Bliss of Another Kind

London, England
1834

"TAB-I-THA!"
Anna Morgan DeLisle tucked her hands into the generous folds of fat just above each of her hips, her eagle eyes searching through every nook and cranny available to her sight. With a resigned sigh, she rolled her eyes to heaven. Dear Lord and Creator, she thought to herself, hoping that her thoughts were amplified by the high ceilings and majestic stained panels of the Abbess of St. Jude, What mischief had the young one done now?

To her surprise, she saw her foster daughter tucked where she had been left. Beneath a small portrait of the Virgin and the Christ Child, she sat, unable to take in the artistic splendor around her. What a cruel joke for the Holy Father to play on such perfection. To the naked eye, her ward was a perfect lady, one that any man would desire; white-blond hair, severely tied back in a chignon for modesty; full red lips, cornflower blue eyes, a moderate figure. The girl would have made a wonderful mother and a great mistress to any household. 'Twas a pity, then, that she was blind from birth.

Anna's mind wandered back to the moment she first saw the girl her mother called "Fleur"; wrapped up in a ratty bundle, unseeing and without any sign that she could hear. Her mother was just as beautiful; blond, young, and, she heard, of aristocratic blood. She sailed back to her husband as soon as she waved her rights to "Fleur". Though she promised to visit, The Lady Miranda never appeared again. It was just as well; the lady had told her the truth of "Fleur's" conception and birth, a secret that would destroy Tabitha.

Anna took it upon herself to rename "Fleur" Tabitha, and acclimate her to her environment, and her adopted siblings. To her surprise, as the infant grew, her hearing and speech returned. But she remained blind.

Anna smiled to herself; It was right that haughty Lady Miranda didn't know how strong and able her daughter proved to be. The girl had a talent for sculpture, and behaving as an A-class tomboy. In her advancing age, she became more of a lady; romantic in a way. She saw the reality of things, however; that she would be safer in a nunnery.

"Did the nuns agree to accept me into the folds of their grace?" Her daughter asked.
"I have yet to speak to them, sweetling. Could you wait here for a short while?"
Her head nodded an imperceptible fraction of an inch, and she retrained her unbroken line of sight directly on a tapestry at the opposite end of the hallway.

A nun emerged from a closed chamber several doors down. "Lady Anna De Lisle?" She asked, her voice baritone and resounding in the hallway.
Anna stood up, running a smoothing hand down the front of her skirt, "Mother Superior, this is my adopted daughter, Tabitha DeLisle."
Tabitha turned to their voice, and carefully, she stood, spreading her skirt out, and made a curtsey, "Good Evening, reverend Mother," She said, her voice colorless. It broke Anna's heart to hear her tone. Was the same spirited girl who could out-climb her brother? Tabitha; resigned. It wasn't her at all. But it was the best thing, and they both knew it.

The Mother Superior and Anna swept into one of the chambers; Tabitha listened to the swishing of the skirts, the number of steps they took, and the sound of the door closing. She waited to the count of ten, then, as quietly as possible, gathered her skirt up and followed in their steps. She used her hands to feel for objects in her way; discovering the right door, she pressed her ear to the thin wood.
"Madame DeLisle," Mother Superior's voice rang richly through the wood, "we have been unable to locate your daughter's birth certificate at your parish."
Tabitha raised her brow.
Her mother's voice seemed strained, "Sister Agnes," she said quietly, "There is a good reason for this."
"My lady?"
Her mother said nothing. When she spoke again, it was in a lower tone, and Tabitha had to strain to hear her. "She is not my natural child. This much I told you before," (Tabitha's mouth fell open in aject emotional pain.) "But the truth of her birth is a tale so unbelievable that you might think me a fraud, unnatural, a gossip."
"You are behind chaste doors, my lady," Sister Agnes said, "Whatever you utter I will believe is the truth."
"You must not tell Tabitha." Her mother added, "She has been raised delicately, and this will crush her."
(Tabitha wanted to laugh bitterly at this monologue. How little her mother knew!)
"This is a church, Madame, not a brothel....do you need water?"
"No. I must tell this tale. Tabitha...is an unusual child...you know that she is blind? Her blindness was not caused at birth. Her mother was the Lady Miranda Dunham, wife to Jared Dunham, of Swynford Hall and Wyndsong Island, in the Americas. They had a child together, Thomas, before a tragedy befell her; she was pushed overboard on her husband's own yacht by a jealous woman. Miranda was fished from the sea by Prince Alexi Cherkessky's men."
"Of St. Petersburg?"
"Yes."
"Sweet mother..."
"You know that the man bred slaves?" (Tabitha's eyes watered).
"I understood that he did wicked things, things for which many prayers were said."
"Miranda was taken and forced to breed with a man named Lucas. They were both blond creatures, with blue eyes and pale skin. To Prince Cherkessky, this was equative to the breeding of a perfect slave. She was kept in Crimea, on a slave breeding farm."
Blond...Tabitha thought...Her mother always told her she was blond...with violet eyes.....
"The prospective child would be sold in the slave markets in Istanbul; he hoped for many; the more that existed, the more profit that could be turned. The girls would be sold into harem and the boys kept to become studs on the farm." (Tabitha began shuddering). " Approximately two months before the child was to be born, the half-brother of the prince, Arik of the Tartars, overthrew the farm and burned it to the ground, then marched the women naked from Crimea to Istanbul in hopes of selling them in the slave markets. On the way, Miranda was struck in the stomach by a Tartan soldier for defending her friend, who was mercilessly raped to death by the Tartans. Her child was born a girl with violet eyes and silver-blond hair. She was blind and appeared to be deaf. The child repulsed her, for it had been born of her shame and not her love, and planned to dispose of it repeatedly. When she reached Istanbul, she broke away from the pack, walked across the city, and threw herself on the mercy of an old friend at the American Embassy. From there, she spent a few months with Prince Mizra Eddin Khan, the sultan's cousin. The child was totally rejected by the woman there, she was taken to suckle by the Prince's first wife. She left to seek her husband, and promised to send for the child when she reached England. By the time she did, the child was over a year old, and no longer nursing. She sailed the child to London, took her off of the ship in the midst of the night, and smuggled it to my door." (Tabitha wept brokenly into the doorframe). "Sister, That child was named Fleur by her mother, but once I adopted her, I changed her name to Tabitha."
"Ah me...that poor child in the hall resulted from a slave breeding farm?!"
"Indeed. Her mother had reasons, of course, for doing what she did; she wanted her old life back, with her husband in America, and besides, Fleur was blind, and probably deaf. What kind of a life could a child so physically damaged have?"
(Tabitha felt hysterical laughter fill her frame.)
"How wrong she has proven her mother's prophecy! The girl is extraordinary, and is not the least bit deaf."
These words were no succor for Tabitha. She turned from the door and began walking. She felt her way to the staircase. Lost in her sadness, her anger, her last clear thought exited her lips.
"I am Miranda Dunham's daughter!"
Suddenly, her footing lost it's solidarity; she had missed a step. The world suddenly tumbled in many different directions, and painful slabs of wood slammed into her delicate body.
One more thing to feel. The cold press of the medallion her father (or the man she thought was her father) had given her for her eighteenth birthday. Inscribed on silver, it read.
To My Daughter
T.A.D.
On the occasion of her 18th year of life.
"To Thine own Self be True."


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