Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(89)
“Marcel,” she said, “what are you talking about?” She knew, though. But why now?
He strode across the room, thrust back the curtains, and stood gazing out the window—into total darkness.
“You wanted to know,” he said. “I came to tell you. She was eighteen when we married. I was twenty. There ought to be a law. We were no more ready for marriage than . . . than . . . I am having trouble with analogies tonight. We were children, wild, undisciplined children. Would we have settled into a mature relationship given time? I will never know. She died when she was twenty. I killed her. Adeline.”
She set down the bag on the edge of the bed and sat beside it. She folded her hands in her lap. He was right. She had wanted to know. Now it seemed she was going to.
“I adored my children from the moment of their conception,” he said, “or from the moment she told me she was expecting them, I suppose would be more accurate. Not that we knew at the time there would be two. We did not suspect that until almost half an hour after Estelle was born. I had a daughter and a son all within one hour and they were red and wrinkled and ugly and bawling and I thought I was in heaven. We both adored them. We cuddled them and played with them and taught them to squeal with laughter. We even changed a few soggy garments. But we were restless, irresponsible children. We were soon back to our busy social life, dancing, drinking, attending parties until late into the night. It did not matter, of course. We had hired a competent nurse and could safely leave the children to her care whenever we had better things to do than be their parents.”
He braced his hands on the windowsill and rested his forehead against the glass. Viola’s hands tightened in her lap.
“They had been teething for some time,” he said, “but usually one or the other of them would be crying from it but not both together. But this particular time it was both of them and their nurse had been up most of several nights in a row with them. When we got back late from an assembly, Adeline went to bed while I looked in at the nursery. I was supposed to follow her immediately. We were feeling . . . amorous. But the poor little things were in distress, and the nurse was pale and heavy eyed and admitted when I pressed her that she had a splitting headache. I daresay it had been brought on by exhaustion. I sent her to bed. When Adeline came to find me, I sent her away too. She was furious with me—and with the nurse for going. She returned at dawn when I was still in the nursery. I had just got the two of them to sleep, one on each shoulder, and was wondering if I dared try putting them down.”
Viola spread her fingers in her lap and looked down at them when he stopped. He did not resume his story for some time.
“She was still furious,” he said. “She told me she had not had a wink of sleep and was going to dismiss the nurse as soon as morning came. I told her in a whisper not to be ridiculous and to hush, and she came rushing at me, all outrage, snatched Estelle from my arms, and set her down in her crib. To be fair, I had not spoken nicely to her even though I had whispered. Estelle woke up, of course, and started crying again, and then Bertrand woke up and started crying too. And when Adeline tried to snatch him away from me, I—” He stopped a moment and drew an audible breath. “I shoved her with my free hand and she stumbled back and . . . and I think she tripped on the hem of her dressing gown and reached behind her to steady herself against the wall. Except that the window was there and it was wide open. I had opened it earlier because the children were feverish—even though both the nurse and Adeline strongly disapproved of fresh air under such circumstances. She—” He stopped again to draw a ragged breath. “I tried to reach her. I tried to grab her, but she was gone. I do not know what I did with Bertrand. I do not know how I got downstairs and out on the terrace. I did not know who was screaming. I suppose I thought it was her until I realized she could not scream because she was dead.”
“Marcel.” Viola was on her feet though she did not approach him. His head jerked away from the window as though he had only just realized he had an audience.
“I cannot remember much of the following hours or even days,” he said. “I do not recall who pulled me away from her. I do remember her sister coming and her brother-in-law—Jane and Charles. I cannot remember what they said to me, though they said a great deal. I can remember the funeral. My mother was there—she was still alive then—and my brother and sister, though they were still very young. I cannot remember their leaving, or if, indeed, they left before I did. I can remember not daring to go near the babies lest I lose my temper with them and harm them too. I cannot remember leaving. I can remember only being gone. And remaining gone.”
Viola had closed the distance between them and laid a hand against his back. He did not turn.
“Marcel,” she said, “it was an accident.”
“I caused her death,” he said. “I opened the window. I shoved her away from me. If I had not taken either of those actions, she would not have died. She would still be alive. My children would have grown up with parents. All this would not have happened. I would not have caused you unutterable embarrassment.”
He turned and looked at her, his face hard and bleak in the candlelight. He had been blaming himself all these years for what had been essentially an accident. Yes, he had pushed his wife, and there was never any real excuse for that. But his punishment had been vast and all consuming. He had judged himself solely responsible for his wife’s death and for depriving his children of their mother. And so he had deprived them of their father too, the foolish man. He had cut out his heart and become the man the ton knew and she had known.