Elizabeth Mansfield (17 page)

“Would it help if I disagreed?” he asked with an ironic smile. “If you like, I’ll make some stupid defense of my behavior so that you can get angry at me and sack me all over again.”

She gave a reluctant laugh. “You are an original, I’ll say that for you. Perhaps I should send you to Lady Sturtevant. She indicated a willingness to take you on.”

“No, thank you, ma’am. If I’m as impossible a footman as you say I am, I should soon be in Lady Sturtevant’s black books as well as in yours. I’ve done with domestic service.”

“Then what will you do?”

“I don’t know. Something will turn up.”

“That sounds much too vague a program for a man who has the responsibility of another couple on his shoulders … and one of them an expectant mother.”

“You needn’t remind me. I’m all too well aware of that responsibility.”

“Then you do understand that you must convince Daniel and Betsy to remain in my employ, at least for a while.”

“That’s why I agreed to this blasted additional fortnight,” he said frankly. “With the extra time at my disposal, I may be able to convince Daniel to let me go away alone. If I can convince him that this is the best place for the baby—”

“Yes, that’s the best argument. Very well, Thomas, we’ll see what happens. But you are not to think, if your arts of persuasion are ineffective, that I’ll change my mind and keep you on. At the end of the fortnight, out you go. I’m determined on it.”

“Don’t worry, my lady,” Tom said with a rather bitter smile. “You can’t be more eager for my departure than I am.”

She shot him an irritated glare and motioned with her hand for him to go. He bowed and turned to the door. But before his hand touched the knob she stopped him with a word. “Why?” she asked in plaintive curiosity.

He turned back, his brows raised. “Did you say something, ma’am?”

“I asked why you are so eager to leave these premises. You admitted before that I was kinder than most. You’ve been well treated here, haven’t you? And until your dreadful exhibition in front of my guests last night, I’ve put up with all your … eccentricities. Haven’t I?”

He stared at her for a moment, his eyes unreadable. “Yes, you’re very kind. Yes, I’ve been well treated. Yes, you’ve put up with me with remarkable patience,” he said flatly. “And I hate it here.”

For some inexplicable reason, she felt stricken. “But … why?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I did.”

His lips turned up in a sardonic smile—the kind she’d seen on his face before. “Because, ma’am,” he said quietly, “while I remain in this house I have to see before me, every waking hour of every day, that which I can never have.”

Without waiting for her acknowledgement or dismissal, he turned and left the room. She didn’t call him back to reprimand him for that breach of protocol. She was glad he’d left. If he’d remained, he would have seen how burning hot her cheeks had become.

Lady Sturtevant had been quite right in predicting that her little Sybil would prove to be too much for Lady Ethelyn to handle. Ethelyn took a dislike to the child from the moment of their arrival, a reaction not much to be wondered at, for Sybil had three traits which were immediately manifest and which seemed to be specifically designed to drive Ethelyn berserk: one, she never walked down the stairs—she slid down the wide bannister of the main stairway as if it were her personal passageway; two, she peppered every sentence with such vile epithets as “Hang it all!” and “Egad!”; and, three, she ran, skipped or jumped about the house but never walked. And no one, not Miss Townley, nor Philippa nor Ethelyn herself seemed able to restrain her.

But what Ethelyn most disliked about the child was her influence on Philippa. It wasn’t that Philippa had changed in any fundamental way—she was still perfectly ladylike, affable and polite. But she showered the most unaffected and warm-hearted admiration on her friend, seeing nothing reprehensible in any of Sybil’s pranks. “Don’t take on so, Aunt Ethelyn,” she would say to her aunt in her soothing, mature way. “It’s only high-spiritedness. I think Sybil is wonderfully energetic and imaginative. She means no harm at all.”

As a result, Philippa was led into the most shocking misdeeds which would never otherwise have occurred. For example, when reading to Sybil a book about the Red Indians of America, Pippa agreed to Sybil’s “imaginative” plan to paint their faces Indian-style with the pigments in Pippa’s old box of watercolors. When they appeared in the drawing room to show the result to Aunt Ethelyn, the poor woman shrieked in fright. Another time, when the two girls went out riding, they outraced the groom, managed to escape from his supervision and rode off the property. They didn’t return for four hours, during which time every servant in the household was enlisted to scour the countryside for their bodies, while Ethelyn took to her bed in hysterics despite Miss Townley’s assurances that the girls were excellent horsewomen and would probably come to no harm. By the time the girls reappeared, perfectly safe and in time for dinner, Ethelyn was in need of the ministrations of a doctor.

But the straw which broke Ethelyn’s spirit was the occasion of the curricle ride. The two girls stole into the stable, harnessed the curricle to a pair of chestnuts and tried to teach themselves to drive “a curricle and pair.” Before anyone in the household even realized they’d gone out, they managed to drive the vehicle into a ditch, cracking the curricle beyond repair. (Fortunately, the chestnuts were a placid pair and didn’t bolt.)

But the incident threw Ethelyn into trembling disorder.
Please send your carriage for the girls at once
, she wrote to Camilla,
for my nerves will not endure another day of their misconduct. I would send them home in my own coach if their behavior was the least bit reliable, but I cannot face shouldering the responsibility for their safety. Your Miss Townley, incidentally, does not seem any more capable of handling them than the rest of us, so I cannot count on her either. I trust your grooms and coachmen are more capable of dealing with such hoydenish behavior than mine have been.

As a result, Camilla’s coachman drew up at the Wyckfield Park gateway two days before the visit
was scheduled to end, and Thomas, who had been selected to ride behind, climbed down to call for his charges. Camilla had given him the strictest of instructions. “Say as little as possible to Lady Ethelyn” she’d ordered, “for my sister-in-law is very short-tempered and is a high stickler in matters of decorum. If you should fall into verbal altercation with her, I shall be most provoked. So remember to say a simple ‘Yes, your ladyship,’ help Miss Townley to pack up the girls’ things, and depart for home with as much dispatch as you can manage. I’ve chosen you to perform this vital errand for me merely because you seem to have a way with Sybil. But if you let me down by
the merest slip
of your unruly tongue, the
slightest
eccentricity or the
tiniest
dereliction of duty, I shall never forgive you nor shall I write a
single word
of commendation in your behalf. I hope you heed me, Thomas, for I was never more in earnest in my life.”

With those words ringing in his ears, Tom presented himself at the door of the mansion at Wyckfield Park with considerable trepidation. After sternly warning himself not to talk back to Lady Ethelyn no matter what the provocation, he heard from her butler that the lady in question had taken herself to her bed and would not emerge until the girls had gone. With relief, he went up to the girls’ room. They greeted him with the effusive delight of old friends, showed him their packed valises and declared themselves ready to start for home, a declaration heartily endorsed by Miss Townley, who had had quite enough of Lady Ethelyn’s taunts and Sybil’s unruliness.

Tom could scarcely believe his good luck. An errand that promised to be fraught with difficulty was turning out to be as easy as bowling down a hill. Cheerfully, he tucked the valises one under each arm, took the girls’ hands and led them down to the waiting carriage, Miss Townley trailing along behind with her overstuffed bandbox. As they climbed aboard and tucked the lap-robe about them, Tom took their luggage to stow away under the coachman’s box. There his good spirits were given their first blow. The coachman stood leaning his forehead against the corner of the carriage, his shoulders sagging pathetically. “Is something wrong, Russ?” Thomas asked.

The coachman looked up. He was white about the mouth, and his cheeks were pale. “I dunno, Tom. Feel sum’at strange in me stomach. Do ye think we could wait round ’ere ’till tomorra?”

Tom scratched his chin worriedly. “Her ladyship’s expecting us back by tonight. She’ll be frantic if we don’t appear until tomorrow afternoon. Is it very bad?”

Russ shrugged. “Bad enough. It ain’t unbearable, I s’pose.”

“Then why don’t we start out. If you begin to feel worse, just pull over, and I’ll take the reins myself.”

“Mr. ’Icks wouldn’t like that. ‘E says a cook cooks, an’ a butler butles. ‘E wouldn’t want t’ see the footman take the reins.”

“Even in an emergency?”

“I dunno. Can you handle four horses?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”

“Then we better not chance it.”

“So you’re saying we’d better stay here for the night, eh?” Tom couldn’t help feeling dismayed at the prospect of disappointing the girls, causing Lady Ethelyn further displeasure and stirring up nightmares of alarm in Camilla’s breast, alarm that was certain to beset her if the journey had to be delayed for eighteen hours.

“What’s the trouble?” Miss Townley asked, lowering her window and peering out.

Tom went over to consult with her. “Russ is feeling poorly, Miss Townley. We were wondering if we should chance pushing on or postpone our departure until tomorrow.”

The girls, overhearing, groaned loudly.

“Are you in very bad case, Russell?” the governess asked.

“Not very. I’ve felt sick afore an’ managed to ‘old the’ orses.”

“Then I say let’s get started. If you become worse, we’ll find an inn somewhere. That will be more amusing for the girls than remaining here.”

Russ nodded and climbed up on his box, while Tom walked to the rear of the carriage and climbed up on his stand. He was filled with disturbing apprehensions. If the carriage had been a ship, he’d have felt more sure of himself. On a ship, he knew what to do in an emergency. A ship started out on the tide even if the weather threatened. If the storm broke, he’d know how to trim the sails. But horses were something else again.

For more than an hour the carriage rolled along smoothly. Tom, feeling the sharp wind in his face, closed his eyes and pretended he was at sea. The smell was quite different from the sea winds, but the bite was not unlike them. With eyes closed he could almost imagine he was standing at the taffrail, the deck swaying beneath his feet and the polished wood of the railing under his hand. He felt the familiar lash of pain that struck every time he reminded himself that he’d never stand on a deck again. Riding the back of a shaking coach was a poor substitute for sailing.

But suddenly the rocking under him seemed to change its quality. He opened his eyes in instinctive alarm. The carriage seemed to be swaying more than before. He blinked into the wind to see if he could make out Russ’s high hat over the top of the carriage. He was just in time to see the hat sink down and out of sight. “Russ!” he shouted, his chest constricting.

There was no answer. The carriage gathered speed and then, to Tom’s horror, he saw Russ fall from his seat and roll to the side of the road. “Oh, God!” he muttered as the carriage rushed past the prostrate body. Tom’s first instinct was to jump off and help the stricken coachman, but immediately he realized that there were two little girls and their governess inside the carriage and four horses running unguided along the road. There was nothing to do but to climb over the top of the coach and try to grasp the reins himself.

The horses, feeling the sudden lack of restraint, began to race wildly, and the lurching of the coach was sickening. Within, the two girls began to scream in fright. Tom, his blood turning to ice, tried to pull himself up on the roof, but there was nothing to hold on to. The swaying of the coach was worse than the rocking of the deck of any ship he’d ridden in a storm. If he didn’t move quickly, he’d surely be thrown to the ground.

He could never have said later how he managed it. In mind-numbing terror, he heaved himself up on the roof and, flat on his stomach, he inched himself forward. When he reached the front, he let himself fall head first on the coachman’s seat. As soon as he righted himself, he looked for the reins, but they were flapping on the ground completely out of his reach. The wind roared in his ears, not quite drowning out the screams of the girls, hanging out of the carriage windows behind him.

He stared for a moment at the dangling reins and the blurred hooves of the four wildly galloping horses. Then, in a last-ditch act of desperation, he jumped for the yoke of the two horses closest to him. He hung from that for a moment, his legs dragging painfully on the ground, and then he heaved himself up so that he hung from the yoke by his midsection. The weight pained the horses, who reared up angrily, but Tom clung to his position. Holding himself in place with one hand, he reached out for the reins with the other. He grasped them after several attempts, quickly wound them tightly about one of his wrists to keep them secure, and pulled with all his might.

The rearing of the foremost pair pulled him right off his perch. He thought it was the end of him, but he managed to hook his free arm on the trace of one of the foremost horses as he fell. Even with his lower body dragging on the ground, he was able to keep hold of the reins which were still twisted about
his wrist. For a moment he felt paralyzed—fearful that he would never be able to move—but some inner force kept his mind alert. He began to inch his arm along the trace until he felt the buckle of the horse’s bellyband under his fingers. With that hold secure, he focused on taking the slack out of the reins which were still clutched in his other hand. By turning his arm in a kind of swimming motion, he twisted the reins round and round his wrist. He didn’t feel any pain, so deep was his concentration on shortening the reins. Finally, when he’d tightened them sufficiently, he yanked on them as hard as he could, at the same time pulling down on the bellyband with his other arm. Miraculously, the horses responded. They slowed down sufficiently for him to draw himself erect and, by digging in his heels he was able at last to pull them to a stop.