Chapter Ten

Marianne

Edinburgh— Wednesday 8th August 1877

T he day started as it always did, with the horrible rude awakening, the cold sweats, clammy skin, the terror so all-consuming that I dare not open my eyes. Then the slow creeping in of reality. The Grassmarket view. Flora. Dressing. Breakfasting. As I stood just inside the close, preparing to take my first steps outside, I looked for him standing in the doorway of the coffee shop with his mug in his hand. Rory Sutherland beginning his day by looking out for me to begin mine.

I did not wave or nod or go over to talk to him, but if he had not been there I would have been disappointed. He made me feel not alone. Wanted? Of course I was valued by the mothers who employed me and by the children I cared for, but this was different. He wanted me for myself, not for what I could give him. That sounds strange, but it's what I sensed from him. What I felt for him.

I had dreamt of Rory Sutherland. Deep in the night before my usual nightmares took over, I had dreamt of him. Of us. I dreamt of the heat of his flesh, slick with sweat, merging with mine. His mouth. His tongue. His hands. I dreamt of the shuddering, clenching, thrill of him sliding inside me. I dreamt of my fevered response, so different from my daytime self, urging him on, urging myself on. I dreamt of the confidence of his touch and of mine. Knowing that what we did was what the other wanted. The certainty of it. And the pure, utter delight of letting go.

A sharp cry, a hand on my arm yanked me out of my daydream and back to the side of the road and saved me from walking straight into the path of a horse-drawn tram on Princes Street. I cried out, pushing the hand away, horrified at my own lapse. My saviour was a man, a perfectly harmless complete stranger who was more frightened by my narrow escape than I was. Muttering a rudimentary apology and my thanks, I hurried across the thoroughfare, thrown that I had so easily abandoned my customary caution. Was it really so necessary after all this time? Perhaps not, but I looked over my shoulder again before continuing, slowing to my usual measured stride.

My thoughts drifted back to last night. It was a dream, wish fulfilment, the product of my own suppressed desire, nothing more. Yet it had been so intimate, so intensely felt. I don't have visions, though that was how my insights have been described by some. I see what others don't, though they could if they would try harder. I see through lies and I understand acute emotions.

On occasion this led to something like a dream unfolding in my head, as if my mind was putting it all together into a story for me. The pictures were not always accurate. Sometimes they were what might happen, possibilities rather than certainties. That's what made me susceptible to being branded a liar, when they were used as evidence against me. All I ever wanted was to help people make better choices. If only I had been as perceptive when it came to myself, but I'd had no inkling, not until it was too late. I thought myself infallible. How wrong I was proven to be.

But last night was simply a dream, nothing more. A dream that had awoken a yearning, craving, longing, to have what I had dreamt happen for real. Or rather, it was Rory Sutherland who had awoken that feeling, and now it wouldn't go away. I tried to banish him from my thoughts, tried to calm my mind and cool my body, but had only part succeeded by the time I arrived at Queen Street. My reception at the front door, however, abruptly completed the task.

‘Mrs Crawford! Thank heavens.' Mrs Oliphant herself beckoned me from the top of the stairs as soon as I set foot in the marble-tiled reception hall. I followed her into the main bedchamber, where she closed the door behind us and sank down on a chaise longue . ‘I fear the baby is coming early.'

I untied my cloak and laid it on the bed. ‘Have you sent for the midwife?'

‘Not yet.' She laid her hand on her swollen abdomen, wincing. ‘I wanted to be prepared. Oh, Mrs Crawford, do you think it's a boy? My husband will be so disappointed if it is another girl, when we already have three daughters and only one son.'

My heart sank at her plaintive tone. I could not know whether the baby was a girl or a boy, but I did know that if the child was female, this was not news my employer wished to hear. I sat down on the chaise longue beside her. ‘You will know soon enough. Boy or girl, you should be preparing yourself for its entry into the world, not fretting about how your husband will receive the child. I will have one of the footmen send for the midwife.'

‘Yes, yes, please do so.' Mrs Oliphant, to my relief, regained some control over herself. ‘Do you think all will be well?'

‘You have no cause to imagine otherwise.' I could not alter the outcome here, and my telling her anything at all would not help to prepare her for whatever nature had in store for her. ‘You have had four perfectly healthy births, Mrs Oliphant.'

‘I know, but I am forty next month, and this may be my last chance to give my husband the second son he desires so much. But you are right, of course.' She broke off as the pain swept over her, squeezing my hand tightly until it passed. ‘You're right,' she said weakly. ‘I will know one way or another in a few hours. If you will be so good as to summon my maid, Mrs Crawford.'

‘And the children? The plan is for your sister is to take them temporarily, isn't that correct?'

‘Yes, but she's not expecting them for at least another two weeks, when you were to take two weeks to yourself. What shall I do?'

‘Leave it with me. I will send a telegram.' I gently pushed her back down on the chaise longue . Sweat had broken out on her pale brow. Her pains were coming worryingly fast. I rang the bell for her maid and hurried downstairs, calling for one of the footmen.

It felt like a very long day, though I finished early once I had seen the children off with their aunt. All four of them were excited to be going to Portobello and the seaside, heedless of the reason for their unexpected holiday. Mrs Oliphant, like all of the well-to-do mothers who employed me, had made every effort to disguise her condition, it being thought vulgar to appear pregnant, and indecent to talk of the origins of their progeny. The Oliphant children would doubtless be informed, when they returned from the seaside, that a little sister or brother had been delivered by the stork or found under a gooseberry bush.

The weather had held fair all week. It was a pleasant late afternoon when I walked home, and I decided to enjoy a moment in the sunshine, taking a seat in Princes Street Gardens. I don't allow myself to remember the past, for it was too painful, but the encounter with poor Mrs Oliphant had upset me. It shouldn't have, I knew better than anyone that men wield the power in this world and dictate what we should feel and when. I had bowed to convention, once upon a time, willingly. I persuaded myself that I wanted what he wanted. He wanted it so very ardently, or so I believed, and I had never felt wanted before, for myself alone. I trusted him, and I trusted what I sensed from him. Desire. Need. I detected no sense of danger, no sense of his treachery until it was too late. Far, far too late.