Lady Magdalen

by Robin Jenkins

  When Mrs Witherspoon came one day, pale and tearful, and said that she had just been told by the Earl that she was to be dismissed, Magdalen’s first reaction was indignation. How dare her father and her brother, James, who she was sure had a hand in it, do such a thing without consulting her. Sympathy soon followed. She asked Mrs Witherspoon to sit down and tell her about it.

  Mrs Witherspoon sat down and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. Her tears were genuine, though there was more anger in them than hurt. They did not prevent her from gazing at her mistress with calculation. If she told the truth, with only minor departures from it, would this simple-minded good-hearted ninny forgive her and take her part? It never ceased to amaze Mrs Witherspoon that Lady Magdalen was the daughter of an earl and the wife of the most notorious man in Scotland. The trouble was how to explain to this well-meaning ignoramus those visits of her randy cousin to Mrs Witherspoon’s room. For Mrs Witherspoon was sure that Lady Magdalen, though she had borne four children, knew nothing of the sexual appetites of men. As a young girl, she had been teased by her sisters for her nun-like innocence, and she had never really got rid of it. So, as Mrs Witherspoon sat there, peeping through her handkerchief and ready to drop on to her knees in supplication, she could not help thinking how absurd it was that she, so much handsomer and so better adapted to the ways of the world, should have to beg this grey-haired, flat-chested, sickly little creature to save her.

  ‘What reason did my father give?’ asked Lady Magdalen, though she had guessed.

  Her brother, James, Lord Carnegie, had grumbled to her that Mrs Witherspoon ought not to be her companion: it was a position for a lady of quality. He must have grumbled to their father too.

  ‘He said your companion should be a lady of quality.’

  Yes, but Magdalen could tell from Mrs Witherspoon’s eyes that there was another reason. She knew Mrs Witherspoon far better than Mrs Witherspoon ever suspected. ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘He didn’t say it, my lady, but I think he thought your cousin Malcolm was too attracted to me. As if that was my fault! I’m sure I gave him no encouragement.’

  ‘Malcolm does not need much encouragement, I’m afraid. He has been in disgrace before.’

  So the little ignoramus knew about the two maidservants. Yet she did not look scandalised or disgusted. Like most people of high rank, did she believe that a gentleman was entitled to use women of the lower classes in any way he wished?

  Mrs Witherspoon felt revengeful. Yes, she would tell the truth, leaving nothing out. She would make Lady Magdalen squirm. Mrs Witherspoon was squirming herself, because of the itch.

  ‘He came to my room at night,’ she said.

  ‘Without an invitation?’

  ‘I certainly did not invite him. He just opened the door and walked in.’

  ‘Wasn’t your door bolted?’

  ‘The bolt is stiff with rust.’

  ‘Didn’t you once tell me that you slept without nightgown or drawers?’

  ‘Except when it is very cold.’

  ‘It has been quite cold these past few days.’

  ‘I always have a good fire in my room.’

  ‘When he saw that you were undressed why did he not withdraw?’

  God save me from the obtuseness of the ignorant, thought Mrs Witherspoon. Moments later, she was wondering if there hadn’t been a little irony in that question. Far from being obtuse, had Lady Magdalen jaloused what she had been up to, but was more amused and sympathetic than prudish and censorious?

  ‘Because he had come with evil intentions, my lady.’

  ‘How did he reveal those intentions?’

  ‘He proceeded to undress himself with great rapidity.’

  ‘Why did you not cry out? Someone would have heard.’

  ‘I did not want to get the young man into trouble.’

  ‘Yes, he is very young; only twenty-two, I believe.’

  ‘It is a very lusty age for a man.’

  Mrs Witherspoon remembered that the Marquis had been only 17 when he had got married. Mr Witherspoon had been 45: a flaccid age.

  Lady Magdalen was waiting like a child for the rest of the story. ‘What happened then? What did he do?’

  ‘He pushed me on to the bed, my lady, and ravished me.’

  ‘I believe lawyers do not consider it ravishment if the woman gives even the merest encouragement.’

  Now, where in God’s name had this cloistered creature heard that? But was patting his buttock encouragement? Lawyers would say so.

  Lady Magdalen spoke like a lawyer. ‘You are a robust woman, Margaret. Could you not have resisted?’

  ‘I was petrified with shock, my lady.’

  ‘Yes, of course, so you would be.’

  It was time, thought Mrs Witherspoon, to throw her first bombshell. ‘I think I am with child, my lady.’

  It failed to explode. ‘After only once?’ murmured Lady Magdalen.

  ‘Twice. He came the next night too.’

  ‘Did you forget to have the bolt oiled?’

  ‘Yes, I forgot.’

  Mrs Witherspoon was now sure that Lady Magdalen was having fun, though not maliciously. Whatever support Mrs Witherspoon would need she would get. Not for the first time she was being given an insight into the depth and strength of Lady Magdalen’s character.

  ‘My monthly is already two weeks overdue, my lady.’

  ‘Mine is often overdue.’

  Yes, my lady, but you are an unwell woman, whereas I am strong and healthy.

  ‘This child, my lady, it would be a Carnegie, wouldn’t it?’

  But the bastards of the two maidservants had been Carnegies too. What had happened to them? Up and down Scotland there were earls’ sons working as ushers and earls’ daughters working as sempstresses. My child, Mrs Witherspoon vowed, will not be disowned so easily. I will not be frightened off by a sermon from Mr Henderson.

  It was time for the second bombshell.

  ‘Your cousin has given me an infection.’

  ‘What sort of infection? You look well.’

  ‘A venereal ailment. It does not show on the face. It is called the pox, my lady.’

  ‘I have heard the name. Is one of the symptoms toothache?’

  ‘No, my lady. The ache, or itch, is elsewhere.’

  Talking about it made the itch worse. Mrs Witherspoon, by this time, was almost screaming with the torment of it.

  ‘Poor Margaret, is there nothing you can do to alleviate it?’

  ‘I have a salve that gives temporary relief. Your cousin must have picked it up from some loose woman. He should go and see a doctor.’ Before half the women in Angus were infected.

  ‘So should you go and see a doctor, Margaret.’

  ‘I would have to go to Dundee.’

  ‘Then you must go to Dundee. We shall say that you wish to visit your aunt.’

  ‘I have no aunt in Dundee.’

  ‘We shall invent one.’

  ‘Suppose, my lady, the doctor tells me that I am with child. Do I get rid of it? There are women in Dundee who do such things for money.’

  ‘Sometimes the woman dies, I believe.’

  ‘Often she dies, my lady.’

  ‘And the poor child lives, with no one to love it?’

  ‘Or hate it, my lady.’

  They gazed at each other, with profound understanding.

  ‘What if your father tells me not to come back?’

  ‘I shall tell him I want you to come back.’

  Mrs Witherspoon then knelt and embraced her mistress at that moment, her confidante and friend. Her embrace was returned. Both women wept and laughed together.

  28

  WITH THE AID of a stick, Magdalen went to her father’s study. She had asked Mrs Witherspoon not to accompany her.

  Busy at his desk, he jumped up and assisted her to a chair. Any time she wished to speak to him, he said, she should send for him.

  ‘It’s about Mrs Witherspoon, Father,’ she
said.

  ‘Ah yes. That troublesome woman. I have been considering a replacement for her. There’s Sir Thomas Sinclair’s daughter, a widow of forty or so; by all accounts, a godly woman.’

  ‘I want to keep Mrs Witherspoon. I do not want her sent away.’

  ‘Your brother, James, is of the opinion that your companion should be a lady of breeding and, as you must have noticed, he now regards himself as head of the family.’

  That was said sarcastically. As a friend of Argyll’s, James was always boasting that the family was now under his protection.

  ‘It is no business of James’s. Mrs Witherspoon is my companion, not his. I like her. I want her to stay.’

  ‘Mr Henderson says she is a Jezebel.’

  ‘Mr Henderson said that Jessie Gilmour was a witch.’

  Southesk was startled. He had forgotten all about Jessie Gilmour. That had been 15 years ago. God knew how many more old women had been declared witches since then. Southesk could see little connection between Mr Henderson’s calling Mrs Witherspoon a Jezebel and his condemning an old woman as a witch. But then, poor soft-hearted Magdalen had always been a poor logician.

  ‘I was informed that she was making a nuisance of herself to your cousin Malcolm.’

  ‘Who told you that, Father? Was it Malcolm himself? My understanding is that he was making a nuisance of himself to every woman in the house under thirty.’

  Southesk was taken aback. It was true, but how had she, shut up in her cell like a nun, known it? Did she also know that he had been caught in bed with not one naked scullery maid but two?

  ‘Mrs Witherspoon wishes to visit her aunt in Dundee. She will be away for two weeks. When she comes back, she will be my companion again.’

  ‘James won’t be pleased.’ But that might not be a bad thing. James needed his wings clipped.

  ‘Do I have your promise, Father?’

  There was no impertinence in her voice, but a quality that commanded respect. She suffered continual pain, she grieved over the death of one son and the imprisonment of another, and, the heaviest cross of all to bear, her husband was the infamous ‘traitor-rebel’, Montrose. Yet here she was exhausting herself on behalf of a vulgar self-seeking woman who would show her little gratitude.

  ‘Very well, my pet, I promise. Now tell me, how are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m quite well, thank you.’

  There were tears in his eyes but none in hers as he cleeked her to the door. ‘Shall I call for someone to help you?’

  ‘No, I can manage. I have to exercise my legs, you see.’

  Yes, he saw, as he watched her creep shakily and bravely along the corridor, like a woman three times her age. God help you, James Graham, he thought, even if you win a kingdom, you will have been the loser.

  29

  AFTER MONTROSE’S NEXT victory, at Auldearn, the Estates, in rage and panic, summoned Magdalen and her father to Edinburgh, to be interrogated as to their relations with the ‘traitor-rebel’. They were ordered to bring with them Montrose’s third son, Robert. If Magdalen could satisfy them that she was ‘a loyal and reliable person’, she might be allowed to keep the boy; otherwise, he would be taken from her.

  She was not well enough to make the journey, though she very much wished to, in the hope that she would be allowed to visit James in the Castle.

  Before setting out for the capital, her father had a long talk with her in her sickroom. He found it bright with daffodils, arranged in silver bowls by Mrs Witherspoon, herself a bright presence with her red-and-white velvet dress and auburn hair. He and James, it seemed, had misjudged the woman. She and Magdalen were more like friends than servant and mistress. They were often heard laughing together.

  Finished at last, Magdalen’s tapestry depicting Christ in a field of lilies covered one of the walls. It struck Southesk that Christ had a resemblance to James Graham in his portrait on another wall but it could have been an illusion. Surely Magdalen did not have the skill, let alone the wish. What was not an illusion, alas, was that her face was as yellow as the flowers. Like them, she had not long to live.

  Montrose’s portrait would have to be taken down and hidden.

  She had always been his favourite child and yet he did not know her as well as he should. He had been too busy with other matters, which, God help him, he had thought more important. Indeed, it was those matters, more than fatherly affection, which brought him to her room that fine fresh April morning.

  When he appeared without her before the Estates, they would accept the excuse that she was not well, for they were, some of them at any rate, compassionate men with daughters of their own – besides, they would have the reports of their spies – but they might propose sending agents with a list of questions for her to answer. She must, therefore, be prepared.

  Not only her own freedom, possibly her life, might be at stake, so also were the safety and well-being of her sons. Southesk was still convinced that, in spite of his latest victory, Montrose would be overcome in the end. Revenge would be exacted. There would be hangings, banishments, incarcerations, and expropriations. Southesk himself had shown in public that he was opposed to his son-in-law. Had they not exchanged angry words at the General Assembly in Glasgow? Moreover, his heir, Lord Carnegie, was a staunch Covenanter. Still, Southesk, for Magdalen’s sake, had voted against the confiscation of Montrose’s properties and Argyll had not been pleased. His own position, therefore, in these shifty times, was not absolutely secure. It could depend on his youngest daughter, Montrose’s wife.

  She had always loved truth and he had honoured her for it, but, in the present circumstances, it could be disastrous. She would have to be coached in the art of giving a misleading impression without actually lying. What better teacher than her father, who had held his place as a Privy Councillor for more than 20 years?

  Mrs Witherspoon, having made Lady Magdalen comfortable, withdrew. He ought to be grateful to her. Perhaps he could repay her by finding her a suitable husband: some gentleman of not too high a rank but of ample fortune.

  Magdalen’s voice was so weak and hoarse he had to lean towards her. ‘Is it true, Father, what James has told me, that George Graham of Braco has been arrested and is a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle?’

  ‘If James told you, it is no doubt true. He knows better than I do what goes on.’ Southesk spoke bitterly. He had once been in the know himself.

  ‘But George is on no one’s side, Father. He hates war.’

  ‘What sensible man does not? Triumphant generals are few. I expect Graham was arrested because he fought at Tippermuir and, more recently, took his nephews to join the Royalists.’

  ‘But he did not. He went to tell James I was ill. I asked him to go. His nephews went with him. They stayed of their own accord. He didn’t want them to become soldiers. He said their mother, his sister, would never forgive him.’

  ‘Well, he will have plenty of time in the Castle to brood on the undeserved blows that fate heaps on our hapless heads. But I have not come to talk about George Graham. I want to talk about you, my pet. Since you are not able to go to Edinburgh, inquisitors might be sent to question you.’

  ‘What about? I don’t know anything.’

  ‘They will want to find out if your loyalty is to the Covenant or to your husband.’

  ‘But I must be loyal to my husband. I gave that promise when I got married. God was my witness.’

  Such an answer would flummox the greybeards, with the ministers of the Kirk at their backs. They had always to be careful to keep a place for God.

  ‘I have to speak seriously, Magdalen. You must understand that your husband, when he is caught, will be treated as a felon. He will not be given a trial. He will be hanged forthwith. The mob will be encouraged to pelt him with stones and abuse.’

  She turned her head away, to hide tears. She was remembering the young man who had read the gloomy poem to her in their marriage-bed. He had never really believed that he would be a failure. He had always been con
fident that one day he would be famous. So he was now. All Europe had heard of him.

  ‘Why are you saying this to me, Father?’

  ‘Because we must not give his enemies the opportunity to drag us all down with him.’

  ‘They would not harm my boys, would they?’

  ‘They are his boys too. The viper’s offspring, I have heard them called. They will be seen as the possible focus of future rebellions.’

  She shook her head. She would not allow it. But she would be dead.

  ‘Will not the Estates listen to you, Father?’

  ‘I am seen as a man with a foot in either camp: an ignoble and ludicrous posture.’

  ‘Not ignoble and not ludicrous either. Isn’t there right on both sides?’

  ‘Usually there is, but those who acknowledge it, in public at any rate, do not win battles or gain power. Men who hope to succeed must proclaim themselves wholly right and their opponents wholly wrong.’

  ‘But what if James, my husband James, wins?’

  Southesk frowned. This was dangerous ground. ‘He cannot win.’

  ‘But he won at Tippermuir and Aberdeen and Inverlochy and now he’s won at Auldearn.’

  ‘Astonishing victories, no doubt, but useless. He has not yet been confronted by the main Scots army, under General Leslie. They are still in England. They will outnumber him greatly in men, guns, and cavalry. His Highlanders desert him by the hundreds. Better for him, Magdalen, if he is killed on the battlefield.’

  So he would be, she thought, looking up at his portrait. He would never let himself be taken prisoner and humiliated.

  Her father thought that it would be better for her too if she died at the same time as her husband. She would not then have to endure the anguish and shame of knowing that his head was stuck on a spike outside the Tolbooth in Edinburgh and she would not have to dread every day some messenger coming to tell her her sons had been found dead in their prison cells. Poor Magdalen, she had played no part in the great dramas of the age. History would not remember her or hear of her. Yet she had suffered as much as anyone.