Lady in Rags

Chapter Fifty: Dear Verity

Neil became awake by degrees of growing consciousness of his own discomfort. He wanted to keep dreaming. He had been dreaming of a time when he was very young, when Giulia was still alive, and when he had thought he had known what it meant to feel safe. But no matter how many times he tried to slip back into the dream world, the hot dampness of his surroundings and the ache in his head reminded him, naggingly, of reality. Finally he surrendered, and opened his eyes. The window. If he opened it, maybe the heat would stop.

He sat up, frail and trembling. The room spun wildly around him. It was some time in the night. Candles were lit, and the curtains were drawn.

"Open the window."

His wife did not heed his cry. He turned his head, throbbing, towards where she always sat when he was ill, in the chair by his bed.

She was sleeping. She was slumped over the bed, her dark head resting on her arms, her pale face hidden.

"Hey," he croaked. "Open the window."

But she would not wake. Her chest swelled silently in and out. She held a rag in one hand, that she must have been using to wipe his brow. He went to shake her awake, and hesitated. How long had she been there? As long as he had been sick. And he had been sick – four days? Five? For he had been sick. After returning from Lady Duvalle's, he had come down with the vicious cold that was circling the village. It had knocked his frail health to its knees again, and brought his wife to her knees beside it.

He let her sleep on, and struggled his way out of the fever-damp bed. When he managed at last to get out of the tangle of sheets, he sank slowly to the floor on impotent knees.

He sat there for a while, catching his breath. It was better there. He was out of the sticky dampness of his own sweat. A draft came along the floor, and cooled his aching limbs. Finally, he managed to stand, and totter over to the French window. His hands fumbled blindly with the latch, and the window opened, and he stumbled out onto the balcony, and only caught himself on the balustrade.

"That was very silly," he reproved himself, and realized he was a little out of mind right now. He sank down on the floor of the balcony, and rested his head against the stone wall. The night wind cooled his cheeks. The raging fire within him began to flutter out, and the pounding in his head dulled.

What had he been dreaming about? Giulia. He tried to remember the dream, but it had vanished on him. All he knew was that she had been there, and that he could not go back to her.

She was gone. He had nothing of her but his childhood memories of Florence, and the times she appeared in dreams, and the vaguest, vaguest threads of memory that swelled and subsided within him. A memory swelled. He had kept Giulia's things, he had brought them to England, if they could help him remember... He launched himself off the floor, feeling weak, but as though most of the fever had been emptied from him, and swayed back into the room.

Verity was still sleeping, half on his bed, half in her chair. She had not moved.

He went on past her, and past the bed, to the japanned cabinet where he had kept his things from Italy. He knew it, as though he had never forgotten. Giulia's dresses, they were -

He stared in confusion at the empty shelves. There was nothing in them, but a greenish silver dress, sloppily folded, some jewellery boxes, books, and a few mementos. For a moment, he thought his memory was at fault again. He could clearly recall dozens of gowns in all colours. Perhaps he had not stored them here – perhaps.

He burned them.

The clarity of the memory convinced him that it was true, the flames leaping up over the burgundy silk, the violet muslin, yellow ribbons, and all. He had burned his wife's dresses, all of them, but for the green and silver. He pulled it out now, and draped it over his lap. For a moment, he could recall Giulia wearing it, dancing – and then the woman in the dress was not Giulia, but Verity. She had worn it. That night. That first night.