Secret for a Nightingale (19 page)

“That’ll be lovely.”

Joe said he would keep the carriage looking a treat and I’d be proud to ride in it.

So that was settled.

The day after the funeral, I left for the Minster.

As soon as I arrived at the station I sensed something unusual.

The station-master saluted me gravely, which was strange for he was generally rather garrulous. Jim, the porter, looked the other way.

There was no conveyance to meet me as I had not told them the time of my arrival; but there was a station fly which took me to the house.

There was silence everywhere. No one was about. The door of the hall was never locked during the day so I went in.

There was silence everywhere.

I ran up the stairs to the nursery.

“Julian!” I cried.

“I’m back.”

Silence.

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The blinds were drawn in the nursery. The cot was empty, but standing on trestles in one corner of the room was something which sent shivers down my spine.

It was a little coffin.

I went to it and looked inside.

I felt as though I were going to collapse, for lying there, an expression of serenity on his cold white face, was my son.

The door had opened and Nanny Benson stood there.

“Oh …” she said.

“We didn’t know you was coming today.”

I just stared at her. Then I looked at the coffin.

“Two days ago,” she said.

I felt that the whole world was collapsing about me. I was dreaming.

This was a nightmare.

Nanny Benson began to cry.

“Oh, the poor little mite. It happened so quick.”

“Mrs. Pollack …” I cried.

“Where is Mrs. Pollack?”

The old woman looked at me, her lips trembling. Louie appeared in the doorway. I had never seen her look so solemn.

“Terrible things has happened,” she said.

“Mrs. Pollack went to the town and we never saw her again.”

“It’s crazy …” I said.

“Everyone’s gone crazy … the whole world … For God’s sake tell me.”

“Mrs. Pollack caught the cholera. There’s been two cases in the town besides her. She went in to see to some shopping the day after you left, and she didn’t come back. She collapsed in a shop there and they took her into the hospital. She died. It was the cholera.”

“I … can’t believe it.”

“It’s true. They’re scared of the cholera. You have to be separated when you gets it. They’re scared of another epidemic. They put her away in the hospital and she never come out.”

So she hadn’t been here to look after him! That was my first thought.

Good Mrs. Pollack on whom I had relied had not been there. And he had died . my boy had died. They had let him die.

My anger was battling with my grief, which was too great to be borne.

I knew that I was as yet too shocked to feel the enormity of it.

I could only stand there staring at those two who, I was sure, had failed to look after my precious child. He had been alone . without Mrs. Pollack in this evil house . and they had let him die.

“And … my child …” I heard myself saying.

“Pneumonia. It was quick. Right as rain one day and fighting for his life the next.”

Why had I not taken him with me! I knew why. Yet why had fate played such a cruel trick as to call me away and then take Mrs. Pollack when I most needed her!

“Was he in pain?”

“Fighting for his breath at the end,” Louie said.

“I want to see the doctor.”

“Dr. Calliber didn’t come till it was all over.”

“Why not? Why didn’t you call the doctor?”

“There was a doctor here. One of Mr. Aubrey’s guests. He saw him and gave him something, didn’t he. Aunt Em? But it was too late.”

“One of his guests!”

“Yes … one of them.”

“Was anyone with him when he died?”

Louie said: “Yes … I was.”

I could have struck her. Oh no! I thought. Not Louie. No doubt she was thinking about assignations with her lovers while my child was dying!

“Mr. Aubrey came up when he heard. He was here at the end.”

I could not bear the sight of them.

I cried: “Leave me. Leave me alone with him. Get out.”

They crept away.

I stood over the coffin looking down at the dear face.

“Julian,” I whispered.

“Don’t go away. Come back to me. I’m here now.

My blessed boy. Come back and we’ll never, never be parted again. “

I prayed for a miracle.

“Oh God, raise him from the dead.

You know what this child means to me. I do not want to live without him. Please . please . God. “

I pictured him, feverish, perhaps calling for me. Mrs. Pollack was not there to soothe him. Cruel, malevolent fate had taken her. Death was implacable. Life was unbearable. Mrs. Pollack, who had been so alive, to be stricken by the cholera which had claimed so many victims such a short time ago and might claim more. My dear father, that rock to which I had believed I could always cling, had been taken from me; and while I was making arrangements for his burial, my own child was dying.

It was too much to bear. I could not yet realize all that I had lost.

I felt bewildered and alone. I was desolate.

I do not know how long I stood there by the coffin.

Aubrey came in.

“Susanna,” he said gently.

“I heard you were back. My dear, this is terrible. And your father. I am so sorry. You can’t stay here. Come away. Let me take you to your room.”

He would have taken my arm but I moved away. I could not bear that he should touch me.

I went to my bedroom. Julian’s cot had been taken away. It looked so empty.

Aubrey followed me into the room.

“This is a terrible shock to you,” he said, ‘and to happen while you were arranging your father’s funeral. “

“I should have taken him with me,” I murmured, more to myself than to him. ” If I had, this would never have happened.”

“It couldn’t be avoided. It came so swiftly. A cold one day … the next pneumonia.”

“When did Mrs. Pollack go?”

“Poor woman, that was dreadful. It was the day after you left.”

“You should have told me. I would have come back and taken my baby had I known … no matter what you did. There was no one to look after him.”

“There was Nanny … and Louie.”

“A whisky-sodden old woman and a flighty girl whose thoughts are with her next meeting with the master of the house.”

“Oh come, Susanna, that doesn’t help.”

“But there was no one looking after him. You didn’t call in Dr. Calliber.”

“There was no need. It was so sudden. There was a doctor in the house.”

I stared at him, fresh horror beginning to dawn on me.

“It was Damien,” I said.

“Yes, he was here for the night.”

“And my child was left to him ” In your temples of sin, no doubt. “

“You are not being reasonable.”

“I am trying to understand why a perfectly healthy child should die so suddenly.”

“You talk as though children never die. They are dying all the time . from this ailment or that. It is not easy to rear children. In fact, child mortality is commonplace.”

“Among those who are not cared for, perhaps. My child has been neglected. I was not here. Mrs. Pollack who cared for him wasn’t here.

I can see it all so clearly. His fever . his difficulty in breathing and Nanny Benson snoring in the next room and the delectable Louie cavorting in the Devil’s Cave. “

“I was anxious about the child.”

“When have you ever cared for him?”

“I did care for him. I just didn’t fuss over him and spoil him as you did.”

“Spoil him! He was not spoilt. He was perfect…” My voice broke.

“All right. He was a good child. He was my heir. I wanted the best for him. That was why ” That was why you took Amelia out in your carriage and arranged for a little spill . oh, not to do any damage to yourself or the carriage . but to be rid of Amelia’s child who had blighted your hopes. “

He had turned very pale and I thought: He did it.

“I’m sorry you think I should be guilty of such a thing,” he said.

“I do think it,” I replied.

“Then you have a very poor opinion of me.”

“The lowest.”

He shook his head wearily.

“Susanna, I am trying to be gentle with you. I know what a shock you have had.”

“You do not. You are incapable of loving anyone as I loved my child . and my father. I have lost them both. I have no one now.”

“Suppose we tried … you and I… We could have another child. You would feel better then. Susanna, let’s start again … Let’s put all this behind us.”

I looked at him with loathing.

I know now that in his way he was stretching out a hand for help. This tragedy had sobered him, but I was too griefstricken to see that then. I could only see my own tragedy and it soothed my grief a little to blame someone entirely and he was the obvious culprit.

He was aware where his addiction was leading him. I know now that by then he wanted me to help him fight that obsession;

he wanted to try to get back to that time when we had been happy in the first weeks after our marriage. But I could only think of him as he had been on that terrible night in Venice and the sight of him when I had stumbled into that cave and had seen him with his friends.

I said: “You killed my baby because you didn’t take care of him. If I had taken him with me, he would have been well today. Do you think I would ever have allowed him to die?”

“You have no power over life and death, Susanna. None of us has.”

“We can fight against disaster. I left a healthy child and came back to a dead one. You were revelling with your friends while he was dying. You did not notice that he was ill. You ignored him. You hadn’t time to look after your son. Why did you not send for Dr. Calliber?”

“I tell you I had the best of all doctors on the spot.”

That pornographer . that drug addict! He is a murderer. He murdered my child. “

“You are talking nonsense.”

“He gave him his drugs, didn’t he?”

“He knew what he was doing.”

“I know that what he did resulted in Julian’s death.”

“It was too late to do anything. He said it was too late.”

“Too late! And you did not call Dr. Calliber. Oh, how I hate you and your precious friend. I shall never forget what you have done to my child … and to me.”

“Listen, Susanna. This has been too much of a shock. I understand that. I wanted to meet you at the station, to break it gently.”

“Do you think how it was broken would have made any difference to me!”

“No, of course not. But to come home and find him like that … must have been terrible.”

“How I found him is not relevant. I found him … dead … and that is what I hate you all for. Murderers, all of you! Your drunken nanny, your loose-living friends, you, with your hateful practices and your low living … and most of all that doctor, that so-called doctor. I have read his books. I know him through them. He wants sensation all the time. He is worse than you, for you are weak and he is strong. He hides his wickedness under a guise of benevolence. I hate you all … all your friends … everything to do with you .. but most of all you and him.”

“I’m going to have them send up something for you, and I am going to ask Dr. Calliber to come and see you.”

I laughed bitterly.

“What a pity you were not as careful with your son. Then you might have called Dr. Calliber to see him. Then he could have had the attention of a real doctor.”

I flung myself on my bed while abject misery descended on me.

I cannot remember the passing of the hours. Day slipped into night and it was day again; and there was no relief from my bitterness.

The day they buried my child I moved about as though in a trance. I stared in disbelief at the little coffin which carried the remains of the being who was all the world to me. I could have borne anything if he had been left to me.

The tolling of the bell proclaimed my grief; I did not listen to the words of the parson.

Julian was laid to rest in the St. Clare mausoleum among his ancestors Stephen who had so recently died, and that Harry St. Clare who had made the temple, the cave, and there practised unholy rites.

I was still stunned; a numbing apathy had come to me; and I could think of nothing but that I had lost my child.

We came back to the house. I shut myself in my room and wanted to see no one.

Aubrey sent Dr. Calliber to me. I came alive a little talking to him.

He said he understood my grief, but I must rouse myself or I should be ill.

“You will have more children, Mrs. St. Clare,” he said.

“And, believe me, in time the loss will be less painful.”

I did not want to hear about myself. I wanted to know about Julian.

“It was a virulent attack,” said Dr. Calliber.

“There was little anyone could have done for him.”

“But had you come in time … had it been noticed …”

“Who can say? Mortality among young children is great. It amazes me how so many survive.”

“And when you came, Dr. Calliber?”

“He was already dead.”

Already dead! The words echoed in my mind.

“There was another doctor who saw him… someone staying in the house.”

“Yes, so I heard. I did not see him.”

“If you had been called in time …” I insisted.

“Who knows? And now I am concerned with you. I am going to send you a tonic. I want you to take it regularly, Mrs. St. Clare;

and do try to eat. Remember this is not such an infrequent happening.

You will have many more children, I’ll predict, and then the loss of this one will not seem so great. “

When he had gone I sat at my window looking out on the wood, and fierce anger burned in my heart.

They had left him to die. That doctor was the one who saw him, not reasonable Dr. Calliber but the Devil Doctor. I was sure he had given my precious child one of his experimental drugs and it had killed him.

One day I would have my revenge on him.