The adulteress

I lay very still. Something urged me to. Something kept saying to me: "It's for the best ... for him ... for you ... for Charles ... for everybody."

Before Jean-Louis entered the dressing room, I knew.

I lay still. He was there now ... walking cautiously, feeling his way in the light from the stars which came through the dressing room's small window.

He was at the desk now. He had found the secret drawer. He had the key. He opened the cupboard door.

I knew what he had taken.

I must get up. Take it from him. Tell him he must not do this thing.

I thought of his poor face distorted with pain and the years ahead when there was nothing for him but more pain. How could he endure that? Wasn't this better?

I heard him go back to his room. I lay still with a thudding heart which shook the bed.

I lay ... waiting... .

No sound. Only the faint starlight in the room to show me the unshut door of the cupboard which told me it had really happened.

I listened. I could hear his stertorous breathing.

I rose from my bed and went into the next room.

There was no sound now.

I lighted two candles with an unsteady hand and carried one to the bed.

He seemed to be smiling at me. A happy smile ... the lines of pain were no longer visible. He looked as young as he had when I had married him.

Dear Jean-Louis, he had made the supreme sacrifice.

Blackmail

I don't know how long I stood there looking down at him. I felt numb and a terrible sorrow swept over me.

Tenderness welled up in me for his kindness, his sweetness and all his goodness to me. And how had I repaid him?

I sank to my knees and buried my face against the bedclothes. Pictures kept coming and going in my mind. I saw him as a boy when he had let me go with him, when we played our games; and later when we had loved and married and everything had seemed right—until I met Gerard and realized that I had never known passion and erotic love and that I was of a nature to find them irresistible.

I don't know how long I stayed there but when I arose from my knees, stiff and cold, I saw that it was nearly four o'clock.

I took his hand. It was very cold; and the peaceful smile was still on his lips.

I must call Charles. Though there was nothing he could do for Jean-Louis now.

Somehow I could not take any action. I felt that I wanted to be alone with Jean-Louis for the last time. I wished there was some way of letting him know how much I had appreciated him. I fervently hoped that he had never had an inkling of my infidelity. Then a terrible fear came to me that he might have known. Had I changed when I came back after that visit to Eversleigh and I did have a child ... the child which he could not give me? Did he suspect that Charles and I were more than friends?

Dear Jean-Louis! One thing I did know was that if some instinct had told him the truth he would understand.

I kept my vigil by his bedside until six o'clock. Then I went to the bell rope and pulled it. The clanging rang through the house. They would guess that I needed help with Jean-Louis.

The first person to arrive was Miss Carter. She looked pale and different from usual with two plaits hanging over her shoulders tied at the ends with a piece of pink wool.

I said: "My husband died in the night... ."

She looked at Jean-Louis and turned pale. She closed her eyes and her lips moved as though she was praying.

She said: "I will go and get help."

"I think," I said, "that someone should go at once for the doctor."

She ran away and I noticed then the laudanum bottle which Jean-Louis had left on the table. I took it and locked it in the dressing room cupboard.

It was a great relief to see Charles.

He came hurrying into the room, and taking one look at Jean-Louis, went swiftly to the bed. He stood looking down at him. Then he took his hand and touched his eyelids, drawing them down over his eyes.

"He's been dead for some time," he said.

"Yes," I answered.

Charles bent over and put his face close to the dead one.

"Charles," I said, "he did it. He took the bottle from the cupboard."

"I thought ..."

"Yes. I had the key in the secret drawer ... but he knew it was there. It was the obvious place to put it ... and he knew about the drawer in that desk. He came and got the key and the bottle... . He had talked to me about it just before. He had said it was the best way. I told him not to talk like that ... but he must have had it in his mind to do it."

"Where is the bottle?"

"I put it back in the cupboard."

"Go and get it."

I did so. He looked at it. "When did you get this? Two days ago? My God, he's had enough to kill three people."

"It was what he wanted. He couldn't endure the pain anymore."

"Zipporah," he said quietly, "there mustn't be talk about this. In view of everything ... we can't have it said that he died of an overdose of laudanum... . People might say ..."

"That I gave it to him?"

"People will say anything."

"Charles ... you don't think ... ?"

"Of course not. I understand how it happened."