by Douglas Watt
If you are reading these words set down with my own hand, I am no longer in this world but have joined my beloved husband.
The opening sentence brought MacKenzie forward in his chair. He straightened his back, lowering his eyebrows. Thoughts of history were gone. He rose, taking the letter to the windows overlooking the garden, where leaves were falling from the trees into the sandstone fountain. Rain was pouring down the panes. The infusion of natural light allowed him to read on.
I have ordered my servant Janet to send you this letter if anything should happen to me, as now it surely has. Dark forces have overwhelmed my poor family. It is not for my own sake that I write to you but for my daughters, Euphame and Rosina. They are young women without a mother or father to guide them through this valley of tears. I fear they are in great danger.
I am not able to write openly to you of all matters, lest this letter should be intercepted by my enemies. So I ask you to seek out Janet Cornfoot, my oldest servant, whom I have known since I was a girl. She is the only one I trust in the parish. Believe all that she tells you, even if it runs counter to your rational thoughts. She can be found in her cottage in the Blinkbonny Woods where she is settled in old age.
I know my dear husband held you in the highest regard, as do I. I have no one else to turn to. I beg you to protect my children. But do not tell anyone that I have made this request of you. When you come to Lammersheugh, follow the role of family lawyer.
I ask that you have particular regard to my latterwill which I have recently altered. You will find much in it if you read deeply, as I know you will. Only a man of experience and wisdom can unpick the tangled threads which have led to this calamity.
Please keep my daughters at the front of your thoughts. The future may bring happier times for the House of Lammersheugh.
Your most humble friend,
Grissell Hay, Lady Lammersheugh
MacKenzie looked solemnly out of the window. The wind was whipping leaves widdershins around the fountain. He wondered what dreadful events had overwhelmed Grissell. The last time they had met, about two years ago, she was in mourning for her husband Alexander, who had died of the flux. A Gaelic proverb came to him – Chan eil fhios air an uair seach a’ mhionaid. He translated, speaking the words aloud as if explaining them to Davie Scougall – The hour of death is as unknown as the minute. It was over forty years since his father died, five since he had buried his mother. And now this fine woman had been taken in the most terrible circumstances.
Clouds rolled in. The sky darkened. There was a slight hint of something remembered, the familiar feeling of nausea. But he knew he could dispel it. Despite the disturbing news, he felt his mind opening, turning away from itself. There was something more to be done than dull work at the Session. Life had been uneventful since the escapade with the evil rogue Glenbeg and the chameleon Primrose.
He adjusted his periwig in a small mirror, noticing that he was almost an old man. Almost, he thought, but not quite. His memoirs must wait. There was work to be done.
His daughter was in the kitchen overseeing the preparation of dinner, chatting to Meg, the cook. ‘Beth.’ He always used the diminutive when he thought she might be displeased with what he was about to say. She smiled, relieved to see his good humour had returned. ‘I have news from Edinburgh. I must go back tonight.’
Her smile disappeared. ‘But father… a storm is on the way. You cannot travel on such a night!’
MacKenzie took his daughter’s hand and kissed it.
CHAPTER 5 - Death on the Castle Hill
SCOUGALL CHECKED THE time on his new clock, completed the clause he was writing, and returned his quill to the stand. With great care he placed the document in a small chest, which he then locked. As he pulled on his black cloak, he ruefully thought of Elizabeth MacKenzie, smiling to himself as he recalled the painful shyness of his first visit to The Hawthorns. He had imagined that they had become good friends and had allowed his imagination to create a future for them. But what could an advocate’s daughter, and a pretty one at that, see in a dull notary public who brought neither wealth nor looks? He caught his reflection in the window. He was a small plain man with a ridiculous wig on his head. As self-loathing rose within him, his face coloured. He was no catch, of that he was sure. The company which Elizabeth kept was miles above him; sons and daughters of advocates and lairds, even the nobility, a world of which he was not a part of. It was only natural that she should seek to marry as high as possible. He knew in his heart that MacKenzie would not approve of a match to a man like him.
But on opening the door of his small office, his feelings of inadequacy disappeared. The view of the crown-shaped steeple of St Giles against the sky always cheered him. He could offer other things, if not looks or wealth – affection, security, love. He would have to lower his sights somewhat. Perhaps the daughter of a Musselburgh merchant. His mother could secure him a list of candidates as she knew everyone in the parish. He must visit home soon and begin proceedings. But the prospect of a local girl did not excite him much. There was also Edinburgh – a daughter of a fellow notary public. He could ask MacKenzie to keep his ear to the ground. He thought of the wry smile appearing on his face as he broached the subject. But after a laugh he might provide some sound advice.
His parents had been on at him for years to marry. For some reason he kept putting it off. He was now twenty-five with savings of 500 pounds Scots, more than 40 pounds sterling, a healthy sum for a man of his age. Paying only a lodging fee to Mrs Baird, he was able to put away a little each month. And he had prospects. MacKenzie held his work in high regard. When he retired he was likely to recommend him to his clients. But would a Musselburgh lass or an Edinburgh one make the better match? That was a question for MacKenzie’s philosophers!
He closed the door, locked it and climbed a few steps. The High Street was much busier than usual. All kinds of folk came to town to see a witch burn.
He picked his way through the crowd drifting up towards the castle. Crossing the road to the Luckenbooths, he began to browse in the shops surrounding the ancient kirk, looking for a bargain, perhaps a collection of sonnets to impress a prospective wife. He found himself, as he often did, at Mr Shields’ booth – a bookseller who dealt in golf clubs, the perfect combination!
Scougall had begun to collect books, influenced by MacKenzie’s large library at The Hawthorns. He had purchased a bookcase which took pride of place in his lodgings and was now filled with a hundred books. A year before he had only possessed half a dozen texts. A new purchase would bring him much pleasure.
He rummaged through the books, broadsheets and pamphlets on the table, before catching sight of a work he had not seen before. Taking the small book in his hands, he read the title with growing interest: Satan’s Invisible World Discovered; or, A choice Collection of Modern Relations, proving evidently against the Saducees and Atheists of this present Age, that there are Devils, Spirits, Witches, and Apparitions, from Authentick Records, Attestations of Famous Witnesses, and undoubted Verity by Mr George Sinclair late Professor of Philosophy in the Colledge of Glasgow.
The old bookseller addressed him enthusiastically, revealing a cavern of decaying teeth: ‘A recent publication, Mr Scougall – a work of fine scholarship. The author was a professor at the college of Glasgow.’ He lowered his voice, looking around furtively to make sure no one was listening. ‘He is a man of the Covenant. Our time comes, our time comes.’ Shields knew that Scougall shared his preference for the Presbyterian form of Protestant worship.
Putting religious politics aside, he continued his sales pitch. ‘He proves beyond doubt the ignorance of atheism.’ The bookseller shook his head. ‘We must be vigilant, Mr Scougall, always vigilant. Satan is at work in Scotland. He ploughs in fertile fields. We are all sinners.’ Then lowering his voice again: ‘Our King is an agent of Antichrist, is he not?’
Scougall ignored the question. Weighing the book in his hands, he experienced a slither of excitement. The
subject matter was intoxicating.
‘How much are you asking, Mr Shields?’
The young lawyer attempted to conceal his interest, but the bookseller knew he had a sale.
‘A fine read, Mr Scougall. A fine read. You will learn much from it.’ He looked up in the direction of the castle. ‘I must close up soon, sir. It is almost time. Five shillings.’
It was more than he had expected to pay, but Scougall was too eager to barter. ‘I will take it.’ Removing some coins from his pocket, he handed them to the old man.
Engrossed with his purchase, he had not noticed the crowd swelling around the Luckenbooths, drifting slowly up the High Street towards the Castle. As he thanked Shields, a hush descended. All eyes turned in the direction of the Canongate. Scougall slipped the book into a pocket of his cloak.
A small procession was just visible coming from the direction of Holyrood House. At first he could only discern a horse drawing a cart, but as it came closer he saw that a tall figure walked in front. The realisation that this was the public hangman gave him a jolt. A minister and four town guards followed behind. As they approached, he noticed another person sitting in the cart; a small bareheaded woman dressed in sackcloth. Her head was cast down. She was a tiny, crumpled thing.
The cart seemed to take forever to reach him. When it did, the wheels stopped suddenly, directly across the road. He was shocked when the woman raised her head, for he had expected to see the ugly countenance of an old hag. Instead he looked on a young woman with a desperate look on her pale face. Although she was emaciated and exhausted, her eyes still burned with life. For an instant they fixed on him. Out of the whole crowd she had chosen him! The gaze of a witch was upon him! Fear danced across his chest. He was terrified that she was about to accuse him of complicity in her crimes. He looked down at his boots, counting the seconds. At last the wheels turned.
She did not look capable of harming anyone, but Satan could trick the unwary. He closed his eyes, beseeching God to protect him, recalling the words of Exodus: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. The Devil was surely at work in Scotland, as Mr Shields said.
Scougall joined the throng behind the cart, drawn by the invisible pull of a public execution. They plodded their way in a silence broken intermittently by angry shouts, words of bitter hatred launched at the witch.
They were soon in the Lawnmarket, the part of the High Street nearest Edinburgh Castle, where tenements rose steeply on either side to six storeys. The windows were all open. Another crowd was witnessing events from the stone walls above. By the time they reached the Castle Hill it was growing dark. Scougall looked around him at the morbid procession of flickering torchlit faces: men and woman, young and old, rich and poor, nobles, lairds, lawyers, clerks, craftsmen and beggars. Cloaks pulled in tight against the cold.
The sun set behind the black mass of the Castle, transforming the hill into an amphitheatre of darkness. The cart came to rest in an open area lit by torches. The woman was dragged down by the hangman and pushed towards a wooden stake about six feet in height. Scougall noticed that she was shaking. A whimpering sound came from her lips. But he was too far away to hear the prayer she uttered. He did not catch her words of recantation, begging God for forgiveness.
The executioner tied her to the stake. Recalling the list of sins that she had committed, Scougall wondered what path had led her to such a death. The minister offered a brief prayer, but his words were lost in the wind, blown into the black emptiness. As he moved back into the shadows, she looked down, unable to meet the eyes of the tall figure who was approaching.
Scougall had expected more ceremony, but the hangman’s hands were round her neck, crushing the life out of her as if strangling a goose. She was dead in a couple of minutes. Scougall prayed for her soul. The executioner set light to the faggots around the stake. The body was quickly engulfed in flames, the reek of roasting flesh drifting across the night.
Satan is diminished, God is victorious, Scougall told himself. He experienced a mixture of emotions; relief for his country and his own soul – a witch was dead; but also an aching hatred of the Devil for corrupting such a pitiful creature.
CHAPTER 6 - A Portrait of Lady Girnington
LOOKING AT THE portrait of the young woman, she tried to remember what it was like not to be afflicted by grossness. It had been painted just after her marriage in 1656, when the great Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. She was sixteen and her husband sixty-four. She had returned to Scotland after a torrid six months in London, having delivered an ugly little child which was taken from her a few minutes after the birth. She recalled the baby’s startled bastard face as it was presented to her after a day’s agony. When fever took hold of her, the doctors had thought that she would not live to see the dawn. But somehow, against the odds, she had rallied. When she woke, childless, she felt transformed herself; no longer the young maid seeking excitement in the south. Perhaps the Devil had taken her soul.
Her time in London was a frivolous sequence of dinners and receptions among the great and good who surrounded Cromwell; a court of a kind. Oliver was king in all but name and would have made a glorious one. She recalled the lightness and dizziness of her youth. She was beautiful and courted by all, even the great man himself had praised her beauty. Elizabeth Murray, who was now Duchess of Lauderdale, was a jealous rival. It had seemed that anything was possible. Then she met him, a young kinsman of the Earl of Fairfax. He lured her with his fine looks and wit, writing sonnets in praise of her, expressing his love, the urgency of his desire, telling her they should seize the moment, not tarry, for who knew what the future might hold. And he was proved right. Two years later he was dead from plague.
She looked at the image of herself from that time. She was lean with soft white skin, dark curls of hair on her shoulders, sparkling eyes. She was struck by her body’s fecundity. The artist, whose name now escaped her, had done a good job. But the man in London had taken everything from her, disappearing like a spirit when he learned she was with child, seeking out another virgin to deflower.
The birth had changed her. She looked again at the image of the young woman recently married to the Laird of Girnington. She knew that behind those eyes was furious resentment at the way she had been treated. When she emerged from the fever she had vowed that she would live thereafter on her own terms, and had done so during the thirty years since, although she had paid a price. A twinge of guilt was banished by anger; for her treatment by the courtier, the poet, the liar; but also for her treatment by her father who had banished her, to the small estate of Girnington not far from where she was born, and to the little laird whom she had married, and whom she literally and metaphorically looked down on; a man she had regarded as old, even as a young girl when he had played with her in the gardens of Lammersheugh.
She had removed every portrait of him from Girnington when he died. There were no close relatives to complain about their disappearance, so she had gathered them up, thought about consigning them to the cellar, but instead carried them herself to a quiet spot in the gardens and burned them. She had hated the little creature so much that she had rejoiced when he was struck down by palsy two years after their marriage. She had hastened his end, taken the eiderdown pillow from his bed and smothered him with it. He was so weak there was barely any struggle. She told herself that she did not want him to linger in pain. And there he lay, peacefully. She wondered if she was destined for Hell, but somehow she could not believe in such a place. How could there be a Hell if there was no God? There was only human power, hard and brutal, the sole absolute in the universe.
The image of the little man on her wedding day still brought colour to her cheeks, even after thirty years. She had hoped to marry an English earl’s son. Negotiations between her father and the Earl of Moltonfield were well advanced. Her father’s service for Cromwell’s regime had propelled him from Lothian laird to political figure of importance. They had met on a number of o
ccasions, but were never left alone. He was tall and handsome, a real catch. But she had been weak. Desire had tortured her. She could not wait. She had let lust transport her.
A vision of her wedding night came back to her with all its humiliations. The withered cock in her hands, like a lifeless sparrow starved of blood; her vain attempts to bring life to it, the words she had used to rouse him. She could recall each one as if spoken yesterday. No girl should have to suffer in that way. She had demanded her own bed and he had obliged readily enough. She could not sleep with such a creature. She was voluptuous. She had a body which men were captivated by. He was unmoved by her full breasts. She called him ‘sodomite’ in her anger, remembering something of the stories he told of his youth in Italy.
She had sought refuge in food and lovers. She had exalted in both pleasures, eating men like dishes, devouring dishes like men. She hoped that one would make her pregnant. A child would be some return for her misfortune, a replacement for the one she had been forced to give up. Her first lover was the artist who had painted the portrait she looked upon. She remembered with pleasure the shocked expression on his face as she took the brush from his hand, placed it on the easel and held his young hand to her breast. He was good; they had fucked each time he painted her. After a couple of sessions she lost her inhibitions, uncaring of whether she was interrupted by the servants. On one occasion her husband himself came into the chamber as she straddled her lover. He left as if he had witnessed nothing and never mentioned it. She threatened the servants that if they spread rumours they would be dismissed. Anyway, she did not care. It conquered her despair for a little while. But there was no child.
The painter was soon gone and she took others, sucking the seed from them, hoping that they might impregnate her. She chose them judiciously, seeking satisfaction only in those over whom she had power and whose silence could be bought, so that none might control her; virile servants, indebted lairds, doctors with pregnant wives. Only one had caused trouble. A lawyer, who went to swear before the kirk session that she had spoken lewdly to him when ostensibly seeking legal advice, but she denied everything and preserved her reputation for rectitude within the parish. Sometimes she travelled to Edinburgh or London, where she could more easily obtain young men. She never loved another after the poet. As she became more gross in body and her beauty faded, she felt her power grow.