Zombie Abbey

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  Inside, he bristled at this. She’d come forward because she thought it the right thing to do. So why should she think that it wouldn’t have been the same for him? And yet he knew he hadn’t wanted to come forward, not at first. How he’d wished at the time that there was someone, anyone else to do it.

  “And then,” she said, when he didn’t reply, “afterward, you ran for help. At risk to yourself, when no one else had even thought of it, you ran for help. You’re not going to tell me that wasn’t brave! I know what bravery is when I see it. I’ve never had any myself, and I’ve always felt the lack.”

  He didn’t think that was true. She could have cared about Mr. Young and still been too cowardly to go help him. Most people would’ve been. But he couldn’t figure out a way to tell her this.

  “Anyone else might have—”

  “—done it. Yes, you’ve said that already,” she said thoughtfully. “But somehow, I don’t think that’s quite true.”

  “I suppose in the war, I…”

  He let the thought trail off. Now, why had he said that? He never spoke of the war to anybody.

  “Yes,” she said. “I heard you were in the war. So I suppose someone needs to thank you for that, too. Thank you, Daniel, for fighting in the war, and thank you for today.” Lady Grace had always struck him as the timid sort, when taken in comparison with her overly confident older sister and her high-spirited younger one, so it surprised him when she looked him straight in the eye as she said, “I simply thought someone should thank you for what you’ve done. I suspected no one else would, and now I have.”

  Before he could say anything further, perhaps another sentence beginning with “Anyone might’ve,” she’d slipped away from him and was gone.

  …

  Lizzy’s dancing companion leaned down and whispered just above her ear so she could feel the exhale of his breath against her skin.

  “Do you have your gun on you?” he said playfully.

  A few moments ago, Cousin Benedict had approached her.

  “One sister is otherwise occupied,” he said, indicating Kate, who had finally persuaded Mr. Wright to dance with her, leaving Father to awkwardly man the gramophone, “so I thought I’d give another one a try.” He held out his hands. “Care to give it a go?”

  She supposed she should have been offended. Who ever wanted to be second choice? But his expression when he’d asked her had been so genial, and it wasn’t her nature to take offense. If another sister was what he wanted, though, why hadn’t he tried Grace? Then she looked around and saw Grace dancing with the footman, Daniel.

  “You mean to say,” she’d said, “two sisters are otherwise occupied, so you’re resorting to the only one left?”

  But she’d laughed when she said it, adding, “Oh, all right,” as she took his hands.

  And she surprised herself by laughing again now.

  “No, I don’t have my gun on me!” she said. It was somewhat thrilling to find mirth in anything on such a day. But then Lizzy had never been the sort to be kept down for long. “Where would I put it?”

  “I don’t know. In your dancing shoe, maybe?”

  She pulled a face. “It would never fit there, and besides,” she added, feeling the sober mood of earlier in the day overtake her again, “we’re indoors. I don’t need it when we’re in here. It’s only when we go outside, when we go out…there.”

  “Do you really think there’s a threat?” he asked earnestly. “Or that it’s so great?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Dead people who aren’t and then are, people who get shot and don’t react to it at all, people who need to be shot in the head to finally be stopped—what do you think?”

  A veil of sarcasm wasn’t the way Lizzy typically chose to view the world; sarcasm was more Kate’s thing, really, but there, she’d said it, and she wouldn’t be sorry.

  Except she was.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why I just took it all out on you like that. It’s just frustrating, no one listening, after the things I’ve seen the past two days.”

  “If it’s any consolation,” Benedict said, “I saw what you saw today, too.”

  “And yet you don’t seem bothered by it. And the others, they won’t admit to seeing anything, at least not anything out of the ordinary.”

  If Will Harvey were here, she found herself thinking, at least they could talk about the practicalities, like the fact that they’d at least learned something today from that business with Dr. Webb: when people got like…that, you had to—most definitely, positively, and certainly—shoot them in the head.

  But having mentioned it once already to Benedict, she found herself disinclined to discuss with him any further the idea of shooting people in the head. He seemed so nice, and she was spoiling his good time.

  “I’ve already seen my share of extraordinary things,” he said, adding, “in the war. Horrible things that I’d just as soon not think about anymore if I can help it.”

  “But not like this,” she couldn’t help but persist.

  “No,” he had to admit, “not like this.”

  His expression had grown grave, and even though she’d wanted people to take her ideas seriously, Lizzy found that her impulse was to wipe that gravity away.

  “So,” she said with a smiling chin nod in the direction of her oldest sister, “do you like her?”

  Here, thankfully, he laughed again. “Well, I know I’m meant to…”

  “But do you?”

  “How should I know?” He shrugged. “I’ve only just met her, really.” He shrugged again. “I’ve only just met all of you.”

  She was about to point out that you could feel as though you’d gotten to know someone rapidly given the right—or wrong, as it were—set of circumstances. She found herself feeling that way, in a sense, about Will. Although she wouldn’t tell Benedict that part. But before she could say anything at all, she saw a small hand, chapped and cracked, reach over the top of his shoulder and give him a tap.

  They stopped dancing as Benedict turned and Lizzy saw the owner of the hand, Fanny, standing there.

  “Oh!” Benedict said, surprised. “Did you want to dance? With me?”

  “Well,” Lizzy said, grateful to be laughing once more, “I don’t think she’s here for me.”

  …

  “Fanny,” she said, introducing herself in answer to his first question. “I’m the kitchen maid,” she said, in response to his second before she’d given him a chance to ask it.

  Oh, why did I do this? she asked herself now. Why did I ask him to dance?

  But she knew why.

  Because he was tall.

  Because he was incredibly handsome.

  Because she knew that she could.

  Sure, Jonathan and Daniel were incredibly handsome, too, but she could dance with them anytime she wanted to, or at least once a year at the Servants’ Ball, and she had; she’d even danced with them at village dances upon rare occasion. But when would she ever get another chance to dance with someone like Benedict Clarke?

  Never. That’s when.

  Yet now that she had him here, her hand not even all the way up on top of his shoulder, instead resting against his chest: What could she talk to him about? What did she know of interest in the world? All she knew was the kitchen at Porthampton Abbey. Would he really want to hear about how she cleaned the copper pots and pans?

  She didn’t think so.

  “So, Fanny,” he said, “what do you like to do when you’re not working?”

  For once, Fanny was grateful for Upstairs. Their breeding was so good, they could make conversation with a potted palm tree if need be, which was about what she felt like at this point: a potted palm.

  “I like to read, sir,” she said eagerly, remembering that she did have a subject of interest to her outside the workings of the kitchen.

  “Do you?” he said, his expression mildly surprised but also pleased.

  “Yes, I learned ho
w at compulsory school. Of course, I had to leave when I was ten, but the reading part of things stuck with me.”

  “And what do you like to read?”

  “Shakespeare.”

  “Shakespeare!”

  “Well, not the actual plays.”

  “No, of course not.”

  Was he laughing at her?

  “I have read all the cast lists, you know,” she said heatedly.

  “The cast lists?”

  “I think they’re called dramatis personae. Anyway, I know all the characters, which is how I know that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are named for two of them.”

  “Rosencrantz and—”

  “The cats. Of the house. Have you not seen them running around the place? They will take His Lordship’s kippers whenever they get the chance. Not like my Henry Clay. He knows to stay in the kitchen.”

  “And Henry Clay is…”

  “My cat. The kitchen cat. Am I not being clear enough in my speech?”

  “No, you’re quite clear. I’m sure it’s just me. When you started talking about Shakespeare, I was—”

  “Are you laughing at me, sir? Because I know I haven’t actually read the plays yet, only the cast lists, but I will get around to it, I promise you.”

  “I have no doubt that you will, Fanny. And when you do, I look forward to the conversations we might have. I assure you, I was not laughing.”

  And yet he was smiling when he said it, kindly though.

  “I don’t blame you, sir,” she said. “I’d laugh at me, too, I suppose. Talking about reading things that I haven’t actually read yet, it’s too funny.”

  “Well, what have you actually read, then, if not Shakespeare?”

  “Today I began some medical texts.”

  “Medical…”

  Fanny clapped a hand over her mouth.

  After showing Will Harvey to his room earlier in the day, she’d slipped into her own room to get in a bit of reading, and she’d started one of the books. She had. But then her thoughts had drifted a bit to Will down the hall from her now. Having seen his room, he’d no doubt sneaked back down the stairs and gone to the stables, because where else was a stable boy supposed to be during the daytime? But she suspected he’d sneaked back into the house by now and was way upstairs in his room.

  She knew that Lady Elizabeth had wanted this, because she fancied him to be somehow useful. But it occurred to Fanny now that he wouldn’t know where anything was inside, and how useful could he be if he didn’t? Maybe she should wake him up early in the morning, when everyone else was still asleep but her, and take him on a little tour of the place?

  “Fanny?” Benedict Clarke said. “You were saying something about reading medical texts?”

  “Was I?” she said. “I don’t think so, sir.”

  This won’t do at all, she thought in a panic. If he knew about the medical books, he’d know she’d taken them from the library. If anyone knew she’d taken something from the library without asking permission first—and who would ever give her such permission?—it’d be her job.

  She may’ve thought she was better than her job, and she was, but that still didn’t mean she was prepared to lose it.

  “I think if you thought you heard me say something like ‘medical,’” she hastened to add, speaking as fast as she could, “it must’ve been ‘medicine,’ and I would’ve been talking about Mr. Young, who perhaps I should check on now to see how he is. Sir.”

  Then Fanny fled.

  Chapter

  Thirty-Four

  Raymond Allen had never worked so hard in his life.

  While the others danced downstairs, the duke spent three hours with Mr. Young, alone, tending to the other man’s needs. He found that he didn’t mind the work so much, although he did wish he could be more confident about the way he was doing it.

  At first, after Grace left them, it had been easy enough. Mr. Young, after all, had been asleep. So what was there to do but sit in a comfortable chair by his bedside? The duke had sat in many comfortable chairs in his lifetime, and while this one wasn’t quite as nice as the ones he had in his palatial bedroom back at his own home, it could’ve been worse.

  But then Mr. Young had wakened. Despite the wounds to his arm and head, both of which had been bandaged, and despite the horror of having been…chewed upon, Mr. Young was calm and in a surprisingly chipper mood.

  “You say the others are having a dance?” he asked in response to the duke’s own reply upon having been asked where Lady Grace had gone to. “How lovely.” Mr. Young closed his eyes, and a smile played around the corners of his lips as he said, “If I were down there, I think I should like to dance a Viennese waltz.”

  “Who would you ask to dance it with you? Lady Katherine?”

  Mr. Young opened one eye and regarded him with it. “A few days ago, I would have said yes. But now I think I would choose Lady Grace. Or possibly even Lady Elizabeth. That one looks like she might be fun and know a thing or two about dancing.”

  “When you’re all better, perhaps there will be another chance, and then you can make your choice.”

  “Yes, when I’m all better.” Mr. Young laughed, but it was without rancor. “As if even then there would be a choice for me, anyone who would say yes, among beautiful ladies.” Mr. Young moved his lips against each other, and the duke could see that they were very dry.

  “Oh! I didn’t even think! Would you like some water?”

  Mr. Young allowed as how that would be lovely.

  The duke reached over to the bedside table and lifted a glass and a pitcher of water from it, filling the one from the other. He placed both back down and then he rose and, as gently as he could, raised the other man to a sitting position against the headboard. Then he held the glass to Mr. Young’s lips so that he might drink from it.

  Look! he thought, as though he were someone else observing his own actions from outside his body. I’m helping someone! Oh, if only Mother could see me now—she’d see that I’m not just decorative, but that I can be useful, too.

  When Mr. Young had had enough refreshment, he waved the glass away, and the duke found a napkin with which to wipe his chin. The napkin had been from a tray that had been brought up earlier, while Mr. Young was still sleeping, and it also had a bowl of soup on it and a silver spoon.

  “Oh!” the duke said. “I forgot all about that, too! There’s some soup here.” He frowned. “I’m not really sure what kind, and I’m sure it’s grown cold, but if you like—”

  “Perhaps in a bit,” Mr. Young said, waving a feeble hand to stop him fussing.

  “All right.”

  The duke reclaimed his seat, wondering: what to do, what to do…

  He didn’t have to wonder for long, however, because, perhaps refreshed by the water, Mr. Young was now in a talkative mood. He told the duke story after story about his childhood, so different from the duke’s own and all of which the duke found fascinating.

  Perhaps it was that, the duke’s surprising—to himself—interest in someone else’s life story that prevented him from noticing at first. But when he did, it was inescapably obvious: Mr. Young was nattering and nattering at an increasingly fast clip without ever stopping for any response from the other person, as one would normally do over the course of a conversation. And as he did so, perspiration sprang to his forehead, soon turning into rivulets of sweat coming down his face.

  Mr. Young obviously had a fever and was perhaps even delirious.

  What to do, what to do…

  The duke leaped from his seat and commenced pacing the room in a dither.

  What to do…

  He could yank on one of the bell pull cords, summon a servant from the kitchen. But wasn’t everyone else at the dance, the servants, too?

  He could run downstairs—the music room, he thought they said it was—but wouldn’t it take a long time to get there and back again with someone to help? And he didn’t want to leave Mr. Young alone, not for that long.

>   Besides, what could anyone else do? It wasn’t as though, even if he could run down there and back again, lickety-split, there was a doctor in the house for the duke to bring back with him. Nor was there a doctor anymore in the village to convey Mr. Young to. Or even a car to get him to the village if there were.

  He shouldn’t have to deal with this! Someone, anyone else should! Other people took care of such things—it was what other people were there for! But then, what was the point in spoiling everyone else’s good time?

  What to do…

  In the end, the duke realized that there was nothing for it but for him to handle it himself. He’d volunteered for the job, after all.

  First, he dampened the napkin with cool water, laying it across the feverish man’s brow. Almost immediately, Mr. Young slowed his nattering, which the duke took as a good sign. But then, having drawn closer, he noticed that the sweat must have come out of the pores of Mr. Young’s entire body, drenching the nightshirt he’d been put in earlier and even dampening the sheets below. Now the sweat seemed to have subsided, but Mr. Young couldn’t just be left there in all those damp clothes and sheets like that.

  What was a duke to do?

  The duke did the only things he could do. He hurried to his own bedroom, not too far down the same corridor, and ripped the sheets from the bed there. Then he raced back with them. Upon reentering Mr. Young’s room, he located another nightshirt in the wardrobe. Then he removed his own jacket, waistcoat, tie, and cuff links, loosened his collar, rolled up his sleeves to the elbow, gently shifted Mr. Young’s body around until he was successfully able to remove the wet sheets, shifted him around some more to replace the wet sheets with fresh ones, and gently removed Mr. Young’s soaked nightshirt, replacing that with a fresh one, too.

  Phew!

  Being so close to Mr. Young’s body like that, the duke did notice a slightly unpleasant smell coming off him, and only politeness prevented him from pinching his nose against the sudden assault of it. He supposed it must be all that sweat or the wounds even—wounds could smell, couldn’t they?