A Better Man
Chapter Nine
Morass
Being pregnant in the summer was torture, plain and simple. Eliza lay on her bed, with a cold cloth pressed against her forehead, willing the afternoon to disappear into the horizon and bring on a cool night. Trays had been brought up to her room for the past few days, as the heat made her far too ill to venture very far, or allow her to be fully dressed.
Her thoughts were very often her only companions during those lonely days. Eleanor would come and sit with her for a while, but the woman had many obligations, and Eliza did not like to take up much of her time. The professor and Colonel Pickering were naturally not allowed in her room, especially in her condition and state of undress - not that Professor Higgins would be much company anyway.
Eliza had begun to think that he really and truly hated her. After the announcement of her pregnancy, he had changed. There were no more literary discussions in the library, as found seemingly endless excuses not to be at home. He was now so frosty and acerbic that Eliza frequently found herself in tears when he actually did address her. Of course, it seemed her emotions were higher and higher every single day - for example, just the other day she had ventured a look out of her bedroom window, and the sight of a fallen bird on the sill had sent her into a fit of hysterics - still, she was not imagining his coldness.
He would not look at her. Eliza could not remember the last time she had been able to make direct eye contact with Professor Higgins, although she sometimes thought she could feel his gaze upon her in moments when she supposed he thought her unawares. What had she done? Was it the fact that she had forgiven Freddy for the incident at Christmas? She would remember the look on Henry's face when he spied her injuries until her dying day. It was if they had shared an invisible, and tenuous connection that made her pain his pain and vice versa. This was no longer the case. The invisible cord had been snapped in two, and now they were practically strangers living under the same roof.
Miraculously, Eliza felt well enough by the early evening to dress herself and head downstairs. It seemed that the heat was on its way to breaking, as the early night air was cool, and breezy. The house was quiet, and empty - Eliza surmised that everyone had either retired for the evening, or had gone out of doors.
She was wrong.
Eliza found Professor Higgins in the library, so engrossed in his reading that he did not even notice her arrival. She cleared her throat, giving him a start that nearly made him drop his book. He raised his eyes to the intruder, only to immediately look away when he recognized who it was.
"Why do you do that?" Eliza inquired softly.
"What on earth do you speak of, you ridiculous creature?" His eyes were firmly glued to the page. Eliza approached him, hell-bent on getting the answers she required.
"All of this. Why can you not even look at me anymore? Why the sudden derision?" She came up behind his chair, and placed her hands on the back of it, looking down at him. Henry stood up suddenly, as though realizing that he was sitting on top of a burning stove, and crossed the room to get away from Eliza, keeping his back turned.
"I am behaving as I always have," he lied.
"No, you are not!"
Henry snapped his book shut suddenly, and slammed it down on a nearby desk. Eliza jumped at the noise. "Perhaps I grow weary of the shameless way you are taking advantage of my mother."
Eliza's jaw dropped, the confession stabbing at her insides like a knife. She often agonized over the fact that she lived under charity, years of street hardened pride had made her that way. However, even Professor Higgins had gone out of his way to erase those feelings of being a burden in the past. Now it seemed that he had been lying to save her pride, and for whatever reason, he no longer felt it necessary to keep up the deception.
"I shall leave in the morning."
Henry turned her then, a mocking expression on his face. "And where the devil do you think you will go?"
"After this, I really do not see why you would care."
He straightened his spine, and looked down his nose at her. "I would just like to be able to give Mother and Pickering news of your whereabouts, as they are the ones invested in your well-being."
Eliza felt the knife twist a bit more. It was one thing for him to not want her to burden his mother, it was another thing entirely for him to confess indifference towards her. "I suppose you can tell them that I will be at Clara's then."
"Clara Eynsford-Hill, that cotton-headed modern living in a garret Soho with three other girls?" He gave a cruel laugh. "Where on earth would they put you, the broom closet? What of that - that creature you are carrying; where will they keep that?"
Eliza felt her blood go cold. "Wot's the matter wiv ya? Wot kinda man says the things ya do? This ain't a 'thing' or a 'creature' - this is my child!"
Henry took note of how quickly her hurt expression turned to rage, the color rising high in her cheeks; her breath coming out in heavy, labored pants, and her reverting to cockney. He knew he had crossed the line, and vaguely recalled his mother discussing how Eliza was not to be under any sort of strain at all, as it could prove dangerous for herself and the child. He was immediately sorry and a little afraid.
"Eliza, please calm yourself."
"Oh, ho! Ya thought ya could treat me like this and not expect-"
"I was not thinking at all, Eliza-"
"Ya never think! For all yer fine learnin', ya truly are ignorant!" She was shouting now, heedless of the fact that the rest of the house was probably starting to settle into sleep.
"Remember what the doctor-"
Eliza's sudden burst of laughter cut him off. "Why on earth do you remember what the Doctor said? I'm only burden to everyone around me, aren't I - why should you bother with something as trivial as my health?" Henry surmised that either her anger was beginning to ebb, or that she had actually listened to herself speak.
"What on earth is going on?" The pair turned in time to witness Eleanor walk into the room. She had not yet begun to prepare for bed, and had been able to rush downstairs the moment the shouting had reached her ears.
"Your son and I were just discussing my leaving you, Mrs. Higgins."
Eleanor gasped, and rewarded her son with a glare, before going to Eliza's side and leading her to a chair. "Nonsense - absolute nonsense! Child, you are not going anywhere as long as I have breath in my body."
"No one can stop me leaving if I wish, I am my own person!" Eliza cried as she sat down.
"Freddy made it very clear that we were to keep you safe, and I will lock you in the attic before I allow you to force me to go back on a promise I made to your husband!" Eleanor retorted, fiercely. She turned her attention to her son. "What on earth posessed you to bring her to such a state, Henry? Badly done!"
Henry stood dumbfounded and chastised. "I did nothing-"
"Shush! Do not lie to me, Henry Higgins; you were always terrible at it." She turned back to Eliza, who was beginning to breath more calmly. "There now, Eliza; no one wants you to leave."
"Your son certainly does."
"Dearest, he is an idiot-"
"Pardon?" Came Henry's wounded inquiry.
"-and you ought not to listen to a word he says." Eleanor helped Eliza to her feet. "Come, let's not discuss this a moment longer. You need rest."
"I am still not convinced that staying here is a good idea any longer." Eliza remarked as they began to head out of the library.
"Not another word, my dear." Eleanor turned to her son. "Henry, put out the lights when you are through here, and do not show your face tomorrow unless you are sure you can do so without giving offense to everyone you encounter."
The next week went along very much like the previous, only Henry had gone from trading nasty barbs with Eliza to not speaking to her at all. She was now truly a nonentity to him, or at least that was how she felt.
Eleanor took it upon herself to show Eliza the nursery that still remained intact, even though Henry was decades past childhood. Sheets protected the furniture, and it had not been properly dusted in some time.
"I wanted to save it for Henry's children, you see; so I never quite got around to remodeling it into a different sort of room."
Eliza took a turn about the room, smiling at the pastel scenes on the wall, marvelling at the fact that Professor Higgins had once been a child at play. "Oh, Mrs. Higgins - this is lovely, but I am afraid I won't have much use of it once Freddy returns."
Eleanor's heart skipped a beat. News from the western front had been slow, and discouraging. However, she did not want Eliza to lose hope. "Of course not, dear; I was just hoping it would do temporarily."
Eliza ambled over to the older woman and kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you so much. I do not deserve such kindness."
"Don't be ridiculous, of course you do." Eleanor smiled sadly. "I think of you very much as my own, you know."
Before Eliza could reply Swithin cleared his throat from the entrance. "This letter has arrived for Mrs. Eynsford-Hill."
"Oh?" Eliza approached the butler, and took the buff colored envelope from his hands. She did not take note of his grave expression, but she immediately took stock of the OHMS stamped on the front of it. She exchanged a worried glance with Eleanor, who had noticed the official stamp on the envelope and had gone very pale. The letter nearly fell from her suddenly nerveless fingers, but Eliza recovered it before it fluttered to the ground. Her entire being focused on the missive in her hands, and her surroundings seemed to disappear. For a while she just stared at the envelope, working up the courage to peruse its contents, knowing full well what it would say, but wanting to have just a few more moments of it not being true.
She opened it.
It is a terrible thing, having one's deepest fears come to reality. Eliza had vividly imagined what it would feel like to be right about this once instance, and had brought herself to tears in the past from conjuring it up so vividly. Her imaginings had been pale imitations of the real thing. This was fatally authentic, and hit her with such a force that all emotion and thought flew from her body, leaving her a shell. She dropped the letter and left the room, heading blindly for her bedroom. Once she arrived at her destination, she sat at her escritoire, pulled out her stationary, and composed a very brief letter, having to steady her right hand by grasping it with her left to halt the violent trembling that caused the date to come out in a barely legible zig-zag.
20 July 1916
Dear Mrs. Pryce,
Your son is dead.
Sincerely,
Eliza Eynsford-Hill