Annie set the doctor’s bag inside the door just then, and stood waiting. Marianne shook herself and nodded.
“There is no hurry, Mrs. Glencoe,” the doctor told her. “Do you think you could manage a cup of tea?”
“I am ready now,” she said resolutely.
“I shall not be very long about this I promise, Mrs. Glencoe,” he said briskly, taking up his bag. “Shall we adjourn to your chamber?”
His innocent suggestion reverberated with painful memories, and she revisited with painful clarity all those moments in the past when drawing room conversation had been a mere prelude. Would there never be an end to this sensation of the past reliving itself in new contexts? It was all so awkward, so unnerving, and the doctor’s vitality, his courtliness, his physical presence only underscored these sensations. If only the doctor were some prosing Methuselah, she might not be reminded of these persistent ghosts!
Marianne pressed her lips together and arose without comment, preceding him from the room. Just as she gathered up the hem of her heavy black skirts to ascend the staircase, the doctor asked, “Will you have Annie attend you, or have you a personal maid?”
Surely he knew she did not. Marianne gripped the banister as she felt the blood rush to her cheeks. So much for her pains! How could she have forgot such a simple thing as not allowing a gentleman, even a doctor, to accompany her to her chamber without another woman in attendance? Her heart pounded as the impropriety into which she had almost allowed herself to fall struck her.
She did not turn, however, merely paused a brief moment before replying, “Annie, of course, will come.” Then she continued to make her way up the stairs.
A little while later, Marianne shivered behind a screen while Annie helped her remove her gown and wrapped a shawl about her, over her chemise. The doctor, she could see, stood gazing out the window, waiting for her to be ready. She stepped into the room resolutely and sat herself down on the edge of the bed. All I must do, she thought, is think on good things. Ignore everything else. Think about next summer’s flowers, the birds. Think about my baby.
She lay down on the bed and turned her eyes to the wall.
Chapter Thirteen
As Dr. Venables drove home, his thoughts were oddly sorted. In past weeks, the doctor had watched as Mrs. Glencoe hugged herself at the mention of her babe, radiant with the sensation of life within her, and had felt a familiar tug at his heart. Watching the ghost of sorrow fade from her countenance was part of what sent his footsteps in her direction day after day. He had been careful not to reveal his emotions, however. The stricken look in her eyes the day he had so rashly kissed her hand had haunted him ever since. What secrets lay behind those fathomless blue eyes? he wondered.
What had really sent her from the embrace of the ton to the wilds of Cornwall? For him, this had been a place of healing. Years ago, the open fields and the sound of the sea had acted as a balm on his shattered soul. Time after time, he had observed the serenity of the place soothe others. Here, he had seen the beasts and children heal their wounds as well.
It was the same with Mrs. Glencoe. With Marianne. As he observed her, first with the kittens, then in tutoring the children, he hardly noticed her beauty anymore. It was rather like the feeling one had in summer; after the joy of spring, summer’s beauty was both accepted and expected for the gift it was, but rarely remarked upon. Whenever he could find an excuse to do so, Venables had basked in the glow of Marianne’s goodness, her intelligence, and growing humor.
He ought not, he knew, to trail after one so newly widowed, and he hoped that his motive in finding his way so often to her door was not as transparent as he feared. Though he had, as yet, turned from the question of whether or not he were in love with her, he knew he was fascinated by the lady, at ease in her company, and nervous as a cat when he was not. If only the same were true of her. She had, he thought, begun to warm toward him, but he had spoiled it all by acting unwisely, grasping for a happiness which might never be allowed him. All too often of late she had seemed abstracted and overwrought in his presence; never more so than today.
A physical examination was never comfortable for ladies, but there was something exceedingly odd about the one he had just conducted. Odd from the start. Odd that Marianne should have forgot to request the maid to accompany her. No lady, widow or otherwise, would have dreamed of placing herself in such a position. Though he had little patience with such conventions, and would certainly not have condemned her for her oversight, he knew such habits died hard.
But still, he argued with himself, she is pregnant and newly widowed. Either such eventuality would be sufficient to make a lady forgetful. He shook his head. Ladies might forget where they had left their embroidery silk or workbasket, but the deportment lessons of their governesses and mamas, never. Though her voice and manner clearly revealed she had sprung from the highest circles, something, he felt in his heart, had happened to her. Something more than the death of a husband (particularly one who seemed to be mourned not at all) had interrupted the custom of one sort of life and replaced it with another. She seemed to live between worlds, this Mrs. Glencoe from nowhere in particular.
What nagged at him the most as he drove through the deepening twilight was her manner during the examination itself. How could that be accounted for? he wondered. He had expected the reluctance, the embarrassment other ladies had in the past exhibited. But there were no blushes, no demurring. She had simply lain herself upon the bed quite passively, and turned her head away from him. She had shown not the least response when he placed his hands upon her abdomen to ascertain the child’s size and position, nor when he rested his head against her bosom to listen to her heart. When his examination had become even more intimate, she had not even twitched. It was as if she had taken herself away, as if only her body were there. In India, he had often witnessed such detachment, but never in England, never in a woman.
Then it struck him. There had been such a woman. Good God, he had almost forgot her. It was when he had first begun to study medicine. He had accompanied old Dr. Thurlow on his rounds down the filthy back lanes of London. He was desperate to help the wretches he saw there, yet too green to prevent averting his eyes from their misery at every turn.
A child had grasped Thurlow’s arm and all but pulled him up a narrow flight of stairs to a hovel that passed as home for seven other children and their consumptive mother. She strained fitfully against her labor pains, but made not a sound. It was clear as soon as they saw her emaciated body that neither she nor the infant would have the strength to live. When Thurlow placed a hand on her abdomen, the woman had turned away unseeing, unfeeling, as if accepting whatever the touch might bring for good or ill.
Today, he had recognized that same dispassionate resignation in Mrs. Glencoe. There the resemblance ended, but it seemed to him that some history, some similar incident of hard usage must connect the two women in spirit. It chilled his heart to recall the similar expression on their faces, the vulnerability of their bodies. This was what men did to women. A shaft of anger pierced his heart. Perhaps, he concluded grimly, that was the reason no trace of Mrs. Glencoe’s late husband was in evidence. She did not wish to remember him.
It seemed, then, that she bore the burden of secrets, and bore it close—as he did his. He shook his head. He had no right to pry into the lives of his patients— for that was what she was. He could claim no more of her. His only duty was to heal and ease pain. That must be sufficient.
* * * *
When he entered his home, he at once encountered Mrs. Maiden, who was balancing a heavily laden tray as she embarked on the stairs.
“Good evening, Mrs. Maiden,” he said. “How fare our patients?”
“They are trying mine,” she said darkly.
He raised his eyebrows. Though he did not wish anyone ill, he had hoped, unwisely it now seemed, that the children abed might be less trouble to his housekeeper than they were afoot. “What have they been about?”
“Eating!” she pronounced. “They do not have the appetites of sickly children, for all they cough and sneeze. This is the fifth tray I have carried up this day. Why do they not sleep, like other invalids?”
Venables laughed. “I see they are not on the verge of turning up their toes!”
“No, indeed,” blowing a stray wisp of graying hair out of her eyes, “although I may do so well enough before this day is done!”
He shrugged off his coat and hung it over the stair rail. “Here,” he said, reaching for the tray. “Rest yourself. I shall carry it up this time.”
As he made his way up the stairs, he could hear a low whispering coming from the chamber the girls shared. He stood outside the door for a moment, listening. Charlie and George were closeted there as well. What were they up to now? A few words drifted toward him in Jane’s soft Scottish lilt, “... then ‘tis best we dinna wait till that baby’s born.” Then one of the boys seemed to second her suggestion. His curiosity racing, he cleared his throat, waited for silence, and entered the little room.
All four of them, he noted, had runny noses, and greeted him with a simultaneous sniffle. Venables set the tray on a table and surveyed his charges. Their eyes flickered one to the other. Clearly they were up to something, despite their shared malady.
“Have you brought more scones?” George asked, his eyes wide and innocent. “And lots of cream? Last time there was not enough cream.”
“I see you are becoming accustomed to this life of ease,” Venables said, schooling a smile into a grim line.
“Let me feel your foreheads.” He did so, noting they were all as cool as cucumbers. “As I suspected, you are clearly on the mend.”
“Aye, ‘tis so,” Charlie sighed. “Mrs. Maiden has already told me more than once today that ‘tis only the good dies young.”
“And you are looking forward to living to a ripe old age, are you?”
“Aye, but come to think of it, Mrs. Maiden must be very wicked then, doctor, for she is so old she creaks when she walks.”
Venables was forced to cough up his sleeve to hide his laughter, for the sound of Mrs. Maiden’s rusty stays did indeed echo through the passages. “Ahem,” he managed. “Let us have no talk of who is and who is not wicked, for you must know that age is nothing to do with it. There is no reason to be looking forward to your dotage.”
“Is that what we’ve got instead of scones?” Charlie asked incredulously. “But I asked especially—“
“Hush,” the doctor chuckled. He lifted the cloth from the tray. “Mrs. Maiden, as you can readily see, is the soul of goodness. Here are sufficient scones and cream and strawberry jam for all of you to make yourselves exceedingly sticky.”
When they were busily munching away, he said quite casually, “Suppose you all tell me what you were plotting just now?”
The boys, intriguers of old, maintained surprised expressions with admirable tenacity, but Jane swallowed backward with surprise and had to be clapped upon the back quite soundly, to check her startled coughing.
“Looby,” Charlie hissed under his breath.
She shook her red curls and made a face at him. “I couldna help it,” she snapped back.
“Girls never can,” he said disgustedly. “It was plum mad I was to ever think I could trust— “
“Aye,” she interrupted, “you’ve said it yourself, you’re a bedlamite—you and that brother of yours. Crazy as March hares, the two o’ you.”
“Hey now!” Charlie objected, clearly pained to be included in this invective. “I didn’t say nothin’, you—you—orphan!”
Jane’s eyes flashed. “Becky ‘n’ me’ll have our own plan, and we needn’t be bothered wi’ the likes o’ you. It’s not orphans we’ll be much longer, and you needna think you’ll be included.”
The threesome looked daggers at one another, while Venables, much intrigued, waited for their explanation. It was not forthcoming. All this while, Becky had said nothing, merely glanced from one combatant to the next, as if she were nothing more than a polite observer at a game of shuttlecock which had got out of hand. She shook her head ruefully at them. Then she glanced at the doctor and tugged at his sleeve.
“A word wi’ ye, sir?” Becky whispered.
Until this moment, the child had never before addressed him beyond an occasional monosyllable. She must consider the import of what she had to convey to be earth-shattering indeed. He nodded a fraction in her direction, then addressed Charlie and George.
“Come, boys. Off to your own beds. You have commiserated with the young ladies long enough, and all of you need to rest, if you are to recover your strength.”
“But the scones is here!” Charlie protested, much aggrieved.
“To the contrary,” the doctor frowned at him. “They are mainly inside of you and George. Now run along.”
When he was left alone with the girls, Jane stared exasperatedly at Becky and whispered, “What d’you think you’re about?”
“Good sense,” the other retorted in her whispery little voice. “We are already discovered— ‘tis best to lay the matter before him.”
Jane rolled her eyes, but when she glanced up at the doctor who stood observing them in an extremely interested manner, she grinned wryly and said, “If you must know, doctor, we been busyin’ ourselves at arrangin’ your life for you!”
He lifted his brows at the revelation of the children’s meddling, and shuddered to think what they must have in mind. If they had their way, he suspected they would beg him to close his surgery and open a confectionery in its stead. In the end, however, curiosity won out over the inclination to adjure them to mind their own affairs, and at last he managed a fairly steady, “Pray tell?”
“ ‘Tis like this,” Jane began. “ ‘Twas easy enough to decide you must marry Mrs. Glencoe, for ‘tis clear you’re of a mind with us on that, but it was the when and how gave us all fits.”
“Indeed? And how is it you come to know my mind to such a surety?”
Jane snorted derisively. “ ‘Tis easy enough to see, if a body walks about with her eyes open. When you drive by her cottage, you slow down and stare like there was a street fair to be found behind the wall.”
Venables felt the heat rise under his collar. Did he do so, truly?
“What’s more,” she went on, “when you sit with us there, you keep watch on her like a puir dog under the table— and see nothin’ else. Why, three times Charlie has pinched George under your very eyes, and you’ve not seen.”
Could this be true? Very likely, for he was quite fascinated by Mrs. Glencoe. But to think he had imagined he guarded his conduct with some care. The lady’s preoccupied manner and sometimes faraway look had allowed him to let down his guard. Jane’s eyes were sparkling mischievously at him. He sighed inwardly. Perhaps no amount of circumspection could hide what he felt from eyes determined to see.
“ ‘Tis the same with her as well.” Jane allowed her words to hang in the air a moment. Then the child yawned and stretched. “I think I’ll be havin’ a bit of a nap now,” she said.
Little wretch! He knew she was trying to lead him on—and was succeeding.
“Finish what you’ve begun,” he said, stifling a groan.
Casting him a sidelong glance, she said, “Surely t’ heaven you’ve noticed it yourself!” Beside her, Becky giggled. “But no,” she continued, shaking her head. “How could you? For ‘tis after you’ve left she stares out the window, and does not hear our questions for all we repeat them time and again.”
“And so,” Becky whispered, looking up at him with her huge eyes, “ ‘tis clear you must marry her.”
“Aye,” Jane nodded emphatically, “and before she has that baby.”
Chapter Fourteen
It had taken no small amount of circuitous questioning before Dr. Venables could decipher the reasoning behind the girls’ enigmatic pronouncement on his affairs. He had turned the matter over in his head all that night and into the morning, as he embarked on
his daily journey through the countryside. He was considering it still when he found his way later in the afternoon to the residence of the Reverend and Mrs. Waller.
He entered with some diffidence, for he had of late spent so much of his time at Rosewood Cottage as to have become a near stranger at the parsonage. Still, the Wallers greeted him warmly, drew a chair for him by the fire, and made him very much at home.
“It is good to see you, doctor,” Mrs. Waller told him when he was seated. “Enos and I have missed your company sorely.”
“Indeed,” the reverend agreed with a self-deprecating smile. “Suzannah does not care to discuss theology with me, you see, and the servants become quite distressed when I talk to myself.”
Venables laughed. He had missed the Wallers’ companionship more than he had imagined.
“You think he is jesting, doctor,” Mrs. Waller interjected, “but many’s the time I have threatened to purchase a talking parrot for my husband, that he might have some discourse.”
“Come, my love,” her husband returned, “you know I do not like to hear my own words repeated to me. I must be argued with! Now, doctor, I must show you an edition of the works of Duns Scotus I have been poring over. He makes an interesting argument that— “
“Please, Enos!” Mrs. Waller interrupted, casting a long-suffering look in Venables’ direction. “Not until we have given the good doctor some tea!”
“I am sure the doctor will be most interested, Suzannah. Just a moment, Venables,” he said, rising, “and I shall fetch the particular volume from the bookroom.”
When the reverend had gone in search of his book, Mrs. Waller shook her head and smiled. “I shall be surprised, indeed,” she said, “if my husband does not lose himself in its pages and forget about us entirely.”
“We shall know in a half hour or so,” Venables teased. “He seems to have mended well. I do not think I can betray the least sign of a limp.”
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