Gillespie and I (35 page)

Following this perturbing incident, Ned finally acknowledged that they needed help with their daughter, and, that evening, he went around the corner to Lynedoch Crescent and paid a visit to Dr Oswald. Ned was shown into his study, where he explained the situation: Sibyl's guilt, and her belief that she was responsible for the loss of Rose; her refusal to eat and subsequent weight loss; the nervous cough; the incident at the window; and then, all the child's previous misbehaviour and wilfulness, a history that ranged back over a period of many months, and included all her various acts of sabotage: the obscene drawings on the walls; the stolen matches; the countless items, burned and destroyed; the unfortunate faecal incidents; and the attempted poisoning at Hogmanay.

Having listened carefully to Ned's account, Oswald asked permission to interview Sibyl alone, and an arrangement was made for him to visit Stanley Street. On the following afternoon, he arrived at the appointed time, and while Ned and Annie waited, apprehensively, in the parlour, the doctor spoke to Sibyl, in private, in the dining room. They emerged after ten minutes or so, and the girl was sent upstairs, while Oswald reported his findings to her parents.

In his opinion, Sibyl was an extremely disturbed and anxious child, in desperate need of treatment, particularly if she was not to starve herself. Given Sibyl's history, there was also the danger that she might not merely cause harm to herself, but also to others. Oswald offered to take her into the asylum, there and then, for a few weeks, to try to encourage her to eat, and to keep her under closer observation than might be possible at number 11.

By that stage, Annie feared for her daughter's life, and was willing to try any solution, whatsoever. However, Ned had a horror of the asylum and would not be persuaded to place his child there, no matter how much Oswald reassured him that the Ladies Department was perfectly humane. After some further discussion, the doctor departed, without Sibyl, leaving the Gillespies with a final word of advice: if they were unwilling to put the child in his care, then they must urgently seek extra help. Both Ned and Annie acknowledged that, for the time being, they did require some assistance but, in their fragile state, neither of them could bear the notion of bringing a stranger into the apartment, and so, any thoughts of hiring a maid were instantly dismissed. Ned refused to ask Mabel to return from Tangier. Thus, Annie was obliged to swallow her pride, and disregard any antipathy that she may have felt for her mother-in-law, in order that Sibyl might spend the afternoon hours in the care of Elspeth and her maid Jean, at number 14, where all the rooms were at either basement or ground-floor level.

One afternoon, while carrying out a few errands on behalf of my landlady, I happened to wander further east than I had anticipated, and ended up almost at Glasgow Cross. The day was cool and grey, beneath a sky full of hurrying clouds. Perhaps it was a Saturday, for the streets bristled with vehicles and pedestrians, and there was a sense of urgency in the air, as the great tide of humanity swept along the Trongate. I had just paused to admire the archway over the footpath at the base of the Tron Steeple, when the lone figure of a woman came to my attention. She was standing on the far side of the tower, at the edge of the pavement. The hem of her coat had come unstitched, and was stained with mud where it grazed the ground. She wore down-at-heel boots, and her hat had been carelessly pinned. At first, I thought that she was begging, until she turned her head, and I recognised Annie. Here she was, distributing handbills, repeating the same words, over and over: ‘Can you help me please? Have you seen this girl? Can you help me please?'

All at once, I felt desolate, and mortified. You see, by this time, any realistic hope of finding Rose had all but evaporated. Even Ned had, more or less, given up the search: since mid-August, he had rarely gone out looking for the child. And yet, still, Annie persisted. It can only have been desperation and, perhaps, a kind of madness that kept her faithful to her quest. I found the situation—her futile persistence—quite upsetting and my impulse, when I saw her at the steeple, was to retreat, before she noticed me. I stepped behind some crates and, at length, when I dared to peek out from my hiding place, I was relieved to see that Annie had turned away without noticing me. I could have made my departure there and then, but found myself lingering behind the crates, to watch her, through the archway. She made such a mournful little figure, holding out her leaflets to passers-by, almost like an automaton.

‘Have you seen my daughter? Can you help me please?'

The sight of her—engaged in such an earnest yet forlorn quest—was too painful and, in the end, I found myself hurrying away without speaking to her. I headed back along Argyle Street, and then made my way north-west, through the Blythswood District. As ever, of course, I kept my eyes open, but in my heart of hearts, I knew that the search for Rose was futile, and it was only force of habit that made me glance into the face of any passing waif or child. Somewhere, perhaps in Sauchiehall Street, a barrel-organ was playing ‘The Lost Chord'. It was an unusually jaunty version of the tune, and yet the stilted, tinny sound of the music that floated across the rooftops was unutterably mournful to my ears.

14

Difficult though it is to imagine, much of life elsewhere had gone on as normal during those terrible summer months. Across the world, people rose in the morning, and went about their daily business. For instance, at St Rémy, in the South of France, Vincent Van Gogh was painting wheat stacks and olive trees. In London, the Novelty Theatre reopened with a production of Henrik Ibsen's
A Doll's House
. Even the criminally inclined were not at rest. There had been reports about the renewal of the Whitechapel murders, and the inquest of another possible victim had begun on the 17th of July. That same month, on the Scottish isle of Arran, Edwin Robert Rose, an English tourist, disappeared and, when his decomposing corpse was discovered, a week later, a manhunt for his murderer ensued. Meanwhile, the British people continued to occupy themselves, once their day's work was done, with entertainments of one sort or another.
Blackwood's Magazine
published a story by Mr Oscar Wilde. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery threw open its doors to the public. In London, diners queued for tables at the new Savoy supper rooms, beneath the blaze of electric lights. The Queen made a short tour of Wales on her way to Scotland, in August. And, in September, Port Glasgow Athletic beat Greenock Abstainers with a final score of 8—0: so much for abstention!

All this carefree activity continued, while in Woodside, Glasgow, at number 11, Stanley Street, there prevailed a suffocating, narrow life of desolation and despair. Only last summer, the family had wandered happily among the crowds at the International Exhibition. Now, in their grief, Ned and Annie had withdrawn from the world, and from each other. Naturally, I did everything that I could to help them during those dreadful months: nobody can deny
that
. Although we were probably not in each other's pockets as much as we had been, say, earlier in the year, I do believe that recent events had brought us closer, emotionally, than we had ever been before.

In the investigation, there was little progress. Sightings of Rose had all but ceased, and no further ransom demand had been received. The journalists had grown bored by mid-summer, and began to abandon Stanley Street; even Kemp from
The Citizen
eventually packed his belongings and relinquished his ‘room with a view'. Then, as August turned to September, any remaining newspaper interest in the Gillespie case was eclipsed by the excitement surrounding the pursuit and arrest of John Watson Laurie: ‘The Arran Murderer'. By the time that autumn had us firmly in her grip, not one single area of inquiry had resulted in the discovery, either of Rose Gillespie, or of any single clue that might lead to her whereabouts. The mysterious foreigner who had entered the carnival site carrying a sleepy child had vanished, like a conjuror's rabbit.

The moment that we had all been quietly dreading arrived on the morning of the 17th of September, when Detective Stirling called at Stanley Street, unannounced, to inform the Gillespies that, at the behest of his superior, Detective Inspector Grant, he had been instructed to put aside their case.

Apparently, when Stirling first arrived, Sibyl was hovering in the background, and she was present, in the parlour, when he began to explain the reason for his visit. The child must have slipped out of the room at some point, but Annie realised that she was no longer there only approximately half an hour later, when the detective stood up to leave. Stirling had been very apologetic, and kept insisting that, if it were up to him, Rose's case would have remained open. Of course, both Ned and Annie were disappointed that the police had effectively given up their inquiries, but Stirling's announcement was not entirely unexpected: for some time, we had feared that the investigation would be abandoned due to the very obvious lack of progress. At any rate, perhaps Ned and Annie were prepared for such an eventuality in a way that Sibyl, as a child, was not.

Once Stirling had gone, Ned disappeared into his studio, without a word. Annie went in search of Sibyl and found her curled up on the bed in her attic room. Apparently, the child was in a state of shock that the police had given up hope. When Annie sat down on the mattress, Sibyl threw herself into her mother's arms, with a plaintive cry.

‘Will we never find Rose now?'

‘Oh, I'm sure we will,' said Annie. She stroked her daughter's hair, which was damp with tears. ‘There, now! Shh!'

‘But he said the police won't be looking for her any more!'

‘No, dear, they have to work on other cases.'

At this, Sibyl wept, as though her heart might break. I imagine that, to Annie, the child felt like a scrap of nothing, wrapped up inside her clothes, all of which now swamped her tiny, bird-like frame. At length, her crying subsided. Annie tucked her into the bed and then sat, holding the girl's hand, until she fell into an uneasy, fretful sleep.

A few hours later, Sibyl came downstairs, looking glum and tearful. However, she insisted that she felt well enough to spend the afternoon at number 14, and so, believing her to be in better spirits, Annie took her across the road. They found Elspeth in the basement, washing the floors, having sent Jean, the maid, to the post office. It was Jean who normally watched over Sibyl, since Ned's mother was often engaged in God's business. However, on this particular day, Annie left the girl in the care of her mother-in-law, and set off for the Gallowgate with a batch of leaflets.

Since the afternoon was fine and dry, Elspeth opened the back door and, after checking that the gate to the lane was bolted at the top, she informed Sibyl that she could play on the grass, provided that she remained within sight. However, the child professed a desire to stay inside and help her grandmother with the household chores, and so they went into the kitchen and sat down at the table, together.

As fate would have it, Ned's mother had decided, that day, to clean her parlour lights: a pair of glass-chimneyed paraffin lamps that she kept for occasional use, preferring their traditional glow to that of the new-fangled gaseliers. To begin her task, she tipped the old oil out of the lamps, into a jar. Then, she asked Sibyl to hand her a duster. Elspeth could not be sure what happened next but—somehow—as she took the cloth from her granddaughter, the jar was knocked over, and the old oil spilled across the table. Reluctant to ruin a duster with dirty work, the widow went to fetch rags and, upon her return, caught sight of Sibyl, who was holding out both hands above the pool of oil, as though to touch it, but when she heard her grandmother's approach, she snatched back her fingers and moved away. Elspeth found only a small puddle of paraffin on the table, which was surprising, as the jar had been half full but, thinking little of it, she cleaned up the mess and began to polish the glass chimneys. In the meantime, Sibyl had flitted around the kitchen, from sink, to fireplace, to shelves, finally stepping into the passageway.

‘Please may I go out now?' she lisped.

‘You may,' said Elspeth, ‘provided that you stay where I can see you.'

With that, Sibyl slipped outside and began to skip around the back green, singing to herself. Seeing her thus occupied, Ned's mother returned to her work, confident that if she could hear the child, then it meant that she was close at hand. Presently, however, the singing came to a halt. Peering through the window, Elspeth saw that her granddaughter was crouched down, apparently examining something on the grass. Satisfied that Sibyl was engaged in some innocuous activity, the widow began to refill her lamps. Just then, Jean returned from her errands: Elspeth heard the maid descend the basement stairs and pass the kitchen, on her way to the back door, where she usually hung up her outdoor garment, an old worsted cloak.

Subsequently, according to Ned's mother, everything seemed to happen at once. Something outside the window attracted her attention: a bright light, or a flash, caused her to glance up. Simultaneously, she heard Jean cry out, an unusually offensive expletive. In other circumstances, Elspeth would have had words with her but by then, she was looking out of the window into the back court, and what she saw there seemed, at first, impossible.

Sibyl was in flames. Or, at least, partially in flames: the sleeves of her frock were burning as brightly and fiercely as bonfires. And yet, despite the fact that her clothes were alight, she was walking calmly around the yard, with her eyes lifted to the heavens, her burning arms held out from her body, like the Lord himself on the cross (as Elspeth later described the scene). The child did not scream, or say a word; she made no sound. Within seconds, the flames seemed to spread to her skirts, and leap higher. All at once, Ned's mother became aware of a blur in the corner of her vision, another figure, moving quickly: it was Jean, dashing across the grass, holding out her old grey cloak in both hands, in the style of a matador. She ran at Sibyl and, in one movement, wrapped the child in the garment, and dragged her to the ground. Then she rolled the tiny figure this way and that in the fabric, attempting to smother the flames.