“Oh, well, yes. Stands to reason,” Madame Pelletier said, then turned back to the pillowcase. “Still, I was perplexed and so curious that I just had to take a closer look. What did I find, but the faintest specks, really so faint, when they’re dry you mightn’t even notice, of blood just here.” She pointed to the pillowcase. “Like spatter”—she looked at Gabby with a mix of pity and malice—“from a cough.”
No one moved, nor made a sound as their gazes flicked from one to another.
“You’re quiet this morning,” Madame Pelletier said to Gabby. “Did you pass a rough night, mademoiselle?”
Monica could feel the heat of tears flooding up from her chest to her throat, stinging her nose and eyes.
“No, madame,” Gabby said as she tried to swallow a cough.
“You’ve had that cough for a while, haven’t you?”
“No, madame.”
“It isn’t what you think,” Monica said.
“What do I think?” Madame Pelletier asked. “Hm? What do I think?” She paused. “Could it be that Mademoiselle Thomas is riddled with consumption and is putting every girl in this washhouse in jeopardy, not to mention all our customers?”
“I’ll go,” Gabby said. “Monica’s done nothing wrong and she needs this position. I’ll go.”
“No!” Monica cried, trying to pull Gabby away from collecting her things. “You can’t.” She turned to Madame Pelletier. “Madame, please, have a heart. She needs to see a doctor, not be turned out without a position or bed.”
“I warned you, Mademoiselle Fauconnier. You can’t say I didn’t because I did. Get your things together. Both of you. I’ll not have this in my house.”
“No, madame,” Gabby said. “Monica didn’t do anything wrong. Please let her stay.”
“She did do something wrong. Now get your things and go! I want this room clear of the pair of you in ten minutes, do you hear?”
Monica knew it was possible. When Gabrielle’s cough wouldn’t go away. When her fingers started to swell. And still, faced with the only option they had, the short walk to the atelier they had once shared with Aubrey and Daan felt like the longest walk of her life.
A year and a half before, she’d practically sprinted away, chased by the fear that if she paused, if she looked back and saw Aubrey’s heartbreak and Daan’s confusion, she’d falter. The first dew of Aubrey’s success after Girl in Bath had begun to burn away under the harsh glare of an art world clamoring for more. Could the vision that had infused that work be recreated? Aubrey had made some attempts. Dancers. Picnickers. Some portraiture. But he dabbed punishingly at the canvas, which returned his discontent in kind. For none of them were her.
Foolishly Monica had imagined that if he were delighted with his success, he might cheer hers. Yet even amidst the accolades, Aubrey was still an insecure man. Why should you continue to audition when I can take care of you now? We’re a pair, you and I. With you as my model and my renderings, we could have all that we want. He couldn’t tolerate that anything in her heart existed apart from him. And the more she insisted, the more he persisted.
She had little money and little prospects, still she had to leave. Could she turn away from the comfort of love and security to feel hungry enough to chase the dream she’d had since she was a girl? It was the same decision she’d made when she left Rouen at nineteen. If she stayed she’d be consigned to a life of domesticity. A good and beautiful life. But Monica wanted more. She’d always wanted more. When she finally summoned the courage to leave, it was the hardest decision she’d ever had to make. And the most important.
Now as she and Gabby stood before the vine-covered stone and brick house, she looked up to the open attic windows and could almost hear the tinny plunk of the terrible out-of-tune piano Gabby always played. Could taste the cheap wine and feel the warmth of their laughter. Remembered when she first met Aubrey, his gaze fixed on his canvas until he looked absently up at his name being called. His eyes shuttering as he looked at her. The warmth that cut between them.
Monica felt a terrible sense of dread. When they walked into that house, she would be changed. By love or fear or comfort or an inevitability, she wasn’t exactly certain, but she knew she would be. Her feet felt like lead even as Gabby went to the door and pulled the knocker.
Daan opened the door, his sandy hair shaggy and his shirt only partially closed. Of course, they stayed up late into the night, painting and drinking and waxing on about everything and nothing. A bright smile broke wide upon his face.
“What are you doing here?” He turned into the house and shouted, “You’ll never guess who’s here?” He threw the door wide. “Have you come home, then?”
He hugged his sister, then Monica. She tensed and he pulled back to study her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She hated to be the one to break up his happiness. Again.
“Do you mind if we stay here for a few days? Perhaps more? And we need to fetch a doctor to see Gabby. Right away, Daan. It’s serious.”
Daan examined Gabby with a deliberate eye. “You do look thin. And those dark circles. Are they not feeding you enough? Are you not allowed to sleep?” He scowled at Monica, then put his arm around Gabby. “Come on. Let’s put you to bed and get you some food. Some of my rich sauces—I can cook now—and a good night’s sleep and you’ll be good as new in no time.”
Daan and Gabby went upstairs as Aubrey appeared, sleep-rumpled, his shirt open to reveal his lean torso. They exchanged wan smiles.
“Monica.” His voice was hoarse.
“Gabby’s sick. Gravely.” Aubrey looked at the stairs. “I’m sorry to bring her back to you like this. But we had nowhere else to go.”
“Are you staying?” he asked, looking at the dresses from Jonathan she had slung over an arm.
“For now, if it isn’t too much of an imposition.”
His gaze was inscrutable. Then he climbed the stairs, leaving her standing helplessly in the entryway.
The doctor arrived, shooing the three of them from Gabby’s room.
“How dare you bring her back to me like this?” Daan said. “You had better hope she recovers or, so help me God…”
Aubrey put a hand on Daan’s chest. “This isn’t Monica’s fault,” he said, though it was half-hearted.
“The hell it isn’t! She ran away from us. From you. And Gabby followed. ‘Her sister,’ she said.” Daan shook his head bitterly. “Where could they have gone but to a brothel or a blanchisserie? Both ripe with pestilence.”
“I’m sorry, Daan,” Monica said. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. She’s my sister as much as anyone could be. You know I love her.” She paused. “The doctor will fix her. That’s what she needs right now—rest under a doctor’s care. Thank you for taking her in. I can go, if you’d like.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aubrey said, throwing an arm around her. It felt so good, she wanted to lean into him. So she did. Just a little. “You’re not going anywhere. You’ll stay right here where you belong, ma cherie.”
When the kindly, white-haired doctor finally emerged, his face was crumpled into his snow-white mutton chops.
“Consumption, I’m afraid. And quite advanced. I can keep her comfortable until she passes on. But that’s all I can do. I’m sorry.”
“No,” Monica said.
“It can’t be,” Daan said, the rims of his eyes red and filling with tears.
“I’m sorry, son.” The doctor clapped Daan on the shoulder. “Is she your…”
“Sister. She’s my sister.”
“Of course,” the doctor said. “You had better call your parents, then.”
“We have no parents.”
The doctor looked with pity at Aubrey and Monica, then tipped his hat and went down the stairs.
Daan and Monica went into Gabby’s room. She was sound asleep and suddenly seemed so much thinner and paler than she had before the doctor’s fatal prognosis. Consumption. It could hardly be borne. The
persistent cough, the swollen fingers and blood spatter—it seemed both inevitable and unreal. She couldn’t be dying.
“We’ll get a second opinion,” Monica said.
Daan took his sister’s hand with no small amount of reverence and kissed it. “Just rest.” His voice was tremulous. “You’ll be better soon.”
Days passed and they sat a steady vigil at her bedside. They moved her up to the attic and threw the windows open wide for the restorative fresh air so prescribed for consumptives. Easels pushed to the side, canvases in varying stages lined the walls, rolls of canvas leaned against shelves of paints and brushes and palettes. Monica played the worn piano and the boys sang badly and loudly for all their badness. They told stories and laughed, ate and drank as if nothing had changed when it had all changed.
Still, as if the diagnosis, the very name itself, lent some fervor, Gabrielle seemed to be wasting away. She sweated away the nights and slept away the days, her flesh melting off, her face sunken. Each day the doctor came, administering heavy doses of morphine and purging her blood, anything to try and arrest the blood-drenched coughing, which only seemed to grow worse.
As Wednesday turned to Thursday, in the deadest part of night, Monica was sitting in a daze of pure exhaustion when she felt fingers slide into hers. She jerked alert on the divan and saw Aubrey beside her. Glancing at the bed, she saw Gabby asleep and could hear the wet strain of air swimming in her lungs. Daan sat beside her, slumped over, fast asleep.
“Not much time now,” Aubrey whispered.
The emotion Monica had been trying to suppress surged through her and she broke. Heavy tears fell in rivulets down her cheeks as her body shook.
“She was fine on Monday,” she sobbed. “She carried her basket.” Even as she said it, Monica remembered how strained it was. Gabby could barely breathe as she shuffled along. But that was before, when hope colored everything.
Aubrey pulled her into his arms and held her tight. Tucked under his chin and resting against the warmth of the hard furrows of his chest, it felt so warm and right. How had she ever left this man?
“Shh, mon amour.” He pet her hair. “It’s going to be all right.”
Monica woke to mid-morning sun. She’d slept on the divan in Aubrey’s arms and she pulled up, even as she felt him tighten his hold.
“Aubrey, let go.”
Reluctantly he did and she crept to Gabby’s bed, fearful because she could no longer hear the wet rasp of her chest.
“Is she?” Terror shot through her as Daan opened sleepy eyes to look at her, then he looked at Gabby and pressed his head to her chest.
“Sleeping,” he said, swallowing a sob. “But her breathing is too faint.” He looked at Aubrey. “When does the doctor get here?”
Aubrey checked his watch. “Soon. It’s nearly eleven.”
When the doctor arrived, he confirmed what they all feared. The coughing had all but stopped because her breathing was growing shallow. It was only a matter of time.
Chapter 14
Monica faintly registered the knock at the door, the gruff voices in the entryway, the sound of boots on the stairs. Because she was doing the only thing in the world she was meant to be doing at that moment—holding Gabrielle’s hand, stroking it and singing softly, as her sister struggled to take her last breaths.
“Just go to sleep. Fly to Him, ma soeur cherie. I’ll see you soon.”
Monica felt him before she saw him. Would know his presence in the same room as her, as strangely familiar as the back of her hand. Jonathan stood in the doorway. In an Ulster coat with his hat tucked under the cape, his bearing was regal, his features even. He seemed like an untouched island in the midst of their buffeting grief. Then she remembered.
I’m sorry, she mouthed.
His cool sage eyes fell. Don’t be, he mouthed as he shook his head and gave her a tender smile.
They stared at each other for a long moment, then he tipped his head, indicating Gabby, and left.
“What is he doing here?” Aubrey asked as he resumed his seat next to her.
She looked across the bed at Daan, his expression unreadable, then turned her body an inch away from Aubrey.
“Not now, can’t you see?”
Five hours later, under the soft light of her bedside lamp, surrounded by the warmth of the three people who loved her most, Gabrielle Thomas breathed her last.
But the moment was far too gentle. Barely a ripple when it felt like a rip. Monica stared in horror at the quiet room around them and the unshaken world beyond their window. How could that fierceness gutter out?
Then she remembered that knock on the door a lifetime ago. The bag-of-bones sound of her mother’s body crumpling to the floor. Her flameless face when she’d told young Monica that her father would not be coming home. Ever again. A six-year-old girl, she’d sought refuge in her mother’s arms. But the passionate woman Maria Fauconnier had been died, too. Monica crawled into her own broken heart. Held her to herself. Dared not rely on or love anyone. Until she met Gabrielle.
Monica felt anger and blame coming up and slapped a hand over her mouth, strangling a sob. If she cried, she might never stop.
Aubrey’s arm came around her and she flinched. “No.”
“I’m sorry. I just…”
She put distance between herself and the bed. The boys stared at her. In the oppressive quiet she felt their grief and blame and had to get out of there. She desperately needed some fresh air.
Throwing the front door open, she ran out onto the walk, bent over and sobbed. For some minutes she held herself as she cried. Her sadness felt like a heavy, living thing pressing down on her chest. If only she could cry enough, she might be able to breathe.
She heard footsteps and felt a presence close. “Just leave me alone.” She couldn’t attend to Daan’s blame or Aubrey’s neediness just then.
“I’m sorry, Monica.” Jonathan stood nearby. “I’m so sorry,” he said and the tender tone of his voice made cleansing tears crest again. When he opened his arms, she fell into them and cried.
“It’s my fault,” she said, clutching his lapels. “It’s all my fault.”
“Shh, sweetheart.” He held on tight. “Of course it isn’t.”
After a time, she sagged. All the tension of fear and waiting, laughing when she might have been crying, being there for Gabby and the boys even while feeling Daan’s steadfast blame and Aubrey’s neediness, unable to sleep or eat—her body gave out.
Jonathan scooped her up and cradled her in his arms. She heard his driver’s voice and saw the door of his carriage open.
“No.” She sat up as he was about to climb in. “Where are you taking me?”
“Home.”
“I can’t leave here. I need to stay with her. Please put me down.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. Only reluctantly he did.
“When was the last time you slept? Or had a decent meal?” He cupped her face and examined her. “She’s gone, Monica, and you’re wasting away with her for all your holding on. You’ll fall ill if you don’t take care of yourself.”
“I will. I will. I just…”
“Just, what? You’re coming home with me and I’m going to take care of you whether you want me to or not. When you’ve had a good night’s sleep and something to eat, you can see to laying her to rest.”
Monica looked up to the attic windows. She could hear Gabby’s chiding voice even now: This man, he isn’t taking care of you?
“I insist,” Jonathan said.
She hadn’t any fight left and nodded.
Inside the house she found Aubrey. They hugged and whispered sweet condolences to each other. But when they pulled back, he glowered over her shoulder.
“She’ll be back to help you see to Gabrielle,” Jonathan said.
“Where are you going?” Aubrey asked.
“She’s coming home with me.”
“Why? She should stay here. Where she belongs. This is her home. It always has been and, i
f I have any say, it always will be.”
Jonathan and Aubrey crowded each other, their faces hard.
She put a gentle hand on each man’s arm. To Aubrey she said, “I’m just going to have some sleep. I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”
“You’re choosing him over me?”
“I’m not choosing anyone. And I’m not a prize to be won.”
When she turned towards the door, Aubrey grabbed her arm.
“We need to talk.”
She nodded.
The gentle rocking of the carriage and soothing sound of horse hooves on cobble put Monica right to sleep. Vaguely she felt Jonathan’s arms around her as he brought her into his apartment. He called for Bertie to start her bath and Sophie to prepare her a tray. Somewhere inside her, Monica felt she should protest. That she was capable. But that part of her was so tired.
Her exhaustion only made her want to cry more. To be so weak and needy felt worse than a scarlet letter, because the condemnation was her own. Tears stung in her burning eyes as she sat limply allowing Jonathan to undress her before the steaming and fragrant bath.
Absently she grabbed the laces of her corset. “I-I can do it.”
“I know you can, mon diamant.” He pulled the laces through her fingers and cupped her chin. “But you needn’t prove yourself every moment of every minute of every day. Tonight I live to serve you. And the only thing you need do is let go.” He nodded and mechanically she nodded back.
She slid into the hot bath with a sigh, then under the scalding water to lay at the bottom where there was no sound, no death, no men fighting like boys. Only heavy tendrils of hair, suddenly floating freely all around her. Finally she surfaced to see Jonathan sitting beside the tub.
“Are you going to be my body servant tonight?”
“Yes.” He began to roll up his sleeves. “If you would let me, I would do it every night. Now turn around.” He twirled a finger. “We’ll start with your hair.”
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