Diary of a Victorian Shopkeeper, 5th November

Label courtesy of Bruce Gorie.

There follows a fourth installment of the Victorian journal of Margaret Kirkness, cofounder of our family business. If you have not yet read the story of this document’s discovery, I suggest you do so before proceeding. At the end of the previous transcription, Margaret had been thrown in the tolbooth, accused of murder. Sharing her cell was someone most unexpected.

I reached out my hand and touched my brother’s bearded jowl. ‘Andrew,’ I said. ‘But how…? You were lost when the Nefertiti foundered in the Davis Strait.’

‘I was lost,’ he said. ‘But only in that I wandered in those cold northern lands for many years. I alone survived the wreck of our ship, and the grief of it drove me half mad. I cared not if I travelled north or south, east or west, as long as I kept moving.’

‘But you are here now, thank the Lord,’ I said.

‘From wandering the wide nor-wast to confinement in a Kirkwall cell! Yet I would be nowhere else, especially now you are here to release me from my captivity.

I felt tears come to my eyes. ‘But I am a captive too!’ And I gave him a summary of the day’s singular happenings.

Steel entered his voice. ‘This will not stand, dear sis.’

As he spoke, a key grated, and the door of our cell groaned open. There stood Locky, beaming slyly, and behind him, James, still in his grocer’s apron. His ashen face broke into a broad smile when he saw me unharmed. He stepped into the cell, gathered me in his arms…and I will draw a discrete veil, diary, over our joyful reunion.

Several hours later we gathered around the dining table in our apartment. James had decided a celebration was in order, both for my release and for my brother’s reappearance. He raided the shop for ham, eggs, tomatoes, white bread and a cheese called Roquefort, which he professes to enjoy despite it appearing to be blue with rot. Andrew refused the cheese, but happily accepted the glass of Sauternes wine that accompanied it.

The children were somewhat in awe of this uncle returned from the dead. It was Mary, however, who was most struck. She stood at her station by the kitchen door, gawping shamelessly at him throughout our meal. Twice I had to speak sharply to her to carry out her duties.

But even that did not darken our joyous mood, especially as James related the story of my release from the clutches of the town constabulary. ‘Beuy, that Dr Brass can be an ill-veekit, come-against individual, but I’ll give him this: once he gets his teeth into something he will not let go. Especially if it’s going to cut the high and mighty down to size. Once he’d determined that Granny Groatie died of natural causes he turned on Inspector Crambo. ‘She was 92, beuy. What do you expect? That a poor done wife can live forever?’’

‘That’s rather heartless!’ I exclaimed.

‘No one is sadder than me to lose my dear granny,’ James replied, looking momentarily sorrowful, ‘But while we have lost one soul today, we have gained another. Welcome back to the land of the living, Andrew!’ And the pair of them raised their glasses.

Jimmick piped up: ‘Daddo, what happened next?’

James puffed out his chest, mocking Dr Brass with his birse up. ‘’Inspector Crambo, I say old age and you say what? Murder? By what means?’ Arsenic in a fruit scone, perchance? We’ll never know, for you have consumed the evidence.’

Everyone roared with laughter, even the peedie ones who surely did not understand the import of the narrative but just enjoyed seeing their father – so often weighed down with the worries of commerce – making merry.

Only Andrew looked solemn. ‘There’s one thing that puzzles me,’ he said at last. ‘Why did Crambo and Rosey turn up at Granny Groatie’s at the exact moment that Margaret arrived? It was no coincidence: they knew the moment to pounce. Worse, how did they know that Granny Groatie was dead? Above all, why in God’s good name did they want to frame my innocent sister for a crime she did not commit. For a crime that did not exist!’

Suddenly everyone was sombre. The children looked to their father, the glass of wine frozen at his lips. And then the silence was broken from an unexpected quarter.

‘I ken why.’ Mary stepped forward from her station by the kitchen door. ‘I ken exactly what’s going on.’

To be continued.

The Haut Sauternes label at the top of this page is reproduced from the collection of Bruce Gorie, with thanks. Bruce, formerly owner and manager of Kirkness & Gorie, is also the family historian, and has amassed a remarkable collection of documents, photos and ephemera from our family business’s 160 year history. Sauternes is a luscious sweet wine from Bordeaux, often served with blue cheese like Roquefort. James Kirkness was obviously well versed in classic food and wine matching! The fact that this and other labels were found in Bruce’s archives strongly suggests that wine was being bottled out of barrels in the shop a century or more ago. Whether it was glasses of Orkney-bottled Sauternes that James poured to celebrate Andrew’s appearance is not known.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 8th November 2023. A new one appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.