The Shadow of the Sycamores (29 page)

When the two girls went out, she said, ‘Is Ruby still at school?’

‘She’s at Peterhead Academy,’ Nora said proudly. ‘Goodness knows where she gets her brains but she came out top of her class in every subject this year.’

‘That’s very good.’ Fay smiled, rising to put on the kettle, and hoping that Nora wouldn’t sense how jealous she was.

The tea made, the table groaning with oatcakes and cheese, home-baked scones, pancakes and shortbread, and dishes of strawberry and blackcurrant jam, Fay called the others to come and eat and, over the meal, Max told them the reason for the visit.

‘With me getting promoted, the other two gardeners moved up so there’s a job going for a young lad at the bottom of the ladder. I thought about Jerry straight away and he says he wants to work with his hands so I’ll put his name forward, with a recommendation. Mr Miller’s a fair boss and I think he’d fit in fine.’

By the time the table was cleared again, Jerry was talking as though he had already been hired and Henry had to warn him not to count his chickens. ‘No, he’s right,’ Max assured them. ‘I’m near sure he’ll get it. Now, seeing we’re here, we’d like to go and see Janet for a wee while so we’d best be off.’

The Oak Cottage Home Bakery had been on the go for almost twelve years when Max came to see Janet and he couldn’t get over how well she looked. Even more surprising,
she was laughing and joking to the people she served – at times it took both women to keep up with the demand for their products. At last, during a lull, she came into the kitchen to talk to her visitors, her face sobering as she remembered that these were the two who had saved her from what could almost certainly have ended in death.

Noticing that her eyes were filling with tears, Nora and Max tried to jolly her along and were thankful that she didn’t take long to respond to their light chatter. She was very pleased to meet their daughter and smiled to hear that they had called her Robina after the young girl who had also helped in her escape.

‘Is Beenie still there?’ she asked.

Nora grinned at that. ‘No, you’ll never believe what happened to her. It must be about five years ago she got a job as housemaid to the Morrices, the Glen Petra whisky folk, and she hadn’t been there long when the son of the house, young Jonathan, came home from Oxford and fell in love with her. By good luck he wasn’t one of the love-’em-and-leave-’em kind and he courted her properly before he married her. His father was awful against the wedding but the mother talked him round so Beenie’s mistress of a big house on Speyside somewhere, with servants to work for her. I’m happy for her – she was such a nice wee thing.’

‘It’s always good to hear about somebody having good fortune,’ nodded Janet, ‘but do you not feel a touch jealous sometimes?’

Nora glanced at Max, who was deep in conversation with Willie. ‘Only if I’m really down in the mouth. Max and me get on just fine most of the time and I wouldna change the big lump for all the tea in China. But we should be getting back for a motor can’t find its way home in the dark like a horse.’

This last remark being overheard by the two men, there was much laughter before the Dalgarno family went on their way.

In bed that night, Fay said, ‘I’m not too happy about Jerry getting a job at The Sycamores, you know. It doesn’t hold happy memories for me.’

Henry kissed her cheek. ‘Lie down and sleep, my Fairy Fay. The place has completely changed since we were there. According to Max, this Superintendent has made a lot of improvements and his wife’s a real gem. And Nora’s near as good a cook as Janet. Jerry’ll be fine there if he gets the job. Besides, Max’ll keep an eye on him.’

‘Max is a chauffeur now so he’ll be away a lot.’ Her husband’s frown made Fay add, ‘All right, I’m sorry. But I don’t want anything happening to Jerry.’

‘Nothing’s going to happen to him. Goodnight.’

Jerry did get the job. Max was sent the very next day to pick him up in the shiny black Bentley and, after rushing about madly to pack all his clean clothes and make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, Fay stood on the doorstep to wave him a tearful goodbye. Her youngest child, the only son she had left, had gone from her and Mara, having worked in a solicitor’s office since she left school, was speaking about looking for a more interesting job, maybe in Aberdeen. If the girl did find what she wanted, she herself would be left with nobody – except Henry … Tchouki … T H Rae, Town Officer, who would be busy all this week making sure that all the events he had helped to organise to celebrate the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary would go off without a hitch.

Always rather shy and quiet, fifteen-year-old Jeremy Rae had just lately begun to take notice of the girls who also worked at The Sycamores – not that he was interested in any one in particular. He had learned, from listening to the men, that girls magnified everything a boy said into something he had never meant – picking up even one word wrongly then expecting much more than he was prepared to give. With this in mind, when any of the maids spoke to him, Jerry was very careful not to say or do anything that could be twisted into something else.

Although his fellow workers teased him about being ‘feart o’ the lassies’, he took his time about choosing one, watching them at mealtimes, listening to them speak amongst themselves. At the tiniest sign that a girl was a flirt or was foul-mouthed in any way, she was written off in his mind. Even if he heard them making fun of one of the residents, as Mr Miller called them, that was a black mark against them. He, himself, liked to speak to the old men and women who wandered around the flower gardens – it was no hardship to be civil and friendly and they obviously appreciated it. A few of them could even name some of the flowers in the beds he was weeding and discuss what to do about cutting them back or deadheading them or whatever the plants needed. Poor old souls, they must feel it, being in a place like this.

Of course, they were better off than the folk in the County Asylum. People called it the ‘Madhouse‘ or the ‘Feel’s Place’ and rumour had it that, after they’d been there for a while, the inmates started to behave like animals and were treated as such because they had nobody to care what happened to them. At
least somebody had been prepared to pay for the residents to be at The Sycamores and there they would be looked after properly. They were allowed to walk where they liked within the high walls if the weather was good, although some did need to be supervised. He had got to know a few of them quite well and was pleased when their faded eyes lit up if he called them by name. He sometimes wondered if he’d be reprimanded for being too familiar with them but Dod Lumsden, the head gardener, had never said anything.

One man, maybe only in his late fifties, had made a point of coming to speak to him at least once every week, obviously glad to have a decent conversation with somebody for it must be difficult to make sense, sometimes, of the other inmates who were all much older. He had said, the first day, that his name was Charles Moonie and that he had been, for many years, manager of the Fraserburgh branch of the Clydesdale Bank, but the rest had come out bit by bit. He had never married, had always lived at home with his mother and her two sisters and had been very happy with the way his life was going. Then, sadly, one of his aunts had died and, shortly afterwards, his mother had also passed away and everything had changed. He had been unable to concentrate on his job and, within a few weeks, he had been replaced by a younger man.

‘Everything in me just seemed to be blown apart,’ Mr Moonie had confided one day. ‘Losing her two sisters so suddenly would have been bad enough for Aunt Maggie without me getting under her feet all day, though she put up with it for some months before it got too much for her. I had no idea how she felt and I missed my dear mother so much that, when she told me to find somewhere else to live, I just went to pieces. That is why our doctor advised her to send me to The Sycamores.’

‘But you’re much better now, aren’t you?’ Jerry had asked. ‘Your aunt surely wouldn’t want you to stay here if there’s nothing wrong with you.’

Mr Moonie had seemed uneasy. ‘I don’t think I want to go
back to her – I am quite happy here. Mr and Mrs Miller are good people who make sure that we are all well looked after and I have no fault to find with the meals. Besides, I can please myself what I do.’

To a certain extent, Jerry had understood how Charles felt but had wondered why such a nice man had never taken a wife. Still, it was none of his business.

Apart from his little chats with the gardener’s boy, Charles Moonie had more or less kept to himself since he arrived at The Sycamores. He was different from the other residents – there was no common ground on which to build a friendship. Of course, as he told himself with no false modesty, it was not surprising that one or two of the women saw him as a potential husband. He was, after all, still quite a handsome man, keeping to the custom of his days in the bank by always dressing in a smart dark suit and pomading his greying hair into a sleek blackness. But he had managed to fend off several women over the years and he had certainly no intention of being snared into marriage at fifty-five.

His resolve, however, was forgotten one evening at dinner, when Mrs Miller brought in the latest arrival. ‘This is Anna Cairns,’ she said brightly, her smile sweeping round the table, ‘and I am sure you will all want to make her feel welcome.’

Having intended to speak to the lovely young girl as soon as the meal was over, Charles found that he could not get near her and was about to turn and walk out when he noticed the desperation in her big blue eyes. Guessing that she was terrified of all the ancient wrecks milling round her, he plunged to the rescue.

‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ he said loudly, as he elbowed his way forward. ‘Let me introduce myself,’ he smiled when they came face to face. ‘My name is Charles Moonie and I’d be honoured if you would take a little stroll with me.’

As if in a daze, she took the arm he offered and he walked her quickly outside. ‘I am sorry if I was rather abrupt with you,’ he murmured when he shut the thick oak door behind them. ‘I could see that you were uneasy with so many old
people around you but you have no need to be afraid of me. You are quite at liberty to go back inside any time you wish.’

‘If it’s all right with you,’ she whispered shyly, ‘I’d like to take that walk.’

Nothing was said for the next few minutes, during which it occurred to Charles that she was younger than he had originally thought and he was at a loss to understand why anyone could incarcerate such a beautiful girl in a place like The Sycamores. At last, he murmured, ‘I have been wondering how old you are … Miss Cairns.’

‘I’m nearly fifteen and … please call me Anna.’

‘And you can call me Charles.’ He wanted to hear about her background but perhaps she would tell him more when she got to know him better.

It seemed that Anna, too, wanted someone to talk to and, although their next few meetings were accidental, it soon became understood that Charles would meet her at the little stream that wound its way through the grounds, at a point well away from prying eyes. After strolling through the stately sycamores for a while, they would sit on the moss-cushioned grassy bank and talk, like Lewis Carroll’s walrus and carpenter, of many things. Charles was astonished at the depth of Anna’s general knowledge and felt easier with her than with any of the other girls or women that he had ever known – no barriers, no shyness.

So it went on through the summer and no one missed them during the hour or so they spent together each day. The other residents generally had a nap after lunch and then congregated in the day room for the rest of the afternoon – some of them to play whist, while the others, unable to concentrate on playing cards, chatted with the person seated next to them or, to be more accurate, happily held a conversation with themselves. The female staff, after clearing up and attending to anyone who needed their attention, relaxed in the kitchen, the younger of them discussing the kind of boy they would like to meet, the older women turning over any gossip they had heard.

Willie Rae had been having pains in his chest for some weeks but, being as obstinate as he always was, he told no one, not even his wife. What was the point of worrying her when it was just a touch of indigestion? He’d been lucky being so healthy all his life and he couldn’t expect to get off scot-free. He still had all his teeth, he could see to read perfectly well with his glasses on … as long as he held the newspaper far enough away. He didn’t need a stick to walk with and he would be able to hear a pin drop if Nessie or Janet ever dropped one. He could surely put up with a bit of indigestion now and then?

To their loyal customers’ dismay, the Oak Cottage Home Bakery had been forced to close. It was only when Nessie remarked that her legs would hardly take her weight some days that Janet admitted to the constant headaches that plagued her and they agreed to call it a day. Luckily, one of their regulars decided to launch out herself, now that her youngest had started school, so she took over everything they no longer required, including the glass counter, and insisted on paying.

As the weeks passed with nothing much to occupy her hands or her mind, Janet felt old and in the way, although neither Willie nor Nessie had as much as hinted at it. In fact, Nessie often said she didn’t know what she’d do without her. But it stood to reason, Janet told herself, they must want some time to themselves, peace in their old age, and she’d been living with them now for … how long was it? She couldn’t remember exactly but it was a long, long time.

Abby’s son Clarence had taken over the smiddy a year or so ago but he was attending to more motor engines than horses lately. He had turned out to be a good mechanic though he’d never had any training for it, which was just as well, for Willie said
he
wouldn’t know one end of a machine from another.

Besides, Willie hadn’t looked very well for a while – he was sometimes real grey about the gills. He was a proud man, of course, and would never admit to being under the weather. His wife looked like death warmed up at times and all. Janet shook her head at this thought. They were well into their
seventies, all three of them, and dying was on the cards for any one of them … at any time.