Dry-eyed, Rowena watched her last link with Chillenden disappear round a bend in the road.
CHAPTER TWO
As the hired post chaise passed a slow-moving stagecoach and rattled out of Dover, Major Christopher Scott, sitting with his back to the horses, caught a last glimpse of masts in the harbour. He shuddered at the sight.
The Channel crossing had been the worst part of a dreadful journey. In the four months since the battle of Toulouse, after despairing of Bernard’s life, he had watched his friend gradually recover from his wounds. The trip across France, on roads always bad and now long neglected, had set the recovery back at least a month. A rough voyage, complicated by seasickness, had completed the
débâcle
when a particularly violent bout of retching tore open the captain’s shoulder injury.
It was not a propitious homecoming to the land they had fought for across Portugal and Spain and into France.
The last houses of Dover fell behind, and they left the cobbled street for the smoother highroad. Bernard, half reclining on the opposite seat, opened his eyes and grinned crookedly.
“I’m not at all certain that the ruts of France are not preferable to the cobbles of Merrie England,” he said, wincing as he shifted to a more comfortable position.
“We ought to have stayed longer at the King’s Head.”
“And landed wholly in the basket! Your pockets are as much to let as mine, Chris, and the sooner we reach London and our bankers the better.”
“Not to mention a halfway competent sawbones,” said the major dryly.
“It would be nice to get that piece of metal out of my shoulder,” acknowledged Bernard. He closed his eyes again, his thin face very white.
Chris leaned his dark head back against the squabs. Despite his worry, he was filled with delight as he gazed out of the window. The sun shone on the rich, peaceful countryside of Kent, spreading to the horizon on either side of the road. Green orchards and golden cornfields contrasted with his memories of devastated France. Before the Peninsula War he had spent most of his life in London, but it was of fields and woods and streams he had dreamed, bivouacking in wretched huts in the arid Spanish mountains.
Bernard must see the London doctors, then he would take him down to stay with his sister and her husband in Dorset. The country air would do his friend a world of good.
The captain seemed to have fallen asleep. With luck he would not wake until they stopped to change horses in Canterbury.
The post chaise rolled smoothly through village after village. The road was busy, for since Boney’s abdication, trade with the Continent was back on its old footing. They passed several wagons, and their coachman had pulled out to overtake another when he saw a sporting curricle dashing towards him. He reined in his team sharply, swinging back onto his own side of the road. The curricle bowled safely past, its fashionable driver saluting the cursing coachman with a flourish of his whip.
Inside the chaise, the unexpected manoeuvre sent Chris sliding across his seat. Cursing as fluently as the coachman, he saw Bernard, half-asleep, reach out to brace himself and moan in agony. A red patch blossomed on his shoulder and he fainted.
It was impossible even to take off his coat in such confined quarters. The major ordered the coachman to stop at the nearest inn, then he ripped off his neckcloth, folded it and thrust the pad inside his friend’s shirt. Holding it, he sat beside him and tried to steady him against the jolt as they started off again.
Fortunately they were just entering a village, and moments later they pulled up in front of a small, whitewashed hostelry. The swinging sign over the door, depicting a bouquet of dyed ostrich plumes, proclaimed it to be the Four Feathers.
“Ho, landlord!” bellowed the coachman.
A slim young woman in a grey gown hurried out of the inn.
“The landlord is not here,” she said. “There’s no one but the cook.”
“Come here, girl, and help me,” called Chris impatiently, wishing he had not given his batman leave to visit his family. “I’ve an injured man here.”
She looked surprised but obeyed. Between them they lifted Bernard down from the coach and carried him into the taproom since the place offered no better. It smelled of stale beer. They laid him on a wooden settle, and Chris was about to try to extricate him from his coat when there was an angry shout outside.
“You had best go deal with your coachman,” said the young woman in a soft, low voice. “The ostlers seem to have disappeared along with the rest. You may leave your friend in my care for a moment. I shan’t let him bleed to death.”
Chris looked at her doubtfully. She seemed to be clean and competent, and she must be stronger than she appeared since she had helped him to carry Bernard, no light weight. Another shout decided him. He shrugged, nodded and strode out.
“I can’t stay here,” said the coachman indignantly. “‘Tain’t a proper coaching inn. First stage’ll take you to Canterbury.”
When Chris paid him off he grumbled that he had been hired to London. He found himself facing the icy grey gaze of Major Scott of the Second Dragoons, and he quailed. Touching his forelock, he dropped the money into his pocket and whipped up the horses.
Chris went back into the inn, hoping that the absent landlord would accept
louis d’or.
He feared their stay at the Four Feathers might be a long one and his purse was the lighter now by a couple of gold sovereigns.
The girl was kneeling beside Bernard, her hand inside his shirt. He was still unconscious. She had taken off his cravat, presumably to fashion a new pad, for a blood-soaked cloth lay on the floor nearby. She looked up as Chris entered, and he saw that she had green eyes, worried now.
“He is bleeding badly, I fear. Was it highwaymen?”
“It is a war wound.” Belatedly he recognized that her accent was not that of a serving maid. “Thank you for your assistance, ma’am. I can manage now.”
“I doubt it. According to the cook everyone is gone to see some hoard of Roman coins dug up by a farm hand. You will need help to take off his coat at least.”
“Is there a doctor in the village?” Chris wasted no time arguing. As he spoke he gently worked Bernard’s unhurt right arm out of the sleeve while she steadied his inert body on the bench.
“I think not. We always sent to Canterbury for Dr. Benson.”
“Damn! The coachman went that way and I never thought to send a message.”
He raised Bernard’s shoulders and the young lady managed to pull the coat out from underneath. Together they eased the injured limb out of the left sleeve.
“I am going on the stage to London. It will stop in Canterbury. I shall sent the doctor to you.”
Chris nodded in gratitude, too concerned to speak. Bernard’s shirt was crimson all down the side, the new cloth pad already soaked through. His heart sank as he realized he had left their portmanteaux in the chaise; the rest of their luggage had been sent ahead to London.
The girl hurried towards the door, picked up a bandbox, and brought it back. Opening it, she took out a linen shift and began to tear it.
“No!” he said, “you must not.”
She smiled up at him. “Have you anything else? I daresay we might find something in the inn but whether it would be fit for such a use is another matter. This is clean, I assure you.”
He flushed. “I do not doubt it, ma’am. For my friend’s sake I accept. I fear it is too late to be of use to you anyway.” He looked ruefully at the ruined garment and smiled at her.
With one accord they turned to bind Bernard’s wound.
They had nearly finished this delicate task when the landlord bustled in, full of apologies, followed by his staff. He sent the ostler at a gallop for the doctor, the chambermaid to make up beds for his unexpected guests, the tapster to draw brandy to revive the unfortunate gentleman. In the general confusion, the arrival and departure of the London stage went almost unnoticed, for it did not change horses at this modest hostelry.
The major did not realize for some minutes that the young lady had departed on the stage. He had not thanked her properly, and he did not know her name, but he was too much occupied with Bernard to spare her more than the briefest thought.
She, on the other hand, had little else to distract her mind. Squashed between a stout haberdasher and a stouter farmer’s wife, Rowena could not see out of the coach window. She did not want to think about her destination. It was much pleasanter to daydream about the handsome young gentleman she had met at the Four Feathers.
He must be a soldier, if his companion had been wounded in battle. Perhaps that explained his stern face, that and worry for his friend. In spite of it he was excessively good-looking, with his thick, dark hair and grey eyes, tall and slim yet broad shouldered. He had a commanding air about him—she remembered how she had jumped to obey his first shouted order—but his kindness in caring for the injured man had impressed her more. His strong, sun-browned hands had moved with no less gentle care than her own. And when he smiled at her, briefly, ruefully, it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.
Rowena shook her head at her own fancy, and resolved to put the attractive stranger out of her mind. She would never see him again. She had not even learned his name, or that of his friend. A mere three weeks ago she had resolved to face reality without flinching; here was a perfect opportunity to practise.
He was in his late twenties, she guessed, and his friend perhaps a year or two younger, though it was hard to judge an unconscious man. She wondered whether he had sold out of the army. He had not been wearing uniform, just a rather poorly cut brown coat and fawn inexpressibles.
She caught herself thinking of him again and deliberately started a conversation with the fat farmer’s wife beside her.
Used to daily dealings with Chillenden’s tenants, Rowena had no difficulty entering into the woman’s concerns. The time passed pleasantly enough in chat about crops and chickens and children, until Mrs. Peabody struggled out of the coach in Rochester.
“Best of luck, dearie,” she panted, her plump red face reappearing at the door a moment later.
Her place was taken by a thin, taciturn clerk, and Rowena dozed for much of the rest of the way into London. When she roused, as the coach lumbered across Blackfriars Bridge, she was annoyed to realize that she had dreamed of riding round Chillenden with the dark-haired soldier.
The yard of the White Bear Inn, in Piccadilly, was a bewildering confusion of coaches, horses and shouting people. Rowena found a boy to carry her trunk down the street to the Bull and Mouth, home of the Worcester stage, and she retired exhausted to her chamber with a bowl of soup.
It was still dark next morning when she was called. She swallowed a hurried breakfast of bread and butter and tea before boarding the stage, which pulled out of the busy yard at precisely five o’clock. She had a seat by the window this time, and she enjoyed watching the scenery, all new to her. Nonetheless she was growing very weary by the time they reached Broadway, shortly before seven in the evening. It was difficult to avoid feeling apprehensive about the approach of her new life.
A change of horses was waiting, and the coach stopped scarcely long enough to set down Rowena and her trunk at the White Hart before it rumbled on its way up the hill.
The White Hart was an impressive, gabled building of Cotswold stone, its facade set back between two projecting wings. The ostler had disappeared, no one was about and Rowena suddenly felt very lost and alone. Bracing her shoulders she marched inside.
The landlady hurried forward to greet her, then swept a scornful glance over her plain, travel-worn, grey dress.
“Yes?” she enquired.
Rowena’s chin rose. “Be so good as to inform me whether a carriage from Grove Park is waiting,” she said haughtily. “My aunt, Lady Grove, was to send someone to meet me here.”
The woman thawed a little but shook her head. “No, miss, nobody here from Grove Park, though the stage were late as usual. ‘Spect you’d like a cup o’ tea while you wait?”
Rowena thought of the shrinking number of coins in her purse. But she was nearly at the end of her journey, she did need refreshment and surely even so grand a place could not charge more than a penny or two for a cup of tea. She went into the coffee room, taking a seat by the window where she would see the moment her aunt’s carriage arrived.
By the time the clock struck eight, dismay had become a cold certainty that she had been forgotten.
* * * *
It was dark when Rowena trudged up the steps of her aunt’s house and tugged on the bell-pull. The door swung open and a large, stolid footman stared down at her.
“Servants’ entrance is round to the right,” he directed with a disdainful sniff, as if he doubted that she was fit to appear even there.
Rowena was too tired and dispirited for a display of pride.
“I am Lady Grove’s niece,” she said quietly. “Please tell her ladyship that I have arrived.”
He looked sceptical but opened the door far enough for her to enter. “Wait ‘ere,” he said firmly, then added as insurance lest she was more important than she appeared: “If you please, miss.”
She set down her bandbox and sank into a straight chair with a tapestry seat, regardless of her dusty condition. Taking off her sadly crushed bonnet, she leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes until she heard footsteps.
The footman returned with the butler, a small, stout personage with supercilious eyebrows and eyes as sharp as gimlets.
“Miss Caxton?”
Rowena nodded, glad that at least someone had heard of her.
“Her ladyship was not expecting you tonight, miss, but I shall inform her of your arrival.”
“Thank you. I should like to wash before I see my aunt.”
“I shall inquire as to whether Mrs. Dart has had a room made up yet, miss.” He bent very slightly at the waist in a travesty of a bow and went off.
Though polite, the butler’s attitude had most definitely been condescending. Rowena wondered if it was due to her bedraggled appearance, or if this was what she had to expect in future as a poor relation. Her aunt’s demeanour towards her would doubtless be reflected in the servants’ behaviour. Since Lady Grove had forgotten the date of her arrival, the butler had deduced that her position in the household was to be insignificant.