Gillespie and I (23 page)

Mabel turned up at half past nine, scurrying into the apartment, very pink in the face, which I attributed, at first, to the cold. However, moments later, when the doorbell rang, Jessie ran down and returned with Walter Peden, which made me suspect that, perhaps, Mabel's high colour was due to something else, and that she and Walter had been together until their arrival, but had chosen to make separate entrances. Apparently, matters had progressed in Cockburnspath but, according to Annie, Elspeth had yet to be told of her daughter's romance.

A handful of guests arrived before midnight. Apart from a few stolid-looking types from the Art School (no doubt the real bohemians would make a late entrance), most of the early guests had been invited by Ned's mother. There was a group of Jewish gentlemen, who looked bewildered upon arrival, but became very animated when they spied Ned's chessboard and, ere long, they had set up a miniature tournament at the dining-room table. The Reverend Johnson, Elspeth's American pastor, strayed from her side only to fetch her refreshments. Elspeth was never so ebullient as she was in Johnson's company, and the two of them cackled loud and long, at the slightest excuse, until the racket bounced off the walls and ceiling, and one's ears positively rang, and people were driven from the room.

It was just as well that the remaining guests were not due to arrive until after the bells, since Ned and Annie disappeared behind the door of their room to change their clothes and did not re-emerge for an hour, leaving the rest of us to look after the children and organise the refreshments. Nobody seemed to be taking responsibility for this party, but I suppose that, by that stage, I should not have been surprised: such was the ever-relaxed Gillespie modus operandi. I helped Jessie to set out the buffet, while Mabel read to the children from the books that I had given them for Christmas, (
The Fairy Shop
for Rose, and, for Sibyl,
Struwwelpeter
), and Peden, very graciously, surrendered himself to conversation with Elspeth and the Reverend, on the condition that we keep him supplied with punch.

At long last, Ned reappeared, looking very smart—not in evening clothes, which he abhorred—but in his favourite old dark tweed jacket, and a low-collared shirt. He set about making ‘het pint' for consumption by those who, like himself, could not abide wine. Annie eventually emerged, having changed into an eau-de-Nil dress. Pinned at her throat was her Christmas gift from her husband: a silver bar-brooch, with a heart-shaped pendant, set with a small baroque pearl, green pastes and tourmalines. (At the time, I wondered how Ned had been able to afford all these relatively costly gifts, but some time later, while tallying the accounts, I saw that Professor Urquart had paid his wife's fee, in advance). Mabel also looked very elegant that evening, in a charcoal frock, with leg-of-mutton sleeves and cinched waist. She had lost weight, perhaps, in part, because of her nascent romance with Peden, but also because she had taken up cigarettes, another matter that we were obliged to keep secret. Personally, I suspect that she could have smoked an entire box of Turkish Trophies in her mother's face, one after the other, and Elspeth would not have noticed. None the less, this was fifty years ago, you must remember, and few ladies dared to smoke in public. Moreover, Mabel was rather daunted by her mother, and desperate for her approval, and so she always made sure to cover the smell of her cigarettes with cologne and peppermints.

As a special treat, the children were permitted to stay up later than usual. Sibyl gave a piano recital, during which she played some of the mawkish hymns and Spirituals with which I had become all too familiar. I believe that this was a bid to regain favour with her granny, and although the widow applauded along with the rest of us, she was less ebullient and fulsome in her praise than she once might have been, and I could see that Sibyl was disappointed. Thereafter, Elspeth attached herself to a chair by the buffet, in the dining room, where she maintained an incessant prattle whilst grabbing at any choice morsels within reach.

At some point between eleven o'clock and midnight, during that stultifying final gasp of the Old Year (a single hour which always seems, inexplicably, to last the course of ages), the girls were finally sent to bed. Initially, Sibyl moaned at having to quit the party and then, I remember, at the time, finding it strange that, when Annie reminded her to behave herself, the child ran upstairs, giggling, in an odd, secretive fashion. Ned followed her, intending to read to the girls from their new books.

Thereafter, excusing myself from the dining room, I headed for the empty parlour, where I sank down on the sofa, grateful for a few minutes alone. I wondered whether to make my excuses and go home, but I had hoped to steal a moment with Ned before I left. There would be no chance of
that
in the dining room, but at least, from the parlour sofa, I might be able to hail him as he returned downstairs. Almost immediately, rather to my dismay, Walter Peden came bouncing in to join me. Over the preceding few months, I had warmed to Walter, somewhat. He was a terrible prig (rather like Mabel, in fact) but beneath his awkward manner, he meant no harm. To my surprise and delight, he confided in me: earlier that evening, he had proposed to Mabel, and she had accepted him. He intended to announce the engagement, later, after the bells.

‘Most heartfelt congratulations,' I told him. ‘I'm so happy for you both.'

‘Thank you, Hetty. Mabel has already planned the seating arrangement for the wedding breakfast—you, of course, are at the top table. She wants to invite half of Glasgow. Her only worry is that there'll be room for us all in the dining room at number 14.' He drained his glass, and then surged to his feet, pasty-faced, his forehead beaded with sweat. ‘You've been most kind, Harriet, most kind.'

He seemed to have got it into his head that I was responsible for bringing him and Mabel together: quite frankly, an over-exaggeration. All that I had done was to arrange to meet them both on an ‘open day' at the Botanic Gardens and then, through no fault of my own, was unable to make the appointment, which had the effect of throwing them together, alone, in the moist and fecund atmosphere of the Kibble Palace.

‘Allow me to fetch you a drink,' said Walter. ‘This punch is rather good.'

I myself had found it too bitter, and had drunk only one glass.

‘No, thank you,' I told him. ‘I've had ample sufficiency. Perhaps later.'

He bobbed around, unsteadily, in a drunken version of his habitual dance, and then took a swerving path out of the room and across the hall. I was just wondering whether to follow him, when Ned ran downstairs and strode directly into the room. He stopped short, a little startled, when he saw me.

‘Excuse me, Harriet, I thought everyone was next door.'

‘Oh, don't mind me—I just wanted to sit quietly, for a moment.'

‘As a matter of fact, I've lost my…' He glanced around, patting his pockets in that vague, endearing way of his. Noticing his tobacco on the mantel, I got up and handed it to him and then, while I resumed my seat, Ned stood by the hearth, his fingers fumbling inside the soft leather pouch, shredding the tobacco before stuffing it into the bowl of his pipe.

‘Are you enjoying yourself, Harriet?' he said, after a moment.

Just as I was about to reply, I sensed a movement over by the door and glanced up. There was Rose, standing in her nightdress, pale-faced, and staring at us, like a little ghost. She raised her arms and reached out to Ned.

‘Papa!'

‘Oh Rose,' he sighed, wearily. ‘Go to sleep, there's a dear.'

‘Allow me,' I said, getting to my feet.

‘Are you sure, Harriet?'

Waving aside his objections, I took Rose by the hand, then picked up a candlestick and led her back upstairs. Her little room was in darkness, but the glowing candle made the condensation on the skylight window glitter like molten gold. Outside, all was unnaturally dark, as though a blanket had been thrown across the roof—a blanket of fog. I tucked the child into her bed and stepped out of the room. Strangely, the simple effort of climbing the stairs had left me breathless and perspiring, so I paused, for a moment, on the narrow landing. From the river, came the mournful sound of a foghorn, answered, moments later, by another. Sibyl's door lay open. I lifted my candle and peered into the gloom: as far as I could tell, she was fast asleep; at any rate, she lay, mute as a chrysalis, beneath her quilted cover.

Upon my return to the parlour, I was pleased to see that Ned was still there: he was seated on the sofa, smoking his pipe. I told him that Rose had settled.

‘How did we ever manage without you?' he said. ‘We should get shot of Jessie, have you in residence, upstairs. Not that I'm saying you should be our maid—'

I laughed, retrieving his comforter from behind the cushion where he had stuffed it, earlier, and passing it to him. He turned it over in his hands.

‘You chose this well,' he said. ‘I'll certainly need it, if this weather keeps up. That loft is like an icebox.'

Since it was directly beneath the roof, the studio was often too hot in summer, and Ned tended to work in shirtsleeves, but in winter, the temperature plummeted, and he was obliged to add layer upon layer: waistcoat, corduroy jacket, beret, fingerless mittens and, for particularly cold days, he had created a bizarre poncho, by cutting a hole in the middle of an old blanket.

‘You could have a better studio if you found yourselves a bigger house,' I told him. ‘You could probably afford it, more or less, if you took in a lodger.'

He nodded. ‘As a matter of fact, I'm quite taken with Co'path, as a place. If it wasn't for all these blasted portraits, here in Glasgow … never thought I'd hear myself say it, but I felt inspired out there. Although, we can't go back yet, because—' He stopped short, as though he had been about to blurt something out.

‘What?'

‘Ach—it's good news, it's just—I haven't told Annie yet.'

‘Oh well—in that case, I shan't pry.'

‘I'm telling her tonight, anyway. Just keep it to yourself, for the minute, but—well—I've been offered a solo show, in Hamilton's gallery, in April.'

‘In Bath Street? That's marvellous. Annie will be pleased.'

‘Possibly not,' he sighed. ‘It means I should really get this last portrait done and then work on whatever I'm going to put into the show, and—well—I think Annie had her heart set on us all going back to Co'path, as soon as we could, but—'

His face fell. He looked so gloomy that I had to laugh.

‘Oh, Ned—you look exactly like the first time we met. You were scowling then, just like you are now.'

‘Was I? Oh aye—because of Hamilton—or Lavery.'

‘No—the very first time we met.'

He gazed at me blankly, and then his face cleared, and he nodded.

‘Oh, aye. I always forget about that.'

‘That dreadful curator.'

Ned laughed. ‘Aye, that's right.'

‘And you lost your collar-stud, remember, and we looked for it together?'

‘Did I?'

While we had been talking, I was dimly aware of some sort of commotion in the hall: the slam of a door; and then footsteps, hurrying to and fro; an urgent tapping; and, several times, the flush of the convenience. Now I heard Annie call out: ‘Walter? Walter?' A moment later, she came dashing into the parlour. We glanced up as she appeared, her face stricken and unhealthily pale.

‘Dear, there seems to be something the matter with Walter.'

Ned sprang to his feet. ‘What is it?'

‘He's not well,' said Annie, gulping. ‘He's locked himself in—and I need to get in there because—I'm—I…' She doubled over, retching, her hands clasped to her mouth, as Elspeth, summoned by the commotion, appeared behind her.

‘What's heppened?' cried Elspeth. ‘Annie? What's the matter?'

Annie spun around. ‘I'm fine,' she said, but scarcely had she spoken, when a stream of purple and greenish vomit, the thickness of gruel, shot, glistening, from her mouth, and spattered in hot jets across the Turkey carpet, and down the front of Elspeth's best frock. Ned rushed to Annie's side, and I was about to dash to the kitchen and fetch a cloth when I realised that I, too, was about to be horribly ill. Barging past Elspeth, I arrived at the WC, just as Walter emerged, wiping his lips with a handkerchief, and I darted past him, and slammed the door—and there, I shall discreetly draw a veil.

Subsequently, there could be no question of us continuing with our Hogmanay celebration. By the time that I had emerged, weak-kneed, but no longer nauseous, Reverend Johnson and the Jewish gentlemen had politely excused themselves, and Annie was lying down in her bedroom, tended by Mabel and Jessie, who were bustling back and forth with bowls and damp cloths. Alas the day, no amount of sponging had been able to save Elspeth's frock, and she had been obliged to leave. Peden was escorted home by the Art School crowd, while Ned had gone in search of a medical man willing to come out on such a night. As for myself, I could have stayed on at number 11 to be examined—and was invited to do so—but, in truth, although I no longer felt unwell, I was exhausted and chilled to the bone. What I needed most of all was rest. Mabel kindly accompanied me, through the fog, to Queen's Crescent, where I reassured her that I was on the mend, and then we said goodnight. She went back to number 11, in order to turn away any further guests, and I crept upstairs to bed, and slipped, thankfully, into unconsciousness, serenaded by a mournful lullaby of midnight bells and distant foghorns.

9

By a stroke of great good fortune, none of us was seriously afflicted that night: the ill effects lasted only a few hours, even in Peden, who had suffered the most. The doctor who examined him initially suspected that simple over-tippling might have been his problem, but amended this diagnosis later, when he saw that Annie exhibited identical symptoms. Concluding that some kind of ‘bad food' was the most likely cause, he prescribed calomel and soda powders for both patients. Annie was mortified at the notion that her
cuisine
might have been responsible. However, Peden insisted that there must be some other explanation, for the simple reason that he had not eaten any of the buffet; not one morsel had passed his lips (he claimed)—not even a rissole—since he and Mabel had dined, earlier that evening, at the home of some friends.