by Wilma Counts
“Quite right,” Quint reassured him, even as they heard a wagon and another vehicle as well as a couple of riders approaching. The other vehicle turned out to be a gig driven by Herbert Babcock, a man of middle years who had served as the local doctor for as long as Harriet could remember. Spry for a man of his years, he quickly brought his horse to a halt and jumped down, bag in hand, ready to render service to his patient. “What have we here?”
Quint and Chet filled him in as the doctor made his own hurried assessment that mostly concurred with theirs. Phillip began to regain consciousness and to thrash around a bit, but any movement of his leg brought a cry of pain.
Harriet still knelt at his head and placed a comforting hand on his brow. “Shh, Phillip. Try to be quiet, dear. We know it hurts. Dr. Babcock is here.”
“Mmmm.”
As the doctor directed, a heavy blanket was spread on top of a crude patchwork quilt of course fabrics and mismatched colors. With Dolan’s help, Quint and Chet slowly and gently transferred the injured youth to the blanket. Harriet fought against tears of her own at seeing Phillip wage a battle against weeping in front of his uncle and the other men. The tight clench of his jaw said volumes about his pain. As soon as they had Phillip arranged in the wagon, Harriet, having already turned over care of her mare to one of the grooms, was handed in to sit next to Phillip, managing to fashion a pillow of sorts for his head by turning under the corner of the blanket-quilt. Quint and the doctor also climbed onto the bed of the wagon, both taking care to joggle the vehicle as little as possible as they did so. Quint sat at the boy’s waist on the same side as Harriet, opposite the doctor. When she could spare a glance for the two men, she tried not to be further worried by the solemn looks on their faces.
The wagon began to move. Harriet cast a startled glance from Phillip to Quint and the doctor, then raised her gaze to see that Chet, Dolan, and other grooms were in place to accompany them. She was also slightly startled when she felt Quint’s reassuring grip on her hand.
“He will be all right. He has to be.”
“Yes,” she whispered, holding his gaze.
The wagon jerked across a large stone and Phillip screamed in pain.
“There, there, son,” Doctor Babcock said. “Hold on now. I am not about to lose you—or any part of you—thirteen years after helping your dear mama introduce you to what the poets call ‘this veil of tears.’”
“Especially when we have the ever-cheerful bedside manner of one Herbert Babcock to see us through it, eh?” Quint asked.
Babcock merely shrugged and fussed with the lighter blanket covering the patient.
The distance back to the Hall was only a matter of about four miles, but Harriet thought it would never end. She thought they felt every single pebble the iron wheels touched. Anything larger earned superlatives in description and brought forth cries from others besides injured boy.
“Any idea why the boy was out on that wild beast hardly anybody ever dared ride but his father?” Babcock asked. Harriet thought Phillip cringed at the question; he closed his eyes tightly and seemed to be trying to shrink his whole body into itself.
She felt Quint glance at her before responding to the doctor. “No. Not really. He mentioned maybe riding Lucifer someday, but it was always someday—in the future. The distant future. Who knew the future was now?”
Just then they all felt the wagon hit a particularly hard bump and the patient let out a cry. Harriet bent over him, patting his shoulder. “We are almost there, Phillip. Hold on, sweetheart. You can do this.”
“We Englishmen have to keep that ‘stiff upper lip’ in front of this Scot, you know,” Quint said with a gesture at Chet, who rode beside the wagon directly within Phillip’s line of vision. Harriet saw the boy give the two men a weak grin as the entourage made its way into the stable yard.
Four of the biggest, tallest footmen gently carried their young lord up to his room, which, by his own request, remained his old room in the nursery suite. For a fleeting moment and with a touch of amusement, Harriet also recalled why this room in the nursery room was still his lordship’s bed chamber of choice. Some two months after the accident that had robbed the earldom of the sixth holder of the Sedwick title—and while the man who should have been in charge of the entire estate still lay in France recovering from wounds—the dowager countess had simply taken it upon herself to have herself and her companion moved into the main Hall. In essence, she took over as the countess she had once been.…
At the time, Harriet had wondered at the woman’s audacity, but in truth it was simply none of her business, was it? And then had come that business of Phillip’s room. Harriet had joined the children that day. They were all having lunch together in the nursery. The dowager, who rarely visited the nursery rooms, chose to appear just as the maids were clearing the table. Phillip stood at his grandmother’s entrance, and, at his urging, so did the twins. Harriet motioned for a maid to draw up a chair for Lady Margaret next to Phillip at the large round table.
“Phillip, dear,” the dowager said in that voice adults use when trying to convince young people they are on the same level, “now that you are the earl and have the order of everything, do you not think it time you took your proper position and moved into the earl’s chambers?”
Phillip stared at her, shocked. “Wha-at? You are saying I sh-should move into F-Father’s room? But that room is Father’s!”
“Phillip—dear boy.” His grandmother was talking down to him now. “It is the earl’s room. And you are the earl now.”
Phillip gave his grandmother a speculative look. “Did you not say I now have the ordering of everything?”
“Within reason—until your Uncle Quinton arrives to take over his duties as your guardian,” she said, almost agreeably.
“Good. I order that I shall stay where I am. My present accommodations suit me very well.” He stood. “Now, was there anything else, Grandmother?”
“Why—uh—no, dear.”
* * * *
Quint admired Phillip’s fortitude. The boy had allowed himself few outcries of pain, only a moan or a grunt now and then. Nurse Tavenner quickly produced a nightshirt, then she disappeared along with one of the footmen. Presently, the footman returned with two large buckets of hot water and Tavenner came back with wooden slats for a brace, towels, and cloths for bandages.
“Just ring us if you need anything else,” she said.
Quint had not remembered Babcock as being quite such a chatty fellow, but he was grateful to the man for a running monologue, explaining to the patient and bystanders what he was doing and why. “Ready, lad? With your uncle’s help, we shall put that bone back in place, then strap some wooden slats next to it to hold it in place. Now, I’m not going to stand here and lie to you and tell you it won’t hurt. It will. Something terrible. So—do as the Bard says, lad, and ‘screw your courage to the sticking place.’”
Phillip grimaced. “H-he—I mean she—was talking about murder.”
“Eh? Why, so she was.” Babcock look up at Quint. “Smart lad.”
“Doc?” Phillip asked.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Would you mind allowing my Aunt Harriet to be here?”
The doctor raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Miss Mayfield? Well—’tis not common—usually we try to protect our ladies from such, don’t you know?” Babcock shot Quint an inquiring glance.
“Well—whatever Aunt Harriet wishes,” Phillip said weakly.
Quint turned toward the door. “I will ask her. I am sure she is hovering right outside.”
And so she was. Not “hovering” exactly, but anxiously awaiting word, pacing from one window to the next. It was still fairly early in the afternoon. Mid-September sunshine appeared warmer than it was, but the golden light outside Sedwick Hall belied the atmosphere of concern and apprehension that now pervaded within. Chet sat on a
chair nearby. Catching a snatch of their conversation, Quint gathered that they, too, were preoccupied by the overwhelming question of why?
“Just hard to tell what gets into a lad’s head at that age,” Chet was saying. “Trying to prove oneself a man. Not quite knowing how.”
“That is one explanation at least,” Quint said, stepping closer to Harriet. He laid a hand on her arm, wishing he could enfold her in his arms and offer the comfort her gaze told him they both needed. “Phillip has asked for you.”
“Of course.” She turned immediately toward Phillip’s door.
“Just a moment. We have not set the leg yet, nor tended the head injury. Are you quite sure about this? I’ve seen grown men faint at the sight of a little blood.”
“You did not see me do so, did you?”
“No, but—”
“I promise to maintain proper decorum, Colonel,” she said primly.
“As you wish. Chet, you come along too. I suspect you and I have had far more experience in this line than any of Sedwick’s footmen.”
“Aye, aye, Colonel, sir.”
In Phillip’s room, Quint dismissed the footmen, drew up a chair for Harriet near Phillip’s head, and placed himself and Chet at the doctor’s disposal. Babcock took up his running monologue as he laid out the tools he would use to set the leg. Quint could see that the doctor’s calm tone and straightforward explanation were effective in calming the patient. That—and the fact that the patient had a tight grip on his aunt’s hand.
Reclining against three large pillows, Phillip endured the setting of the leg with a kind of quiet stoicism that Quint would have found remarkable in a soldier on a field of battle. There was something—well—weird—about seeing it in one so very young. He gave himself a mental shake. After all, many soldiers—of all ranks—were but youngsters Phillip’s age. Some younger even.
“I am very proud of you, Phillip,” Harriet said softly, brushing the boy’s hair off his forehead as the doctor tied the last piece of the brace into place. “Your parents would have been pleased too. You handled this well.”
Phillip gave her a bleak look and, with the hand she was not holding, he pointed at his bandaged leg. “Aunt Harriet! This was my fault. Nothing I try to do turns out right.”
“It will, my dear.” She caressed the hand she still held. “It will. You must simply give it time. Trust me.”
He jerked away from her, then yelped at the sudden pain this brought to his leg.
“Here, here, my lord,” the doctor protested. “Do not be about undoing my work now, will you, Lord Sedwick?”
“Not good form, my lad,” Quint admonished.
“Sorry,” Phillip muttered.
“Let us see to that head wound,” the doctor said. Once again, he kept up a running commentary as he worked. “Hmm. Not bad. Not so very bad,” he murmured when he was in position for a thorough examination. “I shall not lie to you, my lord. When I clean this wound, it is going to sting like the very devil. Feel free to scream at me or curse me if you wish. I’ve had men three times your size faint dead away on me when they were getting bits of their flesh sewn back together. Again—feel free to send me to Hades ’til this is over.”
Phillip gave him a weak grin. “Th-thank you, Doc.”
In the event, Phillip screamed, Quint and Chet winced, and Harriet silently wept. But soon enough it was over. The doctor was putting the finishing touches on the bandage, and then Quint and Chet restored the room to some semblance of its previous appearance, taking care not to joggle the patient around in his bed.
“I will leave you something for the pain, but unfortunately, you cannot use it for several hours yet,” the doctor said, handing Quint a vial. “We must be careful about allowing patients with head injuries to sleep too soon.”
“We shall take good care of him, Doc,” Quint assured the medical man. “Can’t let your good work come to naught.” He shot a penetrating glance at his nephew. “Are you all right, Phillip?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, I-I think so. My leg hurts. So does my head. But I have no doubt I will l-live.”
“That is good news indeed,” Harriet said. “For I have no doubt that four of your six siblings are waiting none too patiently to see for themselves the truth of that statement.”
He grinned feebly. “Maria, Sarah, and the twins.”
She nodded.
“And the other two?”
“They too, but not ’til after their naps.”
Phillip was quiet and seemed to be staring unseeing out the open window. Quint exchanged a brief, quizzical look with Harriet, but, finding her expression hard to read, shifted his attention back to Phillip. For a moment, Quint thought the boy might be about to cry.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Harriet. It was not supposed to end this way, was it?”
“Phillip?” she asked.
Chapter 14
“Phillip?” Harriet repeated, but receiving only a dull “umm?” by way of response, decided she had misunderstood the ramblings of one in pain. She glanced at the others. The doctor shook his head and shrugged. Chet murmured something sounding like “poor lad.” Quint gave her a hard, inquiring look and appeared about to say something, but the doctor was gathering his instruments and tossing them into his bag.
“I shall be going now,” he said. “Just keep him quiet, but don’t let him sleep for a while—not ’til, say, after supper. One must take care with head wounds. Let those others in—they will help distract him, I’m thinking.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Harriet said.
“I shall see you out, Doctor,” Quint said to Babcock. “I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Not at all.”
“And I shall see if I can sneak us some of Hodgie’s lemon drop biscuits and a spot of tea or lemonade, if you think you can prevent our patient jumping out of bed and escaping from us,” Chet said with a wink to the others, eliciting a smile from Harriet and a weak grin from Phillip.
“I shall try,” she said.
When Chet was gone, she looked at Phillip, who now sat upright, with pillows behind and on either side of him, but her beloved nephew refused to hold her gaze.
“Phillip,” she said gently, “you will have to explain yourself, you know. To your uncle, your grandmother. All of us. I should think the earlier, the better, my dear.”
His gaze, full of confusion, locked with hers, but only for the briefest moment, then went to the window where a breeze fluttered the white lace curtains.
Her gaze followed his. “Would you like me to close the window?”
“No. I like the breeze.”
She allowed a long moment of heavy silence, then pressed, “Phillip?”
He turned his face toward her, his expression distraught. For an instant, she thought he might burst into tears. But he did not. “Phillip?” she pressed again, more gently this time. “Would you care to explain to me what happened out there this morning?”
He brought a fist down on a pillow. “I-I’m not sure I can.”
“Please try.” She reached to clasp his hand—the one he had balled into a fist in the pillow—but he jerked away from her.
They both sat in stunned silence for a moment, then Phillip said, “I am sorry, Aunt Harriet. Truly I am. I do not mean to be rude. Certainly not to you.”
“Of course you do not.”
“It—it is just that the last few days—visits with the cottage weavers, the mills, the mines—not to mention a good many other things—” He heaved a long, shuddering sigh. “I tried to explain to Uncle Quint. You know I did. H-he just would not listen to me.”
“You thought taking Lucifer out would somehow catch your uncle’s attention?”
“Oh, Aunt Harriet, I don’t know what I thought!” He swiped at a telltale tear at one eye. “I just knew something like this—or worse�
��would happen if I did, and it was all I could think to do. He is sending Maria and me away next week!”
The last phrase ended on something like a sob, but it was punctuated by a knock on the door, which had been left slightly ajar.
“Just a moment,” Harriet called. She grabbed a clean cloth left lying near the basin, quickly dampened it, and handed it to Phillip. “Can’t let the urchins see you distraught.”
“Thanks,” he said, wiping furiously at both eyes.
She was not surprised to see that the “urchins” were not alone.
“Found these lurking in the hallway,” Quint said, ushering in Maria, Sarah, Robby, and Ricky; he carried Elly on one hip and Nurse Tavenner carried in Tilly.
Harriet exchanged an inquiring look with Quint, but it told her nothing of what she wanted to know: how much of Phillip’s conversation he might have overheard.
“So—is it true?” Robby ask eagerly, dashing into the room and plopping his elbows on the bed near Phillip’s arm. “Did you really an’ truly take ole Luc’fer out?”
“Ow-ow!” Phillip yelped. “Get him off. Off!”
Quint grabbed the errant twin, pulled him away from the bed, and planted his little backside on a straight-backed chair against the wall. “Here, now. What were you told about behavior in a sickroom?”
“I forgotted. ’Sides, ’tis only Pip.”
Quint gripped his shoulder. “Who happens to be His Noble Lordship, Seventh Earl of Sedwick, and it would behoove the lot of you to remember that bit of family history.”
