23 Worrying News #2
“Oh, Mama! Mama!” was all she could say for some considerable time, and then, “I needed you so badly. Why did you not come? Oh Mama! All will be well now, I am sure.”
Cora was shocked when she saw the baby. Her skin was grey and her breathing shallow, and although her eyes were closed, she was not asleep but moving restlessly.
“Poor little mite!” she said, lifting her out of the crib and gently cuddling her in her arms. “There now — look at that. She opens her eyes for me.”
“Truly?” Sophia said. “Oh, Mama! You see? You are making her better already.”
Cora knew perfectly well that she had no special skill in the sickroom.
All she had ever done when her children had suffered their various ailments was to follow the doctor’s instructions to the letter, and trust that their constitutions were strong enough to bring them safely through it.
A few heartfelt prayers never hurt, either.
She understood perfectly that her r?le was to encourage Sophia into a more positive frame of mind, and so that was what she set herself to do.
It seemed to be effective, for Sophia stopped crying and within the hour was convinced that she saw an improvement in Mary.
When Dr Percival came later that day, he was sensible enough to encourage this idea, declaring himself very pleased with Mary’s progress. He was more concerned, he said, with the duke, who had clearly caught the same infectious disease, and was of an age to cause some alarm for his wellbeing.
“If you ask me, Mr Richard Merrington removed his family not a moment too soon,” the physician said. “The heir must be protected, especially as his wife has not yet given him a son. Who is heir after your son, Mrs Merrington?”
“A very distant cousin, I believe. An attorney, I think.”
“It would be a tragedy if the dukedom were lost, would it not?”
Cora could not entirely agree. Having spent a number of years not knowing whether she would one day be a duchess or live out her life in relative obscurity as a mere gentleman’s wife, she had been relieved rather than distressed when Roland had died and that possibility had vanished irrevocably.
If called upon, she would of course have done her duty, but the prospect had hung over her like a dark cloud on a summer’s day.
She was better suited to the small doings of a parish than the pomp and ceremony of court and parliament and a noble inheritance.
Roland had never talked about it, and perhaps he never thought about it, either, but every time a black-edged letter had arrived from Staineybank announcing the death of a son, inching her husband nearer to a ducal coronet, she had quailed at the prospect.
Happily, that was no longer her fate. Rowena would be the one summoned to court, required to attend the Queen or one of the princesses, and Cora was free to do as she pleased.
That put her in mind of Cal, and while Sophia was attending to the baby, she found writing things and began a letter to him.
If she could not be with him, and for some time she would be tied to Sophia and the baby, at least she could pour her love onto paper.
Souter would take her letters to him, and perhaps, if he could find the time, he would write back and this little ache in her heart from his absence would be soothed for a while.
The hours passed slowly, punctuated by meal trays and hourly pots of tea, sent up by Souter.
One pot was accompanied by a cake from Georgie Hammond, with a little note of encouragement.
Charlotte and Hester, too, sent up little treats, and Maria chose books and journals that she thought might act as a distraction.
There was little visible change in Mary, but Cora wrapped her in a blanket and rocked her gently in her arms as she walked about the room.
Before long, the almost forgotten lullabies rose to her mind and she began softly singing.
The baby watched her, eyes fixed on her face, but it was Sophia who fell into a deep sleep.
By the time she woke, Mary, too, was sleeping peacefully.
“She is better, I think,” Sophia whispered. “You see a difference, I am sure. Yes, she is certainly a little better.”
Late in the afternoon, Simon Payne put his head round the door. He was not allowed into the room but Sophia greeted him happily, pointed to the baby in Cora’s arms and said that Mary was on the mend at last.
“I knew your mama would make all the difference,” he said.
Cora could only be amused by this touching faith in her abilities.
Perhaps it was no more than the magic of motherhood, that one had only to appear for all ills to be lessened…
or at least, to seem to be, which was almost the same.
Whatever the truth of it, by the morning there was no doubt that Mary was definitely on the mend, and since Cora was credited with all the success of this, she decided not to protest too much.
***
For a week Cora lived in the attic with Sophia, Mary and Annie, the nursery maid.
She slept on an elderly sofa in a corner, alternating hours of sleep with Sophia, while Annie curled up on a mattress on the floor.
Once a day, the footmen and maids laboured up the stairs with a tin bath and innumerable ewers of hot water for them to bathe in an open part of the attic, sheltered by dilapidated screens from the heaps of ancient furniture and other detritus surrounding the bath.
Cora always had the first dip, followed by Sophia and then, in almost cold water, Annie.
Afterwards, they helped each other to don the clean clothes sent up from below, and dressed each other’s hair.
It was a strange existence, cut off so completely from the outside world.
There was a window, but the curtains were drawn both day and night, and Dr Percival would not approve of any opening, no matter how slight, that might permit injurious air into the sick room.
Sometimes, when everyone else was asleep but there was still light enough to see, Cora would stand beside the window looking out on the endless greenery that surrounded the house, watching the trees and shrubs being tossed about by the breeze.
The view was over the shrubbery not the lake, but it still represented freedom.
Oh, to be out in the clean fresh air, and not trapped in this over-warm prison!
For several weeks now she had spent much of every day out in the garden at Lilac House, surrounded by the sweet scent of wood shavings or freshly turned earth, according to Cal’s current project, and she missed it almost beyond endurance.
Only her letters kept her sane, pouring out her longings in prosaic ink and paper.
And oh the joy when he wrote back! Two or three times a day, a carefully folded and sealed epistle would arrive, inscribed in his neat handwriting, ‘Mrs Roland Merrington, The Attic, Staineybank’, which made her smile.
Eventually, a day came when Mary was deemed to be well enough to be left in Annie’s care for an hour or two while Cora and Sophia dined with the family.
The Duke was still unwell and Georgie Hammond chose to stay with her own baby, but even without Richard’s family, they sat down a dozen to dinner.
Cora found it rather a trial. How quickly she had grown unused to such company!
Now all she wanted was to eat in the kitchen with Cal, Souter, Timmy and Meg.
She was fortunate in having Simon on one side of her, whose sole concern was with Sophia on his other side. Cora’s other dining companion was Jamie Hammond, who was a pleasantly undemanding man to talk to, for he rarely ventured beyond the commonplace.
Towards the end of the meal, however, he said, “How is Timmy Skinner settling in at Lilac House?”
“Very well. He is head groom as well as kitchen boy, footman and under-gardener, and is happy to do whatever we ask of him.”
“I am very pleased that he was found a position after… well, never mind. But… may I ask you to answer one question that concerns me? Have you noticed anything… going missing, shall we say? Tea or anything else?”
“No, nothing at all,” she said sharply. “He was quite innocent of thievery, Mr Hammond. He swore it on the Bible, and it would take a very depraved sort of wickedness to lie in God’s face like that.
He is a hard-working young man, and I have not seen one iota of dishonesty in him.
Even when he forgot to cover some pastries we were keeping for our supper and the cat ate three of them, which he could have pretended to know nothing about, he told Cal at once and offered to go without his share at supper.
That is hardly the behaviour of a dishonest person, is it? ”
Jamie leaned back in his chair, twirling his wine glass thoughtfully. “No, it is not. The trouble is… if not Timmy, then who? Who else had access to Red Jenny and the tea caddies in the pantry? It makes no sense.”
“Perhaps the simplest explanation is the true one — that there never was any Red Jenny in the tea, and the two tragedies occurred on the same day by coincidence.”
He sighed, and gave a wry smile. “Perhaps it may be so, and I am merely chasing a mirage. You quite properly remind me that real life is a messy and uncertain business, and not everything is susceptible to rational explanation. I am glad you are come back to Staineybank, Mrs Merrington. We have all missed your good sense and calmness. Your children will be glad to have you at home again.”
“But this is not my home, Mr Hammond, not any longer. As soon as Sophia can spare me, I shall be returning to Lilac House.”
The dismay on his face made her want to laugh.
“You cannot mean that? Surely…?”
“I do mean it. I have settled my future, and it is with my— with Mr Garford. I shall always be available when my children need me, but my life is elsewhere now.”
He nodded sadly. “Then I am very sorry for it.”