Page 8 of Walk on the Wildsyde

Chapter 4

Hamilton,

Will I see you tonight? You are always so busy of late, I fear you have forgotten me. Is there someone else? Come to me, darling. I am tired and bored and need you to cheer me up.

―Excerpt of a letter from Mrs Moyra Scott to The Hon’ble Hamilton Anderson.

8th May 1850, Wick, Caithness, Scotland.

“Look, Mrs Macready, that’s my name,” Jimmy said, holding up the piece of paper he’d been practising on.

“So it is! Ye are a clever laddie,” the lady said with approval. “What else can ye write?”

Clara watched with pride as Jimmy ducked his head, carefully forming the letters of the simple words she had taught him over the past week. Mrs Macready had found him some clean clothes that her daughter-in-law had been about to donate to the church, and he looked very well in them. Though it had taken some persuading, Jimmy had also given in to the need to wash himself daily, though he still thought a bath once a week was an excessive punishment. Regular meals had already taken some of the gaunt, hollowed out look from his face and he looked pink-cheeked and healthy in the kitchen's warmth.

They both applauded and exclaimed over the surprisingly neat handwriting that Jimmy showed them, and Clara decided she’d not mention the back-to-front d on dog just now for he looked so pleased with himself. Clara set him to the task of illustrating the words he’d written and got to her feet, leaving the table to help Mrs Macready.

“I heard the reverend shouting this morning,” Mrs Macready said in an undertone as Clara fetched the tray to lay out the meal being prepared for her father’s lunch.

He was working on Sunday’s sermon, and it did not seem to be going well, for he had asked for his lunch to be brought to the study.

“I know,” Clara said with a sigh. “Please don’t mind it. I’m afraid all the builders coming and going and the noise from the work over the road is making him rather tetchy.”

That was an understatement. Though her father was prone to fits of ill temper, she had known nothing to get under his skin the way the renovation of the public house opposite was doing. He truly seemed to believe it was being done to spite him, that the devil was waving a red flag at him, goading him for the fun of it. He’d had several run-ins with the builders already, and Clara feared what might happen if the owner of the dreadful place ever dared show his face here.

“Aye, when I took him his tea this morning, I tried to suggest that it maybe wasnae a bad thing that place was being improved, that perhaps the clientele might be a wee bit more respectable than before. It wasnae well received,” Mrs Macready said ruefully.

“Oh dear. I’m so sorry. I do hope he wasn’t dreadfully rude to you,” Clara said, horrified that her father might have insulted the poor lady.

“Ach, I am nae so feeble as to wither in the face of a few harsh words,” Mrs Macready said stoutly. “But I cannae help but think it is nae good for him to get himself up tae high doh like that.”

“I’m sure you are right,” Clara said with a sigh. “I’ll speak to him and see if I can’t make him see sense. Here, give me the tray and I’ll take it up.”

Mrs Macready looked so relieved by this that Clara’s worst fears were confirmed. The last thing she needed was to lose such a wonderful housekeeper, not to mention her only friend and ally. She must speak to her father about his rudeness before things got out of hand.

Hefting the tray, Clara carried it carefully up the stairs, setting it down to open her father’s study door, before taking it inside to him.

“Here you are, Papa. Mrs Macready had made a splendid lunch for you, not that you deserve it after being so rude to her.”

Her father set down his pen with such a clatter it splattered ink over the page he’d been working on. Scowling at it and then at Clara, she realised he was in no state to listen to anything she had to say. She would have to keep her mouth shut and wait until he was in a more receptive mood. If she kept on, she would only provoke him into sermonising at her and she did not think she could stomach that. He was not the kind of man who could endure an argument, or an exchange of ideas. If she had the audacity to disagree with him, he would just shout her down, not giving her the chance to speak or explain. Unbidden, the handsome face of the aggravating devil she had met at the school some days earlier came back to her and she smiled. He, at least, had not thought it wrong of her to speak her mind. Not that she was about to take such an ill-mannered fellow as that as a model for good behaviour, she told herself hastily and put him out of her mind again.

She had put him out of her mind several times since that day, but somehow, he always crept back in again. Vexing, odious man.

“I do not need you, Clara, to comment upon my behaviour when you have no notion of what you speak. Mrs Macready was ill-informed and is clearly prone to being led into wickedness by a lackadaisical and too tolerant view of the dreadful behaviour that is far too common in this godforsaken town.”

“Surely it cannot be godforsaken, Papa. You are here,” Clara said, counselling herself not to let her father goad her into losing her temper. “And I cannot agree that Mrs Macready is in any way lackadaisical.”

“Really? I only hope her housekeeping is better than her moral judgement, for where one is lacking, surely the other must—”

“Your steak and kidney pie is getting cold,” Clara said, strongly tempted to tell him to get his own lunch if Mrs Macready’s efforts were not to his liking.

“Oh.”

Clara watched dispassionately as her father quickly cleared a space on his desk so she could set the tray down in front of him. The aroma was quite delicious, and Clara had been looking forward to her own serving. Now she was so annoyed and out of sorts, she felt certain it would stick in her throat. “Bon appétit,” she said, forcing herself to smile at him before she left the room.

She closed the door and let out a breath. That he believed kindly Mrs Macready was the one who needed moral guidance was one that made her question how, or more importantly why, her father had ever taken holy orders. Of course she knew the reason. As the third son, his choice had been the law or the church. When she was at her most uncharitable—now, for instance—she suspected her father had chosen the church because law had seemed rather too much like hard work. It was certainly not because he’d been called by God. Indeed, she sometimes wondered if her father actually believed in God, or if he really paid attention to the words he repeated by rote from the Bible. Love thy neighbour, for example, was one he seemed to be having a good deal of trouble with.

Frustrated by the situation, Clara went to the front door and stepped outside. She was not wearing a coat or hat and had no intention of leaving the premises, but she needed a breath of fresh air. Leaning against the front door, she looked across the street to where the sound of hammering and cheery whistling was coming from the open windows. The Fisherman’s Retreat was a large building and a handsome one, though clearly in a state of some disrepair. The rotten windows had already been removed and several new ones put back in. To Clara, it looked a little as if the building was being woken up after many years asleep. The windows glinted like bright eyes, viewing this new stage in its life with interest and approval.