Joseph Knight

by James Robertson

  Their horses were standing patiently alongside each other, head to tail. He took out the package from his breast, realised too late that he had smelt its scent for the last time, and handed it towards her. She made no effort to take it, seemed in fact to shy away from it. But he kept it there, and at last she took it.

  ‘Was it missed?’ he asked.

  ‘If it was, nobody has remarked on it.’

  She looked at it in her hand, but did not unwrap it.

  ‘I thought it was exciting when I found it. Now I can hardly bear to touch it. I find it repulsive.’

  ‘Your uncle?’

  ‘The whole of it.’

  For the third time, Jamieson heard the melancholy in her voice.

  ‘Miss, has something happened?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ye seem different. Unhappy.’

  ‘No. I am happy. Life is gathering pace, that’s all. There are to be changes here.’

  Jamieson thought of his own fantasies – the gypsy ones. What would the tinklarian life be but a slowing down of life, an attempt to put a brake on change? That was perhaps what he longed for. He did not say anything.

  ‘Papa is not at all well,’ Susan said. ‘He has had a stroke. We fear he will not last the winter. Yet even he is anxious to hurry things along.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘My sister is to be married.’

  ‘I am happy for her.’

  ‘Pff! I can say that. I am her sister. You don’t even know which one I mean.’

  ‘I hardly know you. Which of your sisters is tae be married?’

  ‘All of them in time, doubtless.’ Again, that bitter note. ‘But Louisa will be first, and now we all expect Margaret to fly the nest in the spring.’

  ‘Louisa? But she’s younger than you.’

  ‘Sixteen. But that’s old enough, whereas Margaret would probably be thought a little too old. For what we are best at, that is. Families.’

  ‘This is aw very sudden, is it no?’

  ‘Well, Margaret has been a dark horse. She spends whole weeks in Edinburgh with various friends, and there she has been seen with Mr Philip Dundas – one of the Dundases, Henry Dundas’s young brother in fact. A lady can’t be seen often with a Dundas before either something happens or she ceases to be seen with him. So I predict an announcement. But as for Louisa, yes, I suppose it is quite sudden.’ She broke off. ‘Listen.’

  Jamieson looked around, half expecting to see men creeping through the scrub. But Susan’s head was turned skyward. There was the ragged cry of geese, and shortly afterwards a V of them passed overhead.

  ‘I love that sound. It’s as if they are saying, how clever we are, to have found our way here again.’

  Jamieson nodded, but he had never thought much about geese. Susan carried on.

  ‘After you and I last met, Mr Jamieson, that day in Dundee, we all went to the shows in the Meadows. And we found a spaewife. Margaret wasn’t there, but the rest of us had our fortunes read, and swore not to reveal what we had been told till some months had passed. Well, last week, Louisa and I rode over to our friends the Threiplands at Fingask for the morning – a day just like this – and we were about to come home when they asked us to stay on to meet General Sir John Hope, who was expected. You know who he is, don’t you?’

  ‘Aye, he focht the French wi Abercromby in Egypt – a tremendous hero, they say.’

  ‘Exactly. And also one of the Hopes of Hopetoun, which one day he may inherit. So we did stay, and were introduced. For a soldier he is very gentlemanly, but also much older than I imagined – he is certainly nearer forty than thirty, and a widower. The next day – where are we now? – last Friday, the very same Sir John Hope rode up to Ballindean, requested to see Papa, and asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage!’

  ‘That is heroic!’

  ‘Yes, especially since, when Papa inquired which daughter, Sir John was unable to say. He did not know her name. We’d been introduced to him as the Misses Wedderburn.’

  Jamieson detected now, in the way Susan’s narrative had re-animated her, a certain heroism of her own. If, as it seemed, the story was to have a happy ending, it also looked as if it would have an ugly sister.

  ‘Papa told us about it later – he is so proud that he is to have Sir John as his son-in-law. The first we knew of it was when they entered the schoolroom – Louisa and Anne and I were all there, with Maister MacRoy – and Sir John inclined his head towards Aeneas and Annie and me, then positively bowed to Louisa. And Papa said to her, “My dear, I have something very important to discuss with this gentleman, and then with you,” and they went back out again.’

  ‘Ye’d hae haen an idea whit was afoot?’

  ‘Oh, Aeneas couldn’t keep us in the room! We had to get out to talk about it. Then Louisa was summoned and we had to wait for an age before she came back and told us, half laughing, half crying, that she was to be married. And she said she’d fallen in love with Sir John Hope the moment she saw him at Fingask, which I’m sure … well, I expect it was true. And she said that what the spaewife had told her was that she would marry John Hope, which she had thought till that moment was a figure, a riddle of some kind, like John the Commonweal or John Barleycorn. I expect that was true, too, but Annie spoiled it a little by insisting that the wife had said she was to marry John Hope. She was quite upset, because either Louisa was telling a lie or she was, or the spaewife was a cheat for telling the same prophecy twice. And the rest of us I’m sure would have settled for blaming the wife except that then Louisa would stand her ground and say Annie was just jealous. It was a shame, but we’ve agreed to say no more about it. I think Annie’s upset because she’ll be losing Louisa, who is closest to her.’

  ‘Very likely. What, may I ask, was predicted for you?’

  ‘Oh, a number of things. But I didn’t put much faith in any of it at the time and I certainly don’t now.’

  All this time she had been holding the wrapped journal in her hand. Now she held it out to him. ‘Will you take this back?’

  ‘I canna.’

  ‘My father has not missed it. He does not know where half the things he looks for are any more. It is a horrible book. When he is dead I do not wish anyone else to find it and read it.’

  ‘Whit dae ye want me tae dae wi it?’

  ‘Destroy it.’

  ‘I canna, miss.’

  ‘It’s a commission. I gave it into your hands, now I ask you to destroy it. Are you wanting a fee?’

  There was a new note in her voice now. Back in June she might have tried coquettishness to get him to do what she wanted. That was gone, and in its place was something he did not like as much: an attempt at imperiousness.

  ‘Miss Wedderburn, I would gladly dae whitever ye asked that was reasonable, but I canna dae this. It isna mine or yours tae destroy.’

  ‘I had no idea reasonableness or morality entered into your work. Perhaps you would like to return it to my father instead?’

  ‘Ye should never hae sent it tae me if ye felt like this.’

  ‘I did not feel like this when I sent it to you. Then it was about Mr Knight. Now it is … Now it is not.’

  ‘It’s aboot your faither.’

  The haughty look she had been maintaining crumbled a little. ‘Yes, and my uncles – my whole family being so … involved in slavery. I am ashamed, for them and for myself. That is why I ask you to take the book away and destroy it.’

  ‘But you – they – still hae slaves. The plantations still exist. I tellt ye that afore. It’s slavery that keeps ye in Ballindean. Destroying that wee book winna change that.’

  ‘It is the detail in it. The fine, vile detail. It is as if they are murderers.’ Her hands were restless: the one holding the journal jerked up and down rapidly, the other picked at the horse’s mane. Her lower lip was trembling. ‘They are murderers. I do not recognise them.’

  Jamieson reached his big coarse hand over her small gloved one and the journal; s
tilled the movement. It was an instinctive act, insanely forward, but he was relieved to find that it had nothing in it but concern and pity and … fatherliness.

  ‘He is your faither,’ he said. ‘Whitever else he has been, he is your faither.’

  She shook her head, fighting back her distress.

  ‘If I burn this book,’ he said, ‘I burn a pairt o him. A pairt o you. It isna my business tae dae that. Pit it back where ye found it, miss, or keep it tae yoursel till ye ken better. But ye canna undo whit’s in it. If it maks ye hate slavery, fine and guid.’

  ‘But it makes me hate my father!’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘this isna hate I’m seeing.’

  Somewhere to the east a gun was fired. The echo of the shot carried like a rasping cough over the hill.

  ‘My brother, probably,’ she said. ‘I should not stay much longer.’ He lifted his hand, and she gazed at the wrapped book. She had a little satchel slung across her shoulder, and now she unfastened it and put the journal inside. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I cannot expect you to do what I ask. I will do it myself.’

  He shook his head. ‘Think hard first. Ye can only make that decision once. Ye can defer it as often as ye like.’

  ‘I feel it is time to stop deferring,’ she said. ‘I could defer all my life and not achieve anything.’

  ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘But when ye act, ye can tak back yer haun but no the action.’

  ‘That is to be human,’ she said. ‘To act is to be alive. I don’t feel I am truly alive. I cannot act. A woman cannot act as you can, as my father has.’

  ‘Then ye are withoot responsibility, and it is men that should envy you.’

  ‘Do not mock me, Mr Jamieson. We are without choice. There is nothing to be envied in that.’

  He thought at once of the new Mrs Jamieson, lying in bed, refusing the doctor, and a shock of guilt jolted through him. Suddenly he hoped she would still be awake when he got home. He felt he would like to sit and talk with her for a while. Not about this, but about her, Janet Jamieson.

  ‘Ye’ll no hae had much thought of Joseph Knight these last few weeks, then?’ he asked Susan Wedderburn.

  ‘Not much. He was here, now he’s gone. I think – something tells me – he is dead. And you?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking a guid deal aboot him. Aboot all of ye oot here – you, your faither, Aeneas MacRoy. And Joseph. I think he’s alive.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The same reason you gied: something tells me.’

  ‘So you’ll keep looking for him?’

  ‘Ah, miss, I’m no a man o leisure. I hae tae work, and Joseph isna work ony mair. But I’m due in Edinburgh soon – I’m gaun tae seek oot some o the papers frae the case. I’ll think aboot him some mair. In a way, that’s looking for him. Like reading thon bookie. I thocht it was nae help, but somehow it is. That’s anither reason I’m sure ye shouldna destroy it.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘When I read what was in it I really wanted you to find him. If he and Papa could have been brought together, could have been reconciled in some way …’

  ‘That isna gaun tae happen, miss. It never was.’

  ‘Yes, now I see that. That’s why I would rather the journal was destroyed. You see, it’s not just that I believe Mr Knight is dead. I feel …’

  ‘Aye, miss?’

  ‘I feel it would be better for everybody if he were.’

  There was another shot, closer this time, and a rattle of wings among branches.

  ‘I must go,’ Susan said quickly. ‘No – you should go first. It will surprise nobody if I am found riding up here.’

  ‘Aye, ye’re richt.’

  He made as if to leave; hesitated. Words began to come from him that he did not expect to hear himself say. ‘Miss Wedderburn, I am your servant, as ye ken. I hope ye will consider me your friend as weel. If ye should ever lack a friend.’

  She smiled warmly. ‘I appreciate that.’

  He smiled back, but still he was reluctant to leave. What madness was this? He did not, could not, want anything from her. She was younger than his own daughters. Yet her younger sister was to marry a man who might be his brother. Something seemed very wrong, and yet it was all entirely normal. He could not figure it out.

  Susan Wedderburn made up his mind for him by reaching out and shaking his hand. Before he could contemplate kissing the back of hers, it had been withdrawn, and she had turned her horse and trotted away up the hill. ‘Au revoir, Monsieur Jamieson!’ He waved briefly, then made his way back to the old road.

  The reliable old hired horse knew its way home, which was just as well, for Jamieson took in nothing of the nine-mile ride. He was too deep in thought. It was not until he was on the outskirts of Dundee, with the long clouds turning deep and bloody behind him in the afternoon sky, not until he had turned over every phrase, every look in their conversation, that he understood the weight and true meaning of Susan’s words: there was, indeed, nothing to be envied about being without choice.

  He thought also about the fact that he had not told her of his meeting with Andrew Davidson. The dying, possibly by now the dead Mr Davidson, who assumed that everybody was alive unless he had proof to the contrary. Jamieson had not forgotten to tell her about him: he had chosen not to. Davidson wanted him to find Knight, wanted Knight to be alive. Susan Wedderburn thought it would be better if he were dead. Better for everybody, she had said, but what she surely meant was better for her and her family. Even as he had been offering her his friendship, Jamieson had been struck by her Wedderburn conceit, the cool arrogance of wealth. Would it be better for Joseph Knight if Joseph Knight were dead?

  He kicked the horse hard and the poor beast broke into a half-hearted canter for twenty yards, then slowed down again. Archibald Jamieson apologised aloud for making it the recipient of feelings he should have been directing at himself: irritation that he still had not bothered to find out its name; disgust at his own hypocrisy; anger that it should take a seventeen-year-old lassie to remind him, in three or four sentences, of all the petty and gross injustices of life.

  Ballindean, 28 November 1802

  It was, once again, the anniversary of his father’s death. Sir John Wedderburn forgot what he had had for breakfast these days, but he did not forget this or the other significant dates of his calendar. He was where he almost always was when he was not at table or in his bed – in his library. The fire was built up, throwing out heat across the room. Most days someone would check periodically to make sure there were enough logs, that he was warm enough. Every afternoon one of his daughters would come and read to him, which they seemed to find reassuring, especially when it sent him off, as it invariably did, into a doze. But the mornings were still his, and this morning in particular: he had asked not to be disturbed till noon, promising that he would not let the fire die out.

  He no longer went outside now that winter had come. He looked through the window at the naked trees and the wet brown leaves decaying on the grass, he saw small birds valiantly darting about in the wind, and he was happy to be indoors. Everything ached: his back, his legs, his fingers, his neck. The stroke had made his left side partially paralysed, so that he could hardly raise his arm; his fingers were clumsy lumps and his leg dragged his foot like a stone in a sack. The doctor could prescribe any number of ointments, embrocations, decoctions, pills and powders, he could urge therapeutic exercises of a most tedious kind, but he could, he admitted, offer only temporary relief. ‘A hard and eventful life is catching up with you at last, Sir John,’ he said, smiling gravely. And although Sir John had never trusted doctors much, having been one, of sorts, himself, the man was probably right: that was what it felt like to him – life’s trials and tribulations wearing him down at the end, getting ready to crumble him into dust.

  He wondered if this day would come again, if this might be the last anniversary of the execution of which he would be conscious. How strange to contemplate not being conscious – o
f anything. But he did not think it would be like that. There was a heaven, and he trusted he would get there. There was a God, and he would see Him. But sooner rather than later, of that there was litle doubt. And he would, presumably, see his other, earthly father again: Blackness and Ballindean would embrace, and Blackness would perhaps say, ‘I misjudged you, John, I was wrong. You did very well in the end.’

  For nearly sixty years he had kept this day apart. On it, he did no work, and kept no company except that of his immediate family. And for what? To remember someone who was less than a shadow. He looked at the painting of his father. That was how he saw him now. The man, the physical man, was quite gone. He still heard his words on Drummossie Moor, he still saw a figure mounted on a horse going away from him, but the voice was his own voice, the face was the face of the painting, the memory was a likeness of the painting. That was what time did to memory: it washed it away and left only a representation of it in its place.

  Yet that was not quite correct. For time erased the nearer memories first, or at least the trivial, daily ones that allowed a man to function with something like dignity. Sir John knew that the whole household treated him now more like a lost child than as the head of the family. Then they wondered why he grew irritable. What they did not know, what they did not understand, was that, however feeble they thought his mind, there were things in it stronger than time itself: memories that could not be wiped out. And these came before him, as he sat by the fire, as vivid and hot as the flames themselves.

  Aeneas MacRoy. Was he still in the house? Yes, Sir John believed he was, in spite of what had happened, in spite of the fact that he did not come near his master any more, crept away into the darker, furthest corners of the house. When had it happened? After the stroke anyway. Yes, he minded the rage he had felt that could not be acted upon, that had got stuck in his dead side and in his numb mouth. But what had happened was between the two of them, and always would be, and because of that, and that alone, Aeneas MacRoy remained beneath his roof. Sir John would not humiliate the family by casting him out and having to explain why. He would not humiliate his daughters and his wife. Above all, especially in his already diminished state, he would not further humiliate himself.