Page 4 of Walk on the Wildsyde

Chapter 2

Lyall,

Thank you kindly for the invitation to young Gordy’s birthday. I’d love to come and celebrate but I have not the time to spare for the moment. I have just bought a public house, and I intend to have it up and running by the autumn. Please give the bairns a kiss from their favourite uncle, and I hope the parcel that accompanies this letter will soften the blow of my absence a wee bit.

―Excerpt of a letter from The Hon’ble Hamilton Anderson to his elder brother, The Right Hon’ble, Lyall Anderson, The Viscount Buchanan.

5th May 1850, Wick, Caithness, Scotland.

“But whatever are we to do with him?” Mrs Macready said, staring at Jimmy as though he’d sprouted horns and a tail.

“Well, that is a dilemma, I admit,” Clara said, praying she had not ill judged the depths of the lady’s kindness. “But you must see that I could not abandon him to his fate.”

Jimmy clung tightly to her hand, doing a grand job of making himself look pathetic and in dire need of charity. Though he was in need of kindness, Jimmy was not in the least pathetic and Clara recognised his demeanour as a wonderful piece of theatre on his part, for which she did not blame him in the least.

“Oh, yes, indeed… the poor bairn,” Mrs Macready said, her hand resting over her ample bosom in the vicinity of her tender heart. “But without the reverend’s say so,” she murmured, her agitation plain.

“There’s not in the least need for my father to know of it,” Clara said firmly. “Jimmy will be a grand help to you. He’s a hard worker and can fetch and carry and see to the fire, and all he asks in return is a warm, safe place to sleep, and his meals.”

“Is he clean?” Mrs Macready said sceptically. “I dinnae hold with grubby boys in my kitchen.”

Jimmy darted Clara a look of sheer panic, which was entirely genuine.

“He may need a little encouragement in that area,” Clara admitted. “But I am certain that will be a small price to pay in return for your kindness.” She gave Jimmy a long, stern look, and he subsided with a heavy sigh.

“Well, I could nae very well turn the laddie out when he’s come so far,” Mrs Macready said. “Very well. Jimmy stays, but he’ll mind me, or he’ll be sorry,” she said, wagging her finger at him, though the twinkle in her eyes made it plain she was not about to beat him with a rolling pin.

“I will, missus,” Jimmy said solemnly.

“Ach, and he’s all skin and bones,” the lady tsked, shaking her head. “Ye cannae work when ye have nae a scrap of fat between ye and the sky. Sit yerself down there and I’ll make ye a bite of breakfast, how’s that?”

Jimmy’s face lit up like Christmas morning and he wasted no time in planting his backside where Mrs Macready pointed. “That sounds like a grand idea,” he said, grinning happily.

“Ah, well, ye are a good fellow, I reckon.” Mrs Macready ruffled his hair and then grimaced slightly, wiping her hand on her apron. “Aye, well, one thing at a time,” she said with a sigh, and set about clattering pots and pans.

Satisfied that she had left her charge in excellent hands, Clara went back upstairs to hear the not uncommon sound of her father’s voice raised in anger. Wondering what had set him off, she went to the study to find him shaking his fist at something or someone outside the window. As his study faced onto the street, Clara moved to stand beside him, twitching the net curtain aside and seeing nothing to cause such outrage.

“Whatever is the matter, Papa?” she asked, turning to regard his flushed face with concern. “You will give yourself an apoplexy if you keep this up. Now, come and sit down. Mrs Macready has just put the kettle on, and I shall bring you a nice cup of tea, only do tell me first what has put you in such a pelter.”

“That… That devil!” he cried, shaking his fist again as she guided him firmly from the window. “And on my very doorstep! It’s a challenge, I tell you, and if he thinks I shall shy away, that I shall not face Satan himself and—”

“Goodness me, Papa! Which devil are you speaking of and what on earth is he guilty of doing?” Clara asked, more curious than dismayed.

“Mr Hamilton Anderson,” her father said wrathfully. “He’s not only at the heart of all the wickedness in this town, what with his supplying half the whisky that’s downed in this sinful place, but now… now he’s had the temerity to buy the public house just across the street there. I can see it from this very window! Drunkenness and licentiousness on my very doorstep, where my own innocent child could look out of her bedroom window and—”

“My window looks out onto the back garden, Papa,” Clara said calmly, too used to her father’s passionate outbursts to be overly alarmed by them. “And I cannot help but doubt that the man has done it expressly to annoy you.”

“That just shows the nature of your tender heart,” he said mournfully, allowing himself to be manoeuvred into a chair. “But don’t you fret, my daughter. Despite his wealth and power, I shall rout the demon from his lair. I shall chase him out of Wick as good always vanquishes evil.” Clara sighed inwardly, recognising at once the beginning of a sermon that might go on all afternoon if she let him work himself up again. “‘And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.’ Romans eight, verse twenty-eight. And—”

Before he could take a breath and really get going, Clara patted his arm and said cheerfully, “Papa, please don’t preach to me, for I am not the wicked man and have done nothing to vex you, not yet at least. Now, I shall fetch you a nice cup of tea. Would you like a slice of Mrs Macready’s shortbread? She made a new batch this morning.”

Her father glared at her with reproach. “I shall not be distracted from my duty by sugar biscuits, child,” he said with indignation.

“No, Papa,” Clara replied with a smile. “But I cannot help but think vanquishing demons is easier when one isn’t peckish, and you’ve had nothing since lunchtime.”

Huffing but amused despite himself, her father shooed her away with a last-minute admonition to bring a plate of biscuits, not just one if she really expected such tactics to work.

Clara returned to the kitchens, where Jimmy was making heroic progress through a plate of bacon, eggs and sausages that might even have defeated her father. Plucking the kettle from the range where it was boiling, she sloshed a little hot water into the teapot to warm it and turned to Mrs Macready.