Page 48 of Beguiled
“That sounds very pleasant,” David agreed, grinning back.
They made their way downstairs, passing Townsend the runner again as they went. He observed their departure with the same bland watchfulness as before, and David felt oddly guilty as they passed him, as though the man knew precisely what they were up to.
Soon enough they were strolling through the little grotto of lights and emerging from the outer doors into a sea of people and noise.
The crowd was even denser and rowdier than before. A line of soldiers had been deployed to guard the entrance to the Assembly Rooms with raised bayonets. One of them stood aside to let David and Murdo pass through, then just as quickly took his post again.
“Let’s go,” Murdo muttered in David’s ear. “I don’t like this crowd.”
David nodded his agreement. “I’ll follow you.”
Murdo began to push his way through the tightly packed throng, and David plunged after him, staying as close as possible. They attracted a few curses, though thankfully nothing worse, as they fought the tide of people. Everyone seemed to be trying to get nearer to the entrance to the ball, possibly hoping to see the King when he emerged later.
After a quarter hour of jostling and squeezing, they were through the worst of it and striding down the hill to Murdo’s house.
“Need I ask if you enjoyed yourself?” Murdo asked, his tone very dry.
“Let’s just say I’m glad it’s over.”
Murdo chuckled. “I was surprised you came at all. You’re not generally one to do anything you don’t want to, even at the request of a king.”
“It was interesting,” David prevaricated, unable to disclose that he’d come to see Elizabeth and for no other reason. Well, perhaps for one other reason…
“Interesting, how?”
“The pageantry of it all. It might have been of dubious authenticity, but it was magnificently done, I have to admit.”
“Ah, we’re back to this, are we? Your disapproval of all the tartan flummery?”
“I’m not being disapproving. It’s just that my idea of Scotland is not the same as the one that’s being portrayed to the King, that’s all.”
“What is yours, then?”
“Mine?”
“Yes, yours. What is David Lauriston’s Scotland like?”
“Well—this is the Scotland I inhabit now, I suppose.” David gestured around them, at the elegant New Town with its clean lines and gas lamps and private gardens. “Rational. Modern. Just think—who lives in these houses?”
“I do, for one,” Murdo said, his white teeth gleaming as he flashed a grin at David.
“True, but most of them are occupied by merchants, lawyers, bankers. Professional men. Sir Walter might like to promote the fantasy of noble highland chiefs, but these are the men of the new Scotland. And they don’t look to aristocrats to guide them. They’re more interested in what Adam Smith and David Hume would have had to say.”
Murdo snorted. “It sounds to me like you’re swapping one kind of privilege for another. Does it really matter whether our kingmakers are aristocrats or philosophers or bankers?”
“Ah, but this is only the beginning,” David retorted. “One day we will have universal suffrage. And then, how things will change!”
Murdo merely shrugged. “We’ll see. I have always found that men are defined more by their desire to do each other down rather than to lift each other up, but time will tell.”
“You are a pessimist,” David accused, smiling. “I think we are better than that.”
“I’m not so sure,” Murdo replied. “And I’m not sure the general population want the changes you think they do.”
“Oh, they want them. That crowd in George Street might’ve started out cheering, but there was an angry undercurrent there. You felt it as well as I did.”
“There was something, yes. But haven’t crowds always been like that? It’s the mob. A mob is capable of things individuals are not.”
Murdo came to a halt, and David stopped beside him, only realising when he looked over the other man’s shoulder that they’d reached Murdo’s townhouse already.