by Alys Clare
Cyrille had turned to glare at her. ‘Are you experienced in nursing the sick and the dying?’ she demanded rudely. Helewise heard Josse give an indignant snort, but, to her relief, he didn’t speak. ‘It’s a particular talent, you know, to make a patient feel reassured and at their ease. Only a very few of us possess it,’ she added self-importantly; in her own eyes she was clearly one of the foremost in this select group.
Isabelle had heard enough. ‘Our guest is not sick, neither is he elderly, and I sincerely hope and pray that he isn’t dying,’ she said with asperity. ‘Now, if you will all excuse us, Helewise and I will be about our duties. Come, Helewise.’
With a quick glance at Josse – who, she observed, still seemed to be fuming at anyone having the temerity to question her nursing skills – Helewise followed Isabelle out of the hall.
‘Thank you for that,’ Isabelle said. ‘Will you really help me?’
‘Of course. I know you didn’t actually ask me, so I apologize for having involved you in an untruth, but I could see that you didn’t welcome Cyrille’s offer.’
‘Really? That was observant,’ Isabelle said.
Again, Helewise suppressed a smile. Isabelle, she reflected, couldn’t have made her antipathy plainer had she stood up on the table, stamped both feet and shouted.
Quietly, Isabelle opened the door to the room where the injured man lay. A grey-haired servant in a white headdress and plain dark gown was seated on a stool beside the bed, and, seeing her mistress, she stood up and came over to the doorway. ‘He’s been sleeping, my lady,’ she said softly. ‘Restlessly, at times, and moaning. His injuries pain him, I’ll warrant.’
‘No doubt,’ Isabelle agreed. ‘Thank you, Agnes – you are relieved.’
With a bob of a curtsey, the servant disappeared along the passage. Helewise and Isabelle, moving to opposite sides of the bed, stared down at the man in their care.
‘The fall hasn’t improved his good looks,’ Isabelle remarked after a while.
‘No, indeed,’ Helewise agreed. This morning, the lump on his forehead was even bigger, and the broken nose was grossly swollen and purple with bruising. Peter had two black eyes, and the puffed-up lids were shiny, bright scarlet. He was bare-chested, and the white linen bandage supporting the dislocated shoulder looked pale against his skin.
Perhaps sensing their close scrutiny, Peter tried to open his eyes. ‘Ouch,’ he murmured. ‘What’s happened to my face?’ He put up an exploratory hand; his left one. He gave a cry of pain.
Gently Helewise took hold of his wrist, laying the hand back against his bandaged chest. ‘Best not to move that arm,’ she advised. ‘You injured your shoulder when you fell, and you need to rest it while it heals.’
Peter gave a brief nod of understanding. ‘And my face?’ he repeated, now investigating with his right hand. ‘Dear Jesus,’ he cried in panic as his fingers found the grotesquely enlarged nose, ‘what’s happened to me?’
‘Hush, now,’ Helewise said soothingly. ‘You appear to have fallen on your face and left shoulder, and your face took much of the impact. Your nose is broken, and you have a bump on your forehead.’
He peered up at her, trying to see through the slits between his eyelids. ‘Will I mend?’
‘You’ll mend. Now, rest, lie back, and Lady Isabelle and I will look after you.’
He turned his head to look at Isabelle. ‘Where is this place?’ he asked. He had, it seemed, forgotten asking the same question the previous night.
‘Southfire Hall,’ Isabelle said, exchanging a glance with Helewise. ‘We told you—’
‘You told me last night; yes, of course, so you did,’ Peter said. ‘I had forgotten. Is this place near Lewes?’ He opened his eyes more widely, staring innocently up at Isabelle.
‘Nearby, yes,’ she replied. ‘The road descends from the downland a short distance further on, and Lewes lies in the valley.’
‘I fell,’ Peter said, sounding amazed. ‘Yes, it’s coming back to me now. My horse’s feet slid from under him, and – my horse!’ He tried to sit up, but slumped back with a moan.
It was Isabelle’s turn to soothe him. ‘Your horse is being well cared for,’ she said calmly. ‘My head groom is very experienced, and he told me this morning that your horse has suffered no serious damage. Bruising and some cuts, but rest in a warm stable under my groom’s care will soon put him right.’
‘It seems,’ Peter said, ‘that I have much to thank you for.’
Isabelle inclined her head in acknowledgement.
Helewise, watching, was struck by the odd thought that, for some reason, Peter resented having to be grateful. She told herself not to be silly.
The cold, overcast day slowly passed. For long spells, Isabelle left Helewise alone with the injured man, and Helewise, admitting guiltily to herself that it was a relief to have a worthy reason to absent herself from the bustle of family life, sat contentedly watching over him. It was warm in the little room; the grey-haired servant returned from time to time to mend the fire in the small hearth, and brought food for Helewise. The patient needed little attention, sleeping for much of the day. Once or twice Helewise offered food, but he declined, although she persuaded him to drink some water. Periodically she put a hand on his forehead, testing for fever, and, whenever he stirred, she would speak to him to make sure he remembered who and where he was. If he had suffered concussion last night, then it was possible he might descend into that frightening, mind-wandering state which usually implied some injury within the skull.
As she sat there beside him, Helewise prayed that that would not happen.
Some time in the afternoon, Isabelle’s daughter Jenna came to keep Helewise company. Tall and strongly built though she was, she moved with quiet grace, and Peter did not wake as she pulled up a stool and sat down beside Helewise. ‘How is he?’ she asked softly.
‘Sleeping more peacefully now. The pain is subsiding, perhaps.’
Jenna nodded. There was a brief but not uncomfortable pause, then she said, ‘It was good of you to come to my mother’s rescue this morning. She finds Cyrille trying, and it would have been hard for her if she’d had to accept her help.’
‘Yes, I saw as much,’ Helewise replied. She wanted to find out more about Isabelle’s antipathy towards Cyrille, but hesitated to ask what might be seen as intrusive questions. ‘I’m sure Cyrille meant well, and was thinking only of the well-being of the wounded man,’ she said mildly.
Jenna’s response was surprising. ‘That is a generous remark but, if I may say so, one that only a stranger to this household would make.’ She paused. Helewise was about to prompt her, but then, as if she had tried but found she couldn’t keep her emotions to herself, Jenna said in a furious hiss, ‘Cyrille de Picus very rarely means well, and the only person whose well-being concerns her is herself.’
‘Oh. I see,’ Helewise murmured.
‘My lady, I very much doubt that you do,’ Jenna flashed back. ‘Oh, she dresses it up very prettily, always pretending that she acts only for the good of others, but she’s a mean-spirited, cold-hearted woman with an extremely high opinion of herself that she believes everyone else should share, she is a know-all who thinks she is always right about absolutely everything and an expert in so many skills it’d make your head spin, and nobody in this house is safe from her intense scrutiny and her rigid judgement.’
The echo of her angry words died away. Helewise said, ‘You don’t seem to like her much.’ Jenna spun round to glare at her, saw the smile hovering on her lips, and, to Helewise’s relief – for the remark had slipped out – first grinned and then began to laugh.
Quickly, glancing at the sleeping man, she stopped. ‘I’m sorry, Lady Helewise,’ she said. ‘It is no concern of yours if we suffer difficulties with her, and wrong of me to involve you.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Helewise said. She waited, hoping very much that, having begun to open her heart, Jenna would go on.
She did. ‘It’s her pernickety, fuss
y ways that really annoy me,’ she said. ‘She never stops picking on the three little girls – my Cecily, and my cousin’s two, Brigida and Philippa. Oh, I know they can be a handful, and very often they do indeed need correction and sometimes punishment, but, for one thing, it’s been a long, hard winter, and they’re full of high spirits and sick of being cooped up indoors. For another – and this is my main argument with Cyrille – it’s not up to her to discipline them. She makes the children ten times worse, following them around, spying on them, as if she’s just waiting for one of them to misbehave. And, since those naughty children know quite well what she’s up to and that the rest of us don’t approve, sooner or later one of them – usually my Cecily, I’m afraid – provokes Cyrille by some act of mischief performed right under her nose.’
‘What sort of—’ Helewise began, but Jenna, well into her stride, needed no prompting.
‘She’s always telling them to be careful they don’t dirty their gowns, or to make quite sure they don’t kick the wall when they take their boots off, and she looms over them when they’re eating as if she’s just waiting for food to be spilt or a mug to be dropped,’ she said, her voice tight with anger. ‘In truth, the matters with which she concerns herself are so petty that anybody else would ignore them. Oh, but not Cyrille, for she watches, she remembers and she insists the girls must be brought to account and made to answer her accusations. Very often, of course, the children deny them, and then Cyrille says they’re lying.’ Jenna paused. ‘She has the habit of creeping around when nobody’s about, checking whether the house is neat and tidy, as if the responsibility is hers.’ Again, she hesitated, brows drawn down in a frown. ‘It’s not so much what she does,’ she said eventually, ‘since, in fairness, most people prefer a well-run, clean household to the alternative. It’s the way she does it, as if it’s all such a trial and she’s being heroic to take on such a grave responsibility.’
‘Perhaps,’ Helewise suggested, ‘she hasn’t got enough to do?’
Jenna snorted. ‘That’s true, my lady, for my mother runs the house with great efficiency. We all have our duties, and the servants are well trained and long practised in their daily routine. Cyrille has precious little to occupy her but her needlework and her devotions. She is very devout, and an example to us all,’ she added, as if, aware that her remarks had been uncharitable, she had hurriedly cast around for something complimentary to say. She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, and muttered something that Helewise didn’t catch: it sounded like The house doesn’t like her, but it must surely have been The household doesn’t like her …
Helewise thought for a moment. ‘Why do you think she acts in this way?’
‘Because she believes she’s the most important person in the house,’ Jenna replied. ‘She’s Herbert’s wife, and he’ll inherit from my grandfather Hugh when Hugh dies, and already she sees herself as the lady of the manor. God alone knows what she’ll be like when she really is,’ she added with grim intensity.
‘Does she perhaps feel insecure?’ Helewise wondered aloud. ‘Anxious, perhaps, in case she may not be up to the role when the time comes?’
‘Huh!’ The abrupt sound eloquently expressed what Jenna thought of that. ‘Feelings of insecurity and anxiety are utterly foreign to her, my lady.’
Silence fell, but Helewise felt the aftermath of Jenna’s furious remarks still rebounding in the close-shuttered room. ‘I am sorry for you all,’ she said eventually. ‘I cannot see a solution, unless perhaps your brother might be persuaded to speak to her, and suggest to her that she moderates her behaviour a little.’
‘Herbert loves her, and I will not ask that of him,’ Jenna said firmly. ‘He lost his first wife, and has been lonely without her. Somehow he has succeeded in finding happiness with Cyrille, and I for one am reluctant to spoil it for him.’ She got to her feet, slowly, as if the movement cost her great effort. Then, looking Helewise in the eye, she said, ‘It is our problem, and we will have to find our own answers. I apologize once more for my outburst. It won’t happen again.’ Then, with a curt nod, she let herself out of the room and quietly closed the door.
Helewise’s next visitor was Josse. He perched himself on the stool Jenna had vacated and, holding both her hands, said, ‘You have done Isabelle a good turn by sitting with our patient here, for she has been busy all day and would have been hard put to find the time to care for him herself, as, indeed, would the other women.’
‘It has hardly been arduous!’ she replied. ‘I’ve really rather enjoyed it.’
‘How is he? Has he been rambling?’
‘No, he’s been quiet. I think we can soon conclude he has suffered no worse injury than those we already know about.’
‘Thank God,’ Josse breathed.
‘Amen. Now, tell me about your day – what have you been doing?’
‘I spent quite a long time with Uncle Hugh this morning, but he didn’t make a lot of sense.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘He’s distressed about something,’ Josse went on, his brow furrowed, ‘and I had the feeling he was looking round for someone he expected to see.’
‘You, perhaps?’
Josse smiled. ‘No, sweeting. I don’t think he knew I was there most of the time, although he did once say with perfect clarity, “We’ll have a game of chess, young Josse, as soon as I think I’m up to beating you like I always do.”’
‘What else did you get up to?’ Leaning closer to him, she added in a whisper, ‘Did you have some nice, cosy chats with the lovely Cyrille?’
He laughed, swiftly suppressing it. ‘No, I’ve managed to avoid her for much of the time, although she did corner me in the solar this afternoon, when the sun shone briefly and we all scurried in there to enjoy it.’
‘What did she say?’
He shook his head, as if in disbelief. ‘You’d hardly credit it, but she said I must go with her and sit with Editha – and this was in Editha’s hearing, mind – because Editha was ailing and had to spend too much time resting while everyone else was out and about, and it was up to us – by which Cyrille clearly meant it was up to her – to tend to Editha and organize constant company and entertainment for her.’
‘Wasn’t that kind and considerate?’
Again, Josse frowned in puzzlement. ‘It ought to have been, aye,’ he agreed, ‘and had anyone else done it – you, or Isabelle – that’s just what it would have been.’ The frown deepened as he went on thinking it out. ‘It was the way she did it,’ he said finally. ‘Clearly, Cousin Editha is frail, and, from what I observed and was told, she’s forced to spend far too much time in Cyrille’s company, as Cyrille keeps insisting she’s the only one who can look after her properly. Why, I heard her myself! She said to Editha, not even bothering to lower her voice – perhaps she thinks she’s deaf as well as frail – “I know what older, weaker people need, the poor, dear souls, and it is my duty to take care of you.”’ He grinned suddenly. ‘I had the impression that Editha had to fight the urge to get up and thump her.’
He had forgotten the need to speak softly. The man in the bed stirred, opened his swollen eyes – both they and his nose looked even worse this evening – and said, ‘I think I’m hungry.’
Josse insisted on taking Helewise off for a short break while the grey-haired woman and another servant brought a light meal for Peter Southey and helped him eat it, and after that, Isabelle said she would stay with him for an hour or so. Later, however, once Helewise and Josse had eaten with the family, she crept back to the patient over whom she had sat all day.
‘He’s just gone to sleep again,’ Isabelle whispered as she went into the room, finger to her lips in warning.
‘Good,’ Helewise whispered back. ‘He ate a little?’
‘Quite a lot,’ Isabelle said with a smile. ‘It’ll be a few days yet before he’s up and about, but I think he’s out of danger.’
‘I am happy to hear it.’
The two women sat quietly
for some time. Helewise felt a sense of calm descend. Presently Isabelle said, ‘Do you mind if I leave you? I have a dozen things to do before bed.’
‘Not at all.’
‘I’ll send one of the servants along later,’ Isabelle said as she got up, ‘although I’m not sure he really needs watching tonight.’
Helewise heard her footsteps fade away along the passage. All was very quiet. Time passed. In the pleasant warmth, comfortably full after a tasty supper, Helewise felt her eyes begin to close …
She was back in her dream. The small blond-haired boy was back, opening a door into a room that looked remarkably similar to the one in which Helewise sat. Seeing her, he smiled and came shyly to stand beside her. Did you find any monsters? he whispered.
Not one, she whispered back.
The boy stood on tiptoe to peer down at the man in the bed. In a strange fusion of dream and reality, Helewise became aware that, although she had undoubtedly fallen asleep, now she was awake.
And there really was a little boy in the room with her.
She reached out a hand and gently took hold of his arm. ‘Careful,’ she said softly. ‘This poor man dislocated his shoulder last night, and, although he’s been mended, it would hurt him a lot if someone jogged him.’
The boy turned solemn blue eyes to hers. ‘I’ll be careful,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t hurt people, should you?’
‘Not if you can possibly avoid it,’ she agreed.
The boy gave a sad little sigh. ‘I’m not supposed to be here,’ he confided. ‘She told me I have to keep myself to myself, and not go talking to people, and she’ll be very cross if she finds out I’ve come to see you, but I wanted to see the man who fell, and it gets very boring on my own.’
Her heart went out to him. She had guessed who he was, and what he had just said seemed to confirm she was right. ‘You’re Olivar, aren’t you?’ Even as she spoke, she thought: Why has he not been introduced?
He stood up straight and made her a courteous bow. ‘Yes, I am, and you are the lady Helewise, wife of Sir Josse d’Acquin, who is here to see his Uncle Hugh because he’s not very well. Sir Hugh, I mean, not Sir Josse,’ he added, his small face falling into anxiety. ‘I am sure he is very well indeed.’