Wild Talent (3 page)

I shook my head. My eyes prickled, my throat had seized up. Tears ran down my face and I swiped at them with a gloved hand.

Calmly the young woman produced a handkerchief.

“This will not do,” she said, as I dabbed at my eyes. “Come, there is a public house just over there with a private ladies' room in the back. We can sit and talk, and have some supper if you wish.”

The thought of supper cheered me a little. I nodded, and she took my arm in friendly fashion. She was slender and not very tall — her head came only to my shoulder — but she carried herself like a duchess. So much at ease she seemed, with such an air of confidence, that I imagined her much older than myself; though as I now know, she is only twenty.

As we came out of the station a young girl approached us. She could not have been more than ten years old. Her small, pinched face had a sickly pallor, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She wore a draggled, shapeless garment that trailed behind her through the dust. My companion paid her no heed; but when this poor creature confronted me with a grimy hand outstretched, I thought how easily this could be my own fate; and so I gave her tuppence I could ill afford.

When we had crossed the busy street and settled ourselves in the small private room at the back of the public house, my new acquaintance ordered hot soup and some bread and cheese, and over my protests, insisted on paying.

“So then,” she said. “First things first. You have not told me your name.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say “Jeannie”. Then I thought, this is the beginning of my new life. “Jean,” I told her. “My name is Jean Guthrie.”

“And I am Alexandra David.” She pronounced her surname in the French way, `Dahveed'.

“Now then, Jeanne.” I liked the way she softened the hard ‘J' of my name. “As to the question of a lodging place. I fear you will find the rooming houses round here quite unsuitable. No, do not look so forlorn —I have a suggestion. At the house where I am lodging, I believe there is presently one room unoccupied.”

What good fortune, this happenstance meeting!

“It is very pleasant,” continued Mlle David. “Quite cheap and very conveniently situated, close to the British Museum. While the food leaves something to be desired, one's fellow lodgers are intriguing. Best of all, one is left to oneself and can come and go as one pleases.”

I thought of my old life under the watchful eyes of my aunt and uncle, in a cottage too cramped to afford any privacy. To be left to oneself, to come and go as one liked — what an excellent arrangement!

“But if I am to recommend you as a lodger, you must first tell me a little about yourself. What can have brought you to London, quite unchaperoned and so clearly in distress?”

What could I tell her? I could not speak of what George had hoped to do to me; nor could I tell her of the terrible thing I had done to George. And so I stumbled through an explanation, describing the ill fortune which had befallen my family and the hard life I had led as a bondager, with no hope of ever improving my lot. “Also,” I told her, feeling myself blush, “there was a cousin who wished to marry me.”

It was, I suppose, not so very far from the truth.

“And you did not like him, and so you have run away.”

“Yes. And I know it was a very foolish thing to do.”

To my surprise, she burst out laughing. “
Au contraire,
it was entirely sensible. I myself have run away more times than I can count.”

I stared at her. “You have?”

“Indeed.” She smiled in recollection. “The first time, I was five. My family was moving from Paris, which I loved, to Brussels, which I knew I would hate. And so the day before we left, I slipped away from my nanny in the Bois de Vincennes. A gendarme caught me, and took me to the police station.” She added cheerfully, “I scratched him. I was
une petite sauvage
.” Pouring us each another cup of tea, she went on, “I ran away from Brussels too. I walked to Holland, and then I took a ferry boat to England. I would have stayed, if my money had not run out. And then when I was seventeen I took an umbrella and a copy of Epictetus's
Maxims
, and hiked over the Alps to Italy. My mother had to come and fetch me from Milan.”

“But were you, too, running away from an unsuitable marriage?” In novels I have read, young women generally undertake such exploits for reasons of the heart. And though she is not especially beautiful, with her luminous dark eyes and fine complexion, and her look of lively intelligence, Mlle David must surely not have lacked for suitors.

She laughed. “
Mais non
, what an idea! I do not think about men — they are more trouble than they are worth!”

I have found a soulmate, I decided.

“Now then,” she said, “if you are quite finished your tea, we will go to the house of the Supreme Gnosis. For tonight you will be my guest, and tomorrow I will ask my patroness Madame Morgan to sponsor your membership as well.”

“The Supreme Gnosis — what a peculiar name for a lodging house!”

“No more peculiar,” said Alexandra, “than the members. But you will discover that for yourself.”

“But surely,” I protested, “to become a member . . . . there must be initiations, qualifications . . . ”

“
Non, non
, there is no difficulty,” said Mlle David. “The Supreme Gnosis is no secret society, merely a community of people who wish to study eastern religions and philosophies. To join, it is only necessary to share that purpose.”

I wondered what my staunch Presbyterian mother would think of that. But my father surely would have approved. “Gnosis” means “knowledge”, and had he not encouraged me in all manner of scholarly pursuits?

And so we hired a hansom cab from the ranks parked outside the station, and we clattered off in the fading light along the Euston Road.

Thus Mlle David, like a guardian angel, has brought me to safe haven. I am too weary to write more. But tomorrow I will describe what a
very
peculiar place is the house of the Supreme Gnosis

Wednesday, May 23

My room is large, though not so large as Alexandra's, and amply furnished. Besides my bed I have a wardrobe, writing desk, dressing table, and three chairs, two straight and one upholstered. There is also an electric lamp with a flowered glass shade and a brass pull-chain. The society is quite up to date in its domestic arrangements. And this morning when I drew back the curtains from the tall windows, I looked out into a small, well-kept garden.

Perhaps the home of the Supreme Gnosis is no different from any well-appointed London house. And yet there is a certain mystery about this place that fills me with a vague unease. Alexandra says she feels it too, and has added to my disquiet with tales of vibrating doors, and ghostly processions circling her bed. Perhaps she is only inventing these stories to frighten me for her own entertainment. But it is not wise to dwell on them at night, when I am alone. Even now, as I write, I feel a shiver down my spine — wondering if I will wake in darkness to find those vaporous figures hovering around my bed. Alexandra keeps her lamp lit while she sleeps. I intend to do the same.

But even more eccentric are the inhabitants of this house. I wondered at their gaunt appearance, till I saw how little they eat. A maid awoke me this morning at seven with tea and biscuits, and I thought, what luxury. But the tea was weak as dishwater, and breakfast, when I came downstairs, was still more disappointing — some nuts, a thin unsalted gruel, and more dry biscuits. I longed for the bowls of thick porridge that broke our weekday fast on the farm, still more for the fried bread and ham we had on Sundays. Tea this afternoon was a further disappointment — sconeless, butterless and jamless.

Alexandra says that when she complained about the sparseness of the food, she was sternly advised that the president of the Supreme Gnosis existed on a dozen almonds a day, and now and again an orange.

I am writing this in the library, and trying not to think about food. It's a large, warm, comfortable room, dim and fragrant with incense smoke. The members of the Society —G nostics, I suppose they are called — wander in and out in long white robes like half starved ghosts. They puff on cigarettes while they consult the books on alchemy, metaphysics and astrology that line the shelves.

I fancied myself well educated, because I have some French and Latin and a little Greek. But the subjects on which these Gnostics expound over their boiled cabbage and watery stew are far beyond my comprehension. However, Alexandra (she insists on my calling her that) can hold her own with the most erudite of our fellow lodgers. In fact, she is so clever and so well-read that I am quite in awe of her. She spends most her days in the library of the British Museum, and tells me she is planning to master Sanskrit and Tibetan. The books on her bedside table — the Ramayana, the Rig Vedas, the Koran — are none that I remember seeing in my father's library.

For all that, she seems a sensible young woman, and she often makes fun of the Gnostics, calling them “the extrava-gants”. When we are alone she laughs at their talk of invisible beings they call the “Instructors” who descend from a high plane to impart their wisdom. “You must be careful in the library where you choose to sit,” she warned me with a giggle, “or you may find yourself on an Instructor's lap!”

Alexandra says that when she first read the journals of the Society, which her friend Mrs. Morgan sent to her in Paris, she said “
Ces gens-là sont fous
!” Since then she has learned more respect for the Gnostics, who seek after knowledge as passionately as herself. She no longer thinks that they are mad. In this house, living among believers, one cannot ignore the shadowy presence of the spirit world.

But in the meantime, there are pressing matters in the material world I must attend to. Once I have paid for my lodging, my small hoard of money will be almost gone. Alexandra has offered to pay me to tutor her in English, but I know that is only out of charity, for her grasp of the language is very good. Somehow I must find work.

When I told Alexandra that I hoped to find a starting position with a publisher, or perhaps employment in a bookshop, her look was discouraging. “But you have no experience,” she said, “and no letters of reference. Besides, they seldom hire women. Let us be practical. What useful skills do you possess? Needlework, perhaps?”

I shook my head. “My mother tried to teach me, but I could never make the stitches fine enough. Alexandra, if I am not to use my writing and my knowledge of books, then what skills have I to offer? Hoeing, thinning turnips, mending sacks?”

Alexandra's mouth twitched with laughter. “I fear there is little call in London, just now, for turnip-thinners.” Then, more soberly: “But you are not without education. Perhaps you could seek a position as governess?”

I thought of Jane Eyre, and how she had come to meet her Mr. Rochester at Thornfield Hall. Though a teacher's life was not what I had planned, there was merit to the idea. Then Alexandra, having second thoughts, pointed out that a governess should be qualified to teach not only mathematics, geography, natural science, the classical and romance languages — but also music, dancing (proper dancing, not the country sort), etiquette and deportment. Needless to say, in these latter disciplines I am sadly lacking.

Alexandra must have sensed my despair, for she said, “Be of good heart,
ma petite.
We will think of something.”

That she called me her little one, when I was so much taller than she, made me smile, and I felt a little better.

“Quite possibly,” said Alexandra reassuringly (though not, I thought, with much conviction) “some family of limited means with clever sons, and no daughters in need of dancing lessons, would be happy to employ you. We will place an advertisement in the newspaper, and I will help you to compose it.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Wednesday June 6

A fortnight has gone by, and there have been no replies to my advertisement. Alexandra has lent me money to pay for another week's lodging, but I have naught to send home to my mother, and I must quickly find employment. I am strong and healthy, and well accustomed to hard work. There are factories in London where I could apply, or if all else fails, I could hire out as a charwoman or a scullery maid. But Alexandra will not hear of this. She says that I have too good a mind to waste it in menial labour. Of course I am flattered that she thinks me clever, but cleverness will avail me little if I cannot earn my keep.

Thursday, June 7.

An acquaintance at the British Museum has told Alexandra of a London book-bindery employing women. The work sounds pleasant, and if I am not to be hired by a publisher, at least I would have a small part in the making of books. I mean to apply on Monday. One of the Gnostic ladies has offered to lend me a skirt and shirtwaist, and Alexandra has said she will do my hair (she threatens to cut me a fringe) so that I will appear respectable. But I despair of my hands, so calloused and rough from outdoor work that no emollient will smooth them. And I must remember, when answering questions, not to fall into the broad Borders speech.