The Shadow of the Sycamores Read online

  Relieved that Abby posed no threat to her, Fay shook her head. ‘That doesn’t ring true. If he loved her, he wouldn’t want her name besmirched.’

  ‘Well, I can’t explain it any more than that,’ Henry mumbled, wretchedly. ‘That’s what Mrs Gow, the Session Clerk’s widow, told Max.’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Fay said softly, ‘Are you sure Max was telling the truth?’

  ‘Why would he tell me a lie?’

  ‘You see, before I knew you, I walked out with him three times …’

  ‘You and Max?’ To Henry, the situation had grown even worse than before. It was awful to think that Max had …

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t know he worked at The Sycamores. I got a shock when I saw him at Mr Ledingham’s wedding.’

  ‘But he didn’t say anything either. Why did you only go out with him three times? Did he try to …?

  ‘He got a bit too … ardent for my liking so I stopped him and I didn’t want to see him again.’

  ‘But you think he bears a grudge at you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘It doesn’t really matter, does it? You would have learned the truth as soon as you saw your birth certificate.’

  ‘True enough.’

  ‘And that was your only reason for saying you can’t marry me?’

  ‘Isn’t it enough? Maybe you don’t care what kind of woman my mother was but, if your father finds out, he’ll forbid the wedding anyway.’

  ‘He doesn’t need to know, does he?’

  ‘I can’t see how to stop him. The minister will have to say my full name …’

  ‘Look Henry, we haven’t discussed this yet but, if we get married in the church here at Drymill, Mr Barclay’s a good friend of mine and …’

  ‘And a great friend of your father?’

  ‘To be honest, no, he’s not. He’s only been here for five years and the minister he replaced was seventy-six when he retired so a lot of people still think Paul Barclay’s too young – including my father. What I’m trying to say is, if I ask him not to mention the Russian name during the service, your full name can be entered in the register for you to sign. That means only the two of us and the best man and bridesmaid would see it.’

  Fay’s voice was rising in excitement. ‘You’ll naturally want your friend Max and I don’t have any close friends so I could have Janet as bridesmaid – matron-of-honour. You wouldn’t mind her knowing as well, would you?’

  His spirits lifting, Henry said, ‘No, I wouldn’t mind Janet knowing. Do you really think that would work?’

  ‘Have faith in me, my darling boy.’

  He still did not feel altogether happy about it and, while he walked her silently back home, he kept turning it over in his mind. They had almost reached the shop when he burst out, ‘No, Fay, I can’t do it. It’s deceitful to pretend I’m something I’m not and it’s not fair to expect your minister to overlook it. I’m going to face up to it and let everybody know the truth.’

  ‘Even my father?’

  ‘Especially your father. How could we expect to be happy if I lived in fear of being found out?’

  Fay snuggled against him. ‘That’s why I love you, Hen …’ She paused and went on mischievously, ‘That’s why I love you, Tchouki Rae. You’re so honest, I know I can depend on you for the rest of my life.’

  ‘You mean, you’ll marry me even if your father …?’

  ‘I mean I’ll marry you supposing everybody in Scotland turns against us.’

  He gave her a quick hug. ‘That’s why I love you, Fay Leslie. You’ve got a will of your own and you won’t let anybody sway you. We’d better go in and face the music.’

  As they had both known, the ‘music’ was loud and discordant as Catherine vainly tried to keep her husband within the realms of reason.

  ‘You little bastard,’ Joseph shouted for the umpteenth time, his face so purple that his wife took hold of his sleeve in alarm. ‘Let me go, woman! There is no way on God’s earth that I will allow that liar to marry my daughter.’

  It was Fay who stood up to him. ‘He did not tell any lies, Father, and I am going to marry him whatever you say … or do! Henry, don’t go. Wait until I get some things and I’ll come with you.’

  She took no heed of her father’s manic screeching and left Henry standing helplessly as Catherine guided her husband to a seat and slackened his high collar. ‘I didn’t think he would take it so badly, Mrs Leslie,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve tried to tell him he has nothing to worry about. I’ll look after Fay, I swear. I’ll work my fingers to the bone for her …’

  ‘I know you will Henry,’ she soothed, ‘and I will do all I can to make him see sense. He should realise that he is driving our daughter away for good with his outrageous behaviour.’

  When Fay returned a few minutes later, she handed Henry a small Gladstone bag and slipped her hand under his arm. ‘I’m sorry it has come to this, Mother,’ she said clearly, ‘but my life would be intolerable if I stayed here.’

  Catherine turned to her husband. ‘Are you happy now? Would you spoil Fay’s chance of happiness because of your own pride? Well, my fine fellow, two can play at that game.’

  ‘No, Catherine,’ he moaned. ‘You can’t!’

  ‘Yes, Joseph, I can. If you do not climb down from your high-and-mighty ridiculous principles right this minute, I will make sure that you will soon be the laughing stock of Drymill and for miles around.’

  Fay’s last glimpse of her parents was of them sitting, eyes locked, as if each were trying to force the other to climb down.

  It was some minutes after the door closed behind the young couple before Joseph mopped his sweating brow. ‘I can see by your face, Catherine,’ he said, his voice little more than a whisper, ‘that you mean to carry out your threat this time.’

  She gave a tight smile. ‘The choice is yours. Either you agree to the marriage or I will tell all Drymill the truth about you.’

  He took a little time to consider it, then he roared, ‘Tell and be damned, then! You’ll be as much a laughing-stock as I will. Just think how your friends will talk about you behind your back.’

  He had hit on the right note. Although not to the same extent as her husband, Catherine valued her standing in the community and she slumped down against the back of her chair. ‘All right,’ she mumbled, ‘have it your own way but, if Fay invites us to the wedding, I will go and you can please yourself.’

  The farther they walked, the more despondent Henry grew. ‘This is no good, Fay,’ he said at last, pulling her to a halt as they came to the wrought iron gate of The Sycamores. ‘I can’t take you away from your parents like this. That’s not what I meant to happen.’

  ‘You would have cast me off like an old clout,’ she retorted, ‘but I’m made of stronger stuff than that. I have made the break from my parents and it remains to be seen what will happen here. Come on.’

  They walked round the side of the building and went in through the kitchen, Henry intending to smuggle her up to his room and to take her home the following morning. It was hardly nine o’clock, a time when this area was usually deserted, but Janet had come down to turn some meat she was marinating for cooking the following day.

  ‘Oh, my!’ she exclaimed. ‘You gave me a fright, Henry.’ Then, catching sight of the girl behind him, she frowned. ‘What’s this? Why have you brought Fay here?’

  ‘It’s not what it looks like, Janet,’ Henry said, flustered. ‘Her father won’t agree to us getting wed and she … walked out.’

  ‘Where did you think she would sleep?’ Janet asked, sharply. ‘Not with you?’

  ‘I was going to let her have my bed and I’d have slept on the chair.’

  Noticing the girl’s ashen face, Janet smiled comfortingly. ‘Fay, my dear, I’m not putting you out but a young lassie and laddie in the same room …? No matter how good the intentions, the feelings get stirred up … and things happen
that cast long shadows. I’ll tell you what we can do, though. Young Nancy’s mother broke her leg this afternoon … that’s the kitchen maid,’ she explained, ‘so she’ll be off for a wee while. You can get her room if you wouldn’t mind. The sheets are clean for I had them changed.’

  ‘Thank you, Janet, I’d be glad to use her room. Can I go now? I’m really tired.’

  ‘Aye, surely, m’dear,’ Janet said, her voice full of concern for her. The poor girl looked fit to drop. ‘Henry, you can carry her bag and show her where to go but come right back.’ She issued no further warning – she was sure she could trust them.

  He was back in minutes. ‘Thank you, Janet. I think she was worrying about us being in the same room. Her father was awful mad and she’s real upset.’

  Janet sat down on the other side of the fire. ‘I can’t understand what he’s got against you, Henry. You’re a genuine, hard working lad and she couldna find a better man anywhere.’

  Henry gave a resigned shrug. ‘You may as well know everything for you’ll find out soon enough.’ He gave her the blue envelope.

  The foreign name did come as a surprise to her but she did not castigate the boy as Joseph Leslie had done. She could understand how he felt and did her utmost to cheer him. ‘Ach, Henry, laddie, what does it matter if folk know? A nine days’ wonder and then it’ll be forgotten. In any case, you’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘It feels like I have,’ the boy said despondently. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been roped into my troubles for I think you’ve got some troubles of your own – though that’s none of my business,’ he added apologetically.

  ‘It’s not,’ she nodded, ‘but, d’you know, I’d be glad of somebody to tell.’

  ‘I’ll be glad to listen,’ he assured her.

  So the middle-aged woman bared her soul to the youth, telling him first of her suspicions about her husband and then reminiscing about her love as a young girl for Tom Aitken – and, during it all, he said not one word. At last, she dragged her eyes from the barely glowing embers in the range and turned them on him in appeal. ‘What do you think, Henry? Is Innes capable of doing what I’ve been thinking?’

  He didn’t answer straight away, obviously giving it careful consideration, and then he gave a deep sigh. ‘I don’t know, Janet, honest I don’t. I once heard somebody say that every one of us is capable of a criminal act, even murder, if circumstances force us into it but … I can’t say I believe that. Besides, like you said, Mr Ledingham was never away long enough to … do anything to his first wife.’

  ‘He could have paid somebody else to kill her. No, I’m being over-sensitive. Innes isn’t like that, I’m sure … almost sure. It’s likely the change that’s making me imagine things.’

  ‘What change? The change from being single to being married?’

  Janet gave a wry laugh at his puzzled face. ‘Oh, laddie, I’m sorry. I’m forgetting how young you are. The change is a stage in a woman’s life when her whole body … Ach, it’s difficult to explain. There comes a time when a woman stops …’ She halted again, her face red. ‘It’s when she can’t have bairns any more. Now that’s all I can tell you but it’s something all women go through and it upsets their whole systems. I’ve heard of women that went off their heads but thank the Lord that doesna happen very often. Now that’s enough of that. I’ve been daft, letting things get to me that havena one grain o’ truth in them and I’m ashamed at myself for burdening you with my fancies.’

  ‘I’m pleased you told me, Janet, and maybe just speaking about it will help but you shouldn’t be ashamed of …’ his face coloured with embarrassment at what he was about to say, ‘of giving in to your sailor when you were a young girl. I’m sure dozens of girls do the same – it’s only natural.’

  Janet regarded him keenly. ‘Fay hasn’t … has she?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted, omitting to add that he had never placed her in the position of having to give in or not. ‘But then, we haven’t known each other very long.’

  ‘No.’ Janet turned her attention to the fireside again and they sat in silence for a full three minutes. Then she straightened her back. ‘Look, Henry, forget what I’ve been telling you. You can’t do anything about that but I’ll do my best to help you and Fay. And that reminds me – it’s time we were going to bed.’

  He couldn’t sleep for going over and over the awful scene in the house above the chemist’s shop. He wished he knew what Mrs Leslie meant about telling all Drymill the truth about her husband but he hadn’t liked to ask Fay and, in any case, she probably didn’t know. It couldn’t be anything really bad – not if it involved Mr Leslie. The man was too strict with his daughter, too strait-laced, too unbending in his opinions, but he wouldn’t do anything that would make him a laughing-stock. His wife had just been making empty threats in her anger at him. Maybe this ‘change’ was affecting her as well? The big question was, of course, would she manage to change his mind? Fay had said she would get married however much her father was against it but would she, when it came to the point? And, if she did, would she regret her defiance at some later date? Would she be so unhappy that she would leave her new husband and go back home?

  Finding no answers, no resolutions, to his own problem, Henry turned his mind to Janet’s. He had always respected Mr Ledingham, thought of him as a fair man, a decent, honest man, so why was Janet so unsure of him? Even though her mother’s death had been so sudden, there really was no reason to think it wasn’t natural. Old people often died suddenly but, maybe, if the person concerned was your own mother, it wouldn’t be so easy to accept it. That must be it.

  The other death was a different matter altogether. What would Innes Ledingham have to gain by that? Apart from leaving him free to marry again, that was. Nothing, as far as anybody could tell. It was a bit too far-fetched to believe that he had got another person to do the needful for him and Janet had admitted that he had never been away from The Sycamores long enough to do it himself.

  It struck Henry suddenly that two honourable, upstanding men were being accused by their wives of doing something entirely out of character. In one case, it was only something ridiculous that other people would laugh at but, in the other, it was a criminal act. Both women were in their forties … Was that significant?

  CHAPTER NINE

  Having expended so much anger, Joseph Leslie slept as if he had been drugged but woke up much calmer – alone because Catherine had slept in Fay’s bed. It was hardly twenty past five – forty minutes before he had to get up – which gave him time to consider the situation. He had always stuck rigidly to his principles but had he been wrong in wanting the best for his daughter? He had even called his wife’s bluff and got away with it but perhaps that had not been the most sensible thing to do.

  She, too, could be changing her mind at this very moment, deciding to carry out her threat to shame him unless he gave in. It would make little difference to her if her friends knew that he had not been a proper husband to her for years – it was what his friends would say that bothered him. It would be wiser to give in, accept what was plainly inevitable and put a brave front on it. Fay’s happiness was really all that mattered, was it not?

  Throwing off the bedclothes, he went out into the narrow hallway, with the intention of going to the smaller bedroom to acquaint his wife of his decision, but the clatter of dishes told him that she was already up. When he went along to the kitchen, he discovered that she had been up for some time – the fire in the range was blazing merrily, steam was issuing from the big black kettle and two places were set on the pristine white tablecloth.

  ‘I hope you slept well, my dear,’ he said, cautiously.

  Her expression was inscrutable. ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Her bleary, red-rimmed eyes told a different tale but he thought better of arguing and sat down to drink the tea she poured out for him. This was the normal procedure first thing in the morning. It was followed by him washing and shaving in the little scullery and then
returning to his bedroom to dress in his black suit. He could cope with the buttons on his snow-white shirt but the task of fastening the stud at his high, starched collar was always carried out by one or other of his women-folk and they also saw to the fashioning of his dark tie.

  Back in the kitchen for these two items to be seen to, he glanced at the wall clock and did not know whether to be glad or sorry that it showed quarter to seven, fifteen minutes before he had to open the shop. He sat down at the table again and gestured to his wife to do likewise.

  ‘You want to say something?’ she prompted.

  His mouth was full of tongue, a most unusual experience, and the two sides of his throat seemed to be glued together so he made several chewing movements to get some moisture in his mouth. ‘I have been thinking, Catherine,’ he got out at last, ‘and I realise that I was totally unreasonable last evening.’

  ‘You could say that,’ she murmured dryly.

  ‘You must understand that I have not been influenced by what you said when I tell you that I have changed my mind. Fay is quite at liberty to marry that boy …’ His wife’s slight frown made him correct himself, ‘to marry the boy she loves. I still do not consider him … worthy of her but perhaps he will prove his mettle as he grows older. When I was under the impression that the courtship would end long before it came to marriage, I made a very rash offer but I am still prepared to honour it – fifty pounds and they may do with it what they will.’

  He looked directly at his wife now, expecting her to be profuse in her thanks but she was regarding him coldly.

  ‘So that is your decision? Half of what you originally led them to believe?’

  ‘As I said, that offer was made when I thought …’

  ‘I am quite sure that Henry is not marrying Fay in order to get your money.’

  ‘Perhaps not but I am just as sure that he will not refuse it.’

  She gave a small, lady-like snort. ‘I would not be so sure of that, my man, if I were you.’