‘Why the sad sigh? You’re going to be all right. I shall look after you from now on.’
‘If only it were as simple as that!’
‘It can be as simple as that, if you will just allow it to be.’
She sighed again. ‘What about my suffragette beliefs? They are part of me, Douglas.’
For a moment he closed his eyes. Then he said firmly, ‘Very well, I will make a genuine effort to understand your point of view, but you must give me the same undertaking.’
‘You have already made your point of view perfectly clear.’
‘Clementina!’ A warning ring of steel came into his voice, but was almost immediately brought under control. ‘I am trying, really trying not to be dismissive about your opinions. The least you can do is afford me the same courtesy.’
She looked down like a contrite child. ‘Yes, you’re quite right.’
He couldn’t stop a smile from twitching at the corners of his mouth.
‘That’s the second time you have agreed with me. We’re really making progress! And I will tell you something else. We would make even more progress in another direction if it was not for your bruises.’
Clementina shrank away from him in embarrassment. ‘I must look awful.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of how you looked—only how you must feel. I don’t want to risk hurting you, that’s all. You look like a miniature pugilist with that black eye and bruised lip, but it only makes me love you all the more.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like this.’
‘You would rather talk about women’s suffrage than love?’
‘I just want to get matters straight between us.’
‘To be perfectly truthful, Clementina, I have never really given the question of women’s suffrage much serious thought until now. I’m not a very political person.’
‘Well, you should be!’
‘Now, don’t tell me what I should or should not be.’
Clementina opened her mouth to speak again, but Douglas quickly covered it with his hand. ‘Let us stop and think, Clementina. Do we honestly want to explore our individual feelings? Or do we just want an argument?’
‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘But I am afraid that’s another part of me, Douglas …’
‘Yes, I know. You enjoy an argument. But if we’re going to get anywhere at all, this is not the moment to indulge in verbal fisticuffs.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Good. As far as women’s suffrage is concerned, I suppose—when I think about it—I feel that women are neither qualified nor capable of making any decision that would affect local or central government.’
‘What basis can you have for believing that?’
‘My experience of women, for a start.’
‘Are you saying that I would be incapable of knowing how to use a vote if I had one?’
‘No, not you.’
‘Well, then …’
‘But you are a most unusual woman, Clementina.’
‘Nonsense! There are plenty of well-informed, capable women in the country.’
‘Informed about what? Embroidery? The local gossip? The vapours? The latest fashion?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘And you know what I mean.’
Clementina shook her head. ‘What I always find so hard to understand, Douglas, is why men cannot see the justice in our cause.’
He raised a dark brow. ‘Which is?’
‘That men and women are equals and should be treated as equals.’
‘But Clementina, men and women are not equal and never can be.’
‘Not as long as men fight so viciously and unfairly to prevent women having equality perhaps.’
‘No, it has nothing to do with that. Women are just different. And I do not intend that to be demeaning in any way. I think the differences in the sexes complement one another and are necessary to the happiness of both men and women—and certainly to their offspring.’
‘You mean that the man should be the strong one who goes out in the world to earn a living and so on, and the woman should stay at home and look after the children.’
‘Clementina, you cannot escape the fact that women are the child-bearers and because of that they must acquire different kinds of knowledge and skills and be different people, mentally, physically, and emotionally …’
‘It does not need to be like that.’
‘Now what do you mean?’
‘With proper education …’
‘You can educate a woman as much as you like, but you still won’t change her role of child-bearer.’
‘If she became educated on equal terms with men, she could compete with men in the outside world—providing she also had equal opportunities.’
‘The point I’m trying to make, Clementina, is that there are basic biological—’
‘I know. I know! But education can overcome that too. Women need to be more knowledgeable and in control of their own bodies. They have to be taught about birth control, for a start.’
Douglas thoughtfully pursed his lips. ‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Clementina. You are getting into very deep water there.’
‘Yes, I know, but that’s not going to stop me.’
His expression alerted. ‘Stop you?’
It took all her courage to keep staring him straight in the eye. ‘For some time I have been holding private meetings in the houses of the Blackwood mill-workers. I have been teaching them about contraception.’
‘Clementina!’
‘That’s not all,’ she continued in a lemming-like rush. ‘There is going to be a public meeting on the subject. There were so many women, you see—’
‘This has gone far enough,’ he interrupted. ‘For your own good, Clementina, I must forbid you to have anything to do with such a meeting.’
‘You have no right to forbid me to do anything, Douglas.’
‘Haven’t I?’ He kissed her gently yet passionately on the lips and she responded to him, but afterwards said sadly, ‘I told you it wasn’t as simple as you thought. You cannot change the way I am.’
‘I don’t want to change you, only to look after you. I’m quite serious about this, Clementina. You must forget all this contraception business. Enough is enough. You are going too far!’
‘I don’t think so. I feel very strongly about this particular issue and I couldn’t forget about it even if I wanted to.’
In a sudden jerky movement Douglas pushed his hands back over his hair. ‘Clementina, has it ever occurred to you how you make me suffer by getting yourself mixed up in God-knows-all-what?’
She rose and moved away from him so that he would not be aware of her distress.
‘Yes,’ she said with apparent calm, ‘it has and I am deeply sorry. That’s why I don’t want to think in terms of anything more than a friendly relationship with you. And I’m serious about that, Douglas. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I ought to go back upstairs.’
52
‘You don’t need him,’ Mrs Musgrove repeated. ‘I have looked after you before and I can look after you again.’
Panic fluttered like butterfly wings in Lorianna’s head along with the words ‘Clementina’s in the Calton Jail.’ The words awakened flashes of memory and she shook her head from side to side as if to prevent the memories from coming into focus. She wanted to banish the picture of Mrs Musgrove too. The black-clad figure of the housekeeper, big mittened hands clasped determinedly in front of her, eyes glittering like jet beads, was making her feel she had gone back in time. She was going to have to live through the terrible nightmare again.
‘Please send for Mr Stirling.’ The butterflies carried he words out shakily.
Still Mrs Musgrove didn’t move. ‘What good has any man ever done you?’
The memories were focusing despite her frantic efforts. She could see the misty evening creeping over the Calton Hill, hear the creaking and clanging of iron gates echoing against damp stone walls, smell the al
l-pervading stench of the place. She couldn’t bear it. She began pacing the floor, her gossamer tea-gown floating and eddying around her.
‘I need his advice about Clementina.’
She had to keep clutching at John. He was the only straw she had.
The housekeeper’s mouth tilted down at one side. ‘Oh yes? I thought Lord Monteith was looking after Miss Clementina.’
‘Yes, but …’
John, John! She struggled to keep his face in her mind to blot out Robert’s. To keep at bay the avalanche of emotion that was threatening to sweep her away.
‘That’s what you have always wanted,’ Mrs Musgrove was saying, ‘to force them to get together.’
‘Not in the Calton Jail! Oh, my God!’ She began to shiver violently and the shadow of Mrs Musgrove lengthened across her.
‘You are overwrought. Let me help you into bed and then I’ll give you something to calm you.’
Lorianna covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh my God,’ she kept thinking. ‘Oh my God!’
Just then there was a knock at the bedroom door and Mrs Musgrove snapped ‘Enter’.
Baxter opened the door and said, ‘Mr Stirling is here and—’
‘John!’ Lorianna immediately called out and Stirling, hovering anxiously outside in the reception hall, heard her and came striding into the room. She almost fainted with relief.
‘That will be all, Mrs Musgrove,’ she heard herself say. She didn’t dare to look at the older woman.
The door clicked shut and Stirling said, ‘I’ve only just seen the papers and came as quickly as I could.’
‘Lord Monteith was here earlier. He said he would take care of everything.’
She was shivering violently and her calm words didn’t seem to belong to her. She was hugging herself now, fiercely concentrating on trying to contain the avalanche.
‘Lorianna, my dear,’ he came towards her with arms outstretched. ‘This is a terrible shock for you …’
Suddenly she flung herself against him and clung round his neck. ‘Hold me, hold me. I’m frightened.’
‘My dear …’
For a wild moment, clinging to him, feeling his body hard against hers, a wave of unexpected and uncontrollable passion took possession of her and somehow their mouths came together. She drank hungrily from him and when after a few moments he firmly disentangled himself from her, he was taken aback to detect in the eyes that stared up at him a sensual, indecent soul that shocked him profoundly. But he told himself that Lorianna had been completely unbalanced by her daughter’s dreadful behaviour and subsequent arrest. As if the poor woman had not suffered enough violent shocks in the past.
‘My dear,’ he said gently. ‘Try to keep calm. I’m here now and I will look after you.’
‘Don’t leave me,’ she pleaded.
‘Lorianna.’ He hesitated. ‘This may not be the most appropriate moment. I’m not sure. But I want you to know, if you have not realised it before, that I love you and would consider it a great honour if I could be with you always.’
He could see she was struggling with herself to assume a controlled and dignified manner.
‘Is this a proposal of marriage, John?’
‘Yes, my dear. I would have spoken to you in this vein before, but I knew the depth of your feelings for your late husband and how even yet you still grieve for him.’
‘Life has to go on.’
‘Yes, that’s very true. Does that mean you could return my respect?’
‘I have a very high regard for you, John.’
‘Then we must be married as soon as possible.’
‘Yes, dear,’ she said dutifully. John would look after her. Everything would be all right now. Yet she felt sad, oh so sad. ‘Robert,’ she kept thinking. ‘Oh, Robert.’
Stirling contemplated her beautiful face with its full mouth and large eyes and wondered if he should increase their pain by mentioning Clementina.
‘My dear, are you quite certain that Lord Monteith was willing to attend to everything?’
‘I can’t go there.’ Panic rampaged into her eyes. ‘Not to the Calton Jail. Don’t make me go there!’
‘Of course not, dear,’ he assured her. ‘There’s no question of such a thing.’
Her expression relaxed a little. ‘Lord Monteith assured me that there was no need to worry. He said he would do everything that was necessary.’
‘Well, try to look at it this way, my dear—that it’s an ill wind, as they say. Let us hope this terrible business will draw them closer together and that Clementina will be more willing to accept him.’
‘I no longer nurse any hope of Clementina, John.’
‘You mustn’t feel like that, Lorianna.’
‘I can’t help it. I somehow feel now that she is doomed.’ Her eyes had acquired the strange haunted look he had so often observed about them in the past. ‘Maybe she has been doomed from the very beginning.’
‘That’s nonsense, Lorianna. You’re just overwrought and need rest and quiet. It would be best if I leave you now. I shall try to find out exactly what the position is with Clementina. Then I’ll return again tomorrow and we can discuss our plans for the future in more detail. Now lie down on your bed and try to rest.’
‘All right, dear.’
Obediently she went over to the bed and lay stiffly on top of the covers. Staring at the ceiling, she listened to his feet in the hall outside and then to the distant sounds of doors opening and shutting. Her mind was whirring round and round like some mad merry-go-round at the fair. She tried to slow it down and sort out her feelings of confusion. How could she marry any man except Robert? How could she allow another man to possess her body and soul? Was she being unfaithful to her dearest and only love by even thinking of any kind of union with another man? It was too terrible to contemplate. ‘Oh Robert, Robert.’ Grief and exhaustion dragged at her thoughts, but her loving and longing increased and winged free. She saw his face in her mind’s eye, saw his big, strong, slow-moving body, felt his gentle touch. It was Robert’s hands and not her own which tangled through her hair and unloosed it from its pins, stroked it and spread it across the pillow. It was his warm hands which explored her face and body, cupped her breasts, caressed her abdomen and stroked her in secret places. She whimpered with need of him, shivering to a climax that immediately left her heartbroken and ashamed.
A sudden sharp rap at the bedroom door made Lorianna clutch her tea-gown around her and struggle flushed and breathless to a sitting position, her hair tumbling down in rich profusion over her shoulders. Mrs Musgrove had entered the room and was staring at her with an expression that shocked and frightened Lorianna.
‘I knew it!’ the housekeeper said. ‘It’s not safe for you to be left alone with any man.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘It’s all going to happen again.’
‘Happen again?’
‘The madness!’
‘If you’re talking about my relationship with Mr Stirling, there is nothing mad about it. We have a very high regard for each other and we are going to be married.’
‘You can’t marry him.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! Of course I can marry him. I have been widowed for eight years and I’m still a young woman.’
‘Have you forgotten what you suffered with your husband?’
‘No. But Mr Stirling is different. He is a perfect gentleman.’
‘You once thought your husband was a perfect gentleman—a perfect Christian gentleman.’
‘John couldn’t be like him!’
Mrs Musgrove’s mouth twisted. ‘I have told you, men are all the same.’
‘No, Robert was different.’
‘Yes, he took full advantage of your weakness and drove you to distraction.’
‘It wasn’t like that, Mrs Musgrove. You don’t understand.’
‘I understand that he had you so crazed that you committed murder!’
Lorianna cringed bac
k against the pillows. ‘How can you say such a terrible thing?’
‘It’s true.’
‘That wasn’t Robert’s fault. It was Clementina’s.’
Mrs Musgrove raised a thin brow. ‘You blame the child?’
‘You know what I mean.’ Lorianna wrinkled her forehead and put a hand up to shade her eyes as if Mrs Musgrove’s stare was giving her a headache.
‘No, I don’t know what you mean, madam. What can you mean? Clementina was also a victim of a man’s evil ways; she too was taken advantage of. There is no limit to what men will do. Any man. That perfect Christian gentleman was the child’s father!’
Lorianna began to cry. ‘I was only trying to help her.’
‘All that was needed was for him to see you there. To be discovered would have been enough to stop him. You were distracted, but you had been distracted long before that day. Every day when you came from Robert Kelso, you were half-crazed. You were flushed and dishevelled and you had the memory of a man’s body on you, just as you have now.’
Lorianna hid her face in her hands. ‘No, you’re wrong. Just go away and leave me alone. You have no right to talk to me like this.’
‘Haven’t I? You wouldn’t be alive now if it had not been for me.’
‘I appreciate all you have done for me, but I can’t go on like this. I need to be married.’
‘You just think you do. What you really need is to be protected against yourself so that men won’t take advantage of you and exploit your weakness.’
‘Mrs Musgrove, I cannot help the way I am. Please believe me, I have tried.’
‘I know you have. And you would have been all right if it hadn’t been for … that man.‘ She spat out the last two words as if repelled by the obnoxious taste of them. ‘Never a week has passed, hardly a day, but he has come here pestering you.’
Lorianna turned up a tear-stained face to the housekeeper. ‘Can’t you understand? He is a decent, respectable man who wants to marry me.’
‘Just like Mr Blackwood?’
‘I am not going to listen to you any more. You have an obsession about men; it colours everything. Mr Stirling and I are going to be married and that’s all there is to it.’
‘Oh no, madam.’
Lorianna gazed helplessly this way and that, as if seeking some means of escape.
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