Chapter Nine

Rory

Edinburgh— Sunday 5th August 1877

W e walked on the narrow path, both lost in our thoughts. I heartily regretted my outburst, yet the mood between us was not as awkward as it could have been. The sun was shining, there were trees in full leaf, and the Water of Leith rushing past us on its journey to the Firth of Forth and out to sea gave the illusion that we were in the countryside.

It would have been the most natural thing in the world for us to walk arm in arm, if we had been what we must have looked, a couple with no more ambition than to take the Sunday air and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. The fact that I very much wanted to do just that was one of the reasons I didn't suggest she put her arm through mine. I couldn't afford to indulge myself. It was simply wrong.

Even if it had felt right. Even if I had thought that she felt it too, when she'd touched me a few moments ago. Compassion changing to wanting. I wouldn't dare call it desire. I couldn't afford to go down that path.

So what path did I think I was treading then—and I don't mean the one that we were strolling on! Getting to know her? Making her feel at ease with me so I could assess how able she would be to deal with the real reason for my presence here? Aye, a good way to go about earning her trust, that would be, if I gave in to what I was wanting to do, which was to put my arms around her and kiss her. So I wouldn't give in to my impulses, tempted as I was—and I was very, very tempted, which in itself was very unusual. Boundaries are boundaries between my work and my private life, and I'd never before had any problem sticking to them. Likely I was imagining the feeling was mutual. If I could have convinced myself of that, the battle would have been won.

We left the straggling outskirts of the village behind at the bend in the river where the walls of the huge cemetery could be seen on one bank.

‘What is that building?' Marianne—Mrs Crawford!—pointed up at the imposing classical edifice on the hill looking down at the village.

‘It's the Dean Orphanage.' She had stopped walking, and was gazing fixedly at the building. It occurred to me, a bit too late, that it might remind her of the place she'd escaped from. I couldn't see much resemblance in style, but the fact that it was a large institution with extensive grounds could well be enough to trigger unpleasant memories. ‘Maybe we should turn back,' I said.

But she stood her ground. ‘It must hold a great number of children. So many little ones without any family.'

‘Or alternatively, with family who have not the means to take care of them.'

‘Not orphans, but it is what they will be called, just the same.' She gave a deep shiver, then turned her back on the building. ‘It's not a happy place. Will we take a walk in the cemetery? At least there, the inmates are at peace.'

It's not a happy place.

I didn't want to spoil the mood, but I wasn't here for my own benefit. It struck me that this was as good an opportunity as any to sound her out about what she knew—or didn't know—of her own background. I was already worried about her. The way she disappeared into herself every now and then, like a light was switched off inside her. The way she snapped sometimes, if I pushed her. Not just touchy, defensive. You could almost see the drawbridge being pulled up. I needed to tread carefully, but I also needed to make progress.

‘What is it?' She stopped, and I realised I'd been trailing behind her. ‘You were miles away.'

‘"It's not a happy place", you said, as if you knew what you were talking about. I was wondering why—were you an orphan?'

I thought she might palm me off, but she surprised me. ‘I never knew my father, nor my mother either, which I suppose does make me an orphan, though I've never thought of myself as such and I was not raised in an orphanage.'

We had entered the cemetery through the main gates, but of one accord had immediately veered away from the wide paths to the perimeter. There was a bench against the wall, and we sat down. ‘What happened to your parents?' I asked, hoping to fill in one of the many gaps regarding what I knew about her, and more importantly what she knew about herself. I was, I'll admit, also genuinely curious on my own behalf.

‘I don't know. I was raised by a couple who had no children of their own. I was well cared for, given a reasonable education, but they did not care very much for me. I knew from an early age, that I was not their child, that they were being paid to look after me. And, yes,' she said, her gaze meeting mine, ‘I was curious as to who was paying them.'

I hadn't voiced the question in my head, but it was an obvious one. Her eyes were more green than hazel today. Her hands were clasped in her lap. Her skirts were brushing my leg. We were not touching at all, but I felt as if we were, bodies and minds. I know, it's a ridiculous thought, but it's what I felt. ‘That must have been painful though, growing up knowing you were—I mean, it sounds like they were more distant than they had to be.'

‘They were kind enough, but I was not their child. At least I was not simply dumped in a place like that.' She pointed in the direction of the orphanage. ‘Why should I care, if my family—whoever they were—did not?'

One thing I'd always been certain of in my own life, was that my parents loved me, and that I was very much wanted. If I'd been given away as she had—I simply couldn't imagine how I'd feel. Had Lord Westville, her father, cared? Was that a question she was going to ask when the truth came out? If she did, there was no answer. ‘So what about the money then?' I asked, returning to surer ground. ‘Did you ask them where the money for your keep came from?'

‘A benefactor, that is all they would tell me. He wished to remain anonymous. I assumed it was a man. I assumed it must be my father, though I have no basis for that, it could have been his family, or even my mother's family. I assumed, when I was old enough to make such assumptions, that I must be the result of a—a misalliance, as they say.' Her mouth curled. ‘That my parents were not married and that I was not wanted. Anyway, I never depended upon the money. I made my own living.'

‘Looking after children?'

‘Yes. I helped the school mistress in the local school from when I was about sixteen.'

‘So your love of children goes back to then?'

‘It does. I love to teach.' She gave me one of her tight little smiles. ‘Governesses, nurses, nannies, are supposed to say that, but not so very many of them mean it. There are so few so-called respectable jobs open to women, and men assume that we are born with a maternal instinct. Many of them assume that it is our only talent, our only fate, to be a mother, or failing that, to care for someone else's children.

‘But you're quite wrong,' she continued, ‘if you're thinking I resent being forced to earn my living as I do. It is the other women I feel for, those who believe they have no choice since expectations of women are so ridiculously low. That I resent. For myself, from an early age I have enjoyed teaching little ones.'

‘But you have opted to work for private families rather than in a school since you came to Edinburgh.'

‘No, since before that. The school mistress was a lovely woman with the patience of a saint called Miss Lomond. It was she who suggested that I become a governess rather than a teacher. I was too young, you see, to be given any more responsibility, and the pay for such a junior position, for a woman, was not enough to support me. I had my stipend, but Miss Lomond pointed out that since I had no idea where it came from I would be foolish to rely on it.'

‘That was very far-sighted of her.'

‘Far more than I realised at the time.' Her smile faded, but she gave herself a wee shake. ‘Sadly, like many middle-aged women from a respectable background with no desire to find a husband, Miss Lomond spoke from experience. Like me, she had had an allowance—from her brother, I believe. When he married, he decided that he could not afford to continue to support her as well as his family. I owe her a great deal.'

‘Are you still in touch?' It was unlikely, but one thing I'd always wondered was why no one had made any attempt to have her released or even to visit her in the institution.

‘She died ten years ago, of typhus. Now, Mr Sutherland, I've told you a great deal more than you are entitled to know, so I would appreciate it if you ceased to interrogate me as if I was one of your suspects.'

She jumped to her feet and set off at a pace along the path. I hurried after her, noting that at least she was not headed for the exit gate. That allowance of hers had been used to pay her keep in those places where the man who administered it had had her locked up. Even if she'd wanted to claim it after her escape she couldn't have, without giving away her whereabouts.

Did she know who it was that was responsible for her incarceration? It was one of the many things I still didn't know about Marianne Little. There were so many gaps, and I wasn't overly sure which ones mattered. I'd telegraphed my employer to let him know I'd found his relative, but I hadn't heard back from him yet.

I caught up with Marianne—I simply couldn't think of her as Mrs Crawford now. ‘It is my turn to interrogate you,' she said. ‘Tell me why you became a policeman—aside, I mean, from your enthusiasm for asking questions.'

‘Oh, that's simple, I followed in my father's footsteps.'

‘Really?' She stopped beside a massive tombstone with a weeping marble cherub perched on top of it. ‘But I am sure you told me he was from the Highlands?'

‘They were short of numbers to police Glasgow, back in the day. He was a Highlander from the Isle of Harris, my da— m'aither. He was twenty-one when he came to Glasgow, and Gaelic was his native language. He was well built, like myself, and he was ambitious, and like I said, the authorities were desperate as the streets were getting out of control. He worked bloody—he worked hard. He was not long without English, he was clever, and he was good at his job, but he was always a teuchter, a Highlander who had come to Glasgow to put boots on his feet. He never made it past sergeant in twenty-odd years' service.'

‘And yet you followed him into the police force?'

‘It was all I ever wanted to do. I joined the Edinburgh force, though. A different city, and decades on from my da's time. I had it easier than him, but whenever I stepped out of line, I had the fact that I was a Weegie thrown in my face.'

‘And did you step out of line often?'

‘I was always on the side of justice.'

She laughed drily at that. ‘As defined by you, and not the law?'

‘That's one way of looking at it. It's a question of—of interpretation. I didn't think it was our job to lock up the people that the good citizens of Edinburgh would prefer to be invisible. Is a person struggling to make ends meet a vagrant? Is a drunk man necessarily a criminal? Just because a young woman's out on the streets after dark, does that make her a prostitute? Don't get the idea that I was the only officer who thought that way, we chose our battles, and there were a lot of grey areas between the right and the wrong side of the law.'

‘I'm willing to bet you were a minority, however. Few people look beyond what they have been taught to see.'

She spoke bleakly. It took me a moment to understand the connection she must have made, with the upholders of law on the streets, and the upholders of law in that damned institution. She'd been a school teacher and a governess, and then she'd been labelled something else entirely. Now she was a governess again, and just as she was starting to recover from her years of incarceration and settle into that life, she was going to discover that she was another person altogether. It made my mind whirl, just thinking about it all, and I'd known the tale for a good few weeks now. I thanked the stars that the Marquess had as good as gagged me. If I'd lumbered her with everything I knew about her, she'd have collapsed under the weight of it.

‘You're miles away,' Marianne—Mrs Crawford!—said, dragging me from my thoughts. Again.

‘I was thinking about what you said.' Not exactly a lie, that. ‘About people making assumptions, not looking beyond what they're expecting to see. It's easy to make fun of a constable on the beat as a big lump of brawn with no brain, focused on finding a drink when there's nowhere else open, and spending his nights courting chambermaids, but it's a hard and difficult job. You have to be as tough as the men you're policing.'

‘You mean you were violent?' she asked me, her tone indicating disbelief that I found reassuring rather than insulting.

‘I mean we faced violence. "Fists, feet and teeth" is what we were told to look out for. The teeth belonging to dogs, mostly but not always. I was forced to defend myself on occasion,' I added, because I felt the need to be entirely honest with her to make up for not being completely open, ‘but I swear I never did any more than that.'

She gave me one of her looks, making me feel she was picking through my thoughts for the truth. I held her gaze, and it turned out to be the right thing to do, for after a moment she nodded, satisfied, and I felt that I'd passed a test. It made me wonder though, what she knew herself of physical violence. I couldn't bear the idea of it, as if being locked up hadn't been enough of a trial.

I wished then, fervently, that she'd trust me, that she'd let me know her, I mean really know her, and the strength of that rocked me, for it was way beyond my remit. I wanted it for myself, not for the work I was here to do. I started walking again, to give myself a bit of time. Once again, it was she who broke the silence.

‘You loved your work, despite the danger,' she said.

Another statement, not a question, and she was in the right of it. ‘I loved putting things right,' I admitted. ‘I still do. I never saw the point in going after those who were forced on to the wrong side of the law to survive. It was the ones who deliberately chose to make a living that way I was interested in. Turns out I had a nose for sniffing those sorts of characters out, I had the right combination of brain and brawn. I didn't use violence, I told you that, but they had to know I could if I had to. As to brain—it's mostly about knowing who to look for, where to look, as well as trusting your instincts.'

‘And you were good at it?'

‘Good enough to make a name for myself.'

‘Success made you unpopular,' she said.

Yet another statement, I noted. She was good at this, playing me at my own game. ‘There are always some who resent the success of others. I've never been the type to socialise with colleagues, so that didn't bother me.'

‘What then?' she asked, her eyes intent on my face.

I could have pretended not to understand her, or brushed her off, but I didn't want to, even though I'd never talked about what I felt about any of it before. Not even when I was pushed to. ‘My cases were picked up in the press, the sensationalist ones at first, that report trials with lots of lurid detail. For some reason, they cottoned on to the fact that my name came up a few times, and they made something of that.'

‘You were famous!'

I swore vehemently, fortunately in the Gaelic. ‘I got a public reputation that I'd rather not have had, and that wasn't fair either, for there were many good men solving crimes in the city. I could have well done without it. All I wanted to do was get on with the job I loved.'

‘So what went wrong?'

‘The public, the press, the great and the good like it when you catch criminals, provided they come from a criminal class. They don't like it when you try to tell them that their friends and neighbours might be criminals too—and that's what I found when I started asking questions. However what's done is done and there's nothing I can do about it.'

I could feel her watching me. It made me uncomfortable. Even though she couldn't possibly read my actual thoughts, she was uncommonly good at sensing my feelings. ‘I don't think you are capable of letting it go,' she said slowly.

I sighed, for it was dawning on me that she was right. ‘It's not what I'm here for.'

‘No, you have another case now that you can't talk about.'

We'd talked about it plenty, though she didn't know it, and she'd given me a great deal to think about. ‘Not yet,' I said, hedging.

‘How long do you think it will keep you here in the city?'

‘It can't take too much longer.' We had stopped walking again, though I hadn't noticed. We'd come almost full circle round the perimeter of the main burial grounds. I could see the gates in the distance. How much longer? Was it fair of me to keep what I knew to myself, even though that was what I'd been instructed to do?

I genuinely felt as if I was on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, she had a right to know. On the other, to know what, while the question of her inheritance was yet to be decided? On the one hand, she had a family and a name. On the other was what the world would make of it all. If all that was doing my head in, what was it going to do to her?

And in the meantime, there was the fact that I didn't want to think about it any more, not for now. The difficulty was, when I looked into those eyes of hers, and I stood close enough to smell the soap she used, but not nearly as close as I wanted to be, I wanted time to go to hell, and the job I was here to do, along with it. I wanted something more than the life I had, working, eating sleeping, happy to be a lone wolf. Looking at her, what I felt was terribly lonely.

It threw me. I didn't know what to do or to say, so I just stood there looking at her, with doubtless half at least of what I was longing for written on my face. And she just stood there too, looking back at me.

A clock began to chime. It must have come from the orphanage. We both started. ‘We'd better get back,' I said.

‘I had better go home,' she said at the same time.

And we left it at that, though neither of us wanted to. I knew that for certain.