Light & Dark

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  ‘You look lovely in it, Jean.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear. You’re looking beautiful yourself—perhaps a trifle paler than usual, though.’

  ‘Well,’ Lorianna forced a laugh. ‘It’s not because I’m in an interesting condition.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Jean said. ‘Fancy, only one child in what—eight years of marriage? Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘Well, I … no … you see … Gavin doesn’t seem … I don’t think he wants any more children. At least, not yet.’

  ‘Oh well, I suppose at your age you’ve still plenty of time.’

  ‘I don’t know. I must confess that sometimes …’ She felt herself flushing with embarrassment and confusion. ‘I worry—I mean about … about Gavin not …’

  ‘Do you mean he doesn’t make many demands on you?’ Jean laughed. ‘My dear, aren’t you lucky?’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘But of course. As good wives we must do our duty whenever called upon to do so, but to be called as often as I am, my dear, I do assure you can be frightfully exhausting.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Lorianna murmured unhappily.

  ‘No supposing about it, Lorianna, my pet! Why do you think I’ve to go away for my sojourns to seaside and mountains so often? Between you and I, my dear, it’s not really to take the air—at least, not as far as I’m concerned. It’s just to get a rest. I get so exhausted. But of course it seldom happens that way. As often as not Duncan comes with me or at best he visits me as often as he can.’ She gave another trilling laugh before finishing her coffee. ‘Men can be beastly at times, can’t they? So demanding! It’s really quite frightening to ladies of our sensibility, isn’t it? I mean, how different gentlemen are as compared with ladies. Like a different species altogether. How interesting, though, that your husband doesn’t insist on his rights every night.’

  Already Lorianna felt guilty and disloyal and keenly regretted her indiscreet disclosure. ‘That’s not what I said, Jean. All I said was that Gavin didn’t seem to want more children at the moment.’

  ‘Ah well,’ Jean sighed. ‘As I say, my dear, you’ve still plenty of time. Alas, I haven’t any more time to spare at the moment. I must be off. Duncan’s invited hordes, absolutely hordes of people to dinner!’

  ‘Oh, Jean,’ Lorianna gave a helpless laugh as she crossed the room to ring for the maid to fetch her friend’s parasol. ‘I do admire you; I don’t know how you manage.’

  ‘It’s life, my dear. A woman’s lot. We’ve just got to manage.’ They kissed warmly before bidding each other goodbye.

  After her friend had left the afternoon stretched endlessly before Lorianna. She felt restless and unfulfilled. Yet Jean had indicated that she ought to feel lucky and in a way, now that she came to think of it, maybe she was. To have to suffer a physical attack—for that was how she regarded lovemaking—to have to suffer physical attack from Gavin every night was indeed a frightening prospect. Poor Jean! It sounded as if her husband subjected her to this painful and fatiguing ordeal as often as that. No wonder she suffered from exhaustion and had developed such a delicate constitution.

  She went through to the sitting-room, thoughts following her, pestering her like a cloud of insects. Why had the intimate side of the marriage to be so painful, so frightening? Jean had said men were beastly. But surely beasts didn’t savage each other when they coupled? At least, not domesticated beasts. But perhaps wild beasts did and men became like wild beasts when their passions were aroused.

  The memory of her wedding day came back to her and of her mother taking her aside and saying, ‘There’s something I must tell you. Whatever Gavin does to you is right.’

  There was also the indisputable fact that she always tried to arouse Gavin’s passions and encourage him to couple with her. Could she really blame him for trying to resist her baser impulses and to control his own, if it was to spare her the pain and exhaustion and deleterious effect on her health that Jean, for instance, had to suffer?

  Gavin was a good husband. Lorianna had never been more sure of that than now. Determined to work through her emotional confusion and impose order on her thoughts, she vowed to try to be a better, more dutiful wife. She must endeavour to be more ladylike and control her wicked passions. No doubt she had inherited this regrettable weakness in her nature from her mother, who had come from working-class stock in Italy and, although she spent the rest of her life in Scotland desperately trying to forget her past and act like a lady, had never quite succeeded. She must not fail as her mother had failed.

  The more she thought of how Gavin managed to control his passions for months on end—the last time for almost a year—the more ashamed she felt of herself. She told herself now that she ought to sit quietly down with her sewing and be content. Yet still her body rebelled. Her restlessness was like a fever.

  Fortunately, Gavin came home early and she welcomed him with impulsive warmth. He seemed to bristle at her sudden rush of affection and quick kiss on his cheek.

  ‘Good afternoon, my dear.’ It was strange how he could make even these innocent words sound like a reprimand.

  ‘I’m so glad you didn’t go to Edinburgh today,’ she said. ‘Why do you have to go to Edinburgh so often anyway?’

  He took off his pince-nez and polished it briskly with his handkerchief. ‘Business, nothing you would understand.’

  She sighed. ‘I wish we could talk more about things—even business.’

  ‘You’re being foolish. Why should I talk to you about business? You have no need to know about such things—even if you could understand them.’

  ‘Well, we could talk about other things then.’

  ‘What things?’ he said, his voice testy.

  ‘About our marriage, for instance. Are you happy, Gavin? Happy with me, I mean?’

  He neatly replaced his pince-nez and then made a bridge of his fingers, tapping their tips lightly together.

  ‘I think I can say that I am tolerably satisfied with the way you grace my home, the way you take your place at my side when we entertain friends here for instance. Although even there, there could be room for improvement.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I should prefer you to be more circumspect.’

  ‘I don’t quite understand, dearest.’

  ‘You have a most regrettable emotional streak in your nature, Lorianna, that is a constant worry to me, even—or I might go as far as to say, especially—in public.’

  She was shocked. ‘Oh Gavin, I behave emotionally in public? Surely not!’

  ‘It is something for which you must constantly be on the watch and take the most stringent means to suppress!’

  ‘But I do, I do!’

  ‘You must try to behave with calmness, dignity and modesty at all times.’

  ‘Oh, surely I do Gavin, in public at least?’

  ‘There have been occasions when a certain excitability has suddenly surfaced and I have been forced to catch your eye in order to quell it and silence you.’

  It could not be denied that at times enthusiasms had bubbled up inside her and threatened to spill over in a vivacious monopolisation of the conversation. Now that she came to think of it, she had even caught reproving glances from ladies in the company—older, quieter, much more dignified ladies, respectable wives of Gavin’s business and church friends from whom, Gavin always said, she should take an example.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, lowering her eyes. Then after a few seconds, ‘Shall I ring for afternoon tea?’

  ‘Very well.’

  Over the delicate, fluted china teacups they spoke about Clementina’s future. Gavin repeated that this time he would choose who was to be in charge of her and this time it would be a governess, someone who would educate the child properly and develop in her character the necessary Christian virtues. ‘She has been allowed to run wild for long enough. It’s time she learned self-discipline.’

  Lorianna agreed, but did not tell her husband just how wild and lacking in se
lf-discipline Clementina had become. The incident in the nursery had distressed and saddened her but she would never consider for a moment causing Clementina distress in return because of course Gavin, had he known, would have severely punished their daughter. The child had behaved very badly to her, but the poor little thing had been upset about the loss of her nanny. She forgave her gladly and when Clementina came that night for her usual visit to the sitting-room, she tried to be extra attentive to her. She brought out the pretty dolls which were kept there especially for the purpose and tried very hard to appear enthusiastic.

  ‘Oh, look, darling, isn’t it sweet? Just look at those little shoes! Oh, isn’t it a darling dolly in that sweet little hat?’

  But all the time Clementina stood stubborn and uncooperative, chin pushed down into her pinafore and hands clasped behind her back. Picture books were no more successful in eliciting a response and Lorianna was quite relieved when Tait, the nursery-maid—now promoted to nanny—came to take the child away.

  It had been a most disturbing day one way and another and she was glad eventually to blow out the lamp and collapse into bed. No sooner had she done so, however, when she experienced the biggest shock of all—she heard the connecting door to the dressing-room open and then Gavin entered the bedroom carrying a candle and clad only in his robe.

  Surely she had done nothing to provoke him? She cringed back in the shadows of the bed with rapidly racing heart, too afraid to speak or move as he came across the room and laid the candle on the bedside table. In its flickering light she saw the flame in his eyes and was more afraid than she had ever been before. He snuffed out the candle and immediately the madness was let loose. There had been times during her long months of celibacy when she had forgotten what the pain of coupling was like. This time she remembered, but even her memory did not prepare her for the savagery of Gavin’s passion. She closed her eyes and tried very hard to be a good wife and not to struggle or cry out.

  12

  ‘You know what to do?’ Alice said.

  Clementina nodded. A pattern had been established and at least twice a week on their afternoon walks she had to lie, face down, behind one of the bushes in the dirt road outside the main gates of Blackwood House.

  ‘You lie there,’ Alice always said. ‘And don’t move a muscle until I come back or else the cannibal man will get you. I’ll go and see if I can chase him away.’ Clementina would lie very still on her stomach on the damp brown earth, mouth tightly shut, tongue rolled back behind her teeth, eyes on ground level, ears straining for the terrible sounds of the cannibal man who always carried a long knife with which to cut out little girl’s tongues and take them home to boil them for his tea.

  There was the added terror that he might eat Alice and then Clementina would be left with no one to protect her. But Alice always returned, flushed, breathless and dishevelled, but happily victorious.

  ‘You can come out now,’ she would call cheerily. ‘I’ve made short work of him.’

  Alice always had to help her up because she got so stiff and earth and twigs, even insects and beetles, clung to her pinafore and hair.

  ‘Lord’s sake, what a sight you are!’ Alice would say. ‘We’d better get you back to the house and cleaned up before the master or mistress sees or they’ll be disowning you.’

  That meant being thrown out on her own to the mercy of the cannibal man.

  ‘Or,’ Alice said, nudging her, ‘maybe they’d just banish you forever to the cellar. Or let the ghosties have you!’

  There were several ghosts haunting the tower, according to Alice. One was a big black slave who had once worked in the silver mines. Another was a green lady who had been locked in the tower by a wicked husband and starved to death. Yet another was a young servant who had dropped a lamp and accidentally set fire to himself.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Alice said, ‘he can be heard screaming, sometimes moaning in agony round and round the tower stairs.’

  Today the ordeal of lying behind the bushes was endured and then the suspense of hustling back to the nursery in case anyone saw her. Hand in hand they scrambled as quickly as their legs could carry them up the tower stairs, often stumbling in the dark in their panic to get to the top before any of the ghosts appeared. Alice, although fearless in her dealings with the cannibal man, was terrified of ghosts and at times could work herself into near hysteria. On more than one occasion she had fallen on the stairs in her rush to get up or down them.

  However, Cook had laughed at Alice’s wild tales of being chased by the green lady. ‘You and your imagination!’ she had told Alice. ‘It’ll be the death of you yet.’ And then aside to Mima the kitchen-maid. ‘She enjoys it, you know. Ordinary things and folks are too dull for our Alice. She’s got to keep making up exciting things like ghoulies and ghosts and God-knows-all-what.’

  And then Cook had turned to Clementina. ‘Don’t believe a word of it, young missy. Not a word!’

  But it was very difficult not to believe Alice, especially when her big bumpy mob-cap and large moon face pushed close, eyes bulging, wide nostrils quivering, voice low and husky with drama. And especially when they were cut off alone together at the top of the tower for long evening hours.

  Sometimes Clementina was left alone at night and not just in the night nursery. She was always alone there, because Alice said that wild horses wouldn’t make her sleep in a dead woman’s bed. Sometimes, however, she would hear Alice tiptoe along the passageway and then race away down the stairs. Clementina never knew if she had just gone down on some errand to the kitchen, or had run right out of the house—whether she would be back in a few minutes or a few hours or would never return again.

  Life became as insecure as walking a tightrope over a pool of crocodiles. Even a special birthday tea gave no comfort or ease of tension because Alice, who had a voracious appetite, had to gobble up most of the birthday food before the cannibal man got a smell of it and was tempted to come rampaging indoors.

  ‘Honest to God, it’s your own fault!’ Alice said. ‘You’re far too slow.’

  But on days when the cannibal man was not on the loose, Alice would take her to the village and they would visit Alice’s granny and auntie Bella.

  Alice said she had never had a mother and father, only a granny and an auntie Bella. Auntie Bella wasn’t there very often, because she worked as kitchen-maid over at the Main’s Farm, but granny always welcomed them with a drink of ale and a bit of bread and cheese which Clementina ate as greedily as Alice, because she never seemed to get enough to eat now and was always hungry. Granny’s cottage was one of the end houses in the village and all its walls were uneven and its ceilings very low. It was even darker than the nursery in the tower, because the cottage windows were smaller and hardly allowed in any light at all. Granny always knew when they arrived because all her doors loudly creaked; they were made of heavy oak and hung on big iron hinges. The doors were warped by damp and let in so many draughts that, winter and summer, granny wore a dark grey shawl pinned round her ample shoulders and a cotton bonnet tied under her many chins. She smoked a clay pipe and looked like one of the gipsies that Clementina and Alice had met at the other side of the woods near the river. Only bigger. Alice said high-born girls like Clementina had to watch out for gipsies, because gipsies could kidnap girls from big houses if they took it into their heads.

  As they had supped their ale and chewed at their bread and cheese in Alice’s granny’s cottage, Clementina had asked her about this habit of gipsies and the old woman had said, ‘I wouldn’t put it past them. They’ve nerve enough for anything, that lot.’

  ‘They’ll have stolen more than one of your father’s cows and sheep already,’ Alice informed Clementina. ‘Isn’t that right, Granny?’

  ‘They’ve been hanged for sheep stealing before now,’ Granny agreed.

  ‘Tell Clementina about how they have battles with each other … and how that man got his hand cut off and he rushed into the farmhouse kitchen and stuck the stump of
his arm up against the bars of the fire to stop the bleeding!’

  But there were times when Granny couldn’t be bothered and just wanted to enjoy a puff at her pipe. Then they would have to leave the uneven brick-floored cottage and go to seek diversion elsewhere. Sometimes Alice stopped in at Mrs Stodges’ corner sweetie shop and if she had any money she would buy a small bag of toffee balls and lounge outside, arms folded across her broad bosom and cheeks bulging as she chewed the sweets. She always gave Clementina one, sometimes two. For a time Clementina would stand sucking and chewing beside her, but she would soon get bored with just standing and watching the world go by and would join in a game with the village children. Sometimes, however, the village children would be in a tormenting mood and then they would gang up against her and Alice and shout insults like, ‘Fat Alice! Fat Alice!’

  On these occasions Clementina became enraged and rushed at the tormentors, fists clenched and hard-hitting in Alice’s defence. Alice, still with arms comfortably folded and still chewing, would roll out words nearly drowned in saliva.

  ‘That’s right, Miss Clementina, you get stuck into them.’

  But if she saw that Clementina was getting the worst of the fight, she would wade in herself, plump red hands slapping in all directions, mouth spraying out angry words.

  ‘Rotten wee bastards! I’ll murder the lot of you. I’ll hang for you, so I will!’

  Occasionally Alice took her to watch the blacksmith at work and as they went through the wide doors of the forge, she said, ‘This is what it’s like going through the gates of hell.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Clementina asked.

  ‘Your father told us about hell, didn’t he?’

  Inside it was murky with smoke and Alice pointed to the figures of the smith and his boy outlined against the glow of the fire as they heated a strip of iron held in long pincers.

  ‘They’re like devils with tridents.’

  ‘What’s a trident?’ Clementina enquired.