Part 10 (2/2)

He was tearing them from the bed when the attendant returned, with reinforcements-and Dorian's grandfather.

The instant the earl entered, Aminta turned into a she-demon. Uttering obscenities and threats in a guttural voice Dorian couldn't believe came out of her, she lunged at Lord Rawnsley. When Dorian tried to pull her away, she clawed his face. The attendants grabbed her and swiftly shackled her to the bed, where she alternated between bloodchilling curses and heartwrenching sobs.

When Dorian objected to the painful restraints, the attendants-on the earl's orders-removed him from the room, then from the building altogether. Shut out, Dorian paced by his grandfather's carriage while his mind replayed the scene over and over.

He could not stop shuddering because he could not shake off the sickening comprehension of what his mother must feel. In the unpredictable moments of clarity-like the one he'd encountered first-she could look about her and recognize what she'd become and where she was. He could imagine her rage and grief at being treated like a mindless animal. He could imagine, all too vividly, her terror as well-when she felt her control slip and the darkness begin swamping her reason. He had no doubt she knew what was happening to her: she'd said as much, that she was weak and couldn't keep things in.

She knew her once-formidable mind was betraying her, and that was worst of all.

And that was why, when his grandfather came out, Dorian gathered his shattered composure and swallowed his pride-and begged.

”Please let me take her elsewhere,” he said. ”I'll help look after her. I needn't return to Oxford. I can finish later. I know Father and I can manage with the help of a servant or two. I beg you, Grandfather, let-”

”You know nothing about it,” Lord Rawnsley coldly cut in. ”You know nothing of her tricks and subterfuges, her madwoman's cunning. She played your father for a fool and did the same with you this day. And now Borson says there is no telling what damage you've done-taking her part against those who know better, and making promises you cannot keep. She will be agitated for days, weeks, perhaps.” He pulled on his gloves. ”But it was ever this way. You were always her creature, in character as well as looks. Now you mean to throw away your future-to care for one who never cared for anybody but herself.”

”She's my mother,” Dorian said tightly.

”And my daughter-in-law,” was the grim retort. ”I know my duty to my family. She will be looked after-properly-and you will return to Oxford and do your duty.”

Two weeks later, in the midst of a violent fit, Aminta Camoys collapsed and died.

She died in the madhouse Dorian had been unable to rescue her from, while he was at Oxford, burying his rage and grief in his studies because he had no choice. He had no money and no power to rescue her, and his grandfather would punish anyone who dared to help him.

He told n.o.body what had happened, not even Bertie Trent, the only friend Dorian had.

And so no one but the Camoys family-and then it was only the immediate family-was aware that Aminta Camoys had died, a raving lunatic, in Mr. Borson's expensive h.e.l.lhole of a madhouse.

Even then, she wasn't left in peace. His grandfather let the curst doctors hack into her poor, dead brain to satisfy their grisly curiosity. The brain tissue was weak, and they'd found evidence of blood seepage. A vessel had burst during the last fit-one of many that might have burst at any time, so fragile they were. Her earlier decline, the doctors decided, must have been the first outward sign of an inner deterioration that had begun long before. The headaches were further symptoms, caused by the slow leakage.

There was nothing anyone could have done for her, they claimed. Just as medical science had no way of detecting such defects early on, it had no way of curing them.

And so Borson and his a.s.sociates absolved themselves of all blame-as though they had not made her last months a living h.e.l.l.

And the Camoys saw to it that no blame or shame would be attached to the family, either.

She had ”sunk into a fatal decline”-that was the story they gave out, because no Camoys, even one by marriage, could possibly be mad. No hint of insanity had ever appeared in the family in all the centuries since Henri de Camois had come over from Normandy with the Conqueror.

Even among themselves, they never openly referred to her insanity, as though giving the truth the cut direct could make it go away, like an unsuitable acquaintance.

That was just as well, as far as Dorian was concerned. If he had to listen to the heartless hypocrites pontificating about his mother's madness, he was bound to commit some outrage-and be destroyed, as she had been.

After the funeral, he returned to Oxford and buried his feelings, as usual, in study. It was the one thing he could do, the one thing his grandfather could not crush or twist to suit his tyrannical purposes.

Consequently, at the end of the term, Dorian not only earned his degree but did what no Camoys had ever done before: he won a first, In Literis Humanioribus.

The traditional celebration followed at Rawnsley Hall. It was the usual hypocrisy. Dorian had never truly been one of the Camoys and he knew his academic triumph stuck in the collective family craw. Still, they must give the appearance of family unity, and for Dorian, pretending was easier this time, with freedom so near. In a few weeks, he would be upon the Continent-and he would not return to England until his grandfather was sealed in the tomb with his saintly ancestors.

In the meantime, Dorian could play his role, as he'd done for years, and bear their pretense and hypocrisy.

Pretending, always pretending, his mother had said.

Her mind had broken down under the strain, she'd believed.

Too many secrets...too weak to keep them in.

He didn't know that hers were not the only secrets she'd let out.

He did not find out until twenty-four hours after the so-called celebration. And then Dorian could only stand and listen helplessly for an endless, numbing hour to the chilling speech that shattered and scattered his plans like so much dust and left him with nothing but his pride to sustain him.

Dorian was turned out of Rawnsley Hall with six pounds and some odd pence in his pocket. This was because Lord Rawnsley had expected him to hang his head and make penitent speeches and beg for forgiveness-and Dorian had decided that the earl could wait until Judgment Day.

His grandfather had called him a wh.o.r.emonger, a slave to the basest of appet.i.tes, who shamelessly and recklessly pursued a path that could only lead to madness and a hideous death from the foul diseases contracted from the filth with which he consorted.

Though Dorian knew this was true, he found he must be sunk beyond shame as well because he could not find a shred of remorse in his heart, only rage. He would not, could not submit to his grandfather, ever again. He would starve and die in a filthy gutter, rather than go crawling back.

He left fully aware that he'd have to survive entirely on his own. The earl would make trouble for anyone who aided his errant grandson.

And so Dorian went to London. There he a.s.sumed a new ident.i.ty and made himself one of the insignificant ma.s.ses. He found lodgings-a dank room among the teeming tenements of the East End-and employment as a dockworker by day and a legal copyist at night. There was no future in either occupation, but then, he had no future, with all respectable doors shut to him. Still, even when the dock work dwindled from time to time, the lawyers kept him busy. There was little danger of their running out of doc.u.ments. And when the drudgery threatened to crush his spirit, a few coins could buy him the temporary surcease of a relatively clean wh.o.r.e and a bottle.

The months stretched into years while his grandfather waited for the prodigal to crawl back on his hands and knees and the prodigal waited for his grandfather to die.

But the influenza epidemic that bore off Dorian's father, his Uncle Hugo, two aunts, and several cousins in 1826 left their lord and master untouched.

Then, in the summer of 1827, Dorian suddenly fell ill-and sank into a decline.

1.

Dartmoor, Devon

Early May, 1828

Dorian stood in the library of Radmore Manor, looking out the window. In the distance, the moors stretched out in all their bleak beauty. They beckoned to him as strongly now as they'd called to his sickly fancy months before in London, when he'd fallen so dangerously ill, too weak even to hold his pen.

In August, Hoskins, a solicitor's clerk, had found him barely conscious, slumped over an ink-splotched doc.u.ment.

I'll fetch a doctor.

No. No doctors, for G.o.d's sake. Dartmoor. Take me to Dartmoor. There's money...saved...under the floorboard.

Hoskins might have absconded with the little h.o.a.rd, and heaven knew he needed money, living on a clerk's pittance. Instead, he'd not only done as Dorian asked but stayed on to look after him. He'd remained even after Dorian recovered-or seemed to.

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