She followed him up to the top floor and found that the small flat was quite comfortably furnished, but when she sat down on the sofa, it wasn’t as comfortable as it looked.
‘I don’t make any meals here,’ he said, apologetically, ‘so I can’t offer you tea, but would you care for a sherry?’
‘No thank you.’
‘Do you mind if I have a drink? I’m building up my courage to say something I’ve never said in my life before.’
Sure now of what he was going to say, her heart hammered wildly, and she was happy to let him take his time over it.
He poured himself a small glass of whisky, then looked at her with his eyebrows raised. ‘First, I must ask you this. Are you quite sure you love me now?’
‘Completely sure,’ she breathed.
Downing the spirits, he said, ‘Will you marry me, Cissie?’
‘Oh yes, Bertram,’ she murmured. What did it matter that it wasn’t the romantic proposal she had dreamt of?
A little smile flickered at the corner of his mouth as he laid his glass down and sat beside her, his arm round her shoulders. ‘I’m not a churchgoer, and I’d hate to be a hypocrite by asking a clergyman to marry us, so how do you feel about a civil ceremony?
‘I don’t care,’ she laughed, almost swooning when his lips came down tenderly on hers. This – he – would be her future.
‘Oh, Cissie,’ he said, in a few minutes. ‘You’ve made me very happy. Shall we go out for a meal to celebrate? I’ll buy you an engagement ring tomorrow, then I’ll show you the house I’m having built for us.’
‘Were you so sure I’d accept you?’ she smiled, quite glad that they wouldn’t be living in the tenement, though she wouldn’t really have minded wherever he wanted to live.
‘Positive,’ he grinned.
‘Where have you been?’ demanded Phoebe when Cissie went in some hours later. ‘I waited supper for you, but when you weren’t home by half past six, I took mine.’
‘I’ve had mine, too,’ Cissie smiled. ‘Bertram treated me.’
‘You’re seeing an awful lot of him these days, I hope it’s not serious.’
‘So serious I’m going to marry him. He asked me tonight.’
Phoebe’s eyebrows had shot down. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you this, Cissie, I didn’t think it mattered, but he was boiling mad when Richard told him we were getting married.’
‘He’d likely be jealous his father thinks so much of you, that’s all. He’s really nice, you know.’
‘I know I encouraged you to patch things up with him, but I thought you’d soon see how shallow he was and give him his marching orders. Oh. Cissie, he’s not the man for you.’
‘He is, Phoebe, he is. You’re marrying the man you love, and surely you don’t grudge me some happiness?’
‘If only I could be sure he’d make you happy, Cissie, I’d be delighted.’
‘He will make me happy, I know he will.’
Cissie would have been less sure if she had known that on his way home, her husband-to-be was congratulating himself on the way he had handled her. He had got her to say she’d marry him, yet he hadn’t sinned his soul by saying again that he loved her. Not that he’d have worried about sinning his soul, he was quite an expert at it, but he didn’t want to give her anything to hold over his head if he changed his plans – though he didn’t think he would. Another thing, he wouldn’t jeopardise his chances with her by indulging in any attempts at pre-marital hanky-panky with her, or with anyone else. Apart from Cissie’s reaction if she were to find him out, she would tell Phoebe, who would tell his father – who was now in sole control of the entire Dickson fortune.
Chapter Nineteen
After admiring the huge diamond in Cissie’s engagement ring, Phoebe tried one last time to make her stepdaughter see that it would be a mistake to marry Bertram. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked, with her eyebrows raised. ‘Really sure?’
‘Two hundred per cent sure.’
‘He didn’t threaten to fire you if you refused to marry him?’
Cissie tried not to show how much this pained her. She had never understood what Phoebe had against him. ‘He’d never do a thing like that – he’s decent – he hasn’t done anything to me he shouldn’t, not once.’
This astonished Phoebe, who had been sure Bertram was out for all he could get – with women and everything else. His father had hinted at it often enough. ‘Do you really love him enough to marry him?’
‘More than enough,’ Cissie smiled, ‘and he’s even started building a house. He took me to see it after we came out of the jeweller’s. It’s not long started, but it’s nearly as big as Huntingdon, and Bertram’s waiting to see when it’ll be ready before he fixes the date of the wedding.’
Phoebe stifled her doubts. Nothing she said would make any difference. ‘Well, just remember, if you ever need me, you know where to find me.’
Cissie’s smile disappeared. ‘I’ll never need anybody but Bertram, still I hope we’ll stay friends, Phoebe.’
‘I’ll always be your friend, you know that, but Bertram doesn’t like me.’
‘Maybe he thinks you’ve turned his father against him, but when he sees you haven’t, he’ll come round.’
‘I suppose so,’ Phoebe sighed, certain in her own mind that he would never be friendly towards her, and not even sure that she wanted him to be.
As the weeks passed, so Phoebe’s fear of what Tam would do when he got the solicitor’s letter lessened. What could he do? He could never escape from Peterhead Prison and he still had eleven years to serve. When they released him, he would be an old man and would have got over his anger. She had been worrying for nothing, like Richard always said.
The beginning of 1923 brought storms which slowed down progress on the building of the new house. At times, when snow-laden gales swept round the site and made it dangerous for the men to be on the scaffolding, work stopped altogether. Bertram, of course, hounded the foreman, who turned on him one day. ‘I’ve no control over the weather, Mr Dickson. You’ll just need to have patience.’
Desperate though he was to be married before his father and Phoebe, Bertram could not argue with this logic, and tried to pacify the man. ‘I can’t set the date of my wedding till I know when the house is going to be ready.’
‘Well, barring any more storms, we should have the roof on by next week, then it’s plain sailing.’
‘Could you give me any idea how much longer?’
Reluctant to commit himself, the foreman mumbled, ‘Well, I’d say four or five weeks, maybe.’
‘Four,’ Bertram cajoled. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’
‘Right, four it is.’
That afternoon, Bertram went to the register office and set the wedding for four weeks’ time, gloating that he was beating his father to it. He was not to know that Phoebe had been notified some time ago that she had to appear in the divorce court in Edinburgh the following day – she had not told Cissie because she wanted Bertram to have the shock of his life when it was sprung on him after the event. She also guessed that he had not got over being left nothing in his grandfather’s will, and hoped that his father’s marriage might make him so angry that he would fall out with Cissie, who, hopefully, would break off that engagement. She deserved better than that rotter.
Driving Phoebe home, Richard said, ‘How do you feel now, my dear? It wasn’t such an ordeal as you feared.’
It had been more of an ordeal for her than he knew. While the case against Tam was being made – he had not contested it – Phoebe had prayed that Cissie’s name would not be dragged through the mud again and she had almost collapsed with relief when the victims of the manslaughter remained unnamed. If Richard’s solicitor had looked up the case, he had kept that information to himself. Remembering that she still hadn’t answered Richard, she said, ‘Everything went off better than I thought.’
The banns having been cried as soon as Phoebe had been given the date of the case, the
ir wedding took place two weeks later, with only Cissie and a friend of Richard’s present. Bertram had been asked, but no one was surprised that he preferred to stay away. ‘He’ll be ashamed of himself for the things he said,’ Cissie excused him, and although Richard and Phoebe knew different, they did not disillusion her.
‘I have made Phoebe give up her job,’ Richard said, when he was driving Cissie home that evening, ‘and I am putting a man in to manage the mill for me. Of course, I’ll have to check up occasionally to make sure he’s coping, but I want to spend as much time with my wife as I can.’ He looked at Cissie quickly. ‘I hope you don’t think I am acting like a lovesick old fool?’
‘I think Phoebe’s very lucky to have a husband like you.’
‘It is I who am the lucky one, Cissie.’
While the minister conducted the ceremony in Huntingdon, Bertram had been in his eyrie in Lochee trying to drown his anger that Phoebe had won the race, but, sober the following morning, he consoled himself that it was only by a couple of weeks, and he was practically sure that his father would be a non-starter in the fatherhood stakes. His spirits lifting, he took Cissie to see his new house that evening. The labourers had cleared the debris the builders had left, the plasterers had finished and painters had begun work on the inside. He took her through the rooms, telling her what they were. On each of the first and second floors there were three rooms and a bathroom; on the ground floor, a sitting room – ‘Drawing rooms are out,’ he had told her – a dining room, a lavatory, and a study for him.
‘I’ve asked the electricians to put in as many sockets as they can,’ Bertram said, ‘and a light on the outside wall so that it shines into the garage. What do you think of it now? Some house, eh?’
He was like a child asking for praise, she thought fondly, but he deserved it. ‘It’s absolutely perfect, but isn’t it a bit big for us?’
‘You haven’t seen it all yet.’ Exultantly, he took her through a door at the end of the hall, where a flight of stairs led down to the basement. ‘The kitchen’s fitted with all the latest appliances,’ he boasted, as they went into the large square room.
Since it was below ground, she was astonished that it had a window, but he explained that, because the house was built on a hill, the kitchen was on a level with the rear garden. ‘There are steps at the side, so people can get round from the front, but deliveries will be made via the back gate. Now, this is the scullery, and there are two rooms which I haven’t quite decided about yet. Maybe store rooms?’
‘Oh, Bertram,’ she burst out, ‘I’ll never be able to get round all the rooms every day, not even every week.’
‘I don’t expect you to do any housework, Cissie. All I ask is that you look fetching for me when I come home at nights. I have engaged a cook and two maids to start a couple of days before the wedding, that’s when I will move in.’
In his car again, Cissie took one last awed look at her future home and couldn’t get over how lucky she was. She had never dreamt, when she was lying on Jen’s floor, that she would ever live in a house this size. And best of all, she would be Bertram’s wife, with nothing to do except look fetching for him, as he had said. She would never again have to work, or go short of anything, in her life.
When Bertram drew up in South Union Street, he said, ‘I’ve been wondering what to call the house – nothing as inane as Huntingdon.’
‘What’s wrong with Huntingdon?’
‘It’s so unimaginative – but you don’t know the story behind it. My father had been searching for months for a suitable house, and Mother hadn’t approved of anything he showed her – he didn’t have her exquisite taste. When he found one she did like, he said, “Thank goodness, that’s my hunting done,” and that’s what he called it.’
His expression of distaste made her laugh. ‘I think it’s quite sweet.’
His nose crinkled even more. ‘Exactly! Sweet! Sickly! Like the awful Dunroamings and Chez Nouses you see everywhere. I want something with a ring to it, something with panache.’
‘Panache? What’s that?’
A fleeting look of exasperation crossed his face before he gave a gurgling laugh. ‘It means verve, bravura. Yes, what better name could I find for my house?’
She couldn’t think of anything much worse, but she only said, ‘How do you spell it?’
‘P-A-N-A-C-H-E.’
‘People might think it’s pronounced Panatchie.’
‘Not educated people. I’ll have a nameboard made and fixed to the gate.’ Pleased with his own ingenuity, he slid his arms round her, and it was several minutes before he let her out of the car.
‘Goodnight, darling,’ she whispered, after the final kiss at the outside door of her tenement.
‘You’d better go in and get some beauty sleep, my pet,’ he smiled. ‘You haven’t many nights left to be on your own.’
Climbing the stairs to her flat, Cissie was assailed by misgivings. Bertram had always treated her gently, but what would she do when he wanted to make love to her? She hadn’t been able to respond to poor Jim Robertson after Aggie died, but that had been different. Although she had liked him, she had never loved him, and surely her love for Bertram would overcome her fear of a wife’s duties.
Bertram dropped Cissie at her flat at five past nine on the last night of his bachelorhood, but instead of going home to Panache, he drove down to the dock area to look for someone to satisfy the desire he’d had to deny himself with his fiancée – it would be the last time he would need a prostitute. He saw no sign of any as the car crawled along, and he supposed they had all been picked up by seafaring men, then it crossed his mind that some of them might not have started their night’s work yet. He would hang around for a while.
Drawing up and pulling out his cigarette case and lighter, he leaned back to enjoy a quiet smoke, but when he rolled down the window some ten minutes later to dispose of the stub, he was accosted by a strident female voice. ‘Was you waiting for somebody, dearie?’
A painted face leered in at him, so close that he could see the pock marks on the crepey skin, and he shuddered at the idea of even touching her. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘I . . .’
‘Only ten bob an hour, mister.’
‘No thank you, I’m . . .’
‘Sorry I’ve been so long,’ came another voice, a pleasant musical voice, and the raddled hag moved away, muttering.
Bertram was astonished that this elegant, well-spoken woman was a complete stranger to him, but he was grateful that she had rid him of the embarrassment. ‘I saw you were being pestered,’ she said. ‘I hope you didn’t mind me butting in?’
‘I’m glad you did. May I give you a lift?’
‘That’s very kind of you.’ She walked round to the other door and got into the car.
When he stopped at the address she gave, she said, ‘Would you like to come in for a drink?’
It was two o’clock in the morning when Bertram returned to Panache. Barbara Troup had told him she was a widow and things had progressed in a most agreeable manner. She had a decent figure and was quite good-looking, though he had seen, in the harsh light from the naked electric bulb in her room, that she was much older than he had first thought. Nevertheless, he had worked on her until they ended up in bed together, and he’d been delighted when she taught him some new tricks. She had amazed him further by asking for five pounds when he was leaving, because he had not dreamt that she, too, was a prostitute – a very high-class prostitute.
As he undressed, he knew that he wouldn’t be satisfied with ordinary love-making again. Even when he was married, he would visit Barbara regularly, because he couldn’t make Cissie do the things he wanted – not until she gave him his son. He was living for that wonderful day when he told his father he had a grandson and saw Phoebe’s face when she knew her expectations had been halved.
The ecru linen suit Bertram had bought as part of her trousseau was perfect. Cissie wished that the full-length mirror in the old wardrobe was in a
better condition, but even with bits of the silvering worn off, she could see that the long jacket and straight, almost-hobble skirt suited her, and when she pinned on the corsage of pink camellias he’d had a florist deliver – the same shade as her straw hat – she looked like a model in one of the fashion magazines. Her light brown hair, with a suggestion of gold in it, was sitting in a deep wave on her forehead, and the coil Phoebe had shown her how to pin was nestling under the wide brim of her hat. Her face was perhaps a little pale, but it made her blue-green eyes stand out more. Satisfied, she picked up her handbag and went down to the waiting taxi-cab Bertram had ordered for her.
Inside the drab room, she remembered her previous wedding. She’d just had her well-worn Sunday blouse and skirt to wear then, both a little tight although she had been only three months pregnant. She had stood beside Jim Robertson, who had seemed ill at ease in his high starched collar, her heart so sore that her responses were weak. But today, looking up at Bertram, so erectly smart and handsome in his tailored, navy suit, a white carnation in his buttonhole, she could feel her heart swelling with love and pride. Concentrating on the registrar’s words now, she repeated them firmly and clearly, and at last they were husband and wife.
His kiss was only a peck – probably he was embarrassed in front of the witnesses – and he made up for it by squeezing her arm as they walked out to the car which was waiting to transport them to Panache. He had offered to take her on a honeymoon to Paris, but she had been horrified at the idea of him spending so much on her. She had always had to count the pennies, and it would take time to get accustomed to having plenty.
In the taxi, Bertram said, ‘I’m glad that’s over. How do you feel, Mrs Dickson?’
She let the unaccustomed name swirl round in her brain, revelling in the sound of it on his lips. ‘Marvellous,’ she smiled, ‘but I’m glad it’s over, too.’
The cook had prepared a table fit for a king – for a whole court, Cissie thought, when she saw the amount of food set in front of them – and when they had eaten their fill, they went into the sitting room. The gleaming mahogany whatnot, laden with china ornaments, the octagonal occasional table, the upright chairs padded with delicately coloured patterned velvet and the low chesterfield suite in the same material, had all been chosen by Bertram, but she didn’t really mind.
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