Flowers From The Storm (15 page)

Know, Maddygirl? Hear this? Understand feel no self, no pride, sick shame dress coat bootsspurs can’t go?

Understand?

He jolted the bars violently. He knew she could hear him. He knew she was sitting in her straight-backed chair, just out of his sight.

She didn’t come. He sat down, stood up, walked the room again.

A thought came to him, a madman’s thought, the kind of thought he would not ever in his real life have entertained. But here there was no such thing as honor. Here there was only brute force and feeling, and he was going to make her understand. He was going to make her know how it felt to be broken down to the last depth of disgrace, to lose every rag of self-respect. Lure her to her own shame, make her bring it upon herself, as she had seduced him so easily into hot humiliation.

Prim thee thou spinster puritan;
he knew exactly how he was going to do it.

She did not come back. He spent the long day locked up and dressed as if he were a human being, bored and belittled to a passion. Not only a beast, but now a dancing bear, complete with waistcoat, pearl studs and embroidered braces.

Near dark, the sounds of arrival in the courtyard drew him to his window; he watched three carriages being emptied of their occupants, saw Maddy and the Ape and some other keepers divide and shepherd the group inside. The vehicles rolled away, but Maddy and a young man lingered in the drive. The fellow talked to her earnestly, the words distant and impossible for Christian. He leaned his cheek on the bars, watching her listen, seeing her nod and smile as the young man laughed in a giddy way between his sentences.

Another lunatic. Christian despised her patronizing politeness; she would have smiled and nodded just so at him, wouldn’t she? Indulging crazy children and animals.

Not him. She wasn’t going to think of him that way.

Instead of Maddy, it was the Ape who brought his dinner. The keeper was in a hurry and appeared to take no note when Christian didn’t resist the evening routine. Only when he allowed himself to be shackled without defiance did the Ape pause and frown at him. Christian met his speculative glance with cold neutrality.

“Choke got think, eh?” The Ape grinned and gave him a push, almost friendly.

Christian thought of all the methodical and bloody ways to kill him. He stared at the keeper, unblinking.

The Ape, no fool, grunted and took his hand away. They understood one another.

To lie chained in the dark and plan a seduction required a potent bend of reality. A twist of ferocity and humor, to swallow his affliction whole, to face the truth of himself and then proceed as if it were merely an inconvenience: a husband or a lover, a perverse floor plan of widely separate bedrooms in a country house, an inquisitive aunt or cousin, something to be worked around in pursuit of the ultimate goal. A challenge.

Christian knew women well. He’d frightened her. That would have to be redressed. And he was an inmate. She considered herself his nurse.

As to that… he thought of the way she’d looked at him when he’d stood before her naked.
Quakerspinster prudish nurse agog. No shriek run, not her. Shock. Scandal
.

Curious.

He looked up through the darkness with a slow smile. He could do it. Damn him if he couldn’t. And enjoy it too.

“We shall take him on a trial outing tomorrow. Up to the village and back in the carriage. Did you put the new clothes on him?”

Maddy stood in front of Cousin Edward’s desk. “Yes.” He glanced at her meager sentences in the notebook. “Don’t overlook details. Always write down such things, and how he responds. Did he tolerate them well?”

She put her hands together, squeezed them, and pulled them apart. “What dost thou mean?”

“His reaction. Any attempt to remove them? Tear them?”

“No. Oh, no. Nothing… nothing of that sort.”

“No reaction at all, then?”

“He was—he has difficulty dressing himself. I believe that makes him angry. I helped him to buckle the spurs.”

“Spurs?” He sat back in his chair. “Why on earth spurs, dear?”

“With the boots, I thought—all the gentlemen in town—it seems they always wear them.”

“Do they?” He grunted. “That’s the fashion, is it?” He looked down again at her notes. “Shaved…

dressed… nothing else? He was calm all day?”

“Yes. Except that—he was a little—” She searched for a word. “—restless, in the morning. He banged on the door briefly. But he didn’t shout.”

Cousin Edward flipped the notebook closed. “I believe you may be starting to exert some calming influence. We’re seeing a little of his former personality here, I think. He has more pride at stake in the presence of a lady. We can use that to encourage self-control. Dress him tomorrow to go out. I dislike to restrain him for the entire trip to London, but we’ll see how he conducts himself on a short jaunt first. Tell Larkin we’ll leave at eleven.”

In the morning, Maddy entered Jervaulx’s room with her head bent, stepping aside for Larkin to leave.

She’d selected the clothes and taken them down early, leaving them in a neat stack on the chair where Larkin would pass in hopes that the male attendant would manage the task of dressing Jervaulx. She’d decided, after long prayer and meditation, that she’d overstepped the true bounds of her Opening—exceeded the divine direction of her Inner Light. She must have, for clearly she was goading Jervaulx to deeper frustration, less acceptance and patience in God’s will instead of more.

Part of her wished to stay away entirely, and part of her wished to persist, offering what she could of friendship. Half a night of prayer had not convinced her which part was the Reasoner and which a true leading. She was here because Cousin Edward had ordered her to see that Jervaulx was ready for his outing, not because she had any certainty anymore about what she was ordained to do.

Larkin stopped, turning back as the bars rang closed. “You put this on him, Miss?” He held up the heavy signet ring.

Maddy nodded.

“If he hit out, wearing this,” Larkin said, “he’d mark me for life. And you—he’d crack your jaw like an egg, Miss.”

She was silent.

“Don’t put it on him,” Larkin said.

He walked away, carrying a bundle of linen and clothes.

Maddy turned to Jervaulx. He stood in his place near the window, half-silhouetted. She’d chosen a gray coat this time, with the purple and gold waistcoat, trousers of a darker slate and shoes instead of boots.

Larkin had already fastened the buttons, tied the neck cloth in a common, utilitarian square—but Jervaulx had looked an aristocrat even in the asylum’s cheap, tight-fitting clothes. Mundane neck cloth or not, he was an absolute duke now.

He gazed at her stoically. Then he made a slight bow, as if she were a lady.

“Friend,” Maddy said in greeting.

He smiled a little. She came further into the room. When he moved, however, she stopped at a safe distance from him.

Unexpectedly he knelt, a slow and careful move, reaching beneath the bed, drawing something that looked like a rough white stone from the dark space. Maddy prepared to dart for the door, but he only stood up, unthreatening, and held out the raw object toward her.

It was the chunk of plaster that he’d knocked from the wall. When she hesitated, he took a step closer, lifted her hand and set the broken piece in it. He made a soft sound, touching the flat surface with his finger.

The substance left chalky dust on his hand. Maddy looked down and saw the scratches on the plaster face. A tilt toward the light revealed them—barely—as words. In spite of the crude abrasions and awkwardly pitched letters, though, she knew his handwriting well enough. She could read it.

Pretty Mady Sory

She gazed down at the crumbly offering.

“All right. Yes. Thou art sorry.” She kept her face hidden as she spoke. She pressed her lips together, holding the chunk of broken wall between her hands, and whispered, “Not as sorry as I am.”

He touched her chin, lifted her face on his hand.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “About the clothes. Do you understand?”

She couldn’t tell. She looked into his eyes, into that dramatic pitchy dark blue. A faint, faint smile seemed to come into his face. He let her go, with a light hint of a caress along her cheek. Maddy moved back uncertainly.

“Wouldst thou wish to go to the village today?” she asked.

His face changed indefinably, lost the faint smile. He stared intently at her lips.

“Go,” she said. “A drive. The village.”

“Go.”

She nodded. “Drive to the village.”

“Maddy girl—
go
?”

“Thou. You. Jervaulx. You go.”

He nodded. He touched her arm. “Maddygirl… go?”

“Oh. Yes. I’m to go, too. If you like.”

He smiled at her openly. Maddy curled her fingers around the piece of plaster. It was quite a vivid experience to be the single center of that smile. She returned it with a brief and nervous one of her own.

Escorted between the Ape and the medical man, Christian walked outside. He kept his gaze locked on Maddygiri’s chaste figure in front of him, her black dress and white collar, the absurd sugar scoop on her head. He felt the cold sun on his face and shoulders, heard the soft blow of the horses, the creak of harness, the sound of feet on the gravel drive.

He felt overwhelmed by the outside, all the light and open distance, lawns and lake, trees. He’d thought that the moment he ever got the chance, he would break and run, but it was all he could do to keep from turning and retreating to the house and his cell. Maddy and pride kept him moving forward; he would not be a spineless lunatic, not here, not now.

The carriage waited. She climbed inside with a servant’s help. Christian followed. Pain lanced through his back as he hiked himself up. He caught a groan between his teeth. The interior smelled of pipe smoke and stale lavender water, a massive vulgarity of rich damask and velvet trimmed purple.

Christian felt panic overtaking him, for no reason but that it was the outside. He was afraid someone would see him; he’d be required to understand jabbering strangers; he’d be expected to talk. He grabbed the balance strap on one side and Maddy’s hand on the other, gripping both.

She turned and looked at him. As the Ape and the medical man took the forward seat, Christian held her hand harder, with no intention of letting go.

The medical man smiled benignly. “Bit frite you?” he said. “No dange. Say fuzz.”

Christian met the pudgy simper with disdain. If he chose to hold on to what seemed solid to him, it was none of this jumped-up commoner’s business. The man was ridiculous in a gentleman’s breeches and spurred boots this morning—as if he’d ever in his miserable provincial life got out of his country dogcart and mounted a blood horse.

Amid the sounds of harness and the low resonance of the team’s hooves, the carriage made the familiar lurch and began to roll. Christian let it press him back against the cushions, creating a dull ache in his injury. He concentrated on controlling himself, watching the landscape, not trying for words to name the things he couldn’t name. The driveway was long and smooth; of everyone in the carriage, he was the only one hanging on to the balance strap as if to a lifeline. He made an effort, commanding his hand to let go, trying to remember that this was all ordinary to him: a carriage, the outside, the grass, the trees just beginning to turn bright for the autumn.

The carriage reached the gates of the property, passed through and began a winding tour among hedge-rowed lanes. Against the pale gold of grain fields, the pastures were still brilliant green. He stared out the window, feeling uneasy.

Harvest, work, tenants, day men, swinging metal things, steady rhythm… not there!

He had a shock, a terrible intense recollection of Jervaulx Castle, the Welsh marches and wild country, nothing like this manicured view. He should have been there. He’d forgot it. How could he have forgot?

Sheep wool… work… tenants
—
tenants
—
tenants
…

The harvest at Jervaulx—who was managing it?

They came upon the village suddenly: a few red-roofed and plastered cottages, a church, a public house under the sign of a black bull. The vehicle slowed. It stopped before the tavern, swayed as the footman climbed down to open the door. Christian felt taken by surprise, flustered, still trying to follow the new thought of his home and the harvest.

He caught the balance strap again, squeezed hard on it and Maddy’s hand. The medical man got out. He stood at the steps and looked at Christian with that bland and expectant smile. The landlord came to the door of the tap-room, wiping his hands on his apron, good-humored with his easy greeting, as if he’d expected them.

Christian didn’t move. He wouldn’t get out here, expose himself as a lunatic in public.

“Come?” the medical man said.

Christian glared at him.

“Get on,” the Ape said and stood up, bent beneath the low ceiling. He motioned to Christian to go in front of him.