“Thank you, Mrs Ashby, for your kindness. Thank you everyone, but…but I believe we should return home. We are fine. Merely shaken, I think.”
“Well, if you are sure, Matilda. But if there is anything at all you need, do send word.”
The good people all reiterated Mrs Ashby’s offer before drifting away to their various coaches, shaking their heads, demeanours subdued, and Seth opened his own carriage door for Matilda to ascend.
Acutely aware of his wince as he pitched heavily into the seat, she sat beside him, skirts soggy.
The door slammed shut and grave blue eyes appeared at the open window, lips parted in a pant. “I’ll take the reins. How are yer, lass?”
“I can’t seem to stop my hands trembling, Mr Finlay, but I’m unhurt, thank you.” She fumbled with her bonnet ribbons and discarded the damp item to the opposite seat. “That was your shout I heard, was it not?”
“Aye. But it was Seth that got yer out the way of those hooves. Seth? Yer all good?”
A tight nod was his sole answer, which she presumed meant ‘adequate’ in man speak.
Mr Finlay disappeared from view, and after a brief rock of the carriage as he ascended to the coachman’s seat, the horses snorted and the carriage lurched into motion.
She leaned into Seth and his fingers caught her shoulder, drew her closer. He must have felt her uncontrollable quiver as he touched a palm to her hair and stroked, loosening her chignon.
“Seth?” she said softly, glancing up. “That horseman tried to grab me, didn’t he?”
The wheels jolted over cobbles and he grunted but cocked his head in that way Matilda had become so fond of. “Yes, Matilda, and at that speed, on that horse, he’d be miles away by now.”
“But you saved me.” She cupped his jaw. “Didn’t you?” And with a light caress, she released him to bury her head once more within that striped waistcoat, to seek his warmth.
Lips murmured in her hair. Had she heard a whisper of… Always.
“But surely my cousin would not resort to this?” she mumbled into the silk. “My marriage can’t be that important.”
Seth’s hand halted its motion to slide around and tip her chin. His lips firmed.
“That is what we must discover, Matilda.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Be respectful and obedient to your governess.”
Private Education: A Practical Plan for the Studies of Young Ladies.
Elizabeth Appleton. 1815.
“Find out all you can, Kian.”
“Right yer are,” the Scotsman declared, retrieving his greatcoat from the library sofa and swishing it about his shoulders. “I reckon me and her betrothed’ll have a wee chat.” And he flapped his metal-laden apparel.
“You’re all mouth,” Seth stated, rotating his shoulder and stretching his arms.
“And yer all beaten. Get to the basement. I’ll see yer on the morrow.”
Seth tipped his brandy glass in Kian’s direction as his friend departed with a doff of hat, and then he took himself to linger by the oval window and watch the last of the daylight hours bleed into night. The drizzle of this afternoon had lessened, leaving turbid fog that slunk across the lawns of Green Park with menace.
Thank blazes Kian had been there today, as what would he have done if…
He slugged the brandy, savoured the burn and tossed the thought to hell – if was a word invented by the devil to drive you to Bedlam. He’d learned that with time.
In the dusk-black pane, his wearied reflection grimaced: shadowed eyes, furrowed brow and tight jaw. Punches to the gut and clobbers to the chops he was accustomed to, but a bloody iron hoof stung like a hive of bees. The basement beckoned, so he set down his glass and–
With a crash, the door burst open, thumping against its stop as a mahogany tea trolley trundled into the room.
But this was unlike any tea trolley his housekeeper brought him.
For instead of the usual Hawkins fine bone-china tea service with potted cream and buttered crumpets, there lay every last item of curative paraphernalia from the Academy’s medical mishap cupboard, along with the entire assemblage of Betty’s tonics, ointments, powders and potions – items that he’d not seen for years…many years. And were most probably noxious by now.
The tea trolley’s middle tier held three voluminous books beside an array of bandages, tourniquet lengths, linen strips and flannels while the lower tier was laden with sharp pins, gouging instruments, bone nippers, probing scissors and blades of every conceivable width.
More fearsome than the contents of a tooth-puller’s back room.
Its huffing peddler appeared – Matilda wearing that buttercup gown which could melt his gizzards to pottage, barefoot with hair loose and a little damp. She halted, pushed up her glasses and glared.
“Don’t move,” she commanded before twisting to dart from the library.
He remained motionless.
And was that a…bone saw?
Upon their return from the literary event, a pallid Matilda had been ushered to her bedchamber by his housekeeper for a hot bath and a few tipples of Betty’s Special Tonic, which Seth knew consisted of her husband’s stash of illegal whisky and…well, that was it, actually, although certain herbs had always been alluded to.
It could send a farm ox to the land of nod, yet it appeared Matilda was made of sterner stuff.
In fact, a quarter-full glass of it nestled in the corner of the trolley.
Not a moment later, a bundle of white towels arrived with Matilda somewhere beneath. She flopped them to the round reading table.
“I am here to tend your wound. Take off your shirt.” And she tapped a foot, her bare pink toes negating the sternness somewhat.
“I don’t–”
“Do not tell me it’s nothing. I know that hoof caught you, Seth Hawkins, so sit down.”
She put hands to hips. He shivered… “I am perfectly well–”
“Bruising can lead to sepsis, dropsy or the flux if not seen to. So sit.” Her voice softened. “And let me tend to you.”
Seth gingerly lowered himself to the indigo sofa. What he would have given to have Nurse Griffin in his corner as bottleman at a prizefight.
Matilda approached her patient, brandishing a bandage as though she knew what to do with it.
But whilst bathing and sipping Betty’s restorative to banish the trembles, she’d swotted up on Marine Practice of Physik and Surgery, Including the Nature and Treatment of Gunshot Wounds, by Dr J Ranby, Esquire; Surgeon General to the British Army. Third Edition 1781.
So how hard could it be?
And in any case, Betty had given lots of practical instruction should the written theory prove erroneous.
His waistcoat had been shed earlier, and she perused his remaining attire, ready to assist. “Do you require me to cut your shirt off with a sharp blade?”
“Er, no,” he said rather breathlessly. “I don’t believe that will be necessary.”
Even so, he winced as she edged the material up his spine and then along that injured shoulder. She’d noted every clench of his jaw as the coach had jolted them, despite his manly assurance that all was well – a fearsome fib, if ever she’d heard one.
Tugging the shirt over his head proved more problematic as the laces caught on his chin and she was forced to yank, nigh removing his ears. Who’d have known it would be so arduous to unclothe a man? Surely it would have been easier to cut the material, as Dr J Ranby, Esq. had directed?
In order to accurately diagnose from her medical tome, she crossed to the trolley, had another quick nip of Betty’s Special Tonic to fortify herself, and then trundled it nearer the sofa, the implements rattling.
She sat behind Seth to scrutinise the affected area, hefty book in hand.
A fierce scarlet brand in a wide U shape marred his shoulder, the area swollen. “Hmm.” She flipped past Fevers and Vomiting. “I think…” She paused at Gangrene and softly prodded the skin: somewhat hot and pu
ffy. “I do believe… I believe it to be an ecchymosis of the musculus trapezius, perhaps even the rhomboideus major.”
“And that would be?”
“An abominable bruise to the shoulder. Shame it’s not a gunshot wound as I know all about those. But we’d best clean it, just in case.” Dr J Ranby had been rather cavalier as regards cleanliness, but Betty had advocated that a good slosh of brandy never went amiss, so Matilda would tend her hero with all due diligence.
Seth’s eyes flickered in the low lamplight, and she smiled reassuringly before investigating the hodge-podge of bottles on the trolley.
“Has it broken the skin?” he rasped.
“No…” She turned back to examine once more; without doubt it would turn black and blue in the next few days and ache for a month, but it would be remiss of her not to consider all possibilities, so just in case, she glanced to the Splints and Fractures chapter, twisting her head at Diagram 5b. “Can you rotate your shoulder without fierce pain?”
“I’ve dislocated it before,” he asserted, but nonetheless rotated it as requested. “And that hurts in a different way, but do carry on, Nurse Matilda,” he said with a wink, “for I cherish your gentle touch.”
She blushed, batted a hand to his waist and flicked past Intermittent Fevers, Jaundice and The Itch. Although… “Does it itch?”
“Er, no.”
So gathering a strip of linen, she splashed around plenty of brandy and then smoothed the cloth over the red swelling.
He flinched and a groan emerged from her patient, so she softly prodded once more to judge whether any fluid had built up beneath the skin. “If it’s that painful, perhaps it requires lancing.” And she spun to the tea trolley, knocking over a tin of… “What’s this?” she asked, holding up a peculiar cotton-like item.
“Ligature thread made of cat gut, I believe.”
Ugh.
Seth threw a wary glance at the silver instruments. “I’m quite sure lancing is not yet necessary.”
“Hmm…” She pursed her lips. “In that case, I prescribe arnica ointment, as although Dr J Ranby may know his gunshot wounds, I shall defer to Betty in this instance.”
“Foul stuff, that,” remarked Seth with a wipe of forehead. “It’s the jar that smells of mothballs and gin.”
She uncapped and recapped the many glass vessels, sniffing until a pernicious mix of camphor and alcohol nigh seared the hair from her nostrils, so she placed the jar to her lap and swiped a finger over the waxy substance. Too firm and cold for Seth’s injured skin, hence she dug out a dollop and warmed it between her palms.
The bruise would be uncomfortable to sleep upon and no doubt other aches would assail him on the morrow. She exhaled heavily. “This is all my fault.”
He swivelled, eyes gleaming. “No, Matilda. A swine of a man with no care for you did this. Can you imagine if you had stayed at his house and then refused to marry Sidlow? What he might have done to compel you?” Seth turned back. “It will heal and I’ve had worse. The cut above my eye hurt like the deuce when it was stitched. I swear Mother used an embroidery needle.”
“How did you come by it?” She peered to her lap and gathered more ointment, the more the better as far as she was concerned.
“When I was a boy. Someone clobbered me.”
Frowning, she glanced up, his broad back and shoulders confronting her like Hadrian’s Wall – unconquerable and defiant. She recalled mention of his childhood, a brutal place where fists ruled. “Was…was your father violent?”
His face slanted to profile, scarred eyebrow raised. “Shall I tell you of my father?”
“Well, if you do not mind.” She tentatively smiled. “I would like to know more of your past, Seth.”
He rubbed a hand upon his chin, the rasp of stubble so very loud in the silence of the evening. Even the clock hands had paused at a half after the hour, it’s owner too distracted to have wound it.
“The Rookery’s a tough place, Matilda, where a boy can have all compassion trampled out of him before he reaches manhood.” He lifted his chin. “But I grew up with a father who made sure that never happened, who although had the body of a brute, had the soul of a saint. One who loathed violence, any kind of violence against man, woman or beast.”
“A gentle man, then?”
“Yes, and the very epitome of the word gentleman.” He stretched his legs. “Honest and dependable. If a child went missing in our street, he’d be the first one out hunting and the last to come home. He’d toil till midnight and beyond if our bellies were empty, and I recall him shovelling manure, just to afford daisies for Mother’s birthday.” With a twist of torso, Seth grinned. “Many a lad down our street had a father too handy with his fists. But not mine. Built like a brick privy but with hands that could cradle a new-born kitten.”
She smiled to herself. Like father, like son.
“So how did you receive the scar?” And she commenced smoothing the warmed ointment onto the outer edges of his wound.
“I told you Father was a coal heaver?”
“Yes, I remember.”
He rolled his shoulders, so Matilda slicked upwards and onto the swollen hoof mark, keeping her touch tender.
“Hell, that’s good,” he murmured, head tipping low. “’Tis a hard job, paying fifteen shillings a week, if you’re lucky, with the rest paid in ale as his employer was an innkeeper. I started helping when I was thirteen.”
Chloe’s age.
So young for Seth to lift such hefty sacks of cumbersome coal.
“But I found… You cannot imagine, Matilda,” he said, “how it feels when the man you love and adore, a father to be proud of, is beaten by another. By a fiend not worthy to lick his worn boots.”
With waxy palm aloft, she frowned. “Beaten? How awful. But why would someone beat him?”
“Father had dropped a coal sack, not surprising after a shift of ten hours, and it had split at the seams. So the innkeeper clobbered him – not a quick clip, mind, but brutal punches about the face and chest. He didn’t put up a fight, even though he could’ve laid the fiend low with a fist. It just wasn’t in him.”
Matilda scowled. “Your poor father. And what a bullying huff-cap.” Seth’s back rippled and she kneaded outwards, attempting to keep all fury from her touch.
“Mother and I had seen bruises on him before, but he’d always scoffed it was the hundredweight coal sacks or that he’d fallen.” Seth breathed deep. “I raged, asked him why he didn’t fight back or find other work, but he said employment was scarce as hen’s teeth, and what was better? A few bruises? Or no food on the table? All of us on the streets or in the workhouse?” He twisted, her fingers falling. “How would you have felt, Matilda, if you’d been me as a lad?”
Her eyes slitted, lips flattened. “Angry. I feel angry now.”
Seth nodded, gaze fixed to hers. “Then one day, it was my turn for a beating, and the innkeeper clobbered me about the head – fierce and painful. But I fought back…” He snorted. “I knew nothing, not even how to punch, and he smacked me so hard I crashed into a shelf of bottles, and glass embedded itself in my eyebrow. I could’ve been blinded.”
Fury gushed through Matilda, that such a vicious tyrant would not only abuse Seth’s hard-working father but also a mere boy, and she jerkily reached out to stroke his eyebrow. “Yet your family was reliant upon the wage.”
His lips thinned as he cast a nod. “Yet I also knew it would never stop. For the first time, I could see my own life stretching ahead of me, violent and short, of watching my father beaten down like a dog till one day the punch would hit him wrong and he’d never rise.”
She scrunched her fingers in the brandy-soaked linen, tearing the material in her wrath. “So you turned that anger to resolve and began prizefighting?”
“Exactly so. I had my mother’s pluck combined with my father’s build, and it’s not unusual in the coal trade. Same with butchers, bargemen and heavers – they all have a go, but most only use their brawn. I k
new if I had any chance, I needed more. So I began sneaking into fights at Five Courts, where they do demonstrations and benefits for retired fighters. I’d watch the champions – their technique and stance.”
“And you started winning?”
Seth smirked. “Losing, more like… but learning each time my arse hit the floor, then finally winning. Only for coppers in the early years as I was so young. Hell, Father couldn’t bear to watch, but Mother would cheer me on. Her language, you’d not believe it…” He chuckled, deep and strong, and Matilda marvelled at his steely determination. Driven to fight by circumstance and yet, like his father, never violent in nature.
“Were your parents alive when you gained the championship? They would have been so proud.” She attempted to place the cap back on the jar but her fingers fumbled and he took it from her with a broad grin.
“What makes you think they’ve cocked their toes?”
“Well…” She frowned, twisted her hands and shuffled her bare feet. “Neither you nor Chloe has ever mentioned them.”
“Fair enough. But that’s probably because they are in Rome, last we heard. On a Grand Tour of the Continent. Like the young nobs do.”
Matilda goggled and slid her glasses back up her nose.
“My wife may have lost patience with me, but my parents never did.” He shook his head. “They battled on, watched me, supported me, my father still working for that bloody fiend.” His gaze firmed. “But eventually I got us all out. Not just me and Chloe, but all of us. My parents have a little place in Richmond now.” He brushed her cheek. “But like you, they always wanted to travel. So once Napoleon had been seen to last year, off they went.” He kissed her lips, light and tender.
“Well, I never,” Matilda murmured, his tale leaving her strangely serene but oddly befuddled.
“I suppose,” he said with a tilt to his head, “that happy endings do exist. Hardship can turn to comfort. Despair to hope. I only wish all stories could end thus… Your parents. Kian’s wife.”
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