Beyond the Veil of Tears

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘Obviously a few have not.’

  She took a sip of her sherry, feeling it warm a path down into her stomach. What had happened? she asked herself helplessly. This was not what she had expected – none of it. It all felt strange, disturbing. Did all new brides feel this way?

  They sat at either end of the long, polished dining table during dinner and Angeline was relieved to find this room was not as warm as the one they had just left. The meal consisted of four courses, beginning with a clear soup, which was full of flavour, and ending with a lemon sponge pudding. Ellen Harper was an accomplished cook and, despite her nerves, Angeline ate well and drank a glass of wine with her food. Oswald seemed to have switched back to the man she had known over the last months, making light and amusing conversation and being as attentive as she could have wished for, and she found herself relaxing.

  She loved him, she told herself, so very much, and because of that and the fact that she was somewhat overwrought after such a momentous day, she had been letting her imagination run away with her earlier. Nothing was wrong.

  After dinner they went through to the drawing room and sat on the sofa together to have their coffee and the handmade chocolates that were Mrs Harper’s speciality. Now the nervous fluttering in her stomach had returned at the thought of the night ahead, and Angeline found herself wishing she had defied him and insisted that Myrtle came with them. Oswald had picked up the newspaper from the coffee table once they had sat down, and Mrs Harper had left the room, so Angeline chose a magazine from the pile on the table – not because she had any interest in reading it, but because she was at a loss to know what to do. The thought crossed her mind that Oswald had been putting on an act throughout dinner for the servants who had been waiting on them, and then she told herself she was being unfair again. She had to stop analysing everything, or she would drive herself mad. Why was she suddenly doubting him like this?

  She had finished her coffee and eaten three of the chocolates when Oswald’s paper lowered and he peered over it at her. ‘You must be tired. Why don’t I ring for one of the maids to bring you a jug of hot water upstairs and help you undress?’

  ‘Thank you.’ She stood up as he rose and walked across to the bell pull, and he had barely tugged the long cord before there was a knock at the drawing-room door and Sally opened it.

  ‘Mrs Golding is ready to retire. See to it that she has some hot water, and ask Tessa to bring me a bottle of malt brandy.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Sally stood aside for Angeline to pass and, once in the hall, said, ‘I’ll be up directly, ma’am.’

  Ma’am. Angeline swallowed hard, as the girl disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. She was the wife of a wealthy gentleman, the mistress of a large country estate and a town house, and for a bewildering moment she wondered how it had all come about so quickly. Would she be able to be all that Oswald expected in a wife? She had so much to learn, she knew that, and tonight she didn’t feel adequate for the task. She felt . . . She bit on her lip as she glanced about the beautiful hall. She felt out of her depth, and it was unnerving.

  Realizing it would look odd if she was still standing here when Sally brought the water, she turned and quickly made her way upstairs. When the maid arrived, she asked her to place the water on the washstand in the bathroom and told her that she could manage her own undressing, once Sally had loosened the ties of her corset.

  She didn’t linger over her toilette, wanting to be sitting up in bed when Oswald came in. Her new nightdress was a lovely thing of chiffon and lace, and she brushed her hair so that it hung in long, burnished ringlets down her back, the red in it gleaming in the lamplight as she looked at herself in the mirror. Once in the big bed, she pulled the covers up to her chin, before forcing herself to lower them to her waist and settling back against the mound of pillows. She found she was trembling. Not with cold, for the room was over-warm, if anything, from the coal fire burning in the fireplace, but from the panic of the unknown that was coursing through her. Taking some long deep breaths, as her mother had taught her to do when she was nervous, she waited.

  And waited . . .

  Outside the window the occasional carriage or two trundled past, but the select residential street was quiet on the whole, as befitted this upper-class address. In the distance she could hear more noise, but it was muted and sufficiently far enough away not to intrude. After an hour had passed she slid down further into the bed, and after another hour had ticked by the exhaustion of the day fought her nerves and won. She slept.

  At what time of the night she became aware of Oswald sliding into bed beside her, she didn’t know. He had pulled most of the bedclothes off her as he lifted them to get into bed, and as she moved drowsily she realized it was pitch dark, there was an overwhelming smell of alcohol on his breath and he was pulling her nightdress up over her thighs. As her mouth was claimed by his, his knee nudged her legs apart and, without further ado, and without the slightest endearment or caress, he drove into her.

  Angeline screamed, she couldn’t help it, for the pain and shock of what was happening to her were terrifying, but he took her face between his hands as his body continued to rent her in two, and muffled her cries with his mouth. And then, mercifully soon, it was over and he was mumbling drunkenly as he rolled to one side, his words incoherent in the main.

  Shaking from head to foot and with a smarting pain between her legs that felt like fire, Angeline lay quite still for a minute or two, unable to move, drained of life. Oswald began to snore, turning towards her in his sleep, and it was this that enabled her to scramble out of the bed away from him, her crying soundless as she sat trembling on the very edge of the mattress.

  Shock was making her teeth chatter as she felt her way in the dark to the bathroom, bumping into a chair as she stumbled about and nearly falling headlong. But then the handle of the door was under her fingers. Once inside the bathroom, she sat for a long time on the edge of the roll-top bath, her eyes gradually becoming adjusted to the darkness so that she was able to pick out the shadows of various items.

  The pain between her legs had settled into a throbbing ache, but she felt damp and sticky down there. Pouring some water into the bowl from the jug on the washstand, she dabbed at herself with a wet flannel for a while. It helped a little.

  The floor of the bathroom was tiled, but a big fluffy mat stood next to the bath, and after she had dried herself she curled up on it, pulling one of the huge bath towels over herself. She couldn’t go back into the bedroom and to the proximity of Oswald’s body; he might wake up and reach for her again. Just the thought of it made her shake and feel sick. And he was her husband. Oh God . . . God, he’s my husband!

  With her two hands cupping her face, and her knees under her chin, she made herself as small as she could, all the time whispering to herself, ‘Oh, Mama, Mama, what have I done? What have I done?’

  PART TWO

  The Gilded Cage

  1892

  Chapter Eight

  ‘I do believe the weather is brightening, ma’am, and not before time.’ Myrtle stood back from arranging Angeline’s hair, surveying her handiwork critically for a moment or two before putting the last touch – a jewelled comb – in place.

  Angeline smiled. ‘Does the bad weather make Albert’s absence seem worse? Believe me, Myrtle, I’ve no wish to be here, either.’

  It was late September and they were staying at Lord Gray’s country estate. A fine Scottish rain had fallen for days, but now the clouds had cleared and a watery sun had broken through.

  Myrtle grinned. She knew her mistress disliked as much as she did the annual withdrawal to Scotland when hundreds of game birds – grouse, pheasant, partridge, snipe – would be slaughtered every day for weeks in an orgy of shooting. Gargantuan meals with many courses and types of wine, elaborate wardrobes and frequent changes of costume, and hours of boredom for the ladies when the men were out sating their bloodlust was the order of the day. With the Tories having just fallen from p
ower and the succeeding Liberal government led by Mr Gladstone in place, politics had dominated the dinner table for some nights, until several of the ladies had objected in no uncertain terms.

  Angeline hadn’t been one of them. In truth, she preferred listening to talk about something, rather than the inevitable spiteful gossip and inane chatter that prevailed most of the time. Unbeknown to Oswald, she often read the periodicals and journals he had lying about at home for show, and had been slowly forming her own opinions on a number of subjects. Over the last two years, since being married to Oswald, she’d come to understand the real meaning of what her father had grumbled about: that for hundreds of years Britain had been ruled by a tiny elite who owned most of the wealth, made all the important decisions and exercised exclusive class power. And it was unfair. She supposed it was only to be expected that this privileged position would not be surrendered easily, and despite the Industrial Revolution and the widening of the franchise, the gentry – of which she was now part, courtesy of her marriage – continued to dominate political and social life. Everything, in fact.

  Angeline sighed heavily. She doubted if a single one of Lord Gray’s other guests had the same thoughts as she did, but then outsiders like her were different. Different, but still expected to maintain values and codes of behaviour relating to taste, manners and refined living. The basis of the aristocracy’s power was land; her husband’s estate and those of most of his circle were large, not only giving employment to working-class individuals of both sexes, but wielding power and influence. And didn’t they know it! She sighed again. The masters of all they surveyed.

  She realized now that she had understood little of this when she married Oswald – in fact it hadn’t even crossed her mind. She had been very young and naive, and trusting, and she had paid for her gullibility in a hundred different ways. She didn’t fit into her new life, although outwardly she made a pretence of doing so, but she hated the endless round of what some would term pleasure – the London Season with its social whirlwind, the autumn of country-house parties providing opportunities for blood sports and all sorts of goings-on, the winter with more parties, balls and social functions. Most of all, she hated her husband.

  ‘I think you’re ready, ma’am.’

  Myrtle’s gentle intrusion into her thoughts reminded Angeline that she was daydreaming. Stifling a sigh, she nodded. This day would be no different from the ones before it. The assembled guests began the morning by breakfasting at ten o’clock. The meal would consist of many courses in silver dishes on the side-tables in Lord Gray’s sumptuous dining room. Angeline knew there would be enough food to last a group of well-regulated digestions for a week, let alone a day. After they had all eaten, the men would go off shooting and then the emptiness of a long morning would follow. Groups of women would sit tittle-tattling about this and that, prattling on in order to hear the sound of their own voices, or would write letters at the host of small ornamental tables scattered about. Then would come yet another of the endless change of clothes, this time into sporty tweeds for the luncheon rendezvous with the men outside.

  Angeline hid a shudder. Trophies of bloodied birds would be carelessly piled up, and she loathed this time of the day.

  After the impossibly large luncheon, finishing with coffee and liqueurs, the ladies would return to the house for an afternoon nap, before changing into beautiful tea-gowns, most of which were far more lovely than their dinner gowns. Once downstairs and around the tea table, where Angeline felt they all looked like enormous dolls, the conversation would be spasmodic and even slumberous, but every gown would be noted by each woman present and its cost mentally calculated. Competition was fierce, but covert.

  Dinner would be the occasion of the day and would last for hours, the men discussing their prowess against the defenceless birds, and the women expected to be decorative and admiring in their fragile concoctions of delicate chiffon, silk, lace and net, some of which might only be wearable on a couple of occasions before they began to wilt like hothouse flowers. Angeline had listened to several conversations over the last nights between women comparing the most fashionable London modistes with the Parisian couture houses. If she heard another such discussion she would scream, she told herself, as she left the bedroom. She had said as much to Oswald and it had caused another of their bitter quarrels, although now that she was expecting a baby he hadn’t subjected her to what he called his ‘reformation’. These bouts of verbal abuse, when he criticized everything about her – beginning with her parentage and finishing with her lack of refinement – always ended with him asserting his marital rights, no matter how she fought him. And she did fight.

  Angeline paused before entering the dining room, taking a deep breath. Oswald had left their suite of rooms some twenty minutes ago, but she didn’t doubt he would have saved her a seat and would play the doting husband, for Lord Gray’s benefit. Nicholas Gray had made it clear from their first meeting that he liked her, in spite of his wife’s condescending attitude – or maybe because of it, she thought ruefully. He was a kind man, generous and amiable with a natural gallantry. How he had come to be married to Gwendoline, she didn’t know, but it was clear to everyone that he absolutely adored his wife. Nicholas would make a wonderful father. She touched the slight mound of her stomach, which was as yet unnoticeable. But Oswald . . .

  She had been about to put plans to leave him into play when she had discovered a little while ago that she was expecting a baby. She’d had it all worked out. She would sell her jewellery, which would be enough to buy a little house somewhere; down south preferably, where she could disappear. Then she could perhaps give private lessons, as Miss Robson had. She’d thought about throwing herself on the mercy of her uncle – he and Oswald had had some kind of falling-out directly after the wedding, although she didn’t know why, and since then the two men hadn’t spoken. When she had defied Oswald’s orders not to associate with Hector, and had gone to see her uncle, hoping to find out what had caused the quarrel so that she could pour oil on troubled waters, her uncle had refused her admittance to the house. It had distressed her greatly, for he was the last link with her parents.

  Nevertheless, it hadn’t been this that had made her decide not to involve her uncle when she fled the marital home; more the fact that she knew Hector’s house would be the first place Oswald would look for her. Anonymity somewhere in a big city would be the safest thing, although the thought was frightening. It had been a desperate plan, but she had been desperate. She still was, perhaps more so, but in a different way, because now she was concerned about the innocent little person growing inside her, who had a monster for a father. A monster who had the Establishment behind him, in any fight for custody.

  A footman came through the open doors of the dining room carrying some empty dishes and glanced at her. Pulling herself together, she lifted her chin and walked briskly into the low hum of well-mannered conversation. She was now approaching her fifth month of pregnancy and was thankful that the morning nausea, which had been severe at first, was now almost gone.

  ‘There you are.’ Oswald appeared at her side immediately. ‘I was beginning to think you were indisposed.’

  She stared into the handsome face, which had once thrilled and fascinated her. How foolish she had been. How stupid and witless. And because of her gullibility, her baby would be born into a loveless marriage, with a father who could be physically violent – and not just with her. Before they’d left for Scotland, Myrtle had told her that Oswald had laid about a groom the day before, for not saddling his hunter correctly, lashing the lad with his whip about the head and shoulders. Myrtle had confided that it was almost certain the groom would lose an eye. Horrified, Angeline had called the doctor to the house to treat the boy, paying him out of her own funds. Oswald had been furious, but she had stood her ground, and because they were leaving for Scotland his temper had soon cooled.

  Turning away from the perfect features that now repelled her, she said coldly, ‘As
you can see, I am not.’

  Oswald’s mouth tightened before he forced a smile, for anyone who might be watching them. It hadn’t been long into his marriage before he’d realized that he had underestimated Angeline. He’d expected her to be pliant and subservient, as she’d been so docile when he had been courting her and he had thought she would be easy to manipulate. Admittedly the wedding night hadn’t helped. He couldn’t remember much of it, for he’d been too drunk, but he’d obviously been a little rough and she had taken umbrage. But she was his wife – his property to do with as he wished. That’s what she didn’t seem to understand. Even after he had apologized she had still been stiff with him.

  His eyes narrowed. She should be down on bended knees, thanking God that someone in his position in society had seen fit to marry her. He had wanted to tell her that at the time, but there had still been a few legal niceties to finalize, so he had promised himself he’d take her to task later. And he had. He’d taken it out of her hide all right. But still she defied him now and again, as in the matter of the groom. The lad was nothing – scum.

  He watched Angeline now as she stood talking to Lord Gray and his wife, Gwendoline wearing the superior expression she always adopted with Angeline. This irritated him beyond measure, reminding Oswald that he had married beneath him.

  ‘Careful, darling.’ Mirabelle lightly tapped his arm as she joined him, a faint waft of the delicate perfume she had specially made for her teasing his nostrils. ‘One could almost suppose you were the jealous husband, staring at your wife like that.’

  He brought his eyes to the beautiful feline face, in which her startlingly green eyes surrounded by long lashes laughed at him. ‘We both know that’s not true.’