Shona MacLEAN - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

Sleep was not long in coming, but it was not sound. At the top of the house though I was, I was conscious of much movement and low voices on the floors beneath me. Once, someone with a candle paused outside my door. The flicker of light seeped beneath the doorway for a moment and then withdrew. The footsteps were light and soon I could not hear them at all. And then somewhere, deep into the long night, I was brought to full wakefulness by the sounds of horses gathering in the yard below. Conscious of the patrol that had earlier passed my door, I crept from my bed and peered through a gap in the window shutters. Gradually, I prised them further open. In the light of a full moon I could see, far below me, five men on horseback: the young men to whom Straloch had been talking in the dining hall. He was not there now, but I could see Isabella Irvine, her nightclothes a startling, ghost-like white in the moonlight, bidding her cousins and their kinsmen farewell. Quietly, they set off away from the house, only picking up speed once they were far enough away not to disturb those sleeping within. Isabella watched after them until they disappeared from sight, before turning back to the house. As she did so she looked up, directly, at my window. I could not tell whether she saw me or not. I returned to my bed, the window shutters still open, and watched the night sky until the first shafts of sunlight appeared from the east.

The laird had also departed by the time I appeared in the dining hall for my breakfast. The room was a noisy babble of the younger children of the house and their nurses. Bowls of porridge with warmed milk and scones spread with sweet confits were played with, spilt, dropped for the hounds or left, all to the indignation of the nurses. I took a good meal, as I had no plan to tarry long at any of my staging posts on the road home. Just after the chapel clock struck eight, I rose from the table and returned to my room to gather my few belongings. As I descended the stairs, relief that I would soon be leaving the strange house of night-time partings turned to apprehension: Isabella Irvine stood at the bottom, watching and clearly waiting for me. I held her gaze until, at the last step, she looked away.

‘Good morning,’ I said.

She did not respond to the civility and for a moment seemed at a loss for how to proceed at all. In the end she held out a small package and a sealed letter. ‘My uncle asked that I should give you these. The letter is to be delivered to your provost; the packet is for yourself.’ I took them from her and thanked her. She merely nodded briskly and turned to walk away.

‘Wait,’ I said, touching her arm with my hand. She looked down upon it as if it were an object infected. I let it drop. ‘Please spare me a moment.’

She faced me impassively, waiting.

‘Katharine Hay,’ I began.

She sighed impatiently and made to turn again.

‘No, please,’ I persisted. ‘I only wish to know how she really fares, how life is for her … so far from home.’

Her eyes blazed at me. ‘How do you think it is for her?’ she asked. ‘He is a man of near sixty. You had as well drawn your sword and ended her misery.’

My stomach lurched. In the early days and weeks after she had gone south, my imagination had filled with images of Katharine and her husband, images that I had fought, through drink, into some sort of oblivion, and now, here they were, being thrown in my face. And how could I tell this girl that there was nothing she could say to me, no words of condemnation, that I had not already said to myself? What could I say to make her understand that whatever the depths of her revulsion, I knew they were not deep enough? I swallowed hard. The words I wished for would not come: there was little point in continuing this interview. I turned away from Isabella Irvine and walked towards the door. Perhaps, though, I could somehow reach to Katharine all the same; perhaps this was one last chance I had not expected. At the entrance portal I turned to face her again. ‘One thing more.’

Her head tilted upwards a little and her nostrils widened.

‘Yes?’

‘The next time you should see Katharine, will you tell her that I was wrong, and I am sorry; Alexander Seaton is sorry.’

She regarded me coldly. ‘I will not. You made your choice, Mr Seaton, and you must live by it, as does she.’ She bade me no farewell and was gone, vanished into the darkness of the east wing.

A light drizzle fell as I rode from Straloch. It was a house of much life, much happiness, but over which my very presence seemed to have cast a dank and dismal shadow. I might have been happy there, once, in former days, but I could not be now. I was not long in reaching the inn at New Machar, and was grateful to see there the familiar and welcoming face of William Cargill’s old manservant, Duncan, who was to travel with me as far as King Edward, to fetch Sarah Forbes. He must have left Aberdeen before dawn. He assured me he had breakfasted at the inn, and was as eager as myself to get on. In no time he had fetched from the stableyard the sturdy pony and cart William had sent him with and we were on our way.

Duncan made little conversation and that suited me well. His only comment was that he had not been out on this road since he had gone to Banff with the master to fetch back his bride, and that that had turned out well enough. The pony’s pace was steady but slow, and it was into the afternoon before we stopped at Fyvie to rest the beasts and take some refreshment. Elizabeth had packed two baskets – for us, the other for Sarah. There were chicken legs and eggs and cheese, and wheaten scones spread with marmalade, and flasks of good ale. Duncan, a fine Presbyterian, muttered at the excess, and at the numbers of the hungry such a feast would feed. I helped myself to two chicken legs and eyed the third enviously, wondering what poor soul met on the road would have that to his supper on the old fellow’s return journey. He watched accusingly as I put a second slice of apple pie to my mouth. I pretended not to notice.

We finally reached King Edward as the late afternoon light began to lose its warmth and turn a colder grey, portending dusk. Duncan had instructions from his master to take lodgings in Turriff before dark if it could be done, and not to think of attempting to finish the journey back to Aberdeen by night. Rarely can a warning have been less needful: the old man would never have been so foolish. We went first to the manse, where to my relief I found that the minister was at home. His wife offered us food, of course, but Duncan, thanking the mistress profusely, said we had dined to our fill, and that a drink of water for ourselves and the pony was all that was needed. I had changed my horse at Turriff, and was now once again on Gilbert Grant’s mount. Duncan warmed himself in a seat by the fire while I was shown through to the minister’s spartan study.

Hamish MacLennan was tall and spare and learned-looking. As we entered at his call, he was standing at the window with a small book in his hands. I recognised it, for it was an identical edition to that I and all teachers used with our children: Craig’s Shorter Catechism . His wife announced me and, nodding in my direction, he invited me to sit down.

‘I am sorry to have interrupted you in your work,’ I said.

‘I am always at my work. Here in my study, out in the parish, in the kirk, in my every solitude. My life is in my calling.’

I did not know how to respond and he saw my discomfort.

‘I meant no criticism of yourself, Mr Seaton. It is the Lord who judges all.’ He paused for a moment in contemplation of this thought, and I wondered how it was that the town of Banff had to endure the self-serving mediocrity that was the Reverend Guild while this poor country parish was so blessed in its minister. MacLennan might almost have forgotten I was there, but his wife, who had not yet left, called me back to his attention.