The House of Lyall (48 page)

‘It's me, Grandfather,' she said as brightly as she could with such a heaviness in her. ‘I've come to sit with you a while, if you don't mind? To give Grandma a rest.'

Marianne, a gaunt shadow of her usual self, shook her head. ‘I'd rather stay here with him.'

The girl forced a smile. ‘Doctor's orders, I'm afraid. Off you go, now. We'll get on fine, we always do, don't we, Grandfather?'

A ray of agreement showed in his eyes for a second, then the pain returned once more, and the coughing began. Marianne waited until it was over before she walked to the door. ‘I'll have a cup of tea, then, and come right back.'

The girl sat on the chair she had vacated, still warm from her presence, and leaned forward to take the man's scrawny hand. She talked to him as if he were able to answer, although she left no awkward pauses. She told him what she did at university. She described the tutors, the large room lined with tiers of seats, where the medical students watched experiments, or scribbled in their notebooks, scribbles that they would have to spend time later in deciphering and recording legibly. She also gave him little descriptions of her fellow students, how they spoke, how they dressed, how they teased each other, and was rewarded, once or twice, by a hint of a smile at his lips. But every so often she had to wait until a fresh bout of heaving coughs subsided before she could carry on.

At last, stuck for something else to say, she told him about Archie Grassie. ‘I met him at the Christmas Eve service,' she explained. ‘He's Mrs Mathieson's young brother, and he's at the university, too, though he's a bit older than me. He's just got another year to go before he gets his divinity degree, and I don't know where he'll be going after that. I suppose he'll have to wait till he's called to a church.'

A faint pressure on her fingers let her know that the old man had understood why she was telling him this. ‘I don't know if he's the one for me, Grandfather,' she murmured, ‘but I wouldn't mind if he was. I like him, and I'm sure you'll like him too.' Her mouth dried up as she realized that the two would probably never meet.

As she fumbled for the handkerchief in the pocket of her cardigan, she was surprised by a rasping, ‘Don't … cry … Dorrie.' There was a long pause, the silence shattered by the whistling of his lungs, and then he said, ‘I'm … happy … to go.'

She jumped up and kissed the wrinkly cheek, tears streaming down hers as she said, ‘D'you remember taking me to see the whisky still? And telling me about my father and his brother getting drunk, and my mother having to take them home? D'you remember the time I fell in the burn when we were out walking the dogs? I could only have been about four, but I'll never forget how you waded in to pull me out. Your shoes and socks were soaking, remember?'

Another squeeze, scarcely noticeable now, made her swallow convulsively. ‘You always took my side, didn't you? You always stuck up for me. Who'll I have if you leave me?'

At that moment, Marianne returned, hurrying over to assess her husband's condition. ‘Go downstairs and tell your father and mother to come up,' she ordered the weeping girl.

Marianne went all to pieces when her husband was pronounced dead, and Ruairidh, at a loss as to how to deal with her, did the only thing he could think of – he telephoned Andrew Rennie, who dropped all commitments and rushed to be with Marianne at this dreadful time. He was a pillar of strength to her, enabling her to voice her feelings, as she could not do to her family.

‘Oh, Andrew,' she wept, when her son and daughter-in-law left them alone, ‘how am I going to live without Hamish? I admit I didn't marry him for love, but love did blossom for us and he was the best husband a woman could ever have had.'

‘I know, my dear,' Andrew murmured, gripping her hand as they sat by the fire.

‘I feel awful, saying that to you when I know how you must feel …'

‘I only feel great sadness for you, Marianne. I came to think very highly, and very fondly, of Hamish, and I can fully understand the depth of your sorrow. I wish that there was some way I could eradicate it, or alleviate it, but I feel helpless …'

‘You
are
helping me, though, Andrew. I mean, nobody can eradicate it, but you're making it easier for me to bear.'

They sat there for hours on end, neither saying much when Melda or Ruairidh came in, or when Ruby brought them a tray at lunchtime, only a perfunctory, ‘Thank you', yet Marianne could actually feel the flow of affection and sympathy emanating from her old friend.

During the funeral service, unmindful of what other people would think, Andrew sat with one arm round her shoulders and his free hand grasping hers, giving her strength enough not to break down in front of the glen folk.

It was not until after the last of the visiting mourners departed – Hamish's business friends, men and women with whom he had come in contact during the latter years of his life – that Marianne said, horrified at the thought, ‘You must have had to cancel an awful lot of appointments to be here for three whole days. Are you not afraid you'll lose your clients?'

Her concern touched him. ‘Do not worry, my dear. The young assistant I took on some years ago has turned out so capable that when the senior partner retired last year and I stepped into his shoes, I gave Graham the chance to come in as the fourth member of the firm. He has a good manner with people, especially the old ladies – he would most likely make quite an impression on you.'

She managed to summon a smile. ‘Yes, I'm an old lady now, of course.'

‘I didn't mean it that way. You are not … you never will be … old to me.'

In the midst of the maelstrom that followed on the day of Hamish's death, Dorrie, with no one paying any heed to her, felt a desperate need to be alone, yet it seemed quite natural that she should meet Archie Grassie in the walk she took.

He held her hand in his as he said, ‘I didn't like to intrude, but I was hoping I might meet you.' He said nothing that might upset her, just tucking her arm through his and strolling along beside her, stopping every now and then when she began recalling times past with her beloved grandfather.

‘I know what it is like to be the only young person in a bereaved house,' he told her when she stopped talking. ‘Everybody is too busy to consider your feelings. It was the same when my mother died.'

Coming to a prickle-free mossy patch, he made her sit down with him, and put his arm round her shoulders. ‘Let it out,' he advised, ‘the anger that a loved one has been taken, the resentment at being left to mourn alone, the sadness of the memories of him that should be happy. But, Dorrie, I promise that they will be happy again, once you have accepted his death.'

‘How do you know all these things?' she whispered, bewildered that he was describing her feelings so accurately. ‘Was it the same for you?'

‘It is the same for most people, my dear.'

After that first meeting, he arranged to see her every afternoon, neither of them saying very much, but his mere presence comforted the poor girl as nothing else would have done. He sat next to her through the ordeal of the kirk service, and stood at her side during the interment. They continued to meet every afternoon, sometimes also in the evening, getting to know each other in a way that they would never have done under different circumstances, and when it was time for them to return to Aberdeen, they travelled together.

Much closer now, they saw each other every weekend, sometimes in Glendarril but mostly in the city, and one night after a particularly tender leave-taking, she told her grandfather – she often spoke to him when she was alone – that Archie Grassie
was
the man for her. ‘And I'm sure he feels the same about me,' she whispered into the darkness of her room. ‘He often knows exactly what I'm thinking, and not many men can do that with a girl.'

Something, however, kept her from telling her grandmother about Archie. She couldn't say what it was, just a feeling that the old lady wouldn't approve, but there was plenty of time to think about that when their studies were over.

With war looming ever more certainly, Dorrie was planning for the actuality of it. It was all very well for her father to say she should keep on with her studies, but, if war did come, she wanted to be doing something to help, not just taking screeds and screeds of notes that she might never have occasion to use.

Her father had been horrified when she told him. ‘What do you propose to do?' he had asked, his eyes steely.

‘I was thinking … well, I know I haven't got my degree yet, but I could offer my services to one of the forces as a first-aider, or something like that.'

His scowl told her what his answer would be, and she was ready for it. ‘Yes, I'm under age, and I know I'd need parental –'

‘Exactly, and I will not give my permission. You know nothing of what a war entails, the horrors, the … killings …' He stopped, clearly remembering his own experience of armed conflict, then added, sadly, ‘The dead bodies didn't bother me so much as seeing the injured, sometimes left to lie where they fell …'

She had been astonished at the change in him. She had never heard him speak like that before, nor seen him so distraught. ‘But that was twenty years ago,' she pointed out. ‘Things are different now, modern equipment … there wouldn't be any hand-to-hand fighting, I shouldn't think. The seriously wounded would be transferred to hospitals, and the slightly wounded would get first aid there and then.'

‘Dorothea,' his icy calmness and the use of her full name alarmed her, ‘you are so childish you cannot, or will not, understand the meaning of war, and if you do not put this ridiculous idea out of your head, I shall be forced to remove you from university altogether, and have you home here where we can keep an eye on you.'

She thought better of arguing any more. What was the point? There might never be another war, and if it did come, she would take her own way whatever he said.

Over the next few months, Dorrie took more interest in the newspapers and the wireless news bulletins than she had ever done before, discussing with Archie the inroads that Hitler was making into other countries in Europe, agreeing with him that war was becoming more and more of a certainty. He told her that, if it did come, he intended offering his services as a chaplain to one of the armed forces, but she didn't tell him what she had planned. It was only right that she should do something, too, but she knew that he, like her father, would not be pleased about it.

Like the rest of Britain, the people of the glen heaved deeply relieved sighs when Neville Chamberlain returned from his talks with the Führer in Berlin in September with his assurance that there would be ‘peace in our time', especially in the homes where a son, husband or lover was of the age to be called up or, worse still, volunteer.

‘My Gordon was dyin' to get a excuse to get awa',' complained the wife of one of the younger of the Black family.

‘Him and a lot more like him,' nodded Mima Rattray, who had been hearing the same from nearly all her customers that day. ‘War always gives men itchy feet.'

‘I suppose it's the thocht o' bein' free o' their wives that does it, the idea o' takin' up wi' the young lassies that hang aboot army camps.' Babsie Black shook her head at the perfidy of men and then added, with great satisfaction, ‘But they'll ha'e to bide at hame noo.'

The men concerned – the young blood, the hotheads, the henpecked husbands and the youths whose mothers had a stranglehold on them – spent several nights in the Western or Royal or Crown Hotels in Laurencekirk – sometimes all three – drowning their disappointment. They had the sense to travel there by horse and cart, because Pat Black's Betsy knew her way blindfolded, and they'd get home safely, however drunk they were by closing time. Of course, this couldn't carry on for long; for, apart from heads and stomachs rebelling after several nights of it, money ran out, and the glen got back to normal.

But not for very long.

Chapter Twenty-eight

War was declared in September 1939, but it was into 1940 before its impact was felt in the glen. Many young hotheads had volunteered within the first six weeks, but soon conscription came for the twenty- to twenty-seven-year-olds. Ruairidh did not argue when Melda pressed Dorrie to give up her studies and learn how to work a loom; at least it kept her safe, and he was glad when even wives with young children came to offer their services. Melda organized a creche, but Ruairidh pessimistically said, ‘I don't know why you're bothering. It probably won't be long before there's no work for anybody. There'll be no orders coming in.'

She had, however, thought of a way to safeguard the mill. Delegating Marianne to supervise the creche, and much against her husband's wishes, Melda took herself off to London in the early spring of 1941, bulldozing her way into an office in Whitehall with barely time to expound her plan before the Ministry of War was moved out of the capital. As it
happened, by sheer good luck the officer who saw her had been at boarding school with Hector, Ruairidh's grandfather, and being a Scot himself, he promised to do everything he could to help.

Like the mills of God, the wheels of any ministry in war or peace work exceeding slow, so Ruairidh had doubts about Melda's version of her mission when the orders finally arrived. ‘Ach!' he groaned. ‘A dozen bolts of khaki, and the same of air-force blue. That'll not keep us going for long.'

‘If they like what we send them, they'll double it, maybe treble or more. It's just a pity we can't make up the uniforms, too.'

‘If we can run full out making the cloth, I'll be happy,' sighed Ruairidh.

On the first Wednesday in June 1941, Archie Grassie telephoned Dorrie to say he would come to see her on the Sunday, because he was leaving Aberdeen on Monday.