The Proud Servant

by Margaret Irwin

  There were many at Rossdhu to hint that the Lady Katherine had taken kindly enough to magic. She, who could not bear to sit still at her lessons or her needlework and had refused to learn any of the housewifely arts, on the grounds that they kept her indoors, would stay in, even when the sun was shining in summer weather, in the little round room in the west turret that Carlippis had been given as a study.

  There, with Sir John, she would watch him by the hour at his doubtless horrible and blasphemous work. That she learned something of it on her own account was more than probable; and the servants now remembered one instance after another of how she had used her powers on them. She had made them obey her in disobedience to their masters, and why, they could not tell.

  At one she had looked until his head swam, and he could see nothing but a green pool, and in it her eyes like two imps dancing.

  These stories were added to those of her mother, her uncle, her great-grandfather, and considered by the servants as more spicy bits of scandal than even the details of her seduction by their master. They added a note of disapproval of their mistress, who had neglected to shut herself into a darkened room, and there remain until either she died of grief or satisfied decency by a reasonably long illness.

  Lilias in fact was showing a quiet fortitude that surprised all who knew her. Her young brother’s face had grown so stern that for the first time in her life she did not dare to speak to him. But now for the first time she did not wish to share her sorrow. The shock of this discovery had stunned her. Her vanity had been a glittering shield between her and the world, and now it lay destroyed, since Sir John had preferred Kat to herself. The same simplicity that had upheld her vanity now accepted this fact.

  The picture of herself as a lovely and gracious woman, to which she had been accustomed all these years, had been shattered, so that all she could see in it was her cracked image. Not gracious and lovely then, not even trustful, with all her innocence abused, but ‘a fool – a fool!’ she sobbed, alone in her room, ‘oh God, what a fool I have been!’

  And her folly had hurt Kat more than herself. Kat had been in her charge since a child; and now Kat was a criminal, flying from her home and country, because Lilias had thought too much of herself to look after her.

  Since Sir John Colquhoun had failed to appear and stand his trial, the young Earl of Montrose, against the advice and urging of all his friends and advisers, decided to go now to Italy in search of him and the Lady Katherine. It had always been agreed that he must go abroad. But how, said all his friends, could he possibly think of doing so at just this moment, when in a few months King Charles would be in Scotland for his Coronation? What would become of all his chances to make a good impression on his sovereign, and lay the foundations of his career? It was bad enough that this family scandal should happen just now, for King Charles’ domestic life was irreproachable. But Montrose’s own married life was also above reproach; it was all the more important for him to bear testimony to this fact by his presence in the bosom of his devoted family.

  So argued his father and mother and brother-in-law, his guardians, Archie Napier and Graham of Morphie, chief among a score of others. Only Lilias did not try to persuade him, and that not because she wished him to seek her husband and sister.

  ‘What difference does it make?’ she said. ‘Kat would come back if she wished. She can do anything she chooses.’

  Magdalen’s haunted eyes said ‘Yes’ to that. She sat very still, except for her hands – twisting her long fingers, she said, ‘She has done this on purpose. She knew you would follow her. She knew the Coronation was coming, that it would ruin your whole life. Why do you let her do with you what she chooses?’

  He stared helplessly at her. Women were mad, he thought, especially when they spoke of each other. Magdalen and Kat, the thought of the other made each of them ‘poisoned and intoxicate’. He turned in revulsion from his life among women, his sisters, his wife, his mother-in-law. They talked round him, they told him things about himself, and things about each other. Little points of bitterness, of too acute perception, barbed their tongues.

  Their dreams were all of ‘favour and of prettiness’– of a new title, of a place at Court, of silk dresses by candlelight. On the reverse side of this was a ceaseless vigilance, a clutch as with claws on all that they held as their possesion – yes, even on thoughts and affections.

  He told his wife he would have no word against his sister; and a paralysing silence grew between them.

  ‘There is no real love in the world between a man and woman, he thought; and she, ‘I am driving him away, I am losing him, and if I lose him, what will I do?’

  But she did nothing. Between her brows was a little strained look of expectation, rather than fear. For where there is fear there is hope, and not for one moment did she allow herself to hope that her husband would stay in Scotland until after the Coronation. In proportion as it drew nearer, she could feel Jamie’s attention waver and recede from it. It was natural to him to fling away his advancement in order to pursue and save his sister from dishonour, unwilling though she be. And Magdalen had seen this coming, before even the occasion that caused it.

  So, early in the year whose spring was to end in the Coronation at Edinburgh, the Earl of Montrose left his country for Italy, in company with Willy Graham, the son of Graham of Morphie, and a small retinue.

  When it came to the parting, Magdalen did not weep nor cling to him; it was he then who held her to him, spoke little broken words of farewell, tried to cheer her with his own sorrow at leaving her. But she gave no response; it seemed to him that she had frozen within his arms.

  Then he went; and she stood still and stared after him, until she turned to quiet the crying of young Johnnie, who was hanging on to her skirts and had become as much aware as a puppy might be of the unnatural chill and tension in his mother.

  Her own movement broke it. She went round the house, looking on this and that which Jamie had left behind; his golf clubs, his silver arrow and other trophies from Saint Andrews, his great folio of Raleigh’s History of the World – and on that her eyes rested in a dull wonder that he had not taken it.

  ‘But he must know it too well by now to need it with him,’ she thought, with that faint acrid flavour that tinged her thoughts of all those things in which he escaped from his home, his safety, his self-interest, and her.

  These lifeless objects then were all that were left to her of that fervent body that had lain and laughed for joy within her arms. For three years she had had him with her, and borne a son to bind him to her, and now he had gone. Why had she always known this would happen? If she had not known it, she would have been so happy with him all this time, as happy perhaps as he. But her memory of his eyes, of his step on the stairs, of his voice when he teased her many fears, gave her the lie.

  I know my love by his way of walking,

  And I know my love by his way of talking,

  And I know my love by his eyes of blue,

  And if my love leaves me, what will I do?

  No, whatever happiness in life came to her, she could never be as happy as he would always be, whatever of darkness and sadness came to him. Her nurse’s old song rang in her head, mocking her:

  And still she cried, ‘I love him the best,

  But a troubled mind sure can know no rest,’

  And still she cried, ’Bonny lads are few,

  And if my love leaves me, what will I do?’

  At the echo of that refrain, some long imprisoned thing broke loose in her; in a release that was agony, she rushed to the window, flung it wide, and cried out into the empty air, ‘Oh, Jamie, come back, come back, and take me with you!’

  But the wood below was still, where once she had heard the startled pigeons rise and clatter in the branches at his approach, as he ran up to greet her the evening before their wedding.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Every morning he was unsure for an instant where he was, the strident sounds that cam
e into his waking dreams were so unfamiliar, even the footsteps sharper than those he had known, and the voices twanging and resonant as a violin string, knowing exactly what they had to say. Always there was the sound of bells, church bells pealing, bells on harness and mule carriages tinkling and clattering. Shutters rose before his opening eyes, each bar a luminous green, dark above and melting into pale below, like the scales of a dragon’s skin held up against the sun. In the top corner a tiny finger-point of that instrusive light burned crimson, then gold, then white.

  Outside, a blazing world awaited the young Earl of Montrose, where towns that looked like flowers smelled more strong and strange than even the slums of Glasgow; and the sunlight cut the streets into patterns. Bright glances met his, keen and conscious, quick in appraisement, learning all that could be learned about him by sight, while the busy intelligence behind them catalogued it securely.

  Was it the sunlight that cut the mind too into such sharp patterns, divided God from man with such neat efficiency, parted the body from both mind and soul, so that neither need be troubled by the other? Here, one knew where one was. The street or the palazza and the sunlight was the place for man; the dimly glittering darkness of the church, where the light of day never entered, was the place for God. He never troubled the mind of common men as everywhere in Scotland. But here, the mind was not God’s place. It was for Him to be; for His priests to give His orders; for the rest of mankind to accept.

  And to accept was the lesson Montrose learned of Italy, as millions of northern foreigners have learned it since. Relationships were put in their places. Magdalen became more distinctly his wife, the mother of his children, the guardian of his home; and Kat his erring sister, who had brought disgrace on his family. That she had shaken him to the depths, so that he had thought he could never touch any woman again, was a half-forgotten nightmare.

  And the quest for her did not absorb his whole self as it had done in Scotland. His home was no longer in the centre of his life. News of what happened there came to him vaguely and belatedly. Not till three months after he had left Scotland did he learn that Magdalen would bear him a second child in his absence.

  She wrote that she was glad to have something to do, and she would leave Johnnie wholly to his father, if he would let her have this new one all her own – which was only fair, since Jamie would not be there when she was born. For ‘she’ it was to be, since Magdalen, unusual in her age, wanted a daughter more than another son. And Jamie guessed that this too was because a daughter would be the more ‘all her own’.

  Both family and country remained dear to him, but were growing a little foreign. England-Scotland – an island up in the north – remote and mist-enshrouded, even a trifle barbarous – so he now began to see it in the light of his new companions’ questions.

  Was it true that in his country they had only lately began to use forks at dinner? that in spite of the frigid climate the inhabitants of the northern mountains went about half-naked? that there were neither gardeners nor sculptors in the whole island? since their great lords, when they wished to adorn their estates, had to send for them from Italy? And the compliments Montrose received on his own table manners and knowledge of modern languages, the surprise which greeted his remark that he had not travelled before, unflatteringly revealed the general opinion of his country.

  Even his standard of sportsmanship had to be readjusted. No one here had even heard of golf, and when he tried to explain it, it was regarded as an incredibly crude and childish game. Archery was out of date in warfare, and therefore in sport too. Montrose buried his pearl-inlaid bow at the bottom of his trunk, and learned all that he could of modern gunnery from the progressive Italian engineers.

  So he did in all things. No sternly active dreams of what he would do, now came from him, as they had done in his northern home, where the bleak air, the frowning aspect of the rugged heath against the sky, the draughty corner by the fire, invited all glow and comfort, all prospect of life and variety to come from within. But here, sensuous and teeming life surrounded him, from the lover serenading his mistress in the warm darkness of the summer night, to the lizard darting like a living emerald across the sun-baked rock; and here, for the only time in his life, he relaxed, received, let life flow round him and into him.

  But he did what he could with the guesswork which was all he could make of Colquhoun’s movements. He wrote letters and sent messengers to one town after another, he went to Rome and made inquiries of the Ambassador and the English college there.

  In Rome there was a colony of Scots and English, more immediately friendly and fluent than any he had known. How they talked! It must be the sun, which disinclined one to do anything else. But the talk of these witty connoisseurs, these cultured men of the world, was by no means all of art and letters, still less of the events that were racking Europe – of the war that was devastating Germany, the death of the great Swedish conqueror, Gustavus Adolphus, at the height of his triumphs, and the growing danger to Protestantism all over Europe.

  To the handful of Protestants in this alien city close under the Vatican, whose shadow was advancing with its armies over Europe, what mattered most was the relative value of the Italian money to pounds Scots or sterling.

  Detached from the responsibilities of their estates, they clung to slighter personal relations, were quickly pleased or annoyed with new arrivals, gossiped, quarrelled, took sides, split into factions, drank enormously of Italian wine while complaining that it was not English ale, and did all they could to provide themselves with worries, so that they might not be too much cloyed with the unwonted amenities of their life.

  So young Lord Angus explained to Montrose, when he took him to dine at the English college in Rome and expounded the little colony, easily, mockingly, as he could never have done before he had left Scotland. Angus’ father was back there, happily expecting his promotion at the Coronation to the Marquisate of Douglas – but what odds would that make out here? demanded Angus, where one God-damn milord was of the same rank as another. But his father would never understand that; he had just told Angus to increase his retinue on the strength of the new family honour, ‘and that’s all the strength that can carry it, for it has never occurred to the old gentleman to increase my allowance as well.’

  Did not Montrose find all this family feeling a trifle ridiculous? Douglas would be delighted with his son for entertaining the head of the Grahams to dinner, but why should they, two sensible fellows living in the present day, care if their ancestors had fallen together at Flodden, or slipped up at Selkirk, or been pinked at Pinkie, as long as this pleasant golden Roman wine could now make them fall together under the same table?

  Montrose laughed rather shyly, envying his companion’s rapid flow of talk. And yet as he watched the freckled, blunt-featured face that had acquired this new look of conscious cleverness – was this what he himself had wanted to be?

  Though Caesar’s paragon I cannot be,

  Yet shall I soar in thought as high as he.

  But only a prig, a poet, would remember here the lines he had written in the margin of his school books. Once again he accepted the occasion, and soon was merrier than Angus, though never as critically aware of occasions for laughter in his fellows.

  But in the opinion of that over-civilized young man, suspicious of the promise of strength, even sternness, in the keen eye and high-bridged, hawk-like nose of his companion’s profile, Montrose was too country-bred, too unyielding and reserved, ever to make his way in this flexible modern world. There was something aloof and haughty in his bearing, for all the boyish simplicity with which he relied on Angus to tell him the customs of the country, His pride was sensitive, not to take offence, but to avoid any occasion for it, in himself or others. Often had Angus seen him prevent some silly squabble among their fellow countrymen, as though he could not bear that any standard in his company should be lower than his own.

  The recent disgrace to his family had deepened his natural sensiti
veness; he feared that in talking to him, people would remember the scandal about his sister, and be thinking ill of her. This made him unwilling to seek new friendships among his countrymen. All he met knew that he had come abroad in pursuit of his sister and brother-in-law, but none dared refer to this, nor question him. In a society so chattily intimate, this was rare indeed, and he himself was half aware of its rarity, for sometimes it struck him how much more at home would Sir John Colquhoun be in this company than himself. He would even find himself listening for Colquhoun’s voice among the conversation, so appropriate would be the intrusion of those eagerly social tones.

  It was while he was at Rome that a report reached him of a very tall English milord at Venice, travelling with his young wife. Sir John was certainly travelling incognito, and would probably pass as an Englishman to help his disguise. Carlippis did not appear to be with him, but otherwise there was some probability that this Englishman might be Colquhoun, enough to send Montrose hot-foot to Venice.

  He reached it on a fierce midday in June. He had been riding since three o’clock that morning, and had changed horses twice to keep up the pace. In the last hour of noonday heat he seemed to have been riding in his sleep, and had to hold on to his saddle for a moment when he dismounted, giddy and half blinded. Then he walked down a narrow path beside a roadway of water, and sat in the doorway of a tavern and drank a glass of wine while he sent his Italian servant to make inquiries.

  He was given a roll of bread, and crumbled and threw some to the pigeons that were cooing and wheeling in long white strokes through the glittering air. His eyes shut against the glare, and black suns came whirling past the red darkness inside his eyelids. They turned into faces, silly faces like those he had drawn on the sand as a child – three dots for eyes and nose, a stroke for a mouth. ‘I am falling asleep,’ he said to himself, and opened his eyes for an instant on the pigeons.