Elspeth left King’s Gate more confident about the future. At forty-four, she surely wasn’t too old to begin anew.
When she arrived in the village of her birth, not much over an hour later, she went directly to Mr Reid’s office. He had been a friend of the family, besides being Lizzie’s solicitor, and welcomed her warmly. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve seen you, Elspeth. It must have been at your mother’s funeral, I suppose.’
‘It must be, I haven’t been back since.’
Her obvious tension made him stop making small talk. ‘What can I do for you, Elspeth?’
‘Well, my marriage is finished, Mr Reid, and I ...’
His cheery smile faded. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Have you come to instigate divorce proceedings?’
She was horrified. ‘It’s nothing like that. I’ve come to ask about the money you’ve been holding in trust for me. My mother said I could get it when I needed it.’
‘Certainly.’ Lifting his pen, he twirled it idly in his fingers. ‘You’ll be wondering how much is involved?’
‘It’ll not be much, for she’d a hard struggle to make ends meet all her life, but even ten pounds would be a blessing.’
Mr Reid beamed. ‘You’ll be blessed two-hundred-fold, then. There’s over two thousand pounds. Perhaps I should have written to tell you, but I gathered that your mother did not want you to find out the amount of her estate until you needed it, not that she would have had any idea how large it would be. All her effects were sold, and the grand-father clock brought in more than all the rest put together.’
‘Father aye said it was worth a lot, but I never ...’
‘An American friend of mine, a dealer in antiques, was here on holiday at the time, and recognized it as being the work of a famous clock-maker of the eighteenth century. He was astonished that such a valuable clock had come from a cottar house. Have you any idea how your father came by it?’
‘He said he’d got it at a sale in Findhavon House when old Lord Hay died.’
‘Ah! It must have belonged to the Hay family for many generations – an heirloom, in fact. Lord Hay, of course, died with no near relatives, and the cousin who inherited lived in Australia and gave instructions to sell the lot. Anyway, my friend was fascinated with the clock, especially the initials on the pendulum.’
‘My father had them put on ... his and my mother’s.’
Mr Reid’s eyebrows rose. Geordie Gray had never struck him as being a sentimental type, but it just showed how little one knew of people. ‘It was over a hundred and fifty years old, a true antique. He paid fifteen hundred pounds for the clock and bought the dresser as well.’
‘What would he want with an old dresser? It wasn’t an antique, for Jockie Paul, the cabinet-maker, made it for my father when I was born.’
The solicitor shrugged his shoulders. ‘He said his fellow countrymen go mad over good solid furniture like that. Do you want all the money just now, because I could write you a cheque to cash at ...’
Elspeth’s head was reeling. ‘I’d be terrified to have all that at one time. If you just give me enough to see me through for a few weeks, I’d be grateful.’
‘Shall we say one hundred pounds, then? That’s a nice, round figure.’ He buzzed for his secretary and asked her to get it from the safe, then said, ‘Are you to be living with relatives, Elspeth, now that you no longer have a home?’
‘I’ve nobody left.’ The only blood relative she had now, apart from those she had just left, was her mother’s sister Janet, and hell would have to freeze over before she would go back there.
While they were waiting for the money to be taken through, Mr Reid said, conversationally, ‘John Forrest of Blairton died a few days ago. Would you remember him?’
Her heart had leapt at the name, but it was her John’s father he was speaking about. ‘I never knew Mr Forrest to speak to, just to see in the kirk.’
‘He died last week – the funeral was yesterday – and I had his widow in here earlier this morning asking me to sell the farm for her. She is a very nice, capable woman, but her eyesight is failing badly, unfortunately.’
‘Oh, the poor woman!’ Elspeth’s involuntary exclamation made her mind return to the time of John’s death, when she had said exactly the same thing about his mother. The entrance of the secretary broke into her thoughts, and she accepted the twenty crisp five-pound notes the solicitor counted into her hand.
‘Now remember,’ he said, kindly, rising to see her to the door, ‘just let me know when you need any more.’
In a daze, she walked through the outer office on to the High Street. One hundred pounds would take her any-where she wanted to go, but where did she want to go? With Mrs Forrest fresh in her mind, she remembered the invitation to Blairton which had once been issued, but would John’s mother welcome her after all this time? Elspeth felt a compulsion now to confess to this woman, the only one connected with it who didn’t yet know the truth. Taking no more time to think, she stepped back inside. ‘Could I leave my case here, please? I’ve a call to make, and I don’t want to have to carry it with me.’
The girl behind the glass partition smiled pleasantly. ‘We don’t close until half past five.’
Blairton Farm was two miles from the village and it wasn’t until she neared it that Elspeth’s resolution wavered. What would she do if Mrs Forrest was angry at what she had to say and threw her out? She smiled wryly as the answer came to her – she would be no worse off than she was now.
Striding determinedly up to the farmhouse, she rapped on the back door, but her mouth went dry when she came face to face with the plump, rather tired-looking woman who peered at her through thick-lensed spectacles. ‘Mrs Forrest, it’s Elspeth Full ... Gray. I don’t know if you remember me, but ...’
Meg brightened as she clapped her hand up to her cheek. ‘Well I never! Come in, come in.’
In the kitchen, she went over to the stove. ‘You look fair done in, I’m sure you could do wi’ a cup o’ tea. Now, what brings you to Blairton?’
Recalling the day she had secretly spent in this house, Elspeth found it more difficult than she had thought to speak to this woman from whom she had fled so shame-fully. ‘I’ve a confession to make, Mrs Forrest, and I hope you’ll not think badly of me when you hear it.’
The old lady smiled. ‘I’m sure I’ll not think badly of you, m’dear, whatever you tell me.’
‘I was ... expecting John’s child when he was killed.’
The pupils of Meg’s eyes dilated, but they remained friendly. ‘I should have ken’t that was why you went away, but it never ... you were just a young lassie, and ...’
‘You didn’t think I’d do things like that? We hadn’t long together, but we loved each other, truly we did.’
Meg leaned over and patted her hand. ‘There’s no need to make excuses, m’dear, I’m not condemning you, but I can see you’ve got more than that on your mind, so, when we’ve had our cuppie, we’ll go ben to the parlour, and you’d best tell me the whole story.’
In the room where she and John had made love so madly for a whole day, Elspeth told his mother only of the short time at the fireside in the cottar house and of its dramatic consequences up to the time of her son’s birth, ending by saying, ‘Are you shocked at me now?’
‘Not me. I once spent a whole afternoon wi’ Blairton in my father’s barn, the sweetest hours I ever spent, as Rabbie Burns would say. I was lucky, though, for I didna fall wi’ John till a year after I was wed. So you’d a boy, and all?’
Elspeth gave a long sigh. ‘I havena finished yet.’ She went on to tell the rest, her voice quivering when she revealed the anguish she had gone through before making her decision to leave John with the Watsons.
‘Don’t blame yourself for that, lass,’ Meg said, softly, ‘you couldna have done anything else without telling your man he was your bairn.’ Pursing her lips for a second, she added, ‘Mind you, it would have been best if you had tell’t him.’
Elspeth drew a deep breath. ‘I wish I had – I wouldn’t be in this trouble the day.’ Resuming her account, she explained why she had been forced to tell the truth the evening before. ‘And Laura walked out, and David said I’d to leave this morning.’
‘So now you’re out on the street, penniless?’
When Elspeth told her what had transpired in the solicitor’s office, the old woman exclaimed, ‘Well, well! Just fancy a clock being worth all that. You’ll have some-thing at your back, any road – you’ll never need to worry where your next meal’s coming from.’ She looked at Elspeth wistfully. ‘Why did you not come and tell me about John’s bairn at the time? I’d have seen that you and the laddie never went short o’ anything. It would have helped to make up to me and Blairton for ... if only you’d done that, you’d not be in this predicament now.’
If only. There were so many ‘if onlys’ in Elspeth’s mind that she burst out, ‘If only John hadn’t been killed. If only Helen’s baby had lived ...’
‘And if only you and my son hadn’t taken advantage o’ an empty house,’ Meg said, quietly and without reproach.
Elspeth was stunned. She had thoughtlessly blamed others when it had all stemmed from her own sin, and not just in one empty house, but in two, though she was not going to tell Mrs Forrest about the day she had spent here.
‘What are you to be doing, now your man’s put you out?’
‘I don’t know yet, but the money’ll not last for ever and I’ll need to get a job and some place to bide.’
‘Was that the reason you come to me, lass?’
‘Oh, no!’ Elspeth was flustered. ‘I don’t know what made me come. It was maybe Mr Reid telling me your man had died...’ She broke off, appalled. ‘Oh, I forgot. I was awful sorry to hear about Blairton, Mrs Forrest, but I thought you deserved to ken about ... your grandson.’
‘Aye, my heart’s that full, I can’t ... to think I’ve had a grandson ... my John’s son ... if Blairton had still been ...’ She broke off and took a second to compose herself. ‘You’d come to clear your conscience, maybe?’
‘I’ll never clear my conscience, but something made me come. I can’t explain it.’
Meg looked pensive. ‘It was fate took you to my door the day, Elspeth, I’m sure o’ it. I’d made up my mind to sell up here and go to Edinburgh to bide, for I used to go on holidays there when I was young and I’ve aye liked it.’
Admiring the old lady’s courage in moving to a strange city when she must be over seventy, it occurred to Elspeth that perhaps Mrs Forrest was telling her, in a roundabout way, to stop feeling sorry for herself, so she was totally unprepared for what came next.
‘Would you consider coming wi’ me, Elspeth? We’d be doing each other a favour – you’d be company for me, and I’d be providing a roof over your head.’ She went on in spite of the look of amazement on Elspeth’s face. ‘You could bide here till I get things settled, and I’ll buy a house in Edinburgh, and you can look for a job there if you want. What d’you say?’
Elspeth had been taken aback at its being sprung on her so quickly, but she had nowhere else to go and Edinburgh would be as good a place as any. ‘If you’re sure, Mrs Forrest, I’d be very grateful. Oh, I’ve just minded. I left my suitcase at Mr Reid’s office, and it shuts at half past five.’
‘We can get it in the morning. You ken, pulling up my roots was a hard decision, for I came here as a bride, and Blairton meant to hand it on to John, but ... och well, that’s in the past. I was worried how I’d manage in Edinburgh on my own wi’ my eyes getting worse every day, but I’ll be fine wi’ you there.’
Elspeth was relieved that Mrs Forrest was so confident, because she wasn’t so sure herself. Two helpless women in a strange city – how would they cope?
Now that things had been arranged to Meg’s satisfaction, she told Elspeth about her husband’s death. ‘I found him lying lifeless in the bed beside me, and the doctor said it was a heart attack, but I ken he never recovered from losing John. His heart was broken that day, and he only existed after that. It wasna so bad for me, for I was able to let my grief out. There was days I thought I’d never be able to stop greeting, but he just gave way for a minute or two after we got the telegram, and then bottled it up. Any road, after the funeral yesterday, I sat down to think. I couldna run this place on my own, and honest men are hard to find, and nobody would want to work day and night like Blairton did, so that’s the reason I’m selling.’
‘Mr Reid said you’d been to see him this morning.’
‘I didna want to put it off.’
Meg sat silently for a moment, then suddenly started to reminisce about John’s childhood – his youth, his quarrel with his father about going to Canada – and while the quiet voice carried on, Elspeth realized, to her amazement, that although she was quite interested in hearing about him, she didn’t feel the burning sorrow that she would once have felt. She was sorry that John been killed, but she had known him for so short a time that she had discovered nothing about him: his likes and dislikes; if he had a quick temper or was slow to take offence; if he would have been a good husband. Apart from David’s nightmares and outbursts of jealousy – and he really couldn’t help that when the clock was there to remind him every day of her first lad – he had been a very good husband ... but she must forget about David.
If John had loved her as much as he said he did, he wouldn’t have blindly followed the wishes of his friends to go drinking that Saturday forenoon. It was the first time this thought had ever entered her head, and she glanced at his mother guiltily.
Meg noticed the look, but misconstrued its meaning. ‘I’m sorry, lass. I’ve been going on and on, and your mind’s got enough to contend wi’. We’ll have something to eat, then you can tell me about your man.’
Not having had anything except two cups of tea since she rose, Elspeth was glad of the ham sandwiches which Mrs Forrest produced. ‘They’re left over from the funeral tea,’ she smiled, ‘but I had them in a tin, and my pantry’s that cold they’re still as fresh as when they were made.’
Afterwards, when Elspeth started to speak about David, she became so engrossed in recalling his nightmares, his pride in their daughter, his dear habits and sayings, that she hardly noticed the old woman rising to switch on the light, but at last the ache in her heart grew so overpowering that she had to stop.
Mrs Forrest regarded her compassionately. ‘I can see you still love him, and it’s a shame the way things turned out.’
On the verge of tears, Elspeth thought that it was ironic how things had happened. Only twenty-four hours earlier, she had split four lives asunder with her disclosure about her love for John Forrest and the bearing of his child, yet here she was, sitting with his mother and pouring out her love for David Fullerton. What must the woman think of her? She felt a hand being laid gently over hers and looked up into eyes misty behind the spectacles.
‘I’m pleased you found such a good man after what you’d been through, m’dear. Now, you likely didna sleep much last night, and I think you should get some rest. You can have one o’ my nightgowns, seeing your case is at Mr Reid’s.’
She led Elspeth upstairs to a room containing a single bed covered by a patchwork quilt, a chest of drawers and an old straight-backed wooden chair with a cushion on it; the room from which, although she did not know it, her visitor had withdrawn in embarrassment the first time she had been here.
‘This is John’s room,’ Meg said, looking sheepish. ‘Oh, I ken it’s more than twenty-six year, but it’s aye been John’s room to me, and I’ve lit a fire in here every week to air it. Now, get a good night’s sleep, lass, and we can speak about things in the morning, when you’re rested.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Forrest ... for everything.’
Exhaustion caught up on Elspeth as she lay down – in a single bed for the first time since her marriage. The events of this astonishing day whirled round and round in her head when she closed her eyes, flashing into her subconscious a
nd changing constantly like a kaleidoscope.
David hadn’t changed his mind in the morning ... What a blessing Mrs Robb remembered about the trust money ... Mr Reid ... One thousand five hundred pounds for the grandfather clock ... Blairton ... What a kind woman Mrs Forrest is ... Sandwiches left over from a funeral tea ... John Forrest’s bed ... But she didn’t love him any longer, she loved David ... She had always loved David, and she would never see him again.
Chapter Twenty-four
Meg, as she insisted on being called, was not as helpless as Elspeth had imagined. One of the farm workers drove her to the village the following morning, where she asked Mr Reid to make enquiries about houses in Edinburgh. ‘Not too dear, though,’ she warned him, ‘for what I get for Blairton’ll need to last me the rest o’ my days.’
‘That’s set things moving,’ she said, when she return to the farmhouse, ‘and I minded to collect your case as well.’
Over the next two weeks, the two women sorted the contents of cupboards and drawers into two piles – what was to be kept and what was to be thrown out – Meg being ruthless in the disposal of all inessential items. ‘I’m just taking what I’ll need, though there’s years o’ memories in some o’ this stuff I’m leaving.’ She looked sadly at Elspeth, who couldn’t help thinking that her ‘years of memories’ were still lying in Aberdeen.
Mr Reid called while they were still thus occupied. ‘Most of the houses were quite expensive, Mrs Forrest,’ he said, ‘so in view of your instructions, I’ve listed several flats in tenements, too, but you don’t need to ...’
‘I’ve no objection to a tenement,’ Meg said, brightly, ‘it would be good to have some close neighbours for a change.’
She and Elspeth set off for Edinburgh the following day, but the first three flats they inspected held no appeal for Meg. ‘We’ll just take a look at the one in Leston Road,’ she observed, as they came down four flights of stairs, ‘and that’ll be enough for one day. If it’s not suitable, we’ll have to come back another time.’
Time Shall Reap Page 26