Gillespie and I

by Jane Harris

  ‘Excuse me, can you call Mr Lockwood, so that I may be served?’

  At that—and just as Potts entered, the boy yelled into the back of the shop.

  ‘Mr Lockwood, sir! You’re wanted! It’s the whisky lady!’

  Stunned by this careless impertinence, I was rendered speechless. I stared at the boy, for a moment, open-mouthed, and then, instead of waiting to be served, made my exit, pausing only to nod stiffly at my neighbour, who smirked and avoided my eye, as I hurried past her into the street, my cheeks burning.

  As yet, I have not quite recovered. After all, it is not as though I buy inordinate amounts of whisky from them. The boy must simply resent lugging the cases up the stairs. Bottles, presumably, are much heavier to carry than lettuce and tomatoes. One thing is certain: I shall not be placing any orders with Lockwood at any time in the near future. There is a perfectly good grocer on Marchmont Street, which I have used, on occasion. From now on, I shall take more of my business there. Indeed, after leaving Lockwood’s, I went there directly and ordered the few little things that we need.

  In the meantime, I must return to the memoir, for I am about to embark upon a description of pivotal events.

  Friday, 21st July. Something terribly unsettling has happened. Indeed, my hand is shaking, as I write. I am not quite sure what to think. It is a long time since I have felt this afraid or vulnerable. It all began last night, at suppertime, when I brought up the subject of the piano. Ever since I caught Sarah using the instrument, last month, neither of us has made any mention of it. This mutual silence, or avoidance, has not helped the general atmosphere and so, yesterday evening, in the interest of clearing the air, I decided to try and put her at ease. ‘Oh, incidentally,’ I said, as she set down my plate on the dining table. ‘Please feel free to play the piano, dear, whenever you wish.’

  She blushed, and gave her head a shake. ‘I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.’

  ‘Please! Do make use of it! You play rather well. Where did you learn?’

  ‘Just here and there,’ she said, in that infuriating, vague way of hers. She stepped away, towards the door. ‘I’m not very good—but thanks for your offer.’

  ‘Well, I do hope you take advantage of it. I so seldom play myself, and it’s lovely to hear the instrument in use. Why didn’t you tell me you could play, dear?’

  She hesitated at the threshold. ‘I don’t know … it just didn’t seem—’ Her voice tailed away, and then she nodded towards my plate, saying: ‘I hope you’re going to eat some of that, tonight.’

  ‘Oh, yes—foo foo! How old are you, dear, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Forty-three.’

  She produced it without a pause but, for some reason, I got the impression that she was lying. Perhaps it was that deadened look in her eyes, or the fact that her West Country accent had suddenly become very pronounced. She certainly looks older than forty-three. And then, before I could stop myself, the words came tumbling out:

  ‘Now Sarah, do you know any hymns?’

  She thought for a moment, lightly slapping the escutcheon with her fingers.

  ‘Well, I suppose I do know one or two.’

  ‘Could I beg you to play one for me, while I eat this lovely supper? Would you be so kind? A hymn would be marvellous.’

  The look on her face was what one might call sceptical, but she went out to the hall, saying: ‘Well, if you eat something, then I will.’

  Tucked away in its alcove, the piano is not visible from the dining table, but I heard her sit on the stool and lift the lid of the keyboard. After a moment or two, she began to play a jaunty tune, which I recognised, within a single bar, as ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’: not exactly a hymn, and although she played enthusiastically, she was clearly not very practised in this particular piece, since she kept making errors, and going back to correct them.

  As the music bounded along, I picked at my food and gazed across the table towards the birdcage on the sideboard. Layla stood, motionless, on the edge of the china feed bowl, her head cocked to one side, listening, and Maj, bless him, soon began to twitter an accompaniment to the piano notes, although of course, he made up his own melody. The windows were open, and the sound of traffic and smell of fumes drifted up from the street. Sunset had cast the hotel opposite into silhouette, dark against the sky; behind the tall black chimneystacks, the heavens had turned a vibrant shade, somewhere between pink and orange, tinged with violet. It was rather odd to sit there, in the sultry heat of the summer evening, listening to a Christmas carol.

  All of a sudden, as though out of nowhere, I was seized by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu: not that I had been in this exact situation before, but there was something terribly familiar about the moments as they unfolded, and something in Sarah’s playing that I almost recognised. Not only that, but—far more unsettling—I soon became gripped with the notion that there was a malign quality to the music. The piano has always been boomy, but Sarah seemed to be attacking the ivories far more ferociously than was necessary. Had she simply rammed her foot down on the sustain pedal, to make the noise reverberate around the hall—or was the lengthy, rising and falling, melismatic ‘Glo-o-o-r-i-a!’ of the chorus always so horribly unrelenting? It was as though the notes—for all their jollity—were vicious spirals, each one of them uncoiling, with furious intent, towards me—towards my person. An evil, creeping fear came upon me, as I sat there—unable to eat, and watching the birds flit around their cage, oblivious—while Sarah stabbed at the keyboard, as if each note was the thrust of a dagger entering my viscera. I began to wonder whether the noise would ever end, or whether I would be frozen there, for all eternity, pinned to the spot by Sarah’s hatred, and the din of her hideous music.

  But why should she hate me so? Why?

  At last, the carol came, clashing, to its conclusion. Having no desire to reveal how dreadfully frightened I was, I managed some polite applause, and called out: ‘Bravo! Thanks awfully… That’ll be all now, thank you.’

  The lid of the piano closed; the stool scraped on the parquet. I held my breath, dreading that Sarah might reappear, in all her bulk, at the doorway, but then I heard her slow, plodding footsteps as she retreated down the hall. The kitchen door snapped shut, and then, there was silence.

  I sat there, paralysed by fear, feeling the accelerated pounding of the blood in my veins. I cannot say how long, in a state of confusion and dread, I remained in my seat. I only recall that when I stole along the passage to my bedroom, night had crept up to the windows of the apartment.

  During breakfast this morning, I watched Sarah carefully. She behaved, as far as I could tell, perfectly as normal. She brought the coffee pot, set the toast in the rack, gave Maj and Layla a glance, and then left the room in her usual lumbering fashion. There was nothing in her behaviour to make me think that she had guessed at my anxiety of last night, and nothing that she did seemed spiteful, in the least. However, I am still gripped by a sense of unease, and am concerned that she might be hiding something. Sadly, I am very alert to mendacity, having been through all that I have had to endure, in life. My experiences—all those years ago, in Scotland—have certainly left me with scars. Moreover, I am well aware that there may be those who will resent that I am writing this memoir, and it would be good to have some reassurance that my companion is to be trusted.

  I waited until Sarah had gone out to the shops, then I telephoned to Burridge’s and asked to speak to Mrs Clinch. After a slight delay, she came to the apparatus. ‘Miss Baxter. What seems to be the problem?’

  ‘Nothing, Mrs Clinch. I simply wish to know, if I may, have there ever been any complaints about Miss Whittle?’

  ‘About Miss Whittle? No! No complaints. Have you got one, Miss Baxter? You must tell me if you have.’

  ‘Not a complaint, exactly. She just seems rather—unhappy. Melancholic.’

  ‘Probably just a bit homesick. D’you want me to have a word with her?’

  ‘Oh no! Please don’t.
I’m sure it’ll be fine. Sorry to have troubled you.’

  ‘Let us know if you do have any problems, Miss Baxter. Cheerio, then.’

  ‘Just a moment—I’d like to know—if I might—the age of Miss Whittle.’

  ‘What, you want to know how old she is now? Can’t you just ask her, dear?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t. It would be—impolite. In fact, she did tell me, but I’ve forgotten what she said. To ask again would be rude. I’m sure you understand. Presumably you have it written down somewhere, amongst her particulars?’

  Mrs Clinch let out a great sigh. ‘Hold on a moment,’ she said, and the receiver was dropped. I had done well to claim forgetfulness—Clinch is never happier than when one confirms one’s age and infirmity. There was a pause and then various scrapes and bangs from afar, which I imagined were filing-cabinet drawers, opening and closing. Then, closer at hand, there was a rustling of paper. Another sigh, and then: ‘Says here she was born in ’eighty-two.’

  ‘Eighteen eighty-two! Are you quite sure?’

  ‘Would it have been better for her to be born in a different year?’

  ‘Ah—no. Except—I believe she told me she was rather younger than that.’

  ‘Well! I’m sure she’s not the first to fib about her age. She’s perfectly fit and healthy. And you specifically asked for somebody older this time, didn’t you—do you remember?… Miss Baxter?… Are you there?’

  ‘I say—you don’t happen to have a note of her place of birth, do you?’

  ‘Birthplace, now? Hold on a moment, please.’ There was a muffled sound, as though Mrs Clinch had covered the transmitter with her hand. She muttered something to someone. Then she spoke into the telephone again, abruptly. ‘Dorset.’

  ‘I see. Dorset … is that from her birth certificate?’

  ‘Ooh no! We don’t hold them. I’ve just got a form here, she filled in her own self. Now, will that be all, dear?’

  A form she filled in ‘her own self’. I wonder how much that can be relied upon for accuracy, given that the girl has lied to my face about her age? Born in Dorset—indeed. I have my doubts. I have been listening to her accent very carefully of late, and have begun to suspect that she may not even be English; the more I hear her speak, the more convinced I am that she might be of Glaswegian origin.

  IV

  April—November 1889

  GLASGOW

  10

  Let me deal, briefly, with Ned’s solo exhibition, which was staged in the middle of April that year. The show included several of the portraits that he had completed over the past eight months or so, including Mrs Urquart (looking rather glum and severe), a number of Exhibition pictures from the previous summer, and half-a-dozen new paintings. These, Ned had worked up from sketches that he had done at Co’path—windswept, austere landscapes and rocky coastlines. In similar style to the woodland rendering of Rose and Sibyl, the new canvases often had menacing overtones. All the recent emotional disturbances in Ned’s life had given these pictures a gravitas, a new weight that set them apart from the work of his peers. The very fact that he had been able to produce six paintings in as many weeks was remarkable: his output had improved, beyond measure. No doubt, in the absence of Mabel, Peden and Kenneth, and with Elspeth now an unwelcome guest, number 11 was a more tranquil household than ever before but, to my mind, it was the continued banishment of Sibyl from the studio that had made the most difference to Ned’s ability to work at an uninterrupted pace.

  On the first night of the show, Hamilton’s gallery was packed with people and all seemed to go well, more or less. There, in force, were the ‘Art Club’ set: in those days, still a cosy clique of ‘hills and heather’ mediocrities, like Findlay, who put in an appearance for half an hour. A few of the new breed could be seen amongst the crowd—although not, I noticed, Lavery. The gallery consisted of two basement rooms, and Hamilton had allotted the smaller of these, in its entirety, to Gillespie. I had brought along my landlady, Mrs Alexander, and her daughters, Lily and Kate, who were very excited to be part of the proceedings. Sadly, Ned’s wife was not present that evening. The reason given in public, at the time, was that she was obliged to remain at home, because of the children. In fact, I had offered to look after them for her, but Annie had declined. Under normal circumstances, she might have left the girls in the care of her maid, but, unfortunately, the Gillespies had been obliged to dismiss Jessie, the previous week. It so happened that Annie’s Christmas gift from Ned—her silver bar-brooch, with the baroque pearl—had gone amissing. Annie wore that particular piece of jewellery only on special occasions, and its disappearance might not even have been noticed for a while had I not, one evening, requested another look at it. Annie left the parlour and returned, bewildered, several minutes later, having failed to find it anywhere in the bedroom. When asked, Jessie claimed not to have seen the brooch for weeks. We were not too worried, initially, but the family possessed few valuables and this silver trinket had been a relatively expensive item. Over the next few days, Annie looked in every conceivable place, but was unable to find the brooch anywhere.

  One afternoon, while Ned was out buying wood for a frame, she waited until the girls had gone to the butcher’s with the maid, and then undertook a search of Sibyl’s room. She half expected to find her missing jewellery there because, unfortunately, whilst little Rose seemed to grow more adorable with each passing day, her sister became only more diabolic, and Annie’s earnest hopes that the child was improving had come to nothing. As it transpired, when she looked beneath Sibyl’s bed—where the child usually stashed ‘appropriated’ items—she found only six jam jars, into which her daughter appeared to have urinated. In any other circumstances, such a discovery might have seemed strange but, by this time, we were so habituated to Sibyl’s disturbing behaviour that Annie barely remarked upon the jars.

  Perhaps it was an intuition that made her decide to look in Jessie’s room. Passing the locked door of her husband’s empty studio, she entered the little garret at the end of the attic landing and began a quick search. Within moments, she had found the brooch, wrapped in an old stocking, which had been concealed beneath the mattress. Deciding not to confront the thief alone, Annie replaced the jewellery where she had found it and said nothing to anyone until Ned came back, towards dusk. Although the evidence was overwhelming, it was a measure of Ned’s kindness that he was reluctant to give the maid notice straight away, and he and Annie spent much of the evening in whispered discussions about what action to take. I know that Ned felt betrayed by Jessie, certainly, but having to turn her out into the street filled him with guilt and regret. In the end, he decided against alerting the police, in case this might condemn her to prison. Dear sweet man! He spent the night in torment, at the prospect of what he was obliged to do the following morning. However, he steeled himself to go through with it, and the girl left Stanley Street before breakfast, with no written recommendation, in case she stole from a future employer. Needless to say, before she went, Jessie protested her innocence, even making a number of veiled accusations, accusations of an outlandish nature, which—as you may know—she was encouraged to elaborate upon during the trial. Since her testimony will be reported later, there is no need to repeat that malicious piece of character assassination here.

  Following Jessie’s departure, Annie should, by rights, have gone to an agency and found a new girl, but she procrastinated. She seemed to have had enough of unreliable maids for the time being, after her recent bad experiences, not only with Jessie, but also, previously, with Christina. To some extent, I can understand her position. I cannot abide anyone tampering with my belongings, and listening at doors. That is the problem with servants, you see, the lack of privacy. Dusting is mere subterfuge, an opportunity to snoop. In Annie’s case, there was the embarrassment of having to conceal Sibyl’s eccentric and wicked behaviour, and it must have been awkward, in that small apartment, to have someone sneaking around the place, spying, and eavesdropping. And yet, if only An
nie had bothered to hire a maid, then she might have had more time for the children, and things might have turned out rather differently. But, as I have come to appreciate, over the years, there is no point in such regrets: what is done cannot be undone.

  The stolen brooch upset Annie more than she would have cared to admit. Previously, she had been looking forward to the opening night of Ned’s show but after we learned that her maid was a thief, she seemed to lose confidence, claiming that she did not really care for the clamour of openings.

  ‘You go, Harriet,’ she insisted. ‘I can’t face it. You’ll be so much better with all those people. Besides, look at me—my hair’s turning grey. I can’t go out like this.’

  She was right: despite her relative youth, there were now grey hairs, just visible, amongst the gold. I did wonder whether there was some other reason for her reluctance to attend the opening: she and Ned had not been getting on very well, and it was feasible that there might have been some species of tiff. However, if that was the case, she had said nothing to me.

  In any event, Ned’s show opened without the presence of his wife. Naturally, his mother was there, since Elspeth would not, for the world, have missed an opportunity to bask in the reflected glory of her son’s fledgling success. As ever, she made a late entrance. Then she took but a moment to glance around, before protesting that Ned’s pictures were ‘too familiar’, and inviting me to the adjacent room, where the work of Hamilton’s other artists was on display. The canvases in front of which Elspeth lingered longest that evening were sentimental, humdrum fare, paintings that told a simple story, assisted by informative nomenclature: a glum urchin, his head swathed in a bandage, had been helpfully entitled Toothache; an ancient, smiling beggar, rendered in oils, was known as Better Wisdom than Gold; and a picture of farm folk, standing, dejected, outside a quaint cottage was described in the programme as Tenants’ Notice to Quit. Elspeth sighed, wistfully, as she examined these paintings.