A Darkening of the Heart

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  One day, she plucked up courage to go to the Infirmary. She hung around outside for a time and then asked herself, ‘What am I doing here? He will be too busy to see me here. He might not even be on duty.’

  A few days later, she went to where he lodged with his professor friend. Or rather, she loitered outside in a state of nervous collapse trying to force her legs to carry her upstairs to his door.

  Three times she went to his lodgings. On the third occasion, she was actually climbing the stairs when she heard Neil’s smooth voice. It was only a superhuman effort that prevented her from fainting. He was saying, ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you, sir. But I thought you would wish to offer your help once you knew that I’d be staying in the city for the next few weeks.’

  Susanna stumbled breathlessly, and she prayed silently, back down the dark stairs and out on to the street. She never stopped running until she’d reached the safety of Margaret’s house. She was glad to accept the glass of whisky that Margaret offered her.

  Then, after she’d calmed down, she felt grateful in a way that she’d had the experience. At least she now knew that Neil was in the city and would be here for the next few weeks. If she had not known, she could have taken the air, innocently wandered about … Now she would not dare to put a foot outside the door.

  ‘Have another whisky,’ Margaret said.

  And she did.

  22

  ‘You gave him short shrift,’ Professor Purdie said.

  Alexander nodded. ‘Not a man I have a great liking for.’

  ‘Mmm. A gentleman, a very polite gentleman, but I can understand your feelings. There’s a cruel look about the man.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Alexander hesitated, wondering if he dared to confide in the professor. Professor Purdie, who was so assiduous in acquiring influential friends and patients? No, he decided not. But as he was thinking about his sister’s problem, it suddenly occurred to him, with a rush of horror, that if he could find out where Susanna was, simply by asking a caddie, so could Neil Guthrie.

  He wanted to go to Margaret Burns’ house to warn Susanna, to hide her somewhere for safety, but at any moment the McKenzie carriage would be at the door to take him and the McKenzie family to the oyster cellar in the High Street. Indeed, he could already hear the clopping of the horses and the jingle of harness outside.

  ‘I must go,’ he told the professor. ‘My friends are waiting.’ He called for a servant who lit the way downstairs in front of him with a lantern. The stairs were filthy and, as well as picking his way carefully with his elegant shoes so that he would not tread on any disgusting excrement, he had to roughly push aside some male and female vagrants.

  In the carriage all was bright with lanterns and happy smiles.

  ‘Ladies,’ he said, settling himself beside Isobel. ‘How beautiful you look.’

  His heart swelled with love and pride as Isobel linked arms with him. How lovely she was in her gown of shot silk brocade with floral sprays in green, white and pink. Her powdered hair was elaborately dressed and decorated with plumes and gauze. Her mother looked very grand in her wide-panniered gown with its huge dangling cuffs. Her high powdered wig was also resplendent with plumes. Both ladies flapped energetically with fans in an effort to dispel the stinks of the street that wafted into the carriage.

  The oyster cellar was entered through one of the laigh or low shops – dirty, squalid rooms below the street. It was here that the most fashionable people in town gathered by the light of guttering tallow candles and regaled themselves with raw oysters and porter arranged on huge dishes on a coarse table in the dingy room. It was here that there was much merriment and dancing and conversation in which both ladies and gentlemen took part without restraint. Many remarks and jokes that would have been suppressed as improper anywhere else were accepted here even by the most dignified and refined.

  Alexander sought to banish Neil Guthrie from his thoughts. The man had just arrived in town. Surely he would take time to settle in to a tavern or other lodging first, and then wait until tomorrow and daylight before starting to make enquiries about Susanna. Neil Guthrie would not, could not, find his way about the myriad side streets and closes of Edinburgh in the dark.

  ‘That will give me time to reach Susanna tomorrow and at least warn her,’ he thought. Then he tried to relax and enjoy the company he was with. Some friends of the McKenzies had joined them. One was a bulky man with a grey powdered wig and bright, twinkling eyes. His lady was scraggy-necked but equally merry-eyed. The other couple, the man small and dainty with powdered thin hair and cunning eyes, was dressed in silk and had silver-buckled toes. His lady was enormously fat in a mulberry-coloured gown which revealed an alarming swell of bosom.

  Soon they all had consumed a great many oysters and much porter and the room echoed with laughter and the noisy clatter of high-heeled shoes. Alexander danced with Isobel and talked with her and laughed with her, and Susanna and Neil Guthrie were completely forgotten. It was only hours later, when he was back in his lodgings and lying alone in bed, that his anxieties returned. Like it or not, he would have to visit the house of the harlot, Margaret Burns, and talk with Susanna. He didn’t know what to do with her but at least they could discuss the problem and try to come to some kind of solution. Even if it was only a temporary one. He would explain to her that although, as her brother, he had a duty to her, she had also a duty to him. He had a reputation to uphold and protect, and although he would do all he could to protect her, at the same time she must keep his reputation and his safety in mind. Perhaps if he found her respectable lodgings in some country area where she was not known. Or somewhere in Glasgow even. Perhaps the latter would be the safest alternative. He tossed and turned in bed.

  Then in the morning, he had to do a few hours’ duty in the Infirmary. He had a couple of urgent operations to perform. Immediately afterwards, however, he made his way to where the harlot lived. He felt he was moving in a nightmare. Never in his life had he thought he would be doing such a thing. He had always been a prudent, fastidious, respectable man. All he had ever wanted in life was to be a good doctor, a respected poet. Then one day to be a faithful and loving husband and father.

  He had been shocked enough about Robert Burns’ loose attitude to women. Admittedly Robert never had anything to do with prostitutes but he, to use his own words, suffered from ‘amorous madness, falling in and out of love very readily …’

  Alexander had never been like that. He planned to wait for the right woman, the only woman who had all the necessary attributes for a lifelong partner. Now, at last, he had met her and he must not allow anything to spoil his plans.

  He felt furtive and ashamed, and angry at Susanna for being the cause of getting him into such a situation. Immediately, of course, he chastised himself for having such an illogical notion. It wasn’t Susanna’s fault. It was that smooth-talking devil, Neil Guthrie.

  Reaching the harlot’s house, Alexander firmly grasped the ‘risp’ or rod of iron with the ring attached and rasped it up and down. Margaret Burns came to the door. He knew her by sight, having observed her several times in the street. He tried to remain cool and dignified.

  ‘I believe my sister, Susanna, is living here. I wish to speak to her.’

  Margaret Burns gave him an equally cool stare in return. She raised an eyebrow. ‘I know of no-one here who has a brother, sir. You have had a wasted journey.’

  ‘No, I have not, madam. I know my sister is here.’

  ‘I must repeat, sir,’ Margaret’s voice turned to ice, ‘I know of no-one here who fits your description. Now will you please leave.’

  ‘I want to help her, you stupid woman.’ Alexander was having a real struggle to keep his patience in check. To have extra difficulties like this added to his problems was not something he had been prepared for.

  He saw the glint of anger flash in the harlot’s eyes and realised she was about to bang the door in his face, when suddenly a timid voice came from somewhere in the shadows behi
nd Margaret Burns.

  ‘It’s all right. He is my brother. Please let him come in.’

  The door opened wider.

  ‘You never mentioned any brother.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  Alexander said, ‘We urgently need to talk, Susanna.’

  Margaret stepped inside. ‘Come in. Come in.’

  As soon as he put a foot in the lobby, Susanna rushed at him and nearly knocked him over with her embrace. Untangling himself and tidying down his waistcoat and jacket, he repeated, ‘We urgently need to talk.’

  ‘Come through here.’ Susanna led him into a surprisingly clean and respectable-looking bedroom with a chair and a small table beside the fireplace. On the table were several books.

  Margaret came into the room carrying another chair. ‘Here you are. Now, I’ll leave you to your talk.’ And she went out, closing the door behind her.

  ‘Oh Alexander,’ Susanna burst out. ‘I’m so glad to see you. But I was afraid. You say you want to help me.’ She hesitated. ‘As long as you don’t mean to force me back to Neil. I’d rather die. I’ll do anything rather than go back to him.’

  ‘I think you’ve proved that,’ Alexander said, somewhat bitterly.

  ‘It’s not as it looks, sir.’ For a moment, some of Susanna’s old pride and pertness returned. ‘I am only a respectable lodger here. I pay rent every week and keep myself to myself.’

  Alexander sighed. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. But I have been so worried. We all have, but before we discuss anything or anybody else, I must get you away from here. I have been thinking of different plans and have decided, if you agree, that perhaps lodgings in Glasgow might be the best and safest place. You would be too easily traced in a country area where everyone knows everyone else.’

  ‘Oh yes, Glasgow would be excellent. Oh, thank you, Alexander. When can I go?’

  ‘As soon as I can make some enquiries and arrange for time off from the Infirmary. I will tell the professor that a serious family emergency has arisen, which of course is perfectly true.’

  ‘I’m so anxious in case Neil finds me here.’

  ‘Tell Mistress Burns not to let him in. Not to let anyone in who is unknown to her until I return for you tomorrow.’

  ‘I will pack my things immediately and be ready and waiting. Oh, Alexander, you don’t know what this means to me. I will be forever obliged to you. You are the best of brothers, and always have been.’

  Alexander put up a hand to ward off another attack of sisterly love.

  ‘Just try to calm down, Susanna. And remember, I do not want anyone to know of my involvement in this. Warn that woman she has to forget she has ever seen me.’

  ‘Margaret? Oh, we can trust her.’

  ‘I sincerely hope so.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely.’

  He rose. ‘Very well. I’ll make what arrangements I can. We’ll need a coach, for instance. More private than travelling on horseback. And I’ll return here tomorrow, in the evening again.

  ‘I’ll be ready.’

  She saw him out, then skipped back to her room in uncontrollable joy and excitement.

  Margaret sighed at the sight. ‘Well, he’s made you happy, all right. No regrets then about leaving your friend.’

  Susanna immediately calmed down. ‘Oh, Margaret, I’m so sorry. I mean, I’m glad and relieved to be saved from … I mean, I told you my husband’s in the city and he could appear at any moment and drag me away. I’m relieved that my brother is saving me from that. But of course I’ll miss you, my dear friend. You have been so kind to me. I’ll never forget you.’

  Margaret shrugged. ‘I do my best.’

  ‘I’m safe,’ Susanna kept thinking. ‘I’m safe. Thank God!’

  23

  Willie Nicol was a robust red-faced clumsy man and a classics master at the High School. He was well known by most people as a cantankerous Latin pedant, vain, touchy, irascible, and with an ungovernable temper. However, Robert saw redeeming features in the man and once he wrote of him, ‘kind, honest-hearted Willie’. A bond between them of course was their Jacobite enthusiasms. In Robert’s case, his feelings were more romantic and he believed that his ancestors had suffered for the cause of the Rebellion. Nicol spouted Jacobite views as he did everything else – with unbridled vehemence.

  Robert was feeling cramped at his lodgings with his old friend, John Richmond. He had to share one uncomfortable mattress and one small table. There was little else in the room. And Mrs Carfrae, the landlady, who seemed to have taken a liking to Robert, was constantly distracting him and wearying him with her envious railings and complaints about the women upstairs. As a result, when Willie Nicol offered him lodgings in an attic room at his family home, he jumped at the chance.

  He soon realised, however, that he didn’t have much space or peace to write at the classics teacher’s house either. As he said to Alexander, ‘Willie and his wife are forever correcting homework and gabbling Latin so loud that I can’t hear what my own soul is saying in my own skull.’

  Robert decided to get out and announced to Willie that he was planning to set off on a tour of the Highlands. Willie offered to accompany him providing he was travelling by coach. Robert agreed, accepting the fact that Willie was not only fifteen years older than him and needed the extra comfort, but probably couldn’t afford a horse. Despite the expense, Robert hired a post chaise and they set off. He was soon disenchanted with the idea of extra comfort travelling by coach along roads which were devilishly bad. However, he was eager to see more of his native land.

  Oh Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

  For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent!

  He and Willie set off from Edinburgh in high spirits. Previously Robert had written a journal at the end of each day of his travels. Now he wrote it in the coach but it had to be disjointed and with only brief fragments because of the way the coach jolted and jerked and swayed along the rutted Highland roads.

  Even descriptions of people they met on the way were unusually short: ‘Doig – a queerish fellow and something of a pedant … Bell, a joyous vacant fellow who sings a good song … Captain Forrester of the Castle, a merry swearing kind of man with a dash of sodger.’

  Historic places were given even briefer mention, except the Druids’ temple at Glenlyon. After describing it, Robert added, ‘say prayers in it’.

  He managed though to write long letters to his friends including Alexander, who began sourly to think that there couldn’t be a castle Burns had not visited, a lord, an earl, a viscount, a duke left in the land he had not supped with.

  Alexander took some perverse satisfaction, however, in learning that Nicol was proving a terrible thorn in Robert’s side. He was forever taking the huff at the fuss being made of Robert by all the high and mighty and was continuously hurrying Robert on. At Blair Atholl, the Duke and Duchess of Atholl and their family apparently had been totally captivated by Robert. The ladies had even sent a servant to try to trick Robert’s coach driver into loosening or pulling off a horse’s shoe in order to secure a longer time in Robert’s company but the ruse failed. The driver was incorruptible.

  Evidently, Robert had written a letter in exasperation and anger about the Latin master’s surly and diffident behaviour. It had been after a similar forced shortening of his visit to Castle Gordon and the Duke and Duchess there who had treated him, according to Robert, with the utmost hospitality and kindness.

  Robert wrote of Nicol’s behaviour, ‘May that obstinate son of Latin prose be curst to Scotch-mile periods, and damned to seven-league paragraphs; while Declension and Conjugation, Gender, Number and Time, under the ragged banners of Dissonance and Disarrangement eternally rank against him in hostile array!!!!!!’

  The driver, urged on by Willie, cracked the whip even more energetically over the horse to reach their next stop at Duff House. Still in a huff, Willie huddled in the library and left Robert to be guided by a boy from the local academy. When someone asked if he knew who Burns
was, the boy said, ‘Oh aye. We hae his book at home.’

  He was then asked what his favourite Burns poem was and he answered, ‘“The Twa Dogs” and “Death and Doctor Hornbook”, although I liked “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” best because it made me greet when my faither read it tae my mither.’

  Burns had not spoken up to that point, but then he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and said, ‘Weel, my callant, I don’t wonder at your greetin’ … It made me greet mair than aince when I wis writin’ it.’

  He had obviously returned to his pure English mode of speech by the time he was being entertained by a large gathering of notables at Aberdeen because Bishop Skinner had written to his father about Burns saying, ‘As to his general appearance, it is very much in his favour. He is a genteel looking young man of good address, and talks with as much propriety as if he had received an academic education …’

  The Highland tour had lasted twenty-two days and covered about six hundred miles, and the most amazing thing to everyone was that, despite Willie’s impatience and continued bad-tempered selfishness and chivvying, the friendship between him and Burns had survived.

  Burns had reminded people who had remarked on this of Willie’s vigorous talents, although admitting that they could be clouded at times by his coarseness of manners. ‘In short,’ he added, ‘his mind is like his body, he has a confounded strong, in-kneed sort of soul.’

  He also said that Willie’s companionship had been like ‘travelling with a loaded blunderbuss at full cock’.

  Partly to get away from Willie’s attic, Burns decided to make a short tour of Stirlingshire and to visit friends in Harvieston. The visit was especially to renew his acquaintance with Peggy Chalmers. He’d met her previously when she used to play the piano for his blind friend, Mr Blacklock. He had been captivated not only by her musical talent, but by her educated and lively conversation.