I’d opened my mouth to argue – though I knew I hadn’t got a leg to stand on – when he delivered a body blow to my solar plexus by adding, ‘So I will be writing to your lawyers.’
I yelped, ‘But they’ll force me to go to boarding school!’
He shook his head. ‘No, they can’t do that.’ Oh, couldn’t they just! ‘But I will point out in your defence that you’ve not had the easiest of years. You may return to your lesson now.’
I did not share the Headmaster’s confidence, and waited for Mr Henderson’s visit with an apprehension bordering on pure terror. Give me the Old Man of Wick any day. Except it turned out that the Headmaster must have known something about that, too – and chosen to drop a hint to Mr Henderson, since although the latter did arrive with a reprieve – I could remain at school in Wick for another year – the price of that reprieve was to be the loss of my summer.
‘The Headmaster feels you should not remain unsupervised over the holidays, so I will look into the question of appropriate arrangements for you as soon as your term ends. Perhaps a couple of suitable ladies would agree to act as chaperons—’
‘I don’t need a chaperon!’
Mr Henderson’s gaze was level. ‘If you would prefer a period spent in a finishing school for young ladies of your own class – yes, that might well be preferable, since we can then arrange extra tuition in maths and Latin.’
He’d really got me on the ropes, but I wouldn’t admit it, and instead I tried to fight my corner by making some adverse remarks about the terms of my grandfather’s will. Unwisely, as it turned out, since Mr Henderson then took the opportunity to explain just how far-sighted General Courtney had been.
Not wishing me to become the prey of fortune hunters at too early an age he had ensured the capital was tied up until I was twenty-five, by which time, my grandfather had assumed, I would have reached years of discretion (judging by his expression as he said this Mr Henderson himself was making such assumption). In the meantime my expenses and allowances would not be paid unless the Mr Hendersons were satisfied that I was residing in circumstances appropriate to my age and position in society. ‘And if I should marry before that age my husband would have to be able to support me until I was twenty-five. ‘Unless,’ Mr Henderson paused to ensure I was listening properly, ‘Unless your husband were to be a serving army officer of good reputation, in which case the capital would be released at once.’
For a moment I was too stunned to reply, then, ‘How can you have an army officer with a good reputation? They’re all murderers!’
Mr Henderson drew himself up. ‘Many of my most valued and respected clients hold the King’s commission, Miss Courtney.’ Then, ‘I will ask your headmaster to send me monthly reports on your work and conduct next year. If these are in any way unsatisfactory, I shall know that the new high school here is not suiting you.’ He let the barely-veiled threat hang in the air a moment before informing me, ‘I will ask my cousin to make enquiries about finishing schools, and arrange for a retired governess of my acquaintance to come and collect you on the last day of term. Good afternoon.’
Oh, stupid, stupid Eve. Fancy forgetting one of the most basic rules of the jungle – never provoke anything that’s got bigger teeth than you have. And where I was concerned my grandfather had given Mr Henderson some very big teeth indeed. I’d read all about their size and sharpness in the legal section of Randall. The paragraph entitled: ‘Rights of Guardians’ was the stuff of my nightmares, starting as it did with: ‘The rights of guardians are similar to those of parents, but with one crucial difference, whereas a parent cannot easily obtain the aid of a Court to compel his child to obey him, the guardian can.’ So Mr Henderson had more power over me than even Apa would ever have had! Just to ram the point home they’d even printed the next sentence in italics: ‘So the first right possessed by a guardian is to exact obedience to every reasonable command.’ And I could see only too clearly that packing me off to boarding school would be considered perfectly reasonable by any judge in the country.
From then on it got steadily worse. Until I turned twenty-one the Mr Hendersons could force me to live wherever they wanted – even with one of them, if they chose to insist (though I felt pretty safe on that score, given the nature of our relationship over the years); they could also choose my education, chastise me, forbid me to marry – even forbid me to go to the theatre, for goodness’ sake! I was so angry with my grandfather for doing this to me. And beneath that anger lay another – with Apa, for condoning it. How could Apa have done that? My Apa, who’d always encouraged me to think for myself and make my own decisions – I thrust the thought away and went in search of Ewan.
I poured out the whole disastrous tale. ‘Whatever shall I do? if I run away again they’ll come after me – and even if they don’t catch me they’ll never let me come back here next year. But I simply can’t stand a whole summer in a girl’s boarding school!’
Ewan grinned. ‘I certainly could – do you think they’d take me instead, if I grew my hair and dressed in a skirt?’ He minced around the yard. ‘After all, we’re both of us red-heads.’
I kicked him. ‘Look Ewan, I’m desperate.’
Rubbing his shin he said, ‘Why don’t you write and say you’ve gone away with some friends of your own?’
I seized on this. ‘Do you think if I dressed as a boy they’d take me on the boats with Duggie and Mungo?’
He grinned. ‘Not unless you can last five days without a piss. Anyway, everyone in Helspie knows you’re a girl—’ He shouted, ‘Eve, We got it! You can do what girls do – you can go on the gutting.’
‘The gutting?’
‘To Gremista, they’d never track you down up there in the Shetlands – and you could call yourself “Eve Gunn”.’
‘I am called Eve – Ah, I see what you mean, an alias.’
‘That’s right.’ I was much taken with the idea. ‘I could lay a false trail and—’ Then I saw the snag. ‘But Ewan, it’s too late – the crews must be made up by now, they’ll already have accepted their arles from the curers – it’s too late now. Oh whyever didn’t you suggest it earlier?’
Luckily for me Ewan ignored that extremely unreasonable accusation and smirked instead. ‘It’s not too late if someone’s having to drop out, and as it happens, I know someone who is.’
It was even better than that, because Ewan’s Cousin Jeannie didn’t actually want to drop out for the whole season, but she’d developed a bad whitlow and it had had to be lanced by the doctor, who’d told her she couldn’t possibly do the Lerwick fishing, but she should be able to manage Scarborough and the winter fishing at Yarmouth. So I could spend the summer in Shetland and be back in time for the opening of the new High School towards the end of August. Ewan said there was one snag, though – Jeannie was teamed up with Bridget Campbell and Duggie’s sister Mairi. ‘Mairi’s the one in charge, and she knows what you’re like—’
‘Oh,’ I said confidently, ‘If they’re stuck, she’ll be willing to take me.’
She was not willing. And I’d cycled straight down to Helspie the very next morning to find her. I exclaimed, ‘But Mairi, I’ve played truant today, especially to come and see you.’
She sniffed. ‘That’s you all over, Eve – never where you should be, and generally somewhere else you shouldn’t.’
Ignoring that one I offered, ‘I’ll just fill in at Lerwick, till Jeannie’s finger’s right. I know I’d be no use as a packer, but Bridget’ll be doing that, and I can gut alright. I’ll soon get my speed in, you see.’
Mairi shook her head. ‘We heard there’s a girl in Dunbeath who might be free.’
‘But they don’t speak Gaelic in Dunbeath.’
‘You don’t gut herring with your tongue, Eve – if you did I’d take you like a shot, you can certainly gab.’ She stood up. ‘I was just off on my way to Dunbeath when you turned up—’
‘But Mairi, why won’t you—’
‘Eve, we need someone
reliable.’ She was off, to Dunbeath.
And I was off, too – straight to the croft to find proof that I was reliable.
When Mairi finally arrived back I was waiting in the Frasers’ kitchen with my character reference from the minister clutched in my hand. I could see from her face as she came through the door that the Dunbeath hope had failed. Turning to Mrs Fraser she said glumly, ‘Looks like we’re stuck, Mam.’
I exclaimed, ‘I’ll do it! Why don’t you want me?
Mairi sighed. ‘Eve, gutting’s about being one of team – and you, you know what you’re like. You’ve always got to be dancing to your own tune, you have.’
I thrust my character under her nose. ‘But I am reliable – look, it says it here.’ I quoted: ‘“I have always found Eve Gunn to be both honest and reliable” – see, reliable.’
Mairi snorted. ‘Honest? The way you and Duggie are always off at the poaching – though I suppose you are reliable enough about that. Get a good reference from Uncle Fergus, you would.’
Mrs Fraser shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t give anybody a reference, Fergus wouldn’t – he can’t write. He was never one for spending time inside the school gates.’ Me and Uncle Fergus both. Mrs Fraser turned to Mairi, ‘Your father got all the brains in that family.’
Firmly I interrupted. ‘This reference is from the minister – and it’s a jolly good reference. Look at it.’ I stabbed the paper with my finger, ‘“Well-trained”, “a fast and intelligent worker”, “she is unfailingly punctual”.’
Mairl took my character from me and began demolishing it with her own finger. ‘For a start, it’s not really for you, is it? I mean, you aren’t Eve Gunn, are you? You’re Eve something else. And it’s no use anyway, because he’s not even put a date on it.’ He hadn’t. Been too keen to get back to his Gaelic poetry – and I’d been too keen to get away before Mistress McNiven came back. Both of us had been careless.
Crestfallen I retrieved my dubious character from her grasp – and then suddenly realised what she was saying, ‘Look, Eve, will you promise faithfully to stick it until Jeannie can come – swear it on your gutting knife?’
‘You mean, you’ll take me?’
‘Yes, I’ll take you – I’m that desperate.’ Which made two of us.
Three days later I was on the steamer to Lerwick.
I had not been idle those intervening days. Drawing once again on the experiences of Pandit Kishen Singh in Tibet, I had carefully laid my plans.
First, the alias – luckily I was already in possession of that, although I decided to back up my claim to “Eve Gunn” by packing the minister’s reference in my trunk. The said trunk also being part of my alias, since it was an old one of Aunt Ethel’s labelled – yes, you’ve guessed it, E. GUNN. This had caused some contention between Mairl and myself, since she’d wanted me to take the official herring girls’ kist, a heavy wooden chest with several small fitted drawers. ‘You can borrow Bridget’s Jessie’s, she won’t be using it now she’s wed – and you’ll need a kist to sit on.’
‘I’ll sit on the floor – I generally do.’
Having held out for my trunk and its label, I also held out for my breeks – which Mairi, who’d arrived to supervise my packing, had removed from the trunk with a shocked, ‘You can’t wear those at Gremista.’ I put them back again as soon as she’d left – along with the rest of my dark-coloured poaching outfit. As Uncle Fergus always said, ‘You never kgow.’
The rest of my trunk contained the second key element of my escape – the disguise. This consisted of Jeannie’s heavy leather boots and her oilskin ‘coat’ – actually an all-embracing wrap-around bibbed apron – which Mairl said was too short for me and showed my ankles. I argued that it couldn’t – since those were totally encased in those huge, clumsy boots – ‘But a skirt that short shows they’re there Eve.’ I was lost on that one. in any case, the apron seemed long to me, because for the very first time I had put up my hair and bought a brand new, full-length skirt as part of my Sunday-best outfit. It flapped around my ankles and I was torn between irritation with it and pride in the new status it awarded me as ‘Grown Up’.
Combined with my new hairstyle – plaits wound round my head and skewered with hairpins – that skirt added at least two years to my age. It wasn’t just me who said that, Mairl said it too – along with a rather terse comment to the effect that she hoped I’d behave accordingly – and I decided this sudden onset of maturity would be the most effective part of my disguise. If Mr Henderson sent out his spies he would be completely fooled, I was not a schoolgirl any longer.
What else did I take? A scarf for my hair – rarely worn in practice since the weather was so good that summer – my woollen shawl, my oldest skirt, blouses and jumper for wearing at the farlins, and my own oilskins and sou’wester in case it rained – though Mairi said when you were working it was easier at Gremista to stay out and get soaked, because mostly the sun would dry you again before you’d finished work.
And, of course, I packed my faithful gutting knife, in its sheath, and the vital bandages. Mrs Fraser washed and boiled a flour bag for me, then tore it into strips, saving the cotton thread so I could tie the bandages round all my fingers before starting work each morning. Once on, they stayed on, until the end of the day. Even I was never casual about that task – a nicked finger in that salt was so painful, and if it turned septic – at Gremista I soon learnt to speed the process up by tying the knots with my teeth, like the other girls.
Jeannie brought round her pillow, blankets, and mattress cover for filling with chaff, already sewn into their hessian roll, and I dumped it down on top of my trunk. All in all, I was pretty pleased with all the components of my disguise – and then there was my tongue, too.
In Britain, everyone is labelled by their accent – so I needed to change my label, since obviously I’d have to speak English some of the time. I decided to employ Tam Sinclair’s accent for this purpose, and began practising immediately – thus earning one of the only two favourable comments Bridget made about me the entire trip: ‘That’s better, Eve,’ she said approvingly, ‘We don’t want the Peterhead girls thinking we’re stuck up.’ In practice Tam’s accent blended in quite nicely, since the other Helspie girls had learnt their English from the Lowland Scots dominie, so I didn’t sound that different.
With my alias and disguise all sorted, my next move was the laying of a false trail. Ewan had given me the idea for that, so I composed two letters. The Headmaster might have had occasion to complain about my lack of care in preparing Latin set texts, but he couldn’t have faulted me over the effort I put in on those letters, the first of which was to him. It explained that I would be away for the end of the summer term and over the summer itself. I didn’t actually say that Mr Henderson had arranged to transfer me to finishing school early, but I suppose you could have read it like that…
The second letter was to Mr Henderson, in which I didn’t actually say the Headmaster had arranged for me to spend the summer holidays with two friends of Aunt Ethel’s, but I suppose you could have read it like that… Anyway, Mairi and Bridget had known Aunt Ethel.
Mrs Sinclair was more easily satisfied, since she’d expected me to be away for the summer in any case. That left Mistress MacNiven to be squared. There was always the chance that Mr Henderson might write to the manse for further details, and obviously she’d know where I’d gone. I tried to swear her to secrecy, but she refused to be sworn. ‘If your lawyers should enquire of me, I cannot tell a lie.’
‘But suppose he makes me come back—’
‘He can’t do that, Eve.’ Oh, I did wish people wouldn’t keep telling me that. ‘But,’ she continued, ‘If you prefer, I shall merely state that you have gone away with two persons of the utmost respectability, who will, I am sure, take very good care of you.’
‘Oh, thank you!’
‘You know, Eve,’ she observed, ‘I do think that going on the gutting will prove an instructive experience for you.’ S
he patted my hand. ‘And I feel convinced that when you return to school in August it will be in a more contented frame of mind.’
She was certainly right in her first observation, but the second one – no. Though that was not in any way the fault of the new high school at Wick.
So I left to follow the fishing – though not without a parting word of disapproval from Uncle Fergus, ‘You’re never going on the gutting? But that work’s only fit for the lassies!’ He spat dismissively into the fire. Too late, I was off to catch the steamer from Wick.
It was quite an enjoyable journey – at first.
I stayed on deck along with the other crew from Helspie. There were only six of us bound for Gremista, since with Helspie having its own curing station most of the other girls waited until June, gutted at home, and then went off to Shields and Yarmouth. Only the more adventurous opted for the whole season away. And Bridget – there was nothing adventurous about Bridget. I’ve never met anyone so stolid as Bridget – she could even be sick stolidly.
Yes, that was the flaw with the trip to Lerwick: the Boost of Sumburgh, where the Atlantic met the North Sea. Judging by the currents produced neither were happy at this meeting – nor were we as the ship rolled… No, I wasn’t sick myself – but gosh, was I relieved when we finally landed at Lerwick and set off on the two mile walk to the curing station at Gremista.
Chapter Seventeen
Gremista – with its clusters of jetties, its acres of curing yards, its miles of piled-high barrels – and its big wooden troughs constantly being filled and refilled with shining silver herrings. Every single one of which had to be gutted and graded – mattie, matt full, medium, filling, full, large full – and large spent – though we were not likely to get many of these so early in the season.