by Bianca Bloom
“Tea,” I moaned, thinking that I wouldn’t have the strength to have even one cup.
But Gwen was an experienced nurse, and managed to take on most of the burden of holding the china cup while still allowing me to decide precisely when I would drink.
“The vicar sent your husband away, as he hadn’t been home at all,” she informed me. “Shall I summon him back again, ma’am?”
“And how would you do that?” I asked. It seemed I would hardly be able to stay awake for more than a few moments together.
This got a little smile. “Well, he didn’t go home, see? He’s been waiting in the churchyard. I can tell him from the window.”
And she went to the window and whistled, but it was already growing too late for a social call. By the time Hamilton returned to my room, I must have fallen asleep. When I woke again, it was dark, and I saw him there.
He was sitting slumped in a chair, a book in his lap, sleeping. Only two candles were lit in the room, but I could still see his face. It was a fine face, worn and guileless in sleep, and I noted that Hamilton’s unshaven jaw reminded me that my body, useless though it seemed to be, did belong to a woman.
“Marion?” he asked, stirring as he opened his eyes.
Mine were shut, but I heard him as he came over, drawing his chair close to the side of the bed.
“I wish you sweet dreams, sweet angel,” he said to me, as I began to drift into sleep. It was not known to me whether he had seen through my feigned rest and wished me to hear him, or whether he was just speaking to a sleeping form, the way I did when I whispered to my daughters as they slept.
38
Nurse Gwen had been correct in one thing – my husband rarely left my side. And oddly enough, he proved to be quite a capable nurse himself. When I started wheezing, he made me a poultice, and locked the door as he approached the bed.
“I wouldn’t want the reverend walking in,” he explained. “He’s been asking after you all morning. Apparently, he needs some help with his sermon.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be the right person to give him that.”
“He thinks otherwise. He says that you know the Bible better than most of his parishioners.”
“Well, that means little.”
“He seems to think it means a great deal.”
I stared at Hamilton as he undid the buttons at the front of my nightgown, pulling it down and dipping two fingers on his right hand into a bowl containing a sticky brown substance that looked suspiciously like mud.
“I’m not certain,” I croaked, looking at it, but he smiled.
“It’ll work wonders, trust me.”
And he drew my gown down, exposing my bosom. I was glad to see that, with all of my turmoil and ill health, at least my breasts seemed to have suffered little. Though it was strange allowing my husband to see them in such a prosaic setting.
His face and fingers were calm as he spread the brown stuff over my chest, tracing each inch with just enough force to get the noxious substance to adhere to my skin.
“I feel better,” I groaned. “Could you not remove it now?”
This made him smile. “My gran said that one is to wait until the skin turns pink with the heat.”
“Your gran is the one who taught you to care for the sick, then?”
“That, and the army. When you are in a land without hospitals, every soldier becomes a nurse at least once or twice, and I was rather good at it.”
“You were in the army,” I said, more interested in this piece of information than in my smarting skin.
“Yes,” he affirmed. “For some years.”
“And then you got your fortune,” I said, remembering.
“Yes. Or my father’s fortune, really. I only got it by accident, truly, being the eldest son.”
We were both thinking of his “accidental” inheritance of my daughter’s ancestral home, but neither of us spoke of it.
“And after that, what became of you?”
He took out a wet rag and began to wipe away the poultice.
“I was rich, and so I traveled. And that was where my troubles began – I ought to have stayed in one place.”
His smile was sad, but it still lit up his face.
I put my hand on his arm, trying to meet his eyes. “And you met her on your travels.”
“Met who, I’m sorry?”
I coughed softly. “My enemy. The woman who made you hate women.”
For a moment, he paused. Then he dabbed twice more with the cloth and handed me a dry one. “If you’re well enough to bother me with such an inquisition, I should have to say that you were cured.”
I swallowed, not willing to let my rough throat prevent me from speaking with the man. “You’re not going to tell me about her.”
“In case it had escaped your notice, Lady Bell, I never wish to speak of this subject again. Now that the debt has been paid, at least I may demand that.”
I pulled up my nightgown myself, buttoning it with tired fingers. It didn’t seem practical to fight any more with the man. “May I demand to leave, then? Is Grace well enough to be moved?”
He had walked away from the bed, but came to stand at the foot of it.
“Well, if it means so much to you, then of course we could leave tomorrow. Grace is on her feet half the time anyway, and wanted to see the ponies. But the reverend won’t be happy.”
“I hate to be an imposition,” I said.
“Yes, but sometimes people like it when you impose,” he reminded me. “Reverend Manley is happy to be able to help the Bells in our time of need.”
“You make us sound like paupers!”
“There are worse things,” he said, closing the door.
It must have been some sort of joke, because I couldn’t think of anything at all that could be worse than a return to poverty.
39
As soon as I got to the house, I took unsteady steps through the threshold and declared myself cured. And it was true enough – as soon as I was there, I thought of a thousand things that needed to be done, and gained a burst of energy with which to deal with those tasks.
This time, Esther was the one to banish me. “You’ll be in your bedchamber, and Frances will read to you,” she insisted. “She has done little else, being at your bedside and Grace’s.”
This prompted me to draw Gracie to me again, and I managed to get one kiss in before my daughter said, “Mama, stop. Really.”
I let Grace go to her own room, though I hardly thought that she would sleep. In my own, I intended to do a great deal of work, though one Frances came by and forced me into my bed I dozed off for a moment.
When I awoke, Fran was plowing through a good bit of Henry V, which had never been one of my favorite plays, as I hated it when the English glorified all of their worst impulses. But Frances, if she learned nothing else from Gilbert, had absorbed his imperialist tendencies, and she loved the play. Though she was just as good as the French king, managing an accent that was not at all affected. When I woke, she was one of the king’s men, chastising the ruler to take care.
“Good my sovereign,” she said, her voice deepening, “Take up the English short, and let them know / Of what a monarchy you are the head. / Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin / As self-neglecting.”
Her face while she said it was rapt, transformed, and for the first time in my entire life I understood why she wished to act onstage. And I felt a pang that both she and I had been guilty of self-neglect. I had been too busy running after Flora and her young man to give a fig about my own happiness, and Frances had been so lost in a theatrical dream that I wondered if her feet ever touched the hard ground below us.
“Oh, Frannie,” I told her. “You certainly always do justice to old Bill Shakespeare. I know you only wish that you wish you could perform it.”
Her only response was to smile and take my hand. “Oh, mum, you needn’t worry about that. I am going to perform it.”
Doubt began to stir in my stomac
h. “And where would that be?”
“In New York City.”
“What, is that a theatre?”
“No, mum. New York City. It is the very best place in the New World to be an actress.”
My stomach was now fully revolting, and I wondered if I should pull a basin to me. “You would cross the ocean, Frances? For what, some theatre?”
She sat straighter, clearly already imagining the hot stage lights. “Not just one theatre, mama. It could be any theatre, really. Across the pond, there are no limits on who may perform Shakespeare. The smallest troupe can do it, or the most established group of actors. It’s marvelous, really.”
“It’s too far,” I said, losing my breath as I grabbed on to her hand. “Who would go with you? No, you can’t.”
“Mama,” she said, “I must. You are yourself quite familiar with the beauty of the Bard’s work. How can we even know it, cloistered as we are here in the wilds of the Highlands?”
I could not tell how she had gotten the idea that we were in “wild” country, as she had certainly known little else in her lifetime. “You will do nothing of the sort.”
She sighed, and I pressed her. “How can you even think of it? You aren’t an actress, Frances. You will stay here, where you belong.”
“What, and stay in this loving family?” she asked. “You can’t have any idea. You and your new husband hate each other, Flora’s about to marry an idiot, and Gracie herself has nearly died trying to escape. It shouldn’t surprise you at all that I’d like to get as far away as I possibly can.”
Her words were so very hurtful that I responded with a barb of my own. “You’ve never even learned your sums properly,” I told Frances, “And you’ve never even been something as lowly as a governess. How can you possibly go, if I refuse to fund your journey?”
“I know how to earn money, and how to marry it, if need be,” snarled Frances, “I learned that from you.”
“You know nothing!” I nearly screamed, picturing Fran turning into a tart, whispering throaty phrases to men in dark alleyways simply to keep from starving. If she would marry for money, as I had, that would be one thing, but I knew that Frances would die a proud, poor death before she would allow herself to do so. “You probably can’t even remember a single day when we didn’t have money!”
“I remember very well,” said Frances. “You were always at the bar, and Gran was with us sometimes. Rather tawdry, but on the respectable side, to be sure.”
“Frances!” I screamed, my throat hurting as her name flew out.
Esther came in. “What on earth?”
“Bring my my husband,” I said to her. They were not polite words, but Esther must have sensed their seriousness at once, for she returned with Hamilton before two minutes had passed.
40
“How dare you,” I hissed at him, my voice nearly gone. “You were the one to put all of these ideas about the theatre in my daughter’s head.”
I expected him to contradict me, but he asked only, “What has she told you?”
“That she means to ‘escape’ not only the Isle, but our entire continent. She claims that she means to go to New York City, and that if I do not give her the money, she will still find a way to cross the ocean,” I said, my voice breaking.
And though the anger was still within me, the thought of my sweet, silly Frances on a ship to the New World filled me with such horror that I sank into my pillow again.
“Please, leave me,” I managed to choke out, before I buried my head in the soft cloth. It seemed the only way of avoiding the very unseemly instincts that were battling in my breast. If I could only keep my head there, with the whole world temporarily dark and quiet, I might manage to keep from collapsing entirely.
It took some minutes for me to realize that my husband had returned, and with him was someone else. He had to clear his throat.
“Marion,” he said. “I’ve brought Frances to speak to you.”
I raised my head, and there they both were. Hamilton was standing rather stiffly, looking much taller than the gangly Fran, who was slouching and silent. But he gazed at her with a faint smile, and managed to prod her forward.
“Tell your mother,” he said, nodding at her.
“Mama,” she said, “Papa has a friend at Covent Garden.”
I could hardly hear her news, I was so surprised to hear my daughter referring to Hamilton as “papa” — a title that she had been too young to use with her own father. She had always refused to even think of using it with Gilbert.
“A friend at Covent Garden,” I repeated, a tinge of acid in my voice. Frances looked back at Hamilton, but he nodded to her.
“Yes, dear. Go on.”
“Well, anyway,” she said, a little too quickly, “His friend is going to set me up there. If I can make it, then I’ll be able to perform on that stage!”
“And not go to New York City,” I said, my voice quivering.
“No, mama,” said Frances stiffly. Then, with an eye for little outward displays of emotion that was characteristic of undertakers and actresses, she walked over to me. “You do not wish me to go?”
“Better London, darling,” I said, and she kissed me.
This set me off crying as if I had been wounded anew. It was the most that I had cried since finding poor Grace, chilled by the rain, disconsolate at the grave of her father.
“Frances,” said Hamilton, “Your mother has had quite a trying day. Perhaps you might leave her for a moment and bring up a tisane from the kitchen.”
Fran, struck dumb for once, nodded and slipped out. Esther must have already been boiling water, because my daughter returned quickly with a tray that she handed over to Hamilton, bidding me good night.
After I had taken a few sips, the warm liquid coursing through me, I looked up at Hamilton with an accusation on my lips. “You really are a nurse.”
He smiled, though he still looked worried. “Indeed, I really am. And I should say that it was time for you to rest.”
After I finished the rest of the cup with quick sips, he took it from me, but did not leave the room.
“She truly had her heart set on New York,” he said to me, hovering over the bed. “I’m sorry. I should have perceived it earlier.”
“How did you get her to change her heart?”
“Well,” he said, “Her family is quite near her heart, after all, and London is far enough. If she were to go across the ocean, she might see us at best once per decade.”
I put a hand across my face. Normally, I would have been able to face the notion of living apart from one of my daughters without completely going mad. But the long illness had taken its own toll.
“So she will only be in London,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
Hamilton Bell took my trembling hand and raised it to his lips. “It was my pleasure.”
At once, it seemed silly that he had kissed my hand and not my lips. Because I pulled him toward me, and he grabbed my shoulders, and soon not only our lips but our entire bodies were touching.
41
Letting Hamilton Bell bed me was the worst possible idea, and I knew it as soon as I let him kiss me. I wriggled out of the bed, laughing like a girl, and stood on the other side. “It’s about time you went back to your own bedchamber, sir.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You are sure?”
I backed toward my wardrobe. “If you are a good nurse, you will let me rest.” Though I wished that the man would keep touching me, and that he would spread my legs wide and take me, I knew that in my sensible state I would not be able to bear another one of his speeches on how I was only an object to him.
The wicked man sensed my hesitation. “And if I am a bad nurse?”
I smiled at him. “You still would not keep your patient from her own bed, would you?”
His eyes looked deep into mine as he shook his head. “No, of course not. You may return to your bed, madam. I will not disturb you there.”
Relief and disappoi
ntment fell over me as I slipped back underneath my blankets, my body already hot from the failed pursuit.
It was a moment before I noticed that my husband had not left the room.
Indeed, he seemed to be preparing for sleep himself, as he was removing all of his clothing. He did not even keep on any of his nightclothes.
Indeed, in a moment he was completely devoid of any clothing. His cheeks flushed handsomely, his whole body smooth with the health that paying his debts and staying in one place had allowed him.
And his prick was standing handsomely, more than ready to be handled.
All I wanted to do was touch it before he left.
And so I did touch it. Held it, actually, while Hamilton’s eyes fell shut and he rocked back and forth on his feet. I kept using my mouth to keep my hand slick, and eventually I could stand it no longer.
I got out of the bed, ready to throw the man’s clothes at him and order him to leave the room, but he mistook my intentions. Either he thought I was getting out of the bed to pull him back into it, or he knew that I was not and did not care.
Hamilton bent me over at the waist, so that I held onto the bedpost, and raised my nightgown.
And then he rammed himself into me, frigging me so quickly that I cried out, and the bed shook, and even Hamilton himself was not quite sure how to stop us. For after what seemed like only minutes, I heard his breath grow strangled, felt his body go tight, and knew that I must do something to prevent the man from making a mess of things.
Of course, when I pulled away from him, I could have told him to take his clothes and go. I could have said that I was only just recovered, and truly did want to rest, whatever his wicked intentions were.
But I said none of that, because I no longer wanted to rest. I wanted everything Hamilton had begun to continue, but I was not quite sure how to go about it.