Book 2 — Chapter XVII

In which Lady Katharine Richmond, at the Request of her Husband, tells how she and Lord Stenwold came to Stenwold House

At the request of my dear husband, Sir Hugh Richmond, I take up the telling of this strange, yet true, tale for a little space. He did the same for me when the narration of events was in my hand, and I can do no less for him; besides, he is my true and lawful lord, and I owe him duty and I pay him love unbounded, the more especially the latter, because I so basely requited his affections by doubting him. 'Tis true it came from the suggestions of that devil Stenwold, and I can scarce bring myself to believe that I would have entertained a doubt of my lord and master if his, to me, inexplicable conduct, when I was rushed away from him on the bluffs above Cockenzie, had not somehow given colour to the suspicion. He sat his horse so quietly, outwardly so indifferent to my appeals; with King James' his purse hanging on the saddle bow, the price of my dishonour apparently; not even lifting voice, much less drawing blade or striking blow for me. What could I think?

Sir Hugh hath often assured me since that he quite forgives me the suspicion, that he pardons the anger and resentment I harboured against him, that it was thoroughly warranted. Being a woman, albeit according to him a wonder among women and the best wife a soldier ever had—such is his fond flattery!—he saith I could not be expected to know what idea was in a mere stupid man's mind.

And I could not be blamed for not seeing that a husband at large and free to effect my rescue was worth a thousand dead ones who had been cut to pieces by a band of murderous villains before my very eyes. By which he says he would have effected nothing and perhaps have plunged me into deeper grief than was mine when I was dragged away from him.

Besides all this kindness from my lord, I take some little comfort in the knowledge that my father and Master Dunner also were deceived. Still they did not love him as I, and I should have known. Especially as, if I had thought, I would have known that in no way could my lord have had any communication with the King since our meeting. But who that is mad with jealousy and fear can think clearly?

I could with more equanimity bear to see him dead rather than dishonoured, as he seemed to me that afternoon when I was ravished away. My fault, my grievous fault, lay in my failure to realise that no power on earth could dishonour my lord. The mere fact that he suffered himself in some degree to be put in this false position, and to answer nothing, ought not at all to have worried me, who, though I knew him but shortly, yet loved him and his greatness of heart so well.

Sir Hugh says, it is nonsense for me to reproach myself for an entirely natural and justifiable thought, but I do; and we Clanranalds—and, although I am only a woman, I have all the pride of race of the stoutest and best of them—have ever loved honour more than life; and my husband's rank, if less exalted than ours, he being but a simple Baronet while we are Belted Earls, is as old and honourable as any one's. After all, I am sure it was that dastardly Stenwold's persistent insinuations—if I may characterise his broad and open remarks about my husband as insinuations—that made all the trouble.

I was so torn between shame and terror and humiliation and fearful anticipation, as I sat in the boat, that I was not mistress of my mind. I was completely in the power of this creature of King James, and my interview with the King at Durham had shown me that defenceless, penniless, helpless, I had nothing good to expect from His Majesty.

I heard the sailors speak of Sunderland, and I knew, therefore, that the King had moved from Durham, perhaps to get out from under the influence of the good Bishop, who had been my champion and advocate, and, in all probability, his chief adviser now would be Lord Jeffreys. God help the man or woman or child subject to his caprice. I knew very well what the King designed for me, but I was quite resolved what to do on that score. I would die without the least hesitation before the King, or any one else, should possess me.

My husband might have been false to me, he might have taken the King's purse, and perhaps be expecting future pay from the King in exchange for me, but I was his wife still and I was a Clanranald, my noble father's daughter,—we were not of the class from whom were chosen mistresses for kings.

I was that desperate and reckless that, if I had or could come at a weapon in my hand when the time came, I was resolved that I would even kill the King myself. I had heard whispers of his courage, or his lack of it rather, and I would gladly kill him rather than submit to his desire, if there was no other way.

It was these desperate resolutions which enabled me to sustain, with some degree of fortitude, my terrible situation. Indeed, my grief was not so much on the score of the future as it was because of the past. The doubt of my husband's love and honour bade fair to kill me. I could take care of myself, and could throw away my life rather than be clasped in any one's arms that had not the right.

Yet I blame myself, with abiding shame; and I still think had I been given opportunity, had Stenwold kept silent, had I been left alone, I might have recovered my faith and trust in my lord, but my captor was constantly at my elbow with his infamous suggestions. Indeed, he played his part well; I knew what he would be at—he wanted to make it easy for the King—but in that effort he failed absolutely. Not even the King himself could do that.

My resentment grew and developed to such an extent that I thought grimly enough that Stenwold might as well introduce a wild animal into the King's closet as to thrust me in there. But I dissembled my feelings to some extent and took care to give my gaoler no faintest hint of my determination.

I was treated civilly enough on the voyage, although Stenwold's every look was an insult, and I felt my heart grow cold under his evil and suggestive scrutiny; yet I knew that I had naught to fear from him. In his mind I was meat for his betters. I was, therefore, under little or no apprehension while on the sea. It was a small ship and wretchedly uncomfortable, but I was a good sailor and, even if I had been a bad one, I should have had too much in mind to have spared thought to anything else, no matter what I might have suffered.

We made rather a quick passage to Sunderland. Indeed, the time seemed frightfully short to me. Anticipating I knew not what, maturing plans involving all sorts of desperate actions in my hard situation, and trying to explain to myself my husband's lack of conduct, I came at last to doubt, and I almost convinced myself that he had not been a party to the outrage. But that conclusion involved me in worse difficulty than before, for it almost forced me to think of him as a coward, afraid to risk his life for my honour, unwilling to die in my defence—God forgive me, my dear husband, that I so wronged you, for cowardice in any man, and especially in the man I honoured with my affection, seemed to me to be the unpardonable sin.

Oh, I was torn, maddened, during that voyage! Married in the morning, separated at noon-day—what was in store for me?

It was dusk when we dropped anchor off Sunderland, and my Lord Stenwold had the boat got ready. I followed him into it submissively enough; it was either that or be carried; there was no use in my making a profitless struggle then; I would save my energy and strength for the crucial moment. A leaf out of my husband's book that, had I but known it, which now makes my failure to understand him the more blameworthy in my eyes. I shall never forgive myself for it, although he hath assured me many times that he forgot it, as he forgot everything else that had gone before, in the first kiss he pressed upon my lips in Stenwold House that very night after such exciting hours as I never look for nor want to pass again.

We soon traversed the short distance from the anchorage to the castle. I marked, as we clambered up the bank and took the long walk along the moat edge to bring us to the entrance to the house, which fronted away from the water, that the brigantine got under way and moved over to the Sunderland shore, as soon as the boat rejoined her.

Stenwold House lay on the north, or Monkwearmouth side, of the river. I surmised that the King had accepted my Lord Stenwold's proffer of his seat near the village so as to be the more private and secluded in his villainy than in the more spacious castle and fort of Sunderland, across the stream.

They had taken my sword from me; my pistols, of course, had been left behind in the holsters attached to my saddle. I was absolutely unarmed and defenceless; I had not even been allowed the privilege of knife and fork on the voyage, my food having been so prepared for me that I could eat it with a spoon.

I had no money; all we possessed, which was but little, being in my husband's keeping, and I had few jewels—a wedding ring and one other. I did not wish to give up my solitaire diamond, saving it for a last resort, therefore I was without means to bribe; and indeed, in the confines of the small ship, Stenwold kept such close watch upon me that I had no opportunity for speech, even with any one else. Never did I utter such fervent prayers as I did all through that cruise, that God in some way would raise up help for me and enable me to defend that which was dearer to me than life itself—and yet I was young, too, and passionately attached to my husband, and life was sweet.

God was answering my prayers in His own way. Now I thank Him daily for what He did for me and that I enjoy my husband's entire forgiveness and continued love. He blesses me while I write now, who am Sir Hugh's wife, which I find to be so different from what I dreamed it before my marriage. These things do indeed change us more than we wot of, when we give our heart and hand and person into the keeping of some one else. I can scarcely stir without Sir Hugh at my side now; I look to him for everything; his guidance is half my life, his inspiration the rest of it; and I was once the most independent maid in Scotland!

I run on incessantly; there shall be no more in this strain. Suffice it to say that I mounted the great stairs of the castle with a steady step. I was shown through a long hall, then through a smaller room, and then into another, still small but spacious and elegant enough. This room overlooked the water.

Stenwold House was perched on the brow of the cliff, or steep bank, of the Wear. The apartment in which so much took place was in the second story, and perhaps seventy feet from the high-tide line of the river. There was, so far as I could see, but one entrance to the apartment, and that was by the door through which we had come. The room was handsomely furnished, and off to the left through another door, half-opened, I discerned a bed-chamber, at the sight of which I grew cold with fear and shame.

"Will it please you," began my Lord Stenwold, after we two entered the room, and my heart leaped to see that it was empty, "to refresh yourself after your journey?"

"Nothing that you can do or say, or any one else here, will please me in the least degree," I retorted, with what carelessness and firmness I could muster.

"Your ladyship grieves me beyond expression," was his sneering answer. "However, I shall leave the task of pleasing you to an abler and nobler being than my poor self."

"Meaner and baser would be better words, if that were possible," said I.

His face flushed, he glowered at me darkly, he even instinctively touched his sword-hilt.

"Madam, you will live to bless me for this adventure," he said.

"If I live at all, sir," I returned, "I shall curse you to the last day of my life or yours."

"If you would take a fool's advice, madam..."

"A knave's rather," I interposed.

"'Tis much the same thing. We are all of us fools or knaves—some of us both; and the only wise man is he who recognises and admits his knavery or his foolery," he ran on cynically, striving to recover his equanimity.

"You speak capably from your own experience," said I. "I doubt you have met many gentlemen and gentlewomen in your evil life and service, but, if you have, I am sure you have no personal knowledge or experience that would enable you to recognise either."

"Madam, do you know how defenceless you are?" he cried, apparently provoked beyond control by my flings at him. "Do you not know that the King will tire of you as quickly as he fancied you? Do you realise what it would mean to you then, to have a friend in me?"

He approached me threateningly as he spoke.

"I am not so defenceless as you think, Lord Stenwold, and, weak as I am, I have a Friend still who..."

"Your husband?" he interposed sneeringly.

"Almighty God," said I.

"God!"

His jaw dropped; I never met such a look of astonishment as I saw in his face, and then he laughed sardonically.

"God may be all right in His heaven, doubtless," he continued, "but we are on earth, and here the King's word rules."

"'Tis more like hell," I returned.

"And I am devil-in-chief, madam," he said, bowing. "Saving, of course, the King's royal grace and precedence," he added. "But enough of this; His Majesty, I am informed, desires to consult your pleasure in every way. He is kindness itself toward the fair."

"Let him release me then, and restore me to my father."

"In every way but that."

"I have no other pleasure, no other wish, no other will."

"What! not a thought for thy cowardly, treacherous, money-loving husband?"

There he wounded me. I am ashamed to say it, but I thrust my face into my hands and turned away, to hear again that mocking laugh. May God and my husband forgive me, I never can. It was Stenwold who broke the silence that fell between us.

"I shall have something to eat and drink brought to you here. After that, my charge of you is over; I shall deliver you to my royal master."

"May I eat alone?"

"Madam, you may; the taste of your sharp tongue that I have just had hath somewhat impaired my own appetite, I confess. When you are somewhat tamer, I shall visit you again; meanwhile, I wish you joy of your evening, and His Majesty likewise."

There was something ironic in that wish for the King that did give me a certain satisfaction. I would not give much for any pleasure His Majesty was to get out of me. I thought I was quite capable, in default of other means, of choking the King to death with my own hands, if I could muster the strength, and I believed that in the last extremity I could. I was desperate, you see.