by Angela Meyer
Edith appears at the doorway, startling me. ‘I’ll put her to bed,’ she says quietly.
‘Are you certain?’ I ask. I wonder if this is something that’s happened before.
Edith nods, and I leave the room to preserve Ailie’s dignity.
I change into my bedclothes and wait for Edith to put out the lights, wondering how I will get used to the noises from outside: voices, footsteps, horse hooves and the clacking of wheels on stone. And there is the light, too, seeping in from the alley and slope of city behind. I close my eyes but their lids are thin. There is a feeling of expansion in my head, like when I was a child and had a fever, with bubbles growing and popping behind my eyes. I am exhausted enough to soon slip into sleep. I wake several times, twisted in the blankets. The bed is much softer than my one at home. It holds me captive when the sun streams into the room in the morning. I cannot think of a reason to get up.
I must have closed my eyes again. There is a figure in the doorway, bright white. I’m edging out of a dream but already I can’t remember it. I am still weighed down in the bed, sorrowful. It feels like grief.
‘Miss Duncan?’
I’ve thrown my arm across my eyes against the brightness.
‘Edith,’ I say.
‘Would you like me to help you dress?’
‘Oh dear, Edith, no, I’ve always managed myself.’
‘But your corset.’
I smile at her, sitting up in the bed, drawing the blankets in around me. That sinking feeling clings to me. I want to give over to it. Whenever I have felt this, I have thought of going over a cliff and into the ocean, as in the story of the seal-catcher who is turned into a seal and taken to an underwater palace. When he arrives the seals are melancholy because one of their number has been stabbed by him. He fears them, but – and this is a detail I always loved – they rub their noses on him and tell him that if he helps to heal the creature he has injured then they will return him to his family. And he does. But I always want to stay down there, in the cool deep with the magic seals.
I have never seen the ocean.
I tell Edith my corset is laced the way I like it and fastens in the front, as hers probably does too. She lingers in the doorway, palely, holding a fresh jug of water, and I realise Ailie would of course have instructed her to help me. That I should let her do her work. By arguing I am probably only holding her up from other duties.
I stand up and indicate that she can help me. She sets the water down and asks if I would like to wash my face first. I say yes. She pours it into the basin on the dresser, and I splash it over my face and neck. The water is warm and I sigh with pleasure, forgetting for a moment Edith’s presence. I suppose that is the point with servants. They come to know their masters intimately, without their masters knowing much about them in return.
I rub the water in circles, trying to remove the grit from my pores. The water turns grey. How does one get used to this? The relentless black, making teeth look absent and turning live colour people into photographs. At the braes, even in the icy winter, the stove ash settles slowly, and can be swept up. In Tomintoul, the ash blows down the main street and off down the mountain. But here, in Edinburgh, it comes from inside and out, clashes heavily in the air, and sinks, liquid-like, into skin and clothes, furniture and floors. It coats the back of the throat and the hides of animals. It even seems to enter the blood.
‘Where did you grow up, Edith?’ I ask, patting my face with a towel.
She is taken aback. ‘In England, Miss.’
I hold up my arms, the way Agnes had for me at the inn. Edith lifts my nightgown over my head.
‘England is a big place,’ I say.
‘Oh, well, Gloucestershire, Miss,’ she says timidly.
Her fingers flutter about me like moths. She is quick to get me out of one garment and into another.
‘Are your family still there?’ I ask.
She pulls on my crinoline and fastens it. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know, Miss,’ she says, almost sourly. My heart skips a beat. I shouldn’t have pushed so far.
When I am dressed she tells me to kneel on the bed in front of her. She moves my head gently from side to side, plaiting the hair at the front. She then draws back the plaits and the rest of the hair into a bun.
‘What you need is a comb, Miss,’ she says. ‘They make them from gold and silver and pearls, and even shells.’
‘That sounds lovely, Edith,’ I say, though I can’t imagine owning something so fine.
‘Mrs Kemp has some good’uns. Perhaps she’ll let you borrow one.’
I nod and thank Edith, touching the sides of my head and glancing over to the mirror. The hairstyle makes me look older.
The water in the bowl beneath me has settled and looks like silver. I can see the edges of myself: fine, fair hair; my neck. My face is a blank, and soon I have to look away as I feel the hairs rise on my neck. It felt, for a moment, as though I truly hadn’t been there. I look back up into the actual looking glass and the feeling remains, though lightly, fading out as a nightmare does after you’ve lit a candle.
‘Thank you,’ I say to Edith, and stand up.
Edith serves me breakfast as I sit at the dining table alone, telling me that Ailie likes to eat hers in bed so she can take her time to wake.
There comes a scratch on the front door, and Edith moves toward it with a warning hiss.
‘Sorry, Miss, it’s the neighbour’s cat. Mrs Kemp don’t like it around.’
‘Oh …’ I say, half-standing and then checking myself. I hope to see it around. ‘What kind of cat?’
‘I don’t know types, Miss. Orange, it is.’
I can hear a piano somewhere distant. It makes me think of Sundays, of church. I enjoyed singing the hymns, mainly for the sound of my voice entering the air and mixing with the voices of others, giving praise and thanks. Father has a singing voice much lighter than you’d imagine from his speaking one. I know other songs and poems but mainly without accompaniment. There were some we sang at the schoolhouse, others encountered through friends, passed on. This tune on the piano sounds somewhat like ‘Flowers of the Forest’:
I’ve seen the smiling Of fortune beguiling, I’ve tasted her pleasures, And felt her decay; Sweet is her blessing, And kind her caressing, But now they are fled And fled far away.
Edith quietly enters Ailie’s room not long afterwards, and soon they both emerge. Ailie does indeed have a shimmering comb in her hair, and she exudes the scent of roses. My aunt and I have eyes of a similar shape and colour, deep and blue as a loch, with a broad sweep of lid. My eyebrows are slightly more pointed, hers curved. Her nose and lips I now notice are a little smaller than mine. The cheeks take up much of her face. It does make her look somewhat younger than she must be. Younger than my mother might have looked at her age.
‘Did you sleep well, my dear?’ she asks.
‘Oh, quite well, thank you,’ I say, but there’s a lurch in my chest. I could go back to bed, to bed, to bed. It is still not the squelchy, layered grasses of the moor. But there is carpet, not exposed floor for my small knees. I must stop this heaviness of thought.
‘It was a stimulating tract you read last night, stimulating,’ Ailie says. ‘It rather kept me up thinking.’ I try not to show surprise on my face. She seemed fast asleep when I left her. Perhaps she has a way of listening with one part of her mind while the other closes, giving her rest. She might be like a creature that lives in water, resting while staying afloat.
When we leave the apartment, the neighbour’s ginger tabby is cleaning himself on the stairwell. I bend quickly to put a hand behind the cat’s ears, hoping I will meet him properly later.
‘That cat will have to be careful,’ says Ailie. ‘They’ve found a lot of them shot lately.’
‘That’s terrible,’ I say.
‘It’s the poor wretch children doing it, I suspect.’
Out through the great heavy door the sun has gone behind a cloud and there’s a bracing wind in
the small street, picking up smoke and dust. I cough into my sleeve.
Ailie takes my arm in hers. ‘We’re going to walk down to Princes Street,’ she says. ‘You must never do this without an escort.’
‘Yes, Aunt Ailie.’
On the way, she tells me about the children on the street; about having to be careful, because they’re downtrodden and quick-fingered. ‘Many of us believe they should make education compulsory. Maybe some of the children can still work, I don’t know, but many start out much too young.’ She puffs a little between words, as she walks quickly. ‘And they can never rise out of their situation.’
Ailie’s shoes clop-clop on the stones. I agree instinctively that children shouldn’t work, at least not too young, in dark places with dangerous machinery. Or for very long hours. Mr Dickens has painted a grim view of such things. But I don’t know enough about the subject; I try to listen and then ask, ‘They can’t rise because their wages are low?’
‘Exactly,’ Ailie says, ‘and living expenditure is high. And then they have their own children. It’s a cycle.’
‘I see.’
‘I’m a member of a society for social betterment,’ Ailie says, pushing her chest forward slightly. ‘So are the Johnsons – you’ll meet them tonight.’
I nod.
‘It’s mainly about giving them ways to help themselves. Like you, for example. I can teach you a bit about society. Even without money you may manage well.’
I blush.
‘Luckily blushing is still becoming on you,’ Ailie says, tutting. ‘Yes, you may find a match in Edinburgh. The secret is to find someone who is good with money. He may be a gentleman, but more than likely he’ll be a professional man, and he will have a bit tucked away, with a regular income to follow. Something you can be sure of. It’s so easy to get involved with a man who presents a bold surface but who does not know how to make or hold a cent.’ Her tone makes me think she is talking of someone we know. Is it my father? My father had only been an apprentice in Edinburgh. My mother would have known that, and made a decision. For love, I suppose.
It is easier to grow your own food, I think; to live outside of a city. But you must have the land to start with. It suits my father; the city didn’t. A thought crosses my mind that is terrible, sad and strange. If my grandfather had died sooner, would my father have thought of going back earlier? I shake it from my head.
‘I will accept your guidance, Aunt Ailie.’ Who is to say that her way is not best? But so much of me resists her. I want to ask about friendship and fire. I want to ask about sharing a roof with one person forever. What if your feelings change? Maybe one day Ailie and I will get along well enough that I can ask such questions.
A bell sounds from the top of the door as we open it, bringing with us a cloud of soot and dust. Ailie pushes it closed against the wind, then straightens and tucks her hair. I look down a long row of tables and drawers, with dresses hung also at the walls, which lead up to a high roof crisscrossed with wooden beams. A woman stands behind a large table at the far end and another appears in front of us, smiling brightly. She is young and pretty, with auburn hair.
‘Good morning to ye,’ she says. ‘How can I be of assistance today?’
‘Good morning, Miss,’ says Ailie curtly. Her head is pushed into her neck, on guard. ‘My charge, Miss Duncan, is in need of new dresses. The fashions for young ladies, if you please.’
This lady wears a golden-orange dress to match her hair. I am curious about whether such a dress would suit me.
She takes us down the aisle of soft satiny gloves, eiderdown corsets, wraps and coats. I stand by as she shows a range of dresses to Ailie, who nods or tuts to each without much emotion. Soon there is a small, colourful pile for me to try. The shopgirl takes Ailie and me into a green-curtained room and helps me out of my old dress. Ailie sits in a comfortable, high-backed chair. I see myself for the first time in a full-length mirror. My shoulders are broad; my waist is high. The tops of my legs fan out slightly from my hips. I am milky white.
Each dress sits differently. One feels almost like liquid; another is scratchy and rough. One is blue satin, with embroidered patterns around the skirt and up into the bust. The blue brings out my eyes.
‘That one is a must,’ says Ailie. ‘It may be worn with a black shawl.’
‘I have just the one,’ says the shopgirl, carrying in a heavy velvet garment, which she drapes upon me and ties in the back.
‘And something matching for her hair,’ says Ailie. To which the shopgirl produces a dark blue, opaque comb.
We are all silent. I look like a lady. The exterior hides a trembling rage inside me. Ailie’s demanding, grating tone. My body being nudged and cinched and pulled.
And then I look into my own eyes in the mirror. And I don’t know myself.
I double over, feeling faint, and the shopgirl rushes over, presumably to protect the dress. Ailie stands to help me into the chair. She produces a vial from the folds of her dress and tells me to take a sip. It is brandy, sweet and warm on the tongue. I am shaking, as though I have seen a ghost.
Ailie’s voice comes to me at first from afar, and then closer. ‘We will take this dress.’
I am allowed to sit for a while as Ailie pays for the garments. I avoid looking at the mirror. When it is time to go, I lean into my aunt, weakened by the experience.
The shop assistant tells us that the packages will be delivered promptly. Ailie says nothing, but holds me close. When we are out the door and back into the noisy street, Ailie tuts again and tells me she never likes dealing with young shopgirls, who have a reputation for flaunting themselves. I blush, turning my face to hide it from Ailie. I can imagine how such a reputation might form simply from the fact that attractive young women have to talk to the men who come into the store.
We are supposed to put ourselves on show, but only so much.
In the afternoon, encased in my fine blue dress, I still feel shaken. Ailie is generous in offering me a glass of wine, which I accept. She wants me to enjoy tonight’s company, she tells me. I have no choice. She becomes chatty before her guests arrive, rocking back and forth in her chair. Her nerves make her somewhat childlike. She must wish to make her suppers memorable. Or perhaps she is worried about her guests approving of me. I feel a bit like a specimen on show, like the small flesh-coloured fish I had glimpsed in William’s library cabinet.
The Johnsons are the first to arrive. Mr Johnson is tall and thin as a lath, with sparse black hair and a moustache tinged with grey. Mrs Johnson is imposingly tall for a woman, and equally thin, but fair. She wears a demure grey dress. Ailie tells me Johnson is a law man. They both take wine from Edith.
Mr Stewart is the next to arrive. He greets Ailie in French and kisses her hand. He’s a much shorter man, whiskery and red, with a small stain on his waistcoat. Ailie introduces him as ‘the author’, proudly, as though I must know who he is. He takes a place right by me, standing at the bookshelf, and sips half his glass of wine in one go. I sense his gaze traversing my bodice. I surprise him by turning to him in the act, challenging his eyes to look into mine.
‘What is it that you write, Mr Stewart?’ I ask.
He answers animatedly, in an accent as thick as my own. ‘Adventures, ye might call ’em, Lass, oceans and deserts and mountains. Heroes and pirates. Nothing intellectual.’
‘Though the themes are very current,’ cuts in Ailie. The Johnsons remain silent and stiff. I wonder if they’ve all read the books. ‘He’s published a great deal.’
‘Well, that is quite an achievement,’ I say. ‘It must be a challenge to come up with sae many ideas.’
Stewart waves me off, gulping the rest of his wine.
‘Is Constance coming?’ asks Mr Johnson, with a sharp glance from Mrs.
‘Oh!’ Ailie seems embarrassed. ‘She’s not, I’m afraid.’
‘Not after wha’ happened last time,’ Mr Stewart whispers to me, then giggles to himself. His hot breath smells of meat.
Ailie instructs us to move to the table, which glimmers with polished cutlery. I am told to sit to her left, by the head of the table, as her guest. Edith brings meat to the table, already carved. Dishes of buttered tatties follow. I watch Ailie as we begin to eat, to ensure I am not embarrassing her. I use the fork and knife and take small mouthfuls.
The Johnsons are complaining about a new red-tiled house at Arthur’s Seat.
‘I completely agreed with the letter in the Courant – a frightful excrescence!’ says Mrs Johnson.
‘A garish disfigurement,’ Ailie says, nodding.
Mr Stewart makes smacking noises with his mouth at my right, and at one point drops a potato onto the tablecloth. Everyone pauses, but no remark is made.
The conversation moves to reports in the papers of several frightening robberies where a gentleman has been garrotted from behind. Last week a Mr Smith was found by the side of the road, almost choked to death, with his gold watch and chain missing.
‘I have resorted to this contraption,’ says Mr Johnson, pulling up his collar to reveal a curved sheet of metal.
‘Is it not heavy?’ Ailie asks.
‘It is a burden,’ says Mr Johnson, and we all implore him to remove it in present company. There are no garrotters here. He excuses himself from the table to do so. He is so tall that I cannot imagine a criminal taking a chance on him. It would be simpler to go for shorter victims. Unless the criminals are also of exceptional height: stalking the streets like shadows. It is a city of shadows, and they come inside, into bedrooms and shops, and they lurk behind mirrors.
‘Leonora, are you not hungry?’ Ailie asks me, cutting through the thick in my head.
‘I’m a little slow at eating sometimes,’ I say, trying to keep my voice warm, picking my knife and fork back up.
‘Unlike Mr Stewart,’ says Mr Johnson with a wink. Mr Stewart answers with a slurp, and Ailie tuts. I stifle a laugh. Sometimes I crave that kind of break from properness, from restraint. It’s one reason I find Hamlet so compelling. When Polonius asks Hamlet what he is reading and he answers – with such nonsense and such sense – ‘Words, words, words’, laughter tickles my throat.
