The Summer Fields

  ‘Your father, it is your father, Crispin. I have brought you the most awful and tragic news. Your father is dead this long month past. I have been sent to bring you home.’

  Chapter 10

  ‘You girl, follow my coachman,’ the dowager countess says, taking a cologne-soaked kerchief momentarily from her face. ‘He will show you the way to the townhouse.’

  Lady Ludlow is a stout woman dressed all in black with a silk tricorn hat over a mantilla of lace and ribbon, and a velvet cape long enough to cover her shoulders, but short enough to show the heavily embroidered sleeves and copious quantity of lace at her elbows. She makes up for her lack of height with the carriage of her head, her nose held high, her mouth pinched and her beady eyes staring haughtily up at Elen, waiting for her to obey her command.

  Dr Argyll steps in front of Lady Arabella’s mother. ‘Lady Ludlow, this girl is not a driver, she is one of my nurses.’

  ‘A nurse?’ Lady Ludlow covers her nose with the kerchief and says, ‘Well, I never. What a draggle tail.’

  ‘That’s as may be, but she has been charged with the care of Captain Mordiford.’

  ‘I think you mean Lord Duntisbourne.’

  ‘I mean…’ The doctor takes a deep breath to steady himself. ‘…that I need Miss Griffiths here at the hospital. I cannot spare her to follow you to your quarters. I would also recommend that the captain is brought inside the hospital, so that we may see all is well with his wound after his journey.’

  ‘What a nonsense! I cannot have my future son-in-law spend a single minute in that house of death and disease. It is all arranged. The Countess von Oettingen has gifted their townhouse to us until arrangements for the return journey are completed. Lord Duntisbourne will be far more comfortable there. You can follow on and minister to him when he is settled. Get down, girl. Connelly, take her place and hurry up, we are all soaking here.’

  ‘We have supplies of our own on the malbruch, my lady,’ Dr Agyll says stubbornly.

  ‘I will send them back in the morning.’

  By now a small gaggle of onlookers have gathered around the trap. Elen is helped down by a footman who climbs up to take her place. However hard she tries to peer over the heads of the throng, she can no longer see Mordiford.

  As the pony turns, the crowd surges forward. Lady Ludlow shoves and shoulders her way through and the press of people move off down the narrow street, leaving Elen and the doctor standing alone in the rain.

  ‘What a frightful woman,’ the doctor says. ‘I must apologise, Miss Griffiths, for my somewhat snappish welcome. Lady Ludlow has been here since early morning. She is most provoking company, particularly when all she can do is sneer. Come along, now. You can dry off in the kitchen. Now that is over, we can get on with some luncheon.’

  * * *

  Sarah is busy at the range. When she sees Elen, she drops her spoon in the pot and clasps her to her bosom. ‘Goodness me, you are shivering with cold,’ she says. She rubs Elen’s hands to bring the blood back, then draws a stool close to the range and presses her down.

  ‘Go and find Mr Barker, would you, Dr Argyll? Tell him that his luncheon is ready.’

  ‘He’ll be along shortly,’ the doctor says, pulling out a chair to sit upon.

  Sarah makes a small shooing gesture at the doctor and purses her lips.

  ‘Oh… I see,’ Dr Argyll says, getting up hastily from the seat. ‘Yes, of course. I shall go and find Mr Barker.’ The doctor scuttles off down the passage, leaving the two women alone.

  ‘I was so worried about you,’ Sarah says.

  ‘Please do not scold me. I could not bear it.’

  ‘Of course I’m not going to scold you. I was afraid for you. Those women were waiting in the city when we arrived. The mother is the most ghastly harridan, the daughter a weedy milksop of a thing. I wanted to warn you, prepare you.’

  ‘You could not have.’ Elen gives an ironic laugh. ‘I suppose at least their arrival will ensure I follow your advice.’

  ‘I think it’s a little late for that,’ Sarah says meaningfully.

  ‘Not at all. The captain has behaved perfectly honourably towards me.’

  ‘I still think it is a little late.’

  Elen gives Sarah a fatalistic smile. ‘I only wish I had had the opportunity to fall completely.’

  Sarah bellows with relieved laughter. ‘That’s the spirit. A few more months of hard work out here, then back home with the doctor to see that family of yours, which you must be sorely missing.’

  ‘I am.’

  Elen is determined to hide her distress for it would reveal that she imagined a future with Mordiford. The sight of Lady Arabella gliding through the filthy street has forcefully demonstrated to her how foolish a notion it was. She could not hope to match that level of elegance and sophistication.

  She does not doubt the captain believed all the strong feelings he expressed the night before, but his passions were fanned by the extraordinary circumstances of these past few months. Once Mordiford returns to his former life, how can his affections be strong enough to overcome such a contrast in their social stations?

  She quickly resolves to face her loss with the same fortitude that Mordiford has shown throughout all his trials. She cannot be his lover, but she will not become his guilt. She must find a way to be glad for him in her heart and rejoice that she earned his regard.

  Half an hour or so later, Mr Barker and the doctor tentatively peer into the kitchen. Seeing Elen hard at work, helping Sarah, they relax and take their place at the table.

  ‘Well,’ Dr Argyll says, ‘this is a turn up for the books. I had quite forgot over the past few months that the captain was anything more than a regular soldier, so pleasant a young man he has become. He will be sorely missed.’

  ‘Was his father an elderly man?’ Mr Barker asks.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Have you divined what took his life so early?’

  ‘It was the pox without a doubt,’ the doctor says, dropping his voice. ‘And I do not mean the red plague. He succumbed to a different kind of pox altogether. The French disease.’

  Ah, thinks Elen, the doctor has known it all along.

  ‘The Great Pretender,’ the surgeon says.

  ‘Very much your province, Mr Barker.’

  ‘Indeed. I cannot imagine the earl consulted you about the treatment.’

  ‘No, indeed,’ Dr Argyll replies. ‘However, his increasing madness left me in little doubt that whichever barber surgeon in London he consulted, he left it too late for mercury treatment to be effective.’

  ‘Why is it called the Great Pretender?’ Elen says.

  ‘Because often the first symptoms resolve themselves,’ Dr Argyll says. ‘The ulcers and pustules heal, but months, sometimes years later, new and different symptoms appear – aching limbs which may be mistaken for gout, fever which may be mistaken for influenza, and the most feared and terrible manifestation of all – insanity.’

  She ponders this for a few moments, then says, ‘Which explains the earl’s extraordinary and depraved behaviour of late.’

  ‘It does, but more likely his natural tendency to that kind of behaviour is the reason he acquired the affliction.’

  ‘A night with Venus, a lifetime with mercury,’ Mr Barker says.

  Chapter 11

  Throughout the afternoon Elen uses industry as a salve, but as evening approaches, the effort of keeping her sadness at bay is wearing her out. She dearly wishes she could mourn her loss in solitude.

  ‘I think I shall take a stroll through the town,’ she says to Sarah.

  ‘Let me grab my shawl and I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I shall be perfectly safe. Plenty of people are still abroad and I would value a few minutes of solitary reflection.’

  Sarah nods her understanding and Elen sets off into the rain-washed streets. They are no longer littered with the stinking guts of fish and chickens left by the market stalls; the poor have carried any edible detr
itus away. All that remains is straw filthy with mud, which will scatter in the night when the wind blows along the empty streets or be swept away the following morning by brooms and sluices of water.

  Elen passes a lamplighter working down the street, climbing up his propped ladder, offering the taper up to the wick beneath the glass dome which blooms, bathing his face in golden light. At first she ambles along with little purpose, relieved to be alone. She attracts little attention, for her head is draped with a thick shawl and her gait is that of an old woman. Her misery seems to have drained her of her youth.

  As she slinks along in the shadows of the tall houses, she pauses to stare into the blackened windows of one of the shops. Staring back at her, she sees a pitiful figure with a shrunken and drawn face. A split second later she realises it is her own reflection.

  She has been walking for twenty minutes when the sound of revelry reaches her. Ahead the yellow light of a tavern shines onto the wet pavements. It seems a popular drinking haunt, for a crowd has spilled out, sheltering from the fine drizzle beneath the green awnings that jut from the front of the building. Among the babble of foreign tongues she catches a few halting words in English and sees two soldiers, chatting to a couple of attractive young women and making a reasonable flint of being understood in French.

  She has no idea what possesses her, but she crosses the street and joins the group. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she says to one of the soldiers, ‘are your companions inhabitants of this town?’

  ‘Indeed they are.’

  ‘Would you be good enough to ask them if they know the whereabouts of the townhouse of the Countess von Oettingen?’

  One of the women frowns and shakes her head but her friend thinks about it a little longer before stepping into the street, pointing this way and that. She then makes an extravagant gesture with her hands, chattering in French all the while to the soldier.

  ‘She says you must follow the street down to where it turns left,’ the soldier says. ‘Then make a right some time after that. Apparently the house is easy to find because it sits in the centre of the street, which splits either side around it. She says the house is white and has Flemish decorations on it. There is also something painted on the wall but I have no knowledge of the word, miss.’

  His companion tries to explain again, but it is hopeless. Elen thanks them and leaves them to their amused confusion. She had not planned to hunt out the countess’s house, but now she is heading towards it, she feels comforted. She has no intention of seeking an audience with Mordiford but the rhythms of their lives have been linked for so long, she feels sure that if she could picture where he is, it would make her pain easier to tolerate.

  The house is impossible to miss. It fills one complete side of a small square, the crow-stepped gables rising up five storeys, each window framed with buttercup-yellow shutters. The feature to which the woman referred is, in fact, an elaborate sundial, decorating the front of the building.

  Light spills out from the ground floor windows and, like a moth to a candle, Elen finds herself drawn through the dusk of the street towards the glow. Servants are visible, moving through the rooms. The curtains have not yet been drawn.

  Her heart thumps in her chest.

  Mordiford is standing in one of the rooms with his back to a vast fireplace. He looks strong and well. His face is freshly shaved and in the looking glass behind him, she can see that his hair has been neatly queued and tied in a maroon ribbon. He is dressed in scarlet justacorps and has cast aside the bulky walking aid that the surgeon constructed, replacing it with an elegant stick on which he leans. He is talking to someone, but she cannot see whom it is because the listener is seated out of sight of the window.

  Like a wraith, she drifts nearer, her eyes fixed on the dumb show before her. As she nears, she can see Mordiford’s earnest expression, the gestures he makes with his free hand as he speaks. She cannot hear the words but she can read the language of his body.

  The conversation is intense. Eventually he pauses. The seated figure rises and comes into view, her head bent. Mordiford moves forward and catches Lady Arabella by the arm. Still she looks down until he reaches out and raises her chin gently with the knuckle of his hand.

  Elen staggers back into the shadows, turns and hastens away. As she hurries through the dark streets, the tears she has kept at bay for so long, pour down her face, forced out, not only by her grief, but by anger at herself for being so foolish.

  She has spied on him and she has been punished. The image of Mordiford on the point of kissing another woman will be burned into the back of her eyes for all eternity. How she wishes she could tear them from her head.

  * * *

  Cold and wet, Elen goes in through the back door of the hospital and slips up to the tiny room under the eaves, which is to be her room for the next few weeks. She climbs onto the bed, opens the shutters and struggles with the catch of the window. It opens with a patter of rust and, leaning on the lintel, she looks up into the night sky.

  The blue hulls of rainclouds pass silently over the city. At this very hour, the previous night she lay next to Mordiford in the sure and certain knowledge that their destinies had joined them together and that no man could tear them asunder. Yet the man who has now torn them apart is Mordiford himself.

  A gale of laughter rises up from the street, mocking her stupidity. She shuts the window with a slam, throwing herself onto the bed, her damp cloak still around her. Had she learned nothing from her brush with Ned Harley? Is she destined to misjudge every man in the future for whom she holds strong feelings? Her emotions swing from despair to utter bafflement. She was so certain this time that her judgement was sound. Having discovered it is not, she has lost faith, not only in Mordiford, but also in herself.

  Elen lies still, listening to the dripping of the rain and the distant voices of the town. On the stairs the wood creaks. There is a tentative tapping on the door.

  ‘Elen?’ Sarah calls softly. ‘Are you awake?’

  She sits upright on the bed, pressing the backs of her fingers onto the skin below her eyes in a futile attempt to soothe the swelling. She peels off her cloak and leaves it on the bed behind her.

  ‘I am,’ she says, wearily getting to her feet and taking the single step required to reach the latch.

  ‘The captain is here. He asks, will you come down and speak with him?’

  ‘I am not certain that I shall.’

  Sarah gives the door a light push and slips into the room. ‘He has put himself to great inconvenience to return here this evening.’

  ‘I did not ask him to.’

  ‘Elen,’ Sarah says, ‘do not be so cold hearted. We five have become such friends of late. The captain is downstairs in the kitchen with Mr Barker and Dr Argyll. He looks quite the English gentleman – but still he laughs and jokes with us as though we are all the same.’ Elen feels a fresh pang of loss for the man she thought she knew. ‘He is most insistent. He does not wish to quit the Continent until he has had the opportunity to speak with you.’

  ‘I know what he has come to say. I do not want to hear it.’

  ‘How can you know unless you come down? Please, Elen. Do not make me disappoint him. His manner is bluff, but I can see that he is troubled at heart and much distracted.’

  Despite her anger, this last piece of information weakens her resolve. She curses her heart for holding on to love when it should be filled with antipathy. She wishes she could delight in the thought of his unhappiness but she cannot.

  ‘Very well,’ she says. ‘I will come down presently.’

  Either Sarah or the captain have conspired with the assembled company to let her have a private audience, because the minute she appears in the kitchen, there is a degree of hearty assurances of industry as the Barkers and Dr Argyll quit the room. So clumsy is their flight and so poor their excuses that had her heart not been so heavy, she would have laughed at their ineptitude. As it is, their exit is sufficiently contrived to make her feel all the
more awkward.

  The captain struggles to his feet, grasping hold of the table until he regains his balance. Having done so, the smile that was on his face when she entered the room melts away. He looks at her fixedly but she does not know why. Is it pity, regret? Or does he want to commit one last image of her to memory before they part?

  Presently he speaks. ‘Miss Griffiths, I apologise for calling at this late hour. I see by your expression that my visit is inconvenient.’

  ‘Unexpected, sir.’

  ‘Is that so?’ He looks perplexed and pauses for a moment, casting his eyes down to the floor. ‘Perhaps I should have waited until the morning,’ he says as if speaking to himself. He looks up at her and says, ‘Events have moved so swiftly and so unexpectedly that I…’ He pauses again before adding, ‘My father is dead.’

  ‘I know, sir.’

  ‘A month gone by. And all that time, when I thought of him, which I grant was not often, he no longer walked this earth. Is that not the strangest thing?’ He pauses, waiting for a reply, but when none comes he presses on. ‘How old were you when your mother passed away?’

  So incongruous is the direction of the conversation that she shakes her head as if to clear it. ‘It was during my sixteenth summer, sir.’

  ‘And your grief was keen?’

  ‘Acutely,’ she says, frowning.

  ‘And in those sixteen years that you knew and assuredly loved your mother, did you have any regrets?’

  ‘Of course. That she was taken from us so soon.’

  ‘I mean, did you feel remorseful in any way after her passing? Had you left anything unsaid, any kindness to her not given?’

  ‘Not a one,’ she replies, her frown so severe now that her head begins to ache.

  ‘Then you are lucky indeed. I imagined my father’s passing would give me not a moment’s discomfort. I was mistaken, for however serious his shortcomings, I find now…’ Here he stops again, his eyes cast to the ground. ‘…that I loved him.’