by Sarah Lark
Nora blushed, but Dr. Mason just rolled his eyes. He seemed accustomed to people like Mrs. Paddington and only looked at Nora with a bit of suspicion when the talk of unpaid rent came up.
“I’ll bring the rent, Mrs. Paddington. I just have to go to the pawnbroker after this. And you also needn’t worry, Doctor, I have your money …”
“So, if you have money, lady, then I get it first!” Mrs. Paddington insisted and tried to plant herself directly in Nora and the doctor’s path. Nora resolutely pushed her out of the way.
“I will give you the money later!” she said firmly. “Come now, Dr. Mason, my fiancé needs your attendance.”
If Dr. Mason was impressed by the neatly swept room, clean linens, and the fire in the chimney, he made no sign of it. Simon had been lying half-asleep when Nora came home, but now he tried to sit up and greet the doctor. Nora found that he looked exhausted, but beautiful. She had untied and combed his dark, curly hair in the morning, which lay on the white pillow and framed Simon’s finely cut, aristocratic face.
“It’s worse,” Simon whispered, as the doctor lifted his shirt to examine him. “The cough; it hurts to breathe,” He displayed his symptoms with a shaky movement of the left side of his chest.
“It often gets worse before it gets better!” Nora pointed out to comfort Simon. Dr. Mason quieted them with a hand gesture. He had exposed Simon’s chest; listened and tapped on both sides. Then he sighed and pushed Simon’s shirt carefully back over his body, before covering him with the blanket. Simon coughed.
“Well, Mr. … Viscount Greenborough,”
It was kind of Dr. Mason to use the title, but Nora still had her doubts.
“Finished already? Don’t you have to … I mean, whenever I had a cold, the doctor always tapped on my back, too, and …”
Dr. Mason adjusted his wig and rolled his eyes upwards, as if he were praying for patience.
“I already know what your fiancé lacks. If I ask him now to turn around, it will only use additional strength that he no longer has. As I was just saying, Viscount … You are suffering from an acute … gangrene of the lungs. That is what’s causing the pain when you breathe. But otherwise … I’m sorry, but we have to assume it’s an advanced case of phthisis.”
Simon remained silent; he clearly knew the state of his condition.
Nora swallowed. “Pht …” she struggled with the word, which she had never heard before. “But it isn’t consumption?”
Dr. Mason took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m sorry, miss,” he repeated in her direction.
Nora thought she could no longer hold herself up. She dropped onto Simon’s bed.
Simon held her hand. “Now let the doctor finish, dear,” he said softly. “He will know what to do,”
“Is there something to be done?” Nora asked hopefully.
Simon exchanged a quick glance with Dr. Mason, who cleared his throat and reached anxiously for his wig again. Apparently, that was the reason his hairpiece was disheveled.
“There is always something to be done, miss, just that sometimes … I … well, the best thing you can do for your fiancé is to keep him warm. He needs rest — give him something to drink, but not the water from the pipes, as that will make it much worse.”
“Milk?” Nora asked. She listened to the doctor with a childlike trust in her eyes.
Dr. Mason nodded. “Milk is good,” he agreed. “And soup … nutritious food is preferable.”
“And what about medicine?” she asked, eagerly.
Dr. Mason sighed. “It’s very expensive,” he said. “And in this case …”
Simon looked to see his expression again.
“Well,” Dr. Mason had given up hope. “I will write down a tincture for you, the apothecary can mix it. Poppy syrup, viscount, it will make it easier for you.”
Simon licked his lips. “How long?” he whispered, as Nora anxiously looked for a paper and pencil.
The doctor looked around briefly before answering. “If the inflammation subsides again … a few weeks. If not, a few days.”
Nora heard the last few words. “After a few days it will get better,” she said bravely. “That’s what I’ve been telling you, Simon.”
Dr. Mason bit his lip, but said nothing. He didn’t turn to Nora again until she was leading him out.
“Miss Nora,” Nora hadn’t told him her last name. “It would be in your best interests if you were to put your wedding plans off. In general, you should touch your fiancé as little as possible or even … hmm … don’t exchange affections with him. In Venetia, it’s believed that this disease can be transmitted from one person to another. There they even recommend burning the clothes of the sick.”
Nora threw the doctor a disbelieving glance.
The man sighed. “I know, this is not the thinking here in England,” he muttered. “But based on my experience, it wouldn’t help anyone if you also grew ill.”
CHAPTER 7
Dr. Mason only charged twopence for the house visit, which embarrassed Nora. The apothecary, however, took one shilling and sixpence for the poppy syrup. Combined with the rent, it swallowed all of the money Nora had received for her dress. At least the medicine worked. Simon’s pain subsided some, and when he took an entire spoonful in the evening, he slept peacefully in Nora’s arms.
Nora now had her improvised household firmly under control, and needed little time to keep the attic clean, build the fire, and to cook. The necessary purchases for halfway normal life had already been made, and Nora now only left the house for smaller shopping trips. In order to get the money together, Nora pawned her coat and her silver hair clip — and then finally also a signet ring with the crest of the Greenboroughs, which Simon had vigilantly guarded up until then. Now he had no more objections — and even Nora didn’t worry about what would happen when the last penny had been spent. She tried to cling to hope, but she saw that Simon was consistently getting weaker and suspected that he was not doing well. And she had desperately tried to be optimistic during the doctor’s visit — although she knew quite well the severity of consumption. She knew that people died from the illness and not just here in the East End. If members of the wealthy classes were afflicted, it usually didn’t progress so quickly, but more often than a real cure, it meant years of infirmity.
As for the dangers of infection, she ignored the physician’s warnings. No matter what they thought in far-off Venetia, Nora believed it impossible for her beloved to put her in any kind of danger. Actually, she couldn’t get enough of touching Simon. She snuggled up to him whenever she found the time and leisure to do so, and then she and Simon would give into their dreams. Previously, it had mainly been Simon who told of the South Seas with a gleam in his eye. Nora still remembered their first meeting in exact detail. She had waited out in front of the office, but even before seeing his face for the first time, she had fallen in love with Simon’s warm, dark voice: Yes, I speak fluent French, and some German, and Flemish. When I am free of the familial obligations that have been keeping me in England up until now, I hope to be able to accept a post in one of the colonies. Jamaica or Barbados perhaps …
In his voice, Nora had heard the desire resonate that she herself felt when she saw pictures of Caribbean beaches, or heard the families of planters speak of warm nights and scorching hot days; of colorful birds and butterflies, and giant flowers with tantalizing scents.
The somewhat impolite response from her father, that all that glitters is not gold, Simon obviously failed to hear, just as Nora had closed her ears whenever Thomas Reed ridiculed her own dreams of the South Seas. And then the young man had eventually come out of her father’s office and she had seen the sun in his eyes. For his part, he had noticed the book about Christopher Columbus’s voyages in her hand. Eventually, they had conversed about it and after that, Nora had found herself busy in her father’s office remarkably often. At some point, the two had secretly relocated their meetings to St. James’s Park. At first they had strolled alon
g the lake, always looking for more hidden paths, and in the end they had kissed each other beneath drooping willows by the water, and dreamed of their hut on the beach. Simon told her of the discovery and development of the islands in the Caribbean Sea; of pirates’ nests and tobacco plantations; of sea battles and trade relations. He knew a great deal about the history of the region and Nora admired him for it.
But now, in the darkness of their attic, it was only Nora who spoke, daydreaming, and telling stories.
“Naturally, we wouldn’t have any slaves!” she stated categorically — the brief confrontation with Lady Wentworth still stuck with her. “We won’t need much in the way of staff.” Nora found the simple life in their tiny room quite satisfactory. Of course, some work was very difficult and tiring, and she could always do without Mrs. Paddington. On the other hand, however, one wasn’t continuously moving under the curious eyes of the servants, and needn’t constantly be composed, well mannered, and be mindful of “setting an example,” as Thomas Reed had expected of his daughter from the earliest days of her childhood. “No more than a maid,” she considered now. “As far as I’m concerned, also a black—”
“I’ve never seen one,” Simon said quietly. “A Negro man once, on the docks. But never a woman.”
“But you won’t find her more beautiful than me?” Nora asked, worried.
Simon smiled and had to cough again. “I will never find a woman more beautiful than you, Nora!” he assured her in a barely audible voice. “No matter if she’s black, or white, or red.”
Nora looked at her lover warily. “I think you’ll have to kiss me, so that I believe it!”
Despite the sword of Damocles hanging over them, Simon and Nora were happy on those days. They shared a strangely light-hearted mood, and pushed back their thoughts of death and separation, as they blocked out the world from their tiny hovel. But they could not deny that Simon was getting increasingly worse. He often lay for hours in a feverish sleep, but Nora’s embrace, her soft voice, and the poppy syrup prescribed by Dr. Mason guided him to sweet dreams. Sometimes, he even began to blur fantasy and reality as he lay with Nora in his narrow bed, seeing them both in the sun on the beach.
Nora wistfully gave up her hopes of Simon being able to make her his wife, and contented herself with being the mistress of his dreams.
“We make love on the warm sand with the full moon above us. Such a large moon, Simon, like I’ve never seen before, and it’s so bright. I can see you, Simon, and you can see me. I … I’ve taken off my dress, and you—”
“You’re beautiful,” Simon whispered. “You body has a silvery shine in the moonlight and the stars sparkle in your eyes. I kiss you, I love you; a light wind dries our sweat …”
Ten days after the doctor’s visit, the lovers had to face their reality. The rent was due again, and this time Mrs. Paddington didn’t turn to Nora, but called on Simon when she was out of the house. Naturally, this was solely about nosiness — Mrs. Paddington wanted to know what drove her strange tenants in the attic. And, of course, she insisted on offering her own commentary. She immediately started with a scornful lecture when she found Simon half-asleep in his bed.
“There he lies in bed, the lord, in the middle of the day! I might have guessed … and having the young lady taking care of you. Well, you don’t think much of work, you refined people. Would be nice if money just grew on trees, wouldn’t it, milord? What happens when you have nothing left to pawn? Will you send your lady out to work the streets, Viscount?”
Nora had long since learned to simply ignore the taunts of the landlady, but Simon felt their sting. He laboriously sat up.
“Please refrain from such allusions, Mrs. Paddington. As long as we pay our rent, it’s no concern of yours where we get the money, and I will not tolerate you insulting Miss Nora. You—”
Mrs. Paddington laughed wickedly. “He will not tolerate it!” she sneered. “What will you do then, your Excellency? Will you challenge me to a duel of swords or pistols?”
Simon tried to get up. “Please leave my rooms, Mrs. Paddington. Nora will return at any moment and I don’t want her being harassed by your filth—”
The landlady giggled. “You know this is actually my room, little lord? And you don’t belong here or anywhere else on God’s great earth? As the little lady will realize when the money runs out … will she stay here then? If I may say it myself, you’re also not so wonderful, milord, that I wouldn’t just throw you two out on the street anyway. I don’t like it one bit when you talk back.”
Simon felt dizzy, hurt, and ashamed. The woman was right, he didn’t have much to boast about. But now he had already collected all of his strength. He wouldn’t listen to it any longer!
“Then in God’s name, throw us out!” he gasped. “We can find another hole like this anywhere.” Simon was overcome with a coughing fit, and then composed himself once again. “Get out, before Nora returns and has to see our home defiled by the likes of you!”
He choked on the stench of the old hag. Liquor and sweat filled the air. Mrs. Paddington’s unwashed clothes made it all the worse. But finally she left. Simon’s outburst must have startled her — or perhaps something down at the Tanners’ had caught her attention. Simon heard them bickering as soon as she had stepped out the door. He wanted to slam it behind her, but he felt his strength waning. Simon pushed himself up from the bed, and tried to steady himself with the back of the chair when everything went black and another violent coughing fit came over him. Simon had long been spitting up blood, but only traces that he could hide in a handkerchief. Now, however, a flood of light, frothy blood came pouring out of his lungs and simultaneously seemed to choke him. He desperately gasped for air. Simon staggered, tried to somehow get back onto the bed, and then collapsed onto it. The attack just wouldn’t end, Simon’s chest felt like it had burst as he choked incessantly. When he was finally able to breathe again, he was so exhausted that he couldn’t move. He surrendered to a merciful unconsciousness.
When Simon awoke, he found himself lying in bed again; Nora had washed away the worst of the blood. She had been shocked to find him, but had heard of such violent hemorrhages. Up until now, she had tried to avoid thinking about what she knew of consumption — that was no longer possible. But she did not give up.
“Hush, my love, lie still, and don’t say a word … the little Tanner is already on his way to Dr. Mason. He’ll be here soon. He must come right away this time, you—”
“There’s nothing he can do,” Simon whispered.
He desperately looked down and noticed that Nora had also taken off his bloodstained shirt. How had she managed it alone — or was he really already so emaciated that a petite, young woman could lift him? But no, it was Saturday, rent day, and the Tanners came home from work earlier. Simon now heard Mr. Tanner’s booming voice from the hall.
“Is everything all right, Miss Nora? Or can I help you with anything else?”
The neighbor must have helped Nora undress him and lift him to the bed.
Nora kindly thanked him and told Mr. Tanner that Dr. Mason would be there soon.
“He will definitely be able to help!” she comforted Simon and helped him into a fresh nightshirt. “How are you now? Are you in pain? Do you feel sick?”
Simon shook his head. “Just tired, Nora, so tired. I don’t need Dr. Mason … I need … I only need you.”
Nora pulled him towards her, and didn’t let him go when she heard more voices from the stairs. Mrs. Paddington loudly commented on the doctor’s repeat visit. Soon thereafter, Dr. Mason opened the door to the attic.
“That’s exactly what I had told you not to do!” the doctor said at the sight of his patient in Nora’s arms, but it didn’t sound strict; rather resigned. “Let go of your fiancé, Miss Nora, now that I’m here.”
Despite Nora’s belief, Dr. Mason seemed not to know what there was left to do. But he still gave Simon a thorough physical exam that left him exhausted. Dr. Mason sighed deeply, as h
e gently pulled the covers over Simon’s chest.
“Well, Viscount, Miss Nora … Such a violent hemorrhage will accelerate the illness,” the doctor pulled himself together. He could no longer take the delicate feelings of the scared young woman into account.
“You know, Viscount, that it’s coming to an end.”
Simon nodded. “I wouldn’t have troubled you,” he said, apologetically.
Dr. Mason shook his head. “Make nothing of it; I was in the area anyway. But you’d probably be better off with a priest than a doctor.”
“There’s nothing you can do?” Nora asked, with tears in her eyes.
The doctor shrugged. “But of course, stay with him, keep him warm — he mustn’t be upset, so try to keep that old hag downstairs away from him … and have a priest come, if he wants that.”
Dr. Mason squeezed Simon’s hand and rubbed Nora’s shoulders as a comforting gesture before leaving. “Continue giving him the opium, Miss Nora, it makes everything easier.”
“You have to pay him,” Simon quietly reminded her, as Nora seemed to be making no effort to escort him out.
She sat slumped on the bed, facing away from Simon, with her hands between her knees, and her head lowered. For a few heartbeats, she allowed herself to be overcome with grief. She would soon be strong again, but now … now …
Simon’s words brought her back to reality.
“I’ll go to see him later,” she said, vaguely. She wouldn’t have been able to catch up with the doctor anyway. “Now … now I have to …”
Simon shook his head. “I don’t want a priest,” he whispered. “You don’t need to do anything or get anyone. I only want you.”
Peppers was more than relieved that it wasn’t him who had to betray Nora’s whereabouts to his master.
In fact, Thomas Reed hadn’t questioned him at all, and only gave brief instructions to drive him straight to the office when Peppers picked him up that morning at the docks. Reed had traveled on a merchant ship from Hamburg — certainly not the most comfortable form of travel, but when he’d finally received word in Lübeck of the disappearance of his daughter, he took the first opportunity to return to London. Now, he was standing in front of his office servants, clerks, and bookkeepers, bleary-eyed in an unkempt wig and rumpled clothing. Mr. Simpson verbosely reported of Nora’s appearance at the office, but Reed quickly interrupted him.