The Observations (52 page)

“But you are welcome to stay on here, Bessy,” he says. “Until such time as I do dispose of the land. These things can take months to complete.”

“Thank you, sir. That is kind. But I might head back to Glasgow, try my luck there.”

Or go on somewhere else. Tell the truth, I didn’t know what the flip I was going to do. But I knew one thing for certain and that was that I didn’t want to stay on at Castle Haivers without missus. Before I did anything, however, I planned to go and see her. There were a few things I wanted to ask—that is if I was able to get any sense out her. Apparently, she had not been very happy at first to find herself in an asylum. Master James and McGregor-Robertson had took her there in a carriage. According to master James, she’d been quite content on the journey, even a little excited, but only because the doctor had lied and tellt her that she was going to visit Nora. However, once they had arrived at the asylum she began to realise that she’d been duped. He and the doctor had to sneak away.

It was upsetting, master James said. It had broke his heart to leave her.

Since then, according to McGregor-Robertsons cousin, the Superintendent, she had suffered from terrible mood swings. Initially, she was distraught and angry and had even attempted to escape over the wall. But just in the last day or so, she had calmed down and begun to seem almost at ease in her new surroundings.

Apparently the asylum was about twenty miles distant. It was a private institution, situated back in the direction of Glasgow but quite a way south of the Great Road, on the outskirts of a village I will call Foul-burn, several miles to the southeast of the city. There was no railway station nearby and so master James offered me use of the carriage and when I refused that (since I had no desire to be driven by Biscuit Meek) he repeated his offer to pay for the hire of a coach out the Swan. This I accepted, only because I was still weak and my feet too cut up to walk far. In addition, he promised me a good character should I need one. I only had to write to him, he says, and he would send it by return of post. And he gave me the wages I was owed with
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as much again, saying that I merited the extra because of my courage and loyalty. He said it would also contribute to my lodgings at Foulburn, since I’d be doing him a favour by going to see his wife at a time when he was not allowed access to her.

He seen me out himself. I believe it was only the 2nd occasion I had walked through that front door. It was still early morning. The dew was running on the slates and the sky was pink. Master James skulked inside the hall in his stocking feet, squinting out at the daylight, while he hugged himself, his cuffs loose and flapping, his waistcoat wrongly buttoned, his hair awry, if anybody looked like they should be in an asylum it was him.

He handed me a letter. “Be so good as to give that to Arabella. Tell her I’ll see her on Saturday. Tell her not to worry”

I tucked the letter into my bundle, which had been sitting all this time in my room, already packed. “I will, sir.”

“Goodbye, Bessy,” he says. “I do hope you will not think too badly of us.”

“No sir, I won’t.”

He left off hugging himself for a moment, just long enough to stretch out and take my hand. It was the first time I had ever shook hands with a gent and for some reason it made me blush to my toe nails. Which seems funny now, when you think about what all else I’d done with men in my short life.

“Goodbye, sir,” I says. And then I turned and hobbled all the way down to Snatter, not once looking back.

By mid-morning the sun had burned away the pink clouds, leaving behind a sky that was clear and blue. Only a week ago, we had been in the depths of winter, now it was as hot as a summer day, too warm even to wear my coat which I had took from the newel post. The hired carriage rolled through villages and wherever I looked out the window people were enjoying the sun. Everybody seemed to be on tremendous form. Instead of huddling into their coats and hurrying on their way, people stopped to talk to each other. All the men were in shirtsleeves. I seen a man selling hokey-pokeys from a barrow. I seen a boy with no shirt on at all rolling a hoop right into a bakers shop and the woman at the counter didn’t shout at him, she just smiled.

On the Great Road, the going was good enough and the carriage made decent time but once we had turned onto the byways our progress slowed and in the end it took almost two hours to reach Foul-burn. The asylum was situated outside the village, off the main road and along a lane that wound upwards and was banked by tall trees. After a few minutes, the carriage drew up at an iron gate between stone gateposts. I pulled down the window and peered out. Beyond the gate I could see yew and fir trees, an area of grass, a short drive and then the main building itself. I got a queer shock when I seen it for I’d been expecting something huge, dark and foreboding like Glasgow, the asylum which was visible from the top floor at Mr. Levys and a right sombre looking place it was too. But this had the appearance of a private mansion house, more like Castle Haivers, though much larger in scale.

An old man opened the gate and waved us through. He was in shirtsleeves and an old cloth bunnet and looked to me more like a gardener than a warder. I heard the gates clang shut behind us, the clink-clank of a chain as they were locked. The carriage came to a halt in front of the steps. I took the letter master James had gave me from my bundle and slipped it into my pocket. Leaving my bundle on the seat, I stepped down and told the driver to wait and while he trotted off to turn the carriage, I looked up at the building.

It was of red sandstone, two storeys high and with a porch and white colonnades on each side. Wide shallow steps led up to the front entrance. The place had a pleasant enough aspect and I got the impression that the grounds extended much further to the side and back of the house than was at first apparent. I had expected bars at the windows, there were none. The windows were tall and wide, the kind that let in a good deal of light. I had expected to see loonies shuffling about like ghosts and men pulling on their jacks and muttering filth. But there was nobody of that sort, only
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a dozen men playing cricket on the grass, and about the same number of plain-dressed women watching. I supposed they must be the off-duty warders.

As I stood there taking all this in, a stout woman appeared at the open door of the house and came down the steps to meet me. She wore a dark stuff frock and an apron. I thought she looked like some kind of housekeeper. We exchanged good mornings and I tellt her I was there to see Mrs. Arabella Reid, and she said at once, “Of course” (although why that should have been so evident I don’t know) and, “I am Mrs. Robertson. Do follow me.” Turning on her heel, she led me inside the house.

By Jove I had never before seen such a grand place. The hall was about as big as a ballroom with a polished floor and central staircase. There was several wide doorways off to either side and a smaller door at the back, beyond the stairs, to the kitchens. To my surprise, the stout woman ushered me into a drawing room on the right where a maid was arranging a bowl of daffodils on a table at the far end. I had expected to be taken to some kind of ward and realised that I’d forgot to identify myself. Here I was in my satin frock and it occurred to me that because I’d arrived in a carriage this Mrs. Robertson had mistook me for a lady. I hesitated at the threshold wondering what to do. Was it too late to say something? But perhaps the housekeeper had just come in to speak to the maid for she had approached her and was saying a few words in her ear. The maid turned.

And as she did so the heart in me just about leapt across the room for I seen at once that it was not a maid at all but missus! She was smiling, walking towards me. Jesus Murphy! I had not even recognised her. She wore a short navy frock that exposed her ankles, a cream apron, thick stockings and sturdy shoes. Her hair was dressed different and she had a little cap pinned to the back of her head.

“Bessy!” She opened her arms and I stepped into them without a word and nestled against her. “Look at you!” says missus, stroking my hair. “Have you been in the wars?”

“No, marm.” I wanted to cry but didn’t wish to upset her. I almost felt like we should dance. For the sake of saying something, anything, I asked her, “Have they made you into a maid or what?”

She stepped back and turned, dipping, from side to side as though to let me admire her image. “Do you like it?” she says, and laughed. “I am quite the fashion card am I not? I have another the same, in pink.”

I must have looked shocked for she laughed again and took my hand. “No, no, Bessy,” she says. “It is the philosophy here that everyone takes part in the running of the place. This morning I have been downstairs dusting and tidying and arranging flowers. Yesterday I was making beds.” She turned and called to the stout woman who was adjusting the hang of the curtains. “Mrs. Robertson, would it be acceptable to take Bessy for a walk in the gardens?”

The woman glanced over. “On you go, Mrs. Reid,” she says. “We’re finished here in any case. Would your guest like to stay for luncheon?”

Missus looked at me enquiringly. I hesitated, still thinking that I had been mistook for a lady. Everything was a shock. Missus in her new clothes. Walks in the gardens. Luncheon, for flip sake!

“Oh, you must stay!” says missus. And then in an undertone, “The food is dull but by no means inedible.” She turned back to the stout woman and called out. “Mrs. Robertson, this is Bessy, the dear and faithful maid I was telling you about.”

The woman smiled and looked at me. “So will you be wanting to stay for luncheon, miss?” she says. Miss, she called me. Even though she knew I was a maid!

Missus squeezed my hand and said my name. I realised I was just standing there like a scone, with my mouth open.

“Oh, yes. Please,” I says.

“Very good, I’ll let them know in the kitchen,” says the woman and she turned back to tugging at the curtains, while missus drew me by the hand through the hall and onto the front steps. There, she paused and gazed at me with great affection.

“I knew you would come to see me,” she says. “I’ve been waiting for you, Bessy.”

Her eyes were gleaming, brighter than I remembered, the green of them so pure in the sunlight that it was almost startling. Boys oh dear, she was a sight for sore eyes.

And then I remembered the letter. I took it from my pocket and handed it to her. “From master James.”

Without even looking at it, she put it in her apron. “Poor James,” she says, and with a sigh, she turned to look at the group on the grass, playing cricket. Her eyes narrowed. After a moment, she says, “Do you know, Bessy, that this is the most fascinating place I have ever been in my entire life?”

I followed her gaze, wondering what was so fascinating. All I could see was the men with bat and ball and a few groups of women seated on the grass, watching them and occasionally applauding a good catch.

Are they the warders, marm?“ I says.

She turned to look at me. “Warders?” she says. “Good gracious no! And in any case we don’t call them that. We say ”attendants“. Mrs. Robertson, the lady you just met, is an attendant. Well, she is the chief attendant, the Matron. Those ladies and gentlemen that you see over there”—she turned back to the cricket match—‘are patients.“

And then I noticed that the women were all wearing the same kind of gown as missus, in different colours. So these were patients! Some of them looked quite ordinary. Right enough, one or two were on the thin side and a few others looked quite pale. But for the most part, they looked like you and me.

Missus was smiling. “Let’s take a walk, Bessy,” she says.

We went down the steps and wandered along the drive in the direction of the group on the grass. I was worried that we might go right up amongst them and God forbid have to talk to them but missus steered me past, keeping us at a little distance. A few of the ladies smiled over at her and nodded and she returned their greeting. One or two of the men doffed their hats. We turned off the drive into a rose garden at the side of the house. Missus led me along the shingle paths between the rose bushes, which were pruned and ready for their spring growth. The cricket match was still visible, but the participants were out of earshot.

Now that we were in private, I felt we could talk more freely. “How are you, marm?” I says. Are you being treated all right?“

“Oh yes,” she says. “I have to tell you Bessy that this place is not at all what I thought it might be at first. I admit that I was rather upset when I realised where James had brought me. I should have known that something was wrong as soon as McGregor-Robertson told me he was taking me to see Nora. Of course I knew that was a trick to get me into the carriage. But I was curious to know what they were up to. So I went along with them. And when we arrived here I was not too suspicious to begin with. Then I was talking to someone, a very nice gentleman who I have now established is McGregor-Robertsons cousin, Doctor Lawrence—he runs the place you know. I was talking to him and when I turned around I noticed that James and McGregor-Robertson had gone. And then I was shown to my room and suddenly I realised what was going on. However, since then I have come to realise that being here for a while might not be such a bad thing.”

We had reached the centre of the rose garden where the path opened out, there was a bench in front of a sundial. Missus took a seat and I joined her. Straight down the path in front of us lay the lawn and the cricket match. This was a sheltered spot. It was getting on for noon. There was a smell of cooking from somewhere and it felt like the temperature had risen yet again, I had never known such a summery day in March.

Missus tilted her head back and closed her eyes, letting the sun warm her face. “Do you see that man there with the cricket bat?” she says, confidentially and without opening her eyes.

I looked down the path and seen a short stocky gent, clean-shaven, thin-lipped and with limp dark hair. He had clenched his knees together and was swinging the bat smartly to and fro in warlike fashion, while a tall man strolled away from him.