The Observations (39 page)

“What?”

She’d lowered her voice, but I heard her all right. I just couldn’t believe my ears.

“Nora is alive,” she says.

I looked at her. She was still gazing at me calmly, but there was a hint of pleasure behind her eyes at revealing her secret.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” she says. “But it’s true. You see, as it turns out, she’s been alive all this time. But she is in terrible,
terrible
trouble. And we have to help her, Bessy. I hope we can count on you. Will you help me to help Nora?”

I was so much betwattled at what she had said that I had not quite got beyond her first startling revelation.

“You mean, Nora isn’t dead?”

“No!” says missus, her eyes shining. “She is as alive as you or I!”

“But—” I gazed at her, astonished. “If she isn’t dead, then who is buried in the graveyard at Bathgate?”

Missus turned down the corners of her mouth. “Who can say?” she says. “Some other girl. But it certainly isn’t Nora.”

“You visited the grave,” I says. “You took a flower there, a crocus. You acted as though she was dead.”

A wrinkle appeared in her brow, then she nodded. “That would have been subterfuge,” she says.

I gazed at her, without comprehension.

She waved a hand in the air. A stratagem. You see, nobody must know that she is alive. She’s in hiding. Bessy, there are some people who are after her, some very dangerous people. And they will stop at nothing to get her. They are watching the house. You and I are not even safe.“

I shivered and glanced towards the door. She was scaring the mullacky out me. Right enough it was daylight but I was suddenly very aware that we were all alone in the house. The silence when neither of us spoke was eerie. You could have heard a flea speak.

But who are these people?“ I says. ”What do they want with Nora?“

Missus sighed. “It’s terrible, Bessy,” she says. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”

Oh please, marm!“ I says. ”You have to tell me, if I am to help.“

She gave me the beady eye for a moment.

Very well,“ she says. ”But you must understand that everything I say must remain secret. You mustn’t breathe a word of it to anyone. And you must never
ever
let anyone know that Nora is alive. That is vital. You would be signing her death warrant.“

I nodded and dabbed my chest with my fingers. “Hand on heart, marm, not a word.”

Missus smiled. “Good girl. Nora told me that we could trust you.”

I gazed at her in amazement. “You
spoke
to her?”

“Oh yes.” Missus gave me a shrewd look. “But you must know I have seen her, Bessy? You heard me talking to her, did you not?”

My mind was in turmoil. “I don’t know, marm,” I says. “When was this?”

“Why, just the other day. Remember? When you were listening at the door. You overheard me speak to someone. That was Nora,” missus says, triumphant. “I thought you might have guessed it, but obviously you didn’t. She was here, you see.”

I thought of the sudden appearance of that eye at the keyhole, and glanced about the place for some sign of a secret door or passageway— but could see none.

“I don’t understand,” I says. “When master James came in, there was nobody here.”

Missus laughed. “Nora has visited me several times in the past few days and has done so without attracting any attention to herself. She comes and goes. But I can reveal no more than that. She’s very clever, Bessy. She has to be, if she wants to avoid these people. You see,” she lowered her voice again, “I did tell you what a marvellous servant she is, didn’t I? What a sweet-natured and obliging person she is?”

I seemed to have lost the power of speech and so I just nodded.

“Well, these people—these terrible people—it is a man and a woman, by the way. She is the one who is in charge, the woman. He is simply her henchman—but don’t be fooled, he is just as evil as his mistress and he is moreover a master of disguise. You see they run a Register Office for servants and it is very much in their interests to find out what makes a maid loyal and obedient. Well, somehow they have found out about Nora and how wonderful she is. And do you know what they want to do to her?”

“No,” I says faintly.

“It is a very sinister plan, Bessy. They want to cut her up! They want to cut her open and use pieces of her brain and intestines in an experiment to find out what constitutes the perfect maid! Isn’t it awful?” She stared at me, wide-eyed.

I could not have said at what point exactly I had begun to be sceptical about what she was saying. Certainly, a seed of doubt was sown with her declaration that Nora had visited her, because I knew that nothing had been found when the room was searched (and I had recently even begun to wonder whether the eye at the keyhole might not indeed have belonged to missus herself). As for her mention of a “master of disguise‘ this also set off a few alarm bells because it did sound vaguely like something out a storybook. But by the time she got to the sinister plan and pieces of brain and guts and Nora being cut up for an experiment by people who ran a Register Office, I had begun to feel very frightened indeed. You see, I
wanted
to believe what missus said. Desperately. But a growing part of me knew that she was talking nonsense. Dear God, it was gobaloon! That was the only word for it.

The godawfullness of it froze me to the spot. I just sat there appalled and distraught with my hand clamped over my mouth. Poor missus! My poor dear missus! She was gone moony. She really was gone mad! And I had done nought to stop it. Indeed, I had probably caused it! I had a sense of rising panic and simultaneous sinking despair. I thought I might faint. But missus didn’t seem to notice that there was anything wrong.

“Nora came to me for help, you see,” she was saying. “However, I didn’t know it was her at first. The signs that she left were not specific enough. But then, do you remember, Bessy, the message in the attic window?”

Did I remember it. If only I had never
thought
of the scutting thing! It had caused more trouble! Arabella was looking at me for a response, I found I could tilt my head up and down in a sort of nod.

At that stage,“ she says, ”I have to admit, I was a little confused. I thought it was her
ghost,
you see, come back to haunt us. At first she only appeared before me and made that pleading gesture. Two or three times she came to me like that, though after the first time I did not mention it to you. I could see that she was trying to say something. Her lips would move but no sounds came out. And then one day she managed to speak.“

“What did she say?”

“That first time?” Missus reflected for a moment. “It was ”Help me, my lady.“”

“I see,” I says and the word tasted like bitter ashes in my mouth.

“In our first conversation,” she went on, “I questioned her about why she had come. She told me that she was not a ghost at all, that she was still alive. She was Nora, just as she always has been. And since then she has told me all about the trouble that she is in with these people. And I have offered her my protection as far as I am able.”

“So,” I says, trying to sound conversational. “Where is she now, marm?” I glanced around the room. “Is she here?”

“Don’t be silly, Bessy,” says missus. “She was here yesterday night. That was when she told me that we ought to bring you in on our secret, because you can help us. As you know, I am stuck in this room for the foreseeable future, and so I cannot be out and about, keeping an eye on things. We need somebody out in the world, because should these dreadful people come to the door then they have to be discouraged and sent away. You must be on the lookout for them, Bessy. Have you seen anyone lurking yet?”

I shook my head sadly.

She seemed surprised. “Really?” she says. “I have seen the woman herself several times, standing out there in the shrubbery, watching the house. Look out for her. They use assumed names. Currently she is known as Mrs. Gilfillan and her henchman is McDonald.”

I did not know much about lunacy back then but to my untutored brain it seemed that the delusion must be fairly comprehensive if the Phantasy figures involved had names, assumed ones at that.

I says, “Have you told any of this to master James?”

She scoffed at the very notion. “Good gracious, no!” She leaned towards me so that her face was inches from mine. “We’re not entirely sure yet,” she says quietly. “But we think it’s possible that James might be on their side. McGregor-Robertson too. But we’ll have to wait and see. I am keeping an eye on James and the doctor and that woman in the garden. Don’t worry. I’ve got them all under observation.”

She peered wildly this way and that as though to demonstrate— and for the first time, I realised how much she looked like she had lost her wits. Seeing her this close it dawned on me that there could be no doubt. It had been
her
glaring, bloodshot eyeball that had appeared at the keyhole. Just then, she grabbed my wrist, I near had a heart attack.

“They think that they are observing
me,”
she says. “But they don’t know that they are the ones under scrutiny!”

A thought occurred to me. “Was this anything to do with why you went to the Register Office in Edinburgh, marm? Were you looking for this Gilfillan woman?”

Missus gazed into the middle distance for a moment, frowning. “Register Office in Edinburgh?” she says. Then she shook her head. “I have no memory of it.”

“You interviewed girls, marm. You were asking them—things.”

She looked thoughtful. “I imagine that if I was at a Register Office it must have been in connection with my research. I am writing a book you see, a book about servants and how to get the best out of them.”

“Yes, marm,” I says. “You already told me about it.”

“Did I?” She looked puzzled. “I do keep forgetting things these days.”

“
The Observations
, marm. Like I said, I have read them. Some of them, anyway.”

“Now, there you go again with these
Obligations
. What do you mean?”

“Your book, marm. It’s called
The Observations,
is it not? Well, I went into your drawer there and read some of it.”

She looked at me, blankly. “
The Observations?
Is that what I called !t? I must say, I began it so long ago, I can hardly remember the title. Wasn’t it something about
Notes on the Domestic Class? Observations
you say? The important thing is, Gilfillan thinks she can get her hands on my research but she’s mistaken. I cannot write anything at the moment, since James and the doctor have taken my pen and ink, supposedly to afford me more rest. However, Nora suspects—and I am inclined to believe her—that they don’t want me to send her notes. Little do they know that she can come and go as she pleases.”

And so we were back to Nora again. How I had dreaded confessing that I’d read
The Observations
and built it up in my head until it was the size of China. And here it had gone almost unremarked!

Are you—are you expecting Nora today, marm? I’d like to meet her.“

“Yes,” she says. “You must meet her soon. She
may
come today, I am not quite sure. She has to be careful, you see, to avoid Gilfillan and McDonald. If they are lurking in the neighbourhood she will have to keep out of sight.”

“Of course,” I says. “What do they look like, marm?”

“Why—I haven’t seen McDonald but in any case he changes his appearance at will. He has been known to disguise himself variously as a sea captain, a chimney sweep and a Bishop. As for Mrs. Gilfillan, she is unremarkable in appearance, brown haired, of middle years. I saw her not an hour ago, she was down there, peering out, hatless, from behind the beech tree wearing a brown dress and matching cape—no doubt trying to blend in with her surroundings.”

She sat back and smoothed out her skirts. I don’t believe that I have ever in my life felt so sad for another person. Poor love! There she was, I could reach out and touch her. And yet she seemed to have slipped beyond my reach, as though she inhabited a different world from the one that was my own.

Are you absolutely sure, marm, that all this is true? Could it not be that you are—well—mistaken about Mrs. Gilfillan?“

“Oh no,” she says. “I am afraid it is all too true, Bessy. You may not like to believe that such evil people exist in the world but they do.” She must have seen my expression change, for she added. “But don’t worry, dear. You will be quite safe. Nora and I are working on a plan to get rid of McDonald and Mrs. Gilfillan permanently.”

“How would you do that, marm?”

She gave me a conspiratorial smile. “You will just have to wait an see,” she says. “But I am very confident that we shall have a positive result.”

I wished that I could have been so confident. To my distress I found that I was on the verge of tears. But I couldn’t let her see me cry! She would wonder what was the matter. I leapt up from my seat.

“Horses, marm!” I says. “That’ll be master James and the doctor back from Snatter.” Keeping my face averted, I hurried to the door. Out the corner of my eye, I could see her peering out the window, startled. I took the chance to wipe my cheeks on my apron.

“Horses?” she says. “I didn’t hear anything. Do you think they’ve muffled the hooves in an attempt to surprise us?”

“No marm!” I says in despair for it seemed that everything I did or said thrust her towards more extremes of madness! “It was just ordinary hooves I heard. Now I must go. But don’t you worry, marm. I’ll take care of everything.”

“I know you will, Bessy,” she says. “Now if you see any strangers or if anyone comes to the door just let me know.”

Somewhere deep in her eyes, I thought I seen confusion and a vague hint of the old missus. It was as though a vestige of herself remained, present yet powerless, gazing out from behind her face.

Then she turned back to the window and peered out, looking for God knows what, strangers creeping about in the bushes or evidence of her husbands return on muffled hoofs. She appeared so frail that the wings of the chair seemed almost to swallow her up. I slipped from the room gazing back at her as anxiously and sorrowfully as if that was the final time I was ever to see her, keeping my eyes fixed on her until the last possible moment when the door closed between us.