Convenient Women Collection

by Delphine Woods

  ‘Does he love you, Beatrice? Does he kiss you?’ Clementine’s fingertips dug into Beatrice’s arms and pulled her back against her. ‘Does he touch you at night?’

  Beatrice’s voice was ragged as it choked out of her throat. ‘There is something wrong with me.’

  ‘You think because Dougal does not fuck you, it is your fault.’ Clementine turned her around. An inch separated their faces. Her fingers traced Beatrice’s bruised cheek, then fluttered against her lower lip. ‘You deserve to be loved, Beatrice.’

  In her head, Beatrice urged Clementine to kiss her. How she wanted to feel something! Her skin was tingling now in anticipation, but Clementine was testing her.

  Moistening her lips, Beatrice closed the space between them. She kissed brutally, pushing into Clementine, forcing her onto the chaise longue. Her hands moved quickly, deftly unfastening her buttons, tearing her clothes in her haste.

  She saw Effie’s face, her pure, wide smile, and remembered their fingers touching, their lips as light as feathers, both too young to know how to properly love each other. Beatrice kissed Clementine as she wished she had kissed Effie, and though a disgust for herself was lodged somewhere deep inside, it remained buried. She buried it underneath Clementine’s fire, underneath Clementine’s determined hands and mouth, until she forgot it was there at all.

  Lying in Clementine’s bed a week late, Beatrice could feel the wine swirling and burning inside her – her mouth was dry with it, her tongue a little numb. She had drunk too much. Still, she swigged what was left in her glass and, leaning over Clementine, set it on the bedside table too harshly; her movements were larger than usual, uncontrolled. She laughed at her clumsiness, then fell back against the pillows beside Clementine.

  Her toes tangled into the silk sheets, savouring the luxury of them. She found Clementine’s foot under the quilt and tickled it, and Clementine squirmed and rolled onto her side, holding her wine glass up so nothing spilled.

  ‘I wonder what your husband is doing right now?’

  ‘Working, don’t you know!’ Beatrice said, mocking Dougal’s accent. Her poor imitation made them both cackle. ‘Probably poring over the Bible; it seems to be his favourite thing to do. He’s taken to reading it aloud after dinner now. Makes me sit and listen to him for over an hour.’

  Clementine rolled onto her back, the quilt falling off her body to reveal her breasts as she sipped her drink. ‘He senses a change in you.’

  Beatrice looked away and at the windows. Fear stitched her stomach for a moment, but the alcohol had made her bold. She slid out of bed, tiptoed over the clutter on the floor – stockings, corsets, petticoats, hair pins, empty wine bottles – and stood before the window. Sunlight bathed her naked body. She closed her eyes against it for a moment, outstretched her arms, then squinted at the cottage up the track. A thrill rippled through her. Dougal would be able to see her if he was in his study and he was to look up at the castle.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Clementine’s voice was playful, but beneath it, Beatrice heard the stiffness in it, the warning.

  ‘Letting him see what he is missing.’

  ‘I am missing it. Come back here.’ Behind the request, there was a demand.

  Beatrice did not object; her nerve was ebbing anyway. She flitted from the window and returned to the bed. She wrapped herself tightly in the quilt, pressed her face into the pillow, and smelt Clementine. The sheets had not once been washed since they had first made love between them, and beneath the perfume there was the staleness of old sweat lodged in the creases.

  ‘Tell me what he was like when he first came here.’

  ‘Dougal? You would not recognise him. Skinny little thing, he was. Pretty, more than handsome, I would say. His face has become more angular now – sturdier.’

  ‘Was he always so godly?’

  Clementine’s smile did not reach her eyes. ‘No.’

  ‘Did he go to church?’

  ‘Every Sunday with Hamish.’

  Beatrice twisted one of Clementine’s curls between her fingers. Staring into the blackness of it, she said, ‘What happened between them? Dougal will never tell me.’

  ‘Why do you want to know? Do you think it will help or are you just curious?’

  Clementine’s comment stung, with its implication that she was nothing more than a gossipmonger. She dropped Clementine’s hair and turned away from her. ‘I think it will help. It will make me understand why he does what he does.’

  ‘I should not try to understand the minds of men, Beatrice. They work in unfathomable ways.’

  ‘Tell me, Clementine.’

  Sighing, Clementine pushed herself up the bed and, reaching over, poured more wine into both of their glasses. ‘I cannot say what exactly passed between them. I never saw it. I know only that Hamish was fond of Dougal, confusingly so. He came as nothing but a stable boy to start with, and in mere weeks Hamish had him training as a footman.’

  Clementine pushed the glass into Beatrice’s hand. She caressed the space beside her, and Beatrice could not resist snuggling against Clementine’s bare flesh, forgiving her the snipe from before. Clementine stroked Beatrice’s head as she continued.

  ‘Hamish would go travelling for months at a time. As you know, he liked to hunt. Usually, he would take a few male staff with him, but once Dougal arrived, he wanted only him. When they returned, with all those tragic creatures, something had changed between them. Hamish could not bear to be parted from the boy. He wasn’t right with Dougal. He was … depraved.’

  Beatrice recalled the painting of Hamish, the one set directly opposite the main door so every visitor saw his face. The artist had captured something which always made Beatrice shudder: a cruelness in his slight smile, a dark glint in his brown eyes. The way his hands clawed the arms of the chair and the way his portrait seemed to buzz with an impossible, wicked energy made it seem as if he was waiting for something, setting a trap for some unsuspecting victim. He had been a dangerous man.

  ‘Why did he send Dougal away?’

  Clementine’s hand faltered. ‘He had no choice.’

  Beatrice raised her head. Clementine would not meet her gaze, but she tapped the rim of her glass against her teeth.

  ‘Clementine? What happened?’

  When she did not answer, Beatrice took the glass away from her. ‘Clementine, tell me.’

  Clementine pulled the sheets up to cover herself and hugged her knees into her chest. ‘I knew something was not right. I could not stand by and let it happen.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I told Hamish if he did not send the boy away I would go to the police.’ Her cheeks flushed as she said this. ‘Two men had been arrested in Glasgow only months before. Both were imprisoned. Both of us knew Hamish would not survive something like that.’

  Clementine was curled tightly into herself as if she was ashamed of her actions. But she had saved Dougal! Beatrice embraced her. In that moment, she could not have loved her more.

  ‘Hamish never forgave me,’ Clementine said, her face buried in Beatrice’s hair. When she pulled back, there were tears in her eyes which she brushed away. ‘I hoped I had done the right thing.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘And yet Dougal has turned out like this. Cold. Hard. A husband who takes his anger out on his wife.’ She cupped Beatrice’s cheek, though now the bruise had faded. Only the memory of it remained.

  ‘I do not blame him.’

  Beatrice could not be angry with Dougal, not after this revelation. Sobered, she cringed at her behaviour these last few days: her affair with Clementine, the many times she had mocked him, the way she had rolled her eyes behind his back when he was trying to talk to her.

  ‘It is no excuse for the way he has treated you, Beatrice.’

  ‘I can forgive him.’

  Clementine groaned and brought her wine to her lips. ‘You said he did not fuck you because there is something wrong with you.’ She spat the words. ‘What is wrong with y
ou, Beatrice? Is it how you loved your friend?’

  Never since that one time in the tower had she mentioned Effie to Clementine. To have her feelings cast out into the open like that, to be so brutally exposed, left her speechless.

  ‘I do not call it a sin to love someone, Beatrice. Not when they love you back. Not when that love is pure and true. Dougal would condemn you for your heart, a heart which he has been turning into stone for so long.’ Clementine rounded on her. ‘Look at you. You cannot even say her name to me, can you? You cannot say the name of the girl you loved. You call her only your friend, but what was she to you really?’

  Beatrice edged away, but Clementine grasped her tightly.

  ‘Say it. Say her name. Tell me about her. Paint her in my mind. I want to know her, Beatrice. I want to know the girl you loved because she is a part of you. If I know her, then I know you.’

  Beatrice shook her head. Clementine’s grip was too hard; she was hurting Beatrice.

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Say it, Beatrice. Be proud of her; be proud of yourself. Be the woman who stood naked in front of the window.’

  Beatrice felt her barriers crumbling as she looked into Clementine’s open face.

  ‘Be brave, Beatrice, as I know you are.’

  Beatrice swallowed, inhaled.

  ‘Effie.’ She had not said her name aloud for so long. The sound of it in the room made her ache. ‘Effie Young.’

  Clementine caressed Beatrice’s arms where she had been pinching them. ‘And what was she to you?’

  ‘The girl I loved.’ The admission made her weep. How she wished she could have declared it to Effie before it had been too late. How she wished they could have told the world. How she wished they could have been together, as Beatrice and Clementine were together now.

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Beautiful.’ Her saliva was running too thinly in her mouth, her emotions were overwhelming her. ‘Golden hair. Skin like fresh cream. She was perfect.’ Beatrice pushed her fingers into her eyes and willed herself to be calm.

  Clementine rubbed Beatrice’s back and cooed to her as if comforting a child. ‘You do not have to hide anything from me.’ Clementine lifted Beatrice’s face and softly kissed her lips. ‘I am sorry you lost her. Death is so final, is it not? To know you will never see her face again …’ Clementine’s breath caught in her throat. She released Beatrice, and the air, which had only seconds ago been so charged, was now calm. ‘But we must live on for them. We must live with them in our hearts, always guiding us, don’t you think?’

  Beatrice nodded. She felt as if someone had taken hold of her head and heart and had wrung her dry. She lay against Clementine’s chest, and with each rise and fall of Clementine’s body, her eyelids drooped a little further. In Clementine’s arms, she let herself be soothed, let the memory of Effie wash over her, and as she fell asleep, it was as if both of the women she loved were cradling her.

  Chapter 10

  A fine rain tapped against the panes. Beside her, Dougal slept heavily, the quilt bunched up around his shoulders, his knees close to his chest as infants sleep. She turned towards him and grazed her fingertips over his hair. For a moment he quietened, as if about to wake, but then his deep breathing returned, and he buried his chin further into his chest.

  She stroked his head again, feeling the unusualness of him, the wiry quality of his hair compared to Clementine’s, the shortness of it as it fell through her fingers. Never had she caressed him so, and though it was strange, she found it comforting. For the last two years, he had been her constant. No matter how much she might have disliked him, no matter how hard on her he had been, every day she had seen his face, felt the dip in the mattress beside her, smelt the ink and soap which seeped from his skin. He was a part of her now – another part of herself which she could not bring herself to love but could not imagine being without.

  She sighed at her complicated feelings. Life, for all its dreariness, had been straightforward at home. She knew her place, knew what her life would become, knew she would go along with it all, happy to defer the decision-making to those who seemed to know better. Once, she had wished for excitement and love, but after Effie had died, those things had seemed impossible. She had resigned herself to marriage and the numbness which it brought.

  But here, at Dhuloch with Clementine, the blood had returned to her limbs. She felt it burning within her even now as she lay silently beside her husband. A rebellion had broken out within her, and though she might pine for the comfortable – the familiar – she knew she could never return to it. She thought of it fondly, nostalgically, as one might regard an old painting, knowing it to be out of reach.

  Still, guilt crushed her ribs. Dougal’s nightmares were understandable now, though she did not try to imagine them. And though Clementine might not forgive him for his hardness, Beatrice could no longer hate him for it. Hadn’t she grown similarly hard after Effie? There was something about shame which built brick walls around those who suffered it. Only Clementine’s love had weakened the structures around Beatrice; Dougal’s barricades were too strong to knock down.

  She kissed her fingers and placed them on his hair. ‘I forgive you,’ she whispered.

  In the darkness, with nothing but her troubled mind for company, she was growing melancholy. Slipping out of bed, she crept towards the window and peeked through the curtains. Without the moon or stars, the world outside was almost black.

  Dhuloch. It means black lake … you could fall into it and be lost for all eternity.

  She pressed her forehead against the glass and felt the vibrations of the rain. She was lost already.

  After a minute or so, as her eyes adjusted, she could make out the black block of the castle, its turrets and towers. Blinking, she could see the faint streak of the track snaking over the parkland towards Dhuloch’s door. To her right, the stable block and beyond that, the fringes of the woodland, the trees’ bare branches merging into a black blur against the grey.

  She was considering how she might be able to get to sleep – should she use the pot or maybe warm some milk and honey? – when a spark caught her attention. A faint glow flickered in the courtyard tower’s window again, gaining strength. A shadow passed in front of the window before the candlelight returned, then ebbed until all light had vanished.

  She waited for a while, wondering if the light would return. Her feet itched, and she started to shiver. The light did not reappear.

  Abandoning her post, she pulled the pot from under the bed and tiptoed onto the landing to relieve herself.

  The following afternoon, after taking Dougal some tea, Beatrice fastened her cloak about herself. The rain during the night had turned to sleet and then frozen. A draught laced into the house through the cracks in the door. She had been cold all day, so now she found her fur muff and stole and, bracing herself for the chill, opened the door.

  She almost collided with Jean.

  They jumped away from each other, then took a moment to steady themselves. Beatrice tried to laugh, but she was too nervous to sound comfortable, and Jean’s face did not melt. Beatrice stepped aside so the maid might enter. The woman did so without a nod of acknowledgement and roughly scraped her shoes on the mat, flicking shards of ice onto Beatrice’s skirt.

  ‘Thank you for this, Jean,’ Beatrice said, before the woman could disappear into the kitchen.

  The maid nodded. Her nose and cheeks were scarlet, her hands, as they knotted together, were bare and white. Beatrice noticed Jean’s little finger was bandaged, as it had been for just over a week. Clementine had put it down to clumsiness.

  ‘It must be a lot of work for you to do all on your own – the castle and now here.’

  Jean did not lift her gaze from the floor.

  ‘I hope it is not too much of an inconvenience for you.’

  Something niggled at Beatrice’s attention, a tapping sound. She searched for it and found, to her dismay, that Jean was tapping her foot.

&
nbsp; She did not need such insolence from a maid, and the pity she had been feeling for the woman evaporated. She straightened her spine, though Jean was still a few inches taller.

  ‘Dougal needs quiet. He is very busy today.’

  Jean remained unresponsive but for the slight jiggle as she continued to tap her foot.

  ‘You are not to disturb him. I have made him tea. If he needs anything, he will call for you.’ Still the maid did not respond. ‘Is that understood, Jean?’

  Slowly, Jean’s gaze travelled up Beatrice’s body. Suddenly, she felt naked. She hugged her arms before her chest, and though she did not want to, she could not help but curl away from the maid’s scrutiny. The blood was hot in her face, and Beatrice forced herself not to flinch as Jean’s eyes met her own; they were clear, bold, and unwavering.

  Jean knew. She knew about Beatrice and Clementine!

  Beatrice broke first. Busying herself with her stole, she turned away from the maid. ‘Right. Good.’

  She stepped over the threshold, and a gale slammed against her, snatching her breath away. The ground was soggy where the ice had not formed, and the track before her was like a pock-marked face from all the frozen craters on its surface. Stretching too far away on the horizon was Dhuloch, and even from here she could see icicles hanging from its ledges.

  Unsure whether she could make it, she turned back to the cottage. Jean was blocking the doorway, staring at her, arms folded; she was not going to let Beatrice back inside.

  ‘Why are you such a sullen thing?’ Beatrice hissed, fear making her mean. Who was this servant to bar her from her own house? ‘Your mistress keeps you well, does she not? And you repay her kindness with scowls.’

  Jean’s scowl only worsened. The maid edged forward, as if challenging Beatrice to try to pass her. Beatrice pinched herself beneath her fur muff.

  ‘In what hole did Hamish find you? A workhouse, as I recall. A workhouse girl thinks herself better than me, is that it?’