The Observations Read online

  The lane in front of me dipped right then left through fields, climbed again and after about ten minutes walking it passed the gate of a big mansion house in amongst a scutter of trees. I could see no castle but there was a woman running about the gravel drive and lawn. This way and that she went, waggling her hands in the air and every so often clapping. At first I thought she was gobaloon but then I looked over the wall and seen she was only chasing a pig. It looked like tremendous fun.

  ‘Wait on, missus,’ I says, ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

  Did you ever try to catch a pig? It’s not as easy as you think. That bucker had us running in circles. He shot round the back of the house to the yard and we followed. I nearly got him the once but he was a slippery old wretch he squirmed out my grasp like he was buttered. I would have dove after him but I did not want to ruin my good frock. Your woman kept shouting instructions to me, ‘Quickly!’ she goes and ‘Watch out!’ She was English, I realised. I had met English people before but never an English woman. At last the two of us cornered the pig by the hen run. We chased him along a fence then shooed him back into the sty and your woman slammed the gate shut.

  I watched her as she stood there panting a moment or two. She would have been about 27 then. Her back was slender though it looked as though she didn’t wear stays. And the colour was high in her cheeks with all the running but you could see by her forehead that her skin was pale as cream, there was not a freckle on her, she was alabaster. The frock she wore was silk, a watery shade, more blue than green, she struck me as being shockingly well dressed for running about after pigs.

  In due course she got her breath back. ‘Treacherous trollop,’ she says through her teeth. For a minute I thought she was talking about the pig until she added, ‘If I ever see her again, I’ll take her and I’ll—’ She clenched her fists but did not finish the sentence.

  The red-haired girl dragged her box through my minds eye. ‘Did somebody do you wrong, missus?’ I says.

  Your woman looked at me startled, I think she had forgot I was there. ‘No,’ she says. ‘The gate of the sty was left open. Probably an accident.’ Then she frowned at me and says, ‘What are you exactly?’

  This threw me into confusion. ‘What am I?’ I says. ‘Well, I was a—I suppose you could say I was a housekeeper for a—’

  ‘No, no,’ she says. ‘What I mean is are you a Highlander?’

  ‘Indeed not,’ I says most indignant. ‘I’ve never been near the Highlands. ’ She was still looking at me so I says, ‘I was born Irish. But I’m more of the Scottish persuasion now.’

  She seemed pleased enough about that. ‘Irish,’ she says. While we was chasing the pig two or three strands of her hair had fell down and now she gazed at me very thoughtful as she pinned them back up. You could have floated in her eyes they was that wide, and pale green like the sea over sand. At length she says, ‘A housekeeper?’

  ‘Yes, missus. For a Mr Levy of Hyndland, near Glasgow.’

  ‘I don’t think I ever saw a housekeeper in such bright clothes,’ she says. Her mouth gave a twitch, like she might laugh, perhaps the sight of my frock cheered her up. It was a beauty, right enough, bright yellow with little blue buttons and white satin bows at the front, admittedly it was not as clean as when I had set out that morning. There was a smudge at the hem and the lace was ripped this was because the Highland boy had at one stage got me pinned to the ground, I had to near enough wrench his ear off before he let me up.

  ‘I am between places,’ I says. ‘My Mr Levy he died on me and I am just now on my way to Edinburgh to find another situation.’

  ‘I see,’ says your woman. She folded her arms and took a turn around me, studying me from a few different angles. When she came back to face me, she looked doubtful. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever done any outdoors work?’ she says.

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact I have,’ I says, and without a word of a lie too, for a good deal of my work was outdoors before I was taken in by my Mr Levy.

  Your woman nodded. ‘What about cows?’ she says.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Can you milk a cow?’

  ‘Oh certainly,’ I says without hesitation. ‘A cow, yes, I can milk a cow, that’s no problem at all, I was born milking cows.’

  ‘Good.’ She indicated some buildings in the distance. ‘We keep a farm over there, the Mains. You can have something to eat and drink and then let’s see you milk a cow.’

  ‘Ah well,’ says I quick, ‘it’s a while since I done it now.’

  But I don’t think she heard me because she didn’t reply, just led me across the yard to the pump and give me a tin cup that was hanging on a nail. ‘Help yourself,’ she says.

  I drank two cupfuls. All the while she was watching me with those eyes. I says, ‘I might be a bit out of practice with the cows now. I may have lost the knack, I don’t know.’

  ‘Are you hungry?’ she says.

  Gob was I and I tellt her as much. She pointed to a door in the house. ‘There’s bread in there on the table,’ she says. ‘Take a slice.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, missus,’ I says and did as I was bid.

  The kitchen was a fair size but Jesus Murphy was it a shambles. A pail of milk had been overturned and there was lines of oats scattered on the floor and a smashed teapot laying against the skirting board. When I stepped in, a black cat was lapping at the spilled milk but as soon as it seen me it ran out another door with a yowl. I peered about me. The fire was out but there was a terrible scorched smell in the air. At first I wondered was it the runaway pig had made the mess. But when I looked more closely I seen that the oats had been scattered deliberately, in actual fact the lines of them formed four letters of the alphabet to spell a vulgar expression for a ladys private parts, I will not write it here but I thought to myself it would have to have been the very clever pig done that.

  There was no sign of any cook or maid, so I cut myself a slice of oat bread from the loaf on the table and ate it and then I cut another one and I started to eat that and while I was eating I cut a 3rd slice and tucked it down my frock between my two titties. The bread lacked salt but I would have ate the snibs off the windows I was that hungry. As I threw the bread into me, I was wondering how difficult can it be to milk a cow. You grab the dangler bits and pull, for dear sake I had seen it done manys a time as I swanned about on market day only not close at hand. I was a city girl, milk came in a pail and went in your tea, I did not even like milk and now because of my own stupid pride I would have to squeeze it out a cow.

  I cut another slice of bread and stashed that in my frock just in case then I went back outside, your woman was where I left her by the pump.

  ‘There you are,’ she says. ‘I thought you were lost.’

  ‘Oh, no missus, only it was such marvellous bread I didn’t want to rush the slice.’

  She didn’t say anything about that, she just sniffed and turned on her heel. I hared after her. ‘That’s a tremendous place you have here,’ I called out. ‘By Jove it is.’ But my words fell on deaf ears she did not even turn her head, I had no choice but to follow.

  We walked away from the mansion house, up a back lane that led to the farm buildings and from there across a yard and into a big shed. The place was heaving with cows there was about twenty of them which is a lot of cows when you think about it and even when you don’t. The stench in there would have knocked you down. There was two milkmaids stood talking up the far end, sisters by the looks of them, all dressed up in the cornthrasher duds they were, the boots and striped aprons. I near enough laughed out loud. To my mind they looked a right pair of bogtrotters but then I was only young and thought that anything in the country was to be looked down upon and mocked. Your woman went and spoke to them and then the two maids turned and stared down the length of the byre at me, their caps was comical but you would not have said their expressions was friendly. I gave them a smile and a wave, neither one of them waved back. The sour phiz on the pair o
f them, it is an unexplained miracle how the milk did not turn on a daily basis.

  All this while, one of the cows was shoving her great behind up onto me until she near enough had me pinned against the wall. I had to juke out the way to save myself from being squashed. Your woman came back towards me holding a bucket.

  ‘What a grand lot of cows you have, missus,’ I says to her. She said nothing to that just handed me the bucket. I looked at it. Then I looked at the cows. Then I looked at your woman.

  ‘What is your name?’ she says.

  ‘My name is Bessy,’ I told her. ‘Bessy Buckley.’

  ‘Well then, Bessy, here you are,’ she says and she give me a stool and pointed to one of the cows, the one had been squashing me. ‘Go ahead.’

  To my great relief she did not stay to watch, but went back to talk to the Curdle Twins who had sat themselves down and begun their own work. You could hear the milk firing into their pails like billy-o. I watched them, thinking to myself well gob that looks easy enough and so after a moment I settled on my own stool.

  But could I get a drop of milk to appear? Could I flip. I sat there for what felt like an age with a bucket in one hand and a great pink tittie in the other. It wasn’t my own tittie, it was the cows and it was that full it was touching the floor. I swear I squeezed till the fingers was dropping off me and the only thing that emerged from the cow came steaming out its hole and would near enough have ruined my good frock if I hadn’t skipped out the way. At the end of about 20 minutes, the bucket was still empty.

  Your woman came back this time with the Curdle Twins in her wake. She took one look in the bucket and says to me, ‘Now then, Bessy, I thought you said you could milk a cow?’

  ‘I lied,’ I says, wishing I had never stopped to help with her flipping pig. The Curdle Twins was exchanging glances, very superior in the background, shock almighty, oh she said she could milk a cow but she can’t oh she’s a liar did you ever hear the like, and all this. My face felt hot. I shot up from the stool. It was my intention to say ‘I’d better be off,’ and then stride out with my head in the air but I must have got up too quick, and instead I said, ‘Oh flip,’ and keeled over in a dead faint. I would have fell in the cowpat if missus hadn’t leapt forward and caught me.

  How long I was out I haven’t a notion but when I came to I had been carried out the byre. I was sat on a stool with my head between my legs and your woman had her hand in the back of my frock, she was loosing my corset. I had a good view down my bodice, there was a load of breadcrumbs in the cleft of my bosom, I had to fold my arms to stop them falling out.

  ‘Keep still now,’ your woman says, but kindly. ‘You fainted. And no wonder with your stays laced so tight.’

  After a while she let me sit up and brought me a tin cup of milk that she got from a bucket. She stood with her hands on her hips watching me. I was full of shame, I sipped at the milk just to please her and as soon as my head cleared I got to my feet. ‘I best be going,’ I says. ‘Sorry, missus.’

  She just nodded her head and waved her hand, I was dismissed.

  I left the farmyard and went down the lane to the back of the big house. My bundle lay where I’d dropped it, near the hen run. I was about to pick it up when I seen your woman returning. A thought struck me and I called out to her. ‘Missus, which way is the castle?’

  ‘Castle?’ she says. ‘What castle?’

  ‘Only the sign down the road there said there was a castle up this way and I wanted to have a look at it.’

  ‘Ah,’ she says and shook her head. ‘There is no castle. Castle Haivers is the name of the estate.’

  ‘Oh well,’ I says and leaned down to pick up my bundle. ‘Not to worry.’

  ‘WAIT!’ goes your woman, of a sudden.

  Oh sugar, I thought, she’s seen the bread in my bosom and I’m in for it. I straightened up. She was staring at me, her head cocked to one side. ‘You didn’t tell me you could read,’ she says.

  ‘Well you never asked,’ I says.

  ‘I just assumed. I thought—because—’

  She did not say because why but I knew anyway it was me being only an Irish girl, everyone thought the same. Her eyes was gleaming now. ‘But can you write?’

  ‘Indeed I can,’ I says. ‘I write very good.’

  ‘In English?’

  I looked at her. ‘What else?’

  ‘Oh?’ she says. ‘And who taught you?’

  I thought a second then I says, ‘My mother, God rest her soul,’ and I blessed myself.

  Your woman tilted back a bit offended, I suppose it would have been the sign of the cross bothered her, even the English don’t like it.

  ‘Wait here,’ she says, and hared away over to the big house.

  I stood there looking about me. What next I was asking myself, perhaps she wants me to read something for her or write a letter. After a while she came back with a blotter in one hand and a pen in the other.

  ‘Here you are,’ she says. ‘Now show me your writing.’ She was not going to take me at my word not after the incident with the cow, who could blame her.

  I took the pen, it was already dipped in ink. There was a stone base to the pump, I leaned the blotter on it and quickly wrote a few words I think they was thank you for the bread missus sorry about the duplicity or something like that. I remember I put duplicity because it was a word I had learned off my Mr Levy. I might not be able to milk a cow but I could spell and I was proud of it.

  Your woman was watching over my shoulder. I would have wrote more but the ink run out. When I finished I handed her back the pen and blotter. ‘Well, well,’ she says, and laughs very gay. ‘And how old are you, Bessy?’

  ‘18 missus.’ Which did not really count as a lie because I was always lying about my age. In any case there was some doubt about when I’d been born, my mother had not a very good memory for dates.

  ‘18?’ Your womans eyebrows shot up. Then she says, ‘Well, no matter. I can pay you 4 shillings a week and you will have bed and all food provided. Would you like to work for me?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I says. ‘Oh no. I’m going to look for work in Edinburgh, missus.’>

  She laughed. ‘But you don’t have to go to Edinburgh now,’ she says. ‘You can stay here and I will look after you and give you 4 and 6 a week.’

  ‘But—I can’t really milk a cow, missus.’

  ‘You have other skills,’ she says. ‘5 shillings then, and I will look after you and give you a patch of garden to grow what you will.’

  I tellt her she could forget about the patch of garden, the only thing I was interested in growing was rich. Of course there was little chance of that. 5 shillings was a pittance even in them days but I knew my prospects would be the same anywhere else and at least here I was out of the world, all there was in these parts was clodhoppers cows and a few coal pits. And there was something else made her words appealing. I will look after you.

  I glanced over at the farmhouse. ‘Do you have any books in there, missus? I mean story books.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she says. ‘Quite a number.’

  ‘I have a fondness for reading,’ I says. ‘If I could have permission to read the books on occasion—’

  ‘Hmm.’ She sighed and walked about a bit and then at length seemed to come to some sort of very reluctant decision. ‘Very well,’ she says. ‘Access to books. And 5 shillings a week.’

  ‘Done,’ I says, and I can honestly say I thought it a bargain.

  She took me into the kitchen then and without making any comment about the smell of burning or the mess she kicked some of the oats about the place so you could no longer read the word they spelt. Then she sat me at the table to explain the full extent of my duties. Well, if you had wrote it down, the list would have been as long as your arm but it all seemed straight forward enough, there was nothing strange or startling in what she said. Most of the livestock was kept over on the farm and was looked after by farm servants but your woman said she liked to keep a few hens a
nd a pig at the main house, more or less as pets, and I was to feed them. I was to keep the house clean and tidy, wash cook scrub sweep dust shake the mats and make tea. Every day, light all the fires and clean the range and keep it lit. Clean the boots empty the thunder mugs for her and the master. In addition, if they were short-handed, I might have to cart manure and pick stones out a field, then I might have to help put these same stones in holes in another field which, she said, was to make a drain. I’d have to help look after the vegetable garden and if I had any time left over I could always fill it by darning and mending. Generally, I had to do any chore you cared to mention since I was to be what they called the in and out girl, ½ the time I would be in and then the other ½ out. There were farm servants that lived on the farm and in bothies on the other side of the wood but I was the only domestic servant. The one thing she did not mention was the milking. I asked her about that.

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry about that for now. Jessie and Muriel will see to the cows. You would only have to help them out it in case of an emergency.’

  That tickled me. Now what would be the emergency, I wondered. I got a picture in my head of everyone running around in a panic falling over each other to get the cows milked. Wash the pots, Bessy! Make a drain! I can’t missus I have to milk the cows it’s an emergency!

  Your woman was looking at me. ‘Don’t tell me you are a day-dreamer, ’ she says.