by April Munday
He returned his attention to Sophia. He must have looked fierce, for she hesitated.
“Tell him,” prompted Mary.
“I cannot join the army,” she began.
“I should think not!”
“Mr Finch,” warned Mary.
“I beg your pardon. Continue, please.”
“So I wondered what a woman of intelligence might be able to do.”
Finch dared not look at Mary; the events of the last couple of weeks must have made her wonder about him, if nothing else. She, too, was a woman of intelligence and would not find it difficult to work out that the preparation for trouble and the skills he had displayed when Freddie had been kidnapped were not those that could be expected from a Quaker. He wondered what conclusion she had come to. Was that what had helped her to steer Sophia in this direction? He could do a great deal with two such women in the service.
“You wish to use your intelligence to serve your country?”
“Yes. Edmund, you know everyone. You must know someone who can help me.”
For a moment Finch could say nothing. He allowed his mind to wander as he considered what Mary might think of Sophia’s use of his Christian name. Since they were friends she had probably known about it before today, but what conclusion, if any, did she draw from it?
“Edmund?”
“Let him rest, Sophia. You can come back.”
“It’s alright,” he said. “Are you quite sure Perkins doesn’t give me laudanum? My mind wanders so.”
He risked a glance at Mary. She smiled sympathetically.
“He says not.”
Finch turned back to Sophia.
“You want me to introduce you to a spy?”
“Yes.”
“Because I know everyone?”
“Yes.”
“And all their business?”
“Yes.”
She was less certain now.
“My dear Sophia, he would not be a very good spy if I knew that he was a spy.”
“Then perhaps someone else will help me.”
She rose from her chair.
Finch had to stop her before she blundered off to anyone else announcing her intention to become a spy. He groaned as he tried to sit up. Mary was beside him in an instant, but his attention was all on Sophia and he barely noticed the way Mary tugged at the blankets, although he was aware that she was less than gentle.
“Sophia, have you spoken to anyone else?” he demanded.
“Only you two.”
“Then don’t.”
“Of course not. I know that I’m talking about dangerous things.”
She seemed exasperated, but Finch was relieved and sank back into his pillows.
“Thank you, Miss Wilding.”
Mary said nothing, but stood by his bed, not looking at him. Her face was pale and he thought her body shook a little. Had he upset her?
“It was stupid of me to try to move,” he said. “I’m sorry that I gave you cause for concern. I forget sometimes.”
She looked at him then.
“None of this is easy for you, is it?”
“No,” he said, guessing that she didn’t just mean that lying in bed recovering from his wound was difficult.
“You should go now,” said Mary to Sophia.
“I shall consider what you’ve suggested,” said Finch. “I’m tired now, but don’t let that stop you coming another day. Most days are better than this.”
“I’m glad. I shall come on Tuesday, if I may.”
“Am I at home on Tuesday, Miss Wilding?”
She smiled faintly and he realised that he had finally said the right thing.
“I’m sure you can be at home for Sophia, Mr Finch.”
The two women smiled at one another. Finch was asleep before they left the room.
Over the next days and weeks Finch grew gradually better. When he could stay awake for more than an hour, he asked Mary to hold her lessons in his room. Meldon and Perkins both thought this was a bad idea, but Mary knew it would do him and Freddie good, as long as they didn’t tire Finch. She had been worried about Freddie, who was still abnormally quiet and started awake at night at the smallest noise and screamed. She had asked for them to be moved further away from Finch so that he wouldn’t be disturbed by the boy’s fears.
They began slowly, with Freddie’s lesson lasting half an hour. Finch didn’t argue when Mary said they were going to leave; he was tired, but not ready to sleep.
Each day they stayed a bit longer until they were there all morning. One day Finch joined in the lesson and Freddie began to smile. In the afternoon Freddie occasionally stayed in the room with his father, sometimes sleeping next to him on the bed and sometimes playing quietly with his soldiers on the floor. Mary stayed with them, reading or sewing. As soon as Finch slept, they both left him and went for a walk in the park.
Each Sunday Mary took Freddie to the Meeting House. At first she thought Finch’s sadness when he said goodbye to them was for the loss of their company, but she soon realised that it was because he wasn’t going with them.
She had assumed that he went to the Meeting House because he felt he retained a link with his wife by doing so, but it became clear from his conversation with her when she returned with Freddie the first time that this was not the case. From the time they had left until the time they had returned, no one had been allowed into his room and he had sat in his bed with an open Bible in front of him.
That he found this quite as painful as sitting in the Meeting House was clear. She could explain this now with the almost certain knowledge that he had killed the men who had taken Freddie. She had tried not to think about the body she had stumbled over before she had come upon Finch, but she had had plenty of time to wonder why a Quaker had been travelling with pistols and knives and how it was that he knew how to use them. The answer eluded her, but something had happened before this to make him think he had lost his soul.
The Frenchwoman came twice while Finch was confined to his bed, even though it was clear she didn’t relish the experience. For the duration of her first visit she told him how foolish he had been to set back his recovery so much by travelling back to London when he could have stayed in the inn and allowed her to nurse him back to health.
Finch had not borne the conversation well, for he was in constant pain and refused to take laudanum unless it reached an intolerable level. The visit had ended when he had asked her to leave. It had taken Mary some time to calm him enough for him to sleep.
The second visit had been shorter. The Frenchwoman had taken exception to Mary’s presence. She had explained that, given his precarious physical state there was no need for a chaperone. When this had proved ineffective, she had called Mary’s character into question, repeating the rumour that she had been Holden’s mistress. Finch had immediately asked Mary to call a servant to remove her by force. Mary had obeyed and the footman who was waiting outside the door had escorted the Frenchwoman out of the house. She had neither returned nor written to Finch.
This incident made Mary look at the servants in a new light, for she had noticed that the footman was armed. Whenever she left the house she was accompanied by two armed servants. She had not protested, for she knew there was still some danger and even if he didn’t love her, Finch was gentleman enough to put himself in danger to rescue her if she got into trouble. She was also aware that when she and Freddie went to the park in the afternoon they were followed by at least two other men, as well as accompanied by the two armed servants. Meldon had confirmed that these were additional measures he had taken to ensure their safety. Now she began to notice the servants inside the house. There seemed to be more servants than the house, large as it was, required, for she often came across unoccupied men in livery as she walked from one part of it to another.
Some of the servants did not seem used to service and she soon learned that there was nothing to be gained by asking them to do something. They would apologise, but say that the
y were waiting for Lord Meldon or the butler to explain what they should do and they couldn’t leave their current position. These servants were all young men, muscular and, as she noticed with increasing concern, armed. It had not occurred to her that they might need protection indoors as well as out of doors.
Since neither Meldon nor Lady Anna said anything about them, Mary didn’t feel she should ask, but when Finch was able to sit up, then get out of bed, she wondered why they didn’t return to his house. Surely he could protect them all there as easily as Meldon could protect them here.
Once Finch could get out of bed it no longer seemed proper for her to sit in his bedroom with him in the evening. She explained this when he asked for the reason for her absence.
“You’re right, of course,” he said. “You must think me an oaf for not seeing it sooner.”
“Not at all. You are still recovering.”
“I have grown used to seeing you sitting in that chair.”
He sounded wistful.
“That must all change now.”
“I suppose it must.” He frowned and tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “I haven’t asked, but Meldon treats you well?”
“Very well,” she said. “He, at least, allows me to be Freddie’s governess.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” She considered what she should tell him and decided that it should, as far as possible, be the truth. He seemed to have such an elevated idea of what she was due, however, that she doubted what she had here would make him happy. “He offered me a suite of rooms, but I prefer to be with Freddie.”
“So you have nowhere where you can be truly private?”
“I don’t need that just now.”
“And your meals?”
“I eat with Freddie, at my request, and I dine with the servants.”
“Did he at least offer you a seat at his table?”
Mary hesitated. It was one thing for a governess to be treated as a gentlewoman in a gentleman’s house and it was quite another to expect the same thing in the house of an earl, even when the earl suspected that she was the daughter of a count.
“They do not have the same customs we do.”
“I’m sorry. If they knew who you were...”
“You said it would be safer this way.”
“I did not know you would suffer by it.”
“I do not suffer. Please, you must believe me. I have been and am content.”
“Next time Meldon offers you the suite, take it. You must have some privacy and... Well, if you do not find the idea so improper, you might invite me to sit with you some evenings.”
“Of course. I should like nothing better.”
It was for this reason alone that she did not protest that he should not trouble the earl with her needs. A sitting-room where she could receive Finch would seem like paradise, even though she knew such occasions would be rare, for he would spend most evenings with the earl and the countess. His own sense of propriety would also reduce the number of visits.
“And when shall we go home?”
She blushed as she realised what she had said. It was Finch’s home and she was his servant.
“I’m honoured that you consider it your home, too, but I don’t know when we will be able to go back. I’m in no state to protect you. Do you mind being here so very much?”
“Not at all.”
Nonetheless, she knew she would when he was more mobile and she saw less of him.
“It’s strange,” said Finch, “how such a basically truthful person can lie so easily.
“Mr Finch?”
“Something upsets you very much about being here. Won’t you tell me what it is? I might be able to put it right.”
“You are kind to notice and kinder still to want to change things, but I must manage for myself.”
“You don’t have to. I would be happy to do anything for you.”
Tears sprang into Mary’s eyes and she blinked them back, grateful that she could have given no clue as to what she lacked.
“Is it the pianoforte? Meldon is fussy about who can play it, but he would surely trust it to you.”
The pianoforte. She had barely thought of it these last few weeks, let alone missed it, but she clutched at the opportunity to make him easy again.
“Yes, it is. You see through me.”
He cleared his throat and she knew that he had recognised another lie.
“Would it help?” he asked gently.
She shook her head.
“If you can’t tell me, could you tell Lady Anna? I don’t like to think of you being unhappy. It’s bad enough that I keep you prisoner here.”
“I’m not a prisoner.” Seeing his raised eyebrow she stopped. Of course she was a prisoner. “I told you once that I wanted nothing more than to be with you and Freddie. That hasn’t changed.”
He studied her closely.
“You should be happy. It’s selfish, but I don’t like to be the cause of your unhappiness.”
Mary didn’t know what to answer and was spared from the necessity as Meldon came into the room to help his friend to the evening meal.
The fire was burning brightly in the grate in Mary’s sitting-room. Finch eased himself carefully into the armchair closest to its heat and breathed a sigh of relief. When he had suggested that Mary accept a suite of rooms for herself and then prodded Meldon to offer them again, he had not thought that he would have to get to her sitting-room by himself. Politeness demanded that he visit only when Meldon was out; pride demanded that he did not ask for a servant’s help when he left the dining-room to visit her.
Mary poured a glass of whisky and placed it within his reach, then sat opposite him on the other side of the fire.
He was grateful that she didn’t chastise him, but simply took up some sewing, to which she gave her full attention while he recovered himself.
Gratefully he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he realised that he had slept for some time, for Mary had put aside her sewing and was now reading.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She looked up.
“For what?”
“For falling asleep.”
She smiled.
“You have slept a great deal in my presence these last few weeks.”
“Not when I’ve been your guest.”
“You are not yet recovered. You demand too much of yourself.”
“I don’t like being constrained by weakness.”
He took a sip of his whisky.
“It’s annoying.”
He waited for Mary to laugh. When she didn’t, he looked at her and saw fear in her eyes. He started to stand, but she waved him down. Taking big, shuddering breaths, she eventually calmed herself.
“It might be an annoyance to you. We thought you were going to die.”
His concern for her turned to joy; his death would have caused her pain. Might she come to love him? Then he pulled himself together. He had given her cause to be afraid even though he was perversely pleased by the knowledge that his death would grieve her.
“I would have spared you...”
“No, you did what was right and necessary.”
She raised a hand ineffectually, then placed it back in her lap.
“You have put up with a great deal since you came to live with us.”
“I have never been happier.”
Finch eased himself back into his chair.
“I spoke to Meldon about the pianoforte.”
“He told me I might play it.”
“I know that you do not really miss the instrument at home, but...”
“I played it yesterday. It is a very fine instrument.”
Her voice was flat. The pianoforte was obviously no help at all, but he made his request anyway.
“May I come and listen? When you’re used to it, of course.”
“If it would give you pleasure.”
“It seems that playing i
t does not please you.”
Finch was puzzled. Although he had realised that the loss of the pianoforte was not the cause of her sadness, he had hoped that playing Meldon’s instrument would go some way towards making her happier.
“It pleases me immensely.”
“I am not insulted if you think it finer than mine. Music is one of Meldon’s passions, along with his sheep.”
When she did not smile, Finch became worried again. He sat in silence for a while.
“We’re all just waiting for something, aren’t we? The men pretending to be servants...” she said.
“Soldiers,” he said. “Ex-soldiers. I have money and I can protect you and Freddie.”
He wasn’t surprised she had noticed. No one could mistake them for ordinary servants.
“And we can’t go home until the something happens?”
“Or until I’m well enough to protect you myself.”
Finch tried to shake off the melancholy that had settled on them both.
“If it is home that you miss...” he said.
“No.” She shook her head impatiently.
He had seen her do that before when Freddie had been particularly slow to learn something. What was she trying to teach him that he had misunderstood?
He sighed.
“Are you in pain?”
She was beside him even as he began to open his mouth to reassure her.
“Please stay where you are.”
Finch had started to rise from his chair, but he sank back into it.
“I am not in pain.”
Mary nodded as if she knew he was trying to placate her and went to the fire onto which she shovelled some coal.
When she straightened, Finch was standing beside her.
“I want you to be happy,” he said awkwardly.
“But I am,” she protested.
“You do not smile. You do not laugh.”
“There has not been much to smile or laugh about these last few weeks.”
“No,” he acknowledged, “there has not.”
He took her hands in his.
“Nonetheless, I should like to make you happy.”