‘I didn’t upset her. Father did.’ He kept parrying George’s blows, but George was quick. ‘Father told her she couldn’t marry his son. He meant me, but she thought it was you.’
At that George stumbled. Charles took his chance and darted past on the cliff side. George could not pull his arm around in time.
‘This is all you, all your fault,’ he cried. ‘If you had done what you were told –‘
‘You helped me! You said you wanted me to stay here!’
‘Not beyond reason.’ George’s anger seemed to be waning. Two quick steps brought Charles forward and drove George back, and Charles had an instant to look about him. Alison had moved across the path to the cliff side, behind George. She would need to shift out of the way in a second, Charles thought. ‘You made him angry,’ George went on. ‘If he hadn’t been angry ...’
‘He would never have let you marry her anyway.’ Charles pressed home his advantage, then saw a movement behind George. ‘No!’
George spun. He was quick enough, just, to see Alison step out over the cliff.
For a moment she was suspended there, brown velvet billowing round her. Then she vanished.
‘Alison!’ cried George. ‘Alison! I’m coming!’
‘You can’t go down the cliff, George,’ Charles snapped. ‘Come on: we can climb down at the Castle and work our way back.’
They ran, foils forgotten in their hands. The path to the Castle inlet was empty and they hurtled down it. The tide was high.
‘The water might have saved her,’ panted Charles. ‘Come on, this way.’
They staggered across the rough sand to the rocks, the jagged diagonal ridges of teeth angling out of the high water. Charles had to slow down: their boots were tough, but not made for this. Recklessly, George plunged on, but even so he soon came to a place where he could go no further. Knee deep in water, breeches soaking, he clutched at the cliff beside him for support.
‘Alison!’ he cried, a long, desperate cry. ‘Alison!’
But only the gulls replied, echoing him in the wheeling air.
‘The lifeboat!’ said Charles suddenly. ‘We could get the lifeboat!’
He hardly remembered their run back up the steep path, sodden and heavy, and along the cliff top to slither down to the harbour. They were shouting to the fishermen before they could even see them at their nets, and before they knew it the heavy lifeboat was on the water, eight strong oarsmen slicing the waves, well-practised now at their work.
But though, at George’s insistence, they beat up and down the dangerous shallows below the cliff for two hours, they found nothing. At last, pleading the failing of the daylight, the boatmen turned for home, and the coxwain lit a lantern in the stern.
Almost immediately George cried out.
‘There!’
Expecting to see only seaweed, Charles and the coxwain turned – and gave the order to stop. George helped to lift her, heavy with velvet, into the boat, a dark and dripping bundle with a face as pale as seafoam. There was no room to lay her flat: George, after a moment, closed the remarkable dark blue eyes with a tender touch, and held her in his arms, for the first and last time, for the slow journey home.
Back on shore, Charles found coins for the subdued lifeboatmen, and helped them pull the boat up the slipway. It had had a sad christening. Then he returned to George.
Charles did not tell him about Alison’s conversation with him. There was, as yet, no point. Later, it might be a comfort of sorts, or at least an explanation, but now it might only hurt more, and once said could not be unsaid.
He walked with his brother and the heavy, wet burden he carried, up the hill from the harbour and to the gate of the Keiths’ house. There he stopped. George looked at him.
‘You don’t want me with you, do you?’ Charles asked. Num expects the answer ‘no’.
‘No,’ said George. He leaned against the gateway, and looked down at Alison’s lifeless face. ‘I shall go away for a while, I think. I’m sorry I attacked you, but I don’t want to see you.’
Charles nodded. For the first time, he noticed that George had grown up. He felt they should shake hands, or something, but George’s hands were otherwise occupied and perhaps it was just as well. Instead, he bowed, and at George’s answering nod, he turned and went.
He did not go back to his bunk. His wet clothes and squelching boots called for some kind of explanation, which at the moment he had no wish to give. Instead, he found himself back on the cliff path again, as though, by being there, he could work out what had happened, and find an explanation for himself.
Darkness was falling with the slow, steady draining of light that happens in the north. No crow waited on the wall now, but the gulls still called farewells over the sea as it faded from view. He looked at Thomas’ bench, but did not want to sit on it. Instead, he propped himself against the wall, hugged his wet gown around his shoulders, and stared out at the dusk.
He had fought with George, and with his father. He had lost his friend Thomas, and then lost him again when he discovered what he had done to Alison. He felt angry, and drenched with loneliness.
He had been standing there for some time, though he had no idea how long, when a movement caught his eye and he heard footsteps on the path from the direction of the harbour. In a moment, the dim shape resolved itself into a short man in a hat and cloak, and then further into Mungo Dalzell. He peered at Charles, who reassured him.
‘Good evening, sir. It’s Charles Murray.’
‘Thank the Lord for that,’ said Dalzell amiably. ‘I thought I was about to be set upon.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Not at all, not at all. What are you doing here, anyway?’
‘Oh ... just thinking.’ Charles was evasive. His thinking had been very specific.
‘Well, if you’re going to be thinking for a while longer I’ll take a wee rest here in the safety of your presence – if I’m not disturbing you?’
‘Not at all.’
Mungo sat on Thomas’ seat, and stretched his legs out in front of him. He propped his chin on the handle of his stick.
‘I’ve walked in from Kinkell Braes, do you see, and I’ve a fair way still to go. There’s a good family there I visit from time to time. He was a fisherman but he broke his back and cannot walk, and sometimes she’s hard put to find food for the bairns.’
‘You’re a good man, sir,’ Charles acknowledged.
‘Oh!’ Mungo laughed. ‘For all I’ve said I might just visit them and help myself to any food they have! Careful what people say, Charles: they could be telling the truth, all right, but hiding it well.’
‘True enough, sir.’ Charles paused for a second, feeling for a more metaphorical foil than the one still by his side. He was already on guard: he tried a tentative thrust. ‘But you are a good man, sir – so why did you take money and a brooch from Professor Keith’s office?’
He felt Mungo’s shape tense in the dim light, and found that his hand had gone to the real foil.
‘Now, who told you that?’ Mungo asked, but his voice was shaking.
‘Nobody. I worked it out for myself.’
‘I see.’
‘You gave the brooch back to Mrs. Walker, which gave her, I may say, considerable pleasure. You gave the money to little Sybie’s family, to Ramsay Rickarton’s daughter. But what I can’t understand, sir, is why you stole it? Forgive me, sir, but would the reparation not have been the greater had you given from your own money?’
Charles could just see Mungo Dalzell’s face. He looked tired, and a little sad.
‘The reparation,’ he said, ‘was not strictly mine. Yes, I was mostly responsible for little Sybie’s death. It was the worst day of my life, the worst moment, and what it must have been for Ramsay and for his daughter I cannot imagine. No money makes reparation for the loss of a bright young life like that to those who are left behind.’
‘Indeed, sir,’ said Charles, feeling he had been boorish.
‘Thei
r situation, however, came to my attention at the time of the funeral: respectable but terribly poor. Ramsay gives invaluable service, but he is paid little. The house that the daughter lives in, like that of your Mrs. Walker, is owned – or was owned – by Professor Helenus Keith.’
‘Oh.’ Charles was beginning to add up some facts.
‘The reparation, then, was his, only he was not making it. Dear me, I sound very self-righteous, do I not? And I have no right to, none at all. Quite the reverse.’
Charles suddenly remembered the conversation he had had with Professor Shaw on the day of Sybie’s funeral. Mungo Dalzell, Shaw had said, was an antinomian. He was a justified sinner.
‘I begin to see,’ he said slowly. ‘You could take it upon yourself to put this right because you are one of the elect? No matter what you do – forgive me if I have misunderstood this – you will be saved, and go to Heaven.’
‘Ah,’ and he could hear the kindly smile in Mungo’s voice, ‘not quite right. If I were one of the elect, then yes: but if I were one of the elect, of course I would not do such things.’
‘But if you’re not ...’
‘Oh, I thought I was.’ Mungo looked out to sea, wistfully. ‘Years ago a preacher visited my family and told us we were all elect, though he prayed with us for many hours to find this out. I am sure he was right about my parents and my sisters – they were all good people, and worthy to proclaim His name – but I am afraid that with me, he made a terrible mistake.’
‘How did you find out?’ asked Charles, thinking to himself that if he had been told he was a chosen one, he could not feel inclined to question it.
‘You see, it was when Sybie died,’ Mungo Dalzell explained. ‘When Sybie died, I felt terrible. I prayed and prayed, and at last I became convinced that she, at least, had been one of the elect, so that at least was a weight off my mind. But to bring such sorrow to her parents, her grandfather – how could I have been the cause of this if I was elect myself? And then I began to realise that I was not, could not be, had never been.’
‘It’s a long step from that, though, sir, to stealing money.’
‘Well, yes. For a while I was simply shocked, and then I began to wonder. After all, the Lord had chosen the rest of my family, so why not me? He must have had some purpose in not choosing me, and I had to work out what it was. I prayed a good deal – I fancy Ramsay Rickarton was nearly going to polish me along with the brasses, I was in the Chapel so much!’
‘Indeed, it was noted,’ Charles agreed. He wanted to smile, but he knew now what was coming.
‘Well, I realised that I was here to do a few things that the elect could not,’ Mungo went on, ‘and that was when I made my reparations.’
‘But then you found, did you not,’ Charles broke in, ‘that others were being blamed, that Professor Keith thought that Ramsay Rickarton had stolen the money, and was going to accuse him.’
‘Professor Keith was an opinionated bully,’ said Mungo mildly.
‘Hated by everyone, persecuting the students, tormenting his family, riding roughshod over his tenants. So you killed him.’
‘I did,’ said Mungo in a small voice. ‘Nobody else could have. So I did.’
Charles let out a long breath.
‘It was easy, at the time,’ Mungo went on, before Charles was ready to hear him. ‘People like me: they don’t recognise my sin. They tell me things, they like having me bustling around, being helpful. I helped Allan Bonar with some of his experiments, and I learned about yew. I didn’t want to use arsenic, though I knew it was in the Chapel. I was afraid of putting blame on Ramsay again. I helped tidy up after the soirée. I had every chance to put the yew in the claret jug. Barbara told me it was for her master. People tell me things, you know. It was easy. I was doing the right thing.’
‘But then it wasn’t so easy. Complications arose, didn’t they?’
Mungo sighed.
‘I nearly died myself when I heard you say Alison Keith was ill, too. But nothing is ever straightforward. I cannot imagine how I thought that I was only here to remove one person from this life.’
‘Thomas found out it was you.’ If he tried, Charles could remember his old anger over Thomas’ death.
‘No, not at all, as far as I know.’ Mungo sounded surprised. ‘In fact, I found out it was him. Alison Keith’s child, you know – do you know? I forget who knows what, these days.’
‘I know about that,’ said Charles sourly.
‘I overheard Peter Keith and his mother talking after the funeral. I was – helping clear up, you know?’
‘So you killed him, too.’
‘I had a flask with my in case I met him – I knew he often sat here. It had brandy in it, not that I touch it. He drank it down greedily. I stayed a little, for although I had heard accounts of what happened to Professor Keith I wanted to see – how much they suffered, I suppose.’
Charles swallowed hard. He did not think he would ever come to this cliff path again, should he stay the rest of his life in St. Andrews.
‘He had to go, you know, particularly when Lord Scoggie gave him the parish. How could he be allowed to become a minister? A man that takes out his hatred of another man on a poor, defenceless girl? He was foul, foul. I cannot bear to think of it. But the evil must look at evil, I suppose.’
‘And have you anyone else in mind, now that you have disposed of these two?’ Charles asked cautiously. He had stayed so still against the wall he could feel each grain of the sandstone against his back.
‘Not at present, I think,’ said Mungo, after a moment. He sounded cagey.
‘You know I’ll have to tell someone about this,’ said Charles, pushing himself resignedly away from the wall. He could just see Mungo Dalzell’s shoulders slump a little. He paused. ‘We could just go and see Professor Urquhart now, if that would suit you.’
Dalzell sighed, just audibly.
‘I suppose I’d better. After all, I’ll meet my punishment sooner or later, regardless of what I do now, so I might as well make your life easier, eh?’ He gave a little smile, straightened his shoulders, and preceded Charles off along the path back towards the Scores and United College.
It was only a moment or two later that they heard voices coming up the path behind them, and turned to see the swinging light of a lantern advancing towards them. People on this path at dusk were rare enough, in Charles’ experience, and they both stopped to see who it was. The answer was not long coming.
‘Ooh! It’s the Grey Lady of the Pends!’ came Rab’s voice, slurring very slightly.
‘If it is she’s gey far frae home the night,’ Picket remarked, also not entirely distinctly.
‘It’s no, anyway,’ came the inevitable third of the trio. Boxie added a touch of sobriety to the proceedings. ‘It’s Charles Murray.’
The lantern came nearer and in a few seconds they could all see each other clearly.
‘Oh, and Master Dalzell,’ added Picket, bowing – with difficulty, for Rab was holding him up by one stringy arm. ‘Your honour, it’s an honour, our honour, on our own two feet …’ He giggled and straightened. ‘Just about, anyway. Here we all are.’
‘You’re out and about again, then?’ Charles asked.
‘We’ve been at the howff at the harbour: we don’t want to drink at the Black Bull yet,’ Boxie said shortly.
‘The howff at the harbour!’ Rab repeated, seeming to find it hilarious. For a dangerous moment, he and Picket staggered back and forth across the path: fortunately it had left the cliff edge a little way, and the worst they could do to themselves was to fall flat.
‘Listen, Murray, we heard something down there,’ Boxie drew Charles a little to one side, leaving Mungo adrift with Rab and Picket. Boxie’s face was out of the direct lantern light, but Charles could see that his eyes were wide. ‘We heard some very bad news: I wondered if you knew anything about it, for someone matching your description was talked of.’
‘Mr. Irving, are you quite all right?’
Mungo Dalzell was asking, as Rab recovered from his hysterics.
‘I think I know of what you are speaking,’ Charles murmured. ‘Alison Keith?’
‘It’s true, then, is it? She is lost?’
‘She is drowned, it is true.’ He put a hand out to Boxie’s arm. ‘We found her quite quickly, but there was no life left in her. George carried her safely home.’
‘Mr. Dalzell-yell-yell,’ Picket enunciated, ‘tell me, what are we to do now? Our whole reason for life gone, gone in a second! Well, a few hours’ writhing agony. Whom are we to torment with our jests now?’
‘Jests!’ reiterated Rab, and laughed again. ‘Aye, they were good enough! Writing agony – that’s what I get all the time! Awful pains in my hand!’
‘Aye, he cared for her, too.’ Boxie seemed to have heard enough from his erstwhile friends this evening, and every word from Picket made him wince. ‘Well, it seems neither of us was meant to have her, and she is gone to a better place. He’ll be feeling it badly though, I should say?’
‘Very much so, indeed,’ said Charles, thinking of George’s face at the gate to the Keiths’ house.
‘Mr. Picket, you are not well. You need another drink,’ he heard Mungo Dalzell say in his soothing voice. ‘Here – I have a little flask here in my pocket.’
‘They said she – she stepped off.’ Boxie’s voice shook.
‘I don’t know how they could tell that,’ said Charles evasively. ‘The first they knew of it was when – don’t touch that!’
How could he not have noticed? Why would Mungo Dalzell, teetotaler, be offering Picket a drink from his little flask? He had spun round without even thinking, but Picket had the flask to his lips. He upended it, pouring the contents ungraciously down his lanky throat. He swallowed, and swallowed again, his adam’s apple bounding and lurching like a separate being. Mungo Dalzell watched in wonder, open-mouthed. Rab, caught in the moment, was frozen in mid-cackle, before the flask crashed to the ground. Rab swooped and caught Picket as he fell.
‘What – what in the name of damnation …?’ Picket gasped, speaking as if his lips and tongue burned each other. His breathing was harsh.
Death in a Scarlet Gown (Murray of Letho Book 1) Page 30