Native Tongue (39 page)

“I swear it, Thomas,” he said swiftly. “I understand the conditions, and I’ll abide by them. To the letter.”

“Huhnh.” The sound was not pleasant, nor was the expression on his father-in-law’s face.

“I’ll know if you don’t,” said Thomas grimly. “And I’ll break you. If you deviate by so much as a wink, young man. The reputation of this Household, the reputation of the Lines, means infinitely more to me than any single member. The public already has reason enough to criticize about the manner in which we ‘send our females out to do men’s work,’ without adding scandal.”

Aaron put on the haughtiest expression he had in his repertoire.

“You have my word,” he repeated. “It should be sufficient.”

“I wonder.”

Aaron flushed, but he said nothing. There was nothing to say. Either the fellow would trust him or he wouldn’t, and there was nothing Aaron could do to influence him except sit there and allow himself to be as transparent as possible. He had nothing to hide, for once—he would abide by the conditions and consider that a reasonable price for freedom from Nazareth.

“All right, then,” said Thomas suddenly. “All right. I am not ordinarily disposed to see any excuse for divorce . . . but this is an unusual situation. And there’s
some
precedent—there was Belle-Anne. All right, Aaron; under these circumstances, and with your promise, I won’t oppose you.”

Aaron let out his breath, not realizing until he did so that he’d been holding it. It was a great relief. Too bad he couldn’t have had one more night in Nazareth’s bed before she’d gone off for the surgery, but it hadn’t occurred to him. As it hadn’t occurred to him that she wouldn’t insist on coming back here and making his life a hell just for the satisfaction of doing so—in her place, he certainly would have gloried in the chance for revenge. It was typically female that she was either too stupid or too cowardly to seize that chance. He found himself almost grateful to her; he was not a brilliant man, but he was not so foolish that he didn’t know how large an account of bitterness he’d run up with her in the years of their marriage. He’d had a lot of fun doing it, but he knew it hadn’t ever been any fun for Nazareth; like all women, she had no sense of humor whatsoever. Like being colorblind, or tonedeaf. A curious deformity.

And now he and Thomas had managed to bring off a very efficient little bit of action here. All in one swoop, they’d gotten rid of Nazareth and the annoying reminder she would have represented, they’d arranged to keep Aaron in the house
and
fathering more infants—something that would have been impossible otherwise—and they’d settled the matter of a suitable husband for the luscious Perpetua. Aaron knew that in spite of Thomas’ facade of objections he must be pleased; this was the sort of thing the man considered an efficient example of household management. He had been damn near smiling when he told Aaron to go ahead and notify the Chornyak attorneys. Aaron felt that they were damn clever, he and Thomas . . . he was only sorry that there was no way he could brag about this little coup.

Clara saw him come up the stairs from his meeting with her brother, and read the smug satisfaction on his face correctly, but she wasn’t quick enough with her “Aaron!” to stop him as he went rushing out the door. It was clear to her that the two men had been willing to let Nazareth do what she wanted: it was also clear that Aaron had forgotten all about the fact that his wife was waiting for the decision. Unless perhaps he, or Thomas, had sent her a message directly?

Thinking hard, she didn’t hear Michaela until her name had been spoken twice, and even then she jumped.

“You’re too tired, Clara,” Michaela observed. “You’re asleep on your feet.”

“No . . . I was just thinking. And worrying.”

“Can I help?”

Clara explained, and Michaela touched her hand lightly.

“I’m on my way to Mr. Chornyak’s office right now,” she said, “to ask him about a new medication for your father. If you want to come along with me, we could bother him together . . . safety in numbers and all that.”

“I’m not afraid to speak to him alone, my dear,” Clara said. “That’s not it. I’m just trying to get my bad temper under control before I do it. I’ll wait until you’re through.”

“Well, I
am
afraid to go alone,” Michaela declared, “because the medicine I want costs almost three times as much as what your father’s been taking; so please come with me out of Christian charity, Clara. He won’t carry on so if he has to split the thunder and lightning between us.”

Clara looked at her, and Michaela could see by the glint in her eyes that she wasn’t fooled by the easy chatter, but she said only, “All right, Michaela,” and went with her without further comment.

And of course, as Clara had suspected, neither of the men had thought to send Nazareth a simple yes or no. Much less the news that she was about to be divorced.

“Thomas!” Clara had been shocked. “Dear heaven, Thomas . . .”

“What, Clara?”

“I mean that. . . . It’s just. . . .”

“Clara, will you please quit stammering and sputtering and speak your piece? Nazareth doesn’t care a thing for Aaron, never has, and you know it as well as I do. What’s the problem?”

Clara was helpless, and felt both helpless and absurd. There wasn’t any way to explain it to him. It had nothing to do with whether Nazareth cared about Aaron Adiness. It had to do with first undergoing that explicit demonstration of how little she was worth to the men, when they refused the money for the breast regeneration; and it had to do with then undergoing the mutilating surgery itself; and it had to do with the way a woman was treated in the public wards, especially a linguist woman; and it had to do with the pain and the grief that Nazareth would be feeling right now; and it had to do with what it would be like for her, on top of all the rest, to be told causally, by wrist computer, “Oh by the way, Aaron’s divorcing you—thought you’d want to know.”

She could have made him understand, of course, if she’d had hours to spend explaining it to him. Thomas was a shrewd judge of the effects of language upon others, and he was—despite the silly exchange between herself and Michaela—never an unreasonable man. But there was no way to make him see it quickly and efficiently, and Thomas had no patience with long rambling
speeches about subjects he had had no interest in in the first place. He was staring at her, and Clara knew that he was annoyed, and she felt as if she were going to strangle. I’m getting old, she thought, and I must be losing my wits along with my other youthful charms.

“Clara,” said Thomas, “I know you’re fond of Nazareth. But it was Nazareth who
asked
to go directly to Barren House, you know—it’s not as if Aaron had tried to
send
her there. I assure you, I would not have allowed him to do that, Clara. We are only doing what Nazareth, herself, asked for.”

“I know that, Thomas.”

“Then I truly do not understand why you are so upset.”

Michaela stepped smoothly into the widening breach, certain that Clara would welcome the help.

“Mr. Chornyak,” she said, all deference and propriety, “I think what’s worrying Clara is that Nazareth must just hear this news by wrist computer, without even a human face attached. Just that little tinny noise, saying that she’s being divorced and good riddance to her, if you see what I mean.”

“I don’t see what you mean,” Thomas answered. “She detests her husband, she doesn’t want to come home, and she’s being told that she doesn’t have to put up with either husband or Household for even one more day. It seems to me that she should be dancing in the halls. But as long as the two of
you
understand what you mean, it really doesn’t matter whether I do or not. I have never pretended to be an expert on the emotional notions of women.”

“Yes, sir,” Michaela said.

“Well? Have you and Clara got a solution to this dreadful difficulty that I’m too thick-headed even to perceive?”

“Mr. Chornyak, I need to see the hospital anyway—I should have gone over there long ago. I might need to send one of my patients there sometime, and I should at least be familiar with the place. Unless you have some objection, sir, I could take the message to Nazareth and have a look around the facilities at the same time.”

“I have no objection at all, Mrs. Landry,” said Thomas. “If you have the free time, and you feel it’s advisable, by all means go ahead.”

“Thank you, sir,” Michaela said. “And I have just one other item to talk to you about before I go, please.”

While Michaela was quickly outlining to Thomas the advantages of the new medication that justified the expense of its purchase,
Clara slipped away without saying anything more, her gratitude written plainly in the set of her head and shoulders and the shaping of her hands.

The hospital was ugly, but then hospitals always were. Michaela had never worked in a luxury ward among the wealthy, but always in places like this. She paid very little attention to its looks, concerned only to make sure that it was clean—and it was. And she was equally unimpressed by the sass from the nurses.

“Either tell me at once, without any further nonsense, where Mrs. Adiness is, or I’ll call Thomas Blair Chornyak and tell him that you’ve misplaced her,” she told them. “Perhaps with his personal assistance we’d be able to locate her.”

“Well, there’s no need to be unpleasant!”

“You’re wasting my time, nurse, and your behavior is beneath contempt. You are here to
serve
, not to obstruct healing, and whether you happen to fancy a particular patient or not should not be your concern. Now take me to Mrs. Adiness.”

She was as skilled at genteel tongue-lashing laced with aristocratic venom as she was at listening to boring stories; it was one of the skills that the marital academies assumed a woman might need if she married into a wealthy family where human beings were still employed as domestic servants. The nurse recognized the tone without difficulty, and had had no training in defense against it . . . she came bustling out from behind her narrow counter, flushed and pouting, and took Michaela to Nazareth’s bed without asking any questions about the possible source of the authority in that voice.

“There,” she announced, pointing. “There she is. Somebody to see you, Mrs. Adiness.”

Michaela stared at her fixedly until she turned and flounced off, muttering about ingratitude and who did people think they were anyway; and then she turned to look at Nazareth.

“Mrs. Adiness,” she said courteously, “I’m Michaela Landry, the nurse that your father employs for Barren House. I’m ashamed to use the word ‘nurse’ after that specimen, but I promise you I’m not here to demonstrate the depths to which my profession sometimes manages to fall. I don’t think we’ve met except in passing. . . . How do you do, Mrs. Adiness.”

She extended her hand, and Nazareth took it briefly, saying, “Yes, of course, Mrs. Landry, I remember you. It’s very kind of you to come by.”

She looked bruised, Michaela thought. If it were possible for
someone to carry bruises of spirit and mind as well as body, she would be carrying them. Thin,
ugly
thin . . . a bad color, the characteristic unhealthy look of the cancer patient . . . and that skewered knot of hair. Even here. Poor thing.

“Mrs. Adiness,” she said, “it’s all right for you to go on to Barren House from here; they sent me to tell you. And your father asked me to come and help you. . . . He didn’t want you to have to make the trip by yourself.” It was an easy lie, and it cost her nothing; she made a mental note to tell Thomas that she’d said it. And it ought to have been true, because this woman most certainly was not well enough to have left the hospital by herself and made her way to Barren House all alone. From the taut look of her she would have done it, and without a word of complaint, but she had no business making an effort of that kind. Or any other effort. Michaela wanted her tucked into a comfortable bed and under
her
care, and she wanted it fast. And as for the news about the divorce, she would pass that on after she had this woman comfortable, and sheltered, and away from prying eyes. Not one minute before.

“Mrs. Adiness. . . .”

“Please, Mrs. Landry . . . call me Nazareth. I would prefer it.”

“As you like, ma’am, and you might consider calling me Michaela if that’s not awkward for you. Now, can you dress and get your things together while I arrange for a cab?”

“A cab?” Nazareth was astonished. “The robobus goes right by here.”

“Is that how you got here?”

“Of course,” Nazareth answered, and added, “And I don’t have any money.”

“Well, I do.”

“Money of your own?”

Michaela smiled. “It’s one of the few benefits of being both widowed and a nurse, Nazareth. My brother-in-law is my legal guardian, but he is required to leave me part of my salary since I don’t live in his home. I don’t have very
much
money, but I can manage the price of one short cab trip.”

“I can’t let you spend your money on me,” Nazareth objected immediately, and Michaela laughed at her.

“All right,” she said. “You are the lady of the house, and I am the employee, and I’m not about to cross you. I’ll get the cab for myself and let you take the bus, and I’ll be at Barren House before you. It will be so much nicer that way, not having to be crowded in the cab.”

She was utterly surprised when Nazareth only nodded, as if that made perfectly good sense, and she sat down at once on the edge of the other woman’s bed, careful not to jolt her as she did so.