Lady Magdalen

by Robin Jenkins

  She wondered how anyone in Edinburgh could possibly know her views on anything.

  Lord Sinclair’s smile grew slyer still. ‘I am also authorised to tell you, Lady Magdalen, that if your husband, James Graham, were to come back into the fold, he would be warmly received. We of the Covenant need men of his excellent qualities. Command of an army is waiting for him. If you should wish to add your voice to the many exhorting him to return to his former allegiance, I would be pleased to convey to him a letter from you to that effect.’

  ‘Would only my husband read it, my lord?’

  ‘I would deliver it personally into his hand.’

  But not before letting his masters see it.

  He clapped his hands and his henchmen, up to now as still as statues, began their search.

  It was soon obvious they had done it often before, in other tainted houses. They knew where to look: behind pictures and tapestries, inside suits of armour, inside coal scuttles, under floor coverings, in the secret drawers of cabinets (they knew where the springs were and how to release them), and behind panelling: expert fingers tapped and trained ears listened.

  Magdalen was present in the library when they went through the contents of the charter chest and riffled through the books. She hated seeing those agile fingers untie and unfold, those cold eyes peruse, documents that contained the history and honour of the Grahams. The scented letters caused no pause, comment, or smirk; nor did the lock of hair. Everything was returned to its place meticulously.

  The search lasted for four hours. Articles were unearthed that had long been missing: three marbles, a silver spoon, and a brooch that had belonged to James’s mother.

  Lord Sinclair came to her with a problem. The old woman who was ill, he was sorry but her bed must be searched. It would not be the first time that such a hiding place had been used.

  ‘The old woman is dying,’ she said.

  ‘Papers of importance have been found hidden in coffins.’

  ‘Nothing is hidden in Janet’s bed. I give you my word.’

  He reflected, looked into her eyes, and smiled. ‘Well, that is good enough for me.’

  It was after eight in the evening when they were finished, too late for them to find accommodation elsewhere. Nevertheless, she did not offer them hospitality. They had come with ill will towards her husband, whose house this was. Let them sleep under hedges.

  But Lord Sinclair, with still another variety of slyness in his smile, produced a second warrant, also signed by members of the Estates. It ordered every householder to provide food and shelter for these servants of the State. It would be paid for.

  ‘We shall leave early tomorrow morning,’ said Sinclair. ‘We have still your husband’s house at Old Montrose to search.’

  If he expected an invitation to dine with her, he was disappointed. He had to dine alone.

  His clerks ate in the kitchen, at a separate table in a corner. They did not speak to the servants who attended them. They hardly spoke to one another. Their grace before the meal lasted at least five minutes. While eating, they read little black, battered books of devotion.

  The servants muttered angrily among themselves. One, an ostler called Simpson, who had drunk too much ale, lost his temper and, in a loud voice, asked the uninvited guests who had given them the right to come and ransack a gentleman’s house like thieves. The one who had said the grace, turned round and replied that the Estates in Edinburgh had given them the right and the work they were doing was God’s work: the extirpation of apostasy. Simpson, cowed by the big words so quietly spoken, remembered that the crushing of thumbs was God’s work too, and said no more.

  Though loath to be beholden to him, Magdalen wrote a letter for Lord Sinclair to take to James. In it she said she hoped the conditions of his imprisonment were not too harsh. She was confident that his name would soon be cleared and he would be set free. He was not to worry about her and the boys, they were all fine. They prayed for him every day and looked forward to his safe return to Kincardine.

  When she reread it, she was dismayed by its lack of warmth. This could not be explained entirely by her knowing that James’s enemies would read it. Surely a letter written in these circumstances, with her husband’s life in danger, should be wet with her tears and crumpled by her agitated fingers? Yet here it was, neat and passionless. What was the matter with her? She felt ill, her back ached, she was upset about Janet, but it was more than all that. There was this strange remoteness. Praying did not help. Even God seemed to be growing more and more distant.

  2

  AFTER FIVE MONTHS of imprisonment James returned to Kincardine, unwell, depressed, and embittered. The King had at last come to Edinburgh, and what had he done? He had, it was true, saved James’s life and got him released from prison, but, as against that, he had made Argyll a marquis, thus showing he was going to depend on him and not on Montrose to champion his cause in Scotland. Everyone knew that squint-eyed Campbell was not to be trusted, everyone but the King. What was the use of risking one’s life and liberty for the sake of a King who preferred a self-seeking, devious traitor to a patriot? Magdalen, listening to these monologues, suggested meekly that perhaps the King did not know whom to trust. Had not his ancestors died violently at the hands of subjects? Also, could it not be that it was not in his nature to trust anyone, since he himself was untrustworthy?

  Peevishly James rebuked her for criticising the King. She did not understand. Like most women she saw things too simply. Let her get on with her tapestry.

  She came upon his latest poem on his desk in the library. She did not think he would mind her reading it; after all, in the early days of their marriage he had read all his poetry to her. One verse stood out. She could easily imagine James’s vaunting voice reading it aloud:

  Like Alexander I will reign

  And I will reign alone.

  My thoughts shall evermore disdain

  A rival on my throne.

  He either fears his fate too much

  Or his deserts are small

  That puts it not unto the touch

  To win or lose it all.

  She did not understand it. Did she really see things too simply? James seemed to be imagining himself as King, which surely was dangerous as well as treasonous. Was it not that very ambition that he and the other signatories of the Cumbernauld Bond had accused Argyll of? For the first time she took seriously what Lord Rothes had said in jest: that James might end up on the gallows.

  What terrified her also was that she had begun to feel that she was two persons, one James’s wife and the boys’ mother, and the other that strange young woman in the portrait, who looked down on them all, including herself, with sad sympathy and foreboding. Desperately she tried to make the one drive the other away. She responded to James’s love-making with an eagerness that surprised him. He thought it was her obsessive desire for a daughter, and so it was, but it was also her way of defying that other self which kept foreseeing the ruin of her family. For the same reason she kissed and hugged the boys often, to their embarrassment. She wore bright clothes, unlike the Magdalen in the portrait, who was dressed in black. She put rouge on her face, to make a contrast with those pallid cheeks. She laughed often, but it was hardly genuine laughter, and caused not only James and the boys to look at her in wonder but the servants too. It was whispered anxiously in the kitchen that the mistress’s mind was breaking down under the strain of having a husband with so many powerful enemies. But, when it was learned that she was pregnant again, everyone was able to relax in relief, that was the reason for her strange behaviour. It was resolved in the kitchen, and indeed throughout the parish, to pray that this time her wish would be granted. At the back of all their minds, though, was the fear that she might not survive this fourth birth. How pitiful it would be if she were to die having the daughter that they had all prayed for.

  James hardly looked up from the letter he was writing when she gave him the news. Did she feel well? Should Dr Muirk
irk be sent for? Perhaps she should now employ some companion to fill Janet’s place. In any case, she must take plenty of rest.

  When drier weather and firmer roads made travel easier, Lord Napier, Sir George Stirling of Keir, and Sir Archibald Stewart of Blackhall, James’s friends and co-conspirators, paid visits to Kincardine and talked for hours with him in the library with the door locked.

  James began to make preparations for a long journey. When Magdalen asked where he was going, he shook his head. How long would he be away? The same answer. Later he relented and said it was better that she did not know. There might come a time when ‘brutal fellows’ would put her and the boys to the question and the less they knew, the safer they would be.

  She was sure then that he was going south to offer his services to the King. If the Covenanters found out, they would consider their accusations of treachery to be justified. His life would again be in danger. But what of his honour, which he regarded as dearer to him than life?

  It was not the worried wife who went to the library to challenge him as to the honourableness of his stealing off to England to plead with the King, it was that other Magdalen Carnegie, who had always wanted to be told the truth and to tell it herself.

  It was May. The trees, especially the hawthorns and rowans, were at their most splendid, with masses of fragrant white blossoms. The windows in the library were open, and the air, after the fetid odours of winter, was fresh and sweet. Snow still glittered on the tops of distant hills.

  ‘Are you going to the King, James?’

  He paused in his writing, as if listening to the birdsong outside.

  ‘I am not asking as your wife.’

  He glanced up at her, puzzled.

  ‘Though, as your wife, I should have a right to know.’

  He smiled. Pregnancy, he knew, could affect women’s minds.

  ‘Did I not explain that it would be better if you did not know?’

  ‘Do you remember, James, you once tried to explain to me about honour?’

  He frowned. ‘What are you talking about, Magdalen?’

  ‘You think, do you not, that you have a duty more important than your duty to your family?’

  After a pause, he decided to give her an answer, though her question was impertinent. ‘Yes, I do have such a duty. Every man of honour has. His duty to his country. They do not necessarily conflict.’ He could not resist adding: ‘Most wives understand that.’

  ‘Most wives are never asked.’

  ‘Good God, Magdalen, are you suggesting that husbands should ask their wives’ permission?’

  ‘No, James, though it would seem only fair for a husband to consult his wife when he is about to set out on a journey from which he might never come back alive. But I am not here as your wife, begging to be consulted. I am here as myself, Magdalen Carnegie, wishing to know the truth.’

  He sneered. ‘The truth? Is that all? The wisest philosophers have sought it for centuries without ever finding it. Yet you want me to hand it to you as if it was a flower to be plucked off a bush.’

  ‘Only the truth, James, about your journey to see the King.’

  In his anger he crumpled the letter he was writing. ‘You must be mad,’ he muttered.

  ‘I once asked you what you meant by honour. You could not tell me. You said it was something men felt in their hearts. Women, being inferior, could not feel it.’

  ‘I did not say “inferior”. I said “different”.’

  ‘If you said “different”, you meant “inferior”. Is it honourable, James, for you to give undertakings to your colleagues, those who signed the Covenant with you, and then go off behind their backs to deal with the King?’

  ‘I gave no undertakings.’ He said that between clenched teeth.

  ‘They would say that was why you were released from prison.’

  ‘I was released because the King demanded it. Let them say what they like. They are liars and rogues, most of them. They do not know what honour is. Magdalen, you go too far. Was it your father who put you up to asking these questions?’

  ‘My father has always believed that in your heart you wished to serve the King and not the Covenant. So he will not be surprised if you change sides. He has been a politician too long.’

  ‘He would never have allowed himself to be lectured by your mother.’

  ‘Lord Rothes said there was no right or wrong, no honour or dishonour, only winners and losers. You passionately disagreed.’

  ‘I still disagree. I would not accept him as an authority on honour. He does not care enough.’

  ‘Do you think, James, I care too much?’

  ‘Upon my soul, Magdalen, I do not know what to think. You have always had this morbid streak in you. Your sisters used to tease you, did they not, saying that, in the old days, you would have become a nun?’

  She shook her head. He had been amused when she had given back the picture of the Madonna but he had not been interested enough to ask why she had done it.

  She left then, leaving him chewing his quill and also, still once again, fingering that tender place in his mind which she had with her foolishness inflamed. Was his secret journey to the King dishonourable? Surely not, since his motive was to find a way by which the King and the Covenanters could be reconciled, so that the kingdom could become peaceful and more prosperous.

  3

  ON HIS ROUNDS of gentlemen’s houses, Dr Muirkirk arrived at Kincardine Castle one afternoon, accompanied by his assistant and his valet, who did not, however, travel with him in his comfortable carriage. Over the years he had got into the habit of regarding himself as a gentleman who obliged other gentlemen with advice about their health and not as a professional purveyor of services for which he expected payment. He had another source of income, which he kept secret. He sent to the Estates in Edinburgh any information he picked up concerning families whose loyalty to the Covenant was suspect. Others would have called him a spy. He thought of himself as a patriot and a good Presbyterian. Nowhere were his ears more alert than in Kincardine Castle, home of that notorious would-be defector, James Graham, and nowhere was his manner more ingratiating and sly.

  As he chatted to Lady Magdalen about her pregnancy, he put in amiable enquiries about her husband, hoping to find out if it was true that Graham was then in York waiting to be received by the King. The doctor remembered her as a simple, spoiled, rather perverse girl, who had petulantly preferred that boorish old sawbones, Allen, to himself. It was her petulance he was depending on, to make her give her husband away, without really being aware that that was what she was doing.

  To his consternation, however, he found himself confronted by a young woman who, though clearly unwell, was far from self-pitying or weak-minded. With those truthful brown eyes fixed steadily on him, he could hear his voice sounding more and more false and, to recover some sincerity, he had to talk about other subjects than her husband.

  When she asked him to examine Lord John’s throat, so frequently painful, she sat by, asking intelligent questions, which revealed to him, as well as to her, how limited his knowledge was, and indeed that of all his profession. Old Dr Allen, she remarked, had told her once that the human body, like Africa, was a vast continent of which so far very little was known. Intrepid explorers would be needed to extend our knowledge. Did Dr Muirkirk agree? Dr Muirkirk, his self-satisfaction dwindling, had to confess that he did. Wistfully he recalled his youthful idealistic days as a student at College, when he had prayed that God would choose him to eradicate disease and so benefit all mankind.

  Lady Magdalen was to disconcert him still more. When she was a small girl at Kinnaird, she said, Dr Allen, calling at the castle, had taken the opportunity to treat servants and tenants. Those who could walk had come to the castle, those who were bed-ridden or crippled had been visited in their homes. Would not Dr Muirkirk care to offer his services in the same way?

  She asked with apparent ingenuousness but he wondered if she was being ironical. Her smile was charmin
g but ambiguous. What kind of noblewoman was she, showing concern for creatures, who, to tell the truth, were scarcely more intelligent or valuable than beasts?

  Dr Muirkirk was dumbfounded. It had been years since he had personally attended a patient of the plebeian sort and even longer since he had stepped inside one of their obnoxious hovels. How could he have kept his clientele of aristocrats and genteel folk if he had come to them with the stink and infections of the lower orders exuding from him? He had left all that to fellows, like Allen, who weren’t far removed from peasants themselves. Dr Muirkirk’s own father had been a minister.

  He could not get out of it. Excuses kept surging forward in his mind but those honest brown eyes kept him from uttering them. Besides, he felt that he wanted her good opinion, not only here on earth but also in the next world, in which, as a staunch Presbyterian, he strongly believed and into which she would surely be welcomed by Christ Himself.

  In a room with the windows wide open, he and his assistant, Sneddon, received an assortment of sick and injured plebeians: women with fluxes, men with scythe wounds, and children with pocked faces. He would have dismissed them all very briefly if Lady Magdalen had not been there, not merely watching but lending a hand. It horrified, but at the same time chastened, him to see her lift on to her lap an infant whose face was hideous with scabs and comfort it while Sneddon smeared the pustules with salve. Even the child’s mother was aghast. Like a good nurse, Lady Magdalen showed no revulsion and controlled her pity.

  With one patient, though, she could not help showing distress. A handsome young girl of about 14, with long yellow hair, came in, accompanied by her tearful mother. She herself was dry-eyed and said nothing while her mother explained how, for the past six months, she had lost weight and coughed up blood. It was an obvious case of consumption. Throughout the country there were thousands. There was no cure. She would be dead within a year. Not even if she was to rest in a silk bed and eat grapes could she be saved. Had not Lord Rothes died recently of the same disease?