The Summer Fields

  ‘You foul creature,’ he says, his face so close to hers that she narrows her eyes as spittle hits her face. ‘Get out! Out of this room, out of the hall. Be gone by morning. If I ever see you again, I will snap your neck like a rabbit in a snare.’ He propels her towards the door, pushing her out. Elen hears the girl’s boots clatter as she tumbles down the steps. Then she spots Ned. He hasn’t fled.

  He raises his chin defiantly, steps towards Mordiford and broadens his chest. ‘What?’ Mordiford says. ‘You think a birth defect can protect you from this? Come on then, wrestle me. We will see how immune you are to the pox when you press yourself against it.’

  Ned hesitates. His conviction is weakening, but he stands his ground. Mordiford grabs a knife from the table and brandishes it at him.

  ‘Or do you want me to cut a navel in your stomach and rob you of your protection?’

  He makes a mock lunge. Ned hesitates no longer. He turns on his heels and races out of the door.

  Mordiford spins round. His eyes flash as blue as lightning as they fall on Elen. His countenance is so livid, his body so charged with violence that for one terrible moment she fears he has hounded the others away to have her for himself.

  He stands panting, glaring down at her, but then his shoulders slump and he rests his hand on the table, breathing heavily. The vigour of the past few minutes has taken its toll. Wearily, he shuts the door on the cold night air and comes towards her, his face calm. She is no longer in danger.

  She turns away, clutched by a sense of shame that he sees her so compromised. With her hands bound, she is acutely conscious of how wanton she looks, the foolish mask askew on her face, her hair tumbled over her shoulders, her legs bared and vulnerable.

  Sitting on the side of the platform Mordiford reaches out, drawing the hem of her dress down before sawing at the cord with the knife until her hands are free. She tugs at the ribbon and frees the mask, flinging it across the floor.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, tears of relief pricking at the backs of her eyes. She is trembling all over.

  ‘You’re not safe here,’ he says, pulling the edges of his shirt together and buttoning up his waistcoat. ‘They will be back. My father cannot let you go now.’

  ‘So they meant to kill me after they had finished using me?’

  ‘No, I think not. Had I not intervened, your shame alone would have ensured your silence.’

  She shudders. He is right. She would have slunk back to her father’s house. She would never have been able to admit her foolishness. In her desire for excitement and romance, she willingly colluded in a meeting that was at best imprudent. She could not have guessed the full extent of her peril, but she put herself in a vulnerable situation of her own accord.

  ‘You are the last person I expected to come to my aid,’ she says. ‘I cannot thank you enough.’

  He smiles wearily. ‘No one else was coming to help you.’

  ‘How did you know what was going to happen?’

  He shakes his head, that familiar stubborn expression returning to his face. ‘We must make haste,’ he says, ‘and take you to a place of safety.’

  ‘Tell me how you knew.’

  He rolls his eyes towards the ceiling. ‘Why can you not for one brief moment do as I tell you without this constant sparring?’ She stares back at him, waiting for him to continue. He sighs heavily and says, ‘You must understand, I have seldom been at home since my mother’s death. I had other pursuits to follow, other interests to detain me…’ he hesitates again, as if struggling to find the right words. ‘No,’ he says. ‘This will not do. There is no brief explanation. I must get you away from here. Come, I have a horse and trap waiting. We will talk as we travel.’

  She pushes herself to the edge of the platform, gathers up her hair and tries to control her shaking fingers as she starts to plait it.

  ‘Leave your hair,’ Mordiford says. ‘Hurry.’

  ‘I cannot let my father see me like this.’

  ‘Your father? I am not taking you to your father. It’s the first place they’ll look.’

  ‘Where are you taking me, then?’

  ‘If you stopped this damned delaying, you would see,’ he says, fetching her cloak and holding it out towards her. When she doesn’t move he gives it an impatient shake to make her hurry.

  Chapter 29

  The ice across the ford groans and cracks beneath the wheels of the trap. Fearing the pony may slide, Elen grips the wooden seat with both hands. The fast-moving water has prevented the ford from freezing over, but thick slabs of ice have formed over the shallows, making it hazardous.

  They are crossing the River Lugg, leaving the estate far behind them. Mordiford slaps the reins against the pony’s rump and the stocky animal drops his head, straining against his harness until he reaches the opposite bank. With a toss of his head, he pounds back onto the track.

  ‘We’re south of the river,’ she says. ‘Where are we headed? Not Presteigne, surely?’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘You are still infectious.’

  ‘No one will be abroad at this hour and besides, the doctor lives on the northern approach. We will not pass through the town.’

  ‘Dr Argyll’s house? How long am I to stay there?’

  Mordiford shakes his head. ‘The doctor is not expecting us, but will be able to offer you a safe haven for tonight. God almighty, this blasted sickness,’ he shouts at the night.

  Bringing himself under control again he says, ‘I cannot deal with my father at the moment. I hate everything he stands for, everything he has done, and yet… No, even I cannot compound the jeopardy I put him in this evening, by seeing him again until Argyll confirms I am no longer infectious. The moment I can walk in society, I will put every pressure on my father to ensure your safety. He must understand the fierceness of my resolve to expose each one of those lascivious brutes, no matter what their position in Court or government, should a hair on your head be damaged.’

  The trap rattles on over the rutted highway. She scans Mordiford’s profile, trying to understand his motives.

  ‘I see you watching me,’ he says without turning.

  ‘I am trying to solve the puzzle of why for weeks every word you spoke to me seemed designed to knock me down. Yet now you seek only to champion me.’

  ‘Guilt. Nothing more than creeping, whispering guilt.’

  ‘For treating me so poorly when I nursed you?’

  ‘Poorly? Ha! You have no idea…’

  ‘Then explain to me.’

  In his frustration Mordiford does turn to her, then shakes his head with exasperation. ‘I did not want you there.’

  ‘You made that quite obvious.’

  ‘I knew, the moment I saw you, that you would be in mortal, or at least, moral, danger if you were still at the hall when my father returned.’

  ‘And yet you said nothing?’

  ‘I did everything to drive you away but you are a most obstinate girl. It was as if the more disdain I poured over you, the more determined you became to stay by my side.’

  ‘Why did you think me in danger?’

  ‘I have already told you. He has fallen in with a bad lot.’

  ‘A bad lot? Is that not an understatement for what happened tonight?’

  ‘I could have explained more forcefully but a few remnants of my loyalty as a son still remain, despite his association with “Honest Tom” Wharton.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Marquis of Wharton, that’s who.’

  ‘If he is honest, why should your father’s association with him be of concern?’

  Mordiford sighs his irritation. ‘Because he is the very opposite. He is a foul debaucher and the very man who pawed at your skirts, while that disgusting Frenchman readied himself to play the Zeus in their hideous tableau.’

  ‘It would help if you didn’t speak in riddles,’ she says with equal irritation.

  Mordiford gives a sardonic laugh. ‘You have an incredible ability to
make me seem the fool for not explaining properly, when it is you who cannot understand.’

  ‘Oh, this is ridiculous, sir. I implore you to calm yourself and simply tell me.’

  They trot on through the shivering landscape in silence until eventually Mordiford begins to speak, his tone subdued and gruff.

  ‘My father was a young man of seventeen when King Charles II was restored to the throne and by the time he wed my mother, he was already part of the king’s Merry Gang.’

  ‘You say the word “merry” with a tang, sir. Were they not particularly merry company?’

  ‘They were wits and intellectuals, holding important posts at Court, but they also distinguished themselves by drinking, womanising and gambling.’

  ‘Why did your mother marry him?’

  ‘I know not, for I was not there. All I can say is that my first memories of him are fond and happy. I shared their excitement each time they promised me a brother or a sister. Not a single one breathed for longer than a few hours. Duntisbourne became a sad and gloomy place, my father frequently absent, away with his Merry Gang. I was eighteen when my mother died. It was only then that I truly understood the depth of degradation to which he had sunk. His rakehell life had brought a terrible retribution on the whole family.’

  ‘One of dishonour?’

  ‘Worse. Far worse. On her deathbed my mother acquainted me with the truth about my father. She fervently believed that he had poisoned her with the diseases of the libertine, snuffing out the lives of her children and now taking her to an early grave.’

  ‘Do you believe that to be true?’

  ‘It would explain his increasingly erratic behaviour.’

  ‘Did you ask Dr Argyll for his opinion?’

  ‘And bring further shame on the family? Of course I did not. I left Duntisbourne, determined to buy my commission in a forlorn attempt to return honour to the family. I was pleased when Queen Anne came to the throne and public attitudes changed. Those rakes my father calls friends are now reviled for their reckless, destructive behaviours but instead of repenting, they have turned to secrecy, indulging themselves away from the censure of Court, beyond the borders of England.’

  ‘Here in Wales.’

  ‘You have it. It mattered not to me in my absence. I turned my hearing ears away from gossip and distanced myself from my father and the company he kept. I had a worse tyranny to fight – Louis XIV and France, but God was determined to avenge my father’s sins and strike me down when I was on the threshold of redemption. I was too sick to resist when they bore me back to the hall. By the end of that pitiable journey, I came to believe that I deserved to be locked away, a helpless, disfigured wreck of a life.’

  * * *

  The pony stumbles. Mordiford snatches at the reins with both hands to pull the pony back on course.

  ‘None of this explains how you knew I was in danger tonight,’ she says.

  ‘My worries had been gathering like a storm but the lightning of understanding struck when you returned with that damnable book. I am surprised my father did not pluck The Rape of Lucrece from the shelves.’ Elen turns and looks at him in horror. He nods his head and adds, ‘Yes, the book he picked out for you is a harrowing account of the violation of a young woman by a nobleman.’

  Mordiford cracks the reins and shifts uneasily in his seat. Elen hears a fox screaming out in the darkness, its cry eerie in the freezing night. She imagines the dog mounting the vixen and shudders at the brutality of nature, the brutality of man.

  ‘If you knew where I would be,’ she says, ‘and you guessed what was intended for me, might it not imply that you had been party to these gatherings in the past?’

  ‘It might but it does not.’

  ‘I heard you reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards when you were in the throes of your fever.’

  ‘My father said it was a game to improve mental dexterity. I have heard him practise it with that valet of his, the one you could not stop dropping into the conversation. I assume because you were sweet on him.’

  She is glad of the darkness because she feels heat burning her cheeks. ‘I thought he was fond of me.’

  ‘He serves my father and his band of hell raisers. I am sure he is paid handsomely for his organisation and discretion. Money is a powerful temptation to a man, more tempting even than you.’

  ‘I beg you, do not be unkind to me on that subject, at least. I need no further punishment for my folly.’

  ‘Folly you call it? How quaint. I call it madness. When you started asking about the ice house, I realised you were planning to meet him. At first, I battled with myself. I wondered if perhaps the green eye had struck me, but then I remembered the paraphernalia that had disappeared from the back room. My mind had been so muddled by the pox that previously I had discounted it, but tonight too many things came together. You had slipped away and that hideous girl had not replaced you. I could hear my father’s guests dining below. I knew I had to act.’

  Mordiford stands up from the seat and peers into the darkness. Elen can just make out the silhouette of a roof; a long, low building beyond the hedgerow.

  ‘Ah, here we are,’ he says. ‘My time in this confessional has reached a natural end, thank God.’

  He guides the pony into the yard. The building is in darkness but the sound of the approaching trap rouses the inhabitants. A light begins to glow in an upstairs room.

  ‘I will stay away from the house,’ Mordiford says. ‘You must wake the doctor and ask him to come out and meet with me.’

  Chapter 30

  Elen taps on the door of the doctor’s house. When it opens, Dr Argyll is already dressed in his outdoor cloak with his doctor’s portmanteau in his hand.

  ‘Miss Griffiths,’ he says with some surprise. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ He peers into the darkness. ‘I heard a trap. I thought Preece had come to fetch me. His poor wife has been labouring away since yesterday morning. Who is that over there? Is that Ned? Has the viscount taken a turn for the worse?’

  ‘No, he is in the trap, sir.’

  ‘Viscount Mordiford is?’ Dr Argyll looks behind him, as if concerned his family have woken and followed him downstairs. ‘Have you gone mad, bringing him here?’

  ‘He brought me.’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ he says, pulling the door closed and bustling past her. ‘What do you think you are doing, sir?’ he calls out as he crosses the yard. ‘Do you want to start an epidemic the length and breadth of Radnorshire?’ The doctor takes hold of the pony’s bridle and heaves an impatient sigh. ‘I hope your explanation is good.’

  When Mordiford remains silent, the doctor turns to Elen. Not knowing where to begin, she also says nothing.

  ‘I see,’ says Dr Argyll. ‘Well, it looks as if we need more than a few snatched words out here. There is a stable round the back. You can give me an account in comparative warmth,’ he says, leading the pony and trap away.

  * * *

  ‘There is a lamp hanging on that nail,’ the doctor says when they enter the stable. He burrows into his pocket. ‘Take my tinder box and get it lit, will you, Miss Griffiths?’

  Dr Argyll blunders around in the darkness, manhandling some stooks of straw onto the floor and encouraging Mordiford to sit. Elen manages to light the lamp and carries it over. The doctor arranges the travel rug from the trap around Mordiford’s legs.

  ‘Are you cold, my lord?’

  ‘Not in the least.’

  ‘Or feeling weak? Giddy?’

  ‘Weary but as fit as a flea apart from these wretched scabs.’

  ‘And until those have healed, you should not be abroad. You put everyone in danger.’

  ‘I will be locked away in the hall by morning.’ Mordiford pauses for a moment, a frown on his face. ‘Now I come to think of it, that might not be possible.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I am running out of women to look after me.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I have dismiss
ed Joan and I must ask you to take Miss Griffiths into your care. She cannot return to the hall while my father is in residence.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ Dr Argyll says.

  Elen moves away from the lamp and into the shadows, knowing her foolishness is about to be exposed, stripping away the doctor’s respect for her. She stares at the ground as Mordiford gives an account of the evening’s events. She waits for him to use her folly to excuse his father’s behaviour, but curiously he does not. He spares no detail, but adds no judgement against her.

  In a way, she wishes he would blame her. She wants to reclaim the fury she felt in the ice house. His understanding gives her nothing to fight against except the sour feeling deep inside, which she cannot soothe. Cautiously she raises her eyes and sees that Dr Argyll is utterly shaken by the story. He cannot keep still. He paces around the stables, his head bent, his hands clasped behind his back.

  Eventually he says: ‘This is terrible, utterly terrible and yet…’ He takes his hat from his head and scratches under his wig. ‘I cannot say it comes as a complete surprise. Oh, good God, what am I saying?’

  He comes across to where Elen stands and grasps her by the elbow. ‘This is my fault,’ he says. ‘Recently I have been so busy, I have as good as abandoned… no, that is not the right word. It is just that…’ He looks over his shoulder at Mordiford. ‘I knew you were in good hands, Mordiford.’

  He turns back to her. ‘You have become such a proficient nurse, such a capable young woman. But I should have seen the signs. I was aware the valet was sniffing around you, Miss Griffiths, but I gave the devil the benefit of doubt.’

  ‘As did I, to my shame,’ she says.

  ‘There is no shame, none whatsoever. I too misjudged him. I thought him an agreeable young fellow. I did not think there was any harm in his interest. Had I given it more thought, I should have seen it was most inappropriate for you to be at the hall without some sort of chaperone.’ He paces away from her again. ‘But the earl. What type of madness has gripped him these past few years?’