‘I got lodgings in Quarry Street, and my landlady looked after me.’
‘Thank God for that, and you’re looking fine.’ Giving her hand another brief grip, he moved away.
The minister’s lengthy eulogy over, the cortege set off, the mourners walking the mile and a half behind the hearse. At the graveside, Elspeth prayed that her father had forgiven her before he died. She couldn’t bear to believe that he had gone to his eternal rest despising her.
‘Father, I’m sorry.’ For a moment, she watched the gravedigger shovelling the sods on top of the coffin, then turned to join her mother, who was surrounded by members of the farming community expressing their condolences.
‘Just a minute, Elspeth.’
The woman who stood behind her was another ghost from the past, and Elspeth’s stomach churned violently. ‘Oh, it’s Mrs Forrest!’
‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance at last, though it’s in sad circumstances. I made Blairton take me wi’ him, for I was sure you’d be at your father’s funeral, and I’ve been wanting to speak to you for a long time.’
‘Aye?’ Elspeth was shaking all over.
‘Did you ken my John had got a grandfather clock made for you? He meant to give it to you on your wedding day, but ...’
This was totally unexpected. ‘He never said anything about it – I only got the one letter.’ She didn’t say it had long since disintegrated and been burned.
Mrs Forrest lifted her spectacles to wipe her eyes before the tears spilled over. ‘You must have been as upset as me when you learned he’d been killed?’
‘I was ... awful upset,’ Elspeth murmured.
‘I thought that must be why you didna come to see me, and you’d likely gone away to try to get over it? Maybe it was best, but the clock was delivered two days after we got the telegram. It was meant for you, but I didna ken where you were, so it’s been in our parlour ever since, waiting for you to take it.’
‘But I can’t take it, Mrs Forrest, for I’m married now.’ Meg looked at her shrewdly. ‘Did you not tell your man about you and my son?’
‘I did tell him,’ Elspeth murmured – but not everything, came the unwelcome thought.
‘You were best not to keep secrets from him, so it’ll be all right if I send the clock up by the carrier. What’s your address, so I can tell Eck where to take it?’
Her mind a jumble of confusion, a bewildered Elspeth stammered out her address, and the woman went on, ‘It’s a lovely bit o’ furniture, and I’d like to think John’s wish had been carried out, though it’s not the way he planned.’
‘But, Mrs Forrest, I ...’
‘Blairton’s been moaning about it taking up space, so he’ll be pleased to see the back o’ it.’
Her head spinning, Elspeth joined her mother. The farm men had to return to work, but most of the women went back to the cottar house, where Lizzie had prepared sandwiches, so it was almost two hours before mother and daughter were alone again.
‘Was that Blairton’s wife that spoke to you in the kirkyard?’ Distressed as she was, Lizzie’s keen eyes had not missed the little episode. ‘What did she have to say?’
‘It was the queerest thing out. She said her John had got a clock made for me, and it come after they ken’t he’d been killed, but she didna ken where I was, and she asked my address, and she’s sending it up by the carrier.’
‘That’s good, it’ll be a reminder to you.’
‘Oh, Mother, David’ll maybe not be pleased to have a reminder o’ John Forrest in his house.’
‘He’d surely not be jealous o’ a dead man?’
Elspeth wasn’t so sure. A month or so earlier, she had been awakened one night by David’s moans, and when she roused him from his nightmare, he had told her about the deaths of his comrades and how his mind had been affected by shell-shock. She was afraid that being faced with this situation would hurt him at a time when he was still feeling vulnerable. ‘John bought it to give me on our wedding day,’ she muttered, ‘and what’ll David say about that?’
‘He’ll want you to have it, if he’s as good a man as you say, Eppie.’ Lizzie glanced hopefully at her daughter. ‘Can I come and meet him and judge for myself?’
Torn between rekindled love for her mother and fear that Lizzie might inadvertently make some reference to the ‘dead born’ child in front of David, Elspeth said, rather half-heartedly, that she’d be welcome to visit them the following Wednesday, that being his half day.
When Elspeth went home, David was glad that she had made up with her mother, but he couldn’t understand why she was so upset about the clock. ‘It was meant for you, so take it and be grateful, for I’m not jealous o’ your first lad.’
When Lizzie paid her promised visit, Elspeth showed her into the bedroom first, to leave her coat on the bed, and was proud when her mother admired the room. ‘David’s making a crib, and it’ll stand at the foot o’ the bed there.’ It was out before she thought, because she hadn’t made up her mind if she should tell her mother about the expected child.
‘A crib?’ Lizzie’s head swivelled round. ‘Are you ...?’
‘Aye, but not till June.’
‘I’m right pleased about it, Eppie, for it means I’ll have a grandchild at last. Is your David happy about it?’
‘We’re both happy about it, Mother.’
When Lizzie went through to the kitchen, she was amazed to find the grandfather clock already at the side of Elspeth’s fireside. ‘Oh, Eppie,’ she burst out, after studying it for a moment, ‘it’s the very marrow o’ the one your father gave me. John Forrest must have had a good memory.’
‘I got a shock about that, and all, and he even got our initials put on the pendulum.’ When she had first seen the flowing JF–EG so lovingly intertwined, Elspeth had sat down and wept for the boy she had loved so much, the father of the child she had left behind. This was tangible proof, everlasting proof, of how much he had loved her, and every time she looked at it she would remember him. When she recovered, she had worried that the initials would upset David, and had been a little worried about the flatness of his voice when he said, ‘It’s a beautiful clock.’
Over a cup of tea, Lizzie brought her daughter up to date with the happenings in Auchlonie, Elspeth expressing surprise, amusement, disbelief or pleasure as was expected of her, and when she finally got the chance, she asked, ‘Are Nettie Duffus and Kirsty Tough still wi’ Miss Fraser?’
Annoyed at herself for forgetting them, Lizzie said, ‘No, and you’ll not ken the lassies that’s there now. Nettie got wed to Johnny Low about three year ago, do you mind him?’
‘Aye, I mind him,’ Elspeth laughed, recalling what Nettie had said about Johnny kissing all the girls when he was drunk one Hogmanay. ‘She aye fancied him.’
‘Well, he got a job down about Fife, some place, and they seem to be doing well, from what I’ve heard.’
‘I’m pleased to hear that, but what about Kirsty?’
Lizzie shook her head, sadly. ‘Poor Kirsty didna do so well for herself. She had to get wed – you’ll not ken him, either, for he didna come to work at Denseat till four year ago. He was a bit o’ a lad, and he didn’t bide very long – long enough to put Kirsty in the family way, though. I heard he’s working near Peterhead, and they say he ill-uses her.’
Poor wee Kirsty, Elspeth reflected; so romantic and wanting to know about love, and she lands with a brute of a husband.
When David came home at quarter past one, having finished work for the day, Lizzie took to him straight away, remarking to Elspeth, ‘You picked a good man, any road. Oh, I near forgot,’ she continued, in almost the same breath, ‘I’m getting to bide on in the cottar house. I was feared I’d be put out, for it went wi’ the grieve’s job, but Ferguson himself come to tell me he’s building another house for the new man, wi’ an inside lavatory. Young folk nowadays need all the conveniences, they’ll not put up wi’ what the older generation had to put up wi’. We’d a dry lavvy for y
ears, till they laid pipes for water. Any road, he just wants me to pay a token rent, seeing Geordie was wi’ him so long.’
At David’s insistence – he thought very highly of his mother-in-law – Lizzie visited at least once a month and followed her daughter’s pregnancy with interest, often bringing small items she had knitted, in spite of Elspeth’s protestations that she shouldn’t.
Helen Watson and Ann Robb had both been pleased about the reconciliation, but Elspeth had been too ashamed to let them know that she had told Lizzie her first child had died. The lie had been uttered on the spur of the moment, and now she could never risk asking the Watsons over when her mother was there, in case she said some-thing about the ‘dead’ child and let the whole terrible secret come out in front of David.
Elspeth couldn’t fully explain to her husband why she wanted to call their daughter Laura, but she felt that, in some way, she was repaying the debt she owed to the Robbs. Both before and after John’s birth, the doctor and his wife had pulled her through when she was very low – in spirits and in health – and the only way she could think of to show her gratitude was to name her daughter after theirs.
Helen, of course, understood, and thought that it was a nice gesture. ‘Neither me or you would be here the day if it hadna been for Doctor Robb,’ she said, when she went to see the new infant. ‘Did you have him this time, and all?’
‘Aye, he’s very good, though I wasna near as bad as I was wi’ John.’ Remembering that it was Helen who had delivered John, Elspeth thought, with belated comprehension, that her friend had had every right to think of him as her own. When she herself had given up her son, it had almost torn her apart, but she had done the right thing.
Ann was delighted about the name when Elspeth went to show her daughter off. ‘You’ve done us a great honour, Elspeth, and she’s an absolute darling. I think we could have a wee glass of sherry to celebrate, don’t you?’
Elspeth felt that this baby almost compensated for her past sacrifice, and swore to herself, as she sipped from the dainty glass, that she would never allow anything to happen to spoil Laura’s life.
Chapter Nineteen
1925
David Fullerton, loving his mother-in-law as much as he had his mother, could not understand why Elspeth was relieved each time Lizzie went home. When her visits first began, he had suggested they ask her to stay for a week at the time of Elspeth’s confinement, but his wife had retorted angrily that she didn’t want her, and that Mrs Flynn next door had promised to look in during the days and he would be there in the evenings. A few months later, he had made a proposal that they should ask Lizzie to come for a week’s holiday, but Elspeth had said, ‘There’s not a bed for her.’
‘She could sleep wi’ you, and I’d manage fine on the easy chairs,’ he had protested, but her agitated displeasure had kept him from pursuing it, and he had never brought up the subject again.
Laura was four years old when he saw, in the window of a Building Society, an advertisement which made him think – it could solve the problem of the sleeping accommodation.
‘ONLY £20 DOWN, AND THE HOUSE OF YOUR DREAMS COULD BE YOURS,’ it proclaimed, in large letters.
Since being promoted to head salesman, he had managed to save a bit – he had planned to take his wife and daughter for a holiday – so he had more than enough for the deposit. Going in to make enquiries, he was pleasantly surprised at the monthly amount to be repaid, but, afraid of being too rash, he said he would like time to consider before he committed himself.
He put forward his proposition to Elspeth the next morning. ‘Laura needs a room to herself, and your mother should really be where you could keep an eye on her,’ he began, tentatively.
His wife looked wary. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, David. I’ve tell’t you before, there’s no room for her to bide here.’
‘I could buy a bungalow with three bedrooms, big enough for us all. I’ve been finding out about it.’
‘Buy a house? We could never afford that.’
‘After the deposit, it would just cost us about the same as we’re paying for rent here, and it would belong to us in sixteen years.’ David sounded triumphant. ‘Read the pamphlet they gave me, and you’ll see it’s the best thing for us.’
Elspeth felt trapped when he went out. It would be good to have a house of their own, but taking her mother to live with them was a different thing. It would be tempting fate, and she had found to her cost that fate had a way of retaliating. After reading the pamphlet, she understood why David was so keen, but tried to dissuade him from the move when he came home.
‘It would be an awful millstone round our necks for the next sixteen year, David. Just suppose you took ill and couldn’t work? We’d not be able to keep up the payments, and they’d likely take the house away from us.’
His laugh held a hint of irritation. ‘You’re always worrying, Elspeth. If everybody was the same as you, nobody would ever buy houses, and Building Societies would be out of business. I’m quite sure they make allowances for that – different terms.’
Elspeth felt annoyed at him for using his ‘shop voice’. She was quite aware that he had to talk like that to his customers, but she wished that he would be his old couthy self with her, especially now when she was at her wits’ end to know what to do. She waited fearfully when he told her mother about his plan on her next visit, and sagged with with relief when Lizzie said, ‘No, no, I’m not giving up my independence, but you go ahead and buy your bungalow, David, for Laura needs a room to herself now.’
David went ahead. The bungalow was to be in Woodlands Avenue, a new street off King’s Gate. Development had already begun in the area – houses having been built on King’s Gate itself to within a short distance of Quarry Street – and Elspeth was very pleased with the location of her new home, because it meant that she would be nearer Helen ... and John.
Over the next few months, they monitored the progress of the builders every Sunday, then the joiners, electricians and plumbers, the plasterers and decorators, but eventually the bungalow was ready for them.
Elspeth spent the first few weeks making curtains for the large picture windows, then devoted herself to re-arranging the furniture. It amused David at first to come home to find everything shifted round, but when he saw the bed sitting in a different place from where it had been in the morning, he said, flatly, ‘I can’t sleep unless my head’s to the north.’
Giggling, she helped him to move it, as quietly as they could so they wouldn’t disturb Laura, and when it was back in its original place they both collapsed on it, helpless with mirth.
At last the house was as she wanted it, or nearly, because they couldn’t afford to buy everything she would have liked. The living room sported a brand new, oak dining suite – a sideboard with mirror, square table with slide-out extensions, and four chairs to match. On either side of the low tiled fireplace stood a sturdy leather armchair, which David had picked up in a saleroom along with the two chairs padded in brown plush. The floor had a cheap jute square, floral-patterned in muted autumn tones, the surrounds being stained with oak varnish to match the suite, and although the curtains were only cheap cotton, they were in the same colours as the carpet.
The three bedrooms were furnished with dressing tables with mirrors, and wardrobes with full-length mirrors – also found in salerooms – and had congoleum on the floors, with rugs at the sides of the beds. The scullery was painted in eau-de-nil, a delicate green which Elspeth found restful and relaxing, and the pink bathroom had gingham curtains at the frosted windows.
In the spacious hallway, her grandfather clock bestowed an air of grandeur on their modest ‘castle’; it was the last thing Elspeth saw when she went out, and the first thing to welcome her when she returned. Her marriage to David was happy and satisfying, but the clock was a reminder of the ecstasy – and sorrow – of her association with John Forrest, who, by his untimely death, was glorified for ever in her mind.
&nbs
p; In order to earn higher wages, David had moved to the men’s department of a rather elite store in Union Street, which closed on Saturdays instead of Wednesdays like the ordinary shops, and now that they lived nearer it became the custom for the Fullertons to visit the Watsons every Saturday afternoon. While the two men went for a walk, the women exchanged recipes and discussed husbands and children. Laura, who had always looked up to the tall, curly-haired boy as a kind of hero, was delighted when she was allowed to go out to play with John and his pals, but the six-year-gap between them manifested itself from the start.
‘Why do I have to take her with me,’ John complained. ‘She’s too little to play our kind of games.’
‘I am not, John Watson.’ Laura tossed her auburn tresses, her face pink with indignation.
‘John, take her with you and stop arguing.’ Helen laughed at the boy’s outraged expression, and making a face, he pushed the small girl out in front of him.
About an hour later, Laura came back with her knees scraped and her dress ripped, and John, slinking in behind her, tried to absolve himself from any blame. ‘We told her not to climb the tree, but you know what she’s like, she never takes a telling, and she fell off a branch.’
Helen sponged the raw knees and daubed on Germolene, while Elspeth deftly stitched the torn cotton dress. John stood miserably in the background, well aware that he would receive his chastisement after the visitors left. He was twelve now and growing daily – or so it seemed to Helen, who constantly had to let down the legs of his shorts.
On another visit, some weeks later, the little girl came home wailing and bedraggled, and John explained sheepishly, ‘She fell in the burn. We were fishing for bandies and we told her to keep away but she didn’t, and she slipped off the bank.’ He watched the dripping clothes being whipped off and replaced by a large towel.
‘Hush, my little pet,’ Helen crooned, rubbing vigorously to dry the still howling Laura.
Elspeth felt angry with her daughter. ‘You’ve been told time and time again not to go near that burn.’
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