by Carola Dunn
“A novel! I fear Mama does not allow me to read novels.”
Laura had no great opinion of mothers, judging by the two she knew best: her own and Maria. “I am sure no mama could object to Mansfield Park,” she said. “I daresay Pride and Prejudice will prove as innocently amusing. Do let us try it.”
With an air of recklessness, Daphne acquiesced. “ ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged,'“ she read, “ ‘that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.'“
Not Gareth, Laura thought. He had not said he was not in the market for a wife, which left room to change his mind in the future. He had said in the most resolute fashion that he would never marry. At the time she was too busy to ponder his words. Now she wondered whether his resolve stemmed from his father's heartbroken withdrawal from the world on the death of his wife. Perhaps Gareth simply did not choose to risk so great a loss.
Poor Gareth!
“Oh, how very like Mama!” cried Daphne.
“Is it? I'm sorry, I was not attending.”
“ ‘The business of her life was to get her daughters married,'“ Daphne read. “Speaking of Mrs. Bennet, you know. Was not your mama thus?”
“No.” After the triumph of catching a duke-to-be for Ceci, Lady Medway had not cared a fig whether her plain elder daughter dwindled to an old maid. Seeing Daphne's surprise at her vehemence, Laura qualified her answer. “Not really. Do go on.”
Though Daphne read well and the story was even more to Laura's taste than Mansfield Park, she drowsed off. She was distantly aware of Daphne creeping out, but she did not rouse fully until Myfanwy bustled in.
“There now, is it a good nap you've had, my lady? You said to come and dress you early, seeing it's needed to help the visiting ladies I am. You'll be sorry to have missed the fun, but there's always next year.”
Chattering and giggling about the games and shows and contests, the maid helped Laura to put on the figured silk, now let out to its full extent.
Laura made her ponderous way down to the Long Gallery. Gareth and Cornelius were there, both staring at the ceiling.
“Well, I wouldn't let him,” the vicar advised. “It may work now but you know very well there is always a, hm, snag, and by the time it becomes apparent, he has lost interest.”
“True, but I hate to disappoint the old man.” Gareth turned. “Oh, Laura, what do you think of Uncle Julius's raiser?”
“Razor? I have not seen it, and I don't know much about the subject, except that Freddie frequently nicked himself while shaving. Has Uncle Julius invented a way to avoid such hazards?”
“No, no, raiser—r a i s e r. A tray-raiser, he calls the contraption.”
“Tray-raiser? Oh dear, a successor to his tray-barrow?” She giggled, remembering that minor disaster. “I cannot give an opinion without seeing it. Is it in the workshop?”
“Yes, and it can wait until tomorrow,” Gareth said firmly. “It's miles away and I'm not having you...I mean, it's quite unnecessary for you to try to dash there and back before dinner.”
“I'm not very good at dashing these days,” Laura conceded.
“I shall be happy to show you in the morning.”
“For pity's sake, Gareth,” said Cornelius, “don't go and demonstrate the mechanism without Uncle Julius. You are liable to, hm, hang yourself. You must restrain him, Cousin Laura.”
“I shall try, only whenever I go into the workshop, I find my fingers twitching to fiddle with all that curious equipment.”
Gareth laughed. “It is tempting, is it not? When we were boys, Cornie and I—”
“Gareth, recall that I am now a, hm, man of the cloth. Have a care for my dignity.”
“I'll tell you tomorrow, Laura,” Gareth promised.
* * * *
The next morning several house guests departed, including—to Laura's relief—the Frobishers and Daphne Overstreet, and Sir John Pointer. What with seeing them off and Gareth being closeted for near an hour with Maria and her parents, the visit to the workshop was postponed until after luncheon.
“Is it not time for your nap?” Gareth asked when Laura reminded him of their plan.
“No, I cannot lie down so soon after eating. Do let us go, unless you have other business?”
“Nothing that cannot wait, and I need your advice.” He had the harassed look only Maria could bring to his face.
Laura had noticed at luncheon that Maria was unusually excited even for that excitable lady. “Anything I can do to help,” she assured Gareth, “you know you have only to ask.”
“I know,” he said gratefully. As they strolled along the corridor to Uncle Julius's workshop at the far end of the longest wing, he explained. “Uncle Henry is on his way to Vienna—the Allies are going to hold a Congress there to decide how to carve up Europe after Napoleon. And my aunt has invited Maria to go with them.”
“To a diplomatic congress?” Laura said in astonishment.
“I daresay there is bound to be a good deal of jollification, with most of the crowned heads of Europe present to make sure they get their piece of the pie. The thing is, Uncle Henry refuses to take the children.”
“Maria does not appear precisely distraught at the prospect of leaving them.”
“She says the poor little things will be much better off here,” Gareth said dryly.
“Of course they will.”
“You don't think they will suffer from being parted from their mama?”
“I think they will go on much better under your guidance without Maria's interference,” Laura said frankly, “but it is a great deal to ask of you.”
“Of me! Not at all. I am very fond of them, and thanks to you, Miss Coltart has them well in hand. My chief concern is for their welfare.”
“Then let Maria go.”
Gareth smiled down at her. “I knew I could count on you for a candid opinion without roundaboutation. That leaves me with but one concern.”
“Which is?”
“I cannot allow Maria to desert them unless I have your promise not to regard her responsibility for them as transferred to you. Between Miss Coltart and Renfrew, Aunt Antonia, my brothers and me, and a horde of servants, the children are not likely to suffer from neglect.” He glanced at her swollen belly. “Soon enough you will have responsibilities of your own.”
“I trust you are not predicting twins?”
“Good gad, no!” he said in horror.
Laura laughed. “Teasing aside, I expect one will be enough to keep me fully occupied for a while. But I, too, have grown very fond of George and Henry and Arabella. I shall acknowledge that they are not my responsibility, but I don't wish to be shut out of their lives.”
“As though I could! Unlike Maria, you will always be welcome to interfere in their upbringing if you see anything which needs righting. But after all, she will only be gone for a few months.” He sighed heavily.
And I shall be gone in a few months, Laura thought. It was all too easy to forget, to let her resolve weaken, to persuade herself she could be satisfied with his friendship. Yet even now, heavy with child, she felt a tremor of desire as she laid her hand on his arm, accepting his help down three steps to a lower level. If he guessed, he would turn from her in disgust.
No, she must not stay at Llys.
They reached the workshop. Uncle Julius was there, seated at one of his workbenches. He was fast asleep, his head pillowed on his arms. Close to the back of his head, brass scales in perfect balance had one pan occupied by a browning pear-core, the other by the remains of a stale sandwich with the edges curling. On his other side, inches from his nose and reflected glinting in his spectacles, a set of shiny cogwheels clicked as they turned.
A finger to his lips, Gareth beckoned. On tiptoe, with exaggerated caution, he threaded his way between benches littered with tools and bits of metal and India rubber, and half-finished, incomprehensible machines. Larger machines stood on the floor. Unable to raise herself on tiptoes, Laura followed as q
uietly as she could. Despite her care she brushed against a switch. With a squeal and a rattle, something moved.
“Well, bless my soul!” Uncle Julius blinked at the mechanism before his nose. “Of course, clockwork, why didn't I think of it? Much simpler to construct than hydraulics.” He caught sight of his visitors. “Clockwork requires far less precision,” he explained kindly, “at least when it's not for telling time.”
“Good afternoon, Uncle,” said Gareth. “I've brought Cousin Laura to see your raiser. Will you demonstrate?”
Uncle Julius vaguely felt his grey-stubbled chin. “Yes, yes, I could do with a shave. No time, you see. But as for bringing a lady to watch, what odd manners you young modern people have, nevvie!”
Laura kept all but the merest tremor of laughter from her voice. “Cousin Gareth means your tray-raiser, sir. Perhaps you should call it a lifter, to avoid confusion?”
“An excellent notion, my dear young lady.” He beamed. “However, it's no use showing you that now.”
“Has the lifter broken down already, Uncle?”
“Good gracious, no. Broken? No, no. But at present it works by manpower, and as I am about to construct a clockwork mechanism, there is little point in demonstrating the primitive version.” And he went into one of his creative trances.
In a whisper, Gareth observed, “At least I shan't have to decide for a few more weeks whether to let him cut through from the Long Gallery up into the drawing room.” With a grimace, he pointed out a hole in the ceiling in one corner of the workshop, with ropes dangling from it.
“You must not ruin those beautiful rooms,” Laura whispered back. “If it seems really useful, put it in a hallway, or next to the back stairs.”
“An excellent notion,” Gareth exclaimed aloud.
Uncle Julius remained lost in his brown study, so they left him to it. As they returned along the long passage, Laura said, “I don't know what tricks you and Cousin Cornelius got up to in your youth, but if you install a mechanized tray-lifter, Henry and George are bound to try using it as a small-boy-lifter.”
“True. Or, worse, a small-girl-lifter.”
“I expect Uncle Julius can fit some kind of lock to...Oh!” She stopped and pressed her hand to her bulging abdomen.
“Kicking again?”
“Yes, one never quite grows used to it. I could swear I feel a foot under my hand.”
He reached out, then quickly drew back, flushing. “I'm sorry, I—”
“No, Gareth, it is all right.” Laura took his hand and laid it on the spot where the tiny foot was thumping at her from the inside.
A stunned expression spread across his face. When they started walking again, after a few moments, he was silent, still looking dazed. Laura was afraid he was shocked by her impulsive action—bold, not to say improper!—yet she dared hope his silence had a quality more akin to wonder than disgust.
As they came to the Great Hall, he turned to her and said softly, “Thank you.”
If only he were her baby's father!
Chapter 13
The guests were all gone. Maria departed with her parents, euphoric but for a brief, tearful appeal to Laura to make sure Gareth did not allow Mr. Renfrew to beat her poor little boys. Lance and Perry and Rupert went off to visit friends. After all the hustle and bustle, Llys Manor seemed excessively quiet, especially as Gareth was often out and about supervising the harvest.
Laura grew sluggish. Increasingly clumsy and awkward, she began to feel as if she had been pregnant forever. The children were so used to her condition that when they came down to tea they no longer asked how long they had to wait before their new cousin's arrival.
They scarcely missed their mama. In fact, Laura missed Maria more. Aunt Antonia was all sympathy with her discomfort but she could not really understand.
As for Gareth, he enquired with maddening frequency whether she was sure of her dates. When Dr. McAllister, called in unnecessarily for the second time, told him nine months was merely an inaccurate average length for pregnancy, he was horrified.
“You mean the baby could arrive any day now?”
“Aye, m'laird, but dinna fash yersel'. Wi' a first birth, there's ay plenty o' warning.”
“Always?”
“Near enow, though there's the odd wumman draps e'en her first quick and easy as a ewe draps a lamb.”
“You mean a first birth is generally difficult?”
“Nay, mon, I mean nowt o' the sort, and I'll thank ye not to be putting such notions into her leddyship's head.”
“I don't care how difficult it is,” Laura said wearily, “so long as it comes soon.”
“As to that, ma leddy, it could be a week or it could be a month,” said McAllister with a cheerfulness as maddening as Gareth's oversolicitude. “Now, as to the back cramps, that wee abigail o' yourn ha' the right o' it. A good rub wi' any kind o' liniment'll do more to help than aught I can prescribe. Good day to ye, ma'am,” he said to Aunt Antonia, and departed.
“A month!” Laura groaned.
“A week!” Gareth groaned. “Or any day now! I must send for Dr. Croft, and the midwife, and the lying-in nurse, and the wet-nurse—”
“Not Dr. Croft!” Laura and Aunt Antonia exclaimed at once.
“He is the most eminent physician-accoucheur in London. I want the best.”
“Laura did not care for him,” said Aunt Antonia astringently. “At this of all times, you cannot wish to surround her with those she dislikes.”
“But he is vastly popular with the ladies of the Ton,” Gareth protested. “They flock to him.”
“There is no accounting for tastes,” his aunt observed. “I myself did not take to the man.”
With a grateful glance at the old lady, Laura soothingly pointed out, “If Dr. Croft is so busy, Gareth, he is unlikely to be willing to travel so far for an indefinite period for a single patient. Indeed, I have every confidence in Dr. McAllister and the midwife he recommended.”
“And you really disliked Croft? Not just because I called him in without consulting you?”
“He somehow succeeded in being obsequious and condescending at the same time. What is more, I believe he has only one prescription for all his patients, regardless of the individual constitution. If I had followed his regimen of regular cupping and a lowering diet, I should not be half so healthy as I am, besides being thoroughly miserable.”
Gareth stared at her in dismay. “He recommended regular bleeding? When you've a baby growing inside you?”
“Really, Gareth,” snapped Aunt Antonia, “you are becoming positively indelicate in your speech. Dr. Croft is unacceptable. Leave it at that.”
“Yes, Aunt. I'm sorry, Cousin. I meant it for the best.”
“I know,” said Laura, touching his hand. “If it makes you feel better, perhaps Dr. McAllister would agree to stay at the manor and go on his rounds from here.”
“I'll catch him and ask him.” Gareth jumped up and ran from the room with a lack of dignity most indecorous in Lord Wyckham of Llys.
Offered a sum which would enable him to treat several dozen poor patients for free, Dr. McAllister took up residence at the manor. Likewise Mistress Owen, the midwife from Llysbury, agreed to move in, with the use of his lordship's gig to convey her to any confinements she was called to.
Gareth also summoned a surgeon from Worcester, recommended by a neighbour; two monthly nurses, one for day and one for night duty; the wet-nurse, a village woman who had given birth a few weeks ago; and a nurse and nursery-maid for the baby.
“Really, Gareth, these hordes of people are quite unnecessary,” Laura told him crossly the day the surgeon arrived.
He sat down beside her on the bench on the terrace. He had taken to dashing home at midday from even the farthest fields and orchards. “Don't be vexed,” he pleaded. “I have to do everything I can. I could not bear the burden of guilt my father carried the last years of his life.”
“Guilt? I thought it was grief made him a recluse.”
“Grief and guilt. Laura, I've never told anyone, not even Cornelius, but afterwards, after the funeral, I heard Papa talking to the vicar in the library. I recall every word as if it was yesterday. 'It was my fault,' he said. 'I killed her.'“
Oh God, he had cried, why could I not leave her alone? But that Gareth could not bring himself to repeat to Laura. He was not—thank God—responsible for her pregnancy.
Yet if anything went wrong because he had failed to take every possible precaution, he knew he would blame himself forever.
“Poor man,” said Laura soberly. “I suppose he felt he had failed to take proper care of her. I'm sure he must have, though, loving her as he did.”
“You see why I must leave no stone unturned.”
She smiled at him. “Yes, I do, though I hope your use of that particular phrase does not indicate that you mean to administer earwigs and centipedes and leeches.”
“No leeches, I promise. Dr. Croft was a mistake. No reducing diet, either. Come on in, it's time for luncheon and I am sharpset.”
Laura said no more on the subject. Silently blessing her for her understanding, Gareth told the hordes to stay out of her way. Still, he felt more and more foolish as the days passed and no baby appeared.
Rupert, Lance, and Perry came home. In deference to Laura's condition, none of them brought friends with them, a decision arrived at between the three of them before they left. Gareth was proud of them for their thoughtfulness. He would also have been proud of the way they made a point of sitting with her, entertaining her with tales of their doings, had they not all so obviously enjoyed her company.
“You see,” Perry explained seriously, “Cousin Laura isn't a bit like Cousin Maria. She's actually interested in us. And you can tell her anything. She doesn't disapprove of half the fun, like Aunt Antonia.”
The good-natured Perry spent much of his time playing with George and Henry and Arabella, taking them fishing for minnows and building tree houses. None of them either drowned or broke a leg. Rupert was well occupied with riding and shooting. Lance, with little scope for his dandyism in the country, unexpectedly took to Dr. McAllister, the least dandified of men. He even accompanied him on his rounds. Nonetheless, Gareth was startled when Lance announced that he wanted to leave Oxford and train as a physician.