CHAPTER THREE

The Ladies’ Man

For Lindsay history had never been much more than a matter of memorising the dates of famous battles and equally boring events such as the Repeal of the Corn Laws whose significance was lost on all but a few beastly swots and whose relevance to the average Glaswegian, male or female, was barely one point above zero. Her geography too was a little on the shaky side. If pressed, she might have managed to locate Peking or Korea in the colourful atlas that her father kept in the library. But Glasgow was Glasgow! Home was home! What did famine in Poona or riots in Milan matter when the Carl Rosa Opera Company were ‘doing’ Carmen in St Andrew’s Halls or Daly’s were displaying the latest spring styles in white and French regattas? Until she attended her first meeting of Franklin’s board it had not even occurred to her that what happened in Cuba or on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire could affect the price of Aunt Lilias’s new tea-gown, let alone the cost of bread.

The partners’ meeting was scheduled for nine thirty and would be followed by the regular weekly meeting of departmental managers.

Lindsay and her father rode to Aydon Road in a hired hackney. Arthur Franklin preferred to use cabs rather than maintain a rig of his own, for Aydon Road was situated no more than a mile from Brunswick Crescent and in fair weather he liked to walk there and back again.

Lindsay was dressed in a pale brown outfit of Amazon cloth that Nanny said put years on her, which was, of course, the intention. She had even managed to unearth a hat that kept her unruly bubbles of blonde hair firmly in place. Nevertheless she was nervous and felt less like a woman than a dressed-up child. In spite of her uncertainty, she was not inclined to be intimidated. When her father suggested that she might care to leave the boardroom before the managers’ meeting she jumped in with, ‘Why should I?’

‘I’m not saying you have to, exactly.’

‘But you would prefer it if I did?’

‘Well – candidly – yes, I would.’

‘I won’t say a word.’

‘You’ll be bored, you know.’

‘Are you afraid that my presence will offend the managers’ sensibilities?’

‘Of course not,’ her father said gruffly. ‘Stay if you wish.’

‘Tell you what, if Forbes stays I will too. New boys together. How’s that?’

‘McCulloch won’t be at the meeting.’

‘Why not?’

‘He’s started work at Beardmore’s.’

‘No favours?’ Lindsay hid her disappointment.

‘Absolutely not.’

The flat cobbles of the thoroughfare changed to the round cobbles of Old Farm Road. Lindsay could see the wall that marked the boundary of the shipyard, with a light crane and a couple of sheer-legs peeping over it. Even before the hack drew to a halt in front of the office block she could hear the thump of a punch and, rather eerily, two or three men crying out to each other in the aggressive drawl that was the lingua franca of workmen everywhere. When she stepped from the cab – her father helped her alight – she noticed a fresh pile of horse manure close to the kerb and surmised that Uncle Donald’s four-wheeler was already tucked away in the yard’s stables.

She wondered why she felt so out of place. Perhaps because she was no longer a little girl but had become an interloper in a world hostile to females, no matter how much of the company they owned. She could almost imagine the apprentices’ snorts of derision when they learned that a girl had turned up in the boardroom: ‘Two sixty-fourths, two sixty-fourths, for God’s sake, and she thinks she owns the world.’ She did not feel as if she owned the world. She felt as if she owned nothing and had left her true self back home in the nursery.

Her father ushered her into the office building. Stout wooden pillars, a glass-front cubby, two stout wooden doors, a broad uncarpeted staircase leading upward: it was very quiet. Then Sergeant Corbett, the commissionaire, flung his newspaper aside, leaped out of his cubby and snapped a smart salute.

‘G’mornin’, Mr Franklin.’

‘Good morning, good morning. Has my brother arrived yet?’

‘Aye, sir, him an’ Master – Mister Martin.’

‘And my father?’

‘Been upstairs for a good hour, sir, along with Mr Harrington.’

Mr Harrington, a moist little whelk of a man, was the senior partner in the law firm that handled all the Franklins’ business, personal and professional.

Sergeant Corbett was scarlet-cheeked and cheery. He wore a dark green uniform, a broad leather belt and sported a huge pair of mutton-chop whiskers. He had been doorman for as long as Lindsay could remember. She had no notion what regiment had afforded him his rank or what battles he had fought in. Inkerman, perhaps, or Balaclava? Surely he wasn’t old enough to be a veteran of the Crimea. Tel-el-Kebir, Egypt, or the campaigns in the Sudan were more like the thing.

‘P’rhaps it’s not my place, Miss Franklin,’ the commissioner said, ‘but I’d like to welcome you to our office. Nice to have a lady on board.’

‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ she said, then added, ‘I’ll do my best.’

Her father whisked her upstairs.

*   *   *

The boardroom windows provided a panorama of sheds and berths and a ribbon of the Clyde up which cargo traffic nosed and down which the products of the shipyards were tugged away to the open sea. The narrow strand of water did not look impressive. Sometimes it was brown, sometimes green; only on the flood with the wind against, crisp and silvery and smacking, did it bear a faint resemblance to a mighty waterway. On that April forenoon it lay calm and shrunken. Cows and sheep peppered the patches of grass between docks and railway tracks, and cheek by jowl with the Linthouse quays were trees, birch, lime and flowering cherry and the oaks of the old estates.

The Clyde ran eighteen miles from Broomielaw to Port Glasgow. It had a range of thirteen feet on ordinary spring tides and, since the rocks at Elderslie had been blasted away, a channel that allowed twenty feet of draught at low water. Lindsay recalled the figures effortlessly: they had been dinned into her like prayers. She might be ignorant of industrial processes but like every Glaswegian she lived with the smell of the river in her nostrils and its pride in her heart.

‘Well, well,’ Martin said, ‘if it isn’t my dear wee cousin.’

He wore tweeds, fine in texture but loud in pattern. He detached himself from Pappy and Mr Harrington and came around the oblong table to greet her. He had been a year on management staff. Lindsay was glad of a familiar hand on her arm.

‘Ah, Lindsay.’ Pappy did not offer his cheek for a kiss. ‘I believe you know Mr Harrington.’

‘She does, indeed,’ said Mr Harrington. ‘My, my, lassie, but you’re growing like a weed.’

She knew him well enough to say, ‘Like a weed, Mr Harrington?’

‘A flower then, is that better?’

‘Much better,’ Lindsay said. ‘I didn’t notice you in the cathedral for the Easter Cantata. Didn’t you attend?’

‘Throat.’ Mr Harrington tapped his collar stud. ‘Quinsy throat.’

He was not quite so old as her grandfather. He was very small with a hunch to his shoulders that suggested not so much deformity as defensiveness. His skin was white and moist, always moist, which was why Martin had coined the nickname ‘the whelk’ for him. By contrast Martin was tall, broad-shouldered and open-featured. He continued to hold Lindsay’s hand as if he felt she might be intimidated by men whom she had known most of her life.

He winked. ‘Don’t be frightened.’

‘Why should I be frightened?’

‘I’ll take you down to the yard afterwards, show you the ropes. We’ve a full order book at the moment and an interesting collection of—’

‘Martin,’ her grandfather said, ‘don’t pester the girl.’

‘I’m not pestering her. I just thought that if she’s going to be a partner she should know something about what goes on here.’

At that juncture Donald ushered Aunt Kay into the room. She, it appeared, had been appointed to act for her son. After a few almost perfunctory introductions, Owen Franklin said, ‘I believe all the relative parties are present now, Harrington, so I reckon we might as well push on.’

*   *   *

The lines of demarcation that governed who did what among shipwrights did not apply to managers. On to their shoulders fell responsibility not only for their own departments but for many other departments as well. Each of the umpteen processes that led from first rough sketches to a vessel’s trials was fraught with the possibility of error and every plate, rivet and pipe had to be checked and rechecked at every stage.

Tom Calder coped with this pressure by keeping himself to himself. Managers like George Crush or Peter Holt never knew what Calder was thinking, what moved him to vote for this procedure against that or to dig in his heels over a problem whose solution seemed obvious to everyone else. The fact that Calder was right more often than not did not endear him to his colleagues. He was regarded as a stubborn devil who seemed not so much transparent as completely opaque, a quality that bouncy, bumptious George Crush and pragmatic Peter Holt found incomprehensible.

Even the men who had accompanied Tom Calder to the Niger did not know what made him tick. He had thrived in the stifling heat of the mangrove swamps and, unlike the rest of the crew, had remained abundantly healthy throughout their term on the fever-ridden river. He had grown brown and lean and lively while the rest of Franklin’s team had been washed out by sickness. He had even volunteered to accompany the Mungo Park, largest of the stern-wheelers that had been assembled amid the sandflies and mosquitoes at Burutu, to test her engines against the fierce currents below Jebba, four hundred miles upstream. What impression the Niger had made upon Tom Calder remained a mystery. He had delivered his reports within days of returning to Aydon Road and had been back in the drawing office in less than a week, as if the African trip had never taken place at all.

On Monday morning George Crush ran Calder to earth in the drawing office. Wasting no time on pleasantries, he said, ‘What’s this I hear about a lassie taking over the management?’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re blathering about, George.’

‘Come off it, man. The place is stiff with rumours.’

On Tom’s board was a complete ‘as fitted’ drawing of Torpedo-Boat No. 56, an Admiralty-commissioned vessel 125 feet in length, with a 12-foot beam and a triple expansion engine that, on paper at least, would give a top speed of 26.4 knots. Tom admired the craft’s sleek, purposeful lines and hoped that he would be invited to accompany her on her trials.

‘Are you not going to tell me?’ Crush insisted.

‘Nothing to tell.’

‘It’s the old man’s granddaughter, Mr Arthur’s lass. Now you can’t pretend you don’t know her, since she’s another music fiend. Is she the blonde who turns up at launches?’

‘I expect so,’ Tom said.

George knew perfectly well who Anna Lindsay Franklin was. He had met her several times and had gossiped about her in the manager’s office, predicting that once she grew up she would make a perfect mate for young Martin, since neither of them seemed over-endowed with brains.

‘They’re up in the boardroom right now,’ George went on, ‘with Mr Harrington. You know what that means.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘It means the rumours are true. The old man’s retiring and we’re going to have a lassie telling us what to do.’

‘If Mr Owen hands the reins to anyone it’ll be Donald and Arthur.’

‘So you have heard something?’

On Monday morning the draughtsmen were slow getting into their stride. The long room was filled with the scrape of stools, the stealthy rustle of paper being unfurled and the clump of the polished flat-irons that kept the ends of the rolls from scuttling shut. Visions of sleek, high-powered torpedo-boats cleaving the waters of the Gareloch evaporated. Tom couldn’t be bothered with George’s questions. They were based on the fact that Arthur Franklin and he were both members of the Brunswick Park Choral Society, and Crush’s assumption that singing in a choir entitled him to share the Franklins’ family secrets which, of course, was far from the truth.

‘Come on, Tommy,’ George Crush wheedled, ‘what have you heard? Is Yarrow finally moving north and buying us out?’

‘I don’t know where you pick up these daft notions,’ Tom said.

‘Well, there’s no smoke without fire. It seems to me – Peter agrees – that we’re in for either a sell-out or a shift in management.’

Tom could hardly believe that men so skilled in the art of building ships would fall prey to every panicky rumour that floated up from the boiler shop. Every so often the tale would go about that Alfred Yarrow or Thornycroft of Chiswick was bidding for property on the Clyde. Heads would hang in the managers’ office and the apprentices would go around looking as if they expected the axe to fall at any moment; then the threat would disappear and another unfounded rumour would replace it.

‘George, George,’ Tom said. ‘You can’t seriously believe that old man Franklin would put a female in charge of us?’

‘Aye, well, you never know what rich folk will do when it suits them.’

‘A girl? In charge of shipbuilding?’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Crush admitted reluctantly. ‘What’s she doing here, though? I mean, you can’t deny she’s been brought here for a reason.’

Tom glanced at the moon-faced clock above the drawing-office door.

‘Tell you what, George.’

‘What?’

‘Why don’t we walk over to the boardroom and find out?’

*   *   *

Lindsay had not expected fanfares to announce her entry into the partnership. She had also not anticipated that the proceedings would be so perfunctory and, to say the least of it, so very, very dry. Mr Harrington droned on about the new agreement for a good fifteen minutes before handing out typed copies of the document. Lindsay applied herself to reading but her attention soon slid away. Instead she found herself eyeing Aunt Kay who was scanning the agreement as if she understood every word of it. Perhaps, Lindsay thought, her Irish auntie was more of a businessman than anyone gave her credit for. After all, her husband operated a profitable brewery in Dublin and it was safe to assume that neither Kay nor her son had been entirely shut out.

‘Mistress McCulloch, are there any points you’d like clarified?’

‘No, it’s all as clear as day, thank you.’

‘Good.’ Mr Harrington seemed about to put the same question to Lindsay, then thought better of it. ‘Shall we move on?’

‘Please do,’ said Pappy.

Lindsay listened to Mr Harrington with only half an ear. She observed her grandfather who, most uncharacteristically, lolled in the tall chair at the top of the table as if he could no longer be bothered with the proceedings that he had inaugurated.

‘Have you any questions?’ Mr Harrington said.

‘When will the articles of partnership come into force?’ Martin asked.

‘On the first day of May.’

‘When will you announce the board changes, Pappy?’

The old man stirred. ‘I’ll inform the managers this morning and announce it to the men tomorrow. Rumours have already been flying so it’s probably best to put a stop to them before the ship-owners begin inventing silly stories about us going to the wall. I want no fuss, you understand. I want the handover to be as smooth as possible. As far as the workforce is concerned nothing will change. Why should it?’

‘Because you won’t be here to look out for them,’ Martin said.

‘Daft beggar!’ Pappy said, though he was pleased, Lindsay saw, by her cousin’s remark.

Five minutes later the managers filed into the boardroom. Lindsay made no move to leave. Her father did not press her to do so. Aunt Kay also remained seated. Only Mr Harrington, who apparently had urgent matters to attend to elsewhere, took his leave and departed. Lindsay looked around the table. She recognised Mr Holt, Mr Crush, and Mr Tom Calder, the tall stony-faced draughtsman who sang with her father in the Brunswick choir. She smiled at him. Rather to her surprise, he smiled back.

Owen Franklin got to his feet. He plucked at his lip with finger and thumb then spread his coat tails and put his hands behind him to hide the trembling. ‘Gentleman,’ he said, ‘before we buckle down to the business of the day, I’ve an important announcement to make.’

Behind her, Lindsay heard someone hiss, ‘Didn’t I tell you, Tommy?’

And Mr Calder answer, sotto voce, ‘So you did, George. So you did.’

*   *   *

‘Were they surprised?’ Miss Runciman asked.

‘I think they had an inkling that something was in the wind.’

‘Were they shocked?’

‘No,’ Lindsay said. ‘They took it rather calmly, in fact. I expect they realise that things will go on much as usual with Papa and Donald in charge.’

‘Your father…’ Miss Runciman began, then stopped herself.

Chin held over her soup plate, Nanny Cheadle completed the sentence: ‘… is a wonderful man.’

‘That’s not what I was going to say,’ Miss Runciman snapped. ‘I do wish you would stop putting words in my mouth, Nanny.’

‘Somebody’s got to,’ Nanny Cheadle said. ‘Did they cheer?’

Lindsay was mildly confused. ‘Pardon?’

‘The men, did they cheer?’

‘Hardly. They won’t be given the news until tomorrow.’

‘They’ll cheer,’ Nanny Cheadle predicted. ‘They always cheer. If you were to stand up and announce that the seas had dried up, they’d still cheer. That’s men for you. Cheer first, complain later.’

‘I don’t think they’ll complain,’ said Miss Runciman. ‘With Arthur – with Lindsay’s papa in charge they’ll have no cause for complaint, I’m sure.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Nanny Cheadle. ‘Where is his lordship anyway?’

‘Donald and he have taken Aunt Kay to supper at the Barbary,’ Lindsay answered.

‘There’s a sacrifice for you,’ Nanny said.

‘Now why do you say that?’ Miss Runciman enquired. ‘I think it’s very nice, the three of them celebrating together.’

‘Squabbling together more like,’ said Nanny.

It was after seven o’clock. The dining-room windows caught the evening sunlight but the little park was already in shadow. Lindsay had returned home from the informal luncheon that had followed the managers’ meeting at half past two o’clock and had mooched about the house for the rest of the afternoon. She was tempted to trot over to Harper’s Hill to report to Cissie or take tea with Aunt Lilias but somehow she did not feel entirely welcome in her grandfather’s house these days. The appearance of the Irish cousin had upset the equilibrium. Papa had been right about one thing, though: the managers’ meeting had been boring. She had understood little of the jargon and the unfurling of plans and diagrams and the rapidity with which the men could make complicated arithmetical calculations had both impressed and dismayed her.

Nanny Cheadle finished her soup, licked her finger, dabbed a pea from the plate, put it between her teeth and nibbled like a squirrel.

Maddy cleared away the plates and brought in a dish of new potatoes, another of buttered cabbage and, finally, a tray of hot mutton chops.

Miss Runciman thanked the maid, and served.

The housekeeper looked different tonight. Her dowdy dress had been exchanged for a blue muslin blouse and she had arranged her thick brown hair in a style that softened her strong, almost masculine features. Lindsay watched Nanny stab a mutton chop and hack away the rim of golden-brown fat. Nanny Cheadle had arrived in Brunswick Crescent on the day that Aunt Kay had left, Miss Runciman a couple of years later. Neither had known Kay and probably had no knowledge of the quarrel that had left such a residue of bitterness so that even now, eighteen years on, it was all Papa could do to be civil to his sister.

‘What makes you think they’ll be squabbling, Nanny?’ Lindsay asked.

The old woman looked up. For a moment she seemed more cunning than vague. ‘Never you mind, Linnet, never you mind. He’ll arrive home in a temper, though, mark my words.’

‘You never did meet my aunt, did you?’

‘Once, just that once, out there in the hall,’ Nanny said. ‘Had you in her arms, she did, all wrapped up in your shawl. Very pretty you were too.’

‘My aunt – Kay, I mean – she told me I was ugly.’

‘Nah, nah, dearest. She was the ugly one, that much about her I do remember,’ Nanny went on. ‘Luggage in the hall, hat on her head, white as a piece of chalk and shaking like a fig tree.’

‘Where was my father?’ Lindsay said.

‘At the foot of the stairs. Whiter than she was, white as a ghost.’

‘Why have you never told me before?’ Lindsay asked.

‘Never thought to mention it,’ Nanny said. ‘Anyhow, you never asked.’

‘Did they say anything to each other?’

Nanny Cheadle closed her eyes and murmured to herself, as if to summon up the spirits of the dead. ‘Nah,’ she said at length ‘not a word crossed between them that I can recall. She just gave me the baby, stuck out her arms and handed you over as soon as I stepped in through the front door. Then she walked past me, down the steps to the carriage. The carriage-man come up and lifted her luggage. And that was her gone for good.’

‘Hasn’t your father told you about this?’ Miss Runciman asked.

‘He won’t speak of it.’

‘Perhaps it’s too painful for him.’

‘What a good baby you were,’ Nanny Cheadle put in. ‘Never cross, never ugly.’ She lifted her fork. ‘Is there no mint sauce?’

‘It’s a chop, Nanny. There’s gravy if you wish it. See, here’s gravy.’

‘Gravy,’ the old woman said. ‘I don’t want gravy. I want sauce.’

At that moment the doorbell rang in the hall.

Miss Runciman rose to answer it.

She returned a minute or so later, looking puzzled and slightly annoyed.

‘It’s a young man,’ she said. ‘He claims that he’s your Irish cousin.’

‘Forbes,’ said Lindsay, making to rise. ‘Where…’

‘I put him in the drawing-room,’ Miss Runciman replied.

‘I’ll go to—’

‘No, you will not,’ said Miss Runciman sternly. ‘You will finish your dinner before you do anything. Unannounced guests do not have priority over a well-cooked meal.’

‘But what does he want?’

‘To see you, apparently’ Miss Runciman said.

‘He – he asked for me?’ said Lindsay. ‘He called to see me?’

Nurse and housekeeper exchanged a knowing glance.

Miss Runciman sat down at the table with a smooth, rather smug tucking in of skirts. She lifted her knife, and almost smiled. ‘Yes, my dear, he has called to see you,’ she said, then added, ‘uninvited – which is reason enough for letting him cool his heels for a quarter of an hour or so.’

*   *   *

‘Well,’ Lindsay said, ‘this is an unexpected pleasure. I apologise for keeping you waiting but we usually dine at seven and never receive before eight. You wouldn’t know that, of course.’

She was flustered. Given more time she would have galloped upstairs and changed out of the pale brown outfit into something more becoming. She had kept Forbes waiting as long as she dared, however. Thank heaven Maddy had had the sense to light the fire and turn up the gas.

Forbes did not seem at all put out by being made to wait. Lindsay got the impression that he had been dozing and that if she’d dallied for another two or three minutes she might have found him asleep on the long, leather sofa. He wore a tweed jacket over unmatched trousers, a knitted vest. In the collar of his shirt was a scarf, not quite the coarse muffler that ordinary workmen wore but getting on that way. With his jet black hair and long lashes, though, Forbes could be forgiven any lapse in social etiquette. He was, Lindsay had to remind herself, not much more than a boy.

‘I take it that you’ve had something to eat?’ she said.

‘Yes, Aunt Lilias saw to it.’

‘Good. Please, please make yourself comfortable.’

She watched him settle, arm along the back of the sofa, his legs crossed. He looked directly at her, nowhere else. In the iron grate kindling crackled and fresh flames licked through a pyramid of coals.

Lindsay had never entertained a young man on her own before, not counting her cousins, of course, but Martin, Johnny and Ross knew how to make themselves at home without her attentions. It was different with her Irish cousin, though. He was far too confident for someone of seventeen. She was halfway afraid of him; not a deep fear, not dread, just a little quailing fear that he might suddenly pounce upon her and begin kissing her and that she would not have the gumption to push him away.

‘Aren’t you going to sit yourself down?’ he asked.

‘I – I – yes, of course I am.’

‘Well, sit here then. Sit by me.’

‘I’ve asked Miss Runciman to fetch coffee. Would you prefer tea?’

He patted the leather. ‘I’d prefer you to stop fussin’ and sit down.’

There were eight chairs in the drawing-room, armchairs, mahogany uprights, even a hard walnut stool that no one ever sat on. Forbes patted the leather again as if she, not he, were the guest. Meekly Lindsay seated herself on the sofa.

‘There now,’ he said. ‘Is that not better? Is that not cosy?’

From the corner of her eye Lindsay studied his arm as if it were a snake that might suddenly entwine her.

‘Are you afraid of me?’ Forbes asked.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Why should I be afraid of you?’

‘I thought you might have heard.’

‘Heard? Heard what?’

‘I got sent down.’

Lindsay turned to face him. ‘Sent down?’

‘From my school, from Dunkerry.’

‘Oh, you mean expelled.’

‘Is that what they call it in Scotland?’ Forbes said. ‘Well, whatever name you care to be giving it, I got sent down.’

With relief Lindsay realised that he was only a callow boy after all and that being Irish had nothing to do with it. She felt brighter immediately.

She opened her eyes wide. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Why on earth did you get sent down?’

‘Guess.’

‘Smoking tobacco?’

‘Nope. We all smoked like funnels in our school.’

‘Drink then?’ said Lindsay. ‘The drink, I expect.’

‘Not the drink either.’ He tapped his fingers on the back of the sofa and smirked. ‘I had the reputation of being a bit of a ladies’ man.’

‘A ladies’ man! Really!’ How she kept a straight face Lindsay had no idea. ‘Aren’t you a little young to be a ladies’ man?’

‘I’m not saying I am and I’m not saying I’m not,’ Forbes told her proudly, ‘but when it got out Pa reckoned I should come to Scotland straight away and not be waiting until I was eighteen.’

‘I see,’ Lindsay said. ‘Very wise of him, I’m sure.’

‘Mam wrote to Grandfather and he said, “Come.” That’s why I’m here. Coming to Glasgow was always on the cards. It’s what Mam had planned for me since the day I was born. I was earmarked, you see.’

‘Earmarked?’

‘To follow in Pappy’s footsteps.’

‘I see,’ said Lindsay, fluttering her eyelashes. ‘Gosh!’

‘You’re not makin’ fun of me, are you?’

‘Not I,’ said Lindsay. ‘Have you told Cissie what you’ve just told me?’

‘She was fascinated.’

‘I’ll bet she was,’ said Lindsay. ‘And Martin?’

‘He said we were all born shipbuilders in our family but I should be minding my Ps and Qs if I really wanted to get ahead.’

‘That seems like sound advice.’

‘I knew you’d be saying that,’ Forbes told her. ‘My mam said you’d be sympathetic.’

‘Did your mother suggest that you call here tonight?’

‘She’s out having supper with Donald and your pa.’

‘I know,’ Lindsay said. ‘That wasn’t the question.’

‘Mam ha’nny got a clue I’m here. Not that she’d mind much if she did.’ He leaned towards her. Lindsay no longer felt compelled to draw away. ‘I thought I’d drop round, see where you live, and have a wee bit of a crack.’

‘A wee bit of a crack,’ said Lindsay, ‘about what?’

He had the decency to pause before he said, ‘Were you at the partners’ meeting this morning?’

‘I was.’

‘Did Pappy say anything about me?’

‘Your name was mentioned. Pappy welcomed you into the firm and I believe Mr Harrington, the lawyer, referred to you once or twice.’

‘In what connection would that be?’

‘Concerning the division of shares.’

Another pause: ‘Did he say when I’d get my money?’

‘What money?’

‘My share of the annual profits.’

‘I was under the impression that your mother was representing your interests. She was certainly at the meeting.’

‘I ha’nny – I haven’t spoken to Mam yet,’ Forbes said. ‘Since you and I are both in the same boat, I thought you might be the best person to ask.’

‘Ah! Yes. Well, neither of us is of an age to draw profits. We’ll have to wait until we’re twenty-one before we receive our dues.’

‘Jesus!’ Forbes let the word slip with a vicious little hiss. Lindsay found the blasphemy shocking. He wriggled, uncrossed his legs, sat forward and clasped her arm. ‘Twenty-one, twenty-one? That’s almost four years away.’

‘Meanwhile,’ Lindsay said, ‘our profits will be placed in a fund.’

‘Who looks after the fund?’

‘Mr Harrington.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘The family’s solicitor.’

Forbes tightened his grip. ‘Are you happy with that arrangement?’

‘Apparently it’s required by law where juveniles are concerned.’

‘Juveniles! God, is that how they think of us?’ Forbes glanced at the door then put an arm about her. ‘At least we’re both in it together.’

‘Yes,’ Lindsay said. ‘I would be obliged if you would take your arm…’

‘What? Yes. Sorry.’

He swung his arm away and casually continued the conversation.

Lindsay wondered where Miss Runciman had got to with the coffee. She considered the possibility that the housekeeper was deliberately allowing her time alone with her handsome Irish cousin. She was tempted to leap to her feet, stalk out into the hall and declare her lack of enthusiasm for spending any time alone with Owen Forbes McCulloch. But the truth was that she didn’t lack enthusiasm, didn’t lack interest in this odd young man who could be so naive one minute, so sly and worldly the next.

‘Have you got money?’ Forbes said. ‘Income of your own, I mean?’

‘Papa gives me a small allowance.’

‘How much?’

‘For heaven’s sake, Forbes!’

The rebuff was obviously expected and he rattled on without a blush. ‘Four years is a long time to wait.’

‘Doesn’t your father give you an allowance?’

‘Not him. Mean bastard!’

‘Oh, come along. I don’t believe he doesn’t give you something.’

‘If it wasn’t for Mam I don’t know what I’d do.’

‘Don’t you receive a wage from Beardmore’s?’

‘I’m an apprentice, a bloody apprentice, no better than a bloody slave.’

A discreet knock upon the drawing-room door: feeling decidedly foolish, Lindsay said, ‘Enter.’ Miss Runciman brought in a tray weighted with Georgian silver and the monogrammed English coffee service. She placed the tray on the sofa table and dropped a curtsey.

‘Shall I serve, Miss Lindsay, or will the young gentleman help himself?’

‘The young gentleman will help himself.’

‘Will that be all, Miss Lindsay?’

‘Yes, Miss Runciman. That will be all.’

The housekeeper’s matt brown eyes were fiercely appraising. She sized up the Irish cousin and lingered long enough to receive a beaming smile and a soft, almost feminine flutter of Forbes’s dark lashes. ‘Thank you,’ he said, his irritation replaced by something that Lindsay could only define as charm. It was a selfish, narcissistic performance, but she, like Miss Runciman, so wanted to believe that it was sincere that she, like Miss Runciman, could do nothing but respond to it. When the housekeeper finally left the room, Lindsay got to her feet and fussed with cups and coffee pot while her cousin hoisted himself from the sofa, wandered to the window and stared out over Brunswick Park.

‘It’s certainly a grand place to live,’ he said.

Lindsay said, ‘Nicer than Dublin? Surely not.’

‘Well, Dublin’s my home town and will always be close to my heart.’ He returned to the sofa and accepted a coffee cup and saucer. ‘But it’s here on the Clyde that I’ll make my mark.’

He stood close to Lindsay, balancing the miniature cup and saucer on his palm. His presence made her feel curiously mature, as if she had already inherited her father’s house or become a wife in her own right.

‘Is it a big house you have here?’ Forbes asked.

‘Big enough for two of us.’

‘It’ll not be as roomy as Pappy’s place?’

‘No,’ said Lindsay. ‘Few houses in Glasgow are.’

‘I’d be as well digging in there then.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I thought I might be better off here.’

‘You…’

‘Nearer to you,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t you like that?’

Lindsay had been flirted with before, usually by men four or five years older than she was. In fact, she had almost been proposed to just before Christmas when Gordon Swann, Ethan Swann’s youngest, had got carried away by the lights and the music at the Federated Ironmasters’ annual ball in Finnieston Hall and had been on the point of popping the question. Lindsay had done nothing to encourage him, though she had let him kiss her out in the cold stone corridor under the bas-relief memorial to those who had died in the Minerva tragedy. That brief, breathless one-Christmas-night fling with Gordon Swann had not been serious, however. Somehow this was – desperately serious, even if Forbes lacked gravity and was far too young for her. Hot, calculating eyes and brash, impolitic hints of adult experience did not make him a man.

‘I think you had better go,’ Lindsay told him.

‘I’ve offended you, haven’t I?’

‘You have,’ said Lindsay.

‘You’re easily offended then.’

‘Perhaps Dublin girls have thicker skins than I do.’

‘They know a compliment when they hear one.’ He drank coffee, put the cup back on the saucer and handed both to Lindsay. ‘Anyway, I’m here to stay, Linnet, and Harper’s Hill isn’t so very far away.’

‘Why do you call me “Linnet”?’

‘That’s what my mam calls you.’

‘My name is Lindsay, plain Lindsay.’

‘I’ll remember that next time,’ Forbes said. ‘Do you really want me to go? I thought we were rubbing along pretty well.’

‘No, I want you to go.’

‘Walk me to the door then.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because I’m your cousin and you are a lady.’

‘Where’s your overcoat?’

‘Got none.’

‘Your hat?’

‘Got none. Lindsay, walk me to the door.’

Without knowing quite why she did so, she obeyed him.

Standing on the top step she watched him stroll off along the crescent, disappointed that he did not look back. In years to come, though, during and after her marriage, that was how she would remember Forbes, walking off into the gathering dusk – and deliberately not looking back.