‘Charlie needs a holiday. I’m going to take a house at Carnoustie,’ Lizzie informed her father in the summer of 1910. Her son did not look greatly enchanted at the idea of being exiled to Carnoustie but his mother had decided that it was necessary to remove him from his undesirable city associates.
‘You’re not going to take time off from Green Tree, are you?’ asked David in surprise, for the jute industry was picking up but there were rumours of workers’ unrest. There was even talk of a strike.
‘No, Maggy’ll take Charlie to the seaside and I’ll go back and forward to Carnoustie at the weekend. I thought that Lexie might like to go too.’
Lexie was in awe of her sister. The visits she paid to Tay Lodge with her father did not enchant her in the same way as Lizzie had been enchanted as a child.
Lexie felt awkward among the tables covered with pretty things that could so easily be broken; she was intimidated by the rustling maids, the stillness and the insistence on good manners. Only when she was allowed out to the stables to play with Charlie did she relax.
Her father guessed that she would rather stay at home but he was worried about her for she was as white as a bleached bone and as thin as a lathe. He feared that she might have inherited Chrissy’s consumptive weakness.
‘That’s kind of you, Lizzie. The bairn’ll go with Maggy and Charlie,’ he said gratefully.
The child gazed up at him in consternation. Her concern for the old man reminded Lizzie of how she had taken on the role of his protector when she was Lexie’s age.
‘I don’t think I should leave you,’ said Lexie, clinging to her father’s hand.
He laughed. ‘I’ll be all right and you’ll only be away for six weeks.’
‘But what about your pain?’ asked the girl and her father hushed her quickly with a sidelong look at his eldest daughter.
‘I’ve not any pain. You go and have a good holiday. I’ll come down and visit you.’
She was still looking doubtful when their party boarded the train for Carnoustie. The rented house had a wild garden that ran down to the beach. Within a day, Lexie had forgotten her misgivings.
The summer was half over when Lizzie alighted from the Carnoustie train on Sunday night and, to her surprise, found George waiting solemnly on the platform. He put his hand on her arm. ‘I’ve bad news about Father,’ he said.
She stared at him. ‘How bad?’
‘He’s dead.’
The tears sprang to her eyes but she controlled herself as they walked, heads bowed, to her waiting carriage.
‘It was this afternoon,’ George said. ‘Young Davie came to tell me. I didn’t have time to send you a telegram. Anyway I thought it was best if Lexie doesn’t find out that way. She’s awful fond of the old man.’
‘Thank God it was sudden. Was it his heart?’ she whispered, staring at her brother’s concerned face.
He said slowly, ‘Yes, his heart.’
‘Did he die at home? Were the lads with him?’
‘He wasn’t alone but he didn’t die at home.’
Her face was harrowed. ‘Not on the street? He’d hate that.’
George shook his head. ‘No. Oh, you’ll have to know because the whole town’s talking about it. He died in bed with a woman. Some widow he’d been friendly with for years, apparently, ever since Chrissy died. She’s a nice respectable body, Lizzie.’
Why did she still feel jealousy about her father? Though it was illogical it was very real. Her next feeling was outrage.
‘How could he do this to us? It’s shameful,’ she cried.
George shook his head in disapproval, but not of his father. ‘I was afraid you’d take it like that. For God’s sake, Lizzie, he was lonely. Try to understand. He loved life. He wasn’t doing anybody any harm. I’m glad he met his end in some kind woman’s bed. She’s broken-hearted about him.’
It transpired that the way David Mudie died made him a sort of hero among his friends. Far from disapproving, most of them were envious, but still Lizzie raged. ‘It’s disgraceful. It’s immoral. Why did he do it?’ Her own banked-up longings and deep-rooted frustrations stirred her to greater indignation.
She sat through her father’s funeral with a thunderous face and led the procession out of the church as if leading them into battle. Bringing up her wake was Charlie in his kilt, then Lexie, dressed in mourning black. Her little face was streaked with tears and she clung tightly to Maggy’s hand, for she needed the comfort of a loving woman.
‘The lawyer wants to meet the family to read the will. Davie’s arranged for us all to go to the bar,’ George whispered to Lizzie outside the church.
‘There’s not much point. There’ll be nothing to leave,’ she hissed, but went nonetheless, stiff backed and stony faced. Her feelings were in turmoil. Half of her was grief-stricken and in mourning for the dear father she had genuinely loved; the other half was a mixture of emotions, outraged respectability, jealousy, strange longings that she could not name, and resentment mixed with fear. She had relied on David, he had been a confidant. Now that he was gone she felt strangely unprotected.
The will was short. As Lizzie had predicted there was nothing much to leave. The gig and pony had been sold by young Davie to pay for the funeral. The lawyer’s voice droned on, reading out David Mudie’s last messages of love to his children, for he had indeed loved them all. They wept and Robert was sobbing in a corner with a white handkerchief up to his eyes. Lexie was like a little ghost as she sat with her eyes fixed on the lawyer’s face and tears flowing unchecked down her cheeks. When her name was mentioned, she flinched as if she had been struck. David had left her the beautiful silver platter with the woman’s head on it. It was his last remaining treasure. George received his father’s silver-topped cane. The lads each got a set of cufflinks. Mention of Lizzie came last.
‘My dear daughter Elizabeth is not in need of a legacy but I want her to know that I think of her with the deepest affection and admiration. She cannot guess how much I have always appreciated the support she has been to me ever since the death of her dear mother. In gratitude I bequeath my gold watch to her only son Charles and hope that he will wear it in memory of me.’
A strangled sob escaped from Lizzie’s throat as the lawyer read these words. Then he folded up the paper. The painful ritual was over.
‘But that can’t be all,’ said young Davie, leaning forward in his chair. ‘He must have left something else.’ Robert revived and chimed in with his protests: ‘He must have had some money to leave.’
The lawyer looked pained. This sort of thing often happened at Dundee will readings. ‘I’m afraid your father did not have a penny to his name when he died,’ he said.
The lads looked at each other in disbelief. ‘But he lived like a lord. All those cigars, the brandy, the racing and the theatre-going – the women! That picture! How did he pay for all that?’
Lizzie rose to her feet like an avenging fury. ‘I paid for it and I gave him an allowance. I’ve been giving it to him for years. Your mother left him with nothing. I couldn’t stand back and see him doing without.’
‘You’re a damned liar,’ snapped Robert.
‘What did you say?’ gasped Lizzie.
‘You’re a damned liar,’ said Robert again. ‘I wouldn’t put it past you to clean out the old man’s bank account so’s we didn’t get anything. You’ve never liked us and you were jealous of our mother.’
Lizzie’s rage made her face go bright red and even Robert’s bravado disappeared when she rushed towards the table where the lawyer was sitting.
Under his astonished eyes she grabbed up the gold watch with its heavy chain and brandished it before her family.
‘This and Lexie’s plate is all my father had to leave. If you don’t believe me you can go to hell! I won’t let Charlie have it now anyway.’
In a towering rage that made her act without calculation, she turned and dashed the lovely watch into the fireplace where its glass splintered and it broke open, scattering tiny cogwheels in every direction. They all, even Lizzie once she had done it, stared at this destruction with stricken faces.
It was Charlie who broke the silence. ‘Oh, Ma! It was such a lovely watch.’
‘I’ll buy you another one,’ she said, and swept out.
What to do with Lexie? The problem was debated by Lizzie and George on the night of the funeral.
‘I’ll take her. Rosie’s only got Bertha and she loves bairns. She knows Lexie. The bairn comes over to our place a lot. She and Bertha are friends,’ said George, but Lizzie disapproved of that idea.
‘She’s not going to live in the Vaults. I don’t know how you stand it.’
George made a face. ‘Well, she can’t stay with Davie and Robert. They could never bring up a wee lassie. Maybe we should ask her where she wants to go.’
‘She’s with Charlie and Maggy at the moment. She can stay with us for a little while,’ said Lizzie. She had actually made up her mind that Lexie was to be in her care but she had not acknowledged this decision to herself yet for she was still reluctant to take on a child who was not her own, and dreaded becoming fond of Lexie. She was afraid of the child becoming the daughter that she knew would never be hers.
Next day Lexie was called into the drawing room of Tay Lodge and gently questioned by George.
‘You know what’s happened, don’t you, Lexie? You know your father’s dead.’
She was seven years old and she looked sceptically at him, but she was not cheeky. ‘Yes, I know.’
‘Your sister Lizzie and I are worried about where you’re going to live now. We wondered what you think.’
The child stared down at her feet. Tay Lodge oppressed her with its grand furniture and ornaments that must not be touched, the flowers in its garden that must never be picked. Her heart was breaking at the thought that she would never again hold her dear father’s hand and ride at his side in the little gig, never again be carried upstairs to her bed wrapped in a travelling rug because he’d stayed out so long and forgotten about her.
‘I’d like to live with Bertha,’ she whispered. She knew that Bertha was a relation though she bore a different name and her father and mother were not married.
Her sister Lizzie looked thunderous. ‘You can’t live in the Vaults!’
Lexie raised innocent eyes to her and whispered, ‘Maybe Bertha could move.’
George and Lizzie looked at each other questioningly when they heard this and Lizzie said, ‘I’d pay the rent of a place.’
He shook his head. ‘Rosie’d never thole that. She’s lived in the same place all her life. She’d not take kindly to me suggesting we moved away – especially if you were paying.’
Lizzie shrugged. ‘In that case Lexie will just have to stay with me.’
The child dropped her head to hide the tears in her eyes. The only good things about staying with Lizzie, she later reflected, was that she’d be near Charlie and she’d be looked after by Maggy, who had such soft, tender hands. When Maggy combed her hair she gently teased out every knot and didn’t drag a comb roughly through it like the women who had looked after her in the past. When Maggy washed Lexie’s face she rubbed softly at the cheeks as if they were made of porcelain, wiping away the dirt smudge by smudge. ‘That’s a lick and a promise, Lexie,’ she always said when she finished.
After Lexie had been living with Lizzie for a few months, she and Maggy started leading secret lives. When Lizzie was at her mill, they dressed in their oldest clothes and hurried down to the Vaults where Maggy gossiped with her friends and Lexie played with the ragged children. Without being warned, Lexie knew that it was best not to mention the outings to her half sister. Her life in the Vaults was a secret that she shared with Maggy.