by Jane Harris
Upon reaching the landing, I noticed that the door to missus chamber was open and that a light burned in her room. I tiptoed forwards, not a breath in my body, but to my relief I seen that the room was empty. The blankets on the bed had been thrown back as though missus had lain there a while and then got up. Concluding that she must have went down to the kitchen perhaps for something to eat I stepped onto the landing and was about to return to my own room when a faint noise from overhead alerted my attention. It was the sound of a creaking board.
I glanced along the corridor towards the main attic staircase and just as I turned missus hove into view, coming down the stairs in a pool of light. At first all I could see were her velvet slippers and the hem of her nightgown as she descended. She was stepping carefully and lightly. The upper part of the staircase wall blocked her view of the landing, hence she had not yet seen me and so I ducked out of sight behind the linen press, I suppose I didn’t want her to think that I was creeping about spying on her. In one hand, she held a lamp. And there was something tucked under her arm. A small, dark squarish object that I couldn’t quite make out.
These things I gathered just before she stepped onto the landing. I drew back into the shadows and held my breath, thankfully she was so intent on reaching her room quietly that she only looked at the floor directly ahead of her and didn’t see me. She kept the object close to her side and I only caught a glimpse of something dangling before she disappeared into her room and closed the door. Whatever it was had been tied up with a length of pale red ribbon.
What could it be this mysterious item? Something she wanted to take with her to Edinburgh perhaps? Or something that she had got out Noras box in the attic? And why had she waited until all hours of the night to go up there?
14
Missing Pages
OF COURSE, I tellt myself that there was most likely a perfectly ordinary explanation for missus sneaking about after dark. But my worry was this. That somehow it was all connected to her recent collapse. And just when she’d seemed to be doing so well!
Next morning when I went into her chamber I glanced around me but was there any sign of a mysterious object. No. The one ½ decent hiding place in that room was the desk where she kept her Observations and it occurred to me that she must have stashed whatever it was in there. The key was in the lock and I was sore tempted to have a quick skelly in the drawer. But although I found ample reasons to visit the room that morning missus was always present so that put the kybosh on my plans. One time I went up with more coal she was darning by the fire and when I came in she gave me a narrow look, I thought she might have been going to say for dear sake what the Hell do you want now for I had been in and out of there since the skrakes of dawn I don’t know how many times, about a hundred and forty-six.
But it wasn’t that at all. As I soon found out.
‘I happened to notice,’ she says ‘while I was up in the attic this morning, that someone has wiped that message from the window.’
‘Oh?’ says I. ‘What were you doing up in the attic, marm?’ All this as casual as I could muster, for some reason she was fibbing about when she had went up there.
She indicated something at the foot of her bed. A portmanteau which I had not until that moment noticed. Of course she’d need a bag to take to Edinburgh and right enough the portmanteaus were kept in the attic. So perhaps she had went up earlier that morning. But this article was certainly not what she’d been holding the previous night, not a bit of it.
‘I was fetching this down,’ she says. ‘And I saw that the window has been wiped.’
‘Yes, marm,’ I admitted. ‘That was me, the day you collapsed.’
She clucked her tongue. ‘Oh that is a pity,’ she says. ‘I want to examine the hand.’
‘The hand, marm?’
‘The writing. I might have recognised the style you see.’
By Jove was I ever glad that I’d wiped that skylight! Right enough I’d disguised my own hand by using capital letters, I was not entirely stupid. But to be honest at the time I traced the message in the window I hadn’t even considered Noras handwriting for I hadn’t a notion how she wrote and besides who could say what a ghosts style was like and whether they’d write the same as they had done when they were alive?
Missus was looking at me expectantly.
‘I am terrible sorry about that, marm,’ I lied. ‘I just thought I should get rid of it. Would you be wanting anything else now?’
‘No thank you, Bessy. However, if you do see any more handwriting like that or any messages please be sure not to wipe them away and come and fetch me immediately.’
I just looked at her, flabbergasted. We were going round in circles.
‘But—marm—did we not agree that there’d be no more writing, because there is no ghost? That the message was most likely left there by this girl Nora before she died?’
Missus blinked several times as though trying to remember something. ‘Oh yes,’ she says. ‘Of course. I only meant that perhaps the girl might have written other messages in other places. Hence I meant when she was alive.’
Hence my fat aunt Fanny!
She smiled, and lifted up another stocking to peer at it but her eyes were glassy. ‘I hardly think this one worth saving do you?’ she says. ‘It’s so very full of holes. Ah well, needs must.’ And with a shrug, she continued darning.
This little episode fair gave me the scutters for there could be no doubt that missus was acting a bit airy. I had no desire for her to fall ill again. And so it was that I decided to investigate her drawer once they had left for Edinburgh.
They set off the following day as planned. Master James had not yet travelled in an easterly direction on the railway line but he wanted the experience and so they were to take the train from Westerfaulds to Bathgate and from there through to Edinburgh. The ride had been ordered for 11 o’clock but Biscuit Meek arrived 10 minutes late. Hector, hell mend him, was nowhere to be seen and so I grabbed the bags and whaled them outside myself. Master James (who had been hopping about the hall like a hen on a hot griddle) rushed out behind me and leapt into the carriage with such vigour I am surprised it did not collapse around about his ears. Biscuit set the portmanteaus inside without a word and then climbed back up to his perch, though ‘climb’ is not quite the word. If in fact it is possible to climb and slouch at the same time, then that is what he did.
I waited on the steps for missus to emerge. The rain had stopped at last and the sun come out but everything all around was drookit. The steps, the gravel, the big bare trees, the moss, the dripping shrubbery, everything to my eyes looked slick and greasy. The sound of Biscuit gobbing away like an old geyser grated on my ears and it seemed to me that his horses were equally spiteful for they pissed and shat to beat the devil, more than was called for anyway. Tell the truth I was not in best form. I don’t know why exactly. Perhaps I was worried about missus. And also, if I am honest, I was not looking forward to spending two days without her.
Master James was clearly itching to be gone for he kept peering up at the doorway and making exasperated noises and after a while when there was still no sign of missus he charged back inside the house. There was the sound of him bellowing something up the stairs, a moment or two passed then missus finally scuttled out wearing a dove grey gown under a black cloak. I could tell at once she was distressed from the agitated way she was biting her lip. She came to me and grabbed my hands. The kid leather of her gloves felt hot and dry in my fingers.
‘Bessy,’ she says. ‘Have you seen the key that opens my desk drawer?’
‘No, marm.’
I looked her right in the eye when I said it. She frowned and her gaze drifted away. ‘But I can’t find it anywhere,’ she says, as though to herself. ‘It must be lost.’
Master James barged out behind us. ‘Come along! Come along!’ he says making several sweeping movements with his hands as if to brush the pair of us off the stairs and I was forced to skip out the way. He grabbed
missus by the arm and propelled her down to the carriage.
‘Goodbye,’ I says. ‘Enjoy your trip, marm.’
Master James handed her inside, then sat next her and shut the door. Biscuit flicked his whip and shook the harness. The horses tottered across the gravel. I waved to missus but I don’t think she could see me since her husband was in the way.
As the carriage sped down the drive, I slipped my hand into the pocket of my apron and wrapped my fingers around the cold metal shaft of the key, which article I had managed to filch while she was out at the necessary.
I watched until the carriage was out of sight then stepped back inside and shot the bolts. The house felt very different with nobody at home so it did. Too big, too cold, too dark and apart from the ticking of the grandmother clock silent as the grave. The very air itself seemed poised as though it were waiting. My footsteps echoed in the hallway and various items of furniture at which I had often flicked a rag—the clock, the hallstand, the letter table—suddenly looked unfamiliar. I realised all this might be due to my imagination since I was not used to being left alone for more than a few hours. Nonetheless I hurried back to the kitchen which at least had the benefit of greater familiarity.
Just in case they should return for some forgotten belonging, I intended to give missus and the master an hour grace before embarking upon any illicit activity. Earlier in the day I had gathered all the coalscuttles, these I now cleaned inside and out. Heavy work though that was it killt only ½ an hour but I was so black at the end of it that it took another 20 minutes to wash myself and find a clean apron. After that I hurried upstairs.
Arabella was gone from her chamber but numerous traces of her remained. A shift and two stockings discarded on the Turkey rug. The scent of roses in the air by the bed. A few strands of her hair on the bolster-cover. And on the toilet table, some drops of water from when she had washed herself that morning.
My feet made no sound as I stepped over to her desk. The key turned easy and the drawer sighed as I drew it out.
To my surprise there before me lay The Observations—wide open. At a page headed up with the title ‘Nora Continues to Excel’. That cleg Nora again! Drat and blast her! Missus must have been reading about her. I had a good mind to turf the book out the window. But wouldn’t you know it, like a tongue that returns to probe a rotten tooth I was drawn to find out more about my rival and so I cast an eye over the page.
Extracted from The Observations
(See Restrictions as previous)
Work in the area of obedience testing continues apace. Indeed, it seems I have unintentionally created a pun in that ‘apace’ since recently I have concentrated on developing the ‘Walk’ experiment with Nora. Readers may remember that in the early days of her employment she would walk forwards when commanded to do so until met with an obstacle, at which point she would swivel, turn and continue walking. This action she performed unbidden from the start. Personally, I had expected her to come to a complete standstill when met with an obstacle and it was a delightful surprise to see her pause and then veer off in another direction, rather like a clockwork toy. However, this changing of path when met with an obstacle meant that her movements were always restricted to a small area—as she paced around the room we happened to be in, or the back yard, if circumstances had allowed us to work outside. In order to expand the scope of the experiment, I suggested that henceforth she should not change direction when confronted with obstacles. Instead, she should overcome them. In other words, she should go around, or over, or through, or (if necessary) under any obstruction she came across.
The effect of this was extremely interesting. On the first day I positioned her at the front of the house and told her to ‘Walk’, whereupon she set off across the gravel, skirted around a tree, clambered through the shrubbery and would have climbed over the wall and continued across the road had I not called out to her to desist—whereupon she jumped down and meekly returned to my side. I rewarded her good work with fulsome praise and, next day, took her to a field at the back of the house where I once again commanded her to walk. This time I had faced her in an easterly direction. Off she set across the field and when met by a fence at the far side, she scrambled over and continued on her way until I called her back. This experiment was repeated over a period of days, always with satisfactory results and each time I allowed her to venture further. Rather than having to run alongside her, I have purchased a whistle and trained her to retrace her steps when she hears me blow three times. She claims to enjoy this experiment more than any we have attempted so far, especially (she says) because she can see it pleases me very much. And she is right, it does please me, perhaps because, in essence, it is a completely pointless task—and yet she always does it for me without question or complaint.
Not once had missus shown any interest in getting me to walk for her, neither inside the house nor out of it. I was fit to be tied. Boys oh dear, was I raging! I grabbed The Observations and threw them on the floor. And there—beneath them in the drawer, atop all the maid journals—I seen another book, this one bound with a length of pale red ribbon.
I reached in and pulled it out, it was nought but a cheap accompt book just like the one missus had give me. The ribbon around it fell away with one tug. I flicked open the cover. Inside, someone had wrote in copperplate letters the name ‘Nora Hughes’. The pages were full of dated entries in the same hand. It was Noras journal. So here it was, the mysterious object. The words of the blessed Saint.
Of a sudden I realised what missus had been doing in the attic. She kept all her maids journals here in the drawer, probably including this one of Noras which she must have took upstairs with her in order to compare the handwriting with that in the skylight—only to find that the message on the glass had gone.
I turned the pages and read a few entries just to see what Nora wrote like. Her spelling was fair and by gob she knew where to put a punctuation mark (something I myself aspire to but even though I have improved since those days I am still not always quite sure where all the little goat droppings should go). Her letters were neat as a bees toe yet despite these merits in presentation I failed to see how what Nora had wrote was any better than my efforts. There was no spark to the content or anything of interest. Suffice to say for the most part she just noted down what she did about the place. Sometimes she wrote about the experiments, what she had to do, how many repetitions &c. And sometimes (no doubt on instruction from the missus) she would tell about her thoughts and what went through her mind. Each entry much the same as the last. The book was about ¼ full. I read a dozen or so pages and then flicked to the end to see what her last entry said. I cannot remember the exact wording but write here an approximation.
Walked without stopping for my lady across country today, after work was done. Encountered no obstacles bar a few fences, which were climbed over. Easterly direction was kept, according to my lady’s instructions. It was a beautiful day and the walk gave me a chance to think. Find that I am very reflective just now, and was lost in daydreaming until a terrible sight became visible not far from the path—a magpie tearing apart a small animal or bird that was still alive. The dreadful ear-splitting shrieks and cries of this dying creature were most tormenting. Wanted to stop the brutal killing but dared not—and of course, had to keep walking without pause if to follow my lady’s instructions. Reasoned that—even if the magpie was chased away—the little animal was bound to die of its fatal injuries. Also knew that the courage to kill it is not in me. As result, never found out exactly what kind of creature it was—perhaps a mouse or newborn rabbit or fledgling bird of some sort. Eyes were averted and tears were shed until I heard my lady’s whistle, then dried my eyes and turned back to Castle Haivers—a slightly longer route was taken that meant the tragic scene of death could be avoided.
My lady says that in a day or two, with God’s grace and weather permitting, another walk to be undertaken, only this time I must keep heading north from the stile in our top fiel
d, a direction not taken before now. My lady has hinted that this time she might not whistle for me to return and that I am to keep walking until my conscience dictates me to stop. She did not explain but I believe she wants to know how far I will go to do her bidding. She should know by now that of course there is nothing I would not do for her and there is no distance I would not travel, even if the boots were walked off my feet.
Perhaps am in too sensitive a frame of mind these days but have decided that I hate magpies. They are the most horrible of birds, worse even than crows.
Here the last entry ended, a lot of balderdash about birds and wee beasties. But I was intrigued and irritated by the references to walking. ‘Walked without stopping for my lady’ and ‘Another walk to be undertaken, only this time I must keep heading north’ &c.
This walking caper. You would think it something special that only certain people was good enough to do. My heart throbbed, it was a pang of jealousy. That missus was independent of me, that I did not have control over her thoughts and feelings, that she could actually like another girl more than me, think her a better servant or entrust her with special experiments—all these were sources of great frustration. Most vexatious of all was that I could do nothing about it Christ the night I hated this Nora. And I hadn’t even met her! I was sick to the back teeth of her perfect flipping ways. What did she have that I did not to make missus so fond of her? After all, she was nothing but a pile of rotting bones.