Part Two: Parenting Skills
I. The Secret Past of Margaret Willis
Orgasm is all. No other rules need concern us.
Sir William Carrington, On Society and Religion, Maxim 1
Maggie had been in a state of some agitation ever since Isobel's first visit a couple of months ago. It had stirred up so many memories, so much guilt and so much guilty pleasure, that it threatened to turn her life upside down. Not that her life was all peace and quiet. She might be in her sixties now, and a widow, but that didn't mean she couldn't find the time and energy to enjoy herself every now and then. But Isobel's visit had brought the Carringtons back to the forefront of her mind. It was true that her memories of them had never entirely gone away. She often thought about them and the adventures she had enjoyed with them, and the painful way in which they had gone their separate ways.
That was when she had moved to the Village, bringing Gregory, Elizabeth, and Ursula with her. They would not grow up to be like Carringtons or at least they would make their own choices along the road. The trouble was, the Gene was in them, and there was never any denying it. And even if she had tried to deny it, as they grew up it became abundantly clear. Still, she didn't regret it. Well, not most of the time. But images of Barbara Carrington kept flashing through her mind unbidden, and she neither could, nor wanted to, shut them out. Despite the blonde hair, Isobel looked uncannily like her grandmother; Just as arrogant, just as beautiful, just as sexy. She had been only seventeen years old when she first met Mrs Carrington. Midsummer's Day, 1975. What a dazzling sight the woman had been, twenty-six-years old and at the peak of her allure, clad in a clinging, red dress. Who wouldn't have had their head turned?
She was interrupted from her reverie by the sound of the doorbell. She knew who it would be before she answered it, as if she had summoned the woman by her memories. Isobel Carrington, clad (of course!) in a figure-hugging red dress, looking like a supermodel, the late March sun glinting from her golden hair.
"Shameless Greetings, sister," she said.
"I've been waiting for you to come," replied Maggie.
Isobel flashed her a smug smile, the exact same smile as her grandmother. "I know," she said, and stepped inside without being invited. Maggie led her into the orangery, where she had been taking tea from a China pot. She poured some for Isobel, who turned down both milk and honey. Isobel sat on a low couch, again without waiting to be invited, and smoothed her dress over her thighs as Maggie settled back in her chintz armchair, face turned towards the sunlight.
"You look so much like Barbara," Maggie told her, eyeing the woman's appetising curves without feeling any need to be discrete. The woman was a Carrington, after all.
"Of all my generation," Isobel told her, "the Gene is strongest in me. Despite the blonde hair. My grandmother always said I was a female Hyacinthus."
"I can see that. And from what I hear, you've not been idle since you got here."
"I've not. Let me see." She counted off on her slim, manicured fingers. "I've woken the inner lesbian in Matilda Ellis, and the inner submissive in Anna Stewart. I believe I've also had a measure of success with Victoria Peterson. And Olivia's hard at work, too."
"Is it your plan to corrupt the entire Village?"
"
Corrupt
?" asked Isobel, feigning shock. "I don't plan to
corrupt
anyone, sister."
"'Maggie', please."
"No, Maggie, my plan is to awaken, to encourage, to set free... This can hardly be news to you. Not to you, of all people. The Gene is in your children, is it not?"
"I daresay."
"And your grandchildren?"
"Inevitably. That's how genes work, isn't it?" she asked archly. "But I'd thank you to leave Owen and Clara out of your schemes!"
Isobel smirked. "We both know
that's
not going to happen."
"What exactly do you want from me?"
"What I want is for the legendary Sister Maggie to remember who she was."
"I know who I was. And I turned my back on that forty years ago. I'm too old, and too much time has passed, even to contemplate it."
Isobel shook her head. "My guess is that you never stopped being who you were meant to be, Sister Maggie. You can't fool me. I know what it is to have that beast inside you, that beautiful, sensuous, ever-ravenous beast. You might lull it to sleep, or even chain it up, but it never goes away, does it? And every now and then, it slips its leash and goes on the rampage. Am I far from the mark, sister?"
"Not so very far. You'd think old age would tame it, wouldn't you? It doesn't, though. I'm sixty-one years old, Isobel, and I sometimes think the beast's as wild as ever."
"Good for you!" smiled Isobel. "I'm glad to hear you're still... active."
"And the dreams are back. I suppose I can thank you for that?"
"And Sebastian?" asked Isobel, ignoring Maggie's question.
"Sebastian's dead. You know that."
"I mean, did he grow to hate you, knowing that the beast slept so lightly?"
"Sebastian loved me. He was, always, a bit afraid of me, though. And he knew enough not to try to rein me in, when the beast was on the rampage. He was the best man I ever knew. But he was never truly happy. And that was my fault."
"My mother said it was a tragedy that you ever met him."
"Well she would, wouldn't she? Eleanor Carrington embraced the beast, she loved the beast. I think maybe she even worshipped it."
"Oh, she does worship it, Sister Maggie. And so do I. And I would bet my considerable fortune that after Sebastian died, you embraced the beast as well."
"From time to time," she admitted. But it had been more often than that. After all, the children were grown up and had flown the nest. With Sebastian gone, what harm was there in being a little self-indulgent? She had spent three decades keeping it chained up (as best she could). Who knew how many years she had left, or for how much longer she would retain the slightest womanly appeal?
"You're a beautiful woman," commented Isobel, as if she had read her thoughts.
