A Pair of Sharp Eyes

by Kat Armstrong

  By and by Miss Jane looks less fearful as we trundle out of Bath, being glad, perhaps, to put the town behind her. Meanwhile our fellow travellers are a less troublesome lot than yesterday’s. Two lads on their way to positions as footmen; another who says he begins an apprenticeship with a master-weaver in Redcliffe. A woman in a brown checked shawl has a fretful baby in her arms and must be sorry to sit opposite Miss Bridget, who scowls and tuts whenever the child cries, though in a little while it sleeps, and the mother’s own eyes glaze over, while the three young fellows fall to boasting and jesting between themselves and leave me to my thoughts, Miss Bridget being too travel-sick to chit-chat, and Miss Jane too frightened.

  I would have neither know it, but I almost wish the distance were further now we draw close to Bristol. Two days ago I waved away my Wiltshire sister’s quibbles, assuring her I would find a place as soon as I set foot here, but now I wonder why I claimed such a thing. The country we pass through is nothing like Erlestoke; the hills are steep, the roads rougher than at home, and even the houses look different, being built of coloured stone instead of flint.

  ‘What a mansion,’ Miss Jane breathes, as we pass a front with twenty mullioned windows. ‘Imagine being housemaid there.’

  ‘The manor house at Erlestoke is finer,’ I say loudly, and Miss Bridget can hardly contradict, though she pulls her red cloak around herself and feigns deafness.

  Little by little the houses increase in number, many with imposing chimneys and tidy plots where rows of trees and gravel walks are visible behind walls of pink and grey stone that match the houses. A mile or so later my heart flutters as we round a bend and glimpse the city walls, high and turreted.

  ‘Temple-gate, ain’t it?’ one of the lads asks, setting off a noisy discussion of the routes in and out of Bristol, but when the coach slows, all are silent, and I can’t help remembering the ancient gatehouse in Salisbury, lived in by a retired churchwarden whose only business was to weed the cobbles and dole out comfits to passing children. Bristol’s Temple-gate is guarded by two porters, and every cart must stop to pay a toll and have its load examined.

  ‘What are they searching for?’ Miss Jane wonders. A farmhand huddles on a crate while an officer counts the sacks in his waggon.

  The apprentice-weaver smirks. ‘It’s forbidden to sell in Bristol unless you belong to the city. That fellow wishes he had not set off today.’

  ‘Will they put him in gaol?’ she asks fearfully.

  ‘Fine him. He won’t smuggle again, don’t you worry. Ah! Here’s our turn.’ His words are drowned out by the postillion’s horn as we pass through, and conscious of Miss Bridget’s sly eyes I look about as brightly as if I had come to Bristol for a street-fair.

  A dozen market stalls line the street, and the way is thronged with folk who stroll carelessly along as if the place were not crammed with carts but spacious as a garth. Rabbles of boys, car-men hauling great laden sledges, hurrying housewives, and here and there a fine gentleman in a laced frock-coat, and stranger-looking folk such as a black man on a street corner selling chap-books from a tray, and a wizened man huddled in a doorway, one arm made of wood and a grey raised scar running from his forehead to his chin.

  The coach slams to a halt at the sign of the Red Lion, and an ostler runs out to the horses as we climb down and wait to claim our boxes. By the time I have mine the sisters are being greeted by their aunt, a gaunt-faced woman in a red serge petticoat and apron of dark green calico. While they curtsey and recite messages from home, she looks them over sourly and bids them dust down their clothes. Chastened, Miss Bridget straightens her hat and neckerchief, and checks she still has her purse, and I am glad this is not my own first venture from home, notwithstanding that was to the safety of our cousin’s house in Salisbury. Miss Bridget should tuck her store of coins in her clothes as I do, and set aside the vanity of displaying a fine purse.

  I hurry over as they turn to leave.

  ‘Farewell, Miss Jane, Miss Bridget. I hope all goes well with you.’ Miss Jane replies with a shy smile and presses my hand, and I cannot help thinking she is sorry to see the last of me. I am sorry too, though to forestall my tears I tell myself I shan’t miss Sister Bridget’s carping ways.

  A chart is nailed up at the inn door, displaying the roads in and out of Bristol and the departing times of waggons and coaches. There is no map I might use to help me find my sister’s house, only notices and bills of sale. One is an advertisement for a Blackamoor named Joseph, 26 years old, healthy, 5 feet 10 inches, to be offered at auction on October 31st. I picture an upstanding fellow proud of his chance to serve his master in a Christian land, and envy Joseph the roof he shall have over his head after he is sold.

  My heart gives a jump as my eyes alight on a nearby notice. Information sought concerning the whereabouts of a man wanted for the horrid and bloody murders of six youngsters in Bristol and Redcliffe since November last. The man suspected of these abominable deeds is said to have red hair, and to be six feet tall. He speaks with a foreign accent; is thought to be burnt in the hand and missing his right ear. Intelligence to be supplied to Frederick Grainger Esq. at the Sign of the Anchor, Corn-exchange.

  I shudder at the picture the words conjure in my mind, and turn away before I lose heart altogether for life in Bristol.

  ‘Which way to All-Saint’s-yard?’ I ask a woman in a queer, old-fashioned fustian gown and petticoat. I am surprised that more folk in Bristol are not clad in silk; many are quite plain. She looks at me askance.

  ‘Where be you from? I can hardly make you out.’

  ‘Wiltshire, Ma’am.’

  Her black-toothed husband grins. ‘Fresh from the country, eh?’

  She jabs his ribs. ‘You want Corne-street, Missy, then ask for the tannery.’ She speaks as if I am slow-witted. ‘Over the bridge, my lover, can’t miss it. Keep on ‘til you find the High-cross. Like this one here we call Temple-cross but twice the size. You’ll see the tower of All-Saints on this side.’ She points. ‘Then best ask the way again.’

  It is as well the woman keeps her directions simple, for I am too dazzled to take in lefts and rights or ups and downs. It’s further to the bridge than I thought, and breakfast at the West-gate seems a long time past, and when I smell a pie-seller my mouth waters and I tell myself sternly my task is to find Liz, not waste my money. The woman was right, the bridge is easy to pick out, though the sides are packed so tight with shops and houses that once upon it you cannot see the water. I know it is there by the masts and prows sticking up, and the smell, which is like a privy in summer, and I join the people streaming over to the city, marvelling that nothing I have seen is more wondrous than this, buildings stood crosswise on a bridge spanning a river wider than a village green.

  Once upon a time a cruel, contemptuous old gentleman asked why I dreamed to rise above my station. I think back to my reply, lest I am tempted to bolt to the Red Lion and buy a coach ticket to take me back to Erlestoke and my life with Meg and her dozy husband, John. ‘I am good enough for any man,’ I said then, and I say it under my breath now. The houses here may be tall and some with gables like pastry-crusts and a dozen windows, but I have equal right to be here as anyone.

  I pass one great church, glimpse the spires and towers of others, then beyond the bridge I find the High-cross just as the woman said. To one side lies yet another church, which I take to be All-Saints. They are godly folk, it seems, these citizens of Bristol, despite their love of money.

  ‘Watch it!’ a voice cries, and I leap back before a cart knocks me off my feet. The vehicle goes full trot despite the crowds. I am in danger of having my neck broken, and I wish I could walk backwards except then I would miss the carts coming the other way.

  ‘Is that All-Saints-yard?’ I ask a sailor. I know him by his blue jacket and canvas trousers, though I remember Meg saying to have nothing to do with seamen, who are known for drinking and whoring, and would rob as soon as look at you.

  Meg was wrong, because this
fellow never answers, but continues his rolling way along the street. But a milkmaid overhears my question.

  ‘That’s right, sweetheart. Through that little alleyway, that’s All-Saints.’ She is all dimples and smiles, and her apron spotlessly clean and her sleeves likewise, and I think most foolishly as it turns out, that All-Saints will be clean and welcoming as she is, so that when I come out at the end of the alleyway, which is dark and smells no better than a pig-sty, my spirits sink. This is not a yard but a row of higgledy houses with barefoot children on every doorstep, and the roofs patched and falling in, and the walls streaked with damp, and the ground a quagmire.

  I crush the memory of Miss Bridget crowing over the ‘well-appointed chamber in an upper storey but overlooking the square, you know’ that she and her sister were told was theirs. I may be equally fortunate, and find a place in no time, and as likely in Queen-square as any lesser quarter of the city, though this thought produces a second recollection, which is of Meg failing to persuade me that I missed the last day for hiring, and would be better waiting now ‘til Christmas-time.

  A round-shouldered old woman in a faded apron sits spinning on her doorstep. She pauses warily at the sight of me, though in truth there can be little to rob in such mean dwellings.

  ‘Good day, Mistress. I’m looking for my sister’s house—Mrs Elizabeth Eardley.’

  ‘Are you now?’ She looks me over, trying to find a resemblance between me and Liz. The old woman must be satisfied, for she says, ‘Your sister’s at work, she don’t get home ‘til after six.’

  ‘She said her husband would let me in.’

  The woman shakes her head. ‘He’s at work too, or more likely drinking down the harbour. Your sister has a hard row to hoe in more ways than one. Still, you can help her now you’re here. You look likely enough.’

  ‘Oh, but I’m not stopping long. I’ve come to find a place.’

  She wipes her mouth on her hand. ‘High and mighty. “A place,” eh?’ Her face softens. ‘Take no notice, my lover, I’m pulling your leg. There are places aplenty in Bristol for those who’ll work. Trouble is, young folk these days are idle, most of them. Show us your hands.’

  Hiding a smile at her forthrightness, I obey.

  ‘That’s more like it.’ She grins approvingly. ‘You’ve worked for your living. What are you? Weeding-woman like your sister?’

  ‘No, Mistress. I used to help my father with his plot, and I can sew, and cook, and mind babies, and run errands, and I lived in Salisbury for six months and nursed my mother’s cousin.’ I want to add ‘And I was the friend of the squire’s son in Erlestoke, until the old man cast him off for yearning after marrying me,’ but I vowed to put that behind me when I came to Bristol, and I shall, though it pains me not to boast that I can read and write, and play a hymn or two on the old squire’s spinnet. I long to tell the old woman that by sewing I don’t only mean I can mend a handkerchief but I can cross-stitch because the squire’s daughter showed me how, and her brother taught me Carpy deum and Veeny veedy veechy in order that I could out-quote any snot-nosed Salisbury curate who tried to slap me down.

  The old woman struggles to her feet, groaning at the effort. ‘You’d better come in along of me ‘til your sister’s home. Don’t look frightened, foolish maid, I told her I’d take you in if you was early. My name is Mistress Jervis. If you carry in those sticks I’ll boil the kettle and we’ll have ourselves a bite of dinner. You can put those nimble fingers to good use after, carding wool. That’s their house, see?’ She points to a house even lower than her own, the eaves hung about with pelts and furs.

  ‘Tell me those aren’t polecats dangling down.’

  She laughs, and the laughter turns into a cough that bends her double. ‘And foxes’ brushes and mouldiwarps and a few rats for good measure. He’s one of the lazy sort I told you about, though he’s not so young neither. They fined him and still he’s too idle to clean up after hisself, and throws the guts in the yard. It’s a filthy trade, vermin-catching, but as you’re sure to hear him say, some poor devil must do it.’ More rasping laughter.

  Her words chime with what I know of my brother-in-law, yet my spirits rise when the old spinster shows me her dwelling, for it is not the hovel I expected but a comfortable room, small to be sure, and the floor beaten earth, but that floor has been swept this morning and the kettle shines brightly, and I am bid sit on a stool by the fire while Mrs Jervis picks over a handful of cracked wheat and talks to her finch that hops about in a cage above the door, and when I have been shown how to card wool her way, she boils the wheat and puts in milk. She stirs it awhile and then we sup our frumenty and she sets to yarning, telling me she is old enough to remember the day King Charles had his head cut off, and that her great-grandmother came to Bristol near a century ago, after her cottage was swept away by a flood that razed a thousand homes along the coast of Somerset and drowned ten thousand sinners.

  By and by she falls silent, her eyelids flutter, and she begins to nod. I take up my carding combs and set to work, except my own eyes are tired, and between the late hour I kept last night, and my comfortable place by the fire, which glows and makes the little room snug, I slide into a dream where figures pass across my inward eye in a jumble of all I have met since leaving Erlestoke. Mr Espinosa with his strange and earnest way of speaking, Bridget Lamborne airily declaiming the beauties of Queen-square, Mrs Buckley thrusting her powdery face at mine and telling me I am ripe fruit for the plucking.

  When an ear-splitting screech jars me awake the room is dark and I cry out.

  ‘Oh God, what is it?’

  Mrs Jervis cannot answer until she has cleared her chest. ‘Mr Bill Eardley is what it is. He has a habit of strangling the creatures he catches, if his snares don’t do the job for him. It’s sport in his view.’

  Her fit of coughing over, she cocks an ear. ‘Coney.’ Another scream rends the air, more human-seeming than animal. ‘Two conies,’ she concludes. ‘Don’t be sorry, least ways you’ll eat well tonight and perhaps tomorrow.’

  Reluctant though I am to greet my brother-in-law, I cannot trade on the spinster’s hospitality any longer, so I get up and put the little wool I cleaned back in the basket on the hearth, along with the combs that clattered to the ground when I woke suddenly.

  ‘I thank you for my dinner, Mrs Jervis, and for the stories you told me, and I must be on my way.’

  She rises and takes my hand between her wrinkled thumb and fingers. ‘A word to the wise. Stand up for yourself with Mr Bill Eardley. Your sister won’t and it has made a tyrant of him. Don’t breathe a word to either, but I told the constable about the dead rats he left lying in the yard. Magistrates fined him a shilling, and serve him right. Though your poor sister paid a different price, Lord love her, for he has an evil temper.’ An idea strikes her, and her face lights up. ‘If he ever lifts a hand to you remember old King Charles. Tyrants come to bad ends.’ She mimes the action of the executioner’s axe, pretending the blade slices through her neck, and follows this with a merry burst of laughter, as if she is wont to go about Bristol chopping off the heads of those who vex her.

  I am tempted to offer a warning in exchange, which is to remind her that old women who get across their neighbours are liable to wish they had not. I have lived long enough to know folks detest a woman who sets herself at odds with any man.

  Chapter Six

  Bristol

  Wednesday, 24th October, 1703

  One thought is in my head as I knock on Liz’s worm-eaten splintery door: I cannot stop here long.

  Bill rests his great hairy paw on the door-frame to block my way. ‘Uh. Another Amesbury expecting to be kept.’

  When Bill came courting—the only man willing to overlook how scrawny Liz was after the smallpox—he wore breeches stitched from moleskins, and he wears those greasy breeches now, along with a torn coat of some thicker pelt, and a black cap stuck about with rabbit-tails and eagle claws. His squat dwelling stinks as he does. A mix of graveyar
d mould and rancid butcher’s block.

  ‘Will you let me in, Brother?’

  He thinks about it, sly-eyed; steps aside; jerks his head. Carrying my box, holding myself proud, I walk inside, only to trip and nearly fall on the hollow dirt floor, the light being so dim I cannot see my way. One rank-smelling room, the rafters low and smudged with smoke. Sole sign of Liz’s presence is a pair of wooden head-combs lying on the bed. I set down my box on the rough plank that serves as a table.

  ‘When’s my sister home, Bill?’

  ‘When Elliott lets her go,’ he grunts. ‘The old devil finds every way he can to keep her toiling for him. Don’t touch that jar, thinking you’re clever to help yourself to a drop of tea without asking. ‘Tisn’t tea, ‘tis poison for the rats.’ He puts a black hand to his throat and makes a choking sound, laughing at my look of disgust. ‘I’ll be back when I’ve sold what I catched today,’ he adds, and swinging open his coat to show me half-a-dozen rabbits tied to his belt, he slouches out, leaving a trail of bloody drops behind him.

  When his thumping footsteps fade I sit myself on a stool and vow I will not cry. I am weary is all, and footsore, and did not imagine Bill Eardley’s greeting would be quite so harsh. Nor did I expect to find the place as mean. One wooden candlestick is the only homely touch. A heap of wire snares lies in one corner, and above them, on a great black hook, a pair of long, curved butcher’s knives I suppose are for skinning the pitiful creatures Bill catches in his traps.

  I was never close to either of my sisters, but when, long after twilight, Liz returns, I jump up and hug her tight. She is even sparer than I remember, and does not return my hug. Her smile is fleeting.