Gillespie and I (29 page)

But that is by the bye. People are forever extending invitations, here and there, in the firm knowledge that they will fail to be taken up. ‘You must come to tea,' we say. ‘Oh, yes, indeed, we must,' comes the reply. But both parties know that such an event will never take place.

11

And now, I must write of difficult things, events that, even all these years later, cause a dull pain of anguish to flare up behind my breastbone. Much has been said and written about what happened on the 4th of May 1889: that warm and, ultimately, wet day. Since virtually verbatim accounts are available—for instance, in Hodge's
Notable Trials
series—I do not propose to tax the limited space available in this memoir by an unnecessary regurgitation of all the details. None the less, I am aware that I have never yet had an opportunity to provide my own description of events. This being the case, I feel that it may be of interest to give some indication of my experience of what transpired.

The 4th of May was a Saturday, and I had spent most of the morning in town, at Pettigrew and Stephens, the department store, looking at glassware. The old sideboard at Merlinsfield contained only a limited amount of mismatched crystal, which was so chipped and cloudy that no amount of polishing would render it hygienic, and thus I had decided to purchase a small stock of new glasses, for my own use, and for any guests that might happen to visit the house.

That morning, the weather was bright and warm, with the promise of summer in the air. Originally, I had no notion of calling on the Gillespies that day. However, while I was arranging for delivery of the new glasses, I happened to notice, on sale, a very elegant parcel-gilt dinner and tea service, complete with plates, entrée dishes, sauceboat, and so on, and I could not help but think of Annie and Ned, who were still using the same faded china that had been produced on the very first afternoon that I had taken tea in their home, almost a year previously. Indeed, the family was forever running short of bread plates and cups, and so, on the spur of the moment, I purchased the dinner set and asked for it to be delivered to the Gillespie residence. Rather than have the crate arrive, unannounced, I decided to call in on my way home, just to let them know to expect a delivery, the following week.

After a cup of tea in the ladies' café at the Panorama, I took advantage of the blue skies, and walked to South Woodside, reaching Woodland Road at approximately half past two o'clock. As I approached number 11, I happened to notice two little figures up ahead: Sibyl and Rose, toddling along towards Carnarvon Street. There was nothing unusual in this: Ned's wife continued, by and large, to treat Sibyl as though she was a normal girl, and left her in charge of her little sister, letting them roam wherever they pleased. Since she had yet to hire another maid, Annie was coping single-handedly with the housework and, now that the weather had begun to improve—and despite Ned's reluctance to let the girls play outside, unsupervised—she often sent her daughters round to Queen's Crescent while she got on with her chores. We were all used to seeing the girls trotting around the neighbourhood, or glimpsing them, at play, in the gardens. At any rate, I hardly gave them a second thought as they turned the corner and disappeared from view.

As it turned out, Ned had also left the apartment that day, at about one o'clock. Annie professed to have no idea where he had gone, and I wondered what this admission might imply about the state of the marriage—although perhaps some couples simply reach a stage wherein each spouse no longer cares to know about the comings and goings of the other. When I arrived, Annie had been cleaning the hall floor: the rugs were up, and her broom had caused what Ned would call a ‘stour'. Insisting that I had no wish to disturb her, I told her to expect the arrival of a crate from Pettigrew's, on Monday. I had thought that she might be pleased to hear about the dinner service that I had bought for them. In fact, she seemed almost exasperated at the news.

‘That's kind of you,' she said. ‘But it's too much.'

‘It was a bargain,' I told her. ‘Even though there's nothing wrong with it.'

She swiped her broom at the floor. ‘I don't mind you treating the girls every so often, but we can't accept it. You must stop buying things for me and Ned.'

‘Perhaps he wouldn't mind a new dinner service.'

‘No, I think he'd agree with me—you shouldn't be spending money on us.'

‘Very well. If you really don't want it, I shall see if I can cancel the order.'

‘Please, don't be upset, Harriet. You're just too kind, and—we don't deserve it. I don't mean to be rude or ungrateful, but—'

‘Not at all—you're absolutely right. It was silly to buy it without even asking you. Look here, I won't cancel the delivery, I'll just get them to take it out to Merlinsfield, instead. It would be useful to have some half-decent crockery out there.'

‘Good idea. Now, if you don't mind, I must get on.' She indicated a pile of dust, and the rugs, in disarray.

‘Oh, do let me help!' I cried. Despite her protests, I was more than happy to don a spare apron and wield the dustpan.

To begin with, Annie was quiet, but then, as we worked on, she began to quiz me, as she sometimes did, about my old life in London, with particular reference to any bachelors of my acquaintance. Having established that I harboured no romantic inclination for any Englishman, she moved closer to home.

‘How much longer will you remain in Glasgow, d'you think?' she asked. ‘Given that London is your home? I suppose if you met somebody here, some nice gentleman—he need not be young, necessarily, perhaps an older man, a widower—'

‘Annie dear, do please forgive me for interrupting, but I can assure you that nothing of the sort will happen. There will be no nice widower. One would, in the first place, have to be interested in something more than friendship with a man; and I, for one, am not.'

‘But—what about marriage?'

‘Good gracious, no,' I laughed. ‘Men are all very well, but I would never
submit
to one of them, physically or otherwise. I like them only in the platonic sense. For instance, you know how interested I am in Ned's work, but that is as far as it goes. I have no desire for romance with
any
man!'

‘Oh!' said Annie. I could not help but notice the expression on her face; she was not exactly smiling, but she did seem more cheerful.

‘Whatever is the matter?' I asked.

‘Oh, nothing,' she said. Nevertheless, watching her as she bent to her broom, it was obvious that she was relieved; the very atmosphere had lightened.

We spent the next half-hour or so sweeping the floors, and then I helped her to carry the small rugs down to the street, to beat them. Outside, the town was still in its May mood, the ever-present smoke haze mellowing and softening the rays of sunlight. Dust flew up in clouds as we thrashed the rugs against the metal railings. Few people passed us while we worked, for Stanley Street is a quiet thoroughfare, used only by its residents and a few tradesmen and, perhaps, the odd person on foot, taking a shortcut between the main roads. Across the street, a dog sniffed at the wheels of a stationary cart, while its driver sat dozing at the reins. Over at number 14, Elspeth's maid, Jean, came outside with a bucket and began to scour the front steps. I nodded at her, in greeting, and she waggled her scrubbing brush in response.

My gaze followed the dog as it scampered up the road, and it was then that I happened to spy Sibyl. As yet, she had not spotted us, and was skipping along with her eyes fixed on the pavement, apparently without a care in the world. Beside me, Annie finished beating a rug and turned to follow my gaze, and it was just then that Sibyl glanced up and noticed us. In that moment, as I recall it, the child's demeanour changed. She stopped skipping and her step faltered. Her face underwent a transformation; the quiet contentment was replaced, fleetingly, by a troubled, almost guilty look. Then, she seemed to recover, and as she came towards us, she assumed one of her habitual expressions, a simulacrum of innocent boredom. There was no sign of her sister and I assumed that, soon enough, Rose would come toddling along the street in her wake. Annie, however—with that sixth sense that is peculiar to mothers—was immediately on the alert.

‘Where's Rose?' she called out.

‘I don't know,' said Sibyl, in a sing-song voice.

‘Have you left her round the corner?'

Sibyl shook her head, and drew down her brows, looking upset. Annie tossed the rug that she had been beating onto the steps, and approached the child. ‘What's the matter? Where's your sister?' Sibyl stretched out her foot, and drew her toes along a crack in the pavement, muttering something that neither of us could hear.

‘Speak up dear,' said Annie.

‘Can't find her,' said Sibyl, quietly.

‘What do you mean, you can't find her?'

The girl's lip trembled, and tears brimmed up in her eyes. ‘I found a—a dead bird, on the ground, and then, when I looked up, Rose wasn't there any more.'

Annie sighed, and turned to me. ‘Harriet, I'm sorry but would you mind taking these rugs in? I'll have to go and get Rose. We won't be long.'

‘Not at all.'

‘Come on,' said Annie to Sibyl, and off they went, hand in hand. Sibyl skipped along the street at her mother's side, seeming to have cheered up once again.

I carried the rugs upstairs and, since I knew exactly where each one belonged, I went around the rooms, laying them on the new-swept floors, having left the front door open for air. After that, I made a pot of tea, since I was sure that Annie would be thirsty upon her return. Twenty minutes later, there was still no sign of any of the Gillespies. Eventually, after almost half an hour, I heard footsteps echoing in the close as someone came running up to the apartment, and then Annie burst in through the parlour doorway, out of breath. She seemed panic-stricken.

‘I can't find Rose anywhere. She's not in the gardens, and I've looked all round the Crescent and Cumberland Street, and she's not in the back green—'

‘Where's Sibyl?'

‘I left her across the road with Jean. Elspeth's out.'

Despite my rising panic, I took a moment to absorb this information. Annie had forbidden her daughters to set foot in number 14, and it was an indication of how worried she now was that she had broken her own rule. I tried to reassure her.

‘Perhaps Rose is hiding somewhere. Shall we go and look?'

The back entrances to the tenements were usually unlocked during daylight hours, and the children habitually ran in and out that way, so we left the apartment door ajar, in case Rose returned in our absence. On the way downstairs, Annie paused on the landing to tell Mrs Calthrop that she had left her door open, and asked her to keep an eye out for Rose—or anybody else—going up the stairs. Then, we hurried around the corner to Queen's Crescent.

The gate to the gardens lay open, as it often did. It took just a moment to confirm that Rose was not there—not behind any of the trees, nor under the bench, nor hiding behind the fountain. We walked the length of the Crescent itself, peering over the railings, into all the front areas, and the only unusual thing that we found was a bag of sugar, sitting on a wall. Leaving it untouched, we cut behind the terrace and trudged down the back lane, calling out Rose's name. After that, we stopped in at my lodgings, where all the front rooms overlooked the gardens, and it was possible that one of the Alexanders might have noticed the child wandering off. However, as it turned out, young Lily, Kate and their mother had been at the rear of the house all afternoon, in the kitchen, or the back sitting room. When we told them what had happened, they came outside and helped us to search the immediate vicinity once more, and then we all dashed down Melrose Street and peered along Great Western Road in both directions, but there was no sign of any little girl amongst the passers-by.

‘What was she wearing?' asked Lily Alexander, very sensibly.

Annie thought for a moment. ‘A blue frock,' she said, at length. ‘A short blue frock, with a sort of lozenge pattern, and her apron.'

By that time, the weather had begun to change. Whilst Annie and I had been searching the gardens, dark clouds had crept silently in, from the West. Now, as we stood at the end of Melrose Street, it began to pour—large, intermittent drops at first, and then a heavier shower, with the rumble of thunder in the distance. Too intent on finding Rose to worry about a spot of rain, we decided to split up. Annie gave Mrs Alexander her key and begged her to go around to number 11, and sit there, in case Rose returned to find the house empty, or, should Ned arrive home, to tell him what had happened. Then, convinced that her daughter might have wandered towards the West End Park, Annie made haste, bareheaded, in that direction. Having agreed to look along the main roads, Lily and Kate scurried off. As for myself, I made a close inspection of the smaller streets, near at hand: Arlington, Cumberland, Grant, Carnarvon and, finally, Stanley. I made sure to check all the lanes and back courts, but there was no sign of Rose anywhere, nor of anyone who had seen a girl answering her description. Of course, most children roam far and wide, only to return home safely at the end of their day's adventures, and it might be expected that, left to her own devices, Rose would turn up, unharmed, at some point. However, she was such a clingy child that she disliked to leave Annie's side for long. Even when in the care of Sibyl or anyone else, she tended not to wander too far, because she liked the security of being close to someone she knew; it was this awareness of her character that made us rather worried.

Upon my return to number 11, I glanced up at the parlour windows and saw the pale moon of Mrs Alexander's face, staring down at me. I raised one hand in the air—more a quizzical gesture than a wave—and in response she shook her head, from which I understood that there was, as yet, no sign of either Rose or Ned. Rather than go upstairs, I decided to continue the search. It occurred to me that—had the child wandered off—there was a chance that she might have gone towards Charing Cross, given that she often accompanied one or other of her relatives on trips into town; she might, out of habit, have trotted off in the direction of the big shops. So it was that I set off towards the east. The rain continued to fall, relentlessly, but an umbrella would have made no difference: having worn no coat that morning, I was already soaked to the skin. I believe that I may have glanced down St George's Road, in passing, but I saw nothing there that drew my attention. On Sauchiehall Street, I stared hard through fences and over walls, into the grounds of all the great villas, in case the child might have slipped through a gateway and wandered up one of the drives. As I reached the Corporation Buildings, the heavens opened and the downpour became torrential enough to empty the landscape of pedestrians, as people scurried towards the shelter of tea shops and doorways. I searched up and down a number of side streets but, eventually, with no sign of Rose anywhere, I decided to retrace my steps to Woodside, in the hope that she might already have been found.