Gillespie and I (25 page)

Upon hearing this, Annie lost her temper with her mother-in-law, for the very first time. Having called her an ‘old bag of wind', she demanded that Ned's mother leave the apartment. Elspeth did so, in high dudgeon and, since then, the two women had not spoken. In the immediate aftermath of this disagreement, Ned counselled his wife to forgive and forget. This, however, Annie found herself unable to do, and the fact that her husband refused to take her side, or even reprimand his mother, caused her great sorrow.

To my mind, Mabel's notion of bringing in a physician was eminently more sensible. I believe that Annie did suggest this idea to her husband, albeit tentatively, but Ned would not hear of it. In the first place (he told her), there was no real evidence that Sibyl had done any harm at Hogmanay. In the second place, he believed that, no matter what ailed their daughter (and he did admit that she was, at times, difficult), they should deal with the problem themselves—and that was an end to it, as far as he was concerned.

Perhaps, in an effort to prove something to Ned, Annie became determined to make the child better with no help from anyone else. To this end, she threw herself, whole-heartedly, into motherhood. She stopped attending art classes, and her easel was left to collect dust in the corner of the parlour, for she was too preoccupied with her daughter to spend any time on painting. Unfortunately, ever since Hogmanay, Sibyl had developed a nervous, hacking cough, which showed no sign of abating. We also suspected that she was pulling out her own hair in the night, for clumps of it kept appearing on her pillow. Indeed, her locks had grown very thin and, in places, one could see livid white glimpses of her scalp. Poor Annie spent hours on end rubbing castor oil into the child's head in an attempt to get rid of these bald patches.

By the end of January, the general atmosphere in the family was so unpleasant that Mabel and Walter Peden—having originally planned to hold a large and festive wedding breakfast at number 14—married in secret, with no guests and only two strangers as witnesses. Not even Elspeth had been forewarned, or invited to the ceremony, and afterwards, when the couple made public what they had done, the blow was compounded by the announcement that they intended to go and live, for a year or so, in Tangier, where Peden had previously spent some fruitful months, painting camels and the like; indeed, their passages were already booked, for a few weeks hence.

Ned's mother took these revelations badly: to be excluded from her own daughter's wedding was something that she found hard to forgive. Relations between her and Mabel had always been strained, but now the widow's feelings were hurt. Her maid, Jean, claimed that the mistress had begun to sleepwalk. Apparently, she wandered the apartment in the middle of the night, lifting things up, only to set them down again, sighing, and once or twice, Jean had awoken with a jolt, to find Elspeth standing in her bedroom doorway, staring fixedly, and yet still deep in sleep.

As the day of the honeymooners' departure approached, there was much discussion about who should accompany them to the railway station, as they set off on the first leg of their trip to Africa. With Annie and Elspeth avoiding each other, there was no possibility that they would both be in attendance. In the end, it was Elspeth who accompanied Ned and the children to the station. Annie and I had said our farewells to the couple on the previous day, and so I kept her company at Stanley Street, that morning, while the others were out. This was the first time that we had been alone in a while, and she took the opportunity to disburden herself. To begin with, she told me how upset she was with Elspeth.

‘I don't want her in the house,' she said. ‘I'm scared she might drag Sibyl off and submit her to—to—goodness knows what. Can you imagine, Harriet? An exorcism? And Ned hasn't even had strong words with her about it.'

Alas, it seemed that her husband's failure to support her had cut deep. She felt increasingly estranged from him. With the departure of Mabel and Walter, Ned was taking over Peden's evening classes for ladies, at the Art School, and, although the extra money was only to be welcomed, her husband would be busier than ever. ‘We hardly spend any time together any more. At least before, we had the evenings. But now, with these classes, he'll be out two more nights a week.'

Moreover, Peden had funded the emigration to Tangier by renting out both his house in Glasgow, and the cottage at Co'path. Of course, Annie was pleased that Mabel and he were to have an adventurous new life together, but it meant that her hopes of staying at his cottage over the summer had come to nothing.

‘We can't really afford to rent anywhere,' she confided. ‘You've seen the books. Walter's cottage would have been perfect, because he'd only have charged us a nominal rent, if anything. I was looking forward to it—there seemed to be more time in the day at Co'path. We were so happy there. And Sibyl—she seemed so much better, out in the countryside.' She bit her lip, darting a fretful glance at me. ‘Harriet, I haven't told you this before, but…' Here, she hesitated, and gave me a strange, almost fearful look, before continuing. ‘Do you know what she's been doing lately? Just this past few weeks—it's happened two or three times now.'

Unfortunately, there is no polite way of stating what she told me next. It seemed that Sybil had taken to smearing her faeces across the wall of the WC. I hardly knew what to say. I put my arm around Annie, to comfort her.

‘Let's try and look on the bright side, dear. It's not all bad.' I racked my brains for some cheerful slant to this new development. ‘Perhaps painting on the wall with—with—things other than paint—is evidence of emergent, artistic talent. Perhaps Sibyl will become a great artist, like her father.'

To my gratification, Annie gave a little laugh.

‘She'll be fine,' I told her. ‘Just you wait and see. Once Ned's show is over, everything will settle down, and all will be well.'

By mid-February, Mrs Urquart—the last of Ned's portraits—was complete, and ‘The Duchess' pronounced herself well contented with the result. Now, the artist was determined to spend every daylight hour, toiling and moiling, in his studio and—with single-minded intensity—he began to prepare for his solo show at Hamilton's gallery. His aim was to include recent pictures, not just his views of the Exhibition from the summer, or the portraits that he had been working on of late: he was keen to make a statement, with some new, exciting canvases that he hoped to develop from his sketches of Co'path.

I myself was fortunate enough to be the first person to see one of these new canvases on the very day of its completion. It so happened that I arrived at number 11, one afternoon in early March, only to find that Annie had gone down to the quays with her daughters, because Sibyl had voiced a desire to look at the boats. There was a time, only a few months previously, when Annie might have called upon me at Queen's Crescent and asked me to accompany them on such an excursion. However, it had not escaped my attention that, in her quest to be self-sufficient in looking after the girls, Ned's wife had become less companionable. This was not the first time that I had arrived to find her not at home. Indeed, once or twice, she had—albeit politely, with profuse apologies—turned me away from the front door, saying that she and Sibyl were having some ‘quiet time' together (since part of her strategy with the child was to pay her more attention). Of course, as far as I was concerned, anything that made Sibyl a happier and less destructive little girl was to be supported and encouraged.

At any rate, having decided to leave a note for Annie, I accompanied the maid upstairs to the apartment. Jessie went straight back to work, leaving me in the hall, and I had just written the words ‘Dear Annie' on a scrap of paper, when I heard Ned's footsteps on the attic staircase, and turned to greet him. We spoke for a few moments, and I could not help but notice that, while we chatted, he kept rubbing at his face with his hands. His general demeanour was so bewildered and distracted that, eventually, I had to ask him if he felt quite well.

‘Aye,' said he, with a laugh. ‘I'm fine, Harriet. I just—I think I might have finished this thing I've been working on, that's all. I suppose I can't quite believe it.'

‘Really?' I said. ‘How wonderful—may I see it?'

He hesitated. Presumably, under normal circumstances, Annie would have been the first to view any new painting, but perhaps this was not a binding agreement, for, after a moment, he said: ‘Och—why not?'

Upstairs, in the studio, the canvas that he showed me took me by surprise, perhaps because I was accustomed to his pictures of the urban landscape, the Exhibition, city streets, and the like. This, by contrast, was very different: a patch of woodland, with two girls (clearly Sibyl and Rose) scampering between the trees, one some distance behind the other, with the smallest girl glancing over her shoulder, as though there might be something, or someone, in pursuit. No sky was visible, nor any horizon, only the trees and creeping shrubs of a dense wood. The effect was intense and claustrophobic. Ned told me that, whilst at Co'path, he had done some sketches of woods, but the fleeing figures of the children had come from his imagination. He was surprised at how much he had enjoyed painting such a rural scene.

‘Well, it is very unusual,' I told him. Indeed, I found it a little eerie, which made me think that it must be a very powerful piece of work.

Ned was gazing at the picture, with a faraway expression in his eyes.

‘I'd like to do more like this,' he said.

‘You mean—of Sibyl and Rose?'

‘No, the landscape.'

‘Will you go back to Co'path, d'you think?'

He nodded. ‘I hope so. Perhaps for a while, a few months, even more. Do some real painting—not just sketches. Get out into the landscape.'

‘Well, yes,' I said. ‘That would be an interesting development. Particularly if you're inspired to create pictures such as this.'

‘Do you think so?' He turned to me, in earnest. Behind his eyes, I could see a degree of uncertainty. Clearly, my opinion—my approval of his decisions—was important to him.

‘Oh yes,' I said. ‘There's nothing “tweet” about it, nothing sentimental. It's—bleak and bold. You should definitely do more in the same vein.'

He smiled, apparently reassured. ‘Well, you've not given me a bad piece of advice yet.' Then he rubbed his hands together, and glanced at his watch. ‘Harriet, if you don't mind, I ought to press on. There's so little daylight, I need to make the most of it… I'm so sorry…'

‘No need to apologise. I'll just finish my note to Annie and be on my way.'

A few days later, I received a reply from Annie, suggesting that we arrange to meet in a week or so. The tone of her message was cheerful, if apologetic. It seemed that her new approach with Sibyl was working. There had been some improvement in the child's moods, and no incidents of vandalism or destruction for several days.

One rainy afternoon, the following week, I happened to be at number 11, helping out, as I often did, with the accounts for both the household and the Wool and Hosiery (having taken over the shop's books, following Kenneth's disappearance). That day, it was Jessie's turn at the washhouse, and she had been up and down the stairs all afternoon, between tub and pulley, leaving me, alone, to get on with my sums. Ned and Annie had been out when I arrived: having left the girls in the care of Mrs Calthrop, they had apparently braved the rain to call at Hamilton's gallery, in order to discuss how Ned might hang his paintings in the forthcoming show.

I had been working quietly in the dining room for about an hour, when I heard footsteps in the close. At first, I assumed that Jessie had returned from the washhouse, but then I heard Ned speak in hushed, angry tones: ‘It's breaking her heart. She just wants to see them once in a while.'

The front door—which had been left ajar—was pushed open. The footsteps faltered, and came to a halt, halfway across the hall.

‘I'm sure she does,' said a voice that I recognised, at once, as Annie's. Feeling awkward, I was about to alert them to my presence when she continued: ‘No doubt she'd like to perform an exorcism on them while she's at it.'

‘Och, she hasn't mentioned that in ages. She'd not do anything without our permission, anyway.'

Annie gave a derisive laugh in reply. I began to feel even more uncomfortable, nervous now, lest they enter the dining room and discover me there. I sat motionless, as quietly as possible. I heard Annie mutter something, and then Ned interrupted: ‘What's wrong with saying she's proud to have grandchildren?'

‘That's not what she said—she said they “run wild”.'

‘That was in jest.'

‘No, it wasn't—it was an attack, on me.'

‘She was just making conversation.'

‘Anyway, you know perfectly well, Sibyl's much better now. I think it does her good not seeing Elspeth. It certainly does me good.'

‘You don't mean that. It's bound to be awkward, meeting her, in the street. With Mabel away, she gets lonely. She just wants to be your friend.'

‘Oh, for dear sake,' said Annie, and she laughed bitterly. ‘Open your eyes, Ned. You must be blind. Where are you going?'

‘I'm away over to see my mother.'

I heard his footsteps echo in the stairwell as he descended. Annie sighed. Then, after a moment, she too went downstairs and I heard her knocking at Mrs Calthrop's door. To my relief, she was invited in, and the door closed, which gave me a moment, at least, before she came back with the girls. I decided to slip away, while I could, to avoid any awkwardness.

Of course, I was upset, for Ned and Annie. The situation was all very awkward, and I was sorry to have overheard their quarrel. I had no idea that such tensions lurked beneath the surface. For some reason, feelings of vague disquiet, and a sense of foreboding, welled up inside me. This skirmish between Elspeth and Annie, and now between Annie and Ned—and all caused, essentially, by Sibyl—seemed destined to escalate out of control. It felt, somehow, pre-ordained, even irreversible.