‘Only little monkeys do that! Oh, Miss Clementina look, your pinafore’s caught. It’s all right, dear, I’ll loosen it. There we are! But careful, careful now. You don’t want to tear it, do you? Oh, Miss Clementina, little ladies don’t do that! What are you doing now …’ Suddenly she gave a shriek, snatched up her skirts and ran back to the path. Clementina had found a dead mouse and was holding it up by the tail, examining it with interest.
‘It’s dead, Henny. It can’t hurt you. You told me dead things can’t hurt anyone. You said it was just sad when—’
‘Yes … yes, dear. I know mice are really harmless little creatures and couldn’t hurt anyone even when alive. Silly old Henny doesn’t know why they make her shiver, but they do. So please put it down, Miss Clementina.’
‘I think we should bury it.’
‘No … no, just throw it away, oh please do!’
‘They buried Grandmother when she was dead.’
Hysterical laughter bubbled up in Henny’s throat. ‘They buried Grandmother!’
‘But they did!’
‘I know, dear, but a mouse is a rather different matter, don’t you think?’
‘No!’
‘Anyway, you’ve nothing to dig with.’
‘I can dig holes with my fingers. See … ?’
‘No, no, please!’ Henny pleaded. ‘You’ll get so fearfully dirty. I know! Just lay it down and cover it with leaves and twigs. They do that sort of thing in other countries. Not every country buries its dead. No. No, there are lots of different customs and practices. Of course there are.’
Already Clementina was hunkered down, knees splayed wide in a most unladylike way, enthusiastically scrabbling about for leaves and twigs. ‘Will that do, Henny?’
The nurse peered cautiously forward, holding on to her hat with one hand and her skirts with the other as if in readiness to run.
‘I’m sure that’s very appropriate and proper. Yes … very proper.’
‘Now we must say a prayer.’
Really, Henny thought in helpless exasperation, yet with hysterical laughter not far away. Miss Clementina was a most … a most … she searched for a word that would not be disloyal … a most amusing child.
‘I … I … don’t know. It could be impious.’
‘What’s impious?’
‘Wanting in respect for God.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You know … using God’s words to … to … bless a mouse.’
‘But God made it, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Well, it must be all right.’
Still down on her haunches, Clementina put her hands together and squeezed her eyes tight shut.
‘Our Father which made this mouse, show it the way to heaven, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.’
Then she sprang up and went loping along the path with Henny trotting in her wake.
Sunshine was shafting through the trees as they approached the village end of the woods, bathing everything in shimmering gold. Henny’s high tremulous voice sang out:
‘From the Welsh of Dafyydd ap Gwillym—
An angel mid the woods of May
Embroidered it with radiance gay—
That gossamer with gold bedight
Those fires of God—those gems of light.’
Clementina had found a stick and was prodding at something. Too late Henny saw that it was a wasps’ nest and as she ran forward, a vicious explosion of wasps sent Clementina screaming away. Ignoring the wasps, Henny flung her wide skirts around the child, covering her and holding her protectively close as they ran together out of the woods and along the grassy path through the fields. They ran until, conscious that the angry buzzing had stopped, Henny stopped too and uncovered her small charge.
‘They’re gone now. There’s nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all! Are you all right, dear?’
Clementina looked pale but stubborn. ‘I wasn’t afraid.’
‘But sometimes it’s only sensible to be afraid.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘If you met a lion for example, you would, anyone would—be afraid. It would be perfectly proper.’
‘I’d fight the lion until it was frightened and it ran away. It would not frighten me.‘
She tossed her hair and it caught the sun and became for a magic moment like shining sunlight itself, before she went clambering over a wooden stile with a flash of woollen stockings and frills at the knees of her knickers. Then she was away, defiantly skipping towards the village.
It was only then that Henny became aware not only of the pain of wasp stings, but of another more alarming pain. It took her breath away and she had to sit down on the stile. There, hidden by the long grass, she clasped at her chest and struggled to gulp in air.
‘Henny, Henny, where are you? I don’t want to play at hide-and-seek.’
Recognising the undercurrent of fearful uncertainty in the child’s voice, Henny immediately rose up and, despite her agony, called back. ‘It’s all right, Miss Clementina. Everything’s all right. I’m here!’
4
Lorianna was acutely, pleasurably conscious of silk whispering over her skin as she walked, caressing and fondling it. She had had her dressmaker fashion several Japanese silk lace-trimmed chemises, camisoles, drawers and petticoats, preferring always to have the sensual softness rubbing against her. She could then suffer the tightly laced corset and the cotton petticoats before donning the top skirt of taffeta needed to give a smooth base for her gown and make the delightful rustling, swishing noise every time she moved.
The sun was shining as she picked her way carefully along the grassy path earth-ridged by cartwheels. She decided she didn’t need the protection of her parasol, because the trees and bushes afforded enough shade although they kept opening to reveal fields of waving grass or stiffening corn, and rolling meadows lemon-dotted with dandelions and buttercups.
A breeze softly hissed and sighed through the branches of the trees, approaching and receding like the sea. The farm was visible now beyond the meadow with a great hawthorn tree roofing the grass underneath, making it a darker, moister green in the pool of shadow.
The farmhouse, built of solid grey stone with walls three feet thick, sat sturdily in front of a cluster of outhouses. There were stables for the horses, barns for the hay, sheds for the farm wagons and byres for the sheep and cattle. And a little further away past some bushes were the henhouses.
The sight of the place so similar to the farm of her childhood—except that her farmhouse home had been much bigger—awakened vivid memories in Lorianna. Memories of still, shadowy places suddenly bursting into life with hens or cockerels flying out from dark corners, a herd of mooing cows crowding in for milking; a pair of buzzards circling slowly in the sky, distant from each other but communicating with sharp vibrant cries. She had been happy then, waking up in her sunny bedroom to the sound of the cock crowing loud and near and knowing that she had a ride into Bathgate with her mother to look forward to. Or it might be the day when cook did the baking and would allow her to help roll the biscuits on the kitchen table. She could still smell the hot spicy aroma from the big black oven beside a kitchen fire that made sweat bristle from cook’s red face.
Was she not happy now? Lorianna sighed, unsure of what to think. Her mother had said she was lucky that such a man as Gavin Blackwood wished to marry her. She had been sixteen, a worry to her mother with her wicked ways and had been caught with one of the squire’s sons rolling in the hay. She blushed now at the memory: nothing had happened really; the boy had stolen a few kisses and she had fallen giggling to the ground in the struggle. But her mother had wrung her hands and wailed: ‘I dread to think what you might have made the poor young gentleman do if I hadn’t come along.’
Woman, since Eve in the garden of Eden, was a temptress, her mother said, and it was no use trying to blame the man. The instigation of all evil came from the woman.
Not that her mother was unkind
or unloving; quite the reverse. Born in far-off Italy and rescued from a life of poverty by Lorianna’s father, she was a devout and passionate woman whose relationships were as sincere and intense as her prayers. She was always hugging and kissing the child and had once physically attacked a nurse, literally flinging her from the house after she had discovered her smacking four-year-old Lorianna. Poor Mamma! Lorianna thought, so desperate to be a lady and do the proper thing, but letting herself down so often by such volatile emotions. How vigilant she had been trying to prevent her daughter from suffering the same impediment! How delighted when Gavin had come to court her.
‘Such a wealthy Christian gentleman, Lorianna! And so much older and more sensible than you, my dear. He’ll be able to guide you in the ways of the Lord and take good care of you. Praise be to God for being so merciful to us!’
Mamma had been embarrassingly grateful to Gavin, almost obsequious. But then of course, Mamma had always been like that to Papa as well. ‘Thank the good Lord every night for your good husband, Lorianna, as I do for mine.’
Lorianna sighed. She had never failed to do as Mamma said, but she couldn’t help feeling a little cheated. Marriage was not quite as wonderful as her mother had always made out. Not that it was Gavin’s fault of course. He was still the upright Christian gentleman Mamma had always said he was, and he had provided her with a beautiful home in which she could indulge herself in any whim and fancy. If she wanted a new maid she could have one, providing of course that she asked Gavin’s permission. Perhaps a little womanly pressure was required, but this was only to be expected. If she wished for a day in Bathgate or even in Edinburgh Gavin, while frowning on any frivolous or unnecessary ‘gadding about’, would arrange that her wish should be granted. She did struggle to control and contain her restlessness, her wicked and wayward emotions and her most regrettable discontent. Only sometimes it was painfully difficult. She felt imprisoned inside herself, beating at invisible bars, distressed and bewildered, not knowing what she was trying to escape from or what she longed to run to.
As she neared the farm she opened her pink parasol and turned it lazily over her head. Two black and white collie dogs came to meet her—Jess the old one, fat and plodding and Ben the pup, with his tail wagging his entire body. She leaned forward to pat the old dog’s head and was somewhat disconcerted by the enthusiasm of the pup which kept bouncing against her like a dusty rubber ball. She had to take little steps back and then back again, hand protectively outstretched in an effort to shield her dress from the dirty paws.
Suddenly a smooth rich voice commanded, ‘Ben, down!’ The dog dropped like a stone and lay with its face between its paws.
Lorianna felt embarrassed by the appearance of the grieve and annoyed at herself for being embarrassed. She had expected him to be out working in the field at this time of day, or supervising the other workers.
She kept remembering that she had recently caught him standing staring up at her bedroom window. That day he would have been at the house for the legitimate purpose of seeing Gavin of course. Gavin really knew nothing about farm work and did nothing about the running of the estate except to ride around it occasionally and demand regular reports from the grieve. He didn’t seem to like Kelso and she had heard him complain to Gilbert about the man not knowing his place. Gilbert had asked if he had said anything impertinent and Gavin had replied that on the contrary, it was his silences accompanied by a certain look in his eyes that he found most offensive.
Admittedly there was something disturbing about Kelso’s eyes, grey like a winter’s sky under jet-black brows. Such a striking-looking man could cause unrest among the female staff.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Blackwood!’ His low-pitched voice was automatic, almost absent-minded, but his eyes were sharp and searching. She smiled in acknowledgement, then tipped up her chin and gazed around. He had not saluted her, she noticed.
‘Can I help you in any way?’ he was asking now.
‘No, I’m just enjoying a stroll,’ she said, turning aside, parasol lightly twirling over her shoulder.
‘The farm must bring back happy memories. You were brought up on a farm, I believe?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ she agreed before sauntering away. She was slightly unnerved that he should have read her mind so accurately. The farm drew her like a magnet on her lonely perambulations, but she had seldom seen Kelso there. He was usually keeping the men hard at work in the fields. Sometimes she saw the dairymaid, who would give her a pretty curtsey. Or the odd-job-man might be somewhere around and he never failed to doff his cap and stand respectfully still until she passed.
The farm with its sights and smells and sounds acted like a buffer to her growing sense of unfulfilment. The atmosphere soothed her with its memories of happy times. Yet it made her sad too. The loving response she had had to love in her childhood was reawakened now in her maturity, eager and aching and open-armed.
She walked round the farm buildings, which formed a three-sided square at the back of the farmhouse and faced on to a duck pond where fat ducks fished with tails up in the shallows, and moorhens darted about. The stables faced the pond and not only housed the giant slow-moving farm horses, but the riding horses too.
The dairy was shadowy and cool, with buckets of milk and flat pottery bowls with cream rising thick to the surface and being skimmed off by the dairymaid and thumped into butter in a barrel-shaped churn.
‘Afternoon ma’am.’ The maid curtseyed.
Lorianna favoured her with a smile before passing on to the cowshed where placid cows stood in semi-darkness munching chopped turnips as they awaited the arrival of the milkers with their three-legged stools.
The door to the bothy for the unmarried farm-labourers was open wide, and Lorianna caught a glimpse of the widow-woman from the village who fed the men and looked after the place. A smell of carbolic soap overflowed from the shadowy interior as, taking advantage of the men’s absence, she rubbed and scrubbed at the stone floor. So intent was she on her task that she did not notice Lorianna’s presence.
The bothy looked out on to a central midden where all the manure from the stables and cowshed were dumped. The steamy morass had such a pungent odour that many of Lorianna’s genteel lady friends would have fainted at the stench—not to mention the sight—of such a place. But to Lorianna it was part of the earthy texture of her happy childhood memories.
She turned at the cart shed where the wooden-wheeled carts lay back, shafts up, strangely bereft and vulnerable without the harnessed, brass-decorated farm-horses. Her usual walk back was through the fields and then into the garden through what she liked to think of as her secret gate. She was glad of the parasol, because in the great rolling fields there were fewer shady places. When she did approach cool shadows, rooks loudly cawed at her and rose up in protest at her audacity for coming so near to the trees where their nests were built.
Once she turned round for another glimpse of the farm and was taken aback to see, over to her left, Robert Kelso on horseback on a raised bank of ground, his tall figure silhouetted darkly against the pale sky. He was watching her, she felt sure, and it was a disturbing intrusion. She had been treasuring her solitude and her ability to soak up sensations of the past which had become so necessary to her present survival.
The swish of her skirts quickened as she walked towards the stile and then the shelter of the narrow path that led to her secret gate into the garden of Blackwood House. The path was almost overgrown with plants and hedges. Horny roots of trees clawing up from the earth were liable to trip the unwary; hedges were thick and high and full of flowers and the rustle and hum of living things. Flecks of sunshine danced up and down the bark of the trees. Closer to her gate the foliage became denser, a dark earthy-smelling tangle through which she had to dip and duck and tread with extra care. Then the gate was stiffly creaking, squeaking under the spicy shade of a huge walnut tree. There were ash trees too and a beautiful copper birch. Then she was into the garden, past the blaze of
rhododendrons and round to the right on to the croquet lawn.
But instead of feeling buoyant with gladness at being home and safe from prying eyes, depression snatched the heart from her, leaving her empty and exhausted. She sighed at the same time as chastising herself; she must try to stop these wistful wanderings into the past and instead seek calmness and contentment in the present.
Gavin was in the sitting-room when she arrived, comfortably ensconced in a chair by the window. It occurred to her that compared with the deep red wall-hangings of silk damask, Gavin’s hair and beard looked glaringly orange. Somehow the sight of him increased her depression, but she managed to smile a response to his polite, ‘Good afternoon, my dear.’ Instead of going over to sit at the window beside him, however, she went through to the adjacent drawing-room and sat down at the grand piano. The piano had been given to her by Gavin on her marriage and the case had been painted with roses with the letter ‘L’ on one side within a wreath.
Gently Lorianna caressed the keys, the clear tinkling notes seeming to come from another age and match the eighteenth-century furniture and continental pieces in the room. In contrast with the plainer, darker and more solid furniture of the sitting-room and its clutter of sepia photographs, the drawing-room was light, ornate and colourful with its Chinese tapestry panel over the chimney-piece, paintings and elegant French sofa and chairs.
When the last note died away a polite clapping made her turn in surprise, thinking it was Gavin. But it was Gilbert lounging in the connecting doorway.
‘Thank you, kind sir,’ she said with a mock curtsey. And then as she joined him in the sitting-room, ‘Everyone seems to be home earlier than usual today. First your father and now you.’
Gilbert smoothed two fingers down over the middle silky section of his moustache.
‘Oh? I thought we left the Dreadnought at the usual time. I to go back to the factory and father to come home.’
‘Usual time indeed!’ Lorianna laughed. ‘Your father is hardly ever home by early afternoon, are you, my dear?’
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