The Cornish Heiress (4 page)

Robert Partridge, the family physician, had known better
when he was summoned to attend Megaera. He was somewhat in her confidence
because he treated her father and had treated Edward that time John had beaten
him nearly to death. He knew Megaera with her big violet eyes, little tip-tilted
nose, and sweet rosy lips was as tough as whipcord. He came in haste, but to
congratulate her on her fortunate release, not to support her faltering spirit.
In his hurry he nearly stumbled over big John’s feet. The deaf-mute was leaning
on the wall beside his mistress’s door, trembling with fear. Partridge patted
the giant’s shoulder comfortingly, but it had little effect. Only Megaera could
comfort him. She was the only person who could really communicate with John
after his mother died.

As the doctor walked into the room and held out his hands to
Megaera in a wordless gesture of understanding, John’s history passed through
his mind. The boy had been the last child of a shepherd and his wife, conceived
some freak of nature when both were too old to expect such a result from their
intercourse. Partridge had not really been surprised when the woman had brought
the three-year-old to his office because the child could not speak or hear.
Children born so late in their parents lives sometimes were defective. He had
confirmed sadly that the condition was permanent. What had surprised him was
that the boy was clean, well-fed, and responded well to signs his mother made
to him.

Partridge had not seen John again for many years, had
forgotten his existence, until he had been called urgently to Bolliet Manor to
care for an accident victim. Thinking Lord Bolliet had injured himself in a
drunken fit, Partridge had made haste. However, he had been directed to the
stables, where he found thirteen-year-old Megaera kneeling beside a battered
and torn giant, stroking him and making signs with her hands.

“Good God, who is this? What has happened?” Partridge had
asked.

Megaera’s eyes shot sparks of rage, but she answered
collectedly. “This is John Shepherd. His father used to tend our sheep. When
the old man died, I allowed his widow to stay on in the cottage. I visited from
time to time to make sure she and John didn’t starve. He can’t speak or hear, you
know. Some lunatics—I don’t know where they could have come from—attacked him.”

“He’s grown to a fair size,” Partridge murmured, kneeling
down and looking at the cuts and bruises on John’s enormous torso. You’d think even
deaf and mute he could defend himself.”

“I’m sure he could,” Megaera snapped, “but I think he didn’t
understand at first what was happening. When he realized, it was too late. Her eyes
filled with tears. “They had put a rope around his neck and tied him up—I found
him that way. He had been there two days. They left him to die!”

The doctor set his jaw with rage, but shook his head. “But
how the devil did they get him tied up?”

“He must have let them. John never expected any harm. Old Goody
Shepherd was always kind to him, and she never let him go to town or mix with
people who would hurt him or make fun of him. He probably thought it was some
kind of game.”

“Too bad,” Partridge said, keeping a wary eye on his patient
while he probed around to determine the extent of the damage.

He was a little nervous, expecting that John might react
violently to being hurt again after his bad experience, but the big man kept
his eyes fixed, on Megaera’s face. Although John occasionally winced and gasped
under the doctor’s hands, he obviously understood from Megaera’s expression that
Partridge was trying to help him. It was clear that John was not an idiot, although
his mind moved slowly. There were other peculiarities about him. He must be in
his mid-twenties, Partridge thought, trying to remember what year he had seen
him as a child, but he had no beard nor any more hair on his body than a young boy
would have.

“Can you leave him for a while?” Partridge asked. “I want to
examine the rest of him. Will he let me?”

“I’ll tell him—I hope,” Megaera replied. “I learned to talk
to him a little.” She made signs for
I have to go away
and then for
I’ll
come back soon
. Then she pointed to Partridge, stroked him, kissed his cheek,
took John’s hand and made it stroke the doctor, took the doctor’s hand and stroked
John’s cheek. Last she made the sign for
Good
. “I hope that’ll do,” she
said. “I’ll be right outside. If he acts up, yell and I’ll come. Better my sensibilities
be offended by John naked than you get your neck broken.”

In fact, Partridge had no trouble with John, who was as meek
as possible, even though he was clearly distressed at having to take off his
pants. His mother had taught him modesty. The doctor salved a bruise or two
while confirming his suspicions that there was more lacking in John than voice
and hearing. The scrotum was minute and empty, the penis no bigger than a
child’s. John was a natural eunuch. In a sense that was an enormous relief.
There was no chance that the big brute would be driven by frustration to
forcing himself on women.

It was more of a relief after John’s hurts were dressed and he
was bedded down temporarily in the barn, because Megaera said she was going to
keep the deaf-mute at Bolliet. “It isn’t possible to send him back to the
cottage by himself. Goody died a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t know what to do
about John. It seemed cruel to take his home away, as well as his mother, so I left
him to see whether he could manage alone Thank goodness I decided to go up there
today to see how he was making out.”

Partridge pursed his lips and frowned. “Do you think it wise
to keep him here?” he asked. For all Megaera spoke like an adult and did more
about managing the estate than her father, she really was only a child herself.

“There isn’t anything else I can do,” she said, looking
Partridge squarely in the eyes. “And if you are thinking I should have him
locked up, I won’t do it! It would be
murder
, plain murder. You know it
would.”

Of, course, Partridge thought, as he presently held
Megaera’s hands and smiled down at her, as things worked out it was the best
thing that could have happened. John was perfectly gentle—unless Megaera told
him not to be gentle. God knew what would have happened to her if John had not
been there to defend her after she married Devoran. It was after he had treated
Edward for the beating John had given him that he told Megaera it was even safe
to let John sleep in her room, if it was necessary, that he was not a man in
the usual sense and would never have any interest in women.

“You’d better let John in,” he said, releasing her hands.
“He knows something bad has happened but he doesn’t know what, and he’s scared
to death.”

“Heavens,” Megaera responded, “I forgot all about him. You
know he follows me around like a shadow unless I send him away. He must have
been there when Lord Moreton told me about Edward. I came right up here after
sending the groom for Mrs. Levallis. Yes, let him in.”

As soon as she made the sign for
All’s well
and
smiled at John, his trembling stopped and he sat down on a big chair reserved
for him in the corner. Partridge shook his head. All the trouble had faded from
John’s face. He was as happy as—as happy as a clam, and just about as sensible.
It was too bad that Megaera’s emotional wounds could not be healed so easily.
In one sense she was rid of Devoran, but in another she might never be rid of
him.

“What will you do now, Meg?” the doctor asked.

She looked at him, much startled, wondering whether Edward
could have told the doctor about the debts—Partridge was everyone’s confidant.
Then she realized he was again gently suggesting that she should go away as he
had recommended many times recently. No one knew that she couldn’t afford to
leave Bolliet and might not even be able to continue to afford to live there.
If her father had any idea of what he had signed all those years ago, he
certainly had no recollection of it now. He would probably miss Edward. Megaera
had never told him the truth. What good would it have done?

“I can’t leave Papa,” she said. There was nothing Dr.
Partridge could do for her, so there was no sense in telling him her troubles.

“Don’t be silly, Meg,” Partridge said sharply. “There isn’t
anything you can do for him that the servants can’t. And I‘ll look in twice a
week as I always do. If he should take a turn for the worse, I would let you
know. It’s no life for you here.”

“He would miss me,” Megaera protested.

“Whenever he happened to notice you weren’t there,” the
doctor remarked dryly, “but since he probably wouldn’t remember the last time
he saw you… You aren’t looking well, Meg. I’ve been worried about you for
months.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said with a tired smile.

Actually, Partridge might get what he wanted, if not the way
he wanted it, she thought after the doctor left. She might have to leave
Bolliet. There was not much left in the jewel box, and the interest was due at the
end of the quarter. She went back to racking her brains for a new source of
income, but she had been up and down that path many, many times. It was worn
into ruts so deep that Megaera doubted she could see over them even if there
were new fields to plow. She had hoped that Edward’s death might open a road
that had been blocked before, but if one existed, she could not find it.

In due course Edward was buried and Megaera was free to
resume her normal occupations within the bounds of mourning. On the first day
that it was proper for her to ride out, John made known to her that he would
like to go up to the hut. He went there three or four times a year to air it,
sweep out the dust, and make sure the place was watertight as well as to tend
Goody’s grave. Megaera had tried to explain to him that he could bring the bits
of furniture and crockery to Bolliet Manor and she would give him a room in
which to keep his treasures, but John either could not or would not understand
her. Perhaps the cottage was some kind of shrine to his mother.

That was a new thing to worry about. If she could not stay
at Bolliet, what would happen to John? Usually Megaera sent him to the cottage
alone, but this day, with the odor of the funeral wreaths still cloying the air
in the house she decided to ride up and see the condition of the place for
herself. Perhaps if she were there she could explain to John about bringing his
things home with him.

Her mind was busy with trying to formulate a set of signs
that would get her point across, when John entered the cottage. An instant
later there was the soft gobbling, which was the only sound John could make,
and a shot rang out, followed by a shriek of pain. Megaera slid from her horse,
but there was no place immediately available to tie the creature. She dragged
it forward to the doorway of the cottage, just in time to see John lift a man
off the bed and throw him heavily to the floor. He was half stunned but still
struggling to reach a weapon in his boot top when John put a foot on him.

Fortunately John was near enough to the door for Megaera to
reach him without dropping the reins. She signed
Stop
before both hand
and leg were splintered. “You had better be perfectly still,” she said to the
man. “John can and will kill you without hesitation.”

“He attacked me,” the man groaned, “came into my house—”

“It’s not your house,” Megaera interrupted coldly. “I know
it’s John’s.”

Technically, of course, it was her father’s house, but
Megaera had no intention of identifying herself at the moment. As the man lay,
it was impossible for him to see her. A quick glance around the cottage had
told a clear tale. A bowl of dirty water and cloths with bloodstains on them
bespoke an injury the man was afraid to have treated. The way he had struggled
to reach his weapon and the fact that he had several in odd places about his
person spoke of a criminal. Obviously he was a fugitive from justice.

There were, of course, many reasons for evading the law, but
Edward’s death and the raid on the smugglers’ hideout were prominent in
Megaera’s mind. By now she knew that some of the smugglers had escaped.
Naturally she associated this escaped criminal with the smugglers. She
associated something else. Megaera had been through Edward’s possessions since
his death and had found several interesting things—first, a list of names and
places matched with quantities of different types of liquor, but there was also
money, jewelry, and clothing that had been purchased quite recently. Since
Edward had not had a penny from the estate and no one would lend to him or
allow him to buy on credit, he had found a substantial source of income—and
that source of income must have been the customers listed.

John’s eyes flicked back and forth between the man he had
subdued and his mistress, so that Megaera did not need to touch him again
before she signed
Tie him up
. That caused some confusion. John knew
tie
up
, but such an order had never been applied to a person. Megaera had to
show him, hands crossed behind her back and then pointing to her ankles. She
stepped back as soon as she was sure John understood, to find a place to hitch
her horse. That did not take long, but Megaera did not reenter the cottage. She
needed time to think.

Before John’s slow mind came to grips with the fact that his
mistress had not come back and he came stumbling out to seek her. Several
decisions had been made. The first was that Megaera intended to transfer
Edward’s source of income to the payment of the mortgages on Bolliet Manor if
it was humanly possible. The second was that to do that, one had to avoid
getting caught, not only by the Customs men but, also by the smugglers
themselves who, if they discovered a weakness anywhere, were bound to exploit
it to their own advantage. The third was that she would let the man go whether
or not he could help her make contact with the smuggling ring. The chief of the
gang had killed Edward, and Megaera was grateful.