Twenty-Two
Several hours later a man-servant came to the women’s quarters to announce:
“The Lord Purceville,” (his exact words), “requests a private interview with his daughter.”
Whatever their desired affect, upon hearing these words something shook in Mary’s heart, as she felt again the sudden pang of the orphan. Because she realized in that moment that this simple phrase, ‘his daughter’, had never once been applied to her. For an instant the tears started in her eyes; and for all her fear of him, her one desire was to run and fall weeping in his arms.
But then she remembered all that her mother had told her. She remembered, too, the life of empty hatred to which he had driven her, at the cost of all that was gentle and giving inside her. And the way he had burned her very corpse.
The tears stopped. A look of such implacable will came into her eyes that the widow Scott, who had been plaiting her hair in preparation, took a step back in dismay. All the brooding anger that she had once seen in Stephen, the forerunner of violence, now showed itself in the girl, with a keener edge, and yet whiter fire.
“Mary, listen to me,” she whispered closely. “You must not do or say anything to upset him. Our lives, all of them, are in his hands.”
But her words were without effect. Mary stood like a fierce, enchanted statue, waiting only for the sculptor to finish, to come to life and fulfill its vengeful purpose. And when the last lock of hair was in place and bound she stalked silently from the room, following the startled servant.
After two long hallways she hardly noticed, she passed by several doors in a third, then was ushered in to the great man’s den. Her eyes took in nothing but his seated form, which stamped itself forever in her mind as the living embodiment of evil, and sole object of revenge.....
If Henry Purceville had harbored any notions of winning the girl over, or of displaying even the most distant paternal affection, he soon forgot them. Her iron gaze quickly despatched the small stirrings of tenderness (and guilt) which he had felt the night before.
But strange to say, the fearless disdain she showed him was not without reward. In truth it was the one emotion he still respected. It at once cut through his predisposition toward women as weak and spineless manipulators, and gave her a separate identity. She was his daughter, and she was not afraid.
There could be, for the moment, no thought of killing her.
“Well, girl,” he said, settling back in his chair as the servant closed the polished doors behind them. “If you have hard words to say to me, say them.”
“I hate you,” she hissed.
“And why is that?” His face remained immobile, whatever the underlying emotions.
“You raped my mother.”
“Yes, though she did not ask me to stop. And if I hadn’t, you would not exist.” The thought staggered her, but she pressed on.
“You burned her body! You denied her Christian burial.”
“Your mother was not a Christian. By the look of her hut, I’d say she fancied herself a Daughter of the Trees. Such as she are not buried, as you must know.”
“If not for your countrymen, and their accursed King, my cousins.....” She struggled. “They would not have been killed in the war.”
“And if not for your countrymen, and their drunkard Prince, there would have been no war.
“No,” he continued, raising his hand to stop her. “Don’t tell me that you were oppressed, and had no choice but to rise in revolt. The strong have always dominated the weak: it is Nature’s unchanging law. Had you been strong enough to defeat us, you would have won your freedom, and left the women of England to mourn the dead.”
Mary looked hard at him, disconcerted. She had been ready to pour out the crucible of her wrath upon him, and at the slightest mockery, to rush forward and scratch out his eyes. But he only remained before her, unmoved and unmovable, with no apparent effort refuting her every grievance. Worst of all, his words held the power of a twisted truth.
“You have an answer for everything. That doesn’t make you right. In the eyes of God---”
“God?” he sneered, as if the very thought were offensive. “You have reached young womanhood and still not seen through that, the cruelest and emptiest of farces? Look at me, girl.”
She did, then wished she hadn’t. Those cold and knowing eyes seemed to look straight through her. Hatred deserted her, leaving only fear. And in that moment she was sure it was not her father, but the Devil himself who stood before her. His wicked tongue was a foil far too clever for her innocence, and she knew it. She felt her innermost temples exposed, and had little doubt that he could ridicule and undo the most sacred feelings she possessed.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I I don’t believe? Are you afraid? I am going to tell you; and if only once in your fairy-tale existence you listen to the voice of reason, then let it be now.” He spoke evenly at first, but it was clear that she had stirred the cauldron of his emotions.
“I disbelieve for the simplest, and most undeniable reason of all. Experience. For forty years I have taken what I wanted, disobeying each Commandment, each precept, a thousand times over. And not only do I go unpunished. . .but I have thriven, and raised myself to great power.
“I will tell you something I have never told anyone; you may take that any way you like. Listen! From earliest manhood I have fought against the principles, nay, the very heart of Christianity. In truth, a part of me longed for punishment and reversal: to be put in my place, as a sign there was some meaning, some Order in the world. But there is none, unless it be survival of the fittest. Hardly the kind of world that a God would make, unless his sole purpose was to punish its weak, pathetic creatures.”
He paused, trying unsuccessfully to calm himself. “The only ‘earth’ that the meek shall inherit. . .are the indifferent shovelfuls the diggers throw back into their graves!
“What have you to say of that, little whore of my flesh? Answer me!”
She knew not where she found the words, nor the courage to speak them. She only knew that they were right.
“The final reckoning has not yet come,” she said quietly. “Your imagined victory will slip through your fingers like sand.”
He bolted from his chair and came at her, before either realized what had happened. Pinning her against the door, he mastered his wrath only long enough to cry out in a dreadful voice:
“Be gone! Out of my sight!”
Mary fled from the room in tears. He slammed the door after her, then struck it so violently that the oak shivered and his hand nearly broke. For she had committed the one act that no evil man can tolerate.
She had spoken the truth.
That evening Lieutenant Ballard appeared, to escort the ladies to, “More suitable quarters.” He led them, along with two armed guards, to the high tower at the furthest extremity of the Castle.
After a long and torturous spiralling of stairs (for their escort would not let them rest), they came at last to the uppermost story. There Ballard took a long iron key, and forcing the eye of the lock, pulled back the thick wooden door, pierced by a single, barred window.
They were ushered in, and all doubt of their position left them. It was a prison cell. Piled hay on the floor comprised the beds, two water buckets, one filled, the other empty, their only toilet. Two woolen blankets had been rudely thrown down, as if their captors resented even this small show of humanity. But for these, and for the water, the place might have gone unchanged for a hundred years.
Ballard approached the girl, and took her roughly by the wrist. Too numb to react, she could only watch as he pulled the ring from her finger, and flung it out of the high, paneless window. No explanation was given for this action, or for the sudden change in their status. And when they tried to ask, the Lieutenant only smiled, and said in a harsh voice:
“Little Mary, Queen of Scots, locked in the Tower, waiting for death.” And he let go a laugh, so void of compassion that it made the blood run cold. He strode back out onto the landing, then turned again to face them through the closing door.
“Master ‘enry has a visitor, and needs no more trouble of you. If you want to live a little longer, do nothing to call attention to yourselves. Quiet as mice, my pretties, or bad men will be sent to keep an eye, and more ‘an likely both hands, on you.”
He pulled the door to, and left them in darkness.