I knew when I first met Alistair and Janet that they didn’t like me. Nor did Gerard, Neill’s brother. Beatrice, his sister, didn’t seem to care about me one way or another, but she always followed her parents’ lead. Neill had assured me they would “warm up” to me, but if anything, their warming up turned into more of a white-hot hatred.
Alistair and Janet had apparently always been old-fashioned, even for folks in their small rural village. Modern attitudes toward women were something they couldn’t accept and they didn’t seem to be interested in trying to understand. They were convinced that Neill’s marriage to a university professor would bring nothing but heartache to him. They believed I would be a shrill, demanding, unsatisfied shrew who would cause Neill no end of misery with my nagging. They had fervently hoped Neill would marry a good village girl and told me so on many occasions.
I tried to be a good daughter-in-law, but they weren’t interested in listening to anything I had to say or seeing any of the tender things I did for Neill in their presence. I talked to Neill about it several times, explaining why I didn’t like to visit them or talk to them on the phone or even talk about them when they were an ocean away. But Neill never understood. He never believed his parents treated me poorly when he wasn’t looking.
And before long, he began to believe the things Alistair and Janet told him. He began to think I was too smart for my own good, too talkative, too pushy. He would bemoan my “feminism” and remark that he wished I would stay home and raise our daughter like other good mothers. He would say I wasn’t doing the family any favors by continuing to work after Ellie was born.
We visited Alistair and Janet when Ellie was a year old. We were spending the summer in Scotland, visiting friends and family. Although I had taught summer courses until Ellie was born, I took that summer off to spend with her and Neill. I didn’t want to visit Alistair and Janet, and I didn’t think it was a good atmosphere for our baby. I wanted to stay in Dumfries, and I told Neill I thought it would be a good idea if he visited his parents by himself.
He insisted that Ellie and I go with him, and rather than putting up a fight, I relented and drove up to Glensaig with him at dawn one day during a raging summer storm. Rain lashed the car, and the wind tried its best to blow us off the road. Neill was exhausted and cross when we reached his parents’ home, but he seemed to cheer up when we saw his family. They greeted him with hugs and slaps on the back, fussed over the baby, and had nothing but scowls for me.
I tried not to let it bother me. I even offered to help make the noon meal, but Janet told me she didn’t want my help. I was sure she’d want me to help, if only to mock my kitchen skills. Besides, that’s where the Gramercys believed a woman should be. Instead, I took Ellie to the third floor, where it would be quiet and far away from the family, and sang to her in one of the small bedrooms in the back. A beautiful painting by the Scots landscape and marine impressionist William McTaggart hung on one wall, and I stared at the painting while I cuddled Ellie. The ceilings in the room sloped steeply, and there was only one small window. It was a strange room, with a thick wooden door I assumed was a relic of the ancient past.
I assumed wrong.
I didn’t hear the key turning in that thick soundproof door to lock us in. I didn’t hear a person stealing away down the back stairs, leaving me and Ellie alone in the farthest bedroom where no one would hear my cries for help. It was a little while before I realized we were trapped, prisoners in my husband’s childhood home. I tried banging on the door, but to no avail. I realized with a groan that I had left my mobile phone with my purse in the sitting room downstairs, so I couldn’t call or text Neill to let him know where we were.
Holding Ellie in my arms, trying to stay calm so she wouldn’t sense my distress, I walked to the window, where I could see, three stories down, Neill and his father walking out to one of the barns on the property, their heads protected by umbrellas, their Wellies squelching through the thick mud. I set Ellie down on the floor and tried banging on the window, but with the rain and the distance to the ground, neither of the men heard me. Did Alistair know I was up here? I knew they couldn’t keep us in that room forever, but I was furious. I fumed for hours, getting up every few minutes to pound on the door and yell for Neill. Ellie started to cry eventually, sensing my growing alarm. I was still nursing her, so she wasn’t going to go hungry. But I was hungry and I had to use the bathroom.
I ended up having to use a ceramic chamber pot I found in a closet.
I peered out the tiny window every few minutes, watching and waiting for Neill to come back from the outbuildings with Alistair. When I finally saw them trudging toward the house through the rain, I tried pounding on the window again, but to no avail. Neither even looked up.
When I was sure Neill was in the house again, I tried pounding on the door. Ellie cried when I yelled for my husband, but the room had been soundproofed so thoroughly that my fists made only dull thuds on the door. I knew no one outside the room could hear me.
While Ellie dozed, I got up and crossed the room to examine the painting under the eave more closely. I was stunned that such a beautiful piece of art would be hidden from view. Art was meant to be shared, and it deserved a place of honor in the house.
Suddenly Ellie woke up with a sneeze, which was not surprising, as the room was covered with dust. I sat down on the bed with her as she drowsed, waiting for her to go back to sleep. When she slept again, I stayed there with her, keeping watch over her as the sliver of gray daylight coming from the window moved across the floor, eventually fading to a gloaming light.
I was checking the window again when I saw Neill pull away from the house in our car. I wondered where he was going, what he was thinking. Not long after that, I heard a soft scraping noise again and knew the key was being turned in the lock. Leaving Ellie asleep on the bed, I tiptoed to the door and opened it, but no one was there. I looked in both directions down the long, dimly lit hallway, but there was no trace of anyone. I went back into the room, gathered Ellie in my arms, and stole quietly downstairs and into the sitting room. Beatrice walked in a few minutes later.
“Who locked us up on the third floor?” I demanded angrily, trying to be quiet because Ellie was still sleeping.
Beatrice gave me a blank look. “I dinnae know what yer talkin’ about,” she said. “Is that where you’ve been? We’ve been wonderin.”
I stared at her. My hands shook and I could feel my face turning red with anger. “Where’s Neill?” I asked through clenched teeth.
She shrugged. “He took off. He was so mad that you left with Ellie and dinnae tell him where you went all day.”
“You know exactly where I was all day.” I stopped, knowing I wouldn’t get anywhere with her. “Where’s Janet?”
“In the kitchen, still working. You should probably offer to help since you’ve been gone for so long.” She turned and left the room. I was sure she knew full well where I had been and I knew I was helpless to prove it to anyone.
I got the same treatment from Janet when I went into the kitchen after Ellie woke up. She offered me nothing but a scowl and questions about why I left “poor Neill” without telling him where I was going and why I couldn’t be a “good and proper wife.”
And it only got worse when Neill came back. He stormed in the front door, letting it slam behind him. Ellie, on the floor in the sitting room, let out a scream and began to cry. I was sitting next to her and I gathered her into my lap. Neill came to the door and stared at me, his left eye twitching and his nostrils flaring.
“Where’ve you been?” he yelled.
“I was locked in the third-floor bedroom all day,” I answered quietly.
Neill snorted. “You don’t really expect me to believe that, Greer. Now, dammit, tell me where you went with Ellie!”
I stood up, my fists clenched by my sides. I left Ellie on the floor at my feet, where she continued to scream. “I am telling you the truth, Neill. One of your delightful family members locked me in the room upstairs. Do you know it’s soundproofed? I tried banging on the door, but no one heard me. Or at least you didn’t. I tried banging on the windows when I saw you and your father go out to the barns, but the rain made it impossible for you to hear me.”
“That’s a load of rubbish!” he yelled, taking a step closer to me. “And of course I know it’s soundproofed. Mum likes to read in there. She needs total silence when she reads.”
“You need to drive me and Ellie back to Dumfries. I cannot stay here another minute.”
“I will do no such thing,” he said.
“Where have you been, anyway?” I asked him.
“Out looking for you!” he bellowed, his eyes bulging and the vein in his neck protruding.
“I was here all the time. All you needed to do was ask your mother or your sister. They knew very well where Ellie and I were. Check the chamber pot. I had to use it while I was stuck up there.”
He turned on his heel and ran out of the room. I could hear him charging up the stairs, then up the second flight. He came rushing back down just a few moments later, holding the chamber pot in his hands.
“See?” he demanded. “Clean! You lying bampot!”
I walked over to where he stood, looking into the chamber pot. He was right—it was spotless.
“Someone washed it out,” I told him.
He scoffed. “Sure, Greer. Your phantom strikes again. Now, I’ll only ask you one more time. Was it another man? Is that where you’ve been?”
“Neill, I insist that you take me back to my mother’s house.”
“You are not leaving,” Neill said. “You will stay here with my family until I am ready to return to Dumfries. And you are not leaving my sight.”
“Neill, why don’t you believe me?” I asked lowering my voice so his family couldn’t hear our conversation.
“Greer, I know you hate my family for reasons that no one else understands. They have always been perfectly pleasant to you.”
“Perfectly pleasant?!” I hissed, practically choking on the words. “They’ve been perfectly awful from the day I met them!”
“You are too sensitive, and you’re also wrong. Just this morning I heard my mother tell you that she didn’t want you to help in the kitchen. She was just thinking of you and Ellie. That was very thoughtful of her, and you repay her kindness by accusing her of imprisoning you!”
“Neill, she wasn’t being kind. She was being rude. She didn’t want me in the kitchen because she can’t stand the sight of me.”
He stared at me as if he were looking at a stranger. “You are denigrating my mother, and I will not listen to it. You owe her an apology.”
“You’re mad if you think I’m going to apologize to any of the nutters in your family.”
That’s when Neill reached out and slapped me across the face. I put my hand up to my stinging cheek and blinked. Ellie was still screaming, but her cries faded to silence as the blood rushed to my ears, and all I could register was my own anger and shock. It took me a moment to gather myself and reach down to pick up our daughter. I knew he wouldn’t dare hit her, so I didn’t worry for her safety. But I was furious.
It was then I knew, long before the gambling started, that my marriage to Neill was not going to last.
I grabbed my handbag so I wouldn’t be caught again without my phone and stalked upstairs to the second floor bedroom where we had stayed in the past. I put Ellie down on the floor and reached for my phone. I called my mother.
“Mum? Can you come get me and Ellie?”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Just typical Gramercy stuff.” I was telling the truth, just not all of it. Neill’s assault had been anything but typical.
“Greer, you may want to reconsider and stay there. You married into that family and you’re stuck with them now. Why don’t you try to make the best of it?”
Even my mother wasn’t going to help.
I sighed. “Okay, Mum. I’ll try.” She would have driven up in an instant if she had known Neill had struck me, but I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want to worry her.
I hadn’t eaten all day and I was starving, but I refused to go looking for food in the kitchen. I dug around in my handbag and found a cereal bar and a small piece of chocolate. Though I still nursed Ellie, she was eating solid food and she was probably hungry, too. I tore off small pieces of the cereal bar and gave them to her. She reached for them with her chubby little hands and put them in her mouth. As she chewed, a smile began to spread across her face. It was the first smile I had seen on her in hours and suddenly I began to cry. I buried my face in my hands and cried for several long minutes until the tears dried up by themselves. Ellie seemed to sense my frustration and anxiety because she climbed into my lap and snuggled against my chest, not making a sound, sucking her thumb.
Scooping her up again, I returned to the sitting room downstairs and retrieved our overnight bag. I put her in pajamas, and she fell asleep while I was rocking her in the bedroom on the second floor. My argument with Neill played itself over and over in my head until I couldn’t bear to think about it any longer. When he eventually came upstairs to go to bed, I didn’t speak to him or even look at him. I sat in the rocking chair with my eyes closed, Ellie in my lap. I waited for him to come over to me, to whisper an apology, to say he realized how difficult it was for me to be in his parents’ house, but he did nothing. When his breathing became regular and shallow, I put Ellie in her bed and stole upstairs to the third floor bedroom where I had been imprisoned for so many hours earlier.
I don’t know what compelled me to go, but I had to see that painting again. The McTaggart.
I propped open the door with a chair, which I carried across the room so no one would hear it scraping the floor. I wasn’t taking any chances on being shut in that room again. I switched on a small lamp on the bedside table. As the dim light swallowed a bit of the darkness, it shone a small puddle of light toward the wall where the McTaggart painting hung, its wooden frame gathering dust and cobwebs. I stared at the painting for the next hour, trying to imprint on my brain every nuanced brushstroke, every hint of light and shadow. I had studied McTaggart for my Ph.D., and I remembered being thrilled when I learned Neill’s family owned an original. Surprisingly, having been locked in the room with the painting didn’t lessen the thrill. I still felt chills when I looked at the work.
Eventually I walked over to the painting to examine it more closely and to brush off the dust and cobwebs. That such a magnificent work of art should be hidden away like this, let alone covered in filth, was unthinkable.
I inhaled sharply when I heard a soft sound directly behind me. I wheeled around and stood face-to-face with Gerard, Neill’s older brother. I had only seen him a few times since marrying Neill, and he scared me a bit. Under bushy eyebrows knit together in a frown, his glittering eyes stared at me.
“Hello, Gerard. Nice to see you again.”
“Why are you in here?” he asked, obviously feeling no warmth toward me.
“I was just having a look at the McTaggart. I studied him when I was in school.”
He scowled. “It’s a wee bit suspicious that you’re in here by yourself late at night.”
“I couldn’t sleep and I thought it would relax me to look at the painting.”
“Are you done?” he asked, clipping his words.
I nodded. “I guess I am now,” I said.
“Good. Don’t be sneaking around the house at night anymore.”
I quickly ducked out of the room, feeling his eyes boring into my back as I hastened, shivering, down the hallway.