True Born (15 page)

On the fifth day the fever was gone, and John
knew that Georgiana was no longer in danger of dying. He could only
caress her hair, in fear of disturbing the scabs that were forming
over the painful blisters. She did smile at him now, and ate a
little, and he was so relived and happy that all the servants who
took up the tray of food to the Countess' chamber, the ones who had
already suffered from the disease in the past, went downstairs
saying that he had kept her alive through the force of his
love.

There was more occasion for the servants to
witness his devotion in the next few days, as he asked for
honey and applied it painstakingly to every one of her scabs. Dr.
Hopkins had said that the regenerative powers of honey would help
avoid the terrible pits that the majority of smallpox sufferers
developed.

Georgiana smiled as John dabbed honey on her,
"I am glad it is not the season for bees, or flies!"

"At least we no longer need to leave the
windows open," he countered.

"What strange notions medicine has. One would
think all the opposite."

"Science is a marvelous thing," he said, "and
kept you with me."

She knew she ought not to ask for a mirror,
that she must first of all be thankful that she had survived, and
that John had been there. If she were no longer pleasing to the eye
she would have to accept it, and even accept that he might care for
her with a different love than passion. She was simply glad to be
alive, and with him.

But when John, after twelve days, let her get
up and look at herself, she found only faint pink spots on herself,
and Dr. Hopkins assured her that they would disappear in time.
There were two deeper pits, one near her right eye, where John had
cleaned a sore so that she would not be blinded, and one in the
middle of her forehead.

"It's a 
bindi
!" she exclaimed
about the spot on her forehead, remembering their Hindu
wedding.

John laughed, sitting backwards by her side
on the stool. "It's an eternal 
bindi
," he said. "It
means you cannot 
not
 be my wife, ever."

She reached for his cheek, "No, I
cannot."

"And you can’t Hugh's wife anymore. You will
come home with me now, my darling, and we will find a way for your
sisters to be married, and no one will starve. It is all over for
you here, don't you see?"

She was nodding, "It has been over for a
while, but now I think I am free to go. My husband left me to die,
and you brought me back to life, and if this is not a true
marriage, then I don't know what is!  I do not think the girls
would accept anything else."

So the very next day, wrapped in a fur coat,
the Countess of Halford went down the stairs holding on to Mad
Jack's arm, and she smiled at all the servants who had gathered to
say goodbye, thanked them, and walked out of the castle with the
man she loved.

It was a beautiful December day. "Oh, John,
look at the sky!"

"Ordered especially for you," he said, as he
led her to the carriage.

She climbed in and he arranged her cloak and
furs as he sat next to her. They looked out at the people gathered
on the steps and raised their hands in goodbye.

The servants never tired of telling the story
of true nobility, of how a bastard had walked through an empty
castle to brave death and save the woman he loved, while her
high-born husband cowered in his London home.

Hester had stayed behind at the farm,
believing that Georgiana would die.

Bess had died, and Georgiana in her foolish
generosity had nursed a malevolent sister who had tormented her for
years, and had tried to take her husband. The strain of the disease
must be virulent, if Bess had died so quickly from it, and now
Georgiana was ill in the same way.

Hester did not find in herself the hypocrisy
to wish that the worst would not happen to Georgiana. She thought
it would, and she thought it would be better for everyone: for the
Countess, who was disgraced now that John had gone to her so
openly, for her sisters who might still enjoy the protection of
their brother-in-law after her death, and above all for John and
herself, since the only obstacle to their being together would be
gone, and he would finally be able to see her.

She stayed and worked alone, harder than any
woman could be expected to work. She might not have found the
superhuman strength needed to tend to the farm alone, if she had
been working only for herself; but she was working for John, for
the two of them and their future, and she faced every difficult
task with calm, and found a way around every obstacle.

When she saw the carriage from Halford
approaching through the narrow road, her heart stopped for a
moment. John would not be returning in a carriage. Had something
happened to him?

Foolishly, as she chided herself later, she
had not expected the carriage door to open, and for John to emerge
from it with happiness all over his face, and still less for
Georgiana to come out, just as happy, and with only faint pink
spots to show the terrible disease she had caught, which scarred
most people for life.

Hester stood watching Georgiana walk hand in
hand with John after they had greeted her, hearing her exclaim over
the farm as if it were a million times more beautiful than
Halford.

She could see how absorbed they were in each
other. Georgiana had survived, and now she would thrive with the
man who seemed to adore her more than ever.

When John came to Hester, alone, to thank her
deeply and sincerely for everything she had done, not having
expected that she could have kept the place from going to rack and
ruin, she did not begrudge him anything that she had done, as she
had told herself she never would. She begrudged it to Georgiana,
who did not belong there with her fur cloak and her dainty shoes,
but she was not angry at John.

She told him that she had done her work, and
that he should not think it strange, even if he insisted that she
had gone beyond duty, almost beyond what was believable. He told
her that she would be his partner thenceforth, and take a profit
from the crops and animals even before he did. When he returned to
his own house and to Georgiana, Hester went outside under the sky,
which had turned a threatening grey, and walked faster and faster
into the woods.

On her way she grabbed at sharp brambles with
her bare hands, knowing the flesh in them was being torn. She threw
herself against them, screaming, as her dress ripped and her face
and arms were scratched.

Why do you take everything away from
me?
 she shrieked at the deaf sky
. I have never asked
you for anything!

Hester was all the more enraged because there
would be no response, no explanation why a feeling such as hers
could exist, and yet not be fulfilled. It was the fate of so many
people, but she would not accept it. It was no wisdom to her, to
just bear it.

She had hurt herself enough, and after
trashing and shrieking she got up, her eyes dry. 
I don't
ask for anything no
w, she thought. 
I shall never ask
for anything that I cannot do myself.

"
...the soldiers went after the band of
highwaymen, who scattered through the woods, but did not manage to
find them. They were attracted by cries for help and found a former
lieutenant of His Majesty's army, Mr. Marcus Brennan, who had been
a valiant soldier in India, but now suffered so severely from a
limp that he had been unable to defend himself against the
bandits...
"

John stopped to have a fit of laughter before
continuing. 
"Mr. Brennan was found just as he was able to
untie himself from a tree, and he explained that he had been held
hostage, as the outlaws had refused to believe that he had so
little money and only an old horse, because his wig was made of
human hair."

"It's Hugh's wig!" Georgiana cried, holding
her side, as it pained her from laughing.

John went on reading, when he
managed, 
"Mr. Brennan had, however, been able to lead the
soldiers, after many false starts, to the lair of the bandits,
where their masks and cloaks were found, as well as some
valueless remains of what they had robbed from others, such as
shoes, buckles and clothes.

"Mr. Brennan was furthermore helpful in
giving a description of the band of six, including the German
Rogue, whom he insisted was in truth a Dane, and known among his
crew as the Danish Doom."

There was almost incapacitating laughter at
this last part, and even worse at what followed, "
The police has
employed Mr. Brennan who, with his previous career as an army
lieutenant, and in spite of bad eyesight, has been able to
effectively stop any more attacks from the band of highwaymen, by
using the knowledge he had of the German Rogue's inner machinations
to keep him from the road
."

John put down the paper and cried,
breathless, "And he 
still
 has not managed to make
the paper call him the Danish Doom!"

"And that name makes him almost sound like a
terrible cake!" Georgiana cried.

They laughed some more, and she added fondly.
"I hope we see him again!"

"He will be too clever to come anywhere near
us for a great while," John said, wiping his eyes. "But I suspect
we will meet again, and laugh even harder when he tells us the
story himself!"

They smiled in the light of the fire, feeling
that all was almost perfect, but not wanting to say it. Georgiana
was still in bed, in the sweet confinement where John kept her
until he was certain that she had regained her strength. He would
soon send for Cecily and Dotty; they had heard nothing from Hugh,
who must either be ashamed enough this time to do nothing, or was
planning something to try and destroy them, if he dared.

In the meantime they lived the blessed days
after a great danger is averted, and did not much think of the
woman who every morning left to work with John, but who took her
meals alone in her house, and was now more silent than ever.

Hester knew that there would not be any
divine intervention on her behalf.

She hardly understood how John kept her near
them: she knew that he was very grateful to her, and that he would
not want to send her away to probable destitution, but he had not
yet realized how much she loved him, or seemed to suspect what she
was prepared to do to have him.

Did he think, she wondered, that she had only
taken a fancy to him, and that now she would see that he loved
Georgiana, and her feelings would fade? Did he not see that her
love only became more determined the more love he showed to
Georgiana as she watched them?

She wanted John with a deep frenzy, as if her
feelings were like monsters fighting under the surface of waters
that seemed still; but now she also craved the same happiness that
he and Georgiana had. She had not known him to be capable of
happiness, and refused to understand that it was her rival who gave
it to him through a spirit that was fundamentally joyful when it
was not heavily oppressed.

Hester considered the Countess' generosity of
heart a weakness, and had seen her almost destroyed by it. She did
not understand that the capacity for love which Georgiana had,
which had almost killed her for refusing to forsake a treacherous
sister, was what made John love her with such passion.

No, she did not understand that John already
had her own hard strength and indomitable spirit, and therefore
neither wanted it, nor would be made happy by it. She thought that
like longed for like, that hardness sought hardness, and that
darkness found solace in more darkness.

It was so for her, when she thought of John,
but he longed for joy, and Georgiana had always been, to him, the
path towards the light. 

Poor Hester could not understand these
things, because she had fought for so long on her own, seeing too
well how quickly people took advantage of feebleness. Had she been
able to reflect, she would have seen the similarities in her life
and Georgiana's: how much both of them had loved their fathers, how
both fathers had struggled to keep them from harm, how the deaths
of both men had left their daughters at the mercy of others.

Georgiana had, out of devotion to her
sisters, chosen a destiny that had seemed easy to Hester, a life of
luxury and wealth; Hester had chosen a harder life, of hard work
and independence, for herself alone. Both loved the same man.

The Countess could afford to wallow in that
man's love, it had been there for years. Hester had to earn it, as
she had earned everything she had acquired so far.

She was thinking these things when John came
to tell her that he was going to run errands in town, and to ask
whether she needed anything. He always smiled at her now. She
reminded him that they needed some strong string for the calves,
and new hammers.

As he went off, Hester found herself going to
his house, and up the stairs to Georgiana. There she was, looking
almost as pretty as before, sitting in bed when there was nothing
terribly wrong with her anymore.

"How do you feel?" Hester asked.

Georgiana smiled. "I am well. Only a little
dizzy still, as I lost so much weight."

Hester's eyes were like glass, still and
bereft of expression. "It's almost ten o'clock. Have you had
breakfast?"

"I had tea," Georgiana said.

"That is not going to put you on your feet,"
Hester said. "You need something to eat. I shall make you some eggs
and toast, and there is lamb, and strawberry jam."

"I would hate to trouble you," Georgiana said
earnestly.