The Tobacco Lords Trilogy

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  ‘This has to be the living-room, Phemy. Where Papa and I and Mungo can sit. There’s a drawing-room upstairs for entertaining guests. And there’s a dining-room across the other side of the hall and a kitchen at the back and even two little rooms for the servants.’

  ‘Rooms for servants!’ Phemy squealed incredulously. ‘Lord’s sake, what next?’

  They sped back to the hall, their hooped skirts swishing and seesawing. The dining-room was the colour of peaches and also had a window facing the Westergate. Its walls were ornamented with festoons of fruit and flowers in realistic shades and looked very pleasing and inviting.

  ‘But you haven’t a dining-table at home, Annabella. In fact, you can’t have nearly enough furniture.’

  Annabella giggled.

  ‘Papa has gone this far, he might as well go the whole hog and purchase a dining-table and a few other bits and pieces.’

  They swept out of the room and up the stairs.

  ‘There are three bedrooms just for sleeping in, Phemy. Imagine … three bedrooms! And just for sleeping in! And, hold your breath … this is my wondrous, dazzling drawing-room.’

  ‘Annabella!’ Phemy clasped her hands under her chin in rapturous admiration. ‘Annabella, a crystal chandelier!’

  ‘Think how many candles it will hold and how bright it will make the room. Oh, Phemy, I have always felt so cast down and cruelly confused by dark, dismal and incommodious places.’

  ‘You will be happy here, Annabella. Surely you will.’

  Here there were festoons of flowers and also raised ovals on the panelling on which were beautifully painted landscapes.

  ‘None of the rooms are over-large. Yet they are not small.’

  ‘They’re larger than the rooms in the Saltmarket or the Trongate, Annabella. I do envy you.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you get your gudeman to build a mansion for you? He could afford it.’

  Phemy gave a quick little shrug.

  ‘The Earl could never stand all the commotion of moving, I’m afraid. Poor Glendinny’s very frail.’

  Annabella shrugged.

  ‘Then you would be a widow like me—only luckier because you would be wondrously wealthy. Poor Blackadder was very lacking in bawbees.’

  ‘Annabella, you flutter me, talking like that.’ Phemy tried to give Annabella a reproving look but was shocked to find herself giggling instead. She hastily squashed her hilarity behind a mittened palm.

  Annabella skimmed away towards the bedrooms.

  ‘See, there are closets for hanging our clothes in. It is so much better than folding them into kists, don’t you think? But of course I will still use the kists for storing the household linen.’

  ‘Such a lovely view at the back.’ Phemy pressed her pocked face against the bedroom window. ‘What a difference from looking out at a back close crowded with beggars and suchlike. And, oh, the smell of grass and flowers and trees instead of dunghills and fulzie, Annabella.’

  ‘There’s got to be dunghills and fulzie wherever you are but out here the farmers are quick to remove it to use on their fields.’

  ‘Will you be taking Mungo away from the grammar school? It’s such a long rough walk for the poor wee lad, especially when it’s dark.’

  ‘It does seem more sensible to change to the school in the Westergate when it’s so much nearer. Yes, I expect I will.’

  They returned to the front door and, whisking their petticoats over one arm, they carefully stepped across the rough track of road to the sedan keeper’s yard.

  ‘I’m sorry Griselle couldn’t manage,’ Annabella said. ‘How is she, by the way?’

  Phemy sighed.

  ‘No different from what she was when you last saw her.’

  ‘The best thing she could have done was have another child.’

  ‘Yes, but you know what she’s like.’

  ‘I do indeed. She would not allow Douglas to touch her with a barge-pole now, far less with his …’

  ‘Annabella!’

  ‘It is true. It is Douglas I am sorry for now. I know she is your sister, Phemy, and naturally you are fond of her. Lord’s sake, so am I, but she is treating her gudeman with monstrous cruelty. Her tongue is like a dagger continuously whittling away at him.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Tears welled up in Phemy’s eyes. ‘Oh, poor Douglas. He suffers it all as best he can but he must feel sorely tried and very unhappy. He has always been so fond of Griselle and so kind to her.’

  ‘If he were more of a man and less of a milk-sop, he could stop Grizzie’s infernal flyting.’

  ‘I really don’t see what he can do, Annabella.’

  ‘He could knock a few of her teeth out for a start.’

  ‘Annabella! You’re fluttering me. Please don’t talk in so wild a manner.’

  ‘Or he could complain to the magistrates and have her put on the ducking stool. After a few duckings in the river she would have little breath left for flyting at Douglas.’

  ‘Oh, please stop, Annabella. I can’t bear even to think of such a thing. And after all, poor Grizzie lost her child.’

  ‘Women are losing children all the time with the fever and the pox and God knows all what. But they don’t keep blaming their gudemen and making their lives a misery.’ She raised her voice in the direction of the chairman’s cottage. ‘You are keeping ladies waiting, sir. Make haste at once.’

  A man like a leek in a long green coat and white breaches emerged from the front door of the house, bending his head so that it would not knock against the lintel.

  ‘Och, it is yourselves, Mistress Blackadder and Mistress Glendinny,’ he said in a lilting Highland accent. ‘I am chust after telling the men at the back. They are coming round this minute. Aye, it is a grand day, is it not?’

  ‘Indeed it is, Mr MacLintock,’ Annabella replied, flouncing open her fan and proceeding to flap it energetically in front of her face. ‘If somewhat warm. I fear the sun does nothing for a lady’s delicate complexion. We should have worn masks, Phemy.’

  ‘Och, the chairs will be giving you shade and here they are now. When is it you and your family are moving to the Westergate now, Mistress Blackadder?’

  ‘Soon. Soon, Mr MacLintock. I am greatly looking forward to it.’

  ‘Aye, chust so. Good-day to you, ladies.’

  Phemy wriggled into one chair and Annabella arranged her skirts into another, the chairmen hoisted up the poles and they were off.

  Annabella peered out at the cottages and mansions on either side of the country road. Most had the rutted grass-tufted road right up to their front doors. Some had ragged bushes growing close to their walls. Some had trees spreading in front of windows, cutting out light. Others had the sparkling waters of St Enoch’s burn running between them. Others again had orchard gardens like coloured shawls draped round their backs.

  They passed the Buck’s Head Inn, then the Black Bull Inn with its sign creaking in the breeze. Then one or two more cottages before they came to the tenements of Trongate Street.

  The chairmen loped along at a steady pace, making the chairs swing and bounce. Suddenly Phemy rapped on the roof and made her chairmen stop. Seeing this, Annabella signalled for her sedan to be put down too. They opened their doors and leaned out. Phemy called over,

  ‘Have you time to come with me to pay Griselle a little visit just now? Talking of her has made me worry about how she is. I haven’t seen her for a few days.’

  ‘You worry too much about everybody, Phemy. But all right. I’ll come if it will ease you.’

  They wriggled back into the sedans and the chairmen shut the doors before setting off again. Along past the Tron Church, then the shipping booths like dark caves behind the walkways underneath the arches. The booths had half-doors and sometimes the owners could be seen leaning over these doors gazing out at life passing by under the piazzas and out on the road. The statue of King William, the hero of the Boyne sitting astride his horse, reared up in front of the Exchange building. The Tolboo
th towered over the Cross, its musical bells singing out as the chairmen turned right and trotted down Saltmarket Street.

  Annabella glanced out at her close as she passed just to check that Betsy was not lounging about gossiping with other servants instead of preparing the dinner. Once a crowd of serving-maids gathered at a well or a close-mouth, they completely forgot about the work they were supposed to be doing or what errand they had been sent out for. There they would cluster, water stoups or baskets or milk pails discarded in the dirty road at their feet while they stood, arms cheekily akimbo or comfortably folded over bosoms, laughing and chattering.

  A rush of ragged children suddenly filled the street with screaming. A dog barked and weaved about behind them as if it was herding sheep. It disappeared round by the Cross, sweeping the children and the noise away with it. There was only an old woman left. Weighed down by a sack on her back, she moved slowly and intoned into herself with every step.

  ‘Carrots and turnips, ho! Carrots and turnips, ho!’

  The sedans manoeuvred in between the pillars of Gibson’s Land and through the archway to the back of the building. At the foot of the stairs leading to Griselle’s flat, the chairs were lowered and Annabella and Phemy struggled out.

  ‘I dare swear I’ll make as much use of my horse as a sedan when I’m living at the Westergate,’ Annabella said. ‘It is monstrously hot and uncomfortable in these chairs, no matter what Mr MacLintock says.’

  ‘I suppose we shouldn’t really complain about the heat, Annabella. It’ll be winter soon enough.’

  Phemy tirled Griselle’s door-pin and as they waited for Griselle to come Annabella clasped her hands to her bosom, gave a rapturous sigh and gazed heavenwards.

  ‘Imagine, just imagine! I’ll be living in my magnificent house by then and entertaining like a queen.’

  * * *

  ‘Come away in.’ Griselle held herself primly as she led the way through to her bedroom. Her wooden mask of a face revealed only slits for eyes and mouth. Her skin was sallow and her cheeks purple-veined. ‘You’ll drink a cup of hot chocolate with us.’

  ‘Hallo, Douglas,’ Annabella greeted her brother and held out her cheek for a kiss. ‘I didn’t expect you to be home at this hour.’

  He kissed her, then fluttered up his hands and eyes.

  ‘Alas, I am plagued with these frightful headaches. Today I could not see to count the columns of figures and Papa had to send me home.’

  ‘He’s alive though,’ Griselle said.

  Douglas gave a fleeting ghost of a smile.

  ‘And how are you, dear girlies? Sit down, do. I shall tell the servant to prepare you some of this delicious chocolate.’

  ‘I’ll go and tell the servant,’ Griselle said. ‘You can’t do anything right.’

  Her skirts swished like a broom scraping the floor as she left the room. Douglas lifted his cup of chocolate with shaking hands and lowered his head to take a sip.

  Annabella studied him. His dress was still that of a fop and a dandy. Yet, at the same time, he had a neglected look. His wig was unevenly powdered as if he had done the job absent-mindedly. And tufts of it that should have been curls spiked out grotesquely. Powder dusted over the shoulders of his coat and his neckcloth looked limp and grubby as did the ribbons trailing from his cuffs. He still used white and scarlet face paint but it was patchy and smudged, giving him the appearance of a pathetic failure of a clown.

  ‘We are well, Douglas,’ Phemy said. ‘Don’t worry about us. Oh, I’m so sorry your health is not robust. I wish there was something I could do to help. Perhaps if I brought you some of my strengthening broth.’

  Douglas looked up with anxious eyes.

  ‘No, no, dear girlie. I fear Griselle would not be pleased.’

  ‘Hell and damnation, brother!’ Annabella cried out. ‘Have you no spunk at all? What does it matter if Mistress Griselle is pleased or not?’

  Douglas gave one of his tremulous smiles.

  ‘It may not matter to you, sister, but it is of vital importance to me.’

  Flicking out her fan, Annabella set it in angry motion.

  ‘Fiddlesticks and poppycock! To the ducking-stool with her, I say. I have a good mind to suggest such a course of action to Papa.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Both Douglas and Phemy cried out in distress. ‘Oh, Annabella!’

  Douglas put his cup down, spilling some of its contents onto the table.

  ‘Oh, oh, you have me so fluttered, Annabella. Now look what I have done.’ He began trying to mop up the spilled chocolate with his handkerchief.

  ‘Gracious heavens!’ Annabella protested. ‘You have servants who can do that. You pay them to perform menial tasks. And you pay Griselle to see that the housework is done. What is the use of keeping a dog if you bark yourself?’

  ‘Dear saucy brat,’ he tried to laugh. ‘You were always the same, even as a child. Nothing or no one worried you overmuch, or for very long.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘What good does it do? Your precious Griselle would think a lot more of you if you acted more like a man.’

  ‘You do not understand.’ He sighed. ‘Poor Griselle …’

  ‘To bloody hell with Griselle …’

  ‘Annabella!’ they cried in unison again.

  ‘Pox on her, I say!’

  ‘Pox on who?’ Griselle queried, entering the room followed by a maid servant carrying a tray of steaming chocolate.

  Douglas fluttered his hanky in agitation.

  ‘Pox on the workmen who are taking such a fiendishly long time to finish Papa’s mansion.’

  ‘You fool,’ Griselle said. ‘Everybody knows that mansion has gone up faster than any mansion has ever gone up before. Your tongue’s as useless as every other ridiculous-looking part of you.’

  ‘Grizzie …’ Phemy wailed but she was interrupted by Griselle’s sudden shriek of fury.

  ‘Look at my good table. It’s in a pigsty you should be. You filthy worm. Can’t you even drink a cup of chocolate without doing something wrong?’

  ‘Grizzie,’ Annabella said in quite a pleasant tone of voice. ‘I am not in the least surprised that no one visits this house any more or that I am the only friend you have left in the world. It is a misery and embarrassment to sit in the same room with you and listen to your vile tongue constantly lashing your gudeman.’

  There was silence for a minute or two while they all sipped their chocolate. Then Griselle said:

  ‘You’re all right, mistress. You’ve always been all right.’

  ‘Now, Grizzie, that is not true. I have had my misfortunes, and my sad losses.’

  ‘You lost a lover.’

  ‘And a husband.’

  ‘If that was all I’d lost, I’d be a happy woman today.’

  Phemy’s face twitched into a spasm of distress.

  ‘Griselle, you must pray to God to forgive you and to soften your heart. It is wicked to talk the way you do. I’m afraid you will be punished. I’m so worried about you.’

  ‘It is all my fault, dear girlie.’ Douglas rose with a flapping of arms. ‘Truly it is. It is I who should pray to be forgiven for causing such wretchedness. Now I will relieve you of my company so that you can have a tête-à-tête without further disturbance.’

  ‘Are you returning to the counting-house?’ Annabella asked.

  ‘Not him,’ Griselle replied. ‘He lies abed most days. It’s all he’s fit for.’

  ‘Sometimes I am quite overcome by deep dejection.’ Douglas posed at the door, trying to smile and fluff out his cuffs. ‘And I am fit for nothing else, it is perfectly true.’

  Suddenly Annabella pattered over to him and kissed his cheek. Phemy quickly followed and did the same.

  ‘We will see you again soon, brother.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Indeed we will,’ Phemy agreed.

  His painted chalk-white face and strawberry lips blurred into the shadows of the lobby as he withdrew. Annabella shut the door and swung round.

  �
��You shrew! You bloody fishwife!’

  ‘Oh, Annabella,’ Phemy wailed.

  ‘Isn’t he lucky,’ said Griselle, ‘to have a woman to fight for him? Of course, he hasn’t enough guts to fight for himself.’

  ‘You could have done a lot worse than marry my brother.’

  ‘Tuts, you really must control that ridiculous imagination of yours, Annabella. You’re letting it completely run away with you.’

  ‘You are allowing your monstrous tongue to run away with you, mistress. Take care. I might take a fancy for tearing it out.’

  ‘Douglas is very kind and considerate, Griselle,’ Phemy said.

  ‘He killed my son.’

  ‘Poppycock!’ Annabella snapped. ‘If anyone is to blame for George drowning, Griselle, it is yourself. You should have allowed him to learn to swim. If he had been able to swim he would not have drowned.’

  Phemy’s palms flew to her mouth. In acute concern she stared at her sister to see what effect Annabella’s words were having. Griselle’s face appeared more wooden than ever. Without moving a muscle, she said,

  ‘Get out of my house.’

  ‘You always coddled him and babied him. It was a wonder poor George was able to walk.’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘I am going. But just you remember, mistress, that if Douglas was as spiteful and unforgiving as you, he could be making your life a misery by reminding you of your responsibility in killing his son.’

  ‘Oh, Annabella,’ Phemy sobbed. ‘How could you be so cruel?

  But Annabella had whisked away, banging the door shut behind her. She felt furious; furious at Griselle, furious at Douglas, furious at herself for allowing either of them to spoil the happy mood she had been in about moving to her new house.

  ‘Pox on them,’ she thought, flouncing down the stairs and out through the back close. In Saltmarket Street she was nearly knocked over by a crowd of people running up towards the Cross.

  ‘How dare you, sir!’ she railed at the nearest man. ‘Have you no manners?’

  The man doffed his hat and ‘made a leg’ but it was done in unseemly haste.