Sorry this has been a while but my computer was in the computer hospital for a while and work has been blue murder.
I apologise for a few rude words in this episode but the people are rather angry!
The Dark Night of Ninian's Soul
The walnut desk in the study bears testimony to the fact that Ninian has been interrupted in the course of writing his sermon. It is strewn with papers bearing his strong, spiky hand-writing. Among the papers lie open a large, leather bound Bible and two books of biblical commentary. The atmosphere is however certainly not one of contemplation.
Ninian, white faced and grim, faces his eldest son across the desk. In contrast to his father’s pallor, Adam’s complexion, always high, is crimson with the fury and revulsion to be expected of a man who has learned that the woman he has just tried to make love to is his father’s sister, his aunt. He fights a wave of nausea as anger and humiliation war for dominance in his breast. His sense of humiliation is great. Despite being the eldest son he has been deceived, not trusted to know the truth and now his most personal feelings have been exposed….to his father of all people. Anger triumphs.
“How could you do it?” he shouts. “How could you submit my mother to this humiliation? Can you not imagine what people said and thought? And all for my grandfather’s little bastard, the daughter of a common servant girl, little better than a harlot. What did you mean bringing a girl like that into this house and expecting my mother to receive her? Mixing with my sisters too! The child of a little whore and that old goat!”
At this Ninian’s anger rises to meet Adam’s “You will not speak about my father in that way. Your language is offensive, sir, and your whole attitude smacks not a little of hypocrisy.”
“Mine were the faults of youth. Think of my grandfather’s age at the time. It is little short of perverse! These appetites should surely have been behind him.”
Ninian looks in disbelief at the younger man. He is now around the same age as his father had been when Sarah was conceived and painfully aware of how Bella’s long indisposition has strained his own virtue. He struggles nonetheless to calm his temper and to reason with Adam:
“Your grandfather married Sarah’s mother. He told me so himself on his death-bed when even he must have been conscious of the impending judgement. It is surely to his credit that, at the last, he put matters right for the young woman and his child. The marriage, even though it was irregular, makes Sarah his legitimate daughter. Her mother could have taken her case to court.”
Adam’s expression is one of disdain and incredulity. “For God’s sake, Father. You would think no man had ever bedded a servant girl and fathered a child on her before. A man does not marry a woman like that. Why did you not fight the case? She could have bleated about marriage as much as she liked but no-one would have given her tale any credence, no matter what that rambling old fool said on his death-bed. Anyway, where would someone like her get the money to go to court? She and the girl would have been consigned where they belong----in the gutter”
Ninian is truly shocked by this outburst. “I can’t believe you’re speaking about Sarah in those terms. Think of her kindness to your daughter and all her help to me. In any event you must have valued her to have spoken to her as you did.”
This comment is severely ill-judged as the reminder that Sarah has discussed his proposal with Ninian causes any restraint on Adam’s fury to burst.
“That slut! She led me on and encouraged me. That’s what you took into your house, father, an immoral little whore. Is that what you think so highly of and my dear sisters have made a friend of? You’re a fool. She’s no better than her harlot of a mother. You don’t know what’s going on in your own house. Even the servants despise her because of her taste for low company. Well, I can tolerate it no longer. I’m going back to India where at least distinctions are properly observed.”
Ninian gasps. “Adam, stop this now! Moderate your language at once! What about your mother and your daughter?”
“I will leave it to you to explain my leaving to my mother. After all, you have broken her heart. It is no wonder her health is so poor. Bell will care for Amelia. She certainly can’t stay here with that girl.”
At this Adam storms out and slams the heavy door. The room shakes so that Ninain’s precious fountain pen, uncapped on the table, rolls off and hits the floor, spraying black ink onto the carpet. He watches the stain spread with indifference.
Adam’s departure leaves Ninian with a deep corrosive sense of failure. He lays his dark, grey-flecked head on his arms on the desk. He had wanted to be everything his own father was not, a loving husband, a good, fair father and above all a godly man, widely liked and respected. Now he seems to have failed on all counts. Despite all his efforts he, like his father, is at loggerheads with his son. His second daughter needs his help but he cannot reach her.
Above all, seen through Adam’s wordly eyes, his action in taking Sarah into his home which had seemed a triumph of wisdom and justice now appears the decision of a weak and foolish man, leaving him open to gossip and ridicule, even from his own servants. As little as Adam genuinely believes it himself does Ninian think that Sarah’s lack of circumspection in her relationship with Adam sprang from any wicked intent. Her worst sins were naivety and thoughtlessness. In his present mood, however, Ninian sees her adoption into his household as the seed which has brought about all this chaos.
He feels that he has let everyone down, especially Bella. Perhaps Adam was right. Perhaps the strain of Sarah’s arrival had contributed to the enervated state which the doctors attribute to her time of life. How can he now explain to her that he has driven their son away again?
A series of images passes through Ninian’s mind; Bella sitting up in bed, smiling proudly, as she hands him their first born son, whom he named Adam out of misplaced filial piety; Sarah as he first saw her in that dreadful, ill-fitting gown, her gaze sullen and her hands chapped with work; the pretty young parishioner whom he comforted on her husband’s death and who makes no secret of her admiration for him. He has so far managed to resist her charms but is now conscious of nothing more strongly than a desire to seek comfort in those plump welcoming arms. He knows that even to think in this way is a betrayal of Bella and his self loathing increases.
Surely he can find solace in his faith. How else had he coped when his little name sake, precocious but delicate, had succumbed to the chicken-pox which left his siblings largely unscathed or when baby Agnes lived for only a few days?
The bitter realisation dawns that too many years of seeking out radical fashions in theology to inform the clever sermons which founded his reputation as an excellent preacher have turned this faith into a sterile intellectual exercise. He experiences an atavistic longing for the old certainties which inspired the Covenanters to battle or martyrdom or even the gentler truths which recently soothed the final days of his old friend and mentor George Denholm.
The words of the psalm come to his mind “De profundis clamavi a te Deo.” “Out of the depths have I called unto thee, O Lord.” Ninian experiences no answer and laughs ironically when he thinks of his pride in a recent, particularly fine sermon on ‘unanswered prayer’.
His grim mood of introspection is broken by a gentle tapping on the door. He knows it is Sarah and would rather avoid speaking to her. However, he calls out “Enter”.
Sarah comes in quietly. She takes in Ninian’s haggard looks and asks gently “Was Adam very upset”
“Upset?” replies Ninian tersely, “He was deeply hurt at our deception and understandably furious. He says he will go back to India and leave Amelia in his sister Bell’s care. I don’t know what I will tell his mother.”
“He will surely change his mind once he has calmed down,” reassures Sarah.
Her reasonable tone merely aggravates Ninian’s already frayed temper.
“I doubt if he will ever calm down ……or forgive you or me. Really Sarah you have been very much at fault here. You should have been more modest and reserved in your dealings with Adam. Your behaviour towards him must have given him quite the wrong impression. How could you let him think you were loose or immoral? I’ve told you before that if you did not curb your open forthright manner it would cause you trouble.”
Ninian’s reproaches add to the agonies of guilt Sarah has already been suffering. A tear rolls down her cheek.
“Ninian, I’m so sorry. I know it’s my fault. You can’t blame me more than I do myself. I just wish I could do something to put things right.”
Irrationally, Sarah’s distress and self blame only cause Ninian to feel angrier.
“It’s too late now. The damage is done and this family likely to be torn apart. Why did you insist that I tell Adam about our relationship? Could you not have put him off some other way….told him that your affections were already engaged or some such? Have you no womanly wiles? Your mother must have had some at least to inveigle herself into my father’s bed and then finally to persuade him to marry her. You and she are a curse on this family”
These harsh words prove too much for Sarah’s composure. Not for nothing is she old Adam’s daughter and Ninian’s sister. Her temper usually held firmly under control flares and she bursts out through angry tears:
“Ninian, that is completely unfair. My sister….mother…Effie did not seek or expect marriage and I’d be surprised to learn that your father, our father even remembered my existence. You just can’t bear the truth; that he was a thrawn, lecherous old scoundrel who married Effie out of spite, to spite you, his only son. I’m ashamed to admit he is my father. At least, I was brought up by good decent people. Willie and Betty Redpath will always be my parents in my heart. You think bringing me here was a generous act. Well I did not want to come. I was only 14 and had no say in the matter. I was happy as I was. Yes, I had to work and did not have education or fine clothes but I was happy. You and Effie between you, you’ve forced me to live a lie for years; to be where I don’t belong. In fact I belong nowhere and am fit for nothing. How can I marry? I would have to tell any suitor the truth and no man in your ‘respectable’ society would want to marry a servant’s illegitimate daughter. Do you know what I’ve been proud of in my time here? That I’ve been able to help my brother, a good man and a man of God. I’ve been a fool. Now I’m ashamed of you too and all of your family. In fact I want as little to do with you as possible from now on!”
Leaving Ninian stunned by this impassioned speech, Sarah storms out of the room, following Adam’s example by slamming the door. This time Ninian manages to catch his pen before it rolls off the desk. He is shocked to realise that he had never really given much thought to Sarah’s feelings about being taken from her home.
Sarah slips up to her room, just managing to avoid John, who has been disturbed by the noise. Once there she paces around, trying urgently to think of a way out of this appalling situation but with no success. What she needs is somewhere quiet where she can calm herself a little and make a plan. She grabs two books at random and goes quickly downstairs to the housekeeper’s room and, without even acknowledging a disapproving Mrs Brown, snatches the key to the garden in the Square from its hook. To make sure she meets none of the Kerrs on her way out she leaves by the kitchen door, rushes up the area steps and, completely oblivious to passers by and traffic, heads across the cobbled street to seek sanctuary in the garden. Once safely inside, she clangs the iron gate firmly behind her and turns the key in the lock.
)