Fortune's Mistress (8 page)

He smiled back at her and knelt at her side.
“That is for you to decide,” he told her. “I generally opt for something lofty and Shakespearean— I believe a noble name is important for all creatures—but it must be entirely up to you.”

“
I see. Like Caliban. So it was you yourself who saw to the mending of his injury?”

The doctor frowned.
“I do not believe in accidents, Mrs. Glencoe, so when I found him and saw he was still alive, I knew I could not leave him thus. I must do something for him. I applied what I knew of humans to the fellow. What remained of his leg had to be cut off, but I stitched the wound well, and he has thrived despite the infirmity.”

She looked at him with new respect. There were few so kind of heart
; fewer still who would thus burden themselves. Just then, Annie returned with the tea tray and a small dish of milk. How did the girl figure in all of this, she wondered? Another stray to be looked after?

The doctor took the milk from her,
then sat beside Marianne. “You must dip the corner of a napkin into the milk, then let each one suck what it may. There,” he said, as he brushed the mouth of a gray-striped fellow, “you see. This one has already learned what to expect.”

She laughed as the kitten sucked hungrily and kneaded the proffered napkin with its claws.
“That one must surely be called Falstaff!”

“
Capital— he is a fine fat fellow. And the little ginger-colored one?”

Marianne trace
d its back with a tentative finger. “It is so little and forlorn— Ophelia, do you think?”

He picked it up gently and, turning it over,
made a cursory examination. “Yes, it is a little maid. Ophelia will serve very well.”

“
Poor little one,” Marianne sighed as she gazed at the kitten. It was sniffing the air blindly, attempting to find the source of the scent of milk. “Will she survive, do you think?”

“
If her brother can be persuaded to share, there is no reason why she should not.”

She frowned a moment, then said,
“Annie, fetch a pair of gloves for me—and be sure they are kid, not silk. I have an idea,” she said, as the maid went off to do her mistress’s bidding. “I do not know if it will serve, but I can at least try. They are so sweet and innocent, are they not?”

The doctor shook his head ruefully.
“Wait until they are old enough to wreak havoc on your sewing basket. Then I shall ask you.”

Marianne dipped a finger in the milk and brushed it across the newly christened Ophelia
’s mouth. A tiny pink tongue emerged, and the kitten licked eagerly.

“
Yes,” the doctor chuckled, “she will do quite well.”

He put his own finger into the milk and began to feed the third kitten. Marianne looked up and caught him smiling at her, and felt the heat rise to her cheeks. Somehow, the kittens
’ nursing motions made the task of feeding seem an altogether more intimate endeavor. She looked down quickly and remained intent on her task, until Annie entered again with a pair of gloves.

“
Thank you, Annie,” she murmured. “Will you hand me my sewing basket now?”

Annie watched, horrified, as Marianne tied off two fingers and poked the end of each of the remaining
three with a large darning needle. “Oh, madam!” she protested. “Have you gone and ruined your fine gloves for these little gluttons? Surely a pair of old Martin’s work gloves would have done as well.”

Abandoned for a moment while Marianne pursued her task, the kittens mewed reproach
fully. “Tyrants! Hush now. They have delicate little mouths, you see, Annie,” she said softly. “They will do far better if they do not have to fight to get a few drops of milk. They would wear themselves out trying to suck through canvas.”

She picked up the saucer of milk and carefully poured it into the glove. Then she arranged it among the kittens, so each had its own finger. At first, they did not seem to understand what they must do.
“Oh, dear,” she whispered. “Perhaps I was wrong. But I had thought— “

“
Half a moment,” Dr. Venables interrupted. He took one of the milk-filled fingers, placed it firmly against Falstaff’s mouth, and pressed. A stream of milk splashed in its face. The kitten looked startled, but at once licked the milk off its face and began to search for more. Before long, it was sucking milk under its own power. The doctor repeated this operation with each of the others. Only Ophelia still had difficulty. “Well,” he said after a moment, “some learn more slowly than others.”

“
I shall keep trying,” she said. “How often ought they to be fed?”

“
Oh, no more than six or seven times a day, I imagine.”

“
Six or seven— ?” she gasped.

“
Indeed,” he returned with a nod. “And very good practice you will find it for when you have a babe of your own demanding his dinner.”

“
Her
dinner, if you please!” Marianne corrected with asperity.

“
Ah! Are you convinced of such a thing then?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. “I hope you may not be disappointed.”

As Marianne returned his gaze, she thought she detected some puzzlement therein, and
perhaps even a hint of reproof. “I shall not be disappointed, I assure you, in any healthy child. It is just that I have longed so for a daughter, and Old Maggie has assured me— “

“
Ah!” the doctor broke in. “Old Maggie, is it then? You may be assured indeed, for I have not heard that her predictions have ever gone amiss.

Marianne realized that now, when Maggie
’s name had obtruded into the conversation, was the very time to inform him of her decision. She took a deep breath. “I hope you may be right. She told me so this very morning, when I discovered her in my garden snipping herbs as bold as you please.”

“
You must not mind Maggie’s odd ways,” Venables began.

“
Indeed, I do not,” Marianne said in a rush. “She is a redoubtable woman, and I have asked her to attend me when my time comes.”

A mere pulse beat or two might have passed before the doctor replied,
“You are fortunate in your choice, I am sure. I have heard naught but good of her skills as a healer and midwife.” He smiled at her then. “Do not think I will be offended, Mrs. Gardiner. Most women, I am sure, are more comfortable with one of their own at hand, when their time comes.”

Marianne felt a rush of relief at these words, for he did not appear to have taken her decision amiss. Though their acquaintance had been brief and, for the most part, unsettling, she would not like to offend this good man. She glanced down at the kittens. They were sleeping peacefully, nestled in their basket like a trio of variegated pussy willows. When she looked up again, the doctor was smiling at her still.

As he drove home that afternoon, Dr. Venables found his mind returning again and again to his call at Rosewood Cottage. That was not entirely unexpected, however. He had not stopped think
ing of its mistress since he first encountered her in the stone circle. He had found his way to that enchanted place immediately on his return from Edinburgh. The legends of virgins turned to stone might terrify the villagers into forsaking its environs, but he found the circle peaceful, and always left it with a lighter heart and a renewed sense of hope. Now that sense of hope had become personified.

The image of Mrs. Glencoe, crowned with flowers, had possessed him ever since he first spied her. Most women would have looked fool
ish thus arrayed, but she did not. She looked utterly natural, as if she were one of the fairy folk believed to inhabit the region.

It was little wonder that he had not immedi
ately noticed her widow’s weeds. Her face invited the eye like a cameo framed in silk. Her movements were liquid, her form gently feminine. She was undeniably beautiful, achingly beautiful. But there was an intriguing mystery about her as well, which held his mind in thrall.

To begin with, he was almost certain he re
membered something of her from his previous life in the
ton.
Her face and manner, at any rate. Her family name would doubtless come in time, whether he wished it or not. For all his efforts, he was still unable to purge the myriad memories of his former life in that glittering superficial circle.

Mrs. Glencoe was indeed a cipher. Like him, she seemed to have left that life behind, but what was she doing here at the end of the world? Even if, as rumor held, her husband
’s family had cast her off, what of her own family and acquaintance? Could she possibly be as entirely alone as appearances suggested? He shook his head thoughtfully. Something was not right here.

He pulled t
o the side of the road for a moment, to allow a cart to pass the other way. Caught up in his analysis of his new acquaintance, he almost failed to return the farmer’s greeting. They exchanged a few civil words, but he could scarce have reported what they were, so distracted was he.

Venables had not entered Rosewood Cottage intending to examine it for clues to the owner
’s life; nonetheless, he had done so, and been disconcerted to find not the slightest hint of Mrs. Glencoe’s past. There seemed to be no mementos, no memorabilia. No miniature of the husband in evidence. No regimental sword or sash. Not even a twist of his hair in some frame or other, and she wore no locket. Though he saw no particular value in such displays, he knew about widows. He had often marked how, love or no, they raised what monuments they might as a way of affirming their station, despite the dusty imprint of death.

And just a
s there were no clues to the departed Captain Glencoe— so local gossip held his rank— neither were there signs by which one might read his widow. Venables knew the house had been purchased largely furnished, and remembered enough of the place to determine which pieces were the additions of the new owner. A few chairs, some framed lithographs of country scenes. There were books, but he had been unable to scan their titles. In short, anyone might live there.

The only
thing which struck him as out of the ordinary were the several vases, overflowing with haphazard arrangements of bright flowers. Their transition from the garden to the drawing room had not transformed them into rigid arrangements, as was the custom in most houses.

Venables smiled as he thought of her reaction to his gift. He had been racking his brains trying to settle on a way to make an impression upon her—none of the artifices he had once used among ladies of the
ton
would do—when he came upon the motherless litter in a corner of the barn. Their little faces appealed to his heart, and he wondered if hers would be touched as well.

He had been entirely uncertain as to what he might expect from her when the basket
’s contents were revealed. But he had seen her transform from a staid widow to a delighted girl, almost as if she were a child who had dressed up in her mother’s clothing, then grown tired of the game. It seemed as if the shadow he sensed in her had, for a moment, lifted, and allowed a shaft of sunshine to reach her heart. When he had departed, she was smiling still. Falstaff and Ophelia were curled up on her lap, while the third, an inky little fellow christened Prospero, nestled against her bosom.

Venables knew he had risked being tossed out on his ear for such effrontery, but his instincts had proved correct, and it had turned out well. She had invited him to call whenever he might have the leisure to see how the kittens got on— and that, after all, had been his sole aim.

He had been a little afraid she might view him merely in his official capacity, that their magic moment in the stone circle might, once she understood his role in the community, become nothing more than a relationship of doctor and patient. Her decision to have Maggie attend her when the time came was fortuitous. He was not of such a nature as to resent her preferring another in that capacity, and hopeful that it might allow their acquaintance to be more conventional. She would be far more likely now to see him in light of ... well, a man.

Perhaps the time had come, he mused. Perhaps, after all, Heaven might forgive and allow him to be happy.

* * * *

Alden Venables arrived at his own gate, almost without knowing it. His mind had been so
occupied, the landscape had slipped by him, the turns taken automatically.

“
Ah, doctor, you are come home then, are you?”

The doctor set his bag in the entry and greeted his housekeeper, Mrs. Maiden.
“There’s lamb pie for supper,” she said, wiping her floury hands upon her apron, “but before you eat, you must first turn about and call at the Wallers’.”

“
Is something amiss there?” he asked. “All seemed well when I saw them yesterday.”

“
Naught but a simple mishap,” she told him. “‘Tis to be hoped the reverend has merely given his ankle a twist, not broken it, as his wife thinks. Mrs. Waller begs you will have a look, and I told her you would.”