The weather had finally turned, it was warm and sunny, and the four younger Wedderburn girls were in town. They were in high spirits at the prospect of a day in Dundee. Their half-sister Margaret had avoided having to chaperone them by pointing out that there was not room inside the carriage for them all, and that she had no desire to go. So Aeneas MacRoy was accompanying them, sitting up with the stableman, William Wicks, who was at the reins. At the old West Port the girls decanted, and MacRoy, after telling Wicks to drive to the shore where the horses could feed and rest before the return journey, got down stiff-legged from his seat and followed them at a discreet distance. He had been instructed by Lady Wedderburn, who was in bed with a cold, to keep an eye on her girls: Dundee could be rough, even in daylight, and MacRoy’s task was to make sure the lassies did not wander away from the main streets and into trouble.
MacRoy reckoned they were safe enough, with or without his assistance. Generally speaking, the poor and desperate robbed and bludgeoned one another, not their social betters. There was less risk involved. The fact that it was he – a man of sixty-eight, and hirpling somewhat these days – who had been entrusted with the girls’ protection, suggested that not even their mother anticipated any difficulty. What could she be expecting? A band of brigands to carry them off to Araby? And what, in such an eventuality, could an aged dominie do to stop them? Then again, it would be a bold brigand who would cross Aeneas MacRoy. Small and ancient he might be, but he was still a force to be reckoned with when roused. Tough as knotted wood and fierce as a wildcat, especially if the Wedderburn honour was at stake. Lady Alicia had known him twenty years. She did not really understand him, but because her husband trusted him, so did she.
The sisters intended to visit Madame Bouchonne’s in the Overgait, as she had recently advertised a large consignment of materials and designs newly arrived from London and the Continent. They wanted – or at least three of them wanted – to promenade up and down the Nethergait and High Street, to see what else might be new, and of course to be seen: the Wedderburn name was embedded in Dundee history – merchants, ministers, landowners, lawyers, burgesses, soldiers – and everybody knew who they were. Perhaps they would run into other ladies in from the country. They would almost certainly meet a cousin or two. They would, take tea at the New Inn, where who knew what interesting persons might also be passing the afternoon? A gallant young captain from the Forfar Militia perhaps, or better still a major in the Perthshire Regiment. And after all else, there would be the elephant. Fourteen-year-old Annie very badly wanted to see the elephant.
Aeneas MacRoy planned to watch them for a few minutes, then slip off to one of a number of dram shops he knew, and while away an hour before meeting them at the inn.
Susan, lingering in the wake of her sisters, had come to town in a mood of ambivalence. It was not that she did not want to be here – there was, after all, so much to see compared with the fine but too peaceful surroundings of Ballindean. Dundee was thriving, noisy, its narrow central area a constant mêlée of vehicles and hurrying people. It had a population approaching twenty-five thousand, which made it bigger than Perth and almost as big as Paisley. Dundee’s spinners and weavers had something of a reputation for radicalism, which appealed to Susan as much as it appalled her mother. There were, apparently, some truly dreadful backstreets and wynds, inhabited by characters who would, according to Aeneas MacRoy, stab you with a look. The thought of these dangerous places and people sent a thrill through her.
The huge new steam-driven flax mills built on the burns running down from Lochee might seem monstrous, but she could not help but be impressed by their power. Likewise the bustling harbour – with its intoxicating mix of foreign-looking sailors and merchants, and its hubbub of strange tongues; its ships carrying grain and linen to England and Holland; barrels of salted herring to the Indies (herring, she’d read, was a staple of the slaves’ diet), to Danzig and Riga, and bringing in iron, copper, tar and pine boards from Sweden and Norway – the harbour both intimidated and exhilarated her. And Dundee’s main streets and fine location below the Law, overlooking the gleaming firth, were gracious and charming. All this Susan saw and understood – much more so, she felt certain, than her sisters; and that was the source of her ambivalence. She would rather be here on her own, in disguise perhaps, able to walk the streets unnoticed and in her own time, not as part of a Wedderburn parade.
She was looking forward to fussy Madame Bouchonne only for the opportunity to laugh secretly at her and her claims of aristocratic blood and narrow escape from Madame Guillotine. Her outrageous accent could not possibly be Parisian, as she maintained, but was surely grafted on to something closer to home – Ayrshire, perhaps, or Dumfries – and her name bore an uncanny resemblance to Buchan or Buchanan. Madame Bouchonne might be a rare and exotic flower which her sisters would be loath to see wither, but Susan would rather have browsed for hours in the booksellers’ at the Cross, without Annie tugging at her sleeve. She wanted to go into the mills, see the men and women working there in their strange new crowded way, like a nest of ants. She wanted to talk to the weavers at their looms. She wanted to wander without sisters or chaperone, to sit by the harbour and drink in its sights and smells. But she could not do these things: she was hemmed in by her skirts and stays and family name. She wanted to be – for a day, or a week, or a year – a boy of seventeen.
She was beginning to feel that she had put enough yards between herself and her sisters almost to be not counted as one of them, when a man suddenly stepped from a close in front of her. She put out her hand in fright, but disappointingly he did not try to stab her with a look or any other implement. He stopped abruptly to avoid bumping into her, and made a short bow of apology.
‘Mr Jamieson!’ she said.
The plumpish man in his crumpled black clothes looked startled, then broke into a smile, friendly yet slightly awkward, even humble. It was enough to renew in Susan the confidence that came with being a Wedderburn. What she most disliked about herself was also one of her strongest attributes.
‘Miss Wedderburn. Ye’ve come tae shed licht on oor dark toun.’
She looked up at the blue sky, then at the busy street. ‘That’s hardly necessary.’ Then, peering into the close from which he had emerged: ‘Although down there, perhaps … Is that where you stay?’
‘Na, na,’ he said. ‘I was, em, looking for someone.’
‘Not Joseph Knight still?’ she asked. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh. Glancing ahead she saw her sisters slowing, becoming aware of her absence. She stepped quickly into the close mouth, cleeking Jamieson by the elbow and taking him with her.
‘Miss, I dinna think …’
‘I’m no awa tae kiss ye!’ she said, turning the accent on, and loud enough to make him start and even put a finger towards her lips.
‘Guidsakes, ye’ll hae me apprehended!’
‘Apprehended? That’s a word much used in your trade, I suppose. And did you find this someone you were looking for?’
‘No, I – he’s oot. I’ll get him again.’
‘What a strange life you lead. Always hunting folk. You never explained –’
Maria, Louisa and Anne passed on the street, Anne calling her name.
‘Ye’d better go, miss.’
‘But what about Mr Knight? Have you found him yet?’
‘I’ve no been looking. No since your faither –’ He broke off: this was ridiculous, being interrogated by a child. Why did he find himself so tongue-tied? ‘No, I’ve no found him.’
‘Oh,’ she said, turning to go. ‘That’s a shame, because I have. Goodbye, Mr Jamieson.’
Now it was he who pulled her in from the street. ‘What d’ye mean? Where?’
‘Unhand me, sir!’ she said, straight out of a novelle, and laughed because Jamieson seemed so astounded at the violence of his own reaction. But then, realising there was not much time left, she hurried on. ‘Perhaps you need my help.’
‘Your faither disna want me tae … Whit is it ye ken?’
‘It’s information … from my uncle. I’m not sure whether I should give it to you.’ She saw how eager he looked. ‘Where may I reach you?’
‘Here,’ he said. There was a tremor of excitement in his voice. ‘I mean, no here. In the toun. An address tae Archibald Jamieson at St Clement’s Lane will find me.’
‘St Clement’s Lane,’ she said. ‘Well, I may write.’ She started to go.
‘Miss Wedderburn – I dinna ken – I wouldna want ye tae cross your faither. Ye’ve a clever heid on ye, but ye’re jist a lassie.’
‘Leave my faither to me,’ she said. ‘You’re not him. Au revoir.’
She darted off again, back into the light. Jamieson followed her to the close entry, stopped on seeing her sisters flocking round her, heard a snatch of her excuse: ‘– thought it might be picturesque. It is not.’ Momentarily Anne peered in, and shrunk away at sight of him scowling in the shadows. Then they were gone, along the Nethergait in a flurry of skirts and chatter, leaving Jamieson not quite sure what had happened, what kind of conversation he had had. All he knew was that he felt the same tingle of excitement he had when tracking down radicals, or being within reach of a vital piece of information.
He was made very certain of what happened next, though. As he made to leave the close for the third time, he was met with a rock-hard fist that grabbed a handful of his shirt front and a good clump of chest hairs beneath it. It bore him back into the mirk and slammed him against the stonework. Jamieson grunted, tried to work himself free, but the other man’s grip was unshakeable. The arm that pinioned him was quivering with the exertion but solid as an iron bar. Without relaxing his hold, Aeneas MacRoy made a suggestion: ‘I think you and me should hae a wee conversation.’
Jamieson nodded, tried to speak, found when he did that all the breath had been punched from his lungs. He nodded more vigorously. Slowly, MacRoy eased off, let go of him, stepped away. ‘For God’s sake,’ Jamieson said, massaging his chest. ‘Ye’re a schoolmaister. And this is a guid shirt.’
‘Be glad I dinna mak ye eat it,’ MacRoy growled. It was an absurd threat but his voice and rage-darkened face gave it an unnerving force. Jamieson, who mixed with villains of various hues in the course of business, wondered if he was losing his touch. First he had got out of his depth in his interview with the laird, then the laird’s lassie had unsettled him, and now the laird’s dominie had caught him off-guard. MacRoy said, ‘I ken a place where we’ll no be disturbed.’
They continued on down the close, away from the Nethergait, towards the shore. Jamieson knew where he was being taken. Just before they reached the end of the close, MacRoy stooped at a low entrance to one side, and pushed open a door. It led into a dingy drinking shop, damp-smelling even on such a warm, breezy spring day. Two sailors were slumped insensible across a table, one on either side, heads touching as they snored. A few other battered, scraped and uneven tables and benches were the only items of furniture, and MacRoy and Jamieson the only conscious customers. A couple of guttering candles fixed on makeshift shelves by their own wax gave off a greasy half-glow that only made the room gloomier. From behind a high counter in an even darker recess of the room, a thin, slurring voice piped out: ‘Aye, sirs. Whit’ll it be?’
‘D’ye ken this place?’ MacRoy asked.
‘I’ve been here,’ said Jamieson. ‘Aye, Nannie,’ he said to the counter. Then, to MacRoy, ‘But I dinna frequent it unless I hae tae.’
MacRoy spat on the floor. ‘I dae,’ he said. ‘I frequent it.’ He made it sound like a word only an Edinburgh fop would use. ‘No because I hae tae. I like it.’
Jamieson looked at him. Outside, the older man’s head had barely reached his shoulder. In this putrid hole there seemed to be more of MacRoy, as if occupying preferred territory hardened and thickened his bones; made him, not fleshier, but somehow more cadaverous. Regaining his composure as they approached the counter, Jamieson decided that MacRoy did not so much frighten as repulse him.
The landlady revealed herself: a spindle of a woman, skinny as her voice, wearing a filthy apron over a coarse dress of indeterminate colour and material. An equally colourless lace cap sat on a nest of hair so tangled and matted that it seemed a comb, if applied to it, would either snap or vanish for ever. The woman leant heavily on her hands, swaying slightly. ‘Whit’ll it be?’ she said again. She was clearly very drunk.
‘Whisky,’ said MacRoy.
‘Cask or bottle? Cask’s cheaper, bottle’s better.’
‘Nannie, ye’re a cheatin hure,’ Jamieson said, feeling the need to reassert himself in front of MacRoy. ‘It’s the exact same stuff, whichever vessel ye tak it frae.’
Nannie stared at him. ‘Oh, it’s yoursel. I didna ken ye at first.’ Names seemed beyond her. ‘And wha’s this wi ye? Weel, sir, I’ve no seen you for a while either. I didna ken ye kent each ither.’
‘We dinna,’ said MacRoy. ‘We’ll sit ower there.’
They went to a table by the single, dirt-encrusted window, through which was cast a scabby, useless portion of the daylight. Nannie tottered across with a jug of whisky and a couple of tumblers no cleaner than the window. Jamieson produced a handkerchief and dichted one of them out. MacRoy poured into both glasses and set the jug down on the table with a crack, watching the other man coldly without releasing the handle. The landlady was still hotching unsteadily beside them.
‘Noo, Nannie,’ MacRoy said, without taking his eye off Jamieson, ‘get back tae your fuckin midden and lea us alane.’ She scuttled off. Into himself, Jamieson admitted to being impressed by the schoolmaster’s language. The enforced bottling up of curse words, which life at Ballindean must require, doubtless improved their flavour when finally uncorked.
MacRoy pulled a clay pipe and a tobacco pouch from his jacket, studiously packed the pipe, got up to catch a light from one of the candles, cowped his first dram, nodded at Jamieson to do the same, refilled both glasses, sat back and puffed at the pipe. ‘So whit’s your business wi Miss Wedderburn?’ he said.
‘Nane o your concern.’
MacRoy laughed, leant forward. ‘Listen tae me, man. I didna like ye when I saw ye at the hoose, an I dinna like ye noo. I like ye even less when I see ye whisperin secrets doun a close tae a lassie that I’m lookin efter. No my concern? That’s a Wedderburn lassie. She sits in my schoolroom. Ye’re no fit tae be in the same hoose.’
‘Maybe that’s why we bade in the close ootby.’ Jamieson was feeling better with every minute that passed. He took off the second dram. He was getting the measure of auld Aeneas now, beginning to understand what drove him.
‘I could hae broke your neck back there,’ MacRoy said.
‘How did ye no?’
‘I want tae ken whit your business is wi her.’
‘And I’ve tellt ye, nae business o yours.’
‘I’ll find oot. She’ll tell me.’
‘Whit’ll ye dae, threaten her? Thrapple her in the stables like ye did me? I dinna think so, Maister MacRoy.’
‘If Sir John hears o this, he’ll hae ye locked up. Or beaten up, ane or tither.’
‘Noo ye’re cleekin at straes, Aeneas. This is a free country, awmaist. Ye michtna like folk haein a conversation but ye canna prevent it. And I dinna think ye’ll be tellin Sir John either. He’d be wantin tae ken hoo ye let the thing happen at aw. And onywey, whit has happened? A few words exchanged in passing? Nae crime there.’
MacRoy took another drink. His brow furrowed deeper still. He stared at Jamieson with pure hatred. Or was it something else? Jealousy? And suddenly Jamieson knew who MacRoy was really staring at.
‘This is aboot the neger. I ken it is.’
Jamieson smiled. Ye could hae taen the words oot ma mooth, he thought. He said, ‘Whit neger? I dinna see a neger. Does Miss Wedderburn ken ony negers? We can ask Nannie if she’s had ony coming in aff the ships lately.’ He half rose to call her over. MacRoy’s hand shot across the table and gripped his wrist. Jamieson sat down. The hand released him, slid back again.
‘Joseph Knight,’ said MacRoy. ‘It’s aboot him.’
‘Are ye tellin me or speirin?’
‘Fine I ken that’s whit ye cam tae see Sir John aboot. Tae seek him oot. Weel, ye’ll no succeed. He’s deid. Deid and gane tae hell.’
‘Ye’re sure o that?’
‘That’s whaur he should be. And it’s whaur ye’ll be if ye dinna keep awa frae Miss Susan.’
‘Man, man, calm yoursel. Tell me aboot this. Ye’re jealous. Noo, ye canna be jealous o me. Naething to be jealous aboot – look at me. It was a pure accident meetin Miss Wedderburn. Ye ken that. But Joseph Knight, that’s a different story. Wha was it ye wantit him tae keep awa frae?’
MacRoy took more whisky. His gaze shifted, first to the window, then to the sleeping sailors, finally back to Jamieson. ‘I mind aince,’ he said, ‘gaun intae Dundee wi him on the cairt. Wull Wicks – no the laddie, his faither, that’s deid noo – Wull and I were awa tae fetch some plenishin for the hoose, and we were tae tak the slave in tae a barber at the Cross, that was tae gie him trainin in dressin hair or some such. And there wasna muckle talk on the road, but Wull says tae him, “Look at ye in your finery. Look at your hauns. The loofs o them are saft as a lady’s. They cry ye a slave but it’s clear enough tae me wha the slaves is aboot here. No you wi your work-shy hauns an hoose-bred ways, Joseph Knight. I would be a slave in a minute if I could get leevin like you, man.” I mind that, aye, every word o it. And the neger never said a word back, jist sat there wi a sneer on his mooth. He was a slave but he thocht he was better nor the rest o us, that’s certain.’
It was as if a tightly wound spring was being gradually released inside MacRoy. ‘He had nae richt. Whit was he? A neger. Sir John’s neger brocht back frae the plantations. He was lucky tae be here. Sir John treated him mair like a son than a slave. Better than a servant. He should hae been grateful for that, brocht oot o savagery and made a Christian in a daicent Christian country. But that wasna enough for him, na. He had tae hae mair. And mair and mair. He had tae hae awthing. He had tae hae her. But she was mine. She should hae been mine.’
‘Wha’s that?’
‘Annie. Ann Thomson. The neger turned her heid, and broke Sir John’s hert. That’s whit he did.’
‘Sir John’s hert? His hert’s no broken. That’s jist an auld man wantin tae redd up his affairs. And Joseph Knight’s ane o them. Whit happened tae him and Ann Thomson?’
‘Happen tae them?’ MacRoy said. ‘Ye ken whit happened.’
‘Na,’ Jamieson said. ‘I dinna.’
‘Fuck you, then.’
‘Why dae ye say Knight broke Wedderburn’s hert? Whit was there atween them?’
But Aeneas MacRoy had had enough. He drained the whisky in his glass, stood up, put his face down two inches from Jamieson’s. His eyes were furious and watery. ‘He broke his hert,’ he repeated. ‘He and Ann Thomson betrayed him. They’re deid and rotting in hell. Or they should be. Stay awa frae her,’ he said, stepping back, his voice rising. ‘I’ll kill ye if ye dinna stay awa frae her.’ Then he was stumbling across the dark room, back through the miserable door out into the close, gone.
Jamieson swirled the last of his whisky, contemplating the snoring sailors. They looked so peaceful, so untrauchled by life. A shame they should be in such a hole. But it was, he suspected, heaven compared with their ship.
He pondered MacRoy’s confused messages, decided there was more sound than substance in the threat. Who had he meant by ‘her’ anyway? Susan Wedderburn? Ann Thomson? Maybe MacRoy did not really know himself. Just as he seemed confused about whose heart had been broken by Joseph and Annie. The poor auld miserable bastard.
Jamieson stared at the table. ‘Damn him!’ he said out loud. MacRoy had not left a penny for the whisky.
After a while he got up and went over to the counter. ‘How much, ye auld thief?’ But Nannie, like the sailors, was fast asleep. Jamieson put a few coins on the counter and stepped, a little unsteadily, outside.
Aeneas MacRoy felt the spirit racing through his blood. He did not feel disabled by it – on the contrary, he felt liberated. He walked briskly back up to the Nethergait, stormed eastward along it and only came to a halt at the Cross, when his bad leg almost gave way beneath him and he realised he had been putting far too much weight on it. The New Inn was in front of him. He would have to go in and find the lassies. He took a moment to compose himself, straighten his clothes, wipe the sweat from his face.
Sometimes he almost brought himself to thank God that he was now, probably, too old actually to kill anyone. The violence had always been in him, but he had always contained, controlled it. When it boiled in him, it came up against the iron-hard shell he showed to the world, and had to subside. Or it came out in the whisky, a flame like a fire-eater’s breath. Or it was diffused in memories.
He minded the stir caused in the town by John Wedderburn’s coming home in ’68, to stay with his mother and sisters in their house in the Nethergait. How he had styled himself Sir John from the first, although the title had been forfeited by his father, and how folk either did not care or dared not challenge him. Dundee had buzzed with tales of the immense riches he had amassed in the Indies; and there was the young black man, too – handsome, got up in a fine blue suit with gold braid and a profusion of lace at neck and cuffs – who followed his master everywhere. Genteel citizens made sure their calling cards reached Sir John in the Nethergait. Many in the town were still romantically, if not politically, Jacobite, and those who were not saw no harm in welcoming one who had been ‘out’ but was now back and had the potential to spend so much money. And this sentiment grew stronger, as it became known that Sir John was looking about for two things to make his homecoming complete: a large property, and a young wife.
Aeneas MacRoy bided his time. After more than twenty years, to wait another few months was no trial. He kept a school for the sons of small merchants and farmers and took an unsteady income from it, constantly in thrall to the vicissitudes of harvests and markets. At that time the roll had fallen to a mere half dozen. Sir John’s return was timeous. It was not that MacRoy had nursed a plan over the years; it was simply that he had always believed that the Wedderburns would come back, and that when they did he might be able, in some small way, to profit by it.
In the summer of 1769 it became known that Sir John had an eye on the Ballindean property, and was negotiating its purchase with the owner, Carnegy of Craigie. He had his other eye on Margaret Ogilvy, twenty-year-old daughter of his former commander Lord David Ogilvy. His lordship was still exiled in France, but she, having been born and spent her earliest years there, was now living at Cortachy Castle, the family’s ancestral home. Before the year was out, a marriage had taken place, the couple had moved into the ancient, somewhat decrepit house at Ballindean, and were accumulating servants. Naturally, the slave went with them.
Early on the first morning of the new year, Aeneas MacRoy happed himself against the cold and made the long walk out to Ballindean. He might have sent a letter in advance, to introduce himself, but he knew that the Wedderburns were at home, and he had the means to get an audience. Day had come by the time he turned in at Ballindean’s gates. There was a light frost on the ground, and the loch was dark against the sparkling grass. Aeneas strode up to the front door. The place was silent. He battered at the door. Eventually a maid came to open it.
‘Is the laird aboot?’ said Aeneas MacRoy.
She looked him up and down suspiciously. A bonnie, black-haired thing with a proud look about her. She said, ‘Wha is it wants him?’
‘Tell him Aeneas MacRoy.’
‘Whit?’
‘Aeneas MacRoy.’
‘He’ll no see ye.’
‘Aye he will.’
‘Lord, man,’ said the maid, ‘it’s Ne’erday. What ails ye? Ye’re ower late for a hogmanay.’
‘I’d hae come yestreen if it was for that. Here, tak this yoursel, and gie him this. He’ll see me.’
He handed her a penny and a folded piece of cloth tied up with string. She slipped the coin away but stood looking doubtfully at the cloth.
‘On ye go, lass,’ he said. ‘Ye’re lettin aw the heat oot the hoose.’
‘Ye’ll need tae wait ootby,’ she said.
‘Fine. I’ll be in soon enough.’
She shut the door on him and disappeared. She was gone fully ten minutes. Aeneas waited, stamping his feet on the stone step.
The door opened again. ‘Ye’re tae come in,’ she said, wide-eyed.
‘Didna I say I would?’
The library was in a state of chaos. Chests full of books were piled against one wall, paintings in heavy frames against another. Chairs and other bits of furniture were stacked in the middle of the room. It was chilly, but a fire was catching in the grate. John Wedderburn, wearing slippers and breeches and a loose shirt, and a smoking jacket over all, was clearly not long out of his bed. He was standing to one side of the fire, running a faded but still colourful cloth between his hands. ‘Who are you?’ he said.
‘Sir, my name is Aeneas MacRoy.’
Wedderburn stared hard at him. The name meant something, but he could not place it. MacRoy could see him struggling, trying to remember.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘Ye ken whaur, sir.’
‘Is that some kind of a threat?’
‘Oh no, sir.’
‘I’ll not be trifled with,’ said Wedderburn. ‘As you can see, I am just arrived in this house. State your business so I can decide if I need to waste my time on it.’
‘Ye’ll maybe no mind, sir, efter Culloden, hoo the reidcoats gaithered up aw the colours they had captured. They took them tae Edinburgh, and there the public hangman burnt them at the Cross. But they didna burn this ane. The Glen Prosen company’s. Oors.’
John Wedderburn was looking down a tunnel of years. His clenched hands gripped the colours as if to tear the cloth apart. ‘Who are you?’ he said again.
‘Sir, I am the drummer laddie that fell a-greetin when the cannon shot cam ower us. But later I stopped greetin. I saved the colours when aw else was lost.’
‘Good God.’
‘And I thocht I would tak this opportunity tae return them tae ye, seein as hoo ye hae returned hame yoursel, and I’m richt glad tae see ye, sir.’
‘Good God,’ Wedderburn repeated. ‘The wee drummer. I mind you now. Aeneas. The wanderer. The Highland men called you Angus in their own tongue.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Now I see you as if it were yesterday.’
‘It is twenty-four years in April, sir.’
‘How old were you then, Aeneas?’
‘Jist chappin twal, sir.’
Wedderburn put the colours down on a table, stepped forward and shook Aeneas MacRoy by the hand. ‘Well, this is a fine meeting. And you have kept this all that time? That was a dangerous thing to do in the first years.’
‘Ah, weel, there’s nae bulk tae it.’
‘You shame me, that it ever left my hand.’
‘I think there was little tae be shamed aboot that day, wi us being sae young, sir. The shame was in the men that chose tae fecht on that ground.’
‘Ah, now, Aeneas, we’ll not rake over all that – not now, at any rate. But you, well, you saved yourself?’
‘Aye. When I had left aff greetin I ran aw the way tae Inverness and a woman hid me in her roof for a month, and I was that wee they never kent I was there. And efter the month I walked back tae Dundee, whaur my mither bade.’
‘You had a father?’
‘He was deid lang afore. That’s why I ran aff tae join the Prince’s army, though my mither didna want me tae. When I got hame she begged a future for me frae the minister. I’d haen some schooling, sir, I could read and write, and the minister thocht I would prosper if I got mair. He pit me in for a mortification at the grammar school, and they gied me it. They taught me Latin, and mathematics, and logic, and a wheen ither things. I was there fower year, and when I cam oot, I wasna the drummer laddie that gaed in.’
‘You had more book-learning than I ever had,’ said Wedderburn. He found glasses and a bottle of whisky, and poured them drams. ‘Here’s to the auld cause, then,’ he said, and they both drank, but there was a little awkwardness in it. ‘It is finished now, of course,’ Wedderburn added, ‘but there’s no disgrace in toasting what’s past.’
‘And whit’s tae come,’ said Aeneas MacRoy, raising his glass, and they drank again. Sir John asked how he now lived, and Aeneas told him about his tiny school in Dundee. As he talked, Wedderburn’s glance kept sliding to the colours lying on the table.
‘Ye’ll have acquired a good deal more knowledge, then, over the years?’
‘Oh, aye. I hae the French, leastwise I can read and write it though I dinna speak it aften or weel, and the Scriptures of course, and the algebra and geometry and suchlike. I can gie the lads as guid a grounding as they’ll get withoot gaun tae the college, if their faithers let them stay.’
‘They don’t always appreciate your efforts?’
‘If ye’re a fermer ye set mair store by your son’s muckle hauns than by his Latin. If ye’re a merchant ye carena hoo he spells, sae being’s he can coont. I canna blame them but it means the attendance is gey irregular.’
‘And the fees too?’
‘Aye.’
Wedderburn was silent for a moment, contemplating. ‘I have a fellow here that’s anxious to get an education,’ he said at last, ‘and I am happy that he should get one. Nothing fancy, but to read and write and so forth. Would you come out to teach him?’
‘I would. But it’s a lang road for jist the ae student.’
‘I’d make it worth your while. And it wouldn’t need to be often – he only wants to read and write a little. I don’t want him getting ideas above his station. And in a few years there will be more students for you, God willing. Wedderburns. I would want them to get a good Scotch education – straight, honest, useful. You might be the man to provide that. Not that they may not need some other expertise. A music teacher if there’s lassies; a fencing master for the boys. But what was it you said, a good grounding …?’
‘I can dae that and mair.’
‘You’re direct. That’s a good Scotch trait. I may not speak much Scotch these days but I have not forgotten where I’m from.’
‘That’s why ye cam back. Ye dinna speak Scotch but ye soond it. And I ken there’s a fashion amang the gentles for riddin themsels o Scotch words – weel, I hae the English, and can teach it.’ He paused. ‘I have trained myself to stop and start my Scotch like a spigot.’ This last sentence was delivered with a deliberate, slow emphasis, its broad vowels and burred consonants much reduced.
‘I think I like your Scotch better. We’ll see. If I took you on, it would be better if you bade here. There’s room.’
‘I would hae tae close the school then.’
‘Well, one thing at a time. You’ll need to meet my lady’s approval, of course. But there are other things than teaching bairns you could help me with. And before all that, there’s this.’ He picked up the colours. ‘I’m grateful for what you did, Aeneas, and I’m glad you have come and sought me out. Do you make a gift of this to me?’
‘Aye. It was never mine.’
‘It is the past. We drank to the past, and you mentioned the future. This is the future.’ He made as if to throw the colours into the fire, watching for Aeneas’s reaction. There was none. ‘You do not flinch.’
‘It has served its purpose.’
‘You kept it all this time.’
MacRoy shrugged.
Wedderburn nodded. ‘I suppose it is still, in theory, dangerous.’ He paused. ‘You know what happened to my father?’
‘Aye, sir. Awbody kent.’
The colours were hanging from Wedderburn’s hand. ‘If I told you that I would not follow this now, what would you think?’
‘I’d think ye’d be mad tae say ony different. Things are no the same noo.’
Sir John nodded approvingly. ‘Well, then.’ He began to fold up the colours. ‘But I would never destroy it. Men died for that cause. My father died for it.’
‘I ken.’
‘My wife’s father may die an exile for it. I will make a gift of it to her, as you did to me. Things like this should not be cast away.’ He laid the cloth down on a table. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you’d better take a look at your student. He’s keen, but he starts from a base of near total ignorance.’
‘Ah. He’s a servant?’
‘His name is Joseph Knight.’
‘The neger ye brocht hame.’
‘The very same. Let’s see where he has got to. I think you’ll find him interesting, Maister MacRoy.’
‘Maister MacRoy.’
‘Aye?’
He came awake, found himself half standing, half leaning against a wall.
‘Are you all right?’ Annie and Louisa Wedderburn were staring anxiously at him. Behind them he could see the older girls, Maria and Susan, looking far less concerned, smiling, smirking a little even. He recovered himself as best he could.
‘There ye are. I was coming tae look for ye. But the heat … I jist needed tae rest for a minute. Did ye meet onybody?’
‘Nobody we could marry,’ Louisa said.
‘Now may we see the elephant?’ Annie asked.
‘I think we may,’ said MacRoy. ‘It’s no aften an elephant comes tae Dundee.’
A show of wild animals had been travelling from Edinburgh via Stirling and Perth, and, according to a notice in the Dundee Magazine, it was set up in the Meadows behind the Murraygait. The grass had been thinned by the passage of many feet. MacRoy handed over the entrance fee for them all – he would reclaim it from Lady Alicia – and they wandered along the cages.
MacRoy paid as much heed to the possible attentions of pursepicks as he did to the exhibits. The beasts were a sorry-looking lot in any case – a bedraggled family of lions, a skeerie pair of zebras, a threadbare tiger, a bear that paced back and forth like a madman in a cell. The cages were cramped and filthy, the smell overpowering. Even the keepers – dark, bearded men in baggy red pantaloons and big-sleeved silk shirts that had seen better days – seemed infected with sadness, as if they had journeyed one or two towns too far from home, and were not sure how to get back.
In the last enclosure was the elephant. This was not the huge, trumpeting African creature Annie had hoped for from pictures, but a tuskless, timid-looking Indian one. Here, for an extra penny, they could buy a bag of cakes and feed it. It ate with a kind of baleful indifference, its wet, snottery trunk curling out mechanically to take the food through the bars. Annie looked very disappointed.
‘They’re supposed to be exceedingly wise,’ Louisa said, trying to cheer Annie up.
‘It just looks exceedingly bored,’ Maria said.
Annie disposed of the cakes very quickly. ‘Can we go now?’ she asked. Tears were welling up in her eyes.
It was Susan’s belief that if Aeneas MacRoy had a soft spot for anybody, it was for Annie. Sometimes she would catch him looking in her own direction before making some small gesture of affection towards her youngest sister. It was as if he was seeking Susan’s approval to be kind. This was what happened now. He glanced at Susan, then lightly touched Annie’s cheek with one gnarled finger.
‘Dinna fash, child,’ he said. ‘It is a beast oot o its place and climate. If ye saw it in India it would appear a mighty creature.’
‘Poor thing. I’ll never see India, and neither will it again.’
They began to walk away. Susan saw Aeneas’s brow furrow as he thought of something.
‘Years ago,’ he said to Annie, ‘lang or even I was born, or your faither, they say anither elephant came tae Dundee. It was an ill-willed, cheatin kind o man that brocht it, and the beast was sick, and fell doun and died in the street. And the man, wha’d hoped tae mak a power o siller frae showin it, abandoned it where it fell and disappeared.’
‘Did they catch him?’
‘They didna ken whaur he was. And here was this muckle heap o stinkin flesh declinin on the street. The guid folk o Dundee held their nebs and strippit it doun tae the banes, because they’d heard an elephant was made aw o ivory, and they thocht tae reap something frae it, but then they found it was jist the twa muckle teeth that were ivory. But the provost had the surgeons o Dundee pit aw the pieces back thegither, and they made a skeleton o it again, and exhibited it. And it was a great wonder and folk cam frae far and wide tae see it.
‘Weel, the owner got tae hear o this braw skeleton and he cam back tae claim it for his ain. He said he had sellt it tae the surgeons o Edinburgh, and they cam tae tak it awa tae their toun. But the Dundee folk prevented it. They said the owner hadna the richt, for he hadna treatit the beast weel, but had taen it oot o its torrid hame country, and brocht it tae these cauld northern airts, and stervit it and beaten it and taen it in wee ferry boats and ower craigy mountain roads whaur it had nae wish tae gang. And so it stayed whaur it had died, here in Dundee.’
‘Is it here still?’ Annie asked.
‘I dinna ken, child. But if it is, I think it’s lang laid tae rest.’
‘I don’t know, Maister MacRoy,’ Susan said, ‘that that’s any better an end for an elephant than to be stuck in that cage.’
‘I don’t know either, miss,’ Aeneas MacRoy said. ‘But it maks a better story.’
It seemed to cheer Annie up slightly, at least. Then, making their way back, they passed stalls where the show people were dispensing potions and cures and had set out on red cloths displays of little wooden toys and boxes, thimbles, mirrors and cheap jewellery. Set slightly apart from these stands was a brightly coloured booth which announced itself as the residence of a gypsy spaewife. Maria and Louisa suggested they all have their fortunes told.
MacRoy looked sceptical. The lightness that had entered his voice in the telling of the elephant story disappeared. ‘That is aw superstition and trickery,’ he growled. ‘Your faither wouldna be pleased tae think I let ye spend guid siller on such trash.’
‘Then don’t tell him,’ said Susan, who suddenly thought it a good plan. ‘And we’ll not.’
‘Well, if we do it,’ Maria said, ‘we must tell nobody, not even each other. We must go in one by one, and then write down what she tells us in a letter and seal it for a time – a month, say – and see what comes. And after a month we’ll open the letters and read what was said.’
‘But nothing may happen in a month,’ Louisa said.
‘Well, two or three months then. And even then nothing may happen at all, in which case Maister MacRoy will be proved right, that it is trash, but harmless. And if the spaewife tells something that comes true, well, it will only be a mystery how she knew, nothing more.’
MacRoy saw that they were determined, and he saw also that they had a hold on him because of his earlier lapse. ‘I canna prevent whit I dinna see,’ he said. ‘I am awa for a dander roond the Meadows tae cool my heid. I’ll see ye back at the entrance in a half-oor.’
He trudged off. His leg was hurting a good deal now. He had walked too far on it. After a few minutes he stopped and sat down under a tree. A light breeze got up. He did not sleep again. The whisky and the violence had left him, and it was pleasant to sit in the shade and take the pressure off his leg.
He thought again of his first visit to Ballindean. How, on being shown out by the same bonnie maid, he had teased her for having kept him in the cold so long. ‘Ye’ll ken tae let me in when I come again,’ he had said. She’d looked at him as if she did not care. ‘A penny like the day will aye get ye in,’ she said. ‘Oh, there’s a toll tae pay each time, is there?’ he asked. ‘And dae I get onything for my penny?’ ‘Ye micht,’ she said, with the briefest of smiles, and closed the door on him. He felt like skipping all the nine miles back to Dundee.
He wondered now, if he had been to a spaewife before then, what she would have said; if she would have been able to see him there, happy as a gowk from his successful interview with Sir John and his first sighting of Annie Thomson. Would she have warned him against her? And what if he had been to a spaewife even earlier, at ten or eleven, before he knew any better, just a year or so before Culloden? Could she have seen him screaming and shaking on the moor, drowned out by the guns; getting to his feet, stumbling away, tripping over the staff of the abandoned colours; tearing the flag off and stuffing it in his shirt, and running, running, running to Inverness? He wondered if she could have told him that all his life thereafter would be a hardening against the memory of that terrible place.
He wondered. And he saw that, whatever she might have said, it would not have changed a thing; that in any case he would never have believed her.