A Fall from Grace, Maggie Ford [best english novels to read txt] 📗

been saved the terror of an enforced abortion but she’d no longer cared, just wanting it to end.

While she lay downstairs on the made-up bed, Anthony had telephoned on the pretext of asking after his uncle’s health but really to find out where she was, so she had learned later.

Told only that his uncle was well enough but that his aunt had been taken ill, he had come bounding round on a legitimate errand of asking after her. By that time James, alerted by Merton who had returned downstairs to find chaos ruling, had himself come to investigate. It had fallen to Dr Peters to tell him the disturbing news and though he had no doubt been careful with his words, James had gone back up to his room once Madeleine was pronounced out of danger – that was three days ago. He’d not been near her since; hadn’t even wanted to know whose child it was. For that at least she should have felt relieved; no third degree, no accusation, no need for her to lie to him; no adding insult to injury in his having to be told it was his own nephew. But that was no relief as she lay or sat around in her room doing nothing, like a nun in a cell, wanting only to close herself off from the world.

Anthony rang once to ask how she was. That was ten days ago. Since then there had been silence. Between weeping and staring at the four walls, Madeleine felt it would have been a blessing to have died, wished even now that she would.

Twenty-Three

Six days more confined to bed, and still James hadn’t come near her.

Surely he must have guessed what she’d gone through; must have heard her crying out during the horrible process of something almost akin to a full-term birth yet with nothing to show for it in the end.

She had asked to know the sex but Dr Peters had said the sex of an aborted fetus would not be recognizable. She hated that word aborted. It sounded so unwholesome as if she’d deliberately got rid of it. It shocked her too, that it was not termed a miscarriage, which would have sounded so much more wholesome.

Afterwards she had lain drained, praying that James would decide to eventually see her. He hadn’t come near and now she lay slowly recovering and trying not to feel bitter. Tomorrow she would get up, no matter what Dr Peters said. Tomorrow was Wednesday. She’d make herself feel well enough to visit Anthony. The day after her miscarriage Anthony came to the house to visit her, his aunt, as any fond nephew would, but was told that she needed complete rest, no visitors as yet apart from her husband lest she became too stressed. Everyone thought her constant weeping was related to what was now being generally referred to as her miscarriage, her devastation at losing her and James’s baby. Only Mrs Cole knew why she cried.

James too was probably devastated but not for the reason the staff believed. He sat alone in the seclusion of his rooms, not even Merton allowed to come near. Madeleine knew he must be feeling utterly lost and betrayed.

Fortunately, as far as she knew, he had no idea of the identity of the father. She trembled to think how much worse it would be if he knew it to be his own nephew. Eventually he would find out and it terrified her – as if she hadn’t wronged him enough already. But if only he could bring himself to see her, maybe she could explain how starved of love she had been – then she scolded herself for such a damned foolish thought, expecting a wronged man to sympathize with such a sad excuse.

In all these six days, James had not come anywhere near her; it was like some slow torture, knowing how he must feel and all the while feeling as wretched herself because of it.

Going to Anthony was the only solution she could think of to alleviate this need for someone to understand and sympathize but not for the wrong reasons. In fact Anthony might be deeply relieved that there was no longer any need to send her away for an abortion. She could hardly wait to be with him, but leaving the house without being seen, to be stopped and asked what she thought she was doing, what reason could she give? She couldn’t sleep that night for thinking about it.

Next morning she awoke to an idea that seemed to have formed while she’d slept. Of course, the only one who knew her secret was Mrs Cole. It was still early as she got herself out of bed trying to ignore the weakness in her legs from six days of inertia. She dressed warmly, after a fashion, the late February mornings chill and damp, then crept cautiously down the back stairs, one slow step at a time. Her caution had less to do with meeting any of the staff on the stairs as waves of weakness that almost overwhelmed her halfway down to the kitchen where Mrs Cole would be starting her day.

It was a relief not to meet anyone, have to endure a look of surprise from someone seeing her there. Beattie would be in one of the main rooms clearing out a fire grate, resetting it for the day ahead. Young Lily would be cleaning in the kitchen or whatever she did at this time of morning. Merton, if he wasn’t with James, would still be in his butler’s pantry downstairs.

Mrs Cole turned around at her entrance, startled at seeing her there, her voice shrill with alarm. ‘Madam, what on earth are you doing up?’

Madeleine noted the way she addressed her, no dear or love now. In an odd way, it hurt.

Mrs Cole said, ‘You shouldn’t be up. You should be in your bed,’ and seeing her dressed for outdoors, adding almost unnecessarily, ‘you’re not