A Darkening of the Heart

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  At Harvieston, he stayed for eight happy days. He wasn’t on show. He was just enjoying the good company of good friends. He was a sociable man and in this situation he felt idyllically happy, so much so that he proposed marriage to Peggy. She refused him gently and kindly. He was immediately isolated in sadness.

  He knew by this time, of course, that ladies of the gentry enjoyed his company, his poetry, his songs and his conversation, but at the same time kept him at arm’s length. At least Peggy remained his affectionate friend and they kept up a correspondence with each other.

  Back in Edinburgh, he moved from one attic to another. The rector of the High School, Willie Cruikshanks – like Burns, one of Nicol’s few friends – offered Robert the use of the top floor of his house at the top end of Princes Street. Robert was laid low with a cold at first but soon he was up again and enjoyed walks through the streets and over Arthur’s Seat, but as usual it was the human side and not the countryside that impressed him most. Looking down from one hill at the smoking roofs of the cottages far below, he said that no-one could understand the pleasure to his mind the sight gave him, unless they had witnessed, like himself, the happiness and the worth they contained.

  He decided he must settle matters with Mr Creech, ‘which I’m afraid will be a tedious business.’ It proved more than just tedious. It was a terrible struggle, in fact, to prise money due to him from his publisher. But he was not being singled out for this. Creech behaved in the same way with everyone.

  Robert was pushed beyond endurance by having to constantly ask Creech to settle his accounts. One day, Alexander met him striding up Leith Walk brandishing a stick and looking and sounding extremely violent.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Alexander asked.

  ‘I am going to smash that shite Creech.’

  ‘Calm down.’ Alexander blocked his path. ‘You’ll end up murdering the man and all that’ll get you is hanged. What will your little ones do then?’

  That stopped Robert. Whatever else he was or was not, and despite the fact that some of his little ones had been born out of wedlock, he always tried to be a good father to them.

  It caused him much distress when he heard from John Richard, who had recently visited Mauchline, that Robert’s daughter Jean, called after her mother, had died suddenly while he’d been on his Highland tour. The Armours had been looking after her. He suspected neglect by them and he was frustrated and angry as well as distressed. He mourned for the loss of the child and cursed the Armours. He couldn’t bear to think of them, far less go and see them. He had not forgotten Jean’s denial of their marriage, her desertion and rejection, her concurring with her father’s destuction of the wedding certificate and fight to annul the marriage.

  The last time he’d seen Jean, her flesh of course had been as weak and willing as ever. This had resulted in another pregnancy. He would face his own responsibility for that. But to travel to Mauchline and face Jean and the Armours now could mean he might say something hurtful he would later regret. He would see Jean and do what he could for her, but not right now.

  He concentrated instead on his immediate surroundings and allowed the kind hospitality and friendship he was receiving at his lodgings with the Cruikshanks family to help soothe his troubled spirit. The Cruikshanks had a twelve-year-old daughter, Jeany. Burns called her ‘Rose-bud’. She could play the harpsichord and Burns sat beside her every day as she played, concentrating so much on the music that he was unaware of anyone who spoke to him. He gave Jeany verses that he’d written and between them they adjusted the verses to music. The repeated trials and efforts to do this completely absorbed both the girl and poet. It was proof, Willie Cruikshanks said, of the easy relationship Burns had with children and young people. Robert promised Jeany that he’d write a song especially for her. He did and called it ‘A Rose-bud, by my Early Walk’.

  It was one of many songs he was to write. He also got in touch with James Johnson, who had earlier approached him.

  ‘He has,’ Robert told Alexander enthusiastically, ‘not from mercenary veins, but from an honest Scotch enthusiasm, set about collecting all our native songs and setting them to music, particularly those that have never been set before. I’m assisting in collecting the old poetry, or sometimes, for a fine air to make a story when it has no words.’ His dark eyes glowed with the strength of his emotion.

  ‘I look on it as no small merit to this work that the names of many of the authors of our old Scotch songs, names almost forgotten, will be remembered.’

  Before long, he was sole editor of the Museum project, as it was called, and when Johnson became pessimistic and low in spirits, Burns always reassured him. By his own energy and enthusiasm, he energised and enthused Johnson.

  ‘You are a patriot for the music of your country,’ Burns told Johnson, ‘and I am certain posterity will look on themselves as highly indebted to your public spirit … Your work is a great one … To future ages your publication will be text-book and standard of Scottish song and music.’

  Burns was writing more and more songs and now showing, everyone said, pure genius as a lyricist. But during this song-writing time, he told Alexander, ‘I am hurried, puzzled, plagued and confounded with some disagreeable matters.’

  These were his ongoing disputes with Creech about the money due to him. He had to constantly be there at Creech’s office arguing, demanding. He desperately needed the money, for one thing to fulfil his obligations to Jean. He was being plagued by the Armours about Jean and the fact that she was pregnant again. He was also worried about whether or not he should take a lease on a farm offered to him. Alexander did not know any details about this and just told him he ought to go back to the farm with Gilbert and settle there, with his mother and his little daughter, Bess.

  Then there was also, of course, the continuing correspondence about a place in the Excise. (He’d long since given up the idea of leaving the country.) He couldn’t make up his mind whether to be a farmer or an excise man. He needed the money for future security and decided he’d have to be both (plus a poet as well, because he had to write and keep on writing). It was so like Robert. There were never any half measures with him. It was always everything at once and in the extreme.

  Alexander said he was a fool not to take money from Johnson for all the work he had done and was still doing for him. After all, Johnson had offered to pay him. But, according to Robert, it was a labour of love ‘for auld Scotland’s sake’, and he had told Johnson, ‘As a remuneration, you may think my songs either above or below price; for they shall be absolutely one or the other. In honest enthusiasm with which I embark in your undertaking, to talk of money, wages, fee, hire etc., would be downright sodomy of the soul!’

  Alexander secretly despised him for the amount of money he was needlessly throwing away. He did the same thing with yet another project offered to him by George Thomson, who wanted to match Scotch lyrics to arrangements by leading composers. He’d already engaged Haydn and Beethoven for this task.

  ‘All I want,’ Burns told Thomson, ‘is a proof of each of the songs I compose or amend, I shall receive as a favour.’

  Yet at the same time, he was worried about money. He had settled quite a sum by now on Gilbert, and on Jean Armour too. He was also getting worn out with having to keep knocking at Creech’s door. He would have left Edinburgh, had it not been that he needed his money from Creech.

  ‘Damn the man,’ he kept telling Alexander. ‘I’m tied to this city because of Creech.’

  24

  Alexander was harrassed beyond measure. He had heavy duties in the Infirmary. He had money worries. Money had had to be sent to his parents who were suffering financial difficulties. Now he had somehow to pay for a coach to transport Susanna to Glasgow. He’d also have to go with her to find her decent lodgings in the city, and pay for them of course. He was feeling at a very low ebb when Robert visited him one day.

  ‘My dear friend,’ Robert said. ‘What ails you? Is there anything I can do to he
lp?’

  Alexander shook his head. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he blurted out, ‘It’s my sister.’

  Burns was immediately on guard. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Her husband has been ill-treating her and she has left him. She is staying in most unsuitable lodgings in one of the wynds off the High Street. I must get her to Glasgow and safely settled in decent lodgings there.’

  ‘You are a good brother, as well as a good friend, Alexander.’

  Alexander sighed. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to help her. It’s just that I’m weighed down with so much at present. Professor Purdie and my other colleagues will be anything but happy, to say the least, if I take more time off just now.’

  ‘Your poor sister must have suffered a great deal at the hands of Neil Guthrie to have come to this. Why not allow me to accompany her to Glasgow and see that she is safely settled? I know the city. I have visited it before. I could double this visit with business. There is a very good bookshop there. The owner, a Mr Smith, only takes five per cent commission. They’re very decent sort of folk, the Glasgow booksellers, but oh, they’re sare birkies in Edinburgh. I’ll be glad of another visit to Glasgow, Alexander, and happy to be of help to you and your sister at the same time.’

  Trust his clever friend to come up with an immediate solution, Alexander thought with some bitterness. And of course sell more of his precious books as well. He tried to quell the bitterness by telling himself that it was another example of Robert’s generosity of spirit. It had to be admitted also that Robert’s offer, in the circumstances, was extremely tempting.

  ‘That is a most generous offer, Robert.’

  Robert shrugged. ‘As I say, I can sell more books while I’m there.’

  Oh, you will indeed, Alexander thought.

  ‘It would certainly be of great help to me.’

  ‘Let us arrange it then.’

  ‘I’ve promised to call for Susanna this evening. You can accompany me if you wish and we can discuss the matter with her. I doubt if she will have any objection to a change of companion. I will explain my difficulties and she will understand and be grateful for your help, I’m sure.’

  Actually he was not sure. Susanna had never liked Burns. But in her present desperate circumstances, she would, he hoped, be able to overcome her previous distaste of the ‘common ploughman’.

  ‘Let us go now and see about a carriage,’ Robert said. ‘We can drive together to collect your sister and after you explain the situation to her, you can return to your duties and I’ll proceed with her to Glasgow.’

  ‘I will reimburse you for the expense of the carriage, Robert.’

  ‘Think no more of it. I’ve told you, I need to see to business in Glasgow and I’ll be glad to get away from Edinburgh and Creech for a time.’

  Alexander was glad that Professor Purdie was not at home to meet Robert. He would have made such a fuss and delayed any action by monopolising Robert’s company for as long as possible. He could return from the Infirmary at any moment, however, and so they wasted no time in hurrying, side by side, away from the house.

  Susanna was all packed and ready. By early evening, she had donned her cloak and was sitting on the bedroom chair, counting the minutes. Margaret and Sally were out, hoping to pick up some ‘nice gentlemen’ with whom to spend ‘a pleasant evening’. They said they’d try to be back before she left. But they had said their goodbyes ‘just in case’.

  Susanna told Margaret – and meant it – that she’d be eternally grateful to her for taking her in and being so kind. She didn’t go as far as saying, ‘If you’re ever in Glasgow, do visit me.’ Kind and all as Margaret was, she was still a harlot and Susanna had no wish to be tarred by the same brush. Glasgow was to be her new life, her fresh start, and she must make a success of it. She knew success for her no longer meant dreams of marrying a wealthy man. For one thing, she couldn’t forget she was already married and she would regret that marriage until the end of her life. She would have been more content to settle down even in a cottage if it was with a kindly, decent man. Tragically, it was too late for that now.

  Sitting tensely, hands twisting together, she watched the candle send little orange flickers through the blackness. Her ears strained to hear her brother’s footsteps on the stairs outside and then the racket of the rasp from the front door filling the house and galvanising her into a joyous rush to fling it open. Sitting, waiting, she blessed her brother a thousand times over. Dear Alexander, she had always known in her heart of hearts that he would not let her down.

  Then, all at once, the grating, rasping sound reverberated through every room, scattering her thoughts. She grabbed her bag and stumbled through the dark hall. It was too dark to see the door handle and she had to grope for it. At last, her impatient fumblings succeeded. The door opened. The shadowy figure outside stopped her in her tracks. The immediate feeling of menace emanating from it told her it was not her brother. Before the smooth voice had finished murmuring ‘My dear wife …’ she was fighting to shut the door. Neil’s foot jammed it, and pushed it open. He caught her by the arm and forced her out on to the landing.

  ‘Let go of me, Sir.’ Her voice tightened with terror.

  ‘This is no place for you. I’m taking you home.’

  ‘I hate you,’ she managed. ‘I’m going nowhere with you.’

  The dark stairwell echoed with the sniggering of some beggars who were squatting together around a candle. Neil’s hand tightened painfully on her arm as he continued to drag her out on to the street. A carriage stood waiting, brightly glowing with lanterns, and the coachman sitting high in front, his whip at the ready. She was pushed roughly inside. Neil followed and shut the door. The coach started off but because of the crowds overflowing on to the road, and the horses and other coaches jostling to make a path, they only moved at a snail’s pace.

  Susanna continued to struggle and her struggles became wild when she spied Alexander and another man alighting from a carriage nearby. She screamed out Alexander’s name and managed to throw herself against the door and burst it open.

  ‘Alexander! Alexander!’

  As both men came striding towards her to help her out of the coach, she recognised Robert Burns.

  ‘Oh, thank God you’re here. He was forcing me to go with him.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Burns said, lifting her bodily from the carriage. Neil, in sudden fury, made to jump from the coach to stop him. At the same time, the coachman, not realising what was happening and seeing an opportunity at last to whip the horses forward, made the coach jerk. Neil fell on to the road under the hooves of a galloping horse.

  The rider dismounted, cursing the misfortune and insisting it was not his fault. The man had suddenly jumped in front of his horse before he could rein it back.

  Alexander stepped forward then and explained that he was a doctor, he’d seen it was an accident, and he would attend to the victim. The rider was obviously relieved but before remounting and continuing on his way, he joined the little knot of people who had gathered to peer curiously at the unconscious man and to see what was going to happen next.

  ‘Alexander, do you want to put him into our carriage?’ Burns asked.

  ‘Yes, I’ll have to take him to the Infirmary.’

  Susanna would far rather have left him lying in the road and rejoiced at the opportunity of escaping as fast as possible. She knew, however, that as a doctor, Alexander could not, and would not, do such a thing, not even to Neil Guthrie. As a result, she followed her brother’s instructions, and travelled with him and Burns and the injured Neil to the Infirmary. Or at least he was supposed to be injured. She didn’t trust him. He could just be acting. There certainly didn’t appear to be any blood. It wasn’t until she got a better look at him that she saw his wig had darkened with blood. Alexander ordered some men assistants to carry him into one of the rooms for examination. Susanna was instructed to sit and wait with Burns until Alexander came back.

  When he did return some c
onsiderable time later, he was accompanied by Professor Purdie. Both men had very solemn faces.

  Professor Purdie said, ‘I’m so sorry, my dear Mrs Guthrie. Your brother and I did our best but the fractures were too serious.’

  Susanna stared at the two men in disbelief.

  ‘You don’t mean …’

  ‘Yes, Susanna,’ Alexander said quietly, but avoiding her eyes, ‘I’m afraid your dear husband has passed away.’

  ‘Oh!’ Susanna lowered her eyes and groped for a handkerchief.

  Professor Purdie repeated, ‘My dear Mrs Guthrie. I’m so sorry.’

  It was taking all Susanna’s will power to refrain from dancing, shouting hurrah!, cheering with joyous relief.

  ‘Alexander,’ she said, the quiet control in her voice matching his, ‘what shall I do now? Where shall I go?’ She turned to the professor. ‘My husband and I were on our way to our estate in Ayrshire.’

  ‘You must come home with your brother and me and stay for a few days until you recover. We will look after you, never fear.’

  ‘There are still examinations to be made of the body – for teaching benefits,’ Alexander said. ‘Neil would have wished to help doctors and surgeons in this way. After that, we must make arrangements for the funeral in Tarbolton.’

  He turned to Burns. ‘You will, I hope, understand that this means a change to our previous plans, Robert.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Robert agreed. ‘I’ll leave you now.’ He gave a slight bow in Susanna’s direction. ‘My condolences, Madam.’

  With her lace-edged handkerchief pressed to the corner of her eye, Susanna nodded.

  In the coach taking them to Professor Purdie’s house, Susanna remained silent while her brother and Professor Purdie spoke in low respectful tones of medical matters. She was not listening. Her mind was racing ahead with all sorts of possibilities. She was free. Really free in every sense. Oh, the overwhelming relief! She thanked God. She vowed that never again would she forget to say her prayers and to repeat the words, ‘Oh, thank you, God.’