If the man would only go of his own accord – but he would not. He had got in years ago, trading on some notion of loyalty and he was in it now like a bat in the bauks. One traitor out and another inside. What had he ever done to deserve them?
It must only have been a few days ago, yet it seemed like years. Dreamlike. One of his first mornings back in the library, after a week in bed. He had insisted on getting up, had dragged his leg down to this room, gazed out of the window, sat in front of the fire. Even when exhausted he had fought them trying to get him back to bed: ‘I am quite comfortable. Will you not leave me be? Another ten minutes, and then I’ll go. Where’s Aeneas?’
So they had sent in Aeneas, or Aeneas had come of his own accord, to sit and wipe his master’s slaivers no doubt, the faithful old comrade in arms. And Sir John had waved at the chair opposite – ‘Sit down, Aeneas, for God’s sake!’ – but MacRoy had stood hovering, towering over him although he was a shrunken wee man, until it became evident, even to Sir John in his wreckage, that the dominie had something to say.
‘Well, what is it?’ He heard the slur in his own voice, hated it.
Aeneas MacRoy coughed, began in measured, clipped tones. ‘I have not yet congratulated you, Sir John, on your daughter’s engagement to Sir John Hope. Your illness has prevented … It would gratify me to do so now.’
‘Speak Scotch, for God’s sake, man. You approve of the match?’
‘It wouldna be for me no tae approve. It’s a guid match.’
‘You’re pleased, then?’ A half-chuckle fought its way out of his throat. The idea of the schoolmaster being pleased at anything …
‘I am pleased for Miss Louisa, aye. Disappointed for mysel, of course. She has been a fair student.’
‘She has no need for more learning now. But you’ve taught her well, Aeneas. You’ve taught them all well.’
‘And Miss Margaret is tae be wed tae. Ye’ll soon hae nae dochters left in the hoose.’
‘I’ll get some peace then.’ A forced attempt at mirth. ‘Anyway, there’s Anne and Susan and Maria yet.’
‘It was Susan I wished tae speak aboot.’
There was a note in MacRoy’s voice, of doom or regret or something grave at any rate. Sir John made an effort to sit up.
‘If she has not been diligent or something, see Lady Alicia about it. I am not to be fashed with that kind of thing, you see.’
‘She has aye been diligent. I couldna find faut wi her in that respect. In ony respect. She’s the cleverest o them aw.’
‘Then what is it?’
His vision was affected by the stroke too. MacRoy seemed a little hazy, as if he had retreated a little. Then he loomed forward again. In fact he was going like a pendulum.
‘She is intelligent and handsome and decorous and a credit tae yoursel and Lady Wedderburn,’ MacRoy said in a rush. ‘If she has a failing, it is an inclination tae feel ower passionate on maitters that she kens little aboot, but this isna sae muckle a failing as a mark o a noble inheritance and a virtuous character. In short she is a young lady that ony man would be prood tae cry his wife.’
Sir John had never heard so many words issue from Aeneas’s mouth in so short a time. He focused harder on the swaying face.
‘I humbly ask ye, Sir John, tae acknowledge my lang service tae ye and your faimly, tae set that agin ony douts, ony hesitation ye may hae anent my humble beginnings, and tae grant permission that I micht speir at your dochter Susan tae be my wedded wife.’
Another laugh began to erupt from the Wedderburn throat. With severe difficulty he suppressed it. ‘What?’
‘She has found a place in my hert, sir, and I implore ye as her faither and as a fellow man no tae keep me in agony, no tae –’
‘You want to marry my daughter?’
‘Aye, Sir John.’
‘My daughter Susan?’
‘Aye, Sir John.’
Sir John discovered that words were, literally, failing him. His brain could not construct, could not transmit to his mouth, the sentences he needed. He tried to summon the strength to launch himself out of his chair and attack MacRoy, but succeeded only in slipping nearer to the floor. The next thing, MacRoy was over him, trying to lever him back up. Sir John vainly head-butted him in the chest, but the dominie did not seem to notice.
‘Get off – you – I –’
‘Ye wouldna be expectin this, I ken –’
‘I – nnngh – this – joke –’
‘I was never mair serious.’
‘– nnngh – never –’
‘Aye, never.’
‘I mean – never. Can’t – unnh – believe it. You – damned schoolmaster –’
‘I ken, but –’
‘– left you – nnngh – charge of my lassies – now this … Out!’
‘Sir John –’
‘Out!’
‘I dinna mean tae offend ye.’
‘Get out! Could not – offend – more. Sight of you – offends me.’
‘Sir John –’
‘I will – unnh – cry murder.’
‘I only –’
‘Help!’
The shout surprised them both, it was so loud. Sir John saw the word ballooning up from his lungs and out of his mouth, like a cartoon. He liked the look of it; tried again.
‘Help! HELP!’
And then Aeneas MacRoy joined in: ‘Help!’ He was still holding him in place on the chair. Suddenly there were people everywhere, pushing Sir John and clutching at him and trying to give him brandy, when all he wanted was to throttle MacRoy. But MacRoy was lost in the crowd, and Sir John’s body gave in to the pressures and he felt it collapse in on his mind, so that it was his mind that they carried to the bedroom, like an egg slopping in a glass.
‘Where is he?’ he asked at one point. ‘Where’s the dominie?’
‘He has left us to manage things,’ somebody said. ‘Thank heaven he was there with you, but you must not fret about him now. You’ll see him in the morning.’
He recognised the voice. ‘Who’s there?’ he shouted, like a sentinel.
‘It is only me. Your wife.’
‘Margaret?’
‘You have quite overdone it, my dear. This is your wife Alicia.’
He remembered that blunder. After that they had had him beaten. He had asked again for the dominie but they had said he could see nobody else that day. And his mind had lain there and seen that the thing that had happened had not happened, that Aeneas had never made his outrageous request, that he had gone away with his question and would never bring it back, would tear it up and eat it, chew it thirty-two times, destroy all possibility of ever having asked it. Yet it was there, in Sir John’s head. He had asked it. Unbelievable. Very like a dream, yes indeed.
He had not seen MacRoy since. Perhaps he really had gone. But no, somebody would have said. One of his daughters, coming to read to him, would have said. He wondered who would come today. He would like Susan. No – he would not like any of them. Today was the day of his father’s death.
There had been one time – one only – when this day had been different. He had been caught out by circumstances. It was in the middle of the Joseph Knight business – one year or other of the interminable years that the case dragged on. The precise year was unimportant except that it must have been after the death of his first wife, dear Margaret. Yes, that was it, late on in the case. He had been obliged to go to Edinburgh to meet with his counsel, what was his name, Cullen. Cullen was under pressure from Knight’s people. They had complained about his slowness in lodging memorials with the reporting judge, and the court had fined him, and Cullen had asked Sir John to come in to straighten out some of the circumstances. It was easier to do it face to face than by correspondence, he wrote, an argument which Sir John had put down to laziness. But when he acquiesced and journeyed to the capital and met with Cullen, he realised at once that something more was afoot.
Cullen had got them a private room in one of the smarter tave
rns, and they ordered some dinner: venison soup followed by roast grouse. There, as they ate, he began quietly to express his doubts about the wisdom of proceeding with the case. The recent legislation emancipating the miners and salters was given as one reason: it made their arguments much less secure. The mood of the Bench was another. Cullen had assessed the opinions of each of the fifteen Lords of Session, and he reckoned, at best, that they might expect the sympathies of five. At this Sir John almost exploded. ‘I have their sympathies, sir! Five? That is pitiful accountancy. The Lord President wrote me when my wife died. Lord Elliock wrote me. Lord Pitfour wrote me. I am obliged to all of them. Will they show more sympathy to a Negro than to me a Scotsman?’
‘With respect, Sir John,’ Cullen said, ‘you have named but three, and Lord Pitfour is ailing. I do not doubt the sympathies of the entire Session for your grievous loss. That is not what I meant. I meant their leanings for or against the cause of slavery.’
‘But that is not their business. Their business is to determine a matter of property. Knight is part of my property. There is no doubt of it.’
‘It is disputed. Otherwise we would not be before the Session. And, as we have discussed before, the other side will make certain the case is heard in the broadest context. That is why we cannot rely in our arguments on property rights alone. That is why we are stressing your generosity toward Knight, your kindliness to him, the fact that you have educated, clothed and fed him and made him a Christian, that you have never mistreated him. And it is also why I have built up the historical case for slavery, to show that it has always existed wherever there have been societies and nations, that it is – that it can be shown to be – natural to them.’
‘Do I detect, Mr Cullen, that you do not fully subscribe to the points you are making?’
‘That is neither here nor there, sir. I am an advocate and I make the case for my client with all the force of argument I can muster.’
‘You cannot do it with passion, if you do not passionately believe it.’
‘The Session is not interested in passion, only in law.’
‘Then,’ said Sir John, ‘their sympathies are irrelevant also. For they should put aside such feelings and look at the cold, hard facts, and those will tell them that I am right, and Joseph Knight and his abettors are wrong.’
‘The Act liberating the miners changes the facts. It suggests that the only reason for keeping Joseph a slave is the accident of his race.’
‘What about economy? The security of our colonies? The prosperity of the nation? What about these?’
‘These are general issues, which we will duly address. But there are arguments, equally strong perhaps, on both sides.’
‘Perhaps I should find myself new counsel, sir. One who will fight my cause with more vigour.’
‘That is your choice, sir, but I would not advise it. Their lordships will not countenance further delays. They would dismiss the case. We are stuck with each other, I believe.’
‘And you think I should surrender?’
‘I think you should consider withdrawing.’
‘I will not. This must be resolved one way or the other.’
‘Very well.’
The rest of the meeting had been conducted coolly, with Cullen making notes as they talked, and trying to look as though he were still confident of winning. Sir John Wedderburn gave him what information he needed. He had seen Cullen’s papers and they were impressive, but what use were pages of dry words if the men who were to make the decision were already inclining towards Knight? Cullen began to summarise their position, and as he droned on Sir John tried to add up the judges himself, for and against. He knew three quite well. Four others he had spoken with at one time or another. None of them, of course, was in any way a radical. He believed a further two – Monboddo and Gardenstone – would vote for property and thus for him. That made nine. He thought Auchinleck and old Kames were likely to be against him. This did not take any account of those judges he did not know, and yet he had a majority without them, even if one of the nine went the other way. Furthermore, his other counsel, working with Cullen, was James Ferguson, the son of Lord Pitfour. That must count for something, surely – Pitfour’s fellow judges would not want to see him embarrassed. Cullen was being too negative.
Then again, there might be other alliances and enmities in the court. The Dundases, for example … But here he stopped himself. He was doing what Cullen and his cronies did – weighing up ifs and buts and notwithstandings, calculating personal politics. This would get him nowhere.
There was another way to test the ground, though, and that was to seek out Knight’s counsel and see what they thought they were up to. It was this which determined Sir John to stay on in Edinburgh an extra day. He knew John Maclaurin – by sight, at least – because he had seen him perform at the preliminary hearing before Lord Kennet, the reporting judge, some months before. A tall, angular, dreary-faced fellow, who looked like he would snap like a twig. Sir John decided to test this out. The suave Cullen no doubt ‘would not advise it’, so Wedderburn was careful to avoid a public scene. He went to see Maclaurin at his town house in Brown Square, early the following day.
It was a bitter morning. The wind was so cold it felt almost solid. He was peevish at the temperature and at the fact that he had not got back to Perthshire the previous evening: somehow both seemed to be Maclaurin’s fault. He quite forgot the date. A servant took his card and made him wait in the lobby. After a few minutes Maclaurin appeared, all in black except for his white cravat, wearing fingerless gloves and with a species of wool bonnet crammed on his head.
‘If this is a social call, sir, ye are of course welcome. But there is law between us. I needna say that if it were a criminal case I wouldna even hae admitted ye.’
‘I am not here for pleasure,’ Sir John said. ‘It is, however, a private visit.’
‘Weel, come in here, please.’
Maclaurin showed him into a small study off the lobby. There was a good fire in the grate, a set of shelves lined with books, a large table covered in papers. Condensation streamed down the panes of the two windows. On a smaller, round table set between these sat a tray on which were a crumb-strewn plate, a used cup and saucer and a coffee pot: beneath the tray was a copy of the Edinburgh Advertiser. There were three upright hard chairs around this table and Maclaurin indicated to Wedderburn to take one.
‘I prefer to stand, thank you.’
Maclaurin shrugged. ‘Then ye should state your business.’ He was between Wedderburn and the fire, and made no effort to move aside.
‘Mr Maclaurin, I’ll not beat about the bush. You are acting for Joseph Knight, and no doubt your motives are honourable. But it is well known that you, and his other counsel, are not being paid for your work. This can only mean that you are treating this case not as a matter of law – not just as law – but as some moral crusade. Well, that is your right. But I wish you to understand how mistaken your position is.’
‘Mr Wedderburn,’ said the advocate, ‘aw this can be debated in court. How I treat the case is my ain business. That is my profession.’
‘And my profession is practicality, sir. Joseph has got into bad company and listened to some bad advice – not, I assume, from yourself – and as a result he has got some wrong ideas in his head. I tried to reason with him but he would not listen, and now, obviously, we do not communicate. But with me he had everything – more than most Scotsmen could expect to have, let alone a Negro. He has damned himself to poverty and misery in Dundee, and his so-called freedom, if he acquires it, will probably be the death of him.’
‘I take it frae “bad company” ye refer tae his wife. As for poverty, frae you he had sixpence a week, if I mind richt. That’s no much o a cut above poverty.’
‘Pocket money. In addition he had clothing, a room, warmth, food, comfort, education. His duties were not arduous.’
‘He prefers tae be free. He has told me so withoot ony prompting frae third parties
. He understands the principle o liberty.’
‘He does not. He never had a principle or a notion in his head but someone else put it there. He is a child in this – all his people are. I am the man of principle. My principles are both liberty and property. To liberate the Negroes would be a disaster for them and for our nation. I want the best for both. I am a reasonable man, Mr Maclaurin. I am not a barbarian.’
‘We can explore that in court, sir.’ Maclaurin’s voice rose up a tone. ‘I amna willing tae discuss it further here.’
‘I brought that fellow away from slavery. His whole life has been a journey out of darkness into light. Do you not think he is better off here in Scotland, in my service, than playing with bones in a mud hut in Guinea? Even this, now – I have brought him to it: this choice that he must make. I do not want him to go back into the darkness.’
‘Your concern is touching. The point is, nane o this has been o his choosing, no even whit ye cry his choice. He never chose tae be in your service in the first place.’
‘Why are you doing this, Mr Maclaurin? What possible obligation can a man like you have to a Negro? This is about property, the right of honest gentlemen of your own race to own and dispose of their property without interference. If you aim too many blows of your axe at that tree, well … we all know where that is likely to end.’
‘Where, Mr Wedderburn? In revolution? So are ye for or against the slave-owning colonists noo in rebellion? Ye would ken aboot it, haein been oot in a rebellion yoursel.’
‘Ah, now I begin to see where you come from. This is a matter of honour, is it? A runaway Negro is less offensive to you than a Jacobite who stands and fights?’
‘This is ridiculous,’ Maclaurin said.
‘A young lad of sixteen follows his father in a noble and dangerous cause, as what father would not hope and expect his son to do, and thirty years later a man who was scarcely out of petticoats at the time finds ground to oppose that cause again.’
Joseph Knight Page 30