Letitia Or The Convalescent Heart

by Catherine Bowness

  “Perhaps; you know her better than I.”

  “I would dispute that; I only met her on the day we set off for Stonegate and, although, during our journey, she spoke passionately about her love for Lord Archibald, she claimed that the scales fell from her eyes when she saw him again – in short, that she had ceased to love him. Since the arrival of the soldiers she has not confided in me. If Sharpthorne were to declare himself this evening I suspect neither you nor I would be consulted; if she consented, he would no doubt write to my brother.”

  “I suppose that would be the proper thing to do but would he, do you think, give his blessing to her taking a different man from the one to whom he has promised her?”

  Aspasia gave a rather hollow laugh and said, “Really, I cannot guess. Sharpthorne is not such a good match but, if Letty is right and her father’s one desire is to be rid of her, then I suppose he will consider an inferior bird in the hand superior to an uncertain one in the bush.”

  The Earl smiled but rather weakly; his eyes were closed and she said, “I have tired you, my lord. Would you like me to go or may I sit beside you – without speaking?”

  “It gives me enormous pleasure to have you beside me and you have not tired me in the least. It is simply that I am absurdly weak, although I am beginning to think that I shall not after all die just yet.”

  “Of course you will not. I do not wish to tax you with questions which may fatigue you, but I wonder if you have thought how or what caused you to become ill?”

  “Yes, I have wracked my brains to discover the poison – for such it must have been. I wish I were not so decrepit. I am afraid my frailty will have given you a disgust of me.”

  “I hope I am not such a paltry creature,” Aspasia said, thinking that, although she might look like Letty, she was not so insensitive for, in truth, she found herself even more drawn to the Earl now that he lay in bed with pale, hollow cheeks. She wondered if, had Mr Ripley shown such weakness, she might have been able to consider what he needed rather than being focused so entirely upon her own wishes. “All the same,” she added, “I must confess I have no experience of the sickroom and fear I do not have the least idea what I can do to help.”

  “Good God – nothing! You are not my nurse, but pray stay to talk if you are not already bored or afraid for your own health.”

  “So long as I eat nothing I am sure I shall not succumb to the same malady.”

  “Good God! Do you truly think I was poisoned intentionally? If so, by whom and why in Heaven’s name? What do you think the pernicious substance could have been?”

  “Did you eat something late at night after we had all retired?”

  “No. I had a glass of brandy – nothing else. I generally have one before I retire – only one, I promise. I am not a heavy drinker.”

  “I assume it was not a new bottle?”

  “No; it has been open for some days.”

  “Where do you keep it?”

  He smiled. “Do you seriously think someone introduced something noxious?”

  “It is possible. Where do you keep it? Could someone have tampered with it?”

  “It is in the library – not the one in which you just found Archibald but the one in the main part of the Castle. I believe you took refuge in that room the first afternoon when Mama became a trifle overwrought.”

  “Yes. I remember the room although not of course the brandy. I suppose Crabb serves it?”

  “No, as a matter of fact he does not. He is too old to be kept up so late. He makes sure there is a clean glass available and I serve myself. I cannot think it likely anyone could have put something in there in advance.”

  “It would be easy to do though, would it not, if the bottle stays in the library, which is mostly empty during the day, and if you are the only person to drink from it? You did not offer any to your guests – or to Archie?”

  “Not last night, but I have done earlier in the week. Last night everyone else went to bed soon after you and Letitia retired.”

  “I suppose one of them could have gone into the library on his way up to bed,” she said, “but I cannot think of any reason why any of them would want to make you ill.”

  “I think whoever it was wanted me dead,” he said baldly. “I have had a weak stomach all my life, as Mama has pointed out on several occasions, but I have never been so ill as I was last night. Amongst the persons in the Castle, I cannot see why any of them might wish to dispose of me except perhaps Archibald, who might have a fancy for the earldom, and Letitia, who might want to be rid of me – although I have tried to make her aware that I have no wish to tie her to her promise.”

  “I am certain it was not Letty,” Aspasia said. “She is not underhand. In any event, as you say, she knows quite well that you will not hold her to her word.”

  “That leaves only Archibald.”

  “And your mother,” Aspasia murmured.

  “Mama? She is not overly attached to me - but kill me? Why? It does not seem possible.”

  “I did not mean that it was, only that she is another person in the household who could have introduced the poison.”

  “I suppose we should not narrow the choice down so far: perhaps Major Fielding is afraid that you will choose me in preference to him or Captain Sharpthorne may fear that Letitia will not break her promise to me while I live.”

  “Do not forget me, my lord: I suppose I must be accounted a suspect too.”

  “What would be your motive?”

  “Perhaps I would rather you did not learn what has happened to my husband; perhaps I prefer to remain in ignorance.”

  “I can understand that you might,” he conceded, “but I cannot help feeling that poisoning me is a little extreme.”

  “I think,” she said slowly, “that whoever it is – if indeed it is anybody and not just something you ate which disagreed with you – is resorting to extreme measures. The act of administering poison is an excessive response to whatever you may have done – or are.”

  “Yes. May I ask you to do something for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Fetch the brandy bottle.”

  She rose at once and went out, forgetting that Lord Archibald had promised to wait in the hall outside and that he was the most obvious person to have tried to kill his brother. Without a career in the army, with the Earl planning to marry the woman he loved and lacking sufficient funds to repair his house, it would, she realised, be wonderful if he did not resent his elder’s existence.

  “What did you think of him?” he asked, getting to his feet.

  “He is not well. Was this the way he reacted as a child when he ate something which disagreed with him?”

  “Yes, I think so but, of course, when he was a child he would be confined to the nursery when he was ill, and I was not permitted to visit him. Since we have been grown up he has not been here a great deal, spending most of his time in London. I do not know whether he has suffered many – or indeed any – such extreme bouts while he is there. He does not care to admit to weakness and would be most unlikely to confide in me about such a thing. He has spent more time here since Papa died on account of not wanting to leave Mama alone while I was in the Peninsula.”

  She nodded. “I am no longer surprised that your mother tries to keep the menu bland if this is what happens when he over-indulges.”

  He smiled but said, “She might have been more successful in imposing her will if she had not taken her strictures to such extremes. A grown man cannot be expected to eat nothing but bread and gruel.”

  “Surely that is an exaggeration?”

  They had begun to descend the stairs, he leading the way.

  “A little perhaps.”

  It was not until they had gained the ground floor and were no longer walking one behind the other that Aspasia asked, “Does he, do you think, imbibe an excessive quantity of strong liquor and could it be that which upsets him?”

  Lord Archibald laughed and said, “I suppose he must do
so on occasion – what man does not? – but to my knowledge he is an abstemious person. I have never seen him the worse for liquor. Why?”

  “I wondered if he had drunk too much brandy last night.” As she spoke, Aspasia was watching the young man as closely as she could whilst trying to conceal her attention.

  “Most unlikely, I should think, when there were guests in the house, particularly you and your niece. Shall we inspect the bottle? I believe it lives in the small library.”

  “I don’t see how us staring at the bottle will be of the least use,” Aspasia said.

  “Well, no, not really for we cannot be sure he has not put away the remains of another before beginning on whatever we find in there, but we may as well have a look.”

  There was no sign of anxiety in the young man’s tone as he led Aspasia to the room in which she and her niece had taken refuge the first time they met Lady Stonegate.

  “Here it is,” he said, going at once to a small table beside one of the bookcases and picking up the bottle. “It seems to be a little over half-full.” He tilted it so that the contents shifted to one side and held it up to the light.

  “I think,” he said, putting it down, “that there would have been other signs of inebriation if it was simply a case of his having drunk too much last night. There was, for example, no smell of liquor this morning.”

  “Perhaps that bottle has something – some immature side-effect of the grapes perhaps – or a fungus or something of that nature – that might have affected him?” she suggested.

  With every moment and every word he spoke she was more and more convinced that, if poison had been introduced into the bottle, Lord Archibald knew nothing of it. On the other hand, she had little faith in her ability to judge men accurately.

  Archie frowned. “I suppose it is possible although it seems extremely unlikely. I believe the process by which wine becomes brandy is not only a long one, but involves a strong chemical reaction, which would surely kill anything that might have inadvertently entered the original liquid. Shall I taste it?”

  He picked up a glass which had been standing on the same tray, wiped it with his handkerchief and uncorked the bottle.

  “I wish you will not,” Aspasia said. “Suppose it has been poisoned?”

  “I will only try a little,” Archie promised, “and hope that I will be able to tell whether it has been diluted with something.”

  Chapter 30

  While Aspasia was visiting the Earl on his sickbed the rest of the party, having changed out of their riding dress, found themselves at something of a loose end. After their energetic ride, the soldiers were eager to sit down to their nuncheon but, in spite of Crabb having informed them some time ago that something had been laid out in the small dining room, no one quite liked to start while their host lay upon his bed, their substitute host – Lord Archibald – was attending him and the senior female guest was also absent.

  “You must be positively famished after trying on dresses and going for a ride,” the Major said to Letty, hoping she would suggest they begin eating.

  “Not particularly,” she replied indifferently. She was playing patience and, sighing with frustration when the cards did not come out, rearranged them several times until they did.

  This occupation not only lacked stimulation but provided an unnecessary degree of additional irritation. She was not in good spirits although she had briefly brightened while shopping with her aunt. She did not know what she was going to do when the visit came to an end – or even how she was to amuse herself when the soldiers left – for, her aunt having confirmed that she and the Earl were attached, whether respectably or not, it seemed to her that she would be de trop, particularly if Archie returned to his own house. In spite of having asked Aspasia if she could remain with her and the Earl, she did not feel optimistic about the future. The thought of returning home, not only unwed but positively rejected in favour of her aunt, was lowering.

  She wondered if Archie had noticed the attachment between his brother and Aspasia and what he made of it. She guessed the Countess had not noticed for it would be most unlikely that she would have been able to refrain from saying something disagreeable.

  “Shall we join you in a game?” the Major asked, resigning himself to enduring his hunger and tired of peering through one of the small windows.

  She looked up and, emerging briefly from her own anxious ruminations, noticed that both men were distinctly fidgety. To their relief, she correctly diagnosed the cause and offered a solution.

  “You could,” she said, “but it’s my belief that we should go and eat our nuncheon. Crabb has laid it out and it would be absurd if we were to sit here all afternoon waiting for the others, who seem to have forgotten all about it. I own I had myself. I daresay you are famished. Shall we proceed?” As she spoke, she gathered up the cards into a pile and stood up.

  “I own I am a little,” the Major agreed.

  “Then let us waste no more time,” she said offering an arm to each man and leading the way along the corridor towards the small dining room.

  It was the first time Letty had taken the lead in anything other than scuppering other people’s plans and she felt almost headily grown-up as they entered the room, sat down and began to eat. The Major cut the ham, the Captain the bread and soon they were all three eating enthusiastically.

  “I am sorry I made you wait so long,” she said, helping herself to more butter and spreading it upon her bread. “I realise now that I was excessively hungry all along.”

  The Major laughed and said, “When one is fatigued one is much inclined to forget that one is hungry. You will feel much more the thing when you have eaten.”

  They had been sitting there for only a short time when the door opened to admit the Countess.

  “Why, where is Frederick?” she asked, raising her eyebrows, clearly disapproving of her son’s guests eating without their host presiding over the table.

  “I understand he is unwell,” Letty said.

  The Countess looked surprised. She said, “Oh, I see; I did not know he had been taken ill – his digestion, I presume? His own fault entirely; I could not help noticing that he ate a great deal too much of that lobster last night. Where is your aunt – and Archibald?”

  “I believe they are with him,” Letty explained. She had risen, along with the men, when the Countess came into the room.

  “Both of them? How very peculiar! Does your aunt think she is in charge of the household?”

  “Good gracious, no; I think she was concerned about his lordship’s health.”

  “Very proper, I suppose, but I’m sure I don’t approve of her hanging over him when he is unwell: interfering, in my opinion. Are you under the impression that, in his absence, you are in charge? You are not, you know – not yet in any event while there is still breath in my body.”

  Letty flushed with annoyance and opened her mouth to retort something or other but was forestalled by the Major.

  “I think Miss Denton took pity on us; she could see we were rather champing at the bit for our nuncheon and we were not certain that you would grace us with your presence, my lady. Will you sit down and join us?”

  As he spoke, he drew out a chair. The Countess, having succeeded in getting one vicious observation off her chest – and having noticed the reaction of her victim with satisfaction - was prepared to be gracious and smiled at the man to whom she had, in her prickly way, taken quite a fancy. She allowed herself to be provided with bread and ham, together with a glass of lemonade, and began to pick at the food.

  “Is the ball to go ahead?” she enquired.

  “I believe his lordship to be adamant that it should,” the Major responded.

  “I suppose he is expecting Archibald to take over,” her ladyship surmised, adding, “But where is he?”

  “I believe him to be with his brother.”

  “Oh, yes, you have already said as much – and with Mrs Ripley in attendance. I presume the doctor has been
consulted?”

  Since none of those present was able to answer this question, everyone fell silent again until her ladyship rang the bell. When Crabb appeared, she ordered him to find Lord Archibald and bring him to her at once.

  The ancient butler bowed and retreated.

  “Arrangements must be put in place for this evening,” she explained. “I don’t doubt it will fall to me to keep an eye on everything.”

  “I think it is all in order, my lady,” the Major, who seemed to have allotted himself the position of spokesman, told her. “There seems to be a good deal going on, in any event – servants bustling about all over the place.”

  “Yes; I noticed that; very unsettling. I can’t quite think why Frederick thought it a good idea to hold a ball at all and certainly it was excessively irresponsible for him to make himself ill just when he is needed.”

  “I don’t suppose he could help it,” Letty said.

  “Of course he could; he ate too much of the wrong sort of food,” the Countess snapped.

  “We all ate the same thing,” Letty protested.

  “Have you not listened to a word I’ve said?” the Countess asked. “Frederick’s digestion is imperfect; he must curb his greed and stick to bland food. I suppose you will encourage him in his excess when you are mistress here. I daresay it will not distress you if he kills himself; indeed, you’ll no doubt be glad to be rid of a husband whose only recommendation is his title.”

  “I would not!” Letty retorted, now red with anger. “I like Lord Stonegate!”

  “His father was the same,” the Countess went on, ignoring the interruption. “He suffered intermittent bouts of the same affliction and was finally carried off by a particularly bad episode. The doctor thought he’d been poisoned and ordered anything left over from the night before – including the brandy bottle – to be examined. Of course nothing was found – not surprisingly. He was very like Frederick: greedy and disinclined to listen to any advice.”