Dear diary, you may have noticed by now that I am curious by nature — a deficit in a lady’s character to be sure, but there you have it. I listened to the hushed voices for some time before curiosity got the better of me. I stole across my room, and opened the door. Beyond the open door, the voices were not so hushed, and indeed seemed rather agitated. I crept across the landing. Most staff were abed by now, and only the night footman stood at his post.
So, who was speaking, and in such an aggrieved manner?
I tiptoed across the landing and peeped over the ornately carved balustrade. The lights to my husband’s library were still shining, and it was from there the voices carried up to the landing, and my hearing.
To whom was he speaking? I couldn’t help but wonder. We had no guests that I knew of, and my husband’s valet surely was abed at this sinful hour.
However, when the other voice spoke, I realised then that it was Mr Faulks.
Mr Faulks has been my husband’s man for more years than I have been alive. I have little doubt that Faulks knows more of my husband’s secrets than my husband does of his own.
‘My lord.’ Faulks’ voice was stern. ‘You’d best not worry upon it. Lady Catherine is a gentle young woman, and there’s naught you’ll ever do to change that.’
I am afraid, dear diary, I appear to be making a habit of eaves-dropping. I crept down a flight of stairs and huddled in the gloom of the corner at the bottom, so that I could over-hear the animated discussion a little clearer.
‘You don’t understand, Faulks.’ My husband’s voice was troubled. ‘She tempts me, in her own innocent way, to …’ he faded off for a moment and I could hear the rattling of the whisky decanter, and the sound of someone pouring a drink. ‘And when I heard her speaking of what she’d witnessed at Stanton Hall, I wanted nothing more than to …’ He stopped suddenly, then growled loudly. ‘I am a decent man, damn it.’
‘You are not your father, if that’s what’s a-fearing you, milord.’ Faulk’s voice was kind.
I tell you now, dear diary, I was utterly enthralled by this conversation. Joseph had never spoken about his father, the scandalous but late Lord Bexley. He had, by all accounts been a man of considerable ill-repute. A philanderer, gambler and notorious womaniser, I knew that my stiff and proper husband had worked hard to cleanse the Bexley name of his stain.
‘How can you be so certain, Faulks?’ My husband’s voice had taken on a peculiarly woeful note.
‘Never been more certain of anythin’ in my life, milord,’ Faulks replied. ‘You’re a good man, you are, don’t ever think different.’
‘I can barely stay away from her rooms, I want to be there every night. I want to …’
His words re-ignited my loins. He did want more than just our perfunctory nocturnal antics. I felt my body loosen with relief on hearing this admission.
His voice faded off, and the resumption of his speech was interrupted by Faulks’ bawdy laughter.
‘Any red-blooded man would want to be with her every night, milord. She’s a fine looking woman, if you don’t mind me sayin’.’
Faulks’ laughter faded off, and was met by my husband’s silence.
‘Go up there, go ease yourself on her. That’s what wives are for.’ I heard his glass clink down on the rosewood sideboard.
‘I am not an animal.’ I heard my husband growl in response. ‘My father had whores and wives aplenty, all because he couldn’t control his damnable desires. I will not repeat his fate by giving into my, my basal needs.’
‘Wanting to be with your wife doesn’t make you an animal, milord. It merely makes you a well-married man. You’re wrong to think otherwise.’ Faulks paused. ‘I could call Hetty to go and wake milady, if you do not wish to wake her yourself. Hetty could have her ready for you in a trice.’
Oh yes! I thought with utter delight. I could hear my own heart pound with excitement, and I waited breathlessly for my husband’s response.
It was of course, not the response I had hoped for.
My husband’s voice carried towards the corner where I hid. ‘No. I will not have her woken and disrupt her sleep. She is a gentlewoman and needs her rest. Today has been trying on her sensitive nerves. Why, I found her almost in a faint after witnessing Stanton’s dirty antics. No, to wake her is not sporting or fair. Dear God in heaven, she might never recover from seeing what she did today. Women of gentle breeding can be damaged greatly by such things.’
It was then, dear diary, I realised that I must try something new. Let it be known that I have tried ardently to be a dutiful wife to my husband, and to accept my conjugal duty with grace and humility — but I simply cannot. I fear I shall die if I do not gain some satisfaction from our marriage act. It is as if I am a precious vase on the edge of a table, teetering at the precipice. If I have just one small tap or nudge, I shall to fall and shatter — never to be the same again.
So on the morrow, I will begin my new course of action. If it fails, dear diary, I fear my next entry may be from the sanatorium.
Tuesday 27 July 1813
I smashed my Lord’s mantle clock this morning.
It was no accident, in fact it was wickedly deliberate. I shall not lie.
After my morning toilette, Hetty left me so I could depart downstairs to share breakfast with my husband. As I walked past the clock towards the door, its regimented ticking interrupted my thoughts. Tick-tock-tick-tock. Such an irritating sound, it incensed me as much as it tormented me, particularly when my stiff and unbending husband timed his thrusts to it.
I looked at it for a long while. Gold and ebony it was, and very fine — but how I hated it. How would my husband be if he did not have this clock to time his movements? Would he become less perfunctory in his duty to me?
Then another notion happened upon me. If I deliberately smashed it and confessed my actions, would my husband reprimand me in the manner Lord Stanton reprimanded his maid?
I felt a delicious slow coil of excitement unwind within me, dirty and vulgar as the desire may have been, there it was — turning my womanhood to water, and my nipples to hardened peaks.
I thought no more, instead, I raised my hand. My wedding band glistened in the morning sun, and then I struck.
The unfortunate clock flew from the mantle in a slow lazy arc and then shattered on hard oak floorboards.
The sound was deafening and I flinched as glass, wood, gold and brass cogs flew from the wreck like rice at a wedding.
‘Catherine!’ I heard Joseph’s concerned yell.
I froze. What had I done?
The sound of his heavy footfall was followed by the lighter steps of our housekeeper.
My door burst open revealing my husband and our taciturn housekeeper, Mrs Smith.
‘Catherine!’ Joseph exhaled my name, as if in relief to see me unharmed.
My cheeks began to glow. He was not completely dressed and his smock shirt hung unbuttoned. I could see the form of his muscled chest heave through the opened shirt. I shivered under his concerned and confused gaze.
Mrs Smith was the first to speak sense. ‘Milady, what happened?’ she asked, her brow furrowed.
‘I smashed the mantle clock.’ I replied simply, my gaze returning to my husband. He towered beside me. I am diminutive in comparison to his impressive height, and I’d never noticed it as much as I had at that moment.
‘You what?’ Mrs Smith snapped. ‘That was the late Lady Bexley’s wedding gift!’ Her wattles wobbled unflatteringly and as she spoke and her mottled complexion mottled further.
I knew this about the clock, of course, and didn’t care. After all, the late Lady Bexley to whom she referred, had been one of several Lady Bexleys my husband’s father had married. All had experienced quite miserable marriages. Why should I deign to suffer the same fate as the original owner — a loveless marriage? I needed no reminder of their miseries or my own.
The clock was better gone.
‘Leave us,’ Joseph’s voice was soft, but command
ing.
Mrs Smith’s eyes flashed, and she stared from me to my husband, but dared not disobey.
‘Very well, I’ll send Martha to clean this up shortly.’ She bit out a sound of disbelief.
I stared at my husband, my heart racing, and I knew the swell of my bosom heaved with each breath above the intricately beaded bodice of my gown. Joseph’s eyes lingered there and his gaze burned.
‘Was this an accident?’ he asked, as my door clicked shut with Mrs Smith’s rushed departure.
‘No,’ I replied.
He frowned then, his dark brows furrowing, and dark eyes narrowing.
‘Why?’
Dear diary, what would you say in my place? I wanted his reprimand because I wanted more from him than the cool, perfunctory distance I had thus far received.
‘I hated it.’ I replied. My heart beat a little faster and I swallowed, trying to fortify my strength to ask the next question. ‘Will you punish me?’
My husband fell silent, his gaze flickered from me to the shattered remains of the once proud mantle clock. His brow grew heavy again.
Without waiting any longer — lest I lose my nerve, I walked towards the bed and bent over it, lifting my skirts high so that my rear, although still clothed in my drawers, was visible and ready.
‘You may strike me,’ I said, shyly. My face was pressed against the coverlet of the bed, I could smell the lavender from it, but it did little to calm my nerves.
Still my husband did not speak, but I heard his footsteps on the floorboards coming closer. Could he see the moisture that soaked through my drawers? My body was screaming for attention, and I wanted to scream with it. My proud, unmoveable husband — what would he think of me?
‘Catherine.’ His voice was a bare whisper. His hand came down gently and stroked the globe of my backside through the cotton of my drawers. I shuddered with need and secretly pleaded him to continue.
His hand gently stroked me through the cloth, his fingers kneading my rear, as Lord Stanton had done with his maid. I lay there, waiting, expectant.
His hand roamed further delving between the cleft of my buttocks. His fingers squeezed and probed at my flesh through the thin cotton. I had never known that a touch upon my rear could feel so exciting.
‘Oh,’ I sobbed aloud in relief, and willed him to continue.
At the sound of my sob however, Joseph’s hand stilled, and his fingers quickly released the flesh of my buttock.
‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped and withdrew his hand abruptly.
Startled and bewildered, I stood up and turned. My skirts fell to the floor in a storm of fluttering cloth.
‘I should never have touched you like that,’ he groaned. He ran his hand through his hair in a gesture of dismay. I stared at him, his staff holding up his breeches and shirt tails as a pole might a tent. He liked to touch me like that — or at least the beast in his breeches did.
‘It’s all right,’ I hurried to assure him.
His face grew hard. ‘It is not all right Catherine. You have offended me by smashing my late mother’s clock, but I have done the same to you in return, and I am ashamed.’
‘No,’ I whispered, ‘you haven’t.’
‘I am a gentleman, and you are a lady. I should not be groping you as if you were a lowly dairy maid. I apologise.’
‘Joseph, wait,’ I called, but he had already turned to leave. ‘I …’
‘Enough, Catherine,’ he snapped. ‘This does not warrant any further discussion.’
I did not see Joseph until dinner that evening. He’d spent the day touring the grounds of the Hall and overseeing the construction of new glasshouses in the rear gardens.
I stayed abed most of the day, whiling away the time reading poetry and sewing. My ever-growing state of dissatisfaction had been heightened by my experience with my husband this morning, but I was at a loss to know what to do. My husband’s morals and righteousness are with-holding life’s pleasures from him, and from me as his bedded wife.
That evening, I dressed in my red damask gown; its neckline was daringly low, and one I’d not worn previously. It was my most ardent hope that in wearing the gown this night, I may stir my husband into something spontaneous.
Joseph was already in the dining room when I arrived. His demeanour was solemn and his face quite the mask of neutrality.
‘Good evening husband.’ I greeted him as I sat down beside him. He gazed at me as if I had spoken in a heathen tongue, but he answered none the less.
‘You look well this evening,’ he offered.
‘Thank you.’ I nodded my agreement and took a deep breath, hoping the swell of my bosom might catch his attention.
It did, and his dark eyes flickered and hesitated there for a brief moment, before he looked away.
‘I had word from London today,’ he said.
‘Indeed?’ This was news to me. I saw no riders coming or going from the Hall this day.
‘Yes. My cousin Lord Albert Winteringham is coming to stay with us for a time. You may recall he attended our wedding. He is young — a year or two your senior.’
Quite frankly, I did not recall Albert Winteringham — but I did not say so.
‘How lovely, it will be nice to meet him again.’ I smiled at my husband.
‘That remains to be seen.’ My husband quipped coolly. ‘It seems as though young Albert has met with some scandal in London, and his father, my uncle, wishes him to stay here in Bexley a while until it blows over.’
‘Oh, my,’ I replied, ‘but perhaps it is not unsurprising — you are a pillar of piety and decency in the eyes of society. Perhaps it will do the young man well to spend some time in your hallowed halls,’ I replied, while at the same time wishing they weren’t quite so hallowed.
Joseph’s eyes met mine then, and a dark red hue stained the close shaven plains of his cheeks.
‘What do you mean Catherine?’ His eyes grew hard.
‘Mean? Why, nothing husband. I was merely stating that the boy may benefit from your stern guidance.’
My mind went back to earlier this day, when his hand had so briefly explored my rear. I closed my eyes and relished the memory.
When my eyes opened, I found my husband’s gaze still upon me — on my bust-line.
‘He arrives tomorrow,’ he said, his eyes lifting to meet mine.
I nodded, feeling the heat rush to stain my cheeks.
The conversation ended then, and we began to eat. It was roasted lamb, my favourite. The sweet tang of mint sauce stung my nostrils as I ate, but all the while I was aware of my husband’s curious gaze.
When we had finished all courses, we withdrew to the sitting room. Joseph lit his pipe, and Faulks poured him a whisky from the crystal decanter. I sipped at my tea. It was a companionable silence in which we found ourselves.
After a time, Faulks retired to share the evening meal with the other servants, and left my husband alone with me. I cannot be certain, dear diary, but I think he may have winked at Joseph as he left.
‘Is there something troubling you, husband?’ I asked, gently lowering my tea cup to its saucer.
He looked up from his whisky and puffed on his pipe. The rich scent of tobacco smoke infused the room.
‘Not at all, Catherine. I was merely considering how fortunate I am to have a wife such as you.’
‘That is kind of you to say,’ I replied with a smile.
As I watched him, the flickering candlelight outlined his broad shoulders. I wished more than anything that he would kiss me. He so rarely kissed me. I could perhaps count on one hand the number of times his lips had met mine. He was so proper. At times I imagined him an immovable mountain of propriety.
Would I ever find contentment in this marriage, in the bed or otherwise?
A sad lump seemed to swell in my throat, and I coughed.
‘Are you well? Is anything troubling you?’ he asked.
What should I have said, dear diary?
No husband, my loins ache to
be filled by you, I am crazed by thoughts of our conjugal act. I am haunted as much as aroused by what I witnessed at Stanton Hall.
I said nothing of this. Instead, I replied. ‘I am … well.’ Even to my own ears it sounded insincere.
There was silence for a moment before my husband spoke again.
‘I feel I must apologise again for my behaviour earlier. It was highly improper,’ he began awkwardly.
Frustration nearly knotted my tongue. ‘Please don’t apologise,’ I said. ‘I broke the clock quite deliberately.’
He shook his head, and I could sense the self-loathing draw about him like a cloud.
‘Still, I should not have manhandled you so, and I will replace the clock with one to your liking.’
I closed my eyes so that he would not see my disappointment.
Another miserable clock with which to time his thrusting? For the love of the sweet Lord, no!
When I opened my eyes he was watching me intently. I took a deep breath. ‘It is quite all right, you really shouldn’t,’ I said.
All decency forbade me to say the words that were in my heart.
He walked towards me. The room was dull, the fire was not alight, yet I was hot.
‘You are a lovely bride,’ he confessed. His cheeks darkened with a blush as he spoke.
‘Thank you,’ I nodded. I wondered then if I should reply something of a similar sentiment, but he spoke before I could.
‘You have my word, Catherine. You need never fear that I may use you poorly. I, I know what you saw at Stanton Hall distressed you. I see it in your eyes. Even though conjugal duties are required to sire an heir, rest assured my dearest, I will always treat you as the lady you are.’
It was, dear diary, the most emotion I’d ever heard him voice, and possibly the closest thing to a confession of affection a wife in a marriage like mine is likely to hear; but for all the sentiment he showed, it distressed rather than pleased me. I don’t want him to treat me like a lady. I want him to treat me as a woman.
Viveka Portman Page 3
