by Lara Blunte
She poured hot water over the leaves and sprigs, and stirred the pot. She watched as the tea leaves colored the water and, when she was satisfied, she fished the sprigs out and put them back in the bag. She took seeds from another bag, and mixed them in the jam. Then she took the tray and climbed the stairs to Georgiana.
Twenty-Eight. Poison
As John rode away from Georgiana, a feeling of unease increased in him.
There had been signs which he had ignored in Hester, because he was a man who chose not to examine things that he could not help too much.
Yet, there was the part of him that was always observing people, and the thoughts that grew out of his observations could not always be kept at bay.
He knew that Hester was not a woman of light, changeable feelings, and that she was deeply in love with him. Because he did not want to reward her heroic efforts on behalf of his farm and livelihood by sending her away to almost certain doom -- for who would take a woman in and allow her to run a farm, unless it were a farmer who married her? Who would employ her otherwise at decent wages? -- John had kept her with them, though he had not liked that her eyes should always still be on him, only flicking towards Georgiana with an expression of puzzlement.
A creature such as Georgiana begot love in others; this love could turn nasty, if it were an unrequited passion, as it had been for Hugh. Most often, however, Georgiana was loved back, or at least admired, except by a few envious, jealous people.
Bess had been one of these people, and Hester was another.
Hester would not think of her feelings as a jealousy of Georgiana's nature. John had correctly understood that she could only respect what she considered strength, but he also knew that there was something in Georgiana that a woman like Hester would crave: the capacity to feel and give happiness.
He had seen the strange scratches on Hester's face and hands following Georgiana's arrival, and he had put the suspicion that she had done something to herself away, because he had been absorbed in Georgiana.
But he had seen Hester's eyes half an hour before, as she had told him what was needed from the store. She had been thinking of something else, and she never did that. She was always present, always focused on him or on the task a hand. She had been thinking of something else; she had been impatient for him to go.
"No, no, no!" John cried out loud.
He turned his horse around and began riding back. She would not dare do anything to Georgiana! She must realize that he would immediately know, and hate her forever - maybe even kill her, or have her hanged!
But, as he rode back, the knowledge that he had been avoiding, and which nevertheless had been gathering at the back of his mind, sprang to the fore.
Hester was mad.
She was mad, and therefore she was capable of extraordinary efforts, of being silent and still for months, of braving storms and standing between the abyss and charging animals, of not fearing the lightning or the storm, of working so hard that she exhausted him, who was so much stronger than she was.
She was going to do something mad, convinced that he would accept it when it was done.
John was sure of what he was thinking now, and he rode his poor horse hard, bending over its head so that the wind might not slow them down.
He had almost lost Georgiana, he had almost felt the despair that would be inevitable if she were gone. The irony of recovering her only to lose her again to something that he had refused to see, to something not as obvious as a deadly disease, to something as anodyne as a silent woman in his own household -- this irony would be dear to Fate, that terrible thing turning its wheel with tedium, looking for ways in which the race of men could be made more miserable.
He rode so fast that he almost forgot to breathe, and when he got to the farm the very stillness of his house told him that something was happening inside.
John burst through the door of the kitchen, smelled the food that had been prepared and saw the smoke rising from the leftover water; he saw the tea leaves uncovered in the tin, and the sugar; he saw the jar of jam.
He started to run up the stairs, shouting, "Georgiana!"
In a second he was in the room and immediately knew that he was right, because Georgiana, with the cup of tea to her lips, was very surprised, but Hester did not turn round at all. She did not move, and the almost imperceptible slump of her shoulders told him that she had attempted a thing, and it had been confounded.
"Don't drink!" he said, and going towards Georgiana he took the cup from her, setting it down on the tray with a clatter. "Did it touch your lips?" he asked sharply.
Georgiana was confused, looking at him with a smile. "Whatever is the matter with you? It's only tea!"
Of course, she would never think another person capable of perfidy. She would never believe other people capable of truly desiring harm on each other, of actually causing it, because it wasn't in her heart.
John had several times wished someone dead by his hand, though never by such an indirect method as poison, so he knew that such feelings existed, he knew.
"Did it touch your lips?" he asked again.
"I was blowing on it!" Georgiana said. "It was too hot!"
Hester was looking at Georgiana, and only now she raised her eyes to him, and in their darkness he read the truth.
"Whatever could the matter be?" Georgiana was saying.
It was what Hester considered stupidity in Georgiana that made her smile, as she looked at John.
"Whatever could the matter be?" she repeated with a small laugh.
"Is there no matter?" John asked her, his face pale.
Her smile only widened. And then, the terrible thing in John, the thing that made him relentless and vengeful, took over.
"If there is no matter, then you might want to drink the tea?" he asked, motioning to the cup.
Hester never took her eyes of him. "If you want me to, I will drink it."
Georgiana was looking from one to the other, but there was such intensity between them that she did not speak.
"I want you to," John said, in a hard voice, and with hard eyes.
Hester reached out, took the cup of tea, and drank it. She lifted the pot, her pulse as steady as it always was, filled it again, and again drank it, though the liquid must be burning the inside of her mouth and her throat.
She threw a look at John, who was staring at her with no mercy, took a spoon and, scooping jam from the dish, she put it in her mouth and swallowed. Then she did it again.
Hester was still looking at him, and smiling as if she were the victor in some contest. "I am afraid I have spoiled your breakfast," she told Georgiana as she turned to take the tray. "It is almost time for luncheon, anyway."
She stood up and left with the tray, as if she were any servant bringing food to her mistress, then taking it away.
"What is happening?" Georgiana asked John, after Hester descended the stairs.
"Nothing," said John, though he knew now that he had been right.
He was perturbed during the rest of the morning and the beginning of the afternoon. He did not leave Georgiana's side, but could hardly find enough serenity to answer her questions or speak.
"Has something happened between the two of you?" Georgiana finally asked. John could see in her eyes how much such a thing would hurt her, but what he could not see was the understanding of what Hester was capable of doing.
"No," he told her. "Nothing has happened. Nothing could ever happen between her and me."
Georgiana seemed to accept what he was saying. She knew him not to be a liar.
As the short day ended and the sky started to dim at three o'clock, John was at the window, looking out at Hester's house. There was a candle burning in her room, but no movement inside. But, as he looked, the door opened and she came out. She seemed to walk quite stiffly, a hand to her stomach, and he saw her staggering towards the fields.
He knew what she was going to do: like a beast, she would find a safe, hidden place to die. Lik
e a beast, she was ashamed to be seen dying.
It was safe to leave Georgiana now, and John did, without telling her what was happening. He still felt no pity as he followed Hester into the woods. He tracked her as if he were a hunter, and would not leave her the consolation of dying alone.
When he found her lying on the mossy ground, she was bent over in pain, her face contorted. It seemed as though the pain were so great that the veins bulging in her head and neck might explode. He crouched next to her and watched her convulsions; by their severity, she would not be long in this world. She looked at him with eyes that were still unafraid.
"How could you do this?" he asked. "How could you think of killing Georgiana, who did nothing to you?"
There was a grimace like a smile on her face. "There were a million devils in me," she managed to say.
She suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm with super natural strength, then she let out a whimper that she had been holding inside. She would have liked to go with no sound at all.
"I'm not sorry," she said. "It wouldn't matter if I were, in the place where I am going."
Her hand still clutched his arm as her head fell on the ground. Her eyes closed as if a heavy curtain were falling over them, as if with an effort, and froth came out of her lips.
Twenty-Nine. A Seal on a Letter
It was a terrible winter for them, with shock succeeding shock, and a police enquiry following Hester's death.
After a short investigation, her death was ruled as self-inflicted harm, since she had been seen gathering wolfsbane and drying the leaves and seeds, and her passion for John Crawford had been noticed by his housekeeper, Abby, who had now returned to the relative safety of the farm.
John had finally found some compassion for Hester, at seeing her face more pale and still than ever as she lay in her coffin, and she had her wish after all: since no church would accept a suicide on its grounds, John laid her to rest in his own land. She never left him, just as she had determined that she never would. At times he would even go to the stone that marked her grave, and think of the woman who had had great courage, and yet had been destroyed by ungovernable passions.
It was only the number of deaths by smallpox, which had spread to half the country, that stopped tales of the fatal love triangle from spreading. There was, as well, the story of Countess' abandonment of her marriage in favor of her husband's bastard brother. It was enough gossip for a lifetime, but with so many loved ones dead, most people had no appetite for it. After the dangers and trials they had passed, John and Georgiana would not have cared about what people might say, and nothing would ever be said to Mad Jack's face, or to the woman he loved and her sisters.
Therefore, when a letter bearing Hugh's seal arrived for John via a messenger who had been told to wait for a response, he felt no great surprise.
"John,
You know that I have long disliked, and even hated you.
Hatred might seem like too strong a word when, before your return from India, you had not caused me any direct harm.
I do not mean to explain my feelings here. The explanation might be thought insufficient, as so often we cannot help what we feel, and it is not the point of this letter.
I am writing to you because I know Georgiana is in your house, and I cannot bring myself to write to her.
You should know that I mean her no harm, or you, by the fact that I did nothing about this state of affairs, in spite of the dishonor for me. It is no longer a time for honor and dishonor -- it is a time for life and death.
I write to ask, even to beg, that you should allow Georgiana to come to me in London.
When she finds out that I am dying she will want to come, and you will naturally try to stop her. I say naturally, because as a man of sense you will think that I abandoned her to die, and that she is justified in doing the same to me.
I know Georgiana's heart, and that is my greatest sin. I know the heart of the woman I married, I know how immense it is, how kind. It is my greatest sin because, knowing it, I yet abused it.
That my heart is nowhere as kind as hers is not a sin of mine, but a fact of nature. I think she was born the way she is, because otherwise why would her two elder sisters be such monsters of self-regard, and she have so much more regard for others than for herself?
But this smacks of justification already. I do not want you to understand me, or forgive me – firstly because I do not wish it, and also because there would be no time for it.
I want to see Georgiana once more.
You know I am Catholic, and on my turn I know my faith is looked upon with disdain by Anglicans and Protestants such as you. The easy way to heaven, you think. Repent at the last moment, and cross the gates to be with God.
I cannot tell you, at this moment when disease is eating me, how much the need to see Georgiana is unconnected to the fear of hell. I may go to hell, whether or not she forgives me, yet I beg that I should see her once again.
I am addressing this letter to you, who with a harder and more rational heart might try to keep it from her, and if you do, I shall have to accept it. I do not have a lot of time and I know that soon pain and wretchedness will overcome even this small measure of humanity in me.
If you think that she should see this, then show it to her, and say that she has nothing to fear from me. She has battled this disease and won. I never interfered with your care of her at Halford, because I was deeply ashamed that I had left her behind. I shall not interfere with you as I die.
You may find it strange, but I can accept, now, that she shall be with you when I am gone. I think it justice, because she has always wished it, and she should have her wish. I think you will be getting a better bargain than her, because I know her worth, and yet never fully understood yours.
This is a letter from an enemy begging a favor, and that is why you should trust it.
Hugh Alexander James Stowe
Earl of Halford, Viscount Montrose, Baron Layne"
Thirty. Georgiana's Heart
John was a better man -- or a more foolish one -- than he knew, for he had not kept Hugh's letter from Georgiana, though at first he thought he might.
She, of course, had immediately resolved to go to London, but she saw John's misery in his face.
"There is no danger to me," she had assured him.
"I have turned superstitious," he had said, with a frown so deep that it looked as though it had been carved on his forehead. "You have avoided death twice, and now you go to the unknown again, instead of remaining safe by my side."
"You showed me this letter because you are kinder than you want anyone to know, and Hugh also suspects it, because he wrote to you."
"I regret it, now that I see you ready to go."
"You don't. You love me for what I am, or you would not have loved me through so many troubles. You knew I would go, and you know it is the right thing to do. I have also wrong Hugh, marrying him for money when I could never love him. I must also beg his forgiveness."
His eyes had still been troubled. "I thought we had taken a vow to be rats together."
"In our next life..." she had smiled.
He had insisted on going to London with her, and she had begged him to stay. The farm would be lost if he were not there, now that the unhappy Hester was gone, and she had asked him to bring Cecily and Dotty to him, so that they would all be together when she returned from London.
"Even though we would be able to marry, I hope you forgive me for wishing that Hugh does not die," she had told him as she prepared to board the post-chaise. "He is still a young man, and there is not as much evil as you think in him."
"I cannot wish for one thing or another," he had told her. "I want us to be married, and happy – but Hugh is my brother. I think of my father, knowing that his son is in agony."
They had parted, and Georgiana had sped through the country to London.
She made it to Halford House at nightfall, but she did not stop to rest. She went immediately t
o Hugh's room and found him lying in bed, attended by nurses and a doctor. He was a mess of blistering sores, and his raucous breathing could be heard in the corridor.
She sat by his side and took his hand, as he was blinded by pustules, and could not see her.
"Hugh!"
Upon hearing her voice his head turned slightly towards her.
"You have come?" There was a brief laugh, like a rattle, coming from his chest. "Georgiana, has no one told you that your heart is too soft?"
"Hugh, you must be in terrible pain!" she said, hardly able to caress him.
"Not in more pain than you, when I left you behind," he replied. He swallowed for a second and said, "Ned is also ill."
"Oh, no!" Georgiana cried.
"I only asked to see you because I knew there would be no danger to you," he continued. "And the irony is that now I cannot see you."
"Hush..."
"Georgiana," he said, as his hand wrapped around hers in spite of the pain. "I have kept them from giving me laudanum until you arrived, but I shall soon need it. I do not know what I wanted to say anymore, except this..."
His blind eyes sought hers, and she let him hold her hand without pressing it, as she knew the pain to him would be great.
"... I have loved you. I wanted you to know this from my own lips, and not from people who repeat such things after others are gone. They might come to you and say, 'Your husband is dead, but he did love you...' No!" he said almost fiercely. "I want to say it myself. You will think it a lesser love than John's because he braved everything to be by your side, while I ran away and left you to die. But it is the love that I was capable of..."
He moved his hand to grasp hers better. "I wanted you because you were beautiful, and I wanted to take you away from John because I felt he had taken everything away from me – but Georgiana, I loved you. I thought that I would save you and your sisters, and that in time you would come to know me, and love me. But as soon as I touched you..."
