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‘You have wanted her since she was a child,’ Rendel flung bitterly.
Andrew nodded. ‘I love her, yes. But if you think I would take advantage of my privileged position, you are wrong. I have never wanted Cornelia in that way. She is dearer to me than my own life. I would not stoop to lechery, sir. I have seen too much of what such foulness leads to; unwanted babes, syphilis, crude abortion. Love which indulges in such selfishness is not love.’
Rendel stared at him. Andrew’s blue eyes were cool. Even in Rendel’s rage he could sense that the doctor was speaking truthfully. He sheathed his dagger again, feeling foolish.
‘Well?’ he asked flatly. ‘Has she any signs of the plague?’
‘None,’ Andrew said. ‘So far. She may simply be too tired to wake. She has lived for so long in terror, and has barely slept. Such horrors can do strange things to the human mind.’
‘Not yours, apparently,’ Rendel said curiously, staring at him as if he did not quite believe him to be human.
Andrew’s weary smile was rather terrifying. There was an inhuman strength behind it, a leashed control holding at bay all the normal reactions of a man.
‘I am not immune,’ he said flatly.
‘Yet you seem to keep working despite all the horrors you have seen.’
‘I have grown a hard skin over my eyes,’ said Andrew. ‘I see and do not see. I feel and do not feel. It is the only way to keep working. One death so far has moved me more than all the others—a child in my own house, my housekeeper’s little boy, a bright child of four years. He died in my arms and I wept until I thought my eyes were dry as kilns. I think I wept them for all those who had died at that one death. I have no more tears left.’
Rendel chewed his lip angrily. ‘You make me feel ashamed. I am sorry I lost my temper with you.’
‘Do not be,’ Andrew said indifferently. ‘You are entitled to the emotions of a man.’
Rendel looked at him hard. ‘Are you not, Belgrave?’
Andrew smiled. ‘I? Oh, no. I long ago put aside such a privilege.’
Cornelia slept for a day and a night without ever once waking. Andrew came and went, nursing her father, who had a slight chill and had, in his terror, decided that he had the plague, and keeping a watchful eye upon the sleeping girl in between times.
When she awoke at last Andrew was sitting on the floor beside her drinking a cup of steaming spiced ale which Rendel had just brought up to him. Rendel was standing in the doorway, talking softly, smiling.
Her lids fluttered open. She gazed like a child at the patch of bright sunlight on the rough ceiling, then slowly turned her head to look at Andrew.
Rendel, seeing the movement, gave a sharp cry.
Andrew motioned him to stay where he was, one hand held up. He smiled at Cornelia. ‘It is good to see you awake at last. How do you feel?’
She looked at him calmly. ‘Light,’ she said slowly. ‘Cool and light as though I were floating.’ Then her face clouded over. ‘Nan?’ she asked quickly.
‘Buried,’ Andrew said in a stark voice. ‘But you live, child. You have not taken the contagion.’
Her eyes were full of tears. ‘My poor Nan,’ she said. ‘Oh, Andrew, you did not have her thrown into one of the death pits? She had full Christian burial?’
‘She was buried in a grave,’ he promised. ‘With an elm coffin and the proper rites, I promise.’
Rendel moved restlessly, his eyes fixed on her face, and she looked towards the door in surprise, then smiled, her whole face illumined with joy.
‘Are you still here too, Rendel?’
‘I would prefer to come closer
.’ He looked passionately at her across the small space dividing them. ‘This doctor of yours will not let me enter the room.’
‘He is right,’ she said. ‘I wish you could be got away from this house. It is fatal.’
‘I will not let it be so,’ he said.
Andrew stood up and walked to the door, shrugging. ‘I wash my hands of the pair of you,’ he said in wry humour. ‘Do as you please, Sir Rendel.’
