That old kitchen was a boyish vision of home, but it was the last one he’d had. He wondered if he’d ever have a vision of home again.
“Mr. Frost.” The vicar’s wife interrupted these thoughts with her efficient accent. “You have written a book, your friend said in his letter.”
“Lord Hugo,” Perry corrected. “His friend is Lord Hugo Starling, though Mr. Frost calls him by his Christian name.” His tone was equal parts awe and reproach, and Benedict smiled.
“Indeed. Lord Hugo and I met in Edinburgh, the year after I was blinded. We were both studying medicine—he because he has quite the quickest mind ever, and wanted to be filling it with a new subject. I, because I knew I could no longer serve in the navy and wanted something to do with myself.”
“But surely,” said Mrs. Perry, “you could not practice as a physician. Not without your sight.”
“Correct, ma’am. I knew I would not be able to do so, but it was better than sitting in my quiet chamber in Windsor Castle.”
“A castle,” murmured the vicar. “You lived in a castle, and you are a friend of Lord Hugo Starling.”
Benedict cleared his throat. “Yes, well, that all sounds a lot grander than it really was. Castles are dank and their chambers are small, and as a Naval Knight of Windsor, I’m bound there in return for my pension.”
“Yet you seem not to be in Windsor Castle at present,” Charlotte pointed out.
“This is quite correct. I’ve been granted a leave of absence. More than once.” Thank God. Yes, he was grateful for the room and board and a few pounds on which to live—but it certainly came attached to strings aplenty.
“My time in Edinburgh was courtesy of such a leave of absence,” he explained. “But eventually I felt the urge to do something more than pick up knowledge for its own sake. Which was why I left off studying after a year and began hunting for something else to do.”
“And on what did you settle?” asked Charlotte.
“Traveling.”
“What good is that?” Mrs. Perry, this time.
“What good is the world, you ask? I cannot say until I have been to every corner of it.”
He could hear the smile in Charlotte’s voice when she asked, “Which corners have you been to? And what did you find there?”
“Ah, interesting items are to be found tucked away in corners. Though the ones I’ve been to are not so rare. Truthfully, the book I’ve written—well, I shouldn’t call it a book, as for now it’s only a sheaf of handwritten papers—is notable only in that it was written by a blind man.”
“That cannot be,” Charlotte replied, “for it was written by a former sailor who also studied medicine. There are not many such people about.”
He liked hearing himself described so. Tell me more, he wanted to say. What else have you noticed about me?
“How did you write the manuscript without the benefit of sight?” asked the vicar’s wife.
“A noctograph.” Perry sounded pleased to contribute something. “A marvelous device that allows one to write in the dark.”
“Indeed?” Mrs. Perry’s voice took on a lilt of interest. “I should like to learn how it works, Mr. Frost.”
“I will show it to you after dinner,” promised Benedict. Since his trunk now rested within the entry of the vicarage, he again had all his possessions about him, including the noctograph.
And his manuscript, which had, over the past fortnight, begun to seem far less precious in the face of the London publishing world’s dismissal.
But maybe theirs were not the only opinions to which he should give weight. As Charlotte had said, how many physician-sailor-explorers could there be in the world? His was a unique tale.
He simply had to find someone who wanted him to tell it.
* * *
After dinner, Maggie retrieved the dog, Captain, from outside the dining room door and took her—for Benedict had been informed Captain was female—outside for a walk. As the click of canine claws sounded on the parquet of the entryway, Benedict mounted the by-now-familiar eighteen stairs, bumping his trunk up each one. Settling it at the foot of the bedstead whose knobs had been so frequently polished, he unlocked the trunk and felt through tidy stacks of clothing. Tucked within to cushion it was the noctograph.
He carried it back downstairs, directing his steps toward the sound of voices. They had moved into the parlor in which he had met the vicar earlier.
When he entered the room, he smiled by way of greeting. “Who would like the first look at the noctograph?”
“Mrs. Perry must see it first,” said the solemn voice of the vicar.
“She is sitting beside my father,” added Charlotte.
Without his cane or a few moments’ leisure to feel his way about, Benedict was unsure of the arrangement of the room’s furniture. He stepped in the direction of the vicar’s voice, noctograph extended, praying like hell that no ottomans or tea tables arose to bark against his shins.
None did, and Mrs. Perry’s capable hands took the device from Benedict. “Show me how it works, Mr. Frost.”
All business and no sentimentality. He much preferred that to the reverse. And in truth, he liked demonstrating the workings of the noctograph. It had allowed him, for the first time in his life, to master the written word.
Soft footsteps crossed the room behind him; Charlotte had approached, then, to peer over his shoulder. He showed the family trio what appeared at first to be a wooden lap-desk. Once opened, it revealed a straight-ruled metal frame behind which paper could be slipped. The paper itself was of a special sort, inked all over so that any pressure made a marking. Using a stylus and the guidance of the metal rules, one could mark out words in neat rows.
“I have been told that my writing is tidier now than it was before I lost my sight.” By way of example, Benedict clipped in a sheet of inked paper and scratched out a few words. Dear Georgette. “My sister,” he explained. “I must write to her and tell her of my safe arrival.”
“Does she worry about you?” asked Charlotte.
“She is much my junior, so I think the reverse is true far more often. If she sends a reply, perhaps one of you will be good enough to read it to me?”
“Of course,” Charlotte said as Mrs. Perry again took possession of the noctograph. “I should like to read some of your manuscript about your travels, too. There are so many corners of the world I have never seen.”
A careful dance about her story that she spent her life performing good works around the globe. He was curious how much of it was a fiction. “You’re welcome to read it,” he said. “Maybe you could read some out to me. I’m not sure at this distance in time how I put down my experiences. I have the deuce of a time editing my work, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
“I must order one of these for evening work,” decided Mrs. Perry. “You know, Mr. Frost, Tiresias was blind.”
“I’m sorry, I do not know the name.”
“The mythical Theban prophet of ancient Greece. He was struck blind by a goddess, but in return he received the gift of prophecy.”
“Would that I had been granted such a gift,” Benedict said lightly. “I receive only half pay from the Royal Navy and a small pension from the Naval Knights.”
“Along with a room in Windsor Castle,” added the vicar.
Mrs. Perry ignored these interjections. “It’s a fascinating tale. Either the ancient Greeks had finer imaginations than we do, or the world was far more interesting in their time. Tiresias was blinded after being asked to settle an argument between Zeus and Hera as to whether—”
“May I see the noctograph now?” interrupted Charlotte. “Thank you, Mama. Just hand it over your shoulder—yes, I have hold of it.”
Now, why had she interrupted her mother?
Perhaps she was overcome by curiosity about the noctograph. He liked the idea that she was fascinated by the ways in which he adapted the world to suit himself.
The newly expert Mrs. Perry spent the next few minute
s showing Charlotte how the noctograph worked. Then the older woman asked, “How did you lose your sight, Mr. Frost?”
Since the question seemed to be asked not with prurience but with the same scholarly curiosity that marked her every other query, he did not mind answering. “A tropical fever encountered in the Americas. I do not know its name, but it felled people in different ways. Some went lame; some died. I had great pain in my joints, and then in my head. And then my vision began to deteriorate.”
They were all silent for a moment in the face of this dispassionate recital. Charlotte was the first to speak. “Do you still suffer from the other pains?”
“No, they went, too. Which was a small consolation.”
His calm stripped from his words the nightmare of those days. Of the ship turned into a floating sickroom, of the slightest bit of sun like a knife to his eyes, and more and more covers hung over the tiny window to block out a pain that could not, in the end, be stopped. Darkness crept inward until the world was a tunnel, its end spotted and dim.
Beyond, there was no more light at all.
All the way back to England, he grieved. For the loss of his sight, for the end of his days sailing about the world.
When the ship docked, he put an end to such wallowing. With the help of his captain, he applied for a pension. On receiving the first installment, he bought himself a hickory cane with a metal tip and began learning his way through the world by sound.
And the more he learned of it, the more he wanted to learn. What good is that? the vicar’s wife had asked. He could not answer that, but there was value in the search for an answer, surely.
There had to be. There had to be value in any type of search, for otherwise what was the point of so much of life?
Now that the young barmaid, Nance, had lost her life, he wondered anew. There was more to seeking the royal reward than asking questions and poking about in crannies.
There was danger in this particular search, and not of the sort from which one could protect oneself with feigned blitheness and a metal-tipped cane.
Chapter Six
After having a look at the noctograph, Charlotte left the others inside and stood on the stoop, searching out Maggie. Daylight was fading, and the road was a dusky ribbon. The short strip of lawn between vicarage and road was covered with coarse grass, across which Maggie backed, waggling a stick before Captain.
Charlotte spread her shawl and sat upon it. “Stay away from the Selwyn lands,” she called.
The girl nodded. She tossed the stick, and Captain’s head listed with interest—but the old hound’s flesh was weak, and she could do no more than trot in the direction of the thrown stick, beloved young mistress alongside.
Four years before, when she’d last visited Strawfield, Charlotte had made the mistake of bringing along a puppy. It was a curly-coated Pudel she had coaxed from a German admirer; she had been fascinated by its unusual appearance. After tying a great blue silk bow around its neck, she’d presented the fluffy black and white dog to Maggie. He will keep you company, dearest, in case anything happens to Captain.
Maggie did not stop crying until the puppy was taken from the vicarage.
Charlotte brought it to the only other person who could be permitted to know of the Pudel’s origins: Edward Selwyn, whose visit to Strawfield unhappily coincided with hers. He promised that his children would love it. This earned him the sort of withering glance such a remark deserved, and he laughed. “My other children.”
Another withering glance. She had asked Edward time and again never to speak of such matters, especially since his marriage to the frosty Lady Helena.
The other dog of Charlotte’s youth, Frippery, had loved her. Captain had for Charlotte only the sort of vague fondness a dog had for anyone who treated it well. And Maggie’s was the human equivalent: that dutiful liking a child possessed for a relative one hardly knew.
If Charlotte could make Captain love her, though, perhaps Maggie’s love would follow.
“May I throw the stick for her?” she called.
Maggie hesitated, shoving unruly hair back from her face. “I’m not done yet, Aunt Charlotte. I want to throw it some more.”
“Oh.” Charlotte smiled, hiding the pain that was much larger than the small size of the girl’s no. “That’s fine. You throw very well.”
Maggie tossed the stick into the air and caught it, then ran closer to Charlotte. “I taught Captain some tricks. Want to see? She can lie down whenever I say the words.”
Many other times, too, Charlotte thought, as the old hound rolled onto her belly.
“Oh, look! She must have heard what I said.” Maggie walked back to stand above her pet. “Up, girl! Up to catch the stick, Captain!”
As Captain heaved herself up, the front door opened, and a booted tread descended onto the stoop. “That dog outranks me. I feel I ought to salute her.”
Charlotte smiled. “Hullo, Mr. Frost. I don’t think Captain will care if you salute her, but Maggie would like it.”
“Your mother is not yet ready to surrender the noctograph back to my keeping. May I join you?”
“Please. I have spread a shawl on the grass, if you would care to sit beside me.”
Without pause or hesitation, he took the single step down and strode toward her. He was a noticing sort of man, and a remembering sort, too. It seemed no detail went unfiled or forgotten, and he made his way through the world with unassuming grace.
Twenty-four hours ago, she had not known this man. Now he was in possession of her greatest secret.
Well, one of them.
She did not know what sort of person he was. But she thought—she hoped—that he would hold her trust as the fragile, precious thing it was.
When he folded himself onto the shawl beside her, her breath came a little more quickly, her stays tight about her breasts.
“Miss Perry,” he murmured, “I rescued some gristly beef from the kitchen before coming outdoors. May I offer it to the hound?”
Thus winning the heart of both beast and girl. If only Charlotte had thought of that. “What a good idea. Of course. A dog of Captain’s age should have treats aplenty.”
He pulled forth a napkin-wrapped bundle. “Miss Maggie! Sir!”
“I’m no ‘sir’!” Maggie tossed the stick again, then darted to the shawl and peered down at the pair of adults, panting slightly from her exertion. “Why did you call me ‘sir,’ Mr. Frost?”
“I called your dog by that honorific,” Frost said gravely. “She is a Captain, and therefore she is my superior and I must refer to her with respect.”
“Sir.” Maggie laughed. “That’s a silly thing to call a girl.”
“Maybe so. But would Sir like some beef?” He pushed forward the small packet. “Your aunt thought she would.”
“Aunt Charlotte! What a treat for her! Oh, thank you. She wouldn’t eat anything earlier today, but she’ll like this.” Swooping down on the beef, Maggie carried the small package several yards over to the stiff-legged Captain. The hound’s heavy ears lifted, and she nosed through the napkin to find the meat.
Maggie laughed to watch her—not a sound of humor, but of someone taking delight in watching a beloved creature feel joy.
Charlotte chuckled for the same reason. “Mr. Frost,” she said low enough that Maggie couldn’t overhear, “that was sly of you to imply the beef was my idea. I thank you.”
“My pleasure. As a traveler, I’m in people’s lives for only a moment, so I might as well hand along any goodwill that comes my way.” His tone was a little wistful—or maybe she was only imagining she heard the feeling that dwelled in her own heart.
“There’s nothing she loves better than Captain. I believe she thinks of that dog as a living link to her mother.”
There, she’d said the m-word as though it were nothing significant.
“My sister,” she added. “Of course. The late Margaret Perry Catlett.”
“I knew what you meant.”
Charlotte slapped at an insect, then picked at the tasseled edge of the shawl spread beneath them. Captain seemed revived by the food and followed Maggie’s tossed stick at a tolerable lope, the girl following behind until she was nothing but silhouette and laugh.
When Frost turned his face to hers, his expression held a pinch of roguery. “When your mother began telling me about the blind prophet Tiresias, you turned her away from some anecdote. I’m curious as to why. Would you be willing to tell me?” The way he posed the question meant she had simply to say no, if she wished.
This made it much easier to say yes. “Although I warn you that it’s rather scandalous. Mama doesn’t always think of such things, but I knew it would give my father the vapors.”
As a vicar’s wife, Mrs. Perry ought to spend more time with villagers and less time with ancient prophets. Every time Charlotte visited, though, the balance had tipped further awry, and her parents seemed more distant from each other. Now they were cordial housemates who had little in common. Surely it had not always been thus? Or maybe she remembered through the rosy glass of her own youthful blitheness, when all seemed full of promise and potential.
“I cannot swear not to do the same. I’m easily shocked. I might need you to hold my hand to comfort me afterward.”
She had thought him possessed of a pinch of roguery? Benedict Frost had it by the cupful.
“Yet somehow I feel you will survive.” She drew up her knees, folding her arms around them. “The story—which, I am slightly shocked to admit I learned from my mother—is that Tiresias was punished for some trespass against the gods by being transformed into a woman.”
“On behalf of present company, I find that insulting.”
“Yes, I never liked that either. But the ancient Greeks thought even less of women than does our present society.”
Fortune Favors the Wicked Page 6
