The Tobacco Lords Trilogy

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  The man sheepishly drew back and she had thought everything would be well when suddenly she heard the voice of her other servant, Regina Chisholm. Never to her dying day would she forget the sound of it or the words uttered with such callous deliberation.

  ‘It’s true what she says. She is of important and wealthy Whig people. But there is a Frenchman who is for the Prince.’

  She still crumpled inside with terror at the memory of the words. She had immediately pushed the gun into Regina’s hands and cried out.

  ‘If you hate me so much—shoot me! But for pity’s sake say no more!’

  ‘It’s not you that I hate, mistress,’ Regina said.

  ‘Where is the Frenchman?’ the trooper shouted and his companions crowded eagerly forward. ‘We can have some sport with him.’

  ‘Regina, no.’ She had flung herself on her knees in front of the girl. ‘Oh, please. Oh, Regina. Regina, I’m begging you.’

  But all her entreaties were to no avail.

  ‘You’ll find him through that door in the kitchen cupboard,’ Regina said.

  Ramsay’s voice growled through Annabella’s grief.

  ‘The Lord’s ways are verra strange and awesome at times. But we maun accept them with good grace.’

  ‘Not the Lord’s way, Papa.’ She picked at the burnished folds of her dress, eyes lowered so that he could not see the expression in them. ‘It was that wicked girl who caused Jean-Paul’s death. But she’ll need the Lord’s help when I find her.’

  ‘You may as weel put the lassie out of your mind. God alone knows where she is now.’

  ‘She was making for Glasgow. Highland people I questioned saw her riding south.’

  ‘Aye, weel, you’ve looked and she’s no’ here.’

  ‘I’ll find her. The beggar Quin might know.’

  ‘He’s been banished from the town long since.’

  ‘I’ll find her.’

  Ramsay half rose, pushing his face closer to hers. She did not raise her eyes but could see the curls of his wig, and his neck-linen like snow above the dark glimmer of his satin waistcoat.

  ‘You’ll do as you’re bid and put the lassie out of your mind. Finding her would only mean another bloody murder—for you’re capable of such wickedness, Annabella. That’s what worries me and obliges me to trust the saving of you to the minister.’ He reached for his coat and, after donning it, swirled on his scarlet cloak. ‘I’m away back to the counting house. I’ll be seeing Blackadder in the tavern tonight and we’ll fix a date.’

  Annabella sat listening to the heavy thump of his feet leave the bedroom, cross the lobby and echo away down the tenement stairs. It took all her courage and will-power to prevent herself from crumpling over the table and indulging in a wild paroxysm of weeping. Fighting with her trembling lips, she called out.

  ‘Nancy! Nancy, damn you, where are you hiding yourself now?’

  The maid sauntered into the room and stood, black hair straggling over one shoulder, hands on hips. Her white shirt hung loose revealing the creamy skin of her shoulders and most of her breasts.

  ‘I wasn’t hiding.’ Her voice had a husky provocative quality that matched her smouldering violet eyes.

  ‘Don’t contradict me, you impudent baggage. I’ve enough to put up with without you. Indeed, misfortunes appear to be overwhelming me.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Papa is setting the date for my marriage to the minister. I’m too agitated for words.’

  Nancy shrugged.

  ‘He’s got a nice house round in the Briggait.’

  ‘I like the house well enough. It’s the ugly black crow that lives in it I’m complaining about.’

  Laughter made a gurgling noise in Nancy’s throat, and immediately Annabella grabbed a fan lying nearby and sent it flying through the air.

  ‘Devil choke you! This is no laughing matter. It’s a dastardly outrage. I would have none of it had Papa not threatened to have me cruelly confined.’

  Nancy picked up the fan and, all the time admiring and fingering its jewel colours, she went over, hips swaying, to where Annabella sat.

  ‘You could do worse.’

  ‘Worse?’ Annabella squealed. ‘Gracious heavens, have you gone mad? How worse could anyone get?’

  Reluctantly returning the fan, Nancy shrugged again.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll beat you or misuse you.’

  Annabella rolled her eyes.

  ‘Lord’s sakes. Better if he did. Anything would be better than having to listen to his long and heavy preaching for the rest of my life. It’s bad enough on Sunday. When he’s not moaning and weeping and wringing his hands, he’s caterwauling like an old torn cat.’

  ‘You know fine you won’t listen to him.’

  ‘Or he’s so prodigiously intoxicated he can’t stand.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with a man who can take a good dram.’

  ‘Damn it, Nancy, whose side are you on?’

  ‘There’s no use crying over spilt milk. You might as well make the best of it. Do you want to take the air? It’s quite a nice day outside and a wee turn about the streets might cheer you.’

  Annabella grabbed up her fan and agitated it in front of her face, creating a rainbow of colour.

  ‘No, I’m too vexed to go abroad today. My head pains me. I think I’ll lie on top of the bed and see if I can sleep.’

  ‘Will I make you a cup of chocolate?’

  ‘Oh, very well.’

  She flounced over and through the curtains of the hole-in-the-wall bed. There she lay wide awake and in a tremble on top of the salmon-coloured bedspread.

  ‘Pox on the bloody minister,’ she kept thinking. ‘Pox on him! Pox on him!’

  3

  JEMMY DUCKS looked after the animals that were brought on board to provide milk and fresh meat. He was a lean, leathery man with ears like wings and eyes that protruded as if constantly startled. His left leg had been smashed years ago by a fall from the main mast and it dragged uselessly as he walked. But he could hop about at no mean speed when he had to, for instance, when he was chasing the hens and ducks and goats and pigs about the deck in order to catch them and make them snug for the night.

  The hull of the longboat was nearly hidden by temporary wooden erections that housed the animals and inside it were the hen coops. But as Jemmy sat talking to Gav the pigs and goats were rooting busily on the deck between the poop and the foc’stle and the ducks and geese were enjoying themselves paddling in the wash about the lee scuppers.

  ‘I’ve got to keep a weather eye on them hogs, Gav. A very weather eye.’ Jemmy pointed to one of his bulbous eyes as he spoke. ‘After a few weeks afloat them hogs are apt to develop a taste for a live leg of mutton.’

  ‘They attack the sheep?’

  ‘Not that I blames them.’ Jemmy hastened to the defence of the pigs. ‘I defies anyone to point the finger at them hogs. Them hogs gets hungry same as anyone else.’ He scratched indignantly under the arm of his red shirt and then attacked his head making his pigtail dance up his back. ‘No, no, Gav, I defies them. Tell me, I asks, what do you do when you’re hungry? Why, I’ll tell you, I says, and I told them. You bash their brains in with one of them belaying pins. Then you gobbles them up, legs and trotters, brains and all.’ He sighed. ‘And them’s such cheerful creatures, Gav. Hogs are happy at sea.’

  Gav looked doubtful. The pigs were stuttering about the small deck like drunk men in a hurry. As the ship rolled to one side, they scampered to the other, their trotters scraping and slithering. They kept getting in the way of the seamen too and one man, getting harassed beyond endurance, removed the offending animal with a mighty kick. Immediately Jemmy scrambled up angrily shaking his fist.

  ‘Damn your eyes! That’s old George you’re mauling aft.’ To Gav he added: ‘George is my favourite. I likes them all but George is the clever one, Gav. I teaches him tricks. I dreads the day when they’ll come and shatter George’s headrails. They says I gets too partial to
wards them animals, Gav. And they’re right. Many’s the time after dinner I’ve felt as though I’ve eaten an old messmate.’

  ‘The goats seem cleverer at balancing,’ Gav said.

  ‘You’re right there, Gav, and I can’t deny it. Them goats have marvellous sea-legs. And never was a beast easier pleased with his vittles. Them goats smacks their lips over anything from shavings from Chips the carpenter’s berth to old newspapers or logbooks.’

  Gav looked impressed and Jemmy continued enthusiastically.

  ‘Great old sea-dogs them goats are. Many’s a hard gale they’ve weathered.’

  ‘I hope we don’t have any gales before we get to Virginia.’

  ‘We’re bounds to get them, Gav. Lots of them. There’s no denying it.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ Gav made a show of nonchalance; ‘I think I’ll take a turn about the deck and stretch my legs while I can.’ He struggled to his feet. ‘Have you seen my … my cousin, Reggie, anywhere?’

  ‘I’ve come athwart him, but not spoke him. He’s not a friendly young salt like yourself, Gav, and I don’t minds saying it.’

  Jemmy’s bulbous eyes followed Gav as he tried to adapt his steps to the easy roll of the ship as she met the slow, steady swell. The deck was an untidy crush of women and children, pigs, goats, sheep, geese and ducks. The only part of the ship with a little free space was the high poop deck where Captain Kilfuddy was taking the air by pacing back and forth. For a minute or two Gav clung to the bulwarks and gazed admiringly up at the old man.

  He was strutting to and fro with his hands clenched behind his back, his barrel belly jutting forward and his three-cornered hat squashed well down on his brow. Suddenly he stopped, peered upwards, then said to the mate:

  ‘Hands aloft to trim the topsails, Mr Gudgeon.’

  The mate bawled down to the bosun who, in turn, shouted at the men, who leapt immediately to the rigging.

  Gav watched, fascinated and overawed by their courage as they clambered up shrouds and along the yardarms until they were like flies against a swinging sky. It was amazing how different seamen were to men on land. It wasn’t only their courage and capacity for hard work. They even looked different. Some were small, some tall, some lean, some hefty but they all had a drooping posture, their corded neck muscles disguising the breadth of their tapering shoulders. Their heads sunk low and seemed to jut from their chests, bowed by years of crouching in the foc’stle. They had square hands lumpy with callouses, surmounted by small, torn, dirty nails stained with tobacco and tar. Across the steel-like bands of muscle in their forearms were rope burns from sheets ripped from their grasp by the power of storms. Their gait was a swinging lope accompanied by the heavy fleshy slap of naked feet on their natural environment, the wooden deck of a sailing ship. They were almost like throwbacks to earlier men, people adapted for this special way of life.

  The captain addressed the mate again and the mate relayed the order through the bosun to the men who started pulling on ropes and singing cheerily.

  ‘Oh, they call me hanging Johnny,

  Away, boys, away,

  They says I hangs for money,

  Oh, hang, boys, hang.

  And first I hanged me daddy,

  Away, boys, away,

  And first I hanged me daddy,

  Oh, hang, boys, hang.

  And then I hanged me mother,

  Away, boys, away,

  Me sister and me brother,

  Oh, hang, boys, hang …’

  A sudden lump in Gav’s throat pained him so much it made his eyes water. The hanging shanty reminded him of his mother and, turning away from the poop deck, he groped along towards the bows of the ship, trying not to listen.

  On the foc’stle some off-duty sailors were lighting their pipes from the wick kept there closely guarded by a sentry because fire was an ever present danger on board. ‘Chips’ the carpenter was sitting enjoying a smoke. So was Andra Doone, the cook.

  ‘Have you seen my cousin Reggie?’ he asked Andra, a small fat man with a patch over one eye and a twisted back that kept one of his shoulders permanently hunched high against his ear.

  Gav had learned that cooks on board ship and carpenters and the man who looked after the animals were always called ‘idlers’ by the seamen and, with the exception of the carpenter, were usually men with some sort of injury or deformity.

  Andra sucked deeply at his pipe. He was even more superstitious than the rest of the men and saw ominous signs in the most innocent events.

  ‘That’s a strange thing. He’s been seeking you. And you’ve been seeking him. And neither of you meeting. It could be a sign the ship’s going to blow off course.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ Gav asked, impatient to take his leave because the cook always made him feel apprehensive.

  ‘Well,’ Andra took another slow thoughtful suck. ‘If you don’t find him in the cuddy, I reckon he’s lost.’

  As fast as he could Gav made his way back to the stern and into the low-ceilinged room where the officers and cabin passengers had their meals. In the centre of the room stood a table with a bench at either side, all secured to the floor. A window looked out of the stern of the ship and there were two berths on each of the walls at right angles to the window. These berths were usually occupied by wealthy passengers but, apart from Regina, the only passengers on this voyage were steerage ones like himself.

  Regina sat like a carved statue on one of the benches. She was a slight figure in a green coat with gold buttons and fawn lace cascading at her throat and cuffs.

  ‘Where the hell have you been hiding yourself?’ she demanded. ‘We should stick together, you said. We’ve only got each other now, you said.’

  ‘I wasn’t hiding. I was just talking to Jemmy Ducks.’

  A nerve pulled at Regina’s cheek, tightening her mouth.

  ‘What a mess you’re in. Where are your fine new clothes?’

  ‘In my sea-chest.’ He gazed defensively at the too big jacket his mother had once bought from a rag woman. The sleeves were so long they hid his hands and the shoulders drooped low. His hat had come from the same source and was also several sizes too large but his thick mop of curls prevented it from flopping down over his face. ‘There’s nothing wrong with these for on board ship. I want to keep my new breeches and jacket for when we arrive at Virginia.’

  Before he could say any more he was startled by the chief mate, Mr Gudgeon, bursting into the cabin, grabbing him by the ear and jerking him outside.

  ‘You listen to me, m’lad. It’s the steerage for landlubber tramps like you. If you come near the poop, the quarterdeck or the cuddy again, I’ll throw you over the side.’ He gave Gav’s ear a twist, making him yelp with pain. ‘Are you listening, lad? Do you know what’ll happen to you if I throw you over the side? The sharks’ll have you. They’ll have you, m’lad.’

  With a punch he sent Gav hurtling down to land on his face on the main deck. Trying to suppress tears of pain and humiliation, Gav picked himself up. Blood trickled from his nose and seeped into his mouth as Jemmy Ducks came limping alongside him.

  ‘Cheerily, shipmate. Cheerily. He’s mauled you a little fore and aft but at least he hasn’t sent you to the bilboes. If you splashes your face in the scuppers, I dare say you’ll survive.’

  Gav glanced back and saw Regina standing at the door of the cuddy, her face expressionless. He felt broken-hearted and allowed himself to be led away by Jemmy without protest.

  He remembered the time when Regina and he would have braved anything to protect each other from harm. He remembered how, hand in hand, they used to grope their way to and from school on dark winter mornings and nights. He remembered how she clutched him close to her as they passed the bridge over the river Clyde. She knew he was afraid of the lepers who floated across from the Gorbals hospital like ghosts in their hooded cloaks, their clappers eerily echoing. He remembered how she shielded him from the prancing horses in Trongate Street and Blind Jinky’s snarling dog in Tannery Wynd
where they had once lived.

  Not that he had been a coward. There wasn’t a boy in the school he hadn’t fought and beaten. Or if a crowd of boys set upon him, as they often did because of his red hair like his Highland grandfather, he went down fighting and he never cried.

  ‘Whig pigs!’ he used to call them. But it didn’t seem to matter any more about Whigs or Jacobites. Prince Charles and his Highland army had gone. Now he and Regina had left Glasgow too and everything, including Regina, was different. He felt at a loss. He didn’t know how to cope on his own in this new situation.

  Jemmy Ducks drew him down beside the longboat.

  ‘We all knows Mr Gudgeon, Gav. And the quicker you knows him, the better.’ He pushed his big-eyed face closer to the child’s smaller bloodied one. ‘There’s no denying that Mr Gudgeon stows away more grog than he can steadily carry. So you heeds what I says and steer clear of him, eh?’

  ‘I was just trying to see my … I was just trying to see Reggie.’

  ‘Not that I blames you, Gav. No, no. But the poop’s the poop and the foc’stle the foc’stle. And if you goes up there again, he’ll have you, Gav. What I says is, if you don’t steer clear of him he’ll have you. Mr Gudgeon always has to have somebody.’

  Remembering what the chief mate had said about throwing him to the sharks, Gav’s chest tightened with anxiety.

  ‘I’ll try,’ he managed shakily. ‘But I wish I could get speaking to Reggie.’

  Then, as if to prove Jemmy’s point, there was a sudden fracas on the deck and Mr Gudgeon was seen striking Mr Jubb, the second mate, over and over again on the face. The latter, a slender, blond-haired man, was not retaliating but trying to retain some sort of dignity while attempting to escape. Mr Gudgeon was lurching after him from side to side of the deck with poultry and feathers flying around them.

  ‘If I say you were late on watch, Mr Jubb,’ he was roaring, ‘you were late on watch. I’ll have none of your bloody jaw, sir.’

  Animals squawked and women screamed but Mr Jubb never uttered a sound.