The Headstrong Ward

by Jane Ashford

  Minutes later, they made it to the Lyra. Crewmen reached down to help them climb to safety. John vaulted over the rail and turned to look back at the Alceste. The ship that had carried them from England to the ports of China, and part way back again, was going down. Most of his possessions, including gifts he’d purchased for people back home, were going with it. Waves washed over the foredeck. Spars and coils of rope floated free. The prow went under. The hull tipped and seemed to hesitate, then slipped beneath the surging sea. It seemed fitting to bow his head briefly, as if saying farewell to a friend.

  “Well, I had to see to it that we got everyone off, sir,” said a voice behind him. “Couldn’t leave anyone behind.”

  John turned and discovered Fordyce, speaking to Lord Amherst.

  “One has to do one’s duty whatever the risk,” added his fellow clerk.

  Lord Amherst nodded, eyes on the spot where the Alceste had disappeared. John stared at Fordyce, amazed at the man’s effrontery. Surely someone had seen him, rushing to the dinghies ahead of everyone else?

  As if sensing his gaze, Fordyce’s pale blue eyes flicked at John, then away. “I suppose it’s just bred in the bone, sir,” he said to Lord Amherst. “Family tradition and all that.”

  John didn’t hear what Amherst murmured in response. He was distracted by the captain of the Lyra, ordering his helmsman to steer well away from the hidden shoals.

  ***

  The small Somerset manor house lazed under the June sun, its red brick mellow with age, its bow windows and ruddy chimney pots aglow. Bees hummed in the garden, where summer blooms perfumed the air. Foliage hung heavy in the small park; lawns glowed green.

  But in a pleasant parlor at the back of the house, Mary Fleming Bexley felt far from peaceful. Though she had asked her mother to come, indeed insisted that she must, the visit was not going well. “I’ve been living with Aunt Lavinia for eighteen months, Mama,” she said. “I know what she…”

  “Well, we had to put you somewhere,” said her mother indulgently. “Married a month, and then your husband goes haring off to China.” She said it as if the mission that had taken John away was Mary’s fault somehow.

  What would she have answered, Mary wondered, if John had said, “Will you marry me and then go live with your great-aunt for months and months while I sail off on an important diplomatic journey to China?” Her reply might have been a bit more complicated than “yes.” She’d had less than a month as a wife, actually, and then he was gone to the other side of the world and she was packed off to Somerset.

  Packed off; there was the crux of it. It seemed she was always being packed off in one way or another. As if she was a misaddressed parcel or a stray shawl left behind at the end of a house party. “I’m twenty-four years old,” she began. “A married woman…”

  “At last,” interrupted her mother. “Thanks to me. Well, and Mrs. Bexley, of course.”

  Of course, thought Mary. Their families had come up with the match and pushed for it in a united front. Mary understood now, as she hadn’t then, that the Flemings and the Bexleys saw their offspring as two of a kind. She, the least promising of five sisters, short on common sense. John, overshadowed by his three brothers’ loud accomplishments, stuck in a junior position at the Foreign Office. Mary had actually overheard her mother and John’s discussing their similar shortcomings, not long after he’d departed on his voyage. That had been when they were deciding what to “do” with her. She and John had been hustled into marriage like backward children being sent off to school. Why had she let that happen? “Aunt Lavinia is not herself,” she tried.

  “Really? Who is she then?” Her mother laughed. “Do you remember how your father used to compare her to a frigate under full sail—‘prow jutting well out, a nose fit for cleaving waves.’ I had to scold him so. I was afraid one of you children would repeat it.”

  Mary did remember. Her four sisters had feared Lavinia when she visited, sweeping in like a scudding ship, shedding pronouncements and odd gifts and errant barks of laughter. Mary alone had been fascinated, trailing in the older woman’s wake like an inquisitive seabird. But sadly, this was not the Great-Aunt Lavinia she’d found when she arrived to stay here. “She’s older,” Mary said. “And…confused.” Worse than confused—uncharacteristically anxious, a shell of her former, formidable self.

  Her mother frowned. “Confused about what? She seemed fine to me. A bit tired, perhaps, but as you say, she’s nearly eighty. I’m sure her nap will restore her.”

  Aunt Lavinia had been having a good day. Mary could not regret this, though it did make it harder to convince her mother.

  “Really, Mary, don’t you think you’re the one who’s confused? You call me here at a moment’s notice, saying I must come, and I still have no idea why. I’m quite busy at home, you know.”

  Her mother was always busy. She descended like a striking hawk whenever the least disorder threatened. Mary searched for the right words. But in the face of Mama’s all-too-familiar impatience, she couldn’t find them. “Let me show you something.” Her hand trembled slightly as she reached for her sketch pad.

  “Oh, Mary.” Her mother sighed and shook her head. “I don’t have the time to look at drawings. Please tell me you did not drag me thirty miles over bumpy roads to show me a book of sketches. It’s all very well for a child to be slow and dreamy and lose herself in fancies, but…” She rubbed her forehead.

  Mary felt an old despair. She couldn’t stop drawing, any more than she could stop eating. Her mother would never understand this; she’d given up arguing with her about it years ago. She started to put the sketchbook away. But no. Then her mother would leave without agreeing to her plan. And what would become of Great-Aunt Lavinia when Mary left this house? John had to come home sometime. “Please, Mama, if you would just look.”

  Her mother’s tone grew sharper. “Mary, as you have pointed out, you are grown up. You must stop wasting time on such stuff and settle down to more useful pursuits.”

  Part of her wanted to wilt and slink away, hide the drawings, hide herself, as she had so often done back home. Then, from somewhere, rose a determination that would not be denied. Mary had learned something important in these last chaotic months. In fact, her enforced sojourn in Somerset had brought her a revelation. She’d finally understood that in order to truly understand a situation, she had to draw the people involved. Drawing was her key to understanding the world. Only then did she see the truth of things. Only then could she figure out what to do and find the proper words to communicate it.

  She’d known that her drawings captured emotion as well as appearances, through contrast perhaps, or juxtaposition. She couldn’t explain how it happened. Sometimes, she had a hint about the feelings already. Other times, she had no idea until the drawing was done. For some reason, she learned subtle things with her hands, as they moved. Not through books, or lectures. No matter how hard she tried, words slipped out of her mind, while shapes and shadows illuminated it. Her mother, her sisters, could look and grasp and comprehend words all in a moment. They could remember all they read with ease. Her sisters found her inability to do so hilarious. Her mother just found it irritating. She looked vastly irritated now. But though Mary trembled under that well-known glare, she had to take the leap. “No, you must look.”

  Before her mother could object again, Mary flipped open the sketchbook and put two drawings side by side before her.

  The first was a watercolor portrait of a middle-aged woman. The face gazed out at the viewer with calm authority. Determination edging toward stubbornness showed in the lines bracketing her lips; pride and imagination in the fashionable cut of her gray curls. Mary had caught a subtle twinkle in the blue eyes, a persistent curiosity in the tilt of the head. More than the sum of its parts, the painting conveyed the essence of a strong personality.

  The second portrait showed the same woman, and yet not the same
. In this one, the sharp eyes had blurred; though painted, they seemed to shift with uncertainty under the viewer’s gaze. This woman’s mouth looked ready to quiver with uncertainty. The skin sagged not just with greater age, but with an uncomprehending anxiety as well. Around this face, the well-kept gray hair and modish lace cap seemed incongruous.

  Mary looked from one image to the other, her heart aching for her great-aunt.

  “Yes, very well,” said her mother. “You’ve drawn Aunt Lavinia. What do you wish me to say? That it is a good likeness?”

  “Can you really look, Mama? Please? Try?”

  The pleading in her voice seemed to reach her mother at last. She considered the pages again. Her stare went from one portrait to the other. Back again. Gradually, she began to frown.

  And Mary felt freed to speak. “She’s very forgetful, even of familiar people’s names or her own history. The servants were at their wits’ end when I arrived.” It had been daunting, to be tossed into a floundering household, suddenly surrounded by people looking to her for leadership. She’d had to fumble her way to the idea that she could take charge, if she did it in her own way. “I believe we must find her a companion. Someone who is more than a housekeeper, though she will have to manage the household, too. Someone…patient and kind. We should pay quite well, I think, well enough to attract just the right sort of person.” She would fight for this plan, Mary thought. Great-Aunt Lavinia deserved the best.

  “We?” said her mother.

  “Well, it would come out of Aunt’s income, naturally. But as she is not really capable of approving the expenditure, I thought I should speak to you. As her only close relation.”

  Her mother was looking at her oddly. “You have considered this.”

  Now that Mary had begun, the words poured out. “I drafted an advertisement that sets forth just what we need.” She took the folded paper from the pocket of her gown. “The butler here says there is an agency in London that provides ladies’ companions. We must be very clear that we require someone…special.” Mary unfolded the page and extended it. She was pleased to see that it did not shake in her hand.

  Her mother took it and read. “Well expressed,” she commented, sounding surprised.

  “I thought, if you agreed, we could send it right off.”

  “Perhaps I should talk to Aunt Lavinia before…” Her mother paused, looked down at the portraits again. “No. That is, I shall talk to her. But I daresay you are right. You may put it in the mail.” She looked up. “Or…what do you intend to do with the replies?”

  “I…I thought I would invite the best candidates here for a visit.” Mary faltered a bit under her parent’s close examination. “Unless you would prefer to interview…?”

  Her mother cocked her head. “You would have to pay their coach fares.”

  Mary nodded.

  “They must be asked about their previous positions and show a complete set of references.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Do you really think you can find the proper person?” Years of doubt tinged her tone.

  Mary sat straighter and met her skeptical gaze. “I do.”

  The pause that followed went on longer than Mary would have liked, but at last her mother said, “Very well. I shall let you try.”

  “Th-thank you, Mama,” Mary replied, her spirit swelling with triumph.

  “I’ll give you a list of important questions,” her mother added sharply. “And I shall expect a full report on each possibility before the final decision is made.”

  Mary nodded, her elation a little dimmed. How odd that this success made her feel more lonely, rather than less so.

  ***

  John Bexley strode down the gangplank onto the Southampton dock and paused to look over the busy port town. For the first time since he’d left English shores in February 1816, everything felt familiar—the shape of the buildings, the faces and dress of the people, the sounds and scents and voices. And yet, they also felt strangely changed. His twenty-month journey to the other side of the world had reduced England to just one corner of a vast globe. A noble corner, without a doubt, a corner with a proud history and admirable ideals, but still just a smallish island among continents. And so his home looked not only natural and welcoming, but also a bit…constricted.

  Speaking of constricted, John wiggled his shoulders, trying to get more comfortable in a coat that no longer fit. He’d gained more muscle than his clothes could accommodate. The binding cloth contributed to the mixed emotions of this moment. He’d outgrown his raiment. What about his old routines, or the wife he’d left behind?

  John looked at the English faces on the docks around him, pale even under the August sun. For almost two years, he and Mary had led separate lives—his active and public, hers domestic and small. So many things had happened to him that she would never comprehend. And a thousand domestic details that newly married persons usually shared had gone by on opposite sides of the world.

  Worse, John wondered now whether he’d done the right thing, giving in to his family’s plan for him. The young man he’d been before this voyage had let them urge him into a lifetime bond without really thinking. If the foreign secretary’s letter about the China mission had come a few weeks sooner, would he have offered for Mary? The answer was too uncomfortable to contemplate.

  John looked around out over the town. His world of two years ago seemed like a dream to him now, pale and insubstantial, the people distant shadows. Swept away on a grand journey, he’d found inner continents as surprising as the discoveries of ancient explorers. The impulses that had risen in him and answered the challenge of storm-wracked seas still burned—more vibrant perceptions, fiercer ambition, a determination to make his mark.

  But a suitable wife—one with important connections and social skills—was practically required for advancing through the ranks of the Foreign Office.

  A bale of silks rose from the ship’s hold, pulley creaking as the navvies hauled on the rope. The heavy cargo swung out over the dock and plunged down just as a street urchin emerged from between two stacks of crates. John took three steps, snatched the boy from its path. and pulled him well out of the way. “Careful there,” he said.

  Pale and wide-eyed, the grimy child nodded his thanks and scampered away.

  The planks of the dock vibrated as the bale thumped to the boards. A brawny dockworker rounded the corner of a warehouse and hefted it; no easy task, John knew. He should head into town, find transport, and begin the last sixty miles of his journey. To Mary. But his tumbled thoughts kept him standing near the ship.

  He remembered his first sight of her at the Bath Assembly. Neither of them came from the sort of grand families who went to London for the Season; Bath was the center of their social world. She’d stood with her mother by the wall—a small, delicate girl with chestnut brown hair and huge dark eyes; a full lower lip that seemed made for kissing; pretty little hands. She’d looked as sweet and timid as a sparrow. In that moment—which now seemed long ages ago—his family’s mandate that she was the wife for him had seemed no burden at all. He’d walked over, been presented. Mary had smiled at him…

  After that, events were a bit of a blur. They’d danced, walked the streets of Bath together, taken teas and dinners at their families’ tables. He had offered for her; that moment had been between the two of them. At the time, it hadn’t seemed as if he had a choice. But once the words were spoken, and she had accepted, their mothers had swooped in and taken over. He didn’t remember being consulted about a single item after that. He was simply told things. Mary’s father had lectured him about how the combination of their two inherited incomes would allow them to live very comfortably, as if he couldn’t work that out for himself. His brothers had teased him relentlessly, as usual. He’d overheard his parents agreeing that this was a good enough match—for him, for Mary—and for some reason, incomprehensible to
him now, he’d made no remark.

  There’d been a whirl of a wedding and a seaside week in Weston-super-Mare, with dolorous rain and intimacies that had been clumsier than he’d have liked. Then the Foreign Office summons had arrived to take over his thoughts and change his life.

  John sighed. His life, not Mary’s. What would a little sparrow like Mary think of the intricacies of Foreign Office etiquette? What would she think of him now that he’d…come alive. He took a deep breath of the seaside air. That’s how it felt—as if he’d been half asleep for years and finally woken. Now, he intended to plunge into the drive for advantage and jostling rivalries he’d generally ignored in his three years on the job. Work was going to occupy much of his time. Where did Mary fit in all this?

  John loosened his shoulders, chafing at the tightness of his coat once again. Done was done. Mary was his wife. She would have to fit. She was young, unformed, eager to please. Though she didn’t have the family connections that were so useful in government work, she was a taking little thing. She’d welcome his guidance. Indeed, she would probably be awed by his new sophistication. That was a curiously attractive notion.

  John fell into a pleasant reverie. In the long months at sea, men had talked, and inevitably one of their topics had been women. John had heard a lot of nonsense and endured a load of empty boasting. But some of it had been eye-opening, and when one winnowed through the sources, considered the characters of the speakers, quite intriguing. He looked forward to trying out some of the…

  “Ah, here he is!”

  John stiffened at the sound of that affected voice. He’d thought he was the last passenger off the ship.

  “Bexley can deal with the trunks,” the voice drawled on. “It’s just the sort of thing he’s good at.”

  John turned to face the two men stepping off the Lyra’s gangplank. Beside Lord Amherst’s admirable, capable private secretary sauntered the recent bane of John’s existence, The Honorable Edmund Fordyce.