The Tobacco Lords Trilogy

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  ‘Damn the hussy!’ he told himself over and over again. ‘She’s never been anything but a plague and a worry to me.’

  He tried to banish her completely from his thoughts, to concentrate on living his normal life and for the most part he at least looked as if there was nothing amiss. He busied himself in his counting-house. He went for his meridian and sat in the tavern with his friends drinking and talking. He visited and supped with his colleagues, Willie Halyburton, the Earl of Glendinny and the old Earl of Locheid. He paced the plainstanes with all the other tobacco lords and discussed the price of a hogshead of tobacco and how much was to be exported to the countries in Europe and how many hogsheads were lying in bond.

  But all the time the figure of Annabella drifted in and out of his mind like a yellow-headed wraith. Occasionally his mind’s eyes fastened wistfully on her and he would be pulled back by a colleague or friend having to loudly repeat to him something they had said. Or he would be counting up a column of figures and suddenly discover that he had got a wrong total and have to shake himself and struggle to concentrate and count everything again.

  Now Griselle and Douglas had made him a grandfather, but he could not work up any enthusiasm for the baby, nor even to question the suspiciously premature birth. It was his lack of interest rather than the reverse that allowed him to be persuaded to attend the Cummers Feast and to celebrate the birth and when Gav appeared he growled.

  ‘Away and tell Big John to hurry with the lanthorns and bring me my cloak. We’ve to go down the road to Maister Douglas’s place, damn him!’

  Douglas had a flat in Gibson’s Land further down Saltmarket Street. The distance did not merit the bother of taking out and saddling up a horse, so Ramsay went on foot, striding along in his bushy wig with his head thrust forward and his hands thumping one on top of the other behind his back. Big John and Gav held up the lanterns in front and guided him safely around the ruts and potholes on the road.

  Going in the other direction, Moothy McMurdo swaggered past.

  ‘A beautiful young lassie called Mally Sime,

  Is to wed Andra Gillespie in two days’ time,

  Mally has a fortune o’ four thousand and mair,

  And it’s verra unusual to be rich and fair.’

  Gibson’s Land was a magnificent tenement standing upon eighteen stately pillars or arches and entry was through four arches into a courtyard and the stairways at the back. Trust Douglas, Ramsay thought, to set himself up in something fancy.

  Inside the house, as was customary after a birth, Griselle sat in state in full dress, propped up on top of her four-poster bed on a footstool and with three white satin pillows at her back and her enormous hoops spread across the white satin bed-cover. Her wig was high and well powdered and decorated with large curling feathers and she was wearing face patches and held a long fan. There was already quite a crowd of friends milling about the bedroom paying their respects and curtseying and bowing and drinking wine. The supper was laid out and all the guests sampled the ham and fowl and ducks and hens and partridges. Then after the meat had been removed everyone suddenly scrambled to grab the sweetmeats and stuff them in their pockets. Chairs were knocked over and dishes crashed from the table and men and women pulled and pushed at one another and there was a terrible noise. After a time it quietened down again as folk concentrated once more on drinking the wine.

  Ramsay came away early. He preferred whisky and he was in no mood for socialising. He could no longer feel at ease away from his own house in case, through some miracle, Annabella might have returned. When he got back he thought the miracle had happened. A candle flickered in the kitchen. But it was Nancy who emerged. Big John rushed joyfully towards her but she pushed him aside.

  ‘Is Mistress Annabella back?’

  ‘She’s alive then?’ Ramsay said.

  ‘She was on her way home when I last saw her.’

  ‘With Lavelle?’

  ‘Alone.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘She’ll make it. I did.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you accompany her and see to her? What the devil do you think I pay you good money for? I could have you whipped through the toon for this.’

  ‘She went away on her own. I followed not long after, but there’s many different paths and it’s easy to get confused, especially in the dark.’

  Thoughts of the many long dark nights Annabella must have travelled and was still travelling tormented him beyond words. He pushed past Nancy and into his room, crashing like an enraged bull into furniture in the dark.

  ‘Gav! Bring the bloody lanthorn, damn you!’ he roared, and when Gav ran obediently with the lantern, Ramsay snatched it from him and cuffed his ears.

  ‘Time you were away to Virginia, m’lad. You get it too bloody soft here. I’m sick to death o’ being surrounded wi’ useless tramps who do nothing but eat my meat, burn my candles and pocket my hard-earned sillar.’

  Gav groped his way back through the dark lobby into the kitchen where one candle made a ragged patch of light that gave furtive movement to the gloom. He had no sooner reached the kitchen when Ramsay bellowed out again:

  ‘Where the hell are you a’ noo? It’s time for the reading.’

  Even the reading was a challenge of concentration to him and he felt keenly guilty at the frequency with which his mind wandered from God’s word. But he never missed a night in front of the Bible in Annabella’s bedroom even when there had only been himself and Big John.

  After the reading and the prayer and ignoring the lateness of the hour, he questioned Big John, Gav and Nancy on their Catechisms before allowing them to retire. Then after sitting motionless for a long time he lifted the candelabra and went over to the corner to stare gloomily out of the dark window. Occasionally a disembodied lantern twinkled past like a firefly. Then came the slower light of the town guard swinging on its pole as he plodded through the streets. But it too was soon swallowed into the blackness. A horse’s hooves beat a sudden kettledrum clatter on cobbles, then just as suddenly stopped. Silence opened like the grave. Ramsay turned away deeply dejected and went through to his own room and bed.

  While outside on the stairs, crushed among a shivering flotsam of humanity, Quin waited.

  23

  GAV was embarrassed and nervous when, on the way to school next morning, he saw Quin, but he bade him a polite good morning as he crushed past the crowd of bodies on the stairs. In a dither of excitement, Quin trotted after him.

  ‘Gavie, Gavie. Quin’s found Gavie.’

  The dangers, the insecurities, the terrible privations of Gav’s recent existence, roared like a lion at his heels along with Quin. It was as if already the good food he’d been enjoying, the warmth, the shelter, the safety, the bookkeeping lessons, everything had only been a dream. Quin was the nightmare reality. Quin was ugliness and squalor; Quin was fear and loneliness; Quin was hunger; Quin was stiff-cold nights and days with nowhere to go.

  Early-morning light made cobwebs of the roof-tops and a ghostly face of the Tolbooth clock. It had been raining during the night. Quin’s clothes would have been wet and they would have dried slowly as he huddled on the draughty stairs. He would have had nothing to eat or drink. Gav had not been listening to his chatter as they hurried past the Cross and up the High Street. Nor had he spoken a word, but on reaching the school he stopped and said:

  ‘I thought you were banished.’

  ‘Quin is! Quin is!’

  ‘I tried to see you. I went to the Tolbooth and asked again and again.’

  ‘Gav’s a good lad, eh?’

  Gav took from his pocket a piece of bread, a piece of chicken and an apple supplied to him by Nancy. He pushed them all into Quin’s hands and Quin hastily crammed the bread and the chicken into his mouth until his face bulged grotesquely all over.

  Gav said: ‘I’ve got to go into school now.’

  Quin couldn’t talk because his mouth was so full, but his one eye strained wide and his head wobbled in bew
ilderment. Gav hesitated, then added:

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning and explain.’

  Quin nodded eagerly, but before he could gulp over the food and say anything in reply, Gav dashed into the school building.

  Regina was waiting for him in the lobby and the first thing she asked was: ‘Is Annabella Ramsay back yet?’

  He was still shaken by the encounter with Quin and her question did not penetrate his consciousness at first.

  ‘Are you still asleep?’ Regina angrily prodded him. ‘Answer me!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is she back yet?’

  ‘Mistress Ramsay?’

  ‘Who else, you fool!’

  ‘Stop calling me a fool. I’m not a fool.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she smirked sarcastically. ‘You’ve just signed indenture papers condemning yourself to five years’ slavery on the Virginia plantations because you’re so damned clever.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m going to work but I don’t mind working. It’s better than stealing or begging.’

  ‘But you’ll enjoy my money all right, no matter how I came by it.’

  ‘No, I won’t. Keep your money. I don’t want any of it. I won’t touch it.’

  She groaned. ‘You’re being damned stupid again.’

  ‘Just come into the classroom and see if I’m stupid or not. I was always cleverer than you and you know it. I was the cleverest in the whole school at the last school and I’m the cleverest in this one as well.’

  ‘I asked you a question and you haven’t answered it yet.’

  ‘No, she’s not back. Why are you so afraid of her? What have you done to anger her?’

  ‘I had her Frenchie killed.’

  ‘Her Frenchie?’

  ‘They were lovers. You know,’ she said irritably. ‘Lovers! She loved the French pig.’

  Gav’s colour faded with his voice.

  ‘Regina!’

  At the sound of the name her hand shot out and stung his face.

  ‘If you say that word again I’ll kill you.’

  Heartbroken tears shimmered before his eyes, blurring his vision. He wept, not because of the blow Regina had given him, but because his sister did not exist any more.

  ‘Stop that damned blubbering,’ she said. ‘You’ll have plenty to blubber about when you’re rotting on the plantation.’

  In his wretchedness he began to wonder if he had made a terrible mistake. His happy dreams of doing bookkeeping in one of Maister Ramsay’s stores and eventually becoming manager began to crumble. In his heart he had always suspected that they were too good to be true. Good things like that did not happen to beggar boys. Only people who already had good things in life were given the chance of more.

  Now his mind opened to stories his mother used to tell them about what she had heard about the plantations. About people starving and dying. About savages who ate people. About wild animals the like of which had never been seen in Glasgow.

  His heart crashed about inside his chest as if it were determined to smash through his ribs.

  He would be alone in Virginia without friend or relation. Perhaps it would be better to stay with Quin, after all. But he had signed the indenture papers and he had given Maister Ramsay his hand on it. Thinking of Maister Ramsay steadied him a little. Would a kind, clever, honest man like that trick him?

  As it happened, at that very moment Ramsay was supervising the setting up of hogsheads of tobacco on the open street in front of the Exchange at the Trongate in preparation for the auction. This area, the business centre of Glasgow, fronted by the plainstanes which contained the Exchange, the Tolbooth, the Exchange Coffee House and Tavern, had been nicknamed ‘The Golden Acre’. Already merchants from various countries in Europe were strolling about rubbing sample leaves between finger and thumb to test it for quality.

  Ramsay’s ships the Mary Heron and The Glasgow Lass were now lying at Port Glasgow. All the tobacco that was brought into Britain had as usual gone into bonded warehouses until it was time for it be re-exported. Ramsay, having taken his out to sell, would now be able to claim a ‘drawback’. He had found a dishonest customs man and arranged that the certificate issued by the Customs House showed double the number of hogsheads than had actually been landed. As a result now that he had withdrawn the tobacco he got double the drawback of tax money he was entitled to. He did not consider this dishonest. Nor did the merchants who put in tobacco, took it out again, got their drawback, then re-landed the same tobacco at a different port and repeated the process again. There were so many duties on foreign goods that most respectable people laughed at the way smugglers dodged the excise man. And when the subject of the tobacco trade came up in conversation they would wink knowingly and tell of the many tricks used by tobacco merchants.

  The only people not amused by merchants’ ways were the Virginia planters. The merchants did not think much of the planters either. Some of them they viewed as very slippery and coarse fellows with their thumbnails grown specially long and hardened in the flame of a candle. Suspicious travellers maintained the nails were cultivated for the purpose of gouging out victims’ eyes in the many rough and tumbles they became involved in. The yeomen who worked their crops claimed they needed their long nails only for the innocent reason of ‘topping’ the tobacco plants. At one stage, to ensure growth and strength, they maintained the top of the tobacco plant, including the bud, had to be removed.

  The planters referred to men like Ramsay as ‘the unconscionable and cruel merchants’. The merchants regarded the planters as spendthrifts and wastrels, quick to borrow and slow to pay. But none of this was on Ramsay’s mind as he strode around with the other merchants fingering the samples of tobacco. He was still thinking of Annabella. Nancy had been so certain that Annabella was bound to arrive at any moment that she had stayed up late waiting to receive her and make her a warming dish of chocolate.

  ‘She started off before me,’ she kept repeating. ‘Even if she took a longer road by mistake, she should be back by now.’ He had not been able to sleep and he had heard Nancy moving about the kitchen for a long time. Then in the morning she said, ‘Maister, I’ll go and meet her. She’s bound to be coming near Glasgow now. She’s bound to be. Can I take a horse?’

  He glowered at her.

  ‘You brought a horse in, didn’t you? The beast is yours. Do what you will with it.’

  It was some hours ago now since she had galloped away and there was still no sign of her return. He was plagued with wicked wayward women and thinking of them he hardly heard the rhythmic chant of the auctioneer with its mellow cadences starting with the cry of ‘Bid ‘er up, boys!’

  Then came the silent gestures of the buyers. One might wink. Another put a finger to his chest. Another raised an eyebrow. Another pulled the lobe of his ear. The auctioneer slipped his figures higher and higher:

  ‘22-2-2-3-3-3-4-4-4.’

  Until he ‘knocked down’ the tobacco he sang over and over again in a kind of Gregorian chant the last number of each bid:

  ‘25-5-5-6-6-6-7-7-7-8-8-8.’

  It was a colourful scene with the hogsheads piled up and the tobacco lords strolling around and the many other merchants from all over the world in their rich and vivid clothes. Hovering on the outskirts there was another motley throng. There were the tradespeople. There were the chapmen. There were the hotchpotch of men and women of all shapes and sizes with trays hanging from their necks selling Daffy’s Elixir, or Tincture of Rhubarb or Tar Water or Dried Bees for the rheumatics or aromatic herbs or candy. There were the milkmaids on horseback with ‘soor-dook’ barrels strapped across the saddle. There were the beggars, the pickpockets, the harlots and the thieves.

  But of Annabella or Nancy there was never a sign.

  Nancy had just meant to ride a few miles out of town. She was certain that Annabella could not be any further away. But one mile of desolate countryside passed, then another and another. Morning gave way to afternoon, and af
ternoon sank slowly into evening. It would be hopeless she knew, to find anyone once darkness came. She had not even brought a lantern, but a dozen lanterns would be mere pinpricks in the vast blackness of the night.

  Her horse cantered to a halt and she sat uncertainly, looking around, wondering what she should do, when suddenly she detected a movement among some trees across the other side of a river. Then out of the shadows appeared a woman on foot and hitching up her skirts she began wading across. From the distance she looked like a daffodil in the navy blue water. Nancy could not make out her features. Her defiant carriage, however, and the way she was forcing herself against the water, as if challenging it, daring it to stop her, left Nancy in no doubt.

  She spurred her horse forward, then leapt down as soon as it reached the river’s edge.

  ‘Mistress Annabella!’

  Annabella’s hair tumbled untidily around her shoulders. Her face was pink with her exertions but black-spattered with dirt and her bare feet and legs were bruised and cut. She struggled out of the water as Nancy watched in helpless disbelief.

  ‘Mistress, what happened?’

  ‘Hell and damnation!’ Annabella cried out. ‘The bloody horse fell down a pothole and broke his leg. I’ve had to walk a monstrous distance. I tell you, Nancy, I have never been so exhausted in all my life.’

  ‘It’ll be morning now before we get back to Glasgow. Would you rest here for the night and start off in the morning?’

  ‘What? Spend another odious night shivering on wet grass? Don’t just stand there blethering such ridiculous nonsense. Help me to mount.’

  After helping her up, Nancy sprang up to sit behind her. Then after a few minutes as the horse cantered along Annabella suddenly burst out:

  ‘Gracious heaven, Nancy, what are you doing here? I thought you were away home with your wondrous chief.’

  There was another silence before Nancy replied:

  ‘The troopers caught up with us.’