Page 98 of Jane Deyre
Off her.
The birth of Charlotte changes Edwina’s relationship with both her husband and her lover. Bertrand grows more and more reclusive, spending almost all his waking and sleeping hours in the guesthouse, while Georgia grows hotheaded, fueled by her jealousy of Edwina’s baby whom she fawns over. Moreover, she is incensed by the instant attachment her now rebellious thirteen-year-old son, Ward, has to the child. An attachment that began the day she was born and draws him away from her and closer to Edwina. Edwina’s relationship with Georgia grows stormy.
The Queen of Thornhill writes:
Our relationship was like a rose. Beautiful but thorny. So attuned to each other’s bodies and souls, we knew how to hurt one another. Stab words at each other that pricked our skin and pierced our hearts.
The love Edwina feels toward her child is like none other. Unconditional. All-consuming.
Charlotte was my true gift. Sacred and holy. A miracle of miracles. She was born from my flesh and bones, infused with my blood.
Every time I stared down at her tiny form—those little arms that reached out to me and that rosebud mouth that smiled back at me—I loved her more as if more was possible. Even with her one imperfection—an extra toe on her right foot just like the one I was born with. But unlike my parents who were horrified by this deformity and had it amputated, it enthralled me because it was more of her to love. And more of me in her. I made myself a vow I would never remove it unless she wanted me to.
Tears form in my eyes as I read Edwina’s heartfelt words. The breadth and depth of her love. I can only hope my mother felt this way about me. I’ll never know.
Despite Alice’s protestations, Edwina takes Charlotte everywhere, with her baby nurse, Grace, often accompanying her. From movie sets to the Cannes Film Festival and everything in between. It’s like her daughter is an appendage. Physically attached to her.
And then the unthinkable happens...
When Charlotte is six months old, an increasingly unstable and unhappy Georgia gives Edwina an ultimatum... love her or leave her. Over a dinner at Musso’s minus Charlotte who’s remained behind at Thornhill with a slight fever, Georgia threatens to end their relationship. She’s sick and tired of being incognito. Fed up with their clandestine relationship. She tells Edwina to leave Bertrand and to come out. Edwina tells Georgia she can’t leave Bertrand. Despite his inadequacies, she still loves him and she wants Charlotte to grow up in a normal household with a mother and father.
“I love you, Georgia—and Ward too—with all my heart, but I love them first. And I believe exposing our relationship would break up my marriage and family... and destroy my career.”
With that, Georgia tosses her half-drunk martini at Edwina and storms out of the restaurant.
When a drenched, distraught Edwina returns home, Charlotte is gone from her crib.
I take a breath. The life-changer. My stomach clenched, I read Edwina’s heart-wrenching account of the kidnapping.
Her frantic search for her missing child... learning that Grace had fallen asleep and not heard a thing because the baby monitor was turned off... both her husband, Bertrand, and social secretary, Alice, saying they never left the grounds and didn’t hear an intruder... her desperate call to the police... their interrogation, led by a Lieutenant Pete Billings... followed by a live television appearance in which she tearfully begs for the safe return of Charlotte and offers a five-million-dollar reward... and collapses in front of millions of viewers worldwide.
Edwina, in a state of delirium, takes to her bed.
The excruciating mixture of grief and guilt was unbearable. If only I’d not left her alone. The pain I felt was like a knife I couldn’t take out of my heart. I would have given my life to have my beautiful Charlotte back in my arms, but all I got was her tiny, bloodied extra toe with a ransom note demanding an additional five million dollars... or I could expect to have the rest of her body delivered to me in pieces.
Ward now in the back of my mind, I swallow back my own horror. And an uncanny thing happens... my right foot starts throbbing as if I’m feeling Charlotte’s physical pain. And in my chest, I feel a blade pierce my ribs as if I’m feeling Edwina’s suffering. Cathartic reactions. Imagined not real, yet I feel them just the same.
I force myself to read on. The kidnapping is headline news around the world. Likened to the infamous Charles Lindberg baby abduction... calling it the kidnapping of the century. I skim the various newspaper abstracts.
There is never another word from the abductor... never another ransom note. The police assume he—or she—has killed little Charlotte Mason... all except for Lieutenant Pete Billings, who’s convinced that Charlotte is alive. It doesn’t make sense. Why would the kidnapper forego such an extravagant ransom payment? He vows not to give up on his search for the child and the child’s abductor. He will find them both. Still confined to her bed and bowing out of all movie offers, Edwina clings to this sliver of hope. She ends the emotionally draining chapter with:
Even when you have nothing left in your life, hope is the one thing that can never be taken away.
Her words resonate with me. For the first time since opening the book, I think about Mr. Rochester. His deceit. His betrayal. Tears prick my eyes. Will he come back to me or is all love lost? Bleary eyed, I can read no more. I close the book and set it on my night table. Then, turn out the light. Hoping sweet dreams will come to me.
Reader, they don’t.
I toss and turn. A night terror invades my slumber. The burning baby is back. But now, she’s able to walk. Flames shoot out of her sixth toe, licking her tiny naked body. She comes at me, wailing at the top of her lungs.
“Help me!!” she cries out.
I feel the fiery heat of her; feel her blistering pain. I reach my arms out to her. She moves closer to me. The gap between us narrowing.
And then another voice, something between a growl and whisper. Dark and hateful. One I’ve heard before, unable to tell if it’s male or female.
“Suffer!”
The baby’s blazing skin crackles, the rancid smell of her burning flesh nauseating me. The only thing spared from the flames are her eyes, wide-set and hazel in color just like mine. She’s unable to blink them.