The Tobacco Lords Trilogy

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

Immediately he scrambled to his feet and, seeing who called, jogged towards her.

  ‘Aye, mistress, it’s Quin.’

  She stared curiously at him for a minute. His face was wet as if he had been weeping. Eventually with a flap of her hand she said:

  ‘What is the meaning of this noise and commotion?’

  Quin scratched his head. ‘They tell Quin they’ve killed thoosands o’ Heelanders. But Quin hasn’t seen them getting hangit for it.’

  Annabella stared round at Nancy.

  ‘Pox on them! They’re celebrating Culloden.’

  They moved into the joyful, riotous throng and were immediately jostled and pushed and manhandled. Men struggled to pull Nancy away and she clung to the side of the horse and for the first time began to weep. Stumbling along with her face buried against Annabella’s leg, her wailing became louder and louder.

  ‘Be quiet, you stupid bitch!’ Annabella shouted. ‘Get up here beside me.’ She gave her a hand and hauled her on to the horse. Then she smashed her foot into the face of one of the men who had been pawing at Nancy before kicking the horse’s flanks and yelling it on.

  In the path of Annabella’s horse people’s laughter rapidly changed to screams of panic as they were knocked down and kicked and trampled. From one of the lantern windows Ramsay caught sight of the wild approach of his daughter with a mixture of absolute joy and utter horror. Men and women, most of them too drunk to leap out of the way, were being hurt.

  He kept watching, hypnotised by the shocking sight, not only of the injured but of the skirts hitched up to reveal bare legs and thighs, the torn bodice showing flashes of shoulder and bosom, the streaming yellow hair, the beautiful untamed face. He was still standing at the window when his daughter strode into the room. It radiated to life the moment she entered it. Ramsay was so overcome with emotion he could have sobbed out loud. She was his torment, his pride, his shame, his sorrow, his overwhelming, delirious delight.

  She tossed her head and looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘Well, Papa, aren’t you mightily glad to see me?’

  ‘You’ve ruined that horse,’ he said.

  ‘Fiddlesticks! Big John will see to him. I’m devilish hungry. I haven’t eaten for a prodigiously long time.’

  ‘Eat then. I’m away to meet my freends at the tavern. I’ll be back in time for the reading. Do you hear me, mistress?’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’

  Glowering, his head thrust forward and his hands thumping behind his back, he strode past her and out of the house.

  He was too early for his other merchant colleagues but the captains of his ships were waiting in the tavern and soon they had decided that the next day the Mary Heron and The Glasgow Lass would set sail for Virginia. Shortly afterwards, when through the tavern window Ramsay noticed Gav among the crowd, he sent the tavern-keeper to tell him so that he could be prepared. Then later when Captains Daidles and Kilfuddy were leaving he noticed Gav and a well-dressed young fellow accosting the captains and addressing them very earnestly. He wondered who the well-dressed young fellow was, but the arrival of his friends put Gav and the stranger out of his head.

  The Earl of Glendinny, the Reverend Blackadder, the Earl of Locheid, Andrew Cochrane and Willie Halyburton were all out to celebrate and were in a suitably happy and expansive frame of mind. Ramsay felt that now he too had something to be happy about and entered the evening’s festivities with unusual gusto. Before a few drinks had passed he was thumping the table and shouting.

  ‘Drink up, gentlemen. I give you good King Geordie!’

  ‘God bless him!’ The Reverend Blackadder’s eyes rolled back with the whisky.

  Willie Halyburton thumped the table and stamped his feet.

  ‘The Duke of Cumberland!’

  ‘Sweet William, God bless him.’ The Reverend Blackadder’s elbow heaved up and down again.

  At the cue of ‘Sweet William’ they at once burst into the Whig ditty in praise of Cumberland and loudly and lustily they sang it.

  ‘From scourging rebellion and baffling proud France,

  Crowned with laurels, behold British William advance,

  His triumphs to grace and distinguish the day,

  The sun brighter shines and all nature looks gay.

  Your glasses charge high, ‘tis in brave William’s praise,

  To his glory your voices, to his glory your voices,

  To his glory your voices and instruments raise.

  In his train see sweet peace, fairest child of the sky,

  Every bliss in her smile, every charm in her eye,

  While the worst foe to man, that dire fiend Civil War,

  Gnashing horrid his teeth, comes fast bound to her care.

  Your glasses charge high, ‘tis in brave William’s praise,

  To his glory your voices, to his glory your voices,

  To his glory your voices and instruments raise.’

  Even the Earl of Locheid joined in the singing, but in a canny way, chewing at the words with his eyes closed and when he laughed, and he laughed a lot as the evening’s carousal proceeded, it was carefully contained, with arms pressing against the sides of his chest and his lips primly closed. All his life he had been a neat and canny man and no matter how drunk, he had never been known either to splutter or to spill one drop of whisky.

  Ramsay, by this time very drunk indeed, began to roar out another song.

  There’s nowhere a land so fair,

  As in Virginia,

  So full of song, so free from care,

  As in Virginia,

  And I believe that happy land,

  The Lord’s prepared for mortal man,

  Is built exactly on the plan,

  Of old Virginia.’

  They all cheered his rendering and his sentiments and joined with him in a second rousing chorus.

  Bottle after bottle of whisky appeared on the table, was emptied and knocked aside. Wigs slipped askew, coats hung loosely from sagging shoulders and feet flopped and fumbled up on top of the table.

  Only the Earl of Locheid remained neatly sitting upright, his bony fingers curled round his glass like a vulture’s claw.

  Willie Halyburton swayed nearer to the Earl and peered close to his face.

  ‘Locheid’s looking verra pale.’

  ‘Och, that’s no’ surprising,’ said the Reverend Blackadder. ‘I noticed him passing ower to the other side to his Maker aboot an hour ago but I didn’t like to interrupt the proceedings.’

  ‘Aye, and would you look at that,’ Ramsay said in admiration. ‘He’s never spilled a drop.’

  It was now dark outside and all round the Cross in Trongate Street and High Street and Gallowgate Street and Saltmarket Street bonfires blazed and people were carousing and singing and dancing and making love. Lanterns hung from public buildings and every window in the city was illuminated with candles. All through the night the celebrations went on until daylight came and with it hissing swishing rain to douse the fires and send people scattering home.

  It was early morning when Gav saw Quin and gave him some bannocks and a lump of cheese and a silver coin he had persuaded from Regina.

  ‘Where were you last night?’ he asked. ‘I looked on the stairs for you. Were you out at the celebrations?’

  Quin rubbed his ear.

  ‘Auld Nick says to Quin, says he, “It’s time you were visiting your mither and faither.” ’

  ‘You went out to the Gallow Moor in the dark?’

  ‘Quin knows the way.’

  ‘Regina and I are riding to Port Glasgow. I’m on my way to meet her now. She’s bought a passage to Virginia. After seeing Mistress Annabella ride into the town, she decided the further she was away from her the better.’

  Quin cocked his head. ‘Gavie’s no’ going to Virginia.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a beggar all my life, Quin, and there’s work for me in Virginia.’

  ‘Gavie’s no going away.’

  Gav squashed downstairs, with Q
uin jogging after him, rubbing his torn ear and scratching his head and agitating all over.

  Big John had the horses saddled up in the back yard. Ramsay had instructed him to ride with Gav to the ship, then bring back his horse. By the time Big John and Gav had mounted, Regina came cantering in to join them.

  They grouped together, the horses turning and snorting and restlessly pawing the ground.

  Regina said: ‘What the hell are we waiting for?’

  Gav looked down at Quin. He was sure he had never, and would never again see anyone so ugly in all his life.

  ‘What’ll you do?’ he asked in a small voice.

  ‘Who cares?’ Regina said.

  ‘You shut your mouth!’ Gav cried brokenly. ‘Shut your cruel wicked mouth.’

  To his horror he could see tears spurting from Quin’s one eye and smearing down through the dirt of his face.

  Regina said: ‘Good God, I didn’t know you could cry.’

  ‘Weel, you know noo,’ said Quin, and jogged away as fast as he could with his coat-tails and hair flying.

  Gav turned on Regina.

  ‘I hate you.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘The harder you hate, the better it’ll be for you. You’ll only get hurt if you’re soft. It’s a cruel world. Well? Are you going to Virginia or are you not?’

  Without another word they guided their horses out of the close and as they passed the Gross to go along Trongate Street, Gav looked back towards the Gallowgate and saw Quin still flying away towards the Gallow Moor crossroads and his ‘mither and faither’. It reminded Gav, as his horse clip-clopped away in the opposite direction, that his mother also lay at that lonely crossroads and the pain and tightness in his chest grew unbearable. He spurred his horse on and the other two followed until soon they had left Glasgow far behind them. He wondered if he would ever see it again and now having left it perhaps for ever, it became dear to him for the very first time. The tall tenements, the arched piazzas, the plainstanes, the silver spires, even the back closes stinking with fulzie and the crowded turnpike stairs, etched a warm and urgent and never to be forgotten picture in his memory of home.

  He thought of it, saw it in his mind’s eye when later he stood on the deck of The Glasgow Lass as its sails billowed out and the old ship groaned and creaked away.

  Regina stood beside him in her three-cornered hat and smart cutaway coat, waistcoat and breeches. Her face was a stiff mask in which her green eyes smouldered. But the thumb of one hand was nonchalantly latched in her waistcoat pocket and the other hand rested easily on her sword.

  Gav wore smart new clothes too. They looked like a couple of young bucks to be reckoned with. And despite his sadness Gav felt, as he was sure his sister felt too, the first stirrings of excitement as they set off for their strange adventure in a new land.

  ROOTS OF BONDAGE

  This book is dedicated to my dear American friends

  Elizabeth and Amy Turnell.

  1

  THE MERCHANT ship The Glasgow Lass left the Firth of Clyde behind and made for the open sea. Tossing about like a tiny cockleshell in the wide expanse of water, it sometimes disappeared completely from sight as waves swelled high to engulf it. Up it would bob again though, its square sails bravely billowing.

  Gav crouched against the bulwarks vomiting into the scuppers, his small freckled face white against his red hair. He longed to die. He wished he had never signed the indenture papers, never heard of tobacco ships or the Virginia plantations. All he wanted was to be back in Glasgow and on good steady land.

  He glanced up at his sister, Regina, or Reggie as he was supposed to call her now because she was passing herself as a young gentleman. She was neither help nor comfort any more. Like a stranger and far older than her thirteen years, she stood stiff and controlled, hands clutching at taut perpendicular ropes.

  He didn’t know what to make of her. Once she had been so gentle and loving to him. They had bickered and quarrelled occasionally, it was true, but no more than was normal for brother and sister.

  From the moment they heard that Prince Charles Edward Stuart and his Highland army were about to invade Glasgow, their whole lives had changed.

  First their mother had disappeared. Then the beggar Quin had captured them and made them sleep in closes at night and wander the streets with him during the day.

  They had tried to return home. Regina, in fact, had managed it at one point but when she came back she said the house had been taken over by the Irish and the Frenchies—Irish and French soldiers who had come with the Highland Army. The French soldiers must have done something terrible to Regina because ever since she had nursed a sick hatred for them. It had been from that time that she had changed.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, then blinked to chase away his tears of regret at losing Regina as she used to be. His stomach heaved and his head ached. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought that any ship could roll and toss about so much and be so fearfully noisy. Like a giant basket made of the driest materials, squeaking and creaking and filled with iron tools falling about clanking and banging, it kept up a continuous racket. To escape from the noise and his wretched physical condition, he clung again to thoughts of Glasgow.

  Regina had gone to earn money by working for Mistress Annabella, the daughter of tobacco merchant Maister Ramsay, to whom this very ship belonged. Mistress Annabella was a wild and wicked woman. She had followed the Highland army to be with her French lover and she had forced Regina to go with her. They had been at the Battle of Culloden and escaped from it. It was while they were hiding from the Duke of Cumberland’s troops that Regina had betrayed Mistress Annabella’s French officer.

  ‘I had her Frenchie killed,’ Regina told him bitterly and with no sign of regret.

  He had not yet recovered from the shock of what Regina had done. Not only had she been responsible for the French officer dying a horrible death at the hands of Cumberland’s dragoons, but she had coolly rifled the dragoons’ saddlebags while they were committing the terrible deed. She had stolen many gold pieces and jewellery and other precious items.

  ‘It was loot,’ she insisted. ‘It didn’t belong to them.’

  Then, on her way back to Glasgow, she had stolen clothes and pistols and other valuables from dead bodies that were, according to her, littered all over the Highlands.

  He had not recognised her at first with her auburn hair hidden under a powdered tie-wig and a three-cornered hat. Instead of her striped skirt and green cape, she wore breeches, a long waistcoat and a cutaway coat, and a sword dangled at her hip. He had not known the pale face either with its bitter, twisted mouth. It was her eyes, hard and smouldering, yet still of the most beautiful jewel green, that convinced him, incredible though it seemed, that this smart young buck was actually his sister Regina.

  He knew she must have suffered. Terrible stories had been told about the sufferings in the Highlands. But he had suffered too, living with the beggar Quin, sleeping at night in icy cold closes and wandering about the streets during the day nearly starving to death. His mother had been found, wrongfully accused of stealing and hanged, and he and Quin had had the dreadful job of burying her at the Gallows Moor.

  He would still be wandering the streets if Maister Ramsay had not given him the chance to go to Virginia as an indentured servant. Regina had paid for a passage and come along too so that she could escape from Mistress Annabella. When he had asked Quin what Mistress Annabella would do to Regina if she caught her, Quin said:

  ‘March her over to the Tolbooth to be hangit. Or kill her herself. Aye, Quin thinks that Mistress Annabella would kill Reggie herself and no’ be very dainty aboot it either.’

  At least Regina was safe now and when they reached Virginia, no doubt she would find some sort of work if she needed to. Of course she claimed she still had plenty of money and could do whatever she pleased, but he could not be sure if she were telling the truth or not. He wasn’t sure of anything about Regina. More than once
he had said to her:

  ‘I’ve never stolen anything or caused anybody to be murdered. Why have you done such terrible things? I don’t understand you any more.’

  ‘You’re a fool,’ was all Regina deigned to reply. ‘You’ve sold yourself to slavery on the Virginia plantations.’

  She paid no heed to his protests or his explanations of how Maister Ramsay had stores in Virginia and how he had to help with the bookkeeping and perhaps one day become a Stores’ Manager. It was a great opportunity for him. Maister Ramsay had given him the chance after discovering that he had been to school and could read and write and count and speak Latin. Not many children were as clever as him. He had been the cleverest in the whole school. He had even been smarter than Regina and she was older by two years and could read and write too.

  But now, crouched against the bulwarks, miserably seasick and wet to the skin with the sea swathing across the deck and sucking back through the scuppers, he didn’t feel smart at all. The cloying smell of tar and mildewed canvas wasn’t helping his stomach. The sight of other passengers vomiting did nothing to allay his symptoms either.

  The other passengers were all women who had been charged with stealing or vagrancy and whose punishment was to be deported to Virginia to work on the plantations. Some had babies in their arms and small children clinging to their skirts.

  Some of the women were leaning against the starboard bulwarks weeping helplessly as they watched the shores of Scotland shrink away into the far distance until they disappeared over the horizon. Behind them, inside and underneath the longboat, the farm animals brought aboard for fresh meat and milk cackled and squawked and screeched in a flurry of protest at being pitched about.

  Large waves collected, heaved the ship skywards, rushed beneath, then disappeared as rapidly as they’d come while every timber creaked and every sailor hollered. It was some time before Gav recognised one particular voice aimed at the passengers, including himself. It was Mr Gudgeon, the first mate, bawling orders to get below.