Page 48 of Walk on the Wildsyde

“Ach, reverend, I wouldnae do such a thing, but it’s true, there’s nae herring in the biscuits. We eat them morning, noon and night, but they dinnae taste good with sugar, ye ken.”

“Well, the biscuits are delicious, though I’m relieved there’s no fish in them after all,” he said, brushing crumbs from his cassock. “Ah, Clara, my dear, how good to see you,” he said, spying her as she came into the hall.

“I’m sorry, I’m late,” she said, looking around her at the welcoming faces and then starting with surprise as she spied Malcolm Stewart among their ranks.

“Good morning, Miss Halliday,” he said cheerfully. His eyes were shadowed and dark ringed after last night’s indulgence, but he seemed in excellent spirits. “And may I say how bonnie you are looking this morning?”

“Good morning, Mr Stewart,” Clara replied, icily civil, before turning back to her father with a questioning expression.

“Mr Stewart has joined our cause,” he said confidentially. “As a young man in Wick, he has been exposed to the very worst the town has to offer and realises that something must be done. A convert, in fact! Isn’t that marvellous?”

“Marvellous,” Clara said, not feeling half so convinced that such a transformation had taken place. She eyed Malcolm dubiously and looked away as he winked at her. Lord, but he was a dreadful man. How she could have thought otherwise, she did not now know. Hamilton had been right to warn her about him.

“What do ye think of this, Rev?” one of the ladies asked her father, holding up a freshly painted placard. It bore a simple yet well executed painting of a mother and child hugging each other whilst the father sprawled in the gutter with a bottle in his hand.

“Oh! Mrs Munro, that… that is splendid!” her father said, making the woman blush with pleasure.

“I think ye are easily pleased, Reverend Halliday, but thank ye all the same.”

“Mrs Munro, you work so tirelessly for our cause, I can be nothing but grateful for all your hard work, but you have real talent. You know, I was thinking of creating a theatre group for the children, perhaps to put on a nativity performance at Christmas. Would you be interested in painting some scenery, do you think? I would provide the materials, of course.”

Clara blinked, astonished by what she was seeing. Her father was thinking of putting on a nativity? He was providing paints and materials? Whilst she had noticed his increasing ease with the women of the town as he got to know them, such a suggestion was startling. She remembered too his solicitude when she’d been ill, that he had taken the time to consider what she might enjoy most during her illness. What on earth was happening?

Mrs Munro and the other women exclaimed over the marvellous idea, which was just the thing to teach the little ones about the good book and give them some fun at the same time.

Her father chuckled and chattered good naturedly and it occurred to Clara that he had finally found something in his temperance group that he had never had before. His cause was their cause, and they were working together to do good in the community. He had never connected with his congregation before, never been amongst them and spoken to them directly, only stood as a figurehead who lectured from the pulpit. Yet so many evenings stood outside the pubs and taverns of Wick, could not be spent in silence, the women certainly would not have been silent. At some point he must have begun to listen, and to interact with them, and to understand their lives in a way he had refused to do before now. Perhaps too, he was gaining a sense of compassion for others that he had always been sadly lacking.

“A nativity, Papa?” Clara said, once she could gain his attention.

“Yes,” he said, whilst sorting through a stack of prayer books. “Dear me, some of these are in a sorry state. I think we may need to order some replacements. Not that I can take the credit for the idea of the nativity, as it was Mrs Cameron’s suggestion. A very wise woman is Mrs Cameron,” he added, pausing with a book in his hand as he glanced across the hall.

A plump, rather pretty woman in her early fifties caught him watching her and blushed, smiling back at him before carrying on with arranging flowers obviously meant for the church.

“Is that Mrs Cameron?” Clara asked with interest.

“What’s that?” her father said distractedly. “Oh! Oh, yes, indeed. The very same. A most capable woman, well, she’s brought up five children single-handedly, for her husband drank himself to death years ago. Poor fool,” he added sadly, shaking his head.

Clara looked once more at Mrs Cameron, who was laughing good-naturedly with the other women, and smiled. She looked like a kind woman, and Clara decided she would do well to get to know her. Before she could do so, a hand on her arm stayed her.

“Miss Halliday, might you assist me for a moment?”

Malcolm Stewart smiled at her, and Clara stiffened as she looked up at him, noting that the smile did not reach his eyes. Tugging her arm free, she returned an expression just as insincere.

“I beg your pardon, Mr Stewart, but I was about to lend a hand to Mrs Cameron.”

“Oh, no need, no need,” her father said easily, setting the prayer books aside. “I’ll go. You help Mr Stewart, my dear.”

Cursing her father’s newfound joviality, Clara turned back to Mr Stewart. “What was it you needed, sir?”

“Come, and I’ll show you,” he said, leading her to the far side of the room where a door led into a small storeroom. Clara hesitated on the threshold, and he smirked at her.

“You can keep the door open if you are afraid,” he said with a mocking tone.

Clara folded her arms, remaining where she was. “I shall,” she said coldly. “For you are no gentleman, and not to be trusted.”

He merely shrugged, leaning against a shelf stacked with cleaning supplies. There, he stopped, chewing on his lip and staring at her insolently.

“Well? What do you require assistance with?” Clara asked rather impatiently.