The Dutiful Daughter
Page 8
There was a third alternative — to remove to her new home at Highmoor and live there.
But in the unfriendly dawn, living alone had very little allure. Notwithstanding her frequent impatience with her stepmother, with Lydia and Sophy, and the myriad of small nettling incidents of the day, yet she shrank at the thought of living alone. Chloe had become conditioned to all the inconsequential incidents of a retired country life, and though her existence was not exciting, yet it was familiar and therefore comforting in a way.
Memory took her back over Stoddard’s adventures related over dinner, and if he had thought to lure her interest by his tales of derring-do in various unlikely incidents, the effect on her had been just the opposite.
She could not look with any favor upon a life beset by bandits, thieving landlords, and uncomfortable coaches driving over impossible mountain passes. As a matter of fact, Stoddard’s warmed-over escapades gave rise only to a certain doubt of the narrator’s veracity.
While Chloe’s knowledge of the more lurid novels of the day was nonexistent, yet logic told her that this kind of incident, where one routed bandits with the sword and traveled in deadly peril of losing one’s life, was not reasonable, and in fact probably had not happened at all.
Restless, unable to stay longer in bed, she dragged the eiderdown over to a chair from which she could watch the sun rise. No doubt Richard could tell her what would be best to do. She longed to lean on his sturdy common sense and find in it the support for her own decisions. When she saw Richard again she might even broach the subject of removing to Highmoor, to see whether his thought, being based on broader experience, would be the same as Edward’s.
But there was no hurry, she thought comfortably. Stoddard was already out of her life, having dropped in only on his way to Brighton to bear the Prince Regent company. Chloe could be sure that Edward would stand on her side against Francis, so that she was far from being beset by two suitors.
She was surprised to find that her headache had all but vanished. She laid her head back on the chair and thought with great comfort that Richard was home now and would advise her truly. She fell asleep, at last, and woke only when Bess brought her morning tea, and Sophy came in on her heels to sit with Chloe.
Sophy was full of news again this morning. She made perfunctory inquiry about Chloe’s headache and did not wait for the answer.
“Cook’s tooth is worse, you know,” she said. “She thinks she is going to die of it. Her face is all swollen, out to here —” Sophy demonstrated, holding her hand exaggeratedly away from her cheek — “and they had to get a bigger rag to tie up her head with.”
Chloe said, “Oh dear, I have to go to her. Where’s the bottle of laudanum?”
Bess said oppressively, “First with your tea, Miss Chloe. Cook’s tooth been bad all night, and another ten minutes isn’t going to make a difference.”
Sophy pursued her own line of thought, and said, “Field couldn’t sleep either. He couldn’t clear away until late. There was so much wrangling in the parlor that he dared not enter to take out the tea cart.”
Chloe drank tea and began to hunt for the bottle of laudanum. Sophy crossed to the windows, where Bess had drawn the curtains open. “It’s a fine day,” Sophy pointed out. “Francis is still in bed. Maybe we can go on our picnic today.”
Chloe said, her voice muffled as she bent over a small cabinet, “I must get cook to the tooth drawer today.”
Sophy said, “She’s such a coward! She’ll never go.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“But what about our outing?”
Chloe said, “Not today, not for me.”
Sophy said, with scorn, “Spoilsport! Always with your nose to the grindstone.”
Chloe thought, How else are we to manage? Mama does nothing, and somebody has to see to these things.
Sophy, finding she could not budge Chloe, left. In moments she was back, her eyes wide with suppressed excitement. “Julian Stoddard is coming up the drive!”
Chloe, stunned, gazed at her half-sister, aghast. “But he’s gone!”
“That may be, but he’s back.”
Chloe objected. “But he said he was going to Brighton. What’s he doing here?”
Sophy said, ghoulishly, “Maybe he’s going to fight a duel with Francis! Over your hand! Isn’t that exciting?”
Rightly, Chloe ignored Sophy’s fancy. She hastily gulped down the last of the cold tea and sent Bess away. She searched through her wardrobe until she found a gown that was suitable for town wear. Hurriedly she dressed herself and swept her hair up and anchored it with pins in a style more convenient than fashionable. Sophy, watching her, cried out, “What are you doing?”
Chloe answered, matter-of-factly, “I am taking Cook to the tooth drawer.”
With great common sense, Sophy pointed out, “You’ll never get her to go. She’ll just want more laudanum to ease the pain, and then she’ll say the tooth doesn’t hurt any more and no need to have it out.”
Chloe waved the bottle aloft. “But there is no more laudanum, see? Only a couple of drops in the bottom. That much will serve to get her to town, but I must get a new supply.”
Sophy said promptly, “I’ll go with you. If you can get Cook to go to town to the tooth drawer, that’s something I don’t want to miss.”
Chloe said, “No, there’s no need for you to go.” But Sophy hurried out of the room on her way to change her clothes, and Chloe, with a sigh of resignation, picked up her shawl and empty bottle of laudanum, and descended the back stairs to deal with Cook, a notorious coward.
9
A strenuous quarter hour later, Chloe emerged from the kitchen wing and came face to face with Francis. Her cousin, laboring under a sense of injustice, caught sight of Chloe and burst into speech.
“Very bad form,” he said. Having expressed himself, he stood blinking at Chloe, waiting for her comment.
On her own mental track, Chloe said, “But nobody else will do it. Cook needs to be taken care of, and I am on my way —”
Francis said, “What has Cook to do with it?”
Chloe looked at him, bewildered. “I really could not say, Francis. But Mrs. Field is truly the only person I’m concerned with just now.”
Francis was impervious to hints. “Making a morning call,” he exclaimed, “as though he were intimate, and besides he’s supposed to be in Brighton.”
Chloe, filling in correctly the gaps in Francis’s exposition, made a guess. “You are talking about Julian Stoddard!”
Francis, aggrieved, agreed. “Who else?” he asked simply.
“Truly, Francis, I have no time for Julian Stoddard now. Cook is totally miserable, and I finally got her to agree to go and have her tooth extracted. I must hurry before she changes her mind. I was on my way to Edward —”
It occurred to her finally that Francis looked more than ordinarily upset. “What is the trouble?” she asked.
Francis said, in a voice that would not have been inappropriate had it heralded doomsday. “He’s still here.”
His information brought Chloe up short. “You mean he’s still here?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” said Francis.
“Oh dear,” she cried. “I was on my way to tell Edward where I was going. I dare not wait longer, for Cook is just now on the verge of refusing to go at all.” She took hold of Francis’s sleeve. “I’m so grateful to you for telling me. I do not like to take the chance of meeting Stoddard on the way. I will go out the service drive, if you would do me the greatest of favors. Would you tell Edward where I have gone with Cook? I’m taking the chaise, but —”
She thought again. “I suppose you wouldn’t go with me?”
Francis shuddered. “I certainly would not. I have a horror of tooth drawers.”
Chloe said, impatiently, “So do we all, but it must be done.”
Francis said, “No, I can’t go.”
“You do not even need to see the man.”
Chloe said, with resignation, “Then if you won’t go with me, at least you can tell Edward where I have gone. I don’t know when we will be back, and you all must do as well as you can for lunch, for Cook will be in no way able to deal with it when she comes back.”
Francis vanished, and Chloe turned back to the kitchen. Summoning help from Field and two footmen, and bending an imperative glance on Bess, Chloe managed to get Mrs. Field, moaning as though in her death throes, as far as the light carriage. It took the combined efforts of all of them to hoist her ample figure into the chaise. Chloe climbed in beside her and Bess followed, sitting on the opposite seat, and they were ready to set off down the back drive. Young Franklin, an assistant groom, was allowed to take the reins. Just before he whipped up the horses, Sophy ran out the back door. She joined them without ceremony, saying only, “I was waiting for you in the front hall. Were you trying to get away without me?”
Chloe said, repressively, “No, only to avoid Edward’s caller.”
Sophy nodded wisely, and, to Chloe’s great gratitude, maintained silence for the next few minutes. Young Franklin, full of his own importance at driving Miss Rothwell to town in sole charge of the light carriage, drove his horses rather too fast down the service drive. Chloe was too distraught to protest, and Sophy watched the trees go by at a dizzying speed with excited anticipation. This was going to be a drive she would remember, she thought.
Franklin negotiated his first turn and emerged on the well-traveled road to town without incident. Things were going very well, he thought, and allowed his fancy full rein, an attitude that reflected itself inevitably in lax hands on the reins of the pair he was driving.
If he did well this time, and he had no doubt that he would, and won Miss Rothwell’s approbation, there was a clear road to the top. As clear as the road ahead of him, he thought, and envisioned himself as second coachman. Even, his fevered ambition whispered in his ear, when old Coachman himself got beyond it, Franklin would be right in line for the position. First coachman — it was a dizzying height.
His imagination ran riot, and since his eyes were fixed upon the vision in his thoughts, he failed to see the milepost hidden in the roadside grass. Driving, as he thought, to a peg, the wheel of the carriage caught the milepost. There was a grinding crunch, and Chloe knew that disaster had come upon them.
The carriage tilted toward the damaged wheel, and cook’s ample figure was thrown over on Chloe. Bess and Sophy were jumbled together in the opposite seat, hands flailing to catch hold of something. The moment was quickly gone, for the horses, hearing an ominous sound behind, shied. The carriage was pulled along reeling like a drunken vehicle on the grass, and, overcome by gravity, landed on its side in the grass. Brought up short by the heavy weight of the coach, now immobile, the horses were brought to a shuddering halt. The disaster was of sufficient magnitude that no one noticed a hired outfit coming down the road behind them.
Its driver was Julian Stoddard. He was near enough to see the accident as it happened, and his heart bounded within his chest. Julian had been making heavy weather of a conversation with Edward when Francis Hensley had arrived with Chloe’s message. Without tact or even discretion, Francis had blurted out Chloe’s message to Edward. Stoddard, always a man to take advantage of whatever came his way, pricked up his ears at this new development.
Francis, holding Stoddard in justified dislike, took a certain pleasure in informing Edward that Chloe had left the house. He shot a glance sideways at Stoddard, as though to say, You’ll not see her this day.
Edward frowned. “Chloe is right. The tooth must come out. We have had enough upset on account of it already. And you say they took the chaise? I wish they had taken the carriage.”
Stoddard, intent on his own goals, leaped to the conclusion that Chloe was suffering toothache. He took his leave, trying not to be suspiciously hasty, and hurried down the driveway. Certainly Chloe, suffering as she must be, would look with favor on a stalwart companion. Stoddard did not give more than passing attention to the circumstance that might be considered strange — Chloe’s brother’s and cousin’s giving no thought to accompanying her on what must be after all a very painful errand.
Stoddard turned at the gatepost and headed toward town. There was no vehicle in sight, and he whipped up his horse in order to catch up with Chloe. He formed no very clear plan as to what he would do when he overtook her. He supposed she must have a maid with her, and he possessed enough compassion to think that she was receiving very shabby treatment. He turned a corner in the road and faced the same straightaway that Chloe’s groom had come a cropper on. He congratulated himself, for down the road he could see what looked very much like an overturned chaise.
Approaching the accident, he was gratified to see Chloe, apparently none the worse for the spill, standing in the middle of the road. He leaped down from his curricle, tied the reins, and came to her.
“I come at a timely season, it seems,” he began.
She looked at him without favor, and then, aware that she was being almost rude, told him, “I am too distracted to be civil. How are you, Mr. Stoddard?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned to Franklin. “If you’re not too hurt, get up and see to the horses. You will be fortunate if you have not barked their legs, for I don’t know what Edward would say to you.”
The groom, flushed with embarrassment and dismay, limped toward the horses and grabbed their bridles.
Sophy, completing her survey of the chaise, said, “The wheels look all right, and I see no broken axle. What on earth possessed him to turn us over on a straight road?”
Chloe ignored Sophy, shot a discerning glance toward Cook, sitting on a grassy bank, moaning, and turned again to the hapless groom. She helped him unhitch the horses, all the while her thoughts mulling about what to do next.
Julian, remarking with a corner of his mind that Chloe did not seem to be suffering too badly from the toothache, offered his help.
“Do you help Franklin set the carriage up, for I cannot leave the horses,” she suggested.
The next few minutes were filled with activity for all — holding the horses, trying to set the chaise on its wheels, all to the antiphonal moaning of the ample figure on the bank. They were all too busy to notice another chaise in the distance approaching. With Chloe giving crisp orders, the chaise was soon on its own four wheels again. Julian then, for the first time, was able to look directly at Chloe, and noticed with some surprise that her face showed no signs of swelling.
But Chloe turned to Stoddard, her face glowing, and thanked him profusely. “I don’t know what we would have done had you not come along, Mr. Stoddard. I really must get to town at once, and I don’t believe I should risk the chaise any further.”
Julian, bowing handsomely, said, “My vehicle and I myself are at your service, Miss Rothwell.”
“Oh, excellent,” cried Chloe. “Cook, did you hear that? Mr. Stoddard is going to take you to town to the tooth drawer. You will feel fine presently.”
With Bess, who had been staring into space in a state of minor shock, Chloe managed to get Cook to her feet and propelled toward Mr. Stoddard’s curricle. If Chloe noticed the look of total dismay on Stoddard’s face as he realized that Cook was the victim of toothache, and not his prey, she gave no sign of it. She helped get Mrs. Field into the curricle, and told Bess to climb up, too. “For you will not like to have the sole charge of the patient,” Chloe told Stoddard brightly. “If you would be good enough to set both the cook and Bess down in front of the tooth drawer, I will try to find a way to get there.”
Cook, half unconscious with the last drops of laudanum, hardly knew one chaise from another. She knew that she was in total misery and saw no reason to hold back the moans that gave her some comfort. She gave every sign of moaning constantly the si
x miles to town.
Julian Stoddard, seeing no way out, climbed grimly into the curricle. He had been fairly caught. Miss Rothwell, far from being the helpless maiden in distress, had made a fool of him. Between tight lips, he said, “How will you get to town?”
Chloe said, “We are not far from home, and we can walk back. When you get to the tooth drawer, there is no need for you to wait, Mr. Stoddard. I would not put that much burden on you.”
She smiled brightly at him, and Julian Stoddard made ready to pick up the reins. Chloe’s approval was glowing, and in spite of himself, Julian had to acknowledge that he was beaten this time. He was seething, beneath his bland exterior, and whipped his horses up into a strong trot.
Chloe watched him go down the road, and said to Sophy, “How fortunate it is that he came along. And I must say, I am not sorry to be relieved of Cook’s moaning all the way.”
Sophy said, brightly, “What shall we do now?”
A lazy voice drawled from over their heads, “Perhaps I can be of service.”
The two girls looked up to see Sir Richard, controlling his pair of grays with one hand and looking down at Chloe with a smile. Sir Richard was fully appreciative of the situation. He took note of Stoddard’s chaise, the three figures in it crowded together, leaving at a fast pace. It was amusing to see Julian Stoddard, the well-known rake and gambler, saddled with a cook and a maid, when Richard was quite sure his trap had been set for Chloe. There was much to be explained, but now was not the time.
Richard said, “Don’t worry, all will be well.” He dropped his groom to help Chloe, giving him instructions about getting the chaise back to Rothwell Manor. “Let me take you to town,” said Richard. “You really should be there, Chloe.”
He reached his hand down to Sophy, and then to Chloe, and they set out in Stoddard’s wake.