by Lara Blunte
"Sir, his lordship, the Earl, has gone to London and his brother is there as well. Lady Halford...she is all alone, sir!"
"That miserable dog!" John snarled in a voice that carried through the fields.
He ran to the house, took a jacket from behind the door and then leapt on his horse, which was still saddled.
Hester ran to him and took the horse by bridles, hanging on to them for dear life while the animal tried to move his head sideways. "What will you do, are you mad? If you go there you'll disgrace her, it will be the end..."
"Let go of me!" he cried, pulling the reins so violently from her that the horse pounded the ground with its hooves, narrowly missing her. John gained control of the animal and urged it forward as she fell on the ground.
Hester got up, undaunted, and ran to the gate, tears of impotence in her eyes, but he never looked back.
It was a two hour ride to Halford, and John got there at noon. He rode up to the front door and dismounted there, leaving his horse to the groom who had ridden with him.
The footmen at the entrance did not stop him. It was not, as in London, fear and surprise which kept them rooted to the spot: most of these servants knew John, as he had been at Halford often when his father was alive, and knew him to be an honest and brave man who had never given himself airs. Furthermore, the Countess, who was a kind mistress, was dying inside the castle alone, and she did not deserve such an end.
John ran up the stairs as the servants huddled below. It was an empty house, and his steps echoed everywhere. That wretched coward had left his wife to die in the huge cold castle by herself, and had once more taken himself to safety.
But John's anger gave way to horror and pity when he opened the door to Georgiana's room and saw the figure on the bed. There was a woman sitting next to her in a chair, a woman whose scarred face revealed that she had survived the disease, could not catch it again, and therefore could nurse others.
John threw an angry look at the woman's black attire. How dared she sit there like a crow? How dared she frighten Georgiana?
The Countess' lovely dark hair was spread on the pillow and her face, neck and hands were marred by angry red spots. Her eyes were closed, and her breath shallow. She clearly had a fever, and shook with chills.
The woman stood up, "Who are you?"
"Move away!" he said.
The woman did not dare disobey him. He sat down next to Georgiana and put his hand on her head. He was afraid that he might hurt her if he touched a sore by mistake.
She opened her eyes with difficulty, and they remained on his face for a while before her lips cracked open enough for her to ask, "John?"
"Yes, Georgie!"
Her eyes looked around as she ascertained that she was indeed in her room, at Halford.
"John, how did you get in?"
He was smiling at her, trying to hide his terror. "Who would keep me out, my love?"
She started to say something, but her throat moved without sound.
"Who said a rat abandons a ship?" she managed to say, and laughed.
"Not this rat!" he smiled.
He bent to kiss her, but she shook her head feebly. "No, no, John! Go away, you must not be infected!"
"I can't be infected," he said. "I have been inoculated. Why did you not do it, my sweet?"
Again her throat moved convulsively long before she was able to say, "Hugh did not want us to... And Bess is dead, John!"
Her fever was very high, and there was no time for him to be angry. He sent a messenger to Shaftesbury, to tell Dr. Hopkins that the Countess required his services. The doctor appeared in the evening, after John had opened the windows of Georgiana’s room, as Dr. Hopkins had taught him, and sat by her side through a very high fever which, he feared, could take her away at any moment.
Dr. Hopkins was glad to see that John had followed his instructions, and managed to help keep Georgiana's fever down by applying cold towels on her, taking care that the sores should not be rubbed. She shivered and moaned, and was covered in sweat, but she made it through the night.
However, the next day the red spots filled with a clear liquid and at night the high fever returned. Again Georgiana survived, and John never left her side.
On the third day the spots were filled with pus. Dr. Hopkins, who had gone back to his practice the day before, had told John that this would happen, but that as long as the infection did not go to her lungs, and the fever was kept down, she had a chance of surviving. There was also the danger of her going blind, and John dabbed at the pustules nearest to her eyes, though he left the others alone so as to avoid scarring. He listened to her breathing and heard that it was slightly shallow, but not raucous.
On the fifth day the fever was gone, and John knew that Georgiana was no longer in danger of dying. He could only caress her hair, in fear of disturbing the scabs that were forming over the painful blisters. She did smile at him now, and ate a little, and he was so relived and happy that all the servants who took up the tray of food to the Countess' chamber, the ones who had already suffered from the disease in the past, went downstairs saying that he had kept her alive through the force of his love.
There was more occasion for the servants to witness his devotion in the next few days, as he asked for honey and applied it painstakingly to every one of her scabs. Dr. Hopkins had said that the regenerative powers of honey would help avoid the terrible pits that the majority of smallpox sufferers developed.
Georgiana smiled as John dabbed honey on her, "I am glad it is not the season for bees, or flies!"
"At least we no longer need to leave the windows open," he countered.
"What strange notions medicine has. One would think all the opposite."
"Science is a marvelous thing," he said, "and kept you with me."
She knew she ought not to ask for a mirror, that she must first of all be thankful that she had survived, and that John had been there. If she were no longer pleasing to the eye she would have to accept it, and even accept that he might care for her with a different love than passion. She was simply glad to be alive, and with him.
But when John, after twelve days, let her get up and look at herself, she found only faint pink spots on herself, and Dr. Hopkins assured her that they would disappear in time. There were two deeper pits, one near her right eye, where John had cleaned a sore so that she would not be blinded, and one in the middle of her forehead.
"It's a bindi!" she exclaimed about the spot on her forehead, remembering their Hindu wedding.
John laughed, sitting backwards by her side on the stool. "It's an eternal bindi," he said. "It means you cannot not be my wife, ever."
She reached for his cheek, "No, I cannot."
"And you can’t Hugh's wife anymore. You will come home with me now, my darling, and we will find a way for your sisters to be married, and no one will starve. It is all over for you here, don't you see?"
She was nodding, "It has been over for a while, but now I think I am free to go. My husband left me to die, and you brought me back to life, and if this is not a true marriage, then I don't know what is! I do not think the girls would accept anything else."
So the very next day, wrapped in a fur coat, the Countess of Halford went down the stairs holding on to Mad Jack's arm, and she smiled at all the servants who had gathered to say goodbye, thanked them, and walked out of the castle with the man she loved.
It was a beautiful December day. "Oh, John, look at the sky!"
"Ordered especially for you," he said, as he led her to the carriage.
She climbed in and he arranged her cloak and furs as he sat next to her. They looked out at the people gathered on the steps and raised their hands in goodbye.
The servants never tired of telling the story of true nobility, of how a bastard had walked through an empty castle to brave death and save the woman he loved, while her high-born husband cowered in his London home.
Twenty-Five. The Deaf Sky
Hester had stayed be
hind at the farm, believing that Georgiana would die.
Bess had died, and Georgiana in her foolish generosity had nursed a malevolent sister who had tormented her for years, and had tried to take her husband. The strain of the disease must be virulent, if Bess had died so quickly from it, and now Georgiana was ill in the same way.
Hester did not find in herself the hypocrisy to wish that the worst would not happen to Georgiana. She thought it would, and she thought it would be better for everyone: for the Countess, who was disgraced now that John had gone to her so openly, for her sisters who might still enjoy the protection of their brother-in-law after her death, and above all for John and herself, since the only obstacle to their being together would be gone, and he would finally be able to see her.
She stayed and worked alone, harder than any woman could be expected to work. She might not have found the superhuman strength needed to tend to the farm alone, if she had been working only for herself; but she was working for John, for the two of them and their future, and she faced every difficult task with calm, and found a way around every obstacle.
When she saw the carriage from Halford approaching through the narrow road, her heart stopped for a moment. John would not be returning in a carriage. Had something happened to him?
Foolishly, as she chided herself later, she had not expected the carriage door to open, and for John to emerge from it with happiness all over his face, and still less for Georgiana to come out, just as happy, and with only faint pink spots to show the terrible disease she had caught, which scarred most people for life.
Hester stood watching Georgiana walk hand in hand with John after they had greeted her, hearing her exclaim over the farm as if it were a million times more beautiful than Halford.
She could see how absorbed they were in each other. Georgiana had survived, and now she would thrive with the man who seemed to adore her more than ever.
When John came to Hester, alone, to thank her deeply and sincerely for everything she had done, not having expected that she could have kept the place from going to rack and ruin, she did not begrudge him anything that she had done, as she had told herself she never would. She begrudged it to Georgiana, who did not belong there with her fur cloak and her dainty shoes, but she was not angry at John.
She told him that she had done her work, and that he should not think it strange, even if he insisted that she had gone beyond duty, almost beyond what was believable. He told her that she would be his partner thenceforth, and take a profit from the crops and animals even before he did. When he returned to his own house and to Georgiana, Hester went outside under the sky, which had turned a threatening grey, and walked faster and faster into the woods.
On her way she grabbed at sharp brambles with her bare hands, knowing the flesh in them was being torn. She threw herself against them, screaming, as her dress ripped and her face and arms were scratched.
Why do you take everything away from me? she shrieked at the deaf sky. I have never asked you for anything!
Hester was all the more enraged because there would be no response, no explanation why a feeling such as hers could exist, and yet not be fulfilled. It was the fate of so many people, but she would not accept it. It was no wisdom to her, to just bear it.
She had hurt herself enough, and after trashing and shrieking she got up, her eyes dry. I don't ask for anything now, she thought. I shall never ask for anything that I cannot do myself.
Twenty-Six. The End of a Rogue
"...the soldiers went after the band of highwaymen, who scattered through the woods, but did not manage to find them. They were attracted by cries for help and found a former lieutenant of His Majesty's army, Mr. Marcus Brennan, who had been a valiant soldier in India, but now suffered so severely from a limp that he had been unable to defend himself against the bandits..."
John stopped to have a fit of laughter before continuing. "Mr. Brennan was found just as he was able to untie himself from a tree, and he explained that he had been held hostage, as the outlaws had refused to believe that he had so little money and only an old horse, because his wig was made of human hair."
"It's Hugh's wig!" Georgiana cried, holding her side, as it pained her from laughing.
John went on reading, when he managed, "Mr. Brennan had, however, been able to lead the soldiers, after many false starts, to the lair of the bandits, where their masks and cloaks were found, as well as some valueless remains of what they had robbed from others, such as shoes, buckles and clothes.
"Mr. Brennan was furthermore helpful in giving a description of the band of six, including the German Rogue, whom he insisted was in truth a Dane, and known among his crew as the Danish Doom."
There was almost incapacitating laughter at this last part, and even worse at what followed, "The police has employed Mr. Brennan who, with his previous career as an army lieutenant, and in spite of bad eyesight, has been able to effectively stop any more attacks from the band of highwaymen, by using the knowledge he had of the German Rogue's inner machinations to keep him from the road."
John put down the paper and cried, breathless, "And he still has not managed to make the paper call him the Danish Doom!"
"And that name makes him almost sound like a terrible cake!" Georgiana cried.
They laughed some more, and she added fondly. "I hope we see him again!"
"He will be too clever to come anywhere near us for a great while," John said, wiping his eyes. "But I suspect we will meet again, and laugh even harder when he tells us the story himself!"
They smiled in the light of the fire, feeling that all was almost perfect, but not wanting to say it. Georgiana was still in bed, in the sweet confinement where John kept her until he was certain that she had regained her strength. He would soon send for Cecily and Dotty; they had heard nothing from Hugh, who must either be ashamed enough this time to do nothing, or was planning something to try and destroy them, if he dared.
In the meantime they lived the blessed days after a great danger is averted, and did not much think of the woman who every morning left to work with John, but who took her meals alone in her house, and was now more silent than ever.
Twenty-Seven. The Hour of the Wolf
Hester knew that there would not be any divine intervention on her behalf.
She hardly understood how John kept her near them: she knew that he was very grateful to her, and that he would not want to send her away to probable destitution, but he had not yet realized how much she loved him, or seemed to suspect what she was prepared to do to have him.
Did he think, she wondered, that she had only taken a fancy to him, and that now she would see that he loved Georgiana, and her feelings would fade? Did he not see that her love only became more determined the more love he showed to Georgiana as she watched them?
She wanted John with a deep frenzy, as if her feelings were like monsters fighting under the surface of waters that seemed still; but now she also craved the same happiness that he and Georgiana had. She had not known him to be capable of happiness, and refused to understand that it was her rival who gave it to him through a spirit that was fundamentally joyful when it was not heavily oppressed.
Hester considered the Countess' generosity of heart a weakness, and had seen her almost destroyed by it. She did not understand that the capacity for love which Georgiana had, which had almost killed her for refusing to forsake a treacherous sister, was what made John love her with such passion.
No, she did not understand that John already had her own hard strength and indomitable spirit, and therefore neither wanted it, nor would be made happy by it. She thought that like longed for like, that hardness sought hardness, and that darkness found solace in more darkness.
It was so for her, when she thought of John, but he longed for joy, and Georgiana had always been, to him, the path towards the light.
Poor Hester could not understand these things, because she had fought for so long on her own, seeing too well how quickly people took advant
age of feebleness. Had she been able to reflect, she would have seen the similarities in her life and Georgiana's: how much both of them had loved their fathers, how both fathers had struggled to keep them from harm, how the deaths of both men had left their daughters at the mercy of others.
Georgiana had, out of devotion to her sisters, chosen a destiny that had seemed easy to Hester, a life of luxury and wealth; Hester had chosen a harder life, of hard work and independence, for herself alone. Both loved the same man.
The Countess could afford to wallow in that man's love, it had been there for years. Hester had to earn it, as she had earned everything she had acquired so far.
She was thinking these things when John came to tell her that he was going to run errands in town, and to ask whether she needed anything. He always smiled at her now. She reminded him that they needed some strong string for the calves, and new hammers.
As he went off, Hester found herself going to his house, and up the stairs to Georgiana. There she was, looking almost as pretty as before, sitting in bed when there was nothing terribly wrong with her anymore.
"How do you feel?" Hester asked.
Georgiana smiled. "I am well. Only a little dizzy still, as I lost so much weight."
Hester's eyes were like glass, still and bereft of expression. "It's almost ten o'clock. Have you had breakfast?"
"I had tea," Georgiana said.
"That is not going to put you on your feet," Hester said. "You need something to eat. I shall make you some eggs and toast, and there is lamb, and strawberry jam."
"I would hate to trouble you," Georgiana said earnestly.
"You are not troubling me," Hester replied.
She went to the kitchen and started preparing the meal she had described, and set it all down on a tray carefully: the dish with eggs, toast, lamb cuts, jam and butter. She set down the pot and threw the tea leaves inside, and from the pocket of her dress she took a bag with dried sprigs of wolfsbane, and put a good quantity inside the pot as well.
