Bound to Serve (16 page)

She added water and honey to the cups and drank hers right away. Then she called Colin into the kitchen. He’d been down the hall, hiding in the parlor. He looked worried.

“Is Harry going to die?” It was the first thing he said. Elspeth wanted to reassure him without giving him false hope.

“Not if I can help it,” she said. “I’ve made some medicine. I need you to drink it for me. It’s not good but it will help you fight the illness that has come into this house.”

She handed him the cup and he sniffed it and made a face.

“Smells bad,” he said.

“Please,” she said. “For me. And for Harry. I need to tell him you were brave and took the first dose.”

That did the trick. The boy winced but downed the mixture, looking at Elspeth for approval.

“That’s my good lad,” she said and went upstairs.

She explained to Clifford Harker that the mixture she’d made was one that had been used by her mother and grandmother during time of illness and plague.

“I cannot guarantee it,” she said, “and I had to substitute some ingredients. But it is better than nothing and I feel it will help.”

Clifford Harker drank his cup down without hesitation. When he moved towards his son with the other cup, Elspeth stayed his hand.

“Let me,” she said. “I would prefer you offer Prudence hers. She is angry with me at the moment and will refuse if I offer.”

“Why is she angry?”

Elspeth sighed. “I told her I could not go to fetch the doctor for her in this snow.”

“Was she rude to you?” His voice was tense.

“That is of no consequence,” Elspeth said. “People lash out when they are angry.”

“You are gracious, Elspeth,” he said.

“Thank you, Master,” she replied and went and sat down beside Harry, cajoling and coaxing him to drink. He did, weakly, trying to be brave. Clifford Harker stood and watched in the doorway, his heart twisting with admiration for his maid’s quiet, maternal way with her son. How could he have even thought that Prudence..

Prudence. He needed to get her medicine to her. He walked to her room, knocked on her door. He tried to compose himself as she called weakly for him to come in.

“Clifford!” she said weakly. “I’m so glad it is you. I thought it was that awful maid. She’s insolent, you know, and you need to rid your sons of her influence before she infects them with her crude ways.”

“Infects.” He was having a hard time keeping his voice level. “Madam, that you would even use that word in my presence appalls me.”

He ignored her surprised look as he continued. “How long did you know your driver was ill?”

She coughed before answering and looked at him guilty. “Three, four days. His wife has been sick and he asked to be given a day off last week. And I’d have given it to him, but auntie and I needed to go to the milliner’s…”

Elspeth was right. It was something that spread quickly.

“You knew he had a catching illness and sat in a coach with him? You came into my house after being around him?

She pulled herself up in the bed. “What are you saying? I only felt a little ill…”

“You’ve been ill! You’ve been ill and you came here?”

“You invited me!”

“Not to sicken my sons!” he said.

She cowered in the bed. “That wretched maid. She’s turned you against me?”

Clifford Harker looked at the woman in disgust. “That wretched maid, as you call her, has concocted a brew to heal you.” He handed it to her.

She took it and sniffed it and then flung it aside.

“I’ll not drink her heathen potion!” she cried. “Get me a doctor! Now!”

He backed away.

“As you are likely aware, the roads are impassable. And I will not leave my son. There is only one healer in this house, and you have just flung her medicine against the wall. There will be no more for you.”

He turned and slammed the door, ignoring the screech that came form within.

Back in the nursery, Harry was drowsily looking up at Elspeth, who was singing to him.

“Did she drink it?” she asked.

“She refused,” he replied.

“She must drink,” Elspeth said. “It could save her.”

“Let her die,” he said harshly. “She deserves it!”

“Master!”

She stood, upset. “Don’t say such things! You bring harm to your own house when you wish it on others!”

“She brought this here!” he bellowed, pointing to his sickly son.

“Aye, she did,” Elspeth said. “And she will leave with the burden of knowing that doing so showed her true character. But just as you love your son someone loves her – mother, father, sibling.” She sighed. “Do not wish loss upon them to ease your own anger.”

He shook his head. “Elspeth,” he said. “You are a better person that I.”

“Let me try,” she said.

Elspeth was angry, although she didn’t show it. It bothered her that Prudence had wasted a dose, but  she could not deny her another chance. Downstairs she fixed another dose of the concoction and took it upstairs.

Prudence lay in bed, crying and retching. Nothing came up, however, since she’d already emptied her stomach.

“Here,” Elspeth said. “This will help.”

The woman glared up at her. “I told him already. I don’t want any of your country cures, servant. I need my physician.”

Elspeth sat down by the bed.

“This is your only hope,” she said. “Master Harker has taken it, as have I and his sons. Please, Miss Alder, you must drink. Put aside your anger. I saw your driver last night. You do not want to end up like him.”

The other woman regarded her and tears filled her eyes, tears of anger and frustration.

“Why must you be kind to me?” she asked Elspeth.

“Because it serves neither of us for me to be cruel.” She held the cup out. “Drink.”

Prudence took it with a shaking hand. Like the boys, she winced as she sipped the brew and then lay back, fighting to keep it down.

“I’ll bring you some peppermint tea in a bit,” Elspeth said. “The drink will make you sleepy, but it will help, I think.”

“You think?”

“I cannot guarantee anything,” she said.

Elspeth stood but as she was at the door, the other woman called her.

“He cares for you, you know. Women know these things. I saw it last night and I saw it today in how he spoke of you. I should not hate you for that but I do. I suppose if this kills me I shall go to hell for that.”

Elspeth hung her head, suddenly sad for the woman.

She turned back to Prudence.

“Is that what you believe?”

Prudence wiped a tear from her eye. “That is what they say.”

“We all struggle with the darker side of our natures,” Elspeth said. “If we let it overcome us then we put ourselves in an early hell.”

“You don’t believe in the other one?” Prudence asked.

“To be sure I do not know if it exists or not,” Elspeth answered thoughtfully. “I only know it does me know good to think on the next life while I still draw breath in this one.”

Prudence said no more, only looked out the window at the snow that was falling again. When her eyes closed, Elspeth slipped out the door.

She curled up with Colin in the parlor for a couple of hours, taking advantage of the quiet to make up for some of the sleep she’d lost from her restless night before. When she got up, she found Harry was the same but not worse. Prudence was still sleeping, but burning with a terrible fever that soaked her clothes and caused her to moan and thrash out in agony.

Elspeth opened the guest room windows and loosened the neck of Prudence’s gown, sponging her with a cool cloth soaked in mint water. After a few moments the woman began to shake and thrash and then lay still.

Elspeth found her own hands shaking as she checked for a heartbeat. Prudence was alive. Sitting by the bed, she forced more of her homemade concoction between her lips and stepped into the hallway to find Clifford Harker waiting.

“How is she?”

“Not well, worse than Harry. How is he?”

Clifford Harker smiled. “His fever broke.” He smiled down at her. “You did it, Elspeth. You did it. You saved my son.”

He leaned down and kissed her then. Elspeth did not know what to think and for a moment stood frozen before pulling away.

“What?” he asked.

She turned her head so he would not see the tears. “I do not want you to mistake gratitude for love,” she said. “You are grateful to me for saving your son. I am content with that.”

But he would not allow her to move away.

“Perhaps you are, Elspeth, but I am not. This has taught me much. For so long I was blinded by convention, so careful to do what would satisfy people like Prudence Alder and her family. Well, no more. I’m tired of living for others. I have been afraid to let myself love again. When you came along you melted the ice that my heart has become. I resisted you, but every time I think I can relegate you to something less than you are you rise above and shine on my heart again. How can I not love you, Elspeth? How?”

She hugged him, feeling love and need in his embrace. Then she felt more arms go around her and saw Colin at her waist, his embrace enfolding the both.

“Papa! Elspeth?” Harry was calling weakly from the room.

The three went in.

“How are you?” she asked, putting a hand to his head.

“I feel better,” he said.

He looked better, but she knew he was not out of the woods. Pulling her to him, she prayed.

***

It was a full five days later before a carriage wound its way to their house. It was the physician, looking weary and worn. He’d been going from house to house, treating who he could and helping haul out the corpses of those who he could not.

The illness had spread quickly. It had killed the preacher, leaving his wife a despondent widow. It had spread from there like wildfire, striking the gentry and poor folk alike. The doctor marveled that no one in the Harker household had died. He credited Elspeth.

“We are short on tonics,” the doctor said. “Can you help?”

“I can,” Elspeth said. “And I can help you treat the sick.”

“No.” Harker said. “You may make the brew, but you may not go.”

“Sir, please,” she pleaded.

“No!” he repeated. “This is how I lost Caroline! She refused to listen. She insisted on treating the sick and she died from her kindness.”

“Then so shall I!” she said.

“Will you excuse me?” Harker asked and the doctor stepped outside.

“You will not go, Elspeth,” he sid.

“I shall.”

He took her by the hand down the hall to the parlor. Inside he slammed the door.

“I love you, and you will be my wife. That does not absolve you from my discipline, however. If anything it will make me more vigilant to win your obedience. So I shall ask you again. Will you stay or shall I have to thrash you?”

Elspeth put a hand on his shoulder and guided him to sitting in the chair. Then wordlessly she lifted the hem of her dress, baring her bottom, and lay across his lap.

“I suppose you shall have to beat me, sir.”

He looked down at her bottom, bared and perfectly shaped. It was well-muscled, as were her legs. Elspeth lay submissively across his lap but he knew if he spanked her, she would still do what she thought was right. She only succumbed to him when she was wrong and deserved chastisement.

He smiled sadly and tipped her off his lap.

“Stand up, lass,” he said.

She stood and dropped her skirts, looking at him.

“I will obey you when I can. Now and always,” she said. “You know that. But there are times, on principle, when I will not.”

He stood, towering over her, and looked down into her face. “I am just afraid of losing you.”

“You will not lose me. I will take the tonic every day.”

And she did. With a weakened but recovering Prudence in the carriage, Elspeth and the physician traveled back to town. They went from house to house, dispensing her remedy to those who needed it. The illness slowly waned, and everyone who had seen “Harker’s Angel” credited her healing touch for their recovery.

They were married in the spring. The new minister officiated, his kindly wife smiling from the first row. The widow of the former preacher had left town, along with Prudence Alder, who sent best regards to the new couple. Colin served as his father’s best man. Harry held the rings – once his mother's – that his father now slipped on the hand of another.

Afterwards they all went to the graveyard and laid a fresh bouquet on Caroline’s grave.

“Sleep well, Mama,” Colin said.

Clifford Harker squeezed his son’s shoulder and blinked back the tears as he slipped his arm around his new wife.

“She is, son,” he said. “She is.”

The End

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