We found Elinor just going out; she was on her way to take some broth and calves-foot jelly to Mrs. Yates—who is an elderly and very poor parishioner of Edward’s, a widow who lives in the village in a tiny rented room over the butcher’s shop.
But I am really only dragging my feet and stalling by writing about Marianne’s opinion of Star and Mrs. Yates and where she lives. We did take the food to Mrs. Yates, and she was very grateful; parish calls with Elinor have taught me that not all of the poor are especially grateful or made more agreeable by such charity, but Mrs. Yates is in fact very sweet.
We had scarcely left her rooms, though, and regained the village street when a wild-eyed man came barreling towards us and seized Elinor’s hand.
“Mrs. Ferrars—for God’s sake, where’s the Reverend?” The words were spoken between laboured gasps. “I must fetch him at once!”
He was a big, barrel-chested man of fifty-odd, with a gleaming bald head and shoulders like a bull’s. But his face was so twisted with pain or terror or both that it was a moment before I recognised him as Mr. Harmon—the village blacksmith and father to Maggie, Eliza’s maid.
“Mr. Ferrars is home at the parsonage, Mr. Harmon,” Elinor said. “And of course he will help you if he can. But tell me what has happened—what is wrong?”
A fresh spasm twisted the big man’s face. “It’s Tom—my boy. He’s dying. And beggin’ that Mr. Ferrars will come and hear his confession so that he can be wiped clean of his sins before he dies.”
I saw Elinor’s face blanche, but she squeezed Mr. Harmon’s huge, work-callused hand and said, “I shall run back home and fetch my husband and tell him to make all haste in reaching you.” Elinor managed to sound both comforting and calm; she really is exactly where she ought to be in fulfilling her role of clergyman’s wife. “You go back to Tom, Mr. Harmon. I am sure you will not want to be gone from him for long.”
Elinor sped off without delay. And Marianne said, “I am so sorry about Tom, Mr. Harmon. We can come back with you to the smithy.”
Mr. Harmon had raised a shaking hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. But at that he checked the movement, his gaze jerking away from Elinor’s rapidly retreating figure. He blinked at Marianne and me, as though fully taking in the fact of our presence for the first time. And then he cleared his throat, his eyes sliding away from Marianne’s gaze as he muttered, “It’s good of you, Mrs. Brandon, ma’am. But I wouldn’t want you to go to no trouble—”
“Nonsense,” Marianne said. “It is no trouble. Of course we wish to help in any way we can.”
I had the impression that Mr. Harmon would have liked to argue further—but could not, considering that Marianne was patroness of the village and that her husband was Mr. Harmon’s chief employer. He gave way and and nodded, turning back the way he had come. Marianne started after him, and I—more reluctantly—followed.
It was not that I did not wish to help the Harmons—I truly did. But I scarcely know them. Until that moment, I had not even known that they had a son, in addition to Maggie. And it seemed an intrusion to force myself in on their private terror and grief. Neither, though, could I think of a way of excusing myself, especially with Marianne so determined to attend.
The smithy lies at the very edge of the village, near the ford of the stream from which Delaford gets its name. It was strange to see the forge in the front yard lying cold and silent, the fires unlit; it is usually the scene of such heat and noise. Mr. Harmon stood a moment outside the tiny cottage at the back of the shop and I saw him square his massive shoulders, as though trying to brace himself for what lay within, before he led us inside.
The smith’s cottage was tiny—just two rooms, one at the front and one at the back—and seemed very dark after the sunshine outside. I had to blink, clearing my vision before my eyes adjusted enough to make out details of the room: a big wooden table, a pair of chairs, a big copper cook-pot hanging over the ashes in an old-fashioned open fireplace.
A woman was crouched on the hearth before the fireplace, her head buried in her hands and her shoulders shaking with ugly, wracking sobs. She did not look up as the door opened, only went on crying, her whole body rocking back and forth as though she had either to move or risk being torn apart by pain.
Mr. Harmon’s face quivered again at the sight of her, but he crossed the room and laid a big hand on her shoulder. “I’ve fetched Reverend Ferrars,” he said. “He’ll be coming along soon. And here’s Mrs. Brandon and her sister come to help.”
Mrs. Harmon’s head lifted. She is a plump, grey-haired, pleasant-faced woman—but today her face was reddened with weeping, her eyes so swollen that they were nearly sealed shut. She was still sobbing and rocking back and forth as she spoke so that at first I could scarcely make out the words.
“You’ve brought Mrs. Brandon?” Her voice was harsh with accusation, as well as crying. “Why? It’s not enough we must bear this shame without having the Colonel’s lady come to witness it, as well?”
I saw Mr. Harmon’s huge shoulders sag, as though under the weight of a heavy load. But he gave his wife’s shoulder a clumsy pat. “Now, Mother. You know it’ll get spread about soon enough. What does it matter when Mrs. Brandon gets to hear of it. You should be with Tom—he was askin’ for you, before.”
“I don’t—” Mrs. Harmon’s whole face contorted and she clamped her hands tight over her mouth as though trying physically to hold the wracking sobs inside as she burst out, “I don’t care. He is not my Tom anymore. He’s not my son.”
She collapsed again completely after that, huddling on the hearth in another violent fit of sobs. Her husband stood looking helplessly down at her. His lined face looked utterly weary and older by ten years at least, even from the moment we had entered the cottage.
I touched Marianne’s arm and asked, in an undertone, “Do you think … should we leave?” Plainly something was badly wrong; something more than just simple grief at the deathbed of a beloved child.
Even Marianne looked uncertain as her gaze rested on Mrs. Harmon’s shuddering form. She said, in an equally soundless near-whisper. “They have a daughter, but Tom was their only son. A handsome boy—but I had heard that he had grown up very wild. I do not know—”
She broke off abruptly at the sound of a groan coming from the next room. A hoarse, rasping voice called out, “Mother? Mother, are you there?”
Marianne looked at me, and I nodded—an agreement passing between us without any need for words. However much our presence might feel an intrusion, we could not simply turn around and leave—not unless we were certain there was nothing we might do to help.
Marianne stepped forward and gently touched Mr. Harmon’s arm. “Mr. Harmon, my sister and I will sit with Tom for a little while, until Reverend Ferrars can arrive. You stay with your wife. I am sure that she should not be alone at such a time.”
Mr. Harmon’s shoulders hunched again, but he did not refuse the offer, only nodded heavily as he pulled up a low stool to sit beside his sobbing wife. A plain wooden door divided the front room of the cottage from the back. I pushed it open—and nearly choked on the thick stench of fever and illness that filled the air within. The smell of sweat and unwashed skin and something more—something rotting and sickly-sweet that caught at the back of my throat.
I saw Marianne take an involuntary step backwards and press her gloved hand over her nose and mouth. “Are you sure you want to come in?” I asked softly. “Because I can stay—”
Marianne shook her head. “No, it’s all right. I’ll stay, as well.”
We stepped through, shutting the door—and muffling the sound of Mrs. Harmon’s sobs from the outer room.
Tom—it must be Tom, though I had never met him—lay on a straw pallet on the floor, his face flushed and his half-closed eyes unseeing, glassy with feverish heat. In a way, it felt like a strange duplication of the way I had found Jamie. But even at a glance, I could see that Tom was in far worse case than Jamie had been.
H
e likely had been a handsome boy at one time; he had curling dark hair and looked to be about twenty, give or take a year. But now the bones protruded sharply from beneath the skin of his face, and his jaw had an unhealthy greenish cast that even to my untrained eyes bespoke approaching death.
“Tom?” Marianne crouched beside the pallet—and then reeled backwards, her hand clamped once again over her nose and mouth.
Tom was naked from the waist up, his only covering a sweat-soaked sheet. He jerked convulsively at Marianne’s touch, causing the sheet to fall away—and revealing the great, ugly wound in his middle. Marianne and I both stared in shock. I do not know what Marianne had expected, if anything. But for myself, I had formed vague ideas of some putrid fever or other illness.
Not a sickness brought on by what I now recognised as a gunshot wound—and plainly the source of the sickly smell of decay.
Marianne stumbled to her feet, gagging. I went to help her, alarmed, but she shook me off. “No, I’m all right. It’s just the baby.” She rested her hand on her own middle. “All along, any bad smell has taken me this way.”
She turned, wrestling open the wooden shutters of the room’s single tiny window. And I crouched down, moving to take her place beside Tom’s pallet on the floor.
I was not feeling especially heroic—nor particularly like a ministering angel, as I had joked with Jamie. But plainly Marianne could not sit with Tom. And the dying boy might not know me from Queen Charlotte herself—but I seemed to be for the moment all he was going to get.
Someone—I supposed Mr. Harmon—had left a half-filled cup of water and a crumpled rag on the floor. I took them up, moistened the rag, and used it to wipe Tom’s face. His eyes were still open, but I did not get the impression that he was any more than partially aware of me or anything else in the room. He did let out a shuddering sigh as the comparatively cool cloth touched his heated skin.
“Mother?” His voice was less a groan than a whimper, now. “Mother, is that you? Oh, mother, I do feel so awful bad.”
I looked helplessly at Marianne—who shook her head, plainly uncertain as I felt about what was best to be done.
I slipped my hand into Tom’s—his skin was so dry that his fingers felt like a bundle of sticks—and said, “I know. But it’s all right. I’m here. I’m right here.”
Tom’s face contorted in pain. “Hurts …”
“I know it does.” I dipped the rag into water again and laid it across his burning forehead. “But you are my good, brave boy …”
I do not know—I have not even a guess—of how long I sat in the fetid, stifling little room, holding Tom’s hand and trying to quiet him with soothing murmurs. But at last I heard the sound of a horse outside, approaching at a gallop—and a few moments later, Edward came into the room. I had never been so glad to see him before. He took my place beside Tom, and Marianne and I slipped out the door.
Marianne glanced back over her shoulder as we went out. “Poor boy,” she said softly. “I hope he can at least rouse enough to say whatever it was he wished to Edward.”
I started to answer—but within the house, could not speak aloud what had come into my mind. Tom’s parents were still sitting exactly as we had left them, his mother huddled on the hearthstone, his father seated on a stool beside her, his shoulders bowed and his big hands dangling between his knees.
I hesitated. I felt utterly useless and clumsy, still, in the face of so much raw misery and pain. But I crossed and touched Mr. Harmon’s arm. “Tom was asking for his mother,” I said in an undertone. “And when I took his hand, he … he thought I was she, and it seemed to comfort him. Whether or not your wife does decided to go to him before … I mean, later on … I thought she might like to know. For later.”
Mr. Harmon raised bleak, red-rimmed eyes to mine, gulped, and nodded. “Thank ye, miss. That was kindly done.”
Marianne and I left after that, both of us breathing in deep lungfuls of clean air when we were standing in the lane outside the smithy. I was the first to break the silence. “That wound,” I said. “Tom must have taken it by violence, mustn’t he? And the way his mother spoke of him—” I stopped.
A part of me was hearing again Mrs. Harmon’s anguished words. And another part was thinking—with a feeling of ice settling in the pit of my stomach—of Jamie. “Tom must have got himself involved in something dishonest—something dangerous.”
I thought something like anger flickered at the back of Marianne’s dark gaze—but then she pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I suppose we will know more when Edward has spoken to him. Come, we ought to go back to the parsonage. Elinor will wish to be told what has happened. She has been a friend to the Harmons ever since she has lived here.”
We did walk back to the parsonage, but it was long past nightfall by the time Edward at last returned. We were sitting in the parlour, Elinor, Marianne, and I, all of us making a half-hearted pretence of eating a cold supper of cheese and fruit tart—and none of us actually eating very much. Elinor was the first to hear the approach of Edward’s horse and sprang up, going out to meet him in the drive.
They came in together some moments later, Edward’s arm around Elinor’s shoulders.
“Would you like something to eat?” Elinor was saying. “Or there is tea … or wine …”
“No. Nothing.” Edward shook his head. He looked utterly exhausted, but he managed a smile for Elinor as he dropped heavily into an armchair. “Thank you all the same.”
“Is Tom—,” Marianne began.
“Yes, he’s gone, poor fellow.” Edward exhaled heavily. “He begged me to stay with him until the end. It came a short while ago. At least it was relatively swift—he did not have to linger long.”
“I am glad you were able to give him comfort,” Elinor said. She was perched on the arm of Edward’s chair, resting her hand atop his.
“Comfort,” Edward repeated. There was an unaccustomed bitter twist to his words. “I do not know. I hope I gave him some.” A deep furrow remained between his brows, and he was silent a moment, as though debating whether to say any more. Finally, though, he raised his gaze to Marianne and said, “I find myself in a difficult—not to say impossible—situation. You understand that I cannot speak of what passed between Tom and myself before he died—cannot repeat what he told me. To do so would be to violate my sacred duty as a man of God. But at the same time”—Edward exhaled heavily, again—“neither can my conscience feel easy about remaining silent. Not when other men’s lives—men like Tom, but also like your husband, Marianne—may also be at stake.”
I saw Marianne’s face lose a little of its colour, and Elinor said, “Edward, what do you mean?”
Edward pushed a hand through his hair. “I mean that—” He chose each word with care. “Marianne, your husband has been posted to Weymouth to look into the smuggled goods being brought in through that port. But the goods—once ashore—must inevitably be carried inland, across a carefully planned route of hideouts and safe-houses. I believe that … that if you were in your next letter to him to state that there might be reason to think that the route passes through here, along the turnpike road—that one such safe-house might actually be located in this neighbourhood … I believe that if you did suggest such a thing next time you write to Brandon, those suggestions would not be proven incorrect.”
Marianne’s face lost a little of its colour. But she nodded and said, steadily, “Then I will write and tell him at once.”
Edward had not finished, though. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb, looking more weary than ever and said, “You must understand that this next is the merest speculation on my part. Tom could not tell me very much—because he did not know very much himself. He was an underling—a hired hand, and nothing more. But from what he said—and it is this more than anything that causes me to bend his dying confidence by telling you so much—I believe that there may be more at stake than merely the smuggling of imported goods.”
“Marianne!” With a cry of alarm, I went to put an arm about her—and almost at the same time, Elinor moved to her other side.
“What is it?” Elinor asked. “Are you ill?”
Marianne closed her eyes, leaning her head against the back of the sofa. But she shook her head. “No. It’s nothing. I … should not have gone so long today without eating, that is all.”
The rest of the evening is more or less a blur in my memory. Elinor pressed hot soup and biscuits on Marianne, which she consented to eat. And Marianne agreed to let Edward and Elinor’s manservant drive us back to Delaford House. She was very quiet on the ride back—which worried me. Yet I was thankful for it at the same time, since it meant that I did not have to talk.
We arrived back and found the Palmers already retired for the night—for which I was doubly thankful. Marianne and I parted at the top of the stairs. And I came in here, to write all this down—and to wish that Marianne’s housekeeper had not banished Ginger to the stables once more. I would be glad of his company just now.
I have been trying to erase the ugly suspicions from my mind—but they seem to have lodged as firmly as thorns, forming a horribly suggestive pattern. Like those riddles that I was absolutely no good at as a child.
My first you put on glowing coals, and into it you put my whole. My second really is the first. My third mislikes the winter’s blast.
And if you had put a loaded pistol’s barrel to my head, I would still not have been able to come up with the answer of ‘potatoes’.
In this case, though—I will not even try to put it all into some clever rhyme. But first, I had the fact of Jamie’s wound, the musket ball I had dug from his shoulder. Second, his urgency to keep his presence in the area a secret, even from my sisters. Third, Tom Harmon, dying today of a similar gunshot wound. And fourth—
Margaret Dashwood's Diary Page 15