The Royal Mile Page 5

  “We’ll just have to think of some other plan,” she asserted, praying that they wouldn’t realize how desolate she felt. “Perhaps we can get someone to introduce us to court. Surely Her Grace must be seeking good Catholics to serve her.”

  “What about Will?” Tarrill asked with a touch of diffidence. “Protestant or not, his father, Lord Ruthven, is very influential—I’m sure Will could talk to him.”

  Dallas rubbed her little chin hard, took a deep breath and decided that her usual candor would have to serve best: “Will Ruthven is betrothed to Dorothea Stuart. I heard the news from Mistress Drummond.”

  Tarrill gasped as if someone had plunged a dirk between her ribs. “Nay! I would have known .... Will would have told me!” Her shocked gaze darted from Dallas to Glennie and back again.

  “I’m afraid Dallas is right,” Glennie said with reluctance. “I heard such a tale myself, not long after Father died.”

  “But ....” Tarrill was on the verge of tears, her tapering fingers clutching frantically at the black skirts of her mourning dress.

  “But Dorothea is very rich,” Dallas said firmly. “Come, Tarrill, did you ever seriously think Lord Patrick Ruthven’s son would offer you marriage? Hasn’t it occurred to you that there was some reason why Will stopped coming to our house of late?”

  Tarrill wiped away a tear with her shaking fingers. “I—I just assumed it was because we were in mourning and he thought it improper to call on us. And,” she added with more vigor, “I do know he’s been out of Edinburgh.”

  “Wooing Dorothea, no doubt. Come, Tarrill, we both know Ruthvens and Gordons don’t seriously consider marrying tutors’ daughters.” Dallas clamped her lips tightly together; she had not intended to mention George Gordon ever again, even to her sisters. They had teased her when she was obviously infatuated with George, and Glennie had warned her not to dream so. But it was Tarrill who had overheard George scoff at Dallas when she quoted Latin to him, and the sound of his derisive laughter had never died away. Dallas stood up abruptly, turned and almost collided with Marthe.

  “My poor lassies!” exclaimed the old serving woman, who had just wheezed in from the pantry. “So little left in the larder and winter coming on! Ye’d be better off without my belly to fill, too!”

  “Nonsense,” Dallas retorted, patting the old woman’s bulky shoulders. “You’re part of the family.”

  But Marthe shook her head vigorously, sending the tears rolling onto the heavy linen collar of her plain, worn gown. “Ye’ve always treated me as such, yet I feel like a leech, draining ye of what wee mite there is these days.” Dallas gave Marthe a little shake as she propelled her back to the pantry. “Stop talking drivel! You came with our mother to Edinburgh when she was a bride, you helped raise all three of us and now you’re helping with Glennie’s boys as well. We’d be adrift without you.” She sounded stern but the smile she gave Marthe was tender. “Now hush, and get back to peeling those potatoes. Tarrill and I are going berry-picking—you can put up some of your tasty jam for us when we get back.”

  The old dame bestowed a rather wet kiss on Dallas’s forehead. “Ye be a kind-hearted lassie, whether ye own up to it or not,” Marthe asserted, wiping away her tears. “Some day I’ll make it up to ye, I promise.”

  “Oh, fie,” Dallas mumbled, embarrassed over Marthe’s display of affection, “you’ve done that a thousand times over.” Hastily, she turned away, rummaging through the pantry cupboards, searching for pails. “Don’t wait dinner for us, we may be late.” She hurried out of the pantry, calling to Tarrill.

  Some two hours later as the Cameron sisters were returning from their berry-picking expedition near Kirk o’Field on the edge of town, Dallas indulged in a diatribe against Master Knox and his stiff-necked attitude towards court revelries. “Old curmudgeon,” she railed as they entered St. Mary’s Wynd on their way up to the High Street. “Spoiling everyone’s good time! You’d think it wasn’t Christian to smile once in a while.”

  Tarrill managed a half-hearted smile of her own. The news of Will Ruthven’s betrothal weighed her down far more than the buckets of berries. “At least we aren’t forced to listen to Master Knox,” she said. Dallas merely sniffed at her sister’s comment and shifted her mental process from John Knox to jars of jam, trying to calculate how many preserves they would get out of their harvest. She stopped in mid-count as two men came out of a crowstep gabled house just ahead. “I know one of those men,” she said to Tarrill, indicating the taller of the two. “It’s John Hamilton.”

  Tarrill looked at her sister with amazement. “Don’t tell me you’ve taken a fancy to a fine lord like John Hamilton. Didn’t your infatuation with George Gordon cure you of such notions? What of your words to me about Will?”

  Dallas’s brown eyes sparked back at Tarrill’s flashing black gaze. “It cured me of a lot of notions about men! And you didn’t seem to learn from it, I might add!”

  Tarrill bit her lip and stared at her berry bucket. “So we both set our sights too high. That doesn’t make me hostile to all men—as it has done to you.”

  “Perhaps I’m more canny,” Dallas snapped. “But I’m not pursuing Lord Hamilton for a hold on his heart. He is said to be a good fellow and if we could but speak to him, he might help us get to court.” She paused at the Netherbow Port. “Fie, you distracted me so that I’ve lost him. Where did he go?”

  “What difference does it make?” Tarrill scoffed. “You might as well ask John Knox to get us an invitation.”

  “Speak of the devil,” murmured Dallas as they entered the Canongate. “Master Knox is on his balcony, spouting odious heresy.”

  Knox, attired in the familiar cloth cap and Geneva cloak, was indeed on his balcony, speaking to a gathering crowd of passersby. He frequently indulged himself with such midweek homilies and the good citizens of Edinburgh never failed to gather ’round to listen.

  “Frail be the flesh in man, frailer still in woman’s weak embodiment,” Knox intoned. “The governance of nations must be left only to the strong and righteous. Weakness breeds unto weakness, thereby eroding the spirit until all that is left to eternity is putrefying flesh.” Several heads nodded in agreement as a murmur of approbation ran through the crowd.

  “Holy Mother,” groaned Dallas, “let’s get home. I can’t bear listening to that drivel!”

  At least a half-dozen scandalized burghers turned to stare at Dallas. Tarrill made an effort to smile politely at them but Dallas merely pushed her way through, trying to get to the edge of the crowd. And there, standing just a few feet away from the rapt audience was John Hamilton, proud and somewhat detached.

  “My lord,” Dallas said in greeting as she shifted the weight of her berry bucket, “what a pleasure to encounter you again. May I introduce my sister, Tarrill.”

  “I’m delighted to meet you,” he said with a little bow. “I’ve not read the books I purchased from you yet, Mistress Dallas, but I’m looking forward to them.”

  “I’m so glad,” Dallas beamed. “My father would have been pleased to know his treasures had found an appreciative owner. But,” she added with an air of desolation, “he was about to find us places at court just before he died. We are quite filled with despair that his plans never came to fruition.”

  Tarrill shut her eyes for a moment at this piece of fabrication. She considered an attempt at reining Dallas in, but knew it would be useless.

  In the background, Knox’s sermon finished on a burst about following the Just, “as the children of Israel followed Moses into the Promised Land.” The crowd, chattering in agreement, began to break away.

  “I’m sorry to hear of your disappointment,” Hamilton said as he turned his gaze to the dispersing citizenry. “It’s very sad,” Dallas said, “yet if only it could be amended by some kind soul. You wouldn’t know of anyone who could help us, would you, my lord?” She was smiling again, if wanly, turning her full big-eyed gaze up to Hamilton. Tarrill was amazed, never having seen her sister resort to
feminine wiles before. It seemed to Tarrill that she didn’t do it very well, but perhaps Hamilton was gullible.

  Hamilton, in fact, was more amused than gullible. “I suppose there might be someone who would think it an act of Christian charity to sponsor such charming young ladies,” he mused aloud. “I take it you’re not friendly with any of the courtiers?”

  Dallas had to bite her tongue to keep from remarking that if they had been she certainly wouldn’t be making a fool of herself by trying to wheedle an invitation from someone she scarcely knew. Instead, she merely shook her head ruefully, hoping her dark lashes fluttered fetchingly against her skin. “Nay, my lord, we have lived secluded lives, content with family and a few close friends.”

  Fingering his moustache thoughtfully, Hamilton surveyed the two young women. The younger one was a handsome piece but the loquacious Dallas intrigued him. Her kindness to the youth in Master Forbes’s bookstall, the pride that overrode her poverty, and her innate sensuality had captured his interest.

  “If that be the case,” he said, making an effort to keep his tone serious, “perhaps I might perform the honors myself.”

  “Oh!” Dallas would have clapped her hands in glee if she hadn’t been holding a bucketful of berries. “That’s too kind of you, sir!” She stepped back a pace or two as a mother cat slipped past with a tiny kitten in her mouth. “We live off the Lawnmarket, near Naime’s Close, anyone there will know how to find us if you ask for the Cameron house. Mayhap you’ll want to send a messenger to let us know ....”

  Hamilton could no longer control his amusement. The wide-eyed little wench delighted him with the acceptance of what she apparently deemed an easy conquest. First the book sale and now this social coup. Ordinarily, the aggressive, noble ladies he encountered at court put him off; but this lass, with her shabby clothes and inept subterfuge, made him feel anxious to please.

  “Stay, mistress,” Hamilton protested between bursts of laughter. “You go too fast! There is to be a levee next week and I will see that you learn of the day and the hour. Now truly,” he said, getting himself under control, “I must be off. It’s been ... a pleasure.” He bowed, and with the Hamilton plaid swinging from his shoulder, he moved off down the street.

  Dallas, for her part, was fairly jigging with triumph. Despite the weight of the berries, she trotted off up the High Street on cloudlike feet. Tarrill loped behind, calling for Dallas to slow down. But there was no stopping her sister now, for she had won her prize and was convinced that all would be well for the Cameron sisters.

  Chapter 3

  Dallas looked up forlornly at the grey stones of Holyrood Palace. She was about to turn again to the stiff-backed guard but thought better of it and instead moved back to where her sisters were standing, their clothes beginning to soak up the steady drizzle.

  “The levee’s been cancelled,” Dallas announced flatly. “The Queen is abed with sharp pains in her side.” Tarrill’s reaction almost matched Dallas’s for dejection, but Glennie thought first of the Queen. “Poor thing,” she said. “That’s a frequent complaint, I’m told.”

  “Nerves,” snapped Dallas, kicking the gravel. She sighed deeply and started walking away from the palace. “The fates are frowning on us, we might as well go home.”

  But home was a dreary place that autumn. By mid-October, drifts of early snow had piled up in the closes, only the most well-trodden tracks in the High Street and the Canongate remained clear, and the steep, narrow wynds made for treacherous footing. Very few coins remained in the stout little metal box and the larder was growing depleted.

  “Thank God for neighbors like Master Drummond,” Marthe puffed as she put more wood on the fire. They could only afford to keep two fireplaces going, one in the sitting room and the other in the kitchen. Consequently, the family spent most of its waking hours in these two rooms, and at night huddled under as many quilts and comforters as they could find to keep warm.

  But Dallas was near despair in her efforts to keep the family fed and clothed. They had cut up her father’s few garments for Glennie’s boys; Tarrill had spent several days nursing old Master McBain but he had died in spite of her most assiduous efforts; Glennie was doing some sewing for the neighbors but the small amount she earned went for the barest necessities; and at meals there was many a time when Dallas complained of a stomach upset and pushed her plate away, leaving the uneaten food for the others.

  Suspicious of her motives, Marthe took her aside one night after supper. “See here, you’re thin as a rail.” She grasped Dallas by the wrist and encircled her upper arm between thumb and forefinger. “I’m wise to ye, lass, stop starving yourself!”

  “Fie, Marthe,” Dallas fired back, “I don’t feel like eating much these days. Is it any wonder my stomach is upside down?”

  Marthe let go of Dallas’s arm but gave her a look which clearly stated the old dame was not fooled. But it was Marthe herself who gave Dallas another idea for making money. The jams she put up and those lovely little pork pies—why not sell them in the Lawnmarket?

  “Like common hawkers?” Marthe was aghast.

  “You’d prefer common poverty? By the Mass, nobody around here but me seems to realize we are almost down to our last penny!”

  The old serving woman turned redder than ever. “Och, I shouldn’t have spoken so. But the notion of you or your sisters peddling wares in the Lawnmarket fair makes me weep!”

  “Weep then,” Dallas responded grimly, “but make the pies anyway. I’ll try my luck tomorrow with them and a few jars of jam.”

  And so, on a slushy November morning, Dallas headed out for the Lawnmarket with her pies and jams in a canvas-covered box. She averted her eyes from the curious stares of the neighbors and walked resolutely down the hill. But somehow she could not bring herself to shout at the goodwives and burghers she knew so well from a lifetime in Nairne’s Close. Perhaps further on, up in the High Street where there were fewer familiar faces .... Squaring her shoulders, she marched along, wishing that her worn-out shoes hadn’t already permitted her feet to get wet.

  At Beith’s Wynd, she came upon Lame Angus, sitting in his usual spot. She paused for a moment, started to speak and suddenly realized she had nothing to give him. But the old beggar heard every scrap of gossip that filtered through the town and he knew well of Dallas’s predicament.

  “Good morrow, mistress,” he said with a sympathetic smile. Before she could respond, he gave a little shake of his shaggy head. “Some other day, mayhap. Pray God your fortunes will change.”

  Dallas, who had pitied Lame Angus for so many years, saw that now he was pitying her. She discovered that she could not speak, made a tremulous effort at smiling, and hurried off up the street.

  Near Gosford’s Close, she was stopped by a cherrycheeked woman of middle age who expressed interest in Dallas’s wares. After a close examination, she bought one of the pork pies and bade Dallas good-day. Although somewhat encouraged, Dallas still could not bring herself to call out to passersby. Instead, she tried motioning to people who walked by, but a stinging rain began to fall and her potential customers moved quickly off down the street.

  Drenched and depressed, Dallas wandered aimlessly along the flagstones, her pies grown cold, her mood black as the rain clouds over her head. Without realizing it, she had come to stand in front of Iain Fraser’s town house, magnificent even on such a chill and gloomy day.

  Her arms aching from the weight of her wares, her clothes soaked through to the skin, her spirits at the lowest ebb she could ever recall, Dallas looked up at the ornate front of the town house and swore to herself.

  “By God and all His holy saints,” she murmured to herself through gritted teeth, “it’s not fair that a man like Iain Fraser lives so well and I must peddle pies at his doorstep! Fie on him and all his predatory ilk!”

  With that she spat in the direction of the town house and was about to whirl away when she saw Iain Fraser riding down the High Street on a fine black stallion.

&nb
sp; This time she vowed he would not see her. She all but ran, clutching the canvas-covered box against her bosom. But a loose flagstone tripped her and Dallas went sprawling to the street, jamjars breaking, pies tumbling into the puddles. Slowly and painfully, Dallas started to get up. There was a cut on her left arm from one of the broken jars and red jam mingled with her blood. Dallas wanted to cry but could not; she remained as she was, half-kneeling on the flagstones, wishing for some oblivion to wipe away her living nightmare.

  “Good Christ, it’s you again, Mistress Cameron.” Iain Fraser was pulling Dallas to her feet and eyeing her with genuine shock. “What in God’s name are you doing?”

  Dallas had an overpowering urge to lean against Fraser and let him comfort her. But despite her misery, the barrier remained intact.

  “I fell,” she murmured, and wondered why she sounded so petulant.

  “You’ve cut yourself. Come inside and I’ll take care of that.” He started to lead her back towards the town house but Dallas refused to budge. Many a time she had longed to see the interior of Fraser’s home but not now, not feeling as wretched as she did.

  “No. I must go home.” She backed away a foot or so and almost stepped on one of the pies. For the first time, Fraser noted the canvas-covered box and the wreckage of Dallas’s scheme.

  “What were you doing? Is that debris yours?” There was no mockery in Fraser’s eyes, only puzzlement.

  Dallas wanted to lie but couldn’t. “Aye.” She stared down at the flagstones, waiting for some caustic remark from Fraser. But instead, he turned, called out to his serving man, who was still standing in the street with the stallion, and gave an order to clean up the mess.

  “Come,” he said to Dallas, “I’ll walk you home. I know the way this time.”

  “Oh, no—you’re already almost as wet as I am. Please let me go by myself.”

  But Fraser was already several strides ahead of her. “I’ve no mind to have you wander off alone and end up jumping into the Nor’ Loch. Somehow I sense you’re in that sort of mood.”