The Promise Box

Andrew Melville has always been a little wild, and he’s always meant trouble â€" as his new wife eventually learns. Captivated by his charming ways and his sparkling blue eyes, Christy Craig falls head over heels for him and they are married in a whirl of romantic bliss. But the marriage joins two very different families: the Craigs live in a tenement block on the wrong side of town and still run the soap works, even though it no longer thrives, and the wealthy Melvilles come from one of the big houses on the hill, the bastion of respectability. Both sides look on Christy and Andrew’s union with dour Scots disapproval.

Andrew sweeps Isobel Armstrong off her feet too. She has always been a little in love with him â€" ever since their childhood, spent together in innocent games and easy friendship. She’s torn between the responsibilities of her respectable family and steady marriage, and the exotic life on the other side of the world that Andrew’s welcoming smile and winning ways offer so appealingly.

For now Andrew is never at home â€" his job as ship’s engineer has taken him to New Zealand. When Christy refuses to settle with him there, they part. Christy has now made a life for herself in her home town, transforming the dying soap works into a successful perfumery. Their daughter Ailsa never sees her father. She grows up lanky, skinny and red-haired â€" an awkward child longing for her father’s love. But like her mother before her, she finds her own way and begins to unite the two families, and with her mother’s encouragement, sails to New Zealand to reunite her father with her family...