Light & Dark

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  ‘She made a shocking exhibition of herself a few days after that notorious and disgraceful meeting of yours,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’ Clementina tried to appear calm and businesslike. ‘What did she do?’

  Stirling looked genuinely shocked as he recalled the event. He had been in his office at the time and heard the dreadful commotion. ‘She stole a hammer out of Gordon’s and then rampaged down Engine Street like a wild animal smashing windows.’

  ‘So she’s here in the Jail, too?’

  ‘Yes, and she’ll be in a deal longer than you, I can tell you.’

  ‘Can’t you do anything to help her?’

  He looked at her aghast, as if she had asked him to touch something revolting. ‘Certainly not.’ He had risen to go, then, ‘I shall send Jacobs in the carriage to collect you as soon as I know when you are to be released.’

  She had felt more depressed than ever after he had gone. It would seem that now, when she left the Jail, it would only be to go to another kind of imprisonment.

  She didn’t like Stirling. He gave every outward appearance of being a gentleman of refinement and taste, but she felt no warmth about him. Unlike Douglas Monteith, whose eyes when they crinkled up and smiled down at her radiated affection as well as good humour. Except when he was angry with her, that is. Then they hardened with a fury born of passion, not of coldness.

  She longed for him to come and, surprised by the strength of her longing she mentally examined it, trying to make sense of it. She didn’t need him to come and rescue her—Mr Stirling was going to help in every way he could in that respect. And at least she had no doubts about his conscientiousness and efficiency.

  Was it Douglas’s company, his physical presence, his conversation? But in many ways his physical presence frightened her and in conversation they did nothing but argue and infuriate one another. It was not that she believed he meant to frighten her by the passion of his embrace. This fear, she realised, stemmed from something already within herself. She tried to probe and dissect and examine this flaw in her make-up, but was shocked at the unexpected surge of emotion that stopped her. Doors flew shut in her mind and every prop of courage crumbled and left her weak and trembling. Broken-heartedly she wept into the coarse sacking material of her apron. How ironic, she thought, all the torments of these past days had not made her weep. The doctor who had forcefed her, the wardresses who had cruelly held her down could not make her weep. Even when she was being punished by her father she had never wept. Now, sitting alone in the damp-floored cell, she could not control her heart-rending sobs. She wept until she was exhausted and could weep no more.

  Clementina wondered what time it was. She had no means of telling the time. Her life had become punctuated only by the twice-daily torture of being forcefed by the same method used on lunatics. A doctor and five wardresses strapped her legs and arms to a chair and held her down as a steel gag was forced into her mouth to keep it open so that they could push a rubber tube down her throat. The pain was excruciating and the feeling when the tube reached her stomach, nauseated her. It made her choke and retch and violently struggle.

  Now she heard them approaching again, their feet clanging in the corridor. Hastily she made sure her eyes were dry and she was sitting straight-backed and with chin defiantly raised. Doors loudly creaked open. Then the cries of other victims. Kitty? Millicent? Surely not Eva? Such pitiful groans, and such terrible spasms of choking and gagging and retching.

  Nearer and nearer. Louder and louder. She tried to be brave, to face the horrific ordeal with dignity, but when the door opened and she saw her tormentors crush in, she immediately tried to dart past them out into the passage. When they seized her and dragged her back into the cell, she struggled with furious determination, but her body was held as if in a vice and she was bound to the chair. The tube seemed far too big; it wrinkled up and had to be shoved down again and again. She felt as if she was suffocating, dying a slow agonising death. Afterwards she was flung, teeth chattering and body trembling, on to the bed. And at once the door was locked.

  She was alone again, sitting in the corner, fingers entwined on her lap.

  She had thought he would come, she had been sure that he would come. And yet, what right had she to expect him to do so? She had no part in his life, nor he in hers. The path she had elected to tread was an independent one. She did not need any man. For the moment, ill-treatment and lack of food had weakened her. She was not herself, but a foolish child-woman longing for strong arms around her and the sweet, swooning effect of a kiss.

  Time and time again Clementina struggled to discipline her mind and her unruly emotions. She thought of the Cause and the long fight still to come. She thought of her sisters in distress who were committed to suffer on until they gained their objective and saw justice done. She thought of freedom. She thought of Edinburgh with the sea at its feet and so many of its streets rushing headlong downhill like rivers in spate. And others wide and calm and others again snaking narrowly about towering tenements and furtive closes, as if seeking protection from the bitter east wind. A place of history redolent of old deeds and great days where so many causes had been fought and won.

  She thought of Bathgate with its quiet streets and two-storey houses or one-storey cottages—clean and country-fresh. Except along the Edinburgh Road by the railway on a Sunday night, when the engines were fired up and the houses there got black with smoke. But the quiet was not disturbed by the ricochet of buffers, the crash of couplings and the piercing hiss of steam. People were accustomed to the railway—its swinging oil-lamps and shooting sparks were part of the Bathgate night.

  Often when walking or cycling home, Clementina had stopped on the Drumcross Road to look down on Bathgate and seen the turbulent scarlet glow creeping up the sky from the railway, heard its far-off clanking and echoing whistle and felt comforted by it.

  Oh, she had been so certain he would come. And now she chided herself for being foolish and illogical. After all, what would be the point of his coming?

  She pondered bitterly at the cruel tricks God had played on woman. It was He who had made her weak in flesh and a prey to such conflicting emotions. It was He who had given her a brain that saw the weakness and illogicality and conflict and despised them. It was He who gave her the secret wish to be dominated and at the same time the free spirit to make her fight tooth and nail against domination.

  Somehow, somewhere there must be an answer, but no matter how long she strained and strained her mind to think about it, she could not find one that made any sense.

  Once she was well and strong again and free, she would discuss this with her friends. But thinking of her friends made her brow crease and her eyes strain with worry.

  Gentle ladylike Agnes trying to protect the injured Betsy and men closing in on them at the back of the Co-op Hall and surging with them outside—that didn’t bear thinking about. Rhona and Millicent in the other cells along the prison passage would survive their agonies. Perhaps the excitable Kitty might. But poor Eva?

  Clementina closed her eyes and tried to blot out thought, to wait on her release and reunion with her friends with patience and fortitude.

  As far as Rhona was concerned, she would have to find some way of helping her and finding her a home and employment. But who did she know who would even consider for a moment …

  It was then that Douglas Monteith returned with a rush to her thoughts. He was a wealthy man with a large estate and, if nothing else, at least he was her friend.

  If she asked him, pleaded with him if necessary to do whatever he could to help Rhona, surely he wouldn’t refuse her request?

  She suffered the ordeal of the next few days until her release, dry-eyed and by sheer stubborn will, and when at last she was set free and went to check on her friends at visiting time she found they had been taken home earlier that day. Only Rhona remained and when Clementina visited her she was unexpectedly shocked at her appearance. The violet eyes still fiercely glittered with
emotion, but the dark shadows underneath them and the bitter twist to her mouth gave her a drawn look of suffering. The sight of her made Clementina all the more determined to swallow her pride and ask for Douglas’s help.

  ‘My mother has married again and by the sound of things it’s going to be impossible for me to get you back into Blackwood House.’

  Rhona shrugged. ‘It was obvious I couldn’t stay there for ever. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to.’

  ‘But there’s no need to worry,’ Clementina assured her. ‘I have had a marvellous idea. I’m going straight from here to see Lord Monteith. He must provide employment for hundreds of people and on an estate the size of his there is bound to be some place he could give you to live in.’

  Rhona surveyed her with narrowed eyes for a few moments. Then suddenly she threw back her head and laughed. But it was a hard sound, completely lacking in humour.

  Clementina was indignant. ‘It seemed to me to be eminently sensible and practical.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Well? What’s wrong with the idea?’

  Rhona shrugged, her face expressionless. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Very well, then, I’ll go now.’

  She was slightly irritated by Rhona’s reaction. In many ways, Rhona was a strange girl. One never could be quite certain how to take her. Soon, however, her irritation was forgotten in the blessed relief of escaping from the Calton. Never had Edinburgh’s east wind felt so fresh and invigorating. She imagined she detected a tang of salt blowing up from the Firth and it gave spice to her sense of freedom.

  Jacobs politely saluted her and then helped her into the carriage.

  But first she had told him where she wanted to go. A faint flicker of surprise had crossed his normally wooden features but only for a second. He was too well-trained a servant to risk revealing any emotion to his employers or any member of their family.

  Oh, the excitement of galloping along Edinburgh’s Princes Street with its windswept gardens and tramway cars and buses—cabs drawn by glossy black and brown horses, workmen on carts sitting heads-down and hands between their knees, resigned to the wind, and crowds of tilted-forward people pushing against it as it blustered along the pavement.

  From the rocky Calton Hill it hastened Clementina to the Castle Rock at the other end of the busy street and away beyond it past elegant terraces towards the distant woods of Corstorphine.

  Once out in the empty countryside, she relaxed back in her seat suddenly exhausted. The Calton Jail had taken its toll and she had lost a good deal of weight and with it much of her energy. The rhythmic clip-clop of the horses’ hooves began to have a soporific effect and she must have dozed off to sleep occasionally, because in no time at all it seemed the carriage was swinging into the driveway of Dumbreggan.

  It was only then that, suddenly alert and alarmed, she realised the enormity of what she was doing. Even her mother would be horrified. It was one thing to call on Lord Monteith when invited and with the intention approved by her mother of responding favourably to his advances. But to suddenly arrive like this uninvited, unannounced, straight from Edinburgh’s notorious prison, to ask him to give of his time, trouble and whatever resources necessary to help one of its inmates, was an incredible cheek. Even for her!

  The carriage sped on and she was powerless to stop it. Soon it had drawn up in front of the house and with heart thudding and legs so weak they were hardly able to support her, she climbed out.

  60

  It was sunny but frosty and Lorianna was wearing a large fur hat. Her gloved hands were comfortably tucked inside a luxurious fur muff.

  As she strolled down the lane between the high bushes and trees, she noticed that every twig on every tree and bush was sparkling in silver tracery.

  There was a feel of spring about the air, despite the frost, and the signs of it were everywhere too. Butterflies were venturing tentatively out of hibernation and seeking with the honey bees the early flowers. More and more birds were bursting into happy sound. There were rapid twitterings and rich trillings, and how sweetly the larks were singing. Blackbirds warbled softly to themselves on the ground.

  Lorianna felt wistful and sad, thinking of other springtimes which she had spent with Robert. Reaching the crossroads, she gazed across the fields in the direction of the farm and imagined she saw, on the ridge of the hill, his big figure on horseback silhouetted against the sky. She saw him working joyously in the fields … striding along the road … swimming naked in the river. Her beautiful man! He was all around her and her heart cried out in anguish to him. And as if in answer, she heard his voice echo back to her from the past, ‘I don’t want you to suffer, flower. That’s the whole point.’

  The words sadly soothed her. Gradually her anguish faded. Robert knew that she loved him and that love, come what may, would never die.

  ‘I want to think of you walking in the Bathgate Hills as free as a bird,’ she heard him say. ‘I like to imagine you looking across the spread of fields and woods in all their warm colours and seeing the Forth glistening in the distance. In my mind and heart I’m always with you there.’

  Lorianna shaded her eyes with a gloved hand and gazed along the Drumcross Road. She could hear the distant echo of horses’ hooves now and as she stood, the cool breeze ruffling the fur of her hat and high coat collar, she saw her husband come riding into view. Blinking away the moisture in her eyes, she waved a welcome to him.

  At first a liveried footman left Clementina sitting on a golden throne-like chair in the marble hallway. Then, when he returned, he requested her to follow him into the morning-room. It was a delightful place with fringed ivory silk covers on a comfortable looking settee and chairs. Pink satin cushions added to the appearance of comfort. There were three tall French windows with mirrored alcoves in between, in which fitted specially-shaped tables and beautiful floral arrangements. But Clementina was so nervous she could not appreciate the delights of the room. In complete distraction she wandered over to the windows and gazed out at the stunning view over lake and woodland garden without really seeing it.

  She couldn’t think what on earth had possessed her to come. Her stay in the Calton Jail must have made her take temporary leave of her senses. She had absolutely no right to expect this man to do her any favours. She had been nothing but an aggravation to him and more than once she had thrown his proposal of marriage in his face and treated him not only with complete disdain, but with physical violence.

  For all she knew, he was by now happily married to Lady Alice Cunningham and quite rightly had forgotten all about the infuriating Clementina Blackwood. And here she was to infuriate him again!

  She wished she could die. Anything rather than face him.

  For a shameful moment, she was tempted to escape through one of the French windows and take to her heels. But stubborn courage and the memory of the suffering in Rhona’s face prevented her. Now that she was here she would just have to face the consequences of her rash decision to come. It never did any good to run away. And even if he refused point-blank to lift a finger to help Rhona, at least she could feel that she had tried her best for her friend. And so it was that when she heard Douglas Monteith enter the room she was able to turn towards him with what she believed to be perfect composure.

  But despite the proud, brave tilt to her head, he saw the strain and apprehension in her eyes and he winced with tenderness. She had lost weight and there was a fragile quality about her that had never been there before. Her skin had the delicacy of fine porcelain and her beautiful candid eyes seemed to have grown too large for her face. However, there was still plenty of her usual decisiveness about the way she stood facing him in her sensible navy-blue coat, matching hat perched on top of her nest of blonde hair.

  ‘I have come to ask a favour.’

  ‘How like you, Clementina,’ he said, ‘to tackle things head-on, without the usual preliminaries.’

  ‘What preliminaries?’

  He indicated a chair. ‘Won’t yo
u sit down? Can I offer you some refreshment? A pot of tea, perhaps? Or a glass of sherry?’

  ‘No, I prefer to get to the point right away.’

  He raised a brow. ‘Which is?’

  ‘I have a friend, Rhona Lindsay, who is still in the Calton Jail. I feel very guilty about her predicament and all the trouble she has got into since she has known me. She used to work for the Blackwood Mill and live in one of the mill houses. Now she has lost her job and her home. She has no references and who would give a job to someone who has been in prison? Except … perhaps … I thought …’ She hesitated, but he didn’t help her and she was forced to struggle on. ‘As a favour to me, perhaps you would do what you could for her?’

  He took a long time before answering and she had to stand suffering acutely under his amused yet thoughtful stare. Eventually he said, ‘You’re asking me to look after this … mill-girl friend of yours?’