The First Snowdrop

PART 3

December 1816-February 1817

Viscount Merrick huddled inside his many-caped greatcoat, trying to keep his neck warm. His beaver hat was drawn over his brow. The snow, fortunately, was not as bad as it had been in that storm a little more than two years before when he had first met Anne. Too wet to settle on the ground, it melted on impact. But it felt deuced uncomfortable against his cheeks and eyes, and was inclined to melt slowly down the back of his neck as soon as it came in contact with the warmth of his body. And it impeded visibility, so that his eyes were narrowed against the falling flakes, almost unable to see the road ahead.

As on the previous occasion, he had had ample warning that the snow was on the way. Heavy snow clouds had lain over the city all of the previous day and had been even heavier and more gray that morning. He should not be on the road at all, he knew. He was fortunate that conditions were not a great deal worse than they were. But the truth was that it was the weather that was directly responsible for his being where he was at the moment. For a month he had been making up his mind to travel to Redlands. Christmas would perhaps be a good-enough excuse. But he had let Christmas pass. How could he burden her with his company for such a festival? Then he had thought that perhaps the beginning of a new year would be an appropriate time to pay a visit. But that occasion probably would have passed too if the apparent imminence of snow had not finally decided him the day before. It was the last week of December already. There was a distinct possibility that if snow fell, it would last for a long time and halt all travel between London and Redlands. Then, not only would he be unable to reach her in time, but no messenger would be able to reach him. Although there were all of ten days left, such events were unpredictable, he had heard. It was bad enough to think of not being with Anne for the birth of their child. It was quite intolerable to know that the child might be born and he have no way of knowing the fact perhaps for days afterward.

So he had decided to come. She probably would not welcome his arrival. It might agitate her to know that he was in the house when she delivered the child. He certainly had little right to be there with her. He had treated her abominably during both of their encounters and had forced her into a pregnancy that was doubtless unwanted. But he could stay away no longer. He had ached to be with her from the moment he had opened the letter in which she had informed him that she was with child. He had worried constantly about the state of her health, had written to her several times to ask her how she did. But she had always answered briefly and courteously, had always told him that she was well.

Finally he had resorted to writing to the village doctor who attended her-she had refused his offer to bring her to London so that she might be attended by a London physician. But the doctor, too, had merely assured him that his wife was in good health and was like to deliver a healthy infant at the end of her time.

Merrick had wanted almost desperately to be with her during the months of her pregnancy. Life had not been pleasurable for him since those weeks during the spring at Portland House. He had taken up his old life in London, attending as many parties, sporting events, and meetings as he normally would. But their power to bring him contentment had disappeared. He had ended his liaison with Eleanor within a few days of his return to town and had felt no great urge to begin a new one or even to indulge in casual beddings. There was only one woman he wanted, and she was beyond his reach. He could have forced himself upon her. He knew, in fact, that she was not totally averse to his person. He had the legal right to be with her. But he could not believe that he had the moral right. She did not like him and had demonstrated quite clearly that she wished to live apart from him. He punished himself by honoring her wishes.

But he had to break his own self-imposed exile on this one occasion. He must be present when his child was born. He owed the infant that. And he was terrified for Anne's safety. Death in childbed was distressingly common, even with ladies of the upper class. How would he ever be able to live with himself if that should be Anne's fate? How he expected to stop such a disaster by his mere presence at Redlands he did not know, but he felt his nearness to her to be essential.

Even through the snow, Merrick could see that landmarks were becoming more familiar. For the remaining few miles of his journey he hardly noticed the discomforts of the elements. His mind was totally absorbed with the scene that faced him. How would she react when he arrived in the middle of the evening like this, quite unannounced? Would she be angry, upset, cold? Even faintly glad to see him? How would he explain himself? He hoped that he would be able to establish a friendly relationship with her, at all events. He was very much afraid that in the embarrassment he would feel, his manner might be aloof or imperious. He had never been able to feel at ease with Anne. And how could he be so now? He had not seen her since that scene in the garden of his grandparents' home on the night of their ball. She would be very large with his child now.

Merrick did not let go of the heavy knocker outside the oak doors of his home until he heard someone at the other side pulling back the bolts.

"Never was I more glad to see the inside of a door," he said, pushing his way past an astonished butler into the light and comparative warmth of the spacious hallway.

"My lord," Dodd said. "We little expected to see you on a night like this. Why, you might have been lost in the snow."

Merrick was peeling the gloves from his hands and tossed them and his beaver onto an oaken chest that was close by. "Where is her ladyship?" he asked, pulling impatiently at the buttons of his damp greatcoat. "Is she in the drawing room?"

The butler gaped. "You did not know, my lord?" he said. "But of course you could not. Her ladyship, my lord, is, ah…" He stopped to cough delicately. "Her pains are upon her, my lord. She is in her chamber. The doctor is with her, and Mrs. Rush."

Merrick blanched and tossed his greatcoat toward the chest, not seeing the outstretched arm of Dodd. "My God," he said, and the butler turned to watch him take the stairs to the daytime apartments and then those leading to the private apartments three at a time.

Anne had been amazed at first to discover that she was with child. Yet it had not taken her long to be equally amazed that she had never considered the possibility. During those two weeks when Alexander had been at Portland House, they had made love each night except the last, several times more than once. It had not taken her much longer to be thrilled by the knowledge. She had been wretchedly unhappy in the weeks following her return home, desperately trying not to contemplate the long and lonely years ahead.

It had not helped to know that she had had the chance of a different life. She could have gone to London with Alexander. There were times when she almost wished that she had agree to go; surely an unsatisfactory marriage was better than no marriage at all. But during all her more rational moments she knew that it was better to be away from him than to be with him, knowing herself despised and probably disliked, capable of satisfying him in only one way. Had she not loved him so much, perhaps she could have borne it. She believed that she was not very different from many other wives. But she did love him and consequently she exiled herself from him.

Yet now she would have part of him. The warmth of their intimacies would live with her for nine months, and afterward she would have his child to suckle and hold. She would have another person on whom to lavish all her love, and that person would be part of the man she loved most in all the world. She hoped that the child would be a boy. Alexander would at least respect her if she could produce an heir for him. More important, perhaps a boy would look like him, and she could delight in seeing the father in the child. A few times the possibility entered her head that Alexander might take the child away from her if it were male, but she ruthlessly suppressed the thought. He could not be so cruel.

The months had been solitary ones for Anne. She had only the household staff for company most of the time. She had accepted a few invitations from neighbors until she felt her condition was becoming obvious, but afterward she had hardly gone beyond the confines of her husband's estate except to attend church on Sundays.

The months had been solitary but not lonely ones. The ache of longing for Alexander that had driven her almost insane for several weeks had gradually dulled in the face of the symptoms of her condition: the unusual tiredness, the slight nausea, and finally-and gloriously-the first movements of the child within her womb. Her life had become more placidly contented than she could ever remember it being. She had spent countless hours dreaming of what it would be like to have a baby in the house, a child to bring noise and disorder and laughter into the ordered quiet of her life.

Anne had not immediately written to inform her husband of her condition. She had not known quite how to broach the subject and had not known how he might react. It was only when she received an invitation to the wedding of Freddie and Miss Fitzgerald that was to take place in September that she realized that the truth must be told. She had wished to attend because she had grown very fond of Freddie during the two weeks of their acquaintance and because she had come to love the whole family. But she could not go. Alexander would be there, and she could not risk meeting him again. Her resolve might crumble. She would have to use her pregnancy as an excuse, to stay away. So finally she had written to Alexander two days before penning a refusal to attend the wedding.

She had been surprised at his reaction. His reply must have been written the same day as he received her letter. It had been impossible to detect his feelings from the words he had written, but he had made lengthy and detailed inquiries into the state of her health, and he had seemed to realize the reason for her decision not to travel to Portland House for the wedding. He had urged her to go if she felt well enough to make the journey and had offered to stay away himself if she felt that his presence would be distressing to her. Anne had stayed firm on her decision, but she had been strangely touched by the offer. She did not normally associate sensitivity with Alexander.

It had not been merely her pregnancy and her dreams that made the months tolerable for Anne. She had not been idle during this time. The grounds outside the house had been made attractive, so thai anyone approaching the house along the long and winding drive was given the impression that the owners lavished love and attention on their property. Now she had turned her attention to the interior of the house, determined to make it a place of taste and elegance as well as a bright and comfortable home.

Heavy and faded draperies had been pulled down from windows, and old and threadbare carpets rolled up from the floors. New items had been ordered to replace them. Paintings and family portraits that had been crowded into an upper room that boasted neither size nor light had been moved to the upper gallery, where they immediately took on a new glory. Priceless seventeenth-century tapestries that had been removed from the dining room a few generations before in the belief they were old-fashioned had been replaced and immediately gave a new luster to the family silver and crystal. The Wedgwood china collection that had been partly hidden for years in a heavy wooden cabinet had been displayed openly around the living apartments. And old furniture that seemed to add only gloom to the rooms had been reupholstered and transformed. The list of improvements went on and on.

By the time Anne was heavy with child, her love for Redlands had converted into a great pride. She could wander from room to room and stroll around the grounds, muffled up warmly against advancing winter, and feel that it was her home and surely the equal of almost any of the grand estates in England. It was a place fit for the son of a viscount, grandson of a duke. It was a place in which she could contemplate with peace of mind spending the rest of her days.

Her time came upon her quite unexpectedly, ten days before she had expected to begin her labor. It was a gloomy morning when she came down to an early breakfast after a night in which she had slept little. It was so difficult to find a comfortable position in which to sleep, and turning over in bed was a major and exhausting undertaking. It looked as if it would snow before the day was out.

Perhaps it was the threat of a storm that set her to thinking about Alexander. It was a day very similar to the one on which she had first met him. She could not shake off her thoughts of him, though she tried to keep herself busy as far as the advanced condition of her pregnancy would allow. She sat finally in the morning room putting the finishing touches to a gorgeously embroidered christening robe that she made for her child. He would come for the christening, of course. Perhaps duty would make him come as soon as she was able to send him the news that his heir had been born.

Alexander. She gazed through the window at the gray world without and saw him as he had appeared to her on that first evening: handsome, vibrant, almost dangerously attractive. He had appeared like a creature from another world. She saw him as he had been at Portland House: disdainful, contemptuous, aloof, yet inexplicably tender and passionate in their more intimate encounters. She returned her attention to her embroidery. She must not allow herself to indulge in memory. Not only was it a pointless exercise, but some instinct of self-defense warned her that her fragile peace of mind could be shattered very easily if she did not cling to the present and the immediate future.

It was at this moment that the she felt the first of the pains, a stabbing sensation and a tightening of muscles that robbed her of breath for a moment and left her feeling frightened and very much alone. She continued to embroider, every nerve in her body tensed for another sign that her time had indeed come. When she had counted eight such pains, she rang for Mrs. Rush and calmly suggested that the doctor be summoned. A half-hour later she was in bed, knowing that the pains were not going to stop. She wanted Alexander.

The doctor, standing at a window gazing out into the darkness, turned as the bedroom door opened, and his eyes widened in surprise. He took one step in its direction but stopped when he saw Mrs. Rush about the same errand, horror written large on her face.

"My lord," she said in an urgent whisper, "this is no place for you. Do go downstairs at once and I shall have Dodd bring you refreshment. I shall come myself to inform you as soon as there is any news."

Merrick brushed past her just as if she were not there. His face was still deathly pale. He stood looking at the bed, where his wife lay on her side facing away from him, breathing in deep gasps, whose duration she seemed to be trying to control. She moaned quietly to herself before relaxing and turning her face into the pillow.

Mrs. Rush hesitated for a moment, threw a hasty and pleading glance in the direction of the viscount, and bustled to the bed, where she dipped a cloth into a basin of water and proceeded to dab at her mistress's hot face.

Merrick continued to stand just inside the door, which he had closed behind him. He watched Anne for a couple of minutes until the pain gripped her again and her breathing again became deep and even in her attempt to control panic. He watched, as he had when he had first entered the room, one hand come behind her back and push ineffectually against her lower back. He did not remove his eyes even when the doctor crossed the room to his side.

"My lord," that flustered individual said in a lowered voice, "I really must ask that you leave the room now. It is not at all fitting for you to be here. There is really nothing to be done at the moment. I must wait until her ladyship is ready to deliver. I assure you that all is well under control, and Mrs. Rush is an able assistant. But there is no knowing how long it will be."

Merrick did not reply. So this was what he had brought her to. He had forced her against her will to cater to his pleasure, and now he must watch her suffering cruelly to deliver a child she had never desired. He would not leave. If she must suffer, the least he could do was to stay with her and know the full extent of his guilt. He looked at her hair, damp and tumbled around her face and over the pillow, and at the one flushed cheek that he could see. He looked at her swollen form clearly outlined against the sheet that was her sole covering. When she tensed again against pain, he strode across to the bed, gently removed the hand that had come to support her back again, and placed his own palms against her back, pressing firmly and slowly massaging.

"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Rush," she said faintly when the pain had once more receded. Her eyes were closed and she had turned her face again into the pillow. "That felt very good."

Mrs. Rush, flushed with embarrassment, glared uneasily across the bed at her employer.

It seemed as if it would never end. She had stopped an hour or more ago asking the doctor when she might expect it to be all over. His answers had been so soothingly noncommital that she had realized that he did not know any more than she how much longer she must endure this labor. She was in a haze of pain and exhaustion, willing herself to relax and rest in the intervals between pain, which were becoming shorter and shorter, and steeling herself to endure without panic the pains, which were becoming more severe. If they continued much longer, she felt, she must give in to the urge to scream and fight in order to be free of the crashing pains, which were very nearly beyond her endurance.

The hands at her back helped. They were strong and warm and somehow braced her against the terrible force that seemed to be tearing her spine in two. She pushed herself against them and concentrated on the comfort they brought, a comfort that was not only physical. In a strange way those hands also cushioned her against the loneliness of her labor. They became disembodied in her tired mind. Although one part of her brain assumed that they belonged to Mrs. Rush, it did not occur to her to find it strange that that lady was in front of her each time the pains subsided to smooth back the hair from her flushed face and to sponge her face and neck with cool water.

"Doctor Selby," Anne cried Finally, panic in her voice. She surged over onto her back. "I cannot… I must… I have to push!" And she immediately suited action to words, bearing down against her pain in nature's effort to rid herself of her burden.

Both the doctor and Mrs. Rush jumped into action, but the latter did not neglect to glare meaningfully at Merrick and order him from the room, almost as if she were the employer and he the servant. Anne turned her head, her pain for the moment in abeyance, and looked without surprise into her husband's eyes. Of course! She would have known it was he if only her mind had not been dulled by exhaustion. As she felt again the tightening sensation that was now such a familiar warning of pain to come, she reached for his hands at the same moment as they came out to her. They gripped each other, one set of hands on either side of her head while the doctor positioned her for birth and while their daughter made a hurried entry into the world.

Viscount Merrick left his wife's bedchamber ten minutes later, when it appeared likely to him that she would survive her ordeal and that the child was safely launched into life. They had not spoken. She had taken the red and wrinkled little bundle of humanity that was their daughter and put it to her breast, and she had gazed up at him, her face still flushed, her eyes bright and anxious. Was she still so afraid of him? Did she think that he still meant her harm?

He had gazed back at her unsmilingly and finally lowered his eyes to the child. His daughter. Their daughter. The product of lust on the one hand and duty on the other? No, he would not believe so. Whenever the child had been conceived, she was a product of love on his part. His love for her mother had been growing steadily through those two weeks of the spring, even if he had not admitted it to himself until the end. Although the child was far from beautiful in her newly born state, Merrick felt a rush of love for her. His daughter, whom Anne had carried and borne. He would take her home with him so that his wife might be free to forget his past cruelties and his very existence if she wished. And he would devote the coming years to the upbringing of his child, Anne's child.

When Merrick had returned his gaze to his wife's face, she had been lying with her eyes closed. He had turned and quietly left the room.