Chapter Three
Cynthia opened the door timidly, expecting a soldier, one of the many who, turned off from the army after Waterloo and unable to find work, had taken to the roads looking for a meal, or any job that would pay a few pence.
She hated turning them away and usually gave them something to eat and a couple of coppers, which was more than she could afford.
But standing on the step was no soldier.
He was a complete stranger and unlike anyone who’d ever knocked her door before.
On the ground next to him was a heavy cloak and a large, square, canvas knapsack with what looked like the legs of a folding stool or table jutting out of the top.
Under a worn cap that the sun had faded to a dull grey, straggling blondish hair hung over his brow, and the bottom of his face was obscured by a bushy beard.
Between the two was a pair of unnaturally bright blue eyes.
She saw at once that the man had a fever.
He swayed slightly and gasped, “G…good m…morning, M…madam. May I tr…trouble y…you for some wat…”
But before he could finish, his eyes rolled back in his head and, to her horror, he crumpled at her feet.
Cynthia gave a cry and stepped towards him, almost treading on Teacup, who was sniffing at his toes.
Was he dead? She felt a momentary panic, but then bent down to feel his pulse.
He was alive, thank God, but his pulse was racing.
He had asked for water, but she couldn’t bear to leave him lying there like that while she got it.
“Ruby!” she cried urgently, “Bring a mug of water, quickly!”
Something in her voice must have communicated her near-panic, for Ruby emerged almost at once from the kitchen with an old mug of water in her hand, and a frown on her face. “What on earth’s the matter, Miss Cynthia?” she said, bustling over.
Then she saw the man on the ground. “Oh, my Lord! Is ’e dead?”
“No, thank goodness,” said Cynthia. “He was asking for water when he fainted. I was going to try to pour some between his lips, but now I think about it, the dropper we used for Teacup might be a better idea. You try to get water into him while I go upstairs to get it.”
She ran lightly up the stairs to her room. Unusually, Teacup did not follow her. She was busy investigating the prone body on the doorstep. She dabbed her paw suspiciously in the dribble of water Ruby was trying to pour between the man’s closed lips, most of which was falling into his beard.
“Get off, do!” said Ruby, pushing her away.
Raising her tail and looking as majestic as her diminutive size allowed, Teacup stalked down the man’s body and settled on his chest, purring loudly.
Cynthia returned with the dropper. She had first been in the kitchen to scald it from the kettle, thinking perhaps remnants of sour milk might still be clinging to it.
Now she filled it with the water Ruby had brought, and carefully inserted it between the man’s lips.
From what she could see of them between the bush of his beard, they were very nice lips, well-shaped and full.
The thought came unbidden: very good kissing lips.
Then she chided herself: the poor man is probably dying, and all you can think about is kissing. What’s the matter with you?
With Ruby looking suspiciously on, and Teacup sitting contentedly on his midsection, Cynthia gave the unconscious man water, drop by drop. With the hair all over his face, it was hard to see whether his color was any better, but at least he didn’t seem any worse.
“We can’t leave him lying here,” she said. “We must get him into a bed.”
“Miss Cynthia! You and your strays! First a nigh-on dead cat and now this dirty tramp in one of our beds? Nay! I’ll call Will to carry him into the shed.”
“Will has gone into town, don’t you remember?
The grocer said he’d take all the asparagus we had.
I told Will he might as well sell it. He’s not keen on it, neither are you, and I don’t mind one way or the other.
Anyway, I can’t put him in the shed! He’ll need nursing all night, and we’re not going out to the shed in the dark. ”
“But e’s a big fellow,” said Ruby. “We can’t carry ’im upstairs!”
“I wasn’t thinking of upstairs. There’s the old accounts room down the hall. It’s got a long sofa in it. My father used to snore on it when he was supposed to be doing the books. If we can get him onto the hall rug, we can pull him in there.”
This was easier said than done. The man was tall and surprisingly heavy; getting his shoulders and torso over the threshold and onto the rug was a challenge.
But once that was accomplished, they found it was possible to pull him along the old wood floor.
Teacup was affronted at being lifted off at the start of the endeavor, and kept trying to leap back onto him, even though the moving figure was a precarious ride. They gave up trying to shoo her away.
“Just leave her, Ruby,” said Cynthia, as they stopped to take a breath. “She weighs practically nothing so she can’t make the poor man worse, and you know how determined she is, once she’s made up her mind.”
Remembering the occasion when the kitten had been impossible to dissuade from playing with the crocheted milk-jug cover, with the inevitable result that cover, jug and milk had landed on the kitchen floor, Ruby could only agree.
They finally got the man inside the accounts room.
It had been used very little since the death of Cynthia’s father and the resulting sale of their lands.
It was empty except for his old desk and chair, and the sofa, but it still smelled of the cigars he used to smoke in there when he was supposedly ordering their affairs.
Nowadays, they had no accounts to keep. The very small quarterly remittance from the inheritance Cynthia had from her mother, and the pennies Will made from selling vegetables, were the only money coming in, and the goings out had to be judged accordingly.
It was kept in a purse in a kitchen drawer and used as necessary.
If you wanted to know how much you had, all you needed to do was look.
Suffice it to say, it was never very full.
They were far from well-off, but they managed.
“I’ll run up and get some linen,” said Cynthia. “Then we’ll get him up onto the sofa somehow. Please go and pick up his cloak and knapsack, Ruby. They’re still on the front step.”
She sped away, leaving Ruby shaking her head. Bringing a tramp into the house! What would her mother have said? But she knew it was useless to argue. Miss Cynthia, meek and mild as she appeared, was like the cat. Once she’d made up her mind to something, you couldn’t budge her.