Between Ourselves

by Donald Smith

  I devote today to idle leisure; it’s not up to me to judge. But I need to tell someone, till I gauge what actually transpired. Suffice to say I followed my Charon to the door in Hastie’s Close and was admitted to the underworld. This time there was no dithering. I was ushered directly into the Deacon’s presence and seated at his table without ceremony.

  I felt like someone called to give account of his conduct, Nothing uttered in an Edinburgh tavern seemed to have passed Brodie by. Why was Satan my hero? I tried to put this in its literary context but my host was impatient with belles lettres. Was he himself not suitable for the heroic treatment?

  A whisper of political discontent had also reached the Old Town warrens. The Deacon put it to me fair and square, man to man: was he not the summit of social defiance? Did his every action not cock the snoot at Auld Reikie’s prevailing powers, and reverse the social order?

  I regained a measure of sangfroid. ‘Nay, Deacon,’ says I, ‘you feed off their hypocrisy.’ Like a carrion craw, I might have added, but forbore the analogy.

  His brows narrowed; the black eyes fixed on me. ‘I do not depend on them,’ he snapped, ‘nor ever will.’ I did not pursue this argument, since I was more curious as to why he had summoned me. Not, presumably, to discuss Milton’s hero.

  ‘My life is little understood,’ he continued.

  ‘How can it be otherwise?’ I queried.

  He then proceeded to recount a version of his autobiography to that time. Doting parents, a High School education, financial plenty guaranteed. Yet none of these privileges had shaped or even touched the inner self. So I surmised, as the Deacon poured his tale into my ear like an apothecary spooning sickly syrup.

  From bored youth to gambling, cockfighting and worse, Brodie had by his own account progressed downward in one uninterrupted flow. I may have misunderstood, such was the rapid unvarying tone of his narrative, but I believe he claimed to have three wives, with children to each, distributed across the town. I drank it all in without discerning the underlying purpose.

  ‘So, Mr Burns,’ he suddenly interposed, ‘how can my story be told?’

  What could I suggest?

  ‘My fear,’ he continued, ‘is that my life might end in obscurity.’

  ‘What if someone threatened to expose you?’

  A sneer of venomous contempt passed across the smooth features. ‘Who would dare? They fear my revenge.I could drag down so many with me.’

  ‘Yet you desire to be known.’

  The expression disappeared as he tried to explain what was unsettling him. ‘To be unacknowledged – it would be as if I had never lived.’

  I could see that. His next gambit caught me completely off guard.

  ‘But you are in the public eye. You have the power to evoke reputation. Make me famous.’

  ‘To be tried and hung like a common criminal?’

  ‘I defy such petty conventions. In that we are alike,’ he insinuated. ‘Find an indirection, a mask or fiction through which my achievement can be known. After my death the man and the legend can be reunited.’

  ‘But how…’

  ‘You are the poet, Mr Burns. I will of course pay you handsomely.’

  At this, a leather pouch appeared as if by sleight of hand at his sleeve. The Deacon shoved it across the polished surface. ‘This is only a down payment. I am not a Creech when it comes to coin.’

  My eyes involuntarily followed the bag. What was he commissioning? A gallows chapbook like the Newgate tales? A broadside ballad? An epic of crime?

  I got unsteadily to my feet promising to consider his proposal. I did not reach towards the money, much as my fingers itched to scoop up the visible evidence of Brodie’s patronage.

  ‘Don’t delay too long. Who knows what fortune may force upon us tomorrow.’

  ‘Of course. I will return within the week,’ I conceded, looking one last time towards the bag as I edged out of the audience chamber. What did the Deacon’s last remark mean? Combined with his normal steely demeanour, this gloomy illogic was unnerving.

  I won home without incident but have been unprofitable company since. Morose reflections on this strange proposition. Can the author of ‘The Dundas Elegy’ pen a life of Deacon Brodie? And in whose disguise? Was he serious or merely probing, taunting my weakness? Something in me says he was genuine, needy even. But my moral instinct revolts against such an influence; to have me in his power.

  I could ask advice from Nicol, or Ainslie at a stretch. Yet I am reluctant to acknowledge my connection; he is depending on that shame for my silence. But the commission tempts, fascinates by its very difficulty. Why should I spurn the Deacon’s silver when Edinburgh spurns the poet?

  I cannot write to order. I would have to embrace Brodie’s experience in my moral being. The conjunction of light and dark, as the hero embarks on a terrible descent into violence and chaos. Poor creatures trapped, cowed and driven to desperate acts of mutual self-destruction. Where is the ascent, the journey out? Surely art must reinforce goodness. The hero re-emerges chastened, returned to human fellowship. Can we abide the darkness and remain human or is there a communion also in the dark? The goodly fellowship of defiance and revolt raises its glass against all civility and law. I have drained that cup myself but not to the dregs of violence, not to deface humanity. Not to extinguish the divine impress on earthly clay, a spark of deity amidst the dirt.

  Deaving thoughts drive me out to seek distraction. I must have some lightening solace before my evening at Clarinda’s. Shake off the Deacon’s dust from my boots, which Betty has handsomely buffed.

  Later. Potterrow was very quiet as I slipped unnoticed into the entry after eight o’clock. No occasion for scandal. A gentle tap and Nancy herself admitted me to the cosy parlour. Tea and dainties were set out for my arrival along with a new poem by Clarinda for my delectation.

  We chatted about little things, our perceptions of the everyday, the incidents of life, mutual warmth drawing us closer. We became quite merry with each other, as if there was no care in the world to intrude on our relaxed intimacy. Eyes met, then hands pressed to cheeks, a daffing kiss, a casual caress that shivers in the flesh, and suddenly our lips and mouths were pressed together open and nakedly hungry. I drew her onto my knee, and as we kissed my hands roamed gently over back, breast, thigh. Her arm was round my shoulder and desire emboldened, enlarged. Till with a sigh, a yearning reluctance, she withdrew her arm, and placing a hand on my shoulder pushed her body upright and away.

  ‘My dear, my darling, what is it?’

  She gave no reply but having rearranged her clothes as if in a trance, and patting her lovely curls in place, Clarinda sat on the other side of the table and poured tea. Then she took up literary converse as if we had just renewed a former acquaintance. I protested with a light-hearted pretence that belied my inner passion. She brushed me off with a clumsy attempt at teasing that lay between us like an unacknowledged slight. Things ground towards an inevitable conclusion – departure. This allowed an exchange of kisses and a cursory embrace which told me what her lips denied. Then I was in the close once more, my visit ended.

  I was pledged to pick up a sedan in nearby Nicolson Square. But I desired no chair. Every portion of my frame was screaming out for exercise and release. I began to limp vigorously towards the High Street barely conscious of my disability. My legs knew where I was heading as they turned down College Wynd.

  There is a corner in the Cowgate, at the foot of Niddrie Wynd, where three or four taverns conjoin. You can always count on company there, gathered in two or threes outside, and retreating into the darkness of the thoroughfare and its adjoining closes. As I came towards this assembly, I caught sight of a known face. I am sure that it was Clarinda’s maid Jenny Clow, but my eyes were hunting for a more familiar figure – Jessie Haws.

  Jessie is no street girl but a lively, loving lass, with a gleg eye for the poet. I spotted her in the doorway a few yards up the wynd, and swung her on my arm till her warm body was
pressed aganst me in the cold night air. ‘The Rhymer is it, an whit’s yer game the nicht?’ I told her with my lips, and she pulled me in, pushing the door behind her with a foot.

  Later. We sat together in the Clartie Tavern. Jessie ate and drank with the same frank enjoyment as had sated my appetite half an hour before. Leaving a present in her pocket, I kissed her goodnight, and walked home through the starry frost at more peace with myself than for months before. So I close this day’s deliberations, and go content to my rest. God bless the lassies who confer on man his sweetest hours.

  Letters early from home: Gilbert,with a scribbled signature enclosed from mother. The harvest has fetched nothing and they are very low. Can I assist again? God help me, with what? The Kilmarnock money is all but gone and Creech has not yielded a single Scots penny. Nothing is possible without ready coin. My own flesh and blood: to be unable to succour her who gave me life itself.

  The shame, the pity, that tyrant cruelty, insolent wealth, holds sway on our inmost relations. The world is become icy in its grasp. That vindictive bastard Armour has put Jean out, six months pregnant, in the January snows. God rot his vitals, his bowels, his withered pintle. Sent immediately by messenger to secure her rooms and shelter till my return. These distresses twisting and tightening in my breast. Lay down in a cold sweat of fear and worry. Fit for nothing all day.

  Remembered today that John Ballantine might still have some Kilmarnock money in hand. Wrote Gilbert enclosing a note asking Ballantine to accommodate him with twelve pounds, more if he had it. Sent Creech a frosty keen letter on the necessity for immediate payment.

  Started an epistle to Clarinda, but out of sorts and could hardly continue. What a creature is man. A little alarm yesterday, and today such a revolution in my spirits that I am mortal. No philosophy or divinity comes half so close to the mind. I have no courage to brave Heaven, only the ravings of an imaginary hero in Bedlam. I can scarce hold up my head or move my hand to write. At least Clarinda cannot see it; she wears Cupid’s mask.

  Wrote Mrs Dunlop a long apology for being out of touch, explaining my confinement. I must not lose the interest of my Ayrshire friends, particularly my old benefactress and counsellor.

  Deferential appeasing letter from Creech, promising payment tomorrow! Even publishers have their turning points, their thus-far-and-no-furthers. But Creech may have marked my own turning too, or returning. Apart from pressing home the Excise business what has Edinburgh left for me? Am I done with this place and it with me – is that what I truly want?

  I believe I can reckon on Clarinda’s friendship for life, and that her image belongs in my soul.

  Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise

  Where mixed with God’s, her loved idea lies.

  We fear inconstancy and the imperfection of human weakness, yet our connection will defy years of absence and the changes or chances of fortune. Only an honest man and a poet of Romance could promise that, but I declare myself both as friend and lover. If womankind be capable of such things then we are matched by heaven.

  Transposed this enthusiastic vein into a letter.

  We must meet this Wednesday and not delay till Saturday. Time is short and one further Wednesday may bring on the hated day. Tomorrow evening I will call on Miss Nimmo to make my farewells.

  Goodnight, Clarinda, nothing can replace your breathing presence in my arms. God bless.

  Woke much refreshed after the alarms of Saturday and Sunday. Ate a hearty breakfast, then wrote confidentially to Peggy, wishing her well for married life and sharing my worries about Jean. She knows how hard Mauchline can be for those on whom fortune has frowned.

  I am inclined, by the calm light of a new day, to shrug off my recent love passages as a narrow escape. Clarinda’s refusal releases me from any obligation or consequence in the natural way. Can I not be heart whole still – waur fleyed than hurt?

  ‘A hairbreadth scape in the imminent deadly breach,’ to quote the Moor, who felt the consequence of loving not wisely but too well.

  Peggy will not be fooled. She knows my life presents a serious and a melancholy path. The rest is diversion.

  Just as I was sealing this, a note came from Clarinda, cold and crabbed but conceding a Wednesday assignation. Come, stubborn pride, unshrinking resolution, accompany me through this miserable world. My limb is almost sound and I will struggle on.

  Went up town to hunt out Nicol. His corroding wit matched my mood and revived my humour.

  Return to find no word from Creech despite yesterday’s promise. Fool, damned lick-spittling, arse-shitting fool, fool, fool. God have mercy on me, a poor, alarmed, incautious, duped unfortunate. The sport, the helpless victim of rebellious pride, hypochondria, agonising sensibility, and bedlam passions. Unlucky poet.

  Sunk low, when Bob called round and took me out. He seems to be a man of leisure since his taskmasters are locked in some great cause at court.

  I described the whole Clarinda imbroglio in some detail, to his evident delight. It appears that Bob knows Cousin Craig, whom he described as pedantical and proper. Which is how I sometimes think of Bob. He has also soaked up a quantity of gossip about Nancy’s soul-friend, Kemp. The Tron Kirk minister is, it seems, famed for his confiding consultations with female parishioners. From the moment I heard the name of Kemp on her lips I felt instinctively the slimy motion of a snake.

  Of course Bob is agog to meet Nancy. Her situation fascinated his curiosity, but I believe his appetite is also whetted by the ambivalence, as he views it, of her behaviour – moral to excess, yet courting danger. He wants an introduction and I will contrive it, while emphasising discretion. When I am away, he may prove an assiduous friend and useful protector to the abandoned.

  Finally shaking him off, I returned to St James Square just in time to leave again for Potterrow.

  I did not stand on ceremony and she gave herself over to my embrace. We indulged an hour in tender caresses and endearments till her ardour waned. She moved no further than Saturday but I did not press my suit, to her relief or disappointment it was hard to gauge. Some desultory conversation followed about my farewell to Miss Nimmo, Johnson’s next volume and so forth.

  As I rose to leave she came to me and for the first time took me in her arms, swearing I was closest to her heart of all living beings. Every contour of her body was pressed to mine, but only because she was sure of my departure. Her boys were sleeping soundly in their beds. Uncertainly, I sought her lips. She broke away with a muffled sob, and I left stumbling in the darkness of the entry.

  I came straight home to record the episode, unsure who to blame for this game of blind-man’s-buff. Who wears the blindfold?

  Creech must settle or be damned. Composed and delivered a searing remonstrance. Business that could have been dispatched in hours has kept me four months without the shadow of activity other than me waiting at the door. This bodes ill for my removing one hundred miles, but I do not intend to make the experiment. He has declared himself my patron and my friend – in that order – so let him vindicate this public claim, not trifle with a poor man in what touches the very quick of his existence. I laid down sentences in heat and sealed before I could be brought to reconsider.

  Returning with the day still young, I pulled my chair towards the fire and composed the sweetest, fullest encomium of love. My invention soared beyond sour circumstance, last night’s uneasy passages, the harsh decree of fate and so on and so forth, to consecrate the airy imagination of the goddess who brings such beings together in the higher harmony. For a moment I felt transcendent, rising above yesterday’s hesitations and constraints. Taking Clarinda by the hand, we wandered on an elevated path, both in draft and fair copy.

  I was invited out to dinner with Johnson and Maestro Schetskl. My inspiration continued and he promised to set ‘Clarinda, Mistress of my Soul’ to music. Consequently I was compelled to put the finishing touches to my ‘Epistle of Love’ late after plying a hearty bowl since dinner. Yet I flatter myself the
style is unaffected. No distinct idea of anything at the last other than that I drank her health repeatedly. You are all my soul holds dear in this frail world.

  Interleaved letter from Sylvander to Clarinda headed ‘Unlavish Wisdom’.

  I have been tasking my reason, Clarinda, why a woman, who, for native genius, poignant wit, strength of mind, generous sincerity of soul, and the sweetest female tenderness is without a peer; and whose personal charms have few, very few parallels among her sex; why, or how, she should fall to the blessed lot of a poor harum-scarum poet, whom Fortune has kept for her particular use to wreak her temper on whenever she is in ill-humour.

  Once I conjectured that, as Fortune is the most capricious jade ever known, she may have taken a fit of remorse, nay a paroxysm of whim, to raise the poor devil out of the mire where he had so often, and so conveniently, served her as a stepping-stone. And then to give him the most glorious boon she ever had in gift, merely for the maggot’s sake, to see how his fool head and his fool heart bear it.

  At other times I was vain enough to think that Nature, who has a great deal to do with Fortune, had given the coquettish goddess some such hint as – ‘Here is a paragon of female excellence, whose equal I never was lucky enough to hit on in my earlier compositions, and despair of ever doing so again. You have cast her rather in the shades of life, but there is a certain poet of my making, and among your frolics, it would not be amiss to attach him to this masterpiece, to give her that immortality among mankind, which no woman of any age ever more deserved, and which few rhymesters of this age are better able to confer.’

  I have written out my last sheet of paper, so I am reduced to a half sheet. I have often amused myself with visionary schemes of what happiness might be enjoyed by small alterations, not in another world of which we have hardly any idea, but in this present state of existence.