by Anne Douglas
When will it all end? Rosa thought, her eyes often seeking Daniel, who was so pale but doing his best to circulate, while his mother gave grudging praise to Joan’s refreshments. Did any of these people care tuppence for Lorne? Would her passing make the slightest difference to anyone? Only to her da and her sister – and Daniel, of course, but Rosa moved her thoughts on from Daniel.
Until in passing he touched her arm and whispered, ‘Courage, they will go. Eventually.’
‘And then I must pack. Seeing as we have to leave first thing tomorrow.’
‘I shan’t be sorry to get back.’
She noticed he didn’t say ‘home’, but what did either of them think of as home? And how would it be, returning to the flat where they would never again see Lorne? As a small, dull pain tightened in Rosa’s chest, she was still able to heave a sigh of relief, for people were beginning to come up to shake hands, to thank Greg and Joan, Rosa and Daniel, to show sympathy again. Soon Lorne’s family would be alone, and already Joan was worrying about their tea. As though they needed anything!
‘Well, you must take some of this stuff back with you,’ she told them when Rosa and Daniel said they couldn’t eat any more. ‘I’ll make a picnic for you, eh? It’s a long way you’re going, remember.’
‘You’ll come down and see us again, Da?’ Rosa asked him the next morning when they were waiting to leave. ‘You know you’re always welcome.’
‘Aye, we’ll see you in Auld Reekie,’ he said, smiling strangely. ’Might have some news for you then, and all.’
‘What sort of news?’
‘That’d be telling.’
‘Well, tell then!’
‘There’s no details fixed.’ Greg looked around at Joan, who was packing up what seemed a huge amount of food for the train journey, then turned back to Rosa. ‘But the thing is – well, you must have wondered when it was coming, eh?’
‘When what was coming?’ cried Rosa, guessing anyway, at which Greg smiled and called Joan over.
‘I’m just going to tell ’em, Joan. Didn’t want to come out with it before, with the funeral and everything.’
‘Oh, get on with it!’ laughed Joan, red spots appearing on her cheekbones. ‘We’re engaged, that’s the thing. If it does not sound too silly for folk of our age—’
‘Engaged?’ cried Rosa, smiling. ‘Daniel, do you hear the news? Da and Joan are engaged.’
‘Congratulations!’ he said, producing a smile. ‘That’s grand news. When will the wedding be?’
‘Oh, not for a while.’ Joan hesitated. ‘We want to wait a bit, you know, after poor Lorne’s passing. After all, we’re in mourning. But by the time we see you again I think we will be wed.’
‘Taxi!’ cried Daniel, hearing the rap at the door. ‘We must go. But we couldn’t be more pleased, could we, Rosa?’
‘Couldn’t,’ agreed Rosa, remembering how she and Lorne had rather dreaded the possibility of this engagement but knowing things were very different now. Very different, as everything was, really, without Lorne.
Fifty-Five
At least Daniel had managed to show polite interest in her father’s news, Rosa thought as they embarked on the long train journey back to Edinburgh. Wrapped in thoughts of his own, Greg’s engagement probably meant nothing to him, but he had concealed that well, for which Rosa, who knew how much he was grieving for her sister, was grateful. Was even glad, in a way, that now he was on the train with just herself, apart from strangers, he needn’t try too hard to hide his feelings.
He might not realize, because of course, nothing had been said in so many words, that Rosa knew exactly what he was feeling and therefore he needn’t struggle to hide it. But he would know, as Rosa knew, that for them to continue living together in their usual way, things should not be spelled out. The less things were made clear, the more quickly Daniel could get over a love that could never mean anything now. And come back to her, to Rosa.
So she argued to herself as the train went on its clickety-click way from the Highlands, though she knew that many women would not agree with her. They’d be all for having things out in the open, so that a husband and a wife knew where they were, but ‘least said, soonest mended’ was the motto Rosa was following. Once words had been said, they could hang for ever between people and could never be unsaid, which was why Rosa took no credit for herself in letting Daniel keep his feelings private. It was the best thing to do, for him, for her, for their future.
‘Shall we start our picnic?’ she whispered as other people in the compartment were opening out packets of sandwiches and sausage rolls and, after a shrug or two, Daniel said that though he wasn’t hungry, they’d better have something to eat. It would be a long time till they got back to Edinburgh, and he’d also like to tell Rosa something he’d have told her earlier, had it not been for circumstances.
‘Is it something important?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Sort of, but nothing to worry about. Let’s pack the picnic stuff away and go into the corridor. Stretch our legs.’
The corridor was cold and draughty but empty of people, and as they clung on to the brass railing beneath the windows, swaying with the motion of the train and only briefly aware of the scenery as it flashed by, Daniel seemed to think it wasn’t too noisy to talk.
‘We could walk a little way, if you like,’ he offered, and Rosa agreed that that might be better than letting their fellow passengers in the compartment watch them talking.
‘But I wish you’d tell me your news, whatever it is,’ she told him as they paced the corridor. ‘I’m getting nervous.’
‘It’s good news, in a way. The thing is Mr Lang is doing well and opening up a new shop and workshop over in Fife – Kirkcaldy – and he wants me to manage it.’
‘In Fife?’ Rosa thought for a moment how this could affect their life in Edinburgh. ‘You could travel there on the train, couldn’t you? That wouldn’t be too difficult.’
‘I don’t want to do that,’ Daniel answered, his eyes looking past her down the corridor. ‘I do long hours; I don’t want a late journey home. It would be better for me to stay over in Fife during the week.’ Still keeping his gaze away from Rosa, he quickly added, ‘But I’d come home at weekends.’
‘Weekends,’ she repeated slowly. ‘Just weekends? We’ve never been separated before, Daniel.’
‘I know,’ he answered, his tone uneasy. ‘Things would be … a bit different from what we’re used to.’
‘Are you happy about that?’
‘No, but you have to think of the good side, Rosa. There’d be more money coming in. We could save to buy a cottage or a house instead of a flat. And I’d have more responsibility. I’d be training people to do what I can do, as well as creating my furniture as before.’ Finally, Daniel brought his blue gaze down to her. ‘I really think these changes are going to be good for us, Rosa. In the long term, I mean.’
‘With me on my own during every week?’
‘You could take up your artwork again. You’ve always wanted do to that.’
‘And you’ve never wanted me to, have you?’
‘I’ve always been proud of your work, Rosa. It’s true. I mean it. Anyway, I’ve told Mr Lang I’m happy to go along with his plans, and when you’ve thought about it, I’m sure you’ll be happy about the changes too.’
And you’ll be able to lead a different life where you never knew Lorne, thought Rosa as tears pricked her eyes and her lip began to tremble. But she decided she would say nothing. If this was Daniel’s way of coping with a grief he could not name, so be it, she would go along with it, and maybe one day, when time had done its work, he would come back to her. For weekends or not, with the future he’d worked out he was not going to be with her as he’d always been before. Let him see how his new life suited, while she – oh, God, what would she do during the long weeks when he was over in Fife?
Her artwork? She couldn’t think of it. Only that as well as losing her sister, somehow she had lost Daniel too.<
br />
‘I’m going back to the compartment,’ she told Daniel and, because she couldn’t cry in front of the strangers in their compartment, had to bite her lips and find a hankie to wipe her eyes before she met their looks. Could they see she was holding back tears? It didn’t matter if they did. They could see that she and Daniel were both in black, that they were in mourning, which was only true. But now it seemed to Rosa that they were mourning more than the loss of Lorne.
Part Three
Fifty-Six
Time went by. Days, weeks, months, which gradually became years, and by early 1914, what had been a new routine for Rosa and Daniel, bringing them together only at weekends, became the norm. What Daniel thought of it, Rosa never asked, but it was not something she herself could ever be happy about. Seeing each other as ships that passed in the night – how could that suit a husband and wife who had at one time never known separation? Not well, surely? But neither suggested returning to earlier ways. Somehow, they just accepted that things were different now. Mainly because of Lorne’s coming into their lives again and then so tragically leaving, Rosa believed, but this was something she and Daniel never discussed.
After Daniel had first begun work in Fife back in 1911, Rosa, in need of sympathy, had told Molly Calder, and Molly’s sympathy, as Rosa had known it would be, was generous.
‘Och, pet, what a shame!’ she cried when they were standing together on the stairs one morning. ‘All this to be happening, eh, and just when you’re grievin’ for your puir sister! ’Tis terrible for you, Rosa, ’tis too much!’
‘These things happen.’ Rosa sighed, wearily leaning against the wall. ‘I know Daniel’s job must come first, we have to fit in with that, but I have to admit, it’s all getting on top of me.’
‘Aye, but you’re too good at puttin’ up with things, eh, Rosa? If twas me, I’d be creatin’ such a fuss they’d hear me at the castle!’ Molly laughed, then laid her hand on Rosa’s arm. ‘But listen, eh? If you iver want a bit o’ sympathy, you’ll come over tae me? Promise?’
‘I’ll be glad to, Molly.’ They hugged hard before Rosa drew back and said she had to tackle Lorne’s things, all that she’d left, waiting now for Rosa’s decisions. Had to be done some time, deciding what to do with everything, but finding the will to do it – that was the problem.
‘’Tis hard, Rosa, very hard,’ Molly said. ‘I’d ’gie you a hond, but I ken fine you’ll want tae sort your sister’s stuff yourself. Come and have a cuppa when you’re ready, eh?’
‘I will, Molly, and thanks.’
Later, in what had been Lorne’s room, surrounded by her possessions, Rosa had begun well, sorting everything into those that were to be given to folk in the tenement, or to charities, or to be kept by Rosa herself.
That green jacket for instance, that Lorne had liked so much because it brought out the colour of her eyes, Rosa would keep in her wardrobe, away from upsetting Daniel. And the suit she’d worn when she’d first come to the MacNeils’ door, asking if she might stay – oh, that must be kept, it brought her back so well!
But in the end it was all too much for Rosa, who suddenly bundled everything away into cupboards, deciding she’d wait for Joan, now married at last to Greg, who would be visiting Edinburgh soon on a belated honeymoon. Yes, best to leave Lorne’s things to Joan and get on with something else. Always plenty to do, wasn’t there? And, like so many afternoons, Rosa’s ended in tears.
Gradually, though, as the weeks went by, her grief for her sister didn’t hurt quite so much, and with the help of Joan, everything was sorted out and life took on its new routine. Even Daniel began to improve, to come back to normal. Still no words passed on Lorne between him and Rosa, but Rosa didn’t try to change that. Better not, she had long ago decided.
That was in 1911. By early 1914, Rosa had not only sorted out her new life, she had taken on new work, having met Bob Brewer, Jack Durno’s agent, who had persuaded her to take up her artwork again and had sold many of her drawings of Edinburgh, and even the few watercolours she had attempted, much to her satisfaction.
True, she still missed seeing Daniel, except at weekends, but you could get used to anything, it was said, and Rosa had got used to all the changes that had come her way. Had, in fact, prospered, as her looks showed, and as Jack Durno told her when he saw her again, quite by chance as usual, in the Royal Botanic Gardens where she was sketching winter branches. And this time when he asked her to go for coffee in the Botanics café, she did not say no.
Fifty-Seven
He was looking older, which was not surprising – he was older than when they’d last met, and so was Rosa, but she had not, she believed, changed. Hoped so, anyway. Perhaps she was wrong? Perhaps it was difficult for those looking in their mirrors to see what was really there rather than what they believed to be there? Perhaps, but Jack greeted Rosa with such effusion, exclaiming that she hadn’t changed at all, that she felt relieved the days of strain and sorrow had not, it seemed, left their mark.
‘I can’t believe I’m seeing you!’ Jack was exclaiming again, holding her hands until she let go of his. ‘I can’t believe you’re here, in front of me. I thought when I came back that sometime, somehow, we’d meet again, but of course, as I couldn’t get in touch with you, all I could hope for was a lucky chance meeting like this, and here we are then, you looking so lovely, so much the same, it’s as though time has stood still—’
He shook his head wonderingly, perhaps at his own good fortune, while Rosa, quickly managing to get a word in herself, asked him when he’d come back and from where.
‘From New York, only a couple of weeks ago. I had an exhibition there – very successful – but the way things were going here, I knew I had to come back. But look, we can’t talk here. The café’s just five minutes away – can you for once have coffee with me?’
‘Oddly enough, for once I can,’ Rosa said, smiling, feeling glad she’d taken the trouble to wear her best dark blue skirt and matching cape, though she’d thought she’d only be walking by herself. Never had she dreamed of meeting Jack Durno in the Botanic Gardens.
‘That’s wonderful,’ he said in heartfelt tones, as though she’d said something important.
‘This way, then. Let’s see if we can find a table and have some good Scottish scones.’ He laughed and Rosa saw again the laughter lines around the eyes that she remembered so well. ‘Can’t tell you how much I missed Scottish baking in the States. They’ve terrific things themselves – doughnuts and flapjacks and stuff, but nobody can make scones like the Scots!’
Oh, yes, thought Rosa, walking at his side to the café, Jack might be looking older but he had the same vitality about him, the same way of getting the best out of things. Except perhaps when in the past he’d tried to convince her of his love, but she wouldn’t think of that now. Like so much, it was all in the past.
Settled into window seats in the café, they ordered coffee and the scones Jack so much admired, and while Rosa undid her cape and touched at her hair beneath her hat, Jack sat, leaning forward, his gaze always on her as he followed her every movement.
‘I don’t want to question anything about this meeting,’ he said softly, ‘but how is it you can be with me having coffee when you’ve never permitted it before? Has anything changed?’
‘Nothing important, Jack. It’s just that Daniel has to work in Fife during the week, so I’m not having to rush to shop for meals except at the weekend. I have just myself to think about.’
‘But you’ll tell him about this chance meeting?’
‘Of course. I tell him everything.’
They were silent as their coffee arrived with a plate of scones and butter and jam. It was only when they were sipping their coffee that Jack ventured to ask how things were with Rosa.
‘I heard from Bob that you had a bereavement some years ago. Your sister? I was very sorry to hear it.’
‘Yes, that was Lorne,’ Rosa answered, looking down at her plate. ‘It was very hard, what happ
ened to her. I mean, she was so young to go, just like my mother. Took me a while to get used to it and sometimes it all comes over me again, though I suppose we’re used to losing her by now, Daniel and me.’
‘Rosa, you have all my sympathy.’ Jack seemed to be concentrating on his scone, until he looked up and said quietly that he too had lost someone. ‘My mother, Rosa. You’ll remember her?’
‘Oh, yes, Jack, and I’m so sorry to hear she’s gone. Was that recent?’
‘Two years ago. Her heart gave out suddenly. She really wanted me to come back and live in the house again, and I suppose, if I get the chance, that’s what I’ll do.’
‘How do you mean – get the chance?’
‘Well.’ Jack shrugged. ‘A lot depends on what that crazy man does over in Germany. The talk is that he wants war.’
‘You mean the Kaiser?’ Rosa’s eyes were large on Jack’s face. ‘You say he wants war? Why should that be?’
‘It’s the way he is; he’s dying to have us all fighting and him winning. If, as most people think, war will eventually be declared, chaps will have to volunteer. I may be getting on—’
‘Jack, don’t be silly!’
‘But I think the army will still take me. I’m fit enough, that’s for sure—’
‘Look, let’s not talk of this any more.’ Rosa, finishing her coffee, was thinking of Daniel. If this German Kaiser did start a war, would Daniel be volunteering?
‘This has been lovely, Jack,’ she said at last, ‘but I must go now – I’ve a few things to do.’
‘We could go to a gallery or something?’ he asked, beckoning to their waitress to bring the bill. ‘I mean, if there’s no hurry for you to get back.’
‘Thank you, Jack, but I really think I must go.’ Rosa, rising and fastening on her cape, was certain now that she must leave him. Even having the coffee had been perhaps something she would find difficult to explain to Daniel. She’d better not risk spending any further time with Jack, innocent though that time was.