Seaton 01 - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

by S. G. MacLean

  I affirmed that I had none.

  ‘Good, then you are free to spend tonight here? I am much interested in this business, and the assessment of a map cannot be made in a moment. Your provost makes clear his desire that the matter should not be noised abroad, and I fear we will have no privacy at the dinner table here, but if you will stay the night we can talk at more length of the matter, and I can examine the map. You can stay?’

  I had not expected an instant answer from Straloch on the map or its import, and had made no arrangements to spend the night elsewhere. I was not entirely glad, though, at the prospect of facing down the cold dislike of Isabella Irvine throughout the meal. I accepted the offer of his hospitality with something of a heavy heart.

  ‘My niece will have a room made up for you. My wife is still recovering from her latest childbed, and is not yet ready to take charge of the house again.’ He smiled. ‘As you will see, we have been many times blessed. I will have Isabella fetch you some dry boots, too, or you will die of a fever before the night is out, as will I if I do not go and change soon out of the rest of these sodden hunting rags.’ Our interview presently over, he opened the door and called for his niece to be fetched. Within two minutes, the girl appeared and accepted her instructions without demur, although not without registering her distaste for the task in her ice-grey eyes.

  I had scarcely had time to dry myself and change my clothing before a gong in the hall below beat out the call to assemble and eat. I followed the echoing noise and the stream of people spilling from the upper floors down the great stairway and on to the dining hall of Straloch. The room was brightly lit, with candles burning in every sconce, and in two chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. Family portraits lined the panelled walls, and vases and ornaments of the finest German porcelain decorated a side table. Heavy black velvet drapes, trimmed with gold brocade, were shut against the darkness of the night. The glassware must have been the work of the finest Venetian craftsmen. I had not seen such a room since I had last set foot in Delgatie. The long refectory table was seated for twenty, the younger children having already been fed by their nurses. Robert Gordon was seated at one end of the table and his wife, indeed tired and pale, yet with a welcoming smile, at the other. At least four of the older children were there, and a gaggle of cousins, friends and kin whom I could scarcely distinguish one from the other.

  There was little conversation to begin with. The hunters were all too ravenous for talk and those who had stayed at home showed little enthusiasm for conversing without them. I was seated across from Isabella Irvine. She had exchanged her day dress for a gown of deep green velvet, the sleeves shot through with silk and the wrists and bosom trimmed with the most delicate white lace. At her throat was an emerald set in gold. I looked over at her several times, in a vain attempt to remember her, to find that passage of my mind through which she had already walked; she contrived to look at me not at all. As dishes were disposed of and more brought in, the hunger was gradually sated and conversations began to rise at the table. There was talk, inevitably, of the day’s hunt, of the pursuits, the triumphs and the near misses, the prowess of the horses, the courage of the dogs and the cunning of the prey. The lady of the house could be assured that her larder was well-stocked. In time, conversation turned to talk of other hunts in other places, and then to those places themselves, and the families and peoples and history thereof. And soon, as often in such cases, there was talk of slights and offences, and scandals and outrages and foes. The laird, who had sat throughout at his meat with an air of benevolent contentment, began to look less at his ease as his sons and their cousins began to speak hotly of slanders encountered and how they should be met. He knew too well how such things must end, of the fights and the fires and the deaths and the mournings. The ballads would be no comfort to their mother once they were gone, and he counselled them to speak no more of such things in front of her. There was a lull, a pause, before other things began to be spoken of; mention was made of dissatisfactions in the South and of rumours heard in the North, but again these were quickly silenced, this time with reference to me.

  ‘Mr Seaton here can have no interest in these matters, I am sure; he is a man of learning, not politics. There will be politics aplenty in the town of Banff to satisfy him, no doubt, without we should force him to listen to our concerns.’ The warning had been given, and it was the laird himself who had given it: I was not one of their own, and was not to be made privy to the affairs of the Gordons. As this registered, there was an alteration in the atmosphere round the table; I recognised it well as attention shifted now to me. Robert Gordon’s wife, Catherine Irvine, came to my aid.

  ‘You are a schoolmaster, Mr Seaton.’

  ‘I am, madam. I am undermaster in the grammar school of Banff.’

  ‘I have heard it is a good school.’

  ‘I have many able pupils, and the master, Gilbert Grant, is a fine man of great learning and good discipline. He has affection and respect in the town as well as the schoolroom.’

  ‘Respect in the young is a rare and precious commodity,’ interjected Straloch. ‘Without it there can be no good schooling, and without that the state is in peril.’

  The younger men around the table had, I saw by their faces, heard this many times before, but had the good sense not to respond.

  ‘And were you a scholar there yourself, Mr Seaton?’ It was the lady this time.

  I did not like this narrowing in on me. ‘Yes, I had all my grammar schooling there, under Mr Grant.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said the lady, a sad but warm smile coming on to her face, ‘you must surely have known Archibald Hay, the heir to Delgatie.’

  ‘Who did not know Archie?’ It was one of Straloch’s nephews, discarding a chop and reaching for another one. ‘There was never a fight nor a feast in the North that Archie Hay was not at the heart of. Do you remember that time at Rothiemay—’

  But he was interrupted by his brother, who was looking at me now with narrowed eyes. ‘But surely, are you not that fellow, the minister fellow who was always with him? Was that not you?’

  I had not had the chance to answer before another joined in. ‘Why, yes. Alexander Seaton! Always at Archie’s side. Heavens! I remember that time at Slains when he lost his boots at a game of dice and you carried him on your back through the mud to his horse! That is why I thought I knew you; it was not from here at all.’ The fellow was well pleased with the memory. Others joined in with their reminiscences of Archie, but I heard little of what was said. Nothing reached me through the wall of ice now risen between me and Isabella Irvine. She had avoided my gaze throughout the meal, but now she fixed me with cold, unflinching eyes. With a rising feeling of nausea, I began to remember how I knew her name. I would have got up from the table then, pleading illness, or fatigue, or God knows what other excuse, but there was to be no retreat for me.

  ‘So you were the young fellow Delgatie had such hopes of, that you might calm his heir? Well, there are some colts that will not be broken: they are better left to run free. I am heart sorry for the loss of your friend, Mr Seaton. He died in a noble cause.’ The laird’s words were echoed round the table, and toasts were drunk to the memory of Archie, and to Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia, and to her brother, our own king. The laird had carried on talking directly to me, about the family of Delgatie, and the tragedy of Archie’s loss to the family and to the country, and then of Katharine. ‘And why they sent that lassie away to the South, banished to that old man, I do not know. A brood of fine grandchildren near to hand would have eased their grief and their old age.’

  ‘Robert,’ his wife began, but he did not hear her.

  ‘And as for the lassie herself, to send her so far from her own friends when a good marriage could have been made hereabouts, if they had only consented to the name of Hay going into abeyance for a generation or so. Why, Isabella here was – is – her friend, but is constrained to travel for days on end on bad roads just to see her. And it is a cold harsh
place she is in, is it not, Isabella?’

  ‘She does not complain,’ said the young woman, still gazing steadily at me.

  The laird’s wife intervened before her husband could say any more. ‘My niece is not long returned from visiting Katharine Hay in the borders. They had not seen each other since Katharine’s marriage to her father’s cousin.’ She looked uncomfortable, as if she wished that could be an end to the subject, but I could not leave it there. I spoke directly to Isabella Irvine.

  ‘And how is she. Is she – well?’

  ‘She is well, sir.’

  ‘And happy?’

  ‘She is well. She does not complain. She knows her duty.’ Now she stood up. ‘Please excuse me, aunt. I would like to look in on the little ones before they go to sleep.’ Her aunt nodded and she left without further word or look to me. Gordon looked perplexed, but his wife cut him short.

  ‘You have an early start, Robert. Perhaps you and Mr Seaton should discuss your business before the hour is too late. You can leave the young ones here to their drinking and their storytelling; you will not be missed.’ She called for a steward to show me back through to the laird’s library, and to bring wine and fruit there for us also. She asked her husband to wait a moment as she had a matter touching the household to discuss with him. I was taken to the library alone.

  The room that I had seen earlier in the fading light of day was transformed now into a cavern of flickering light and shadows. A fire roared in the great hearth and candles had been lit in the sconces, but none were yet set on the tables. A draught, a careless servant bumping into a table on which one was lit, could have destroyed in moments the work of a lifetime, for Straloch’s notes and charts covered every table. I was too cautious now about the matter of maps even to wish to look at any of them. I went over to a recess by the fire, where the light now was best, and peered at the titles on the shelves as they glowed in and out of shadow with the light. The shelf my eye lingered on was filled with histories, histories of our country and our people. Spottiswood, Boece, Buchanan and Knox I knew well, but I eased another volume from the shelf: I had heard of Robert Johnston’s work, but never come across it before. I untied the laces of the binding and opened the book; inside the cover, in a neat hand was an inscription, in Latin, ‘To my dear friend Robert Gordon, in memory of happy Paris days in the springtime of our youth, Robert Johnston.’ The book was still in my hand when the door handle turned and Straloch entered the room. I moved to put it back, but I had not tied the bindings and so was left with it, helpless, in my hands. Gordon came over and looked more closely at the volume.

  ‘A fine choice, Mr Seaton. You may borrow it tonight if you wish, and return it to its place here before you leave tomorrow.’

  I thanked him, but declined. ‘The study of the past is something I have found little profit or comfort in.’

  ‘Then you have been unfortunate. Those who do not know their history do not know themselves, and therefore act for the future, as it were, like a blinkered steed.’

  I passed the book to him, and he retied the bindings before returning it, carefully, to the shelf. When he turned back to face me, I could see he was about to address a subject he did not much care for. He asked me to sit and then waited for the servant to finish lighting the room before proceeding. He cleared his throat. ‘In the course of my time, in my work, and due in some measure to my position in this world, I am obliged to conduct myself with all manner of men. I believe, though perhaps not all do, that God has given it to me to do this without offence to my fellow man. You are a guest in my house, Mr Seaton, and yet I believe tonight that I have – albeit unwittingly – been a cause of discomfort to you and to others at my table.’

  My heart pounded hard within me, and I felt my breathing grow deeper. I did not like the confidences of strangers, and what the essence of this was, I could guess. I wished myself anywhere else but this library.

  ‘I am sorry; I do not know what you speak of. I have been,’ I paused, thinking of Isabella Irvine – I was not going to claim some experience of warmth, ‘I have been treated with civility and hospitality. I can ask no more in the house of a stranger.’

  ‘And yet you should, in this house.’ He pushed back his chair and went to the window, looking out into the darkness. ‘My wife has told me, briefly, of your former closeness and your present estrangement from the family of Hay. She has told me what the enmity of the earl has cost you in the world. She has also told me – and I do not play with my words here – that the girl was sent from Delgatie to sever an attachment she had formed with you. This latter part she had from my niece, and I have no cause to doubt it, for she is an honest girl with no malice or thirst to slander. I suspect there has been much women’s talk between the pair over this whole business, long before you ever set foot in this house. You must excuse my niece’s coldness – and I did mark it at dinner – she has all the passionate notions of one who has not yet lived in the world. As for myself, I would never have talked on as I did had I known any of this.’

  The warmth of the wine and the fire were working through me, and I felt a desire to meet the laird’s honesty with an honesty of my own. ‘The conversation gave me no discomfort that is not with me in any case. I do not like the study of history because it cannot be changed – my history cannot be changed. I do not look for your sympathy. The family of Hay deserved better at my hands.’

  He shuttered the window and turned back towards me. ‘Maybe so. But there must be a limit to retribution, or our society will never prosper; our godly commonwealth will wither and die before it ever bears fruit. The laird of Delgatie can be the warmest and most loyal of friends, but he is also a very dangerous enemy. I would counsel you to be careful of such an enemy, Mr Seaton.’ There was nothing for me to say in response.

  Straloch seemed pleased to have got that business – that women’s business – over with. He strode over to his desk and poured us each a drink of wine. His manner was brisk now, no longer hesitant. ‘Well, then, let us get down to the matter in hand. Your good provost writes that the map he has sent you with was found amongst the belongings of a visitor to your town, and that he would have my advice on its nature. He asks that I should speak to no one but yourself about this business.’ He took a key from a chain in his pocket and unlocked the box I had seen him put the map next to that afternoon. I experienced some little relief to be fulfilling my commission at last, and sat back to wait.

  The laird opened out the sheet and took an eyeglass from his desk. He began at the top left corner and worked very slowly with the glass over the entire sheet. As he did so, I studied the arras hangings on the panelled wall behind him – a well-worked suite depicting the journey of the Egyptian Princess Scota, daughter of the Pharaoh, and progenitrix of our race, to our cold shores. The myth had been used three hundred years ago to argue the rights of our nation against the overlordship of an English king. What did Straloch think of those rights, now that the king in England was our own? I looked at my host; no word escaped him. At length he put the glass down, and sat heavily back into his chair. He looked up at me.

  ‘Have you seen this work, Mr Seaton?’

  I affirmed that I had.

  ‘And what is your assessment of it?’

  I had not expected this again, and had no intention this time either of making accusations against a man who was not able to answer for himself. My only course was to lie.

  ‘I have no assessment of it – none of any significance. It is a map, it is of the coast near Banff, and it is a tidy and detailed bit of work.’

  I did not meet Straloch’s eye; I knew he did not believe me.

  ‘Come now, Mr Seaton, you are a man of some intelligence. This document gives rise to no curiosity, no conjecture, in your mind?’

  I met his gaze now. ‘Only a fool would not be curious,’ I said. ‘I am as curious as our provost and the rest concerned in this business to know what this map signifies. As to conjecture, though, I have learnt that it is a hab
it best indulged in solitude.’

  Straloch nodded. ‘I believe you may well be right. If more of our countrymen were of the same opinion, this would be a more peaceable land.’ He laid the map on a table near the fire, and motioned for me to join him at it. ‘But as to this map, we must deal in specifics, and I cannot believe that you have not formed any view as to why it might have been drawn. The authorities in Banff would never have sent it to me for examination had they no notion at all of what it might be used for. And you must be of their counsel, since you have been entrusted with the document itself, and with my reply – should I choose to make one.’

  There might have been some hostility in the laird’s tone; I could not tell, for I did not know him well enough. I could not blame him for it: if I would not be frank with him, why should he be so with me? What did I owe to the town of Banff, or to those who had sent me on this commission, that I should lie for them? Straloch returned to the map. ‘I will tell you straightly. This is fine work, amongst the finest I have seen. Whose is it? Who is this mysterious visitor to the burgh who has such a thing in his possession?’ The provost had warned me that I was not to answer the laird’s questions, but I was a guest in the laird’s house, and the provost was not here.

  ‘It is the work of the provost’s nephew, apprentice to Edward Arbuthnott, apothecary of Banff.’

  Straloch set down the document. The expression on his face did not allow of further dissembling. ‘Do you tell me that this map was drawn by the man lately found murdered in Banff?’ He saw my awkwardness but waved it away. ‘Do your minister and baillie really think such matters can be kept within the bounds of your burgh like a tethered cow? The whole country is alive with the news, and that the music master is in jail, suspected, all over the love of a woman. But what you bring me today is no lover’s trick. I think you fear you have the wrong man in jail, and perhaps for the wrong crime.’