‘Cannae you rest yourself even on a Sunday?’ The question came from Maggy, who was exasperated by the way Lizzie rose as early on Sundays as she did on every other day of the week and roamed her lovely house like a caged animal, fretting, fussing, fuming. ‘You’re only waiting for it to be Monday so’s you can go back to work,’ Maggy accused.
Lizzie was pulled up short in her pacing across the fine Aubusson carpet of the drawing room. ‘I don’t like Sundays,’ she said.
‘Why don’t you go to church?’ asked Maggy, who thought that ladies in Lizzie’s situation of life should dress up smartly every Sunday and show themselves off in their own pews at the Steeple Church.
Lizzie gave a shiver. Her memories of attending church focused on funerals. ‘I don’t believe in God,’ she said shortly.
Maggy was shocked. ‘Don’t say that! He’s been good to you. Things could be far worse than they are now. Look at everything you’ve got…’ She swept an arm around indicating the lovely room with its long windows overlooking the river. Every item was brightly polished and in place. It looked like a museum. Tay Lodge, the house of her dreams, had given Lizzie far more pleasure when she was only a visitor than it seemed to do now that she had owned it for three years. Because she regarded it as a kind of shrine to Mr Adams, she maintained it immaculately, paying for a trio of gardeners to manicure the lawn and pick every weed out of the neatly planted flowerbeds; she kept three maids and a cook inside the house to look after herself, Charlie and of course Maggy, whose real function in life was to care for Lizzie, to stick up for her no matter what.
She knew that Maggy and her father had been talking about her, for only a few days previously David had also tackled her about her absorption in work.
‘You never come to see us,’ he said sadly. He was still living at the Castle Bar with his restive younger sons and his red-haired daughter Lexie, who was looked after by a nursemaid.
Remembering his stricken face, she suddenly said, ‘All right. I won’t go to church but I’ll go down and see my father. Get Charlie dressed and we can all go together. When I’m in the Castle Bar, you can nip over to see Rosie – and George.’
She knew that Maggy would understand that though she would not go into the Vaults herself, she wanted to know every detail of her brother’s life.
The Castle Bar was closed and the air smelt beery and still when they entered the side door. Lizzie sniffed. ‘This place smells dreadful,’ she announced as she climbed the stairs.
What she saw inside the flat disturbed her even more. ‘That child’s dress needs washing and her hair’s all tangled. It’s a scandal the way you’re bringing her up, Father.’
David regarded his youngest daughter with a concerned face. It had not occurred to him before but she did look a little grubby. Lexie however was a cheerful, taking child and a solace to him in his old age. He hardly ever went out without her and loaded her into his dog cart to drive her around town with him on his various ploys. She enjoyed these outings and never cried or made a fuss. She was not like the normal toddler and was easy to look after because she fell asleep wrapped in a rug on the floor of the dog cart if they were late returning home and would always eat whatever was presented to her.
When Lizzie charged him with spoiling the child, he said, ‘She makes me feel young again.’
‘But it isn’t fair on her. She’s being brought up like a tinker’s bairn.’
‘Do you think she’d be better with you?’ he asked suspiciously, because he did not know why Lizzie had suddenly descended on them and was making such a fuss.
She shook her head vigorously. ‘I told you before I’m far too busy to take on another bairn and Maggy’s enough to do looking after Charlie. It’s up to you to look after her but you should find her a good nurse. If you can’t afford somebody better than the wee lassie who’s here now, I’ll pay.’
Before Lizzie and Charlie left the Castle Bar they heard feet running up the stairs. Maggy burst through the door and it was plain to see that she had been weeping.
‘What’s wrong? Has something happened?’ asked Lizzie anxiously.
Maggy could only hold out a newspaper and sob, ‘It’s my brother Johnny. You ken he’s in San Francisco. Bertha’s just brought in the paper and look what it says, the whole place has been flattened by an earthquake.’
On the front page of the crumpled sheet enormous headlines screamed: SAN FRANCISCO DEVASTED - THOUSANDS DEAD IN FIRE…
Lizzie took it from Maggy’s hand and read the horrifying details. An earthquake had hit San Francisco at a quarter past five on a Wednesday morning and within a hour the whole place was blazing. By the time the report was written it had been burning for three days and three nights and the lurid glare of the flames was visible for a hundred miles. It seemed unlikely that there were many survivors, for nothing but piles of rubble could be seen where San Francisco’s proudest structures once stood and there was no water left to put out the fires that raged through the ruins. The mains had been pumped dry in fruitless efforts to staunch the flames. The report said that some people were camping out in tents on the outskirts, living in squalor but glad to be alive. Millions of dollars had been lost, the city was a smoking ruin.
She passed the paper over to her father and they looked helplessly at each other, not knowing what to say. Over the years, letters from America had been sent at six-monthly intervals to Rosie, who passed them on to Maggy, and Johnny’s fluent pen had made California sound like paradise. He wrote that there were palm trees lining the streets, oranges and lemons grew in the gardens, and everybody lived well.
He’d found work in a big newspaper and was highly regarded by his employer but sometimes, he wrote, his dreams took him back to Dundee and he woke with a start, thinking that he’d caught a whiff of the smell of jute. More than once he’d leapt out of bed because he dreamed that a mill whistle had sounded somewhere in the darkness of the Californian night.
Now it looked as if he might be dead. Lizzie put an arm around Maggy’s shoulders, remembering vividly the day that Johnny had asked her to look after his sister. ‘Come on, I’ll take you home. Some people must have survived the earthquake and I’m sure Johnny’s among them. Remember what the gypsy told your mother about him.’
What Johnny’s sisters did not know was that while Maggy was weeping for him, he was quite safe. Far from being a disaster for him, the earthquake was to mark a turning point in his career.
Later he was to tell biographers how he remembered standing among the smoking ruins of the small hotel which had been his home since he arrived on the West Coast. Everything he owned had gone in the holocaust but he said to himself: It’s going to be easier for me to adjust to this than for other people because I know what it’s like to live with nothing. From childhood he’d existed from hand to mouth. The people who had been used to more took it worse.
Armed only with enthusiasm and energy, he teamed up with a friend who owned a printing press that had miraculously escaped the devastation, though the shed in which it was housed collapsed around it. Johnny and the press owner grubbed about in the earth till they’d collected up all the scattered print letters and re-sorted them in their trays. Then they wrote and printed a news broadsheet which they handed out free among the tents of the homeless.
More than a quarter of a million souls had escaped the devastation and were living in temporary camps. They were all avid for news which was provided by Johnny’s broadsheet, called the San Francisco Courier after the Dundee paper on which he learned his trade. It was the only newspaper available and the disoriented people relied on it for information.
Within days the enterprising pair had found another press, hired some men and expanded their operation. By the time the rebuilding of San Francisco had begun John Davidson and his partner Arthur Reitz had enough loyal readers to launch a paper with a cover price, and advertisers docked to them.
An atmosphere of gloom hung over Tay Lodge, however, till the happy day that a letter arrived saying Johnny was safe. After that things returned to normal, with Lizzie spending most of her time at the mill and Maggy fully occupied coping with Charlie, who was proving very intractable. When she heard Maggy’s complaints about his wildness, Rosie exploded with rage.
‘You and Lizzie Mudie are both making a stick for your ain backs with that laddie. He’s been indulged since he was a bairn. I though you’d at least have more sense.’
Charlie, in his expensive kilt and Glengarry bonnet, heard this exchange and paid it no heed. He knew he was the Boss of his world. Whatever he wanted, Maggy or his mother would get for him. Lizzie especially was prepared to distribute money in order to keep her domestic surroundings peaceful, for at work there was anything but peace.
The first sign of trouble from the other mill owners came when news was leaked by malcontents in Lizzie’s office that she was poaching custom from people who had always bought from other Dundee mills. She did this by cutting her prices and speeding up delivery dates as well as encouraging her agents to sweeten purchasers with gifts and entertainment. Her tactics worked so well that Skelton’s twelve ships a year were soon not going to be enough to cope with her demand.
‘Put them up to fifteen,’ she told Skelton, and knocked down his price.
At first the jute magnates in their club regarded her as a joke. ‘It won’t last,’ they told each other as they stubbed out their cigars in silver ashtrays, but soon the stubbing became more vicious when they discussed the woman at Green Tree.
‘She’s taken the Kirkcaldy linoleum factory order off Brunton. Filched it right under his nose!’ said one.
‘She’ll come a cropper,’ said another. ‘There’s not enough loom space at Green Tree for all the orders she’s taking.’
He hit on Lizzie’s weak spot. She could find the orders and she could buy the jute cheaply enough but she could not make looms work forty hours a day. She had to find more space.
The nearest mill to Green Tree was about the same size and it belonged to a family called Sutherland. Local people called it Sooty’s Mill because its chimney was notoriously given to belching forth black smoke. The man who owned it was Richard Sutherland, grandson of the founder, and he looked with distaste upon the woman who’d taken over the neighbouring mill, especially when she started turning what had been a sleepy concern into a booming enterprise.
He was far from welcoming when she turned up in his office and requested a business meeting.
‘I hope this won’t take long, Mrs Kinge,’ he said stonily, ‘I’m a busy man.’
His tone implied that men by nature have to be busier than frivolous women, but she controlled her tongue and sat down facing him.
‘I’ve come to put a proposition to you,’ she said.
He raised one eyebrow. ‘Really?’
‘It would be to our mutual advantage if we merged. I know you’ve spare loom capacity and your order books are low. I’ve more work than I can cope with and I need more space. Why don’t we share my work?’
He glared at her. Such nerve to sit there in her smartly tailored grey suit and big purple hat like someone off the stage and talk to him like that – order books low indeed. How did she find that out?
‘If I merged with anyone it wouldn’t be with Green Tree. I’d merge with one of the big mills,’ he said rudely.
Lizzie half rose from her chair, fists clenched, and fixed him with furious eyes. ‘I heard you were a damned fool and now I know it’s true. Go ahead, merge with anybody you like, but I’ll beat you in the end. Just you see if I don’t.’ This exchange was reported back to the clientele of the jute-barons’ club, who all expressed astonishment. Some even laughed. One or two, however, decided that they’d have to stop David Mudie’s daughter stirring up too many ripples in their comfortable sea.
‘I think we’d better talk to her about the way she’s going on,’ said a senior man, who was so rich that he and his family would be able to go on living in luxury even if their mills lost money for fifty years.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said a man who was his equal in fortune. ‘Where can we talk to her? You don’t suggest we should go and visit her at Green Tree, do you?’
‘We could talk to her here in the club.’
‘Nonsense, this is a men’s club.’
‘It’s a jute-men’s club. It’s the club for people who own jute mills. She owns Green Tree and that’s a good enough excuse for us to invite her here and make her see sense. She can’t go on poaching business from all and sundry like a scavenging dog.’
‘It’s a flash in the pan. It won’t last. Let’s just ignore her,’ said another.
‘We can’t ignore her. She’s not going away,’ said the first magnate.
Eventually they decided to do nothing, but he was proved right. The next thing they knew was that Lizzie had built another two work sheds in the Green Tree yard and filled them with the latest machinery bought from a workshop on the edge of Dundee’s docks. She negotiated a good price because the workshop, though renowned for its faultless engineering, was idle and glad of the order.
Then, beneath her rivals’ noses and before any of them knew it was for sale, she brought off a major coup by snapping up a tiny mill whose property abutted on to the back of hers. By her tactics she doubled the capacity of Green Tree. Instead of being just a wisp of storm cloud on the horizon, she became a huge black cumulus over the heads of the jute-barons. It was not so much that she was making money while the others were in recession that worried them – because she was a woman the insult was felt far more keenly.
A charming young scion of the Brunton family was sent to Green Tree to invite its proprietor to the jute magnates’ annual dinner in their club rooms.
‘There’s a sort of business meeting after the dinner,’ he said. ‘Everyone hopes you’ll be able to attend.’
She looked sceptical but she was equally gracious when she accepted the invitation. ‘I’ll be honoured to be there,’ she told him.
The dinner was held in June and some older club members boycotted the event when they heard that a woman was to be present. Gossip of their disapproval filtered back to David, who repeated it to his daughter.
‘Maybe you shouldn’t go,’ he suggested.
She was outraged at his cowardice. ‘Of course I’m going. Nothing could stop me.’
In spite of her bravado however she was nervous while she dressed for the dinner and kept changing her mind about which piece of jewellery looked best against her silk gown. She had taken care to order the most expensive one available through Draffens’ exclusive department and it was sent up from London in a huge box lined with black tissue paper. The skirt alone contained fifteen yards of material. Following mourning protocol she’d progressed in the colour of her clothes from black through grey to purple and had now arrived at the final stage when mauves and violets were allowed.
No more reds, greens or bright blues, she thought sadly as she smoothed down her amethyst-coloured dress. When she slowly turned in front of her pier glass, a painful stab of memory hit her, for the smooth curve of her white shoulders looked soft and seductive in the lamp light. All at once she was carried back in memory to nights of lovemaking with Sam, and with an angry shrug she drove these unsettling thoughts out of her mind. She could not bear the fury of frustration they induced in her.
When she went downstairs Charlie and Maggy were loud in their admiration of her. Charlie had never seen his mother in evening dress before and stood with his jaw dropped, gazing at her as if she were a princess.
‘Oh Ma, you look awful bonny,’ he said and she bent down to clutch him to her. She loved him devotedly, wild as he was he had no faults in her eyes.
The jute-men’s club had a hallowed atmosphere, almost like a church. The carpets were deep, the walls were panelled with shining mahogany and the members were attended by smoothly gliding male servants in tailcoats. Tall portraits, all of men, in heavy gilt frames lined the walls, snuff horns made out of sheep’s heads with silver tipped antlers stood on tables beneath them. The chairs were deep and unholstered in leather and the curtains of dark red plush had heavy silken fringes and rope-like ties. But Lizzie was to see little of this for when her carriage rolled up at the front door, a trio of men rushed out to meet her and swept her through the main hall into an anteroom where she stayed until the procession of dignitaries filed in to the large dining room next door. It was obvious that she was being hidden away from the club like a shameful thing.
The dinner was gargantuan, with salver after salver of extravagantly dressed dishes being presented. Each course was accompanied by a different wine. By the time they reached the dessert and champagne stage, Lizzie’s eyes smarted from the cigar smoke that wreathed above the heads of the other diners and she could not look at another scrap of food. The only woman present, she felt strange, like someone from another world, and as she looked at the men’s faces about her she found that her years of serving customers in the Castle Bar made her able to spot which of her fellow diners had been affected by the wine. She herself had taken care only to sip at each glass set down before her, but some heavier drinkers were filled with bonhomie.
Others reacted to alcohol in a different way. It made them sensitive, suspicious, pugnacious or argumentative, so she thought it a grave mistake to have the business meeting after the dinner and not before it.
When the brandy and port began to circulate it soon became evident that the business meeting was only an excuse to cross-examine their enemy.
One of the Bruntons started it: ‘All of us here have been in the jute business for a long time, Mrs Kinge. We’re friends and we’re anxious to become friends with you as well.’
She inclined her head in assent but kept her eyes warily on him as he continued, ‘Of course we were surprised when Green Tree was taken over by a woman. It was quite a joke by old Mr Adams to do that – he always was an unusual man.’
She was conscious of the eyes fixed on her. They were all well-groomed men, some young, some old, and they were appraising her on many different levels. She bristled with resentment at the thought.
‘I don’t think Mr Adams intended it as a joke. He knew quite well that I could run the mill.’
‘Sooty’ Sutherland turned on her now and there was little courtesy in his voice. ‘I don’t think he’d expect you to cut the throats of his friends, though.’
She was not going to accept that. ‘If I win orders it’s because I offer a better bargain. People wouldn’t come to me if they were happy with what they were getting from you.’
A man called Ross who owned Coffin Mill – so named because of its sinister shape – looked angry when he said loudly, ‘We’ve all worked together for years. We’ve divided the business up. You’re spoiling things for everybody. The slump’ll come for you as well and what’ll you do then? I’ll tell you – you’ll go to the wall and none of us’ll help you.’
Lizzie rounded on him. ‘You’ve organized things to suit yourselves for too long. I know of lots of little businesses that you’ve forced into closure, so don’t talk about helping me. You’d never do that. You fix prices and you fix wages and conditions for your workers. I’m not in your club and I don’t want to be. I can make my own bargains. I’m not afraid to stand alone.’
Her eyes ran up and down the line of flushed faces at the table. They were against her like a pack of hungry wolves. Only one rumpled man with a mop of curling hair that shone brightly blond in the light of gas chandeliers regarded her with admiration.
‘Well done, lassie,’ he said. ‘You’ve got plenty of guts. I hope you make a go of it.’
Bruton called the meeting to order and Lizzie, feeling beleaguered, swept out into the hall where her Paisley shawl was handed to her by a club servant. She had hoped to escape without further unpleasantness, but waiting for her at the door was Sooty Sutherland, his face now red and mottled with drink. He held the door handle with one hand and leaned his back against it as he spoke to Lizzie.
‘I don’t know what you’re playing at. What’re you trying to prove? The pity of the thing is that you’re a bonny-looking woman. You’re needing a man, that’s what’s wrong with you. You’d be better off in somebody’s bed than sitting in a mill office.’
As he spoke he stepped forward and put out a hand to stroke down the slope of Lizzie’s white breasts.
She leapt back. His touch repelled her. Her skin cringed beneath his fingers. He made her feel unclean. Spitting out ‘Take your filthy hands off me!’ she swung back her arm with her fist knuckled like a boxer’s. When it connected with his chin he sank to the carpet on his knees, a look of complete astonishment on his face. Stepping over him, Lizzie disappeared into the darkness of the night, ignoring the line of astonished men at her back.
Next day David Mudie called at his daughter’s office. He was laughing when he stuck his head round her door and said, ‘How’s the prizefighter today then? The whole town’s talking about you felling Sooty in the jute-men’s club.’
She put down her pen. ‘He asked for it. I should have kicked him in the balls when I was at it.’ She was so angry that she did not try to maintain her normal lady-like demeanour.
Her father roared with laughter. ‘That’s my Lizzie. I knew that temper of yours was still there inside.’
‘Sit down,’ she told him, ‘I need your advice. They’re out to get me now. Will you listen to everything you hear and let me know? You’ve plenty of friends who’ll talk. Just bring everything back, no matter how unimportant it seems.’
‘I’ll do that for you,’ he agreed, but his face went solemn as he warned her, They’re hard men. They’ve been up there too long to be taken lightly. They’ve money and power behind them, Lizzie. Watch out.’
‘I am watching. I’m watching very hard,’ she said. ‘And Father, there was a man there last night who seemed to be on my side a bit. I wondered who he was.’
David knew them all. ‘What did he look like?’
‘He was sort of stout, with yellowish hair, all tousled and curly. He was about forty, I expect.’
‘Oh, that’s Goldie. He’s a character. If anybody would be on your side it would be Goldie.’
‘Goldie who? Which mill?’
‘Goldie Johanson. His father came from Norway. He hasn’t a mill, he’s a shipbuilder and he has his own shipping line, the biggest in the port. It’s Goldie’s ships that all the jute-men use. It’s his boats that do the Calcutta run. Nobody can build boats like Goldie. They’d have him at the dinner because they all need him, and most of them owe him money.’