After I left her I wondered how on earth I would ensure everything ran smoothly. What we use back here bears little resemblance to this professional business set-up. How could I have been so naïve? But on the way back to the hostel I suddenly knew what I would do.
Next morning, I went down into the basement to watch the women at work. They were skilful workers and did everything so quickly I really could not follow it all. I got talking and asked them how long they had worked in the washroom. Did they ever take turns anywhere else in the laundry? They seemed surprised and told me everyone stayed with the same part of the job. It was as I thought. As I went through the other rooms, I raised the same questions and got the same answers. At the end of the day I called all the women together briefly and asked them if they might not be getting bored with doing the same part of the job all the time? Did anyone fancy a change, since I was willing to try them out in new positions? Several said yes. So I got them swapped round and then got experienced people in each section to train them how to use the machines. I watched these lessons too and that’s how I got to grips with the whole process. The workers were more motivated and we completed orders more quickly and efficiently, even receiving several commendations from customers.
I am so happy to have a good post, comfortable lodging and good friends. All is well. So you do not have to worry about me. I am so glad to be here. I think of you all often and hope you are all well. Look after each other.
Love Margaret
Isa laid the letter on her lap and sighed in relief. She had thought Margaret would do well. Her independent spirit and real self-reliance had come to the fore. She was sociable and adaptable and she loved adventure and thrived on new things. This was such a reassuring letter. She had arrived safely and found work, lodging and friends. Isa felt relief flowing though her and suddenly realised she had been carrying tension in her body about how this venture would work out. Now she felt it dissipate. Her sister had done it, broken away to a new life, which she was going to shape with her own choices and skills. She folded the letter carefully and tucked it in the letter rack beside the clock in the kitchen. It would be read several more times that day, she knew, and she wanted to know exactly where to find it.
20
When Peter told Isa in the spring about another post coming up in Burntisland on the Fife coast she quickly realised this would be far better for Margaret. Falkirk, Coatbridge and Inverkeithing were foundry towns with soot-filled atmospheres. The cleaner air and fresh sea breezes on the Forth shores would be healthier for her chest condition.
When they started to look at houses, Isa thought they should go for something a bit bigger. It was not long before she found the perfect home in nearby Aberdour, a pretty village along the coast. It was an upstairs flat in a solid sandstone villa with four bedrooms. The generous sitting room had a grand fireplace and two big windows looking out onto the quiet street. The kitchen had a lovely window overlooking the garden, a large range, a recess for a bed, a huge pantry and a separate scullery for the sink and cooker, leaving enough space for a dining table and sideboard. In the bathroom the bath was boxed in and there was a medicine chest on the wall. Isa could see that the family could do well in this house.
“But do you not think it’s too big, Isa? After all, the girls can share a room. What do we need a third or fourth for, or a dining room for that matter?” Her husband was beginning to think she had ideas beyond herself.
“Peter, I’ve got plans. We can let the spare rooms and take in boarders. The back one is big enough for a double bed and a single. We could have a family in there. I could do their meals for them and make extra money. It would pay the extra rent and give us some to save.”
When he thought about it he was still unsure. “If we have something smaller the rent will be less and then we can still save,” he reasoned.
Isa could not believe he was going to try and stop her plan. Why could he not see the huge possibilities for them all? He was such a cautious, passive man. Why had she not seen this before she married him and had his children?
“Look, Peter, I’ve made up my mind. This is the house I want. I’ll make it work. I know what I’m doing. Just trust me. This will be a fine home for us and it will help us make our way up in the world.”
“What do you mean you’ve made up your mind? Don’t I get a say in this? It’s my wages that will be paying the rent, remember.”
Isa was furious with his putting down of her ideas.
“Why can’t you just listen to me? If we followed your plan we’d still be back in Coatbridge and you would just be a clerk. Haven’t I been right so far? Haven’t all these moves been for the good? We need to do this for the girls. They need education, music lessons, decent shoes and clothing. They are just children now, but they will grow and need more from us. This will help us save more quickly for them. I want them to have more. More than I had. I want them to be secure. We’ll do it together. You and me. The boarders will be my contribution.”
Her eyes were flashing; her voice was firm. Peter felt beaten, not by Isa’s argument but by his own guilt at how he was not enough for her. She always left him with that sense of having let her down. Why was she not satisfied with his provision for her and the girls? He did overtime and night shifts to increase his earnings. They could do perfectly well on his wages. But it would never be enough for Isa and her grand plans. He looked at her face and saw the determined set of her jaw, the fierce intensity in her eyes.
“All right, we’ll give it a go – but mind, we’ll need to keep a close eye on our finances, and if we don’t make enough, we need to pull out quickly before we lose money over it.”
“Of course, but we won’t lose money. We’ll make money, I promise you.”
*
When they moved in, Isa looked at each room surveying their present furniture and working out what else they needed. She saw too what did not look right in this grander setting and began to look at second-hand shops and in the papers for house sales and roups where furniture was auctioned. In this way she furnished the dining room with a beautiful table with turned legs and Queen Anne chairs. She found a piano for the sitting room ready for the girls’ music lessons and for sing-songs like she remembered having as a child at her father’s family gatherings. She bought beds and bedside cabinets, wardrobes and pieces of carpet, which she cut to size and trimmed with cotton edging. She used ends of material and sewed cushions. Very soon the house was ready. She had a blue room, a pink, a creamy yellow and a green. There was a spare bed in the kitchen recess. She could let out one or two rooms and had the accommodation for feeding people too. Everything had been freshly painted and she was as proud as could be of her new home. She was climbing up the social ladder, no doubt about it. Peter had to be got round on almost every idea and plan she had, but she was fit for him and was learning how to work him and together they were going to succeed.
She sat in the garden on the grass and looked up. Between the neighbouring rooftops there was a little patch of bright-blue sky right above her poppy-fringed lawn. Isa breathed in slow and deep. This felt so right, lying under this patch of sky. A peace she did not often feel crept over her and she felt cradled, safe, secure. At last she had found a purpose and a place where she could breathe easy and be herself. She felt herself smile. Was this happiness?
She wondered how she should go about advertising the room for rent. Perhaps a card in the shop windows would be a good idea. She talked to Peter and they tried out different wordings for adverts.
A few afternoons later, Netta, now nearly six, was coming back from the beach. She was skipping and singing to herself when around the corner she almost collided with a couple carrying a suitcase.
“Oops, sorry,” she said and giggled. “I nearly knocked you over.”
“Don’t you know you should always look round a corner before you run?” The woman laughed kindly, in a delightfully different accent Netta had not heard before.
Netta eyed the suitcase.
“Are you on holiday?” she asked, wanting the lady to speak again.
“Indeed we are. Do you know where we could stay for a little while?”
“Yes. I’ll take you.” She skipped ahead and took them along to a lovely sandstone villa with the name Willowbank in the glass fanlight above the door.
“Here we are,” she said opening the door and calling through the hall. “Mummy, I found some people who want to stay.”
The couple stood aghast on the doorstep. The child had brought them to her own house. How were they going to explain themselves?
Isa came to the door in a smart brown dress. She had swiftly taken off her apron when her daughter had told her people were at the door who wanted to stay.
“Oh we are so sorry, ma’am. We met your charming little girl and asked her if she knew somewhere we could stay and she seems to have got confused. We thought she was taking us to a hotel, not to her own home. Please forgive the intrusion.”
Isa heard the American accent. “Oh, no, that is quite all right. I do in fact offer accommodation. We have a bedroom to let and I can do full board if you wish. Is it just for the two of you? Would you like to see the room? I’m Mrs Swan, by the way.”
“Oliver and Sarah Grant,” said the young man, politely raising his hat as he did so. “Yes, please. We would prefer a room to a hotel, to be honest.”
Isa led the way and watched Sarah Grant eye the tastefully decorated green room with its candlewick bedspread and satin cushions and the lace drapes at the window. She showed them the bathroom with its gleaming black and white tiles, explaining the cost of a weekly bath and towels if they were required.
Then she took them to the dining room, where she could serve them breakfast, lunch and high tea if wished. They were delighted. Isa had her first boarders. Her business was starting and no advertising had been needed for her first customer, just the word of her “charming daughter”.
*
St Fillan’s church in Aberdour was one of the key centres in the village, whose worshipping population was split between it and the Catholic church of St Joseph’s. Such was the strength of village identity that both denominations joined regularly for fêtes and fundraising events, and there was no animosity towards those who prayed through a liturgy with the priest as opposed to sitting quietly in their seats led by the minister. Isa and her family were warmly welcomed and she was quickly accepted into the Women’s Guild and the sewing circle, where the women helped each other fit the items they were working on, pinning up hems, tailoring tucks and sorting out each others’ lives while they worked. Sometimes they mended cushions for the church or sewed new pulpit falls. When youth organisations decided to put on shows they were especially busy, fitting costumes according to the tale to be told.
On a Sunday morning, Isa, Peter and the girls would walk through the gate, up the long drive through the cemetery, flanked by swathes of lavender, to reach the church. They would sit on a row of rush-bottomed chairs, the girls’ feet dangling over the wooden frames. Netta loved to trace the diamond pattern woven into the rushes with her finger. There was a shelf attached to the back of the chair in front of them where they could place their Bible and belongings. In front of them was the carved wooden pulpit where the minister stood to give the sermon, and the altar where the two tall silver candlesticks were placed. Margaret loved to look at the windows and was fascinated by the Nativity scene, where Mary was almost clapping her hands in joy while Joseph smiled down on Jesus, and the animals lay beside the baby so peacefully. When the Sunday school teacher had told them the story of Jesus’ baptism by John, she remembered the picture in the window of both men standing in the river and the dove coming down from the sky. There were thistles growing by the river in the window, just like here in Scotland. Netta’s favourite window was the one depicting Jesus welcoming the little children and telling the adults not to keep them away from him. She wished adults would remember that and not keep telling her she was too noisy, too fidgety or too naughty when she came home untidy from her outdoor play. She didn’t think Jesus would mind any of that.
The family all loved singing and Isa was proud to be there, showing off her daughters in their beautiful outfits made by herself, her husband with his good job by her side. But she was there for more than that. She wanted to be rid of the weight she seemed to have carried around inside her since she was eleven, but she did not have the words or the time to delve into the darkness that dogged her. Her father’s behaviour was part of the weight: she wished he was kinder and would drink less. Her disappointing marriage was part of the burden too: she wished Peter loved her better, that she could be closer to him. Her role as mother, which mostly gave her great joy but which at times seemed to tear her apart, this too caused her much pain: she wished she did not lose her temper with the girls, that they would not let her down so much. And then there were the old burdens for which she had never found solace: Eliza’s death, her mother’s grief and decline. How was she to pray for release from all of this? So she came longing for comfort, to feel free of this emotional pain. She had no other way to tackle it. She just had to live with it. Keep carrying it, simmering inside her. Work at keeping it subdued.
*
Aberdour was a good place for them. Margaret’s chest was not nearly so troublesome in the fresher air and gentler climate. Both girls’ health was strengthened by the sea breezes. They all swam regularly in the sea and the exercise showed in their lengthening limbs and rosily tanned skin. That first summer in the village Chrissie came to stay with them and found work hiring out the bathing huts. These lined the beach in bright pastels with candy-striped awnings. Chrissie had the enterprising idea of serving hot drinks to people after they returned from their swim. She got a Primus stove and a kettle, obtained permission from a house-owner near the beach to use her garage tap for water, and persuaded Isa and the girls to carry kettles of water from the garage over the rocks down to the shore, where she brewed Bovrils, teas and coffees for grateful bathers when they came out of the waters of the Firth of Forth, which never could be called warm. She could keep all her profits from the hot drinks to supplement her fee as ticket seller for the beach huts.
It was great that summer for Isa and the girls to have Chrissie’s company. They spent most of it out of doors on the beach. The two senior sisters chatted and laughed near the huts, scrubbing them out at the end of the day and rehearsing old memories, while the two younger sisters ran in and out of the water, collected shells and seaweed and built castles, around which elaborate tales were told of princesses, wizards and dragons.
Isa was so pleased that Margaret and Netta never competed with each other but cooperated in all their exploits.They built their castles together as a joint project and shared the joy on completion. They never fought over toys, Margaret as the elder being always willing to share. Their main delight was in each other, and most of their play took the form of make-believe games and dramas where they each took a role: shopkeeper and customer, for instance.
Isa’s drawers were raided for stockings, scarves and handkerchiefs to set up a draper’s shop on a little table in the hall. Isa watched them one rainy afternoon. Margaret was the shop assistant, bringing out items for inspection for the attention of a very particular customer who knew just what she wanted.
“What about this lovely blue scarf, madam? It brings out the colour of your eyes very nicely,” suggested Margaret in her most correct shop-assistant tones.
“No, I don’t think that’s what I want today. Show me something else,” Netta said haughtily, handbag draped on her arm and nose in the air.
Margaret folded the scarf neatly away and brought out instead a pretty lace-trimmed handkerchief, a tiny square of fine lawn for tucking into a bracelet at a dance, hardly a handkerchief at all.
“Ah, now, that is very pretty,” sighed Netta admiringly as she unfolded the tiny quarters and surveyed the whole work of art in all its glory. “I think I shall have this.”
“Very well, mad
am,” said Margaret and she refolded the handkerchief into its minute squares and popped it in a paper bag. “Although,” she lapsed into her naturally pragmatic self, “I think if you blow on it that will be the end of it,” and they both dissolved into fits of giggles, while their mother joined in. She felt her heart swell with love, glad to see her girls close and companionable like she and her sisters had been.
Sometimes when they had seen films at the cinema or had stories read to them, they re-enacted favourite scenes. After seeing a film about Dick Turpin, they had mounted the garden swing and swung it as far out as they could near the garden wall, where they lashed the stones with a cane – the one their father had used to stake up the drooping poppies Isa loved so much – yelling, “Onward, Black Bess!” as though they were really mounted upon the gleaming black back of the horse.
Isa did not always appreciate their exploits. She gave permission for the use of the drapery and for tins to set up grocer’s shops. She was glad to have them help her cook and bake. But the outdoor messy games when they came in with school uniform or best dresses muddied or torn were not well received. After the first spanking, Margaret never dared slide down hillsides or climb trees again, terrified in case something got damaged or dirty. But Netta was a tomboy and loved to pit herself against physical tests. Once she had made the first mucky mark she knew she would be for a telling off and so she might as well thoroughly enjoy herself since the punishment would be the same anyway. She would regularly come home after playing on the beach or in the woods with grazed knees, muddied knickers or torn clothes. This exasperated Isa as it meant more washing and mending that she saw as unnecessary. So Netta’s joyfully wild afternoons of play often ended with her over her mother’s knees and being sent off to her room in disgrace. Somehow it all seemed to roll off her like water off a duck’s back. But for Margaret it was a nightmare and she dreaded coming home after Netta had fallen and torn something. She had to endure the punishment and felt the blows empathically.
Her Sister's Gift Page 25