The Touch

by Colleen McCullough

  That night as she prepared for bed, Ruby underwent another enlightenment: that it was manifestly impossible for Alexander to have his cake and eat it too. Here in New South Wales, his affair with her was stale news, hardly worth commenting upon. But in London? Mixing in the highest circles, as Alexander did? No, it couldn’t be. Nor would it be. Subject Elizabeth to humiliation and perpetual embarrassment because Alexander Kinross carted his wife and his mistress around in a ménage à trois? Never! So let Elizabeth go alone. That is the right thing to do. Alexander and I are a pair of children, we don’t stop to think.

  But how can I get her there without me? Did she know, she’d refuse to budge an inch from Kinross. So I’ll make Jasmine and Peach Blossom my co-conspirators—why deprive them of the trip when three of their sisters are going? They can carry a letter to Alexander that will spell out my sentiments so pungently that even he will understand, the conniving bastard.

  I’ll pretend to board the ship—pretend to go down with seasickness before the ship slips her moorings—have Jasmine and Peach Blossom lock my cabin door and refuse to let anyone in, even Elizabeth. I’ll find the ship’s doctor and let him in on the secret—I’m sure he could do with an extra couple of hundred quid. By the time Jasmine gives Elizabeth my letter, it will be too late to return. Somewhere way out in the Indian Ocean. The die will be cast.

  And Sung and I will be in Kinross to run the Apocalypse with Charles as a useful third. I’ve seen my jade kitten, spent a wonderful winter with him—the last of his childhood. When next I see him, the man I glimpsed today will be officially a man. Only what will I do if Alexander keeps him in England?

  Eight

  Letters

  Kinross, January 1883

  Elizabeth dearest,

  If all goes to plan, Jasmine will have given you this when Ceylon is somewhere off the port bow. I suppose you could turn around and sail home again from Colombo, but it’s the halfway mark. You may as well continue in a forward direction.

  At the end of last July, when Lee left after breaking his news about this trip, I finally grew up. Alexander always says that it’s the child in me he loves the most, and I understand what he means. My heart is so light, my sense of mischief and fun so pronounced that I have gone through everything, bad as well as good, airily dismissing the opinions of others as unimportant. Were I a respectable woman it might have been different, but you could say that I was born with nothing to lose. Never having had the good opinion of others, what mattered their good opinion? So I have waltzed around with Alexander shamelessly, including in Sydney. Of course I considered that I had the prior claim to his affections, and felt vindicated when he returned to me after his marriage to you. I am not a moral person, I really am not.

  When Lee broke the news, all I could think about was seeing Alexander again. That he summoned us I took as a message that he does not intend to return to Kinross in the near future. My mind was filled with pictures of the life I would lead back in his arms, and they were comfortable pictures in that I knew you would not object, that I would be relieving you of Alexander.

  And then I realized that perhaps he thought to go one better than Benjamin Disraeli by flaunting his mistress and his wife in the same open carriage. But that would never do. The scandal would rock London.

  For myself, what’s a bit of scandal? Whereas for you, awful disaster! As best I can imagine what went on in Alexander’s mind, he intended to squire me around as your best friend, thereby not admitting to our true relationship. But people from Sydney trip back and forth to England, particularly to London, all the time nowadays. It wouldn’t take long for the word to leak out, and Alexander is not the Prince of Wales.

  That is why I have stayed home, dear. This is your hour, so seize it as my gift. You know, the trouble is that all three of us are products of small towns, and still live in a small town. Thanks to Apocalypse gold, we can do pretty much as we please. In Sydney, perhaps, but not in London.

  Enjoy yourself, Elizabeth. Gad about, and the hell with Alexander. Just please say hello to Lee for me, and try to get on with him for my sake.

  Much love, Ruby.

  Ceylon, March 1883

  Oh, Ruby!

  I write this from Colombo, as there is a mail packet here en route to Sydney. It should reach you in about three or four weeks. So could I, if I had decided to turn around.

  How artful you were! Dr. Markham, Jasmine and Peach Blossom fooled me completely. It never occurred to me that you weren’t below decks suffering dreadfully, because I remember how ill Mrs. Watson was on the Aurora when I came out to marry Alexander. I was a little sick as we crossed the Great Australian Bight, but I am a reasonably good sailor. So, it turns out, are Nell and Anna. The Chinese girls have been worse, but the Indian Ocean is like a millpond, so they recovered after we left Perth.

  Whether because the ship moves, I do not know, but Anna has decided to walk. She staggers a bit, but now that she has found out what legs are for, she never stops walking while she’s awake. Her puppy fat has melted, she’s turned quite trim and shipshape. Her favorite word is still “Lee!” said with a squeal, though she adds others at an accelerated pace—ship, shore, rope, smoke, man. Here in Colombo she has managed two-syllable words like sailor, harbor and woman.

  I do thank you so much for your care of me, but Lee explained the situation very much as you thought it might be—you and I were to be best friends. My knees go weak at the thought of what he will say when he knows that you are not with us, but Jasmine gave me your message that you have written a letter to be given to Alexander when we reach England.

  Dearest Ruby, I accept your sacrifice with a full heart, and understand your motive. I will pay my respects to Lee, I promise.

  Much love, Elizabeth.

  London, April 1883

  My darling spoilsport,

  No one would have known about us! Were Elizabeth not a very beautiful woman in her own right, people might have guessed, but provided I have a wife to introduce to all the best people, even if some of them found out about you and me, nothing could be proved and therefore no retaliations could be made. It is actually quite common here for the Best People to conduct the kind of ménage à trois that sees both wife and mistress members of the same social circle, though I admit that the mistresses are the wives of other men rather than spinsters like you.

  Anyway, none of that now matters. I’ll do my duty and escort my very beautiful wife everywhere without her best friend.

  I miss you and love you, Alexander.

  London, November 1883

  Dearest Ruby,

  The most extraordinary thing has happened! You must have had a feeling about it, to stay home, because had you come and word had leaked out about your true status, this could not have happened. Alexander had absolutely no idea of it, you see.

  I am now Lady Kinross! Alexander has been made a Knight Commander of the Royal Order of the Thistle, which means he outranks Henry Parkes and John Robertson, relegated to St. Michael and St. George. Queen Victoria bestowed the knighthood in person at a private ceremony. Of course Alexander bought me a suite of diamonds. One has to wear white, and have white ostrich feathers in one’s hair. I felt like one of those bedizened white horses that drew Cinderella’s coach to the ball. I imagine Alexander got the thistlehood because he’s a Scot with a Scots wife. The old Queen loves the Scots, though rumor says she loved one Scot more than all the rest of us.

  London is daunting but fascinating. The house Alexander has rented for us is huge and magnificent, furnished in much the same manner as Kinross House used to be—plush, gilt, brocade, crystal chandeliers. It has a telephone, can you imagine that? My two girls have their own wing, and Alexander has hired a tutor for Nell, the umpteenth son of a C of E canon. She doesn’t like him, but admits that he is fairly knowledgeable. Anna can walk for a fair distance now, though Jade takes a device called a push chair with us—a canvas thing on four wheels with handles. We have to pad it because Anna still wets herself,
but it has been many moons since she messed herself.

  On the subject of Anna, she has been seen by all the great men of neuropathology, as they call it, in London, including Mr. Hughlings Jackson and Mr. William Gower. They examined her with great thoroughness, and, to quote Mr. Jackson, found “nothing focal” in her dementia, which is the term he used. From this, I gather that her whole brain is affected. However, the fact that she has acquired a tiny vocabulary and has started walking tell Messrs. Jackson and Gower that she will end in being “simple”—about on the same level as a village idiot. The worst of it is that Mr. Gower (a more approachable man) says that her body will continue to develop in a normal way, so she will have courses, breasts, everything. They blame it on her birth, not on heredity.

  But I have lied to Alexander, who is so busy that he left me to see the neuropathologists. Mr. Gower told me that he did not think a third pregnancy—how formal their language is!—would result in eclampsia. He admits the possibility, but his amazing collection of machines that monitor the blood, the heart, the circulation and Heaven knows what else, tell him that my health has improved. He thinks that a strict diet of fruit, vegetables and brown bread without butter would see me through without a dropsy. But I just couldn’t bring myself to tell Alexander this.

  It’s not that I don’t want more babies, Ruby, it’s that I cannot bear to resume my wifely duties. If he knew Mr. Gower’s opinion, he would force me back to that life, and I would go mad.

  Please, I beg, don’t betray this secret! I just had to tell somebody, and there’s no one but you.

  Much love, Elizabeth.

  Kinross, January 1884

  Dearest Elizabeth,

  Your secret is safe with me. It’s to my advantage anyway, isn’t it? Besides, Sir Edward Wyler said you wouldn’t have a second eclampsia, and you did. Fine for them to talk, they’re men, and men don’t have babies.

  You don’t mention Lee. Have you seen my jade kitten? Jade tomcat, more like! But to me, always my little jade kitten.

  Much love, Ruby.

  Cambridge, April 1884

  My gorgeous Mum,

  Sir Alexander Kinross (phew, what a shock!) has endowed a new metallurgic laboratory, much to the joy of the university. As there is a train from Liverpool Street to Cambridge, he pops up to see me regularly; if there’s racing at Newmarket on a Saturday, he comes to pick me up and we both go—more to look at the horseflesh than to bet, though when we do bet, we usually win.

  I have had a visit from Lady Kinross. As I couldn’t very well entertain her at my flat on Parker’s Piece, I invited her to tea in the Caius common room, where she met all the chaps. You would have been proud of her. I know I was. She wore a lavender-blue silk dress, one of the new, smaller hats with a sprig of feathers tucked into its brim, matching kid gloves and the most elegant pair of boots. That I am a connoisseur of ladies’ fashions is thanks to Carlotta, my bird of paradise, who can outspend a Spanish contessa at a modiste’s salon.

  I think Elizabeth has come out of herself a little, for she smiled at the chaps and produced sparkling conversation. By the time she left, they were all in love with her. This has already led to reams of bad poetry and an even worse piano sonata. As the Backs are a sea of daffodils, we took her for a walk down to the Cam before handing her reverently into her carriage.

  I will finish my second year at Cambridge with top marks in all my subjects. I love you and miss you terribly, but I understand why you chose to remain in Kinross. You’re a wonder, Mum.

  All my love, your jade kitten, Lee.

  Kinross, June 1884

  Dear Alexander and Elizabeth,

  I don’t know whereabouts this will catch up with you now that you’re traveling in Italy, especially as I believe that the Italian post is very unreliable. All those little states, and, like Germany, struggling with unification. I do hope that you do not get embroiled in some revolution or other!

  Some bad news. Charles Dewy passed away at home a week ago, and was buried there. It was sudden, and, so Constance tells me, quite painless. His heart stopped while he was sipping a single malt whisky. He died with his favorite taste on his tongue and a look of bliss on his face. I am very cut up about it; my eyes are full of tears as I write. He was so jolly, got so much fun out of life. If heaven is anything like the place the Bible-bashers prate about, I think he’ll be unutterably bored. As does Constance, who keeps making odd remarks about his whiskers.

  We have a plague of flies here in Kinross, something to do with the sewage farm. When you have a moment, Alexander, you might bend your mind to the problem. Sung and Po are hopelessly uninformed about shit, though Po is importing some expert from Sydney. I wouldn’t have thought anybody in Sydney knows more about shit than Po. Po—get it? Forget it.

  Isn’t my jade kitten a wonder? Though he says he won’t come home once he has his degree—he wants to do a doctorate in geology at Edinburgh, he says. I miss all of you.

  Much love, Ruby.

  London, November 1884

  Dear Auntie Ruby,

  I am in trouble with my tutor, Mr. Fowldes, who has reported me to Daddy yet again. My latest crimes are: displaying no interest in deportment, social graces and religion; aspiring to calculus; cheeking him by proving that his mathematics were wrong and mine right—and gloating over it; saying “Oh, shit!” when I upset the inkwell; and deriding him for believing that God created the world in seven days. Now that’s shit, Auntie Ruby.

  He dragged me to Daddy’s library by one ear and poured out my crimes in a terrible temper, then, having rid himself of that, he gave Daddy this enormous lecture on raising girls to think they can compete with men. God, he said, forbade that. Daddy listened solemnly, then asked him if he’d mind releasing my ear. Of course Mr. Fowldes had quite forgotten that he was still hanging on to it, so he let it go. Then Daddy asked me what I had to say for myself, which outraged Mr. Fowldes. I told Daddy that I was just as good as any boy at mathematics and mechanics, that my Greek, Latin, French and Italian were better than Mr. Fowldes’s, and that I was fully entitled to make my own judgments about Napoleon Bonaparte, even if they did extol him more than they did the silly old Duke of Wellington, who couldn’t have won Waterloo without the Prussians, and was a mediocre prime minister anyway. In Mr. Fowldes’s book, the British are never wrong and the rest of the world is never right, especially the French and the Americans.

  Daddy listened, then sighed and dismissed me. I don’t know what he said to Mr. Fowldes, but it must have been more in my favor, since Mr. Fowldes has stopped trying to turn me into a girl. I was hoping that he’d send Mr. Fowldes packing and find me a tutor more like Mr. Stephens, but he didn’t. Later on he told me that, as I went through life, I’d run up against a lot of men like Mr. Fowldes, so I may as well get used to them now. Ha ha, I got my own back! I short-sheeted his bed and smeared it with treacle. He was furious! That led to my first caning—it smarts, Auntie Ruby, I can tell you. But I just lifted my top lip at him and refused to so much as wince. I was tempted to tell him to get fucked, but even Daddy doesn’t know I know that word, so I thought I’d better not. I’ll tell him on my last day under his tutelage. I can hardly wait to see the look on his face. You don’t think he’ll be so shocked that he’ll have an apoplexy and die, do you?

  I’d far rather be in Kinross with Mr. Stephens and my pony, and that’s the truth. However, Mum’s friend Dr. Gower took me to see a museum of anatomical specimens, just the best treat I’ve ever had in my life. Shelves and shelves of jars full of organs, amputated arms and legs, embryos, brains, and even a two-headed baby. Oh, and two babies joined right down one side. If I was let, I’d put a bed in there and spend a year examining everything properly, but Daddy likes it better when I’m interested in rocks and electricity. He does rather grunt in disgust at anatomy.

  He and Lee spent Lee’s summer vacation investigating the new ideas in treating sewage, so I predict that Kinross will shortly have a new sewage treatment works. You won’t fo
rget to check on Chang and make sure he feeds my rats, will you? I like rats, such happy, clever little chaps. I like you too, Auntie Ruby.

  Your loving friend, Nell.

  London, April 1885

  Dearest Ruby,

  We are to come home at last—well, at the beginning of the autumn, anyway. Oh, I am so glad! Alexander has decided to sail with us, thanks to your ongoing correspondence about Po and the sewage situation. I agree, Po is a nice pun. There’s a river in northern Italy called the Po—a splendid stream, very strong and wide, and not that far from the most peaceful and beautiful place I have ever seen, the Italian lakes. I like Italy more than any other country in Europe, including Great Britain. The people have such a sunny attitude to life, though they are pitifully poor. And they sing, sing, sing. So do the Welsh, but darkly.

  It is very odd being Lady Kinross, though Alexander wallows in his knighthood. Well, I understand that. It vindicates him in the eyes of Scottish Kinross. Unfortunately Dr. Murray and my father were well and truly dead by the time he became Sir Alexander. Therefore Alexander now hopes that there is a life after death, just so the pair of them know he’s a knight and can seethe about it. Whereas I believe that all Alexander’s many honors and vast wealth have no power to impress Dr. Murray and my father, in this life or in the next. They would simply snort and say none of it can alter the fact that Alexander is not his father’s child. As ineradicable as Original Sin.

  I did not end in going back to Scottish Kinross. Oh, Ruby, I quailed at the very idea of sweeping into that little town in all my French splendor and jewels! A petty action. Foolish I may be, but petty? Never! However, Alexander did take me recently to Edinburgh, as Lee goes up there in October to do his doctorate. In Edinburgh I met my sister Jean—Mrs. Robert Montgomery of Princes Street. I have never been able to forget how shabbily she treated Alastair and Mary when they took me to the London train. Yes, I have forgiven her, but that is not the same. So I asked Alexander to invite Alastair and Mary to Edinburgh and put them up in magnificent style. Foolish, Ruby. They were two fish out of water, hideously uncomfortable and terrified of making a faux pas. Why is it that we commit our worst sins in a spirit of charity? Though for their sake I admit it was nice to rub Jean’s nose in my ladyshipness. Alexander says that her husband is too fond of young men, and that all of Edinburgh knows it. So poor Jean. No wonder there have been no children. She is brittle in manner and drinks too much.