by Don Jacobson
All five intoned a solemn Amen and then each went about their duties as the clock began to toll twelve.
The noise level increased throughout the house as family and staff returned from church. Lady Mary stopped to briefly visit with Richard and check in on Miss Bennet’s condition.
“I have to hope that we are getting to that point where she will awaken, Richard. Her color does seem a little better and her breathing has been getting deeper every day,” said Mary.
Richard gazed down at Kitty’s still form. “She has twitched a few times since Maturin sutured her scalp yesterday. That is a major change. However, she will wake on her schedule and not ours.” Then he fell silent, pondering the gap between Miss Bennet’s reality and his desires.
Annie looked up from her book and glanced over the bed to Wilson’s imposing figure.
He looks like one of the Prince’s Grenadiers guarding Carlton House. How he can stand stock still for hours without leaning on the wall is beyond me. I wonder what he is thinking.
Little did she know that most of Henry’s thoughts were of a small lady with light brown hair and caramel eyes. He could gaze at her pleasing figure for hours; after all, he was a healthy young man of four and twenty. Her little quirks that captivated him. The way she tipped her head to one side and stroked her cheek with her left forefinger while she read a book was but one gesture that made her uniquely Anne Reynolds. Although she sat with the utmost propriety—would the niece of Adelaide Reynolds do any less?—her youthful exuberance would betray her through the rhythmic tapping of her toes to an unheard melody.
The General and Lady Mary pulled both servants from their reverie by leaving the chamber for the cold collation set out in the breakfast room. The pair promised to have trays sent up for the watchers.
“Ummm…Ma…Ma...Gre.”
Wilson started at the hesitant sound.
“Miss Bennet? Are you awake, Miss? What is it that you want?” Wilson implored her. At the same moment, he hissed at Annie who hurried to the bedside.
“Marg…ret. Some…thing…wr…wr…wrong.”
“Miss Margaret is fine. You saved her,” Wilson replied.
“Sa…ved?”
Wilson realized that he needed to alert the family. As he began to leave the room, Kitty groaned. That spurred him into a sprint down the hall and the staircase. He skidded to a stop at the double doors leading to the parlor, smoothed his livery and regulated his breathing. He knocked and entered.
Stepping in, he discovered that guests had arrived. A young man and woman sat side-by-side on a sofa. Wilson took in their traveling attire and assumed that this must be one of Miss Bennet’s sisters—probably the youngest from Cornwall and she had seemingly married. The older two—Durham and Winchester—were engaged in employment that demanded they remain single. This one had been free to wed. There was a clear family resemblance between the composed young matron and the woman lying abed upstairs. Both had golden hair, although this sister was somewhat taller than the usual woman, whereas Miss Bennet was of average height.
Lady Cecil looked up. “Yes, Wilson? Has something happened to Miss Bennet?”
“She has awakened, my lady, and seems to be in pain. She is groggy, but is able to speak. She asked about Miss Margaret.”
Mary glanced over to where her husband sat. He stood and strode to the writing desk. Penning a quick note, he handed it to Wilson. “Quickly man, send a boy to Campbell’s surgery. He is to bring him back immediately.”
Wilson hurtled from the room. Lady Mary and the other woman followed him out the door.
A gentle knock on the chamber door pulled Annie from the bedside where she had been trying to calm Kitty. Opening the door she discovered Lady Mary and another well-dressed young lady.
In response to Lady Mary’s inquiring look, Annie reported, “Oh my Lady. Miss Bennet is slipping in and out. She is certainly in pain. She is complaining about it and is very restless. I did not know how much to tell her about her injuries, so I have only explained that she was hurt and needs to lie still.”
The taller woman stepped forward to stand beside Lady Mary. “I am Mrs. Lydia Poldark, Miss Bennet’s younger sister. I think I know what I can do to help her until the doctor arrives to administer some laudanum.”
Mary turned to Lydia, “Before you enter, let me caution you. Miss Bennet was terribly brutalized. I will not go through all that happened a week ago or since then until later once she is settled. You cannot get all missish and succumb to a bout of nerves.”
Lydia laughed, “Oh that was the old days before I met and married my Jeremy. We have been living at his parent’s home, Nampara, on the Cornish coast. His mother, Mrs. Demelza Poldark, has been teaching me the meaning of being mistress to an estate that has two very prosperous copper pits.[xxxi]
“Wheal Grace and Wheal Leisure employ hundreds. We have to tend to those injuries that are regular features of mining enterprises—crushed and amputated fingers, broken bones and the occasional cracked head.
“While it may be my sister laying there, I promise you I have seen and dealt with worse.”
Annie stepped aside to allow the two ladies to enter. Wilson slipped in behind them to resume his usual place at the head of the bed. For the first time since that awful morning, he felt a burden being lifted from his shoulders as he watched Mrs. Poldark tenderly minister to her sister who was calmed by her presence and gradually drifted off to sleep.
Annie looked back toward Henry in time to see the tension flow from his body. A great smile broke out across his face revealing two deep dimples that reshaped his fearsome mien into something startlingly attractive.
Chapter XV
It is a truth universally known that one traded away one’s freedom to starve on one’s own terms by accepting security through service in a great house in Town or on an estate. Then, for that year, one so employed needed to attend to every whim of spoiled gentlefolk while watching them spend more on a single suit of clothes, a carriage or a pair of shoes than an upper servant might expect to earn in five years.
This is not to say that theirs was an eternally unhappy lot. Each negotiated their own space within their jobs. And, as such, there were moments in any servant’s life that stood out from all others. The awakening of Miss Bennet was one such in the cellars and attics of Cecil House.
No, her change in status did nothing to relieve the backbreaking drudgery of the kitchen skivvies and laundry maids. The stable boys and grooms still had to muck the stalls on a daily basis to prevent disease from taking hold in any of the glorious animals that fell under their care.
However, the opening of that one china blue eye; followed by her remarkable first words about the much-beloved Miss Margaret firmly installed Miss Catherine Marie Bennet in the pantheon guided by the saying that “good things happen to good people.” Miss Bennet was acknowledged as truly “one ‘o th’ good-uns” even by Monsieur François, Cecil House’s French chef, who bent his considerable talents to fulfilling Dr. Campbell’s nourishment dictates for the good lady.
Even Winters ceased his perpetual grumbling to gently puff on his pipe around the common table as the maids and footmen quizzed Annie and Henry about the events of the afternoon of the 12th. And they never tired of the story, particularly the part played by Mrs. Lydia.
Annie tried to drink a bit of her tea between rapid-fire questions from all around the table. The taciturn Henry just kept his head down and concentrated on demolishing a leftover piece of gateau au chocolat that had miraculously avoided the attentions of the first footmen who had cleared away the dessert course upstairs.
“Yes, Molly, Mrs. Poldark and Miss Bennet look much alike, although Mrs. Lydia is particularly tall for a lady.”
“Well, I could not say if she sounded like she was from the West. Her accent was much more like home in Northamptonshire, but the “r’s” are deeper. From what Miss Bennet told me, the fam
ily had an estate about twenty miles from Town in Hertfordshire.”
“Mrs. Lydia? What sort of a lady is she? Well, I can tell you she does love her sister. When she immediately knew what to do to help her overcome the pain after Miss Bennet awoke, I knew. Lord, Henry, you saw how she rubbed our poor girl’s feet with Lady Mary’s face cream?”
Henry looked up and blushed.
Winters jumped on his clear embarrassment to jab at him, “Now you git all red-faced. Cuz ya eye’d ‘er toes? Whut about when you let that rum cove ‘urt ‘er?”
Annie’s heart went out to the big man when she saw the pain cross his face. He stood up and stepped over the bench. He made of point of sliding the remainder of his cake over to Annie before he left without another word.
Annie flashed an angry look at the other footman.
“Mi’God, Jonas, let the poor man be. He has suffered at your hands these past days. Lord Tom and Lady Mary agree with General Fitzwilliam that Henry could not have prevented “that rum cove” as you so delicately put it from snatching Miss Margaret. A belaying pin was discovered on the man’s body.
“Do you think he planned to use it on Miss Margaret or Miss Bennet? No, that was for the Sergeant. That it was in the man’s pocket says that something happened to Wilson before twenty-odd inches of oak would have been necessary.
“Honestly, you act like you do not want to get along with anybody here.”
Jonas snorted, “Meybe not missy. Then agin, maybe ah don’ need ta git along wit ya. Meybe ya t’will need ta git along wit me.” Then he rose and ambled down to a chair in the corner of the room and put his feet up on an andiron near the fireplace.
Chapter XVI
The Mews, Cecil House
Wilson stood in the dark behind the house scuffing his feet on the cobbles paving the mews. What bothered him the most was that he agreed with Winters about his culpability in the attack. He had failed in the one duty with which he had been assigned. Just because Miss Bennet was improving did little to relieve his guilt.
He was still responsible for her pain
The violation of her young body—no, not a loss of innocence and virtue, but rather the damage done to that lithe happy beauty that had always brightened a room—that was laid at his feet. Her blindness was as much his fault as the hobnailed foot that had slammed into her face.
His account sheet was deeply in arrears when it came to Miss Bennet.
T’will take a lifetime to pay her back. At least that path ahead is clear. Wherever she goes, so will I—as a footman, stable hand, whatever position I can secure. She will never be endangered again.
Then his musings focused on the other, more important, woman in his life. What was he to do about his feelings for Miss Annie? Even with all of the trials of the past sennight, she had not left his dreams—either sleeping or waking. Her tender care for him was so obvious. But, was he worthy of that feeling?
When he wet her skirts with his heartfelt tears, she did not pull away.
When many below stairs avoided him as if he carried the pox, she was the first to sit across from him.
When Jonas tasked him about Guy Fawkes Day, she defended him even when he refused to defend himself.
Did she see something in him he had missed?
As he mulled over the increasingly large space Anne Reynolds was taking in his world, the sound of footsteps coming down the alley from the front of the house impinged on the edge of his consciousness. Gradually the noise localized itself as a powerfully built figure rounded the corner, the glowing tip of a lit cigar bouncing in cadence with the man’s pace.
General Fitzwilliam’s unmistakable shape resolved itself out of the darkness as he approached Henry. The former soldier straightened out of years of discipline.
Fitzwilliam let out a short laugh that wreathed his head in a cloud of cigar smoke.
“At ease, Sergeant…please be at ease. We are both off duty now.
“Actually, I was looking for you. I tried the servant’s hall first, but Annie suggested that you had left for a breath of fresh air. While t’would have been easier for me to come out through the kitchens, I would have scandalized Hastings. So I figured discretion being the better part and all that…
“Would you care for a cigar, Sergeant? My cousin Darcy allows me to raid his humidor. He always has the best from that Spanish colony in Cuba, although I have found Virginia Burleigh wrapped in Connecticut Valley leaf to be nearly as good.”
Wilson nodded his acceptance, and he went through the ritual of lighting…rolling the cigar to break the filler for a better draw, snipping the ends with the small guillotine he borrowed from the aristocrat and then gently lighting it by holding the flame of a long match about an inch below the end. He slowly drew a few puffs, enjoying the heady rush of the tobacco’s drug.
Then he looked expectantly at the General who regarded him in the flickering light of the torch mounted into the wall by the kitchen door.
Fitzwilliam dropped his genial mask. Wilson involuntarily shivered as the iciness of the other man’s stare penetrated deeply into his soul.
“What passes between us now, Sergeant Wilson, will go no further. Am I clear about that?” He stabbed his cigar toward Henry to punctuate his demand.
Then he continued, “You, like most of my subalterns, I am sure, are above reproach. However, we are living in dangerous times. Napoleon may be on St. Helena, but the state of the Continent is far from stable. Lord Castlereagh is always guarding us against the scheming of our late Allies: the Austrians, Russians and Prussians. The less I think of the Spanish or the Italian states, the better.
“Then I am blessed with genial fools like Campbell…oh, do not mistake me…Angus Campbell is a great doctor, but an indiscrete sieve when it comes to secrets. I wanted to strangle him what he blurted out about Maturin and Sir Joseph Blaine[xxxii] in the drawing room.
“You, however, need to know what is happening. I think there is more to the attack on Miss Bennet and Miss Margaret than we earlier assumed. Now that Miss Bennet appears to be out of danger, we can concentrate on the deeper question of ‘Why.’ As you are the only other real witness I have at my disposal, your story may be useful.
“Tell me about the Park. What did you see? What did you hear?”
Wilson paused for a considerable period. What could he say to the General without showing his failings?
Fitzwilliam, wondering at the Sergeant’s hesitancy, remembered Campbell’s injunction about the possible cause for Henry’s indisposition on the 5th.
I, too, am uncomfortable talking about my dreams. What must this poor sod be going through if a spell like that left him unable to protect Miss Bennet and the child?
Interrupting Henry’s brown study, Fitzwilliam said, “Before you reply, Sergeant, I wish to tell you a story.
“You may recall I was in Hyde Park that day. The reason I was strolling along the Serpentine was that I had had a terrible experience there before. I wanted to see if I could once again enjoy the Park.
“Back in early October, I had been near the Carriage Way when two idiots racing their curricles locked wheels. The noise of the crash, not 30 feet from where I was standing, threw me back to Salamanca when I was a young Major.
“When I came to my senses, a gentlemen of my acquaintance told me that I had been racing around the strollers screaming at the top of my lungs ‘Close Ranks’ and ‘Fire as you bear.’
“All I can tell you, Sergeant, is that for that length of time, I was back in the lines and men around me were dying. I could smell the gunpowder, the sweat and the fear. Campbell told me it was a flashback.
“But, it was real, and I was there.”
Wilson set his mouth. That a General, like himself, would know the same terrors had never entered his mind. This settled his soul somewhat.
Squaring his shoulders, he began, “The cold in the Park hearkened back to Corunna for me, General. The wind was kicking up the sand, and I think the grit in my face was like that terri
ble sleet storm that hit us before we got down to the water.
“I was back there, General. It was just as awful, just as brutal and just as cold as I recalled it.
“The last thing I remembered was a tyke coming up to Miss Bennet and Miss Margaret begging for a penny. You know how those little ones do it.
“Then the fog came in. After that, the next thing I recollect was you dropping down by Miss Bennet.”
Fitzwilliam looked thoughtful. Then, “All right, Sergeant…you saw me kneel. Tell me what else you recall from that moment.”
Henry cast back into his memory.
“I was still laying on my side when I opened my eyes. My left cheek was in the sand, so I was looking toward the Carriage Way.
“Everybody was walking or running toward where Miss Bennet lay.
“Except for one man: a man in a black cloak with red lining. He had a large hat hiding his face. He was striding back toward a closed coach…looked like a brougham. He said something to the driver and then got inside. The carriage drove off.”
“Would you be able to recognize the vehicle if you saw it again, Wilson?” Richard asked.
“Likely not, sir. It was very plain with nothing distinctive about it.”
“I can accept that. Did you observe anything else?”
“Nothing. I got to my feet and came over to you and Miss Bennet. What does this mean, General?”
“Nothing in itself, but this fits with some rather interesting little tidbits I have been picking up around Town.
“Someone is spreading around a lot of money trying to find out where we stand concerning this Holy Alliance the Russians, Austrians, and Prussians have cobbled together. [xxxiii]
“The attack and attempted kidnapping could have been a more diabolical effort to compromise the Foreign Office. Even with the Congress’ Final Acts in June, the Marquess and Lord Tom have been deeply involved seconding Castlereagh.[xxxiv]