The Royal Mile

by Mary Daheim

  “It’s different with men,” Glennie mumbled inadequately, glancing at Donald who was rambling uneasily about the parlor. Nan and Flora had fled upstairs to unpack and tend to Nan’s babe, who had turned colicky overnight.

  Donald, in fact, was getting on Dallas’s nerves. He had scarcely spoken to her since Fraser’s arrival at Strathmuir. He had held her in special esteem, different from the frivolous court ladies, and more like a sister than anyone he had ever known. But when his suspicion about her and John Hamilton had been revealed as fact, he had remembered all his father had told him about Papist whores and their insatiable carnal appetites. He had even begun to wonder if the Queen herself were as virtuous as she was purported to be. As for Glennie and Tarrill, he thought speculatively, they seemed like decent women, but who could really tell?

  Naturally, his attitude had not gone unnoticed by Dallas. As Tarrill handed him a mug of steaming wine, Dallas spoke her mind: “Since you’ve been acting lately as if you were in the employ of Queen Jezebel, I’ve wondered if it wouldn’t be best for you to return to court. No doubt Her Grace would be delighted to welcome back such a model of moral rectitude.”

  The bite in Dallas’s words stung Donald, but he merely nodded. “It is where I belong. I’ll leave tomorrow.”

  An awkward silence followed Donald’s decision. Marthe wheezed out of the room to fetch food while Tarrill fidgeted with a cream pitcher she was trying to mend and Glennie sorted out her latest knitting project, a muffler for Walter Ramsay’s birthday present. Dallas’s rocking chair creaked as she sat scowling into the fire while the wind whipped through the chimney, sending patterns of bright sparks against the bricks.

  “Mayhap I should have stayed in Chelsea,” Dallas said at last. “At least all I had to worry about there was being thrown into the Tower.”

  Tarrill put down the broken pitcher and hurried over to sink down by Dallas’s side. “Dearest sister, it’s just that everything is all a-jumble! So much has happened to you and it confuses us!”

  Dallas patted Tarril's dark head rather absently. “Yes, I suppose.” She gazed for a long time into the dancing fire. “Sometimes I wonder where it all began. Was it here, in this room, the night our father died?”

  Tarrill raised her head slowly, as Dallas’s hand dropped away. Glennie’s knitting needles clicked together and then stopped in midair. They both stared at their sister. They had, after all, allowed her to be their self-appointed savior. For a time, it had seemed to work out in a satisfactory, if unorthodox fashion. Yet now, the path that had led them to physical comfort and financial security had also led Dallas to heartbreak and disgrace. They were both ashamed.

  Glennie also got up to come stand by Dallas. She hugged her sister’s shoulders tenderly. “We’ve behaved very badly towards you, Dallas. Can you forgive us?”

  “Fie, don’t fawn over me so! I’m weary and out of sorts.” As Marthe huffed into the room carrying a platter full of food, Dallas squeezed her sisters’ hands and then pushed them firmly away from her chair.

  Donald left the next morning for Craigmillar where the court was in residence. His farewell to Dallas was brief but somewhat warmer than his manner had been during the past few weeks. She thanked him for all his help during the previous months and insisted that he accept a pouch of coins in recompense. Donald demurred but when Dallas pointed out brusquely that he had well earned it and that if he hadn’t gone with her to London, he would have received his regular wages as a Queen’s guardsman, he finally relented. Dallas was pleased that he did, but her reaction was tempered by the fact that the money was the last she had managed to put aside since leaving Scotland the previous summer.

  That was not the main reason she headed out an hour later for Fraser’s town house, however. She had to know if her husband was in Edinburgh and if the babe was with him. Wearing her plainest dark green dress and a brown cloak, she headed through the rain for Gosford’s Close. For once, she hardly noticed the sights and sounds of her beloved city. Intent upon her mission, she did not pause to reacquaint herself with Edinburgh’s sooty, colorful, dingy, raucous, dank, secret charms. Later, perhaps, when she had found out where Iain had taken their son.

  The town house looked much the same, though the upstairs windows were shuttered. He’s not here, Dallas thought with a heavy heart, but then she really hadn’t expected him to be. She tugged at the knocker and waited for a response. As rain trickled down her forehead, she pulled her hood up more securely and tucked her hands inside her cloak. She’d forgotten her gloves. “Fie,” she said under her breath, just as Cummings opened the door.

  “My lady!” He drew in his breath, obviously disconcerted by her presence on the front stoop.

  “I gather my husband is not here,” she said, irritated by Cummings’s punctilious look. “But I must know—where is the bairn?”

  Cummings did indeed alter his expression, not to pity, nor sympathy, nor even compassion—yet Dallas felt some sort of understanding pass between them. He seemed to waver about inviting her inside but must have remembered his orders. “You’re right, my lady, Baron Fraser is not in residence. Nor is wee Magnus.”

  “Magnus!” Dallas shrieked the name. “He calls our babe Magnus?”

  Cummings took a step backwards. “Aye, a woodcutter he much admired as a lad in the Highlands was named Magnus. A fine man, wise and strong, he told me.”

  “Magnus,” Dallas repeated the name to herself, trying to reconcile it with her tiny babe. “Well? Where then is Magnus?”

  “I cannot say,” answered Cummings, managing to look simultaneously self-righteous and shamefaced.

  A gust of wind blew Dallas’s hood off. She snatched it back over her hair and shook a finger at Cummings. “Don’t think I won’t find out! If Iain thinks I’ll give up my child without a fight, he’s much mistaken! I’ll not rest until I’ve got him back!”

  Before Cummings could respond, Dallas had whirled away and was heading back towards the High Street.

  Later that day a messenger arrived for Dallas. Cummings had sent money and a note which read: “My lady, our conversation was terminated so abruptly this morning that I had no chance to give you your monthly allowance, this being the first day of April. As you are aware, Baron Fraser had been in arrears due to his detention in London and your own absence from Scotland. The sums covering the past ten months are included as my master did not want you to be out of pocket. He wishes in no way to violate the tenets of your matrimonial agreement.”

  Dallas flung the note into the fire and threw the pouch onto the dresser without counting its contents. Then she sat down at her small, worn oak desk to begin a letter to the Queen. She would not be rejoining the court for a while, Dallas wrote in her big sprawling hand, but would appreciate it if the Queen could find a place for a reliable wet nurse. She hoped Her Grace was pleased to have Donald McVurrich back at court. She had heard Her Grace had been unwell for a time but understood she was recovered, for which Dallas thanked God most gratefully.

  Tapping the end of the quill against her teeth, Dallas mulled over how to phrase the all-important next few lines. At last, since she assumed the Queen knew the whole sordid story anyway, she wrote with complete candor: “As my husband has taken away our son and I know not where either of them may be, I beseech Your Grace to tell me if you know of their whereabouts. If ever I pleased you in any act or deed, I pray to God you will assist me in this most heart-rending matter.” Signing her name with something less than the usual flourish, Dallas blotted the page and sealed it with hot wax.

  When the Queen’s reply was delivered a week later, it was no comfort to Dallas. Mary Stuart had not seen Fraser since the first week of March. She was deeply distressed by the problems the Frasers had encountered, Mary wrote discreetly, and would keep them both in her prayers. Dallas crumpled up the fine parchment and consigned that missive to the fire, too.

  “Where would you take a bairn not yet three months old if you were Iain?” Dallas asked Tarrill that ni
ght as the two sisters filled a large oak tub with hot bath water.

  “If he’s not at his town house and not with the court, then mayhap he went north to Beauly.”

  “That’s possible,” Dallas said, dumping a pitcher of steaming water into the tub, “but I don’t know any of his relations there. He mentioned names now and then, but I’m not sure who is who.”

  Tarrill tested the water with her fingers, withdrawing them quickly. “Oooh, that’s hot! What about the Fraser chieftain? Wouldn’t he know which members of his clan lived where?”

  Dallas considered this idea for a moment. “He’s but a lad, I met him two years ago on that dreadful progress north. But he is well spoken and takes his responsibilities seriously.” She picked up a cake of Marthe’s lye soap and rubbed it thoughtfully between her hands. “Aye, Tarrill, you may be right. I’ll send a letter to Lord Hugh tomorrow.”

  It was late May before Dallas received a reply from the Fraser chieftain. As he himself was unlettered, an old priest at Beauly Priory penned the message from him. Regrettably, he had not seen his kinsman, Iain, since the Queen had held court almost two years ago at Inverness. But if the child were in the Highlands, Fraser’s widowed cousin, Sorcha MacSymond, might know where. He wished Lady Fraser well and hoped she would soon find her babe and her husband.

  Frustrated, Dallas reread the letter several times. Sorcha—she had heard Iain mention the name. At least it was another possibility. And Lord Hugh had replied, as she had feared he might not. Her own letter had been phrased to make it sound as if her husband and child had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. True enough, she’d decided at the time, and hoped fervently that the real story hadn’t yet reached the Highlands. She sat down to write to Sorcha MacSymond at Beauly.

  As spring merged into summer, Dallas became more and more immersed in the old, familiar routine of her childhood home. Walter Ramsay was a frequent visitor, no longer concealing his courtship of Glennie. Both Dallas and Tarrill were pleased. Their older sister had always been genuinely fond of Walter but was becoming increasingly coquettish in his presence. The two boys already treated him as they would a stepfather and he responded in kind.

  For Dallas, that was the only bright spot of a lonely, depressing season. While her family was a comfort, they were no substitute for husband or child. Nan had joined Lord Erskine’s retinue in Musselburgh, which was a relief to Dallas since the presence of the other babe only served as a constant reminder of her own. Flora, of course, stayed on, frequently meeting head-on with Marthe in domestic matters. Dallas and her sisters would have been distressed at the bickering if they hadn’t finally realized that the two women often sat up late into the night exchanging gossip over mugs of ale.

  In early August, Dallas finally got a reply from Sorcha MacSymond. With trembling fingers, she opened the battered letter which looked as if it had suffered a hard passage in its course from the Highlands. It became clear at once that Dallas’s ruse had not worked with Fraser’s cousin as it had with Lord Hugh:

  “I have delayed writing because I felt that Iain would not wish me to have any correspondence with you. While he did not completely open his heart to me during his stay last spring, I was made to understand that you were to have nothing more to do with wee Magnus. I myself was never blessed with a child so I cannot fully understand how it is with a mother’s heart. Yet since Iain brought Magnus to me, I have learned something of maternal feelings and now realize the anguish you must be suffering. So if God and Iain will forgive me, I am writing to let you know that the babe is safe and well with me here at Beauly.”

  Dallas covered her face with the letter and fell onto the bed. At last, she thought numbly, I know where he is! All the months of waiting and wondering were finally over. She rolled off the bed, dropped to her knees and fervently thanked God for letting Sorcha act so mercifully.

  Naturally, she would go to Beauly. This time she would not ask Donald to escort her. He might refuse, and although he had seemed to have thawed a bit on his last two visits to the Cameron house, she thought it best to seek someone else to accompany her north. But who? She couldn’t ask Cummings to lend her any of Fraser’s retainers—he’d refuse outright.

  She was still racking her brain over the matter two days later when John Hamilton came to call. When Marthe brought him into the parlor Dallas stared in astonishment. “John! You shouldn’t have come! I heard you were with the court on progress!”

  “I was, I left at Linlithgow.” Hamilton shifted his weight uneasily, while Marthe stood in the doorway like a squat, red-faced sentinel.

  Dallas gestured for the serving woman to leave. Marthe hesitated, shot a disapproving glance at Hamilton’s broad back, and huffed away indignantly.

  “Sit, I’ll fetch wine.” Dallas fluttered uncharacteristically about the room, momentarily forgetting where the decanter was kept.

  “Never mind, Dallas, I dined with Gavin an hour ago,” Hamilton said. “See here, sweetheart, I didn’t mean to disconcert you. But I had to make one last attempt to reason with you.”

  Dallas sat down in the rocking chair opposite him. “Oh, please, I can’t go through that again!” She clenched her fists and shook her head.

  He rubbed thoughtfully at the thick moustache, deep creases lining his forehead. “I know I vowed to do what you wished, but now we’ve both had time to think, to distance ourselves from that wretched day at Strathmuir. Obviously, you have not reconciled with Fraser. Nor do you have your child back.”

  “Not yet,” Dallas responded, her chin jutting. “Such things take time.”

  Hamilton leaned forward, the clan plaid slipping from his shoulders. “Don’t build walls of words between us, Dallas. Tell me this—do you love me?”

  She looked away from his level gaze, down to the tips of her shoes. “I don’t know,” she breathed, “I have never known what I feel for you.”

  He sighed, his hands on his knees. “All right. I can try to accept your ambivalence. But surely after all these months you can’t hold out hope for your marriage to Fraser?”

  Living one day at a time as she had promised herself, she had not looked too far into the future. She had always found it difficult to believe that Fraser truly loved her. Pursued by court beauties, great ladies and women in half the ports of Europe, it had seemed unlikely that his choice should have fallen on her. If he had never loved her, then her chances of getting him back were hopeless. She had given him a lawful heir; perhaps that was all he had wanted from her. Yet Dallas stubbornly refused to give up.

  “I don’t know.” She raised her eyes to look at Hamilton. “The smallest scrap of hope can sustain me for a long time. You see, John, I may love you in a very special way I can’t explain. Looking back, I would have married you if you’d asked me before I married Iain. I think I could have gone to your bed more willingly than I first did to his. You didn’t frighten me, you were always kind and good. I liked you from the beginning, though I was afraid of men. If we had wed, I know I would have learned to love you. And maybe I do anyway. But I still love Iain. Can you understand that?” Her words held a pleading note, for she had to make him see what was going through her mind.

  He adjusted the plaid as he considered her explanation. “God only knows I’d like to. Maybe some day I will.” He stood up, turning away to absently pick up a pewter candlestick on the mantel, and he seemed to hesitate before he spoke again. “I’ll be going away then, Dallas, I’ll be gone for some time.”

  In spite of herself, Dallas felt a dull sensation in her chest. “Where? For how long?”

  He turned back to face her. “I’d made up my mind before I came that if you rejected me I’d go abroad to Italy. I’d prefer not leaving the Queen at this juncture, I’d rather wait until she’d found a suitable husband and is completely out from under James’s thumb. Since Patrick Ruthven joined the council, James’s influence has waned, yet I mislike Ruthven, too.” He put the candlestick down and passed his hand over his forehead. “On the other
hand, I must do right by myself. I cannot stay here, where I’d see you and ache with wanting you. So after I have my business affairs in order, I’ll sail to the Continent to see if I can bury my memories there.”

  He looked so defeated that Dallas could hardly refrain from taking him in her arms. “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t do that on my account! I can’t bear to think of you so unhappy!”

  He smiled faintly. “I’ll survive. It’s not your fault, not really. Without you, there’s no real future for me here just now. Some still say the Queen should marry a Hamilton, since we stand next in line to the throne. But while my brother Arran lives, God help him, there is no chance that Mary Stuart would wed with me. Nor am I sure I want that particular honor.”

  “You’d make an excellent consort, John,” Dallas insisted, thinking that the crown of Scotland should more than make up for losing her. “Stay, there must be some way to set your brother aside since he’s clearly mad. Besides, I’m leaving Edinburgh for some time. My son is at Beauly, and I’m going there as soon as I can find an escort.”

  “You found out where the bairn is?” Hamilton was momentarily distracted from his own problems. “Dallas, do you think you should venture into Fraser country under the circumstances?”

  “The circumstances are that Iain has taken our son to Beauly,” Dallas said with asperity. “And that’s where I’m going.”

  Hamilton fretted for a few moments over her plan. But he knew she had made up her mind. “Who will escort you? Donald?”

  “No, not this time,” Dallas shrugged. “I’ll find somebody. I’m not concerned about that,” she lied.

  “If you must go on this mad excursion, let me do you one last favor. I have two men in Edinburgh with me, MacPherson and Chisholm, who are both from the Highlands. You must permit them to go with you.”