Over the following days her anxiety about George was compounded by more worry over Charlie. After being summoned to the Harris Academy to speak to his headmaster, she went home in a towering rage and demanded to see her son.
He slunk into the room and stood facing his mother, trying to work out how best to win her round. It would take all his skill to soften her this time.
‘You know where I’ve been and you know why,’ she began.
He nodded. She turned with one fist raised to her forehead like an actress and addressed the bookcase.
‘To think that I’m slaving myself to death to make some sort of future for you and this is what you do.’
Charlie hung his head.
‘You’re an arrant truant. The school won’t have you back next year. You’re fifteen years old and I want you to go to university but your headmaster says that’s a waste of time.’
‘I don’t want to go to university,’ ventured Charlie.
‘What do you want? Can you tell me that? The school says you’re unruly and without ambition – you’re the sort of boy that ought to be sent to India. Do you want to go to India?’
He shook his head. ‘No, but I’d like to go to the Wild West. I’d like to go gold prospecting.’
‘My God. You’re my only son. One day you’ll own Green Tree and you talk about gold prospecting. Have you no consideration for your mother?’
‘Of course I do. I love you, Ma,’ he said and was rewarded by seeing her face soften slightly.
Her voice was less angry when she asked again, ‘What do you want to do, Charlie?’
He pondered the question. The prospect of taking over the jute mill appalled him. He was not temperamentally inclined to be a businessman. The thought of sitting in an office while his looms whirred and roared around him was like a life sentence.
I’d like to travel. I’d like to see the world. I don’t want to settle down until I’ve seen how people live in other places. I want adventures.’
She gazed back at him, a iight of understanding in her eyes. It must be Sam’s seafaring blood that made him say such things and if she’d been a boy, she too would have wanted to test the waters outside the safe haven of Dundee. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she told him.
When she broached the subject of her son with Alex Henderson, he wrinkled his brow and said, ‘Perhaps what he needs is to travel. I don’t think he’ll ever settle until he gets it out of his system – like they used to send boys away on the Grand Tour long ago.’
‘But he’s only fifteen. I’d not have a minute’s peace if he went away alone.’
‘Then you must find someone to send with him, someone you can trust, someone you’ll be sure will bring him back again.’
‘George!’ she said. ‘I’ll send George. They could go somewhere that would suit his health.’
Alex raised an eyebrow. The idea of Lizzie’s son accompanying her brother to the safe haven of a Swiss sanatorium was almost funny. So was the thought of the two of them touring the Riviera. Charlie would head for the casinos and never be seen again. Secretly Alex pitied poor George going anywhere with that young devil but to Lizzie it seemed like a brilliant solution.
‘I’ve heard Canada has a good climate for consumptives,’ suggested Alex, ‘and I’ve a friend who owns cattle ranches there. He sent his own son out to toughen him up.’
‘That’s it!’ cried Lizzie. ‘If they go to Canada for a little while, Charlie would surely grow up and George’s health would improve. I must talk to them about it.’
She did not relish the idea of sending off her son and brother to a distant land but the trip need not last long. Surely six months would be enough for Charlie to learn some sense. He’d been coddled at home for far too long. If George went too, he could see that no harm befell her son and, as Alex said, make sure he came home again when the allotted time was up.
George was not too hard to convince. His feverish attack had subsided and he was able to work again but he was white and drawn every night when he walked slowly home from his office at Brunton’s Mill. Sometimes he had to lean on Rosie’s arm for the last part of their journey.
Lizzie pressed her case insistently. ‘I don’t know what to do with Charlie. His schoolmasters think that if he does some travelling he’ll come home a different boy. There’s no one else I can trust to go with him. Davie’s busy with the bar and I wouldn’t trust Robert to go as far as Carnoustie with Charlie. He respects you. You’ve always got on well together.’
George frowned. ‘But what about Rosie and Bertha?’
Lizzie persisted. ‘You don’t have to be away long. Only over the winter. It’ll set you up, George, and another winter here could be bad for you if your lungs don’t have the chance to heal properly.’
When he returned home George repeated what his sister had said. Rosie sat solemn-faced and weighed up the proposition. The offer of defeating the enemy that stalked George was too good to turn down.
‘I think you ought to go. It’s only for six months and it could be the best thing for you. That last attack was bad. I’m working and so’s Bertha. We’ll be all right.’
George went back to see his sister and told her, ‘I’ll go. But I won’t stay longer than six months.’
What a hustle and a bustle ensued over fitting out the travellers! Lizzie snatched time from her work to go into town with her son while he tried on travelling suits. She also chose suitcases, valises and an enormous cabin trunk.
‘I’m not needing all this,’ he protested, but she was adamant.
‘You must be properly turned out. I’m not having my son going away with his things wrapped up in a migrant’s bundle. You’re not travelling steerage, remember. You’ll be mixing with well-to-do people.’
Charlie’s dream was to travel steerage with a bundle over his shoulder and he was determined to lose his paraphernalia as soon as he landed at Montreal, but he did not say that to his mother who bought a tent, a canvas bed, walking sticks, summer and winter hats, a medicine chest and silk shirts as if fitting out an expedition.
Their passages were booked for the first day of October 1913 and Lizzie was determined to overcome her fear of travel so that she could accompany her brother and son to Gourock, their port of departure on the West Coast of Scotland. The Tay Bridge was still an insurmountable barrier to her, however, and to avoid crossing it they were to travel to Perth by river steamer and board their train there.
She worked herself up into such a frenzy about the journey that Alex Henderson offered to accompany her and bring her safely home though he’d never travelled farther than Glasgow himself.
The leavetaking between Charlie and Maggy was tearful. To her he was as dear as her own child, she had mothered him from birth and saw no fault in him. Sobbing, she clung to him on the doorstep of Tay Lodge and had to be helped back into the house by Lexie. The dog Bran ran after the carriage and showed no sign of giving up his pursuit till Charlie alighted and brought him home again. That night Bran would not eat and lay in the front hall with his sad eyes fixed on the repaired front door, waiting for his master’s return.
At Gourock it was heartrending for Lizzie to part with her beloved brother and her darling son at the same time.
Am I doing the right thing? she wondered as she turned from one to the other, tears pouring down her cheeks, embracing them fiercely. Why did I think of this? she asked herself as they climbed the gangplank.
‘Don’t go. Stay with me,’ she sobbed out but Charlie was determined to sail. Sea fever had seized him at the sight of the huge steamer looming on the dockside. He could hardly wait to be aboard and heading towards the distant horizon. By sheer force of will he propelled his reluctant uncle up the boarding steps and into the ship. The last Lizzie saw of them was their handkerchiefs fluttering from the top deck.
On the way home she abandoned herself to grief and sobbing while a flustered Alex attempted to console her. For the first time in their acquaintance, he took her hand and held it gingerly, saying, ‘It’s a good thing for both of them. They’ll be back home again soon and Charlie will be a different boy.’
He was clinging to her fingers and though the physical contact between them did not thrill her, it did not repel her either. Perhaps it was time to change the relationship between herself and Alex. Surely they were approaching an age when sex would not be a pressing need? Marriage to Alex would drive away the loneliness that loomed ahead of her. She allowed him to hold her hand without drawing it away and when they reached the end of the journey, she pecked a kiss at his cheek in gratitude for his support through her ordeal.
While Charlie was away she had time to reflect on the way she had brought him up. Slowly she came to realize that her guilt at wanting to send him to the Mars when Sam died had made her overindulgent towards him. Maggy’s devotion too had not helped. Between them they’d created what Rosie rightly called a rod for their own backs.
Though she knew that Charlie’s faults were largely of her own making, she would have given anything to have him spirited back from Canada as soon as he went away. She loved him and she missed him.
Work filled her days but in the dead of night she worried about her impetuous son and about poor George, persuaded to travel so far away.
She started attending church on Sundays, much to everyone’s surprise, and knelt in her pew with her head bent over her clasped hands praying for the two travellers. She was propitiating God in case he was still intent on punishing her.
By the end of the year all the mills were working overtime because there was talk of war in the air. Even customers who thought it unlikely were not prepared to take a chance of being caught napping and ordered vast quantities of sacking and jute in advance. The harbour at Dundee was once more busy round the clock with ships coming in from Calcutta. The boom years were back.
Gossip spread quickly in the crowded city. No sooner had Lizzie Kinge put her signature to a document giving her ownership of another small mill a few streets away from Green Tree than they were talking about it in the jute-barons’ club.
‘That woman’s got to be stopped,’ fumed Sooty Sutherland, who had been cannily negotiating the purchase of the little mill and hated to have it snatched from under his nose, especially by Lizzie.
‘She’s unstoppable, I think,’ said one of the Brunton brothers, dropping his newspaper and peering at the angry face of his friend.
‘No one’s unstoppable. Bigger people than her have gone to the wall. She couldn’t operate if she didn’t get raw jute, could she? She’s no base in India and she owns no ships. She deals through Skelton. We could freeze her out,’ said Sooty, rising to his feet and stamping out of the room.
Goldie Johanson, who had been snoozing in a corner, opened his eyes when Sooty departed and said to Brunton, ‘He’s never got over being socked by that woman. Good luck to her is what I say.’
The worst blow of a fraught year fell on Lizzie when Skelton turned up at her office and said without preamble, ‘I’ll not be able to let you have any more jute after the next shipment.’
She glared at him. ‘What do you mean? Are you going out of business?’
He shrugged. ‘Far from it. I’m expanding, but three of the big fellows have offered to take everything I bring in.’
Fury rose in her and she wanted to hit him but she fought to keep her voice calm. ‘You can’t do this to me. I bought your jute when other men held off. I’ve honoured our contract even when I could hardly afford twelve shipments a year. You can’t let me down now. I’ve just bought Walker’s Mill at the back of Dens Road.’
‘So I heard,’ said Skelton.
She was immediately made suspicious by his tone.
‘Who’s buying so much of your jute that you can’t supply me?’ she asked.
‘Mr Sutherland’s one, then there’s Coffin, and Brunton’s are taking the rest.’
‘But they’ve their own ships.’
‘They need more,’ said Skelton and from his expression she could see that through the years of their business association, this man had never liked her.
‘Well, I hope that when this boom ends they’ll stick with you and not leave you in the lurch like they did the last time. You can rest assured that I won’t buy from you again,’ she said, picking up her pen and waving it towards the door in a gesture of dismissal.
When he was gone her composure cracked and she cast her ink pot through the window in fury and fright.
Where am I going to get jute? she asked herself and was angry at her lack of foresight in giving all her custom to Skelton. It meant that she had no second supplier to fall back on, now that they were all busy with pre-booked orders.
For the next week she went from shipping office to shipping office and everywhere met with refusals. Sometimes they were gleeful and at other times it seemed that a warning had reached the shipper before she did. She began to imagine hidden enemies whispering, ‘If you supply Green Tree you’ll not sell to anyone else again.’ Surely it’s my imagination, she thought, surely no one would be so petty? What have I done to deserve such treatment?
Eventually she was offered a deal by a shipper but at a price she knew was far higher than was paid by any other mill. Reluctantly she accepted. She could not allow her looms and spinning frames to lie idle.
Her sales force had expanded and were very successful; mills were working smoothly but all her efforts would be wasted if she had no jute. The only thing she could see that would solve her problem was to send someone to India to negotiate directly with the jute growers there. If Charlie was older and not in Canada, he could go. She was on the verge of setting out for India herself when she had a caller at Green Tree.
Goldie Johanson had a cheerful face with tiny bright blue eyes set in deep wrinkles that almost hid them when he smiled. He looked like a colossus in her office but he was not really fat for he carried his weight well and was surprisingly nimble on his feet for such a large man. The most arresting thing about him was his hair that sprang up from his head in a mass of tight curls. Like his sideburns and moustache, it was brightly golden. He must have looked like a cherub when he was a little boy, thought Lizzie, watching him advance across the office towards her.
After they exchanged pleasantries and he told her that he was an old friend of her father – which she already knew – he sat on a bentwood chair that seemed inadequate to bear his weight and folded his hands on top of his cane. ‘I hear you’ve been having trouble with Skelton.’
She nodded. It was not her habit to share business secrets with strangers but there was sympathy in Goldie’s bright eyes and she trusted him. Since David’s death she had longed for an understanding confidant. Alex’s mind was too occupied with the price of cheese to fully appreciate the scope of Lizzie’s concerns.
Tm afraid Skelton’s let me down rather badly,’ she said.
‘Mmm, so I heard. Have you found anyone else to bring in jute for you?’ Goldie’s eyes were sharp and intelligent.
She shook her head. ‘One shipper, but he’s asking a terrible price and can only give me half of what I need. I’m going out to Calcutta to fix something up.’
The man on the other side of her desk stared at her for a second and then he laughed. ‘Dammit, you would, wouldn’t you? Don’t you bother about booking a passage for Calcutta, lassie. I’ve plenty of ships and plenty of contacts. You’ll have your jute. How many shiploads do you want?’
She stared at him in disbelief. Tears sprang up in her eyes but she did not shed them. This was all far too exciting to start weeping like a baby.
‘I could take a dozen shiploads – and only the best jute, mind,’ she told him.
He threw back his lion-like head and roared with laughter. ‘I like you. I like your style. Nothing but the best for Mrs Kinge. Don’t you worry. You’ll have what you need. You’ve got Goldie Johanson’s word for it.’
He never told her that what brought him to her office was overhearing a jubilant conversation between Sutherland and George Brunton in which they counted the weeks until Green Tree Mill closed down.
‘I’ve fixed her,’ crowed Sooty, ‘I’ve cooked her goose. Mrs Kinge’ll have to sell up and take up tatting to pass the time. There’ll be some bargains to be picked up at her displenishing sale.’
Bran was sick and growing sicker every day. Before she went to school and when she returned in the evening, Lexie crouched beside his kennel, whispering to the dog and trying to tempt him to eat. His big body was skeletal and his eyes contained all the sadness of the world. When she looked into those eyes, she wept and buried her face in the thickly curling hair of Bran’s neck. He seemed soothed by her attentions but would make no effort to recover. Bran was wasting away, dying of a broken heart because he had lost Charlie.
Only a few letters had come from Canada giving news of the travellers. George wrote that they had landed safely and were making their way to Toronto where Alex’s contacts had promised to look after them. The tone of his letter was sombre but a more enthusiastic postscript from Charlie was added: ‘This is a great country. I’m very glad we came. I’m well and I hope you’re well. Love to all and to Bran.’
Lexie took the little note and read it to the dying dog. ‘He’s coming back, Bran,’ she whispered. The animal feebly wagged its tail and laid its head down on extended paws. Please leave me to die, Bran seemed to say.
A few days later he was found dead in his kennel in the morning and Lexie was so devastated by grief that she was unable to go to school. While she lay sobbing in her bedroom, Maggy gave orders that the dog’s kennel and everything associated with him, his lead, his feeding bowl and the ball he used to run after across the lawn, be removed so that Lexie was spared seeing them again.
Lizzie was sad, too, about her son’s dog but she was slightly exasperated by the violence of her sister’s reaction to Bran’s death.
‘She’s carrying on as if that dog was human,’ she said crossly to Maggy. ‘It’s not normal the way she’s behaving.’
Maggy was not book-learned but she was wise in the things of the spirit. ‘Poor wee Lexie. She’s not many folk to love, has she?’ she said.
The train bringing George Mudie from the south steamed across the Tay Bridge on an afternoon in February 1914. His eyes were filled with the view of his native city and a huge weight lifted from his heart as he gazed at its streets and alleyways, at patches of green garden and park, towering chimneys belching smoke. The homesickness that had plagued him since the day he left Scotland disappeared. Soon he would sit in his little home and hear Rosie’s jokes. He’d be tucked up beside her warm, generous body at night; he’d see his daughter Bertha, who was growing into a beauty. How he’d missed them. No matter where he went or what he saw in Canada, the memory of home had blurred his vision.
It was only when the train came nearer to the town and he saw the grey outline of Green Tree Mill that his heart gave a jump. Soon he’d have to face Lizzie!
No one knew he was coming home and when Rosie and Bertha came clattering up the steep stairs from their stint at the mill, George sat in his armchair with a broad smile on his face, waiting for them to open the door. The reception was all he could wish for. The two women fell on him with cries of delight, covering him with kisses and engulfing him in their embraces.
Wiping away a few tears, Rosie eventually cried out, ‘But you weren’t expected for another month! My word, won’t Green Tree be glad to see that laddie of hers. She’s been like a fish out of water since he went away.’
George’s face suddenly looked haggard. ‘Charlie’s not coming home,’ he said. ‘I’d better get myself across to Tay Lodge and tell his mother.’
Lizzie and Lexie were having their supper at a vast mahogany table spread with a stiffly starched white cloth and laid with crystal, silver and the finest china, when George was shown into the dining room by an excited maid. Lizzie’s eyes went bright green and the colour left her face at the sight of him.
‘Where’s my son?’ she gasped.
‘Keep calm, Lizzie,’ said her brother. ‘Nothing’s happened to him. He’s safe. He’s still in Canada.’
She kept hold of her dinner knife as if ready to attack her brother and her voice sounded strangled. ‘What do you mean? You can’t have left a fifteen-year-old boy on his own in a foreign country, thousands of miles from home. You were asked to look after him!’
The last words were shouted and George flinched. How could he explain to Charlie’s mother what hell it had been trying to control that boy? Charlie went out at night and did not return till morning, leaving George pacing their hotel room in terror in case his charge was murdered. He took up with ruffians on the boat and again when they landed. He was drinking, gambling, rushing here and there, full of enthusiasm for the new country in which he found himself. Giving Charlie a ticket to Canada was like giving an obsessive painter a new and enormous canvas to cover with his daubs. He was setting about painting not only a town, but an entire country, red.
‘I wasn’t able to cope with Charlie,’ said George in explanation. ‘My health couldn’t stand it, Lizzie. He was killing me.’
His sister looked as if what her son had failed to do, she was prepared to finish on the spot.
‘Where is he now?’ she asked through gritted teeth.
‘When I last saw him he was getting on a train. They’re building a railway to Vancouver and he’s going to work on it.’
Lizzie jumped from her seat and rushed around the table like a madwoman. ‘He’s only fifteen! That country’s full of bandits and Red Indians. He’ll be killed and it’s all your fault. You should have made him come home. You should have got the police to arrest him if you couldn’t cope.’
George looked at Lexie for support but her face showed absolute astonishment.
‘The police have enough to do without trying to talk to Charlie. Have you ever tried making him do something he doesn’t want to do?’ George asked the room at large. ‘I tried to make him come home but he ran away. He just about killed me, Lizzie.’
Charlie’s mother was impervious to excuses. All she could think of was her beloved son – to her mind he was still a little boy – at loose, alone in the wastes of Canada.
‘I’ll never see him again. He’ll be killed and we’ll never even be told,’ she wailed, covering her face with her ringed hands.
Then she drew herself up and walked over to her brother who was still attempting to justify his abandonment of Charlie.
‘I never want to see you again, George Mudie,’ she said in a menacing voice. ‘I don’t care what happens to you or your slum family. Get out of my house and never come back.’
Without another word George turned on his heel and left the room.
Lexie ran and stopped him at the front door where she threw her arms around his neck. As she kissed him, she saw that he was crying.
‘Don’t worry, George. It’ll blow over. You know what she’s like. It must have been awful for you,’ said the girl.