An hour or more later, she had circled back to the very same crossroads. She could see the gate and the dent in the grass where she had sat to enjoy her picnic. She was tired now and thirsty from Mrs. Turber’s salty beef. The marsh, so flat and open to the horizon, had transformed itself into an impenetrable maze of crooked lanes and dykes with no bridges. In the fields, sheep shaved the grass with their black lips and looked at her with sly eyes. She could now understand how smugglers in centuries past had managed to elude the excise men over this seemingly simple landscape. Taking a deep breath to quell a rush of anxiety, Beatrice decided not to force her way west but to ride north, towards the bluffs where she remembered the canal and its road, built to defeat Napoleon, which would take her home to Rye. Hugh had told her about the canal, and as she remembered sensible Hugh, she took heart and set off once again with renewed determination.
Fear is a great spur to endeavor, and when Beatrice at last slowed her pace, she had covered some miles and the canal and the main road were just before her, the dark line of trees and cliff welcome after the flat heat of the marsh. Unfortunately, the slackening of velocity revealed a trembling in her exhausted limbs. Just before the junction where the lane crossed a small bridge to meet the main road, the bicycle gave a large wobble side to side and then, with the front wheel catching on the dry, rutted surface, it tumbled Beatrice sideways into a bramble-filled ditch, catching her right ankle a severe blow as it fell on top of her.
She lay very still, thinking only that the ditch felt dry and that this was a blessing. The herbal scents of crushed weeds and the woody smell of warm blackberry brambles were thick around her head, and the sunlight was pleasantly fractured and dappled by the canopy of a tree. Rubbing at a small trickle of blood on her neck from a bramble scratch, she searched her pocket, glad once more to be carrying one of her father’s sensible handkerchiefs in place of the cambric scraps usually favored by young ladies. A wood pigeon, always the cello in the orchestra of birdsong, gave out its low double coo from the shade. But for the throb, like a beat from a large drum, which began to vibrate in her right ankle, she thought it would have been very pleasant just to lie there.
—
Hugh was conscious of the need to keep the horse and trap going at a smart pace if he and his aunt were to reach their final visit and be back for tea. Yet at the same time, his aunt was in some fear of breaking the fresh eggs in their flannel-lined basket and of shaking the milk custard and the jellied beef tea into a puddled mess in their crocks, so he was fully occupied in picking the smoothest parts of the unmade road and in keeping the horse steady through a firm but gentle pressure on the reins. The trip might have been smoother and swifter if they had taken the car, but his aunt felt strongly that sick visiting was not the occasion for ostentation and that she would not remind her poor but proud neighbors of their charity status by sweeping in with motorcar and finery. Indeed she wore a very plain dress and a beige linen driving duster, and her hat, which she kept for such visiting, was of plain straw and as modest in dimension as Cook’s Sunday hat. Hugh wore a more formal suit, as befitted a representative of the medical profession. He had already visited today’s patients with Dr. Lawton and had been charged with following up on an informal basis as he accompanied his aunt on her rounds. As they bowled briskly around one of the few slight turns of the Military Canal road, his eye caught sight of a female waving a large handkerchief from a roadside bench. He was poised to wave back as they drove by when his aunt startled him.
“Pull up, Hugh, pull up,” she said, tugging at his arm in a way that caused him to jerk at the horse’s mouth and set the horse swerving towards the nearside ditch. Hauling the reins back, Hugh fought to draw the trap to a stop without causing the horse to plunge and rear.
“It’s Beatrice Nash,” his aunt exclaimed. “I think she’s in distress.”
Hugh handed over the reins and leaped down to the road, heedless of the dust. As he hurried towards the bench, he found himself praying that Beatrice had not been attacked on the road. She was disheveled and scratched, with blood on her neck and a large bruise on her arm. Her hair was tangled with thorns, and her skirt, he could see as he came close, was dark-stained and torn about the hem.
“Miss Nash?” Further inquiry stuck in his throat.
“I fell off my bicycle,” she said. “Rather a nasty tumble into a ditch.”
Hugh was careful to hide his relief. “Are you hurt?” he asked. Bones and blood he could bind up.
“My ankle,” she said. “I don’t think it’s broken, but it took a blow. I was afraid if I took off my boot I would not be able to get it on again.” She smiled, but her face was pale and he had an urge to gather her up like a bird with a broken wing.
“I’m going to carry you to the trap,” he said. “And once we have you settled, the boot needs to come off.”
“I think I can hobble,” she said, looking alarmed at his offer.
“I think not, given that the ankle is not yet examined,” he said. Speaking with authority came easily to him in the cottages of farm laborers, but not so smoothly in the face of this young woman’s skeptical gaze. “Now do be sensible,” he begged.
As he hesitated, looking for the most efficient way to thrust an arm under her legs and another around her waist, she wrapped her skirt more closely about her legs, to subdue its volume, and cleared her throat. “I am not the tiniest of women to carry,” she said.
“And I am not the world’s strongest man,” he said. “But I think I can manage to stagger a few yards.” With that he bent at the knees and gathered her up. The ribbing of her stays pressed into his flesh, and he could feel her back warm against his arm. She was not heavy as long as he pressed her close. He could feel her arms around his neck and smell the faint odor of soap under the more vivid scent of dirt and wildflowers. He resisted an unlikely urge to drop his head to her hair.
“My goodness, what on earth happened?” said his aunt as they approached the trap.
“Hurt an ankle,” said Hugh. His aunt gave him a sharp look, and he might have blushed but he was fully engaged in trying to figure out how to help Beatrice into the rear bench seat of a trap that had never looked higher off the ground. It required at least two good feet to step up. “Hold the horse steady, please.”
“However will we manage?” asked Beatrice. “I think you’d better put me down.”
“No, no,” said Hugh. “Just be ready with your left foot. I’m going to step up and sort of launch you upwards.” He stared with grim focus at the small, smooth iron step, no bigger than a child’s foot, which protruded from the rear of the trap, and tried not to think of them both falling hard into the road should the horse move at the wrong moment.
“It is times like these that one regrets not owning a landau,” said Agatha. “Do be careful, Hugh.”
“Yes, do be careful, Hugh,” said Beatrice, and she was laughing, and Hugh was so delighted to hear her call him by his name that he almost lost his footing as he made the upward leap. In a rush of petticoats and a small squeak of pain, Beatrice was deposited on the hard bench, clutching for the railing as Hugh fell away and managed to land without twisting an ankle himself.
“I think we should push on to Little Hollow and get some cold spring water on that foot,” said Agatha, looking back from the front seat. “Does it hurt much?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” said Hugh, who was now lashing the twisted bicycle to the rear of the trap with a spare leading rope. “They don’t welcome strangers.”
“On the contrary, Hugh,” his aunt said. “I believe it would be taken as a sign of trust if we ask for help. This is our opportunity to show Maria Stokes that we value her knowledge.”
“But do you wish to shock Miss Nash with such an encounter?” asked Hugh.
“Miss Nash is a well-traveled and stouthearted woman and will not go into hysterics over meeting a few Gypsies,” said his aunt, but Hugh, climbing up to take the reins, noticed she eyed Beatrice with care for any sign of distaste.
“No indeed,” said Beatrice. She looked a little concerned, but not as much as he’d feared. Either she was an exceptional young woman or she had faith in his aunt’s good judgment.
“On Wednesdays I do my sick visiting,” said Agatha as the trap began to move again. “Dr. Lawton likes me to stop in quietly on some of his more delicate or difficult patients.”
“He’s saving them from the Ladies’ Church Auxiliary,” said Hugh. “He told me so quite plainly.”