‘Let me take that, sir,’ she says. ‘You do yourself no service.’
‘Who the hell are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?’ he says, his voice cracking with anguish.
She kneels down and reaches out to take the looking glass. At first he raises a petulant shoulder to block her but then he turns his head away and to her surprise, he lets her slide it from his grasp. She lays it face down on the floor and, slipping a hand beneath his arm, encourages him to his feet.
As he tries to stand, he sways. She steadies him, her hand on his chest. Through his shirt she can feel the heat of his fever and the trembling of his muscles. He makes a weak attempt to shake her off, but then submits, allowing her by degrees to lead him back through to the sick room and lay him on the bed. He turns away, weakly drawing the covers across his body.
‘Let me fetch you beer, my lord.’
‘Leave me be,’ he says, his voice muffled by the pillows into which he burrows his face. She stands for a few moments more, wondering if she should insist he take a draught but then with a sigh, she turns away, taking up her post on the chaise longue where she can watch him.
Mordiford stays rolled in a tight ball with his back to her for a good half an hour. Bit by bit his hands release their frantic hold on the bedding and his breathing falls into the steady rhythm of sleep. She gets to her feet and tiptoes round to the other side of the bed. One of his hands flutter, the fingers twitching as he slips deeper into sleep and as she watches, he rolls onto his back with a sigh, flopping his arm out across the palliasse. Where his undershirt falls open, the pocks on his chest give him the appearance of some lichen-covered spirit of the woods. Elen eases the bed curtain across to cut out the light from the window and leaves him to slumber.
She goes back to the storeroom to tidy away the things that he has scattered across the floor. Was he hunting for a looking glass or did he come across it as he searched for something else? It lies over by the large casement window now and, before stooping to pick it up, she gazes out across the estate. A mercury glint between the trees marks the course of the River Lugg as it twists and turns through the woodland, bare of leaves save for the copses of evergreens that punctuate the landscape. She wonders if her family are missing her as much as she misses them.
Turning back to the room, Elen rights a fallen chair and replaces it beside a dressing table, exposed when Mordiford tore the dustsheet back and toppled the chair. She tucks the things away in the open drawers and is about to replace the looking glass when a flash of white catches her eye. She pulls the drawer further out and frowns. It is full of feathers. When she tries to lift one out, the feathers move altogether to form a shape, a mask constructed entirely of quills.
Lifting the thing out, she turns it in her hands. The feathers are too large to be from a goose. The tiniest stitches hold them in place on a rich, white brocade. Most of the feathers are of the purest white except where a widow’s peak of black quills point down between the eyes, mimicking the shape of a swan’s beak. A ribbon of the deepest black is fastened to each side. The longer feathers form the top of the head and around the eyes they have been expertly graded to create a velvet of down.
She glances momentarily over her shoulder and then, raising the looking glass, she presses the mask to her face. The feathers prick and tickle her skin, catching on the moisture of her lips. She blows them free with a soft puff.
She moves her head from left to right to see the effect in the looking glass. The image that gazes back at her is a fairy princess, masked in pure white swan’s feathers. Perhaps that is what Ned meant about the place being merrier in the spring. How wonderful it would be to see a masked ball here at Duntisbourne.
Chapter 10
Elen busies herself throughout the morning, tidying and straightening the sickroom. Whenever her patient stirs, she goes over to his bedside, but the moment she comes into view, Mordiford covers his face and turns away.
Periodically he struggles to swing his feet over the edge of the bed, waiting sullenly for her to help him over to the commode. Each time she gets him to his feet, she is struck by his height and as she helps him across the floor, she slots neatly underneath his arm without the need to bend. She seldom stands next to a man who is substantially taller than her and his stature adds a poignancy to his helplessness.
With little else to do, she begins to feel bored. How she wishes she had had the foresight to pack a piece of sewing to fill these idle hours. She wonders if she could steal back to the storeroom and fetch one of the books. Instead she pokes away at the splinter under her skin, making it sore.
By midday, her thoughts turn to food. She begins to wonder if she’s been quite forgotten and finds herself listening out intently for a tap on the lower door to let her know that a tray of food is waiting downstairs for her to collect.
Around three o’clock, her hunger begins to lessen, as it always does when the hour to eat passes. Boredom and warmth from the fire make her eyes heavy. Perhaps she can fill the afternoon by sleeping, but just as she starts to drop off, she hears footsteps.
She gets to her feet and hurries to the door, opens it and listens. Someone is coming up the stairs with great care, as if they are carrying something. It must be Ned. He has not forgotten her, for who else would risk bringing her a tray of food in person? She leans against the doorjamb aware that her heart is beating a little faster, but to her surprise and disappointment it is not Ned who appears, but the doctor.
‘Dr Argyll,’ she says, stepping down to relieve him of the tray, the contents of which are rattling, threatening to topple over. ‘I was not expecting to see you until this evening.’
She takes the tray into the chamber and places it on the table.
‘No, indeed,’ he says with some unease, ‘and I cannot stay long.’ He doesn’t remove his cloak and stands in the doorway as if intent on leaving immediately. ‘I came back,’ he continues, ‘because I felt that in my haste this morning I spoke out of turn.’
‘Not at all, sir. I am sure I was wrong to have been gone for so long,’ she says, conscious that she needs to control her tang of sarcasm.
‘No, I am the one in the wrong. I have been distracted all morning because of my thoughtlessness, which has been sitting heavily on my mind.’ He begins to pace a little across the floor, his hands behind his back. ‘In my anxiety last night, I plucked you from your comfortable hearth and brought you here without thinking the matter through. Of course you cannot be imprisoned up here, day in and day out, without a breath of fresh air or a few minutes of congenial company. Your health, if not your mind, will begin to suffer. It was unreasonable of me to expect you to hurry back this morning after such a short period of freedom.’ In response to the doctor’s genuinely conciliatory manner, Elen feels a wave of guilt for her earlier surliness.
‘I understand,’ she says. ‘But I really—’
‘I have been speaking to Mr Antrobus to see what we can do to alleviate your situation.’
‘Really, sir, there is no need.’
The doctor raises a hand to quiet her. ‘At first Mr Antrobus was at a loss. All members of the household have their duties and can hardly be spared, but to my great relief the valet…’
‘Ned?’ Elen says with enthusiasm before she checks herself.
‘Yes,’ the doctor brushes her with a quizzical look. Then his face lightens and he smiles saying, ‘It was him, to be sure. He informed me that a lowly scullery maid, a girl called Joan, had survived the pox as a baby. I remembered the girl for she had been left in a sorry state indeed.’
‘She was downstairs this morning at breakfast. I met her.’
‘Yes, she would be hard to miss. Her face was badly scarred and she lost the sight in one of her eyes, as I recall. Mr Antrobus had not thought it pertinent to mention her to me as she is a girl of no education and scant intelligence. The earl would not normally entertain such a lowborn girl serving the viscount, but Mr Antrobus suggested she could sit with the viscount occ
asionally and give you a modicum of freedom.’
‘Why, thank you, Dr Argyll,’ Elen says, and this time her enthusiasm is genuine. ‘This is most thoughtful of you. I would indeed enjoy a few breaks in the day.’ To spend a little more time in Ned’s company, she thinks.
‘That is decided then. I will confirm it with Mr Antrobus on my way out. Now to the patient. I cannot imagine the poor man is taxing you greatly at present, being in such a moribund state. How has he been today?’
Elen hesitates. She wonders whether giving a true account to the doctor might change his mind, but the fancy passes in a moment. She has always tried to be an honest girl even if her courage falters occasionally when the consequences of truth put her at a disadvantage.
Checking over her shoulder to make sure they cannot be overheard, she drops her voice and says, ‘I’m afraid that when I came back to the chamber, the viscount was in the storage room behind the vestibule.’
‘Indeed? I am surprised he had the strength,’ the doctor says.
‘He found a looking glass. He was very distressed.’
‘Oh dear. That is not good at all. If his appearance distresses him now, I am afraid there is far worse to come.’
‘He’s slept for some of the time since,’ Elen says. ‘But when awake I have been unable to engage him in any sort of conversation.’
‘His spirits are bound to be depressed. What young man of that age does not value his good looks?’ The doctor sighs and adds, ‘Life brings hardships to us all.’
Chapter 11
The routine that punctuates Elen’s days and nights is established. An hour before dawn she hears the mouse-like tappings of the scullery maid. When she opens the door, Joan slithers into the room without a word. Sometimes, the girl struggles up the spiral staircase with a load of wood or fresh bedding, but once these are deposited she takes up her post, standing as far away from the sickbed as possible.
At first Elen urges her to take a seat, but with little more than a sullen grunt, she shakes her head. After breakfasting, Elen returns to the room to find Joan still hunched in her corner. Initially she tries to engage her in conversation but Joan refuses to look in her direction. Elen wonders if embarrassment causes this evasion – one of Joan’s eyes is milky and sightless – but even the good eye darts around as if she seeks a route by which to escape. All the while Joan’s mouth hangs open, slack-jawed as if the inside of her nose has been scarred by the pox and she is unable to breathe through it. Elen would have preferred a more congenial partner with whom to share her duties, but she enjoys eating with the other servants and listening to the gossip.
It is rumoured that the earl is expected back before the middle of the month to entertain a group of important guests. Much surprise is expressed that he intends coming when the threat of smallpox is still present. Clearly the earl has great faith in the doctor and believes the sickness has been contained.
Elen’s chief pleasure in having a few hours of freedom each day is the opportunity to see Ned who regularly accompanies her on an early morning stroll down to the lake.
‘What is he like, the earl?’ Elen says one morning as they walk. The air is still but the sky leaden and overcast. There has been a light fall of snow in the night, making it bitterly cold. How she longs to thread her hand into the crook of Ned’s arm as they walk.
‘The earl is very tall and distinguished,’ Ned says.
‘It is strange then that he never remarried.’
‘Is it? The countess was such a sickly woman, he may not be in such a hurry to repeat the experience.’
‘What was wrong with her?’
‘Ah, well. There you have it. There are many rumours but it seems to me that women of high station are often sickly. Look at our poor dear Queen Anne. There’s none higher in the land and none sicker by all accounts. She is so crippled with the gout that she had to be carried into her coronation on a sedan chair, the back cut away so that her train could trail out behind her.’
‘Did the earl attend the coronation?’
‘Of course he did.’
A group of ducks out on the lake begin to squabble, their quacking and flapping echoing through the still air.
‘And the earl,’ Elen says, ‘what of his other children? Are there many?’
Ned comes to a halt and turns to her. ‘There are none. There again the countess aped the habits of the Queen.’
‘Which are what?’
‘You must know, the Queen lost the lot – sixteen or seventeen children they say. The only one to survive was the Duke of Gloucester, and he’s dead now. And as for the earl, I know of six children for certain that were lost before they drew breath. They say one she bore was a monster with a nose like a rabbit but it died within a few days, which was a mercy.’
There is a casual indifference to his words, but she excuses him. Perhaps sympathy for his master is easier if he doesn’t dwell on the suffering.
‘It is a mercy the viscount was born at all, then,’ she says.
‘He was the firstborn. The dead ones all came after him. The rumour is that while the countess was lying-in down here for the month after the birth, the earl caught the eye of another young woman in London.’
‘Really?’
‘Unfortunately, it was not all he caught, if you get my drift.’ Elen shook her head, frowning. Ned leans close to her ear and says, ‘He also caught himself a hearty dose of the French disease, which he was generous enough to pass on to his wife.’ All Elen knows about ‘the French disease’ is that it should not be discussed in polite company so doesn’t ask Ned for further explanation. Besides, he has resumed walking and adds, ‘Other less charitable folk say Mordiford poisoned his mother’s womb before he left it. I am inclined to prefer that explanation.’
‘Have you no good words to say about Viscount Mordiford?’
‘Well, let me think,’ he says and smiles at her, which lifts her heart. ‘I hope he does not succumb to the pox.’
‘That’s unusually charitable of you,’ she says.
‘Not particularly. Should he perish, I would lose the pleasure of your company. If he survives, his recovery may well be slow and it’ll keep you here for a while longer.’
He bends to recover a flat stone from the ground, skimming it across the ice until it drops over the edge, making a hollow gloop before disappearing into the water. Elen watches the ripples spreading out across the lake, expecting him to press his compliment, but he turns away from her and saunters on, back towards the hall, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his coat.
* * *
As she makes her way back to the sickroom, she wishes Ned would take advantage of the time they spend together, alone and unobserved. She smiles to herself. She worried at first he was a rogue, and yet now he behaves as a gentleman, she is sad. She must be happy she has his companionship and that he will be waiting for her again tomorrow.
She is about to open the door up to the chamber when she sees a glint of light in the shadows. A shaft of morning sun has crept into the dark space behind the column of stone that houses the spiral staircase, illuminating a small ribbed box she has never noticed before.
She looks around the gallery, but she is alone. She peers at the box, tries to open the latches but they are locked. She stands up, her hands on her hips. She sees that one of the struts is fractured. Then she remembers. She saw this very box a few days ago up in the storeroom beyond the vestibule.
‘Joan,’ she says when she enters the chamber. The girl is standing in her usual spot. ‘Did someone tell you to take that box downstairs?’
The girl’s eye slides away. ‘No, miss.’
‘A box from the room behind the hangings has been moved downstairs to the gallery. Did someone ask you to put it there?’
‘I ain’t touched nothing, miss.’ She begins to move crabwise along the wall towards the door.
‘No, wait a minute. It doesn’t matter if you were asked to do it. I was only going to see if you needed help mov
ing anything else downstairs. I would imagine several things may be needed for the entertainments if the earl is coming back.’
A sly smile spreads across the girl’s face. She begins to mutter to herself in a manner so disconcerting that Elen comes forward, holds out her hand to calm her, but with a sudden and unexpected movement, Joan slides past and scurries out of the door.
Chapter 12
The scuffle wakes Mordiford. ‘Miss Griffiths,’ he says, his voice weak and rasping. Elen hurries over and looks down on him. When she first saw him, she thought him a rather ordinary-looking fellow. He certainly doesn’t look ordinary now. The lumps on his skin are so numerous and inflamed, his face is stiff with swelling. His arms and legs are equally affected.
She should feel disgust, but she finds instead, she feels sympathy and has a powerful wish to scour the lesions off his skin. She longs to soothe his face with cold water until the swelling subsides and return him to normality. He may have little energy left to be disagreeable, but she would prefer a return of the angry man who tried to drive her away on that first night.
‘What can I fetch for you, my lord?’
‘Is it the bath?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ He turns his head sideways as if to use the direction of his eyes to point towards the door.
‘The thing the girl was moving. Is it the bath?’ So Joan was not truthful, she thinks, but she also realises that Mordiford must have heard the doctor discussing his treatment plan that first day.
‘The bath?’ she says. ‘I do not think so, sir. It was mentioned but now seems quite forgot.’ His gaze drifts away, a lost and frightened look in his eyes. ‘Why?’ she says. ‘Do you feel anxious about the treatment?’
She is surprised that this familiarity comes so easily to her. She has been brought up to revere breeding and has a natural admiration for elegance and gallantry, even though she has had little first-hand experience of either during her life. Up until now, had she come across these qualities in a person, she would have known instinctively that they shared nothing in common. In fact, she would have avoided a man of such culture, as one might avoid the brilliance of lightning or anything else that is bright and alarming.
The Summer Fields Page 6