Toblethorpe Manor (26 page)

Food—none

Drink—none

Time—(she consulted the clock on the mantel) eleven A.M.

Occupation—none

Present—no one.

After a moment’s consideration she scratched out the last and substituted “maid.” Then she lay back with her eyes closed and prayed that the pain would go away. It faded, but every time she opened her eyes again, it returned, so she kept them shut.

Soon Charles came in and chased Mary out. “Miss Stuart is my cousin,” he pointed out. “I wish to speak privately with her.”

His presence seemed to banish the headache completely. Under his anxious interrogation she told him the full story of the dreadful year she had gone through.

“Oh, Charlie, if you had not come home at last, what should I have done?”

Horrified by her description, which was much more distressing at first hand than through the medium of Lady Cressman’s letter, he soothed and comforted her. At last, clinging to his hand, she asked him doubtfully, “How did I come here, Charles? I rode and rode through the snow, it seemed like forever, but I cannot recall reaching London nor how I found you.”

Charles was not sure whether, or how, he ought to answer. Rosalind seemed worried about it, so he decided it would upset her less to hear a part of the truth.

“You have been ill for some time,” he explained gently. “You were found in Yorkshire by some very kind people who brought you here to me. This is their house, in London.”

“Are they the ones who were in that room with us, where I found you? A lady and a girl and a tall dark gentleman?”

“Yes. They have been taking care of you.” He debated telling her about his own love for Lucy. It seemed to add an unnecessary complication, so he left the news for later. Lucy had not told him of Richard’s love for Rosalind, deeming her brother’s confidence more important than her beloved’s early enlightenment. She was sure it would all turn out happily in the end.

Thus Charles did not know the true reason for Richard’s change of heart toward him. He could not call the demanded delay before their marriage unreasonable, considering that Lucy was not yet eighteen. Only two things remained to mar his happiness, Rosalind’s imperfect health and memory, and the question of what to do about his Uncle Henry. The latter, at least, he could dismiss for the present.

“I must have been very ill,” mused his cousin. “I do not feel as if I know them at all. Yet when I see them I feel a strange sort of tugging in my head. They must be delightful people to care for a complete stranger, Charles.”

She was shy but composed when they came in, one by one, to see her. Her head was bad again, so that she was unable to converse for long. She thanked Richard and Lady Annabel for taking her in and looking after her. It near broke Richard’s heart that she looked on him as a stranger, until he considered that the alternative was to be regarded as a rejected suitor. Perhaps Lucy was right, and he would have a second chance, be able to start again with a clean slate and avoid all his mistakes. Then he remembered that the doctor expected her to regain the missing weeks gradually. There was no comfort for him whichever way he looked.

With Lucy, Rosalind had been able to talk a little longer, as her headache was not so severe at that time. She diligently noted its comings and goings and began to see a pattern. It seemed to disappear almost when she was alone or with Charles. Was she in some way sensitive to strangers?

Dr. Knighton was delighted when he saw her carefully kept record the next day. It confirmed his suspicions absolutely. He spoke to her only briefly, telling her she should leave her bed, though not her chamber. Then he hurried off to explain his theory, or rather Herr Doktor Holzkopf’s theory. He was a little puzzled by the maid’s appearance on the list, and bore her off with him, just in case.

His audience, gathered once more in the drawing room, was the same with the addition of a frightened Mary.

“See!” he cried, waving Rosalind’s record at them triumphantly. “This confirms all my suppositions. Miss Stuart is in pain only when a Carstairs, or this young woman, is present.”

“I wouldn’t hurt her owt, sir, honest I wouldn’t,” sobbed Mary. “No more the others wouldn’t neither.”

“No, no, my good girl, I am not suggesting it is deliberate. You see, ladies and gentlemen, a part of her mind recognizes you, a part that is being suppressed for some reason. In fact, the part of the memory that deals with the last two months. The stimulus of your presence, any of you, brings the warfare in her mind into the open, so to speak, and gives her a raging headache.” He looked round beaming, as if he expected applause, like a conjurer pulling a rabbit from a top hat.

Again, Mary was the only one to speak.

“Then why,” she demanded suspiciously, “isn’t James here? He went into t’room several times, to mend t’fire like, an’ he tol’ me he spoke to her, just to see if she were wanting owt. She knowed James when she were my Miss Fell.”

“Aha!” exclaimed the great man, “you have inadvertently supplied the missing link, my dear young woman. You must have been very fond of Miss Fell, close to her?”

Mary nodded and sniffed.

“There we have it! James, I take it, is a footman. She would hardly know him in more than a casual way. She was only acquainted with Miss Carstairs for a week at the beginning, when she was very ill, and a few days at the end of the period. You will note that she records only mild pain in the presence of Miss Carstairs. Proof! This proves that the sight of anyone with whom she was intimate during the missing two months triggers these alarming headaches. Miss Stuart must go home!”

No argument would change his mind. The only totally efficacious treatment, he insisted, was to return to the place where nothing would remind her of the part of her life that she could not remember.

“It will be a blank, she will soon forget that it is there,” he declared.

Lucy burst into tears. “But Charles and I are to be married!” she wailed. “How can he marry me if Rosalind and I may never meet?”

Richard could have voiced a stronger protest. He held his tongue. The doctor heaved a heavy sigh and raised his eyebrows in exasperation. It was so difficult to practice medicine efficiently with people around.

“When is the wedding to be? Not for six months? In six months anything can happen. She may recover her memory naturally. Or it may be dimmed by time so that it is no longer painful to her. In six months you have my permission to see her again. Today, off to Northumberland!” He took his leave.

After a great deal of discussion, it was settled that Charles and Rosalind should leave on the following Monday. Mary was heartbroken when she was at last convinced that there was no way she could go with her young lady.

Charles and Lucy were heartbroken to have to part so soon. Richard was heartbroken at the thought of losing Rosalind forever, though he did his best to conceal it. And Lady Annabel was heartbroken to see all the hearts breaking around her. It was a dismal party that sat down to luncheon, and only Lucy, her appetite quite unaffected by her emotions, made a good meal.

It was arranged that Charles should correspond with Lucy, and thus pass on news of Rosalind’s health. For the moment, he reported that her headache had almost completely vanished, leaving only a slight nagging pain, which he attributed to her unfamiliarly familiar chamber.

None of them dared see her, even to say farewell. Sad faces looked down from the drawing-room window as Charles escorted her to the post chaise. He looked up and blew a kiss to Lucy, then they disappeared from sight inside the carriage.

A moment later the chaise turned the corner of the street and they were gone.

Chapter 16

Though it was mid-April, there was still snow on the high hilltops and in shaded hollows when the post chaise turned into the drive of Cressman Court. Rosalind shivered a little in the brisk breeze as Charles helped her alight.

He had decided to bring his cousin to Lady Cressman until he had discovered the situation at Bennendale. She seemed quite well, though apt to fall often into a brown study, but he did not feel that a confrontation with their uncle would be good for her health.

Lady Cressman welcomed them with open arms. A buxom lady with a soft Scots accent, she sent servants scurrying to provide refreshment for her guests, prepare a chamber for Rosalind, and fetch Joan. Rosalind had a damp reunion with her tearful abigail, who had been sure she must be dead.

From my lady’s rambling chatter, Charles gathered at length that Uncle Henry was gone.

“Ran off just a day or two after Joan escaped, last week some time. And a good riddance to the rascal is what I say,” declared Lady Cressman firmly. “The way he behaved to poor Rosalind, and Sir Donald says the land is quite gone to wrack and ruin, and that dreadful colonel…”

“Then we need not trespass on your hospitality,” interrupted the major, knowing from long experience that if he did not do so he would never get a word in edgewise.

“Oh, you must both stay here,” insisted Lady Cressman. “The man had no proper servants and from what I hear the house is all at sixes and sevens. I fear you will not find…”

“Do you know what became of our servants, ma’am?”

“I believe most of them went to their families. I daresay Joan might know more. If I were you I should…”

Joan and Rosalind’s reunion was cut short and Charles questioned the girl while Lady Cressman took Rosalind above stairs to tidy herself. Presently Sir Donald came in, and the major was relieved to hear that the damage to his land was not as severe as he had feared.

“Take a bit o’ hard work but you’ll soon have it in good heart again,” was Sir Donald’s verdict. “Lavinia is quite right, you know, you’d better stay here for a few days. At least until you can get your staff together again. The house is a mess.”

They had arrived early, so after a luncheon Charles and Sir Donald rode over to Bennendale to inspect matters. Rosalind would have liked to go, but Lady Cressman made her lie down for an hour or two.

“Charles…I suppose I should call him Major Bowen only that I’ve known him since before he was breeched, and you, too, of course, my dear, not that you were ever breeched, I do not mean… However, Charles says you have been ill for a long time and indeed you are a little pale, child, though I daresay it is only fatigue. Such a long journey, even if you did come slowly, and you had better rest a little, for we would not want you falling sick again when you are barely restored to us; and oh, Rosalind, I have been very worried about you these two months and more and I assure you I gave Sir Donald a piece of my mind, a regular scolding because he would not stand up to that
wicked
uncle of yours. And…”

“I am sure Sir Donald did what he thought proper, ma’am,” broke in Rosalind gently. “I am very grateful for your concern. What should I have done without your support those early days after mama and my father died? And then you took in my poor Joan and wrote to Charlie at once. Indeed, no one could have done more.”

Somewhat reassured, Lady Cressman pulled the curtains close, told her to try to sleep, and left her.

Rosalind was in fact a little tired after the long days of travel. Her headaches had stopped as soon as they left Cavendish Square, but she still felt disoriented. It bothered her that she did not know what had happened between her escape and finding Charles, and her dreams were full of a dark face to which she could put no name. Sometimes it smiled at her with warm eyes, at others looked at her with such haughty coldness that she awoke as from a nightmare, sweating and shivering. Waking, she could not remember its features.

Through the busy days that followed, the dreams faded. The servants were all found and happily returned to Bennendale. The house, a pretty brick mansion half hidden by trees in a dell that opened into a long vista to the south, had to be scrubbed from top to bottom. Chimneys were swept, closets full of rubbish turned out, the kitchen set to rights, and new curtains made for the several rooms in which they had been ripped. Charles returned each day from inspecting his fields to a home that was changing from a pigsty into the gleaming comfort he remembered. At last, he dared imagine inviting Lucy to set foot in his house.

The fields and pastures had suffered only from neglect. Every morning brought tenant farmers with new problems, and Charles was kept as busy as his cousin; yet every evening he found time to write to Lucy, and weekly he sent off long epistles. He was afraid she might be bored by the running account of his daily life; but her letters, which arrived regularly twice a week, often had shrewd comments on his work, and he realized that she must have learned a lot about managing an estate from Richard. No simpering miss, his beloved, he thought proudly, and the paragraphs describing overgrown hedgerows and weed-filled cropland were interspersed with tender endearments and words of longing.

Lucy was missing him quite desperately, she confided to her mother. True to her word to Richard, she continued to go to parties and meet eligible bachelors. The entertainments seemed flat and insipid; the beaux were dull and frippery fellows next to the memory of a certain stern-faced soldier with smiling eyes. If one of Charles’s letters came a day or two later than expected, her anxious heart was assuaged only by Richard’s ill-concealed impatience. He, for his part, was sure the delay betokened a relapse on Rosalind’s part, which was preventing her cousin from writing. All in all, Lady Annabel was glad when the Season ended and they could return to Toblethorpe, where country pursuits, more to the taste of all of them, kept them almost as busy as were Charles and Rosalind, some eighty miles to the north.

In the middle of July, Charles left for London. The War Ministry needed him on some business connected with Lord Richard Wellesley’s recall from India. Though he could hardly claim that it was en route, Toblethorpe was on his itinerary in both directions, and he was heartily welcomed. On his return journey he was pressed to stay for a week, and, with Lucy hanging on his arm with her begging puppy look, he could not refuse.