Joseph Knight

by James Robertson

  The inhabitants of this island have reason to curse the day they ever received the fugitive French blacks from St Domingo, for they have poisoned the minds of our blacks with their revolutionary principles. These things, combined with the war, have depreciated the value of negro and landed property.

  CALEDONIAN MERCURY, I SEPTEMBER 1803

  Dundee, 24 June 1803

  ‘Noo, Mr Jamieson, ye’re a bit afore yoursel there, I’m thinkin.’

  Betty gently but firmly removed her employer’s hand from her waist, where he had placed it almost unconsciously, as if it were something he did every morning when she set down the coffee pot. Archibald Jamieson rather sheepishly apologised.

  ‘Whit are ye sorry for?’ she demanded. ‘If ye didna want tae touch me, ye shouldna hae done it.’

  ‘It was a liberty,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, it was, but dae ye wish ye hadna taen it?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘Weel, dinna say ye’re sorry if ye’re no.’ A line had been crossed, or a barrier removed. Betty pulled up one of the other chairs and plumped herself down on it; looked him in the eye.

  ‘It’s early days yet, Mr Jamieson,’ she said. ‘The puir mistress is scarce oot the hoose. No that she would be surprised – or even fashed, I would say. But there’s nae rush.’

  ‘I should be ashamed o mysel,’ he said, ‘but I’m no.’

  ‘And whit for should ye be?’ she said. ‘Ye’re a man, wi a man’s lusts. Dae ye think I hinna noticed? But I’m nae fool, Mr Jamieson, and I’ll no be taen for ane. I’ll look efter the laddies till they’re awa, and yoursel, and syne we’ll see whit comes o it. There’s a few things we would need tae settle, though.’

  She lifted the pot, and poured out his coffee. He stared at her as if she were performing a magic trick.

  ‘Whit things?’

  ‘Ye would need tae gie up your freen in Pirie’s Land afore I would coontenance onything.’

  He grew wider-eyed still. Had she been spying on him? Good God, had Janet known too, and never said a word? He felt himself flush. Betty might say there was no rush, but to him things seemed to be moving very fast indeed.

  ‘It is done already,’ he muttered.

  ‘Aye, we’ll see,’ she said.

  ‘No, truly.’

  ‘Weel, there’s ither things I winna coontenance at aw,’ Betty said. ‘Nae bairns, for a start.’

  ‘Nae bairns?’

  ‘Aye. Ye’re a guid faither but ye’re no needin mair. I’ve stayed oot o childbed ten year and I’m no gettin intae it noo, no for ony man. That is a tribulation I amna willin tae thole, and I ken hoo tae avoid it. Nae wedlock either. I ken whit happens then: awthing that’s mine becomes yours, and naething that’s yours becomes mine unless ye’re deid. That’s no richt, it’s no equitable. As we are, we ken whaur we stand ilk wi ither. So, plenty o time tae see whit it is we’re baith wantin, if we’re wantin it at aw.’

  She got up, clapped him lightly on the shoulder and left the room. Archibald Jamieson stared at the steaming cup of coffee, which eventually he lifted and sipped tentatively. He was not sure what he had started, but it appeared, whatever it was, that Betty had taken the matter clean out of his hands.

  Janet had died three months before – surely, he thought, trying to justify himself, a more decent interval than Betty’s ‘scarce oot the hoose’. She had clung on longer than anyone expected, till she was little more than a reed. Only in the last week had she been unable to speak, unable to do anything in fact. Horribly, those last few months had been the happiest of their marriage.

  Still, as Betty had said when she went to wash and lay Janet out, ‘naebody ever raised a smile by girnin at life’. Jamieson had been hard at work since, the elder boy had finished school and found a clerical post with a shipping merchant, the younger had a summer job at the harbour where his brother could keep half an eye on him. And Archie had been tolerably happy, in spite of his loss. They had put the new, late Mrs Jamieson in the ground at the Howff and, ever since, he had felt that he was living in the warm afterglow of their many conversations and the evenings he had sat reading to her. His mind, and then his hand, had turned to Betty only in the last few days.

  Other things had kept him occupied. Ten days ago Sir John Wedderburn of Ballindean had died after a long decline. Today he too was to be buried in the Howff graveyard, and Jamieson intended to go along and watch the proceedings. He had no real expectations, but he did wonder if by any chance a black man might turn up at the grave. To do what, though? Weep beside it or piss into it – Archie slurped his coffee, laughing – one or the other.

  There was that slight possibility, because Archie now believed that Joseph Knight was not far away, that he might very well have heard of the death of his former master. The whole business seemed to require a coup degrâce of some description, the ‘melting blow’ as the slaughtermen called it, and only Knight could deliver it. But then, maybe he already had, twenty-five years earlier.

  The previous week, Archie Jamieson had indeed paid a visit to his friend in Pirie’s Land, after a long absence. She had not been best pleased to see him – he had become most irregular since his wife took ill, she had told him insensitively. ‘I didna come tae be scauldit,’ he had retorted. ‘I came tae say I wouldna be back.’ This was a lie, but one that became a truth as soon as he uttered it. They parted without a transaction taking place.

  To make up for it, and to nurse his injured pride, he took himself down to Nannie’s stinking pit, and drank half a pint of whisky. He had not been in there since his session with Aeneas MacRoy. The place was as dark and foul as ever. He took a seat in a corner and began to work his way through the whisky, still wondering if Janet could have known about Pirie’s Land.

  A few surly-looking men were also in Nannie’s shop, crowded around the makeshift gantry, and Jamieson thought he recognised one of them. This always bothered him, for a half-remembered face coming out of the past could mean trouble, especially in a place like Nannie’s. Eventually he placed the man, and relaxed. It was an old weaver from the Hilltown, an informer who was usually too drunk to realise he was informing. Archie had not seen him for two or three years, and had no intention of renewing the acquaintance, but the man caught his eye and, recognising him as someone who used to buy him drink, slid over to his table.

  ‘Aye, Chae,’ Jamieson said.

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said Chae. ‘You ken me, and I feel … I feel I should ken you. Would ye spare us some o your whisky?’

  ‘No,’ said Jamieson, ‘I wouldna. No unless ye can tell me something I want tae hear.’

  Chae looked hard at him, seemed to place him. ‘Ah, noo I hae ye. Whit is it ye want tae hear?’

  ‘I dinna ken.’

  ‘Weel, hoo can I tell it ye then?’

  Jamieson shook his head – the man was destroyed with drink. ‘I’m no wantin tae ken onything,’ he said. ‘Lea me alane, Chae.’

  But Chae had now got it into his head that there must be some nugget of information that would earn him a drink. ‘Noo whit micht it be?’ he said half into himself, as though he had been set a riddle. Then, after a minute: ‘Eh, I ken. The spinners at Lochee are restless.’

  ‘They’re aye restless.’

  Chae gave him an absurd significant look. ‘There’s a boat o strange men pit in at the Ferry wi foreign accents. They’re wantin tae buy whisky and ither things. They micht be Frenchies.’

  ‘They are Welsh.’

  ‘Ach, weel. Oh, I ken, I ken. Sir John Wedderburn’s deid.’

  ‘That was in the paper yesterday.’

  Chae looked dejected. Then, brightening, he tried again. ‘I’ll tell ye something I ken wasna in the paper yesterday.’

  Jamieson laughed. ‘How, Chae? Ye canna read.’

  ‘I used to ken auld Wedderburn’s neger.’

  Jamieson coughed, trying not to show any interest. ‘Is that richt, Chae? Weel, ye’ll no hae been the only ane.’

  ‘Ah, but I kent
him better. He was mairrit on my guidsister.’

  All this time Chae had been hotching, half leaning on the table, torn between sitting down, in the vague hope of being offered a drink, and returning to his cronies at the counter, who were probably dispatching his share of whatever was being drunk there. Jamieson pointed at the bench next to himself – ‘Sit doun, Chae’ – and called Nannie over. ‘Anither half-pint o cask, and anither gless,’ he ordered, and she shuffled off to fetch them. The other men’s interest was aroused by the fact that Chae had found a new, or old, acquaintance, and one of them broke away to investigate. Jamieson warned him off with a murderous look. When Nannie returned he gave her a further instruction. ‘Keep that pack ower there, Nannie. The first ane that comes within reach o me, I’ll break his fuckin heid.’

  He was pleased with the way it came out – it made him sound much harder than he really was. Aeneas MacRoy would have been proud of him.

  Chae’s hand strayed towards the jug and glass. ‘Aye, on ye go,’ Jamieson said. ‘Tell me aboot the neger.’

  ‘A wicked man, a wicked man,’ Chae said, gulping back whisky. ‘He bedded my wife’s sister and gied her black bairns.’

  ‘Why was he wicked?’

  ‘Weel, he was black.’

  ‘That made him wicked?’

  ‘He didna like me. He was a cauld, thrawn craitur.’

  ‘When did ye last see him?’

  ‘Oh …’ Chae stopped himself, looked cunning, suddenly aware that his answer might stop the flow of whisky. ‘A while syne.’

  ‘Years?’

  Chae seized the jug and filled his glass to the brim. He drank greedily. ‘Aye. Efter the trial.’

  ‘Naebody was on trial, Chae. It was a civil case.’

  Chae gave a rasping laugh. ‘Oh, was it? I think it wasna very civil. Wedderburn was on trial for slave-driving and the neger was on trial for … for being a neger.’

  Jamieson shrugged. There was no arguing with that. ‘So ye’ve no seen Joseph Knight for twenty-five year?’

  ‘Oh, no as lang as that. They bade here a while, but he never likit work.’

  ‘If he was kin o yours, that’s nae surprise.’

  This was too subtle for Chae, who was more interested in getting to the bottom of the jug before Jamieson stopped him.

  ‘Whaur did they gae, then?’

  ‘I dinna ken, and I dinna care. Tae the deil, I would say. They were baith a bad lot, the neger and Annie. They never likit me.’

  ‘Och, weel, Chae,’ Jamieson said, and took back the jug. ‘Ye’re tellin me naething.’

  ‘Dinna ask me then. Ask the auld mither.’

  ‘Whit auld mither?’

  ‘Kate Thomson. Annie’s mither. My wife’s mither. My wife’s deid but Kate bides in the Hilltoun yet. She’ll ken whaur they gaed.’

  Chae earned himself the rest of the jug with this bit of information, once he had told Jamieson where to find the old woman. ‘But dinna tell her I sent ye,’ he warned. ‘She disna like me either. And dinna lea it ower lang – she’s an auld, auld bitch.’

  The cottage Kate Thomson had once shared with her daughter and grandchild was now in a state perilously near to collapse. Old Mrs Thomson, who by now was in her eighties, had been joined by another woman, perhaps twenty years her junior, and between them they just managed to live without starving or freezing. But it was a life so close to the edge of human existence that to Jamieson they did not seem quite human when he entered the cottage. Both were covered in so many layers of clothing that it was as if they were composed entirely of rags, and only their faces, and their fingers projecting like twigs from a hedge, proved that this was not the case. Even though it was midsummer, the place smelt damp and was as dark as November. Kate Thomson, still working the treadle of her spinning-wheel, would not stop until Jamieson offered her some coins to buy her a respite.

  ‘There’s naething in spinnin ony mair,’ she said. ‘The mills are takkin it awa frae the likes o us. But whit else can I dae? Sixty year I hae been spinnin. I hae seen Tam Ritchie in his grave and a wheen ither folk that should hae lived ayont me. I’m hauf deif and three-pairts blin, but I dinna need my een for this work ony mair. I could dae it in my sleep. In fact I dae dae it in my sleep. Whiles I dinna ken if I am wakin or dreamin. If I stop noo, I’ll dee.’

  A few months ago death might have seemed to Archibald Jamieson like the better option, but now he found her resilience impressive. She and the other woman, who never uttered a syllable the whole time he was there, were surrounded by piles of flax, and the floor was covered in wasted scraps of the stuff.

  ‘I am lookin for somebody,’ Jamieson said cautiously. ‘I thocht ye would ken whaur they micht be?’

  ‘I dinna ken onybody ony mair,’ Kate Thomson said. ‘They’re aw deid.’

  ‘No,’ Jamieson said. ‘I dinna think so. I’m lookin for your dochter, Annie. And for her man, Joseph.’

  Kate became still. She peered hard at Jamieson. Eventually she said, ‘Wha are ye that ye want tae ken aboot them. Let them be. They had trouble enough in their time.’

  ‘Dae ye ever see them?’

  ‘Na,’ she said. ‘No for mony a year.’

  ‘But they still live?’

  She was silent again, thinking. Just as he was about to repeat the question, she spoke. ‘I heard John Wedderburn is deid.’

  ‘Aye, he is,’ Jamieson said.

  ‘If he’d died years syne, they micht hae lived better,’ she said. ‘Are ye frae him?’

  It was on the tip of Jamieson’s tongue to say no, when he thought that this would only lead her to ask what his business was with them. ‘I am tae cairry the news o his death tae them,’ he said ambiguously.

  ‘Oh.’ Again, she paused to think. ‘Will it be worth onything tae them?’

  ‘I canna say,’ he said.

  At first she would not be drawn on where they might be. But the longer he sat the more she seemed to trust him, or perhaps it was the addition of a few more pennies into her hand. ‘When ye hae been a prisoner for years,’ she said, ‘and ye come oot intae sunlicht, it blins ye. Ye canna thole it. And naebody understands. Joseph tried, aye he tried, but it was nae use. He had tae tak cover again. Whaur would ye gang, sir? Eh? If ye wantit back oot the sunlicht and tae be amang folk that understood? He wasna the first black man that cam oot the dark. Ye’re a clever chiel, I can tell. Work it oot. Whaur would ye gang?’

  ‘That is whit I need tae ken,’ he said.

  ‘Wemyss,’ she said. ‘I dinna ken jist whaur it is but it’s somewhaur in Fife. Look there for Joseph Knight.’

  Coming out into the street, Jamieson had found himself dazzled by the day, and his head rotten with the effects of Nannie’s whisky. Kate Thomson’s words had rattled around in there too. The remark about Joseph not being the first had puzzled him, and so had the name Wemyss. It had reminded him of something in all the information he had accumulated on the case over the previous eighteen months. At last he had hit on what she must mean. A case that John Maclaurin had been involved in, many years earlier. A slave called Davie Spens, the parish of Wemyss. And he had thought of something else: something Peter Burnet had written about the texture of Knight’s hands.

  Today was Friday. Tomorrow, he was going on a journey across the Tay, and into Fife.

  First, though, there was the Wedderburn funeral. They were putting Sir John at the foot of the elaborate tomb he had erected to his wife Margaret, the first Lady Wedderburn. The interment was a family affair. Nevertheless, such a local grandee could not be buried without attracting public interest. Numerous indwellers of Dundee gathered to watch the cortège enter the city, and, at a respectful distance, they also stood in the Howff itself. Among them was Archibald Jamieson.

  It was a fine, bright day. The firth was skinkling, and the town lay like a contented dog in the heat. The Wedderburns arrived in a procession of carriages made mournful with crape. The horses drawing the hearse were decked with black plumes. Jamieson was surprised
to see the female Wedderburns in attendance. He tried to work out the various sons and daughters and cousins: David, the eldest son and new laird of Ballindean; Margaret and Jean, his sisters; then the half-brothers (two of them – a third was in Jamaica) and half-sisters, Maria, Susan, Louisa and Anne. There was a silver-haired man of about seventy, handsome and proud-looking, whom Jamieson took to be Uncle James from Inveresk; and a couple of young men who were probably his sons. Lady Alicia was there in her black dress and veil, and behind her the stooped, weary figure of Aeneas MacRoy. There were others too, perhaps husbands and wives of some of these, so that the party gathered round the grave numbered more than twenty. A clergyman was in attendance, but the ceremony was kept brief – there would have been a full service at Ballindean. Although the Penal Acts against Episcopalianism had been repealed some ten years previously, following the death of Charles Edward Stewart, the popular mood was still not entirely conducive to public displays of any faith other than that of the Kirk.

  Afterwards, the family party broke up into smaller groups. Some of them stood quietly at the grave, others moved away, talking a little, wandering among the gravestones. The beautiful weather seemed to make them all reluctant to get back in the carriages. Most of the onlookers drifted. Jamieson walked over to the small, simple stone that marked the grave of both the first Mrs Jamieson and the second. He stood there, head uncovered, his presence legitimised by that stone, and waited. He had spotted Susan Wedderburn walking by herself in that direction, along one of the paths that criss-crossed the Howff. She was almost upon him before she saw him.

  ‘My sympathies,’ he said, bowing his bare head to her.

  Her bonnet had a little veil but he could see through it that her eyes were red.

  ‘Do you mean that?’ she asked.

  ‘I dae.’

  ‘Then I am grateful to you for coming.’

  Her presumption nettled him. ‘I would hae been here onywey,’ he said.