by C F Dunn
I recalled the remote yet certain resonance. “It was very faint. How did you get inside my head?”
He cocked a brow. “How did you get inside mine?”
We lay like that, each within our own thoughts for a time, the gentle cadence of his breath almost lulling me to sleep. “I suppose,” I said sleepily, “that there has to be a connection between your ability to feel other people’s pain and what you did tonight.”
He had obviously been thinking along the same lines. “Very possibly. The question is, why could I go a step further with you and take away your pain, and why tonight? I suspect the link was latent and that whatever happened to you made you more responsive or… receptive.” He drifted into a reverie, and I waited, perfectly content as long as we were together. Content, that is, until a thought struck me. “You don’t think that you will become more sensitive to everyone’s pain, do you?”
“I hadn’t thought about it – it is possible. I’ll have to see when I’m next at the hospital.”
I sat up as the implication sank in. There was so little I knew about him and, just like climbing a range of hills, every time I thought that I had reached a peak of understanding, there in front of me would be yet another summit to climb.
“Matthew, I don’t want you to suffer. I don’t want you to be hurt at all. It’s bad enough you feeling my pain, but everyone else’s? You can’t carry that as well.”
An air of resigned acceptance had settled over him, and he put his hands behind his head as he watched firelight dance on the ceiling.
“You think that you might be able to take their pain away as well as feel it, don’t you?” I challenged. “Don’t you dare start that game! What right have you to take people’s pain from them without asking?”
His eyes slid away from mine. “I took yours away from you tonight…”
“Yes, and I told you not to. You stole it from me, I didn’t want you to have it. You can’t go around assuming people don’t want their hurt.”
“Have you ever seen someone die of stomach cancer?” he asked softly. I shook my head, angry that he would try to undermine my valid, but feeble, argument. “They can suffer terribly, Emma. If I can help them, shouldn’t I do so?”
“Not if it means you suffer too,” I said, mournfully, on a losing wicket but defiant to the last. “You shouldn’t, without asking their permission. You can’t assume consent, even if you think they would give it; that would be like playing God.”
“I see,” he said slowly, “and don’t you think I would look good in a long white beard, then?”
“Blasphemy!” I squeaked and launched at him, the sudden release of tension making me impetuous. He caught me and rolled me onto my back. I became serious. “Matthew, please, please promise me you’ll try to protect yourself. You don’t have to save everybody. You wouldn’t let me if our roles were reversed, would you?”
“That’s below the belt,” he complained.
“Maybe, but it’s true nonetheless. Promise me.”
“I promise,” he said reluctantly.
I smiled up at him. “And gentlemen always keep their promises.”
He suddenly grinned – a wicked, impish grin – as his hand ran up the outside of my thigh, making me squeal and smack his hand away. “And who says I’m a gentleman?”
“A History of the Gentry of Rutland 1461 to 1660,” by J. M. Standing. You get a mention.”
Matthew groaned, collapsing next to me and shaking with laughter. “You wait…” he threatened. “I’ll show you how much of a gentleman I am.”
I squirmed up to him until our noses were touching. “Is that a promise too?”
He grabbed a pillow, stuffing it between us. His eyes burned hot but not from anger.
“Hen’s teeth, woman, there’s only so much I can take. It was you cautioning me yesterday, remember?”
“Sorry, but it’s your own fault, Matthew. You only have yourself to blame.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, look at you. What’s a girl supposed to do when faced with that day in, day out?” I cast my eyes up and down the length of his body, which his clothes only served to enhance, and melted internally.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“I bet Ellie doesn’t have a boyfriend, does she?”
“You’ve lost me. What has Ellie to do with anything?”
“She adores you, silly, that’s why she’s been so odd with me. She’s jealous.” His eyes opened wide with horror. “No, not like that – nothing incestuous or anything. It’s just she measures everyone against you, and you’re a hard act to follow. Other men don’t have a chance with you around – not with her, or Megan… or the nurses come to think of it. Haven’t you noticed? It must have been going on for centuries. In fact, Nathaniel mentions it in the journal.”
He lay on his back again. “Megan’s always been attentive, it’s true, but Ellie? It explains something, though…”
I rested my chin on the pillow he held to his chest. “What?”
“She’s had several boyfriends, but they don’t seem to last. She won’t even let us meet them.” He paused. “And you think that’s because of me?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “I told you that I could feel what she was thinking. It was very peculiar, but I’m quite sure about it. Don’t say anything and don’t change the way you treat her – that wouldn’t be fair and she would suss you anyway, which would be humiliating for her. Just let time take its course; she’ll be OK.”
I rested my cheek on the pillow and he pulled the covers over me, putting his arms around the bundle we made. He stroked my hair. “What made you so insightful all of a sudden?”
“Coffee,” I said.
By the time I woke, light crept around the edges of the shutters and burnished the dark wood of the floor. The absence of a clock made guessing the hour futile, but Matthew had risen so there was no point staying put.
I extended my limbs into a stretch like a kitten and yawned, disturbing something that softly crackled on the end of the bed. Tentatively pushing with my foot, I felt it engage with an object too hard to be a pillow. Clasping it, I slipped out of bed, tiptoeing across the thick rug to open the heavy shutters and blinking in the sudden sunlight that saturated the room. About a foot long and like a thin plank of wood, the package had been wrapped in a rich glossy paper and tied with a bronze silk ribbon off which a toning tassel hung. Tucked under the intersection of the ribbon was a matching card. On the front of it, Matthew had written in his beautiful flowing script:
And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,
In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d,
While he from forth the closet brought a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd…
I slid it out and turned it over. On the cream reverse, he had added:
Not to be consumed before breakfast.
Which gave the game away even if I hadn’t already caught the heady, dry scent of a very expensive chocolate. I whooped with delight, wondering if I could extricate a sliver without Matthew knowing, then realizing that he would be able to smell it on me a mile off like a lunchtime drinker returning to work after an overindulgent booze-up. There was nothing for it but to follow orders and have breakfast.
Keeping a weather eye on Maggie’s room as I passed, I padded downstairs, my winter socks absorbing the sound of my footfall. The murmur of low voices came from the study as I reached the bottom step, and I stood outside deciding whether to knock and go in. I leaned my forehead against the cool surface of the wall, trying to choose, and knew instinctively that I was being discussed. It wasn’t that I could hear what they were talking about, nor even that I caught any mention of my name. I could just feel it – in colours – a fleeting murmur inside my head like a half-remembered conversation heard through a closed door.
Stunned that this new-found facility lingered long after the obvious effects of the caffeine had faded, I swivelled to leave. From ab
ove, I heard what sounded like a tut.
On the landing, her hand resting on the polished banister rail, Maggie regarded me with unmoving eyes. She must have seen me by the door and thought I was listening.
I flushed without cause and reddened again as she acknowledged my discomfort with a trace of a smile. I felt like the Girl in Rebecca, with Mrs Danvers – draped in the vestiges of hate and oozing resentment – looking down on me, a silent assassin slipping killer words from between unmoving lips. I found her sort difficult to deal with, not least because my crime was either uncommitted or unidentified, and how can you apologize for something you haven’t done? I couldn’t bring myself to wish her a merry Christmas.
“Good morning, Maggie,” I said stiffly.
Danvers continued to peer down at me using the height of the stairwell as an effective vantage point. “Good morning, Dr D’Eresby. I trust that you had an enjoyable night?”
I sucked my teeth wondering whether she intended a double entendre or if I misjudged her. Although not unfriendly, nor did she wave a white flag. I erred on the side of caution. “I did, thank you.” Had she been Pat, I would have been throwing apologies at her for ruining her evening so fast it would have made her head spin; as it was, I thought that my untimely episode had probably made Maggie’s day. I supposed she was en route somewhere, but she made no move to leave. Instead she continued to spit icicles.
“I’m afraid you will be alone this morning. Although the rest of the family are understandably tired after yesterday’s excitement, they will be eager to visit my grandmother. She plays an important part in our lives, as I am certain you will have realized by now.” The arctic plane of her face almost cracked before resuming its previous expression. “I’m sure you will be wanting breakfast. My grandfather will have left something for you in the kitchen, no doubt.”
“Thank you, I’m sure you are right,” I replied. I could not be faulted for my civility as long as no one could read my mind.
Quietly seething, I stalked across the hall to the kitchen door and was safely beyond her line of fire before she could let off a further volley, and found she had been right in one respect, at least. Waiting on the table in the clear, weak winter sun, Matthew had left me breakfast: a jug of something strongly red like cranberry juice (exceedingly red, like blood), a bowl of fresh fruit exquisitely prepared with his surgeon’s precision, and a crisply fresh croissant still warm to the touch.
As I ate, ruminating on Maggie’s remarks and surprising myself by my hunger, my eyes occasionally strayed to the luxurious bar of chocolate whose warmed scent the sunlight lifted towards me. Despite the intervening hours, remnants of the coffee had left my senses heightened, tingling as if magnetized. I pulled the tassel on the ribbon through my fingers, feeling each silky fibre, then reached out to pour the ruby juice into the glass left for me. Tied to the handle of the jug dangled a tag matching the one on the chocolate. I turned it so that I could read the inscription:
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than thine host’s Cranb’ry wine?
It sounded like something Keats would write. I smiled to myself: I wasn’t the only one to misquote when it suited.
I finished the juice and ate the last of the fruit, went to wash up and found another tag propped against the tap, where I couldn’t miss it:
The moderate consumption of chocolate is to be
recommended on the advice of your physician.
I laughed out loud and kissed the label, and heard a quiet cough behind me. Matthew sat on the table swinging a leg, the slab of chocolate in one hand while he watched me with a glint in his eye. “Careful, I might get jealous.” I danced over to him, no longer surprised by his sudden appearances, and flung my arms around his neck. “That’s more like it,” he chortled, his arms about me.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
He smiled, bemused. “Had I known I could get this response with a bar of chocolate, I would have bought you dozens by now.”
“Not just for the chocolate, but for breakfast and the messages as well. Thank you for bothering!”
He swung me up onto the table next to him. “You are most welcome. I take it you would like this now?” He held up the bar just out of reach.
“Don’t tease – I did as I was told.”
“Yes, you did and you are to be commended for your temperance. However, I want to tell you one thing before I let you loose on the chocolate: this contains a serious amount of caffeine…”
I saw immediately where he was going with this. “Yes, but…”
“Wait. Some of the test results are back and the very odd thing is that you are not intolerant of caffeine.”
I stopped bouncing. “I’m not?”
“That’s right. You can eat as much chocolate as you like – you’ll feel sick of course, but it won’t kill you. However, you’ll have to avoid coffee like the plague until we can work out what it was you did react to, and that is going to take time.”
“And you, of course, know all about plague, don’t you?”
He arched an eyebrow in response. “Oh yes, indeed I do.”
“So those messages weren’t because of the caffeine in the chocolate that you wanted me to avoid?”
“No, they were because a diet solely based upon the consumption of chocolate is not thought to be beneficial in the long term.”
I pulled a face at him, wrinkling my nose, whose tip he kissed, making me laugh again. He coasted off the table and lifted me down. He let his hands linger around my waist. “You’d better get ready if you’re going with Pat and Henry to church. Henry will look after you while you’re there, but I think it would be a good idea if I stayed at home with you later, just in case.”
I viewed him suspiciously. “You said there was nothing wrong with me.”
“No, I did not. I said that you can tolerate caffeine. I still don’t know what happened last night and until I do, I’m not leaving you alone.”
“Matthew, you have to go and see Ellen. You can’t not see her, today of all days. I’ll be fine here – look, I won’t even touch the chocolate until you get back.” I put it resolutely on the table and turned my back on it.
“I admire your self-restraint, really I do, but that’s not the point. I can’t risk leaving you here, Emma. I don’t know what would happen if your heart stopped again. It might not start spontaneously next time.”
“But I’m not going near coffee and it was coffee that caused it, wasn’t it? And you left me alone this morning, didn’t you? Anything could have happened in that time. Be reasonable, Matthew; you can’t stand watch over me all the time – you’ll make me feel like a prisoner. Anyway, think how Ellen will feel if her husband doesn’t turn up because he chooses to stay with his girlfriend on Christmas Day rather than with his wife.”
He winced. “Ouch, you certainly know how to punch low. That’s the second time in the last twelve hours, but,” he shook his head earnestly, “I’m still not risking it.” His jaw had adopted a stubborn line in a way that made me want to kiss the blunt end of his chin to make him smile again. Or just want to kiss him.
“I tell you what, how about a compromise? I’m sure Pat mentioned something about Jeannie not going to see Ellen today; can’t I stay with her? I bet there’s lots to do before this evening, and I could be getting on with that. And how long are you going to be, anyway? What’s the likelihood of anything happening that Jeannie couldn’t handle?”
I could see him compiling the list in his mind. “Well, for a start, she’s not medically qualified to deal with…”
“She doesn’t have to be because nothing – is – going – to – happen.” I kissed him between each word and a smile crept over his lips.
“Well, it better not,” he rumbled, pulling me close to him, “or you’ll have me to deal with when I get back.”
Matthew had left me with an air of resignation and worry stalking his eyes. He also left a list of instructions for Jeannie should I do anything as
foolish as let my heart stop beating.
Before he reversed the car out of the garage, I leaned through the window in the privacy the garage briefly afforded us, and kissed him with a mixture of longing and apprehension. “Just drive carefully and don’t put your immortality to the test,” I told him.
He gave a strained smile. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I touched my hand to the tense lines between his eyes. “That’s what I’m afraid of. I’d rather you were late than I be sorry.” A dark shape intercepted the sun as it seeped into the garage and I didn’t need to turn around to know that Maggie stood behind me.
“Be safe,” I implored him quietly, before stepping back out of the car’s way.
CHAPTER
6
“Divers Goodes”
Light from the east windows saturated Matthew’s study, where no trees or buildings impeded its passage. I inhaled the warm scent of leather-bound books and the polished wood of the desk, of the silver of the photograph frames gently oxidizing in the air, and the fresh-sawn resins of the logs in the fireplace. I took in his choice of ornaments, and the lute-like cittern sitting propped against one wall. I felt Matthew’s presence in every particle of the room. Like a blanket in which I could wrap myself, he would be there with me for as long as it took for him to return.
I hovered uncertainly beside his desk. He had told me that no part of the house was barred to me and that I could wander at will through every room, but without him, I still felt like I intruded in the one place where I could be closest to him.
This is ridiculous, I thought, and sat a little too rapidly behind his desk, knocking one of the smaller photographs, its silver frame tinging as it hit the ornate handle of a silver and ivory letter opener. I resurrected the frame, carefully checking the corner for dents, before looking at the photograph itself.
The picture was old, creased, and foxed with age. Ellen knelt on one knee smiling at the person behind the camera, with a small Henry, aged about three and bright blond in front of her, one pudgy hand on his mother’s leg, the other clasping a small hunting horn. They were in a front garden and behind them the bonnet of a car dated the photo to the late thirties. It was one of those touching, domestic photographs that litter the memories of most families. That it must be a loved and treasured picture was borne out by the years of passage with its keeper, worn into the edges of the leather back, and beaten into the dents of the frame.