Indeed, everyone was very kind, sending not only polite inquiries, but all manner of miscellaneous items to relieve the poor sufferer – from old Mrs Hopwood's gift of a lavender-pillow, 'in 'opes as it would 'elp the gentilman to sleep more natural, like', to fruit and other delicacies, more or less refined, depending on the donor, to try and tempt the failing appetite, and the Rector's bottles of very fine old port, the reverend gentleman having heard that the doctor recommended a glass of that superior wine daily, and his having picked up a few bottles, the remnants of a bankrupt Earl's cellar, at a considerable bargain the previous summer. This last, however, Evelyn declined to accept. They had a goodly supply of a particularly fine vintage, which was reserved entirely for Mr Trent's own use. The key of the bin, which was allowed to pass into no other hand, and from whence she poured her husband's daily dose with her own hand, was held by Evelyn herself, much to the discomfiture of the butler, who held that women had no business in a wine cellar. This was perhaps the only service the selfish and worldly woman performed for her ailing husband.
And so the weary days and weeks rolled on, until weeks turned to months, and the summer, which seemed to have ended in June for the younger members of the household at Allingham, slipped inorexably into autumn. Mr Trent's tenure on Earth was slowly becoming fainter and fainter. There was a worrying time in September when he became quite wild and frenzied, and though he was too weak to rise, he would exhaust himself by his restless and desperate movements – on some occasions it had taken all the strength of both Lydia and the hired nurse to prevent him hurling himself out of bed entirely. During these frenzies he would shriek and moan incoherently, showing no recognition of Lydia, the dear daughter he loved so well. Lydia began to think they may have to have him committed, and at this she thought her heart would well-nigh break.
But now the fits and frenzies had abated, and the poor old gentleman slept for a great deal of the time, if sleep it was, and not just another species of fit. Lydia had by this time established a routine, whereby she would watch in the sickroom until the clock struck three, to allow the nurse, who had the hard physical parts of nursing to do, to get some rest. At three of the clock, she would retire to snatch a few hours sleep, then rise at eight to prepare the invalid's breakfast – though more often than not it would remain uneaten. Then she would relieve the nurse for an hour or two, after which time they watched together until dinner time, and the patient's evening dose – after this the nurse would retire for some well-earned rest, though always within call, and the whole dreary round began again.
One night, during this quiet period, Lydia was sitting by the fire in the sickroom, knitting to keep herself awake. It was almost two of the clock, and there was barely a sound except the soft breathing of the patient, and the rather more stertorian exhalations of the nurse, who lay within call on a couch in the next room. There was little to do until her father's next dose, at three, and Lydia began to find herself drifting into a reverie.
Her thoughts were carried forward into the dreary future, and she began to bethink herself of what might become of her. Without her father, all that made home a bright and happy place would perish. To be sure, there was still her sister, but she had begun to see how the land lay between Alfred and Adeline, and she was sure that before very long Adeline would depart to a home of her own. What then? The thought of living in solitude with her stepmother was not to be borne, and though she might be assured of a home with her sister and brother-in-law, playing the gooseberry may soon pall. The idea that she may marry herself had never crossed her mind – simple duties, simple pleasures, were all she had looked to as her happiness in life, she had never yet been disturbed by longings for romantic passion. Good books, good work, and lively and intelligent conversation with a congenial mind, such as she had enjoyed with her father, were her ideal of a happy life. Not for the first time, she wished she had been born a man, or at least a poor woman – for though not an heiress she would yet inherit a couple of thousands which would ensure her a comfortable, if not extravagant, income. She longed to have some work to go to, where she might be of the world and in the world – to be a lawyer, a doctor, a writer, even to go out as a governess or a nurse, to bring her able mind into contact with other intelligent souls. To spend her life mewed up here with her knitting, and her stepmother's bitter complaints and monotonous converse, was a doom the most awful to her, though she would face it cheerfully enough, and none should ever know how she longed to break out.
Lydia was awoken from this dismal train of thought by a slight sound, as of a door closing. Had she not known that it was her stepmother's nightly habit to lock and bar every door and window in the house, before retiring, she would have sworn to it having been the 'snick' of the latch of the garden door.
She had just made sure of the sound that disturbed her having been a loose coal in the fireplace, and taken up her knitting, which had fallen unregarded in her lap, with renewed energy, when she became conscous of a stealthy tread on the stair outside the room, and a faint rustle, like the whispering of a silk dress, in the passageway beyond the closed door.
On a bold impulse, she sprang to the door, candle in hand, and opened it to confront her stepmother, cloaked and carrying a pair of walking shoes which were damp with dew, passing to her bedroom a few doors beyond that of the sick man.
“Why, Mamma!” said Lydia in surprise, gently pulling the sickroom door to behind her, lest she disturb the sleepers within, “Whatever is the matter? What keeps you abroad so late?”
“I cannot see,” said Evelyn, with some asperity, “what concern my movements can possibly have for you.”
“None at all, Mamma, only you surprised me so. I had been sure you had retired to bed hours ago.”
“If an explanation will give you any satisfaction, then perhaps I should beg to inform you that I found myself stuffy and unable to sleep, so I took a couple of turns on the terrace (for so she designated the broad gravel walk behind the house) in the hopes that a breath of fresh air would refresh and tire me. Finding that it has had the desired effect, I wish you would allow me to retire. And I might remark, young lady, that in my younger days, it was not thought proper for a young person to question the comings and goings of her elders.”
“Of course Mamma, I did not mean to be impertinent. I bid you goodnight.”
Evelyn passed into her bedroom, and Lydia went to wake the nurse, it being close upon three o clock, and time for Mr Trent's medicine.
Chapter the 6th
In the distress of Mr Trent's illness, Adeline's alarm had been all but forgotten. The subject was renewed, however, by a report from one of the stable boys that his brother, who was ostler at the Crown, the village's principal – indeed, only – inn, had reported seeing “a foreign-talking gent – not so rough-looking as 'im who was so rough to our dear young leddy”, but, excepting his apparel, answering fairly to Lydia's description, using the coffee-room at the inn, though by all accounts he was not and had not been staying there. It was thought best not to apprise Adeline of this worrying rumour – other concerns had wiped all trace of that one moment of horror from her daily thoughts, but Lydia did bethink herself to warn one of the housemaids, Bessie, who had been absent from the house at the time due to illness in her family.
“Stop a moment, Bessie, I want to talk to you.” said Lydia, the next time she saw the girl about her work.
“Yes, Miss?”
“I merely wished to ask you to keep your eyes open for any stranger hanging about the gates, as Miss Adeline was troubled by a strange man while you were absent. Pray take care when you are out and about, as we have reason to believe he is still in the neighbourhood.”
“A stranger you say, Miss? Well, to be sure, I do believe as I've seen more than one of that sort about here lately, and whats more I seed the Mistress a-talking to 'em.”
“Why Bessie, whatever can you mean? How could you have seen Mrs Trent talking to strangers?”
“Well Miss, it's lik
e this. The fust time was mebbe a month or so back – you recall I have my evening out once a month, and last month I went into the village to 'ave tea with my sister what is lately married. Anyway tea led to dancing, and dancing led to supper, and supper led to talking and telling stories, til before I knew it twas arter one in the morning and there was me expected back afore eleven. Well as soon as I seed what time it was, I bid my friends goodnight and set off walking as fast as my legs could carry me. When I got to the quietish bit of road just beyond the oak at the turning of the lane, I swear I seed the Mistress standing talking to some ill-looking fellow just before the gate, only off to one side a bit. I didn't have time to hang about, so I cut in through the side gate where I was fortunate as Maisy the scullery maid was still awake to let me in – you know she's been waiting up o nights since the Master was took bad, in case he should want anything, though she's half-asleep on her feet most of the time in consequence.”
“I did not know that Maisy waited up – I must make sure the poor girl gets some rest, for her work is hard enough without her keeping awake half the night. But tell me, are you sure you recognised Mrs Trent? And what of the man?”
“Well I didn't see her face, like, as she was cloaked and hooded, but I'd swear to it being the mistress's dark blue cloak, and her very way of standing and walking. As to the man, it were moonlight so I got a fair enough look at him. He were dark-skinned, with a beard, and sort of deperate-looking, if you call to mind what I mean. What the mistress could possibly have to say to the likes of him I don't pretend to understand. They was talking too low for me to hear, but they both seemed agitated, like.”
“If you say you did not see her face, then it is possible you may have been mistaken – however bright the moonlight, it was still night, and things do look very different by night. But stop, you say you have seen my stepmother out more than once?”
“Yes – the other time was a week or two since. I'd been on an errand or two in the village, to fetch a trifle of ribbon or some such for Estelle (Mrs Trent's French ladies-maid) and a few bits and bobs for Cook, and I took a shortcut through that bit of copse. To be sure I wouldn't go such a lonely way of a night, but it was broad daylight so I thought it no harm. Anyway, this time I seed her a-walking and talking to a different man. This one was sort of cockney-looking, with a purple neckerchief and a swagger, like those folks at the races or the fair who tries to ape the gentry. He had black hair and a scar on his face – a broken nose too, if I'm any judge, for I have a brother as used to be a boxer, and has just such a nose. Anyway, this time I heard them too. 'Something must be done,' she said, 'You will not fail me?'
“Then he says, 'not if the money's all square – whisht, there's someone coming' – that were me, like, and the pair of them whisks off behind the trees.”
“Are you sure it was my stepmother? Could you not be mistaken?”
“Well again I didn't see her face, her being cloaked as before, and having her back to me all the while, but I seed a corner of her hair as she was walking – there's none other hereabouts as have that dark reddish-like hair, and I'd swear to her voice at the assizes, if I were hung for it, so I would.”
“I do not disbelieve what you though you saw, Bessie, but I find it hard to reconcile what I know of my stepmother's tastes and habits with her creeping around talking to strangers. On neither occasion did you see her face, so it is possible you were mistaken. In any event, I am sure you see the importance of not mentioning this to anyone else – whether true or not such a rumour could do much harm to my stepmother's reputation. Remember she is Miss Adeline's mother.”
Bessie was fiercely indignant at the imputation that she might be, in kitchen parlance, a 'tattle tale'.
“Of course Miss – I would not dream of saying a word that could harm the poor young lady, angel as she is. Whatever my feelings for my mistress, I wish I could call down all the blessings of heaven on my poor master and you two young ladies.”
“Thank-you Bessie. Your loyalty is greatly appreciated by us all. You may go about your work now.”
Though Lydia was somewhat troubled and very much mystified by this account, she settled the matter by setting it all down as a case of mistaken identities.
“After all,” she said to herself, “Whatever would take Mamma out into the woods, or creeping around in the dead of night, let alone having secret interviews with ruffians? The idea is laughable.”
She briefly bethought herself of the occasion when she had indeed found her stepmother 'creeping around in the dead of night', but quickly dismissed the recollection with a shrug, and went in search of her faithful scullery-maid.
This youthful person, Millicent Stubbs by name, known to all as 'Maisy', was a girl of fourteen years of age, though she looked about twelve, and made one of a family of numerous children, for whose wants a mother who took in washing and sewing, and went charing and nursing at all hours, and a father who was unable to work due to an unfortunate accident several years ago, could barely provide. As soon as her brothers and sisters were old enough to contribute to the family's inadequate income, off they went to work. Maisy spent not a penny of her small wages on herself, her quarterly stipend going instead to bring comfort to the babes still at home. Lydia found the dutiful girl wearily engaged in scrubbing a floor.
“Leave that for the time being, Maisy dear.” she said gently. “Come and sit down for a moment while I speak to you.” and she pulled forward a chair invitingly.
Maisy gratefully took the chair, and looked expectantly at her young mistress. Lydia was grieved to see the great dark circles around those still-childish eyes, and the weary droop of those small limbs.
“Maisy, I have been greatly troubled to find you have been endangering your health and well-being by sitting up half the night, in hope of being of some service to your master. Dear girl, it is not in the least necessary, for Nurse and I are in constant attendance, and can provide anything needful.
“At your age, a time when you are still growing and laying up health for the future, such habitual exhaustion could do great damage.”
Lydia found the young woman most obstinate upon this point.
“For you see, what if you needed something from the kitchen? you might not be able to lay your hand upon the precise thing, while I know where everything is kept and you wouldn't need to disturb Cook. Or if you needed someone to run for the doctor? If you woke one of the men, it would take him some minutes to get dressed and ready to go, while I can run fast – I won races in the village when I were younger, and I'm already dressed and at hand, as it were, to set off without loss of time. I heard that sometimes a delay of a minute can mean the difference between life and...” here she broke off, with an unwillingness to shape even the very word of what all in that house feared and expected daily, as if to name the thing were to bring it sooner.
Finding herself unable to shake the girl's resolution, she merely kissed her and decreed that in that case she must have two hours in each afternoon, in which to rest and recruit her strength, and excused her from morning service on Sundays, that she might sleep a little longer,
“for you can still go to afternoon service, and health of body is paramount if you are to do God's work here on Earth.”
She also ordered that the kitchen fire was left to burn instead of being banked by Cook when that formidable person retired – Maisy would do that herself, and Lydia or Nurse would check that it had been done correctly when they collected the master's beef tea (this last in answer to Cook's stolid declaration that they'd all be burnt in their beds).
And so the number of watchers was increased to four. Lydia and Nurse, counting the dreary hours in the sickroom by doses of medicine and draughts of port-wine and beef tea, though these days it was as much as the combined efforts of the two could do to coax the sick man to swallow more than a spoonful of either strengthening beverage. Adeline, ostensibly asleep in her bed, in reality softly pacing her room in the darkness, unable to sleep, her face wan an
d miserable in the moonlight. And Maisy, nodding over some piece of plain sewing by the kitchen fire, but jerking into life and attention at the faintest sound.
If patient watching could have availed anything, if devoted nursing and daily visits from the doctors would have done aught, then William Trent would be a living man. But doctors' remedy after doctors' remedy had failed, and all the baffled physicians could hope for now was to keep the poor sufferer comfortable in his last Earthly days. He slept almost constantly now, but late one night Lydia was disturbed by her father calling her.
Lydia Trent Page 3