Lady Magdalen

by Robin Jenkins

  Lady Magdalen did something that Dr Muirkirk, as a Presbyterian respecting rank, found shocking. She got up and took the girl, who was taller than she, in her arms. There were tears in her eyes. The doctor heard in the distance a cuckoo calling. For the rest of his life, whenever he heard that elusive bird, he would remember that scene.

  A bachelor, he now and then wished he had a wife to talk things over with. Never more so than then, for he would have liked very much to discuss with a helpmate that gesture of Lady Magdalen’s. The young countess’s face, he would have said, with its peculiar pellucidity, had shone like an angel’s. He had never thought he would envy James Graham, that traitor and anti-Christ, but he did then for, in Lady Magdalen, Graham had as his wife the most sincere woman Muirkirk had ever met.

  The consultations went on for hours. Muirkirk himself and Sneddon had never worked harder in their lives. Small wonder they were exhausted. So was Lady Magdalen, which did not prevent her from saying that, if Dr Muirkirk did not mind, tomorrow they would call on some people in the village who were bedridden.

  Dr Muirkirk did mind very much but could not say it to her face. He saw Sneddon looking dismayed and did not blame him.

  She invited them to dine with her. Muirkirk never dined with his assistant who, in other big houses, ate with the servants but he let it pass that evening. How could he, a minister’s son, show more pride than an earl’s daughter?

  Sometimes, in noblemen’s houses, if the wine had been plentiful and the merriment boisterous, the doctor would be offered one of the serving maids to sleep with: not a silly young giggler but a deep-bosomed mature woman who knew what a man needed and how best to give it him. That night there was such a woman among those who brought the hot water for his bath, and she gave him encouraging smiles; but he found, when he retired for the night, that he preferred praying on his knees on the hard floor to lying in the arms of a soft naked woman. He had once heard a minister of the Kirk, who had drunk too much, make a joke to the effect that fornication, if the woman was worth it, was as quick a way to the Lord as any. Dr Muirkirk had laughed with the rest but, that night, as he prayed, he vowed never again to regard women as mere providers of carnal pleasure: even if, as the bibulous minister had claimed, the Scriptures said in several places that that was what Jehovah had intended them to be.

  4

  ONE WARM AFTERNOON in June 1644, John and James were guddling for trout in the burn close to the castle when they heard the watchman’s trumpet. Horsemen were approaching. Perhaps it was Father at the head of an army. Some months ago, two English noblemen had come to Kincardine with a message from the King, asking Father to join him in England. Since then, they had heard that he had been appointed the King’s Lieutenant in Scotland. The last news of him was that he had raised the Royal standard in Dumfries, expecting all the border lairds to flock to it. Had he captured Edinburgh on his way north? Such a triumph would surely rouse Mama out of her sad moods.

  Racing across the field among the black cattle and clambering over the drystone dyke, the boys stood in the road, with their bonnets in their hands, ready to wave them. But only six horsemen came cantering round the bend where the herons nested and the one in front was their Uncle James, Lord Carnegie. They did not trust him. He was one of Argyll’s men and so their father’s enemy. He had always been jealous of Father.

  Carnegie drew up his horse. He did not greet them cordially. He had never forgiven his father for marrying his sister to Montrose and he found it hard to forgive his nephews for being Montrose’s sons.

  ‘How is your mother?’ he asked gruffly.

  Not long ago, she had had a fourth child, another son. The birth had left her weak and moody and the disappointment had not helped.

  ‘Mama is not very well,’ said James.

  ‘If you have brought a message,’ said John, haughtily, ‘you are to give it to me. I shall take it to Mama.’

  Some of the horsemen scowled at what they considered typical Graham arrogance.

  ‘You’re just bairns,’ said their uncle contemptuously, and spurred on his horse.

  His companions followed.

  The boys ran towards the castle, by a short cut.

  ‘Do you think,’ panted James, ‘they have arrested Father again?’

  ‘If they have we shall go to Edinburgh with a hundred Grahams and set him free.’

  It would take many more than that, and where were they to be found? Even among the tenantry there were some who did not approve of Father’s having gone over to the King.

  ‘Would they really hang him, John?’

  ‘They would never dare,’ shouted John.

  But both of them knew that even Kings had been put to death.

  Asked by the housekeeper not to make so much noise with his high-heeled riding boots, Carnegie was conducted to his sister’s room. He found her happed up in a chair. He could have wept. She looked so small. Her face was yellow and there were dark patches under her eyes. Though she was not yet 30, there was grey in her hair. His love for her had always contended with his hatred of Montrose, so he found it easy to blame her husband for her condition.

  ‘She suffers pain, though she never complains,’ whispered the woman.

  And he had come to add to it, by telling her of her husband’s vile treachery and imminent doom.

  ‘Dear Magdalen,’ he said, taking her cold dry hand, but not for long. Her illness might be smittal. He had been warned by his wife not to bring it back to her and their children.

  ‘What brings you here, James?’ she asked. ‘Is Father ill?’

  ‘No, no. Father’s fine. He’s sent me, Magdalen, to bring you and your children to Kinnaird, where you will be safe.’

  ‘Are we not safe here? Who is going to harm us?’

  ‘No one as yet but, if James Graham perseveres in his efforts to embroil his country in civil war, there could be some who would want to take revenge on his family.’

  ‘Not men of God surely?’

  Not for the first time he missed her irony. ‘In the meantime, he has been driven back into England, where it seems he is trying to raise an army of English, Irish, and Germans too, with which to invade Scotland. He does not care how many Scotsmen are killed. Really, Magdalen, your husband has become a notorious villain.’

  ‘Only if he loses,’ she murmured.

  James had always lacked subtlety. ‘What do you mean? He is bound to lose. The whole country is united against him. He deserves the fate that is in store for him. He has never been a good husband to you, Magdalen. I warned my father. Other men, when they go off on a Continental tour, are content with a year or less. He stayed away for three years. How much time has he spent with you at home? Very little. He has preferred meddling with plots and intrigues.’

  Yes, all that was true, but James, her James, would have simply said that he was following his destiny, which was to save Scotland, even if many Scotsmen had to be killed and many Scotswomen widowed.

  She closed her eyes.

  ‘I’ll come back later,’ said her brother. ‘You’re tired. You need sleep.’

  He was thinking that what was in front of her, not far off, was the long sleep of death. He shuddered as he went out.

  Outside the room his two nephews were waiting, bristling like guard dogs.

  He felt sympathy for them. If it had been he who was the notorious traitor, he would still have hoped that his sons would not have disowned him.

  ‘Your mother is going to sleep,’ he said. ‘Better not disturb her.’

  ‘Why have you come, Uncle James?’ asked John.

  ‘Your grandfather sent me to bring you all to Kinnaird.’

  ‘Why should we leave Kincardine?’

  ‘Because you are no longer safe here.’

  ‘No one would dare harm us. My father is the greatest general in Scotland.’

  ‘A general without an army.’

  ‘The King will give him an army.’

  ‘The King needs every soldier to quell
his English rebels but, if he had any to spare, they would be Englishmen, and perhaps Irishmen too. Any Scotsman leading such an army into his own country would deserve eternal shame.’

  Remembering his sister’s sick sad face, Carnegie was ashamed of himself for taunting her sons, who after all were just children. ‘In Kinnaird your grandfather will explain things to you better than I can.’

  ‘The doctor said Mama is too weak to travel,’ said little James.

  That was true. Carnegie’s pity increased. They were Graham’s sons, well indoctrinated by him, but they loved their mother. There was no happy future in store for them, their mother dying young and their father, hardly any older, ending up on the gallows. Their grandfather, Southesk, and Carnegie himself, would do everything they could to save the title and the estates but they might not succeed. Carnegie had once heard Argyll say that Montrose and all his tribe must be extirpated. The boys should not have blue ribbons in their bonnets, but black, as badges of death and dishonour.

  ‘Whether you stay or not,’ he said, ‘troops will be quartered here. Your father has been declared an outlaw. Soon he will be a fugitive. Every place where he might seek shelter will be watched.’

  But he had said enough in the meantime. Besides, little James had tears in his eyes and was trying hard not to weep, while John’s young face was almost repulsive with useless hatred.

  ‘If you want to help your mother – and your father too – persuade her to come to Kinnaird as soon as she feels able.’

  Then he left them.

  Later, while their uncle and his companions were dining, John and James crept into their mother’s room to consult with her or, rather, to put to her John’s plan. This was for her and the two youngest boys to go to Kinnaird, while John and James slipped off to England to join their father; perhaps one or two kinsmen might accompany them. John was enthusiastic, but James could not help looking scared at the prospect of travelling hundreds of miles, through areas occupied by Covenant troops. He was, after all, only nine and still afraid of the dark. Besides, he did not want to leave Mama, who needed them more than Father did.

  ‘If James doesn’t think he’s strong enough,’ said John, scornfully, ‘I’ll go alone.’

  ‘You’re the one that takes sore throats,’ retorted James. ‘Isn’t he, Mama?’

  They had never seen her so old and ill. James wondered, in terror, if she was going to die. Her breath sounded like little whistlings. She looked from one of them to the other with haunted eyes.

  John did not notice. ‘Uncle James said they will send troops to Kincardine to arrest Father if he pays us a visit. But, if he comes, it will be with a great army and he’ll drive them away.’

  ‘If your Father invades Scotland with an army,’ said his mother, ‘he will be wrong, very wrong.’

  ‘Wrong?’ cried John, horrified.

  Even James was shocked.

  They knew that their mother hated war and talk of war but then, did not all females? They hadn’t minded when she had rebuked them for pretending to kill each other with swords or arrows but to call Father wrong was shocking.

  ‘What do you mean, Mama?’ asked James, taking her hand.

  ‘His army would be made up of Englishmen and perhaps Irishmen too. Many Scotsmen would be killed, many Scotswomen made widows. There would be many like Mr Gillies.’

  ‘But he would be fighting for the King,’ cried John.

  James, though, wasn’t quite so sure now. So many times had Father gone to the King, only to be turned away. Also Father had been a general in the Covenanters’ army which had fought against the King.

  ‘Father’s the King’s Lieutenant in Scotland,’ said John. ‘People should do what he tells them. All Scotsmen should join him. If they don’t, they deserve to be killed. Isn’t that so, James?’

  But James was remembering the scar on Mr Gillies’s face.

  ‘Women don’t understand,’ said John. ‘Father said so.’

  James, looking at his mother, wondered if she didn’t understand better than John, better even than Father. It was she and not Father who had been kind to Mr Gillies and the other men who had been wounded. It was she who had wept with the wife of the one who had died. It was she who visited their homes and gave them money.

  John went into a sulk. ‘I expect you want us to run away to Kinnaird.’

  James waited anxiously for her to say that she did. He would rather be at peaceful Kinnaird than at Kincardine, surrounded by hostile soldiers.

  She shook her head. ‘No, I think we must stay here. That’s what your father said we should do: until he sent us other instructions. This is our home. No one has a right to drive us away from it.’

  That mollified John a little. Afterwards, he was to say to James that it wouldn’t be fair to blame Mama. She was a woman and she wasn’t well.

  5

  IT WAS SOME weeks later before Covenant troops appeared at Kincardine, ten horsemen and 50 infantry. Without asking for permission, they encamped in the fields round the castle. What angered John and James even more was that they wore blue ribbons in their bonnets. That was Father’s emblem. How dared these renegades wear it.

  John was for sending the fiery cross into the Highlands. He would carry it himself. He wasn’t too young. Hadn’t Lord Lewis Gordon led a cavalry charge when he was only thirteen?

  The boys were proud of Mama. Though unwell, she looked not only beautiful but also very brave as, dressed in black, she confronted the commander and made it clear to him that he and his men were not welcome.

  Major Andrew Strang was fat and red-faced, with a loud voice. He wore a blue sash round his belly and walked with a straight-legged strut as if, John whispered to James, he had pissed in his breeks. So he would too, they felt sure, if ever he found himself on a battlefield, with guns roaring and swords flashing. But he did not lack impudence. Rudely he told Mama that he and two of his officers would sleep and eat in the castle. When she asked what authority he had to make such demands, he slapped his sword hilt and shouted that force of arms was his authority but, if she was a stickler for legality, unlike her husband, he could show her his warrant from the Estates. Did she not realise that the country was in a state of war, thanks to the traitor Montrose? This castle and everything in it would soon be declared forfeit. She and her two oldest sons should think themselves lucky that they were not shut up in one of their own dungeons.

  Magdalen noticed one of the officers frowning with distaste. Later he introduced himself as Captain Charles Ratho and he apologised for the intrusion upon her. There were, he assured her, gentlemen among the Covenanters. They were not all hectoring boors. He expressed regret that he and her husband were on opposite sides: it was, he said wryly, a thing decided almost by the tossing of a coin. He had always admired James Graham.

  He was able to give her reliable news of James: he was now in Scotland, hoping to raise the Highlanders. The Gordons, though, were divided as usual. In Radio’s opinion, James’s best plan would be to slip away to France. If he remained in Scotland, he would be seized sooner or later. What would happen to him then? In Ratho’s gloomy grimace Magdalen saw the gallows.

  John and James boldly ventured among the tents. They were their father’s spies. Perhaps they could find out things that would be useful to him.

  To their chagrin, they met no hostility. Indeed, when the soldiers learned who they were, they were received with rough but kind jocularity. These men from Fife, they soon discovered, weren’t real soldiers: they were wheelwrights, shoemakers, joiners, bakers, and artisans of that sort, all of them Reservists out of practice. They did not handle their weapons with skill or zest; they drilled clumsily. They were hoping they were never called on to fight in earnest, especially against fellow Scots. If it was a case of repelling an invasion by foreigners, that would be different, they would fight then to the death but still without enthusiasm: killing wasn’t their trade. They made useful things, like houses and shoes and bread. That was their way of serving t
heir country, and all they wanted was to get back to it and be left in peace.

  John and James could not help liking them and being amused by the jokes they played on one another but, at the same time, James was pleased that they were such half-hearted soldiers, it would make Father’s task of defeating them so much easier. John had to remind him that the regular Scottish army, now in the north of England under the command of General Leslie, was better trained and equipped. They would not run away. To defeat them Father would need not only Highlanders but Irish too. Would it be right, asked James, to use the Irish who were said to be savages? John replied scornfully that in a war the only thing that mattered was to win.

  Magdalen listened to her sons with sadness and foreboding.

  One evening all the servants rushed out into the courtyard. Someone had said that he had seen great armies massed in the sky. What they saw were clouds red with sunset but fear and superstition easily turned them into armies. Someone called for silence: he had heard the touking of drums. They were silent and, sure enough, they too heard the drums. These were sure signs of imminent and bloody war.

  Magdalen tried to find comfort in acts of benevolence, though these were not so gratefully received as before. The people’s attitude seemed to be, it was her husband who was causing the distress, so why should they be thankful to her for trying to relieve it?

  Two recipients were unequivocally grateful. These were the dominie and his wife, Cissie. With her father’s help, Magdalen had got him the offer of a school in Perth, with more than 50 pupils and five times his Auchterarder stipend. He might have refused it but for Cissie. Already with one child and with another expected, she had surprised everyone, herself most of all perhaps, by being a doting mother and a faithful, but firm, wife. What her husband lacked in ambition and push she supplied. They had gone to Dundee to see the dominie’s mother. That lady had seen at once that Cissie, though common as dirt, would do her son more good than some respectable wishy-washy daughter of a minister. She would take care that John got the rewards his qualifications entitled him to. The baby had been called Mary, after the old lady.