Page 19 of A Devilish Element
“But, at night—?” Eliza broke off, prickled by the delicacy of what she meant to ask. “I realise you have separate rooms.” That was hardly unusual in a residence of this size, though it was curious that their rooms were situated so far apart. “But does he…does he visit you?”
Jane’s brow puckered. “You mean, does he demand his conjugal rights?” Her teacup rattled so much from the shaking of her hand that Jane was obliged to put it down. “Not since we arrived at Cedarton.” She sighed heavily. “And to be truthful, only the once afore, on our wedding night. I suppose it was expected. Everyone wished to know that the matter was done. I expect his mother examined the sheets and was duly disappointed. There was a terrible row the following morn.”
“Was it horrible?” Eliza asked, clutching her friend’s hand, she knew how comforting a friendly touch could be in trying situations.
“Ghastly,” Jane agreed, though she didn’t elaborate.
Eliza sat with her lips pinned. The marriage bed was hardly her area of expertise, though she wasn’t oblivious to what occurred there. Birthing babies rather inevitably led to knowledge of such matters. Nor was she blind to what happened in the fields around her.
What she had discerned was that there ought to be some measure of pleasure involved for the participants, else why would the church need to lecture so doggedly upon wantonness and vice, and why did brothels exist, and men take mistresses? “Did it hurt?” She’d heard mention of pain the first time. Anything that resulted in blood-stained sheets surely involved some manner of trauma.
“Hurt?” Jane goggled at her.
“When he?” Eliza wove her hands into some sort of vague entanglement that only made Jane’s eyes grow even wider. Then, her sour pout returned this time accompanied by a closing of her eyes. She covered her face. Eliza settled her hand on her bent shoulder. “Is that why you—why you said you’d seen the white lady?”
Up her friend’s head popped like a burn blister. “Who told you about that? Oh, no, don’t bother to answer, it’s obvious enough. It was George, I suppose. Eliza, what I saw—it has nothing to do with Linfield. Leastways, nothing relevant to his performance in the marital bed.” She sighed again, weary to her toes, and overburdened with sadness. “I’m not even sure what I saw. Do you think impressions of past events can be left behind on a building? I saw a woman in her nightrail or her chemise. It was hard to make out the details. Everything else around me was black, but her hair was loose, and I think she was holding something. Whatever it was, it burst into flames in her hand. I suppose I must have screamed, because George and Mr Whistler came tearing out of their rooms… It was nothing really, probably an overtired mind and fanciful thoughts inspired by finding myself mistress of such a monstrous place as this. It’s all been very…” Her hands filled in her meaning where her words tumbled away.
What was clear to Eliza was that Jane had wholly avoided answering the bedding question. Might she then conjecture the worst case? While she believed pleasure was possible, she’d seen too often the counter of that—it was not always welcomed on the woman’s part. Increasingly to her, it seemed marriage had little to recommend it. Rather it was a burden of numerous laying-ins.
She could not remain still and think of it. It bore her to her feet and set her pacing. The injustice of it all. The hours she’d spent scrubbing, pacing, and mending in attempts to dampen the furore she felt over her lot and those of her fellow maidens. At one point, she had thought change could be achieved through letters, that the vindication of women merely required that they opened the eyes of learned men. How foolish she had been. She’d since witnessed the attacks on the characters of those women who argued for such rights and observed their subsequent descent into ruin. But she was allowing herself to become distracted. What mattered in the here and now was how she could support Jane.
“Was it very…very horrid? You must tell him if it was, ask if he might not be more considerate of you. I know it’s his legal right, but… but I cannot believe him to be such a wretch as to inflict such heartless discomfort—”
“Eliza, did you not hear me? I said he’d only come to me the once.”
“But?”
“You have it all wrong, Eliza. Dammit! You mustn’t think ill of me, but I have some prior knowledge of such things and how…how very distracting they can be. I can only think that Linfield knows and despises me for it.”
“No one could ever despise you.” Eliza cocooned her in her embrace, resting her head on Jane’s shoulder.
She broke away at Jane’s humourless laughter, fearing hysteria, but there was no trace of insanity in her friend’s visage.
“I thought,” Jane began. “I believed that even though we hardly knew one another, that sharing such pleasures would help us grow together. That we’d find a way to love one another, but… Oh, Eliza, I’ve made such a dreadful mistake. There is no chance of it, for Linfield is entirely indifferent to me. He won’t notice if I’m absent from my bed and sleeping with you, any more than he’d notice if I bedded down in the stables with the hounds and horses, and it is entirely my fault. I have scared him off with my unmaidenly ways. I presumed to know best, you see. I acted contrary to his wishes, when he bade me do nothing other than to be still.”
“I’m afraid I do not entirely follow,” Eliza said, resettling herself in the armchair. “We are speaking of your wedding night? He asked you to lie still?”
“That’s right. Stay quiet and still as a board, and turned away from him so that I could hardly breathe for having my face buried in the pillows. ‘Don’t turn about or raise your head,’ he says. ‘Don’t try to touch me. Don’t speak. In a moment it will be done, and thereafter, I won’t trouble you above once month, and not at all once the line is secure.’ But I didn’t do it, Eliza. I couldn’t do as he asked. I think he meant for us to rut like beasts, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it being so… so utterly impersonal and devoid of love when I know… I know so very well how it can be. So, I didn’t stay still, or quiet, or anything. I wanted his touch, you see. Why is it so bad that I wanted his hands on me—all over me? His mouth too. I longed for his kisses, the taste of his breath, his weight over me. So much, I wanted him to lose himself in his desire for me, for then, surely, certainly, it would all work out. We would be happy.” She paused, a hand covering her mouth, then began again, voice cracking. “I said to him. I said… ‘I’m certain it would be better if we were face to face.’ Well, I might as well have cracked his head open with a vase if you could have seen his reaction. Twere as if I’d asked the unimaginable. He up and left and has not returned. So, you see, I have quite spoiled everything.”
She set to sniffling into her sleeve. Eliza gazed at her utterly perplexed. That he should behave in such a way made no sense at all. However, the foibles of young Corinthians would have to wait. “Jane,” — she swaddled her in a tender embrace— “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“Then why has he not returned?” her friend mumbled into her clothing. “Why does he avoid my company? Ignore me? Gaze at me with such utter distaste.”
“I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding. Perhaps… perhaps, he is waiting for some cue from you to say that you might begin again, since the first time went so badly.” Linfield did not strike her as the sort to think of anyone’s feelings but his own, but she was loathe to condemn him after such a short acquaintance.
“Oh, to think I considered him my salvation.” Jane screeched with surprising vigour. “The proposal was so timely.”
She shook her head, then pulled at the pins securing her coif, releasing the strands of her hair in a tumbling cascade, before making thorough use of her handkerchief.
“I have heard,” Eliza said tiptoeing into the subject. “That some men imagine their wives too delicate for such pleasures, and that they feel quite unable to demand of them what they seek without remorse from a mistress.”
“You think he has a mistress?”
“That is not…” This was ridiculous. Of course the man had a mistress. Probably more than one along with a score of bastards to his name too. He’d be a funny sort of rakehell if he didn’t. But there was no sense in disturbing Jane’s mind with such thoughts, since there was clearly no mistress residing at Cedarton to provide Linfield with the satisfaction he ought to be seeking from his new wife.
“Eliza, I fear he means to leave me here.” Jane wrung her hands. She looked up, eyes red, and skin ashen. “Once whatever this matter is that has brought us here is resolved, he’ll gallop back into town with his barnacles, and I’ll be left here to wither with only the housekeeper and a maid for company.” Her lip trembled, and hot tears spilled.
“Now you are being far-fetched. I’m sure that’s not true. His family will expect an heir at the very least.”
