‘And, Lord, I wish Ye wouldn’t pile on oor agony by sending a’ this wind and rain. An oughin’ soughin’ winnin’ wind we’d be content with, but O Lord, Lord, none o’ Your rantin’ tantin’ tearin’ winds. We pray Thee for the Redeemer’s sake that the floodgates of heaven might be shut for a season.’
Just then a fierce gust of wind exploded through the roof window of the church and scattered broken glass downwards.
‘Oh,’ Blackadder cast up his eyes despairingly. ‘O Lord, this is perfectly ridiculous!’
Annabella was not listening to either the wind or the Reverend Blackadder. In mind and spirit she was with Lavelle. He had informed her that the Highland chiefs were planning to hold a ball in honour of the Prince.
‘I would be enchanted, mademoiselle, if you would attend. I would be proud to lead a lady of such grace and beauty in a minuet.’
She laughed.
‘I fear, sir, that at a Highland ball the dancing will be of a type much wilder and less dignified than a minuet. Even at our normal Glasgow assemblies the dancing is most vigorous. A Scotsman, sir, comes into an assembly room as he would a field of exercise and dances until he is exhausted, and in most instances without ever looking at his partner.’
‘Mon dieu, I cannot believe it. No gentleman could be so uncouth and ungallant to his lady.’
‘Ah, but you do not understand, monsieur. The ladies are equally vigorous. Even elderly and portly dames bounce off their feet and frisk and fly about the room.’
‘I will insist on a minuet. Do say you will come, Mademoiselle Annabella. The Prince is so sad and dejected. In Glasgow he dresses more elegantly and carefully than he has done at any other town and he tries so hard to be at his most charming. All to no avail. He has held court, but, oh, such a melancholy affair it was, with only one or two ladies arriving to be presented.’
Annabella rolled her eyes. ‘Probably Clementine Walkinshaw and Margaret Oswald.’
‘You know them?’
‘Mistress Margaret’s brothers are tobacco merchants and ship-owners like my papa. They have the Martha, the Amity and the Speedwell. They built that grand tenement round in Stockwell Street called Oswald’s Land. But I cannot imagine my papa allowing me to go near the Prince, either to be presented or to attend a ball.’
But, oh, how she adored the idea of getting all dressed up and going to the affair and looking miraculously beautiful and having so many handsome men dancing attendance. She considered if it would be worthwhile trying to cajole and persuade Ramsay. She slid a tentative gaze at him, but he looked so dour and stern, leaning forward concentrating on hearing every word of Reverend Blackadder’s sermon, that she quickly abandoned the notion. Then a more promising and exciting idea occurred to her. Why should Lavelle not force her to go—at pistol-point if necessary? Delight surged up and brought warm colour to her cheeks despite the desperate cold in the church.
The minister was struggling to give his sermon but was finding himself compelled to make interruptions in order to chastise some irritating members of the congregation.
‘And the Lord said unto Moses—will ye shut that door, Tam Broon? Do you want me to get ma death o’ cauld? There’s such a draught blowing up here, I’m near flying oot the poolpit.
‘And the Lord said unto Moses—put oot that dog; who is it that brings dogs into the kirk, yaff, yaffin’? Don’t let me see you bring your dogs in here again or I’ll help you and them both oot with my foot up your backsides. And the Lord said unto Moses …’
She could hardly wait until the sermon was over and she could return home to tell Jean-Paul of her plan. She would wear her blue satin gown trimmed with gold and silver and she would sport the largest hoops in Glasgow and the longest fan and she would order Nancy to dress and powder her hair as she had never dressed it or powdered it before.
‘Dozing again, mistress?’ Ramsay prodded her arm with his cane. ‘Are you no’ aware that the service is finished.’
Douglas, who was sitting at his father’s other side, tittered then quickly sought to stifle his hilarity in a lace-edged handkerchief. He was wearing a pigtail fastened to his wig with a large satin bow.
‘Dear sister, are you dreaming of when you will be married to the good preacher?’
‘Indeed I am not, sir, that would be a nightmare. My thoughts were straying along much pleasanter paths.’
Ramsay shook his head. ‘And you’ve the nerve to admit it.’
Douglas giggled.
‘Do you not remember, Papa, the last time we were in the Ramshaw Church the minister’s wife fell asleep and had to be publicly reprimanded? It was very comical.’
‘It was no’ comical at all, Douglas. It was a bloody disgrace.’
Annabella fluttered her hands and eyes in mock shock.
‘Papa, Papa! Such wicked language, and in God’s house! I am mightily shocked.’
‘You’re a leear, mistress. It would take a lot more than that to shock you and you’re enough to drive any man to cursing and swearing. Move yourself. It’s time we were away.’
The service had lasted six long hours and Annabella was only too glad to make her escape. Outside the rain had stopped and the wind had lost its fury but Trongate Street was still a muddy sea. Nancy was waiting by the door and on catching a glimpse of Annabella approaching she shouted out to a caddie that a sedan-chair was wanted. In a matter of minutes two men splashed along carrying a chair which they brought right under the archway and Annabella manoeuvred herself gracefully inside it. Big John brought the horses for Ramsay and Douglas and they mounted and cantered away leaving the servants and the sedan-chair men to splash and stumble along as best they could.
Already Annabella was busy making plans and preparations for the next evening’s ball and as soon as she arrived home she started putting them into practice. With Nancy’s help she concocted a hair wash of honey-water, tincture of ambergris, tincture of musk, with some spirits of wine and all shaken well together. Then, with much giggling and squealing, Nancy helped her wash her long hair.
No Scottish lady worth her salt ever painted her face as Englishwomen did, but a cold cream patted on occasionally at night protected the skins from the harshness of the Scottish climate. Annabella had a good cream she had composed of oil of sweet almonds, white wax and spermaceti. She melted these ingredients in an earthen pipkin and when the mixture was smooth and cold she moistened it with orange-flower-water or rose-water. It was kept in a gallipot covered with leather and she had it brought out ready for use.
Fortunately Lavelle and his fellow officers were out for the evening and so she could proceed with all her beauty plans unembarrassed and undisturbed by them.
‘Vanity! Vanity!’ Ramsay accused. ‘It’ll be the death of you yet, mistress. And if the inquisitors catch you, you’ll be up before the Kirk Session.’
Annabella laughed. ‘A fate worse than death.’
‘You are a verra wicked woman, Annabella. I’ve warned you before about profaning the Sabbath.’
‘Oh, Papa, what a misery you are. Why shouldn’t I look after my bonny hair? And my skin that’s as smooth and fair and as delicious as peaches and cream?’
‘Annabella!’
‘But it is the truth, Papa. I am beautiful. Why shouldn’t I be? And why should you pretend that you are not prodigiously proud of me? Perhaps it is as Monsieur Lavelle says. We Scottish folk twist and distrust and hide our feelings because we’re afraid of them.’
‘Afraid?’ Ramsay roared. ‘I’ll soon show him who’s afraid.’
‘No, no, Papa. You don’t understand. I didn’t either at first, for, oh, he is so clever.’
‘He’s just a sodger like other sodgers. It doesn’t take many bloody brains to be a sodger.’
‘He meant, Papa, that we do not like to show weakness. He did not mean to be insulting. Indeed he is an uncommonly gallant and charming man.’
Ramsay eyed her suspiciously.
‘You keep well away from him, mistress. I’m
warning you. Sodgers mean nothing but trouble.’
‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’ she said.
It was the storm that decided the doxies and camp-followers.
Flora said: ‘I’ve had enough of this, I’m going into the town for decent shelter.’
And so she and the rest of the women set off for Glasgow. They were a motley crew dressed in all their various pieces of clothing most of which had been taken from dead English soldiers.
Tall women, small women, fat women, thin women; women with long lank hair, women with round unkempt bushes of hair. Women with long skirts trailing in the mud, women with short ragged skirts barely covering their thighs, women with men’s tight breeches. Women tired-looking in soldiers’ heavy greatcoats, women cold-looking in loose open-necked shirts. Women with pinched, anxious faces.
Jessie limped as fast as she could to keep up with the crowd, but her crutch kept sinking deep into the mire and each time she had a breathless struggle to retrieve it. Soon she was left far behind, but continued the journey with desperate concentration. Every now and again, exhausted by her efforts, she stopped to rest and look around. The countryside was bleak with muddy fields and prickly acres of gorse and broom, but in the distance she could see the town tightly packed in a valley and surrounded by a collar of hills. The picture of it was not strange to her and she approached it with a mounting excitement that try as she would she could not comprehend. She went down the Cracklin House Brae towards Candleriggs Street. This hill was so named because the ‘cracklins’ or refuse from the tallow from the candle-makers was used for feeding dogs.
She found herself in the Black Cow Loan with its stone walls and hedges and mountains of filth caused by the fulzie men often emptying their carts there. The workers in Candleriggs Street also used this country road and the long grass behind the wall as a depository for urinal and other excretions.
Candleriggs Street was a busy, lively place. There was the Wester Sugar Work and the Soap Work and the Bowling Green and some two-storeyed houses. The Bowling Green was bounded by an eight-foot-high wall on Candleriggs Street and round into Bell’s Wynd. In front of the Candleriggs wall there was a stagnant ditch full of tadpoles. Jessie shrank back from it, yet felt compelled to stop and watch children wade into the ditch and come out again giggling and pointing in delight to each other’s bare legs which were now black with mud and looked as if they were wearing shiny top boots. The children disturbed her deeply, yet she could not think why.
Continuing on her way, she shook her frizzy head and muttered to herself. Then when she came to Trongate Street she stopped again, her heart beginning to thump and make her all the more breathless. Slowly now she made her way eastwards towards the Cross, but it was not until she passed the Cross and saw the long stretch of Gallowgate Street that memory began to heave open the doors of her mind. She shrank from the pain of discovery, moaning out louder and louder as she hirpled along. By the time she turned down Tannery Wynd she was weeping brokenheartedly, something she had never done since she was a child. The door of the house lay open and she went inside. It was full of soldiers, but not wearing the tartan. The men had blue breeches and green breeches and long grey jackets.
‘What do you want, cripple?’ one of them asked.
‘This is my house,’ Jessie managed hoarsely. ‘What have you done with my bairns?’
‘What bairns?’
‘A wee laddie called Gav and a wee lass called Regina.’
‘Sure and we don’t know anything about the boy but the whores upstairs had a girl.’
Jessie’s eyes protruded.
‘Not my Regina. She’s just a wee lassie. A wee lassie with long red hair.’
‘That’s the one. You’d better ask them.’
She could hardly drag herself away. It was as if her spirit could not suffer any more and had fled, leaving her body limp like a rag doll. Anguish fuddled her mind and she kept trying to speak to herself as she climbed the harlots’ stairs, but her lips stretched feebly and her head wobbled loose and no coherent words would come.
Jeannie opened the door.
‘Oh, it’s you, Jessie. Where have you been, pet? My, my, there’s been folk spierin’ all over the place after you. I hear they’re wanting you for stealing some woman’s washing.’
Jessie’s head wobbled all the more and saliva dribbled from one corner of her mouth.
The harlot continued: ‘The further and faster you get away from here the better, pet. I wouldn’t like to see a poor soul like you get hanged or banished to Virginia. See, if they banish you to them wicked plantations, they say you’re a slave for ever after. Better to be hanged, pet.’
Jessie gazed in dumb bewilderment at her.
‘If you’re looking for your bairns, pet—they’re no’ here. I’ve never seen them a while. If they’re with anybody it’ll be that one-eyed, wicked rascal, Quin. You’d better away and look for him, pet. On you go now, but watch yourself and no let Hangy Spittal catch you and fling you in the Tolbooth.’
Jessie’s crutch thumped awkwardly back down the stairs and then along the lane and at the same time Quin and Gav and Regina were trotting along the Gallowgate within calling distance.
‘Quin’s faither and mither’s going to be verra pleased at having extra folk come to blether with them today.’
‘But, Quin,’ Gav sounded worried, ‘how can they talk back to you if they’re buried?’
‘Did Quin say they spoke to him, eh?’
‘Well …’
‘Quin’s faither and mither are happet well doon but they can always hear Quin although Quin can never hear them.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Auld Nick telt Quin. “Quin,” he says, says he, “Quin, you’ll never be parted from your mither and faither as long as my name’s Auld Nick.” Quin’s mither and faither knew Quin didn’t like to be left on his own. Quin remembers them crying out to the hangman, “Who’s going to look after oor Quin?” and the hangman, he says, says he, “The devil looks efter his own!” ’
Regina said worriedly, ‘You’re not going to take me down Tannery Wynd, are you? Promise me you’re not going to go down there.’
‘Och,’ Gav gasped with impatience. ‘We’re fed up promising that.’
‘Here’s Tannery Wynd now,’ Quin said. ‘Give Quin your hand.’
Trembling, she did as he suggested and just as they approached the entrance to the lane he gave a leap and a skitter and then sped like a hare along the Gallowgate with the children flying off their feet on either side of him. After his initial surprise Gav began to laugh. Regina laughed too in a high-pitched hysterical wail at Quin’s reckless speed until tears of hilarity were streaming down both their faces and they were choking and pleading with him to halt.
At last he stopped. ‘This is the road to Edinburgh,’ he said.
Gav wiped away his tears with the sleeve of his jacket.
‘I never knew that.’
Quin doubled over and cocked his head making his hair fly about.
‘Well, you know noo.’
12
IT had not been as easy as she thought to get to the ball, even at pistol-point. The pistol, in fact, had not helped at all and Lavelle had said gently:
‘Mademoiselle, did I not warn you?”
Her father had showed quite astonishing courage and devotion to her well-being, or of what he considered to be her well-being, and had paid not the slightest deference to the pistol.
‘Shoot me if you will, sir,’ he had roared, placing himself between her and Lavelle. ‘Only over my dead body will you be able to abduct my daughter!’
‘Oh, Papa, Papa!’ She eventually stamped her foot in a fury of frustration and impatience. ‘Get out of my way. I want to go to the ball! I absolutely refuse, sir, to spend this evening in any other fashion.’
There had been a frightful scene while her father had called God’s wrath down upon her head and she had thrown herself about screaming and kicking and cursing until he had been
glad to silence her in case she took a fit or went too far in one way or another.
‘Not another wicked blaspheming word, Annabella,’ he groaned, ‘or you’ll be beyond redemption and we’ll never be able to rescue you from the devil’s clutches.’
‘I can go, Papa?’ Immediately she brightened into her mischievous charming self again. ‘Oh, Papa, Papa. I am enormously relieved to have secured your permission.’ And she had the temerity to rush at him and give him a quick kiss before flying from the room in a shimmering froth of blue.
So deliriously happy was she that she barely remembered how she got to her destination and when she did she swept in like a ship in full sail with her enormous swaying hoops glistening with gold and silver embroidery and her arms and fingers and ears asparkle with jewellery and her hair powdered and padded to a stupendous height and reflecting the candlelight in the loops of beads that bounced from side to side as she walked or moved her head.
In a way it was both disconcerting and disappointing to discover that only two or three ladies in the whole of the city had accepted the chiefs’ invitations. It would have been interesting to see lots of other gowns and fashions and she would have enjoyed the stimulation and challenge of competition. Of course, there could hardly be much proper dancing, certainly not Highland dancing of the type she expected, when there were so many men with so few partners. On the other hand, it was thrilling to have such a lot of attention lavished upon her and so many admiring eyes following her every move. The chiefs looked magnificent in their tartans. Some, like the dark-haired handsome Lochiel, were clean-shaven and wore skintight trews and jackets of green or blue or black cloth adorned with silver or gold epaulets and cuff buttons. Hefty plaids were wrapped around their bodies bandolier fashion, with the end slung over their left shoulder and fastened across the breast by a large silver or gold bodkin or circular brooch enriched with precious stones and engraved with mottoes or armorial bearings. A large purse of goats’ or badgers’ skins answering the purpose of a pocket and ornamented with a silver or gold mouthpiece and many tassels hung from the front of their belts.
The Tobacco Lords Trilogy Page 14