“The sound of rats falling off the walls onto the floor; that, and waking up cold.” The memory was sharp as she said it, blurring the present and the sense of the warm rug around her. “It wasn’t so bad once you were up and moving around—and thinking of what you were doing—but when you woke up in the night and were too cold to go back to sleep again, no matter how tired you were, that’s what stays with me most.” She smiled. “Waking up warm, pulling the blankets close around me, hearing the sound of the rain outside, and knowing that there is nothing alive in the room except me, that’s marvelous.”
Mary laughed, a rich sound of pure enjoyment.
“What an unpredictable faculty memory is. The oddest things will bring back times and places we had long thought lost in the past.” She leaned back in the seat, her face relaxed, her eyes on some distance of the imagination. “You know, I was born the year after the fall of the Bastille—”
“The fall of the Bastille?” Hester was confused.
Mary did not look at her, but kept her gaze on the sudden memory that was apparently woken so sharply. “Therevolution in France, Louis the Sixteenth, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre …”
“Oh! Oh, of course.”
But Mary was still lost in her own thoughts. “Those were such times. The Emperor had all Europe under his heel.” Her voice sank in awe so it was barely audible above the rattle of the wheels over the ties. “He was twenty miles away across the channel, and only the navy stood between his armies and England—and then of course Scotland too.” The smile on her lips broadened, and in spite of the lines in her face and her silver hair, there was in her a radiance and an innocence as though the years between had fallen away and she was a young woman momentarily caught in an old woman’s body. “I remember the spirit we had then. We expected invasion every day. Everyone’s eyes were turned eastward. We had lookouts on the cliff tops and beacon fires ready to light the moment the first Frenchman set foot on the shore. Right up and down the coast every man, woman and child was watching and waiting, homemade weapons ready to hand. We would have fought till the very last of us was dead before we would have let them conquer us.”
Hester said nothing. England had been secure all her lifetime. She could imagine what it might have been like to fear foreign soldiers trampling through the streets, burning the houses, laying waste the fields and farms, but it was only imagination, it could never touch the reality. Even in the very worst days in the Crimea when the allied armies were losing, she had always known England itself was peaceful, impregnable, and except in small, private bereavements, untouched.
“The newspapers used to print terrible cartoons of him.” Mary’s smile broadened for a moment, then vanished suddenly, and she shivered, looking directly at Hester. “Mothers used to terrify their naughty children by threatening that ‘Bony’ would get them. They used to say that he ate little children, and there were pictures of him with a great gapingmouth, and a knife and fork in his hands, and Europe on his plate.”
The train slowed almost to walking speed as it climbed a steep gradient. A man’s voice shouted something indistinguishable. A whistle blew.
“And then when I had my own children in Edinburgh,” Mary went on, “people used to frighten the disobedient with stories of Burke and Hare. Odd, isn’t it, how much more sinister that seems now? Two Irishmen who started selling corpses to a doctor so he could teach his students anatomy, then progressing to robbing graves, and finally to murder.”
The train began to pick up speed again. She looked at Hester curiously.
“Why does murder to dissect the corpses chill the blood in a way murder to rob never can? After it all came out in 1829, and Burke was hanged—Hare never was, you know! For all I can say, he’s still alive now!” She
Mary laughed, a rich sound of pure enjoyment.
“What an unpredictable faculty memory is. The oddest things will bring back times and places we had long thought lost in the past.” She leaned back in the seat, her face relaxed, her eyes on some distance of the imagination. “You know, I was born the year after the fall of the Bastille—”
“The fall of the Bastille?” Hester was confused.
Mary did not look at her, but kept her gaze on the sudden memory that was apparently woken so sharply. “Therevolution in France, Louis the Sixteenth, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre …”
“Oh! Oh, of course.”
But Mary was still lost in her own thoughts. “Those were such times. The Emperor had all Europe under his heel.” Her voice sank in awe so it was barely audible above the rattle of the wheels over the ties. “He was twenty miles away across the channel, and only the navy stood between his armies and England—and then of course Scotland too.” The smile on her lips broadened, and in spite of the lines in her face and her silver hair, there was in her a radiance and an innocence as though the years between had fallen away and she was a young woman momentarily caught in an old woman’s body. “I remember the spirit we had then. We expected invasion every day. Everyone’s eyes were turned eastward. We had lookouts on the cliff tops and beacon fires ready to light the moment the first Frenchman set foot on the shore. Right up and down the coast every man, woman and child was watching and waiting, homemade weapons ready to hand. We would have fought till the very last of us was dead before we would have let them conquer us.”
Hester said nothing. England had been secure all her lifetime. She could imagine what it might have been like to fear foreign soldiers trampling through the streets, burning the houses, laying waste the fields and farms, but it was only imagination, it could never touch the reality. Even in the very worst days in the Crimea when the allied armies were losing, she had always known England itself was peaceful, impregnable, and except in small, private bereavements, untouched.
“The newspapers used to print terrible cartoons of him.” Mary’s smile broadened for a moment, then vanished suddenly, and she shivered, looking directly at Hester. “Mothers used to terrify their naughty children by threatening that ‘Bony’ would get them. They used to say that he ate little children, and there were pictures of him with a great gapingmouth, and a knife and fork in his hands, and Europe on his plate.”
The train slowed almost to walking speed as it climbed a steep gradient. A man’s voice shouted something indistinguishable. A whistle blew.
“And then when I had my own children in Edinburgh,” Mary went on, “people used to frighten the disobedient with stories of Burke and Hare. Odd, isn’t it, how much more sinister that seems now? Two Irishmen who started selling corpses to a doctor so he could teach his students anatomy, then progressing to robbing graves, and finally to murder.”
The train began to pick up speed again. She looked at Hester curiously.
“Why does murder to dissect the corpses chill the blood in a way murder to rob never can? After it all came out in 1829, and Burke was hanged—Hare never was, you know! For all I can say, he’s still alive now!” She
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