Beatrice was bored. She had no right to be: money was no real object; possessions were all around her; she had servants to wait on her and a husband who adored her. But she also had nothing really to do; the servants did anything that needed to be done and her husband, though she had no doubts of his fidelity, was busy with business and often away for far too long. She wasn't even too sure exactly what it was he did. Something in the city – whatever that might mean. He never talked to her about work – that would not be woman's business and he had his club if he needed the conversation and the company of men who understood such matters.
Away in the country, Beatrice felt isolated. The house was pretty and attractive. Well, no, it wasn't, not really! The mansion was large and impressive with far too many rooms. It was Beatrice who was pretty and attractive. She was kept as the beautiful wife in the country estate that befitted her husband's position. He loved her well. He loved all of his estate.
When it was sunny, she liked to walk in the grounds. The gardens were well kept and pretty, but often she found the orderliness of them reminded her too much of how her life had become ordered so neatly. When those feelings came upon her, she preferred to walk further and stroll through the woods where she found a wildness of nature that was more to her taste.
It was in the woods she came upon the hut, a crude building, ramshackle and weathered. Entirely of wood, it appeared to have grown from the ground rather than being constructed. When she looked closer, driven by her own curiosity, she found that in part, indeed, it had grown since two living trees seemed, to Beatrice's inexpert eye, to form part of its structure. Although clearly in use, when she had first come upon it, there had been no one inside. Logic said, if it was on her husband's property, that this also belonged to him, but entering, uninvited, a stranger's home like this seemed excitingly wicked.
After that first time, her walks in those woods often led her to that little wooden hut. Each time, she would peek in, noticing how things had moved around and imagining the person who lived there. It was a man; she never imagined anyone else. He had few possessions: a bed, nothing that could be described as bed linen, mainly sacking, but a large quilt. The quilt was a puzzle, until she remembered that it had been thrown out from the big house two years back. Beatrice had never really thought about where the things that she wanted no more actually went to, but here, now, one of them was. There were few, if any, personal possessions, which she found odd. Beatrice had a life full of possessions.
There was a wooden table and a chair. In one corner was a crude wardrobe. Looking inside, the clothes she found were unfamiliar to her and she became aware of how little notice she paid to the people in her husband's employ. She became to notice more the lives of the servants around her. It was clear to her that the shack was nothing to do with the house staff. It did not take her long, just a few days, to discover that the gardener wore those clothes.
Intruding (invisibly, she believed) into the life of another became a secret pleasure to her. Her life developed a new dimension through this and, it seemed to her, something hitherto missing was now not missing quite so much. And now that her lonely days had developed a little more interest for her young and fertile imagination, so had her lonely nights.
She imagined of how this man might be, painting him in such a way to fill the gaps of her life and the void of her emotion. It was easy to do, there was very little to prove that he might be otherwise. On one visit, she found a bible, well leafed by the bed. It was, she felt, a sure sign of an honest god fearing man. It was a shame he lived such a poor and lonely life. Her heart went out to him, sensing a kindred spirit.
As time passed and as her imagination helped to know this man better, her feelings for him developed, though they were somehow secret from her. Her position, her awareness of her role in the household made her blind to the truth of how she really felt or, when she thought of arms around her in bed holding her tight, who she was imagining those arms belonging to. Not knowing enough of those feelings deep within her to deny or confront them, they grew and flourished.
* * * *
The gardener, of course, was not quite the man Beatrice believed him to be. She had also romanticised the hut. Reuben the gardener did not live in the hut, which would have been far too cold for winter, he had warm comfortable lodgings in town. The hut, indeed, was his and used for other nefarious purposes: a place to shelter when weather was inclement; a place to rest when tired; a place to hold a change of clothes; a place to meet and take his pleasure of one of the maids at the big house.
Reuben had been aware of his ladyship's interest in his little hideyhole almost since she had first stumbled upon it. Initially, it had annoyed him having her poking around, but slowly her interest had aroused his and he became aware that, just as she was probing something of his private life, so was he a witness to a private pleasure of her own.
So, over time he watched and made his own observations. Sometimes he would place things for her to discover: a small wood carving; fresh flowers; apples from the orchard; a well-leafed bible, which was not his, but which he thought would show himself in a most favourable light to the young woman. He was unsure why he was doing this – perhaps he was trying to regain control of this part of his life which she had invaded – perhaps, in some way, he was trying to gain control of her, the invader.
He did not think of her unkindly. He could see her loneliness, her boredom and feel the need she had for something more to fulfil her. This growing empathy pulled him closer to her in his thoughts and it was not long before he began to think that the interest that she so evidently had in him might have another, hitherto unhidden, more sensual component. The more he considered that, the likelier it seemed. He wondered how aware she might be of her true desires. He was most aware of how his desires were growing and the young wife of his master, although a married woman, seemed to embody such a girlish virginal innocence that was hard for such a man as himself to resist.
It is important to realise that Reuben did not think of his young mistress as a married woman, nor the wife of his lord and master. Reuben considered very much that the world of the gentry was entirely separate from that which he inhabited and that what happened in one was entirely unconnected from the other. If he had cared, Reuben may not have been surprised that, curiously, these beliefs were not that dissimilar to those of Beatrice's husband, who would not have considered her dalliance with a mere gardener a matter of great concern. On the level that was any real concern to Reuben, a woman was a woman and to be understood on that basis.
So, what started with harmless fantasy, developed through human desire into the most covetous lust. As the spring developed into summer, it seemed natural that his feelings should promote actions to satisfy them. As the feelings became stronger, action became more inevitable.
And so it was that one fine sunny summer evening in June, he walked in on her as she was going through his things as if to rob him.
Beatrice was flustered. Being caught, or rather the threat of being caught, had always been part of the excitement, but somehow never quite expected. He arrived quietly, his figure blocking the light from the doorway, which was her first awareness that he was there. She looked up to see him framed between the wooden doorposts, the early evening light behind him. She did not know what to say, what to do, so she said nothing and stayed there frozen in the position in which she first saw him, like a frightened fawn.
Reuben was amused. The fine lady of the house had been discovered in a most unflattering and incriminating situation. He had no doubts of her innocence, but her embarrassment was so plain to see. Like many, Reuben liked to see those so often in positions of power and influence placed in positions in which they were helpless.
Reuben was also aware, however, that the power and influence Beatrice actually enjoyed was very little and that, she, was more a prisoner of her situation than he was or would ever allow himself to be. Somehow this knowledge of her brought his feelings towards her closer to those that, as a man, he was more familiar with and, in his sympathy with her, it aided his desire and fuelled his actions.
'So what have we here?' he said, stepping further into the hut.
Beatrice moved, but very little. The position she was caught in seemed most incriminating, but surely no-one could believe that she, who had so much, would be stealing from a poor gardener who had nothing.
