When she was older should we still be here? Should we still be trying to bring a conclusion to this adventure?
Somehow I could not imagine it. I could not think ahead.
The future was perhaps too fraught with difficulties. How could I return to England? I had made everything too complicated there. At Eyot Abbass there was Benjie, the husband I had used and wronged. At Eversleigh there was Damaris, whose lover I had taken for a whim and ruined her life.
You do not deserve to be happy, I told myself.
Yet I was. For I loved Hessenfield so completely; and that intense burning passion which had flared up between us was becoming a deep and abiding love … an enduring love, I told myself.
So though I could be happy in the present, I could not look ahead.
Well, wasn’t it a good plan to live in the present? Not to look ahead; not to look back. That was what I must train myself to do.
One day one of the servants brought two parcels to me. One was addressed to me, the other to Hessenfield.
I opened mine and found inside an exquisite pair of gloves.
They were beautiful—in grey leather so soft that it looked like silk. They were embroidered with pearls and were something like the ones I had to discard because Madame de Partière had trodden on one of them. I guessed who had sent them. And I was right.
There was a note with them.
My dear Lady Hessenfield,
I have been some time in sending you an acknowledgement of my gratitude. Forgive me but this was no fault of mine. It has taken so long to get the leather I particularly wanted. Now I trust these will please you. I have sent a similar pair to your husband.
I want to say thank you for being so kind to me in bringing me back when I had that mishap with my own carriage. I was so grateful to you and how ashamed I was when to repay you I ruined your beautiful gloves.
I trust we may renew our acquaintance when I return to Paris. I am called away to the country just now and may be away for more than a month.
Dear Lady Hessenfield, in the meantime please accept these gloves and wear them so that I may have some satisfaction in doing something for all you have done for me.
I shall have the temerity to call when I return from the country. Many thanks once more.
Elisse de Partière.
What a charming gesture! I thought. The gloves are charming. I tried them on. Then carefully wrapped them up to be used on a suitable occasion.
There was a great deal of activity throughout the court at St. Germain-en-Laye. It was not likely that they were going to let one disaster deter them.
The loss of all the arms and ammunition which had been brought about through Matt Pilkington and Mary Marton had been a great setback. None would deny it. Hessenfield told me that the French were impatient over the matter and blamed us for being so careless as to let spies into our household.
“I bore the brunt of that,” said Hessenfield with a grim laugh. “Now I want to show them that that sort of thing can never happen again.”
The days passed too quickly. I savoured each one. It seemed later that I must have had some premonition.
I think always at the back of my mind was the thought … the fear … that it could not last.
We lived passionately, fervently. I think Hessenfield felt similarly. I remembered he had said once that death was always waiting round the corner. It was a dangerous life he lived; and I was with him, clinging all the time to the present.
He had been to Versailles to speak with one of Louis’s ministers who was more favourable than most to the English cause; and from there he had gone to St. Germains.
When he came back he looked unlike himself. He was distinctly pale; and I had never seen him before without his healthy colour. Moreover, there was now lacklustre in his eyes.
I looked at him anxiously.
“It has gone badly,” I said. “Something worries you.”
He shook his head. “The French are eager to help. They are all in good spirits at St. Germains.”
I took his hand. It was clammy.
“You are not well,” I cried in dismay.
Hessenfield was a man who had always known perfect health and could not understand sickness. I had always been under the impression that he would believe it was some deficiency in the sufferer, some quirk of the imagination … unless of course it was a leg or arm or some visible disability.
I understood perfectly because I was rather like that myself. So I was very alarmed when he said: “I think I must lie down.”
I helped him undress and got him to bed. I sat beside him and said I would get him a tasty meal. He shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to eat. It was nothing, he assured me. It would pass.
He did not speak. He just lay still and seemed to want nothing but that.
I was very worried and passed an anxious night. In the morning he was delirious. I sent for a physician who came and examined Hessenfield. He shook his head and murmured something about a fever. Perhaps two dead pigeons laid on the soles of his feet might help. He would send a lotion round which might also be of use.
I gripped the man’s hand. “What ails him?” I asked.
“A fever. He’ll recover,” he said.
But by the afternoon he was no better.
I walked about the house in a daze. This was something I had never thought of. I put his clothes away—those which he had been wearing. The fringed coat, the breeches, and the fine hose and the gloves which Madame de Partière had sent for him.
I would not leave him. I just sat by his bed. He looked different from the man I had known. He was pale; his eyes were closed; there was already a sunken look in his cheeks.
Jeanne said to me: “Madame, I know an apothecary who has the finest remedies. He is the Italian Antonio Manzini. They say he has cured many.”
“I will go to him. You must come with me, Jeanne,” I said.
We went to my room. “You will need your heavy cloak, madame. There is a chill in the air.” She opened a drawer and took out the gloves which Madame de Partière had given me.
I put them on and we went out together.
Jeanne led me through the streets to the carrefour near the Châtelet.
We went into the shop together.
Jeanne said: “Madame is very anxious. Her husband is sick.”
“Sick,” said the man; he had dark bushy eyebrows and almost black, very penetrating eyes. “What ails him?”
“It is a fever which makes him listless and so unlike himself,” I explained. “Till now he was a very healthy man.”
I laid my hand on his arm. He looked down at it and drew away.
“I have a lotion,” he said, “which cures fever. It is costly.”
“I will pay,” I assured him. “If it cures my husband I will pay anything … anything you ask.”
Jeanne laid a restraining hand on my arm and Antonio Manzini retired behind his shop.
“Madame will forgive me,” said Jeanne. “But it is not necessary to promise so much. Pay his price and that is good enough.”
I paid the price and he brought out the bottle. We hurried back and I went straight to Hessenfield’s bedside. I could see at once that he had grown worse.
I hastily poured out some of the liquid, forced him to take it and sat down waiting for the miracle.
There was none.
By nightfall Hessenfield’s condition was unchanged.
I sat up beside him all night. Just before dawn I rose and as I stood up a terrible dizziness overcame me.
I touched my skin. It was cold and clammy yet I felt very hot.
I knew then that I had caught the fever or whatever it was, and that I too was going to be ill.
No, that must not be, I told myself. I had to keep well. I had to nurse Hessenfield. I would not trust him to anyone but myself.