Time Shall Reap (22 page)

‘I ... wanted a change,’ she said quickly, for she couldn’t tell him that she had been expecting an illegitimate child, ‘and Jimmy heard they were looking for waitresses in the People’s Cafe.’

‘Oh aye.’

She relaxed. He had just been making conversation to keep his mind off other things. ‘D’you ken what I’d like?’ she asked, looking at him with her eyes dancing. ‘I’d like to paddle in the blue waters o’ the Mediterranean.’

After a pause, he said, ‘Maybe some day, Elspeth, if ...?’

She burst out laughing. ‘No, no. The blue waters here, I was meaning.’ Jumping up, she skipped down to the sea, lifting her skirts almost to her knees as she went.

David, a little shocked at seeing her bare, shapely legs, stood for a moment before he ran to join her in the water, his kilt flaring around him. She threw back her head and laughed as the cold sea swirled round their feet – the sand trickling through their toes with each plodding step they took. He grabbed her elbow to save her from being swept off her feet by an extra-high wave, and she didn’t protest when he kept holding it. She had never seen him looking so happy and carefree before, and wondered what terrible experience had caused him to be so withdrawn as he’d been the first day he came to the cafe, but she was glad that it was she who had wrought the change in him.

Up on the grass again, they made short work of the flask of tea and the sandwiches which Helen had provided, then, putting on their footwear again, they walked along the promenade to the wide estuary of the Don, where they sat for a long time watching the seabirds circling over the water looking for fish. Strolling back to catch the tram home, he took her hand and she didn’t pull it away as she would have done even yesterday – it was comforting to know how he felt about her – but she couldn’t bring herself to respond.

They talked companionably during the long journey, but when they were walking past the quarry, he said, ‘Elspeth, you must ken I love you. Is there a chance you could ...?’

She shook her head reprovingly. ‘Don’t spoil things, David. Not when we’ve had such a lovely day.’

Sighing, he let the matter drop and the ensuing oppressive silence totally engulfed them until they went into the house. Helen could see that nothing had changed but couldn’t make up her mind whether to be glad or sorry.

When David was going home, Elspeth offered to see him to the tram, but he said, ‘No, you’ve done enough walking for one day.’

Being tired, and having to be on early shift the following morning, she gave in. ‘I’ll come down the stair, any road.’

On the bottom step, he said, ‘You don’t need to come any farther.’ Hesitating for a moment, he went on, softly, ‘I’ll never stop loving you, Elspeth. It gives me something to live for, and I hope you’ll have changed your mind about things when I come back next time.’

‘I’ll not say I’ll never change my mind,’ she whispered, ‘but not yet, David. Not yet.’

He kissed her cheek lightly and walked away.

No letter came for Elspeth over the summer and autumn. She had written to David every week in the five months since he went back, but now she didn’t bother, although Helen, ever the optimist, assured her that he must still be alive. ‘I’m sure you’d feel it inside you if anything had happened to him,’ she had repeated, over and over again.

The girl was convinced that David had been killed, but put a brave face on to fool her landlady. ‘Maybe he found somebody that was willing to be more than a friend to him.’

‘What chance would the laddie have for that, out there in the trenches?’ Helen couldn’t have been more scornful.

Elspeth was glad that the People’s Cafe kept her mind fully occupied for at least eight hours every day, and Helen, feeling sorry for her, allowed her to take John out for walks more often, but even that did not lift the girl’s spirits. She felt bitter, and resentful that David had been taken from her, too. ‘It’s not that I loved him,’ she said to Ann Robb one day when she took John to visit the doctor’s wife, ‘but I’d grown real fond of him and I don’t like to think he’s been killed.’

‘Perhaps he’s only been wounded,’ Mrs Robb suggested.

‘If he’d been wounded, he could write,’ Elspeth said, stubbornly. ‘He would know I’d be worried about not hearing from him.’

‘If he’d been killed, you’d have seen it in the newspaper. They publish lists, remember.’

‘I hardly ever look at the paper.’

‘But Mr Watson does, I’ve heard you saying, so he’d have seen it, if it had been in.’

‘Aye, that’s right,’ Elspeth said, thoughtfully.

Mrs Robb left it at that, and turned to John. ‘Goodness, you’re growing a big boy.’

Elspeth smiled. ‘He’s three now, and his dark curly hair and big brown eyes are just like his father’s.’

The big brown eyes were regarding her solemnly, but she had a shock when the boy turned to the other woman. ‘My father works at the Quarry,’ he told her.

‘He thinks Jimmy Watson’s his father,’ Elspeth whispered, her face flaming.

Ann Robb laughed. ‘It’s only natural.’

Elspeth could have told her that Helen’s attitude to the boy was most unnatural, but she was so ashamed at having let it run on for so long that she kept quiet.

It was all over on the 11th November. The Armistice came as a blessing to the world in general, but more especially to the women with husbands, sons or lovers in the forces.

When the next letter came from Margaret, full of glowing descriptions of baby James, Helen remarked, ‘I can hardly wait to see my grandson, but I couldna face the journey to Hull, even if I had the fare, so I’ll have to wait till Donald gets out o’ the Gordons and they bring him up here.’ Glancing at Elspeth’s unresponsive face, she said, kindly, ‘I ken you’re worried about David, lass, but no news is good news and it’ll likely not be long till you see him now.’

‘Aye.’ Elspeth did not feel inclined to discuss it.

Gradually, the men returned home – those who were fit enough, those who would return – to the long unemployment queues and soup kitchens. The promise of a ‘land fit for heroes’ was to be left unfulfilled.

In March, 1919, Margaret wrote, ‘Donald is home for good, and he was lucky to find a job in a shipyard, so we will be looking for a house near there. Little James is growing every day. Of course, he is 15 months old now.’ As if his grandmother needed to be reminded of that. ‘He looks so beautiful in the little knitted suits you sent for his birthday and his Christmas, I wish you could see him.’

‘That’s that, then!’ Helen, feeling bitterly let down, did her best to accept it – or to pretend that she accepted it. ‘It’s Donald’s life, and he’d wanted to put his roots down where his wife and his bairn are.’

‘Oh, Helen, I’m sorry,’ Elspeth murmured. ‘I ken how much you were looking forward to seeing James every day.’

‘It’s maybe just as well they’ll not be here, for I’d likely spoil him. Grannies are aye blamed for that.’

Elspeth’s smile was rueful. No one would ever be able to accuse John’s two grannies of spoiling him. Her own mother would never acknowledge his existence now, and Mrs Forrest – his other granny – would never know that he existed at all.

Returning servicemen – ex-servicemen – thronged the cafe now, their high-spirited teasing making Elspeth feel just as exhilarated as they did ... until they left. At the back of her mind lay the hope that David would walk in one day, but she knew that it was very unlikely.

The numbers tailed off eventually, and by November – a whole year after the Armistice – the only servicemen she served were the sailors from ships in the harbour, and the regular soldiers from the Barracks. David had not come back from the war – or if he had, he had not come back to her.

At Quarry Street, Helen and Jimmy never mentioned him, but Elspeth could sense their pity and tried to keep cheerful in front of them. Only in the privacy of her own room did she give way to tears – tears of regret for a friendship which had never had the chance to blossom into romance.

She felt ashamed now at having rebuffed his love. It would have been easy to say that she returned his feelings, to make him feel loved and wanted, but through her own fears she had let him believe that she hadn’t cared for him at all. She had cared. Her present heartache was proof of that, and whether he was dead or had found someone else, she had lost him.

A week after the new year of 1920 had come in, Elspeth was jolted out of the cocoon she had spun for herself in her efforts to put David Fullerton out of her mind. Having just started her shift one afternoon, she went to serve a stout woman who was sitting in what had been his special place.

The customer looked up. ‘I’m just wanting ...’ Her mouth stayed open. ‘Mercy on us, it’s Elspeth Gray!’

‘Mrs Taylor!’ She was completely taken aback at coming face to face again with this woman from Auchlonie, who had been the one to tell her why John Forrest had not appeared for supper that November night over five years ago.

Mrs Taylor, however, was never thrown out of her stride. ‘We wondered what had become o’ you, for your folk never speak about you.’

Elspeth stood motionless, miserably wishing that the floor would open up and swallow her. ‘I got a better job.’

‘Aye, so Miss Fraser said, but we couldna understand why your mother never said anything about it.’

Her expression showed that she did not consider working as a waitress an improvement on being a dress-maker, and the girl could well imagine the speculations that had gone on, but none of the village women could have known about her association with John Forrest. Nettie Duffus and Kirsty Tough had, of course, but they would never have disclosed her secret, and, anyway, they didn’t know all of it.

‘Did you have a row wi’ your folk?’ Mrs Taylor persisted, her skin as thick as a rhinoceros.

‘Aye, and I walked out.’

Because this was not an uncommon occurrence, the woman accepted it without question. ‘You’re looking well enough, any road, the town air seems to be agreeing wi’ you. Will I tell Lizzie I’ve seen you?’

‘Oh, no! Don’t tell anybody,’ Elspeth pleaded, then caught sight of Miss Mackay looking at them over the top of her pince nez. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Taylor, but I’m not sup-posed to stand and speak. The manageress is glowering.’

‘I see that. Well, I just want a cup o’ tea, to shove in time for the train.’

When she was leaving, Mrs Taylor looked across and put a finger to her lips, indicating that she would say nothing about the meeting. She was a gossip, Elspeth knew that, but she could be trusted not to break her promise and Lizzie would never hear about her daughter from her.

The incident unsettled the girl, however, and after fretting over it all night, she told her landlady, who was quite upset for her, she looked so unhappy. ‘Do you not think you should try writing to your mother again?’

‘She never answered my other letters.’

‘Aye, well, but she’d likely still been angry at you for leaving your auntie’s. She’ll have cooled down now.’

‘I’m not writing to her ever again.’ Elspeth had been deeply hurt by her mother’s silence, and had inherited her father’s obstinacy. ‘I’ll need to change my job, though, in case somebody else from Auchlonie comes in and sees me.’

‘You can please yourself about writing’, Helen said, slightly impatiently, ‘but you’re not to give up your job, that’s just cutting off your nose to spite your face.’

Elspeth couldn’t help smiling at this, but took her advice and did nothing about handing in her notice. She also pleased herself and did not write to her mother.

Nearing the end of her shift one afternoon at the beginning of June, a hand touching her elbow made Elspeth turn round, her eyes and mouth flying open the sight of the tall Gordon Highlander who was looking at her rather timidly.

‘David!’ She could hardly believe it. After all the long months of anxiety and despondency, it was too much for her to find that he was still alive, and she burst into tears.

‘Whisht, Elspeth, folk’ll be looking.’ He was embarrassed, but pleased, by her reaction, and squeezed her arm before he sat down at his old table. ‘I was hoping you’d be on the early shift, so I’ll have a cup o’ tea and wait for you.’

‘I thought ... something had happened to you when you never wrote,’ she whispered.

‘I ken, lass, but I’ll tell you about it later on.’

For the next ten minutes, she took and served orders in a pleasant haze, looking across at David every now and then as if to make sure he was really there, but at last it was time for her to put on her coat. As soon as they were outside, she looked up at him. ‘Why did you stop writing? I thought you’d found somebody else, then I thought you’d been ... killed. Oh, I just didna ken what to think.’

‘There’ll never be anybody else for me, Elspeth.’

David’s voice was quiet, and she felt herself responding to his earnestness. She had a deep affection for him – no, it was more than that. She did love him.

‘I was wounded the week after I went back, and I was in a French hospital, a monastery it had been once.’ He paused, unwilling to tell her that he had been delirious for weeks. ‘Well, the sisters thought I might have to lose my leg, and I couldn’t risk telling you. If you’d said you loved me after that, I’d never have ken’t if it was true or out o’ pity, and I couldna face that. But, thank God, they managed to save it, though it’s shorter than the other one and I’ll aye be a cripple.’

‘Oh, David,’ she half-sobbed, ‘I’m sorry about your leg, but I’m awful glad you weren’t killed. At least you’ve come back to me.’

He didn’t tell her that he had often wished that he had been killed. It would have saved him from the excruciating pain he’d had to suffer, and the mind-twisting nightmares which had returned, worse than ever. Careful surgery and tender nursing had brought him back to sanity, however, and by the time he was transferred to a hospital in the north of England, he had been looking forward to coming home – home to this wonderful girl. Although he had contacted his father then, he still hadn’t written to her. He wanted to see her face when she discovered that he was safe, and her reaction was all that he had hoped for. ‘Will you marry me now?’