With the planned departure date for their trip to Baden Baden fast approaching, Mabel often woke up in the middle of the night. This time, however, it wasn't her anxiety over the arrangements that roused her out of her sleep, but the sense of wrongness. The rush of footfall sounded from the ground floor. The old walls creaked in a positively agitated manner.

She lit the candle and stuck her head into the hallway and there was light spilling from under the door of Lady Cathrine's bedroom. Clutching the housecoat at her chest, she patted across and knocked. "Lady Catherine, are you well?"

Lady Catherine came to open the door fully dressed, but with her clothes in a disarray. "Yes, my dear. Radcliffe has taken ill."

Mabel's fingers went limp, releasing the fabric of her housecoat. It fell apart, because she didn't have time to belt it up, but she didn't care that her nightshirt showed. Her knees locked, or she would have dashed downstairs to... to do something. Or at least see him, make sure he was not too sick, fluff a pillow for him... or something equally pointless.

Lady Catherine patted her hand comfortingly, apparently guessing her intentions.

"The doctor had been already. The crisis has passed, and he is resting. There is not much to be done. We wait." A certainty of many prior experiences steadied her voice. Mabel envied it and trusted it at the same time, but there must be something she could do.

"Do you..." She worked some saliva into her parched throat. "Do you wish me to write and postpone our travelling arrangements?"

The list of the hired rooms paraded in her mind, bringing some relief. It was so much better to think of practical matters and have control over the events. "It's nearly morning, and I shall not sleep a wink anyway. I can start immediately."

Lady Catherine's face pinched. "I wanted to. Alas, he had expressly forbidden this. Radcliffe is incorrigible! Never a thought for his own happiness. Never."

All Mabel could do was nod, as if she had the right to agree to this judgment, but Lady Catherine didn't mind. A brave smile curled her lips. "I wouldn't go back to bed either. Let us make tea, and you could read me again the letter from Miss Carter. Her mischievous pen is just what we need."

It was a kind invitation, and Harriet was a witty correspondent, but it didn't divert Mabel's thoughts from Radcliffe's illness at all. The day dragged on, thanks to the unusually early start and gnawing worry, so by the afternoon, when the doctor visited again and declared Radcliffe fit for visitors, Mabel was as worn as if she hadn't slept in days. The fatigue numbed her a little, yet the raw feeling of dread stirred anew, when she trailed Lady Catherine to the sickroom.

At the entrance to Radcliffe's private suite, the library turned into an antechamber that, in turn, opened into his bedroom. The apartment was messy and comfortable, compared to Everett's spartan abode. Here, the splashes of colour reigned, belying the owner's personality.

The carpet on the floor, the painting on the walls, the curtains—all of it had rich shades fighting the dreariness of English weather. Three giant vases of Chinese antiquity guarded the corners; crossed sabres, daggers and a pistol of Turkish derivation decorated another wall. A couple of maps covered by notes spread over the armour's side.

Mabel immediately spotted her own drawing, next to the formal portrait of Lady Catherine in a ball gown that must have been in fashion twenty years ago. Her lips pressed together to suppress a sob born out of tenderness. How could she have possibly suspected Radcliffe of scheming? She was never meant to enter here and yet it was on the wall. Everett was quite mad to say the things he had said to her at Covent Garden.

Lady Catherine took the chair next to Radcliffe's bed, and Mabel modestly retreated to its twin, lodged between a low round table and the mantelpiece. A heavy smell of laudanum and sickness didn't belong in this cheerful, almost boyish room, yet it clung to it. The sense of wrongness that woke her in the middle of the night was the strongest here, at the source.

She could clearly see how much the bout of illness ate into Lord Chesterton's already fragile countenance. His features sharpened, his eyes sank, dulled with medicine, his blind one nearly gone between the lids. The damaged skin took on a mortifying purple tint, while the hale cheek was not even pallid; it was greyish. Veins ran blue up his throat and cheeks. Her chest squeezed tighter and tighter in panic.

Meanwhile, Lady Catherine straddled the fine line between expressing maternal worry and not overwhelming the invalid with questions.

Whenever Radcliffe responded, it was monosyllabic, but mostly he let her do it for him and just lifted and lowered his eyelashes. Thus, the conversation plodded on one-sided, until he closed his eyes for good.

Mabel lifted a good inch off her chair to confirm: his chest rose and fell faintly. He just drifted off to a healing sleep... But when she slumped back in relief, he must have spoken up, for Lady Catherine leaned to him, tilted her head, then repeated his request to Mabel.

"Would you read to us for a while, my dear?"

Mabel grabbed the only book on the table by her elbow—a thick tome with yellowed pages and black cover worn to gray at the spine—grateful to be called upon. Finally she had something to do. The book opened up on a dried oak leaf used as a bookmark. The faded letters filled the page tightly, rigid paragraphs, all of equal length, leaving only a slim margin.

She cleared her throat, then stammered as her eyes picked out the first words. This was, unmistakably, Ovid's Metamorphoses, the story of Icarus, but it wasn't in Garth's excellent translation.

"My Latin is very poor, I am afraid," she whispered, searching Lady Catherine's face for empathy. After the terrible day, the tears welled up easily. One thing, he asked of me. One thing! And I can't do it.

Without opening his eyes, Radcliffe unexpectedly replied strongly enough for her to hear, "Please, read. I'll help you if needed."

Mabel swallowed, nodded and stared at the book with vehemence. It would yield its secrets. It would! Reddening to the very tips of her ears, she didn't even try to decipher the meaning of the verses, only striving to annunciate the sonorous words loudly enough. True to his word, Radcliffe supplied the corrections whenever she hesitated over the torturous text, causing her even more embarrassment.

A few pages in, the corrections from her tutor stopped. Aha! Even the dead language surrendered before her determination! She cleared her throat at the beginning of the next verse, skimmed the first line with her eyes, opened her mouth—

"Do not trouble yourself, my dear." Lady Catherine got up. "He is asleep again. I'll summon the nurse to watch over him." She leaned over to push a strand of hair out of Radcliffe's eyes. He was wearing it much longer now than when they first met, and it was the only visible part of him that sickness didn't drain of vibrancy. The raven-black still framed his face, imparting further fragility on his features.

"Perhaps, I can find an English copy of Ovid in the library," Mabel said humbly after leaving the sickroom. Merciful Heavens, she had imagined herself a Latinist after reading a few pages!

"O dear, no. This was the point of it." Lady Catherine touched her hand apologetically.

Mabel stared. Did she lose her senses from her lack of sleep? "Why must I read in Latin?"

"I am afraid Radcliffe's little trick was all my fault. I should've realized it would embarrass him to be seen ailing." She looked like she was about to add something, but thought better of it.

She embarrassed him, he embarrassed her. They should be even, she supposed, only Radcliffe, how? How did she embarrass him? Her lips trembled in indignation. "Lord Chesterton had deliberately set me this challenge to distract me?"

"Why else? Certainly not for the love of Latin." Lady Catherine rolled her eyes heavenward. "This humdudgeon mercifully was out of fashion since before I was a girl. But please, please humour my son. He is impossibly prideful."

"I..."

Radcliffe tricked her--and for what? So she wouldn't pity him or to some other unknown end? It seemed so petty an aim. So cold-hearted and unworthy of a man she pictured Radcliffe to be. The seeds that Everett had planted in her mind were sprouting thickly in her tired mind. She suspected they could only yield poisonous fruit.

"I don't understand why Lord Chesterton would do it. Does he think me cruel?" Cruel like his father?

"He had been this way since childhood about his illness." Lady Catherine extracted a handkerchief and crumpled it in her hands.

"I understand." She didn't, but at least he didn't single her out.

Lady Catherine seemed to have missed her response. "It is from my side of the family, our terrible frailty. All my children have ill health too, except Everett. Everett, he took after my Cecil, God bless his soul... So, it's really all my fault."

It was strange for her to hear Lady Catherine talk this way of her three children, if only Radcliffe and Cordelia were sickly, and Everett wasn't. There might have been more, some who did not survive childhood.

"You mustn't blame yourself!" she exclaimed.

"Thank you, my dear," Lady Catherine said, dabbing her eyes, "Everything is in God's hands, but every time Radcliffe has a bout, I feel helpless and guilty."

"I... I will brush up on my Latin."

Lady Catherine smiled. "Thank you, my dear."

Looking in the upturned face of a doting mother, Mabel remembered how Everett swam in brutal weather. Was it to flaunt his robust health or to punish himself for it? She couldn't answer this question, only Everett could, and not rationally. Yet, doubts stirred again. Did she turn her back on Everett unjustly? Was he imperceptibly tortured by his relations, knowingly or unknowingly? She wished she understood him better. But Everett took himself to Italy, and God willing, it would help him regain his peace.

Here, in England, she had a smaller challenge than understanding Chesterton men: to conquer a dead tongue. If Radcliffe hoped to bamboozle her, he would soon learn that she wasn't easily deterred by so small a challenge. He'd need to do better than that.

And so, she found an English copy of The Metamorphoses in the library and struggled well into the second sleepless night, comparing the texts, deciphering the meanings, and sending Radcliffe a subliminal message. You shall see, Lord Chesterton, you shall see. What it was that he was supposed to see, she didn't quite know.