At Tay Lodge a mournful Maggy informed Lizzie that Charlie had crashed his car. His tyres had skidded on wet tram rails and he’d run into a Ninewells tramcar.
‘Is he hurt?’ asked his mother and was quickly told that he was unscathed. The tramcar company was sending him a bill, however.
There was more. ‘Rosie and Bertha and Lexie are having to leave their house. Their building’s being pulled down and a grand new town hall’s being built on the Vaults.’
‘Lexie can always come home here.’
‘Oh, she’ll no’ do that. She’s in with a bunch of folk that hasn’t a good word to say about mill owners and their mansions. They’ll find another place. Johnny sends money to Rosie but she’s fair cut up about leaving the room. We were all born there, and so was our mother and her mother before her.’
‘Don’t worry, they’ll settle down somewhere else,’ Lizzie reassured Maggy. Those bits of bad news were not enough to account for her presentiments. She was sure that something else was about to be sprung on her.
She did not have long to wait. No sooner did she set foot in her Green Tree office where a bored Charlie was sitting at her desk than there was a terrible rumbling sound as if the earth was opening. Then, after a pause that seemed to last for ever, the alarm hooter screamed.
Lizzie and her son headed the rush into the yard where a scene of devastation met her eyes. In the most distant corner, where the buildings of the little mill she had snatched from under Sooty Sutherland’s nose stood, was a pile of rubble. One of the spinning sheds was half in ruins. She saw at once that its chimney had collapsed on to the gable wall. The interior of the shed was gaping and exposed and groups of stunned women were staggering into the open from the debris.
She ran over to where a forewoman was counting the group… ‘Jeanie and Meg and Bell and Isa. Where’s the bairns? Oh, there they are. Where’s Kitty and daft Annie?’
Two women, their faces smeared with dust, called out, ‘We’re here. But where’s wee Helen?’
The survivors were counted and counted again while everyone agreed that it was a blessing the shed was not full, for the mill was only working at half capacity. The forewoman kept on calling out for wee Helen but she never answered. Eventually Charlie and one of the men climbed over the pile of stones and within minutes they called back, ‘She’s here. She’s dead.’
They pulled her out and Lizzie was one of the group of scared women who stood looking at the pathetic bundle covered with a white sheet.
‘Who is it?’ she asked the forewoman.
‘It’s Helen Allison. The one wi’ the bad leg. She’s no’ been here long. A big stone must have fell on her.’
Lizzie nodded. She knew Mrs Allison, a new employee who had been taken on when a neighbouring mill paid off workers. She was a skilled and swift spinner and needed the work because she had two children and her husband was unemployed.
Lizzie turned to her young and eager manager who was also a recent appointment and very anxious to make his mark. ‘Make arrangements about paying for the funeral and the compensation,’ she told him.
Then, regardless of danger or her fine clothes, she climbed into the devastated shed and started examining the machinery to see if it had escaped damage. She was unaware of the astonishment in the eyes of the people around Helen Allison’s body as she did this.
For the next week an atmosphere of resentment met Lizzie every time she stepped out of her office. It seemed that whatever could go wrong, did. Machinery broke down mysteriously; there was a flash fire in one of the sheds; schedules were not met; orders misdirected. She was almost afraid to go home at night, and as for snatching an afternoon at Gowan Bank with Goldie, that was impossible. Through all the time of trouble the sun shone, dappling the courtyard with golden pools as she sat in the office. Paris seemed a million miles away.
One morning she was astonished to be met at the gate by a deputation of women.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, climbing out of her carriage.
‘We’re on strike,’ they told her.
Her first feeling was astonishment. Her second was anger. She swept past them into her office and stood glaring from the window while the strikers massed outside the gate, waylaying any woman who might have wanted to work. No one passed their picket line. It was obvious that she would have to go out and reason with them. Charlie seemed to have disappeared so, surrounded by her managers, she went out into the throng and listened to the complaints.
‘We want more money,’ said one of the women.
‘And shorter hours,’ said another.
Lizzie held up a hand. ‘That’s impossible and you know it. I’m the only mill in Dundee that’s not working short time now. You should be grateful.’
A voice rose from the back of the crowd: ‘It’s about wee Helen, really. That was a bad show.’
‘What do you mean? Accidents happen but we’ve a good record here.’ She turned and looked at the shed which was being repaired by a team of stonemasons.
A little woman standing near Lizzie spoke up: ‘We dinna like working here now. Wee Helen’s haunting the mill.’
Lizzie snorted, ‘What rubbish! If that’s why you’re striking you’d better go back at once or I’ll pay off the lot of you.’
‘It is haunted,’ said another woman, ‘I’ve seen her. She comes in and sits down at a weaving machine beside the woman working it.’
‘You’re all hysterical. I won’t have this nonsense holding up the work of my mill. Go back inside or I’m warning you, you won’t have jobs to go back to.’
She was about to turn on her heel when a stronger, more confident voice rang out from the centre of the crowd. ‘The strike’s got nothing to do with ghosts. It’s to do with the living.’
Lizzie’s eye searched the crowd for the speaker and saw a grey-haired woman in a cotton overall standing with her arms crossed over her chest.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’ve organized ourselves. The girl in the green hat told us how to do it. You’d better listen, Green Tree.’
‘But I can’t afford a strike now. Orders are hard to come by and we need every one we’ve got. Don’t think I just sit here and rake in money. I wish it was true. You should try changing places with me.’
The spokeswoman was pushing her way through the crowd with a sheaf of papers in her hand. ‘We’ve several points of dispute. First of all we want a rise of four per cent. That’s to replace the two per cent cut in wages that was brought in last winter. You said you’d give us an increase when things were better and you never did.’
Lizzie decided not to argue each point but to hear them all first. She said, ‘Go on.’
‘And we want shorter hours, especially for the nippers. The lassie in the green hat says that in India there’s a law that stops black bairns working more than seven hours a day. Our bairns work twelve – and they have to go to school at night. The wee souls are exhausted all the time.
‘We want better safety measures, guards on machinery and proper first-aid rooms. We want paid lunch breaks and half hour breaks in the middle of the morning and the afternoon. We want time off for sickness. We want our jobs to be kept for us if we’re ill or having a bairn. Anyone who’s injured or killed should be paid proper compensation.’
At this point she lifted her eyes and stared hard at Lizzie. ‘You only paid fifty pounds to the Allison bairns when Helen was killed. That was what decided us to strike. Fifty pounds is no’ enough for anybody’s life, Mrs Kinge.’
Lizzie turned and stared at her young manager. He flushed as he gazed back at her. ‘I was trying to do the best I could. I was saving you money,’ he whispered.
She knew that she should have checked on the compensation for the dead woman but she had been so busy and so distracted… Her anger against herself rose but she was determined not to show weakness, for the conditions presented to her by the strikers were excessive. To grant all of them would put her out of business.
The strike lasted for a week during which Lizzie was nearly driven mad with frustration. Though she resented having to do so, she yielded a fwo per cent rise and agreed to better safety measures, but stuck in her toes about the working hours. The question of compensation was left to be discussed between the union and her representatives. Finally she dismissed her over-eager manager.
On the day that all her machinery was roaring and throbbing again, she felt totally exhausted and her emotions were in turmoil. Part of her was angry when she thought about the people in her mill. They were prepared to betray her; they had no loyalty. ‘I’ve tried to play fair with them and a strike was my reward,’ she said bitterly.
She was disappointed in Charlie, who so obviously had no interest in Green Tree. Most of all she missed Goldie. Before they left for Paris they had been meeting regularly at Gowan Bank but since returning there had been no opportunity for a rendezvous. It was absolutely imperative to see him, to make love with him, to escape from her pressing problems in order to feel strong enough to come back and face them clearly.
By her office messenger she sent her lover a cryptic message: ‘Mrs Kinge is having problems and would like a meeting.’ She knew he would understand that she wanted to rendezvous at Gowan Bank.
She arrived before him and sent away her carriage. She trusted her coachman, a silent and taciturn man who gave no hint in his demeanour of any curiosity about her life. Alone she wandered through the cottage rooms which she and Goldie had had such fun furnishing. Because the cottage had been unused for many weeks, there was a layer of dust over everything. She climbed to the bedroom where she paused in surprise. It was not as she had left it. The bed was roughly made up, but she always made it neatly, with plumped-up pillows and carefully draped lace bedcover. Now the cover lay askew and one of the pillows was on the floor.
Heart thudding, she walked across to the dressing table where a ring of pink face powder marked the wooden ledge beneath the looking glass. A powder box had been lying there – and it was not hers, for she never wore such a bright shade. She dipped a finger in the powder and sniffed its strong perfume, a perfume that she thought she recognized but could not remember where she had smelt it before.
When Goldie’s car came rattling up the lane and stopped at the door, she was waiting for him, fury burning inside her. As soon as he stepped through the door she let fly with a barrage of china that she had stacked on the table by her side.
‘You pig, you brute, how could you bring another woman here? How could you, after everything you’ve said to me! I hate you, I hate you!’ she shouted, raining him with plates.
He ducked, one arm up in front of his face to deflect her missiles.
‘For God’s sake, woman, what are you talking about? I haven’t been here since before we were in Paris. I swear to God I haven’t. What do you mean?’
She stopped pelting him and started to weep. ‘It’s the bed, someone’s been in our bed. And there’s face powder on the dressing table. It’s not mine. I wouldn’t wear such vulgar stuff.’
He walked across to her and took both her hands in his. ‘Listen, Lizzie, if there’s been a woman here, she’s not been with me. I swear it to you. I swear it on my life.’
She looked into his face and saw the honesty in his eyes. He was telling the truth and in relief she collapsed against him, weeping out all her worries and frustrations of the past weeks.
‘I’m so unhappy. I’m so tired. And now this! Who could have been in our house? They’ve spoiled it. Who did you give the key to?’
He shook her gently. ‘I didn’t give the key to anybody. I keep my key in a locked drawer in the office. It was there as usual today and the only key to the drawer is on my watch chain here.’ He brandished a small gold key at her.
‘But someone’s been here. I know they’ve been here. They’ve been making love in our bed, Goldie.’ That was sacrilege to her, the secret enchantment of their hideaway had been broken and it seemed as if their love was also threatened. She was afraid as well as angry and it took all Goldie’s love to calm her.
They remade the bed and spent the afternoon safe within it. When evening was drawing in and swifts were swooping around the eaves, they stood arm in arm in their flower-filled garden.
He told her, ‘You look so lovely here tonight. I want to have your portrait painted. I know just the young man to do it.’
She was astonished. It had never occurred to her to have herself painted, for she had no conceit.
‘But why? I’m a middle-aged woman. If I was going to be painted it should’ve been when I was young,’ she said.
‘I want a portrait of the way you are now. I kept looking at you in Paris and it struck me that you’ve reached your bloom. Some women are only bonny when they’re girls but you’re at your most magnificent now. I want that to be recorded for ever. The young fellow I’ve picked is a great artist. I’ve seen his work and I know he’ll do you justice.’
‘But it’ll take a long time and I’m so busy,’ she protested.
‘He’ll come to your office and make sketches. You’ll only have to sit for him a couple of times after that. Anyway, being forced to sit still for a few hours will do you good, Lizzie.’
She was happy again but there was still the worry about who had used Gowan Bank in their absence. The mystery seemed insoluble, though she puzzled over it for a long time.
The artist who Goldie had commissioned arrived at Green Tree Mill to sketch her a few days later. She warmed to him on sight because he was so quiet and unobtrusive. It was easy to forget he was there as she went about her daily business and she felt that having her portrait painted was not such a painfully boring business after all.
On the second day she asked the artist, ‘I don’t know your name. What is it?’
When he smiled his long, rather melancholy face sweetened. ‘Just call me Ninian. You mightn’t want to know me if you don’t like the picture. I’ve strict instructions from Mr Johanson about the sort of portrait I’m to paint.’
She was curious. ‘What did he say? Do tell me.’
The smile was there again and understanding showed in his dark eyes. There was no need to make excuses to him about why Goldie Johanson was paying for her portrait. ‘He said you’re a strong character and I’ve to paint you as you are. It’s not to be a pretty picture. It’s to be the portrait of the sort of woman who can knock a man down with a blow to the chin and throw crockery at her lover when she’s jealous.’
She flushed. This young man knew that she and Goldie were lovers but there was something about him that reassured her. He was not likely to talk about it or to think less of them for it. Goldie had chosen well.
How well became apparent as she watched Ninian sketching her. He drew her serious, he drew her angry, he drew her in pensive mood, and each time the pencil caught her exactly and without flattery.
Eventually he decided on the pose that she should adopt for the portrait and told her, ‘We’ll start the painting now if you can spare the time. I’ve a studio down near the docks. Could you be there for two hours tomorrow? I think I can do it in two sittings if we’re lucky.’
Rain was drifting in from the river on the day she went to sit for Ninian. His studio smelt of paraffin oil from a smoking heater in the middle of the floor.
He said, ‘Good, that’s perfect,’ when she slipped off her coat and revealed the Paul Poiret gown.
She posed on a stiff upright chair, sitting half turned towards the painter with her face looking straight at him. Behind her was draped a gorgeous curtain with a brilliant Modernist pattern in red, golds and glowing greens.
She exclaimed over the lovely curtain as she sat down and he said, ‘I bought it in Paris. It goes with your dress.’
He painted very fast, with intense concentration, and though now and again he would say something there was little conversation and she found it therapeutic to sit in silence allowing her mind to range over her concerns. She still did not know who’d been at Gowan Bank and it worried her.
When the sitting was finished, she stretched and said, ‘I enjoyed that. I’ll come back tomorrow. Can I see what you’ve done before I go?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’d prefer it if you didn’t. I’ll let you see it when it’s finished.’
Next afternoon there was an ease between them. His long-fingered hands deftly squeezed paints on to his palette. As she watched him, she wondered about his life. He had a well-to-do accent and his clothes were expensive. This was no poor artist who lived in a garret.
‘Are you married, Ninian?’ she asked.
‘No, I’m not. I don’t approve of marriage. It’s only legalized prostitution.’
Shocked, she protested, ‘Oh, no, if people are in love it’s wonderful. I was very happy when I was married.’
‘You were lucky then,’ said Ninian. ‘My parents are miserable and so are most of the married people I know.’
‘Don’t you like women?’ she inquired, wondering about his sexuality.
He peered round the corner of his canvas on the tall easel and laughed. ‘I love women. I like them too much. There’s nothing wrong with me that way. It’s just that I don’t approve of marriage. Free love, now, that’s a different thing altogether. If people love each other, they should be able to live together without standing up in front of a minister before they go to bed. Marriage is too tying, too much of a bond.’
Lizzie wanted to protest but, remembering the situation between herself and Goldie, the words were unspoken.
‘You’ve still not told me your name,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it time I knew it? Where do you live?’
‘My name’s Sutherland. When I do go home it’s to a monstrosity of a house called Rivermead which was built by my grandfather at vast expense. He imported plasterers from Italy and artists from France to paint cupids on the ceiling. You know my father.’
‘Not Sooty’s son,’ gasped Lizzie.
‘Sooty’s son exactly,’ said Ninian. ‘Now you know why I kept my identity a secret till I’d finished your picture. I was afraid you’d knock me down or refuse to sit for me or something.’
‘How silly. You can’t help being Sooty’s son – I’m sorry, I mean…’
‘You’re right, I can’t. My father and I don’t see eye to eye about anything, I’m afraid, and if he knew I was accepting a fee from Goldie Johanson he’d have a fit. Especially if he knew the fee was payment for painting Green Tree, his least favourite mill owner in the city.’
When he said this, they both laughed. It was obvious that the idea of his father’s displeasure added to Ninian’s enjoyment of the work.
After the last sitting he still would not allow her to look at the picture. ‘Mr Johanson made me promise to let him see it first, and anyway it’s not quite finished,’ he told her.
A week later, after receiving a message from Goldie, she climbed the steep stairs to the studio in high anticipation. Her lover was there already, sitting on the chair on which she’d posed with his silver-topped cane between his knees. He was beaming broadly and looked more like a teddy bear than ever. She longed to rush up and cuddle him but Ninian was bustling about and she was reticent about showing her feelings for Goldie in front of others.
The portrait stood on an easel in the middle of the floor with a white cloth draped over it. When she was settled, Ninian pulled it off to reveal his work.
The spectators gasped.
‘It’s magnificent, boy, you’ve surpassed yourself,’ said Goldie. ‘If you sent this to the RSA it’d make your name.’
The picture was a riot of brilliant colour. In the middle, slightly off centre, sat a woman staring defiantly at the world. The face was firm and the pose challenging. The brilliantly coloured curtain behind made a wonderful backdrop for her lovely dress.
‘Do I really look like that? Do I look so intimidating?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t want a chocolate-box picture,’ cried Goldie, ‘I wanted you, bristles and all. But look at your eyes, my dear. He’s caught your eyes exactly.’
Lizzie looked at the eyes gazing out at her. They were fearless, but there were questions and a vulnerability in them that made her feel afraid of the power of the young man with the paint brush. He could look into her soul.
‘It’s a wonderful picture,’ she said, and she meant it.