It was settled between us that he should come to our house at eight o’clock the following night, and then we went our separate ways, I to my home and my watchful wife, he to his ship.
*
She was waiting, of course she was waiting. When I saw the light glow from our window as I turned in to the close, I could have cursed my stupidity. I should have taken a moment to tell her there was nothing to fear, that I knew who it was. For all I could tell, she might have sent William, or even the watch, after me. At best, she would be in that little house, frightened for my life.
She was there, at the table, and her face slumped in to her hands when she saw me.
‘Thank God.’
I went quietly to her and took her hands. The fire had been long dead in the hearth and she was chilled to the bone. ‘Sarah, I am so sorry. I should have told you.’
‘Told me what?’ she said.
‘That there was no danger. That I knew who he was and that he meant me no harm.’
She straightened herself, fully awake now. ‘The recruiting sergeant? You know him? But how can you know him?’
I took a deep breath. There was no easy way to say it, no lead-up that could prepare her. ‘Sarah, do not be frightened by what I’m about to tell you: it’s Archie.’
Her face blanched and her lips moved, but no words came out. I tightened my grip on her hand but she pulled it away. ‘It cannot be,’ she said at last, her face contorted in incomprehension, ‘It cannot.’
‘He didn’t die, Sarah. It is him, flesh and blood. No impostor. He has been so altered by the war – he chose not to come back.’
She stood up, nearly knocking over the chair on which she had been sitting. ‘No, it cannot be,’ she repeated. ‘Because then you …’ She shook her head at me, horrified almost. ‘You, and I … the children. No. You are lying. It cannot be so.’
I reached out for her but she stepped back from me as if it was I who was the spectre. ‘None of this would be.’
‘Sarah.’ I reached for her, but I did not even know if she was listening to me. ‘What would or would not have been is of no matter. None. It was God’s will and God’s purpose that I did not know. Only what is, now, matters.’
She stared at me, and it was a moment before I understood what I had said wrong. ‘To you, perhaps,’ she said quietly, before taking the candle and walking up the stairs.
As I sat in the darkness, in the cold stillness of the house, staring uselessly into the ashes of the dead hearth, it came to me at last what I had done: I had not told her that even had I known, in time, that Archie lived, I would have chosen her anyway. For years now, when I thought of it at all, I had believed that myself. But that was when I had believed Archie dead. Now that I knew he had lived all these years, I knew in my mind and my heart that I could not, in God’s truth, have told her that I would have chosen her.
9
The Schoolmistress Trials
I had held Sarah through the night, and while she had slept, eventually, I had not. In the morning, we moved uneasily around one another, our conversation stilted until I had, almost out of the blue, told her that Archie was to come to our house that night. After her initial shock and disbelief, she had asked me more questions, and by the time I left for the college she had accepted that there could be no danger in it and was, I thought, almost looking forward to meeting the man of whom I had so often spoken.
After the disruptions and revelations of the night, the last thing I wanted was to be forced to listen, five times over, to the listing of the virtuous living of five young women, to hear proofs of their competency in letters, their frugality – this a particular concern of the burgh fathers – and to examine minutely their dexterity with a needle. Dr Dun, however, would not listen to my pleas that another might be sent in my place to represent the college at the trials for Lady Rothiemay’s schoolmistress.
‘Katharine Forbes specifically requested you, Alexander. She seems to have conceived a liking for you, and it is not an accolade she bestows lightly, I can assure you. And I, for one, am not the man to cross her.’ He cleared his throat and looked up from the papers he had been arranging on his desk. ‘If it was essential that you spent an evening carousing, you would have done better, I think, not to do it on the night before these trials.’
I was astounded, and could not see how he had guessed at my activities of the previous night. Then a thought struck me that chilled me. ‘Were you on the Heading Hill?’
He grimaced before replying. ‘If you think I have been amongst scholars my entire life without being able to tell when a man has spent an evening in drink, you know me very ill. But the Heading Hill?’
I opened my mouth to answer him but he held up a hand. ‘Tell me no more. What I do not know I will not be constrained to lie to the session about, but for God’s sake, Alexander,’ he put down the papers in frustration, ‘you are to be inducted as a minister of the kirk in a few weeks’ time: this is not the time to revert to the behaviour of an undergraduate.’
I bowed my head in embarrassment in the manner of just such a creature. ‘No, Sir.’
He nodded. ‘Good. Now get yourself to Baillie Lumsden’s house. Her Ladyship is not a person who likes to wait upon events – or tardy schoolmen.’
The guards at Lumsden’s door had been warned of my coming and let me pass without any great degree of examination. The place was a warren of stairs, corridors, and inter-connecting rooms, and I had to descend by one turnpike from a floor I had reached by another before I found a servant who could tell me where to go.
When I was shown in to the Great Hall, I felt my shoulders relax and a great sense of relief spread through me to see that while the master of the house, in this instance representing the council, was already there, neither Lady Rothiemay nor her young companion, Isabella Irvine, were in sight.
Lumsden got to his feet and greeted me cheerfully. ‘So, Mr Seaton, the short straw has fallen to you. And are you an expert on spinning, the sewing of a sampler, the making of a poultice, perhaps?’
‘Her Ladyship appears to be under the impression that I am,’ I said quietly, not sure how far away the two women might be. Indeed, I had an irrational fear that she might be positioned secretly by the ‘laird’s lug’ – the hidden listening place which all the houses of the powerful had, that the master might hear what was said of him by those who paraded themselves as friends.
Lumsden smiled. ‘Never fear – you can speak freely for the minute. Lady Katharine and Isabella have gone to view George Jamesone’s garden plans. Her Ladyship has a notion for improvements at Rothiemay, and was bent on quizzing the gardener. No doubt George has held up proceedings, as he is wont to do.’
Lumsden motioned that I should take the chair opposite his, by the huge hearth that dominated the room. The tiles were Dutch Delft, and indeed, I would have guessed that much of the furnishing in the room was of the best Dutch, or occasionally, English, craftsmanship. It was a room in which men might be comfortable – solid oak rather than the delicate yews and walnuts of his wife’s parlour across the landing; simple woodsmoke rather than the spiced pomanders that would catch in my throat after not many minutes’ exposure. The east-facing windows, looking down on to all that passed on the Guest Row, afforded very little light, and only two candles in the long room were as yet lit. It was still morning but might have been a late winter’s afternoon. I had been in this room several times before my recent encounter with Lady Rothiemay and Isabella, more often in my student days than recently, when the bailie had summoned his troublesome nephew, my good friend Matthew, and I had been persuaded along to give moral support. Matthew had been wilder, in some ways, even than Archie, although his wildness tended more to matters of religion and politics than to women and wine. There had been times, none the less, when all had come together in a dangerous mix that inevitably resulted in hot words, black eyes and burst lips. Only last night, Archie and I had laughed again at the memory of one of his fights with Matthew in which
the senior student who had tried to break them up had come off worst of the three. Neither of us could remember the name of the lady whose questionable virtue had been the occasion for the fight.
Now, however, Matthew seemed to move in ever-deepening shadows. Archie hinted he had heard of him sometimes, but seemed reluctant to tell me any more, and I had not pressed him. As Deacon Gammie’s insinuations at the session two nights earlier had reminded me, Matthew’s attachment to the household of the Marquis of Huntly had never been a secret, and his crypto-Catholicism not nearly hidden enough. Only his contumacious absence in the face of repeated summonses from kirk session and presbytery, and the protection of his all-powerful patron kept him from punishments that lesser men would be forced to undergo. I asked his elder kinsman for his news.
Lumsden sucked at his lip and teeth a moment before answering me. ‘Matthew is … much busied on the Marquis’s affairs, which, thank the Lord, are not as dangerous now as once they were. Fortunately, the Marquis pays attention to his French associations, and is not so inclined, it would seem, to revive his family’s – ah – interests in Spain. Spain being not entirely in vogue at the moment,’ he added.
I did not need to remind Lumsden that Spain had very seldom been in vogue as far as our church or government might be concerned, regardless of the intriguing the Marquis’s Gordon forebears had so enthusiastically indulged in. That we were now at war with Spain and ostensibly the allies of France could be seen as an unusual piece of political fortune for Huntly, hereditary Colonel of the Garde Eccossaise, the personal bodyguard of the kings of France.
‘Matthew is in France, then,’ I said.
Lumsden inclined his head slightly. ‘I believe so. But you will understand it would not be wise for me in the current climate to show too great an interest in the politics outside our burgh.’ He appeared to hesitate before continuing. ‘I know I can speak in confidence to you, Alexander …’
I assured him that he could.
‘Then I will tell you that the time is coming when we all may have to make the type of choices Matthew has not hesitated to make. I fear we have a king in London now who understands very little of this nation and its people, listening to men such as Laud who understands nothing of us at all, and does not see why he should try to. Charles Stuart should have a great care not to impose more on his Scottish birthplace than his people are prepared to accept, or it will not just be hotheads like my young cousin who will give him pause for thought.’
‘He does not pay heed to the Privy Council?’
‘On some matters, but in others he shows little interest, and it gives lesser men their heads to play their own interests in the face of natural justice.’
‘As with Lady Rothiemay, you mean?’
He nodded. ‘I have heard it rumoured that a letter is on its way to the sheriff of Banff charging him with apprehending Katharine Forbes and bringing her before the council, over her … activities.’
‘She seeks only justice for her murdered son.’
He sighed. ‘She will not get it. I know that, and so does she. But she will bow to no one.’
Through his frustration, his admiration for the woman was evident, and I suspected that even her enemies at times were caught up in the force of her charm.
‘In you at least she has a friend and I pray God will reward you for your steadfastness, even if our present society does not,’ I said.
He looked at me strangely. ‘If we are not steadfast to our friends, Alexander, we render our pasts false and our futures empty.’ He looked as if he would say more, but the sound of female voices drifting up from the stairway at the far end of the room took our attention. I do not know whether I or the master of the house was the quicker to sit straight in his chair. In a moment Lady Rothiemay appeared, closely followed by Isabella Irvine.
‘Baillie, Mr Seaton, we have kept you waiting. Well, no matter, no doubt you have not been lost for conversation together.’
‘We have been gossiping over old acquaintance, as men will do,’ said Lumsden, standing to offer her his seat by the fire.
‘Thank you. Jamesone had me standing nigh on half an hour with enquiries after my many relatives – there is no one with whom the man is not acquainted. And as for his garden schemes, it is a wonder he ever has the time to pick up a brush.’ She removed her calfskin gloves and stretched still elegant hands towards the flames. ‘And yet I should not grumble, for half an hour of his conversation is of greater interest than three hours’ worth from many another man.’
Lumsden raised his eyebrows at me in such a manner that I was hard put to keep a straight face. ‘And did you manage to meet with his gardener?’ he asked her.
‘What? Oh yes. An admirable fellow, Monsieur Charpentier. We shall have him out to Banffshire. He will find many commissions there amongst my friends.’
Isabella, slowly removing her outer garments, cast an eye at the walnut-panelled long clock in the corner. ‘I think, if the women are here, we should begin.’
The candidates had been waiting in Lumsden’s wife’s parlour, and were now brought before us, one at a time. There were five women, whose ages ranged from about seventeen to forty, each dressed in what could only have been her best Sabbath attire. I recognised at least three of them – two widowed acquaintances of Sarah’s and Elizabeth’s, and Christiane Rolland, the French master’s sister. Each interview followed a similar pattern to the first. Lumsden, on behalf of the council, having already scrutinized their letters of recommendation, quizzed them further on their families, the length and nature of their attachment to the burgh, and their present circumstances. He then examined their understanding of basic accounts and the clarity with which they could present them. It fell to me, less as a college regent than as a soon-to-be-inducted minister, to enquire after their morals and their knowledge of the catechisms, before setting them to some small task that would give proof of their proficiency in letters. Isabella then questioned them closely on their facility in various tasks of household economy and practice, from the preparing of simples to the darning of a sock. Lady Rothiemay, to my surprise, said nothing at all. It was only when I caught the look in her eye as the third candidate, a narrow, joyless spinster well advanced in years, was undergoing her trial that I realised what her Ladyship’s role in proceedings was: she was deciding if she liked them.
Christiane Rolland was the last of the candidates to come before us, by which time I was thoroughly regretting the amount of Archie’s brandy I had drunk and the sleep I had not had. I had known Christiane since she had been a child of eight, and so paid little heed to her answers to Lumsden’s questions on her eligibility for the post and her connections in the burgh. I already knew of her proficiency in letters and set her only a very small task, which she completed with less competence than I would have expected – the quill in her hand shaking a little, and the handwriting being consequently less legible than I knew it to be. Her answers on the catechisms were perfect, as had been those of all the women, and had it not been for the rigid form of proceeding that had been set down in advance, I would not have troubled to ask after her morals at all. And yet I had to, for form, and it must have been as plain to the three others in the room as it was to myself that these were the questions that gave Christiane Rolland the greatest discomfort of all. When I asked her, at the last, if she knew of any cause for which her good name and propriety of living might be called into question, she seemed for a moment at a loss for what to say. She looked down at the hands she was wringing in her lap, not, as the other women had done, directly at me. I posed the question again, as gently as I could. This time, she replied, haltingly and in a voice that was scarcely audible, ‘I trust not, Mr Seaton. I … I trust not.’
There was nothing to do then but release her, before the tears that I thought I could glimpse beginning in her lowered eyes became evident to all.
There was silence for a moment after she closed the door. It was Isabella Irvine who broke it. ‘I do not think she is
well. Will I go after her?’
‘Aye, Isabella. Do that.’ Once Isabella had gone, Lady Rothiemay got up and stretched her back. ‘Not well, she may be, but it is no sickness of the body that is troubling that girl. I know Isabella has conceived a liking for her, as I have myself, and I see from your manner of questioning that you share it, Mr Seaton, but she will not do: she will not do at all.’
I could not argue with her, and Lumsden, whose stomach had been rumbling alarmingly for the last quarter of an hour, was in no humour to. ‘We’ll have our dinner brought in and once we have some sustenance in us, we’ll discuss your Ladyship’s pleasure, though I must say, the matter seems plain enough to me.’
It was. Before dishes of pickled herring, bread, mutton with beans and a mint jelly had been set before us, or our goblets half-filled, it had been agreed that there could only be one choice: Ruth Grahame, a childless widow of about thirty-five whose husband had fallen, over a year ago, with the Swedish forces at Nordlingen. Of the other candidates, Lady Rothiemay pronounced one to be too young, one to be iniquitously connected to a family with whom her Ladyship had had dealings, and the third – the older spinster – to have ‘the sourest face I ever saw this side of the Forth’. I knew Sarah would be pleased: Ruth Grahame was a friend of hers, and a woman who faced destitution if decent employment or a new husband could not be found.
Isabella rejoined us after about ten minutes. ‘The other women are down in the kitchen, but I have settled Christiane in Mistress Lumsden’s parlour.’ She looked to Lumsden. ‘I thought some rest and food might help her, and then I will take her home to her brother’s house.’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Lumsden. ‘Ring that bell there and get one of the maids to take her up something, but for goodness’ sake have something yourself – you must be half-famished after this morning’s proceedings. I would a hundred times rather sit through the Treasurer’s report in Council than hear another word on the making of butter.’
The Devil's Recruit (Alexander Seaton 4) Page 9