Chapter 10 #2
Esther pointed at the dog, who was gambolling around them in wide, gleeful circles. “My late husband’s notion. He had the oddest ideas about what was amusing.”
“Oh, right, yes, because watching some poor fool fall face-first into a stream is the epitome of wit.”
She chuckled. “We deserved each other.”
There was a pause. Micha frowned, trying to remember how ordinary people spoke.
How you conveyed the right sort of things, how you cared and showed you cared.
What was too much and what was not enough.
It had been so long since conversation had not been imposition or transaction.
“Sorry for your loss and . . . all that.”
“So am I, Michael, so am I.”
“Uh, you want to tell me about him or something?”
“You’re a sweet boy. But no. I wouldn’t bore either of us with that.”
“I wouldn’t be bored,” he lied. In that, at least, he was well practised. “And I’m twenty-three and a half, nearly twenty-four, you know, so you can stop calling me ‘boy.’”
“My heavens. Twenty-three and a half? Ancient. Practically dead yourself.”
“I should have let you chase your own damn dog.”
“Take some advice from an old, old lady, Michael.” She smirked up at him. “If you want anyone to take your claims of maturity seriously, don’t calculate your age in fractions.”
She had led him through the other side of the meadow and down a narrow lane, edged by clusters of yarrow and teasel, pink and white pockets amid the fading yellow-green.
The first of the village cottages lay just beyond—he could just about make out sunlit stone and thatched roofs, the occasional tangle of ivy and climbing roses.
It was so fucking picturesque Micha would have scoffed had he not been feeling quite so drenched and shivery.
“Nearly there, dear. We’ll soon have you right as rain again.”
“I’ve been ill.” Micha scowled. “That’s the only reason I—” He gave a violent sneeze.
“Yes, yes, Michael.”
Esther hustled him along until they came to a simple square cottage in the same elegant slate-and-ironstone style as the rectory and wreathed in dark-yellow wisteria.
As soon as they approached, a door popped open across the street and a woman came flying towards them, like a frigate under full sail.
Panting a little, she came to a halt, glancing expectantly from Esther to Micha and then back to Esther again.
“Michael,” said Esther, in rather dry accents, “this is my dear friend Ada Stanton. Ada, this is Michael Dashwood.”
She was about twenty years younger than Esther, with a comfortable peaches-and-cream prettiness. “How thrilling.” Her eyes roamed over him with avid interest.
“Ruff was so disobliging as to pull him into the brook,” explained Esther.
“I shall lend my assistance!” cried Ada immediately.
They hurried him into Esther’s house, and Ada peeled him out of his coat while Esther made up the fire.
“Um,” said Micha awkwardly, “I can—”
“Oh, do stop getting in the way, Ada.” Esther tugged at her friend’s arm.
“But we should get him out of these damp things at once.”
“For which he does not need your assistance.”
Ada put a hand to her heart and heaved a deep sigh. “But one sees so few drenched young men these days.”
“Well, find your own and push him in the stream yourself.”
Micha, who thought himself far beyond such things, actually blushed. The truth was, he was unaccustomed to the attentions of ladies, and he had no idea how he was supposed to react.
“Look what you’ve done to the poor dear.” Esther shooed Ada away. “Go and make tea. There should even be cake.” Ada scampered off down the hall, clearly determined to miss as little of the drenched young man as possible. “Now, Michael, come with me.”
Esther took him upstairs and wrapped him up in towels, while he stood there dazedly, his hands crossed with absurd modesty over his chest, for the material of his shirt was clinging to him in an unseemly manner.
“You must not mind Ada,” Esther told him. “She’s a giddy kipper and means no harm.”
She crossed the room and began rummaging in the wardrobe.
“I’m sure something in here will do.” She pulled out a double-breasted frock coat, about two decades out of fashion, and threw it onto the bed, along with a pair of dark trousers, a matching vest, and a fresh linen shirt with a low standing collar.
“Well, you won’t be cutting a dash, my dear, but you won’t freeze to death either. ”
Then she left him alone, in what was clearly the bedroom she had once shared with her husband.
It was a lived-in room, faded and familiar, full of memories.
Micha stripped off his ruined clothes, bundled them into a ball, and began towelling himself dry.
Fortunately, the more intimate elements of his attire had mostly survived the drenching.
He perched in some embarrassment on the edge of the bed as he fastened the shirt and did something slightly haphazard with the cravat, as he had no idea what he was supposed to do with such a low collar.
He wondered what it would be like to share the same bed with the same person every day, and for the rest of your life. To have that certainty of warmth.
He was feeling a little better now he was inside and out of his wet clothes.
Gradually, he was able to control his trembling, though lights were flashing, sharp as pinpricks, at the corners of his eyes, and when he stood up, dizziness rushed over him so abruptly he had to sit down again.
What he really needed, he thought, was some laudanum.
That would ease everything and stop him thinking such strange things.
Eventually, he was able to stand, steady himself, and go downstairs.
Ada said that he looked as dashing as Heathcliff, and Esther pointed out that comparing him to a murderous commoner was hardly flattering.
Then they insisted on rewrapping him in towels, and he found himself pressed into a chair by the fire and plied with tea and plum cake.
Ruff, perhaps feeling guilty for having caused the whole mishap, lolloped over and collapsed protectively over Micha’s feet.
Micha liberated a hand from deep inside his towel cocoon and reached down to scratch the dog’s ears.
“So.” Ada, having supplied herself liberally with cake and settled onto a sofa, addressed him with obvious excitement. “You must be new to Nettlefield?”
Micha, who had fallen into a peculiar state of semi-oppressed contentment, between the dog and the fire and the tea and the plum cake, was pulled sharply back to reality, with all its complexities, compromises, and falsehoods. “Uh . . . yes. I’m staying with . . . with my cousin.”
“Oh?” Ada cast him a sly, gossip-hungry look, but it was not malicious.
Esther shook her head, as if she was far above this sort of thing, but there was no hiding her interest either.
“Thomas,” said Micha. “Mandeville. The rector.”
“We all know who the rector is, Michael.” Ada laughed rather wickedly and tossed her buttercup-yellow curls. “We all know everything. You must be used to city life.”
He nodded. “Yes. Manchester originally, then Oxford. And then I moved to London.” He paused, frowning.
Why was he telling them this? This pathetic patchwork of truth and lies.
Maybe there was something in the plum cake.
Or maybe it was just pleasant to sit in someone’s parlour, to talk of unimportant things with incidental acquaintances, and pretend to be the nice young man they thought he was.
“And you say you’re Thomas’s cousin?” asked Ada, who clearly had the tenacity of a bulldog.
“Distant cousin,” he said quickly. “Twice removed. It’s very kind of Th-Thomas”—it felt so strange, suddenly, to speak his name aloud to strangers—“to take me in.”
“It’s just like him,” agreed Ada, with what Micha considered a rather squishy look. “He’s such a lovely man.”
“Pish,” said Esther. “The company will do him good, I’m sure. He’s far too serious.”
“Essie! I think a sober bearing and a certain . . . distance is very fitting for a priest. I suppose you would have him fat and jolly and worldly? Like something out of The Canterbury Tales.”
“I would have him happy. His weight is entirely his own business.”
“Is he unhappy?” Micha asked, carelessly, his eyes fixed on his teacup.
There was a long silence.
“He’s a dutiful fellow,” said Esther, finally. “And we think the death of his brother hit him hard. But you surely know more about that than we do.”
Well, now he was fucked. He was just about to chance a general remark when inspiration came. “I was out of the country at the time. I mean, I heard but—”
“I know!” cried Ada. “It was awful. A hunting accident. And straight after his honeymoon. His poor wife. Poor Thomas.”
Suddenly, a line from Thomas’s journal unfurled before Micha’s eyes, as clearly as if it were in front of him again: Edward shot himself today.
“Yes.” He covered his confusion as best he could. “A terrible misfortune.”
“He was a fine man,” said Esther. “Not like his brother.” She coughed. “Not that Thomas is, in any way, unfine. But they’re quite different sorts.”
Micha knew curiosity to be dangerous. It implied, if not led directly to, caring. But it was strange—alluring in some way—to see Thomas through someone else’s eyes. “How so?”
“Oh, well, Thomas is . . . that is . . . Edward wasn’t the sort to hold himself aloof.”
Aloof? Thomas? The man who had plucked a stranger from the gutters of London? Who had whispered his childhood secrets and shared his undared dreams?
“But,” Esther went on comfortably, “let us not mix tea and tragedy. What are your plans, Michael? Will you be with us for long?”