Chapter 49
By the end of May, our life settled into a kind of strange routine. I went to work, while Hugo, armed with London A-Z, my library card, and a bagged lunch, went off to explore. He refused to accept any money from me, so walked all around London on foot. At first, he picked particular destinations, but later on, I think he just walked wherever his feet happened to take him just to have something to do. He must have covered miles as he crossed London from side to side, but he couldn’t bear to stay cooped up in the flat, and he needed something to tire him out enough to allow him to sleep at night and not dwell on his situation. Hugo was in Limbo, and in turn, so was I.
Hugo had discovered St. Francis of Assisi Catholic church in Notting Hill Gate and went regularly. I hoped that he’d speak to the priest and maybe find some solace without revealing too much, but we both knew the situation was untenable. Hugo never complained, but he’d grown more silent and less affectionate, his lovemaking more aggressive than tender. I could understand how he felt, and my mind rarely strayed very far from the situation at hand. I’d saved his life, but what kind of life could I offer him in return? The excitement and wonder of this new world quickly waned, leaving Hugo feeling out of place and out of time. He wasn’t the type of man to be content with simply being alive; his basic human needs taken care of by someone else. Hugo needed to feel useful and productive; he needed to take pride in his achievements and be the man of the house, the protector and provider, not a kept man, living in a two-room flat with his girlfriend.
It was quite by chance that I came upon a solution, albeit a temporary one. I had to take a ride out to Hawthorne Stables in Bayswater, a place I visited often since most of our costume dramas required the use of horses. The owner, Dmitri Kouros, was a second-generation Greek immigrant, who never forgot the hospitality of his native land. He always invited me into the office and plied me with ouzo and his mother’s homemade baklava, despite my protests. I really couldn’t abide ouzo, but the baklava was a weakness of mine, and Maria Kouros made it like no other. I was on my third piece when Dmitri went into his usual tirade about the lack of help at the stables.
“Young people don’t want these types of jobs,” he grumbled. “They want to dress in a fine suit and go sit behind a computer terminal all day in some tiny cubicle. Show me a young man who wants to muck out stables, in London of all places? I get some animal-loving teenagers during the summer, but they all leave by fall, and I’m short-staffed again.”
Dmitri took a sip of ouzo and snorted with disgust. “I have to do half the work myself. At least I still have a few riding instructors left, but for how long?”
“Dmitri,” I began, accepting a glass of the hated ouzo and making great pretense of admiring the aroma. “I have a friend who’s very good with horses and needs a job, but he’s not quite legal… yet. Is there any chance…?”
I was gratified to see Dmitri perk up a bit. “Good with horses, you say? He has experience, this friend?”
“Oh, yes. Used to own a stable full of horses in his homeland, but times are tough.” I took a sip of ouzo and nearly choked. It was like drinking spiked cough syrup.
“Where’s your friend from?” Dmitri asked.
“Here and there,” I replied and winked at Dmitri. “What do you say? Give him a try?”
“All right, bring him in, and I promise I won’t ask any questions. It’s 8-6, six days a week, fifty pounds a day. That’s my offer. If he gives me any trouble, he’s out on his ear.”
“Deal. I’ll bring him tomorrow.” I shoved the last piece of baklava in my mouth and gave Dmitri a sticky kiss on the cheek. “See you tomorrow then.”
**
I wasn’t sure how Hugo would take to doing such a menial job, but I thought he might be pleased to have something to do. I was right; Hugo was thrilled. The prospect of earning three hundred pounds a week was most welcome, since he still tended to think of money as having the same value it had in his own day. Three hundred pounds was a lot of money in 1685, so Hugo didn’t quite realize that he wasn’t going to be making a fortune. In either case, I was glad that he was happy and eager to contribute something to the running of the household. Hugo would have been wonderful at teaching adults and children how to ride, but he’d have to come into contact with customers who might unwittingly cause trouble for us. He needed to stay behind the scenes, and he understood that.
Hugo started the following day, and I kept checking my phone all day to see if there might be a message from Dimitri, but all seemed to be well, and Hugo arrived at home by 7 p.m. He was hot, smelled strongly of horses, and was starving, but he had a smile on his face, something that had been in short supply of late.
“How was it?” I asked as I presented him with chicken parmigiana and spaghetti with marinara sauce. I enjoyed introducing him to new foods, which he tried without complaint. I knew he didn’t like many things, but this was one of his favorites and he tucked in. Hugo’s hair was still damp from the shower, and the T-shirt stretched across his wide shoulders, reminding me of just how attractive he was, especially when happy. He’d grudgingly permitted me to buy him some clothes, and his wardrobe now consisted of T-shirts, jeans, and trainers.
“It was good. Felt nice to be around horses again.”
“And Dmitri?”
“He’s a nice man,” Hugo replied cautiously. “Likes to talk.”
“Did he pump you for information?”
“He tried, but I just gave him vague answers. Don’t worry, Neve, I understand what’s at stake.”
“I know you do,” I replied in a conciliatory manner. “I just wanted to make sure you had a nice day.”
Hugo gave me a loaded look over his wineglass. Mucking out horseshit was not what most people would think of as a nice day, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, could they?
And so, a new normal had begun for us, but it didn’t last long.
Chapter 50
Hugo sat down on a bale of hay, rested his head against the sun-warmed wood, and closed his eyes. The smell of horses was in his nose, but he didn’t mind. It reminded him of home and the life he’d left behind. He tried not to burden Neve with his feelings, but sometimes when he was alone, like now, he couldn’t help feeling a wave of bitterness wash over him. Truth be told, Hugo really liked the twenty-first century. Everything seemed strangely accelerated and bewildering at first, but he’d gotten used to the constant movement of vehicles all around him and the sounds of modern life. The seventeenth-century was so quiet by comparison. Here, there were sounds everywhere: traffic, blaring horns, music playing in shops, restaurants, and open car windows, multitudes of people walking, talking on their mobiles, singing along to their iPods, the rumbling of the tube, and the revving of double-decker buses as they passed him on the street. He found it all overwhelming at first, but now it was just background noise, the soundtrack of a busy life.
Having a little money in his pocket made Hugo feel marginally better, but what he was making wasn’t enough to live on or support a family; not that he could have a family. As a non-entity, he couldn’t legally marry Neve, not even in a church; he’d asked Father Martin. The priest likely thought he was a bit strange, but never allowed his feelings to get in the way. He offered whatever comfort he could, and when Hugo asked for the sacrament of confession, did so with all the pomp due his office. Hugo couldn’t tell him the whole truth, of course, but he did confess that he was in the country illegally and couldn’t secure a good job or take any kind of course that might make him more proficient in modern technology.
Father Martin told him that it wasn’t a sin to want a better life, and that many before him had tried to immigrate illegally in the hopes of a more promising future. If only he knew, Hugo thought ruefully. Well, at least he was still alive; which was something, especially today of all days. It was July 15; the day James Crofts, Duke of Monmouth was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1685 following the failure of his short-lived rebellion. Hugo would have been executed right alongside h
im had Neve not spirited him away the way she had. He was grateful, of course, but the thought of living his life on the fringes of society, never earning enough to support a family, and never being able to practice any of the freedoms this wonderful new world afforded was a terrible irony.
Hugo took a drink of cold water and went to change his clothes. The day was over, and the stables were closing in a few minutes. He wished Dmitri and the other lads a pleasant evening and set off across Hyde Park. Hugo enjoyed his evening walk; it gave him time to rein in his thoughts and feelings before coming home to Neve, who gazed at him in that searching way in an effort to gauge his mood. She wasn’t the same woman he’d met only a few months ago. In the seventeenth century, she’d been frightened and defiant, but she wasn’t defeated. Now she looked as if the world was resting squarely on her shoulders, and he couldn’t take that. How long would she be willing to live with a man who couldn’t give her a proper life?
A conversation they had last night as they lay in bed returned to haunt Hugo as he walked past the glittering ribbon of the Serpentine, winding through the park like a mythical pathway to a better world. But this was the better world, Hugo thought bitterly; only he couldn’t truly be a part of it. Neve had asked him what he’d want to do had he been born in the twentieth century, and the question had stumped Hugo. There were so many choices for a young person in this day and age. When he’d been young, his only choice had been to follow in his father’s footsteps and pander to the king, or just play the lord of the manor and spend his days in pursuit of pleasure while others toiled on his estate and filled the coffers.
“I think I’d like to have been a doctor,” Hugo replied, surprising Neve.
“Really? I thought you might have wanted to be an engineer or even a policeman. You have such a desire to see justice done.” She snuggled closer to him, enjoying her little fantasy.
“You are right, both of those occupations are high on the list, but my first choice would be medicine,” Hugo replied, trying to picture himself as a healer.
“Why?” Neve asked.
“I never told you how my mother died, have I?” Hugo asked, not really wishing to relive those horrible days, but wanting Neve to understand why he felt so strongly about his choice.
“You said she died in childbirth,” Neve replied quietly.
“So she did. But before she died, she suffered as no human being should ever have to. I remember hearing her screams echo through the house day after day as she tried to bring the child into the world. I was too young to understand any of it, but I knew something was horribly wrong. Jane was almost two at the time, and she cried and cried, sensing as children do that something dreadful was happening. The child was coming down the wrong way, you see, and every time it so much as moved downward, it was pulled up again. My father took me out on the estate, something he never did because he thought me a nuisance, but he felt it his duty to remove me from the house. He told me many years later that the cord had been wrapped around the baby’s neck, preventing it from being born. Of course, the child died, as did my mother after four agonizing days of labor. She literally bled to death as the child tore her apart.”
“Oh, Hugo, that’s horrible,” Neve breathed, no doubt imagining the scene.
“Had there been a qualified doctor, the kind you have in this century, my mother would have lived and so would my baby brother. I wouldn’t have lost her at four years old, left with a sister who was too young to share my grief, and a father who was too cold and controlled to show me any sympathy or affection. I howled for days after my mother passed, until my father threatened to whip me if I didn’t stop.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, but I never stopped mourning on the inside. I begged God every night that he would give my mother back to me, and in a strange way, he did. I started having dreams of her. She came to me as I slept, telling me that she loved me and would watch over me for the rest of my life. She looked happy and beautiful in the dreams, her voice soft and melodious, just the way it had sounded when she used to talk to me before I fell asleep. My mother wasn’t one of those women who birthed a child, passed it on to the nurse, and forgot about it until it could walk and talk. She genuinely loved Jane and me.”
“Is that why you took in Jem? Because you understood how he felt?”
“I came to the house after Jem’s mother died to find him huddled in a corner, crying as the women laid her out for burial. No one paid much attention to him, and I knew that once his mother was put in the ground this child would be lost. He’d die of disease or neglect, but he’d never see adulthood. So, I took him away with me. Jem doesn’t seem to remember that time. He slept in my bed for two weeks after the funeral and often thought I was his mother when he woke in the middle of the night. I was a very poor substitute, but I was happy to have been able to offer him some comfort. Jane actually relegated him to the kitchens once she came. She didn’t think it appropriate to have Jem living in my room, but I didn’t mind. I miss him,” Hugo sighed. “I can’t imagine how sad he is thinking me dead.”
“Do you miss Jane as well?” Neve asked, probably to distract his mind from Jem.
“I do, but not in the same way. Jane’s lived with her husband for the past thirteen years, so I saw her infrequently, and I saw Clarence even less. He was always in the nursery or at his lessons. He will make a good master once he reaches maturity. He’s a smart and hard-working boy.”
Thinking of Clarence brought Hugo’s mind to Max. Max Everly was the direct descendant of Clarence, the product of Hugo’s treason and subsequent disappearance. Strange how life worked, especially when you were granted a chance to see for yourself how it all turned out. Neve could have had Max, murderous villain though he was, thought Hugo bitterly. He’d seen the look of lust in Max’s eyes as he stared at Neve in her modern clothes. He’d wanted her, and wanted her badly, and could never forgive her for choosing Hugo instead. Had she chosen Max, Neve could have been Lady Everly, and now she was just plain Neve Ashley, unwed, unprotected, and financially unsupported by her man. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to set her free. Hugo could always just disappear one day, or go back to his old life and let himself be arrested and taken to the Tower. Perhaps now that Monmouth was dead they’d be more lenient if enough money changed hands, although he’d be branded a traitor, and his family would be shamed by association. He couldn’t do that to poor Clarence.
Hugo sighed and exited the park, walking along Kensington Road. He’d be home soon, and he had to stop feeling sorry for himself and try his best to put on a brave face for Neve. She’d have cooked something for their supper and he was starving. He had to admit that he did enjoy the food. It was so much more diverse than the cuisine of the seventeenth century. Neve was constantly surprising him with new culinary delights. He’d hated sushi and couldn’t stomach Indian spices, which seemed to permeate his entire body and ooze out of every pore, making him smell like the Indian restaurant down the block, but everything else had been generally to his liking, especially ice cream. He still couldn’t believe the amount of flavors it came in and had aspirations of trying each and every one. So far, strawberry was by far the favorite. Maybe he’d get some ice cream tonight. Neve had a real ‘sweet tooth’, as she called it, and he liked indulging her, although she seemed to fret about her weight.
Hugo was about to stop into a grocery owned by a nice Pakistani fellow when an advertisement for a film caught his eye. The movie was called ‘Master of Disguise’ and depicted the same actor appearing as several different characters. Hugo was about to walk right past when he stopped in front of the poster and stared at the pictures more closely, ice cream forgotten. He stood for a few minutes, stroking his chin as he studied the different faces of the actor.
Hugo finally walked away, his step suddenly jauntier.
Chapter 51
I closed the lid and sat down on the toilet, my head in my hands. I’d known I was feeling off for a few weeks, but stubbornly told myself that I w
as just tired from the summer heat and stressed by the situation with Hugo. Now I could deny the truth no longer. I was pregnant, probably at least a month along, and once again I was about to be confronted by a less-than-thrilled father-to-be. I knew how badly Hugo wanted a child, but not under these circumstances. This was the absolute wrong time to bring a baby into the world, and the thought of Hugo’s despair at not being able to marry me and give the child his name made me swallow back a sob. Why did life have to play such cruel tricks? I wanted this baby more than anything, but felt anything but happiness at the prospect.
I blew my nose on a tissue as I heard the door slam and Hugo’s footsteps in the corridor. I wished I could hold off on telling him, but he’d be hurt if I didn’t share the news with him, and what was the point of waiting? Things weren’t about to change, were they? I took a deep breath and let myself out of the loo, walking into the front room like a woman going to her execution. Hugo was sitting in his favorite chair by the open window overlooking Portobello Road. He found it grating at first, but now the bustle of the street seemed to amuse him, presenting him with a never-ending parade of sights and sounds. Hugo had poured us some wine and was holding his glass, the drink forgotten as he focused on something just outside.
I slid onto Hugo’s lap, wrapped my arms around his neck, and rested my head on his shoulder, feeling like a small child in need of comforting after some small disappointment. Hugo wrapped his arms about me and rested his chin on top of my head. He’d changed his clothes, but I could still smell a combination of horseflesh, sweat, deodorant that I’d bought him, and the fruity bouquet of Cabernet Sauvignon on his breath.
“How was your day, sweetheart?” he asked softly. “You look tired.”
“I am.” I was tempted to leave it at that and just sit quietly with Hugo for a while, but he took my wineglass from the window sill and handed it to me, giving me the perfect opening.
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