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She had informed the butler that she would be going to see her husband. Ingram York was residing in a hospital for the insane. He might know her when she went into his room, but, on the other hand, he might not. Apparently his doctors felt that he was becoming weaker, and she should visit him before he lapsed into more frequent coma, where he would not know her at all.
Last time, two weeks ago, he had not known her to begin with, and then had suddenly remembered. It had been dreadful, and acutely embarrassing. As she crossed the hall her cheeks flamed with the memory of it.
Ingram had lain on the bed, propped up on the pillows, when the vacant look on his fleshy face had suddenly vanished, to be filled with hatred.
“Whore!” he had said viciously. “Come here to gloat, have you? Well, I’m not dead yet…for all your trying!” He had looked ashen pale, his skin hanging from his jowls, his eyes sunken into the hollows of the sockets, his white hair still ridiculously luxuriant above the terrible face.
Then, just as suddenly, the moment of recognition had gone again. The doctor who had shown Beata in, and stayed with her to offer her what information he could, had been embarrassed for her.
“He doesn’t mean it!” he had said hastily. “He’s…delusional. I assure you, Lady York…”
But she had not been listening. Ingram meant it. She had been married to him for more than twenty years. This attack was not the wild break from his usual behavior that the doctor imagined.
Remembering, she shivered as the footman opened the front door for her and she stepped outside, but it was not from the bitter day with its promise of ice before nightfall; it was dread of what lay ahead.
Even now she thought of some way of evading her duty, but it was only an idea, something to play with in her mind. A walk in the park? A visit to a friend, to sit by the fire with tea and crumpets, and a little laughter in exchange for thoughts? Of course she wouldn’t! She had stayed with Ingram all these years; she would not fail on these final days. It was a duty she would not fall short in.
The footman opened the carriage door. She accepted his hand to assist her up and help make her comfortable.
She wondered how many of the servants were quite aware of Mr. Justice York’s temper tantrums, the vile names he called her at times. Perhaps they had even seen blood on the sheets, and sometimes on the towels as well. There were things that, if she thought of them, overwhelmed her. How could she calmly sit at the dining room table while the butler served her soup if she were to imagine for an instant that he knew how York had used her sexually, when the bedroom doors were locked?
It had begun within weeks of their wedding, at first only a matter of insistence, a certain roughness that had caused her pain. Gradually it had become grosser, more humiliating, and the verbal abuse coarser, the violence more unpredictable.
It had gone on, to one degree or another, for years. There had been times when for months there had been nothing, and she had dared hope her ordeal was over, even if it meant that he never touched her at all.
That was foolish, but in those times of respite he would be witty, so intelligent, and, in public at least, treat her with respect, as if the cruelty were an aberration. Then the darkness was all the greater when it returned.
Oliver Rathbone had been a guest the day it had finally ended. Ingram had completely lost all control and lashed out at Oliver with his cane. If he had struck him with it, it would have been a fearful blow. He could have even killed him, had it caught him on the temple. Thank heaven at that instant of rage Ingram had taken a fit of some kind and fallen insensible to the floor, quite literally foaming at the mouth.
He had still been deeply unconscious when the ambulance had come for him and taken him to the hospital for diseases of the nervous system. It would have been merciful if he had sunk deeper into the coma and died. Unfortunately that had not happened. He had hovered on the edge of consciousness, with brief moments of lucidity, in the long months since then. It was over a year ago now.
Beata had been a widow in all senses but that of being free to marry again. She still bore his name, lived in his house, and dutifully forced herself to visit him when conscience drove her to it, or the doctor sent for her.
She stared out the window at the other carriages, ladies with fur collars and capes inside.
It was not a long journey but the route passed close to Regent’s Park, and the bare trees were like tangled black lace. It would have been a good day for walking.
She looked away in time to see a carriage passing on the other side of the street. She met the woman passenger’s eyes for an instant, and saw the warmth, and the familiar gesture with her hand. She just had time to smile back and nod agreement. Yes, she accepted the invitation. It would be something simple, and fun.
The journey passed all too quickly. She was already at the hospital. The footman climbed down with easy grace and held the door open for her. The cold air made her wish momentarily that she had brought furs, too. Then she remembered Ingram giving them to her one Christmas, and she thought she would rather be cold as she walked across the pavement and up the wide steps into the hospital entrance.
She was expected, and the doctor in charge was standing waiting for her. She had developed a reputation for promptness, and he stepped forward, smiling gravely, inclining his head in a slight bow. She was accustomed to it. She was the wife of one of the High Court’s most respected judges. It was the convention that none of them acknowledged his altered state as irreversible.
“Good afternoon, Lady York,” he said soberly. “I’m afraid the weather has turned much colder.”
“Indeed,” she replied, as if it mattered in the slightest to either of them. It was just easier to stick to the ritual than to have to think of something different to say.
“How is my husband?” She always said that also.
“I am afraid there has been a slight change,” the doctor answered, turning to lead the way to the now-familiar room that, as far as she knew, Ingram had not left since he had first been carried there. “I’m very sorry…perhaps he will be in less distress.” He forced a lift into his voice, as if it were of some cheer.
He could have no idea at all how deeply she wished Ingram dead. Not only for her sake, but for his own. She had never loved him, although once, years ago, she had imagined she did. But he had had a certain dignity, and such high intelligence then. She would not have wished on anybody what he suffered now, plunging from sanity to confusion, and climbing desperately back again. It was awful to watch. No hunger for revenge could make him deserve this.
They had reached his room, mercifully without any more meaningless conversation. The doctor opened the door for her and held it.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and went in.
As always, the smell was the first thing she noticed. It was a mixture of human body odors and the sharp, artificial cleanliness of lye and antiseptic. Everything was too white, too utilitarian.
