“You’re just the right height for me,” she told him.
“Think so?”
He sounded happy. She must have managed to say the proper thing, after all.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I hope my bed hasn’t floated away.”
Being safe with Hayward was making Lavinia feel a bit more like a real, live human being. She could think and speak with less difficulty, though it was getting harder and harder to keep moving.
“Is there any way we can get you in without having to go through the house?” he asked. “I don’t want to meet—”
“The duck ladies?” Lavinia giggled. “Neither do I. Let’s try the window.”
They had to splash through six inches of water to get to it, but they were so wet already that they didn’t care. From around the corner, they could hear the men escaping at last from Zilpha’s hospitality. Under cover of the hubbub, it was easy enough to get inside without being caught. Lavinia was inestimably relieved to find that although there was still an inch or so of water under the windows, the rest of the room was tolerably dry.
“There’s a candle and matches on the night stand,” she whispered. “You’ll have to light it. I might set fire to my bandages.”
“Funny, aren’t you.” Hayward tiptoed over and shut the door into the back entry, then struck a light. “Now you’d better get into bed fast before those two bird-brained females happen to remember you’re supposed to be here.”
“But I’m soaking wet. I’ll have to put on a dry nightgown.”
Lavinia sank down on the edge of her bed, suddenly too exhausted to make another move.
“Go get one, quick,” he urged.
“Hayward, I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”
“Oh, cripes! Where do you keep them?”
“In the second drawer of the dresser.”
“Filed under U for Unmentionables, I suppose.” He rummaged and came up with an armload of spriggled muslin. “Is this the one you want?”
“No, but it will do.”
He brought the garment over and dropped it on the bed beside her. “Go ahead, put it on.”
“But—are you just going to stand there?”
“I’ll shut my eyes. Hurry up, can’t you? I’m not leaving till I know you’re safe in bed.”
“You’re the boss.” Lavinia was feeling too lightheaded to argue, and there was no time anyway. She tried to pull off the clinging garment she was wearing, but her bandaged hands couldn’t grasp the slippery material.
“Hayward, I can’t seem to manage. This stuff is so—I’m afraid you’ll have to call Tetsy.”
“Like hell I will.”
He snatched at the wet cloth, and there she was, stark naked in front of a young man she wasn’t even engaged to. What if Zilpha should choose this moment to come in?
Lavinia found she didn’t care a rap. She got Hayward to hold her clean nightgown so that she could wiggle into it, then asked him to help her to the bathroom.
“While I’m washing, could you please turn down my bed? And don’t go away. I need you.”
“I’ll be here.” Clinton sounded positively cheerful now. Maybe he enjoyed helping young ladies change their nightgowns.
Her face and arms were smeared with mud. No doubt the rest of her was, too. She could ask Hayward. He probably hadn’t shut his eyes at all. That was rather funny, though she probably shouldn’t find it so. She scrubbed off the worst of the smudges and hurried to open the door because it wasn’t nice to keep a gentleman waiting.
He was tender and competent about getting her back to bed and settling her bandaged head on soft pillows.
“I only hope you haven’t done yourself harm with all this chasing around. Whatever possessed you to climb all the way up that hill to find me?”
“Because I wanted—” Oh, dear, she was sticking again. “I—Hayward, I’m sorry but I can’t seem to.… The mill, that was part of it. You had to be thanked.”
“Was that all?” he snarled.
Lavinia was appalled to feel tears smarting under her eyelids. “Oh, why can’t I say anything right? Why do I always make you arch your back and spit just when I think you’re going to purr?”
“Why the heck do you talk as if I were a cat? I wasn’t spitting.” He wasn’t now, at any rate. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“I can’t remember!”
She hadn’t realized she was going to scream.
Hayward clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sh-h! Do you want to get those old biddies in here? Take it easy, kiddo, you’re going to be all right. You banged your head, that’s all.”
“Exactly how did I bang my head?”
“I don’t know exactly. I wasn’t there. I’d say you hit it on the wall when you fell in the mill. A step broke under you, and you got trapped inside the staircase. Don’t you remember my getting you out? You did some pretty good yelling, then, too.”
“Did I? Yes, I believe I do remember that part. You were swearing something awful. How did you happen to find me?”
“Easy enough. You left a trail. I’d happened to see the Packard on the road with the old battleaxe driving and Queen Marie perched up beside her like a cat in an ash barrel, so I thought—well, it might be sort of fun if I could catch you at home without your bodyguard. I came up and knocked on the front door. Nobody answered, so I went around back and happened to notice what looked like a strand of your hair lying on the grass. Then I saw more hair scattered across the yard and followed it over the bridge to the mill. You’d left a towel hanging on the door, so I decided you must be inside giving yourself a secret haircut or something. Then I heard voices and a scream—do you recall who was with you?”
“Peter was counting the flies!”
Lavinia began to tremble. “Hayward, why does that frighten me so?”
“I don’t know, kiddo. You’d bled a lot, and I suppose the flies were coming after the blood on your face and clothes. That would give anybody the jimjams. Or maybe you were scared of Peter.”
“No, Peter doesn’t frighten me. He’s rather sweet, in his way. I do know it wasn’t that. It was something else, something I can’t—”
“Sh-h! Don’t start yowling again.”
Clinton tucked the bedding around her with clumsy care.
“Look, Lavinia, you’ve been through two separate ordeals today. So much has happened that it’s perfectly natural for you not to recall every single thing. Don’t worry about it. All you need is rest and time.”
“But what if there is no time? What if it was desperately urgent?”
“If it had been all that urgent, something would probably have happened by now.”
“Something did! Can you tell me how those gates happened to let go?”
“Gosh, Lavinia, I just haven’t had time to think about that. I’ll go up in the morning and take a look. I suppose I could go now, if it will make you feel any better.” He heaved a sigh of unutterable weariness.
“Don’t you dare! You need rest a lot more than I do. You wouldn’t be able to see anything tonight anyway. I only wish you didn’t have to ride that old bicycle all the way back to the village.”
“So do I.” He eyed the comfortable bed, caught her eye, and grinned. “Well, kiddo, if what you can’t remember had anything to do with that mill of Jenks’s, you might as well quit fretting and get some sleep. There’s nothing left of it now but kindling wood.”
“Tetsy, have you looked in on Lavinia?” Zilpha’s high, sweet voice sounded from the kitchen. “I’m afraid that in all the excitement, I quite forgot.”
The ginger cat sprang for the open window. Lavinia was left lying there alone, with that awesome memory lurking close to the surface of her mind and nobody to help her if it should pop out into consciousness.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Lavinia had a bad night. Zilpha and Tetsy were so keyed up by their adventure that they puttered around the kitchen for ages, rinsing teacups, making cocoa, congratulating themselves and
each other on their magnificent courage and presence of mind in time of crisis, forgetting they had an invalid trying to sleep in the back bedroom, then remembering and shushing each other so strenuously that the ensuing silence disturbed her more than the commotion.
Unable even to toss and turn because of her injured head, Lavinia could only lie twisting her toes in frustration. Nobody had given her any laudanum to dull the pain. Perhaps that was just as well. The fogginess in her mind bothered her more than the ache in her skull.
Hayward said she needed rest and quiet, but it wasn’t quiet so how could she rest? Hardly had the two older women at last packed themselves and their hot-water bottles off upstairs when the birds commenced their predawn chirping. As a rule, Lavinia enjoyed these morning concerts. Today each separate trill pierced her ears like a red-hot needle.
Gradually a new discomfort overtook her. Mrs. Smith and her chamber pot wouldn’t be here for ages. Any minute now might be too late. Lavinia inched herself out of bed, finding that she could maneuver easily enough so long as she was careful not to tilt her bandaged head the slightest fraction of an inch off center.
Those gauze mittens on her hands were her worst handicap. One thing she remembered only too clearly was how she’d had to get Hayward to help her change her wet nightgown because of them. Had he shut his eyes or had he not? What would Zilpha say if she ever found out? Nothing, probably; she’d be shocked speechless.
She wasn’t sleeping in a lake any more. Most of the water had drained down through the bedroom floorboards, leaving only a few puddles and a thin film of silt. In a way, she was sorry. She wouldn’t have minded being able to wash her feet en route. They were so dirty she appeared to be wearing mud boots.
When she got to the bathroom, Lavinia managed to wet a washrag, drop it on the tiled floor, and scuffle around on the damp cloth until she’d got some of the mud off, then dry her toes on the rag rug. Somebody would pick up the washrag sometime. She must save what little strength she had left for getting back to bed, since she had nobody now to help her. She was astonishingly tired.
She was also amazingly hungry. When had she last eaten a proper meal? All she could remember was having people dribble spoonsful of broth over her chin. There was no hope of getting even such meager fare as that for some while yet. After their late night, Zilpha and Tetsy might not come down until noontime.
Perhaps, after she’d rested, she could try to reach the kitchen. A few sandwiches might be left over. That was another thing Lavinia remembered, watching weary, soaking-wet men pick up those ridiculous morsels and chew them down, looking scornful and embarrassed. Why hadn’t Zilpha known better? Working folk needed good, thick slabs of bread with plenty of meat inside, the kind of sandwich that came out of a clean lard pail, wrapped in butcher’s paper. Oh, where was her true and only friend? Lavinia sighed and shut her eyes to daydream of full dinner buckets.
“Well, Lav, I see you’ve been up.”
Tetsy stood at the bedside, grim as the wardress of a women’s prison in her dark gray flannel wrapper. “How do you feel?”
Lavinia blinked herself fully awake.
“Oh, good morning. I must have dozed off again. Much better this morning, thank you. Were you planning to do something about breakfast soon? I feel quite faint with hunger.”
Miss Mull pondered.
“Zilpha is still asleep.”
Therefore it was not yet breakfast time. Daylight could not be officially declared until Tetsy’s private sun arose.
“But can’t we at least have a cup of tea?” pleaded the invalid. “I’ll never get my strength back if I don’t eat.”
“I suppose I could make some tea,” the companion conceded.
“And a slice of bread and butter, or a rusk?”
Or a side of beef or a bale of hay or something? Anything! Lavinia was ready to bite chunks out of the bedpost.
Tetsy seemed to take an unconscionable amount of time poking up the kitchen fire, filling the kettle, rattling dishes. Lavinia stayed in bed trying to make her stomach quit making unladylike growls. It must be wondering whether it would ever again get any real food into it.
At last Miss Mull appeared with a dainty tray bearing a cup of weak tea and one almost invisible wafer of bread and butter. This was the sort of thing Hayward found so infuriating, and Lavinia could see why. The ladies were so absorbed in trimming the crusts that they forgot to put the meat in the sandwiches.
She was remembering a great deal about Hayward. He was the man she worked for, the one who brought her those lovely, lovely lard pails full of big, fat sandwiches and wedges of pie and coffee loaded with cream and sugar. She would go up the hill to the shop tomorrow and typewrite for him and answer the telephone, and in return he would bring her another lard pail, and her stomach would stop growling and all would be well.
But what if she couldn’t work? How was she to operate the typewriting machine with these absurd swaddlings on her hands? It was all she could do to manage her teacup and eat this bit of bread that was almost too small to pick up. How could she get the telephone messages straight when her head was full of fuzz?
Tetsy took the empty tray away and was seen no more. Lavinia lay for another eternity, tortured by hunger and anxiety. Would Zilpha never get up? If she had to miss her lard pail, they might at least give her some more bread and butter.
At long last, Miss Tabard descended, with Tetsy behind her. They had just completed the extremely involved and lengthy task of grinding and brewing a pot of perfect coffee when a Ford truck clanked into the ravaged driveway and someone came knocking at the kitchen door.
“My dear Roland, how sweet of you to call!” cried Zilpha. “Oh, and Mr. Clinton is with you.” Her voice cooled several degrees. “What a surprise.”
“We thought we’d better see how you’re making out,” said Roland.
“As you see, we’re all higgledy-piggledy with the accent, I fear, on the piggledy. However, we’re coping. Do come in and join us for breakfast. Eggs Benedict, don’t you think, Tetsy?”
In the bedroom, Lavinia groaned. Hollandaise sauce meant another solid hour of fiddling.
“Oh, please,” she called out, “mayn’t we have plain scrambled? They’d be so much easier for me to manage.”
“Why, good morning, Merry Sunshine!”
Miss Tabard deserted her unexpected guests long enough to pop in on the invalid, spruce in a Liberty print. “You’re in excellent voice today, my dear. Are you feeling better?”
“Much better,” said Lavinia as convincingly as she possibly could. “I’ve already been up and about and had morning tea, thanks to Tetsy’s kindness. I’d love to come to the table if people will forgive my not dressing.”
“Lavvy, dearest, do you honestly think—”
“I’m sure it would do me worlds of good. And, after all, it’s practically among family. I’d be quite respectable in that lovely muslin summer peignoir you brought me from Italy.”
The robe wasn’t lovely, it was silly, another confection of ruffles and rosebuds. However, there was enough yardage in it to drape a grand piano. Zilpha, who did not much care for having sick people around, was ready to be convinced.
“Dearest, why not? You can recline on the davenport like the Queen of Sheba, and we shall all gather around and pay you court. Let me just cover all that hideous gauze on your head with this quaint boudoir cap. Gracious, however did you get your hands so filthy?”
“My goodness, they are, aren’t they?” Lavinia murmured. “I’ll have to keep them hidden under my flounces as much as possible. Do go back to your guests, Zilpha. I’ll come as soon as I’m ready.”
“Oh, no, dear. We’ll go together.”
Zilpha got her ward arrayed to her satisfaction, then escorted her past the bureau. Reflected in the mirror, they made an odd pair: Miss Tabard tiny and trim in her crisp morning gown, Lavinia looking like a clothes pole on washing day with lacy frills drooping around her drawn face and enormous breadths of baby-pink
muslin hanging from her thin shoulders. Only superb confidence in her own taste and a fine disregard for life’s uglier realities could have prompted Miss Tabard to think dear Lavvy would ever be able to carry off such a getup.
That she looked an utter fool was of no importance. What mattered was being able to convince everybody that she was capable of carrying on as usual. Lavinia concentrated on walking a straight line, on keeping her voice firm and cheerful as she greeted the two young men, on trying not to sink too gratefully down on the plush-covered sofa that had been got ready for her with velvet throws and a plethora of cushions.
“Why don’t we have a picnic right here in the parlor,” suggested Miss Tabard gaily, “so that dear Lavvy won’t have to overexert by trying to sit at the table. Now, my dear, Tetsy and I are going to leave you to enjoy your visitors while we do a few things in the kitchen.”
“Can’t I help?” Roland begged.
He followed the elder ladies to the kitchen, eager as a puppy, showing no effects of the previous night’s exertions except for interesting hollows under his soulful brown eyes.
The ginger cat was in far worse shape. He had the bleary, red-rimmed look of one who is in the throes of coming down with a heavy cold, and there was a nasty gouge across the back of his left forepaw that Lavinia hadn’t noticed the night before.
“How did you get that?” she demanded.
“I cut myself shaving.” He sneezed and had to blow his nose. “How’s your head? Still fuzzy?”
There was no use trying to lie to this man. “Only about what happened before I was hurt. I remember last night pretty well, I think, especially the part when you—”
Roland appeared with a tray of cups and the coffee pot. She had to change the subject, which was probably just as well.
“Oh, coffee, how wonderful!”
Lavinia started to reach out with her padded right hand, then realized she was courting disaster.
“Could you please set a cup over here on this little table for me, Roland? I’m so clumsy with these bandages that I’m afraid I’ll break Zilpha’s lovely china.”
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