by Jane Harris
‘How lovely! Is Ned in? Why don’t we open our presents together?’
She gave her head a brief shake. ‘He’ll be back later, let’s do it then.’
To keep the children out of mischief while we worked, I gave them some flour and water in a bowl, with which to make a paste, and, for a while, they applied themselves to this game with subdued industry. Their mother made punch, by boiling up oranges with wine, sugar, and spices. The air soon filled with the scents of warm cloves and cinnamon, and although the kitchen was still untidy, it occurred to me what a pretty domestic scene we would make for Ned, whenever he returned. Once the punch was ready, Annie set it aside, and began to stuff the vol-au-vents. I rolled out the shortbread, whilst Sibyl, having abandoned her flour paste, stood at the table, staring, as though hypnotised, at the clove-studded oranges, now afloat and gleaming in the pan of red wine.
Not for the first time, I was drawn to wonder what went on in that strange little head of hers. Now, as I watched her, Sibyl passed her hand over the pan of punch and would have poked the oranges with her finger had I not coughed pointedly, and given her a mock-warning look, in response to which she giggled, and scampered out of the room. At the same moment, the front door opened. ‘Papa!’ came Sibyl’s cry, and then, the sound of a groaning sigh, presumably as Ned lifted her into his arms.
‘There’s my lovely girl,’ I heard him murmur. Then, silence fell. Although Sibyl had left the door ajar, I could not see them from where I was standing, and, as the silence continued, I began to wonder what they could be doing. I glanced towards the hearth. Annie had sat down and was gazing into the fire, with a faraway expression on her face, while Rose played at her feet. And still, there was no sound from beyond the kitchen door. It occurred to me that, perhaps, Ned was leafing through his mail, at the hallstand, but then I wondered why I had heard no sound of paper rustling, or letter-opening. At any rate, it was time for the shortbread to go into the range. As I stepped around the table, I happened to glance through the doorway, and there, I saw them. Ned stood quietly, holding Sibyl in his arms. She had wrapped her legs around his waist. Her head rested on his shoulder, and he was rocking her, gently, from side to side. Neither of them noticed me; they both simply gazed off into space, with an air of quiet contentment. Here was a private moment, I realised, a moment of tenderness, between father and daughter. I felt that I was witnessing something intimate and strange, something beyond words or understanding. Discomfited, and embarrassed, lest one of them might suddenly turn and see me, I hurried across the kitchen, and bent down to put the petticoat tails in to bake. Against my face, the scorching breath of the range felt as hot as a furnace. I shut the metal door with a clang and, when I turned around, Annie was lifting her youngest daughter to her feet, saying: ‘Why don’t you show Harriet your Christmas present, Rosie?’
The child became bashful, as she often did, when thrust into the limelight. With Sibyl acknowledged as the black sheep of the family, Rose tended, these days, to enjoy improved status. She had always been her mother’s favourite, of course, and lately, Elspeth—still smarting over the destruction of her newsletters—was prone to ignore Sibyl, whilst lavishing attention on her sister.
No doubt to prevent arguments, the girls had been given exactly the same Christmas present: a silver chain upon which hung a delicate pendant of mother-of-pearl, set in silver. Apart from a few natural ripples, the necklaces were identical, and the girls’ names had been engraved on the silver backings, to distinguish them. With some encouragement, Rose very sweetly lifted her chin, and held out her pendant for me to admire.
‘My name on the back, look,’ she said, in lilting tones.
‘Aren’t you a lucky girl?’
And she nodded. I remember, distinctly, the iridescence of that fragment of nacre, the way it shimmered, blue and pink and green, between her little fingers, and the soft down on her cheek as she gazed at her Christmas gift, a proud smile lifting the corners of her rosebud lips.
And there I must stop, for these recollections have made me rather too upset to continue.
As far as Ned’s mother was concerned, Christmas gifts symbolised a reprehensible voluptuousness and wanton display of excess. It was unfortunate, therefore, that when she arrived that night, we had all just opened our presents. I had bought books for the girls, gloves for Annie, and a soft comforter for Ned. They, in turn, gave me a pincushion, which I was in the process of unwrapping when we heard the front door open, and Elspeth let herself in, exclaiming to Jessie about the cold.
At the sound of his mother’s voice in the hall, Ned swore softly, under his breath, and shoved his comforter under a cushion. He shooed the girls into a corner with their books, while Annie and I snatched up the discarded wrapping papers, and fed them to the fire, hoping to avoid any awkwardness.
‘Thank you, thank you both,’ I murmured, dropping my new pincushion into my bag, just as Elspeth surged across the threshold, with her usual screech of laughter. Glancing at the hearth, I was dismayed to see that the wrapping paper was still smouldering but, mercifully, Ned’s mother was oblivious, being very taken up with a description of the fog.
‘You can barely see your hend in front of your face!’ she exclaimed. ‘And the cold! When I think of poor Kenneth, out in this weather!’
‘I doubt he’s out in the cold,’ said Ned, sensible as ever.
‘But where is he?’ Elspeth continued. ‘And why has he not written to let us know? There are all these ghestly murders in London. To think of him—he might be wandering the streets of Whitechapel, lost and alone!’
‘Mother, we’ve no reason to think he’s in London,’ said Ned. ‘He might be in Timbuktu, for all we know. But wherever he is, I’m sure he’s fine.’
‘Well, we can but hope,’ said Elspeth, clasping her hands and raising them, in supplication, to the ceiling.
‘Yes, indeed,’ I said. ‘And even if he is in London, you needn’t worry about those murders. I think you’ll find that they’re being perpetrated only upon the female sex. Kenneth is in no danger—unless he’s taken to wearing skirts.’
What a silly thing to say, but it was out of my mouth before I could stop myself, perhaps because a vision of Findlay’s drawing had flashed into my mind: Kenneth in petticoats and rouge. Annie’s gaze—a little alarmed—locked with mine, and something passed between us. She had not seen the caricature, of course, but I had described it to her and perhaps she was imagining a similar picture. She raised an eyebrow, and sucked in her cheeks, as though she might be overcome with mirth. Fortunately, nobody else seemed to have noticed, but I, too, had a sudden urge to laugh, and so I stood up and, to give myself time to recover, grabbed the teapot and headed for the kitchen, in search of more hot water.
On my way past the dining room, I glanced in and saw Rose, clutching at the maid’s apron strings, and swinging from side to side, whilst Jessie attempted to polish the glasses. The kitchen door was half closed and so I backed in, with the teapot in both hands and turned—just in time to see Sibyl—with a strange, guilty expression on her face—stepping away from the table, where all manner of tempting dishes were laid out, ready to be taken through to the buffet in the dining room.
‘Shoo!’ I told her, and she put down her head and ran from the room.
Perhaps I did notice her stuff something into her apron pocket—or perhaps the intervening years have simply played tricks with my memory. In any case, I thought little of the incident at the time.
Mabel turned up at half past nine, scurrying into the apartment, very pink in the face, which I attributed, at first, to the cold. However, moments later, when the doorbell rang, Jessie ran down and returned with Walter Peden, which made me suspect that, perhaps, Mabel’s high colour was due to something else, and that she and Walter had been together until their arrival, but had chosen to make separate entrances. Apparently, matters had progressed in Cockburnspath but, according to Annie, Elspeth had yet to be told of her daughter’s romance.
A handful of guests arrived before midnight. Apart from a few stolid-looking types from the Art School (no doubt the real bohemians would make a late entrance), most of the early guests had been invited by Ned’s mother. There was a group of Jewish gentlemen, who looked bewildered upon arrival, but became very animated when they spied Ned’s chessboard and, ere long, they had set up a miniature tournament at the dining-room table. The Reverend Johnson, Elspeth’s American pastor, strayed from her side only to fetch her refreshments. Elspeth was never so ebullient as she was in Johnson’s company, and the two of them cackled loud and long, at the slightest excuse, until the racket bounced off the walls and ceiling, and one’s ears positively rang, and people were driven from the room.
It was just as well that the remaining guests were not due to arrive until after the bells, since Ned and Annie disappeared behind the door of their room to change their clothes and did not re-emerge for an hour, leaving the rest of us to look after the children and organise the refreshments. Nobody seemed to be taking responsibility for this party, but I suppose that, by that stage, I should not have been surprised: such was the ever-relaxed Gillespie modus operandi. I helped Jessie to set out the buffet, while Mabel read to the children from the books that I had given them for Christmas, (The Fairy Shop for Rose, and, for Sibyl, Struwwelpeter), and Peden, very graciously, surrendered himself to conversation with Elspeth and the Reverend, on the condition that we keep him supplied with punch.
At long last, Ned reappeared, looking very smart—not in evening clothes, which he abhorred—but in his favourite old dark tweed jacket, and a low-collared shirt. He set about making ‘het pint’ for consumption by those who, like himself, could not abide wine. Annie eventually emerged, having changed into an eau-de-Nil dress. Pinned at her throat was her Christmas gift from her husband: a silver bar-brooch, with a heart-shaped pendant, set with a small baroque pearl, green pastes and tourmalines. (At the time, I wondered how Ned had been able to afford all these relatively costly gifts, but some time later, while tallying the accounts, I saw that Professor Urquart had paid his wife’s fee, in advance). Mabel also looked very elegant that evening, in a charcoal frock, with leg-of-mutton sleeves and cinched waist. She had lost weight, perhaps, in part, because of her nascent romance with Peden, but also because she had taken up cigarettes, another matter that we were obliged to keep secret. Personally, I suspect that she could have smoked an entire box of Turkish Trophies in her mother’s face, one after the other, and Elspeth would not have noticed. None the less, this was fifty years ago, you must remember, and few ladies dared to smoke in public. Moreover, Mabel was rather daunted by her mother, and desperate for her approval, and so she always made sure to cover the smell of her cigarettes with cologne and peppermints.
As a special treat, the children were permitted to stay up later than usual. Sibyl gave a piano recital, during which she played some of the mawkish hymns and Spirituals with which I had become all too familiar. I believe that this was a bid to regain favour with her granny, and although the widow applauded along with the rest of us, she was less ebullient and fulsome in her praise than she once might have been, and I could see that Sibyl was disappointed. Thereafter, Elspeth attached herself to a chair by the buffet, in the dining room, where she maintained an incessant prattle whilst grabbing at any choice morsels within reach.
At some point between eleven o’clock and midnight, during that stultifying final gasp of the Old Year (a single hour which always seems, inexplicably, to last the course of ages), the girls were finally sent to bed. Initially, Sibyl moaned at having to quit the party and then, I remember, at the time, finding it strange that, when Annie reminded her to behave herself, the child ran upstairs, giggling, in an odd, secretive fashion. Ned followed her, intending to read to the girls from their new books.
Thereafter, excusing myself from the dining room, I headed for the empty parlour, where I sank down on the sofa, grateful for a few minutes alone. I wondered whether to make my excuses and go home, but I had hoped to steal a moment with Ned before I left. There would be no chance of that in the dining room, but at least, from the parlour sofa, I might be able to hail him as he returned downstairs. Almost immediately, rather to my dismay, Walter Peden came bouncing in to join me. Over the preceding few months, I had warmed to Walter, somewhat. He was a terrible prig (rather like Mabel, in fact) but beneath his awkward manner, he meant no harm. To my surprise and delight, he confided in me: earlier that evening, he had proposed to Mabel, and she had accepted him. He intended to announce the engagement, later, after the bells.
‘Most heartfelt congratulations,’ I told him. ‘I’m so happy for you both.’
‘Thank you, Hetty. Mabel has already planned the seating arrangement for the wedding breakfast—you, of course, are at the top table. She wants to invite half of Glasgow. Her only worry is that there’ll be room for us all in the dining room at number 14.’ He drained his glass, and then surged to his feet, pasty-faced, his forehead beaded with sweat. ‘You’ve been most kind, Harriet, most kind.’
He seemed to have got it into his head that I was responsible for bringing him and Mabel together: quite frankly, an over-exaggeration. All that I had done was to arrange to meet them both on an ‘open day’ at the Botanic Gardens and then, through no fault of my own, was unable to make the appointment, which had the effect of throwing them together, alone, in the moist and fecund atmosphere of the Kibble Palace.
‘Allow me to fetch you a drink,’ said Walter. ‘This punch is rather good.’
I myself had found it too bitter, and had drunk only one glass.
‘No, thank you,’ I told him. ‘I’ve had ample sufficiency. Perhaps later.’
He bobbed around, unsteadily, in a drunken version of his habitual dance, and then took a swerving path out of the room and across the hall. I was just wondering whether to follow him, when Ned ran downstairs and strode directly into the room. He stopped short, a little startled, when he saw me.
‘Excuse me, Harriet, I thought everyone was next door.’
‘Oh, don’t mind me—I just wanted to sit quietly, for a moment.’
‘As a matter of fact, I’ve lost my…’ He glanced around, patting his pockets in that vague, endearing way of his. Noticing his tobacco on the mantel, I got up and handed it to him and then, while I resumed my seat, Ned stood by the hearth, his fingers fumbling inside the soft leather pouch, shredding the tobacco before stuffing it into the bowl of his pipe.
‘Are you enjoying yourself, Harriet?’ he said, after a moment.
Just as I was about to reply, I sensed a movement over by the door and glanced up. There was Rose, standing in her nightdress, pale-faced, and staring at us, like a little ghost. She raised her arms and reached out to Ned.
‘Papa!’
‘Oh Rose,’ he sighed, wearily. ‘Go to sleep, there’s a dear.’
‘Allow me,’ I said, getting to my feet.
‘Are you sure, Harriet?’
Waving aside his objections, I took Rose by the hand, then picked up a candlestick and led her back upstairs. Her little room was in darkness, but the glowing candle made the condensation on the skylight window glitter like molten gold. Outside, all was unnaturally dark, as though a blanket had been thrown across the roof—a blanket of fog. I tucked the child into her bed and stepped out of the room. Strangely, the simple effort of climbing the stairs had left me breathless and perspiring, so I paused, for a moment, on the narrow landing. From the river, came the mournful sound of a foghorn, answered, moments later, by another. Sibyl’s door lay open. I lifted my candle and peered into the gloom: as far as I could tell, she was fast asleep; at any rate, she lay, mute as a chrysalis, beneath her quilted cover.
Upon my return to the parlour, I was pleased to see that Ned was still there: he was seated on the sofa, smoking his pipe. I told him that Rose had settled.
‘How did we ever manage without you?’ he said. ‘We should get shot of Jessie, have you in residence, upstairs. Not that I’m sayi
ng you should be our maid—’
I laughed, retrieving his comforter from behind the cushion where he had stuffed it, earlier, and passing it to him. He turned it over in his hands.
‘You chose this well,’ he said. ‘I’ll certainly need it, if this weather keeps up. That loft is like an icebox.’
Since it was directly beneath the roof, the studio was often too hot in summer, and Ned tended to work in shirtsleeves, but in winter, the temperature plummeted, and he was obliged to add layer upon layer: waistcoat, corduroy jacket, beret, fingerless mittens and, for particularly cold days, he had created a bizarre poncho, by cutting a hole in the middle of an old blanket.
‘You could have a better studio if you found yourselves a bigger house,’ I told him. ‘You could probably afford it, more or less, if you took in a lodger.’
He nodded. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m quite taken with Co’path, as a place. If it wasn’t for all these blasted portraits, here in Glasgow … never thought I’d hear myself say it, but I felt inspired out there. Although, we can’t go back yet, because—’ He stopped short, as though he had been about to blurt something out.
‘What?’
‘Ach—it’s good news, it’s just—I haven’t told Annie yet.’
‘Oh well—in that case, I shan’t pry.’
‘I’m telling her tonight, anyway. Just keep it to yourself, for the minute, but—well—I’ve been offered a solo show, in Hamilton’s gallery, in April.’
‘In Bath Street? That’s marvellous. Annie will be pleased.’
‘Possibly not,’ he sighed. ‘It means I should really get this last portrait done and then work on whatever I’m going to put into the show, and—well—I think Annie had her heart set on us all going back to Co’path, as soon as we could, but—’