In other words, Beth thought drily, no one knows what the hell dreams mean for certain. If they meant anything at all.
She hadn’t dreamt that Alex had come back to life. The tormented cry that had shocked her into wakefulness for the last three nights had been uttered by a living voice, not a dead one, nor a resurrected one.
Was Alex alive?
Even while she told herself that she was being stupid, that he was certainly dead, doubts assailed her, filling her mind. Highbury had said there were no prisoners named Alexander MacGregor, but what if he had been imprisoned somewhere where no one knew his true identity and was being held under an assumed name? What if he had been so badly injured that he was incapable of coming for her? If Duncan and Angus were dead too, and there was no one with the ability to find her? Graeme would have come, or Iain, she thought. Unless they were also dead. It was possible; Culloden had been a massacre.
On the fourth night she didn’t dream of the strange lawn, or hear the cry of distress; but nevertheless she was still shocked into wakefulness in the middle of the night, not by a dream this time, but by a memory.
“He thinks of you, all the time. He doesn’t know, you see, that’s why.” That was what Prince Edward had said when she had told his father that Sir Anthony was dead. At the time she had dismissed it from her mind, and then had forgotten it completely in the maelstrom of subsequent events. Now she sat up in bed in the dark, remembering. The prince was a strange child, ‘a sayer of things’, someone had said.
She thought back to the cricket match at Prince Frederick’s, when the child had told her that Daniel was going to hurt her. After the malevolent young lord had thrown the ball at her, she had been impressed that the prince had foreseen it. But what if he had not been referring to something as trivial as a bruise, but to the fact that Daniel had gone on to discover the truth about Sir Anthony? Alex had thought him to have the second sight, after all.
Had he been telling her in his strange way that Alex hadn’t come for her, not because he was dead, but because he thought she was? No, it wasn’t possible. There had been twenty women in the hut that day, and most of them would have seen what happened to her after she killed the sergeant. One of them must have told Alex or whoever else had come for her after the battle.
She was being ridiculous. She hated living in this hot, sticky, boring place, surrounded by luxury she had no interest in and desperately miserable, sullen slaves who she could not relegate in her mind to being part of the scenery. She hated it so much that she was trying to invent reasons to go back to Britain.
She could not go back to Britain. It was too dangerous for her there. Prince Edward was just a little odd. No doubt he had keen eyesight, being so young, and had seen the malevolent look in Lord Daniel’s eye from across the cricket pitch. He had made a lucky guess, that was all. She could not travel halfway across the world, risking her life in the process, based on the ramblings of a small child.
She told herself that for the rest of the sleepless night with the result that the next day, after four badly disturbed nights, she was half-dead with fatigue. On any normal day she would have been able to go back to bed at any time, but as chance would have it today visitors were coming for lunch, after which they would go for a drive to the coast, hoping to enjoy a sea breeze.
Normally Beth would have relished any diversion from listening to Antoinette’s complaints, and would have thrown herself wholeheartedly into the excursion; indeed she did try to, but by early evening the combination of heat and exhaustion rendered her listless and irritable, with the result that her answers to the habitual questions probing her relationship with King Louis verged on sarcastic rather than merely evasive and by the time she was able to go to bed she had a banging headache, fell into bed the second Rosalie had finished helping her to undress and was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.
It seemed that she had been asleep for no more than a few minutes before she was being shaken awake.
“Madame Beth!” Rosalie cried. “Wake up!”
She felt drugged and heavy, her eyelids glued shut, and when she finally managed to open them and come to some sort of wakefulness, she was surprised to see that several candles had been lit and Rosalie was already fully dressed. Voices came from the corridor, along with the sound of someone running down the stairs and across the porch outside.
She sat up, rubbing her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, yawning sleepily.
“Madame Antoinette is sick, very sick,” Rosalie replied, pouring water from a pitcher into a basin and dropping a cloth into it. “Papa has been sent to fetch the doctor.” She wrung it out and gave it to Beth, who had thrown back the covers and was sitting on the side of the bed. Beth wiped her face with it and then stood up, grabbing her dressing gown from the chair where it had been placed the previous morning. She wrapped it round herself.
It must be serious, then. Antoinette was always ill, or always complaining that she was ill. No one, including her husband, thought of her constant ailments as anything more than hypochondria. Pierre would not have sent for the doctor in the middle of the night for one of her megrims.
“Are the guests still here? Did they stay?” Beth asked as she hunted under the bed for her slippers. One particular guest, an elderly man with startlingly black hair, had flirted incessantly with her throughout the evening. His attentions had stayed within the bounds of propriety and seemed harmless, but she didn’t want to fuel his ardour by appearing en déshabillé if he was still here.
“No, they left a little while after you came to bed. I’m so sorry to wake you, madame, because you were very tired, but Monsieur told me to, once he saw that Madame was…that she wasn’t…er…”
“That she was really sick, instead of just pretending to be so,” Beth finished helpfully.
“Er…yes, madame.”
“Rosalie, I will never be angry with you for speaking the truth,” Beth said. “Now, I think you should go downstairs and see if you can do anything to help. I will call you when I need to dress properly.”
She walked down the hallway and into Antoinette’s room, which was ablaze with candlelight. Pierre was standing at the foot of the bed looking helplessly on as Eulalie attempted to support her mistress whilst holding a basin, into which Antoinette was vomiting weakly. Beth moved forward and sat on the bed, holding the sick woman up until she had finished, then lowering her back down. She was shivering violently, but her face was flushed and she was burning with fever. In spite of the fact that Antoinette had taken to her bed on the slightest pretext every few days since Beth had arrived, this time there was no denying that she was very sick.
“Do you have pain, madame?” Eulalie asked, moving to the window and throwing the contents of the basin as far as she could into the night so that they would miss the porch.
“My eyes and my back,” Antoinette moaned through chattering teeth. “It hurts, so much.”
“We must try to bring the fever down,” Beth said. She tried to remember if Anne Maynard had ever told her how to treat fever, but as far as she knew no one of her acquaintance had ever had more than the mildest fever. She wanted to help, but had no idea what to do.
“Tamarind water,” Eulalie advised, taking over. “She must drink as much as possible to sweat out the sickness. Monsieur Pierre, could she have some laudanum for the pain?”
Pierre jumped, as though coming out of a trance.
“Of course!” he exclaimed, rushing from the room and returning a minute later with a small brown bottle. Eulalie took it from him, putting several drops into a glass of wine. Between them Beth and Eulalie managed to get Antoinette to swallow it. Pierre hovered at the end of the bed again, his face a mask of distress. Antoinette slumped back, still shivering. Her nightdress and the sheet beneath her were soaked. Beth went to the chest, rummaging in it and producing a clean nightdress and a sheet.
“Monsieur, if you wish you could try to get a little sleep?” Eulalie suggested gent
ly. “You will need to be fresh when the doctor returns. We will wake you if there is any reason to, I promise.”
“Of course, you are right,” he said, vastly relieved to be given an excuse to vacate the room.
“There,” Eulalie said briskly once he was out of the way. “Now we won’t be falling over him. Can you stay to help, Madame Beth, or do you need to sleep as well?”
“No, I’m awake now,” Beth said. “Do you know what is wrong with her?”
“It could be swamp fever,” Eulalie said. “If it is, then she should recover. It comes and goes, and she has had attacks before. But they were not as bad as this. Or it could be the yellow fever; when I had it, I too had pains and a fever like this.”
“I thought people died of yellow fever!” Beth said.
“A lot do, but some live, too. I was blessed,” Eulalie replied. “But we must pray that it is not, that it is just an attack of swamp fever.”
Between them they changed the sheets, managed to get Antoinette into a dry nightdress, and then spent the rest of the night alternating between washing the delirious woman’s face and limbs with cool water, persuading her to drink as much as they could, and holding the basin while she vomited it back up again.
It was mid-morning before Raymond returned with the doctor, by which time Beth was struggling to keep her eyes open, even though Antoinette was much worse, unable to sleep and in considerable pain in spite of the laudanum.
“You must go to bed for a time, Madame Beth,” Eulalie said. “I have had the fever and no one who lives through it falls sick again. But you have not, I think, and you need to be strong so as not to fall ill also.”
Beth took her advice. There was little she could do right now. As she was walking to her room the doctor came up the stairs, followed by Raymond. The doctor nodded to her and carried on, but Raymond stopped.
“How is she, Madame Beth?” he asked.
“She’s in a lot of pain, and has a fever,” Beth replied. “Eulalie thinks it could be swamp fever, or maybe yellow fever.”
Raymond’s eyes widened.
“Madame, are you wearing the charm I gave to you?” he asked urgently.
“No, not at the moment. Why?”
“Please, madame, I beg of you to wear it. If it is the yellow fever, it is very, very bad. The charm will protect you, stop you getting sick also. You must promise me!” he finished, a tone of desperation in his voice. She reached out and took his hand, touched by his concern for her.
“I am going to sleep for a few hours,” she said. “But I will put it on now before I sleep, I promise. And I will keep it on.”
“Thank you,” he said.
Taking the amulet out and slipping it round her neck was the only thing she did, before falling onto the bed and sinking immediately into sleep.
When she woke it was dark, and for a moment she lay there disoriented, drugged by the deep sleep she had just had. Then she remembered and sat up, fumbling in the dark for the flint and tinder to strike a light. There was a thin yellow band of light under the door which told her that whatever time it was, people were still up and about. Abandoning her search, she wrapped her dressing gown around her and opened the bedroom door. Rosalie was sitting outside it on the floor, and only Beth’s natural quick reflexes stopped her falling over her maid.
“Oh, madame,” Rosalie said. “I didn’t wish to disturb you, so I was waiting here for you to awaken. I will help you to dress.” She stood up and pulled a candle from one of the wall brackets.
“What time is it?” Beth asked as Rosalie lit candles in the room and then opened the chest which contained her mistress’s clothes.
“I am not sure, but the bell should ring for the field gangs soon,” Rosalie answered.
The field gangs? Had she slept right through the day and into the night? No wonder she felt disoriented!
“How is Antoinette?” Beth asked.
“She is the same,” Rosalie said. “The doctor has bled her and purged her, but it has not helped yet. He is staying tonight, is sleeping now. Eulalie is still with Madame Antoinette.”
Once dressed, the amulet tucked out of sight so as not to attract comment, Beth went to the sick woman’s room, insisted that Eulalie go and get some sleep, and then sat on a chair at the side of the bed.
Antoinette was sleeping fitfully, and when Beth put her hand to her companion’s forehead it was still hot. She wrung out a cloth in a basin and wiped her face gently. Then, because she didn’t know what else to do, she folded her hands and prayed that the sick woman would survive.
At first the prayers, along with the doctor’s ministrations, seemed to work. On the third day the fever subsided and Antoinette announced that she felt much better. She ate some soup and expressed a wish to get up on the following day, once she had slept properly. She insisted on being left alone to do so. Hugely relieved, the exhausted, worried household all went to bed.
Two days later Antoinette relapsed, and this time there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was indeed yellow fever. Her skin and eyes turned yellow, she started to vomit again, a dark bloody stream that soon became almost continuous, and began having violent convulsions. The doctor, and this time the priest were sent for, the priest arriving in time to give the patient the last rites, although Antoinette was incapable of confessing her sins or making any responses by then.
The doctor arrived half an hour after she died. It seemed that several of the guests at the Delisle’s party had also succumbed to the fever, although Antoinette was the only one who had perished so far. Which was indeed a miracle, the priest said. Yellow fever was a virulent illness known to wipe out whole swathes of the population, particularly the whites.
It was common knowledge among the white population that negroes, being a different and inferior species to the European settlers, had some degree of natural protection against the fever, much in the same way apes did. It seemed that Monsieur Pierre and Madame Beth had been fortunate indeed, as neither of them sickened.
This was no doubt due to their prayers and righteous way of life, the priest remarked at dinner the following day. He was staying until the funeral was over, which would be conducted within the next two days. Lengthy funeral preparations were not practical in a tropical country.
Beth wondered what the priest would think if he had heard Raymond, just half an hour before, thanking Beth for wearing her charm, as that was no doubt the reason she had not fallen sick, especially as she had spent all of the last day of Antoinette’s life at her bedside. Whether it was due to the charm, her godliness or her robust constitution Beth had no idea; she was just happy not to be dying in such a horrible way.
She also felt guilty. She knew she should feel very sad that Antoinette was dead. She was sorry that the poor woman had suffered so and she felt great sympathy for Pierre, who seemed distraught by the loss of his wife. But she had neither liked nor respected Antoinette Delisle, and she realised now, as she sat in the darkened dining room and sweated in the obligatory black woollen dress that was de rigueur for mourning, that for her everything had changed.
For at least a month now she had known in her heart of hearts that she would never become accustomed to living in Martinique. In spite of the luxury and the beautiful scenery, she hated too much about it to ever settle here; the heat, the boredom and pointlessness of life for women at least, the lack of freedom of movement, and above all the brutality of slavery.
Antoinette’s death meant that she had to act. She could not stay at Soleil plantation now. If she were to remain in Martinique she had two choices; marry a planter or spend the rest of her life as companion to a series of spoiled, bored women. The first she would never do, and even the thought of the second made her want to throw herself off the nearest cliff in horror.
So then, she would leave. She could not go right now and leave Pierre alone in his grief. But once the funeral was over she would start making plans, and as soon as he had recovered from his initial shock at the loss of his sp
ouse she would tell him of her intention to return to…
France. That was what she would tell everyone. She was going to France. They would accept that. France was the mother country, after all, and Beth was known at the court. And in saying that, she would be telling no lies. She was indeed going to sail to France. And then from there she was going home.
Later that night in bed she thought about the enormity of what she intended to do. If she was caught she would probably be imprisoned for life, at best. More likely she would be quietly disposed of.
It was fortunate that she had, on the spur of the moment, asked the Marquis de Caylus to add her name to the list of dead; including it as Lady Elizabeth Peters rather than Elizabeth Cunningham would tell Newcastle when he read it that she had been defiant to the end. She had done it to stop him sending assassins out to kill her, which she suspected he would probably have done if he knew her to be alive and free. He hated her, and the feeling was requited. But she realised now that because she was believed to be dead, no one would be actively looking for her to return to Britain, although if she was recognised once there, which was possible in view of her distinctive hair and features, she would be arrested in any case.
Nevertheless she was going back, regardless of the risk, regardless of the stupidity of quite literally following a dream. Because since the recurring nightmare she could not shake the feeling that Alex was alive and had been in some way calling to her. She had to find out for certain that he was dead. And the only way she could do that was to go home.
To Scotland.
* * *
Three weeks after the funeral, with no sign of Pierre coming out of his profound depression, Beth was growing restless and irritable, and feeling terribly guilty for doing so. Part of her felt deep sympathy for him; after all, he had been married to Antoinette for over ten years and had no children to comfort him. And he was now alone, having no relatives in Martinique.
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