by Jane Harris
‘Please leave missus alone,’ I begged her. ‘You don’t belong in this world. I am sorry if I disturbed you or disrupted you but you must go now and leave missus. It’s not her fault you’re dead.’
These and other similar entreaties I sent into the grave, repeating them over and over. I tried to picture my words drilling through the earth and flooding into Noras ear like sea into in a shell. My girlish superstition may seem far-fetched or even ½ daft but I was desperate. I would have pulled out my own tonsils if it would have helped missus. And if there was a ghost then I wanted it laid to rest. I stood there for what seemed like donkeys years until twilight began to fall and my feet had went numb with the cold. Then I picked up my parcel and hurried back to the gate.
Horror of horrors, who was standing right at the entrance and handing out his blasted wee pamphlets but the Old Bollix. The market stalls had attracted a crowd and he had took advantage of it. His method was to amble up to people as if to greet them but at the last minute instead of shaking their hand he would slip them a tract and then shuffle off again. With most folk this seemed to work. Some of them thanked him and put the tracts directly in their pockets while others just stared at them, bewildered, before moving on.
I had no desire to be seen or accosted by him and so cast around for an escape route but the railings were too high to climb and the front gate seemed to be the only exit. Either I would have to retreat into the churchyard and wait, in the hope that he would go away, or I would have to try and slip past the old mundungus unnoticed. Since twilight was falling I had no desire to prolong my stay amongst the gravestones. And so I took a deep breath, clutched my parcel to my chest and moved towards the front steps, keeping one eye on Pollock all the while. At this point, he was bearing down on two builders in dusty duds who were stood talking in front of one of the stalls. They looked at the Reverend askance as he approached and when he tried to hand over a pamphlet, one man swore loudly and walked away.
People turned to stare. The 2nd man shouted. ‘Oh boo! Boo! Away you go with your bloody tracts! We dinna want them! They’ll not tell us anything we want to hear!’ He made an exaggerated shooing motion, then stalked off to join his friend.
Pollock attempted to keep his dignity despite the fact that everybody was staring at him in his moment of rejection. He turned away, a fake smile fixed on his bake, and the first thing his eyes lit upon was me as I edged my way out the church gate. Like a drowning man might make for a raft he struck out for me, raising a hand and diving across the street. There was no escape. He came to a halt a few feet away, hauled up his breeks and regarded me with that self-satisfied flipping smile.
‘Ah-haah!’ he goes. ‘Biddy, is it not?’
‘Bessy, sir,’ I says, through my teeth.
‘Ah-haah!’ His gaze flicked behind me to the churchyard and then he gave me one of his crafty looks. ‘What can we do for you here in Bathgate?’ he says. ‘And in the churchyard too. I trust you are not come body snatching. Ah-haah!’
‘No sir,’ I says. ‘I was on an errand for missus and—well—I thought I might take a short-cut but—you see—there is no way out at the other side and so I—yes—I had to come back out again.’
This awkward little speech annoyed me for I was loath to explain myself to him. But master James had swore me to secrecy not only that but I had heard him expressly ask the doctor not to mention anything about missus to the Reverend.
Meanwhile as I was speaking the old goat had been taking a long nosy look at the parcel in my hands, clearly trying to figure out what it might contain.
‘Ah-haah!’ he says. ‘And how is your dear mistress?’
‘Very well, sir, very well indeed.’
‘I am glad to hear it. Ah-haah! I thought she looked a little pale last time I saw her. There is nothing the matter with her, I take it?’
‘No, sir, she is quite well.’
‘And your master? He is buying a public fountain from my brother is he not? I wonder do you know how that little project is progressing?’
‘I am afraid I know nothing about it, sir.’
‘Oh? Perhaps they don’t discuss these things with you. Well James is a capable fellow, I am sure it will pass off without a hitch. Your master has done very well for himself, Bessy, with no help from anyone at all—apart, I understand, from a substantial legacy and various properties left to him by an uncle many years ago. Ah-haah! But you know all about that, I suppose.’
He studied me with his cold little eyes. I didn’t say anything, and so he carried on.
‘And of course, the latest good news, James has been asked to stand, I believe? As a member of parliament? What do you make of that, Bessy? Do you think that your master would make a good parliamentarian, hmm?’ Again, he gave me a cunning look.
‘I know nothing about politics, sir. And if you will excuse me I have to go now. I am being taken back at 4 o’clock.’
‘Ah yes,’ he says, peering once more at my parcel with his head on one side. He looked like a hen about to peck it. ‘You have a lot of purchases there. Ah-haah! I hope your package isn’t too heavy?’
‘No, sir.’
‘It’s very unwieldy.’ Clearly, he hoped that such comments would prompt me to reveal what it contained.
‘I can manage, sir.’
He gave a mock frown and wagged a finger at me. ‘Now I do hope you haven’t been spending all your wages on fripperies,’ he says. ‘Hair clasps and cap ribbons and the like. Or have you been buying something for your mistress perhaps?’
Clearly he was not about to give up and I knew that my story about braid and thread would not fool him, the parcel being much too large.
‘It’s nothing, sir,’ I says. ‘Only some material and buttons.’
‘Material and buttons, eh?’ He shook his head and sighed through his nose. ‘Silks and satins, no doubt. Well, let me see . . .’ He pulled out his pamphlets and extracted one. ‘Here we are,’ he says, handing it to me. The thing was entitled ‘The Eye Sore’, and was an attack on any person that spent too long contemplating theirselves in the looking glass. ‘Are you prone to vanity, Bessy, I suspect you are. Well, you may find this an enlightening read.’
I tried to give it back to him but would he take it, would he chook.
‘No, no,’ he says. ‘Keep it. How did you fare with the last publications I gave you?’
‘Oh,’ I says. ‘I haven’t had time to read them yet.’ (A lie. I had either thrown them away directly or wrote rude words in the margins and then thrown them out.)
He scrutinised me closely. ‘Are you in fact able to read?’ he says, as though to himself. ‘I am beginning to suspect that perhaps you aren’t.’
‘I can read very well, sir,’ I says, hot in the face. ‘Now if you don’t mind . . .’
But he detained me once again, this time by putting his hand on my arm.
‘Wait a moment,’ he says. ‘This may come as a surprise to you, Bessy, but I can see potential in you. Ah-haah! You are quite different from other girls of your age and faith. I tell you what. If you like, I will elucidate these texts for you and then you can ask me any questions. Also, I want to know more about your life before Castle Haivers. I know you were a housekeeper.’
I opened my mouth to protest, but he interrupted.
‘No, no!’ he says, throwing up his hands. ‘Don’t tell me anything, just yet.’
As if to flip I had been about to!
‘It must wait until you come to the manse,’ he says. ‘What day would suit you?’
‘I don’t think I can call on you, sir.’
‘You had time off to visit Mr Flemyng, I believe, over at Thrashburn. Did you not?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I says, feeling unaccountably embarrassed.
‘Well then,’ he says. ‘If you can call on Flemyng then surely you can visit myself, especially when it is for the purpose of tract elucidation.’
‘I’d have to ask for time off,’ I says. ‘And I don’t know when I will get
any. We are very busy just at the moment.’
‘I tell you what,’ he says. ‘I am always at home on Thursday afternoons for visitors. Let us leave it at that. You can ask for a Thursday afternoon off. You need not even say that you’re coming to see me. Come to think of it, let us not mention it to anyone. Just in case you change your mind.’
‘Change my mind about what?’
He looked surprised. ‘Why—about revoking your faith,’ he says. ‘Ah-haah!’
He beamed at me. I just stood there, speechless, for a moment and then I says, ‘Goodbye, sir, I must go now.’
I made the merest shadow of a curtsey then walked away. When I glanced back, he had resumed distributing his pamphlets. As soon as I’d turned the corner I took ‘The Eye Sore’ and posted it through somebody’s door.
Back at the house, master James and McGregor-Robertson were holed up in the study in a fug of pipe smoke. Master James took the parcel of remedies from me and announced that the doctor would be staying for supper but that I was not to serve anything until ½ past 7, as they wanted to finish their reading and then go for a walk.
‘We must stretch our legs,’ he says. ‘We’ve been cooped up in here all day.’
‘Very good sir,’ I says. ‘What about missus?’
‘She will remain indoors,’ he says.
‘No sir, I mean what about her food? Will she be eating with you downstairs?’
He and McGregor-Robertson exchanged a meaning look. I noticed, for the first time, that the doctor’s eye was watering and that the skin around it seemed discoloured.
‘Eh, no,’ says the master, then he cleared his throat. ‘Bessy, it’s very important that my wife rests for a while.’ He gestured to the many books that lay scattered around the room. ‘All our reading on the matter confirms it. Unfortunately, your mistress doesn’t yet appreciate that. You see, this afternoon while you were gone, she attempted several times to come downstairs. She became quite upset at one point.’
He glanced at the doctor for confirmation but McGregor-Robertson was once more absorbed in his book, with a fixed placid look on his face.
Master James turned back to me. ‘In the end,’ he says, ‘for her own good, we were forced to lock the door of her room to make sure she didn’t break out again.’
I must have looked startled because he put his hand on my shoulder.
‘Now don’t worry yourself,’ he says. ‘It is only for a short while. She needs to rest.’
‘But sir she won’t like being all cooped up, it’ll only make her worse.’
‘No, Bessy,’ he says with a shake of his head. ‘Believe you me it will make her better. Indeed, she has been much quieter since we locked the door. Now I want you to promise me that you won’t let her out. She may try to persuade you, but you must be firm.’
I wasn’t happy at all, but I had to promise all the same since I had to be seen to agree to do his bidding. Otherwise he might take it into his head to send me packing. And besides, maybe they were right. Perhaps she did need to rest. For it looked like she had give the doctor a black eye.
Right enough, I might have done the same, had he tried to lock me in a room.
Dinner preparations kept me in the kitchen for the next hour or so but I listened out in order to hear when they left the house for their walk. Eventually, I was rewarded with the sound of the front door banging shut. It was dark out and I knew that they would not stroll far from the house. Without delay, I hurried upstairs and pressed my ear to the missus door. All I could hear was the beating of my own heart. A lamp was lit somewhere inside the room for when I bent down I could see a glimmer of light through the keyhole. I spoke into the crack between door and frame.
‘Marm? Are you there? Marm?’
For a moment there was only silence. Then I heard the creak of bedsprings and soft footsteps as somebody approached from the inside. A shadow passed across the keyhole and a little cold draft sent up by the movement of her skirts brushed my face.
‘It’s me, marm,’ I says quietly. ‘Are you all right?’
There was a pause, during which I thought I heard her murmur something to herself. Then I gave a start as she spoke suddenly, close to the door.
‘It’s locked, Bessy,’ she says. ‘Unless you have the key, you can’t come in.’
‘I know, marm. But it’s only for a little while, I believe, so that you can rest properly. Are you resting? Is there something you need?’ Though how I expected to give her anything, I haven’t a baldy. I suppose I was just trying to reassure her.
‘Oh I don’t know,’ she says, despondently. There was a brief silence. I squinted through the keyhole but now could see nothing but shadows and so assumed that she was standing just behind the door. After a moment, she says, very downhearted, ‘I don’t deserve anything. I am a bad person.’
‘Nonsense, marm,’ I says. ‘Don’t be like that.’
‘A bad person, Bessy, and a guilty one.’
‘Oh no, marm, not at all.’
There was no reply, except a hollow laugh from inside the room.
‘You’ll be all right, marm,’ I told her and then, very briskly, I says, ‘Do you know, I went for a walk today?’
‘What?’ she says, distracted.
‘A walk, marm. I walked over the fields, to the north. I was just walking along, you know, looking about me, and then before I knew it, I fell down a slope. It took me quite by surprise, so it did.’
Missus sighed. ‘What are you talking about, Bessy?’
‘This walk I went on, marm. I am just telling you, I walked north over the fields and then I fell down a slope. And you’ll never guess what I nearly landed on, marm?’
There was no reply, only a rustling sound from behind the door.
‘Marm?’
‘I am sorry—what did you say?’
‘I says you’ll never guess what I nearly landed on.’
‘I hardly like to imagine,’ says missus, very droll.
‘Would you believe, now, it was a railway line?’
I waited for some reaction from her, but heard only silence.
‘The railway line, marm. To the north of here. I near fell right onto it, quite by accident. I am telling you, it’s easy done. I was just lucky there was no train. Why, if you fell and a train was coming, well, I don’t know what might happen. It would be nobody’s fault though. Nobody’s fault at all but your own. Just an accident.’
Here, I stopped talking—not because there was no response from missus but because she had started muttering to herself. I leaned against the door to hear better.
‘What was that, marm?’
Immediately, the muttering ceased. She called out. ‘Carry on!’ she goes. ‘You were saying about this railway line.’
‘Well, marm, like I said, it would be nobody’s fault if you tripped up on that bank and went under a train. There ought to be a fence put up, it’s the railway peoples fault—’
But I didn’t continue further because, once again (this time in near-whispers), missus had begun talking to herself. I put my ear to the door. The murmur of the voice was distinct, though it was difficult to make out individual words. At one point I thought I heard my own name spoken, before the murmuring continued. She whispered, paused, whispered, then paused again. It was like listening to one side of a conversation, as though she was talking to another person in the room, a person whose words and responses could be heard by her alone.
At this insight, a prickling sensation crept across my shoulder blades. The corridor was freezing but my shivers were due to more than the cold. With great trepidation, for fear of what I might see, I knelt down quietly and put my eye to the keyhole. Once again, I seen the glimmer of the lamp and the outline of some furniture, which meant that missus had stepped away from the door. I peered this way and that but could not make out where she stood in the room. Yet the intermittent mutterings continued, apparently quite close at hand.
‘Who’s there, marm?’ I called out. ‘Who’s in
there with you?’
At once, the whispers ceased. There was a rushing, rustling sound and then a shadow passed once again across the keyhole. Another tiny cold draft blew a little puff of dust directly into my eye, which started to water. I flinched and drew back, to wipe it.
‘What did you say, Bessy?’
‘Why are you talking, marm? Who’s in there with you?’
I heard a laugh. ‘You are the one who is doing all the talking, Bessy,’ she says. ‘Tell me, did you hurt yourself when you fell down?’
‘Eh—no, marm, not really.’
‘Well that is a relief,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. But I don’t see why you are making such a fuss about it. You tripped and fell and you saw a railway line. It is not really worthy of a Jeremiad. I am surprised at you. Normally your stories are more entertaining, Bessy, or have more point.’
This was not the response I had expected. It seemed that she had not yet made the connection between the walk I described and the one she had sent Nora on. I tried again.
‘Marm?’ I says. ‘Do you know the path I mean, over the fields to the north?’
At this juncture, I thought I heard her move away from the door and then there was a faint creak, which I took to be mattress springs. To my mind, she had sat down on the bed. I peered in at the keyhole. At first I saw only shadowy furniture as before, illuminated by lamplight. Then of a sudden, as if from nowhere, an eye appeared, glaring back at me—a wild and cruel eye that seemed to stare right into my very soul.
I shrieked and leapt away from the door, I just about went arse over tip and landed on the other side of the corridor, banging my head on the wall. In the same moment, I heard the front door fly open. A freezing gust rushed up the stairwell and blew out the candle, causing me to shriek again. There was a bellowing roar from the hallway and footsteps came thundering upwards. Shadows careened back and forth on the ceiling and then master James and the doctor appeared at the head of the stairs, bearing lamps. They hesitated when they seen me sprawled in the passageway.