by Peg Kingman
When Hector did come home a short time later, he was not alone. Mr Hay was with him, and so was Mr Fleming, who was part-owner of the trading firm Crawford & Fleming, which had invested in Hector’s new marine steam engine design. There was also another man whom Catherine did not know, a gentleman whose seamed brown face and upright bearing would have marked him anywhere as a sea captain—as indeed he proved to be. “May I present Captain Mainwaring,” said Hector. “My sister, Mrs MacDonald. Captain Mainwaring commands the ship Increase, my passage to Calcutta, you know. He has got my two engines stowed in the hold in the neatest manner possible, and I have seen my cabin as well. Nothing could be more commodious, and every need provided for.”
Talking all at once, they noisily made their way upstairs to Mary’s drawing room. Mary gave them fresh tea, and had the maid bring up cardamom-scented shortbread from the kitchen. Hector was in a fine flow of spirits, and Captain Mainwaring’s conversation proved lively and agreeable. Mr Hay was jovial; Mr Fleming seemed courteous but reserved. To judge by his high forehead and his receding black hair, Catherine guessed him to be a few years older than Hector. But his green eyes under thick black brows were lively, and his mouth was mobile and expressive. When Mr Fleming had the grace to laugh at a moderately clever remark of Catherine’s, which no one else understood, she concluded that Hector was justified in liking and respecting him.
But all the while Catherine was aching for them to leave, so she could tell Hector about the appalling Americans who meant to have Grace.
“WHAT IS A PICKANINNY?” demanded Grace as Catherine slipped into bed beside her in their darkened room.
“Still awake? A little black slave child,” said Catherine.
“She said I should have one of my very own.”
“Aye.”
After a while Grace said, “That is an evil woman. I will never go with her, you may be sure. Never.”
“Of course not,” said Catherine. “I should never let you go.” But she had consulted her brother at last, after the people had gone; and Hector thought they had better get legal advice.
“Well,” said Grace, “will I give us a tale?”
“Do, pray,” replied Catherine, as she always did. And Grace, collapsing back down under the covers, launched into her story in Gaelic, her earliest language. Most of Grace’s stories featured the ancient heroes, maidens, and musical turns of speech that would have been familiar to old nursemaids. But other people and events also figured in Grace’s stories; she freely made warp and weft of the people and places she encountered from one day to the next. Tonight’s story seemed to be based loosely upon the tale of Dar-Thula.
Catherine had begun to share a bed with her orphaned stepdaughter in the first weeks of their bereavement. At first, Catherine had told stories to Grace, but Grace soon took over. Catherine had welcomed the sound of the light young voice rambling on through the darkness in the soft lovely language they both knew from the cradle. It was like being carried off to sleep by a faraway lullaby.
Tonight, Catherine could hear faint music welling up from a lower floor of the house. Hector was playing his violin in his study, as he often did at night. He tuned, carefully, played a favorite little phrase from Corelli, then tuned again. There followed an unknown Italian tune; he did a bit of scrupulous work on a difficult passage, repeating it slowly several times, then played the passage a tempo again, perfectly, and continued to the end of the piece.
The tone of Grace’s voice had changed; she was speaking now of a wicked old cailleach who walled up little children in dark caves to starve them. The cailleach’s name was Clach nan Iain, which, in English, Catherine realised with some amusement, would be Johnstone.
Downstairs, Hector played an old MacDonald air, slowly, with feeling. He always understood the emotion in a piece of music, and his skill was sufficient to express it. Catherine was drifting close to the edge of sleep when she heard the fiddle’s small voice begin a familiar tune, followed by a variation in traditional piper style. Although the fiddle’s pure timbre and single voice could sketch only an outline—it had neither the power nor the background of drones which distinguished pipe music—it was still an interesting tune, and much more interesting now that she did not think of it as just “Sandy’s Tune.”
3
worthy of Attention, as will afterwards appear
“One shilling,” said the woman seated at her high desk, seated so firmly and broadly that she overflowed her stool.
The tall, neatly dressed, shining black girl standing before her silently handed over the coin, which she had borrowed from the barmaid at her inn. The employment broker deftly stowed it out of sight. “Now,” she said, “what sort of place? Laundress? Scullery? Dairy or poultry yard? Rough sewing? What sort of work can you do?”
The girl drew herself up to her quite considerable height. “Ladies’ maid,” she said proudly. “I wait on ladies. I dress them and take care of their clothes. I dress their hair, too. Fancy sewing, not rough. I do the fine mending and starching, the bleaching and the ironing, and I press their pleats and frills all nice and neat.”
“And have you a good character from your last mistress?” asked the proprietress.
“I…No, ma’am. I did not ask her for a character.”
“Mmm?” But this faint encouragement did not elicit any explanation. “Without a character, most ladies will be loathe to take any chances on you.” She tapped a fingernail pensively on her desktop. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen, ma’am.”
“H’m. I daresay you’ll go anywhere? Not particular about town or country?”
“No, ma’am, not particular. I always live in the country before.”
“And you’re not in trouble, I suppose?” The broker pointed an inquiring eyebrow toward the girl’s flat belly.
“Oh, no, ma’am!”
“Mmm. Well, you may sit down. It is possible that one of my ladies may take you upon trial, even without a character.” With that the broker turned to the next applicant, and the tall black girl looked about for a place to sit. Backless benches were ranged about the walls of the low, dark room, and there was an air of obsolete gloom. The employment brokerage occupied part of the ground floor in one of the old town’s old houses, in one of its dark, noisome medieval wynds in the shadow of High Street. Everyone in the room was looking at her. There were dark-shadowed eyes in lean sallow faces, pale bulging eyes in broad freckled faces, red-rimmed rheumy eyes. All were blank, flat, and unreadable, and all were trained on her. The black girl found a place where she could lean on the wall and think.
Every time the door opened, an icy northern draft blew over her, and the door opened often. Couriers came and went, bearing messages. A steady stream of women and a few men sought places of all kinds. Four ladies came to interview candidates; they were seeking a plain cook; a nursemaid; a footman; a girl of all work. Interviews took place in an adjoining room, and two of the ladies, finding themselves suited, engaged their new servants on the spot. Among the candidates on the benches ran a quiet but constant murmur of talk. As time passed, they began to rustle through the parcels they had brought, and furtively ate sausages, onions, bread, cheese, smoked fish. The black girl realised that the dark-haired woman next to her was holding out food, offering to share. It smelled delicious, richly spiced; and she accepted a share of it thankfully. “What sort of place are you seeking, miss?” asked the stranger politely. She had an odd singsong accent, difficult to understand, so the black girl explained carefully and clearly.
“I also am a ladies’ maid,” said the stranger. “We call it ‘ayah.’ I am seeking a place with a family sailing to India.”
“India! Is that a warm place?”
“Ah! Butter melts! So warm, not like here. I have never been so cold, so dreadfully cold in my life as here,” said the stranger.
“Yes, my toes, they been frozen ever since I set foot here. Is it very far away, India?”
“Very far. The voyage to come
here took eight months, eight so-long months! Many storms. And my poor lady and her baby both died during this so-long voyage, so I am arriving in this strange, cold land with no place, no lady to serve, and just a very little money, very little. The ship captain, he is a kind man. It was he who told me to come to this office and seek a place with a family who will go to India, very soon I hope, so I shall be having my passage home again.”
“Lots of folks leaves Scotland and goes to India?”
“Oh, yes, very many, even ladies. I shall be finding soon a place, no doubt.”
“So you come and sit here every day?”
“Oh, yes, why not? I have paid my shilling, and so I have paid the right to come here every day.”
“And I can come here again, even if I have to go away now?”
“Oh, yes, certainly. You can be coming here often as you please. The woman, she will remember you.” Thus reassured, the black girl left, to hasten back to the inn where she was staying, for very little of her time was at her own disposal.
IF EVER SCOTTISH law were brought to bear upon the matter, there was some risk that Grace might be compelled to go to America in the custody of her only living relatives: such was Mr Clerk’s opinion. But any legal proceedings, he pointed out, would be exceedingly protracted and expensive, for the matter had its ambiguities. And under the circumstances, as they had been explained to him, a distinctly more plausible plan suggested itself. If Mrs MacDonald was adamantly resolved not to be parted from her red-haired stepchild, they must simply make themselves scarce until the brief period of time Miss Johnstone had apparently allotted for the task of collecting the child should expire.
“In short,” said Hector, who was reporting this advice to his sister, “you need only take to the heather. But Catherine, my dear,” he continued, preparing himself for what he knew would be the difficult part of the argument, “Mr Clerk also expressed a view which has some weight with me, and which I am not sure you have duly considered.”
“I know what you are going to say. Pray spare yourself, and me.”
“Nay, but Catherine, I must. These people, her people, can give Grace every opportunity, the best prospects in life. Will you so hastily renounce on her behalf all that she has a right to claim, all her birthright? And this renunciation is based simply on your dislike of this woman, this appalling woman who is after all only a messenger? It is a most consequential decision, not to be made without sober and disinterested consideration. And then, you know, they are her people, her only people, and we are not. Catriona, my dear, by what right can you presume to separate her from her only living kinfolk?”
Catherine would not meet his eyes; she frowned instead at the canvaswork on her lap, fiercely punching her needle through it, stitch after stitch.
But Hector went on to ruin the effect of his argument by saying, “And there is no need for you to make such a sacrifice of yourself. You are young still, and by the grace of providence may have a long and happy life ahead of you. Here is an opportunity to be honourably quit of a responsibility which is not even rightfully yours.”
“Honourably quit! She is rightfully mine, Hector! I am the only mother she can remember, and she is the only daughter I am likely ever to have.”
“Of course if some promise has been made, a last promise to her father—”
“Oh, Hector, don’t be officious. I am not bound by promises but by conscience. And by feeling. No wonder you don’t understand.”
“Oh, conscience,” retorted Hector, “and feeling. Well, of course I have no business with those, have I? Pistons and gears are more in my line? You have Mr Clerk’s advice, and my own. No doubt you will do as you please. When did you ever do otherwise?”
Not fair, not fair. When had she ever been able to do as she pleased? Always there had been duties and responsibilities. The foremost duty, when attempting to discern a proper course, was to set aside one’s own desires and inclinations—to set their magnetism well aside where they could not influence the compass—while yet steering clear of the fallacy of supposing that the most unpleasant and difficult route was necessarily the right one.
And then it so often appeared that all courses had their pains and difficulties, that Scyllas and Charybdises lay on every hand.
True, her own heart faltered at the thought of parting with Grace. Could this be selfishness? Yet how could there be virtue in sending her to live in the bosom of that Grantsboro family in America? Catherine’s spirit curdled at the thought.
But supposing the Grants had been superior, good, kind people who would love and foster Grace. And supposing Grace knew and loved them, and dearly wished to go to them. Supposing all that, what, then, would lie before Catherine in her own life now? She was twenty-two years old, with money enough to live a quiet, independent life: a moderate sufficiency. But sufficient to enjoy what? If there were no child passenger in her barque, what course would she steer? This question had been lying before her for some time. She had averted her notice of it for the past year while becoming accustomed to widowhood; yet there it remained. Was it possible that she clung to Grace to avoid her decision?
Coming to the end of her thread, she secured it, then spread her needlework on the floor at her feet. Usually she saw only the few square inches she was working on: a flower, a leaf, a bird, a scroll, a swirl. The larger design was generally indiscernible in the two and a half yards of coarsely woven canvas bundled across her lap or draping awkwardly onto the floor. With it spread out, she could see the whole.
The future sofa cover was far from finished. The camel-back sofa shape was already old-fashioned, and the sofa for which the cover had originally been designed stood she knew not where. She had found this piece of work already begun by some other hand, a couple of years ago in her husband’s house. Who had begun it? Who had designed it? Who had painstakingly stitched the young, handsome man, the pretty woman within the cartouche at the center? The woman was seated on a grayish-brown lump—surely a mossy rock—and playing a lute. The man had a spaniel at his heel. The faces and figures were well done, the tiny parallel diagonal stitches all neatly laid up against one another, completely covering the coarse weave of the canvas backing. Then there were trees, flowering bushes, rabbits, birds, a brook with fish in it. Some of the patterns were already stitched; some were only faintly sketched on the canvas. A great deal of it was entirely blank, not yet designed at all.
Upon first coming across it, in the attic, she had wondered whether James’s first wife—Grace’s mother—had begun it. Feeling daring, she had brought it down and resumed work on it. Such a difficult blend of tactful delicacy and brusque practicality was required of second wives! James had said nothing about it; but when did men ever notice women’s needlework? Of course it might have been his mother’s work; or perhaps some unknown aunt or cousin had started it. But Catherine decided eventually that it was certainly her own work now.
Writing the letter to Miss Johnstone proved difficult. Catherine tore up her first attempt, and thought about asking Mr Clerk to do the job instead. But she tried again, and eventually succeeded:
East Thistle Street, No. 12, Edinb.
August 16, Friday, ’22
Madam,
I am very sorry you should have had the trouble and expense of a voyage from America, for I find upon due consideration, and consultation with my advisor upon the points of law, that it will be impossible to send my stepdaughter away to America with you. Enclosed you will find Judge Grant’s bill upon his Glasgow agents, which is to be returned to him with my thanks for his unlooked-for liberality. It is not in my power however to accept any compensation for my own stepdaughter’s maintenance and expenses, as my late husband, her father, in solemnly entrusting her to me, has left means sufficient to provide for her. Neither she nor I has any past, present or future claim upon Judge Grant’s benevolence.
With best wishes for your
favourable return passage,
Believe me to be,
Your oblige
d servant,
Catherine MacDonald
She sent it off before evening to the inn whose address Miss Johnstone had left, and then told Mary what she had done. “If the woman has any sense,” said Catherine, “she will not send for Grace tomorrow. But I believe she may be…well, not to say pigheaded. Let us say, of tenacious character; so it is possible that there may be an unpleasant scene. All the servants must know that I am not at home to her or to her servants, nor is Grace.”
“Oh, I daresay she will not send for Grace at all, having received your letter,” said Mary. “It is hard to imagine that she would try to insist. But I will do as you wish; I will see that all the people of the household are warned and prepared.”
SATURDAY WAS THE DAY of the King’s Levee, to be held at Holyrood House Palace. By eleven o’clock in the morning, every one of the streets leading to the palace was choked by queues of carriages; virtually every carriage in Scotland was at a standstill, facing east toward Holyrood. In each carriage was a gentleman, or perhaps two or three of them, each as splendidly got up as he could possibly manage, in court dress, military uniform, or Highland dress, depending on what he considered himself entitled to.
The streets and pavements were crowded with people on foot, too—not grandees come out to go to the Levee, but the less grand, come out to have a good look at the grandees. What a pleasant thing to walk about and peer into their carrages at them, and talk about their faces and their clothes! Agreeable to have a bite to eat as one walked about, and something to drink; agreeable to meet one’s friends and go about with them awhile, then meet up with another group of friends and saunter about some more.
A tall black girl made her way among carriages across the broad, crowded High Street and down South Bridge, then down into the damp foul wynd and into the front room of the employment agency. The woman behind the high desk did remember her but said there had been no inquiries for ladies’ maids today.
