Gillespie and I (63 page)

In the event, less than half an hour had passed when the tinkle of the bell was heard. I tried not to feel dismayed. There was a rush, as the spectators clambered back to their seats, and advocates and agents melted in from the wings and settled around their table. At the sight of Kinbervie approaching the bench, an awed hush fell upon the court. The jurors filed in, and I could not stop myself from staring at them, looking for some sign of my fate in their expressions. However, none of them even glanced in the direction of the dock, and their faces were as impassive as ever. They neither smiled, nor frowned, and said nothing to each other as they took their seats. To my surprise, I felt Mrs Fee grab my hand. Perhaps she knew better than I did—was the jury's lack of visible emotion a bad sign? Ned had been absent from the chamber during the advocate's speeches, no doubt tending to Sibyl with Annie, but I spotted him, perched at the end of one of the back rows, just as—in the corner of my vision—I became aware of a figure, rising to his feet. It was the Clerk of the Court, who asked: ‘Gentlemen, have you agreed your verdict?'

One of the jurymen, the foreman, rose to his feet and replied: ‘We have.'

‘In respect of the first charge, of murder, do you find the prisoner Hans Schlutterhose, guilty or not guilty?'

‘Not guilty, sir.'

‘Do you find Belle Schlutterhose, or Smith, guilty or not guilty?'

‘Not guilty, sir.'

‘And the prisoner, Harriet Baxter, guilty or not guilty?'

‘Not guilty, sir.'

There was not a breath in my body. I could feel Fee's hand tightening around mine; I thought she might squash me. For a few seconds, a deathly hush reigned over the chamber. Then the Clerk spoke again:

‘And in respect of the second charge, of plagium, do you find the prisoner Hans Schluttherhose guilty or not guilty?'

‘Guilty, sir.'

‘Do you find prisoner Belle Schlutterhose, or Smith, guilty or not guilty?'

‘Guilty, sir.'

‘And the prisoner, Harriet Baxter, do you find her guilty or not guilty?'

‘My lord, we find this charge against Miss Baxter—' Here, he paused for a moment, before announcing the words: ‘Not proven.'

Not proven.

So intent had I been on outcomes of guilty or innocent, that I had all but forgotten this idiosyncrasy of the Scottish Law, the not proven verdict. For a moment, I struggled to remember what exactly it implied, and whether it always resulted in acquittal. The only example that I knew of was from over thirty years previously, in the case of Madeleine Smith. Her not proven verdict had allowed her to walk free. Was that to happen, in my case? All this rushed through my mind as, here and there, throughout the court, gasps could be heard, along with a few cheers, some shouts, and a smattering of applause, although whether any of this was to congratulate me, or to celebrate the conviction of my co-accused, it was hard to tell. I looked up at the gallery to try and gauge Ned's reaction, but almost half of the spectators had surged to their feet and I could no longer see any sign of him amongst the crowd.

As Kinbervie and the officers of the court attempted to regain some order, I scanned the chamber for Caskie, but he, too, had disappeared. Afterwards, I learned that he had gone off, immediately, to confirm various arrangements that he had put in place, to ensure my safe passage from the court. Meanwhile, MacDonald was at the advocate's table, with his head in his hands—a reaction that was misinterpreted, of course, by some commentators, who chose to ignore how hard he had worked to save me from conviction.

With order restored, Kinbervie looked me squarely in the eye and announced: ‘By verdict of the jury, you have been acquitted of the charges against you. Miss Baxter, you are dismissed from the bar.'

The trap door opened. I was ushered from the court, down into the engulfing darkness of the stair, leaving Schlutterhose and Belle to wait for Kinbervie to pronounce sentence upon them. I understand that he gave them each ten years' imprisonment, a fairly stiff sentence for plagium, which makes me suspect that he was unable to disregard the fact that the stolen child had died.

Caskie had circulated a rumour amongst the crowds in Parliament Square that I was to be driven from thence to Waverley railway station. Instead, his plan was to escort me out of the back of the building, through a gate in the wall, and thence to a cab, which would take us, by a quiet route, via Lauriston Place, to Haymarket station. His plan seemed to have worked, for when we came outside, twenty minutes later, there was no mob at the rear of the court, and on the far side of the gate, the lane was empty. We emerged onto the Cowgate, a low, shabby street of tenements that ran beneath a high bridge, and it was a surprise to see people, dully and drably, going about their ordinary business. Indeed, the street was quite busy, with groups of men and women milling about, here and there. To our right I saw the cab, waiting on the nearside of the arch beneath the bridge. Stools and chairs, and a few whatnots were spread out on the greasy cobblestones, where a woman was selling furniture on the street. As Caskie guided me between her wares, my eyes were drawn upwards, to the parapet of the bridge, high above. A lone figure stood behind the stone columns; a wan face framed by pale masonry. It was Ned. He was gazing into the distance, along the Cowgate towards the east, so lost in thought that he was unaware of Caskie and me, far below him, in the street. Perhaps the crowds in Parliament Square had been too much for him, and he had fled to this spot, around the corner, for a moment alone. Or had he guessed that this might be the route that Caskie would use to whisk me away to the station? Had he, in fact, come to the bridge to try and get a glimpse of me, or speak to me? Was it even possible that he wanted to thank me, for having come to Sibyl's rescue?

Caskie failed to notice Ned; his gaze was fixed on the cab, and as we approached the vehicle, he hurried ahead to speak to the driver, and instruct him to avoid the Grassmarket, or any road where a crowd might have gathered. The figure on the bridge had still not moved. Left alone for a second, I called out:

‘Ned!'

The sound of my voice dragged him from his reverie and he came to his senses. He leaned forwards and peered out between the columns of the parapet, but he was still looking beyond me, at a point further along the street. I waved my arms, to attract his attention.

‘Here, Ned. Here I am.'

And then, he saw me. His expression changed from bewilderment to realisation. There was no colour in his face. His skin was livid white. He stared down at me in a way that he had never looked at me before, a way that I did not recognise. His gaze was icy cold. It chilled me to the bone. And then he turned away from the parapet, and was gone.

Sunday, 17—Saturday, 23 September 1933
LONDON

Sunday, 17th September. Incredible though it may seem, I am almost at the end of my memoir. In the beginning, I had no conception of how long it would take to write; six weeks, perhaps, might have been my guess. However, here we are, over five months later, and I have not yet quite finished. I cannot say why it has taken so long, given that I have been working at it, diligently, every day. I dare say that I may have been carried away in certain sequences, by including, at times, such particulars as the spoken dialogue and so on, but I did find that once I had begun to remember my time in Glasgow, I found it hard to stop. Everything just came back to me, and it seemed a missed opportunity not to relay each and every nuance. ‘Le bon Dieu est dans le détail', as they say (or should that be ‘le Diable'?).

My emotions, upon approaching the conclusion, are mixed. Today, I am tired and drained, with a touch of bile; perhaps I am running out of steam. In the main, I feel sadness: not simply because of the tragic nature of what happened, but also because—the trial and the tragedy notwithstanding—I have enjoyed revisiting my time with the Gillespies, and now it seems that I must set them adrift; the cord of my memories must be cut. I am not bidding farewell to the family, for ever, of course. They are still here, with me. If I sit very still, I can almost sense their presence.

To my regret, I have only a few keepsakes from that time. I used to keep these mementoes in my jewellery box, but lately I have found it helpful to have them here, on my desk. I like to turn them over in my hands, while I am thinking. Two trifling objects: a single collar-stud, that once belonged to Ned, and a scallop shell. The stud is a plain old thing, in brass. The scallop shell is the kind that ice-cream vendors sometimes still use as a dish upon which to serve their wares. I saw Ned discard it, one day, in the West End Park, after he had finished eating some hokey-pokey. At the time, I was bringing up the rear, perhaps with Mabel, or Annie. Ned was with Walter Peden. They were strolling along, talking, and it made quite a lovely picture of two friends passing the time together (of course, Peden was only annoying after one had got to know him). When Ned had eaten his ice-cream, he glanced around, trying to decide what to do with the shell. Many visitors to the Exhibition simply used to fling their empty ‘escalopes' into the river, or toss them into the bushes, but Ned placed his upon a wooden fence at the riverside. There it sat, gleaming white and pink against the dark wood as he continued on his way, and I approached in his wake. Of a sudden, Rose and Sibyl bolted past me, babbling, as usual, in their reedy voices. They skimmed along the fence and, for a moment, I thought that they might accidentally knock the hokey-pokey scallop into the river—but no, they scampered on, and it remained, untouched. As I drew abreast of the fence post, almost without thinking, I picked up the shell and slipped it into my pocket. It was cool, and a little damp, perhaps from Ned's tongue.

11.30 a.m. I have just had the most marvellous little snooze and awakened very refreshed. I must contact the registry tomorrow and request that they send me another assistant. Having thought it over, I feel only relief that that person has gone. When she attacked me, I saw her for what she really is: a cold, cruel person, with an unexpected capacity for violence. The whole business has been very upsetting. Indeed, it has made me quite nauseous and feverish. I have been sick to my stomach several times since she left. For a while, I did wonder whether the girl might have been up to her old tricks and poisoned me, somehow. Without going into detail, it appears as though I have been swallowing coffee grounds, although I have no memory of doing so. Perhaps this is simply a reaction to the upsetting events of last night. It almost feels as though I am vomiting out all the fears and bad feelings that have accumulated over the past few months. But what are these dark specks, if not coffee grounds? They look like dried blood. Are they some sort of crystallisation of every horrid thing that has been building up inside me because of that girl's presence in my home? Could anxiety have caused my innards to bleed?

Perhaps it is a good thing to have purged myself of these foul accretions, to flush out all the badness that she brought with her into this apartment.

Monday, 18th September. Well, that was a waste of time. I shall not be using Burridge's ever again. Clinch has never been terribly polite, but today her discourtesy bordered on insolence. I can scarce believe all the piffle that she came out with, about her girls being reliable souls who can do no wrong, et cetera. I was obliged to remind her that—in the not-too-distant past—two of her ‘reliable souls' simply vanished in the night, without a word, for that is what happened with Marjory, and then with Gwen, the first and third candidates that she recommended to me: two girls who seemed perfectly fine to begin with, but in both cases, they packed their bags and walked out within a few weeks, giving no reason or explanation. As for Dora, the second girl, the less said about her, the better: had I known that she possessed such a filthy temper, I would never have taken her on in the first place. Quite simply, the vetting procedure at Burridge's is not stringent enough. How did Sibyl even get onto their books? Presumably, they know nothing of her real history.

As far as I can tell, nobody at Burridge's has actually spoken to her. I believe that there was a letter from her, lying on the doormat, when Clinch opened the office, this morning. I gleaned the impression that it was only a short note, in which ‘Miss Whittle' handed in her notice, not only to me, but also to the registry. Clinch tells me that it is Miss Whittle's intention to return to Dorset. Ha! I tried to explain that Miss Whittle is not who she claims to be, but Clinch refused to listen. When she threatened not to send me any more girls, I stopped her in her tracks.

‘Do you think I would want any more of your egregious employees? I only telephoned to inform you that I shall certainly be taking my business elsewhere.'

‘Do what you like, dear—see if I care.'

‘I most certainly shall!' I told her. ‘Oh—and the word is register.'

‘Beg your pardon?'

I spelled it out for her: ‘R-E-G-I-S-T-E-R. Register—not “red chester”, as you are so ridiculously fond of saying.'