Primrose Square

A Selection of Recent Titles by Anne Douglas

CATHERINE'S LAND

AS THE YEARS GO BY

BRIDGE OF HOPE

THE BUTTERFLY GIRLS

GINGER STREET

A HIGHLAND ENGAGEMENT

THE ROAD TO THE SANDS

THE EDINBURGH BRIDE

THE GIRL FROM WISH LANE *

A SONG IN THE AIR *

THE KILT MAKER *

STARLIGHT *

THE MELODY GIRLS *

THE WARDEN'S DAUGHTERS *

PRIMROSE SQUARE *

*available from Severn House

First world edition published 2012
in Great Britain and in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

Copyright © 2012 by Anne Douglas.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Douglas, Anne, 1930-

Primrose square.

1. Edinburgh (Scotland)–Social conditions–20th

century–Fiction. 2. World War, 1914-1918–Social

aspects–Scotland–Edinburgh–Fiction. 3. Love stories.

I. Title

823.9'14-dc22

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-199-6 (ePub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8115-1 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-406-6 (trade paper)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being
described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this
publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons
is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

 

One

On a fine June morning in 1913, two maids were upstairs in the Edinburgh Primrose Club, making beds. Downstairs, country members who'd stayed overnight – all women, for this was a club for women only – were taking breakfast in the dining room facing the square. Porridge, bacon, kidneys, scrambled egg and kedgeree. Oh, yes, Miss Ainslie, the club manageress, provided excellent food, and Mrs Petrie, the tyrant in the kitchen, cooked it. Though upstairs, Mattie MacCall, one of the maids, shaking a billowing sheet, was betting the ladies wouldn't be eating it.

‘Och, no, it's too hot, eh? Did you see 'em, Elinor, all going down the stair in thin blouses and skirts? I heard 'em saying it was going to be a scorcher later on today.'

‘They're right, then.'

Elinor Rae, helping to spread Mattie's sheet, smiled wryly. Tall, with dark hair and wide-apart dark eyes, she was nineteen years old and striking. Even in her grey uniform dress, with white apron and white cap, there was something unusual about her. An inner strength, perhaps, or energy? Hard to say but, beside her, the blonde, round-faced Mattie, only a year younger, seemed like a child.

‘What'll the weather matter to the members, anyway?' Elinor asked, as the two girls finished making the bed, tucking in the top sheet, plumping pillows, smoothing the coverlet. ‘If it's hot, what'll they do? Sit in the gardens till lunchtime? 'Tisn't as though they need to do any work.'

‘Some do a bit of charity work, I've heard,' said Mattie, dabbing at her moist cheeks with a hankie from her apron pocket.

‘I was thinking of working for a living.'

‘Oh, well, they needn't do that. They like writing and reading, though. Sit in the Quiet Room at the desks, writing letters, reading books. Makes my head ache to see 'em!'

‘Writing and reading,' Elinor repeated. ‘Oh, very hard work, eh? And before that, they've to clean out the grates and do the black-leading? Do the dusting and sweeping, scrub the front steps and clean the brass, run upstairs and make the beds?'

‘Ah, now you're teasing, Elinor! You know ladies don't do any of that!'

‘Because that's what we do. And that's what I call work. What wouldn't I give if I could sit in the Quiet Room and write a few letters and read a nice book?'

‘That'd no' be for me. I was never one for reading.'

‘I was.' Elinor's face suddenly relaxed and she gave a smile that sent the sunshine to her face. ‘I'm sorry, Mattie. I do go on a bit, eh? It's just that it sometimes comes over me, the different lives folks lead. You see it, when you're in service.'

‘I know what you mean. But it's the way things are, Elinor, there's no point trying to change 'em.'

Elinor opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again and, giving a last tweak to the bed coverlet, moved to the open window.

‘It's so stuffy this morning, I think I'll just push this up a bit. Need some more air.'

‘Get on with you!' cried Mattie, laughing. ‘Saying it's stuffy! You just want to look out at the square the way you always do.'

‘Do I?' asked Elinor softly. ‘Well, maybe I do.'

While Mattie, humming to herself, began rubbing the marble-topped wash stand, Elinor stood, her arms folded, looking down at the square below.

There it was. Primrose Square. The finest, largest square in Edinburgh's West End. A great oasis of greenery, a piece of countryside in the city, where there was rolling grass with trees, flowers in the spring – yes, real primroses – and elegant railings with a gate only to be opened with a key. Tall houses, set back over pavements, muffled the noise of the streets beyond, even from Princes Street, with its trams and carriages, horses, crowds and brand-new motor cars, so that here in the square was peace and calm.

Ever since she'd first seen it, when she'd arrived for her interview two years before, Elinor had never ceased to be struck by that peace. And the space, the overwhelming feeling of greenness; the solace that wrapped round her. She had no key, she couldn't open the gate and walk within, but she could look, she could feel she was in the country. She could know she wasn't in Friar's Wynd, which was her home.

Today the square, in the midsummer sunshine, was looking particularly beautiful, but the thought of home, her father's rented cobbler's shop in the midst of towering tenements, brought a little cloud to her brow. Hastily pulling up the window to allow more air, she turned aside.

‘I'll just brush the carpet,' she called to Mattie. ‘And then we can do the dusting before we start on the landing.'

‘I'll do the wardrobe,' Mattie answered. ‘And miss out the top. Will you look at all that shopping Miss Whats-her-name has piled up there?'

‘That's something you didn't mention about the members and what they like to do,' Elinor remarked with a laugh. ‘Shopping!'

Two

Cleaning the long landing, working as diligently as she always did, Elinor's thoughts returned unwillingly to Friar's Wynd. As she had said to Mattie, she couldn't help but notice the difference between the club members' lives and her own, and had to admit it brought out the envy in her, which was sinful according to the Kirk, but natural in her view. All she wanted to do, really, was even things up, so that if some people could find life easy and comfortable, others didn't have to exist in Friar's Wynd. She'd been lucky; she'd escaped. How many were left behind?

Her mother, Hessie, for one. Cormack, her brother, always known as Corrie, for another. How wonderful it would have been if they could have been with her, if they could all have lived together where there was light and fresh air and something green to see. Even to move to another street of tenements where the houses were not so tall and didn't block the sky would be an improvement. And there were some streets in the old town like that where, even if the tenants were poor, they saw the sun.

But Walter Rae, Elinor's father, who made a precarious living mending shoes in a wee shop in Friar's Wynd, would never move. Why should he? There were pubs to hand, weren't there? What matter if the Wynd had a terrible night-time reputation, with regular fights and drunken bouts? What matter if the buildings towered so high that the sky retreated in despair, and any sunlight that filtered through was so weak it was not like sunlight at all?

Best not to dwell on it, Elinor told herself, polishing a side table with all her strength to relieve her feelings. She would just keep on going home once a week to see her folks, and continue to hope for a miracle.

After all, she'd got away. First to service with a lawyer's family, which had not, to be honest, been a happy experience, but then to the Primrose, where if Mrs Petrie, the cook, was a bit of a dragon, Miss Ainslie was kind and all the other maids were her friends and where she shared a room with only Mattie and Gerda and had the use of a bathroom. Grand! Best of all, outside the house, any time she wanted to see it, was her own piece of countryside – Primrose Square.

As a smile curved her lips at the thought of what could make her happy, Mattie, who had been brushing the stairs, came up to say that she'd just finished in time. Ada and Gerda were clearing away breakfast, the ladies would be coming up any minute – should she and Elinor go for their cup of tea?