The Love Knot

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘I certainly do. Would you like that, do you think?’

  Mrs Goodman smiled, and it was a smile of such warmth, such affection, such hope in the future that Dorinda knew at once that they had both made the right decision.

  * * *

  Mrs Dodd was seated comfortably in front of the fire when Leonie came into her first floor drawing room. She came in nice and quietly as Leonie, Mrs Dodd was happy to say, did everything, without fuss or calling attention to herself.

  Tonight however, it seemed, was going to prove an exception. For Leonie, quiet as she was, and seating herself in front of the fire and taking a book on her knee as always, was quite unable to be still. Indeed she was very far from even pretending to read. She kept looking over the top of her book until Mrs Dodd knew there could be no holding her. She had something to tell her godmother, and she had to tell her now, or burst.

  ‘Very well, my dear. My novel is excessively dull, on and on and on, and getting nowhere very slowly. What is it you must tell me, if you are not to explode with the effort of keeping silent?’

  ‘It is – Mrs Montgomery.’

  Mrs Dodd always pretended not to know who exactly Mrs Montgomery was. By feigning ignorance in this way, they both knew that she somehow preserved her own gentility.

  ‘Ah yes, Mrs Montgomery. Was she not the lady whose timepiece you showed me?’

  ‘That is exactly it. The young woman with the beautiful timepiece, or half-hunter or whatever it was.’

  ‘Exquisite piece,’ said Mrs Dodd, sighing with some satisfaction.

  ‘She came to see me today, at the nursing home. We went out for a cup of tea together, since Lady Angela was perfectly agreeable.’

  ‘Indeed. She is a very tolerant woman.’

  ‘Mrs Montgomery has had a change of residence.’

  ‘Indeed. How very salubrious for her.’

  ‘She is living in Park Lane. She has moved there from Mrs Goodman’s lodgings, taking Mrs Goodman with her. The house is as big as a palace, and Mr Leveen has bought the timepiece from her for a very tidy sum.’

  Mrs Dodd paused before saying ‘Indeed’ for a third time.

  ‘And all in twenty-four hours. She has changed her life completely, in twenty-four hours.’

  Mrs Dodd tried to look surprised.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, diplomatically, ‘Mr Leveen is always very philanthropical. He has hired her, doubtless, as a companion. Now that his sister is married, and he himself is a widower.’

  ‘Precisely that. She is to run everything for him.’

  Mrs Dodd smiled. ‘Bring us each a glass of sherry wine, my dear Leonie, and let us drink to the good fortune of your acquaintance from the nursing home.’ Mrs Dodd smiled again.

  It was always the same with good business. It had been the same with Leonie when she was born, and now here it was again. Just a matter of being able to help the right people into the right situations. And afterwards, sitting back and watching the success was also part of the very real pleasure of good business.

  Thanks to Mrs Dodd dear Leonie’s friend and acquaintance Mrs Montgomery was now happily placed where her fortunes could only rise; and if they did not, well, it was not as if she had not been given a second chance. If she failed it would be her own fault and no-one else’s.

  ‘Leonie, my dear, I am delighted that your acquaintance from dear Sister Angela’s Nursing Home has been able to find her feet once more, and that Society in the shape of the Prince of Wales and many others will be flocking to her dining table. As a matter of fact I understand that the Park Lane house has three different dining tables – but I must remind you, remembering that unfortunate incident with the mannequin earlier this year, that whatever the ties of gratitude between yourself and Mrs Montgomery you and she can only meet in the most private of circumstances. Should she ever invite you to Park Lane, you would have to refuse of course. You understand that, don’t you, my dear?’

  Leonie nodded, but in her heart of hearts she was disappointed. She would have loved to visit Mrs Montgomery in Park Lane. By all accounts the house was fabulously decorated. It had taken something like fourteen thousand books of gold leaf just to decorate the ballroom, or so one of the other nurses at Lady Angela’s had told Leonie. Perhaps, even now, she imagined, Mrs Montgomery, her beautiful, large, violet blue eyes looking about her, would be planning to decorate a drawing room with another few thousand books of gold leaf?

  The maid was standing at the sitting room door.

  ‘A caller has come for Miss Lynch, Mrs Dodd. Two of the other nurses has been taken poorly and a gentleman brought in very bad needs attention all the way round the clock. A huntin’ accident, or so the boy said, and can you come as soon as possible?’

  As a matter of fact Leonie was really rather pleased to be called back to the nursing home. Much as she loved the fire, the sherry and the conversation, which was gossipy and mundane by turns, both moods always having a soothing effect on at least one of the two parties present, she was always flattered to be called back to the nursing home in an emergency. It meant that Lady Angela trusted her. Better than that, it meant that she had come to rely upon her.

  ‘That is that, then,’ said Mrs Dodd flatly. ‘I will be having a lonely drover’s dinner all by myself. But no, you must go, of course you must. Patients must come first.’

  Leonie kissed Mrs Dodd’s round, soft, dimpled face and went off to fetch her cloak. Patients must come first. Yet as she hurried back into the hall and from there into the street outside, there were such delicious smells coming from the basement that she was rather sorry, this particular night, that Mrs Dodd was having to enjoy what she always described as a ‘lonely drover’s dinner’ without her.

  ‘Very well, you are here.’

  Lady Angela was just crossing the hall when she heard Leonie’s quick footsteps echoing along the stone floors of the old house that made up her nursing home.

  Having curtsied to her Leonie walked alongside her listening intently as she told her as rapidly as she could what had happened to the new admittance.

  ‘Miss Broderick could not come back as she is poorly with the influenza and Miss Llewelyn has measles, or else I should never have sent for you.’ She paused suddenly, thinking, and then started again. ‘It’s Lord Freddie Melsetter. He has broken his back out hunting, do you know. The doctors who have examined him fear he will never walk again, or indeed ever lead a normal life. But we must not let him know this until such time as he is able to take the news.’ Again Lady Angela paused. ‘Put it this way, Miss Lynch. Lord Freddie will not lead the field again for many a long year, but we do not say this to him when he comes round.’

  Leonie had no idea what was necessary for anyone suffering from a broken back. She knew only that her patient would be helpless, and, as Lady Angela had said, there would be little hope of his recovering at all, except to stay as he was now, unmoving and bedridden.

  Much of the more intimate nursing of the male patients was carried out by young men trained by Lady Angela to lift and help where necessary, but the day to day care was undertaken only by women, and then only from a certain kind of background. ‘Respectable’ is what Mrs Dodd would call it but Leonie knew better. Lady Angela had an ‘eye’ for the kind of person that she wanted in her nursing home, what she looked for in a nurse. And even Miss Scott, who would be on duty with Leonie that night, was a great deal more sensible than anyone would have guessed from a passing acquaintance.

  Leonie hurried on down the corridors, the gas lights flickering over her starched white headdress, and her floor length starched white apron. Part of her was very much looking forward to being up all night, seeing herself, as she did, as a guardian angel to the sick.

  ‘He must be very handsome,’ said Miss Scott, speaking in a normal voice, shortly after Leonie joined her.

  Leonie looked over to where their patient lay. Surely the girl could have no possible idea as to whether Lord Freddie was handsome or not. He was so much bandaged an
d so much cut about. She glanced back at her colleague, briefly and questioningly, but carried on rolling the bandages that were part and endless parcel of their day to day working life.

  ‘You can always tell a handsome man by his feet,’ pretty young Miss Scott continued. ‘He has the most beautiful feet. Long and slender, and toes to match. I caught sight of them just before Lady Angela arrived,’ she explained. ‘Still, it’s curtains for him now, by all accounts, poor devil, and nothing more to be said or done.’

  To her surprise Leonie felt quite angry that a young girl with so little experience of either life or nursing, should be standing about dismissing a patient’s chances of recovery in this ruthless manner. She stared at the bed where the man lay. The light was set low above his head, for Lady Angela firmly believed that a light close to the face helped to bring a patient back to consciousness, and yet, of a sudden, even to Leonie’s eyes the light seemed to be sinking.

  ‘I heard that Lord Freddie Melsetter is, or was, a real ladies’ man.’ Miss Scott raised her voice, seeming to be, if anything, more confident now, perhaps because their patient was, if anything, more feeble. ‘I heard too that his poor mother, and then his poor wife, could not keep a maid in the place, or a housekeeper, and that there was no-one in the neighbourhood who did not succumb to his charms.’

  ‘Hush, Miss Scott, really, we must shush! You know what Lady Angela says. Patients, even when they are unconscious, can always hear what is being said. Ask any of the older nurses. They have been told, afterwards, every word that has been said by them. It can prove most awkward, if you are indiscreet, and you will regret it, I promise you; particularly with someone as well connected as Lord Freddie Melsetter.’

  Miss Scott looked sulky at first, obviously a great deal put out that she had been discouraged from going on with her tittle-tattle. She loved to gossip, and was known to be more than a little forward, if not fast, when it came to the male patients, but when all was said and done she was completely dedicated.

  ‘I think you are prudish beyond belief, Miss Lynch. Why, even if Lord Freddie sprang off his bed and waltzed round the room, which he quite definitely never will again, he would admit that he was a ladies’ man. It is just a fact, like your turquoise eyes, or my big feet!’

  ‘Of course I am a ladies’ man,’ came a shaky voice from the bed, ‘and will always be so, if allowed.’

  The two nurses stared at each other. A minute before Leonie could have sworn his breathing had been growing a great deal more shallow, but now here he was speaking.

  They both hurried over to his bedside.

  ‘God have mercy on me, you were right. He is only awake and hearing us.’

  Leonie leaned over the bed, the light from the lamp falling on her beautiful face.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked the mass of wounds beneath the bandages.

  The swollen lips moved slowly, and the voice came, whistling slightly, through broken teeth, but he was speaking none the less.

  ‘Still – very – much – a – ladies’ – man, just sorry I can not see you.’

  Leonie looked across at Miss Scott before addressing their patient once again.

  ‘Are you feeling any pain?’ she asked, gently.

  ‘Yes. Damn. A great deal.’

  ‘I will give you something for it, but don’t move, whatever you do.’

  Even as she said it Leonie recognized how unnecessary that last injunction was. But Lady Angela was right – no-one, but no-one should be told they were paralysed until they were strong enough to take the news.

  ‘Nature allows for the first moments of over-confidence, then comes despair, then gradual realization, and after that acceptance.’

  Nothing that Leonie had seen during those first few months while she was being taught so much by Lady Angela led her to argue with the principal’s assessment of patients’ mental adjustment to their situation.

  ‘We are not God, although some of us think we are,’ Lady Angela said, often and often, as she moved briskly from room to room, followed obediently by a covey of junior nurses. ‘We are not God, Nurse Lynch, and since God does not choose to tell us when we are to die, then God forbid – and I truly think He does – that we ever try to step into His shoes and tell anyone else what He would not.’

  Leonie had tremendous respect for Lady Angela. The other nurses might be afraid of her, or mock her sometimes because she was so authoritarian, but as far as Leonie was concerned there was no-one she had ever met whom she respected more. Lady Angela might ‘entertain’ the future king. She might be, as Leonie had heard rumoured, both his mistress and his nurse. That was her affair. So far as Leonie was concerned, Lady Angela was everything that Leonie herself would like to be.

  Ten

  Never, ever try to hit a man about the head with your version of the truth.

  Mercy knew this statement by heart, as indeed she should because she had heard her stepmother say it time and time and time again while Mercy was growing up at Cordel Court. She knew it, and she believed it, because her stepmother had run her own life in such an exemplary fashion, balancing her hunting and riding pursuits between the London Season and her country house, being adored and worshipped by Mercy’s father, always looking beautiful and sounding charming.

  Not only must you never accost a man with the truth, you must not scare the opposite sex with so-called truths. Much better to coax them into a good humour, and find out the truth later, at your leisure.

  Mercy had been told all this, and she knew it to be perfect advice, and yet here she was doing all three things at one and the same time.

  She was standing in the middle of her so recently and beautifully decorated bedroom, sobbing tearfully and asking him what it was that could possibly have changed his attitude towards her so much.

  ‘But I kept all news of the petit quelque chose as a surprise for you! I only wrote to my stepmother. Otherwise I kept it to myself, so I could tell you myself as a surprise. It was meant to be such a surprise,’ she heard herself repeating, while she attempted to stop the tears from coming so fast by stabbing at them with a small lace-edged handkerchief. ‘I thought you would be so pleased to return to find your house beautified and your wife expectant. Also – Mrs Blessington our neighbour said – it’s not so nice for husbands when their wives are being unwell at first. Better for the husbands to be hunting, she said.’

  ‘Mrs Blessington is quite right, my dear. Of course it is better for husbands to be away, but I have been away so long, for so many weeks, I had almost forgotten that I was a husband. And I am sure, young as you are, that you could be forgiven for forgetting that you are my wife.’

  The look in John’s eyes was implacable, as if he no longer saw Mercy at all as she had been, or as she was, whatever that might be.

  ‘You are in a certain condition and that changes a woman’s outlook. There is really no more to be said. Except I would remind you that it was you who had such a passion to change the house.’

  Mercy stared at him, appalled, not understanding.

  ‘It was you who sent me away to hunt. I had no desire at that time to take up my old pursuits; and after that it was you who kept putting me off from returning. I finally had to take refuge with your parents since there was no-one in town to dust down my house except the scullery maid and the hall boy, and I had rather not just continue in my hunting box leading the life of an unmarried bachelor. Had you told me as you should have done before I left that you were enceinte, I should never have gone. But you did not. You sent me away, and when I return, hey presto, suddenly, my house is transformed and you are having a baby.’

  ‘But, John, it was for you. I wanted to make everything beautiful at Brindells for you.’

  Mercy could hear herself, her broken voice, see and feel her own tears, and all the time she knew it was all so wrong. She should not be indulging herself in this way. She should be trying to stay composed.

  ‘And you – and your friend, the antiquarian Mr Chantry – have mad
e everything beautiful at Brindells, Mercy. Really, you must be congratulated. Now, if you will excuse me, dearest, I must go and see Forster – the stables call.’

  He looked embarrassed, and at the same time somehow bored by her behaviour, by their situation, by his life at that moment. It was as if he was not there by choice but because he had to be, because it was his duty, rather than his pleasure.

  ‘Oh, but John, this house would be – is – so empty without you, that is, without me and you, together. Could it not be as it was before you went away? We were so – well, I thought we were so in love.’

  ‘That was then, dearest, now is now, and you – you have your confinement ahead of you. And I must, for many reasons, return to Leicestershire after Christmas.’

  ‘Oh, please, don’t go and leave me again, alone here. Please don’t, please, John. I feel so alone, here. I have no friends, no-one to whom I can talk. And when the wind howls and the rain falls – it is just – so lonely.’

  She saw at once, through her own despair, that he was appalled not just by her outburst, but worst of all, by the tears, which just would fall, no matter what. It was as if all the pain she had felt since his return and his seeming indifference to the news that she was to have a petit quelque chose was pouring out of her. As if inside her was a great well of unhappiness that had suddenly decided to spring out of the centre of her being. It was shocking, and she knew it. But the truth was, seeing John again had broken down all her defences.

  ‘I am so sorry, John.’ She straightened up. ‘I have lost control. It is very wrong of me.’

  His eyes, which in the early days of their marriage, before he left for Leicestershire, had always looked so full of fun and delight when he was around her, softened momentarily, and it seemed to Mercy that despite her shameful weakness he might still feel for her as he had done before he left, that they might again be as they had been.

  ‘I think you had better ring for your maid,’ he said, gently. ‘It is the baby. Doubtless your petit quelque chose has brought on a fit of the laudanums, as my nurse used to call it.’