The Handfasters

by Helen Susan Swift

  There was no reprieve from such a pronouncement of rejection. In my youth, you see, we did not question the wisdom of our elders and betters. Indeed, we dared not, for the consequences could be … well, I will leave that to your imaginations but.

  It was unpleasant to be banished in disgrace, but to be honest I had experienced quite enough of Lady Catriona's ball. My anticipation had been disappointed, my hopes dashed and my lips assaulted. In truth, I was not unhappy to climb inside the padded and very ornate sedan chair and have the stalwart Highland chairmen lift me. I would have preferred to travel by coach, but I do not believe that Lady Catriona would have countenanced such luxury for somebody she obviously considered a blackguard and an out-and-out rogue. I also knew that I was in disgrace, and wondered what Lady Elspeth would say about the situation when I arrived back in her house. However much I reasoned that such things were probably not uncommon in such a cosmopolitan city as Edinburgh, and if I were home first, I would have the first opportunity to state my side of the argument, I knew that it was natural for Aunt Elspeth to take her daughter's side against me.

  Such thoughts occupied me as the chairmen ported me up the wynd and into the bustle of the High Street. Tears were not far from my eyes as I considered Lady Elspeth's reaction, for I knew that Louise would put all the blame on my shoulders, and I would be doubly disgraced. I had no ideas what penalties her ladyship would inflict, but I suspected they might be grievous. She may even send me back to Badenoch, where my chances of finding a suitable husband were limited in the extreme.

  However, events in the High Street soon chased the tears away and gave me much more serious matters to worry about than the displeasure of an eccentric old crone such as Lady Catriona and my stern but probably fair aunt.

  I heard the roar before I saw anything untoward, for a sedan chair does not have the best of visibility and I was engaged in a monumentous sulk, combined with great self pity both for my present position and the niggling pain of what I was sure was a blister developing on the large toe of my left foot. So when the front chairman let his poles go with a thump, I only complained a little before I opened the door and peered out.

  The High Street was in such a state of consternation that I thought the French had landed and was attempting to assault Edinburgh Castle. There were people everywhere, mostly youngsters in their teens and early twenties, shouting and gesticulating, using the most commonplace language I had ever heard, throwing rocks and bottles at the houses and at the poor Watchmen who attempted to restore peace, fighting with fists and feet and generally behaving as if there was no God and Lucifer had descended to claim the kingdom.

  “Whatever is the commotion?” I enquired, but nobody seemed to take heed of me, even though I stamped my foot quite forcibly on the ground.

  I could hear the chairmen talking, their Gaelic easily comprehensible to me, for Lady Catriona was correct in that at least. Being a native of the Highlands I understood the speech quite as well as I understood English.

  “We can't get through that lot,” one chairman said, pointing to the crowd.

  “We'll have to, or Her Ladyship will have our jobs,” the second reminded. “Lady Catriona is not the sort of person to give an order and not have it carried out” He added a few more comments about Lady Catriona which, although I agreed with, I think it best not to commit to paper at this time. They were certainly not fit for tender young ears, and I would have blushed if I was not perfectly pleased to hear the old harridan so insulted.

  “Down the closes then,” the first man said, and only then did he notice that I was outside the chair and listening to his conversation.

  Switching to English, for he was naturally unaware that I spoke Gaelic, he gave the shortest and quite the most disrespectful bow I have ever seen. “We not going that way,” he told me, jerking a stubby thumb at the mob, “we'll have to go through the closes and around the loch. It will take longer.”

  There was no by-your-leave, you'll notice, and no “my lady” or any other term of respect. Highlanders are like that; you have to earn their respect and if you give them an inch they'll take three yards, and anything else they can lay their hands on.

  “You'll do as I tell you,” I bristled, for I was young and full of fire and foolish spirit.

  “Aye, right,” the spokesman replied, with no thought at all for my dignity. “Just get in, sit tight and hold your tongue. God knows what these blackguards will do if they see Her Ladyship's sedan in the streets.”

  Nearly pushing me inside the chair, the Highlanders lifted it and ran to the nearest close – that's a narrow alleyway, dears, nearly unseating me in the process. I do not know the name of the dark ravine into which we plunged, but the smells were abominable and the darkness stygian. We could well have been in the Pit, or any of the famous stews of London, but for all their caution, we had been seen.

  Once again I heard the roar of the crowd, and something hard and heavy smashed from the side panel of the chair. I remember thinking that Her Ladyship would not be pleased at this disrespect even as I stifled a small scream.

  “That's enough of that, you scoundrel!” The porter had returned to his native tongue, and he continued to berate the thrower in language that was quite choice and far too colourful for you ladies to know. We might not have been quite as ladylike in our youth as we pretended, for we did know the meanings of some of these horrid words. You, of course, should not.

  Anyway, another missile clattered from the coachwork and the porter yelled again. “I know you, Hughie McIntosh, and I'll attend to you tonight, when I'm not working.”

  The reply was confused, as if the said Hugh McIntosh was drunk, but there was no mistaking the thunder of boots down the close and against the side of the sedan, rocking it dreadfully and quite upsetting my temper. Somebody yanked the door open and I peered out, to see a whole bunch of rogues staring in.

  “Get you gone, you drunken blaggards!” the second coachman shouted, still holding the poles and trying to walk forward. “This lady is under our protection and she's done you no harm at all!”

  Until that second I had been annoyed and intrigued, but now I began to feel fear. There must have been twenty people in that mob and all appeared to come from the very dregs of society. Malice oozed from every predatory face, and I cannot repeat one word of what they said. Some spoke in Gaelic, some in Edinburgh Scots, but they seemed to be united in the common purpose of causing as much mischief as possible.

  “Tip her out!”

  A dozen grimy hands descended on the sedan, until my coachmen, Highland heroes both, placed it ungently on the ground and pushed them back with great shouts and violent action.

  “Run, Miss Alison,” the front chairman said. “We can't hold them for long and there's no knowing what they might do. Run!”

  I hesitated of course, between the devil of that crowd and the deep blue sea of the dark closes of old Edinburgh, and, I am loath to admit, somewhere within me there was the genuine desire to stay and help my impolite porters.

  “Run, woman!” the second chairman ordered, and gave me a push in the back to help me on my way.

  For the second time that evening I stumbled, but I fear helped me recover and I lifted my skirts and ran down that close as fast as my legs and my oh-so-fashionable high heeled shoes would allow.

  Now, you girls nowadays live in a very civilised world, with gas lighting in the streets and piped water in nearly every house. In my time Old Edinburgh did not have such conveniences, so the close that I ran down was dark, foul and dangerous. I had only a vague knowledge of where I was going, but I knew that I had to leave the Old Town, cross the Earthen Mound and reach the graceful squares of the New Town where my Aunt Elspeth would be waiting to greet me with cakes and tea, or more likely a verbal assault that would blister my ears. Either was preferable to the deep darkness of that terrible lane or the horror of the mob at my heels.

  You will notice that I had no thought of returning to the Forres Residence. Lady Cat
riona had sent me away, so away I must go, and quickly, my dears. Disobedience was not so much frowned upon as quickly and effectively squashed.

  That close descended steeply, ending in a winding street whose name I quite forget, but which was crammed with more raucous youths celebrating the advent of a new year by riot and dissipation. Conspicuous in my bright dress and fashionable cloak, I tried to hide, but somebody caught sight of me and I was soon running again, with my heels sliding on the cobbled ground and my ankles screaming their protest at this ill treatment.

  The noise behind me diminished in direct proportion to the darkness of my surroundings and I realised that my feet were sinking into something deeper than the normal noxious surface of Edinburgh's ground. I hesitated, unsure whether to continue, but a glance over my shoulder revealed an orange light over the city, and I feared that the whole of Edinburgh was aflame with the mob in charge like some hydra-headed republican monster.

  I might have sobbed then, but I cannot recall exactly, but I do know that I looked outward for the lights and security of the New Town. They were there, plain and serene as a summer's morning, but despite all my efforts, I seemed to be no closer. I plunged on, holding up the trailing skirt of my gown that descended beneath my cloak, and felt something sucking at my shoes.

  “Mud,” I said gloomily, and plunged on, hoping that I could reach the Earthen Mound and cross the physical and metaphysical chasm that divided Edinburgh's two worlds.

  Unfortunately, my dears, my sense of direction has never been good. I thrust myself into that mud with my feet sinking deeper and my heart pumping in a most unladylike manner, but although I did not realise it, I was moving ever further from my goal. The Earthen Mound and my road to Aunt Elspeth's lay to the east, but I was heading west.

  I only became aware of my predicament when I saw the great sheet of water stretching before me, rippling in the starlight. If I were a man I would have sworn, but of course I did not. Instead I nearly gave way to a fit of temper, which did no good at all but only served to exhaust me further.

  “I will follow the banks of this loch,” I told myself, “and it will take me to Princes Street, for we drove that way only this afternoon.”

  Accordingly I kept on, until the mud sucked off my right shoe and I fell, for the third time that night. By now I had no idea for how long I had been moving, but my legs were aching and mud covered me from my face downward. I was sobbing, wishing that John Forrest had chosen to kiss anybody but me, and wondering if I were destined to spend the entire night outside this God forsaken city.

  It was cold. I had forgotten just how bitter a winter's night could be, and I shivered.

  “Oh just let me go home,” I prayed.

  The noise from the city had long since faded everywhere but in my memory, so I felt as if I were the last women left in the world as I struggled along in the dark, with that rippling water a barrier between me and sanctuary and the thought of the predatory mob in the rear.

  The cry of a goose was terribly lonely and I sank down, holding my head in my hands and nearly giving way to despair. I didn't of course, for I knew that I was only a few miles from safety, but when you are young and alone and in a strange place, the imagination can take control of your senses and you create all sort of terrible things that reality dispels.

  It was then that I saw a faint yellow glow reflecting from the dark waters.

  “What's that?' Who's there?”' I said the words faintly, not really sure that I had seen anything and not really sure if I wanted a reply, for anybody out here at this time of night must be a desperate character. Brought up on the fearful gothic novels that were prevalent at the time, I could imagine any sort of horror, ghosts or vampires or even some of the phantom dogs or water kelpies of my Highland childhood.

  I nearly collapsed when there came a bold reply.

  “Hello!”

  I halted, unsure whether to go on or to return. There I was, barely eighteen years old and lost beside a dirty loch half way between old and new Edinburgh and with a strange and definitely male voice was calling to me. I was in that wonderful state where reality and imagination merge, when I was unsure if I was dreaming or awake, real or unreal, the twilight of existence where even the solid seems insubstantial.

  The voice sounded again. “Hello?”

  I sat tight, saying nothing and hoping for solitude nearly as much as I hoped for discovery.

  A lantern flickered, the reflection of its light on the placid waters disturbing a goose into explosive flight.

  Still I waited, unsure what to do. There is no disease worse than uncertainty, my dears. My advice to you is to decide on a course of action and carry it through. It is always far better to regret what you have done that regret that you lacked the courage to do anything.

  For a third time that male voice sounded. “Hello? Is there anybody there?” The lamplight circled, flicking over the water and through the sedges on the bank, casting weird shadows and making the surrounding dark even blacker by contrast.

  Still I did nothing, with my opportunity for help fast passing me by. Was I scared? Yes, but not of that unknown voice, more of my own fears. I thought of pirates and smugglers and sorners, but never of the truth.

  The light vanished, somebody muttered something that I could not catch and then I was alone again in the somehow greater darkness and I felt lonelier than I had ever felt before.

  “Help!” The word was out before I knew it. “Please help me!”

  But there was no friendly beam of light. The darkness remained as dark, the solitariness as solitary and my feelings as confused as before, except that now I knew that I was scared and after that hint of companionship I desperately sought human company. I could smell smoke, so in my disordered mind there must be a house nearby. I did not consider that we were no distance of Edinburgh, which had well earned its sobriquet of Auld Reekie.

  “Hello! Please help me!”

  I blundered forward, hoping for the source of that light. I had passed the point of caring for my appearance or my dignity, all I wanted was somewhere to shelter, a fire to sit beside and the sound of a human voice. Ignoring the mud that splashed higher with every lumbering step, ignoring the sodden mess of my best cloak and the only ball gown that I had ever possessed, I staggered on, until I fell against the harsh wall of a hut.

  My mind only fixed on one thing. A hut meant shelter from the night. True it was humble, but I was no great lady to disdain simplicity, but a Highland girl lost near Edinburgh. Fumbling around the walls, I found a door handle.

  Yanking it open, I nearly fell inside, aware only of a welcoming fire and the scent of something that could have been newly baked bread.

  The tall man stared at me in astonishment.

  “What the devil!”

  And I looked into the angry eyes of Willie Kemp.

  There was no mirror inside that hut but I can imagine what sort of picture I must have presented. Hatless, for I had lost my hat in the mad dash from the sedan, and shoeless, for I had lost both while blundering along the loch side; with mud thick on my cloak and my person, and dripping with water, I must have appeared more a ragged beggar woman than the young lady of fashion who left home a few short hours before.

  “Who the devil are you?” Willie Kemp asked.

  As I stared back at him with my mouth working and my clothes leaving a spreading puddle on his floor, I remembered what Louise had said about this man. He was a strange creature, a solitary man who spent his time making machines that did not work, and now I had barged into his hut beside the loch.

  “I am Alison Lamont,” I told him, and for reason I added “from Badenoch.”

  “Was it you yelling a few minutes ago?” He remained a few steps from me, standing beside a very handsome fire. I could see the breadth of his shoulders and the line of light on a jaw that was more stubborn than I liked. Not that I really cared, of course, but one does tend to notice such things, even with men as coarse and uncouth and tall as Willie Kemp.
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  “I asked you a question.” There was no doubting the authority in his tone, which I resented as he was a mere tinker and I was the niece of Lady Elspeth Ballantyne

  I resolved to be as stiffly standoffish as I knew how. “I am lost,” I wailed. “I can't find my way home.”

  I did not see him move, but he was there to help me on to the only chair in that shed, and he was easing the cloak from my shoulders and tutting at my lack of shoes and the shocking condition of my feet on such a biting winter's night.

  I was shivering as the reaction of my adventures hit home, and I hardly objected when he placed a great mug of soup in my hand.

  You're cold” he said, and although his voice was deep, it was also surprisingly cultured.

  I nodded. I knew that I should leave at once rather than be alone in the presence of an unknown man, but I was too frightened and too cold and too exhausted to think straight. I was, you will please remember, only eighteen years old and unsure of my surroundings.

  Willie Kemp seemed unsure what to do. He watched me for a moment, frowning, and then he shook his head. “Well, you'd better get out of these wet things,” he said, “or else you'll catch your death of cold.”

  I looked up, suddenly frightened as all the gothic stories returned. I could feel the hammer of my heart and realized that I was indeed alone with a strange man in an out of the way place and nobody knew where I was. “No,” I whispered, and his frown deepened.

  “You are cold,” he said, and his voice was as harsh as a metal bar running across a granite cliff. “You are tired and you are wet. Unless you change into something dry and warm, you will catch a cold, if not pneumonia.” He disappeared for a few moments, returning with what looked like a bundle of old cloth.

  “I'll go away,” he said, “and you put these on. I'll knock before I return.”