‘A light? What sort of a light?’
‘There’s a room back there. I think there must be a window.’
The doctor frowns, shakes his head at her. ‘Very likely. There are storage rooms throughout this part of the hall, but it is not your place to go poking around looking into them.’ He glares at her the way her father does when he’s displeased. Then he sighs. ‘Well, never mind. You gave me a turn. I arrived and found the sickroom empty except for the viscount. I was alarmed.’
‘I was gone for barely a minute.’
‘I was not to know that. Viscount Mordiford is restless. I imagined that you had run off back home.’
‘Not at all, sir. I have sat with him all night.’
‘Have you now?’
She comes towards him, brushing the dust from her apron. The doctor frowns, reaches out towards her hair but snatches his hand back at the last minute and wags his fingers towards the side of his periwig.
‘There’s something stuck… caught in your hair,’ he says. She reaches up, feels sticky cobwebs and pulls them clear.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she says. His awkwardness has swept away his anger.
‘Well, I admit you look tired. How did the patient fare?’
‘His night has been divided between hours of deep sleep and high agitation, but I made sure that he had his beer and that he was not fully covered with bedding when asleep. There were times when he seemed to imagine things.’
‘Imagine things?’
‘He was troubled. He stared and shouted.’
‘At you?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘What was he shouting about?’
‘The words he said made no sense.’
‘It is not unusual for a man with a high fever to have hallucinations. But come, we have work to do.’
The light from the small window has been joined by the dawn creeping in around gaps below the eaves. Many more spots have appeared on the viscount’s face during the night. The doctor places his hand on Mordiford’s forehead but he does not stir.
‘I think he is cooler this morning’ he says, giving her a tight smile. ‘You have done your job well.’
‘Is his fever over, sir?’
‘For the time being. I have studied this disease closely and noticed that when the rash spreads, the fever abates. See here…’ and he peels open the shirt. ‘The rash is spreading quickly.’
‘So the danger is passed?’
‘No, I am afraid not. Look, the blemishes that first erupted on his forehead are already becoming raised.’ She moves nearer and the doctor reaches out to the table, takes up a candle and holds it up. ‘Soon they will fill with a thick, opaque fluid.’
‘Every single one of these marks will fill?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
‘But there are so many.’ Many more than she remembers on her mother – and her mother died.
‘And more blooming all the time. See here,’ the doctor says, ‘in the hairline. This one has a dimple in the centre.’
She cranes forward. There is something uncomfortable about studying this poor man as he sleeps, like spying on someone who doesn’t know they’re being watched, but as the light catches the pock her curiosity gets the better of her and she peers at the deep pit.
‘It looks like the button on a belly.’
‘Indeed. As they rise up, it is possible to feel a sharpness beneath the skin. Place your finger upon it, Miss Griffiths.’
She hesitates. She trusts the doctor, but she feels a residual anxiety about contact with such scrofulous skin. Remembering Dr Argyll’s admonishment of the previous night, she fights her reluctance and reaches out.
‘What do you feel?’ Dr Argyll says.
‘A lump. It is as if a piece of lead shot lies beneath the skin.’
The doctor nods. ‘The fever will rise again soon and remain high until scabs form over the bumps.’
‘Is it possible to squeeze the lump out?’ she says, remembering the queasy pleasure of milking the core out of the boils that periodically appeared on her brother’s back.
‘No. It is seated deep in the tissues beneath and, besides, that is the purpose of the boils, to bring the evil humours to the surface and shed them later with the scabs.’
‘Will you bleed him?’
The doctor releases the edge of the nightshirt and moves a little way from the bed. ‘I know that is the usual course of treatment but I have noted that excessive bleeding weakens a patient.’
‘You intend to purge him?’
‘A clyster is of little use here.’ She feels a wave of relief. She cannot stand the notion of helping the doctor administer an enema. ‘No,’ Argyll says, ‘I intend soaking him.’
‘Soaking him? In what?’
The doctor takes her by the elbow and leads her away from the patient. ‘We shall talk over here in order not to waken him.’
He sits down on the chaise longue and indicates that she should join him. ‘I came across an extraordinary account of two sufferers in some God-forsaken part of the world who were near to death.’
‘From smallpox?’
‘Yes. In despair, these wretched men dragged themselves down to a lake. They intended soothing their skin in the water but as they tried to submerge themselves, they bobbed to the surface as if they were made of cork.’ She frowns, trying to imagine the scene. ‘Nevertheless,’ the doctor continues, ‘the feeling was pleasant and they floated around for a full day and a night.’
‘Did they not get cold?’
‘They were hot with fever. It must have been extremely calming. By the following morning both men were feeling greatly recovered. They left the lake and made a full recovery.’
‘Was it a miracle?’
‘Indeed it was. A miracle that God led them to the lake, but the manner of their cure, I believe, has a more worldly explanation. This lake was known to be exceedingly salty, far more briny than the ocean itself. The salt was so fierce that local people knew no fish could live beneath its waters. I have a theory that the salt, which choked the life from the fish, stifled the disease itself.’
She thinks about the pig they slaughter every autumn, the huge pink slabs of flesh, frosted with salt, the beads of moisture oozing out of the skin as it hangs, drying in the game larder.
‘How can a substance used to cure meat help a man?’
‘Salt has been used down the centuries for rubbing into wounds.’
Elen shivers. She has read of sailors subjected to this terrible practice.
‘But surely that was to increase the punishment after flogging?’
‘Yes and no. I believe it prevented infection following the beatings, even if that was not the intended purpose.’
‘The viscount will suffer terribly.’
‘I think not. My plan is to fill a receptacle with strong brine and lower him into it as the pustules fill. There will be no abrasive property to the treatment. The water will be soothing as long as the lesions are still protected and not open.’
She shudders at the thought, but when she looks into the eyes of the physician she sees they burn with zeal. He is convinced that his treatment will work.
‘Anyway, we have a few days to get things ready for this,’ the doctor continues. ‘I shall sit with his lordship for the moment. You are to go down to the south wing and find yourself some breakfast. While you are there, make some enquiries. I will need a bath of some kind but one which we can manoeuvre up the spiral staircase together.’
‘Is the spiral staircase the only way up here?’ Elen asks.
‘It is now. There was another staircase that could be accessed from the undercroft beneath the private apartments but a fire, many years ago, weakened it and they tore it down.’
‘So all the furniture here and in the storerooms is marooned up here?’
‘It is – but unfortunately, nothing that we can use as a bath.’
Elen puzzled the problem before saying, ‘Ned can help.’
‘The valet? But he hasn’t had the disease.’
‘He told me last night that he is protected.’
‘Oh, that nonsense. Yes, I know he believes he is, but it’s not true.’
‘Do you know why he thinks that he is?’
‘I do as a matter of fact.’ The doctor’s eyes twinkle with amusement and a certain amount of indecision. Instead of continuing, he nods towards the commode. ‘Take that down with you.’ Now the doctor has taken her into his confidence she does not mean to show disgust in her expression, but he narrows his eyes and says, ‘For a country girl you are surprisingly squeamish.’
‘Animals are different.’
‘They urinate and defecate the same as us, or has your father protected you from the uglier side of life?’
‘My mother made no secret of wanting a different life for me. My father has never gone against her wishes.’
‘And what life would that be, pray?’
‘She wanted me to teach.’
‘In order to fulfil her own thwarted aspiration, I suppose.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Well, your mother turned her back on a comfortable life when she married a farmer. She wouldn’t have done that unless she was made of stern stuff. Shame she didn’t pass that on to you.’
‘She taught me plenty.’
‘Is that so? It is of no matter. Take the slops down anyway and give them to Joan to sluice for you if your stomach still feels weak.’
Chapter 7
Elen descends the spiral staircase, the horrible bucket clanking at her ankles. The stench of ammonia is magnified by the confined space. She pauses for a moment by a small window halfway down and breathes in a lungful of the frosty air that percolates through the casement.
The window does not offer her a view out across the estate. Instead she finds herself peering at other windows in the walls surrounding an interior courtyard. These must be servants’ rooms because unlike the windows she saw last night on the east facade, they are small and tightly packed. The ceilings on those floors must be very low indeed. The rooms would not get the sun at any time of the day.
She stands on tiptoe and, looking down, she can just about see the basement level. It is filled with old crates and boxes, a dumping ground for the servants’ quarters. As she watches, a maid comes out of one of the doors and empties a chamber pot into an open rill that runs in a shallow channel through the yard.
Elen hurries on down the stairs, eager to despatch the bucket of effluent, but when she steps out onto the minstrels’ gallery, she stops. The ghostly shapes she saw the night before are bathed in a hard light. Above her head, a wooden roof of exquisite beauty spans the space. The beams and struts create squares and between each of these, the plaster is highly decorated with beautiful images and motifs. Awestruck, her eyes are drawn down into the hall. The low winter sun is shining through the glass and picking up the motes of dust. The dark oak of the staircase is embellished with carvings, the steps covered with thick carpeting, blood red, and bearing the crest of the Duntisbournes. All around the walls, portraits of earls, their countesses and children stare down in mute solemnity, their clothes luscious, their hands and faces delicate. One group of children have a tiny dog at their feet, so small it looks like a cat. Above the huge front doors on the opposite side of the hall, hangs the earl’s banner covered with heraldic symbols, and ships and scallop shells.
The rank smell from the bucket invades her reverie and sighing, she picks it up and heads towards the baize door at the opposite end of the gallery. She finds the top of the service staircase and makes her way down. When she reaches the undercroft she can hear crockery being stacked and, following the sound, eventually comes to the room where the servants are finishing their breakfast.
All eyes turn towards her, some of them none too welcoming. She stands straight and tall. She looks along the bench of faces and sees Ned at the same time as he spots her. He drops his spoon and jumps to his feet.
‘Miss Griffiths,’ he says. ‘What have you there?’ Some of the servants chuckle. ‘Leave it outside, for the love of Heaven and come and sit. Joan, kindly relieve Miss Griffiths of her load.’
Joan is a slatternly looking girl with a sallow and scarred skin. She crosses the room and takes the bucket, clanking out of a door and into the yard.
‘Come and sit down,’ Ned says.
‘If I could please wash my hands.’
‘There is a pitcher and bowl on the side there,’ Ned says, hopping off the bench and offering her a napkin to dry her hands. He then announces to the room, ‘This is Miss Griffiths. She has come to take care of the viscount.’
The breakfasters continue to eat.
‘We know who she is, Ned,’ Mr Antrobus says without looking up. ‘Get on with your breakfast.’
Ned leads her around the table and gestures to a lad to move along to make space. Joan returns, wiping her hands on her soiled apron.
‘Joan,’ Mr Antrobus says, ‘fetch Miss Griffiths a bowl of gruel and make sure it has a good splash. She’ll need her strength.’
Joan drops a dollop of boiled oatmeal into a bowl then washes it with a clear liquid from a terracotta flask on the sideboard.
‘Thank you, Joan,’ Ned says as she puts the dish in front of Elen. Immediately the girl’s surly expression lifts. She bobs a small curtsey at Ned before retreating back to the serving table, a crooked smile lighting up her face.
‘Good old Joan here,’ he says, nodding in her direction, ‘has to brave the long walk back and forth from the kitchens so that none of us get our feet wet, eh, Joan?’ The girl makes an odd sort of noise, as if she’s trying to clear phlegm, and puts a hand to her mouth, covering her large brown teeth. Elen thinks she must be laughing.
Mr Antrobus gives Joan a severe look and brandishes his spoon at her. The moment he resumes his breakfast, Joan gazes back at Ned with a bovine regard.
The gruel is lukewarm, and heady with alcohol, but Elen is hungry. As she eats, other servants join the table, but apart from the steward who asks after the viscount’s progress, Ned is the only person who goes out of his way to talk to her.
‘Bit different from life at home, I would imagine,’ Ned says.
‘It is.’
‘We never get a hot meal down here. The kitchen’s way over by the stables on the other side of the courtyard. Mind you, we get it hotter than the family when they’re at home.’ He eats in huge mouthfuls. She can hear his teeth meeting as he chews. A man of appetite, she thinks to herself, smiling at the contrast between his enthusiasm and the viscount’s trembling distaste for anything she raises to his lips.
‘I bet you all eat in a cosy kitchen, with your mother cooking at the range,’ Ned says between mouthfuls.
‘We used to, but my mother died a few years ago. The family will have to do with my younger sister’s cooking until I return.’
‘I’m sorry to hear your mam has passed. What took her?’
‘The pox.’
‘Oh, that’s harsh indeed and here you are having to relive every grisly detail.’
Elen is touched by his sympathy. She remembers worrying that nursing the viscount would remind her of her mam’s sickness but it has not.
‘I’m sure I have Dr Argyll to guide me.’
‘I think you’re very brave. I wouldn’t like to spend the night locked away up there with the viscount as he gets more and more plooky by the day.’
‘It isn’t very pleasant.’
‘Has he quite lost his looks yet?’ he says with a sly smile.
‘I wouldn’t know.’ She drops her voice, leans towards him and says, ‘for I thought him a rather ordinary man to begin with.’
Ned throws his head back and gives a great bellow of laughter.
‘What is so amusing, Ned?’ the steward says.
‘A nothing, sir.’
‘Miss Griffiths?’
‘A passing remark, sir.’ They continue to eat in silence, heads down. Ned turns
his face imperceptibly at the same time as her and they share a conspiratorial glance. She finishes her food and remembers the task the doctor has set her.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ she says to Mr Antrobus. All eyes turn towards her. ‘Dr Argyll has asked me to enquire if it would be possible for a bath to be taken up to the sealed chamber?’
‘A bath?’ says Mr Antrobus with as much astonishment as if she had requested taking a coach and horses up there. ‘It’s barely possible to climb the stairs with a tray in your hands. How on earth does he imagine we can navigate a tin tub up there?’
‘Perhaps the blacksmith could fashion one the shape of a horseshoe,’ Ned says. Joan makes her choking noise and Mr Antrobus looks annoyed.
‘I believe the doctor is planning to use it for one of the viscount’s treatments,’ Elen says.
‘Then he will have to think again,’ Mr Antrobus says, his tone leaving Elen in no doubt that further discussion would be useless.
Ned finishes his oatmeal, sits back from the table and wipes his mouth on a grubby kerchief before returning it to his pocket. ‘Miss Griffiths,’ he says, ‘since the good doctor has released you for half an hour, why don’t you let me show you around the house to familiarise yourself? Would that meet with your approval, sir?’ he says to Mr Antrobus.
‘The doctor’s a busy man, Ned. He has his morning rounds to do and will need Miss Griffiths back now that she has finished with her breakfast.’
Elen feels a wave of disappointment that her moment of freedom is coming to an end, but Ned leans towards the steward and says: ‘I’m sure the doctor would allow Miss Griffiths a breath of fresh air. I promise to have her back up those stairs within ten minutes.’
She looks at Mr Antrobus, expecting another reprimand. Instead he gives the slightest of nods and winks at Ned who is already on his feet. She gets up so rapidly that the legs of the bench scrape across the floor. She is aware of Joan watching her as she leaves the room so she gives her a pleasant smile. It is not returned.
Ned retraces the route they took the night before. Although the undercroft is poorly lit and has no natural light coming in apart from through the hopper windows at floor level, the passageway does not hold the same horrors. She peers into the corridors that disappear to the left and right of them.
The Summer Fields Page 4