Poor Things

by Alasdair Gray

  O Bella fair, without compare,

  My memory sweetly lingers

  By Kelvin’s side (my future bride!)

  Where first I kissed your fingers.

  I have been blithe with comrades dear,

  I have been merry drinking,

  I have been joyful gathering gear,

  I have been happy thinking,

  I have known glee by pond and sea,

  And spate that cleaves the mountain,

  But known no glee (my bride to be!)

  No joy so great (my future mate!)

  As by the Memorial Fountain.

  The many other verses I posted to her were equally spontaneous and equally good, and ended with stronger and stronger requests that she reply to me. I give verbatim the only reply I at last received. I was overjoyed by the bulk of the envelope it came in, which contained nearly a dozen sheets of notepaper. However, her writing was so huge that there was only room for a few words on each, though like the ancient Hebrews and Babylonians she had saved space by dispensing with vowels:

  DR CNDL,

  Y WNT GT MCH FRM M THS WY. WRDS DNT SM RL 2 M WHN NT SPKN R HRD. YR LTTRS R VRY LK THR MNS LV LTTRS, SPCLLY DNCN WDDRBRNS.

  YRS FTHFLLY,

  BLL BXTR.

  By murmuring these consonants aloud I gradually made sense of everything but SPCLLY DNCN WDDRBRNS, and what I understood alarmed and disturbed me, because the only words which fed my hopes were the second last two which declared she was mine faithfully. This is a conventional business phrase, but Bella was neither conventional nor in business. Even so, I decided to break my word to Baxter and visit her as soon as possible. On leaving the Royal Infirmary to do so that evening I was hailed by Mrs. Dinwiddie, Baxter’s housekeeper, who was waiting for me at the gate in a cab. She handed me the following note, asking me to read it at once:

  Dear McCandless,

  I was mad to part you and Bella. Come at once. I have accidentally injured all three of us in a terrible way. Only you, perhaps, may save us if you come here quickly, tonight, before sunset, as soon as possible.

  Your miserable and, believe me,

  Sincerely repentant friend;

  Godwin Bysshe Baxter.

  I leapt into the cab, was carried to Park Circus and rushed into the downstairs drawing-room crying, “What is wrong? Where is she?”

  “Upstairs in her bedroom,” said Baxter, “and not ill, and all too happy. Try to be calm, McCandless. Hear the whole ghastly story from me before attempting to change her mind. If you need a drink I can offer you a glass of vegetable juice. Port is out of the question.”

  I sat down and stared at him. He said, “She is waiting to elope with Duncan Wedderburn.”

  “Who?”

  “The worst man possible—a smooth, handsome, well-groomed, plausible, unscrupulous, lecherous lawyer who specialized—until last week—in seducing women of the servant class. He is too lazy to live by honest toil. Besides, a legacy from a doting old aunt has made toil unnecessary. He pays for his gambling losses and grimy amours by charging improperly high fees for slightly improper jobs on the shady side of the law. Bella now loves him, not you, McCandless.”

  “How did they meet?”

  “The morning after she got engaged to you I decided to make a will leaving her everything I own. I visited a very respectable elderly lawyer, an old friend of my father. When he asked about Bell’s exact relationship to me I answered in a confused manner for I suddenly suspected—without being absolutely certain—that he knew too much about the Baxter family to believe the story I told my servants. I blushed, stammered, then pretending an anger I did not feel declared that since I was paying for his services I saw no reason to answer impertinent questions which cast doubts on my honesty. I wish I had not said that! But I was flustered. He replied very coldly that he had only questioned me to ensure my will could not be contested by some other relative of Sir Colin; that he had served the Baxter family for nearly three generations, and if I could not trust his discretion I should go elsewhere. I longed to tell that good old man the whole truth, McCandless, but he would have thought me a lunatic. I apologized and left.

  “I saw that the secretary who showed me out had been listening at his master’s keyhole, for he was far less obsequious than when he showed me in. I detained him in the corridor to the front door, taking out a sovereign and absent-mindedly fingering it. I said his master was too busy to do a piece of work for me—could he recommend someone else? He whispered the name and address of a solicitor who worked from a private house on the south side. I tipped the scoundrel and took a cab there. Alas, Wedderburn was in. I explained what I wanted and said I would pay extra to have it as soon as possible. He asked for no more information than I gave him. I was grateful. I admired his good looks and suave manner, and knew nothing then about the black iniquity of his soul.

  “He called here the following day with copies of the will for signature. Bella was with me, here, in this room, and welcomed him with her usual effusiveness. His response was so cool, remote and condescending that it obviously hurt her. That annoyed me though I did not show it. I rang for Mrs. Dinwiddie to act as witness and the documents were signed and sealed while Bell sulked in a corner. Wedderburn then handed me his bill. I left the room to fetch the guineas from my strongbox and I promise you, McCandless, I returned in four minutes or less. I was glad to see that, although Mrs. Dinwiddie had now also left the room and Wedderburn seemed as cool as ever, Bella was again chattering as brightly as usual. And that, I thought, was the last of Duncan Wedderburn. This morning over the breakfast table she cheerfully told me that for the last three nights he has visited her bedroom after the servants retire. An imitation owl-hoot is his midnight signal, a lit candle in the window is hers, then up goes a ladder and up goes he! And tonight two hours from now she will elope with him unless you change her mind. Try to be calm, McCandless.”

  I had grasped my hair with both hands and now I wrenched at it crying, “O what have they DONE together?”

  “Nothing whose outcome you need dread, McCandless. I noticed her romantic nature quite early on our world tour, and in Vienna paid a highly qualified woman to teach her the arts of contraception. Bell tells me Wedderburn is versed in them too.”

  “Have you not told her how evil and treacherous he is?”

  “No, McCandless. I only discovered that this morning when she told me how evil and treacherous he is. The cunning fiend has seduced her with accounts of his debaucheries with all the women he has cheated and betrayed, and not just women, McCandless! He has indulged in an orgy of confession—she says it was as good as a book—and of course he declares that love of her has purified his life and made a new man of him and he will never abandon her. I asked if she believed this. She said not much but nobody had ever abandoned her before and the change might do her good. She also said that wicked people needed love as much as good people and were much better at it. Go to her McCandless and prove her wrong.”

  “I am going,” I said, standing up, “and when Wedderburn arrives, Baxter, set your dogs on him. He is a burglar with no legal right here.”

  Baxter stared at me with the distaste and amazement he would have shown had I told him to crucify Wedderburn on the spire of Glasgow Cathedral. He said reproachfully, “I must not thwart Bell, McCandless.”

  “But Baxter, she has a mental age of ten! She is a child!”

  “That is why I must not use force. If I hurt someone she loves her liking for me will turn to fear and distrust and my life will have no purpose. It will still have a purpose if I keep a house for her to return to when she tires of Wedderburn, or he of her. But maybe you can stop either happening. Go to her. Woo her. Tell her it is with my blessing.”

  9

  At the Window

  I ran upstairs in a rage which melted into grief at the sight of Bella, for her thoughts were not on me. Through an open door on the first landing I saw her sitting at an open window, an elbow on the sill and her hand supportin
g her cheek. She wore a travelling-costume; there was a strapped-up portmanteau at her feet with a broad-brimmed hat and veil resting on top. Though looking into the garden she appeared to me in profile, and in her expression and pose I saw what had never been there before: contentment and serenity tinged with melancholy at some thought of the past or future. She was no longer violently, vividly in the present. I felt like a small boy spying on a mature woman, and coughed to attract her attention. She looked round and gave me a sweetly welcoming smile. She said, “How kind of you to come, Candle, and keep me company during my last few minutes in the old, old home. I wish God could be here but he’s so miserable I can’t stand him just now.”

  “I’m miserable too, Bella. I thought you and I were to marry.”

  “I know. We arranged that years ago.”

  “Six days—less than a week.”

  “Anything more than a day seems eternity to me. Duncan Wedderburn suddenly touched me in places you never did and now I’m daft about him. When the gloaming comes so will he, stepping quietly from the lane through that door in the far-away wall12 and padding the latch with a cloth so it won’t click. Then tiptoe tiptoe tiptoe up the path he will come, and stealthily lift the ladder hidden in that bed of curly kail—it is not well hidden, you can easily see it—and O how tenderly how expertly he will raise it upright, how slowly tilt the top toward me till I can grip it and with my own hands place it on the sill of my window. You never did that with me. Then he will hurry us off to life, love and Italy, the coast of Coromandel where Afric’s sunny fountains pour down the golden sands. I wonder where we will end? Poor dear Duncan so enjoys being wicked. He probably would not want me if he knew God would let us walk together out of the front door in broad daylight. And Candle, besides our engagement I will always remember how often you visited me in the old days, and listened when I played to you on the pianola, and what a wonderful woman you made me feel by always kissing my hand afterwards.”

  “Bella, I have met you only three times in my life and this is the third.”

  “Exactly!” cried Bella with a frightening gust of anger. “I am only half a woman Candle, less than half having had no childhood, the bit of life Miss MacTavish said we dragged clouds of glory into, no sugar-and-spice-and-all-things-nice-little-girlhood, no early-love’s-young-dream-womanhood. A whole quarter century of my life has vanished crash bang wallop. So the few wee memories in this hollow Bell tinkle clink clank clatter rattle clang gong ring dong ding sound resound resonate detonate vibrate reverberate echo re-echo around this poor empty skull in words words words words wordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswordswords that try to make much of little but cannot. I need more past. On our boat up the Nile a fine lady travelled alone and someone told me she was a woman with a past, O how I envied her. But Duncan will give me a lot of past fast. Duncan is quick.”

  “Bell!” I pled, “you will NOT go off and marry this man! You will NOT carry his bairns!”

  “I know!” said Bella, looking at me in a startled way. “I am engaged to you.”

  She pointed to the lapel of her travelling-coat where I saw the tiny pearl of my tie-pin. She said cunningly, “I bet you’ve eaten all my gobstoppers.”

  I told her I had placed the gobstoppers in a glass jar with a lid which now stood on a sideboard of my lodgings, because the heat of my body would gradually melt them into a shapeless lump if I carried them in my pocket. I also said that since Baxter refused to protect her from this bad and worthless man, and since she refused to protect herself, I would go down and wait for him in the lane; if my words did not turn him away I would knock him down. She glowered at me—I had never seen her glower before—and her lower lip swelled and stuck out like an angry baby’s, and for a moment I feared she would bawl like one.

  A lovely thing happened instead. Her face relaxed into a smile as delighted as when we first met, she stood and stretched her arms straight out to me like then, but now I stepped between them and we embraced. I could not remember being so close to another person before, she pulled my face so deep into her bosom that I had less air than when she embraced me in the park. I dared not stay till I lost consciousness so again struggled free. She stood holding my hands and said kindly, “My dear wee Candle, when I try to give you pleasure you cannot take it and break away. So how can you give much pleasure to me?”

  “You are the only woman I have loved, Bella, I am not like Duncan Wedderburn who has been practising on servant women all his life, if you count the wet-nurse who was hired to suckle him. My mother served on a farm. Her boss practised on her, making me, and I am lucky that he did not fling us both out afterwards. There was no time for love in our lives—the pay was too poor, the work too hard for it. I learned to survive on small quantities of it, Bell. I cannot suddenly start enjoying whole armfuls.”

  “But I can and will, Candle. O yes!” said Bella, still smiling but nodding very definitely. “And you once said I could do anything I liked with you.”

  I smiled and nodded back, being now sure I would win her, and said she could still do what she liked with me, but not what she liked with other men. She frowned and sighed fretfully at that, then laughed aloud and cried, “But Duncan won’t be here for hours and hours and hours so come upstairs and let me surprise you!”

  Pulling my right hand under her arm she led me to the door. Feeling completely happy I asked about the surprise; she told me not to ask before it happened.

  As we climbed to the top landing she said thoughtfully, “Duncan is an amateur boxing champion.”

  I told her that I too was a fighter; that more than one big boy in the playground of Whauphill school had thought my quiet ways and smaller size made me an easy mark to hit, but without always winning I had always proved them wrong. She squeezed my hand. I then noticed something oddly familiar: the mingled aroma of carbolic and surgical spirit that goes with hospitals. I knew old Sir Colin’s operating-theatre, like all such theatres, would have been on the top floor, but had not thought it was still in use. We had climbed up to brightness. There was still an hour before sunset. A breeze had swept the sky clean, and near the summer solstice there is always light in the Scottish skies, however dark the streets and fields. The top landing was directly under a big cupola lighting the stairwell. Bella put her hand on a door-knob and said, “You must wait outside and not peep until I call you, Candle, then you will be surprised.”

  She slipped sideways through the door, closing it so quickly behind her that I had no glimpse of the interior.

  While I waited some very queer ideas entered my head. Could Wedderburn have so corrupted her that on being called in I would see her naked? The notion made me tremble with an agony of conflicting feelings, but as the moments passed I was tormented by another and even worse suspicion. Most big houses have narrow back-stairs for servants. Had Bella crept down these, was she even now walking briskly towards Charing Cross where she would take a cab to Wedderburn’s rooms? This image of her came so clear to my mind that I was about to open the door when it swung inward and I knew she must be standing behind it, the room before me was so empty of visible life. I heard her say, “Step inside and shut your eyes.”

  I stepped inside but did not shut my eyes at once.

  This was indeed old Sir Colin’s operating-theatre, built to his specifications when the Circus had been built in the days of the Crystal Palace. The furnishings were few and gaunt but bathed in warm evening sunlight. This flooded in from tall windows and from a ceiling which seemed to be four skylights sloping up to a reflector in the centre, a reflector casting a pool of greater brightness on the operating-table beneath. I saw benches with what looked like barred hutches and kennels on them and noticed a whiff of animal in the hospital smell. I heard the door click shut behind me, felt Bella breathing on the nape of my neck. Suddenly certain she was naked I half closed my eyes and began trembling. From behind she slid an arm across my chest, and with relief I saw it clothed in the sleeve of her travelling-coat. She pressed me back agai
nst her body and I relaxed there, noticing briefly that the chemical odour of the place was unusually strong. I felt as much as heard her murmur in my ear, “Bell will let nobody hurt her wee Candle.”

  She put her hand over my mouth and nose, and when I tried to breathe I became unconscious.

  10

  Without Bella

  I heard the faint steady hissing of a gas chandelier. I had a headache, but did not open my eyes because light would hurt them. I knew something horrible had happened, that something essential was taken from me, but I did not want to think of it. Nearby someone sighed and whispered, “Evil. I am evil.”

  Bella came to mind. I sat up and a blanket slipped from me.

  I was sitting (had been lying) on the sofa in Baxter’s study. I was coatless, my waistcoat unbuttoned, my collar and shoes removed. The sofa was a massive mahogany article upholstered in black horsehair. Baxter sat gloomily watching me at the other end of it. Through the windows (whose curtains were not drawn) I saw a big half moon in a clear night sky, a sky so full of deep blue light that it was starless. I said, “Time?”

  “Well after two.”

  “Bell?”

  “Eloped.”