Lady of Milkweed Manor

by Julie Klassen

  Charlotte stood there a moment more, too confused to move. Knowing he might come out at any moment, she stepped back into his room and relit her candle off the one burning low on a bedside table. Beside it was the miniature she’d seen from across the room. She picked it up and quickly studied the portrait. The woman was truly beautiful. Thick dark hair, a wide perfect smile, delicate features, white lace and cameo at her throat. The clothing, the pose, were traditional, but there was something unusually appealing, something nearly exotic about the woman. Charlotte supposed it was the broad smile, deemed so unfashionable in formal portraits. The artist had rendered a nearly playful light in Mrs. Taylor’s dark eyes, hinting at some secret happiness. Was she at home now, missing her husband terribly?

  Remembering herself, Charlotte quickly lowered the portrait. I’ve no business poking about. She hurried from the room and made it back down the stairs and into her own room without incident. With a sigh of relief, she slipped into bed, which had never seemed more comfortable.

  At the sewing table the next morning, Charlotte asked in what she hoped was a casual tone, “Have any of you ever seen Dr. Taylor’s wife?”

  “I never ’ave,” Sally said.

  Mae shrugged. “Me neither.”

  “Maybe he isn’t really married,” Bess said. “Just says so, so’s us girls will trust him.”

  “So you won’t fawn all over ’im, more like,” teased Sally.

  “Well, Dr. Preston has a wife too, by all accounts, and that don’t make me trust him none,” Mae said.

  “Dr. Taylor sure doesn’t go about like a married man. Here all hours instead of a’tome,” Sally mused.

  Bess snorted. “Sounds like most men I know. Gone all hours. Comin’ and goin’ as they please.”

  “I still say he hasn’t a wife. Looks barely groomed half the time. Needs a wife to dress him I’d say.” Mae grinned.

  “Don’t be foolish, ladies,” Gibbs interrupted, stopping at their table. “I have seen Mrs. Taylor with my own eyes I have. More than once.”

  “Have you, Miss Gibbs?” Charlotte asked.

  “Indeed I have. Dr. Taylor once brought her around to see the place. Right fine lady, by the looks of her. Very handsome, with the finest feathered hat I’ve ever seen. Hair dark as night and eyes twinklin’ like stars. Glowed she did. Like she was eating up every word her husband said. Never seen two people so in love.”

  “Goodness, Miss Gibbs, I’ve never heard you string together so many words at one time,” Charlotte said with an appreciative smile.

  The woman frowned and bit her lip. “Well, I could not stand here and not put you to rights. Not about good Dr. Taylor’s wife.”

  “How long ago was this,” Charlotte asked, “since you saw Mrs. Taylor?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Few months now . . . maybe half a year.”

  In common milkweed, white juice, which oozes out of

  the stems and leaves when broken . . . clots,

  like blood, soon after exposure to air.

  —JACK SANDERS, T HE S ECRETS OF W ILDFLOWERS

  CHAPTER 10

  ?After two weeks of caring for the little foundling boy, Charlotte sat on the bench in the manor garden at dusk, tears streaming down her face.

  She became aware of Dr. Taylor standing near. When she glanced up at him, his expression grew alarmed.

  “What is it?”

  “Dr. Taylor! If only you had been here earlier. Dr. Preston said there was nothing he could do, but had you been here, I know you would have at least tried. . . .”

  “Slow down, please. What has happened?”

  “The little boy—he’s gone.”

  “The one you’d taken to feeding?”

  Charlotte nodded, wiping at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  “I’m sorry.” He sighed in frustration. “I’m afraid it happens more often than I can stand . . . or explain.”

  “Dr. Preston said, ‘Get used to it. I have.’”

  “Unfortunately it’s a natural response. One must harden oneself or work elsewhere.”

  “I should never get used to it.”

  He nodded. After a moment he stepped closer and murmured, “Come, Charlotte.” He offered his hand. Her brain mildly noted his use of her Christian name, but at that moment she was beyond caring.

  She allowed him to help her to her feet. Her time was drawing near and she would have found it difficult to get to her feet unassisted, even had she not been in so distressed a state.

  “Come,” he repeated. “I shall help you to your room.”

  He held her by her arm and guided her inside and down the passage.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked tearfully. “Is that why . . .?”

  “No, Charlotte, no. I’m sure that little boy lived longer than he would have had you not cared for him so.”

  “For all the good it did him.”

  “Of course it did. How much better to leave this world loved and cared for.” He opened the door to her new bedchamber. She had gotten her private room at last. “Now, off to bed. You’ll have your own little one soon, and you need your rest.”

  Charlotte was unaware she had sat in the garden so long and that it was evening already. “Very well. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  She went inside and sat down on her bed. She was vaguely aware of him closing her door and the sound of his footsteps fading away, but Charlotte’s tear-streaked eyes were filled with another scene, another death. She wrapped her shawled arms tightly around herself and remembered.

  “She’s gone,” young Mr. Taylor had said, looking at her over her mother’s still form.

  Charlotte gasped. She felt her insides collapse, like a cocoon flattened by a careless boot.

  Mr. Taylor stepped forward, as if he might take her in his arms, but at that moment Charles Harris swept into the room, his stride urgent, his handsome face nearly fierce in its grimness.

  “Oh, Mr. Harris!” Charlotte cried and turned on her heel, stepping into his arms. He pulled her close against him.

  “Dear, Charlotte. Dear, dear, Charlotte . . .” He murmured against her hair. “I am so sorry.”

  She sobbed against him and felt him stroke her back as he whispered words she knew were meant to comfort her, but no words could diminish the flaming, burning pain inside of her. She was vaguely aware of Mr. Taylor letting himself from the room but was too devastated to care.

  Daniel Taylor did not venture to the club as often as he once had. He went not to drink and play cards, as did the other men, but to further his reputation and, he hoped, his private practice. But tonight, he had no thoughts of business in his weary mind, only a few minutes relaxation before taking himself home.

  A group of regulars, gathered tightly around a table, were jesting with two well-dressed newcomers. Daniel looked over and recognized both men immediately, although he knew them from another time and another place.

  “So the great Charles Harris is finally married,” silver-haired Mr. Milton said, raising his tumbler in salute to the older and darker of the two newcomers.

  “Well, yes, for more than half a year now.”

  “Many are the lasses still crying over it, I can tell you,” a second gentleman with a wax-curled moustache agreed cheerfully.

  “Miss Lamb is among them, I assure you,” a younger voice said.

  The young man—perhaps now twenty years old—was another person Daniel had last seen in Kent. William Bentley was sitting beside Mr. Harris—his uncle, if Daniel remembered correctly.

  Harris stared at his nephew, clearly astonished. “Miss Lamb?”

  “I believe she was brought especially low by your marriage.”

  “No. I am sure you are mistaken.”

  “Come, Uncle. You cannot tell me you did not know it.”

  “Well, then,” the mustachioed man interjected wistfully. “This Miss Lamb was not alone in her hopes of catching the most eligible bachelor in Kent. My own Nellie spoke very highly of y
ou.”

  William ignored the man, keeping his half-lidded gaze on his uncle. “Miss Lamb has had her sights set on you for years,” he insisted.

  “I do not think so. I have merely been a friend to the family.”

  William snorted. “Miss Beatrice was hoping for more than friendship, I can tell you.”

  “Beatrice?”

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree, young man,” Mr. Milton interrupted. “Your uncle here has always been like an older brother to the Lamb girls and feels most protective of them. Do not risk his ire by speaking ill of either of them. Especially now he’s married a cousin of theirs.”

  “A rich one at that,” the mustachioed man said, wagging his eyebrows meaningfully.

  “And how do you like your wife’s townhouse in Manchester Square?” Mr. Milton directed the conversation to more comfortable topics.

  “Fine, fine.”

  “And how do you find life in London?”

  “A far cry from Kent, no doubt.”

  The discussion calmed and continued, but Daniel found himself remembering the first time he had seen Charles Harris—and the way Charlotte had looked at the man. They had been standing in the vicarage garden, as they often did, when the man came riding up on his big black horse, the tails of his greatcoat nearly matching the gleaming ebony flanks. But Daniel’s attention was soon pulled from the admirable horse to the equally gleaming look in young Charlotte Lamb’s eyes. And as Daniel looked from girl to horse, from girl to man, he realized she was admiring not the fine animal, as he had been, but rather the man astride it. Her attention was completely captured by him, her eyes, always cheerful, had taken on a glow as though she were gazing on a candlelit Christmas tree, or the first snowfall, or . . . he admitted to himself grudgingly, an exceedingly handsome man.

  “Who is that?” he asked her.

  She laughed a sudden, surprised laugh, as if amused that someone in the world should not know who this astounding man was. “Why, that is Mr. Harris. Our neighbor.”

  “And where is Mrs. Harris?” he asked somewhat peevishly.

  “Mrs. Harris? There is no Mrs. Harris. Unless you mean his mother.”

  The man rode close and reigned in his horse in an impressive show of hooves and horsemanship. “Hello, Charlotte. You are looking lovely as usual. Your father about?”

  “In the church.”

  “And Bea?”

  “Not in the church.”

  He grinned a knowing grin, and Daniel wondered at the meaning of that little exchange. Was there something between Charlotte’s sister and this dashing neighbor—older though he was?

  Harris touched the brim of his hat and quickly spurred his mount off again in the direction of the church. Daniel noticed he barely looked his way.

  “He is a bit old for your sister, is he not?”

  “Yes, he is much too old for Bea. But not for me.”

  “But—she is older than you are!”

  “Oh, I am only teasing, Mr. Taylor. You will have to forgive me. I have learned that art from Mr. Harris, and I am afraid it is a habit deeply ingrained.”

  “You spend a great deal of time with him, do you?”

  “No. Only small bits of time, but in regular doses over many years.”

  “Your father approves?”

  “Of Mr. Harris? Completely. He rather thinks of him as the son he never had.”

  “And your sister?”

  “Bea has long been smitten with him.”

  “And you?”

  She shrugged. “She would say the same of me.”

  “And would it be true?”

  “Oh, Mr. Taylor,” she soothed, touching him lightly on the arm, “we are all smitten with him—every last one of us, from Father to Cook. Who would not be? But we do not expect anything to ever come of it. Well, except perhaps for Bea.”

  The second time Daniel saw Charles Harris was the day Charlotte’s mother died. He remembered that day all too well.

  Dr. Webb had been called away that morning to another patient’s home, so Daniel alone had attended Mrs. Lamb when she breathed her last. He had felt a heavy mixture of failure and grief, sharpened by the caved-in expression on Charlotte’s face. He had stepped forward, intending to take her in his arms, to try in some small way to comfort her, when Mr. Harris swept in. Harris immediately took Charlotte in his own arms, enfolding her in his greatcoat, which looked to Daniel at that moment very much like bats’ wings. The man whispered words of familiar comfort, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to hold her in his arms.

  Unnoticed and unwanted, Daniel had silently let himself from the room.

  A few days later, Daniel found Charlotte alone after her mother’s funeral. She was sitting in the garden. Not weeding or cutting anything, just sitting on a little lawn rug. He could remember but few times he had seen her idle. He cleared his throat, clutching his hands behind his back.

  “I am terribly sorry, Miss Lamb.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We did everything we could for her. But there was so little—”

  “Of course you did. We do not blame you.”

  “I’m afraid your father does.”

  “Father is wrong. We all knew it was coming. Even Mother knew. Father was nearly cruel with her when she tried to raise the subject. In any case, it is not you he blames.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How do you think Mother got this ailment? Father told me himself she was never the same after birthing me. She was never able to bring another babe to term—her pain often left her too weak to stand. And here I was, forever tiring her with my questions and tempting her to the garden when she ought to have been indoors resting. She’d been ill so long, I guess I stopped believing just how ill she was. Or was too selfish to care. I should have made her rest. I should have prayed harder. I should have—”

  “Charlotte, stop. You did all you could do. You loved her better than any daughter I’ve known, and it was perfectly obvious she loved you as well. There was nothing more you could do.”

  “I want so badly to believe this isn’t my fault.”

  “It isn’t your fault. Charlotte, it isn’t. Don’t take guilt upon yourself that isn’t yours to take. There’s too much of the deserved variety to go around.”

  He paused long enough to fish out his handkerchief from his pocket and hand it down to her before continuing. “Why does it have to be anybody’s fault? I’m no theologian, but I don’t suppose it’s God’s fault either. Allowed it to happen, perhaps. Who’s to say? Our medical knowledge and skill is not all it could be—much of it still remains a frustrating mystery. Even if we deduce that some organ has quit functioning, and even if we understand why, that does not mean we have an inkling of how to repair the thing. There was nothing we knew to do for your mother that we did not do. And I don’t think God withheld a miracle because you did not read the book of Numbers.”

  In the early nineteenth century a new term—“puerperal–insanity”—

  would find its way into medical texts. . . . Women were

  believed to be particularly at risk shortly after childbirth . . .

  but they could also become mad during pregnancy.

  —DR. HILARY MARLAND, D ANGEROUS M OTHERHOOD

  CHAPTER 11

  The entry hall was empty as Charlotte walked through it, passing the manor’s main staircase. There was normally a chain strung from between the wall and banister, but at the moment it hung limply from the wall. She thought she heard voices above stairs and paused to listen. It was afternoon, and bright sunlight filled the hall from the high, unobstructed windows over the main door. There was nothing sinister about the setting this time, but still, when the cry came, chills coursed through Charlotte’s body—accompanied by pity for whatever poor creature had uttered it.

  Charlotte put her hand on the banister and took a slow step up and then another.

  Suddenly a male voice burst out from above, “Moorling! I’m waiting!” The vo
ice startled her. It was Dr. Preston’s voice, angrier than usual. She shouldn’t have been surprised, she supposed. She knew Dr. Taylor was not usually on duty during the afternoons—that daytime hours were primarily the reign of Dr. Preston. Still for some reason it perplexed her to hear him up there. She had assumed that it was Dr. Taylor’s on-duty residence—and domain—alone.

  She heard footsteps clicking across the marble of the ground floor and looked over the railing to see Mrs. Moorling approaching. She was carrying a tray laden with lances and glass vials, iodine and bandages. Charlotte recognized it immediately for what it was. A bloodletting tray. One of Dr. Webb’s colleagues had treated her mother with similar instruments over a course of days, and it had weakened her so badly that Dr. Webb forbade its use ever again.

  Carefully balancing her tray, Mrs. Moorling had not yet seen Charlotte, but as soon as she reached the foot of the stairs and glanced up, her already drawn expression took on a sharp edge.

  “May I ask what you are doing, Miss Smith?”

  “I thought . . . I heard voices.”

  “Of course you did,” she snapped. “We have occasional patients on the upper floors as well. Did you not see the sign?”

  Charlotte shook her head.

  Mrs. Moorling looked over and saw the dangling chain. “Someone’s let it down. Put that back up for me after I pass, will you? And please stay on the ground floor.”

  Mrs. Moorling started up the stairs. Charlotte realized the matron would likely have given her a longer lecture had Dr. Preston not been waiting so impatiently. Charlotte sighed and reached down awkwardly over her bulky middle for the chain. She fingered the small engraved plaque that hung at the chain’s midpoint. The plaque read: Staff Admittance Only.

  Well, there was someone up there who was not on staff and who was not happy about being there.

  Why she stood there, she did not know. But she felt oddly rooted to the spot. A few minutes later, she again heard footsteps on the marble—duller male steps. She looked across the hall and saw Dr. Taylor approaching, peering at a document of some sort as he walked. When he looked up and saw her there, he smiled easily. “Good day to you, Miss Smith.”