Cousins at War (42 page)

‘Yes, to save me embarrassment, that was how he put it. If it’s not a natural death, the police have to be called in and there has to be an autopsy.’

‘Aye, I understand that, but did he know about Neil?’

‘He guessed there was somebody and that was why Ron . . .’

‘So . . . the doctor was giving you a way to save your face, a way to marry Neil without folk saying, “That’s why her man took his life. She must have been carrying on with
this one, and he found out.” Do you see what I’m getting at?’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly, the idea obviously new to her. ‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Do you really think that’s why Doctor Peters did it?’

Aware that she was weakening, he pressed on, ‘Certain, and he’s made a stand for nothing if you persist in this stupid attitude. Ron wanted you to get together with Neil, and this
doctor wanted it, and you and Neil want it, so for Christ’s sake, Olive, grab your happiness with both hands as quick as you can. You’re a long time dead.’

She gave an uncertain laugh, ‘Oh, Alf, I should have known your silver tongue would get round me.’

‘So?’ he grinned. ‘Will I tell Neil when I see him in the morning that you’ll marry him?’

‘He hasn’t asked me yet.’

‘He would if he got the chance.’

She drew away now and after a lengthy pause, she smiled, ‘You can tell him to come to tea tomorrow but please don’t say anything else. I want everything to come from him, the
courtship, the proposal . . .’

‘But you’ll invite me to the wedding when it’s fixed?’

‘You’ll be best man. Neil wouldn’t have anyone else.’

‘Well, now that’s all arranged, I’d better get to my hotel in case they lock the doors at midnight.’

Olive kissed him on the cheek, ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you, Alf. Thank you.’

With a twinkle in his eye, he grabbed her round the waist. ‘What kind of kiss was that for the best man?’

His was a little more than just a friendly kiss, although there was no passion in it, and he let his arms drop with a prolonged sigh, ‘Neil’s a lucky blighter.’

Picturing his poor face, she thought that Neil wouldn’t consider himself lucky, but she knew what Alf had meant and let him out without saying anything more. Sitting down, she went over
all his arguments again and by the time she went to bed, she was happier than she had been for months. Why shouldn’t she grab her happiness when she could? It was what Ron had wanted for her,
what the doctor had wanted for her, and more than anything, what she wanted for herself.

She loved Neil more than she had ever done, as a woman not a spoiled child, yet she had been prepared to give him up. Would she have been brave enough to go away when the actual time came?
Probably not. She’d said nothing to Alf about the baby, but she would tell Neil before they were married and trust that it wouldn’t affect how he felt about her. If fate designed
people’s destinies, they had been meant to come together eventually, and all the troubles of the past had been sent to test them. They had come through, not unscathed – for there would
be painful memories for each of them – but just a little tarnished.

Smiling, she stood up and went through to the bedroom.

BROW OF THE GALLOWGATE

The brow of the Gallowgate is where Albert Ogilvie buys his property in 1890 - the shop he has dreamed of for years, and above it, a house with nine rooms to accommodate the large family he
and his beloved wife, Bathie, desire. As their babies are born - there will be eight in all - Albert employs three sisters, one after another, as nursemaids. Bathie finds Mary and Jeannie Wyness
more than satisfactory, but Bella, the youngest, is troublesome and sly, and creates a set of distressing circumstances resulting in her dismissal. The years go by, with their joys and sorrows,
and war splits up the close-knit Ogilvies, some of whem eventually emigrate to New Zealand. And it is there that Bella Wyness, her resentment of the family grown to black hatred, will wreak her
terrible revenge...

COUSINS AT WAR

The sequel to her novel ‘Brow of the Gallowgate’, Doris Davidson’s latest novel follows the fortunes of the Ogilvie family through the World War II. Olive is determined to have her cousin
Neil as her husband and won’t allow anything or anyone to get in her way. So when her younger cousin Queenie is evacuated from London and begins to attract Neil’s attention, Olive does all she
can to avert the relationship. When warnings and threats fail, Olive concocts a web of lies to blacken Queenie’s character and destroy her cousins’ love. Despite Olive’s success, her actions fail
to secure Neil, who finds himself involved with other girls, finally meeting and falling for Freda. After this Olive will stop at nothing, no matter how despicable, to make sure Neil is hers
forever. The consequences of her actions shock everyone and send the extended Potter and Ogilvie families into turmoil.

GIFT FROM THE GALLOWGATE

This is the extraordinary story of a remarkable woman. Doris Davidson was born in Aberdeen in 1922, the daughter of a master butcher and country lass. Her idyllic childhood was shattered in
1934 with the death of her father, after which, in order to make ends meet, her mother was forced to take in lodgers. In part due to her father’s sudden death, Doris left school at fifteen and
went to work in an office, gradually rising through the ranks until she became book-keeper. Marriage to an officer in the Merchant Navy followed in 1942, then divorce, then her second marriage.
Her life took the first of two major changes in direction at the age of 41, when she went back to college to study for O and A levels, followed by three years at Teacher Training College. In 1967
she became a primary school teacher, and subsequently taught in schools in Aberdeen until she retired in 1982. Not content with a quiet retirement Doris embarked on a new ‘career’ and became a
writer, publishing her first work in 1990. Eight books later (and another one nearly finished), she is one of the country’s best-loved romantic novelists and has sold well in excess of 200,000
copies of her books. In this engaging and candid autobiography, Doris Davidson recounts her growing up in Aberdeen in the ‘20s and ‘30’s, the war years, her marriage and the unexpected paths her
career has followed. With her novelist’s skill, she brings into vivid focus a life of rich experience in a book every bit as riveting as her works of fiction.

WATERS OF THE HEART

Young Cissie McGregor flees to Dundee with her stepmother Phoebe after her abusive, drunken father has destroyed their family. There, for a while, she finds happiness - with Bertram
Dickson, son of the wealthy mill-owner who is Cissie’s and Phoebe’s employer. But, too late, she finds Bertram has not married her for love. After she bears him the son they’ve yearned for, he
takes the first excuse to throw her out on the streets - keeping her beloved child. Cissie has known the worst before. She will survive and she will win through. But while she builds up her own
business and fights for the return of her son, she must finally confront the consequences of those events long ago in Aberdeen when her childhood innocence was shattered...

TIME SHALL REAP

It is 1915, and Elspeth Gray is young, unmarried, heavily pregnant and destitute in a strange city. Having no one else to turn to, she throws herself on the mercy of a compassionate woman
she once met briefly on a train. Helen Watson and her husband, themselves expecting a baby, gladly give the desperate girl a home. After Elspeth’s son is born, however, Helen tragically loses her
own child, and in her traumatised state transposes the two births in her mind. With the neighbours also believing that little John is Helen’s baby, rather than the single girl’s, Elspeth
gradually finds herself deprived of her own child. A second chance for happiness comes along for Elspeth through marriage to David, a soldier badly scarred by the war. But her children must
survive the calamities of another war, and the tangle of secrets overshadowing her youth causes misunderstandings that eventually lead to disaster. Only when the full truth becomes clear can she
and her family find happiness and freedom from guilt...

THE HOUSE OF LYALL

Marion Cheyne is young, poor and ambitious. Her humble village roots and poorly paid job offer few opportunities and Marion feels trapped in a dead-end existence. So when an unexpected
chance to escape presents itself, Marion grabs it, ignoring the moral implications of her actions, and sets out on a new life far away in Aberdeen. Years later and the struggling servant girl
Marion has been transformed into Marianne, wife of the heir to Castle Lyall, and every inch the lady of the glen. More a business arrangement than a love match, Marianne’s commitment to her role
and to the name of Lyall is total, and as family, friends and world wars come and go, she will stop at nothing to protect her hard-won position. But the many secrets of her past refuse to stay
safely buried. Nothing in the small community of the glen can remain hidden forever...

THE NICKUM

Willie Fowlie’s grandmother calls him a ‘nickum’ - he is a mischievous Aberdeenshire boy who often acts instinctively, bearing little or no consideration for the consequences of his
actions. When he is eleven, his playful antics lead to a full-blown murder enquiry, but it is soon recognised that the hunt is based on nothing more material than Willie’s imagination. Four years
later, however, Willie witnesses a real murder, but believing that his eye-witness testimony is simply another fabrication, the police wind down the investigation. It is not until five years
later, during World War II, that Willie is able to prove the sincerity of his account and the murderer is apprehended. Despite his errant ways, Willie’s headmaster recognises his potential and
finances his matriculation at University along with his own daughter, Millie, in late September 1939. Free from the constraints of their childhood, the blossoming of their love begins to unfold.
However, within weeks of the outbreak of war, Willie’s best friend from childhood enlists in the army, but Willie feels duty-bound to his sponsor to obtain his degree. Two years later, however,
in 1941, Willie is confronted with the news that his friend has been killed in action. Racked with guilt, blaming himself for not being there to protect him, Willie abandons his education and
volunteers for the Gordon Highlanders. The course of his life is now completely changed, the troubled boy that he was now a distant memory, but can the ‘nickum’ ever atone for the decisions that
he has made?

JAM AND JEOPARDY

89-year-old spinster, Janet Stouter, takes pleasure in raking up scandals, old and new, about her neighbours. She also relishes refusing her two nephews the money they seek to bolster their
businesses. When a retired glass worker gives her some arsenic to kill the rats in her garden, she hatches a plan to test them. She tells them about the arsenic and waits for them to prove
themselves worthy of inheriting when she dies. Whoever attempts to kill her will be her sole heir; if both do, of course, they will each get half share of her substantial amount of savings. She
does, however, make sure that her life will be in no danger. Unfortunately, the old lady spreads word of her newly acquired poison around the village, thus laying the seeds of murderous intent in
several people. She had not foreseen that several other would-be assassins will come into the frame or that one will succeed in silencing her vicious tongue forever. This is a whodunnit in the
classic style of Agatha Chrisite.

MONDAY GIRL

After the death of her father, 10-year-old Renee and her mother are forced to open up their Aberdeen home to two lodgers. An impressionable and romantic child, Renee grows up weaving
romantic fantasies around both men, firstly the dependable Jack and later the charming Fergus, who cements her obsession with him by seducing her, then breaking her heart. With the advent of the
Second World War, Renee is thrown into further turmoil as the two men of her life are sent into action, leaving her to a whirlwind of RAF sergeants stationed in the area. It is during this period
that she meets and falls in love with Glynn, and the pair decide to marry. However, something remains wrong in Renee’s world... could her secret fear of Mondays be the reason for her inability to
find lasting happiness?

THREE KINGS

Three huge rocks rose from the bay of the tiny Scottish fishing village of Cullen. The locals called them ‘The Three Kings’, but to orphaned Katie Mair they were ‘The Three Wise Men’, her
trusted friends and the only ones to whom she could tell her troubles. And as she leaves her childhood behind, her troubles can only increase. At fourteen, she is old enough to go into service,
and her formidable grandmother has already found her a position. But the household, bleak and cut off at the Howe of Denty, is not as respectable as it first appears. And one desperate act of
defence from Katie is to a start a chain of despair, passion and revenge.

DUPLICITY

A novella and collection of short stories by Scotland’s favourite novelist. Two men sit petrified on Christmas Eve at the thought of spending it in supernatural company; a young family
makes a tense Cross-channel trip in fear of some unspecified threat; an old man contemplates jumping to his death at the thought of being evicted from the house in which he has lived all his
life. In this book, Doris Davidson looks back over an immensely successful writing career in a collection of twenty short stories, which also includes her eagerly awaited latest work, the novella
“Duplicity”. Covering a wide range of themes and moods, these stories are a wonderful tribute to the skill and imagination of one of Scotland’s best-loved authors.