Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
PATIENCE WALKED IN the direction that Dunrose had pointed out to her until she got to the road. She thought, at first, this was a good thing, but she immediately became confused about which way she should walk along the road.
She tried to remember which way the carriage had been facing when it had been stopped by the awful highwayman, but the more she thought about it, the more confused she became. It seemed to her that she could rewrite it in any direction, going this way or that.
She spoke to Dash about it in a low voice, trying to puzzle it out, but eventually, the dog just walked off down the road.
Well, she’d walk until she found something, a house or another carriage or something, and then she’d get help. Decided, she set off after Dash.
It seemed that she had walked in the opposite direction of London.
But, happily, she found her carriage.
It was pulled off on the side of the road, and the horses had been detached and tied to trees, where they were lazily grazing. The driver Roger and Isabella were huddled around a small fire, looking forlorn.
They were overjoyed to see her.
Roger explained that they hadn’t known what to do. “You must forgive us, my lady. I know we should have gone directly back to your husband and told him what had occurred, but…”
“No, you knew he would kill you,” she said.
“Yes, but our lives should be forfeit in service of your safety—”
“No, I don’t know if I agree with that,” she said, shaking her head. “No, it’s a fine man indeed who marches to his death for the sake of another, I suppose, but to impose that duty on another? Who can truly expect that of someone else, especially not for the sake of the salary you are given for your service to my husband. I don’t blame you.” Of course, she was shaken and tired and had been through an awful fright, so perhaps she was only saying this out of gratitude to have found them.
Then, they had a long debate about what was to be done.
They could simply continue on, for the country, as if nothing had happened. After all, she had not been harmed, and nothing had been taken from them, and there was truly no reason to even tell the viscount that anything had occurred.
But they all worried that it would somehow come out and that they would be badly punished for the deception.
Then Isabella pointed out that it was already possible that Patience carried her husband’s child. “However, if he were to ever discover what had happened tonight, he would have grounds to question the child’s paternity, and then he might do wretched, wretched things.”
This seized Patience with a kind of awful terror, for she knew Isabella was right. Her husband was the sort of man to drown a child if he thought it wasn’t his or even to strangle her if she was heavy with child to do away with both problems. She knew this with a cold certainty borne of her dealings with him thus far. She could never let him know what happened.
On the other hand, Roger said in a low and dull voice, they didn’t know what the highwaymen had done. They might have already issued a demand for ransom, and if so, all their discussion was for naught.
“It’s too risky to conceal it,” said Patience. “If he discovers it later, he will think there is a reason for subterfuge, and I cannot chance the life of my unborn child. We shall go back to town, yes, but not to my husband’s house. We shall go, instead, to my brother’s house.” Her brother had sold her off to this man, true, but her brother would not stand for murder. She would say that her bleeding was already late, that she had not been trifled with, and her brother would demand a promise of her safety or she would not go back under Balley’s roof.
Roger and Isabella agreed with this course of action and they extinguished the fire and get the horses attached to the carriage.
Patience was not at all sure it would work.
They drove back to London as the sun began to struggle into the sky. She made it to her brother’s house, but her brother wasn’t there, having apparently stayed out all night drinking and carousing or the like. She said she would wait until his return and Isabella stayed with her.
Roger left to go and see what he could discover at the Balley town house. He was back rather quickly with horrifying news.
He outlined that a ransom request had come to the viscount, who had taken a stable boy and a carriage out to meet the blackguards, but the stable boy had watched as the viscount was set upon by bandits who cut him to pieces. His body was, even now, somewhere in the woods outside London. They were seeking out his remains now, or—if he had survived—perhaps he could be rescued. Of course, the stable boy was adamant that Balley was dead, that it was impossible he had survived.
Patience had a somewhat horrible reaction to this news.
She started laughing. The laughter burst out of her in relief and, frankly, joy. She had not realized until now, but her dearest wish in the world had just been granted.
Balley dead!
It was like an answer to all her prayers.
But she couldn’t laugh, so she buried her head in her hands and made as if she was sobbing.
Thankfully, Isabella took over, then, saying that her mistress had suffered an awful shock after a night of sheer terror and that the viscountess must be bundled off to her own bed at once.
Once there, they were greeted by the news that Balley had been found. His body was borne back but she was assured that she must not look upon him, that he must not be laid out in the parlor, nothing of that sort.
Patience went to bed, as advised, and she slept the most peaceful sleep she’d slept in some time, since perhaps before her father had died.
When she awoke, the atmosphere in the town house was nearly celebratory. All the servants seemed cheerful, seeing to their duties with a skip in their step. The cook was preparing some kind of ridiculously elaborate dinner, which was foolish, for she was the only one to eat it, and Patience giddily decreed that they should set aside all ceremony and the servants must join her in the dining room where they would all serve themselves, like a breakfast, with food set out on a sideboard.
This would never have been permitted, but the air seemed charged like a feast day, a day when all things wrong had been righted, and they all ate together that night, laughing and drinking until far too late.
Patience ordered them all to leave the mess for the morning and sent everyone to bed.
The next morning, Balley’s nephew arrived.
Well, he was the new Viscount of Balley, in fact, so he would hitherto be known by his intimates as Balley. She must think of Balley by his first name now, she supposed. Reginald. It didn’t seem to suit him, she thought. It was too fine a name for the man.
The nephew, the new viscount, was appalled at the state of the house, for everyone had slept late, and he spent the morning bellowing at the servants who scurried about, cowed again, and Patience felt a dull anger.
But there was nothing for it.
She was not to stay in this house, after all.
There was a dowager house, but it was not in town. It was attached to Balley’s holdings in the north, another estate even than the one she’d been traveling to. It was bordering Scotland, in fact, all the way at the top of the world.
No, if Patience wanted a house in town, she would have to purchase one herself, and that would depend upon the state of her dowry and upon any provisions made by Balley for her in his will. She doubted he’d set anything up in regards to that, though, for he hadn’t been expecting to widow her so quickly.
She was permitted to stay in town through the funeral, and during that time, the will would be read. If she was with child, things might change, of course. The nephew was the new Balley, but if she had a boy child, he would be the new Balley, and that would set everything on its ear. She wasn’t sure what to wish for. If she had the heir, she would be able to send the nephew packing and to move back into Balley’s holdings. But she would still have to deal with Balley’s nephew, for he would be in charge of the estate and the money and the lands until her son was old enough to take over. It would be an uneasy alliance, she thought. She didn’t much care for Balley’s nephew.
And then, the morning of the funeral, her bleeding came.
And that was that.
Two weeks hence, in her widows weeds, she boarded a carriage again with Isabella, bound for her dowager house far away. She had been right that no provision had been left for her in Balley’s will, that he had bequeathed her none of his largess beyond the requirements like the dowager house and its staff and grounds. But her dowry, it turned out, was intact, and it was enough to keep her comfortably for likely the rest of her life if she didn’t spend extravagantly. She could even buy a house in town if she wished. Not a large one, and not in the most fashionable part, and not with a wide retinue of servants, but she could.
She likely would, but there was no reason to do it now.
It was late summer now, and everyone was leaving London, anyway. Furthermore, she was in mourning. Full mourning for six months, which meant no social engagements, and then half-mourning for another six months, which meant she could go out and about, but she would need to be dressed in greys and must not dance at a ball or anything like that.
Passing her mourning in the country seemed the easiest course of action, truly. She left the stifling dullness of the city behind and traveled off into the fresher air of the north. Dash traveled with her, hanging his little doggy head out of the carriage window sometimes, happy and excited, wagging his tail and looking up at her from time to time.
Dash would like the country, she thought.
The dowager house turned out to be drafty and old and in need of repair. But the staff was cheerful and willing to work hard for her comfort. She had a small staff, comprised of only four servants in addition to Isabella, and the housekeeper (truly more of a maid of all work) was Mrs. Higgins, though she told Patience that she could call her by her first name, Charlotte. She was quite young for a housekeeper, only a few years older than Patience herself. Charlotte had been widowed as well—her husband had died off in the wars on the continent. She had a shrewdness to her, something that Isabella respected.
And it turned out that Dash did indeed love the country. He made doggy friends with hunting dogs at the larger Balley estate (to which her dowager house was connected) and he spent his time running and gamboling through the fields, having the time of his little life.
As the long fall and winter months rolled on, she and Charlotte spoke often about all manner of things. They spoke of men and of love and of heartbreak and disappointment. They spoke of their own various predicaments in life, how it seemed to both of them that somehow, they had been thrown away, left to widowhood too young, but now—in the eyes of many—used up and somewhat worthless.
By the time that spring breathed warmth back into the world, Patience quite considered Charlotte a friend.
So, when Isabella came to Patience sometime in April, sobbing so much that she went through three handkerchiefs, with a story about how she had accidentally fallen in with a tenant farmer attached to the lands of the nearby Balley estate (to which the dowager house was part of) and that she had accidentally found herself carrying the man’s child, Patience felt a bit pleased to be shut of the girl, in all truth.
It was no worry. The farmer was eager enough to marry Isabella. He had a small child already. His previous wife and baby had been taken off in a fever, and he had already begged Isabella to be his wife more than once. “But,” Isabella sobbed, “I knew I could not leave you alone, my lady, for I am all you have, the only person who came all the way here with you from London, and I told him no ever so strenuously.”
Yes, told him no to marriage but not to lying on her back for the man, but Patience didn’t quibble. She assured Isabella she would manage fine without her. “After all, I have become rather adept at dressing myself when you are wanted elsewhere in the house, have I not?” Or when Isabella was having trysts with the farmer, Patience now surmised, for her maid had often been absent without a reason, not that Patience had decided to make an issue of it. She was managing fine, after all.
“But what will you do when you go back to London, my lady?” Patience wailed.
Hmm. What would she do?
She could already be back in London, even now. The Season was in full flush, and most of the ton had already returned. She could have secured her small house in town and taken callers and attended balls. She could even have sought another husband, if she wished.
“Maybe I shan’t go back to London,” she said with a shrug.
“But, my lady, I shall never forgive myself if I put my happiness above your own,” said Isabella.
“No, no,” said Patience. “You must do the best you can now for your babe. Your responsibility is as a mother now.”
That night, Patience cried.
She had not cried when her bleeding had come that morning of the funeral, but she began to think back on all of it, and she began to realize that may have been her only chance for a child of her own.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Patience was not old. She was a bit getting on if she had been never married. She was only twenty, though, and she had quite a bit of time to have a child if she wished. Was that what she wished?
Well, but the issue was, however, to have a child, she would have to get married again.
And that seemed dreadful.
She’d lose this lovely dowager house, for it belonged to the Balley holdings. She would lose Charlotte, who was attached to the house. And she would have to surrender, yet again, her dowry to the safekeeping of some man. It wasn’t that she thought all men were badly motivated to take women’s money, of course, but if she got married and a man spent all her dowry, she would have no recourse whatsoever.
She was safe now.
She had everything she would need, all on her own. She didn’t want to take the risk of marrying some other man who might turn out to be like the late viscount, or who might be even worse. For as bad as Balley had been, she didn’t deceive herself to think that she could not end up in a situation that held even more misery.
She spoke to Charlotte about it, who agreed with her.
“There are a number of honorable men in the world, and I know there are,” said Charlotte. “But the problem is that the men who are dishonorable pretend to be honorable. How is one to be sure what sort of man one is marrying before making the commitment? It’s one thing in my class, my lady, for we are freer to move about and find information, but women of your class are often kept ignorant of such things. There is a prevalent idea that women like you cannot understand complicated things, and they keep you ignorant.”
“Yes,” said Patience. “Yes, exactly.”
“But I think of it, too,” said Charlotte, wistful, looking off, her gaze going soft. “Of having my own babe, holding it in my arms, the feel of it, the smell of a sweet little darling. You know the way babies smell, don’t you?” She turned back to Patience with a little smile.
Patience nodded. “I do.”
“But it seems unlikely,” said Charlotte. “I live here, and I run this household, and I don’t think I shall ever meet the sort of man who I could marry. I try not to think of it, in fact.”
“What about orphans?” said Patience in a small voice.
“What?” said Charlotte.
“Well, there are these houses in town,” said Patience. “I know of them. They are open to women who end up in bad situations, with babes sown inside them that they cannot care for. The women come there and give birth and then they seek better homes and better lives for the children. Those children need a loving home, and you and I should like a baby, and… well, perhaps that’s our solution.”
“ Our solution?”
“You will come with me to London,” said Patience. “As it happens, I need a new maid. But then, we shall raise the children together.”
Charlotte gave her one of her shrewd looks. “Those would be your children, my lady, if you adopt orphans.”
Patience nodded, looking down into her lap. “You’re right. I can see how it wouldn’t appeal to you.”
“No, I didn’t say that,” said Charlotte, sighing. “No, that might suit me rather well, in fact, my lady. A child that is yours, but that I am allowed to cuddle from time to time? One who calls you ‘Mama’ but who might sit down with me and tell me some story about how he plays with his toy soldiers? That might be just as much child as I should even like. This way, I might keep my freedom.”
“This way, we might both keep our freedom,” said Patience, nodding.
Charlotte smiled. She threw back her head and looked at the ceiling. “London! Me. In London .”
Both of the women started laughing.
“When should we go?” said Patience.
“Well, whenever it suits you, my lady,” said Charlotte, still laughing.
“Soon,” said Patience.