“Oh, Jean-Louis, you must not talk like that. It’s as though you want to leave us.”
He stroked my hair very tenderly. “Only because I cannot bear to see you suffer, my dearest one.”
“And do you think I should not if you … went into that deep, deep sleep?”
“For a while. Then you could be happy again.”
I shook my head.
“Oh yes,” he said. “Oh yes.”
“I will not listen to such talk.”
“You make-me feel … wanted.” he said.
“How could you ever feel otherwise?”
“Because I am ungrateful. I am surrounded by loving care … and why should that be given to me? I am useless … whichever way you look. Zipporah … I am useless.”
“Please stop such talk immediately. I will not have it. If you can get the better of this wretched pain you can enjoy so much … all the worthwhile things. And the longer we can keep the pain at bay the more chance you have of strengthening yourself. Isn’t that what Dr. Forster says?”
“You’re right. Zipporah. But if it should ever be that it is hopeless … and there is nothing left to me but pain … well, who would blame me … ? Zipporah, would you help me, if the pain gets too bad?”
“Oh, please don’t talk of such things.”
“I think of them. Escape is in that bottle. … If it became unbearable … a little help …”
“Let me help you to bed. Let me lie beside you and hold your hand. Let me try to make you understand all you mean to me.”
I stayed with him for the rest of the night lying beside him, holding his hand until he fell into a peaceful sleep.
There was a letter from my mother. We corresponded regularly for she was eager to hear of Jean-Louis’s condition.
“I know that you cannot come to us and leave Jean-Louis.” she wrote, “and if we come to you that disturbs the household, but why should not Lottie visit us? That nice sensible Miss Carter could come with her. We do so long to see her.”
When Lottie heard she was eager to go. Dear child. I think she was beginning to be affected by Jean-Louis’s illness. I thought it would be a good idea for her to get away for a while.
So she left at the end of June.
I watched her leave in the company of Miss Carter and six grooms and I gave them instructions that they were to send the grooms back the day after they arrived so that I should know they had reached their destination safely.
Then I went back to Jean-Louis.
He was lying in bed. He smiled when he saw me.
“I’m glad she’s gone,” he said.
“Oh, come,” I answered, “you hate to lose her.”
“I miss her,” he said. “But it’s good for her not to have to see me.”
“Don’t talk like that, Jean-Louis,” I begged.
“It’s true,” he said, a little harshly. There was a faint irritation in his voice—so unlike him, but I knew that it was the herald of pain.
“We must face the truth,” he said. “I’m a depressing object.”
“Nonsense. Do you feel like a game of chess?”
“And you …” he went on, “you should be going with them.”
“I prefer Eversleigh. I have no desire to go to Clavering. You know how I dislike Dickon. And as for my mother and his, they talk Dickon all the time.”
“I hope Lottie won’t get tired of the subject.”
“She has her lessons. Madeleine Carter will never allow her to evade them … much as she might like to.”
“Madeleine Carter is a stern taskmaster—or, I should say, mistress.”
“I hope not too stern. I think she does preach a little hell fire to poor Lottie now and then. I don’t want the child thinking her immortal soul’s in peril because she commits some little peccadillo.”
“Is Madeleine so upright then?”
“Completely so. She lives by a set of rules all laid down in her interpretation of the Bible. It makes life easy.”
“Perhaps she has never had the temptation to be other than good?”
“Well, let’s accept her for the good woman she is. I don’t suppose Lottie will be any the worse for her discipline. I’ll get the chessboard.”
It was when we were in the middle of the game that the attack began. I hastened in to the dressing room and took out the bottle and gave him a dose with a shaking hand. His talk had unnerved me. I put the bottle on a table and made him lie down. The effect was miraculous. He opened his eyes and smiled on me and then I saw his gaze rest on the bottle.
“Try to sleep,” I said. “I shall sit here until you do.”
He was soon sleeping peacefully under the influence of the laudanum.
I picked up the bottle, and seeing that there was very little left, I decided that I would go straight over to Charles and get more.
We must not be without it.
I locked the bottle in the cupboard, put the key in the secret drawer and, putting on my riding habit, I went to the stable, saddled my horse and rode into town.
I was relieved to find Charles at home. He took me into his sitting room and I told him why I had come.
“I gave him a dose before I came out,” I explained. “He is sleeping peacefully now.”
“He will do so until morning.”
He was looking at me intently. “You look worn out,” he said.
I raised my eyes to his. The compassion and tenderness I saw there unnerved me. I turned away but he was beside me, gripping my shoulders, turning me round to face him.
“Oh, Zipporah …” he said; and I was lying against him and his arms were round me. He was kissing my hair.
“I can’t bear it,” I said. “It gets worse.”
“It’s inevitable.”
“Is there nothing … nothing …”
“Only what we are doing. There is nothing wrong with him organically. Constitutionally he is strong.”
“I don’t think he can bear these violent attacks of pain.”
“It’s tragic. I would do anything … anything …”
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
“You know I love you.”
I was silent. I did know it. I had known it for some time. Did he know that I loved him, too?
I stammered: “You have been so good.”
“If there were only something I could do.”
“You have sustained me with your care of him … and for me. Oh, Charles, how long can it go on?”
He was silent.
Then he said: “I’ve told you at last. If only … you were free … If only …
“Come and sit down. We are alone here, Zipporah. Mrs. Ellis is out.”
I felt my heart beating fast. I was elated in a way and at the same time horribly depressed. To be loved by such a man, whom I admired above all others, could not help but bring me joy; and on the other hand Jean-Louis was uppermost in my mind, his dependence on me, his abiding devotion.
I said I should go. “Give me the medicine and I will leave.”
“I want to talk to you first,” he replied. “It is no use shutting our eyes to what is and cannot be denied. I love you and you love me. I believe that to be so.”
“And if it is … we must forget it.”
“Forget it? You cannot push aside the truth and forget it.”
“There is nothing we can do about it.”
His hand closed over mine and gripped it tightly.
“We can be together,” he said.
“And we shall know that the other is there, caring.”
“Waiting,” he said.
“Waiting.”
“One day you and I will be together, Zipporah. It must be so.”
I was silent. I couldn’t bear it. It was talking of the time when Jean-Louis would no longer be there. It was like waiting for him to die … hoping he would.
I said: “I could never be happy. If Jean-Louis… died I would remember him forever and that I had not been true to him.”