by Peg Kingman
Tricky Sandy—master of decoy, even then. They had eaten the birds’ eggs raw, and succeeded in slipping a pair of nestlings under two broody hens in the poultry house, hoping to raise a tern or a gannet as a fantastic tame pet. But these fosterlings did not survive; Sandy showed a desiccated little carcass to Catherine a few days later. They placed it in a cranny they knew about outside their window, and secretly monitored its dwindling to a mere scrap of parchment and quills, light as a dry leaf.
“AND THEN I grind the gingerroot and the garlic to make a paste,” Sharada had been telling Annie, when the door slammed open against the wall in a vicious gust of east wind. “A thick paste, you understand, and mixing it with just a little fresh yogurt, and perhaps some lemon juice if I have it, and quite a lot of ground black peppercorns, and rubbing it well into the flesh of the fowl, which I have slashed, you see, to let in the flavors…” Her voice failed as they saw the ladies who entered, carrying parcels: first the rosy-cheeked, black-eyed one who seized the wayward door; then the pale thin russet-haired one.
“Yes, certainly, ma’am,” the owner of the brokerage was saying to the ladies. “I have several nice quiet women, experienced ladies’ attendants. If you will describe your establishment and the duties of the position, I shall be most happy…,” she murmured deferentially as she ushered the two ladies into the inner room. The red-haired lady was replying in a low voice; and then the door was shut behind them.
Annie smoothed her hair, checked her fingernails, and took a few deep breaths. When the proprietress emerged and gave a brisk nod, Annie was perfectly ready. She made her way among the benches to the inner room, and shut the door behind her.
SO TALL! So black and shining! Catherine and Mary gazed at her for a long moment, and the girl gazed back, her hands clasped in front of her. Her fingernails were opalescent ovals at the tips of her long fingers, noticed Catherine; the fingers very black on top, with pink just showing underneath. That is a bold girl, Catherine thought, and felt pleased by this. “What is your name?” asked Catherine. “And your age?”
“Annie, if you please, ma’am, and I am eighteen years old.” The girl’s accent was surely American, and she looked very young for eighteen.
“Eighteen, are you?” said Catherine.
“Today is my birthday,” said the girl stoutly.
“Well, then, Annie, I am seeking a ladies’ maid. My establishment is a very small one, for I am a widow with an eight-year-old daughter. Your duties would include waiting on me and my daughter, and serving at table. I intend to set off for a journey away from this city quite soon, and may remain away for some time. If I were to engage you, could you come to me directly, and are you willing to make a journey?”
“Yes, ma’am, I can come directly, this very day if you please. And I know all about setting off for a journey, even a ocean journey. I know how to pack and unpack so quick and neat, and how to keep things sweet and dry, never musty. I keep all your nice things in perfect order, ma’am, and I always lay my hand on just the very thing you want.”
“What was your previous place?”
“In America, ma’am, a place called Virginia.”
“Oh!” said Catherine, and was struck silent, for she suddenly knew who this grave dignified girl was. A minute ago she’d had no idea; now she simply knew. It was like the moment when the churning cream suddenly congeals at last; now, irreversibly, it is butter.
Catherine considered. The temptation to engage the girl was powerful. It would be such a neat and complete retaliation for Miss Johnstone’s impertinence—not only to fly away with the disputed Grace but to rescue the slave girl as well. It appealed to Catherine’s sense of chivalry. But so risky, so unwise! What had she just said to this girl about her plans? Only that she intended to set off for a journey quite soon with her daughter. What if this girl should deliberately or inadvertently pass along this information to Miss Johnstone? And what if Miss Johnstone’s pride should be all the more inflamed by this insult, so inflamed as to pursue them implacably? Catherine wished she had said nothing about a journey. All this reflection took only a moment, no more than a slight hesitation. Catherine said, “I must consider…”
“I do the prettiest needlework too, ma’am,” said the black girl. “And if there’s no laundress nearby, I can do all the washing and starching and ironing ever so nice, pleats and frills neat as anything, and never a scorch or a smut. And as for hairdressing, my lady always boast to her friends what a hand I have for dressing a head. She always lend me out to do all their heads whenever there’s a ball. I’m always clean and punctual, and very careful and quiet to wait at table, too. And ever so discreet, ma’am, I never carry tales about anything I hear.”
“Discreet, are you?” asked Catherine. So valuable a quality, discretion! “Hmm. No, I shall have to consider…until tomorrow, perhaps. Will you be here again tomorrow?”
“I can’t say for certain, ma’am, for my time…I have certain other duties. But that lady out there, she know how to send for me.”
On impulse, Catherine said, “Well, and here is a birthday present for you,” and held out the smallest and prettiest of her several neatly tied parcels. The girl froze, not moving to take it, until Catherine reached forward and placed it into her hand.
“What a dreadful crush!” said Mary when she and Catherine had emerged once again into the crowded street. All the streets of the town were clogged once again by carriages, for it was the afternoon of the king’s Drawing Room—his reception for the best ladies of Scotland. The carriages were full of these ostrich-plumed best ladies in their most splendid finery, and the crowds were, if possible, even greater than they had been on Saturday; for while gentlemen could take themselves to the palace and home again, the ladies required escorts and chaperones.
“How she stared when you gave her your new gloves!” said Mary as they threaded their way among carriages stopped on the bridge. “But Catherine, my dear, why do you not take her? She would be the very thing for you and Grace. Is it because she is so very black? Do you not know that my father’s own man is a black African? He has been with him for ever so many years; they have quite grown old together. And no one could be kinder, or cleverer, or more perfectly honest. You would soon grow accustomed to it, I assure you.”
Catherine laughed. “Oh, my dear Mary, that is not it at all! Have you no notion who the girl is? Whose servant she has been?”
“Why, no. You did not ask her the family’s name, did you?”
“No need to ask. I know. That is Miss Johnstone’s slave girl, bent upon running away while she has the chance.”
“Never!”
“Aye. I am certain sure of it.”
“Oh!” said Mary as they made their way up to the booking agent for the coach at the saddler and harness maker in the High Street. “Are you sure? Oh, Catherine, it makes my heart flutter to think of that poor creature held in slavery! And her birthday! I wish I had given her something, too. Are you not tempted to engage her just to save her from so monstrous an unjustice?”
“Very strongly tempted. It would be the most complete coup, wouldn’t it? But prudence bids me to think hard before taking so provocative a step.”
“Aye, Grace’s safety must be your first consideration. How clever you are; I would never have had any notion of her being Miss Johnstone’s servant. And if I did tumble to it, I would have been quite carried away by indignation. Well, if you don’t engage her, Catherine, I must try to find a good place for her among my friends.”
“Mary, you have the kindest heart in the world…. We must parthere, I think: I shall inquire about the coach, then stop at the mercer’s for some green worsted. But my dear, as the milliner is on your way, may I trouble you to step in there once more and buy me yet another pair of new gloves, just the same as before? I don’t know what possessed me to give them away. I shall see you at home in East Thistle Street.”
The saddler, when Catherine entered his shop, was displaying a nice selection of bra
ss and nickel harness ornaments to a couple of well-dressed lowland gentlemen. Catherine went to the back of the shop, where there was an office for booking seats in any of the regular coaches whose routes originated here. Lying open upon the counter was a large ledger; and Catherine saw, reading it upside down, that it must be the register of bookings.
She looked around, catching the saddler’s eye. He apologised and promised to wait upon her as soon as possible, and she assured him that she was in no haste. Then, when he had turned away again to his gentlemen, she quietly paged back through the ledger. The names and destinations of each day’s passengers—to Glasgow, to Fort William, to Inverness, and to all other points near and far—were neatly listed, all in the same legible handwriting. Here was the record of who had been traveling; and when; and where they had gone—as anyone might find out, who cared to look.
She settled herself to wait until the saddler should be at liberty to sell her two places, and to write her name and Grace’s neatly into his register, too, on the page for the Glasgow coach for the following morning. This would serve as well as any cat in a hessian sack.
MARY HASTENED HOME with another new pair of gloves for Catherine, and with a pretty little ivory needle book as a parting gift, and with sufficient almonds, sultanas, currants, candied orange peel and glacé cherries to make Grace’s favorite Dundee cake, which would travel well and keep for a long time if wrapped in cheesecloth and stored in a tight tin. Going straight to the basement kitchen, she had the cook warm the dried fruits and grind the almonds while she herself creamed the butter and beat in the sugar. While stirring vigorously and chatting amiably with the cook, she kept one ear cocked, listening for Catherine’s return. Instead she heard the nursemaid bring in the children from their afternoon romp at the laundry-drying greens across Queen Street. By the time she had beaten in all the flour and leavening—working up a sweat and an aching arm—she was beginning to feel uneasy; what could be taking Catherine so long? She mixed in the big spoonful of rum for its fine aroma, and all the chopped fruits and ground almonds, then turned the fragrant batter into the baking tin, which the cook had lined with greased paper. The cook opened the oven door for her, and Mary slid the heavy tin onto the rack in the center of the oven for its long bake. Then, at last, she went upstairs to investigate.
No Catherine, but Catherine’s big trunk stood in her room, closed and apparently ready to be moved. At the top of the house, in the nursery, Mary kissed her children and smiled at Grace, and inquired of the nursemaid, who confirmed that the other Mrs MacDonald had not come in. And do look, the dear baby has produced his new tooth at last! And indeed he had, the drooling, red-faced darling, chewing wetly on his coral with the silver bells mounted on the ends.
Mary tried to sew, then tried to balance her account book, but she found she was too restless to sit down. She stirred the fire; she went to the window a dozen times; she went up to the nursery to look in on the children again; she went to Catherine’s room with the parcel of gloves and the little present of the needle book. The trunk was closed but unlocked; she opened it and put the parcels inside. Among articles of clothing and paper-wrapped books was nestled the posthumous package from poor Sandy, dead in India. She shut the trunk again and went down to the kitchen to check her cake. She heard the hall door open and close overhead, and footsteps. After hastily setting the cake to cool, she went running upstairs.
Hector had come in at last from his friends at the Mechanics Institute. It was a comfort to share her alarm, but when he heard that they had encountered Miss Johnstone’s maid, he became worried, too, though he tried to pretend that he was not.
“Surely she had a great many last-minute errands to attend to,” he said, “and the streets are still clogged with carriages, everyone trying to get home again after the king’s Drawing Room today. Such a day for ostrich plumes! I wonder if there remain any birds in Africa yet unplucked? As they are wearing so many feathers, one might suppose that all the ladies could get themselves home again just by taking to the air.”
“I had supposed that ostriches were flightless,” observed Mary.
“I stand corrected, my literal-minded dear. You are quite right; they are terrestrial birds, and so are the ladies.”
To the cook’s great annoyance, they waited dinner for half an hour, while the soup congealed. Finally they sat down and ate without appetite, listening more than tasting. Afterward the little children and silent Grace were brought in for their usual quarter hour of infant conversation and a sweet treat, and Hector and Mary played with them for longer than usual as a distraction. But eventually the children were taken away again and put to bed while the August sky was still quite light.
By half past nine, the blue sky was finally fading, and shadows were deepening in the corners of the drawing room, where Hector and Mary sat together over the dregs of their tea. There came a knock at the street door; they heard the footman open to someone who was not Catherine; for there was the timbre of an unfamiliar voice in the hall downstairs.
“The person below says she has a message for your sister, sir, for Mrs MacDonald, of the most extreme urgency and importance,” said the footman. “I have told her that Mrs MacDonald is not at home, and she begs to speak with you instead, sir. She appears to be in a state of considerable anxiety.”
Hector clattered hastily down the stairs, too anxious for dignity. There in the hall stood a slender foreign-looking woman with a plain shawl over her plaited long black hair. She was as dark eyed as a gypsy. She looked agitated and exhausted, and was breathing hard, as though she had been running.
“You are Mr Hector MacDonald, brother of…of Mrs Catherine MacDonald, who is living here in your house?” asked the foreign woman. “Oh, sir, I am coming here with warning for your sister. Oh, yes, sir, her plan for going away to Glasgow tomorrow morning is known to the American woman. That woman has been hiring some men to be stopping her and the child at the coach in the High Street in the morning.”
“To Glasgow! You astonish me! May I know who you are, and how you know this? And why you have interested yourself in my sister’s affairs to such an extent?”
“Oh, I am not coming here to speak of myself, sir, no thank you.”
“No?”
“But where is Mrs MacDonald, please, sir?” asked the foreign woman.
“She is—she is not here.”
“So much I was knowing already!” she cried. “But is she safe? And the little red-haired girl? Was Mrs MacDonald knowing already of this danger?”
“I do not know where she is. She never yet came home this evening. I am filled with anxiety about her, and what you have just told me makes me fear for her safety. Pray, let me know who you are, and the sources of your information.”
They heard someone coming up the stone stairs from the street. Hector swung the door wide; it was Catherine, thin and wan.
5
But this is all mistake
“How do you know?” demanded Catherine of the foreign woman.
“A boy came running to the inn, bringing to the American lady Johnstone a message. He came downstairs then for something to eat, and in the kitchen he was boasting as he ate, boasting of his great exploit, running all across the town from the coach office, seeking first of all a solicit man.”
“A solicitor, do you mean?” prompted Hector. “A lawyer?”
“Yes, yes. And this solicitor sent him on, still running, to the American lady Johnstone. And now he was to run back again to the solicitor, carrying the lady’s reply. He went away full of cheese and ale, so very proud of all this running. Then the lady Johnstone sent for my friend Annie, who is her maid.”
“Your friend Annie—is she a black girl from America?” asked Catherine.
“Yes, ma’am, yes, precisely, the girl you were meeting today at the broker’s office, yes. Then Annie was returning to me in the kitchen and telling me farewell, for her mistress had bidden her be packing the trunk and receiving the child early in the morning, then d
eparting from the city, and indeed from Scotland.”
“All this she confided to you?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. She is my friend.”
“Were you there at the broker’s office today, yourself?” demanded Catherine; and the hairs at the nape of her neck were abristle.
“Yes, ma’am. Today, every day, I am there. I am seeking a place with a lady bound for India.”
“I did not see you,” said Catherine.
“No, ma’am, but certainly I was seeing you.”