by Carla Kelly
“Adrian should have seen to all that,” she said.
“Oh, Emmy,” said Onyx, unconsciously copying Jack's pet name. “You know that he could not! He has been so ill.”
“He could have … before.” She sighed. “I fear Jack was right when he exclaimed about our improvidence.”
“He said nothing of the sort,” Onyx said.
“Well, it is true. There are things I would do over, if the chance should come. Onyx, do you think it will? Tell me truthfully, please.”
Onyx was silent a long moment. “No, I do not,” she said quietly. “Emmy dear, you already know that. You just need to face it now.”
There was nothing more to say. Emily's back was still straight and her hands properly fixed on the reins, but her eyes were bright with unshed tears. When they reached the drive, she handed the reins to the waiting groom and went directly inside. Onyx heard the door to the parlor close quietly behind her.
Onyx followed slowly. The day had been so beautiful. She did not wish to go indoors again. She stood on the bottom step, hesitating, when Albert appeared in the doorway, his face as white as paper. She stared at him, as her heart leapt in her throat and stayed there.
“Albert! Is it Adrian?”
He shook his head.
“What, then?” she asked in alarm as she hurried up the steps and into the hall.
“Miss Hamilton, perhaps I speak out of turn …”
“Albert, what?”
“It is Major Beresford, Miss Hamilton. A letter came.”
“Albert, please!” she said as she removed her bonnet. “Where is he?”
“The library. I do not know that you should go in there, Miss Hamilton,” Albert admonished. “The letter was from the Reverend Andrew Littletree. I don't know what it was that set Major Beresford off, but, miss—”
She was already running down the hall before he finished his sentence. The library door was closed. She knocked on it. “Jack?” she called. And then, louder, “Jack?”
There was no answer. She opened the door. Jack sat in the wing chair by the unlighted fireplace. He sat as ramrod stiff as Emily Beresford in the gig. There was nothing about him that looked familiar except for the hunted look she had dreaded in their early association.
The room reeked of brandy. She put her hand to her nose and looked at the opposite wall. The wallpaper was soaking with brandy, the floor puddled and littered with shards of broken glass.
He looked at her then, his eyes expressionless with that inward-turning pain she had hoped never to see again.
Her eyes questioned his. Although he gave her no permission, she came into the room and shut the door behind her. She nearly sat down in the little French chair by the door, but thought better of it. If I sit there, he will know I am afraid of him. And then how will he feel? She came into the library and sat down in the chair opposite him.
He regarded her as he poured out another drink, looked at it, swirled the brandy around in the glass, and then threw it with great force against the wall. She flinched but made no sound.
The letter lay in his lap. It had been crumpled and then smoothed out and then torn in half.
“Jack, please,” she said as he poured another glass. He set down the bottle with a thump.
“I told myself when I left Spain that I would never drink another drop,” he told her. “And I will not.”
She got up and took the bottle from him, corking it and putting it back on the sideboard. She sat down again and looked at the letter in his lap. The silence seemed to stretch on for hours.
“It was my turn for a letter from Andrew Littletree,” he said finally and threw the glass of brandy in his hand against the wall. He spoke slowly, enunciating his words carefully, as if every muscle in his body was just then involved in speech. He yanked the letter off his lap and crumpled it again, throwing it against the wall to join the tide of brandy and broken glass.
“He prosed on and on about my ‘condescension.’ ”He spat the word out as Onyx winced. “My condescension in allowing you to serve such Christian duty in my home. My home … I can quote it … ‘surely one of the most illustrious seats of peerage in the kingdom’! How the man rattles on!”
Jack leapt to his feet, his agitation bubbling over. “He hoped that you were deporting yourself in proper fashion, doing nothing to call attention to yourself, remembering your station.” He wheeled around and knelt in front of her chair, his hands on her legs. “Does he write to you like that every week?”
She nodded, afraid to speak.
He bowed his head in her lap. “And you take that, week after week? No wonder you were out of sorts the other night.”
“Andrew can be … kind.” She faltered. She wanted to put her hands on Jack's head, to touch him, but she was afraid.
“Kind!” he roared, animated again and on his feet. “I'll tell you how kind he was in that letter! Do you know what he had the nerve to write?”
Onyx shook her head. Her heart was thumping so loud she could hear it all over the room.
“He thanked me for saving your virtue on the highway, and then …” He went to his target wall and scooped up the letter again, opening it. “ … and then in a perfectly chatty tone he informed me that if, by chance, I had not got there in time, he would have had no recourse but to … to, here it is: ‘deny to wed and turn you back to the mercies of your foster parents’! How it galls me!” He read on. “‘Surely such a deflowered woman, although blameless in the eyes of God, would scarce be the proper vessel for a man of the clergy.’ Good enough for God but not for him! And you're going to marry this bag of hypocrisy?” He knelt by her again and gripped her tight around the waist. “Well, have a care you do not break your leg, Onyx Hamilton. He'll probably shoot you!”
“A woman must marry,” she said in a low voice. “And I can do no better, given my circumstances.”
“Your circumstances!” he roared. “I tease and flirt, and propose, and you have not heard a word I have said because you are being so blasted noble!”
She shook off his hands and rose to her feet. “You dare not marry someone like me!”
“Sit down,” he commanded. “I am not done.”
“Oh, yes you are!” she flung at him. She was shaking so badly that she had to hold her hands together.
“No, I'm not,” he raged and pushed her back in the chair. “The people around you have been so careful to remind you day after day, year after year, of the circumstances of your illegitimate birth. Did they never once give a thought to the sweetness of your spirit, your unfathomable courage, the tender care you take of others? I could go on, but why? When are you going to wake up? Are you going to wish for something better when it's too late?”
“Oh, stop!” she said, trying to rise. “I don't have to listen to this!”
“Yes, you do. Sit down.” His voice was calmer then. “I would do anything for you, but the only person who can convince you of your own worth is Onyx Hamilton.”
He sat down again, exhausted. “And that is why I am angry.” His voice was uncertain, clouded over with emotion. “And that, dear lady, is a lie too. I am afraid. If Andrew Littletree were to walk through that door, I would tear him apart with my bare hands.” He managed a shuddering laugh but would not look at her. “You were in some danger when you came through that door a few minutes ago.”
“No, no,” she whispered.
“I have done it before.” He stared at his hands. “Sometimes they still look red.” He closed his eyes. “I had thought that the war was over for me. I could return to Sherbourn and put it out of my mind. But all it takes is one priggish letter from your future husband, and I would become the murderer I was before, because that is what we were in the 45th. I might as well be back in Spain.”
He got up again, and before she could stop him, he threw the entire bottle of brandy against the wall, where it shattered like an explosion. “When is this war going to end?” he shouted.
“Perhaps when I leave,” Onyx s
aid. “I am going to pack.”
“No.” His voice was steady again. “I am going.” He noticed her horrified expression and managed a faint smile. “Only as far as Leeds. I have to get away for a few days. I've turned this household on its side this afternoon. Shame on me for doing that.”
“Jack, no. None of us … understood.”
“You did,” he said, calm once more. He went to the wall and stood there staring at the destruction he had caused. “I've heard you outside my room on those nights when I summon my boys for that final assault on the walls at Badajoz. Or maybe it is Ciudad Rodrigo, or La Albuera, or Salamanca. There are so many that I cannot remember them, each one more bloody than the one before. Onyx, I dream in red.”
He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. “You understood. But then I got myself so busy making myself useful, making everyone comfortable, going about the estate like an Eager Edgar, being all things to all people. ‘Oh, look at Major Beresford. He's going to save this estate from the folly of his brother.’ ”
He looked at her, fixing her with a stare that left her shaken. “I'm still so angry at him. How dare he die and leave me with this mess when I'm in worse shape than he is? And no one understands but you, and now I've scared you. Forgive me, if you can.”
With a cry, Onyx threw her arms around him, pulling him as close to her as she could, her hands pressing hard against his back. He did not raise his arms to embrace her, but he bowed his head against her shoulder.
“Adrian is dying, and so am I,” he murmured. “The only difference I can discern is that I have to keep hauling my body around for another forty or fifty years.”
He freed himself from her grasp and left the room. Onyx stayed where she was. The house was absolutely silent. No one moved except Jack. She heard him mount the stairs two at a time, slam around in his room, and then run down the stairs again and out the door. Soon she heard his horse's hooves on the gravel drive.
Onyx wasn't sure that she could even put one foot in front of the other and get herself out of that awful room. She shook all over. Like an old woman, she hobbled into the corridor and down to Adrian's parlor. She entered without knocking, sank down on the floor by Adrian's bed, and rested her head close to his hand.
Slowly Adrian raised his hand and placed it on her head.
Emily sat on his other side in dumbfounded silence.
“He's going to Leeds,” Onyx said at last when she was able to connect thoughts to words again. “Should I go after him? I will, you know. What's in Leeds?”
“No, Onyx, m'dear, don't go after him. Let him be.” Adrian's voice was drowsy. “Jack always comes about.”
“You don't perfectly understand, Adrian,” she began.
“I … understand enough. I claim the attention around here because I am so visibly dying. Hush, Emily, you know it is true. Have a little countenance. Jack's troubles are not so visible.” His hand slipped off her head. “War must be a devilish business,” he said, his words a jumbled muddle as the pain let go and the morphine took over. “Must be even harder than … finding good bootblacking.” He rolled his eyes toward Onyx. “Oh, haven't I led a decision-filled life?” He looked at Emily then, and his eyes filled with tears. “And when will it end? For me? For him?”
HE NEXT FOUR DAYS WERE ENDLESS. ONYX knew that whatever came after this time spent waiting would hold no candle to the anxiety she felt each night as she closed her eyes and worried about Jack Beresford. Each morning she woke and worried about him. As she conversed each day with the cook and supervised the work of the grooms and maids, Jack was never more than a thought away.
Her concern took her into his room one quiet afternoon when Adrian drifted in and out of consciousness and Emily sat and knitted at his bedside, her face set and drawn.
Onyx went into Jack's room quietly, somehow half-expecting to see him lying there. His presence was almost palpable. She smiled to herself. Jack, you're so untidy, she thought as she gathered up towels and grimy clothes into a pile by the door, wondering why the servants hadn't tidied the room, and at the same time, grateful they had not. It gave her something to do for him.
Humming to herself, she cleaned out his shaving brush, wiping the soap spots off his mirror, curious that his toothbrush was stuck, handle down, in the soil of a potted plant. If ever a man needed a valet, it was Jack Beresford. Or a wife.
She picked up a towel off the washbasin, raising it to her face to smell the bay rum, and then wiping her eyes with it when she cried.
“This will not do, Onyx B,” she told herself. The window was open. She went over to close it and looked down at the birdhouse. She lifted off the roof, and two baby wrens stared back at her and then opened their beaks to the point of dislocation.
Obviously this was a second family. Jack had told her about the first clutch of eggs he had seen there in early summer. She rested her elbows on the windowsill, noticing that the babies did not seem afraid of her. Jack had obviously made them his pets.
She wished she had something to feed them. Tipped on the sill was a small box of dirt. Her eyes alive with laughter, Onyx dug around gingerly until her fingers encountered a worm. She lifted it out and into the mouth of the first wren, found a second worm, and then a third.
“Jack, you must have been a dreadful trial to your mother,” she said as she concluded the meal and put the roof back on the bird-house. Only think how much fun you will be with your own children, she thought, not brave enough to say such things aloud.
She looked around for something to wipe off her fingers and picked up a small piece of material by Jack's pillow. She looked closer. It was a tiny scrap of her wedding-dress silk. He had kept it all these weeks. She put it back on the pillow and left the room.
Dr. Hutchins came every day now. He was angry to find Jack gone, but his irritation lessened after Onyx walked with him around the garden, talking to him, appealing to him.
“I've never been to war, Miss Hamilton,” he said finally as she stood with him in. “I have seen wounds of war, though. Several recuperating soldiers came to Harrogate for the waters. It's really no talent to cleanse and splice the body back together. The mind is another matter.”
He touched her shoulder. “But until Major Beresford returns, it falls on you, Miss Hamilton. Adrian hasn't long. I'm amazed how quickly he has gone downhill just since my last visit. I am not sure I understand why, entirely.”
She did not enlighten him. That was a matter between her and Adrian Beresford, Lord Sherbourn.
Lord Sherbourn had brought the issue to her attention the day after Jack left. Emily was out of the room when he motioned to Onyx to come closer. She did, kneeling on the floor by his bed.
He was a long time in speaking. His skin was now quite yellow, his eyes even more vividly so. His ghastly deterioration had ceased to frighten her. She tended to his sores and kept him clean with no word of complaint, but she knew, as she knelt by his bed and rested her cheek on the edge of the mattress, that he had something important to tell her.
“I have lived a pretty frippery life, m'dear Onyx,” he said at last, “but it has been fun.”
She waited through the long pause as he gathered his scattered thoughts into one cohesive unit. “Never gave much thought to Jack. He always did what I asked. Nothing was too hard, no request, however odd, too out of range. He was always so easy to use.”
She thought that he had gone to sleep and raised her head. He was looking at her and moving his mouth, but no sound came out. She touched his arm and he closed his eyes, pulling each thought together again.
“It is time … I did a good turn for Jack.”
“And what will that be, dear Adrian?” she asked. “Can I get you something?”
“Put the morphine where I can reach it. I'm going to peg out.” He calmly watched the look of anguish cross her face. “For Jack. It's time his needs were … tended to. Mine have gone on long enough, wouldn't you agree?”
He had not said so much in a week, and the effort
clearly exhausted him. He was waiting for an answer.
She shook her head. “I won't do it, Adrian. Think how it would devastate Emily. And Jack.” She rose up on her knees and kissed him, resting her head lightly on his chest. “But I love you for what you have just said.”
“Maybe there is hope for such a frivolous fellow?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But it is time that I gave up.”
She could not disagree with him.
When Dr. Hutchins returned the next morning, Emily joined him and Onyx for the walk around the garden. “What are we to reasonably expect, Doctor?” Lady Sherbourn asked, her voice clear and her head high, as if she were behind the reins of her husband's phaeton.
Dr. Hutchins eyed her and then tucked her arm in his.
“Lady Sherbourn, his kidneys are failing. His liver is gone. He cannot eat anymore. Liquids form his only sustenance. Have you noticed his cough? His lungs are filling with fluid. In a week he will probably drift into a coma. He will be out of pain then, but he will also be out of reach. I can offer you no more consolation than that.”
“It is enough, Dr. Hutchins,” Emily replied calmly. “Pray God we can bear it.”
She sent for her sisters, Lady Blanding and Mrs. Towerby, and they arrived the next day, quiet women each as beautiful as she was. Emily introduced them to Onyx.
“Onyx Hamilton,” said Lady Blanding. “Such a singular name. Wherever have I heard it before?”
At the beginning of this long summer, Onyx would have blushed and drifted into the shadows. But no longer. She did not mince her words. “Lady Blanding, I am the foster daughter of the Reverend Peter Hamilton, who is the late husband of Lady Marjorie Daggett. The family estate is at Bramby Swale.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mrs. Towerby, “it seems that I remember the story. You were …” She paused.
“Found in a basket on the church steps near Bath. My twin brother, Gerald, and I. Gerald died for king and country in Spain, for all that he was as illegitimate as I am. If there is anything more you choose to know, just ask. I am not shy about these things any longer.”