A Perfect Weakness

by Jennifer A. Davids

  Parker’s mouth pursed. “No, sir. I do not understand nor can I accept your apology.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I can tolerate the unusual, the revolutionary even, to a degree.” He met John’s eyes with a marble-like stare. “This is simply unacceptable. You have been entrusted with Ashford Hall, and you are now abandoning it.”

  “I’m not abandoning it.” He rounded the desk to stand toe to toe with Parker. “I’m simply leaving it in more capable hands than mine.”

  “Mr. Howard and I are not the masters of the Hall. You are. You are its caretaker.”

  “You can’t mean to tell me there aren’t others who do the exact same thing?”

  “No, I cannot say that. But I can assure you their legacies are not the better for it.” He showed Mr. Fletcher into the room, then left. Parker didn’t understand, couldn’t see the future as he saw it. A disaster would unfold if he stayed. A situation much worse than an abandoned legacy.

  Mr. Fletcher shifted his weight from foot to foot, bringing John back to the matter at hand. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fletcher. Please have a seat.”

  The man settled onto the edge of the offered chair. The fabric of his trousers had thinned considerably at the knees, and the cuffs of his jacket had seen better, cleaner days.

  John leaned forward. “What can I do for you? Has Mr. Howard been able to find you work at Fairview?”

  The man shook his silver head. “No, sir. He told me, though, that you were thinkin’ of askin’ round here.”

  “Yes, I’m hoping Mr. Milford might need some help since Arthur Wilcox has left.” He stopped. Mr. Fletcher frowned at him. “Is that a problem?”

  “O’ course it’s a problem, sir.” His gravelly voice inched up a notch. “I can’t be workin’ with horses and such. I’m too old. And look at ma hands.” He laid his cap on the desk and held them up.

  John’s brows constricted. Rheumatism. The malady had sapped whatever strength they once possessed.

  “Then I’ll find some other job. For you and your son.” He rose from his seat, resting his hands on the edge of his desk. Think. There must be something. He had to fix this. He had to.

  “Lord Turner, with all due respect, what kind o’ jobs round here for a wrung-out old man and a one-legged cripple?”

  Cripple. How many times had he heard that word in the recovery hospital? The other patients had stoned him with the word. He gave his desk a helpless glare. “How can you think that? How can you have no hope?”

  “Hope doesn’t change what’s true, sir.” How could the man sound so calm? “That’s what we are.”

  “No!” He pounded his desk, jumbling the papers and books strewn across it. Mr. Fletcher said nothing. He picked up his cap and rose from his seat.

  “Where are you going? We still have to figure out what to do.”

  “I know what Peter and I will do, sir. That’s what I come to tell ya. My sister lives up in Gloucestershire, in the Forest of Dean. She and her family don’t have much, but they’re takin’ us in.”

  He started to leave, but John darted around his desk to block his exit. “No. No, I won’t allow you to become a burden to her. Not when I can help.”

  “But you can’t.” He put his hand in his pocket and thrust a small pouch into his hands. “Beggin’ your pardon sir, I almost forgot to give this to you.”

  “What’s this?”

  “The rent I owe you. Thank ya for being patient. I sold what was mine that we wouldn’ be needin’.”

  John stared at the bag in his hands. His shoulders slumped, and he leaned back against his desk. “I’m so sorry.”

  He heard the reply as if through a fog. “For what, sir? For the cart slippin’ and takin’ ma Peter’s leg? For ma old age? None o’ that’s your fault.”

  He shook his head. The man had no idea. The bag he’d given him jangled faintly as he laid it on his desk. His thirty pieces of silver. Mr. Fletcher gripped his shoulder. How could the man look at him that way? With so much peace?

  “You were in the war, sir?”

  John’s heart gave a start. “What?”

  “You were a doctor, in your war in America.”

  “Yes.” He flexed his hands.

  The old man sighed. “Have a young cousin over there. He fought. Got wounded too.”

  John stiffened. Any moment this man would tell him about how a surgeon had cut off an arm or a leg. His face grew hot.

  “He come out of it all right.” All the air rushed back into John’s lungs. “But he told me ’bout those hospitals.” He paused, and John looked at him. “It couldn’ been easy seein’ ma boy.”

  The peace that lay in Mr. Fletcher’s face mesmerized him. He longed for it like a dog begging for a scrap of food. And it caused him to shake his head. “No.” His voice clotted and stuck in his throat. “It wasn’t.”

  “He’s angry, so he is. Says the same thing you just did about my sister takin’ us on. That he’s a burden. Got short with the doctor too, for takin’ his leg. But I tell him, ‘Pete, you’re alive. You’re still here with me. And that’s not a burden. Would be more a burden if the Lord had taken ya. And He knew that. So He used the doctor to keep a good part of you here with me to spare me sorrow upon sorrow as the Good Book says.’” The old man’s eyes blazed with the strength of the sun. “I’ll take my boy alive and angry any day over dead cold and in the grave.” He squeezed John’s shoulder. “You just think on that, sir.”

  John stared into his heart for a long time afterwards.

  “Thank you for the books, sir.”

  Stone had more to do with Arthur Wilcox’s face than warm flesh. It seemed to be John’s day for dealing with statues. First at the Hall and now here at the cottage hospital. Arthur’s anger had only strengthened. Who could blame him?

  “I know you’ll do well. Parker knows to let you in whenever you need something.”

  “Yes, sir. You’ve told me.” His eyes flicked toward the door. “Excuse me. I have work to do before I leave for the day.”

  “Ah, Lord Turner.”

  John forced a pleasant expression to his face. “Good evening, Dr. Royston.”

  The doctor approached them and noticed the books in Arthur’s hands. He took them and studied the spines. “Good, you’ve brought them.”

  “Those are the rest of the books I have on miasma,” John replied.

  “Thank you. Our young protégé needs to have the facts reinforced.” He thrust them back into Arthur’s hands. “He seems to have developed an idea that certain afflictions have more to do with what is ingested.”

  Say something, Arthur. Defend yourself. Wrong or no, he should still try to defend his theory. Catching his attention, John tilted his head, eyebrows raised.

  Arthur shuffled the books. “I’ll read through these and send them back to the Hall when I’m done.”

  “Don’t back down, Arthur,” John said. “If you don’t defend your theory, how will you defend a diagnosis?”

  “A valid point, Lord Turner,” Dr. Royston replied. “Why don’t you join us for dinner? Young Arthur can give us his arguments, and we can educate him.”

  John hesitated. Staying would only compound Arthur’s anger. But he agreed anyway. Perhaps that anger would provide some fuel for his argument.

  The doctor was pleased. “Good. If you will give us a moment, I want Arthur to take note of my instructions to the night nurse over a particular patient.”

  “Is everything all right?” John asked.

  “Yes.” He waved his hand. “Some unusual symptoms. Nothing to concern you, Lord Turner.”

  The two walked off. He wasn’t sure which was worse, Arthur’s glowering or Dr. Royston’s arrogance. It would not be an enjoyable dinner. He could always leave a message that he had been called away.

  In the end, he waited. Arthur was wrong, but the notion he suggested was interesting. At the very least he owed it to him to hear him out.

  It wasn’t a new premise. After Dr. Pasteur’s succe
ss in proving a living organism had been causing casks of wine to go bad, many doctors were questioning the established theory that bad air caused diseases such as cholera and the Black Death. He agreed with the miasma stance, but it wasn’t surprising that Arthur’s youth and exuberance would lead him to give ear to such a revolutionary theory.

  Over the course of the meal that evening, it was clear that his interest was more firmly rooted than John thought wise. Arthur had done his homework and made his case so passionately, he hardly took a bite at dinner. But Dr. Royston’s sharp mind shouldn’t be taken lightly. He questioned and poked holes in everything Arthur put forth.

  “But sir, how do you explain that Dr. Pasteur discovered outside contaminates were causing the wine samples to go bad or that he discovered an organism was making silkworms die?” Arthur stood before both of them in the study as they took their tea. He waved off John’s offer of a cup.

  “That has nothing to do with people getting sick,” Dr. Royston snapped. “Ensuring the rich have their wine and the survival of worms to spin their fine clothing means very little.”

  “But it has everything to do with something other than a bad smell causing disease,” Arthur shot back. He grabbed a book from the desk the doctor had lent him for his use. It was a volume of the back issues of The Medical Times and Gazette for 1854. One of Ashford Hall’s tomes. “If you want evidence of people getting sick, Dr. John Snow all but proved that the water from the Broad Street pump in London was the cause of the cholera outbreak that year.”

  “That’s preposterous and was thought so by the other leading minds of the day.” Dr. Royston set his tea cup aside with a rattle. “I fail to see how you have made your point.”

  “Arthur, I’ve read that letter to the editor.” Let Dr. Royston rail away. John would remain calm and reasonable. “Dr. Snow admits at the very start he found little organic impurity in the water.”

  “But when they removed the pump handle people stopped dying.”

  “They also made vast improvements to the streets by scrubbing them with chloride of lime, ridding the street of its stench.” Dr. Royston rose from his seat. “Which was more than likely the solution to the problem than any of this pump handle removal.” He took the book from Arthur, closing it with a snap. “Hippocrates, Vitruvius, Galen, Fracastoro, Andry—all these brilliant minds have proved the validity of miasma over hundreds of years. In future, you will confine your reading of disease to works that have a basis in fact.”

  He handed the book to John. “If you would be so good as to remove that from my home.” Then he rummaged through the other books on Arthur’s desk. “Of course. On the Mode of Communication of Cholera by Dr. John Snow. This one as well, Lord Turner.”

  Arthur flashed a pleading gaze at John. He should throw him a bone. Something. They would part more amicably. But how could he in all honesty support his wild theory? He laid the books on the table next to his chair. Perhaps this would convince him. “Arthur, I am familiar with a man who was in one of the worst prison camps during the War Between the States. Andersonville.”

  “Ah, yes, Lord Turner. I’ve heard of it.” Dr. Royston resumed his seat and indicated that Arthur should sit as well, but he remained as he was.

  John cleared his throat and continued, “Mr. Kirby told me about the stream that flowed through the camp where the prisoners were kept. It reeked and disease was rampant, especially during the hot months. And more than simply cholera—consumption, malaria, dropsy.”

  Arthur stilled and considered this for a moment. “Is the stream where the men relieved themselves, sir?”

  “Yes, therefore the stench.”

  “If you’ll forgive me, sir, therefore infected drinking water. Did they drink from the stream too?” John hesitated, and Arthur jumped on it. “There! Dr. Snow claims that the sewage running into the Thames seeped into the groundwater.”

  “Enough,” Dr. Royston barked. “Lord Turner, while I appreciate your effort, it would seem you are only dragging him further astray. It appears it would be best if you left his education to me as you first insisted.”

  Outside, the last bits of light painted the horizon in red, purple, and orange, a sight that was lost on John as he stared out the coach window. One of the books fell onto the floor of the coach. It remained there. He shouldn’t have gone. What right did he have? He wasn’t a doctor—

  He used the doctor to keep a good part of you here with me …

  Again the words reverberated in his heart, beat against it as they had since Mr. Fletcher left. He’d done his best to ignore them, but now in the silence of the carriage, he couldn’t any longer.

  Could it be that absolution was so close? Was what he saw as sin really a service to God? He leaned his head back against the seat and stared. Something crumbled in his soul, and the tiniest sliver of light slipped through.

  His leg twitched. Why did he still have it? For all he did, why could he still walk and those soldiers couldn’t? Why had he chosen to be selfish? And there was Maggie and Beth to consider. What about what he’d done to them? How could God contend with that? He couldn’t, could He? What was it? That God’s soul could not contend with man’s? And there was a price to be paid for everyone’s sins. He had to accept that price. Even if he had been meant to spare those men’s lives, that didn’t absolve him from his cowardice. Or his failure to—

  Grace. My grace is sufficient ...

  He started. Who had said that? The carriage was empty. He leaned forward and rested his forehead in his hands. It couldn’t be so simple. It couldn’t be that freeing. It couldn’t be that he felt his descent slowing. His sins were too damning. Weren’t they?

  He leaned back and looked out the window. In the lingering dusk, he caught sight of the path that led to the ruins.

  Penelope.

  She’d spoken of grace too. With tears in her eyes. Tears that he’d wiped away. Soul-stirring warmth grew in his chest. She would understand. The thought still tortured him. Why? Because it was true? Or because he so wanted it to be true? His eyes slipped shut, and the scent of lavender and roses filled the carriage. His fingers curled as they recalled the silkiness of her hair, and his tongue ran along the inside edge of his lips as he remembered her soft sweetness.

  With a start, his eyes snapped open. No. No more. He shouldn’t be torturing himself with notions of grace and the thought of caring for a woman like Penelope Howard. The wages of sin was death. Thoughts like those had to die. By the end of the week, he would leave Woodley, the Hall, and hope behind him.

  CHAPTER 24

  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.

  The verse echoed in Penelope’s heart. What a blessing Mr. Gregory had made it the focus of yesterday’s sermon. It cut through her jumbled feelings and returned her heart to order. For the most part. Lord Turner’s imminent departure still weighed on her, but the knowledge that somehow the Lord would set everything to rights buoyed her and gave her strength to carry on.

  The weather was so fine when she stepped out Fairview’s door she decided to walk her first few visits before taking the cart. The lane leading to Clara’s cottage came into view. She should try to talk sense to the girl once more. Did she want to? No, not after her last two attempts. But she needed to if for no other reason than to try to heal the breach between them. Clara sat on the bench just outside her little garden, but the instant she saw Penelope, she rose and rushed to her. Her expression spoke of remorse. Had the father rejected her again? They grasped hands.

  “Penelope, I am sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I was so cruel.”

  “Please, it is all right,” Penelope replied. “You’ve been worried and ill.”

  “That is no excuse.” She regarded the ground for a moment. “And I hope you won’t be too angry when I tell you I’ve met with the father just as I planned.”

  Tension filtered to her hands, and she squeezed Clara’s. “What did he sa
y?”

  Joy shone in her face. “He is going to procure a special license.”

  “Oh, Clara!” She gave her a quick embrace. “That is wonderful news.”

  “But how shall I explain things to Mr. Gregory?” Clara asked as they parted. “I promised to remain for at least a year.”

  “Do not worry about that. I will help you talk to him, and if need be, I can take on your duties until someone else can be found.”

  “But you are so busy already.”

  “I don’t mind. I will manage.” Yes, it would be good for her to be busier. Once Lord Turner departed, she would need the distraction.

  Cheerful laughter like holiday bells drifted in on the breeze, and soon Clara’s pupils appeared along the path.

  “You are feeling well today?” Penelope asked before they were in earshot.

  Clara’s hand drifted to her midsection. “I am more than well today.”

  After helping her settle her charges, Penelope continued on her rounds. The news of Lord Turner’s departure weighed on the hearts of many. She did her best to put a positive light on it. Parker would be staying on at the Hall, and she and her brother would remain. But most were still disappointed. She could hardly blame them. But as Mr. Gregory had said, the Lord settles matters better than mortal man. She wasn’t sure how, but He would. She would trust in that.

  Her route home for luncheon took her back by Clara’s. There was proof of His divine hand. Things had seemed so precarious for her young friend. But He had settled it by working on the heart of the child’s father as she prayed He would. The blessings of answered prayer.

  Upon arriving at Fairview, she walked back to the stables and asked for the cart to be made ready. She’d drive the rest of her rounds after a quick lunch.

  “You seem more cheerful.” Hannah was in the kitchen preparing their food when she walked in. “Seems like I haven’t seen you smile in an age.”

  “I am feeling better today, more rested, thank you, Hannah.” Penelope had managed to put off both her and Thomas by claiming fatigue as the source of her melancholy, a malady neither would question. And thankfully, they hadn’t.