‘You look even more lovely than usual, Lorianna.’
His courteous smiling voice helped to soothe her troubled spirits.
‘That colour suits you.’
He was referring to her tawny-coloured evening gown which complemented the warm, dark tones of her hair and eyes and highlighted her creamy skin. The gown was daringly low cut and she wore a deep pearl choker. Pearls also decorated the train of the dress.
Baxter was retrieving Stirling’s hat from where he had placed it on a chair and Lorianna lifted a hand to detain her as she asked her guest, ‘You will have a pre-dinner refreshment, John?’
‘A glass of whisky, thank you.’
Lorianna nodded to the maid, who immediately went over to the drinks cabinet. After she had poured the drink and left the room, Lorianna came to sit beside Stirling on the settee and he asked, ‘How are you, my dear?’
‘Rather worried, actually.’
Stirling frowned. ‘About what?’
He had a habit of stooping forward when in conversation with anyone, as if always wanting to make quite certain he caught exactly what was being said. He leaned towards Lorianna now, the light of the oil-lamp glistening on the silver at his temples. Despite this sprinkling of silver, he had a smooth youthful skin and clear intelligent eyes. He had never married, although many women had looked at him invitingly and many a Bathgate mother still dreamed of having such a charming and elegant son-in-law.
Sighing, Lorianna rested her head against the cushions. ‘Clementina has put up her hair and has appeared in her first long skirt. She has also asked to dine downstairs in future.’
Stirling relaxed. ‘An excellent idea and surely nothing to worry about. You are alone far too much, Lorianna. You daughter’s companionship at the dinner-table will take you out of yourself.’
Lorianna smiled vaguely in his direction. ‘Clementina can be rather a trial at times.’
‘You mean her interest in women’s suffrage? That is probably only a phase. She’s young and idealistic and I expect she sees the present female agitation as a great and beneficial movement for social reform.’
‘I wonder if these friends of hers are being a bad influence? I realise Clementina is precocious; she always has been. Still, they are all older than she is.’
Stirling patted her hand and she felt an immediate heightened awareness of him. It was as much as she could do to control the urge to cling to his hand and hold it against her. She was not in love with him, but he was a man and she had such a hunger in her for loving.
‘The fault doesn’t lie in Clementina being easily influenced, my dear,’ he was saying. ‘That is a womanly virtue. What she needs is the influence of a good husband.’
Lorianna closed her eyes. ‘Oh, what a load off my mind it would be if she were married and safely settled in a home of her own.’
Thoughts of loving had brought the memory of Robert to her mind. Even now, after six years, it still hurt to think of his name. For so long the anguish of his terrible death had been too much to bear and she had retreated into a kind of madness where she had tried to deny the cruel progress of time and keep him with her. By sheer wild force of will she refused to acknowledge his loss and continued to love him as passionately in death as she had loved him in life. He would come back, she kept telling herself. No one could prevent her strong, beautiful, loving Robert from gathering her into his arms once again.
Only Jamie had saved her sanity. Jamie with his black hair and his stubborn sense of independence, who was already so like his father.
And of course Mrs Musgrove, who acted as both nurse and jailer. For months, indeed until after Jamie was born, no friends—not even Gilbert and Malcolm—had been allowed to see her. Blackwood House had been a strange, cut-off secret place then, a world of its own, peopled only by women.
It still retained something of that intense atmosphere, and only her stepsons’ insistence had eventually overruled Mrs Musgrove’s ban on visitors. Now, sometimes Jean Dalgliesh came for lunch or afternoon tea and about once a fortnight Gilbert and Malcolm and their wives came to dinner. The only other regular guest—and the most hated, as far as Mrs Musgrove was concerned—was John Stirling.
‘Men have caused you nothing but trouble,’ Mrs Musgrove insisted. ‘The less you have to do with them, the better.’
Trying to keep herself in the present, Lorianna said to Stirling now, ‘I was thinking of calling a family conference to discuss what we should do about Clementina.’
‘Why don’t you start entertaining a little more? It would be good for you as well as Clementina. I have several clients who have sons—very personable young men—just the type that Clementina should meet. A couple of them even have titles. Perhaps you would like to add them to your guest list when you are arranging her first dance or whatever. I can give you their names and addresses.’
‘What a good idea, John! It’s time Clementina attended her first dance. She is quite right and I ought to be treating her more like a young lady now. She isn’t a child any more.’ A hint of anxiety returned to her eyes when she added, ‘She doesn’t mean any harm, you know, John. And I do love her.’
‘Of course, my dear. She is a charming girl. And I’m sure that if she is guided and influenced in the right way she will soon settle down and forget these foolish ideas she has been harbouring.’
‘Yes, you’re quite right. She needs to meet someone who will love her and look after her.’ Lorianna’s expression had become dreamy. Across her mind’s eye was drifting a delightful picture of Clementina in a fashionable wedding dress, looking blissfully happy. Gilbert was proudly giving her away and Malcolm was performing the wedding ceremony. Jamie, her beautiful Jamie, was an adorable little pageboy, in plum velvet with ecru lace collar and cuffs …
‘There, you look better already.’ John was smiling at her and she forced her attention back to him.
‘I don’t know how you do it, but I always feel better after talking to you,’ she said.
‘It’s my job,’ he reminded her.
‘Oh, John!’ She laughed and coyly lowered her eyes for a second to show to advantage the thick sweep of her lashes. ‘Surely after all these years our relationship is more than just a cold business one?’
‘Certainly not cold, my dear.’ He lifted her hand and brushed the back of it with his lips.
‘Friends, then?’ She arched a brow, eyes coquettish and inviting.
‘Good friends, I hope,’ he said with one of his little courteous movements, the merest suggestion of a bow.
It was only recently that Lorianna had found herself beginning to adopt a consciously flirtatious role with John. She wondered if he had noticed her change of attitude towards him and if so, what he thought about it. She hardly knew what to make of it herself. For so long she had hardly been aware of his existence. She had lived for Robert and after Robert’s death she had lived with his memory. And as her body had recovered its strength and her craving for physical fulfilment had increased, she had desperately held him in her mind and masturbated to a climax that only increased her agony of loneliness.
Memories were not enough.
‘I hope so, too.’ She lowered her eyes again, somehow managing to convey the sense of modesty and restraint that was proper for any respectable woman in the circumstances.
Suddenly the maid, Baxter, appeared in the doorway.
‘Dinner is served, madam.’
Lorianna rose in a graceful, sensual movement that rustled her petticoats like a whisper of excitement. Her hand slid into the crook of John Stirling’s arm and her brow arched provocatively again. ‘Shall we?’ she said.
36
‘I must say I agreed with Gladstone,’ Malcolm smiled, ‘when he said that allowing women to become mixed up in politics would trespass upon their delicacy, their purity, their refinement, the elevation of their whole nature.’
The fine china tinkled as Lorianna poured the steaming brew from the silver teapot and handed each cup to Baxt
er, who passed to each person in turn.
Malcolm’s wife Mary Ann, in a fluffy fur hat, was gazing at her husband in adoration and admiration and she was more startled than anyone when Clementina said, ‘Rubbish!’
Malcolm clung to his smile but his mouth and eyes acquired a tinge of pain.
Half Clementina’s attention was on the cake-stand.
There had never been anything like this in the tower house—plum cake, iced buns, girdle scones and blackcurrant jelly and sugar biscuits. She was enjoying herself immensely.
‘Don’t argue,’ said Gilbert.
‘I wasn’t arguing,’ Clementina retorted. ‘Just expressing an opinion. But what’s wrong with arguing?’
Baxter, poker-faced, offered her the choice of the cake-stand and Clementina concentrated on the serious decision of whether to have a piece of plum cake or a sugar biscuit. This was important, because for all she knew she might not get the chance of the cake-stand a second time.
‘It’s not ladylike,’ Gilbert said. His long sideboards and drooping moustache accentuated his lantern jaws and his bulbous eyes gave him a constantly indignant expression.
Having selected a piece of plum cake, Clementina chewed earnestly at it.
‘That’s a man-made rule, Gilbert, and one of man’s most selfish. I don’t care about being a lady.’
‘What does she mean?’ Hilda, Gilbert’s wife, her sallow complexion not enhanced by her brown dress and yellow-trimmed hat, asked her husband. She had a habit of ignoring anyone or anything she felt unworthy of her direct attention.
‘Dear Clementina,’ Malcolm said gently, ‘the rules we live by on earth must be man-made—with the help and guidance of God, of course.’
‘Why must they?’
Malcolm’s expression remained hanging in mid-air as if he had forgotten how to change it. Mary Ann came quickly to his rescue. ‘You’re just being silly, Clementina. You know perfectly well that you must try to behave like a lady. It’s only right and proper.’
‘Right and proper to be submissive and passive, you mean? Oh yes, that’s very convenient for men, I must say. And of course, if a man puts forward a good argument different rules apply—he’s considered forceful and intelligent.’
‘You will not make much of an impression on men, Clementina,’ Gilbert said, ‘if you show yourself to be either forceful or intelligent.’
‘That’s disgraceful, Gilbert!’
‘Not at all. Woman has always had a beneficent and charming influence over man. Never a forceful one. She has her intuition and is able to whisper in his ear that little word which in the past has sometimes shaped the destinies of nations.’
Clementina felt like knocking him to the floor with one forceful punch, but instead she brushed some crumbs off her new long skirt with brisk efficient movements and said, ‘It’s just as well, then, that I have no desire to make an impression on men. Nor, by the way, do I feel any need for their approval.’
‘You see what I mean?’ Lorianna enquired helplessly of the men.
‘Yes, indeed I do, step-mamma,’ said Gilbert, ‘and of course you’re perfectly right. Something will have to be done.’
’Now what are we talking about?’ Clementina wanted to know.
Malcolm cleared his throat and eased his dog-collar away from his rather prominent Adam’s apple. He was not as tall as his brother and his clean-shaven face had a milder and more open expression. But like Gilbert, he was one of Pharaoh’s lean cattle.
‘We think, my dear, that’s it’s time you were enjoying a little more varied social life.’
‘I’m perfectly happy with my social life, thank you very much, Malcolm.’
Mary Ann coyly patted the back of her hair and fiddled with the mother-of-pearl comb that held it up underneath her furry hat. With a flutter of her eyelashes she said, ‘We mean the social company of suitable young gentlemen.’
‘How many times must I say it? I don’t want anything to do with men! I don’t need them.’
‘Clementina!’ Gilbert’s impatience was starting to show. ‘I am beginning to think you are not quite as grown-up as you seem to believe.’
‘Are you saying, Gilbert, that a sense of independence is a sign of immaturity?’
‘I am telling you that society has certain rules which have to be complied with.’
‘Man-made rules.’
‘Don’t keep saying that as if it were something reprehensible.’
‘But it is reprehensible,’ maintained Clementina.
Lorianna sighed, ‘Darling, I was married and mistress of this house at your age.’
‘Well, that was fine if it was what you wanted, Mother. It’s not what I want.’
‘You’ll do as you are told,’ Gilbert said. ‘Your mother and Hilda and Mary Ann are all planning to give dances and soirées and invite as many eligible young men as can be persuaded to come. You will come and you will behave yourself, do you hear?’
Clementina hesitated. Then she thought, oh to hell, why should I worry? The dances might provide her with an opportunity to meet lots of new women and so spread the suffragist message. She and her friends had been talking about holding public meetings, but so far they were not quite sure if they would have enough support. There was plenty of suffragist activity in Glasgow and the capital city of Edinburgh, they knew. But in a small market town like Bathgate? Not that they were afraid of opposition, but they did need a solid nucleus of women to organise such events. If they did arouse sufficient interest, perhaps they could establish a branch of one of the suffragist movements in Bathgate. It was all very exciting and worthwhile.
‘You will enjoy it all,’ Malcolm was saying kindly. ‘There is no need to be anxious.’
‘I am not anxious. And yes, I probably will enjoy a wider social scene. I am interested in people and like meeting them and discussing their ideas and points of view.’
Hilda said, ‘I don’t think this plan of ours is destined to have the success we are hoping for, Lorianna. Most young women with the prospect of a dance in view would immediately think of what they would wear. She thinks of discussing ideas and points of view.’
Mary Ann giggled and her husband said, ‘Oh I shouldn’t worry too much. Dear Clementina, I’m sure, will soon be swept off her feet by some handsome young man and all her problems will be over.’
‘I hardly think so,’ Clementina said drily. ‘My main problem at the moment is how to get the right to vote so that I can control my own destiny.’
‘Oh, to hell with the right to vote!’ Gilbert exploded irritably.
‘You are perfectly at liberty to banish your rights, Gilbert, but not mine.’
‘Can you imagine her,’ Hilda enquired of her husband, ‘charming any eligible young man into asking for her hand? I certainly can’t.’
‘I don’t want to charm any young man. Nor do I intend to try.’
‘And you have the cheek to accuse men of being selfish!’ Gilbert said. ‘It has obviously never occurred to you that this family will not only have to put up with you but support you for the rest of your life if you fail in your duty to marry.’
‘If women like myself had the right to work—as I believe we should—that problem would not arise, Gilbert. Believe me, I have no wish to be dependent on you or any man.’
‘A woman’s work is in the home,’ Gilbert said.
‘You will change and see things differently once you are married and have a dear little family of your own,’ Malcolm assured her. He and Mary Ann now had a daughter named Victoria on whom they both doted. ‘I often think of the words of De Quincy: “The loveliest sight which a woman’s eye opens upon in this world is her first-born child; and the holiest sight upon which the eyes of God settles in almighty sanction is the love which soon kindles between the mother and her infant”.’
‘May I have another cake, Mother?’ asked Clementina.
The tawny flecks in Lorianna’s eyes leapt like flames into life, but she answered with only the faintest be
traying tremble in her voice, ‘Yes, of course, dear. Do help yourself.’
‘That’s all settled, then,’ said Gilbert.
‘Yes,’ Lorianna smiled. ‘It will take me a few weeks to organise everything properly of course, but I will have the first social gathering. Then perhaps a month or so after that occasion, either Hilda or Mary Ann can take their turn.’
‘Hilda can be next,’ Gilbert said. ‘And by the time Mary Ann does her turn of duty, let us hope that some man has taken the bait.’
Clementina decided she would just enjoy the tea and cakes and ignore them. They could do what they liked no one was going to force her into marriage.
She had no desire even to contemplate such a death sentence, because that was what it would be. She felt she was at the beginning of her life and had so much to look forward to and achieve. She refused to accept what Miss Viners had said some years earlier. When she had asked, ‘What am I going to do when I grow up, Miss Viners?’, the governess had replied abruptly, ‘Nothing. You’re a lady.’
The prospect had shocked Clementina and filled her with fearful depression. But it was only a temporary panic. She was made of sterner stuff than that and she was not going to go through her whole life as a useless parasite with nothing better to fill her time than the futile accomplishments that every lady was supposed to acquire—embroidery, piano playing and perhaps a little French. Anything more serious or systematic in the way of education might scare away potential suitors, so they said. Medical experts even claimed that if a young girl overloaded her brain it could have dire consequences. Her brain would burst, for instance, or she would develop atrophy of the uterus. Opinion held that ‘nice’ girls had no business knowing too much and everyone, including Clementina, was familiar with the verse;
Oh pedants of these later days, who go on undiscerning,
To overload a woman’s brain and cram our girls with learning,
You’ll make a woman half a man, the souls of parents vexing,
To find that all the gentle sex this process is unsexing.
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