Chapter 33
January 10, 1883
Jack never did anything by halves, going full tilt at whatever the world threw at him. Right now he was ending his embrace of a vicious bout of lung congestion with apparent great reluctance.
His chest had been filled with fluid, his breathing shallow, his fever ebbing, then raging for three days. Even though it had been established that he could walk a few hesitant steps, he was too weak to get out of bed.
Nicola wanted to kill him. Not because she minded wiping his sweat-stained brow or holding a bowl of hot broth to his lips or clipping his nails so he wouldn’t scratch the site of his itchy stitches and scabs. No, it was because of every word he said when he was awake and relatively lucid.
The words when he wasn’t were even worse.
“It is my reckoning.”
Off his head again. Off with his head! He was back to the guilt over the train accident. If Nicola didn’t hold him responsible for what had happened to her, why did he? She could have died. Instead, the voice within her died—temporarily, thank goodness. But these past ten months had taught her something about herself she might never have known, and saved her from what was sure to have been a loveless marriage.
“Sh. You’ll tire yourself out.” What she really meant was that she was tired of hearing him talk such nonsense. She wanted to smack him and tell him to snap out of his doldrums. She’d had to ball her fist countless times to prevent her from doing it, grinding her fingernails into the flesh of her palm so that the half moons might be permanent.
He made her angry. Dr. Oakley had advised her to be patient and let him ramble on, but she was getting increasingly annoyed. She didn’t know how poor old Reverent Fitzmartin had put up with Jack for over three weeks. She was going half-crazy after three days with his feverish pronouncements.
“I deserve to suffer. Maybe even die.”
Nicola put the broth down, slopping the liquid onto the bedside table. “Oh, for God’s sake, Jack! Enough! You are sick, but you’re going to get better! Your temperature went down last night, and Dr. Oakley says it’s only a matter of a day or so before you can return to your own cottage to further recuperate.” It had spiked again this morning, however, meaning that Jack was not yet out of the woods. She and Ham had sponged his brow with cool water for what seemed like forever. It was a wonder Jack’s forehead hadn’t wrinkled like a prune.
To give Ham Ross credit, the old fellow was as spry as a man half his age and had been an enormous help. He took care of Jack when activities became too embarrassing and masculine for Nicola to do so. Walking Jack to the privy, changing his nightclothes, shaving him—the old man was an excellent nurse. He’d been an absolute brick, and he made a very fine ginger biscuit to boot. Nicola had become quite fond of Moll too, who cheerfully shared her bed with Jack, snuggling up at his side, her muzzle on Jack’s chest. Every time Jack spoke his stupid sentences, her tail thumped on the quilt.
“You are angry with me.”
Yes, she was. Should she admit to it? Dr. Oakley had said part of the Puddling Rehabilitation Foundation’s philosophy was to allow its Guests to receive a nonjudgmental hearing. One didn’t have to agree, but one didn’t have to argue. The object was to gentle the Guest to the truth of the matter on his or her own. True change came from the inside.
At the rate Jack was going, he really would be dead before he forgave himself.
“Sit up straighter.”
“Must I? I’ll disturb Moll.”
“Doctor’s orders. It’s better for your lungs.”
Jack wiggled a bit against the bank of pillows that had been arranged behind him, and the collie stretched and slithered down from the bed. “See? Look what you’ve done to the poor dog.”
“She’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“I thought you said I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe physically. It’s your head I’m worried about.”
Jack’s hand went to the bandage, and she caught it before he could peel off the dressing.
“What’s in your head, I should say,” Nicola continued. “Did it ever occur to you that you are wasting the time you’ve been given?”
Jack frowned. “I can’t get out of bed yet. You know that.”
“I’m not talking about your recovery, but about—about—” Nicola wasn’t in the mood to be diplomatic. “You feel so damned sorry for yourself. You have so many gifts, Jack. You’re inventive and intelligent. There must be a reason you’re here on earth. A plan. Who knows what you’re capable of when you get well? What you’ll invent. Maybe make some discovery that will change life for the better of millions.”
She knew who he was now. Lord Jonathan Haskell Ryder, a baron whose ingenuity was famous throughout the British Isles. After Nicola’s questions, in his latest letter her father had disclosed all he knew about the man who’d come to see them last year.
Jack gave her a skeptical look, but she was obliged to continue. “You must stop dwelling in the past. The accident—it’s over, and there’s nothing you can do about it now. There was nothing you could have done about it then—you’re not super-human. You couldn’t very well be everywhere at once, could you? You had lots of business interests, lots of factories. A mistake was made, a serious mistake, but it was not your fault!” Her voice had risen with each syllable, and she was shouting. She was just shy of stamping her foot, for all the good it would do. Moll gave her a reproachful look and crawled under the bed.
Jack raised an eyebrow. Even that looked like it took effort on his part. “You really are angry with me.”
“I’m not angry. Frustrated is more like it. You have a chance to…channel your guilt into doing something great. It should be easy for you—you’re the smartest man I’ve ever met. I’ve seen your notebook. I can’t understand an eighth of what’s in it. All those figures and symbols. They’re like a foreign language.” She made no mention of the nudes—they were as explicit as can be.
“More like a sixteenth.”
Good. His mood was lifting. There was a flash of something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before her tirade.
“Exactly. You have a superiority of understanding few people have. Stop beating yourself up before I do it for you!” Punching Jack would be cathartic, if ill-advised.
“You are terrifying me.”
“Good.”
“Have I really been such a bore?”
Nicola nodded. “Yes. I don’t want to diminish what happened with that train—it m-must have been awful for the people on it. No wonder the thought of it upsets you.”
She could remember so little about it, which was a mercy. Sometimes she caught a whiff of something bad. Saw a thin river of red. Felt herself tumbling through the air. Most of the day was a vast gray blank until she woke up in hospital.
What was fully in her mind were the months of poking and prodding as she recovered afterward. All the times her tongue was pricked with needles to encourage her to speak. The end results had been a mouthful of blood and misery.
“So you think I’m squandering my life.”
“Not all of it,” Nicola hastened to say. “Were you always…prone to black moods? I mean, before the accident.”
He shook his head, slowly as to not jar the dressing. “You know, I never thought about that before. I’d have to say no, for the most part. Not that I was always happy-go-lucky, but I was mostly too busy with projects to borrow trouble. Even when they were failures, I wasn’t discouraged. I paid no attention to my parents’ criticisms when I could have let them bring me down. They were not always supportive, you see. Thought me a bit of a freak, if you must know. My father once actually told me I thought too much. Thought too much! How is that a bad thing?”
Nicola might tell him but she held her tongue.
“My mother just wants me to get married to a suitable girl.” He gave her a pointed look, then winked.
Nicola’s heart fluttered. Jack had talked of courting her. Had nearly asked her to marry him in a very roundabout way on any number of occasions. He had not gotten down on one knee, however, and wasn’t likely to at this moment, mummified in bed.
“Some people cannot help feeling unhappy, even when there’s no particular reason.” Nicola knew melancholia was prevalent throughout society. People drugged themselves and drank, sometimes to death. Puddling had been created to deal in part with such circumstances.
“You have to admit, I’ve had a reason.”
“Yes. No one is making light of what happened.” Least of all her. She’d made quite a long journey to recover from it, which Jack didn’t need to know about.
“I’ll think about what you said. Try to concentrate on the positive.” He didn’t sound totally convinced.
“It’s important that you stay busy when you are well. Speaking of which, your secretary Mr. Clarke is coming to see you tomorrow.”
Jack’s eyes widened. “Ezra’s coming here? Did I send for him?”
“You did. Don’t you remember? You wrote him a long letter after you walked to the…” She felt herself blush. “To the privy on Ham’s arm the first time. You were quite determined. You wouldn’t even let me help you compose it, even though you had a dreadfully high fever.”
“I can’t say as I remember any of it. I hope he could read it.” Jack ran a hand over the dark bristles on his cheek. Nicola was still getting used to his face without his beard, but Dr. Oakley had been insistent about shaving him to deal with the cuts and bruising and guard against infection. Beneath the bandage, Jack was temporarily bald too.
All that lovely black curling hair had been swept away and burned. They had done to Jack what her father had forbidden to be done to her, and she gratefully tucked an errant curl behind her ear.
His hair was growing back in fast, though, a dark shadow against the white of his scalp. Dr. Oakley had left a neat row of stitches bisecting his crown which were currently covered with a cotton bandage. Jack looked a little like a swami, exotic and a bit dangerous.
Dangerous to her good sense, at any rate. Mr. Clarke was probably coming to make arrangements for Jack’s return to civilization. It was almost time that she did the same. She’d notified her parents of the restoration of her voice, discouraging them from coming for her just yet despite their obvious excitement in their letters. Nicola was performing her Service, nursing a fellow Guest. In a week or two, she might be ready to go home.
The prospect did not cheer her. Once Jack recovered, there was no reason for her to stay. Her old life would beckon.
And it simply wasn’t good enough anymore.