Her days were filled with her duties as mistress of Bilton farmhouse. Miss Wilkins visited as promised and took a lively interest in her plans to restore the drawing room to its former elegance. The dining room was equally spacious, with room enough for a small party to dance, and Miss Wilkins filled her head with ideas about assemblies.
However, despite warmth and nourishment, Laura’s health continued to decline. She did what she could to help her daughter but was forced to rest through the afternoon and she retired to bed with her medicine soon after tea. Quinta’s concern for her mother distracted her from her own dilemma. The cough became worse and she moved an old couch into her mother’s bedchamber to be near her through the night. When they discussed it, Noah thought this a sensible solution.
‘I should like to ask the physician from town to visit Mother,’ she asked.
‘Waste of money,’ he replied. ‘He can’t cure the consumption. ’
‘He might recommend another mixture for her.’
‘I’ll get more laudanum sent over for her.’
‘But if the physician calls you may speak with him, too.You could ask him if he has a potion for you - for - for Saturday night.’
‘I shall do no such thing. It will right itself soon enough, when you have learned to be more chaste.’
Quinta wondered how long that would take.
Chapter 20
The autumn was cold and damp mists seeped into every crack. However, Miss Wilkins continued to call and take afternoon tea with cake in their drawing room. Laura enjoyed her visits immensely and talked of balls and parties she had known at the Hall, much to Miss Wilkins’ fascination. Quinta washed the dust off delicate china and silver that had not been used in years to add to the occasion.
After one such pleasant interlude, as Miss Wilkins left for the vicarage, a messenger on horseback arrived at the front door of the farmhouse with a letter. Quinta’s heart leaped. Patrick had promised to write to her! Had he somehow heard of her marriage and move to Bilton Farm? Oh, how exciting to have news of him!
‘Will you step inside for refreshment?’ she asked as she handed the courier his fee and took the thick folded paper from him. Her features sagged with disappointment. It was sealed with red wax and addressed to Noah.
‘Thank you, ma’am, I’ll not dismount, but a swallow of spirit taken in the saddle will be most welcome. The winds are bitter across these hills and I am quite chilled.’
She gave him some of Noah’s best brandy and asked where the letter was from.
‘It came on the post from Crosswell in the High Peak.’ Quinta watched him gulp the brandy and gallop away. Noah hailed from the High Peak in the next county. She propped the letter in front of his tankard at the kitchen table and prepared the liver and onions that she would fry for his tea.
He examined the seal by the light of the kitchen window, slid a grubby finger underneath it and unfolded the thick paper. As he read she saw that it brought pleasing news and she waited patiently for him to tell her. He did not disappoint in this respect.
‘Well, Mrs Bilton, news of my improving status has reached Crosswell. I am invited to join a shoot on the High Peak moors.’
Quinta glanced at her mother with raised eyebrows and asked, ‘Will you accept?’
‘I shall. Seth will oversee the rest of the ploughing. I shall be back in time to take my geese and bullocks to the December markets. Town butchers pay good prices for fat stock before Christmas. Make preparations to leave.’
‘All of us?’
‘Indeed. A married man must show off his new wife.’
But just to be sure, Quinta asked, ‘I may take Mother as well?’
‘You will need her to help pass time with other ladies.’ He stopped to think. ‘You must take a fancy gown for dinner. Mother, too.’
‘For dinner?’
‘They eat their dinner late after shooting, sometimes as late as five o’clock, and make a great show of it.’
Laura leaned towards her. ‘I know all about what to do, dear. I used to help the ladies’ maids at the Hall when they had parties.’
Quinta noticed how her mother’s eyes were sparkling at her memories. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Where shall we stay?’
‘We shall lodge with the farmer who was my landlord before I came here. His good wife is very well connected and will entertain the womenfolk while we are out shooting. You may even be honoured by an invitation to take tea with a titled lady.’
Now Quinta’s own eyes sparkled. There would be other gentlemen farmers’ wives and daughters to meet, and Mother would enjoy their refined company. But she feared the journey would be long and cold in this chilly autumn.
‘Shall we travel there by the post?’ she asked.
‘Post? Not across the Peaks! Packhorses take in the stores and supplies. We shall ride all the way.’
‘Ride? Can we not take a cart of any kind for Mother?’
‘The tracks are steep and there are rocky streams to cross. Only packhorses can get through.’
‘But Mother is not strong enough to make a journey on horseback.’
‘You may have the best side saddle, Mother,’ Noah offered. ‘What do you say?’
‘I fear my daughter is right, sir. I have very little strength these days.’
‘Then you will have to stay behind. Perhaps it will be for the best as the cold winds on the High Peak are more penetrating than here. You will have to converse with your betters without her, Mrs Bilton.’
‘Your husband is right, my dear. I do not really wish to travel in these colder months. It exhausts me so and worsens my cough. You must go with Noah alone.’
‘But you cannot stay here without me!’
‘Of course I can. There will be very little to do with no one else in the house. Seth will bring in the wood and coal for me.’
‘No, Mother. You need more personal attending. You need me.’
‘I can care for myself, dear. And this is such a wonderful opportunity for you. Besides, you must go with your husband. It is your duty.’
Quinta saw the satisfied look on Noah’s face and felt irritated. If he had been able to do his duty towards her and control himself enough to consummate their marriage she would have no problem with ignoring her own duty towards him and staying with her mother. But she was becoming increasingly desperate about her situation. If they did not achieve a proper union soon, her deception would become increasingly difficult to conceal.Yet how could she go with him and leave her ailing mother to launder her own linen and make her own toddies in the wintry cold?
‘I’ll get a lad to help Seth with the stock,’ Noah said. ‘He did all the indoor work for me afore I wed. He’ll do it again.’
‘There, dear.’ Laura smiled. ‘Seth will have time to lay fires and heat water. I shall manage quite well.’
‘That’s settled then,’ Noah said. ‘You’ll need cloth for only one new gown.’
Her mother was persuasive and Quinta knew that for her daughter to attend a shooting party was a dream come true for her. But Quinta was not so attracted by the connections of the visit and replied, ‘My mind is made up on this. I shall not leave you ailing during the winter months. They are the worst for you.’ She turned to Noah. ‘Might your visit not wait until the spring?’
Noah face darkened. ‘They invite me for the shooting. It is an honour for me.You would do well to remember your position as my wife, madam.’
She remained firm. ‘I shall not leave my mother. She needs me.’ And you do not, she thought.
‘Quinta, have a care what you say,’ Laura cautioned softly. ‘Your place is with your husband.’
‘But not when he is shooting. I have domestic duties here. There are vegetables and fruits to dry and pickle, pig meat to cure for the winter.’ She turned to Noah. ‘I am sure that not all wives go shooting with their husbands.’
‘They do not decline invitations from their betters,’ he responded sharply.Then he shrugged.‘But you have good reason to
stay with your kin. It will not be questioned.’
‘You will not mind if I remain with Mother?’
‘I shall be back before Christmastide.’
‘And my hams and chutneys will be ready for you, dearest husband.’
‘That’s settled then.’ Quinta thought that Noah seemed cheered by this decision. ‘I shall leave right away and stay at the inn in Crosswell for a few days beforehand.’
Quinta looked forward to Noah leaving. But she fretted that, when he returned, her child would be more grown inside her. Perhaps she could persuade him that, somehow, his seed had penetrated. She thought not. He had little experience with ladies, but a great deal with farm animals. Her child was destined to be born early; very early.
However, she did not feel guilty at her choice. Her mother meant more to her than Noah ever would and she guessed he might realise that. He took his hunter, well laden and sporting a burnished new saddle, planning to impress his kith in Crosswell and his host.
Seth took on an extra village lad to help with the farm work and they saw little of him except on a Sunday. She looked forward to the Sabbath and her visits to church. Bilton Farm was near enough to walk but too far for Laura and they took the trap. They were much cheered by the company, especially the favour Miss Wilkins now showed them as she lingered for conversation in the churchyard.
‘Oh! My brother can be so tiresome!’ she grumbled. ‘He has his nose forever in his books.’
‘It is his calling,’ Quinta replied mildly.
‘Well, I wish he would call on Sir William more and arrange for improvements to the vicarage.’
‘Surely it is not damp?’
‘It is old and dingy, but Mr Wilkins says it is not “fitting” for the Squire to spend his money on us when some of his parishioners are so poor. He does not need to! My brother has his own inheritance. But he spends it on books when I should dearly like to replace the draperies and furnishings in our home.’
‘Well, you do have an eye for such decor.You must help me choose new fabrics for upholstery and window curtains at the farmhouse.’
Beatrice’s eyes shone. ‘Oh, may I? The draper from town will bring you patterns and fabrics to choose from.’
‘Yes, Noah has accounts with several suppliers in town. He said I may use them while he is away.’
‘You will need a seamstress. I know of one in the village. When can we start?’
‘I think I should wait until Noah comes home before I make any major changes.’
‘Oh, must you?’
‘It is his house.’
‘Bah!’ Miss Wilkins responded impatiently. ‘We ladies must always wait on our gentlemen’s decisions.’
‘I have Mother to consider, too,’ Quinta pointed out. Her mother’s chest was weakening and, even when she rested, her breathing was laboured. The winter had set in early and promised to be harsh.
‘Yes, of course you have. I am forgetting my duties.You will let me help you, won’t you? I have a great deal of experience in caring for the sick.’
Miss Wilkins visited Laura frequently and was a source of lively support for Quinta and her mother. She was already past thirty in her years but, Quinta realised, she would have made a good wife for a vicar or lawyer, or even a farmer. If she envied Quinta her position as a married woman, she did not show it and Quinta was grateful for her friendship.
However, her Sundays were tinged with sadness as she laid flowers or foliage at her father’s grave. Mother, too, shed a tear and searched in her small bag for a handkerchief. She had lost Quinta’s elder sister, Eliza, too, and both names adorned the small memorial stone. She studied the dates and thought wistfully how nice it would have been to grow up with a sister.
‘Eliza was fourteen when she died. You . . .’ Quinta did the calculation in her head. ‘You were nineteen or twenty when you bore her.’ Older than I am now, she thought.
Laura did not respond to this but said, ‘It was a great loss to all of us when Eliza passed away. But the Lord giveth as well as taketh away and he blessed us with you; though I had to wait until I was Miss Wilkins’ age.’
‘I wish I had known my sister.’ Quinta knew of her mother’s disappointment in not having more children and reached through the slit in her cloak to take her hand. Through the thickness of their woollen gloves she felt how thin and bony Laura’s fingers had become. She frowned. Mother was declining faster than she ought and she resolved to make nourishing jelly and honeyed posset for her.
December arrived and Quinta expected Noah’s return at any time. Seth took Noah’s stock to market and returned with more coins than she had ever seen before. She placed them in her gown cupboard for safekeeping. The temperature dropped suddenly and the rutted track to the village froze hard with frost. It was too dangerous for folk and pony alike and they were obliged to forgo their outings to church. As the Christmas feast approached with still no sign of Noah, Mr Wilkins made a slow ascent on horseback to Bilton Farm.The sky was leaden.
‘I have news from the High Peak.’
‘You have a letter?’ Quinta asked anxiously.
He shook his head. ‘Nothing is getting through. Blizzards have made travelling impossible and deep snow has blocked the routes. It is said that we shall have the same. Beatrice has sent you these sweetmeats for Mrs Haig.’
They exchanged further pleasantries and greetings for the season then parted gratefully, each returning to the safety of their own firesides.
Laura’s chest worsened and her body weakened significantly. She took to her bed and Quinta kept a fire going in her chamber day and night. She asked Seth to send a lad from the village to fetch the physician from town and waited restlessly for his arrival. He could not ride as he had been laid low himself by a fever and wrote a note for the apothecary. The medicine eased Laura’s distress but Quinta was obliged to watch her mother’s strength ebb away.
The weather deteriorated still further and no one ventured far from home for fear of injury and cold. Seth prepared and cooked a goose for dinner on Christmas Day but neither joined him at the kitchen table for Laura was not able to get up from her bed and Quinta would not leave her. He brought a tray and left it outside the bedchamber.
Laura’s voice was weak. ‘You will not forget all that I have taught you?’
‘Hush now, Mother. You must rest.’
‘I can do nothing else now. Think of me when I am gone.’
‘Of course I shall, all the time.’
‘And remember your father, and what a good man he was. Eliza, too; especially Eliza, you must cherish her memory. Promise me you will.’
‘I promise, Mother.’
Quinta took hold of her thin cold hand and sat motionless for hours. Through the window, she watched the snow fall relentlessly from a blackened sky and forgot the passing time as her darling mother lost her fight for life. She lay motionless, her gentle grip weakening in Quinta’s grasp as she drifted in and out of sleep, hardly knowing who or where she was. Quinta too lost count of the days and became gaunt and hollow-eyed herself as she nursed.
Laura Haig breathed her last as streaks of light pierced a grey morning sky. The snow had stopped falling but it lay thick on the ground. Laura’s grip on her hand slackened and her head fell sideways as her life came to a close. Quinta sat motionless in her chair and stared at her mother’s beautiful, still features for a long time before she began to weep. She had known the end was near but it did not make her grief any the less and her body shook with sobs. Her crying continued as she placed pennies on her mother’s eyes and washed her thin body with warm water from the kettle over the fire.
When she had finished, the sound of church bells floated over the snow-covered fields to celebrate, not a Sunday, but the New Year’s Day. She dried her eyes and remembered the last few words her mother had uttered before she had fallen into her final faint. ‘You have made your bed, my love. Now you must lie in it.’ She wondered whether she could. It was comfortable enough, but cold. The chill she
felt at Bilton Farm did not come from frost and ice. It came from the void in her heart.
She did not remember her sister Eliza and knew only what her mother had told her. But Quinta had grown up in her devoted father’s care and protection and she had been distraught when he passed away. She and her mother had mourned together and the bond between them had strengthened. Mother had supported her through her sorrow; without her Quinta did not know what she would have done. Who was to help her now? She had lost the person most dear to her and she had no one to share her grief. She felt so isolated and abandoned. No one had loved her as her mother had and now Laura had been taken from her there was no one left who truly loved her. A forlorn despair overtook her sense of loss. She was utterly alone and wished so much that Patrick were here now.
She had hardly dared think about at him as it only added to her misery. Where had the King sent him? Was he still alive? She wondered if he ever thought of her. She could not write to him now for she would have to tell him of her marriage, and though she had wed to protect his unborn child she felt she had betrayed his love. Yet in her heart it was Patrick who was her true husband and she was glad that Noah had been unable to sully her body with his seed.
She placed her hands over the gentle swell of her stomach: a new year and a new life. Patrick’s infant would be delivered before the end of spring and part of him would always be with her. She wondered if Noah might believe in some way it was his. He was an untutored man in many ways and she did not know him well. She dreaded the day when the snows melted and he would come home.
The thaw came slowly. By Twelfth Night the ground was soft enough to dig and Quinta laid her mother to rest with her beloved father and sister.The toll of sleepless nights showed in Quinta’s shadowy sunken eyes and Miss Wilkins gave her tea in the vicarage while her brother conducted the burial. Afterwards she went alone to lay a wreath of evergreens and berries at the headstone, and whispered, ‘What shall I do without you, Mother? How shall I survive without you to guide and counsel me? Who will hold my hand when my baby comes?’
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