“Hmm. Perhaps.” He looked at the untouched sausage on her plate and the small crater her fork had made in the potatoes. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Oh.” She picked up her knife and sawed off a bit of sausage. But after raising it level with her chin, she returned it to her plate.
“What’s the matter?”
“It smells funny,” she replied. “Don’t you think?”
“Mine didn’t.” He reached for the fork and brought the bit of sausage up to his nose. It disappeared into his mouth. “Nothing wrong with it,” he said after chewing and swallowing.
“Please, take it all,” she said and pushed the plate toward him. The unpleasantness with Mrs. Pearce and her children was too fresh in her memory and had robbed her of her appetite.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She watched him sprinkle salt onto the potatoes. “I just hate the thought of Catherine being caught in the middle of this.”
“That won’t happen.” He shook his head. “They’re her relatives, not ours. And you’ll never have to see them again, so just put them from your mind.”
She was able to do just that the following day, as she and the Mitchells discussed the information Harold had gleaned regarding steel-bottomed ships. But the Pearces popped into her mind again on Thursday as she hastened down the corridor for the bathroom after lunch.
“Sarah?” came Bethia’s soft voice and knock.
“I may be in here a bit longer, Bethia,” Sarah called, rising from her knees with cautious slowness. “Can you use the one downstairs?”
“Yes. But are you all right?”
“Of course, dear. Now run along, will you?”
A hesitation, then, “Are you quite sure you’re all right?”
“Bethia, I’m fine.” She washed and dried her face, and thought she could detect a pink tinge to her cheeks in the basin mirror. Fever, she told herself, chills prickling her arms as she took her toothbrush from the cupboard. She would have to confine herself to her chamber, away from Bethia and Danny in particular. She only hoped none of the servants who were unfortunate enough to be in Muriel Pearce’s vicinity were suffering the same.
Nausea welled again, and she dropped her toothbrush into the basin.
“Madame?” Marie’s voice this time.
“I don’t want anyone near me, Marie,” she said when she was able to speak. “Do please go away.”
****
Belle picked up speed as the runabout passed Christ Church. William Doyle switched the reins to return Admiral Kirkpatrick’s salute from the other side of the low stone wall. Their neighbor seemed to spend every waking hour pottering in his garden, the topiary so geometrically precise that branches appeared to have been trimmed with a shaving razor.
And that was just fine with William. Hampstead’s water was touted to be the best in London, the area having even been a popular spa a century past. He thought there must be something in that water that caused the residents to mind their own affairs. Friendly they were, but not so concerned with whether the apples on a newcomer’s family tree were golden or rotten. He reckoned his and Sarah’s trees had a little of both.
“Will-iam!”
“Mis-ter Doyle!”
Speaking of trees . . . he thought, returning the waves of Bethia and Guy, perched upon a low limb of the elm between the carriage drive and house. He called, “Mind you, hang on there!”
Stanley came out to take Belle by the bridle.
“How are you keeping, Stanley?” William asked, taking his umbrella and satchel from the seat before stepping down to the gravel drive.
“Fine, Sir.” Stanley sent a worried nod toward the house. “But Mrs. Doyle’s taken ill.”
“Is it serious?”
“Can’t say. The doctor just left.”
Sarah’s father came out of the parlor and met him on the landing. “Daniel,” William asked, “why didn’t anyone ring me?”
“She wouldn’t allow it,” Daniel replied.
“You should have anyway.”
The older man nodded understanding. “Trust me, we would have if it were more serious. But Doctor Lloyd says a mild ague is going around, and most people stricken with it are fine after a day or so.”
Still, William hurried up the stairs, propping satchel and umbrella against the wall just inside their bedchamber. The curtains were drawn against the evening sun, a lamp burned on the bedside chest. Marie and Naomi sat in chairs, Marie sewed onto a hooped canvas while Naomi knitted.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Better, we think,” Naomi said. “She was able to hold down some broth an hour ago.”
“But she is exhausted,” Marie added. “It took all of her strength for us to walk her to the bathroom.”
William walked over to the high bed. Sarah looked more the child than a businesswoman, pale lashes resting against too-white cheeks, right hand beneath the covers and left tucked beneath the thin pillow she favored. Her green eyes opened, blinked, and then rested upon him.
“Hello there,” he said softly.
She gave him a weak smile, barely whispered, “William. You’re here.”
“Yes, I’m here, sweetheart. Now go back to sleep.”
She made a slight nod and closed her eyes.
Heal her please, Father, he prayed, heart swelling within his chest. Mild ague might be nothing to worry over, as everyone seemed to think. But as scarlet fever had taken the lives of his parents and infant brother, he did not take any rise in temperature lightly. Especially when it concerned his wife.
“Thank you for all you’ve done,” he said to the two women. “I’d like to sit with her now. Please have my supper sent up.”
William shook his head at their offers to stay longer. When the door clicked softly behind them, he took the current issue of The Analyst from his satchel and sat in the chair Naomi had occupied.
“Are they gone?”
He put the magazine aside and fairly bolted from the chair.
“I thought you were asleep,” he said, feeling her forehead with the back of his hand. Warm, but not hot, which gave him a rush of relief. “Shall I get them?”
“No.” She turned on her pillow, drew her right hand from beneath the covers, and touched his cheek. “It was cruel of me to cause everyone worry, but I so desperately wanted you to be the first to know.”
That made no sense. With sickened heart he wondered if the fever, mild as it was, was affecting her brain. “But sweetheart . . .” he said cautiously, taking the hand. “Doctor Lloyd told them before I even got here.”
She shook her head. “He agreed to tell them there is a mild ague going about. Which is the truth. He never said I had it.” Her smile faltered a fraction. “I pray God will forgive us that. While it wasn’t technically lying, the intent to deceive was there.”
Humor her, William thought. Why had he sent Aunt Naomi and Marie away? He didn’t even think to ask them if Doctor Lloyd had given her any medicine that could account for her peculiar remarks.
“You know, I’d like Aunt Naomi to see how much better you’re looking,” he said, placing her hand gently back down upon the coverlet. “I’ll just ring for—”
She gave a little laugh and pulled herself up a bit on her pillow. “Oh dear,” she gasped, swaying a bit. He took her by the shoulders. She stared down at the coverlet, while he stood there, helplessly out of reach of the bell cord.
“Sarah?”
Presently she raised her chin and pulled in an even breath. “Better, now.”
“Good.” William reached across her for his pillow and propped it against her right side. “Can you manage to sit there long enough for me to ring for help?”
“We don’t need help, William.” Her emerald eyes caught the lamplight. “Hold me close, and I’ll whisper something wonderful to you.”
****
For a bit longer William’s face held on to the perplexed, worried expression it had worn since he entered the room. And then a slo
w grin brought dimples to his clean-shaven cheeks. “Is it what I hope it is?”
“It is,” she said, smiling back at him.
She was gathered into his arms—gently so. Resting her cheek upon her husband’s shoulder and listening to his endearments, Sarah wondered if she had ever had a happier moment in her life. The wonder of it all caused her to lie awake hours later, after the household and William were wrapped in slumber. Sometime during the course of her thankfulness she reflected upon those Rachels and Hannahs still waiting with empty arms. Pour down grace upon them, Father, she asked. Help me never to forget how it felt to be among their ranks.
Sixteen
Uncle Daniel was waiting in Tilbury when Catherine disembarked at noon on Thursday, the eighteenth of August. “What has been going on?” she asked in the railway carriage moving toward Waterloo Station, their first opportunity for a chat.
“Oh, a little of this, a little of that,” he replied. “Naomi and I are planning to take Bethia—which means Guy too—to the opening of the Natural History Museum on Saturday morning. We would enjoy having you with us.”
“I’d like that, thank you,” she told him. Londoners had been anticipating the Museum’s completion for months, and news of the upcoming Grand Opening had even reached the Times of India. Odd, though, that he did not mention Sarah and William, when they took so many outings together. So she asked. “Will Sarah and William be along too?”
“If they wish. Now tell me all about your summer. How is the family?”
The change of subject distracted Catherine from puzzling over his enigmatic smile, but she discovered the reason for it that evening. She was unfolding the nightgown Susan had placed upon the foot of her bed, when Sarah stopped by her room.
“Everything unpacked?” her cousin asked.
“Yes, very nicely,” Catherine said. She tossed the nightgown onto the bed and hurried over to move her reticule from the seat of the chair near the idle fireplace. While Sarah had never had high color, she appeared pale. Also, at supper she had passed up the seasoned roast chicken and did not finish the meager servings of buttered boiled potatoes and asparagus on her plate.
Catherine had asked Susan about it earlier, when the chambermaid came into the room with a fresh water carafe. “The Missus’ appetite’s been off for a few days,” was the evasive reply. Susan had seemed so uncomfortable even surrendering that bit of information that Catherine hadn’t pressed.
Sarah did not demur when invited to sit. “Thank you for the saree,” she said. “William says it makes my eyes look like fresh-shelled peas.”
“Peas?”
“It was a compliment. He’s very fond of them.”
Catherine laughed, relieved that her cousin wasn’t too unwell for mirth. “You’re very welcome,” she said, and then became serious. “I couldn’t help but notice your supper plate. Is anything the matter?”
Her cousin nodded but her smile did not fade. “That’s why I’m here. I wanted you to hear it from me, because the whole household already knows. Except for the children, of course. They’re too young to understand.”
“Understand what?” Catherine asked when Sarah paused for breath.
But she was frustrated by her cousin’s determination to deliver the whole preamble. “We would have preferred to keep it to ourselves,” Sarah said. “At least until my condition became too obvious to hide. But after Doctor Lloyd came by . . .”
All Catherine could think of was some fatal illness. How brave she is, she thought with throat thickening. Her mind conjured a picture of Sarah’s pale face staring up at her from her pillow.
“But you must return to school,” Sarah was saying with strained voice.
Catherine shook her head and took up her cousin’s frail fingers. “I’ve already written Girton that I’m sitting out the term. It’s the least I can do.”
“Oh dear.” Sarah’s voice dissolved the scene. Apology and mirth filled her eyes. “It’s not what you think. We’re expecting a baby.”
Relief washed over Catherine, though she had not the foggiest what a baby had to do with uneaten supper. She was ten when Jewel was born, and could not recall Mother complaining of any loss of appetite or other malady. But then, she had not been told that a sister or brother was on the way until days before the birth. “A baby!” she breathed, clasping her hands. “And so you’re not ill?”
“Not ill. Unless you count the constant nausea, which Naomi says will pass eventually.”
“I’m so very pleased! May I write and tell Mother and Father?”
“Yes, please do that. And give them my love.”
They embraced at the door, and Catherine discovered that her travel fatigue was replaced with a new vitality. She went to the writing table and composed a letter to her parents.
I have the most wonderful news! was her first sentence.
And as long as she had out pen and ink and paper, she decided to write Lieutenant Elham. Only, not much had transpired since the ten-page letter she had posted from Aden, which he should have received by now. She didn’t feel right about mentioning Sarah’s condition to a young man so recent to her acquaintance. But she started out with a paragraph that she hoped was witty, telling him how every discussion she had overheard from Tilbury to London had to do with the heat wave. Everyone who complains of the heat should spend a summer in India, don’t you think?
Her mind went blank as she held her pen poised for the second paragraph. When no idea entered the void for several minutes, she blotted her pen and decided to finish tomorrow. A decent night’s sleep would sharpen her mind. And sure enough, as soon as her feet slid into her slippers the next morning, she was struck with a marvelous idea.
****
“Didn’t John Keats live in Hampstead?” she asked at the breakfast table.
“Less than a mile and a half away,” Uncle Daniel replied, his fork cutting into a slice of mango. “What a treat these are, Catherine.”
In the kitchen were some for the servants’ breakfast, and two baskets were put aside in the pantry, which Catherine would deliver to Aunt Phyllis’s family and the Somersets after breakfast. Catherine had included the latter because they were so gracious to her the three times she had visited Peggy on Saville Row. Now she was glad she had done so, for her anger at Peggy had begun dissolving soon after she read Lieutenant Elham’s letter.
“I wish I could have brought you some bananas, but they would have spoiled,” she told her uncle. “A mile and a half, you say?”
“East Heath Road leads directly to it,” Sarah said, pulling the crusts from a piece of dry toast. “It’s a private residence, but there’s no harm in asking Stanley to stop by for a look at the outside.
Catherine smiled at her. “I’d like that, thank you.”
“I gather you’re fond of Keats?” Aunt Naomi asked. On her right, Danny used fingers and spoon to transport poached eggs from dish to mouth, in the special high chair Mr. Duffy had constructed of oak. Bethia, previous owner of the chair, sat between Sarah and Catherine, absorbing the conversation.
“I never realized it until just lately,” Catherine told her. Fortunately, the lecturer aboard the S.S. Heron had offered to lend her a book of Keats’s poetry, and during the journey Catherine drank in every metaphor. At the expense of Homer, but she still had time to catch up.
She went back up to the guest chamber to pin on a straw hat, trimmed with pink silk orchids, and a gown of burgundy and white gingham. A half hour later she stood among the lime trees bordering Albion Lane, facing the two-storey cottage where the poet, suffering from the consumption that would take his young life, penned “Ode to a Nightingale” in the spring of 1819. Her eyes drank in every window and chimney of the white building so that she could list it all in that second paragraph of a certain unfinished letter.
“She stood in tears amid the alien corn,” she murmured.
She could feel Stanley’s eyes upon her, and turned her face to him. “It’s from a poem.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Never cared much for corn myself.”
****
Mrs. Somerset was a petite woman with light brown hair coiled into a topknot. She thanked Catherine effusively for the mangoes, which no one in her family had ever tasted, and insisted she stay long enough for a slice of bakery coconut cake. “Peggy’ll be here tomorrow,” she said, her small hands arranging teacup and cake upon a tray. “She’s been studying so hard, we’ve rarely seen her this summer.”
If she was aware of the scene that had occurred at Girton on the eve of vacation, her expression did not reveal it. “Why don’t you come for lunch?”
“Thank you, but I’m afraid my uncle and aunt already have made plans for me,” Catherine said, relieved to have an excuse. The minute she set foot in the apartment over the tailor’s shop, she had found herself missing Peggy more than she could ever have imagined she would at the start of summer. But she wasn’t certain how Peggy would feel about seeing her.
“Then I’ll have her ring you, and you two can make your own plans,” Mrs. Somerset said. “Aren’t the lines through to Hampstead now?”
“They are.” Catherine swallowed her bit of cake past a sudden lump in her throat. “And please do tell her I would like to speak with her very much.”
She left with Mrs. Somerset’s promise to do just that. The Pearces’ house on 42 Belgrave Square stood amidst a row of pale stone Georgian town houses with Doric pillars flanking front doors and wrought-iron railings separating service entrances leading down to kitchens. A maid had just welcomed Catherine inside the hall when Aunt Phyllis entered with the twins and Muriel. The boys tarried at the door long enough to mumble thanks for the mangoes—under their mother’s prompting—then set out for a cricket match at nearby Green Park.
Eight-year-old Muriel, on the other hand, showed uncharacteristic welcome, lunging at Catherine and wrapping her arms about her waist. “Catherine! I’m so happy to see you!”
“And I’m happy to see you too,” Catherine told her.
“Mind you don’t injure yourselves!” Aunt Phyllis called out the door to her sons, then backed away so the maid who had answered Catherine’s ring could close it. “That’s very sweet, dear, but you may turn loose of Catherine now.”
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