“You don’t mean …” I began.
She gave me a wide smile. “Yes, I do. It’s Jack and me … well, we don’t see why not. It’s just right, isn’t it? He manages the estate. It’s my estate. He doesn’t mind that. We’ll share it. But I think it’s best to make it all regular. So would you mind?”
I looked at Jean-Louis and he smiled.
At that moment Dickon went dancing by. His partner was Miss Carter. She seemed to be dancing very gracefully. She looked quite unlike herself. One lock of hair had broken free.
Lottie came running over.
She gripped my arm; she was laughing so much that she was quite incoherent. “Did … you see Miss Carter?”
I laughed back. “I told you so. But listen, Evalina is going to make an announcement.”
Lottie clapped her hands. “Oh … what fun. Is it … that she’s going to marry Jack Trent?”
I was surprised. I hadn’t thought she would know of such matters.
I realized that I had to face the fact that Lottie was growing up.
I stood up and clapped my hands. There was a silence throughout the hall.
I said: “Mistress Mather wants to tell you all something.”
Evalina went forward dragging Jack Trent by the hand.
“I know there’s been a bit of gossip about us,” she said. “Well, now you’ll know there’s going to be an end to all that. Jack and I are going to be married.”
There was a short silence and then someone started to clap.
Dickon cried out: “This calls for a celebration. We must all drink their health.”
There was a bustle while glasses were filled all around.
Dickon was standing close to Evalina. He held his glass high and looked at her. I saw the expression in her face as she returned his glance. I thought it was one of triumphant defiance. I saw too the glitter of amusement in Dickon’s eyes.
The musicians started to play “Heart of Oak,” which seemed somewhat inappropriate.
Dickon duly departed with my mother and Sabrina. Lottie clung to them all and tried to urge them to stay longer.
Dickon said: “My dear cousin, I have an estate to run. I can’t stay away too long.”
My mother held her tightly and said: “We must see each other more often. I will not endure these long separations.”
I felt relieved when they had gone and we settled down to the normal routine. A few days after their departure James and Hetty returned and Lottie ceased to miss them but turned to Hetty’s children, to whom she had taken a great fancy.
The winter was a hard one and Jean-Louis’s pain seemed to come more frequently. Charles was often at the house and our friendship deepened. Sometimes I felt it was deeper than friendship. I began to experience great pleasure in his presence. It was ironic that when he came it was because Jean-Louis was suffering. Sometimes I went into the town to collect the medicines. Charles didn’t want to hand them to anyone but me. I became familiar with the house where he had his surgery. I thought it rather cheerless. He had a housekeeper—an elderly woman who I knew was most careful of his comforts. That was good, for he was the kind of man who would neglect himself.
Evalina married Jack Trent at Easter. There was a touch of spring in the air. Oddly enough it did not cheer me. A terrible depression settled on me as I saw Jean-Louis’s condition deteriorating. I slept in the dressing room now. Often in the night I would get up and give him a painkilling dose. That cupboard with the key which I kept in a secret drawer in a small desk by the window haunted my dreams. I would dream that I had lost the key and was searching frantically for it. Sometimes I was riding through the night to Charles. I would cry out: “I’ve lost the key.” The sound of my own voice often woke me and so vivid would the dream be that I would get out of bed, light my candle and open the secret drawer. The key was always there. “It’s only a dream.” I would say—and how many times did I say it during that long winter!
“He’ll be better when the spring comes,” I used to say; but in my heart I knew that his condition had nothing to do with the weather.
Later I was to blame the strain for what happened. I remembered how on another occasion I was ready to blame something other than the needs of my own nature. Then I had tried to convince myself that a long-dead ancestor had taken possession of me. What nonsense! It was I who had lain in that bed with Gerard and listened to the strains of music coming from the fair as I made passionate love with a man not my husband.
Now I said: “It is the tension … the strain … the fact that I have to watch Jean-Louis—whom I love—deteriorating.
One night I heard him move. I was like a woman with her baby. If he stirred I was usually awakened out of my sleep.
He was sitting out of bed in his chair … I was amazed. His hands covered his face and his shoulders were shaking.
“Jean-Louis,” I cried running to him, “what are you doing?”
“Oh … I have awakened you. I tried to be so quiet.”
“I hear every movement.”
“It is selfish of me.”
“I want to hear,” I cried. “I want to be with you if you need me. What is it? Is it the pain?”
He shook his head.
“It’s … the uselessness,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? I lie in bed … or sit in this chair and think: What use am I? They’d be better off without me.”
“Don’t dare say such a thing,” I cried.
“Isn’t it true? I am a constant anxiety to you. You admit you cannot sleep deeply. You are with me all the time … I am useless in every way.”
“Jean-Louis,” I said, “it hurts me when you talk like that.”
I knelt beside him and buried my face in his dressing gown. I couldn’t stop thinking of how I had deceived him.
I cried out: “I want to look after you. Don’t you understand? That is my life. It’s what I want.”
“Oh, Zipporah, Zipporah,” he murmured.
“Please understand, Jean-Louis.”
“I would always understand,” he said. “No matter what … I would always understand.”
What did he mean? Had he some second sight? Did he know of that passionate love between me and Gerard? Could he possibly suspect that Lottie was not his child? I felt a sudden urge to open my heart to him, to tell him what had happened.
I stopped myself just in time. Suppose he had no suspicion? What would the discovery do to him in his condition?
He said: “I have seen the pain in your eyes … when I have an attack. It hurts me, Zipporah … more than the pain of my body.”
“Oh, dearest, of course I suffer. I wish that I could take over some of the pain. I wish that we could share that together.”
“Bless you, my darling,” he said. “You have given me everything … you and your mother. In the past I often thought of what might have happened to me if she had not kept me. My own mother did not want me. I wanted to stay.”
“Yes, I remember hearing how you refused to get up in the morning and would not let your nanny out of your sight.”
“I came to look on you as my charge … and it’s been like that every since. It’s been a happy time together, hasn’t it, Zipporah?”
“Yes,” I said. “Oh yes.”
“Thank you. Thank you. I want you to have happy memories. That’s why I am afraid.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“That there might be unhappy ones if this goes on. I have sometimes thought … suppose I doubled the dose … trebled it. … What would it be like? Sleep! Blessed sleep! When I have one dose you can’t imagine the relief. It makes me sleep. doesn’t it? Sometimes I feel that I would like to sleep and sleep … and never wake up to pain.”