The Brynthwaite Boys: Season Two - Part One

by Farmer, Merry

  “There you are, Dr. Pycroft, Dr.—” Mrs. Garforth paused as she greeted Marshall and Alex in the hospital hallway. “Dr. Pycroft also now, I guess,” she said with the kind of exasperation that said she believed it was their fault for having the same name.

  “We talked about it,” Alex said, glancing to Marshall, “and decided I will continue to be addressed as Dr. Dyson while in the hospital. It’s just too confusing otherwise.”

  “Indeed,” Mrs. Garforth agreed with an impatient look. She turned to Marshall. “That jam girl came around last night,” she went on. “She was distressed and in pain, but Nurse Nyman gave her morphine. Apparently, she’s coming around again now, though.”

  “I’ll see to her right away,” Marshall said.

  “How is Mr. Harmon’s liver?” Alex asked Mrs. Garforth as Marshall headed on to the office.

  Just like that, the cozy bubble of the dream he’d been living in with Alex was burst. The hospital was already teeming with noise and need. Marshall donned his white coat, grabbed his clipboard from the shelf by the door, and headed up to the wards. Unlike every other day since he’d taken up the position at the hospital, he entered the women’s and children’s ward with a smile on his face and optimism in his heart.

  The jam girl, as Mrs. Garforth had called her, lay in a bed close to the door. She looked like a mummy, wrapped in gauze bandages and tucked beneath the covers as she was. She’d slept for most of the day before, which had partly been by design, as she had reportedly been in far too much pain to be allowed to remain conscious the day before. She was restless as Marshall took a seat by her bedside, put his clipboard down, and began examining her.

  He got as far as turning one of her hands over to check the bandages when the young woman screamed.

  “There, there,” Marshall rushed to comfort her. He cradled her hand as gently as he could as he checked the bandage. “I know it hurts. You’ll be all right, though.”

  The young woman’s scream turned into shallow, desperate panting. “Where am I? What happened?

  “You’re at Brynthwaite Hospital,” Marshall explained. “You had an accident while making jam.”

  “I…I….” She groaned, what was visible of her bandaged face pinching. “I remember the explosion, and then everything was pain.”

  “You were brought in with multiple lacerations and shards of glass embedded in your hands and face,” Marshall told her. He reached to check her other hand.

  The woman must have thought he was attempting to hold her and comfort her. She tried to curl her bandaged hands around his. “I can hardly see anything,” she squeaked. “Why can’t I see?”

  “As I said, you were peppered with glass when the jar you were working with exploded.” Or so he’d been able to glean from her injuries and the little the men who had brought her in had told him. “Your face is still swollen from those cuts, and it’s keeping your eye nearly closed.” He paused before saying, “We weren’t able to save your other eye.”

  “My….” She pulled one hand away and touched it to the mass of packed gauze and cotton where her eye used to be. “No. Oh, no.” Her swollen face pinched again.

  “It’s going to be all right,” Marshall insisted. He considered himself terrible at bedside manner, but he was in a stellar mood, and as long as he imagined that the young woman was Mary, or a friend of Mary’s, he found what he needed within him to be gentle. “Your other eye is fine. You’ll still be able to see.” He figured it was best not to tell her that between her eye and the lacerations, she’d be scarred for the rest of her life. He hoped to distract her by asking, “What is your name? The men who brought you in didn’t stay long enough to tell us.”

  “It’s Winnie,” she answered with a sniff. “Winifred. Winifred Everett.”

  “Thank you, Miss Everett.” Marshall reached for his clipboard to record her name.

  “Call me Winnie,” she said in a tiny voice. “Everyone does.”

  Under normal circumstances, he would have brushed the intimacy off and done as he pleased, but instead he smiled and said, “All right, Winnie. I’m Dr. Pycroft.”

  A messy tear welled up from the young woman’s remaining eye. “Dr. Pycroft, it hurts,” she whimpered.

  “I’ll have one of the nurses bring you something for relief. Perhaps we can switch from morphine to something not quite so strong as your wounds heal.”

  “Will they heal?” she asked.

  Marshall smiled. “Of course, they will. Everything heals with time.”

  His words were meant to be a platitude, but surprisingly, he believed them. Things had healed with time. His heart, which had been broken so thoroughly when marrying Clara proved to be a horrible mistake, had healed bit by bit with the birth of each of his daughters. The pain of Clara’s death had healed with the acceptance that he’d done the best he could. And the agony of loving Alex from afar had healed in ways he never could have imagined, as proven by the tumbled, sweaty bliss they’d found in each other’s arms.

  “I’ll just see which nurse is on duty,” he said, moving to stand.

  Winnie reached out to grab his arm with one bandaged hand. “Won’t you stay with me, Dr. Pycroft. I’m frightened.”

  Marshall glanced around. The ward was filled with patients who needed his attention in one way or another. But the more he looked at Winnie’s swollen and bandaged face, the more he was reminded of Mary. God only knew what kind of pain Mary was in at the hands of Clara’s family. It killed him that he hadn’t been able to so much as write to his girls. He could only pray that someone in Danforth’s strict, stodgy house was acting as a friend to his babies.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said, standing but holding onto Winnie’s hand. “I have other patients I need to treat, but I’ll keep a special eye on you. I’ll be back to check on you before I finish my rounds. And I’ll introduce you to Dr. Dyson as well. She’ll help take care of you.”

  “You’re so kind,” Winnie wept, sounding like a broken bird. “No one has ever been so kind to me.”

  “There, there.” He smiled and let her hand go. “You’re in a safe place now,” he said, taking a step back. His smile remained, even as he turned to deal with a woman whose feet were masses of stinking sores. After all was said and done, he was certain he was in a safe place now too.

  Matty

  The work was never done. Even with Connie’s help, Matty was beginning to despair that she would ever be able to can everything she’d picked from the forge’s garden and expand the space of the garden and help Lawrence with the construction of their house and any of a dozen other things she needed to do in order for them to make it through the winter.

  She took a step back from the table that Mother Grace had set up under the tree in the forge’s yard and stretched her back. If it were just her and Lawrence and their baby, Matty wouldn’t have been half as worried. Lawrence had more than enough for the three of them, and the baby wasn’t due to arrive until halfway through the winter. But now that she was responsible for her younger half-siblings….

  She wiped the back of her hand across her sweating brow and swayed forward, determined to preserve as much of the forge garden’s meager harvest as she could.

  “I don’t like runner beans,” Connie sighed, stuffing handfuls of beans into the jars Matty had prepared earlier.

  “You’ll like them when they’re all you have to eat in February,” Matty told her, bristling with impatience.

  “Mama never made us eat runner beans,” Connie continued to pout. “She always let me eat whatever I wanted from the shop.”

  “We don’t own a shop now,” Matty said through clenched teeth. Their mother had blatantly favored Connie to the point of spoiling her, and Connie still behaved as though she were the princess and Matty were her drudge.

  “We don’t own anything,” Connie sighed, shoving the last of the beans into the jar, then moving to slump against the tree. She crossed her arms and pouted.

  “We own a lovely forge,” M
atty corrected her.

  “No, we don’t. He owns the forge.” She nodded to where Lawrence was hard at work over the blazing heat of the furnace.

  Matty twisted to watch Lawrence for a moment, her heart squeezing in her chest. Even hard at work, dripping sweat and covered with soot, Lawrence was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. The thick muscles of his arms stood out against the grubby fabric of his shirt. His thick, leather apron hid the contours of his chest, but she knew full well how firm those muscles were. She knew every bit of him, even though it felt like ages since she’d been able to enjoy him. Intimacy was impossible with Connie and Willy sleeping on cots at the foot of the bed. Even more impossible with Elsie snuggled between them at night.

  As if he sensed her gaze, Lawrence glanced up from his work. He smiled, and Matty smiled back, but there was something tense and restless in Lawrence’s expression. The lines between his eyes from frowning seemed too pronounced. He went back to work, banging the hinge he was constructing with more force than usual. It didn’t take much for Matty to see how unhappy he was.

  She sighed and returned to her own work, resting a hand on her belly for a moment. Lawrence’s child grew inside of her. She wanted their baby to be born into happiness and to grow up surrounded by love and joy, as she never had. For a brief moment, when she’d first discovered she was with child, all that seemed possible. But now her dreams of beautiful things seemed to be slipping from her grasp.

  Not more than a minute had passed when there was a sudden, sharp gasp from the open work area of the forge. Matty turned in time to see Elsie scramble away from the patch of grass where she’d been playing with a doll ten feet behind where Lawrence worked and up the stairs into the flat. Before she could do more than frown, Connie snapped straight and dashed to the other side of the table, her expression full of alarm as she glanced to the road. Matty turned to the road in time to see Mayor Crimpley marching toward the forge, dragging Willy with him.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered, setting aside the towel she’d used to wipe her hands and starting for the road.

  Lawrence stopped hammering, abandoned his tools, and moved to join her, his face set in a deep scowl. “Crimpley, what do you want?” he greeted the mayor.

  Mayor Crimpley appeared to be in a worse mood than usual. He held a grim-faced Willy by the arm in a grip tight enough to have Willy wincing. As soon as he stepped off the road and onto the gravel path leading to the forge, he threw Willy forward with enough force to leave the poor boy scrambling to stay upright.

  “I demand an explanation,” he said, glaring at Lawrence.

  “Where have you been?” Matty whispered to her brother as he dashed to hide behind her. He didn’t answer.

  “An explanation for what?” Lawrence asked, crossing his arms and staring Mayor Crimpley down.

  Mayor Crimpley made an impatient sound and thrust out an arm toward Willy. “That boy tried to steal my watch.”

  “I didn’t,” Willy argued from behind Matty.

  Matty’s heart sank as she turned to scold her brother with a look.

  “Prove it,” Lawrence said with a shrug.

  Mayor Crimpley sputtered and growled, balling his hands into fists at his sides. “I don’t need to prove anything to you.”

  “Do you still have your watch?” Lawrence asked.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then how can you accuse a nine-year-old boy of theft?”

  “He had his hand in my pocket,” Mayor Crimpley shouted. “And this isn’t the first time he’s been caught misbehaving.”

  The statement was true, so neither Lawrence nor Matty could dispute it. They exchanged a look, and Lawrence arched a disapproving brow at Willy.

  “I didn’t do nothing,” Willy argued.

  “Anything,” Mayor Crimpley snapped. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “See?” Willy broke into a grin.

  Mayor Crimpley sputtered with indignation all over again. “That boy should be in school,” he snapped. “He sorely needs it. That girl too.” He thrust a finger at Connie, who looked as though she couldn’t decide whether to be angry or afraid. “But as I’ve just learned, the boy has been banned from Brynthwaite School for exactly this sort of behavior.”

  Matty sighed, gripping handfuls of her apron in frustration. “That was all a misunderstanding,” she said. “My brother and sister have been through a hard time, and it was decided they needed more time to adjust before the pressures of school.”

  Mayor Crimpley looked at her as though she were no better than Willy. “Fine words, coming from a murderess.”

  “Matty was acquitted,” Lawrence said, taking a step toward Mayor Crimpley. “Trevor Hoag confessed to the crime and is awaiting a trial of his own.”

  Mayor Crimpley sniffed as though the truth were beside the point. “Regardless, children must attend school.”

  “They will,” Matty said, trying to balance Lawrence’s palpable fury with a measure of conciliation. “As soon as the time is right, they will.”

  “If the time is not right now,” Mayor Crimpley went on, “then I shall contact the authorities immediately. If not school, that boy should be in an institution.”

  “I won’t go,” Willy said, brimming with desperation. “You can’t make me.” He turned and dashed off into the woods.

  Matty was tempted to go after him, but equally tempted to let him keep running and running until he found a way to be someone else’s responsibility.

  “If he won’t go to school,” Mayor Crimpley continued with an air of finality, “he should be put to good use. A factory or a mine will do. But I won’t have him loitering about my town, turning to a life of crime.”

  “Willy isn’t a criminal,” Matty insisted. “He’s troubled.”

  “If you ask me,” Mayor Crimpley went on, ignoring her, and turning to Lawrence, his eyes narrowed, “criminality in children is a result of criminality in their caretakers. If the boy causes more mischief, he won’t be the only one I’ll send the law after.” He grinned in a way that sent a chill down Matty’s spine. “Good day to you.”

  Without so much as a nod, he turned and marched off. Matty watched him go with a hand pressed to her stomach. Mayor Crimpley had had it in for Lawrence since the day she arrived. The rivalry went back for years. The last thing she wanted was for it to explode now. Lawrence had been arrested and held in jail for a time a few months ago because of her. If Mayor Crimpley somehow managed to lock him away now, Matty had no idea how she would feed herself and her babe, let alone her siblings.

  “He’s bluffing,” Lawrence said, crossing the grass to fold her into his arms. “He can’t do anything to us.”

  Lawrence was hot, damp, and smelled of sweat and fire, but Matty closed her eyes and buried her face against his shoulder all the same. She loved him with her whole heart. He had saved her from misery and death. But his words were a lie. Mayor Crimpley could do everything to them.

  She wanted to stay in his arms forever, but it was impossible. She leaned back, glancing over her shoulder to Connie, who stood watching with a veiled expression. “You’re going to have to find your brother and take him to school.”

  Connie’s expression fell into a pouting frown. “I don’t want to go to school. I didn’t like it there.”

  “What’s wrong with Brynthwaite School?” Lawrence asked, letting Matty go and approaching Connie.

  “They’re mean,” Connie said, turning her lip out in a pout.

  “It’s always an adjustment to be someplace new,” Matty said, walking to her side and rubbing her arm. “Your father never let any of us go to school in Grasmere. I’d think this would be an exciting adventure for you.”

  “I don’t like it,” Connie repeated.

  “Is it too difficult?” Matty asked. She glanced to Lawrence. “Perhaps we can ask the schoolteacher if there’s a way to get Connie and Willy caught up?”

  “I’m sure he’d be happy to,” Lawrence said with a smile.

  “I�
�m not going.” Connie stomped her foot, glaring at both of them.

  “Connie, be reasonable,” Matty said, itching with frustration.

  Lawrence crossed his arms, studying Connie thoughtfully. “There might be another way.”

  “Yes.” Connie brightened. “Another way. I don’t want to go to school.”

  “I’m sure Lord Waltham would take her on as a scullery maid up at Morningside Landing,” Lawrence went on.

  “Scullery maid?” Connie balked. “I don’t want to be a scullery maid.”

  “It’s a reasonable alternative,” Matty said, rubbing her forehead as she considered it. She wasn’t sure she was ready to inflict that sort of punishment on anyone as kind as Lord and Lady Waltham, though.

  “I could head out there this afternoon to ask them about it,” Lawrence offered.

  “I won’t be a maid,” Connie said, stomping again. “I’d rather go to school.”

  Matty was ready to throw up her hands. “Then go to school.”

  Connie looked as though she would protest, but as soon as her mouth was open, she blinked as though she realized the contradiction she’d caught herself in. She let out an impatient sigh. “All right. I’d rather go to school than be stuck scrubbing pots in a scullery all day.”

  “Excellent,” Lawrence said, his smile a little too tight. “Go fetch your brother. I’m taking you to school right now.”

  Connie looked as though she might protest, but let out a growl instead and turned to march off into the woods. Matty would have been embarrassed for her sister’s sour attitude, but for the first time in what felt like years, she and Lawrence were alone. She turned to him and slumped into his arms, too weary at heart to care how pitiful she looked.