A Daughter's Shame

by Audrey Reimann

  Today his legs ached from battling against the icy east wind. The heavy oak front door, painted lacquer black, was closed. He hesitated with his hand on the brass lion’s head, decided against lifting it and went out of the iron-railed area round to the side door and in at the surgery entrance. Evening surgery was for the panel patients, and always busy. He could hear the hum of voices in the waiting room, half an hour before surgery.

  He reached the dispensary door as the elderly Miss Pettigrew opened it and in that confidential whisper said, ‘Your results were all right, Magnus. Dr Mackenzie asked me to tell you.’

  He smiled in relief and loitered there for a moment, glad to stop before he entered the tiled hall and climbed the stairs to the living rooms. The whole ground floor was taken up with the surgery, consulting room, waiting room and dispensary. Uncle Mack treated patients from the wealthy New Town area of the city as well as the panel patients from the Old Town on the other side of Princes Street. He said to Miss Pettigrew, who tested his urine for blood once a week, ‘No traces?’

  ‘None,’ she answered. Then, ‘Come inside. I will make up your powders. You should have three left.’

  ‘I have.’ Magnus followed her into the dispensary and sat down. He loved it in here: the banks of wooden drawers with Latin abbreviations in gold and black lettering, the tall, clear bottles in elegant shapes, the deep-blue ones whose contents were poisonous, the long white bench, the drachm weights and tiny scales, and the smell, the carbolic cleanness of it all. He lived with the hope, as his father did, that one day, by some alchemic magic, the formula that would put an end to his haemophilia would appear. It was good to know that the treatment was working. He said, ‘Is Ian home?’

  ‘He’s upstairs. He came in half an hour ago,’ she replied.

  He sat and watched, enjoying seeing Miss Pettigrew at the pill-rolling, mixture-bottling, powder-weighing, paper-folding and ointment-boxing that filled six hours of her every day. When he had his powders in his hand he climbed the stairs to the drawing room overlooking the square.

  Ian said, ‘You’re late. You look whacked! Been swimming?’

  ‘I walked to Holy Corner and caught the tram. Strengthen my legs.’ Magnus laughed. ‘All I’ve developed is a strong list to port from battling against the wind.’

  Ian said, ‘It’ll serve you well if you’re coming down to North Berwick with me next Saturday.’

  ‘Are you taking the boat out?’ Magnus enjoyed the odd Saturday morning at North Berwick, working on Ian’s boat, varnishing and oiling and mending sails, but he wouldn’t be here next weekend.

  Ian said, ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘I can’t.’ Then he added hastily, ‘I’ve been given leave and I have to see the dentist. What a fuss that is!’ It was a nuisance, having every tooth examined for the tiniest cavity. But he could not risk extractions. And going home meant he could see Lily. He said cheerfully, ‘No match on Saturday?’ Ian was eighteen, captain of rugby and deputy head boy.

  ‘We’re not playing.’ Ian’s smile vanished. The good-natured bantering tone he used with Magnus and Rowena was a reflection of his enormous sense of humour. Under it lay a forceful nature. ‘Where does Chancellor go at night? What’s he up to?’

  Magnus shook his head. ‘What’s the matter?‘

  ‘He’s missed rugby practice for the last three weeks. We’ve had to cancel Saturday’s match.’ Ian organised but did not join the second fifteen at the twice-weekly training sessions, which were run by a coach and referee. With a face like thunder he said, ‘Chancellor’s been forging my signature. Getting out of the boarding house two nights a week, supposedly for rugby practice. God knows where he goes.’

  Magnus whistled through his teeth. The week after next, Ray’s father was going to be inaugurated as Mayor of Macclesfield. They were going to ask leave from the school to bring Ray home for the ceremony. ‘What’s going to happen? Will he be expelled?’

  ‘Severely disciplined,’ Ian said. ‘Unless he has a plausible excuse. It had better be good.’

  Magnus said, ‘What does “severely disciplined” entail?’

  ‘He will be given a week, maybe two,’ Ian said, ‘to mend his ways, or he will be out of the boarding house. His parents will have to find somewhere else for him. As it is, I’m chucking him off the team. I’m going to his boarding house tonight to tell him.’

  ‘I’m going upstairs,’ Magnus said. His attic study was on the top floor. ‘I have a lot of work to do tonight.’

  ‘Right. See you at supper. Unless Dad is called out we’ll have an easy night,’ Ian said.

  ‘For once!’

  Magnus heard Ian’s shout of laughter following him up the stairs. Magnus’s idea of an easy night was one in which he sat by the fire in his attic study, reading or working, watching the sun set over the slate roofs, spires, leafy green places and Adam crescents of the city.

  To his cousins an easy night was one where they gathered in the drawing room after supper, as they would this evening. Uncle Mack would talk to the three of them – Magnus was included with Ian and Rowena – about the need to work hard, to apply themselves. They were to see their hobbies – painting for Rowena, music and sailing for Ian, reading for Magnus – for what they were, namely enjoyment.

  The main purpose of their young lives was to prepare to be useful members of society, to direct themselves to learning, making careers, though moneymaking was not to be their aim.

  ‘It will disappoint! Don’t do anything for money alone!’ Uncle Mack said. ‘There is reward in doing something well.’ These were Uncle Mack’s maxims. Another was ‘Effort in equals results out. A simple equation.’ It was a purposeful household.

  Everybody worked hard. They had no time for slackers. Uncle Mack was a strict man of the old school. Like Father, Uncle Mack was a good man. Magnus wanted to be the same; a good man who did good things.

  In his attic room Magnus placed his school satchel on the chair. A fire had been lit and his study was warm and inviting. He loved having this room, this attic floor of the house, to himself. It had been like shedding a skin, like emerging from a chrysalis, having a life for himself, here in Edinburgh. He missed nothing from Macclesfield, missed no one but Lily. He went to the window and gazed at the distant view of the wide blue Firth of Forth and the hills of the Kingdom of Fire. Then he crossed the room to the opposite window and his eyes dropped to Ian’s figure, striding across the square, on his way to tick off Ray Chancellor.

  Ian walked fast. There were queues for the trams at teatime and a twenty-minute walk would give him exercise and a chance to think about what he’d say to Chancellor. He could not stand the fellow. What on earth would make anyone behave as Chancellor had? The fellow was seventeen. He had done well in his School Certificate so it couldn’t be worry about the Highers that were coming up next.

  He crossed Princes Street and quickened his pace on Lothian Road. It would take him a quarter of an hour to reach Holy Corner, but he was glad of it, for his ligaments needed stretching. He spent hours in his room, working for the entrance exam for medical school.

  He was never confident that he had it in him. Dad said he had, and so did his chemistry master, but Ian could think of a dozen areas of questioning when he could flounder. There was the big area of chemical reactions, molecular chemistry, aldehydes and metallurgy, a field of study of which he had scant knowledge. He could be questioned on anything. The solution was to work hard. If he had the facility to soak up knowledge, which Chancellor evidently had, he would make better use of his talents. What was the fellow playing at? He looked at his wristwatch. Twenty-five minutes. Not bad.

  Mr McDowell, the boarding housemaster, was waiting for him in the hall. ‘Come into the study,’ he said. ‘I think we should have a talk before you see Chancellor.’ Inside the study he said, ‘I think the boy is in some kind of trouble. He may confide in you. I can’t get anything from him. I have to put his case to the headmaster. It will not be overlooked.’

 
; ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I’ll send for him. You can talk in here.’

  Ian went to stand with his back to the fire, and was still there when Chancellor came in. He said, ‘Sit down!’

  ‘I’d rather stand.’ Ray was pale but his hands were curled tight and there was an aggressive edge to his voice.

  ‘Anything troubling you? Want to tell me anything?’

  ‘No. Not particularly,’ Ray said.

  The insolence in Chancellor’s voice told Ian that the kid gloves were a waste of time. He’d go straight to the point. ‘You forged my signature.’ He was no good at soft-soaping. Perhaps others would handle it differently. He had no patience with cheats and liars. ‘Your excuse?’

  Chancellor hesitated, then evidently made a decision to come clean. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’m having a rough time in my personal …’

  ‘Your personal problems are of no concern to me,’ Ian said. ‘Individuals are of smaller account than the team they are members of. You are a member of the rugby team and a representative of the school.’

  ‘Don‘t give me all that,’ Chancellor said in his old fighting way. He changed again and in a whining tone said, ‘It’s about this trouble …’

  Ian could not deal with it. He felt only contempt for the fellow. He said, ‘It’s not! It’s all about honour. Integrity. Doing the right thing.’

  ‘You have no idea what I’m going through …’

  ‘No. I have not. I don’t want to know. But you are going to tell them. You have to face the team. Give them your excuses. See what they make of you. They are waiting for you down at the field. Be gone!’

  Chancellor’s hands closed into fists. He gave Ian a murderous look, then quickly left the study. Ian heard the outer door bang and McDowell came back. ‘Well? Did he tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Pity. He’ll not last long here, I’m afraid. He sits his Highers next month then I think he’ll have to go.’

  ‘Good.’ The housemaster shrugged in a helpless little gesture.

  ‘Maybe we could have helped, shown some understanding. If only he would tell.’

  ‘I don’t pretend to understand,’ Ian said coldly. ‘He has money, health, brains, and has had everything handed to him on a plate.’

  ‘I think it’s a girl. I think he’s seeing a girl, in Edinburgh.’

  Ian snorted. ‘He would. He’s the type!’

  On his way home he tried to work up some sympathy for Ray Chancellor but it was difficult. When he was with them in Macclesfield he tried not to let his dislike show, but he couldn’t share his cousins’ liking for the fellow. If Chancellor had got himself somehow involved with a girl, then he was in real trouble. It was one of those rules, a code you had to learn, that until you had something to offer a lady you made no attachments.

  He, Ian, was prepared to wait. If he were to meet her tomorrow and he would know if she were the girl for him, he would wait. There were ways of dealing with perfectly natural urges. The way of dealing with them was to work hard, involve yourself in sport, sailing, playing team games. Chancellor was of a lower order altogether.

  Chapter Nine

  Mam had taken up smoking to help her digestion, which was troubling her a bit, and recently had handed over to Lily the money and duty of buying the food and cooking the dinner.

  Lily enjoyed the responsibility. Mam was not much of a cook, wasting money on fish and chips and hot pies. Lily managed to have a little over every week from the housekeeping money. She put it in a tin, against emergencies, and took pride in the fact that since she’d been in charge there was always enough to eat. But it was a struggle. She cycled home from the Central School at midday, because she did not want to pay for school dinners – and she wanted to make sure that Mam ate.

  It was a long cycle ride. She would walk to school this afternoon. There was an uphill drag in each direction and today she pushed her bike up the steep Mill Street. It was an icy-cold March day, windy and wet. Her face was stinging and she was out of breath when she reached home and put her bike in the entryway.

  Calling out, ‘It’s snowing, Mam! All the daffodils have keeled over. You wouldn’t believe it,’ she went through the shop to the kitchen, where Mam was taking from the range the dish of hotpot Lily had made yesterday.

  Mam carried it carefully, for she was dressed in her navy-blue two-piece; unusual for a Monday. She placed the dish on a thick raffia mat and said, ‘You had best put your winter coat on this afternoon. Have you seen the letter from Magnus? It came this morning.’

  Lily took off her wet mackintosh, put it over a chair to dry and saw the letter propped against the mantel clock. It stood next to the photograph of her father and the invitation to the mayoral inauguration. She gave her father a wink, as if they were great pals, then caught sight of herself in the big mirror.

  ‘I’ll read Magnus’s letter later.’ She pushed the long dark hair back from her forehead and pulled down the bow at the nape of her neck. She used to wish she had straight hair, envying girls who could make smooth, silky plaits or have it cut in a fashionable bob and fringe. The more damp hers was, the more it curled.

  Her face was wide at the temples, with high cheekbones that were bright red from the ride down Jordangate in the wind and sleet. Her grey eyes had little gold flecks in them. Her chin was pointed like Mam’s, but her mouth was different. Mam’s mouth was wide for her face, with long, strong teeth. Hers was smaller and fuller with square teeth in a very straight line. She was proud of her teeth and scrubbed them with salt and Kolynos every night. She thought her teeth were her best feature. Mam said it was her eyes.

  ‘Sit down!’ Mam said. ‘Stop admiring yourself.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I was thinking of the medicals this afternoon. At least Doreen Grimshaw goes before me because it’s alphabetical order.’

  ‘Scared of Doreen?’ Mam said. ‘I thought you’d got over it.’

  ‘I’m not scared. I don’t trust her.’

  ‘Soon you’ll be able to avoid her,’ Mam said. ‘Her mother says Doreen isn’t going to sit her RSAs. She wants to leave when she’s fourteen.’

  ‘I avoid her now. She’s boy-daft. After school she runs off to town, hanging about the station in Waters Green. A lot of the lads from the King’s School go on that line.’

  ‘The advanced little monkey!’ Mam laughed.

  ‘She likes people older than herself.’ Lily loaded a dollop of hotpot on to her plate. ‘She hangs round the Andersons’ bakehouse as well, dropping by to have a chat with Shandy. She’s taken a fancy to Shandy’s brother, Cyril. Shandy and I are too young for Doreen.’

  ‘She’ll get herself a bad name,’ Mam said, but she was smiling. Then she said, ‘Howard’s coming this afternoon. He sent a telegram.’

  That would account for Mam’s being dressed so smartly. ‘Again?’ Lily curled her lip. ‘He was here last week.’

  Mam never took Lily’s dislike of Mr Leigh seriously. Mam brought him into Lily’s clean, shining kitchen these days and let him sit at the table, drinking from the china cups they had borrowed from Nanna, as if he, not Mr Chancellor, owned the house.

  Lily said, ‘Are you going to Mr Chancellor’s inauguration with Mr Leigh?’

  Mam’s light-hearted mood changed swiftly. ‘I’m not going with anyone,’ she said and no sooner had Lily finished her meal than Mam began siding the table, in a hurry for her to go. Normally she enjoyed their chat and laughter together for ten minutes, over a cup of tea. ‘Take your letter. Get a move on.’

  ‘Are you dressed up for Mr Leigh?’ Lily took down her winter coat from behind the door. The wind was whistling round the back yard. She pulled the warm scarf about her head and tied it. ‘You think he’s keen on you, but Nellie Plant says that he has a woman in every town.’

  ‘Nellie Plant will find herself in court answering a summons one of these days,’ Mam said, ‘spreading lies …’

  Lily held the scarf to her throat as she left the shop. The wind that y
esterday had blown mild and soft was icy. It took the hem of her navy-blue Melton cloth coat and whipped it to and fro against her thick black stockings. Her leather boots were slipping all over the narrow pavement as she slithered down Jordangate to Shandy’s house on Brock Street. Shandy was watching out for her and ran down the entry between the bakehouse and their house. Freckle-faced and bubbly, Shandy was the only daughter in a family of four older brothers, who all worked at the bakery.

  ‘Come on. We’ll have to run all the way!’ Shandy grabbed her arm and they went, laughing, helter-skelter down Hibel Road on their shortcut.

  One of the classrooms had been made ready as a medical room and Lily saw, through a small, plain glass panel in the door that the nit-nurse had set up two tables: one for herself and the other for the doctor.

  It appeared that no classwork was to be done, for one of the prefects – the bossiest in the school – was in charge, and on each desk was a copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress, the book for the RSA exam.

  ‘One at a time,’ the prefect said. ‘Go into the cloakroom when your name’s called. No talking.’

  A window overlooked the cloakroom, behind the desk on the platform. ‘I’ll hand you your medical cards when you go in to get undressed.’

  There was a long wooden box on the platform, containing big brown envelopes Lily had never seen before. ‘Keep your knickers on and leave your shoelaces loose,’ the prefect was saying. ‘If you are cold, put your cardigans over your shoulders. It won’t take long. When you’ve been examined come back quietly and sit at your desks.’

  Lily hated taking off her clothes, hated anyone seeing the pale skin that was as white as milk and the little swollen bumps on her chest that were growing bigger and pinker every day but were nowhere near as big as some of the girls’. Thank heaven they were to be given some privacy. The prefect had said ‘one at a time’. Lily lifted the book to read Magnus’s letter.

  Dear Lily, l am coming home next weekend as I have a dental appointment. I hope you can find a little time to spare for me.