The Girl with the Creel Read online

  ‘I would require her to sign an affidavit to the effect that the girl is sleeping in the same room as you.’

  George’s heart sank. He knew that Mrs Clark was a staunch member of the kirk, so it would be against her principles to perjure herself, but she was his only hope. ‘I’ll ask her and see what she says.’

  ‘The sooner you get that done, the sooner I can set things in motion.’ Mr Sandison smiled reassuringly.

  George hurried back to East Church Street with little hope. ‘It’s the only way I’ll be able to marry Lizann,’ he said, sadly, after telling Mrs Clark what he required of her.

  ‘You’re asking me to sin my soul?’ she asked, looking at him with her eyebrows raised. ‘I’m not saying I won’t do it,’ she continued, hastily, when his face fell, ‘but I’ll need to know all the outs and ins. For a start, you didn’t tell me exactly why you left your wife.’

  George heaved a long sigh. ‘I found her out in something …’

  ‘What something?’ she persisted.

  He hadn’t wanted to blacken Katie’s character, but he owed Mrs Clark some explanation and gave her only a watered-down version of the truth.

  ‘She’d been taking up with … other men … she even got rid of a baby …’

  ‘Did she try to make you think it was yours?’

  ‘No, no! It all happened long before we were even keeping company.’

  ‘And you couldn’t forgive her?’ she asked in surprise. ‘You likely hadn’t been lily-white yourself.’

  Having made love to several girls in the years before Lizann, George blustered. ‘It’s different for a man.’ As soon as he said it, he was sure it would set his landlady against him, but he needn’t have worried. In Mrs Clark’s world, it had always been different for a man.

  ‘And what about Lizann?’ she asked. ‘How do you know she’s not keeping secrets from you? She could have had men before, and all.’

  ‘No!’ George burst out. ‘She was a virgin when I …’ He stopped, his face scarlet.

  Mrs Clark’s mouth lifted slightly at the corners. ‘And did you tell Katie about that?’

  ‘I did tell her … after a while, but she wouldn’t have told me a thing if I hadn’t found out she’d given all our savings to somebody that was blackmailing her. That’s why I got so angry … the underhandedness …’

  ‘Aye, I can understand that.’ She got to her feet purposefully. ‘Now, what’s this thing Mr Sandison wants me to sign?’

  George was astounded that she was agreeing after what he had told her. ‘You’ve to make a statement that I’ve been sleeping with Lizann in your house. That’s to get proof of adultery.’

  ‘Just one thing, George. Wouldn’t it be easier if you divorced Katie?’

  ‘I don’t know if I could, seeing she wasn’t my wife when she … anyway, I couldn’t shame her like that.’

  ‘Well, I’ll give you credit for that. I’ll get my coat and hat.’

  On the way to the solicitor’s office, Mrs Clark said, ‘How long are you and your Lizann supposed to have been …?’

  ‘We’d better make it … two weeks?’

  The affidavit drawn up and duly signed, Mr Sandison said, ‘I shall post this to your wife, Mr Buchan, and she can take it to her solicitor and ask him to instigate divorce proceedings against you. The Court of Session in Edinburgh will then serve you with a notice detailing your misdemeanours and giving you the date on which the case will be held and you and your witness will have to appear in court.’

  Mrs Clark looked alarmed. ‘Oh my, don’t tell me I’ll have to stand up in a court in front of …?’

  ‘You may not have to. They may consider your affidavit sufficient.’

  ‘What if Katie won’t divorce me?’ George asked.

  ‘Then I’m afraid there is nothing more you can do … unless you can find her out in something?’

  George’s face tightened. He had already found her out in too much. ‘No, there’s nothing like that.’

  Outside, Mrs Clark said, ‘I hope I don’t have to go. I don’t think I could tell a barefaced lie to a judge.’

  ‘Mr Sandison didn’t seem to think they’d need you,’ George muttered, uncertain now if he had done the right thing. Maybe he should have got hold of some girl who would be willing to do the needful. Sordid it might have been, but it would have been above board.

  Having brooded about it all day, it was the first thing Lizann asked George when she met him that evening. ‘Did you write to Katie?’

  Positive that she would be annoyed if he admitted what he had really done, he nodded. ‘I posted it this afternoon.’

  ‘Did you say … what you said you were going to say?’

  ‘I just said I wanted to marry you and asked her to divorce me.’

  ‘Will that be enough?’

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see.’

  Wanting to avoid the temptation that could arise if they went out along the Arradoul road again, Lizann took him back past the Yardie and through one of the lanes which led down to the old Buckpool harbour and the shore. They would be in full view of the rear windows of all the houses on that side of Main Street, but it couldn’t be helped. She grew uneasy when George stopped to kiss her and hurried him past the back of the Taits’ house, praying that Peter wouldn’t be looking out of his bedroom.

  ‘Have you told your mother about me?’ George asked, after a while.

  ‘I said I was going out with a boy I knew at school.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell her the truth some time.’

  ‘We’ll tell her together, when Katie divorces you.’

  ‘What if she doesn’t?’

  ‘Would you go back to her?’ This was Lizann’s main fear.

  ‘Never! You’re the only one I love now.’

  After a thoughtful silence, Lizann murmured, ‘I couldn’t let you go again. If she doesn’t let you free, would you … would you take me away somewhere with you?’

  Pulling her closely against him, he said, ‘You’d leave your mother and father … for me?’

  ‘If I have to, but … I hope it doesn’t come to that.’

  ‘No, it’ll never come to that,’ he declared. ‘Katie knows I’m through with her, and she’ll not be difficult.’

  ‘I wish I’d met you before I was going with Peter.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ruefully. ‘I’d never have got married if you hadn’t been promised to him … though I did love Katie. I can’t deny that.’

  ‘I loved Peter and all. Oh, George, what a mess we’re in.’

  ‘It’ll sort itself out, and when we’re married we can look back and laugh about all this.’

  ‘I don’t feel like laughing right now.’

  ‘Neither do I. I’d like to let everybody know how much I love you, and I can’t even kiss you the way I want to.’

  ‘How long will it be till Katie tells you, one way or the other?’

  ‘Not long, I shouldn’t think.’

  They stopped again to kiss, then Lizann whispered, ‘You said you’d taken lodgings for a week. Will you go back to Cullen after that?’

  ‘I can’t hang about here. I need to earn some money, so I’ll have to find a berth, and I’ve more chance of that where they all know me.’

  ‘Peggy May said you’d a boat of your own?’

  ‘It was needing repairs I couldn’t afford, so I sold it for scrap.’ He didn’t tell her, as he had told Mrs Clark, that his wife had cleared out their bank account. Katie had been too scared to let him know she was being blackmailed, though if she had confessed her past to him before, that evil devil wouldn’t have had anything to hold over her.

  Watching the expressions on George’s face, Lizann guessed that there was something he wasn’t telling her but, presuming he had bought a boat that wasn’t sea-worthy and was ashamed to admit how gullible he’d been, she didn’t ask. Instead, she turned her questions again to the chances of their getting married.

  Approaching the Yardie, George sai
d, ‘We’ve only four nights left, so we should stop worrying about things we can do nothing about.’

  ‘You’ll tell me when you hear from Katie, though?’

  ‘The minute I get a letter.’

  ‘What if it’s not good news?’

  ‘It has to be good!’ He squeezed her arm, thinking she wouldn’t want him to kiss her so near to her house. ‘Tomorrow, same time?’

  ‘Same time.’ She waited until he was out of sight before she went in, and when her mother asked if she’d been out with George Buchan again she tried to sound happier than she felt. ‘Aye, we walked along the shore.’

  Her spirits lifted when she was in bed. George had sounded so sure that Katie would let him go, and though she would miss him when he went home, it wouldn’t be long till he came back … to marry her!

  Peter lay back against his pillow, the muscles of his stomach taut with jealousy. Lizann had been with another man! He hadn’t been sure it was her at first, hadn’t wanted to believe it was her, and it wasn’t until they were level with his bedroom window that his gut had twisted with recognition. Despite this, he had watched them stopping as lovers do to kiss occasionally and walk on, craning his neck until he could see them no longer and then waiting until they came past again on their way back. But who had she been with? The Cullen man was safely married now, so it couldn’t be him. It must be somebody local … but who?

  Peter spent a restless night. He had been positive that it would just be a matter of time before he got Lizann back, and the thought that she had transferred her affections so quickly from him to George Buchan and now to somebody else had cut the feet from under him, but he wasn’t going to give up on her.

  That morning being Sunday, when he knew Lizann would be at church, he slipped along to the Yardie at five past eleven. Hannah looked surprised to see him. ‘If it’s Lizann you’re wanting …’ she began, but he interrupted. ‘No, it’s you I want.’

  She invited him in and offered him a cup of tea. ‘Now,’ she smiled, when they were both seated, ‘what can I do for you?’

  ‘Nothing, really,’ he said, wondering how to go about discovering what he wanted to know. ‘I saw Lizann last night …’

  ‘Ah!’ Hannah sat up a little straighter. ‘You saw her wi’ George?’

  ‘George?’ he echoed, hollowly, a sickness at the pit of his stomach. ‘George who?’

  ‘George Buchan. He was at the school wi’ her.’

  ‘He was not!’ Peter exclaimed. ‘She met him down in Yarmouth!’

  Hannah looked puzzled. ‘She never said nothing about meeting …’

  ‘That’s why she broke our engagement. She said she loved him more than she loved me.’

  ‘But she …’

  Driven by jealousy, and not thinking of the consequences, he blurted out, ‘She even let him … and she wouldn’t let me …’

  Jumping to the correct interpretation of this cryptic statement, she shook her head. ‘Oh, I canna believe that! Nae my Lizann?’

  ‘That’s not the worst of it. He’s married!’

  ‘Oh, my dear Lord!’ Hannah’s hand went to her breast. ‘You canna mean … she let a married man …? And she tell’t you that?’

  ‘Not willingly,’ he admitted, ‘but I got it out of her, though I’m near sure she’d have forgotten about him if he hadn’t come to see her. He went away when she told him she was engaged to me, but he’d unsettled her, for that was the day she gave me back the ring.’

  ‘Oh, my dear Lord!’ Hannah exclaimed again. ‘You’re sure it was him she was wi’ last night?’

  ‘If his name’s George Buchan, it’s him. He must have come back.’

  After wringing her hands for a few moments, Hannah’s tortured face changed. ‘She tell’t me a parcel o’ lies!’ she said, angrily. ‘My own daughter! Wait till she comes in, I’ll …’ She halted, then muttered uncertainly, ‘Oh, I dinna ken what I’ll do. I wish Willie Alec was here, he would stop her nonsense. I hope nothing’s happened to him, for he was due in yesterday.’

  ‘Something’s likely held him up.’ Peter stood up, nervously pulling down his cuffs. ‘I’m sorry, Hannah. I shouldn’t have said anything. I never dreamt it was him she was with.’

  ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Peter, it wasna your fault.’

  At the door, he said, ‘You’ll not tell Lizann I’ve been here?’

  ‘You have my word on that.’

  Peter returned to his own house with mixed feelings. He had been as shocked at learning it was George Buchan as Hannah had been at what he told her, but he was pleased she thought Willie Alec would stop it.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Bella Jeannie demanded, when he went home.

  ‘Just out for a wee breath of air.’ If his mother knew what Lizann had been up to, it would be the end of any hope he had of marrying her. And there was every hope, he assured himself, happy in his relief at how things had turned out. When she was forbidden to see George Buchan she would turn to her first love for comfort.

  Agonizing over Lizann’s misconduct, Hannah looked up in relief when Willie Alec came in some twenty minutes later. ‘That damned idiot!’ he stormed. ‘I said we’d miss the tide yesterday, but would he listen? So now we’re in and we canna land the fish till the morrow.’

  ‘Forget about your fish!’ Hannah cried. ‘Peter Tait’s not long away, and you’d best sit down and listen to what he was telling me.’

  When she finished, her husband had forgotten his anger at his skipper, but he was apoplectic with fury at his daughter. ‘Good God, Hannah!’ he roared. ‘Did you never tell her not to let a man touch her?’

  Knowing that she had neglected her duty as a mother, Hannah let her husband’s wrath envelop her without saying a word.

  ‘But I suppose you couldna bring yourself to speak about things like that,’ he went on, sarcastically. ‘Well, it’s no thanks to you she didna land in the family way, and I’m thankful it’s over and done wi’.’

  ‘She’s still seeing him,’ Hannah ventured. ‘He’s come to Buckie … and she was out wi’ him last night … and the night before.’

  ‘D’you mean to tell me you ken’t she was …?’

  ‘I didna ken a thing, till Peter tell’t me.’

  ‘That’s it, then! She’ll not go out wi’ him again … supposing I’ve to tie her to her bed.’ Taking deep rasping breaths, Willie Alec sat down heavily on his chair, gripping the arms as if clutching at a lifeline.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Hannah asked, anxiously.

  It was some time before he could answer. ‘To think she’s carrying on wi’ a married man. I’ve a good mind to leather her backside till it’s black and blue.’

  Practically sure he wouldn’t, Hannah murmured, ‘And a lot of good that would do.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right. Keeping her from seeing him again’ll be the best punishment for her.’ His chin sinking and coming to rest on his chest, he lapsed into a stony silence.

  As the minutes passed, Hannah grew increasingly agitated. She hated rows, but there was no way out of this one. Willie Alec was building up for it, and it would explode the minute Lizann came through the door. If only his son was here to support him. ‘Where’s Mick?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s away wi’ Bluey Barclay,’ Willie Alec mumbled. ‘I think he said they were going to Strathlene.’

  The swimming pool was a favourite meeting place for all the young blood round about, and Hannah knew they would be lucky if they saw Mick before suppertime. Hearing Lizann’s step outside, she cautioned, ‘Take it easy, Willie Alec.’

  ‘Easy?’ he grunted. ‘How the devil can I take it easy?’

  Looking very smart in her grey Sunday costume with its matching floppy beret, their daughter came in smiling. ‘D’you know what the minister’s sermon was the day?’

  ‘Never mind the damned sermon!’ Willie Alec barked. ‘Sit down.’

  ‘Let me take off my tammy and my jacket,’ she said, apprehensive at his tone of voice, and w
ondering why he looked so angry.

  He began with no preamble. ‘Who’s this man you’ve been seeing?’

  An icy tremor ran through her. ‘George? He’s a boy I knew at school.’

  ‘That’s enough o’ your lies!’ Willie Alec thundered. ‘We ken all about him. We ken you met him in Yarmouth. We ken he’s married …’

  ‘Who told you that?’ she quavered.

  ‘Never mind who told us. Is it true?’

  ‘Aye,’ she whispered, giving up all pretence. ‘He wasn’t married when I met him though he is now, but he’s getting divorced …’

  His rage making him forget that he was amongst women, he shouted, ‘And you think it was all right to let him fuck you …?’

  ‘Willie Alec!’ Hannah exclaimed, horrified at the word she had never heard him utter before.

  ‘What’s that mean?’ Lizann asked, screwing up her face.

  He had the grace to look ashamed. ‘You let him have his way with you.’

  ‘Oh!’ Deep crimson, she wondered how he had found that out.

  ‘You did, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but we couldn’t help it, Father, we loved each other. I still love him, and he’s going to marry me when his wife divorces him.’

  Hannah, who had been watching her husband closely, was alarmed at the purplish tinge creeping up his cheeks. ‘Willie Alec,’ she warned, ‘let it go till you calm down.’

  It was as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘You’ll not see him again! Do you hear me, Lizann?’

  Shaking from head to toe, she said defiantly, ‘I’m seeing him the night.’

  ‘You’re nothing of the kind! You’ll go to your room after your supper and you’ll bide there till I say you can come down!’

  Hot tears stung her eyelids. ‘But George’ll wonder why I …’

  ‘Let him wonder. I’m not giving him a chance to take you agian.’

  This was a side of her father, a hard unforgiving side, she had never seen before, and the tears edged down her cheeks. ‘I can’t let him stand and wait …’

  ‘It’ll cool him down,’ Willie Alec said, callously.

  ‘It’s for your own good,’ Hannah put in. ‘You were lucky in Yarmouth – he could have bairned you – and he could yet, if you dinna steer clear o’ him. Just think on the disgrace there would be if …’