With This Ring (28 page)

My major. “Oh, I hope so,” she said,
almost surprised at her own fervency. “I will feel better when the
surgeon has seen him this morning.”

Feeling the need of Maria, she took
the baby with her into the public room, which was empty now of
customers, if one did not consider the magistrate a customer. He
did have a pint of ale in front of him, and there was Mr. Innis,
beaming his encouragement at her from behind the bar.

“
You have requested that I speak to
you?” she asked from the doorway.

The man rose, nodded to her, and
indicated the chair opposite him. “Have a seat, Mrs. Reed. I am
Reginald Barton, the magistrate’s solicitor,” he said. He drew pen
and paper form the voluminous coat that draped the back of his
chair. “It is my duty to take your statement regarding yesterday’s
incident,” he intoned, as though he stood in the magistrate’s
office.

She held Maria close on her lap.
“Sir, will you tell me, what is the condition of the man I shot?”
she asked, discovering how hard it was even to say the
word.

He glanced at the notes before him
and became a little less gloomy. “It appears that the ball fired
from that pistol broke his arm, which was amputated at Ealing last
night.”

“
Ah, me!” she said, making no
attempt to keep the remorse from her voice.

“
Never fear, madam,” he replied as
he dipped his quill in the ink bottle. “He will have ample time to
heal, and then he will do a rope dance.”

She frowned. I know it cannot be any
other way, she thought, but, oh, to be involved at all is something
I do not find appealing. “What are the charges against him,
sir?”

“
Attempted robbery, attempted
assault, attempted murder,” he said, referring to the paper. He
dipped his quill in the ink again. “Now, madam, if you
would ….”

“
Attempted murder?” she asked. “You
are saying he did not kill the clergyman?”

In some exasperation, the
magistrate’s solicitor put down the quill. “He merely creased the
man’s leg, although apparently the clergyman was quite convinced at
the time that he had been killed.” He put his fingers together, and
she saw the ghost of a smile around his mouth. “Mrs. Reed, it
appears that you are the better shot, only I pray you, do not
consider a life of crime.”

I suppose he does not wish me to rob
coaches to earn money, she thought. She smiled down in Maria’s
hair, and could not resist. “Mr. Barton, are you a member of the
vicar’s congregation?”

The smile vanished. “I am, indeed.”
He looked around and leaned forward. “Do you realize that this
means there will be dissections and cross-references from the
pulpit of this incident enough to last him until the twentieth
century at least?”

“
Oh, I
am
sorry,” she
replied, grateful that this was not her parish. “Let me give you my
statement, sir, and then I have a request.”

He nodded, and she told the event
again, which troubled her more than she would have thought. He
interrupted with a few questions to clarify the situation, but soon
the subject was exhausted to his satisfaction. “Very well, madam,
that will do.” He capped the inkwell and returned it to the
overcoat. “You said you had a request?”

“
I wish that you would be lenient.
Surely he should not hang,” she said in a low voice. I must be
crazy, she thought. Sam lies upstairs wounded and in pain, and I
would wish the law to be kind to the man who had certainly
increased the difficulty of our journey? I cannot understand
myself. Couple this with my bold statement at the victory banquet,
and I could be accused of indiscriminate charity running unchecked.
And it does not trouble me. I doubt it will even trouble Sam.
“Please, sir,” she added, testing herself, and finding her
conviction unchanged. “What if I choose not to press charges of
attempted assault?”

“
There remains the attempted murder
charge, and robbery,” the solicitor said. “He could still
hang.”

“
Could you send him to Australia
instead?” she asked. “No one died, although we are all poorer. Mr.
Reed’s injury was brought about at Toulouse by Napoleon, and I was
not harmed at all. I think the road agent fell in with bad company,
sir, which is unfortunate, but hardly a crime punishable by death,
for goodness sake. The clergyman would have provoked anyone. I know
Sam wanted to throttle him,” she said frankly.

“
Did he? Your husband is to be
commended for his common sense, then.” The solicitor held out his
hand to her as he rose. “Mrs. Reed, you are too kind.” He permitted
himself a smile. “Were such things not impossible, you would have
made an eloquent advocate at the bar! I will certainly give your
recommendation to the magistrate. You can still expect a visit from
the justice of the peace, however.”

“
Very well,” she said as she rose
with Maria asleep in her arms. My family would never recognize me,
she thought as she watched the man leave. I have become an
eloquent, persuasive crusader. I wonder what the justice of the
peace can possibly want? Lord, apparently it is hard to shoot
someone and keep it quiet.

“
Mrs. Reed, you are a kind, kind
woman,” said the innkeeper from his place behind the
bar.

She smiled at him and returned Maria
to the crib in Suzie’s room. I think I was never anyone before I
was Mrs. Reed, she thought. How odd this is. Now I must become an
entrepreneur, if I am to save the Reeds from financial ruin. She
laughed softly as she bent over the sleeping baby, unable to leave
her alone. “The Reeds,” she whispered, liking the sound of it.
Nothing in this entire situation puts me at ease, but I must admit
that nothing is boring about it.

Assured that Maria slept, Lydia
climbed the stairs to her room again. Mr. Wilburn was there. He put
a finger to his lips as she entered the room, and she sat quietly
while he did all those things she had done earlier. He stared for a
long time at the major’s rash, smoothed his hair to feel his
forehead, walked around to look at the stitches, and ended up by
the window, rocking back and forth on his heels, regarding the
market street below.

She felt a chill, and shook it off.
Can you do no more than I have done? she thought in sudden alarm,
as she hurried to stand beside him at the window.

“
Tell me, sir,” she said quietly.
“You know that I can take it.” I cannot, of course, but you expect
me to say that.

He clapped his arm around her. “Mrs.
Reed, this is the interesting part of medicine,” he
said.

She felt herself crumble inside. I
will not be a ninny, she thought fiercely. “Interesting?” she
repeated putting all the backbone she could spare into the
word.

“
Yes, my dearie. I have done all I
can, and it is good work. You appear to be doing everything you
can. I doubt a man was ever in more capable hands.”

“
I feel so incapable,” she
confessed.

“
Well, it does not show, dearie,” he
said, giving her another comfortable squeeze. “Now we have to see
what Sam Reed is made of.”

It was as though a giant hand had
whooshed all the air out of her. She sank onto the window seat and
put her forehead on her knees, staying that way until the surgeon
sat beside her. “Mrs. Reed, I did not mean to frighten you ….”
he began, alarm in his voice.

She took a deep breath, sat up, and
hugged him, to his surprise and hers. “Mr. Wilburn, he will be
fine, then. I
know
what Sam Reed is made of! He is the
strongest person I know.” She could have cried with relief, so good
was this news.

He absorbed her news, then shook his
head. “I bow to your better knowledge of your spouse, dearie, but
let me venture to suggest that he is the second strongest person in
the Reed family.”

She let his words soak all the way
into her heart, where they felt like balm of Gilead. They sat
together in companionable silence then, listening to the major
breathe. “He’s not really wakened yet, sir, but he talks to me
sometimes. Why does he do that?” she asked. “Next to the fever, I
think it is my biggest concern. I mean, is he all
right?”

“
Healing is hard work, Mrs. Reed,”
the surgeon said. “Your good husband—and he must be good, if he had
the sense to marry you—has shut down everything that is not
essential. Is he at least voiding?”

She nodded.

“
No blood in the urine?”

She shook her head.

“
Excellent! Try to get him to eat,
if you can. Just watery gruel. The fever powders?”

“
I had to hold his nose until he
gave up and opened his mouth.”

Wilburn laughed, then covered his
mouth with his hand when Sam stirred and muttered something.
“Sorry, laddie,” he murmured. “Does he
know
what a lucky
husband he is?”

Such a question, she thought. I
would like to know the answer. “Sir, you will have to ask him,” she
said, suddenly shy.

He sat with her another moment, then
slapped his knees. “What a month this had been for Merry Glade,
dearie, a regular beehive of excitement! First, the midwife
delivers triplets—triplets—for the butcher’s wife; the village’s
only barber drops down dead during the middle of shaving the
squire; a cat has a litter of six-toed kittens; and now there is a
wounded Toulouse hero with a lovely wife and daughter, and road
agents. We will be discussing you at table long after you have left
us.” He rose and took another thoughtful look at the major. “I’ll
be by tonight again, if that will make you happy.”

“
You know it will,” she said
fervently. She looked at him shyly. “I suppose what you are saying
is that I am managing?”

He nodded. “You are
managing.”

She walked him down the stairs and
into the street. She turned to go back inside when what the surgeon
said hit her like a brick between the shoulders. She sat down on
the bench outside the door to catch her breath, and was joined a
moment later by the innkeeper.

“
Mrs. Reed, are you well? I saw you
from the door. Is all this too much for you?”

She thought a moment, her excitement
barely contained. He will think I am certifiable if I jump up and
down, which I want to do, she thought. “I am fine,” she said, and
took a deep breath. “Mr. Innis, do you know how I can make
arrangements to open the barbershop?”

He stared at her, his mouth open.
She gave him what she hoped was her most radiant smile. “I think I
am about to go into business here in Merry Glade. Do let me
explain, and while I am at it, make a slight
confession.”

S
itting
there in the sun, warmed by the genuine concern of the Innises, she
spilled her budget. Reasoning that there was no possible benefit in
going all the way back to Genesis, she told them merely that the
Reeds had lost all their traveling money when the other road agent
appropriated Sam’s wallet and her reticule.

“
I know that my husband has a banker
in Durham, but I confess to little interest in his finances and I
do not know the name of the business,” she said.

Mrs. Innis patted her husband’s knee
as they sat close together on the bench. “Remedy that, my dear,
when your husband comes to himself. A wife should always know where
the money is.” The Innises looked at each other and
laughed.

You dear people, Lydia thought as
she watched them. “I know how true that is now,” she said, feeling
contrition at the tale she told.

“
Don’t take it so hard, my dear,”
Mrs. Innis said. “Davey called me out here to tell me that you have
a scheme to change your financial picture.”

“
Indeed I do,” she replied. “I
propose to open the barbershop. When I met my husband … met
him after Toulouse, he was in the hospital in London. I have some
talent with hair, so cutting his was no difficulty. He kindly let
me practice on his face.”

The Innises looked at her with some
concern. “That’s not much practice, my dear,” Mrs. Innis
said.

Lydia laughed. “And what was I
drafted to do then but shave all of his men who were invalided
there with him, and cut their hair, too! You know how husbands are,
Mrs. Innis, I daresay.” More than I do, I am sure, she thought, but
I have discovered how coercive the male sex can be.

The innkeeper’s wife nodded. “I
would say that you are a regular proficient now.”

“
I am,” she declared. She cast a
critical eye at the innkeeper. “I would be happy to demonstrate on
you, Mr. Innis. Do you have any scissors? A comb?”

Mrs. Innis did. While her husband
was still thinking about it, she went inside and returned with the
scissors. “He’s too much of a shagbag for me, Mrs. Reed,” she said
as she handed Lydia the scissors, a comb, and a dish
towel.

Lydia put the towel around Mr.
Innis’s neck and combed his hair, praying for the best haircut she
had ever given. She snipped in silence until Mr. Innis put up his
hand to stop her.

“
Mrs. Reed, this will never do,” he
said.

Oh, please, she thought. This is my
one talent. “Sir?” she asked, determined not to cry.