Greygallows

The blackened shell of the house still stands on the edge of the moor. Ivy has crept over the rough stone, veiling the ugly marks of fire, blurring the stark squares of emptiness that once were doors and windows.

In other times and other places there would be nothing left to mark the site except a roughness on the coarse, veiling grass. The stones would have been carried away by the villagers, to mend their walls and build sturdy byres for livestock. Cut stone of such quality is rare in the North Riding; but the walls of Greygallows stand untouched save by the elements. The wild animals of the moor shelter there—foxes and birds and badgers. Their calls and the sighing wind are the only sounds that break the silence. The villagers shun the spot. They call it accursed; and who am I to say that they are wrong?

I have always avoided books that begin 'I was born.' But here I sit, about to commit the same literary sin. I can plead some excuse, for in my case the phrase is not merely a conventional opening. It is significant that I was, in fact, born in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-six, seven years after the birth of her Majesty and eleven years before she ascended the throne of England. In the year of my birth, almost half the
total land area of the realm was owned by five hundred
nobles.

Naturally the franchise was limited to members of the landowning classes. In 1826, it would be a quarter of a century before divorce was obtainable by any means other than a special act of Parliament; sixteen years before English law rescued tiny children from the lightless pits of the mines; and half a century before the Married Women's Property Acts were passed.

Such great impersonal issues might seem to have little bearing on the life of one young woman of good birth and fortune. Yet the bizarre fate that befell me was the result of the legal and social conditions of that time.

I was happily unaware of these portentous matters, as I lay in my cradle sucking my coral and uttering infantile cries of protest, or later, as I sat my first pony under the fondly critical eyes of my father. I scarcely remember him, except as a tall, lordly form surmounted by a luxuriant crop of whiskers. Mama is an even dimmer memory—only a sweet scent and a silken rustle of skirts. They both died in an accident when I was seven. I was thrown from the carriage, or so I was told; I have no memory of the accident or of the days that followed. When I was restored to life, after weeks of illness, it was to find my familiar world turned upside down. My home, my nurseries, and my fat old nurse were exchanged for a cold, narrow room shared with three other little girls; and to take the place of Mother and Father, there was Miss Plum. Even my body had suffered a change. One of my lower limbs had been hurt in the fall, and though it healed with scarcely a scar, I could not walk without limping.

My first weeks at Miss Plum's school
in
Canterbury were a nightmare. Rebellious, sickly, bereaved, I fought all efforts to console me. Later, though, I came to love the school and its mistress. It was a good school, as schools went in those days; perhaps it communicated little in the way of knowledge, but it was a comfortable, kindly place, and that was not always the case. As for Miss Plum...

I can still see her in my mind's eye, a rosy dumpling of a woman, almost as broad as she was tall. Her face was round and pink and usually damp with perspiration, for the good old lady loved rich foods and roaring fires. Her heavy opulent clothing added to her girth. She panted like a fat old spaniel; it was impossible for her to spy on us girls, for we could hear her coming yards away, gasping and wheezing and dragging her enormous petticoats.

Not that she was ever a harsh mistress. Quite the contrary; she was too fond and sentimental to be a good disciplinarian, and she spoiled me abominably. I was a pretty child, with brown curls and dark eyes, and an unusually pale, translucent complexion. Miss Plum dressed me like the big china doll I rather resembled. There was plenty of money for clothing or for any delicacy I fancied. I took that for granted; it was many years before I realized that my status as Miss Plum's pet depended to some extent on my position as an heiress. Orphaned and alone, I never left the school, not even for holidays. Miss Plum pitied me for that, and for my infirmity; instead of urging me to exercise and walk, she coddled me with warm fires and teased my feeble appetite with her favorite rich foods.

It is no wonder that under this treatment I soon became a spoiled little prig. My schoolmates detested me as heartily as Miss Plum doted on me. I took no notice of their dislike until one day, my tenth birthday, when it was brought forcibly to my attention by one small guest whom I had been teasing in my usual fashion until, driven by exasperation, she threw her jam-filled cake straight into my face.

Speechless with shock, I began licking jam off my spattered countenance; and suddenly the expression on Miss Plum's face awoke a hitherto dormant sense of humor. I began to laugh, and the guests followed suit. I was more popular with the girls after that, especially when I was able to persuade Miss Plum to spare little Margaret the punishment she was scheduled to enjoy. It was not difficult to dissuade Miss Plum from whipping a student; no doubt we would all have been the better for it if she had resorted to corporal punishment more often.

At sixteen I was the oldest student in the school; I had seen my friends leave to take their places in their family circles, or to make the marriages that had been arranged for them. It was in May of that year that Mr. Beam made his appearance.

He was my father's solicitor and one of my two guardians, my aunt being the other. Miss Plum had often mentioned his name, since it was through him that the arrangements for my fees and allowance were made; but he had never done me the honor of calling on me before, and my first sight of him was somewhat daunting. He was a tall, elderly man, as neat as a wax figure; every grizzled hair was in place, every fold of his old-fashioned
garments looked as if they had been glued down. He was the kind of man whom it is impossible to visualize as a little boy; if he had ever had an emotion, it had died and been buried years before.

Not until later, when I came to know him better, did I realize that under his stiff manner he was as uncomfortable with me as a great dignified mastiff would be faced with a kitten, or a butterfly—something small and insignificant and hopelessly frivolous. But he knew his duty; he sat for an hour in Miss Plum's fussy, overheated parlor, interrogating me like the lawyer he was. Apparently he was satisfied with my progress, though he never said so; some weeks later came a letter from my aunt announcing her intention of removing me from school, since my education was complete.

After nine years of comfort and love, I should have been reluctant to leave the school. At least I should have regretted leaving Miss Plum. Such, I am ashamed to say, was not the case. Sixteen is a selfish age, and I had outgrown my nest. The basket which is a cozy fit for a kitten will cramp a grown cat. For the year before my sixteenth birthday I had been aware of restless stirrings of body and of mind.

Yet my emotions were not unmixed. My aunt, who was also my guardian and sole surviving relative, was an unknown quantity. Twice during the early years she had come to visit me. Her visits caused a great bustle in the school, for she was a lady of title. My memories of these events were not wholly pleasurable. They were mercifully short, for Lady Russell, the fashionable widow of a wealthy landowner, had more important things to do than
call upon a gawky young niece. Her gilded coach would come dashing up amid a great jingle and clatter; the big footman, his white-stockinged calves bulging, would leap down to open the door and hand his mistress out. She was like the coach, gilded and jingling. She filled Miss Plum's little parlor. I thought her quite beautiful, however, with her bright golden hair and whitened face. When she took me into her arms her scent almost overpowered me. Yet the embrace was not the soft, scented thing it should have been; under her ruffled garments was stiff hardness, and her hands were painfully strong. Another disconcerting feature of these visits was that she seldom looked at me directly. She sat nodding and smiling and sipping with poorly concealed distaste at Miss Plum's home-made wine, while Miss Plum described my progress in the arts of embroidery, music, and Italian. Lady Russell was clearly bored by the whole business; after a decent interval she would rise, enfold me in another of those hard embraces, and sweep out as magnificently as she had come.

So, as I sat in the parlor that summer day, waiting for my aunt to bear me away into the world, I had an uncertain future to contemplate. The two people who would henceforth control my life were strangers to me, and neither seemed to have a very high opinion of me. Mr. Beam, being a man and a bachelor, could not be expected to regard me with much favor. I was only another professional problem to him. But my childless aunt, as alone in the world as I was—might she not be expected to dote on her only niece, to visit her often, and shower her with affection? She had not
done so; I could only conclude that there was some terrible flaw in myself that made me unlovable.

It was no wonder, then, that my hands were damp and my heart was pounding heavily. Miss Plum's training triumphed, however; I sat stiff and prim, showing no sign of my inner alarms. At least, I consoled myself, my appearance could not be criticized. Miss Plum had bought me a new traveling dress and bonnet, and had brushed my hair till it shone. If only the room were not so hot! Miss Plum must have a fire, even in August; and my aunt was late. When finally the coach could be heard approaching and I prepared to rise to greet her, a wave of dizziness came over me. I would have fallen if I had not surreptitiously caught hold of the heavy carved back of my chair.

Then the remembered figure swept into the room and I stared, forgetting my nervousness in surprise. Where was the radiant beauty who had awed the little girl of ten? This was a wrinkled, fat old woman, with rice powder caking the lines in her sagging face. Her bright golden hair was obviously false. Her dress was cut too low, and the ample shoulders thus disclosed looked as pink and puffy as a sofa cushion. She was heavy, but not tall; I towered over her by several inches.

Her little black eyes hardened as they met mine, and I realized that I was staring rudely; I swept into a quick and inelegant curtsy. When I rose from it she was staring at me, and her expression was decidedly unpleasant.

Then a smile reorganized her wrinkles and she came forward with a great swoop of skirts and plumes.

'Dear child!' she exclaimed, catching me in her
arms. 'You have grown up. What a great girl you are, to be sure!'

Her stays bit into me as she squeezed me. Her scent was as sickeningly sweet as I remembered it, but it did not quite conceal another, more natural smell. Clearly Lady Russell agreed with Miss Plum on the dangers of too-frequent bathing.

'So,' my aunt went on, turning to Miss Plum, 'are we ready? Her boxes are packed, I trust?'

'Yes, my lady, of course,' said Miss Plum, fluttering; one would not think a woman of her size could flutter, but she did. 'As you directed, my lady. But will you not take some refreshment after your journey? My currant wine—'

'Dear Miss Plum,' said my aunt, with a grimace that was probably meant to be a smile, 'I am in such a tear, you would not believe. I have canceled three engagements to come to collect my little friend, and I must return in time for Lady Marlborough's ball tomorrow night, she depends on me. So you must excuse us. Lucy ... your boxes... ?'

The bustle and hurry were welcome; they left me no time for tears or prolonged farewells. When I looked back out of the coach window, I saw Miss Plum standing on the steps of the school. She was waving a white handkerchief, and the front of her dress was darkened by tears.