Redlegs (27 page)

Bathsheba looked as if she were about to speak again and
continued
to loosen the ribbon at her throat, but then fell silent, and turned to leave.

Once she had left the room, Elspeth sat stunned. When it had occurred to her that people might have known of her private
performances
she had laughed. Was proud, even, that they knew that someone still liked to gaze upon her. Now she felt foolish and squalid. But what had impelled Bathsheba to provoke the matter, and allude so bluntly to it? Had the girl actually wanted the old man to agree to her nakedness? With just that merest motion of putting her hand to the ribbon at her neck the impudent lass had shone a piercing light on the void that had always marooned
husband
and wife one from the other.

All their lives Elspeth had considered her presentation of herself to Albert elegant. For the only time in forty years she saw shame in a ritual that had pleased them both. She wondered if Albert had suffered her vanity just to humour her. Only a few moments ago she had felt graceful and strong; still charming despite her years. As she pulled herself up from her window seat and made for the door, she
thought of herself differently: used and pitiable. She had not only lost flesh, but sinew and bone, her once young, strong body had shrunk and hardened – not through age but from being imprisoned in her chrysalis – to a nutmeg seed. Albert turned his head away in the bed, mortified by the exposure of both of them.

Elspeth fled downstairs, and out into the night. The air was cool and the breeze light, but the storm that had torn her from her promised future nearly half a century ago still raged around her. It had never stopped raging: the wind and thunder had lodged
themselves
in her heart and mind. She felt that gale on her face even now; the rain lashing, though the night was mild, as she made her way instinctively down the driveway, towards Roseneythe’s gates and Captain Shaw’s little stone house. The only way of containing the hurricane was to drive it deeper and deeper inside herself, until it blew and rumbled in the small, hard nut of her soul.

The children’s games began at noon. Ropes were attached to
cabbage
palms and the youngest swung and shouted to their hearts’ content. Teenagers, bored by the all the talk of Bathsheba and Lady Elspeth and Captain Shaw, played in the water, using shaddocks and watermelons in perilous ball games of their own invention. Aunts, uncles and older cousins busied themselves in the kitchen, whispers passing between them that Elspeth had been seen
entering
the factor’s home and only returning at dawn. Others said they had heard Bathsheba talk all night in Gideón and Golondrina’s hut, and was joined there by her mother. Several parties argued that the girl had been asked to strip off but had refused; that she had
acquiesced
; that she showed no shame, or was mortified; or that nothing of the sort ever happened.

At nine o’clock Elspeth struck the gong in the hallway of the big house announcing that the evening’s entertainment was about to start. She appeared tired and perhaps a little stern, but said nothing that told of any argument or mishap the previous evening. Captain Shaw was nowhere to be seen and the rumours of his rendezvous with Lady Coak had all but died away during the day.

She wore a heavy brocade dress of dark colours, as worn by ladies a little younger in town. Within moments of her disappearing back
inside the house people arrived from all directions. They stood
outside
in groups, talking quietly, until Diana Moore arrived and led the way in. They sat down at tables laden with bowls of fried
breadfruit
and fresh-cut mango, jugs of mauby and ale, specially brought in for the occasion, sliced eddoes, cakes made by Martha Glover’s girls. For the second night in a row all waited with bated breath for Bathsheba Miller to arrive. Lord Coak was brought into the room, supported on one side by Elspeth, Moira Campbell’s son taking his other arm. Elspeth lit the candles on the birthday cake when it was brought out from the kitchen to the usual applause. Seven candles, one for each decade. Elspeth had only reached the fifth candle when the door opened. Everyone turned, expecting Bathsheba, but instead watched Captain Shaw and Nathanial Wycombe enter and take seats at the back of the room.

Shaw had never attended these ceremonies, and his presence could only mean turmoil ahead, but there was nothing to be done except to proceed with the concert. Diana, who had always been Mistress of Ceremonies, stood in front of the Lyric’s backcloth and announced the evening’s proceedings to have begun.

“Take your glasses and rest your feet. There’s fine food on its way and entertainment until, as ever, we reach claro clarum!”

Everyone cheered and helped themselves liberally to jugs of ale while Diana introduced each act. Mary Fairweather’s daughter, Grace, gave her rendition of “Long, Long the Night”, as taught to her by her departed mother. Her sister Sarah recited Lady Macbeth’s “Out, damn spot!” soliloquy. A group of children
performed
infantile songs, “Draw a Bucket o’ Water” and “Jessamine”. Diana gave a rendition of Burns’ “The Cottar’s Saturday Night”, and Jane Alexander, blushing, “The Flower o’ Dumblane”:

“She’s modest as ony and blithe as she’s bonnie,

For guileless simplicity marks her its ain….”

Bessy Riddoch each year suggested ruder verses, never with
success
, being made to speak some poem in a more respectable vein.

“I’m o’er young to marry yet

I’m o’er young – t’wad be a sin

To tak me frae my mammy yet.”

Robert Butcher entertained the room with his whistle-playing.
This year he had recruited James, son of Jean Morton and Ben McGeoch, and two of the newer men, to accompany him on an assortment of home-made drums, and together they managed to lift everyone’s spirits with their lively versions of sea shanties and schottisches.

During the band’s performance, Bathsheba entered quietly. Those nearest the door caught a glimpse of Golondrina and Gideón taking their leave of her and continuing to stand outside as the door closed. The girl had a long, woollen shawl draped round her shoulders, clasped tightly at the neck, but under it – to everyone’s relief – they could glimpse Elspeth’s precious old dress. Everyone relaxed a little, stamping their feet to “The 24th May” and “Want One Shilling” in time to the drums and penny-whistle. Diana
introduced
Errol Sarjant who sang the same wassail songs he sang every year, but he did it in such a deep and melodic voice that nobody minded. By the time Bathsheba was called to take her place before them all of the ale had been drunk and Shaw had allowed the last of the flagons of special rum to be opened.

Walking to the front, her eyes met Elspeth’s, and each of them gave the other a little smile. The trick of wearing her dress, but covering herself with the shawl – its subtle tawny and silver hues extracted by Nan and Mary from lily and agave leaves matching the ivory of the Parisian muslin – placated Elspeth. As ever, she had managed to obliterate the memory of a rough night with Shaw from her mind but, also as ever, was left feeling agitated. The
incident
with Bathsheba and Coak she had calculated, after much thought, was a trifle. The girl had merely loosened her neck ties a little because she was nervous and hot. Now Elspeth just wanted Bathsheba’s recital – however she performed it – to be over. If she had criticisms to make they could wait for a day or two until all the excitement had died down.

After a faltering start, Bathsheba found her rhythm and voice and recited her poem admirably.

“Bonnets and spears and bended bows;

On right, on left, above, below,

Sprung up at once the lurking foe.”

Her voice raised and dipped, and she strode from side to side.
The older women smiled at her accent – Scottish names
mispronounced
, phrases sung with Colonial languor.

“From Vennachar in silver breaks,

Sweeps through the plain, and ceaseless mines

On Bochastle the mouldering lines,

Where Rome, the Empress of the world,

Of yore her eagle wings unfurl’d.”

Vennachar came out as Venyacuh, Bochastle became Bucyastelle. Some of her definite articles were pronounced “de” in the local way. Her staccato vowels and cadenced consonants gave a whole new tempo and fascination to the tale. The story itself had never been of great relevance to the audience, not even those born in Scotland, speaking as it did of people unknown and events unclear to them. It had always been Elspeth’s performance they had enjoyed – how she strutted and clutched her breast, became apparently genuinely distressed, and then exultant, whispering one moment, roaring the next. Bathsheba’s dramatic interpretation could not approach the trained actress’s, yet it lulled them into a story that seemed more personal and closer to them all.

“Like dew on de mountain,

Foam on de river,

Like bubble of de fountain,

Thou ar’ gone, and fuh ever!”

She finished on a long, quiet note, and the audience responded in kind – a moment’s lull before their applause. Not the same
clamour
and shouts, the accolades that greeted Elspeth’s performances, but a long, steady clapping. Tears of sentiment welled in the eyes of the audience while Bathsheba smiled and bowed. Elspeth beamed warmly at her. Whatever expectations there had been of disruption and infighting were forgotten as the community relaxed into the conviviality of the night. Shaw’s presence had come to nothing. Bathsheba’s performance had righted any simmering wrongs. The Captain himself filled folks’ cups and glasses with large measures of rum and the hall sung with chatter and laughter while the elder women of the tribe went to the kitchen to prepare the main meal.

The number of original immigrants who traditionally cooked and served the meal had been reduced from twenty to fifteen – Mary Murray, Jean Malcolm and Mary Lloyd, in 1851, ’53 and ’67, had joined their deceased sisters, by way of rheums and dropsies, but left behind a gaggle of children and grandchildren. Fifteen could fit into the kitchen more easily than twenty had before. Normally, Elspeth helped too, but this year it was felt that Bathsheba should maintain the tradition of the Lady of the Lake preparing and
serving
the meal.

The door was always bolted against the revellers outside, for the ladies shed the best dresses they wore for the party and worked in the hot kitchen in their shifts to avoid any staining. The older they had grown the more bawdy their humour had become – even Diana had let her standards fall and laughed at the jokes her colleagues made at one another’s expense.

“Is it ony wunner Malcolm will na come near me till he’s fou? It’s only when he sees double he thinks he has hands enough to gang round me.”

“Away wi’ you, Jeannie. You’re no sae hefty, an’ onyway you’ve still a coggie under your jupes. It’s a’ they care about.”

“I’d fondle ye myself, Jean, if I buttoned up different.”

Nan handed Bathsheba an apron to put on over Elspeth’s fine dress and her fresh-washed shawl. Margaret Lloyd, her tumbler filled by Susan Millar, started up with a bawdy song from the old country.

“John Anderson, my jo, John

When first that ye began

Ye had a good tail-tree as ony other man.”

The women’s laughter crashed around her as loud as the old
pistons
from the closed-down factory.

“But now it’s waxen wan, John,

and wrinkles to and fro.”

Bessy banged her spoon against the side of the bubbling pot of coocoo mash in time with the song. Susan – her flaxen hair of old turned to white and her angular face thinner than ever –
sniggered
into the oven where trays of salt-bread were toasting. Mary Fairweather’s hair was near as orange as it had ever been, but her
plain face wrinkled like dried mango. Mary Riach, blinder than ever now, peered towards the source of the voices and waved her
butter-pat
in the air. Diana shook her head in disapproval, but couldn’t help from smiling, nor stop herself from joining in with the rest of them on the last line:

“I’m twa-gae-ups for ae gae-down

John Anderson, my jo!”

When the laughter had died down, Diana tried to put the company in a higher frame of mind, chanting – for she had little voice for music – as metrically as she could, Burns’ toast to the lasses:

“There’s nocht a care on ev’ry han’

In ev’ry hour that passes-O

What signifies the life o’ man,

’Twere na for the lasses-O?”

But Bessy had another lyric to accompany the same melody.

“Green grow the rashes O

Green grow the rashes O

The lasses they hae wimble bores,

The widows they hae gashes O.”

The women laid down their ashets of roasted eddoes and sweet potatoes, pulled themselves up to their full height – in their bare soles and shifts, not much taller than they were wide – and a
contest
broke out between the differing versions of the song. Nothing personal or angry about the competition, each side trying to
outsing
the other. Diana’s version, however, did not lend itself to
fulllunged
bellowing, whereas the coarser edition most certainly did. One by one her followers ran for cover under the all-out attack of their opponents, betrayed the cause and – with a whoop and a rise in lusty loudness – joined the enemy. Diana valiantly struggled on for a stanza or two before seeing the battle lost and with great good humour crossing the divide herself, mumbling the vulgar words, keeping a tolerant smile on her face.