The Gamekeeper's Wife

by Clare Flynn

  Dr Henderson got to his feet and, without his customary peck on the cheek, left the room. Martha heard the front door close behind him and slumped down, her head on her arms on the table.

  * * *

  That night they ate dinner in silence. After Martha settled David down in his cot, in what was to be his new bedroom, she looked down at her sleeping son, at his soft downy cheeks and rosebud mouth. As always, she searched for resemblances to Kit in his slowly evolving features, but had to acknowledge that at the moment resembled neither of them, only a baby, a very beautiful baby. Her stomach clenched with fear at the thought that, just as his behaviour towards her had changed, so too might Reggie’s attitude to David, once he did start to resemble Kit. She shuddered. It left her no choice. She must behave with compliance to her husband or risk retaliation.

  They undressed silently in the bedroom. Martha was grateful for the heavy brocade curtains that blocked out all trace of moonlight and left the bedroom pitch dark. She fumbled her way into her nightgown and could sense Reggie’s movements on the other side of the bed. She slipped under the covers and waited for him to join her, her eyes squeezed tightly shut and her heart thumping under her ribs.

  The springs creaked and she felt the mattress shift underneath her as he got into bed. She lay motionless, neither helping nor hindering as he pulled up her nightdress and eased himself on top of her. He was hard and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she waited for him to push inside her. He was straddling her body, then he raised himself up on his elbows and jerked her legs apart, kneeling between them. Martha braced herself for the moment of entry, but nothing happened. She was conscious of his now limp penis pushing flabbily against her. One of his hands moved down to coax it back to attention, while she lay motionless, waiting. His efforts became frantic but were pointless. As she was feeling a sense of relief and reprieve, he jerked his upper body back and struck her across the face.

  The pain was even sharper than the previous night, coming on top of the already bruised and tender tissues. Her eye stung where he had clipped the edge and she could feel tears coursing down her cheek. Henderson’s body slumped beside hers, his back to her. He jerked the covers, pulling them to his side of the bed, so that she was barely covered, and fell asleep immediately.

  Martha lay beside him, shivering, skin smarting where he had hit her, anger rising in waves through her body. After a few minutes, she got out of bed, pattered barefoot across the floor and opened the door. David was still sleeping, so she slipped between the covers of what had been her husband’s bed.

  Sleep was impossible. Her mind was racing, her face burning. She knew it would be badly bruised and would mean she’d have to stay in the house until the inflammation passed, or invent a reason for a fall if any of the nurses saw her.

  Later that night, while feeding David, a plan came to her. She would find the medicine that Henderson had abandoned. Since he now refused to take it, she’d have to find a way to administer it to him without his knowledge. She had to suppress this sudden explosion of violence in him. If Reggie had stopped taking the pills suddenly, his rapid behaviour change was unsurprising.

  The following morning, Martha’s face was puffed up and painful. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and was horrified to see that she had ugly purple bruising across her left cheek bone and eye.

  As she served her husband his breakfast, she avoided looking at Henderson but could sense his gaze and knew he was looking at her. They ate the meal in silence. If he was feeling ashamed, he said nothing.

  After a silent and morose Dr Henderson left the house, Martha searched his chest of drawers and the small cabinet in the bathroom. Eventually she found a discarded bottle of pills in the waste-basket in the little room off the half landing that he used as an occasional study. She stuffed the bottle into the pocket of her apron and went about her tasks for the day.

  While preparing the vegetables for a lamb stew she put her plan into action. The instructions on the medicine bottle were for two tablets, morning and evening. After setting the vegetable peelings aside to put on the compost heap later, Martha took a pestle and mortar down from the shelf and ground up four of the tablets into a fine powder. Licking a finger she put a tiny amount in her mouth to see if it had a discernible or bitter taste but, to her intense relief, there was none. It would be easy enough to mix this into his serving of the stew. It could also be hidden in soups, mashed potatoes and gravy. Breakfast was a problem and Reggie often failed to come home at lunchtime if he was busy on the ward, so she would add the full four tablet dose to his evening meal.

  Relieved that she had a way to restore the status quo, Martha went about readying the rest of the supper. Then it occurred to her that the bottle was only half-full. How would she obtain more of the pills? She had recognised the name on the label – it was a medication often prescribed to calm down and pacify violent and aggressive patients on the wards. There would be supplies in the medicine cupboard on the ward, but that was kept locked and she had no key. Even were she to get hold of a key, how would she be able to access the cupboard without raising the suspicions of the nursing staff? How to steal supplies without anyone noticing they were missing? By her calculations, she had only five days left before the pills ran out.

  Then it struck her. Five days might be long enough for the pills to work in calming her husband. If that were achieved, she could appeal to his more rational nature – cessation of the pills had failed to cure his impotence and had caused him to be violent. The old Reggie would have been mortified. She had to pray that five days was long enough to bring the old Reggie back.

  * * *

  Reggie was smoking in the small parlour when Martha came downstairs, after settling the baby for the night. She had fed her husband the last of the pills that evening, mixed into a lamb hotpot. If she were to talk to him, it had to be now.

  He hadn’t raised his hand to her again, although he had made one more attempt to have sexual relations with her, but his erection had failed before he could penetrate her. To Martha’s relief he had turned over and gone to sleep.

  She sat down opposite him. He was staring at the fire. Martha felt herself shaking with fear as she summoned up the courage to speak to him. How had it come to this? That she was afraid of her husband.

  Clearing her throat, she started to speak, but he raised his hand to halt her and said, ‘I know you’ve been feeding me the pills.’

  Martha’s heart almost stopped. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t take me for a fool, Martha. The bottle disappeared from my litter bin.’

  She was about to tell him she emptied the basket daily, but stopped herself. After all, she had planned to confess to him and try to persuade him to start taking the medication again. He was actually making it easier for her.

  ‘I know I hurt you. I’m sorry I hit you.’ He reached across the gap between them to touch her cheek.

  Martha flinched and drew back.

  ‘My hope that stopping the medication would restore my manhood was ill-founded. Instead it has removed the restraints on the violent tendencies that caused me to take it in the first place.’ He buried his head in his hands.

  Martha faced him across the silence that followed, unsure what to say or do next.

  After a while, he lifted his head. ‘I wanted to be a proper husband to you. I hoped – no, I believed – that you would in time want that too. Maybe another child. Our child.’ He quickly corrected himself. ‘Not that I see dear David as anything other than that, I promise you.’

  ‘Where does the violence come from? All that anger? You frightened me.’

  He seemed ashamed, his face contrite. ‘I suppose it’s the war. They treated me here in 1914. Then I returned to Nottingham until my wife died, when I came back to St Crispin’s, this time to join the medical staff.’ He twisted his hands together. ‘The condition for my being allowed to resume practising was taking those pills.’ He made a long sigh. ‘And I would have kept taking
them, were it not for you, my dearest. I so want to be whole for you. To love you. To be your husband in every sense.’

  ‘But I don’t want that, Reggie. Nothing will change that.’

  ‘You’re only saying that because I’m a disappointment to you.’

  ‘No. My disappointment is that you tried to force yourself on me. And that you struck me.’

  He gave another deep sigh. ‘Forgive me, Martha.’

  ‘All I ask is for things to be as they were before.’ She shaped her mouth into a reluctant smile. ‘I’d like the old Reggie back.’

  He bent forward, then moved to his knees in front of her, placing his head in her lap.

  Martha tried not to shudder, forcing herself to lay her hand on his head and stroke his hair.

  Chapter 25

  The passage back to Southampton was calm. Even the Bay of Biscay was placid. Christopher was relieved that Lavinia wasn’t with him, but at the same time he couldn’t help feeling a sense of shame and guilt that she had chosen to return from their honeymoon without him. He hoped his mother wouldn’t find out, as it would give her yet another cause for complaint, another of his perceived shortcomings to rail about. He didn’t give a damn for her opinion any more, but didn’t want to fuel her carping.

  Lavinia had done nothing to win his affection or respect during their time together. On his last morning, he had gone to the casino to settle the account he had reluctantly agreed to set up for her, only to discover she had run up a debt of over eight hundred pounds. She hadn’t even seen fit to mention it. Whatever else he did, he had to make sure she spent no more time in Algernon Belford-Webb’s company once they were back in England. While Christopher had no love of money, he had no wish to set fire to it either – and, until his thirtieth birthday, he had to account for it to his mother.

  As for Lavinia’s sexual desire, that had been a surprise to him. She had given no indication of feeling anything but revulsion for him before they were married, but during their time in Biarritz she had seized on any opportunity to have intercourse. To Christopher it was a soulless experience. He was a man with normal desires and instincts, but with Lavinia it felt impersonal, lacking affection – two people separated by their very physical proximity.

  Back in England, the weather was cool and showery with dull grey skies that made him feel glummer. After the mild winter, it seemed as if they were in for a miserable summer. Maybe that was no bad thing – the summer before the war had been an endless sun-filled balmy time and yet had presaged the long depressing years of the war. In that summer of 1914 Christopher had come down from Cambridge and had been getting ready to leave for his expedition to Borneo. The talk at dinner every night had been of the possibility of war and Percy’s intention to take a commission in the army. Christopher had had to withstand the pressure from his father to cancel his voyage and join up himself. He had been resolute, refusing to be bullied out of a lifetime’s opportunity – because of a war that may never happen and, if it did, everyone believed would be over in a matter of weeks. Two years later, both his brother and his father were dead and he was heading to France to join his regiment.

  The Belford-Webbs had a town house in Berkeley Square. Algie’s father, the lieutenant general, had left the army after the war and now had a seat in the House of Lords. Hating to travel, he left his only son to accompany his wife on her annual holiday to south-west France. Christopher had met General Belford-Webb twice before, when he had given out the prizes at the school he and Algie had attended, and once when he had made a brief visit to the frontline to inspect the troops. Neither of those encounters had endeared him to Christopher, who was not eager to renew the acquaintance.

  Lavinia protested volubly when Christopher arrived at Berkeley Square and announced they were leaving immediately for Newlands.

  ‘But Algie has promised to take us to a jazz club tonight.’

  ‘You told me you hate jazz.’

  ‘A girl can change her mind.’ She gave him one of her artificial smiles.

  They were sitting in the drawing room of the Belford-Webb’s house. There was no sign of Algie, and Mrs Belford-Webb had removed herself discreetly for Christopher’s reunion with his wife, muttering something about organising for tea to be served.

  ‘We are going back to Newlands today. It’s all arranged. There’s a train at four o’clock and I’ve telegraphed for the car to meet us at the station. Mother is expecting us for dinner tonight.’

  ‘But that’s not fair. You’re so mean, Mr Spoilsport. You seem to enjoy making me miserable.’ Her lower lip protruded in her customary pout.

  Christopher looked at her with dislike. The easy way would be to give in but he knew that, if he capitulated now, he would never be able to exert any influence over Lavinia again.

  ‘If we leave in an hour we can call on your parents and pick up your dogs.’

  Lavinia’s face transformed immediately into a smile. ‘My babies! Yes. That will be wonderful. Do you know, Chrissy, I’d almost forgotten about them. Isn’t that terrible of me. Naughty old mummy!’

  The entente cordiale was a brief one. By the time they were settled into their compartment on the train, a sulk had returned to Lavinia’s face and she passed the journey in a sullen silence. Christopher was grateful for the peace.

  Chapter 26

  Back at Newlands, Christopher continued his work in the sunken garden – retreating there every afternoon had become an even greater imperative since his marriage. Lavinia rarely left the house, only emerging to walk her dogs on the paved terraces or in the rose garden, maintaining that her hay fever prevented her venturing further afield. Christopher saw it as a manifestation of her passive resistance to him and his refusal to take a property in London.

  She occupied a separate bedroom and never ventured across the corridor to his. On a couple of occasions, mindful of his mother’s promise that she would loosen the reins on her control of his inheritance as soon as Lavinia produced an heir, he tried her door, but it was always locked. Secretly relieved, he did not raise the issue with her. He suspected she might already be pregnant but hadn’t yet asked her. It seemed a likely explanation for her changed attitude regarding marital relations.

  She was spending a lot of time in London, informing him that she and her mother were shopping for the winter season. Christopher welcomed these absences and the peace that returned to Newlands without her prattle and the yapping of her small dogs. Sometimes it was almost possible to pretend to himself that he wasn’t married at all.

  One afternoon, as he was clearing vegetation from around an ornamental Chinese summer house, he heard a high-pitched scream coming from the nearby stable yard. It was unmistakably Lavinia.

  Christopher and Fred, who was working alongside him, exchanged looks. They both downed their tools and ran up the stone stairway out of the garden.

  One of the grooms was standing in the stable yard, hands on hips staring down towards the lake. When Christopher asked him about the commotion the lad replied, ‘Her Ladyship just ran past. She seems to have lost one of her dogs. Ran away, I think. Willie’s gone after her.’

  Inwardly groaning at what was no doubt exaggerated concern for her pampered lapdogs, and Lavinia’s overdeveloped sense of drama, Christopher set off in the direction the groom indicated, instructing Fred to go back to work.

  He walked rapidly across the park, following Willie, the stable boy, who was by now a couple of hundred yards ahead. As Christopher reached the top of the slope that led down to the lakeside, he saw Lavinia at the edge of the lake, running up and down frantically. She was screaming for Popsy, cradling the other dog, Petal, in her arms.

  As Christopher drew nearer, Lavinia shouted at the stable boy who was trying to prevent her from going after Popsy. She pushed the lad away, laid Petal on the ground, screamed to the boy to watch Petal, then kicked off her shoes and waded, fully clothed, into the lake. Christopher called out to her in alarm. The lake was deep in places, shelving abruptly, where the
quarry edges had been, and he doubted that his wife was a strong swimmer, or even that she could swim at all.

  ‘Stop, Lavinia! Get out! It’s dangerous.’

  She turned her head, saw him and pointed a finger at the island in the centre of the expanse of lake. He looked over to where she was pointing and saw the missing dog caught up in a floating conglomeration of twigs and leaves which was drifting towards the island. Without answering or waiting for Christopher, Lavinia waded in further, the skirt of her silk dress billowing up around her, the water already waist-high. As Christopher reached the shore, she must have stepped off a ledge, as she dropped down and disappeared under the water.

  Without pausing to think, Christopher ran to the water’s edge, encumbered by his artificial leg. He burst into the lake then dived forward, striking out to where Lavinia had been. Her head bobbed back up above the water a few feet in front of him and her hands flailed frenziedly as she fought to keep herself above the surface. Christopher ploughed through the water towards her, but she sank below as he was almost upon her.

  He dived down underwater, struggling to orientate himself in the murky depths. Moving blindly, he caught hold of one of her arms, but she jerked it away from him as she burst upwards in panic towards the surface again. He broke through the water as she spluttered and kicked out, her terror causing her to sink beneath once more. Christopher stretched his hand out to grab her as she went under, but she was already gone. He dived below the surface again. Lavinia’s frantic struggles had churned up the mud on the lake bed and he could see nothing. Groping about in the dark, he plunged down deep towards the lake bottom. Thick, foggy water made it impossible to see anything. Lungs bursting, he kicked his way back up to the surface, gulping in air, chest burning, then dived down again. And again. Arms extended, hands outreached, fingers probing, feeling sightlessly for a limb to hold onto. Darkness. Silence. His hand snagged on something. An arm. He tugged at it, trying to haul Lavinia back up to the surface but her body wouldn’t follow. Wouldn’t budge. In a swoosh, he burst up to the surface, gulped air, dived again. Fumbling in the dark, head throbbing, this time he found her waist, grabbed onto it with both hands and tugged. Desperate. Heaving. Dragging. Trying to get purchase on the muddy lake bed. Darkness all around. Swallowing water, he choked, tried to find the surface, the light, the air. Then everything went black.