“Why is there furniture piled against the doors?” said Charlotte’s father, bewildered. “Is that a . . . sailor sort of thing, Mr. Frost?”
“It is a safety sort of thing,” said Charlotte. “Mr. Frost, perhaps you’ll tell them what happened while I tend to Captain.”
As Frost, rubbing at his left biceps, agreed, Charlotte left them in the corridor. She returned to the sniffling Maggie, crouching next to her and the dog. “Would you like to clean Captain, or shall I?”
“I’ll do it,” said Maggie. “Once she is clean, will she be all right?”
Unwilling to say no, unwilling to lie, Charlotte considered her reply. Finally she said, “She is not young anymore, dearest. She needs more rest than when she was a pup.”
Maggie turned her face away, silently sopping up the mess with what had once been a man’s linen shirt.
“I never did plait your hair with ribbons.” Charlotte said, as she tried to change the subject. “Shall I do that for church?”
“No. I don’t want to go to church today.”
Charlotte almost laughed. How often had she said the same to her parents as a girl. She never wanted to sit indoors, listening, when she could be wading through the stream at the base of the Kinder Downfall or fashioning a twist of rare wildflowers for her hair to try to impress that Selwyn boy.
That wiped the smile from her face quickly enough.
“—a cutpurse, I presume,” she heard Benedict explaining from outside the bedchamber door. “Your daughter bandaged my arm, and in the interest of security we barricaded the doors.”
“What has this village come to,” bemoaned the vicar. “Ever since that serving girl was given a gold sovereign, it’s been strange faces and theft and . . .”
“Reverend!” His wife cut off this recital.
Maggie let out a strangled sob.
“How quickly a place can become unfamiliar, can’t it?” Charlotte said, hardly knowing to whom she was speaking.
“Cook is still fair fit to pull out her hair,” reminded Barrett. “Because of the doors being blocked and all.”
“Right, yes,” said Charlotte’s father. “Now, now, please. This is all very—I’m sure it was nothing, and Mr. Frost is quite all right—my sermon. I shall speak of charity, and . . . and not lusting for money. Yes, if I could find my notes . . .”
The clamor outside the door faded away, leaving Charlotte and girl and dog in a quiet that was far too heavy.
“Well.” Charlotte broke it inanely. “Let’s get dressed, shall we? And then we can go down to breakfast.”
“I won’t breakfast today. Captain cannot come down the stairs. Look how tired she is. I’m staying with her.” Maggie set aside the ruined shirt and petted the dog’s front paws, gently over the small bones and clawed toes. Captain’s tail gave a slow thump as she squeezed closed her eyes.
What would a parent say? “You need to eat,” Charlotte said. “Then you can come back to her.”
“But I can’t leave her alone!”
“Dearest,” Charlotte began in a tone that might as well have said Stop all this fuss over a dog.
She drew in a deep breath, halting words that were sure to be sharp. Trying to argue Maggie out of her distress would only add to it.
Did Maggie have any human friends? Such marvelous creatures had been in short supply for Charlotte and her sister. As the daughters of the vicar, they were too respectable to mingle with the servants and too shabby for the fine families of Strawfield. Not in trade but too poor for gentility, they were left alone.
The same must be true for Maggie, who kept company with an ancient dog and the ancient Greeks. She ought to have a half-dozen brothers and sisters and cousins; she ought to be mingling with the children of merchants and soldiers and sailors and . . . and, well, maybe amateur explorers, too.
Charlotte swallowed. “All right. Let’s see if we can carry her down with us.”
A rap at the frame about the door made her look up. “Frost.”
Benedict stood a polite distance outside the doorway of the bedchamber. “I have moved all the furniture away from the doors. Will you now allow me to be of service to my Captain?”
“Mr. Frost, you’re not dressed,” Maggie chided.
Without the slashed and bloodied lieutenant’s coat, he wore only shirtsleeves and a waistcoat on his upper half. His fit form was outlined and displayed, the snug breeches and tall boots completing the picture of capable masculinity.
Shamelessly, Charlotte caressed him with her eyes.
“I am as dressed as I can be,” he said with a comical pull of his features. “My coat met with a misadventure last night. Did you not hear me telling your grandparents about it? Come, let me carry Captain down for you and I shall tell you the scary parts.”
Maggie hopped to her feet, in instant agreement.
“She is before the hearth. On the braided rug.” Which would now need to be cleaned or discarded, like Benedict’s shirt.
Benedict murmured something, too softly to overhear, as he stepped closer to the dog and crouched before her. It was a croon of sorts. She leaned closer, hoping to pick out a few words that would help her to identify the song.
“Hmm hmm hmmmmm . . . Don’t listen, Miss Perryyyyy . . . .” he half sung, “because it’s a sailor’s song, and it’s not fit for the ears of human women . . . hmm hmmmm.”
The song had Captain thumping her tail again, and Benedict eased the bony bundle into his arms. “Miss Maggie, would you walk ahead of us and open the front door? I think this good sir could do with a little time in the sun.”
They made a queue that slowly creaked down the stairs, and then Maggie opened the front door without another protest about wanting Captain with her at breakfast. They piled out onto the stoop, half-dressed all, and Benedict laid the dog on the dewy ground. With a rustle and whuff, she stretched out her legs and rolled onto her belly.
“There, she feels the sun to be as welcome as I do,” he said.
“You’re nice to her.” Maggie folded her arms tightly, the thin linen of her nightdress little shield from the morning breeze. “Did you ever have a pet?”
Benedict frowned in thought. “No, I never did. I lived in London until I went to sea at twelve, and there’s no room on shipboard for dogs and cats.”
“What about rats? Or parrots?”
“Er . . . a sailor’s relationship with rats isn’t really a friendly one. And isn’t it pirates who are meant to have parrots?”
“Or privateers,” said Charlotte.
He snorted. “Alas, I was neither. But if I ever settle down, I’ll have to get a pet.”
“It ought to be a dog,” said Maggie. “They can sniff out anything you like, and a dog can learn your way around and guide you safely if you don’t know where you’re going.”
“How would the dog know where I was going?”
This gave her pause.
“Shall we allow Captain to rest and play while we ready ourselves?” Charlotte asked.
Miraculously, Maggie agreed, and she marched back into the house.
Charlotte caught Benedict’s sleeve before he could follow. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“You were with her. That was all she needed.” He grinned. “Besides, I couldn’t have carried the dog if you hadn’t bandaged my arm so well.”
After he went inside, Charlotte remained outside for a moment alone. Benedict said he could feel the sun, and she wondered if she could, too. It arose early with the late spring, but it was distant and watery. She shut her eyes, extending her hands palms out to catch any fallen drop of warmth. Listening for a bird, or for some movement of the world around her.
She thought she heard a step, far away. A skitter of something hard across the stone wall, like pebbles.
Captain sneezed, then rolled over with a rustle of grass. Charlotte’s eyes popped open.
“So much for my attempt to understand the world.” The hound was standing on s
pindly legs, head cocked. “I can’t even understand you. Was this whole dramatic fuss intended to get Benedict Frost to carry you about?”
The tail beat a slow tattoo through the air.
“Well done, then. I can’t fault you for that. Roll around in the dew some more and get yourself clean, all right? I’m afraid you’ll have to stay outside for a while.” And with a curious glance around—she saw nothing, of course, nothing important at all—she returned to the house.
The capable maid Barrett saw to the tidying of the bedchamber and helped Charlotte lace her stays, diplomatically not asking how they’d got unlaced the day before. Eventually everyone was clean and tidy and ready for breakfast: Papa, Mama, Charlotte. Maggie. Benedict Frost. They collected about the table in the dining room, a simple meal of porridge and tea before them.
It felt oddly like a family gathering such as . . . well, such as they had never had. Margaret had married when Charlotte was seventeen, and she went away. Never had a suitor dined with the family.
Not that Benedict was a suitor. He knew what she was, and what she’d been. They understood each other. That was . . . a comfort.
She did not even mind that he was more at ease with her family than she was.
“I realize,” he said, spooning up a bit of porridge, “that you must be nearly ready to set off in the direction of the church. I don’t mean to be shallow or worldly, but I find myself without a coat to wear.”
The reverend dropped his spoon with a clatter. “I should not have permitted you to walk home alone!”
“Indeed you should have, Vicar. It was my decision to remain late in the taproom of the Pig and Blanket. Therefore any risk was mine to accept, too.”
“Passive voice,” commented Mrs. Perry. “Very difficult to translate.”
But Charlotte’s heart gave a quick thump of recognition. “Your words are so sensible, Mr. Frost. Someone wise must have said something like that to you not long ago.”
“There is something wise indeed about pleading one’s right to do unwise things.” He winked at her, oddly charming over his unfocused gaze.
“My father’s things are up in the attic,” said Maggie. “Maybe you could wear one of his coats, Mr. Frost.”
Charlotte was glad, suddenly, that Benedict was not capable of shooting her a sharp glance. “What an excellent idea, Maggie. I’ll ask one of the maids to retrieve something later for Mr. Frost.”
The man Maggie called her father was, of course, nothing of the sort. He had been Margaret Perry Catlett’s husband; Charlotte had met him only once, at her elder sister’s wedding. A respectable tradesman of no family, he had predeceased his wife by several months.
“You can’t come to church like that, Mr. Frost,” decided Mrs. Perry. “You’ll have to stay back just this once.”
“Then you can take care of Captain while we’re gone!” cried Maggie.
“Your aunt,” said Benedict gravely, “has already asked me to do so.” A lie, but Charlotte was pleased by it when Maggie beamed at her.
“Did I—I think I did not ask Barrett to get the baskets ready for this afternoon,” said the vicar. “I need to pay some calls to—”
“Reverend, this is meant to be a day of rest.” Charlotte’s mother had set aside her spoon. “The calls can wait until tomorrow.”
“They cannot.” Twist, twist went his hands. “I meant to take these items about yesterday, but—”
“You spent the time in the inquest instead.” She sighed. “There’s always something, Perry.”
“Indeed, Mrs. Perry.” The following silence was not a taut one, but rather exhausted. “No peace for the wicked, or from them. And I have grown so tired that I do not know in which company I belong.”
* * *
While Charlotte and her father made the rounds of the village that afternoon, Benedict remained at the vicarage.
No one had expected anything of him since he’d carried Captain downstairs this morning, which was both freeing and distressing. Maggie had her dog; Charlotte was playing the good vicar’s daughter—and helping to muscle the armful of baskets packed by Barrett, he could tell by her breathless good-bye.
What was he to do, then? He had already written to Georgette. He had nothing in particular about which he needed to write Lord Hugo, and his other correspondents were far too casual on which to use costly paper without cause.
He wandered into the kitchen and passed a pleasant, idle hour with the cook and the maid Colleen, who helped in the kitchen and occasionally about the house. They refused to allow him to peel vegetables—“not on account of you bein’ blind, Mr. Frost, but because you’re a gentleman and the reverend’s guest”—so he simply soaked in the scents of roasting fowl and sweet stewed fruit and listened to the comfortable arguments between the pair of women.
Cook had the wheeze and stomp of a woman of great bulk, and she was exacting in her instructions to the slight young Colleen. When their conversation turned from a pleasurable discussion of who might have gutted Nance Goff to a far more contentious row over the proper color for a gravy made from drippings, he excused himself.
Passing through the dining room and into the ground floor’s corridor, he encountered his hostess. “Hello, Mrs. Perry. Taking a break from the Trojans?”
“Tut, Mr. Frost. The Trojans are the enemy. I am expert in ancient Greek.”
“What are you translating now?”
She didn’t reply for a long moment; Benedict began to wonder if he had offended her with the question. “No one ever asks me that.”
“Surely Lord Hugo does.”
“Not my correspondents. I mean, the people with whom I live.” Another pause. “Would you like to explore my study? You can smack your cane about on the floor as long as you do not disturb the papers.”
He recognized this as a generous offer and fetched his hickory cane from its spot next to the front door. A few blows, their echoes, the vibrations that assembled his world into sense, told him that the space was small and deadened around the edges by shelves of books and papers. There were—he felt about—a desk and two chairs. “Sit, sit,” offered Mrs. Perry, and he did so.
“You asked what I’m working on,” she said. “It’s The Odyssey. Just a bit of fun, really. It’s been done before, time and time again. I made a translation of it myself when I was just learning Greek in the early days of my marriage.”
“Oh, I thought you had known it much longer.” He knew little about this friend of Lord Hugo’s besides her fondness for the language, despite living under her roof for several days.
“No, I took it up when Perry got the Strawfield living. It’s my calling, I suppose you’d say. A vicar’s wife must have something to do while her husband is gone at all hours, caring for his flock of sheep.” With a sigh, she shuffled a stack of papers. “I like the idea of The Odyssey. A family split apart that comes back together in the end.”
“The story takes years, doesn’t it?”
“It does, at that. I believe I’ve been waiting longer than Penelope.”
The silence drew out long and soft, a woolen yarn of quiet. “I shan’t keep you from the work that gives you comfort,” Benedict said.
But he wasn’t sure now if it did.
* * *
After a few minutes in the first household she and her father visited, Charlotte remembered why she had given up virtuous work.
Mrs. Fancot, the laundress who had so infuriated Barrett, lived behind a shop in a rented set of rooms. The scents of her trade, astringent soaps and lyes, stung the nose as soon as one walked in. A stringy widow with several grown children, she began wailing as soon as the vicar crossed the threshold.
“Oh, Reverend! If someone would only find them gold coins.” She dabbed at faded eyes. “My little grandson Jack has the scrofula, and him no more’n three years old. Gold rubbed on the sores will take them right away!”
No, it won’t. The only way gold would help a child with scrofula was by lining his physician’s poc
ket.
“There, there.” The vicar bent his gray head to rummage through a basket. “I came to pray with you, and I have brought you a length of felt.”
“What good is felt to a little boy with scrofula?” Mrs. Fancot blew her nose on her sleeve.
The vicar looked nonplussed. “None, I—well, that is—last time I visited you mentioned needing cloth for—”
“Oh, vicar! I need gold!” A fresh wail succeeded, and the widow buried her face in her apron.
“You are not the only one,” muttered Charlotte. More loudly, she added, “God bless you and all that. I’m sure you’re grateful for the fabric. Well, good-bye.” She took her father by the elbow and hurried him out.
“Why, Charlotte . . .” He shook his head, blinking dimly into the afternoon sunlight. A ghost of a smile hovered on his thin features. “I have never finished an errand at Mrs. Fancot’s house so quickly.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Where next?”
The next several calls were less tearful and slightly more pleasant, as Charlotte bore the curious stares of families who had never met the vicar’s sole surviving child, or who had not seen the virtuous—ha—Miss Perry for some years. As her father dispensed prayers, comfort, a few more bolts of cloth, and a jar of calves’-foot jelly, she allowed herself to be looked at and even tried soothing a fussy baby.
The baby bit her.
“Why don’t the Selwyns see to the needs of these people?” she asked as her father led them to the final visit. “They are the squires hereabouts, and they ought to—”
“They see to their tenants.” And that was all he said.
But that was all he needed to say. Charlotte understood: Lady Helena, the earl’s daughter who had married Edward eight years before, was as ungenerous as she was rich. The people of Strawfield who did not live on her land were of no concern to her.
“I’m glad you gave away that calves’-foot jelly,” Charlotte said. I’m glad you give your time like this.
“No one in the vicarage likes it,” he replied. And she wondered if he, too, meant more than what he said. By this point in the afternoon, the sun was hot on the crown of Charlotte’s bonnet—not the one with the veil—and her father’s shoulders drooped.
Fortune Favors the Wicked Page 12
