The Touch (36 page)

London, April 1885

Dearest Ruby,

We are to come home at last—well, at the beginning of the autumn, anyway. Oh, I am so glad! Alexander has decided to sail with us, thanks to your ongoing correspondence about Po and the sewage situation. I agree, Po is a nice pun. There’s a river in northern Italy called the Po—a splendid stream, very strong and wide, and not that far from the most peaceful and beautiful place I have ever seen, the Italian lakes. I like Italy more than any other country in Europe, including Great Britain. The people have such a sunny attitude to life, though they are pitifully poor. And they sing, sing, sing. So do the Welsh, but darkly.

It is very odd being Lady Kinross, though Alexander wallows in his knighthood. Well, I understand that. It vindicates him in the eyes of Scottish Kinross. Unfortunately Dr. Murray and my father were well and truly dead by the time he became Sir Alexander. Therefore Alexander now hopes that there is a life after death, just so the pair of them know he’s a knight and can seethe about it. Whereas I believe that all Alexander’s many honors and vast wealth have no power to impress Dr. Murray and my father, in this life or in the next. They would simply snort and say none of it can alter the fact that Alexander is not his father’s child. As ineradicable as Original Sin.

I did not end in going back to Scottish Kinross. Oh, Ruby, I quailed at the very idea of sweeping into that little town in all my French splendor and jewels! A petty action. Foolish I may be, but petty? Never! However, Alexander did take me recently to Edinburgh, as Lee goes up there in October to do his doctorate. In Edinburgh I met my sister Jean—Mrs. Robert Montgomery of Princes Street. I have never been able to forget how shabbily she treated Alastair and Mary when they took me to the London train. Yes, I have forgiven her, but that is not the same. So I asked Alexander to invite Alastair and Mary to Edinburgh and put them up in magnificent style. Foolish, Ruby. They were two fish out of water, hideously uncomfortable and terrified of making a faux pas. Why is it that we commit our worst sins in a spirit of charity? Though for their sake I admit it was nice to rub Jean’s nose in my ladyshipness. Alexander says that her husband is too fond of young men, and that all of Edinburgh knows it. So poor Jean. No wonder there have been no children. She is brittle in manner and drinks too much.

Nell has turned nine and Anna eight. Nell has these shocking conflicts with her tutor, who can’t control her and can no longer teach her—she’s outgrown the extent of his knowledge. Anna has discovered four verbs—need, want, play, gone.

The Chinese girls have had a wonderful time. I make sure that they have plenty of holidays, which, when we’re in London, they spend at Madame Tussaud’s or at the zoo.

I am sorry I haven’t seen much of Lee, but he’s so busy. I imagine you’re thrilled that he’s graduating with First Class Honors. An extremely sophisticated and charming young man whose nickname is, inevitably, “The Prince.” Enough of his fellow Proctorians have attended Cambridge to guarantee that.

I will write again, of course, but I did want you to know as soon as possible that we’re coming home.

Much love, Elizabeth.

NELL TURNED twelve on New Year’s Day of 1888, and shortly thereafter began to menstruate. As she owned her father’s long, lean physique, her breast development was rudimentary, a fact that had allowed her to ignore this first evidence of maturity. But the arrival of her courses could not be ignored, especially with Elizabeth for a mother.

“You can’t romp around anymore, Nell,” said Elizabeth to her, trying to remember all the things Mary had said to her when her courses had begun. “From now on you have to behave like a young lady—no more adventures into the mines and workshops, and no more being chummy with the men. If you have to pick something up off the floor, you keep your legs together and bend at the knees in a way that takes your whole body down. Under no circumstances do you sit with your legs apart or kick them up in the air.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Mum?”

“Modest behavior, Nell. And don’t look at me like that.”

“It sounds like utter rubbish! I have to sit with my legs together? I can’t kick them up in the air?”

“Not anymore. Your drawers might be stained.”

“Only when I’ve got my courses,” Nell said mutinously.

“You don’t know when you might have them—they’re quite irregular at first. I’m sorry, Nell, but playtime’s over,” said Elizabeth in an iron tone. “You’ll remain in short dresses for another two years, but you will behave like a young lady.”

“I don’t believe this!” Nell cried, gasping theatrically. “You’re cutting me out of Daddy’s life! I’m like his son!”

“You are his daughter, not his son.”

Nell stared at her mother in dawning horror. “Mum! You—you haven’t told him?”

“Yes, naturally I told him,” said Elizabeth, thrown on to the defensive. “Sit down, Nell, please.”

“I can’t!”

“When Anna was a baby,” Elizabeth began, forced to explain herself, “I didn’t see as much of her as a mother should, so I thought she was just a little backward, not mental. It was you who asked your father what was the matter with Anna, and he who realized Anna was mental. And I got into a lot of trouble with him over it.”

“You deserved to!” said Nell, snarling.

“Yes, I did deserve to. But ever since then I’ve made very sure that I tell your father about everything that happens to Anna or to you.”

“You’re a dreadful woman!”

“Oh, please, Nell, be reasonable!”

“It’s you who isn’t reasonable! You just want to spoil my life, Mum! You just want to keep me from Daddy!”

“That’s unfair and untrue,” Elizabeth protested.

“Piss off, Mum! Just piss off!” cried Nell.

“Mind your manners and your tongue, Eleanor.”

“Oh, I’m Eleanor now, am I? Well, I refuse to be Eleanor! My name is Nell!” And off Nell stormed to howl out her rage in the privacy of her room.

Leaving Elizabeth limp and at a loss. That didn’t turn out as I intended—did I react the same way when Mary dealt with my courses? No, I listened obediently and behaved as Mary said I must from that moment on. Was she kinder than I’ve just been? More tactful? No, I don’t believe so. What I do remember was feeling as if I had just been admitted into some secret society, and rather treasuring my membership. Why did I assume Nell would react as I did when she’s so clearly not like me? I was hoping that I’d make a friend of her in this women’s conspiracy, yet all I’ve done is antagonize her. Doesn’t Nell realize that from this time on she’s a target for men? That every time she goes where there are a lot of men, she’s running the risk of inviting their attention in ways a child doesn’t dream exist?

THOUGH ALEXANDER didn’t mention the matter to her, Nell was far too clever not to see the change in him between one day and the following one. He eyed her differently, with a mixture of awe and grief. As if, she thought, burning with embarrassment, she had suddenly turned into someone he didn’t know and couldn’t trust. Never having esteemed the lot of women, Nell hated the fact that Nature had just reminded her that she was a woman. Especially because Daddy now regarded her as a stranger. Very well! If she was to be a stranger to Daddy, then he would become a stranger to her. Nell withdrew from him.

Luckily Alexander understood the reason for Nell’s withdrawal enough to confront her.

“Do you think that I want you to turn into a prim and proper young lady, Nell?” he asked from his favorite easy chair in the library, she sitting opposite him with her legs clamped together in case her drawers were stained.

“What other choice is there, Daddy? I’m not a boy.”

“I never thought you were a boy. You must forgive me if I’ve been a little distant these past few weeks—it’s a shock to realize how swiftly time flies, is all. My wee friend is growing up, so I feel old,” he said.

“Old? You, old, Daddy?” she demanded, outraged. “It’s just that our fun is over! Mum doesn’t want me to go into the mine with you, or to the workshops, or—or anything! I have to stop acting like a tomboy, but I don’t want to stop being a tomboy! I want to go with you, Daddy—with you!”

“And you will, Nell. But your mother asked me to give you a little breathing space to get used to things.”

“She would!” said Nell bitterly.

“Don’t forget that her upbringing was very strict,” Alexander said, quite as annoyed with Elizabeth as Nell was—how dared she try to frighten this most beloved child into abandoning him? “To her, once you’re a woman in fact, you must learn to be a young lady in the full sense of that phrase. Mothers tend to think of their daughters as prey for the attentions of men, whereas I believe that they’re pretty safe provided they don’t encourage attentions. And I can’t see you doing that, Nell,” he said with a smile. “I do not intend to lose my best friend—you.”

“So I can still go with you to the mine and the workshops?”

“Try and stop me taking you!”

“Oh, Daddy, I love you!” she cried, climbing on to his lap and throwing her arms about his neck.

Alexander had had a lecture from Elizabeth too, been informed that from now on he wasn’t to let Nell sit on his knee or behave like a little girl rather than a young lady. But, he thought, arms tightening around Nell’s still childish body, Elizabeth is mistaken. Why is it that her sort of upbringing always assumes the worst of people? Am I suddenly supposed to lust after my own flesh and blood, simply because she’s growing up? What ridiculous nonsense! I’m damned if I’ll deprive Nell of the overt affection I’ve always given her! And can Elizabeth really believe that any man would try to plunder Sir Alexander Kinross’s virgin daughter? Were Nell a Ruby—and that, she’ll never be!—no man would dare to make overtures to her. My name and power protect her.

ONCE NELL was readmitted into her father’s life on the old footing, the only lasting effect of her menarche was to widen the gulf between Alexander and Elizabeth, who didn’t—couldn’t—approve of Alexander’s decision to keep on treating Nell as he always had. Elizabeth’s sense of propriety told her that this time she was in the right of it, Alexander in the wrong. Her sole comfort was that Nell continued to be dismally plain. Her hair was thick and black and by far her chief glory, but her brows were equally thick and black—and were pointed, devilish. A rather big nose sat above Alexander’s too-thin mouth, and her long face held cheekbones so stark that they rendered it cavernous. The eyes, such a vivid blue, looked out of their deep orbits with a steady, slightly derisive expression. In fact, Nell had the mien of someone prepared to go to the stake for what she believed in, and that was not a comfortable look for a young lady.

In the schoolroom she ruled the roost. Her time with Mr. Fowldes in London had taught her that there was no point in trying to be submissive, because that only led to contempt; it was far better to be caned, to be dragged before her father, to cock a snook no matter what punishment might be dished out. For the only punishment that might have made Nell knuckle under was one that her father would never condone: the termination of her education in favor of one more suitable for young ladies.

With no son of his own, Alexander had pinned his hopes on Nell, who worshiped him so much that she couldn’t bear to tell him what she really wanted to be—a doctor of medicine. It was, besides, an impossible ambition, even for Sir Alexander Kinross’s daughter. Women were banned from Sydney University’s medical faculty, and always would be. Oh, she could go abroad to study, or even go to Melbourne University, but Daddy wanted an heir of his own blood to succeed him, and that meant mining and metallurgy in the faculty of Engineering. Which had never admitted a female student either, but didn’t contain a law forbidding the enrollment of a female, as Medicine did. An oversight due to short sight: no one could credit that a female might want to do engineering.

However, the change in Nell’s body did lead to some changes in the way she looked at things, especially the situation between her mother and her father. It was the one area Alexander never spoke to her about, yet the one area she burned most to know about. Always her father’s partisan, Nell blamed her mother, who, the moment Alexander hoved into view, retreated into an icy display of impeccable manners. Daddy’s response to being shut out was to assume an air of faint displeasure that often deteriorated into witty barbs, snapped rejoinders. Natural responses for him; his was the more stormy temperament, less patient, not long-suffering. What Mum was underneath, no one knew, least of all Nell. Daddy called her a melancholic, whereas Nell, who read everything she could find of a medical nature, didn’t deem her mother either a melancholic or a neurasthenic. Instinct said that Mum was just desperately unhappy, yet how could that be? Auntie Ruby and Daddy?

Nell never remembered not knowing about Auntie Ruby and Daddy, the most open of relationships. No, it couldn’t lie at the base of Mum’s unhappiness, because Mum and Auntie Ruby were extremely close friends. In fact, they were a lot closer to each other than Mum was to Daddy.

But it was here that Nell’s oddly sheltered life to date could not help her. Never having gone to a regular school, she had no idea that this curious play of emotions between Daddy, Mum and Auntie Ruby was not only socially unacceptable, but also utterly bizarre. Queen Victoria would have refused to admit that it could exist.

“But I can’t talk to her,” said Elizabeth to Ruby after the business of Nell’s courses. “I’ve burned my fingers enough. You talk to her, Ruby. She respects you more than she does me anyway.”

“The trouble is, darling Elizabeth, that every time you look at Nell, you see Alexander.” Ruby sighed. “Send her down to the hotel for lunch and I’ll try.”

THE INVITATION was unusual enough to pique Nell’s curiosity, so she set off wondering what was in the wind.

“It’s time,” Ruby began once a lunch of Chinese food had been devoured, “that you became more fully acquainted with the situation between your mother, your father, and me.”