by Joan Aiken
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but young Talgarth there says best not to go up to the north end of the park today; one of the old stags hasn’t shed its antlers yet, and it be in a very twitty, tempersome skin.”
“Very well, thank you, Pringle; in fact I had not been intending to go that way,” Mrs. Socket said. “I am simply going to drive around the pond.”
Beyond the entrance gate a steep grassy slope cut off the view. Mrs. Socket turned her pony’s head to the right and they ascended a gradually rising track which circled around a high, grassy knoll. Browsing deer moved across a shallow valley ahead; the animals moved with elegant grace, flicking their tails, black with vertical strips of white; the bodies of the deer varied from dark brown to a light fawn color. Suddenly they all broke into a run, and the whole herd flitted away, moving so lightly over the ground that they seemed more like insects than animals.
“Oh, how pretty they are!” exclaimed Fanny. “Surely they are too timid to be dangerous?”
“As a rule they are not at all dangerous—very timid indeed. But in spring the stags drop their antlers, and I suppose that makes them fidgety. Now you may see Petworth House, over to your left.”
They were passing the end of a piece of ornamental water winding away from them in a series of elegant curves between gently rising heights of ground. All this landscaping, Mrs. Socket informed Fanny, had been performed by Capability Brown, about forty years previously. “It cost a fortune! But I believe the park was a very scrubby, poor-looking place before that.” At the extremity of the lake, beyond another stretch of park, lay a large, rather plain gray house—a rectangular central block with a slight wing at each end.
On top was what Fanny at first took for an extraordinary kind of cupola until she realized that, in fact, it was the steeple of Petworth church, seen over the roof.
“What—what a lot of windows it has!” was all she could find to say about the house. It seemed to her very plain.
“Twenty-one, my dear, on each floor. Is it not a handsome residence? Lord Egremont is one of the richest men in England, you know; as well as being the kindest. He has upward of a hundred thousand a year!”
Despite this splendor, Fanny preferred the view of the lake, which was delightfully studded with picturesque islets, each planted with ornamental trees, weeping willows, birches, and evergreens. Rushes fringed the edge, and a flock of waterfowl floated over the calm surface, which reflected the house beyond. Then they drove past a grove of chestnuts, and the house was cut off from view.
“Ma’am,” said Fanny, who had been screwing her courage to the sticking point for some time past, “I have a favor to ask of you.”
“What can I do for you, my dear?” Mrs. Socket turned to give her a very kind smile, which illumined her plain, weather-beaten face. “Anything I can do, you know I shall be very happy.”
Quickly, stumblingly, Fanny explained the need for a clock and the difficulty of procuring one. Pulling the rolled-up silk stockings out of her reticule, she offered them, saying:
“I am afraid I cannot give you any money, dear ma’am, but these stockings are quite unworn and made from best Spitalfields silk—I believe they could be sold for a sum which might be sufficient to procure a clock—”
“Oh, you poor child!” exclaimed Mrs. Socket. “Really, it goes beyond all bearing, it makes my blood boil, so it does!” And she muttered something to herself about penny-pinching miserly curmudgeons which Fanny thought it best not to hear.
“Of course I can find you a clock, child—there are clocks ticking in every room at the Rectory, you may choose one of a suitable size when we return. You need not give me your stockings for it!”
“Oh, but indeed, ma’am, I must pay you—it is odds that I shall never have occasion to wear them—”
“Nor I, my dear—with those freezing stone floors at the Rectory I keep to good thick woolsey”—she stuck out a sturdily clad foot—“though it is true I put on a little finery when we dine up at the house. Lord Egremont, by the by, is very sorry that your husband so resolutely refuses all his invitations! Now you may see the village of Tillington,” and Mrs. Socket pointed with her whip over to the right. “Those hills ahead of us are the South Downs.”
Just at this moment Pringle, who had been riding behind them, called out in a voice of alarm:
“Ma’am! Mrs. Socket! Watch out for that beast there!” One of the darker-colored deer had been moving toward them, half trotting over the smooth ground so gracefully that its pace was deceptive; unlike all the rest of the herd, which fled off at the sight of humans, this one was coming in their direction, holding its antlered head high. It had an oddly lopsided appearance, since one of its antlers had fallen off and one still remained, giving it a rakish look.
Letting out a strange, loud, guttural cry, between a snort and whinny, the beast lowered its head and charged straight at their dapple-gray pony, who, not unreasonably, bolted, leaving the cart track and dragging the light carriage at breakneck speed across the wide expanse of short grass between the lake and the great house.
“Oh, mercy!” gasped poor Mrs. Socket. “Who would ever have imagined—” She fought to regain control of the panic-stricken gray, who had got the bit between his teeth. “If it had been our old cob now—Mrs. Paget—Fanny—hold tight onto the rail! Do not let go whatever you do!”
“I am holding on, ma’am,” gasped Fanny between chattering teeth—chattering from the jolting speed of their passage rather than from fear. “Pray do not worry about me!”
“Oh, heavens, whatever will Martin say? He is apt to tell me that I am a shatterbrain—but indeed there seemed no harm—”
Despite her brave protestations, Fanny did now begin to feel some alarm. The panicky gray was making for a ha-ha consisting of a deeply sunk ditch with a high wall beyond it, the latter topped with an iron-spiked fence. Peril suddenly seemed imminent. The hand that was not grasping the rail Fanny pressed against her mouth to stifle a cry of fright.
However, just when it seemed inevitable that they must plunge into the ditch and be thrown out of the carriage or dashed against the wall, two rescuers arrived simultaneously. Pringle came galloping up on his cob and headed the gray sideways. He swung wildly to his left—and there was a man running to catch his bridle and drag him to a halt—Andrew Talgarth, the gardener, who must have seen their predicament from inside the ha-ha fence and raced out to the rescue.
In a moment, all was well. The gray, sweating and trembling, was being gentled and made much of by Pringle, who had jumped from his mount. Andrew Talgarth was asking Mrs. Socket if she had sustained any hurt, and that lady was thanking both men in her lively, unaffected manner.
“Upon my word! That was something like an adventure! I thought we were really in the suds! Who would ever have expected such an occurrence? I thought you said, Talgarth, that the distempered stag was up at the north end of the park?”
“So he was, ma’am, but he must have come a-wandering down, faster than anybody reckoned—”
“However, thanks to your both acting with such promptitude, no harm is done. Are you positive that you are not hurt, my dear?”
“Yes, thank you, ma’am,” faintly said Fanny, who, now that the danger was over, did begin to feel a little strange. Catastrophe had seemed so terrifyingly close. She felt her heart give a great throb or was it the unborn child, kicking in her womb?
At this moment three more persons arrived on the scene, hurrying from an open french window in Petworth House. One was Lord Egremont—who had on a most disreputable old hat, which went oddly with his correct morning costume and snowy neckcloth. Another was a plump, friendly looking woman, perhaps seven or eight years older than Fanny, wearing a very ravishing dress of pink mull embroidered all over with cattails in turkey work and a most becoming cap to match; both of these people looked exceedingly worried and discomposed. A third man followed close behin
d them.
“My dear Mrs. Socket! My very dear ma’am! What a horrifying spectacle! What can I say? Such a shocking misadventure—your very first outing in my gift—I beseech you to tell me that you and your companion are unhurt? If not I shall be obliged to go away and shoot myself without loss of time!”
Mrs. Socket assured him, laughing, that, thanks to their prompt and valiant rescuers, both she and Mrs. Paget were perfectly stout and not overset in the least by their experience.
“Then I shall merely go and pour dust and ashes over my head,” he said, taking his hat off and bowing to Fanny. “Dear Mrs. Paget—can you ever forgive me? First for giving Mrs. Socket that wicked animal—”
“It was no fault of Dapple—I will not have him blamed! I should have seen the stag sooner—”
“And,” Lord Egremont continued without regarding the rector’s wife, “secondly, for having such a dangerous beast as that stag in my park. He shall become venison without delay.”
“Psha, my lord, he will probably feel quite the thing again when he has shed his second antler. Leave him alone! I am persuaded that he would be very tough.”
“Are you sure that you are neither of you any the worse?” now inquired the lady who had come out with Lord Egremont. “Should you not come into the house for some refreshment? Yes, I am certain that you should. The poor young lady, Egremont, is as white as your neckcloth. Will you not make us known to each other, if you please?”
“I beg your pardon, my dear! This is our charming neighbor, Mrs. Paget, whose husband, Captain Paget, is the impress officer in Petworth—I have mentioned him to you, I know. Mrs. Paget, may I present Mrs. Elizabeth Wyndham.”
“How do you do, ma’am,” Fanny said faintly. “I beg you not to—trouble about me—I shall be perfectly well once I am at home again—”
In fact the park was beginning to swing around her in dizzy circles, and Lord Egremont, observing her sway and turn pale, said brusquely:
“No such thing, ma’am! You must come into the house for a nuncheon. Henriques, help me carry Mrs. Paget in—carefully now!” A couple of menservants brought a chair, and on this Fanny was solicitously carried indoors by Lord Egremont and his friend, who was a dark man, very fashionably dressed.
She was laid on a sofa beside a marble fireplace in which a great pile of logs quietly smoldered. Mrs. Socket and the lady known as Mrs. Wyndham then plied her with smelling salts, but Lord Egremont, brushing them aside, said with decision:
“Take away those damned fumy, vinegary potions, Liz! Here is something that will do Mrs. Paget a great deal more good,” and he obliged Fanny to drink the greater part of a glass of dark, sweet nut-brown liquor, which did indubitably have a most fortifying and sustaining effect on her. “One of the last tuns of my father’s madeira; he used to say that and turtle soup would have brought King Charles back to life even after his head was cut off. Have we any turtle soup, Liz my dear?” he demanded of the lady called Mrs. Wyndham.
“I will send to ask Conrad Leidenberg,” she promptly replied. “It’s odds but he has some—he is the most resourceful and well-supplied cook in the world. Now, lie back quietly, my love, and in no time at all you will be quite the thing again. I am always queasy when I am increasing, so I feel the greatest sympathy for you—and to be exposed to such an adventure as that! Do you not think Dr. Chilgrove should be summoned, ma’am?” she asked Mrs. Socket, who, anxious and conscience-stricken, almost as much in need of stimulant as Fanny, was also being plied with madeira by Lord Egremont.
“Did you sustain any bangs or bumps that you can recollect, my dear?” she inquired of Fanny. “On—on that part of your anatomy?”
“I believe not, ma’am.” Fanny blushed at having her condition thus alluded to in front of the strange gentleman addressed by Egremont as Henriques. He had remained close at hand and was regarding her with unconcealed interest. She now had time to observe that he was a thickset, strongly featured man of middle age with curly grizzled hair. To avoid his glance, which made her feel very uncomfortable, she gazed around the room and was greatly impressed by its size and magnificence. The furniture was gilded and scrolled; there were tables with porphyry tops, and ornaments in bronze and marble. The walls were completely paneled in elaborately carved wood (limewood, the rector’s wife told her later) and adorned with a profusion of carvings in which birds, fish, beasts, and naked cupids flew and scrambled among wreaths, baskets of flowers, bunches of grapes, cornucopia, and dangling swags. A portrait of King Henry VIII stared down at her from over the hearth and seemed to demand what she was doing there amid all these splendors—little Fanny Herriard from Sway. However, to mitigate its splendor, the room was decidedly untidy—newspapers, pieces of embroidery, and opened books lay scattered about and a great mound of ash had fallen from the hearth onto the stone floor in front.
“I think it best that the doctor be fetched,” Lord Egremont pronounced. “Captain Paget would wish it, I daresay.”
At the thought of her husband, Fanny almost fainted in good earnest and turned so white again that Mrs. Wyndham hustled the men out of the room.
“Something warm inside you is what you need, my love, and it will be here directly,” she told Fanny in a voice that was wonderfully comforting, for it was halfway between a chuckle and a coo. “Now do not be distressing yourself—I think it unlikely that you have done yourself or your baby any harm—and I ought to know—should I not, Mrs. Socket?—for I have had three.”
“Good gracious, ma’am, I should never have believed that,” Fanny said feebly. In fact Mrs. Wyndham hardly looked over the age of twenty-five and was wonderfully pretty, with a kindly, smiling, open, buxom beauty, like a full-blown pink and white rose that will soon let fall some of its petals but still exudes a lavish summery fragrance. Fanny was greatly charmed by her looks and by her simple friendliness. When the turtle soup came, on a silver tray with rolls and grapes, she sent the footman who brought it away—“For servants are so clumsy and fidgeting”—and insisted on feeding Fanny spoonful by spoonful, until the latter, laughing, declared that she could perfectly well manage by herself and must not trouble her hostess any further (for, from Mrs. Wyndham’s air of command and the deference paid her by the servants, it was evident that she was the lady of the house).
Dr. Chilgrove was now announced—evidently a summons to Petworth House was obeyed at speed—and Fanny was transferred to a smaller chamber for privacy of consultation. Before the doctor was admitted and while Mrs. Socket was in another room, consulting with him:
“Now, my love, tell me—are you afraid of your husband?” demanded Liz Wyndham. “I saw you turn as white as your fichu when George spoke of him—and I have heard that he is an exceedingly severe, quarrelsome individual—is that what troubles you? Will he scold you for this scrape?”
“Oh, ma’am—yes! I—I am sorry to seem impolite—when—when you have been so very kind”—Fanny’s voice faltered and a couple of tears, mortifyingly, slipped down her cheek—“but, indeed—the thought of what he will say when he hears about this—fills me with dread! He will be—he will be quite shockingly angry—”
“Humph! About the accident in the park—or the visit to this house?”
“Both, ma’am, I fear. He sets so much store by my bearing him an heir—since he has daughters, but as yet no son—and—and—”
“And, besides risking the baby’s life, he will believe that his innocent little wife has been dragged willy-nilly into a foolish escapade among the most immoral set of loose-living people between here and London,” Mrs. Wyndham completed the sentence. “Well—well then, it seems we must contrive that news of your mishap does not reach his ears.”
Fanny doubted if such concealment would be possible, but when Dr. Chilgrove came in and examined her he was bracingly reassuring about her condition—“Not a penny the worse, my child, I give you my word!”—and contributed an item of news that immediatel
y sent Fanny’s spirits bounding up, for he went on, “Now we won’t trouble to tell your husband about this, my dear, for he’d be up in the boughs directly—I know his fidgety ways—and besides, it would mean sending a messenger posting after him, for he’s not at hand; I saw him, with all his scurvy wretches of impress fellows, posting off along the Brighton road as if the Devil himself were at their heels.”
“Oh, what a fortunate circumstance,” breathed Fanny. “He was, I know, planning to go to Brighton quite soon, as soon as the summons should come—”
“I have heard of this Brighton affair,” remarked Chilgrove. “All the men of the town standing on their rights not to be impressed, hey? A sticky time the press officers will have of it, if they try to take all those sturdy rogues of Brighthelmstone fishermen—I do not at all envy them the task. Depend upon it, your husband will hardly be home tonight, my dear.”
“In that case,” said Liz Wyndham, “Mrs. Paget had best remain here, where we can look after her.”
Dr. Chilgrove would have endorsed this suggestion, but Fanny was so alarmed at the idea that it was agreed she should merely pass the afternoon at Petworth House and then, when she was sufficiently rested, be transferred to Mrs. Socket’s residence. That lady accordingly went home to inform her husband of the mishap, enjoin him to silence about it, and air bedding, heat warming pans, and prepare a room for Fanny; and a servant was dispatched to the Hermitage to inform Mrs. Strudwick that her mistress would be spending the night at the Rectory. This in itself seemed such a wild departure from normality that Fanny was alarmed all over again, but Liz Wyndham told her firmly that she would be far better to pass the night under the roof of a sensible woman of mature years who had children herself and knew how to go on rather than be left to the ineffectual care of a parcel of servants and schoolroom misses. It did then occur to Fanny that she herself had a resident nurse just installed at the Hermitage, but various reservations in her own attitude toward Mrs. Lily Baggot, plus a doubt as to whether Thomas would wish that person’s attentions diverted from his mother’s needs, disposed her to keep silent on this head.