by Fiona Monroe
"I would never oppose my mother. Did I not just tell you that I vowed to honour her always, for my late father's sake? But of course, I was apprehensive. Would not you be, Margaret, to leave your home and live with strangers?"
Margaret was somewhat dumbfounded by this perspective. "I hope we have not been strangers to you," she said, knowing that she, herself, most certainly had. She had done nothing to make Charity, any more than her mother, welcome in her home.
Charity sighed. "As I said, I hoped I might find a sister in you," she said simply. "Though we are, of course, no more than cousins, and that, only in law."
Ashamed, Margaret could find nothing to say to this.
"At any rate." Charity continued. "I have resolved to submit myself to my mother's judgement, regarding that very matter I nearly defied my parents in before."
"What do you mean?"
Charity rubbed her hands together. "You were not in the parlour after dinner last night. Well, of course, you were not. You did not hear my mother read the letter from her friend, Mrs. Carluke."
"Mrs. Carluke? No." This already sounded tedious. Her aunt had a wide acquaintance amongst the more respectable families of Old Town, and some who had made it across the Nor Loch. They were all, in Margaret's experience, dull Kirk devotees, with whom they were obliged to dine.
"Mrs. Carluke is a school friend of hers, who married a very respectable gentleman, a minister in Penicuik."
Of course, she was.
"The gentleman, Mr. Carluke—"
"Mrs. Carluke is married to a gentleman named Mr. Carluke? I am all amazement."
Charity blinked. She seemed to have very little sense of humour or ability to discern it in others. "Mr. Carluke, yes, the minister of Penicuik Kirk, or at least of one church in Penicuik. But my mother told us last night that he is the younger brother of another Mr. Carluke, who is laird of a considerable property four miles from that town. The elder Mr. Carluke is the owner of Rosslyn House, which is a noble house, my mother says, with a good estate."
"Do not say we are to be obliged to visit these people."
"No, that is not it. Mr. Carluke—the laird of Rosslyn, not the minister of Penicuik—is coming to town for a considerable stay, and he brings with him his two sons, both very worthy young men, Mrs. Carluke says—that is, Mrs. Carluke, the wife of the minister of Penicuik."
"Charity, I am now entirely confused by this story and care very little. I am sore, and I am hungry. I must finish dressing and go down to breakfast. Is there a point to this?"
"Yes, indeed! Mr. Carluke's two sons are fine upstanding young gentlemen, and both of a perfect age to marry. The elder is heir to his father's property; the younger is shortly to be ordained. Mother was quite candid in suggesting that the elder would be suitable for you and the younger for me."
"What!" Margaret sat bolt upright and regretted it as she jolted her tender backside.
Charity was sitting quite composed, turning the jar of ointment in her thin hands. "Aye. Mother has corresponded with Mrs. Carluke about the proposal, and Mr. Carluke has spoken to his brother. The elder Mr. Carluke is quite prepared to consider giving his consent, as is your uncle, if the two young gentlemen approve us when they meet with us. They are coming to dinner tomorrow night."
"What—Charity—what about us! If they approve us? How about if we approve them? Do we not get a say in the matter?"
"I am quite prepared to submit to my mother's wishes in the matter. And my stepfather's, too, of course. As I have explained, my own judgement erred horribly, and I thankfully learned my mistake in time."
"Charity! You cannot seriously mean to marry a man you have never met before, just because your mother says so!"
"Why not? I trust her to know my own best interests, better than I can at one and twenty. On the Continent, you know, it would be quite normal for us to marry whomever our parents wished, and we would expect no different. I think that is a sounder custom, on the whole."
"Well, I shall not marry a man just because your mother's school friend thinks he is a suitable match! I am absolutely sure that on a matter of such gravity, my uncle will not compel me. Indeed, he cannot compel me; it is against the law of the land. Scotland is not France or any of your other continental countries, thank goodness. There is no forced marriage here."
"Oh, cousin. You are foolish. Don't set your face against it, before you have even met the young gentleman. You may like him. Surely, you wish to marry someone? You are three and twenty, after all."
"Perhaps I do want to marry, but I will choose my own husband," said Margaret, furiously.
Charity stood up. "You will only get into more trouble if you are obstinate and contrary. I should have thought you would want to avoid that, after last night. My mother still has my father's old tawse. Please, believe me, you do not want a taste of that."
She left at last, and as Margaret dressed herself slowly and carefully, her thoughts were in turmoil. She had fallen asleep on her tear-sodden pillow determined to escape the authority of her unwelcome aunt through marriage, but she was highly loathe to allow that aunt, herself, to dictate her means of escape. Still, she supposed it might be a quicker and surer route than attempting to find a suitable husband on her own. Since she was no longer allowed to go out into society, except in the very limited sense of visiting her aunt's tedious friends, she did not see how she ever would.
Perhaps she would, after all, meet this young Mr.—Carluke—with an open mind and see for herself if he might suit.
"Lord John, I must speak with you."
John was on his way down to the breakfast table to see about kippers and porridge when he was intercepted on the landing outside his room by the tall and most determined figure of Lady Buccleuch. She had quite evidently been lurking with intent.
"Certainly, your ladyship, but can it wait until after breakfast?" He dabbed at the nick at the side of his neck, where he had damned near cut his own throat in an inept attempt to manage his own toilet. He was going to have to go to the barber to get a decent shave or else grow a face full of hair like a Highlander. And funds for that sort of thing, absurdly, were running dangerously low.
Perhaps Buccleuch had a man he could lend him. He had been too damned proud to ask, up until now. The point at which he was going to have to apply to his friend for actual hard cash was coming closer.
"I will see you in the sitting room," said the implacable Lady Buccleuch as she swept downstairs.
Lord John followed, with no very eager step. When he reached the ground floor, he saw Sir Duncan already seated at the breakfast table tucking into a plate of something appetising. He was tempted to ignore the lady of the house and join his friend and a few sausages, but he could not help feeling that Buccleuch was presenting no very inviting aspect. He had The Scotsman spread open in front of his face, called out no morning greeting, and had the air of a man who had decided to leave an unpleasant task up to his wife.
A great shaggy dog, the approximate size of a small donkey, stirred at Buccleuch's feet and fixed John with a baleful glare.
Resigning himself to his fate, John turned from the breakfast parlour door and crossed the hall to the sitting room.
These houses that were sprouting up like expensive mushrooms were all much on the same plan: three or four stories, not including the service basement and the garrets, a great quantity of winding stairs, and up to four rooms on each level, two at the front and two at the back of the building. The sitting room was at the front, opposite the breakfast parlour, with tall picture windows overlooking the street, and it bore evidence everywhere of feminine taste. Lord John's old friend would not have chosen those embroidered cushions or that fancy fire-screen.
Lady Buccleuch was waiting for him, and she said, "Close the door, please, Lord John."
He did so, without enthusiasm.
She did not invite him to sit down, and while she remained standing, he was obliged to stand, too. "Lord John," she said again. "I think you know why I have asked you to speak
to me."
"Indeed, no, your ladyship. I cannot account for the honour."
"Oh, please do not," she said in a burst of exasperation, suddenly looking very young. "Lord John, I was happy to welcome you here and offer you a home for as long as you needed it—I know you are an old friend of my husband's—but I cannot have you causing distress to my servants."
"Oh, hang." He felt a pang of dismay and rubbed his chin. "Look, I'm sorry about that. About the girl? I thought she would be more sporting. I misunderstood; I misjudged. I am not usually mistaken, but things have gone to hell for me, and it's affected my judgement. I only wanted a bit of fun."
"You thought she would be more sporting? A bit of fun? Sir, you condemn yourself further out of your own mouth. I expected you to apologise!"
"I do apologise. I did apologise! It was a mistake. I did not think she would take it so hard."
In fact, it had been a debacle. After coming back from the dull party at the Hamilton woman's house the other night, the only diverting aspect of which had been the charming escapades of the delightfully errant Miss Bell, he had felt in sudden need of feminine comfort and had tried to find it in the bosom of the only pretty servant girl in the Buccleuch household. There was a bright-eyed, dark-haired plump little lass in the kitchens, whom he had noticed on several occasions and noted for future reference. When they had returned from the so-called soiree, it had already been six in the morning and the servants were up and about. John had followed the maid into the scullery and made what he had thought was a jovial attempt on her. The girl had not taken it well, had burst into very noisy tears, and had run away from him.
He had been too full of the Hamilton woman's wine and port. When he had returned to the party after the entertaining interlude of following and rescuing Miss Bell, he had been overcome by a stultifying sense of the dullness of it all, and the only remedy had seemed to be the fruits of Bacchus. He knew now that he had been dangerously overset when he had attempted to woo the dark-eyed kitchen maid, and that he had neither used his accustomed tact and charm, nor exercised his usual judgement. He had so far forgotten himself as to pursue her when she spurned him, had tried to batter down the door of her attic bedroom while she sobbed behind it. He had been desperate for the warmth and delicious comfort of a female body underneath his own, and in his befuddled state, he thought that the girl needed only to be persuaded to overcome a trifling coyness.
He had given up at last and gone to his own sad guest room at the back of the third floor and collapsed into his sad, narrow, empty bed, and slept in a heap until the wine and the amorous fit had left him. That had been a day ago, and until this moment, he had almost forgotten the peccadillo with the kitchen maid. He had been so far in his cups that the memory had the peculiar, fragmented quality of a dream.
"Effie has only recently come to us from a village in Fife," Lady Buccleuch continued, as if he cared. What did it matter where she found her domestic staff? This was women's stuff, if anything was. "Her family is very poor but very respectable. Her mother walked with her fifteen miles to bring her here, and she begged me, good woman, to keep her child safe. She was afraid that she might be corrupted by life in the city, but she desperately needed the income Effie would bring, and to be relieved of her expense, for she has ten children more and a husband who is ailing. I promised her that I would take care of Effie and keep her from harm, spiritual and actual. I took on that responsibility, and it is one I take seriously. I have even helped Effie learn to read and to sew fine linen and have tried to fit her for a lady's maid one day."
This really was women's stuff. Lord John shifted in embarrassment and a kind of bored disgust. It was a mistake to invest too much emotion in the betterment of servants, but he had seen enough of this at Dunwoodie House.
"She came to me in near hysterics," Lady Buccleuch went on, "saying that you had made an assault on her virtue."
The girl had better have held her tongue, he thought with guilty irritation. No harm had come to her; he would hardly have forced himself on her. He had never done such a thing and thought ill of men who did. Servant girls who ran crying to the mistress were a damned nuisance. There had been a girl at Dunwoodie once, a saucy little thing, who had yielded to him eagerly and repeatedly and then wept in front of the former Lady Crieff, James' first wife, when she got with child. He had been blamed, and the row had been one of the things that precipitated his first journey to Venice. It had just as likely been one of the footmen, for he was sure the minx had been liberal with her favours.
"I didn't touch the girl," he said. "Well, scarcely touched her. I tried to kiss her, and she didn't like it. I left her alone after a while. That is all. If she says I did more, she's lying."
"She says you frightened her very much, and she will be in terror for her virtue while you are in this house."
"She should take a thought to herself then!" John cried. "By God, if I give my word that I will not lay another finger on her, it is her duty to take the word of a gentleman. How can a scullery maid think so much of herself?"
"We are all equal before God, Lord John. Scullery maid or duchess, both may value their character and honour the same."
So, Sir Duncan had married a sermoniser. John bit down the sarcastic retort that had been on the tip of his tongue, forced himself to bow, and said, "I solemnly swear, Lady Buccleuch, that I will leave the servant girls in your establishment unmolested from this day forth."
Lady Buccleuch sighed. "I hope you do not think this is impertinent advice, your lordship, but I think you should marry. And not for the reasons my husband put forward the other day. You have—it was trouble of this nature that led to the quarrel with your sister in law, was not it?"
John had confessed only to Buccleuch the sordid and exact details of the sad scene at Dunwoodie House and had told his wife nothing more than certain irreconcilable differences had arisen between himself and the late Marquess' new widow. It would seem, then, that Sir Duncan engaged in pillow talk. He scowled at her ladyship.
"A wife would steady you," she said. "You would have no need to seek solace of that nature with your inferiors, and a woman of good heart and steady principals would lead you right."
"As your ladyship has led Sir Duncan right, eh?"
She looked a little pained. "I would not presume to say—"
"You'll forgive me, Lady Buccleuch, but I think a husband should lead the wife, not the other way round. It's a poor man who lets a woman run his life, and I would be a very poor bargain for any young lady. But I will leave the honour of your maidservants unscathed."
He bowed again and turned on his heel abruptly before she could drag the lecture on any further. As he passed the open door to the breakfast parlour, he was aware of Sir Duncan lowering his newspaper to watch him go.
The damnable thing was, he was running out of options.
He could not return to Aberdeenshire, not while Lady Crieff was still mistress of Dunwoodie. He had friends in London upon whose hospitality he could doubtless presume for a season or so, but he dared not take up residence in town proper if Count Contarini was searching for him there. There were two or three friends in Italy who would welcome him into their homes, but he certainly could not risk returning to that country. He did not much fancy risking anywhere on the Continent, not that he had the funds to travel any distance anyway.
The colonies presented themselves as a desperate last resort, but there was a reason why they sent people to the colonies as punishment. Even supposing he could raise the money needed to fund his passage, when he thought of himself tipped out on the shores of Africa or New Zealand or one of those tropical islands where they grew sugar and spices, his mind went blank. How would he live there, how would he support himself? Did they have books and clubs and theatres and assembly halls? One would shrivel in the sun, get bitten to the bone by swarms of insects, and catch some ghastly malady.
He suspected, too, that in lands where men went specifically to overcome the disadvantages of th
eir birth and build their own fortunes in the sweat of their brow, that his title and refinement would mean less than nothing. He was rather accustomed to enjoying the privileges that came to him unearned, of being Lord John Dunwoodie, fifth son though he was. He had no wish at all to strand himself in a land where the lustre of his name and rank had no currency.
Lord John strode disconsolately along Princes Street, the southernmost edge of the New Town, which had until recently overlooked the shimmering cesspit of the Nor' Loch. The whole area between the street and the beginnings of the steep precipice on top of which was the castle, was filled with boards and carts and workmen. They were planting a park for the benefit of the city, although doubtless it would principally benefit those worthies who lived along Princes Street itself. The cheerful morning sunshine, the ant-like scurryings of the workers, the fine blue sky behind the silhouette of the ancient castle on the hill, all belied and mocked the heaviness of his spirits.
He had no money. It was futile to think of fleeing to the colonies, when he had not the price of a decent shave at a barber's to rub together in his breeches' pocket. He wore fine leather shoes handmade in Italy and clothes tailored at Christie's in Edinburgh and a silk top hat he had bought in London, but he had not the coin to purchase a meal out of doors.
If only he had gone in for one of the professions, when he knew he ought to have done so. It was far too late now to turn himself into a soldier or a sailor, a clergyman, or even a lawyer; not that James would have approved of a scion of the Dunwoodies doing anything so vulgar as practicing law. Of course, what James approved of or not was entirely irrelevant now, but it was all too late. He could not, at his time of life, settle down to a course of study or submit to an apprenticeship. Nor did he have any means to buy his way into a profession. It was all hopeless.
He reached the far end of Princes Street, where they seemed to be constructing a new bridge across the chasm that separated the Old Town from the New, and turned his steps toward St. Andrew's Square. On the corner, he saw a ragged man who looked young enough and fit enough to be working in the park construction project, but who was instead seated on the pavement with his hat in front of him and a scrawled sign which read WIFE AND 5 CHILDERN PLEAS HELP IN GOD'S NAME.