Tenacious Trents 02 - A Perfect Gentleman (20 page)

The afternoon lengthened into night but Grace
barely noted the room darkening or Perkins lighting lamps. She was
acutely aware of Vicar Trent settled in a chair at the corner of
the room, watching her and watching her father, ready to offer
assistance if needed. Several times he had pressed a cup of tea
into her hand and later a bowl of soup. Where he had come by it she
had no idea, nor the energy to ask. After a few bites it had been
set aside. She had no appetite. Instead, she tried to get broth
past her father’s lips with Perkins holding him upright. But she
couldn’t get him to drink the fluid and the broth simply ran down
his chin and onto his nightshirt. Nor were they able to get him to
drink tea or water. If her father didn’t cooperate, he would
starve, thus ensuring his death. She could not allow that. She
would not allow it. But what was she to do.

A gentle hand rested on her shoulder. She
knew it was Vicar Trent, but didn’t take her eyes from her father’s
face.

“You should rest.”

“I can’t leave him.”

“Perkins will get you if he awakes.”

His awakening wasn’t what scared her. It was
what could happen while she slept. “I would rather stay here.”

Vicar Trent said nothing further and returned
to his seat in the corner.

She waited and waited but her father didn’t
move or flinch. It was almost as if he were gone. But she couldn’t
think like that. He had to awaken. He must!

Perkins had moved from his place by the
window and now sat in a chair as well, his head dropping in
exhaustion. Occasionally he would jerk and looked around. “You
should go to bed, Perkins.”

“I would rather remain with Mr. Cooper in
case he needs me.”

Grace tried to smile at his dedication but
didn’t have the energy to do so and went back to watching her
father. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock and
her eyes grew heavier with each click. She tried to keep her eyes
open but it became impossible until she decided to lay her head on
the bed and doze for but a few moments. If her father woke she
would be here.

“No,” she screamed. Grace bolted up and
looked around. The dawn light filtered into her bedchamber from the
open window. Her heart raced and breathing was rapid as she looked
around her dim room, trying to make sense of the nightmare. She
could only remember snippets but enough to recall the vision of her
father locked away, behind a cell, with screams of those carted
away to Bedlam surrounding her. Sweat trickled down her neck and
she swiped it away.

Her door burst open and Vicar Trent rushed
inside, his hair disheveled, sticking out at various angles and his
coat was missing and cravat askew. “What’s wrong?” Why was he here,
looking as if he had been asleep?

“Father!” How could she have forgotten her
father? Grace shoved the covers away and stood from the bed. She
still wore her dress from the day before. “How did I get here?” Her
last memories were of sitting with her father.

He blinked and shook his head as if to
dislodge the remnants of sleep. “I heard you scream.”

“It was a nightmare. Nothing more.” Grace
shoved her feet into the slippers beside her bed. “How is
father?”

Vicar Trent sighed, his face gaunt. “No
change.”

That was good. She needed him awake but at
least he hadn’t passed. She couldn’t lose her father. She needed
him and he hadn’t deserved everything that had happened to him in
the last few years.

She pushed past Vicar Trent. “I need to
return to him. I have no idea how I ended up in my bed.”

He followed her out the room. “I carried you
up here last night.”

He carried her, to her bed? Even though the
gesture was innocent, heat flooded her face at the impropriety.
“Thank you, but I wish you would have let me stay by my
father.”

“To topple to the floor in your
exhaustion?”

Whatever did he mean?

“I barely caught you before you slid from her
father’s bed. Perkins and I both agreed you needed to rest in your
own bed for your own safety and to avoid any aches and pains from
sleeping in such an odd position last night.”

Grace turned away and continued down the
stairs, but slowed her steps. Two rungs beneath the banister were
broken; there was a deep dent in the wall on the opposite side. A
chill ran up her spine. How much of this damage was caused by her
father when he fell? Dark stains marred the wood on the last three
steps. She knew well enough that it was blood and someone had tried
to clean it away, but the deep, almost blackish red would be
forever stained into grain.

Vicar Trent’s warm hand settled at the small
of her back and he guided her forward. She couldn’t think about the
bloodstains now. When she reached the landing, she continued to her
father’s room. Please let him be sitting up in bed, alert and only
slightly suffering from the effects of his fall. Such was not the
case. He looked exactly as he had the night before. She strained to
see if he were breathing. His chest barely rose with each breath.
“Has he eaten anything?”

Perkins sadly shook his head.

“We have to get something in him.”

“I’ve tried Miss Cooper, but he doesn’t
cooperate.”

She stopped at the side of his bed. Her
father’s skin had taken on an ashen tone and he developed deep
bruising beneath both eyes, as if he had been in a fight. It was to
be expected since that is what had happened. There was a bit of
dried blood beneath his nose. Why hadn’t she noticed last night?
Grace picked up the cloth, dipped it in water and washed the blood
away. As she leaned forward she noticed the same by his ear, and
washed that away as well. She stopped, her eyes focused on the once
white sheet beneath her father’s head. A dark crimson stain had
spread beneath his ear. She quickly leaned over to the other side.
More blood. What did that mean?

It wasn’t much, a few drops and they were
dry, but a man should not bleed from his ears. She assumed the nose
was from his injury and everyone knew noses bleed horribly when
struck, but she had never seen an ear bleed.

Her face and body suddenly grew cold and her
father’s deathly face swam before her. She must have swayed or
stumbled because Vicar Trent was at her side instantly, a warm,
soothing hand on her waist, another on her arm as he assisted her
into the chair she sat in the night before.

“Why are his ears bleeding?”

Nobody answered her and she tore her gaze
away from her father to Vicar Trent and then Perkins. He only
shrugged. “We don’t know Miss Cooper.”

“When did it start?”

“Last night. Perkins was wiping it away when
you weren’t looking,” Vicar Trent answered.

“I hope the doctor gets here soon. I am sure
he has a reasonable explanation.”

“It has stopped,” Perkins assured her and
Vicar Trent’s hand gently squeezing her shoulder. Grace bit her
bottom lip to keep from crying. It would do no good to become
emotional now, even if all she really wanted to do was pull Vicar
Wake close and be held by him so she could cry like a child.

His heart ached for Miss Cooper. Though
Matthew didn’t have a vast amount of experience when it came to ill
or injured people, he knew well enough that bleeding from the ears
was not a good sign. But he wasn’t sure what it meant exactly, or
how serious. The man looked close to death if his shallow breathing
and grey pallor were any indication, but could one really be
certain? Miss Cooper would be lost if her father died and Matthew
was at a loss as how to comfort her.

He straightened once she was settled into the
chair and stepped back. Her face was pale as well, hair mussed from
rising directly from bed and coming here. He wished he could
comfort her but didn’t know how. He thrust his fingers through his
hair. He was a minister, a vicar in the community,
her
vicar, but he had no idea what to do. Shouldn’t a vicar
automatically know the right words to say in a situation like this?
The first crisis in this vocation and he was at a complete loss.
Far from the perfect vicar his father always planned for him to
be.

Disgusted with himself, Matthew turned on his
heel and walked from the room. “I will get you a cup of tea.” If
Miss Cooper responded, he did not hear her. He should not be
thinking of his failings but of how to help her and Mr. Cooper. But
how could he? He wasn’t a doctor. All he had was prayer.

Matthew paused in the center of the dimly lit
kitchen and looked around. The silence in this house was deafening,
as if death waited at the door for admittance. No. He could not
allow Mr. Cooper to die. Grabbing a chair from the table he sank
down into it before leaning forward and placing his head in his
hands. He searched deep into his soul and tried to find the perfect
words to petition to Lord to save Mr. Cooper’s life, but he was at
a loss for words. As his frustration mounted Matthew blew out a
breath and leaned back, looking up to the ceiling. “Please, Lord,
save him.”

It was so simple, so easy, yet Matthew was
disappointed in himself for not being able to pray with more
eloquence. If his father was here he would tan his hide for not
being better. How many years had he spent writing and practicing
the perfect prayer to be delivered at dinner time? How often had
his father criticized those same prayers during dinner? One would
think that after so many years of practice he would know what to
say, but when it really, truly mattered, those words and years of
preparation failed him. When this crisis passed, he would once
again strive for perfection, to be what he must. Otherwise, what
else was there for him to be?

Matthew filled the kettle with water and
placed it on the stove to be heated before rummaging through the
pantry for foodstuff. He had few cooking skills, if any and the
sacks of flour and other ingredients overwhelmed him. He had to get
Mrs. Thomas back here to cook for Miss Cooper. Grace, no he
couldn’t and shouldn’t think of her by her Christian name, it
wasn’t proper and it wasn’t the first time he had slipped into the
familiarity. At least it had been in his own thoughts and not said
out loud.

Miss Cooper
wasn’t in a state to cook
for herself and Matthew couldn’t provide anything more than a cup
of tea. They didn’t even have any bread. All of it had been eaten
last night when he warmed the soup from earlier in the day. They
would surely starve at this rate and Miss Cooper needed all the
strength she could get for the days to come.

Miss Cooper was still sitting where Matthew
had left her when he entered with the tea tray holding four cups.
He knew she would try to get her father to drink, but he wanted to
make sure Miss Cooper also drank a cup herself. Perkins came
forward and took the tray and placed it on a table by the window.
Miss Cooper did not even look up from her father. Perkins prepared
one cup and handed it to Miss Cooper. “It is how your father
prefers his tea.”