The Tobacco Lords Trilogy

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  She sprang on him tearing wildly with her nails, eyes protruding, teeth bared, making him scream with surprise and pain.

  ‘Regina, it’s me Gav. Regina!’

  Blood rapidly criss-crossed his face like cracks on glass.

  ‘You left me, you bastard,’ Regina said brokenly. ‘You went away and left me. You bastard.’

  ‘Well, he’s here noo!’ Quin grabbed her by the hair and jerked her back.

  Gav was choking and sobbing.

  ‘I didn’t! I didn’t mean to. I didn’t. Quin came and I ran from him. When I got back you’d gone.’

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘Quin’s no verra pleased.’

  ‘Why should I care?’

  Quin gave a twist to her hair and she yelped with pain.

  ‘Gav and Quin have been working all day by themselves.’

  ‘And you’ve been keeping all the money.’

  ‘Quin’s fed the childer. Quin knows where to get food.’ He let go of her hair. ‘Quin’s got bannocks.’

  ‘He stole them,’ Gav said, wiping his eyes and his bloodstained face, his breath still lurching and hiccoughing. ‘He tried to make me steal but I wouldn’t.’

  ‘If you hadn’t got Quin,’ Quin said, ‘you would have to steal, eh?’

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘Oh-ho. Quin can see you’re no’ very clever.’

  ‘I am so. I was getting Latin at school.’

  Quin cocked his head and doubled forward until his face was level with Gav’s.

  ‘Quin’s cleverer than you.’

  ‘You can’t read or write. Even Regina can read and write, can’t you, Regina?’

  Regina could not bear to look at either of them. She hated them for talking about ordinary things as if nothing had happened when she had died so many deaths inside.

  Quin waggled a finger.

  ‘Quin can’t eat reading or writing and neither can you. Is it clever to starve, eh? Is that what clever Gav wants to do?’

  Regina replied for him, with much bitterness and without raising her eyes.

  ‘No, it’s not. And clever Regina for one is not going to.’

  Glasgow had become a tartan city. In every house the eye could not escape the different coloured checked material. It bent over cooking pots in kitchens. It lay about floors. It draped against walls. It blocked windows. It bunched in dark corners. It rippled on stairs. It spilled out on to streets. Yet many soldiers had deserted. To the Highlander, however, desertion was merely a temporary visit home to deliver loot to help his family survive or to plant seed or do other necessary chores for their well-being. He always tried his best to return in time for the next battle. Although in the first place he was likely to have been pressed into service by his chief. Cameron of Lochiel, for instance, sent his tacksmen round all his clansmen warning them that if they did not follow him all their barns would be burned and their cattle killed.

  The procuring of loot in Glasgow was not such a simple business however. Glaswegians did not part easily with their goods.

  One barefooted Highlander proved this to his cost. A Glasgow workman was walking along Saltmarket Street wearing an especially good pair of shoes and the Highlander stopped the man and indicated that he wanted them. The workman indignantly refused. The Highlander bent down to pull the shoes off the man’s feet and the outraged owner of the shoes promptly cracked him over the head with a hammer and killed him.

  For the most part the Highland army, or at least the part of it that had arrived by Thursday night, kept to themselves, only spoke to each other, cooked their own oatmeal and had as little to do with Glaswegians as they could.

  Highland officers drank their whisky alone or together in the Old Coffee House Land Tavern or in the Exchange Coffee House, while groups of Glasgow merchants sat in different rooms and drank theirs.

  From various streets came the wail of the pipes sounding lost and nostalgic as if they were longing for the mountains and glens where they belonged. Men lounged in the road in the shadows of buildings with their plaids wrapped round them like cloaks.

  Huge men like grizzly bears were eating and sleeping in Letitia Halyburton’s dining-room and no matter how she raged at them she could not shift them out. She hung on to the key of her larder like grim death and refused to part with one grain of oatmeal.

  Her husband was worried.

  ‘For your own safety, Letitia, you’d be wiser to let them have something. Anyway, they look famished and there’s plenty in the house. We’ll surely no’ miss a bannock or two.’

  ‘A bannock or two? Man, there’s about twenty barbarians ben there. I ken my duty and it’s no’ to barbarians.’ She clasped her hands in front of her waist and hoisted herself erect. ‘They’ll get nothing from me but the sharp edge of my tongue.’

  Nevertheless her daughter Phemy managed unknown to her mother to secrete supplies to the unwelcome guests who could not thank her because they spoke nothing but the Gaelic.

  Griselle was angry when she found out what Phemy had done.

  ‘I’ve a good mind to tell Mother. Apart from giving them food when Mother said not to, it’s behaving like a traitor.’

  Phemy laughed.

  ‘They think we’re traitors anyway.’

  ‘What does it matter what they think? We are loyal subjects of King George.’

  ‘Yes, and I’m no less loyal for giving a few handfuls of oatmeal to some starving men.’

  ‘Our oatmeal. Really, Phemy, I can’t understand you at times. Why even think of such shabby creatures? You’ll never capture a husband with money if you don’t organise yourself better and show more self-discipline and single-mindedness. Don’t you think so, Father?’ she added, turning to William Halyburton.

  ‘Aye, my wee lintie, you’re too kind-hearted for your own good. Some useless blackguard without a bawbee to his name is liable to come along and take advantage of you if we’re no’ careful.’

  This had been a worry niggling at his mind a lot recently and the fact that Phemy was no beauty with her pockmarked face and wispy hair increased rather than alleviated his worries. Any young rascal after Phemy would be after the Halyburton money.

  Later that evening he confided his concern about Phemy to his old friends upstairs, the Earl of Glendinny. The Earl patted his arm reassuringly.

  ‘Just bide a wee! Patience, Willie. The wife’s no’ keeping well at all these days.’

  Halyburton took the hint and felt very relieved. It had never occurred to him that Phemy could one day be matched with Glendinny. Admittedly the Earl was a wheen of years older than Phemy and he was no beauty either. But he was a sensible man and he had a good trade in tobacco with three sturdy ships sailing to and from Virginia.

  Further along Trongate Street, Ramsay was equally concerned about his daughter and he too felt compelled to confide his worries in a friend.

  ‘Aye, minister, it’s a fact as you well know that our Annabella has beauty, but beauty is a terrible snare.’

  ‘Oh, terrible, terrible!’ Blackadder solemnly agreed.

  ‘It’s good of you to promise to take her on.’

  ‘Uh-huh, och, weel, the lassie’s no’ beyond redemption.’

  ‘Aye, at least she’s got courage and that’s more than I can say for my son.’

  ‘I’ll put up a prayer for them both, merchant.’

  He took off his hat, clasped it against his chest and closed his eyes. Ramsay did the same.

  ‘Oh Lord, Lord,’ Blackadder cried heavenwards, ‘have mercy on Annabella. You ken fine what a wild and wayward wench she is and how she thinks no more of committin’ sin than a dog does lickin’ a dish. Put Thy hook in her nose and Thy bridle in her mooth and bring her back to Thee with a jerk that she’ll no’ forget for the rest o’ her days.

  ‘And we pray Thee no’ to forget Douglas. We would be verra grateful indeed, O Lord, if Thou saw fit to put a wee bit spunk in the lad and no’ have him prancing aboot like a bunch o’ flowers and scunnering hi
s faither.’

  Ramsay prayed too that the present troubles and tribulations of the city would soon be over and life could return to normal. It was impossible to arrange a marriage and have a wedding feast while every place was crammed to overflowing with enemies. So far nothing worse than the inconvenience of having hordes of men billeted in folks’ houses had occurred, but the Pretender and the clans had yet to arrive and something was bound to happen. They were not coming to Glasgow simply to spend a few days loitering about and sampling Glasgow oatmeal.

  Tomorrow they would swell the already seething city. Tomorrow the citizens of Glasgow would have a hard job trying to avoid being trampled underfoot.

  10

  ON Friday, 27th December 1745, not one Glaswegian went out on the streets and Prince Charles Edward Stuart entered a silent city.

  He rode on a silver-grey charger over which his voluminous blue velvet cape was draped. Underneath the cape which hung loosely over his shoulders was a jacket of fine silk tartan. He wore a sword and pistols, crimson velvet breeches and thigh-length boots and on top of his powdered tie-wig he wore a three-cornered hat.

  Behind him rode chiefs and chieftains and duine wassails, or ‘gentlemen of the clans’, and behind them marched the clansmen.

  Annabella was gazing from her window of the lantern storey in the Old Coffee House Land and she cried out to Ramsay:

  ‘Oh, Papa, he is indeed marvellously handsome. Such eyes and princely beauty!’

  ‘Compose yourself, woman, and come away from there.’

  ‘Papa, Papa, does your curiosity not overcome you? It is not every day we have the opportunity of feasting our eyes on a real live prince.’

  ‘A Pretender.’

  ‘Or even a Pretender. Oh, losh and lovenendie, what a colourful scene it is. Other handsome men on horses, oh, such handsome men, Papa, are carrying huge standards, long poles with enormous coloured flags and banners billowing out and tassels bobbing and swaying.’

  ‘Annabella, all I want to know is when the rebel upstart has disappeared into the Shawfield Mansion so that I can go to the tavern and meet my friends.’

  ‘Look at the men!’ Annabella gasped. ‘Why, they’re … They’re like monsters.’

  Their hair and beards were so long and thick and uncombed hardly even their eyes could be seen. They were all crowding, jostling, shuffling along barefooted and bareheaded. They wore nothing but a plaid. Some had the lower part of it belted round their waist as a kilt and the upper part covering their shoulders like a cloak. Others just had the long piece of material looped up between their legs and round their waists with the end flung over one shoulder. Their skins were filthy and weather-beaten, almost black. Some carried huge rusty swords. Others had only scythe blades fixed to poles. Some had old Lochaber axes. There were others too in tattered grey coats and breeches of either blue or green. They had guns.

  Annabella clapped her hands and did a little jig of joy.

  ‘It’s so exciting!’

  ‘Will you come away from there and no’ disgrace me?’ her father shouted irritably.

  She paid not the slightest attention. It was not only the spectacle she was watching that she found distracting. Joy had descended on her like rose petals from heaven. She had always made the most of every moment of each day to the best of her ability but only now could she appreciate the ecstasy her life had lacked. The efforts of previous lovers, ardent though they were, seemed gauche and clumsy and without the slightest romantic feeling compared with Jean-Paul Lavelle. She had admitted him to her room in the middle of the night and he had been so charming, so delightful, so passionate she felt delirious at the thought of him. His face swam continuously at the back of her mind. His touch remained to tantalise her. His voice still whispered close to her ear and kept a need of him gnawing inside her like hunger. Yet it was not just a physical need. At least not in the sense that she had needed men before. She felt caught in a beautiful web that she had no desire to be free of. He was out of the house at the moment, she knew not where yet an invisible thread still attached her to him. She dared not think of a time when that thread would be broken. She refused to countenance any separation. Jean-Paul Lavelle must stay in Glasgow with her for ever and ever.

  ‘The Pretender is out of sight now, Papa.’

  ‘Aye, weel, that’s John Glassford stuck with him. And I hear that when they can’t pack any more clansmen into the houses, they’re going to camp the men down in St Andrew’s Kirk.’

  ‘The church that’s being built off Saltmarket Street at the back of the Weel Close?’

  ‘The verra one.’

  ‘But that won’t be any shelter in cold damp weather like this. The walls aren’t even finished. There isn’t a roof on it yet.’

  ‘They can lay themselves down in the middle of the Clyde and get drowned for all I care.’

  She laughed and flounced away from the window.

  ‘Papa, Papa!’

  She felt like dancing round and round. Happiness overflowed from her, could not be contained. She did dance round and round. Ramsay groaned.

  ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’

  ‘Must I be either mad or wicked to be happy, Papa? I don’t see why. I don’t even see why I must wear a long miserable face on a Sunday.’

  ‘The Sabbath is a serious business. It’s no’ a time for flipperty-gibberty.’

  ‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’

  Ramsay’s eyes caught fire and he roared out:

  ‘Annabella, I’ll no’ have you despising and profaning the Lord’s day.’

  ‘No, Papa.’

  ‘It’s a good bleeding you need, mistress. I’m away to the tavern. You behave yourself till I get back. Read your Catechism.’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’ She sang out the words and he stalked away with an angry smouldering face. As soon as he had left the house she skipped back to the window again.

  The street was seething with Highlanders, and not just Trongate Street. There were three windows, one on each side of the lantern-shaped corner of Annabella’s room, and from one she could view Trongate Street, but she could also see across to High Street and down Saltmarket Street as well. Everywhere she looked were men in tartan, some on the move, others just stood in groups, their targes strapped to their arms. Some rode horses that were rearing up and splashing around. The ground was still muddy from the rain of the night before and deep ruts and holes had filled with water. Her father, wearing his black top boots, came striding across Trongate Street towards the Exchange Tavern. His cloak billowed out behind him and water leapt away from either side of his feet. He stopped to speak to a group of other men in cloaks and three-cornered hats who were standing in front of the Tolbooth stairs and there was much glowering and shaking of heads before they all disappeared inside the Tavern and Coffee House.

  A smattering of grey coats caught her eye and made her heart beat a little faster and then her heart swooped like an eagle in her chest when she spied Lavelle perfectly relaxed yet dignified on a black horse. Never in her life had she known such an enchanting man. She had met good-looking men before, but somehow he was different. Indeed, it was questionable if he could be described as handsome. He had broad cheekbones and a wide mobile mouth with such a twisted shape that she could never be quite certain whether it was expressing sarcasm, tenderness or amusement. He had thoughtful, yet laughing eyes, and the relaxed sinewy body of a jungle cat.

  ‘Mistress Annabella,’ Nancy said from the door. ‘The maister was asking about Jessie.’

  ‘Jessie? Oh, Jessie! What about Jessie?’

  ‘What about me doing the washing? I’ve enough to do without that.’

  ‘Hell and damnation!’ Annabella swirled her skirts round from the window. ‘What do I care about you and your ridiculous washing?’

  ‘The maister said I’ve to go and ask my mother if she’s heard anything. My mother knows Jessie. I’m just telling you I’m going.’

  ‘Well, don’t be an age in case I want a drink of c
hocolate or something.’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ Nancy slid her a look before leaving. ‘I’ll flee there and back.’

  Annabella shouted after her:

  ‘Impertinent black-headed crow! Filthy strumpet! Don’t you dare bring back any bugs or lice from your minny’s hovel.’

  A few minutes later Lavelle entered and it was as much as Annabella could do to restrain herself from rushing across the room and prostrating herself before him. Instead she bobbed into a cheeky curtsy.

  ‘Monsieur.’

  He bowed with an easy flip of arms and hands.

  ‘Mademoiselle.’ Then he remarked: ‘Your maid passed me on the stairs. She’s a good-looking wench. I have never seen eyes of that strange violet colour before.’

  ‘Ah, you disappoint me, sir. I thought you a gentleman of good taste and breeding.’

  ‘I trust I am, mademoiselle.’

  ‘Yet, you indicate a taste for common serving wenches?’

  ‘I indicated only that she was not common.’

  ‘Her mother is a slut and a whore. Her brothers are monstrous, filthy fulzie men and they are all daft in the head.’

  He laughed. ‘Ah, you Scottish! I will never understand you. You are all so … so … afraid …’

  Before he could finish his sentence Annabella stamped her foot in rage.

  ‘Afraid, sir, afraid? How dare you, you ignorant French dog. That is one thing we most certainly are not, sir!’

  He bunched his fingertips to his lips and tossed her a kiss. ‘Mon dieu, you are beautiful when you are angry. And perhaps what I meant to say does not apply to you.’

  ‘Well, monsieur. What do you mean to say?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘It is hard to explain, but most Scottish people seem to have passion driven inwards. They do not enjoy showing or admitting their true feelings. They are afraid of betraying weakness, mademoiselle!’

  ‘Fiddlesticks and poppycock! In this country we know our own worth and we say what we mean, and to hell with anybody else, sir.’

  ‘You speak ill of your servant.’

  ‘I speak as I wish!’

  ‘Yet it is obvious in this country, and especially in the Lowlands, between master and mistress and servant an astoundingly different relationship exists. I have never witnessed it anywhere else and find it both confusing and amusing.’