Scold's Bridle

from an earlier-happier?-age. 'I suppose you're going to lecture me,' she said with a scowl, pulling the doors to and flopping on to a chair.

'What about?' Sarah took another chair and folded the Barbour across her chest. It was bitterly cold, even with the doors closed.

'Smoking.'

Sarah shrugged. 'I'm not in the habit of lecturing.'

Ruth stared at her with moody eyes. 'Your husband said Granny called you her scold's bridle. Why would she do that if you didn't tick her off for nagging?'

Sarah looked out of the windows to where the huge cedar of Lebanon, after which the house was named, cast a long shadow on the grass. As she watched, the blustery wind drove a cloud across the sun and wiped the shadow away. 'We didn't have that sort of relationship,' she said, turning back to the girl. 'I enjoyed your grandmother's company. I don't recall any occasion when a ticking-off would have been appropriate.'

'I wouldn't have liked being called a scold's bridle.'

Sarah smiled. 'I found it rather flattering. I believe she meant it as a compliment.'

'I doubt it,' said the girl bluntly. 'I suppose you know she used the bridle on my mother when my mother was a child?' She smoked the cigarette nervously, taking short, rapid drags and expelling the smoke through her nose. She saw Sarah's disbelief. 'It's true. Granny told me about it once. She hated people crying, so whenever Mum cried she used to lock her in a cupboard with that thing strapped to her head. Granny's father did it to her. That's why she thought it was all right.'

Sarah waited but she didn't go on. 'That was cruel,' she murmured.

'Yes. But Granny was tougher than Mum and, anyway, it didn't matter much what you did to children when Granny was young, so being punished by wearing a bridle was probably no different from being thrashed with a belt. But it was awful for my mother.' She crushed the cigarette under her foot. 'There was no one to stand up for her and take her side. Granny could do what she liked whenever she liked.'

Sarah wondered what the girl was trying to tell her. 'It's an increasingly common problem, I'm afraid. Men, under stress, take their problems out on their wives. Women, under stress, take theirs out on their children, and there's nothing more stressful for a woman than to be left holding the baby.'

'Do you condone what Granny did?' There was a wary look in her eyes.

'Not at all. I suppose I'm trying to understand it. Most children in your mother's position suffer constant verbal abuse, and that is often as damaging as the physical abuse, simply because the scars don't show and nobody outside the family knows about it.' She shrugged. 'But the results are the same. The child is just as repressed and just as flawed. Few personalities can survive the constant battering of criticism from a person they depend on. You either crawl or fight. There's no middle way.'

Ruth looked angry. 'My mother had both, verbal and physical. You've no idea how vicious my grandmother was to her.'

'I'm sorry,' said Sarah helplessly. 'But if it's true that Mathilda was also punished brutally as a child, then she was as much a victim as your mother. But I don't suppose that's any consolation to you.'

Ruth lit another cigarette. 'Oh, don't get me wrong,' she said with an ironic twist to her mouth, 'I loved my grandmother. At least she had some character. My mother has none. Sometimes I hate her. Most of the time I just despise her.' She frowned at the floor, stirring the dust with the toe of one shoe. 'I think she killed Granny and I don't know what to do about it. Half of me blames her and the other half doesn't.'

Sarah let the remark hang in the air for a moment while she cast around for something to say. What sort of accusation was this? A genuine accusation of murder? Or a spiteful sideswipe by a spoilt child against a parent she disliked? 'The police are convinced it was suicide, Ruth. They've closed the case. As I understand it, there's no question of anyone else being involved in your grandmother's death.'

'I don't mean Mum actually did it,' she said, 'you know, took the knife and did it. I mean that she drove Granny to killing herself. That's just as bad.' She raised suspiciously bright eyes. 'Don't you think so, Doctor?'

'Perhaps. If such a thing is possible. But from what you've told me of your mother's relationship with Mathilda, it sounds unlikely. It would be more plausible if it had happened the other way round and Mathilda had driven your mother to suicide.' She smiled apologetically. 'Even then, that sort of thing doesn't happen very often, and there would be a history of mental instability behind the person who saw suicide as their only escape from a difficult relationship.'

But Ruth wasn't to be persuaded so easily. 'You don't understand,' she said. 'They could be as unpleasant as they liked to each other and it didn't matter a damn. Mum was just as bad as Granny, but in a different way. Granny said what she thought while Mum just went on chipping away with snide little remarks. I hated being with them when they were together.' Her lips thinned unattractively. 'That was the only good thing about being sent to boarding school. Mum moved out then and went to London, and I could choose whether to come here for my holidays or go to Mum's. I didn't have to be a football any more.'

How little Sarah knew about these three women. Where was Mr. Lascelles, for example? Had he, like James Gillespie, run away? Or was Lascelles some kind of courtesy title that Joanna had adopted to give her daughter legitimacy? 'How long did you and your mother live here, then, before you went away to school?'

'From when I was a baby to when I was eleven. My father died and left us without a bean. Mum had to come crawling home or we'd have starved. That's her story at least. But personally I think she was just too snobbish and too lazy to take a menial job. She preferred Granny's insults to getting her hands dirty.' She wrapped her arms about her waist and leaned forward, rocking herself. 'My father was a Jew.' She spoke the word with contempt.

Sarah was taken aback. 'Why do you say it like that?'

'It's how my grandmother always referred to him. That Jew. She was an anti-Semite. Didn't you know?'

Sarah shook her head.

'Then you didn't know her very well.' Ruth sighed. 'He was a professional musician, a bass guitarist, attached to one of the studios. He did the backing tracks when the groups weren't good enough to do them themselves, and he had a band of his own which did gigs occasionally. He died of a heroin overdose in 1978. I don't remember him at