by Fiona Monroe
He went to find her.
* * * * *
Flora was in the morning room, writing letters at the small desk by the window. She looked up as Farquhar entered, with her charming smile, and he saw it melt away as she registered his grave expression. "Is something wrong, sir?" she asked.
"Aye, Flora. I have something very serious to tell you of. We should go into the sitting room."
She looked almost frightened, and followed him in silence into across the passage. At this time of the day, the sitting room - so cosy after dinner - had a dark, abandoned air.
"It seems," he said, gesturing to her to sit down, "that the maidservant, Phemie, has been in sinful congress with a man."
Flora's face immediately fell. "Phemie?" she said in a whisper.
"Yes, Phemie. A young girl from the village saw them together in an abandoned bothy in the woods. She is an intelligent child and quite old enough to know what she saw."
"When - when was this?"
Flora seemed so shocked, that Farquhar felt even worse about bringing it upon her. These things were unfortunately part of parish life and had to be faced, but her delicacy of feeling was commendable in its way. "On the Sabbath just past," he said.
This seemed almost too much for Flora, who buried her face in her hands. "Oh, no."
"Come now," said Farquhar briskly. "It is an unpleasant business, but it is our duty to investigate, and to do what is needed. First, we must speak to the girl and give her the opportunity to make a full confession of her sin."
Flora said nothing, but sat twisting her hands.
He rang the bell and asked Mrs MacDonald to bring Phemie to them.
When the girl entered, he knew at once from the stricken, guilty look on her face that the story was true and that she had been awaiting discovery. Still, he would let her speak.
"Phemie," he said. "I have asked you in here to answer a serious charge that has been made about you - that you have given up that which alone makes a woman truly beautiful from within, and yielded to the sinful lust of a man outside the bonds of holy wedlock. If this is not true - "
But to his disgust, he was interrupted by the maidservant, who burst out, "Oh, ma'am, you promised you wouldn't tell!"
And Flora almost at the same moment sprang to her feet and cried, "Phemie! You promised you wouldn't do it again!"
Stunned, Farquhar looked between the two women. His elegant, pretty wife and the trembling, weeping, sturdy servant girl, whose dark hair was escaping the confines of her cap in frowsy strands.
"I couldn't help it, ma'am," she sobbed.
"I didn't," said Flora, in a voice like a whisper, and sank back into her chair.
"You didn't - what?" Farquhar demanded, still unable to believe what he was beginning to understand. "Mrs Farquhar? Were you aware that this girl was engaged in shameful conduct of the worst kind?"
Flora had her hand over her mouth and simply nodded.
He stared, but he would say nothing more to her in front of the servant. Instead, he turned back to the girl.
"You were seen," he said coldly, "by a young lass from the village, who reported it to Mrs MacDonald. A child. Think, girl, what an evil example of female conduct you have set this child. Think how you have imperilled your mortal soul by surrendering your virtue."
"We're to be married, sir," sobbed Phemie. "Only he can't because he would lose his position."
"And who is this lad?"
"C-Calum MacInnes, sir. He's an under-gardener at the Castle, and Mr MacDonald, his master, won't - "
"Be silent. Gather your possessions and leave my house this very instant. I will not have you under the same roof as my wife, or indeed that virtuous and God-fearing woman Mrs MacDonald, another hour."
Phemie burst out with a wail. "No, sir, please - have mercy. Where will I go? Please sir, beat me, as hard as I deserve, but let me stay."
"I will not beat you, girl. That office belonged to your father, and it seems he did not do the job well enough. Go!"
She threw her apron over her face and ran from the room, just as Mrs MacDonald came back in bearing a sodden-looking basket in one hand.
"Phemie!" said Mrs MacDonald sharply, but the girl took no notice.
"Let her go, Mrs MacDonald. I have turned her from the house. What is that?"
"This is the basket that young Eilidh found by the bothy, sir, and all its contents. I made her give it to me. Look, there are books and tracts in it, sir, some in the Gaelic. They're damp with rain, ruined practically. But I think this is your basket, Mrs Farquhar, ma'am. The bad child stole it from you."
"Mrs Farquhar?" He fished the lace handkerchief from his pocket. "Is this yours, too?"
Flora, her head still bowed, nodded and took it from him.
They all heard a door bang, and then the crunch of boots on the gravel of the garden path. Phemie, it would seem, had gone.
Farquhar had taken possession of the incriminating basket, and he looked in deep dismay at the incontrovertible proof of his wife's folly and duplicity. "Mrs MacDonald," he said at last, "You had better make enquiries for a new maidservant. That will be all."
Mrs MacDonald looked between them, and for a moment it seemed that she would say something more. Then she dropped a curtsy and said, "Yes, sir," and left them.
* * * * *
Alone with his wife in the chilly sitting room, Farquhar put the basket slowly onto the tea-table and turned to face her fully. She was slumped forward in her chair, her hands to her face, not daring to raise her eyes.
"What will happen to her?" she asked, in a low voice. "Where will she go?"
"This basket," he said, quietly. "The blacksmith's child said she found it by the ruined bothy in the woods, the same place she observed the maidservant and the young man. Did she tell the truth? Did you leave it there?"
"Yes," Flora whispered. "It was an accident, I left it behind in my fright."
"Why, Flora? What fright?"
"I - " She choked off, and shook her head.
"Did you see the maid and the young man together, also? Did you witness them in sinful congress?"
"Yes. But sir! I meant to - "
"Then why did you not report it to me, Flora? Why did you not tell me, even now, after I had received report of it from the blacksmith's child? Were you ever intending to undeceive me as to this girl's character?"
"Oh! Sir, I did not intend to deceive you at all! I felt sorry for Phemie, I - "
"And so you thought that allowing her to persist in her sin, and to continue in the company of virtuous women, was a kindness to her? You thought that leaving her prey to the unprincipled lusts of a man not her husband would be for the good of her soul?"
"No!" cried Flora. "But she is betrothed to the young man, they intend to marry. I am sure he is not unprincipled. He simply cannot marry her without losing his position at the Castle. I told her it was wrong, and she promised, she promised she would not do it again!" She had risen to her feet, and her eyes were flashing now with something like defiance.
"You told her it was wrong," he said, flatly. "And that, Flora, was the extent of your guidance in such a very serious matter to a young unmarried female, your inferior in degree, in your moral care?"
"I told her it was a sin and she said she knew it was."
"Whereas what your actions told her, was that it was perfectly in order to carry on with this mortal sin, as long as nobody found her out. That it was acceptable to conceal information from your husband, indeed from the Minister of the parish. That the Minister's wife will condone fornication, as long as the pair intend to marry some day or other."
"No! I didn't say that, I did not - "
"And then you have the sheer folly and temerity to argue with me!" His voice rose to a shout, against his will. He did not want to lose his temper. He had come close to that over the incident with Dr Urquhart and the wig, and the principle reason he had decided not to take the tawse to her on that occasion was that he knew he would be in danger
of hurting her too badly in the heat of his anger. So he had worn out his hand on her bare backside instead, walloping her without restraint until his fury was spent and her nether cheeks were red and hot as a blazing peat fire.
He could not do the same here. This was too serious. He needed to punish and instruct at the same time; the first because she deserved it and must be made to feel how serious had been her offence, and the second because she needed to understand what she had done wrong so that she may never behave with such duplicity and indelicacy again.
Indelicacy! It saddened his heart that he had to accuse her of this. As he watched her standing weeping, silenced by his last retort, he wondered if he had been too complacent in his reflections on his marriage earlier. The same neglect that had caused her sister to elope with a married man, and write her own father such a shameful letter, had also been suffered by his beloved Flora. Could she really have escaped the taint entirely? Did she fully understand that the maidservant's conduct was not something to be swept out of sight if possible? He felt a gloom settle over his spirits.
Then he took a deep breath. He had made a promise to educate her, to save her. He had not necessarily been set an easy task, but he would not shirk it.
"Go up to our bedchamber, Flora," he said, calmly. "Go there and wait for me."
She lifted her head, and stared at him. "Sir? Now, this moment? At this hour of the day?"
"Aye, Flora. This won't wait until bedtime. Go!"
With a burst of tears she fled from the room, and he listened to her footsteps pounding up the narrow stairs.
Chapter Nine
Farquhar took a walk around the garden before he went to tackle the task that lay before him, to calm his spirits and clear his head of the anger that was fogging it. It was a beautiful spring morning, warm and clear, and the bluebells were clustered thickly under the old apple tree at the corner of the lawn. Beyond the low stone wall was a paddock where the Manse's two draft ponies were grazing, and beyond that, the azure glimmer of Loch Lannan. Shadows flitted over the far mountains, and across the loch the towers of the Castle looked small against the pines and peaks. What dreadful atrocities and immoralities were hidden by those dark and distant walls? Sir Duncan Buccleuch himself had never once been seen in the kirk.
He sighed, and turned back to his own modest manse. The upper middle window belonged to his bedchamber, and as he looked at it he saw Flora's face appear there then shy away back into the room.
With determination, sure that he was now as calm as he needed to be, he went back into the house and climbed the stairs. He brushed past Mrs MacDonald in the hall as he did so, and forestalled her attempt to speak to him with a curt, "Later."
Again, it was strange to be the bedroom at this hour of day. He hardly ever entered this room when the shutters were not closed and the curtains drawn, and a fire burning low in the hearth. Now, cheerful spring sunlight was shafting in through the window and making bright dapples on the coverlet of the bed.
And Flora, she was usually on these occasions waiting for him in her long and fetching nightgown, her beautiful hair tumbling all over her shoulders. Instead, she was fully dressed in her plain morning gown, her hair arranged in curls.
"Mr Farquhar," she said in a rush of words, as he closed the door. "Please, I am sorry that I didn't come to you straight away and tell you what I had seen, and I know I should have done so, but I just could not bear to ruin Phemie's life. I liked her! I was fond of her! Perhaps I should not have become attached to a servant girl but I have no friend here! Miss Buccleuch is cold and dull, and there is no-one else!"
"You have profoundly disappointed me."
Something other than defiance crossed her face, and her expression fell. For a moment, she looked hurt, abashed.
"I had thought," he continued, "that you had come to understand your serious responsibilities as mistress of the Manse, and that you were making every effort to do your duty in that respect. I was proud of you."
"You are no longer?" she asked in a whisper, her lip trembling.
"How can I be proud when you witness the very act of fornication, not only between two of my parishioners, but involving a girl in my own household - and then conceal it from me? Do you understand, Flora, how very wrong you were?"
"I - yes."
"I don't believe you do, not fully. You have lied to your husband - "
"Lied!"
" Yes, lied. A lie by omission is as great a falsehood as any. How long ago was it you made this dreadful discovery?"
"Three... weeks."
"Three weeks! You have sat at my table, you have prayed in my church, you have lain with me in my bed for three weeks with the knowledge of this, withholding it from me all that time?" He knew his anger was rising again. "That is one thing. The next is, by concealing the girl's sin, you were encouraging it."
"Indeed I did not! I told her - "
"You encouraged it, because your silence allowed her to repeat it - and it led to an innocent young girl witnessing the depravity. Who knows what effect that will have on the child. And further, as I told you downstairs, you set an example of lying to your husband, lying to a minister ordained of God, and condoning fornication. Teaching your inferiors that there could be some excuse for it, some justification. Is that what you truly think, Flora?"
Her face had crumpled with silent tears and her hand was to her mouth. She shook her head.
"I have grave doubts now about the delicacy of your mind, the fundamental soundness of your judgement on such matters. Do you think your sister in error?"
"Oh yes! Yes! Of course I do!"
"But because what she did was a sin profoundly wrong, or merely because she brought disgrace on your family and darkened your own prospects?"
She was shaking her head again.
"Your actions make me doubt you, Flora."
She said something under her breath, but choked it back.
"Speak out," he said.
She hauled in a breath, then said in a steadier voice, "I know what Phemie did was wrong. I told her so. She agreed it was. She promised to mend her ways. Please do not doubt me, sir. My sister - it was not my fault what she did."
"Tell me something, Flora. I want you to tell me the truth, now. Did you have any notion, before your sister's elopement, that she might be contemplating such a thing? Did she confide in you?"
Flora was silent for a few moments. "She did, sir. But I did not believe her."
"But nor did you tell your father?"
"No, sir. I would not betray her! But I did not think she would really do it."
"Foolish, foolish girl! You had it in your power to save her, and yet you did not act!"
"No! Margaret would have done as she liked whatever my father said. You do not understand, my father had no power over her."
"I do not doubt it, but you did not even try to do the right thing."
"I was not to blame for what Margaret did!" she cried.
"But you were to blame, very much so, for putting misguided loyalty to her confidence over duty to your father."
She had turned away, and folded her arms. Her shoulders were hunched in defiance.
"Flora," he said, after another pause, "I cannot punish you for anything you did before you became my wife. My obligation to care for you, and my right to chastise you, began only when we were bound in holy wedlock. But I want you to understand that you have repeated a profound error, and that I am seriously worried that you lack proper feeling. You are chaste in body, I well know that - but after all, that is easy enough. Are you pure at heart?"
He caught her arm and turned her firmly round to face him, and her expression was horror and bewilderment combined. Her eyes were wide, startled. She had no answer.
He let her go, and turned with a heavy heart towards the cabinet. As he slid open the top drawer, she gasped, "No! Please, no."
"Did you really think that your deceit had earned you anything less?"
He removed the tawse and flexe
d it in his hands, feeling its weight. It was of the best sort of dense, thick saddle leather, made for the purpose of correction as a saddler's sideline. His father had ordered it and had used it from time to time with good effect in the education of all five of his children, the girls included on occasion.
His own last and most memorable taste of it had been age seventeen, when the stableman had found him in the hayloft with the red-haired scullery maid whose name, to his regret, he could no longer recall. He did remember the fiery hue of her hair as it spread across the straw, and the freckles over her nose, and the gap between her front teeth, and the soft hot handfuls of breast under the loose stays of her bodice. He had caught only a glimpse of the whiteness of her thighs under her skirts before plunging with desperate clumsiness into her inner sweetness. Then there was a shout and a rough hand on his shoulder and he felt himself rolled sideways.
The stableman had not realised that it was the young master atop the girl. He had probably thought it was one of his own stable-lads. But had he done, it would have made little difference to his actions, for he had been an upright, God-fearing man who looked upon immoral conduct with abhorrence and cared not whether it was his underling or the master himself engaged in it. The young Farquhar had found himself marched without ceremony to his father, who had given him such a thrashing with this very tawse that he had never contemplated fornication ever again. Of course he had been tempted, particularly when at the University and beyond the immediate control of his father, but by that time he had undergone a renewed commitment to God and to the purity of life and conduct befitting the calling of a minister of the Church. Thanks to his father's lesson that day, and God's grace, he had not touched a woman intimately again until he took his wife's maidenhead on their wedding night.
He turned to look at her again. She had sunk down onto the bed, and her face was drained of colour.
He had thought through in advance how he would manage this, when the time came that his wife would need a more severe chastisement than his hand could deliver. It was easy enough to put her over his knee and keep her there, as she was no match for his strength. But in that position, it would be impossible to swing the tawse and deliver the properly effective, stinging lash that would make her remember this lesson.