The Observations

by Jane Harris

  After that, she went through a few other types each no better than the last. My memory of that time is hazy as I soon, like my mother, resorted to a dram to keep my spirits up. In those early days were I going out without a budge I might as well not go, I wouldn’t make a ½ penny for I could not speak to a single man. Of course I grew less timid with the passing months and in the end was as ‘gallus’ as the next girl, but by that time I was too much in the habit to pass up my morning drop and any that followed thereafter.

  And so in this way two or 3 years passed. I cannot say that I was either happy or sad. I felt nothing much of anything. I do believe that somewhere deep inside, I knew that what I was doing was wrong. One gentleman I met gave me two shillings just to talk to him about my life. He was an English man and a member of some kind of Society and he was at pains to point out where I was at fault in the life I had chosen. I had no answer for him. I was only fascinated that when he spoke he called you ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, which I found most quaint, having never heard the like. For a shilling more he asked to see where I slept and I thought to myself, now we have it, he will be pressing his diddle agin me before we get through the door. But after a glance at our room away he went and the only thing he pressed on me was a tract that he bestowed on parting. I hadn’t a notion what it said because at the time I could not read, besides my mother used it to light the fire when she came home. Tell the truth, she could read and write a bit, having had a few years schooling when she was a girl, but she had passed none of what she learned on to me. All she had taught me was how to please a man.

  It was about this time I began to have nightmares. Instead of two or 3 drinks, I was having many. I don’t know how many. Just to forget what I had done. The terrible things I had done, that my mother made me do, to ‘keep the gentlemen interested’.

  Thank God for my Mr Levy, for he saved me. Poor Mr Levy! Gone to Kingdom Come, or wherever a Jewish man might go. It broke my heart when he died. And I dreaded going back to my mother. I remembered that morning, after I had been thrown out of Crown House and tramped back to the Gallowgate, scouring the market for her and looking in at our rooms, but in the end I found her at ‘Dobbies’, already on the gin. Marco the night porter was sat next to her, slumped across the table.

  ‘Christ almighty!’ my mother shouted when she seen me pushing towards her through the throng. ‘What’s the aul’ scut feeding you? You’re awful fat in the face!’

  Then she laughed her head off. Here I was, back home less than a minute and already there were so many things annoying me it was hard to know where to start. Marco peered up at me through bleary eyes.

  ‘I am a flipping exile, if you like to know!’ he says. ‘You are not worthy of lick my boots.’ Then he slumped down again.

  Meanwhile, my mother was waving at someone behind me, over by the bar. ‘Yoo-hoo!’ she shrieked. ‘Come away over and see who’s here!’

  I turned, and just about fainted. There, propped against the wall in deep discussion with another man (and true to form, ignoring my mother) was none other than the bold Joe Dimpsey himself. Leaner in the face he was, and with a new moustache but there was no mistaking him.

  ‘Flip sakes JOE!! ’ my mother shrieked. This time, he looked round, swaying slightly. My mother pointed at me. Joe grinned and tipped me his hat (also new) then turned back to continue his conversation.

  ‘That’s Joe,’ my mother said, delighted.

  ‘So I see,’ I says.

  ‘He’s going to be starting up the university soon, going to be a doctor. He can do it over here just as well. They all think he’s brilliant up there. They asked him a whole pannopoly of questions. Said they’d never known a brain like it. He’ll be starting soon, next week it is, once he’s bought his books. There’s no stopping him. He’s like a tiger.’

  At that moment Joe was swaying from side to side, close to passing out, a tiger would not be the first description that came to mind. I turned back to my mother.

  ‘So to what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?’ she says. And then her gaze fell for the first time on my bundle. ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I says. ‘Just clothes.’

  I sat down, shrugging off my coat. My mind was leaping from one thought to the next. I could see that everything was the same here, and would ever be so. What had I been thinking? I should never have come back anywhere near her.

  ‘They’re for you,’ I says. ‘Mr Levy bought them for me but—’

  ‘How is the aul’ bastard?’

  ‘He’s very well,’ I says. ‘In the pink.’

  ‘He’s a man of his word,’ says my mother, lifting her glass. ‘I’ll give you that.’

  I nodded. ‘Like I was saying, these frocks don’t fit me now so I thought I’d bring them over for you.’

  ‘Really?’ says my mother. ‘That’s decent of you.’

  Her expression did not change a whit but I could tell she was suspicious at this unaccustomed generosity, in the past I had learnt to hoard my few possessions from her.

  I laughed. ‘Away and take a carrot,’ I says. ‘As if I’d give them to you. No, I’m going to sell them. Can I just leave them up in the room for now while I get a drink?’

  My mother shrugged. ‘If you want.’ She flapped her hand. ‘You could just put them under the table here.’

  I looked at Marco. ‘And get them pinched?’ I shook my head. ‘I’d just forget them anyway. I don’t mind telling you, I have the day off and I’m here to get mortal.’

  ‘Good for you!’ my mother says. ‘Glad to see you in good form for a change.’

  ‘I’m going to get swacked,’ I says.

  ‘Hurrah!’ says my mother.

  ‘Tanked! Lit to the gills!’

  ‘Yippee!’

  ‘I’m paying!’ I says.

  ‘Then I’ll join you,’ says my mother.

  ‘Wait now and I’ll just stash these clothes up in the room,’ I says. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. Get me a budge in to start with.’

  Bridget gave me a slow wink. She was drunker than I had thought.

  I put the bundle on my shoulder and made my way slowly through the crowd. At the doorway I paused to wave at my mother but she was too busy staring across the room at Joe, like a lovesick cow. I stepped outside the inn and the minute my foot hit the ground I started running. Too late I realised I had left my coat. Well, I wasn’t about to turn back. I did not stop running until I had passed Janefield and was well on the road to Edinburgh and a young prince. Or, as it turned out, to Castle Haivers and missus.

  It wasn’t only the prospect of going back on the streets that scared the behicky out me. There was another thing, something a flip sight worse, something that I knew my mother would inveigle me into doing. The ‘special’ service that she had dreamed up, that she had made me do before I went to live with Mr Levy.

  Jesus Murphy I didn’t want to think about it.

  I jumped up from the bed to give myself a shake. The motion must have disturbed missus, for of a sudden she opened her eyes and gazed at me, a little bewildered. Then she give me a weak smile.

  ‘Bessy,’ she says. ‘Have I been asleep?’

  ‘No marm. You are not well. You are to stay in bed and rest.’

  ‘Not well? Oh yes. I remember.’ Her voice was hoarse, almost a whisper.

  I sat down on the bed and with trembling hands took the cloths from her forehead and throat. The wind had dropped and dawn light was creeping in at the window. Missus face was pale as the bolster-cover. It was as though the light bleached her skin. As I leaned over her, she looked at me, a little surprised.

  ‘But—you are upset!’ she says. ‘Whatever is the matter?’

  ‘Nothing, marm. I am just happy that you seem a little better. Would you say my name again, marm?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘You mean—Bessy?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ I says. ‘That’s right. I am happy now.’

  For though she was pale and weak it
seemed that the worst of her illness, whatever it was, had passed. At any rate, she recognised me.

  ‘Tell me, marm, what do you remember?’ I says. ‘We were up in the attic.’

  Missus frowned. ‘Let me see,’ she says. ‘We saw the writing in the window. Four words.’ She looked pained, before continuing. ‘A cry for help.’

  ‘And then what?’

  She thought a moment. ‘I must have fainted,’ she says. ‘That is all I can recollect.’

  ‘You don’t remember falling? Or what happened just before you fell?’

  ‘No. I can see the words in the window and I hear your voice saying them, but then it all goes dark, as though a lantern has been turned out.’ She clutched my hand. ‘Why?’ she says. ‘Did something happen? Did you see someone? Or something? What was it?’

  ‘No marm,’ I says. ‘Nothing like that. Marm, you woke up and spoke to me. Do you remember?’

  ‘No,’ she croaked. ‘What did I say?’

  I considered telling her the truth, then thought better of it. ‘Nothing. You just said my name and then you—fell asleep again.’

  ‘All I remember is that message.’ She looked at me eagerly. ‘You know I’ve been expecting something like this. I told you as much, didn’t I?’

  She wanted some sign of encouragement but I gave her none. ‘Marm,’ I says. ‘We need to decide what to tell master James. Do you want him to know we were on a ghost hunt in the attic?’

  Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘No!’ she says. ‘What have you told him?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ I says. ‘I believe he might have suspected something about ghosts or the like but I think I put him off the scent. We’ll be all right if we tell the same story and stick to it. Now, I’ve thought of what we can say. We’ll pretend you were writing a letter in your room and you stood up too quickly, and that’s the last thing you remember.’

  She closed her eyes. She stayed like that for so long I began to wonder if she’d fell asleep again.

  Then, of a sudden, her eyes opened. She looked at me intently. ‘I could feel a presence up there,’ she says. ‘It was so cold. Couldn’t you feel it?’

  ‘Attics are always cold,’ I tellt her. ‘Except in summer.’

  ‘No, there was something there, I’m sure of it. It can only be a matter of time before something happens—something more extreme. An apparition, perhaps. Someone is reaching out to us, Bessy. Someone needs our help.’

  Her eyes were that wide and she seemed so earnest and anxious it would have been funny—if only it didn’t make you feel guilty and sad. I nodded, slowly, and appeared to consider her statement. ‘You might be right about that. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if what happened yesterday was the end of it altogether. I suspect we may have seen the last of that ghost.’

  Weak though she was, she gave a wry smile. ‘What’s this—your rational explanation again?’

  ‘No marm,’ I says. ‘I just have a very strong feeling.’

  I simply had to get her off this train of thought. Very off-hand, I says, ‘Did you ever go up to the attic, marm? Before you started to hear all the noises and everything?’

  ‘Not really,’ she says, eventually. ‘I can only think of—one occasion.’

  That would have been when she put Noras box up there, I knew as much from The Observations. But the box wasn’t what concerned me. I began to move around the bed, needlessly tucking in the covers.

  ‘Did you happen to look at the skylight, marm, when you were up there?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she says. (As this was the best possible response she could have give me, I felt a thrill of excitement.) ‘Why do you ask?’

  I took a deep breath. Here goes. ‘Was there never someone in this house marm, that did call you “My Lady”?’

  She gave a little gasp and her eyes widened. You would have thought I’d yanked up her smock for a peek at her parsley. She stared at me for a moment, her breath coming quick and shallow.

  Then she says, ‘There was a girl, yes. A few months before you arrived.’

  My heart was going like the hoofs of Hell. But I knew I had to continue.

  ‘And—marm—might this girl not have wanted your help at some stage?’ I says. ‘Could she not have been in the attic one day, for some reason, perhaps she was a little sad, I don’t know, and couldn’t she—might she not have wrote those words up there in the skylight, in an absent-minded way?’

  Missus was staring straight ahead. No words came from her lips, but her eyes were like windows, I could see a dozen thoughts flit through the rooms of her mind.

  ‘Is that not possible?’ I says. ‘That this maid wrote those words months ago, but that we only just noticed them the other day, and mistook them for the words of a ghost?’

  It wasn’t a certainty, perhaps it was even a long stretch—but it was just possible.

  ‘But, you see,’ says missus. ‘You don’t understand. This girl—actually is dead.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ says me. (What a performance! I was acting my arse off.) ‘I’m sorry to hear that, marm. What was her name?’

  Missus licked her lips. ‘Nora,’ she says, faintly. ‘Nora Hughes.’

  ‘Well forgive me marm, this Nora Hughes might be dead now, but presumably she was alive when she was working for you.’ I flashed her the ivories but she made no reply. ‘Don’t you see? She was here but a few months ago. She might easily have gone up to the attic without you knowing and wrote that silly message in the window.’

  For a moment or two, missus continued to stare into space. Then she took a shuddering breath and let it out again. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I had not thought of it like that. But you might be right. It could have been written—before.’

  I laughed. ‘There now, marm, you see? We have the explanation. The message wasn’t left by anybody dead at all. It was done months ago, by a real live maid.’ Here, I paused a moment to give her time to fully absorb my suggestion. Then I says, lightly, ‘It seems so obvious, marm, I almost wonder why we did not think of it at once.’

  How had I expected her to react? I suppose I had imagined that she would be relieved, even pleased to learn that there was a rational explanation for everything. Nonetheless, at that moment, her face showed neither relief nor pleasure. In fact she seemed disappointed, I might even go so far as to say that she gave every appearance of being bereft.

  ‘What’s the matter, marm?’

  She gave a start, as though she had forgot I was there. And then she fixed me with an odd look I couldn’t quite fathom. Partly devious, as though she felt she had outwitted me in some way and at the same time distrustful, as though she suspected that I might try to outwit her in future. This was my impression for it only lasted a second or two and I might have been mistaken. Then she smiled and gave herself a shake.

  ‘Nothing!’ she says with a little laugh. ‘Aren’t you clever, Bessy, working all that out? I believe you may well have solved our little mystery. Isn’t that marvellous?’

  I would happily have stayed on talking to her for donkeys years but she made it clear that I should leave, by telling me that she wanted to sleep and then turning on her side and so I was left to creep out the room and quietly close the door.

  Back in the kitchen, I put my hand in my pocket and my fingers closed around my letter to missus. I took it out and looked at it. Only hours had passed since I had wrote it but it felt like days. Thank gob, none of the worst things that I had feared had come true. Missus was neither dead nor gone mad. She didn’t remember that I had punched her. And if we both stuck to the same story about what happened then master James would be none the wiser.

  How silly I was to have worried so much. Indeed (I tellt myself), revealing the truth now would only do more harm than good. Missus was in a delicate state. She needed calm and quiet. Knowing that I had made a fool of her would only upset her and possibly make her ill again. Just when she was on the path to recovery. Really, when you thought about it, there was no reason to run away or to con
fess anything at all.

  Anyway, for dear sake, where would I go?

  What a relief I had not give her the letter already!

  And just to make sure that she never learned what I’d done, I destroyed it. There was no fire lit yet in the kitchen so it took several matches and a lot of blowing, I think the paper must have been a bit damp. But I persevered, lighting match after match until eventually my confession was no more than a little heap of ashes in the grate.

  13

  A Trip, a Tea Party and a Mysterious Object

  IT WAS THAT gloomy time of year so it was when each day seems too short, as though the sun has bare crept across the sill of the world before it has to shrink once more into the shadows. I burned extra candles by the bed to cheer missus and hunted for things to brighten the chamber and distract her from thoughts of ghosts. There was no flowers to be found outside but in spare moments I searched the hedgerows and collected sprigs of holly and rosehips and evergreen leaves these I wrought into little displays for the chimneypiece. Each night I invented a few riddles, I wrote them on paper and gave them to her with breakfast so that she had something to occupy her while I went about my work. I was careful to write up my journal and show it to her at the end of every day that she might check exactly what chores I had done and what had gone through my mind as I worked. (It is my belief that she was too weak to write up her Observations for I never once seen ink on her fingers in this period.) To pass time in the evenings, we played at cards. Most often she chose Humbug which I had taught her though I told her it was called Doubles as that seemed a more agreeable name. Sometimes I read to her from novels. Only excerpts that I thought she would find striking or amusing. And instead of sleeping in my own room, I elected to doze in the chair beside her bed, just in case she should want something or get sick in the night and be too weak to ring for me. In short I done everything I could to make life easier and more pleasant for her.

  One morning, she wanted me to read her out the Bible, I opened it at random, Isaiah 24. It was all about the Lord making the earth waste and turning it upside down, curses desolation treachery and everybody being thrown into a pit. Yes that would do her good to hear. Not really! I decided to give her Christ feedeth the four thousand instead, because everybody likes a nice miracle, I was just trying to find the page when I glanced up to see her laying there with a fearful look on her face. I jumped up at once and knelt beside her.