At first she couldn’t bring herself to say what had happened, and they strolled slowly across the grass where the thick-leaved laurels rustled as they swayed.
Suddenly Daniel halted. “Well? Did something go wrong? Was it the confrontation with the cats and the rat?”
“No. No, it was the confrontation with Nicholas.” Her voice almost broke and she was forced to look away.
“With Nicholas?” His mind was racing then, coming as he did so fresh from Mrs. Thompson’s revelations. “What about?”
“I don’t know. He was just completely changed, almost as if he despised me. He had been kind, he showed concern and even a little tenderness, but that is all gone now. He looks at me as if he dislikes me.” Her voice shook. “And it is not only his changed attitude toward me which worries me so. I fear that the ague has begun to return, for he complains of the cold and yet his temperature I am sure has risen.”
Daniel took a long breath, convinced now that Nicholas had indeed somehow heard the rumors, for a devastating shock such as that could indeed work to cause the malaria to flare up once more. “I will go to him,” he said, although he wondered what sort of a reception he would receive.
“Yes,” she whispered. Her voice was so small and lost, and Daniel could not help but pull her into his arms, his cheek resting against her hair.
“Don’t cry,” he murmured.
His cloak flapped around them both and the dampness of rain was in the air now.
“I’m sorry, Daniel, I do not mean to lean so heavily on you all the time. It isn’t fair of me.”
He put his gloved hand on her cheek and raised her face toward his. “Laura,” he said softly, “I welcome each time you come to me, for I swear that I curse the fact that you are Nicholas Grenville’s wife and not mine.”
She stared at him. “Daniel
—”
“No, don’t say anything, for I rather fancy that I have said more than enough for both of us.” He released her. “And now I think it time I performed the professional duty which brought me here in the first place.
He walked away toward the house, and there was only the wind in the laurels and the touch of cold rain upon her face. Slowly she followed him.
* * *
Augustine watched from Nicholas’s window. She had seen everything that had passed between Laura and Daniel and could hardly believe that they played so easily into her hands.
She turned to the bed. “Their meeting is over and they come toward the house now.”
“I do not think you need be present, Augustine.”
She inclined her head and left, and a few moments later Daniel entered.
The moment their eyes met, Daniel knew that the rumors had indeed reached Nicholas
—and that he believed them. Slowly Daniel put his case down. “How are you, Nicholas?”
“You are no longer welcome in this house, Daniel.”
“If that is what you wish.”
“Stay away.”
“Very well.”
“From this house and from my wife.”
“That last I will not promise.”
The years of friendship slipped away in those few seconds, and Daniel sacrificed them willingly. He admitted nothing to Nicholas, and he denied nothing. He had not uttered a single lie. Let Nicholas believe the rumors, let him believe them and then cast off his wife
— Daniel inclined his head briefly and then picked up his case. He had been there barely one minute.
Laura saw him leaving and hurried out into the rain after him, catching the reins of his horse, her face wet as she looked anxiously up at him. “Daniel, why are you leaving so soon?”
“Because Nicholas declines to have me here.”
She stared. “But how can that be? Why?”
“He did not say.” That much was the truth.
“He cannot have meant it!”
“I don’t know or care if he did, his manner was such that I am content for it to be this way. My friendship with him is at an end, and I shall not come to this house again.”
Slowly her hands slipped from the reins. “And your friendship with me?”
“Is constant.” He reached down to put his hand to her cheek, and then he was gone, spurring his impatient horse away along the drive.
* * *
Laura lay awake in the bed. The candle trembled in the draught from the slightly open window and she could hear the rain falling heavily. Her spirits were as low and damp as the weather. Sleep was far away. She stared up at the shadowy canopy of the bed, her eyes wandering over the embroidered suns she had hardly noticed before. An emptiness filled her. The change in Nicholas was too much to bear, for he spurned her now, and it was this that had brought her to a sad and difficult decision before she had retired for what she intended to be her last night at King’s Cliff. A letter to Lady Mountfort lay upon a table, and the future that had stretched so unenviably before her at the beginning of the year now stretched before her again. It was as if nothing had happened in between.
In the distance she heard Augustine calling, and at first she took no notice, but then the note of fear in those far-off cries made her sit up. Augustine was with Nicholas! In a moment she was out of the bed, drawing on her wrap as she ran from the room and along the passages and galleries that separated her from Nicholas’s room.
Augustine’s frightened calls grew louder, and Laura’s heart began to pound in dread.
Let him not be dead, oh, please let him not
— But as she reached the room, she saw that although he was alive, all was certainly not well with him. The malaria had returned with as much force as before, and he was as feverish as he had been on board the
Cygnet,
although not quite delirious, for he recognized her as she approached the bed. His face was flushed with unnatural heat and his eyes burned, but shivers racked him. She heard him say her name though. Just once.
Mrs. Townsend was trying to calm her almost hysterical daughter. “Hush now, you will not help at all, Augustine.”
“I f-fell asleep,” gasped her daughter, her face ashen with shock. “And when I awoke he was like this!”
Laura poured some of the prepared bark and held it to his lips, and he drank most of it. His skin felt as if it was aflame. “Nicholas,” she said urgently, “we must send for Daniel.”
“No!”
“But he must see you. This is the height of folly
—”
“Never. Never again!” he cried, his eyes darkening.
“But you must see a doctor, Nicholas,” she pleaded, “for you are very ill again.”
“N-not Tregarron.” His breathing was heavy and his forehead damp.
“Please
—”
“No!”
She saw again the rejection in his eyes, and resignedly she turned away to Mrs. Townsend. “Is there another doctor nearby?”
“No one is closer than Dr. Brown in Ilminster.”
Ilminster was hours away, Daniel merely a few minutes, but she knew that nothing would prevail upon Nicholas to allow D
aniel to examine him. She glanced at the door where some of the servants had gathered, brought by Augustine’s cries. She beckoned to Hawkins. “See that a man is sent to Dr. Brown immediately, and make certain that the urgency of the situation is made known to him.”
“Very well, my lady.”
She returned slowly to her own room, going to the window and opening it fully. The wind and rain swept in and extinguished the candle. Her hair whipped across her face as she removed her night-bonnet, and the rain was cool against her skin. She felt so very tired. So very hollow.
* * *
Dr. Brown of Ilminster was a stooping man, much given to the wearing of unrelieved black, which gave little comfort to his patients. He favored a white wig, so liberally dusted that it powdered his angular shoulders. He drank a large glass of Nicholas’s finest cognac before turning to Laura, who stood waiting patiently by the fireplace in the red saloon. The pale, clear light of a fine dawn lightened the room.
“Lady Grenville, I confirm that Sir Nicholas is indeed suffering from a recurrence of the ague. As my colleague, Tregarron, informed you, this malady unhappily progresses in this manner, it being difficult for the body to rid itself of the ill humor which causes the condition. Were it not that he has already lost a great deal of blood due to the wound and the surgery he has undergone, I would recommend that he be bled. But his weakness, aid the presence of the ague together, make circumstances exceptional, and so I cannot apply such treatment.” He gave a thin smile. “It is not often that a West Country doctor is faced with a patient suffering from both a bullet wound and malaria at the same time. Nevertheless, I am acquainted with malaria, for it is common in parts of this country
—I speak now of London and the Essex marshes—and it is my practice to administer syrup of poppies.”
“Dr. Tregarron prescribed Jesuits’ bark.”
He cleared his throat. “Maybe so, but I prefer poppy. Oh, I am well aware that the cinchona tree for some reason produces a substance which combats the ill humors of malaria, but I still find syrup more of a remedy.”
She glanced at him. She detected the scathing tone of his voice at the mention of Jesuits, and she knew that it was religious intolerance that made him condemn the bark, not medical wisdom. “I will continue with the bark, Dr. Brown, because it proved efficacious when administered before.”
“Very well,” he said stiffly.
“How serious is this relapse, Doctor?”
“Considerable in a man as weakened as Sir Nicholas. It is absolutely essential that nothing worrying is mentioned in front of him. He must be kept calm at all costs. Has anything upsetting occurred recently?”
She thought of his strange and dramatic change toward her, and toward Daniel. “Yes, Doctor, but I am afraid that I do not know exactly what it is, for he will not tell me.”
He nodded. “Well, we must pray then that the crisis passes soon. I will return in a day or so, and in the meantime continue with the bark. I must leave now, as I have an important patient to attend to in the morning.” He glanced at his fob watch, “Or should I say in several hours time?”
“You will not take some refreshment?”
“Alas no, I have little enough time as it is. I will see you in a day or so then, when I trust there will be a substantial improvement in your husband’s condition.”
She nodded. “Good day, Dr. Brown.”
“Good day, Lady Grenville.”
She stood there when he had gone. Yes, she would see him in a day or so, for how could she leave now? She would stay until she knew that Nicholas was out of danger again.
And so it was that the letter to Lady Mountfort remained on the table in Laura’s room the next day. There was no significant change in Nicholas’s condition when the household awoke, which fact Laura communicated to Mr. Dodswell before breakfast by hastily writing a note and sending a boy with it to the Home Farm.
Augustine, fully recovered from her initial shock, now remained limpet
-
like in Nicholas’s room, and Laura made no attempt to go to see him. She did not know if she even wished to see
him, for after the complete change in his disposition toward her, she felt that any contact would be painful in the extreme as far as she was concerned. She was at a loss to understand what had gone wrong, both as far as his dealings with her were concerned, and with Daniel.
She took a lonely breakfast, Mrs. Townsend remaining in her bed, and Augustine ordering her own meal to be taken to her in Nicholas’s room. Laura sat in silence, sorely missing Daniel’s company, and deeply unhappy at having lost what little of Nicholas’s affection she had ever laid claim to.
Hawkins entered. “Mr. Dodswell has called, my lady.”
“Show him in here, Hawkins.”
The butler bowed, and a moment or so later the agent was bowing before her. “Good morning, Lady Grenville.”
“Good morning, Mr. Dodswell. Will you take coffee with me?”
“That is most kind.” He sat down in the chair she gestured him to. “It was also most kind of you to think of informing me about Sir Nicholas.”
“I knew that you would wish to know, for you are close to him.”
“I am. I understand there is still no improvement.”
“Not as yet, but then the bark must have a little time.”
“What is all this about him refusing to have Daniel Tregarron attending him?”
She poured the coffee and handed him the pink and white cup and saucer. “I don’t know, Mr. Dodswell. I know only that something has happened to turn him against both myself and Daniel.”
The agent shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat, for he too had heard the rumors, although he gave them no credit. “No doubt, Lady Grenville, his moods are caused by his state of health and we must make allowances
—”
“Yes. Of course.”
“It is unfortunate that he has been set back like this, for I was hoping to be able to speak with him. I have received a visit from Christie’s man, and the arrangements are well in hand, but I need Sir Nicholas’s signature.”
“I do not think he is able to deal with anything at the moment, Mr. Dodswell.”
“Then I must ask you.”
“Me?”
“You still have power of attorney, Lady Grenville.”
She nodded. “I suppose I do.”
“There is more than the matter of Christie’s and the auction, my lady. There is also the matter of cutting back on the number of staff employed here. There are already far too many, and when the hounds have gone and the surplus land sold
—well, there will be an army where a mere company will suffice.”
“But where will they go? They must have employment, Mr. Dodswell.”
“That is not my concern. Oh, do not think me heartless, but my duty is to King’s Cliff, not to every man, woman, and child employed here.”
“How many must go?”
He took a paper from his pocket and handed it to her. She stared at the list of maids, grooms, gardeners, and so on.
“So many?”
“I fear so.”
Her glance fell on one particular name: Frank Roberts, Kitty’s father. She folded the paper again. “Is there no way we can keep them all, Mr. Dodswell? I will find it very difficult to do this to them.”