“What are we to do?” Nellia’s quavering whisper intruded on my horrified astonishment. “Such a thing to happen on the day when the little one is born so frail. It’s too wicked a burden.”
“We must think of it just as if her heart had failed, Nellia.” I was surprised at my own calm voice. “The appearance is awful, but if she was mad, then there’s really not so much difference. Just a different part of her that has given out.”
“She was daft. Done nothing but rock in her chair and sit in all this clutter for all these years, but I never thought as she’d do this to herself. Such a gentle soul she was with the young master.”
“She was Gerick’s nurse? You told me that, but I didn’t realize…” I didn’t realize she was someone I knew.
“Aye. She cared for him from the day he was born.”
Nellia was crying again, and to calm her I set her to work. I sent Nancy for a clean blanket, and asked Nellia to find some rags and water so we could clean things up a bit.
“We’ll set her to rights, and then call the other servants to help us take her downstairs,” I said.
Nellia nodded, and we set to work replacing the bloodied blankets with fresh and putting a clean tunic and apron on the dead woman. While Nancy and Nellia scrubbed the floor, I wandered about the room, looking at the things on Maddy’s shelves. They were a child’s things: a ball, a writing slate with childish characters printed on it, a rag doll pieced together from scraps and stuffed with straw, a pile of blocks, a puzzle, and a small game board with dried beans set on it like game pieces. She must truly have been in a second childhood.
“How long ago did Madd… Lucy become feebleminded?” I asked Nellia, who seemed much more herself now she had something to do.
“It was when the young master was close on six years old, and mistress thought he was not so much in need of a nurse. I guess it took Lucy’s spirit right away when she wasn’t needed no more. She took herself to rocking and moaning on the day she had to leave the nursery, and no one was able to get her to do nothing else ever again. But when the physician said that her mind had left her, His Grace, your brother, wouldn’t let her be sent away, as she’d no place to go but an asylum, and the child loved her so.”
“Gerick loved her?”
“Aye, indeed he did. They was always happy together when he was a wee one, even though she couldn’t say no word to him. She talked with her eyes and her hands, I guess. They’d look at books together, and he’d tell her what was in them. She’d teach him games and take him for walks and was a blessing to the little mite.”
I was happy to hear that Gerick had known such care and affection and had been able to return it. I ran my fingers over the slate and the ball. “He came to see her here, didn’t he?”
“Well, I suspect as how he did-though the duchess forbade him to. She said Mad Lucy might harm him, but she’d never, no matter she had lost her mind or what.”
Did he still visit her, I wondered, and found the answer at hand quickly. On the shelf beside some broken knitting needles and a tin box of colored stones sat a small menagerie made of straw: a lion, a cow, a deer, a bear. I looked a little further and found a flute. Crude, but a reasonable replica of the reed flute I had shown him how to make.
So many things bothered me about all this, but I couldn’t name them, as if sunbeams were dancing through storm clouds, illuminating a roof here or a tree there, but just as you would turn to look at it, the gap would close, and gloom shroud everything once more.
Why would Maddy have taken her own life? The malady Nellia had described seemed no violent mania. Could those with failed reason feel the pangs of despair that precipitated self-murder? Had they enough calculation left to accomplish such a horrific deed?
When Nellia and Nancy were done, Maddy looked far less fearsome. Nellia wanted to know if we should send for some of the men to carry the body downstairs. Though I hated the thought of it, I knew Gerick should be told before we buried his friend.
“Nellia, when was it that the young duke took on his present… moodiness?”
“About the same time as Lucy took ill. I’ve oft said to myself as maybe he took her being dismissed from the nursery as hard as she did. Though, since she didn’t have to go away, and he came here to see her, you might not think it would come to that.”
“Then this will be difficult for him, her dying like this.”
“Aye. Poor child. Losing the two who ever loved him so close together-his papa and his Lucy.”
“Then someone will have to break the news to him before the word gets out. Keep it to yourself for now. I’ll let you know when you may tell everyone and have her taken care of. And when the time is right, the staff may have a wake for Lucy if they wish. I don’t think it would be seemly to do so until all is settled with the duchess and her daughter.”
“I understand, my lady,” said Nellia, and she wagged her finger at Nancy, who nodded, wide-eyed.
After a brief visit to my room to wash the sleep from my eyes, I hurried to Philomena’s bedchamber. Voices from the adjoining room were arguing, quietly but vehemently.
“… dragged me away from her like I was a piece of rubbish. I’ve never been so humiliated. I’ll have the witch arrested.” Lady Verally.
“But what she has done, madam, for which you would have her arrested, is save your niece’s life.” The rumbling bass voice was Ren Wesley’s. “Her Grace’s labor was of such poor effectiveness that it could have lasted for many more hours. Having experienced hands to deliver the child was the difference between a tragedy and a double tragedy. If your authority had been allowed to prevail, your niece would be dead from it, and you would find yourself responsible for the death of a special friend of King Evard. In short, you should thank the Lady Seriana for saving you from a murder charge of your own.”
I walked in and greeted my defender. If Lady Verally had been possessed of a weapon, I might have ended up in the same condition as Mad Lucy.
The physician returned my greeting with robust gravity. “Good morning, my lady. It seems my timing was abysmal, and the very thing we hoped to prevent has occurred, but as I was just informing the good lady here, you’ve saved her ladyship’s life by your good judgment in summoning the midwife.”
“How are they?” I asked.
“You know it well, witch,” snarled Lady Verally. “You didn’t want my precious girl to die. It would have spoiled your evil fun, wouldn’t it? You want to watch her suffer.”
Ren Wesley turned his back on the seething lady. “Thanks to you and the most excellent midwife, the mother is resting comfortably and will soon be on her feet, none the worse save in her sorrow. It grieves me to say that the child has not survived the dawn. There was nothing to be done.”
“I feared as much,” I said, ignoring Lady Verally’s haughty departure.
“I’ve given the duchess a sleeping draught, and now I am on my way to find some breakfast.”
“I was hoping to speak with you for a moment,” I said. “I’ve a great boon to ask.”
“At your service.” The physician poked his head into Philomena’s room to let the maids know where he could be found. Then he took my arm, and we walked through the upper corridors to the galleries that overlooked the great hall.