James Miranda Barry

by Patricia Duncker

  Mary Ann afflicted Barry with advice and dietary prescriptions. He listened patiently.

  ‘. . . and keep up your guard with Dr Anderson. He’s a charming man, but so far as I know David Erskine has told him nothing. So it’s best if you keep to yourself. Mind that you do. And be careful in that dreadful shooting gallery. You know, Louisa, if this child doesn’t kill himself, he’ll kill someone else . . .’

  The two women climbed into the coach, their faces changing in the flickering sunshine. They paused to peer at the other passengers, who were shrieking their goodbyes with vulgar enthusiasm. There was a sheet of liquid mud across the yard, so Barry stood at a little distance, forlorn upon the stable cobbles, among the sacks of grain and broken-down farming implements. Mary Ann turned to wave.

  ‘Louisa,’ she hissed, ‘I’m terrified that he’s going to start while I’m away and not there to help or to show him how to organise the cloths. He’ll have to wash them or burn them himself. He’s eleven years old. And he hasn’t started yet.’

  ‘You’ve surely said all that’s necessary . . .’

  They broke off as an old man climbed into the coach, raising his hat to them.

  ‘Don’t worry, my dear.’ Louisa finished hitching her blanket underneath her toes. ‘I’m sure he’ll be all right.’

  ‘Did you check our trunk? Is it on board?’ Mary Ann twitched the curtains aside and peered out at Barry’s ludicrous hat and jacket. His shoes were heavy with mud and his trousers were too baggy. They hung in folds about his thin legs. He always looked extraordinary, no matter what garments she proposed. She felt the tears on her cheeks. Suddenly she began wailing uncontrollably.

  ‘Oh, Louisa, I shouldn’t have done it. He’s alone now. He’ll always be alone. I’ve done that to him. And now I’m leaving him too. I’m abandoning my only child . . .’

  ‘Nonsense,’ snapped Louisa, panicking. Mary Ann never cried. ‘Pull yourself together. Some of us manage perfectly well on our own.’

  ‘Take my handkerchief, madam.’ The old gentleman proffered an enormous square of green silk. Barry, now perched on a grain sack, drumming his heels, had been mesmerised by the raucous drama of departure. He looked up, saw his mother crying and went red to the tips of his ears. As the coach clattered out of the yard he was too ashamed and embarrassed even to wave. Mary Ann lost her child in that moment as she vanished into a sentimental fountain of silk and tears. Louisa’s yellowing face, shut like an ageing book, was the last thing he saw. But he had the distinct impression that, for the second time, knowing and complicit, she had held his glance and winked.

  And so it was that James Miranda Barry, aged eleven years and two months, found himself alone, for the first time in his life, with no adults directly responsible for him. He looked up at the city, dark upon its assembled hills, and sniffed the chilly spring air in the crowded courtyard. The wind smelled of horse shit and molasses. He was free. He unbuttoned his coat and took a deep breath. Then he marched off in the direction of the hospital. There was nothing in the boy’s face or step to indicate that he was not perfectly sure of himself.

  * * *

  Barry’s silences at dinner were terrifying. Mrs Anderson went in for elegant conversation on intellectual subjects and daring floral arrangements. Her husband informed her that their young house guest was really quite a genius and under the very special protection of Lord Buchan himself. Mrs Anderson found it hard to believe in Barry’s genius. So far as she could see, he had no conversation. She was not in the least interested in the subject of his thesis, written in Latin, on the hernia of the groin. He had already begun this work, and, if pressed, explained. Mrs Anderson was very interested in Lord Buchan’s domestic situation and household management.

  ‘It must be charming – their country home, I mean, for we have often visited them in London. A little grand, perhaps? Do tell me, Mr Barry . . .’

  Barry explained that the front hall always stank of the farmyard, and that hens sometimes covered their eggs in the coat cupboard. Geese were allowed on the front drive and so were the guinea fowl. He remembered that Lady Elizabeth liked pots and was often to be found upon her knees among the geraniums. Lord Buchan knew everybody, and didn’t care who sat round his table as long as they were energetic and interesting. He often played billiards with the local doctor. Barry couldn’t comment on the drawing-room chatter because he spent most of his time among the servants. Dr Anderson chuckled at his wife’s disappointments and suspected Barry of being a wicked little devil under his carapace of total seriousness. His daughters, set on by Anderson, urged Barry to describe his thesis, De Merocele, until even the doctor began to wonder whether the conversational turn was quite suitable. Anderson regarded Barry as a curiosity, living proof, if any were needed, that the old radical aristocrat, David Steuart Erskine, was capable of bizarre aberrations. When the ladies withdrew Dr Anderson found himself staring at a white-faced child, who neither drank nor smoked.

  ‘Barry,’ he said, getting a grip upon the situation, ‘I find myself in something of a parental position with regard to you.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So you won’t take it amiss if I offer you a little advice?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘It wouldn’t do you any harm to try a little port and a very small cigar.’

  ‘If you wish, sir.’

  ‘It’s not as I wish, my lad. It’s the done thing.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Barry drank the undiluted port as if it were poisoned, and choked over his cigar in a professional way.

  ‘Keep it level, lad,’ advised Dr Anderson, ‘that’s the trick.’

  They got through the ordeal, painful to both, in silence, apart from the doctor’s occasional peremptory suggestions. He assured Barry that they would try again on the following evening. After twenty minutes, they joined the ladies. Miss Isabelle Anderson played a little upon the spinet and Barry turned her music for her, standing bolt upright. But his conversation was a disaster. A polite enquiry concerning his medical studies from an unfortunate visitor drew forth a description of his new course on military surgery, giving more detailed information about gangrene and amputations than the company could possibly have wished to know.

  * * *

  Barry went back to the house in the country at the end of May, a month or so following his mother’s departure. As the coach jolted south the seasons appeared to advance. The chestnuts swayed darker in the hedgerows. A field stretching back from the gate basked in cowslips. The grass loomed waist-high by the river bottoms.

  Barry’s cheek bore a purple mark where he had leaned against the worn leather seat and been jolted back and forth while he slept. The landscape rose, sank and swayed as the coach clattered on, like an unstable ship caught in a big wind, and the child, battered with exhaustion, half dreamed the thick hedges, the brambles massed with white flowers and the great trees, their candles glowing, now white, now rose-pink, in the hesitating sunlight and the rushing shadows. As the shade hardened and deepened, they arrived at The Green Man, crouched in caked mud at the northern end of the village. Barry’s trunk was unloaded and he sat solemnly upon it by the back door of the inn, waiting for the trap that would take him the last five miles to the house.

  He remembered some of the faces he had seen over a year ago. But no one recognised him.

  ‘Would you like to sit inside, sir?’ suggested the ostler, who was impressed by Lord Buchan’s arms painted on the trunk. Barry stepped into the half-dark of the pub’s small dining room, laid himself out upon the cushions and fell instantly asleep.

  Someone was shaking him.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said the housemaid in his ear, ‘but there’s a young lady outside. And she says she’s a friend of yours.’

  Barry sat up, rubbing his eyes. But she hadn’t waited for a reply. She was already beside him, her black curls swinging with enthusiasm. Her kiss had the force of a slap, her earring was cold against his cheek. It was Alice Jones.


  ‘I couldn’t wait. I’ve just run all the way from the other side of the tollhouse. In bare feet too. I cut my left toe. But I just had to be the first to see you.’

  Her dirty left foot landed on the seat beside him. It was indeed bleeding.

  ‘Can you quench the flow?’ she demanded.

  ‘You must have got that expression out of one of the books.’ Barry smiled shyly, producing his handkerchief.

  ‘One of the ones you sent? I’ve read them all. The rector lets me have a go at his library now. But I’m only allowed to borrow one book at a time.’

  Barry called for clean water and washed her grimy foot. Her toe now looked like a decorated parcel. Alice gazed at him, delighted.

  ‘But it’s wonderful. Wonderful,’ she giggled. ‘You’re perfect. No one’d ever guess.’

  She leaned over and kissed him again.

  ‘We’ll go out courting. You’re smaller than me, but I can pretend you’re Napoleon.’

  Barry reddened slightly. She noticed at once.

  ‘But I think of you as James. My special friend. I always did. So it doesn’t matter what size you are. I’ll always love you. Did you miss me? And are you pleased to see me?’

  ‘Yes. Very,’ said Barry, rigid with embarrassment. She took his hands in hers, insisting on their renewed complicity.

  ‘Is it really true that you’ve chopped up corpses? What do men’s broomsticks look like when they’re dead? Do they just shrivel right up? Old Mr Ellis died. I could’ve looked when my mother took me round because they were busy washing the body and he shat himself when he died, just at the very moment, so that the blankets had to be burned. My mum had to see to that. But I didn’t dare. Oh, you must tell me everything.’

  ‘I can’t believe that you didn’t dare.’ Barry was amused.

  ‘The trap’ll be here in a moment. Let’s go and wait in the yard.’ And she dragged him to his feet.

  In the late-afternoon sun he screwed up his eyes and, over-coming his shyness, looked at her carefully. Tall as wild nettles, sunburnt, black-haired, her waist and hips slender and supple, her gold earring glimmering against the black. She wore an old faded blue skirt, a baggy white shirt, several sizes too large for her, with fine smocking and a torn sleeve. She was four years older than he was, so she must be fifteen.

  Barry was amazed at her strength. She took the other end of the trunk and heaved it into the back of the trap with no difficulty whatsoever.

  ‘We’ve started the hay,’ she smiled. ‘You’ll come with us tomorrow, won’t you?’

  And all the way back to the house, accompanied by the last crescendo of birdsong, she talked and talked, his hands firmly clasped between her own. David Erskine was waiting in front of the house, unkempt in his old waistcoat and shirtsleeves, his white hair bare in the fading sun.

  ‘Well, Barry . . .’ he said, staring.

  Barry held out his hand.

  ‘Good evening, sir. I trust that I find you and Lady Elizabeth in the best of health.’

  The old man roared with laughter. As he stood there rocking on his heels, Alice made her escape.

  ‘Well, Barry.’ He clamped the tiny white hand in his own. ‘Come here, young man. But it’s excellent, excellent. I can’t believe that it’s reading lessons you’ll be giving to that young scullery maid of mine who’s too pretty for her own good. Come in, come in. Elizabeth!’

  He yelled for his wife, stumbling into the dark, rustling hallway.

  ‘Our young man has come home at last.’

  * * *

  The household took the presence of David Erskine’s young ward for granted. But not without comment. One school of thought concluded that he was probably a changeling. He was somewhat uncanny, and certainly not a normal child. Cook started a rumour that Barry was in fact a hermaphrodite, a story which Alice hotly denied.

  ‘Well then,’ said Cook, offended, ‘if you’re so sure of yourself, what is he?’

  ‘Everything a gentleman should be,’ said Alice haughtily.

  Cook threw a basin of water at her and Alice abandoned the scullery to the enemy. But Alice was right. Barry took his place among the gentlemen. He drank with moderation, but he could hold his liquor. He smoked a pipe. He went out shooting, and his performance in the woods astounded both David Erskine and the gamekeeper. He always handed one of the ladies in to dinner, and then sat in a ferocious, diminutive silence beside her. No matter how charming the lady, Barry’s morose monosyllables never varied. He might be a perfect gentleman, but he could not learn how to talk nonsense in an amusing way.

  ‘Medical studies,’ declared Elizabeth, once Barry was safely buried in the library, well out of earshot, ‘have turned him into a German. Ask him a question about goitres or dropsy and he comes out with the textbook.’

  ‘But he’s very quaint and serious.’ Mrs Emmersley defended the boy, who had sat next to her, transfixed, for several hours. ‘I think he’s adorable. All his buttons always done up tight. His manners are so formal and polite.’

  This was the judgement of the vicar’s wife, who was secretly convinced that, if Barry was not actually made of wax, he must be David Erskine’s bastard son, and said as much to anyone who asked.

  Barry locked himself in the library and worried away at his thesis. Dedicated and correct, his daily rhythm never altered. His politeness was chilly and invariable. His only friend was Alice Jones.

  And this friendship ripened like the pumpkins in the garden. Alice talked, invented, dreamed. And Barry clasped her version of the world to his breast, like a wrecked sailor. He felt that he had been locked up in a box. She made him understand the ways in which he had been set free.

  ‘First of all, you’ve got to travel. General Miranda’s in Venezuela, isn’t he? I looked it up on the rector’s missionary chart. They don’t have any workers in God’s vineyard there. It’s all gone over to the Catholics. But don’t you see, you’ll be able to go and visit him. It’s ever so easy. Passage on a ship as the ship’s doctor, maybe? No questions asked. Now I’ll be lucky if I ever get to London . . .

  ‘Your General’s got rich friends. Now that’s what makes it easier for you . . .

  ‘Well, you can’t do much about what you’re born into. But after that you’ve got to get pushing . . .’

  Alice was an advocate of the meritocracy. She was all in favour of Barry’s proposal to join the army. She was jealous of Jobson. She demanded every detail of their lives in Edinburgh. She had views on Dr Fyfe. She derided their appalling wallpaper. She studied his anatomical drawings with ghoulish zeal. Barry was her advance guard into unknown territory. He was gathering intelligence. And she awaited his return like an experienced spymaster. In the afternoons he worked alongside her, hoeing the weeds among the lettuces, slaughtering slugs, searching for eggs in the hay barn, plucking the ducks under the ramshackle lean-to by the farmyard water trough. When Barry sat with the adults, silent and caged, he was dreaming of the mass of chickweed, spearwort and marsh marigolds down by the stream, where he sat in the warm grass, listening to Alice Jones.

  * * *

  It was another extraordinary summer. All the doors stood open and drops of water formed on the cold damp flags in the dairy. The house breathed out winter damp and the wallpaper in the dining room turned yellow in great patches and began to curl up above the skirting board. Immense redecoration operations were mooted over supper, colours were discussed and patterns sent for. The adults lay upon the terrace, indolent, limp and smiling.

  The first crop of hay was rapidly whirled into stacks. The grass was long and green to the base of the stalks. On Great Acre it was left to wilt gently for several days, giving out the thick sweet smell of putrefaction. At first it was decided to cut one field at a time and not risk the weather, but as day after day rose upon thick, wet dew steaming in the still heat, the cows standing in the river and the low buzz of flies haunting the stairways, the bailiff and the farm manager consulted some of the older tenants who knew the weather signs, an
d then decided to cut all the hay. David Erskine forbade Barry to spend the mornings in the library for an entire week and he was ordered out to work on the land. The master and every able-bodied member of the household mowed in massed lines, moving slowly across the great fields, like the Israelites advancing on Jerusalem. Alice inspected and directed the boy’s every move, bound up his blisters when they paused to drink, lent him her old hat and swore that his backache would ease off. The scythe and the rake were far taller than he was and he felt his muscles stretched in all directions.

  Alice strode down the straight swathes towards the trees, her brown toes gathering long stalks between them. She could tell who had cut every row by the style and height of their cut. Alice was a connoisseur. She had been born on the estate. She had grown up on this land. All around her, for field after field, she was able to name her world. Down at the stream, they dabbled their feet in cold, clear water, raced flowers over the eddies, and Alice gathered wild parsley and milkwort to make blue and white garlands, which always dropped to pieces when she arranged them on Barry’s head, crowning him as if he were Caesar celebrating a victory. Sometimes they fell asleep in the grass, waking up chilly and itching, their clothes damp beneath them. It was here that Barry first tried to express his own doubts at what he had become. He no longer confided in his mother, or asked for her opinion. His infrequent letters could have been written by a stranger. He now trusted no one but Alice Jones.

  ‘It’s odd. I sometimes hear my own voice. Talking at an immense distance. It’s like being two people. One is out there, talking, maybe even arguing with someone else. Like Jobson. We often argue. And the other is crouching underneath, all tensed up, waiting to spring.’

  Alice wasn’t listening.

  ‘So it’s very odd. It’s like being an actor.’

  Alice’s egoism triumphed at once. ‘Now that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Act in a real theatre. Not just charades. Dress up like a lady. Be a lady. Or be a soldier. Or a madwoman. Tell me again about the play in Edinburgh. Was Mrs Chiswick as beautiful as I am? Was her dying sigh really so very thrilling?’