by Jane Harris
With my heart up between my ears, I padded across to the parlour and peeked in. There was the chair where she always used to sit. I imagined her sat there now, glancing up from her sewing and smiling at me as I stepped into the room. ‘Bessy!’ she might say. ‘Where have you been?’ Or—‘Bessy! What are you thinking of?’
But she wasn’t there. And the cushion that usually sat on her chair was on the floor at the other side of the room as though it had been flung there in a temper. Next to it, a candlestick lay overturned. There was also broken glass in the hearth. It occurred to me that if the place had been deserted for a few days then perhaps some intruder—or intruders—might have come in by the back door. Perhaps they were still here now.
No sooner had this thought crossed my mind than I heard something. It sounded very much like the creak of a chair and it had come from the study. My breath caught in my throat. I turned and stepped across the hall, my bare legs trembling. I tried to be silent but the floorboards were sticky and with each step the skin on the soles of my feet peeled away with a rasp that anybody could have heard. The study door was ½ shut. I placed my hand against it and pushed. It swung open slowly and without a sound. There on the wall was the local map I had consulted to see where the railways ran. And there, on the desk, my letter to master James—opened, beside an empty bottle of whisky. And there, sprawled on the sofa on his back, with one arm flung across his face, the man himself. He wore no shoes. The stocking feet on him were filthy and the rest of his clothes dishevelled. There was a glass of whisky on the floor next him and another bottle, this one nearly full. The place was a shambles with dirty plates and glasses on the floor and clothes discarded here and there.
As I gazed at him he sighed and drew his arm away from his face but his eyes remained shut for a moment as he continued to look inwards at his thoughts. They cannot have been pleasant ones, for the expression he wore was pained. His hand fumbled blindly for the whisky glass and failed to find it. Then he opened his eyes. Because of where I stood he was looking straight at me.
‘Oh Bessy, do come in,’ he says and it touched my heart for he was obviously in the depths of misery but had tried to sound welcoming. He gave me a weak smile as I stepped forwards.
‘Sir,’ I says. ‘Are you all right? Where is missus?’
He took in a great breath as though to answer me but it made something catch in his throat and he fell into a paroxysm of coughing. Jesus Murphy that was some cough he had. He sat up and took a few gulps of whisky, which seemed to help. Meanwhile, he indicated a chair by the hearth. I sat down and waited. Eventually, the coughing fit came to an end. He drew his trembling fingers away from his mouth and leaned his elbow on his knee.
‘As you can see,’ he says. ‘I have been in better health. As for your mistress—’ He pursed his lips. ‘It is nobodys fault—except perhaps my own.’ He put his head in his hand and gave another cough.
His words had done nought but fill me with alarm. ‘What is it sir? What’s happened? Did you find her?’
‘Aye,’ he says. ‘We found her. As a matter of fact, she was here. She must have come back to the house after—’ The pained look crept across his face again. He peered at me. ‘She attacked the Reverend Pollock, you know.’
‘Yes sir, I was here when you came back with Hector. And then I helped look for her, down at the woods.’
‘Oh aye, that’s right,’ he says. ‘So you did. Well, she must have come back here after what—happened—with the Reverend. Meanwhile, they thought they’d found her body up at the railway line but it wasn’t her, it was just some woman, a stranger.’ He looked at me, his face cleared. ‘Ah—you were there too, I remember now.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘At any rate, Arabella came back here at some point. I don’t know how long she was here for but she had gone back up to her room. Nobody saw her return. But Muriel found her upstairs when she went up later, around 6 o’clock. She was on the bed.’
He stopped speaking and seemed to drift off for a second. I had a godawful dread in the pit of my stomach.
‘Dead, sir?’ I whispered.
He turned to look at me in surprise. ‘Not dead. She was quite calmly turning the pages of a book. She’s fine, Bessy. At any rate, I mean, she is alive. But we have had to—’ He paused and put his hand to his head. ‘She has been placed in an asylum.’
The words went through me like a knife. I kept on staring at him. I could not seem to look away. Could not blink. Could not move or speak.
He says, ‘It seems that Reverend Pollock contacted the Procurator Fiscal and—well, in brief, McGregor-Robertsons cousin has kindly provided accommodation for her at his establishment. I suppose, frankly, I should have taken steps before now. But I kept hoping that we might be able to make her better here. I was wrong about that.’
My missus! My poor missus—in an asylum!
‘I was wrong about it, as I have been wrong about so many things.’ He looked at me levelly. ‘I neglected your mistress, Bessy. When I should have been here with her, I was off—God knows where—’ He gave a hollow laugh, which almost immediately became another coughing fit.
My missus in an asylum—with loonies!
His cough receded. ‘It was Arabella that should have been the politician,’ he says. ‘She is much better with people than I am. It was always her that they liked, that they warmed to. My interest in people has always been—an effort. Insincere.’ He stared in misery at the floor. ‘We should have lived in Glasgow,’ he says. ‘She would have fared much better there. But I had my eye on this seat, you see, and I thought it was better to be here, on the spot.’ He glanced up and caught my gaze. His eyes were watery, the look in them angry and bitter. But he was angry with himself, not me.
He says, ‘I hardly need tell you, it is fairly certain that any chance I might have had of being asked to stand for election has now vanished. The Reverend Pollock will see to that.’ His lip curled. ‘Never has a man with such extensive head injuries been quite so pleased with himself. ’ Here he broke off, seeming to remember that I was there and that I was only a maid. ‘I don’t know if you are interested in this, Bessy. Forgive me.’
‘Go on, sir.’
He thought for a moment. ‘People like to be associated with success. But as soon as misery comes in the door, society flies out the window. Not a word have I heard from Duncan Pollock, Member of Parliament’ (this was the first time I’d heard him say it in such mocking tones). ‘Not a single word. Even though he cannot fail to know my situation. He fled back to Edinburgh as soon as he could decently extricate himself from his brothers household, probably thanking the Lord that he had not ingratiated himself with us any more than he had already. I believe he’d conceived quite a fancy for Arabella—only to find out that she is not in command of her wits. He must feel duped. As for everybody else—’ He made a helpless gesture, by which I understood that people had not exactly been falling over themselves to offer support or condolences.
‘Have you had no servant, sir?’
It was not a difficult question but he looked at me blankly, wiping his hand back and forth across his jaw.
‘To look after you, sir, I mean. What’s happened to the farm servants?’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘They’re here. Muriel or Hector come in a few times a day to get me food, if I want it. I have not had much appetite.’ He gazed at the few dirty plates on the floor and then at the whisky bottle. ‘Muriels sister Jessie is threatening to leave the estate and take Alasdair with her. Doesn’t like the scandal. Doesn’t want to be associated with such people as the Reids.’ He gave a short, sardonic laugh and I realised for the first time that he was quite drunk. ‘I thought you had gone, Bessy,’ he says. ‘I read your letter.’ And then, as if it had just occurred to him, ‘You have not yet told me where you have been.’
‘I—I got sick, sir, and was taken in by some people for a few days. But I wanted to come back and see was missus all right. Did you know the animals are gone, sir?
’
‘Animals? Ah yes!’ he says. ‘That pig and what have you.’
‘Hens. And the cat.’
‘Aye, they took them back to the farm. I am at a loss to know why they were here in the first place. You don’t keep a pig so near the house. I told Arabella that, I don’t know how many times.’
‘I think missus liked to have them here, sir, so she could watch her girls feed them and clean them out. It wasn’t an experiment exactly but she did like to see us working outside. It was all part of her Observations.’
‘Aye,’ he says, darkly. ‘Her Observations.’ He pulled at his lip, looking at me. ‘I suspect you are very fond of your mistress, Bessy.’
‘That I am, sir.’
He sat back and then drifted off again, staring mournfully after his thoughts like they were a boat floating out to sea. Then something inside him seemed to crumple. After a moment, with his voice hoarse and broken, he says, ‘I should have done what she wanted.’
I waited a moment but he didn’t elaborate. ‘What was that, sir?’
He sighed. ‘Arabella is very fond of you,’ he says, in an apparent change of subject. ‘You must know that, Bessy. Understand that. But I fear she will never get over that other girl.’ He looked directly at me now, the anger and bitterness returned to his eyes. ‘That’s what has really sent her mad. Noras death.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘And that was my fault.’
I looked at him. ‘Your fault, sir?’
But again, he had fell silent. I waited. Then I says, ‘I know that Nora had got herself in bother, sir.’
He frowned at me, his eyes hooded. Was he confused? Or wary?
‘Sir, that she was expecting a baby when she died.’
He drew his head back, without changing his expression. ‘I presume you would not mind telling me where you heard such a thing.’
‘Oh, I didn’t hear it, sir, I worked it out. From things missus said and from your reactions, sir, yours and the doctors. And from the way Nora wrote in her journal.’
Master James had been watching me while I spoke. Now he let out a huge shuddering breath that was ½ sigh and ½ yawn. He was not bored, just exhausted. I wondered when was the last time he’d slept. The shadows under his eyes were dark grey. His jacket and collar had gathered up around his neck. It made him appear hunched and defenceless. When he spoke, it was almost a whisper.
‘Nora went to her for help, you see. The girl didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t go to—to the father. That was out of the question. So she appealed to my wife.’ He paused. ‘I believe Arabella was rather shocked at first. She had thought of the girl as being perfect, unspoiled. Unspoilable. But, as it turned out, there was some coercion involved. I gather that Nora was not altogether a voluntary participant in what happened.’
‘I don’t expect so, sir,’ I says. But he didn’t seem to hear me.
He went on, almost mechanically. ‘And then Arabella came to me with the news. She had it all worked out. She wanted me to agree to adopt the child so that she and Nora could bring it up here. She was—excited about it. Of course,’ he laughed, bitterly, ‘I told her it was out of the question. I—couldn’t countenance any threat of scandal. What Arabella was suggesting—it was—a lunatic idea. And so I told her that she would simply have to dismiss the girl.’ He gazed off into space. There was a long pause. Then he says, ‘I believe it broke both their hearts.’
‘Reverend Pollock—he refused to help her then, sir?’
Master James gave a start and blinked at me, astonished. ‘How the Devil do you know it was him?’
‘Just a guess, sir. Nora had all these tracts, you see. And I heard tell he is prone to making advances at girls. I know missus was in her delusions, sir. But I think part of her knew what she was doing. She blamed him for what had happened to Nora.’
He was still looking at me, surprised. I had suspected all these things for a while but now it was confirmed I suddenly felt like my head might burst, I was that raging.
‘So he turned his back on her, did he?’ I says. ‘The poor girl. Dropped her cold!’
Master James gazed up at the ceiling, biting at his lower lip, plucking at his cheeks with his fingers, as though he wanted to damage himself.
‘No,’ he says, after a time. ‘That would be convenient, would it not? Then he could be the true villain of the piece.’
‘I don’t understand, sir.’
‘He doesn’t know.’
‘What?’
‘Reverend Pollock doesn’t know anything. Nobody told him.’
‘He doesn’t know . . .?’
‘That the girl was expecting a baby when she died. Nora didn’t ever tell him about her condition, didn’t want to go near him after it happened. I believe she was a little frightened of him. As for him, he thinks he got away with it. Had his way with her and then, oh dear! A few months later, she falls under a train. Boo hoo.’ He coughed and looked like he might go into another paroxysm, but then it subsided so he went on. ‘And you see, nobody else told him. McGregor-Robertson knows everything because he examined the girls body after it was found and saw that she was carrying a child. But he agreed with me that no purpose would be served in telling Pollock.’
‘What about missus?’
‘No. I forbid her from speaking to Pollock about it. I didn’t want to upset him. I didn’t want him to have any regretful associations with this household. I wanted to curry his favour, not make accusations. Besides, what would she have said to him? How could she even have brought it into the conversation?’ He paused and sighed. Then he went on. ‘Arabella hated me for covering it up. She thought he should be made to face up to what he’d done, to carry some of the guilt. She hated him anyway and hated that she was forced to continue accepting his visits at the house. But of course Pollock was oblivious. He thought that Nora had just died in an accident.’
‘But her being hit by the train—it wasn’t an accident, sir. Was it?’
He said nothing for a time, just stared into the empty hearth as though it were an abyss. Eventually he spoke. ‘She left a note. For my wife. Saying goodbye and telling Arabella not to blame herself.’ He lifted his head and looked at me, almost indignantly. ‘You see, right to the last, that girl was thinking of others.’ He took a long swallow from the bottle.
‘Would it be possible to see the note, sir?’
He shook his head. ‘I insisted that Arabella destroy it,’ he says. ‘The general opinion and verdict was that Nora had wandered onto the line by accident. And that’s the way it has stayed. The only people who know the truth about what happened are myself, McGregor-Robertson, Arabella—and now you. Had you asked me about all this a few days ago I would have denied every word, and probably dismissed you. I’d have been worried that you might gossip and that the minister might get to hear about it. But now . . .’ He gestured around him at the shambles, the whisky bottle. ‘It’s over. And I don’t give two flips about Reverend Pollock. In fact, I would happily take a shovel to him myself.’
We sat there for a moment in silence, master James staring into space, biting at his nails, though there was nothing left to bite and his fingertips were raw and bleeding.
Of a sudden he froze and took his hand away from his mouth. ‘What day is it, Bessy?’
‘I don’t know, sir. It might be Tuesday? Or Wednesday?’
‘Ah good,’ he says. ‘Not Saturday, then. I am to visit Arabella on Saturday. They said that I must not go too often to see her at present, not more than once a week. They are concerned that my presence might upset her.’ He said this as though it amused him—although it was perfectly clear that he was distraught. Then he looked at me, hopefully. ‘Would you visit her, Bessy? I’ll give you money for a carriage. I have plenty of money—here, look.’
He delved into his pockets and began pulling out handfuls of coins. They spilled onto his lap and across the couch. He began gathering them up, holding them out towards me. The coins dropped from between his fingers. Leaning forwards, I
began to retrieve them for him. Master James whimpered and when I glanced up, I seen that he had thrown himself on his face onto the sofa.
‘Oh, Arabella! What have I done?’ he cried. And then he began to sob. His shoulders heaved. I left the coins where they lay and knelt down, reaching out to comfort him by putting a hand on his arm. By the force of his weeping, I thought it might go on for some time.
PART SIX
24
A New Preoccupation
I STAYED THAT NIGHT in my old room at Castle Haivers. Master James was in the study when I left him and he was there still when I rose in the morning. He may have got some sleep on the hard little sofa. That is, if he slept at all. I know I didn’t get much rest. First thing, I took him a breakfast of porridge, which he washed down with whisky. He seemed a little more cheerful than he had the previous night. He was thinking of selling the estate, he said. Mr Rankin, the neighbour that had come to dinner, had already expressed an interest in buying most of the land in order to sink pits. Master James hadn’t decided yet whether to hang on to the house and grounds. He might sell everything and move to town, he says. He was even considering going back to the Law.