The sound of the housemaid’s footsteps returning to the kitchens had long receded, and I was conscious of nothing but silence emanating from the rooms I passed. I was still not convinced that the girl had the thing to rights, and so when I came to the landing between Lumsden’s wife’s parlour and the Great Hall, I knocked upon the doors of both. Getting no reply at either door, I tried them both in turn, but found only deserted rooms lit by ochre light from low-burning fires in the hearths.
Apart from the young girl who had let me in, I had not seen another living soul since I had entered this usually busy house. As I emerged once more from Mistress Lumsden’s parlour onto the west stairway, I thought I could hear some very faint sound emanating from above me. Something in it made me slow my pace, take greater care to make no sound by my own steps, and I went quietly up the remaining stairs towards the Long Gallery like an intruder in fear of discovery. The whole household must have been in the gallery, but there was no sound of clinking glasses or clattering of knives and forks, and instead of companionable chatter or even polite conversation I could hear only one, low voice, and from the one or two words I caught I could tell the man spoke in Latin. It felt too as if the fog from outside were seeping through walls and under doors, clambering the stairs with me, finding my throat. I wanted to cough at the sickly sweet perfume of it, but a deep foreboding now told me I should not draw attention to myself, and I fought down the urge.
I could see the door now. The murmuring stopped for a moment, to be followed by a scraping noise of chairs being pushed back and a shuffling of feet. Although much of the house that I had travelled through was in darkness, bright light flooded underneath the doorway ahead of me. A heedless determination came over me, and without knocking, I pushed open the door.
Everything in front of me stopped as if I had broken in to some enchantment, some scene from another world. After the murky darkness of the street and the dim light that had attended me through the house itself, I found myself suddenly dazzled by light and colour. The place was ablaze with candles, in sconces on the walls, on window ledges, and in candelabra hanging from bosses in the ceiling, and what that candlelight illuminated took my breath away. The gallery was a field of images. Everything from the ceiling boards to the plaster of the walls told a story, against a sea of sapphire blue, of the life of Christ and of the baillie and of every other person in that room. All around and above me was painted, in panels framed in gold, scenes from the Annunciation to the Ascension; the tale of our Saviour’s suffering, even the sickening sight of the Crucifixion itself was depicted there in gaudy colour for any who might lift their eyes. Seldom, even in Ireland, had I seen such flagrant, shameless idolatry. Years, decades ago, throughout Scotland, such images had been painted over, torn down, destroyed, burned, and yet here, in the house of one of the foremost men of Aberdeen, their brightness blazed. My mind hardly paused to consider that this room, at the top of a merchant’s house, had somehow been missed, forgotten, hidden even from the iconoclasts who had first heralded the coming of the Reformation of religion to our town over seventy years ago, for the images assailing me were fresh and bright, not in the least worn or faded, in the style, if not the handiwork of Jamesone and his peers. Amongst the images, clearly displayed, were the arms of Baillie Lumsden himself.
Towards the back, the north end of the room, stood the servants of the house, all of them, I suspected, save the new, unknowing maid who had shown me in. In front of them, seated on wooden benches, were some burgesses of the town – a handful of craftsmen, merchants, magistrates, who must spend half their lives in keeping each others’ secrets and who now looked aghast that I too now knew their greatest secret. In front of them, seated upon two rows of high-backed, finely carved oak chairs, were Baillie Lumsden, his wife, Lady Rothiemay, and the woman I had come in search of, Isabella Irvine. The women were all veiled: Lumsden’s wife modestly, Lady Rothiemay magnificently in golden lace, but it was Isabella who, amidst all the colour, the grandeur and the beauty, drew the eye. The lace mantilla that draped her hair and hung from her shoulders was edged with silver thread so fine that it might have been a spider’s web bedecked with dew drops. The light from the candles glanced off the silver candlesticks and the jewels at the neck of her elder companion to reflect in her own brilliant eyes. The pallor of her face was greater even than it had been in Jamesone’s garden the previous day, and as she turned her startled eyes on me, I did not think I had ever seen a woman look so beautiful.
This was not the time though, for the contemplation of the art of man, nor that of God. Beside Isabella, exquisitely attired in black velvet, was William Ormiston, the shimmering light dancing from his buttons and buckles to the hilt of his sword. He also turned to look at me, and instead of surprise, I saw the makings of a smile on his face. To Lady Rothiemay’s left knelt another man, also richly attired, his form too, I thought, familiar to me. But it could not be, for only five days ago Baillie Lumsden had told me that his young cousin and namesake, my old college friend Matthew, was in France, in the Scots Guard of the French king. He did not wear the uniform of the Garde Eccosaise, and yet I knew, as soon as he started to clear his throat, and turned to look at me, that I was not mistaken; it was indeed my old friend Matthew, whom I had not seen in more than six years.
I had no time to process even this revelation, for it was not he, but the two figures at the front who took my eye. Kneeling at a wooden altar, before a richly robed priest who held the host above his head – for this was a Popish Mass, I had known it from the moment I had stepped through the door – was Archie Hay. He, and the priest, were the only ones in the room who had not turned at my disturbance, though both must have been aware of it. I saw, rather than heard, the priest murmur the words ‘Corpus Christi’, and I watched in horrified disbelief as the blood companion of my boyhood crossed himself and took into his mouth the blasphemous host of the Church of Rome from the hands of the man I had known as Guillaume Charpentier.
18
Nimmo
The enchantment was broken, and before the priest had finished giving his blessing Ormiston and Matthew Lumsden were on their feet. Archie had at last turned and begun to call my name, but I could not watch any more of it, could not listen, would not hear him. I pushed through the door and out to the corridor, black now after the startling light of Lumsden’s secret chapel, and stumbled my way back down the many stairs of his house and out to the street, ignoring the shouts at my back.
I ran and ran until I thought my lungs would burst, the guards on the door having at last come to their senses and begun to follow me, in the van of at least half-a-dozen men who had spilled from the doors of Baillie Lumsden’s house. Shapes looming towards me out of the fog might have been innocent townsmen or spirits risen from the kirkyard for all I cared; anything that came in my path was barged out of the way regardless of age, sex, or dignity. By the time I had turned into our pend off Flourmill Lane, only one runner still pursued me, and I knew without turning to look whose was that peculiar, uneven gait. Archie called my name again and again, careless it seemed whether the fog hid him or no, but whatever he might have to say to me, I no longer wished to hear. I carried on to my own door and was through it and had it locked before he could catch up with me.
I stood against the door, my chest heaving and my throat burning. The group I broke in upon looked no less stunned than those I had come upon only ten minutes before: Sarah, in her chair by the fire, Davy asleep in her lap, Zander at the table showing Deirdre how to scratch the letters of her name on his tablet. A small, warm place, little room amongst the pots, pans, ladles, the vegetables that hung from the ceiling, the shelves and cupboards on the walls, for painted images or rich hangings. Such few pieces of Delft or pewter, such cushions or drapes that were of some quality had been hard won and were well cared for by the woman, the unadorned woman, at the centre of this home. Honest, defiant, more than the poverty of her surroundings, and better than I ever deserved.
At the sig
ht of me she stood up and laid Davy gently down in his bed, telling Zander to go upstairs now, and take his sister with him. His thought of protest was banished with a look.
Now home, I found I could not move from the door.
She came over to me, put her arms around me like a mother with her child, and I buried my head in her chest. ‘Alexander!’ she said, dismayed. ‘My darling. What is it?’
I could hardly lift my head to look at her, to speak.
‘All is false,’ I said eventually. ‘Everything. And it always has been.’ I looked at her. ‘You, you are the only thing that has never been false.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘you do not. Thank God, you do not.’
Her eyes betrayed her complete lack of comprehension, but she asked nothing else as she led me over to my chair and bent to take off my boots.
‘You do not need to do that,’ I said.
‘Hush, don’t speak. You are as white as a ghost. Take a minute here to calm yourself. I will fetch you some brandy.’
Once I had swallowed the drink and she had warned the children to stay upstairs, she knelt before me and took my hands. ‘Now tell me what’s wrong.’
‘Archie,’ I said.
‘Archie?’ She drew back, alarmed. ‘What has happened to him?’
‘Nothing. Nothing has happened to him. He has turned Papist.’
‘Papist? When? Did he tell you this?’
‘No, he did not tell me: I saw. I saw the lie of his life, the latest lie, and I do not know how many others he has told me.’
Just then came a gentle knock on the door.
Sarah started to rise, but I caught her arm. ‘Don’t answer it.’
She ignored me and went to the window. ‘It’s him, with another man I cannot see properly.’
‘Don’t let them in,’ I said.
‘Alexander, for all that has happened, he is your friend.’
‘I don’t know who he is.’
She stared at me a moment and then began to lift the latch on the door.
‘Sarah! I forbid you …’ I started to rise from my chair but it was too late. The door was open and she was stepping back to give access to Archie. Behind him in the doorway, stood Matthew Lumsden. Archie said nothing; it was Matthew who spoke.
‘Can I come in, Alexander?’
I looked at that other friend of my abandoned youth, the one who had never pretended to be other than what he was, though it got him into trouble time and time again.
‘You are always welcome in my house, Matthew. You know that.’
‘And I?’ said Archie, watching me.
I looked at him for a long time. ‘I do not know who I welcome into my house when I open the door to Sergeant Nimmo,’ I replied.
‘Will you at least let me tell you?’ he asked.
‘I have no interest in hearing further lies.’
‘There will be none.’
Sarah had quietly shut the door behind them. ‘Listen to what he has to say, Alexander. There can be nothing lost from that now.’ She came over and kissed me on the forehead before making for the stairs. As she put her foot on the bottom step, Archie caught her hand. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
She looked at him directly, honestly. ‘I did it for him, not for you.’
When she was gone, Archie sat in her chair opposite me, and Matthew drew up a stool from the table.
I could not help but smile at him. ‘I thought you were in France, serving the Marquis in the French king’s Garde,’ I said.
‘Oh, I was intended for that service, and indeed, had fully made up my mind to take it up, but on my journey towards Paris I found much conviviality amongst our fellow Scots at their college in Douai, and fell in with other very genial fellows who were on their way to the Scots College in Madrid.’
‘You fell in amongst the Jesuits,’ I said.
He shrugged, affected the grin that he had always believed would get him out of trouble and which rarely had done. ‘Not all of the Jesuit fathers were entirely taken with my temper, or my manner of devotion, but they found me to be,’ he paused, ‘useful, and so our purposes complemented each other, and we were able to tolerate each other for the sake of them.’
I could well imagine how the Jesuits had found my old friend useful, for Matthew had the ear of the Marquis of Huntly, and the Marquis, like his forebears a Papist to the core, had the ear of our king. From the mouth of a priest in Madrid to the ear of a king in Whitehall was but a matter of three whispers.
‘It cannot be safe for you to show yourself here. I suspect it will do your cousin, and indeed his house guest, Lady Rothiemay, little good were it known that you were lodged under the same roof.’
Matthew shrugged. ‘My cousin knows the risks, and what they are taken for. He is not quite of my politics, but his faith is strong. And as for her Ladyship – she was instrumental in arranging for Father Guillaume a safe means of travel north. By the way, you must not condemn the painter – he knows nothing of Guillaume’s true calling. There are many amongst Lady Rothiemay’s kin and friends who do, in the mountains and the straths, and who thirst for the sacraments. Many who will happily shelter him.’
‘A murderer! I do not think it.’
Matthew smiled again. ‘Alexander, when will you get past this idea that our Mass is a …’
‘I am not talking about the Mass,’ I said, aware that I was raising my voice. I lowered it again. ‘I am talking about the cold-blooded murder of a young girl whose only crime was to fall in love with him.’
Archie’s brow furrowed. ‘What are you talking about, Alexander?’
And so I told them of Christiane’s death, in every detail I knew. ‘And her murderer is harboured in the house of the very man charged with finding him!’
Archie was ashen-faced. ‘This girl – the French master’s sister – has been murdered?’
I was disgusted. ‘Are you going to pretend you didn’t know? It was the night of Ormiston’s dinner.’
Archie leant closer to me. ‘I didn’t know, Alexander, I swear to you, I did not. But,’ his mind was working quickly, tying one piece of knowledge to another, ‘Father Guillaume did not kill her. He cannot have done.’
‘How can you know that?’
‘Firstly, he is a good man – he is truly a man of God, however you may suspect his faith and his order. But more than that – you tell me the girl was seen alive at eight o’clock that night?’
‘Yes.’
‘At eight o’clock that night, Father Guillaume was robed and preparing to say Mass in a private house in the old town, two miles from here. I know, for I was there – I was his escort. If you do not believe me, you may ask Isabella Irvine – she too was at the Mass. While we were there, we had intelligence that a warrant was on its way to Banff for the arrest of Lady Rothiemay. It was decided that it would not be safe for Guillaume to return to the new town by day. His friends urged him to leave for Strathdon there and then, but he insisted he would hear confession and say Mass in the new town, as he had promised Baillie Lumsden. That is the only reason he was still here tonight. I swear to you he cannot have killed that girl. He will grieve for her, I know it, for he had become fond of her.’
‘And St Clair? Am I to believe that he, too, was a priest?’
Archie lip contorted. ‘He was a gardener, nothing more. His presence detracted from any suspicions Guillaume might have aroused on his own. He travelled and worked with Father Guillaume in that respect alone. If I had known his true identity, I would have shot the man myself.’
I laughed. So did Matthew, if a little nervously, but Archie was not fooled.
‘What is it?’
‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘I always liked Katharine Forbes. For all that was ever said of her, for all the havoc she has wrought throughout the countryside, I always admired that woman. I would defend her against her detractors, and now I see they were right – she is a threat to this very nation.’
‘Invasion of our kingdom?’ I suggested.
He made a conciliatory gesture. ‘I was going to say “interference” of external powers. She will happily separate matters of religion from matters of state.’
‘And you?’
‘I don’t see that it can be done,’ he said at last.
He must have gauged the disappointment on my face. ‘Come, old friend, you have known me long enough. Did you really expect to find me altered?’
I took the hand he held out to me. ‘No, never, and it does my heart good to see that you’re not. But you must know I cannot condone your politics, Matthew, nor countenance your religion.’
‘I know it,’ he said, ‘and that’s why I have never spoken of it to you until now, nor ever would have done, were it not for Archie. I’ll be gone from here tomorrow. I ask you for that one night’s grace.’
He was asking me to keep what he thought to be his secret a few hours longer, to let him slip, unnoticed, from the town once more and to go in to the hinterland where the Jesuits found refuge and a base from which to spread their poison, and meet with them there in the houses of our wealthy and high-born recusants, or those who had never made any show of professing the Protestant faith at all. He was asking that I would not hand him over, this very hour, to the authorities, and see him die a traitor’s death, the man I had known since we were boys of fourteen.
‘You will have your twelve hours, Matthew, and longer. It would hardly be news to anyone that agents of the Marquis and those of Spain roam from house to house across Strathbogie and Glenlivet almost with impunity. For me to see you condemned would change nothing of that. But you must tell your uncle to get rid of his priest tonight – if it were known that such abominations were being carried out in his house …’
The Devil's Recruit (Alexander Seaton 4) Page 19