Christmas Child: an absolutely heartbreaking and emotional Victorian romance
Page 17
‘Secrets,’ he rasped. ‘We all have secrets.’
Ettie thought this was rather a peculiar answer, but she nodded and replied, ‘I never knew your mother. But I imagine she was very beautiful.’
‘Love must be blind,’ he whispered. ‘For that is the only explanation.’
Ettie moved a little closer. ‘I am sorry, Sir, I don’t understand.’
‘Lies, Ettie, all lies. A nest of them.’
‘Sir, you are confused from your journey,’ she insisted, ‘come and rest. I shall call the physician.’
‘A physician cannot cure what ails me.’ His lips quivered and she thought he might collapse. ‘I shall tell you from the beginning,’ he choked on a rattled breath as he sank to the stool. ‘You see, I have been travelling for nearly a month. A coach here. A carriage there. But in the end, all were beyond my means. Instead I ventured on foot, until at last I reached the French coast. Enough, saved, yes, enough to cross the Channel by boat. But after that … I have returned here destitute!’
‘But Sir,’ Ettie replied in bewilderment, ‘after your letter, I did as you asked. With a friend’s help I took the chest to the Bank of England.’
He gave a low groan. ‘Don’t ask me about them!’
‘But why, Sir?’
‘Don’t ask! Don’t ask!’
Ettie could make no sense of what he was saying. ‘Your wife, Sir, and the baby, what of them?’ she burst out. ‘Please tell me.’
Desperate eyes looked up at her. ‘Clara and my darling child, my family, they are gone, Ettie. Gone!’
Had her employer lost his senses? She wondered in fear. ’Gone, Sir, gone where?’
‘Perished, both of them,’ he cried desperately. ‘In childbirth. Or in death, both are the same for me – and for them!’
She swallowed, trying to absorb this madness. Was Lucas delirious? Had hysteria overtaken him? ‘Sir, I shall call the physician,’ she repeated.
‘A priest would be better, for it was I who killed them. I who failed them. I still hear her cries and see her dead face that was once so alive and beautiful. And my son, deformed and no larger than my hand, his poor, twisted body dragged from her, not a breath in his lungs, or cry from his mouth.’ He bent forward, arching his chest with howls so dreadful that Ettie could not bear to hear them.
‘Hush now, Sir.’ She knelt beside him and took him in her arms. His sobs travelled through her like punches, each one more violent than the next.
Chapter 39
‘I cannot live without Clara,’ he sobbed as he raised his head from her shoulder. ‘I have no desire to exist.’
‘But how can this have happened? Are you sure, Sir? Is there not some mistake?’ She knew this was a foolish remark, but hope remained inside her for just a few seconds. Perhaps Lucas might be wrong, his senses scattered from hunger and exhaustion?
But her hopes were soon dashed.
‘I held her dear body in my arms. I beseeched her to wake from her sleep. I kissed her cold skin, as frozen as the grave. I took my son, as lifeless as she, and offered my own life if only theirs be spared. But death refused me and I was left with corpses the sight of which I will never forget. There’s no mistake, Ettie! We shall never see them again.’
Tears overwhelmed him until he fell back in such distress, that all she could hear was the prolonged and heart-breaking agony of an abandoned man.
Ettie did not know how long it was that she stayed beside her employer as he tried to release his anguish; one minute babbling incoherently, the next too consumed by his woe to speak.
All the while, she tried to reserve some small part of herself. For if she let herself go, sorrow would devour them both. The loving, hopeful couple who had departed the shores of England a year ago, were now reduced to one. Perhaps less than one, Ettie feared, for this man was broken.
It was no easy task to assist him to the bedroom, for he was unsteady and dithered on every stair. But eventually he sank to the bed and allowed her to remove his clothes.
This intimacy would once have caused them both great embarrassment. Now he seemed not to care and obeyed her gentle commands. Filling the pitcher and soaking the flannel in the bowl, she bathed him tenderly, as if he was a child. The sight of his emaciated body distressed her beyond words. But after a while she composed herself and continued with her nursing, drawing on his nightshirt and bringing him broth to eat.
For a while he slept, but was so restless that Ettie stayed all night in the chair, listening for his every movement. By morning, a fever had set in. His ramblings grew worse and Ettie hurried down to the salon, where she took a sixpence from the till.
‘Run to the physician of Soho Square and tell him he is needed at the tobacconist’s of Silver Street,’ she instructed the dirty urchin who had taken to occupying the step outside the salon on Sundays. ‘If you bring him, there’s another sixpence waiting for you.’
The tousled-haired boy scampered off and Ettie returned to the bedroom.
Her patient tossed in distress, the delirium she had feared, now overcoming him. She bathed his forehead with a rag and washed his sweating limbs with cold water. And all the while he talked in riddles. His Mama’s name was constantly on his dry, swelling lips. But his soft and gentle pleading soon changed to anger and accusation when he spoke of his Papa.
‘Lay still,’ Ettie begged him as he writhed about, refusing to be covered. The sweat poured from him and his forehead burned red hot.
By the time the physician arrived and Ettie had paid the boy, Lucas was in a deep delirium.
‘How long has he been sick?’ he enquired.
‘I don’t know, sir. Mr Benjamin returned from Switzerland only yesterday. He was most distressed. I am grieved to say his wife has passed away.’
‘The same lady I came here to treat some while ago for her addiction?’
Ettie nodded sadly. ‘She died in childbirth, so he told me. But I am not certain why. His only description was that the baby …’ here Ettie had to forcibly command herself to continue, ‘the baby boy was deformed, only the size of his hand and … and twisted.’ She could barely bring herself to say the word.
But the physician nodded slowly. ‘I am not surprised.’
‘What does it mean, sir?’
‘Since I was not her consultant, I cannot say for sure. But I have seen others …’ he paused, bowing his grey head. ‘The interference of that poisonous drug in a body’s system may be responsible for such a tragedy.’
Ettie swallowed, feeling her head swim. Had Clara not escaped the opium’s effects after all? But such a price to pay! It was unthinkable. Yet, Ettie sensed this misfortune might very well be true.
‘Your employer has a dangerous fever. He must be tended day and night. Give him a teaspoon of this linctus for his cough. If the fever breaks, he will survive.’ He took a small brown bottle from his Gladstone bag. ‘Bathe him frequently and though he might not eat, fluid is essential. I shall call tomorrow.’
The Sunday bells were pealing across Soho for evening prayer as Ettie brought coddled eggs and warm milk to the bedroom. Setting it down on the bedside table, she drew away the bed sheet and pushed up the damp pillows behind Lucas’s head. He clutched her arm.
‘The Pass Book – have you got it?’ he babbled.
‘No, Sir. What Pass Book?’
‘I must have it. I must!’
‘Eat first and I will find the Pass Book,’ Ettie replied, trying to turn, but he pulled her close.
‘Mama will give it to you, but beware, if he tries for an advance, warn her to refuse.’
Suddenly afraid, Ettie stared into his eyes that were wide with fear. ‘Who, Sir, who will try for an advance?’
‘Papa,’ he gasped. ‘There will be nothing left to pay our debts. Mama will bear the burden.’
‘But Sir, I …’
‘I shall stop him, I must, for Mama’s sake. May he rot in hell if he tries!’ The curse was uttered with ferocity.
She stood, quaking
, for the man in the bed was not Lucas Benjamin, nor the weak and disabled stranger who had returned from Switzerland. This was a soul possessed, burning not just with fever but a savage anger.
‘Devil!’ he shouted so passionately that Ettie jumped back against the wall. She saw his attention was riveted on something other than her. He pointed a shaking finger, half rising from the bed like a wild animal about to spring. What would she do if he leaped up? Could she prevent him from doing himself damage? For he would surely fall without her help. And yet there was an energy in him that radiated. Those burning eyes, the loathsome expression, were all directed towards this unseen figure.
Ettie trembled from head to toe. She believed in the power of angels, but there was no good spirit in this room that felt protective or holy.
Edging her way to the door, she left him with his eyes fixed upon this supernatural force as the moisture ran down his face and into his beard. Taking the stairs two at a time, she burst into the nursery and snatched the bishop’s crucifix from the wall. Without pause for breath, she returned to the bedroom.
‘Mr Benjamin,’ she cried, ‘I have this to comfort you.’
A sudden moan came from his parched lips.
Ettie shuddered as his eyes, previously so fixed and furious, rolled upward into their sockets. Then, as if all the violence inside him drained out, he crumpled to the bed.
Ettie’s heart was thundering, her senses alert for any sudden movement. But there was nothing, not even a gasped breath.
‘Mr Benjamin, Sir?’ Ettie bent to touch his hand. Though damp with sweat, she felt the tremor of life. Gently pulling him back to the pillows, she slipped the crucifix beneath.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, protect this kind and distressed soul and bring him peace,’ she prayed.
Wiping a tear from her eye, she loosened the buttons of his nightshirt as the fever consumed him.
Chapter 40
That evening, Ettie drew every blind in the salon and by the light of a single candle took the quill pen and began to write. ‘We are closed temporarily for business. With many apologies, Lucas Benjamin, Proprietor.’
Fixing string through holes she made on either side of the notice, she hung it directly from the door.
Casting her eyes briefly around the shelves that were now almost bare despite her attempts to fill the vacant spaces, a heavy truth descended. Should her employer recover from his fever, his grief would not allow a swift recovery. For his life without Clara and his son would indeed be empty. His suffering would continue, as would hers as she nursed him. The prospect of this huge eruption in their lives, did not bring tears to Ettie’s eyes. For she must keep her senses about her. Even if it was possible to restock the shop and invite the gentlemen again, she could not care for an invalid and conduct a business single-handedly.
There was no doubt in her mind as to her priority and she looked up at Rose whispering a sincere request. ‘Won’t you help your son in his distress?’ she begged of the silent image. ‘He loves you dearly and regrets the terrible injustice you might have encountered in this earthly life. But cruelty has visited him too and I fear for his sanity.’
A few seconds passed and Ettie gathered herself, returning to the bedroom with supper. She tried a few spoonfuls of oatmeal, but his lips compressed as though, even in his derangement, he had no need for nourishment.
She took her position in the chair and kept watch all night, reassuring him when he shouted out and in the early hours of the morning, when the fever intensified.
When the physician called in the afternoon, he had no answer for her questions. The fever was unstoppable, the fires of grief and distress burning through every inch of skin.
The days slipped by and were only relieved by the visits of the physician, who could add little to his diagnosis of ‘brain fever’. This condition, he said, was caused by the shock of his recent bereavements.
In rare moments Ettie found Lucas calmer, but then an explosion of emotion would drive him to sit bolt upright. His stare would fix on the invisible creature that haunted him. ‘Waster! Scoundrel! Gambler!’ This was repeated time and time again.
Ettie pressed him back with as much force as she could but her consoling murmurs offered no solace. He seemed possessed and she feared a calamity. Either he would leap out of bed and injure himself. Or, she would fail to dodge the unnatural strength of his arms.
The bouts of delirium persisted against his father, whom he accused of the most heinous deeds. Lucas’s skin grew flushed and swollen with agitation. By night, he slept in a trembling stupor from which one morning, he did not rouse. Ettie leaned close to listen for his breath, but it came only shallowly. This turn of events frightened her the most and she could barely wait for the physician’s visit.
‘The crisis is coming,’ he warned. ‘I can do no more. Have you a neighbour to call on?’
‘No, sir.’
‘My dear, you cannot stay alone.’
She felt a coldness seep into her. ‘I’ll manage.’
‘How long is it since you’ve slept?’
She gave a disinterested shrug. ‘I can’t remember, sir.’
The physician grasped her shoulder. ‘Does the tobacconist have family or friends?’
She thought of Florence and Thomas, who had not appeared since Clara’s peculiar behaviour. But she neither knew where the couple lived or if they would come, if summoned. She thought, too, of Clara’s admission that she had no brothers or sisters. Ettie knew for certain Lucas had no one. Her employer and his wife had been each other’s only friends and soulmates. ‘No, sir. Just his gentlemen customers.’
‘You must call on someone,’ the physician insisted.
As she sat there, it came to her. ’The butcher, Terence,’ she answered. ‘He takes tea with me each week.’
‘Then I shall leave the rear door unlocked and alert him of your circumstances,’ said the physician kindly.
After he had gone, Ettie pulled the chair close to the bed, for she had no strength in her legs. Reaching for her employer’s hand, she held it tenderly. He was calm now. So calm and quiet that Ettie believed the physician’s diagnosis was wrong.
‘Can you hear me, Sir?’ she whispered, watching intently for a sign. But the swollen lids of his closed eyes did not move. Nor did his lips, so cracked and puffed that she took the wet flannel and bathed them repeatedly.
‘I am here, Sir, beside you,’ she said as she slipped her small fingers around his again. ‘I will not leave you. But I beg you to wake. For life is worth living. Your wife and son are in God’s hands. They are safe and happy at last and would only want the best for you, a dear husband and father, who cared for them with all of his heart …’
Ettie could speak no more for the sadness welling up inside her was too much. With every word she felt bereft as she reached out to comfort her dear friend.
Chapter 41
At half past six that evening, Ettie said her last goodbyes. In the company of Terence, who had not left her side since he had arrived an hour after the physician had called, Ettie regained the use of her legs in order to kiss the fevered cheek that in death, was finally chilled.
‘God rest the poor man and his family,’ Terence said softly, as he slipped the sheet lightly over the tobacconist and took his little friend gently to one side. ‘He’ll meet his maker with dignity,’ he assured Ettie. ‘Imagine his joy when he sees his darlings.’
But even the kind ministrations of the butcher did not help as she tried to picture the little family reunited. She tried very hard. And she knew, that it should be she, not Terence, who possessed the strongest faith. But her feelings were instead an unpleasant anger, just as she had felt at the bishop’s cruel directive. This germ had not gone away after all. Instead, it had festered; the injustice of tragedy! The unreasonable twist of fate! The taking of people she loved. An innocent child she had imagined so often, cooing and smiling in her arms. A family’s future denied. How could this be?
‘Come a
nd sit downstairs,’ Terence urged her, guiding her to the door. ‘And you can tell me all that happened.’
Ettie felt the shaking of the bonds that bound her to this room and hesitated. But Terence refused to let her remain and took her to the drawing room where he made her rest.
‘Tea, that’s what we’ll have. And a talk, before I do – well, what’s necessary for our departed friend.’
Ettie listened to Terence’s movements in the kitchen. They were comforting and for a little while she regained some normality. But then the full impact of what had transpired overshadowed her.
Her employer was gone and so, too, was his beloved wife. She would never cook for them and serve them breakfast or dinner again. She would never shop at the market in order to buy the best vegetables and fruit. She would never clean and dust the household and hear Clara’s grateful thanks, spoken in her soft and gentle voice.
And the nursery! What of that room filled with the trappings of welcome? The perambulator and crib, the pretty curtains and nursing chair. Now Clara would never rest there and Ettie would never watch mother and baby with immeasurable happiness. No, the chair would remain vacant in that silent, unoccupied room. The happiness and laughter that was expected – that happiness would never, ever be.
‘Now, drink this all the way down.’ Terence pressed her cold fingers around the warm shape of a mug. ‘Don’t expect you’ve looked after yourself, have you?’
Without seeming to expect an answer, he sat in Clara’s chair, his face full of concern. ‘Now, dear, tell me what happened?’
Ettie drank a little, but felt no refreshment. The thought of the desolate nursery was lodged in her mind; the empty crib, the stationary perambulator, the crucifix meant to protect and was now an emblem of death beneath her employer’s pillow.
‘Ettie, rally yourself, girl,’ Terence implored her. ‘Let loose on Terence whose shoulders are broad and waiting.’