Lady Magdalen

by Robin Jenkins

  Those seemed to Magdalen wise and true words, though negligently drawled. Yet, to her amazement, all the time Rothes was carrying on a dalliance with one of the tablemaids, Cissie Baxter, a bonny, buxom, cheerful girl of 17. He kept giving her smiles of intrigue and she, though not so accomplished at the game, kept returning them, with blushes. Once he let his hand alight on her buttock. The gem in his ring glittered; as did her eyes. Her bosom heaved. She became clumsy in handling the dishes. She had the reputation of being too free with her favours, but this was a great gentleman, not a coarse bumpkin. She would be able to boast till she was an old woman that she had been to bed with the famous Presbyterian earl. There might be a bagful of guineas in it for her and, if she had his bastard, more bagfuls.

  That was how Cissie saw it. How did Lord Rothes see it? Would he, so intelligent in other matters, risk contumely and ridicule for the sake of a few minutes’ pleasure with a maidservant, whose cheeks were red and whose breasts were large? Suppose he got her pregnant. She might be pleased to have an earl’s bastard, but what of him? Would it not trouble his conscience that he had a son or daughter being brought up in a mean cottage, with for a stepfather a cowherd or ostler or baker, or whoever Cissie eventually married?

  His henchmen were aware of what was going on and found it entertaining. This did not surprise Magdalen, but so too was the Revd. Mr Graham amused, which astonished her. The old minister had been drinking more wine than he should but not even when drunk should he be condoning and even encouraging these preliminaries to fornication, that heinous sin. When he looked up at Cissie, it was not to freeze her with a puritanical scowl but rather to give her a maudlin blessing. Lord Rothes, the Kirk’s foremost champion, was the Lord’s anointed and could do no wrong, and must be indulged in all things. That was how she interpreted the white-haired minister’s crapulous leer.

  Meanwhile, James was searching his memory for instances from Greek and Roman history of right triumphing over might. He was quite oblivious to what was going on between Cissie and his chief guest.

  Afterwards in their bedroom she decided not to mention it. In any case James had himself drunk too much and besides was hoarse with talking; so he quickly fell asleep. As she lay beside him in the dark she thought she heard coughing; but it could have been the wind.

  4

  NEXT MORNING, LORD Rothes was as urbane as ever as he sat beside Magdalen in the courtyard in sunshine, watching James and others put on a display of swordplay and archery. A few minutes before, she had had a bad bout of sickness and had come out to recover in the fresh air.

  ‘Are you feeling better now?’ he asked, with genuine solicitude.

  She could easily understand why women were charmed by him. Was it possible that this elegant gentleman, so civilised and so much in command of himself, had last night lustfully made use of a servant girl’s luscious body?

  ‘Yes, thank you, my lord,’ she said.

  ‘My friends call me John. I would very much like if you would. I shall take the liberty of calling you Magdalen: such a beautiful name. It is heartless of me to say so, Magdalen, but a little pallor becomes you wonderfully. I don’t wonder that Jameson was inspired to paint that marvellous portrait.’

  ‘James doesn’t like it.’

  ‘James, if I may say so, is a better judge of a war-horse than of a painting.’

  He turned his head away for a bout of coughing, with his handkerchief at his mouth. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, when he had recovered. ‘May I confide in you, Magdalen?’

  Surely he was not going to confess about him and Cissie?

  ‘Were you present when your good-sister Lady Lilias asked me if I had heard aught of her husband Sir John Colquhoun?’

  ‘Yes, I was present.’

  So had James been, squirming and glowering.

  ‘I’m sorry to say that you heard me tell a lie.’

  ‘Do you mean, you have news of him?’

  ‘Yes. A friend of mine, also a friend of Sir John’s, I may say, returned from the Continent a week or two ago. He met Sir John in Paris.’

  ‘Was Katherine with him?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid I have no information about the young lady. She was not mentioned. My friend was given the strong impression that Sir John is confident that he will be pardoned in a year or two’s time and allowed to return to his estate on Loch Lomond. I understand his wife is willing to have him back.’

  ‘That is all she lives for. She has long since forgiven him. Will he be pardoned?’

  ‘He has influential friends. I have to say he was always a popular fellow.’

  ‘He treated Lilias shamefully.’

  ‘So he did but, as you say, she has forgiven him.’

  ‘What will happen to Katherine if he comes back? What has happened to her? No one seems to know and no one cares.’

  ‘In such cases, Magdalen, a man’s friends are not inclined to pass moral judgment on him. They think they do not know all the facts and forby they are too conscious of the motes in their own eyes.’

  ‘Women see it differently.’

  ‘I am sure they do.’

  ‘Poor Katherine.’

  ‘Poor Katherine indeed. I must be frank, though, and say that I have heard she was herself a great deal to blame.’

  ‘She was only seventeen.’

  ‘Ah yes, very young.’ Was he reflecting that Cissie Baxter was no older?

  ‘Why didn’t you tell Lilias the truth? It would have made her happy.’

  ‘I feared it might do the opposite. But, if you think it would give her any comfort, please tell her yourself. You can assure her that her husband is in good health. His only complaint seems to be lack of money.’

  ‘Have you told James?’

  ‘I would sooner put my head in a lion’s mouth.’

  Just then James approached them, panting, sword in hand. His white shirt was soaked with sweat.

  ‘Tell me, James,’ said Rothes, smiling, ‘is the sword really an effective weapon? Is there not nowadays a school of thought in military academies, which believes it is not? When the swordsman’s arm is raised to deliver the blow the sturdy pikeman sticks him in the belly. I am referring to a swordsman on horseback, which of course is how gentlemen fight.’

  ‘The pikeman’s skull is cleft in twain before he has time to deliver his blow.’

  ‘In which case would he not simply pierce the horse’s belly, so that it would rear up and unseat its rider? When he is sprawling on the ground, how easy to despatch him! Or is there an agreement among soldiers that horses, which, after all, have never been asked their opinions, ought as far as possible to be spared?’

  ‘A good war-horse is an active combatant,’ said James. ‘A cavalry charge, for those making it, is the most exhilarating thing on earth, and for those facing it the most fearsome.’

  ‘Have you ever taken part in a cavalry charge, James?’

  ‘At Artois, at the academy there, they arrange mock charges. I have taken part in those. The foe were dummies stuffed with straw. Nevertheless, it was exhilarating to slash off their heads.’

  ‘James, you are making your lovely young wife feel faint.’

  James apologised, somewhat perfunctorily, and then went over to his sons, who, wearing their silver armour, were seated on stools, fascinated by the flashing swords.

  ‘How childish men are,’ she murmured.

  Rothes chuckled. ‘How can I deny that? You should hear the debates in Parliament.’

  ‘Is there going to be war? My father thinks so.’

  ‘There will be, unless one side gives way.’

  ‘Will one side give way?’

  ‘Ah, that is the question, as the fellow says in the play.’

  ‘And what is the answer?’

  ‘Most men think that if their cause is good and that of their opponents bad then it would be immoral and cowardly to give in without a fight. As you know, that is decidedly James’s view.’

  ‘Yes.’

  �
�He is not yet quite won over to our way of thinking. He still has some small theological doubts about taking up arms against his monarch. We shall send some divine to persuade him. Someone reasonable. James has a horror of fanatics, though, to be candid, is he not one himself when he has a sword in his hand?’

  Cheered on by his sons, James was giving them an exhibition of how to slash off imaginary heads.

  5

  LORD ROTHES AND his entourage had hardly left the castle, when Magdalen, in the room where she kept the household accounts and interviewed anyone with a request or complaint, had a visit from Mistress Nicholson, the housekeeper, a big dour-faced woman of about fifty, with a mannish voice and mannish hands. According to Janet, she was very pious and spent hours praying. ‘No’ asking the Lord, mind you, but telling Him.’ She was disliked and feared by most of the maidservants. Magdalen herself found her intimidating and would have got rid of her if she hadn’t been at Kincardine longer than Magdalen herself.

  ‘I’m sorry tae trouble ye, my lady,’ she said.

  Magdalen always felt tingles of unease when this woman addressed her. It wasn’t that she was rude but, on the contrary, that she was so ingratiating: it did not go well with her harsh voice and coarse face.

  ‘It’s no trouble, Mistress Nicholson. Please sit down and tell me what’s the matter.’

  ‘If you dinna mind, my lady, I’ll staun’. I ken my place, no’ like ithers I could name. I wadna be here, my lady, if I didna think I owed it to you, to his lordship the earl, and to oor Saviour Jesus Christ.’

  I am pious myself, thought Magdalen, at least I try to be, so why am I so often distrustful of other people’s piety? Especially this woman’s. She always comes to have some girl punished, never to plead on any girl’s behalf.

  ‘What is it you wish to tell me?’

  ‘I’m laith tae soil my mooth and your ears, my lady.’

  Why, then, speak with such gloating relish?

  ‘It’s aboot that shameless young whure, Cissie Baxter.’

  Was she deranged? Did not many women at her time of life, especially if they had never been married, suffer changes in their bodies which also affected their minds?

  Mistress Nicholson was now panting, as if she had just run up a flight of steps. ‘She used her whure’s tricks to win her way intae Lord Rothes’s bed.’

  ‘Please do not use that word in my presence.’

  ‘There’s nae ither word tae describe her, my lady. She took money.’

  ‘Is your complaint against Lord Rothes too, who gave her the money?’

  ‘She did a’ the enticing, my lady, wi’ thae big white briests that wad entice Christ Jesus Himsel’.’

  Magdalen’s scalp went cold with disgust. There was spittle on the woman’s chin.

  ‘She should be whupped. On her bare erse. Till the bluid rins. Till she screamed for mercy. I’d dae it mysel’.’ Her voice rose to a demented shriek.

  There is someone else present in this room, thought Magdalen, being defiled by the evil in this woman’s mind: my unborn daughter. Was her innocence already destroyed before she was born, as indeed Mr Henderson was fond of saying in his sermons?

  Mistress Nicholson, having lost all control of herself, was weeping and mumbling obscenities. She kept raising her right arm as if it was wielding the bloodstained whip.

  Magdalen stood up. The woman would have to see a doctor; obviously, she was not well in her mind. She might have to be locked up in the meantime. There was a cell in the basement of the castle where in the old days mad people had been confined.

  Magdalen remembered Francis Gowrie’s saying that the people watching old Jessie burn had laughed. They must have been ill in their minds too.

  Who in the world was sane? In a few years’ time there might be war, with Scotsmen killing Scotsmen, in the name of God. Was not that the greatest insanity?

  She put her hand on Mistress Nicholson’s arm, to restrain it. To her horror, it was seized and covered with wet kisses.

  ‘I’m sorry, my lady, I’m sorry. It comes ower me at times. I canna stop it.’

  She let go and rushed out of the room.

  Magdalen involuntarily rubbed her hand against her dress but that filthy thing, whatever it was, now stuck to it and nothing would ever get it off again.

  Usually so ready with advice and information, Janet this time was sweirt. She stood, tight-lipped, her fingers going as if counting beads. ‘Dinna ask me, my lady.’

  ‘Is the poor woman mad?’

  ‘She’s first in kirk every Sunday and it’s her voice you hear abune a’ the ithers singing psalms.’

  But was not excessive religiosity a form of madness, causing the destruction of churches, the wrecking of beautiful works of art, and the burning of old women?

  ‘What is the matter with her, Janet? I can see you know. Has it to do with her age?’

  ‘She’s the same age as me. And, like her, I was never mairried.’

  ‘What has that to do with it?’

  ‘Mair than you think maybe.’

  Magdalen began to understand. She had sometimes wondered if being a spinster, and a virgin, accounted for Janet’s own peculiarities. According to Mr Henderson, women were intended by God to get married and have children: that was their chief purpose in life. Therefore, they must have done to them what produced children. If they remained virginal all their lives, did they become unfulfilled and embittered? But, in that case, what of nuns?

  It was a most un-nunlike young woman who came flouncing in, with curtsies just too extravagant to be respectful. There was mischief in them or perhaps it was fairer to say they were meant in fun. For Cissie was far from conscience-stricken. She was very pleased with herself and she looked on Magdalen as her mistress, yes, as the earl’s wife and therefore a great lady, yes, but also as a young woman like herself.

  ‘You wanted to see me, my lady?’

  Magdalen could have called her Baxter and so put her in her place, but she did not have the heart.

  ‘Yes, Cissie, I did want to see you.’

  Better to leave Mistress Nicholson out of it. Simply reprimand the girl for having the impudence to sleep with a guest. But how to put it?

  ‘I believe, Cissie, you made a nuisance of yourself last night with one of his lordship’s guests.’

  Cissie had no inhibitions about sitting down or about crossing her legs either, to reveal shapely ankles. She burst out laughing. ‘A nuisance! That’s a new name for it. I ken auld Nicholson was here clyping aboot me, but I’ll explain aboot her in a meenute. Lord Rothes is the guest you mean, my lady. Weel, he invited me. I wasna sure I should, but Mr Graham the meenister whispered tae me it wad be a’ richt, the Lord wad forgie me. So I thocht I should obleege the gentleman. That’s a’ there was tae it, my lady.’

  When Magdalen had got her breath back, she said, in a faint voice: ‘Did Mr Graham actually give you permission?’

  ‘That he did, my lady. I could tell you things aboot him that wad amaze you. He wanted me himsel’ aince. In the kirk it was. He held me back after the kirk had skailed. He went doon on his knees, begging me, wi’ tears in his een. That’s the gospel truth. May I roast in hell if it’s a lie.’

  Magdalen indeed was amazed. ‘He couldn’t have been aware of what he was saying.’

  ‘You mean, because he was drunk? Weel, he wasna drunk in kirk, was he? In ony case, I’ve heard him and ither meenisters say that there are chosen folk, chosen by the Lord I mean, wha canna dae wrang nae maitter whit they dae. Weel, I thocht Lord Rothes was bound to be ane o’ them, so if he was excused sae was I.’

  What she was saying, though absurd, was sound Calvinist doctrine.

  Magdalen was in danger of appearing the one at fault. How dare she reprove this happy, good-hearted, obliging girl!

  ‘Did he give you money?’

  ‘I hope you’ll excuse me saying that’s private, my lady.’

  ‘Didn’t it occur to you that you could have become pregnant?’


  ‘Sure it did. It occurred to him tae. Maybe I am pregnant.’ The glance she directed at Magdalen’s stomach said: ‘Like you, my lady.’ She went on: ‘I was going tae tell you aboot auld Nicholson.’

  Magdalen should have stopped her then but didn’t.

  ‘She’s got a spite against me. Dae you ken why? You see, she likes tae hae a lassie sleeping wi’ her.’

  But what was so shocking about that? Beds were scarce and had to be shared. Magdalen herself had often slept with one or other of her sisters.

  ‘The trouble is, she canna keep her haun’s tae hersel’. If you see whit I mean, my lady.’

  Magdalen saw, and blushed, and felt nausea. She could only too easily imagine those big mannish hands busy all over a young girl’s naked body.

  ‘I telt her straight tae her face I wasna haeing ony auld wife pawing me, so she’s been waiting for a chance to pey me back. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, my lady; there are lots o’ things going on in the castle that you nor my lord the earl ken onything aboot.’

  Yet, where in all this was his lordship, the earl? Too immersed in national matters to bother about what was going on in the parish or even in his own castle. He would dismiss this affair of Cissie and Lord Rothes or that of Cissie and Mistress Nicholson as parochial clishmaclavers, not worthy of the future general’s attention. Yet it was these which would be avidly talked about all over the parish, in every house and croft, not the threatened imposition of bishops or the insolence of Hamilton, the King’s favourite, or the sinister ambitions of Argyll, or the suspect loyalty of Gordon.

  ‘Can you keep a secret, my lady?’ asked Cissie, now very much the co-conspirator. ‘I’m betrothed, or I think I am’. She made a face.

  ‘Betrothed?’

  ‘Weel, we’ve exchanged vows, ower a stream: according tae an auld custom, he said.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘You’d never guess.’

  There were any number of men in the parish who had a fancy for Cissie.

  ‘He’s never dirtied his haun’s,’ said Cissie, giving a hint.