‘Why, very well, as usual, but a trifle preoccupied with Mr. Scarbrough’s affairs.’
‘Oh, that’s it!’ The old lady had taken a stiff swig of her brandy and looked, all of a sudden, formidably intelligent and more like Hyde than ever. ‘If it’s only Mr. Scarbrough.’ She stopped for a moment, gazing through the Chinese painting on the wall like a clairvoyant. ‘I told Hyde how it would be when he married — Mr. Scarbrough, I mean.’ Her voice held, for an instant, a note of apology. ‘Julia Bernard was bound to be a demanding wife. Those Baltimore belles have always had more hair than wit. But he wouldn’t listen to me. Hyde, I mean. And quite right too.’ She took another good draft of her brandy. ‘Purchis of Winchelsea has never failed a friend yet. And can afford to stand by them, too.’ Her glass was empty. ‘You’ll want to be unpacking. Pour me another drop before you go. And ring for Aaron, pray. That madeira will be best back in the cellar until Hyde gets here. Tonight, you say?’
‘Or tomorrow.’ There was something rather frightening about the old lady’s preoccupation with her nephew. Or was he her great-nephew? What in the world had Josephine said about her?
***
The baggage wagon had driven round to the back entrance while Juliet had been talking to Miss Abigail. Now, she found Anne hovering in the long hall.
‘Alice is unpacking for you, madame.’ Her look held a question.
‘That’s good.’ The hall seemed empty, but just the same she felt as if it were all one huge, suspicious ear. ‘Tell her I’ll ride this afternoon, will you, Anne? I’ll not change for luncheon. What’s the use, here in the wilds?’ It was Josephine who spoke.
‘Very good, madame.’ Now Anne’s tone was approving. ‘And, about luncheon. Sarah wants to know.’ Of course: Sarah was the housekeeper here. ‘She had planned it formal, in the dining-room, expecting Mr. Hyde; but now ...’
‘Yes.’ Juliet’s glance flickered across the hall to the door towards the back of the house that led into the formal dining-room. ‘Under the circumstances, I think a tray in the parlour, Anne.’
***
Miss Abigail ate a fragrant of cold chicken, took a sip of the delicious lemonade Sarah had sent up, and looked wistfully out through the verandah. ‘Tonight, you said?’
‘Or tomorrow.’ Juliet repeated it patiently, and took another hungry bite of cold meat and home-made pickle. ‘I doubt he’ll get here tonight now.’ Luncheon had been a long time coming, and the light had faded while they ate. She had given up all hope of a ride and had almost thought of ringing for candles. ‘Some coffee, Aunt Abigail?’
‘Thank you, my dear.’ The white hand shook as it took the exquisite, gilded Meissen cup. ‘I could have sworn I heard something. Yes!’ She was on her feet. ‘He said he would come!’
Following her out on to the stoop, Juliet saw that she was right; the carriage had just come into view at the far end of that astonishing avenue of ilexes. But how slowly it moved.
‘The horses must be tired.’ Miss Abigail had noticed too. She clapped her hands sharply, and old Aaron, the butler, appeared at once, as if on cue, from a door at the side of the wide main flight of steps. ‘Why were we not told that the master was coming, Aaron?’ Her voice held chill reproof.
‘Miss! Ma’am!’ He was shaking all over, his face a curious grey. ‘He said not to. He said get him to bed fust, and tell you after.’
For a moment it seemed to Juliet that he was looking at her with hatred. Absurd. ‘To bed?’ she asked. ‘He’s ill?’
‘He’s wounded.’ No question about the hate in the old man’s eyes now. ‘He’s fought a duel. Master Hyde that despises such. And been wounded too. Mr. Fonseca’s dead, o’ course.’ His glittering eye held Juliet’s for a long moment.
‘Wounded?’ Abigail swayed where she stood. ‘Badly?’
‘The Lord He knows. They had no doctor. He would come here, they say. I sent Jim off hell-for-leather for Judge James the minute I heard. At this rate, he won’t be long after the master. If he’s home.’
Even though she knew herself innocent, Juliet quailed before the hatred in the old man’s eyes. Besides, was she innocent? Was not this duel the direct result of her impersonation? Josephine would have known how to handle Fonseca. If Hyde Purchis died, she would have killed him, as surely as if she had fired the pistol.
No time now for thoughts like these. ‘Aaron!’ She met the furious old eyes squarely. ‘Is all ready for the master? His bed? Hot water? Dressings?’
‘He din’t say nothing ‘bout them, ma’am. Just to send the carriage, quick and tell no one, account of he was wounded.’
‘And you’ve done nothing?’ Now Juliet was angry. ‘Fetch me Sarah this instant. They’ll be here in five minutes, and nothing ready! Oh my God!’ She turned from her eager, anxious watching of the crawling carriage in time to catch Miss Abigail as she fell.
Now, at last, a crowd of anxious servants appeared. Doubtless they had been waiting until Aaron had broken the bad news. ‘Sarah!’ Mercifully, the housekeeper was unmistakable in her scarlet turban and brilliant blue calico gown. ‘Miss Abigail’s fainted. Have two of the girls take her to her room. Tell them to put all the water on they can to boil in the kitchen. You don’t know how bad it is?’ His back to Aaron as Sarah disappeared.
‘Bad, I think. See how that carriage crawls.’
It was all too convincing. ‘Then we won’t try to get him upstairs. A bed in his study! Quick! Anne, you see to it.’ Thank God Anne had appeared at last. What else was there? Dressings. ‘Alice!’ The girl had come out on to the steps behind Anne. ‘Fetch clean linen, basilicum powder —’
‘Clean linen? You mean the master’s shirts?’
‘No!’ Idle to lose her temper; she was almost used, by now, to the way one had to spell everything out. ‘Clean sheets, girl, from the linen cupboard, and we’ll tear them up as we need them.’
‘The best linen?’
‘Of course!’ Now she actually stamped her foot. ‘And quickly! Don’t you see the carriage is almost here? We’ll take him in the side way, Aaron, to save him these steps. Have a couple of men ready with a chair in case he must be carried.’
‘He must, ma’am. He said so. The other gentleman.’
‘Then for God’s sake get ready.’ The carriage was swinging very slowly, very carefully round the curve of the sweep, old Charon handling his horses as if with velvet gloves. It stopped at last, and Juliet was first at the door. ‘How is he?’ She found herself addressing a total stranger, a tall, fair young man who would have been good-looking were he not so obviously distraught.
‘Bad, I’m afraid. And all my fault. You’re Mrs. Purchis? I don’t know what to say to you —’
‘Then say nothing, sir, and help us get him out of the carriage. Where is it?’
‘In the shoulder. He fired upward. The other man. From the ground. It was my fault, I tell you. I forgot the count.’
‘Never mind that now.’ Quellingly. ‘If it’s the shoulder, can he walk?’ She did not like the look of the still figure, supported between the stranger and Hyde’s own man, Francis.
‘Yes.’ It was the thread of a voice from Hyde. And, ‘No,’ said the stranger. ‘Not possibly. If you knew how much blood he’d lost, Mrs. Purchis, you’d not chance it.’
‘No.’ She gave her orders quickly and concisely. ‘Not you sir.’ The stranger was shaking too much to help carry the chair Aaron had brought out. ‘The men will do it better. Gently, now.’
Hyde was white as death. ‘I don’t know that we ought to move him, ma’am.’ Francis spoke from the far side of the carriage.
‘Nonsense!’ Please God she was right. ‘He can’t stay here, in the cold. You and Aaron get him out, and into the chair. There’s a bed made up in his study.’
‘I’m so sorry, my dear.’ Hyde’s exhausted voice again. ‘What a damnable nuisance for you. You’ve sent for ...’ the voice dwindled ... died, then picked up again ... ‘Judge James?’
‘Yes.’ The men had h
im out of the coach now and into the chair she had had brought out. The rough bandage round his left shoulder was stained scarlet. Heart’s blood? Lifeblood? ‘But, surely, a doctor?’
‘Stupid.’ Could there be the faintest hint of laughter in that whisper. ‘Will you never remember that Judge James is a doctor?’
She nearly said, ‘Thank God,’ but restrained herself in time, and watched in anxious silence as Aaron and Francis carried Hyde in at the side entrance and round to his study, which was on the right-hand wing of the house, and mercifully, on ground level. The bed was actually ready and Hyde gave a little grunt of relief as the two men lowered him gently on to it. He must have fought in his shirt sleeves, so at least there was no top coat to cut away, but Juliet did not like the look of that widening patch of scarlet on what struck her as a very inefficient bandage.
‘We had nothing,’ the stranger had followed them into the room and must have understood her look.
‘I see.’ No time for him now. She turned to Satan. ‘How long till Judge James gets here?’
‘Ma’am, I dunno. The Judge might be in circuit; he might be in Savanny; he might be anywhere.’
‘I see,’ she said again, and looked about her. Frightened faces, stupid faces, useless faces. ‘Aaron,’ she made up her mind. ‘Take this gentleman to a guest-room. Get him everything he needs. The rest of you, get back to your duties.’ Ironic word. ‘All but Anne and Alice. You’ve got the dressings, Alice?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ The girl looked terrified.
‘And the hot water?’
‘Sarah’s just bringing it.’
‘Then you and I will change his bandage, Anne.’
***
‘My congratulations, ma’am.’ Judge James joined Juliet in the parlour an hour or so later. ‘I had not thought you so skilled a nurse. If you’d not changed that bandage, you’d be a widow now.’
‘And as it is?’
‘There’s a chance. A good one, I hope. The ball passed upwards, through the shoulder. A clean wound of entry — and of exit too, thank God. No need to maul him about any more now. We must just hope his strong constitution will pull him through. And your nursing, of course.’ Was there a touch of surprise in his voice?
‘Of course.’ Juliet managed an artistic shudder. ‘I had practice enough, Judge, after Waterloo.’
‘Oh ...’ She had explained what was puzzling him. ‘Stupid of me. I cry you a thousand pardons, ma’am.’
‘No need. It is not an experience I wish to remember. And your other patient?’
‘Miss Abigail? As well as could be expected at her age. A few days of quiet; good news of her nephew; and she should be herself again.’
‘Thank God for that. But you think there will be good news?’
He faced her squarely and, she thought, with dislike. ‘I’d be wrong to hold out more than a fifty-fifty hope, Mrs. Purchis. The other man’s dead, I understand.’ It was a question heavy with overtones. What in the world would Josephine’s reaction be?
She thought of what seemed a safe one. ‘There’ll be no trouble? For Hyde?’
‘I doubt it. You know — everyone knows how I feel about duelling. I thought your husband shared my views.’ No question now about the dislike in his voice. ‘But at least he had the grace to fight on the Carolina side of the river. It’s no affair of mine. Except as his friend,’ (the slightest possible accent on the word ‘his’) ‘and his doctor.’ He was writing busily. ‘Have these fetched from Savannah at once. Here are the directions. Quiet is most important of all, of course. I shall come over again first thing in the morning.’ He was on his feet.
‘You’ll take something before you go?’
‘No.’ His look told her more clearly than words how little he liked the idea of drinking with her. ‘Thank you,’ he added, natural courtesy prevailing over dislike. ‘You’ll send at once, of course, if he shows signs of fever. I’ll take one more look at him before I go.’
He could not prevent her from accompanying him, though she was sure he would have liked to. Hyde was heavily asleep. ‘I gave him a laudanum draft,’ said Judge James. ‘With luck, it should keep him quiet until morning. The less he moves, the better. Someone should sit up with him, of course.’
‘Of course.’ She would not tell him that she herself intended to do so.
He had only just gone when a new problem presented itself. Alice came tapping at the study door. ‘Yes?’ Juliet looked up from her seat by the bed. ‘Quietly.’ She whispered.
‘It’s the gentleman, ma’am. That came with the master. Fit to be tied, he is; want to know what the Judge said. Keeps allowing it was all his blame.’
‘Oh, fiddlestick! Very well. Fetch Anne to sit with the master and tell —’ she did not know the stranger’s name — ‘tell him I’ll see him in the parlour.’
She could not help but be sorry for the distracted young man she found there. ‘Sam Everett, ma’am.’ He stopped his anxious pacing of the room when she appeared. ‘I don’t know what to say; how to ask your pardon …’
‘No need, Mr. Everett.’ At least she had had a little time to work out her approach. Even in the distraction of their arrival, she had recognised the New England twang and seen that none of the servants knew him. ‘You cannot possibly feel any more guilty than I do. You’re a stranger here, but I promise you, when you go into Savannah, you will find enough tongues to tell you that this business is all my fault. And so it is!’ It was an immense relief to come out with it. ‘Mr. Fonseca was —’ she hesitated — ‘An admirer of mine. I never thought ... never imagined ... I’m a stranger here too,’ she raised huge, distraught eyes to his, and thought, as she did so, just how true it was. ‘I must have misunderstood,’ she went on. ‘Misled him ... Oh God, if anything happens to Hyde, I’ll never forgive myself.’ And that was true, too.
‘But what did the doctor say?’
‘That there was an even chance. No more. It’s probably worse, don’t you think? Though why he should try to spare me …’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, because he thinks it’s all my fault, of course. And he’s right. I could see him hating me. I don’t blame him.’ She was crying now, in great uncontrollable relieving bursts of tears.
‘Mrs. Purchis, you mustn’t.’ He took her arm and drew her to a sofa. ‘You’re overwrought, and no wonder, but remember, you’re the only one here who seems capable of keeping her head. You were magnificent, when we got here.’ No mistaking the warm admiration in his voice. ‘You must not fail your husband now.’
‘No.’ She sniffed once, resolutely, and smiled up at him through a mist of tears. ‘Thank you, Mr. Everett. I needed that. And —’ belatedly, she remembered her position — ‘welcome to Winchelsea.’
‘To think of arriving thus! Hyde and I talked of it so often, all those years ago, at Harvard. And now, this!’
Thank God she had been right in judging him a complete stranger. ‘You must not mind it,’ she said mechanically. ‘If it had not been you, it would have been someone else.’
‘Yes.’ He had been longing to get it said. ‘But don’t you see, that’s just it! Anyone used to duelling could not have made the unspeakable mistake that I did. If I had only remembered the count …’
‘Hush!’ He had sat down by her on the sofa, and she put a restraining hand on his. ‘You must not refine on it so. Mr. Fonseca is —’ she corrected herself — ‘was a desperate man. He might well have fired just the same.’ It could easily be true, she thought.
‘You really think so? Oh, thank you!’ His other hand closed over hers. ‘Thank you a thousand times.’
‘Josephine!’ The icy voice made them both look up.
Abigail Purchis stood in the doorway, taller and more gaunt-looking than ever. One frail white claw held her draperies round her, the other steadied her against the newel post. Now she came forward, one shaky step into the room. ‘Perhaps you will make your friend known to me?’
‘Hyde’s friend, aunt.’ Alm
ost for the first time, Juliet found herself genuinely sorry for Josephine. ‘This is Mr. Everett from Boston. He acted —’
‘As Hyde’s second,’ the old lady actually interrupted her. ‘Do not expect me to thank you, sir? It is not, precisely, my idea of friendship.’
Chapter Seven
Towards morning, Hyde began to stir restlessly. ‘Josephine?’ he muttered.
‘I’m here.’ Juliet put a restraining hand on his good shoulder. ‘Lie still, my dear. Judge James says you must keep as quiet as possible.’
‘He’s been? I’m home?’ His gaze wandered vacantly round the room. ‘But, Josephine —’
‘Not now.’ She had no intention of letting him talk about the duel. ‘Here.’ She had risen and fetched the draft Judge James had prescribed. ‘Drink this.’
‘But, Fonseca?’
‘Dead.’
‘That’s something.’ The draft was beginning to take effect. ‘Should apologise ... Something ...’ He was asleep again.
Judge James was pleased with him. ‘If he goes on like this ... No excitement ... no disturbance ... nothing. He may do yet.’
‘You didn’t think so yesterday?’
‘I’m still very far from being sure. But panic never helped anyone.’
‘I don’t panic.’ He had got under her skin at last. And then, remembering her part. ‘Not without an audience worth the trouble.’ She was sure the dislike between Judge James and Josephine must be mutual. ‘And Miss Abigail?’
‘Worse than I had hoped. Something seems to have disturbed her last night. She’s in a fever today. You’ll need to send to town again for drops for her.’
‘Oh, pshaw,’ Juliet was well back into her role now. ‘She would get sick when I’ve all this on my hands already.’
‘She adores her great-nephew,’ the judge rose, looking at her with frank dislike. ‘If you’ll be advised by me, Mrs. Purchis, you will leave her nursing to Sarah.’
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