Light & Dark

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  Suddenly a crimson-faced, crimson-necked man rushed from the body of the hall and leapt up on to the platform, roaring, ‘If no one else is going to stop this and give her the thrashing she deserves, I will!’

  He made a grab at Clementina, hauled her—struggling ferociously—round to the front of the table and, to ringing cheers and gales of laughter and stamping of feet from the rest of the men in the audience, he sat on the table and made to force Clementina across his knee and pull up her skirt.

  Suddenly she was panic-stricken. She was back in her father’s study; only now his gloating eyes were multiplied a hundredfold. As she struggled, little animal noises escaped from a throat almost paralysed with terror. She was saved by Eva who suddenly rushed forward, grabbed the jug of water from the table and poured it over the man’s head. Now it was the women in the audience who laughed, and they did so in a wave of delighted relief.

  Clementina quickly found her feet and, determinedly banishing childish fears from her mind, stood foursquare in front of her dripping-wet and spluttering attacker. ‘Leave the platform at once!’ From the corner of her eye she could see policemen streaming into the hall again. ‘This man is causing a disturbance and trying to break up—’

  ‘It’s you that’s causing the disturbance,’ the man shouted. Then to the approaching policemen, ‘These women are causing a disturbance of the peace, officers. Indeed, they are inciting a riot and are a danger to our respectable and peaceful community.’

  ‘Come on, miss.’ Policemen were up on the platform now. ‘You’ve gone far enough. It’s time to stop now.’

  ‘You mean bring the meeting to a close? Why?’

  ‘Because of what the man’s just said.’

  ‘That man came up on to this platform and attacked me. Now, what are you going to do because of what I’ve just said?’

  ‘Come on.’ The policeman took hold of Clementina’s arm and started dragging her away. Other policemen took hold of Eva, Millicent and Kitty, and Millicent shouted at the top of her voice, ‘This is a perfect illustration of what we’re always saying—there’s no justice for women!’

  Kitty, while struggling breathlessly with a burly policeman who had seized her round the waist and lifted her off her feet, managed to cry out, ‘We’re helping our sisters in need and will continue to do so in every way we can.’

  ‘Votes for Women!’ Eva had the temerity to yell before being jerked roughly away, fur tippet and fur bobbles bobbing.

  All four girls were furious at the turn of events and, feeling that if they were to be arrested for attacking men they might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, they punched and kicked as many as they could en route from the hall.

  At the Bathgate police station they were still protesting vehemently about the unfairness of their arrest. But soon events were to take an even more unfair and indeed sinister turn when they were roughly bundled into a police van once more. With lanterns swinging it galloped away through the gas-lit streets, then into the pitch darkness of the countryside beyond and suddenly it dawned on Clementina what was happening. ‘They’re taking us to the Calton Jail,’ she said.

  Automatically they moved closer together, linking arms and holding on to one another for comfort. They were silent for a time until Millicent said, ‘It’s so unjust!’

  Clementina’s brows went down and her jaw set. ‘I’m not going to let them get away with it. I shall go on a hunger strike.’

  ‘Clementina!’ Eva whispered. ‘You can’t!’

  ‘Better women than I have done it. Anyway, how else can I protest?’

  ‘I’ll do it too,’ Millicent said.

  ‘And me,’ Kitty added.

  Eva bit her lip. ‘Well, if you really think—’

  ‘Not you,’ Clementina said as she put her arm around Eva’s thin shoulders. ‘You’re very brave, Eva.’ Her friend’s eyes immediately and gratefully lit up, but the light was doused again when Clementina went on, ‘But you’re not physically strong. You need all the nourishment you can get.’

  ‘But it’s not right that you and the others should suffer and I should get off scot free.’

  ‘You’re not getting off scot free,’ Millicent reminded her. ‘You’re getting stuck in the Calton Jail!’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘No, please, Eva,’ Clementina pleaded. ‘If you starved yourself and became seriously ill, I should just feel it was my fault and never forgive myself.’

  ‘Well,’ Eva said, ‘we’ll see. But I don’t want you to feel like that, Clementina. Anything I do, I will have thought out for myself.’

  ‘I don’t suppose we shall have time to do anything, anyway.’ With one hand Kitty straightened her hat and tidied up wisps of hair. ‘They can’t keep us—it will only be for overnight. I mean, how can they? What have we done?’

  ‘I know,’ agreed Millicent bitterly. ‘Fancy accusing us of incitement and abusing us as they’ve been doing, yet the militant men of Ulster who are opposing the Home Rule Bill are allowed to carry on their campaign totally unmolested.’

  Eva sighed again. ‘Sometimes I can’t help feeling that even if we did get the vote, nothing would change. Men aren’t going to alter their attitudes and beliefs overnight—they’re too deep rooted and they’ve had them too long.’

  ‘No, not overnight,’ Clementina agreed. ‘It will probably take years and years. That’s because their attitude is such a deep-seated emotional one. It’s obvious at all the meetings, isn’t it? We don’t get arguments. We get noise and derision and hatred and the smell of fear.’

  ‘Don’t forget the insults,’ Millicent said. ‘I’m so sick of being told that it’s not “feminine” or “womanly” to speak out as we do. It’s men who have made the rules about this ideal of “femininity” or “womanliness” that we’re supposed to aspire to just to gain their approval.’

  Kitty laughed uncomfortably. ‘I suppose some people would say it makes life easier. I don’t mind admitting that I find it the most difficult thing—not to care about getting men’s approval, I mean.’

  ‘Do you?’ Clementina asked in surprise. ‘It never bothers me.’

  ‘Surely you are unusual in that, Clementina. I mean, it is nice to be approved of.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone has ever really approved of me,’ Clementina said earnestly. ‘Certainly not anyone at home, so maybe I just don’t know what it feels like. A case of ignorance being bliss.’

  Thinking of home suddenly made her remember Rhona. ‘My God!’ she cried out.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ the others asked in alarm.

  ‘Rhona! What’s she going to do? Where can she go?’

  ‘Hasn’t she any friends in Blackwood village she could go to?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘If anyone there could have taken her in, she would have gone there in the first place. You’ve seen yourself how shockingly overcrowded these houses are and how poor everybody is. They can’t feed themselves, never mind an extra mouth.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Millicent said, ‘I had the feeling that she got rather too much approval from the male sex. I can’t see any of those wives taking the risk of letting Rhona sleep under the same roof as their men.’

  Clementina shook her head. ‘That wasn’t approval. They were just lusting after her body. Oh dear, I’m worried about her now. I feel so responsible for all this trouble she’s got into.’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing you or any of us can do about it at the moment,’ Millicent said. ‘If we’re heading for the Calton Jail, we’d be better to worry about ourselves.’

  Clementina had no wish to contemplate this prospect and was only too glad to divert her attention to Rhona’s plight. She would be lucky to get out of the tower house without being seen and even if she did—what then?

  ‘I must get word to Betsy and Agnes,’ she said at last. ‘Perhaps they will be able to find her and help her.’

  ‘That’s if Betsy and Agnes are all right,’ Eva said. ‘They had to run the gauntlet of that crowd, rem
ember. Not just outside but inside the hall. I just managed to get a glimpse of them, but I’m sure they were being knocked about and poor Betsy was already in agony …’

  ‘Oh dear!’ Clementina said.

  A horrible foreboding had begun to creep over her and seep through her like cold haar.

  56

  The clock on the schoolroom mantelpiece struck midnight. The tower was eerily quiet and the chimes had a tinkling echo. The candles had guttered out and the fire had died; the room was in darkness now except for the faint glow of the moon slanting through the narrow window. As clouds scudded across the sky fingers of moonlight flitted about the room like ghosts. The tick of the clock seemed to be whispering in the darkness now, and from somewhere outside came the mournful hooting of an owl.

  Crouched on the floor in a corner, Rhona tried to keep panic at bay.

  ‘What the hell has happened to Clementina?’ she kept thinking. Had she fallen off her bloody bicycle in the storm and broken a leg or something—or had she got herself arrested again?

  She wondered if she should venture out and go looking for her, but at the same time knew she was too terrified to move. This place was haunted, she knew it in her bones. She could hear strange moaning sounds coming from the tower stair and she remembered what Clementina had once told her about the ghosts which were supposed to come out at night in the tower. Never in her life had she experienced such terror. She was stiffening with it, going icy cold with it, despite the fact that she had put on her coat and hat. Her throat had seized up so much that she couldn’t have screamed even if she had believed that screaming would do any good. As time dragged slowly past she began to feel quite ill. She prayed for daylight to come so that she could escape from the place, despite the fact that she had no idea where she would go or what she would do. She decided to worry about that once she got out. Getting safely away was the main thing.

  Exhausted, she dozed off occasionally, only to jerk awake more panic-stricken than ever. Each time she seemed more alone and the ghostly sounds had grown louder and nearer.

  Eventually she woke with a start, feeling stiff with cold, but was relieved to see the first grey streaks of dawn lighten the sky. It gave her courage enough to struggle up and go over to the window. Although it was still dark down below, daylight was not far away. She must try to sneak out before the maids started moving about and the house came to life. She listened: the wind had stopped and no sounds came from the tower stair. She went over and opened the schoolroom door, cautiously peered out into the landing and listened again, just to make sure. Everything was still and silent so, reassured and yet still fearful, she crossed the landing towards the door that led to the tower stair. Taking a deep breath she opened it and made a rush into the narrow spiral stairway, its oil-lamps flickering low, its stone walls clammy under her trembling hands. She half-ran, half-fell down to the bottom until she was gasping tearfully against the door that led into the reception hall. It creaked open and she held her breath before slipping out and across the hall, then straight down the main stairway and out of the front entrance of the house.

  It was not until she was outside and had run across a patch of lawn and then a path leading between rhododendron bushes that she realised exactly how she felt. Her stiffness had become concentrated on her lower abdomen; it was as if an iron fist had gripped her and was refusing to let go. She began to stumble awkwardly along and when she came to a five-bar gate she had to lean against it for a while to rest and try and breathe easily and keep telling herself that she had nothing to worry about she was going to be all right. She had to keep assuring herself of this, so that she could stifle the new fear which had begun to flicker at the back of her mind. She went through the gate eventually, remembering that this was one of the ways to the home farm. Clementina had taken her on a walk along this path during one of her Sunday afternoon visits. A part of her mind told her that she should be going in the other direction, down the hill to Bathgate, to try to find out what had happened to Clementina. But another part of her knew that she would never get there. Instinctively she was seeking rest and shelter, and she knew she would find it in one of the farm outbuildings that housed the animals. The iron fist kept tightening and slowing her down, until sometimes she gasped out loud with the pain of it and stumbled down on to her knees. It took her a long time to reach the home farm and by then daylight was bathing the countryside in shimmering colour. Or so it seemed through the moistness that hazed over her eyes. She could hear a cock crowing, cows lowing, and the trilling and chirping of a myriad of birds in the high trees. The first building was quite near now and she willed herself to reach it.

  Entering through the wide stone doorway into the musky dimness, the cloying scents of horse-sweat and manure filled Rhona’s nostrils and permeated the whole lower floor. Midway along the back wall she could see, hugging the rough-hewn stone, a wide timber staircase to the hayloft. Sweating with the pain now, she tried to reach it, edging along inches at a time, every now and again sinking down on to her knees helplessly whimpering. Cramped windows stared emptily back on to the cobbled yard. Their beams of winter sunlight filtered through the cobwebs that festooned the tiny glass panes and played wanly across the heavy stone slabs where she crouched. As if in a dream she heard the gentle whinnying of the horses, the sounds blending with the creaking of wood and leather as the beasts shuffled and stamped contentedly in their stalls. For a time, the sounds soothed her and she was able to reach the staircase. Its ancient wood was silver-grey with age. The corners of the steps were thick with dust, leaves and mice droppings and she climbed very slowly and carefully.

  Upstairs she gazed around to see where the best place would be for her to lie. The timbers of the roof swooped down steeply on either side, the central beams liberally striped with bird droppings. Hay was stacked steeply on all sides and the strange, sweet smell of hay-dust tickled the back of her throat.

  A single pure beam of light speared the darkness like the voice of God, from a gap in the hayloft doors. She decided to lie there so that she could best see what she was doing. Because she knew what she had to do now… . There could be no more evading the fact that she was having a miscarriage. She had seen her mother suffer too many in the past not to know all the signs. The first thing she would have to do was to take off her good hat, coat, skirt and blouse, so that they wouldn’t be ruined or stained with blood. Then once they were safely laid aside, she would need to tear up her petticoats for cloths to help clean herself afterwards and to make pads.

  As the pain increased into piercing torture and she was crying out with it, she cursed Gilbert Blackwood with all the strength that was in her. To shout obscenities at him or to mumble how she was going to get her revenge on him helped her through her agony.

  Until at last it was all over and she lay exhausted, a piece of flotsam in the river of her own blood. She didn’t stir for a long time… . She just watched the motes of dust floating aimlessly in the beam of light like moths hypnotised by its brightness.

  57

  ‘Stand aside at once, woman!’ Stirling’s normally calm voice was strained with anger. ‘It’s a matter of urgency. I must see her, whether she wants to see me or not.’

  ‘May I ask what this matter of urgency is, sir?’ Mrs Musgrove’s voice was now smoothly polite, yet with its usual cold, sarcastic twist.

  ‘No, you may not!’

  Lorianna heard the voices as if they were drifting towards her bed through the mist that so often veiled the hills in winter. They had an echo that reminded her of the hills too. It gave the voices an unreal quality and she thought she must be dreaming them. She had been having very strange dreams recently.

  Then there was a crashing sound of a door opening and suddenly a real flesh-and-blood John was standing close enough for her to touch at the side of her bed. But the dark column of Mrs Musgrove was behind him, chilling the air. Lorianna gazed across at her in bewildered uncertainty.

  Stirling, immediately following her
gaze, said, ‘That will be all, Mrs Musgrove.’

  ‘I don’t think madam wishes me to leave her, sir.’

  ‘This is disgraceful!’ His voice acquired the cutting edge of an icicle. ‘You are exceeding your authority as a servant. If you value your position, do as I tell you at once.’

  Mrs Musgrove stared at him with hatred for a moment. Then, as silent as a shadow, she withdrew.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, Stirling sat down on the edge of the bed and gathered Lorianna’s hands in his. ‘My dear, how are you? I have been so worried!’

  The feel of his hands confirmed that he was real. ‘Oh John,’ she whispered. ‘Hold me. Please! Hold me tightly, I’m so afraid!’

  ‘Afraid of what, my love?’ Gently he slipped one arm behind her shoulders and eased her up from her pillows.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ she begged.

  ‘I won’t, my dear. Just tell me what’s wrong.’

  She looked dazed.

  ‘Maybe it’s all just a dream. Maybe none of it ever happened.’

  ‘What exactly are you talking about, Lorianna?’

  ‘Only a dream.’

  ‘My dear, the sooner we are married, the better. Then I can be here all the time to see that you are properly looked after. I don’t trust that Musgrove woman; there’s something about her …’