Come Be My Love Read online

  I finished my New Cassandra and, heartened by the pub­lication of my first novel, I packed it up and forwarded it to Mr. Hillaby with an unsigned note, of which I kept a copy, expressing my hope that he would think as well of it as Sum of Glory.

  In addition to reading poetry, I was writing it also, poetry of love, yet it was, I feared, without inspiration. Was it impos­sible for women to write of the passions? Darius had said none had ever done so. I read Keats and Shelley and knew my poetry lacked their fire, perhaps I was incapable of conveying my emotions, or was it simply that I lacked experience?

  In August the heat became excessive, and I took Crumpet wading in the stream where Paul and I used to play as chil­dren. We found a pet frog and named him Sylvester and tried to train him to come when called by name, but he was a frog with a mind of his own, and I often thought that when we felt we had succeeded it was only because he himself had decided to move at that moment rather than respond to our calls. Our clothes were often wet and muddy, yet that seemed of no im­portance until Crumpet developed a cold, which rapidly developed into a bad chill. Mr. Wilson was called in; he pre­scribed his usual tonic and advised light meals, broths and avoidance of draughts.

  I stayed with him; caring for him; giving him his medica­tion; making sure he was warm, and that he ate his meals. Yet the chill persisted. It did, in fact, grow worse. Crumpet be­came wan and listless and developed a fever which would not abate. Alarmed, I wrote to Darius asking his advice. In reply he sent a London doctor to examine Crumpet, but apart from changing all Mr. Wilson's medications for his own, he gave little satisfaction and Crumpet was no better. Again I wrote to Darius, voicing my concern and insisting that he come with­out further delay.

  He came, accompanied by yet another physician, who examined Crumpet with greater thoroughness. The gravity of his expression when he finished frightened me. I was filled with guilt for not having taken better care of him, for allowing him to wade, for not changing his clothes immediately. I had so often worn wet clothes myself, as had Paul, that I found it difficult to believe they could cause such grievous harm. In­deed, Crumpet had shown no ill effects from such play, which had ceased at the first sign of a cold. Still, I confided my fears to the physician who assured me wet clothes were not the cause of the malady. The boy, he said, was succumbing to a congenital lung condition, an inherited disease the cold might have aggravated but certainly not caused.

  There had been no consumption among the Bladens, I was sure of it. I presumed then that he must have inherited it from his mother, though the physician, who had also attended Philomena, told me that he had noted no sign of it in her. Yet wherever the consumption had sprung from, it now held Crumpet in its grasp. His condition worsened. He became listless and then delirious. Despite all the cooling sponge baths, his temperature refused to drop nor could the persistent cough that racked his body be alleviated.

  I was with him each day; Darius stayed with him each night. He came in often during the day while I was there to look at his son, to feel his burning forehead, to hold his hand. He was getting scarcely any rest; his face was haggard and drawn.

  "You must sleep or you will become ill also. That will help nothing," I warned. "Please lie down. I promise to call you if there is a change."

  "I can't sleep. Sometimes I wonder whether I shall ever sleep again."

  That afternoon I was loath to leave, yet at four the nurse came, assuring me she would not leave him, and with one last kiss I left the room. As I descended the stairs, Darius passed me on his way to Crumpet's side. We exchanged greetings, yet he seemed dazed.

  That evening I could scarcely endure father's heavy-handed conversation as he attempted to draw out Harrington for my benefit. I would have none of it, and father was left to handle the burden of conversation with the young man on his own. He cast many a malignant glance in my direction, which went unheeded, for my thoughts were elsewhere. I was more worried than ever.

  I returned to Charteris earlier than usual the next day to find that Crumpet's breathing had grown so laboured in the night that Mr. Linnell had been called upon to offer up prayers on his behalf, a grim omen that Darius felt his son would not survive.

  I rushed upstairs, barely glancing at Darius, who made no move to leave, as was his wont, when I arrived at the bedside, and I knew he feared the worst.

  Crumpet lay still and quiet as though he acknowledged that his struggle was over and that he, like his onlookers, was marking the minutes as they slipped by until the end.

  When at last he opened his eyes and called to me— "Ala"—just as he always had, I could not stop from taking him into my arms and holding him close.

  "I'm here, Crumpet, I'll always be here."

  Rocking his wasted body to and fro, I would have breathed for him if it had been possible.

  Was it an hour, or only minutes, before Darius leaned over to stroke his hair gently and then, very softly but very finally, close his eyelids. Even when he took him from me and laid the tiny form out on the bed, I refused to accept that it was over.

  Though I was asked to leave, I would not, indeed, I could not.

  I helped wash the lifeless body, and dressed it in the white satin suit with the blue sash Crumpet had worn on most im­portant occasions. I remembered how he had been cautioned to keep clean when he wore that particular suit. There was little danger of it being soiled again. It would be amply pro­tected from the earth by the sterile coffin being prepared for it. Those hands I had held, chubby and warm, lay still and stiff. The horror of death at its most virulent, at its most poignant, in robbing life from a child was more than I could bear, yet I could not bear to leave. Why had God chosen to take him before his life had begun? There was little enough of justice in life; it seemed there was none in death.

  All day I sat, watching, waiting for I knew not what. Nothing would ever bring him back, yet still I sat without moving, in the end almost without thinking. That face was beautiful, grave yet strangely peaceful in death. Was that how it would be? I stayed on with all sense of time lost to me so that when the nurse came, telling me it was past four, that I should go home, that I could do nothing more, still I made no motion to leave.

  She put her arm around me and almost forcibly helped me from my chair. "Please, Miss Alexandra, please go home. Try to rest, try to eat, for you've had nothing. You did every­thing for the little boy in life. Now, God rest his soul, there is nothing anyone can do, excepting Him."

  As though in a trance I left the room and descended the stairs, my heart still refusing to believe that to which my eyes had all day borne witness.

  I had seen nothing of Darius since that morning. Even then I had paid him no heed, but as I crossed the hall and saw the closed door of the library, I knew he must be there. Anger arose, bringing feeling back to my benumbed body and brain. Well, perhaps he was satisfied—since death had taken Crum­pet, he could no longer blame him for ending Philomena's life. He had never treated Crumpet with affection; not, at least, until the end, when I knew he had been greatly affected by the bravery with which his son had battled for life. Still, it is our actions in life for which we are accountable. He had been cold and unfeeling as a father.

  The anger I felt welled up so that I could not resist the desire to confront him with it, yet when I went into the li­brary, I thought that the great room was empty; in the dim­ming light I saw no one until, just as I was about to leave, I caught sight of a slumped figure in an armchair before the terrace window. He wore no coat or neck cloth. His shirt was rumpled, his hair unkempt, his cheeks unshaven. When he raised his head at my approach, I was shocked to see his dull, lifeless eyes, which appeared not to recognize me. At the sight of his dejection, all anger drained from me. I went to him, filled with anguish.

  "I grieve with you, Darius. I feel his loss as you do. I know what you are suffering."

  "Do you?"

  He held out his hands to me and I took them. They were cold, icy cold, yet his face was flushed and feverish.<
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  "You must take care of yourself. You have had no rest, you have not eaten. Making yourself ill will not bring back your son. Let me call the doctor to see you."

  "No." He held fast to my hands. "No, Alex, no. Don't leave me, please."

  To see the strong grow suddenly weak and vulnerable was almost as terrifying to me as the death I had witnessed up­stairs. His eyes were haunted. Never had I heard such a tone of pleading. I responded to its urgency.

  "Come." I drew him over to the sofa and he followed meekly, just as Crumpet might have done, and just as I might have done with Crumpet I pulled him down beside me and took him in my arms.

  "Now cry," I ordered, as I had so often insisted Crumpet do when he had stubbed his toe yet was trying desperately to be brave. "Cry, please cry, cry as much and as long as you want to. But please do cry."

  I took his face between my hands and smoothed back his tousled hair. Then I leaned back against the cushions and gently pulled his head down to my breast, stroking it, mur­muring softly, "Let go, Darius, let go. Grief that never speaks will break your heart. Let go, please."

  Slowly, very slowly at first, like clouds when there is no wind, the tears came. He was ashamed to succumb. His up­bringing, his education, his entire heredity proscribed it, yet I insisted, murmuring softly I know not what, smooth sounds, soothing sounds, sounds a mother uses to comfort a child, sounds used from time immemorial to ease pain and sorrow, sounds without words, soft, assuasive, simple sounds, until at last his body convulsed and the tears flowed freely.

  How long he cried I cannot say. It seemed an eternity before that sobbing ceased and his body grew lax and heavy upon mine. His breathing continued disturbed and laboured although I was sure that he slept, yet it was a torpor rather than sleep from which he periodically started with a sigh that became almost a wail as it broke from his lips. I held him closer, stroking, comforting him until he fell back to his trou­bled sleep. As I lay there, nursing him like a child, I reflected on the singularity of circumstance that had allowed him to bury with no outward show of emotion both parents whom he dearly loved, yet on the death of a son for whom he had evidenced so little affection, he was utterly broken.

  Eventually the warmth of his body upon mine, the com­fort of holding close to me one whom I had always loved, the down of the sofa cushions beneath me and my own lack of rest all overcame me. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

  I dreamed; I must have dreamed. There were strange and wonderful sensations in my dream, sensations I had never be­fore known, sensations of life in the midst of death. It was as though my body were wildly alive, even afire, yet at the same time completely languorous; my body seemed an entity in and of itself, separated quite from my mind, which looked down upon its fluid state. My breasts were drawing, pulsing, throb­bing, their centres hard and tingling with a strange new life. I heard my name repeated over and over again until the lips that whispered it were fixed upon mine and I was lost within a mass of sensations assaulting every part of me, breasts, thighs and then those dark, warm, moist, virgin recesses beyond until my entire body became apulse with a motion all its own, un-generated by my brain. There was within me something not mine yet belonging as surely as though it were, for it brought with it a completeness long sought, a wholeness nature must have always intended. The pulsating rhythm of this joining continued, quickening, deepening, lasting how long I could not tell for I was completely lost in time, in space, in circum­stance until my body convulsed violently in tingling tremors that threatened to send me reeling into a million fragments, coiling, dispersing ceaselessly in the firmament. That, too, at last, ceased and all was silent, still.

  Then, only then, did I begin to think clearly. Then, only then, did I know that I was not dreaming, that I was not asleep in my bed at home, that I was very much awake. Then, only then, did I know what Vergil had known when he wrote in his Eclogues, "Now I know what love is." I knew it, too; it was a wondrous and an awesome thing.

  Our bodies clung to one another, still moist and heated from their task, suffused by its sweet, clinging, musky odor. Darius, beside me, had fallen into a deep sleep, no longer flinching and disturbed, at last at peace. His head, resting on the cushion beside mine, was still. I lay listening to his regular, free breathing, holding him close to me. Once, twice I leaned over to kiss him. He stirred but did not waken.

  My thoughts went to that small, lifeless body upstairs, with the accompanying dread of never seeing Crumpet alive again, and I was glad of the comfort of Darius's arms around me. There was a mysterious proximity of the death I had watched over all day and the wonder of life revealed for the first time.

  I lay holding Darius close to me, turning over all that had happened, until the long case clock in the hall broke through my thoughts and I counted the hour. Eleven! I could not re­main at Charteris all night. Already there must be consterna­tion at home. If father had any inkling of what had occurred, he would either force Darius to marry me or forbid me ever to see him again. I had no wish for either decree. Darius and I would be together from then on, of that I was sure. I would tolerate no interference from father in the matter. But I knew I must return home and I knew I must not allow him to know where I had been.

  Gently I extricated myself from Darius's arms and stood up. He stirred but did not waken. I felt his head and found that it was feverish. The air was chill, and I looked around for something with which to cover him. My eye fell on the bear­skin rug, but no longer was I offended by its memories. While the countess and her captivating charms were not forgotten, after all that had happened to me that day, they were quite unimportant. I covered him with the rug but still I could not bear to leave him. I needed him at that moment more than ever I had. I smoothed his damp, unkempt hair and ran my fingers across the stubble on his chin, strangely delighted at being a party to such intimate disorder. Then, with one last kiss to my lover who stirred but did not waken, I straightened the disarray of my own attire and slipped out through the french windows onto the terrace.

  Light shone from almost every window of my home when I came within sight of it. As I drew nearer I heard voices outside, and I turned back. I must not appear to be returning from the direction of Charteris. Cutting through our pear or­chard, I came out on the other side of the house, where I was accosted by Thomas.

  "My God, Alex, where have you been? You have every­one in an uproar. Mother has fainted twice, and father is threatening to get out the militia. Where have you been all this time? We've looked for you everywhere. I myself went over to Charteris but they told me you left there soon after four. Where have you been?"

  I heard father's heavy step on the gravel behind Thomas.

  "Alexandra, is that you? My God, girl, where in the name of heaven have you been? Are you all right? What happened— tell me what happened?"

  I was in a daze. My mind was so full of everything that had happened that I had given no thought to what I would tell my family, but I was determined they would never learn of it from me.

  "Let me go in, father, please, I beg you. I've been walk­ing, I don't know where, I just walked. John died today."

  I burst into tears at the finality of those words and went inside. Under the bright candlelight of the sitting room, father eyed me critically. He waited until my sobs subsided before demanding, "Now tell me, where have you been and what have you been doing? As your father I have a right to know everything."

  "I told you, I've been walking."

  "And just where have you been walking until this hour?"

  "I don't know—just wandering aimlessly. It has been a terrible, wonderful day."

  The last adjective slipped out unintentionally, and fa­ther's eyebrows rose immediately on hearing it.

  "A wonderful day, you say? And what, may I ask, has made it so wonderful?"

  "Father, I'm quite exhausted, I don't know what I'm saying."

  "I can see that quite plainly. What I want to know—and I want the truth—is have you been doi
ng this wandering of yours on your own?" I nodded.

  "Are you sure—quite sure?" he questioned again, in sharper tone.

  "Please, father, please leave me alone. I told you, John is dead. I'm upset and confused."

  "Not until I get to the bottom of this. You can't expect me to accept it as quite normal that a daughter of mine should wander home close to midnight with no logical explanation for her absence." He scrutinized me closely. "You haven't been alone, my girl, of that I'm convinced."

  My face flushed in betrayal.

  "Out with it—you haven't been alone?"

  I said nothing, but every line of my body must have be­spoken my guilt.

  "It was young Harrington you were with, wasn't it? He was here earlier, waiting for you, and I told him you were with the sick boy and at last he left. He rode over there to see you. Tell me the truth. I'll have it out of you one way or another." He was triumphant in his accusation, which appalled me, yet before I remonstrated against it I was seized by the dual op­portunity of ridding myself of Harrington forever and escap­ing from father's interrogation. I could not bring myself to actually incriminate the innocent young man, yet I did so just as surely by hanging my head without reply to father's re­peated accusations until at last he uttered an oath.

  "My God, if he thinks he can play fast and loose with a daughter of mine, he's mistaken. I shall let his father know in no uncertain terms that I will not have him calling here again. The father's a fool for letting that rascal of a Whig rob him of his seat. The son's a fool, for I'm convinced nobody is going to send him up to Parliament no matter what pressure is brought to bear. You're a foolish girl, Alexandra, and even more fool­ish to shield that young nincompoop from his wrongdoing. I consider you as much to blame in this as he—you should know by now that a lady's reputation cannot be too closely guarded. The insolent young puppy, thinks he can come here and con­duct himself like a. . . ." A thought suddenly struck him and he seized me by the shoulders.