Chapter 24: ... And acquainted with grief

The night before Caroline left for Hungerford we made love. Not an unusual event, for we had made love almost every night of our marriage; what was unusual was the intensity of our release, our simultaneous release.

We both cried out as if scalded by steam. Our bodies convulsing in a vortex of passion and delicious delirium. Gradually we regained our breath and senses. "That was exquisite; the best coupling achieved thus far." Caroline said, and kissed me on a shoulder branded by her teeth marks.

"The next time will be even better, my love. Practise makes perfect." I in turn kissed her breast, and took the still erect nipple into my mouth. I kissed, licked, lightly bit, and sucked on the bud of pleasure. John-Jarvis was now completely weaned from the breast, and to my disappointment the supply of Caroline's sweet nectar had since terminated.

"Should you suck on my teats in seven or eight months' time you will garner a mouth full of my milk." Her voice was a soft sibilant whisper in my ear. I lifted my head from her breasts and started at her. "What, you mean you are..."

She nodded, smiling. "I am with child, and should be presenting you with a new son or daughter sometime in mid-June. I believe conception took place the last time we stayed at Lodge House."

I was overjoyed by her news, and showed her by kissing her lovingly.

Caroline then surprised me by announcing she would hand over the feeding duties to a wet nurse after a month of breast feeding the new baby herself.

"But you fed John-Jarvis for the full term; why shall you not do the same for the new babe?"

Caroline gave me a look full of love. "You shall be the only one at my teat after the wet nurse takes over the duty. We both enjoy that unique experience of being one; when you are being suckled and I am being pleasured."

It was true that having her teat in my mouth and drinking her milk, while having my plunger deep, and tightly grasped, in her portal, bonded me closer to her than to any other woman I had ever known, including Mimi who had suckled me like a mother when I lay unconscious.

"Besides," she continued, "when a woman is breast feeding she cannot conceive, and I want more children, and I want them soon."

I had been unaware of either fact, and although I believed the former might be an old wives tale I could do something about the latter.

"How many children do you want? If you are suckling me will that not stop you from conceiving?"

"I want four children; two boys and two girls..."

"We already have two girls." I reminded her.

"Molly and Domina will be young women in a few more years, and I want little girls, to dress and bathe and tell bedtime stories. As for your other question: I don't intend feeding you every four hours," her smile robbed the words of any offence, "and my milk will dry up when what is supplied is not fully consumed. By having children at intervals of a year we can experience both the closeness we get from my feeding you plus the ecstasy we get from joining our bodies in love." She smiled at me provocatively, and then said, husky voiced. "I suggest we reapply ourselves to that latter practice this very minute."

It was a proposal I was glad to comply with.

For all of his skill as a surgeon, apothecary, and physician, Krish Armityge had scarcely a shilling to his name. To fund his passage to India he had signed on as ship's surgeon of an East Indiaman bound for Bombay; the Kent, a recently built vessel on her maiden voyage. The crew were not yet all mustered, and it was not until the 22nd of November that the fully crewed ship slipped her anchor and made her way down Southampton Water to the Solent, and then into the English Channel. The delay allowed for Krish and me to take a long, alcohol and beef fuelled, farewell, but had delayed Rob's and my planned departure from Southampton by two days.

November days in England are short. Dusk falls near to four in the afternoon, while daylight doesn't appear until after eight of a morning. To make up for the time lost waiting in Southampton Rob and I decided to ride some hours during darkness, then put up at night wherever we could find a roof.

It was late, about ten at night, on the eve of my wedding anniversary and birthday when we reached the hamlet of Newton Shalbourne, some two miles south of Hungerford Hall. There was a redness in the night sky which might have been sunset, except the sun had set in the west about six hours since, and the glow was to the north. "A hayrick alight?" I said.

"It appears to be a larger conflagration than just a 'rick." Rob replied, and we both quickened our horses' pace to the crest of a hill.

The sight which met my eye when we crested the rise froze my blood.

Below us Hungerford Hall was ablaze from one end of the building to the other. Even from our distant viewpoint we could hear the crackling and feel the heat of the flames. We spurred our horses, and arrived with lathered mounts and stark terror in my heart. I pulled my exhausted horse to a stop in front of the blazing house, then leapt from the saddle and ran towards the building. The heat was intense, and I could smell my hair singeing. An arm pulled me back from going any further towards the Hall.

"It's no good, sir; nothing can live in that inferno. Two men have already been injured trying to rescue anyone left inside."

I recognised the man as the chief of the Phoenix Insurance Company's fire brigade in Hungerford. His face was blackend with smoke and drawn with concern and fatigue, and his gleaming brass helmet reflected the leaping flames from the burning Hall. Without warning the roof collapsed, and a cloud of burning ash and stinging soot enveloped us. We ran back from the danger, coughing and part blinded. At a safer distance away I gasped. "Are my family safe?" Terrified of what I might hear. He pointed mutely to the four blanket covered bodies lying near the barn, then said. "There was thick, choking, noxious smoke when we first arrived with the fire waggon. We found all four lying dead in their beds."

I went to lift the cover of a blanket but he stopped me. "No, sir. We had a devil of a job bringing them out, and I fear some of the bodies got burned. Not a sight you want to remember your loved ones by." I had seen the contorted bodies and faces of men burned to death, and certainly did not want to see Caroline or any others of my family in that state.

Men hit by a musket ball will tell you that the shock of the strike brings on a numbness, which can last for seconds, minutes, or sometimes even hours, until the pain bites. The numbness of the shock of finding my family burned to death lasted a week.

I was numb — as the bodies of Caroline, John-Jarvis, Molly and Domina were loaded into a waggon and carried to Ashford House.

I remained numb — as the bodies were buried. Caroline, together with the unborn child in her womb and John-Jarvis sharing one coffin, Molly and Domina sharing another.

Numb — as mourners filed past me at the graveside, mumbling those inadequate condolences and unable to look me in the eye. I don't recall who was there – even I wasn't there — but in a place where the fire hadn't happened and my family, my lovely loving family, were by my side.

I sat in the study of a silent Ashford House after the mourners left; the servants had been dismissed and the only person on the estate apart from me was Rob Crawshay. He had not left my side since we rode into that shocking sight of a burning Hungerford Hall. He kept watch over me but did not attempt to talk to me – he knew I wasn't really here. I would only return to the reality of life when the knowledge of what had happened flooded my body, brain and soul.

That night the painful knowledge arrived, biting with the ferocity of a sabre toothed tiger. I howled in agony, screamed in rage, shrieked in madness. Deranged with grief, I cursed God, Jesus, Joseph and Mary. I cursed all the saints, all the angels and arch-angels, and even the cherubim and seraphim. I challenged God to take me in place of my family. I swore. I blasphemed. I expressed the loathing and hatred I felt for a God who could allow my innocent family to die in language I didn't know I possessed. I rejected the whole concept of a loving God, resolving to never again embrace that primitive superstition. The pain of my bereavement never subsided. I endured it, as I did the void inside me where once had been my heart and my soul, and the essence of who I was. My family had gone. My faith had gone Everything that was good in me had gone.