The Shadow of the Sycamores Page 15

  As had happened when she first met Willie, Nessie recalled, with a strong flicker of guilt, their eyes locked and she no longer felt awkward with him. She could see a different, far better, future stretching ahead for her.

  Willie returned to the house at his usual time of six o’clock. ‘How did you and the Provost get on?’ he asked his wife. ‘You made a good impression there.’

  Having had fully half an hour to prepare for the question, Nessie answered without a blush. ‘You think so? He’s a nice enough man, I suppose, but not my type.’

  Willie found this extremely funny, throwing back his head and roaring with laughter. ‘I wouldna think so. He’s been a widower for … losh, it must be wearing on for twenty year. He’ll ha’e forgot how to handle a woman.’

  She made no reply. Willie himself had lost much of his drive, a case of over-indulgence when he was younger, she supposed, but Gus Fleming’s passions had obviously lain dormant since his wife died. It was obvious that their rebirth would be quick and total.

  ‘I hope he mak’s it clear to Henry it wasna me that asked for him to get the job,’ Willie said, changing the subject. ‘He’ll turn it down if he thinks I’d anything to do wi’ it.’

  ‘No, he’ll jump at the chance – a decent job and a house to go with it. What more could he want?’

  Willie chewed over this for a moment or two. ‘I dinna ken about the house, though. They can hardly put Phil Geddes oot when there’s nae hope for him, can they? And what aboot his wife? She’ll still be there when he’s gone.’

  ‘It’s a tied house so the council could throw them out if they wanted.’

  ‘Well, maybe they’d be within their rights but they wouldna … surely?’

  * * *

  lt was after six on Monday night before Henry received the letter, handed to him by Innes Ledingham at the supper table, with the loud comment, ‘I did not know that your first name was Tchouki. Is that how you pronounce it?’

  Janet stepped in to cover the youth’s confusion. ‘It was all a big mistake. I’ll tell you about it later.’

  With every head turned towards him, the scarlet-faced Henry knew that he had to face up to the inevitable. ‘It’s all right, Janet. I may as well tell them.’ He told the facts as he now knew them with no intention of making them sound humorous but, no matter how often and by whom it was told, the tale would always get the same reaction – paroxysms of laughter.

  ‘I am really sorry,’ the Superintendent murmured to Henry. ‘I did not realise … I would not have said anything …’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s not long since I learned the truth myself and I suppose it’s better to get it off my chest now and get it over with.’

  Janet leaned across to him. ‘If you and Fay want to go upstairs now, I’ll take up a pot of tea for you in half an hour or so.’

  Henry smiled his thanks. ‘It’s all right – we’ll stick it out.’

  When he and Fay eventually got to the sanctuary of their room, he thumped down on the big double bed that took up most of the space, tore open the envelope and drew out the slim sheet of headed notepaper.

  Fay watched him scan the typed words. ‘What does it say?’ she asked, looking at the envelope and wanting to know what Artbirtle Town Council wanted of him.

  Plainly shaken, he handed it to her. ‘Read it for yourself.’

  She didn’t take long, looking up in great excitement when she came to the end. ‘It’s wonderful, Henry, just what you were looking for. You had better write as soon as you can to say you can attend the interview. Do you have a writing pad and envelopes?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve never had to write to anybody. Besides, I don’t know if I want the job. I bet my father’s had something to do with it.’

  ‘Oh, Henry, don’t be so childish. It doesn’t matter who recommended you, if anyone did – it’s much better than having to stay here.’

  It dawned on him then, although he should have recognised it before, that life at The Sycamores must be a dreadful comedown for her. She had no role to play except being the wife of the odd-job man, when she had been used to serving in her father’s shop, making up mixtures and pills, speaking to dozens of people every day. She must hate being on her own all the time, taking walks if it wasn’t raining or sitting in their room reading if it was. She must be nearly out of her mind with boredom.

  His wife could sense his indecision. ‘It is up to you, dear, but I think you should at least make an effort to find out what the job entails. If you do not like what you hear, then by all means turn it down.’

  He nodded, not wanting to tell her that he did not like the idea of living so near to his father.

  ‘Shall I go and ask Janet for a sheet of paper and an envelope?’

  ‘All right, if you think that’s best.’

  ‘Do you want her to know why?’

  ‘You’d better tell her. They knew I’d have to look for another job.’

  As Fay had suspected, the lure of being the Town Officer was too great a challenge for Henry to ignore. His excitement was high when he returned from his interview with the Provost. ‘It’s a mixture of jobs, really. I’ll be the Court Usher whenever the courtroom is in use. I’ll be the Town Crier, to announce all the important messages. I get to wear a special uniform for that too and when I attend any public meetings to make sure there is no trouble. Then we come down the scale a bit. I’ll be the lamplighter and the street cleaner. So it won’t be all moonlight and roses.’

  ‘Did you accept the job?’ Fay asked, impatiently. ‘That’s what I want to know.’

  Henry hesitated. ‘I said I’d have to think about it.’

  ‘What is there to think about? I can see you would like to do it.’

  ‘Aye, but there’s one big drawback.’

  Her smile faded. ‘Isn’t there a house to go with the job?’

  ‘There is but it’s occupied at the moment – the old Town Officer.’

  ‘But he would have to move, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘He’s very ill, not expected to live long, but …’ Henry had to stop the hope that was returning to her eyes, ‘… but his wife’s not in the best of health, either. The Provost said they can’t put her out, or expect her to move, if they could find her a place, which he said would be impossible anyway.’

  ‘Didn’t he offer you any alternative accommodation?’

  ‘He did, and that’s what’s keeping me from taking the job. He had asked my father if he’d be willing for us to stay there till the other house is available.’

  Fay lost patience with her husband now. ‘Don’t tell me you would give up a job I know you want, just because you don’t want to live in the same house as your father?’

  He took hold of her hand and looked at her earnestly, knowing the answer to the question he was about to ask her. ‘Do you want me to take it? Would you be happy living at Oak Cottage?’

  She placed her other hand on top of his. ‘I am not exactly ecstatic about it but I am willing to give it a try if you are. It would only be for a short time, remember.’

  Henry, therefore, wrote two more letters – one to Ardbirtle Town Council accepting the position as Town Officer and the other to Mr William Rae to say that he and his wife would take up the offer of a temporary home.

  ‘We have to say that,’ he pointed out, ‘so they’ll know it’s not permanent.’

  Two replies arrived two days later. The Clerk of the Council of Ardbirtle was pleased to confirm Mr Tchouki Rae’s appointment to the position of Town Officer ‘as from the first day of October, eighteen hundred and ninety’. Willie’s answer (written by Nessie) just said, ‘We will be pleased to see you. Come the day before you start your new job. Your father.’

  At first, Nessie Rae was not at all happy that her stepson and his wife would be living with them. She had been looking forward to many pleasurable afternoons with the Provost, hopefully culminating in them running off together. Not that there had been the slightest indication that Gus Fle
ming wanted anything more than the innocuous half hour they’d had together – he hadn’t been near the place since – but you never knew, did you? Of course, he had his position to think of so he’d be scared to step out of line. No matter how careful he was, there would always be the chance that he could be seen if he came to Oak Cottage and, with Willie busy in the smiddy, tongues would start rolling. That would finish his career.

  After several more days had passed, Nessie came to the conclusion that the passion she thought she had aroused in the man had only been in her imagination, in which case, she was better off without him.

  The closer it came to the day of Henry’s departure, the more Janet Ledingham wondered if she should confide in him. She had made a special journey to see her brother and attempted to let him know her fears, but he had only laughed at her.

  ‘It’s your age, woman,’ he had scolded.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with my age’, she had said, almost on the point of tears.

  Roderick had sighed then – as if he wanted to be rid of her. ‘You are imagining things that have no concrete foundation. For goodness sake, put it out of your mind.’

  The trouble was she couldn’t put it out of her mind. It was like a running sore, getting worse as time went on, and she could sense Innes’s growing irritation at her for asking questions and bringing up facts he didn’t want to remember but she could not forget. She still considered her mother’s death unnatural. She couldn’t make up her mind whether his first wife had actually died somewhere else or if she had never left The Sycamores at all. By all accounts, he and Gloria had not been getting along and, with his short temper, a quarrel could easily have escalated into something far worse. He could have picked up whatever was handy and let fly!

  On the other hand, with the cook having walked out, and knowing that she, Janet, was an expert in the kitchen, it could have been deliberate. He could have planned it and killed Gloria in cold blood. It was this thought that made her fear for her own life and she couldn’t possibly shift that fear on to anybody else’s shoulders – she couldn’t even share it.

  In contrast to his wife, who was glad to be leaving, Henry felt quite downhearted. He had enjoyed his time at The Sycamores, chatting to the elderly inmates, attending to all the little jobs that had to be done. He had got on very well with all the staff, including Innes Ledingham himself, and would miss them all, especially Max, his old school friend. Most of all, he would miss Janet. He was really fond of her, loved her like a mother and it was going to be hard to say goodbye.

  They were all up early on the morning of the thirtieth of September. The carrier was coming at nine o’clock to collect their box – only one because they only had their clothes to move as nothing else belonged to them. Nearly everyone came to see them off. The Superintendent shook hands and wished Henry good luck in his new venture and Max slapped his back and gave Fay a resounding kiss on the cheek. Then, as if it had been planned, they all stepped aside to let Janet in.

  Trying to hold back her tears, she clasped Fay’s hand for a few moments and then turned to Henry, meaning to give him just a little hug but emotion overcame them both and their long, tearful embrace brought moisture to several other eyes. ‘You’ll let me know how you get on?’ she pleaded.

  At last, they were on their way, both perched up beside Geordie Mavor who, understanding that Henry in particular wouldn’t want to make conversation, did what his brother often told him to do and kept his mouth shut.

  They were some distance on their way before Fay murmured, ‘Are you all right, Henry? You’re very quiet.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He hesitated and then whispered, ‘I’m worried about Janet. I’m sure something’s troubling her.’

  ‘She’s very fond of you, dear, that’s why she was so upset.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose so.’ But he knew, deep down, that it wasn’t just that.

  PART TWO

  1891–1897

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Henry Rae – or T H as he was entered in the Council’s list of employees, which he preferred to the Tchouki some of the wags shouted after him – was happy with his life. His lovely wife had made a wonderful home for him and given him two beautiful children: Andrew, a mischievous two-year-old, and Samara – after the seeds of the sycamore trees – just seven months. What more could he want? That was his family complete – there would be no more.

  Of course, it hadn’t always been plain sailing. When he first took on the role of Ardbirtle’s Town Officer, he’d had more than a new job to contend with. His stepmother had made life a little uncomfortable during the three months that he and his wife had lived at Oak Cottage. It was obvious that she had resented them being there yet she had never come right out and said so. She relied on snide remarks, casting up that he should never have got married if he couldn’t provide for a wife properly or heaving drawn-out sighs and saying they had invaded her privacy – although never in front of her husband.

  Going over it in his mind one evening, Henry recalled how his relationship with his father had actually improved in the course of their stay in his house. Perhaps the man was ashamed of his wife’s treatment of them, perhaps he had always wanted to be friends with his son, but, whatever it was, they were closer now than they had ever been.

  Fay had been a saint during those twelve-and-a-half uneasy weeks. She never lost her temper with Nessie. In fact, it was her tactful handling of the woman that had eventually brought her round. What had kept him sane was knowing that they wouldn’t have to put up with her for long. He had often found himself wishing for his predecessor’s instant demise but, when he voiced this sentiment to Fay, she turned on him angrily. It had been the closest they had ever come to quarrelling.

  Thankfully, he’d been given the keys to the large two-storeyed house in Mid Street before his dear Fairy fell with their first child – or at least before she had to tell Nessie about her condition. His worry about how they would furnish the house they were waiting for was solved for him. Mrs Geddes died just a week after her man and, because they had no family, the council had cleaned the whole place from top to bottom before they handed it over. He was told that he’d be responsible for clearing out all the Geddeses’ personal belongings but that everything else was theirs to use – in other words, they got a furnished home.

  As was only to be expected, the furniture was old but of good quality and whoever had done the cleaning had made a thorough job of it. The kitchen range was immaculate, the big black kettle on the hob had no traces of soot, the brass candlesticks on the mantelshelf were gleaming and all the ornaments and using dishes had been washed and set back in place on the wide oak dresser. The two high-backed horsehair armchairs by the fireside were well worn but still comfortable and the hearthrug had obviously been hooked by Mrs Geddes herself or maybe by her man in any spare time he had.

  A fender stool, covered in brown leather – possibly recovered, for it looked somewhat amateurish – took up the whole width of the fireplace, ideal to rest the feet on when sitting on one or other of the armchairs. A heavy steel poker lay at the front of the fire at one side and a big wooden coal scuttle complete with black shovel at the other. A plain, unpadded chair was pushed under each side of the oblong oak table that stood in the middle of the floor. The finishing touch, a most necessary item they had found, was the set of bellows hanging on a nail at the side of the mantelpiece.

  The other downstairs room, the parlour, was more ‘perjink’, a favourite word of his Gramma. The table here was a highly polished mahogany drop leaf, its four straight-backed chairs – seats covered in the same deep crimson velour as the two wide armchairs at the fire – in various positions round the room. Opposite the fireplace stood a mahogany sideboard, the two shelves of its left-hand cupboard filled by a delicate porcelain dinner service, rose-decorated and gold-edged, boasting six each of side plates, dessert plates, soup bowls, steak plates, two large and two small ashets, two large tureens with lids and a gravy boat.

  ‘Th
at must have been a wedding present,’ Fay had observed, the first time she saw them, ‘and by the look of them, I don’t think they’ve ever been used.’

  The top shelf of the left side of the sideboard held crystal wineglasses and tumblers – perhaps cut glass, not crystal – and the bottom shelf had an assortment of knick-knacks, mostly of little value.

  Inside the fender at this fireside was a brass companion set, with a poker, a pair of tongs, a fireside brush and a dainty shovel. The fender was also brass, with a padded stool at each end, and was clearly not to be used for feet. The hearthrug, if not actually Persian, was of Persian design, bringing some colour to the brown linoleum on the floor. There were small ornaments dotted about the room, on occasional tables, on the sideboard itself, along the shelf above the tiled fireplace. There were also three gold-framed pictures on the wall – ‘Beatrice and Dante’, ‘When Did You Last See Your Father?’ and ‘Stag At Bay’.

  The only thing missing in these two rooms, according to Fay, had been pot-plants but she had since taken or been given, even purchased, dozens of cuttings and she now had the place looking as lived-in as she wanted. She had worked hard at getting rid of all the useless items that Mrs Geddes had collected during their tenancy of the house. The old cuttings from newspapers with yellowing recipes and household hints, old cardboard boxes, probably kept because they were prettily decorated, old receipts and old letters were all burned in the backyard. The clothes that were presentable were packed in boxes from the grocer and given to the church for the needy in India and Africa.

  ‘Not that they need heavy coats and trousers and skirts over there,’ Fay had remarked to her husband.

  ‘You never know,’ he had told her. ‘A lot of the Indians live up in the hills so they would likely be glad of warm things.’