The Observations Read online

  ‘Oh no, missus.’

  ‘But perhaps you are lazy? Or bad-tempered?’

  I shook my head. ‘No indeed.’

  She says, ‘Are you, let me see—dishonest?’

  She had me there, because of the cows. But I wasn’t going to admit to it. ‘No missus I am not,’ I says. ‘Not in the usual course of things.’

  Your woman didn’t look convinced. ‘Now then, Bessy,’ she says. ‘Tell the truth and shame the Devil.’

  My mother was forever telling me I wouldn’t know the truth if it flew up my skirt and said ‘How do you do.’

  I says, ‘Honest to Gob, missus, I’m not a liar.’ And would have spat to swear my word except we was inside, so I just did three small pretend spits over my shoulder. Your woman looked appalled, I don’t know why she was bothered, the place was a shambles.

  ‘Bessy,’ she says, ‘I don’t know what you have been taught, but don’t ever do that in this house again.’

  ‘Sorry, missus. But missus I only said that about the cows because I wanted you to think well of me.’

  She sighed and then says very patient, ‘Bessy dear, what did you call the lady where you last worked?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ I says.

  She looked at me.

  ‘The reason being there was no missus, it was just my Mr Levy. He was an old bachelor gentleman and it was just me and one boy looked after him, missus.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says and frowned a moment. ‘But I’m sure you called Mr Levy Master or Sir, did you not?’

  ‘Well yes, I suppose I did.’ I says that because it was what she wanted to hear. ‘Master, that’s what he liked to be called. Master this and Master that.’

  ‘Bessy,’ she says now very solemn. ‘I would like you to call me marm.’

  ‘Certainly I will. Whatever you like, marm.’

  She smiled at me and nodded. ‘That’s better,’ she says. She took a deep breath. ‘Now Bessy,’ she says. ‘There is one other task that I want you to do for me.’ And the way she made her eyes bulge out when she said it I knew it was the most important thing.

  She crossed over to a tallboy and took an accompt book out the cupboard. Jesus Murphy, I thought, she wants me to do the accompts, she’s got the wrong girl there for I might be able to write but I have never had a head for figures. But I was wrong.

  ‘This book is yours,’ she says and pressed it into my hands. ‘Now Bessy, listen carefully. I will see to it that you are taught everything you need to know about the work about the house. But in return, every night, I want you to take the time to write down what you have done in this book, from the moment you get up until the moment you go to bed, leaving nothing out.’

  I just looked at her. ‘But what for missus?’ I says, a bit nonplussed. ‘Marm.’

  She didn’t even blink. ‘Because it is what I wish,’ she says. ‘And be aware, it is the main condition of your employment. Don’t think I would take you on if you couldn’t write. It would not be worth my while to train you otherwise since it’s clear you know nothing of this kind of work.’

  Ever since I had scribbled those few words on the blotter she had seemed very excited. Even now there was a kind of a gleam in her eye and she was breathing heavy. I shivered, for the light was going and it was getting cold.

  She says, ‘I will take a look at what you have written from time to time. And when you have filled this book I will provide you with another. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, miss—I mean marm.’

  I stared at the book, it had a brown cover made of board and a lot of pages inside with lines on them where you could add up the totals of your purchases. I don’t know how many pages perhaps a hundred in all. I could never imagine writing enough to fill it not in a million years. She handed me the pen I had used outside and then she says, ‘You will need ink, just a moment,’ and hurried out the room, the hem of her skirt trailing oats into the passage.

  While she was gone, I glanced at the grate wondering did she ever in gobs name light the fire. It was then I seen the reason for the charred smell in the air. I don’t know why but it made me shiver again. For laying among the ashes was an accompt book the exact same as the one I had been given. The only difference being that the book in the grate was burnt so bad that only the binding and a few pieces of its scorched cover remained. I took a candle and peered down at the hearth to have a better look. Up close I could see that all the pages had been ripped out and was now just wispy ashes in the grate. The cover was damp, as though someone had poured water on it to douse the flames. I flipped it open. Inside there was an inscription in a childs hand, the words was ½ scorched but you could still read ‘belongs to Morag Sutherland’ and a date in July but no year was given. Who was this child Morag, I wondered and why was her book burnt? I was about to lift it out the grate when I heard your woman coming back down the passage, so I stood up.

  ‘Here we are!’ she says, as she came back in. ‘Now, hold out your hands, Bessy,’ she says and I did as I was bid. Then she presented me with a bottle of ink and a spare pen, the way she done it with such ceremony for dear sake you would have thought she was giving you a prize.

  And then, true to her word she did give me something to read, it was called Bleak House, I hoped it wasn’t an omen. She showed me a label she had pasted inside, a black and white label, it had a picture of two ladies sat under a tree looking at an open book. Around the edge were the words EX˜BIBLIOTHEC˜CASTEL˜HAIVERS. Every one of her books had that same label, she seemed to think it would stop them being stolen.

  After that, she showed me where I was to sleep. She give me a candle and took one herself then led me out the kitchen into the hall. It was a drafty old house and the flickering light threw great shadows to dance against the walls, I had a glimpse of a hallstand and grandmother clock and then the banisters loomed as we turned up the stairs.

  Up we went, along the main landing where all the doors was shut so you could not see into the rooms. I was a bit sad about that, I would have liked a look around. At the end of another narrower passageway we climbed a short flight of stairs to a little attic room with a sloping roof and skylight window. There was just enough space to fit a bed, a chair and a small cupboard, no more than that and certainly not two people which is why the missus stood outside, her candle held aloft for me to see my new domain. You could have took it in with one eye shut.

  ‘This will be where you sleep,’ she says.

  ‘Very nice,’ says I.

  The bed was not even made and there was no curtain or cloth at the window. I was trying not to think of my own lovely room at Mr Levys in Crown House with the white marble mantelpiece, velvet drapes and all. That was the past, I would never see it again.

  ‘For the time being I will eat my meals with you in the kitchen,’ your woman says, like it were to be a great treat for the both of us. ‘But of course,’ she says, ‘when my husband returns home, he and I will dine together and you will wait on us.’

  ‘Oh of course,’ I says. ‘When will he be coming home, missus?’

  But she didn’t answer that, she just smiled at me and says, ‘What time did you start work in your last place?’

  I took a guess. ‘8 o’clock?’

  ‘Ah,’ she says, ‘I’m afraid you will find us early risers here in the country. Tomorrow, you should have the fires lit and breakfast made by 6.’

  So there I was with two pens, my two titties, Charles Dickens, two slice of bread and a blank book at the end of my first day in the middle of nowhere. Except as it turned out it wasn’t quite the end.

  Before I went to bed I had to clear up the kitchen, all except the hearth which your woman tellt me not to touch. She went up to her room and left me to it. The cleaning took forever because I was not used to such work and I did not get up the stairs until after 11 o’clock. I was too tired to unpack my things so I simply pulled my nightdress out my bundle and left the rest until such times as I had a moment. I wrapped the two piece of bread I had took
from the kitchen in a clean shift and hid them in the cupboard, and I ate the 6 Parma violets that were in my pocket. Then I made up the bed and got into it. The mattress was hard but not lumpy and the blankets seemed clean enough. The clouds must have been thick that night for there was not a star in the sky. I lay there very alert for hours the reason being I would have to start my chores at 5 and I was terrified I would not get up in time. At length however I must have dozed off. I had been asleep what seemed only a few minutes when something made me wake with a start. My eyes snapped open. Your woman was standing over me with a candle, dressed in her nightclothes. She was raging, full of fury, her face so tight it looked like it might fly apart at any moment.

  ‘Get up!’ she hissed. ‘Get up this instant!’ She dragged back the blankets and hit the mattress a few times with her fist. ‘I want to see you downstairs, girl,’ she says. ‘Two minutes. Don’t get dressed, just come down immediately.’

  And then she was gone.

  Jesus Murphy my heart was going like the hammers of Hell, when I lit my candle I could see the thump of it behind the bodice of my nightdress. My first reaction was, I had slept in. I glanced out the window, it was still pitch black out there not even a hint of the dawn, it could have been ½ past 5 or 6 or even 8 for all I knew, I was not an early riser. My hands shook as I pulled on my shawl, I was not sure if it was the cold or the fright. In my bare feet I crept downstairs to the hall. Well the grandmother clock said it was 10 past two so I had not slept in. And then it came to me, why your woman was angry. She had examined the oat bread and seen that I had took more than one slice. I was thinking to myself, now you’re in for it and you’ll be back on the road in the morning with no job and not even a character and two boxed ears because you’re a liar and a thief and you never milked a cow in your life.

  It was with a heavy heart that I pushed open the kitchen door and stepped in. Your woman was sat at the table in the light of a lamp and two candles. She no longer seemed angry but she had a distant air about her, she didn’t even look at me, just gazed at the wall. ‘Come in please,’ she says her voice kind of flat.

  I shuffled forward a few steps. ‘I’m sorry, marm.’

  Her head shot round. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘For the—’ I hesitated, perhaps she hadn’t noticed the bread after all and it was something else bothered her. So I says, ‘For whatever I done that made you angry with me.’

  ‘Angry?’ she says. ‘I am not angry.’ She give me a big smile and then she turned her face to the wall and spoke again in the flat voice. ‘There is cocoa on the shelf,’ she says. ‘And milk in that jug. I want you to make a cup of cocoa please.’

  ‘C-cocoa, marm?’

  ‘Yes thank you,’ she says. ‘I want you to make a cup of cocoa please.’

  This change of mood and the please and thank you business and the flat voice was most perplexing. I wondered to myself was all mistresses like this, for I had nothing to compare her with except perhaps my mother. Right enough my mothers mood was changeable and she would think nothing of dragging you out of bed in the middle of the night but it wouldn’t have been with the aim of getting you to make her a cup of cocoa that’s for flipping sure, more about which I may write later.

  ‘Very good, marm,’ I says to your woman and I give her a curtsey, I don’t know why for I was not in the habit of curtseying to anyone but it just happened that way, it seemed a maid-like thing to do. Then I took the jug from the table and started to warm the milk. Of course I did not know then what I was to find out in the weeks to come and so thought it strange that although she watched what I did she did not direct me once. Not a comment passed her lips, she only followed every move I made, her eyes gleaming in the lamplight like a cats. There was not much to do while the milk warmed but I got the impression she would not like me to sit down so I took a cloth and pretended to wipe the shelves.

  After a bit, she took a breath and says, ‘What did you do just then? A moment ago?’

  ‘How do you mean miss—marm?’

  She pointed to where I had been standing when I came into the room. ‘You did something, while you were standing there.’

  ‘A curtsey,’ I says. ‘Yes marm.’ Oh flip, I was thinking to myself, perhaps you shouldn’t have done a curtsey for dear sake can you do nothing right.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know, marm. It just came to me.’

  ‘I see,’ she says and blinked a few times, I honest to gob thought she was going to cry and then I realised she was looking like she might burst with joy. ‘Carry on please,’ she says eventually and waved her hand in the direction of the cocoa jar.

  Well I turned around and took a cup off the shelf and mixed the cocoa with a little cold milk and then I poured the hot milk on top and give it a good stir. When it was done I took it over to the table and set it down in front of her with the sugar. Of a sudden she leaned forward and clasped my hands between the two of hers, for dear sake the smile she had on her it’s a wonder her face didn’t crack.

  ‘Thank you, Bessy,’ she says. ‘You are an extremely good girl. Well done. Well done.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ I says.

  Her skin felt cool against my fingers, I went to pull away but she held onto me giving both me and the cup fond glances.

  ‘This looks lovely,’ she says. ‘Absolutely lovely. It’s perfect in every way and you made it so quickly and with such efficiency. I’m proud of you, Bessy, very proud of you. What a good girl you are! Thank you thank you thank you.’

  Jesus Murphy it was only a cup of cocoa.

  ‘Very good, marm.’ I didn’t know where to put myself. ‘Will there be anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, suddenly grave. ‘There is something.’

  What next, I thought, she is mad as a cuckoo. And then she let go my hands which was a relief and surged to her feet.

  ‘Sit down in my place, dear,’ she told me, and I did as I was bid. Then she slid the cup of cocoa towards me.

  ‘You have made such a good job of this,’ she says. ‘I want you to drink it.’

  I looked at the cup. Then I looked at her.

  ‘Me, marm?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says and then a bit concerned, ‘You do like cocoa?’

  ‘Well,’ I says. ‘I’m not overfond of milk but I don’t mind cocoa.’

  ‘Good,’ she says. ‘Now drink it up like a good girl and then get to bed, you’ll want to be fresh for the morning.’

  She reached out quick towards my face and I flinched, but she only smiled and give my cheek a little stroke with the back of her hand. Then she turned out the lamp, lifted one of the candles and left the room without another word. I was not at all sleepy. If I remember rightly it was a while before I went to bed. I think I sat there all alone for a long time with the cocoa in front of me, watching the steam rise up off it and get sucked towards the candle flame.

  2

  New Clothes and New People

  NEXT MORNING I woke up and stared stupidly out the window for a few moments then lit out of bed with a yelp for the sun was high in the sky, there could be no doubt even I knew I had slept past 5. I tore into my clothes and skittered downstairs no wash nor nothing, fixing my hair as I went. The clock in the hall said it was after 9. Late by 4 hours Jesus Murphy that must have been some kind of record. I could have kicked myself. The night before as I was sat at the table, I had ½ made up my mind to move on and try my luck elsewhere for I wasn’t sure I was cut out for this kind of work. But now that I might well be dismissed before I even started, I was having 2nd thoughts. And I don’t often have them.

  The missus was in the kitchen, putting milk in a saucer for the cat. She was wearing a plain grey dress and an apron. When I ran in she looked up. ‘Ah Bessy,’ she says. ‘I take it you slept well.’

  I thought this was her being satirical but I had my excuses lined up.

  ‘Missus,’ I says. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  She raised a
hand to stop me. ‘Yes, yes,’ she says. ‘You had a late night. It’s entirely my fault.’

  Was she mocking me, it was impossible to tell. I says, ‘Sorry marm, I wouldn’t have slept so long only—’

  ‘Hush, child,’ says she. ‘I decided to let you sleep this morning.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘After all, you have been travelling,’ she says. ‘You must be tired. And also upset what with your master—passing away and so on.’

  I just nodded, at a loss.

  ‘Well, Bessy,’ she says. ‘There are a few things I’d like you to do today but nothing too taxing. We can start properly tomorrow when you’re rested. That is,’ and at this point she gave me a close look, ‘if you do intend to remain here?’

  She was smiling fondly like a mother in a story book, her eyes was bright but you could see a trace of anxiety behind them. I hesitated but a second. Then I says, ‘Yes marm, I certainly do.’

  ‘Good,’ she says, clearly much relieved. ‘Now, you can have breakfast in a moment,’ she says. ‘But first things first. Are you wearing your corset?’

  I blinked. ‘No miss—marm,’ I says. ‘I had not time to put it on.’

  ‘Excellent,’ she says. ‘Then you won’t have to take it off.’ And thereupon she produced a tape from her pocket and proceeded to take measurements of all my proportions, making notes on a scrap of paper as she went. I assumed at first that she was sizing me up for a set of maids clothes. I can remember as if it were yesterday what the dimensions were of my bosom and all the rest, modesty prevents me from writing them here, let’s put it this way in those days I was very well-formed. Up close I could smell the scent she had on her, attar of roses, and underneath was her own fragrance, more earthy and warm. Once she was done with the usual measurements bosom waist and so on she also took the span of my neck and upper arm, I was not sure what to make of that only I thought perhaps she was very particular about collars and sleeves. Next she measured the palm of my hand and the length of all my fingers and thumbs. Gloves as well, I thought, by Jove this is the pigs whiskers. Then she put the tape round my head and wrote down skull 21 and a ½ inches, from which I surmised I was also getting a hat, I hoped it would be a good one and not just an old straw bonnet. After which she measured my mouth and the distance from my forehead to my chin and then between my two eyes and after that she took the length of my nose. Finally she measured the distance from my left nostril to my left earhole and my right nostril to my right earhole. To tell the truth I found it both confusing and disturbing but I was young and vain and when I squinted down at her paper I was only relieved to see that both sides of my face were 5 inch across for if the numbers had been lopsided I reckoned I might as well set off there and then to join Carneys Wonderland as a freak.