Cecily was trying not to cry, but her eyes
had nevertheless filled with tears.
"We will find a way to refuse him," Georgiana
whispered to her.
Bess, who had been leaving the room, stopped
and pricked her ears. She had not heard what had been said, but she
knew Georgiana would try to free Cecily. Bess wanted all her
sisters married to rich man, as she could no longer marry anybody
and would need help later in life.
Besides, she needed tales of insubordination
and betrayal to carry to Hugh, so that he would forsake Georgiana's
bed once again.
The Countess had not yet conceived, after
three months of vigorous attempts by her husband. Her distaste for
his performances had made him bitter once again; she had not been
able to help showing her lack of enthusiasm. Things were worse than
before, for now Bess hated her ten times as much, and became
incensed when she was ignored in favor of her sister, though her
position had become so precarious that she dared not trouble Hugh
about it. She remained sweet and alluring to him, while taking her
rage out on the other girls, and could not stop taunting Georgiana
with the fact that the mysterious Hester had managed to go live
with John.
"He must have forgotten you completely," she
told the Countess, who did her best to hide her despair.
"Why do you tolerate Bess, Georgiana?" Cecily
asked now, following her eyes. "She is never kind to you."
Georgiana shrugged. "I always think of what
papa would say."
"Even he would tell you to throw her
out!"
"He wouldn't, because she has nowhere to
go."
"She did that to herself!"
"It doesn't matter. That doesn't change
anything."
"You should at least tell her that should she
continue this way..."
"I can't threaten my sister," Georgiana
frowned. "Something happened to her, but I can't forget that once
she loved me, and was patient with me."
"That was long ago!" Cecily insisted,
frowning.
"Still, I can't throw her out, I won't, and I
won't fight with her all the time. But now, as to you, be as pretty
as a picture tonight, and as demure and silent as one – dance with
Mr. Burke and listen to him, but if he presses you for an answer
say that you still need a moment to think!"
It was Cecily's turn to sigh, "Giana, sooner
or later I will have to say yes to someone!"
"Let us make it later," Georgiana said. "Let
us see who else appears. One never knows!"
She did not want to add that Cecily could not
understand the horror of being in bed with a man she did not love,
and the bliss of being with the one she adored. She only smiled and
patted her hand.
That night a ball took place at Halford, and
Mr. Burke was there with his pudgy hands and watery eyes, and
Cecily listened to him, afterwards taking a lot more pleasure in
dancing with some dashing officers.
Georgiana sparkled with jewels as she led a
minuet with her husband.
It was a long, tiresome evening, with no
pleasure in it for Georgiana; it only had the virtue of tiring Hugh
as well, so that instead of trailing after her, or of pulling her
by the arm to his room, he said goodnight as he yawned, looking
three parts drunk and one part asleep.
His wife sat in her room as the maids removed
her finery and brushed the powder out of her hair. After she
dismissed them she looked at herself and thought that life had
become a matter of what was less bad, rather than what was better
or worse. It was less bad that she should sleep alone in her
enormous bed than that she should have to bear the presence of her
husband.
She was deep in reflection as the door behind
her opened, and she turned around in fright, thinking she had
summoned Hugh by dwelling on how much she wanted him to stay
away.
The breath caught in her throat as she saw
John enter. Was this a dream?
She leapt up from the vanity table and ran
towards him. He caught her in the air, and they began kissing
hungrily.
"How did you get in?" she asked in a
whisper.
"The trusty old tree outside the nursery. I
used to climb it to visit my father after he had gone to bed," he
said, and still holding her he moved back to the door and locked
it.
They stood kissing, and Georgiana pressed
against him as if she were afraid that he would disappear in thin
air. "You said you would never come to me! If you knew how much I
needed to see you tonight..."
"I do know, my love. I do know."
"Oh, John, I wish all broken oaths were this
sweet..."
"We must be quiet," he reminded her. "Or I
might have to kill that idiot husband of yours after all..."
"Yes, yes," she replied, removing his
jacket.
They lay down on the bed, and held each
other's faces to kiss till their lips hurt. Soon John was in her;
she couldn't help crying out with how much she wanted him, and he
whispered,
"Quiet!"
She tried to be quiet, but she wanted him too
much.
Three weeks later, an urgent matter occupied
everyone's thoughts: an outbreak of smallpox killed several
people around the countryside, halfway between John at his farm and
Georgiana at Halford.
The dreaded illness was easy to catch, and
quick to kill. It seemed that the great estates had taken
precautions, such as minimizing the number of servants who were on
attendance, and not letting them go back to their homes or
villages. They also did not allow almost anyone to go to them. Fear
of contagion kept most people from traveling.
John worried about Georgiana and her sisters,
but thought that, through the precautions the estates were taking,
they would be safer than most people.
The opposite was true for him and those on
his farm, as they were near the beginning of the infection and
dealt with people in Woodbridge for provisions, and with others who
came through.
John decided that he would get a procedure
called variolation which, as he explained to Hester, Abby and
William, was risky and could, in fact, bring the disease rather
than prevent it. He also added that, if they were not inoculated,
it was best that they should go away until the outbreak was
over.
Hester immediately said that she would get
variolation too, because if John were risking himself she wanted to
do the same thing; also, she would not be sent away. Abby was too
afraid to do something that went against her common sense and left
for town, as did William.
John and Hester went to Shaftesbury, where a
Dr. Hopkins was an advocate and practitioner of inoculation. It was
a terrifying thing to have the liquid from an infected pustule
rubbed into a small cut between their thumb and finger, but Dr.
Hopkins explained that the infection he was giving them came from a
mild case of smallpox, and would be localized. They would develop
symptoms in the next few days, but being strong and healthy at the
time of variolation, they should neither succumb to the disease nor
undergo scarring.
They now needed to go home, withstand the
symptoms that would follow, and afterwards be healthy enough to do
the work of four people.
Both became feverish within a few days, John
in his house and Hester in hers. He saw that he had developed sores
around his hand, but they did not seem to spread. He rode out the
fever, the malaise and the headache, and then the sores became
pustules, but still did not spread. The sores grew scabs within a
few days and fell out, and he was left with a few marks on his hand
and forearm. When he felt better he went to find Hester, who was
feeling more ill than he had been, though her sores had not spread
any more than his.
He sat by her, made her drink a little beef
broth, and carefully wiped the sweat from her face and neck, trying
to make her feel more comfortable. Hester almost wished that her
sickness would last, even as she was overwhelmed by nausea and
chills, because John would be there, looking at her with
compassion, touching her.
But she was a strong, healthy being, and in a
few days she was better, and John was back behind the walls of his
house, avoiding her as before unless it was time for work.
John had sent a note to Cecily, which he
hoped would not be confiscated, asking her and her sisters to be
inoculated, giving her Dr. Hopkins' name and urging them to trust
him.
He did not expect an answer to the note, but
there was one. A groom from Halford appeared a few days after the
note was sent, as John had his mid-morning luncheon after returning
from buying provisions in town. He saw the man through the window
and ran outside. He knew the groom, who lost no time saying,
"Master John, your note to Miss Cecily was delivered, though she is
not at Halford. Her ladyship the Countess had her sisters taken to
a convent for safekeeping, but..."
"What, man?" John asked impatiently. He
feared the man's flustered look.
"Miss Blake -- Miss Elizabeth Blake, that is
-- has died, sir. And her ladyship, who nursed her, has fallen ill
as well..."
Hester had silently come to stand behind
John. He had frozen in horror as the groom continued.
"Sir, his lordship, the Earl, has gone to
London and his brother is there as well. Lady Halford...she is all
alone, sir!"
"That miserable dog!" John snarled in a voice
that carried through the fields.
He ran to the house, took a jacket from
behind the door and then leapt on his horse, which was still
saddled.
Hester ran to him and took the horse by
bridles, hanging on to them for dear life while the animal tried to
move his head sideways. "What will you do, are you mad? If you go
there you'll disgrace her, it will be the end..."
"Let go of me!" he cried, pulling the reins
so violently from her that the horse pounded the ground with its
hooves, narrowly missing her. John gained control of the animal and
urged it forward as she fell on the ground.
Hester got up, undaunted, and ran to the
gate, tears of impotence in her eyes, but he never looked back.
It was a two hour ride to Halford, and John
got there at noon. He rode up to the front door and dismounted
there, leaving his horse to the groom who had ridden with him.
The footmen at the entrance did not stop him.
It was not, as in London, fear and surprise which kept them rooted
to the spot: most of these servants knew John, as he had been at
Halford often when his father was alive, and knew him to be an
honest and brave man who had never given himself airs. Furthermore,
the Countess, who was a kind mistress, was dying inside the castle
alone, and she did not deserve such an end.
John ran up the stairs as the servants
huddled below. It was an empty house, and his steps echoed
everywhere.
That wretched coward had left his wife to die in the
huge cold castle by herself, and had once more taken himself to
safety.
But John's anger gave way to horror and pity
when he opened the door to Georgiana's room and saw the figure on
the bed. There was a woman sitting next to her in a chair, a woman
whose scarred face revealed that she had survived the disease,
could not catch it again, and therefore could nurse others.
John threw an angry look at the woman's black
attire. How dared she sit there like a crow? How dared she frighten
Georgiana?
The Countess' lovely dark hair was spread on
the pillow and her face, neck and hands were marred by angry red
spots. Her eyes were closed, and her breath shallow. She clearly
had a fever, and shook with chills.
The woman stood up, "Who are you?"
"Move away!" he said.
The woman did not dare disobey him. He sat
down next to Georgiana and put his hand on her head. He was afraid
that he might hurt her if he touched a sore by mistake.
She opened her eyes with difficulty, and they
remained on his face for a while before her lips cracked open
enough for her to ask, "John?"
"Yes, Georgie!"
Her eyes looked around as she ascertained
that she was indeed in her room, at Halford.
"John, how did you get in?"
He was smiling at her, trying to hide his
terror. "Who would keep me out, my love?"
She started to say something, but her throat
moved without sound.
"Who said a rat abandons a ship?" she managed
to say, and laughed.
"Not this rat!" he smiled.
He bent to kiss her, but she shook her head
feebly. "No, no, John! Go away, you must not be infected!"
"I can't be infected," he said. "I have been
inoculated. Why did you not do it, my sweet?"
Again her throat moved convulsively long
before she was able to say, "Hugh did not want us to... And Bess is
dead, John!"
Her fever was very high, and there was no
time for him to be angry. He sent a messenger to Shaftesbury, to
tell Dr. Hopkins that the Countess required his services. The
doctor appeared in the evening, after John had opened the windows
of Georgiana’s room, as Dr. Hopkins had taught him, and sat by her
side through a very high fever which, he feared, could take her
away at any moment.
Dr. Hopkins was glad to see that John had
followed his instructions, and managed to help keep Georgiana's
fever down by applying cold towels on her, taking care that the
sores should not be rubbed. She shivered and moaned, and was
covered in sweat, but she made it through the night.
However, the next day the red spots filled
with a clear liquid and at night the high fever returned. Again
Georgiana survived, and John never left her side.
On the third day the spots were filled with
pus. Dr. Hopkins, who had gone back to his practice the day before,
had told John that this would happen, but that as long as the
infection did not go to her lungs, and the fever was kept down, she
had a chance of surviving. There was also the danger of her going
blind, and John dabbed at the pustules nearest to her eyes, though
he left the others alone so as to avoid scarring. He listened to
her breathing and heard that it was slightly shallow, but not
raucous.