The Wicked Guardian (27 page)

29
.

While these affairs were in train, other events were occurring along the Bath Road. A carter, coming up from Stanley on his way to Bradenstick, was forced off the road by a pair of magnificent grays, rolling their eyes and trailing ribbons.

“Runaways,” pronounced the carter astutely, and began to watch for further signs of trouble. The grays had lost their curricle some way back, where the carter in due course came upon it, racked up against a beech trunk just off the road.

The carter pulled his lone nag to a halt, wrapped the reins around the post, and dismounted. With his usual thoroughness the carter considered the wreck, and began to search the environs. No sign, he decided, of any person.

At length he resumed his journey. Around the bend, only a few rods from the curricle, he came upon Benedict, no longer sprawled upon the road, but rolled to one side, doubled up as though in unbearable pain. The carter nodded wisely, halted his cart and horse, and knelt beside the injured man.

“Ann broke,” he informed his horse, since there was no use in talking to Choate, “and worse, if I’m any judge. Now, then, stand still, and we’ll see what can be done.”

The carter’s assistance was of such effectiveness that before long Benedict’s inert form was bundled into the cart and conveyed to the closest inn in the direction of Bath. The carter knew well the inn ahead, where Harry Rowse had found refreshment, and he judged that the likes of this gentleman would be fair game for a bunch of cutthroats.

“And I’m not about to hand him over to such as they,” he said stoutly, in explanation to the reluctant innkeeper. “Now, then, Pruitt, let’s get him out of the cart so’s I can be on my way. Late enough as it is.”

“I don’t want him here,” said the innkeeper. “Suppose he dies? No end of trouble. I won’t have it.”

Said the carter shrewdly, “I doubt not that those grays I saw beyond stableyard on road have something to do with this. They chew grass nice as you please, now their
fright is
over. But I’ll be bound they belong along of this man. I wouldn’t want anyone to know, was I you, that I had turned down a gentleman what owned cattle like them.”

The carter’s cogent arguments proved effective, and soon Benedict Choate was carried gingerly up the stairs and put into the best bed directly at the top of the stairs. The inn was not pretentious, but the landlady was kind, and experienced.

“Mark my words, Pruitt,” she said in a lowered voice after she rejoined her husband behind the taproom counter, “there’s going to be some questions asked about that man.” She nodded her head toward the stairs she had just descended. “That’s
quality
. Never saw such fine shirt as he has. All blood, a-course. I took his clothes off. Best send for doctor.”

“You think I’m stupid?” countered her spouse. “First thing I did. Can’t get here fast enough to suit me. Mind you, it’s too much to have a man dying upstairs, and us not even know who he is.”

She nodded. “There’s robbery in it, to my mind. No money, and nothing else to show who he is, but his ring. I can’t read the sign on it. There’s bound to be someone along asking questions. Let’s hope,” she finished gloomily, “that we don’t have just a corpse to show.”

While this conversation was taking place, the Ferguson coach lumbered heavily along the highway, its passenger peering fearfully from the window, first on one side and then the other.

What can have happened to Benedict? she wondered. Rowse had been so very vague about the circumstances in which he had left Choate that she was sure he told the truth. Had he been lying, she thought, he would have been quick with imaginary details. But
hors de combat
could mean almost anything...

She was torn between the urge to tell coachman ta hurry, hurry, and the more reasonable reflection that if they traveled faster she might overlook something of prime importance. She was ready to go all the way to Bath, and inquire at Choate’s lodgings, if she needed to, to ascertain that he was in health. But she darkly doubted that he was safe. Rowse had been too sure of himself.

She remembered that Ferguson had told her that he had left a note for Choate. Knowing her guardian as she did, Clare was positive that he would let little time pass before he was on the road after her. He might not care about her, but he surely cared about his legal responsibility. A cold comfort, she thought, but still, better than nothing, for it did mean that he would rescue her.

But Rowse had seemed unconcerned about the possibility of Choate coming to her in time to escape his own advances. There was only one reason why he could feel so genuinely safe. He must know precisely Benedict’s condition.

Full of foreboding, she almost missed the one clue that lay along the road for her. “Oh, stop, coachman!” she cried. The coach labored to a halt, and coachman descended from the box with difficulty.

“Now, what is it, miss?” he puffed, but she was already down from the coach and hurrying back along the road. He followed, along with a footman, after giving strict orders for the curious groom to hold the horses, or he would
give him one
. Clare found the racked-up curricle.

“Do you think it could have been Lord Choate’s?” she queried, and cried, seeing coachman’s solemn nod, “Whatever can have happened?”

“Best go on and ask, first place we find,” suggested coachman. “Looks to me like curricle headed west, so we’ll just go west. Don’t worry, miss. Like as not we’ll find him, all right and tight.”

Find him they did, at the inn. But he was not “all right and tight.”

Pale but resolute, she marched into the inn, prepared to ask searching questions. She found she would not be put to any trouble about it.

Taking a deep breath, she began, “I saw a wrecked curricle,” and was promptly interrupted. The landlady, a kindly smile upon her face, broke in, “Ah, I told my man there would be someone come to ask. The man himself is upstairs, and the doctor coming, but I don’t know ... Is he a relation, miss?”

“My guardian,” said Clare. “But you said doctor? Is he ill?”

Solemnly the innkeeper spoke over his wife’s ample shoulder, “Nigh dead.”

When at last she stood by the bedside of her guardian, she realized that the innkeeper spoke only the truth. In fact, he seemed already passing from life. Her heart sank to her toes, and she knew the color drained from her cheeks, for the landlady reached out to support her.

“No, no,” she exclaimed impatiently, “I’m all right. Do ... do you know the nature of his ... injuries?”

“Not all,” said the landlady, Mrs. Pruitt, honestly. “Arm broken, but that’s little enough, when all’s said. But the doctor—”

“Where is he?” Suddenly Clare felt a surge of energy and spirit. If Benedict was about to die, at least he had not done so yet, and there were things to be done.

“Pray send to hurry the doctor,” she begged. “He must come at once. I would send my own footman, but I need him for another errand.”

“I’ll send my own boy this time,” promised Mrs. Pruitt, struck by the slim girl’s stamina under the staggering blow that had nearly felled her. From that moment on, the landlady was a stout cohort of the “pretty miss, in such a taking about her guardian that I feared we’d have two down.”

Furnished with pen and paper, Clare sat down to consider the exact wording of the note she would send to Benedict’s sister. She had no clear idea of how far away Shenton was, but she knew it was her first duty to inform Lady Lindsay of her brother’s terrible straits. At length, not quite satisfied but believing that speed was more essential than delicacy of wording, she folded the note and sent the footman on his way with urgent words about the need for haste.

She went back upstairs, removed her bonnet and pelisse in the room set aside for her, and hurried back to sit with Benedict until the doctor arrived.

The light was failing when at last he puffed his way up the stairs. “Sorry,” he said, upon seeing Clare, “baby case, you know. Thought he’d never come. Couldn’t leave.”

His examination of Benedict, with Clare holding the light as he directed, was not so brief as his speech. At length, puffing his lips in and out as he worked, he set Benedict’s arm, with the rugged help of the ostler, who had the impression that a bone was a bone, whether human or equine. Clare all but called out in protest once, but she glanced at Benedict, whose gray face was wet with perspiration, and kept silent. He had enough to suffer without knowing she was there.

At length the doctor was satisfied. He sent the ostler away, and wiped his brow. “A hard one,” he said.

“W-will he be all right?”

The doctor looked back at the patient, bandaged, reclining on clean sheets. “He’s still alive. That’s all I can say. Depends. I’ll send a nurse to watch the night.”

“Never mind,” said Clare. “I shall not leave him.”

It was a long night. He roused once, and groaned. Clare hurried to him, taking his hand. “Dear Benedict. I’ll get the medicine the doctor left.”

Helping him to raise his head, she managed to coax the few drops of laudanum in water down his throat. His brow was feverish, and she was wild with worry. He was surely dying!

“You,” said Benedict with startling clarity. “You here.”

“Yes, Benedict. You must not try to talk.”

“Where’s...?” The effort was too much, combined with the laudanum, which took quick effect, and Benedict lapsed back on the pillow and slept.

Clare sat in the chair nearby. The night wore on. She dozed, in spite of her determination to stay awake, and woke with a start each time. Listening for Benedict’s breathing, she moved silently to the bedside and waited until she was reassured by the rise and fall of his bandaged chest. Two ribs broken, said the doctor, and we’ll have to hope that one of them didn’t puncture his lungs.

Seeing him breathe quietly, she crept back to her chair and pondered. It was her fault that Benedict had come to this state. If she had not been so headstrong, she wouldn’t have gone off with Alexander, and Benedict would not have come after her and run into Rowse.

It was a tangled web, the farther she looked back upon her own sins. There seemed to be no end to them, from the moment she had arrived in London to the dreadful scene at Carlton House, where she had fled in tears. No wonder Benedict was furious. She thought darkly that whatever decorum she might gain with the daunting Mrs. Duff would be of no avail.

If Benedict died, it would be her fault.

She was wakeful now. The dawn at last lightened the sky toward Newbury, where Sir Alexander sat without his coach and his servants. She dismissed him with a mental wave of the hand. He was as nothing to her now. She had considered marrying him, since Benedict...

The truth came upon her like a physical blow. Since Benedict was out of her reach, then she would settle for anyone. Even Sir Alexander Ferguson!

It was a devastating blow. She could not sit still, but rose and tiptoed to the bed. She looked down upon the still face, carved as though from ivory, and reflected. Was it true that these features would be ever in her heart, that she could never be happy without Benedict’s steady presence, without his calm assumption that he knew best for her, without the lowering knowledge that he was, indeed, always right?

It was true.

She stifled a half-sob in her throat Even so, the tiny sound reached Benedict in his stuporous sleep, and he stirred, his eyes opening to narrow slits. He reached his sound hand toward her. “You came,” he muttered thickly. “My very dear—”

“No, no, Benedict,” she breathed, wincing a little as she realized that she had not once thought of sending word to Marianna in Bath about Benedict. Now, with her new knowledge, she knew why. Her lapse must be attended to. The morning would be time enough, she thought, kneeling by the side of the bed. Benedict’s grip on her wrist was reassuringly strong. Surely a dying man had no such strength!

Comforted, letting her hand lie comfortably under his, she laid her head on the coverlet and slept

30
.

Clare sat in her private parlor at a late breakfast of ham, scones, and fresh butter. Two cups of strong coffee routed the impression that her head was filled with lumps of cotton. It would take more than coffee to wear away the stiffness from kneeling on the floor for hours while Benedict clung to her hand.

The landlady was kindly keeping an eye on him while Clare ate. Mrs. Pruitt expressed gratification at the appearance of Lord Choate this morning. “See, his face is paler, that’s a good sign. Shows less fever. He’s cooler than yesterday, you’ll notice. He might just do.”

Thus reassured, Clare enjoyed her breakfast and began to think what was best to do. Sir Alexander’s footman had not returned from his errand to Lady Lindsay. Clare hoped that it meant good news, that he had stayed to serve as guide to the inn, rather than the dreadful possibility that he might still be wandering around the byroads of Wiltshire looking for his destination.

The need for informing Benedict’s betrothed of his desperate condition nagged at her. Still she did not stir. She was too shaken by the great revelation that had come to her with the day’s dawning to form phrases that would not betray her.

In her troubled state, her sense of humor strove to aid her. She could write to Marianna and say, “Thanks to your meddling in my affairs, I was forced into headlong flight, and Choate followed, with the result that he lies now near death!”

There was the matter of her own guilt, and she wished to confess it to her guardian herself before the tale had been filtered through Marianna’s malicious mind. Her guardian—she heard the words echoing through the empty places in her mind. Had she really always called him her
wicked
guardian, as Rowse had claimed? If she had, then she was thrice guilty—for leading Rowse to false conclusions, for putting Benedict to the trouble of pursuing her, and in addition blackening his name among all she knew.

For Benedict was no wicked guardian; she knew that now.

More than this—she could not now face Benedict or his fiancée until she had regained a measure of control over her runaway, traitorous emotions. If she were to live her long, barren life without Benedict, she must curb this wayward and totally irresponsible desire to fling herself on him and sob her heart out.

She was in love with Benedict, true enough. But he was in love with Marianna, and not with his foolish,
green
ward. He had said distinctly, “You came.” Who else but Marianna?

Her hand shook as she set her empty cup down. She sank lower in her mood, and hardly heard the tumult that erupted suddenly in the innyard. When at last the noise rose to a level that penetrated her small parlor, she hurried to the window.

It was a sight worth looking at. From the wide yard gate back to the stable, there was motion. The center of attention was an enormous traveling coach, beautifully hung on swan’s-neck springs in the latest degree of comfort The coach was drawn by a team of four glossy chestnuts, the coachman on the box hard put to hold them until the two grooms sprang down from the box and ran to their heads.

The equipage was certainly the property of someone of great importance, judging from the scurrying ostlers, the prancing outriders, each one heavily armed—Clare counted four, besides the two footmen on the boot. Mine host stood at the door in welcome. Clare could hear the impatient footsteps of the landlady in Benedict’s room overhead as she hurried to the window just above.

The footmen sprang to open the coach door and set the steps. Clare watched spellbound as the occupants descended. First were two maids, followed by a man carrying a black bag, clearly a surgeon. Then, with the maids and the doctor together assisting, with exaggerated care for the person of their mistress, down stepped a slender woman of great elegance. She darted quick, birdlike glances around her, but even from Clare’s window it was clear that the lady wore a frown of anxiousness, and at once her identity was plain.

Lady Lindsay, Benedict’s sister, had arrived, with sufficient staff to run a country house, so it seemed to Clare. She hurried to greet the newcomer.

“So,” said Primula Lindsay, “you are Clare.” Her smile, as she held out her hands to take Clare’s, was dazzling, and Clare at once felt all her burdens lifted from her shoulders.

“I was right,” said Lady Lindsay obscurely. “How is my brother? I see you have been sitting up with him all night.” At Clare’s baffled look, Lady Lindsay continued, “You are very tired, you know. Such a harrowing experience! You must tell me exactly how it happened, but first, let me make my physician known to you. Mr. Otten, Miss Penryck. Now, perhaps landlord could take him to Benedict?”

“I will take him. Mrs. Pruitt, the landlady, you know, is: with him now.”

But Lady Lindsay drew Clare’s hand through her arm and said, “No, we shall let Pruitt—is that your name?—take Mr. Otten up. He will take Shute”—she motioned to a footman, who sprang to obey—“and let us know. Lindsay was most reluctant to let me come. But I told him, Choate is my brother and I have known him much longer than I have known you, you see.”

Still talking gently, she drew Clare into the parlor with her, and made her sit in the chair she had just now vacated.

“I think you said that it was your fault?” Primula said, testing the coffeepot with her hand. “Cold coffee is one thing I cannot abide.”

She turned to her hovering maid. “Here you are, Megg. I suppose Yarrow is upstairs? Just so. Get us some hot coffee, and tell the landlord we must not be disturbed except by Mr. Otten. Then do you run upstairs to help Yarrow with the bedrooms.” She turned to Clare and said, “You must know that I have brought my own bedding, enough for your room as well. I am persuaded that you have been too anxious to rest at all. I am prattling, don’t you know, because I am so very distressed, and I shall not make sense, I fear, until I hear from Mr. Otten that Benedict will do.”

They drank the hot coffee in silence that, to Clare’s surprise, was companionable. Primula’s friendly eyes seemed to look right through her, and, to Clare’s heartfelt pleasure, appeared to like what they saw. They both sprang to their feet when Mr. Otten came in.

‘Tell me!” commanded Primula. “Fear not for my condition, for it is much harder not to know the truth, you know.”

Thus adjured, Mr. Otten said, “He’ll do, he’ll do. But it was a near thing. Doctor was competent, far as I know. I think, with your permission, your ladyship, I should stay on here a bit, just to make sure.”

“I’ll have them make your room available,” she said at once, “right next to Benedict’s. Can I see him?”

Mr. Otten went up with her to Benedict’s room. They stayed there for what seemed to be a long time, to Clare, and when Lady Lindsay came down, she was alone.

“He will do,” said Primula, greatly relieved. “But he is so weak.” She came to sit beside Clare. “I can rest easily on his account now,” she announced. “But it seems to me you are equally in dire straits. Can you tell me about it?”

It was the first kindly word that Clare had heard recently, the first truly sympathetic interest that touched her, and her eyes filled. “I ... I’d like to,” she said gratefully, and began.

She omitted nothing, from the time that her grandmother had told her she was to go to Lady Thane in London, until this morning when Lady Lindsay’s coach swept into the yard in such overpowering grandeur. “You can’t guess how relieved I was to see you!” Clare finished. She had forgotten nothing in her narrative, but she had seen no reason to burden Primula with the revelation that had come to her when she saw Benedict helpless and dying. That feeling was a secret she would always keep to herself—it was the least penance she could perform to atone for her headstrong rebellion that had brought her guardian to such low ebb.

Primula looked searchingly at her brother’s ward. Did the poor child think that her regard for Benedict could pass unnoticed? She had long held a guarded antipathy toward Marianna Morton, and looked with favor now on the golden-curled girl who would make, so his sister thought, a much better wife than the domineering Marianna. Something would have to be done, she decided, but there wasn’t the faintest hope of rearranging Benedict’s life unless he wished it. And even so, she knew Benedict well enough to know that he would not back off from an arrangement made in good faith.

“I suppose,” she said delicately, “that your regard for Sir Alexander has waned?”

“Sir Alexander?” echoed Clare blankly. “Oh, yes, yes, of course, I only thought...” Her voice died away. She had only wanted to make Benedict jealous, she realized now. And she would not admit that to anyone.

“I wonder whether it might not be well to send Sir Alexander’s coach back to him?” suggested Primula.

“Thank you, I had quite forgotten it. I’ll do so at once.”

“But you will stay?” pursued Primula.

“Of course,” said Clare, adding, unconsciously revealing her newfound docility, “I don’t know yet what Benedict would wish me to do.”

Primula, with a frown, continued to study the question of her brother’s marriage after Clare had gone to give orders about the coach. Primula had a shrewd notion of how things stood with Clare. But it was too soon to quiz Benedict about his feelings.

Two days later, Lady Lindsay and Clare were still at the inn. Lady Lindsay’s servants provided the party with the utmost comforts the small inn could provide. The patient upon whose well-being the entire inn revolved was making progress after the first day of Primula’s visit. Mr. Otten’s care was assiduous and effective, but in spite of the medicine, the mulled claret, the changing of dressings, the bathing of the fevered face, he remained restless.

Clare thought he was still overly feverish, but Primula noted with bright-eyed interest that he seemed more quiet when Clare sat with him. At such times, he would search the coverlet until his hand touched hers, and then he seemed content to let his hand rest, covering the small fingers until he fell asleep.

In the late afternoon of the second day, while Lady Lindsay wrote a long and reassuring letter to her anxious husband, Benedict was pronounced well enough to venture, with help, down the stairs to sit in a chair in the small private parlor.

Supported by the two footmen and encouraged by Clare, Primula, Mrs. Pruitt, and Mr. Otten, Benedict collapsed in a chair. He was weak as a kitten, but no longer feverish, he said. But Mr. Otten decided he was well enough so that he himself could return to his duties at Shenton, and he departed in the Lindsay coach, which would shortly return for Lady Lindsay. It was planned that Benedict would return to complete his convalescence at his sister’s home.

“And you, Clare? Will you be able to find enough to do at Shenton?” queried Primula.

“I don’t think Benedict wants me to go there. I confess I don’t know quite how to go on, but I am persuaded that he would wish me to return to Penryck Abbey. Mrs. Duff is to come to me there, I think.”

“Do not fret about it yet, Clare. When Benedict is well enough, we will see what he wants. But I wish to tell you that you are always, today or any day, welcome at Shenton. With or without Benedict, you know.”

“Thank you!” Clare was reluctant to see these few days come to an end. She had become exceedingly fond of Primula, and of course it was sheer delight to tend Benedict, to watch the black eyebrows lift in amusement, to prepare his meals for him. Mrs. Pruitt meant well, but Clare fancied that Benedict ate better if she sat with him. She knew that ahead lay a great void, which would last her entire life.

“But you know Benedict will soon be married,” Clare added wistfully, and the melancholy look in her eyes stirred Primula to thoughtful speculation.