Mistress of My Fate (15 page)

“Then for heaven’s sake, girl, have the fire lit in her chamber!” snapped Lady Stavourley as she hurried to her daughter’s side, “And fetch some of Dr. James’s fever powder, you stupid hussy.”

Unfortunately, the powders did not succeed in suppressing her temperature and by that evening, she was shaking furiously. Lady Stavourley became greatly unnerved by this. She ordered a glass of sack whey to be brought up, but her daughter felt too unwell to take any nourishment. “I insist upon it, Catherine,” I heard my aunt protest, her voice high and anxious. “You are to be wed in scarcely a week, my dear—
a week
!” she pleaded, as if she believed her daughter’s illness to be another of Lady Catherine’s tricks, designed to vex her. “I will not countenance a postponement,” my aunt scolded.

But my cousin’s affliction could not be commanded away, least of all by her mother. It proved as stubborn as she had ever been. It wrapped itself around her chest and filled it with a racking cough. Higher still burned the fever, until, by the second evening, she could do little more than moan and wheeze. Sally had sat with her through the night, mopping her wet brow and speaking to her in gentle tones.

On the third day of her illness, when it appeared that she would not repair herself, my uncle sent for the physician. Dr. Stirling came directly from Bury St. Edmunds that afternoon, escorted to Melmouth in Lord Stavourley’s coach. He arrived in a flurry, his apprentice carrying a box of potions and instruments necessary to cure her. They and my aunt disappeared into my cousin’s chamber and within the hour, Sally emerged ferrying a bowl of her mistress’s blood through our drawing room. She coughed violently as she did so, her face now plainly pallid and drawn.

Several moments later, Dr. Stirling and my aunt withdrew from the invalid’s room, discussing the sedative that he had administered.

“It will enable her to recover,” he assured Lady Stavourley, before
putting his hand into the pocket of his frock coat. “Then, once she awakens, you must give her this powder,” he said, gesturing to a packet in his hand. “Foxglove is much recommended for respiratory ailments.” At that moment, Sally returned, rubbing the inside of the empty bleeding bowl with a cloth.

“Miss,” the physician began, preparing to instruct her in the administration of the medicine, but stopped as Sally fell into a fit of coughing. He examined her with a frown, and then turned to my aunt.

“My lady, your daughter’s woman is too ill to wait upon her,” he pronounced. “As it is necessary that Lady Catherine be kept from further contagion, is there not another among your number who may tend her?”

I had been sitting in the far corner of the drawing room, attempting as much as possible to remain invisible behind my book, but my aunt’s desperate eyes soon fell upon me.

“Henrietta,” she called harshly, as one might summon a wayward lap dog. I crossed the floor obediently, my gaze lowered.

“My niece is a most capable substitute.”

I watched his eyes take in the scratches upon my face. He pursed his lips, but did not venture to ask as to their cause.

“This medicine is to be given twice daily,” said he sternly, “once upon rising in the morning, then again in the late evening.” He unfolded the packet of gritty powder. “Each measure should be no more than a pinch. Observe…” Then he dug his fat thumb and forefinger into the substance and held out what looked to me like an amount far greater than any pinch my little fingers could produce. “Like so.”

I nodded.

“It is to be brewed as a tea, or diluted in some form of drink, such as watered wine or small beer. Do you hear me, miss?”

I nodded again. “Yes, sir.”

“In large doses, it is a strong medicine…” said he, glancing at my aunt, “but be assured, my lady, it is a good one. I do believe your
daughter will shortly be returned to health,” he concluded, offering a brief bow.

I recall those words most clearly, Lord Dennington. I have listened to them in my mind for these many years now, echoing without end. “In large doses, it is a strong medicine,” he had said. A strong medicine, but perhaps not a good one, my lord. Not at all a good one.

You have seen the treatises written recently by Dr. Josiah Kipp at the medical school in Edinburgh? Digitalis, or foxglove, is now no longer employed in the cure of respiratory illness, it being (to quote that learned gentleman) “in some cases more harmful to the patient than beneficial.” You cannot suppose I knew that, my lord. To suggest so is pure lunacy.

Upon Dr. Stirling’s direction, Sally was relieved of her duties and sent to bed. Her place at Lady Catherine’s bedside was then assumed by my aunt and her maid, and when Lady Stavourley wished to retire, I was called upon to fill her position.

Speaking in hushed tones, she instructed me that a kettle of water and a teapot had been ordered in which to brew the foxglove. “Do make certain she takes the full dose, Hetty,” she commanded me.

It would be somewhat dishonest if I did not confess that the prospect of entering my cousin’s bedchamber filled me with the greatest apprehension. We had neither spoken nor laid eyes upon one another since our terrible altercation. Although I knew her to be greatly weakened by her illness and incapable of causing me harm, I still trembled at the thought of an encounter.

Hesitantly, I pushed open the door and stepped into the still, thick air of the sickroom. On either side of the bed sat two candles, while a low fire guttered in the grate. Although Lady Catherine lay in what appeared to be a deep sleep, each breath came with a wheeze as she struggled to draw it.

Frightened of disturbing her, I crept near to the large bed hung with fashionable Indian chintz, and assumed my place in a nearby chair. At
first I was too shy, too ashamed to look upon her, and then, gradually, I permitted myself to glance at her still features. In spite of our unfortunate circumstances, my heart heaved nonetheless to see her so unwell. Unbeknownst to myself, I emitted a short sigh.

“Hetty,” she said suddenly, but in a subdued and raspy voice. “Where is Sally?”

“Sally is taken ill.”

Just then, one of the housemaids came through the door with the kettle and teapot.

“Why cannot another of the maids tend to me? Where is my mother’s woman?”

“Dorothy is here,” said I cheerfully, gesturing to the girl, not much older than me, who was now pouring hot water into the teapot. “Dr. Stirling and Lady Stavourley have both directed me to wait upon you.”

She rumpled her face at this. I could sense her indignation and it disquieted me. The packet of foxglove sat next to a candle by the bed; I took hold of both of these items, my hands trembling.

“Well,” pronounced my cousin, “I do not wish you here.”

By the low cast of the candle, my fingers worked quickly, and I measured out what I believed to be the precise dosage shown to me by Dr. Stirling. I weighed that pinch of snuff-like powder between my fingers before releasing it into the water, where it fell to the bottom of the teapot and began to dissolve.

“At your request, I shall leave you, cousin, but not before the directions of your mother and your physician are carried out,” and with that, I poured the brew into a dish.

She began to draw herself upright, but was too gravely ill to manage it unassisted. I reached over to lend my hand, but she batted me away and instead motioned to Dorothy. I then offered her the dish of foxglove tea. As she took it from me, her gaze danced over the marks upon my cheeks. A hint of a smirk passed along her mouth.

“I have made pretty work of your face,” she commented before
taking a draught of her medicine and wincing at its bitterness. “I am only sorry I did not manage to gouge out your eyes.” She regarded me with an unmoving stare. “But there is time still for that, I think.”

I moved away from her, my skin prickling with cold fear.

“Leave me,” she commanded in her strained tone. This I did, without any further hesitation.

This, dear reader, is my true and honest account of events. I have recalled every movement, every word and every action. What occurred between the late hours of the night and the early morning was no doing of mine. I have always made it known to my persecutors that I would swear an affidavit to this, but, as you see, they have found no means of supporting their accusations against me. There is no evidence, because there was no crime.

Where this matter is concerned, I will confess to you but one thing: it will forever torment me that my cousin’s last words were spoken in malice. Whatever cruelty she inflicted upon me has long since been forgotten. I bear no ill will, nor would I ever have wished such a fate upon my own kinswoman.

At her insistence, it was little Dorothy who remained with Lady Catherine that night, dozing in the chair at her bedside. In the morning, it was she who found her; her fingers like ice, her lips blue as periwinkles.

I awoke to frenzied noises, to the sounds that follow on from the discovery of an accident: quick feet, gasps and shouts. Upon opening the door to the drawing room, I found the servants flying about like frightened wasps and Dorothy doubled over with sobs. Lewis, the butler, saw my terrified expression.

“Miss,” said he with disbelief, “your cousin… Lady Catherine, she has died.”

At first I could hardly take it in. “That cannot be,” said I, but no one heard, nor were they listening. In a daze I stumbled, still in a state of undress, across to her chamber.

But for an awkwardly outstretched arm, she lay much in the way I had last seen her. I approached the bed incredulously. I had only ever seen death from afar—the bodies of beggars by the road, criminals hanging by the neck from the gallows—but never, never the empty vessel of a loved one, one whose warm hand I had once felt in my own. What drew me near to her, I cannot say; perhaps it was a desire to know that I did not dream this in some nightmare, that I was indeed awake and alive. I moved my fingers to her motionless mouth, but felt no heat, no air. I half expected my cousin to unfurl her lips and bite me, but the sure recognition of death did that instead.

Chapter 10

What came over me at that instant, I cannot describe. Horror, like some dark vapour, rose up from within me. It filled my mouth, until I began to low like a beast in distress. As I did, I sensed the tips of my fingers, that part of me which had touched death, throb along my hand. I began to rub them vigorously against my night shift, before crying out in revulsion and then fleeing from that most terrible of sights.

Dear Lord, to this day I still recall it.

I shut myself behind the door of my bedchamber and wailed, gripping on to the bolster for fear that death might swoop in and spirit me away too. “Oh my beloved cousin,” I sobbed, “oh my dearest companion, my only true friend.”

As I cried, so I heard the echoes of my sorrow in the rooms beyond, the dismayed whispers and weeping of the household. The shock of this dreadful tragedy plunged all of Melmouth into the deepest of mourning.

As you might imagine, no one person suffered more greatly than did my aunt. Upon hearing the news, she collapsed into a fit of hysterics from which she never recovered. She was carried into her apartments where she lay for several weeks lifeless upon her bed, much like her daughter.

Save one unfortunate encounter, we never again spoke. It was a terrible incident. I came upon her at the foot of the dining table, a weary skeletal figure shrouded in black, so gaunt and wasted that she
required assistance even to sit. Grief had ploughed furrows into her now limp face. I thought her unearthly appearance overwhelming, but she seemed to find my presence more alarming by far. Upon locking her eyes on to me, she froze and then, beginning to shake with fury or madness, cried out like a lunatic, until she was taken from the room and dosed with laudanum.

My uncle bore the tragedy with greater fortitude. In the midst of these distressing circumstances, he assumed the role of a ship’s captain in a storm, a stoic who lifted his head towards adversity and who tightened his hands upon the wheel. The day following his daughter’s death, he appeared, perfectly turned out in mourning, marching through the corridors of Melmouth, with the steward at his heels.

Arrangements for Lady Catherine’s funeral were made and executed without the knowledge of any of the female members of the family. This was the manner in which these things were performed in my day. My poor, sweet cousin was conveyed from Melmouth and laid to rest in the very church in which she had been due to wed. I knew not even when they removed her from the house, or who, beyond Lord Stavourley and his sons, was present to witness her interment in the family vault.

To be sure, my uncle was masterful at placing a lid of silence over the entire matter. How precisely he managed to contain the gossip, I do not know. He is certain to have paid the London newspapermen each a hefty purse for never laying in type one word of the affair. His friends and relations would have held their tongues likewise. It remains a marvel to me how few in society heard the full story of Lady Catherine’s death, and then only a great while after the event.

As for Lord Allenham, I cannot say for certain what came to pass in the days and weeks that followed the death of his fiancée. I overheard two servants recounting that his lordship had been notified the day before he was due to set out for Melmouth. Whether this is true, I cannot say. All correspondence between us had, quite wisely, ceased.
Indeed, I do not even know if he was present at Lady Catherine’s funeral. It is possible that he may have been, but refused Lord Stavourley’s hospitality through a sense of shame. He would never have dared stay at Melmouth, for fear of meeting with me.

Dear reader, if you knew what distress descended upon me in that period. I not only bore the loss of my adored relation, but the painful knowledge that I was unlikely ever again to lay eyes upon Lord Allenham. How bitterly I wept, how remorseful I felt at all that had come to pass.

I dare say that grief can cause one to view matters in a mistaken light. So may have been the case with me. I do believe I was left too long to mourn unaccompanied. I saw my uncle only at meals. Lord Dennington and his brother had returned to school, and so Melmouth, without either Lady Catherine or the active presence of her mother, wallowed in silence. I remained for long spells in our apartments, attempting, as I had always done, to amuse myself. Gradually, I took up my paints, my sketching and embroidery. When my heart began to yearn for company, for the sound of Lady Catherine’s familiar voice, I took myself to the library or out into the grounds of Melmouth, where I contemplated the browning flora and the rows of winter vegetables newly laid down in the kitchen garden. Yet no matter where I roamed, or how I attempted to distract my thoughts, I could not entirely calm my mind. More than anything, it was
The Sorrows of Young Werther
that haunted me. I thought of how I had dreamed of Allenham. In entertaining these fantasies, had I called down the hand of Fate to intercede?