The Summer Fields
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Historical Note
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Part II
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part III
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Copyright
For Ben
Historical Note
This story is set in 1704. Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts, is on the throne. England and her allies are at war with France, determined to stop the relentless expansion of King Louis XIV. The man chosen to command the allies is John Churchill, the 1st Duke of Marlborough. In August this year he wins a resounding victory in Bavaria near a small village called Blindheim (anglicised to Blenheim), which saves Vienna from invasion and destroys the Continent’s belief in the invincibility of the French.
Part I
The Red Plague
Chapter 1
February 1704
Radnorshire, Wales
It is a freezing night, a month into the new year. Elen Griffiths sprawls in front of the embers of the kitchen fire, a book cranked towards the glow. She longs to fetch a rushlight, but her father is sleeping in his chair on the other side of the hearth. If he wakes, he will tell her to leave the book and go upstairs. Instead she gathers up a handful of twigs and pushes them into the embers. Her father stirs. One of the dogs out by the dairy barks and falls silent. The twigs flare, lighting the strange woodcuts on the page of her book: poor St Agatha showing her dreadful wounds. The dog barks a second time. Others take up the cry, baying louder out in the yard.
Elen frowns, gets up from the floor and crosses to the window. She draws the curtains aside and looks out. The dogs are already at the gate. She can just see them, moving backwards with the violence of their barks, regrouping like wolves guarding the entrance to their den. They have heard something bad – not the screech of an owl out in the woods or the cry of a fox across the lake. They have heard people approaching. Men abroad at this time of night spells danger.
She darts over to her father and shakes him by the shoulder. He wakes with a start, momentarily clumsy with sleep. ‘Why are you not in bed?’ he says.
‘I can hear someone coming.’ Her tone makes him struggle to his feet, snatching up the stick he keeps by the fire. He goes to the window, one arm held behind to keep her away, putting his body forward to protect her.
Imagination is worse than fear and she twists round him, squeezing next to him. Through the gaps in the casement she hears the rattle of wheel-spokes in the distance, bouncing between the ruts of the track.
‘Upstairs,’ her father says. ‘Quick with you.’
‘Is it a carriage?’ she says. ‘It sounds bigger than a trap. It is a carriage, a carriage is coming.’
She looks at her father for reassurance, but senses fear. A glow out in the darkness sweeps across his face, the blaze of the carriage’s flambeaux lighting the underside of the overarching trees. A vehicle bursts into view, pulled by a team of horses, vapour jetting from their muzzles. The coachman leans back on the reins. The horses plunge and slow, the farm dogs snapping and scattering in front of the clattering hooves.
A servant jumps from the back, hastens round to pluck open the carriage door. The coach tips, disgorging a figure, small and hunched against the cold. He yells up to the coachman, ‘Turn it round. We depart directly.’ Before kicking aside one of the dogs, sending it off with a cowering yelp. ‘Bring that light. Follow me.’ The man and servant stride towards the cottage.
‘Upstairs I say,’ her father says, propelling Elen towards the foot of the stairs just as a fist begins to hammer on the door.
‘Open the door. Open up this instant,’ a voice calls.
Elen scuttles up the stairs. Despite the clutch of tightness she feels at her throat, her curiosity overcomes her fear. She pauses, sinking down onto a step, hidden in the shadows. Below, her father snatches a lighted twig from the fire, clatters with the lamp as he tries to light it. He sets it down on the ground and opens the door no further than a slit, his stout boot braced against the sweep. She can see the fingers of his hand working on the stick at his side. He straightens, snatches up the lantern and pushes out past the servant who hovers on the threshold. Elen feels the cold night air creep up the stairs and surround her, squeezing the warmth from her body, making the skin shiver between her shoulder blades.
‘Dr Argyll?’ her father says, holding the lantern high and peering into the dark.
‘I need to see your daughter,’ a voice replies.
‘Elen? Elen’s not sick.’
Dr Argyll steps into the pool of light, pulling his hands free of his gloves. ‘Let me in, Griffiths. It’s bitter out here,’ he says, and then to the servant, ‘wait there. This will take no more than a minute.’
The farmer stands to one side, allowing the doctor to pass before closing the door and bolting it behind him. Elen slips carefully down to a lower step in order to hear better.
‘Fetch your daughter, Griffiths,’ Dr Argyll says.
‘She’s upstairs, asleep.’
‘Call her.’
‘It’s gone ten o’clock. She’ll be dead to the world. She must rise before dawn for the milking.’
‘That cannot be helped. She is needed for a more pressing duty.’
Elen shrinks further into the shadows. She doesn’t want to be caught as an eavesdropper. She hears a creak behind her, and turning, she sees her brother Rhodri standing in the corridor above. ‘What’s happening?’ he whispers.
She creeps up towards him, beckons at him to kneel down and grasps his shoulders. ‘The doctor is here,’ she whispers.
‘Is Tad ill?’
Elen crosses her finger on her lips. ‘Hush, you’ll wake the others. No one is ill. Get back to bed. He asks for me.’
‘Why?’
‘If you hold your tongue we’ll find out soon enough.’
Beneath them they hear their father sigh, then the sound of him coming to the foot of the stairs. Rhodri creeps away, back towards the bedroom.
‘Elen?’ her father calls softly.
‘I’m here, Tad. I’m on my way down.’
Dr Argyll is pacing around in front of the fire, silhouetted
against the flames. When he hears her step, he swings round, acknowledging her with a slight dip of the head. His expression is grave. He is a small man, probably about the same age as her father, but he has the polish and neatness of a gentleman, which makes him seem more youthful.
‘Miss Griffiths, good evening to you. I need you to fetch your cloak and sufficient articles to see you through a few days. Do it quickly. You are to come with me.’
‘What’s that you say?’ her father demands, but the doctor raises a hand to quiet him.
‘Hold your tongue Griffiths. Viscount Mordiford is very sick.’
‘That’s bad news indeed, but what has it to do with Elen?’
‘It is the smallpox.’
‘The red plague?’
‘Call it what you will, she must accompany me to Duntisbourne Hall directly.’
Excitement nips at Elen’s diaphragm. She has always wanted to know what lies behind the walls of that great edifice of towers and gables. And if she goes with the doctor, she won’t have to rise at dawn to begin her daily drudge. The viscount is sick. She will be expected to sit with him.
She frowns. A small worm of anxiety taints her excitement as she turns to fetch her things. Her father shoots out a hand and grasps her by the wrist. ‘You shall not go, Elen,’ he says. ‘I will not allow a circumstance such as this to put your life at risk.’
‘My life, Tad?’
The doctor begins to tap his tricorn against his leg. ‘You know perfectly well she will be in no danger, Griffiths,’ he says.
‘From the plague perhaps not,’ her father replies.
‘And what other dangers are you suggesting await her at the hall? Come on man, speak up.’
Instead of answering, her father blusters, ‘I need Elen here, at the dairy.’
‘Her brothers and sisters can take the load until the sickness has run its course. If things go badly, she may be back sooner than you think.’ Dr Argyll pauses. She sees his gaze shift sideways. ‘Heaven help us all if that proves to be the outcome.’
‘For the love of God, let me bring her over in the morning,’ her father says.
‘I need her tonight. There is no time to waste.’
The doctor’s pebble-grey eyes give her a quick, undecided look. She takes this as a veiled invitation to voice her opinion. ‘I am quite willing to go tonight, Tad,’ she says.
‘You shall not,’ her father barks.
‘Hold your peace,’ says the physician, cracking the sideboard with his hat, shuddering the crockery. ‘Do you think I would have ridden out on this black and frozen night if it was not a matter of life or death? Have you any idea what is at stake? What do you imagine will happen if the viscount dies?’
‘It’ll be a tragedy.’
‘A tragedy? It will be a tragedy for your family, make no mistake. A message has been sent to London informing the viscount’s father, the earl that I have secured a suitable girl to help me.’
‘There are other girls in the village who have had the pox.’
‘Not with your daughter’s education.’
Elen’s eyes widen, she lifts her chin. She feels a swell of pride. She has been singled out. All the learning her mother gave her before she died has not gone to waste. Her name has been put forward and she has been summoned.
‘So we are to be doubly cursed,’ her father says.
‘Come on now, Griffiths – you are surely doubly blessed. I have chosen Elen because she cannot get the pox and the earl is delighted with my choice because your dear departed wife, God bless her soul, gave Elen an education to rival any girl on the estate.’
‘I wish she had not.’
‘Then you should not have stolen the heart of Lady Ludlow’s governess, Griffiths.’
Her father gave a bark of exasperation. ‘You had no right to recommend Elen without consulting me,’ he says.
Elen is quite old enough to decide for herself but she holds her tongue. Her father is not the sort of man to listen but he has met his match in the doctor. As she watches the two of them quarrel, she holds the insides of her cheek between her teeth to stop herself from smiling.
‘I have every right,’ Dr Argyll says.
‘And if I refuse?’
‘You cannot refuse – not if you wish to keep your tenancy.’
A deep unease fills Elen, stifling her humour. What would happen to them if they lost the dairy? She has known no other home, her father has known no other trade. Every field and barn is filled with memories of her childhood, every room in the cottage is filled with the spirit of her mother.
‘You hope to press your case with threats?’ her father says.
‘This is no threat, this is a reality.’ The doctor pauses, drops his head momentarily. He continues in a more conciliatory tone, ‘Look man, the earl is sure to reward you.’
Elen moves closer and says, ‘A reward of any sort could change our lives, Father.’
‘We manage very well,’ he says with angry pride.
The doctor gives a great sigh. ‘Then I shall lay it out in starker terms, Griffiths. If you refuse to let your daughter come, life will go very badly indeed for you and your family. The earl is not a man to be trifled with and today we are all in hell together.’
‘You mean I have no choice.’
‘None of us do. Now hurry.’
Chapter 2
Every soul in the cottage is now awake, tumbling around in the rush and panic. Little Judy mewls in the bed. Her younger brother Marc stares at Elen with eyes as big as saucers as Elen snatches at clothes to pack. Libby stands forlornly in the doorway, shivering in her nightclothes. Rhodri pulls on his boots, insisting he should accompany his sister.
Elen clatters down the stairs to where her father awaits with her cloak. He looks furiously at her, but she knows he is worried. He tosses the cloak across her shoulders, tries clumsily to hug her to him. She pulls away, impatient to follow the doctor.
Out into the yard they go, the doctor’s cloak cutting a path through the mist ahead. Clouds of steam from the horses’ hot, wet bodies rise into the light of the flambeaux. Elen lifts her hems high above her boots to pick through the mire, anxious not to sweep manure into the waiting carriage. The footman opens the door and helps her up the steps. She places her feet carefully. Everything is slippery with the mud and ice.
The doctor squeezes in behind her, shuffling around awkwardly, twisting so as not to brush himself against her. Her father runs around to the other side, tapping on the window and pointing at the sash to urge her to drop it. The coach pitches as the footman climbs up beside the driver, the reins crack and she is flung back in her seat as the horses bound away.
The carriage lurches and shudders through the darkness, the blazing torches on the top of the coach bend in the wind, intermittently licking a ripped flame past the outside of the window. She glimpses the doctor in the flickering light. He stares into the middle distance, preoccupied.
The space inside the carriage is cramped. Elen has to turn sideways to stop her knees knocking against the doctor’s. The neck of her cloak is still undone, but she dare not release her grip on the damp leather of the seat to secure it. After one particularly bruising jolt of the carriage, which pumps an audible grunt from the doctor, he says, ‘The track will improve presently.’
They pass through the deep shadow of the forest that hugs the northern margin of the lake, where the mist sucks up the smell of winter vegetation, rotting and black around the edge of the water.
After several further minutes of silence, the doctor says, ‘I did not wish to cause you or your family alarm by coming so late to the farm. I would have gladly waited until the morning had there been a choice. I have little stomach for these roads at this time of year.’
‘Is Viscount Mordiford very ill indeed, sir?’
‘He is. He arrived back last night from London. They thought he had the influenza – that vile disease is ravaging the city this winter – and packed him off in a carriage. At least the s
teward had the wit to ensure I was at the hall for Mordiford’s arrival. The instant I looked at him, I saw the first marks of the pox had already appeared on his face and hands.’ The doctor sighs heavily. ‘He should never have been brought across the country. Any number of people could have been infected. The footmen and driver have all been isolated at the old saw mill in Nash Wood. The earl, thank God, is at Court.’
‘And the viscount, sir?’
‘I have managed to quarantine him in a sealed chamber above the hall but, apart from myself, I cannot risk exposing any more of the servants to the disease and I cannot attend him day and night.’
‘I don’t understand what I can do, sir.’
‘You must not be concerned, my dear. You will not have to deal with any indelicate treatments.’
‘Treatments?’
The light of the flambeaux flickers across the doctor’s face, momentarily illuminating him. She knows he carries bone-handled knives, a little bowl to catch the blood. Her mother had been spared the indignities of modern medicine in her final days. Her father railed that she might have lived if they had been moneyed. Elen was glad they were not. It was only the wealthy that had to submit to emesis and purging. She shudders at the thought of having to help a man through those humiliations.
‘Treatments?’ the doctor says. ‘Of course. I usually depend on my daughter to help me – she survived this terrible illness a few years ago.’ Elen’s mother used to say it was a good thing the doctor’s daughter had found a husband before she fell ill. Her skin had been left scarred and dull, ruining her looks. ‘But she’s with child at the moment,’ the doctor continues, ‘the baby is due in the next few weeks. I cannot have her exposed to the stress of nursing during her confinement.’
‘Nursing? I cannot nurse.’
‘Perhaps nursing is too specific a term for it. There is very little I can do for Mordiford apart from keeping him comfortable. At the moment there is no one at the hall who can even take the poor man a fresh drink.’
They reach the edge of the forest. The moon casts a cold glow between the thinning trees, penetrating the blackness of the interior of the carriage. Elen steals another look at the doctor. His features are small but pleasantly symmetrical. His eyes are neither too far apart nor too close together, his nose is rather more neat than distinguished, and his lips, although on the thin side, tip up at the corners of the mouth, giving him a cordial expression even in repose. The single feature that robs him of the sophistication of the wealthy is his skin, which is pockmarked as heavily as her father’s is weather-beaten. Aware of her scrutiny, he smiles quizzically at her and says, ‘You are very quiet. Is it the pox that frightens you?’
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