To tear each other’s eyes.
ISAAC WATTS,
Jean Brash slipped in at the back door of the Just Land to find her bawdy-hoose in a state of chaos.
Screams and vituperations rent the air coming from the direction of the main salon while two farmers from Dumfries, the only clientele of the night so far, but indicative of many more to come since the cattle show at Market Place had not long finished, stood uncertainly in the mirrored hall where they had been abruptly abandoned by big Annie Drummond who had opened the front entrance to admit them.
Jean flashed the Dumfries men a reassuring smile as she shot past and in through the salon door.
There were more high-pitched squeals and one of the farmers shook his head at the other.
‘Like pigs wi’ their throats cut, eh?’
A solemn agreement was nodded, but both men knew the value of patience, they had endured many storms and rough weather together and at least here they were indoors.
So they waited and tried not to look at their reflection, lest someone stare back that they did not recognise.
The Satyrs of Dumfries. Transformed by lustful opportunity.
Rachel Bryden observed them from upstairs. She had emerged from Jean’s boudoir, dressed for outdoors, with a small travelling bag in her hand and some of the words from a note, delivered by hand not long ago, running through her mind.
That is precisely what she had done and was about to do, taking advantage of the heaven-sent diversion from the salon. The sight of Jean Brash below had sent a shaft of fear through her belly but luckily the woman had been distracted by the altercation.
It was said Jean Brash had killed a man and once she found out what Rachel had been accomplice to, there would be no more favourites played. It would be a hard vengeance; the traditional punishment for a whore who betrayed and broke the rules of a bawdy-hoose, was to be tarred and feathered; head shaved, pitch poured over, a cushion of feathers cut open then shaken out to add in the mix and after all that, the miscreant dumped on a tramp ship to be kicked off at the first port of call.
Not only had she betrayed both bawdy-hoose and mistress, she had robbed as well and Rachel did not intend to experience the due process of punishment for either.
She slipped quietly down the stairs, nodded politely to the two men as if she wished them a pleasant evening, bull to cow, and, on closing the front door, was lost to sight.
One of the farmers pursed his lips disparagingly at the slim body previously presented.
‘No’ for me,’ he pronounced sagely. ‘I want something I can find in the dark.’
The other nodded.
‘The nights are drawin’ in, right enough,’ he replied.
So they stood. And waited.
Outside indeed, the aforesaid night had drawn in a cloak of blackness heavy clouds obscuring the moon, as Rachel walked swiftly, footsteps crunching on the gravel path that led to the wrought-iron front gates.
With any luck, as her lover had promised in the note, he would be waiting inside the grounds concealed by the bushes.
But it was quite another figure that stepped out from the rhododendrons.
‘Where are ye going, girlie?’ said Hannah Semple.
The old woman, the place being as quiet as a morgue, had left Annie Drummond in charge while she went out ostensibly to take the air but, in fact, too restless to stay inside and wondering where in God’s name Jean Brash had landed up that she had not yet returned.
Common sense dictates that no one will arrive any earlier back home, if a body goes out on the streets searching for a sight of them, but Hannah had persuaded herself to walk halfway down the hill before, in fact, the returning carriage had swept past.
Neither Jean who was lost in thought, or Angus the coachman who stared straight ahead, had noticed the searcher and, to tell truth, Hannah had not particularly advertised herself, fearful of appearing like some auld granny out looking for the children.
So, under her breath, she had cursed herself for a fool, Jean Brash for a hippertie-skippertie creature, then stomped her way back up the steep brae.
It was a long haul, neither gravity nor virtue being on her side.
Jean would go round the back as usual, Hannah thought as she puffed laboriously up to the front gate, her breath fogging up in the freezing night air.
She rehearsed in her mind severe words of exprobation to her mistress that she doubted she would ever quite utter but then, on entering and moving up the path, noticed the figure of a woman departing the door of the Just Land.
This was not usual and so Hannah had ducked out of sight to observe the approaching mystery, and then nipped back out to confront the recognised identity.
And if there was one person out of the mouth of hell that Rachel Bryden did not want to see, it was the spectre before her. She had been delighted to note the old woman’s absence from the bawdy-hoose after the message was delivered at the front door, but had not reckoned on the possibility of an inopportune return.
‘Where are ye going, girlie?’
The question echoed in the still, cold night, the fracas in the Just Land being contained within solid walls.
‘I received a note,’ said Rachel, improvising round some of the truth. ‘My mother. My mother has suffered an attack of some pestilence. I must go to her at once.’
‘I didnae know ye had a mother,’ replied Hannah who was not inclined to believe a word of this. ‘I thought ye just arrived out of the blue.’
‘I must go to her.’
Rachel made as if to step past but Hannah moved sideways to block the movement, her hand going to the inside pocket of the large, herringbone tweed coat she wore for outdoors. A man’s cut, it had belonged to a client who left in a hurry one night, called back to his ship, captain of a whaling boat, Norwegian, never came back, maybe the whale got him.
But the coat was roomy and had a convenient pouch for her razor, the handle of which she held at this moment.
‘Where abides this poor auld bugger?’
‘Aberdeen,’ blurted Rachel picking the furthest away city that came to mind.
‘How will you get there this hour? Are ye a besom rider?’
Indeed the idea of being a sorceress and swooping off on a broom would have appealed to Rachel, anything to get her out of here, but she bit into her lip and made sensible response.
‘Waverley Station. The night train.’
Hannah nodded slowly as if this made sense and then stood aside, but as a relieved Rachel moved to get past, Hannah checked her by the sleeve for one more question.
‘Did the mistress give permission?’
‘I did not see her.’
A calculated risk, but a wrong calculation.
‘You’re a liar,’ Hannah retorted.
‘She’s been out all night, you know that to be so!’ was the haughty response.
Hannah smiled bleakly.
‘The mistress passed me on the hill not ten minutes afore, and she would be back. You saw but you did not speak to her.’
The truth of that registered for a brief moment in the other’s eyes and Hannah noted that Rachel lifted the travel case and pressed it tightly against her body as if it were a bulwark between her and rough seas.
‘Now why would that be?’ the old woman mused. ‘We’ll just go back and ask her, shall we not? And maybe
