Degree of Solitude

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  After a while, she realized she would have to enter the house and find someone, which felt unnatural and presumptuous. If she did not, though, she might stand out in the damp for the rest of the day.

  Catrin slid her reticule onto her wrist, took a deep breath for courage and moved directly toward the nearest door. As she drew closer, she heard shouting and the shatter of china and slowed her steps.

  Then someone screamed, and she ran for the door.

  Chapter Two

  The door was unlocked. Catrin thrust it open and stepped inside.

  The door opened directly upon a room filled with unexpected light and airiness. It stretched from the door, along the entire width of the central wing of the house. It did reach across to the other side of the house. The windows on that side added to the sensation of light.

  The room reminded Catrin of the big drawing room at Innesford, where the annual Gathers took place. Only, this room was a little smaller, and the windows were much smaller in comparison, even though they were large for any house. They were not French doors, either. They stopped at hip-height and didn’t reach right up to the ceiling, which was not nearly as high as at Innesford. The walls and ceiling were white, and thick, black beams crossed them. The beams looked ancient.

  A square fireplace burning with red coals was built in the middle of the room. It was a most unexpected sight. A well-made stone wall surrounded it. Columns on the corners rose to support a chimney spout the same dimensions as the walls of the fireplace.

  It was the only impression Catrin had time to absorb, for someone screamed again. It was a woman’s voice and sounded as though it was coming from overhead.

  Then, a deeper voice. Raging loudly, almost shouting.

  Footsteps, running.

  Catrin held still, her heart racing. She didn’t know where the stairs to the upper floors were. There were five doors leading off from this room, three at the far end and two at this end. She could spend long minutes stumbling around until she found someone. The screaming and shouting cautioned her to remain where she was for now.

  The running steps didn’t halt. She tracked them moving across the floor above. Whoever it was, they were heavy. Then, the footsteps sounded as though they were descending, echoing through the end wall.

  The middle door at that end burst open. A maid ran into the room, her skirts hitched up in both hands, so her boots and stockings were on full display. Her very full face was red, her eyes wide.

  A slender and tall man with a young face and little hair, which made his head look bony, hurried in after the girl, his hands raised placatingly. Catrin guessed he was a butler of some type, although his clothes were not in the least formal. He looked more like a man who had just stepped in from walking the land.

  Both of them halted when they saw Catrin.

  “Mercy sakes!” the maid said, breathing heavily. Then she whirled to face the man, Catrin instantly forgotten. “I can’t take it, Sayers. I just can’t. Not another minute, you hear?”

  Sayers dropped his hands. “Very well. Close the door behind you. I will have your final salary drawn and sent to you. Where will you be staying?”

  “Staying?” the maid squeaked.

  “As you cannot stand a single minute more in this house, then you will be repairing to another location. Your things will be packed and sent to wherever you wish them to be delivered.” He raised his brow and waited.

  The maid dropped her skirt. “There’s no need to be so hasty.”

  Catrin smiled, appreciating the butler’s manipulations.

  Another loud crash sounded. This time, the shatter of a great deal of porcelain was unmistakable. Whatever the object, it had hit the wall and smashed with a great deal of force behind it.

  The maid gave a breathless little shriek and glared at the butler.

  “There goes the bowl,” the butler murmured, his gaze lifting to the ceiling.

  “Who is throwing it?” Catrin demanded.

  The butler stirred, perhaps consciously noting her presence for the first time. “I do beg your pardon, Miss,” he said. “As you can see, we’re a mite distracted. Can I help you?”

  As he spoke, a most abject, heart-stopping groan sounded. It seemed to seep through the ceiling and settled over them like cold rain.

  “Is that Daniel?” Catrin breathed, pressing her hand to her basque to calm her heart. “Mr. Williams?” she added, as the butler lifted his brow.

  “And you are, Miss?”

  “Catrin Davies,” she supplied. “Mr. William’s cousin.”

  “Miss Davies!” The butler’s mouth fell open. Even the maid gasped.

  Catrin smoothed out her skirt, unsettled. Clearly, they knew who she was. It was uncomfortable to think these odd people had about spoken her. She cleared her throat and picked up her skirt. “Mr. Williams is upstairs?” she asked, heading for the door the two of them had entered through.

  The butler stepped in her way. “I wouldn’t go up there if I were you, Miss.”

  “Why not?” she demanded. “I want to speak to Mr. Williams. If he is up there, then I must go upstairs, too.” She paused. “Or you may bring him down here to speak to me, if you prefer.”

  The butler shook his head. “Mr. Williams is…indisposed.”

  Another groan sounded, softer than the first, but still audible. Catrin’s heart compressed, hurting. It was clear Daniel was in pain. No one should have to suffer to such a degree they were forced to make such sounds.

  She pushed passed the butler and hurried through the door, picked up her skirt and climbed the wide stairs she found on the other side of the door. They turned at the end and moved up to the next floor. She followed them up and found herself in a wide corridor which ran down the middle of the floor.

  There were several doors leading off the corridor. Any one of them might be the room where Daniel was.

  Catrin moved to the nearest door, turned the handle and pushed the door open. The room beyond was a plain bedroom and quite empty. She moved to the next room and tried that door, then the next.

  The fourth door she tried was almost half-way down the corridor, on the front side of the house. Instinct told her this was likely the room. The bedroom suite belonging to the lord of the house was usually on the front of the house and central, as this was.

  She opened the door cautiously and blinked at the thick darkness beyond. Heavy drapes laid across every window, cutting out all light. No lamp or fire was lit.

  “Shut the damned door!” came the slurred, peremptory demand.

  Her heart leaping, Catrin shut the door behind her. She could not see him, yet she knew the voice. It was Daniel, and he was drunk.

  “I meant shut it with you on t’other side,” he growled.

  “Daniel, it is me. Catrin.”

  The silence which greeted her seemed to throb. Her heart beat with it.

  Then he groaned again. It was the same agony-filled sound as before, only this time she was close enough to hear his gasping breath once he ceased groaning. From the sound of his voice, she judged he was somewhere on the left side of the room.

  She had glimpsed drapes when she opened the door. She moved toward them now, her hand out in front of her. Nothing barred her passage, not even Daniel. She felt heavy wool tapestry against her fingers, gripped the fringed drape and pulled it aside.

  It was not bright outside, yet the introduction of daylight into a room which had been almost completely dark made it seem as though dazzling sun shone directly in the windows.

  “God, stop! Stop it! Close them!” Daniel cried.

  Catrin whirled, her hand still gripping the drape, uncertainty spearing through her.

  Daniel stood beside a round table which bore no cloth, not even a place mat. It was littered with dishes and soiled glasses, and at least four bottles of liquor—there may have been more, although her single glance did not allow her to count.

  He held his arm over his eyes. His head was turned away from the window. The light was
hurting him. For a frozen moment, Catrin could not tear her gaze away from the red, jagged scar on his cheek.

  It climbed from the corner of his mouth to the far corner of his eye. The skin was drawn up around it and the scar itself was thick. It seemed to writhe on his skin. While the scar was an angry red, the surrounding skin seemed drained of vitality.

  He cursed, his voice thick, and staggered toward the window, groping blindly with his eyes screwed shut. Catrin just barely stepped out of the way in time, for he fell heavily against the frame, one hand propping him up.

  Her boots crunched upon sharp fragments and she skipped out of the way again. The shards and fragments of a wash bowl, and possibly the jug which usually accompanied such a bowl, laid against the floor. Enough of the particles piled against the wall to tell her where both objects had been flung.

  Daniel fumbled for the drape, gripped it and yanked the curtain closed once more.

  The room fell into darkness.

  “Get out,” Daniel breathed. This time, his words were perfectly clear.

  “I came to see…to help…” she began. Her throat closed down. The anger in his voice! Uncertainty overwhelmed her.

  “I said, get out!” His voice rose in a harsh shout. Then he screamed. It was a scream of pain mixed with a fury which strained his voice.

  Catrina clapped her hand over her mouth to stop an echoing scream from emerging. Trembling, the flesh on her back crawling, as she wondered if Daniel would reach for her, his hands closing around her in the dark, she lunged for the door and fought to open it.

  She stepped out and shut the door and leaned against it, breathing hard. Her corset was far too tight. She raised a hand to tuck a loose curl back into her hair. Her hand shook so hard, more tendrils escaped.

  Catrin instead wiped her damp cheeks, then picked up her skirt and went back downstairs, where the only other people in the house she had seen so far would, she hoped, still be waiting.

  She had many questions to ask of them.

  As she moved to the stairs, she heard more china shattering, behind her.

  Chapter Three

  The maid gave her name as Gwen, instead of her surname. Gwen put an enormous tray holding an equally large teapot, a cup and saucer, cream and sugar, on the table in front of Catrin and bobbed. Catrin realized the little bob was Gwen’s version of a curtsey.

  “There is no need for that,” Catrin assured her. “I am not royalty. I am not even a peer.”

  Gwen frowned. Her face, except for her high round cheeks, had recovered its normal color—a fine, white skin beneath mousy brown hair pinned roughly on the top of her head. “Your mother is a princess, isn’t she? Mr. Williams said so.”

  “My mother is a princess of a royal line which has no heirs. The title dies with her. I am the daughter of a commoner.” Catrin gave her a small smile. “Mr. Williams is more noble than I, even as the third son of an earl.”

  Gwen tugged at her skirt, fidgeting, trying to determine how she must act with Catrin.

  “You can call me Miss Davies,” Catrin told her. “For now, at least. Please ask…what is the butler’s name, again?”

  “Sayers, Miss.”

  “Please ask Sayers to speak to me.” Catrin lifted the pot and paused as something heavy hit the floor above their heads. “As soon as he can, please. Also, is there a cook, Gwen?”

  “Yes, Miss.”

  “Ask the cook to make a sandwich for me, please. Or if there is cake, I will be perfectly happy with a small piece. I am famished.”

  Gwen looked doubtful.

  “You may check with Sayers first, if you wish.”

  Looking happier, Gwen nodded and hurried from the room. She was a rotund little woman and astonishingly heavy-footed and ungraceful. However, if Daniel had experienced episodes like this one before, then Gwen must be a loyal servant to have remained in service. Catrin was still shaking from her encounter with Daniel. Less stalwart staff would not have lingered after such an event, yet Gwen was still here.

  She sipped her tea, grimaced and put cream and sugar in it, then sipped again. The tea was too weak. It was something which could be amended easily enough. For now, she let the hot liquid sooth her nerves.

  Deliberately, she recalled the moment the daylight had fallen upon Daniel. She tallied up details she had glimpsed but had not consciously noticed in that heart-stopping moment.

  He had lost weight, she thought. The tweed pants and collarless shirt hung with a looseness she did not remember from Gathers in the past, when he discarded his jacket, collar and cuffs and tie to bowl, or play croquet, or any of a dozen different activities. Daniel had always been willing to join in on anything.

  Yet the man upstairs was still discernably Daniel. His thick, dark brown hair was still glossy, even if it was unkempt and too long. He was still tall and the high hawk-like cheeks he had inherited from his father were exactly the same.

  His colorless eyes were unchanged. Only the fury and pain in them was new. They had been red with drink and his chin and cheeks unshaved.

  There had been at least three plates and bowls on the table. Was he living in that room, then? Then there were the bottles—too many of them for a man who once preferred to drink as little as possible so he didn’t miss a single detail of whatever conversation or activity he was involved in.

  He had thrown his arm up against the brightness from the window, in genuine anguish far greater than someone merely dazzled by unexpected light. How could a scar cause such pain?

  Too many questions needed answering.

  Catrin instead waited patiently for Sayers to appear and tried to push away her building uneasiness.

  She had never been afraid of Daniel—not even in the way she was cautious around men distracted by her appearance, who sought to press their attentions upon her.

  Daniel had never once made her feel unsafe, until today.

  How could a simple scar change a man so?

  Sayers, when he arrived, was shrugging into a soiled jacket which did not properly fit him.

  Catrin frowned. “How long have you been the butler, Sayers?” she asked suspiciously.

  Sayers scratched at his chin. He had intelligent eyes and Catrin was once more struck by the impression of youth, despite the lack of hair. “I can’t rightly say I’m the butler yet, Miss. Mr. Hardy, who was the butler, left at the same time as Mrs. McLaughlin.”

  “Mrs. McLaughlin was the housekeeper, I presume?” Catrin asked.

  “Yes, Miss. I was the first footman, only I spent most of my time helping outside, as there isn’t really a gardener, neither.”

  Catrin steeled herself against despair and anger over the pitiful state of the household. Without a housekeeper or a lady of the house, or even a properly trained butler, any household would crumble into anarchy as this one had—especially when the master of the house was keeping himself isolated.

  “What staff are there, precisely?” Catrin asked him.

  Sayers tilted his head. “Are you…um…staying a while, then, Miss?”

  “It seems I must, if Mr. Williams is not to die of neglect. I trust this meets with your approval?” He might not be the formal butler, yet he controlled what little staff there was. She needed Sayers’ cooperation.

  “Certainly, Miss Davies. Mr. Williams always spoke highly of you.” Sayers gave her a warm, little smile.

  Catrin thought of the man who had screamed at her, upstairs. She wondered when Daniel had been capable of expressing high praise about her to his staff. Today, he was far from that state.

  Sayers scratched his chin again. “There is Mrs. Prichard from the village, who sees to things in the kitchen during the day. Gwen, who takes care of most everything else, and me.”

  Catrin considered him. “You have taken on the duties of butler by default, Sayers. Now you have a little experience with the responsibilities, are you interested in a formal appointment to the position?”

  “Really, Miss?” Sayers said. “That would be…well, I wo
uld be honored, Miss. I like Mr. Williams. That war wound is a sorry thing he carries, so I don’t mind his temper the way the others do.”

  “We will see what we can do to minimize Mr. Williams’ tempers,” Catrin told him. “I’m sure they are exacerbated by his Irish heritage. You have been remarkably patient. However, Sayers, if you are to be the butler for true, I would appreciate it if you would shave daily and find clean clothes which fit you properly and are suited to the position. There must be a staff wardrobe off the butler’s pantry…is there a butler’s pantry?” Her list of things she must learn about this house was rapidly lengthening.

  “Oh, yes, miss, a grand pantry. Some of the china goes back near a century, too. I didn’t feel it was right to take clothes from the wardrobe, though…”

  “Now I am instructing you to do so,” Catrin said. “Mr. Williams, when he is in his right mind—” She hesitated, for the phrase made Daniel sound as if he was quite mad, which she didn’t think was true. Only, he had not been himself, so she let the statement lie. “Mr. Williams will agree with all my arrangements, I am sure.”

  Sayers wrung his hands together. “I will take care of everything, Miss. Only…there’s just one thing…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m wondering…” His cheeks turned a ruddy color. “It’s just that Gwen and I…we haven’t been paid this month…”

  Catrin lowered her cup, horror circling through her. “Oh, Sayers, how awful for you! You have been a truly tolerant man and I will tell Mr. Williams so. Show me the household ledger as soon as you are able to and we will put matters to right.” She would pay them with her own money if necessary.

  Sayers looked relieved. The red in his face receded. “I had a feeling you would be able to help in that regard, Miss. I’m glad I spoke up. Only now, having said that…” He looked awkward again.

  “Speak up again, Sayers,” Catrin encouraged him.

  “Baron Nevern paid our wages last month, Miss. He’s the only visitor here and even lately, he’s not come by nearly as much…Mr. Williams seems to be getting worse, not better, you see. Only when the Baron realized Mr. Williams wasn’t up to handling accounts, he took care of it for the month. I didn’t want to bother him this month—I let him think Mr. Williams was able to see to it…” He screwed his face up. “Did I do the right thing?”