by Jane Harris
I seemed to have lost the power of speech and so I just nodded.
‘Well, these people—these terrible people—it is a man and a woman, by the way. She is the one who is in charge, the woman. He is simply her henchman—but don’t be fooled, he is just as evil as his mistress and he is moreover a master of disguise. You see they run a Register Office for servants and it is very much in their interests to find out what makes a maid loyal and obedient. Well, somehow they have found out about Nora and how wonderful she is. And do you know what they want to do to her?’
‘No,’ I says faintly.
‘It is a very sinister plan, Bessy. They want to cut her up! They want to cut her open and use pieces of her brain and intestines in an experiment to find out what constitutes the perfect maid! Isn’t it awful?’ She stared at me, wide-eyed.
I could not have said at what point exactly I had begun to be sceptical about what she was saying. Certainly, a seed of doubt was sown with her declaration that Nora had visited her, because I knew that nothing had been found when the room was searched (and I had recently even begun to wonder whether the eye at the keyhole might not indeed have belonged to missus herself). As for her mention of a ‘master of disguise’ this also set off a few alarm bells because it did sound vaguely like something out a storybook. But by the time she got to the sinister plan and pieces of brain and guts and Nora being cut up for an experiment by people who ran a Register Office, I had begun to feel very frightened indeed. You see, I wanted to believe what missus said. Desperately. But a growing part of me knew that she was talking nonsense. Dear God, it was gobaloon! That was the only word for it.
The godawfullness of it froze me to the spot. I just sat there appalled and distraught with my hand clamped over my mouth. Poor missus! My poor dear missus! She was gone moony. She really was gone mad! And I had done nought to stop it. Indeed, I had probably caused it! I had a sense of rising panic and simultaneous sinking despair. I thought I might faint. But missus didn’t seem to notice that there was anything wrong.
‘Nora came to me for help, you see,’ she was saying. ‘However, I didn’t know it was her at first. The signs that she left were not specific enough. But then, do you remember, Bessy, the message in the attic window?’
Did I remember it. If only I had never thought of the scutting thing! It had caused more trouble! Arabella was looking at me for a response, I found I could tilt my head up and down in a sort of nod.
‘At that stage,’ she says, ‘I have to admit, I was a little confused. I thought it was her ghost, you see, come back to haunt us. At first she only appeared before me and made that pleading gesture. Two or three times she came to me like that, though after the first time I did not mention it to you. I could see that she was trying to say something. Her lips would move but no sounds came out. And then one day she managed to speak.’
‘What did she say?’
‘That first time?’ Missus reflected for a moment. ‘It was “Help me, my lady.” ’
‘I see,’ I says and the word tasted like bitter ashes in my mouth.
‘In our first conversation,’ she went on, ‘I questioned her about why she had come. She told me that she was not a ghost at all, that she was still alive. She was Nora, just as she always has been. And since then she has told me all about the trouble that she is in with these people. And I have offered her my protection as far as I am able.’
‘So,’ I says, trying to sound conversational. ‘Where is she now, marm?’ I glanced around the room. ‘Is she here?’
‘Don’t be silly, Bessy,’ says missus. ‘She was here yesterday night. That was when she told me that we ought to bring you in on our secret, because you can help us. As you know, I am stuck in this room for the foreseeable future, and so I cannot be out and about, keeping an eye on things. We need somebody out in the world, because should these dreadful people come to the door then they have to be discouraged and sent away. You must be on the lookout for them, Bessy. Have you seen anyone lurking yet?’
I shook my head sadly.
She seemed surprised. ‘Really?’ she says. ‘I have seen the woman herself several times, standing out there in the shrubbery, watching the house. Look out for her. They use assumed names. Currently she is known as Mrs Gilfillan and her henchman is McDonald.’
I did not know much about lunacy back then but to my untutored brain it seemed that the delusion must be fairly comprehensive if the Phantasy figures involved had names, assumed ones at that.
I says, ‘Have you told any of this to master James?’
She scoffed at the very notion. ‘Good gracious, no!’ She leaned towards me so that her face was inches from mine. ‘We’re not entirely sure yet,’ she says quietly. ‘But we think it’s possible that James might be on their side. McGregor-Robertson too. But we’ll have to wait and see. I am keeping an eye on James and the doctor and that woman in the garden. Don’t worry. I’ve got them all under observation.’
She peered wildly this way and that as though to demonstrate—and for the first time, I realised how much she looked like she had lost her wits. Seeing her this close it dawned on me that there could be no doubt. It had been her glaring, bloodshot eyeball that had appeared at the keyhole. Just then, she grabbed my wrist, I near had a heart attack.
‘They think that they are observing me,’ she says. ‘But they don’t know that they are the ones under scrutiny!’
A thought occurred to me. ‘Was this anything to do with why you went to the Register Office in Edinburgh, marm? Were you looking for this Gilfillan woman?’
Missus gazed into the middle distance for a moment, frowning. ‘Register Office in Edinburgh?’ she says. Then she shook her head. ‘I have no memory of it.’
‘You interviewed girls, marm. You were asking them—things.’
She looked thoughtful. ‘I imagine that if I was at a Register Office it must have been in connection with my research. I am writing a book you see, a book about servants and how to get the best out of them.’
‘Yes, marm,’ I says. ‘You already told me about it.’
‘Did I?’ She looked puzzled. ‘I do keep forgetting things these days.’
‘The Observations, marm. Like I said, I have read them. Some of them, anyway.’
‘Now, there you go again with these Obligations. What do you mean?’
‘Your book, marm. It’s called The Observations, is it not? Well, I went into your drawer there and read some of it.’
She looked at me, blankly. ‘The Observations? Is that what I called it? I must say, I began it so long ago, I can hardly remember the title. Wasn’t it something about Notes on the Domestic Class? Observations you say? The important thing is, Gilfillan thinks she can get her hands on my research but she’s mistaken. I cannot write anything at the moment, since James and the doctor have taken my pen and ink, supposedly to afford me more rest. However, Nora suspects—and I am inclined to believe her—that they don’t want me to send her notes. Little do they know that she can come and go as she pleases.’
And so we were back to Nora again. How I had dreaded confessing that I’d read The Observations and built it up in my head until it was the size of China. And here it had gone almost unremarked!
‘Are you—are you expecting Nora today, marm? I’d like to meet her.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You must meet her soon. She may come today, I am not quite sure. She has to be careful, you see, to avoid Gilfillan and McDonald. If they are lurking in the neighbourhood she will have to keep out of sight.’
‘Of course,’ I says. ‘What do they look like, marm?’
‘Why—I haven’t seen McDonald but in any case he changes his appearance at will. He has been known to disguise himself variously as a sea captain, a chimney sweep and a Bishop. As for Mrs Gilfillan, she is unremarkable in appearance, brown haired, of middle years. I saw her not an hour ago, she was down there, peering out, hatless, from behind the beech tree wearing a brown dress and matching cape—no doubt trying to blend
in with her surroundings.’
She sat back and smoothed out her skirts. I don’t believe that I have ever in my life felt so sad for another person. Poor love! There she was, I could reach out and touch her. And yet she seemed to have slipped beyond my reach, as though she inhabited a different world from the one that was my own.
‘Are you absolutely sure, marm, that all this is true? Could it not be that you are—well—mistaken about Mrs Gilfillan?’
‘Oh no,’ she says. ‘I am afraid it is all too true, Bessy. You may not like to believe that such evil people exist in the world but they do.’ She must have seen my expression change, for she added. ‘But don’t worry, dear. You will be quite safe. Nora and I are working on a plan to get rid of McDonald and Mrs Gilfillan permanently.’
‘How would you do that, marm?’
She gave me a conspiratorial smile. ‘You will just have to wait and see,’ she says. ‘But I am very confident that we shall have a positive result.’
I wished that I could have been so confident. To my distress I found that I was on the verge of tears. But I couldn’t let her see me cry! She would wonder what was the matter. I leapt up from my seat.
‘Horses, marm!’ I says. ‘That’ll be master James and the doctor back from Snatter.’ Keeping my face averted, I hurried to the door. Out the corner of my eye, I could see her peering out the window, startled. I took the chance to wipe my cheeks on my apron.
‘Horses?’ she says. ‘I didn’t hear anything. Do you think they’ve muffled the hooves in an attempt to surprise us?’
‘No marm!’ I says in despair for it seemed that everything I did or said thrust her towards more extremes of madness! ‘It was just ordinary hooves I heard. Now I must go. But don’t you worry, marm. I’ll take care of everything.’
‘I know you will, Bessy,’ she says. ‘Now if you see any strangers or if anyone comes to the door just let me know.’
Somewhere deep in her eyes, I thought I seen confusion and a vague hint of the old missus. It was as though a vestige of herself remained, present yet powerless, gazing out from behind her face.
Then she turned back to the window and peered out, looking for God knows what, strangers creeping about in the bushes or evidence of her husbands return on muffled hoofs. She appeared so frail that the wings of the chair seemed almost to swallow her up. I slipped from the room gazing back at her as anxiously and sorrowfully as if that was the final time I was ever to see her, keeping my eyes fixed on her until the last possible moment when the door closed between us.
My missus. My poor, dear missus!
½ an hour later, master James and the doctor returned. I had spent the preceding thirty minutes in my room, curled up on the bed, in an agony of sorrow, anxiety, guilt and rage. Sorrow, because it seemed like I had lost missus for good and the thought was too much to bear. Anxiety, because I didn’t know what to do for the best. And guilt and rage, because I blamed myself. After all, it was in revenge for what she had wrote in her book that I’d begun the haunting. And it seemed that my false ghost had set her off on the route of madness. Moreover, I had failed to notice how much she had deteriorated, ever since the so-called apparition had appeared in her room. Right enough, I had barely seen her these past weeks since the doctor got involved. But to my mind, that was no excuse.
Of course, I knew now that there was no apparition. It was all in her head. And the Nora that I had seen at about the same time was just a dream, caused by my spooky thoughts. I had also been completely wrong about the walk. Far from feeling guilty about it, missus made no connection between Noras demise and that particular experiment. But then of course, missus no longer believed that Nora was dead.
I had made a right porridge of everything. With all my heart, I wished that I could go back to the beginning and start all over again at Castle Haivers. If only it could be so. Right from the very first, I would have behaved differently. For starters I wouldn’t have dug around in the grate to look at that burnt book, which had turned out only to have belonged to Morag but which had set me off on a suspicious note in the house. I would never have gone into missus desk and read her Observations. And I certainly wouldn’t have embarked upon my stupid path of revenge with the haunting.
So many things I would not have done. But it was too late. Missus was too far gone in her illness, beyond my powers to help her. And besides, I was scared of making things worse. Some other person had to take responsibility. Some person better educated and with a wiser brain and more common sense.
And so that is why, upon hearing master James and the doctor return, I went to the study and told them everything, right from the beginning and leaving nothing out.
I need not give a blow-by-blow account of what took place in that room. Suffice to say, I relayed all what missus had just tellt me and gave them my opinion—that she was gone mad and that it was my fault entirely. I confessed about the haunting I had inflicted on her and told them that I’d done it because of what I’d read in her book. I told them exactly what I thought. That because of her grieving for Nora, coupled with my interference and mischief, her mind had become confused and she had confounded her own experiments with a delusion about this imaginary figure Mrs Gilfillan. And when they wanted to know about The Observations, I explained what they were.
I’ll say this much for the two gentlemen, they heard me out without really interrupting my testimony (for that is what it felt like I was giving). There was no exclamations or instant dismissals, no outraged behaviour, no storming about or throwing up of arms. Master James did chew his nails rather a lot whilst I was speaking and he looked quite surprised at a few of the things I revealed but the doctor, true to type, remained the least expressive of men, you could have set fire to his whiskers and he wouldn’t have blinked an eyelid. When I had finished they turned to each other and exchanged a glance. The doctors gaze dropped back to the bowl of his pipe. Master James rose to his feet. He stepped to the fireplace then turned and looked me in the eye.
‘That is quite a story, Bessy,’ he says. ‘I am not sure how much of it to believe, just at present, until we have had a chance to investigate further. You certainly give the appearance of speaking honestly, particularly since some of what you say, if true, is likely to result in your immediate dismissal from this house. Most specifically, I cannot see why on earth you would admit to pretending to be a ghost, unless you had indeed done so.’ He glanced, perplexed, at the doctor as though expecting his intermission but McGregor-Robertson only continued to smoke placidly with downcast eyes and so master James addressed himself once more to me. ‘As for the rest, for this story of sinister plots and an evil proprietress and of secret experiments and books being written by my wife when I am not at home—at the risk of understatement, might I say that it all sounds a wee bit far-fetched.’
‘Believe me, sir,’ I says. ‘It is all true. I wish it weren’t, but it is.’
He nodded. ‘Perhaps you would leave us for a moment, Bessy. I would like to speak to the doctor alone. Don’t stray too far, we may need you in a little while.’
I made them a curtsey and stepped outside. As soon as the door closed, they began talking in low voices but I did not eavesdrop as I might have done in the past. Instead I wandered about the hall touching the furniture, the hat-stand, letter table, banister, those things that I had dusted many times, I put my hands on their surfaces, it was as though I was saying goodbye to them all. For several minutes the voices in the study rose and fell. Then suddenly the door flew open and the two gentlemen strode out.
Master James approached me and with a glance upstairs spoke quietly. ‘This book you mentioned. Suppose you tell me where it is kept.’
I hesitated, thinking of missus. Such a long time I had guarded her secret! But then I thought about the mad glint in her eye and all the guff she had come out with.
‘It is in her desk, sir,’ I says. ‘But she keeps the drawer locked and the key is usually hid in her pocket.’
He had already swiv
elled on his heel and was making for the staircase with the doctor in pursuit. I waited a few moments and then—since they had not told me to do otherwise—followed. As I sped upstairs I heard them enter the missus chamber. There was a muffled exchange of words I couldn’t quite make out and then a metallic clatter as though the fire irons had overturned in the hearth. Just as I reached the head of the stairs, I heard missus gasp and cry out.
‘No!’
There was a scream, followed by sounds of a struggle and someone falling, then a repeated banging of metal on wood. Someone screamed again, louder this time. When I hurried into the room, I seen that master James was bent over the desk, wielding the poker as a lever and the doctor was grappling with missus on the floor. She kicked and thrashed as he pinned her down. When she caught sight of me, a look of wild and dreadful pleading came into her eyes. She was like a helpless animal, brought down by a predator.
‘Stop him, Bessy! Stop him! They’re with Gilfillan!! They’ll take my results!!’
‘It’s all right, marm,’ I tellt her. ‘They’re here to help you. Don’t worry.’
But she only screamed and kicked harder.
Just then from the desk there was a groaning, wrenching sound and then a great snap! as the wood split. Master James staggered backwards. A broken section of the drawer clattered to the ground.
He reached inside and began pulling out the contents. First off, he produced The Observations itself and then, one after the other, out came the maids notebooks. There must have been dozens of them all told, for they littered the desktop. Ledger upon ledger, the diaries of many maids.
Missus went limp and began to weep softly. Realising that she had ceased to struggle, the doctor got to his feet and went to join master James at the desk. While missus continued to weep on the floor, McGregor-Robertson picked up The Observations and began to read aloud from the first page.