Fields of Blue Flax Read online

  ‘Yes it is, Miss, that was fine, really fine.’

  Charlotte smiled and leant towards Elizabeth. She held her rosy cheeks between her palms and was about to give her a kiss when the door opened.

  They both turned to see Margaret Barrie standing there, rigid. ‘Excuse me, Miss, it’s time to take Elizabeth home.’ She gestured to Elizabeth to join her at the door, her face sombre.

  ‘Oh, Margaret, I’d hoped to take her to the kirk while I practise the organ for Sunday.’

  ‘That willnae be possible, Miss.’ She nodded to Elizabeth. ‘Out now, go and fetch your bonnet frae the kitchen.’

  Charlotte stood up to her full height at the piano.

  ‘I thought it was just psalms you were playing for her, Miss?’

  ‘Psalms, hymns and other things, Margaret. There is surely no harm in that?’

  ‘As long as you play music for her that your father would approve of, Miss,’ Margaret said, a sour expression on her face.

  ‘Yes, Margaret.’ Charlotte sighed and removed the music from the stand.

  Margaret slammed the door behind her as she left.

  Chapter Twenty

  2014

  ‘Why did the farmers decide to ruin the landscape with all those fields of rapeseed?’ Christine sneezed as she looked out her window at the passing mass of yellow.

  ‘I know, hideous isn’t it,’ said Mags. ‘What would they have grown here in the past?’

  ‘Well, the flax for Dundee’s linen industry was all grown locally, here in Angus.’

  ‘Flax flowers are that gorgeous blue colour, aren’t they? That must have looked awesome, fields of blue everywhere.’

  They came to a signpost and Mags veered left. ‘Let’s stop for a coffee in Forfar. I’ve got some brownies with me if the baking’s rubbish.’

  ‘You can’t take your own food into a café, Mags,’ Christine tutted.

  ‘Watch me,’ said Mags, parking the car.

  As they walked towards the coffee shop, Mags said, ‘I keep meaning to ask you this, Chris. Now that Jack’s doing so much better, are you going to stop pursuing that man from Pontyprydd who drove into them?’

  ‘Pontefract, Mags. Colin Clarkson. Yes, I told you already I’m going to let it go. Always hated the name Colin anyway.’ Christine sighed. ‘Jack still gets pretty tired. It’s taken its toll, you know. And he’s still got a bit of a limp. Every time I see him it breaks my heart.’

  Mags couldn’t read the expression on Chris’s face; she had no idea if she would really stop this quest for revenge. But she’d had enough of pandering to her bossy cousin’s moods since the accident. She’d always been a bit obsessive, but now she was almost paranoid about that Clarkson man. And her constant fretting about Jack had to stop. Most of it was in her imagination, he’d hardly any limp at all.

  And Chris never asked how Mags was doing. Mags thought this trip might be the time to talk about her own worries over her cake business. Or even tell her about the drunken discussion at book club, but she doubted Chris would be interested; she’d become totally self-absorbed.

  Inside the café, Mags peered at the cakes in the glass stand. ‘Are the scones freshly baked today?’

  ‘Not sure. Think so. If not I can heat one up for you. Butter and jam?’ The young girl gave her a look her mum would have described as ‘glaikit’.

  ‘Er, no thanks, just a coffee for me, please’ Mags turned to Christine. ‘You want something to eat?’

  ‘Just a coffee. You go and get a seat, Mags, I’ll get these.’

  Mags wandered over to the window table and sat down. She watched Christine take out a bottle of water from her handbag, pop something in her mouth and tip her head back as she swigged down the water. Mags idly flicked through the local newspaper that was in front of her.

  Christine arrived with the coffee and sat down.

  ‘You okay, Chris? Saw you popping pills just now.’

  ‘Oh, just a bit of a headache, good old Nurofen,’ she said, patting her handbag as she placed it down beside her. ‘Anyway, here’s the coffee. I don’t hold out much hope for it though.’

  Mags delved into her capacious basket and brought out a foil package and started to open it.

  ‘You’re not going to eat your brownies in here, are you?’ Christine whispered.

  ‘I sure am. There’s no way those scones are fresh, they look as tired as the fruit cake.’ Mags handed her cousin a square of brownie.

  Christine looked around and took a surreptitious bite.

  ‘Mmm, gorgeous. What’s in these ones?’

  ‘Cardamom. Good aren’t they? I know you like the clove ones but they’re too Christmassy for June.’ Mags flicked open the property section in The Forfar Dispatch on the table as she slurped her coffee.

  Christine took out her Ordnance Survey map and unfolded it. ‘What was that place you said had a good pub for lunch?’

  ‘The Drovers Inn in Memus, it’s meant to have great food and…’ Mags stared at the paper more closely. ‘Bloody hell, look at this,’ she said, pointing to a photo. ‘The Old Steading, by Tannadice, one bedroom, one bathroom, one kitchenette. Offers over ninety thousand.’ She looked up at Christine. ‘Pretty cheap isn’t it? Imagine the equivalent size in Edinburgh, it’d be three times that!’

  Christine was staring at the photo of the house.

  Mags sat up in her seat and beamed. ‘Let’s go and see it after we’ve been to the cemetery.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Doug’s family used to own it! His parents bought it as a holiday cottage, to get away from their surgeries and patients in Aberdeen. In fact, Doug and I used to go there from Dundee when he could borrow his flatmate’s car.’ She smirked. ‘Scene of many a dirty weekend.’ Mags tilted her head back and chuckled. ‘God, Chris, not seen you bite your nails for ages.’

  ‘I know, sorry, disgusting habit.’ Christine stood up. ‘Let’s get some fresh air, it’s too stuffy in here.’

  Mags coughed loudly as she tore the page out of the paper and slipped it into her basket.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Christine hissed.

  Mags ignored her and headed for the door. ‘Nothing to do with being stuffy,’ she whispered, ‘it’s the pot I put in the brownies working its magic already!’

  Christine glared at her cousin.

  ‘God, woman. Chill! I was joking.’ Mags laughed. ‘You take life way too seriously!’

  Ten minutes later they turned off the main road at a sign that read Tannadice.

  ‘How will we know where the graveyard is, Mags?’

  ‘If we blink we’ll be through the village, can’t be that hard. There’s the church, let’s park there.’

  Mags edged into a space and switched off the engine.

  ‘Did you have time to Google it?’ asked Christine.

  ‘Yes, this building’s from 1846 but there’s been a church here for centuries so there’ll be old graves too.’

  They got out and crossed over the road towards the church.

  ‘Not exactly buzzing, is it?’ Mags said, looking down the deserted road.

  ‘It would’ve been so different in Elizabeth Barrie’s day,’ Christine said, pushing open the gate to the graveyard.

  Yew trees lined the wall along one side of the pathway. When they came to the church, they stood looking south towards a large grassy area of gravestones, many sloping forwards, bent with age.

  ‘Not too crowded is it?’ said Mags.

  ‘Well, no, I suppose not, but it’s a huge graveyard for such a tiny village.’

  ‘It would’ve served all the surrounding area, the parish is probably enormous,’ said Mags, leaning down to inspect a headstone.

  ‘Let’s split up to look for any Barrie graves. I’ll go down to that area down there, though the stones all look more modern than these ones.’ Christine crunched along the gravel path, stopping to inspect the headstones along the way. Mags removed her jacket and tied the sleeves round her waist. The sun was begi
nning to peek out from the clouds and warm the spring air. At the back of the churchyard, the trees cast long shadows across the weathered stones. She began to find recurring family names, many Craiks, Andersons, Robbies and Mitchells. There were no Barries.

  Along the fence at the back, nearest the church, were two large family crypts, with iron gates, padlocked with heavy chains. Mags peered into these and saw that they were all Nicolls, presumably one wealthy family.

  Most of the people in these grand crypts lived to about eighty years, though one child had died aged four. As she moved back towards the smaller graves for the poor, she realised that they lived to only about sixty, seventy maximum.

  There was a lone headstone on the other side of the gravel path. Mags stooped down to read it and immediately shouted for Chris. ‘Come here, look what I’ve found!’ Mags beamed as she got out her notebook and pencil and started to scribble.

  Christine hurried over, and Mags pointed to the inscription on the stone. ‘Barries. We’ve found them at last.’

  ‘There’s three of them in there,’ said Christine, then read aloud in her teacher voice, ‘In Memory of John Barrie, died at Corrie, 16th January 1855, aged sixty-eight years. Also of his wife Lorna Mackie, died at Corrie, 3rd July 1860, aged sixty and of their son David Barrie.’

  ‘That’s Elizabeth’s father, isn’t it?’ Mags interrupted.

  ‘Think so,’ said Christine. ‘David Barrie died at Tannadice, 25th June 1860, aged thirty-nine years.’

  ‘God, he died young. And just a month before his mother. Is that not strange?’ Mags thrust her pencil through the bun at the back of her head.

  ‘An unfortunate coincidence, maybe. Are there any more Barries up here? I couldn’t find any.’

  ‘Just got those ones over there to check,’ she said, pointing.

  The two women wandered over to a cluster of three crumbling gravestones close together and then towards a grand headstone ornamented with a panel and a large cross.

  Christine read, ‘In memory of Maud Euphemia Whyte, wife of the Reverend Charles William Whyte, died at The Manse, Tannadice, 4th June 1860, aged fifty-seven. Also of their daughter Charlotte Ann Whyte, died at The Manse, 27th March 1871, aged thirty. And of the Reverend Charles William Whyte, Minister at Tannadice, who died at The Manse, 22nd August, 1889, aged eighty-four.’

  ‘No wonder this is such an impressive headstone and so near the church,’ said Mags. ‘God, the poor man. His wife and daughter died so young.’

  ‘Awful,’ said Christine. ‘And the wife died in 1860 as well, same as David Barrie and his mother. D’you think there was maybe some disease going around – typhoid or something?’

  Mags shrugged and Christine continued, ‘I suppose there was always some danger lurking, they died of a bad cold in those days, didn’t they. No sign of Margaret Barrie, Elizabeth’s mother?’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t bury paupers in churchyards,’ said Mags. ‘I’ll ask my new best friend when we go back to Register House. Anyway, at least we know roughly when Elizabeth Barrie must’ve been born since her father died in June 1860.’

  They stood on the path, looking from the simple Barrie gravestone to the minister’s grandiose monument.

  ‘What’s that flower engraved beside Charlotte Whyte’s name, Mags?’ Christine pointed to a floral design.

  ‘Looks like lily of the valley. What do you reckon?’

  ‘Yes, think you’re right. Wonder what that symbolised in Victorian times.’

  ‘Something else to research, we can Google it at lunch,’ said Mags, pulling the pencil from her hair and scribbling once more on her notebook.

  ‘Are we finished here?’

  ‘Reckon so, just let me take some photos of the Barrie grave and then we’ll go check out the Old Steading.’

  Christine headed for the gate.

  ‘Oh, I’m going to take a photo of the minister’s grave too, in case the lily of the valley means anything. Awesome, isn’t it?’

  ‘Told you, Mags!’

  ‘Do we have to go to this house?’ Christine sat down in the passenger seat and strapped in.

  ‘Yeah, I want to go, old times’ sake for Doug and me. I’m pretty sure I’ll remember the way, but we always came from the other way, from the Dundee-Aberdeen road. Let’s have a look at your map.’

  Christine unfurled the Ordnance Survey map and Mags traced the route from Tannadice.

  ‘Yeah, that’s where we’ll go off the main road. See, we used to come in from here. We parked at the end of the track and walked. I’ve no idea if you can drive now.’

  Mags handed the large expanse of map back to Christine and started driving.

  ‘But surely there must be someone living there,’ Christine said, folding up the map. ‘We can’t just pop in.’

  Mags shrugged. ‘Let’s see.’

  They drove slowly for a few minutes south-east then Mags came to a halt. ‘Check the map, Chris, would you. Is the turn-off before or after that bridge?’

  ‘Hang on, um, after I think. It’s here, there’s the track!’

  ‘So it is, and looks like you still can’t drive along there. I’ll park on the verge and we can walk.’

  Mags beamed at Christine and jumped out of the car. ‘Cheer up, woman. Why do you look so bloody miserable?’

  ‘Sorry Mags, my hay fever’s bothering me,’ she said, sneezing. ‘Must be the rapeseed everywhere.’

  They set off along the track and soon came to a clearing. The vegetation underfoot was damp and Christine looked down at her feet. ‘I’m going to ruin my suede shoes, do we have to keep going?’

  ‘Not much further,’ Mags said.

  Christine nodded and set off to her right.

  ‘No it’s this way, between those two trees over there. I’m sure I remember it being there.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ said Christine, stepping gingerly over the wet grass to join Mags who was inhaling deeply.

  ‘Can you smell the wild garlic, Chris?’ Mags pointed to the plants all around. ‘Did you know, the leaves are the same as lily of the valley, but there’s one difference: the lily’s are deadly poisonous.’

  They picked their way towards the trees, but there was no sign of a cottage. ‘Oh, wait,’ said Mags, ‘it must be the other way, my memory’s shot.’

  They walked back to the clearing then off to the right. ‘Look,’ said Mags. ‘There it is. It’s so cute, like a gingerbread house in the woods.’

  ‘Lets just hope there’s no witch inside.’

  The little stone cottage was a perfect oblong, with two little chimneys poking up at either end. It looked like something a child would draw if asked to paint a cottage. There was a wooden door in the middle and two windows, with chipped grey paint, on either side. A vine grew up one side, creeping up and over the low doorway.

  ‘That’s an impressive climbing rose,’ said Mags. ‘It must be pretty old, it’s so thick and gnarled. I wonder if it still flowers.’

  ‘Well,’ said Christine. ‘You’ve seen the cottage. Can we go back now?’

  Mags ignored her cousin and rapped gently on the door. When there was no answer, she peered close into the window, palms of her hands at the side of her head, outstretched against the pane.

  ‘There’s no one in,’ she said. ‘It looks so different. They had furniture from Doug’s gran’s house in it before. It was like entering a time warp, stepping back to the 1930s.’

  ‘Let’s go. I’m peckish.’

  ‘Christine Duncan, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say you’re hungry in your life. I’m always the one who’s ravenous. But fine, let’s go. I can’t wait to tell Doug about this.’

  Christine immediately strode back towards the clearing, but stopped when she realised Mags wasn’t with her. She circled round to the back of the house, where she found Mags standing at the foot of a huge, knotted oak tree.

  ‘I just remembered about this enormous tree. They kept saying they’d chop it down because it made the back room so dark. The
re used to be a swing or something on it.’

  Christine looked up through the sturdy branches and slender twigs to the sky.

  ‘No,’ said Mags, grinning. ‘I remember now, it was a tree house.’ She pointed to a couple of rotting planks of wood wedged between the branches. ‘There’s the remnants of it there. It used to be a proper little house, a tiny tree house. Doesn’t look in good shape now though, what a pity.’

  ‘Must have been a storm,’ said Christine starting to walk away.

  Mags joined her, ‘Yeah, when was that? Late eighties?’

  ‘1989 here in Scotland. Down south it was ‘87,’ said Christine staring straight ahead as they strolled towards the clearing.

  ‘Amazing the facts you teachers have at your fingertips,’ said Mags, looking at her watch. ‘Right, I’m going to phone Doug when we get to the pub and tell him about it. He’ll be so excited, he might even want to buy it!’

  They arrived at the Drovers Inn pub and parked in the large car park. The sun was now blazing in a cloudless blue sky.

  ‘It’s turned into a gorgeous day, hasn’t it?’ said Mags. ‘Let’s sit outside,’

  ‘Right, why don’t you grab this table, then? I’ll get us drinks at the bar.’

  ‘Diet coke for me, please.’

  When Christine was gone, Mags delved into her basket for her phone and tapped in Doug’s number. While she waited for him to answer, she put on her sunglasses and sat with her face raised towards the bright sun.

  ‘Doug, hi, just a quick call. Guess where we went today? The Old Steading in the woods, remember?’

  She nodded thanks at Christine who had just put down a coke in front of her.

  ‘Yeah, it’s up for sale so we thought we’d check it out, hasn’t changed a bit. Well, inside it has, but that huge tree’s still there in the garden with the tree house, it’s all wrecked now though… What? Yeah, of course Chris was with me. Okay, I’ll see you later. Love you.’

  Mags ended the call and smiled at Christine. ‘I still think it’s amazing we saw the remnants of that little tree house. I used to have this dream, long before Doug and I were even married, that we’d take our kids there to play in the woods. I must’ve read too many Swallows and Amazons books; Dad used to have the whole set at home, remember?’