The Blackhouse Bride Page 2

  Her father marched to her and snatched the volume from her hand. He glared at the spine. "A novel!" he spat.

  It would have made little difference to the outcome, perhaps, for her father believed that all book learning was wicked folly for a girl of her station, but for the sake of her own pride, Bridie wished that she had been caught reading the Latin primer, or the Shakespeare. She hung her head and trembled. "I'm sorry, Father."

  "Aye. As well you should be. Did I not expressly forbid you to waste your time with reading?"

  "Yes, Father."

  "And a novel - filthy, immoral spew of the devil." He made to fling it into the fire.

  "No!" Bridie screamed. "Father, no - that belongs to Dr Menzies!"

  Her father hesitated, then lowered his arm and tossed the book onto the floor instead. "Dr Menzies," he spat contemptuously, but he was clearly unwilling to destroy the property of the minister of the parish.

  Bridie well knew that her father's opinion of Dr Menzies' theology, and therefore of his character in general, was not high at all, although he rarely spoke against him outright.

  She became aware of the great bulk of Callum, her father's apprentice, looming just outside the door. He was hanging back in a show of respect, but she knew that he was watching her reprimanding avidly.

  "And why is the house all in darkness?" her father continued. "We come home on this freezing day, earlier than I thought we might, expecting a warm house - tea ready - dinner cooking on the stove. I smell no meat cooking, child. Have you even started dinner?"

  "I - no, Father, I'm very sorry. I forgot. I - "

  "Do you mean to tell me that you have been sat here since I went away, reading - reading a novel?"

  "I - yes, Father," she whispered. "I'll go and light the lamps and the other fires and put the stew on right away - "

  She made a helpless, hopeless move for the door, but her father stopped her with a single firm grasp of her arm. She sagged, and stood still, her stomach doing sickish somersaults. How could she have been so stupid as not even to have remembered to light the lamps, and put on the dinner? Most of it had been prepared early that morning by Peggy.

  "Aye," he said, "you will do all that right enough, but not right away. Callum, go and see to the horses and put away the tools while I deal with this idle, disobedient daughter."

  There was no point in pleading her case, or begging to be spared. Bridie was fully aware that she was entirely guilty of both offences, and deserved the punishment that her father never hesitated to deal out. She only wished that he were not so merciless in his adherence to Proverbs 13:24, He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Or that he would interpret it more literally, and not apply it to a daughter.

  Slowly, moving deliberately, her father lit the lamp near the window and closed the shutters that she had also forgotten to attend to. Then he reached up to the shelf and thumped the family Bible down onto the table.

  "This book," he said, laying his hand upon it, "is the only book you need. It is the only book fit to be read by a girl in the station of life where God has placed you. Fine fancy ladies with their accomplishments may do what they please, but you are a farrier's daughter, and may one day be a farrier's wife, and you can have no higher duty than to keep your father's house and obey his commands."

  "Yes, Father."

  He opened the Bible and flicked with practised fingers to a page he seemed to know well. "Read it." He turned the book towards her.

  Her voice cracking a little, Bridie read from where his finger indicated the start of Ephesians 6. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honour thy father and mother, which is the first commandment..."

  "And do you think, Bridie, that you have obeyed and honoured your father today?"

  "No," she said, hardly able to get the word past her dry throat, twisting her hands. She wished he would get it over with. The lecture, the inevitable appeal to Bible verses, was almost the worst part of a punishment, because it prolonged the terror of anticipation.

  It was almost the worst part, but not quite. That came when at length he turned to the fireplace, where the long leather strap hung always on its hook. This strap had been especially made by the tanner in Kirkhaven as an instrument of chastisement, when Bridie had been twelve years old and had picked up a sixpence she found lying on the floor, concealed it and spent it secretly on sweetmeats. Her crime had been discovered when the apprentice at the time had missed his coin, and she had broken down and confessed. Her father had not deemed a hiding over his knee with the sole of his old leather slipper, her usual punishment up until then, to be severe enough for such an offence. He had commissioned the strap to be made, she had waited a miserable week for the leathering of her young life, and the fearful instrument had hung in full view by the fire ever since. She knew it was kept there to remind her to do her duty and be virtuous, and it had to be said that she had never again even thought of being dishonest about money.

  Many times, however, her father had laid the strap across her backside for the offence of idleness and even disobedience, and she never seemed to learn that lesson. She had already been beaten twice before for reading, even after he had expressly forbidden it. To fail to prepare the dinner too because of it was folly bordering on wickedness, and Bridie's eyes were filled with tears of anger and contrition even as she bent forwards over the parlour table to take her punishment.

  And indeed it was very bad. Bridie dug her fingers around the edges of the table and screwed her face into a silent grimace as she fought to avoid crying out at each relentless lash. For one small mercy, her father had never bared her behind. She thought he probably would not consider that seemly. He brought the strap down over the skirt of her worsted house dress, and the cotton petticoat beneath. But those two layers of fabric, after several strokes of the belt, never seemed to offer much protection at all. The leather bit through the skirts with a sting she thought could not possibly be more ferocious on bare skin. She also wondered if her father did not trouble to spare the considerable strength of his forge-hardened arm, since he thought a hiding over skirts was an easy one.

  Today, he certainly did not hold back. He had never swung the fearsome strap so hard. From the first stroke Bridie was gasping to hold back her cries, and eventually she could not. A moan escaped her as the belt lashed her thighs, and then a strangled wail as it struck an already-tender spot on the top of her buttocks.

  Her father disapproved of making any kind of fuss during a punishment. She was supposed to demonstrate her humility and repentance by fully submitting to chastisement without a murmur or complaint. Often when she had been younger he had admonished her for crying, and laid on extra strokes until she had learned to take the bite of the strap in silence. Afterwards, when she was alone, she would indulge in the relief of tears, and rub her aching backside to try and ease the lingering sting.

  Now, however, she could scarcely help herself. It hurt so much, and it seemed that he would never cease. He always left a measured pause between each lash, so that she had plenty of time to dread each before it fell, and she could never be sure whether he had decided that her punishment was over, or he was just giving her extra time to reflect upon her sins. More than once she dared to hope that he might give her the command to stand up, before another agonising stroke of the belt landed across her backside or thighs and made her grip the table and clench her teeth. But when the cry forced its way through her throat, she felt her father pause, and exhale a breath.

  "Bridie," he said, his voice quiet and almost regretful. "It pains me too, child, to have to punish you like this. But it is my God-given responsibility to guide you and correct you, when you need it. I would be neglecting that sacred duty if I let you carry on with your idle, frivolous ways."

  "Y-yes, Father," she mumbled against the table top. Her hair had fallen into her mouth. She was surprised, because he almost never spoke during the beating itself.

  "It
will not always be my responsibility, but while it is I will do my best to make sure you continue to grow into a virtuous, dutiful woman. Now take the rest of your lesson with a good grace, and learn it well, and there will be an end to it."

  She squeezed shut her eyes and braced herself. The four swingeing lashes that followed were as hard as any he had ever laid on her, and they came unexpectedly in rapid succession. It was all she could do to bear them in silence, but she did.

  After the last blow fell he bade her rise. She stood humbly before him, red in the face, trying not to let the tears come, trying not to reach behind to rub at her blazing, aching backside.

  "There," he said, stern again but calm. "I hope that taught you well."

  "Yes, Father." She could hear the beginning of tears in her voice.

  "And?"

  She had almost forgotten. "Th-thank you, sir, for correcting me."

  "Very well. Now go to your duties."

  As she shuffled out, desperate to attain the temporary privacy of the kitchen and have a little time to cry and attempt to ease the smart in her nether regions, she found that Callum was still standing right outside the door. She had a horrible suspicion that he had been behind the door the whole time, listening to her punishment. She almost brushed against him as she passed. She kept her face downturned, but out of the corner of her eye she saw his broad, satisfied grin.

  #

  It was with a heavy heart that Bridie walked the road between Bridge of Auchtie and Kirkhaven the next morning, carrying the precious bundle of books under her arm. Under her skirts, she could still feel the chafing effects of yesterday's chastisement. It had been one of the worst hidings she had ever had, she thought, and it had been so thoroughly deserved too. She was very wicked to harbour anger and resentment in her heart against her father for forbidding her books and learning, and she was resolved this time never to submit to the temptation of reading again.

  It had been an uncomfortable evening, trying to get through all the tasks she had left undone all afternoon and put dinner on the table at a time not too far beyond the regular hour, all the time with a sore backside. She sat uneasily at dinner, and she did not like the looks that Callum gave her. She had not much liked the way Callum had been looking at her for quite some time, whenever her father was not around, or when he thought, presumably, that her father would not notice. In her father's sight and hearing, Callum was ostentatiously pious. Bridie suspected he was no such thing, and she was beginning to find him repellent.

  Those thoughts occupied her as she crunched through the frost towards the stock square building of the Manse, which stood behind the kirk. She presented herself at the front door and asked the maid if Dr Menzies was at home. There was a short episode of confusion while she consulted within, and then the young maid scurried back to say that the minister would see her in his study.

  As Bridie was led through the small hallway towards the study, she was momentarily surprised to see the tall, spare figure of Mrs Menzies standing at the top of the staircase as if guarding it. Bridie had not often spoken to the minister's wife, being in no need of alms or assistance but equally, beneath her notice. Yet Mrs Menzies seemed to be glaring at her, as if finding her personally offensive.

  Bridie had not long to think about this before she was led into the study, and Dr Menzies rose from his fireside chair to greet her.

  "Bridie - my dear - this is a surprise. I - " He looked around her towards the door, as if expecting someone else to come in behind her.

  "Is this an inconvenient time, sir? I'm sorry - you did say I might call whenever I could, and if you were at home it would be all right."

  "No, no, no, yes. Quite all right. Quite all right, but the fact is - sit down, Bridie. I was intending to send a note this very morning, asking if you would come to see me."

  Bridie sat in the other armchair by the fire, conscious as she did so that she could feel a tenderness from yesterday's hiding still.

  Dr Menzies leaned forwards, and steepled his fingers together in a characteristic gesture. He was an elderly gentleman, or at least Bridie thought him so, with his long, straggling grey hair, his thin face with its kind blue eyes, and his dusty, old-fashioned frockcoat. Today, however, those eyes would not somehow look at her directly, and he seemed to be hesitating over his words. "Bridie - my dear - I have very much enjoyed teaching you, I'm sure you know how highly I think of your intellect, and how much I respect your passion for knowledge."

  "You have been very kind to me, sir."

  "In all my years as minister, I've run many Sunday schools for the children of farm labourers, and crofters, and artisans and tradesmen such as your father. I was also for a time proprietor of a small school for the sons of gentlemen - well, I think I told you that."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And, in all that time, I rarely came across a boy - of whatever degree - with as much understanding and potential, and indeed as hard working, as I find in you."

  While Bridie flushed with pleasure inside, she could hear a huge 'but' hovering in his hesitant tone.

  "Indeed, I have championed more than one boy of humble origins, and helped him by the application of his intellect to raise himself in the world. Some people do not believe this is morally defensible - many people contend that everyone should learn to be content in the sphere of life in which God has placed them, and others that it is nothing less than cruel to encourage false ambitions. But I do not think this is always the case. You remember Gray, I'm sure?"

  "Yes, sir. Do you mean, Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air?"

  Dr Menzies grew momentarily more animated. "Yes, indeed. Oh, very good, Bridie, you follow my train of thought like the hound to the vixen. You see? This is what I mean. And though Gray might have thought it inevitable that Some mute inglorious Milton may here rest, I do not. In the past, if I have found a boy in a croft or blacksmith's forge, who seemed to me to have the potential to be more than that, I have endeavoured to give him the means to do so. There was Tommy Meikle, who is now a physician practising in Edinburgh, though his father was a tanner - and James Brown, who lectures in law at the University. I have to say - they were clever lads, and applied themselves, but you are fully the equal of either of them at that age. In mind, that is. However - " He sighed. "It has pleased the Almighty to make us not beings of pure spirit, able to love exclusive of membrane, joint or limb like Milton's angels, but fashioned from the clay of the Earth. Male and female created he them. How old are you now, Bridie?"

  "I am twenty years of age now, sir. My birthday was last month."

  "Twenty! Dear, dear. You were all of ten years old when you first started having lessons from me, a mere slip of a child. Do you remember?"

  Of course she remembered. Her father had not much liked her staying behind at the manse after the morning service, but he could hardly refuse the minister. Besides, she had no work to do that day, as her father was a strict observer of the Sabbath and required her to prepare their Sunday meals the night before. On the Sabbath, they did nothing but read the Bible, go to church, and eat cold meat. Sometimes - many times - it occurred to Bridie how many of those dreary Sunday hours she could have spent instead on study, since she was not to work. And always she repented immediately of these wicked thoughts, and re-applied herself to reading Scripture for the hundredth time.

  "And, since then, you have blossomed - into what I see before me now. A beautiful young woman, not a child. You will want a husband soon."

  "Oh, no, sir. I could not leave my father."

  "Ah well, all young ladies say that, and they all do. Your father, I'm sure, would wish to see you respectably married, as much as anyone."

  "Sir, I - " She wondered whether she ought to speak out, but she had told Dr Menzies more of her inner thoughts than she had anyone. He was, she realised suddenly, her only true friend; unlikely as that seemed, with the disparity in their age and rank. "I am not sure I want to marry at all. I wou
ld, if I could, devote myself to study and remain celibate all my life."

  "Ah, my dear." Dr Menzies sighed again. "That is what I feared you might wish. And that is what can never, I'm afraid, be your fate. The Good Lord has made you a woman, and a beautiful woman, too. I might sponsor Tommy Meikle and James Brown to attend the University, but I cannot do anything like that for you. It is impossible. No woman may be admitted to any university, not in this country at any rate, and while there are ladies of letters - ladies of great learning, indeed - they are, I'm sorry to say, ladies. That, again, you can never be. Your own good sense must tell you that."

  Suddenly, she felt tears in her throat. She swallowed, and looked down at her hands and the bundle of books in her lap. Trying to keep her voice steady, she said, "Why do you say these things to me now?"

  "Because, Bridie my dear, it has become impossible for me to teach you anymore."

  "Why?" She had not expected that.

  Dr Menzies put a thin hand to his mouth and rubbed it. Then he spoke in a low soft voice, rapidly. "I will be perfectly frank with you, Bridie. It pains me to say it, but I will. My wife has required me to dismiss you."

  "Your wife?"

  He put up his hand. "Hush! Keep your voice down. She may be listening."

  In horror, Bridie glanced at the door. It was slightly ajar, and she was not sure if the maid had shut it behind her when she had admitted her.

  "Mrs Menzies is, has always been, subject to jealousy. I have often been accused, and I must add unjustly, of taking too much notice of many a fair parishioner. Lately she seems to have realised that you have, as I said earlier - blossomed. She is not happy for me to spend any time alone in your company, or - at all."

  The absurdity of the idea that Mrs Menzies - that anyone! - should suspect any impropriety between herself and the spare, elderly, intellectual clergyman would have made Bridie laugh, if it were not painful and shameful. She felt her cheeks blaze with mortification, and she stood up immediately. "If Mrs Menzies suspects me, sir, then I must ask your leave to go away immediately. I am not - I would not - my reputation is very important to me."