Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (33 page)

Then I whispered. “I want You Gods to understand that he comes first in all things: I will not give him up for the happiness and health of any other, including myself.”

Sixty-Three

We woke to an insistent rapping on the stable’s doorframe. I had a pistol in my hand before I recalled where I was. Gaston had done likewise, and we regarded one another sleepily. Light was streaming through the doorway. I thought there was something important I should attend to, but I could not remember what it could be.

“Come in,” I grumbled.

Gaston awarded me a scandalized glare and pointed at his nakedness.

“Unless you are a lady,” I said quickly.

But it was too late: Theodore stood before us.

“Or a gentleman,” I added with a grin.

Theodore quickly turned his back as Gaston scrambled off the hammock to dress – and throw my clothes at me.

“To what do we owe this pleasure?” I asked our friend as I pulled on my breeches and tunic.

“Well,” Theodore said with great somberness, “I was sent to fetch you. There is a screaming infant at my home, and my wife wishes to speak to you about the matter.”

“Has something occurred?” Gaston asked quickly. “Does she ail…

more than we know?”

That was not my concern, though I supposed it should have been.

“Was your wife screaming when she asked you to fetch us?”

Theodore chuckled with little humor. “Thankfully, nay, and as to the baby’s health, well, I feel she screams because she is an infant and they all seem prone to do so for lengthy periods, such that I wonder how they can sustain such noise.” Then he asked with concern, “Does the child ail? Mistress Theodore has been so enthralled with the little one’s well-being she has said scarcely a word to me.”

“We feel the child might have been pickled in rum in her mother’s womb,” I said.

Theodore sighed. “Oh Lord, well… That probably explains my wife’s request, then. Where is Lady Marsdale?”

“We are keeping her chained in the parlor until she dries out,” I said.

He gave a lengthy sigh, and turned to face us. “I suppose that is for the best. How is she?”

“Not well,” I said, as I remembered what I should attend to. “And I need to look in on her. Perhaps you should go with Theodore and I will be along shortly,” I told Gaston.

He nodded grimly, but we did not part right away, as we both had need of the latrine.

As we walked to the back of the yard, I watched concern tighten his features, and wished I could say something to ease it, but all the platitudes I could think of were things that would have angered me if I had heard them spoken of even a dog or horse of which I was fond.

“You will do all you can for her,” I said at last, just before we returned to Theodore. “And no matter what occurs, she will know that there was someone here who cares for her.”

Gaston paused and turned to regard me with love. “Thank you.”

Then he shook his head with a bitter smile. “I know so little, Will.”

“Do not chastise yourself over it,” I said gently. “You know you know far more of medicine than probably anyone else on this island.”

“That is what is pathetic,” he said. “How can we all be so damn stupid?”

“We hide in caves,” I said, and shrugged with a small smile that I hoped he would find reassuring and not mocking.

He smiled. “Take care of her damn mother.”

“I will see you soon.”

I followed them to the door and watched them leave, before reluctantly entering the cave in which Vivian now dwelled. My nose recoiled at the odor of the place, but my ears were thankfully not assaulted by her cursing, and it was too dark to see most of what caused the stench. I opened a shutter and gained enough light to find her lying on the settee, trembling and seemingly oblivious to my presence. I mused on how she was descending into deepest darkness in the name of being dragged into the light.

“You are obviously miserable,” I said gently, “but other than giving you rum, what can I do to aid you?”

“Bring my baby back,” she hissed.

“Not until you are well,” I told her.

“And after the baby is well and weaned, I can drink again, correct?”

she snarled.

“Nay.”

“You bastard! You cannot keep me like this!” She rattled the chain.

I could not but smile. “My dear, you are my wife, and I think no man in town, surely no magistrate – or even clergymen – would find fault with a man keeping his wife sober – by whatever means. Especially not after you burned a house… by accident. And as for my feelings on the matter. I care not if you drink yourself to death, as long as you did not cost me a cent while doing so. But I think that happy scenario will be quite unlikely, as you will never be trustworthy while drunk – no drunkard is: reason flees with the spirits, and if you happen to feel guilt or shame you will simply drink until those feelings depart. So, if you are to remain the Lady Marsdale, or even live by my support under another name, you will be sober.”

She cursed me vehemently as I collected the chamber pot and soiled rags. As much of it called into question my father and mother, I cared not, and even found some amusement in it.

Henrietta and Sam had bacon and eggs prepared, and were beginning a stock for the soup. I troubled them for a cloth-wrapped bundle of bacon I could shove in my waistband and a tin cup of broth, and then filled another unbreakable vessel with water. Vivian would not look at me when I returned. I set the cups and empty pot where she could reach them and left her.

I saw Gaston approaching the house as I walked out the front door, and immediately felt guilty that I had taken so long to leave. Then I saw how very concerned he appeared.

“How is she?” I asked as he reached me.

He did not choose to enter the house; instead he pulled me into the shade of the balcony and spoke quietly. “Rachel says that a healthy babe only eats and sleeps in the first weeks; and they do not truly hunger in the first days, so there is only the sleeping. Jamaica is so miserable that she does not. She cries and nothing else; and she is exhausted. We feel it is because she is drying out, much as her mother will do. Rachel wished to know if I could give her anything to ease her pain and let her sleep for a time.” He sighed heavily. “I do not want to give her laudanum, though. It will be worse to take from her than the damn rum if she grows accustomed to it. I have other medicines that will make her sleepy, and still others that will ease her stomach, but none will remove the pain of being without the rum.”

“So give her rum,” I said. “Maybe a little, until she gets stronger, and then we can wean her from it.”

He considered me for a time. Or rather he gazed upon me as he considered my suggestion and his own thoughts. At last he said, “I will give her laudanum.”

I frowned curiously. “But…”

“Things do not die when placed in laudanum,” he said, and entered the house. “Rum kills…”

I followed him to the stable, where we had moved his medicine chest. “So you will wean her from the laudanum when she is stronger?”

He nodded. “I am hoping I need not give her so much that it will be difficult.”

He filled a small vial and we departed for Theodore’s. We ate the packet of bacon as we walked.

I could hear Jamaica as soon as Hannah let us into the Theodores’

house. Her cries were weak but constant – and I could imagine very grating. The never-ending complaint of a being in pain who feels none will hear her: more plaintive curses at the Gods than pained wailing.

Rachel greeted me with a smile that spoke both of her tiredness of hearing the babe she coddled and shushed in her arms and of her continued commitment to the matter.

Gaston carefully mixed a tincture of the laudanum with water in a small glass bowl he had brought and took it to Rachel. There he paused and regarded the child and the mixture in his hand with consternation.

“Hannah, fetch one of Elizabeth’s spoons,” Rachel said with a smile.

Gaston sighed with relief.

Hannah returned with a little silver spoon: so small it would only hold a sip, yet still seemingly too large to fit in tiny Jamaica’ s mouth.

Gaston gingerly accepted it and scooped up some of the laudanum-laced water and ever-so-carefully dribbled it between the child’s lips. There was a great deal of sputtering and it took several attempts before she seemed to swallow a mouthful.

Gaston sighed and sat as we waited for the drug to take effect. “We need a better method of dosing her,” he said.

“A baby’s mouth is made for a teat. If you feed a babe without a teat,” Rachel said, “you can use a water skin, but that wouldn’t work for so small an amount.”

Gaston shook his head in agreement. “Nay, the skin would absorb the laudanum.”

The drug had taken effect on little Jamaica, and she was now limp in Rachel’s arms. Fear clutched at my heart. The silence was ominous, and she looked as Gaston did when I worried that he had taken too much: close to death.

Gaston felt the same as I, because he stood and took the child from Rachel to carefully hold her so that he could place his ear to her chest.

“Her heart beats strongly,” he said quietly with some relief. “But slow.”

“I had hoped I could feed her,” Rachel said.

“I know,” Gaston said with worry. “I wanted to give her as little as possible, but such lack of precision in dosing her will make it difficult.

All the funnels I have will be too large. We will have to inquire of the glazier to see if we can have a very small one made.”

“I would almost rather have her crying,” Rachel said with concern.

“I know,” Gaston said and handed the baby back to her.

“For now you can sleep while the baby does, Mistress,” Hannah said kindly.

We left them to sleep, and I told the Gods I very much wanted the child to wake. Gaston was quiet, and I offered my hand and he took it.

I knew there would be no solace I could offer him save laudanum if the child were to die because he gave her too much. That worried me more than the child’s death.

Thankfully, unlike the cobbler we had encountered, the glazier seemed quite entertained by the notion of making something new, and spoke with great interest about the specifications of a tiny glass funnel. We left a deposit for his work, and arranged to come back that afternoon. Then we purchased an armful of netting for our new sleeping arrangement.

At our home, we found Theodore sitting in the atrium speaking with Sarah and the Marquis. Gaston nodded politely and slipped away to the stable.

“Your house is quiet for a time,” I informed Theodore as I followed my matelot. “The babe sleeps. I believe your wife might be sleeping as well.”

He appeared relieved at this.

“Wait,” the Marquis called after me.

I paused and turned to find him hurrying to my side.

“What is the matter?” he asked with genuine concern.

With a sigh I explained briefly our concerns for the child: that she was damaged in some fashion, and perhaps not long for the earthly plane. “Gaston will not take it well if she dies,” I finished.

He nodded thoughtfully. “Is that because he is a physician, or…

Well, from my understanding, I do not see where he should feel some kinship with the child.”

I gave a rueful smile. “He wants children… very much. And though this little girl has no relation to either of us, I have decided to claim her so that… we have a child. And, oui, some of it is due to his being a physician as well.”

It looked as if he would say more, but he kept his lips pressed together.

“You think us fools,” I said lightly.

He frowned and smiled sheepishly. “Non, not… I feel you will think I am a selfish old man: a noble in your definition.”

I smiled. “You cannot see why we would do such a thing.”

“Non, I cannot. I had children because a man, a nobleman, needs to have heirs.”

“Honestly,” I said, “I cannot quite grasp his fascination with them, either, but I will do this to please him. He views them with delight, though. I feel he wishes to raise them in a manner he was not raised…”

I shrugged. “And somehow make right of that in his heart.”

He seemed struck by that, not as if I had chastised him, but in awestruck contemplation. “That is truly noble,” he said at last. “So does he intend to live with them?” He asked this last as if he could comprehend all else I had said, but not that.

“I think they will be underfoot more than good hounds,” I said with a grin. “I cannot imagine it, either.”

“That method of raising them seems to do well by the peasants,” he said. “They appear to have far less trouble with their children meeting their expectations.”

“Do they?” I asked. “I suppose… Well, I have always felt that is because they have low expectations. Now which of us sounds like a wolf?”

He chuckled.

He looked about, and spying Theodore and Sarah going over a ledger, said, “So you will keep that wife?”

“Oui, it appears so,” I sighed. “Despite the trouble she has caused. It will not be due to fondness or duty.”

“I imagine, though your good man there,” he gestured at Theodore with his cane, “has not divulged any confidence, that there is significant cost associated with your wife’s… escapade.”

“I do not know the full accounting of it, but oui,” I sighed.

He nodded and turned to meet my gaze. “I will pay it.”

“Why?” I gasped. “You need not…” And then I recalled that all the money Gaston and I had in the bottom of the medicine chest came from the man before me.

He made a clucking noise. “Your affairs are inextricably linked with my son’s, are they not?”

“Oui,” I sighed. “We share all things, the good and the bad.”

“Then your debts are my son’s debts.” He gave a little shrug and moue.

“They are, here, amongst the Brethren, but I am truly surprised you would view it so,” I said somberly.

He awarded me a lopsided grin. “As am I, but I find I do, or perhaps should.”

I was unsure as to whether his beneficence truly resulted from his accepting me as his son’s partner, or whether it was his old oozing wound of guilt that he thought to staunch with even more gold, but I was pleased: because even if it was the latter, he was choosing to perceive me as someone inextricably linked to his son.