Chapter 28
“Wherein madness is inevitable.”
As Sebastian headed up the steps of the house in Grosvenor Square, his harassed looking footman, powdered wig askew, emerged from the front doors.
Forcing on his hat as he closed the doors and shrugging into his coat as he ran, he was clearly on some errand of urgency.
His face cleared in an almost comical manner as it landed on his Master.
“Oh, your grace!” he said, with such obvious relief that Sebastian was struck with an immediate sense of foreboding.
His staff never exclaimed nor expressed curiosity or any emotion unbecoming in a member of his household. So, the footman’s lack of propriety could only mean something of a very grave nature had occurred. “I was just on my way to find you.”
“What is it, Benson?” he demanded, ushering the shaken looking fellow back inside the house before anything could be made of it by anyone else.
Once the door had closed Benson seemed to remember his position and straightened himself.
“It is the dowager duchess, your grace. But I assure you we had no idea she would ever ... I mean to say, your grace ... As you know it is her habit to stay in her rooms until noon so the staff, none of us expected ... that is to say ...”
“Say what? Are you half-witted man? I never heard anyone say so much and tell me so little!” he exploded, fearing the worst.
His fears seemed to be confirmed by the grave look in his servant’s eyes.
“We were unaware that her Ladyship meant to visit the breakfast parlour, your grace. If we had known, we would of course have taken pains to have removed ...”
“She saw the morning papers,” Sebastian supplied for him with a grim expression.
The footman nodded, his face one of terrified pallor. “I-I must take full responsibility, your grace. I should have ...”
“Nonsense,” Sebastian replied. “I may be exacting, Benson, but I don’t believe I have ever demanded my staff to have second sight.”
The relief of the man in front of him was palpable and marked.
“Thank you, your grace,” the man replied, with deep sincerity.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Sebastian said his face grim as he put his coat and hat into the care of the second footman. “It means you’re still a member of this household and in a situation which may yet be our undoing. How is my mother now?”
Benson blanched a little as a crash of china came from above stairs.
“Never mind,” Sebastian said, his heart sinking to his boots where he had no doubt it was likely to remain for the rest of the day at least. He began to run upstairs, calling back to Benson. “And call Doctor Alperton. Tell him it’s an emergency.”
He had just reached the top when there was a scream and Lady Rush, his mother’s companion, flew through the doors as though pursued by the devil. She ran helter-skelter down the corridor to her own rooms, wailing hysterically all the while as Sebastian cursed and ran to his mother’s door.
She was pacing and muttering, her long grey hair loose and dishevelled about her shoulders, her black bombazine skirts crumpled.
Seeing him enter the room, her febrile gaze turned to one of fury and she ran for the mantelpiece and snatched up a Staffordshire china dog, one of a pair that had been in his family for generations.
Not for much longer though as she lanced it with considerable force for a woman of her meagre frame. With surprising accuracy too, as Sebastian was forced to duck as the vacant-faced canine missed his head by a hair’s breadth and exploded against the wall.
“Devil!” she screamed, running to snatch up its china companion and throw it in the same manner. “How dare you!” The china dog shattered at his feet this time as she looked for another missile. “How dare you come from your whore to me? You’d ruin us for that red-haired witch, that slut ...”
To his astonishment she gave up her search for a weapon and flew at him instead, scratching at his face, trying to claw at his eyes as he was forced to hold her off.
“Mother!” he shouted. “Stop this!”
“Wicked, wicked man ... oh, Sindalton, Sindalton, how can you ... with that evil ... evil creature! Do you not care for your own son?”
With growing horror Sebastian realised that it wasn’t him she was seeing but his dead father all those years before.
She subsided as he held her wrists in his strong grip and she crumpled to the floor.
Sobbing and raving, she cursed his red-headed whore with vicious and crude words he had never believed his mother even knew.
By the time Doctor Alperton was shown into his study some hours later, Sebastian had managed to find a measure of tolerable calm.
His mother’s behaviour had become increasingly erratic and volatile as the years passed, but this had truly shocked him. By now though, he was composed enough to face the man who had delivered him into this world and knew as much of their family scandal as there was to know.
A short and rather portly man with a terrible and frivolous taste in waistcoats for a doctor, Sebastian had always thought him a rather frippery fellow.
But he was always very solicitous and if Sebastian felt he rather indulged his mother’s fits of anxiety, he was grateful beyond measure for his discretion and the quiet dignity with which he now spoke.
There was real sorrow in his eyes as he went to shake Sebastian’s hand.
“Your grace,” he said, his expression serious. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am to find your mother in this state. I have sedated her of course and I’ll return first thing in the morning.”
“Will ... will she recover?” he asked, hardly daring to hear the answer.
The doctor sighed and gave him a crooked smile. “You know I cannot give you a certain answer to that, my lord, much as I wish I could.”
“Then what is your feeling on the matter?” Sebastian demanded in obvious bad temper, knowing he was being unfair; the man wasn’t God after all. “Because if she doesn’t, I fear I have done far worse than kill her with my own hands!”
He stopped and went to pour himself a drink and another for the doctor.
“It’s my fault you see. I ... I have offered for Miss Georgiana Dalton. I needn’t ask for your discretion in this, I know, after all these years, but Mother saw the wicked gossip in one of those damned rags this morning ...”
He broke off and downed his drink in one large swallow before handing the other glass to the doctor.
“May I speak frankly, your grace?” the doctor asked, his voice gentle and a surprising amount of sympathy in his eyes.
“Of course,” Sebastian replied, taking a seat beside the fire and gesturing for Alperton to do the same. “You’ve known me all my life, and you knew my parents before. There’s hardly anyone I’d trust more.”
The doctor smiled at him.
“You have no idea how much that honours me, your grace, and so I’ll take advantage of that familiarity if I may.
” He smoothed a hand over his rather plump belly, which was covered by a truly garish waistcoat, as he gathered his thoughts.
“I knew your parents before they married, as you know, and to be frank, a worse match it would have been hard to countenance.”
He broke off, his smile for Sebastian warm and genuine.
“Your father was a fine man, but he was betrothed to your mother when they were little more than children. As they grew, it became clear that your mother was perhaps ... rather high strung to say the least. She was never in the most robust of health, was spoilt by over-indulgent parents, and was prone to fits of temper and ... and irrationality. She was, however, quite a beauty in her young days and, well to be frank, your father was too good natured to cry off.”
Sebastian felt a knot of tension begin to unravel a little at the doctor’s words.
“I didn’t drive her to madness?” he asked, his voice rough.
“No!” the doctor exclaimed, shaking his head with vigour.
“The truth is that your mother has always been of a nervous and rather unstable temperament. In all honesty, she drove your father away. He was lonely, especially after you were born. The experience of childbirth ... well it did not sit well with your mother. She doted on you, but she would never let your father touch her again.”
They were quiet for a while as the doctor allowed him to digest this new and revealing piece of information.
“He was a good man,” Sebastian said, his voice quiet.
“He was indeed,” the doctor replied smiling. “And he was so very proud of you. Prouder than you perhaps realise.”
Sebastian felt a lump form in his throat and had to look away, staring into the fire as the smiling face of his father came to mind.
“He loved you,” the older man said. “And he loved Lady Dalton.”
Sebastian looked up, and he found the man’s kindly eyes on him.
“He would never have done it if he’d have realised what it would mean for you, of that much I’m sure. But he loved her, that I do know. And she loved him.”
Sebastian closed his eyes and let out a breath. “Thank you,” he said.
“There is nothing to thank me for,” Alperton replied.
“They are only the reminiscences of an old man after all. But none of this is your fault, nor is it any of your young lady’s.
I can’t tell you if your mother will recover her mind or not, your grace, but I will say this much.
Don’t let their tragedy be yours. Don’t let history repeat itself.
Your mother has lived her life as she saw fit, and this is the result.
Don’t change your life to try to create another generation of misery, not to appease someone who can never be truly happy, no matter what you do. ”