Lady in Rags

Chapter Forty-Seven: Fare Thee Well

Afterwards, Verity did not know how she ever survived her confinement. Though Neil and Richard visited her and the baby every day, she could not help but feel alone and afraid. She was not allowed to leave her room apart from to attend the water closet. The curtains were never opened to let the sunlight in. Her diet was an insipid gruel encouraged by the accoucheur, who took the baby's health as a measure of his personal success and blamed Verity's malaise entirely on herself. He insisted the cure was less light, fewer visits, and less food. The only reprieve was that Lord Albroke, disgusted with both his sons and Verity, had decamped to his daughter's place in Bath, and intended to stay there until Michaelmass.

When her confinement ended, Verity thought she might finally get relief, but to her horror, she learned, the first day at breakfast with Neil and Richard, that Neil, whose recovery had continued fiercely throughout the past month, was taking a carriage and returning to Houglen at the end of the week.

"But you are not well enough!" she protested, taking in his still gaunt figure. "You still have fevers!"

"My mind is much better than it was," Neil argued, buttering toast. "I am no longer confused the way I was before. I know who I am, and who you are. But my memories are still vague, mostly missing. I have a feeling if I return to Houglen, where I made them, I will recover more of them."

"Besides," said Richard, "You can't stay here more than a few months, Verity. My father will be returning, and you should not be here when he does. We never managed to sell Waverly Manor. Neil will be able to begin to prepare it for you and the baby again."

But Verity, staring forlornly at Neil, could only help feel that he was trying to escape her. "Why can't you prepare the house, Richard, and leave Neil here with me?" she begged. "Please, Neil. Please."

But Neil shook his head. "I can't remember anything here – and I must remember. I must know. I've already delayed it too long. I should have been in Houglen as soon as I could travel. I was only waiting until you and the baby were stronger."

"Take me with you, then," she pleaded. "We'll all go together."

Neil touched her hand gently. "You can't travel yet. I'll be waiting there for you – for both of you."

The day he had left, he had kissed the baby in her arms, and only given her a slight, confused nod. There was some distance between them since the birth. She didn't know where it had come from. And she could not forget that the last time he had left, he had not returned. She kissed his cheek, with tears in her eyes, and held back from begging him not to go. For hours after he had left, she sat at the front window with the baby in her arms, hoping against hope that his carriage would return, and he would tell her he had changed her mind.

The weeks that followed were worse than her confinement. The baby needed feeding every few hours. Her breasts ached, but she stubbornly refused to let a wet-nurse take the task over. She was hardly sleeping, and fast losing the plumpness she had gained during her pregnancy. She felt drained and tired and sad. For all she had looked forward to the baby coming, for all she knew that she loved it, she found herself lying exhausted in her room all day, and sleeplessly wandering the empty halls at night. This was not home, for her or the baby, and she needed Neil – who had left her behind. Richard was poor compensation. He attempted to read novels to her, and invited her for walks in the garden, but he was a poor conversationalist, and all she wanted was Neil. She was sure it would all be better when she saw Neil again.

In August, Neil sent a letter, brief, and to the point: If Verity did not disagree, the baby should be named Anne, after her grandmother. Verity did not disagree, but was distraught that he had neither returned, not told her to come to him. She was churched, the baby was christened, and life returned to normal at Albroke Manor. The very drab and horrible normal.