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Chapter Eight

Musselburgh January 1724

T he thing about the sea is that oftentimes there is no body to bury when it claims a soul. A drowned sailor will sink to the bottom of the great abyss. St Michael’s Kirk has seen many a coffinless funeral. But at least there is a finality in death. When the press gang took Spencer, I did not know whether I would ever see him again. Da said the news was that he and two merchant sailors had been taken by members of the Royal Navy Impress Service, who had burst into the downstairs ale room and told everyone to stay in their chairs and not dare to make a run for the door. When they had made their way to Spencer, he had tried to bribe them to leave him be, but these brutes had refused the bribe and warned him that the punishment for not going with them was hanging. They had rowed him off to Leith Port, where the Navy ship was docked. Not even allowed to say goodbye.

The week that followed was terrible. Hours ached on and on, and night rolled into day and into night again, none of it with news. At first I sat in our lodgings and waited for Spencer to walk through the door. I say ‘sat’, but I slumped on the good chair and lolled on the bed in great despair. I had never felt as bleak. I couldn’t eat or sleep, and I finished the rum and would sit in the small hours of the night imagining him rolling at the bottom of the ocean or whipped by a merciless captain or, worse, whoring in a far-off port. It was the worst of the winter. I imagined ice storms and frozen lands. Ma, Da and Joan came and went with pots of soup and tried to keep my spirits up with tales of pressed men who’d returned.

Da was rattled to the core by it all.

‘He’ll be back in a few months,’ he would say, over and over again, for he hardly knew what else to say. ‘He’ll find a way. He’s a bit of a chancer, Spencer, and that’s what’ll work for him.’

I was not so sure. Da looked more disturbed in those first bleak days of Spencer’s disappearance than I had ever seen him. But he wasn’t worried so much about Spencer as about himself. He was thinking, That could’ve been me press-ganged . He sent word to all his pals to find out where Spencer might be, but also to find out if the press gang would come back for more recruits. He even kept away from the Mussel Inn.

Da asked if I might want to come back home to Ma and help her and Joan out. Things had not been the same since I left.

I said I would not. I had a new home now.

And the final question, typical of Da: had Spencer left anything of value behind?

I shrugged at that and did not answer it one way or another, but that was a bit dishonest of me.

There were two keys to Spencer’s locked perfume cabinet, and we had one each. He trusted me like that, although mibbie he ought not to have done. I let a second week crawl by with no further news. Then, finally, I opened the cabinet. I needed to. I’d had enough cash in my purse to last me that long, but one morning there wasn’t enough money in it for a trip to the market.

The cabinet was of a dark wood and had an engraving of a serpent on it. Whence it had come, I know not, but it had the grainy feel of a foreign country and the scent of cologne. I had always kept my key at my side of the bed and so, on a melancholy morning with an empty pantry, I took it and opened the cabinet. It sprung open – click – unleashing a breath of scent, and inside was a packet of cash. Thank God! If there had only been perfume, I would not have known know what to do with it. But cash it was, and although it was not the fortune I had hoped for, it was enough. I took it out and counted it. Enough for me to live on for a few months.

Or enough to get me to London.

I couldn’t do that, though, could I? What if Spencer came back and we missed each other entirely? That would be a disaster. I pushed the thought out of my head altogether and went up to Ma and Da’s and let Ma serve me her hen broth, and I did not tell them about the stash of money. I knew I had four months left in the lodgings, for Spencer had bragged of a long lease when he got the keys. I was all right for a few months, but if I didn’t want to return to baiting lines, then I had to sort out a plan.

In the end, though, a plan sorted itself out.

One evening, Joan sat at her broth, dipping her bread in and saying very little, and then afterwards she sat silently by the fire as I helped Ma wash up. Then she said she would walk me home.

‘I am capable of walking myself,’ I told her.

‘Let Joan walk you,’ said Ma. ‘It will do her good to get a stretch of her legs.’

So we put on our shawls and Ma put together a package of bread and butter and milk for me, not knowing about my stash of money of course, and we headed straight into the icy wind and the roar of the choppy waters. I was desperate to get out of the gale and reach home as fast as I could, but Joan gripped my hand.

‘I can’t live with Da a minute longer,’ she said. ‘You’ll need to let me come and stay with you a while, Maggie. Say you will.’ The wind almost took her words, but I heard them good and proper. My heart sank. I shook her off.

‘But I am a married woman now,’ I replied. ‘Spencer will come back, I know he will. You can’t just take his place.’

‘And when he comes back I’ll move home again, I promise,’ Joan said, ‘And he will come back – we know that. But give me a few weeks. I’m at my wits’ end.’ She looked desperate.

‘Has something happened?’ I asked. ‘Has he hit you again?’

She looked away, but her grip on my hand tightened.

‘He pushed me,’ she said. ‘It happened this morning. He put his hand on my chest and pushed me out of the way. Nothing happened really, but it scared me. He’d calmed down a bit since your wedding, and I thought mibbie having another man in the family meant Da might be feared of getting a punch himself from Spencer, if he stepped out of line.’

‘But Spencer’s gone now,’ I said. I started walking again, to get round the corner and into town. I felt sick thinking of Da, then even sicker thinking of poor Spencer out there, at the mercy of the sea.

‘Please don’t turn me away, Sister,’ pleaded Joan.

I suppose it came to this: that, bicker and bitch as we might, I would not turn my sister away.

‘All right, you can stay,’ I agreed. ‘But I am not running around looking after you, Joan Dickson. You will have to do chores. I am not soft on you, like Ma. And you’ll do as you’re told, for I am mistress of my own house. Do you promise?’

But she barely gave me ’til the end of the sentence, for as soon as she saw that I had relented she stopped in her tracks and squeezed me tight in a most uncharacteristic hug, and I ended up finishing my speech into her shawl.

‘I shall go now and get my bits and pieces,’ she said. ‘Have you plenty of rum or shall I bring a tot of whisky?’ But she was off anyway, skirts flapping in the wind, all the way back to the house to gather her things. I followed her and stood at the door as she packed. I could hear Ma pleading, and nothing from Da. Mibbie he would be happier now, with both of us gone.

But where was Spencer? Would I get a knock on the door one day to say he had died at sea? Would they even tell me, if he did?

The weight of his disappearance felt like an anchor. A waterlogged gown. I felt like it would never go away and I was destined to spend my days with the pain of it. I had barely known the man, yet he had come into my life in a flash of light. Spencer had shown me a glimpse of something better.

I watched and waited in the narrow street. It was empty of life. The sky and the sea were a blur of desolate grey, whipped to bits by the weather.

Joan’s bits and pieces filled two creels. Two nightgowns, two day-gowns, one Sunday gown, sundry worn linens and shawls, a cup, bowl and spoon as well as her scrapbook and bits of unfinished knitting. When I had left home, my belongings had filled just one creel. She also had a fancy tapestry purse with a tasselled edge, and two paste brooches to fasten her shawls. Market trinkets. Indulgences from Ma.

She moved in with me as easy as a foot slides into a familiar boot. All her belongings were tidied into cupboards and tucked onto shelves. Her half-tangle of knitting rested on Spencer’s chair. She was to spend her days with Ma, helping with the lines or selling at the market, and then she could spend her evenings with me. I supposed that sooner or later I would end up back working with them too.

‘Let’s have some of your rum,’ Joan said, as we sat in the parlour having our first evening together.

‘You’re up first thing, remember, salting fish with Ma,’ I warned.

‘What about a song then, or a tale? Tell me a story of married life. Tell me what I need to do to get a decent man like Spencer to marry me.’

This kind of talk was not like Joan. She looked downcast, yet her eyes still danced in the rush-light. Joan was bonnie. She had fair hair and a face shaped like a love-heart. She was cherub-like.

‘You know you are a fine-looking lass. Why are you worried you won’t get a decent husband?’

She shrugged. ‘Spencer said I’m a lazybones and a nag,’ she replied. ‘Mibbie chaps might find me bonnie, but they won’t want to marry me – not a moneyed gent anyway. Mibbie I’ll end up like the girls at the Mussel Inn. Fine to look at, but not much more than a man’s plaything.’

‘Oh, Joan, where are you getting these notions from? Do you not have your eye on a lad?’

She pulled a face and shook her head. ‘The lads around here are all stocky and stupid. I want a real man.’

Poor Joan. She had spent so much of her life being pleased with her looks that Spencer’s words had truly shocked her.

‘Well, you won’t find many moneyed gents around here,’ I said. ‘Get yourself off to Edinburgh, or London.’ What good had it done me? At least she wasn’t nursing a broken heart.

‘I might well do that,’ she replied, looking serious. ‘I do fancy married life, Maggie. There’s a passion in me.’

I ignored her and eyed the fire. It could do with another log and had Spencer been here, I’d have put one on, but I would rather have an early night than listen to Joan talking twaddle.

‘You stay here and have a rum, if you like,’ I said. ‘I’m off to bed.’

Her eyes lit up at that, and I left her and went into the bedroom. I would have an hour or so to myself before she came in and joined me. An hour to lie still and think, without small-talk or trifles. To let my mind wander, uninterrupted: Where is Spencer now? Has he escaped from his ship yet? Or is he becoming used to life at sea?

I brushed my braids out and put on my nightgown, shivering. The damp seemed worse, the smell of it hanging in the room. Perhaps I was as well giving up the lease when the time came. I could hear Joan singing to herself, a song about creelers and brine, and it gave me a sadness to hear it sung so sweetly by my sister, despite the fact that she wanted nothing to do with creelers or brine. For these were the things she really knew.

I clambered into bed, shivering even more under the cold blankets. I should have put a hot brick in, but I was becoming bad at being organized. Joan had already put her nightgown on Spencer’s side – I could see it under the pillow. It was a nice one too. I lifted the pillow to take a look at it and saw her scrapbook tucked there.

I had always peeked at Joan’s scrapbook; it was natural to me. Sisters cannot help but pry into each other’s secrets. So I looked again, bracing myself for more sketches of men’s bulging breeches, or worse. The pocket at the back was fastened, so I quickly popped the button open and had a look inside. This time there was something new, which I hadn’t seen before. A small folded paper. I pulled it out and gasped at the familiar white packet, although this one was quite empty. The enigmatic smiling woman. Physic powder. Spencer’s Women’s Tonic .