The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

I had never met George Jamesone before, but I had known the painter well by sight in the latter days of my divinity studies in Aberdeen. From his time at Antwerp he dressed very much in the Dutch fashion, and affected a broad-brimmed black hat at all times – I now saw that the rumour that he wore it even while he painted was true. He greeted me with a wave of the hand as he finished some detail of the portrait he was working on, indicating that I should take a seat. I looked around me and settled for a stool by the door – I knew from my father that no craftsman likes to be disturbed in the middle of a piece of work. The room was remarkably large and airy, suffused with a northern light through the great window overlooking the long garden at the back of the house, and beyond that a stretch of woodland to the loch. Jamesone worked near the window, on a large canvas depicting a noblewoman and her two young daughters. I recognised her from gatherings at Delgatie – Anne Erskine, Countess of Rothes. He had her likeness well. Around the room were the tools and props of his trade, several I had no notion of the use of. In a small antechamber to my left I could discern pots, tubs, glass jars of myriad colours. Stacked to the right of the door were frames and parts of frames of various sizes, most black but some gilt, awaiting the fruit of the painter’s labours. There were other canvases too, some mere line drawings, others near completion.

Eventually Jamesone left off his work. Still with his back to me he stretched his arms wide and yawned, and then removed and hung up the smock he had been wearing. He turned and afforded me a broad smile. I liked him instantly – it was a smile of genuine fellowship in a face alive with humour and intelligence. ‘Mr Seaton, I am glad to see you. As you know, we have never met, but my wife tells me you are friends of old. Come, sit here by the window – you will be more comfortable and I can better see your face – I have an interest in faces.’ Had I not already known that he had travelled to learn his trade, his manners and way of speech would have given him away. He did not have the air of a man who had spent all his years within the confines of one society.

I did as he asked and moved to a seat near the window. He continued to move about the room, cleaning and tidying his brushes and paints and cloths. The old manservant came in with a tray of wine and a dish of nuts and raisins, which he set down grudgingly before me at his master’s request. ‘Now, Mr Seaton, you have business with me.’

I brought the letter from the pouch at my side. ‘Not I, but Walter Watt, provost of Banff.’ I held out the letter.

Jamesone took the letter that I held out to him. ‘So Watt has had himself made provost now, has he? Well, I cannot own myself surprised. He sat for me several years ago – he and his wife. He was a man who would not wait long on destiny, I think.’

I adjudged it better not to add my thoughts to those of the artist. He left that subject, and turned his attention to the letter, whose seal he had now broken.

‘Your provost wishes me to come to Banff once more to paint him and his family.’ He looked up. ‘I am glad they have had children. I think their lack was a great sadness to his wife.’

‘It is not the same wife. The first died some years ago.’

‘I am sorry to hear it. There was a great beauty and kindness in her. She should have been better blessed.’ He sighed. ‘But the provost has little notion of the press of patrons on me in these days. Those I paint now usually come to sit for me here. But I was glad enough of his business once and should not scorn him now. Besides, it would be interesting to paint the same face once again, and see how the years have marked it.’ He gestured towards the work he had just been engaged upon. ‘I am to travel with this portrait to Rothes at the end of the month. I will return home by way of Banff and see the provost and his family then. I cannot promise him that I can do any more than a sketch of them there – I think it likely they must come sit for me here. You can pass on this message for me?’

I assented, although I did not anticipate with any great pleasure telling the provost of Banff that, risen in the world though he was, he was of less consequence to George Jamesone than once he had been. The painter and I talked for a while of Banff and the country around and people he knew there. He avoided mention of Delgatie, and I suspected news of my disgrace had reached to Aberdeen and to the ears of those who hardly knew me. But here was a man who did not hold it to my account. He had travelled in the world and, as he told me, ‘A painter sees many things in the lives of men that others do not see.’

‘I am not sure of your meaning,’ I said.

He moved across the room to stand beside his canvas of the Countess of Rothes. ‘What do you see here?’

I scanned the portrait for a moment but could divine no great secret in it. ‘I see Anne Erskine and her two daughters.’