Elizabeth Mansfield (17 page)

But before either of them had a chance to realize fully what was happening, a cough from down the hall caused them to jump apart. It was Dickle, the new butler. “I beg pardon, my lord,” he said impassively. “I was on my way to turn down your bed.”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” his lordship said irritably. “My man will have taken care of that.”

“Then I will say good night, my lord. Good night, my lady.” With that he turned about stiffly and disappeared down the stairs.

Kittridge glared after him. “Damned jobbernowl!” he cursed. “I hope, Cassie, that you intend to sack that fellow.”

“Only if Loesby is willing to continue to play the double role of butler and valet,” Cassie said, feeling a joyful, if budding, confidence in herself as head of the household. “And if he is,” she added with a giggle, “then I shall let Eunice do the sacking.”

“Very well,” Kittridge grunted, glumly aware that a special moment had been spoiled beyond repair. He turned and started toward his bedroom. “Then I’ll say good night, my dear.”

Cassie watched him open his door, her eyes shining. The moment had not been spoiled for her. “Good night, Robert,” she whispered, her soft voice revealing no sign that her heart was singing inside her. But sing it did. If a real marriage depended on intimacy, it said to her, tonight had been a beginning.

Chapter Twenty

When Cassie asked him, Loesby admitted that he cared little for butlering. He’d never considered himself a proper butler and had no aspirations in that direction. He therefore encouraged Cassie to keep Dickle on. “I know ’e’s a toplofty sprag,” the valet said with cocky assurance, “but don’t ye fret about ’im, me lady. I’ll take the fellow down if ’e gets too ’igh in the instep.”

Kittridge made a face when Cassie told him what had been decided, but since he’d left the staffing of the house in her hands, he accepted her decision. Eunice, however, was delighted. She considered a “proper butler”
de rigueur
in a well-run household, and Dickle was just the style she liked. To show her appreciation for Cassie’s concession to her wishes, she had the portrait of the first viscount removed from the Great Hall and the Constable landscape rehung, a detail that Kittridge, when he’d ordered the sitting room restored, had forgotten.

A few contented days passed, marred only by the fact that little Greta’s cough persisted. But since the child was not feverish, no one was particularly alarmed. The days were busy, and in the evenings the four adults found many ways to amuse themselves. They played hearts and silver-loo until cards began to pall; they spent a few delightful hours in the music room when Cassie was discovered to be quite adept at the piano and was able to accompany Eunice, who sang the most enjoyable ditties in a praiseworthy contralto; they repaired once or twice to the billiard room where the ladies watched the gentlemen compete; and they made companionable conversation in front of the sitting room fire. It soon became apparent that Sandy had more than a friendly interest in Eunice, and when, one morning, she put aside her half-mourning and came downstairs in a dress of grey-green muslin, he took it as a most encouraging sign. With Kittridge treating Cassie with what seemed a growing affection, and Eunice and Sandy smelling of April and May, the house was a happy place indeed.

The atmosphere took an abrupt turn, however, when a messenger arrived from town. He’d been sent by the dowager Lady Kittridge to deliver a package of letters that had been posted to the viscount’s London address. Kittridge rifled through the pile while all four were seated at the dinner table. Cassie noticed with concern that his mouth suddenly tightened at the sight of two of the same distinctive, square, buff-colored envelopes that had disturbed him the last time he’d received letters from London. As soon as his eyes lit on them, he excused himself from the table and, taking the letters away with him, disappeared into his study for the rest of the evening. He didn’t emerge even to say good night to his guests.

The next morning, when he appeared at breakfast, it was apparent to Cassie, if not to anyone else, that his smiles and polite demeanor were forced. And the morning greeting he gave his wife was much cooler and more remote than it had been all week. It was as if the fondness that had been growing between them had suddenly died. But before she could inquire into the reason for the withdrawing of his affection and the change in his mood, Miss Roffey came down to tell Eunice that Greta’s cough had worsened considerably and that her forehead was very hot to the touch. The four ran upstairs to look at the child, hoping they would discover that the governess had exaggerated. But Miss Roffey had, rather,
understated the problem. It was immediately obvious that little Greta was seriously ill.

Lord Kittridge, inquiring of Mr. Whitlock the direction of the nearest doctor, was horrified to discover that there was none closer than twelve miles to the south, in the town of Withern. And even there, the physician, Dr. Horace Sweeney, was elderly and, in Whitlock’s view, not particularly praiseworthy. On the other hand, he said, there was an apothecary right down the road—a Mr. Phineas Church—who was much admired by the locals for his ability to diagnose ailments and his skill in prescribing curative nostrums. In order to leave no stone unturned, Kittridge decided to send for both. He dispatched Loesby southward to fetch the distant doctor, while he himself went for the apothecary.

He came back in half an hour with Mr. Church, a half-bald, excruciatingly thin fellow with a black-ribboned pince-nez perched on his very long nose. The apothecary examined Greta carefully. He listened to her cough with his ear against her chest, he tapped his fingers on her back, and he looked down her throat. “A putrid infection of the bronchia,” he pronounced when he was done.

Kittridge and Cassie exchanged worried glances, while Eunice burst into frightened tears.

“It’ll do ye no good to weep, ma’am,” the apothecary said disparagingly. “It’ll do ye better to set to work an’ get the child’s fever down. We don’t want to see the infection deepen to pneumonia.”

“Pneumonia!” Eunice paled at the dreaded word and tottered backward.

Sandy put a supporting arm about her. “He didn’t say she had pneumonia yet,” he pointed out.

Mr. Church reached for the large, black bag he’d carried in. “I’ll cup ’er now,” he explained, “since bleeding is a prescribed remedy for coughs. An’ again tomorrow, if the fever is still high. But no more, for I don’t want to weaken the child. What
you
must do, my lady, is to make the child perspire. Keep ’er warm, an’ watch to see she don’t throw off ’er blankets. Diaphoretic drinks will help. A hot tisane of barley water and lemon every few hours—that’s the thing.”

Greta moaned and tossed about in her bed, causing all eyes to turn to her. “Shouldn’t she be given some mercury water?” Eunice asked fearfully, not at all sure that Mr. Church’s advice was sound. “And perhaps James’s powders?”

“Quackery, ma’am, sheer quackery,” the apothecary snapped. “Now stand aside an’ hand me my cupping glass.”

After the child was bled and Mr. Church had taken his leave, Eunice and Cassie remained in the sickroom. They covered the pale, shivering child with several warm comforters and watched as she fell into a fitful sleep. Cassie suggested that Miss Roffey be kept out of the sickroom so that she would not carry any infection to her other charge. Eunice nodded, grateful for the suggestion. Next to getting Greta well, it was imperative to keep Della from falling victim to the same complaint. And since Eunice didn’t intend to leave her baby’s side, Miss Roffey’s assistance in the sickroom would not be needed.

The doctor from Withern arrived four hours later. Dr. Sweeney was the apothecary’s opposite. He was short, potbellied and had a full head of white hair topping his apple-cheeked face. His manner, too, was the opposite of Phineas Church’s, being obsequious and optimistic where the apothecary had been dour and curt. “Oh, not pneumonia,” he assured them cheerfully. “She won’t develop pneumonia, my word on it. With a little bleeding and a little medication, she’s bound to recover.”

“What medication?” Eunice asked, eager to believe him.

“Leave that to me, my lady,” the doctor chuckled, patting her shoulder. “A little of this and a little of that.”

“Mercury water?” Sandy probed. “James’ Powders?”

“Mercury water, of course. But I prefer a powder of my own concoction, made up of ground eggshells, raw turnips, sugar candy and a few secret things.”

“Quackery, ma’am, sheer quackery,” Kittridge whispered into Eunice’s ear.

Eunice, shaken by her brother’s disparagement of the doctor, pulled Cassie aside. “Robbie thinks Dr. Sweeney’s a quack,” she said worriedly. “Now I don’t know whom to believe.”

“Neither do I,” Cassie said, “but my instincts lean toward Mr. Church.”

Sandy, when questioned, indicated a preference for Dr. Sweeney, an optimist like himself. Eunice, unable to reject the practitioner who offered the cheerier prognosis, elected to believe the doctor. She let him bleed Greta again, and she accepted a supply of his powder. But when he was about to force a dose of mercury water down the groggy child’s throat, her confidence failed her. Mercury water was strong medicine for a child. She gave a little outcry as she stood frozen with indecision.

It was her brother who stopped the doctor’s hand. Kittridge had long objected to the use of mercury as a curative. A medical man he’d met in the Dragoons had remarked to him that he’d never known mercury to deliver a proven cure. And the apothecary had not wanted to use it, either. His sister’s frightened outcry was enough to push him to action. “We’ll give it to her later,” his lordship said, wrenching the spoon from Dr. Sweeney’s hold. “Thank you, doctor, for coming all this way. My man will see you home.”

Eunice didn’t scold Kittridge for preventing Dr. Sweeney from further medicating her daughter, for her confidence in the elderly doctor was not strong. And it soon became obvious that even permitting him to bleed Greta had been a mistake; the cupping had weakened the child. Greta lay limply on the pillows, too sapped even to toss. Only when a cough racked her did she move. “Perhaps Mr. Church was right after all,” Eunice murmured, bending over her stricken child helplessly.

Cassie, who’d believed in the apothecary from the first, remembered his advice and ran for another tisane. Happily, the hot drink seemed to soothe the invalid, and she soon fell asleep again. Eunice, now convinced that her faith in Dr. Sweeney had been misplaced, handed Cassie the envelope of powders that the good-natured doctor had given her. “You may take this concoction of eggshells and turnips and secrets,” she muttered, “and toss it to the winds.”

Eunice sat beside the child half the night. In the wee hours, Cassie tiptoed into the sickroom and prevailed upon Eunice to go to her room and get some sleep. She took over the vigil until daylight.

When the apothecary called the next morning, he scolded them all for permitting the child to be bled again. “I warned ye it would weaken her,” he muttered, feeling Greta’s forehead. “I’ll not bleed the poor little tyke again. Nothing to do now but keep ’er warm. Don’t let ’er kick the covers off. A mustard pediluvia, mayhap, when she’s better, but the barley-lemon tisane’ll do more than any quackish medicine, that I promise ye, but I can’t promise any more. I’ll be back to look at ’er tomorrow, for all the good that’ll do. The fever’ll break if it’s God’s will.” And with that meager hope, he left them.

For three terrifying days, they watched at Greta’s bedside, taking turns. Eunice and Cassie shared the nights, Kittridge and Sandy the days. Sometimes the child slept fitfully, but mostly she tossed about in a kind of stupor, her hair matted on her forehead and her cheeks ruddy with her internal burning. It broke all their hearts to see the little girl suffer and to be so powerless to do anything about it.

Sometime during the third night, Kittridge, who couldn’t sleep, came in to the sickroom to see his niece. He found Cassie struggling with Greta on the bed, trying to hold the comforters over the shuddering child. “Thank God you’ve come,” Cassie flung over her shoulder at him. “She’s having convulsions.”

Lord Kittridge tensed in alarm. “What can we do?”

“I’m not sure, but I think she’s entirely too hot. Perhaps … do you think a cool cloth on her forehead—? Here, hold her while I get one.”

They struggled for almost an hour against the terrifying tremors that racked Greta’s little body, but after a time it became apparent that, slowly, the convulsions were subsiding. When at last Greta ceased
to shake, Cassie and Kittridge expelled long sighs, as if they’d both held their breaths until they were sure Greta was safe. Then Cassie, with Kittridge’s help, washed the child down and changed her nightgown, and they tucked her in between clean, dry sheets. As Kittridge spread a comforter over her, Greta’s lashes fluttered. “Uncew Wobit!” she managed to croak before her eyelids drooped and she fell promptly to sleep.

“Uncew Wobit,” Cassie mimicked in joyful relief, eyes glowing, “I think she’s
better
!”

“Thanks to you,” Kittridge said in a choked voice.

He held out his arms to her, his eyes warm with admiration and tenderness. Cassie’s heart leaped up to her throat as she took a step toward him. Perhaps this would be the moment for another step toward the intimacy she so dearly craved. But at that very moment, as abruptly as the dousing of a candleflame, something in his face changed. It was as if a light within him had been instantly extinguished. Some thought or memory had crossed his mind, and, whatever it was, it effectively blocked any intention he might have had of making an advance in her direction. His arms dropped, and he actually took a step back from her.

Cassie’s heart clenched painfully, and one hand, of its own volition, came up in appeal. “Robert?” she asked, bewildered.

He took her hand in his, but the gesture was awkward and stiff. “You were remarkable this night,” he said, a rigid politeness diluting the effect of his admiration. “Eunice and I will always be grateful. Always.” Then he kissed her hand with distant formality and was gone.