The wind was sharp and blustery, knocking them about in the narrow lane and threatening to tumble hats and whip shawls away. They were making slow progress, what with Major Keyes’ swinging gait and Robert having to run back after his wide-brimmed hat as if he was chasing a hoop, and as they reached the gate of Aberardour Lodge, Mr. and Mrs. Bootham appeared, wrapped up in coats and cloaks and scarves as if it was midwinter. Mrs. Bootham smiled generally at the party, and Murray felt himself try to turn away involuntarily, as if avoiding the impact of that smile. Beatrix on his arm, however, broke free and stood smiling back. Murray saw with admiration that her complexion was quite pink from the cold wind.
Lord Scoggie and Mr. Bootham were greeting each other cordially, though there was more warmth, perhaps, on his Lordship’s side.
‘And will you walk with us, Mr. Bootham?’ Lord Scoggie was asking.
‘But you are clearly on a family expedition, Lord Scoggie – we would not intrude for the world, would we, my darling?’
‘We are simply off to church, Mr. Bootham!’ Lord Scoggie looked surprised. ‘I had assumed that you would be heading in the same direction.’
‘Oh!’ Mr. Bootham seemed to grow an inch, taking on a rather superior air. ‘I’m afraid my wife and I do not attend.’
‘If you are thinking of an Episcopalian chapel, sir,’ said Deborah, ‘I do not think there is one nearer than Edinburgh.’
‘You mistake, my dear Miss Scoggie: my wife and I do not attend church at all. Religion is an antiquated and meaningless ritual. We do better to shrug off its pointless bonds and return to mankind’s true freedom.’
Murray turned discreetly to catch Beatrix’ eye at this amazing statement, but to his surprise she seemed to be thinking about something else. Lord Scoggie had temporarily lost control of his jaw, and even Deborah seemed unable to think of anything to say. Only Lady Scoggie seemed unshocked.
‘Then you had better not go anywhere at this time of a Sunday,’ she suggested. ‘In this part of the country, you will be opening yourselves to criticism and censure.’
‘I would expect such an attitude from a place so far from the centre of modern thought and attitudes. It is not the fault of these poor people – they lack only the proper education.’
Lady Scoggie’s mouth tightened in a moment of characteristic impatience.
‘I think you underestimate the intelligence of these people – and the ridicule to which you might subject yourself.’
‘Ridicule, eh?’ Bootham paused, a more thoughtful expression on his beautiful face. ‘Perhaps, my dear, we should avoid giving any offence locally, and take our little walk later.’ Mrs. Bootham looked surprised, and opened her mouth as if to protest, but Lord Scoggie had found his voice again.
‘I believe it would be best, sir. That is, if we cannot persuade you to join us?’
‘I fear not, sir.’ Bootham removed his hat to bow once again to the party. ‘I hope we shall meet again soon.’ He smiled smoothly at the family, and led Mrs. Bootham back towards Aberardour Lodge.
‘Extraordinary,’ said Lord Scoggie, when they had moved on out of earshot. ‘Of course one reads about such people – poets, in particular, of course – but who would have thought that they really exist? You dealt with it very well, my dear,’ he added to his wife, though she seemed to be thinking about something else.
‘Does Mr. Bootham never go to church?’ asked Robert interestedly from behind Murray.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Murray. He was not much surprised to find that Mrs. Bootham did not go to church. He could not see her following the precentor’s drab voice amongst solemn stonework and the devout of St. Monance Kirk. He pictured her instead bearing honey and wine to the woodland shrine of an ancient Roman deity, hair loose and barefoot ... he shook his head sharply, but when he looked at Beatrix he thought she needed shaking, too.
By the time they reached the harbour to walk along the shore to the church, there was quite a crowd heading in the same direction in Sabbath solemnity of dress and expression. A certain deference was paid to the Scoggie Castle contingent, and their formation was not disturbed, though people walked beside them and before them. At the end of the village was a little burn, flowing at this time of year but with nothing like its spring energy. They crossed from bank to bank at a rudimentary ford, the gentlemen helping the ladies up and into the kirkyard on the other side.
What stones there were were dark sandstone and almost instantly weathered away on this exposed site, so that local memory and the beadle’s books were the only reliable record of burials on this rocky headland. The wind hurtled across the pale grass as gulls swooped and shrieked around the tattered spire of the church itself, deceptively solid looking against the white sky. Closer inspection revealed black holes amidst the slates and gaping windows, stonework battered and torn, the great west door hanging half off its hinges as if in dismay at the ruins about it. Major Keyes stopped and gazed about him with interest.
‘This is even worse than it was ten years ago. Cousin, your kirk is a wreck. I’ve seen better in sacked cities.’
Lady Scoggie surveyed the building with a frown.
‘There is little enough money in the parish,’ she said crossly, ‘and what there is is better spent elsewhere, as long as we have somewhere to worship in safety.’
‘But you cannot possibly worship in safety in there!’
‘We don’t. We confine ourselves to the east aisle.’ She noticed the minister approaching them, his black gown flapping as if trying to parcel him up. ‘The manse is in a worse state, and we have no schoolhouse at all, should you happen to have any rich friends of a generous disposition, cousin.’
‘Come, Murray,’ said Keyes, ‘there is time yet before the service. Let us see the ladies in and examine these ruins more closely.’
There was not, in fact, long before the service, but Keyes was fascinated: the stone inside the building dripped with damp, green and fragrant as an old well. Dim light seeped down from the high roof and empty windows. A few broken chairs rotted soft as cheese in the middle of the rough floor, amidst fragmented slates and anonymous lumps of tracery. Boards shielded the precious east aisle from this abandoned wreck, built up with broken stones so that there was little noise from the gathering congregation beyond. Keyes prowled about, pausing at every step to see that his wooden peg was safely perched before he put weight on it, Tippoo only ever a step ahead of him and sniffing at everything. Murray stood near the middle, looking around him.
‘You stand very still,’ Keyes remarked suddenly. Murray was taken aback.
‘I like to see what I can from one point,’ he said after a moment. ‘If I move around too much I miss things.’
‘I like to move around,’ said Keyes. ‘Look – what’s here?’
He had found a door, grey-greened to the colour of the walls and low in the side of the church. An old iron latch, red with rust, held it shut, but when Keyes lifted it the door opened with only a little effort, and Keyes said he was sure that the green would brush off his coat later. Inside was darkness: they could see the bare stone floor dimly for a couple of feet, and then nothing.
‘I think it’s where the minister used to keep the communion things and the registers, in a kist,’ said Murray. ‘They’re at the manse now, I believe. The registers were getting damp.’
Keyes had drawn a flint from his pocket and dashed out a light, but all it revealed was a plain stone room built small into the thick walls of the old kirk.
‘We’d better be going,’ Murray added. ‘I think the service is about to begin.’
Keyes let the flame go out, closed the door again and gave one last look around the gloomy space.
‘Aye, well,’ he said at last. ‘I suppose. Is it still that precentor that sings flat?’
Murray grinned.
‘That’s the one.’
Keyes sighed.
‘Sometimes, you know, it’s tempting to be one of these modern atheists.’
&
nbsp; Murray’s head was still hurting on Monday morning, and his back, stiff from being pressed against the back of the pew for so long on Sunday, stung. In the hours before breakfast and after morning prayers, he set the boys a lengthy Latin passage to translate and made his way down to the kitchen to crave a cup of tea. Mrs. Costane instructed Hannah to pour him one, and looked at him with concern.
‘You’re still not right, Mr. Murray. I hope you’re not off to the funeral today.’
‘I think I have to, Mrs. Costane. Everyone else is going, and I was one of those who was there when it happened.’
She sucked her teeth sharply.
‘A terrible thing to happen to such a pleasant wee man. Andrew, lad, come here and help Hannah lift the ham off the fire, would you?’
Andrew pushed his blonde hair back off his face and looked up from polishing boots in one of the window embrasures.
‘I thought helping with the food was Grisell’s job?’
‘Did you ever read in the Bible about a job given to one person and no one else? Grisell’s off doing the fireplace in the Great Hall.’
‘Thank heavens,’ Murray remarked. ‘You could use that room as an icehouse.’
‘She’s only polishing the brass bits, not lighting it.’ Mrs. Costane said absently, supervising the lifting of the ham. ‘On to this ashet, that’s the way. There, good: now take it over to the table in that window and let it stand.’
‘Grisell hates that job anyway,’ Hannah remarked.
‘Why?’ Andrew was always keen to find out more about Grisell: the servants had been marking with interest the confident town man’s clumsy courtship which Grisell had so far not deigned to take under her notice.
‘She doesna like ham, of course,’ said Hannah, impatiently.
‘Why of course?’
‘Oh, well,’ said Hannah, with mock respect, ‘since you’re from the worldly metropolis of Kirkcaldy, you wouldna ken our little local customs. In the village, the fisherfolk dinna like pork and pigs, and the uptown folk like them. It’s as simple as that.’
Andrew stared at her in disbelief.
‘And Grisell is from the fisherfolk, then?’ he stuttered.
‘Aye, of course. Her father’s a man named Richie Shaw, one of the high heidyins down yonder, and a great pal of Joe Baillie, the king of them all. Aye – I hope you like the smell of herring, young man, and can give up your breakfast bacon.’
Murray thought Andrew looked rather pale, but he was so fair it was hard to tell. He looked, for a second, as he stood in the middle of the kitchen, like an echo of someone else Murray had once met, but the impression was fleeting and Murray’s mind lost its grip of it in a moment.
‘Well, when’s this funeral?’ Andrew asked abruptly.
‘You’re no going, you never met the man,’ said Mrs. Costane.
‘I know that,’ said Andrew quickly. ‘I only wanted to know when you would all be off.’
‘Straight after breakfast.’ Naismyth stalked into the kitchen and made them all jump. He paused and looked about him slowly, as if taking angles of the room by the length of his beak. ‘You may stay here,’ he went on at last, ‘and keep a pot boiling for tea when we return.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Andrew returned dutifully to the shoes, kneeling amongst them with an admirable regard for the knees of his breeches.
‘Ah, Mr. Murray,’ said Naismyth, turning his head, a little to one side, in Murray’s direction. ‘I hope this morning finds you improved.’
‘A little, thank you, Mr. Naismyth.’
‘Will the boys be attending the funeral?’
Murray frowned. He had discussed this with Lord Scoggie yesterday but their conclusion had satisfied neither of them. Lord Scoggie felt that neither of them was old enough: Murray thought that Henry was, but not Robert. Both of them, however, thought that attending Cocky’s funeral would be of value to both boys. Henry had been deeply upset since the carriage ride home with his senseless tutor on Saturday night, and the funeral might help him to put an end to it. Robert, on the other hand, seemed completely unmarked by the incident, and displayed only a greater zeal for pugilism. As no one had the heart to fight with him, he was reduced to boxing pillows, doorways and trees, but Murray and Lord Scoggie both found it disturbing.
‘Yes, Robert and Henry are both to attend the funeral.’
‘And Major Keyes will lend the occasion a heroic dignity, no doubt,’ Naismyth added with satisfaction. ‘Is the breakfast nearly ready to go up, Mrs. Costane?’
‘It is, Mr. Naismyth.’
‘Then let us proceed.’ With his features arranged into the likeness of a benevolent smile, Naismyth nodded roundly at the company, and Murray took his cue to leave his tea and hurry back to the Great Hall to join the family for breakfast. It was served, inasmuch as breakfast was ever served, by Naismyth and Grisell, and Murray noticed that she avoided even touching the ham plate. Richie Shaw was one of the fishermen who had come to speak to Lord Scoggie last week ... well, well.
The family were already in mourning, and when the table had been cleared Murray checked to see that Henry and Robert were properly turned out for their first funeral. Henry was pale, though Robert seemed more excited than distressed. Gathering in the entrance hall, they waited for the carriages to come round, and Keyes took the boys, Murray and Tippoo in his, while the others climbed into the Scoggie carriage. Knowing the servants would follow directly, they set off.
The funeral was well attended, the mourners squeezing into the little house that Cocky had lived in alone. Nathaniel Tibo was the chief mourner, and looked more genuinely upset than Murray had ever seen him. He seemed to have provided the funeral meats out of his own pocket. The crowded rooms were warm, and people busied themselves with eating, drinking, and saluting Cocky’s little coffin, reluctant to leave for the cold outdoors and the interment in the bleak kirkyard.
Up the hill, Geordie Kinkell’s cottage was quiet and the loom stood still, for Geordie was at the funeral – Cocky Leckie had been an uptown man, but in any case was a popular one. His wife was not well enough to attend, and was lying in the kitchen bed, dozing fitfully and then waking at the unaccustomed silence. Above her she could hear gulls screaming, and the wind was getting up: in her broken dreams she was battered by storms and blown over cliffs, only to be caught up by the strangling bedclothes again. The pain was not bad today, for which she gave thanks in a whispered prayer, as fervently as she often prayed for relief, or simply for the ability to stand it and not distress her poor son Peter, who had not the mind, poor lad, to understand why his mother was always abed, or to stand her greeting.
At first the sound at the door was just a part of her dreams, the sound of trees cracking in a high wind. A brighter light shone, and for a moment her dreams took a strange turn, the gates of Heaven opened and she gasped herself awake, to find that the cottage door was open. Even in that moment, it closed again, and she could see a dark shape in the kitchen with her.
‘Mother?’
‘Oh, son, is that you? Is that you? I haven’t seen you for so long!’
‘Mother, why did no one tell me you were so ill? What’s the matter?’
She shrugged a little, looking away from him.
‘It won’t be for long, anyway, think of that,’ she said. He seemed to allow this ambiguous statement to comfort him for a moment. He drew a creepie stool over from the fireplace with his foot, and sat beside her bed, taking her hand in his. She could feel his shock at how thin it was, how his automatic grasp had to tighten a little to find her papery hot skin. He looked round him at the dim kitchen, exploring with his eyes, noting the familiar and the changes since he was last there. She watched him, her own eyes half-closed, as he examined the hams hanging to smoke in the rafters, the family Bible on a high shelf with a yellowed print of John Knox, the fire tamped down so that she would not have to worry about it while she was in the house on her own, the table with the branderback chairs around it, at which, when he was small, he w
ould have had to perch on a roll made out of his father’s greatcoat to reach his bowl of brose, the low doorway through to the room where his father had the loom. Even as she watched him, she could see the fond rejection in his eyes – he remembered, but he could pass beyond these humble beginnings: his life now would not involve brose, she was sure. She smiled a little, proud of him, but that did not stop the tears coming to her eyes. She tried to blink them away before he looked back at her, but did not quite succeed.
‘Are you in pain, mother? Is there anything I can do?’
‘Oh, there is pain, my dear, but as to what you could do ... If you would be willing, I could fancy a wee cup of tea. I have a powder here from that woman in Elie that takes away some of the worst of it.’
He had already stood up to move the kettle over the fire when he heard the rest of her speech. He was shocked.
‘That old woman by the harbour? Is she not a witch?’
His mother laughed, a shadow of old laughter.
‘Aye, she looks it, but she’s kind enough to those in need. Here, help me to sit up a bit.’
He was an inexpert nurse, but between them they managed to manoeuvre her up the bed to lean against its wooden head. He pulled the covers up to her chest and on her instruction fetched her a shawl to put around her shoulders. He seemed cheered by this change in her appearance, as if someone sitting up was further from death than someone lying down. He grinned at her in the old way, and she smiled back.
‘My golden boy,’ she said fondly, and his grin spread as he brought the kettle to the boil and made tea for both of them.
‘How long are you able to stay?’ she asked.
‘Not long, mother. I might be missed.’
She tried to hide her disappointment in a little fluster over pouring her powder into her tea. He watched her in concern.
Knowledge of Sins Past (Murray of Letho Book 2) Page 16