Last Miss Phillips

by Briggs, Laura

  Sunlight was filtered heavily through the canopy of trees, leaving the forlorn cottage in the gloom of shadows at mid-day. Kitty approached the front door, which might easily open to the empty rooms of abandonment, she decided, as her glance encompassed the crumbling exterior. One knock, then two upon the wooden planks; then she waited.

  When the door swung open, the familiar face of Patience Tibbets was visible.

  “Is Mrs. Allgood receiving visitors?” asked Kitty. “I have brought her a basket from home–from your mistress. Her good currant jelly and a tin of green tea leaves.”

  “She’s been expectin’ ye, Ma’am,” answered Patience, who opened the door wider. The chamber on the other side was damp and dark, a musty smell present amidst the general scent of dusty thatch sifting downwards between the floorboards. She yielded her basket to the servant girl, who disappeared in the direction of an unseen kitchen.

  At the foot of the narrow stair, waiting, stood the same woman who had answered the servants’ door a few days before. Her narrow face possessed a greyish cast, a line of dark hair visible just below the band of her cap as if painted in perfect lines on a wooden doll’s head. A shabby silk gown ornamented by a curious brooch of amethyst framed in brown threads.

  “Good day,” said Kitty, with a curtsy. “You are Mrs. Josephs, are you not?”

  “Miss Phillips,” replied the woman, solemnly. “It is a great honor to meet you.” She returned the curtsy more deeply, stirring Kitty’s embarrassment with this gesture.

  “She is waiting,” said Mrs. Josephs. “She has spoken a great deal about you–Patience the servant girl has told her that you are London-born and greatly accomplished.”

  “The first claim is true,” Miss Phillips answered. “But I believe the second is not. I have but little talent compared to those who are truly well-trained, I fear.”

  “But you are a lady,” said Mrs. Josephs. “And that is always enough.” Taking a candle from the table, she climbed the stairs without another word, although her manner of movement and glance indicated to Kitty that she was to follow.

  A strange house and a strange manner of greeting altogether. She began to feel a little apprehensive of what lay on the other side of the heavy plank door ahead of them in the upstairs passage. No furniture and no ornament of any kind was visible in this narrow hall through which the companion led her, the only cheer present being in the form of great quantities of dust filtered from the thatch overhead, turning to gold wherever sunlight managed also to penetrate.

  Mrs. Josephs lifted the latch and opened the door to a small chamber in which a single window was cut, although without panes of glass dividing the inside world from the outside. The natural light seemed cold against the three grey walls and unpainted floor forming the room.

  In the middle, a mattress raised on a wooden platform, a dingy white counterpane rising and falling with the contours of the patient’s form like a mountainous landscape in miniature until it reached the shoulders of an elderly woman shriveled and frail. A great white curtain of hair parted on either side of her face beneath a ruffled cap.

  She was so still, she might have ceased to be in the estimation of an observer. Her eyes opened after a moment, fixed directly upon Kitty with a clouded visage.

  “Miss Phillips has come, Ma’am,” said Mrs. Josephs. Obeying an unspoken request, Kitty crossed the threshold and approached the bed.

  “How do you do, Madam?” she inquired. The woman continued to stare at her.

  “Come and sit down.” The voice was frail and far away, as if carried on the wind from a great distance. There were no chairs in the room, but Kitty spied a low wooden stool near the foot of the bed and drew it nearer to the patient.

  “You are older than Mrs. Giles,” ventured the woman, after a moment’s study of her visitor.

  “No, Ma’am,” answered Kitty, with flushed cheeks. “I am her younger sister. Our eldest is married in London.”

  “I see.” The hollow voice fell quiet for a moment. “But you are from London. And have been in society.”

  “I have, Ma’am.”

  “You have not been presented at court, I understand.”

  “No, Ma’am.”

  “But you have had a governess. And also lessons from a music master, I am told.”

  “I have. But it was for a short time. I have been obliged to teach myself more things than I have been taught by others.”

  “I see.” Mrs. Allgood’s gaze was focused inwards, although her eyes were fixed upon the counterpane below. “I once had lessons in singing. When I was a girl. My father was obliged to send to Tewkesbury for a teacher and it was a great expense. Too much so, I fear.”

  She fell silent after this recollection, whether for the pleasure or pain of this mixed reflection, Kitty could not tell. After a moment, she stirred again.

  “You are acquainted with a family by the name of Spencer in society?”

  “I have met them,” Kitty answered, cautiously. “But once, at a party given by one of my father’s acquaintances. It has been a great many years.”

  “They are my cousins,” answered Mrs. Allgood. “A very good family. There is a little money; but not as much as my father’s wealth. The Woodbrights were always of more importance in the county than the Spencers.”

  One arm lay upon the counterpane, its hand reaching to grip Kitty’s own with a compulsive fervor. “I am glad you are come,” she said, in a half-whisper. “You are a true lady. There are so few of us, you know. So few in Beiberry.”

  The shock of this sudden declaration left Kitty without the power to reply as she sat frozen for a moment until the hand released her. Mrs. Allgood grew still for a moment, her eyes closed, the effort of expression having weakened her, apparently.

  When she spoke, her voice was frailer than before. “What do you think of our village, Miss Phillips?”

  Kitty paused. “I think it is a very pretty place,” she answered. “The people who dwell here seem kind and quite content. An altogether more pleasant place I have never before visited.” It was not untrue, for she thought of Enderly’s situation and London in terms of the melancholy of her tenure and the general dissatisfaction of Louisa and others.

  “There was a song of it, you know,” said Mrs. Allgood. “When I was a girl. It was a little verse about Beiberry Mile.”

  “I have not heard it,” answered Kitty. “I do not think anyone has mentioned it to me.”

  Mrs. Allgood trembled beneath the blanket as she drew herself more upright, her elbow inching towards her shoulders with the effort. “Tis full a Bei-berry Mile to home, we go a-long so merry. Tho’ all the babes should be a-bed, we do not wish to ta-rry.”

  Her voice quavered in its high-pitch, her skeletal hand beat time in a sonorous beat upon the threadbare quilt despite the quickness of her song. The rhyme, old enough, perhaps to be of Mrs. Allgood’s childhood, drew a swift smile to Kitty’s lips.

  “It is a pretty tune,” she said. “You have sung it many times in the past, I think, to remember it so well.”

  “No one sings it anymore,” answered Mrs. Allgood, sadly. “No one shall remember it when I am gone.” Reaching over, she patted Kitty’s hand with a slow gesture.

  “Is your illness–very painful?” asked Kitty, with hesitation.

  “It is age upon me; not illness,” she said. “Mr. Harris has given me a compound which eases the pain a little. He has said there is nothing more to be done. There are spells which come upon me a little worse. But it is always better in the morning.”

  Her fingers rested upon Kitty’s a moment longer. “You will come again to see me, Miss Phillips?”

  “I will,” Kitty answered. The woman’s eyes fluttered closed again.

  “Your sister’s confinements are often long. Only a few come to see me. I know more about the world from the servant girl downstairs than from any living soul.”

  “I will come,” said Kitty. “As often as I may.” She rose, gently withdrawing her hand from
the elderly woman’s hold as the patient’s eyes remained closed.

  Downstairs, there was no one waiting for her. Stepping through an arched doorway near the stairs, she found Patience Tibbets bending over the hearth with a poker, stirring the coals. A loaf of bread sliced upon a plate and a teapot made from crockery were upon the table and nothing else.

  “Cuppa tea, Ma’am?” inquired Patience, pushing her mob cap into place again and away from her perspiring face.

  “Thank you,” said Kitty. In the corner, she observed Mrs. Josephs with a basket of sewing, at work on repairing a pair of worsted stockings.

  “Your mistress is asleep,” she said. “I fear my visit may have proved itself too much exertion for her.”

  “She is pleased with any visitors who come, Ma’am,” answered Mrs. Josephs. “You must not mind her falling asleep.”

  Patience placed a porcelain cup on the table before Kitty and filled it with tea. “I heard tell that Mrs. Allgood was once the finest lady in the county,” said Patience. “She fears people say she’s fallen below now that she’s got no servants nor family.”

  “I have heard that it is not money but merely illness which forces her to live in this manner,” said Kitty. “I would think she might obtain more servants to assist her or perhaps more comfortable surroundings if it is true.”

  “It is merely her way which prevents her,” Mrs. Josephs answered. “This cottage, although it seems unfortunate enough now, was the home of her ancestors when they were the leading family in the county. She cannot bear to leave it. She will bear any discomfort necessary to remain.”

  “I come to help lift her from the bed once or twice a week,” said Patience. “There’s a girl of all work comes Thursdays and Mrs. Josephs brings ‘er meals and tea when I’m away to the squire’s.” As she spoke, she placed a slice of buttered bread before Kitty.

  “Does she have a physician? She spoke of having a compound which soothed her pains sometimes.”

  “She had a very severe attack one night ago,” Mrs. Josephs answered. “With Mr. Harris gone, she will see no one, so I mete out his compounds as best I may.”

  “Has no one consulted Mr. Turner, then?” ventured Kitty. “He, perhaps, might give her something stronger to ease her pain or else prevent her from falling into a severe state of illness.”

  “She will not see a surgeon,” answered the companion. “She has a dislike for the trade. No one in her family had ever consulted one; indeed, I do not think even the Allgoods consented to be treated by an apothecary.”

  “T’was the reason Mr. Allgood died,” Patience spoke up. “He wouldn’t have Mr. Harris–when Mr. Harris t’was a young man–and so ‘e died of a wound from a fall.”

  “Infection,” whispered Mrs. Josephs in a low voice, as if confiding this fact to Kitty apart from the servant. “Mrs. Allgood does not like to be reminded of the event. He fell from his horse while overseeing some property works and the wound became festered. But since there was no physician in the village, he would not have it dressed by any but a servant.”

  “I shall not speak of it, then,” answered Kitty, reassuringly, at which point Mrs. Josephs’ features relaxed somewhat.

  “She spoke of having no family except for her cousins; and she spoke of them as all being very distant,” said Kitty. “Are you perhaps a relative of Mrs. Allgood’s? For you seem well-acquainted with her family’s history.”

  “Her husband’s family was related to the Littlewoods,” answered Mrs. Josephs. “They have a farm but a short distance from here. But they are farmers; and have had little association with the Allgoods except the courtesies of public notice.” She pulled a stitch through the stocking’s heel, the metal shaft pinched between two large fingers.

  “As for me,” she said, “I came to this house twenty years after my husband died. Mrs. Allgood’s husband’s estate was willed to another and she was left only with her share of the fortune and this house. As I had no home or children–” her needle grew still with these words, “–I was obliged to seek a form of employment. The position was a favorable opportunity.”

  Kitty felt a stab of pity for the loneliness in her companion’s tone. Such a position would have been received favorably by only those trapped in unhappy circumstances–to be confined to a drafty cottage with a mistress awaiting death’s presence at every hour. Her throat grew tight with these reflections, yielding painfully to a swallow of tea from her cup.

  “I’ve put away the jelly an’ tea, Ma’am. Shall I carry the basket home for ye?”

  During this conversation, Patience Tibbets had finished stoking the fire and placed a cloth-covered bowl in a dark corner of the room to rise. Now she stood at Kitty’s elbow, her mistress’s heavy basket held in both hands. Her presence roused both Mrs. Josephs and Kitty from the heavy silence of reflection which both had maintained.

  “Yes,” said Kitty. “I shall come with you.” She rose and curtseyed to Mrs. Josephs, whose head bowed deeply in acknowledgement.

  “You will pay another call in the future, will you not?” There was a note of hope evident in the tone of Mrs. Allgood’s companion. Kitty’s mind interpreted this request as made for reasons of personal loneliness, perhaps; as much as her mistress’s isolation.

  “I shall come again,” she promised, for the second time. The companion’s gaze was fixed upon her for a moment with acknowledgement before it dropped again to her work.

  The lack of windows in the house made it seem more shuttered than before, now that the sun was fixed high above the foliage, dropping the cottage below into deeper shadows. Miss Phillips looked over her shoulder at it once before it was hidden behind the trees again.

  “There is something on the road,” said Patience, when they had walked along the road several paces from the cottage woods. “There ahead of us.” She indicated a small bundle of rags present in the path, near the bend of the road.

  “It is a child,” said Kitty, with a cry of dismay. The blue fabric and worsted wool took the form of a small, bent body near the overgrown hedges. She gathered her skirts and ran towards the still form, aware that Patience’s basket had fallen into the ditch as she followed likewise. The small face was upturned, pale and purple where blood was clotting from a concentrated place on his forehead. From the tree branch overhead dangled a child’s grey cap, as if an oversized leaf sprouting forth.

  “’Tis one of me cousins,” said Patience, who saw the child’s face as Kitty gathered it into her arms. “’Tis me aunt’s Jack–oh, Jack, what a trouble ye always are!” The scolding was delivered in the half-wailing tones of despair as Patience touched her cousin’s bleeding head with a fearful hand.

  The child’s form felt heavy against her body, but not the heaviness of death–Kitty, who knew the feeling of such weight, was relieved at this discovery.

  “He must have fallen,” she gasped, as she touched the pale and dirty face, searching for signs of life, for fluttering eyelids or the movement of breath. “He breathes–he breathes–but I cannot tell–I do not know–”

  She ceased to speak when the sound of hooves became audible in the distance on the road. A horse was coming at a quick pace and they were not visible to the eyes of a swift rider who might round the bend in a moment’s time.

  “Help me to lift him,” she said to Patience, who needed no further instruction than to lift the boy’s bare legs, dangling past Miss Phillip’s knees. She cradled the upper half of the child’s body against her as she struggled to rise and move away from the path.

  “They may help us, whoever comes” said Kitty. “Stop them, Patience.” The girl ran around the bend, standing in the middle of the road and waving her arms towards the rider.

  “Here is the surgeon, Miss Phillips!” she cried, turning around. As Kitty raised her eyes from the child’s face, she saw a brown mare pulled to an excited halt before Patience and the familiar figure of Mr. Turner seated upon its back.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mr. Turner dismounted his hor
se swiftly and moved towards Kitty, who had drawn the unconscious boy as far from the road as possible.

  “What has happened?” he asked as he dropped down beside her and reached for the injured child’s face.

  “I think the child fell–from the tree,” she answered. “He breathes, but I do not know how severely he is hurt–” As she spoke, the surgeon was busily examining the boy, feeling the child’s pulse, then examining the wound.

  For a moment, he was tense and silent, although swift in his work; he raised his face from his work to Kitty’s anxious one bent close to his own.

  “Have you smelling salts, Miss Phillips?” he asked.

  “A bottle in my purse, sir,” she answered. Her hands trembled as she pulled open the drawstrings and handed him the vial, which he promptly uncorked beneath the child’s nose. The boy’s still form twitched, then a sound between a gasp and a sneeze emerged. He opened his eyes, a pair of orbs lighter than the surgeon’s own.

  “Do you feel pain, lad?” the surgeon asked. He was feeling the boy’s limbs for broken bones, to which the boy’s only response was to shake his head as he tried to draw himself upright.

  “Gently, lad,” said Mr. Turner, helping lift the boy into a sitting position. “I think no bones are broken,” he said, to Kitty. “It is only a nasty cut and that will soon be mended if I can tend to it in a better place than this.”

  “M’head hurts,” said the boy, in a whimpering voice. Patience was kneeling beside him now, her hands clasped before her.

  “Ye should’ve been careful, Jack,” she said, in a soft scolding. “What will yer ma think, when she hears o’ this? Where’s yer brothers?”

  “How far away is his home?” asked Kitty of the maid. “We shall carry him there so the surgeon may tend him.”

  “It’s but up the road a quarter mile or so,” answered Mr. Turner. “If you’ll take the reins of my horse, Miss Phillips, I shall take charge of the lad. He would be quite a burden for your small arms.”