Shona MacLEAN - The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

The baillie had perhaps seen too many weeping women pleading ignorance of their husband’s deeds, or perhaps his antipathy towards the Reverend Guild extended to his sister, but he certainly was not yet satisfied or finished with Geleis Guild. ‘Do you have any knowledge of flowers, mistress, of the science of botany?’

‘Why, no. Not more than is common for uses in the nursery and about the household, but in truth, even in that my knowledge was lacking, for with Marion to assist me, there was little need for me to look into such things myself.’

‘But your husband had knowledge?’ he persisted.

She shook her head slowly. ‘I never knew it. He never once, in all the time I knew him, showed any interest in plants. Indeed, the garden of his first home, that he shared with Helen, had been a wondrous place, but it soon went to neglect after her death, and his housekeeper took over the growing of what was needful for the kitchens. He did not even seem to mind that Helen’s Eden would be destroyed to make way for my brother’s new manse.’

‘Helen’s Eden was destroyed long ago, mistress, and he the serpent.’

Geleis Guild had no answer to the baillie’s words, and simply bit her lip, then said, ‘It was only once Patrick returned, and they reminisced about their old days together, that I learned Walter had had a love of plants and flowers. I did not dwell long on the strangeness of it – I just thought it something too closely tied to Helen for him to think of without her.’

‘It was, for it was what he used to kill her. The flowers that were to bring death to her, and to her nephew, and to Marion Arbuthnott, still grow in the garden of that house.’

‘But Walter gifted the house and land to the kirk for my brother – and for all the ministers to follow. It was his great desire that the land be cleared for the new manse as soon as possible. He went often to check on the work, and was greatly frustrated by the delays occasioned by George Burnett’s appearances before the session over his fornication with the servant girl.’

‘The servant girl.’ Said as if she had no name. In Sarah Forbes’s position, how would Geleis Guild have fared? With less dignity, I told myself, and with no resilience at all.

The baillie’s voice was cold. ‘He wanted the evidence of his crime destroyed before the boy returned and saw it. But he could not bring himself to destroy it by his own hand, for fear that he would need it again. I think he wished the decision to be taken from him, and so they were still there, to be used in the killing of Patrick Davidson and then of Marion Arbuthnott.’

‘Do not mistake me, baillie,’ she said, suddenly strong, ‘I do not doubt that it was his hand that killed them all, but I still do not understand it, for he loved Helen – loves her yet – and Patrick too.’

‘And yet,’ he replied, talking to her but looking at me, ‘for some men, worldly ambition will fill the void left by what they imagine to be the greatest love. He did not truly love her at all.’

There was little comprehension in the young woman’s eyes, and her bodily weakness was becoming more and more evident. The doctor had held his tongue longer than I would have thought possible, but he could hold it no longer. ‘I must get this girl to her rest, baillie. You can take up your questioning again tomorrow.’

The baillie nodded his assent, but said, ‘I must know one more thing, mistress. When did you finally understand what your husband was doing, and what he had done?’

She was standing now, leaning on the doctor’s arm. ‘When Marion came to me, to tell me what she knew. She wanted to warn me, to get the children away. But I did not believe her, and so I took her tales to Walter, who had me call her back, that he might reassure her, as he said. And I was touched,’ she smiled bitterly, ‘touched by his concern for her, for she looked truly ill. He left me with her and went himself to fetch her some broth from the kitchen. He spoke to her a few moments, kindly, gently, to calm her fears. He told me that he himself would see her safe home, but that first of all I should “bid the girl eat,” and so I did, and sent her to her death.’ The finality in the last words precluded any further questioning, and Jaffray took Geleis Guild away, to begin her own sentence of despair.

I was alone in the room now with William Buchan. ‘You feared Marion might stumble on the truth and make it known, before there could be evidence or anything to protect her. That is why you strove so hard to keep everyone from her.’

‘Aye,’ he replied, ‘to her own cost, and to theirs. If only the girl had told what she knew to me. Then I would have had him, and he could have done no further harm.’

‘It was perhaps not God’s will,’ I said, no longer self-conscious at speaking of God’s will with this man who strove daily to see and have it enacted on this earth.

‘It was God’s judgement on me, on my pride, on my carriage towards my fellow man, that she did not take her burden to me sooner. And I must look to it. I must look to it.’ So saying, he got up from his chair, coughing, and without a backward glance to where I still lay, William Buchan, who last night had stayed the murderous hand of Walter Watt as it readied itself to crash down a second time on my forehead, left me to my thoughts.

August, 1626

William Cargill laughed as I tried to steady myself after clambering onto the boat.

‘You would never have made a sailor, nor yet a merchant, Alexander.’ No one else had noticed my awkwardness – it was of little interest to the shore porters that the black-cloaked man of learning could not balance himself aboard ship. The loading of the salmon barrels for Aberdeen had almost finished, and William and I took ourselves to the bow of the ship to keep out of the way of those that had work to do. We looked back at the town.

‘It is not a bad sight, as such places go.’

‘You have travelled more than I, William; you are the better qualified to judge.’

‘Maybe, maybe so,’ he said. ‘But while I see fine buildings and poor hovels, you see the histories of those who inhabit them. I see the bricks and mortar; you see the fabric of the life.’

‘And have often shut my eyes to it, and that gladly.’ I looked up beyond the town, up towards the Sandyhill Gate, where a black smoke was rising and curling into the sky. The new provost, and the baillie, his health recovered now from the eight years of strain that he had very nearly succumbed to, had begun their work of cleansing the burgh: the codroche houses were ablaze. Few on the quayside cared to turn their gaze to the flames; there had been too many fires in this town. I wondered about the children, taken from their mothers and put to work in the salmon house, all to the service of God and the stability of the realm.

The last of the barrels was loaded, and there remained but one piece of cargo before the ship could weigh anchor and set sail. I watched with some foreboding as the shore porters lashed ropes around my great oak chest and signalled for the men aboard to winch it up on their pulley. My life’s worth of books was in that chest, with old notes, theses, sermons, and a fur rug pressed upon me last night by the doctor. Another, more flimsy kist carried my two changes of clothing, my winter cloak and old fur rug, and the pewter cup and plate that had come to me from my mother. Around my waist was the belt and great silver buckle that had been my father’s last gift to me, and in the bundle at my feet one of Mistress Youngson’s famed clootie dumplings. ‘Mind you feed yourself – the college buttery is near enough bare, they tell me,’ was all the old woman had said as she’d pressed it into my arms. Then she had straightened the collar of the fine suit I had not worn since Marion Arbuthnott’s lykewake some months before. ‘And mind you do not disgrace us; I will know of it from Elizabeth if you do.’ William had assured my old landlady that his wife would indeed keep her apprised of all my misadventures and misdemeanours.