Philippa Carr - [Daughters of England 09]

by The Adulteress

  “Try to sleep,” I said. “I shall sit here until you do.”

  He was soon sleeping peacefully under the influence of the laudanum.

  I picked up the bottle, and seeing that there was very little left, I decided that I would go straight over to Charles and get more.

  We must not be without it.

  I locked the bottle in the cupboard, put the key in the secret drawer and, putting on my riding habit, I went to the stable, saddled my horse and rode into town.

  I was relieved to find Charles at home. He took me into his sitting room and I told him why I had come.

  “I gave him a dose before I came out,” I explained. “He is sleeping peacefully now.”

  “He will do so until morning.”

  He was looking at me intently. “You look worn out,” he said.

  I raised my eyes to his. The compassion and tenderness I saw there unnerved me. I turned away but he was beside me, gripping my shoulders, turning me round to face him.

  “Oh, Zipporah …” he said; and I was lying against him and his arms were round me. He was kissing my hair.

  “I can’t bear it,” I said. “It gets worse.”

  “It’s inevitable.”

  “Is there nothing … nothing …”

  “Only what we are doing. There is nothing wrong with him organically. Constitutionally he is strong.”

  “I don’t think he can bear these violent attacks of pain.”

  “It’s tragic. I would do anything … anything …”

  “I know,” I said. “I know.”

  “You know I love you.”

  I was silent. I did know it. I had known it for some time. Did he know that I loved him, too?

  I stammered: “You have been so good.”

  “If there were only something I could do.”

  “You have sustained me with your care of him … and for me. Oh, Charles, how long can it go on?”

  He was silent.

  Then he said: “I’ve told you at last. If only … you were free … If only …

  “Come and sit down. We are alone here, Zipporah. Mrs. Ellis is out.”

  I felt my heart beating fast. I was elated in a way and at the same time horribly depressed. To be loved by such a man, whom I admired above all others, could not help but bring me joy; and on the other hand Jean-Louis was uppermost in my mind, his dependence on me, his abiding devotion.

  I said I should go. “Give me the medicine and I will leave.”

  “I want to talk to you first,” he replied. “It is no use shutting our eyes to what is and cannot be denied. I love you and you love me. I believe that to be so.”

  “And if it is … we must forget it.”

  “Forget it? You cannot push aside the truth and forget it.”

  “There is nothing we can do about it.”

  His hand closed over mine and gripped it tightly.

  “We can be together,” he said.

  “And we shall know that the other is there, caring.”

  “Waiting,” he said.

  “Waiting.”

  “One day you and I will be together, Zipporah. It must be so.”

  I was silent. I couldn’t bear it. It was talking of the time when Jean-Louis would no longer be there. It was like waiting for him to die … hoping he would.

  I said: “I could never be happy. If Jean-Louis… died I would remember him forever and that I had not been true to him.”

  “These things pass,” he said.

  “Do they? Does one ever forget?”

  “No, you’re right. We can forget for periods at a time and then our guilty secrets raise their heads when we least expect them and we are caught unawares to discover how vulnerable we are.”

  “I must go,” I said. “Give me the laudanum and I will leave. It is better so.”

  He shook his head. “What harm is done by your staying awhile? Jean-Louis is sleeping. He would not know if you returned. Stay awhile with me, Zipporah.”

  He came toward me but I held him off. I was afraid of my emotions. I felt again that familiar desire which I had known with Gerard. It was there, I knew, ready to flare up and consume my resolutions. I knew that if I were not on guard all the time I should be swept away into the overwhelming need to slake my passion as I had done before.

  There could not have been two men more unlike than Gerard and Charles and yet they both had this effect on me, this demanding, seering passion which I had never felt with Jean-Louis. Gerard had been so lighthearted, so ready to laugh, treating life as a joke. Charles was somber, weighed down by secrets, a man of deep passions when they were aroused, I was sure. Gerard’s I fancied could be easily aroused but Charles would give long consideration to such matters and would not lightly fall in love.

  I must be careful. I could not believe that I would be caught up in a whirlwind of passion while Jean-Louis lay ill—and yet thinking about it over the years I could feel the same irresistible impulses.

  I was in love with Charles. I had been in love with Gerard. I loved Jean-Louis, too; I was weak, I realized that. So I must tread very carefully.

  He said: “I want to talk to you. I have never felt for anyone before what I do for you. I had a wife once. You knew that, did you?”

  I shook my head.

  “I thought perhaps Isabel had told you.”

  “Isabel has talked of you a good deal … but she never really told me anything about you which I did not know.”

  “Zipporah, I want you to know about this part of my life. Come and sit down. I’ve wanted to talk to you so often. I’ve wanted to tell you … to explain why these moods come upon me at times. I can never, never escape from my guilt. Whatever I do … it is there. I want you to know everything about me. Zipporah … I want to take you into those secret hiding places because I want you to know me for what I am. There must be no secrets between us.”

  I sat down beside him.

  He went on: “It happened a long time ago … ten years to be exact. I was young and ambitious then … rather different from what I am now. Events change us more than time, perhaps. I was a doctor in fashionable London. My patients were among the rich; my reputation was growing, and then I met Dorinda. It was at the theater. She was a passionate theatergoer, and so was I. I was constantly at the Haymarket Theater and Dairy Lane or Covent Garden. It was during a performance of King Lear, with Garrick magnificent in the leading role, that I was introduced to Dorinda.

  “She was very beautiful—fair-haired, blue-eyed like an animated doll. She was high-spirited, full of vitality. I was completely enchanted. She enjoyed the company of actors and as I discovered later helped many of them financially. She had inherited a large fortune from her father, who had doted on her during his lifetime. Her mother had died soon after her birth.

  “You can imagine what happened. I must have seemed something of an oddity to her. I was serious, the ambitious doctor; her life had been spent among stage people or those who never worked but were intent on the pursuit of pleasure.

  “I could not understand why she accepted me, but she did. I think it was a sort of novelty. It was only after our marriage that I discovered my wife was one of the greatest heiresses in the country and her upbringing had made her highly unsuitable to be the wife of a doctor. She could not understand my desire to work. There was no need to work, she declared. She had never thought of money. It was something which was just there. As for work … My patients, she said, were all malingerers. They fancied being ill for a while and thought it made them rather interesting. She found my absorption rather a bore.

  “I realized within a month or so that I had made a great mistake. I used to go for long walks in the evenings into the poorer districts. That was when I went into Whitefriars. I told you about that. I had the feeling then that I wanted to get away from my work in fashionable London. I wanted to do something worthwhile.

  “I tried to explain to Dorinda. She was skeptical. I had been noticing for some time strange things about her. A
nd there came one night … I had been out looking after a poor woman … one of the servants of a wealthy family who had called me in. The woman was suffering from an incurable disease and I had been with her some time so that I was too late for the theater performance to which we had arranged to go.

  “When Dorinda came back that evening she was in a bad mood and it was then that I had the first real glimpse of the violence in her nature. She abused me in a loud and hectoring manner. Then she threw a statuette at me. It missed and went into a mirror. I can still hear the sound of cracking glass as the splinters fell over the carpet. Then she picked up a paper knife and came at me. It was not a sharp weapon but there was murder in her eyes. She could have killed me. I was stronger than she was and managed to get the weapon away. She collapsed suddenly and I gave her a sedative.

  “I was so disturbed that I went to a cousin of hers—her nearest relation—and he told me that I would have to take care. Her mother had had to be, as he said, “put away.” There was madness in the family. Her grandmother had committed murder. There was a long tradition of insanity which seemed to be passed down through the women. They had hoped Dorinda had escaped because the violence had not begun to show in her until she came into her teens and then the attacks were not frequent. They had thought marriage would cure her.

  “I said: ‘Why did no one warn me?’”

  “The cousin was silent. I think they had wanted someone to take the responsibility from them. Dorinda had a large fortune and I think they believed that that would be the compensation.

  “You can imagine my feelings. I had already begun to know that my marriage was a great mistake. What I had felt for Dorinda was infatuation and I was not experienced enough to recognize it for what it was. And now to learn that I was married to a mad woman was the greatest blow imaginable.

  “‘You are a doctor,’ the cousin had said. ‘We had thought that marriage with you was the very best thing that could happen to Dorinda. We thought you would be able to treat her and she would be under your constant supervision.’

  “I cannot tell you the terrible depression I suffered at that time. I saw myself as a prisoner bound to this woman … this mad woman … for the rest of my life. Then I was presented with the most fearful dilemma. Dorinda was going to have a child. I pondered this; I spent sleepless nights asking myself what I should do. If Dorinda bore a girl that baby would be tainted … doomed to madness if the pattern persisted as it had for generations.

  “I was a doctor. I had it in my power to terminate Dorinda’s pregnancy. I wrestled with myself. It was in a way taking a life, but surely that was better than allowing some maimed creature to come into the world. What was I to do? I had means at my disposal. I knew how. …The right dose of a certain medicine and the chances were that I could bring about a miscarriage.

  “Well, I made the choice. I terminated the pregnancy … but I must have made a mistake for, at the same time, I terminated Dorinda’s life.

  “That’s my story, Zipporah. I can never forget it. I could not let that child live. And yet … has anyone the right to take a life? I thought at the time I was doing what was best … what was right. I did not know that there would be complications … that Dorinda was not fit to bear children. … I tell myself that had the child been allowed to be born in the normal way its birth would very likely have killed Dorinda. I don’t know. All I do know is that the child died, that Dorinda died and that there was a scandal concerning her death.”

  “Oh, Charles, how you must have suffered! But you did right. I am sure you did right.”

  “You see, she had this large fortune … and it came to me. It was well known that Dorinda and I were not on good terms. Everyone understood that. So many of them knew of Dorinda’s strange behavior. There was sympathy for me … oh yes, I had that … but the smear was there. Dorinda was dead. I was a widower … a very rich widower whose worldly possessions were far greater than that of the needy bachelor who had married Dorinda.”

  We were silent for a while. I was seeing so clearly the people who would whisper about him; the horrible suspicion that surrounded him and most terrible of all the fact that he had brought about Dorinda’s death.

  “My close friends knew that I had never been greatly interested in money, that the fact of Dorinda’s wealth had been a surprise to me. But that did not stop the whispers. There might have been an inquiry but her cousin did not want that. He was naturally anxious that the fact that there was madness in the family should not be brought into the open. He managed as much as anyone to hush up the matter. But you can imagine how it was with me. There were times when I would rather they had investigated. I would have been ready to admit that I had attempted to kill the unborn child rather than condemn it to its inevitable inheritance. I did not know that Dorinda was not fit to bear a child. I was ready to stake my defense on that and the almost certainty that had the child grown to its full size she would have died in giving normal birth to it. So I left London. … And the money came to me and with it, as you know, I built and maintained my hospital.”

  “I understand and I am glad you told me. I think you blame yourself too much. What you did may well have been right. You had to make a decision and you took that one.”

  “I took a life,” he said, “two lives.”

  “But if it is better that a child should never be born …”

  “Who is to be the judge of that?”

  “Surely there are times when we have to make these decisions.”

  “I am sorry for anyone who does. Life is sacred. It is not for us to decide whether or not to destroy it.”

  “But we destroy flies, rats … vermin that carry disease. That is life surely.”

  “I am thinking of human life.”

  I said: “I am unsure. I think you did right. You acted out of no desire for personal gain. You did not know Dorinda would die. Your thought was to prevent a baby being born who was almost certainly doomed to madness. You were right.”

  “It is murder.”

  “The law commits murder … on people whom it says are a menace to the community. Yours was the same sort of killing. You must see that.”

  “I never shall. All I can do is try to expiate my sin and … forget.”

  “How many lives have you saved in your hospital?”

  He smiled tenderly at me. “You are trying to comfort me. I knew I should find comfort with you. You are in my thoughts all the time. I believe that one day …”

  I shook my head. “Don’t talk of it,” I said. “I cannot betray Jean-Louis … twice.”

  Then I told him of that period when I was Gerard’s mistress and how ever after I had been unable to forget.

  It was his turn to comfort me. He was not shocked as I feared he might be. He said: “It was natural. You are a warm-blooded woman. Do you think I don’t know that? You need fulfillment of your emotions. … For a time you achieved that.”

  “I deceived my husband.”

  “And you loved him all the more because of it. You were more tender, patient. Nobody could have been a better nurse to Jean-Louis. He knows it and is grateful.”

  I said: “You are trying to comfort me. You do not know that Lottie is not Jean-Louis’s child.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as a woman can be. Jean-Louis is incapable of begetting children. As soon as Gerard and I were together … it happened. I could never bear Jean-Louis to know. … He adores Lottie. He is so proud of her. He wanted children always.”

  Charles took my hands and kissed them.

  “We are a pair of sinners weighed down with guilt. Is that what makes us attractive to each other? What you did has in fact brought happiness to Jean-Louis.”

  “I am sure your action was right. But I know mine was wrong. ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ How many times did I write that out in the schoolroom? The Ten Commandments. I had no idea what it meant. To me it was just number seven in those days.”

  “And thou shalt do no murder.�
��

  “It wasn’t murder, Charles. You must stop saying that.”

  “How wonderful it would be if we could put the past behind us.”

  “Do you think we shall ever do that?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I will teach you how to … and you will teach me. We need each other, Zipporah, and one day we are going to be together.”

  Then he held me fast in his arms and I clung to him.

  We heard a step in the hall. The housekeeper had returned.

  I suppose it was inevitable. I think we both knew it. I fought against it until our resistance crumbled. Our need was too great and we both desperately wanted to be happy even for a brief moment. We wanted to escape together to that bliss which we knew we could give each other.

  It was a matter of waiting for the opportunity and I knew it would come.

  The housekeeper had gone to visit her sister and was to be away the entire day. He did not tell me this. The fact was that she paid these regular visits about once every two weeks so it was certain to happen that on one of her days of absence I should call to have my bottle replenished.

  The house was silent. I knew as soon as I entered that we were alone.

  There was an air of excitement about him—almost gaiety. It seemed as though he had cast away his cares. I found that I was doing the same.

  In the world beyond this house I had my duties, my unsatisfactory life to lead, my fears, my sadness, my terrible pity when I sat beside my husband’s bed … but here in this small house, in those rooms over those in which he saw his patients, I could be happy.

  He said: “Zipporah … we can’t go on holding back what must be”

  I shook my head: “I must go home,” I said.

  But he took off my cape and held me against him.

  He said: “Surely we can have this.”

  I said again: “I must go.” But there was no conviction in my voice.

  I allowed myself to be led upstairs. I allowed myself to be disrobed not only of my clothes but of my honor. I shared with my lover that burning desire; again I knew the feeling that everything else must be forgotten, shut away to satisfy this need.