Norton brushed closer to her. In the darkness, she turned her face towards him. The space around them was intimate; the candlelight did not reach between them. She could hear his breath louder than the carollers and smell his scent of orange blossom and soap.
‘This time last year, Osborne told me he loved me for the first time,’ she whispered.
Norton stepped closer, his leg amidst her skirts, using the lack of space in the porch as an excuse. She cupped her rounded stomach.
‘At least I shall have a part of him in his son.’ Her voice broke on the last word.
‘Please, Mrs Tomkins, I would not see you upset. Please do not cry.’
In the shadows, Norton held her arm, shooting nervous glances towards Mr Turner in case the vicar might see the improper conduct between them. She was glad to see his nervousness, his covetousness. She had him. And she knew, by the innocence in his eyes, that he would do anything for her. Anything at all.
The End
Volume Four
THE LITTLE WIFE
Inspired By
I had a little hen, the prettiest ever seen,
She washed up the dishes and kept the house clean.
She went to the mill to fetch us some flour,
And always got home in less than an hour.
She baked me my bread, she brewed me my ale,
She sat by the fire and told a fine tale!
Chapter 1
October 1875
The damp air was shrinking her mother. It was the only explanation for the woman’s sudden diminutive size, wasn’t it? Or had Beatrice only just realised how like her grandmother her mama had become: hooked around the shoulders, lines like spilt ink across her face, knuckles growing bulbous for no apparent reason – certainly not hard work. Time was running out for the woman. At least, time in which to be a doting grandmother to an unborn but much-wanted grandchild.
Thank goodness the visit was drawing to an end. Beatrice’s mother would be gone in a matter of minutes, and the call would have been successful in as much as she had not mentioned the absence of growth of Beatrice’s stomach. Beatrice put her hand to the hardness of her corset now, the dread of the conversation about her barrenness seeping into her involuntary action. Her mother noted the gesture, and Beatrice gripped the arm of her chair instead.
The clock chimed. Her mother rose stiffly, sighing about some ache in her back and complaining about the horridness of October. Her mother was a summer creature, one whose main purpose in life was to bask in heat wherever she could find it.
‘Nice to see you, Mama.’ Beatrice kissed her mother’s soft cheek.
Her mother held on a little too long to the embrace as if words were daring to spring from her mouth – words of comfort or chastisement, Beatrice would never know. Her mother moved on before she let herself speak.
Beatrice took the cloak off the hook in the hallway and wrapped it around her mother tightly.
‘Why don’t you and Dougal come round for dinner this week? It’s been so long since you’ve visited.’ Her mother’s bird-like hand clutched the door handle.
‘Yes, that would be nice.’ Beatrice smiled, and her mother smiled back; both knew Beatrice would not make the visit.
Her mother opened the front door. Outside, a light rain misted the air, making the terraced houses on the opposite side of the street seem like hundreds of feet away. The streetlamps would need to be lit before too long, though the sun had some time before it set beyond the clouds. Her mother shuddered as she pulled her hat lower to shield her face, and without glancing back at her daughter, she hurried away into the rain.
Beatrice forced herself to remain where she was. She thought of her feet as tree roots stuck in the earth; it was the only way she could stop herself from running inside. She kept her gaze trained on the greying figure of her mother and listened to the quietening of her mother’s heels on the pavement.
She felt, rather than saw, the eyes of the ladies across the street peeking out from behind their windows to get a glimpse of her. She fixed a smile on her face – she hoped it looked like a smile, for it felt more like a grimace.
When her mother finally reached the corner of the street and turned to see if Beatrice was still on the doorstep, Beatrice pushed her hand into the air and waved. Her mother waved back, and even from this distance, she could see her mother’s happy relief.
Her breath held, Beatrice watched her mother disappear, then dived inside her house, slammed the door shut, and waited for her heart to slow its beating.
The next day, Beatrice was clearing away their breakfast plates as Dougal spread a newspaper across the table. He buried his nose inside its pages without a word to her.
In the scullery, she took the time to immerse her cold fingers in the hot water and looked out at their little back garden. Everything was dying with the arrival of autumn, and even the reds and golds of the leaves appeared dull from the damp. Today was not as wet as yesterday, and peering up at the sky, she was sure there was a tinge of blue amidst the grey – perhaps the sun would make an appearance later on. Either way, it didn’t much bother her.
The plates and cutlery washed, she dried her hands and returned to the dining room. Dougal had not moved, so engrossed in the pages was he, and at times like this she found herself studying the man she had married and realising just how much of a stranger he was.
Handsome, yes. Effie always did say how handsome he was, with his wavy brown hair and eyes as blue as a spring sky. He cut a fine figure in his black suit, and he was not so old as to have the wrinkles which usually came with the position of bank manager.
But what was underneath those clothes of his, Beatrice did not know. Was his flesh hard or soft? Did hairs sprout from his chest? In bed, he trussed himself up in his nightclothes so that not an inch of his body showed, and the only passion Beatrice had seen in him was with his obsession with his bible. Each night, before the candle was blown out, he took it from his drawer and read a passage. Sometimes he would read aloud, but mostly his lips worked in silence as his eyes rolled over the words of the Lord, a tear sometimes lingering on his lower eyelid before he placed the book in its drawer again and turned his back on Beatrice.
Almost every day he visited the church. It accounted for his long hours, so Beatrice was led to believe. How her days stretched before her, rattling around in their home with only a cook who came in each evening. Dougal would not even pay for a maid to help Beatrice with the housework – the devil was sure to make work for her idle hands if she was not kept busy.
And so she filled her time cleaning, washing, darning, helping Cook, and making dresses from magazine guides. Today, her sole aim was to complete the right sleeve of a violet gown. It was as she was thinking of this gown and the stitches it would require that the sound of a letter being pushed through their door caught her attention.
Dougal looked over the top of his paper and raised an eyebrow. Beatrice collected the letter.
The handwriting was like none she’d seen before, the letters looping themselves in and out of each other so that it was difficult to make out the shapes, but it was undeniably addressed to Dougal. It carried on odd, musty scent and something else … What was it? Lavender, perhaps?
She placed it on the table before her husband, and some moments later – after finishing the article he was reading – he folded the newspaper and turned to the letter with a sigh. A frown fluttered across his features as he regarded the writing, and Beatrice resumed her seat at the opposite end of the table and watched Dougal ease the wax away from the paper and lay out the letter.
He read it several times in silence. Beatrice sipped her tea. Not a muscle moved in Dougal’s face, which was as calm and chilling as ever, until he folded the letter into its worn creases and laid it on the table. He stared at the salt and pepper pots for a moment, unblinking.
The question wanted to spring from her lips, but she bit her tongue to remain silent. Dougal did not take kindly to too many questions. Be
tter to let him come out with it of his own accord. So she sipped her tea again and glanced at the clock, wondering if she should mention that he would be late for work if he lingered for too long.
Dougal stood. He pushed his hands against the table, and for one dreadful moment his skin flushed grey, and Beatrice thought he might faint. She pushed out her chair, ready to aid him, but Dougal rolled back his shoulders, sniffed, and stalked out of the dining room. She heard his coat rustling against his jacket and realised he was leaving for work.
‘Dougal?’ She met him, somewhat breathlessly, in the hall as he fixed his bowler on his head. ‘Is everything all right?’
He regarded himself in the looking glass on the wall and stroked his sideburns into place. ‘We must leave for Scotland in the morning.’
The notion was so absurd that she was not sure she had heard him correctly. She felt her mouth gape, but before she could question him again, he continued, ‘Pack your things, only those that you need. I’ll tell Mr Link today that we no longer require the house.’
Was Dougal seriously suggesting they abandon their home? A horrified laugh broke from her. ‘We can’t just leave!’
‘Have your things ready by this evening. We shall take a carriage to the station first thing.’
She had packed her case like Dougal had instructed, reassuring herself that by the time he returned home he would have changed his mind, but when he flung the door open, her stomach dropped. Upstairs, Dougal threw his clothes into a suitcase as Beatrice watched in disbelief. He ate his dinner with one eye on the clock as his fingers tapped restlessly against his knife and fork.
‘Have you said goodbye to your parents?’
Earlier, she had sent a letter with a boy, and her mother had arrived within the hour, panting from the exertion. Beatrice was able only to shrug at her mother’s barrage of questions, saying she knew as little as her, but what was she to do? Dougal was her husband. Where he went, she must follow – wasn’t that what everyone had always told her?
Her mother kissed her cheek and lingered in the doorway as if trying to soak up the sight of her. Beatrice so desperately wanted to embrace her mother, to beg her to make Dougal change his mind, to set Papa on to him, but there was no use in wishing.
‘Will you put some flowers on the grave?’ Beatrice asked. ‘I can’t …’
Her mother nodded, and Beatrice thought of Effie up in the churchyard. How she must have been so wet with all this rain, her clothes so cold against her skin! Beatrice wondered if Mama’s last bunch of flowers was still on the stone, withered and wilted and brown. It should have been cleared away. Surely someone would have cleared it away by now?
‘Have a safe journey,’ her mother said, and Beatrice tried to smile as she thought of the carriage, the station, the train.
She had not been able to bear to keep the door open to wave to her mother on the corner of the street – she had slammed it shut before Mama had even descended the house steps.
How would Beatrice manage such a journey? How would she manage to step outside the house without falling down dead if she could not even see her mother to the end of the road?
She had spent the rest of the afternoon in the parlour beside the fire with the curtains closed, imagining herself wrapped tightly like a swaddled babe, until she had forced herself into the kitchen to prepare dinner.
Now, in bed, she could not sleep. Beside her, Dougal breathed deeply. Occasionally, his body jerked and he cried out, and each time he did so she felt her nerves spark and the hope of rest recede even further. She listened to the noises of the house: the ticking as the bricks cooled, the gentle patter like a long, soft hiss as rain fell against the window, the sounds of shoes on the paving stones outside. She did not know if her eyes were open or closed, the black was so enveloping. Again, her thoughts curled towards Effie, alone in her coffin in the dark, and how her eyes would never see the light again. Perhaps Effie’s eyes were no longer eyes. Perhaps the worms had eaten them by now. Perhaps her whole body was speckled with black worm holes.
She shook the thought from her mind – it would only make her ill. She imagined instead the heat of summer, the softness of the grass like silk ribbons, the dappled sunlight as it filtered through the oak leaves, and she wondered if she would ever picnic on the banks of the river again. It did not seem likely.
Eventually, the room lightened to a dark grey. The details of the patterned curtains emerged as the dawn gained force and blackbirds began to trill from the garden.
Did they have blackbirds in Scotland? Did the sun rise in Scotland at this time of year? She could have been travelling to Australia for how foreign the land of the Celts seemed to be.
Dougal, despite his accent, had never once mentioned his homeland, had never even described it to her. When anyone tried to prise details of his past from him, he steered the conversation into safer waters, and Beatrice had been content to think he never had any intention of returning north.
The light woke him. He turned onto his back, blinked, stared at the ceiling, and then, as if the memory of what a momentous day this was going to be had suddenly struck him, he threw the covers off and leaped out of bed.
‘Hurry. We have a long journey ahead of us.’
She could not move. Her feet would not budge. She stood in the doorway as Dougal loaded the carriage with their cases. The driver stared at her. The horse was so black! Its coat was like a raven’s wing – almost blue – and it was as if its blackness was absorbing the colour of the sky. And above, the sky was clear. The clouds had blown away, the sun shone, and the wet pavement before her dazzled her eyes as the water reflected the light.
Across the street, a door opened. She had forgotten the name of the woman who lived there and who was some years older than herself, though she recalled that the children who ran about the woman’s skirts were called Jane and Henry. The woman smiled, waved a gloved hand, and stepped into the road.
‘Lovely day, is it not?’ She stopped between the carriage and Beatrice. ‘Are you holidaying somewhere?’
Beatrice shook her head, but she could not bring forth any words. Dougal scowled at her and reluctantly paused in his task to reply to their neighbour.
‘We are going to Scotland.’
The woman’s brows shot up. ‘Visiting family?’
Dougal nodded, smiled briefly. ‘We have a train to catch within the hour.’
The woman took no notice of Dougal’s unsubtle hint. ‘Will you be back for Christmas?’
‘It is unlikely.’
The woman glanced alarmingly at Beatrice. ‘What an adventure! Though I’m sure your family will miss you, Mrs Brown.’
Beatrice nodded, though her neck was stiff. She wanted to scream. She wanted the woman to save her, to say how ridiculous Dougal was being. She felt pressure building below her ribs, and her nails were digging into her palms as she waited for all of this to be over.
She edged backwards into the safety of the house. She would not go. Dougal could not make her go. If she closed the door and locked him out, no one could drag her away.
‘Come along, Beatrice,’ Dougal said, stepping around their neighbour, his hand outstretched.
All eyes were trained on his hand. There was the slightest of trembles in it – he was close to breaking as well. It was only the presence of their neighbour which was forcing him to remain calm and polite.
‘Beatrice. We shall miss our train.’
The driver of the carriage cleared his throat. The horse moved its head so that its chains rattled. Jane and Henry started skipping over the cracks in the pavement and then began to run for the high street.
‘I best catch them up,’ the woman said, a smile painted on her face. ‘It was nice to see you before you go.’ Beatrice caught her eye for a second and saw pity and curiosity in the woman’s gaze.
‘Beatrice.’ Dougal’s grip was tight around her fingers.
Suddenly, the front door was behind her. Fresh air hit her face. Too cold – it was
as if she had been flayed. The ground was hard beneath her feet. She felt a stone stab into her sole and she cried out with the pain, but Dougal did not let go of her.
In an instant, he had bundled her inside the carriage and hopped in beside her. He closed the door, punched the roof, and then her whole world jolted back and forth as the horse was whipped into a trot.
From the window, she watched her home stretch away. She would have opened the door and fallen out of the carriage to return to the familiar walls, but she was paralysed with terror. The town passed before her glazed eyes: waves of dark skirts, flashing sunlight on shop windows, towering buildings opening into an empty expanse of green and blue.
And all the while there was a crushing pain in her chest.
‘Calm down, will you,’ Dougal said, drawing the carriage curtains closed and plunging them into darkness. ‘Why must you always make such a fuss?’
Chapter 2
They had been in the dark for hours now. It was hard to believe she had been at home that very morning, and now where was she? She had no idea. The train had brought them to Glasgow, so Dougal had informed her; she was unable to make out any words or signs herself – her mind seemed to have stopped functioning. From Glasgow there had been another horse-drawn carriage. They had boarded it in the dark, and Dougal had once again closed the curtains so that Beatrice could not see the city; she was only able to hear the primal sounds of it.
She did not know which was worse: the churning screams of machinery and men and women and children or the silence of the open countryside. The silence, she decided, was worse – the unknown was worse. A few times she had reached for the curtain, her fingers catching the corner of the tatty material, but she had lost her nerve.
Convenient Women Collection Page 61