Between Ourselves Read online

  Saw ye my Maggie

  Saw ye my Maggie

  Comin ower the lea

  SMELLIE:

  My Maggie has a mark

  Ye’ll find it in the dark

  It’s in below her sark

  A little aboon her knee

  The next was Bob, or maybe the coachman – I cannot ascribe each author’s rights precisely.

  My Maggie has a treasure

  A hidden mine o pleasure

  I’ll howk it at my leisure

  It’s alone for me

  And so on. The pace picked up and soon we were rattling merrily for home verse by verse, with Willie beating a roaring tempo and me leaning back in the swaying coach like an emperor returning in his triumphal chariot. It called to mind my own wild horse race on Lomondside, when a shaggy Highland pony overtook our party and I careered after till Jenny Geddes, the clapped out old nag, tossed me into a bush in disgust.

  Without prior warning the coach swerved into Leith Wynd and capsized, cowping us into the causie. Broken heads were in order but miraculously we were dazed, bruised but still walking. The coachman staggered off into the night still singing ‘Saw ye my Maggie’. We released the poor mare, who was trembling with shock, and tethered her to a post till morning would bring equine relief. Then we took our separate ways home as best we might.

  I was stiff on the stairs and by morning my right knee was like a balloon. Betty has it buffered with cushions and Wood set the kneecap straight at some cost to the poet. Damnably sore still but I think a bit reduced in size. I needs must disappoint the fair Mrs McLehose for tea. Shame, as I was looking forward to our better acquaintance. Will have to tantalise meantime, and convey the travails of the poet.

  Very handsome letter from Mrs McLehose, tracking my gallantries at every turn.

  Poet: Never met a person in my life whom I more anxiously wished to meet again… shall not rest in my grave for chagrin… vexed to the soul I had not seen you sooner… determined now to cultivate your friendship with the enthusiasm of religion [metaphorically, we hope]. I cannot bear the idea of leaving Edinburgh without seeing you.

  Few can mine this vein so fluently, yet I am strangely taken with her and am not often mistaken in my partialities. So I told her in any case.

  She: confesses a longstanding, earnest desire to make my acquaintance… has a strong presentiment that we should derive pleasure from the society of each other [my aim precisely]. She has fifty things to say to me. If I am prevented she will call with Miss Nimmo. She recognises my feelings – no, instincts – which have a powerful effect on her when [the warning note] under the check of reason and religion. [Clearly a woman of the west since what Edinburgh Miss would allow the spring to flow so freely]. She is devoted to poetry, an avid reader and tolerable judge. Encloses her own in response to my complimentary verse. The last is a solitary fly in otherwise soothing ointment – another Sappho manqué? But best of all is her close – Will you let me know now and then how your leg is? If I were your sister [could you not pretend?] I would come and see you; but ’tis a censorious world this, and in this sense you and I are not of the world. Adieu. Keep up your heart, you will soon get well, and we shall meet. Farewell. God bless you. AM

  It is a meeting of hearts she proposes, a correspondence of poets. AM – O, sweet diversion. O, cursed knee.

  Beugo kindly called to finish my visage. Hard to look dignified on one leg.

  Stuck now in this drear attic. Stymied, stumped on all fronts. Surgeon Wood refuses further treatment, saying time and patience are the cures. No one calls; Smellie and Bob shamefaced or blaming me for the upset since I was the most sober, or least drunk. Left to my own company and Betty’s ministrations.

  Resolved to turn my confinement to some account. Even without Fennell, Jackson has a very decent set of players. Woods of course, Wilson, Bell, Wilson’s wife, and pièce de resistance the summer seasoned: Mrs Siddons, Fanny Kemble and Mrs Jordan by yearly turns. But where are our Scotch dramas?

  The Douglas, I concede – a fine vehicle for the female histrionic – and guid auld Ramsay’s Gentle Shepherd. There’s the sum.

  Are we deficient in subjects, in story? Does everything have to come from London? Is the foreign and the exotic always to be courted, as if nonsense improves like brandy, when imported?

  Themes to be put on stage: Bruce of course, and the incomparable Wallace, who makes Scottish blood flow through our veins. And loyal Jacobites, like Ochtertyre’s tale of the Cameron who sheltered his Prince at the cost of exile.

  Then what of Ossian and the Fingalian Band, the Blind Harper, and Cuchulainn wasted in weary war like Homer’s Achilles?

  Such are the dreams of a gallant nation now subdued but burning bright in better days.

  Scene: a drear dark cave, somewhere in the west. Discovered, the King of Scots, worn, shivering. Beside him – no outside – two or three faithful attendants, the loyal attendants. King groans, clutching the tattered cloak to his aching bones, pains stabbing at his chest.

  KING:

  Alas that ever I mistook

  My kin and Scottish kind

  Who have proved strong and true

  E’en at the cost of home –

  And life itself – adamant

  To the very last adversity

  Of cruel oppressors’ blows,

  Yet sorely tried and wasted.

  His mind turns as turn it must to his loyal wife and true born sister, both imprisoned in a cage like animals. So Edward Longshanks taunts all followers of Bruce by unnatural barbarities and suppression. Doubt assails him – can he continue with such a struggle?

  KING:

  This enterprise is all undone

  Errors in ranks, hardship,

  Battles lost before begun,

  Ambush and skirmish, sole tactic

  Gainst foes num’rous as trait’rous friends.

  Here now in this last refuge

  Shall I turn face to wall

  And lower the sword arm

  That cannot be raised more?

  Defiance hopeless, head hung down.

  Rough and sketchy, but will do for now.

  Bruce averts his eye and gazes unseeing in the darkness, when suddenly his gloomy spirit is diverted, distracted by a humble spider clambering over rocky summits to launch himself into an abyss no web could span, a chasm which no thread could spin across. Down the spider goes but swinging back into a crevice, catching without pause or cease, he mounts once more to cast a fortune.

  KING:

  See the humble spider on his own account

  Falls and slips again like me

  His struggle unavailing

  He does not surrender

  Or give way to gloomy despairing.

  See up, up he goes again

  Defiant in the skyward scramble

  Spinning once again across the chasm.

  Try, try again, till my eye

  Transfixed upon undaunted courage

  Attains triumphantly his goal.

  I could work this up for Woods to read, and solicit the Manager. Scene by scene, speech by speech the drama can be formed. Damn this leg, I need to move with the action. For if the poet truly feels then every player can persuade – the sentiment is true. Robert Burns is Robert Bruce at bay, or on the field of Bannockburn addressing the Scottish host. Or lying on a bed of aged pain, languishing in weakness while my spirit longs to go on pilgrimage. ‘Take my heart, brave Douglas, and carry it to Jerusalem.’ Drama worthy of the name of Bruce.

  Or Stewart. What of the lovely, hapless Queen. She could display the Tragic Muse in all her winsome glory.

  ‘I was the Queen of bonnie France, but here I lie in foreign bands.’

  Yet still her heart is her own.

  Is there no poet burning keen for fame

  Will boldly try to gie us Plays at hame?

  By divine permission of Dundas, Erskine Dean of Faculty, and the assembled drawing rooms of Edinburgh.

  Still if Jackson t
ook it in hand. I must send out for a manuscript book, or my journal will turn thespian. These drublie days of winter and of my confinement shall be dedicate to the national drama. As befits a Scottish Bard.

  After four days neither walking nor moving except from bed to seat and back, called in my old sour-faced friend Glauber’s salts. Passed my fifth between bed and pot. Knee fiery; arse scadded.

  Devoted to female correspondence. Let Peggy know of my accident, as she might hear worse from others. Or think the worst of me. Let tongues wag and a solitary capsizing turns into a sunken fleet, one merry night a season of dissipation.

  If Peggy were here she would pour oil and balm into my wounded soul. She is my angelic guardian.

  Mrs McLehose encloses some more lines of verse with her reply. She deprecates neatly, christening them rhymes rather than poetry. But her aim is to converse as an equal. So be it – I salute the female soul: my dearest madam your lines are poetry and good poetry. I will write more fulsomely tomorrow. Farewell, my poetess, may you enjoy a better night’s rest than I am likely to enjoy.

  Contemplated a Bordeaux bottle but held off. Glauber would protest and the poet must work tomorrow.

  Miss Nimmo calls, most solicitous and sincere, though she could not conceal her anxiety to know what the poet thought of Mrs McLehose, her dear Nancy. I praise her friend’s qualities of mind, her interest in literature, her grace of manner, and beg to know more about the lady.

  It transpires that Mrs McLehose left her husband, a Glaswegian lawyer, due to his barbarous treatment of her and their children. For some time she was denied access to her little ones, but then she escaped to Edinburgh with them under her wing. Both her parents being dead, Nancy is dependent (this was conveyed by hints and the discreet yet persistent reference to money at which Edinburgh excels) on a small pension and on her cousin William Craig – another lawyer. Mark how this town sketches in the essentials of each situation: ‘Burns, a talented man you know, but without income or position.’

  I am warming to this lady of independent mind, if not of means. Rank is but the guinea’s stamp and why should antique custom bind female virtue to male oppression? She lives it seems in General’s Entry at Potterrow, a little refuge secured for her by the aforesaid Craig. I know of him since he writes sentimental twaddle in the periodicals and professes literature like a Man of Feeling manqué. But he has means. I thank Miss Nimmo for her confidence, and promise to write to Nancy, Mrs McLehose. Does Miss Nimmo know I have already written twice?

  Tried to settle to my play, but the King of Scots wandered disconsolate in the wilds of Galloway. Dipped into MacPherson’s Ossian to kindle my dramatic fire, but his high descriptive defies the stage. I cannot find a speaking character to put two firm Fingalian feet on the boards. Ossian’s offspring are children of the mist to a last wraith.

  Miss Nimmo mentions in passing her own brother William who is an Exciseman. Somebody told me last year that I should apply for an Excise Commission to supply my living – was it the good lady herself? Perhaps one of my Edinburgh acquaintance could speak for me to the Commissioners? The nearer I come to Ellisland, the leaner it looks.

  Sent a note round to Ainslie begging his attendance. Without amusement I will turn drunken or mad, in either case out of my wits when I need them most.

  Lord President Dundas died yesterday. The most powerful man of our time in Scotland. He held the reins of court and government, and his voice was always raised for order and the rule of law. Justice and poverty make ill-matched bedfellows.

  Overwhelmed by visitors today. Surgeon Wood says I should write an elegy for the Lord President’s passing. Let the Bard come to the bar, and deliver sentences or at least some stanzas.

  The trouble with the playhouse is that it is in Edinburgh. The audience directs the drama and the players have to march in formation. No one looks to hear Scots spoken on the boards, yet in the country every passion, every shaft of wit, is borne on the mither tongue.

  I am a bard o no regard

  Wi gentle folks an aa that

  But Homer-lik the glowran byke

  Frae toun tae toun I draw that

  What have I to do with President Dundas and Edinburgh’s mourning? Black coats in dark kirks. Better a night at Poosie Nansie’s with the tinkers to drink and dance and story. They gave me my beggars’ wake – love and liberty! But my beggars’ opera can neither be printed nor played. Yet they carry the people’s drama, invisible to stage and page. So much for beggar poets and the death of kings.

  The limb remains inert stretched out before me like a wooden appendage. But something in the rest of me is stirring. It may be my first conversion, albeit more dawning realisation than blinding light. The noon letter from Mrs McLehose is so far from gushing poetess as to check my every move to date.

  She chides me for my romantic style, as if I were writing to some vain foolish woman or worse. She whom I address is a married woman: I stand rebuked. Then she pledges her friendship, of the heart and soul. In this realm she is a Duchess of Gordon, and were she a Duchess in means, her largesse would be no greater. A nobly independent sentiment which I of course approve – she has my measure there. In closing, she begs me not to write too often in case the exertion should hurt me. She however will continue to solace me in my confinement with an occasional letter.

  How I have misjudged Nancy McLehose – she is a woman of character and I must rise to her level. But not yet. A delicate pause is essential to whet the female interest. Till I am more fitted for active service. Could the game be played as I have never played before? May she be an artist before whose feet the poet’s garlands are freely lavished!

  No communication this week from Creech. My indisposition gives him the perfect excuse for more delay. I can send messages but not hammer on his door for payment. He knows what is owing but evades his obligations at every turn. Mrs McLehose pledges me all her finer feelings while Creech denies me even a modest interim.

  Edinburgh says I should refrain from calling in either debt, but I am not the retiring kind. I know what it is to go hungry, unlike Creech.

  Dundas verses complete at last. Some commonplace and some hidebound but on the whole tolerable. Far from my best. Composed a letter though in my best style and sent it round by the hand of my esteemed surgeon. Solicitor Dundas, the son, was out, so Wood left the package.

  A hackneyed subject, and besides the wailing of poets over great men’s ashes is damnably suspicious. Let the Muses disdain my offering; I did what I could.

  It is in the power of that clan to commission a cohort of poets or a legion of excisemen.

  Another letter from Peggy. She does not forget sincere friends, God bless her.

  Nothing ensues. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Retreat to the mental theatre in which I play all parts.

  MacPherson is at the gallows. Half gypsy, half tipsy, he is at odds with society and condemned to hang on false testimony. He always lived on the outside by sharp dealing and pure artistry.

  MACPHERSON:

  There are some today have come to see me hang. And some have come to buy my fiddle. But friends, before I part with my lovely companion, I’ll break her through the middle.

  The crowd draws back as he gestures fiercely.

  MACPHERSON:

  Little did my mother think when she first cradled me in her arms, that I would turn a roving boy and die on the gallows tree.

  Then he puts the fiddle to his chin, playing like a madman and dancing in a last wild gypsy gyre.

  Sae rantingly, sae dauntingly

  Sae wantonly gaed he

  He played a tune

  And he danced it aroun

  Ablow the gallows tree

  Still whirling, he raises the fiddle in his hands and brings it smashing down on a boulder. Then he hangs. But what we remember is the dance and not the corpse. Every woman in the crowd felt him caress his violin.

  Like Milton’s Satan, he goes down with pride intact.

  What Manager would stage
it?

  Everyone else defers and I bend the knee with them.Except perhaps the Deacon in his infernal lair. Yet what do I ken of the man. Ainslie hinted at some mystery or scandal but I ought not to rely on Bob’s testimony. I feel as if he wants to make himself known to me in some way. For what purpose, and what could the poet offer up in return?

  Crossed the room on crutches today. Mind much clearer. It’s like the lifting of an Auld Reikie haar. The sun rises and the hares are leaping over a ploughed field. You can smell the fresh earth after a long-awaited shower. Why am I still here amongst these tight-packed tenements and shady closes? I belong in the country where Nature is never far from my side.

  I am surprised to have taken Peggy’s news so much in my stride. She has married Lewis Hay a rising banker. She has been secretly engaged to young Lewis since the summer; that is why she refused my proposal. Now she asks my understanding of her former constraint, and my continuing friendship. By God, she has both. Dear, dear Peggy, what a clearing of the air – heart and hand already promised. She has gained love and a living, and I wish her well on both counts.

  Here, raised to Peggy! She hopes the best for me too – an honest living and a busy hearthside on my Dumfriesshire farm. Has anyone told her about Jean’s new bairn?

  An Excise Commission would forestall the farm and keep hunger from my door. These things must be attended. I can’t feel easy when I spy that meagre, squalid spectre poverty. On her left hand she has iron-fisted oppression, on her right blasting contempt. Behind her stalks haggard famine. She broods on my path still, but I have withstood her wasting crew for many a day. My motto is ‘I DARE’. To that I pledge my troth!

  The worst enemy though is moi-même. Laid open to incursions of whim and caprice – the light banditti of imagination – while the heavy-armed regulars, wisdom and forethought, advance so very slow. I am a nation in perpetual war, divided between fear and desire.

  What do you say to that, my old glass? I gallop across on my oaken stilts to replenish you, nestling beside me. But I can take you or leave you, glassful by glass, o mellow ruby port. No port in a storm save thee. Enough to enjoy, not too much to destroy.

  You know, my friend, there are only two creatures I envy in the wide world. An untamed horse on the steppes, and an oyster curled up on an abandoned shore. One can desire but not enjoy, while the other is beyond fear or want. Take my hand. Sound out the toast with steady resolve. To Peggy Chalmers – Mrs Hay – Slaìnte! As I said on the Braes of Atholl.