by Karleen Koen
"Jane," he began, and, she heard his voice break in the darkness. She put her hand to his face. He was crying. Her rock, her steadfast husband, was crying, as one of her children cried. She listened, her mother's ears straining for the sound of children, but the house was quiet. She must have frightened Cat and Betty into seeing about the children, even on All Hallow's, which was sacred to servants as a time of play and games. There was no sound of Jeremy screaming for her. To save him, to make him well, to take the hurt away. As she would if she could. What had the doctor said? What had he found that made Gussy, with his faith in the Lord and his serene calm, cry this way? She knew. Jeremy was going to die. She knew.
Gussy still knelt before her. She found his hand in the darkness and pulled him down so that his head was in her lap, against the baby, which fluttered weakly. In her lap, Gussy cried and cried. She put her hand on his hair. He did not have on his wig, and his own hair was thinning. She stroked that thinning hair, the high bulb of his forehead, thinking of all the knowledge, the sweetness under her fingertips. She smiled to herself. Cat and Betty were probably standing at an upstairs window, staring down at the two of them murmuring that the witches had possessed them, and cast an All Hallow's spell over them.
"What did the doctor say?"
"He said that Jeremy has an inflammation of the lungs."
"And—"
"He will give him medicines to bring down the fever, but—" Gussy could not finish.
"But there is a possibility he will die," Jane finished for him, calmly. The knowledge that he was going to die settled into her firmly, securely, and…for now, calmly. This is real grief, she thought, her thoughts seeming to her to be like stars shining brightly on a clear summer night, pinpoints of clearest light against dark sky. True grief. The death of a child, my child.…
Gussy pulled her up to stand beside him. For a moment, they stood together, and she felt his tears dropping onto her face. Dear Gussy. He would have need of the Lord in the next weeks, as would she. Only the love of God, the thought of a peaceful afterlife—suffer the little children to come unto Me—would reconcile her to Jeremy's dying. And the reconciliation would not come easily. Even now, she could feel denial of it rearing back inside of her. She would fight Death with every breath she took, every recipe, water, cordial, herb that existed. With her mother's love.
"I love you," said Gussy.
"I love you, too," she said.
Together, they walked back to the house.
* * *
Barbara's carriage lurched into the courtyard of Saylor House in London, the horses' mouths foaming against their bridles because the coachman had driven them so hard. It did not matter that his mistress had said they could drive into London late; he refused to be on the road after dark on All Hallow's.
In the carriage, Barbara fell against Thérèse. Damn him, she thought, knowing it would do no good to scold him; country superstition was stronger than harsh words on All Hallow's. How weary I feel, Barbara thought, the excitement of coming to London lost now, evaporating with the miles, as the carriage lurched on and on and Thérèse sat so silent, so quiet, none of her usual chatter, her rosary beads clinking over and over; and thoughts of Harry rose, in spite of herself, in her mind. She did not want to think of him, but the thoughts pushed themselves up. She did not want to cry over him, but tears welled anyway. Roger, she kept thinking, I will tell Roger, and he will hold me and make the hurt well. Harry.
She walked up Saylor House's broad steps, Thérèse behind her, thinking of how a cup of tea would refresh her, take the tiredness, the dreariness from her. In the great parlor, as the murals of her grandfather's battles rose up on the walls all around her, she had a sudden vision of Harry, lying on that table, and the thin, red, stitched line under his neck. Hysteria rose in her throat along with a wild impulse to cry, to scream, to pull her hair, to shake her aunt and Tony, who were rising out of their comfortable armchairs before the fire, staring at her as if she were a ghost. She was not a ghost. Harry was. Roger. How she needed him. And how she feared that need. There were so many things yet between them. Things which must be settled for her peace of mind.
"You are here so quickly," her Aunt Abigail was saying, an odd note in her voice.
"It took no longer than usual. There has been no rain. The roads are not impossible yet. Are there scones? I am famished."
And she kissed both Tony and her aunt, and sat down abruptly, even though the two of them still stood, and began to butter a scone.
"Did you not receive my letter?" said Abigail.
"What letter?"
"Roger has had a serious attack. He is ill, Barbara. Tony and I have just come from Devane House. I wrote you. I sent the letter off yesterday by special messenger, but—"
"Roger? Ill?" She stared up at her aunt, not quite able to take in her words.
"Merciful heavens, worse than ill. The doctor fears for his life—"
"Mother!" Tony interrupted swiftly, but Barbara was up, knocking over a cup of tea in her haste, running from the room. "Thérèse!" Abigail and Tony heard her call as she ran out into the hall. "Thérèse!"
"I did not mean—" Abigail began, but Tony was striding past her.
"I am going with her."
"No—Tony!"
Abigail followed him into the hall. There was no sign of Barbara. Tony ran to the front door and wrenched it open. Barbara was climbing into her carriage, Thérèse behind her. He called her name, but she shut the door, and the carriage lurched away. Tony ran down the steps, Bates and Abigail behind him. He turned to Bates, frowning.
"Have a horse saddled immediately."
"Wait, Tony," said Abigail. "She does not need nor want you at this moment—" She stopped. The face he showed her was determined and stubborn and desperately in love. She was silent as she followed him back into the house. She left him in the hall and went back into the great parlor and closed the door behind herself. She looked at the war murals, the great cabinets filled with porcelain, the fine furniture. Everything was as it should be. Everything showed her—Tony's—wealth and power. She sat back down at the tea table and began to pour herself a cup of tea, but the hand that held the teapot trembled, and she poured tea over the table and it spread quickly and began to drop onto the priceless rug under her feet. She grabbed at a napkin and another cup of tea spilled on the rug before she knelt on her hands and knees to blot the liquid. There. There. She was getting it all. Everything was fine—she hit her head on the table and sat back on her heels and burst into tears, her powder and rouge running, as she cried and could not stop.
It was so many things. London was dismal, gloomy, full of fear. No one could help catching the feeling. This South Sea thing. It kept on and on, touching all their lives, ballooning larger and larger. Wherever one went— to court, a private party, shopping—it was all that was discussed. She had lost half her private fortune. Half. And Harry had killed himself over it, and Roger had had an attack of apoplexy, and Harold was moving to his country estate in the north. I cannot afford London, he told her. I have to live in the country. And Fanny was pregnant. And the north was wild and cold. It had moors, wet marshlands that Abigail hated. And Charles Russel had been within an inch of signing a marriage contract when the news of Roger's attack had buzzed through London. Then yesterday he was distant, elusive, and she knew what was in his mind. Barbara. If Barbara was going to be a widow anytime soon, he would wait. For sixpence, she would have ended the negotiations yesterday, but what did Mary do, her quiet, her obedient Mary, but have hysterics. Hysterics. It had taken Abigail hours to calm her. I will kill myself, she had screamed. I love him, I love him. Abigail blew her nose again. Mary had reminded her at that moment vividly of Barbara five years ago, but when she told her so, pointing out what had happened to Barbara, Mary just cried harder. And when she went to Tony to back her up, he said that he was on Mary's side. Mary is a child, she shouted—yes, she had shouted. Her children drove her to shout. We are better able to decide what
is best for her than she is, she told Tony. And Tony, who loved his sister, who could be counted upon to do the right thing, was as obstinate as Mary. If Mary wanted Charles, Tony said, she could have him. And Abigail had seen, in the middle of a shout, why. Tony wanted Barbara. And if Mary were married to Charles, then Charles would be out of the way.
You fool, Abigail wanted to shout (but did not, luckily; some sense returned). Barbara will never love you. Never. And if Abigail had her way, she never would. She would die rather than accept Barbara as a daughter– in–law. And worst of all, she did not even have Philippe here to talk to. She cried and blew her nose again. She could have poured out all her troubles to him, and he would have listened with interest. Talking to him was such a comfort. And it had been years, years, since any man made her feel the way Philippe de Soissons did sometimes. Yes, she was human. She had feelings too. She had needs. But she had always been able to sublimate them in the welfare of her children, in the running of their lives to their best interests, of course. But Philippe had made her think of other things. She was not such a fool that she could not tell when a man found her attractive. And what did he do? He left for France on some pretext about pressing personal business, without so much as a last good–bye. She had cried like a girl over his letter. Men. Tony was going to break his heart, and she could not do one thing to stop it. And Charles was a selfish fool. Harold had no regard for anyone's feelings but his own. He was taking her dear Fanny off to the marshlands, and life was dreary and dismal and difficult, and she had lost half her personal fortune in a stupid gamble and she ought to have known better. She had more sense than that. It was those speculators pushing stock higher and higher and the excitement….
She rose from the floor and shook out her gown, noticing, with dismay, tea stains on it. She took a deep breath. She sat down, and calmly, regally, picked up the teapot to pour herself another cup of tea. She stared at the teapot a moment. Then, following a rare impulse, she threw it at the fire. It missed the fire, but broke into pieces on the mantelpiece. She stared at the pieces, at the tea spreading everywhere, at the tea leaves and grounds which would surely stain the woodwork and floors. It had been a porcelain teapot, from China, unusual and expensive. Breaking it had not made her feel any better, and she had ruined a good teapot in the bargain.
* * *
Barbara was out of the carriage and running up the stairs before the carriage came to a full stop at Devane House. Running past Cradock and staring footmen in the hall, running through the library to Roger's bedchamber. She flung open the door. There was no one in the room. She stood staring at the empty bed, her eyes widening. He could not be—she turned and ran through the bedchamber apartments, through the room that connected his with hers, to hers, lovely with the intricate wood carvings and that sea–foam–colored damask. She took a deep breath and opened the door to her bedchamber. Justin, folding a nightgown, stared at her, his face slowly breaking into a smile as he recognized her. Aunt Shrewsborough, in a chair by the bed, rose.
Barbara walked to the bed. It was as if she were walking down a dark lane, and all sides were dark, and only the bed was the light at the end. She looked down at the man in the bed, at Roger, not so very different from when she had seen him last. His face was flushed, his eyes were closed. She put her cheek against his. It was too hot, but the heat was a sign of life. He was alive.
"You look as if you have seen a ghost," her Aunt Shrewsborough said. "He is not a ghost yet, but I will not lie to you, Barbara. He is fighting for his life."
She opened her mouth to say something, but her legs suddenly had no strength, and she was sinking, would have fallen to the floor in fact if Justin had not caught her, murmuring to her—dear Justin, he had always been so comforting; how she depended on his comfort those years ago in Paris—telling her Lord Devane was alive, giving her a glass of something to drink. She drank it down in a gulp, and it burned her throat like fire, burned all the way down, landing in a ball of fire in her stomach, but the fire was good. It sent warm tendrils of fire into her legs, her arms, her head. She was better. Roger was alive. It was not too late. Nothing was too late.
Her Aunt Shrewsborough led her out of the room to the withdrawing chamber.
"Fever," she was saying. "It is the fever that is so bad. It does not break. We give him the fever water the doctor left, the medicine. Justin and I wash him down with lavender water every few hours, but the fever does not go away. He was burning with it when they found him."
"When was that?"
"Three days ago. In the library, near an open window. No one knows how long he lay in that damp air. Damp air will kill a body quicker than anything. I blame it for the fever, but the doctor says it is the apoplexy which has given him fever."
"Apoplexy…"
Aunt Shrewsborough sniffed. "Doctors. He thinks it apoplexy, but I do not. My first husband went like that," and she snapped her fingers, "from the apoplexy. Bad blood to the brain. Or so the doctors tried to tell me. He died in the arms of some whore. I think the excitement killed him. But my second husband had an attack that was more like Roger's, the fainting, the fever. A long bout of fever. And he finally woke to make my life a torment for five more years. It is too bad we are not at Tamworth, Barbara. Your grandmother and her Annie could cure anything. I do not trust doctors. Never have. Never will."
Barbara stood up abruptly. "I am going to sit with him now." She kissed her aunt's wrinkled cheek. "Thank you for being here with him."
"Nonsense. He is family. You can thank your Aunt Abigail and Fanny and Tony, too. We have all been here."
Tony walked into the withdrawing chamber just as the bedchamber door closed behind Barbara. He still had on his hat and cloak. He stared at his aunt.
"Barbara," he said abruptly. "Where is she?"
Aunt Shrewsborough looked at him; everything he felt was written plainly on his face. She shook her head and sighed and stood up and walked over to him. She did not quite come to his shoulder, even in her high heels.
"She is with her husband," she said. She took his arm and said more gently, "Come away, boy. This is no time for you. Take me home, and you and I will drink a glass or two of brandy together. Brandy is what we need now. A good, strong glass of brandy. She is with her husband, where she belongs."
Five years, thought Barbara, sitting in the chair her aunt had vacated by the sickbed. In five years I will be twenty–five…that is nothing. Nothing. I want so much more…and then a memory flickered in her mind, of Paris and Richelieu and his saying, You are too greedy, you want everything, all of his love, all of his devotion. You expect too much, Bab. She could remember her answer so clearly: I will have it all, or nothing. Then nothing is what you will end with, Bab. Nothing. Like Harry. She pushed back the thoughts of Harry. Later. She would think them later, when Roger was better. I will take the five years, she said to herself. Or one. And be glad for it.
On the bed, Roger opened his eyes. She bent over him, but he did not see her. His eyes were dull, glazed, the eyelids rimmed red. His hands clawed feebly at the covers. "Behind," he whispered. "The French are massed behind…" His breath was harsh and rasping, it was clearly a great effort for him to speak.
"Hush," she said, putting her hand to his forehead. How hot it was. "I am here. I am here now."
He closed his eyes, but his breathing still had that harsh rapidity to it. The sound frightened her. Even more than the fever.
What battlefield did he walk in his mind? What battle did he relive? Where was he? Alone…all alone someplace she could not reach. Someplace that he must survive. And the enemy was not the French, it was Death. Death. Like the thin red line stitched with black under Harry's chin. All the fears and doubts and questions she had carried inside herself from Tamworth….Tell me about Philippe. It was the first thing she had been going to demand of him. And now, Philippe was unimportant. If he were to walk into the bedchamber in the next second he would be nothing. Nothing beside the fact of the way Roger lay in the bed bre
athing short gasps of air, his hands clawing the bed covers, hot and dry with fever. He might die. But not if she could help it. She had youth and strength and determination on her side. Forgive and never look back, her grandmother had said. And she had thought, how easy that is for you to say. And now she knew it was the truest of wisdoms. Her grandmother knew what she did not. As always. I forgive you, Roger, she thought, staring down at him. Live for me. For us. And I swear to you that I will never look back again.
* * *
She walked in the gardens of the house the next day, taking an hour away from the nursing. Thérèse and Mrs. Elmo and Justin were there if Roger should need anything. He was no better. Still the fever burned in him. The doctor came by. His pulse is still too weak, he said. This fever will kill him if we do not bring it down. How long can he last with the fever? she asked, and the doctor shrugged. Who knew? A messenger was already on his way to Tamworth with her letter requesting her grandmother's strongest fever waters and cordials. Her tears had fallen on the paper like rain as she wrote. Aunt Shrewsborough was right; if only she could take Roger to Tamworth. There he would get well. He would, Annie and Grandmama could cure anyone.
