"I love you too, cheri. Sleep well."
The book was resting in his lap. With an effort he sat upright and swung his legs over the side of the bed. That part was just bearable. But not getting up.
Getting up was still beyond him. His heart was pounding and he felt nauseated and lay back. Still, a little better than yesterday. Got to push, whatever Babcott says, he told himself grimly, rubbing his stomach. Tomorrow I'll try again, three times. Perhaps it's just as well. I'd want to stay with her. God help me I would have to.
When he felt better he began to read once more, glad for the book, but now the story did not absorb him as before, his attention wandered, and his mind started to intermix the story with pictures of her about to be murdered, and corpses, him rushing to protect her, other glimpses becoming ever more erotic.
At length he put the book away, marking the place with a page she had given him, one from her journal. Wonder what she writes in it, knowing her to be as diligent as anyone. About me and her?
Her and me?
Very tired now. His hand reached for the lamp to turn the wick down, then stopped. The little wineglass with sleep in it beckoned. His fingers trembled.
Babcott's right, I don't need it anymore.
Firmly he doused the light and lay back and closed his eyes, praying for her and his family and that his mother would bless them, and then for himself. Oh God, help me get better--I'm afraid, very afraid.
But sleep would not take him. Turning or trying to gain comfort hurt him, reminding him of the Tokaido and Canterbury. Half asleep half awake, his mind buzzing with the book, the macabre setting and how would it finish? Adding all kinds of pictures. And more pictures, some bad, some beautiful, some vivid, every little movement to get more comfortable bringing blossoms of pain.
Time passed, another hour or minutes, and then he drank the elixir and relaxed contentedly, knowing that soon he would be floating on gossamer, her hand on him, his hand on her, there on her breasts and everywhere, hers equally knowingly, equally welcomed, not only hands.
Friday, 3rd October
Friday, 3rd October: Just after dawn Angelique got out of bed and sat at her dressing table in the bay windows overlooking the High Street and harbor. She was very tired. In the locked drawer was her journal.
It was dull red leather and also locked.
She slid the little key from its hiding place, unlocked it, then dipped her pen in ink and wrote in it, more as a friend to a friend--her journal these days seemed her only friend, the only one she felt safe with: "Friday, 3rd: another bad night and I feel ghastly. It's four days since Andr`e gave me the terrible news about Father. Since then I have been unable to write anything, to do anything, have locked my doors and "taken to my bed" feigning a fever, apart from once or twice a day going to visit my Malcolm to allay his anxiety, closing the door to everyone except my maid who I hate, though I agreed to see Jamie once, and Andr`e.
"Poor Malcolm, he was beside himself with worry the first day when I did not appear nor would open my door, and insisted that he be carried on a stretcher into my boudoir to see me--even if they had to break down the door. I managed to forestall him, forcing myself to go to him, saying that I was all right, it was just a bad headache, that, no, I did not need Babcott, that he was not to worry about my tears, telling him privately that it was just "that time of the month" and sometimes the flow was great and sometimes my days irregular. He was embarrassed beyond belief that I had mentioned my period! Beyond belief! Almost as though he knew nothing about this female function, at times I don't understand him at all although he's so kind and considerate, the most I've ever known. Another worry: in truth, the poor man is not much better and daily in so much pain I want to cry."
Blessed Mother give me strength! she thought. Then there's the other. I try not to worry but I'm frantic. The day approaches. Then I'll be free from that terror, but not from penury.
She began to write again.
"It's so difficult to be private in the Struan building, however comfortable and pleasant but the Settlement is awful. Not a hairdresser, not a ladies' dressmaker (though I have a Chinese tailor who is very adept at copying what already exists), no hat maker--I haven't yet tried the shoemaker, there's nowhere to go, nothing to do--oh how I long for Paris, but how can I ever live there now? Would Malcolm move there if we married? Never. And if we don't marry... how can I pay even a ticket home? How? I've asked myself a thousand times without an answer."
Her gaze left the paper and went to the window and to the ships in the bay. I wish I was on one of them, going home, wish I'd never come here. I hate this place... What if.... If Malcolm doesn't marry me I'll have to marry someone else but I've no dowry, nothing. Oh God, this isn't what I'd hoped. If I managed to get home, I've still got no money, poor aunt and uncle ruined. Colette hasn't got any to lend, I don't know anyone rich or famous enough to marry, or far enough up in society so I could safely become a mistress. I could go on the stage but there it's essential to have a patron to bribe managers and playwrights, and pay for all the clothes and jewels and carriages and a palatial house for soirees --of course you have to bed the patron, at his whim not yours, until you are rich and famous enough and that takes time, and I don't have the connections, or have any friends who do. Oh dear, I'm so confused.
I think I am going to cry again....
She buried her face in her arms, the tears spilling, careful not to make too much noise lest her maid hear her and started wailing, creating a scene as on the first day. Her nightdress was cream silk, a pale green dressing gown around her shoulders, hair tousled, the room masculine, the curtained four-poster huge, this suite much bigger than Malcolm's. To one side was the anteroom that adjoined his bedroom, a dining room off it that could seat twenty with its own kitchen. Both those doors were bolted. The dressing table was the only frivolity, she had had it curtained with pink satin.
When the tears stopped, she dried her eyes and silently studied her reflection in the silver mirror. No lines, some shadows, face a little thinner than before. No outward change. She sighed heavily, then began to write again: "Crying simply doesn't help. Today I MUST talk to Malcolm. I simply must.
Andr`e told me the mail ship is already one day overdue and the news of my catastrophe is bound to arrive with it--why is it English call a ship she or her? Her. I'm terrified Malcolm's mother will be aboard--news of his injury should have reached Hong Kong on the 24th, which gives her just enough time to catch this mail ship.
Jamie doubts she would be able to leave at such short notice, not with her other children there, her husband dead just three weeks and still being in deepest mourning, poor woman.
"When Jamie was here, the first time I've ever really talked to him alone, he told me all sorts of stories about the other Struans--Emma is sixteen, Rose thirteen and Duncan ten-- most of them sad stories: last year two other brothers the twins, Robb and Dunross, seven, were drowned in a boating accident just off a place in Hong Kong called Shek-O where the Struans have lands and a summer house. And years ago when Malcolm was seven, another sister, Mary, then four, died of Happy Valley fever. Poor little thing, I cried all night thinking of her and the twins. So young!
"I like Jamie but he's so dull, so uncivilized--I mean gauche, that's all--he has never been to Paris and only knows Scotland and Struans and Hong Kong. I wonder if I could insist that if..." She crossed that out and changed it to "when we're married..." Her pen hesitated. "Malcolm and I will spend a few weeks in Paris every year--and the children will be brought up there, of course as Catholic.
"Andr`e and I were talking about that yesterday, about being Catholic--he's very kind and takes my mind off problems as his music always does--and how Mrs. Struan was Calvinist Protestant, and what to say if that ever came up. We were talking softly--oh I am so lucky he is my friend and forewarned me about father--suddenly he put his fingers to his lips, went to the door and jerked it open.