Seaton 01 - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

by S. G. MacLean

  ‘You saw me, did you not?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Seaton,’ she said quietly, ‘I saw you. I thought you would have helped him, but—’

  ‘But I did not.’ I could feel the eyes of the baillie and the notary on me, held fast, now, and I could not look at either of them.

  The baillie’s mind was working quickly. ‘And so you helped him to the schoolroom, in the hope that Mistress Youngson would hear and find him?’

  ‘No,’ she looked up, surprised, defensive even. ‘Had I reached him, I would have helped him home – to the apothecary’s, or to the doctor’s if I could have managed it. Even to the schoolhouse, but I would have roused someone, wherever it might have been.’

  ‘But you did not?’ queried the baillie.

  ‘No,’ her voice was flat. ‘I could not. As I watched Mr Seaton pass by, I saw two figures coming from the direction of the churchyard, and they saw me.’

  ‘The Dawson sisters,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘They waited until you had turned into the schoolhouse pend and then went to him. They managed to lift him between them and drag him – somehow – after the way you had gone. They were gone from sight a few minutes and I waited – I thought they must have roused you. When they came out again, one of them looked towards where I stood. She turned again as they took the other fork up the path, as if to tell me all was well, that I could go back now. And so I did.’

  Her head sank into her hands and I realised that someone else, for two weeks, had been carrying something of my guilt. ‘There was little you could have done,’ I offered her. ‘You were not to know they had not alerted me. The fault is not yours.’ My words did little to comfort her, if indeed they reached her at all.

  The baillie gave her a moment, but there were still many questions to be answered, and every moment wasted was a moment more for Walter Watt to make good his flight. ‘After all this,’ he began, ‘you still did not suspect your husband? Even when you heard how Patrick Davidson had died?’

  She shook her head dumbly, her face puffy and blotched now. ‘I was very scared, when the news of Patrick’s death was brought to us the next morning, that his falling out with Walter might have something to do with it, in some manner or other. But then when I saw how Walter took the terrible news, how desolate it left him, I could not believe that he had had anything to do with it. And he did not want to talk to me about it; I could see that well enough.’

  Yes, I remembered. Remembered how keen Walter Watt had been to shield his wife from us that morning when we had brought the dead body of Patrick Davidson on a bier to their home. I remembered how he had urged her away to the nursery early in that conference. And I remembered also how determined he had been, to begin with, to argue that I must have been with his nephew the night before. Only with the suggestions of Charles Thom as a worthy suspect for the murder had the provost lost interest in pressing my possible guilt.

  ‘You told him, did you not, what you had seen, and by whom you had been seen? And you told him you had seen me?’

  She looked at me, somewhat confused. ‘I – yes, I did.’ Unwilling, yes, but unwitting more so, she had consigned Janet and Mary Dawson to a perpetual banishment from this town; even, for Mary, from Scotland itself, warned off by the provost’s henchman. And she would, but for the chance and ill-luck of Charles Thom, have consigned me to the hangman’s noose. I was to have been her husband’s scapegoat. But why then had he taken me into his confidence, entrusted me with the mission of the maps? I saw that my pride had set a trap for me. Once he had seen that the papers found in his nephew’s room bore no account of Patrick Davidson’s suspicions of him, the maps in themselves had mattered little to him. I had no doubt a report of my encounter with Janet Dawson as she had been beaten from the burgh bounds would have reached his ears. I had not been entrusted with some important mission on the burgh’s behalf: I had been got out of the way.

  The baillie had perhaps seen too many weeping women pleading ignorance of their husband’s deeds, or perhaps his antipathy towards the Reverend Guild extended to his sister, but he certainly was not yet satisfied or finished with Geleis Guild. ‘Do you have any knowledge of flowers, mistress, of the science of botany?’

  ‘Why, no. Not more than is common for uses in the nursery and about the household, but in truth, even in that my knowledge was lacking, for with Marion to assist me, there was little need for me to look into such things myself.’

  ‘But your husband had knowledge?’ he persisted.

  She shook her head slowly. ‘I never knew it. He never once, in all the time I knew him, showed any interest in plants. Indeed, the garden of his first home, that he shared with Helen, had been a wondrous place, but it soon went to neglect after her death, and his housekeeper took over the growing of what was needful for the kitchens. He did not even seem to mind that Helen’s Eden would be destroyed to make way for my brother’s new manse.’

  ‘Helen’s Eden was destroyed long ago, mistress, and he the serpent.’

  Geleis Guild had no answer to the baillie’s words, and simply bit her lip, then said, ‘It was only once Patrick returned, and they reminisced about their old days together, that I learned Walter had had a love of plants and flowers. I did not dwell long on the strangeness of it – I just thought it something too closely tied to Helen for him to think of without her.’

  ‘It was, for it was what he used to kill her. The flowers that were to bring death to her, and to her nephew, and to Marion Arbuthnott, still grow in the garden of that house.’

  ‘But Walter gifted the house and land to the kirk for my brother – and for all the ministers to follow. It was his great desire that the land be cleared for the new manse as soon as possible. He went often to check on the work, and was greatly frustrated by the delays occasioned by George Burnett’s appearances before the session over his fornication with the servant girl.’

  ‘The servant girl.’ Said as if she had no name. In Sarah Forbes’s position, how would Geleis Guild have fared? With less dignity, I told myself, and with no resilience at all.

  The baillie’s voice was cold. ‘He wanted the evidence of his crime destroyed before the boy returned and saw it. But he could not bring himself to destroy it by his own hand, for fear that he would need it again. I think he wished the decision to be taken from him, and so they were still there, to be used in the killing of Patrick Davidson and then of Marion Arbuthnott.’

  ‘Do not mistake me, baillie,’ she said, suddenly strong, ‘I do not doubt that it was his hand that killed them all, but I still do not understand it, for he loved Helen – loves her yet – and Patrick too.’

  ‘And yet,’ he replied, talking to her but looking at me, ‘for some men, worldly ambition will fill the void left by what they imagine to be the greatest love. He did not truly love her at all.’

  There was little comprehension in the young woman’s eyes, and her bodily weakness was becoming more and more evident. The doctor had held his tongue longer than I would have thought possible, but he could hold it no longer. ‘I must get this girl to her rest, baillie. You can take up your questioning again tomorrow.’

  The baillie nodded his assent, but said, ‘I must know one more thing, mistress. When did you finally understand what your husband was doing, and what he had done?’

  She was standing now, leaning on the doctor’s arm. ‘When Marion came to me, to tell me what she knew. She wanted to warn me, to get the children away. But I did not believe her, and so I took her tales to Walter, who had me call her back, that he might reassure her, as he said. And I was touched,’ she smiled bitterly, ‘touched by his concern for her, for she looked truly ill. He left me with her and went himself to fetch her some broth from the kitchen. He spoke to her a few moments, kindly, gently, to calm her fears. He told me that he himself would see her safe home, but that first of all I should “bid the girl eat,” and so I did, and sent her to her death.’ The finality in the last words precluded any further questioning, and Jaffray took Geleis Gui
ld away, to begin her own sentence of despair.

  I was alone in the room now with William Buchan. ‘You feared Marion might stumble on the truth and make it known, before there could be evidence or anything to protect her. That is why you strove so hard to keep everyone from her.’

  ‘Aye,’ he replied, ‘to her own cost, and to theirs. If only the girl had told what she knew to me. Then I would have had him, and he could have done no further harm.’

  ‘It was perhaps not God’s will,’ I said, no longer self-conscious at speaking of God’s will with this man who strove daily to see and have it enacted on this earth.

  ‘It was God’s judgement on me, on my pride, on my carriage towards my fellow man, that she did not take her burden to me sooner. And I must look to it. I must look to it.’ So saying, he got up from his chair, coughing, and without a backward glance to where I still lay, William Buchan, who last night had stayed the murderous hand of Walter Watt as it readied itself to crash down a second time on my forehead, left me to my thoughts.

  Epilogue

  August, 1626

  William Cargill laughed as I tried to steady myself after clambering onto the boat.

  ‘You would never have made a sailor, nor yet a merchant, Alexander.’ No one else had noticed my awkwardness – it was of little interest to the shore porters that the black-cloaked man of learning could not balance himself aboard ship. The loading of the salmon barrels for Aberdeen had almost finished, and William and I took ourselves to the bow of the ship to keep out of the way of those that had work to do. We looked back at the town.

  ‘It is not a bad sight, as such places go.’

  ‘You have travelled more than I, William; you are the better qualified to judge.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe so,’ he said. ‘But while I see fine buildings and poor hovels, you see the histories of those who inhabit them. I see the bricks and mortar; you see the fabric of the life.’

  ‘And have often shut my eyes to it, and that gladly.’ I looked up beyond the town, up towards the Sandyhill Gate, where a black smoke was rising and curling into the sky. The new provost, and the baillie, his health recovered now from the eight years of strain that he had very nearly succumbed to, had begun their work of cleansing the burgh: the codroche houses were ablaze. Few on the quayside cared to turn their gaze to the flames; there had been too many fires in this town. I wondered about the children, taken from their mothers and put to work in the salmon house, all to the service of God and the stability of the realm.

  The last of the barrels was loaded, and there remained but one piece of cargo before the ship could weigh anchor and set sail. I watched with some foreboding as the shore porters lashed ropes around my great oak chest and signalled for the men aboard to winch it up on their pulley. My life’s worth of books was in that chest, with old notes, theses, sermons, and a fur rug pressed upon me last night by the doctor. Another, more flimsy kist carried my two changes of clothing, my winter cloak and old fur rug, and the pewter cup and plate that had come to me from my mother. Around my waist was the belt and great silver buckle that had been my father’s last gift to me, and in the bundle at my feet one of Mistress Youngson’s famed clootie dumplings. ‘Mind you feed yourself – the college buttery is near enough bare, they tell me,’ was all the old woman had said as she’d pressed it into my arms. Then she had straightened the collar of the fine suit I had not worn since Marion Arbuthnott’s lykewake some months before. ‘And mind you do not disgrace us; I will know of it from Elizabeth if you do.’ William had assured my old landlady that his wife would indeed keep her apprised of all my misadventures and misdemeanours.

  In the pocket at my breast as the ropes were loosed and the vessel finally began to move away from the dock at Banff was the letter, the precious letter bearing the seal of the Marischal College in Aberdeen. My hand went to my pocket and felt for the hundredth time the fine vellum, and the hard wax of the seal. It had been delivered to Banff by none other than Robert Gordon of Straloch, sent by his master of Huntly to assure the new provost and council of Banff of his friendship and goodwill. And who would it have been more fitting to send on such a mission? For as I had passed my wakeful night in his house, Robert Gordon had sent his own young kinsmen through the dark night to Strathbogie to seek assurances from the marquis himself that he knew nothing of maps or invasions. But what was Huntly’s word worth? Only time would tell. Patrick Davidson’s maps, fine work that they were, were ashes now. And we would never know whether they had been, as Gilbert Grant always insisted they were, the blameless pursuit of a young man with a thirst to understand the world, or a God-given talent tainted and betrayed at the behest of the agents of Rome. Those secrets had gone with him to the grave.

  Straloch had sought me out in my schoolroom, and had found me in the midst of explaining a passage of Buchanan to my scholars. The laird would not hear of me interrupting my lesson, and had sat quietly at the back of the room, now nodding, now noting a query, until I released the boys for lunch. But the letter he had then handed me was not of history, nor yet of politics or plots, but of philosophy, of logic, of rhetoric, and of mathematics. In short, it was an invitation from Patrick Dun, principal of the Marischal College in the new burgh of Aberdeen, to submit myself for trial before the principal, regents, magistrates and ministers of the new town for the vacant place of Regent of Philosophy in that college. The letter bore reference to recommendations of me from Dr John Forbes of Corse, from Bishop Patrick, his father, and from Robert Gordon of Straloch himself. At the end of Principal Dun’s letter was a short note from Dr Forbes, a few words only, but they spoke from Philippians to my soul. ‘He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.’ As I read it and reread it, chains and bounds snapped and fell away at my feet. After the laird had gone, I climbed the thirty-seven steps to my chamber and prayed as I had not prayed for almost a year; I prayed and knew I was heard. That night, I opened my books, grown dusty and threatened with damp from misuse, and I began to read once more. And then, within two days of the arrival of Gordon of Straloch had come, hot on his heels, William Cargill, who knew all the business that passed in Aberdeen, often before it had passed. Such was his fear that I would still keep to my pit of self-pity that he dared not trust me to answer for myself and so had come to do it for me. How could I tell him that, within a moment of breaking the seal, I had known that I would accept this new call, and leave this place, with no mind ever to return?

  Charles Thom was not there to bid me farewell, for he was returned to his post in the music school, and the baillie and his fellows kept a closer eye than ever on their young precentor, having learnt, at last, to look beyond a man’s face to know his heart. There was no Jaffray there, either. He had wished me my farewells last night, over a bottle of the finest uisge beatha in his house. He had waxed long and hard at my ingratitude in leaving him now, in a household where his maid no longer cared whether he ate or starved, such was her anxiety for their new lodger. He had warned me of the fickleness of women, and the weakness of men, lamented the distance from Banff to Aberdeen and yet complained at my stubbornness at not taking ship for Europe, where a real career was still to be had. At the last he had told me he could not spare me the time to come down to the shore and see me off, for he was a busy man, and what was I to him but the ingrate stripling of an honourable hammerman and his lovely Irish wife. And he had held me close and called me son.

  I looked towards the Gallow Hill, where but a month ago Walter Watt had been sent to meet his maker. He had been caught three days after his flight, his horse abandoned, trying to enter Aberdeen, alone, by night. It was thought he had been heading for the harbour, and a cargo ship bound for the Low Countries. He would never see them now.

  And as I took my last look for many years at the burgh of my birth, my eye was drawn down to the shore side. A lone figure stood still amidst the hubbub of the harbour and watched until our vessel disappeared from sight. He stood there, unmoving, in the town
where he had been born, grown up, fallen in love; the town where he had had to withdraw to the shadows and watch the girl he loved be given to a higher bidder, a man of greater means. He had had to see her suffering and loss, and see her buried, dead at that husband’s hand. And he had had to wait eight years to see her have justice in this world. I raised my hand in silent farewell, understanding now, at last. It would be many a long day before I again came upon a man such as Baillie William Buchan.

  GLOSSARY

  backland land to the rear of a burgess’s house for growing foodstuffs, keeping animals, siting wells and middens

  baillie town magistrate, next in rank to provost in burgh hierarchy

  besom broom (stick)

  burgess privileged member of burgh society with land and institutionalised rights

  burn stream

  cittern guitar-like musical instrument

  clarsach celtic harp

  codroche house house of idle, slovenly people of low class and ill-repute

  feu right to the use of a property in return for a fixed yearly payment

  furth of away from; beyond the confines of