In the next interval I was dimly aware of some sensations. Hands lifted me, pulling at my clothes. I moaned and struggled but I was not molested, it was simply that they were trying to hold me upright. Then the world fell away from my feet and tilted sharply as I was borne aloft. “You go there!” a man called out and—thinking that he had spoke to me—I tried to rouse myself and move my legs but found that the hands only gripped me tighter. “Get her, Charlie!” the voice says. “Mind that arm, that’s it! Watch her now!” My ankles were gripped, my spine stretched, my head was cushioned against a pillow of corduroy that smelt of tobacco and soap (I realised later it was probably a waist-coated chest). I heard grunts and throat-clearings. “Right here we go!” says the man. And then everything jolted into motion. I turned my head and seen the earth flow beneath me like a river, mud-caked floorboards giving way to hard-packed earth and then after some time, a rutted lane. It was as if I was trapped in a moving machine that gripped me and sped me along. I did not know its purpose but I had a feeling it was an old machine for the further we travelled the more it began to wheeze and pant like an old mare fit for the knacker, and sometimes it spat off into the grass and now and then it made a comment to itself and once, to my surprise, part of it chuckled at something another part had said.
In time, the swaying movement lulled me and I slipped once more into oblivion. My next sensation was of being set down with a slight jolt. I was in a bed recess and close at hand there was a commotion of leave-taking, whispers and low voices and many pairs of boots shuffling out, it could have been the end of Mass. A door closed. Silence fell. A womans hands settled a blanket over me and gave me milk to drink. And then she pulled the curtains to block out the light. My eyes closed over and I felt as sealed away from the world as though I had been shut forever in a tomb.
So would you believe that I remained in that bed recess for about four days and nights. Jesus Murphy there was not an ounce of strength in my limbs, I had as much command over them as I would have had over molten lead. I drifted in and out of sleep and was sometimes aware of movement and hushed voices in the room beyond the curtain. There were times when I heard a child crying. At other times, smells of cooking seeped into my little coffin. The woman that had give me milk brought me food at intervals, mostly stirabout and broth, and she fed me the few spoonfuls that I was able to swallow. I soon gathered that she was a miners wife and that her husband was the owl-faced man I had first seen in the bothy. He looked in on me each day when he came home from the pit, the whiskers on him still wet from his wash. His name was Chick and his wife was Helen, this I knew from hearing them call to one another in the next room. (What I didn’t at first appreciate was that this was only a two-room cottage and that the bed I lay in was their own which they had give up to me, while they slept on a tick next door.)
Helen and Chick were not the worlds greatest talkers but sometimes, in what I took to be evening, I overheard them whispering about me. Once I heard him say to her, “Has she said anything yet?” Helen made no reply, but must have shook her head, for I hadn’t uttered a peep since I arrived. Another time she says to him, “D’you think she’s a gowk?” and he replied, “Mebbe.”
What was it about me that people were always taking me for a simpleton?
Mostly the drapes kept out the light so I was hardly aware what hour it was. But one day, I awoke to see the curtains part and in the gap appeared one fair tousled head and then another. Two wee girls were peering in at me, one about three years old, the other perhaps six. These, I gathered, must be the children of Helen and Chick. They stared at me in silence with sombre faces and eyes as round as pennies until their mother noticed them and chased them away.
On the fourth day, when Helen brought me some stirabout I had just enough energy to whisper my thanks and she near dropped the bowl in shock. “Hooch!” she goes, “Man girl! You’ve no says a word in days. We thocht you were a dummy!”
At the sound of their mothers voice, the two children came scuttling into the room. They darted behind her skirts and peered out at me with great suspicion, the eyebrows on them drawn down. Helen took my hand.
“Poor bairn,” she says. “You were just starved and exhaustit. But you’re looking better now. D’you want a message sending to anybody?”
For a second, I wanted to tell her everything, but just as quickly realised that I did not have the strength. And so I just shook my head.
She squeezed my hand. “Well then,” she says. “You just eat this porridge and hae another wee sleep.” Then she left me the bowl and steered her girls out the room.
The following morning I was well enough to sit up. And the morning after that, I got out of bed, though my legs trembled as if somebody had whacked me on the head.
It was the first really fine day of the year and Helen placed a chair for me by the front door where I sat wrapped in a blanket, the sunlight warming my face. She had mended my stockings as best she could and brushed the dirt off my clothes and Muriels coat. She had even give me her other pair of shoes. They were her best shoes, made of highly polished leather and hardly ever worn. I knew by now that the row of cottages where I found myself was part of Stoneydyke, a pit village some ten miles to the north east of Snatter. Neither Helen nor Chick had pressed me for information about myself. I kept putting off telling them how I had ended up there, saying to myself, “I’ll tell them this afternoon. Tonight. Tomorrow. When I feel stronger.” But in the end, somehow, I couldn’t bear to talk about what had happened and so I tellt them only that I’d got lost on my way to Edinburgh and had sought shelter in the pit bothy. They seemed happy enough with that explanation. I could have wished they weren’t quite so taciturn, however, since I’d heard no news of Snatter since I arrived.
About ü o’clock that morning, Helen joined me outside the front door and I helped her to scrape potatoes for the dinner. This seemed as good a chance as any to find out what she knew. I began cautiously enough.
“There was a place I went through the other day,” I says. “They had a big crowd there, all gathered round a fountain so they were, and a man making a speech.”
“Oh aye,” says Helen, without looking up from her scraping.
I tried again. “What would the name of that place be now? It was on the Great Road. There was an inn, the Swan I think it was called. And The Gushet.”
“Snatter,” says Helen.
“That’s it,” I says. “There was a man making a speech when I went by, a minister.”
Helens mouth turned down at the corners. “Him that was a -tacked,” she says.
I made a surprised face. “Attacked?”
She nodded, but infuriatingly just went on with her scraping.
“Well—what happened?” I says.
She shrugged. “Some lady attacked him. Then she ran away. English lady, I think. Completely mad. Hit him wi” a shovel.“
“Oh—oh dear,” I says. “Did they—did they find her at all?”
“I am no sure,” she says. “I don’t think so. They did find somebody though. The very same day, some poor soul fell affy a bridge and was killed by a train. Irish woman. Tragic. They want to make they bridge walls higher.” Of a sudden she peered at me, concerned. “Are you all right, dear? You’ve went aw pale again. Should you lie down?”
“I am fine, thank you.” After a while I says, “So it was—definitely an accident then, the woman on the railway line? Was it?”
“Oh aye,” says Helen. “By all accounts, she’d spent the day in the Swan and the Railway Tavern. Then she weaved oot, might have been a call of nature, you know. And it was foggy. Probably lost her footing.” There was a pause then she says, Are you defeated?“
For a moment there, I thought she was talking about my life in general. How did she know that things were so bad? But when I looked up I realised she’d only meant my pile of potatoes. She made to take them off my hands.
“No,” I says. “Let me finish them. You’ve done so much for me. And eh—I have to be going, this afternoon.”
She looked at me askance. Are you sure that’s wise?“
“I have to. You need your bed back. And I am feeling so much better.”
To be honest, I had no more strength than a wet wasp. But even a wet wasp will creep towards jam—and so it was with me, I was drawn back to Castle Haivers and to missus.
I will pass swiftly over my departure from Stoneydyke. Suffice to say that as well as the thanks I offered to Helen and a promise to return her shoes as soon as I had my own boots, I silently vowed to repay her and Chick for the kindness they had done me. However, the flipping shoes were that stiff they might as well have been made of metal. By the time I had walked the first mile my feet were cut to ribbons. Also I was worn out. I doubt I’d have got within a hounds howl of Castle Haivers but thank God I was took up by a rag and bone man and so could rest a while on his cart. He dropped me at Smoller, from where I hobbled the last mile or two, taking the back route up Cowburnhill since I didn’t really feel like showing my face in Snatter. I might bump into gob knows who, even the Old Bollix, if his head had mended. And I don’t know what I might have done had I seen him.
The sun was setting as I approached the side gate of the house. It felt strange to be coming back like this, just as if I was returning from the shops or what have you. The place had a deserted look. No smoke rose from any of the chimneys. Nothing stirred in the vegetable garden. The bonfire out of which I’d plucked
The Observations
was now just a heap of cold ash and charred remains. As I neared the yard, I noticed a sharp, rotting smell that hung in the air, like something had took a watery shite and died. Fearing for the animals, I hared round to their pens. But to my surprise, I seen that both the sty and the hen run lay empty. No pig, no chickens. And no sign of the cat.
I glanced over at the house. The last of the suns rays lit up the windows. They were gold and dazzling, yet it was not pretty but somehow blank and foreboding. Just then something pecked at my shin, I just about lit 6 foot in the air but it was only a single stray hen, a bit bedraggled looking. I shooed her away and approached the house. At first I considered going round the outside and peering in from room to room to see who was there but then I changed my mind, telling myself it was in case anybody got a fright at me spying in at windows. But really I think it was because I was feart of what I might see.
The best thing to do, I decided, was to go inside and find out what was the go. The back door lay open. I poked my head round and seen that the kitchen was empty so I went in and closed the door behind me, for it was cold now that the sun was setting. First thing I did was prise off Helens shoes. Then I peeled off my stockings and blew on my blistered feet. After that I looked around, trying to work out if anything had changed since last I’d been there. Now, the fire was out and cold. A drop of milk left in a jug had turned sour. The bread had beer stale before I left and now it was furred with green mould. And there was a rank smell rising from the swill bucket. I stood quite still and listened, but the house was silent. The passage to the hall lay empty and quiet, dust motes hung almost motionless in the last rays of sun. I glided silently through, making the dust swirl and dance. After the cold stone of the kitchen, the floorboards felt warmer to my bare feet. Beneath the posting slit lay a small pile of letters. Did that mean there was nobody here? It occurred to me that master James might have went looking for missus somewhere. And then I seen my old coat and the granny bonnet, draped over the newel post. Exactly what missus had been wearing when she had gone missing. She had returned home then.
With my heart up between my ears, I padded across to the parlour and peeked in. There was the chair where she always used to sit. I imagined her sat there now, glancing up from her sewing and smiling at me as I stepped into the room. “Bessy!” she might say. “Where have you been?” Or—“Bessy! What are you thinking of?”
But she wasn’t there. And the cushion that usually sat on her chair was on the floor at the other side of the room as though it had been flung there in a temper. Next to it, a candlestick lay overturned. There was also broken glass in the hearth. It occurred to me that if the place had been deserted for a few days then perhaps some intruder—or intruders—might have come in by the back door. Perhaps they were still here now.
No sooner had this thought crossed my mind than I heard something. It sounded very much like the creak of a chair and it had come from the study. My breath caught in my throat. I turned and stepped across the hall, my bare legs trembling. I tried to be silent but the floorboards were sticky and with each step the skin on the soles of my feet peeled away with a rasp that anybody could have heard. The study door was
1/2
shut. I placed my hand against it and pushed. It swung open slowly and without a sound. There on the wall was the local map I had consulted to see where the railways ran. And there, on the desk, my letter to master James—opened, beside an empty bottle of whisky. And there, sprawled on the sofa on his back, with one arm flung across his face, the man himself. He wore no shoes. The stocking feet on him were filthy and the rest of his clothes dishevelled. There was a glass of whisky on the floor next him and another bottle, this one nearly full. The place was a shambles with dirty plates and glasses on the floor and clothes discarded here and there.
As I gazed at him he sighed and drew his arm away from his face but his eyes remained shut for a moment as he continued to look inwards at his thoughts. They cannot have been pleasant ones, for the expression he wore was pained. His hand fumbled blindly for the whisky glass and failed to find it. Then he opened his eyes. Because of where I stood he was looking straight at me.
“Oh Bessy, do come in,” he says and it touched my heart for he was obviously in the depths of misery but had tried to sound welcoming. He gave me a weak smile as I stepped forwards.
“Sir,” I says. “Are you all right? Where is missus?”
He took in a great breath as though to answer me but it made something catch in his throat and he fell into a paroxysm of coughing. Jesus Murphy that was some cough he had. He sat up and took a few gulps of whisky, which seemed to help. Meanwhile, he indicated a chair by the hearth. I sat down and waited. Eventually, the coughing fit came to an end. He drew his trembling fingers away from his mouth and leaned his elbow on his knee.