If Mordiford had begun their association with the normal politeness that a man of rank usually used towards a servant, she would carry out her duties automatically and with little emotional involvement, but ironically the roughness of his manner towards her at that first meeting has smoothed the differences between them.
Mordiford peers up at her from beneath his swollen lids, not with his usual dismissive glance but with a look of steady concentration. ‘It is not natural to be submerged in water,’ he says.
‘It is when you are swimming. Did you not swim as a boy, sir?’
He runs his tongue over his swollen lips. ‘I have a horrible taste in my mouth,’ he says.
‘I will fetch you a draught.’
‘No, wait,’ and his hand comes out and grasps her, pulling her down with a weak force to sit beside him. ‘I hear that even the King of France does not submerge his body in a bath more than twice a year.’
‘But I also read he can indulge both himself and his body by changing his undershirt four times a day,’ she says. Mordiford almost smiles, but then he winces, the cracks around his lips opening.
‘How does a girl like you know a thing like that?’
‘I had a mother who was full of knowledge and learning.’
‘She taught you to read and write?’
‘She did. Reading is one of my greatest pleasures. Perhaps you would like me to read to you as you rest.’
‘Perhaps.’ He holds her gaze for a moment longer then looks away. ‘I can hardly stand you to look upon my face,’ he says. ‘How can you bear to watch my body bubbling up as if I have been burned with fire?’
‘I am here to nurse you, sir. It holds no fear for me.’
‘I have become a monster.’
‘You will heal.’
‘If I live.’ He shifts in the bed and turns his extraordinary blue eyes on her with a look of entreaty as if he longs to believe her. The rims are red and swollen. As she watches, the well of moisture, hovering along the bottom lid, rises and drops down his face, trickling between the raised boils. ‘If I die, shall I be locked in this monstrous body for eternity?’
‘When we die, we leave all earthly suffering behind,’ she says, reaching to the side table to take up a flannel. She blots the tear from his cheek being careful not to disturb the pocks. ‘But you will not die. You have Dr Argyll to take care of you.’
‘And I have you. You and your pity.’
She hesitates but she cannot lie. ‘How could I not pity you?’ she says, dropping her voice to soften it.
‘I no longer mind. I pity myself more than I ever imagined possible. I have become a freak. That gruesome girl cannot help but stare at me when you are not here as if I was some fiendish exhibit in a travelling show.’
‘Does she?’
‘I close my eyes and pretend to sleep but I can hear her close by, breathing through her mouth. Sometimes she bends so low over me, I can smell the taint of her breath.’
‘She means no harm.’
He shifts restlessly again, one hand working its way beneath his hips. ‘God’s teeth, how my back aches.’
‘Come, let me make you more comfortable,’ she says. ‘If you are able to sit for a few minutes, I can change the linen on your bed and return you to it once it is fresh and smooth. Perhaps a little movement would relieve the tension in your back.’
He meekly submits to her suggestion and, throwing a shawl around his shoulders, she guides him over to the chaise longue, lifting his long legs up so that they are supported along the seat.
As she makes his bed more comfortable, she marvels at his obedience. A few days ago, he refused to be served by her, but sickness has brought dependency and humility. It will not last, she thinks. Once recovered we will resume our allotted positions in life. She finishes her task and crosses the room to where Mordiford lies, moribund beside the fire.
‘I have been thinking,’ she says, ‘if submersion in water is of concern to you, I could suggest to the doctor that the same benefits may result from bathing your lesions with the salted water instead. The pain of the salt on the open wounds would be easier to bear if it did not come all at once.’
‘It is not the pain that makes me fearful. Surely if my body is allowed to soak in water, the disease will rush back in and I will surely die.’
‘You must trust the physician.’
‘Why? When the poor get sick it is said they are more likely to survive than the rich.’
‘Perhaps it’s God’s way of balancing out the hardship visited on the poor.’ Mordiford is not too sick to shoot a look at her at a perceived insult.
‘You think it divine justice that the poor are mercifully saved?’ Mordiford says. ‘Does God mock us because we can afford to pay for the very doctors whose treatments cause more harm than good?’
‘Come,’ she says, as one does to a difficult child. ‘Let me get you back into bed.’ She helps him across the room, his scabbed arm heavy across her shoulders, and lays him down on the smoothed linen, arranging the covers neatly across his legs. ‘Is that not cool and refreshing?’
‘It is,’ he says. She sits down on the edge of the mattress and takes up the subject once more.
‘Dr Argyll seems quite the medical pioneer,’ she says. ‘His resistance to current thinking will benefit you. He does not want to bleed you, nor does he agree in constant cleansing or the purgative clyster.’
‘Thank the Lord. I have been humiliated enough.’
‘Some of his draughts are based on the same herbs the women in the village use to bring down fever and his theories on the goodness of salt are founded on strong evidence. I am quite sure you are in the best possible hands and that, if we follow his advice, you will make a full recovery.’
‘I am not sure that I want to,’ he says, turning his head away from her.
‘Come now, this is the sickness talking.’
‘The Duke of Marlborough will not want a monster of a man like me beside him when he rides out to defeat the French.’
‘Your scars will not make you a monster. They will be a permanent reminder to all who see you of the suffering you have courageously endured. What better way to forge the face of a soldier?’
He reaches out a weak hand towards her but, perhaps thinking better of it, he allows it to drop before casting his eyes to the ground. ‘You are kind,’ he says.
Taking the candle from the side table, she leaves him to his dark thoughts, but as she busies herself tidying the sickroom, she offers up a silent prayer to God to bring the poor man a little comfort.
Chapter 13
The following day the hall is thrown into a state of panic by the news that the earl is due to arrive late in the afternoon.
‘I am sure he will call for you, Miss Griffiths,’ the doctor says, ‘he will want to make sure his son is in good hands.’
Elen is bending over Viscount Mordiford, dabbing salted water on the pocks on his chest. Mordiford is not looking at her, he is braced for pain, his full attention on her hands. The doctor stands behind her, arms folded, watching the proceedings and chattering to Elen as she works. ‘Let us hope this notion of yours proves successful, Miss Griffiths.’
The viscount flinches and gasps as she presses the cold brine onto a new lesion.
‘Be careful not to knock it open,’ the doctor says, leaning forward as he cautions her. ‘Exposing them before they’re ready will leave a deeper scar.’ Mordiford gives a groan of despair and rolls his eyes. The doctor straightens up and says, ‘Good work, Miss Griffiths. Now my lord, those should begin to feel more comfortable in a minute or two when the moisture has dried away.’
‘That water makes my skin itch so damnably I am quite maddened by it,’ Mordiford says, pushing himself higher on his pillows and curling his fingers in readiness to scratch the bathed area.
‘No!’ the doctor barks, pushing in front of Elen, knocking the bowl and spilling brine into her lap. As she pushes her chair back to give him more room, the doctor gr
abs the viscount by both hands.
‘Get off me, man,’ Mordiford says.
‘I will not,’ the doctor says with some vigour. ‘Miss Griffiths,’ he calls over his shoulder as they struggle. ‘Fetch me those scissors and pare the nails while I hold him.’
Elen goes through to the vestibule, brushing the water off her apron. She finds the scissors and returns to the struggle, grasping Mordiford’s finger and trying to position the blades over the nail. His hand writhes and bucks so violently she dare not take a snip.
‘For pity’s sake, woman. Leave me be,’ Mordiford says. ‘I’m not a child.’
‘You’re behaving like one,’ the doctor says. ‘A child cannot be expected to understand the consequence of his action. You, on the other hand, can.’
‘The irritation is killing me.’
If anything kills him, she thinks, it’ll be the smallpox.
It is impossible to use her scissors. She lets go of his finger, straightens up and waits, watching the two men struggle.
‘I cannot stand it,’ Mordiford says, desperately trying to wrench his hands free from the doctor’s grip.
‘You must,’ the doctor says. ‘Should you tear at these lumps whenever they irritate you, at best you will ensure your skin is pocked as densely as the face of the moon. At worst, you will inflame and anger the wounds, corrupting the flesh. Can you not use your self-control for once?’
Mordiford is suddenly still. Elen knows a storm is coming.
‘What can you mean, “for once”?’ Mordiford says. The doctor stares down at him, an impatient expression on his face. ‘I lie here, deformed and humiliated as this girl…’ Mordiford wags a dismissive finger towards Elen. ‘…strips away one dignity after another. Am I now to be spoken to as if everyone in the whole world has forgotten their place?’
Elen sees the doctor’s face redden, all except for the tip of his chin, which blanches as the muscles around his mouth pinch with fury.
‘Forgotten my place, your lordship?’ Dr Argyll utters the address with the vehemence of an insult. ‘At the present moment I am on a far higher plane than you have ever been to me.’
Elen backs away from the two men, fascinated and a little thrilled to observe the tussle.
‘How dare you,’ Mordiford says.
‘I dare,’ the doctor says, his face now an inch or two away from Mordiford’s, ‘because I have determined to give you your single most sporting chance to survive. I can just as easily choose not to, sir.’
The doctor straightens up and tugs his waistcoat down by the lapels. ‘As for Miss Griffiths,’ he says, ‘a man’s station in life does not give him the right to treat anyone with such contempt.’ Elen bites her lips softly between her teeth to hide her smile. An argument is always enjoyable when one has a champion. The doctor continues, ‘Miss Griffiths has left her family to come and take care of you. When I drove her here on that first night, she was full of dread. She controlled that fear and distress. In fact, she showed the stoicism and dignity that you, as heir to the Duntisbourne estates, are sadly lacking.’
The palliasse rustles as Mordiford shifts his weight, apparently struck dumb. Presently he raises his eyes, which fizz electric blue, and says, ‘I have never been spoken to like that in my life.’
‘You would undoubtedly be a better man if you had,’ the doctor says.
The two men look fixedly at one another for what seems like minutes but is probably only seconds. Mordiford is the first to break the stare, looking down to draw the edges of his shirt closed across his chest.
‘When does my father arrive?’ he says in a low tone. Ah, Elen thinks, he pretends the conversation of the past few minutes never happened.
‘Sometime this afternoon,’ Dr Argyll replies lightly, knowing he has won the duel.
* * *
The doctor sniffs and turns away, preparing to take his leave. Once he has donned his outdoor cloak, he touches Elen on the elbow and draws her towards the door.
‘Accompany me down to the gallery, if you would be so obliged,’ he says. ‘I have a few instructions to give you out of earshot. His lordship will come to no harm in the next five minutes.’
When they reach the gallery, the doctor places his bag on the ground and pulls on his gloves. He arranges his tricorn over his periwig and says, ‘I do not imagine you will have trouble with him today.’ He pauses momentarily and then gives her a broad and rather boyish smile, which lights up his face and makes him appear more youthful. ‘Do not put up with any nonsense from him,’ he says, then he shakes his head and purses his lips as if re-running the scene in his mind’s eye. ‘I will not have you spoken to in such a manner. I am confident I made my point quite plainly, but I do not completely trust him to hold his tongue when I am not there.’
Suddenly the doctor tosses back his head and laughs, clapping his hand across his mouth to stifle it. He controls himself, and pushes the back of his hand against his eyes. ‘But upon my word,’ he says, ‘I rather enjoyed that. I have been wanting to give that young man a piece of my mind for years.’
Elen smiles at his glee, but part of her still feels sympathy for Mordiford. ‘He was abrupt but surely that’s because he’s sick and afraid,’ she says.
‘Perhaps. But you did not know him when his mother was alive.’ The doctor glances around the gallery, drops his voice and says, ‘Follow me. There is a sketch over in the private side that will show you what I mean.’ Leaving his bag where it lies, he slips down a short passage to the right of the baize door, opens a heavy oak door at the end and stands aside to let her through.
The air beyond is warm and smells sweetly of wood smoke. When she steps over the threshold, her foot sinks into the rug on the floor, as springy as moss. They appear to be in a kind of backwater of the private apartments, a place that people pass through. Even so, it has an air of comfortable softness, as if every wall, window and floorboard has been padded, the sounds muffled unlike the staterooms, which are all noise and echo. The doctor beckons her over to where a small picture hangs on the wall, a sketch in charcoal and chalk mounted in a simple frame of pine.
‘The viscount was seventeen when this sketch was done,’ the doctor says, his voice barely a whisper. ‘His mother fancied having a bust made of him. She died before it was commissioned but this is how I remember him.’ The doctor’s tone leaves Elen in little doubt that he sees an entitled and indulged young man, but she sees something else. Yes, there is a lift of the head which may seem proud, but as she gazes at the clear eyes, the handsome line of the jaw and the broad symmetry of the face, she detects a tension in the shoulders and neck. This is not a proud young man at all. This is a hesitant man, hiding his anxieties beneath a mask of superiority.
‘He was an insufferable young man when last we met,’ the doctor says.
‘How long ago was this?’
‘Goodness, let me see. The countess has been dead for seven years now.’
‘A man can change a great deal in that time,’ Elen says, gazing at the portrait.
‘Perhaps you are right, Miss Griffiths. My judgement was made on a young man indulged by his mother, who treated those around him with an unpleasant disdain. I felt he reached adulthood with a misguided notion of entitlement.’
‘But he is entitled – he is a viscount.’
‘Aha! You mean to be quarrelsome, Miss Griffiths,’ the doctor says with good cheer. ‘Yes, he has a title, but I felt that had he been less indulged, he might have understood earlier that privilege and duty go hand in hand. But perhaps you are right. I must admit that when I heard he had purchased himself a commission, I was beside myself with hope for him. Perhaps he truly meant to make something of himself.’
‘But this sickness has snatched that away.’
‘Indeed it has. The red plague has no respect for rank. It robbed you of two of your brothers and took your poor dear mother. It killed the Queen’s sister, then two of her own children. It nearly took Queen Anne herself. And now the viscount is facing t
he same bleak reality and no amount of money can help him.’
‘Is he bound to be disfigured?’ she says.
‘Oh yes, to a greater or lesser extent. He will bear the same pockmarks as a street urchin or…’ Dr Argyll runs his hand across his own pitted face and smiles, ‘…a country doctor. However passionately he longs for a complexion as clear and as pure as yours, he cannot have it. But who knows, perhaps this hardship will be the making of him. Suffering is often the hammer, and misfortune the chisel, when God fashions a man’s character.’
Chapter 14
Elen is making her way back along the gallery when she hears the noise of scraping furniture. She looks over the balcony to the hall below and sees four of the servants struggling to move a heavy marble table across the tiles. As she watches, Ned appears from underneath the balcony, directing them as they work. He moves across the hall, removing dustsheets as he goes.
‘Ned!’ she calls. He looks up and waves.
‘Come down,’ he says.
‘I cannot, I must return to the patient.’
‘Wait there then.’
He drops the bundle of sheets from beneath his arms and bounds up the wide staircase towards her. He has been working hard for, despite the chill, he has removed most of his livery except for his shirt, which clings to his body where the sweat has sprung from his back. He is such a picture of health and vitality, his skin glowing and his hair glossy, it is a relief to look on him and be reminded that the human body is a wonderful thing.
‘Is this all in preparation for the earl?’ she says when he reaches the gallery.
‘It is.’
‘But I thought he did not use the main rooms during the winter.’
‘Usually he would not but there is to be a meeting of the Order of the Knights of St Sebastian in a few days’ time.’
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