Chapter 9 #3
“Your father brought that devil into our house, into our lovely house. He brought evil there, and then… and then he died,” she shrieked, weeping bitterly. “Dead, dead, why did he die? Why did he leave me alone? All alone.”
Her grip on his hands was too tight, her nails digging in, whilst the look in her eyes was both pleading and tinged with an anger that burned still, unabated. Damian gazed at her, horror and pity making his stomach roil with the need to get away from her.
Celia placed one hand on her frail back. “Come now, my lady. You are upsetting your son, and you don’t wish to do that, I know.”
She stopped crying at once and glanced up at Damian, shaking her head. Dashing the tears away with her sleeve, she shook her head. “N-No. I would n-never hurt D-Damian. Never. Never.”
Celia gently prised his mother’s clawing fingers free, pressing her own handkerchief into her grasping hands instead.
While she twisted and tugged at the delicate, lace edged square, her piteous gaze remained steady upon Damian, her eyes filled with pleading.
His heart felt raw and exposed, all the things he had refused to allow himself to think about for such a long time crashing down upon his head.
He wanted to run. He wanted to vomit. He wanted none of it to be true.
Why could he not marry and have a family like other men? Why could he not have that? Why must he fear becoming like… like this? They were alike, he knew they were. His brother saw it too. Damian saw Deon watching him sometimes, wondering.
Would he wake one day to find a knife in his hand, his wife’s lifeless body at his feet?
The thought terrified him. He backed away from his mother, from Celia’s worried gaze.
“We’re leaving. Goodbye, Mama.” His mother looked so bereft that guilt piled down upon the pain of everything else. “I… I will come again. I promise,” he managed, before he wrenched the door open and hurried out, praying Celia would follow.
Cilly forced herself to turn back to Lady Rivington, though she wanted to run too, yet everything depended on how she acted today, and she would not fail Damian now. “Goodbye, my lady. I shall see you again soon.”
Damian’s mother regarded her with eyes that were so like her son’s, and yet so filled with pain. “Look after him.”
Cilly swallowed down the lump in her throat and nodded, reaching out to cover the woman’s hand for a moment. “Oh, I shall, my lady. I give you my word.”
With that she stood, and the doctor opened the door for her, escorting her out. She let out a shaky breath as she heard the key turn in the lock behind them. It was only now that she realised she was shaking.
“You were most courageous, Lady Cecilia, if you don’t mind me remarking it.”
Cilly made a shocked sound, pressing her hand to her heart, which was thudding erratically.
“I did not feel the least bit courageous, I assure you. I only… oh, that poor woman. How she suffers, but to have done something so very dreadful. I pity her most sincerely, and yet I confess, I find her horrifying too.”
The doctor nodded, but his voice was filled with understanding. “Indeed, and that is a perfectly natural reaction. It always strikes me how it is not only the afflicted who suffers, but those around them too.”
“Yes,” she agreed, meeting the man’s eyes. He looked tired, his expression one of compassion mingled with resignation. “Lord Rivington, is… I believe he… he fears—” She broke off, worried she was being indiscreet, that Damian would be angry with her for discussing him.
“I can well imagine what he fears, my lady,” the doctor said gently.
“It is a widely held belief among the medical profession that such afflictions are carried in the blood, and I can offer no guarantees that it is not so. Yet despite everything, I persist in believing there is far more to it than that.”
“You do?” Cilly, who was still vibrating with tension, clutched at his words like a lifeline.
Doctor Grantham smiled sadly and shrugged.
“I only know that I have seen hundreds of patients in my career, and it is remarkably rare for a case like Lady Rivington’s to inflict itself on later generations.
I have attempted to express this opinion to both his lordship and his brother, but my words fell upon deaf ears as it does among my peers, I cannot deny.
Popular opinion makes no distinction between one form of mental illness and another, and it colours perception. ”
Cilly’s heart leapt with hope, though she hardly dared trust in it. “Do you mean—”
The doctor held up his hand. “It is only my opinion, and I am what you might call a voice in the wilderness. You will find many, many more who disagree vehemently with me. I cannot say more to you as you are not yet family, but I would speak with his lordship again if he was open to hearing my thoughts on the matter. Perhaps you might have more success in this.”
“I will do everything in my power,” Cilly promised, though she was overwhelmingly aware of just how difficult that might be. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome, my lady, and thank you for visiting Lady Rivington. I believe it has done her much good.”
“Then we shall come again,” Cilly promised, and hurried out to find Damian.