Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123)

by Coulter, Catherine

  She digested that, then said slowly, “I spoke to Samuel Pritchert this afternoon, when I gave up trying to find you. He agrees with you. He said to me that everything is as it should be again. He told me how all your flock would just as soon see the back of me, that they wanted you to become again the way you were before you came to Scotland, before you met and married me.”

  He said nothing at all, just stood there, his hands at his sides. He looked very tired. No, he looked beyond tired. He looked deadened.

  She didn’t know whose pain was greater in that moment, hers or his. “Do you want me to leave, Tysen?”

  “You can’t leave. You’re my wife.”

  “Do you really want to be that man I saw in church this morning who spoke of sin and corruption and moral laxity? The man who stood aloof from everyone, the man who looked so cold, so withdrawn that he could have been forged from stone?”

  “That man is the man I was, the man I must be again. It is God’s will.”

  “I don’t know that God,” she said slowly. “My God is loving, forgiving. My God wants us to laugh, to see the beauty of the world He created.” She shook herself. It didn’t matter. She said then, “I should have told you this before, Tysen. Perhaps now isn’t a good time, but I think I owe it to myself that you know the truth.”

  Still, he said nothing.

  “I love you.”

  He flinched as if she’d struck him, hard. Then, slowly, he shook his head. “No, Mary Rose. Please, don’t.”

  “You cannot even bear to hear me say that to you?”

  “No.”

  “I see,” she said. “Well, that does make a difference.” Without another word, Mary Rose left the bed. She grabbed her dressing gown, pulled two blankets off the top of the bed, and without another word, without another look at her husband, she left the bedchamber. Meggie was sleeping in the small sewing room at the end of the corridor. Mary Rose curled up next to her and finally, after a very long time, she fell asleep.

  “It’s all over,” Max said the next morning. He was sitting against the wall, his arms dangling between his bent knees, two books open on the floor beside him. He looked defeated.

  Leo said, “Papa is as he used to be again.” Leo wasn’t turning cartwheels or even standing on his head. He was stretched out on his stomach, his chin on his fists, and he looked ready to burst into tears.

  “No,” Meggie said, from her perch on Max’s bed, “Papa is now even more than he used to be. Before, he wasn’t so distant, so set apart from us. He loved us and we knew it. Now he is so far away he can’t even see us.”

  “That’s right,” Leo said. “Before, he would laugh, every once in a while. He hugged us once in a while. He even frowned when we irritated him. But now there’s nothing. It’s like he’s afraid to say or do anything that could be seen as not utterly serious.”

  Mary Rose couldn’t bear it. She’d come in a few minutes before and listened to them. Now, she said, “Where are all your cousins?”

  “They’re in the graveyard,” Max said. “Grayson likes the graveyard. He makes up stories about all the dead people. Even though it’s cold out there today, no one wants to miss one of Grayson’s stories.”

  “Except the three of you.”

  “Everything is scary enough,” Max said. “We don’t need Grayson’s stories.”

  “All right, then. You three are coming with me. We’re going riding.”

  They didn’t want to, but when Meggie looked closely at Mary Rose, saw her pallor, saw her determination, she nodded slowly. “You’re right, Mary Rose. It will put things at a distance for a while. Come on, Max, Leo. I don’t want to have to hurt either of you. Move, now.”

  There were enough horses, if Mary Rose rode Garth, Douglas’s huge stallion. “I’ll sing to him, a different ditty this time, since he obviously didn’t like the one I sang to him last time.” Garth was seventeen hands high, a huge black beast, with mean eyes. Mary Rose sang one ditty after the other as she saddled him.

  He let her mount him. “He is very big,” she said, her heart thumping a bit faster as she looked over at her three stepchildren atop their own horses.

  “You will be all right, Mary Rose?” Leo said.

  “I’m a good rider. We won’t have any races, all right?”

  They rode single file until they were in the countryside. It was cloudy and cold, and Mary Rose felt the chill to her crooked toe. “Is everyone warm enough?”

  “Poor old Ricketts is cold,” Leo said, patting the geld-ing’s neck. “I hope he lasts through the winter. He’s nearly twenty now, you know.”

  Mary Rose hoped he lasted too. Actually, she hoped she lasted as well.

  After they’d ridden through Grapple Thorpe, a small village very close to the Channel, Mary Rose said, “Who would like to go down to the beach?”

  “I think we should go back to that inn in Grapple Thorpe and have some chocolate,” Meggie said. “I’m cold, Mary Rose.”

  They would have made it back to Grapple Thorpe had it not been for the mail coach coming at breakneck speed around a corner of the country road.

  Mary Rose saw that coach flying toward them, saw poor old Ricketts falter, rear back in panic, then stumble. She watched Leo fly over his head and land in a ditch beside the road.

  “Meggie, Max, get out of the way, go! I’ll see to Leo!”

  She couldn’t do a thing until the mail coach passed them, whipping up thick winds of dust in its wake.

  Mary Rose slid off Garth’s back and ran to Leo. He was pulling himself upright, shaking his head. She didn’t touch him, just came down on her knees beside him. Meggie and Max were right behind her. “Are you all right, Leo?”

  “My brains are scrambled,” Leo said, panting a bit. “My ribs feel like they’re broken into little sticks, my stomach is jumping into my neck—” He looked up and gave her a blazing smile. “Don’t worry, Mary Rose, I’m all right.”

  “Oh, Leo,” she said and gently pulled him into her arms. “Just sit very still a moment.”

  There was a sharp hitch to his breath, then he eased against her. Mary Rose said to Max and Meggie, “Let’s just stay here a moment until Leo gets his brains unscram-bled.”

  Leo laughed.

  Slowly, Mary Rose leaned away from him. She studied his pale face. “How do you feel? Tell me the truth now, Leo.”

  “Just a bit dizzy.”

  “No wonder. I want you to lie down a minute. There’s no rush, we can stay here as long as you need to. Max, tie the horses so they don’t run back to the vicarage stables along with old Ricketts.”

  Leo was indeed dizzy, and so he didn’t argue. Mary Rose touched each of his ribs lightly. None were broken, thank God. She looked up when she heard Max trying to calm Garth. “He will be all right,” she said, and knew even as she spoke that she was praying it was true. He could be injured internally. “Leo, does this hurt?”

  She touched him here and there, ending finally by lightly pressing on his belly. No pain, thank God.

  “Do you want to vomit?”

  “No, even the dizziness isn’t so bad now.”

  “Good. Now, how would you like to ride Garth with me back to Grapple Thorpe? Chocolate for everyone. Oh, dear, did anyone bring any money?”

  “Meggie always has money,” Leo said.

  “She wins it off us,” Max said. “I wish she’d cheat, then we could complain to Papa about it.”

  Leo said, “Just yesterday, Papa would have laughed if we’d said that. But not today. Not ever again.”

  Mary Rose didn’t know what to say, and so she concentrated on helping Leo to rise. He was a bit shaky on his feet, but he was upright and walking, and then, finally, he smiled. “I’m all right, Mary Rose. Poor old Ricketts, when the fellow blew that silly horn, Ricketts must have thought it was Saint Peter calling him to the horse pearly gates in heaven.”

  Meggie laughed. “Oh, Leo, if you ever let anything happen to you, I will kill you.”

  Fifteen minut
es later, they sat on a long, scarred old oak bench in the taproom at the Golden Goose Inn in the middle of Grapple Thorpe village, right across from a lovely green that boasted a pond and at least half a dozen ducks.

  And that was where Mr. Dimplegate found them, that lovely young woman, all windblown, shepherding three children. He was the town bully, drank too much, and believed himself to be God’s special treasure to womankind. When he spotted Mary Rose, he knew this day would work out to be just dandy for him. All jocular, grinning widely, just a dash of ale froth on his upper lip, he walked to their table, hands on hips, and leaned down close to Mary Rose. “Eh, ye a governess, little gal? Ye sure are purty as a picture, ye are.”

  Mary Rose looked up at the man, who was surely large, looked strong, and was young enough and drunk enough to be a problem. He was also standing much too close.

  “No, I am their mother, sir,” she said and turned away from him. When he didn’t move, she said over her shoulder, “Good day, sir.”

  It degenerated from there, beginning with a roar from Mr. Dimplegate. “Ye ain’t bloody well their mother, girl! What are ye, then? A maid seeing them back to their home?”

  “Go away,” Mary Rose said.

  “No female turns her back on Dimplegate,” he yelled and grabbed her arm. “Me, I’m a grand lover, a man o’ yer dreams.”

  “You, sir, are more in the nature of a nightmare.” Mary Rose threw her chocolate in his face. Too bad it had cooled a bit.

  Max yelled, “Get away from our mother, sir!”

  “Shut yer trap, little sprat!”

  Leo jumped up on the end of the table, turned a backward flip and landed on his feet, right in Mr. Dimplegate’s face. Leo shoved him hard, but Mr. Dimplegate had grabbed Mary Rose’s other arm. As he fell over backward, he jerked her up from the bench. They went down together.

  The children were on their feet, yelling at him, hitting him. The owner was wringing his hands, having had too many run-ins with Dimplegate to come close. “See yerself home now, Danny,” he yelled. “Hey, you let the lady alone. She didn’t do nothin’. Let her go!” But his voice was swallowed by all the racket.

  Mary Rose scrambled off Mr. Dimplegate and backed away from him. But he was fast. He grabbed her hand and held on to her like a lifeline as he came to his feet. “I’m going to wallop that little codshead,” he said, then yelled over his shoulder, “Ye get yer butt here, boy!”

  It was Meggie who grabbed up a thick log from beside the fireplace, climbed up on a chair, and bashed Mr. Dimplegate on his large head. He whirled around, blinked up at the little girl who was now his height standing on that chair, and yelled not six inches from her face, “Why’d ye do that fer, little gal? This one, she ain’t nothing, jest a maid or a governess, or a nanny, and she needs a man.”

  He poked his finger against his chest. “Ye see? All she needs is me. Now I’ll jest take her out o’ here for a bit and make her all ’appy.”

  “She’s my mother, you idiot!” And Meggie hit him again with that log, really hard.

  Mr. Dimplegate dropped Mary Rose’s hand, swayed where he stood, and collapsed finally against Meggie’s chair. The chair rocked a bit, then went flying. Mary Rose managed to break Meggie’s fall, which could have been nasty, since she would have landed too close to the stone fireplace. It was Mary Rose who landed against the fireplace, carrying Meggie’s weight, slamming against the hearthstone.

  Leo was on his knees beside them in an instant. Meggie was blinking hard, getting herself together. “Mary Rose, are you all right? Oh, God, Max, do something!”

  Leo was patting her face, even as Meggie was on her knees now beside her, frantically rubbing her hand.

  “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” said Mr. Randall, the owner, still wringing his hands.

  “Sir,” Max said, “we need you to get us a wagon. We must get our mother home. We live in Glenclose-on-Rowan. Our father is Reverend Sherbrooke, the vicar there. Please, sir, hurry!”

  “Yes, yes,” Meggie said, crying now, “Papa will know what to do.”

  29

  CLOSE TO AN hour later, an ancient wagon belonging to Farmer Biggs, quickly emptied of moldering hay, and pulled by a gray gelding that was even older than Ricketts, lumbered to a stop in front of the vicarage gate.

  Both Leo and Max were yelling even before the wagon pulled to a halt.

  Mary Rose was awake, had awakened before Mr. Randall had carried her to the wagon and carefully laid her on a pile of smelly blankets. All three children had hovered over her on the bumpy ride back to Glenclose-on-Rowan.

  She’d been content not to move, to let everything settle, she told the children. She smiled now up at Meggie. “I just feel a bit strange, Meggie, nothing bad, I’m sure of it.”

  “You’re awfully pale, Mary Rose.”

  “Well, I landed against the brick hearth. It was very hard and unforgiving. But I’ll be fine. I just feel a bit dull, heavy.”

  “If you’re all right, then why do you look like you want to cry?”

  Shouting voices poured out of the vicarage.

  “I won’t cry. Please, love, don’t make a fuss. We don’t want to worry your father.”

  But Meggie just shook her head.

  Tysen was beside that old doddering wagon in an instant. He saw Mary Rose lying there, covered with blankets, so pale and listless that he knew she was dying. He’d never been so afraid in his life.

  He climbed up beside her, studying her face closely before he said, “Mary Rose, are you all right?”

  His beloved face was above her. He was worried. She wanted to weep. “It was an accident, a very silly accident, Tysen. I am quite all right, I just landed against a brick hearth at the inn in Grapple Thorpe, that’s all, and—” Suddenly she grabbed her stomach and cried out.

  The pain lessened. “I don’t understand,” she said, and then the pain slashed through her again. This time it didn’t stop, just kept on and on, tearing at her insides, making her cry and whimper, making her twist, trying desperately to get away from it. She heard Tysen say, his voice hoarse with shock, “Oh, my God, she’s bleeding.” He’d been about to lift her out of the wagon and he lifted his hand. It was covered with blood.

  “A miscarriage.”

  Was that Sophie who had said that? The pain tore through her again, harder this time, deeper, and she wanted, quite simply, to die.

  What was that Sophie had said? A miscarriage? Mary Rose was pregnant? She was losing her babe?

  “Tysen,” she said and grabbed at his hand.

  “It will be all right, Mary Rose, I swear it to you.” Then she was in his arms, and the pain was twisting and tearing her insides apart.

  “A babe? Tysen, am I losing our babe?”

  “Hush, Mary Rose. Please, it will be all right.” Tysen carried her to their bedchamber, aware that Sophie and Alex were running ahead of him, yelling out orders to Mrs. Priddie. Sophie was spreading towels on the bed.

  He laid his wife down, only to have her clasp his hands so tightly she hurt him. “It’s all right,” he said over and over. She was lost to him for several moments. He felt the dreadful pain in her. He knew the exact moment when her body expelled the babe. Blood, so much blood, on his hands, his arms, covering her gown, weighing it down, stark red against the white towels.

  She was crying, and he was holding her tightly against him, rocking her, talking nonsense, really, but he just couldn’t stop himself.

  He heard Alex yell, “Fetch the doctor, Douglas, quickly! She’s bleeding too much!”

  Tysen simply pulled away from her. “Hold still,” he said, his voice harsh enough to get through to her. Then he was between her legs, jerking away the bloody gown, tearing away her petticoats and chemise. So much blood, and it was nearly black now, that blood, and it was not only her blood but also the bloody waste that had been their babe.

  “Mary Rose, listen to me.”

  She forced herself outward at that hard voice, saw Tysen between her legs at the foot of the be
d. “Stay with me,” he said, then pressed a towel wrapped around his fist as hard as he could against her. “I mean it, Mary Rose, you will stay with me, look at me. Damn you, don’t leave me. Open your eyes. That’s right.”

  He knew little about childbirth, even less than that about miscarriage. He’d prayed with many women who had lost their babes, but he’d never seen it happen. He’d consoled men who’d lost their wives to childbirth. Oh, Jesus. He was the father of three children, yet he’d never been in the same room when Melinda Beatrice had given birth. He remembered her yelling. And now he shuddered.

  So much blood, covering his hands. He pulled away the towel and took another one from Sophie and pressed it against her again.

  “It will be all right, Mary Rose.” It was his litany, he thought. Oh, dear God, what else should he do?

  It seemed a lifetime had passed and another begun before Dr. Clowder ran into the bedchamber, took in the situation at a glance, and very gently pushed Tysen away.

  Tysen realized that his brothers and their wives were in the bedchamber. At least they’d kept the children outside. But he knew that they had heard her screaming, that they knew what had happened.

  Tysen gathered Mary Rose against him and held her while Dr. Clowder plied his instruments. He felt her shock, her pain, her deadening sorrow. He felt it all deep inside himself.

  He just held her, his bloody hands pressed against her, his face pressed against her tangled hair. She was still wearing her riding hat. He gently pulled it off and flung it to the floor. He saw Alex slowly pick it up and lay it on a table. Anything, he thought, anything anyone could do to keep all this pain at bay.

  “I didn’t know,” she said, her voice hoarse from her yelling. “I didn’t even know I was pregnant.”

  “I didn’t either,” he said. “It’s all right, Mary Rose. Please, my love, it will be all right.”

  She stilled, utterly. And he realized then what he had said, and it filled him with quiet joy. At that exact moment, he knew that if he didn’t have her, he wouldn’t have anything at all. In those minutes, feeling her blood dry on his hands, feeling her tears wet his linen shirt, prickle against his neck, he knew to his very soul that without this woman, his life was meaningless.