Fergus Lamont

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘As a matter of fact, Fergus, you do. She met you once. You knew her brother. Lady Grizel Dungavel.’

  I could not help grinning at the idea of this timid music-lover being yoked to that handmaiden of stallions.

  ‘I didn’t know you knew the Dungavels, James.’

  ‘They’ve been friends of my family for many years.’

  ‘Is she still as fanatical about horses?’

  ‘She still hunts, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘I expect you and she have ridden to the top of Spango many times?’

  ‘Only once.’

  ‘She used to be fond of putting people through tests.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ But he closed his eyes for a moment, in instant prayer. ‘You knew her brother, I believe. Archie, who was killed.’

  ‘Yes.’ But I did not want to talk about Archie. He, like Gantock, must be put off until I was more worthy of him. ‘Well, James, in what way does a man so fortunate need help?’

  ‘Betty doesn’t know. I haven’t quite got round to telling her.’

  ‘Keeping it secret from her must have been difficult considering how close you and she have been recently.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t adopt that tone, old man.’

  ‘What tone would you say is appropriate for a husband to use speaking to a friend and neighbour who has debauched his wife?’

  ‘Really, Fergus, it’s true that you have an awfully vulgar streak in you.’

  ‘It is petty to resort to abuse. Surely you do not deny sleeping with my wife, in my own house?’

  ‘No, I do not deny it. I’m sorry, Fergus. I would have explained long ago but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. You see, old man, Betty came to me in some distress. It seemed that you were suffering from some delayed effect of your experiences during the war: some kind of shell-shock. It took the form of making you averse to the making of love. Your marriage was suffering. Betty’s very sanity was in danger. What I was asked to do was an act of therapy and compassion. Perhaps other elements did enter into it later. I may have been mistaken, but if so it was in good faith.’

  He had spoken, and was now staring at me, with pity or irony or barefaced cheek: all three are well-nigh indistinguishable on artistocratic faces.

  Making a fuss, Betty had said, was common. Mutt-Simpson would agree. A gentleman in my predicament ought to sympathise with a gentleman in his.

  I had to take care lest I throw away with a few plebeian barbarisms what since leaving Gantock I had schemed, lied, deceived, betrayed, and even killed, to achieve: that was, my status as an officer and gentleman.

  As always, Sir James was eager to help.

  ‘In any case, old man,’ he said, ‘my part is over. Not only because I’m getting married but because Betty’s got her eye on someone else, someone I may say more suitable.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sir Jock Dunsyre.’

  ‘Isn’t he a Member of Parliament?’

  ‘Yes. For one of the Glasgow constituencies. Oxford rugger blue. Huge chap. His place is in Lanarkshire. His wife died about three years ago. She was a daughter of Lord Gleneagles.’

  I felt furious with Betty, yet I felt proud of her too. Good for the byre-woman’s bastard, I could not help thinking.

  ‘They’ll be awfully discreet, Fergus. She has her readers to think of, and he his constituents.’

  By this time we were both on our feet. He held out his hand. For a moment I was tempted to pull the whip up out of my stocking and give him at least one symbolical slash across the face. But it would have been like striking the Good Samaritan. So I took his hand.

  ‘Be a brick, Fergus, and break the news to Betty.’

  ‘I’ll do that, James.’

  ‘Knowing Grizel should make it easier for you.’

  ‘So it should.’

  ‘Please do it as gently as you can.’

  ‘Surely.’

  ‘Much obliged, Fergus.’

  ‘Much obliged, James.’

  TWELVE

  Though she seldom showed me any sign of affection I continued for a long time to have a father’s anxiety about Dorcas and her social ambitions. It worried me that she was doing all her practising and posturing in the middle of a mine-field.

  Her grandmother, Mrs Shields, had never been married. Her other grandmother had committed suicide. Her mother was an adulteress. Her father had been born in a room-and-kitchen. These were mines, any one of which could blow to pieces her confidence that one day she would be a great lady. Therefore Betty and I joined forces in trying to keep her clear of them.

  I had put so wide a desert between me and Gantock that there was no danger of anyone from there arriving with a packful of disillusion. Betty’s own past was well hidden away; but there was one person who could with a few words drag it out into the open. This was Mrs Shields. That was why Betty and I kept urging Dorcas to be nice to her grandmother. That was why after every display of pertness we held our breath and waited for the bang.

  One day I had a talk with Mrs Shields as she lay sick in bed. She stank of gin and camphor. Her voice was a painful croak. But she looked capable of living for another twenty years at least. The older she got too the more touchy she would become. Like a mine, indeed.

  ‘How are you feeling, Nellie?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d be deid long ago if I was depending on visits frae my grand weans to keep me alive.’

  ‘I thought Torquil came to see you.’

  ‘He came to paint my face. He said it’s mair interesting when it’s yellow and thin.’

  ‘Yes, he takes his painting seriously. But didn’t he blether away to you while he was doing it?’

  ‘When did you ever hear Torquil blether? He talks like an auld priest that used to come to oor hoose when I was a wean. I thocht he was the Pope himself.’

  I showed my surprise.

  ‘You didnae ken that I was born a Catholic?’

  ‘I certainly did not.’

  ‘Weel, I was.’

  So the bomb she represented was even more powerful than I had thought.

  ‘When did you turn?’ I asked.

  ‘Wha said I turned?’

  ‘Do you mean, you’re still a Catholic?’

  ‘My religion is my ain business.’

  ‘But you never go to chapel.’

  ‘I said my religion was my ain business.’

  ‘Betty’s never said anything to me about this.’

  ‘She’s nae babbler aboot her background. But neither are you.’

  ‘There are good reasons for our reticence, Mrs Shields.’

  Her mind was sharp. ‘You mean Dorcas?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t worry aboot that one. Naething can hurt her. She’s got a hert o’ ice. I hear she’s been saying she hopes I dee.’

  ‘If she said it it must have been a joke.’

  ‘Some joke.’

  ‘She’s only nine.’

  ‘That’s whit frichtens me. She’s like a tree covered wi’ snaw.’

  I knew what she meant. ‘Snow melts when the sun shines, Mrs Shields.’

  ‘Some snaw doesnae. The snaw at the tap o’ mountains. That’s the kind on her.’

  ‘What rubbish,’ said Betty, when I reported to her. ‘Not snow. Cool white blossoms. Once she’s sure her roots are firm she’ll show masses of affection.’

  But she too, I saw, had her apprehensions.

  She would have died rather than say that Dorcas must take after my mother, but I was sure she often thought it.

  THIRTEEN

  Sir Jock Dunsyre, Betty’s new lover, was the stupidest man I ever met. In the House of Commons, if one of the Clydeside members was telling of some family living on bread and margarine in a single-end over-run by rats, or a humane Liberal was describing the miseries inflicted on Germans by reparations, Sir Jock, his big red face beaming, would bellow ‘Sob-stuff!’ and then roar with laughter. Or if some Socialist was being too clever on the subject
of economics, the bellow would be ‘Jew!’ and the laughter just as stentorian. Afterwards, in the smoking-room, he would approach the man he had insulted, thump him matily on the chest, and offer to buy him a drink. If this was refused, as it nearly always was, he would shake his bullish head and snort what a pity it was those Socialist chaps were such poor sports: it was the result of their not playing rugby when they were young.

  Six-foot-one in height, and sixteen stones in weight, he could still at forty-five charge through a thick hedge and throw a ball a hundred yards: feats which he performed at Pennvalla for Torquil’s benefit and to Torquil’s disgust.

  It amazed me that other aristocrats, like the Mutt-Simpsons, did not abhor one of their number who let them all down by his boorishness. On the contrary they were very tolerant of him. I came to the conclusion that he reminded them of days when noblemen wielded battle-axes more mightily than their henchmen and so proved their right to the great mansion and the many acres: superior brawn and more enemies mangled being more creditable reasons than theft or chicanery.

  Once, when befuddled, he boasted to me that at a hunting party at Gilbertfield Castle he had kissed Lady Grizel’s bare behind. She had challenged him to do it and he had done it.

  On the whole, I preferred him to Mutt-Simpson as my wife’s lover. He was often in London attending Parliament, for he believed that his presence there was important to the nation. Also it was a point of honour with him never to sleep with a man’s wife in that man’s own house.

  He had first been elected to Parliament at a time when even in Glasgow the working-class voted Tory. The War, however, had damaged the reputation of the upper-class for political as well as military competence. In constituencies that contained a large number of working-class voters Tory ΜPs began to be asked questions that only those with agile minds could evade convincingly. A mastodon like Sir Jock was in danger of extinction at every election.

  Even at the General Election of 1931 when he stood as a National Government candidate, his position was insecure. This was because he was again opposed by Mary Holmscroft, who at the previous election had reduced his majority to less than 200 votes. This time too also standing were Alisdair Donaldson, as a Scottish Nationalist, and Andrew Keith, a well-liked local independent Liberal. If these two took some middle-class votes from him he could well be squeezed out. In desperation he asked Betty for her support. She not only gave it, she promised him mine too.

  Usually she claimed to be above politics; but since it was a time of national crisis she felt that her participation would be seen by her admirers as having patriotic motives.

  ‘You could be useful, Fergus. You knew this Holmscroft creature. You must know things to her discredit.’

  I pointed out that if I had any political sympathies at all they were for the Scottish National Party.

  ‘That may be so, but this particular candidate of theirs you do not care for.’

  ‘I have nothing against Alisdair except that he has written a number of mediocre novels and been highly praised for them.’

  ‘Would he make a good Member of Parliament?’

  ‘He would have to be stupefyingly bad not to be better than Dunsyre.’ That was mumbled under my breath.

  ‘The country is facing ruin. It is no time for an irrelevancy like Scottish Nationalism.’

  ‘Will it not be difficult for Dunsyre to convince people that the country is facing ruin when it will be only too obvious that he himself is not suffering the slightest drop in his very high standard of living? Should he not be emaciated and in rags to make his lamentations credible?’

  ‘Your political opinions are childish.’

  ‘How then can I be of any use?’

  ‘Because you will say what you are instructed to say.’

  I had to submit. Like Scotland I was not yet ready for independence.

  Soon after her arrival in the Central Station Hotel in Glasgow reporters came to interview Betty in the same lounge where twelve years ago I had rebuffed Mr Kelso, envoy from Gantock. Unable to bear the adulatory questions and the so sweetly reasonable replies I went out for a walk in the streets. There it suddenly occurred to me that it would be a good idea to pay a visit to Mary’s campaign headquarters.

  A taxi took me there. Like all members of the working-class the driver could not make up his mind what to think of me. I had the voice and bearing of a colonel of Guards, I was dressed like a Highland laird, I lounged like one used to spacious rooms, and yet I gave the impression that I was willing to be, not friendly (I was too aloof for that), not comradely (I too manifestly insisted on my superior status), and not neighbourly (my kilt was too splendid for his drab breeks) but nevertheless kin of some kind. I could see various doubts flitting across his tough face, like wind ripples on a pond littered with bricks and old bicycle tyres. He knew Mary was a Socialist, but if I was one he himself was a Turk: thus might he have expressed it to his wife that night. Yet here he was driving me to her committee rooms, which turned out to be a derelict shop in a grimy tenement in a stony leafless street that could have been Lomond Street itself, if among the many smells had been that of the sea.

  ‘Are you famous or something?’ he snarled, as I was paying him.

  He did not say ‘Sir’, but then very few Glasgow or for that matter Gantock men ever did. The English were always saying it. If I had been asked to sum up in a sentence the difference between the Scottish and the English peoples I would have said: ‘The English say “Sir” all the way up the hierarchies; the Scots, who recognise no hierarchies, do not say it at all.’

  I preferred the English style: if more servile it was also more gracious.

  He drove off without waiting for an answer.

  Inside the shop some men and women were busy folding election addresses and putting them in envelopes. They wore hats, coats, scarves, and gloves, for the place was unheated. They sported red rosettes. Their dedication, however, to the abolition of poverty, privilege, injustice, and war was not so easily displayed. I did not hold it against them, for my own mirror had made me aware that the human face, if it tried too consciously to light up with idealistic zeal, succeeded only in looking demented.

  As I entered they all looked surprised and one woman in a green hat said ‘My, my!’ quite loudly.

  A grey-haired man with spectacles asked me what I wanted. I said I had come to see Miss Holmscroft.

  ‘She’s out chapping on doors. I’m her agent. Can I help?’

  ‘No thank you. It’s a personal matter.’

  ‘Suit yourself. Take a seat. Name’s McGregor. What’s yours?’

  I thought him rude. He thought himself sturdily independent. What a disservice Burns did his countrymen when he wrote his democratic rant ‘A man’s a man for a’ that’.

  ‘Captain Fergus Corse-Lamont,’ I replied, courteously.

  At the same time I sat down grandly on the cheap chair.

  After a minute during which they kept stealing dumbfounded glances at me the woman with the green hat asked if I was any good at folding paper. It was her sly way of trying to find out if I was one of the elect.

  I shook my head.

  A pink-faced middle-aged woman coughed genteelly. ‘Excuse me,’ she murmured. ‘Aren’t you Betty T. Shields’ husband?’

  ‘Miss Shields is my wife.’

  ‘Is it true,’ barked a much grimmer woman, ‘that she’s going to speak for big Dunsyre? If she is then she’s got no right to.’

  Her comrades chided her. In a free society everyone must be allowed to speak for whoever he or she wished. It was a small demonstration of the purity of their principles, which caused them to be so ineffectual.

  A car plastered with posters stopped outside. Out of it stepped Mary.

  She wore a black coat and hat that looked as if they had been bought from Lumhat Broon or his Glasgow equivalent. People gathered round her on the pavement. They laughed at her quick replies. I remembered that quickness. Often my own mind had had to scamper to keep
up. What I did not remember, though, was her making people laugh. She must have mellowed.

  Her devotees were working-class women. Their faces were bright with fondness and trust.

  I thought how marvellous if when I went back one day to Gantock, to the East End, the women there looked at me like that.

  With a last wave she came into the shop. As she was pretending to dab sweat off her brow she caught sight of me.

  Surprise, anger, puzzlement contended on her thin earnest face, but in the end they were all replaced by rueful affection.

  I felt greatly relieved. If she had disowned me I would have been desolate.

  ‘Hello, Mary,’ I said.

  ‘Where have you sprung from?’

  ‘I’d like a chat with you.’

  ‘I’m pretty busy. I’m fighting an election.’

  ‘Couldn’t we go somewhere for a cup of tea? You look as if you could do with a break.’

  She hesitated.

  The woman with the green hat came over and pinned a big red rosette to my breast.

  ‘No, Eleanor,’ said Mary. ‘Not for him. He’s not one of us.’

  ‘Och, it’ll do him good then to wear it for a wee while.’

  ‘Leave it,’ I said.

  But Mary took it off me. It was a medal I did not deserve. It was a badge of comradeship and I was not her comrade.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘There’s a café along the street. We’ll get a cup of tea there.’

  ‘Lots to do, Mary,’ warned her agent.

  ‘I know, Jim. Just ten minutes.’

  The café was only fifty yards away. Yet during the minute it took us to walk there Mary was hailed by at least a dozen women wishing her luck. For all my grandness I was hardly noticed. One old woman who did notice me gave me a friendly smile for my companion’s sake.

  I was beginning to understand why Sir Jock was so afraid of losing his seat.

  We sat and waited for our tea and chocolate biscuits just as in a similar place long ago we had waited for our penny pea-brees.

  ‘Well, Mary, it’s been a long time,’ I said.