Wideacre (Wideacre Trilogy) (65 page)

‘No,’ I said lightly. ‘I passed him on the stairs this morning but we did not speak.’

Her look was suddenly intent. ‘You said nothing to each other?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said casually. ‘I had Richard with me, and John looked ill. I did not want him upsetting the child.’

Celia’s face was aghast. ‘Beatrice, I am so afraid!’ she exclaimed. I turned to her in surprise.

‘Celia, what is it?’ I asked, full of concern. ‘What has happened?’

‘It is John,’ she said, nearly in tears. ‘I think he is delirious with drink.’

I feigned shock, and sat beside her on the window seat, taking her embroidery from her still hands.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What is happening?’

Celia gave a muffled sob and dipped her face into her hands. ‘John came to me just after breakfast,’ she said. ‘He looked dreadful and he talked wildly. He said you were a witch, Beatrice. That you were a woman possessed by the land. He said that you had killed for the land. That you were trying to kill him. That you had promised that everywhere he went there would be drink until he was dead from it. And when I told him that he was dreaming, he looked at me wildly and said, “You too! She has captured you too!” and he dashed from the room.’

I put my arm around her and Celia leaned her soft pliant body against me and wept into my shoulder.

‘There, there,’ I said. ‘Don’t cry so, Celia. It sounds so very bad, but I am sure we can cure John in the end. It sounds indeed as if he is half crazed, but we can help him.’

Celia shuddered with a sob and was still.

‘He talks as if it were all your fault,’ she whispered. ‘He talks as if you were a monster. He calls you a witch, Beatrice.’

‘It is often the way,’ I said steadily, sadly. ‘Men who drink so much often turn against the very people they love most in the world. It is part of the madness, I think.’

Celia nodded, and straightened up, drying her eyes.

‘He had a drink last night,’ she said sadly. ‘I was not able to prevent that. He told me it simply appeared in his room. He said you had cursed him with drink every time he reaches out a hand.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose he would blame me for everything. He loves me still in his heart. That is why he has turned against me now.’

Celia looked at me wonderingly. ‘You are so calm,’ she said.

‘He seems to me to be going mad, and yet you are so calm, Beatrice.’

I raised my head and looked at her tired face with eyes that were filled with tears. ‘I have had much sorrow in my life, Celia,’ I said sadly. ‘I lost my papa when I was only fifteen, and my mama just after my nineteenth birthday. Now I fear my husband is going mad with drink. I weep inside, Celia. But I have learned to be brave while there is work, and plans to be made.’

Celia nodded respectfully.

‘You are braver and stronger than I,’ she said. ‘For I have been in tears all morning ever since I saw John. I simply do not know what we can do.’

I nodded. ‘The problem is too great for us to try to handle alone,’ I said. ‘He must go to some specialist who will be able to care for him properly. Dr Rose should come this week with his partner and they could take John back to Bristol with them.’

Celia’s face lightened with hope.

‘But would he go?’ she asked. ‘He was talking so wildly, Beatrice, as if he trusted no one. He might refuse to go with them.’

‘If they agree to take him, agree that he needs treatment, we can force him to take treatment with them,’ I said. ‘They can sign a contract promising to house and treat him until he is well enough to come home.’

‘I didn’t know,’ said Celia. ‘I know so little about such things.’

‘Nor did I,’ I said ruefully. ‘But I have had to learn. This Dr Rose writes that if John can be persuaded to meet him and just talk with him he will be able to advise us. Do you think John would take your advice and agree to meet Dr Rose and his partner if you asked it of him? If you gave him your word it was for the best?’

Celia frowned. ‘I think so. Yes, I am sure he would,’ she said. ‘He accused you and Harry of being in some dreadful league for Wideacre, but he does not seem to doubt my affection for him. If this Dr Rose comes soon I am sure John will see him if I promise him that it is in his own interest.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Then you must keep my name out of it altogether. Just let him think that they are doctors you have found for him, and then he will trust them and talk to them, and his poor delirious mind will have some peace.’

Celia snatched at my hand and kissed it.

‘You are good, Beatrice,’ she said chokingly. ‘I think I must have been as crazy with worry as John is with drink. Of course I will do whatever you think best. I know all you are thinking of is the good of all of us. I will trust you.’

I smiled sweetly and pulled her face up so I could kiss her cheek.

‘Dear little Celia,’ I said lovingly. ‘How could you ever have doubted me?’

She clung to my hands like a drowning woman.

‘You can free us from this madness, I know,’ she whispered. ‘I have tried and tried but it only seems to become worse. But you can make it all right again, Beatrice.’

‘Yes, I can,’ I said gently. ‘Be guided by me and nothing can be as bad as this again. We can save John.’

She gave another little sob and I slid my arm around her waist. We sat quiet in the window seat warmed by the winter sun on our backs for a long peaceful time.

I left the parlour well satisfied. Celia was snared by her own faith in me, and I had made John’s accusations mere evidence of his madness. In the mire of sin that held us all and muddied every clarity, John’s solitary clear vision was incomprehensible. They could have as many afternoons as they wished drinking strong sweet tea and trying to keep John from alcohol. Drunk or sober, as soon as my name was mentioned John would sound like a madman. But during those afternoons Celia, loyally and faithfully doing my witch’s work, spoke to John of the reputation of Dr Rose, and persuaded him to meet the specialist. She did better than that; she persuaded John that the only way he could be cured of his terror of me and his addiction to drink would be in the haven of Dr Rose’s Bristol clinic. And John, drinking and sobering in a haze of nauseous remorse, haunted by bottles tucked into his bed or between his linen, terrified of the gulf that yawned before him, and seeing my witch’s smile and my cat’s eyes every night and day, promised he would go.

The day of the doctor’s visit John had kept sober. I heard him, in the bedroom next to mine, sleeplessly pacing. When he went to throw himself into bed I heard him groan as he found on the pillows a bottle of port. Then I heard the clatter of his boots on
the west-wing stairs as he fled the house to the icy garden to escape the lure of the drink. I dozed then, and heard him come in, in the early hours of the morning. He must have been frozen. The December mornings showed a heavy frost and often in the night we had a light dusting of snow. John had walked all night, wrapped in his driving coat, tears freezing on his cheeks, in a panic of fear to be away from the house, to set dark miles between him and me. But he was still on my land.

He came home, teeth chattering with the cold, and I heard him poking the fire in his bedroom for the warmth. He kept his back to his bed, and to the warming drink that was his for the pouring. Dozing in my nest of blankets, I heard him walking, walking in the bedroom, like a ferret dipping and running along the front of its cage. Then I slept, and when my maid came with my early-morning chocolate he was quiet.

‘Where’s Mr MacAndrew?’ I asked.

‘In Miss Julia’s nursery,’ said Lucy with surprise in her voice. ‘Mrs Aliens says he went up there early this morning to get warm by the fire, and he has stayed there drinking coffee.’

I nodded and smiled. But I minded little either way. John could stay sober today or he could drink. It made no odds. He was in the grip of a nightmare and was starting to doubt the truths he had so painfully learned. Only one person in the house was safe for John: Celia. He trusted Celia. If he could not be with her, he went to be with her child: Julia. Everywhere else there might be a bottle waiting, or some new madness around the corner. But with her child he was safe. With Celia he was safe.

I dressed in my black morning gown and tied a black ribbon around my head to keep the hair back from my face. My skin glowed against the dull sheen of the gown, a cream rose, my eyes dark as pine trees with sadness. I breakfasted alone and then sat in my office. I did not have long to wait until I heard the sound of a post-chaise, and moved to the main part of the house to greet Dr Rose and his partner, Dr Hilary, in the hall. We went into the library.

‘How long has your husband been drinking, Mrs Mac-Andrew?’ asked Dr Rose. He was a tall man, handsome, brown-haired, brown-eyed, high-coloured. He had been struck by me
when he saw me, slim as an ebony wand in the shadowed hall. But now he had pen and paper before him and was doing his job.

‘I have seen him drinking since his return from Scotland,’ I said. ‘That was seven months ago. Since then he has had few days sober — but I believe whisky was always drunk in his father’s home, and he drank excessively after the death of his mother.’

Dr Rose nodded and made a note. His partner sat beside him in a hard-backed chair and listened. He was a burly giant of a man, blond, with a stolid face. It would be him, I thought, who could be trusted to restrain insane patients, or to fell them with one well-placed blow behind the ear if they became unmanageable.

‘Any reason for him to start drinking?’ asked Dr Rose.

I glanced down at my clasped hands. ‘I had just given birth to our first child,’ I said, my voice low. ‘I had known before our marriage that he was madly jealous, but I had not understood how desperate he was. He was in Scotland when our child was born, and when he came home he became obsessed with the thought that the child was not his.’

Dr Rose pursed his lips and looked professionally neutral. But no man could have avoided sympathizing with such a pretty victim.

‘That night my mama was taken ill and died,’ I said, my voice little more than a whisper. ‘My husband was too drunk to care for her properly and blamed himself for that.’ My head drooped lower. ‘Since then, our lives have been a misery,’ I said.

Dr Rose nodded, and stilled the impulse to pat my hand in comfort.

‘Does he know we are coming?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In his lucid moments he is very anxious to be well again. I think he has taken nothing to drink today. So you should see him at his best.’

The doctor nodded.

‘I thought you might like to meet him informally,’ I said. ‘He is in the parlour with my sister-in-law. We could go there for coffee if you wish.’

‘An excellent idea,’ said Dr Rose, and I led the way to Celia’s parlour.

Celia had done a fine job this morning, keeping John out of
the way while the doctors arrived, and then bringing him to the parlour for coffee with her. He was surprised when I entered the room and when he saw the two men with me his hand trembled so that he had to put his cup down on the table. He shot a look at Celia, which she met with a reassuring smile, but it had shaken his confidence in her that I was involved in this visit.

‘This is Dr Rose and Dr Hilary,’ I said. ‘My sister-in-law, Lady Lacey, and my husband, Mr Mac Andrew.”

No one commented on the fact that I had dropped John’s title from my speech, but Celia’s eyes were on my face as she gave her hand to the two men and bade them sit.

I glided to the coffee pot and poured three cups. John watched Dr Rose like a bird watches a snake, and he kept a wide berth from the massive bulk of Dr Hilary, who eased himself into one of Celia’s slight chairs like a bailiff on house arrest duty.

‘I have heard a little about your problem,’ said Dr Rose to John, his voice son. ‘I think we can probably help you with it. I run a small house outside Bristol where you could come and stay if you wished. There are four patients with me now. One is addicted to laudanum and the other three have trouble with drink. They each have a private room and plenty of quiet and privacy while they come to terms with the cause of their problem and learn to resist the craving. I use limited amounts of laudanum in the early days, so the worst period is eased. And I have had some remarkable successes.’

John nodded. He was as taut as a trip-wire. Celia’s eyes on his face glowed with support and love. He kept glancing at her as a superstitious man might touch a lucky charm. He seemed reassured by the softness of Dr Rose’s voice. But he kept a wary eye on Dr Hilary, who looked at his own boots and sat like a mountain, still on the chair.

‘I am willing to come to you,’ said John, his voice a thread with strain.

‘Good,’ said Dr Rose, smiling reassuringly. ‘I am glad. I am sure we can help you.’

‘I will order your bags to be packed,’ I said and slipped from the room. After I had spoken with John’s valet I lingered in the hall outside to listen.

‘There are just some papers which need to be signed.’ I could
hear Dr Rose’s gentle tones. ‘Just formalities. Sign here, please.’ I heard the rustle of the documents as he passed them to John and then the scratch of the pen as John signed. I smiled, and went into the room.

It was too soon.

I had mistimed my return. I had been impatient when I should have waited longer. John had signed the first document, agreeing to accept Dr Rose’s prescriptions, but he had not reached the power of attorney. My return to the room distracted him, and the pen hovered as he glanced at the close-printed text.

‘What’s this?’ he said, his voice suddenly sharp, his eyes narrowed. Dr Rose glanced across.

‘That is a power of attorney document,’ he said, his tone still smooth. ‘It is usual for people committed to my care to leave their business affairs in the hands of a responsible relation, in case any decision needs to be made while they are with me.’

John glanced wildly around the circle of our reassuring, smiling faces.

‘Committed?’ he said, his trained mind picking out the one, revealing word. ‘Committed? I was coming to you as a voluntary patient.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said Dr Rose. ‘But as a mere formality we always have our patients committed in case their craving for drink becomes too much for them. So we can keep them in, away from suppliers.’