The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

Gilbert Grant sighed. ‘The ground was prepared before ever the boy was dead. There were rumours, voices raised at the session, about Marion and Patrick and their wanderings over the country. Arbuthnott gave assurances they were on plant-gathering expeditions, for his simples and compounds, but others of meaner minds saw debauchery, and finally witchcraft at the bottom of it. They were seen in places where it is best for those under suspicion not to be seen – the Elf Kirk, by the minister himself, it was said. They were seen at Darkwater and even, it was said, at Ordiquhill.’

The image of Marion Arbuthnott high above the rocks at the Elf Kirk on the day after Patrick Davidson had been found dead came back, like the ghost of the girl herself, to my mind. But for the rest, I thought of the maps. It made sense that they should have been there, at Darkwater, that hidden stretch of beach below the fastness of Findlater, or at Ordiquhill, on the road from there to Huntly’s stronghold in Strathbogie. But Gilbert Grant had not been privy to the full discussion of the maps we had found, and I did not wish to endanger him or his wife by telling him more of the matter. That was a consideration for another time: for the present, Gilbert Grant was disposed to talk on.

‘When the boy was killed, and Jaffray pronounced the cause to be poison, there were many who saw no need to look any further for the evildoer than the apothecary’s shop, for who knew better the properties of plants than Marion Arbuthnott?’ I had not been aware of this growth of suspicion in the town, so caught up had I been in events. Gilbert Grant continued, ‘And it was seen, too, that those in authority also had their fears of Marion: the baillie and the doctor were at odds over her person just as the provost and the minister were last night over her soul. It was easily seen that the baillie suspected her of a hand in the deed, for he was rarely away from Arbuthnott’s door. Jaffray matched him in his constancy – he was there almost as often as the baillie. The doctor is known for a softness towards young women, an indulgence of their faults. The more he was seen to be protecting Marion from the baillie, the darker became the people’s guesses at what she might know. And yet,’ his voice faltered, and for a moment I thought he had lost the thread of what he was saying; I was wrong, for he continued, clear and with an unwonted bitterness, ‘still she managed to slip away. It is said she wandered the country in a state of distraction. People were afraid. Soon, the great storm of the night of the murder was ascribed to the conjuring of Marion Arbuthnott to cover her foul deeds. Then there were claims that she had been seen again at the Elf Kirk, conjuring black currents under the sea. On Saturday night a fishing boat from Seatoun bound for home before the Sabbath was lost on the rocks in calm seas. Only by God’s grace did the men on board make it in safety to the shore.’

Mistress Youngson had got up to put more coals on the fire under the pot. She looked over at Edward Arbuthnott, almost fearfully, and spoke in a low voice. ‘It is said that Marion went over again to Darkwater.’

‘Hush, woman; I will not have that nonsense in this house.’

I was truly astonished: I had never before heard Gilbert Grant chastise his wife, nor come anywhere near it.

‘It is what they say,’ she repeated determinedly.

I looked from one to the other in puzzlement. ‘I do not understand,’ I said. ‘Why should it signify, that she has been to Darkwater?’ I saw nothing very odd in her seeking solace there. The long white beach below the rock of Findlater Castle was indeed a beautiful place, and the cliffs would be coloured round with wild yellow primrose and the first pink flushes of thrift just now. I remembered my mother and Jaffray’s wife taking me there once when I had been a boy.

The old couple now looked at me with equal puzzlement. ‘Do you not know, Alexander? But surely you remember?’

‘No,’ said Mistress Youngson. ‘He would have been no more than a bairn, if he was yet born indeed. In fact,’ now she was thinking, hard, ‘he was not even born. It was before his father had ever returned and brought his mother with him from Ireland. As well for her that it was.’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘I have no notion of what you are talking about.’

Mistress Youngson came over to me. ‘It is the wise woman of Darkwater. The one who tended to you when you, when you were …’

‘When I was in my delirium,’ I finished for her. Nobody spoke to me, openly, of that time, when Jaffray had had a message from the old woman of Darkwater that she had found me, wandering, delirious, near the crag of Findlater, and had taken me safe into her home to nurse me. I had very little recollection of it myself; the days between my disgrace at Fordyce and the arrival of Jaffray to take me home to Banff were lost to my memory, and I made little effort to seek them out there.