The Bad Sister (2 page)
Authors: Emma Tennant
These weren't the only troubles. Michael Dalzell, bored perhaps with rural life, and uneasy at home, began to gamble again. He took to meeting friends at the Black Barony, a remote hotel in East Lothian, and playing championships and drinking all night in rented rooms. It
was at this hotel in fact that he gave a dance for his daughter in the New Year of 1968, and at the dance that the incident occurred which led to the expulsion of the illegal ménage from the Dalzell estates. But before we return to Luke Saighton's account of the party, it's worth quoting from the gamekeeper (not a man to have been on the side of the squatters, of course), and to record that Michael Dalzell started to sell portions of his land to meet his gambling debts, keeping this secret from his wife and usual lawyers by using a small firm of Edinburgh solicitors. He must have been in a fairly desperate frame of mind, for however hard he tried to prevent the modern world from coming into his kingdom, it came: a woman reporter from London appeared one day and said she had heard there was âa commune of radical feminists' up in the hills beyond his house and she was going to write about them; several more women
did
arrive in the summer of '67, and Michael Dalzell could only look the other way; and there were reports of Revolution on all sides. Not that these factors in any way disturbed the Dalzell capital or landholdings â it seemed more that he was intent, at this historically suitable time, on losing all his possessions himself. The gaming table was the most aristocratic and honourable method and the laird applied himself to the partitions of the backgammon board with more zeal than had been allotted to his fields.
It can't have been pleasant for Michael, or his wife and daughter, to go out on a country walk in those days. Possibly, in his difficult situation â for as well as his backgammon losses Dalzell must surely have also been regularly blackmailed by the women in the cottage â he cared less about the gradual loss of his land now that it was no place to be quiet and private in. For, according to MacDonald the gamekeeper, wherever they went a contingent of women followed. There was a small shop in the village, where Mrs Dalzell bought wool, and her daughter, now fifteen, went to look at the women's magazines; here mother and daughter would find themselves surrounded, in a place that was by
no means large, by women in long black skirts and with scarves tied around their heads. The atmosphere soor became intensely claustrophobic, and the lady and her daughter had to leave. The villagers thought this shocking but when it came to speaking openly to the women, something seemed to prevent them. MacDonald, who had no such scruples, was often shouting to them to get off the land â they disturbed the pheasants' feeding â and on one occasion suggested to Michael Dalzell that he 'take a shot or two, just wing them, sir,' but at this his employer only shook his head. As MacDonald pointed out to Luke Saighton, Mr Dalzell was âtoo kind-hearted. Wherever he went, and the ladies too, over the moor or along the brae, they followed behind like a row of corbies.' Certainly it seems these women had the upper hand at that time, and that they almost invited the pitched battle with the farmhands which was the result of the party at the Black Barony Hotel.
Luke Saighton's account runs:
I don't know why Michael chose to give the dance for his daughter at a hotel rather than at home. I don't want to be âpsychological' about it but I think holding the party at Dalzell might have given him painful memories of his own wedding party, when everything seemed to be set fair, and it was glorious weather too with the light fading almost at midnight and a bonfire on the hill. He seemed deliberately to choose midwinter and another setting â on the other hand I gather he was in debt to the Black Barony and had promised to bring them a lot of publicity (they thought Michael was the friend of kings and multimillionaires). The proprietors of the Black Barony must have been horribly disappointed when, uninvited of course, the party from the derelict camp arrived. I gather they thought Mr Dalzell had decided on a fancy dress occasion when they saw the gypsy attire â one or two neighbouring landholders went home to deck themselves out with plaids and mantillas before returning
to the dance. At any rate, they let them in â and then there was the devil to pay.
Michael and Louise's daughter was looking particularly pretty that night. She had fair, curly hair tied up on the top of her head if I remember, and a new dress she was very proud of. All the young men wanted to dance with her, and there was quite a crowd round her most of the time. There were Scottish reels and a few ordinary dances â even at that time Michael wasn't going to have any âpop' or rock and roll or whatever you call it. And it was in the middle of the âWee Drops of Brandy' which had always been a family favourite at Dalzell before the bad luck set in, that the âcorbies' walked straight across the dance floor and went for the girl. Just like that. The fierce-looking one â I heard the quiet one called Mary crying her name as they went into the fray â was called Margaret. There were two others, whose names I didn't catch, and there was the black-haired girl who was the daughter of Mary. It was extremely shocking to see their violence. Margaret had pulled the poor girl's dress off â and someone had lurched into a waiter carrying a tray of fruit cup, so that she was covered in slices of peach and raspberries and so on. Mary's daughter looked as if she was honestly trying to scratch her eyes out. And the others were all kicking and punching. When Louise Dalzell came running up they gave her the same treatment. It took about fifteen men to pull the women off. All the while the Scottish dance music went on because the band was in the alcove and couldn't see what was happening. I must say I shall never forget that evening. I needn't describe Michael's reactions. He was as white as a sheet, and although one shouldn't joke about a late friend, if anyone had had a few too many âwee drops', he had. Frankly, he was quite incapable of coping with the onslaught. I think he knew if he came forward they'd go for him too â and he'd go down with the first blow.
He got his revenge the next day, of course. An army of farmhands went up to the valley to the cottage â they had
sticks, and two of them were allowed to take guns â not MacDonald the gamekeeper, as he might have proved too keen â and in an hour the battle was over and the women were loaded onto a farm lorry and driven to the border. Michael wanted me to go up there and help with the eviction, but I really didn't have the stomach for it. And he was keen, too, for them to be deposited in England â I don't know why â perhaps he felt they'd be further away if they were in another country. I can't remember where they were dropped off, but it was somewhere south of Carlisle.
There was one odd thing about that day. Michael told me that when it came to loading the women onto the lorry there was no sign of Margaret anywhere. Departure was held up for a good time while they searched for her. Everyone knew she was the most dangerous of the lot, and well capable of going to ground and building up a new centre on another part of the Dalzell estate. But she had completely vanished. Mary'd obviously tried to go with her, but she didn't get far. They found her in a snow drift, in a deep cleuch below the cottage. They bundled her onto the lorry and some of the men, I believe, took trouble to wrap her in her shawls. She had a poor physique apparently, could never have lasted the course. Anyway, the other women swore Meg had left the night before, after the fight, cutting across country to the Yarrow, on to Moffat and then south. As Michael still refused point blank to call in the police, there was no way of making roadblocks and catching her there; it wouldn't have been easy anyway, with those great stretches of hill and heather, and the dwarf forests of pine trees as far as the eye can see. Two reports came in the following day â one that a distant figure, probably a woman (it had long hair, but then this was 1968 and so did many men), was seen running amongst the trees on a steep hillside near St Mary's Loch. It âflitted like a shadow in the trees,' the onlooker said, âzigzagging backwards and forwards as if it had no idea of direction'.
The other report was of a polite, well-dressed woman, never seen in the neighbourhood before, who walked up the drive at Dalzell, met Louise Dalzell walking there, exchanged a few words with her, saying she was going to visit relatives in the village, and then, when Mrs Dalzell turned round to take another glimpse of her, had disappeared. When asked what this mysterious stranger had looked like, Mrs Dalzell â who was still suffering from shock from the night before â said only that she was âquite sure she had seen her somewhere before'. No, not last night, but the face was very familiar to her. She even felt it might be some distant relative of
hers
who, coming on her suddenly in the drive, was too embarrassed to declare herself. Well, of the two reports we could make nothing much. With the first, Michael and I concluded the running figure must have been a roedeer. There are a few left in the region, and particularly in the old trees of what was once the Ettrick Forest, which was where the report came from (not so far across country from the âcommune' but it seems fairly unlikely Margaret would have run off in this way). With the second, we put Louise's âhallucination' down to shock. We made a few inquiries in the village, and in fact no one had received a visitor that day. I wondered if she should see a doctor, but again Michael was adamant that no one from outside should interfere in this matter. A day later, I left. When I next saw Michael and Louise â when they had moved to London â the subject didn't come up, and I'd pretty well forgotten it too. I would of course be very grateful if you could let me know any developments that may crop up in your investigations. I feel, as I am sure you do, that the police have been very inefficient in this matter: surely this âdaughter' of Michael's, if this is what she really is, can't be impossible to trace. After the death of Michael and his daughter, I felt I should have given more information on the subject of the invasion of the women during those years, but at the same time, as you must understand, I couldn't see there could possibly be
any connection between those women and the killings, and I was particularly anxious not to hurt Louise's relatives by dragging in even the shadow of a doubt of Michael's devotion and fidelity as a husband. I look forward to hearing from you if there are any developments.
I couldn't help thinking, when I'd read this letter, that Luke Saighton should certainly have told the police about the commune of women in the hills. But perhaps he was as shocked and disbelieving as Michael Dalzell: to them it seemed incredible that a humble, pregnant shopgirl, the classic recipient of a cash handout and abandonment, should in the course of twelve years have become an aggressive member of a large and growing aggressive army. If this was the present, they didn't want to know about it. They simply shut their eyes and ears.
Michael Dalzell sold his estate in 1970, to pay his gambling debts. His wife wasn't given the reason, and was simply told by her husband that he thought it was time they went back to London so he could âgo into the City'. He would have been quite unable to do this, of course, or to support his family, if a stroke of luck hadn't befallen him in the death of two uncles and the unexpected inheritance of a large fortune from the other branch of the Dalzell family. If the twos he had thrown at backgammon seventeen years before had brought him bad luck, lasting all that time, now things seemed to have reversed very favourably: within three months of the sale of house and land, Michael Dalzell and his wife and daughter were ensconced in a magnificent house in Hampstead. Plans were immediately under way for a ball â in the photograph here, taken from the society pages of a glossy magazine, all three, as they stand shaking hands in the reception line, look as happy and prosperous as might be expected.
As I said earlier, there would have been little point in recapping the story of the Dalzells, if it hadn't been for
Stephen, the young man who came forward in reply to my latest batch of advertisements. His evidence, and the document we print here which is the journal of the mysterious âJane', have solidified the picture considerably â have made it possible, indeed, to reconstruct, as we have just done, Michael Dalzell's early escapade in London. But, until the girl is found, nothing can be certain.
Stephen came to my study one morning with a copy of
The Times
â my advertisement appeared in the Personal Columns that day â and he seemed nervous when I offered him a chair and asked him to introduce himself. He may have thought I was a detective, I suppose, and regretted his decision to come, but I felt a certain excitement, as if I knew somehow that I was getting nearer to the truth, as soon as I saw him there.
Stephen was plump, and middle-aged and fair-haired. He wore a dog collar, and gave me the name of his parish in South London. Altogether he seemed a most unlikely companion for the killer of the Dalzells â yet, as I said, I was sure I was on the right trail at last. With some mumbling and apology, he pulled a battered-looking manuscript from his pocket and handed it to me before sitting in the armchair on the far side of my desk.
I didn't read the MS there and then. Stephen, who said he would prefer not to give his second name, explained that it had been sent to him by a woman who was a mutual friend of his and âJane's' and that he felt more and more convinced that âJane' was both the daughter and the killer of Michael Dalzell. âI don't know where Jane is,' he began. (Stephen has a very soft voice and I had to lean over the desk to hear him.) âI suspect she's not alive, or she would have been found by now. But I'll tell you what I know. I met Jane first when she was about eighteen. It was at a Vietnam meeting and she was sitting next to a girl I knew slightly, who was at the LSE. We started to talk, after the meeting we had some supper, and then she took me back to meet her friends where she lived. It was a peculiar set-up. A big house in Notting Hill lived in exclusively by women. There
must have been thirty of them â there was one room on the ground floor where men were allowed to visit â quite a lot of children around, and Jane told me they all had the same surname, which was Wild. She said her mother was somewhere there, and they had been in the house about three years â before that they'd been in Scotland.'