Keeping the Castle (21 page)

“Ah, but I have been so close to losing him in the past few days, and in general I can spend so little time with him that I must make the most of it. Well, he does appear to be resting, so perhaps we should both take some tea and continue our talk in the next room.”

We were shortly provided with tea, in rough earthenware mugs, true, but hot and comforting, and some bread with butter and honey. When Nurse Braddock had retired, I ventured to continue my catechism.

“Perhaps you
did
go to stay with your great-aunt when your husband left you, thereby making your mother’s story true?” I suggested.

“Oh, no. My mother was far too angry with me, and Great-Aunt Anne would never have done anything to annoy her. When Mr. Annuncio and I returned from Scotland after our wedding, such as it was, he brought me back to London. He had married me, of course, for my money, and my money—that is, my family—was in London.

“As an artist, he had a circle of friends and acquaintances including a number of working portrait painters. When he deserted me, several of them were kind enough to help me by sending me some commissions, so that I might scrape a living painting miniatures on ivory. I managed to support first myself alone and then myself and Leon, by means of this work.

“It was one of his friends, a kind, good man named Drury, who discovered that Mr. Annuncio was dead, and went to the Whitechapel slum where he had been knifed in a fight. Mr. Drury saw him buried, and paid for it too.”

She put her mug of tea down and was silent a moment.

“I—I am sorry,” I said.

“Oh
, I
am not,” she replied. “Tho’ it is true that the world lost a fine painter. Had he lived he would have bled me white. He would appear from time to time, you know, demanding money. No, that sailor who killed him did me a great favor, and my son too. And when he was dead I was able to write to my parents. I could never have been reconciled to them while he lived, and I am quite fond of them. Of
both
of them,” she added.

I did not reply to this at once, for I was thinking. “Was it . . . was it so very dreadful, being a woman alone, earning your living in London?”

“No . . . in some ways I enjoyed it, tho’ it was a fearsome struggle much of the time. And of course I had my son with me every moment, as I do not have him now. But Leon has never been strong. I could not neglect any chance to improve the conditions of his daily life. The neighborhood in which we resided was not ideal for a delicate child.”

I sat musing for a moment. If I had a talent like Miss Vincy’s, and no young brother or mother for whom I must save an estate, would I have the courage to live alone and independent? Then, if I ever
did
choose to marry, I could marry someone I liked and respected, without reference to his fortune. Someone who could make me laugh, for instance. Someone like . . .

However, I did
not
have a talent like Miss Vincy’s and I
did
have a mother and young brother who dearly needed me to marry well, so it was not worth thinking of. Perhaps one day women might be able to choose their husbands with no thought of money and position, but not in this day and age in Lesser Hoo, Yorkshire, England.

“My life is quite tolerable, by and large,” Miss Vincy was saying, “except that I see my son less than I would wish. I did have to promise my mother that I would marry any man of whom she approved, if she could maneuver him into asking, but I felt that I would be able to discourage most men from asking. Unfortunately, somehow or other Mr. Godalming got the idea that I was open to his advances. I do not know how it was that you got rid of him, Althea, but I am most grateful.”

The mortification which smote me may be imagined. “Oh, really, I had nothing to do with it,” I muttered, feebly repulsing her attempt to show her thankfulness by kissing me. “It was entirely Mr. Fredericks’s doing.”

I next had to listen to an effusion about what a staunch friend and all-in-all splendid fellow Mr. Fredericks was. In the faint hope of disillusioning her, I explained
how
he had discouraged Mr. Godalming, but she laughed merrily and shook her head at his cunning.

“I shall have to remember that!” she said. “Tho’ perhaps poor Papa would prefer I not use it too often.”

Dr. Haxhamptonshire called that afternoon and pronounced Leon to be well on the road to recovery. His temperature remained low for the rest of the afternoon, and it was determined that Miss Vincy and I would return on the morrow to our respective abodes.

The good doctor was warned not to call Miss Vincy by her married name again (“I only told him, because I did not wish him to look down on my son as illegitimate, and perhaps not exert himself to do everything he could,” she explained), and I thought he would obey, if only because a man as rich as Mr. Vincy and a woman as determined as Mrs. Vincy could cause him serious harm, even here in our quiet little corner of the world.

We ate a humble but hearty meal, and spent the evening with the invalid, who was awake and beginning to be interested in some warm gruel. Nurse Braddock sat with us and revealed herself to be a good, decent soul, fond of Miss Vincy and of young Leon. We whiled away the evening listening to her tales of Miss Vincy’s infancy and early years—I had little difficulty believing that she was a perfect paragon of goodness, and clever with her crayons—and went early to bed.

As neither of us had had the forethought to bring a change of clothes along on our visit, and as we did not wish our families to know where we were, Mr. Fredericks had been authorized to bring us the necessities so that we might present a dignified and decent appearance. To give greater color to the story that we had been staying at some distance, he then undertook to drive me by coach to the castle before returning Miss Vincy to the Park, even tho’ it was but a twenty-minute walk for me and fifteen for Miss Vincy.

We washed and dressed ourselves with as much care as possible and awaited his arrival. Master Leon was up this morning and toddling about, pestering his mother and his nurse to be allowed to go out of doors. Beyond the fact that he was new-risen from a sickbed, the day was rainy and blustery; he was instructed not to think of such a thing, but to play with his toys quietly in front of the fire.

But the morning wore away and Mr. Fredericks did not come. By noon Leon had exhausted his newfound vigor and become tired and peevish. He wept and coughed and clung to his mother, whom he rightly suspected was preparing to leave him. Nurse Braddock fed him some porridge with cream and his mama rocked him to sleep.

Miss Vincy laid her son down upon his bed and we waited, in a mood which alternated (at least for me) between annoyance and foreboding. Outside, the wind and rain lashed against the walls of the cottage, and through the windows we could see branches heaving back and forth.

“Perhaps Mr. Fredericks thinks the weather too bad to venture out,” suggested Miss Vincy.

I did not trouble to reply to this. Mr. Fredericks was not afraid of a little bad weather, and Miss Vincy knew it quite well. She was trying to persuade herself out of any unkind thoughts about him. Now would be the best possible time for her to leave, while her little boy slept. I knew she was torn, wishing to stay with him, to satisfy herself that all was as well with him as she believed, but she was also anxious to return to her parents and soothe their ruffled feelings and calm their fears. She bit her lip and watched the window and the small yard in front of the cottage.

I was occupied in preparing a scolding for Mr. Fredericks when he should finally arrive, until it suddenly occurred to me that there might be a reason beyond simple perversity for this delay. Perhaps he was ill. I remembered that he
had
been ill on his return from India. I wondered, as I never had before, about the nature of that illness, and how serious it had been. What if he was at this moment tossing with fever?

Or perhaps there had been an accident? He was a superb horseman, but accidents may happen even to the skilled. Pictures flashed across my mind, of Mr. Fredericks lying in a gully with a broken neck, of Lord Boring’s horses and carriage careening off a cliff.

“Althea, is something wrong? You have torn that handkerchief quite in half,” said Miss Vincy. “And your face is whiter than the handkerchief.”

I looked down. It was true. I had spoilt a perfectly good handkerchief. I began to reassure Miss Vincy, but was interrupted by the sound of hoofs and the jingle of harness in the road outside. We started up from our chairs and hurried to the door in time to hear Mr. Fredericks’s voice halting the horses and to see him, wearing a greatcoat of such smartness and with such a multiplicity of capes that it was almost certainly the property of Lord Boring, jumping down from the box.

Relief washed over me with such intensity that I realized I had been digging my fingernails into my palms for the past two hours. “Where have you been?” I demanded.

“Do not fly at me, I pray you, Miss Crawley,” he said, shaking the rainwater off himself all over the room, its contents and its occupants, like a large, wet dog. “I give you both my apologies for being so late. I had my reasons.” Although he was ostensibly speaking to me, his gaze was fixed on Miss Vincy, and he did not so much as glance in my direction during the following exchanges.

Since it seemed clear that he was not going to tell me those reasons, or at least not at present, I enquired after our clothing and other effects he had promised to bring.

“Oh, I forgot them,” he said. “Well, nothing is to be done about it now, I suppose. Are you ready? Miss Vincy?”

I was opening my mouth to berate him for this cavalier attitude, but something about the steadfast way in which he refused to look at me was unsettling.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, in a gentler tone.

“No, not at all,” he informed the top of Miss Vincy’s head. “Or rather, that is to say, yes, very much so. I’ve had a devil of a quarrel with Boring, and I intend to clear out as soon as I’ve delivered the two of you.”

“Clear out!” we cried in unison. Miss Vincy, remembering her sleeping son, hushed us, and the ensuing conversation took place in whispers.

“But you and Lord Boring are such great friends!” murmured Miss Vincy.

“No longer,” retorted Mr. Fredericks. “If I didn’t think duels were nothing but a waste of good ammunition, I swear I’d . . . Never mind. I’m off, and that lot at the Park can manage without my assistance.”

“But . . . but where will you go?” I asked, feeling as tho’ an arrow had pierced my heart
.

At this, his eyes shifted to mine for one brief moment, and I feared I may have allowed my emotion to appear in my voice.

“Doesn’t much matter, does it?” Then he bent his gaze once again on Miss Vincy.

“Well? Are you ready or not?” he said, and his tone was so savage that we gathered our shawls and bonnets and climbed into the coach in a meek silence.

19

SO BRIEF WAS OUR drive that we scarce had time to settle ourselves, trade puzzled looks, and consider how to debate the matter, before we jerked to a halt, the carriage door was wrenched open and Mr. Fredericks was handing me out into the side yard of the castle.

He was still not looking at me.

I caught his sleeve in a firm grip.

“Mr. Fredericks, I pray you,” I said earnestly. “Can you not see that you are frightening me? What is amiss between you and Lord Boring? And how does it affect me, or the ones I love? For I can see that it does,” I added, when he made as if to wave this away.

“I assure you—” he began, but I interrupted him.

“Whatever it is that you are about to assure me of
will not do
. Come, Mr. Fredericks, we have become friends, I hope, over these past weeks. Please pay me the compliment of treating me as a rational being, as you always have done.”

The sky, overcast and storm-tossed since dawn, darkened abruptly to a greenish gray. The horses tossed their heads and nickered uneasily. With a suddenness that made it seem as though someone above us on one of the castle parapets had upended a barrel of water over our heads, it began to rain very hard indeed. Mr. Fredericks uttered an outraged sputter as rivulets of water coursed down his neck.

“What the deuce do you mean by keeping us standing here in this downpour, madam?” he demanded. As if cued by his exclamation, a flash of lightning flickered on the horizon, followed almost immediately afterwards by a deafening roll of thunder. The moat, already high, was now at flood stage.

“I mean to get the answer to my question, sir,” I replied, much relieved to hear him relapse into his usual tone of familiar incivility, “and I will, even tho’ the waters of the North Sea rise up and drown us where we stand.”

Audibly grinding his teeth he said, “Oh, very well. I only learned of his betrothal to that long drink of vinegar, Miss Charity Winthrop, this morning. I told him it was a disgrace, when—”

C-r-r-ack! Bang-bang-crash!

Simultaneous with this stupendous noise, a white-hot finger of fire leapt from a cloud to that easternmost castle’s turret, which overhung the cliff. I clapped my hands to my ears, thus losing my grip on Mr. Fredericks’s sleeve. He took the opportunity to steer me towards the castle gate.