The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

It was a pleasant walk to Jaffray’s. At last a little warmth was being carried on the air, and the evenings were growing lighter – the sky was a mellow golden rose reaching over the firth to the mountains of Sutherland. The storm of last Monday night and its attendant horrors could almost have been a distant memory, consigned to the last throes of winter, had it not left its bitter legacy everywhere I turned.

The evening was a quieter affair than many we three had spent together. We each of us had much to reflect upon. And there was a contentment in the doctor’s household. I knew the emptiness I had so often left there when I closed the door behind me would be there no more. Charles, so often taciturn, was the quietest of all, but his was a quiet contentment and wonder of a man who has started to see things he never saw before. Ishbel came in and out of the parlour with steaming dishes and plates. Pickled herring and bread still warm, a fine rabbit pie – Charles’s favourite dish – peas, beans, and vegetables of whatever manner her store could provide, a rich gravy owing not a little to the contents of the doctor’s cellar, a sturdy egg custard with apples stewed in all manner of sweet spices. The doctor asserted he would be bankrupt before the week was out if they were to dine like this every night. Ishbel flushed with pride and Charles offered to go sing in the streets to pay his way.

When the food was cleared and the uisge beatha brought out, we got up and took our accustomed seats around the fire. Jaffray’s parlour was no longer the cold and empty place it had seemed on my last few visits: it had the warmth of a home again, and told his story. The Delft tiles of the fireplace, his wedding gift to his wife, had delighted me as a child and delighted me still, with their happy scenes of life in the Dutch countryside. On the walls were the German woodcuts he had so carefully carried back with him from his studies, so many years ago. It was a man’s room, filled with books and the aroma of tobacco, but with echoes of the woman who had once been at its heart, in the tapestries on the wall, the pressed flowers, their colours long faded, an embroidered footstool that had been hers. Charles stretched out his feet to the hearth and looked into the slowly dancing flames. I had brought the book of poetry I had purchased for him, having meant to give it to him as a help to sustain him in his jail, and I gave it to him then. For the next half-hour, as the doctor and I talked of the news from Aberdeen, Charles was lost in the book. His lips moved in silence as we spoke, and he heard nothing of our talk. At length he started to hum some parts of a tune, and asked the doctor for some paper. ‘I will play this, before the week is done; I will play this for you all,’ and he hummed and mused to himself as he scrawled at the paper. The snatches of song that escaped him every so often began to work their way into my mind, until I could almost have sung them too. They reminded me of something. When Ishbel came in carrying a basket of fresh coals for the fire I broke off my talk with the doctor and told her of my meeting with Sarah Forbes and where she was now. She closed her eyes and uttered a prayer in her own tongue. ‘God’s mercy is with her. And his grace with you, Mr Seaton.’ When she left I saw that Jaffray was studying me curiously.