“She did indeed, sir, and suggested we might start on the library next, because a lot of these books would be better displayed there. Will there be anything else?”
Biscuits had been arranged in a little circle on a porcelain plate bordered with pink flowers. “The library is damp. What few books remain under this roof will disintegrate within a year if we move them to the library.”
“Miss Maddie says a few good fires in all the library hearths at once will dry the whole room out, particularly when the weather’s so beastly cold and the shelves are empty of books. I could have the lads see to it, sir. Wouldn’t be any problem. The maids could give the shelves a good going over with beeswax and lemon oil. That will help keep the damp and the bugs away.”
The house could go up in flames, and the library would remain standing, a cavernous, moldy mausoleum housing the remains of aristocratic vanity and the skeletons of numerous insects.
Though the footman was trying to please his master, trying to take pride in the household.
“Your name is Miller?”
“Manners, sir, as in good manners.”
They’d had that exchange before, probably more than once. Manners was the first footman, meaning two or three other young fellows took orders from him. The weather had everybody cooped up inside, and if any condition contributed to an increased incidence of mischief among scholars or domestics, it was boredom.
“Very well, have at the library to the extent you can without letting your other duties lapse. What else has Miss Maddie got up to?” Besides transforming Duncan’s personal dungeon into a tidy, inviting office? Besides rescuing him from armed poachers? Besides turning his cramped scribblings into legible, coherent prose?
Duncan had no doubt that Miss Maddie had a plethora of other skills and abilities, a talent for unobtrusively taking her leave among them.
Manners peered into the dustbin, then rearranged the tools in the hearth stand. “She’s quiet, sir. Even Danvers hasn’t much to say regarding our guest. The lady is polite, she thanks us for the smallest consideration, she’s lonely.”
Duncan poured himself a cup of tea. “From what evidence do you reach that conclusion?”
“Mrs. Newbury said,” the footman replied, refolding a wool blanket draped over the sofa. “Mrs. Newbury claims Miss Maddie has the look of a woman without a home, and that’s a lonely person to be.”
A scold lurked in that observation, one intended for the conscience of any man thinking to neglect his new household and let lands and buildings pass into the keeping of an absentee landlord.
“Has the staff noticed anything else regarding our guest that I ought to be aware of?”
Manners appointed himself curator of the art on the walls and went about the room straightening frames. Even the pictures had been dusted, revealing sketches of flowers, birds, and young livestock.
“Miss Maddie is forgetful,” Manners said. “Danvers finds things in odd locations, and says the old duke had a reputation for the same quirks when he got on in years.”
“Such as?”
“A plate of biscuits in the drawer of the night table,” Manners said. “Buttered toast wrapped in a table napkin and left on the top shelf of the wardrobe. Nothing is stolen, mind, but it’s peculiar behavior.”
The same behavior kept many a squirrel alive through England’s bitter winters. “Forgetful, as you say, though Miss Maddie is preoccupied with establishing order among my papers, a daunting task. She is welcome here as long as she pleases, though I gather she’d rather we were discreet about her presence.”
She’d been more forthright on that topic than almost any other, though did she raise the issue so that she might bide at Brightwell longer or that she might leave, safely and soon?
“We’re not stupid, sir.” Manners’s ears turned red, but he didn’t apologize for his rejoinder. “Nobody has been off the estate since the snow arrived, and I doubt the roads will be clear enough for us to attend services this Sunday.”
“We’ll have prayers in the family parlor.”
Manners looked relieved, though this pronouncement meant Duncan would have to dust off a Book of Common Prayer and play preacher.
Another reason to resent dear Cousin Quinn’s gift from here to Prague.
“Is anybody else showing signs of illness?” Duncan asked.
“No, sir. Mrs. Newbury isn’t used to our winters. We told her the first winter would be the worst, but now she has the flu.”
Meaning that even with Miss Maddie’s care and skill, the housekeeper might not see a second winter. “Have we sent for the physician?”
Manners’s gaze traveled the four corners of the room, a junior officer inspecting the barracks. “That’s ten miles round trip in this weather, sir.”
“Then the sooner somebody leaves, the sooner they’ll return. We have daylight and sound horses.”
Still Manners would not meet Duncan’s gaze. “Probably a lot of flu hereabouts. Doctor Felton might not even be home.”
“Send the best rider we have, or I’ll go myself. It’s not as if this household can’t pay for the physician’s services, and we do very much need our housekeeper.” Then too, Miss Maddie might fall ill, an unfair recompense for her willingness to take on yet another of Duncan’s burdens.
“I’ll send MacIntosh, sir. He’s from up north.”
Whoever MacIntosh was. “Be about it, please.” Duncan refrained from directing Manners to ensure that Miss Maddie partook of a tea tray.
And to ensure that she had at least two of her shawls.
And also a pair of decent reading glasses.
Miss Maddie would flee into the winter night if Duncan attempted that degree of fussing.
Manners gave the journals lining the shelves one last perusal, bowed, and withdrew.
Duncan started on the biscuits—buttery, sweet, with a hint of lemon, which implied Mrs. Newbury would have the honey and lemon toddies Miss Maddie had ordered. An hour later, he was still resisting the temptation to poke his nose belowstairs—no lord of the manor committed that folly without good cause. He instead perused the journal Miss Maddie had been reading.
Provence in summer. One of his more fanciful maunderings. His fingers itched to take up a pen and edit the words on the page. Delete that extraneous phrase, substitute the Anglo-Saxon term for its Latinate cousin because the occasional two-syllable punch could lift a sentence from soothing erudition to effective communication.
But if Miss Maddie could do battle with influenza on behalf of a near stranger, then Duncan could trouble himself to review another year of Brightwell’s ailing books. He set aside the journal, closed the curtains behind the desk, and opened the ledger book that he’d been ignoring since Miss Maddie’s arrival.
* * *
Matilda knew better than to ask an ill person for permission to provide treatment. One gave orders in a sickroom, and most patients were comforted by that.
Over the course of the afternoon and evening, Mrs. Newbury’s symptoms did not improve, nor did Matilda expect them to. Influenza was a fierce foe, and could retreat only to strike with renewed force.
At Matilda’s direction, none of the staff came into the housekeeper’s apartment, but rather, met Matilda at the door. Willow bark tea was kept hot on the parlor stove in Mrs. Newbury’s sitting room, and the scent of mint, also steeping on the stove, filled both chambers.
“You should leave me,” Mrs. Newbury said, twitching at the quilt. “You will become sick, and you will die, and for no reason other than your English stubbornness.”
“Nobody will die if I can help it,” Matilda said, laying the back of her hand on the housekeeper’s brow. “You are still warm, but not burning up. Shall I read to you?”
“The doctor will not come. You should be honest with me, Miss Maddie. If I’m to die, you should tell me.” Such dignity and such ire lay in those quiet words.
“Who will look after Mr. Wentworth if you die? Who will send him the trays he doesn’t or
der? Who will concoct menus that even he, in his endless distraction, will enjoy?”
Matilda had tried many gambits to engage Mrs. Newbury in conversation: Acquaint me with the staff here. What can you tell me of the Wentworth family history? Who are Brightwell’s neighbors?
Mrs. Newbury had replied with terse answers: The staff was hardworking and loyal. The London Wentworths had owned the property less than five years, so who knew their history? The neighbors minded their own business.
Other questions could not be asked: Tell me of your family. How did you come to be in England? Is there anybody you’d like to send a letter to? To a woman forcibly removed from her homeland early in life, those questions were likely to bring on sad memories.
The topic of Mr. Wentworth, however, had Mrs. Newbury scooting up against the pillows. “That one. He works too much and too hard. Harder than a farmer with no sons. What family lets such a learned man clear ditches and trim hedges?”
Matilda imagined him, coat off, impervious to the elements, his rhythm with a spade or blade steady and relentless.
“Is the estate in difficulties?”
Mrs. Newbury gestured for her cup, which held the bitter willow bark tea. “The Wentworths are scandalously wealthy. Nobody knows how the duke acquired his fortune, but they are awash in money. Have their own bank, if you can imagine such a thing. Mr. Wentworth—our Mr. Duncan Wentworth—is a cousin, and he joined the family in London to serve as a tutor to the crippled brother, Master Stephen. He’s Lord Stephen, but he doesn’t put on airs. They have all that money, and they send Mr. Wentworth here, a scholar, and expect him to fix what became a shambles of an estate years ago.”
Her dark eyes held disdain for a family who’d set up one of their own to fail.
“Is Mr. Wentworth in disgrace?” Banishment was usually reserved for those in disfavor.
Mrs. Newbury sipped her tea. “When we are in disgrace is when we need our family most.” She passed Matilda the cup, along with an inquiring glance.
Oh, no. No confessions. Not when Matilda had learned that the title Mr. Wentworth so casually disdained was that of a duke.
“Which ducal title has the honor of gracing the Wentworth escutcheon?”
The housekeeper lay back and closed her eyes. “The Duke of Walden. I’m told the previous duke was a lovely old man who grew senile at the very end. He sometimes wouldn’t leave a room for weeks, and talked to people no longer among the living. His factors took advantage.”
As factors were wont to do. “Mr. Wentworth has been traveling in recent years, hasn’t he?”
“All over the Continent with Lord Stephen. Not like his lordship could go by himself, is it?”
Matilda had no intention of tarrying in a ducal household, even if that household was at present managed by a cousin. Nonetheless, a puzzle was emerging.
Why did Mr. Wentworth bide here, scything hedges, clearing ditches, and half freezing, when he was connected to wealth and had traveled the world? Why had he offered Matilda sanctuary and what would he expect in return? She was as helpless to ignore that conundrum as she was to walk past a chess game in progress without assessing the play.
“Send Danvers to sit with me,” Mrs. Newbury said. “Or leave me alone. I’d rather you leave me alone.”
“I’m off to the library to fetch a book, though I’ll be back.”
In Matilda’s absence, the patient was more likely to fall asleep, and sleep was as effective a remedy for influenza as anything.
Matilda tucked in the covers, turned down the bedside lamp, and filled the water glass on the night table half full. Mrs. Newbury shifted to her side, facing the wall, and Matilda took her leave.
The staff respected Mrs. Newbury; they also liked her. If she died, she’d be mourned, and the same could not be said of everybody. That not-very-cheering thought led to others: Would Papa mourn Matilda’s passing? Would he be relieved? Both? What about the colonel?
Should she take ship for America and put it about that Matilda Wakefield had died?
The widowed Matilda Talbot, rather, if she used the name she’d been traveling under recently.
Matilda could not afford to let those thoughts plod in their predictably melancholy circles, for melancholia, like influenza, could be contagious. She was building up the fire in Mrs. Newbury’s parlor stove when she realized the door to the corridor had been left open several inches. No wonder the sickroom was gradually cooling.
Mr. Wentworth stepped out of the gloom.
“If you have questions about me, Matilda, then you should simply ask them, not interrogate my staff when they are ill and unsuspecting.”
Matilda. “How do you know my name?” What else did he know, and what would he do with the information?
“I did not know your name. You disdained to answer to Madeline, and Matilda was a guess based on probabilities.” He gestured toward the doorway. “Come with me. The patient deserves her rest, and you and I have matters to discuss.”
If Matilda tried to bolt past him, run down the corridor, and dodge out the kitchen door, he’d catch her in the first six steps. And if she made it through the door, at night, alone, in the cold, without so much as a cloak…?
Hopeless. She closed the parlor stove, rose, and dusted her hands. “I don’t want to leave her for long.”
“You haven’t taken more than five minutes away from Mrs. Newbury’s side since noon.” He started for the kitchen, his stride brisk. “The doctor refuses to come.”
“You are angry.” Mr. Wentworth’s temper did not display itself in a raised voice or even a sneer, but rather, in diction more clipped than usual, in a marked economy of syllables. How angry would he be when Matilda left without so much as a thank-you?
Or would he be relieved?
He halted amid the cozy warmth of the kitchen. “I am…my rage is without limit. I sent money with the groom, lest the doctor think Brightwell’s circumstances too straitened to pay his fees. The issue is not money.”
The issue was good old English hypocritical prejudice. “We’ll manage without the quack,” Matilda said. “English doctors are deplorably ignorant, in any case. The medical expertise on the Continent and even in Scotland is much more advanced.”
Mr. Wentworth rubbed the back of his neck. “Stephen said as much, many times. You must be hungry.”
A clock ticked on the mantel above the great hearth. The hour wasn’t late by polite standards—barely ten o’clock—but the servants went to bed as soon after supper as their duties allowed, and thus the kitchen was deserted and lit only by embers in the hearth and a single sconce burning near the window.
Matilda put a hand on her belly. “I forgot to eat.”
“Easy to forget, when ignoring the appetites has become a habit. I was too pre-occupied to do justice to the trays that appeared on my desk as if by magic.”
He was opening and closing cupboards and drawers in a manner that would have scandalized Cook, had she known the master of the house was rummaging belowstairs unsupervised.
“What are you looking for?”
“Bread, of course.” He set a loaf wrapped in linen on the counter. “The cheese will be in the window box. I’ll fetch a bottle of cider from the butler’s pantry, and we’ll fend off starvation for the nonce.”
Matilda found a quarter wheel of cheddar in chilly proximity to the window. She was slicing bread—thick enough to toast, not too thick to make sandwiches—when a small boy scooted into the kitchen from the hallway that led to the pantries.
“I was only resting for a moment, sir. The kitchen is ever-so-warm. I wasn’t stealing nothing. I wouldn’t steal when I already have everything I need, would I?”
The lad looked about eight years old to Matilda, though he could be older. The yeomanry did not enjoy regular nutrition, and their offspring were often stunted as a result. This young fellow was quivering between indignation and terror, and spared Matilda not even a glance.
Mr. Wentworth followed the child into the
kitchen. “What’s your name, boy?” He set a jug on the counter with an ominous thunk.
“J-Jinks, sir.”
Mr. Wentworth put his hands on his hips. “Your name.”
“Hiram Arthur Jingle, s-sir, but I wasn’t—”
Mr. Wentworth waved a hand. “We’ll need more bread than that, Miss Maddie. Jinks, wash your hands and be thorough with the soap or it will go badly for you.”
The child shot to the copper sink and used an overturned bucket as a step stool. Water splashed while Matilda cut four more slices of bread.
“That’s half the loaf, Mr. Wentworth. Cook will think an invading army has plundered her kitchen.”
“That’s a hungry boy, Miss Maddie. I’ll see to the cheese.”
Whoever the child was, he’d soon have a full belly. Hard to dislike a man who fed hungry children—and hungry women. Jinks set out plates and got down mugs while Mr. Wentworth supervised the cheese toast.
“This is college boy fare,” Mr. Wentworth said, sliding a piece of bread dripping with melted cheese onto a plate. “Jinks, you will mind your manners. We’ve a lady at table with us.”
Jinks was minding the cheese toast, his gaze fixed on the platter like a cat watching a mousehole. Matilda poured three servings of steaming mulled cider and brought them to the table, as the fragrance of cinnamon filled the kitchen.
“Miss Maddie.” Mr. Wentworth held a chair.
She sat, though the moment was awkward. The boy was watching his employer, perhaps seeing for the first time how a gentleman held a chair for a lady.
Mr. Wentworth loomed over the boy. “Hands.”
The child held up his hands, palms down.
“Other side.”
The child obliged.
“We must acquaint you with a nail brush, Jinks. You can tell a lady by her hands. You can tell a lout by his even more easily. Sit.”
Jinks scrambled into a chair, and the concussion of feet kicking at chair rungs followed.
Mr. Wentworth sliced each piece of toast across the middle, putting two triangles on Jinks’s plate after he’d served Matilda.
“For what we are about to receive,” Mr. Wentworth intoned, “we are grateful, even if Cook scolds us halfway to perdition in the morning. Jinks, bow your head. The toast will still be on your plate when the grace is concluded.”
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