XIII

"Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!" Máire Mullen gasped. She stared out the scullery window wide-eyed, one hand dropping against its ledge and the other hanging limply at her side.

Of course, she was not meant to be looking out the window at all, but one of her early morning duties included heating water for the kitchen, and the cook stove stood near enough to the window that she could gaze out while she worked. She usually managed to do so without calling attention to herself and her idleness, but this morning surprise had overtaken good sense. She leaned nearer to the glass, her small jaw dropping in an almost comical display of shock.

"What is it, Máire?" a voice asked from behind her. "What is the matter?"

Máire glanced over her shoulder. That was Bridget Mason talking, of course. Bridget lit the fires in the master's rooms and she was, at present, stooped over the coal bin in the corner, filling a scuttle to carry upstairs with her. She did not stop her work even when she spoke, but her eyes were fixed on Máire with keen interest.

"It's only the master coming across the lawn," answered Máire, with active relief. "Sure and he gave me a fright coming out of the dark like that."

"He's never been out this early?" Thunk, thunk, thunk, lumps of coal dropped into Bridget's scuttle. "It's not even dawn yet."

"He hasn't a hat and his coat is off one shoulder," Máire said, peering out. "I should say he's not been in."

"What, do you mean all night?"

"'Twouldn't be the first time." Máire glanced back at her water, startled to find that it was now bubbling out onto the stovetop. She dragged the kettle off the range, moving with such haste water lapped over the sides and splashed against the stone floor.

"You'll take a rag and see to your mess!" Bridget said shrilly. "You did the same yesterday and I had to wipe it away. I'll not do it again!"

"Am I to be scolded by you as well as Mrs. Hastings?" Máire asked in vexation. However, she set the kettle on the floor and took a clean rag from the basket by the stove.

"Do you mean the master has spent all night in the garden before?" With the puddles attended to, Bridget had become chatty once again.

Máire looked smug. "You mean to say you don't know about that, when you were the one who found his rooms empty in the first place? It was the morning after the doctor came. Mrs. Hastings and I came upon him in the garden, lying in the grass as if it were his own bed."

"Was he!"

"Upon my honor. Though he was coughing something terrible from the dampness and the night air."

Bridget hefted the now-full scuttle onto her arm, staggering a bit from its weight. "I heard nothing of that," she huffed, "only that he had been found."

"Naturally, Mrs. Hastings did not want there to be gossiping and storytelling." Máire seemed quite unconscious that this was what she was doing.

Bridget sighed. "He'll be wanting his fire if he's lain out all night," she said. "I suppose I must fly—"

"I should say you must," a third voice interjected. Then, even more severely, "And you, Máire Mullen. What must you being doing?"

Both girls startled violently at this, and Bridget nearly lost her coal altogether. Recovering herself quickly, she dropped a curtsy.

Mrs. Hastings, who was standing in the doorway with a disapproving frown on her face, did not acknowledge her. She was staring at Máire.

"Well," she said pointedly. Máire squirmed.

"I've heated the water and now I must take it to Cook," she murmured.

"Precisely. However, first you shall tell me just what it was that put you so behindhand."

"The master...he startled me. There at the window." She motioned with a jerk of her chin. "I happened to be gazing out and he took me by surprise. I was merely telling Bridget—"

"Never mind what you were telling Bridget. Go on with your work." Margaret glanced at Bridget, who was trying to make as unobtrusive an escape as possible, and added, "Both of you. Bridget Mason, do you know Sarah is upstairs doing her work with no fires lit? Get on quickly!"

Bridget hastened her departure considerably, Máire not too far behind her.

Margaret waited until they had gone. Then she flung open the scullery door and stepped out into the garden.

Although he had been very near the back of the house when Máire first spotted him, by the time Margaret left the scullery the master was at the far end of the garden once more. He was walking swiftly, following the boundary of the low wall, and looking out over it into the orchard. A faint track worn in the grass showed just how long he had been at this, but presently he stopped and lowered himself onto a marble bench that sat nearby. His hunched shoulders were trembling, his head bowed. He did not appear to mark her approach.

"Sir," Margaret called softly. Then, hastening her footsteps, "Mr. Pratt!"

It still seemed odd to call him that, when in her mind he would always be William. The young master. He had been just thirteen years old when she took her place in the house, a shy youth and small for his years, just getting ready to begin his training at Eton. These days the Westbury servants thought him inflexible and unfeeling; they liked him only as well as the salary he provided. But they had not known him as Margaret had. They had no recollection of a sweet-tempered boy asking for another piece of gingerbread after dinner, or a young man sitting in the parlor, reading The Pickwick Papers aloud and laughing with his mother. They could not remember a man in his twenties, lovesick and hopeful, composing bits of poetry for a woman who would never care to read them.

If it had not been for his mother, Margaret thought, he might have turned out very differently. After all, he was bright, he was educated, and he had a remarkably kind nature; he might have done anything. But the mistress had clung to him much too tightly when her husband died, and she continued to cling for another twenty years. By the time she finally perceived what damage her stranglehold caused him, it was far too late to put it to rights. Not that she didn't try. Overcome by a desire to rectify her mistake, she pushed that poor retiring creature into society without a thought to how ill equipped he was to handle it. She could not understand it when he failed spectacularly in all his efforts, when his temper finally broke and he took all his frustrations—a lifetime of them—out on her. She felt betrayed by him then, no doubt, and their relationship never seemed the same afterward.

Certainly, he never seemed the same. Not the same gentle, well-intentioned man at all.

Still, hardened as he had become, the old sympathy, the affection for him, remained. When Margaret reached him, she touched a hand to his coat sleeve and spoke his name with exceeding tenderness.

He startled, moving so abruptly his elbow almost hit her in the face. She ducked.

"Mercy! I didn't mean to frighten you so—"

He stared at her, silent in his bewilderment. Behind the water-beaded glass of his spectacles, his eyes seemed distant and blurred, the pupils mere pin pricks in the dim, predawn light. Not for the first time, Margaret found herself silently cursing laudanum. If you asked her, the blasted stuff caused more harm than the illnesses for which it was prescribed. She sighed.

"You've been out all night, sir?" A silly question, given that she knew the answer to it before he even opened his mouth. The dew in his hair—his rumpled, dirty clothing—it gave him away. Besides which, this was the fourth morning Margaret had found him thus. Normally, he crept inside by way of the parlor door, escaping to his rooms just as the servants were rising. He had passed her in the corridor more than once, but he had not spoken. Neither had she. It was not her place to do so.

She realized he must have been meeting someone. No man left his bed, night after night, to wander abroad in the dark unless he had a purpose. Margaret had seen the hoof prints in the garden; she had heard the murmur of voices on the rare occasion she rose from her own bed to investigate at the window. It was too dark and they were too far off for her to see whom he was with, but Margaret thought it must be a woman. A fancy woman, no doubt, or else one of the low girls from the village—someone young and easy, and out to earn a few shillings off a gentleman. Still, she kept her peace. Men had their weaknesses, everyone knew that, and who was she to criticize him for indulging in them.

It did not appear to be doing him much good, however. He looked pale as a dead man.

"Are you feeling all right, sir?"

"Yes, fine." But there was an edge to his voice. When Margaret continued to stand by his side, he snapped impatiently, "What do you want?"

"Forgive me. It is only that...I was wondering...would you not prefer to come inside now."

"Inside to what?" he asked. Sullen now, resentful of the intrusion.

"Well, it's breakfast soon." She was coaxing, as one might have done to a child, or a madman. "John could prepare a bath first. You look feverish and your collar is damp. You'll catch your death—" She stopped herself, but not soon enough. He let out a sarcastic snort.

"My death," he echoed softly. Then, with a bit more feeling, "Mrs. Hastings, I think it is safe to say that my death is a quarry already caught and caged."

A lesser woman might have yielded to this argument, but Margaret said boldly, "Be that as it may, I see no reason for you to hurry it along. Come inside, Mr. Pratt. Please."

She hardly expected such a simple entreaty to work, but to her surprise, he unfolded himself from the bench and climbed to his feet. He swayed like a top-heavy sunflower in a strong summer breeze. He extended one arm to her. "I am afraid I shall have to ask for your assistance, Mrs. Hastings. I feel...rather weak and trembling."

Of course he did. He had not eaten a proper meal in three days and he had spent half the night making circles around the garden. Margaret took his hand into the crook of her own, allowing him to lean against her as they started down the path toward the house. He had something wrapped around his left wrist, a thong of leather with a battered pewter cross hanging from it, but Margaret made no mention of that. She said nothing at all, not until they were halfway home and she saw the look on his face—an awful, agonized look as though he were about to cry. He glanced back over his shoulder to the orchard and his step faltered, bringing them both to a halt.

"Sir?" she said anxiously. "Are you well?"

"I made a mistake," he choked. But softly, as though he was speaking only to himself. There were tears in his voice, tears in his eyes, when he said again, "I made an awful mistake."

It was like trying to construct a puzzle with half the pieces missing, but Margaret thought she understood. He wasn't meeting someone in the garden at night. Not any longer. He had been at one time, but she, the girl, whoever she was, had put a stop to it. These past four nights he had been waiting for her and she had not shown herself. Without warning, without explanation, she had thrown him over, and he—

Well, he was breaking his heart over it. That went without saying. Those eyes...

Still! Who would have thought he would form an attachment to some common girl with no morals? And she must be that, for no unmarried lady would ever creep around in the dark with a gentleman. It seemed so unlikely of him, so sad. The first girl he pursued might have been cold and unfeeling, but at least she was suitable. This, however...

It must be because he was ill, the poor devil. He was grasping at whatever comfort he could find, and that made him an easy mark. If his mystery girl had not robbed him outright, she'd begged off him, or gotten everything she could in some other way. She'd abandoned him the moment his purpose was served.

Small wonder he looked so wretched.

A wave of pity washed over her, though naturally she was not free to indulge in it. He was already walking again, swiftly, pulling at her in a way that almost belied his previous need for support. Just before they reached the parlor door, he dropped her arm altogether.

John was waiting for them just inside. He must have seen them coming from the window.

"The master wants a bath, please," Margaret murmured, as William brushed past them both with no comment. "Then, when you are finished with that, come and find me."

John nodded. He followed William at a discreet distance while Margaret returned downstairs.

In the servants' kitchen, most of the staff was seated around the plank table, eating their breakfasts. Margaret took her customary chair and addressed the coachman in what she hoped to be a nonchalant manner.

"After you finish, will you take the coach to the Long home? The master is in need of the doctor this morning."

Oliver swallowed a bite of food and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "Is he very bad off?" he asked, already half-rising. "I can go without delay."

"No, it isn't as serious as that. Don't rush yourself."

Across the table, Máire was helping serve. She leaned across Sarah Walker's elbow and whispered loudly, "If you ask me, it's a member of the clergy he wants, not a doctor." Her tone, while not venomous, was filled with gossipy delight. Margaret rose from her chair so swiftly she tipped it over.

"Máire Mullen!"

The maid paled visibly; she had not realized how her voice would carry. "Yes, Mrs. Hastings?"

"After breakfast I want you to scrub the floors in this wing, and mind you do them well. They are in a dreadful condition."

"Yes, Mrs. Hastings." Máire paused, then asked timidly, "Which floors will I be doing today?"

Margaret picked up her chair and resumed her seat. She made the girl wait a minute or two before she answered. "You're to do all of them. You're to keep at it until they are finished."

When Doctor Long arrived at a quarter after ten that morning, he found his patient restive and in a very poor temper. He had taken but a little of the breakfast his staff prepared and seemed annoyed with them for having summoned the doctor without consulting him. However, he submitted to an examination with minimal argument and sat quietly to hear the results of it.

His chest sounded more congested, and the crimson patches on his otherwise wan face were from a high fever, which would also be the reason why he felt chilled. His eyes were sunken and he had lost weight; clearly, he had not been following orders regarding his diet. In fact, he looked as though he had been neglecting himself shamefully, no doubt from some perverse desire to hasten the inevitable. Dr. Long told him this dispassionately, with an expression that clearly stated he had expected nothing more or less from such an uncooperative patient.

Before he left, Dr. Long advised William to take an extra measure of laudanum at luncheon, another just before dinnertime. To calm him, the doctor said. To help him rest.