daniel must learn to give up hope of ever having a family.

  ‘I’m sorry, Daniel,’ Rosa said again, shedding tears. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  But of course it was nobody’s fault, just one of those things, and after accepting the sympathy of Molly and all the kind-hearted folk in the tenement, they decided to get on with their lives as best they could. Daniel, after all, had work he loved and found rewarding; it was only Rosa who was left to try to find a purpose in her life which suddenly seemed so empty.

  ‘The thing is I don’t really have enough to do,’ she told Daniel one evening when they’d finished tea. ‘I mean, looking after this flat takes me so little time, and there’s just the two of us to cook for, so not much to do there. And I know you told me to go out and look round the city, go to the galleries and such, and I have, I’ve done that. But what else can I do? What I really need is a job.’

  ‘A job?’ Daniel, as he threw aside the evening paper he had been about to read, appeared stunned, his dark brows drawn together, his blue eyes fixed on her suddenly as cold as winter. ‘What are you talking about, Rosa? You can’t take a job. No wife of mine is going out to work.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’ Bright colour flooded Rosa’s face, rising from her cheeks to her brow, her widening dark eyes on Daniel now as cold as his. ‘It’s no disgrace for a wife to go to work, Daniel. Here in this very tenement, there are plenty who do. You’re saying they shouldn’t?’

  ‘If their husbands can’t earn enough to keep the family, of course I’m not saying that. But we’re not in that sort of situation. You don’t need to go out to work because we don’t need the money. Thank God, I earn enough for everything and I’m not having people pointing the finger at me because my wife has to have a job.’

  ‘This is about you, then, not me?’

  Rising from her chair, Rosa was facing Daniel as though he were suddenly her enemy, someone who would block her doing what she wanted, whose ideas were so foreign to her she could hardly calm herself enough to put her own views across.

  ‘I thought we loved each other,’ she told him, breathing fast. ‘I thought you’d want what I want, would want to see me happy! What can it matter to you if I find something to do outside this flat? Why should you mind?’

  Daniel slowly got to his feet, his eyes still cold but, when he spoke, his voice was quiet as though he wanted to appear reasonable, as though he had right on his side.

  ‘We do love each other, Rosa, there’s no argument about that. But I can’t stand by and let you go out cleaning someone else’s house because you want something to do. That’s your only experience, isn’t it? Cleaning?’

  ‘Maybe I could do something different?’

  ‘Look, I’ve told you, no wife of mine needs to go out to work at all. If you really want to be useful, why don’t you take up charity work? Think of all you could do to help folk!’ Daniel was beginning to appear excited at his own suggestion. ‘So many things! And you wouldn’t be upsetting me. Think about it, Rosa!’

  ‘Charity work,’ she said slowly. I suppose I could do that. But there’s something about being paid that’s important, Daniel, and it’s not just the money. It’s that someone thinks you’re worth being rewarded, you see, and that makes you feel good.’

  ‘And looking after our home doesn’t?’ Daniel, picking up his paper again, was making a great play of opening it out and being interested in one of the articles, while Rosa, watching him, was suddenly, painfully aware that she was again seeing a very different Daniel from the man she’d thought she’d married. Easy-going, gentle … yes, he was that, but when something really mattered he became conscious of his own position as husband and master and, if his wishes differed from hers, there was no question whose would take precedence.

  What was she to do? Just give in, do what he wanted? And nothing he didn’t?

  I don’t think so, Rosa said to herself. Being Daniel’s wife didn’t stop her having views of her own. As soon as he’d finished with that newspaper, she would take it and read the job vacancy columns. Maybe they’d be for governesses or schoolteachers but there would be posts for others, including domestic workers, that was for sure. One day there might be something different that would exactly suit her, and if it did, she was not going to let Daniel stop her trying for it. She loved him dearly, more than anyone in the world, but she had a right to her own life as well as being part of his.

  ‘Finished with the paper?’ she asked quietly as he put it to one side. ‘I’d like a quick look, please.’

  ‘First,’ he said lightly, ‘a kiss. We love each other, don’t we? Even if we disagree?’

  ‘Of course we do!’

  The kiss they exchanged was as long and fervent as ever, but when they drew apart, Rosa picked up the evening paper and began to casually leaf through it.

  Thirty

  For some time, there were no advertisements in the papers for posts that were of any interest to Rosa. Plenty for domestic workers, of course, and for the sort of work she couldn’t try for, having no qualifications, but none for a job she could do that was somehow different, that would draw her attention at once. Maybe there never would be a job like that, and she must reconcile herself to being a housewife and try to satisfy her longing for something different with treks round the city, looking again at what it had to offer.

  It was not until one bright morning in late April when she turned to the jobs page in The Scotsman that she at last saw something of interest. Not because it offered especially interesting work, but because the person wanting help in his flat was an artist and to work for an artist would be something new for Rosa.

  Though she had never done any painting herself, she had done drawing at school and been good at it. In fact, she could still remember the teacher’s praise for her and how it had been thought she might eventually find work in some sort of artistic sphere, but of course that hadn’t happened. Jobs of that sort were not available for someone without real qualifications and Rosa had none, which meant that when the time came to leave school and take a job, going into service was all that appeared suitable for her. She hadn’t minded, hadn’t expected anything else, but here, years later, was a job which would bring her into contact with a rea
l artist. And if she would only be cleaning his flat, wouldn’t that still be something different?

  Very carefully, she read the advertisement again, noting that it was guaranteed to cause interest from its very first words, which were Help Wanted for Artist, set apart on a line of their own, followed by a question: Would any kind person be interested in the care of an artist’s flat at eight, Kirby Gardens, following the retirement of the lady who previously did this work? Good wages will be paid to the successful candidate, who will be looking after four rooms and two studios. If interested, please write including one reference to Mr Jack Durno at the address given before 20 April.

  Here the advertisement ended and Rosa, having read it through yet again, lowered the newspaper and sat for some time, motionless. Her thoughts, however, were scurrying round, making her believe that she really would be writing to Jack Durno, and that however many other ‘kind persons’ or people like herself were in for it, she would strain every nerve to do all that she could to get it.

  All she had to do now was compose her letter, find a stamp and post it. And then tell Daniel. Or should she tell Daniel first? That might make him more willing to be happy about what she was planning, though she knew that he was not going to be happy anyway.

  For what was she proposing? To look after an artist’s flat, which would of course involve cleaning and being paid wages, the very things Daniel had said he would not accept for his wife. Almost certainly, though, there would be several people fancying this post and probably Rosa would not be successful, which meant that there would be nothing for Daniel to worry about. Should she tell him, then, what she was planning? She was sorely tempted not to, but as soon as they’d had their meal that evening she placed a cutting from The Scotsman beside his cup of tea.

  ‘There’s something here I’d like to apply for,’ she told him, her voice sounding to her quite artificially bright. ‘Though I’m sure I won’t get it.’

  ‘Apply?’ Daniel repeated, his face taking on the look she had come to know, the look of disapproval. ‘You mean for a job? I thought we’d decided that you wouldn’t be trying for any work, Rosa?’