‘If I have to force you, I will,’ he said. ‘If I have to drag you through there, if I have to humiliate you into doing each and every task, I will. Do you believe me?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Her lips warped and she flashed him a contemptuous look. ‘I believe you.’ With dignity she crossed the room. Then she stood waiting near the door for him to open it and allow her to pass through.
He itched to strike her and it was only with a supreme effort of will that he allowed her to sweep out in front of him. She sat down in the kitchen like a queen on a throne, making Rose and Billy cringe away in embarrassment and hatred. His mother, who was stirring the pot in front of the fire, stiffened and averted her face. There was nothing he could do except repeat this time to her. . .’We’ll just have to make the best of it.’ Then he added, ‘Show her where things are kept, Mother, and give her a share of the chores. She can be a help to you once she knows how.’
His mother made no reply. Augusta sat like a rigid doll glued to the chair. The children glowered into their laps. So strong was his frustration and so irked was he with the emotion-charged atmosphere that he burst out:
‘Oh, to hell with the lot of you!’ Crashing the outside door behind him he crossed the yard and was soon striding along the riverside towards Glasgow Green.
The pleasant spring day surprised him, as if he expected the whole world to match the black mood of the house he had just left. The Green soothed his eyes with its velvet hands. Trees bursting into bud and the river’s sparkle helped to prop up his spirits. A hint of swagger returned to his step. He even mustered a wink for one group of girls strolling by.
Taking deep breaths of fresh air gave him a buoyancy, a physical lightness. Nevertheless his mind remained like a heavy stone inside him.
He had Tibs to worry about as well now. He had known, of course, that she had been living on precarious and borrowed time at Cameron House but her removal as a direct result of Fiona McPherson’s spite had offended him. It would be far from easy for Tibs to find another job without a recommendation. A position in a house was out of the question; but there might be a chance in the mills. Admittedly every trade was fenced round with prohibitions these days. If you weren’t a relation of someone already working, for instance, in cotton-spinning, iron-moulding and mining it was impossible to get into it. The mine owners as good as owned the families of all their employees from birth and even before.
Still, Tibs, Billy and Rose must surely find some kind of work somewhere. They had to. There was no money left. He cringed inside at his own inability to provide for them. He had tried just about every family in town who owned a coach but without success. He widened his area of search to further and further outside Glasgow in the hope that some of the farmers or land-owning gentry might agree to employ him, but in each case he was met with indignation and verbal abuse. It was as if he made a habit of raping and ruining every gentlewoman who had ever come within a mile of him. He was not to be trusted, they said.
At first he tried to reason with people. He pointed out the injustice of his family being made to suffer. Why should they starve? They had done nothing wrong. ‘Whatever ye sow, that shall ye reap,’ he was told by the few who deigned to listen. But it was the hypocrisy which was worse. It was one thing to be preached at by cossetted matrons and smugly told that he had brought his misfortune upon himself and his family. It was quite another for some local squire’s son or merchant to take a high-handed, holier-than-thou attitude. Luther knew for a fact that many of them had sired bastards by dairymaids and chambermaids and whatever serving wenches they could get their leg over. Why should men like that make him suffer? There had been no stigma, no victimisation, no punishment in any form meted out to them.
His stomach turned acid at the injustice of it all. The spring day faded. The blackness of his mood blotted out the emerald banks, the diamond river, even the coloured cobwebs of girls clustering beneath the trees.
Hunger ached in his guts and he was tempted, as he emerged from the Green and shouldered up Saltmarket Street, to grab at some of the food displayed on stalls and in shop doorways. But pride prevented him from doing this too. The thought of running through the streets like a common thief was repugnant to him.
He tried to think of some way in which he could use his wits to advantage and be more certain of evading the ignominy of being caught. The mere idea of robbing one of the Cameron coaches engulfed him in a rush of pleasure. But to be a successful highwayman one needed a horse and a pistol and he had neither. A rage of frustration swept his moment of hope into the dust.
It took all his self-control to keep walking along Argyle Street instead of making for home and venting his fury in physical violence on Augusta. He believed it to be a man’s right to chastise his wife, by beating if necessary, but he was afraid that in his present mood he might go too far.
Soon he had left Argyle Street behind and was trudging through the ancient suburb of Anderson. In Anderson there was now a brewery for porter, a rope works and a calico printfield. He had already tried to get work at all three and also at a nearby farm, all to no effect. He was able-bodied and more than willing to work hard, but these things apparently meant nothing against someone with a little experience and such tender years that the lowest pittance need be paid.
He sat brooding and trying to ignore his hunger until it was nearly dark. Then he reluctantly set off for home. Immediately as he entered the kitchen he realised that something had happened. Augusta’s eyes were huge with anger. Tibs was sobbing in the corner and Billy and Rose were dour-mouthed. But it was his mother who caused his stab of concern. She had the wild look of a trapped animal. There was an aura of suspension in the unnatural stillness of her body, yet her eyes kept furtively flickering.
‘What’s happened?’ he demanded.
His mother half muttered to herself, ‘I couldn’t let the children go hungry to the mills tomorrow. The work will be hard enough. I couldn’t let them go the whole day—the whole week maybe—on an empty stomach.’
‘Tibs and Rose and I got fixed up this afternoon,’ Billy said.
Suddenly Rose ran towards him. ‘I don’t want to go to that place, Luther. I’m frightened. I saw a man beating children there with a horse-whip.’
‘Be quiet,’ Billy shouted. ‘Snivelling won’t help. We don’t get paid until Friday, Luther. Mum had to do it.’
‘Do what, for God’s sake?’
‘Sell some of her fine clothes to old Biddy.’ He jerked his head in Augusta’s direction. ‘And a mighty fine fuss she’s been making about it.’
‘Is that all?’ Luther relaxed with relief. ‘It’s all right, Mother. Don’t worry.’
Augusta shivered with anger. ‘Oh, of course, it means nothing to you. Your mother goes into my room and, unknown to me, steals two of my best gowns and sells them.’
‘That’s enough. You’ll eat your share of whatever money she got.’
‘But she didn’t know the value of the gowns. The shop she sold them to only gave her a few miserable pence.’
‘If you’re so clever why didn’t you sell them and get a better price?’
‘It never occurred to me . . . .’
‘Yes, I can believe that.’ Suddenly he felt too tired to be angry with her. He could see the open bewilderment in her face and her helplessness, and despite the bitterness he felt at the ruin she’d made of his life, he felt a tenderness too. She looked more of a child than his sister Rose.
‘Come on to bed,’ he said, going towards the room. ‘It’s late.’
She hesitated as if taken back, her stare trying to read his face as he stood waiting for her in the doorway. Eventually, eyes lowered, she walked past him into the room. He shut the door then stood watching her fumble with her clothes and try to undress without him seeing her nakedness. Only after she had donned her nightdress did she remove her petticoats and drawers.
He removed his own garments and dowsed the candle. Then after he had climbed into bed beside her he
gathered her into his arms. She lay stiffly, warily at first, then slowly relaxed as if all her bones were melting. He held her close and nursed her to and fro, to and fro while she moaned and wept and sobbed against his chest.
Chapter Fourteen
‘I’m away,’ Luther called from the doorway. ‘Wish me luck.’
Augusta kept her face turned towards the wall and said nothing.
Since their wedding night there had been a kind of truce between them but it was a mockery of congeniality. She could see that beneath the thin surface of Luther’s restraint there still simmered a hatred and resentment of her. Sometimes she caught the full force of it in his eyes as if he was trying by sheer strength of will to blot her out. Often she would nurse her locket in her hands and open it and weep over the silk strands of Lieutenant’s Fitzjames’s hair. She would remember the delicacy of his looks and his behaviour and she would dream of the luxurious home she might have shared with him and the wonderful life she would have enjoyed. Then she would catch sight of Luther’s coarse hair and features and return his look of hatred. Or her eyes would fall on her already bulging belly in which lay Luther’s child and she would loathe and detest it too. It was only another link in the chain that bound her.
Yet she could see that Luther also felt trapped and sometimes she experienced a bitter ache of pity for him. She tried to tell herself as she lay in bed listening to the sound of her husband’s feet crossing the kitchen, then fading into the distance, that her shameful behaviour of the previous night had been caused by pity. Since their wedding night Luther had never touched her. He had lain stiffly and silently at her side until gradually his body relaxed into sleep. She could not match his stillness. Various discomforts caused by her pregnancy made her restlessly move about, turn and twist, curl up on one side or the other, thump round on to her back, splaying wide her legs. Often while he slept, she would creep furtively, miserably from the bed in the dark in order to use the chamber pot.
Often before he slept she would be disturbingly aware of him. The heat of his body so close to hers and the sensual male smell of him would cause her heart to thump with embarrassing loudness. She would struggle to calm her pulse and her uneven breathing only to have a plague of worse agitations beset her. An ache stretched at her breasts and between her legs until she could have moaned with the torment of it. Last night she had indulged these feelings in a shameful lack of decency and self-control.
Lying on her side, facing him, she had slid stealthy fingers up his arm then over his chest. Her thigh had opened and stretched across his belly. His hand had immediately caressed her leg and she had given herself up to the animal ecstasy of his touch. So delirious and complete was her abandon, she hardly remembered what had followed.
Surely it had been a kind of madness. She had behaved with such a total lack of restraint and had been crying out so loudly he had been forced to hold his big palm over her mouth to silence her. Even so, his mother and the children must have heard. In shame she pressed her face deep into the pillow. At least Tibs and the children would have left for work now but Mrs Gunnet would be there. She couldn’t understand the woman. She had tried to speak to her, tried to help her in the house but it was if an impregnable wall separated them. Mrs Gunnet somehow managed to act as if she wasn’t there most of the time. Or she’d say, ‘It’s not your place to do that, Miss Augusta,’ and grimly refuse to show her how to do anything. To make life even more of a misery, hunger continuously gnawed at Augusta and to assuage it she instructed Billy to get as much as he could for another of her gowns. Luther had wanted to sell his silver-topped cane to an innkeeper who had once admired it but she had gone into a tantrum to prevent him. Somehow, like her silver brush and comb set and her gold locket, it represented a solid link with the life she’d once known.
‘That was a gift from my brother,’ she said. ‘How dare you allow it to get into the hands of some ignorant innkeeper who cannot appreciate its true value.’
She was now left with two gowns, the grey in which she had married and her green with the white collar. But she had several warm coats and her fur muff, and it was warmth that mattered, she realised now.
Struggling up from bed in an agitation of embarrassment at having to face Mrs Gunnet, she donned her grey gown and swept through to the kitchen. Avoiding the older woman’s eyes she went straight to the hob and poured herself a cup of tea. While she sipped it she searched for something to eat, finding only a piece of dry bread which she immediately demolished.
‘Why isn’t there more food?’ she asked her mother-in-law. ‘Didn’t Billy give you the money for my gown?’
‘I was going out to try and get something for tonight’s supper.’
‘I shall come with you. I need some fresh air and exercise,’ Augusta insisted.
Mrs Gunnet nodded, and Augusta returned to the room to don outdoor clothing. When she hurried back Luther’s mother was waiting with a coarse shawl draped over her head and folded across her chest.
‘I don’t go to the shops along Argyle Street,’ she said. ‘The shops are cheapest in the High Street.’
It was a dry sunny day. The yellow rays had filtered through the net curtains of the parlour, but no sun brightened the cold yard between the tenements. Nor could the stinking air be called fresh. However they were soon across the yard and through the close with Mrs Gunnet clutching tightly at her shawl and staring straight ahead, and Augusta bunching up her skirts to protect them from any foulness.
At the corner Augusta was pleased to catch a glimpse of the River Clyde at the foot of Stockwell Street sparkling like a silver ribbon in the sun. Instead of proceeding up Stockwell Street, Mrs Gunnet marched to the other end of the Briggait, and on ground floors of tenement buildings there were many drinking saloons and brokeries and pawn shops.
Up past the Cross now. Past the square tower with its four-sided clock and open stone crown known as the Trongate Steeple. Into the High Street. The tenements here had a high cliff-like appearance like those in Edinburgh and crow-stepped gables to the street. Basements had rough stone arches under which shopkeepers displayed their goods.
Out on the streets were trestle tables piled with pails and buckets and basins. The street was also cluttered with barrels and women selling fruit or fish from handcarts, and men pushing barrows and both men and women with bundles on their backs or trays of merchandise hanging from their necks. The closes were even narrower than those of the Briggait, and there was a variety of shapes and sizes of buildings down these long closes or alleys. There, hawkers also shouted their wares, squeezing their trays and carts and barrows between hordes of men and women and children in tattered clothes. Augusta felt shocked by the sights and sounds yet so great was her relief to be out of the confines of the house in the Briggait that the sights of the High Street, horrifying though they were, did not distress her quite so much as they might have in the past.
Mrs Gunnet halted at a shop with a bow window stuffed high with packets and tins and cards advertising various goods. Without a word the older woman entered the shop. Augusta stepped in too but there was such a putrid stench in its shadowy interior that she felt nauseated and had to return outside for a breath of air. For a moment or two she supported herself against the glass of the window and idly gazed at its contents. Then an apothecary’s a little further along caught her eye and she moved nearer to examine it. Through its thick glass she saw two large bottles, one filled with emerald green liquid, the other with ruby red, and between them a pestle and a mortar. There were cards too, some toppled over and all covered with dust. Peering closer to the glass, Augusta managed to read: ‘Butler’s Cajeput Opodeldoc—for rheumatism, sprains, bruises, and unbroken chilblains. The basis for this Opodeldoc, the Cajeput Oil, has been highly esteemed on the Continent for Chronic Rheumatism, Spasmodic Affections, Palsy, Stiffness and enlargement of Joints . . . .’
An unusual and alarming sound, among the cacophony of noise pressing in on her, switched Augusta’s attention from t
he window. At first she could not make out the origin of it. People were crushing this way and that and blocking her view. Then suddenly a large horned animal, either a cow or a bull, burst through the crowd, jostling close with other similar beasts and all throwing back their heads and issuing forth loud bellowing noises.
Alarmed by the unexpected proximity of the animals Augusta backed into the nearest close. Other people crushed in too. All were intent on either pushing at or trying to avoid some of the animals that had also turned into the lane which was no more than five feet wide. Men, women and children were shouting, screaming, laughing and crying. Unable to do anything else Augusta continued to move backwards. At last she managed to edge sideways into an opening between the buildings. Here it was quiet, and the sounds of turmoil became detached from her. She looked around. Ancient houses brooded on either side, some with upper floors jutting out like canopies making cold, dark, shadowy places. Roofs jutted out too, some black-thatched, heavy and low. Outside stairs were made of stone and badly dilapidated and broken. Here and there a notice board protruded on which was written ‘Lodgings to Let’.
She came to the conclusion that if she took the first turning on the right that ought to bring her out to the High Street again. Then she would simply have to turn right again, to go down to where she’d left Mrs Gunnet. After taking the first turning on the right, however, she found it blocked at the end by a towering tenement. A narrow opening in this tenement led off to the left and she followed this path hoping that from it there would be a right turning. But after wandering for some distance she only found another gloomy lane like a shadow on the left. Here different paths trickled off in all directions between crooked houses with black cavities for windows. She tried to be brave and quell the flutterings of fear in her chest. Telling herself she mustn’t panic or run she stopped to get her bearings. She had lost all sense of direction. She could wander round and round in circles for hours. Then darkness would come. In desperation she looked for someone to ask the way. But not a living soul was in sight. She hesitated. The only alternative was to knock at one of the doors. There must be people somewhere. Catching sight of a basement door slightly ajar, she eased her skirts up and carefully descended the steps. Then, taking a deep breath and holding herself as straight and with as much dignity as she could, gave a sharp knock. After a few seconds she thought she heard a woman’s voice say, ‘Come in,’ but it was as faint as a whisper. She hugged her velvet coat around her for comfort. Then, deciding she had no choice, she pushed the door wider and stepped inside.
The Dark Side of Pleasure Page 10
