Serpent in the Garden (29 page)

J
OSHUA WAS POISED to broach the subject of Arthur Manning when he heard the slow clopping of hooves and creaking of wheels behind him.

A gig driven by a scruffy urchin wearing no shoes and clothed in the grimiest rags approached from the direction of the town. The vehicle was drawn by a moth-eaten bay, its shaggy coat clogged with dust, and myriad flies causing it to twitch with annoyance. What struck Joshua most about the vehicle, however, was not its sorry horse nor its pathetic driver, but the single passenger.

It was Bridget Quick, his landlady’s daughter. She was clad in a muslin-sprigged gown; her hair was nicely curled beneath a straw bonnet trimmed with roses and forget-me-nots; her cheeks were pink as carnations and her eyes shone. She looked more enticing than ever—as sweet and wholesome as a ripe plum.

“Why, Bridget, how well you look!” Joshua stammered.

“Joshua Pope! Is it you? What a fright you gave me!” she exclaimed. He knew he looked more hideous than the most revolting ruffian she had ever seen in the gutter of a London street.

“Yes, Bridget, it is I.”

“Then you must be expecting me. I sent a letter to you soon after Mr. Bentnick’s visit. Since you weren’t there to meet me, I did what I said and decided to make my way to the house. Perhaps I should not have come without waiting to hear from you. What a state you are in. What on earth have you done to yourself ?”

He was relieved that Bridget expressed concern rather than revulsion. “Forgive me, Bridget. I have met with a misadventure. I have been knocked unconscious and tied up, and I only narrowly escaped with my life.” Why not embellish a little? he thought. “And with all this drama I quite forgot that I had intended to be at the Star and Garter to meet you.”

“I see,” she said. “Then perhaps I can assist in some way? Otherwise I should turn back to London immediately.”

A flood of disappointment enveloped Joshua. He had intended the catalogue of woes to elicit sympathy, not make her run away. After all he had endured, how pleasant it would be to have an hour or two in Bridget’s company without fear of apprehension from her gorgon of a mother. Suddenly none of the pressing matters of Sabine’s necklace, Hoare’s death, and his own reputation seemed so urgent.

“No, Bridget, forgive me for greeting you like this. But the wounds are superficial, and you cannot leave when you have only just arrived. Let us proceed to Astley. I will attend to myself and then we will take a stroll on the hill.”

The temptation of seeing Astley seemed to tip the balance. “I have heard Astley’s gardens are most remarkable. Certainly it would interest me to see them.” Thus she agreed.

With the appearance of Bridget, Joshua speedily determined to alter the plan. He would make an excuse and send Cobb to a lodging house to wait for him. But when he turned to do so, he found Cobb had melted away and was limping at a surprising speed two hundred yards down the road, in the direction of the Star and Garter and the London stage.

“Who was that man you were with?” demanded Bridget, spotting Cobb’s retreating figure.

“That,” said Joshua with a sinking heart, “was John Cobb.” There would be time enough later to work out how to break the news gently to her that he had just invited a man who might or might not be a dangerous malefactor to stay in her mother’s house.

SINCE Joshua was incapable of riding in his present condition, they tethered his nag to the back of the cart and he took a seat behind. Herbert was reading a book in the garden when their bedraggled procession arrived at Astley. He looked astonished at the sight of Joshua, disheveled and bloody, and Bridget, winsome and pink, driven in an oxcart by a ragged urchin.

Throwing down his volume, he bustled toward them. He recognized Bridget from his recent visit to search Joshua’s rooms, and seemed pleased to see her, but words failed him when he regarded Joshua. He turned chalk white, as he considered every cut and bruise and blemish. And yet when Joshua briefly told him what had happened, he offered no word of sympathy.

Racked with pain and craving a bath and clean clothes, it was all Joshua could do to ask Herbert to show Bridget the gardens and stagger indoors. Herbert took the request in his stride. The last thing Joshua heard as he unsteadily scaled the steps to the door was, “Now, you will recall I told you of my damask and musk roses. If you would care to come this way, Miss Quick, I will show you some that are particularly splendid …”

ONCE in his room, Joshua called for Peters, the first footman, to send for a servant to fill the bathtub and bring bandages and ointment. An old manservant by the name of Henderson, with a wizened face and a humped back, arrived with pails of steaming water. After filling the copper tub, Henderson helped Joshua to discard his filthy clothes and step in. Joshua steeped himself in the hot water—though his wrists were so painful he couldn’t submerge them and had to lay them on the rim of the tub. He demanded a cloth and gingerly washed the blood from his face. Only then did he dare ask Henderson for a looking glass.

Joshua hardly recognized himself. His left eye was livid and swollen, and there was a deep cut beneath it. The wound to his forehead, white skin gaping open to reveal a cavern of red, was some four inches long.

He dried and dressed laboriously with the assistance of the hunched servant, flinching whenever the towel touched a bruise or a graze, which was often. But when he asked Henderson to tend to his wounds, the old man frowned and shook his head. “You must excuse me, sir. I will send immediately for someone better fitted to such a task.” Then he bowed and left.

While Joshua waited for one of the housemaids, he examined his burns. The skin was heavily blistered; there were pouches of skin full of watery liquid; in places the skin had burst, and the raw red flesh was so excruciatingly tender that the thought of anything touching his wrists, let alone wearing his shirtsleeves buttoned, was unbearable.

Strangely, for one who had always been much preoccupied by imaginary maladies, Joshua felt surprisingly calm when faced with real injury. The burns were severe. If they didn’t heal, the repercussions on his career might be grave, yet he didn’t fret. What would be would be; there was nothing much he could do about it.

Not long after the old servant left he heard a gentle knock and his door opened.

“I gather you have been hurt and require assistance, Mr. Pope?”

His eyebrows shot up and his cheeks reddened. To his astonishment, there stood Caroline Bentnick carrying a tray of ointments and bottles.

“Miss Bentnick. Forgive me for troubling you. I would not have done so, only Henderson said he couldn’t dress my wounds but would send someone better suited.”

“And will I not do, Mr. Pope?” she said, pursing her lips as she came closer to peer at the gash on his head. She gently inspected first one wrist, then the other. “He was right to do so. I have a little medical knowledge, taught to me by my mother. I will do what I can, but if there is no improvement soon, you should see a physician.”

With that, Caroline Bentnick unstoppered a small brown bottle and poured a draft into a glass. “Take this, Mr. Pope.”

“What is it?”

“Something to alleviate your discomfort.”

“Laudanum?”

“No. If you must know, a mixture of ingredients closer to hand. Honey and water and wine and powdered rush. Drink it and you will feel better.”

Joshua drank the bittersweet liquid. Almost immediately, his pain diminished. Then Caroline applied a preparation made from trefoil and sweet oil and treacle with a feather, and then wrapped his wrists in wadding.

“I won’t be able to paint if you wrap the bandages so tight,” he protested.

“Then you must find some alternative occupation for a day or two. Perhaps you could continue your instruction with Lizzie Manning?”

“Miss Manning’s application was wanting. Besides, she is too busy to see me. When I called on her today she had gone out.”

Caroline Bentnick smiled and met his eyes. “Lizzie Manning is the most charming girl. From hearing her speak to you, I sense in what high opinion she holds you. She would not mean to slight you. If she missed your visit, there must have been a pressing reason.” Joshua nodded. “That is all very well, Miss Bentnick. But what was the reason?”