The Tobacco Lords Trilogy

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  ‘The cheek of some folks,’ she screeched on spying Quin. ‘We’ll no’ have begging at oor door.’

  ‘Quin’s no’ begging, Kate.’

  ‘What do you want then?’

  ‘Quin’s just anxious to find a lost friend. A wee childer by the name of Regina.’

  ‘Oh, I might have known she was a friend o’ yours. The mistress kicked her down the stairs on her backside a long while ago. And I’ll put my foot up your bum in a minute for pestering respectable folk.’

  ‘Quin’s away. Quin’s away.’

  Down the stair he jogged until they reached Trongate Street again.

  ‘Weel!’ he said. ‘She’s no’ there noo!’

  ‘I … I don’t understand.’ Gav’s voice shook despite his efforts to sound brave. ‘I thought she would have waited for me.’

  ‘It’s Auld Nick,’ said Quin, scratching his head. ‘He’s a right auld devil, eh? First he whisks your mammy away and now he’s whippit your sister. He’ll nab you yet if you’re no’ careful.’

  Gav’s eyes widened with anxiety.

  ‘Stay with Quin. Quin’ll find her, eh?’

  ‘Could you?’

  ‘Quin’s in league with Auld Nick. “Quin,” Auld Nick says, says he, “Quin, you play fair with me and I’ll play fair with you. Many’s the time Auld Nick’s helped Quin.” ’

  ‘Could you get her back?’

  Quin released his grip.

  ‘You’ll stay with Quin, eh?’

  Gav nodded, then repeated hopefully:

  ‘Could you get her back now?’

  Quin poked an exploratory finger in the hole that had once been his ear.

  ‘Witches or fairies, Quin wonders.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Auld Nick farms them oot. All sorts of creatures keep childers for him. It’ll take Quin a wee while.’

  Men were beginning to emerge from the taverns and at the sight of them spilling on to the street Quin did a gleeful little dance.

  ‘Make for the Exchange, lad. That’s where we’ll find the most sillar.’

  Off he jogged with elbows bent and fists clenched.

  Moothy McMurdo was strolling from the other direction swinging his bell.

  ‘Windie Hodge sells burial crapes ready made,

  And his wife’s niece who’s verra pretty,

  And recently arrived from the capital city

  Dresses corpses at a verra cheap rate.’

  * * *

  Rain was melting Trongate Street into a grey blur as servants led horses out from stables and men mounted up with wide swirling of capes. Others who lived only a few steps from the tavern, like Adam Ramsay, strode away with head down and feet splashing in the deep ruts of the road that was fast becoming a quagmire. Others again, too full of ale and whisky for rain to dampen their spirits, stood swaying and talking in groups under the archways or out in the open.

  It was still afternoon and normally these men would have been in their shops, or warerooms, or counting houses, or colleges. There were many professors to be seen among them. Professor Simson, the absent-minded mathematician who always counted out loud to himself each pace he took between the college and the tavern and back or to and from anywhere else he happened to be going. There was Hume the philosopher and historian, and Adam Smith the political philosopher, with his cane over his shoulder like a musket. There were the Foulis brothers, the printers, James Watt the engineer and Robert Adam the architect.

  On reaching the first group, Quin suddenly drooped in a lethargic fashion, doubled over and leaned pathetically on Gav’s shoulder. Gav took off his hat and held it out and Quin cocked his face to one side so that his egg-shaped protuberance and his ragged flesh could best be seen.

  Ramsay pushed roughly past them. He was in a vile mood. Business was completely held up. He had not been in his counting house all day. Even the churches had closed their doors. Life in the town was hanging fire, ranks had closed, people waited with stubborn dourness. The Pretender and his followers would find no welcome in Glasgow and Ramsay hoped they would not as a result stay long. The quicker business was back to normal the better. He could hardly believe his ears when he arrived at his house and heard sounds of gaiety and laughter. He stormed into Annabella’s bedroom and found her surrounded by French officers. The tea-things were still lying on the table and so was an empty bottle of whisky. Annabella’s face was like a rose in full bloom and her eyes sparkled like blue stars. She was resplendent in a cherry satin hoop over a crimson velvet petticoat trimmed with silver and gold and she had cherry and white ribbons in her hair.

  ‘Papa! Papa!’ she cried out as soon as she saw him. ‘I’m having a wondrously happy time!’

  ‘Deevil choke you, Annabella!’

  ‘Papa, don’t be such a misery and spoil it all. These gentlemen have been miraculously entertaining.’

  Ramsay turned on the officers.

  ‘Get out!’

  Lavelle shrugged. ‘We are billeted here, monsieur. Whether you like it or not we stay in your house until his Royal Highness Prince Charles Edward decides that we should leave it.’

  ‘In my house maybe, sir. But not in my daughter’s bedroom.’

  ‘But it is a custom of the country, is it not, that you entertain in the main bedroom?’

  ‘Aye, that’s verra true, but it doesn’t apply to French sodgers. You’ll eat, drink and sleep in the kitchen, in the lobby, or in my bedroom, sir.’

  ‘Or, monsieur?’

  Ramsay jerked a pistol from under his cloak.

  ‘Or, I’ll blow your bloody head off.’

  Lavelle grinned. ‘Touché.’

  Turning to Annabella, he made elegant ever-growing circles with his outstretched fingers and bowed gracefully and low.

  ‘Mademoiselle Annabella.’

  With one hand Annabella flourished her fan, the other she stretched sideways over her hoop as she sank slowly into a curtsy.

  ‘Monsieur Lavelle.’

  After the bedroom door closed behind them Ramsay groaned.

  ‘Annabella, Annabella!’

  ‘Oh, Papa. They have done me no harm and I was only being civil.’

  ‘They are our enemies.’

  ‘The French? But Papa, you cruelly confuse me. Have we not entertained French merchants?’

  ‘That is different and fine you know it, mistress.’

  ‘But, Papa …’

  ‘Hold your tongue.’

  He could well have done without gathering the servants together and going to the bother of giving a reading and reciting prayers but he felt duty bound to do so. These past few days he had laboured under a lowness of spirit and uneasiness of mind arising from various causes outward and inward. He suffered an indisposition of body as well as of mind and he looked on it as the fruit of evil and the punishment of sins which the Lord knew he had committed.

  ‘Oh Lord,’ he thought, ‘wean my heart away from a present world and produce in me the peaceable fruits of righteousness.’

  ‘Where’s Douglas?’ he asked.

  Annabella rolled her eyes. ‘Need you ask, Papa?’

  ‘Aye, it’s time he was wed as well, I’m thinking. Well, go and fetch Nancy and Big John.’ Then as she was swooping towards the door, he added: ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard what’s happened to Jessie?’

  ‘No, Papa.’

  ‘Aye, you’d be too busy thinking about your French sodgers to bother about the likes of Jessie.’

  ‘Indeed, sir, it fluttered me a trifle when she did not come to collect any washing these past two days and Nancy flew into a pretty passion when I told her that she would have to attend to it until other arrangements could be made.’

  ‘Aye, aye.’ He sighed. ‘Away and tell them to come.’

  He flung off his cloak and thumped down on a seat at the bedside table. He stared at the Bible which was always kept there in the vain hope that it might encourage Annabella to peruse it.

  ‘O Lord, cause Thy face
to shine on me again and I shall be safe.’

  Outside in the lobby some of the officers were squatting and lounging on the floor. Others were through in the kitchen trying to flirt with Nancy. Annabella entered just in time to save one of them from Big John’s fists. She picked up a pewter plate and flung it at the servant cutting him on the brow.

  ‘He has a pistol, you fool,’ she said. ‘Do you want to get yourself shot? And stop bleeding all over the place. Come, Papa is waiting for you and Nancy.’

  Lavelle was straddling a chair at the other side of the room. He beckoned with a finger for her to approach him. She tossed her head but did not budge from where she stood near the door.

  ‘If you wish to speak to me, sir, you may rise.’ She jabbed a finger at a point immediately in front of her. ‘And come over here!’

  Trying to conceal a smile, he rose and bowed.

  ‘I only wished to remark, mademoiselle, that it did not seem proper that I as a senior officer should have such cramped quarters.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘While I have a whole room to myself?’

  ‘And a comfortable bed.’

  ‘Oh, sir, how ungallant! You surprise me. So it is only the comfort of my bed you are after.’

  ‘You are the comfort of the bed, mademoiselle.’

  ‘No, no, monsieur, I am much more than a comfort!’

  Just then a bawl issued from the bedroom: ‘Annabella, are you at it again?’

  Lavelle said quickly: ‘If I visited you later, what would you say?’

  She slid him a roguish look before flouncing away.

  ‘How little you know me, sir. I never chatter in bed.’

  Ramsay was waiting with jaw jammed forward and fingers drumming the table.

  ‘Oh, aye. You’ve decided to join us, after all, have you? Well, maybe now that you’re ready we can all get the benefit of God’s word.

  ‘James, Chapter 4: “From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not …” ’

  His voice loudened until it broke into a desperate roar:

  ‘Submit yourself therefore to God. Raise the devil, and he will flee from you!’

  9

  ‘ARE you all sticky, pet?’ Jeannie bent over Regina. ‘Here’s a wet cloth. Wipe yourself with that like a good wee lassie.’

  Regina was upstairs in the harlots’ house cowering on the floor in a corner. The skirt of her petticoat was soaked with blood. She gazed up at Jeannie from the shadows, eyes enormous.

  ‘Duck her in the river,’ one of the other women said. ‘That’ll liven her up.’

  Jeannie smiled. She had a heart-shaped face that had once been pretty but some of her teeth were missing and her eyes had sunk deep into black crêpe hollows.

  ‘Don’t mind Muckle Mary, pet. Her gob’s as big as everything else.’

  Muckle Mary’s flesh bulged out and suspended over the chair she was sitting on, rolled over the table she was leaning on and threatened to engulf the clay pipe she was smoking. Opening her mouth like a whale coming up for air, she kept a grip on the pipe with one bunched fist and said:

  ‘The sodgers don’t complain.’

  The third woman in the room tittered.

  ‘She can take three f … sodgers on at once, can’t you, Mary?’

  ‘That’s Leezie,’ said Jeannie. ‘An awful nice lassie. She’ll give you a wee sup of her whisky, pet, and you’ll be singing like a lintie in no time.’

  ‘Christ!’ Leezie exclaimed. ‘You’re bloody generous with my whisky. What the hell’s wrong with your own?’

  ‘Wasn’t it me that got her and isn’t she going to be a help to us all? Aren’t you, pet? You’re going to be a good wee lassie, sure you are?’

  She smiled again. Regina looked away. Her eyes sought a place on the floor directly in front of her. She riveted her gaze on the spot. The wooden floorboard had once been warm brown, but was now cold black with only a faint port wine stain coaxed out by the sun’s rays. Once it had been smooth, but now it looked as if miniature wheels had scored it a thousand times, coarsening its surface, rutting it, rotting it. A beetle like a black mirror laboriously seesawed.

  ‘Wipe yourself, pet,’ Jeannie repeated.

  Leezie came over with the whisky and forced it against Regina’s lips. As she bent over her, Regina could see down Leezie’s shirt a suppurating sore on one of her breasts.

  ‘Come on, you red-headed wee cow. Do as you’re telt or we’ll fling you down to the sodgers again the way you are.’

  ‘She’s got bonny long hair,’ Jeannie said. ‘Haven’t you, pet?’

  The two women were blocking out the sun. It was dark and cold.

  ‘And such a nice creamy skin. No’ a spot on it. And such fine green eyes. Och, you’re a bonny wee lassie, pet.’

  Some of the whisky trickled over Regina’s face. The rest found its way down her throat. She wiped her legs with the wet cloth without looking.

  ‘Take off your petticoat and give the skirt of it a rub in this bowl of water. It’ll soon dry at the fire.’

  Like a feeble old woman Regina peeled off the striped woollen petticoat and left herself naked.

  Leezie laughed.

  ‘Hey, Mary, would you take a keek at this. You call me skinny?’

  Muckle Mary had a husky low-pitched voice like a man.

  ‘It’ll no’ be three at a time for her.’

  ‘Never mind, pet,’ said Jeannie. ‘You’re still growing.’

  ‘Hurry up.’ Leezie gave Regina a punch. ‘Do what you’re telt.’

  Regina fumbled the skirt about in the bowl until the water dirtied into dark red. Then Jeannie took the petticoat and hung it close to the fire. She came back over.

  ‘Here’s your nice green cape, pet. But its no’ a nice bright green like your eyes. What bonny eyes you have, pet.’

  Regina allowed the cape to be draped over the front of her.

  Across the other side of the room on one of the rafters a rat was sitting up on its haunches like a dog begging. It had a tiny pointed mouth and tiny pointed paws. Its black tail hung down and swayed slowly to and fro like a pendulum. There was a hole in the thatching of the roof. The sun was fading away, leaving the sky slate-coloured. The sky was a jagged patch in the rat-brown thatching of the roof.

  ‘The Highlanders didn’t look as if they’d have two bawbees to rub together.’

  ‘Christ, Mary, what are you worrying about. There’s thousands more men coming today. And thousands more on Friday. There’s bound to be plenty money among all that lot.’

  Muckle Mary’s laughter came slowly as if it could barely heave up through all her flesh.

  ‘I’ll fight the pair of you for Prince Charlie.’

  ‘The three of us she means, doesn’t she, pet?’ Jeannie’s face creased in Regina’s direction. ‘Och, now, wouldn’t a prince be awful nice.’

  ‘We’ll no’ get f … near him.’

  ‘Och, well, I was forgetting anyway. He’s a Pape, and we don’t want anything to do with dirty Papes, sure we don’t, pet?’

  Leezie rolled her eyes. ‘Christ, what the bloody hell do you think the whole Highland army is?’

  ‘Och, don’t listen to her, pet. Don’t you worry your bonny wee head. The Highland army’s maybe “piscies” but they’re no’ Papes.’

  ‘They say the Prince is bonny.’

  ‘Christ, what does it bloody matter if he’s cockeyed or bandy-legged. He’s no’ going to look at the likes of you.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the likes of me?’ Mary rumbled. ‘How would you like a kick up the arse?’

  Steam was rising from the striped wool. A hen splay toed its way daintily across the floor. Leezie kicked it aside as she strolled towards the table. It squawked in furious indignation and ruffled its feathers, making itself swell to twice its size.

  ‘I’d rather have a bloody drink.’ She flopped down and raised the whisky bottle to her mouth.

/>   Jeannie went over and did the same and soon they were all carousing and singing.

  ‘Who learned you to dance,

  Babity Bowster, Babity Bowster?

  Who learned you to dance,

  Babity Bowster, brawly?

  My minny learned me to dance,

  Babity Bowster, Babity Bowster,

  My minny learned me to dance,

  Babity Bowster, brawly.’

  They did not notice Regina sliding over towards the fire to get her petticoat and slithering back again to put it on.

  Light blurred and faded with the harlots’ voices. The fire died under trickles of black smoke. The rats descended from the rafters in single file like soldiers.

  Slowly Regina eased herself nearer the door. On reaching it she stretched up her hand and found the latch. Without a sound the door opened. On all fours she crawled from the room on to the wooden landing. Downstairs, men were laughing and talking. She could not get up. Standing up would make her noticeable, vulnerable. She half slithered, half crawled down the stairs and along the lane like a snake writhing around between the dunghills. Not until she reached Gallowgate Street could she believe that she had truly escaped. She remained crouched on the mud for a few minutes before rising. Then she moved cautiously in the direction of the Cross. Never before had she looked forward to darkness. She willed it to come, to change the dusky shadow to black, to obliterate her. Once darkness had meant fear. Now it was velvet to draw round her and cover her face.

  The musical bells of the Tolbooth clock chimed their merry, incongruous tune.

  She hesitated, not knowing which way to turn. The close where she had spent the first night away from home was only a few minutes along Trongate Street. At least she knew that place and drawn by this thread of familiarity she made her way head down towards it. Through the archway into the back close, over to the tower.

  ‘Regina, is that you?’ a voice suddenly cried out from the shadows. ‘Is it really you?’ A small figure dwarfed by a big hat and jacket leapt up and down with joyful excitement then came hopping and skipping towards her. ‘Regina! Regina!’