Dark Season (39 page)

You know what happens to things that do not bend.

He heard Ella’s voice. And all at once, he broke. He threw himself back from Daphne, and he wept with his forehead pressed to the thin carpet. He could hear her gurgling, sucking in air, and his own hoarse sobs mingled with the sounds of her life flowing back into her. He rose to his knees, dashing at his face with fists that glistened with both their tears. She didn’t shrink from him. She fell from the chair and huddled before him, hugging his legs, shaking, and he dropped his hands to her back, bewildered, the tears coming faster and faster. He had never wept. Not once that he could remember. This flood—it was a kind of deliverance.

“I love him,” she moaned. “She knew it. She didn’t care.”

“So you broke her skull.” His head throbbed, the pain so intense he wondered if the moisture on his face was blood, if blood was pouring from his eyes, from his nose.

“She was going to run away with him.” Daphne lifted her face, all the prettiness distorted, the dimple a gouge in the heavy cheek. Once upon a time they were friends, all of them, laughing, dancing, drinking, lying, cheating, playing at hero and villain by turns. Phillipa wasn’t blameless in this. They’d all been so young, so stupid, so brutal in their appetites. “I followed her to the balcony. I was going to try to talk to her, but there was a candlestick on the table, and as soon as I had it in my hands … ”

He knew. The rage took over.

He had almost killed Daphne. He lifted his hands and looked at them, fingers spread. They trembled.

“Sid.” Daphne clung to his shirt, her face against his shoulder. “Sid, I am cursed.”

He made no move to comfort her. But he didn’t push her away.

“She was pregnant,” he said, and he felt her body jolt. Her fingers dug into him, but he didn’t flinch.

“With his child?” She flailed at him, struck his chest, but he was motionless, a rock. “Oh God,” she said. “Oh God, oh God.”

She crept backwards, until she hit the chair. She leaned against it, hands pressed to her middle. Then she doubled over, trying to close the emptiness inside her.

“Tell him,” he said and stood. “Tell him everything.”

He would leave them to their hell.

He’d nearly remained there with them. But he stumbled from the room, from that realm of infernal desolation, still weeping, but free.

Ella slept through the night without waking. Isidore kept vigil at the bedside through the long hours. Every now and then he touched his cheek, surprised that the tears still flowed. He wondered if they would ever stop. By dawn they’d slowed, and when the scent of ham reached him from the kitchen, they stopped completely. His mouth watered instead. A hopeful sign.

Mrs. Potts brought the breakfast tray into the bedchamber without so much as a sniff. He had righted himself in her eyes. The other night, she had recognized the emotion in his face for what it was. But he hadn’t done right yet. Ella had not agreed to be his wife. Now he was going to have to get another man to convince her. In other circumstances, he thought it would rather have wounded his pride.

Penn heard her out, sitting on a chair by the bed, his slender legs crossed, chin propped on his hand. Isidore tried not to pace, finally installing himself at the foot of the bed so he could see both Ella and the doctor.

“Degeneracy is a theory,” said Penn slowly, weighing his words. “It may hold true in some cases that the irritability of the nervous system increases over time. But it’s not certain. Sometimes fits cease completely.”

“Because the symptoms have become masked,” Ella whispered. “And the disease finds other outlets.” She was sitting up in bed, toying with the coverlet.

“Such as?” Penn raised his eyebrows.

“Murder,” said Ella with an oblique glance at Isidore.

Much to Isidore’s chagrin, Penn nodded gravely.

“Some crimes are committed by people in maniacal and delirious states. Those crimes might be considered epileptic manifestations.” Penn paused. Isidore looked daggers in his direction, but he was oblivious, musing.

“Moments of inspiration might also be considered epileptic manifestations. The convulsive shock that attends the creative experience.” He smiled. “Murder isn’t the likeliest outcome. You might just as well compose a symphony.”

“But the taint in my blood … ” Ella began, and at this, Penn’s face darkened.

“There’s nothing wrong with your blood. Occasionally gray matter discharges rapidly in your brain. That’s what causes the attacks. Bromide of potassium has proven remarkably effective in suppressing fits. Your doctor never gave you bromide as a remedy?”

“He gave me tincture of henbane,” said Ella softly. For the first time, Penn looked startled.

“He bled you as well, I imagine,” he murmured. Ella didn’t deny it, and Penn gave a slight grimace, almost tsking his disapproval.

“Mr. Norton was our family physician,” said Ella sharply. “He attended all of us. He still cares for half the county. My father had great faith in him.”

“He said you were destined for violence and depravity because your bad blood made an irremediable stain on your character,” Isidore broke in. “Penn, tell her the man’s an absolute quack.”

Penn only said, mildly, “He may be a competent physician in certain areas. However, I must say, Miss Reed, many of his ideas are outdated.”

“He
was
born in the eighteenth century,” said Ella, and suddenly, a brightness came over her, and she giggled. “The earlier part of that century, I’d guess.”

Giggling. She did this even more rarely than she laughed. Isidore stared at her, at the curve of her lips, at the sudden flush that highlighted her cheekbones. More of
this
was definitely in order. Tickling would help.

“But Mr. Penn … ” She was somber again. “It is inheritable?” She looked down fiercely at the bed. “If I were to have children, they too … ”

Isidore gritted his teeth. Penn was a prince among men, but sometimes a month of Sundays went by between a question and an answer.
Spit it out, damn it.

“They might be epileptic, yes,” said Penn. Another pause. During which Isidore’s thoughts were not charitable.

“Then again,” Penn said. “They might not be.”

“What would you do?” Ella looked at him intently. “If you suffered from this condition, knowing the risks, what would you do?”

This was the moment Isidore had imagined. He longed more than anything to ventriloquize the good doctor. If only he could cast his voice.

Why, I would marry Viscount Blackwood!

Penn took a measured breath. And let it out. He took another breath.

“I would live my life,” he said. “I would remember that I am a person and not a pathology.” He glanced from Ella to Isidore and back at Ella. “And that every life has risks.”

“Phillipa was incandescent with health.” Isidore spoke quietly. He wondered—now that the seals were broken—if every time he spoke of Phillipa the tears would come. But he didn’t embarrass himself. His eyes were dry. “Her life was a white-hot flame, and it snuffed out, just like that. None of us can predict the future. Even the brilliant Mr. Penn is not an oracle.”

“I
can
give you bromide,” said Penn. “And recommend you try to put yourself in situations conducive to calmness rather than irritation.”

“Live your life,” said Isidore, circling round the bed to stand beside Penn’s chair. Ella was holding the coverlet tightly now, gripping it with both hands. Her eyes were glowing brighter and brighter. Marriage. Children. He could see the ideas taking hold.
Yes, you can have that. We can take the risk together. We can try.

“Don’t fear what comes next. Live
now
.” He smiled slightly. “Or, as the poet once said … ” He leaned closer to the bed. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” Her eyes opened
wide.
Now his smile was wicked. “Old Time is still a-flying.”

Did Penn wonder why Ella had turned red as a beet? He shot her a brief, curious look and raised his eyebrows. It
was
an alarming shade. Luckily, he decided against a professional intervention. Instead, he turned to Isidore. “That’s a verse with a familiar ring.”

“And this same flower that smiles today,” said Isidore, nodding. “Tomorrow will be dying.”

“Who wrote it?” asked Penn.

“It’s on the tip of my tongue,” said Isidore, staring at Ella.

“Herrick,” she said in a strangled voice. “Robert Herrick.”

“Of course.” Isidore slapped his forehead. “Herrick. Wonderful poet. Doesn’t he also have one called ‘The Vine?’”

Ella’s face turned even redder, a feat, which, a moment ago, he would have declared impossible. She looked as though she might pass out. He didn’t want Penn to be the one to resuscitate her.

Thirty thousand years later, when the doctor finally left them, he fell onto his knees beside the bed.

“Marry me, Ella,” he said. She let him take her hand in his. She looked down at him from the bed. Her face was lovely with that waxing brightness. She was so fully
everything.
He was already reaching up to take her face in his hands when she spoke.

“No,” she said.

He stuttered, fell back, the world closing in on him. Still dark. Still
no.
Then he noticed her lips twitching. There was a sparkle in her dark eyes. That mischievous gleam that appeared when he least expected it.

“Won’t it be fun,” she asked, “to try to convince me?”

With a moan that was anything but sweet, he threw himself onto the bed and kissed her until they were both breathless, and then they were laughing between kisses, which made the breathlessness worse, and they clung to each other, not kissing, not laughing, just trying to breathe, dying like all mortals, but living, really living, while they died.

• • •

The sky was a deep blue, light pouring between clouds that cast moving shadows on the meadow. Ella and Isidore walked on the dirt road to the market town. They visited the graveyard by the little stone church. On the way back to Castle Blackwood, Isidore tugged her hand and led her into the beech wood. She couldn’t look down from the canopy of leaves, their green so bright and new and tender, warming the light, exhaling the very scent of sunshine.

“You’ll trip,” warned Isidore at the moment her foot hit a root and she stumbled.

“I’m not a very good fairy,” she said, somewhat crossly.
Clumsy, Ella. Always so clumsy.
Toes could hurt overmuch for what they were worth.

“You’re the best fairy,” said Isidore, tucking her arm more firmly in his. “Crashing about to let all your sylvan friends know you’re coming.”

She laughed, leaning into him. For all his solidity and warmth, she still couldn’t believe he was there, by her side, that he would be there, day after day, night after night. When her mourning was over, they would be married. She would be the mistress of Castle Blackwood, a building so vast and gloomy she had quailed when they arrived by coach last evening and she first saw its towers rising above her. There were ghosts in the castle. It wasn’t the Scotch woman she sensed, but something amorphous. The loneliness, the sadness, of the generations of women who had lived there. Blackwood brides. The spell of sorrow wouldn’t be dispelled in an instant. She and Isidore would have to work their own magic, charm by charm, until the moldering house became a home to them. There was much to be done, to the manor and to its lands. They would do it together.

“Do you miss your sylvan friends?” Isidore asked as they walked on, weaving between the smooth trunks of the trees. “The ones you left behind in Exmoor forest?”

He was still teasing, but the intensity of his expression belied his tone.

“I will go with you to Somerset,” he said, very low. The wood held a kind of hush that made whispers seem natural. “You don’t have anything to fear from Alfred.”

It was true. She had nothing to fear. Except perhaps her hatred. She could still feel it, leaping in her blood. She wouldn’t call it a taint. She was done with Mr. Norton’s vocabulary. But it was something to be wary of.

“If I can’t persuade him to make you a gift of your harpsichord and your mother’s sheet music and your father’s books … ” His voice told her that he found this
very
doubtful. She knew he would relish the confrontation. “Then I’ll buy them,” he said. “I’ll buy the whole estate.”

The green-gold light played across his bold features. The tenderness she saw in his face made her heart catch.

“Someday,” she said, “we’ll go there. Not yet.” Someday she would walk with him in the forests of Somerset and even along the beaches, so austere and terrible in their beauty. For now, though, she wanted to grow into her new life, her new self. She didn’t think it would be possible in Somerset or, for that matter, London. Following the séance, she’d been bombarded by written invitations from spiritualist organizations, society ladies, even a duchess; it seemed that half the city was trying to engage her services. Dozens of mediums were claiming close acquaintanceship, supplying sensational details of mystical Miss Reed’s mediumistic biography to gossipmongers and paper-sellers. She’d weathered the worst of the storm indoors, with Mrs. Trombly on Mount Street, refusing to go out or receive visitors, hoping that the fervor would die down and Miss Reed would be forgotten. She wanted to shed “Miss Reed,”
had
shed her, with Isidore, with Mrs. Trombly and Lord St. Aubyn, but to step out of that identity with the
ton
more generally, to meet people again as Mrs. Eleanor Blackwood, that would take courage. She would have to figure out what to explain to whom, how to make her way in the open, after so many deceptions, without secrecy or lies.

It would be good to spend time away, good for her, and good for Isidore, too. Mrs. Bennington had left London—“to visit a cousin in Newport for the summer” was what St. Aubyn had heard—but Bennington himself remained. He had tried to speak with Isidore and St. Aubyn both, showed up at each of their houses, in broad daylight and at night, but they’d refused to see him. Ella knew they still considered beating him bloody. On evenings they’d spent together, she, Isidore, and St. Aubyn, in St. Aubyn’s library or in Isidore’s warm, cluttered study in Pimlico, the two old friends had spoken frankly in front of her, admitting her into their friendship with a naturalness that made her heart swell. Isidore loved her, and that was enough for St. Aubyn. She liked to watch the two men deep in conversation, animated, easy with each other, so different in appearance and bearing, yet so clearly aligned. They didn’t only speak of the past, recalling faults and failures, weighing revenge against forgiveness; they spoke of painting and poetry, and of the future, and Ella joined her voice to theirs, debating, sharing, teasing, reveling in the little circle of intimacy they created. Before the end of the month, St. Aubyn was to visit Castle Blackwood with his easel to do some landscape scenes.