True Born

by Lara Blunte

  She was cut short by the thundering of hooves against the courtyard cobblestones. Bess was rushing to the window again, but Georgiana didn't need to, she knew who it was, even by the way his horse sounded.

  "The murderer!" Bess shrieked at the window.

  Georgiana was already running, followed by her sisters. They ran through the large marble hall and through the front doors, which were quickly thrown open by the footmen.

  John sat on his horse outside, and there was blood on his shirt. Georgiana's hand flew to her mouth: could he be hurt? Yet, it didn't seem like enough blood for a wound. Had he killed Hugh?

  But he was staring at her with the same cold fury he had shown before, as his horse, sensing its master's restlessness, paced to and fro and bit at the bridle.

  "Your ladyship," John said. "I am sure you want news of your husband?"

  He turned the horse towards her, and it climbed the steps. Bess had shrunk in the background, while Cecily and Dotty kept their arms around Georgiana as if to protect her, though their eyes were as huge as plates as they stared up at the angry man on the horse.

  "Here is a piece of him!" John cried, throwing the bloodied wig at her.

  The wig hit Georgiana on the chest and she put her hand up to hold it. She looked at it, hardly understanding what it was.

  "The rest will follow!" John added.

  He turned his horse round, urged it down the steps and rode through the courtyard out of the gates.

  "That man is the devil!" Bess was shrieking.

  "Don't stand here," Cecily whispered to Georgiana. "Come inside!"

  Georgiana realized she had been standing frozen on the steps, holding the wig, and that Bess was still screaming, "He's dead! That murderer killed him!"

  The two younger girls managed to guide Georgiana inside, and when Bess entered after them and attempted to take the countess by the shoulder, Cecily suddenly pushed her away with a violence so unusual in her that it stopped Bess in her tracks.

  Cecily and Dotty helped Georgiana back into the drawing room, and gently took the wig from her hands.

  "Has John killed him?" Georgiana asked through lips that hardly moved.

  "No, no," Cecily said. "Don't be afraid!"

  Georgiana didn't know if she was afraid. She felt as though some heat were burning her insides so that she no longer felt the cold, though she had been feeling it all morning. She realized that she was angry, very angry.

  When they heard the carriage outside she was slow to stand up and move toward the hall again, to see what had happened to Hugh. Bess was at the door as if the husband were hers, screaming, then exclaiming when she saw that Hugh had climbed out of the carriage with only a bandage over his face, but able to walk.

  Georgiana watched the scene as if from very far away, as if from the farthest balcony in the opera, and she didn't move as Hugh walked into the house.

  He saw the girls standing there and shouted to no one in particular, "Leave me alone! I am fine!"

  His eyes, however, went to his wife, and there was an accusation in them. "Leave me alone!" he repeated, though she had made no move towards him.

  He went up the stairs, presumably to his room, and Georgiana turned again towards the drawing room with her sisters. She saw that Hester had been in the room across the hall all the while, and had probably seen both John's arrival and Hugh's. Their eyes locked from a moment and there was no expression in Hester's, and there was none in Georgiana's either.

  Bess didn't come back into the drawing room with them. After a while Cecily asked, "Should you not go to him now?"

  Georgiana saw that Dotty was confused and frightened, almost crying, and kissed her. "Don't worry, my love," she said. "No one has died."

  "Why did John do that to you?"

  The poor girl, only fourteen, knew John from the years before India, when he had loved to play with her and tease her. She had been a little in love with him, but not like Bess, not wanting him for herself, only happy that he would be her brother-in-law. Dotty could not understand this change in him. Cecily could, and looked mournful.

  The Countess stood up, smoothed her skirt and went towards the hall once again. She ignored the servants, just as they pretended to ignore her. None had had the time or courage to stop John; they had stood scattered, in shock. She was sure they would not have stopped him if they had not been taken by surprise, any more than they had done two nights before.

  She climbed the stairs slowly, something in her waiting like a coiled cobra.

  However she knew, even before she reached Hugh's room, that she was going to see something that would finally hurl her over the edge. When she pushed the door open, the door which wasn't even closed or locked, she saw Bess kneeling by Hugh and kissing his hands, then his face. It wasn't the act of a sister-in-law. There was no possible confusion: they were lovers.

  Both looked at her, and neither had guilt on their faces. Bess was defiant, and Hugh sneered. They seemed to be asking, without saying anything, What will you do about it?

  She turned around and left without a word. She went to her dressing room and took her horse whip, her hat and her veil, then kept going down the stairs.

  Georgiana started crossing the courtyard, and heard her sisters behind her, asking where she was going, but she did not reply. They stopped following her, though she knew they would be anxious – but even that did not stop her.

  In the stables, a groom had just finished exercising a horse, and it was still saddled. It wasn't her horse, but it didn't matter. She took the reins from the groom without a word and climbed on a stool, mounting the horse, then she rode it out of the stables, out the gates, and onto the street.

  She knew where John was, because she had heard Hugh sending him his seconds. She had been dreaming of that street and of that number since she had heard them, knowing she would not go there. Yet she was going there now.

  The people who were out so early in the morning were mostly servants and workers. They turned to look at the well dressed woman on a horse, her face covered by a veil. She was riding impatiently, and unaccompanied.

  Georgiana rode through the streets, the devil in her riding along. The devil was freeing her, just as it always freed John, telling her not to care about anything, because nothing mattered. All the grief and loss she had endured, all the insults and the pain were hardening into fury, so that when she arrived at the house where John was staying, she leapt down from the saddle and did not even bother to secure the horse.

  She walked to the door and marched in, to the surprise of a servant who stood wide-eyed and silent. She could see that John was not in the small parlor, so she climbed the stairs quickly. On the second floor she opened the only door that was closed, and he was inside, naked from the waist up as he washed the little of Hugh's blood that had been transferred to him when he had taken the wig.

  Georgiana said nothing, she walked straight to John and, raising the whip, she lashed against his face with all her strength.

  The noise was almost sickening and his head turned as a gash appeared on his cheek, but he was swift as he took the whip from her, lashing at her shoulder.

  She might have screamed in pain, but she didn't, just as he hadn't. Both of them stood in the room looking at each other, as blood appeared on his face and down her breast, as if their acts of violence had suddenly broken the spell which had made them unable to see each other.

  "Georgiana!" he cried out.

  He reached out and took her wrist, bringing her to him. They held each other by the hair and kissed with so much violence that it hurt. Everything hurt, the lashes, their hair, their mouths crushed against each other, but it had to hurt more. They tore at each other's clothes like beasts attacking, and fell on the bed together.

  There were no words between them, only the ferocity of their passion, of their hatred, of their misunderstandings, only their terrible need for each other.

  Twelve. What Cannot Be Put Right

  John's lips were near the ga
sh across Georgiana's shoulder, mingling with her blood. "Forgive me," he said.

  "I hope it never fades," she replied.

  He raised his head to look at her, "Would you want me to always be reminded that I did this terrible thing?"

  She ran a finger across his cheek, "I did it to you first."

  "It's not the same..."

  "Because I am a woman?" There was a deep melancholy in her eyes as she added with a smile. "Women can bear so much more pain than men!"

  "Because I deserved the lash and you didn't. I don't know how I could come to you like that. I think of the girls' faces now, of your face! No man worthy of the name should do things like that."

  She sighed. "I think I was like you today. I just saw a darkness. And I know it's wrong of me to love you for being so wild. I should want you to be serene, but I cannot help it."

  There was a silence between them, until he asked, "Why did you not at least tell me yourself? Perhaps I could have borne it better, if it had come from you."

  "Did you not receive my letter?"

  He frowned. "I got many letters from you, none about your marriage."

  She started to laugh, almost hysterically. "So you had all the letters before, about jam making and bee keeping, and you never got that one?" She stopped laughing and shrugged. "It's no matter now. There was nothing you could have done, in any case. My father died soon after I wrote, and we were to be turned out. I suppose I was a coward."

  "You're no coward," he said, looking at her tenderly. "I thought you had forgotten me, or not thought I was worth a word!"

  "I thought you had forgotten me!"

  "Oh, my love, what a mess!" He smoothed her hair away from her forehead. "Do you still care for a brute who did not even stop to ask what happened, or what you had suffered?"

  "Yes!" she said simply. “I will always love you, John. Always.”

  He lifted her and held her, repeating, "What a mess! What a mess!"

  Georgiana snuggled against his chest, thinking that soon enough she would not be able to touch him, but she didn't cry. Tears wouldn't help or change anything, and their fury against each other had calmed her, somehow.

  "Your eyes are different," he told her. "Sad."

  She shook her head again, "We will never have what we want the most, will we? I wonder if people ever do...I wonder if they still want what they want, when they have it."

  "Don't talk like that, George. You are so young!"

  "Just the other day I saw two old ladies together, I think they were sisters. And I envied them. I thought, they are past all the troubles, now they play cards and go to church and talk, and wait to die."

  "Don't, George!"

  "Every day, almost all day I wonder what it would have been like, if you hadn't gone to war, or if you had been the vicar. If we could turn back time, and you never had left, we would have married, wouldn't we? I wonder if we would have been happy, as we were that summer. Do you think it?"

  "I do, my darling."

  She laughed, "I am sure some dishes would have flown, and we might even have whipped each other, but I keep thinking, how could we not go on being in love? It felt as if it would never end!"

  He couldn't say anything, he only put his lips to her forehead and left them there.

  "Don't be sad," she said. "I know you won't see me anymore. I know you won't sneak behind Hugh's back, it's not your way."

  It took a moment for him to speak. "I can't do to you what was done to my mother, even loving you as my father loved her. I could never touch you if Hugh were touching you, because I would end up killing him. And..." She felt him stiffen, then sigh. "I would be the lowliest thing, if I ever allowed a bastard child of mine to be born. Nothing would be worse than that, except that it should be brought up by Halford."

  Georgiana also sighed. "I know!"

  He sat back to look into her eyes. "And if I ask you to come with me, now, would you do it?"

  "Your child would still be a bastard."

  "We would go away, where people did not know us, where it wouldn't matter! And I would be there to see our children growing up, to be next to them.”

  "You, live a lie? You never could!"

  "If it's the only way for us to be together..."

  "I would give my life for a month's happiness with you. Oh, I would be such a glutton for it! But you know I cannot do it! How can I abandon my sisters, who have been my only comfort? How can I decide their lives in this way? I have a responsibility to them, now that my father is gone!"

  "Georgiana, my love, you can't ensure that they will be happy, or that there will be no misfortune in their lives, whatever choice they make!"

  She put her hands on either side of his face, and he did not wince in spite of the gash on it. "John, I understand you, I don't blame you for anything -- I do nothing but love you. You must understand me! Out of this whole terrible mess some happiness has to come, for girls who are still innocent! There would be nothing between us and complete destitution except you, and your capacity to work." She paused and drew breath. "I think Hugh will make it very hard for you. He will have you thrown out of the army."

  "I resigned my commission before I went to his house that night."

  "Oh, John..."

  "It doesn't matter. I didn't like it!"

  "But you were a hero, they promoted you!"

  Now there were depths to his eyes as well, but not of sadness, of something like horror. "I may seem like a madman and a murderer, but it's only when my blood is up. To plan the wholesale massacre of people...to lead boys to their death..."

  "But you were there with them, in danger of death too!"

  "It would have been easier for me to die, than to see them blown up like that or cut into pieces. I may be bad, Georgiana, but I am not cold. And for what? So that rich men like Hugh keep getting richer?"

  "You are not bad, John. Never bad."

  "Then you forgive me, for causing you more sorrow? To lose your father...I know what that must have meant!"

  "You lost your parents, and were not there when your mother died..."

  "You were by her side, I know. I heard from other people as well. You risked your life! Look how I repaid you..."

  She wanted to comfort him, and began to kiss him, and soon they were making love again, and she was happy to feel him in her, his eyes on her face, his body covering hers.

  When it was over he stood up, went to his chest of drawers, and brought back a little tin and a wet cloth. He cleaned the gash on her shoulder carefully and started to put ointment on it.

  "I don't want it to fade," she repeated. "I want to have something of you, even this. I shall think of you every day as the most beautiful thing in my life."

  His face was even more troubled as he said, "Georgiana, for heaven's sake, don't speak as if your life were over! I understand that I am a poor man now, and that to come with me would expose you and the girls to difficulty. But trust that I shall find a way! Trust in me, I beg you!"

  "I have no right to take away all the possibilities they have. I have no right to place them under persecution from the society they know. This will never change, John."

  She was already getting up and getting dressed, and when she was ready, having managed to cover the damage to her dress and the gash on her shoulder, she walked over to him and kissed the welt she had left on his face, and kissed his lips, but she said nothing else.

  Georgiana left, and he didn't follow her downstairs. He held the handkerchief which he had stolen from her sleeve, and saw with a grim smile that the initials on it were GB, the initials of her maiden name. He had wanted to ask if Hugh at least treated her well, but his jealousy and the fear that he might see that her husband hurt her had stopped him. He had lost his head enough times, and none of it had helped her.

  John went to his desk and opened it, taking out a pack of letters tied with a ribbon, then he fell onto the bed. Her handkerchief and his pillow smelled like her. He untied the ribbon, and the letters fell on his ch
est. There were many of them, over the course of two years, and he hadn't reread any since he had found out that she had forsaken him, but neither had he had the courage to burn them.

  He started to read them again now, from the beginning, and the happy girl on the page was so different from the woman with the sad eyes that this man, whom so many other men feared, couldn't help the tears that stung the gash on his cheek.

  Thirteen. Let Me Weep

  John reflected on the nature of his love for Georgiana.

  What had it been before he left for war, when she had been a girl and he had considered himself a man, and yet had been untested except by the accident of his birth?

  He had thought there could be no one more lovable than she. Nothing had made him happy, until he had been with her, in the fields at Halford, at her father's house with her small sisters, at his mother's seeing how much they liked each other.

  She had been purity and innocence, with wit, generosity and heart -- a chance for things to be good and clear like the water of a brook.

  What had she been to him during the years of war, when her letters made him smile after he had waded in blood, smelled rot and seen human bodies treated like meat?

  And what had she been when he had heard that she hadn't waited for him, but had instead married his despicable brother for money, with nary a note to warn him?

  What was she now, when he had come back to find her a woman, more beautiful than ever, with a sadness and longing in her eyes that hadn't been there when he had left?

  He had thought that he loved her before, with passion, but as he looked at her from across the theater he knew that he loved her now, that this was love.

  John had watched Georgiana more than once in the three weeks that had passed since they had been together in his room. He had seen her riding in the park, at Vauxhall Gardens, at the opera and at mass in the cathedral, since she had had to convert to Catholicism when she had married Halford.

  He had known where she would be, because the steps of a fashionable and dizzyingly rich noblewoman were often announced in the paper, just as the paper had announced that she planned to attend this performance of Rinaldo tonight.