Joseph Knight Read online

  ‘No. I wrote tae him.’

  ‘And you expect a reply?’

  ‘I dinna ken.’

  Sir John snorted. ‘Well, well, if that is all, that is all. Knight may be furth of Scotland altogether, as you say.’

  ‘I could appoint agents in London, sir. Time would be a factor, but if ye were willin …’

  Something in Wedderburn’s eyes brought Jamieson to a halt. There was a deep thought turning in there, an assessment. Then Wedderburn shook his head, as if ridding himself of the thought. Later, Jamieson would curse himself for not paying more attention, for not seeing it as a warning signal. He had seen the same head-shaking gesture earlier, when Knight’s wife had been mentioned. As if there were something in Wedderburn’s mind that he couldn’t get out.

  Wedderburn said, ‘No. It’s not important.’

  If it was not important, Jamieson thought, why had he been traipsing around the countryside for two months? Not that he was going to complain, since the fee was substantial, but in his experience even wealthy gentlemen – especially them – did not hire him for trivialities.

  He ventured an opinion. ‘Tae reach further afield, sir, we could try a discreet advertisement in ane o the newspapers. “Information regarding the whereaboots of the following individual … a small reward offered” – that kind o thing. If he disna read the papers, somebody that kens him micht.’

  ‘Oh, he reads the papers, Mr Jamieson, be assured of that. He is a very thorough reader.’

  ‘Weel, then …’ Again, Jamieson saw that struggle in Wedderburn’s eyes. Hot, then cold. Anger? Guilt? Something old but still raw. And behind Wedderburn, above the fire, he saw something else: flanked by several smaller silhouettes, a large painting in which three men posed on a kind of wooden porch. Their clothes were old-fashioned – from forty or fifty years back, perhaps – and the painting was no masterpiece, but they were unmistakably Wedderburns. All three had Sir John’s high brow and long jaw. The porch was attached to a house, and was partly in shadow. Bright green, foreign-looking shrubs and an absurdly blue sky provided a crude contrast to the shade and to the unsmiling faces of the men. The scene must be Jamaica. One of the men – probably the one in the middle, Jamieson thought – had to be Sir John.

  ‘No, I do not wish it,’ Wedderburn said. Jamieson dragged his attention back to the old laird. ‘I believe you are right when you say he is no longer here. And in any case, the nature of these Negroes … Put such a notice in the press, there would be dozens of them thigging and sorning at my gates. No, we’ll not pursue that line.’

  ‘I only thocht, if it’s a maitter o compensation …’

  Sir John drew himself up, squaring his shoulders against their stoop. ‘Compensation? What do you mean by that, sir?’

  Jamieson thought of a dog with its birse up, but the image did not quite fit. It was more as if the raw thing in Wedderburn had suddenly manifested itself on his skin, like a disease. Jamieson took a couple of steps back towards the door. ‘Jist that … weel … for Joseph Knight. The case is auld enough noo … Time saftens sair herts. I presumed …’

  ‘Well, don’t!’ The word shot from Wedderburn’s mouth like a dog after a cat. Jamieson retreated further. ‘Your presumption is not what I hired you for – nor your couthy proverbs. Your task was to find Joseph Knight, nothing more. And you have failed. You presumed that I seek him out to pay him some money? To make amends of some kind? I pay him compensation? Oh, you have read me very wrong, sir!’

  ‘I see that, I see that,’ Jamieson said, though what he was most clearly seeing was his fee floating down the Tay. ‘No whit I meant at all, Sir John. I beg your pardon – oomph!’

  A further detonation from Wedderburn was forestalled by this minor one from Jamieson, triggered by the opening of the library door, the handle of which had dunted him sharply in the small of the back. A tall, dark-haired girl in a white muslin dress entered.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry.’ It was not clear if she was addressing Jamieson, now rubbing his kidneys and screwing up his face, or her father.

  ‘What is it, Susan?’ Sir John said. ‘It is not yet noon.’

  ‘I forgot, Papa. I came for a book.’ She had her father’s serious, thin face, and an adolescent awkwardness of posture.

  ‘You will have to come back for it, then.’ Wedderburn turned to Jamieson. He made a sudden stab at joviality. ‘My daughter, sir, reads books as a sheep eats grass, incessantly, and as you have discovered she lets nobody stand in her way. I make it a rule that this room is mine, and mine alone, every morning, or I’d have no peace. But I don’t have it anyway. My dear, you must find something else to occupy you for an hour and a half. Should you not be at your task?’

  ‘I’ve finished my task, and now I’ve to read a book while Maister MacRoy helps Anne with hers. Could I not …?’

  Sir John held up a finger. ‘We are discussing business matters. Your book will have to wait. Do some sums. Now – away with you!’ He half shouted this, half laughed it. Jamieson could see the intention: Wedderburn assumed that the lassie had overheard him roaring at Jamieson, and wanted her to think that that had been all light-hearted too. Sounding ever more conciliatory for her benefit, he moved over to the writing-table, saying, ‘I thank you for your efforts, Mr Jamieson. I imagine it’s tedious work. Off you go, miss.’

  ‘I thole it, sir, I thole it,’ Jamieson said, as the door closed behind Susan. He was content to play along with her father’s pretence. He had had no idea, when approached by the lawyer to carry out a search, that Wedderburn would still be so sore. Twenty-four years had passed since the case was decided: Jamieson had had two wives and eight children in that time, and his eldest three were all grown and flown from the nest. Although most folk had forgotten the case – Joseph Knight, a Negro of Africa v. John Wedderburn of Ballindean – obviously Wedderburn … But obviously what? Jamieson’s curiosity, which had been professional until this moment, suddenly became more personal.

  Not that it was his concern if the old laird still nursed a grievance – if he did not, there would not, presumably, have been any work for Archibald Jamieson – but seeing it exposed in that way, then hastily concealed from the daughter … Jamieson was impressed, intrigued even. He looked again at the Jamaican painting. The men in it were young, in their twenties or thirties. If it was John Wedderburn in the middle, the other two must be his brothers. Jamieson wondered if Knight had already become a possession when the painting was done.

  Wedderburn was now seated, setting out paper, ink and pen. ‘I think our business is concluded,’ he said, glancing up. ‘You’ll send your bill to Mr Duncan? He’ll expect a full account of your activities.’

  This was it? The matter sealed? What was Wedderburn trying to do?

  ‘Aye, certainly, Sir John,’ Jamieson heard himself say. ‘Thank ye. It’s an honour tae hae been o service, sir. Tae a gentleman such as yoursel.’ He took a chance. ‘That, eh, painting. If I micht …’ He advanced towards it. ‘Is that yoursel in the middle, Sir John?’

  Wedderburn glowered at him. ‘It is.’

  ‘It’s very fine,’ Jamieson said, peering closer. ‘A very fine likeness.’

  Wedderburn half rose from his chair. ‘No it is not. It’s poorly executed. The artist … well, one had to settle for what one could get out there. Now –’ He gestured at the door, sat down again, began to write.

  ‘Of course.’ Jamieson, still contemplating the painting, stepped away from it. But he could not resist touching Wedderburn’s wound one more time.

  ‘Ye’ll be, I dout … ye’ll be ane o the great Wedderburns? Like Lord Loughborough, the Chancellor o England? Ye’ll be o his faimly, sir?’

  Sir John Wedderburn stopped writing, looked at Jamieson as if at a worm. ‘No, sir. Lord Loughborough is of mine. Good day.’

  Jamieson turned and hurried from the library.

  In the hallway he paused to catch his breath, half disgusted at his own sycophancy, half pleased at its effect. Almost at once he beca
me aware of a shadow hovering on the stairs above him. It was Aeneas MacRoy, the sneering creature who had inspected him like a school laddie before announcing his arrival to Wedderburn. MacRoy descended without a word. His deep-set dark brown eyes flickered to a silver salver that sat on a nearby half-moon table, as if he expected Jamieson to try to steal it. He led him out the way he had come in, past the kitchen and the wash-house, down a freezing stone passage and across to the stables where his horse was tethered. Only then did MacRoy speak.

  ‘That didna tak lang, did it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And it’s a fair ride back tae Dundee.’ The implication was that Jamieson had wasted everybody’s time, including his own. Jamieson was half inclined to agree, but did not want to admit it.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Wi this wind ye’ll likely hae a face as hard as a kirk door by the time ye win hame.’ Without waiting for a further response, MacRoy hurried back into the house.

  Jamieson, pondering the probable accuracy of the prediction and the grim satisfaction with which MacRoy had uttered it, warmed himself for a minute at the horse’s flank. It was a long trip for a twenty-minute interview. He could, of course, have made his report to Mr Duncan, Wedderburn’s lawyer, but he had wanted to see Ballindean and its laird for himself. Jamieson had spied on unfaithful wives and husbands, eavesdropped on radicals, hunted down cheats, thieves, eloping daughters and dissolute sons, but he had never had to search for a black man before. He had been curious to see the master who was still chasing a runaway slave after twenty-four years. And now, having seen him, he was even more puzzled. Wedderburn’s sudden burst of bad temper had been counter-balanced by apparent indifference as to Knight’s fate. What was Wedderburn’s motivation? Jamieson could not figure it out. He wondered if he was losing his touch.

  Yet why should he think that? He’d not performed badly over the United Scotsmen, an affair that had involved much discreet inquiry and cultivation of dubious acquaintances, and a little danger. He had attended, in disguise, a meeting of radicals at Cupar, narrowly avoided a severe beating in the back streets of Dundee, and helped the authorities chase a notable agitator out of the country. This kind of work was paid for by the proprietors of the new manufactories that were going up everywhere, changing the face of the country. Jamieson did it because it was there, and because it paid better than his other work, copying documents. He liked the owners neither more nor less than he liked the weavers. As he had told Wedderburn, he did not consider himself political.

  He was about to mount up when he realised he was not the only human being in the stable. The lassie, Susan, emerged from one of the stalls, herself and the white dress now protected from dirt and cold by a black cloak clutched close about her.

  ‘I know the matter you were here to see my father about,’ she said.

  ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘Oh aye,’ she echoed. ‘I heard at the door.’

  Jamieson considered the combination of her directness of speech and her hunched, uneasy stance. He said cautiously, ‘I dout your faither wouldna be best pleased aboot that. Or aboot ye waitin oot here on such a mornin.’

  ‘Ma faither disna ken aboot either,’ she retorted, a perfect mimic. ‘And I wasna waitin on you. Since I hadna a book tae read, and nae task either, I cam oot tae see the horses.’

  He could not help smiling. ‘But ye kent I would be here sooner or later.’

  ‘And I ken aboot Joseph Knight,’ she said. Then, reverting to English: ‘Don’t you think it’s an interesting name?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Biblical,’ she said, ‘but chivalric too, and mysterious. The Black Knight. I think of him as a chevalier of darkness.’

  ‘Aye, weel,’ Jamieson said, ‘your faither disna share that view.’

  ‘Papa never mentions him. But we all know about him, it’s hardly a secret. My sisters and I. And Mama too, although she wasn’t married to Papa when it happened. My other brothers and sisters – the old, half ones – even they were too young to remember much about it now, but we all know.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘The servants, of course – the older ones. And Aeneas MacRoy with a drink in him.’

  ‘Him that convoyed me in and oot? Aye, whit sort o a man is that? Some kind o major-domo?’

  ‘He thinks he is, though it’s Mama that runs the household. Aeneas is our schoolmaster.’

  ‘The times are tolerant, when lassies cry their dominie by his Christian name.’

  She laughed. ‘Only behind his back. In the schoolroom he’s strictly Maister MacRoy.’

  ‘It’s a queer dominie that gangs aboot like a servant, showin folk in tae his maister. He must leave aff teachin ye as aften as he taks it up.’

  ‘Aeneas has been here so long nobody is concerned about what it’s fitting for him to do or not do. He and Papa are old comrades – from the Forty-five. I don’t think Papa notices any more whether Aeneas is tutoring us or skulking in a corner or chewing his dinner thirty-two times to aid the digestion – he does that, you know.’

  ‘Frae the thrawn look on him, it disna work.’ Jamieson was gratified to see a smile break over Susan’s face. ‘Onywey, whit does he ken aboot Joseph Knight?’

  ‘Oh, this and that. He doesn’t say much about him, and then only when he’s drunk, but you can tell it’s deep in him yet. And my uncle James, he doesn’t mind speaking about it – the case I mean.’

  ‘Is he in the picture wi your faither?’

  ‘The one above the fire? Yes, on the left. The roguish-looking one. He was a rogue then, apparently.’

  ‘Faith, whit way is that tae speak aboot your uncle?’

  ‘It’s only what my father says. He doesn’t mean it harshly. But you can see him curl up inside if the plantations are mentioned when my uncle visits. Papa always stamps out the first few words that might blow in Joseph Knight’s direction. I know, I’ve watched for it. Did Papa tell you who painted that picture?’

  ‘He didna, na.’

  ‘My uncle Alexander. He died not long after he painted it. Do you know who else is in it?’

  ‘Anither uncle o yours.’

  ‘That’s right. Uncle Peter. He died in Jamaica too. But not just him.’

  Jamieson frowned. The lassie was haivering. ‘There’s jist the three o them,’ he said.

  ‘You didn’t look closely enough. It’s very dark on that porch. Yet it’s the middle of the day.’

  ‘Whit are ye sayin, miss?’

  She took a step back, and he realised his question had come out quite fiercely.

  ‘Joseph Knight is there too. Or he was once. Papa had him painted out after the court case.’

  ‘How dae ye ken that?’

  ‘Because I do. I must have looked at that painting a thousand times. There’s somebody there under that heavy shadow. You can just make him out. And I’m sure he’s black. Who else could it be?’

  Jamieson shrugged. Now he wanted to go back into the library. The lassie seemed to have a lively imagination, but why would she come up with such a story? Then again, why would Wedderburn go to that trouble? Why not just take the painting down, destroy it?

  ‘If your faither had that done, it was lang afore ye were born. Did he tell ye that was whit happened?’

  ‘No, but it’s obvious, isn’t it? I think Papa was ashamed. He thinks the court case was a great stain on the family, and of course it was, but not for the reasons he thinks.’

  ‘Whit dae you think?’

  ‘That Joseph Knight must have been very brave. And right.’

  And clad in shining armour, Jamieson added into himself. He said: ‘Ye dinna approve o slavery?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I dinna think muckle aboot it.’ It existed. It was a fact of life. That was what he thought.

  ‘Well, you should.’

  ‘You dinna like it, then?’

  ‘How could I? How can anybody? It makes me ill to think of it. There are associations formed to abolish it. I’
m going to join one and fight it.’

  ‘There’s associations formed tae fecht aw kinds o things. That disna mak them richt. It’s slavery that biggit this fine hoose, and bocht aw thae books ye read.’

  ‘That’s not my fault. Nobody should be a slave. That’s what it was all about, wasn’t it, the court case? Whether you could be, in Scotland. What I don’t understand is why Papa wants to find him now, after all this time?’

  ‘I dinna ken.’

  ‘Not because he’s had a change of heart, anyway. You thought that, and he nearly took your head off.’

  ‘Ye’ve sherp lugs, miss. Whit was the book ye wanted?’

  ‘Oh, I hadn’t one in mind. I’ll devour anything. Like a sheep.’ She bleated and he laughed. ‘It’s strange work you have,’ she said.

  ‘I work tae eat, like maist folk. I dae whit I dae.’

  ‘Look for people?’

  ‘That. And this, and thon.’

  ‘What’s your horse’s name?’

  ‘I dinna ken. I hired it. I dinna keep a horse.’

  She clapped the horse’s neck. ‘Imagine not knowing her name. What if she wouldn’t do as she was bid, or something feared her?’

  Jamieson smiled. ‘Miss, this is the maist biddable horse I was ever on. It jist gangs whaur ye nidge it wi your knees. If I spoke tae it I would probably fleg the puir beast.’

  ‘Do you think he’s still alive? Knight, I mean.’

  ‘I dinna ken.’

  ‘Ye dinna ken much. I think he’s dead. We’d have heard otherwise. There’s not much news goes by Ballindean, one way or the other. Either from visitors, or newspapers, or the servants.’

  ‘The world’s a bigger place than Ballindean,’ Jamieson said. ‘He could be onywhaur in it.’ He made to leave.

  ‘Old Aeneas hated him,’ she said, as if desperate to keep him a minute longer.

  ‘Whit gars ye say that?’

  ‘Aeneas hates everything. No, that’s not fair. He likes my sister Annie. But he hated Knight. It was an affaire de coeur,’ she added pointedly.

  Jamieson was interested, but pretended he was not; adjusted a saddle-strap. He was torn between believing her and dismissing her. He said, ‘Ye’re gey young tae ken aboot such things, are ye no?’