Lady of Milkweed Manor Read online

  “It is my life, non?”

  “No,” he said gently, shaking his head. “You are not God.”

  “Well, neither are you. Some great physician you are, Doctor Taylor. You cannot even heal your own wife.”

  “I am trying. I am doing all I know to do.”

  “It is not enough!” She pulled away, grabbed the candelabra and threw it across the room, shattering the gilt mirror over the fireplace mantel.

  He froze.

  Marie reappeared in the doorway and hesitated there, frowning at the broken mirror and then at him.

  “Stay with her, please,” he instructed. Then he dashed from the room, leapt the stairs three at a time, and knocked on the nursery door. Sally opened it, white faced. She had obviously heard the commotion from below.

  “Sally, please collect Anne and whatever things you need. I am taking you into the village. I want you to stay at the Red Lion. Here—” He pulled several bank notes from his wallet and handed them to her. “That should do for a night or two.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After seeing Sally and Anne safely to the inn, he drove the carriage to Kendall’s office.

  “Richard,” he began, hat in hand before his friend’s desk, “I do not know what to do. I am at my wits’ end. Lizette has begged me not to take her back to the Manor Home, but now with Anne to think of . . . I may even have to find a more equipped asylum.”

  “There are one or two I might recommend.”

  “Please. Come one more time. See if there is anything I have left undone.”

  “Of course.” Richard rose and followed him outside.

  But the scene that greeted them was not at all what either gentleman expected. The cottage had been restored to rights. Although the mirror was missing, the glass shards had been taken down and discarded, and the late afternoon sun lit the room in a peaceful, golden glow. Lizette looked up at them from a pristine table laid with a full tea service, as well as plates of sandwiches and cakes. Lizette herself looked serene and lovely, dressed in a pink silk gown, her hair done up properly, her face powdered. She even had the strand of pearls around her neck that Daniel had long ago given her but she seldom wore.

  She greeted them warmly. “Welcome, gentlemen.” Dumbly, Daniel stepped forward, Kendall close behind.

  “Hello, darling.” She rose and smiled at him as he approached, eyes glowing, then reached up and kissed his cheek.

  “Dr. Kendall, how pleased I am to see you again. Do sit down.”

  Both men were speechless. They laid their hats aside and sat as they were bade, watching in awe as Lizette poured tea with practiced precision and grace.

  “Dr. Kendall, how do you take your tea?”

  “Uh . . . milk will do nicely, thank you.”

  She complied and handed him the cup and saucer with a steady hand.

  “And I know my husband likes sugar in his. There you are, my dear.”

  “Thank you.”

  Daniel stared at her, and then he and Kendall exchanged a look, brows raised. Hopes too.

  “It does happen,” Kendall said to him later, behind the closed doors of the study. “Some remedy creates a delayed effect or a woman’s balance somehow restores itself on its own.”

  “But will it last?”

  “I don’t know. But it seems quite possible.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Will you do me a favor and stop by the inn and let Sally Mitchell know she may return?”

  Kendall paused, then nodded. “Of course. I shall tell her she may return . . . in the morning.” Kendall smiled at him and turned on his heel, donning his hat.

  For an unmarried man, Kendall was quite astute.

  “When puerperal mania does take place, the patient swears,

  bellows, recites poetry, talks bawdy, and kicks up a row. . . .

  Every precaution must be taken to prevent her doing

  injury to herself, to the infant, or her friends.”

  —ROBERT GOOCH, EARLY 19TH CENTURY PHYSICIAN

  CHAPTER 30

  The next morning, Daniel came down the stairs whistling, knowing all the while how cliché it was to do so. Still, he could barely keep the smile from his face. The day was sunny and so were their prospects for the future.

  In the kitchen, he found Sally Mitchell eating a biscuit.

  “You’re returned early. How is Anne?”

  “She fell asleep on the way home. Already laid her down for an early nap. ’Fraid the inn was awful noisy last night. Neither of us got much sleep.”

  I know how you feel. “Sorry to hear it,” Daniel said, though the cheerful tone did not match his words.

  “The missus really has turned the corner, then?”

  “Yes, it seems she has, thank God. Though we must still monitor her progress.”

  “That is good news, sir. Your friend said as much, but I was afraid to believe it.”

  “I understand.”

  “I told Charlotte as well. She was most relieved, I can tell you.”

  “Charlotte?”

  “Yes, she stopped by the inn this morning.”

  “Oh? She did not return to Crawley?”

  “Nay. She’s staying on in Shoreham for a time.”

  “Is she?”

  She nodded. “Something to do with your Dr. Kendall, but I didn’t hear the particulars. Place was too loud to hear much of anything.”

  Daniel swallowed. “I see.”

  Taking a deep breath, he changed the topic. “Mrs. Taylor is still asleep. Peacefully at last. Do your best to keep Anne quiet so as not to disturb her. I am just going to ride into town and send a message to my father. I shan’t be long.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When Daniel returned an hour later, he opened the door gingerly and was relieved at the peace and quiet that greeted him. He laid aside his hat and went in search of his wife. No one was in the parlor or dining room. She wasn’t still sleeping, surely—although they had lain awake together until the early morning hours.

  Upstairs, he found their bedroom empty, the bed neatly made. Peeking into the third-floor nursery, he saw it, too, was empty. Stepping down the passage, he tapped lightly on Sally’s door, thinking to check on Anne. Sally answered the door, sleep etched plainly on her features, her mouth stretched wide in a yawn. “Must have fallen asleep,” she said.

  “Is Anne awake?”

  “I believe so.”

  “She isn’t here with you?”

  “Mrs. Taylor wanted to have her to herself. Poor dear said it felt like a month of Sundays since she’d held her little girl.”

  Daniel smiled. Had Lizette’s maternal feeling been restored, along with her affection—and desire—for her husband? Nearly as quickly, his smile faded.

  “Where are they? I saw no one downstairs.”

  “Off to get some fresh air, I believe she said. Oh dear, have I done wrong?” Sally’s expression grew pained. “She told me to go on and have a rest. And after last night, I was happy to oblige.”

  “I’m sure all is well,” Daniel muttered, already heading for the stairs. But he wasn’t sure at all.

  “Should I start packing, sir?” Sally called after him.

  “Packing? Why?” He paused midway down the staircase.

  “Mrs. Taylor said something about going home.”

  He froze. “Home?” But he had assured her he would not yet take her back to the Manor.

  “Aye. Are we returning to London soon?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” he called over his shoulder as he rushed down the stairs.

  He found Mrs. Beebe in the kitchen.

  “Have you seen Mrs. Taylor?”

  “Yes, sir. She went outside with the little one.”

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, about a quarter of an hour ago.”

  “Where were they headed?”

  “Toward the sea, I suspect. And a lovely day for a stroll it is.”

  The sea? Panic gr
ipped him. Oh, dear God . . .

  Daniel ran outside, across the wide lawn, down the rocky decline and onto the pebbled shore. He looked wildly about, up and down the coast. Then, out on the channel, he glimpsed a lone, dark-haired figure swimming with clumsy strokes, then disappear below the surface.

  “Lizette!” he cried. God, help me!

  He ran across the rocks and splashed into the water, pausing only long enough to haul off his boots and throw them back on shore, then he swam out after her. He tried to gauge where he’d seen her go under. At least he thought—feared—it was her.

  When he reached the spot, he dove down. He searched frantically through the cold, dark water. When his lungs forced him, he lurched up and sucked in air. He searched the surface, desperate to see her.

  Hearing a shout, he spun around. There were Thomas and Kendall on the shore. Remembering Kendall had never learned to swim, Daniel dove back down, scarcely giving thought to the men. He swam deeper, deeper, his long arms stretching, his fingers combing the water. There! He caught a handful of fabric. He held on and kicked closer, wrapping one arm around the figure and trying to drag her to the surface. At first he could hardly lift her, but then she began to rise. He kicked and pawed at the water with all his might. He felt her moving, kicking beside him, and rejoiced. She was alive!

  He broke through the surface and filled his burning lungs with air. Only then did he realize that Thomas was there, had swum out and helped him pull up Lizette. His gratitude was quickly suffocated by the realization that it had been Thomas’s movements, not his wife’s, he had felt beside him.

  The long, full gown Lizette wore, sodden with water, had become a weighted anchor dragging all three of them back down. Slowly and painfully, the two men kicked, paddled, and pulled themselves back to land. Together they hauled Lizette carefully toward shore. Richard Kendall waded into the surf to help them, and together they laid her carefully down onto the pebbled beach.

  Richard leaned close, listening for breath. He turned her on her side and began compressing her abdomen, releasing a stream of water from her mouth.

  “I’ve got to find Anne!” Daniel ran over the surf and dove back into the water. Thomas followed after him.

  Back and forth they swam, pawing the dark water, coming up with only handfuls of shale and debris. After seemingly endless, exhausting dives, Daniel fell back on shore, panting. Thomas crawled out after him.

  “She’s gone,” Richard said.

  “I know. We could not find her.”

  “I mean your wife. She’s gone. I could not revive her.”

  Daniel fisted his hands and pressed them to his forehead and down into his eye sockets. Then he forced himself onto his hands and knees and crawled over the wet pebbles to the prone body of his wife.

  He laid his head on her chest, then looked up at her face and stroked her damp cheek.

  “I am sorry, Daniel,” Kendall said quietly.

  “She was going home. To France. She was trying to swim there.” Daniel’s voice broke.

  Richard laid a hand on his shoulder.

  Daniel moaned and sat down, pulling Lizette onto his lap, into his arms. “I could not find Anne. I know you did not mean to lose her. I tried, I did . . .”

  Kendall sent Thomas to the cottage to fetch some blankets. One to warm him, Daniel supposed. Another to cover his wife’s body. His own body was wracked with shivering, his muscles tight and convulsing. The waters of the channel were cold, even this time of year. Had the cold stolen her consciousness, even before she drowned?

  For a moment, he was struck with the desire to walk back into the sea that had claimed his wife, daughter, and unborn child. Let it claim him too. Anything to stop this crushing pain.

  But even as he entertained the thought, his own words to Lizette echoed in his mind, “You are not God.”

  “Oh, God . . .” He moaned and began sobbing. How could he go on? It was all his fault. How could he ever forgive himself?

  “Daniel,” a voice spoke softly behind him. Or maybe he had imagined it.

  “Merciful heavens!” Kendall exclaimed beside him. “Is that Anne?”

  Daniel turned. There was Charlotte, the sun at her back, casting a golden glow around her. He winced. His mind must be numb, or hallucinatory.

  “Yes,” the Charlotte-image said. “I found her asleep up the shore. Surrounded by rocks and driftwood.”

  “Thank God,” Kendall said. “Daniel! Anne’s all right. She’s alive. Do you hear me?”

  Daniel sat mutely as Charlotte walked toward him, tears streaming down her face as her eyes darted to, then away from Lizette’s still form.

  She knelt beside him and gently handed Anne to him. Then she rose and stepped back.

  Daniel stared down at Anne, who was awake now and seemed pleased to see him. She wriggled and babbled, her little fists moving from her mouth to clasp his nose.

  “Yes . . . I seem to have lost my spectacles. Do you still recognize me?”

  The little girl opened her mouth in a toothless grin.

  “Your maman is gone. I am so sorry, dear one. She loved you—never think she didn’t. She just . . . could not stay. I tried to help her, but I could not. . . .”

  Thomas and Sally returned with blankets, and Kendall wrapped one around Daniel’s shoulders. Then he laid the other one carefully over Lizette. Sally took Anne and headed back toward the cottage.

  “Come, my friend,” Kendall urged gently. “Let’s get you into the house and out of those wet clothes.”

  Daniel looked over at his wife’s shrouded form. “I cannot leave her.”

  “I shall see to her,” Kendall assured.

  Together Charlotte and Thomas helped Daniel up and into the cottage.

  The day after the funeral, Charlotte found Daniel sitting on the bench, staring out at the sea. Wordlessly, she sat down as well, careful to leave a proper amount of space between them. He acknowledged her presence with the slightest nod before returning his gaze to the sea.

  “You never really knew her, Miss Lamb. Not really. Not the woman she once was.”

  She asked softly, “How did the two of you meet?”

  “She was working as a governess in Edinburgh when I was at university there. I first saw her in the park, swinging her little charge around and around until the sound of their laughter filled the square. I can still see her in her green-striped dress, her dark hair escaping her straw bonnet, her smile so bright—the only brightness to be seen on that grey Scottish day. She told me she had left her home in Normandy, looking for adventure.

  “Only later did I find out she was looking for escape, that her mother was afflicted in much the way Lizette was, at the end.” He leaned over, elbows on his knees. “I don’t think she meant to deceive me. I think she truly believed, or at least desperately hoped, that she’d left all of that far behind her, that she could avoid the same fate. We traveled to Caen only once to meet her family. I suspected how it was with her mother, but by then it was too late. I was in love with Lizette. I could not have stopped myself from marrying her, even had I known what was to be.”

  After a few minutes of silence, Daniel sighed. “Still, I should have seen it coming. Should have prevented it somehow.”

  She glanced over at him, saw him shake his head dolefully.

  “I wanted to move her someplace safe, but she begged to stay. She said she loved it here—felt closer to home. Too close, it turns out.”

  “How could you know? She was much improved.”

  “So we thought. Or so she wanted us to believe. But I should have known better.”

  “Mr. Taylor . . .” Without intending to, she had slipped back to his former address.

  “If only I had found a more effective treatment. Or insisted we return to London a fortnight ago.”

  “Mr. Taylor . . . do you not remember what you said to me when my mother died?”

  “No.”

  “I was sure that if only I had been a better daughter, or prayed harder
, or insisted she not tire herself in the garden, then she would have lived.”

  He shrugged.

  “But you told me God does not work that way. Remember?”

  “And I believe you told me I needed to read the Old Testament.”

  “That you choose to remember.” She smiled gently. “It is not your fault.”

  It had taken a long time for Charlotte to believe this herself. She feared Daniel Taylor would prove no quicker a student.

  He took a deep breath, then straightened. “Thank you again for finding Anne. I don’t know that I could have gone on if—”

  “Shh . . . Someone else would have found her had I not happened along.”

  “I can only hope so. How did you happen to be here that day?”

  She took a deep breath. “I awoke with the darkest foreboding that morning. Even though Sally assured me at the inn that all was well, I had to come. I should have walked, but Dr. Kendall and Thomas passed by on their way here and offered me a ride.”

  “And what were they about? I never asked, and after, well, everything, I quite forgot.”

  “Dr. Kendall brought Thomas out with the intention of convincing the both of you that Thomas should remain here as his apprentice. But after he saw Thomas’s loyalty to you that day, I believe he quite gave it up.”

  “Yes. That boy has a place with me for as long as he wants one.”

  The two sat for several more minutes without speaking before Daniel said, “I shall be returning to London soon. Letting go of this place early. You are welcome to stay on here until I do. That is, unless Kendall . . . unless you have made other arrangements.”

  “I have made other arrangements.”

  “I see.” He rose abruptly. “Of course that is none of my affair.”

  “My arrangements are not with Dr. Kendall, however,” she said.

  “No?”

  “I have taken a post with a family in Old Shoreham.”

  “May I ask in what capacity?”

  “As their nurse.”

  “Oh . . . I had not realized you planned to continue in that vocation.”

  “I had not planned to do so. But they were in need and, well, there I was. It is only temporary.”