by P. N. Elrod
“You mean I—”
He held up one finger and echoed my earlier caution to Beldon. “Softly, now. We’re all aware of what your mother is like; the danger I see is that you might use this—whatever it is—in such a way as to . . . well, sweeten her temper.”
Genuine surprise flooded me. “Oh, sir, but it never occurred to me—”
“I’m very glad to hear it.”
My face was burning. “Father, you don’t think that I would do such an unworthy thing?”
“No. My purpose was to point out the temptations that lie ahead for you. This strange enforcing of your will and thoughts upon others can be a gift or a curse depending how it’s employed. I strongly suggest that in the future you rely upon it as little as possible.”
I said nothing for some time, for his words gave me much to think about. I honestly hadn’t considered this side of things. For all the use Nora made of it, she’d only done the bare minimum to ensure her own security. When it came to our relationship, she’d discarded it altogether, risking all in the hope that my love for her would overcome my fears. Sadly, though, at the end, she’d tried to make me forget that love.
Perhaps she’d thought it was for my own good.
My eyes stung at the thought. To do something for another’s own good must surely be the greatest of betrayals. It was Mother’s favorite tenet, and the one I hated the most, and yet I could not bring myself to hate Nora. In my heart, I felt she’d been sincere and done it out of love for me rather than as a convenience or assertion of power for herself.
“Jonathan?”
I gave a start. “Yes, Father, of course you’re right. To do otherwise would be most ungentlemanly and dishonorable.”
“Good lad.”
“But for what I’m to do tonight . . . ?”
“It is necessary. By this means, yes, make them think it was but a dream. Beldon took hold of the idea fast enough.”
“What about others like Mrs. Montagu and Mr. Rapelji?” asked Elizabeth.
“The same,” he said heavily.
She turned on me. “Will you be able to convince the whole Island?”
“Elizabeth, think how hard it was for us both when you first saw me. Now multiply it by every person who knows what’s happened. Would you put me through that with them all? Can you trust them to react as well as you have? I can’t. I want to come home, and this is the only way I can do it and not be marked out as some sort of grotesque thing fit only to be stared at or avoided. It spares them and it spares me.”
She paced up the room and back while a number of ideas and emotions played over her face and made her stride uneven. “Yes,” she murmured. “It’s just that there are so many I don’t see how you can do it.”
“I’ll manage somehow,” I said. “I must.”
“Jericho, too?”
“Not Jericho.” I stated firmly. He was my oldest friend and deserved the truth. “It’s impossible for a man to hide anything from his valet and in his case it would be pointless to try. I shall give him the full story, but there it must stop or the whole island will be privy to my personal concerns.”
“Quite right,” Father said. “Are you up to starting now? If you wait much longer they’ll all be asleep.”
* * *
As with many endeavors, the beginning was the most difficult part, though there were some rough spots along the way. Elizabeth, with her talent for organization, soon saw that speaking to each servant one after another would take us half the night. Eventually we worked out a faster way to deal with the problem. As each came into the room, I would influence them into a quiet state and ask them to wait. Once together, I could give up to half a dozen of them at a time the same story rather than tell the same story half a dozen times. From Mrs. Nooth to the humblest stable lad, I spoke to the lot of them, and released each back to their duties as they had come with lighter hearts and no worse for wear.
Mother and Mrs. Hardinbrook were the last ones I saw. Perhaps they should have been the most harrowing, but my poor brain throbbed miserably by then from my labors; I was beyond further emotional upsets or excitements. Mother had fortunately slept off the effects of her latest dose of laudanum, making the expenditure of effort on her a success. I confess, though, that in watching her face going blank, I did experience an undeniable thrill. I was glad to have had Father’s advice already in mind, else the temptation to abuse this gift might certainly have proved to be too attractive in my future dealings with her.
Mrs. Hardinbrook was somewhat of a problem, in that she’d indulged herself in the matter of drink not so very long ago. She’d taken just enough to cause me worry, but not so much that I was unable to make an impression upon her. She was quiet when Elizabeth led her away, but I confided my doubts to Father.
“ ’Tis to be relied upon that she won’t be leaving us anytime soon,” he said. “I expect that after she’s fully sobered you may try again with more certainty on the outcome. How are you feeling?”
“Tired. Much more of this and my head shall split from the work.”
But there was only one more left to see and that was Jericho. As with the others, I had to put him in a state where he could readily listen, but unlike the others, I gave him the truth. Still, before releasing him, I instructed—rather than requested—that he believe my story and accept it and myself without fear.
For this liberty upon his will, my only excuse was that I was too weary to do otherwise. Whether the soreness of my head was due to the excessive mental labor or the constant strain of imposing a raw falsehood upon so many didn’t matter. What did was my reluctance to face another hour as harrowing as that first one I’d spent with Elizabeth upon my return. No more shocks like that for myself or anyone else, I resolved, and if Elizabeth or Father thought I was being selfish in my decision, neither made mention of it.
Coming back to himself, Jericho welcomed me with the same warmth and joy as though I’d only been away on a lengthy journey and nothing more. This return to normal was what I wanted, what I needed most. I accepted his welcome and submitted meekly to his disapproval at the state of my clothes. He begged permission to see to their improvement. Father and Elizabeth both made haste to agree that I needed restoration and with their good nights floating behind us Jericho all but dragged me up to my room.
“But everything’s been moved, Mr. Jonathan,” he noted unhappily when he opened the wardrobe.
My shirts and coats and all other manner of clothing had been returned, not in the right order, but more or less back in place again. I came over to touch them and be reassured. With the return of my things it was as though my own person was made more substantial by their presence.
“Thank God. Elizabeth must have retrieved everything for me, bless her.”
“Retrieved . . . ?”
“You know.”
“Oh,” he said, drawing it out with sober understanding. He instantly ceased to be outraged that someone had intruded upon his territory and plunged into sorting the more radically misplaced items to their proper areas.
“Is my journal in there?” I asked.
“I do not see it, sir.”
“Damn. I wonder who’s got it?”
“I shall endeavor to locate it for you as soon as may be.”
“Thank you, though I can’t write much in it with my arm trussed up.
“It pains you?
“A great deal, but I’ve been through worse.”
He chose not to comment on that truth and concentrated on getting me in the same kind of order that he imposed upon the contents of the wardrobe. It was only when he scraped away at my stubbled chin that he finally gave in to a reaction to the impossibility of my presence. He caught his breath and turned away suddenly.
“What is it? Jericho?”
His self-possession deserted him for a few moments and it was a struggle for h
im to wrest it back. The expression on his face kept shifting alarmingly back and forth between calmness and distress.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that the last time I shaved you was after they brought you . . . it was. . . .”
My poor friend. Pity moved me to take his trembling hand in both of mine. “I know. But it’s all right. This is going to be strange for all of us for a time until we’re used to things.”
He nodded once or twice, rather forcefully. “I expect so, sir.”
“But there’s nothing to be afraid of; I’m still myself.”
His nod was less abrupt, and I let him go and looked elsewhere while he swiped impatiently at his eyes. When his hand was steady once more, he resumed and completed the job of shaving me.
It was much too late and too much work to prepare a bath; we made do with a wet towel to refresh my grubby skin. A change of linen completed my toilet. Easing back on the bed with my dressing gown half on (out of deference to my arm), I felt more like my old self and better able to consider some of the grim practicalities of my changed condition.
“Something will have to be done about that window,” I said. “I suggest you close and lock the shutters and then find something to stop up the chinks.”
“It will be like a sickroom, sir, with no air or light.”
“In truth, that’s the whole point. I don’t seem to need air, and I’ve found the latter to be highly inimical to my continued well-being. Please trust me on this, Jericho. I don’t want a single ray of light coming in here tomorrow. And it will probably be best that my door remain locked. I shouldn’t care for one of the maids to walk in while I’m . . . resting.”
“Will it always be so for you?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps later I can ask Dr. Beldon to suggest a way to help improve the situation, but this is how it must be for now.”
“And you say you are completely unconscious while the sun is up?”
“Yes, and I can already predict that it’s going to be a deuced nuisance.”
“More than a nuisance, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you considered what could happen to you should the house—God forbid—catch fire?”
The horror of his idea swept over me in an instant, and I sat with my mouth hanging wide as imagination supplied such details as would have better been left unimagined. Out of necessity, we were all very careful in regard to fire and candles, but accidents happened, and if one occurred during the day while I lay helpless . . . .
“By God, I’ll have to go back to that damned barn to get any rest!”
“I think you should remain here, Mr. Jonathan, where you can be watched and otherwise protected. It really is much more secure.”
“But not as fireproof. I suppose I could sleep in the root cellar, though that might vex Mrs. Nooth and alarm the rest of the kitchen.”
“Actually, I was going to recommend some additional changes be made to the buttery,” he said.
“The buttery?”
“There was some discussion before your . . . accident about enlarging it to accommodate hidden stores against the commissary men. It won’t be too much extra work to make it larger than planned and fit it with such comforts as you might require.”
“And live like a rabbit in a hole in the ground?”
“Rabbits have no fear of being burned alive while in their holes,” he pointed out.
I laughed once and shook my head. “Yes, I suppose so. I’ll talk to Elizabeth about it. Think she’s still up?”
“Miss Elizabeth retired some time ago. Mr. Barrett as well.”
Yes. They’d both been worn out, and it was well past their normal bedtime, but I still felt a stab of loneliness. It was as I’d anticipated, and I would just have to get used to spending the greater part of the night hours on my own. Oh, but there were many, many worse things in the world, though I felt to have been through a goodly number of them already.
“Very well. Hand me that volume of Gibbon from the shelf, would you?”
Jericho selected the correct book and placed a candle on my bedside table. With the shutters closed, I found I needed it. I cannot say that the conflicts of the late Roman empire held my whole attention while he worked to seal up the room from the sun’s intrusion, but it helped. When Jericho finished and I bade him to go off for some well-earned sleep, my study was even less successful. In the end, I left off with Gibbon in mid-word to search out and open my Bible.
I was seized with an uncommonly strong urge to read the eleventh chapter of John again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Eyes wide, I frantically clawed up from my internal prison, drew in a shuddering breath, and rolled out of bed to slam against the floor. The impact jarred my maimed arm, sending me instantly awake and aware of its every insulted nerve.
“Mr. Jonathan?” Jericho’s voice, alarmed.
I shook my head and would have waved him away if I hadn’t been busy biting back a cry of pain. He read something of it in my posture, and held off. It was some minutes before I extended my good arm and allowed him to help me to my feet.
“More bad dreams?” he asked.
Nodding, I sought out the chair by my study table. I had no wish to return to that bed. Good elbow on the table and forehead resting against the heel of my hand, I breathed deeply of the stale air of my room and tried to collect myself. Jericho pulled down the quilts he’d draped over the window and opened the shutters. It was just past sunset, but my room faced east, so the remaining sky-glow flooding in was bearable to my sensitive eyes.
“Will you speak to Dr. Beldon?” he asked. His tone was not quite reproachful yet leaning in that direction. He’d made the suggestion yesterday evening and I’d summarily dismissed it.
Time to give in. “Yes, I’ll see him, though God knows what good he’ll be able to do me for this.”
“Perhaps he can determine whether it is, at root, a physical or a spiritual problem.”
Or both, I thought unhappily. In the three days since my return, I had gotten no rest to speak of while the sun was up. Cleaned and groomed and tucked away in the comfort of my own bed, my family life resumed with hardly a ripple, one would think that my troubles were abated, but not so. The utter oblivion that I’d known before, that had caused the day to flash by without notice, was gone. Now I was aware of every excruciating second of the slow-passing time.
When the light came and my body froze inert where it lay, so came the dreams, sinuous things that wound through my mind like poisonous snakes. Striking at my most tender thoughts and feelings, I was helpless to escape from them by waking and yet could not fully sleep. All the memories of my life were drawn forth to play before me or worse—directly involve me. If pleasant, an experience was twisted to something ugly and grotesque, if not, then I lived and relived the horror without mercy. After three days of it I’d lost count of the times Tony Warburton had tried to kill me—sometimes succeeding—or the times I’d found myself back in that damned coffin screaming away my sanity.
After the first day of this private hell, I’d asked Jericho to stay and watch for signs of inner disturbances and to wake me should he see them. He saw nothing more than my still and unresponsive outer shell. The next day his instructions were to try waking me at intervals, in hopes that that might help. Though I was aware of his presence and his efforts, it was ultimately useless. The dreams, worthy of the darkest fantasies of the maddest opium eater, continued unabated.
More weary now than when I’d retired that morning, I had to force myself to dress. Jericho managed to get me properly turned out except my coat. For that, I could only slip on the left sleeve and drape the rest over my right shoulder. Previous attempts to straighten my arm had proved to be too agonizing to complete and the constant inconvenience was such that I would have to see Beldon, anyway. Loath as I was to have him rebreak it to put thing
s right, it was rapidly coming to that point.
Leaving Jericho to continue his duties, I walked downstairs to the drawing room. Elizabeth practiced something new on her spinet and had trouble with a particular phrase, but the sounds were a fresh delight to my ear. She paused when I walked in, smiled, then went on.
Mother, Mrs. Hardinbrook, Beldon and—I was surprised to see—Father played at cards. He usually had no patience for them, preferring his books, so I could guess that Mother had nagged him into joining their game. They also looked up and nodded at me.
Everything was so unutterably, wonderfully normal. I wanted to embrace them for just being there. Until faced with its loss, I’d never truly valued all that I’d had.
“So you’re finally up,” said Mother.
“Yes, madam.” Even she could not dampen my goodwill.
“You’ve missed the entire day, you know. How can you help your father with his work if you play the sluggard?”
If she had a talent for anything it was for asking impossible questions. It was also interesting to me that though possessed of an active contempt for Father’s law practice she found it useful enough now to point out my apparent laziness.
I bowed toward Father. “My apologies, sir.”
He restrained a smile. “Never mind. Just get that arm well, then I’ll find work for you.”
“You’re too soft on the boy, Samuel,” she sniffed.
“Perhaps, but he’s the only one we have,” he smoothly returned.
Beldon and his sister maintained a diplomatic silence during this exchange. Elizabeth paused again in her play to glance at me. My mouth twitched and I jerked my chin down once to let her know that everything was all right. It was easier now to find amusement, rather than resentment, in Mother’s shortcomings. The three of us had passed through the fire and with that shared encounter, we’d discovered that the irritations Mother had to offer were very minor, indeed.
I drifted over to the spinet to watch Elizabeth. “How you can read that is beyond me,” I said, indicating her music.
