The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

by Shona MacLean

  ‘Never. There are perhaps some like it in appearance, in the blue at least, but the purple calyx and stigma, these I have never seen here. Have you?’ He asked the question absent-mindedly, little thinking that there could be any other than one answer. When I did not reply, he looked up from studying the book. ‘Have you seen it, Alexander?’

  I hesitated. ‘I … I do not know. I do not think so. That is – I think I may have done.’ There was something, something flitting before my eyes, in my mind. A glimpse, little more, of blue, with purple, falling, falling. I searched harder. I shut my eyes against the warm golden light of the room, for it was another type of light I sought – darker, colder, more still. I tried to clear my mind of the almost inaudible breathing of the fire, the heavier intrusion of my companion, the knowledge of the life and movement in the room and the power of the sea in the darkness outside, but I could not. The image, the memory of the image was gone, and now all I had was a construction of my own making. I opened my eyes, shaking my head in a slow frustration. ‘I am sorry, James,’ I said. ‘It is gone. Whatever I thought I remembered, it is gone.’

  The look of hopefulness faded from his face to be replaced by one of disappointment. ‘Do you think it was in Banff itself, or out in the country somewhere, maybe? Was it wild, or in a garden? Do you think it might even have been in Aberdeen?’ This last suggestion lit some small flicker of possibility in my memory. Had it been in Aberdeen? Somewhere in Aberdeen? There was something that seemed to make it possible, but no. I could reach no further than that into the recesses of my mind, and then the flickering light went out.

  ‘No, doctor, I am sorry; there is nothing.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ he said, ‘maybe something will bring it back to you. With these drawings at least, we know what it is that we deal with, and that is something.’ He closed the book and again smoothed his hand over the front cover. ‘You told your friend William Cargill why we wanted these notebooks?’

  ‘There was no other way to explain my sudden interest in botany, and,’ I added, ‘in the way of friendship, I wanted to talk with him about the business.’

  He smiled. ‘I am glad you are allowing your friends to be friends again. And what did William Cargill think of this business here? The murder, I mean, and the imprisonment of Charles.’

  I looked at him. ‘He said that I should take great care. He fears for me in all this, that there are signs pointing to me, there for when people are ready to look.’

  Jaffray’s eyes were steady. ‘He is right. I have thought it myself and never said it, though perhaps I should have done. And do you fear this, Alexander?’

  A few weeks ago I would have said I had no more fear of what man – or, in the blackest of my days, God – could do to me. But that was no longer true. I had been out again in the world of men; I was not a thing damaged beyond use as I had for long believed. I had lost the respect of the world once and, as I saw it, the access to God also. ‘I think I would like to keep what name I have left to me, and what future too.’

  ‘Then you must take a great care, Alexander, that you do not lay yourself open to further danger. When you were in Aberdeen, did you tell anyone other than William Cargill of our desire to see the notebooks, or of our reason for it?’

  ‘I told no one.’

  ‘And you have shown no one the notebooks, until now?’

  ‘No one,’ I asserted. At Straloch I had kept them well hidden amongst the things I had taken into the house with me, having been careful not to leave them in the stables with my horse and other goods, for fear of fire. ‘Does it matter so much?’

  He considered. ‘Perhaps not, but the fewer people who suspect you of drawing closer to the truth of this thing, the safer you will be.’

  ‘And will you show them to Arbuthnott?’ I asked.

  ‘It would perhaps be wiser not to. I do not think it will do him good to dwell over-much on the means of Marion’s death. But,’ he continued, ‘it may be that we have no choice, for he would have a better knowledge than either of us of the plants that grow hereabouts, and the drawings might spark some memory in him. It was Marion though, Marion who would have known more surely than anyone where it is to be found.’

  ‘And you had only the one opportunity to speak privately with her while I was gone?’

  ‘I did,’ he said. ‘For when the baillie was not about her, her mother was, and she would not talk before either of them.’

  ‘And she really told you nothing of this business?’ I pressed. He turned away and stoked the fire. ‘We spoke of other things.’

  I knew of old the tenor of Jaffray’s voice when he wished to close a subject, and it betrayed him now. Yet I was not ready to leave it. ‘Do you think she knew about Davidson’s activities – the map-drawing, and what it was for?’

  ‘She cannot but have known about it – certainly about the drawing, for when else would he have made his sketches than when they were wandering about the countryside? As to the espionage – if there was any – Marion was not the girl to get caught up in great causes or secret plots. They would have been an unnecessary distraction for her from the essentials of life – of her life at least. She had too great an interest in her father’s craft and in other science to waste her time on the politics and religion of nations. I think had Davidson been involved in those pursuits, or attempted to entangle her in them, their companionship would have come to an earlier and cleaner end.’

  I thought about the girl, trying to remember the few true conversations we had had together. Jaffray was right. In her hours away from her work in the provost’s nursery, she had worked steadily and with great focus on the understanding of the pharmacopoeia of her father’s craft and the nature and purpose of every plant that grew around these parts. She would have cared little for Spanish invaders or popish plots, and certainly would not have lost her life in their defence. But how far might her fascination with science have taken her? ‘Jaffray,’ I began, ‘do you truly give no credence to the idea that she was …’

  His brow darkened and he looked at me hard. ‘Go on, Alexander.’

  ‘Do you truly give no credence to the idea that she meddled in witchcraft?’

  He breathed a great sigh of exasperation. ‘This again? Do you tell me you believe that pernicious nonsense?’

  ‘No,’ I answered truthfully and emphatically, ‘I do not.’

  ‘Then why … ?’

  ‘Because she went to all the places, James. The Elf Kirk, Ordiquhill, where John Philp is much suspected as a witch, where the waters are said to have properties, and Darkwater.’

  Instead of continuing in his anger, Jaffray broke into a smile and laughed at me, though nervously, I thought. ‘Oh, Alexander, come now. Half the bairns in the town are at the Elf Kirk precisely because their mothers and the session warn them from it. And as for Ordiquhill and Darkwater, well, both are places of importance to those who would seek to land or make their way inland from our coast. Findlater guards the coast at Darkwater, and Ordiquhill is on the road from there to Strathbogie, by Fordyce. Davidson would need to know them both for his mapping.’ He turned away from me and went again to stoke the fire. I knew he was hiding something from me.

  ‘James, she went twice to Darkwater: once with Davidson, and once on her own, after he was dead. They say she went to the wise woman.’

  He spun round angrily. ‘“They say”. Who is this new “they” in whom you place such trust?’

  ‘It was much muttered by the mob last night—’

  Jaffray was incredulous. ‘What? You now take the word of a rabble under the direction of a beggarman thief? Lang Geordie would have great interest in directing any accusation of witchcraft away from himself and his followers.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. He admitted as much to me himself. But there was also Mistress Youngson. She is no idle gossip, as you know, and she wished the girl no ill.’

  Jaffray’s shoulders sank. ‘Aye, you are right. She did not.’ He went to the door and looked down the pa
ssageway. Nothing stirred in the house. ‘I know that Marion went to Darkwater, with Davidson, and alone. I think I know why she went, and there was no witchcraft nor yet spying in it.’ I waited, but he evidently considered himself to have finished. ‘Oh, for the love of God, Alexander, you of all people must know the crone is not a witch. Who nursed you from your delirium last year? Who saved you from death on the rocks of Findlater?’ I knew it, I knew it all, for Jaffray had told it to me, but I had no memory of any of it, nothing until the day Jaffray arrived on the beach below the castle rock to take me home. He continued, ‘She is no witch, but a healing woman, a wise woman who was in her day a skilled midwife who brought many into this world who might otherwise have died in their struggle. But then, years ago now, I do not remember when, she took herself off, away from the world, to that cave in Darkwater to glean her living from the sea and from the cliffs and plants around her. I have not seen her since then, but they say it was because she had seen too much pain and death where there should have been joy and life. There are those who say she feared the witch-mongers, who are too ready to blame the misfortunes of life or the will of God on the agency of another. And that may be true – it would not have been long before the death of some child would have been laid at her door.’

  I wondered if in different circumstances, in another life, Jaffray and Lang Geordie would have met. In this matter they had a similar view of our world, but were so circumstanced that it was unlikely either would ever know it. ‘Marion and Patrick Davidson went to the wise woman for some sort of help?’

  He nodded. ‘I think it likely.’

  ‘Why did she go a second time? After he was dead?’

  ‘I do not know. Perhaps there was a something …’ his voice trailed away. ‘But I do know that she was determined on going. I counselled her against it, as did Geleis Guild, who had called me to see to her, for she could see that the girl was not well. It was to no avail – I had had no great hopes that it would be, for I had got little of sense from her in all the time I spent with her after you left for Aberdeen. One thing she was adamant about was that she would free Charles, she was determined on it, for she knew he had not killed Patrick.’

  ‘And she has freed him,’ I said.

  ‘Aye, God rest her, she has.’ One of the candles in the sconce spluttered out, filling this homely room with melancholy.

  ‘When did she go to Darkwater?’ I asked.

  ‘It was on the day before her death.’

  Ideas were forming in my mind, then threatening to slip away before I could take hold of them. ‘James, do you think it possible that this wise woman, this midwife, may have knowledge of the plant, the colchicum? That perhaps, indeed, she may have more to do with this business than we have guessed at?’ I could feel a growing excitement as I spoke. I knew what I would do, and so did Jaffray. He looked at me a long moment and began to shake his head.

  ‘You cannot be thinking of this. No good can come of it. Charles is freed. You must not put yourself in danger of taking his place.’

  ‘What kind of freedom is it to hide in the safe places while a murderer walks the streets? What rest can there be for the man who glimpses the right path but takes the wrong one, for fear he will snag his coat on some thorn? I can do some good in this, James.’

  Jaffray was not to be persuaded. ‘You have some notion in your mind that you have been chosen to bring the killer of these two people to a reckoning – whether before God or man I cannot tell. You believe you have been called to accomplish this. But, Alexander, there are proper authorities whose place and function it is to investigate and try these matters, and you are not one of them. When Charles was falsely accused and falsely imprisoned by those authorities, it was for us, his friends, to do everything in our power to free him. But that thing is done now, and it is no business of yours to carry on in this. You trespass on the rights of those whose duty it is and in doing so may bring danger on yourself and on other innocents.’ There was a depth of sadness in his eyes that might have won me over were it not that there was something more than a grain of truth in what he said.

  ‘You are right, doctor, I do feel called to continue in this until the murderer is brought to answer before man, and then God. It is not pride – believe what you like, but it is not pride, only an attempt to propitiate my own shame.’

  ‘Shame?’

  ‘Yes, shame. Shame that I ignored the cries of that man as he crawled to his death. The town whores did that good for him that I had refused to do. They brought him to what they thought to be a place of safety. And he died, alone and in wretched agonies, while I slept sound and warm in my bed above. So I do believe that God has given me this duty, that he put it in the baillie’s mind to call me to the counsel about the maps, to make my mission to Straloch. I believe it was God who put me in the path of Janet Dawson as she was hounded from our burgh, and Mary Dawson when she fled from Aberdeen. Charles is free, and I thank God for that, but I believe I am called none the less to make some recompense.’

  ‘Alexander,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I truly do not believe you understand what danger you may be putting yourself in by this course. You are,’ he searched a moment for the right word, ‘vulnerable. You could easily enough be made a target for the murder accusation yourself. You do not quite belong to this burgh – born and bred here though you have been: you are almost as different as was your mother, and there are those who yet remember her. You think last night was foul, barbarous? You are right, but it was nothing to what you in your twenty-six years have not seen. The barbarity of the witch-hunt, of the tortures, the probing for evidence, the burning stake with the screams of a living human being rising from its flames are beyond all imagining. Do not go to Darkwater, Alexander; it will avail you nothing, and, I doubt, do little to solace the living who already grieve for their dead.’

  I had never before known Jaffray give up the fight. That he should do so, even partially out of fears for me, saddened me greatly. ‘But James, it may well be that this murderer’s killing has not finished. I cannot rest easy in myself if I believe there is a way to end this and I do not take it.’

  He was not quite ready to relent. ‘But why should that way lead to Darkwater?’

  ‘I do not know. But I have a belief that it does and I must follow it. I will leave at first light and be back well before dusk, my friend. Do not fear for me.’ I took up my cloak and hat and bade him goodnight.

  THIRTEEN

  The Wise Woman of Darkwater

  Jaffray made one final effort to dissuade me from going to consult with the wise woman at Darkwater. A little after dawn on the Thursday morning, as I was washing, he appeared at the door of my chamber, and Mistress Youngson behind him. I saw at once that he had told her of my intention. The doctor watched as I put on my outer garments. I picked up my cloak with the marten collar, a gift from the Lady Hay on my laureation to Master of Arts. ‘You are still intent on this madness then,’ said the doctor.

  ‘It is not madness, doctor, but this thing has taken hold of me, and I fear it will lead to some madness, or despair, if I do not finish it. I do not think there is a choice.’

  It was as if I had not spoken. ‘Alexander, I beg of you not to go; it will do no good and may bring you harm.’

  I would have made a reply, but the schoolmaster’s wife was there before me. There was a coldness in her voice which, despite the hundred lectures of disapproval she had found fitting to give me, I had never heard before. ‘You must not go, Alexander. You will bring down upon your head and your soul things that cannot by man be lifted.’ Had I known her less well, I might have believed myself cursed.

  ‘Have no fear, mistress. My faith may be weak and my calling lost, but the Devil shall not yet have me for his own. And as to the world of men, be assured I will have a care to bring no trouble to your door.’

  Her response was softly spoken and it pierced my heart. ‘My door has opened many times to your troubles, Mr Seaton. I have no fears on that count.’ She t
urned back down the stairs. I felt shame at the sight of the old woman’s retreating back. How many times could I throw my ingratitude in her face? Jaffray lingered a little longer, but soon also left, his face leaden with disappointment.

  The town I passed through was quiet still, and there was menace in the quiet. So many still lay shut up in the tolbooth, or out at Inchdrewer, or in the castle dungeons, awaiting the sheriff’s judgement. They would not have long to wait. Surely the sheriff must return soon. It was reported that the witchhunt had begun again in Fife, and in Ayrshire, too. It was spreading, spreading with its own fire, and its flames left behind only the charred remains of men’s souls. The loud madness of the mobs at the pyre was as nothing to the quiet madness in a man’s mind as he desperately sought to save himself by damning another. The outbreak at Banff must be contained and then the burgh made safe against incursions of the hunt from outside. No one mentioned the fear, the fear of neighbour of neighbour, of accusations false or fancied, the dark twisting of the mind. To mention it would have been to call it down upon us.

  The silence that had begun to weigh on me was broken by the clear tones of Thomas Stewart as I neared the top of Water Path on my way towards the Boyndie Road. ‘You shall have your fee when the work is done, not a moment before.’

  Reply was made in a coarser voice. It was George Burnett. ‘Let the council be damned. I was to have payment at Whitsun. The work cannot be finished if I am not allowed to continue with it.’

  The notary was little perturbed by the curse. ‘The work should have been finished by now, and you would have had your money at Whitsun. But it is there for all to see – the ground is scarce cleared enough in places for the founds to be properly dug. The town will bear no further expense for a new manse until the matter of the minister is resolved.’