‘It is like nothing I have ever seen before.’
‘Good. I like to be memorable.’
‘How do you work in here? It is so cold.’
‘I am used to it. There are blankets in that chest over there if you would like one. Now, where do you want to sit?’
Beatrice swirled around. She had no idea.
‘I think the chaise. With your feet up. Rest against the arm as if you were about to go to sleep.’
Beatrice settled herself. ‘Like this?’
‘Perfect. Are you comfortable?’
She was for the moment, but she could already feel her bustle digging into her back and knew her arm would soon start to prickle as the blood drained away from it.
Clementine squeezed paint onto a palette. ‘I remember when I had to use a pig’s bladder to store the paint.’ She shuddered exaggeratedly. ‘Awful things. Thank goodness for progress, eh?’ She dabbed a brush onto the palette, then frowned at Beatrice and began work on the canvas.
‘Why do you not have your studio in the main house? It would be warmer, would it not? More comfortable?’
‘I like it up here in the clouds.’ Clementine pinched the brush between her lips while she unscrewed a different tube of paint, then jabbed the brush against the palette. ‘My father used to lock me in our attic, you know.’ Clementine glanced up and laughed at Beatrice’s horrified face.
‘Why?’
‘Because I had displeased him in some way. Mainly because I was a girl. My brother was my father’s favourite. That child could do no wrong.
‘Anyway, I grew rather fond of the attic eventually, after I’d stopped crying every time I saw a spider. It was one of those great big spaces. It had windows in the roof thankfully – I don’t know how I should have coped had I been up there in the dark. I used to open the windows and let the birds in. I had quite a menagerie with me in the end. I used to paint the animals. Father let me paint, at least, so I was not completely idle up there for hours at a time. I developed quite a talent for it.’
Beatrice studied the artist before her. Clementine was an enigma. Beatrice could not contemplate such a cruel childhood. Hers, for all the boredom, had been safe, and although it had not been shown, she had always known she was loved. For a moment, she glimpsed the child in Clementine, the vulnerability of her alone in a cold attic with only animals to talk to. She now understood her love for her dogs, her childlike enthusiasm and glee over certain things, the happiness which had been denied her during her youth.
Clementine met Beatrice’s gaze. ‘You are sad, Beatrice.’
‘For what your father did.’
Clementine shook her head. ‘You have been sad ever since you came here. I think you have been sad for a while.’
Beatrice fixed her gaze on the floor.
‘I know sadness, Beatrice. I can recognise it. What are you sad about?’
Beatrice shook her head. She would protest, but she was not sure her words would come out clearly past the lump which was forming in her throat.
‘Who are you sad about?’
Her vision wobbled as tears swelled in her eyes. She swiped one droplet off her cheek as it fell.
‘I might be able to help, ease some of the pain, if you would tell me.’
‘A friend of mine.’ Beatrice cleared her throat. Another tear fell, and again, she wiped it away as she tried to compose herself. ‘She died.’
‘I am sorry. When?’
‘A couple of years ago.’
Clementine nodded and gently swept her brush across the canvas. ‘Were you with her?’
Sunlight blinded Beatrice. She shook away the memory of the dappled light, the sound of the river, the feel of the grass under her hands. The outdoors had held nothing but fear since then. ‘Yes.’
‘She would have been grateful for that.’
Beatrice suddenly felt a sharp pain in her hand, and she uncurled her fist to see the deep crescent marks of her nails denting the skin of her palm.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Oh, dear. Come here.’ Clementine joined Beatrice on the seat and opened her arms. ‘I did not mean to upset you.’
Beatrice was sobbing, though it was a pitiful, snivelling kind of sob. She should not embarrass herself so.
‘Sorry.’ Beatrice eased herself out of Clementine’s embrace and wiped her face with her handkerchief.
‘You can tell me anything, you know, Beatrice.’
Clementine waited, but Beatrice did not want to speak of Effie. She did not want to think of her, or her death, not when Beatrice had been enjoying the day – it only made the guilt worse.
‘Thank you for being a friend, Clementine.’
Clementine took her hand. ‘We have both lost someone we have loved. I think there is a comfort in that.’
‘Yes, forgive me. Your loss is so recent, and mine …’
‘Why did you marry Dougal? Really – what is the truth of it?’
Confused, Beatrice shook her head. These sudden changes of subject were unnerving. She dragged her hand out of Clementine’s grip, trying to think of something to say, but Clementine cut in before she could speak.
‘Why do you let him tell you what to do all the time? Why do you let him treat you like he does?’
‘I am his wife.’
Clementine laughed, but there was no humour in it. ‘He does not deserve you. There is a rhyme in this country, you know. They tell it to children. Little Hen, it is called. This little hen goes about and does everything she is told: cleaning, cooking, taking care of everyone but herself, and everyone thinks her perfect because of it. They tell it to little girls so they will know how to be a perfect woman when they are grown.’ Clementine stroked Beatrice’s chin, and Beatrice felt her touch as if it were fire licking her skin. ‘You are a little hen, are you not?’
‘I am just trying …’ Trying what? Beatrice had never before realised how pathetic she was compared to someone like Clementine.
‘I was like you once,’ Clementine said.
Beatrice could not imagine it. How could someone like Clementine ever have been afraid of anything, ever been cowed by anyone?
‘I was a little hen too.’
‘What are you now?’
Clementine grinned, and her eyes sparkled. ‘Now I am the fox.’
Their encounter had lingered in Beatrice’s mind. She had replayed it all evening, her eyes blind to the scenes around her – she saw only Clementine’s face.
Now, alone in bed, she could feel the studio’s draught against the back of her neck, catching at her hair. She could smell the sharp tang of turpentine, the mustiness of old bird droppings, Clementine’s perfume of lavender and citrus. She could see the deep pink of Clementine’s lips and the faint creases within them, the transparent quality of Clementine’s eyes, the wisps of soft, dark curls under Clementine’s ear.
Clementine. It was as if Beatrice’s senses were filled with her, consumed by her.
I am the fox.
Beatrice pulled the quilt up to her chin and felt a shiver crawl down her spine. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed the apparition of Clementine out of her mind.
Sleep. She needed to sleep.
The minutes turned into hours as she lay there, frustrated, her breath coming quickly, her toes wriggling. She was impatient, but she did not know why.
Pressing her hands against her flat stomach, her first thoughts did not go to the child that she was missing. Rather, she felt her hands as if they belonged to another – too hot, searing against her delicate skin. Her guts swirled – in fear or excitement, she could not determine.
She hurled the quilt away from her and let the cold night air suck against her sticky skin. In the silence, her rapid breath was like a saw going backwards and forwards. She put a hand over her mouth, calmed herself, pressed a finger into the soft flesh under her jaw and felt her pulse as it started to ease.
The floor was blissfully cool under her feet as she tiptoed towards the window.
Outside, the brightness of the midnight sky was broken by the blown clouds so that the detail of the scene before her flashed in black and silver. She gazed at the castle. Not a single candle burned in the windows. She did not like to think of Clementine somewhere inside, alone in the dark. If only Beatrice could go to her. If she were not such a coward, she could have walked across the parkland to the castle right now. But the space between Clementine and Beatrice might as well have been a mile of quicksand – it was just as impossible to traverse.
Her breath misted the window as she sighed. She traced a letter in the cloud, and as her eyes focused on the C, something beyond the glass caught her attention.
A light flickered in the castle, but not in the main trunk of the place – in one of the far towers in the courtyard. She squinted and cupped her face to the window as the light in the tower became brighter. It came through a long, thin opening, perhaps once used by archers, and she was sure a shadowy figure blocked the light for a second.
Then it started to fade. The hot orange glow turned to a pale yellow, then darkened, until the tower was once again just a black silhouette.
Her eyes stung as she pushed her fingers into them. Gooseflesh spiked her skin and, suddenly cold, she found her robe and slippers and crept downstairs. She would warm herself some milk and stir honey into it – the honey which Clementine had given her to see if she could taste the heather in it.
Downstairs, the hallway was dark, but candlelight seeped from the cracks in the parlour door. She tiptoed to Dougal’s study. Perhaps, at this time of night, he had fallen asleep on his desk. It would not have been the first time she had found him slumped over his papers, spit drooling from his open mouth.
Pressing an ear to the door, she heard nothing but deep breathing. She would wake him, take him to bed, make sure he was warm and comfortable. She would be good to him, for her conscience, for some reason, weighed heavily tonight.
Silently, she twisted the handle and pushed the door open an inch, just enough to see inside.
Dougal had his back to her as he sat in his chair. Papers spilled across the desk before him, and a candle guttered in its holder as he panted heavily. She could now tell there was something more in his breathing – a wetness, a snivelling. His spine was hunched over so that he was curled in on himself, and pushing the door open further, she could see his trousers were down and bunched at his knees.
Her face burned as she began to understand what was going on. Dougal could not bring himself to lift Beatrice’s nightgown, so instead he found his pleasure in his own hands.
Sickness spread up her throat as she watched him tremble and shudder, his breath gaining speed until he groaned and his head fell forward, his shoulders eased, and he let out one long exhalation.
She swallowed, trying to contain her disgust, as Dougal brought his hand to the arm of his chair. The skin, she saw in the dim light, was red. He held something, but she couldn’t make it out.
She edged forward until the object became clear – a knife. Blood glinted along the blade, and she was sure she heard a droplet fall from the tip and splash on the flagstones.
A gasp escaped her throat before she could stop it. Dougal whirled around to face her, and in that instant, she saw the red lines across the tops of his thighs, some scabbed over, others raw, the blood from them oozing down his white flesh.
Everything happened so quickly after that. Dougal struggled to hide himself, smearing blood everywhere as he shouted and ran at her. Beatrice dived out of the study and raced upstairs, tripping over the hem of her robe as she went and slamming her chin against one of the steps. She did not falter for long, though; she could hear Dougal gaining on her.
Bursting into the bedroom, she slammed the door behind her, pushed herself against it, and waited for Dougal’s fists to punch into the wood. But he never came. Instead, she heard and felt the crash of the front door.
Then everywhere fell silent.
Chapter 7
In the looking glass, Beatrice tested the sensitivity of her chin. A bruise had formed, and underneath her fingers she felt a hard lump on the edge of her jawbone. Purple crescents sat beneath her eyes and her skin was ashen. She was uglier than ever.
She straightened out the quilt, slapped her pillows into shape, then shrugged on her dressing gown. At the top of the stairs, she hesitated.
Last night lingered in the hallway below, the horridness palpable in the air. She did not want to venture downstairs. She did not want to search for her husband. Was he here, lurking somewhere? Had he still not returned from wherever he had run to last night? She held the bannister tight, a ball tumbling over and over inside her stomach as she inhaled deeply and forced herself down the first step.
She did not go left towards the parlour. She could not bear to look in its direction at all. As if it were a ghost, she felt its presence behind her as a chill over her skin, as a grip on her insides, as something which made her scurry for the kitchen.
At the kitchen door, she halted. Dougal sat at the table, a newspaper laid out before him. He did not flinch as Beatrice stepped inside. He did not raise his head or acknowledge her at all.
In the silence, Beatrice took a moment to examine him. He wore the same clothes as yesterday, but there was no trace of the horror of last night on them. She could see no dried blood, no creases. His hair was combed and slicked back, his sideburns greased. His fingers, she noticed when he turned a page, were clean, the nails clipped and clear.
She did not understand. How could he sit there, his face blank, as if nothing at all had passed between them? She knew his darkest secret now. A secret – according to the scars on his skin – which he had kept for too long.
He was a proud man; inside, she knew, he must be burning with shame. She could detect a flicker of it every now and again as his eyes scanned the paper too quickly and blinked too rapidly, as if he was trying too hard to hold himself together.
‘Good morning,’ she said, too late for her arrival in the room. The tension in the air stretched tighter.
‘Good morning.’ Dougal coughed. As he did so, he brought his hand before his mouth, and there it was – a tremor. So she had not imagined everything, after all.
She busied herself with lighting the range, for the ashes had almost smouldered to nothing. It took an age for a flame to catch. She had never been good at attending the range, and she would have to black it again today – the worst job. A bank manager’s wife, on her knees, blacking an old range! How many times had her mother sniped at their lack of help. Even a tweeny would be something, her mother used to say, tutting over the state of Beatrice’s dry hands and brittle nails.
With the fire going, Beatrice set a kettle to heat and prepared a pot of tea. Dougal inched back as she came to place his cup and saucer in front of him.
‘Where did you go last night?’ She could not stop herself from asking the question, for it was clear Dougal was prepared for the silence to endure if she was too timid to probe him.
‘Out.’
‘Walking?’
He nodded.
‘I do not like to think of you out there in the middle of the night.’
‘Then do not think of it.’
The kettle hissed. She pulled it off the heat and poured water into the teapot.
How would it feel to pour the water over her skin? Might she understand, then, why Dougal took his rage out on himself? She held the kettle over her hand, imagined tipping it, imagined the burn, the agony. She wanted to do it. There came a thrill with it, the thrill of the fear and the pain, the thrill of feeling something so shattering and consuming that it would take away the dull ache of the last two years, if only for a moment. She tilted the kettle, held her breath …
‘What are you doing?’ Dougal’s voice broke her trance. She set the kettle over the range once more and sat in her chair.
‘I was worried about you.’
Dougal folded his newspaper with a sigh.
‘Where did you go?’
>
He gulped his tea. Beatrice knew it would be burning his throat; her own fingertips tingled as they rested against her china cup, the steam from it clouding the air.
‘Dougal, I only want to help. You think I do not understand, but I can try. I understand pain, Dougal. And shame.’ At this word, he flinched. He set his cup in its saucer. ‘If you would unburden yourself, you might feel better.’
She wanted to stretch her hand all the way across to him and hold him as Clementine had held her yesterday. Looking at him now, despite the strangeness between them, she could not help but see him as a little boy. He seemed so lost, as if forced to live in a world he did not understand, playing a caricature of who he thought he should be.
Perhaps that was why his words, his commands, never injured her as much as they should have done, because everything he said seemed to come from a mouth which did not truly belong to him. On the rare occasions when she had seen him smile, how his face had been lit with joy! He had it within him, buried too far down for it to surface for more than a second at a time, but it was there. If only she could dig it out.
There had been something which had brought them together. There had been something which they had recognised, however subconsciously, in each other, as if they might indeed have been more similar than they ever thought.
‘Dougal, please, let me help you.’
He nodded as his fingers drummed the tabletop. ‘Yes, you can help me, Beatrice. You can help me by being the wife you are supposed to be. You can help me by having the breakfast ready instead of lying in bed. I did not accept your father’s offer thinking I would be marrying a sloven.’
He pushed out his chair. His knuckles pressed against the table, blanching to white. ‘You can help me by attending church like you are supposed to. You can help me by not embarrassing me before my employer. You can help me by going outside and doing the chores you need to do instead of cowering in here. You can help me by leaving me to my business and getting on with your own!’
His voice echoed in the room. She held still, afraid to move, biting her cheeks to stop the tears which were threatening to fall.
Convenient Women Collection Page 66