“By 'beauty', what do you mean?” he asked, his brow slightly furrowed as if he puzzled upon her meaning, his tone of voice perfectly serious and earnest.
“Is it not what the poets agreed, sir?” she answered, hesitating. “The fair face of beauty verse proclaims, the delicacy and perfection of form and countenance described.”
There was something of carelessness in her voice, although it was affected; for she was uncomfortable with this subject of conversation, with the truth of such a definition which divided her sex and revived memories of a time now passed for herself.
“With respect, Miss Phillips,” he answered, gently, as if correcting her, “there is more than one poet’s opinion on the subject.” Before she could collect her thoughts to form a response, the door behind her opened and William entered.
“You have seen my wife, sir?” he ventured, without the formalities of a greeting or a bow. “What do you think of her–is she greatly ill? Is there something which can be done?”
“Her melancholy may endure for some time,” answered Mr. Turner. “She requires more food and more rest if her strength is to return. I would have her drink a glass of port or Madeira each day to improve her appetite; and I would endeavor to do whatever necessary to bring her cheer.”
“But there is nothing medical,” said Mr. Giles, anxiously.
“Nothing which any physician can do but the Great Physician,” Mr. Turner answered. “You must give it time and trust that a mother’s heart must heal for the sake of her living children.”
He did not linger, but seemed ready to depart, as if his spirits were still low regarding his patient’s failure to improve. He made his farewells to Kitty and William with a bow.
“Mr. Harris will continue to see her recovery,” he said, “and will no doubt prescribe the same upon making an examination.”
“We shall miss you in your absence, sir,” said William, “but I trust that she will be in good hands while you're away.”
“You are leaving?” said Kitty. “To where do you go, sir?” This news had not reached her ears from any of the village’s visitors, who had managed to avoid mentioning such gossip.
“I shall be away to my former home,” he said, “visiting some acquaintances for a long holiday.” His glance turned from hers with this remark. She did not ask any further explanation as he took his leave of them.
“It shall do him good to turn his thoughts to his former home,” remarked Mr. Giles. "Even if Mr. Harris were not the greater authority on medicine, I should not wish the young man to linger when he longs for the past. But we all do these days, I suppose.” With a sigh as he sank down upon the nearest chair.
Kitty had moved closer to the window, to the table where the surgeon had been standing when she entered. Beside the sewing basket upon it, she observed a slim volume lying there which did not belong to the library of Marebrook Manor. It was a volume of Keats’s poems; and upon opening its cover, she saw the name Miles Turner written clearly across the front leaf.
Chapter Twenty
“I have a great desire to see more of the countryside again,” said Hetta. “A glimpse of greener pastures, as if the scenes might be different from these.”
She was seated in the parlor with Kitty, for Hetta came often again to Marebrook Manor, now that Anna’s recovery had progressed in the month after her infant son's loss. During the gloomiest days, only her maid Jacqueline had come with a basket of lilies from Lord Grantly's hothouse and dried currants and figs procured from London's imports.
“You have said before you saw little of the country as a child,” said Kitty. She was mending a hole in one of Lisbette’s muslin dresses. The book of Keats’s poetry was on the cushion beside her, as if laid aside for the sake of something more practical.
“There is so little in Beiberry Mile to hold me, I have thought of going north for a time,” said Hetta.
“To where?” asked Kitty. Her mind had flown to Suffolk for some reason, a vision of Ipswich upon the coast, although Hetta had no associations there to her knowledge. Her mind had taken such irrational turns on occasion since the departure of Mr. Turner to see his friends.
“I will drive through the northern counties in the Scottish countryside,” answered Hetta. “I intend to stop with my cousin for a brief time, for he has an estate in the hills upon its border. It is not the scenes of my youth, of course, but it is charming countryside nonetheless. I have written and told him to expect me in a fortnight and I wish you to be among my party.”
“Me?” said Kitty. “Hetta, no. I cannot go.”
“Why not? My cousin is not a nobleman of whom you need be afraid. He is only a younger son who was a lieutenant in the army before he chanced to inherit on his brother’s death,” said Hetta.
“I cannot leave Anna so soon. And the children–they must have someone to care for them,” said Kitty.
“Mrs. Giles’s health is much improved,” said Hetta. “She would let you go, I am certain of it. Otherwise, I should be obliged to have Jacqueline to keep me company and it is only a journey of two weeks or so. You would scarce be gone for more than two, if we do not linger at any place; your sister could not mind that.”
“I cannot,” Kitty repeated, firmly despite a little smile of pleasure over the invitation. “I thank you, Hetta, but it is impossible.”
Anna, however, did not agree. “You should go,” she urged Kitty. “It is only a short time, no more than two weeks. And you’ve seen nothing and been nowhere since you came.”
“But you would not wish to be alone,” said Kitty. “Not with Walter and Lisbette so lively and with Richard requiring a tutor before school–”
“William is here,” said Anna. “I will manage, Kitty. Indeed, it shall do me good.” There were tears gathering in Anna’s eye with these last words, a note of determination in a voice which had once been filled with lighter emotions.
In the month after her illness, Anna had returned to herself and her position in the house slowly. Although she did not stir from Marebrook Manor, she now received her visitors herself. She had listened to Richard and Amelia recite their lessons on more than one occasion and even expressed a desire to speak to the cook on the matter of William’s beef and muffins. Each week, she showed some sign of improvement, which made any protests of her strength seem a mockery of her progress.
Kitty did not wish to discourage what had taken such precious time to encourage; and so she consented to leave with Hetta on the twenty-ninth.
Her trunk was packed with Patience’s help, who was a quick study of how ladies wished their gowns folded and their bonnets placed. Kitty refrained from taking any volumes of poetry or her music; she did not wish these indulgences, she explained, when she set them aside from the rest of her luggage.
“Have ye ever been to the northern counties, Ma’am?” asked Patience. The girl had never traveled, Kitty realized; it was possible she had never been beyond the borders of Essex or even the boundaries of her village.
“I have been there often,” Kitty answered. "Only not to Northumberland, nor to Scotland." She tucked a pair of gloves into her trunk, her glance falling upon the serious and steadfast maid who helped her. Patience approached her task with the utmost care, her work-worn hands careful in folding and tucking each article.
“Your mistress speaks highly of you, Patience,” said Kitty. “She relies greatly upon you and you have deserved her trust, I know.”
The servant girl’s thin face flushed. “Thank ye, Ma’am,” she answered.
“Have you ever wished to go to London?” asked Kitty. “To be a ladies’ maid perhaps, like Jacqueline to Miss Harwick? To see something of the world, perhaps.” She wondered if there was a sense of longing in this girl, who deserved whatever chances might could be given to her.
“I’ve ne’re wished to be anywhere else,” said Patience. “’Tis Beiberry where I’ve always been and here I’ll always be.” Her smile with these words was infused with a strange tenderness which Kitty
had never before seen on the girl’s face.
When her trunk was packed, she had only to wait. A last-minute Latin lesson for Richard, a new song on the pianoforte for Caroline, and then the sound of Hetta’s carriage early in the morning.
The scenery through the carriage window was the same as the countryside of Essex for much of the journey’s first day. Hetta was inclined towards conversation and Kitty would not deny the opportunity, since she had no books or amusements in her possession.
“I did not know you corresponded with a cousin,” said Kitty. “You have never mentioned him before. Was he a close connection to your family?”
Hetta laughed, a disdainful sound. “We are not close at all,” she answered. “It is a branch of my mother’s family who were not greatly given to approve of her before or after her marriage. But I felt an interest in the countryside and its events which made me think of writing him again.”
It was Kitty’s turn to laugh. “That is an extraordinary reason for renewing an acquaintance,” she answered.
“Perhaps so,” was all Hetta replied.
They stayed a night at the inn in Leicester; then in Derby, then stopped in Sheffield to mend a harness before going on to Leeds. The scenes became a blur; the incessant rocking and swaying of the carriage, the tea and cold mutton of the inns where Hetta procured them rooms and the shops where she made several small purchases varying in nature.
In Westmorland, she persuaded Kitty to purchase a gown from one of the shops, a pale pink muslin which Kitty felt at once to be too young for her complexion with the strange glow it produced in her features when she looked in the glass.
“It suits you well,” said Hetta, when Kitty had resisted wearing it on the remaining portion of their journey. “We shall have your bonnet trimmed to match once we are settled. There are some pink ribbons in my trunk and a bit of lace which will also do.”
“I still fear it is an unsuitable choice, Hetta,” Kitty answered. “I shall regret this purchase when I see something more fitting in a merchant’s window in Scotland.” Her plain bonnet was upon her lap with a pair of grey gloves. Her gaze was turned to the countryside, the rural landscape of northern England altered from the gentle and wild scenes of the southern counties.
From Westmorland, they journeyed to Carlisle; then across the borders to the rugged Scottish countryside of the Cheviot Hills which gazed upon the wilds of Northumberland.
*****
Hetta’s cousin, Mr. Wulban, possessed an estate in the wilds of the Scottish terrain: a high, forlorn structure like a stone castle rose amidst dark green and red heathers and gorse. Dark and glossy pines encircled it in the distance, its heights gazing at the world below.
Mr. Wulban himself was a solitary man of middle age and sporting interests, whose house was managed by an ancient and respectable female cousin. He possessed little in the way of manners or social inclination, having been raised since birth in the role of a younger and therefore, unnecessary son, second to the heir. The unfortunate demise of the heir to fever elevated him to a station which he had not before considered, except for the luxuries of leisure and the privacy it now afforded him.
At dinner, Kitty was seated with Hetta at a long dining table, the male cousin at its head and the female cousin retreated to her room with a cold. A cold would be inescapable in the drafts of this vast stone hall in which they dined, its walls bare of windows and hung with tapestries.
“Have ye been to the Scottish country before, Miss Phillips?” he enquired.
“I have not, sir,” she answered.
“A wild place, it t’is. Not many come here, ‘cept those who have been before,” he said.
“Do you see much society in Dunaddrow?” she asked, for that was the nearest village. A small Scottish tangle of houses and merchants, hardly worth noticing except for the absence of anything more.
“’Tis Warrick, where I go,” he answered. A village in Northumberland, she knew; for she had seen its sign post from the carriage window.
Hetta had been more interested in her soup than in the conversation, speaking up only at length.
“Is there no maid in your employment, Mr. Wulban?” she asked. “Miss Leidley said there was no one to assist us upstairs.”
“’Tis a servant’s holiday,” he answered, in a low voice resembling a grunt. “Off t’the country dance, I reckon, in the public hall. T’were most folks a-going on this eve.”
“A dance in the village?” surmised Hetta.
“In Warrick; ‘tis only the rustic folk makin’ sport,” he said. “A bit o’ respect will be amongst them as is t’custom in these parts. Nobbut the likes of ye would see it different.”
“Now that you mention it, Mrs. Leidley did write in her letter that there was an event in the village,” answered Hetta. “No doubt with regards to your servants’ being away for a time.” She took a sip from her glass of wine.
They dined early in the house; afterwards, Kitty went outside in the twilight to stroll about the grounds. The night air was pleasantly cool, the sights so unlike the ones she had looked upon in Essex that she found it difficult for her thoughts to wander elsewhere.
Still, her thoughts were not her own. It was not merely poetry which invaded them, nor music, nor cares for her sisters and their lives: it was something deeper, something personal which had crept gradually into her heart over the past few months. A longing which had been there always, perhaps, but undefined until she encountered a specific object to which it might become attached.
The scenic wilds of this place might cure it. Else, London–if or when she returned. Her future was set, of course; yet, unformed, in the sense that her place in it might always change. She would return to the London house, which could hardly be called her home in the truest sense of the word. She could be summoned to Enderly and to her nephew and nieces with their studies and toy theater in the nursery.
Shivering, she drew her shawl more closely around her, since the darkness seemed like a shroud encroaching upon the house and its lands. She was alone in this place; more alone then she had been since the long evenings and nights would pass outside the sick chamber. Where she lay awake and listened for the slightest change in sound which would signal her worst fears.
Waiting for the inevitable was perhaps worse than the moment it came. A cold corpse, a countenance grown grim and sunken in months of sorrow, which her hand covered with a white sheet.
*****
The view from her chamber window was darkened when she returned and lit a candle within the room. She had taken up pen and paper to write a letter to Anna recounting the journey thus far. The scenes of the countryside were all the news of interest she had to relate, making her task somewhat difficult. As she held the wax to the candle to seal the letter closed, she heard a rap on the door and Hetta entered.
“Kitty,” she said. “I am going out tonight to the dance in Warrick and I wish you to come as well.” She closed the door behind her.
“You cannot mean it.” Kitty frowned. “You–at a public dance? Your cousins spoke of it as entertainment for the country laborers and not a private party which the gentry attend.”
“I used to go to a great many such things in the countryside of France and Germany,” Hetta answered. “It is not so unusual and was highly diverting. I only thought to do the same in England as I have done in other places.”
“Did you do such things in Scotland before?” asked Kitty.
“Once, perhaps,” Hetta answered, vaguely. “But to wander amongst the provincials is worthwhile for the gentry once in awhile” Her eyes held a glimpse of merriment, a hint of the mischief which was the most decried part of her gossiped character.
“Come with me, Kitty,” she said. “You will not regret it. You shall wear your pink dress–no fine jewelry, of course–and they will not know you from one of the country lasses.” As she spoke, she drew the pink muslin from the wardrobe and held it out.
“Hetta,” Kitty began, doubtfully. She did not sa
y anything else. That Hetta was determined to go, she was certain; and she did not wish her to go alone, even in her reluctance to be engaged in such activities. Persuasion otherwise must be possible, for her friend was not known for preferring either the simple or common among society.
“It is perfectly safe, for the county folk are respectable, as my cousins says. I am sure that the local gentry are present also. I shall have the carriage take us to the blacksmith’s green and we shall go from there to the hall, for it isn’t far.”
As she spoke, she opened the small box which contained Kitty’s personal ornaments and which Kitty had intended to leave unused for this part of the journey, examining the ornaments within for something suitable.
“But think of what your cousin would say if he were to learn of it,” said Kitty, half-pleadingly. “It would seem a deception to him, that you would appear so in public without his knowledge or introduction.”
“No one shall know us, for a great many people will come, I am sure,” answered Hetta, scoffing at this excuse. “We shall slip away after a bit; since we are only here for a night or two, we must make the most of our diversions.” She laid the dress out before Kitty on the bed, as if to implore her.
It was impulsive, a notion worthy of Kitty’s astonishment, and entirely against her nature. Even if it were safe, it seemed wrong to go among strangers in a strange place, to be part of the crush of a public dance. But there was something in Hetta’s gaze which she could not deny; not the mischief, but a sense of pleading beneath it. Perhaps this, too, was associated with the pain Hetta had spoken of before.
“Very well,” said Kitty. Who took hold of the muslin with great reluctance and a conviction that Hetta’s wishes traveled deeply against the grain of her own inclinations at this moment.
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