Enlightened (8 page)

“Come,” she said. “I’ll take you to him.”

Somehow, David shambled himself back together again and followed her out into the hall. They ascended the broad, winding staircase together, David’s eyes fixed on the nurse’s dove-grey skirts.

She led him to one of the bedchambers and knocked softly at the door before opening it a crack. “Mr. Chalmers, I have someone to see you.”

“Come in,” said a weak, listless voice, barely recognisable to David. Mrs. Jessop opened the door all the way, stepping to one side to allow David to precede her.

The man who lay against the white pillows in Chalmers’s bed was a stranger. The last time David had seen his friend, he’d looked unwell—thinner and frailer—but this was something else altogether. Now he was shrunk to skin and bones, and his face was gaunt. In the morning light, his sallow skin had a papery look, and his once twinkling eyes were dull and sunken.

When his gaze alighted on David, though, that terrible death mask somehow cracked for a moment and David saw a glimpse of his old friend.

“David—”

Chalmers began struggling—and failing—to raise himself up on one elbow. David stepped forward to help, wondering how to do so, but before he could formulate a plan, Mrs. Jessop was at Chalmers’s side, doing something discreet and easy looking with a pile of pillows. Half a minute later, Chalmers was sitting up, in a fashion, reclining against a great snowy bolster the nurse had made for him.

“There now,” she said. “I’ll leave you, but I’ll bring some tea up in a little while, shall I?” She didn’t wait for an answer but smoothly glided away, closing the door behind her with a tiny click.

“My friend,” David said softly, walking forward. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you, lad.” Chalmers’s thin voice was a mere whisper, but somehow he imbued the words he uttered with a rich mix of emotions, relief and pleasure and sorrow all at once.

David sat himself down in the single empty chair beside the bed. Chalmers raised his right hand in a weak greeting, and David took it between both of his own. Shocked by how cold and brittle it felt, he chafed it gently between his fingers. When he looked at Chalmers’s face again, he was horrified to feel tears leap into his eyes.

Ducking his head, he muttered, “I’m sorry.”
 

But Chalmers merely gave a wheezy chuckle. “Don’t be. I’m gratified to—to merit tears.”

David managed a faint chuckle of his own at that typically Chalmers comment, though it was a sad effort, in truth.

“I’m glad you got here in time, lad. Before I—”

“Don’t—”

“—before I die,” Chalmers continued with gentle emphasis, adding with a sad smile, “It won’t be long now, lad.” He fell silent then, for so long that David wondered if he had it in him to talk anymore.

“Do you have something you want to tell me?” David prompted after a while. “Or something to ask of me? You know I will do whatever is in my power.”

“I know,” Chalmers breathed. “You have been a good friend to me. And yes, I have something to—ask.”

“Name it.”

“I’ll come to it. First, have you seen Kitty and Donald?”

David nodded. “Last night, I dined with them.”

“Then you’ll know how”—he seemed to search for words, and perhaps also for breath—“how delicate Kitty is.”

David paused, unsure how much to say. In the end, he settled for, “Kitty’ll be all right. Donald will take care of her. You know that, don’t you?”

Chalmers nodded. “Donald’s a good lad.” He closed his eyes, his brow furrowing as though he was in pain, while his thin chest rose and fell with his shaky breaths.

When he opened his eyes again, he said sadly, “Poor Kitty. She was always—always my sunny girl.”

David gazed at the other man earnestly. “And she will be again. She’s had a hard time of it, but she’ll come round, with Donald’s help. She’s strong, and no woman could want a more attentive husband.”

A faint nod at that and a matching smile, happy and melancholy all at once. “They are happy together. A true love match. That’s—” He broke off, closing his eyes and tensing again. David raised himself from his chair and leaned over the other man, concerned but not knowing what to do.

After a minute, Chalmers opened his eyes and gestured shakily at the jug on his nightstand. David carefully poured him a cup of what looked like plain water and held it to Chalmers’s lips, slipping his arm around the other man’s shoulders to support him while he drank. He could feel Chalmers’s shoulder blades through his nightshirt, sharp and frail, and the weight of him was puny on David’s arm. He was like a husk, dried out and ready to blow away with the winds.

Once Chalmers had drunk his fill and rested for a minute, he began to talk again.

“My Kitty married a man she loves, thank God. It’s the only reason to marry, lad.”

David watched his friend. Chalmers knew better than anyone how often people married for reasons other than love. His own marriage was a cold affair. What was more, Elizabeth, his oldest and favourite daughter, had married Sir Alasdair Kinnell after being disappointed in love by David himself. David, guilty over his clumsy rejection of her, had been relieved to hear of the marriage, glad that she’d married so well. It was only later that he learned how Kinnell was abusing her.

“I did not marry for love,” Chalmers said. “Margaret was the daughter of a senior man at the bar. Four years older than I. Her father let it be known she had a good dowry, and that he’d give my career a leg up.” He closed his eyes. “I was ambitious back then.”

David was not surprised to hear that Chalmers’s marriage had been devoid of any tender feelings, even at the beginning. Chalmers’s wife was a proud, haughty woman. She’d shown no affection and little respect for her husband in all the time David had known Chalmers, and she didn’t bother to hide her contempt for anyone he invited into their home whom she considered to be inferior.

“I would not change anything now,” Chalmers continued. “I have four wonderful girls who I love more than life. But the truth is, our marriage was never a happy one. She was always cold.” He closed his eyes again, breathing against another wave of pain. For a while he was silent, then he added, “And perhaps I was too. We were never more than strangers who lived in the same house.”

David couldn’t help but contrast the bleak picture Chalmers presented with his own parents’ quiet contentment. They had never had the money or position enjoyed by Chalmers and his wife, but they had something else far more valuable, a deep love for one another that had survived a hundred trials—lost babies and bad harvests and severe winters. No matter how bad things had ever been for them, they always had each other to lean on.

“It must have been difficult,” David murmured, “to live like that. Like strangers.”

“I didn’t realise how much, till I met someone I truly cared for,” Chalmers confessed, his voice raw with emotion. He paused before adding, “I did not set out to do it. She was a client—a widow. We became friends first. Then, much later, lovers.”

David was shocked. He’d never even guessed at this. Chalmers had given no hint of it before. “Does she know about this?” he asked. “Your illness, I mean?”

Chalmers shook his head. He closed his eyes, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. Eventually, he said, “She passed away three years ago.”

“Ah God, Chalmers, I’m sorry.”

“At the time, it was terrible. There was no one I could speak to about her. She was the love of my life, and I had to act as though she had never existed. As though my heart had not been destroyed.”

David’s heart squeezed at that painful confession. “What was her name?”

“Mary. Mary Cunningham.”

“I’m glad that you—that you found some happiness with her.” The words came out rather stiltedly, but they were sincerely meant, and somehow David knew Chalmers understood that.

“And I’m glad I can speak of her to someone. For all this time, it has felt as though I’ve been denying her very existence. Denying that I loved her.” He paused. “Love should not be denied.”

“She’d have understood,” David replied, believing it.

Chalmers didn’t answer that right away, but at last he said quietly, “I don’t know about that. She died alone. After she took ill, I hired a nurse for her, since I couldn’t be with her all the time. It happened after I left her one evening so I could attend a dinner party Margaret had arranged.” He closed his eyes and his voice shook with regret as he continued. “She died in the early hours of the morning. I was not with her, and I should have been. I can never get that chance back again—to be there for her when she passed. I was too busy slinking back here to dine with some bore Margaret wanted me to charm.”

The agony on Chalmers’s face was palpable. This was a soul-deep pain, far worse in its way than the physical pain the man now endured.

“Do you still think she’d have understood, lad?” Chalmers whispered.

David couldn’t deny that Chalmers’s confession altered his view. He found himself imagining Murdo leaving his side to perform an obligation to some hypothetical future wife and was surprised at how painful he found the mere thought. Not that he intended to find himself in such a position. He’d decided long ago that he would break off with Murdo as and when a potential wife appeared on the scene.

“But that is not even my greatest regret,” Chalmers continued in a pained voice.

“What is then?”

“That I did not tell Mary I loved her till she was too ill to understand the words.”

Chalmers’s face was twisted into an expression of self-loathing, and David’s heart ached for his friend. “I’ll wager she knew,” he whispered. But Chalmers just shook his head.

“Words have power,” he said. “I held my confession back to punish myself for my infidelity. But when Mary lay dying, I realised I had punished her too. Saying the words was”—a shaking breath—“it was far more powerful than I realised it would be. But without Mary to hear those words, they were stillborn. Sometimes things must be said.” He closed his eyes. “And they must be heard too.”

Chalmers sank back into his pillows, exhausted after that relatively lengthy exchange, and fell into a light, fitful slumber.

Mrs. Jessop popped her head in again while he dozed. She carried a tea tray, which she set down on the sideboard. She poured some tea for David, dosing his cup with both milk and sugar before passing it to him. It wasn’t at all how he liked it—but he drank it down gratefully while she checked on Chalmers. There was a cup for Chalmers too, though not of tea, in his case. Mrs. Jessop sat it on the nightstand beside his bed, ready for when he woke. Then she tiptoed from the room again.

At length, Chalmers stirred. He grimaced, almost comically, when David pointed out the draught beside his head, though he let David help him sit up straighter, the better to drink it down.

David held the cup to Chalmers’s lips and the older man accepted most of the contents before leaning back against his pillows again.

“So, I have a favour to ask you, David.”

“Name it.”

“It is to do with Elizabeth.”

David didn’t pause. “I guessed as much.”

Another wait while Chalmers gathered his strength again. David was coming to learn his dying friend’s rhythms, and they were heartbreakingly slow.

“I had a letter last week from Charles Carr, my brother-in-law. He is the solicitor administering Elizabeth’s trust.”

“Yes, I remember.” Although David was one of Elizabeth’s trustees, so far he’d had no need to perform any duties since Donald had taken that burden on his shoulders after David’s accident. “Is there a problem?”

“It’s Kinnell. He’s been to Charles’s office. He was asking questions about Elizabeth.”

David stared helplessly at his friend, trying not to betray how profoundly this news, that Elizabeth’s husband was so close to her, scared him. He’d experienced firsthand what Kinnell was capable of when he had his wife in his sights.

“Charles doesn’t think it means Kinnell knows about the trust, or even that she’s in London,” Chalmers continued. “Kinnell may have just gone to see him on the off chance—he knows Charles is family—but equally, he could have been watching Charles’s offices.”

Charles’s office, where Elizabeth went to collect her trust income every month.

David searched for something reassuring to say, but before he could come up with anything, Chalmers spoke again.

“I want you to move the business of administering the trust to another solicitor—preferably in another city altogether, if Elizabeth can be prevailed upon to leave London. Only one of the trustees can deal with this.” He paused and sent David a regretful look. “David—I know it isn’t fair to ask you, but I can’t ask Donald. Not with Kitty as she is.”

“Is that all?” David asked. “No need to apologise, old friend. Consider it done.”

“I shouldn’t be asking you,” Chalmers replied unhappily. “I know you’re not fully recovered.”

“Well, I don’t need to be for this. It so happens that Lord Murdo leaves for London tomorrow, and I’m sure he’ll be willing to take me with him in his carriage, so I’ll travel like a king and be in the capital within the week.” He paused briefly. “And I’ll do what I can to persuade Elizabeth to move elsewhere. She needs to get out of Kinnell’s reach. I’ll write to let you know how I get on.”