Page 25 of Beguiled
But really, what was the most that could happen between them? David might share Murdo’s bed for another night or two, possibly even three. It would be a fleeting escape from the stuff of his ordinary life. A night or two to open himself up and let all his stored-up yearnings spill to the floor of Murdo Balfour’s locked bedchamber.
But would his new memories be enough to sustain him against the realisation that it was over afterwards? The awful realisation that that wasit.
Enough of that, David chided himself, frustrated at the single-minded direction of his wayward thoughts. He had more immediate concerns. Time to be off. The Dean wouldn’t tolerate lateness.
He walked briskly to the Dean’s house, a beautifully appointed property on Charlotte Square. The day was overcast, but David thought they’d be spared rain. Not that it would matter, given that the rest of it would be spent cooped up indoors.
The door was answered by a maidservant in a neat cap and apron who showed David into the drawing room. Irvine and MacIver were already there. Both men were youthful as compared to the Dean but a good decade older than David.
“Lauriston,” Irvine said, evidently surprised to see David. “What are you doing here?”
“Mr. Chalmers was prevented from attending by illness,” David explained. “He asked me to come in his place.”
MacIver snorted at that, but Irvine smiled and murmured, “Ah, new blood. Very good, very good. Come and sit with us.”
They chatted about inconsequentialities while they waited, and, after a few minutes, the Dean joined them. He had the Vice-Dean with him, trotting at his heels like a faithful hound.
The Dean was a tall, thin man with a hook nose and a natural air of authority, whilst the Vice-Dean was his polar opposite. Rotund, amiable and somewhat vague, he’d always struck David as rather ineffectual.
“We’re still waiting on Braeburn, I see,” the Dean observed irritably. “I said ten o’clock, and it’s almost half past the hour.”
“The meeting with Peel isn’t till twelve,” the Vice-Dean observed in a soothing tone. “We have plenty of time.”
“I like to be early,” the Dean said in his usual clipped manner. “I like to get the lay of the land. This will be a tricky business.”
“What’s the meeting about?” MacIver growled. He was a perpetually bad-tempered man, communicating mainly in grunts and expletives. Why he’d been chosen as part of the delegation was beyond David’s comprehension.
“Sir Robert is looking for more consistency in the criminal law, north and south of the border,” the Vice-Dean explained. “He is meeting with the judges as well as ourselves, canvassing support for his ideas. You may be sure he is doing the same in Parliament.”
MacIver scowled. “I don’t like the sound of that. Our laws have long been different from those of the English. We have different histories, different principles.”
The Vice-Dean smiled in his airy, benign way. “But does our different history really matter, MacIver,” he asked, “if our objectives are the same?”
“Of course it does!” MacIver retorted. “Why should we change centuries of Scots law at the whim of an English politician?”
“But what if we need new laws? To tackle those amongst us who would undermine the rule of law?”
He was alluding, of course, to the civil unrest that had plagued the whole of Britain over the last few years, on both sides of the border.
“Is that what Sir Robert wants to achieve?” David asked. “To make it easier to tackle radicals?” The other three men all turned to look at him, appearing as surprised as if a dog had spoken.
“I’m sure I don’t know, but we may find out this afternoon,” the Vice-Dean answered. His tone was as amiable as ever, though his gaze suddenly struck David as rather watchful.
Braeburn arrived then, the last of their number, apologising breathlessly. The Dean received his excuses coldly and called for the carriage. Within ten minutes, they were crammed inside the close confines of the Dean’s old-fashioned brougham and were rumbling through the cobbled streets on their way to Holyrood Palace.
The Entrée Room at Holyrood Palace was horribly warm and growing ever warmer. For almost two hours, David had been standing, waiting. David and a few hundred others—the huge room fairly bristled with men, all of them awaiting the King’s arrival. The few chairs in the room were at a premium and reserved for the more important—rather than the most needful—attendees.
The Dean and Vice-Dean had had their short audience with Sir Robert Peel, emerging tight-lipped about what had been said. The two of them sat on a pair of spindly chairs now, heads together, murmuring, while the rest of the faculty’s delegation stood behind.
David wasn’t troubled by the long wait, but some of the other gentlemen seemed really quite uncomfortable. Poor, portly Braeburn kept shifting from foot to foot and was now trying to surreptitiously rub one ample hip. His handkerchief must be soaked with sweat from the number of times he’d wiped his brow, and his face was red and shiny from the heat.
Braeburn wasn’t the only one. All around, well-fed men in stiff, new clothes fidgeted and perspired in the stifling air. The delegation from the Kirk dominated the place. Over a hundred of them, and every one of them head-to-foot in Presbyterian black. Like a murder of crows, David thought. Or perhaps a parliament of rooks was more like it. Officious and proper. Committee-like.
The preponderance of black was broken up by the secular men in the room. Most of them, like David, wore Sir Walter’s uniform of blue coat, light trousers and low-crowned hat, but a few wore highland clothes—red and green and purple tartans. These fellows stood out amongst their more sober neighbours like birds of paradise.
David knew the ceremony would be a long one. He’d heard the Kirk was to have its say first. Then the university men, the judges, the faculty, and finally, several groups of magistrates and burghers, both of Edinburgh itself and of a host of other surrounding towns and villages the King would never see. Address after address. It would go on for hours, each delegation taking its turn to pour out the same greetings, compliments and felicitations to the King who’d kept them waiting hours for the privilege.
Finally, at half past two, a great clattering in the courtyard outside heralded the arrival of the King’s party. Men on horseback first, then the rumble of the wheels of coaches. At last, it seemed, the King was here.