CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Piper’s Tune

By mid-afternoon the streets of Glasgow were awash and most of its citizens sheltering indoors or splashing along the pavements under the ineffectual protection of umbrellas and oilskin capes. The storm, it seemed, did not have the good manners to move on but rumbled and spluttered unseen behind the rain that poured unrelentingly out of formless clouds.

In Aydon Road Franklin’s crews had been pulled off the hulls, for the ladders had become dangerously slippery and there was still in the black sky traces of the lightning that had raked the west of Scotland for an hour or more. In Sandyford, in Cissie’s apartment, mistress and day-maid cowered in the small back bedroom while Ewan, normally so timid, leaped up and down on the bed and yelled with delight at every ear-splitting thunderclap and nerve-tingling lightning flash. In Harper’s Hill, over the remains of a late lunch, Lindsay and her aunt were far too busy plotting strategy to be distracted by mere weather. When rain came sweeping over Kelvingrove and struck the big front windows, though, they did pause for a moment before continuing their discussion in raised voices. At the first peal of thunder, Pansy, not even trying to be brave, vanished downstairs to join the younger servants skulking in the pantry.

In Brunswick Crescent the inhabitants had scattered themselves throughout the house for reasons other than fear of a natural phenomenon. When Forbes had returned home he had stepped straight into a blazing row with his mother and sisters and had borne the brunt of their fury and frustration. He had been in no mood to back down, however, and in the heat of the moment had screamed at them to go to hell, or back to Malahide, or do what the hell they wanted, and had blamed them for the predicament in which he, the favoured son, now found himself.

The Lanchester, Uncle Donald Franklin’s pride and joy, remained parked in the lane behind the crescent where Forbes had dumped it after a fruitless search for his brother. First he had driven to Gowry’s lodgings, then, close to opening time, to Kirby’s. Finally, in desperation, he had steered the awkward machine the length of Maryhill Road to tour side streets and back streets in the vicinity of St Mungo’s Mansions in search of the yellow Vauxhall. At one point he had even been tempted to jettison the Lanchester and race upstairs to the tenement flat, but something – caution perhaps, not conscience – had checked him and he had driven away again, fast and furious, before frustration overwhelmed common sense.

With thunder pealing overhead and lightning sizzling among spires and chimney-pots, Forbes had headed back to Brunswick Park. He knew that he was beaten, that Gowry had eluded him; Gowry might be anywhere, trolling about in the Vauxhall or back by now in the stable yard at Aydon Road listening to the apprentice boys’ tales of mystery and woe. There lurked in Forbes, however, a faint flicker of hope that his brother had taken things into his own hands and that, out of loyalty, had gone to do what he, Forbes, dared not.

Then he had stepped into the shouting match in the drawing-room and had learned of Lindsay’s intentions and been told just what his mother really thought of him and how by his shenanigans he had ruined his sisters’ prospects.

There was no moral disapproval in the family’s revisionist view of his worth, only fury at how he had let them down, how his wayward behaviour had affected them and damaged their future; not a word about Sylvie, not a thought for what had propelled him into Sylvie Calder’s arms, what he needed, what he wanted that neither Franklins nor McCullochs could provide. Then, when thunder broke over the house and Philip started shrieking upstairs in the nursery, he lost patience completely and stalked off into the piano parlour from whose narrow rear window he could look down into the lane.

*   *   *

After a time Philip stopped shrieking and rested his head against Eleanor’s bony shoulder. She had prudently removed her cameo brooch and hair-pins and had brought down from the nursery – snatched from under Winn’s nose – a knitted blanket which, though not required for warmth, offered the child softness and security. She had wrapped him in it before she had lifted him from his cot and, steering Harry before her, had taken both children down from the nursery to her small bedroom two floors below.

Miss Runciman was not disturbed by freak weather but she was concerned by its effect on the children, particularly on Harry who was old enough to be aware that something unusual had happened downstairs. With disarming lack of guile he had asked where his mother was and why Winn was crying and why Grandma McCulloch shouted so loudly at Blossom after Great-aunt Lilias had gone away, questions that Eleanor had done her best to answer in a manner that would not alarm him.

She had brought a jug of hot chocolate up from the kitchen and a small bowl filled with cream, and to entertain Harry and soothe Philip, she fed each of them turn and turn about with spoonfuls while the thunder crept closer and the arguments downstairs grew louder and more intrusive. At some point Forbes must have returned home; Eleanor could make out his voice, not sinuous now, but sharp and violent. Soon thunder drowned out the voices and Philip snuggled, whimpering, against her while Harry, fascinated by the force of the rainstorm, stood on tiptoe at the little window and peered down into the lane where Donald Franklin’s motor-car, hood down and panelled windows wide open, appeared to be filling up with water, like a bathtub.

‘Oh!’ Harry said. ‘Oh-oooh!’

Eleanor said, ‘Someone’s been very careless, Harry, haven’t they?’

‘Papa,’ Harry said, with a little sigh. ‘It was Papa.’

Cradling Philip in her arms, Eleanor made a few more tours of the bedroom before she laid him on her bed to sleep. She sat by him, stroking his silky hair while lightning petered out and the thunder prowled off into the distance. There were no sounds from below, the voices had ceased. She heard a door slam and another open. She heard feet upon the stairs and another door, on the floor above this time, open and close.

Elbows propped on the windowsill, Harry was oblivious to everything except the silver rods of rain that shot out of the sky, the torrents of white water discharged by overloaded eaves and the rivers of mud that covered the cobbles of the lane. Eleanor watched him fondly from the corner of her eye; Lindsay’s child, Arthur’s grandson, as bright and lively and curious as any Franklin.

Then Harry turned to her and said, ‘It’s Uncle Gowry. Uncle Gowry’s come home early too.’

Going to the window, Eleanor saw that the little boy had told her the truth and together they watched Gowry brake the Vauxhall, climb down from the driver’s seat and unlock the padlock on the garage doors. He was drenched, drenched to the very skin, but he did not seem to care.

He hauled open the doors, then, glancing round, stopped what he was doing as Forbes emerged from the gate at the rear of the house and crossed the lane towards him.

‘Papa,’ Harry said, almost beneath his breath.

‘Yes, dear – Papa,’ said Eleanor Runciman and, frowning, watched the brothers’ curious meeting in the rain.

*   *   *

‘Look at you,’ Forbes said. ‘A drowned rat’s got nothing on you, boy. Where have you been with my motoring car then? Sylvie’s?’

‘Aye, Sylvie’s.’

‘Don’t go telling me she’s dropped the kiddie?’

‘No, she hasn’t dropped the kiddie,’ Gowry said. ‘Do you like standing here in your shirt sleeves getting soaked or will you be going inside?’

‘I wouldn’t be going inside, not if I were you,’ Forbes said. ‘Mam’s on the rampage and I’m sick of the sound of her whining. Tell you what, why don’t we step into the garage here and have a wee bit of a chat?’

‘Why don’t we do just that,’ said Gowry.

They moved through the doorway into the gloom. The brick-built mews still reeked of horses, though it had been twenty years at least since a horse had been stabled there. Rain hissed on the sloping slate roof and Gowry shivered a little and pulled the leather overcoat more tightly around him.

Forbes said, ‘So, you went to see Sylvie, did you?’

‘I did,’ Gowry said.

‘And?’

‘There is no “and”, Forbes. We went for a drive, that’s all.’

‘A drive in the country?’

‘Yes.’

Forbes’s face was white in the trick of the half light, almost skull-like, Gowry thought. He was clad only in a waistcoat and collarless shirt and the smart serge trousers that he wore to the office. He did not seem to feel the chill that had come into the air now that the rain had begun to take effect. Gowry folded his arms tightly across his chest. He wanted only to be somewhere warm, somewhere dry, out of all this.

‘Did you take her to the loch?’ Forbes said.

‘Yes.’

‘Did she go willingly?’

Gowry shrugged. ‘A day in the country; yes.’

‘Did she tell you that she’d seen my wife yesterday? I mean,’ Forbes said edgily, ‘that she’d called on my sister-in-law, on Cissie Calder, that it was two birds with the one stone. Lindsay was there too, taking’ – he paused – ‘taking tea. And then there was Sylvie with her belly sticking out and a story to tell them.’ Again, he paused. ‘She’s ruined it for me, the bitch. Ruined everything. Lindsay’s left me and she’s even talking about divorce.’

There was a whining note in his brother’s voice that Gowry had never detected before. He wondered if what Forbes had said about Mam were true, if any of this was exactly true; if, perhaps, it was not the Irish version, Forbes’s version. He kept his mouth shut, though, said nothing about his affair with Sylvie. It was something that Forbes did not need to know and, with luck, would never know; how he, Gowry, had colluded in the end game, how he had rounded it off by a simple act of betrayal.

All he wanted now was to be finished with it, to climb out of the servant’s uniform once and for all and to be slave to no man, least of all his brother.

He knew the question Forbes wanted to ask, though, how all the rest of it, the cat-footed, soft-footed, self-justifying approach was only fear of what the answer would be and the consequence of it.

He lacked Forbes’s ruthlessness, his viciousness.

He had discovered that much about himself that very forenoon.

‘You see where I am?’ Forbes said.

‘You’ll get her back,’ Gowry said. ‘Lindsay I mean – which is more than can be said for Sylvie.’

‘Is she – did you…’

‘She did it herself,’ Gowry said.

‘What? She…’

‘She walked into the loch,’ Gowry said. ‘I didn’t have to push her. I just had to tell her that was what you wanted her to do, that was your wish, your will for her, and she walked out into the water of her own accord.’

‘And – what did you do?’

‘I watched,’ Gowry said.

‘God! She always was a stupid little cow but I didn’t think…’

‘And then I told her what I wanted her to do,’ Gowry said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I told her to come back. I told her I wanted her to come back.’ He shook his head, ruefully. ‘I left it too late, though, almost too late. She’d have gone through with it if I’d just left her alone. That’s what got to me. I never thought she would actually go through with it.’

‘You mean Sylvie’s dead?’

‘Of course Sylvie isn’t dead,’ said Gowry. ‘Do you think I’d be standing here now if I’d let her go through with it? All I had to do to put a stop to it was tell her that I really wanted her to come back.’

‘She isn’t dead then?’

‘Then I had to prove it,’ Gowry said. ‘I had to go out for her. I had to go out into the deep water and bring her back in. Christ, Forbes, she would have done it, if I hadn’t stopped her.’

‘Done it for me.’

‘Done it because nobody ever, ever told her to come back to them.’

‘So,’ Forbes said, ‘you’ve turned on me too, have you?’

‘Turned on you?’ Gowry said.

‘How am I going to get Lindsay back now when Sylvie’s still…’

‘That’s your pigeon, Forbes, not mine,’ Gowry said. ‘I’m going home.’

‘Home?’

‘To Ireland, to bloody Ireland, to Dublin or maybe to Belfast,’ Gowry said, ‘and I’m taking Sylvie with me.’

‘She won’t go, she won’t leave me.’

‘She will, Forbes. She left you this forenoon.’

‘Ireland!’ Forbes said. ‘What the hell will you do in Ireland?’

‘Work,’ Forbes said. ‘Work in a brewery, in a motor garage, something, anything to keep body and soul together. My body, my soul – and my wife’s.’

‘You’ll marry her?’ Forbes said. ‘You’ll marry her with my baby inside her? God, you must be desperate to have her. Listen, why don’t we—’

‘Talk about it?’ Gowry said. ‘I’ve talked enough, Forbes. I’ve listened to you long enough. I’m sick, sick of your talk. Know what, you almost talked me into murder and I would have had to live with that for the rest of my life. I’d rather live with Sylvie, thank you very much.’

He moved suddenly, pushing Forbes aside.

He hauled open the garage door and stepped out into the lane.

The rain had eased, though only a little, and water ran in torrents still from rhones and eaves and rooftops, and the lane behind the house was like a river, carrying away the summer dust.

‘Gowry,’ Forbes shouted. ‘Goddamn you, Gowry, you can’t go like this. Listen to me, listen to me.’

Already halfway down the lane, Gowry raised a fist.

‘Don’t worry, Forbes, I’ll post you back the uniform,’ he shouted, then, digging his hands into his pockets, trudged on around the corner and out of his brother’s sight.

*   *   *

‘Hold on, Kay,’ Arthur said. ‘It isn’t a sinking ship, you know. You don’t all have to leave just because of Forbes.’

‘Because of Forbes?’ his sister said. ‘Because of you, more like.’

‘Me?’ Arthur said. ‘What have I done?’

‘You never made us welcome.’

‘That,’ said Eleanor Runciman, ‘is very unfair.’

‘I was always led to believe that blood was thicker than water, Arthur,’ Kay said, ‘but not in this household, it seems.’

‘If you’re implying that Eleanor…’

‘Gentlemen do not address a housekeeper by her Christian name.’

‘I do,’ Arthur said. ‘In this house, I do.’

‘Well, it isn’t right,’ Kay said. ‘And this isn’t the sort of lax atmosphere in which I want my girls to grow up – so we’re leaving, all three of us.’

‘When?’ Eleanor said. ‘If, that is, I may be permitted to enquire.’

‘It’s none of your concern,’ Kay said.

‘I will have to engage new staff as soon as possible.’

‘That’s up to Forbes,’ Kay said. ‘My girls work for him, not you.’

‘I suppose that’s true,’ Arthur said. ‘He isn’t leaving with you, I take it?’

‘Forbes leave? This is his home,’ Kay said. ‘It may no longer be his wife’s home but it is his home and it will remain so unless you take it into your head to throw him out, too.’

‘Kay, I am not asking you to leave,’ Arthur said, with a sigh. ‘In fact, I thought you might prefer to stay on and offer your support.’

‘Support, support to whom?’

‘Your son,’ said Eleanor.

‘This woman,’ Kay said peevishly, ‘should not be here while we discuss our private business.’

‘Stay where you are, Eleanor,’ Arthur said. ‘I may be in need of your advice in a moment or two.’

‘Advice about what?’ said Kay.

‘How to proceed,’ said Arthur.

‘Proceed?’

‘It seems clear,’ Arthur said, ‘that you are leaving because you do not wish to be involved in any sort of scandal.’

‘Scandal? I’m not afraid of scandal,’ Kay said.

‘Then why,’ Arthur said, ‘are you leaving?’

‘Because Forbes told them to go,’ Eleanor put in.

‘That, miss, is a downright lie,’ Kay snapped.

‘First Gowry and now you,’ Eleanor said. ‘I saw him dismiss Gowry this afternoon. He has, I believe, already gone. I may only be a humble housekeeper, Mrs McCulloch, but I have been with the Franklins long enough to take everything that happens in this family very seriously. I heard your argument. No, I was not eavesdropping; the voices were all over the house. I could not help but hear them. Forbes wants Lindsay back, does he not?’

‘That has nothing to do with it, nothing at all,’ said Kay.

Arthur was seated on the piano stool, elbow resting on the lid, not at all put out by the prospect of his sister’s departure or by Eleanor’s interventions.

He said, ‘Nothing to do with it! Of course it has.’ He drummed his fingers on the polished wood. ‘As for there being no scandal, Kay, of course there’s a scandal. It’s a scandal that Forbes fathered a child on another woman, not just any woman, but the daughter of a colleague.’

‘Forbes married too young,’ Kay said. ‘He never had time to sow his wild oats. You pushed him too hard, Donald and you. You forced him into marriage.’

‘What utter nonsense!’ Arthur exclaimed.

‘You even denied him a place of his own. That’s all that Forbes ever wanted, a place of his own. But you wouldn’t let your precious daughter go. No, you had to have her by you to make up for what happened to Margaret.’

Arthur sucked his under lip. If he was hurt by his sister’s remark he gave no sign of it. ‘I’m sorry if that’s what you think, Kay,’ he said, ‘but I’m no longer prepared to spend my life listening out for the piper’s tune.’

‘The what? What are you talking about?’

‘Those days are past. I’m tired of yearning for what I never had or what might have been. I’ve survived thus far and I will survive a few more years yet, God willing, and I will give my support to Lindsay whatever she chooses to do.’

‘Even if she chooses to share a bed with some sailor?’

‘If Lindsay decides to remain with Forbes, or if she decides to divorce him,’ Arthur went on evenly, ‘I will support her.’

‘And her lover, her officer?’ Kay persisted.

‘If she loves Geoffrey Paget I will not stand in the way of a divorce,’ Arthur said. ‘However, you have turned the issue on its head. You were always good at that, Kay, much cleverer at that than any of us boys ever gave you credit for. It’s not my daughter who is to blame for this current mess, it’s your son. You will not face that fact, will you? You cannot bring yourself to admit that Forbes has let you down.’

‘He was – Forbes was…’

‘Wrong,’ Arthur said. ‘He was wrong, Kay, admit it.’

‘She never loved him,’ Kay said.

‘If you mean Lindsay,’ Arthur said, ‘that remains to be seen.’

‘If she comes back to him?’ Kay said.

‘Or if she does not,’ said Arthur. ‘Meanwhile, I have no wish to be blamed for anything that’s happened here. If you feel it’s best to leave and allow Forbes to sort out his own troubles then that is your decision, not mine.’

‘Wishy-washy, Arthur. You always were wishy-washy.’

He got to his feet and gave the lid of the piano a firm little rap with his knuckles, a sign of temper that only Eleanor recognised.

‘When are you leaving us, Kay?’ he asked.

‘Tomorrow morning, first thing.’

‘Well, thank God for that,’ said Arthur.

*   *   *

Tom had given Albert Hartnell two five pound notes with the promise of another when he, Albert, let him know that Sylvie had returned to the Mansions. He had been tempted to wait in the apartment until his daughter appeared but he had no idea how long that might be. Besides, he found the place so depressing and Albert so lachrymose that he had left after a half-hour to catch a tram-car back into Glasgow and a train from there to Partick West.

As he trekked towards Aydon Road under looming black clouds, he found himself thinking of Lindsay, the changes that Forbes had wrought in her and how those changes had been reversed by her friendship with Geoffrey Paget. He would hardly blame her if she did run off with the naval officer, though he did not think she would. Yesterday, just yesterday, he had been on and under the Gareloch inside the Snark and his fears had been for his safety; how trivial and remote those fears seemed now. It wasn’t sudden death or headline disasters that took you down but the unexpected intrusions of the past, those little claws of shame and contrition that tore at your stability.

Thunder boomed over Anniesland and sent echoes chasing like gigantic billiard balls down Crow Road. Lightning flickered above the tenements and the first great pattering drops of rain spotted the pavements. Pedestrians quickened their steps and carters whipped their horses into a trot as the rain came slicing down. Tom turned up his collar and loped towards the shelter of Franklin’s office block and the consolations of the drawing-board. For the time being, he did not know what else to do but return to work and await word from Albert or from Sylvie, a message, he knew, that might never arrive.

At half past six o’clock Tom packed up and went home. The streets still ran with rainwater but the sky had cleared and little blinks of sunshine and faint patches of blue were visible across the river. He had heard no more about the morning’s unfortunate incident, for Forbes, apparently, had left the yard and had not been seen since; nor had there been a message from St Mungo’s Mansions. The first thing Tom saw when he let himself in to the hallway of the Sandyford apartment, however, was luggage: two large suitcases, a carpet-cloth valise and a big hat-box tied with twine. His first thought was that Cissie, like Lindsay, had decided to leave home, that he had somehow driven her away.

He flung open the drawing-room door.

‘Hello, Papa,’ Sylvie said. ‘I’m so glad you weren’t late. We could not have waited for you if you had been late.’

He could think of nothing, nothing at all to say. It had been so long since he had seen her that he had almost forgotten what she looked like. He had cherished a vague idealised image of her in his mind, like a tiny tinted miniature locked behind scratched glass. Now she was here, perched on his armchair, with Gowry McCulloch standing awkwardly behind her and Cissie seated across the carpet. He felt tears thicken in his throat at the sight of his lost daughter, that chance child, the changeling whom he had traded away.

He glanced at Cissie and said, ‘Where’s Ewan?’

‘The maid’s taken him out for just a little while,’ Cissie said.

Sylvie said, ‘I didn’t know until yesterday that I had a brother.’

‘Half-brother,’ Gowry McCulloch corrected her gently.

‘A half-brother then. I am going to have a sister for him, or will she be – what will she be, Gowry?’

‘I’ll have to work that one out,’ Gowry said. He glanced at Tom. ‘I thought you might want – I’ve brought her to say goodbye.’

‘We’re going to Ireland on the night boat, Papa,’ Sylvie said. ‘Gowry, baby and me. We are sailing off to Ireland in search of better weather. She will be a little Irish colleen and Gowry will teach her to dance when she is old enough or, if she has a voice, she will learn to sing Irish songs.’

Her hair was coarser, not so golden, and quite bedraggled under her flowered bonnet. In spite of her prattle, she was a child no more. The shape of the child within her was so vast that it seemed to consume even his memory of Sylvie. He was tempted to throw himself on his knees, take her into his arms and beg her forgiveness for all the harm that he had done to her. But the man behind the chair – not Forbes but Gowry – seemed so stern and protective that Tom could not bring himself to approach her too closely. Instead, he aligned himself with Cissie, positioning himself by her chair; plump, freckled, plain, loving Cissie who was his protection against the past and his promise for the future.

‘Is your brother behind this abrupt departure?’ he asked Gowry. ‘Are you doing it for his sake?’

‘No, I’m doing it for her sake,’ Gowry McCulloch said.

‘I came back, you see.’ Sylvie twisted round and glanced up, smiling, at the man behind her. ‘Gowry fetched me back. Gowry says he will marry me, and I will be his for ever.’

‘I hope,’ Tom said, cautiously, ‘that’s how it will be.’

‘That’s how it will be,’ Gowry said.

‘I suppose you’ll need money?’ Tom said.

‘I have money,’ Gowry said.

‘Did Forbes…’

‘No, my money, my own money,’ Gowry said. ‘There is one thing you can do for us, though.’

‘Albert needs looking after,’ Sylvie said. ‘Dada needs looking after until we are settled and he can catch the boat and come to Ireland and stay with us. Will you buy him a boat ticket when the time comes?’

‘Of course I will,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll make sure that Albert doesn’t starve.’

‘Or drink himself to death,’ said Gowry.

‘Dada is very upset to see me go, but baby won’t wait and Gowry says we had better go at once.’

‘We’re leaving nothing behind,’ Gowry said. ‘I mean nothing.’

‘Why are you doing this, Gowry?’ Tom heard himself ask.

‘Because he loves her, of course,’ Cissie said. ‘Is that not so?’

‘Yes,’ Sylvie answered for him. ‘Gowry loves me.’

‘It’s high time someone did,’ said Gowry.

*   *   *

It was, after all, a half-life or no real life at all and by the weekend Lindsay was sure that it would not end in tears, not her tears at any rate.

She still loved Geoffrey and in more propitious circumstances would have been happy to be his wife. But the truth was that she loved him lightly, admiringly, and, because she was a Franklin, she could not bring herself to swoop into an affair without a thought for the consequences.

She had, she knew, used Geoffrey, exploiting his reticence and natural decency, secure in the knowledge that he would never threaten her as Forbes threatened her and that, no matter how sometimes she might wish it so, he would never demand from her a dark, tempestuous, tormented passion. That, perhaps, was their true and mutual bond, source of their trust, the mainspring of a love that would tick away as quick and constant as a little watch, and that Lindsay would feel within her, against her heart, wherever he or she might be.

The trials were over and he must leave soon.

The Snark would cruise down the west coast to Barrow-in-Furness for Vickers-Martin to test her guns, then on to Devonport for a thorough testing of her torpedoes against mock targets. Then probably across to Gibraltar for crew training before she joined the fleet somewhere. Geoffrey would not sail with her: no doubt the First Sea Lord had other plans for him. The D-class prototype would not be rejected, however, Geoffrey was certain of that. Delivery payments would be forthcoming by the month’s end and unless he missed his guess (and here he lied, even to Lindsay he lied) more contracts for undersea vessels would come Franklin’s way in the future.

He would leave on Monday morning on the early train.

Lindsay had seen little enough of Geoffrey during her ‘holiday’ in the Central Hotel, for she had been planning too, planning how to return home again. There had been messages from Eleanor, a telephone call from her father, cheerful news from Brunswick Crescent, trips up and down to Harper’s Hill to consult her aunt and uncle, to be hugged sympathetically by Martin and patronised by Pansy, and to pick up every scrap of news from every possible source. She had even made time to meet her children in Kelvingrove late on Saturday forenoon, after the McCullochs had fled.

The air had been fresh after the thunderstorm, a breeze shook the wet leaves on the trees along the river, and Miss Runciman, as they strolled the walks behind the perambulator, had told her with palpable glee that Forbes had been devastated by his mother’s threatened departure although he had instigated it and knew it was the only way to get Lindsay back. Soon after Forbes had left for work, therefore, Kay, Blossom and Winn had swept off, bag and baggage, and to all intents and purposes, literally as well as figuratively, Forbes would return to an empty house with no one to boss or bully or provide a target for his wrath.

After lunch at the Hill, Lindsay left Miss Runciman and the children with Aunt Lilias and went to call on Cissie and Tom at Sandyford. There she learned that Sylvie and Gowry had also left for Ireland and that Forbes, apparently searching not for his wife or his mistress but for his brother, had dropped in at Sandyford on his way to the yard. He had been so agitated and contrite that, astonishingly, he had wept into Cissie’s shoulder over porridge and toast and had told her, with something approaching sincerity, that he had always considered her to be the best of his cousins and the only one he could trust.

Tom had been disgusted, or just this side of it, by the outburst and had refused to share a ride to work in the big, damp Lanchester that Forbes claimed to have borrowed to make his desperate rounds.

‘You will go back to him, won’t you?’ Cissie said. ‘I mean, dearest, you must go back to him, for in spite of all he has done, he is your husband and he cannot live without you.’

‘Oh, I doubt that,’ Lindsay said. ‘I think Forbes would manage very well without me.’

‘But what would he do? I mean, you’re so – so close.’

It was not what Forbes would do without her that troubled Lindsay but what he would do with her. She feared that he would somehow re-knit the marriage to suit him, that his anxiety would quickly be forgotten and another girl, another woman, brought in to replace Sylvie. He would justify it by telling himself that he was too much of a man to be content with one woman and that he needed complexity, variety and spice. He would surely be more cautious next time too and appear to accommodate himself to marriage until his lies had taken root and he could safely renege on all his promises once more. In a word, Lindsay thought, how could she ever trust him again?

‘Close?’ she replied to wide-eyed Cissie. ‘Yes, I suppose we are.’

‘There’s a special meeting of the partners on Monday morning,’ Tom said. ‘We’re examining ways of acquiring more capital with a view to increasing our capacity. If your friend Paget’s to be believed we might be in for a period of expansion, and we’ll need to be ready for it.’

‘Will – will anything be said about…’

‘I hope not,’ Tom said, ‘but I think it rather depends on you.’

‘On me?’ said Lindsay, surprised.

‘On whether you’ll be there in person, or whether you will not.’

She was tempted to give him an answer. Tom Calder was after all her friend too, a chap she should perhaps have married. Different worlds, different times, different projections: there was no crystal ball, no writing in the stars to tell you what to do for the best. You had only your heart to listen to and, perhaps, your head. Tom, she realised, had tactfully reminded her that Franklin’s was her destiny, Harry and Philip her future; a future that sometimes seemed to stretch into a dazzling infinity of possibilities and at other times to be as preordained as the passing of the seasons and the rising of the tides.

She would not go off with Geoffrey, of course, would not run away from her responsibilities. But she would not tell Tom that, or Forbes. She would keep her decision a secret for just a little while longer.

‘Do you not think,’ Lindsay said, ‘that it rather depends on Forbes?’

‘On Forbes?’ said Cissie.

‘On whether he accepts my offer,’ Lindsay said, ‘or whether he does not.’

‘What offer?’ Cissie said.

*   *   *

‘Four sixty-fourths, Forbes,’ Lindsay said. ‘A transfer of four sixty-fourths from your share of the partnership into my name.’

‘That can’t be done,’ Forbes said.

‘Indeed it can. All it requires is the agreement of a majority of the partners and that, given the circumstances, will certainly be forthcoming,’ Lindsay said. ‘According to Mr Harrington there’s no legal impediment to the transfer of shares between existing partners. He will draft the document and the board will nod it through.’

‘You have been busy, haven’t you?’ Forbes said. ‘Who put this idea into you head? Paget, was it? Is this what passes for pillow talk between you?’

He was sprawled on the sofa in the ground-floor drawing-room, legs crossed and hands behind his head. He did not appear to be at all distraught. Cissie, no doubt, would have been disappointed to find him so recovered but it came as no surprise to Lindsay. In fact, she would have been disappointed if he had been anything other than his sly, old arrogant self, for she had learned how to deal with that aspect of his character and had no wish to alter it. For this reason she had warned him of her arrival and had made sure that Eleanor, Arthur and the children would all remain at Harper’s Hill.

Although Forbes had dressed with care, he could not quite manage to hide the bruised shadows under his eyes, or the wariness in them, and beneath the wariness she sensed an unusual fragility. He was, she realised, unsure of her, vastly and manifestly unsure.

‘It was Paget, wasn’t it?’ Forbes said. ‘He put you up to this, didn’t he?’

‘No,’ Lindsay said, and left it at that.

Forbes smiled, and dandled his foot in mid-air. ‘Where is your sailor boy right now? Is he waiting outside in a motor-cab to cart you back to his bed?’

‘No,’ said Lindsay again.

‘You’re staying in a hotel, aren’t you?’

‘I am.’

‘How long are you going to remain there?’ Forbes asked. ‘I mean, sweetheart, haven’t you got everything you want by now? I mean, you’ve got rid of my mother, my sisters, probably even my brother. You’ve got me all to yourself at last. Isn’t that enough for you?’

‘How much did you have to pay Gowry to take her away?’

Silence for a moment: ‘I didn’t know he had taken her away.’

‘Well, he has,’ Lindsay said. ‘He’s taken her to Ireland, I believe, where the baby will be born.’

‘Really? So that’s where old Gowry-Wowry’s disappeared to, is it?’ Forbes said. ‘Who told you?’

‘Tom. They called on Tom and Cissie before they left.’

‘Scrounging the price of the fares, I expect.’ He shook his head. ‘I might have guessed it. Bloody Gowry just wanted Sylvie for himself. God knows why!’

‘For the same reasons as you wanted her, probably,’ Lindsay said.

‘For your information I gave her up ages ago,’ Forbes said. ‘Haven’t clapped eyes on her in months. So Gowry meant what he said, did he?’

‘Good for Gowry,’ Lindsay said.

Forbes brought his arms from behind his head. ‘I didn’t pay him to run off with her, you know. I didn’t know he’d skedaddled until this very minute. I’ve been looking for the bugger for half the day.’ He cocked his head. ‘Did you have anything to do with this, Linnet? Did you shell out, too?’

‘No.’

‘All right,’ Forbes said. ‘That’s my brother gone. You’ve cleared my family out good and proper, Lindsay. Isn’t that enough for you? Do you have to ruin me financially as well?’

‘That isn’t my intention, Forbes.’

‘What is your intention then?’ Forbes said. ‘To have more to spend pampering your sailor boy?’

Lindsay did not deny his allegation. She wanted him to believe his own insinuations, to convince himself that she was no better than he was, that one black did make a white. She felt disloyal to Geoffrey and yet – the little ticking mainspring within her was working well – she felt so close to him that she was almost sorry for Forbes who had nothing left to cling to now except the hope that she would allow him back into her life.

Forbes would never understand how she cared for Geoffrey or what there was between them. How could Forbes possibly know that without the knowledge that Geoffrey believed in her, even loved her, she would not have presumed to push him so far? She had not taken up with Geoffrey just to punish Forbes for his callous infidelity, however, for that long, ragged betrayal meant less to her than anyone, even Forbes, might imagine. What she did now she did out of pride, Franklin pride, to correct the mistakes that Pappy had made and to set her own course for the future for herself and her sons and, perhaps, for their sons too.

‘Those are my terms, Forbes,’ she said. ‘Take them or leave them.’

‘Terms. You’re my wife, Lindsay. You don’t make terms. No matter what you think I’ve done, you don’t make the terms of our marriage.’

‘In that case,’ Lindsay said, rising, ‘we will leave it to the lawyers.’

‘What? Old Harrington?’

‘To the court.’

‘I see,’ Forbes said tightly. ‘It’s a nice little threat, Linnet, a nice little bit of blackmail, but it isn’t going to wash, not with me.’

‘That’s what Geoffrey said you’d say.’

‘Did he now?’

‘That’s what he hoped you say.’

‘Did he?’

‘He predicted that you would take profit over marriage.’

‘You’re lying to me, Lindsay. He said nothing of the kind.’

‘Oh, but he did,’ said Lindsay. ‘Do try to understand, Forbes, that I don’t particularly wish to come back and live with you. I’d prefer a new life with Geoffrey Paget – and make no mistake, I have that choice – but I do have the children to consider and for that reason I’m prepared—’

‘You’ll never get the children.’

‘I already have the children.’

‘What? Jesus!’ He looked up at the ceiling, wariness finally tinged with panic. She glimpsed in him now something of what Cissie had seen; not tears, not contrition but the bizarre vulnerability of a man trapped by his own hubris. ‘Where are they? What have you done with the boys?’

‘They’re perfectly safe,’ Lindsay said. ‘They will always be perfectly safe with me, Forbes. Besides, what do you want with them? Are there not plenty more to come, here or in Ireland?’

‘Bitch!’ he said, without much rancour.

‘I want the transfer of four points from the sixty-fourth part of your stake in Franklin’s,’ Lindsay said calmly. ‘I do not want to ruin you or deprive you of income. You will continue to share in annual profits and take a salary, and you will still be a partner, of course, very much a partner.’

‘But you’ll have the lion’s share?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you really believe that all I care about is money?’

‘No, I think you care more about power.’

‘I didn’t marry you for your money, Linnet.’

‘Why did you marry me, Forbes?’

‘Because I thought you’d make a good wife.’

‘How disappointed you must be,’ Lindsay said. ‘I suppose that a good wife would be satisfied with an apology, some show or sign of remorse from her husband, an assurance that he really loved her and that no one else mattered.’

‘I do love you, Linnet, you know that.’

‘Do I?’ Lindsay said. ‘No, Forbes, I don’t think I do.’

‘What are you going to do with the kiddies?’

‘Nothing. Eleanor and my father will bring them home shortly and put them to bed,’ Lindsay said. ‘By your definition I may not be a good wife, Forbes, but I’m not wicked enough to use the children against you. All I want is a larger share of the partnership just in case you decide that the next girl you take up with is worth the sacrifice of your home and family.’

‘God, that’s calculating.’

Lindsay felt her resolve beginning to crack. She strove to bear in mind that she had Geoffrey behind her and a legion of new possibilities, that she did not need Forbes now or require him to bend to her will. It could not be a contest, a struggle between equals. She had never quite grasped the fact before that what had made Pappy, Donald, her father and her cousins too, so different, was that they were males, born with the knowledge of how to compete without compromise. She, like most decent women, lacked that knowledge, that instinct.

‘I have to be calculating, Forbes,’ she said, ‘otherwise you may take me for a soft mark again.’

‘You were never a soft mark, Linnet,’ Forbes said.

‘And Sylvie Calder, what was she?’

‘How the hell can I answer that one?’ Forbes said. ‘If I tell you she was just a bit of fun you’ll think even less of me than you do now. And if I tell you I really cared for her…’

‘Did you?’

‘At first, yes. I did. I cared for her quite a lot.’ He made as if to rise, to reach for her, but Lindsay stepped quickly away. ‘I didn’t care for her the way I cared for you. No, that’s not just sweet talk, Linnet, that’s the truth.’

‘You just got tired of her and wanted a change, is that it?’

‘She wanted me to marry her.’

‘Ah, I see. That was never part of the bargain, was it?’

‘I had no bargain with Sylvie,’ Forbes said. ‘I had an understanding, I suppose, an arrangement that I thought she understood perfectly well. But no, no, no, she had to have me all to herself.’

‘What was your understanding with me, Forbes? Do you remember?’

‘Oh, God! Not the love, honour and obey song-and-dance, Linnet. You’re not going to warble that old tune, are you? You knew what you were getting into when you married me.’

‘No, Forbes, I did not,’ Lindsay said. ‘But you thought you did.’

‘Is Paget really waiting outside for you?’

‘No.’

‘Stay then. See the children. We’ll all have supper together.’

‘Geoffrey’s waiting for me at my hotel.’

‘My God! First you tell me you want terms, you demand bloody terms for what I did, then you waltz out of here and into bed with your sailor boy.’

‘I’m beginning to think you don’t want me back. Is the price too high, Forbes, is that it?’ Lindsay made towards the door. ‘I must go. I’ve no wish to keep Geoffrey waiting.’

Forbes got to his feet. ‘He’s leaving for London on Monday, or did he neglect to mention that interesting little fact?’

‘I know perfectly well he’s leaving on Monday,’ Lindsay said.

‘What will you do then, sweetheart?’ Forbes said.

‘Go with him, perhaps,’ said Lindsay.

‘Never! You’ll never leave the boys, or the firm, or your father.’ He straightened and fashioned the swaggering little gesture that she both loved and hated. ‘Or me,’ he said. ‘Or me.’

‘Well, Forbes,’ Lindsay said, ‘I hope you’re willing to take the chance.’

And then she left.

*   *   *

Sunday would be their last day together. She did not know when she would see him again or if she would ever see him again but, oddly, she took on trust Geoffrey’s assurances that they would meet as often as his duties allowed and that, with luck, he would be back in Scotland before the year was out.

In the morning, after breakfast, they attended church together, sat together, sang together in the strange echoing surroundings of the old Tron Kirk, unrecognised in the packed congregation. After lunch, they went walking, not in Kelvingrove but on Glasgow Green where Lindsay had never been before. She tried to imagine how difficult it must be for Sylvie Calder, a stranger in a new country, but she could not hold her concern for the girl in mind for long. Although she was content to be with Geoffrey, there was in her an odd impatience, as if she had merely stolen time out from the front line and that reality lay not here but elsewhere.

Geoffrey was very understanding. He did not press her, did not attempt to push his way into her other life.

She had told him of her meeting with Forbes, of the ‘terms’ she had offered her husband and his reluctance to accept them. She did not have to explain to Geoffrey why she needed terms at all, for he had always understood that what she felt for him was infinitely more complicated than what he felt for her and that her marriage was not over until her husband chose to end it. There were, he knew, no measured miles, no marker buoys, no gauges to record what proportion of their relationship was love and what necessity, or just where selfishness planed into friendship. He had, however, become part of her life, an important part, and that, for the time being, was enough for both of them.

*   *   *

It came as no great surprise when Forbes capitulated.

Perhaps there should have been a meeting, a confrontation between the two men in Lindsay’s life, but there was not.

When she returned to the hotel to dress for dinner she found a printed message on a silver tray on the dressing-table in her room, a simple, two-word message relayed through her father.

It said: ‘Forbes accepts.’

And that was when the pain began.

Rationally she had always known that she could not have all that she wanted, a past with Forbes and a future with Geoffrey. Choice not compromise was the reality that she had tried to avoid. She had leaned on Forbes finally, as she had leaned on Geoffrey, and now she must pay for it.

She lay on the bed in her hotel room and wept quietly for a quarter of an hour, weakened by the tensions of the past few days and by the knowledge that she would have to begin rebuilding her life to the pattern that had been handed her. And she wanted Geoffrey, wanted Geoffrey desperately, to justify her love by having him hold her naked in his arms. With an intensity that shook her to the core of her being, she wanted the future that Geoffrey offered, its mystery, its novelty. She wanted Geoffrey to be her love, her lover and her saviour. And yet she also wanted Forbes, her children, the ruined marriage that must be rebuilt, the opportunity that her grandfather had offered her to fulfil a role in the closed little world of the Franklin family.

Now the decision had been made.

She supposed that she might still back out, throw everything to the winds, but even as the thought crossed her mind she discarded it.

Tomorrow morning, early, Geoffrey and she must say goodbye.

There was, however, always tonight.

*   *   *

When the old-fashioned horse-drawn hansom rolled up to the kerb, Sergeant Corbett immediately leaped out of the office doorway with more alacrity than seemed right in a man of his years.

He had obviously been watching out for her and was quick to take the portmanteau from the hold and offer her a hand down the step.

‘Am I expected, Sergeant?’ Lindsay asked.

‘Aye, Mr Forbes told me to look out for you.’

‘And I’m late,’ said Lindsay.

‘Been away, Mrs McCulloch, have you?’ Sergeant Corbett asked as he lugged the portmanteau towards the door. ‘Bit of a holiday, was it?’

‘Bit of a holiday, yes,’ Lindsay answered. ‘A day or two, that’s all. I came directly from the railway station.’

‘Like me to keep the case in my cubby while you’re upstairs?’

‘If you would, Sergeant, thank you.’

Even the commissionaire seemed unsure. She wondered what tales had been circulating around the yard, what sort of gossip George Crush had managed to generate. It hardly mattered. In a week or two it would all blow over and some other sensation, small or large, would take its place.

She stood in the foyer looking up at the staircase.

She had a thin little ache within her, not entirely unpleasant, and an empty feeling in the region of her heart that would not be filled until the first letter arrived from the south.

She had told the sergeant the truth, or part of it; she had come from the railway station. She had seen Geoffrey off on the London train at half past eight o’clock. He had been at his smartest, in uniform, cap squared, his baggage, worn and rather salt-stained, on the porter’s barrow at his side. He did not, Lindsay noted, travel as lightly as she had imagined he would.

They had kissed in the corridor of the hotel.

They’d kissed again, almost without touching, on the railway platform. He had boarded the train at the last possible moment, just as great white plumes of steam had rolled back from the locomotive and the guard’s whistle had shrilled. Lindsay shed no tears: she had nothing left to weep for. Geoffrey hadn’t moved inside but leaned casually in the compartment window, glancing this way and that – then at her. Then at her. Smiling at her. Trim and reassuring, and satisfied.

‘Write to me, darling,’ Geoffrey said.

‘I will,’ she’d told him, as couplings clanked and the carriages began to draw tightly away. ‘I will.’

She hadn’t walked after the train. She’d stayed where she was, motionless, until the curve of the track carried him out of sight. She’d felt very alone, however, when she returned to the hotel to settle her bill and collect the portmanteau; very alone in the hansom too, clipping through the Glasgow streets in soft August sunlight, alone yet not alone, sad yet not sad, somehow oddly eager to arrive at where she belonged.

She hesitated. She knew what awaited her upstairs, the curious faces of men who were her partners, not just in shipbuilding but in life, her father and uncle, cousin Martin, Tom Calder too, and Forbes, her husband.

She went quickly upstairs and along the corridor, opened the door of the boardroom and stepped inside. It looked almost as it had done that day eight years ago when she had nervously attended her first management meeting, the panorama of the Clyde, lean and brown and sinewy, spread in the window, berths and sheds and jib cranes scattered untidily on the shores. She could smell tobacco and mingled with it the distinctive odour of the river and its industries that still brought a lift of pride to her heart.

Donald was seated at the head of the table, Mr Harrington by his side. Her father and Tom had their heads together discussing a diagram that Tom had drawn on his pad. Martin, arms folded, was watching the door, ready to greet her with a cheerful nod and a wink. And Forbes, grim and anxious, was over by the window, his shoulders resting against the glass. When he saw her, his expression changed and he could not quite disguise the relief in his eyes.

‘There you are,’ he said gruffly. ‘It’s about time too.’

‘Ah, Lindsay,’ Uncle Donald said. ‘I’m so glad you could come.’

She lingered, at a loss, at the table’s end.

How would they regard her now? Would they admire or condemn her for wresting power from her husband, for forgiving him his transgressions only at a price? Did they, perhaps, wonder what she had been up to all day yesterday, and all night too perhaps, with the First Lord’s right-hand man?

Well, Lindsay thought, as she pulled out a chair at the table, they’ll just have to wonder, won’t they, for I’m not going to tell them.

‘Gentlemen,’ she said, smiling, ‘don’t you think it’s time we began?’