Jane and the Damned (4 page)

Someone lifted her head and she thought for one moment wine was what she really craved, but she took a mouthful of thin, sour stuff and opened her eyes to see that she was lying on a bed at Manydown Hall. Only a few hours ago she and Catherine and Cassandra had dressed in this room and arranged one another‧s hair. She had been different then. Something was wrong with her, very wrong.

Cassandra sat beside her, an arm beneath her head, and she turned her face to her sister‧s shoulder, where a complex web of dark richness throbbed and flowed. Her mouth watered.

“Am I ill?” she asked. “Why does everything pound so?”

The one whose essence she had coveted—Mrs. Bigg, it was kindly Mrs. Bigg—leaned forward. “Do you have the headache,
my dear? If you are not better by morning we shall send for your mama. Why, we found you in a swoon in the supper room and could not rouse you; you seemed half dead. We have sent for the physician.”

“Oh, Jane, you are so pale.” Catherine seized her hands and chafed them. “And so cold.”

“You are so warm.” All three of them tantalized her, carrying what she could not have.

Another pulse joined the counterpoint of the other three women, a man who brought a waft of horse and tobacco and claret, grease from a recent dinner on his coat—already she was learning to prevent each scent flying into a wild cadenza of the senses—what had happened to her? A foul odor hung about him, of sickness, and mysterious powders.

“Ma‧am.” He bowed to Mrs. Bigg. “So this is the young lady who swooned? You have certainly frightened your friends, miss, but I think from the look of you there is not much amiss.”

“Sir, she was unconscious for the best part of two hours, and I do not think that a trivial matter,” Cassandra said.

He looked at her over the top of his spectacles. “So a lady might think, but I assure you, as a man of science, that I believe little ails her. Perhaps the excitement of the evening, eh?”

“Sir, this was the Assembly Room at the Angel in Basingstoke, not the court of the Tsar of the Russias,” Cassandra insisted.

The physician grunted and picked up Jane‧s wrist. He frowned and poked at her skin. “You must keep her warm. A little gruel and some wine, and best to keep quiet. If the condition persists, I should recommend a bleeding.”

Blood. She could see it, smell its metallic odor as it dripped into a basin, rich and dark. A small, involuntary moan escaped her lips.

“Oh, Jane, does it hurt? Where? She has the headache, I believe,” Mrs. Bigg said. “Why, she is hardly able to speak, poor thing. Can you do nothing for her, doctor?”

The physician peered at Jane as though he was annoyed at being roused from his bed for such a triviality, a young woman beset by the vapors. “I‧ll send a draught over in the morning, ma‧am, if you think it necessary. May I suggest some laudanum for the night.”

Jane looked at him with dislike. “You‧re a fool,” she said. “And your maidservant is with child by you, and your wife doesn‧t care because she‧s taken the miller as her lover.”

She had no idea where the thought came from, but she saw it as clear as day: the maidservant stood before a mirror, smoothed apron and skirts over her belly, and wondered how long it would be before she showed; and a man dusted with flour slapped the buttocks of the physician‧s wife as though they were plump sacks of grain.

“What!” The physician backed away. “She rambles, ma‧am. Clearly it is a case of insanity.”

“Or of truth, sir,” Jane said. How easy it would be to grasp his coat and sink her teeth into the folds of his neck—even though those folds were stubbled and greasy and the blood beneath ran sluggish and unhealthily thick.

Without even bowing, the physician gathered his bag and coattails around him in lieu of dignity and left the room.

“Jane, that was a shocking thing to say!” Mrs. Bigg said. “Where did you get such a wicked, unladylike idea?”

“I did hear something of the maidservant, Mama,” Catherine said timidly. “I expect I may have mentioned it to Jane, for everyone is talking of it.”

Jane nodded, running her tongue over her canines. They
ached, and she hoped a trip to the dentist was not in the future (but no, she knew deep down inside it was not so—besides, why both teeth, at the same time?). “I‧m tired,” she mumbled.

“Of course you are, my dear,” Mrs. Bigg said. “How would you feel about some laudanum? No? Some wine? You are looking a little better, but still too pale, and these pretty hands of yours are so cold.”

“I am feeling well enough, ma‧am, although somewhat fatigued.”

She turned down offers of tea, warming pans, more coals, and the contents of Mrs. Bigg‧s medicine chest, and was relieved when Catherine insisted her mother go to bed. After extracting from all three a promise that they would wake her if Jane became worse during the night, Mrs. Bigg picked up a candlestick and left the room, admonishing them not to stay up gossiping.

Catherine turned so Cassandra could untie the laces of her gown. “Hurry, it‧s freezing. Jane, did you hear what I heard: that the miller‧s parts are abnormally large?”

“Catherine!” Cassandra scolded. “What a shocking thing to say. Is it true?”

“Oh, indeed. Apparently he is most popular. There, your stays are unlaced. Quick, unlace me and then we can talk.”

“We mustn‧t tire Jane,” Cassandra said. She tugged at Catherine‧s laces. “Oh, they‧re knotted, you tiresome girl. My fingers are almost as cold as Jane‧s.”

Catherine, at the dressing table, reached for rags to curl her hair while Cassandra labored at her laces. Jane searched her reflection—she was there, and surely the indistinct quality of the image was only because the flames of the candles wavered in the drafty room.

Catherine and Cassandra, in their nightgowns and caps, their stays and petticoats and shifts tossed onto a chair, ran over to the
bed. Catherine jumped beneath the covers and gave a squeal of surprise. “Jane, you are so cold! I shall send for a warming pan.”

“No, we‧ll warm up on Cassandra.” She nudged her sister with one foot. “Pray faster.”

On her knees at the side of the bed, Cassandra, head bowed and hands together, gave her a distinctly un-Christian look. “Hold your tongue, and should not you pray, too?”

“I‧m ill,” Jane said.

“I‧m cold,” Catherine said with an exaggerated chatter of teeth. “Oh, do come to bed, Cassandra, I‧m sure God won‧t want you to catch your death.”

“… and restore my dear sister to health. Amen.” Cassandra climbed into bed on the other side of Jane and tied the ribbons of her nightcap beneath her chin.

“I cannot believe you swooned from being kissed,” Catherine said. “What did Mr. Smith do?”

“He kissed you?” Cassandra sat up.

Catherine gave an annoyed squawk. “Pray lie down again, you let cold air in so.”

“No, he didn‧t kiss me.” Had he? She remembered his mouth on hers and a sense of fading away and then fading back, if that were possible, and a deep and profound change that she could barely define. But she wouldn‧t think of that.

“Liar. Did he kiss as well as Tom Lefroy?”

She was silent. She rarely thought of Tom now. How foolish and innocent that seemed now; how young they had both been.

“Jane, dearest,” Cassandra said. “We should not tease you, for you are not well, I know. But did anything—anything untoward happen with Mr. Smith? He did not hurt you?”

Touched by her concern, Jane put her arm outside the bedclothes and hugged her sister. “He was a perfect gentleman.”

“She‧s being ironical,” said Catherine, yawning. “We shan‧t
get anything more out of her. A pity. He was so very handsome, wasn‧t he? But really, who would have thought to see their kind here in Basingstoke?”

“I was pleasantly surprised. They were quite civilized. Why, they even danced, and Mr. Smith was quite pleasing in his manners, almost like a real gentleman.”

“Or a duke.”

“Not a duke. You have seen the wicked pictures of them. They are all so profligate and fat and disagreeable.”

Their voices faded as they slid down into sleep, their bodies becoming heavier, pulses slowing and softening.

Would she need to sleep? What would happen to her in the light of day? She ran through all the myths and rumors she had ever heard and wondered when a terrible wickedness would infect her. Was she always aware of others’ pulses in a quiet room? Or the sounds of a room that was almost quiet: the slight crackle of the fire, a rustle and pattering of a mouse (that rapid thrum—surely not the little creature‧s heartbeat?), the creak of centuries-old timber settling as the room cooled?

So she did need to sleep after all, and she awoke hungry. Beside her, Cassandra, bedclothes up to her nose, snuffled quietly in her sleep. Although it was not quite light, it was later than they normally slept, and a maidservant, at her knees at the grate, made up the fire.

Jane asked the girl to lace up her stays and gown, and swathed in a shawl, ventured out into the house in search of … breakfast. A cup of tea and some bread and butter would do very well, she assured herself. She descended the stairs with their elegant iron balustrade—it was a handsome house some hundred years old—and was hailed by a familiar voice, that of Catherine‧s brother, fifteen-year-old Harris Bigg-Withers.

“Miss Jane! They told me you were here last night, but I had gone to bed by the time you came home.”

“Good morning, Harris. Yes, we were out shockingly late; you know how dissipated Basingstoke is. You have been out walking?”

He grinned, and slung his cloak over one arm. “Yes, and it‧s dreadfully cold.” He looked around. “Where is Flash? Why, you silly creature, come here. It‧s our friend Miss Jane.”

Flash the spaniel growled and bared his teeth at Jane.

“What‧s wrong with him?” she asked. Her heart sank. There was nothing wrong with the dog, but there was a great deal wrong with her.

“I don‧t know, but if he has not better manners I shall send him out to the kennels. Lie down, sir!” He smiled at Jane, all shy boyish charm. “Will you come in to breakfast with me, ma‧am?”

She placed her hand on his arm and, to her horror, his thoughts intruded into her head.

She‧s so pretty but she thinks I‧m a child… Maybe when I am a man I shall marry her… I hope I shall be taller than her soon … I wish I could stop stammering when I speak to her—and that other thing, that dreadfully embarrassing thing, is happening, I do hope she does not notice …

She snatched her hand away. “Yes—that is, I‧ll breakfast with you, Harris. And I‧ll tell you about the ball, as will Catherine, and Mrs. Bigg, and you will be heartily sick of the subject within a few hours. You should have come with us so we could not bore you about it.”

“Would you have danced with me, Miss Jane?”

“Of course.”

He ushered her into the morning room where breakfast was laid out on the sideboard and Jane stared at the array of cakes and breads that would otherwise normally tempt her. The seed
cake, usually a favorite, looked pallid and dull. Harris, wielding the carving knife and fork, offered her a slice of ham. The meat curled onto her plate, limp, the stripe of fat topped with golden breadcrumbs unappetizing.

Noticing that Harris, plate in hand, stared at his food, obviously anxious to sit and eat, she took a small piece of bread and butter and sat. The footman on duty in the room poured her coffee and Harris a pewter mug of ale, and then left to replenish the hot water.

Jane cut the ham into small squares, forked one into her mouth, and chewed. Salty, cold, unsatisfying.

Beside her, Harris dug into his breakfast, a plateful of ham, bread, pickles, and cake, with great enthusiasm. Jane braced herself for a polite conversation with a young man who was altogether shy, in awe of her, and more than half in love with her, something she had suspected for the past couple of years and now did not doubt. She did not want to meet his gaze, frightened that someone who knew her only a little would detect something different, some otherness in her. She watched his hands, large and clumsy—like a puppy, he seemed to grow in fits and starts—his wrists revealed by his cuffs, as though this week his arms had decided to grow too. A visit to the tailor would be necessary soon; but Harris, heir to several properties, signified by his hyphenated surname, would find a lack of money no impediment.

Harris, his plate cleared, drained his mug of ale and laid his knife and fork neatly on his plate.

“Excellent!” he declared. “But, Jane, you‧ve eaten hardly a thing!”

“I fear I overindulged last night at the punch bowl,” she confessed, wondering that she could sustain light conversation while staring at Harris‧s hand and wrist. His fingers were
curled still around the handle of his pewter mug, and his wrist, bared as the ruffles of his shirt cuff fell away, was revealed to her. She caught her breath at the sight of the blue veins against his pale skin.

“I w-wish you rode, Jane,” he said, oblivious of her attention. “For we have a mare, a very gentle mare in the stables that Papa and I bought for my sisters and—”

He stopped and his face took on an expression of fright, or delight, she really couldn‧t tell which, as she reached across and grasped his wrist, shoving his plate out of the way. He resisted a little, but not much.

“Wh-why, what are you about?”

She didn‧t answer but drew his wrist toward her. As clear as day she heard his thoughts—
Good heavens, what if Papa or Mama—should I kiss her? Does she want me to? Does this mean I shall have to marry her? Oh Lord, that embarrassing thing‧s happening again, but the tablecloth—

She shoved the excited babble aside and raised his wrist to her mouth and breathed in his scent. The delicate tracery of blue veins and the ropes and hollows of tendons were close to her lips; the back of his hand was rough with springy, fine hair as her fingers closed over the bones. He resisted a little more with a gasp of surprise, but she had him fast.

“Jane, s-stop, it is not proper—” He stood and tried to shake her off, but she was stronger than him now.

Her teeth ached again, smarting at the gums and sharp against her own lower lip. She ignored the waning voice of her conscience that warned her that what she was about to do was depraved and wicked. Instead she looked into his eyes and saw his frightened, bewildered expression.