A Quiet Death (4 page)

'It's a family tradition. After all, Sir Arnold's father was a poor Yorkshire lad who came to Scotland and ended up by marrying his boss's daughter, who was also an heiress.'

Faro said nothing and, alarmed by his silence, Vince said hotly: 'If you're thinking it is her money—'

'Of course I'm not, lad—' Observing Vince's dark frown, he added hastily, 'A figure of speech and in my usual bad taste, I'm afraid. The policeman in me sometimes forgets. Do forgive me.'

Vince did so readily. 'Let me tell you, even if Rachel had been the poorest of the workers I have to attend in the factory, I still would want to marry her. She is so beautiful, the loveliest raven black hair, eyes like violets—'

He paused, suddenly embarrassed. 'But you will see for yourself in a few moments. We met one day quite by accident, when I was attending her grandfather...'

Faro listened, smiling, delighted by his stepson's happiness but at the same time wondering how on earth the lad was to support an heiress. Certainly not on his salary as resident doctor.

But Vince was no longer aware of reality or indeed of his stepfather's presence. And with compassion Faro recognised that Vince had happily surrendered his grasp of the practicalities of life. Gazing fondly at the lad, he observed him in the throes of that state of temporary insanity which Faro considered, from his own bitter experience, as being 'in love'.

Deane Hall was a mansion with a setting worthy of the Baron of Broughty's role in society and commerce. Battlemented, turreted as any castle of old, it overlooked the unfinished piers of the Tay Bridge.

One day, Sir Arnold expected that a fine monument gazing down upon the river would be the city fathers' acknowledgement of his role in Dundee's progress and Deane's contribution to the longest bridge in the world. A bridge that would stand for ever, carrying the railway linking the northernmost towns and cities of Scotland with those of the rest of Britain. Most gratifying of all was that this vital link had acquired royal approval, giving her Majesty and the royal families of Europe easy access to Balmoral Castle.

Vince was arguing with the cab driver who was unwilling to tackle the last hundred yards of almost vertical climb from the ornate gates to the front door. Receiving his fare he dismissed his passengers brusquely and drove off leaving them to puff up the steep drive.

Faro sighed. 'Times have indeed changed. One would imagine he was doing us a great favour, bringing us here at all.'

'It's going down rather than up they really fear, Stepfather. They reckon that wealthy folk like the Baron who choose to live on inaccessible hilltops can afford their own sturdy carriages to bring up their affluent guests. Besides the exercise will do us good,' he added with a cheerful grin.

'Don't you think I get enough of that every day in Edinburgh?' grumbled Faro.

The driveway emerged on to a terrace which again afforded a panoramic view of the hills of Fife. The university town of St Andrews with its spires was minutely visible and to the west the faint undulating slopes of the Grampian Mountains.

Faro whistled. 'Well, that makes it almost worth the climb. What a magnificent landscape.'

'And one which is even better from the drawing room and the upstairs windows.'

Narrowing his eyes, Faro said: 'The bridge will certainly look most impressive when it's finished.'

'Sir Arnold is banking on it. He has, I understand, sunk a considerable part of his fortune into the construction. His engineering works supply the nuts and bolts, his weavers supply the cloth for sacking, overalls—'

'Overalls? That is progress indeed.'

'He firmly believes in attending to the needs and comfort as well as the safety of his workers. They eat a good nourishing meal once a day too, compliments of the firm. A splendid canteen, I can assure you and one I am often very grateful to patronise.'

'Less fortunate workers must envy them. Sounds quite idyllic.'

Vince frowned. 'It does—but alas, progress has a knack, which I'm sure you've noticed, of crushing the helpless who cannot keep up with it.'

'How so?' asked Faro as they climbed an imposing set of stone steps guarded by two ferocious heraldic lions.

'The working conditions give me cause for concern. Small wonder they need a resident doctor,' whispered Vince as he rang the doorbell. 'I am constantly dealing with terrible—and, I feel, quite unnecessary—accidents and maimings. The men blame shoddy materials and unsafe conditions of work. Some have even tried, poor beggars, or their dependants have tried, to bring Deane's to court.' He laughed grimly. 'But Wilfred is too smart for them.'

'Wilfred?'

'Sir Arnold's second cousin. He's a lot younger, of course.'

So that was the Wilfred Deane who had been set upon by McGowan.

The door was opened by a butler. 'Dr Laurie to see Miss Deane, if you please.'

'Are you expected, sir?'

'No, I am not. But here is my card—and my stepfather's.'

Faro produced his card which the butler consulted gravely before transferring it to the silver tray. 'If you will be seated, gentlemen, I will see if Miss Deane is at home to receive you.'

As they waited, Faro marvelled at this replica of a vast medieval hall. Ghostly suits of armour, ancient flags and every degree of opulence surrounded them. A huge log fire burned in a stone fireplace, wastefully consuming what looked like whole trees to keep warm no one in particular.

Occasionally he glanced at his stepson's excited face, flushed and smiling, a lover's face of anticipation and longing as he tapped his foot impatiently.

Faro meanwhile tried to suppress his own anxieties. A veritable parade of dismal practical questions surged through his mind, concerning Vince's ability to support a wife accustomed to such a life-style as that in evidence.

The butler returned, carrying his silver tray which still bore their cards. 'I regret, gentlemen, that Miss Deane is not at home.'

'You mean she is out?' said Vince in tones of surprise.

'I mean, sir, that she is not at home,' the butler replied carefully.

'Look, you know me. I am Sir Arnold's physician,' said Vince.

The butler's face was impassive. 'Is it then Sir Arnold you wish to see, sir?'

'No,' said Vince desperately. 'Look, would you please tell Rach—Miss Deane, Dr Laurie is here to see her. And that I have brought my stepfather to meet her.'

The butler's face was impassive as he ushered them politely but firmly towards the front door. 'Perhaps you would be so good as to leave a message, sir. I will see that it is delivered to Miss Deane at the very earliest.'

'Tell her I will call again. Tomorrow afternoon at three thirty.'

'Very well, sir. Good day.'

As they walked down the drive Vince, bewildered and mutinous, wore an expression Faro recalled from his difficult early years, when deprived of a particularly toothsome treat, or dragged unwillingly from a child's tea-party.

'Never mind, lad. She probably forgot all about it.'

Vince seized on his words eagerly. 'That's it exactly, Stepfather. Such a commitment of social engagements. The mind positively reels. I did tell her when you were arriving, but you know what girls are like, with milliners and dressmakers, and friends for ever calling and leaving cards ...'

Faro listened patiently, but he wasn't particularly impressed or convinced. He had seen something that his stepson in his preoccupation had mercifully missed.

As they walked across the gravel towards the drive, he had turned to look back at the house. At one of the grand windows upstairs a girl with raven black hair, most elegantly attired in afternoon dress, was watching them leave. As she caught his curious gaze, she stepped back hastily, but Faro had not the least doubt from Vince's description that the watcher was Miss Rachel Deane.

And that sight disturbed him exceedingly.

Chapter 4

As they walked back down the hill Vince continued to provide perfectly valid reasons, which even Faro could not fault, for Rachel Deane's non-appearance.

At last they reached Paton's Lane, a mean street of high and gloomy tenements. On the very edge of Magdalen Green its prospects were made marginally more dismal by the shadow and noisy sounds of activity drifting from the direction of the unfinished bridge.

'Here we are, Stepfather.'

Faro followed Vince into a narrow close, up a dark and dank stone stair to the third floor where the odorous smells became unmistakably boiled cabbage. At the end of a chilly dark passage Vince opened a door and for a moment Faro toyed with the notion that his stepson was visiting a sick patient and had absent-mindedly forgotten to inform him.

Until he announced: 'Home at last.'

If this was home, then Faro was aghast. An iron bedstead, a chair and table which by the amount of papers and writing materials also served as a desk, a crude shelf above containing medical books. A press stood on a sadly uneven floor whose bare boards were visible through an inadequate strip of cracked and faded linoleum.

Totally unable to conceal his feelings. Faro asked: 'Lad, are you so short of cash? You had but to ask—'

Vince drew himself up proudly. 'Never, Stepfather. Never again. I intend to make my way in the world alone. It is about time and I cannot sponge on you for ever. You have done more than enough for me.'

'There's no talk of sponging among kin—you know better than that, you're my lad—whatever I own is yours, or will be some day.' He made a weary gesture round the room. 'To think of you living in such squalor. Surely you could have found yourself some respectable private lodging? In a better part of the town,' he added indignantly.

'I could indeed, but by my reckoning, a doctor if he is to be any good at all, should be on hand when his patients need him and I couldn't be closer to mine. A workers' doctor must understand the needs of the men—and women—he has chosen to serve. I have a proper fully-equipped surgery and consulting room in the factory of course.'

At his stepfather's dour expression, he smiled wryly: 'I assure you that you need have no fears on the score of respectability. The McGonagalls are paragons. Besides,' he went on reassuringly, moving the lace curtain aside, 'look out there. Is that not the most exciting prospect?'

Before them stretched the impressive but distinctly unbeautiful panorama of the bridge. The height of skeletal iron piers threatened to dwarf everything in the immediate vicinity, but it too had become a pale ghost, almost obliterated by a monstrous cloud of fine dust from foundry chimneys.

On ground level far below, all footpaths had ceased to exist, vanishing under the mud stirred everywhere by bands of navvies striving to connect roads with the landfalls, an activity accompanied by an ear-splitting din. The blast of explosives shook the room in which they stood, vying with the incessant rhythm of rivets driven home against steel girders while the creak of cranes elevating materials skyward added their unlovely screech to the scene.

'Behold,' said Vince proudly, 'history in the making. And that is the important thing, Stepfather.'

'That's all very well. But I don't think I'd wish to have the bridge's presence outside my window, so to speak, a constant companion night and day.'

His weary glance took in the contents of the room. 'At least it looks clean enough,' he conceded. For the shabby wood gleamed, the oilcloth sparkled, and the room smelt distinctly of polish.

'Of course it is. That bed is spotless. Mrs Mac is very particular, changes the sheets every week.'

Faro found little consolation in such an assurance as the pleasant Edinburgh house Vince had left loomed in his mind, a modest paradise in comparison.

Knowing that argument was useless, he said weakly, 'I'd just like to see you with more comfortable lodgings. You gave me to understand that Deane's were paying a good salary.'

'Moderately good, Stepfather, considering what my earnings were in Sheridan Place,' Vince added bitterly. 'But I have another reason for living frugally at present. Don't you see, by staying here I can put by a little every week, which I will need of course, once Rachel and I are married.'

Faro was appalled. Shock at finding his stepson living in this wretched room had momentarily put out of his head that Vince was to marry Deane's heiress. God in heaven, how could the lad be so blind, remembering the splendour they had glimpsed, the mock-medieval hall, every sign of wealth and comfort.

Any comparison between Rachel Deane's home and this squalid lodging was not only unimaginable but obscene.

'Has Miss Deane visited you here?' he asked idly.

'Please call her Rachel, Stepfather. There has been no occasion for her to do so. And until the engagement is formally announced it would not be proper—'

Faro was spared any further comment as an infant wailed somewhere nearby. Vince went over and opened the door. The cries grew louder.

'That's the McGonagall baby.' Vince listened and was reassured by rapid footsteps. 'Mrs McGonagall isn't far away.'

Smiling at Faro, he continued, 'That was my other reason for choosing this lodging. The McGonagalls have six children, steps of stairs you might say, as well as an orphaned cousin from Ireland. William, the husband, is a weaver with Deane's but he has aspirations to being an actor—a tragedian, he prefers to call himself. I attended him—just a minor accident with one of the machines—and he asked me to look at Jean, Mrs Mac, who had bronchitis.