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“I will fetch you a sleeping draught,” her mother announced, something of her old self in her voice. “You must not go wandering about in the dark, daughter. The woods are dangerous around Worthorne Manor. Sometimes there are Gypsies, poaching, and if you were to fall into the lake, who would save you?”
Her mother was back in the past again. “I don’t want a sleeping draught, Mama, you know I abhor laudanum.” Portia climbed into her bed and lay back, closing her eyes and wishing they would leave her alone.
“I think your mother is right,” Hettie said. “We cannot risk you going out into the street.”
“No laudanum.”
“Then it is the doctor, lieben,” Hettie announced triumphantly.
“Oh, very well. Not that he will thank you for getting him out of his bed for nothing.”
But Dr. Bryant didn’t seem to think it was nothing. He examined Portia and asked her a great many questions. In the end his diagnosis was a slight fever, although he wasn’t satisfied that was at the heart of her problem.
“I am more concerned about her state of mind,” he said to Mrs. Stroud, while Portia lay with her eyes shut and pretended to be asleep. “She isn’t a young girl anymore, and she has no husband and no children. Sometimes when a woman hasn’t fulfilled her proper function, she can become melancholic. She can suffer from hysteria. Have you noticed any outbreaks of temper? Screaming fits? Crying?”
Portia clenched her fists and bit her tongue. Hysterics? She’d show him hysterics if he didn’t get out of her house now. She could barely wait until he had left the room before she sat up and burst out with, “I never want that man in my house again!”
“But Portia—”
“No, Mama, I mean it. Surely there is someone younger? More progressive? Someone who does not believe women are put on this earth to breed like cattle?”
Her mother appeared bewildered. “But Dr. Bryant was recommended to you by Her Majesty herself.”
“I don’t care! I don’t want him. I can’t believe he would think such things, let alone speak them aloud!”
Hettie and her mother glanced at each other, and she knew they were thinking that the doctor was right. It only infuriated her more. But even in the midst of her anger she knew that Dr. Bryant was only saying what most men, and women, believed. Perhaps it was the contrast between the doctor and Minnie Duval that was making her so angry.
Minnie had rebelled against the attitudes to women, refusing to allow herself to be pushed into the narrow confines of what was expected of her. Portia admired her for it. She envied her. Hearing Dr. Bryant spouting his own beliefs had only made the difference between her own life and Minnie’s more stark.
“I wish I had never met him,” she whispered.
“Him?” Hettie repeated.
“I wish I had never been to Aphrodite’s Club. I wish I could be comfortable, without any doubts, just as I used to be.”
“You will be comfortable again,” Hettie promised her. “Try to sleep, my lady. Come along, Mrs. Stroud, you should be in bed yourself. It is very late…or very early. My lady has a statue unveiling to attend in the morning.”
“Statue?” Their voices were fading.
“Lord Ellerslie’s statue, remember?”
“No one told me about that!”
“Oh, Mrs. Stroud, of course they did…”
Portia had almost drifted into sleep when she was awoken by the touch of a cool hand on her cheek. She struggled to open her eyes. Her mother was peering down at her.
“Mama, what are you doing up again?”
“Hush! I’ve brought you a cup of milk,” she whispered. “It will help you to sleep. Remember, I used to bring you warm milk when you were a child? And I would sing to you. Do you want me to sing to you n
ow?”
Portia’s eyes filled with tears. It had been so long since her mother had been her old self. Some days it seemed as if she was becoming a half-familiar stranger. She dreaded the moment when her mother’s mind would fail her completely, because she knew now that it could only be a matter of time before that happened. And then who would remember her first steps, her first words? Her life before she became the possession of the nation?
“Drink your milk,” her mother said, pressing the cup into her hands. “Don’t spill it, now.”
Her emotions blunted her natural instincts, and it wasn’t until she had drunk the milk down that she noticed the satisfied expression on her mother’s face and knew she’d been duped.
