Chapter 14 #2
Madeline scarcely stirred while her lady’s maid undressed and washed her in her bed. At least, that is what Lady Trafford informed Simon of when she reopened the door to the bedchamber.
“Will she recover?”
“It is difficult to say given the quantity of arsenic she consumed, but I believe so.”
“Will her health suffer as a result?”
“Miss Bigsby is young and healthy.” Lady Trafford failed to elaborate past that, and Mrs. Bigsby chose that moment to appear in the doorway.
“What has happened?”
Simon held up a hand, dismissing the lady’s maid from the room and shutting the door behind her.
“We have informed the servants that your daughter ate tainted food. Madeline has been too ill to recount the particulars, but she drank tea with my mother who dosed it with arsenic. Lady Trafford is a trained healer who helped relieve her of the contents of her stomach. Now she is resting.”
Mrs. Bigsby firmed her jaw, walking over to the bed to examine Madeline herself for several seconds, leaning over to brush the hair back from her face before straightening with a mixture of grief and anger upon her features.
“I have questions,” she said at last, “but let me begin with, where is Lady Blackwood now?”
Simon swallowed. “She has suffered an overdose of laudanum. The coroner has been summoned to examine the body.”
“Good.”
The simple acknowledgment made Simon wince, and he supposed his mother’s decision to depart this world had been circumspect.
Mrs. Bigsby had the appearance of a vengeful angel, and he could picture her tearing the much smaller Isla apart limb by limb with her large hands if she had had the opportunity to do so.
Over the next half an hour, Simon and Mrs. Bigsby discussed what had happened, Simon revealing the details that he knew until the moment arrived for him to express his tremendous regret.
“I beg your forgiveness, Mrs. Bigsby.”
“What for?”
“This … for what my mother did.”
Madeline’s mother rose from her seat, walking over to the window to gaze out over the garden as if she were lost in thought. Simon waited for her reply, the drumming of his fingertips belying any attempt at composure.
“You are not your father, the one who tried to ruin my business. You took steps to rectify that when you gained control of the purse strings.” It was true.
When his father’s declining health had forced him to hand over the financial reins, Simon had discreetly placed several large orders with Bigsby’s for the Blackwood estates.
It was his way of making amends for any harm his father had caused, which John had concurred was the right thing to do.
“It was the least I could do after he campaigned against your business,” Simon replied quietly.
Mrs. Bigsby nodded. “The gesture was unnecessary, but it was appreciated. And you are not your mother, who … did this.” Her eyes drifted to her pale daughter, lying still on the bed.
She shook her head, as though to banish the dark thoughts.
Then, turning her gaze back to Simon, she continued, “You are you. I hold you accountable for your own actions. The sins of your parents belong to them alone.”
“That is generous.”
“It is how I would wish to be treated. We all have our own mistakes to answer for, so I cannot hold you responsible for the actions of others. Otherwise, we would never find peace. Thank you for acting so swiftly to ensure Madeline received help. Lady Trafford tells me that the timing was crucial.”
“I was fortunate to catch her when she was leaving.”
“And what would you have done if she had already left?”
Simon paused, considering the events of the day, grateful to Mrs. Bigsby for her generosity despite his cloying sense of shame. “I would have repeated what was done with John. Assisted her to evacuate her stomach while sending someone to summon the viscountess back.”
“So it was not luck. Lady Trafford’s presence is a comfort, but I believe you would have done the same after witnessing what happened with your brother earlier in the day.
What has happened to Madeline, and to your brother, is unspeakably evil, but you took decisive action when you were needed. For this, I thank you.”
Simon exhaled deeply, profoundly relieved that Eleanor Bigsby had always been a fair and just woman, one who had treated him without prejudice despite his father’s blackguard behavior during his childhood.
“However …”
Simon straightened up in alarm.
“Expect Henrietta to be rather more excitable than I. I believe she will arrive home soon.”
The perceptive mother was proven right. Henri arrived within minutes of her announcement, bursting into the bedchamber with a shriek. “What is this?”
Mrs. Bigsby quickly drew her out of the room to inform her of the day’s events out in the hall.
Simon could hear the emotional replies from Henri, interspersed with Mrs. Bigsby’s low murmurs, for several minutes until Henri grew quieter.
When they reentered, Henri scowled at him with an accusatory glare and took up the seat next to Madeline’s bed.
She stared down at her twin in anguish, brushing Madeline’s hair aside as if to confirm with her own fingertips that she yet lived.
Simon watched in silence, the guilt that had dissipated during his conversation with Mrs. Bigsby returning to claw at his gut.
Henri exhaled sharply. “Will she be well?”
“It would seem so,” Mrs. Bigsby responded from the window. “Lady Trafford thinks Madeline is in good health and will make a full recovery.”
“Lady Trafford? The doctor’s daughter who married the Earl of Stirling’s heir?”
Mrs. Bigsby nodded. “She apprenticed at her father’s side. It was she who treated Madeline when she collapsed.”
Henri rubbed her face. “There are rumors she treated Lord Trafford, too. After some sort of attack that he suffered. Then he married her to abate the scandal.”
Simon raised his brows, but remained silent. He had seen how Trafford admired his wife, and he did not believe that deterring her ruin was the sole reason the buck had wed the intriguing healer who had saved both Simon’s brother and Madeline this day.
After a while, Henri left, shooting him another scathing glare as she departed the room with her mother. Simon resumed his vigil beside Madeline, wondering just how much Mrs. Bigsby had revealed during their conversation in the corridor.
A couple hours later, Madeline stirred from her fitful sleep. “Thirsty.”
Simon hastened to assist her, lifting her gently to help her drink the broth that had been left on a tray.
Lady Trafford’s instructions had been clear: as much liquid as she could manage to replenish what had been lost. Madeline drank two cups before slipping back into slumber, her breathing steadier, her color a shade improved.
Mrs. Bigsby came to relieve him at dinner time, and he rushed home to complete the arrangements for the bodies and to check on John. The guards were still standing in the hall, but John’s rooms were no longer locked and Duncan was assisting Molly when he entered.
After Duncan left to collect broth from the kitchen, John beckoned for Simon to sit beside his bed as he struggled into a sitting position.
“Molly tells me the mystery has been solved.”
“My mother.”
“Do we know why?”
“To clear the way for me to inherit.”
His brother blinked profusely as he considered this. “Was Isla … mad?”
Simon huffed a humorless laugh. “My mother refused to allow an emotion to cross her face for decades. I think it is safe to assume that she was addled in the head. I shall read her journals to learn more, but I suppose we should have known something was amiss.”
John shook his head, and Simon was pleased to note his pallor had improved somewhat since his collapse that morning.
“It will not help to mull on that. When you interact with someone on a daily basis … it would be difficult to notice a descent into gradual madness over a period of time. Not to mention, Isla being so undemonstrative.”
Simon stroked his beard, thinking about the horrors of the day. There was much to discuss with John, but for today, his brother must be allowed to rest. “I am so sorry, John.”
His brother frowned. “For what?”
“For bringing this upon our household.”
“Do not be ridiculous. You are my brother. Isla’s actions are her own. How were you to know she was a potential Bedlamite?”
“I do not know,” Simon whispered, “but I should have.”
“Father was a terrible bigot. He harassed Mrs. Bigsby to an extent that was far beyond the pale. Am I to be blamed for that?”
“I do not think his dreadful behavior had anything to do with you. And Mrs. Bigsby does not seem to hold it against us.”
John lifted a hand, palm up. “There it is. In the best of all worlds, you or I would have noticed something was wrong. But she was your mother, and I do not think it a good idea to dissect your conscience over it. Learn from it, but move on. You are a good man, and I regret that I have not shown more appreciation for the work you have done in my stead. I suppose you are a Scottish viscount now?”
Simon raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Can you believe it? I thought my mother would live a hundred years. She could have been mistaken for my sister. It never struck me that I would ever become Lord Campbell. I never wished for a title, but now I possess four or five. I still have to find our Debrett’s to see which ones.
The irony is, I have never been to Scotland. ”
John chuckled before coughing into a handkerchief. “What will you do?”
“I do not know. I do not wish the titles to define me. I wish to follow my own path, but this has become complicated. Again.”
“I can attest that a close brush with death has made me rethink my priorities. Even more so when I discovered my ill health has been part of a vindictive plan. See to the people and responsibilities attached to the titles, and then, perhaps you can find a way forward that allows you some liberties.”
“I hope so.”
Next, Simon visited Nicholas in his bedchamber, his brother still contending with the physical miseries of casting aside drink, to inform him of what had transpired since they had spoken earlier. His younger brother was morose, having heard the news that their mother was dead.
“I am not sure how to feel about it,” Nicholas admitted in a dull voice. “We were not close, and I did not know her well. I think she did not have much time for me as the youngest and most imperfect.” Nicholas gestured at his injured leg.
“That might be the case, but I do not think Mother was close to anyone. John and I have just spoken about how we each had a poor sense of who she was. She, in the most literal sense, wore a mask to hide not just her emotions but her thoughts.”
“I suppose we are safer without her.”
It was a sad truth that they were.
Simon departed soon after to return to Madeline’s side, with the infamous journals tucked under his arm. He had promised Madeline they would remain together, and he planned to do just that as long as he could.