The Homecoming
The black and white floored hall is full of people. With the exception of Elizabeth and John, who does not feel able to take a day off work, the entire family is gathered there. George and David, two rangy adolescents are celebrating their temporary liberation from school by indulging in a good natured brawl, while Isabella’s small James and Bella have caught the excitement like an infection and look likely to make themselves sick by bouncing up and down. Ninian, preparing for a long awaited reconciliation is surveying his family’s exuberance indulgently; while Bella, looking better than she has for years can hardly contain her impatience. Even Margaret’s beloved Henry has torn himself from his burgeoning practice at the bar to meet his future brother in law.
Sarah, curious despite herself, is watching the proceedings from a step half-way up the wide staircase. She finds the family’s excitement endearing and had little sympathy for John, a serious young man whom the years will turn pompous, when he indicated his unwillingness to participate in the welcoming party. Rarely was a child as well named as John Renton Kerr. From his grandfather he inherited diligence, modesty and a mind more organised than brilliant. His rise in the bank has been steady rather than meteoric. Sarah, brought up to value honesty and hard work, generally feels affection for him but in the past few days he has been annoying her greatly.
“Dear John” she protested, “Will you please stop rehearsing the role of the prodigal son’s brother. It’s getting very wearing and is just too predictable for words. You can’t have been paying much attention to your father’s sermons if you think it is acceptable and anyway, you will only look ridiculous by making it obvious that your nose is out of joint.”
John grumbled at her strictures but nonetheless modified his disdain for Adam’s return. As Margaret and Susan treated him with indifference bordering on contempt, he appreciated Sarah’s sisterly attention.
When Adam finally arrives Sarah’s first thought is, “He’s not at all what I expected.” For no particular reason she had pictured a younger version of Ninian. In fact the fashionable young man being greeted by his family is a little above average height, has wavy chestnut locks and a generous mouth topped by a fine moustache. Without a doubt he is Bella’s son.
Another surprise awaits her in the shape of Adam’s daughter Amelia. In place of the sturdy be-ringletted little madam of her imagination there stands a thin, sallow, frightened child clutching her nurse’s brightly coloured sari with one hand and a doll in the other. She looks anxiously at the strange grandparents, aunts and uncles milling around her father but is largely ignored in the melee.
Sarah slips downstairs and crouches in front of the little girl. “What’s your dolly’s name” she asks. “Rose” whispers Amelia in a gentle voice with a hint of an accent. Sarah remembers that Adam’s wife was French and replies “Elle est tres jolie”. Amelia manages a weak smile. “Are you tired? Fatiguee?” Amelia nods, “And so is Dipika” she says tugging at the ayah’s sari for confirmation. The Indian woman remains silent.
Aware that the child’s needs have been overlooked in the family’s pleasure at the heir’s return, Sarah manages to attract Adam’s attention. “Cousin Adam, excuse my interrupting you but I think your daughter and her nurse need to go to their room”.
Adam swings round, looks with surprise at Sarah and is not very impressed with what he sees. This over-tall, unknown cousin, with decided features, who must surely be a poor relation, has had the effrontery to remind him of his paternal duty. He does not have long to contemplate this outrage. Bella, reminded belatedly of the existence of her eldest grandchild, hides her shock at the child’s unpromising appearance by scooping her up into her arms and clucking, “My poor pet. Of course you must be tired. Goodness, you’re all skin and bone. Some good food and fine Scottish air will soon put flesh on your poor wee bones and roses in your cheeks.” Amelia, too stunned to protest, finds herself clutched to her grandmother’s impressive bosom and carried off upstairs. Dipika, motioned forward by Adam, follows silently.
Fortunately, over the next few weeks, Sarah and Adam have the chance to revise their initial unfavourable opinion of each other. Sarah, her childhood enlivened by tales of missionaries and explorers while constrained first by the confines of her mill workers’ village and latterly by respectable Edinburgh, has long been fascinated by foreign climes. Adam, for his part, is delighted to have a willing audience for his tales of Empire. Margaret, preoccupied with her approaching marriage, and Susan, invariably sociable and sporty, have proved inadequate in this regard. He is moreover casually grateful for her attention to his daughter and as a result almost prepared to overlook her occasional excess of candour. Although brought up as the youngest in the family, Sarah had experience of her supposed nephews and nieces from an early age and liked children. Her sympathy was easily aroused by the nervous, sickly little girl, so obviously lonely and out of place among the sturdy Kerrs.
Before long, both Sarah and Ninian had become aware that the ayah, Dipika, was very unhappy. Her English was poor and she was regarded by Mrs Brown and the two maids as an object of mixed fascination and ridicule. Sadly, this attitude was shared by many neighbours, servants and masters alike. One cold wet day, Sarah had found her crying bitterly on the staircase to the top floor. When Ninian added his urging to Sarah’s, Adam had reluctantly agreed to send Dipika back to Calcutta with a returning missionary family.
His resentment of Sarah had returned briefly when she asked him, “Would it not have been better to leave her in Calcutta? She must have family there that she misses and here she is treated like a freak. Poor girl, she must feel the cold so and Amelia says she was terribly sea-sick on the way over.”
Adam, never comfortable with criticism, replied tersely, “These coloureds don’t feel things the way we do. They’re always weeping and wailing. You’re making a lot of fuss about nothing. However my father wishes me to send her back and she’s no use moping around here. She’ll just have to brave the sickness again.”
Although Sarah was slightly shocked by Adam’s attitude she accepted that he had more experience than she and soon good relations were restored.
With her nurse’s departure Amelia came to depend more closely on Sarah. Bella’s enthusiasm for her shy, reserved grand-daughter was short-lived. Despite her own uncertain health, she found the child’s fragility disturbing and was more at ease with Isabella’s noisy brood
Sarah’s interest in India had been further aroused some years previously during Ninian’s temporary charge of a parish in Leith. The vast increase in the number of poor and sick in his care had caused him increasingly to rely on Sarah’s help. She had been fascinated by the hustle and bustle of the busy port with its mix of people from Scotland and abroad.
By no means all the inhabitants of the parish were members of Ninian’s flock. Sprinkled among the Irish Catholic families with broad brogues and the gently spoken Highlanders were Jewish women from Central Europe, their hair hidden by wigs, who chattered away in an unknown language and even an occasional African face. Despite Bella’s warnings that being seen alone around Leith she would be mistaken for a woman of a certain profession, Sarah was happy for the opportunity afforded by visits to Ninian’s parishioners to spend time in these surroundings, which to her were exotic. She became very aware that the plight of the poor in the city was far worse than in the country where fresh food and good air were always available.
As she was heading home one day, a small fair haired bundle cannoned into her. She held the struggling toddler firmly until her mother, flustered and apologetic hurried up, a placid baby in one arm and a bag of shopping in the other. “I’m so sorry” she gasped “She just wriggled away from me. Thank you so much for catching her.”
“Please don’t mention it” Sarah replied smiling “and what is this enterprising young lady’s name?”
“Lizzie, Elizabeth. It was my mother’s name”
“Mine too…..and the handsome young gentleman?”
“Samuel, after my husband’s father”
“Well, I hope he grows in grace and favour like his biblical namesake” said Sarah whose finger was firmly grasped in Samuel’s tiny fist.
“My Jewish neighbour says it’s bad luck to call a baby after someone living. I hope not.”
“In that case most Scottish children would be in trouble. Where are you from? I don’t recognise your accent.”
“Ayrshire, Saltcoats. I’m sorry. I should introduce myself. My name’s Ann McKenzie. My husband William is a rigger and sailmaker and we’ve come here for his work.”
“Annie?” asked Sarah.
“No, just Ann”
“I’m Sarah, Sarah Redpath. My cousin Ninian Kerr is a minister and looking after this parish while it’s vacant. Do you attend the church?”
Ann shook her head. “We’re seceders. Lots of Ayrshire folk are” She looked a bit embarrassed and added “Will you take a cup of tea with me, nonetheless?”
Sarah accepted without hesitation. She liked this down to earth young woman a few years her senior.
Thereafter Sarah’s visits to the parish were often punctuated by cups of tea in Ann’s small tenement flat and despite their differing circumstances the young women became friends. Ann confided in the sympathetic Sarah how much she missed her family and friends in Saltcoats. Sarah listened while she talked about her grandfather, a weaver, her fishermen younger brothers and her older half brother, who had died of consumption.
“My mother was in service” she said “and they say her employer was my brother’s father. My grandparents brought him up but we all miss him very much.”
Tempted to tell her own story, Sarah nevertheless held back as the habit of secrecy was too deeply ingrained. She contented herself by saying “My grandfather was a weaver too” and felt increasingly drawn to Ann. “It doesn’t seem right that I have so much and you have so little.”
She realised her mistake immediately as Ann bristled “I’ve everything I need. Two fine bairns and a husband who’s never out of work. I’ve never had a hard word from him and these days he’ll do anything to work on shore to be with me, Lizzie and Sammy.”
Sarah conscious of how crass her impulsive comment had been said nothing more.
Occasionally William was at home when she called. A big fair haired man with an easy going temperament, his constant good humour reminded her of the man who had brought her up, Willie Redpath. The only time he became almost doleful was when talking about his employment. “Mine’s a dying trade, a dying trade. Soon the only sail-making will be for yachts, rich men’s toys.”
When younger, he had undertaken several voyages on board clipper ships, mostly to India. To Sarah’s amusement he would occasionally lift his light tenor voice in a sea shanty but she was frustrated by his unwillingness to talk much about the places he had visited. Pressed by Sarah he shook his head. India was nothing special. Calcutta was a city like any other, hotter, noisier and smellier but just a city. He’d always wanted to be home. The only nugget Sarah gleaned was that the most beautiful place on earth, apart from Saltcoats, was Cape Town, glittering at the end of Africa between Table Mountain and the oceans. Her enthusiasm for distant lands undimmed, Sarah pounced on this piece of information and treasured it.
Autumn turned into winter and a raw December rolled on a bank of cold fog into Leith. When Sarah visited, Ann was preoccupied. Lizzie had developed a troublesome cough. Within days she was covered in spots. Lizzie had measles.
Initially Sarah felt confident that the child’s illness would be short lived. A healthy country child she had shrugged off measles easily herself. Lizzie, too, seemed a robust, healthy little girl. However as the days passed she became increasingly worried by Lizzie’s appearance. Her once sturdy little frame wasted and her blue eyes shone with fever. Sarah came as often as she could to help Ann nurse Lizzie or care for Sammy. She brought nourishing broths wrested from the unwilling hands of Mrs Brown who, privy to that long ago quarrel between Bella and Ninian, had never become an admirer.
Lizzie’s breathing became more laboured. The doctor, summoned in desperation listened with concern to her chest. He looked seriously at Ann. “I’m afraid she may be developing pneumonia. There’s nothing you can do but keep sponging her down to keep her fever down and hope it breaks before more damage is done.”
If force of will and a mother’s love could have saved Lizzie the child would have pulled through but Sarah arrived one evening to find her lying still and silent on her bed, her struggle with disease over. Ann was crying inconsolably while rocking her surviving child in her arms. William stood silent, gazing in disbelief at his beloved daughter.
“Take me home.” Ann begged her husband. “I don’t want to stay in this place any longer. I need my family.” Aware that she was intruding on private grief, Sarah slipped away. The next time she called the family had gone.
Sarah never forgot her short acquaintance with the Ayrshire family or ceased to hope that Ann, William and Samuel were well and happy. She also never lost her desire to find out more about India. As a result she can not get enough of Adam’s traveller’s tales. Adam has become discontented. He joined the Edinburgh branch of the tea merchants he worked for in India and finds his experience there less valued than he expected. The initial excitement of his homecoming over, he has begun to feel over-powered by his father’s presence and stifled by his family. Without telling his parents he has begun to look for a home for himself and his daughter. In the meantime, he is enjoying Sarah’s unaffected interest. She, conscious of their relationship, is relaxed in his company and feels no reason to be reserved.
Sarah’s somewhat naïve pleasure in their friendship is to be abruptly shattered. One evening she is sitting alone in the drawing room when Adam comes in. Looking up, she greets him with a smile which fades as she sees the intent look on his face. To her horror, instead of throwing himself into the chair opposite in his accustomed way, he kneels by her couch and tries to take her hands in his.
“Sarah” he says urgently, “I know we’ve not known each other for long but I feel so comfortable with you. I can tell you like me and Amelia adores you. I’ve found a house for Amelia and me. Please say you’ll share it with us.”
“No Adam. It’s not like that. Of course, I like you but not in that way. Please let’s forget about this. You don’t understand. It’s just not possible.”
Unaccustomed to being thwarted Adam becomes angry. “How can you say that? You’ve been encouraging me for months, you selfish vixen. Have you been playing with me? Did you get some kind of entertainment out of it?”
Upset and guilty, Sarah tries to head for the door but Adam is too fast for her and pins her to the wall, one hand at either side. He leans forward and tries to kiss her. She twists urgently but Adam, infuriated, persists. Tears streaming down her face, she is disgusted by the situation. Adam is her nephew. She has never thought of him in any other light.
Desperate to escape, Sarah summons up all her strength and pushes him violently away. Almost as tall as Adam and still strong she manages to make him stagger, winded across the room.
Sarah rushes to her bedroom and pouring some water into a bowl, splashes her flushed and tear stained face. She is filled with guilt and self loathing to think that her easy relationship with Adam could have led him to believe that her feelings for him were more than they could ever be. She should have been aware that he was ignorant of their true relationship.
Very reluctantly she realises that there is only one course of action. Never one to shirk an unpleasant duty, she knows what she must do. She must speak to Ninian and ask him to explain the truth to Adam. Sarah shudders as she contemplates the possible consequences for her relationship with her brother.
PS. Ann and William, Lizzie and Sammy existed and were in Leith, admittedly a few years before this. William was reputedly as good natured as he is portrayed here and Ann as devoted to her home town. I knew a later Lizzie and also, sadly, a later Sammy though not their youngest child, my grandfather John Wilson, known as Wilson.
PPS Apologies for the predictable story line!!
