The Girl with the Creel (63 page)

Lizann brightened now. ‘Yes, George and Lizann. You weren't put out by their names, were you?'

‘Not in the least. It showed me how thoughtful Jenny was … and Mick.'

‘Dan, would you like us to have children?'

‘Only if you want them.'

‘I'd like two, close together, so they'll be company for each other.'

Approaching Easter Duncairn, Lizann gave a little chuckle. ‘The second surprise turned out well, after all, so what about the last one? When do I get it?'

‘Any time now.'

They entered the farmhouse by the kitchen, and when she saw that most of the old items had been replaced and that a refrigerator had been installed, she turned and gave her husband a bear hug. ‘Oh, Dan, this is another lovely surprise.'

She broke away to inspect everything and didn't notice the contained excitement on his face. When at last she went back to him, he said, ‘I had the whole house done up. Come and see the rest.'

The dining-room made her exclaim in delight. With wallpaper having disappeared from the shops during the war, Dan had painted over the dingy paper she remembered and stippled on a pattern to decorate it. The room seemed much lighter and airier, this impression being helped by a new table and chairs, with a long sideboard to match. ‘They're not new,' Dan said, apologetically. ‘Nothing was new, not even the refrigerator. I got everything at a roup in a big house outside Rothienorman, all good quality. What do you think?'

‘I'm speechless,' she murmured.

Taking her elbow, her led her into the sitting-room, watching her face as he opened the door, but when she spotted what he had been waiting for her to notice, he had as big a surprise as she did, because she just stood and stared. He couldn't tell by her expression whether she was angry or pleased, and started to babble an explanation. ‘I saw it in a second-hand shop in Aberdeen one Sunday on my way to meet you. It had something very special about it, and it reminded me of the first time I saw you. The shop was closed, of course, but I got Ella to go next day and buy it for me.' He was very much taken aback when she started to weep; it was the last thing he had expected. ‘I'm sorry, my dear, maybe you don't want to be reminded. If you don't like it …'

Her tear-filled eyes were fixed on a spot above the fireplace, on the gold-framed drawing of a girl with a creel. ‘I love it,' she whispered. ‘I've always loved it.'

‘I loved it, too, as soon as I saw it, but I don't understand …'

‘Dan, it's the most wonderful, wonderful surprise you could ever have given me. I thought I'd never see it again. It's my good luck token, so I know we'll always be happy together.'

She slid into his arms, still weeping softly, and having no experience of women he couldn't understand why she was crying when she professed to be pleased, but he deemed it best not to tell her about the letter just yet. Wanting his gift to her to be perfect, he had bought a new frame, and when he removed the brown backing paper to take out the actual sketch, he had found the love note. He had no doubt that she would be just as intrigued by it as he had been, and they could have some fun making up suggestions as to who had hidden it and why, also imagining the story behind the writing of the billet-doux in the first place. They might try asking in as many fishing communities as they could if anyone had any information, though it would be difficult with no names to give … unless someone could identify the girl. Of course, the truth might turn out to be disappointingly unromantic.

Dropping a kiss on Lizann's head – now with a few white hairs through the curly black – Dan was sure that she would tell him in her own time why the picture meant so much to her, and why it had come to be lying in the window of a rag and bone merchant amongst a lot of old junk.

Chapter Thirty-six

‘We'd better get up,' Dan said, regretfully. ‘Alice'll be here soon.'

‘I don't really need anybody,' Lizann smiled. ‘I could easily manage.'

‘I want you to take things easy.' He kissed the point of her nose then swung his feet to the floor. ‘She worked like a slave when Meggie was ill, and I wouldn't like to sack her.'

‘Oh no, you can't sack her, but we're bound to feel awkward with each other. Even if she doesn't remember me coming round with the creel, her mother and all the other cottar wives will.'

‘They'll respect you for having had to work hard.'

By the time her maid appeared – at seventeen, a tall robust girl with bright blue eyes and fair hair covered by a checked blue duster – Lizann had set the table in the kitchen and was supervising the toast under the grill while a pan of eggs was boiling on top of the stove. ‘You're nae eating in here?' the girl asked, her lips pursing in disapproval.

‘It'll save dirtying the dining-room,' Lizann smiled. ‘And I lit the boiler nearly an hour ago, so you can start on the washing when …' This sounding too much like an order, she started again. ‘Look, Alice, maybe you'll think I'm making out you didn't do things right before, but I'm only trying to help. If we share the work, we'll soon get used to each other's ways.'

The girl's scowl vanished. ‘Aye, Mrs Fordyce, I suppose so.'

Once Dan had eaten and gone out, Lizann cleared the table, washed up the dishes and swept the floor, by which time Alice had finished the first load of washing. ‘Look at this, Mrs Fordyce,' she said, holding up a linen sheet they had just put through the mangle. ‘You could read the morning paper through this, it's that thin.'

Lizann's heart sank. ‘Are they all like that?'

‘Most of them. It took me a while to find a decent pair to put on for you coming. I didna worry when it was just Mr Fordyce, for men never see that kind of thing, but a woman's different.'

‘I'll go up in the afternoon and see what's to be replaced.'

While Alice was scrubbing Dan's grimy shirt collars on the corrugated washing board, Lizann pegged out the whites, sighing when she saw that the pillowcases were as thin as the sheets, the towels were on their last legs and the tablecloths had already been darned several times. Then she remembered Meggie telling her, with a touch of pride, that they had all belonged to Dan's mother. They'd given good service, Lizann thought as she went back inside, and the same quality wasn't available nowadays – just cotton, with the wartime utility mark on.

‘I dinna ken what we'll have for our dinner,' Alice observed. ‘It's a good job the master never comes in for anything on washing days, for there's nae left-overs to be eaten up.'

‘Of course, he was away over the weekend. Well, it doesn't matter to me. I'd be quite happy with a cup of tea and an oatcake and cheese. What about you?'

‘Aye, that'll do me and all.'

After they had finished their snack, Lizann went to check on the linen and Alice took in those items dry enough for ironing. She was covering the table with an old blanket when there was a sharp knock on the back door. It turned out to be an elderly man and someone she took to be his daughter. ‘Is Mrs Fordyce in?' he smiled.

‘She's upstairs, but if you come into the sitting-room, I'll go and tell her you're here.'

She led them through the kitchen and across a wide hall, and, holding open a door, asked, ‘Who'll I say?'

‘If you don't mind, we'd like to surprise her.'

Jenny walked into the large, welcoming room, and was about to take a seat when she was startled by a painful gasp from behind her. Looking round, she saw that Robbie was pointing to something, and following his trembling finger, her eyes widened when they came to rest on a familiar picture. Fearful for his heart, she turned back to him, to find him regarding her in deep entreaty.

‘Tell me I'm not dreaming,' he begged.

‘You're not dreaming,' she assured him, going over and putting her arm round his shoulder. ‘Are you all right? You're awful white.'

‘It's my Hannah,' he murmured, his hand going to his chest as if to still the inner turmoil. ‘I thought I'd got over her, but it just took one glimpse of that picture to bring it all back.'

Just then the door opened and Lizann walked in, her brow wrinkling in puzzlement when she saw the two people standing with their backs to her, and clearing when the woman turned her head. ‘Jenny! What on earth are you doing here?'

‘I asked her to come with me.' Rather unsteadily, Robbie stepped away from Jenny to face the woman he had been longing to see.

The next few minutes were something of a blur to him. In his mind it was Hannah who had come in, looking no older than he remembered her, her near-black eyes holding no recognition but filling with concern for him. But there should be love there as well as concern, he thought sadly, as gentle hands guided him to a comfortable chair. He wanted to speak to her, to ask why she ignored his note, but there was an agonizing pain in his chest. He became conscious of Jenny's soft voice soothing him while she slackened his tie and opened his front stud to ease the pressure of the starched collar on his throat. ‘You'll be fine,' she was murmuring. ‘You got a shock seeing the picture, and seeing Lizann on top of that … I should have warned you.'

Lizann? he wondered. But it had been Hannah … hadn't it? No, what was he thinking? Jenny had said Hannah died years ago, and even if she had still been alive, she'd have been quite old now, the same as he was. There would have been more than a sprinkling of silver through the jet black hair. He should have known, but her daughter was so like her, so heart-stoppingly like her. He moved his lips now and found himself able to croak a squeaky, ‘I'm sorry, Jenny.'

‘It was my fault.'

Still ignorant as to who he was and why he was there, Lizann said, ‘I'll go and ask Alice to make some tea.'

When she came back, Jenny said, ‘I haven't introduced you yet. Lizann, this is Robbie Chapman.'

The name did sound vaguely familiar to her, but before she had time to think where she had heard it, he rose and embraced her tightly. ‘You're so like your mother, I can hardly believe you're not really her.'

‘You knew my mother?'

‘He's the one that drew the picture,' Jenny was explaining when Dan walked in, giving a peculiar smile when he murmured, ‘So you're the artist, Mr … um …?'

‘Chapman's the name.'

‘Not Rob Chapman?' Dan gasped. ‘The famous portrait painter?'

‘The very same,' Robbie laughed, ‘but a raw unknown when I sketched Hannah Jappy. So raw that I fell in love with her, but she wouldn't let herself love me.'

Having delved into the recesses of her past, Lizann had recalled what her Auntie Lou had told her after her mother's astonishing denial that ‘it wasn't Robbie's baby!' She didn't want to dwell on what those few words suggested, so she said coldly, ‘I was led to believe that she was already married to my father when you drew her.'

‘That didn't stop some women from running off with another man,' he retorted, then his shoulders sagged. ‘I'm sorry. It's your parents we're speaking about, of course. But you must understand, Hannah wasn't like other women. She was so innocent …'

He broke off, overcome by memories, and Jenny had to relate the story of why he had been banned from the Yardie, making it quite clear that nothing actually sinful had happened between Hannah and him, except in her childlike mind. Then Robbie took up the reins once more. ‘It nearly broke my heart not to be allowed to see her, so I left home and went to London to try my luck as an artist.'

‘You wrote her a letter first.' Dan's expression was enigmatic now.

Robbie turned pale again. ‘I did, but I didn't get a reply.'

Lizann looked indignantly at her husband. ‘How did you know there was a letter? You didn't say anything about it to me last night.'

‘My dear girl, I didn't get much chance. I saw you were knocked off balance by the picture, and I didn't want to make you any worse. I was going to tell you tonight.'

It was Jenny who persisted. ‘How did you know, Dan? And Lizann sold the picture with the rest of her stuff, so where did you find it?'

‘I'd better start at the beginning,' he smiled. ‘I saw it in a secondhand shop in Aberdeen …'

‘Goodness knows how it got there,' Lizann butted in.

‘… and the girl was so like Lizann as I saw her first, I had to buy it. When I was replacing the damaged frame, I found a letter behind the backing paper.' He walked across to the old mahogany bureau and took out a grubby envelope. ‘It's not addressed, so I think she had destroyed the original one.'

Robbie shook his head when it was held out to him. ‘I can remember every word as if I'd newly written it. Let Lizann read it, then maybe she'll understand how I felt about her mother.'

The two young women put their heads together to read it, and Lizann's expression was softer when she looked at Robbie again. ‘You really did love her, didn't you?'

‘With all my heart, and I tried to tell myself she didn't answer that because she didn't get it, but it seems she did get it.'

His deep sigh and his stricken face made Lizann say impulsively, ‘She must have thought a lot of you before she kept it.'

He had been biting his bottom lip, but this thought cheered him. ‘You think so? She did the right thing, I know that now. She was better with him … she couldn't have depended on me. I nearly starved for years …' He broke off, sighing again.

Lizann looked at Dan with her eyebrows raised, and when he nodded, she said, ‘Robbie, I'd like you to have the picture as a reminder of her.'

‘Oh, no! It's yours, you can't give it away!' He hesitated briefly, then said, hopefully, ‘But if you didn't mind, I'd quite like to borrow it for a couple of weeks. A London art dealer has been pestering me to send something down for an exhibition he's putting on, and I've only some of my first attempts at sketching, amateurish compared with this. It's the best thing I ever did, and I'd take it in the railway carriage with me and guard it with my life … and I'd make Perry put on a sticker to show it's not for sale. What d'you say?'