Between Ourselves Read online

  But now unroofed their palace stands,

  Their sceptre fall’n to other hands;

  Fallen indeed and to the earth

  Whence grovelling reptiles take their birth.

  The injured Stewart line are gone,

  A race outlandish fill their throne;

  An idiot race to honour lost

  Who know them best despise them most.

  True when I scratched it on Stirling’s window and still true now, whatever the unbearable Mrs Whoever and the whole Excise Board direct against me. The Jacobite cause is the good old cause of Scotland herself, and my family at least have stood by it with unflinching loyalty. According to Clarinda she would have schooled me against the inscription, but anyway perhaps I would be better off without an Excise Commission – more free from temptation. So one aside reveals the woman’s breeding from the top of her curly head to the tip of her dainty toe.

  Went on from our melancholy carousal to Jenny early in the evening. I explained the delicate issue of my friendship with her mistress to her entire satisfaction, on one principal count at least.

  Then I proved my undying love for her in the most exemplary fashion.

  Came home to a further eloquent missive from Clarinda. Resolved to copy out one glowing passage, for neither Thomson nor Shenstone have exceeded her on the theme of Platonic love. Other matter here for another day. She goes to Miers tomorrow for her silhouette. Unchaperoned, she is unquestioned. I will wear her on a breast-pin next my heart.

  Busy at correspondence most of today. Rain and sleet had washed away all the season’s brightness.

  Wrote to my Lord Glencairn asking him to secure me the Excise Commission. I cannot delay this any longer as everything at home is out of sorts. Glencairn is my lodestone, my morning star. Without his generous support my poetry would be unknown beyond Ayrshire. But he will not approve the Excise scheme for his ploughman poet.

  God knows, I barely approve myself, yet how else can I save the little home that shelters an aged mother, two brothers and three sisters from destruction. Gilbert’s lease is wretched but after what I have given and will give, he will weather the remaining seven years.

  That will leave me two, maybe three hundred pounds. If Creech pays to the full I should have at least five hundred. Instead of beggaring myself with another small farm, I could deposit my little stock in a banking house and keep the ghost of wasting sorrow from my door. And Jean’s, God help her.

  For once, I can grasp the anchor of sober mature deliberation; and I shall leave no stone unturned to put it into practice. But I must have that Commission! So I turn with sincerity to Glencairn, who rescued me first from obscurity, wretchedness and exile.

  I enclosed a copy of ‘Holy Willie’ which he will enjoy, knowing that these verses will never be exposed to public view, and that if they were the noble earl would be constrained to disown them and their author outright. His Lordship kens what it is to have the Presbyterian curs yapping at your heels.

  Should have written yesterday to Clarinda, so I dated my reply for last night. She has asked my advice about Cousin William. A kittle matter, since on her own admission she has given her various friends different confidences.

  Instant gelding is my judgement on this pawing benefactor.

  Nancy is a woman framed for friendship with the lesser sex – no woman ever so entirely stormed my soul. But now it appears that for at least a year Craig, her intimate protector, has had his own designs. Subtle insinuations, looks, accidental touches, which she has fended off without compromising her dependence on his generosity. I smelled out the way his wind was blowing from the first.

  She cannot feel for Cousin Craig as he deserves (I could give him his just desserts) but does he understand that? She thinks not. Meanwhile the unctuous Kemp has received (mouth agape or I’ll be damned) Nancy’s declaration of fond feeling for an unnamed friend.

  Has she given Kemp to believe it may be Craig? Hence the further difficulty of confiding in Craig about the unnamed one, in case he tells Kemp who then realises Craig is not in fact the man. This would then unleash the bloodhounds of the drawing room.

  She knows she must not unleash the green-eyed monster to plague her placid cousin; yet Clarinda asks my agreement to this very course of action. My advice is of no consequence. Her request is a tactful way of apprising me of her full situation, which after all is not of my making. She wants my absolute discretion and will have it to full measure. Why would I care to expose or embarrass her?

  I could reply outlining by subtle indirection the complications that ensure my complete silence, though I am unwilling to play that hand since it would end this game forever, and I am fondly attached. Rather, I affirm her right and need to bestow allegiance wherever her heart inclines. And if cruel circumstance debars her from open avowal, then let affection flourish in the privacy of her soul and parlour. Nancy owes nothing to the society that has given her or her sex so little except painful humiliation. That is a theme Tom Paine and the liberty pamphlets should consider.

  What at the last is her obligation to McLehose? No doubt in Jamaica he indulges every freedom of his sex. And here in Edinburgh her mother’s cousin, Lord Dreghorn the Judge, disdains to acknowledge her, as if she were outcast, deranged, or worse. These are the true haters of women, who seize their illicit pleasure and then persecute their victims like a contagion of evil. May woman curse and blast them. May her lovely hand shut rapture’s portal inexorably in their face. May their declining years deliver palsy, gout and wasted powers to every vital organ. Then let her cast open the beautiful gate to tantalise and ravish their impotent desires. Gelding is too merciful and too quick.

  Clarinda needs above all else her friend and protector, a companion and lover. Why cannot I be that man, even if Bob must sometimes stand in the place of friend?

  Having dispatched last night’s letter, I turned unsociable. So wrote up this day’s journal before supper and my departure for Potterrow.

  Some evenings are snatched from time into a higher sphere. Such was last night’s visit. We were harmonious and unconstrained as all true friends should be, yet today I feel that something precious is slipping from me. Were these by some cruel design our final hours? I have copied out Clarinda’s words of comfort in the hope that they will turn back the mortal tide.

  Sylvander, I believe our friendship will be lasting; its basis has been virtue, similarity of tastes, feelings, and sentiments. Alas, I shudder at the idea of one hundred miles’ distance. You’ll hardly write me once a month, and other objects will weaken your affection for Clarinda. Yet I cannot believe so. Let the scenes of Nature remind you of Clarinda! In winter, remember the dark shades of her fate; in summer, the cordial warmth of her friendship; in autumn her glowing wishes to bestow plenty on all kinds or conditions; and let spring animate you with hopes that your friend may yet live to surmount the wintry blasts of life, and revive to taste a springtime of happiness.

  At all events, the storms of life will quickly pass, and ‘one unbounded Spring encircle all’. There, Sylvander, I trust we will meet. Love there is not a crime. I charge you to meet me there – O God, I must lay down my pen—

  She must not lay down her pen – look, I take it in my own hand – for she has the key to my heart as I have of hers. May my hand wither, if I deviate from the firmest fidelity and most active kindness, whatever the future holds.

  Yet today I confess that I have looked through ‘the dark postern of time long elapsed’. And it was a rueful prospect. What a tissue of thoughtlessness, weakness and folly. My days are like a ruined temple. Strength and proportion can still be discerned in some segments, but torn gaps and prostrate ambition prevail. I kneel before the Parent of all mercies. ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in Thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.’

  I rose eased and strengthened; while I despise the superstition of the fanatic, I love the religion of humanity. The years stretch out before me and I must ‘on reason build r
esolve, that column of true majesty in man’.

  Once again I felt disinclined to company, but Nicol drove me out. And now the scales have truly fallen from my sadly disillusioned eyes. All the coarse pleasures of the town assailed me like a filthy violent mob – the raucous merriment, drunkards’ piss running in the street, painted whores and the Deacon’s minions lurking in the shadow to leap out and drag me down. Only the godly stand apart, fortified by locks, barred doors and shutters.

  What luxury of bliss I was enjoying at this time last night. Clarinda has stolen away my soul but she has refined, exalted it. From her I have received a stronger sense of virtue and a manlier spirit of piety. When a poet and a poetess of Nature’s making drink together from the cup of love and bliss, let not the coarse stuff of humankind profanely measure what they can never know. Clarinda, first of your sex, if ever I forget you, if ever your lovely image is effaced from my inner eye, ‘May I be lost, no eye to weep my end; and find no earth that’s base enough to bury me.’

  Early up and dressed like any respectable citizen on his way to church. The odours and offal of last night seemed forgotten, washed away by a showery blast. As I came into the Tron Kirk the first psalm was put up.

  Come let us to the Lord our God

  With contrite hearts return

  Our God is gracious nor will leave

  The desolate to mourn.

  What can match the dignity and emotion of an auld Scots psalm? The prayers began; scripture reading beckoned. My eye began to wander across the boxed pews, everyone ordered in their proper place and degree. As the prayer concluded, I saw Clarinda’s fair head rise. A severely tied bonnet could not repress wholly the tumble of her curls. Her liquid eyes gazed down demurely. But mine went up to the pulpit where Kemp presided, a striking figure, tall, with flowing locks and a sweeping command. He is the perfect guide and spiritual guardian of his flock.

  ‘Let me live the life of the righteous, and my latter end be like His.’ This was his text. Who are the righteous? Those whose minds are governed by purity, truth and charity. But where does such a mind exist? It can only be where the soul is perfect. But Kemp knows none such on earth. The righteous then must mean those who believe in Christ and rely on His perfect righteousness for their salvation. And so forth, in the well oiled groove.

  The sermoniser embarked on the full flow of logic-chopping eloquence, defining, categorising, excluding, all with expansive or decisive gestures and a roving eye to calculate the effect. The actor is hard pressed to match such conscious art. Some gazed up hanging on every clause; others stared stolidly at the pew in front.

  I remained discreetly at the rear, preparing to withdraw unobserved, but as I rose to leave, my eye lit on a familiar face at the front of a side aisle. He sat rigidly upright and looked ahead proudly, every bit the Deacon of Trades. My movement seemed to catch his eye. The basilisk turned in my direction with an unblinking stare. Had he recognised me? The psalm was called and people stood blocking his view. I slipped away.

  Outside, the showers had blown away to Fife. I fetched Jenny to walk out to the sea shore. Though her father had come to Leith for work, my Jenny was born at Fisherrow, so she knows all the paths and byways past Craigmillar Castle and down to the sea. The wind whipped up white horses as we stepped out along the shoreline. My leg behaved as if fully restored.

  She chattered on about the fisher-folk. Her mother’s people are still fishwives carrying a day’s catch in great creels on their back up to Edinburgh. What price for men’s lives? The fishers are a close-knit clan, marrying always inside the group – Fisherrow foreign to Newhaven and Newhaven to Granton. Jenny misses that in Edinburgh, where everyone looks out only for themselves. How true.

  There is something frank and natural about Jenny Clow with her glinting hair tied tightly back, and her glowing skin chafed to life by sea and sun.

  We went on to Musselburgh and stopped at an inn. My leg was stiffening so I hired a gig back to town, and Jenny laughed the whole way at the rattling clattering motion, and the view flying by through the rain. I went in at Niddrie Wynd to make a happy end to our day, bundled together like lovers in the country way.

  Whatever happened to Rab of Mossgiel and his innocent wooings? How much longer must I thole this place?

  Feverish night, and awoke all aches from my soaking. Strange dream in which I was standing in Professor Fergusson’s drawing room. A young boy was pointing at a picture depicting a soldier’s lass weeping oer the body of her fallen love in the snow. ‘Oh but he was bonny,’ she cried, ‘the bonniest man that e’er I saw with his broad brow and dark flashing eyes, he was the one for me, my own ploughman lad.’ This is the recollection of some true incident but in my dream the lass was Jenny and I was bleeding to death on the wintry ground.

  Laid low for the day with Amelia, but went to Clarinda’s as arranged. The youngsters were just settled so we had to converse in whispers. The mood was querulous and off-key. When I complained of our hardships, she took it personally. Tears and headaches.

  Why are women called the tender sex when I have never met one who can repay me in passion? They are either defaulters like Creech, or niggards where I bestow freely. Retreated to St James Square for hot toddie and the promise of renewing sleep.

  Sent round my apologies first thing with a promise to come round later and make up. About nine o’clock, which gives me time to call in on Jenny.

  Dispatched notes to Nasmith, Schektl, Miers and others pleading my last week and sociable necessity.

  Nothing from the Excise. Nothing from Creech. So called in at the shop to announce my departure. The old fox looked astonished, as if life beyond Edinburgh were a mirage, and shuffled papers in order to signal urgent attention to my business. I bore the whole performance with resignation.

  Clarinda was calm and a little flirtatious, as if this were our first and not our final week. Gave her Peggy’s letters to read as a peace offering. In reply she dangles a smitten Mary Peacock before me, as I dangle Bob. Now the circle of gossip is four rather than two, not counting Jenny. How long can a secret be known and still kept? Anyway, Mary Peacock is as appetising as watery gruel.

  Off to an artists’ dinner at the Baronet’s. God bless Nasmith and the rest for honest esteem and good fellowship. Ayrshire is bereft of such convivial companionship.

  Slight head but nothing incapacitating.

  If I cannot have the Commission, I must have the farm. Wrote John Tennant to go with me and inspect Ellisland. He will do it for my father’s sake as well as mine.

  Also wrote Richmond in Mauchline to see if I could get any more news of Jean. Gilbert is silent as a sphinx, a sure sign he has got the money.

  Clarinda finds Miss Chalmers’ letters charming. Why did not such a woman secure your hand? It is the caprice of human nature, particularly the female variety, to fix upon impossibilities. Quite. Mrs McLehose will keep for tomorrow.

  Headed into town to rustle up Willie and Nicol. The former is sunk deep in his encyclopaedias, while the latter is moroser than Ovid in the Black Sea. Forced them both to Dowie’s to engage in conversation. Do they not realise that their boon companion is close to banishment? Will Smellie come afarming or Nicol engage in a Dumfriesshire tour? I doubt them both, whatever glass they raise in pledge. As for Bob, mewling or purring, he would not survive a staging-post beyond Auld Reikie. As it transpired, he came in later, wearing his heart on his sleeve while trying assiduously to conceal it beneath his coat.

  Jenny was closed to visitors. Belly-aching, confided Jessie Haws as doorkeeper. Chatted awhile then scouted the Cowgate, eyes averted from Hastie’s Close. I have no wish to talk theology with Mr Brodie. Home again intact, though limping once more due to last Sunday’s exertions.

  Dreich and inclement weather. Schektl’s melody has been running through my mind like a babbling burn all week, but my third verse was clumsy. Prepared an improved version for presentation to Clarinda in the evening.

  Clarinda, mistress of my soul,


  The measured time is run!

  The wretch beneath the dreary pole,

  So marks the latest sun.

  To what dark care of frozen night

  Shall poor Sylvander hie;

  Deprived of thee, his life and light,

  The Sun of all his joy.

  We part – but by these precious drops,

  That fill thy lovely eyes,

  No other light shall guide my steps,

  Till thy bright beams arise.

  She, the fair Sun of all her sex,

  Has blest my glorious day:

  And shall a glimmering Planet fix

  My worship to its ray.

  Hopefully there is still time to correct Johnson’s proofs.The lady herself was more subdued yet quietly affectionate. The storms and even the squalls have abated leaving us drifting in divergent streams, becalmed and exhausted. Home to prayers and to rest.

  Called for Jenny just after noon when I knew she would be finished at Potterrow. As the day was better, we walked out. I did not want to go far so we turned up the High Street towards the Castle. Why should the poet be shamed to promenade through the Lawnmarket with a serving-lass on his arm?

  Castlehill was busy with families and courting couples taking the caller air. The trees are bare so the prospect out to hills and the salt-crested firth was clear and bright.

  Jenny asked me about home and my family. I told her about our farms and my father’s early death. She listened quietly and intently. I told her too about Jean, though not about our summer or the present hardships.

  ‘Whit wey did she no want tae mairry oan you?’ Jenny asked, sounding like her mistress about Jean and Peggy Chalmers.

  ‘Her father wouldn’t hae it.’

  ‘He wouldna hae stappit me,’ she rejoined firmly, ‘I’d hae rin awa frae the auld bugger.’

  I laughed and pressed her to my side. We wandered back down to the Grassmarket and took some refreshment at the White Hart. I nodded to a few acquaintances but stayed close to Jenny. This was our day.

  We went along the Cowgate to Niddrie’s Wynd as the day began to fail. She lit a fire in the little attic room and sat on my knee. Then she took off her shawl and dress to let me trace the shapes of her warming body. The skin was smooth and shiny without blemish. She said I was her ain bonny man.