Lady in Rags

Chapter Thirty Seven: The Other Woman

In the dead of night, in a darkened room, Neil lay awake, listening. Sometimes, when he had been dosed with laudanum throughout the day, he would recover at night to lie awake and think. It was hard to think when the nurse was in the room with him, because she was a talker. She talked of her grandchildren, and of the bible, and of the church sermon, and of her grandchildren, and of the bible, and of the church sermon. Sometimes she was daring enough to speak of the weather, but only in connection with the God who made it, and why he had made it so, and why one must be grateful to Him for it. She could be as grateful for thundering rain as she could for balmy sunshine. Neil, in her company, found it impossible to be grateful for anything.

There was, however, one advantage to her chatter. When she was talking, she drove out the voice in Neil's head. He knew it was in his head, and not in the room with him, for there was no one to sing it, and it was Giulia's voice.

Now, as he listened in the silent dark, he heard it again:

Fa la ninna, fa la nanna,

I'm going mad, he thought desperately. No. I arrived at madness long ago.

"Stop it!" he hissed. "You're dead. You're dead and gone!"

Nella braccia della mamma

"I loved another already!"

But the melody in his head would not stop repeating. Again, and again, the first line of the old Italian lullaby repeated itself dementedly in his head, in the singing voice of his wife. Giulia had known opera and orchestra and ballet. The clockwork demon in his head knew only one line of a cheap lullaby.

Fa la ninna, fa la nanna

He had heard it when he was at sea too. Clinging to a floating hunk of debris in the Bay of Biscay, his eyes set desperately upon the lights of a shore he could not seem to reach, a cold blackness in his head, the old lullaby had played in his ears. Then, it had seemed to him a beacon, coaxing him towards the lights of the shore. Hold on, hold on, and stay alive. Now it seemed to be taking him the other way, back towards the black, churning ocean – if he followed it. But he must not.

Fa la ninna, fa la nanna

It was fading, finally. It never quite went silent. It had been with him all these past few months, he knew. He had tramped through France with the song beckoning him onwards. On the ship back to England, the captain had strapped him, violent and raving, to a bed, with the song urging him to escape. When he had been carried from his father's carriage to his room, the song had quietly, mournfully serenaded his return. Neil had not told the physician who examined him of the singer in his head. He had told no one. The song frightened him, made him angry, drowned out his own thoughts. He could confess it to no one, and only wait, pleadingly, for it to grow quiet, and give him some peace.

"You're dead, Giulia," he said to the darkness. "Leave me alone."

He was quite sure of that tonight. Giulia was dead, long ago. It pained him, but it did not shock him. He had married Giulia, and she had died, and he had returned to England. He knew it to be true though he remembered none of it.

He knew as well, to be true, that he had another lover, and that he had forgotten her too. What had been her name? It eluded him. But her face did not. He could not forget those green eyes, staring tearfully into his own. Who was she? He could not allow himself to forget her. He knew, most definitely, that the child she carried was his. She had told him so, or Richard had, he remembered vaguely, they had said enough, between them, to make him understand it. But it had been the broken-hearted kiss she had given him that persuaded him it was true. The woman had loved him, and he had broken her heart, and left her with child.