Authors: The Handkerchief Tree
‘Me, too,’ said Shona. ‘But thank the Lord we can get out into the fresh air at last!’
‘And have something to eat and a gallon of tea.’ Brigid was checking her purse for her tram fare to Marchmont, where she lived with her parents and younger brother. ‘Ma’d better not suggest I do the washing up tonight, either. Why should I do it, when Rory sits about reading comics?’
Shona glanced at Isla. ‘How about you, Isla? You got any lazy brothers?’
‘No, I’m an only child.’ Isla, looking happier than she’d looked all day now that she was going home, was putting on a light jacket. ‘Wish I weren’t, though.’
Snap, thought Shona, but she only smiled as she locked the shop door and they turned to go their different ways.
‘So pleased about Mr May,’ Isla ventured as she moved away.
‘Best news ever,’ said Brigid. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’
‘Tomorrow,’ agreed Shona.
It was good to be walking home in the summer evening when the sky was still blue and the sunshine pleasantly warm on her face and hair, for she’d taken off her hat. At the Dean Bridge, she stopped to look down at the valley, at the houses she knew and where she was heading, and felt for a little while relaxed and at ease.
Soon, however, as she continued on her way, a certain nameless anxiety seemed to be working through her thoughts, and she quickened her step as though the feeling would leave her. What was she afraid of? Mr May was going to get better. There was no need to worry. Yet she had the feeling that change was on its way.
Everything changes, nothing stays the same
. . . What might be going to change at Maybel’s? She didn’t know. Perhaps nothing. Like a cold wind, the idea that that might not be true flowed round her all the way home, and it was only when she was back in Mrs Gow’s unworried presence that she put the anxiety away and began to talk of the day she’d just lived through.
Three weeks went by and Shona’s unease remained with her, though she tried to put it to the back of her mind. Obviously there were changes in their routine at the shop, with Mr May still unable to work, even though out of the nursing home, and Mrs May too preoccupied to do her usual floristry. Not only was she frequently up in her flat, checking on Hugh, she also seemed to be spending more time in her office, often emerging with a deep frown etched between her dark brows. No doubt things would settle down soon when Hugh returned to duty, and he hadn’t ruled it out when the girls visited him in the nursing home.
He’d looked frail then, his eyes larger than usual, his face thinner, and had admitted that he’d had a bit of a fright.
‘When you reach the precipice and think you might have gone over, it gives you a funny feeling,’ he’d told them, trying to laugh. ‘You just have to get over that and keep reminding yourself you’re still around.’
‘I’m sure the doctors were very good,’ Shona said, ‘helping you to feel well again.’
‘Och, yes, I suppose so.’ He’d made a face. ‘Pumped me full of God knows what – iodide of potassium, was it? I’m not sure, but they did a good job. Kept me from having a heart attack – or, worse, a seizure. Couldn’t have stood that.’
‘You’re doing well,’ Brigid told him robustly. ‘Before you know it, you’ll be back doing your arrangements again.’
‘Maybe. But listen, I want to thank you girls for doing those flowers for Mrs Lockyer. Knowing you’d done that did me a world of good, I can tell you.’
‘So you take care and come home soon,’ Shona told him. ‘We can’t wait to have you back.’
‘You can say that again,’ Brigid had said when they were outside the nursing home. ‘It may have escaped your notice but we’re doing all the work at the moment, except for Isla’s tidying up.’
‘She did make some quite decent buttonholes for that wedding last week, don’t forget.’
‘Aye, but put her in the shop and she goes to pieces. Oh, well, things’ll get back to normal one of these days, I expect.’
But then Mr May came home and didn’t return to work, and Mrs May went around with that frown on her face, her earlier euphoria quite forgotten, while the extra work for Shona and Brigid showed no signs of easing.
‘Guess what,’ Brigid said one Wednesday, when Mrs May was away from the shop, ‘I’ve been a bit naughty, but I’ve found out where she’s gone today.’
‘What’s it matter?’ asked Shona, setting out the flowers she needed for an order.
‘Well, it’s of interest, eh? I sneaked a look at her appointments diary on her desk and you know where she is, probably at this very moment?’
‘Oh, just say. Don’t be so irritating!’
‘All right, she’s at the Caledonian Hotel, having lunch with Mr Kyle.’
Shona laid down a long stemmed rose and stared. ‘Mr Kyle?’
‘That’s right. Said in the book, “Lunch at the Caledonian, 12.30 p.m., with Fraser Kyle.”’
‘So he didn’t come back here,’ Shona said slowly. ‘What’s he want, I wonder?’
‘Now that I don’t know. Maybe we shall never be told, but it seems odd he’d spend so much money lunching Mrs May at the Caledonian.’
‘Maybe she’s paying?’
‘Are you joking? No, I think it sounds as though he does want something from her.’
‘And what’s she got to give?’ asked Shona, but she didn’t answer her own question and neither did Brigid.
As soon as Dan had taken their flowers for delivery Shona left to meet Cassie, whose half day it was too.
Poor Cassie, Shona reflected as she toiled up the Mound to a café off George IV Bridge, she’d not had much luck since she left Edina Lodge. All she’d wanted was to be part of a household where she’d have friends and be valued, but nothing had worked out as she’d hoped.
In her first place, with the family in Hermitage Circle, the master, the rich businessman, had been a terrible one for ‘wandering hands’, as Cassie put it. None of the maids were safe and if they hadn’t shared a bedroom and locked their door he’d have been in. No wonder, then, that there were always vacancies for female staff in his house, and his poor wife was used to writing ‘characters’ for departing servants.
In Cassie’s second place, the home of another wealthy businessman, it wasn’t the master who was at fault but his eldest son – only a schoolboy, but if anything worse than the father in the first house: always chasing the maids, pinching bottoms, stealing kisses, rattling bedroom doors, while his parents remained oblivious. It was not long before Cassie was asking for another ‘character’ and registering at an agency which seemed to think it eccentric she should want to work in a house where there were only women. In the end they found her the place where she was now, and so intensely miserable, she told Shona over lunch at the café, that she simply didn’t know what to do.
‘I thought they’d be all right, you see, the Misses Orde – two cousins, maiden ladies – that there’d be nothing to worry about. But they’re so pernickety, Shona, and such skinflints! You wouldn’t believe what they’re like. Rolling in money, and have the lowest light bulbs, the smallest fires, the cheapest cuts o’ meat. They drive Trudie – that’s the cook – crazy, and me as well. Never off my bones, following me round to check I’ve swept into corners, dusted behind every picture, polished every fiddly bit o’ furniture, and they’ve got plenty. And it isn’t as though I’m no’ thorough, you ken. I always do my best, but they never leave me alone. I don’t know how I stick it!’
‘Well, why do you?’ Shona asked, finishing her poached egg on toast. ‘You can move on; you’ve moved on before.’
‘Aye, and I’ll be getting a name for it, eh? But if I try to leave the Misses Orde, I bet they wouldn’t give me a good character, and then I’d be stuck.’
‘What you should do is find another kind of job altogether, Cassie. Give up service and get some independence.’
‘I wish I could. I wish I’d been like you and gone into something different.’
‘How about the dressmaking? You’d be good at that.’
‘I’d never get taken on as an apprentice now, and I’d no’ earn enough to live on even if I did. I’ve thought about shop work, but first I’d need the character, eh?’ Cassie sighed, then gave a sudden grin. ‘Maybe I’ll marry the milkman. He has asked me.’
‘The milkman? Cassie, you never said you had an admirer!’
‘Och, we only went out together a couple o’ times. I think all he wanted was somebody to run the dairy. Anyway, I said no. I’d never marry a man I didn’t love.’
‘Oh, no,’ Shona agreed fervently. ‘Neither would I!’
Later, as they strolled down Princes Street, looking at the shops, an idea came into Shona’s mind. ‘Listen, Cassie, if there was ever a vacancy where I am, would you be interested?’
‘What, in your flower shop?’ Cassie’s eyes were large with surprise. ‘Why, I know nothing about plants! And it’d be far too posh, eh? They’d never take me on.’
‘What a piece of nonsense! They took me on, and I’m no different from you. And I think you’d be very good with the customers, as well as working with the flowers. Your fingers are as nimble as those of anyone I know.’
‘I’ve no’ got your talent, Shona.’
‘I think you could learn the job and reach a high standard. If anything cropped up, you should definitely apply.’
‘Well, is it likely?’
Thinking of Isla and whether or not she would stick it out, Shona shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I could tell you if there ever is a vacancy, anyway.’
‘All right, tell me. It might be worth a try.’
‘Of course it would.’
Feeling as though they’d settled something, though in fact they had no real promise of settling anything, the two girls moved into one of the department stores and enjoyed themselves immensely, trying on hats and pricing dresses they couldn’t afford, until it was time to go for a cup of tea.
Walking home alone, though, after she’d seen Cassie on to her tram, all of Shona’s doubts about the future returned. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything about possible vacancies at Maybel’s to Cassie. Maybe there were things happening that would change everything. Or maybe she was just looking on the gloomy side?
She had the strongest feeling that she was going to find out very soon what the future might really hold, and not wanting to spend the evening thinking about it, decided to pop round to see Kitty, now married and living in Baxter Row only a few doors from her mother.
It would be nice, Shona thought, to see folk as happy as Kitty and her young baker husband. As long as they didn’t consider her to be playing gooseberry.
Next morning, though she’d half been expecting it, Shona could still scarcely believe it when the blow fell. So soon? Had she got second sight, or what? She could have laughed at herself for that, except she didn’t feel like laughing and was as serious-faced as Brigid and Isla when Mrs May announced that she had some important news to tell them.
It was before nine o’clock and they were in the staffroom, drinking that early tea Shona had battled for, when Mrs May had appeared. Though her make-up was in place and her hair immaculate, she seemed strained, the frown between her brows still evident, as though it might have become a permanent feature. When they half rose from the table she waved them down and took a chair herself.
‘Girls, I have something to tell you. It’s very important – to you – to all of us.’
That was when Shona knew she’d been right to expect some sort of news and sat rigidly in her chair, Brigid and Isla beside her, her eyes and theirs fixed on Mrs May.
For a moment her lip had trembled, but she’d soon achieved control, and came out directly with her announcement. ‘The fact is, girls, and I’m sorry to have to tell you, but Hugh and I are selling the shop.’
There was a stunned silence.
Brigid caught her breath and Isla sat with her mouth open, while Shona felt she’d taken a step that wasn’t there, for though she’d expected something, she hadn’t expected anything so final as this. The Mays were to sell Maybel’s? Leaving their life’s work? For a moment, that feeling of falling was so real she put her hand out as though to steady herself.
And then, all became clear. Yes, the shop was to be sold, she had to believe it, and she knew who was going to buy it. No wonder he’d been making appointments to see Mrs May, no wonder he’d been lunching her at the Caledonian! He’d wanted something from her and the shop was what she had to give. Or, at least, sell. Fraser Kyle was the new owner of Maybel’s.
‘As you know,’ Mrs May was continuing, ‘my husband has been quite ill and doesn’t feel he can carry on working. For a time, I thought I might manage to keep going without him, and he was all for that.’ She cleared her throat a little. ‘After all, the shop has been our life for many years; it was hard to think of being without it. But then I realized things wouldn’t be the same without Hugh, and that really I should be spending time with him and looking after him.’
Here, Mrs May paused and looked at the girls, but no one spoke and after a moment she resumed. ‘By sheer coincidence, while we were thinking about this, more or less out of the blue we received a very generous offer to buy the business. It was from Mr Fraser Kyle, who has taken over MacVicar’s.’ Mrs May smiled briefly. ‘We didn’t wait long to accept. When the legal matters are completed, he will be the new owner of Maybel’s.’
Another silence fell, then Shona spoke. ‘Mrs May, I want to say we’re very sorry you’re having to give up Maybel’s.’
‘Aye, can’t believe it,’ put in Brigid. ‘It doesn’t seem possible – I mean, Maybel’s without you and Mr May.’
‘I haven’t been here very long,’ Isla said, surprising everyone by speaking up, ‘but I feel the same as Shona and Brigid. Everyone knows Maybel’s – they’ll be really sad.’
‘Ah, you’re so good, you girls,’ sighed Mrs May. ‘So sweet, so sympathetic. I can’t tell you how bad we feel, Hugh and I, leaving all of you, but there’s one thing I can do and that’s to put your minds at rest about your jobs. They’re quite safe. Mr Kyle will be keeping everyone on, so you’ve no need to worry.’
‘Thank you, Mrs May,’ Shona murmured as she and Brigid exchanged quick glances. ‘That’s good to know.’
Mrs May rose, glancing at the clock. ‘I see it’s almost opening time. I think I’ve just time to tell you that though Mr Kyle will probably be making some changes, I’m sure they’ll be good ones. He’s an ambitious man, but shrewd. He won’t rush into things, and he’s done well so far, expanded his father’s ironwear business and made money when he sold it.’