“I simply thought you might occasionally need to write something of a personal nature, intended for the recipient only.” Richard offered the suggestion cautiously, which added to Jonathan’s guilt.
“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to be ungrateful.” He searched for a way to explain, or at least soften, his rudeness. “You have presented me with an ingenious novelty of which I am only beginning to grasp the potential.”
Richard smiled, graciously accepting Jonathan’s stiff apology. “I hope the machine will cease to be a novelty and prove itself useful to you.”
“I am certain it will,” Jonathan agreed. Now that his ludicrous jealousy had abated, he was beginning to see that Richard had provided him with the solution to a far greater problem. “In fact, I believe I shall compose a letter with it tomorrow.”
“That’s the spirit!” Richard threw an arm around his shoulders. “Now why don’t we go down and discover what delights Cook has in store for us tonight?”
Jonathan allowed Richard to lead him to the dining room, exchanging shallow pleasantries with him while his mind was elsewhere, engaged in formulating a plan. Its execution would be painful, but then pain had come to occupy a more or less permanent tenancy in his life.
He must deny himself his addiction, cut himself off from the very source. The drastic severance would prove agony at first. But as with all addictions, the craving would grow less pronounced over time. Better to force a complete withdrawal now, before he was past the point of return.
His decision gave him no relief, only a grim determination to accomplish the deed, and accomplish it quickly. He would ask his attorney to release the contract, along with a check for twice the agreed upon salary. Then tomorrow, with the aid of Richard’s machine, he would compose Miss Tate’s letter of dismissal.
Chapter Twenty seven
Isabelle signed her name with a flourish, an act which suited her defiant mood. Hadn’t they agreed to be on familiar terms? Of course they had, after which Jonathan avoided her, almost a full week now.
She was assuming too high a regard on his part to think he purposely avoided her. Yet she couldn’t help but feel slighted by his absence. At first, she worried that his addiction had taken hold of him again. Her father had often disappeared for weeks at a time whenever he got a bit of money to spend on drink. But Nellie assured her that Jonathan was taking his meals, or most of them at least.
Perhaps his work occupied him—but if it did, wouldn’t he have more notes for her to copy? She had finished with the mountain of papers he dumped on her desk over a week ago, a task he never bothered to inquire about afterwards. His disregard for her efforts rankled. His general disregard of her rankled as well. In point of fact, she was thoroughly irritated with him.
Isabelle folded the slip of paper in half, then tucked it inside a plain envelope she found in her desk. She dabbed some glue beneath the flap to seal it, not bothering to address the envelope. Jonathan would know it was from her.
Her letter was a desperate ploy, for certain. But what choice did she have? If he avoided her tomorrow and failed to show for their Sunday walk, then she might never succeed in re establishing the practice as a customary habit. Without their walks together, her plan would undoubtedly fail, the secret scheme she had plotted with Roger to encourage Jonathan to take to the saddle again.
Isabelle slid the envelope into her skirt pocket and made her way to the kitchen. Just outside the door, she heard voices and stopped to listen.
“I say the rose garden.” It was Nellie speaking. “Roger likes the idea, too.”
Isabelle couldn’t tell whether Cook and Nellie were having a disagreement or merely an earnest discussion. She had endeavored from the beginning to stay out of their business and now, of all times, she had no wish to get caught in the middle of an argument.
“It would be more romantic.”
Isabelle was relieved to hear Cook agreeing with Nellie. Though by now, she was beginning to wonder just what it was they were discussing. The thought occurred to her that Nellie and Roger might be planning a summer wedding. The idea made her smile and, wearing a smile, she entered the kitchen.
Nellie and Cook turned as one and stared at her as though she had caught them at some shameful act. Neither one of them greeted her.
“Good afternoon,” Isabelle said brightly, aware that her smile was fading.
“Afternoon, Miss.”
Nellie bobbed a curtsey, which made Isabelle even more uncomfortable than before. She had noticed a certain constraint in Nellie’s behavior toward her during the last week. Even Cook was treating her more like the mistress of the house than a fellow servant. Isabelle wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she began hesitantly. When the two women simply stared back at her, she turned to Nellie. “I wanted to ask a favor of you.”
“Certainly, Miss.”
Nellie curtseyed again. Honestly, it was beginning to be too much, Isabelle thought as she retrieved the note from the folds of her skirt.
“Would you deliver this to Mr. Nashe when you take him his tea tray?”
“Certainly, Miss.” Nellie took the note. She started to speak, then looked for approval to Cook, who nodded. “The rest of us is planning a picnic after church tomorrow.”
The way Nellie phrased the statement left little doubt in Isabelle’s mind that she was not invited. She made what she hoped was an approving comment, trying to hide her disappointment at being left out. “It should be a fine day for a picnic.”
Nellie nodded. She glanced at Cook, then added, “You and Mr. Nashe will be knocking about all alone in this great big house.” Nellie shot another meaningful glance at Cook, her eyes bulging with the effort.
Cook finally picked up on her cue. “I’m fixing a basket for the two of you, with all Mr. Nashe’s favorite things. Roger said he’d leave it in the rose garden before we go tomorrow, so you won’t have to worry about carrying it.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I—I’m not certain Mr. Nashe will go along with the idea.” Isabelle blushed at the awkwardness of her stammered reply.
Cook wouldn’t take no for an answer. “When you two finish all your work together, I expect you’ll both be hungry.”
Joe’s sudden cackle from his seat in the corner startled Isabelle. She turned to look at him. The poor old man was acting more demented every day.
“Hush, Joe,” Cook admonished him.
Isabelle pretended to ignore Joe’s outburst, instead turning her attention to Will. He had been sitting behind the kitchen table all this time, uncharacteristically silent, working intently at polishing something he held in his lap.
“What are you doing there, Will?”
Will looked up at Isabelle and blinked like a lizard suddenly disturbed from sunning itself on a warm rock.
She tried again. “You look as though you’re working very hard.”
He nodded vigorously, setting his cowlick in motion, and held up the object. “Shining up the spy glass, Miss Iz.” Will grinned broadly. “Cook says we got to take real good care of it, ’cause it just might come in handy again, you never know.”
“Again?”
Cook swatted Will on the back of the head. “You talk too much nonsense, boy.”
“But I was just sayin’ what you—”
“Don’t talk back. Make yourself useful and go fetch some wood for the stove.”
“But I just did!” Will tried to frown, an expression his face did not fall into naturally.
Cook shooed him out of his chair, at the same time grabbing the telescope. When she turned to place it on the mantel, Will stuck his tongue out at her. Isabelle had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from giggling. Will stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“That boy!” Cook wagged her finger at the door, then turned on Joe, who was still chuckling to himself. “And you can just be quiet, too.”
Isabelle looked at Cook and Nellie and J
oe, then at the telescope on the mantel. She decided it was an excellent time to excuse herself.
“Good afternoon, everyone.”
She didn’t wait for their reply, simply turned to go, feeling their eyes bore into her back until she was through the door. They were all of them hiding something, but for the life of her, she couldn’t guess what it might be.
Isabelle stopped when she reached the hallway, suddenly overcome by doubt. What if she had just made a grave mistake? The letter was a bad idea. What if it angered Jonathan?
The other servants, thinking she had gone, resumed their conversation. She heard Nellie, who was the first to speak.
“Do you think it’s a Billy do?”
Joe guffawed. “It weren’t a Billy don’t!”
“Joe! Such a thing to say.” Cook’s reprimand sounded more like praise, especially after she followed it with a hearty laugh.
The odd exchange made no sense to Isabelle, although she was convinced she was somehow its subject. The others were most definitely hiding something from her. After all this time, she had yet to gain their confidence.
Isabelle began walking away from the kitchen. Soon she was going faster, eventually breaking into a run until she reached the front entrance and was outside, even then barely slowing until she reached the rose garden. She needed a peaceful sanctuary where she could think. She needed to remind herself that she could bear the loneliness here, and the isolation—she could even bear Jonathan’s disregard. She could bear anything, in fact, as long as she remembered that, in the end, her trials meant a better life for Jenny.
Chapter Twenty eight
Jonathan read the note again, though he could just as easily have recited it from memory at that point. Dear Jonathan, she began, and he paused in his reading, lingering over the salutation, the intimate coupling of his given name with what he wished to be an affectionate endearment, but what he knew to be merely a standard form of address. My dearest Jonathan, now that would signify affection.
He read on, knowing this was the last letter he would ever have from her. I am most grateful for your guidance. Oh! The scenes he had conjured, imagining the many ways he wished her to express her gratitude. All he need do was close his eyes for the images to play out before him.
At times, his own inventiveness shocked him. Though in truth, he owed much of his inspiration to his father’s books, the collection of erotica, oriental pillow books, and anonymously written pornography that he had discovered when he was sixteen.
A most impressionable age, sixteen. He had begun to regain his health after his long convalescence, and with renewed energy came boredom. He wandered from room to room, restless, searching, ignorant of what he sought. Then he discovered the hidden panel next to the bedstead in what he called the whores’ room. His father brought his harlots there, flaunting them in front of his mother. Perhaps he meant to flaunt them in front of his son as well.
The books were a revelation to his innocent eyes. His favorite was a privately published translation of The Kama Sutra, in which the many positions for lovemaking were illustrated in meticulous detail. He pored over that particular volume for hours on end. Even now, years later, he could perfectly recall every one of the drawings.
He had felt a moment of true grief five years ago when he read Sir Richard Burton’s obituary. The man who brought such oriental marvels to the English speaking world would never know what vicarious pleasure he allowed one young boy, beset by all the sexual yearnings that accompanied his age, a boy who knew he would forever remain a boy in that respect, trapped inside a monster’s body, doomed to a life of enforced chastity.
I have read the book three times and would very much like to know what you recommend next for my education. Christ! Miss Tate—Isabelle—let me recommend a book by a well known English adventurer. Perhaps we could study it together.
You will find me in the library if you choose to come. Choice. An interesting concept. Did he have the choice to be whole again? It is where I spend my evenings now. There was no other way to read her meaning—she was offering him an open invitation.
He would like nothing better than to accept. The thought of spending his evenings in her company . . .
But no, he could not afford such a thought. A man is able to endure only so much, and he was very close to his limit. Even the way she signed her letter added to his misery. Yours, Isabelle.
Mine.
He tossed her letter aside with a bitter grunt of a laugh. His life was so much simpler before she came. It was an empty life, to be sure, but he had grown accustomed to the solitude. Then she came, and his vague, empty longings acquired a face and name. His loneliness took on the shape of a particular woman, one whose existence was acutely painful to him.
He shuddered, remembering the howling pain of the surgeon’s knife scraping away his dead flesh. It was a pain deeper than flesh, the sort of pain that cut through to the soul, that could drive a man to madness. The sort of pain that one would do anything to bring to an end.
His own letter, the one he had spent most of the day composing, lay next to the typewriting machine, a grim reminder of the task ahead. Previous versions filled the waste paper container to overflowing. The crumpled discards spilled onto the floor, where they lay scattered about in aimless disorder, the detritus of feelings sloughed off for his inability to give them expression. He had struggled to find the exact words that might soften the blow, but no amount of revision could disguise the onerous purpose behind them.
He folded the sheet of stationery and slid it into an envelope without bothering to seal the flap, then slipped it into his jacket pocket beside the ever present vial of laudanum. He had considered taking the coward’s way out by letting Nellie deliver the letter, but he owed Isabelle the decency to face her like a man. He wanted to spare her feelings as much as possible, even if it meant painting himself the villain. Which, in a way, he was.
It was time. Like removing a bandage stuck to raw flesh, what he had to do was best done quickly.
* * *
Outside the library door, Jonathan rapped once before entering. As soon as he stepped inside the room, Isabelle looked up, greeting him with a smile of unfeigned pleasure.
He hated himself for what he was about to do.
“Good evening, Miss Tate.” Her smile faded when he addressed her formally. He gestured, requesting permission to sit beside her. “May I?”
She reciprocated his formality with a crisp reply. “Of course, sir.”
Though merely a response to his own, her coolness stung. Telling himself there was worse to come, Jonathan sat at the opposite end of the couch, putting as much distance as possible between them. He took a deep breath and considered how to begin, but before he could, she made the task easy for him.
“I have finished the book,” she said, repeating what she had already told him in her letter. “I have been quite idle all week, as a matter of fact, since you have not seen fit to provide me with work.”
“I provided you with none because I had none,” he replied stiffly, then, seizing on the excuse she unwittingly gave him, hastened to add, “My work is going badly.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
She offered her sympathy sincerely, and not merely as a perfunctory politeness. He would have preferred insincerity.
“Is there anything I can do to be of help?” she added.
He ignored the question, afraid that any detour from his set course would derail him completely.
“What I need is a lab assistant.” Rather than a secretary was what he could not quite bring himself to say, but he trusted her perspicacity and knew she would understand the implication. “As it is, I’m afraid I can’t provide you with enough work.”
She looked at him as though he had struck her. It was a fleeting look, which died in an instant. Then she quickly regained her composure, and her face lit with an incandescent smile, bright yet plainly artificial.
“I can learn to assist you.”
&n
bsp; He wasn’t prepared for her offer and immediately sought to discourage it. “You have no idea what the job entails.”
She straightened her spine, drawing herself up with indignation. “Do you think me incapable?”
He wasn’t prepared for her anger, either.
“I meant—of course you.” Jonathan shook his head impatiently, disgruntled by his lack of eloquence. “You would find the work unpleasant.”
“How do you know what I consider unpleasant? Especially since you haven’t told me what the job requires.”
“Very well, since you insist, I will tell you.” Then how eager would she be to help? He continued in a deliberately condescending manner. “I compare the effects of various factors on the rate of tissue regeneration in my subjects. The—”
“Your subjects?”
“The animals I use for experimentation.”
“Animals?”
That had given her pause. She would soon rescind her ill considered offer of help.
He went on, attempting to explain in a way that would leave no doubt as to the nature of his work. “I breed rodents for my experiments, which involve performing skin grafts on the subjects—the mice, that is to say.”
“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose.
He laughed unkindly. “I warned you my work would be distasteful to you.”
“I could overcome my aversion.”
Jonathan ignored this. “It has become distasteful to me, in point of fact.” He held up his clawed hand. “I can no longer wield a scalpel. I have butchered a dozen unfortunate creatures this week alone.”
She fastened her eyes on his and repeated herself, emphasizing each word. “I can overcome my aversion.”
Dear God, she was stubborn. “You would perform surgery on a living animal? Cut into its flesh?”
Anger flashed behind her eyes, like sheet lightning across the night sky, silent, distant, disturbing—and yet beautiful.
“Contrary to what men believe, women are perfectly capable of learning such things. Women are nurses, are they not? And in wartime. Some women—those who are allowed—have graduated medical college.”
A Bed of Thorns and Roses Page 23