Roísín Ní Scárath: The debauchment of Lady Catherine Bernard
Lady Catherine had a reputation for little patience with those who disappointed her, so when Evie received a summons to her private chambers, she expected the worst. Wearing a stern countenance, her ladyship presented one of the charms which Eilise had placed in Marguerite’s chambers, a knot of rushes, twigs and herbs intended to discourage the Sí. The maid herself stood by, her head bowed in such rigid fear that she did not lift her gaze to greet Evie.
“Young woman,” said Lady Catherine, “do you know what this is and for what purpose it was placed in my daughter’s bedchamber? Answer honestly. Your friend here showed enough wisdom to reveal that you provided it. Both of your livelihoods now depend upon your answer.”
Evie chose her words with great caution, knowing that more than her own future rode on her reply. “My lady, bad luck has piled on Mistress Marguerite this past month. Tis but a a simple charm to bring the good kind of fortune for a change. I meant no harm in asking Eilise to give assistance.”
“Good fortune, you say?” Lady Catherine turned over the charm in her hands and lifted it to her face, sniffing as if it might sting her. “Did you make this yourself? It is charming in its own, coarse fashion.”
“I…it is my ma’s work. Caragh Ní Scáthach.”
“Ah. She is the local wise woman, yes? A maker of folk medicines and their like?”
“Yes, my lady.”
Lady Catherine’s expression warmed at Evie’s surprise. “You may think us aloof from the peasantry, but my son and I make it our business to know the characters who dwell in the village of which we are stewards. The common folk hold great store by their beliefs in spirits and other magical creatures. This is a Christian house. A Church of Ireland house. It is one thing that we must now tolerate Catholic beliefs, but we do not permit heathen practices. Is that clear to you both?”
“Yes my lady,” said Evie.
Eilise’s reply was so muted by fear that it was barely audible, but it seemed to satisfy Lady Catherine. “Would you care to explain why the wise woman of Kinnitty has such an interest in my daughter?”
Looking back now, Evie would laugh at Lady Catherine’s pompous tone. Back then, she did not feel confident to explain Caragh’s fears. “Begging my lady’s grace, it don’t feel right to speak for my ma.”
“Ha! How old are you, eighteen? No more than the apprentice, I suppose. Bring you mother here tomorrow, then. I will keep your token until then.”
The following day, Caragh and Evie were directed to the reception chamber of Marguerite’s rooms, where they were surprised to find seated both Lady Catherine and her son, Thomas Bernard, the landlord of Kinnitty. On a table beside them were strewn a dozen charms that Evie had asked Eilise to place within Marguerite’s chambers. Once again, the unfortunate maid stood to one side, cowed and even more fearful than on the previous day.
“Ah, the witch and her apprentice!” Black Thomas welcomed them. “Are you here to pass judgement or to receive it?”
Caragh looked with trepidation from the removed charms to the master and lady of the house. She crossed herself, exposing her fear. “We’re here to put a stop to your foolishness. Tis not safe now for any of us to enter Mistress Marguerite’s bedchamber.”
“Impudent heathen!” gasped Lady Catherine. “Really, Thomas, I thought the damned Papists were bad enough. I shall attend to daughter while you send these women on their way.”
As she opened the doors to Marguerite’s bedchamber, Caragh reached out. “Please, my lady, I fear that your daughter is not herself.”
“Remove your hands, bog witch, unless you want my son to have you evicted. Come along!” Lady Catherine shook off Caragh’s touch, and dragged Eilise through the door before she could protest, slamming the door behind them.
Caragh had her own measure of pride. She was about to drag Evie out of the castle when an unearthly and beautiful song arose from the next room. Black Thomas moved towards Marguerite’s door and Evie herself felt compelled to follow.
Caragh reached out as though to slap her, and Evie felt something cold against her cheek. The compulsion abated. “Master,” Caragh spoke swiftly. “I beg forgiveness for giving insult just now. We must speak of your sister. There’s no waiting.”
Black Thomas paused, confusion masking his features. “I must attend to my mother and sister.”
“No, master.” Caragh touched him briefly with the object enclosed in her hand, and the confusion cleared from his face. He grabbed her hand before she could return the object to her skirts.
“What madness is this? Speak now, witch.” He turned over her hand and she allowed him to see the horseshoe in her palm.
“Nought more than iron. Tis like poison to the Sí.” She pulled back her hand but he tightened his grip.
“Do not speak in heathen riddles. Explain yourself or face the consequences.”
Caragh wanted to smack him with the horseshoe until he saw sense, but she chose the gentle path. “You hear that song as we do? There’s something inside Mistress Marguerite, sir, a ban-sí we call it. You would not have her in there, away from folk, if you did not suspect.”
He released her hand. “Marguerite has not been herself for some time. I at first thought that it was no more than the hysterical lust of a woman yet unmarried at twenty-four years. However, the accident that overcame her friend was too strange. You have voiced my worst fear. She is subject to an evil influence.”
Evie wanted to speak out and berate him for the blame assigned to the friend’s maid, but Caragh saw the anger in her eyes and held out a hand, bidding her to silence. “Ay, we women can barely restrain ourselves without a man to satisfy those needs.”
“You should fear to mock me, crone,” said Black Thomas, “but there are more urgent matters. What is this banshee, some caterwauling native spirit? To what peril have you exposed our good mother?”
“If you like, a spirit it is. Lady Catherine gave up our protection when she swept up these charms. She’ll hear only the song and the ban-sí’s will.” Caragh took a charm from the table and tucked it into his pocket, then folded his palm around an iron nail. Evie and herself already wore their own, hung on twine beneath their clothes.
“Will this hocus pocus protect me from that bewitching song?”
“If I’m to be honest with you, I’ve not dealt with the Sí before. All I have are old stories and songs passed down from my mother, but they’ve taken us this far.”
“Consider this an indulgence to disprove your peasant superstition. At best, you will leave our home feeling foolish. Give me cause for anger, and you will be homeless as well.”
The landlord called three times before his mother returned, flinging open the door ahead of her. The ban-sí’s song filled the room and it was all Evie could do to ignore a call that swam through her ears. It spoke of comfort and happiness in a tongue that felt like a strange cousin of her native Irish, lifting every fear from her heart. The little iron nail grew ice cold against her chest.
“Darling Thomas, come with me, come and see your dear sister.” Lady Catherine grabbed his hand and Black Thomas allowed her fingers to slide against the nail. She let out a scream and began to faint in his arms.
At this, Eilise rushed through the open doors, took one look at Lady Catherine and the lilting tune that followed fell into a grating cacophony. She launched herself at Caragh and Evie, only to find the horseshoe slapped against her face before my ma slammed the doors. The unlucky maid would awake with an ugly bruise.
Black Thomas cradled his mother in his arms. “If you are witches, I pray to God that you are on the side of the angels,” he said. “You must silence that demonic song before it reaches other ears.”
The lessons in our songs and stories had prepared Granma Caragh for this outcome. She stoppered their ears with a waxy mush and entered Marguerite’s bedchamber alone, brandishing the horseshoe before her. Marguerite had been confined but not restrained and she stood in the centre of the bedroom, poised to rush at the invader.
Her eyes had become as the moonless sky, dark and glittering with starlight. Caragh halted at the shock of coming face-to-face, for the first time in her life, with one of the Sí. Those bottomless eyes held not only power but a burning hatred for all who sought to restrain her.
Fearing that Marguerite Bernard was lost, Caragh raised the horseshoe before herself. The possessed woman paused her song, sniffed the air and her face curled up in disgust. Granma advanced with new confidence and Marguerite shrank away from her iron totem, sinking to the ground as her eyes returned to their natural brown. Caragh took no chances, employed her bonnet as a gag and bound Marguerite’s arms with a tie from the curtains.
As Evie took care of Eilise, Lady Catherine awoke on the other side of the reception chamber.
“I am sorry that I doubted you, Thomas,” she said. “Truly, my poor Marguerite is under a demonic influence. I felt its voice as if Satan himself had risen from the pit, demanding that I destroy all who oppose it. What shall we do for her?”
“I will consult the reverend and the doctor. They are good men and true,” he said.
“This is the price of my pride,” she sobbed. “How bitter it is that your sister’s soul should pay for the adulterous violation of trust that sired your brother.”
“Pride? Adultery? Mother, what is this madness? Have we not seen and heard enough for one day?”
“No! I must confess it. The pyramid is a thing of unnatural construction. Its very stones embody ancient knowledge from the Orient. The Earl of ____[1] promised your father the secrets of his elevation to the status which this family deserves. The price exceeded that which any wife should have to pay and yet — to my shame — I was willing. For our family, for your father, I gave myself up to sin.”
“The pyramid? What bearing has this on the demon tormenting my sister? Mother, speak sense.”
“The Earl does not give away his knowledge. He asks for something which cannot be bought or sold. For the promise of a knighthood, a peerage even, I broke my vows before God and bore another son with the name of Bernard.”
Black Thomas gasped. “Richard Wellesley is a bastard?”
Evie had bowed her head as if she could disappear, but Eilise, half-stunned from her use by the ban-sí, repeated Black Thomas’s words.
The master and lady of the house turned towards them. For an awful moment, Evie thought that none of them would leave the Castle alive. Fortunately, Caragh had paused at the door and listened to Lady Catherine’s confession.
She entered the chamber and stood guard over her daughter and the maid. “You’re not the first family in this demesne with a cuckoo in the nest. Evie and I keep our fair share of secrets and we’ll make it so this wan keeps yours to herself.”
“I’m afraid—” Black Thomas began.
“You should be afraid, afraid of that thing as dwells within your sister.” Her tone allowed no quick retort. “If it is our help that you wish for, think to your present troubles and leave your follies in the past.”
“Very well. I extend to you all my trust and gratitude.” The revelation of his brother’s true parentage had stunned Black Thomas into a rare moment of submission. A weakened Lady Catherine appeared to accept her son’s decision, so they followed Caragh and Evie back into Marguerite’s bedchamber. Black Thomas instructed Eilise to bring the best rope or cord that she could find in the house while he assisted Caragh at securing Marguerite in her bed.
The sight of her daughter, bound and gagged, overwhelmed Lady Catherine. She muttered of indignities piled upon her as Evie escorted her from Marguerite’s rooms to her own chambers.
“You must think me no better than the common folk.” Lady Catherine spoke at last when they were alone. “Debasing my marriage vows for the empty promises of a licentious Earl.”
“I’m sure it is a hard lesson to find yourself humbled. Rich and poor, we must all confess to the Lord.”
“You think it makes us the same, that this secret places a peasant witch on the same step as gentlewoman?” She waved at a decanter of port on her sideboard. “Pour.”
“I would not think us equals.” As she filled the crystal goblet, Evie suppressed a laugh so as not to provoke.
“I was born to nobility, you see, though I was married to money. It was expected that my late husband’s service to the Crown would win him at the least a knighthood, and on that presumption I gave up my honour to ensure his elevation.” The lady waved impatiently for her drink. “I must pray that the Earl’s gift comes instead to my son.”
Evie delivered the port. “This fine house will always bear the name Bernard, my lady. You shall not be forgot.”
“Put aside that mocking tone and remember your place, girl. Your employment continues only because of the curse that my sin has brought to this house. I shall not see my daughter again until she is returned to herself, and if you and your mother cannot banish the demon, I will see to it that you find no abode in Kinnitty.”
She spilled port as she dismissed Evie. The glass was rarely empty from that day and for many in the household, it marked a change for the worse in Lady Catherine’s demeanour and constitution.
Eilise awaited her in Marguerite’s reception chamber, guarding the doors though she shook and fretted at every noise from within. Evie comforted the maid briefly, before entering to find Black Thomas and Granma Caragh binding Marguerite to her bed. They spoke only to confirm one-another’s work, replaced the charm bundles and hung the horseshoe above the bed, prompting a stream of fierce invective in that ancient Irish tongue, mumbled through the makeshift gag.
Black Thomas walked to the far side of the chamber and poured himself a full measure of port with shaking hands. The glass was drained before he spoke, though he offered none to the wise women. “This was not the first time that I have felt compelled to obey my sister’s commands. She demanded her release daily and it required all of my willpower to deny her. I had not realised that your simple charms protected this house so powerfully.”
Caragh took up one of the charms, a knotted symbol of grasses, herbs and flowers, turning it in her fingers. “Simple is only what you see. This gives a little safety, the iron more so, but the ban-sí grows in power. We cannot bind it forever.”
“Ban-shee? Speak plainly, woman. You talk of these Sí as though they are common knowledge. Now tell, what is a Sí? Some manner of Irish demon, as if the common folk were not wretched enough.”
“We’re wretched alright, Sir. You’ve made sure enough of that.” She went on quickly. “Some call them the good folk, the people who live under the hill. This wan though, she’s no cheeky sprite out for mischief. As for how to chase her out from Miss Marguerite, I’ve no idea.”
Black Thomas could only suppress his haughty nature for so long. “I had hoped for more than such culchie nonsense as I hear whispered below stairs. You had better deliver my sister in her right mind if you expect to receive any of the Queen’s coin for your work. If it is a demon, then Christian faith and prayer will drive it whence it came, and none of it your Papist heresy.”
Caragh replaced the charm and summoned Evie to her side. “As you will. We’ll leave as we came, so, with our purses light and your sister in thrall to the ban-sí. Pray you well but mind you this: the Sí answer not to heaven or hell, least not as you think of those places. We’ll leave our charms to show no hard feelings, and sure we shall not tell a soul in all of Ireland the truth of poor Marguerite’s condition.”
With that, they left the Castle, but the truth was that my Granma now considered the ban-sí a threat to all of Kinnitty. Though she had no books of spells, she had a lifetime of stories and songs on which to draw for inspiration. When night fell, both women endured nightmares that felt as if they remembered an ancient time when Ireland was ripe with magic and spirits.
[1] As was the style in those times, Roisín has omitted the name of this man.
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