Candlemas (4 page)

The old man said a word to someone in the room. He motioned to a figure sitting by the fire, and quietly withdrew. And presently Hew heard, distant in the fog, the splintering of wood as he went about his work.

‘Have you brought the candles that are owing to me still? The ones you sent were foul,' spoke the figure by the fire. Her voice was high and fine, and quavered clear and light like a hollow reed sharpened to a quill, a delicate thin flute. It had a foreign tone to it, that savoured of antiquity.

Hew responded, ‘Madam, I am not the candlemaker.'

‘I hear that from your voice. Nor are you his boy. Then my servant Adam has been caught in a deception.' She reached out to the hearth place, where was set a bell.

Hew countered hurriedly, ‘I think your servant Adam has not understood. There was no attempt nor intention to deceive. My name is Hew Cullan, and I am come to ask some questions, concerning the man who sold to you your candles. I make no claim to be that man himself.'

‘Then it is more likely Adam has misheard. He has grown quite deaf. Come to me, close. For you will apprehend I cannot see you well.'

As Hew came to the fire, he saw that her eyes were covered with a film, a thick, milky cloud through which no image pierced, and wondered if the candlelight could penetrate at all. She was dressed in a gown of old-fashioned silk, whose fugitive colour had fled from the folds of a rich lavish blackness to a dull brown and blue.

‘If you come on behalf of the burgh council, then it is high time you dealt with my complaint. The candlemaker Blair adulterates his wares. Because I cannot see, he thinks I cannot smell. He fills them up with filth. Because I was a lady, once, he thinks that I am rich, and he inflates his prices far above the statute rates. I do not hear you writing, sir. Do you take this down?' the lady said.

‘I am not from the council,' answered Hew. ‘I am a lawyer, from the college of St Salvator, called in to investigate the candlemaker's death.'

‘Do you say, then, that the man has died? I cannot understand wherefore such an event would require you to investigate.' The lady showed no sign of pity or surprise, for she was at an age where death occasioned none.

‘His death was not a natural one.'

‘All deaths are natural, are they not?' She answered him clear, and sure in her response. Hew had the sense that somewhere, someone watched, beyond the steady remit of her sightless eyes. He listened to the rhythm of the old man at the woodpile, the thudding of the axe, a rustling somewhere near. ‘Is someone in the house? Are we quite alone?'

‘We are never quite alone. But the servants are outside. Adam and his wife. They have been with me for more than sixty years. There is no one else.'

He listened for the sound, heard nothing but the wind.

‘Perhaps,' the lady said, ‘it was a rat you heard. Hew Cullan, did you say? I knew a boy called Cullan once, who grew to be an advocate.'

‘My father was an advocate at the justice court.'

‘Then you are Matthew's son. Your father was a good man. And you have a sister, married to the doctor. He wrote me a letter, to the Holy Trinity, to say I was not well enough to walk down to the kirk. For which I was obliged to him. They are good men, both. And what of you, Hew Cullan? Are you a good man too?'

Then he understood, and knew what she was asking him. ‘I do not believe that you will count me so.'

‘Ah. That is a pity. Should I be afraid of you?'

He told her softly, ‘No, you should not be afraid.'

‘Then I will believe that you are better than you think. Why have you come?'

‘To tell you that because of the candlemaker's death, there will be no more candles for a while.'

‘Aye, that is a pity. The candles here are blessed. And I cannot tell you the comfort that they bring.'

‘Your pardon, mistress, but…?'

‘Can I see their flame? My dear, of course I can. And I can feel its flicker lighting up my face. It is an old face now. Many years ago, I was at the Court. The candles there were wax, and each one weighed a pound. These feeble drips of tallow burn through in an hour. But they are precious to me still. You were kind to come. Let us light a candle for your candlemaker, though I cannot think he will profit from it now. When you depart, I shall light one for you.'

*

‘Well,' said Giles Locke, ‘Are you done with your witch?'

‘She is not a witch, as you are aware. She is a Catholic woman, harbouring a priest.' Hew was gratified to see his friend's look of alarm. It was not that he thought the doctor was to blame, but since his hopes were frustrated, he was feeling cross, and sought to vent his mood. His investigations all had come to naught.

‘What makes you say that? Did you see the man?'

‘Smelt the incense from his censer, heard the rustle of his robe. What more need be said?'

‘Seeing is believing.'

‘I have met a lady who would disagree with you. You need not look like that. I have not set the hounds upon her and her Jesuit.'

‘Not Jesuit, Hew! Friar John was never yet a Jesuit,' Giles objected. ‘He is a Franciscan, of the mildest kind.'

‘Friar John, is it now? You could have telt me, Giles.'

‘I could not have told you. The trust between a patient and her own physician should be sacred as the trust between her and her God.'

‘And surer to maintain, when you share a faith. I do not like you well, when you are sanctimonious.'

‘I do not like you well when you are savage, Hew. The friar blessed her candles for her, at the Candlemas. That was all he did. And you cannot conceive of the comfort it brought her.'

‘What manner is this priest? Whence has he come?'

‘He has lived among us, quiet all the while. You have met him, too. He was at your father's funeral.'

Hew spluttered, ‘
That
man? God help us!'

Giles answered patiently, ‘That is the point.'

Hew's indignation did not last for long. ‘They were holy candles, then, however much they stank. Pity the poor friar! Do you have wax candles, Giles? Ours are all but done.'

‘None to spare, alas. So dark and dreich has this winter been. We have bees, though. Did I tell you, we have bred a colony of bees, in our garden on the South Street? They are wondrous creatures. And I have, somewhere here, an illuminating book.' Giles poked about the shelf. ‘It seems I have misplaced it. Else I could inform you, when we will have wax enough for Meg to make you some.' Hew cleared his throat. ‘Ah, never mind. Tis pity, all the same. Frances is averse, still, to the tallow kind.'

‘Indeed. Is she, still? And to flesh and fish too?' the doctor said glumly. ‘What a sad board you must keep.'

‘Should the loathing have abated?' Hew pursued.

‘As to that,' said Giles, ‘I ken no kind of pattern for a perfect progress. I knew a woman once, with the opposite complaint. She had a taste for tallow, and would eat the candles. Her husband was most grieved at it. Nor was it resolved, until she had the child. Yet it did no harm. With Frances, her aversion is like to last to term. Which is some weeks yet. Is she well, besides?'

‘She is well enough. Yet I do perceive in her a certain sort of restlessness. She did not sleep last night.'

‘That is common too. If you are concerned, I will send to Meg, and ask her to call in on her. This afternoon, perhaps. Meanwhile, I must settle down to write, for pity that it is, it cannot be put off,' the doctor sighed.

‘Aye? What will you say?' Hew asked, reassured.

‘That the candlemaker's strain as he went about his work caused the vein to burst, and sever through entirely, once he was asleep. You can be sure, his weakness would ensure the flood would
never wake him. So much is the substance I will write in my report. He died through the surgeon's negligence. And I see no alternative, except it were the surgeon snuffed his life deliberately, and that is something I do not like to suppose.'

Hew could find no argument to turn him from his course. For surely, there was none. Sam's silence on the matter signed and sealed his guilt. He retreated, hopelessly, to mope about his room, where his depth of misery was mercifully plumbed by a timid knocking on the chamber door. Johannes Blick appeared. ‘Your pardon, sir,' he said. ‘I know that my appearance is abhorrent to you. But, by your leave, I will not keep you a moment. I wanted only to return your books to you, and express my gratitude, for all that you have done.'

Johannes was encumbered by a wooden box, as well as all the books, and Hew succumbed at once to the pricking of remorse. ‘Johannes, by no means am I dismayed to see you. I am sorry, indeed, if I gave you that impression. Come in, I pray, and sit down.'

Johannes, pinkly gratified, perched on the edge of an oak caquetoire, the box and the books balanced in his lap. ‘I hope I do not keep you from your present work.'

‘Not at all,' said Hew. ‘The truth is that you keep me from my present self, and for that I find myself grateful.'

Johannes blinked at this. His Latin was impeccable, and yet he found this sentence hard to fathom out. He dismissed it in the end, as some perversion in the Scots. ‘I am ashamed to say,' he said, ‘I have not made much progress with the book of bees.'

His guilt compounded, Hew confessed, ‘The truth is, I may have overstated the importance of that work.'

‘Indeed, not at all,' Johannes said politely. ‘For so far as I have read, it has been most illuminating. I have learned a great deal of the life of bees I did not know before. I would dare to say, I may go into beekeeping. It seems to me more lucrative than scholarship.' He ventured forth a smile, to signify a jest, which coming from Johannes was a thing so rare, it required a finger-post, ‘And it is strangely pertinent, to this box in hand. I have brought a gift, to thank you for the time and patience you bestowed, upon me and my work.'

‘Johannes, that is kind. But there is no need.'

‘Indeed, there is need. It is my wish, and my father's also. He is a rich man. I have prospered here at the university, and that is thanks to you. You were meant to have it for the Candlemas; that is the tradition, as I understand. But circumstance dictated I could not present it then.'

Johannes, rising up, offered up his present with a formal bow. Hew set down the box, and opened up the lid. In paper wrapped inside he found two dozen candles, of the finest wax. For a moment he stood staring, could not find the words. ‘Johannes,' he began.

‘Alas, you are not pleased,' the student sighed. ‘My father believed you would not be offended. He felt the choice of gift was adequate and apt. But if it was misjudged, then we meant no ill by it.'

‘Johannes, the gift is a perfect one. Nothing you could give me could have pleased me more. But your generosity awakes a shame in me. I do not deserve this. It is far too much.' Hew took one of the candles up from the box, and admired the sweet ripple of beeswax as though it were something of great worth and wonder, which at that moment it was.

‘It is a mote, in the eye of the kind exertions, that you have expended on my poor behalf,' was what Hew understood Johannes to have said. When he had made such sense of the Latin as he could, he was warm in his reply.

‘Well, you could not have chosen for me a more delightful gift. However did you find them?'

‘They were ordered for me, by that poor man who used to make candles here. As I have heard, he has recently died.'

Hew's attention was captive, at once. ‘When did you buy them?' he asked.

Johannes hesitated. This most innocent of questions caused him some distress. His answer was careful. ‘On Candlemas eve.'

‘The very day,' concluded Hew, ‘he met with his death.'

‘I had heard that. Indeed.' Johannes was quite deeply, openly unhappy now. ‘Sir, I have to say, that though he was undoubtedly accomplished at his work, I do not think that he was a very good man. He did not deal fairly with me.'

‘I am sorry to hear that, Johannes.'

Hew knew better than to press Johannes at this point. His patience was rewarded when the student blurted out, ‘I cannot, in all conscience, keep my secret to myself. I must confess to you.'

Surely not Johannes, Hew thought, but his brief sense of dismay was readily displaced. He steadied his excitement in a sympathetic face.

‘The candlemaker promised he would have my order ready early in the day. I called, several times, only to be told I had come too soon, and I must call again. As I believe, he had them all the time. His notion was to hold them from me, so that I should want them more, and then increase the price. That is what he did.'

‘I am sorry,' Hew said, ‘that you went to that trouble, for me.' But his thoughts ran ahead, and his heart was not sorry at all.

‘I told him, in the end, that I would come in good time to collect them by nine, and I must have them then, or else not at all. You will understand, that I was mindful of the curfew in the college, though my fears on that I did not share with
him
. I hope you understand, sir, that I minded that.'

Hew nodded his encouragement, ‘I am sure you did.'

‘It was never my intention, to remain out past the hour. But he kept me waiting there, almost with a purpose to it, so that I was late. And when I returned, I found the gate was locked.'

‘Is that your confession? That you missed the bell?' Hew could not help but smile. Flooded with relief, amusement, and, he recognised, a certain disappointment, he controlled himself. ‘How did you get in?'

Johannes answered coyly, ‘Ah, there is a place.'

‘Ah. There always is.'

‘You will require, of course, to report on the transgression to Professor Locke. He will doubtless want me to reveal the place. I say now, that whatever kinds of torments may be heaped upon me, I will never do so. I owe a debt of silence to my fellow students. In this I will not break. I am quite resolute. My family has endured much hardship on the way here. And I am strong enough to bear a good deal more.'