Not Yet Drown'd Page 5

  The black girl turned and scanned the faces of the people sitting on the backless benches. The brown-skinned black-haired ayah greeted her with a nod of acknowledgment and a warm smile, her straight white teeth luminous in the dim room, so the girl went to sit with her. “No ladies bound to India yet?” she asked the ayah.

  “Oh, not yet, not just yet. But I am confident. A mistress will appear, in time. The door will open and my mistress will come in seeking me, seeking just precisely such an ayah as I am. A mistress will come for you, too, through that very door. Now, how shall you know her, your mistress, when she comes in?”

  “What do you mean, ‘know her’?”

  “What I mean is this: When she comes, by what will you recognise her? Mine, for example, will be very sad. And very pale.”

  “All these Scottish ladies are pale, pale as corpses,” said the black girl. “I bet they glows in the dark.”

  “Ha ha! Like ghosts; and such terrible red noses they are having! But this one I think will be pale of her sorrow. Yet I think she is a courageous and intelligent lady. Now, as for yourself—excuse me, miss, I do not know your good name. You have a great desire, I see, a burning desire; it is a determination. I think you shall have your desire, miss. You shall have it, and it shall have you. What is your good name, please?”

  “Annie.”

  “Annie. I am called Sharada. So, Annie: the mistress you have now, the one you are wishing to leave, what sort of mistress is she? Is she lying abed late in the mornings? Is she careless with her dresses, dragging her frills in the dirt and tearing them?”

  “Oh no, she never lie abed, nor permit anyone else a minute’s ease neither. She say her prayers on her knees oh so often—dozen times a day. And I’m obliged to kneel down on my own poor knees and bow my head, too, at prayers every morning and every night. She say that’s my duty. But I kneel down behind her, not in her sight, so she can’t know if I do bow my head and close my eyes or if I don’t!”

  “O-ho! I think you don’t, then,” said Sharada.

  “She pray on and on, all about duty and resolve. I guess she do plenty of duty alright, and stubborn as a mule, too. That’s the ‘resolve’ she always going on about. She come all the way here to Scotland to fetch a poor orphan and take it back to America. But now that orphan won’t go! The orphan know better than that, I guess.”

  “Have you served this mistress for a long time, then?”

  “All my life, far back as I can remember,” said Annie.

  “And why have you never yet left her?”

  “But they never allows me, in Virginia. I belong to them. If I ever dare run away, they only fetches me right back again. I’m only free here. The barmaid at the inn told me I’m free long as I stay in Scotland, and the porter, he swore it. He say he glad to marry me his own self, except he’s married already. But here I’m free, so here I stay. Nothing in all the world can make me go back to Virginia. But I have no money, not a penny, so I come here to get a place.”

  “Your mistress has gone out this morning, I think? So you can be sitting here for a little time?”

  “She gone to the house where that orphan live, to fetch her away. She gone with the porter, and his wheelbarrow, and her prayer book, to tell that orphan’s folks they’re obliged to give her over.”

  “The orphan has fond relatives, then? This is not a usual sort of orphan, I am thinking.”

  “It’s mighty peculiar. Those folks won’t let her go, not even for money. I know ’cause I saw the letter. My missus, she leave her letters lying about; she don’t know I can read.”

  “Your mistress is trying to buy the orphan, then? For money?”

  “She set on getting that orphan one way or t’other. See, it was just after her mean little old dog gone and died, and she was mighty torn up about that—and just then, the master, he mention about this one orphan way up here in Scotland. There’s plenty of orphans in America she can have for nothing, but no—those ones won’t do. Somehow she got herself set on having this particular Scotland orphan, and she pester the master night and day, day and night—all about the ‘obligation,’ she call it, ’til he just give in one day and let her go and fetch it, just to have some peace in the house at last! He’s the biggest judge at the courthouse, but the man who can rule that woman ain’t been born yet. So then she gone and sailed all this long way to Scotland, and now she go back and forth to East Thistle Street just dead-set on getting ahold of that orphan no matter what. She call it her duty.”

  “East Thistle Street? I have seen East Thistle Street. It is a very short street.”

  “I never have seen it. The letter say, East Thistle Street, number twelve—the letter from the orphan’s lady.”

  “Indeed? So very interesting. Do you remember the lady’s name?”

  “’Course I do, I remember everything. The orphan’s lady, her name is Missus Catherine MacDonald—a Scottish name, I guess, but it sound just like a American name, too.”

  “So very interesting. And your mistress is in East Thistle Street now, at this moment, to see this Mrs Catherine MacDonald?”

  “See her, and make her give up that orphan.”

  “So very, deeply interesting. And if she cannot succeed?”

  “Oh, but she always do get her way; that’s what she is fondest of in all the world. That’s why she never has brung herself to get married yet.”

  “NO, NEVER INDEED, we certainly are not at home, none of us, to Miss Johnstone,” repeated Catherine to the maid, who had come up to make sure. The maid went back downstairs to tell Miss Johnstone, who had been left standing outside on the doorstep. Catherine and Mary crept out to the stair landing to listen. They could not see the street door, which opened into the entry hall below, but they could hear the maid’s polite murmur.

  Miss Johnstone’s reply, however, carried remarkably: “Then I’ll just stand and wait here on the doorstep until they do get home,” they heard her declare in a terrible tone.

  “As you please, ma’am,” said the maid, and shut the door and locked it.

  Five minutes passed, or more. At last Catherine stole a darting glance from the little window above the stair that overlooked the street, and saw that the American woman remained on the doorstep. Her porter with his wheelbarrow waited on the pavement below.

  “Will she just stand there, do you think?” whispered Catherine.

  “So pigheaded! I think she will!” whispered Mary.

  When another ten minutes had passed, they looked again, and saw that she still stood on the doorstep just as before.

  “Won’t she go? I do wish Hector were here,” Mary whispered.

  “I think you have got your wish,” whispered Catherine. “Don’t I hear him now?”

  They listened; someone had joined Miss Johnstone on the doorstep. “May I be of some service, ma’am?” Hector’s polite voice was saying, and Mary rolled her eyes. “Are you unable to find an address on our little street?” he said.

  “Oh, and I did warn him!” Mary whispered, “but he is so absentminded, especially when he has been dining out at certain places, and that is just where he has been, I fear.”

  “Oh, no, I’ve got the address aright, but the people inside say they’re not at home!” exclaimed the loud American voice. “Not at home! Well, they’d better not want to come home, then! Or leave home, either, I guess!”

  “Ma’am, you are agitated,” they heard Hector say disarmingly. “Perhaps there has been some mistake. Won’t you come in while you compose yourself?”

  Catherine and Mary heard the door unlocked, and Miss Johnstone ushered in. “Pray, ma’am, am I to understand that your business is with someone here in my house?” said Hector now, in the hall below. Catherine heard the little chair in the hall creak; the woman must have seated herself.

  “I guess you’d be Mr MacDonald? Aha. Well, I am Miss Arabella Johnstone of Grantsboro Plantation, in Virginia, and I’m here to fetch away my brother-in-law’s own niece and her things. And what do I fin
d but locked doors and lying servants and people peeking out from the curtains. I never was so badly treated in all my life!”

  “Surely, ma’am,” said Hector, still courteous, “you received Mrs MacDonald’s letter informing you that she would be unable to part with her stepdaughter, and that there was no occasion for you to come here this morning?”

  Mary and Catherine exchanged a significant look; Hector had remembered, at last, who this woman was. And here was Grace, suddenly, creeping under Catherine’s arm to rest her chin upon the stair railing. Catherine would have sent her away if she could, but now she did not dare even to whisper. They all held their breath to listen.

  “Well, some rude message of that kind was sent to me,” they heard Miss Johnstone say. “Of course I didn’t pay it any mind. I know my duty, and if Mrs MacDonald doesn’t know hers, she’ll have to learn it. I didn’t come all this long way just to be trifled with by someone who’s not even related to the child. No, no; that girl goes with me, and I’m not moving until I get her.”

  Grace nuzzled Catherine’s arm, and Catherine laid her hand upon the sleek bright head.

  “I fear that is impossible, ma’am,” said Hector. “My sister certainly will never part with her stepdaughter, who was entrusted to her by her late husband. I fear you must resign yourself to a disappointment. Perhaps it may be some consolation to know that the child is among those who cherish her and are well able to look after her.”

  “High and mighty! Fine airs from such a low sort!” cried Miss Johnstone.

  “Good morning, madam,” said Hector in quite a different tone. “My man will see you out. Robin!” he called. After a plausible interval of time, Catherine heard the footman emerge from the kitchen door at the top of the kitchen stairs. “Robin, you will see Miss Johnstone out,” said Hector.

  There was a crash. Had Miss Johnstone knocked over her chair? Was she tossing the furniture about? “I know what you are!” she cried. “I asked around—of course I did! I’m no fool, let me tell you. You’re nothing but a mechanic yourself, a common workman; and your womenfolk are liars and cheats!” Did Miss Johnstone sense an audience? It seemed to Catherine that she pitched her voice to the galleries: “I may be a poor lone female in a strange land,” she cried, “but I guess I know my way around judges and lawyers, and some other kinds, too, don’t I! I know how to fix all that! Don’t touch me, dirty man! I won’t be handled! I can see the door for myself.” Miss Johnstone took herself out the door and down the steps to where the porter and his wheelbarrow still awaited her in the street.

  4

  In Which there is Some Art & Practise requird

  That was Saturday. On Saturday night, Grace’s Gaelic bedtime tale featured hosts of “car-borne chiefs” driving about Edinburgh in all their martial glory, in the best Ossianic style; and by their combined efforts driving the wicked cailleach Clach nan Iain from the field in ignominious defeat. For purposes of this story, Grace had promoted her uncle Hector to the chief of car-borne chiefs.

  On Sunday, the newspapers carried long accounts of the King’s Levee, including a description of his attire: full Highland dress! Most impressive, but wasn’t his kilt perhaps somewhat shorter than was usually worn? The king did not appear in public on Sunday, not even to go to church.

  By Monday morning, a bon mot regarding the king’s kilt was being repeated everywhere: “As he is to be among us for such a short time,” a lady was reported to have said, “the more we see of him, the better.” This was thought to be very good indeed. On Monday, the king appeared in a field marshal’s uniform.

  And on Monday evening, Mr Clerk called upon the MacDonalds unexpectedly, and met privately with Hector and Catherine. A rumour had reached him that an American spinster had retained a solicitor to assist in securing custody of a certain orphan. The solicitor in question was clever and wily, perhaps unscrupulous; in short, a writ might already be in preparation. If Mrs MacDonald remained determined not to be parted from her stepdaughter, then Edinburgh was an unlucky place for the two of them just now. Catherine assured him that she would certainly never give up Grace, and agreed to begin her preparations for departure instantly.

  “No, no,” said Mr Clerk, “you mustn’t tell me where you’re going. Far better for me not to know. What a pity you’ll miss the king’s Drawing Room. Were you to have been presented?”

  But Catherine had harboured no ambitions of being presented to the king in any case.

  “I was thinking of home,” said Catherine to Hector and Mary after Mr Clerk had gone. “The old house.”

  “So was I,” said Hector. The old stone house where they had grown up, Hector, Catherine and Alexander, was on the Isle of Skye. It stood on a promontory above a sea loch, behind an ancient ruin crumbling on a rock just offshore; its face to the sun, shoulder to the wind, and its back to a sublime prospect of the Cuillin. No one had lived in the house for some years, but it still belonged to Hector. “Andrew Dubh and his wife are still there at the croft, I know,” said Hector. “She is a pretty fair cook, and she has some girls who can do the rough work, and that niece of hers is still nearby. You wouldn’t be utterly cast away.”

  “It’s too far,” said Mary. “Surely there must be someplace less remote. You could go to my father’s house, in Paisley. Miss Johnstone could not know about that.”

  But her solicitor might. Hector and Catherine were certain that Paisley was not sufficiently safe.

  “And how are you to get there?” said Mary. “Hector, there is not time enough for you to take them all the way out to Skye and still return here again before your ship sails.”

  “We can go without Hector,” said Catherine stoutly. “It is not so difficult. From here to Fort William by coach, then the overland journey through the glen to Arisaig. And from there to Skye it is just a brisk short crossing in someone’s boat.”

  “Oh, my dear, it will be difficult. And what about a maid? You cannot possibly go anywhere without a maid, Catherine. You know you simply cannot.” Even Catherine had to concede that an attendant could not be dispensed with.

  “You must engage a maid, then, directly,” said Mary. “There is an employment broker near the Grassmarket; I will take you there tomorrow morning, my dear. And we will engage your places in the Fort William coach, too. Now let us begin packing your things. How I grieve to part with you just now! I had counted on your companionship a good while longer, and now I must do without all of you at once. Grace! Where is Grace? Tell her she must collect her things instantly.”

  Catherine’s trunk, the one she had brought when she had arrived at her brother’s house some months ago, had been wrestled down from the attics at the top of the house, wrestled by the footman down around the tight landings and narrow, steep stairs. It stood open now in the room she and Grace shared. It was half full again but still giving off its own peculiar scent of desolation and sorrow. For the moment, Catherine was alone; Mary had gone to see about some missing linen, and Grace to amuse the baby in his nursery upstairs. Catherine reached up to the highest shelf of the closet, and her hand touched the silk-wrapped parcel from Sandy. She brought it down and set it on the little table. She put her nose to it and inhaled deeply, for it still smelled of sweet spices and foreign sunshine. Catriona. Her gaze dwelt upon the loved handwriting, the childhood name. She missed Sandy so much. Tricky, clever, slippery Sandy. What would Sandy have done if afflicted by a Miss Johnstone?

  She remembered the time, when they were eleven years old, slipping out in the twilight of a July midnight to go and rob a rich cache of bird nests. The nests were almost always undisturbed, and therefore sure to be full of eggs or even downy hatchlings, because they were perched on the rim of an ancient ruin, a hundred feet above black rocks and white surf below. It could be reached only by a precarious causeway, and only at low tide; and to go there was strictly forbidden. Sandy and Catherine set off through the half dark, but were followed by Catherine’s burly, determined little dog, Luath, who was always eager for an adventur
e and trailed Catherine everywhere. They tried to send him back, scolding him in harsh whispers. He understand perfectly well what they were saying, but he refused to obey. Their reproaches shamed him, sunk him to the ground, but he remained defiant and would follow.

  When they ventured out onto the causeway, however, he was unable to cross it himself, and it was too perilous for Catherine to carry him, heavy and squirming. He stood instead barking shrilly after them as they picked their way intently over the black slippery rocks, over the mussels and green seaweed, the coral and winkles. They called to him to come; he would not. They threw rocks at him to make him hush; he would not. They feared that his commotion would raise the household; and indeed, they saw a light struck in one of the back windows of the kitchen. This dog would be the betrayal of them; they were forced to retreat. His joy as they returned across the black rocks to him made him wriggle and whimper. Catherine protected him from Sandy’s wrath; it wasn’t his fault. They sneaked back into the house undetected.

  The next night they tried again, timing their attempt according to their intimate knowledge of the daily rotation of tide and moonset. With a joyful Luath trotting behind, they went first to the byre at the farm at the bottom of the hill. There Sandy pulled out a rough hessian sack he had brought and, by means of a bit of dried herring, succeeded in seizing one of the thin suspicious cats who lived there, and tying it inside the sack.

  With this squirming parcel slung over his shoulder, they set off toward an upland patch of wooded ground crowning the hill, the only trees within half a mile. Luath was beside himself with passion about the sack just out of reach. At a nicely-judged distance below the patch of woodland, Sandy stopped and, teasing Luath for a moment, made Catherine hold him while he released the furious cat. The cat got its bearings in an instant, took into account the plunging, barely restrained dog, and streaked for the cover of the trees, its body extended in a most beautiful curve, its utmost sprinting speed. Catherine tried to hold on, but Luath, though short legged, was strong, and his nails were raking her. He leapt from her arms and plunged after the cat; and after listening for a moment, Sandy and Catherine ran down the hill to the causeway. They heard nothing as they crossed; then, as they gained the offshore rock, they could hear distantly the near-hysterical barking of a dog that has treed its quarry. They picked their way among the ruins—for there was rumored to be a yawning well somewhere about—and out to the seaward, windward side of the ancient fortifications. The seabirds rose off their nests, flapping and mewing. The nests themselves were everything they had imagined and more—a treasury of spotted mottled eggs and downy nestlings. The children tucked the fragile treasures into the bosoms of their jackets, then picked their way back across the causeway again, noting the chuckling black water lapping a little higher; and a light in the shepherd’s hut; and a lantern bobbling crazily high up on the hill, coming down from the patch of trees at its crown. Again they slipped into the house undetected. But they did overhear, next afternoon, the shepherd’s disparaging remark about the silly tyke who had raised such an alarm about a cat in a tree, and never again would he break his rest on the alarm of so foolish a dog as that one, a shame to call it Luath. His dogs knew better.