The Redemption of Alexander Seaton (45 page)

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.’

‘And when the boy did return, how were things between them then?’

A light came into her eyes as she replied to the baillie. ‘It was a thing lovely to behold. They were as father and son reunited. And in truth, for myself, I could not be jealous. Walter was so happy and so proud to show off his own little ones to Patrick who, he said, would be as a brother to them. And so it was. I have seldom met such a good, loving young man, and I know from Walter, and Arbuthnott – and indeed Marion – that he was greatly gifted. I had never seen my husband at such peace. That Patrick and Marion then became attached made it all the sweeter for me. There was true happiness in our household. It was our time of true happiness.’

I had known such a time. ‘And then?’ I said.

She looked at me directly and spoke bluntly. ‘And then, it came to its end. Patrick was invited to take his dinner with Walter and with the doctor, who had just returned from Edinburgh, and who was very desirous to meet him.’ The doctor, I could guess, had not been subtle in pressing for an invitation. ‘Patrick had been that day with Marion out to Sandend, then onto Findlater and Darkwater, gathering plants as she told me. He did not go back to the apothecary’s to wash or to change his clothing when they returned, but came directly here. A change had come over him – he was not his usual, easy self, but nervy and agitated. He was most desirous of seeing Walter privately before the doctor should arrive. I asked him to rest, or to take a little refreshment while he waited, but he would have none of it, and spent
the whole time in gazing intently at the portrait on the wall – the one of Walter and Helen.’

‘And did they have this private interview?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They did. I heard nothing of it – I was in the kitchens – but within half an hour of Walter arriving home, it was over – Patrick had left. Walter looked ill, shaken. He would have put off the doctor if he could have done. He would not tell me what was wrong or why Patrick had left, just that the boy had been upset, but he had managed to calm him and would speak with him the next day.’

‘And was that the last you saw of the boy?’ The baillie was watching her keenly.

She looked at her hands again and then directly at William Buchan. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it was not.’

‘He came to the house again?’

‘I think so. That is,’ she hesitated, unsure how to proceed. ‘I did not see him come, but I saw him leave.’

‘When was it?’ asked the baillie.

She shook her head and began to weep.

‘It was the night of the storm, was it not?’ I said.

She nodded and then began to weep all the more uncontrollably. ‘I had scarcely seen Walter all day. He had spent much of the morning in his business room and then the afternoon out and about in the town. He was drenched and muddy when he returned home. He said he wanted no supper, and was not to be disturbed in his work, although I heard him later go down to the kitchen where a pot of stew had been left on the hearth. I had much trouble with the children that evening – they were in such great fear of the storm. I was concerned about Walter, and sat at my needlework for as long as I could, but a little before ten, tiredness
overwhelmed me and I decided to retire without having seen my husband. As I was mounting the back stairs, I saw a hooded figure come out of Walter’s work room and leave the house by the side door, directly onto Water Path. I thought it was Patrick by the height and gait of him. I was so anxious to put right whatever had gone wrong with him and Walter, I threw a cloak around my shoulders and went out without even a lantern to try to overtake him. I had not expected the tempest outside to be so bad, and I made little headway in catching him up – the streets were near enough turned to rivers. I kept him in my sights, but then he started stumbling, falling, grabbing out at walls, banks, even the grass, it seemed to try to steady himself. I knew he was not drunk, because he had walked straight enough when he had left Walter’s room and our house. I started to run, to go to his aid and then I saw …’ She stopped, and bit her lip.

‘You saw me, did you not?’

‘Yes, Mr Seaton,’ she said quietly, ‘I saw you. I thought you would have helped him, but—’

‘But I did not.’ I could feel the eyes of the baillie and the notary on me, held fast, now, and I could not look at either of them.

The baillie’s mind was working quickly. ‘And so you helped him to the schoolroom, in the hope that Mistress Youngson would hear and find him?’

‘No,’ she looked up, surprised, defensive even. ‘Had I reached him, I would have helped him home – to the apothecary’s, or to the doctor’s if I could have managed it. Even to the schoolhouse, but I would have roused someone, wherever it might have been.’

‘But you did not?’ queried the baillie.

‘No,’ her voice was flat. ‘I could not. As I watched Mr Seaton pass by, I saw two figures coming from the direction of the churchyard, and they saw me.’

‘The Dawson sisters,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘They waited until you had turned into the schoolhouse pend and then went to him. They managed to lift him between them and drag him – somehow – after the way you had gone. They were gone from sight a few minutes and I waited – I thought they must have roused you. When they came out again, one of them looked towards where I stood. She turned again as they took the other fork up the path, as if to tell me all was well, that I could go back now. And so I did.’

Her head sank into her hands and I realised that someone else, for two weeks, had been carrying something of my guilt. ‘There was little you could have done,’ I offered her. ‘You were not to know they had not alerted me. The fault is not yours.’ My words did little to comfort her, if indeed they reached her at all.

The baillie gave her a moment, but there were still many questions to be answered, and every moment wasted was a moment more for Walter Watt to make good his flight. ‘After all this,’ he began, ‘you still did not suspect your husband? Even when you heard how Patrick Davidson had died?’

She shook her head dumbly, her face puffy and blotched now. ‘I was very scared, when the news of Patrick’s death was brought to us the next morning, that his falling out with Walter might have something to do with it, in some manner or other. But then when I saw how Walter took the terrible news, how desolate it left him, I could not believe
that he had had anything to do with it. And he did not want to talk to me about it; I could see that well enough.’

Yes, I remembered. Remembered how keen Walter Watt had been to shield his wife from us that morning when we had brought the dead body of Patrick Davidson on a bier to their home. I remembered how he had urged her away to the nursery early in that conference. And I remembered also how determined he had been, to begin with, to argue that I must have been with his nephew the night before. Only with the suggestions of Charles Thom as a worthy suspect for the murder had the provost lost interest in pressing my possible guilt.

‘You told him, did you not, what you had seen, and by whom you had been seen? And you told him you had seen me?’

She looked at me, somewhat confused. ‘I – yes, I did.’ Unwilling, yes, but unwitting more so, she had consigned Janet and Mary Dawson to a perpetual banishment from this town; even, for Mary, from Scotland itself, warned off by the provost’s henchman. And she would, but for the chance and ill-luck of Charles Thom, have consigned me to the hangman’s noose. I was to have been her husband’s scapegoat. But why then had he taken me into his confidence, entrusted me with the mission of the maps? I saw that my pride had set a trap for me. Once he had seen that the papers found in his nephew’s room bore no account of Patrick Davidson’s suspicions of him, the maps in themselves had mattered little to him. I had no doubt a report of my encounter with Janet Dawson as she had been beaten from the burgh bounds would have reached his ears. I had not been entrusted with some important mission on the burgh’s behalf: I had been got out of the way.

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.