Shona MacLEAN - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

Again the baillie demurred. ‘I do not think so. As soon as she returned from Darkwater she sent word by her father that she wished to see me. It was just after noon. The council had convened as a matter of urgency, to discuss the defence of the burgh in the event of foreign attack. The meeting was to be held in the utmost secrecy, and the town serjeant had been warned that it was not to be disturbed. It was almost five by the time we had finished with the business and, fool that I was, instead of going directly to the apothecary’s, I made my usual evening inspection of the tolbooth.’ He was revisiting the scene in his mind. ‘By the time I reached Arbuthnott’s, the girl had gone. Her mother told me she had gone in a distracted state to meet with Geleis Guild shortly after sending me her note. She had returned later, in a worse case than she had left in, and would tell her mother nothing of the cause, but said only she must speak to me. A little after four, a messenger had arrived from the provost’s house, requesting her to go there as a matter of urgency. Marion had set out immediately, and her mother never saw her alive again. She was found not two hours later by Geleis Guild in the castle grounds. Dead, dead.’

Images of a young woman gazing towards the waves from the height of the Elf Kirk, of the same woman softly singing to the children of Geleis Guild in the garden of the provost’s house, of the same woman, dead and burning on a stake at the market cross of Banff filled my mind. At the last, they merged, horribly, with the indelible memory of Patrick Davidson lying, grass in his hands and his mouth, sprawled and dead across my desk in a pool of his own vomit.

This was not right. There was something that could not be right. ‘It was Geleis Guild who found her?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said the notary, ‘and her children.’

And her children. She could not have done that, knowing what was to be found. And why, only last night at the lykewake, had she urged me on in my searches?

The baillie interrupted my wonderings. ‘Something puzzles you, Mr Seaton.’

‘Aye, it does. It is Geleis Guild. I do not understand her. She is a woman distraught, and yet she must have joined with her husband in his murderous doings.’

‘Why would you think that?’ quizzed the baillie.

It was evident to me. ‘Because I do not see how the provost could have been murdering Marion Arbuthnott while he was with you in the council chamber.’

Comprehension came over the baillie’s face. ‘But Walter Watt was not there. The nature of our discoveries about his nephew’s activities caused some alarm amongst those few who knew of it, and it was adjudged best to keep the meeting a secret from the provost until such time as we had a clear knowledge and understanding of his nephew’s activities and connections hereabouts. Walter Watt was not in the council chamber when Marion Arbuthnott died. To judge by the carriage of his wife these last days, I think it very unlikely she was an accomplice in his deeds.’

A soft voice drifted to us from the doorway. ‘You are wrong, baillie, you are wrong.’ And there, like a wraith from another world, stood Geleis Guild herself. Her pallor was complete, her eyes rimmed in red, then black, her hair loose and dull on her shoulders. She had the air of one further from the living than the dead. She could scarcely support herself in the doorway, and around her wrists were thick bands of linen, applied, as I later learned, a few hours ago by the doctor, in a desperate effort to stay the harm that she had determined to do herself.

Jaffray came in behind her. ‘Take a seat, my dear; you are not well enough to be up yet.’

‘It matters little,’ she said, but nevertheless allowed herself to be led to a chair.

The baillie watched her, carefully, and with a strange curiosity on his face. ‘I cannot fathom it, mistress. Indeed, I cannot believe it. Would you really have us believe that you were the willing companion of your husband’s deed?’

‘Not willing,’ she said. ‘No, never that.’

I saw it now, I thought. ‘Nor witting, either?’ I asked.

She looked over to me with a terrible desperation in her eyes, and made as if to speak but stopped, at a loss.

‘Did you know what your husband was about, mistress?’ asked the baillie.

She shook her head. ‘Not at first. Not at all. I did not know all until Marion told me.’ She looked down at her wrists and began to pick at the bandages, speaking almost absently as she did so. ‘I should have realised long ago. Sometimes I think I should have wondered.’ She trailed off, and then, having lost herself a few moments in her musing, she was recalled back to the present. ‘I was little more than a girl when Helen died. In truth, I remember very little about her. She was a married woman, the wife of one of the magistrates with whom my brother, Robert, was keen to curry favour – for even then it could be seen that Walter would be a man of importance, and my brother liked to be counted amongst the men of importance. My brother had hopes that I might make an impression on Helen – become her companion, help her in the nursery – be to her in fact what Marion was to become to me. But Helen had her own friends – older women – like your mother,’ she said, looking at me with an effort at kindness in her eyes.

‘And as for the nursery – there was to be no nursery.’ She paused and made herself leave off the picking at the bandages. ‘When she died, my brother made a great show of sorrow, which I knew was not real. He would imagine himself perpetually required to give succour and counsel at Walter Watt’s house, but I know Robert is an object of contempt to honourable and intelligent men, and such I could clearly perceive to be the case with Walter also. And yet, invitations came to us often from the magistrate, and soon I came to understand that it was not my brother’s but my own company that Walter sought. I could not understand it, for he was deep, so deep in grief and love for his wife. He spoke little of her, but her face was always in his eyes, her name always ready to fall silent from his lips. I was not yet seventeen when it was agreed between him and Robert that we should marry, that I should take Helen’s place.’ She gave a small, humourless laugh. ‘What a mockery! That I should take her place? He was kind to me, I can never deny that; he took pleasure – took his pleasure with me, and I came to love him beyond measure, and child after child though I bore him, I knew I would never take Helen’s place. And so it went on, and by the grace of God, as I thought, our family thrived and Walter rose higher and higher in the burgh. I knew of no one better blessed, yet there was still a dark emptiness within him that I think was only truly filled when he looked at Helen’s portrait. I thought she haunted him, and perhaps she did, and the memory of her tormented him.’

‘And in all that time, mistress, you truly suspected nothing?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘And then Patrick came home. I must confess,’ and here, for the first time, she allowed herself a real smile, ‘I felt a little anxious at the prospect. He had come to visit us once before, but just for a few days, before he left for the continent, but this time he was coming to stay. For years, I had heard nothing but the praises of this boy – this young man as he was to be. To Walter he had been as a son. He had once said to me, before he could stop himself – for he was always careful not to hurt me – if he could have had such a son, of Helen, he could have asked for nothing more. There was a joy in him when he heard Patrick was coming home that I had rarely seen, and I know he left Arbuthnott in little doubt as to how the boy was to be treated – it was impressed upon the apothecary what an honour it was for him to have and house such an apprentice.’