The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (10 page)

 

Adrian Lovell had
worked long and
hard in the fever-ridden slums throughout the day and night,
doing what little
he could for the many suffering souls who had fallen prey to
cholera.

 

 

He and Dalton had
seen to
preparations to ensure that an epidemic didn’t break out in
Quebec, and he had
lingered behind to see if anyone needed to be brought to the
fever hospital
urgently.

 

 

After Dalton had
gone home, one thin
emaciated young man had beckoned him over, and asked, “That
wasn’t Mr. Dalton
Randall, was it?”

 

 

“It was, son. Why do you ask?”

 

 

“I was on the
Pegasus
with him last summer, and recognised
him.”

 

 

“Did you also know Emer, and Captain and Mrs. Jenkins, and Patrick
Bradley?” Adrian asked.

 

 

The boy struggled
to sit up, “Oh,
please, sir, are they alive?
Do
you know where they are?”

 

 

“I do indeed. They're all in a
big house over on the
other side of town. Emer’s
been
looking for everyone who sailed with her, for she knows all
about you being unfairly
dismissed, and wants to offer you a job, and a place to live,”
Adrian said
reassuringly.

 

 

“Did she end up
marrying Mr. Randall
then, and becoming very rich?
They
sure were in love with each other when they were on the ship.”
Charlie smiled
weakly.

 

 

Adrian’s face fell
as he listened to
the boy reminiscing about their times together on the Atlantic
crossing, but
then recovered his composure, and declared, “Well, I can’t
leave you here on
your own, with no one to look after you. Do you think you’re well
enough to come in the carriage
with me to go
and see Emer?”

 

 

“Oh yes, please! But I wouldn’t want
to be a burden to
her.”

 

 

“No burden at all.   There will be
plenty of people to
look after you at the home, and I’m sure she will be delighted
to see you.”

 

 

“I’m called
Charlie, sir, and thank
you for your kindness.”

 

 

“I’m Adrian. Charlie, yes, I
remember hearing tales
about you and Fred,” Adrian said as he gathered up the boy in
his arms, and
carried him down to the carriage.

 

 

“Aye, poor Fred,
God rest him.”

 

 

“Poor you, for by
the looks of
things, you haven’t fared well,” Adrian observed kindly,
before settling him
into the seat.

 

 

“I was out west
with some of the
other men, looking for work
logging and such like, but the winter was bitter, and I ended
up at Emer’s sister
Brona’s house, frozen in, and we nearly all starved.

 

 

’Tis a poor piece of ground he has for
farming, though it's
a large enough holding.
Michael’d
be better off with livestock, but of course he can’t afford
any, and the
winters here are nothing like Ireland.

 

 

We had some terrible hard times, sir, yes, sir, but
don’t tell Emer I
said so. She
will only worry.”

 

 

“Emer still has a
sister?” Adrian
asked in surprise.

 

 

“That’s right, two
in fact, but they
got married and left the family. I
think it was pretty rotten of them leaving Emer to do
everything for her family
and friends on Grosse Ile.
I was
sorry she crept away in the night before I had a chance to say
goodbye,”
Charlie sighed.

 

 

Then his head
lolled weakly against
the side of the carriage, and he began to doze.

 

 

“Don’t worry
Charlie, you’ll soon be
all together again. You
just have
to concentrate on getting well,” Adrian said pityingly as he
tucked the
skeletal boy in with one of his traveling rugs.

 

 

Adrian’s carriage
then crossed the
river on the ferry, and drove on through the night towards
Emer’s house.

 

 

Just as they were
nearing the
orphanage, he saw Madeleine Lyndon running through the woods,
the hem of her
bright pink gown luminous in the moonlight.

 

 

“Good lord. Causing trouble
again, I have no
doubt,” Adrian muttered to himself, having heard all about the
party at the
Hearsts the night before from Myrtle.

 

 

Charlie also saw
the woman. “Friend
of yours, is she sir? For
a moment I thought she was a
ghost.”

 

 

“What a novel idea,
pink phantoms,”
Adrian teased, ruffling the boy’s hair. “We’re nearly there now.
Are you all right?”

 

 

“Fine, I just can’t
wait to see
Emer, that’s all.”

 

 

“Don’t let yourself
become unduly
excited. You
need to take my
medicines, and plenty of water, and concentrate on getting
well.”

 

 

“I will, Doctor," Charlie promised, "cuz I got
something to
live for now.”

 

 

Adrian lifted the
boy out of the
carriage, and brought him straight in the front door, where
Emer and Sissy were
waiting to greet the doctor.

 

 

Emer stared for a
few seconds at his
burden, and exclaimed happily, “Charlie! Oh here, bring him into the
library, and put him on the
sofa. Where did
you find him? What’s
wrong with him?”

 

 

“One thing at a
time, Emer. He
has cholera. I
was with Dalton trying to trace the
source of the infection, and this young man recognised Dalton,
and told me he
was a former shipmate of yours from the
Pegasus
. I couldn’t
leave him in that slum, and
so I thought he would be better off here,” Adrian explained as he
brought him into the library.

 

 

“Yes, of course,
we’d be happy to
look after him. Here,
lay him
down, and let’s get a bed and so on organised for him.”

 

 

“I want to check
him over again in
the light, if you don’t mind, and if you could make sure you
give him plenty to
drink?”

 

 

Emer poured Charlie
a glass of water
from the carafe on the sideboard, and held it to his lips as he
drank
thirstily.

 

 

“Again, another
glass, only this one
with opium in it,” Adrian instructed.

 

 

“Do you have any
lead and red
pepper? That’s
what we used in
Grosse Ile.”

 

 

The doctor looked
at Emer oddly, and
then took two more bottles out of his case, and stirred a
small quantity of
each power into the water.
Emer
forced Charlie to drink it, and then he lay back exhausted.

 

 

“I’ve seen your
sister, Brona,
Miss. I was out
west with them
working, and logging as well.
They
said to send their love, and hoped they would get a letter
from you soon.”

 

 

Emer looked at her
carpet sadly for
a moment. “I
should have
written.  I
should have tried
to persuade them to come here to share in my good fortune.”

 

 

“But Miss, it’s
been nothing but
hard struggle since you started in November. There wasn’t much you
could do for her
then, now was there?”
Sissy said kindly.

 

 

“No, but things are
going well
now. I shall
write to her at once,
if I may, Doctor, and ask them to come.”

 

 

“I think that would
be a fine idea,”
Adrian said, with a conspiratorial wink at Charlie.

 

 

The doctor helped
Charlie remove his
dirtiest outer clothes, while Emer scribbled furiously, and
then folded the
letter and gave it to Sissy.
“Put
it in your pocket, and when you go into town tomorrow, please
see that it's
posted.”

 

 

“I shall, Miss,
never fear. Is
your sister anything like you?”

 

 

Emer smiled. “No,
not at all, but I
can only try to see if she and her husband are willing to join
our endeavour. And a letter to Cara,
my other sister, wouldn’t be amiss, in case she decides that
the sea-going life is not to her taste after all.”

 

 

“No one took to the
sea like you
did, Emer,” Charlie said proudly, earning an astonished look
from Adrian and
Sissy as he regaled them with tales of Emer’s bravery on the
high seas.

 

 

“Don’t exaggerate,
Charlie, and
don't exhaust yourself with idle chatter,” Emer scolded
playfully, as she sat
back down and wrote another letter, and then handed that to
Sissy as well.

 

 

“How is he,
Adrian?” Emer asked more
quietly, as Charlie ran out of steam and began to doze again.

 

 

“He’s a tough boy,
despite all the
hardships he’s had to endure.
I
think I caught him early enough, but don’t be too hopeful,”
Adrian warned.

 

 

“I’ll try not to
be, but thank you
for all your help,” Emer sighed, and patted her friend on the
shoulder.

 

 

Adrian saw his
opening, and said
quietly, “Emer, I know this is not really any of my business,
but I wish you
had confided in me about your friendship with Dalton Randall.  
I thought he
was in love with
Madeleine Lyndon. Well, you just naively assume these things
when you find out
someone is getting married.
I
didn’t really like to interfere."

 

 

Emer stared at him
in surprise, but
said nothing.

 

 

“But Charlie here
says you and
Dalton were in love with each other on the ship. I don’t understand
what separated you,
but I think I can see
now all the terrible pain and suffering you’ve gone through
because of it. I'm
really sorry if I embarrassed you
by being too friendly with him, and inviting him to dinner on
Sunday.”

 

 

She patted his
forearm soothingly.
“It isn’t you fault. You had no way of knowing. He was your friend
long before I was,
and he is now a
colleague as well. I
don’t wish to
come between you. I
didn’t tell
you because it is too painful to talk about, and I didn’t wish
to shock
you. It’s enough
to say that his
father poses a threat to my safety, and if he finds out that
Dalton and I are
seeing each other again, or that it's Dalton’s child I am
carrying, I'll be in
desperate trouble.”

 

 

“Is
that
why you separated, because his father didn’t
approve of
you
?” Adrian asked with a bitter laugh.

 

 

Emer stared at her friend for a moment, wondering why he had
suddenly become so agitated.

 

 

She nodded. “Yes, it was partly that,
and Dalton’s
decision to go back to Ireland to help the suffering people
there, rather than
stay with me.”

 

 

“But I don’t
understand, Dalton was
always such a decent man.
To
abandon you like that, it isn’t like him. And to marry
Madeleine Lyndon? How
can he be such a fool?” Adrian
stormed.

 

 

Emer shrugged
resignedly. “His
father arranged the match long
before he met me. She’s
been
waiting for him for two years.
Her
virtue would be compromised if Dalton didn’t got through with
the wedding.”

 

 

Adrian snorted with
derisive
laughter again.

 

 

Emer stared at him
in surprise. “What
is it, Adrian? What
have I said?”

 

 

“Her
virtue
, if it ever existed, was
compromised long ago, when she was about sixteen, I seem to
remember. My best friend, Giles Benedict,
committed suicide because she led him on, became his lover,
and then dropped him for another man,” Adrian revealed bitterly.

 

 

Emer sat back in
her chair, one hand
to her slender throat. "Adrian, what are you saying?"

 

 

"That the woman is
a lying,
conniving whore, who will do whatever it takes to manipulate a
man for her own
ends."

 

 

Emer stared at him
in astonishment.
"I don't know who told you this gossip, but—"

 

 

He shook his head.
“Tis no gossip,
it's first-hand experience. That other man she was having an
affair with was
me, and may God forgive me for it."

 

 

"Oh, Adrian, I'm so
sorry."

 

 

Adrian's handsome
mouth twisted as
though he tasted something foul. "Not half as sorry as I was. I was
an idiot. It was all my fault. I was flattered by Madeleine, and
fell
prey to her
charms. But I
swear I didn’t know
that Giles was in love with her," Adrian revealed, his tone
conveying ever bit of the
agony he had endured
at the hands of Madeleine.

 

 

"It was only after
he died,
when I received a long wretched letter of misery about all
Giles had felt for
her, and why he wanted to end his life, that I understood what
I had done to
the kindest soul that ever lived for one brief week or so of
mindless physical
gratification, until she grew weary of me, and took up with
yet another victim.

 

 

“I've tolerated
Madeleine Lyndon
since then, and seen her destroy other men by leading them on
with promises of
her body or her fortune. I've tried to warn them, but she's
the mistress of
cunning.
Virtue
? Compared to you, she doesn't know the
meaning of the word. She
is little better
than a whore, for all her fine airs and graces.”

 

 

“Do you think that’s what happened to
Dalton, that
he was led on by her?” Emer asked sadly, feeling the stinging
pangs of jealousy
burn in her breast.
Adrian shrugged one
shoulder. “I
don’t know, Emer. He
never seemed
to pay her much mind, until she set her sights on him two
years ago. But
what I do know, my dear girl, is
that you are a million times better than she is, and I’m sorry
I’ve remained
silent this long. Dalton
deserves
the truth, and I’m going to tell him.”