“It is not my home,” the Earl reminded her. “I was brought up in it, but I have a house of my own in which, as a grown-up, I would be expected to live. It would be thought very odd if I continued to live with my aunt and uncle.”
“Kent?” Endymion asked. “We were used to live in the very next county – for a short time at any rate. It was while we were there that Papa died.”
“So that it probably does not have happy memories for you,” Helen concluded. It did not have happy memories for her either, being associated with extreme tedium intermittently shattered by the incendiary nature of her mother’s temperament.
“No; I own that period of my life is not one for which I yearn, but that is by no means the fault of its geography, which is charming, and boasts a positively balmy climate.”
“I have not been anywhere else,” Helen said, “except of course recently. I have never, for instance, visited any of Horatio’s residences. He has one in Hampshire, a hunting lodge in Leicestershire and, of course, one in London. Have you been to any of them yourself, Horatio?”
“Yes, of course I have. Although I do not advertise the fact for fear of my relatives placing demands upon me to visit, I do go home to England occasionally and have visited them all. One day I will come back for good and then I will invite you to stay with me, Helen.”
“I shall look forward to it,” she said without much enthusiasm. “But I suppose you will have a wife by then.”
“Perhaps.”
Cecilia and Phyllis coming back into the room brought an end to the discussion.
The Earl’s polite enquiry as to Mrs Moss’s health having been satisfactorily answered without either of the young women going into detail about their parent’s inebriated and somnolent condition, the party settled down again and it was near midnight by the time it broke up.
Cecilia, having unbuttoned Phyllis’s borrowed dress and helped her into her nightgown, tucked her into bed and kissed her goodnight while she went to see what had become of their mother.
Mrs Moss was still slumped in the chair in front of the fire but was by this time heavily asleep with her mouth open. The fire had fallen away to a heap of greying ash and the brandy bottle was empty.
“Come, Mama,” Cecilia said, leaning down to pull her mother to her feet. “You have an unusually comfortable bed awaiting you – pray do not waste it by spending the night in a chair.”
Mrs Moss probably weighed more than twice as much as her daughter and, in spite of the young woman’s greater vigour, it proved impossible to get her up. She tried pulling her arm, but her parent remained immovable and showed no sign of waking. She put her mother’s arm around her own neck and tried to move her that way, but still met with failure. She wondered whether it would be better to leave her where she was, semi-undressed and partially wrapped in a blanket, or whether she should try to find Endymion, who would surely be able to move her even if he could not lift her.
Tucking the blanket in more securely about her mother’s shoulders, she left the room but, on gaining the corridor, realised that she had no idea where her brother’s room was. There were no servants to ask at this late hour and she could not knock upon every door until she found the right one. Her knowledge of her brother, in any event, made her think it unlikely he would wake in response to a knock. She would have to go into the room and shake him.
She was standing just outside the door, undecided on her best course of action, when she heard footsteps. Hoping that it might be Endymion – or, if not him, someone who would be able to direct her to his door, she waited, only to suffer the appalling embarrassment of seeing the Earl rounding the corner.
“Are you locked out?” he asked sympathetically.
“No, no, my lord. Thank you. Do you know which room is my brother’s?”
“I can’t say that I do. Do you need him, or can I be of assistance?”
“No, oh no, my lord, not at all.”
He had reached her by this time and said, “Is the door locked?” nodding at the one in front of which she was standing.
“No; no, this is my mother’s.”
“Ah.” It seemed from his expression that he understood the situation perfectly. “Is she quite well?”
She stared up at him. The corridor was dark, lit only by their two candles.
“I wanted to make sure she had got to bed all right,” she said.
“Of course. Has she?”
“She is still sitting in a chair and I thought – I thought - it would be more comfortable for her if she were to be lying in a bed, particularly since we – we don’t always have a – such an exceedingly comfortable one,” she finished on a rush and immediately regretted saying so much.
“Would you like me to help you get her into bed?” he asked, again instantly understanding her difficulty.
“No; oh no, I cannot ask that of you, sir.”
“You can, perfectly well, but in point of fact you have not asked; I have offered. If it is merely a question of lifting the lady and laying her upon the bed, I cannot see that you need to be anxious about it. You will be with me throughout the operation in any event.”
“I would not – I could not ..,” she began, almost weeping now for shame that she had told him as much as she had.
“No, well, there is nothing to fear,” he agreed. “Come, are we not friends?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she replied more firmly. This was not difficult to answer. “You are my family’s benefactor, my lord; I believe it would be impudent of me to claim you as a friend.”
“Oh, dear; I don’t mean to be so intimidating. Miss Moss, as I have said several times already, it is part of my job to help fellow countrymen whom I find in difficulties. It sounds to me as though you can do with my help.”
“Yes, but …”
“I do not think this is a suitable moment for shame,” he said gently. “I promise I will not judge either you or your mother, but we have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow, probably in rather cramped conditions, and a good night’s sleep is surely preferable to spending the night in a chair. Come, whatever I am imagining to be the situation on the other side of this door, I am convinced the reality cannot be so bad.”
“What are you imagining?”
“That your mother, very likely in an embarrassing state of undress on account of all her clothes being wet earlier, has probably imbibed a little too much wine and has fallen into a heavy slumber from which you have failed to wake her.”
“Brandy,” she corrected weakly.
“Brandy,” he repeated. “I assume you have tried to lift her and failed, which is not at all surprising given your relative sizes. I am quite strong, you know, and hope I will be equal to the task. In any event, it will not be the first time I have seen a female in a state of either undress or inebriation.”
“Oh, my lord! How can you be so excessively kind – and tactful?” she exclaimed, almost falling upon his bosom in her gratitude but, perhaps fortunately, prevented by the presence of the guttering candles.
“I suppose it was the way I was made,” he answered pragmatically. “Now let us proceed and then we can both go to bed.”
Chapter 24
Conveying Mrs Moss to her bed proved to be almost beyond the Earl’s capabilities.
Cecilia led the way into her mother’s chamber where her parent was lying in the chair, just as she had left her ten minutes earlier, with her legs stretched out, her modesty protected by nothing more than a shabby chemise and a blanket. A glass lay overturned on one side of the chair and the brandy bottle, empty and uncorked, on the other.
Cecilia, thankful that the dimness of the room hid the shame burning her cheeks, picked up both glass and bottle and, leaving Waldron to survey his task, set herself to preparing the bed by pulling back the remaining bedclothes.
In spite of the fact that Mrs Moss was a relatively soft and malleable type of burden, his lordship, betraying no sign of either shock or – at least at first - doubt about his ab
ility to perform what he had offered, soon discovered that lifting her presented a good many problems he had not previously considered.
He began by trying to lift her in the manner he had adopted with insensible females in the past: one arm around her back and the other beneath her knees, but soon discovered that this would not answer. The upper half of her body was so very substantial that the full length of his arm, passed behind her, proved insufficient to reach the other side no matter how far he bent. The other arm was perfectly able to scoop her up from beneath her knees but, without being able to balance her upper body, she would simply slide away from him. He essayed this, hoping that, once he had prised her from the embrace of the chair, he would be able to tilt her body against his chest and so lift her. His hopes were dashed when she rolled away from his grasp.
He had expected, when he began, that his intervention would rouse her and he would have been able to heave her to her feet and help her to cross the room. It did not. She groaned but did not wake. He straightened while he tried to work out a solution.
Cecilia, having prepared the bed and watched his efforts with a mixture of embarrassment and sympathy, appeared beside him.
“Did you try to move her?” he asked.
“Yes; I knew that I could not lift her, but I thought she would wake and that I would be able to stagger across the room with her leaning on me. She seems very sound asleep. Do you think she is – is merely asleep?”
“Yes, but it is an exceedingly heavy sleep – such extreme somnolence is not unusual with brandy.”
“Oh! I wish she would not,” she muttered.
“Does she do this sort of thing frequently?”
“Fairly, but as we often do not have quite enough beds to go round, I am afraid I usually leave her. She wakes up in the morning in a disagreeable mood but seems not to suffer any long-term ill effects. Endymion sometimes gets her to bed, which is why I thought of him.”
“Yes, of course. How does he lift her? I don’t seem to have got the measure of it.”
“We often do it together. If you put your hands under her arms and take most of the weight, I can support her legs. It is difficult otherwise to get hold of her.”
“Very well. Like this, you mean?” The Earl went behind the chair, leaned forward and pushed his hands under Mrs Moss’s arms. The blanket fell off on to her lap, exposing a good deal of pale flesh bulging out of the chemise.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s of any significance,” Cecilia said, losing her shame and becoming pragmatic when he leaned forward anxiously and tried to pull it up again. “She will not know and – as you say – the female form is not unknown to you.”
“No,” he agreed doubtfully, so that she thought that, whatever experience he had of her sex’s lineaments, it was unlikely to have included intimate knowledge of a woman her mother’s age and shape.
She took up her position at the other end and lifted her parent’s feet.
“Shall I go backwards when we have got her out of the chair?” she asked
“No, I will go backwards. I think it will be easier to walk away with her leaning against me than to take small steps forward. But will you be able to follow? If you cannot, I believe it will not hurt her to drag her across the floor until we reach the bed when you can help by lifting her legs.”
“I think I can manage but, if I cannot, I will put her feet down, as you suggest.”
He nodded and, leaning forward over his quarry, pushed his hands under her arms and prepared to lift.
“Ready?” he asked, tightening his grip and raising his head to meet Cecilia’s eyes.
“Yes.”
“Go!” he said, and they bent to their tasks at the same moment.
Mrs Moss’s bulk finally left the safety of the armchair, was swung into the air and, the Earl sidestepping neatly around it, began the journey towards the bed.
Once free of the chair, he moved steadily backwards with Cecilia stumbling after him, her parent’s ankles clasped in her hands.
When they reached the bed, Waldron made a final effort and heaved his burden on to it, shoulders first. Then, before she could fall off again, rolled her over on to her side, making sure both her feet were firmly on the mattress, and removed the pillow.
When he straightened, Cecilia said diffidently, “My lord, would she not be more comfortable with her head upon a pillow?”
“I don’t think it will make much difference to her just at present and, when a person has imbibed a good deal of liquor, there is a danger that she might be horribly sick without realising it. She is less likely to suffocate if she does not have a pillow; indeed, it might be a good idea to put it in front of her body so that she will be unable to roll over any further.”
Once Mrs Moss was arranged to their mutual satisfaction, Cecilia pulled down the chemise to cover as much of her parent’s legs as possible, drew up the sheet and, fetching the blanket, tucked the whole in place as tightly as possible.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said humbly, stepping back and surveying the considerable mound that was her mother.
“Not at all – all in a day’s work, as I say.”
She laughed a little hysterically, “Hardly; surely that is not what you do all day? Do you not speak to other diplomats about important matters concerning your respective countries, try to avert war, that sort of thing – while everyone is fully dressed and more or less compos mentis?”
“Occasionally, but not in point of fact very often. Most of what one does is eat dinner with a whole set of persons with whom one has nothing in common, frequently not even a rudimentary level of language. The common ingredient is usually copious amounts of liquor.”
“I see. Is that how you know about the importance of not leaving an inebriated person lying on his back?”
“Not from my diplomatic efforts, no. I should imagine most men know from their early experiences as students. How does your brother leave her?”
“On her side,” she admitted. “But he has never attended university – nor indeed school for more than one term.”
“No, but he is a young man and has presumably occasionally been to places where others of his age gather. Some of those are bound to imbibe a little too much from time to time and their friends sometimes find themselves obliged to deal with the consequences.”
“Men?” she asked hesitantly.
“Not necessarily; I meant only that most men find themselves in that situation when they are at university. I did not intend to imply that women never become foxed. Of course they do.”
She nodded but, although she had frequently had to ask her brother for help in similar circumstances, she did not think that many women made a habit of falling into the kind of stupor which, unfortunately, had become only too common with Mrs Moss recently.
He, seeing her discomfort, said gently, “People are the same the world over, particularly lonely, unhappy people. Inebriation gives them a few minutes of relief from their anxieties; the fact that in the long run it generally exacerbates the problem rarely seems to weigh with them.”
“I suppose Mama must be lonely and unhappy,” she said sadly. “It cannot be easy carrying the burden of the family without enough money and without a proper home.”
“Indeed. But it strikes me that it is you who bears most of the burden, including taking care of your mother.”
“Mama wishes that I would not,” she admitted. “We are often at loggerheads because we disagree on how we should proceed.”
“Can you not be accommodated with one of your elder brothers or your other sister? Are they married?”
“The eldest is, but, as he is more often at sea than not and his wife is not overly attached to Mama, he has never suggested it. The other is not married and, in any event, lives in rooms in London. He would not have space for us nor sufficient means to support us. My sister has only just married – we have but recently left her in Piedmont.”
“Yes, of course. Well, I will see what I can find for you in Ge
neva in terms of both lodging and employment. You had better go to bed now; your mother will no doubt wake up with a sore head in the morning.”
“Thank you, my lord,” she said again, going to the door.
He reached it before her and opened it.
“Good night, Miss Moss.”
“Good night, my lord.”
She did not wake early in the morning, which was hardly surprising in view of the fact that, after parting from the Earl, she had not found it easy to clear her mind of what had passed between them and had barely fallen asleep by the time the sun rose.
She wished that she had not asked him for help but had instead left her mother to sleep in the chair. It was horridly embarrassing to think of how he had come to her aid and how nearly he had been unable to supply it, as well as the fact that he was now in possession of a number of distressing and shameful facts about her family.
As she lay beside her sister she thought that it had been an idiotic mistake to have become so determined to enable her mother to sleep in a bed that she had allowed an Earl to pick up and move her. What must he think of them, of her? Her mother would probably not have been any the worse for spending the night in the chair and, even if she had, it was to be hoped that waking, stiff and uncomfortable, in the morning might have led to a change in her behaviour.
For almost the first time in her life she also found sleeping next to her sister irksome. His lordship’s remarks about the burden of her family falling mainly upon her shoulders had opened her mind to the reality of her situation to such a degree that she was guiltily aware of feeling resentful. The truth was that it was only by closing her mind resolutely to having anything she wanted for herself that she had been able to endure the last ten years.
Immediately after her father had died, her eldest brother had shouldered the burden, but they had not, at the time, been quite so poor. They had removed to the west of England, an area chosen largely because they knew no one there and it was a long way from Sussex, rented a house which, although smaller than the one in which they had been living, had been adequate for them all to live comfortably. They had engaged a small staff of servants and life had gone on, rather miserably it was true, but nevertheless in a seemingly respectable manner.
Cecilia Or Flight From A Shadow Page 21
