Lisa

by Joan Van Every Frost

  Cynthia had stuck to her harsh regime with remarkable power of will, and it was possible now to see her as she must have been before all of her ill fortune overcame her. She had a delicate, heart-shaped face, well placed though not over large blue eyes, and a rose bud mouth that no longer was buried in folds of fat. She had a curious doll-like quality that kept her from being a real beauty, but she certainly was pretty enough. Unlike Lisa, she couldn’t wait for the homecoming, and fifty times a day would conjecture out loud as to when they were coming and what they might be bringing. Lisa herself was almost ready to welcome them, if only their arrival would stop Cynthia’s dithering.

  That afternoon it rained, a dismal blowing drizzle that darkened the house until they had to light lamps inside as early as three o’clock. She and Cynthia were glad to spend the afternoon before the fire for once while Lisa read from an English fairy tale book. It was one of those afternoons when she wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to have seen one of the giants out of “Jack the Giant Killer” come striding over the nearest ridge, a garment of fur covering his nakedness, a huge club over his shoulder, and sheep, oxen, and unhappy maidens hanging at his belt.

  “Fe, fi, fo, fum

  I smell the blood of an Englishman.

  Be he alive or be he dead,

  I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”

  Lisa had no sooner uttered this forbidding announcement than: “Lisa! Lisa!” came Toby’s excited voice from down under the window.

  She opened the window and leaned out. “What is it, Toby? What in heaven’s name are you doing out in the rain?”

  “They be comin’, Lisa. Ay kin see them on the road!”

  She slammed the window, her heart unaccountably thudding. Cynthia was already in a panic over what to put on. “What earthly difference does it make?” Lisa asked. “You’ve got to cover yourself against the rain anyway.”

  At last the two women descended the stairs, both trying to restrain themselves from running. Annie, Amy, Priddy, Toby, and Hallie’s boy Fred were already at the open front door. As the carriage turned onto the drive and proceeded up to the house, they could see that it was bulging with boxes and trunks lashed on every which way. Cleo and Christian danced and pranced as if it were the beginning of the trip, not the end, and were obviously glad to be coming home. The men put their horses into a canter up the drive and were soon in front of the house. Lisa realized that both of them were staring beyond her shoulder, astonished.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” were Jarrell’s first words.

  “It can’t be,” Eric echoed.

  It came to Lisa that they were talking about Cynthia, and she burst out laughing. She found herself so glad to see them that at the moment she could forgive them all their shortcomings.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Cynthia said sweetly, savoring her triumph. “I trust you had a good journey.”

  Jarrell recovered first and directed Toby to take the carriage back as soon as it was unloaded. He and Eric were soaked to the skin, and he wanted to get the horses under cover as well. They galloped off around the house in a shower of gravel. With all of the women plus Toby and Fred helping, they soon had the carriage unloaded and everything stacked in the front hall. Toby took the carriage, Priddy returned to the kitchen, and Annie and Amy hurried upstairs to light fires and start the hot water for baths.

  “I’d never have believed it,” Mrs. Lewis pronounced. “Cynthia, I have to hand it to you, you stayed with it, didn’t you?”

  Mrs. Stephens hardly looked overjoyed, but she managed an unenthusiastic “Congratulations, my dear.”

  Cynthia actually simpered, so delighted was she to be the admired center of attention. She did look smashing at that, Lisa thought. Excitement and all of the outdoor exercise had given the bloom of a ripe apricot to her flawless skin. Her eyes sparkled, and at least right now her animation had taken over the usual doll-like quality. Just then Eric came in, shaking the water off his sopping cloak, closely followed by Jarrell, droplets of water glittering in his black hair. Everyone’s eyes were on the men who had just entered, but Lisa happened to take one last look at Cynthia. On her face was a fleeting look of such love and longing that Lisa, startled, followed her gaze to find that it fastened not on Jarrell but on Eric. Dear God, did complications in this family never end?

  Though pale, Jarrell looked curiously younger, and Lisa realized that his cheeks were now shaven and his former full beard reduced to the area around his mouth and chin. He walked over and grasped her by the shoulders. “By God, Lisa, it’s good to see you. You’ve performed an absolute miracle with Cynthia.” His eyes glowed and he dropped his hands. “You’ve no idea what’s happened in surgery in just seven years. I’ve averaged six operations a day since I got to London. A student of mine, Terry Stuart, is now on the staff at Guy’s, and shorthanded as they were, they welcomed me with open arms. I learned a lot, but I was able to show them a few things as well. During the last year I worked out a new tie for sutures.”

  “Oh come on, Mark, Lisa doesn’t want to listen to all your drivel about blood and guts.” Eric swung her away from Jarrell and kissed her full on the mouth. “When are we off to Xanadu, my sweet?” he asked, laughing.

  “Shall I be your damsel with a dulcimer?”

  “I’d rather she’d be a damsel with a box in her hand going up those stairs,” Mrs. Lewis observed tartly.

  “Ah, parting is such sweet sorrow,” Eric retorted, unrepressed. “Me for a hot bath and a drink. Good as some of the food was, I missed Priddy’s cooking.” He bounded off upstairs.

  “What happened to Toby’s head?” Jarrell asked. “A horse have him off?”

  “You may as well know,” Lisa replied. “It happened in the village because I went with him in the cart. Some boys threw stones. He wasn’t knocked clear out, only cut.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I had to warn you to stay away from there. How does he feel?”

  “He doesn’t complain, but I imagine he could use something to help him sleep for a night or so. Last night I gave him some of the medicine Cynthia has for her monthlies.”

  Jarrell grinned. “As good as I could have done myself. That kind of stuff is always loaded with opium. Remind me, and I’ll give you something else for him tonight and let Cynthia save her opium.”

  Dinner was a festive affair. Priddy finished cooking a ham she had been keeping for the occasion, and the smell of roasting meat and cloves permeated the house. Eric and Carrie Stephens had a number of funny stories about the many social events they had attended, usually together. More than one of them involved the desperate attempts on the part of various matrons to entrap Eric for one of their daughters. Jarrell was bubbling over with news of great strides in the medical field.

  “Did you have any idea that we are living in the greatest period of medical advance that the world has ever seen? Tait operated successfully on a tubular pregnancy, and Fitz of Massachusetts General just published his findings that the appendix is the cause of perityphlitic abscess. It won’t be long before we can cure all kinds of internal problems, things we’ve been afraid even to touch before. If I’d been born only thirty years sooner, I couldn’t have stood being a surgeon. Within my lifetime, a surgeon had to tie a man down and cut on him while the poor wretch thrashed about and screamed. Now they still die all too often of infection, but mark my words, Semelweiss and Lister will become medical heroes known to every school boy.”

  “There’s a part of the human body I’d like to have some extras of,” Eric laughed. “Will medicine be able to do that?”

  “Heaven help womankind if it does,” Mrs. Lewis said wryly.

  “Do you suppose that I might go to London with you the next time you go?” Cynthia asked. “You all seem to have had such a good time that you make me envious.”

  “How about you, Lisa?” Eric asked.

  “ ’Appen Ay’m too much a country girl for goings on like that,” Lisa replied. “Cynthia can tell me all about i
t,” she added.

  Cynthia cast her a grateful look — she was of no mind to be upstaged by Lisa on this night of her triumph.

  After much exclaiming over the new clothes they had Cynthia and Lisa model, they trailed up to bed, exhausted by the excitement and the long trip. Lisa asked Eric if he would take Toby’s medicine to him while she and Cynthia put away their new things.

  She didn’t know how long she had slept or what had wakened her, but she opened her eyes to see Cynthia standing at the window. She could just make out her silhouette against the lighter darkness beyond. She started to go back to sleep, but all at once the thought occurred to her that the darkness beyond shouldn’t have been lighter. This was the dark of the moon when she and Toby never went running because visibility was so poor, and there was probably still overcast as well. Her eyes opened again, and she looked more carefully at Cynthia, who had evidently been there for some time because she was hugging herself and shivering.

  Lisa got up silently and went over to stand beside the other woman. A strange scene greeted her, for she could see down at the stables that Eric had tied a restive Christian outside, and he and Mrs. Stephens were putting down a bed of straw in his stall for him. How queer! Carrie Stephens had always been emphatic about her lack of interest in anything to do with horses, and yet here she was doing a stable boy’s work. Eric was perfectly capable of tending to Christian himself, but hardly in the middle of the night after a long wet trip. The light came from an oil lantern inside the stall. They finished, and Eric led Christian back in, patted him and with the lantern the two of them walked up toward the house.

  “Whatever have they been doing?” she asked.

  Cynthia jumped as if she’d been shot. “Oh! I had no idea you were there. Have you been watching long?” She spoke rapidly, nervously, and dark though it was, Lisa could hear her teeth chatter. She must be shivering violently, though it wasn’t that cold.

  “I only saw them putting bedding down for Christian. Did Toby forget to do it? I suppose the medicine has made him beyond waking now.”

  “Yes, that’s probably it,” Cynthia said hastily. “Oh, I’m so cold, I’ve got to go back to bed.”

  She pulled the covers up over her head and lay still as if asleep. But Lisa knew she wasn’t asleep because there were no gentle snores to be heard. She was mooning over Eric no doubt, which was too bad; unless she kept her head, Eric would simply use her and throw her over. Lisa was under no illusions that the only reason Eric still pursued herself was that he couldn’t have her. She doubted that advising Cynthia would do any good, but perhaps Jarrell could make her see reason. Lisa groaned inwardly at the thought of all that work going for nothing and a miserable Cynthia turning to food again for solace. She fell asleep to dream of Jarrell, raindrops glittering on his black hair, putting Cleo at an enormous wall she knew they couldn’t jump. He lifted Cleo off with his knees and hands and they soared up away from her and disappeared over the wall. She watched the wall for a long time while tears poured down her face, but they never came back.

  The next day the household settled into its old ways. Toby and Mrs. Lewis set off to Dunwiddleston, and Lisa hoped there would be no trouble. Jarrell had risen early, breakfasted, and shut himself in his study, presumably to revise his book in light of all he had learned in London. Eric, Cynthia, and Mrs. Stephens slept in. Lisa went down to the stables and looked in Christian’s stall. The big horse pushed against her with his nose and then offered to give her a playful nip. She slapped him lightly, then got a handful of oats from the part of the stables that formed a storage barn for hay and grain. While he nibbled her offering, she looked hard into the stall but could see nothing amiss. The wooden manger was a quarter full of hay, and the straw bedding had obviously been changed once again by Toby before he left for the village. She couldn’t imagine why Eric and his sister had been changing it in the middle of the night.

  “Looking for something?” Eric asked.

  Lisa jumped. “You frightened me. No, I was just telling Christian hello after his being gone so long,” she improvised. “I brought him a handful of oats to say welcome home. I’m getting another for Cleo.”

  Followed by Eric, she went again to the storage side and scooped up a handful from the barrel. Suddenly his arms were around her, and he buried his face in the hollow where her neck met her shoulder.

  “Lisa, Lisa, I’ve missed you more than I can say — more than I ever thought to miss any woman. All the way back I had a hard time to keep myself from letting Christian go flat out to get home to you. It’s the first time I thought of this gloomy pile of stone as home.” He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “I’m afraid I may have gone and fallen in love with you,” he said lightly.

  If only he’d said all that on the long ago day at the granite quarry. And yet better that he hadn’t, or perhaps she would never have had the strength to say no. Part of her yearned toward him, still felt the aching sweetness of intense desire, while part of her saw him clearly with eyes disillusioned by his and Jarrell’s betrayals both. Were all men such slaves to their physical needs that they cared not a farthing where they purged themselves or whom they hurt?

  She stood absolutely still in Eric’s embrace, offering no struggle. “It won’t do, Eric. I’m very fond of you, but I don’t love you.”

  He winced as if she had struck him. “I suppose I deserved that,” he said with a wry smile. “Would it make any difference if I said I would change my ways? I never had any reason to before, you know.”

  “I can’t tell you. I don’t really know how I would feel if you changed. I can’t even say how long it would take to learn to trust you again. You see, I’m being honest as I know how.”

  “I think I’d like to try, anyway,” Eric replied quietly, for once completely serious. “After all, if Cynthia can lose ten stone and learn to ride besides, I should be able to stay away from Burresford.”

  “An easy promise to make when you’re just back from London,” Lisa couldn’t help pointing out. “It’s when you’ve been here for a while and something crosses you that you’ve got to watch yourself.”

  “Touché, my dear. Well, we shall see, shan’t we?”

  After she had allowed Cleo to nibble the oats daintily from her hand, they walked in a companionable silence up to the house. When they arrived, they heard Mrs. Stephens’ angry voice. “Fred the gardener insists it was Lisa who told him to do it. I’ll not have all those ugly vegetables marring the garden I took such pride to plan.

  She even had him move the irises to make room. I won’t have it, I tell you. If she wants to revert to the farm, she can bloody well do it out beyond the cemetery.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t mean to step on your toes, Carrie,” Jarrell said reasonably. “And she did put it out by the kitchen. I think it’s a damn good idea to grow some of our own food. I’m sorry someone didn’t think of it before. It shows what parasites we city folk really are.”

  “You and Eric make me sick. You’re both so smitten by that little trollop that she can lead you both around by the nose.”

  “Don’t ever let me hear you say that again, Carrie.” Jarrell’s voice was ice. “My feelings are not your affair, but for what it is worth, I am not smitten, nor do I intend to be in any forseeable future. I hope that is understood. When this crop of vegetables is raised, I’ll see that the plot is moved outside your garden, but I am not going to order it taken out now. Will that do?”

  “I suppose it will have to,” came Mrs. Stephens’ sullen answer.

  Lisa entered the hall and came up to her. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Stephens. I should have asked your permission, but I didn’t realize the garden was your province, too.”

  “Well it is,” Mrs. Stephens snapped.

  “Temper, temper, Carrie,” Eric admonished her. “I would say Mark’s proposal is fair enough.”

  “You!” She turned on him. “How could you!” Her voice broke and she fled up the stairs. Eric surprisingly looked stricken
, and he hurried up after her.

  Lisa and Jarrell were left looking at each other in astonishment. “She’ll get over it,” Jarrell said finally. “I think she’s suffering some wounded vanity because we’ve made so much over you and Cynthia. Would you like to go riding this afternoon?”

  Even though she knew she could send Toby out with Cynthia, she answered, “If you don’t mind Cynthia coming along. It’s important she go out every day, you know, and she’s spent the morning sleeping.”

  His face hardened. “Well I do mind. I’ll go out by myself.”

  So much for Cynthia regaining her looks, Lisa thought. Cynthia didn’t seem to be any fonder of the idea of reconciling than Jarrell. At least Eric was safe for the time being. No matter how Cynthia threw herself at him, right at the moment Lisa thought he was feeling too noble to respond. She sighed, thinking how much more fun she would have had with Jarrell than with Toby and Cynthia, but she was afraid that her new knowledge of Jarrell’s hypocrisy would give her away. Better leave it at that, she decided with a pang.

  “Since Cynthia is still in bed, how would you like to help Mrs. Lewis and me set up the operating room?”

  Lisa’s heart sank. She had vaguely hoped that perhaps he would have forgotten all about it. “All right,” she agreed without enthusiasm. “When are you going to do it?”

  “How about tomorrow? I can’t see any reason for waiting, can you?”

  She tried desperately to think of some excuse, but her mind was a quivering blank. She shook her head.

  “I’ve decided to set up a room permanently. I saw a bruned child in Burresford who has somewhat the same problem you do; only with him it’s his arm that has adhered to his side. I talked to his mother, and she’s willing to have me free it. I can’t think what’s wrong with those Burresford doctors, but I can only suppose they are afraid of infection.”