Silent now and shuddering, she focused on the weave in the wool of Alfred’s jacket as he carried her to the castle.
Each time she blinked, she saw Dougal.
Dead – because of her.
Chapter 13
Her stinging skin woke her. With her eyes closed, she wriggled her legs and toes and felt her wounds catch on the bed sheets.
‘Hush, now. You are safe.’ Clementine’s voice drifted towards her, then a soft hand brushed her forehead.
She opened her eyes. The room was a dim gold colour, the wallpaper muted, the curtains drawn. The grate was stacked high with burning logs, but despite being wrapped tightly under the quilt, Beatrice shivered. Her eyeballs scratched in their sockets as she glanced around, taking in Clementine’s chaotic room. Clementine sat beside her on the bed, and the dogs lay on the floor looking up at her with their big brown eyes. She blinked, and in the blackness, she saw Dougal’s silhouette hanging crookedly from the branch. The memory made her gasp.
Clementine shifted nearer and cradled Beatrice’s head as she wept quietly. She couldn’t understand it. How could someone be there one minute and gone the next? Never again would she hear Dougal’s voice – she tried to recall the sound of him now, but it was impossible. She tried to remember his face, the intricacies of it, but he was only a blur in her memory. How had he vanished so quickly?
It had been the same with Effie, she reminded herself, trying to reassure herself that this was just shock. Slowly, day by day, week by week, Effie had come to her more clearly – she remembered Effie’s smile, the slant of her teeth, the faint specks of green in the blueness of her eyes. She remembered Effie how she had truly been once the shock of the blood and the pain and the terror had calmed.
‘Where is he?’ Beatrice whispered, nuzzling her cheek against Clementine’s silken sleeve. ‘Can I see him?’
‘I think it would be best to remember him as he was.’
So it was bad. Beatrice did not protest.
‘How?’ Again, Dougal’s body hanging from the tree stormed her mind. She could not make sense of it. How did something like that happen? It was impossible.
Clementine cleared her throat and shifted underneath Beatrice. ‘We … found this inside his jacket.’
Clementine held a piece of crumpled paper before Beatrice. Beatrice pulled herself upright and took the note in her hands. The paper was brittle and creased, as if it had once been wet but had now dried stiffly. She unfolded it, careful not to tear it, and saw the words scrawled on the page. The ink had run with the wet, but the writing was still distinguishable.
I cannot live with these sins. Forgive me.
She stared at it for several minutes. She read the note again and again, but she might as well have been reading Latin.
‘I don’t understand.’
Clementine prised the note out of Beatrice’s grasp, folded it, then slipped it inside one of her drawers. ‘It seems that Dougal took his own life.’
No. That made no sense at all. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He would be damned for eternity. He would be in the pits of hell right now …
Beatrice howled in agony. The sins he wrote about – were they her sins or his? Were they what he had spoken about that time when he had begged her for forgiveness, or were they hers and Clementine’s sins?
‘It is my fault.’
Clementine hugged her close. ‘Do not think like that.’
‘It was finding us together!’
‘He did this to himself. It was only a matter of time.’
Beatrice stared up at Clementine. ‘What do you mean?’
Clementine’s lips were pinched together. She took a deep breath and sighed it out, shaking her head. ‘He was hurting himself already, Beatrice. You saw what he was capable of doing.’
The memory of the bloodied knife, of Dougal’s scabbed and sliced flesh, came back to her in flashes.
Perhaps Clementine was right – it was easier to think she was right. It was easier to breathe if the guilt was not all Beatrice’s. But no matter how much she tried to tell herself that, Beatrice knew hers and Clementine’s affair had broken him. He might have loaded the gun, but it was she who had pulled the trigger.
If only they had left for home sooner!
Home. The idea stunned her. She would have to return alone now, a widow. She would have to face another sea of pitying faces like she had faced after Effie’s death. What on earth would she do when she arrived? She would have to live with her parents. She would have to endure more suitors pushed on her by her father. She would have to remarry so that her mother could have the grandchild she had always wanted.
She sobbed again, louder this time. Her selfishness embarrassed her – she should not be weeping for herself when her husband had been dead less than a day – but she could not stop the tears from choking out of her.
‘What will I do?’ She clung to Clementine, fearing that if she let go, Clementine might vanish also. ‘What will happen to me now?’
‘Stay,’ Clementine whispered and turned Beatrice’s face to hers. Clementine was crying too as she kissed Beatrice. ‘Stay with me, my love.’
Beatrice let herself be kissed, let herself be swept away in the fantasy of being with Clementine forever in this fairy-tale castle. She pushed Dougal out of her mind and let herself be loved.
‘It is done. Alfred has seen the grave.’ Clementine pulled her shawl tight as she entered the parlour. She walked in a daze towards the drinks stand and poured two glasses of whisky, although it was still morning. Beatrice took the liquor and sipped it as she gazed at the view.
Snow lay thickly over the landscape. It bulged over Dhuloch’s stonework, dropping in white dollops to the ground and muffling all sounds. The loch was now frozen, and its surface was a patchwork of white, grey, and black where the snow had settled or where areas of ice had not fully hardened. The only signs of life were from the black claw-prints in the courtyard snow below, but Beatrice had not yet seen the birds to whom those prints belonged.
It was a miracle they had managed to dig the ground in this weather. Clementine had sorted it – whenever Beatrice had asked about the practicalities of the burial, Clementine had always said that she would sort it, that Beatrice must not worry herself.
Of course, it had been a quiet affair. Dougal had been buried just before midnight, without rites. No one had attended, as was the custom with self-murderers.
Clementine sat opposite Beatrice, her face turned towards the flames. They drank in silence.
‘I would like to visit. The grave, I mean.’
Clementine’s grey eyes turned to Beatrice. ‘Why?’
‘I haven’t said goodbye.’
How many days had passed since Dougal’s death? They had all blended into one. Spending the endless hours drifting between Clementine’s chamber, the parlour, and the guest room in which she now slept, Beatrice had not even stepped foot on the stairs, let alone outside. The thought of venturing all the way to the village church where Dougal was buried, out in the bleak abyss, was both tantalising and terrifying.
‘Have there been any letters for me?’ Beatrice had written to her mother to inform her of the news. She had kept the details minimal. She had said there had been an accident, that Dougal had died suddenly. Her mother did not need to know the real cause. Indeed, it was a blessing Beatrice was so far away from home – no one need ever know the truth.
Clementine shook her head. ‘It is the weather. The roads are impassable over the hills.’
Beatrice shivered. She rolled off the settee, stood before the flames, and stared at the clock on the mantelpiece. Jean would soon be bringing lunch up for her and Clementine – broth and bread, the only things Beatrice could force down her throat. She knew Clementine was growing to resent the bland food. She knew Clementine was growing to resent Beatrice’s wallowing – no longer was Clementine quite so sympathetic. Instead of holding Beatrice for hours on end as she had done at the start, now whenever Beatrice wept, C
lementine would pace about the room, throwing Simeon at Beatrice in an effort to cheer her, resorting to drink if all else failed.
‘I have been thinking,’ Beatrice said, ‘that I should go back to the cottage.’
‘Why?’ Clementine’s voice came out strained. ‘You have everything you need here.’
Following a gentle tap on the door, Jean entered with a silver tray laden with food. She set it all out neatly on the small table before the window.
‘I have to get Dougal’s things,’ Beatrice continued. ‘Everything is still in there.’
‘Oh.’ Clementine rested back again and finished the dregs of her drink. ‘Do you think you could manage it? Going outside?’
Beatrice glanced towards the window, and as she did so, Jean caught her eye. Beatrice flushed – she did not want the maid to see the terror on her face, but it was too late. Jean lowered her gaze and set out the spoons. Behind her, the world loomed too large, and the snow-covered mountains made it look as if they were all locked in the jaws of some terrible beast.
‘Perhaps Jean could go?’ Clementine ambled towards the table, then took her seat. She lifted the silver lid to reveal a bowl of weak broth and groaned.
Beatrice studied the maid who now stood with her hands clasped neatly before her, her face blank. Still, Beatrice did not trust her.
‘She won’t know what to do.’
‘She is not a complete dunce,’ Clementine laughed, but she was beginning to sound exasperated.
Was that how Beatrice was now – exasperating? She hoped not. She took her seat opposite Clementine and forced a smile, though the muscles in her face felt stiff – she had not smiled for a long time. Clementine noted it and smiled in return. This time, it met her eyes.
‘You are right.’ Beatrice made her voice light as she dipped her spoon into the broth. ‘Jean can do it.’
The guest chamber walls shimmered pink and gold in the candlelight. The fire was stacked high; the pillows were plumped; her nightgown was fresh. The drawn curtains glimmered and held in the heat, making the room feel as soft and as warm as a womb. Yet it was at this time of day, when the sun had set many hours ago and there were many hours before it would rise again, that Beatrice’s thoughts swirled in her mind, chilling her from the inside.
Hugging her pillow close, she stared blindly before her. Her eyes were hot and dry – scorched by the tears she had shed. Her pillowslip was wet against her cheek. Each time she blinked, she saw Dougal.
She was so dreadfully tired. Despite the luxuriousness of the bed, she slept oddly nowadays. She would sink into a black abyss, but her dreams were so vivid it was as if she were awake.
Dougal would come to her. He would smile at her wolfishly, his eyes gleaming. He would circle her, and as she tried to follow him, he would disappear, then pounce at her out of the dark. He was no longer Dougal – he was Effie. Effie came out of the waves, her hair floating around her shoulders, her skin too pale and soft, her eyes too wet. She would waft towards Beatrice in the shroud in which she had been buried and place her pale hand against Beatrice’s stomach. When Beatrice tried to touch her, she dissolved into waterfalls.
She shook these dreams from her mind now. She did not want to sleep, not when sleep was so disorientating.
The door opened. Clementine peeped into the room, then entered. The dogs followed her and jumped straight onto the bed beside Beatrice. She let them nuzzle and lick her skin as she pushed herself upright.
Clementine’s gaze dropped to the pillow, and she noticed the dark patch there. She stroked Beatrice’s cheek. ‘You still weep for him.’
‘He is my husband.’
Clementine’s hand stilled. ‘Was.’
Beatrice moved away from Clementine’s touch. She scooped Simeon up and held him close to her chest. She kissed his bony head.
‘Do you think you might be up for going downstairs tomorrow?’
Beatrice’s grip tightened around the dog. ‘Why?’
‘Well, I think it is time you saw more than these three rooms, don’t you? And it is Christmas tomorrow.’
Beatrice gawped at Clementine. Was she joking? Christmas! How much time had elapsed? How long had she holed herself up? How long had Dougal been in the ground? When had he been buried? Days drifted towards her, but no dates stuck. Everything was a mire, a bog, and the more she tried to traverse it, to make sense of it, the more she sank into the quicksand.
‘Come on. Not again. Come on.’ Clementine shoved a handkerchief into Beatrice’s face. ‘You have to stop this, Beatrice.’
‘My husband is dead,’ Beatrice sniffed.
‘Husband. Husband. You keep calling him husband as if it should mean something!’ Clementine stalked to the window and peeked out between the curtains.
‘Of course it means something.’
‘What?’ Clementine rounded on her. ‘That you loved him?’
Beatrice shrank further under her quilt. She did not want to see the rage in Clementine’s eyes. She did not want to argue.
‘Did you love him, Beatrice?’
‘You know I did not,’ Beatrice whispered.
‘Then why are you doing this to yourself?’
‘Because it is my fault. It is our fault! He killed himself because of what we did.’
‘He killed himself because he was rotted in the mind!’ Clementine’s shout made the dogs whimper. Beatrice held on to Simeon and shushed him and stroked the raised fur down the centre of his back. Clementine put a hand against the wall and breathed in deeply.
‘How?’ Beatrice said once everything and everyone had grown still. ‘I just don’t understand how he could have done it. There is only one place for self-murderers. It is a sin.’ And how Dougal hated sins! Why would he have killed himself if he knew he would be destined for hell? Was it another way for him to punish himself?
Clementine summoned Jean. ‘It is late. You need rest.’
Beatrice scurried up the bed. A thought occurred to her – this thought had occurred to her before, but it kept slipping from her mind. She needed to say it now whilst she had hold of it.
‘I was awake that night, I am sure. I couldn’t sleep. Not for hours.’
Clementine busied herself by folding one of Beatrice’s discarded petticoats. It was lying on a chair in the corner of the room next to Dougal’s cases, which Jean had brought in several days previously.
‘What is your point?’
‘My point is that I didn’t hear Dougal return. But he must have come back, mustn’t he, to have written that note?’
Clementine pushed the folded petticoat into the press. ‘You were awake the whole night?’
‘Well … most of it.’
‘You never slept at all?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe a little.’ She fought for the memory of that night, though it was fading fast. She recalled the flicker of light from the castle, Clementine’s silhouette against the window, Clementine waving …
‘But even if I did, I would have heard him come inside.’
‘Would you? In all that rain? After hours of being awake and exhausted?’ Clementine slammed the press door shut, unable to contain her frustration.
And really, Clementine was right. Beatrice could not be sure of anything.
In the tight silence, a faint thud came from the other side of the chamber door.
Clementine squinted at the door. Beatrice followed her gaze and felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle – was it Dougal’s ghost hovering outside, listening to them, waiting to drag them to hell with him?
‘Jean?’ Clementine called.
Beatrice held her breath. She watched the gold doorknob, saw it start to quake, start to twist. She drew Simeon closer and buried her nose into the softness of his ear.
Jean entered. She held a cup and saucer. She stepped inside, eyes cast to the floor, and waited.
‘Were you listening to our conversation?’ Clementine said.
Jean shook her head.
Clementine
studied the woman for a moment longer. The maid did not blush.
Clementine took the cup from Jean. ‘That will be all.’
Jean dipped her head, then slipped out of the room. Both of them listened to her quiet footsteps retreating down the corridor, then Clementine came to Beatrice’s side once again. She was calmer now, her anger dissolved or, at least, hidden. She smiled at Beatrice and coaxed Simeon out of the way as she gave Beatrice her usual drink of warm milk and honey.
‘Forgive me. I am just tired,’ Clementine said and cupped Beatrice’s cheek. ‘I should not shout. I should not be angry with you – it is not you I am angry with, you know that, don’t you? I hate to see you so upset, that is all. I want to see you smile again.’
Beatrice leaned into Clementine’s palm and kissed it. She was letting everybody down, as she had always let everybody down. She did not want to be such a burden. She wanted to smile, to forget what had happened. She wanted to erase Dougal and their marriage from her mind, erase the pain of it all, but that was impossible. And worse, she could no longer be sure if her memories were indeed memories or if they were her dreams – her nightmares – in disguise.
‘Everything is just so …’ She searched for words but couldn’t find the right ones. ‘It is like my head is padded with cotton. It’s all too soft and scrunched up in there. Nothing makes sense.’
‘That is because you are still in shock. And you are not eating enough, my love. What have you had today? A crust of bread. You didn’t even touch the soup.’
Beatrice could not remember the bread or the soup. The mention of food made her stomach cramp.
‘You need to get your strength up.’ Clementine pushed the cup to Beatrice’s lips. ‘Rest now. In the morning, you will come to breakfast in the dining room, and we shall enjoy the festivities.’
Clementine eased herself off the bed, then commanded the dogs to do the same. Beatrice would have held on to Simeon and kept him with her for the night if Clementine had not brushed the dog away.
Convenient Women Collection Page 72