Light & Dark

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  She sat up and began to weep. Surely love wasn’t meant to be like this? Surely every married woman didn’t suffer the torture that she did? Weeks or even months of enforced chastity, then this agonising experience! She longed to ask someone, but her mother was dead and in any case had never spoken of such things except to impress on her the superiority of men, especially one’s husband and how it was a wife’s duty to concur with her husband’s wishes at all times. On her wedding day her mother had drawn her aside and said, ‘There’s just one thing I must tell you, Lorianna. Remember, whatever Gavin does to you is right.‘

  No one discussed the more intimate aspects of marriage and the secrecy made the intimate experience all the more bewildering and distressing.

  Love and marriage, it seemed, bore no resemblance to the romantic novels she had read with such wistful eagerness. Even the most shocking of these had not prepared her for the brutality and physical pain of love. And yet she needed physical passion, her body kept crying out for it. She felt trapped in confusion and uncertainty. In a fever of pain and unhappiness she struggled from the bed and, oblivious of her torn underwear and tangled hair, went over to the window. Still sobbing, she pressed her burning cheeks against the cool glass, until suddenly she became aware of someone watching her from outside. Down in the garden at the side of the house stood the tall figure of the grieve, Robert Kelso. He supervised the Blackwood home farm and grounds and she had seen him occasionally striding across meadow or field, his hair glistening like a raven’s wing and his skin as smooth and brown as leather. They had never spoken and she had never looked him in the eye, but now their eyes locked for a minute—his grey and thoughtful and questioning, hers anguished. Then, more distraught than ever, she shrank away from the window and hid her face in her hands.

  2

  ‘Give us strength, O Lord,’ Gavin’s solemn voice intoned, ‘to fight against our baser impulses.’

  He leaned against the gilt marble mosaic table as if he had all the world’s sin on his shoulders and was bowed down by it. Before him in the reception hall, heads lowered, were two lines of servants. Mrs Musgrove, the housekeeper, stood stiff-backed with hands folded in front of her long black skirts. They were big hands, with only the fingers showing from the black silk mittens she always wore.

  Beside her Mrs Prowse, the cook, at forty-five looked at least ten years younger than Mrs Musgrove although there was, in fact, only five years between them. Despite the rolls of fat she carried about, Mrs Prowse was energetic and merry-eyed. She had such a capacity for getting the most out of life in all its aspects, but especially those concerning men, that Mrs Musgrove had to continuously lay down the law and lecture her about proper behaviour and her duty to show a good example to younger members of staff. Mrs Musgrove, who had been jilted many years ago, had such a hatred of men that she refused to work in any establishment where there were male members of staff. She only managed to be icily polite to Jacobs, the coachman or to Robert Kelso, the grieve who managed the home farm, because they were not house staff and she seldom saw them. The gardeners and the farm workers she completely ignored except when she had to instruct the head gardener as to the fruit and vegetables she wished brought into the house.

  She would have preferred also to icily ignore the head of Blackwood House; this not being possible, however, she avoided laying her sharp, snappy eyes on him whenever she could. This morning she at least approved of the theme of his prayer and the text for the day, which was Romans VIII, verse 6: ‘To be carnally minded, is death.’ She felt sure his prayer and text were aimed at Mrs Prowse and hoped the disgusting woman would take Mr Blackwood’s words to heart. She could never bring herself, even in her thoughts, to use the words ‘the Master’. No man was fit to be her master. Men were lower than animals, cunning, devious, heartless, faithless, disgusting, despicable creatures.

  Little Mrs Henning, the nurse—’Henny’ to her small charge—kept stealing proud and affectionate glances at Clementina from beneath lowered lashes. She adored the child, despite the fact that she found the little girl’s precociousness and wild tomboy ways a constant source of anxiety. At the moment Clementina was dutifully standing next to her mother, who was sitting beside the table. She was an engaging, perky child with eyes of the most startling emerald green and at eight years of age it was already obvious that she had the makings of a beautiful woman. Not the same dark-haired, smouldering-eyed beauty of her mother; Clementina had a luxurious mop of hair like polished amber that softly framed her face, loosely curled at the ends over her shoulders and looked quite exquisite against her green satin ribbons. The brown long-sleeved dress she wore was protected by a white muslin dress-pinafore frilled at the shoulder and hem and tied at the waist by a broad green satin ribbon which exactly matched the narrow hair ribbons.

  Mrs Henning was suffering agonies of pride and suspense, her pride in Clementina spilling over into the only pride she had of herself. A gentle-eyed woman who had originated from an Edinburgh orphanage, she had never quite got over her incredible good fortune in not only obtaining the position as nanny in Blackwood House but also having as her charge such an adorable infant who was now fast growing into a very special young lady. Mrs Henning would challenge anyone (and often did) to show her any child in the whole of the Lothians, including Edinburgh—indeed in the whole of Scotland—so quick, so clever, so stunningly beautiful, as her young lady.

  Her suspense arose from fear that Clementina might become restless and say or do something which other people, particularly her father, might not appreciate or understand. The master, Mrs Henning felt, was cruelly severe on the poor child and totally lacking in understanding. She closed her eyes and silently prayed, not the master’s prayer—which, by the by, she regarded as quite unsuitable for eight-year-old ears—but one of her own: ‘Dear, dear Miss Clementina, stand still, please do! Don’t dig at the carpet with the toe of your shoe. And please, oh please, no matter how scratchy your petticoats are, don’t tug them about or lift them up to examine underneath!’

  Standing next to Mrs Henning, bulbous eyes reverently closed, stood Gemmell, Lorianna’s personal maid. She was dreaming of Robert Kelso and wondering if he would call at the big house today or if she would see him on her way home this afternoon. It was her afternoon off, when she always went home to visit her parents in the village and made a point of making a detour past the farm buildings—a very long detour, because the farm was actually in the opposite direction.

  In the evening she sometimes went to the Picturedrome in Bathgate or to the dancing class. She lived in hope that she would meet Robert Kelso in Bathgate but so far this had never happened. She would never forget, however, dancing with him at the Christmas party at Blackwood House. The sensation of being held in his arms was as vivid and exciting now, months later, as it had been at the time. She still felt the hard whipcord muscles and the musky-male smell of him clung in her nostrils. She remembered the strange feeling of having him close against her, yet knowing he was not really there at all. His grey eyes, when he was unaware he was being observed, had a distant look as if he was thinking about someone else, but as soon as he became conscious that she was watching his face he looked down at her and smiled, his eyes like slivers of silver set deep under black brows. Polly Gemmell shivered with delight at the memory of that silver stare. She dare not tell her mother and father of her interest in the grieve, because her father worked under Kelso and found him a hard taskmaster. ‘The iron man’, he called him and, like the other farm labourers, waited to be spoken to, never daring to speak to him first. Awesome tales about his work capacity, strength and endurance ran rife. Her father with his own eyes had seen the grieve lift down a plough from a farm cart single-handed. Kelso had the strength of an ox and could tackle any of the work better than his men could when he had a mind to, but it was not that which kept them in awe of him and forced them to work like slaves at his bidding; it was the sheer force of will that the grieve possessed, from which her father was glad to
escape to his one-room cottage in the village as often as he could. He would never even consider the idea of Kelso as a prospective son-in-law—horseman Murdo McGregor was her parents’ choice and Murdo wanted her. Her mother said, ‘This’ll be your last chance. You’re twenty-eight. An old maid already!’ She didn’t want to end her days as a dried-up old spinster, but at the same time she felt she was made for better things than sharing the rest of her life with the coarse ruddy-faced, bushy-moustached Murdo McGregor.

  Robert was in a different class from Murdo and his tall athletic build and strength had won him every prize at the annual Highland Games for the Blackwood Estate. To see him throwing the hammer and tossing the caber was a magnificent sight. His shoulder muscles looked especially powerful, sloping up his neck and shortening it. Once she had spied on him as he swam in the river, shockingly naked. She would never forget those rippling muscles, the hard, flat stomach and smooth brown skin.

  A deep sigh crackled the starched bib of her apron and caused Ella Baxter, the head housemaid, to steal a sly glance round at her. It was as much as she could do to suppress a giggle. Polly Gemmell would be sighing over Robert Kelso. She never stopped talking about him and obviously fancied her chances. Polly had quite a tip for herself and imagined she was a cut above the rest—God knows why, she was nothing much to look at with her long nose, bulbous eyes and frizzy hair which she fought to smooth with a dripping-wet comb before securing it with pins and covering it with her cap. They didn’t need to wear a cap with their morning blue cotton dresses and aprons, only with their formal black from lunchtime onwards. But Polly Gemmell was never without a cap, or of course a hat when she went out. She always made sure it was a brimmed hat and wore it flat on top of her head with never a curl nor a wisp showing at the front. But no matter how tightly she pinned her hair back into some semblance of a bun, it soon straggled out like the stuffing from a horsehair sofa. She was always longing surreptitiously to tuck stray wisps back from the front of her ears and up from the nape of her neck.

  Ella shifted her feet and her weight to a more comfortable position and prayed that the master would not take much longer. He did go on so—he was worse than the minister! She didn’t much like the look of him either, with his pale blue eyes blinking behind his pince-nez and the way he fussed with his little red goatee beard. His son Gilbert, also red-haired, was just as unprepossessing, she thought, only taller and with a moustache.

  The mistress looked as pale and delicate as a lady should. Her eyes were lowered at the moment. Sometimes they seemed a strange tawny colour; at other times they just looked dark brown like her hair. Now her hair was the kind that Polly Gemmell would dearly love to have, thick and satiny and long enough to sit on when it was brushed out.

  Polly Gemmell said it was all very well for her of course. ‘If my hair got the care and attention hers gets, mine would look like that as well.’ She said the same thing about the mistress’s creamy skin and her shapely figure. ‘It’s all very well for her!’ was one of Polly’s favourite gripes.

  Behind the senior staff were grouped the nursery-maid, the second housemaid, the under-housemaid, the kitchen-maid and the scullery-maid. Other staff like the coachman, the grieve, the gardeners and the farmworkers had cottages on the estate (of which the village of Littlegate was part) and didn’t come to the house for prayers. Nor did the two laundrywomen.

  At last the ‘Amen’ sighed across the top of their heads, releasing them from boredom but not escape until the master and Mr Gilbert and the mistress had disappeared into the dining-room for breakfast. After breakfast the mistress would go into the high-ceilinged sitting-room with its red wall-hangings offset by oyster and ivory paintwork, and have her daily discussion with the housekeeper. The master and Mr Gilbert usually went into the oak room to finish reading their newspapers and enjoy the first cigar of the day before leaving for the factory.

  All the main apartments and the main bedrooms either led directly from the reception hall or the corridor off it. The other apartments were situated in the tower house and were reached by a spiral staircase off one side of the hall but hidden by an oak door. At the opposite side of the hall a long corridor eventually reached the library. Along this corridor all the staff crowded, then filed through the doorway (past the dining-room) that led down another stone stairway to the kitchen premises and staff bedrooms. But Mrs Henning, Tait the nursery-maid and of course little Clementina bustled away towards the tower stair at the very top of which were the nurseries.

  Both the spiral stairs to the nurseries at the top of the tower house and the stairs down to the rabbit warren of domestic quarters at ground floor and basement level had to be trod with great caution. There was no lighting at all during the day and at night there were only tiny oil-lamps flickering at alternate twists of the spiral up to the tower and only candles downstairs to the domestic quarters. This meant one dark curve to be essayed by groping hands and feet, then one faintly lit curve quickly dousing into darkness again, as cautious steps shuffled round and round, up and up, or descended down and down.

  Lorianna seldom visited the downstairs part of the house more than once a year, when she and Gavin graced the servants’ party for a brief half hour. The party was held in the servants’ hall situated underneath the library, but she preferred to go out of the house and enter by the yard door at the side rather than risk the steep spiral in her long dress and train. For the same reason she seldom went up to the nursery, preferring to have Mrs Henning or Tait bring Clementina to the sitting-room each evening for her bedtime story and goodnight kiss.

  Mrs Musgrove she also saw in the big bow-windowed sitting-room, where each morning they discussed the menus for the day and any other household business. There were seldom any domestic crises to warrant her personal attention, for the housekeeper was a very capable woman who ensured that no ripples disturbed the smooth and efficient running of the house. She was aware, of course, that Mrs Musgrove disapproved of Cook, but as Mrs Prowse produced excellent, mouthwatering food which gave Blackwood House such a good reputation for dinner parties, Lorianna did not take her objections too seriously.

  Usually she checked Gavin’s dressing-room and his wardrobe to make sure that everything had been properly cleaned, his clothes laundered and pressed and in good repair. It was Lorianna’s one domestic worry that Mrs Musgrove might allow or condone some neglect of Gavin, for she had a regrettable idiosyncrasy about men. The mere mention of a man—any man—caused her nose to pinch in and the little muscles round her mouth to tighten. At the best of times she was a severe and daunting-looking woman with her straight black hair sleeked tightly down from its centre parting and pinned in a bun at the nape of her neck. Her skin was sallow and rather coarse, her eyes as black as her dress and mittens.

  Lorianna, as if afraid that Gavin might—despite her conscientious scrutiny and care—feel in any way neglected, made other special efforts on his behalf too. On long winter evenings she knitted his socks; she kept a secret supply of collar studs in case he lost any and an emergency arose; she took special cognisance of his preferences in food and saw that his likes and dislikes were always accommodated.

  The only other household task for which she took special responsibility was the floral arrangements. She did all the floral arranging for the house, even gathering the flowers herself which could be a long and arduous job considering the number of flowers required. Gavin said that to do the job herself was a typically extravagant gesture and quite unnecessary—surely one of the maids could bring her all the flowers she needed? But Lorianna loved going out with her flat wicker basket to gather lupins, dahlias, roses, antirrhinums, calendulas and delphiniums—whatever was in perfect bloom in its season. It was not easy to crouch or bend in her stiff corset, but she managed this with elegance and grace. Yet all the time in her imagination she was running free of all restrictions, the blood coursing warmly through her body and her hair streaming loose in the wind. And it seemed only in a dream that she sedately moved a
bout, ignoring the raging hunger inside her as if it never existed.

  After she had gathered the flowers, a sheet would be spread on top of the grand piano or on one of the sideboards and she would spend a pleasant hour or more constructing extravagant pyramids and peacock-tail fans of flowers. In summer sweet peas were her favourite and she would create enormous sunbursts of them, their colours radiating from deepest pink to rose to mauve to purple to blue—scenting every room of Blackwood House with their dreamy sweetness.

  Gavin was always guarded in his compliments to her lest she might be encouraged to let loose her baser impulses, but she had heard him speak with pride to admiring guests about her talent for flower arrangements.

  She found it very touching when he boasted about her, it helped her to forgive other aspects of their relationship which she found so bewildering and distressing.

  Her husband believed that ‘coupling’, as he called it, was only for the purpose of creating children, and that carried out for any other reason it was not only a weakness but a wicked indulgence. They should be pure in the eyes of God, not defiled by selfish lusts. It worried her terribly because she could see that he too had a desperate struggle to contain his passions and when, through what he deemed weakness, they spilled over, he was afterwards racked with guilt and regret and spent many anguished hours at the praying stool in his dressing-room. He knelt there, his arms leaning on the heavy oak support carved like a miniature pulpit around the stool, his head lowered over his arms, his fingers arching and twisting together as he muttered prayers. Often he wept. But she dare not approach him or try to comfort him, in case her touch or nearness or even her sympathetic words might be misinterpreted and put a further strain on him and his terrible struggle with himself.