Keeping the Castle

16



WALKING FROM CROOKED CASTLE to Gudgeon Park on a fine day when there is no fear of soiling one’s stockings, it is faster and more pleasant to use the footpath across Farmer Macomb’s land rather than the high road. One therefore approaches Gudgeon Park from the rear instead of the front.

It was thus that I witnessed Mr. Fredericks assisting a heavily veiled lady to climb a stile over a fence in a surreptitious manner. That is to say, Mr. Fredericks was behaving in a calm and collected way, but the lady cast hunted looks over her shoulder as though pursued by footpads or murderers. Although I could not see her face, I had little doubt of her identity. Shrouding her head and shoulders was the fine lace shawl Miss Vincy had been wearing on our first acquaintance, and unless her maid had chosen this moment to make off with both Mr. Fredericks and her mistress’s lace mantilla, I could not help but feel that this was the lady herself.

That this was an elopement seemed obvious. Not only the haste and secrecy of this back-door exit from the Park grounds convinced me, but the fact that Mr. Fredericks was carrying a bulging satchel, no doubt filled with clothing and other oddments thought necessary for their flight.

Well!

As the stile Mr. Fredericks and Miss Vincy were negotiating led to a path in full view of the one on which I stood, I hastily retreated to a little wood some hundred feet away where I would not be seen. I picked Fido up in my arms and slipped behind a massive old oak to watch them as they passed.

I could not hear what they said to one another, beyond that the lady asked several anxious questions, which were answered by the gentleman in a reassuring tone. She was agitated, while he was soothing.

Perhaps you think it wrong that I should spy on them in this way, but I was not equal to pursuing any other course at the moment. At the sight of these two stealing off together, I felt as though I had been kicked in the midsection by a draft horse. I clutched my dog so tightly that he whined and looked up at me. I kissed his forehead in apology and loosened my grip, bracing myself against the possibility that I might scream or fall upon the ground.

It would have been quite reasonable to have felt a great deal of curiosity at this method of beginning a new life together—why should Mr. Fredericks not have applied to his old friend Mr. Vincy for permission to marry his daughter in the usual way?—but any interest I might have felt in this question was swamped by another, different sensation.

I was furious.

The pain and anger that had swept across me at Lord Boring’s defection were as nothing compared with my feelings now. For months I had plotted and schemed to marry the Baron. And for months Mr. Fredericks had annoyed and exasperated me beyond measure. Even in recent weeks when I had come almost to like the man, I had had no feelings for him beyond friendship. Nor had he given any indication of an interest in me. I had wanted him to marry Miss Vincy, for heaven’s sake!

So why, since the Baron was to marry Charity and Mr. Fredericks apparently to marry Miss Vincy, was I far more upset by the latter than the former?

Lord Boring was a shallow, weak man, no better than a cut-out paper doll. A few sighs, a tear or two, and I had done with grieving for his loss. But Mr. Fredericks . . .

I once had believed his Lordship to be all that was noble, cultivated, and worthy and Mr. Fredericks to be an ignorant, ill-mannered, pestilent boor. My opinions were now reversed. It was Mr. Fredericks who was the man of culture and character, not the Baron.

And I also realized that I no longer wished him to marry Miss Vincy. In fact, I wished she would remove her hand from his arm. At once. I stared after the runaway couple with narrowed eyes and heaving breast. How could they? Without even discussing it with me?

In order not to have to dwell upon the irrationality of my mental and emotional state, I put Fido down and began to follow them. This was not easy to do unobserved, as the path they took led over a treeless field which was inhabited by a flock of sheep. I supposed that they were taking this less conspicuous route to the village of Lesser Hoo, where they might engage a coach to take them to York or perhaps even Gretna Green in Scotland, so they could be married immediately. I went after them, but kept to the woods along the edge of the field, to avoid being detected. This entailed a great deal of stumbling over logs, twisting my ankle as I stepped on loose rocks that shifted under my weight, and being slapped across the face by tree branches. My muffled squeaks of irritation and pain so unnerved Fido that he barked in alarm.

“Oh, hush!” I ducked behind a tree as the others turned their heads in our direction.

Interested by the small commotion in one corner of their pasture, the flock of sheep began to drift towards us, like a large, barely sentient cloud. Fido regarded them with attention. He was a miniature spaniel, a breed more noted for hunting birds than herding sheep, but ever since the day at the Screaming Stones he had developed a keen interest in this woolly minded species. Quite obviously he thought they would be great fun to chase.

“No! No! Don’t you dare!”

The sheep drifted closer. Several of them baaed. Fido quivered all over.

“No!”

The wind shifted in our direction. Fido evidently got the scent of the flock full in his nostrils, for without another glance in my direction he burst from cover and flung himself upon the sheep, barking joyfully. The sheep reacted with exaggerated alarm, as though a pack of wolves, muzzles wet with lamb’s blood, had erupted from the wood; first they bunched up and ran as a group, then they scattered all over the field. Fido was everywhere, running and barking, hysterical with excitement.

Fido had none of the training of a sheep dog, but he could run very, very fast. He ran rings around those sheep, bunching them down into an ever smaller milling, baaing knot of animals.

And in the center of the knot stood Mr. Fredericks and Miss Vincy. There could not have been a more effective method of getting their attention had I been laboring for the past twenty minutes with no other end in view.

Mr. Fredericks made himself heard over the clamor of barking and baaing and the thud of sheep hooves: “Miss Crawley, you might as well cease skulking behind that tree. We know that Fido’s presence implies yours. Come out and show yourself.”

I ought to have made an appearance, apologized, called my dog and gone away. However, at that moment Miss Vincy cried out in a tone of great distress, “Oh please, Miss Crawley—Althea—come with us if you will, but do not delay us, I beg of you! Every moment is a torment.”

“Miss Vincy, what is it?” I asked, emerging from the wood and wading through a river of agitated sheep in order to reach her. “You are ill. You must sit down and rest a moment.”

“No! I must go on.” She turned and, pushing sheep out of her path, continued to make her way across the field.

I was perplexed, to put it mildly. If this was an elopement, it was a queer one, with a third party invited along for the journey.

“Oh, you’ll never be happy until you find out what is stirring, Miss Crawley, so you might as well come too,” said Mr. Fredericks. “You may even be able to be of some service to your friend.”

With this I had to be content. I hastened my steps to catch Miss Vincy up and, putting my arm around her waist, helped her over the rough ground. So pale was she, and so wild and fearful were her eyes, that it would have been a cruelty to question her further. I held my peace, resolving to get it out of Mr. Fredericks at the first opportunity.

In a few moments we reached our destination: a small workman’s cottage with a few outbuildings nearby. What we could want in such a humble dwelling was a mystery to me, but I was not long left in suspense. Miss Vincy burst through the door without knocking and plunged into the darkened interior.

“Has he come? What does he say?” she demanded of a respectable-looking elderly woman who advanced to meet us.

“He’s here. Hush, my dear, and we’ll know all about it in a moment,” responded the woman, an utter stranger to me, though I would have thought I knew by sight every human soul in the district for miles around. Her eyes flicked up to mine. She dropped a curtsey and continued in a low tone, “Pardon my boldness in saying so, Miss Crawley, but I am glad you’ve come. My poor dear needs a friend right now.”

Bewildered, I followed Miss Vincy into an inner chamber. Our local doctor, Haxhamptonshire, was bending over a tumbled and disordered bed. The figure in the bed was small, that of a young child. As Dr. Haxhamptonshire moved the candle, examining the flushed face and limbs of his patient, I saw it was a little boy, younger even than Alexander.

Miss Vincy sank to her knees by the bed. “Well, Doctor?” she asked in an urgent whisper, “What is it?”

“Ah, Mrs. Annuncio, I see,” the doctor said, addressing Miss Vincy. “It is an infection of the lungs. Listen,” he said, as the child drew breath. Even I, hesitating in the doorway some ten feet from the bed, could hear a rasping, rattling sound.

“Will he live?” she murmured.

“It’s too soon to say. I have given orders to your nurse to give him this syrup, and these powders dissolved in a little warm wine every two hours. You say he has been ailing for the past three days?”

Miss Vincy nodded. “We thought it nothing worse than a cold at first, but he fell into a fever, and I have been so frightened . . .”

“Well, I’ve seen many worse than this recover—we can only watch and wait.”

I had had some experience at nursing, and so as the doctor prepared to leave, I prepared to settle in. Whoever this child was, whoever “Mrs. Annuncio” might be, it was clear that my friend needed me. I instructed Mr. Fredericks to return and tell my mama that I was occupied in helping to nurse a neighbor’s child. She would, of course, wish to know which neighbor, so I told him to tell her it was Mrs. Bowden’s grandson, come to visit from Scarborough. I added that the doctor believed the disease to be of an infectious nature so I thought it best not to come home until the crisis was over. Old Mrs. Bowden lived quite seven miles away over the moorland, and I doubted Mama would feel the need to hurry over, offering assistance.

As to the rest, I left it to Mr. Fredericks to cope, and I had no doubt that he would.

The little boy was restless and feverish. I set to work bathing his hot forehead with vinegar and water, soothing him as well as I could. The nurse, who, I suspected by her manner, had once been Miss Vincy’s own nurse, assisted me ably in my efforts, and after a few hours thus spent, she retired to provide us with a tray of bread and cheese, and the patient with the medicines prescribed by the doctor.

Miss Vincy proved to be inexperienced with children. Her powerful attachment to the boy was the principal difficulty; she fretted and fussed with his bed clothing, smoothed his hair and altogether kept him in a state of perturbation and wakefulness, until I ordered her to cease and desist.

Instead I required her to empty out the satchel she had brought with her, the one I had believed had been packed in anticipation of her flight with Mr. Fredericks. It contained a clean blanket, a stuffed doll for the boy, some common medications, including some paregoric, and a copy of Delphine, by Madame de Staël.

“He likes to hear me read aloud,” she explained, “no matter what the subject is, so I am accustomed to reading him whatever I happen to be perusing at the moment.” I eyed the book with considerable interest, having never been able to get my hands on a copy of a work by the scandalous Frenchwoman before. I rather doubted that a feverish little boy of two years would be able to appreciate her shocking and reprehensible (or so our vicar assures me) meditations on the position of Woman in Society. However, I would be interested to hear them, dreadful though they might be, and they could not corrupt the child, since the novel appeared to be written in Madame’s native language. It also would keep Miss Vincy occupied, so—

“Pray read it to us,” I said. “It will send him to sleep.”

In elegant and perfectly accented French, Miss Vincy began to read aloud. My imperfect understanding of that language, as well as the events reported upon by Madame de Staël, ensured my rapt attention. As for Miss Vincy, this tale of a gifted woman who had the courage to defy social conventions seemed to hold special meaning for her. And as I had foretold, the melodious syllables had the effect of putting our patient into a profound sleep, which boded well for his future.

And so the long day passed into night.

Miss Vincy’s voice grew ragged, then faltered. I sent her nurse for some tea and took the opportunity of slipping a drop of the paregoric, which has a soporific effect, into her cup. Soon she slept beside the little boy, his hot hand clasped in hers. I could not help but note that the child’s hair color was similar to hers, and identical to the small tress in her locket—it was his hair she kissed and carried, not the Baron’s.

She had not yet told me the child’s identity, or his relationship to her, but I had no need to ask, or to pester Mr. Fredericks for information. I knew.