The Observations

by Jane Harris

  ‘What in Gods name is going on?’ shouted master James.

  In response, I pointed at the chamber door. Even in my state of shock, I was interested to note two things, that master James had once again been stunned into the interrogative form, and that my hand trembled most terribly, like that of an old woman.

  ‘Sir!’ I cried. ‘I think there’s someone in the room with missus!’

  ‘What?’ he goes. ‘Who?’ and ‘How could that be?’

  So many questions! But I had no answers for him, since I was too feart to mention what I thought, I just shook my head and trembled. With a snarl of exasperation he strode to the door and drew the key from his pocket. The doctor paused to help me to my feet then followed. Seconds later master James flung open the door and the two men burst in. I crept after them hardly daring to put one foot in front of the other.

  Inside, the room appeared tranquil enough, apart from master James and the doctor who both stood panting in the middle of the floor, peering this way and that with scowls on their faces. Missus was sat in bed, with a shawl draped around her shoulders and some sewing in her lap. She had stopped her work and was gazing at the two men in mild astonishment. Apart from her and us, the room was empty.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ she says. ‘Whatever seems to be the problem?’

  17

  Ominous News

  MASTER JAMES and the doctor went through the room like a dose of salts but they found nobody. Meanwhile, missus sat up in bed to all intents and purposes bemused by this feverish male intrusion. While they tore the place to ribbons I kept trying to catch her eye but she stubbornly refused to return my gaze until master James tellt me to go down and attend to dinner. Then, unnoticed by the men (who were stood with their backs to her), missus winked at me and touched a secret finger to her lips, a gesture of collusion that left me somewhat baffled.

  Just before I served supper, the two gents visited me in the kitchen. They closed the door and proceeded to bombard me with questions. Who won the Derby in 46? What is the capital of Spain? If it takes six men three hours to dig a ditch, no not really. They wanted to know why I had thought there was someone in the room with missus. What had caused me to shriek and fall down? And what was I doing outside her door in the first place? I said I had went up to check that she was all right. And then I tellt them about the whispers I had heard. And about the eyeball that appeared. But I may as well have been talking out a hole in my head. They were having none of it. The whispers was just missus talking to herself, they says. And it was her eye that had appeared in the keyhole. Either that or I had conjured it up out the shadows.

  I protested. ‘But I heard her move away from the door and sit on the bed.’

  ‘She returned,’ the doctor says. ‘Without your noticing. Or perhaps she didn’t move very far away in the first place. She must simply have bent down to peer out at you.’

  The both of them stared at me gloomily. I knew what I’d seen. But I didn’t want to give them any more snash since it was clear they blamed me for the disturbance.

  ‘I am sorry, sir,’ I says. ‘I must have made a mistake.’

  Mistake my fat aunt!

  Master James nodded. ‘Very well, Bessy,’ he says. ‘But you must be careful from now on. This is exactly the kind of thing that is bound to upset your mistress. If she thinks that you can see this apparition it only adds credibility to her hallucinations. It would be for the best if your contact with her were severely limited for the time being. When you have made up her tray bring it to the study. One of us will carry it to her.’

  I thought I might die, I was that upset at being kept from missus. But I had no choice. I made up a tray for her but it was her husband that took it up to her room. The two men threw some dinner into them then retired to the study but they weren’t in there any time at all for whilst I was clearing the dining room I seen them head upstairs, carrying the various packets that I had brought from the chemist. They were off to give missus a dose. The thought of her locked away and drugged like a Chinaman was a knife turning in my liver, I was so busy staring in anguish after the two men that I tipped ½ the leftovers onto the tablecloth instead of a plate.

  I was still trying to get the flipping stain out when they returned downstairs. They stood talking for a moment in the hall then the doctor left, saying that he would be back in the morning. I heard the front door close and master James drew the bolts. Now was the time, if I had the neck to do it. I dropped my cloth and hared out into the hall just as he was about to step into the study.

  ‘Sir!’ I goes.

  He turned to face me, an eyebrow raised. Jesus Murphy my heart was up amongst my lungs. But I forced myself to continue.

  ‘Sir, I am worried about missus. This locking her away and making her take remedies. I don’t think it’ll help her, sir. It seems a mite—extreme.’

  He looked at me. ‘A mite extreme,’ he says. ‘You think it a mite extreme.’

  ‘Well—yes sir, I do.’

  There was a glint in his eye as he considered me. Of a sudden, he was in a cold rage. ‘I am very glad that you have brought this to my attention Bessy,’ he says, but he was only being satirical. ‘You think it extreme. Well girl I’ll tell you something extreme.’

  Oh dear. Calling me ‘girl’. That was a bad sign.

  ‘You would like to hear it, no doubt,’ he says, glaring at me.

  I wasn’t sure I would, but I nodded anyway.

  ‘I thought as much. Let me tell you, Bessy, a little story of our trip to Edinburgh.’

  Despite my misgivings I was glad to hear him say that, since it meant I might learn what all this business was about with the Register Office.

  ‘The afternoon passed off without event of much note,’ he says. ‘We visited a few of the sights, the gardens, the monument and so on, although we did not go to the top as the entrance fee is extortionate. Your mistress seemed in fair form, if a little distracted, and we did lose each other for a while in the crowds on Princes Street. One minute she was by my side and the next she was gone. When I found her again she was standing outside what turned out to be a Register Office for servants, looking as though she was on the point of entering the building. I asked her what she was doing, and she told me that her intention had been to go inside and request directions back to our hotel where she meant to await my own return. This seemed a fair explanation, I thought no more of it. The Soiree at the Assembly Rooms passed off well enough. Then yesterday morning when I arose Arabella was not to be found anywhere in our hotel. I waited two hours. At about eleven o’clock I was summoned to the foyer. There I was greeted by the sight of your mistress looking very shame-faced in the custody of a policeman and another gentleman, a Mr Knox. While the policeman escorted my wife to her room this Mr Knox and I retired to the lounge and he proceeded to tell me what my wife had done.’

  Up until this point his story had not seemed that remarkable. But now boys oh dear I began to wonder. Why the polis?

  ‘It seems that at about nine o’clock your mistress had presented herself at a Register Office for servants on Princes Street, the very one outside which I had found her the day before. Mr Knox informed me that he is the proprietor. At the reception desk, my wife apparently introduced herself to his assistant using a false name. She called herself Mrs Black of Corstorphine and said that she was there to have a look at some girls with a mind to engaging a parlourmaid.’

  I must have looked alarmed for master James says, ‘Do not worry yourself, Bessy. Your mistress does not wish to replace you, that doesn’t seem to have been her purpose, as will become evident. Now, apparently Mr Knoxs assistant noticed that she had a box with her but thought nothing of it at the time, assuming that she had been shopping. She filled out a form and then was shown into a room where a number of girls were waiting to be looked at by ladies. There she picked out two or three girls and then retired to an interviewing room where the applicants were sent to her one by one. These first girls were not to her liking. The assi
stant recommended a few others and these were also sent in to be interviewed. Once again, none proved suitable. In the end she saw most of the girls, one after the other.’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps if every one of them had been shy or quiet, nothing would have come to light. However, it happened that one of the girls was bolder than the rest. When this girl emerged from the interview, she went straight to the reception and made a complaint. She claimed that your mistress had been asking her questions—questions that had no bearing on her suitability or otherwise for employment as a parlourmaid. She had also apparently asked the girl—’

  Here he bit his lip and stared at the floor, before continuing.

  ‘She asked her to—apparently within the box she had with her, there was a glass chamber pot and she then asked—she wanted the girl to—to void her bowels into it.’

  I just looked at him. I do believe he was blushing. He went on.

  ‘The girls complaint was at first not taken seriously and she might have been asked to leave the premises but when she persisted, another girl piped up saying that she too had been interrogated inappropriately. And then one by one all the girls who had been interviewed by your mistress confessed likewise. They all said that she’d asked improper questions and had requested of one or two that they utilise the chamber pot which, needless to say, they had refused to do. It was at this point that Mr Knox was summoned from his office. After a brief investigation, he asked my wife to leave. She refused. The assistant was called. A scuffle ensued. The glass pot was smashed. One or two of the maids pitched in. It became a general brawl and then somebody ran outside and hailed a passing policeman.’

  Here he gave a short, bitter laugh. Then wiped his hand across his face and resumed. ‘No charges are being brought. However the policeman did advise me to keep a more careful watch on my wife in future.’

  The glint was back in his eye, he directed it at me.

  ‘Now that, Bessy, is extreme. Extreme behaviour. Requiring extreme measures. I trust you would agree.’

  Of course he wasn’t to know about The Observations. I’d have laid good money that missus was only doing some experiment for her book. It was on the weird side right enough, asking parlourmaids to do their plops into glass pots. But surely she would have some good reason for it? I would have give my eye teeth to tell him what I thought, but missus had swore me to secrecy about her book and so I kept my trap shut.

  ‘Believe you me,’ he says. ‘This extreme treatment, as you call it, is well merited.’ And he give me the benefit of a fierce face for a moment or two, before continuing.

  ‘When I had bid Mr Knox good day,’ he says. ‘I went to my wifes room only to find that she’d packed her bag and slipped out of the hotel. There was no doubt in my mind that she would have returned home, too ashamed to face me. I had one or two appointments that kept me in town and then I took the last train. When I got here, what did I find but yet another scene of madness.’

  ‘Sir, you see what happened was-’

  ‘Wheesht Bessy!’ he says. ‘Enough. Now, has your mistress . . . what I mean is . . . according to Knox, she claimed that she wanted to divine the girls characters from examination of their stools. Now tell the truth, Bessy—did she do this extraordinary thing when she employed you?’

  I was glad to be able to reply without lying. ‘No sir. Absolutely not. She never did and never has.’

  Master James seemed relieved, just for a moment. Then he looked downcast.

  ‘I still cannot imagine what she thought she was doing,’ he says. ‘Just think—if it had happened while I was with Duncan Pollock! Or if it became public knowledge!’ He looked that miserable I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

  ‘Isn’t there nothing I can do, sir?’

  He shook his head slowly. Then he turned towards the study, took a few steps and of a sudden swivelled back. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he says. ‘I’d appreciate a little distraction. It’s a while since you read to me from the notices. I picked up a newspaper at the hotel.’

  ‘Oh yes sir. Of course. Just let me finish clearing the table.’

  When I returned a few minutes later, I found him seated at his desk in the study, writing another letter. He made no attempt to conceal this one, merely nodded at me and indicated that I should make myself comfortable. The newspaper lay ready on the little chair I usually sat on, near the lamp on his desk. I took my place, wondering if missus was already asleep upstairs, and what terrible concoction was it that the doctor had gave her. However, any thoughts of missus disappeared as soon as I unfolded the paper and seen the front page. My attention was drawn at once to the first notice in the left hand column not only because of its prominent position but also because it was longer than the others. What caught my eye was the first sentence. STRAYED from her home on Wednesday the 2nd September last, DAISY O’TOOLE, also known as ROSEBUD or POD.

  How strange to see your own self published in a newspaper. DAISY, ROSEBUD or POD. At the sight of those familiar names I near cried out, so great was my shock. I glanced up, anxious that master James might have noticed. Lucky for me he was oblivious, his head bent over his correspondence. Having established that he’d noticed nothing untoward I began to read the item again but before I had time to scan more than a few words, he signed his letter and set it aside. Then he sat back and gave me a nod.

  ‘Good girl, Bessy,’ he says. ‘You may begin.’

  And so with a great effort at calming myself, I commenced reading aloud. Not with the first item on the page but with the one beneath, I believe it concerned a pair of missing spectacles. On a different day master James might have found this or the other notices amusing but he listened without a flicker of a smile and within ten minutes he’d had enough and sent me away. I asked if I could borrow the newspaper overnight and took it upstairs with me. There, heartsick, I spread it out on the bed and for the first time read the notice in full. Over subsequent days I reread it often enough to be able to reproduce it here word for word.

  STRAYED from her home on Wednesday the 2nd September last, DAISY O’TOOLE, also known as ROSEBUD or POD. She is Irish, between 14 and 16 years of age and has brown hair, pale complexion, a moon-face. Her eyes are blue or green or grey and although she may seem a little wrong in the mind this is just the way with her. She is stubborn and not to be trusted. Had on yellow satin frock when last seen, too small for her, blue ribbons, no coat. Any person supplying information about her current whereabouts, believed to be in the SNATTER vicinity, would greatly oblige the devoted sister MISS BRIDGET O’TOOLE, by contacting her at 3 Saracen Lane, Glasgow, at their earliest convenience.

  That this notice had been composed by my mother there could be no doubt. Even had she not put her own name to it I’d have guessed as much from the vague descriptions of my age and appearance and from some of the phrasing. Whether this was the first such advertisement she had placed or whether it was just the latest in a series, I hadn’t a notion but the sight of it struck dread into my very marrow. How the flip had she tracked me down to Snatter?

  My first impulse was to take French leave. Get as far away as I could, just in case she did manage to trace me to Castle Haivers. Mechanically, I began to gather my few things together in a bundle in preparation for setting out on the road. It so happened that one of the frocks missus had give me was hanging on the wall and when I tried to take it down I found that part of the lining had become fankled on the wall-peg. The more I attempted to disentangle it, the more fankled it became. I tugged the material this way and that, almost weeping with frustration. And in so doing I started to think of missus locked in her room downstairs doped to the gills and with nobody to look out for her except me. And just as the peg cleaved to my frock and would not release it, so my heart cleaved to missus. In that moment I realised that I simply could not desert her.

  It may seem that my reaction to this possibility of being found by my mother was unwarranted. But I did not underestimate her wickedness.

  At this point—although I have n
o great wish to do so—I am forced to confess what I have been avoiding. But perhaps, in order to tell about those events, I must delve back a little further in time. All this is not something that I wish to dwell upon. However, I must now out with it, it is no good sitting here digging my fingernails into my throat and cheeks which is what I have been doing for the past hour as I agonise over what I am now about to write.

  Once upon a time there was a woman who made her money as many women before her had done, by giving men what they wanted. This woman—let us call her Bridget—saw no wrong in what she did. She liked life to be relatively easy. Let us be honest, she was a lazy woman and she scoffed at those who made their living in the factory or in service. Most of her work was done lying down and if it was done standing up it was over all the quicker, and so (as she said) she couldn’t lose. What she enjoyed most was a good old raucous time, the kind that can only be had in drink. So she was not generally a sober woman and neither was she a kind woman. Or rather, let us say that her kindness was selective. It was not unknown for her to be moved to tears by some affecting sight, such as a basket of kittens or a lamb gambolling in a field. And she often claimed that her heart had been broken by various men. Therefore it follows that she cannot have been entirely heartless. But there was something in her nature that was cold. She lacked compassion. And, depending upon her mood and how much she had drunk, she could even be cruel.

  This, then, was Bridget.

  It is not recorded anywhere how she felt when she gave birth to a child, but it might be suspected that she saw this baby—a daughter—as little more than an inconvenience. The baby—let us call her Daisy—grew into a little girl and as she got older it suited Bridget to let it be known that Daisy was her sister, rather than her daughter, for this gave an impression of greater youthfulness, something that Bridget was keen to hang onto. And since they moved around a lot from town to town, such a deception was easy to maintain.