Borrowed Dreams (Scottish Dream Trilogy) (11 page)

Millicent’s gaze drifted toward the
door. The valets had left it open when they’d gone out. In the hallway, she saw
Ohenewaa, standing silently, staring at the sleeping form of the earl. The old
woman had kept her distance for the entire week, and Millicent had not pressed
her. She had simply let her know that she was welcome.

Ohenewaa’s gaze drifted from the bed
and came to rest on Millicent’s face. A moment later, like an apparition, she
disappeared from the doorway.

“And we shan’t let him spend his
life in a stupor, either,” Millicent whispered to the manservant. “There must
be other ways of dealing with this condition. We just need to find the right
kind of medicine and the right kind of doctor.”

****

Instead of going downstairs, she
walked to her own bedchamber and closed the door. The sight of a person’s
suffering was nothing new to Ohenewaa. For more years than she cared to count,
pain and death had been all that surrounded her. On board slave ships, on the
sun-scorched fields of the sugar islands, inside the walls of the rat-infested
shacks she had seen the unspeakable; she had experienced the unimaginable.

Ohenewaa knew it was fate that she
had been sold to Dombey, a doctor of mediocre skill and the deepest
self-loathing. She had spent more than forty years with him, until his death.
In that time she had always been at his side, assisting him in the islands and
on the slave ships as well. She had learned the Englishman’s medicine, what
there was of it. But on those long, horrible trips from Africa, she had seen
the rituals of
okomfo
and
dunseni
and the
B
onsam komfo
and had carried deep within her the ways of the Ashanti priests, and the
medicine man, and the witch doctor.

Ohenewaa had gathered this
knowledge and kept it safe, like the most precious gold, and with it she had
tried again and again to help her people.

Her people. The whites didn’t trust
her ways, and she let them be. When Dombey himself had been sick—even though he
knew she had gifts—he had sent for his own kind. Ohenewaa didn’t know if she
could have helped him. Cures lay in the hands of the goddess. But he did not want her, so she had let him be. Why bend her ways? Why touch the ice?

But with this woman, Millicent, she
could feel the ice inside her melting. Since her arrival, Ohenewaa had spent
many nights visiting with the black families at Melbury Hall. The stories they
told of Squire Wentworth were horrifying. His brutal handling of the people here
was much the same as what she had witnessed on the plantations in Jamaica. His bailiffs had obviously been the same brutes he brought back from there. While
telling her all of this, however, every person’s account had been filled with
praise for the mistress. Though they had suffered terribly under Wentworth’s
cruelty, so had she—and often for her open support of them.  

Ohenewaa had seen many white women
of Millicent’s station during her time on the islands. Whether they were a
plantation owner’s wife or a pampered mistress, the women there saw the slaves only
when they were issuing a command or gathering for the entertainment of seeing a
black man whipped, often by other blacks who had sold their souls to serve as
overseers. In Jamaica, at a place called Worthy Plantation, she had seen a
slave stripped and flogged while a group of white women stood with their
children and stared openly at the man’s genitals as he screamed in pain. And it was not the only time. In the islands, she had seen more than she ever wanted to see.

Ohenewaa walked to the table on
which she had already collected bowls and bottles of seeds and herbs and
liquids. Jonah had bought some of the ingredients back for her from his last
trip to St. Albans. The black women of Melbury Hall who had brought seeds with
them from Jamaica, or gathered them during past spring and summer months, gave
other herbs to her. And even though it was winter, Ohenewaa had found other
useful things as well in the kitchen and in the woods and fields around Melbury
Hall.

Her collection was growing.

Tonight, instead of working with
her herbs, Ohenewaa moved to the hearth and crouched before it. She spread some
leaves from a nearby basket on the coals and picked up four stones. 

There was a soft knock on her door.

Ohenewaa threw the stones on the
floor before her and called to Lady Aytoun to enter.

*****

Startled by the sight of the room,
Millicent forgot to ask how it was that Ohenewaa had known it was she at the
door. The simple guest room at Melbury Hall had been altered greatly. It was
now a place somehow ancient and mysterious. Everything was changed. Jars of
varying sizes sat on tables and on the floor. Dried herbs hung above the
hearth. The closed draperies dimmed the chamber, which was lit only by the
fire. Fascinating and exotic scents infused the air. But Millicent saw nothing
menacing or frightening. In fact, the chamber had a calming, serene atmosphere.

Shaking off her surprise at the
change, Millicent focused on her reason for coming. There would be time in the
future for satisfying her curiosity about the woman and her ways. 

“I am at the point of defying
traditional English methods of medical treatment. I was wondering if there is
any insight you might give me.”

Ohenewaa continued to stare at the
stones spread before her. Millicent quietly approached the hearth.

“Dr. Parker believes the only thing
that can be done for Lord Aytoun is to keep him sedated with opium. My concern
is that the drug is doing nothing for him. In fact, I wonder if it is doing him
more harm than good.” She sat down on the edge of a chair. “You worked with Dr.
Dombey for a long time. If I were to cut back on the medicine, if I were to
eliminate it completely, would I seriously hurt him? Could he die because of my
meddling?”

Ohenewaa picked up a half-burned
leaf from the hearth and waved it over the small stones. “He is drowning in a
sea of mists. You have not seen him as he is.” The dark eyes looked up and met
Millicent’s. “Are
you
prepared to see him and deal with him as a whole
person? Do you have the courage to free his mind?”

Millicent remembered the rumors,
the accusations, and the scandals. She had told her friend Rebecca that the
Earl of Aytoun was not the man he had once been. Of course, the Aytoun she had
seen had been a man continually sedated by drugs. Was she ready to face a
changed man? She thought of the broken creature doubled over the washbasin.

“Yes.”

Ohenewaa studied the stones for a
long time and then seemed to smile to herself. “You can take away the
laudanum,” she said, gathering up the stones. “And no, ‘twill not kill him.
Your instincts are correct. Heal the mind first.”  

“But what of the pain? Is there
anything else that I should give to him instead? I do not want him to suffer
unnecessarily.”

“We must wait and see.”

Millicent looked about the room
again, taking in the aroma, the bottles, the dance of the shadows over the
smoke in the hearth. There was a presence in the room, a power that she could
not explain. She turned her attention back to the old woman. “Your knowledge is
not bound by the limits of English medicine, I believe. Is there anything you
would recommend that I do to help improve his lordship’s other ailments?”

“Wait until you have taken the
first step. This will be a monumental one. We will talk again after that.”  

Reluctantly, Millicent rose to her
feet. There were so many other questions that she had, but she understood
Ohenewaa’s concern. Nothing could be done for the earl until he had gained the
full capacity of his mind. “Thank you.”

Ohenewaa nodded slightly; her gaze
was fixed on her fire again. Giving a last glance around the room, Millicent
started for the door. Just outside in the hall, she was surprised to find two of
the African women waiting.

Millicent stood aside and watched
them enter. One was carrying a bowl and pitcher of water, another holding a
folded linen cloth. The former slaves at Melbury Hall respected Ohenewaa. They
treated her like a queen or priestess. And Millicent could see why. She had
felt the power of the old woman, too.

Not having a steward to run the
affairs of Melbury Hall was taking its toll on Millicent’s time. Jonah was a
wonderful help, but with the planting season approaching, many decisions that
would affect them all needed to be made. Millicent knew she needed to speed up
the process of finding a suitably experienced steward. Sir Oliver Birch was already contacting potential applicants, but London was simply too far away from the
farmlands of Hertfordshire.

Sitting in the small study that she
used for estate business, Millicent glanced at the guttering candle as she
finished writing her letter to Reverend Trimble at Knebworth Village. He knew much of what went on in the surrounding countryside, and she hoped he might
offer some help or some advice.

Millicent glanced up when she saw
Violet enter.

“Can I help you get ready for bed,
m’lady?”

“I am too restless to go up yet.”
She sealed the letter in her hand. “But why don’t you go up yourself? You look
tired, Violet. You probably are not getting much sleep since we moved those two
girls into your room. I am sorry.”

“No, m’lady. We’re settled in
nicely. I enjoy having them with me.”

It was so much like the young woman
not to complain. Over Violet’s shoulder, Millicent’s gaze was drawn to the door
as she saw one of her husband’s valets appear, holding a lit taper.

“What’s wrong, John?”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, m’lady,” he
said. “I know ye left ‘slordship not an hour ago, but he’s awake now and cross
as a one-legged rooster, he is. Now, ‘fore we give him anything, ye said ye
wanted to be told, and we’re doin’ as ye said, mum. So I come runnin’.”

“Thank you.” Millicent immediately
rose from the desk. “Why don’t you go on to bed, Violet.” 

The young servant curtsied and
moved off. Millicent followed the man toward the stairs. “Where are Mr. Gibbs
and Will?”

“Will went down to the kitchen for
some soup, jist in case ‘slordship would allow a wee mouthful, and Mr. Gibbs is
up in the room with ‘slordship.”

This afternoon, after leaving
Ohenewaa, Millicent had returned to Aytoun’s room and had watched him sleep.
While there, she had pondered the physical ailments that were plaguing him. He
had broken his arm and both his legs over six months ago, and she had no idea
why he still could not use them. Gibbs said that one of the doctors had blamed
it on the fall, referring to it as a form of “palsy.” The dowager had commented
about the earl’s melancholia, but had not related it to his injuries, only to
the accident. Considering that Aytoun had lost his wife and his independence of
movement in the same horrible fall, Millicent could well understand the
thinking of her mother-in-law.

As she approached her husband’s
bedchamber, Millicent thought about melancholia. It was an ailment that she
herself had struggled with during one of the lowest points in her marriage to
Wentworth. She had lost a child in the first part of her pregnancy because of
the squire’s violent rage. Physically beaten and feeling utterly defeated,
Millicent had been more than ready to take refuge in the oblivion of the
illness for the rest of her life. But at that stage of their lives, Wentworth
had not been ready to commit her to Bedlam. He had still needed her for his
social climbing. It was only when her friend Rebecca had come to the
neighboring estate with Lord Stanmore that she had started fighting the
disorder.

At the earl’s door, she could hear
raised voices, and she lifted a hand to knock. Neither man paused or looked at her
when Millicent and the valet entered.

“You will do as I order, you
cankered piece of dung, or you can just carry your wretched carcass out of my
sight. Do you hear, you miserable, disloyal, dog-faced…”

Millicent paused just inside the
door with John right behind her. She stared as the vehemence poured out of her
husband. The number of words he had uttered surpassed the total he had spoken
in nearly a fortnight.

“Curse me as ye wish, m’lord, but
ye’ll not be getting a drop of this poison until yer wife gives her blessing.”
Gibbs stood between the bed and the table that contained the medicine.

“You filthy, spineless cur,” the
earl spat out. “You take orders from me, not from that foul bitch. Do you hear
me?”

Gibbs turned in that instant and
saw her. He shook his head in disgust as his master continued cursing one and
all with equal vigor. Walking away from the bed, he joined Millicent by the
door. “Do not take anything of what he says to heart, m’lady. Believe me, this is not his lordship talking. I think ‘tis best if ye left him to us for
tonight. He looks to be no company for man or beast.”

She stayed where she was, refusing
to be intimidated again in her own house. “Why is he so angry, Mr. Gibbs?”

“He wants the medicine. Stubborn as
a goat he is, mum. He says he’ll take no food, but only the laudanum.”

“Is he in any physical pain?”

“I do not think so, m’lady,” Gibbs
answered in a low voice. “Those bones of his are long healed. Not that he ever
complained of pain whilst they were mending.”

Millicent sent a sharp look at the
bed as the raging maniac referred to her as a lump of stale, mouse-eaten
cheese.

“His lordship wants the medicine,”
the servant repeated, “because he knows ‘tis sure to calm his mind. It makes
him sleep, if ye wish to call it that—fretful as ‘tis—but at least he rests.”

The earl grew quiet, and Millicent
realized that he was trying to catch his breath. For a moment, genuine worry
overshadowed her desire to teach her new husband a lesson in manners. “Is this
the worst you have seen him?”