Page 38 of Beguiled
“Youwhat?”
“I followed her,” Euan repeated, defiant. “I was worried for her, so I followed her, and I’ve seen them together, and he’s just what you’d think, Davy. Cold and forbidding—she fears him. You can see it, just in the little ways they are together. I saw him criticising and berating her as they walked out their house and got into a carriage together. It took him less than a minute to have her quaking.”
“You should not be following her!”
“She needs help.”
“You are a…a known radical.” David paused before adding, “If the authorities see you following a peer’s wife around, they will think you plan some—some political scheme. They will arrest you.”
Euan reared back in surprise at that. “The authorities? What do mean,the authorities?”
David turned his attention to pouring himself more whisky, unable to look Euan in the eye when he couldn’t admit what he knew. “I’ve heard it said there are government men up from London tailing known troublemakers. I’m quite sure you fall into that category.”
“It seems like a lot of bother to go to over someone like me. I’ve no convictions—”
“Your brother was convicted of treason, and you write for a radical paper that has expressed republican views. The King is here. Peel himself and many of his men too. Peel will take no chance over the King’s safety, you can be sure, or his own. You should be prudent.”
Euan huffed out a frustrated sigh. “You’re right, I know. It’s just—it’s difficult for me to believe that Peel’s men would think me worth watching when I know how little my efforts achieve. The more I want to see the world change, the more it seems to stay the same.”
“The very fact that the government wants to close downFlint’sshould tell you that you’re having more of an effect than you may think.”
Euan thought about that, then nodded. “All right. I’ll be extra careful around Lady Kinnell.”
David sighed. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. You should stop following her altogether.”
“I can’t. I need to find a way of telling her that I’m willing to help her.”
“Help how?”
“Any way she needs, preferably by getting her away from her husband. The trouble is, she’s hardly ever alone. He keeps her chaperoned all the time. She’s like a prisoner.”
David remembered the footman who’d come to his door. He hadn’t liked the look of him.
Had Chalmers been subjected to that too? Visits from his daughter with her stony-faced guard in tow? Elizabeth had always been so bright and merry. It was awful to see her downtrodden like this. And yet—did they know what she herself thought of her situation? “How can you be sure shewantsto escape her husband?” David asked.
“I can’t,” Euan said shortly. “She’s had no chance to express a view. But I’ve eyes in my head. I see she’s unhappy.”
David thought of his Aunt Mamie back in Midlauder, the one who came knocking at his mother’s door on Saturday nights looking for a safe haven from her drunk husband, then insisted on going back to him each Sunday morning. “And what if you’re wrong?” he said. “What if she wants to stay with Kinnell and you’re caught hanging around trying to speak to her? You could make him angry with her. It could make things worse for her.”
“You think I haven’t thought of that?” Euan exclaimed. “Of course I have! But I’ve also wondered if she’s trapped with him, desperate to leave. Desperate to leave and unable to tell anyone.”
David flinched at the thought of gentle Elizabeth being terrorised. He thought of the smiling, confiding girl he’d first met, and how sad and reserved she seemed now. “All I’m saying is that we would have to be certain. She is his wife. He has rights over her we can do nothing about. We could inadvertently cause her more harm if we are too hasty. We need to find out what Elizabeth thinks before we do anything else.”
Euan gave a frustrated sigh. “This is not how marriage should be, with man exercising dominion over woman, like a master over a slave. It’s obscene.”
“I agree, but it is how things are. We must be practical.”
“Be practical,” Euan spat. Then he sighed and passed a hand over his face. “I realise I have to be careful. But I hate being told to be practical. It’s what people always say when they mean you must put up with injustice and oppression.”
“Injustice and oppression won’t go away just because you want them to. Sometimes you have to find a way of working around them. Take this client I have just now—Annie. When her husband died, she discovered he was a bigamist. That meant her marriage was void and her baby was illegitimate and they had no claim on the man’s estate as his wife and child. Now, I can’t change the law for Annie, but Icanhelp her by suing the estate in her father’s name.”
“You shouldn’t haveto do that, though.”
“I know, but mypoint is that to help individuals, sometimes we have to work within the bounds of how things are, not how we would want them to be.”
“Andmypoint is that to overcome the injustice you’ve described, we can’t just pragmatically help people one by one. We have to change the system. We have to win the battle of ideas. We have to give people new ideas to aspire to, ideas to replace the old ones. We have to say,this is wrong; this must change.”
“And that’s how we stop men wanting to enslave their wives? By inspiring them with new ideas?” David’s scepticism showed in his voice, he knew. But Euan seemed undaunted.