The Luckless Elopement

by Dorothy Mack

  The injured man was no longer pale but a trifle flushed as he thrashed about. Miss Seymour pushed aside the screen that partially shielded the bed from the light and took up the lamp with some idea of checking the bandages on his leg to make sure the restless movements had not started the wound bleeding again. As she turned back toward the bed, two incredulous dark eyes met hers and a hoarse voice ejaculated, “An angel, by God!”

  Having no idea of the picture she presented with the lamplight behind her head turning her flowing hair to molten gold, Miss Seymour was instantly persuaded that her patient was delirious, and she frowned heavily, gripping her bottom lip in her teeth to hold back a moan of dismay at this turn of events.

  “No, not an angel, angels don’t frown,” continued the voice in a dreamy fashion. “Besides, if you were an angel, that would mean I was dead, and it doesn’t hurt to be dead. I hurt all over; ergo, I cannot be dead.” Having reached this reasoned conclusion, the man on the bed frowned himself and posed a reasonable question. “If you’re not an angel, who are you? And where am I?” This last was added during an unsuccessful attempt to raise himself on his elbow, and was succeeded by a groan as he fell back on the pillow.

  “For heaven’s sake,” begged Miss Seymour in alarm, “do not try to move. You have hurt your head and you must lie still.”

  Her hand, going out instinctively to restrain any further attempts at movement on his part, was seized in a grip that surprised her by its strength as her fingers were crushed mercilessly.

  “I want to know who you are,” the injured man demanded in a peremptory fashion, ignoring her wince of pain and retaining his cruel grip on her fingers.

  “And so you shall,” Miss Seymour replied coolly, “when you have released my hand.” Two pairs of determined eyes clashed briefly, each mirroring its owner’s strong will. “And not until,” she added calmly, refusing to acknowledge by so much as a flicker of an eyelid the very real discomfort resulting from the increase in pressure he had applied to her hand in defiance of her ultimatum. She could tell by the beads of moisture appearing on his upper lip that he was taxing his strength, but some instinctive understanding of his character warned her that for his own sake she must not let him gain the upper hand. It was obvious that Mr. Massingham was disposed to be a very bad patient; therefore, it was essential to establish her supremacy at the outset if he were to be prevented from doing himself an injury. She clamped down on her natural sympathy and stood quiescent, waiting in expressionless silence for him to relax the pressure on her fingers, which he did suddenly with a crack of humourless laughter.

  “Well, at least I can be sure you are no ministering angel — angels are gentle beings, so I’m told.” Then, reverting to his original question: “Who are you, and how did I come to be here?”

  Miss Seymour could not quite disguise her concern as she countered, “Do you not recall the circumstances of your injury?”

  “No, I … wait though! I remember an ugly customer in a mask — a thief! He was trying to abduct a girl, the girl from the inn!” The dark eyes focused more intently on Miss Seymour’s face. “Was it you?”

  Relief that his senses did not appear to be disoriented after all flooded through Vicky. “Yes, it was I. He shot you in the leg, and you fell off your horse and hit your head on a rock.”

  “Stupid thing to do,” muttered Mr. Massingham in much weaker tones. “No wonder my head aches. So does my leg, and I am thirsty.”

  Miss Seymour poured out some water with hands that shook slightly and slipped an arm under the injured man’s shoulders to raise him to a position where he could drink from the glass. After a few sips, a look of such weariness passed over his wan features that she was constrained to ease him back against the pillow, pausing just long enough to turn it so it would be cooler for him. She had noted with trepidation the heat of his body beneath the nightshirt and made a casual gesture of brushing back a lock of dark hair her excuse for feeling his forehead. The light touch confirmed her fears that he was already feverish, but he seemed so exhausted that she dared to entertain the hope that he might sleep it away. She was repositioning the screen to shield his face from the lamp’s rays when his lids fluttered open again.

  “Still don’t know who you … are.” Each word was an effort now.

  Miss Seymour smiled a reassurance at the man she had, unbelievably, still not been introduced to, and said casually, “For the present, I am your cousin Vicky.”

  Again those black brows drew together. “Don’t have a cousin Vicky … silly name.” Long lashes that would be coveted by any female stirred again, then settled onto lean cheeks as Mr. Massingham drifted into sleep once more.

  Miss Seymour released a soft breath of relief as she stood unmoving for several minutes, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her patient’s chest. Even as she stole away to seat herself in a chair by the fireside, doubts assailed her as to the likelihood that this peaceful sleep would last during the rest of the night, doubts that shortly proved well-founded. Within fifteen minutes Mr. Massingham was thrashing about again, followed almost immediately by disjointed snatches of conversation. At first, Miss Seymour was startled. She approached the bed thinking she was being addressed, but one look at his flushed face caused her composure to evaporate to vanishing point. The delirium she had dreaded earlier had developed.

  The next three hours passed in a nightmare of fear and indecision, interspersed with bouts of frantic activity as Miss Seymour sought to restrain her patient’s periodic attempts to rise from his sickbed and go into battle. From the few clear bits of dialogue amongst his ramblings, she realised early on that Mr. Massingham had been in the military service. If the names and places mentioned in his feverish state were a true indication, he had seen a lot of action over several years. Vimeiro, Oporto, Talavera, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vitoria — the foreign names conjured up images of dust and blood and battle and privation. At one point, he shouted, “Chase Soult out!” and rose from his pillow, evidently with the immediate intention of setting about this task. Miss Seymour found it necessary to exert considerable strength to prevent him from leaving his sickbed and would have gone for reinforcements then had not the fear that he would reinjure himself in her absence been of overriding concern. As a last resort she would have to wake Amos, but she resisted the impulse — the old man was sunk in a sleep of total exhaustion, helped along no doubt by the generous measure of gin and water downed before retiring. The soothing tones of her voice repeatedly droning she knew not what eventually exerted a calming influence on the ex-soldier, and his mutterings decreased in volume. Frequent bathing of his face and hands with a flannel wrung out in tepid water seemed to soothe him for a time also.

  “That feels good,” he murmured after one such application of the wet cloth, and Vicky’s hopes rose that the delirium might have passed, but within minutes he was complaining again about riding all day on the dusty plains of Spain.

  “So thirsty — where’s that damn water bag?” He began rolling his head about, perhaps seeking the bag in question.

  “Here it is.” Vicky slipped an arm under his shoulders and presented a glass to his lips. He drank greedily, staring at her blankly for a moment before recognition dawned in fever-bright eyes.

  “Oh, it’s you, the angel — no, not an angel. Who did you say?”

  “I’m your cousin Vicky,” she replied matter-of-factly.

  “I told you I don’t have a cousin Vicky!” He was becoming agitated again, and she spoke with great firmness.

  “You have now. Go to sleep.”

  Surprisingly enough, he did just that for nearly thirty minutes, allowing his drooping nurse a much-needed respite. The respite was from physical activity only, however. Miss Seymour, sitting slumped in the chair by the fireplace, was engaging in some heightened mental activity concerned with the probable events of the immediate future as she reviewed the situation of their party. At five o’clock on a cold morning in October, optimism was at a low ebb.
No longer did she indulge the naive hope that Mr. Massingham would awaken from this sleep free of fever and on the mend. He was a very sick man, indeed a dangerously sick man, and she trembled at the responsibility that suddenly sat so heavily on her shoulders. It didn’t bear thinking about to question Dr. Jamison’s professional competence — he was the only medical adviser within easy reach, and there was certainly no question of moving the patient in his present condition. Like it or not, they were marooned in this primitive inn for an uncertain period of time, with practically no money, a hostile landlady, and little in the way of medical supplies; in fact, Mr. Massingham and Drucilla did not possess so much as a toothbrush between them, though the girl was welcome to share her hostess’ clothing. Her glance flickered and settled on the man sleeping heavily on the cot in the corner. Amos could not drive with one arm and, at his age, would require at least one day of complete rest before subjecting his injured arm to the jolting of a horseback ride. She assumed they were about equally distant from the Oaks and from Stamford, where the elopers’ baggage must still be located. Since Mr. Massingham had been unencumbered by even a small cloak bag, it must have been his intention to take Drucilla back there with him, probably to the Candle and Unicorn. The first priority tomorrow — today, rather — would be to cancel the hired chaise and retrieve the couple’s belongings. Of equal importance was the necessity of alerting her own household to their plight before her servants sent up a hue and cry in the area and dispatched messages that would frighten Aunt Honoria in London. She had been expected at the Oaks today — no, yesterday.

  Miss Seymour gave a little shake of her head as she puzzled over who there might be to accomplish these urgent errands. Her one glimpse of the stable boy had revealed a lad of no more than eleven or twelve years, too young to be entrusted with the responsibility of obtaining the baggage at Stamford, especially if, as Miss Seymour suspected, there was a reckoning due. Her own servants, then. She must write detailed instructions for Cavanaugh. She was mentally embroiled in the wording of these instructions when her patient awakened and put an end to any activity unrelated to his immediate care.

  By the time Mr. Tolliver tapped lightly on the door at seven-thirty, Miss Seymour had been forced to abandon any lingering hopes that she might be safely home before this new day was finished. Although Amos volunteered to assist her in nursing the injured man and Mr. Tolliver overrode her protests and insisted on remaining with him while his nurse sought the common room to replenish her strength with an ill-cooked but sustaining breakfast, such breaks were of necessity of short duration once it became apparent that Miss Seymour’s was the only voice that could exercise the least calming influence on Mr. Massingham in his more agitated states.

  At one point during the second night, when Miss Seymour was trying to snatch an hour or two of sleep, a timorous but willing Drucilla had been introduced into the sickroom by Mr. Tolliver, it being hoped that her status as the patient’s fiancée would invest her presence with some of the soothing quality that Miss Seymour’s had for him, but it hadn’t answered. Mr. Massingham, far from being comforted by the sight of his betrothed’s anxious face, had not seemed to recognise her, and had querulously demanded the instantaneous appearance of his “angel” at his bedside. Understandably mystified and not a little disturbed by this ominous request from one whose language up till then would not have led anyone to suppose him intimately acquainted with members of the heavenly host, Mr. Tolliver had committed the well-meaning error of trying to cozen the injured man by assuring him that Miss Hedgeley was indeed an angel specifically deputised to care for his comfort. The scene that ensued had caused Drucilla to dash from the room in floods of tears, her hands over her ears to block out the worst of Mr. Massingham’s scathing rejections. Fortunately, Miss Seymour’s light sleep had been penetrated by the sounds of disharmony from across the hall, and she reappeared in the sickroom before her patient had worked himself into a state that might have set his recovery back. Since Dr. Jamison was adamant in declaring rest and quiet essential to his patient’s recovery and was reluctant to administer the heavy doses of laudanum needed to achieve this artificially, the lion’s share of the nursing for those first days thus fell to Miss Seymour’s lot.

  Vicky was far from being a tender plant, but she had very little prior experience of nursing, both parents having succumbed after short illnesses. As a child of twelve she had not been permitted near her mother, who had contracted influenza, and her father had died as the result of a fall on the hunting field without ever regaining consciousness. She felt woefully inadequate for the task which had been thrust upon her, but took courage from the doctor’s gruff assertion that keeping the patient quiet enough to allow nature to heal his body was the only skill required of her. For some inexplicable reason, hers was the only voice and touch that exercised a restraining influence on Mr. Massingham when in the grip of the fever that developed after the operation. The irony of this was not lost on her as she bathed the wounded man’s brow repeatedly and firmly restrained his periodic attempts to leave his bed. She had not forgotten the almost disdainful indifference with which he had regarded her in the dining room of the Candle and Unicorn, or the speed with which he had tracked her down later when she had interfered so drastically with his plans for Drucilla. That there was a reckoning due between them was not open to question — if Mr. Massingham recovered, and Vicky was fiercely determined that he should recover. She did not like the man; nothing that Drucilla had conveyed in her artless way either in admiration or dispraise of her suitor had served to imbue her hostess with a desire to know him better. Even barring the fact that he was a gazetted fortune hunter, she had no opinion of his type of man, fearless and efficient on the fields of war and sport unquestionably, but totally lacking in the other virtues that went to make up a man of character. She would wager that his wits were sharp enough, especially where his own advantage was concerned, but that his intelligence wouldn’t encompass the deeper concerns of mankind. He would be quick-thinking, quick-acting, and shallow, a physically impressive shell of a man. To men of this stamp, women existed merely to minister to their comfort and provide them with pleasure on demand — in between wars and sporting events, of course. And, Vicky conceded with a rueful twist of her lips as her eyes roved over the beautifully chiselled features of her sleeping patient, so potent was the attraction of these fine male specimens that the sillier members of her sex (who were legion) flocked to them in droves, willing and eager to pander to their conceit. It wasn’t only in the bird kingdom that the fine feathers were a prime asset.

  But, personalities aside, Mr. Massingham had in all likelihood saved her life, for she had no illusions about her probable fate at the hands of the rapacious highwayman, and in rescuing her had put his own life in danger. She felt totally responsible for his present plight and dedicated herself to preventing him from slipping over the edge. She slept in snatches when her patient slept, with the door open so that she might hear him when he woke. Amos and Mr. Tolliver relieved her at these times, because after the fiasco of Drucilla’s visit it was deemed advisable to spare the two young girls any exposure to Mr. Massingham’s unrestrained tongue while he remained in a state of delirium. Lily waited on Drucilla and accompanied her on short walks in the immediate vicinity of the village to relieve the tedium and assure that they should not lose the benefits of fresh air and mild exercise while confined at the Green Feather. Drucilla had pleaded not to be sent on to the Oaks in Miss Seymour’s carriage while Drew was in such danger, promising to behave with the greatest circumspection and tearfully repeating her willingness to perform any task set her to hasten his recovery. Unwilling to leave the sickroom for any length of time and feeling herself unequal to the chore of convincing her little friend to abandon her former fiancé without chancing hurt feelings, Vicky had allowed her to remain. Drucilla proved her good intentions by bearing the tedium and discomfort of their stay at the inn without complaint. She even contrived to produce a sustaining broth for
the invalid, under Lily’s direction, from chickens provided by the villagers.

  The main stumbling block to the smooth transition of the inn household into a hospital cum guest house was Mrs. Tolliver. She was resentful of the crowding of her house and unwilling to put herself out in any way for her unwelcome guests. To Vicky it was inconceivable that the woman should always have gained her livelihood by catering to the needs of travellers, so unaccommodating did she prove. Vicky herself had little time to deal with Mrs. Tolliver, which was perhaps fortunate in her uncertain frame of mind, for she had a quick tongue in her head and poorly developed instincts for conciliatory behaviour. Cavanaugh, her majordomo at the Oaks, took in the situation at a glance when he arrived in person on the day following the accident. It was thanks to his diplomatic handling of the landlady and his skill at organising a household that a tenuous working arrangement was arrived at without setting Vicky and Mrs. Tolliver any deeper into adversary positions. Once convinced of the uselessness of trying to persuade his mistress to delegate her nursing duties to her own former nurse and come home, he turned his talents toward providing a support system for her efforts. Thus it was that the unappetising offerings of the Green Feather’s kitchen were supplemented by deliveries of foodstuffs from the Oaks, and the invalid was able to refresh himself with quantities of lemonade when he awoke in a feverish thirst. Sweet-smelling sheets of finest linen now adorned his bed, and the lumpy pillows had been replaced by down pillows from his nurse’s home.

  It was on the forenoon of the third day of their enforced stay at the Green Feather that Mr. Massingham was finally pronounced out of danger by Dr. Jamison, who had been visiting his patient twice daily. Miss Seymour, who had not quite dared allow herself to believe that this time the quiet breathing of her patient really did signal the final victory over the fever that had impeded his recovery, experienced a giddy sensation of mingled relief and weakness that caused her knees to buckle. The doctor shoved her onto the room’s only chair and cast a professionally assessing eye over her pale features and brimming eyes.