A Darkening of the Heart

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  ‘Please, Sir, let me be. I am exhausted and wish to compose myself to sleep.’

  He gave a coarse laugh. ‘You’re not going to get any sleep tonight.’

  ‘But Neil …’

  ‘Be quiet. You belong to me now and you’ll do as you’re told.’ No words could express the shock, the confusion, the suicidal despair she felt. Not even to herself. She could not believe what was happening to her. Neil had always behaved to her as a perfect gentleman. He had never even ventured to put an arm around her waist.

  Now his hands were fumbling all over her body. He was staring at her, examining her in a kind of mad intensity that seemed to go on for an eternity. Then suddenly his body was on top of hers, crushing her and making it difficult for her to breathe. She felt a stabbing agony between her legs and deep inside her, making her cry out in pain. He was grunting like an animal, making her burst into tears of terror. Eventually he rolled away from her, pulled the bedcovers back on to the bed and in a few minutes, he was snoring.

  She lay rigid with shock and horror, as well as pain. Was this what marriage meant? Why didn’t someone – her mother, or her grandmother, or even Mysie – warn her? How could they happily allow her to get into such a terrible trap? Was this dreadful behaviour supposed to go on for a lifetime? Surely that was not possible. Perhaps it was something – some kind of ritual – that was only performed on the wedding night. She gratefully clung to this hopeful thought but didn’t really believe it. Surely there should have been at least one word of love or affection from her husband. Surely he could have been more gentle. He had not said one word of any kind to her after commanding her to be quiet. He had hurt her cruelly both mentally and physically.

  Nothing was as she’d hoped. Her dreams were shattered. She was broken-hearted.

  12

  Alexander didn’t know what to make of it, didn’t know what to think or feel. Never for a moment had he thought … well, there had been the occasional moment when he had thought Robert’s poems were good. At least the few that were expressed in decent English. He’d liked:

  … Tho’ mountains rise, and deserts howl,

  and oceans roar between;

  Yet, dearer to my deathless soul,

  I still would love my Jean.

  The vernacular of others of his poems was scarcely understandable to educated people. Some of his lines were destined to get him into one kind of trouble or another. But Robert’s head had always been full to overflowing with rhymes of all sorts. He even scratched lines on window panes that had suddenly come into his mind. He never stopped to think of the consequences that might arise.

  On the window pane of one inn he had inscribed the Jacobite sentiment,

  The injur’d Stewart line are gone,

  A race outlandish fills their throne;

  An idiot race, to honour lost;

  Who know them best despise them most.

  Realising the danger of this in the political climate of the day, and with a job in the Excise at the back of his mind, Robert had returned and kicked in the pane, but it was too late. The verse had already been copied and passed around.

  On another occasion, he had been passing a church, and found that inside a thanksgiving service was taking place to celebrate a naval victory. He’d immediately composed,

  Ye hypocrites! Are these your pranks?

  To murder men, and gie God thanks!

  For shame! Gie o’er – proceed no further –

  God won’t accept your thanks for murder!

  Alexander had persuaded Robert not to circulate these lines around friends and acquaintances as he had long since got into the habit of doing with so many other poems. It seemed he couldn’t send a letter without enclosing poems or songs, and breaking into rhyme in the middle of a letter, or even writing the whole letter in rhyme. It was ridiculous to go to such extremes.

  It couldn’t be denied of course that even his scurrilous satirical poems could be amusing – especially if Robert recited them. The memory of his friend performing – because that what it amounted to, a performance – ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’ could still make him laugh.

  It was the way Robert had rolled his dark eyes heavenwards as he delivered some verses and the way his face could take on a wickedly hypocritical smirk when reciting others. No wonder the church had been furious and had tried their best to get revenge on him.

  ‘You’ll get yourself into really serious trouble yet,’ Alexander kept warning him.

  The last Alexander had heard, Robert had been planning to escape from all the troubles and woes that beset him by sailing to the West Indies. Apparently, somebody had promised him a job as a book-keeper there. As far as Alexander understood, he’d even purchased a ticket. A single ticket costing about nine pounds, he remembered. He’d written to Robert from his lodgings in Edinburgh (he was lodging with Professor Purdie from the Infirmary) saying he’d be sorry to lose him but perhaps, in the circumstances, it was the only way.

  That Robert had also been giving thought to a job as a gauger was surprising, to say the least. Robert of all people! A King’s man was a ridiculous idea. The Customs and Excise might – indeed did – pay very well but they were universally hated. Anyway, with Robert’s reputation, it would be even more surprising if they accepted him. No, he’d reckoned Robert would be much happier and much better served as a book-keeper in Jamaica. He certainly wasn’t happy in Mossgiel or Mauchline, or anywhere in Ayrshire.

  There was the serious business of Jean Armour and what her father had done. First of all, Robert had been outraged at Mr Armour’s insult to his honour, and also wounded at the faithlessness of the girl. He had admitted to Alexander that he went ‘stark staring mad’ and felt himself ‘nine-tenths ripe for Bedlam’.

  ‘I have run into all kinds of dissipation and riot, Mason meetings, drinking matches and other mischief to drive her out of my head but all in vain. So now for the grand cure – the ship is on her way home that is to take me out to Jamaica and then farewell, dear old Scotland, and farewell dear ungrateful Jean, for never, never will I see you more!’

  The arrangements Burns made for leaving the country, which he set on paper and had been publicly proclaimed, was that he duly appointed his brother Gilbert as his chief heir, and bequeathed him not only his share of Mossgiel but also whatever profit there might be from the publication of his poems. This was on condition that Gilbert undertook to clothe and educate Burns’ natural daughter, Elizabeth.

  The absence of any settlement in favour of Jean Armour’s expected issue made old Armour take out a warrant of arrest against Burns. Burns, learning of the impending danger, fled from one friend’s house to another. Eventually, a wretched and embittered figure, he’d found shelter in the vicinity of Kilmarnock with a relation of his mother’s. It was under these circumstances that his volume of poems called Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect left the press.

  The immediate and incredible reception the book had met truly astonished Alexander. All over the countryside, old and young, learned and ignorant people were delighted, absolutely transported by the book. Alexander had been told that ploughboys and maid servants were willing to give up hard-earned wages, which they needed to purchase clothing, for a copy of the book. One country friend had confessed to him in a letter that he’d opened the book late one evening, meaning just to give the first page a glance before laying it aside until morning. He’d kept on reading, however, and couldn’t stop until he’d finished the whole book.

  Alexander couldn’t understand it. Well, perhaps naive country folk who were not used to books could be forgiven for being so excited and impressed. What he really couldn’t fathom, and what shocked and confused him, was the reaction of the quality, the literati, the book reviewers and even the nobility. Robert’s work was actually receiving adulation from people outside his own class. Yet most of the poems were in Scots. How could this have happened? After all, people were paying large sums of money to be taught and speak pure English, and lose their
Scots language. Even judges and professors and others of note were attending classes run by English teachers and earnestly studying and repeating like school children English words and proper English pronunciations.

  Only very old people like his late grandmother and grandfather – God rest their souls, they had recently died within weeks of each other – had still clung to the unfashionable Scots tongue that they had used all their lives. They had been too old and set in their ways to change. But Robert was only twenty-seven and should know better. Didn’t he speak perfectly well? So why did he not write properly? And why on earth were educated people praising his poems? Perhaps, he thought, they were just favouring the ones in English. But no, he’d heard ‘The Twa Dogs’ called brilliant. Brilliant! Such a long poem in such broad Scots! And about dogs expressing their thoughts on different classes of people!

  Alexander had read the poem long ago and knew that the dog called Luath in it was inspired by Robert’s own dog, that someone, according to Robert, had ‘cruelly killed’. Robert had been terribly upset by this incident. He was so ridiculously over-sensitive about animals.

  Then there was ‘The Holy Fair’ which, right from the time he’d first written it, caused a terrible stir among the clergy. Admittedly it gave a startlingly accurate picture of everybody for miles around flocking to see a sacrament and hear all the outdoor preachers. In the process, there was always much dreadful drunkenness and all sorts of disgusting indecencies and follies. He’d witnessed himself that at the time of the administration of the Lord’s Supper on the Thursday, Saturday and Monday, as well as on the preaching in the fields near the church, there had been a great number of men and women lying together in the grass.

  Robert had made the point to him that his satire in this long poem was focused on the people in the kirk yard and surrounds. The sacrament itself and the building in which it was held, formed no part of the picture. It was a long poem which ended with:

  There’s some are fou o’ love divine;

  There’s some are fou o’ brandy;

  An monie jobs that day begin,

  May end in houghmagandy

  Some ither day.

  Perhaps if all of the poem had been written in English, he could have understood it, but so much of it was not.

  This poem had actually been referred to as a masterpiece! A masterpiece! He’d heard the very words with his own ears. He’d read the words with his own eyes. Otherwise he would not have believed it.

  His emotions were more and more confused. He tried to be firm with himself. He was glad for Robert’s sake, of course. Of course he was! Robert was his friend. His good friend. If he, Doctor Alexander Wallace, had ever come near to loving another human being, it was Robert Burns. How could he not be glad to hear of the success of Robert’s work? He must write and congratulate him post haste.

  The quill hesitated, hovered aimlessly over the page. How to sound sincere? But he was sincere. The tiny seed of displeasure that had begun to take root in his heart was not aimed at Robert. It was at the stupidity of others in not appreciating his own poems. Robert had appreciated them. It was the unfairness of life he had to face and struggle with. He must get a grip of himself for his own sake, as well as Robert’s.

  Determinedly, he began to write.

  ‘My dear friend,

  ‘How wonderful it is to hear of the success of your book. You have become famous overnight, and my congratulations to you. Are you planning to come to Edinburgh in the foreseeable future? If so, I look forward to shaking you by the hand and expressing in person my heartfelt delight at your success.’

  He went on to give some news of his work in the Infirmary and ended the letter by repeating his congratulations.

  He thought he’d feel better after consigning the letter to the post. But sadly, he did not. He was still being pulled one way and another inside himself. He was still confused, upset, insulted. He began to feel angry. Trying to get a grip of one’s unruly emotions, he discovered, was a very difficult task.

  A doctor, of all people, must never allow emotion to take charge. Never before had he allowed such a thing to happen. He had never even realised that he was capable of much emotion. Now he was surprised and disturbed at how powerful his feelings were, and what a strange, dark core they came from.

  13

  ‘What on earth are you doing, Murn?’ Susanna asked.

  The cook was sitting on one of the wicker chairs in the stone-flagged kitchen, reading a book. Two of the other younger servants were leaning over the cook’s broad shoulders and joining in the laughter at whatever it was on the printed page.

  The cook was a fat woman with a mop of frizzy grey hair and a badly pocked face. She struggled to her feet, still heaving with merriment, and making the wicker chair creak.

  ‘Och, it’s this book, Mistress. Ye’ll ken Rab Mossgiel. Ah’ve heard he’s a guid freen’ o’ yer brother’s. Well, he’s come oot wi’ this book. It’s had us aw laughin’, an’ weepin’ tae. Huv ye no’ managed tae get a copy yersel?’

  Astonished beyond words, Susanna shook her head.

  ‘Och,’ Murn clutched the book against her monstrous bosom, ‘ye’ll be able tae get one, Ah’m sure.’

  She had obviously no intention of being parted from her own copy.

  Susanna found her voice at last. ‘You mean Robert Burns? Robert Burns, the farm labourer? He has written a book?’

  ‘Well, he’s no’ actually a labourer, is he? Tho’ he labours gey hard. But by rights he an’ his brother Gilbert are tenant farmers, are they no’?’

  Susanna shrugged. Somehow she managed to make her way back to the oak-panelled drawing room. She sat down on a chair nearest to the warmth of the fire. She must write to Alexander and ask if he could send her a copy of the book. She wondered apprehensively, fearfully, if Neil already had a copy. When she thought of her husband, it was always apprehensively, fearfully.

  She was long past the stage of even thinking of confiding in her mother and asking for help. She was far too ashamed at what had been happening. Anyway her mother (like most people) believed that ‘once ye mak yer bed, ye huv tae lie on it’. As things had gone from bad to worse, from shocking to despicable to sadistic, it was unthinkable to mention anything about Neil’s behaviour. She felt certain now that her mother, or any other woman, could not have any knowledge or experience of what she was suffering.

  Neil was mad. She had convinced herself of this. But who would believe her? What could be done. ‘Till death do us part,’ they’d vowed in church. And the church was the law.

  She knew now why Neil had given the servants cottages on the estate. They only came to work in the ‘big hoose’ from morning until evening. No one, not even the servants, could suspect what was going on. Every evening after they left had become her waking nightmare. It was then that Neil forced her to submit to shameful and sadistic behaviour. For hours she suffered physical and mental torture. Or he needed only any small excuse, or none at all, to beat her.

  He had used his horse whip on her until she bled and was forced to scream for mercy. He had tied her splay-legged to the bed posts and subjected her to acts of obscene and agonising brutality. Her only peace was when he disappeared for most of the day to attend to the business of the estate, or to visit taverns, or to have gambling sessions with people on other estates.

  She had never known what real fear or real hatred was until she’d married Neil Guthrie. She could not go on for the rest of her life like this, she kept telling herself. It was mentally and physically impossible. Any kind of life, anywhere, would be better than this. She had thought of running away to Edinburgh and turning up at her brother’s lodgings. But her brother was a proud man. He could not and would not, she felt sure, have either the desire or the ability to cope with such a scandal as a runaway wife.

  Anyway, she had not enough money even to pay for a coach journey to Edinburgh. She knew where Neil kept some money though. She could steal it. Her face burned with shame at the thought. Bu
t the thought remained.

  Sometimes she felt she was going mad. Both she and Neil lived double lives. During the day or some evenings, they had guests. Then Neil would be the polite, charming, elegant man she’d thought she knew before they married. He had always been elegant in his posture and dress. Now, when they had company, they both appeared beautifully turned out, the perfect host and hostess.

  Her mother was delighted that she’d made ‘such a guid match’. She’d also remarked, ‘Marriage suits ye, Anna. It’s made ye settle doon. Ye even look more sensible an’ mature. Ye were aye such a reckless an’ excitable wee lassie.’

  Indeed, she had been tragically reckless in rushing into marriage with Neil Guthrie. Her quiet composure was not due to the maturity that her mother so fondly imagined. She now had nothing to be gay and reckless and excited about. She felt she’d aged ten years or more. She was certainly no longer her plump, bouncy self. She had lost weight.

  The housekeeper, Mrs McIntyre, enjoyed sewing and was very handy with her needle. She had volunteered to take in the dresses that hung loose on her and make them fit properly again. When her mother and others came to tea, she – the lady of the manor – could sit in the drawing room smiling vaguely at whoever happened to be there. Mrs McIntyre, a long leek of a woman in a white cap and dangling lappets, and Matty the maid, would fuss over the tea equipage which they’d set on a low table in front of the glowing fire.

  Delicate rose-patterned china chinked on to an embroidered tea cloth, and polished silver reflected the dancing flames. And her mother would say, ‘Isn’t this lovely? What a lucky lassie ye are.’

  Or some of Neil’s gentlemen friends and their wives would come of an evening. The men would play cards at the green-topped card table while the ladies discussed recipes or the latest scandal.